Right, so its chapter three of the Christmas chapter and it's the last Christmas chapter as well, but I've had an idea for a New Years chapter, so the holiday season isn't quite over yet.
I'm so sorry I'm posting chapters so slowly! My laptop is broken and I'm just lucky I had half this chapter saved on a USB stick! But on Sunday my laptop will be back and I will post faster, pinky promise. :)
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"People love others not for who they are but for how they make them feel" – Irwin Federman.
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The women and Morgan... who could cook surprisingly well thanks to his mother... spent the rest of the day in the kitchen preparing the feast for later as the men played with the toys, Jack finally showing an interest in his toy car, as him an Hotch were now driving it into the kitchen every few minutes and crashing it into Emily's heels, as she'd wisely decided to go barefoot.
By three o clock everyone was becoming hungry, even Reid, having eaten nothing since their breakfast at six in the morning.
Thankfully, at half three on the dot JJ called the men in from the living room for food, each scrambling to their feet as if they hadn't been fed in day, and sitting around the huge table in the dining room... which had a picnic table added at the end to accommodate everyone... waiting for their food to arrive.
"I really hope you aren't just going to sit there and wait for food to appear." Emily told them, with her hand on her hip. "This isn't Hogwarts you know, the food isn't just going to come up through the table."
The men at the table immediately flinched at her scolding and got up quickly to help bring all the food from the kitchen to the dining room table, before sitting back down with the women.
Rossi sat at the head of the table, with Morgan sitting at the foot of it, at the picnic table. To Morgan's left, was Garcia, then Kevin, then Will, Henry in his high chair, and finally JJ sat o Rossi's right. To Rossi's left was Hotch, then Jack, then Emily, who was beside Austin, and finally Reid at the end, to Morgan's right.
The table was lively and the conversation never lulled, as they started with a plate of melon, followed by soup, made by Morgan using his mother's secret recipe. That was followed by turkey, ham, and JJ's homemade stuffing, along with an array of vegetables, ranging from boucle sprouts, which remained largely untouched other than Jack and Kevin, to carrots.
Dessert was courtesy of Emily, baked Alaska being the only thing she could actually make without blowing something up, and despite everyone initial hesitation... each of them swearing blind that at one point or another Emily had given them food poisoning... it was delicious.
Thankfully Rossi owned the largest dishwasher in DC... which was odd, as JJ had pointed out, considering that he was one of the few people that didn't need it, seeing as he lived alone... and all the teams' dishes fitted in there with ease, leaving the kitchen spotless again within five minutes.
"Right, what now?" Morgan questioned the team, as they stood around the kitchen marvelling at how quickly they'd cleaned up.
"How about we open our secret Santa presents now and then we relax for the rest of the evening?" Rossi asked the room, looking hopeful at the thought of relaxing.
"Sounds like a plan." Hotch told his friend, as he placed down the dish cloth he'd been holding.
"One of your few good ones." JJ teased, as she picked Henry out if his high chair and walked back to the living room with him, where their presents were still all sitting in the corner from the previous evening.
"Ok, us first!" Garcia squeaked, as she rushed over to get her present for Kevin, as Kevin followed her to retrieve his.
They swapped their gifts and opened them eagerly, Kevin receiving two tickets to a comic-con and a collectors addition DC comic, and Garcia receiving a piece for a hard drive... which she'd apparently been looking for, for months... and a copy of the first published tank girl comic, which was also apparently a collector's item.
"Hm... two comic con tickets... I wonder who I'll bring with me." Kevin joked, as he viewed the tickets in his hand.
"Honey, I wouldn't even joke about that... I may love you, but if you don't bring me to this comic con your head will be severed from your body." Garcia informed Kevin calmly, patting his shoulder and kissing him on the cheek as the rest of the team laughed.
Next up was JJ and Will, and they exchanged gifts happily, JJ opened hers first and received a Redskins jersey and an expensive looking handbag.
"Thank you for the jersey honey." JJ gushed, kissing Will on the cheek. "And thanks for the bag girls." She added smiling at Emily and Garcia.
"Hey, I got ya that!" Will exclaimed.
The woman in the room each looked at Will with a smirk and the men shook their heads, informing him silently that he should admit defeat.
"Well I bought it though." He huffed after a moment.
"And it really is lovely babe... just not something you'd buy." JJ informed him, kissing him on the other cheek now.
Will smiled happily then, and proceeded to open his present, revealing a large instrument case that held a brand new saxophone.
"Well you're always telling me that the one thing you miss about New Orleans is the music, and your cousin informed me that you're quite the musician." JJ informed him when he opened the gift, earning her a soft kiss from Will.
Jack and Henry opened there's next, Jack receiving a Super Man statue that he could put in his room, and Henry receiving a lamp in the shape of a duck, both presents making the boys exceptionally happy.
"Ok us next." Austin said. "I hope you like this by the way." She added to Reid as she handed him his gift and he handed her one to her.
Reid opened the paper carefully, trying not to rip the wrapping, and the young genius smiled happily once he found a stainless steel antique chess set, and the book "A Clockwork Orange".
"Your old chess set is breaking, and I've been informed that that's the only book you've never read." Austin informed him happily, before tearing off her wrapping paper quickly.
Hers revealed a simple black jewellery box, and she opened the lid slowly to find not only a beautiful diamond necklace and matching diamond earrings, but also, folded neatly in the box, a voucher for a tattoo parlour.
"Wow Spencer, this is beautiful." Austin gushed as she lifted the necklace out and examined it closer. "But honey, this voucher is marked as being used?" She added in confusion as she examined it as well.
"I know." Reid replied, causing the entire room to send him a weary look. "But you were going on about how much you loved your tattoo, so I got one as well." He informed her with a dopey grin.
A chorus of "oh god" echoed around the room, each person covering their heads in their hands, no one expecting good things to come from Reid getting a tattoo, as the young genius pulled his arm out of his jumper and revealed the tattoo on his upper arm.
"November twenty sixth, two thousand and eight." Austin read out loud. "Isn't that the day we met?" She asked with a smile.
"Yup, I wanted to get your name, but the guy there advised me against it for some reason." Reid explained with a confused look.
"Yea sweety, it's if we ever break up, tattoo guys advise against getting your other halves name in ink because it costs a bomb t get rid of." Austin informed him. "But don't worry." She added when she saw the look on Reid's face. "I'm holding on to you." She reassured him, leaning down and kissing the still tender tattoo.
"Ok, Morgan and Rossi next I think!" Emily exclaimed with a wicked smirk, knowing that both men really hadn't a clue as to what to get each other.
Both men looked reluctant as they exchanged similar looking gifts, and a ripple of laughter erupted as they tore the wrapping of at the same time to reveal identical bottles of Bailey's whisky, they were even the same flavour... coffee.
"Great minds think alike." Rossi joked after a moment of awkwardness.
"And fools seldom differ." Emily added on to the end, causing Rossi and Morgan to glare at her.
"Ok, us now." Hotch spoke up, pulling Emily along with him as they rose of the couch and retrieved their presents, from the small pile.
They sat back down and swapped them quickly and Hotch tore off his paper first, revealing a tie that had "this is my only tie" written on the front... which caused the team to laugh... and a collection of the beetle's greatest hits along with an electronic tuning device for a guitar.
"What?" Hotch asked as the team stared in awe at the tuner. "Will's not the only one who can play an instrument." He told them defensively.
Emily then opened her present slowly revealing a silver picture frame with a picture of herself and Jack, taken a couple of weeks ago at the park, as Emily pushed the young boy on the swing. Beside the frame was a native American dream catcher.
"Oh Aaron." Emily sighed, as she looked at both the items that were now in her hand.
"The picture you can put in your drawer at work, so you can see it but Strauss can't." Hotch informed her. "And the dream catcher is to stop your nightmares." He told her, feeling no need to add the fact that he knew her dreams had gotten worse since he'd been attacked by Foyet, even though she tried to hide it from him when she woke up in the middle of the night.
"They're both beautiful." She told him happily, leaning over and planting a soft, lingering kiss on Hotch's lips.
~.~.~.~.~.~
An hour or so later the team sat out on Rossi's huge porch, watching as Morgan tried to teach Jack how to do a wheelie on the small patch of snow free land that they'd managed to clear away.
"Yea buddy... something like that." Morgan sighed in defeat after an hour or so of teaching, as he watched Jack throw his body forwards and backwards, causing the bike to tip violently in each direction, and causing Hotch and Emily to let out a small gasp every time he nearly fell.
"How about we have a snow fight?" JJ piped up suddenly, as she walked out of the house carrying a baby monitor, having just put Henry down for his nap.
"Not a chance." Rossi exclaimed, as the rest of the team jumped off their seats, happy for a chance to practice their aim... and more importantly, for a chance to pummel each other with snow.
"Oh come on... don't be a spoil sport!" Garcia sighed. "We'd feel bad not including you."
"No... My snow throwing days are over." Rossi informed the group, crossing his arms across his chest in resilience.
What he didn't see however, was Morgan, Hotch, Reid, Will and Kevin all approach him from behind, each of them grabbing his chair and lifting it clean off the ground and carrying him, along with the chair, down to where the snow fight would take place.
"What the hell!" Rossi exclaimed, as his legs dangled in the air.
"You're on Hotch's team, and don't say you're not because we'll just drag you down here again." Morgan informed him, as the men placed the chair carefully on the ground.
Rossi huffed, but said no more, as he followed Hotch over behind a small wall of snow where the rest of the team... Emily, Jack, Will and JJ... were all crouched down creating snow balls.
They stayed like this until a battle cry was heard from the other end of the field, and they sprung their heads up, fully armed with snow balls, just as Morgan, Kevin, Garcia, Reid, and Austin jumped out from behind their snow wall and charged at them.
"Attack!" Hotch shouted suddenly at his team, and they followed suit, jumping over the barricade and running out into the open, firing snow balls as they went.
They kept this up for at least an hour, only returning to base to retrieve more snow, until Henrys wails cut through the field and caused them all to stop what they were doing.
"Looks like that's my queue to say I surrender." JJ informed them, as she dusted the snow off her clothes and out of her hair, and walked slowly up to the house, limping slightly due to a tackle she'd received from Morgan.
"Yea, I think I'm going o go as well... I told you my snow days were over." Rossi informed the team, as he shook himself off ant wandered back up to his porch, panting slightly as he went.
After that the rest of the team slowly left as well, each of them beat after their early morning and now their snow fight, until finally it was only Jack left, making snow angels and giggling happily.
"I'm so glad that you're all leaving tomorrow." Rossi sighed contently after a moment, taking a sip of the whisky that Morgan had gotten him, and smiling contently.
"Jeez thanks." JJ replied, as she held a wrapped up Henry in her arms, the young boy deciding he wanted to be outside.
"Not that it wasn't fun having you all here... A guy just needs some space." Rossi added haistilly.
"Well get your space now, because we're coming back for New Years." Emily informed him with a smirk.
"I knew there was a reason I never got a family before now." Rossi groaned, as the rest of the team laughed.
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Well there you go, Christmas is all over, and now it's just going to be a quick New Year's chapter and then I'm done with the holiday season, I promise. Tell me what you thought. =)