Sara, Christmas (or Hanukkah, or other Winter holiday) in a strange place.

Alex- Ring out the old, ring in the new

There had been a moment in Copenhagen when Alex really thought it was going to happen, when she thought this is it, we've done it. The biggest score of all time was within their grasp, and no one was ever going to know. The art was already missing. There was never going to be an investigation, because there was no one to report it stolen. The people who had once owned it weren't coming back to claim it, and when pieces of it surfaced, as was inevitable as she sold it off, the world would be so glad to have it back, too glad, and too cynical to think that there was so much more art treasure all hidden away.

It was the perfect crime, and the perfect story,and while she scrounged around after reward money, playing Mozzie's spy games, the thought of all that treasure out there, just below the surface of the world ate away at her.

And then Adler happened, and she saw the sub herself, and the treasure was real, all of it was real... And she had thought she was going to die.

She saw the reports about the warehouse blowing up, and she didn't know if she believed it was all gone. But either way, she was done. Let someone else worry about it. Let it blow up. Let it be found. Let it end up in the hands of ecstatic museum curators. She was sick of chasing it until it chased her.

Smart, Alex, very smart. Thank you!

Very smart. And amoral, but smart enough to get out of there.

Diana/Christie- First holiday together

"I just don't know how you can feel safe in a house with a gun in it, sweetie."

"She keeps it in a safe," Christie sighed. "Let's not talk about this."

Her mother picked up the plate with the corn on the cob and pulled it over to her side of the table and Christie looked over at her girlfriend. Diana looked back ruefully.

"So," her father broke the silence. "Christie tells me you just transferred here from New York."

"That's right," Diana said with a blithe, false smile.

He gave his daughter's new girlfriend an apologetic look. "Have you ever been in D.C. for the fourth of July? It's really something special."

"No." She put a hand on Christie's. "I mean, my family's from the area, but I didn't spend a lot of time in America as a kid."

"Military family?" Christie's mother asked, ot bothering to hide her frosty tone.

"Diplomat's kid," Diana said, fighting to stay polite. At that, Christie's mother's demeanor softened.

Christie kicked her mother under the table.

~*~

"I warned you." Christie let herself slump against the wall of Diana's apartment. "I told you they're a pair of old hippies."

Diana cupped her cheek and kissed her. "It wasn't that bad."

"Thanks," Christie whispered. "It means a lot that you're willing to go through that."

"It's alright. I know how family can be."

Christie grimaced. "Still."

"Come on." Diana put an arm around her waist. "Stay here tonight. You can make it up to me tomorrow."

Aw, they're so cute. I love the easy intimacy here.

Thank you! I love those two. I love them. I love them.

Elizabeth - the holiday season is the busiest time of the year for an event planner

Kate/Neal - Christmases at the prison

June - When the house fills up with people

Sara - She's never what she's supposed to do with herself on government holidays.

June - She misses Byron most during the holidays.

Elizabeth, first Christmas with Neal around, what do you get someone who seems to have everything and nothing at the same time?

"I'm tempted to just get him a gift card to someplace, but I don't even know where he shops."

Peter snorted. "Nowhere that sells gift cards."

Neal set the glasses on the table with a grin. "Oh come on, Moz is easy. A nice bottle of wine, a first edition of something, or you know, he's really fond of Tom Clancy."

"Is that what you're getting him?" Elizabeth asked shrewdly.

Neal glanced at Peter and his grin grew smaller. "Most of what I get him could be considered aiding and abetting."

Peter looked up at him sharply, and Elizabeth patted Peter's shoulder.

"Then there was that time we were passing through D.C. on his birthday, and I booked him on one of those Pentagon tours."

"And when exactly is Moz's birthday?" Peter demanded, ready to cross reference the date with unsolved crimes, and Elizabeth swatted him on the back of the head.

"No fair gathering evidence at the dinner table," she told him.

"We're not eating yet," he justified weakly.

"Hey, if Peter wants to check with the D.C. office, it's fine by me." Neal perched himself on one of their chairs. "He's not going to find anything."

"Oh ho," Peter shot back, enjoying himself. "That's what you think."

"You're just mad because I suggested you get a manicure."

"Well anyway," Elizabeth said forcefully. "We wanted to thank you for the wine, and the coffee cake, and Peter's tie, and we got you a little something for Christmas."

"You didn't have t-"

"Open it."

Neal pulled the tape off in strips and rolled it up before unfolding the paper. And when he could see what it contained, her started laughing. "You got me "Catch Me if You Can?"

"We..." began Peter, who hadn't been involved. "Thought it was appropriate?"

"I'm not watching it with you." He put his arm around Peter's shoulder, then stood up to kiss Elizabeth on the cheek. "He gloats," he whispered to her.

Peter pretended to be annoyed. "Do you even have a DVD player?"

Neal grinned again. "Of course I do, I stole it from Moz."

"Ingrate."

Perfect.

Thank you. I had a lot of fun with it.

Diana, Christmas, the tag reads, From Mozzie.

I wrote a fill for this: Safety First (gen with Diana/Christie, 1600 wds). Thank you for the awesome prompt! :)

Sara- She and her parents put up a front, but the holidays are all wrong without her sister

She remembered telling Neal on the roof of the FBI building that her parents were dead. Of course she'd also told him she was an only child. She pressed play on the answering machine and the "Hello Sara, sweetheart, your father and I were planning on coming up to New York for Christmas this year, an we wanted to know if you would be able to put us up, or do we have to stay in a hotel? Well anyway, we love you, can't wait to see you, Bye now," recorded on it.

She restrained herself from putting her head on the counter, or from calling her mother up to yell, "Hotel, please dear God, stay in a hotel, or better yet, don't come. Just have a nice, quiet, little holiday, away from me!"

Most of her belongings had somehow migrated to Neal's, her house abandoned most nights. And she could just see her parents' faces, and the way they would just know when she brought them inside, the way they would know,and pick at it, and everything would seem so normal. She wanted to say to them, "Just pretend I'm there. You're already doing that with one daughter."

Every year, there had been an extra set of presents from her parents, wrapped and hidden away, waiting for the day her sister would miraculously return. They sat dusty and ignored with birthday presents, and piles of well wishes, and the gifts that every year, her mother had dragged her out to buy for a sister who was never going to come back and open them. Every year, her parents set them out under the tree, and every year when she saw them, Sara wanted to scream, and yell at her parents for doing it again, for reminding everybody all over again that she was gone.

They didn't do that anymore. The unopened presents were probably in a storage container somewhere, gathering more dust, and more layers of guilt. Sara almost missed them. At least when they were there, sitting under the tree like talismans to bring her sister home, she could point to them and say, "See? This is what's wrong."

Now there was nothing that anybody else saw. There were no more outward signs to betray just how broken and warped it still was.

She wondered if it would have been easier if she had been an only child, if her parents really had been deceased, if there had been no explanations following her return to life, no effects following her supposed death because there was no one around to care instead of a family she made unable to contact. She wondered if it meant that one day, she was going to disappear just like her sister, and if her parents were going to keep buying presents for her in the hopes that she would return. She wondered if her parents would ever learn she had died, and if she ever wanted them to, someday, when it happened.

June - her first Christmas with Neal in the house

Diana - drew the short straw when it came to planning the office holiday party this year

Hello Prompt, my name is Fish, I think we'll be good friends.

Oh yay, I was hoping this would spark an idea for someone! :D

I really do keep meaning to write something -- there are some great prompts this month, and I started working on a story for the last round that's not finished, but the holiday fic exchanges have gotten away from me. After I finish my obligations, I'm hoping to get a chance to play for a bit ...

"Neal, give me your hat."

"I'm not giving you my hat," Neal said indignately. "It's my hat. You can't take my hat!"

Diana plucked the hat off his head and tossed it to her boss.

"If he locks it in his desk drawer again, I'm blaming you," Neal told her sulkily.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Like a desk lock would stop you. One of these folded pieces of paper has a christmas tree drawn inside, and whoever picks it out of this hat get's to plan the office party." Everybody groaned, except Neal, who rubbed his hands together. Peter scowled at him. "Not you."

Jones drew first, unfolding his piece of paper as Diana reached in. The odds were good, re reminded herself. There were enough people in he department that there was almost no chance she was really going to get stuck planning the party. She unfolded her paper.

She gave out a small moan of dread. As soon as the sound left her mouth, Neal hovered over to take a look at her piece of paper. "Hey Peter, you call that a Chistmas tree? That's one sad-"

"Shut up Caffrey," she snapped.

"Seriously, Diana, if you need any help..."

"No," Peter cut in sharply. "No helping Diana."

"You jealous?"

"Boss, why can't we just make Caffrey do it?" she questioned, managing to keep the whine out of her voice. "He's good at this sort of thing. He wants to."

"I know. That worries me." Peter tried to shoo her back to her desk.

She grabbed Neal's hat off his head again instead.

"What is with you and my hat?" he yelled, startled.

"Hey, calm down," she told him. "I'm just borrowing it for a second."

"Look, I'll get you your own for Christmas, just-"

"Okay!" She held up the hat. "I'm going to pass this hat around, and everybody is going to chip in, and we're going to hire Mrs. Burke to plan this thing. Sound good?"

"Hey, you can't do that," Peter protested, and Diana stared at him hard. And as money filled the hat, he surrendered.

Thank you for filling my prompt; this was fun! Heh, I love Diana's solution - very clever, and everybody wins! :D

If Diana had been forced to plan it herself, there would have been party favors made out of Peter's blood.

Diana, International Talk Like a Pirate Day.