A/N 1: This story is a Christmas gift to JuliaBC, who requested a Kate/Hotch romance through the holiday exchange on CCOAC. Her song was "Last Christmas." Her Christmas-y prompts were that the action was to happen on Christmas Eve, that there should be caroling, holiday gatherings, and references to going to church. I've included all items. Here's hoping all of you, and especially JuliaBC, have a joyous and fulfilling holiday season!
A/N 2: Usual disclaimers, characters not mine, yada yada. Thanks as always to Esperanta, who makes me look as if I know what I'm doing.
The Gift of Analysis
Christmas Eve
6:20 PM
On Kate Callahan's sound system, programmed to spew all-holiday-all-the-time this year, a string quartet offered a mournful rendition of "I'll Be Home for Christmas." She could sort of tune it out. The embroidery in her lap got most of her attention—dancing yellow and orange chicks on a field of green, a January birthday gift for one of her goddaughters, age five.
"Christmas Eve will find me," she found herself singing almost absently, "where the love light beams." Tears suddenly erupted from her eyes. She only got as far as, "I'll be home for Christmas," before her throat tightened up and she bit her lip. She simply could not manage to sing, If only in my dreams.
She set aside the embroidery hoop, needle and thread, and stood up. Wandering into the living room, she found her niece, her all-but-daughter, on the couch, where she'd spent most of her time since her school let out for the holidays. Her own music was playing on her tablet and she kept her phone constantly in front of her face as she texted with her besties.
"This time last year, that song saved my life," Kate blurted, still embarrassingly close to open weeping.
Megan regarded her with something like astonishment. "Frosty the Snowman?"
Oops.
"No, sorry. Sorry. In the other room, I was listening to 'I'll Be Home for Christmas.'"
Meg nodded vaguely—possibly she didn't know all the words—and said, "Cool."
Kate sat down next to the girl she'd raised almost from infancy and stroked her hair.
"I was undercover as an accountant for a drug cartel," she said. "I was getting more grief than I expected because they'd offer me drugs and I'd refuse. Usually, they don't demand stuff like that from accountants. I don't know what made them suspicious of me. Anyway, I was sitting in a cocktail lounge with these two high-ups, and that song came on in the background, and all I could think of was you at Great Uncle Tim's, and how when you were little you didn't want to go to Tim's, you said it smelled funny, and it was your first Christmas without Grandma, and I wanted to be back here with you so much that it hurt. And when they sang, 'if only in my dreams,' I just lost it."
"Wow," Meg said with heavy irony. "Me to the rescue, huh?"
"No, no—I remembered how your mom—in the first few months when she was carrying you, she would get really weepy over the silliest things. Cartoons. Commercials for french fries. And I got an inspiration, I told these guys, I said, 'Sorry, I'm expecting, and sometimes I—'" She beamed. "And that did it, that explained everything, me crying, me not wanting to use drugs. They got all protective of me. From there on, it all ran smoothly, and we took 'em down the day after Christmas, and I came home."
Megan seemed nowhere near as moved or impressed by the story as Kate had expected. "Cool," she said again vaguely, and started cutting her eyes back toward her phone. Her sweater, Kate noticed, was a sparkly silver. Choir members had been requested to wear dark blue and navy for the Christmas program before the midnight church service.
"Is that what you're wearing tonight?"
Meg rolled her eyes. "Duh," she sighed. "This look navy to you?"
Teenagers. Even the best of them are in their own little worlds.
Kate returned to the family room and her embroidery, but she paused for just a moment to examine the room, reassuring herself that it sparkled, that the decorations were perfect. She had invited her boss, Aaron Hotchner, and his son, along with a couple other friends, over before the service for snacks and a little last minute practicing for what had turned into a challenging, two-hour choral program. Aaron sang in the choir with Kate and Meg when the Bureau permitted. When her own job permitted, Kate co-taught Jack's Sunday School class. She'd become friends with the Hotchners three full years before she applied for the BAU position.
And sometimes—very quietly—she hoped that the relationship would develop into something more. There had been moments, glances, touches, indicating that Aaron (she simply couldn't get used to calling him Hotch) might return her interest.
7:12 PM
On her sound system, Burl Ives was urging everyone to have a Holly Jolly Christmas.
Yeah. Like that was gonna happen. Her yard was all scrawny sagging bushes with bare branches and saplings with a handful of limp brown leaves hanging down. A foggy, soggy Christmas was more like it. There was suddenly plenty of snow to go around on the national weather maps, but not in northern Virginia.
She allowed her memory to drift back, recalling magical Decembers in Vermont, bundled up in her pink snowsuit and huge red plastic boots, tromping after her granddad as he crunched through the snow to find this year's perfect tree. He always let her help bind the branches. In later years, even though he called her 'Little Bit' because she was so short, he'd taught her to operate the chainsaw.
She was a Grandpa's girl, a hunting-fishing-camping kind of girl.
Which made it all the stranger that she'd been so attracted to Aaron, a hopeless city boy.
He'd volunteered as a chaperon when they'd taken the Sunday School classes camping in the mountains last spring. In spite of hilariously deficient outdoorsman creds, he was diligent, responsible, and genuinely liked interacting with kids. He looked pretty darn good in jeans and a tee, and she'd found his disorientation in primitive environments weirdly endearing. When they'd returned, weary, sunburned, and bug-bitten, they'd dropped Jack at his aunt's and had gone to dinner, just the two of them. ("Anything that isn't cooked on a stick," he'd pleaded.) They'd been the grubbiest couple at TGI Friday's. He had reached across the table and gently touched her fingers with his own and smiled and the sexual tension had been just plain electrifying.
At the time, she'd thought, Wow, this has possibilities.
Within a few days, though, he'd gone off chasing maniacs in the deep south. When the jet returned, Alex Blake had departed the unit to deal with some of her personal demons. Kate had been afraid that Aaron was so straight-arrow that their friendship would be a barrier to her qualifying, but he'd handed her the job almost the instant she walked in, so—go figure.
But there had been no more dinners for two, grubby or otherwise. No touches.
OK, he'd caught her when she slipped on the stairs once. Not the same thing.
On the plus side, it was remarkable how much more time she was able to spend at home. It was an enormous relief never to wake up in a momentary panic, trying to remember who she was supposed to be.
Kate popped back up and peeked in on Megan. Her niece remained wrapped in the afghan, and some slow, drippy song, vaguely familiar, was playing on her tablet. She'd heard the same song many times over the last few days, always when Megan was sitting by herself with her tablet open.
"Hey, Megs," she said. "Don't you find it an improvement with me working in the BAU instead of undercover?"
The girl studied her for a few seconds, then shrugged listlessly and said, "I guess. Maybe."
Not exactly the resounding vote of confidence Kate had been expecting.
She turned so her dismay wouldn't show.
Last Christmas I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away …
As Kate thought that over, she felt a shiver of concern. True, Megan was still pretty young, but there's no age requirement for a broken heart. "Are you and Jake having problems?" she asked. Jake was a big raw-boned redhead Megs knew from both church and from District Youth Orchestra. A sweet kid, shy, prone to blushing and unexpected high-pitched giggling.
Megan's attitude changed from listlessness to exasperation. "Aunt Kate! What are you talking about?"
"You and Jake are OK?"
"Well, of course. He's coming over tonight, right? We're all going to church together, right?"
Kate sighed heavily. Had she been this big a pain in the butt when she'd been young? "Fine," she said. "I was just asking."
"Mm, and I was just answering," Meg mumbled, and returned her concentration to texting Dawn or Sophie or Jenna or Alissa. "Jeez, Aunt Kate."
Wow. Megan hardly ever called her "Aunt Kate" unless she was seriously annoyed. It was her version of calling a child by her full name, like her own mother, with that edge to her voice as she'd snapped, "Kathryn Jo Callahan, are you listening to me?"
Hm. I've been told, I guess.
Once she'd changed into the deep blue velvet pantsuit she'd decided to wear that night, she studied herself in the mirror over the family room fireplace. She pushed her dark hair around experimentally, wondering whether she should try an up-do, just to change things up from the everyday. Making sure that the door was shut tight, she enthusiastically lip-synced to Eartha Kitt purring "Santa Baby." She mentally compared herself to every female she'd ever seen in Aaron Hotchner's presence. (He was so tall, and she was such a little squirt!) She examined her eyes (too buggy?), her lips (not soft enough?), and sighed in something like despair.
She lost herself briefly in speculation as to whether Aaron kissed tenderly, the way he comforted a child in trauma, or fiercely, the way he swung his tennis racket or homed in on a potential UNSUB.
Maybe she should ask Megan about it—the hair, not Hotchner's kissing techniques. Maybe asking advice instead of doling it out would break through Meg's moodiness.
Or—wait. What if the message of "Last Christmas" was meant as a subliminal warning to Kate herself, not to pin her hopes on Aaron? Megan was often wise far beyond her years. Maybe she was trying to send a message to cool it, to put an end to the endless speculation.
Panic-stricken, she pulled down both mistletoe balls and hid them in the piano bench.
8:30 PM
Jake and his mom—the choir's rehearsal pianist—arrived early, his mom in the long velour dress she wore at every concert, and Jake in a blue velour turtleneck and black slacks. Since there were three Handel pieces, all from The Messiah, on the program for the night, Jake's mom sat at Kate's piano and coached the kids through "Their Sound Is Gone Out," the one chorus that they not only had entrance problems with, but it was their cold opening in every way. There was exactly one chord—one—before they started singing. Megs was a soprano, Jake a tenor, Kate an alto, and Aaron a baritone, so in a few minutes, they'd have all four parts present to practice.
Megan looked gorgeous in an oversized navy sweater and black pencil skirt—she and Jake matched almost perfectly. They'd worked their way to page three—their sound is gone out (two, three), is gone out into all lands—when the doorbell rang again.
Is my makeup OK? Will it bother Megan if I smile at Aaron? Will it bother Aaron?
She arranged her face into the best compromise she could manage between blandness and hospitality. Hotchner looked fine in a navy sweater over shirt and tie. Jack, who had no dress code, since he'd spend most of his time in an angel's robes, wore a red shirt and jeans. When Aaron saw that they were already gathered around the piano, he sprinted outside to get his music folder from the car.
Damn, but he was cute! It was so much easier to stay disengaged when they were on the job.
Kate served mulled cider—the spiked eggnog would have to wait until after the service—and gingerbread cookies. Between bites, they worked their way through all their problem vocal passages.
9:15 PM
When everyone was satisfied that they were ready for a strenuous evening of caroling, Kate served sandwiches and vegetables with a non-dairy dip.
As she prepared to return one tray to the kitchen, Aaron stopped her. "Let me do that," he said. "You need to relax, too."
She blushed just as deeply as Jake, for pity's sake—so embarrassing!—but she relinquished the tray. His fingers brushed hers and then she really had to turn away. "Just leave it on the—uh, on the dishwasher," she mumbled, sure that he must be wondering how on earth she'd managed to work undercover.
When he was out of the room, she gave herself a little talking-to and got her act together. As she packed up the music, Megan announced that she would ride to church with Jake and his mother.
"Me, too!" Jack begged. "I want to sit in the back-facing seat!"
Aaron was back, nibbling celery and looking around at the decorations."So—how do you feel about your aunt working with the BAU?" he asked Megan.
Megan rolled her eyes extravagantly. "It's driving me crazy!" she blurted. "Kate used to be so reasonable. So mature. And now—ever since she took the profiler training, she's been, like, overthinking everything. I can't do anything, say anything, be anything, without her going into a tizzy, analyzing it like I'm trying to speak to her in code—or maybe I'm trying to trap her. I'm really tired of being analyzed. Don't you guys talk to anybody normal on the job?"
Aaron chuckled. "Not really," he said. "If they were normal, they wouldn't be doing the kind of things they're doing."
"Well, she's unreal," Megan continued.
"But you have been acting strange," Kate countered. "I mean, you've been listening to that one song for two weeks now—"
Confusion shone on Megan's face. "What? The Taylor Swift song?"
"Is that who's singing it?" Kate asked feebly.
Megan stomped across the family room to her purse and produced her tablet. "See that?" she said, pointing at what seemed to be an elaborate, pearl-encrusted up-do. "That's how I want to wear my hair to the New Year's party at the Wallaces'. Well, I'd like the dress, too, but I figure that probably isn't in the budget."
Oh.
9:32 PM
"So," Aaron said with a grin, "your car or mine? Or do you prefer to travel separately?"
"N-no, of course," she stammered. "Either one. I'd love to ride along with you."
He nodded in what seemed like relief. "Just checking," he said. "It's been a couple years since I've been here over the holidays and it seemed that there was always some mistletoe before." He cleared his throat self-consciously. "Not that I was actively looking, you understand—"
"I—uh, I took it down," she confessed. "I thought that it might be just too awkward, you know, since we work together and all—"
"I thought maybe after you had to work with me on a regular basis, you'd, ah, lost any kind of interest in—" He grinned broadly. "But you were just—overthinking."
"So were you."
He bowed his head. "Yes, ma'am, busted."
She scrambled over to the piano bench and produced a glittery silver ball with red and green bells and a sprig of mistletoe. "You'll have to hold it," she said with a nervous giggle. "Even when I'm in heels you have almost a foot on me."
"My pleasure," he murmured, and dangled it over her head.
And what followed was much sweeter than talking to a victim, and much more powerful than a tennis serve.
And that wasn't overthinking. It was just the truth.
~ end ~