Disclaimer: I do not own Moonlight or any of its characters.
Rated: G
Characters: Mick, Beth and my OC BJ, who is their adopted daughter.
A/N: This is loosely related to Christmas Memories and BJ's Christmas Past. In those stories I said that Beth gave Mick the Sherlock Holmes Christmas ornament when they were dating. For the purposes of this story, I took a little artistic license and set that scene after Sleeping Beauty but before Love Lasts Forever.
Many thanks to my beta and sounding board, Moonlighter!
Sherlock’s First Christmas
Beth carefully removed the tissue paper that had been used to wrap the ornament, slowly revealing the pink ball and the words “Baby’s First Christmas.” She smiled to herself remembering the first time she hung it on the tree. Mick had handed it to her to open right after she had opened the scroll that was BJ’s final adoption certificate. As she hung it on the tree, she glanced through the branches at teenaged BJ decorating the other side of the tree. How did the years fly by so fast? Beth wondered. She sighed and turned back to the box of ornaments.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” Beth replied as she reached into the box.
“Tell me about when you gave this to Dad for Christmas.” Beth looked up to see BJ holding the Sherlock Holmes ornament and thought back to when she bought it many years before…
Seeing what had happened to Sarah Whitley scared Beth. No doubt about it. Her fantasy of running off with Mick and becoming his forever, in every sense of the word, came screeching to a halt when faced with the reality of a turning gone bad. She knew she had disappointed Mick by not staying in New York with him when he asked, but she was so confused that she had to put some distance between them to figure things out. Being with Josh might not be as exciting as being with Mick, but at the time it certainly seemed safer.
And so she returned to Josh. Apologized. Settled back into the routine. The boring routine, she reminded herself. She found herself going through the motions, wondering all the time how Mick was doing. She knew she wasn’t being fair to Josh, but she didn’t want to break up with him right before Christmas! She figured she could to it later, after the holidays. There would be plenty of time.
She spotted the Sherlock Holmes ornament when she was out gift shopping for Maureen and Marissa. She debated only a few minutes before buying it for Mick. She told herself it was only an ornament, after all. And he was her “go to” investigator when she needed one. She was just being friendly.
“Mom?” Beth looked up, startled, having been lost in thought. “You told me before that you and Daddy were dating when you bought this for him.”
“Well,” Beth demurred. “Not quite dating. Yet. We had worked on several investigations together and I knew I was falling for him. But I was, um, technically seeing someone else.”
“Mother!” BJ admonished.
“Now, now… it was only an ornament. And we were friends! And when I saw it I thought it would be so cute to give to him. You know, a ‘PI for a PI’.”
BJ groaned. “Oh right. I remember you told me about that corny tag you wrote.”
As innocent as Beth pretended it to be, she kept the gift hidden from Josh. The night of the District Attorney’s Christmas party, Beth told Josh she would take a cab and meet him there so he didn’t have to come pick her up. She had the cab stop by Mick’s place first. It was cold and rainy out and the rhythmic thumping of the cab’s windshield wipers matched the rapid beating of her heart. She looked at the tag she wrote: “A PI for my PI.” What had she been thinking? He’d laugh. Or be embarrassed. Why didn’t she just say “To Mick from Beth”? Well, too late now. The cab had pulled up to Mick’s building and she asked the driver to wait for her. Dodging the rain drops she ran into Mick’s building and took the elevator to the top floor.
She hadn’t seen him since she left New York. She was so nervous she contemplated just leaving the gift bag outside his door. “It’s just an ornament,” she told herself as she walked down the hall to his door. “It’s Christmas and he’s a friend, and you give gifts to friends at Christmas.” She reached his door but before she could either knock or leave the present and run (she still hadn’t decided) the door opened and there stood Mick.
“Beth! Hello, please come in,” he said, somewhat nervously Beth thought. He stood aside waiting for her to enter, but she didn’t move.
“I…I can’t stay. I’m on my way to meet – I mean I’m on my way to an office party and I have a cab waiting but I wanted to drop this off to you.” She held out the bag. “Merry Christmas, Mick!” He took the gift bag and then just stood there, stunned. Beth hurried back down the hall and looked back, giving him a quick smile as she entered the waiting elevator.
Beth hung another ornament on the tree as she contemplated how much to share with her daughter. “After I bought it however, I started having second thoughts about giving it to him. On the way to an office Christmas party I had the taxi cab stop at Dad’s apartment. I was seriously considering just leaving it outside his door, but with his vampire senses he knew I was there and opened the door before I could make up my mind! I got so flustered I pretty much just said ‘here’, thrust the gift bag into his hand and ran back down the hallway.”
BJ laughed. “It’s hard to imagine a time when you two weren’t joined at the hip,” she said and Beth chuckled. “So what did Daddy do then?” BJ asked.
“At first I just stood in the doorway somewhat dumbfounded, staring down the empty hallway.” Beth and BJ turned to see Mick enter the room. “My ‘perpetual vampire coolness’ failed me at that moment.” He gave Beth a kiss on her cheek. “Then I went into the loft, sat down and opened the gift bag. When I saw the tag and the Sherlock ornament, I got a big goofy grin on my face!” He was laughing.
He remembered nervously opening the bag. He couldn’t believe Beth had gotten him a Christmas present. After she left New York City ‘to make things right with Josh’ they hadn’t seen each other, and he hadn’t really expected to. He read the gift tag, momentarily puzzled until he gently tore away the tissue paper. A Christmas ornament of Sherlock Holmes! He loved it! But where would he put it?
“Then I wondered where to put it. I didn’t have any kind of tree, so I went right out and bought a small artificial tree that would fit on my table. I hung up that one ornament, sat back, and admired it.”
“Why didn’t you have a Christmas tree?” BJ asked her father.
Mick hadn’t been expecting that question. After the trauma of his wedding night and the years of turmoil that followed, he had lost his faith. The bedrock of religion he had been brought up with and that had seen him through his war years had failed him when he was turned. At least it seemed that way to him at the time. Besides, the holidays just reminded him that another year of undead existence had passed. He couldn’t really avoid it wherever he went in the city, but he certainly didn’t have to have reminders in his own home.
Mick shrugged. “Christmas just reminded me of happier times, I guess. And that yet another year had passed.”
Beth stepped next to her husband and gave him a hug. “Your father was kind of an ‘anti-vampire’ vampire for a long time,” she said. “Until he met me, of course,” she added with a sly grin.
“Until I met you,” Mick said and pulled Beth into a long kiss.
“Hey you two, get a room!” BJ told them as she rolled her eyes. They pulled apart laughing. “So you bought a tree and just put that one ornament on it? Didn’t it look, you know, stupid?”
Mick put the tree he bought on the table near the fireplace and hung the Sherlock Holmes ornament in the middle, watching the reflection of the flames shimmer on the ornament. The fact that Beth had bought it for him and called him “my PI” warmed him through and through. Perhaps there was a spark of something there after all? He knew seeing Sarah Whitley had frightened her. Maybe she was having a change of heart? As he stared at the ornament he thought about Beth and entertained the idea that there could be something between them.
“Well? Didn’t it?” BJ asked again.
Mick chuckled. “Maybe to other people, but not to me.”
There was more to the story that Mick didn’t share. The tag on the Sherlock Holmes ornament had the price removed, but the name of the store was still visible. He went there the next day to look around and was delighted to find a matching Dr. Watson ornament. He bought it and hung it on his little tree at home. The matched pair reminded him how Beth once said they made “a pretty good team.” He hoped that would be true again. Many times again. After Christmas he carefully wrapped up the Dr. Watson ornament, hoping to give it to Beth the next year. Assuming there was a ‘next year’ for them.
“And then you gave Mom the matching Dr. Watson ornament the next year?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Mick nodded.
“How can something so corny be so romantic at the same time?” BJ sighed. She suddenly looked at her parents. “You were officially dating by then, right?”
Beth and Mick laughed. “Yes, we were “official” by then,” Beth said as she and BJ watched Mick place the angel on the top of the tree. Mick stood back, an arm around each of his girls, admiring their work.
“Merry Christmas!” he said as he gave each of them a kiss.
Later that night, after BJ had gone to bed, Mick and Beth sat nestled together on the sofa drinking a glass of wine and looking at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. Mick noticed Beth was unusually quiet. “What’s on your mind?” he asked her.
She leaned her head against his chest and sighed. “Oh, I was just remembering back to when I bought that Sherlock Holmes ornament for you. It seems so long ago now.”
“It was a long time ago, Beth,” Mick chuckled. “But I know what you mean. BJ’s questions got me thinking back to those days, too.” He took a sip of his wine. “Were you really thinking about just leaving it outside my door and running away?” Beth nodded sheepishly. “You never told me that before.”
“Well, that was a difficult time for me. I felt torn between my feelings for you and my feelings for Josh. And then there was the whole Sarah Whitley revelation. It was… complicated,” she said with a smile.
“There’s something I never told you before, too.”
Beth turned her head to look up at him. “Really?”
“The Watson ornament? I bought it the very next day.”
“What?!”
“Yep,” Mick nodded. “I saw the name of the store on the tag of the Sherlock ornament and I went there the next day, saw the matching Dr. Watson, and bought it. So my little tree had two ornaments on it that year. They reminded me of us, a ‘pretty good team’ like you had said. After Christmas I carefully wrapped it up and saved it to give to you the next year. Hoping there would be a next year for us.”
Beth smiled and rested her head back on Mick’s chest. “I’m glad you did that. It always struck me as a little sad that you had a tree with only one ornament on it. I’m just surprised you never told me that before now.” She sat quietly for a minute. “So what would you have done if there hadn't been an ‘us’ the following year?”
“Surely you don’t believe that would have happened!” Mick chided her and Beth giggled. Then he turned serious again. “But I had already decided that if we weren’t together the next Christmas, I would put up my little tree and my two ornaments anyway. To remind me of you and when you gave it to me and our short time together. That once upon a time, we made a pretty good team. And I decided I would do it again the next Christmas and the next one and the one after that. Because that’s how much I loved you and I never wanted to forget.” He kissed the top of her head as Beth brushed a tear from her cheek.
They sat in a comfortable silence within each other’s arms. Then Beth spoke up. “You know, BJ was certainly right about one thing.”
“Hmm? What’s that?” Mick asked.
“It is hard to believe there was ever a time when we weren’t together.” They looked at each other and saw their love reflected in each other’s eyes. They smiled and shared a tender kiss.
“Merry Christmas, Beth.”
“Merry Christmas, Mick.”
The End
I'm all misty-eyed. 
Thank you! 
Thanks so much, MLC 
