Away in a Tree Lot by CathGerm CathGerm@[i hate spam]aol.com Obviously, leave out the [i hate spam] part Rating: PG. A little language Story: Skinner/other Summary: Just trying to bring The Big Guy a little Christmas cheer ... Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Move along. Nothing to see here. She was lost. Lost in a forest of dead trees. The car was somewhere behind her, that much she knew. But the swirl of noise, the overhead lights ... it was too much. Buying a Christmas tree was not Katerine Sturhahn's favorite thing in the world. Actually, buying *anything* was not her favorite thing in the world. She was of the breed of female who quickly grew weak and cranky from too many minutes in the store, and she had been known to ditch her mother and sisters-in-law at malls and disappear into the nearest bookstore or coffee shop. Sitting alone with a strong cup of coffee watching other women shop was far preferable to the act of shopping itself. The only reason she was there at the tree lot three weeks before Christmas was to appease her family, to stem the tide of worry that always rose in her parents come holidays. She was the only one of their brood alone. Thirty-nine and unmarried and childless. Better they should say thirty-nine and a Carmelite nun. It might have been easier for them. German Catholics were bred to breed, to bear many children and have large Christmas trees and traditions up the yin-yang. She was an anomaly. She'd considered being a nun in her youth but didn't have the stomach for it. Ironic. She had the stomach for violent crimes in the DC Police VCU, but didn't have the stomach for poverty, chastity, and obedience. Poverty? She wasn't poor. She'd put in her time, and between that and the money she brought in as a consultant to the trade, she was paid well. And the benefits couldn't be beat. Obedience? Please. That had *always* been a problem. At least if you were to believe her grade school report cards. Re-reading them recently, she'd found it amazing that she'd not been brought up for insubordination in her adult life. She had certainly set the tone for it in grade school. Her current clean record had to do with her humor, she believed. If you said true and biting things with a self- deprecating, ego-free laugh, you could just about get away with murder. Her problem in grade school had been nuns with no senses of humor. Now cops ... *they* knew black humor and appreciated it. Chastity. Hm. She was all that. Three years since Harmless Bob, as her brothers had called him. Harmless Bob had heard one too many tales of sliced and diced human beings and had headed for the proverbial hills, almost leaving little cartoon puffs behind him as he had fled. After that she had taken to wearing her Social Pariah badge with pride. Almost 40. No man in sight. And she could out-swear the most veteran cop on the force. No wonder her family feared for her. So she was succumbing and buying a tree, the first in at least six years. It would be a talisman. She would put it up and decorate it and would have the family over and it would be a balm for them. It would keep them placated and at bay for the season. Then she'd take it down the 26th and life would be back to normal. She turned and stood on her tiptoes, looking back through the false forest and past the milling people to the parking lot. Beau was in the SUV. He was a good dog and would only bark if provoked. And generally any human being of the male persuasion provoked Beau by their mere existence. All that Kat needed to push her over the edge and send her home treeless on this frosty night would be for the big Golden Lab to make a holy racket and call attention to his abandoned self. She came down on her heels. Worry would get her nowhere. She needed a tree and needed it now. No time for cowardice. No time to allow for too much thought. Determined, she turned and strode through the lot, looking for something small and easy to maneuver, something that she could handle up the three stories of stairs to her loft without help, something that wouldn't overwhelm her small shoebox of ornaments. She slowed when the trail she'd been following narrowed. At the end of that trail was a monster. It was backlit by a lot light and appeared to be at least twelve feet high. Twelve feet high and a good six feet wide at the base and it was perfect. She was sure she heard the voices of angels as she gazed at it, but then it could have been the carolers back at the lot entrance. It was a noble fir, that much she knew, and she knew also that noble plus twelve feet equals no presents for the nephews and nieces. It was immense and ridiculous and to do it justice she'd have to spend a hundred dollars for more ornaments and lights, and she suddenly wanted it more than anything she'd wanted in a long, long time. She walked forward and closed her eyes. She was not a sentimental person by nature, but the tree was a magnet, and she felt herself pulled into its fragrant branches. It smelled of forest and promise and Christmases Past, and enveloped in it, Kat sighed. A distant, muffled bark brought her back to the present. Beau. Galvanized into action, she reached through the branches for the trunk and her ungloved fingers searched for purchase. She found the trunk high and followed it down to a height that made sense for lifting, and froze. There was something alive in there. Something warm and moving. She yelped and jumped back. She considered pulling her weapon, but it was back on the floor of the SUV hidden under a magazine. Then she remembered where she was. This wasn't some dope-pusher's back alley. It was a Christmas tree lot full of families and small children. There had to be an explanation that didn't necessarily include something that might show up on a police blotter. She leaned forward and peered into the branches. "Um. Hello?" The tree shook once and then stilled. "Yes?" came a deep voice. She was talking to a tree. A tree with a deep voice that did something strange to her toes. This was ridiculous. She needed to claim this tree and head home. "This tree?" she said into the black green of its interior. "It's mine." A pause. "Really," the tree replied. It sounded autocratic and slightly amused. She threw a look around the near-empty end of the lot and leaned as far into the fir as she dared. "I need this tree," she hissed at the center of it. "I really need this tree." She felt the presence opposite her move and heard the shuffle of someone coming around the tree to her right. She took a deep breath and faced that direction, fists on her hips, booted feet dug into the sawdust. Her foe was coming. Her enemy. She would have this tree, and nothing short of Tiny Tim himself coming around the corner of it would change her mind. But it wasn't Tiny Tim. It wasn't Tiny *anything.* It was big and male and as his long black coat caped around his legs she couldn't get Darth Vader theme from Star Wars out of her head. He had a good four inches on her, and she was considered tall. Kat was strong and could take half the men on the force in a game of one-on-one, but standing in front of this man, she actually felt ... well ... *dainty* if that was possible. She noticed that he was bald, and she shivered for him. It was cold - snow cold - and she wanted to toss the ski cap she'd jammed in her parka pocket at him so he could put it on. He was peering down at her through wirerims. His eyes were deep and root beer brown. "Hi," she said, feeling the fight ooze out of her. He nodded and jammed his hands in his pockets. The smile he gave her was polite and perfunctory, barely there. "Hello," he said His coat front was open and she noted the outfit. It was a Tired Old Corporate White Guy uniform, but an expensive one, and he wore it well. White shirt, dark gray suit, a tie that worked. He was married, she decided. You couldn't look that put together and not be. There was some little Trophy Wife behind this guy. No doubt about it. Gardner, her partner on the force, couldn't wear a pair of socks the same color. He wore red ties with maroon shirts and wife-beater t- shirts underneath those. He was single, and that's how single men dressed in her part of the world. And if there was a Trophy Wife, there were probably Trophy Children running about. Prep school brats. Kids with their own phone lines. They were probably here on the lot somewhere ... She shook her head at herself and stepped forward. "Look," she said in her best I'm-the-cop-in-charge-and- here's-what-we're-gonna-do voice, "I've got to have this tree. That's the way it is. I'm sorry, but there's plenty of trees on the lot. You're going to have to find another one." The little smile on his face that almost wasn't there got bigger by a millimeter or so. He nodded. "Okay," he said. He glanced up at the tree and something passed over his face as he did so. It was there - a shadow, a deep regret - and then gone in a second, replaced so efficiently with an emotionless mask that Kat was sure that he must practice the move in front of a mirror. As he turned to leave she noted that although his face was adept at covering its missteps, the rest of his body was not quite as obedient: His broad shoulders held a slight droop, and as he took a step away from her something tugged at her heart. "Wait," she heard herself say. He turned, hands still pocketed, face still carved in granite. She took a step towards him. "Look," she said shrugging and bringing a nervous hand up to put a brown curl behind her ear. "I was kidding. About the tree. I ... uh ..." She looked at the fir beside them and then down at her booted feet and shook her head. "I'm here under duress," she admitted into the fur around the neck of her parka. She laughed at herself and looked back up at him. Curiosity had softened his features. She realized she was babbling. She never babbled. "Under duress," Kat said. "Under duress and under false pretenses." She put her hands back on her hips and pointed her chin at the tree. "I don't need this. You probably have kids who would just love to open gifts under a tree like this." She smiled and shook her head. "I'm just trying to keep a couple of worried parents at bay. Trying to keep them from thinking that I'm a curmudgeon." There was a long silence, and the condensation puffs from her last statement dissipated in the cold air between them. She was used to silences. She'd learned to use them effectively when interviewing witnesses and interrogating perps. She had learned how to outlast almost everyone. She gauged the depths of his eyes as she waited, and she wondered what he was waiting for. His face revealed little, but to a practiced professional like Kat, he appeared to be weighing something and coming to a decision, and as she thought about that and wondered what it was that he might be deciding, she felt her body flush. It started with her toes and moved up her torso, and she wondered again if she was perimenopausal at nearly forty, but then it lingered, the heat, lingered around her groin and she felt her face flush, felt her cheeks begin to burn. Time to turn away. Time to run to the car and get into it, treeless, and accept Beau's eager licks and wonder just what the hell that standoff by the big tree had been; and she just might wait there to see who walked out of the dead forest with him, to see who would have her hand tucked in the crook of his elbow, to see what children would spill around the hem of his cape. "Are you?" he said. She was lost. "What?" "Are you a curmudgeon?" The near-smile appeared again, and this time it almost reached his eyes. She felt a relieved grin split her face. "Oh. Only when necessary," she said. She saw the possibility of another silent moment on the horizon and decided to press on. "Seriously," she said. "The tree. It's yours." He pulled his hands from his pockets and held them up in surrender. It looked awkward on him, as if he used gestures of submission only in the rarest of circumstances. "No. Absolutely not," he said, as animated as she'd heard him so far. "I'm here on a whim. Totally on a whim. I don't know what I was thinking." They moved apart as a mother and father and gaggle of kids pressed their way between them, their excited shouts snapping in the cold air. They smelled of peppermint and hot chocolate and Kat watched them snake out of sight on the twisting paths. The stranger beside her watched as well. He swallowed and looked back at her, his eyes bright as diamonds. "I'll bet I haven't had a Christmas tree in six years," he said after another brief pause. "I never ... it was just .... there was a lot ..." He struggled with his explanation, and she was dismayed when his big hands went back into his pockets. He was shutting down. "I worked late tonight," he said in a monotone as he stared sightlessly just beyond her left shoulder. He looked confused, out of his element. "I drove by. Something ... " His blank gaze went back to the tree. She was a second away from reaching a hand out to touch his arm when, model of efficiency, all of his parts snapped back into place and he took a step away from her and lunged into the heart of the tree. His voice, emanating from the greenery, carried a no-nonsense gruffness. "Not enough help on this lot, I noticed," he said, and he gave a soft grunt as he lifted the noble fir and marched for the checkout, Kat trotting behind him. His strides were long and she found herself breathless by the time they got to the hut where the cashier, sporting mittens too bulky to make change, huddled under the weight of a parka and an unzipped sleeping bag. Kat's teeth chattered as she watched a pre-teen with a yardstick measure her prize. The suited stranger stood holding the tree: silent, a sentry to her purchase, a soldier at her service, and she knew that he must be freezing, and as she bent to the task of check-writing she realized that her cheeks were hot and likely glowing cherry red, and her stomach folded in on itself and her head held a private little dance with sugarplums and dark shapes that she didn't recognize but didn't fear. The preteen and cashier were only too happy to hand the task of tree-roping over to the man who had wrangled it, and they gave Kat a rope and the cashier flashed them a wide and grateful smile and added a wink. "You two enjoy that now," she said in an unidentifiable twang. "And you all have a Merry Christmas." "You bet," Kat said over her shoulder as she headed for the far side of the parking lot where she'd left the car. She gave an apologetic grimace to the man who walked beside her. "You don't have to do this," she said. "Really. I can wait for help." "No problem," he said, and he stumbled slightly on the icy ground. Her hands went for the tree trunk. "Here, at least let me-" "I can do it." "Hey. I can at least-" But he was off, headed for the SUV which had become their obvious target. Beau would go berserk. A strange place, a strange man ... she braced for the cacophony of barking that she knew would begin as soon as he came into view. He was nearly at the SUV. She skidded to a stop at the vehicle just in time to see Beau stand up in the back, stretch, and turn his black eyes to the window. "I'm sorry about this," she said, automatically beginning her Berserk Dog Litany. "He's a good dog. He really is. He's just not good with ..." Her voice fell away in the cold and still air. Inside the SUV, Beau's stare was curious and relaxed. Amazed, she looked out of the corner of her eyes at the stranger beside her. He smiled and put a finger on the window. On the inside Beau leaned into the glass and sniffed, his breath frosting the window between them. The big man beside her chuckled deep in his chest and spread his hand wide so that Beau could check out the whole package. Kat was mesmerized by the sight: her big dog mollified, the big man beside her with the tree in one hand, his other hand on the window; and the cold must have made her shiver, that was it: the cold; and she stared at that hand, that hand that Beau was now attempting to lick through thick glass, and she felt her face flush again and that hand on her cheek, her neck, her breasts; on the curve of her waist, at the top of her thigh ... "On top or inside?" "Huh?" she breathed. "Looks like there's room inside with the seats down if you leave the back window open. Or would you prefer that we tie it on the roof?" "The roof," she managed to answer, and she knew that she sounded like a automaton or a fake voice from a synthesizer, but she couldn't get enough breath in her to give her voice any energy. The wind had been knocked out of her. He nodded and pointed her to the other side of the SUV. She welcomed the trip there. It would give her a chance to collect herself. She heard a grunt and the tree rose from the other side and came to rest on the roof. Kat couldn't believe that he'd managed it himself. It was a big tree. He stood on the running board on his side and tied the rope to the ski rack and tossed it to her. They worked in wordless perfection, back and forth, sewing the tree onto the roof, and Beau remained quiet inside, watching them. She felt the snow coming before she saw it, felt something white and benevolent above her head and she looked up past the lot lights and saw it coming and smiled. She brought her smile down to eye level and looked across the roof at her companion. He smiled back, teeth showing this time, and a big snowflake fell past his face and down towards his hand, towards his finger, and it landed on his ring, on his gold band. He watched it with her as it fell, and he watched it hit his ring and he looked up at Kat. She swallowed and jumped down from the running board. Beau's muzzle was pressed up to the glass, and it must have been her imagination: he looked at her just like her mother would when she'd come in the door of the house for Thanksgiving, alone. She swallowed convulsively again. She was not a weeper by nature, but this night in this cold tree lot she was amazed to find herself on the verge of tears. The big man was coming. She could hear his shoes crunching on the icy gravel. He peered around the back end of the SUV. She turned towards the front of the car and coughed into her hands. Beau stood, curious, as the man crunched up behind her. "You okay?" he asked. "I'm fine," she lied, and as she blinked she could feel the icy tears clinging to her eyelashes. She rubbed her face with her hands, turned to him and said, "Just cold." He was staring at Beau again, a bemused look on his face. "I always wanted a big dog like this. My wife wanted a lap dog." She didn't want to know, but she had to ask. "Have you compromised?" He put his finger to the window and Beau obliged with a sniff. "Yeah," he said, his voice rueful. "We did. We compromised, but it was the worst kind: We did nothing." He pulled his finger away from the window, looked at the ground, and answered her unspoken question. "She's uh ... she's no longer with me." Her stomach did another painful fold. His wife was no longer with him, but he still had a ring on his finger. She expected to be put off by this, expected that her internal warning sirens would go straight from Yellow to Red Alert in a nanosecond. Less murky and mysterious things had caused her to keep interested men at bay in the past, but she found herself nodding up at him as if wearing a ring that indicated marriage to someone you were no long with was an everyday occurrence and perfectly acceptable. Beau was being ignored, and he made that fact known by a quick, short bark. Kat went for the door handle. Might as well see if Beau's disposition would remain mellow when foreign skin met fur. She swung the door wide and watched the face of her companion go gray. He fell back a step and struggled to pull his right hand from his pocket. Concerned, she looked into the back seat of the SUV. There was Beau, happy for the attention, tail wagging, tongue lolling, and there beneath him in the back seat footwell was her gun. The magazine she'd tossed on it to hide it had slipped off. It was in its holster and the safety was on, but the weapon was in plain view: menacing, threatening, and she turned expecting to see the man backpedaling to his car. Harmless Bob all over again. The big man's eyes were wide and his parted lips were pale. She sighed. "Look. I'm a cop," she said. "I should be wearing it, but..." she gave a half-hearted gesture towards the hubbub behind them, " I figured in a tree lot, what the heck." She unceremoniously slammed the door on Beau and fumbled in her pockets for her keys. "I'm with the DC police force. Violent Crimes Unit." She tried for an nonchalant parting grin and shrug. "I love what I do." The man appeared to relax. He took a deep breath and brought his right hand out from under his coat. "Sorry for the overreaction," he said. "The gun came as a surprise. I wasn't thinking ..." His voice faded away. He looked over her head and frowned towards the buildings rimming the tree lot, and as she watched snowflakes pattern his black coat, she knew he was coming to another decision. He looked back down at her. "My job ..." He paused, and Kat realized that he was putting on his game face. She had one, too, a "no bullshit" face she used in situations where she needed to have the upper hand. This was a man used to being in control and being heard. This was a CEO, a captain of industry. He spoke. "I'm Assistant Director-" Kat thought, but she heard something else. "What?" she said, and she realized that this was at least the third time that she must have appeared stone deaf. "I'm Assistant Director of the FBI." "Uh ... Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation?" He nodded. "Well holy shit." He smiled and Beau gave another polite bark. She was pleasantly stunned. This was not Harmless Bob after all. This man must have come up through the ranks of the FBI. Assistant Directors sat at desks and assigned people to do things, but at one point in time he must have been in the field, must have seen a dead body or two. Of course, VCU could be extraordinarily messy. She wondered if he could take the gory details of what she saw on a daily basis. She imagined that he was insulated from that kind of thing in the high echelons of the FBI. "Walter Skinner," he said as he extended his hand. "Katerine Sturhahn. Kat," she said as her hand was swallowed by his warm one. she thought, and she wanted nothing more than to disappear into the black folds of his coat and warm herself. "Do you need any help getting this tree to wherever it is you want it?" he asked nodding at the SUV roof after she reluctantly pulled her hand from his. She bit her lower lip and frowned up at her prize. She pictured the stairs and Beau making a nuisance of himself while she pulled the tree up the three stories behind her. She envisioned the rickety tree holder that she'd pulled from the back of the hall closet, the one she'd left sitting in pieces on the living room floor. She saw herself in the field, chasing and felling a punk who had run from her, taking him down and scraping and cutting herself in the process, sitting on his back while she cuffed him, and she pictured Gardner puffing up after the fact. "Do you need any help?" "No. I'm fine." And she saw in her mind's eye her mom and dad coming to the loft the time she'd decided that it was stupid to pay someone to refinish the hardwood floors there, and she remembered her father's grimace as he looked at the rented and borrowed tools strewn throughout. "Kat, I think you could use some help here." "No, Dad. I'm fine." And even though she knew she couldn't get this tree alone to where it needed to be without at least an hour of frustration and exasperation, the need for her to declare herself able to handle *everything* was so ingrained, so webbed into her psyche that she nearly turned to Walter Skinner and said: "No thanks. I'm fine." But instead she turned to him and didn't say anything. Didn't say anything for a long time, just looked at him hard and searched his face. There was something amiss here: a wedding ring that should not be on a finger but was, an overreaction to a gun by a man who wore one. This was a man with secrets and regrets. This was a man of power who had fear, who was perhaps marked in some way. This was a man who hadn't had a Christmas tree for six years. Of course, neither had she. This was also a man who had calmed the Beau Beast, and how he'd accomplished that she could not imagine. This was a man who was willing to sacrifice his need for this tree when she said she'd needed it. This was a gentleman - a soldier at one time, she'd lay bet on it - whose voice had curled her toes and whose mere presence had made her babble. It was an enigma. Every cop fiber of her being was screaming that she should run as fast as she could in the other direction, but the dark corners of her heart and soul felt warm and safe for the first time in a long time. Normally she'd chide herself for musings such as this. Normally she'd slap herself for losing all sense of proportion. He'd asked her if she needed help with her tree, not whether she wanted to melt and mend his heart and her own in the process. But she knew it was more than just an offer to haul a tree up some stairs. She knew it and he knew it. If she acquiesced and accepted this, doors would open in both of their lives, for better or for worse. Whatever she decided here, she knew that it would not be easy. No white-picket fence happy endings, no sweet dreams of untested youth. They were both adults. They both held jobs that rewarded a kind of harsh pragmatism. They were both alone on Christmas Eve. She'd seen all manner of evil in her years in the VCU. She'd seen good as well. She'd learned to distinguish these things quickly. What she saw was good. It just wasn't going to be easy. She cleared her throat and spoke. Her voice was clear and sure. "I could use some help," she said. "I'm not far from here, and I've got three stories worth of stairs to negotiate." He didn't say anything for a moment. They stood facing each other, her dog a silent witness. Walter Skinner's eyes searched hers. He was weighing, mulling, considering - just as she'd done - and then she heard his deep voice, and it curled her toes again: "I'd be happy to help. I'll follow you." She smiled. "There's a Peppermint Schnapps in it for you when we're done." He smiled back. "I'd like that." He turned and strode towards his car and she watched him leave. She lifted her face to the falling snow. Up there above the clouds, the stars were moving. The earth was revolving. Her feet were still rooted to the ground. Gravity kept her there. The earth still orbited the sun. Beau was whining in the vehicle beside her. She would go back to work the day after Christmas. She would still have bad sinuses and her brothers would still tease her and she still wouldn't want to spend any more time with her sisters- in-law than she had in the past. But standing in a tree lot on Christmas Eve, she knew that the course of her life had changed. **end**