81. The Time Before Christmas

Thank you so much for all your feedback. Here comes chapter 81, a lot longer than the last one, so enjoy! :)

81. The Time Before Christmas

The short, windy, cold, sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy and rarely sunny December days passed by quickly, the criminals in the city not giving Erin and Jay a moment to breathe in the time before Christmas that should be all about Christmas trees, Christmas shopping and Christmas cookies. Until mid December they neither had a tree, nor any homemade cookies, let alone a single present for their daughter, their foster-son and their nephews and they seriously considered robbing the closest ToysRUs in a cloak-and-dagger operation as it seemed to be the only possibility to get some presents. The timeframe to still get all of these things done - presents, cookies and a tree - got shorter with every day passing, with every day the bullpen ruled their lives and made sure that they could barely spend time together. The only good outcome of all the overtime mainly Jay but sometimes even Erin was working was that they could take a couple of days off after Christmas to celebrate New Years at the cabin in Wisconsin, just like last year enjoying some quiet days in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but snow and the wilderness of Northern Wisconsin.

It was the weekend a little over a week before Christmas when the unit finally closed their ongoing case on Friday afternoon instead of having to solve it over the weekend and no phone call in the early Saturday morning hours had Jay to leave for a new crime scene. For the first time, they all – Jay, Erin, Rylie, Luke and Emilia – could have a long breakfast together, Jay's homemade waffles being the highlight of the day. It was most probably the chattiest breakfast they've had in their house so far, Luke talking about preschool and the things he and his friends made there for Christmas, Rylie talking about her internship at Chicago Med and Emmy, as always, answering in her own language and making a mess with the fruits and little pieces of waffle on her tray.

″So Emmy, you know what daddy and uncle Adam, uncle Antonio and uncle Kevin are going to do today?″ Jay asked his daughter after breakfast, cleaning her sticky fingers and her face with a cloth as she had mashed banana pieces everywhere.

″Dada,″ Emmy babbled and reached her arms out for him.

″Okay, come on, princess,″ he smiled and scooped her into his arms. ″We are going to buy Christmas trees. All the way up in Wisconsin.″

″Yeah, because apparently there are no Christmas trees in Chicago,″ Erin teased while she cleaned the table with the cloth. They'd had this conversation a couple of days ago, when Jay'd told her about the idea that he and the guys would drive a little up north to Wisconsin where they could pick their trees in the forest and log them themselves, making this some kind of bro-trip because they all have always wanted to do this. Erin'd basically told him that she thought they were nuts walking through inches of snow for hours only to find the perfect trees when they could easily buy one. Which, in addition, would give them one more day they could spend as a family because the time before Christmas should be used for all the things they could do as a family for the first time this year. But Jay'd insisted on driving to Wisconsin with Kevin, Adam and Antonio and since the moment this was a done deal, the boys haven't talked about anything else in the bullpen. These last few days had been all about the right gear, the right chainsaw, the right ax, the right boots and the perfect way to log those trees and transport them home without destroying them. So while Jay would freeze his butt off while looking for the perfect Christmas tree, Kim, who agreed with Erin that the guys were completely nuts, would come over to spend the day at the Halstead-house and bake Christmas cookies with Erin, Rylie, Luke and Emilia.

″Exactly,″ Jay smirked innocently. ″Emmy's first Christmas tree has to be something special, right bug?″ he asked and kissed his daughter's cheek.

″Oh yeah, she will definitely recognize the difference,″ Erin chuckled and slightly shook her head. Jay Halstead, regarding certain things he was still a kid at heart. ″One day she will tell you: Oh daddy, remember my first Christmas tree? Yeah, me neither.″

Instead of saying shut up in front of their daughter or kissing her to shut up, he just gave her a certain look, joke and tease in his eyes as he rolled them dramatically. ″Don't listen to your mommy, she's just jealous that this is a boys-only trip,″ Jay laughed.

″Jealous about you guys freezing your butts off in the middle of nowhere while arguing whether the tree is unbowed or curved, whether it is too thin or too bushy? No thank you babe, not jealous at all,″ she laughed and gave him the sweetest of smiles before going back to the kitchen to help Rylie with cleaning up before their kitchen would soon turn into the biggest possible mess and chaos.

″You guys are cute,″ Rylie noticed casually as Erin helped her to put all their used dishes into the dishwasher.

″How's that?″ Erin laughed slightly.

″I don't know, just cute. What you guys have is somehow admirable,″ she shrugged.

Admirable. This was the second time that someone told her, her relationship was admirable and maybe she had to agree that it really was something beyond special. ″He drives me nuts sometimes,″ Erin chuckled.

″But in a positive way, right?″ Rylie smirked. Erin had to give her credit for figuring the dynamic of their relationship out in just two weeks.

″Yeah, most days.″

″Hey, I heard that!″ Jay called from the living room in mocked-offense. ″What she wanted to say was all days.″

″See what I mean,″ Erin laughed. She loved her man for being exactly this kind of silly even though she sometimes had the feeling she was married to the biggest, most lovable dork. But at the same time, this was why he had the unique ability to cheer her up and make her smile like no one else could.

By the time Rylie and Erin were done with the kitchen, Adam's pickup truck pulled up in front of their house, Erin watching the three men dressed in parkas jumping out of the car through the kitchen window.

″Babe, your fellow woodsmen are here,″ she called laughingly toward the living room, where Jay sat on the floor and played with Luke and Emmy, Crispin lying right next to him to enjoy how he petted him. Of course Jay Halstead, her organized freak, had all his gear and everything he needed already in his car, since they would drive with two cars to bring all the trees home they imagined they would log today, so he's had the spare time to help Emmy and Luke to turn their living room in some children's paradise once more. For the millionth time Erin seriously wondered why Luke and Emmy had their own rooms when they barely ever used it and instead rather spread their toys all over the living and dining room so she had something to clean up every evening.

″Coming,″ he called back and then whispered to his daughter. ″Come on Em, now you can show your uncles your badass walking skills.″ He picked her up and helped her to stand, taking the first couple of steps with holding her hand and then let her walk on her own, always staying behind her so he could catch her in case she lost her balance. Though it happened so often these days that Emmy fell on her butt or knees or made a bellyflop that she probably was already used to it.

″Look at you Emilia, way to keep your parents on the go,″ Kevin smiled when Emmy slowly waddled into the hallway, the door wide open as Erin had already let their colleagues in.

″Luckily she's not that fast yet,″ Erin chuckled.

″Running after her will come soon enough,″ Antonio winked. ″That's when the fun really starts.″

″Hey Emmy, come to uncle Kevin,″ Atwater said on bent down on his knees to reach out for her. ″There you go!″ he laughed when she was close enough that he could pick her up.

″You're a little troublemaker, aren't you?″ Adam asked as he and Antonio gathered around Kevin and the baby. Even with being almost 11 months old, their team members still went all mellow when Emilia was around. Their little lady surely had them all wrapped around her finger and knew exactly how to get all the attention.

″So Adam, didn't you forget something?″ Erin asked, taking a look through the open door and to his car again to look for Kim. But the brunette was nowhere to be seen.

″Uhm...no...,″ Adam answered and Erin could see how he mentally went through all the gear in his truck, trying to figure out what could be missing. ″What should I've forgotten?″

″I don't know, your girlfriend for example,″ Erin laughed.

″Oh...She's coming with her own car, wanted to bring half of her kitchen and there was no space in my truck,″ he explained.

″Half of her kitchen?″ Erin echoed, raising her eyebrows. She'd told her friend that she had everything they needed for their cookies project but Kim had nonetheless insisted on bringing a couple of things. A couple of things that probably turned into a whole load of things as she now figured.

″Yeah...you know...stuff...whatever,″ he laughed, obviously not having a clue, and dedicated his attention back to Emilia. ″Auntie Kim is very serious about Christmas cookies. Yes she is,″ he baby-talked and tickled her belly.

″Okay gents, before this little lady wraps you around her finger even more, let's leave,″ Jay chuckled and took Emilia from Kevin's arms into his own.

″Yeah, let's log some trees,″ Adam cheered.

″Don't get lost guys,″ Erin said with a smile and then closed the gap between her and Jay to take Emmy and say goodbye to her man.

″Have fun,″ she murmured and kissed his lips quickly. ″And take care, okay?″

″Of course,″ Jay assured her and leaned in to kiss her again, only longer this time. ″Don't burn the kitchen down, please,″ he teased her.

″No promises,″ she joked and kissed him one last time.

″You guys, seriously? Come on,″ Antonio laughed, the three men having those dorky, boyish smiles on their faces like they were teenagers who'd watched something they weren't supposed to see. ″We will bring him back in one piece, no worries.″

″That would be awesome,″ Erin laughed and just to tease her colleagues even more, she made sure to give Jay another lingering kiss right in front of their eyes.

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Kim arrived half an hour after the boys had left for their adventure, carrying a box full of kitchen utensils when she made her way through the front yard and up to the porch.

″What is that?″ Erin welcomed her with Emmy on her hip and Crispin by her feet when she opened the door and let her in.

″This,″ Kim said and placed the box on the floor in the hallway. ″Is what we need to bake all the perfect cookies,″ she beamed.

″Kim, I told you I have everything we need,″ Erin laughed and shook her head by her friend's enthusiasm.

″We will need this, believe me Erin,″ Kim smiled brightly. ″Come on, there's more in the car.″

″More?″ Erin echoed, eyeing the overpacked box. ″About how much more are we talking?″

″Lots more,″ Kim said lightly. ″More kitchen stuff and all kinds of incredients. I might need a hand or two,″ she smirked innocently.

″Alright,″ Erin sighed and put her daughter down on the floor in the kitchen. ″Crispin, keep an eye on her for a minute,″ she told the dog and gave him a quick pat. ″Rylie!″ she then called to the living room where their roomie was playing with her son, ″can you give Kim and me a hand, please?″

″Coming!″ she called back and as soon as the three women were gathered in the hallway, they went to Kim's car to pick up the remaining boxes. Opening the trunk, they discovered that the box with the incredients had fallen over during the drive but thankfully sugar and flour packages and everything else that could've spilled were still intact and they only had to put all the stuff back into the box instead of cleaning up what could've been quite the mess.

Each of them carried one loaded box into the house and Erin seriously wondered what kind of bigger plans her friend had that she wasn't in the loop about. They could bake enough cookies to feed an army with all that stuff and she didn't exactly have the desire to spend the whole day in the kitchen. She'd thought they would bake until the afternoon and would then make themselves comfortable on the couch, with take-out and some juice-fruit cocktails while using this rare time to catch up on everything they haven't had the time to catch up on in the last few weeks.

Coming back into the kitchen, Erin immediately got a sweet reminder why she usually always put her daughter in the playpen when she had to leave the room for a minute but she couldn't help but laugh by the scenery in front of her eyes. However Emilia'd done that, she'd managed to open one of the cupboards, the one with all the plastic bowls and Tupperware containers, and was currently emptying it, all the colorful bowls and containers spread around her on the floor. Emilia herself was currently kneeling on the floor, halfway disappearing in the cupboard to look for more containers, and on top of that, Crispin's head was in the cupboard just as deep and all Erin could see was his wagging tail that indicated that he was having fun as well. It was actually a picture to die for.

″Oh Emmy,″ Kim exclaimed when her eyes found the mess in the kitchen, a laughter escaping her lips.

″This is the exact reason why we don't have any breakable stuff in the lower cupboards,″ Erin laughed and pulled the phone out of the back pocket of her jeans to make a snapshot of this moment.

″And now?″ Rylie grinned.

″Now we're going to clean that up,″ she chuckled and added with a grin: ″Welcome to my life.″

Before she picked her daughter up from the floor and tried to explain to her that the kitchen wasn't a part of her play area and that she had more than enough toys in the living room, she texted Jay the photo of Emilia and Crispin halfway disappearing in their kitchen cupboard, all the bowls on the floor surrounding them, and captioned it with the words: Your kid. And your dog. I love you anyway.

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Christmas songs were playing in the background in one never-ending loop as the Halstead-kitchen turned into an actual Christmas bakery that Saturday, the sweet smells of cinnamon, chocolate, cloves, ginger, oven-fresh cookies and too much sugar in general filling the air. To say Kim was completely in her element was an understatement. She knew exactly what she was doing and so Rylie and Erin decided to let her delegate, follow Kim's instructions and do whatever she wanted them to do so everything could go as smooth as possible.

The chaos was gigantic anyway, simply because Luke and Emilia were involved as well, especially Luke having a lot of fun with doing the cut-out cookies while Emmy naturally didn't really understand what was happening but seemed to have fun nonetheless because this was something new for her and new things were always interesting. At some point Erin was sure they'd used every bowl the kitchen provided, the pile of dirty dishes next to her sink basically confirming that suspicion, and with flour and sugar on the floor, she wondered how long it would take them to clean up later.

″Okay guys, I don't know about you, but I think I've had enough of baking for one day,″ Erin said in the early evening when Kim put the last sheet with cookies in the oven, her and Rylie already discussing which cookies they could make next. They'd baked five different cookies in the last few hours and still had to cover some with chocolate or icing or glue some together with jam or nougat and Erin honestly couldn't stand the sweet smell anymore. ″Let's just finish those we already have, order some take-out that doesn't smell sweet and sit down on the couch,″ she added because the two girls looked at her like she'd just told them some very bad news. ″Besides, cleaning this kitchen will take forever.″

″She has a point,″ Kim said to Rylie after contemplating her words for a second.

″But we wanted to make the gingerbread house,″ Rylie answered. She'd earlier shown Kim a picture from Pinterest and had asked her whether she knew how to make such a gingerbread house. And of course Kim knew. She'd even shown her pictures from the gingerbread house she'd made last year and now Rylie wanted to make one as well.

″I know...but we couldn't finish it today anyway. It takes hours to make one,″ Kim explained. ″We can make one some other day.″

″Yeah? When? It's just eight more days until Christmas,″ Rylie sighed.

″Actually,″ Erin chimed in as she suddenly had the most brilliant idea that had only positive sides for all of them. ″How about Kim comes back tomorrow and you guys make that gingerbread house while Jay and I do the Christmas shopping? We urgently need to do that and it would be awesome if we could leave the kids with you, Kim,″ she said to her friend, giving her the sweetest smile that should help to convince her of this plan. ″Adam could come over as well and watch Emmy and Luke or hang out in Jay's mancave. Or he could help, but I doubt he'd be a big help,″ she laughed.

″The only thing he would do is eating the dough and the candy all the time,″ Kim chuckled.

″Sounds like Adam,″ Erin smirked. ″So, what do you say?″

″We should do it,″ Rylie said to Kim. ″Please, Kim, I really want to make that gingerbread house and you as the master of the bakery are the best possible teacher for that.″

″Try not to slip on your trail of slime,″ Kim laughed at the young girl and there was no doubt on Erin's mind that a friendship was developing there. Which was beautiful to see.

″I'm not fawning,″ Rylie grinned.

″Of course you do,″ Kim winked. ″But you don't have to. Because there's no way I'm not in.″

″Really?″ Erin and Rylie asked at the same time.

″Yeah, bring it on,″ Kim nodded.

″Thank you, Kim,″ Erin flung her arms around her best friend's neck.

″Of course, Erin,″ Kim smiled back. ″I don't wanna be responsible for Santa not making it to your house this year, you know? That would be cruel.″

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Kim and Rylie finished all their cookies while Erin bathed Emilia, the 10-month-old having flour and sugar in her hair and all over her clothes, and once Emmy was smelling of peach and raspberry instead of cookies, and wearing her unicorn onesie for the night, she went back downstairs to help Kim with cleaning up while Rylie bathed Luke whose hair was equally decorated with flour and sugar. Their ordered Chinese take-out arrived just in time when Luke was freshly bathed and they all sat down on the table to dig into the Asian dish, Erin feeding Emmy a little bit of rice, broccoli, chicken and some other steamed vegetables and her daughter once again proved that she wasn't a picky eater. Yet.

Once all the containers were emptied with not a single piece of food left, they settled on the couch with some juice-mixes, Emmy resting in Erin's lap, tucked under her chin and sucking on her bottle with cold fennel tea. Luke meanwhile had excused himself to his room upstairs so he could continue to work on the fort he's started to build earlier until it was time for him to go to bed.

″So, you and Adam finally agreed on moving in together?″ Erin asked, using the time until the men showed up for some girl talk.

″Well, not really,″ Kim sighed. ″My lease is up by the end of March but we haven't really agreed on something so far.″

″Because you don't want to? Because you think it's too early, it's the wrong thing to do?″ Erin dug deeper. She'd thought her friends were finally solid enough to take this next step as Kim had told her about the option of moving in with him once her lease was up weeks ago.

″Because...,″ Kim sighed, gnawing on her lip. ″Sometimes it's nice to know that there is my own place where I can go to in case I need to.″

″Now you sound like me,″ Erin answered perplexedly. This was about the last thing she'd expected. ″And let me tell you one thing: moving in with Jay was one of the best things I ever did and if I would've known earlier how great it is to completely live with the person you love, I'd done it way earlier. Like when he first suggested it and I freaked out about it.″

″Sometimes I can't believe you and Jay have only been living together for a year,″ Kim chuckled slightly.

″A year?!″ Rylie asked in disbelief.

″Oh yeah, Erin and Jay have quite the story,″ Kim winked at the blonde girl.

″But Emmy is almost a year old...so you only moved in together shortly before she was born?″ Rylie concluded and since Erin has never told her the full story about her and Jay, she sensed that Rylie'd thought they've been together for ages.

″Yeah, more or less,″ Erin nodded. ″This is a story for another day, Ry.″

″Not another day. You'll definitely tell me later,″ she smirked and took a sip from her juice.

″Whatever,″ Erin laughed. ″So back to the problem,″ she said and looked back to Kim. ″What is the actual problem?″

″I don't know,″ the brunette shrugged. ″I guess I'm just scared that we're rushing things. Again.″

″Sometimes rushing things isn't the worst thing in the world,″ Erin smiled and her eyes fell on her daughter who still sat in her lap, comfortably leaning against her chest.

″Yeah...yeah, I guess it's not,″ Kim smiled at the baby.

″You remember how a couple of months ago you told me you want the whole deal with him?″ Erin asked her friend and Kim nodded in response. ″Then at some point you just simply have to take that next step. It might be right. It might be wrong. You'll never know until you do it but Kim, getting back together with Adam you also didn't know whether it was the right decision or the wrong one. Eventually you just decided for what your heart told you and I don't think you've regretted this so far,″ she smiled at her. ″So don't overthink this and just do what your heart tells you.″

″Thank you,″ Kim smiled back. ″I think I really needed to hear that.″

″Maybe you did,″ Erin winked.

″Rylie, in case you haven't recognized it so far, Erin has that special gift with always telling people what they need to hear.″

″Oh, I do know that,″ Rylie smirked sheepishly. ″So you move in with him?″

″My heart yells yes while my brain asks me whether I'm nuts to move in with that idiot,″ she laughed. ″But I think I'm going with my heart.″

″You should,″ Rylie grinned. ″Then now back to you and Jay,″ she turned to Erin who could see that she was dying to know their lovestory.

″Okay,″ Erin gave in because she knew Rylie would bug her forever otherwise. ″Short version: Because Jay and I were working in the same unit, we weren't allowed to date. Then I changed the unit for a little while and we had that affair-relationship kind of thing. After a couple of weeks I returned to my old job and we continued to date secretly until someone found out. We cooled it for some months and I had a bit of a rough time due to a friend's death,″ she said and swallowed the small lump in her throat that she always had when she talked about Nadia. And there was no reason for Rylie to know about all of that, so she continued quickly and left some parts out. ″For some reason, at some point, it didn't matter anymore whether we dated or not and we basically got the permission to do what we want. So we got back together and six months into us dating, Emilia happened,″ she smiled faintly and once more her eyes fell on her daughter. ″We decided to move in together when I was five months pregnant but he only officially moved in last December. He asked me to marry him on New Years Eve and Emmy was born five weeks later. We bought this house in May, married in July and moved in here in August. That's it.″

″And here I was, thinking that you guys have been together forever. That you married, bought a house and then decided to start a family,″ Rylie said and shook her head slightly.

″Not exactly, no,″ Erin grinned. ″We don't do things the usual way.″

″Obviously,″ Rylie chuckled. ″So you went from dating your work-partner to marry him and you're also dating your work partner, right?″ she asked, looking from Erin to Kim and it was obvious that she was making her own conclusions.

″Oh no,″ Kim quickly denied. ″Adam's not my work-partner. He's working in Intelligence and I'm working on patrol.″

″But you work in the same district, don't you?″

″Yeah, we do, why?″ Kim frowned.

″Oh, you know, seeing that Erin met her husband at work and you your boyfriend as well, I just figured that I should probably start to check out my male coworkers, the med students...″ she said ever so casual, sweet and innocent, if Erin would've had some juice in her mouth, she had probably choked on that now, spilling it all over her daughter and the couch.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

The guys only returned back from their trip around 10pm, Erin, Kim and Rylie having moved on from their endless chats to some kind of movie night, and they were eating popcorn and watching The Longest Ride when they heard the cars pulling up in front of the house.

″What do you think, did they get their trees?″ Kim asked and jumped up from the couch.

″They got some, even if they are the ugliest trees in the world,″ Erin laughed, knowing exactly that none of the guys would come back with empty hands, and got up from the couch as well so they could welcome their men home.

″Please tell me this is not Adam's tree,″ Kim exclaimed when she opened the front door and her eyes immediately fell on the gigantic tree that lay on Adam's pick-up truck.

″Well,″ Erin chuckled and motioned her head to the Audi in the driveway, ″figuring that Jay has our tree on our car and they apparently already dropped the other guys and their trees off, I'd say this is Adam's tree.″

″And you wondered why I'm reluctant about moving in with him,″ she sighed dramatically. ″I mean, Erin, look at this thing, it's huge. I bet it doesn't even fit into his apartment.″

″Hey girls!″ Adam waved before Erin could answer anything. ″Do you see that tree? Huh? We logged that all by ourselves,″ he said all proud with the biggest smile on his face and started to make his way through the frontyard and up the porch to join them.

″You know, Kim,″ Erin murmured into her friend's ear. ″Some men just have to boost their ego sometimes. And it seems like your boyfriend is one of them. I mean, there are worse things than boosting his ego with some Christmas tree,″ she chuckled.

″Thanks Erin, this really helped,″ Kim laughed.

″Or we interpret it differently and say he just wanted to impress you,″ she smirked.

″What do you say? Isn't that one awesome tree?″ Adam asked as soon as he joined them and kissed his girlfriend gushily.

″Uhm yeah...it's big,″ Kim chuckled.

″I know, right?″ Adam beamed, obviously not getting the message that Kim was not exactly excited about the size of the tree.

″You'll need lots of lights and ornaments for that tree,″ Erin noticed, adding all dry: ″And probably a different apartment if you don't want the star and the top of the tree go through the ceiling and decorate your neighbor's living room.″

″Exactly what I told him,″ Jay joined them and wrapped his arms around his wife from behind.

″It will fit, no worries.″ Adam actually sounded pretty convinced of that, it was hilarious.

″Your sense of proporation might've dumped you here, bud,″ Jay laughed, giving his friend a pat on the back. ″But we already tried to tell you that multiple times before your chainsaw made contact with that poor tree.″

″You're all invited to marvel at my perfect Christmas tree next week,″ Adam smirked, ignoring his friend's remark.

″Hey babe, did you also hear how Adam just invited us for beer and and his famous Fettucine Alfredo?″ Erin asked her husband deadpan.

″Absolutely,″ Jay nodded all serious. ″Thanks Adam, we'll come over Friday evening.″

″Wait. Who said something about Fettucine Alfredo?″ he asked, his face as confused as when he'd first tried to use the facial recognition software all those years back, making Erin and Jay and even Kim burst out in laughters.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Adam and Kim left shortly after Erin and Jay had invited themselves over for dinner on Friday after work, Jay asking his friend whether he was sure that he could carry this giant tree up to his apartment all alone or rather wanted his help. Adam assured him that he would get it handled, Kim's facial expression giving her away that she wasn't so sure about that, and so the couple left and Erin and Jay could carry their own tree through the house and to the patio where they would store it until they would decorate it together with the kids next week.

By the time they returned to the living room, Rylie has retreated to her room to give them some privacy and only in the dimmed light of the room, Erin saw the scratch on Jay's cheek she hadn't seen out on the porch earlier. It didn't look too bad or too deep and rather made him look even sexier. If that was even possible.

″What happened there?″ she raised her eyebrow and ran her thumb over the scratch and his stubbles, his cheeks all rosy from the cold he'd been in for the better part of the day.

″Oh, you should see the other guy,″ he joked, giving her one of his trademark smiles that always made her heart flutter.

″Given that the other guy probably was a tree, I guess he lost?″ she grinned up at him.

″Didn't stand a chance,″ he smirked contentedly.

″I'm so proud of you,″ she murmured with a lot of tease in her voice and pressed her lips against his in what turned out to be quite a hot kiss.

″I can't wait for you to see the tree,″ he breathed against her lips which sent chills down her spine and made her pulse pick up its pace.

″This tree is the last thing I want to see right now,″ she answered with a low voice that found its way right to his groin, the kiss that followed sending an overdose of heat through his entire body.

″What do you wanna see then?″ he chuckled and kissed her cheek and earlobe softly.

″You,″ she giggled by his breath tickling her sensitive skin. ″Shirtless. Boxer-less. Naked in fact. And I don't wanna wait for that, preferably.″

″I don't think you should wait for that,″ he whispered and kissed her again, picking her up by her thighs in the same second so he could carry her upstairs and into their bedroom where he would give her exactly what she demanded.

Making love with Erin would forever send him into the very best kind of oblivion, this night proving no exception as panting, moaning and exclamations of love filled the air in their bedroom, as he lost himself in her and she lost herself in him, as once again one round wasn't enough to satisfy their need and lust.

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Christmas came closer and it seemed like Chicago's maniacs finally decided to give the Intelligence unit a break as the week that led to Christmas turned out to be the slowest in the history of slow weeks. In fact, it was as slow that they asked Homicide whether they needed help with a case because Intelligence had absolutely nothing to do, so the Ivory Tower had them parked at their desks and work through all their CI files and open case files so they weren't in the bullpen for nothing. It was needless to say that they all probably cheered a little too much when Hank told them that Homicide had indeed an unsolved case they could take over.

Unfortunately they had that one solved in not even two days and working an average Homicide case they all got reminded why they loved Intelligence with all the action so much though Homicide cases were still better than no cases at all. The senseless and headache-causing paperwork had them back by Friday, but since Hank wasn't a fan of working with pen and paper either and as it was the last workday before the long Christmas weekend, he let them all go home at 4pm after they'd already spent the afternoon with drinking coffee and eating Christmas cookies, making their very own, small Christmas party that had them all chilling in their chairs with their feet on their desks.

Hank came over to the Halstead-house to babysit in the evening, giving Erin and Jay the chance to have dinner with Kim and Adam at Adam's place where those Fettucine Alfredo were already waiting for them by the time they arrived. Antonio and Kevin joined the two couples as well, because of course they also wanted to see the tree. The tree, that Adam had been all convinced would fit into his apartment, was of course too huge and a big part of the top was bent and squished against the ceiling. Naturally, Jay and Erin and also Kevin and Antonio couldn't hold back with teasing him about his perfectly fitting, beautiful tree all the time and so the whole evening consisted of endless laughters accompanied by too much good food and too much red and white wine.

As a matter of prudence, Jay and Erin had already taken an Uber to get to Adam's apartment, so for the first time in months, if not years or ever, they both returned home a little tipsy as all the wine had found its way right into their heads. And even though they thought they were able to hide it like pros in front of Hank, Erin knew that her father-figure has very well picked up on the fact that they both probably had one glass of wine too many. Not that this was something Hank was still worried about. Erin had her feet on the ground and drinking a glass too many in company of friends occasionally was something he could absolutely live with because he knew she was a complete different person now than she'd been back when alcohol had been her way to escape reality and drown her feelings. And so it was even fun for him to watch how his pseudo-daughter and his best detective tried to hide that they probably should've denied that last glass and he wondered whether he should give them a call in the morning to ask about their well-being because sometimes he still was that guy who liked to give other people a hard time when he had the chance to do so, especially his son-in-law, that he appreciated more than he was able to admit.

Saturday morning came and although they didn't have monstrous headaches, Emilia's whining resounding from the baby monitor before 7 in the morning wasn't the most pleasant sound in the world. Neither Erin nor Jay could remember the last time they'd actually slept in. Their honeymoon in Antigua might has been the last time that they'd slept past 7.30am and this precious time they'd had as just the two of them seemed like a lifetime ago. When it in fact have not even been five months.

″I go and get her,″ Jay yawned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stretching his limbs before he got up.

It only took him a couple of seconds to pick Emmy up from her crib and come back into the bedroom. He pulled the curtains back, so their room could slowly light up with the dusk.

″Still no snow Emmy,″ Jay said sadly. ″But there's still a little time, so we don't give up on a white Christmas just yet, right?″

Erin adjusted her position in bed so she could watch Jay with Emmy on his arm standing in front of the window, her Eeyore stuffy in his other hand as father and daughter shared this sweet moment.

″Last year we had so much snow on Christmas, it wasn't even funny anymore. And then, when mommy and daddy went to the cabin, we even got snowed in because there was so much snow, you can't even imagine, princess,″ he told his daughter and kissed the side of her head.

″Oh yeah, that was fun,″ Erin chuckled. ″Especially this one evening when we thought this munchkin wants to enter the world at the worst possible moment,″ she added with a laugh, remembering vividly how they'd both freaked out when she'd thought the pain in her abdomen and back were contractions. Contractions that had later turned out to be harmless Braxton Hicks.

″That night, I was so sure we would have an unattended home birth in the cabin,″ Jay chuckled and turned around to his wife. Nowadays he could laugh about this, back then his heart had dropped to his smallest toes by her words that she thought she was in labor.

″Yep, the color on your face told the same story,″ Erin grinned.

″And then you let us wait for more than four more weeks,″ Jay said to Emmy and tickled her belly before he sat down on his side of the bed. He settled Emmy and her Eeyore in between them and despite not being able to sleep in, their morning started in the best way possible, with lots of morning cuddles and lots of laughters and baby giggles thanks to Jay goofing around with Emmy's stuffy and making nonsense with her. Those were the mornings. The mornings they both lived for and would never treat for anything.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

″You know babe, I still don't know whether this is such a brilliant idea,″ Erin mentioned, eyeing their undecorated Christmas tree in the living room later that Saturday. She had to admit, although it was quite big, it was a beautifully grown tree that Jay'd picked and logged for them, which actually didn't surprise her because of course her perfectionist would come home with nothing but the best.

″What about this tree is not brilliant?″ Jay frowned.

″It's not the tree,″ she laughed. ″It's just the fact that it is so big that we can't put it on some kind of small table because then it would end up looking like Adam's.″

″Why would you want to put it on a table?″ his frown grew.

″Because of Emmy,″ she answered, her eyes falling on her daughter, who sat on the floor with Crispin and some toys. ″See...she's walking but doesn't have the perfect balance all the time, so what if she falls into the tree? Or even worse, if she tries to pull herself up by holding one of the branches and the whole tree crashes on her?″

″Er,″ Jay said softly and closed the gap between them. His wife was cute when she went in all-protective mommy-mode. ″I doubt our 18-pound girl is able to break that big tree down, even if she tries to pull herself up by some branch.″

″Okay...maybe she's not able to do that. But she could still fall into it and hurt herself,″ Erin mentioned, biting her lip. The last thing she wanted was any Christmas-tree related accident.

″Er, she can hurt herself falling against the edge of our coffee table or table leg or...″

″Stop it,″ Erin said, her eyes literally scolding him, and she placed her finger on his lips to make him stop talking about all these horrifying scenarios where Emilia could hurt herself. ″Or I never let her walk around in here ever again.″

Jay took her hand in his own, saying with a grin: ″Oh, I bet our little whirlwind will be delighted with that.″ He brought her hand up to his face and kissed it. ″Babe, Emmy will hurt herself. It's inevitable. She will run somewhere outside and fall down and rip her jeans and have bloody knees and hands. She will run against the dresser or anything else that's in the way and have a lump on her forehead. That's the process of growing up and there's nothing we can do about it. Kids fall, they hurt themselves, they cry. But the good thing is, they usually forget about it after only ten minutes and their world is all sunshine and roses again. Until they fall again. That's how it goes.″

″Kids might forget about it rather quick. But what about us?″ Erin asked, knowing that her man was right.

″We just have to live with it. Soothe her. Kiss her. Give her a bandaid with unicorns or Minnie Mouse or some Disney Princess. And then watch her go on her next adventure.″

″Sounds simple,″ Erin shrugged. ″Despite the fact that it isn't,″ she chuckled slightly.

″I know. No one said parenting is easy,″ Jay winked and leaned in to place a kiss on her forehead.

″Words of wisedom, huh?″ she chuckled.

″Absolutely,″ he nodded. ″So can we start decorating that awesome, perfect tree that your awesome, perfect, wise husband chose?″

Erin involuntarily giggled by his words because yes, this awesome perfect husband of hers has turned her into that kind of woman that actually giggled like a lovestruck teenager. ″Sometimes you're so full of yourself, Jay Halstead,″ she laughed, her head falling against his chest.

″Sometimes I have every right to be,″ he smirked cockily.

″You're an idiot,″ she chuckled and punched her fist against his shoulder.

″But an idiot that you happen to love,″ he grinned, his eyes sparkling with so much joy and love.

″Most days,″ she grinned back at him and pressed her lips against his to confirm her statement. ″Probably all days,″ she whispered against his lips before they melted in another kiss that was deeper than the one before.

″Mama,″ Emmy's sweet voice interrupted their moment, the brown-blonde-haired girl reaching out for Erin.

″You making sure that mommy and daddy don't make out in front of your eyes, bug?″ Jay laughed, making some silly faces as Erin picked Emilia up from the floor.

″Dada,″ Emmy babbled as soon as she was in her mother's arms and reached out for Jay.

″Seriously Emmy?″ Erin laughed and handed her to Jay.

″So Em, what do you think, should we finally decorate our Christmas tree? You gonna give mommy and daddy a hand?″ Never before they'd had their Christmas tree up that late but with Jay wanting to log the thing himself and them not finding the time to decorate it at weeknights, they'd agreed on only decorating it shortly before Christmas if this meant they could do it all together.

″How about you start with the lights while I make some pasta for lunch?″ Erin asked.

″Food is always a brilliant idea,″ Jay winked and so Erin headed to the kitchen to start making some pasta with tomato sauce while Jay started to put the fairy lights on the tree, Emilia always crawling around or taking a few steps as she followed her favorite colorful ball before plopping down on the floor again. Luke meanwhile was nowhere to be seen in the living room. Ever since Rylie'd helped him to build that giant fort in his room, he spent hours in there, always occupying himself with his toys or trying to make the fort even better and bigger. Sometimes though, he allowed Rylie, Emmy, Erin and Jay to join, especially when he needed them to play pirate or knight or firefighter.

Rylie was not around today at all as she had left the house earlier this morning, telling them that she went to Kim's place as they wanted to bake a special cake for Christmas Eve and Kim would then later drive her to her meeting, where a little Christmas party took place today. They'd asked her whether they should wait with decorating the tree until she was back but Rylie'd said she was fine with not being involved and that the four of them should do it without her.

They had lunch a little later, and as always, Luke had tomato sauce all over his face afterwards and not only was Emmy's bib full of tomato sauce but so were her face and her hands, more noodles probably on the floor than in her belly, Crispin grabbing the chance to make sure their floor was clean. That was the thing about small children eating their food on their own: the mess that came with it was gigantic. It was nothing they weren't used to though.

Their plan of decorating the tree right after lunch got foiled when Emmy started to get cranky, showing her parents that it was time for her nap, so while their youngest was dreaming the sweetest dreams in her room, Jay and Erin joined Luke in his fort to play pirate with him, all of them wearing those silly pirate hats, and they had little fights with plastic swords. Several times Luke tried to tackle them when he wanted to steal their gold coins because of course he was the bad, scary pirate, the master of the sea everyone was afraid of.

The day this little munchkin and his mother moved out, given that Rylie would continue to shine and would therefore be allowed to live with her son in a couple of months, would for sure be one of the hardest.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

″Okay Luke, how about you put the ornaments on the lower part of the tree with Erin while Emmy and I do the rest? And in the end, I will lift you all the way up to the top so you can put the star on there,″ Jay explained his plan in the late afternoon when Emmy was all alert and back being happy and satisfied.

″Yes yes yes,″ the energetic 5-year-old beamed and jumped up and down in front of him.

″Okay bud, then grab an ornament over there and put it on the tree,″ he smiled and motioned his head to the boxes full of various ornaments and white and silver Christmas balls on the coffee table.

″Can I take anything?″ Luke asked, his eyes widening as he stood in front of the boxes.

″Whatever you want,″ Erin, who'd just joined them, said and kneeled down next to him, her hand finding a spot on the small of his back. ″But maybe you want to put this one on our tree first...″ she said, bringing her other hand up from behind her back, revealing one of his favorite Disney characters, Olaf, in form of an ornament.

″Olaaaaaaaaaf,″ Luke squealed.

″Let's find the perfect place for him,″ Erin winked and guided the boy to their tree. ″I'd say it deserves a spot somewhere up there, where everyone can see it, right?″

″Right,″ Luke nodded and eagerly and Erin lifted him up so he could put the first, very special, ornament on their tree.

″How do you like it?″ Erin asked him.

″It's perfect,″ Luke grinned like a Chesire Cat and as soon as Erin put him back down on the floor, he ran to the boxes and picked another ornament.

″So Em, which one do we want to put on there first? A Christmas ball? Or this Santa-ornament?″ he asked his daughter and leaned down a little so her could grab something from the box.

″Ba,″ Emmy babbled, which Jay assumed meant ball, but instead of reaching for the silver Christmas ball, her little hands reached for the Santa-ornament.

″Well okay, I guess we take both then,″ Jay laughed and grabbed the Santa-ornament and the Christmas ball, putting them both on their tree a couple of seconds later.

While the world outside got darker with dawn setting in, their Christmas tree got fuller with all kinds of ornaments and balls, Christmas songs like Wonderful Dream and All I Want for Christmas played in the background, sometimes drowned by joyful child laughters and giggles. Naturally, some ornaments and Christmas balls didn't make it to the tree or crashed down as soon as Luke had put them there but this was another thing they'd expected when decorating a tree with a 5-year-old and an almost 11-month-old. In the end, their tree was perfectly and beautifully decorated anyway and after Luke had proudly put the star on top with Jay's help, they all took a few steps back from the tree and Erin turned the light off, so the only light in the room came from their Christmas tree. Their very first Halstead Christmas tree.

″Wow,″ Luke whispered, speaking out what Jay and Erin thought. This moment was so special, it somehow made them speechless. Their first Christmas as a family was just around the corner and what might have felt unreal up until now, definitely felt real in that moment. In less than 48 hours, lots of presents would wait under that tree on Christmas morning and they both couldn't wait to see Luke's eyes shine and watch Emilia trying to unwrap her presents, all of them – Jay, Erin, Emmy, Luke and Rylie - still wearing their pajamas, just like in all those movies. This, their first Christmas as a family, would be the kind of Christmas neither Luke nor Rylie ever had. The kind of Christmas Erin hadn't had as a child, had only known from movies where the world was almost disgustingly perfect, the kind of Christmas she'd dreamed of when hiding in her room as Christmas had never been a lot more than an average day. And now she could give her daughter this perfect first Christmas. It was a thought that made her almost tear up.

″Better late than never. I'd say we did a pretty darn good job,″ Jay said, wrapping the arm Emmy didn't occupy around Erin's shoulder and she immediately snuggled against him. He knew this was a special moment for her and it wasn't less special for him. Although he'd had Christmas trees like this as a child, although he'd had Christmas mornings in pajamas, he'd never had a perfect Christmas, simply because his father had always somehow ruined it. And now he could give his daughter what he'd always wanted. A perfect, peaceful Christmas filled with all the love.

″We did,″ Erin nodded and lifted her head to look at him.

And as her eyes met his and his eyes met hers, the lights from the tree reflecting in their orbs and letting them sparkle, they both knew exactly what the other one was thinking and feeling, this beautiful connection they had once more being able to tell more than a thousand words could.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

It was later that evening, long after Erin had picked up Rylie from the Christmas party of her support group, the house quiet and the kids sleeping, Rylie probably still awake and watching TV, the lights from the Christmas tree and the flickering of the TV the only things that illuminated the room, when Jay suddenly said: ″You know, as a child, I liked to lie next to the Christmas tree because looking up felt like star gazing.″

″Yeah?″ Erin asked, lifting her head from his chest.

″Uh-huh,″ he nodded. ″Come on, I show you.″ He pushed her aside softly, turned the TV off and got up, grabbed the blanket that had kept their legs warm while watching TV and arranged it on the floor, using Emmy's huge playmat as a second cushion. He then grabbed two of the fluffy pillows from their couch and threw them on the floor as well before coming back and taking Erin's hand to lead her to this little, cozy spot in front of the tree.

They lay down next to each other, their hands intertwining almost immediately and for a moment it was beautifully silent as they gazed up their tree that looked so different from down here.

″I think I can see the Milky Way,″ Erin somewhen laughed slightly.

″Yeah, I can definitely see it, too,″ Jay chuckled, playing along with her. ″And there's the Orion,″ he added, pointing his finger to some of the lights.

″Oh wow, we really put Orion's belt on our tree,″ she laughed raspily. It was without a doubt Jay's favorite sound in the world, hearing her laugh like this. It was the sound he'd fallen in love with all the years back, when he hadn't even known her, when he'd filled out forms on his first day and she'd walked in to stun him with her simple appearance and when she'd laughed about something with Platt, this exact raspy laughter finding its way right to his heart.

″I love you,″ he whispered and turned his head to her.

″I love you more,″ she smiled back at him and they shared a short but meaningful kiss, being anxious to not lose it completely in front of their tree, in their living room, when Rylie was in the room just down the hallway.

And while the snow started to fall from the skies outside, unbeknownst to the two of them, they shared more kisses and sweet moments under their Christmas tree and used this rare time they had as just the two of them to talk about anything and everything and to just enjoy the silence they for once were surrounded with, they almost didn't know anymore as usually excited children's babbling and joyful giggles and unsatisfied crying filled the air. All those sounds they didn't want to miss for anything anymore. All those sounds that made them constantly realize what really mattered. All those sounds that have made this time before Christmas the most special one in their lives for various reasons...

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Please leave a review and let me know what you think :)