All I Want For Christmas...

By ShadowStar

A Story for the Christmas Challenge


Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine!  But the PTB can have my
PEZ collection for them!  <bg>  My thanks to Stacy for beta reading. 
Permission given to archive at both FKfanfic archives, the FTP
archive, and at Stacy's site.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Nat smiled coyly at the officers in front of her as she licked her
way up and down a candy cane, occasionally sticking the long end in
her mouth and swirling her tongue around the tip. Nick watched her
and frowned as more and more officers crowded around his Natalie,
trying to ply her with hot chocolate and cider.  He groaned, and
pulled the collar of the Santa suit that Captain Stonetree had conned
him into wearing for the children away from his throat.  Luckily, the
children were long gone, so he'd been able to dispense with the itchy
beard. 

Nick sat near his desk in the precinct, watching miserably as
officers flirted with Natalie.  They'd been dating pretty regularly,
but he'd said something to make her mad, and she'd asked for more
space.  He sighed, and rubbed his hand across his face.  He needed
her!  Didn't she see that she was everything to him?  He needed her
as most men need air... but he wasn't most men.  His world would be a
much darker, lonelier place without her in it.  He frowned as
Sergeant MacIntyre leaned over and kissed his Natalie on the cheek.

"Mine," Nick growled softly.  He stood, stalked towards her, but
before he could reach her, the damn live reindeer that some idiot had
brought in for the kids to pet gave him a shove, forcing him to
stumble forward and put his arms around her.  He made the best of it,
and pulled her under some nearby mistletoe that some other joker had
placed in the middle of the precinct.  Amber flecks glowed in his
eyes, drawing forth matching bubbles in Nat's.  He leaned down and
captured her lips with his.  The kiss began as a gentle exploration
of quasi-familiar territory, but soon became harder, more possessive,
as if to mimic his single utterance minutes before.

He could hear bells ringing in the background, and some distant part
of his brain said that it was Christmas Carols playing due to the
fact that that the precinct Christmas party was still going on in
full swing around them.

Nat broke off the kiss, gasping for air.  "Mine," she whispered
huskily before she stood on her toes to kiss him again.  

He smiled to himself; after all, their argument had been about his
willingness to take their relationship public.  Thoughts clamored in
his head about how they *still* shouldn't be doing this in a public
place like the precinct, lest his Beast come out of hiding and
complete the half-finished process of making her belong to him for
eternity.  These thoughts, however, were banished by the soft feel of
the woman he loved so completely in his arms, and the way she tasted
of sunlight, of oranges, of cinnamon, and a host of other things only
half-remembered from his mortality.

He ended the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers.  "I love
you," he whispered.  "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said as she pushed back a lock of his blond hair.

"I had to go ask LaCroix if I could have what I wanted for
Christmas," he explained quietly.

"And what is that?" she asked, pulling back slightly to look at him.

"You," was his simple answer.  Nick dropped to one knee and pulled a
ring out of his pocket.  "Natalie Anne Lambert, I love you.  Will you
spend your eternity with me?"

Nat looked at him, smiled, and nodded wordlessly.  "Yes," she said,
finally.

Nick slid the ring on her finger, stood, swept her into his arms,
and kissed her.  The entire precinct burst into applause.  "It's
about damn time," Stonetree said, "it's about *damn* time."

End.