"Morning, Jim!" Blair's eyes were shining with the eagerness of a three year old. "Open it!"

Ellison was surprised to wake up to the smell of a fully-cooked breakfast and the sight of Blair in his PJs bouncing around yelling for him to get up and eat so they could open presents.

He stared at the oddly-wrapped package Blair thrust at him and laughed slightly. "I'm afraid to."

Blair aimed a playful slap at his arm. "Open it. Hurry, so I can open one of mine!"

"You can open yours whenever you want," Jim groused. "These weird traditions of yours-"

"No, man. We have to take turns. Now stop moaning and open it before I do it for you."

Jim grabbed the present out of his hands, looking offended at the very thought. "You wouldn't dare," he sniffed. Slowly, he brought the package down and started peeling the wrapping paper off. It only took a second for Blair's urges and his own enthusiasm to go to his hands, and he ripped the paper off recklessly.

"That's more like it!" Blair laughed.

Jim held aloft the gift inside the paper, and his smile faded into a look of awe. It was a jaguar, a black statue. He couldn't have named the smooth stone it was made of if he tried. The sleek body and torso were detailed with the smoothly rippling muscles of a cat in mid-air. The statue itself was cool to the touch, and faintly translucent. He could see faint reflections of the light from the other side, making it seem to glow with a spirit all its own.

"Hey? Hey, Jim? You zoning on me?" Blair's voice suddenly reached his ears, full of concern.

Jim shook his head simply, staring at the statue. The face, the form of the body- Blair had found his spirit guide, he had captured it perfectly. "God. Blair, this is..." Too much. Perfect. Unexpectedly affecting.

Blair turned red, flashing his almost-shy smile. "You like it?"

"Where on earth did you find it?" Jim's eyes stayed locked on the jaquar.

He shrugged modestly. "I ran across an old catalogue of a dig in Belize and saw that. I had to pull a few strings and deal with a pretty stubborn collector, but..." another careless shrug. "No problem."

No problem. Christ, the thing must have cost a fortune, must have taken weeks to....

Jim felt a tightening in his throat. He pulled his eyes away from the cat finally, blinking too-bright eyes at his roommate. "It's incredible," he breathed out, unable to find any other words.

"Good, I'm glad you like it. I knew the second I saw it in that catalogue...it fit you, Jim. Somehow it seemed to fit." He gazed at the statue in Jim's hand for a minute. "Of course, I thought it was gonna be bigger..."

Jim shook his head, reaching out suddenly and squeezing his surprised Guide in a tight hug. "It's perfect the way it is," God, he had nowhere good enough to put this. What was he going to do with it?

Blair soaked up Jim's gratitude for another minute, then his own impatience grew. "My turn!" he demanded suddenly.

Jim set the jaguar carefully on the coffee table and looked at it for another reverent moment before Blair's words sunk in. "Oh, no, Chief. I don't have anything that can compare to this,"

Blair didn't believe it for a second. "Come on, Jim. You have to pick out my first one."

"This is our third Christmas together, Chief. I know your strange little customs by now." His eyes were scanning the small pile of neatly wrapped gifts- a contrast to Blair's pile, which mostly consisted of more strange shapes in ackward bundles. Geez, if he had any more presents like that first one....Finally, Jim's eye caught on a larger box, and he remembered exactly what he's wrapped in there. A relieved smile crossed his face. "You know, I did get something that could almost equal that." He pulled the box down and tossed it lightly to Blair.

Blair caught it easily, but had to strain to hold it. "This thing is heavy! What's in here?"

"Open it, Mr. Impatient," Jim replied with a grin.

Blair set the box on the floor, and flinched when a light sound like broken glass seemed to come from inside. "Oh, no,"

Jim grinned happily. "Nothing's broken. It's supposed to sound like that. Just open it," He could feel his impatience growing- he couldn't wait to see Blair's reaction to this one.

Intrigued, Blair clawed at the paper, ripping it off and tossing it to the side. He groaned when he saw the plain box and layers of tape sealing it. "We have to have a talk about your wrapping techniques someday," he said with a sigh, pulling out his small swiss army knife.

Jim had just opened his mouth to reply, when the telephone rang shrilly. He got up from his seat on the floor quickly, going over to the phone. "Santa's workshop, head Elf speaking. We don't do returns." He shrugged at Blair's quiet giggle.

There was silence on the other line.

"Hello?" Jim broke the silence after a moment. He turned up the dial on his hearing, but there wasn't a sound from the other line, not even a heartbeat. "Huh." He hung up slowly.

"What was it?"

Jim glanced over at Blair, hoping to see his face as he opened Jim's first gift. The kid just sat there looking up at Jim, present forgotten, his eyes wide and curious. "Nothing. No one there."

"Strange." Blair blinked, then shrugged. "Oh, well," Attention-span ever short, he immediately went back to opening the present.

Jim grinned at the expression on his face when he got the box open.

Blair was as close to awe as Jim had been earlier. "Is this...Jim, is this real?"

Ellison chuckled. "Yep,"

Blair reached in and lifted out the headpiece carefully. It was ancient, a large wooden face with ornate decorations covering it, including thousands of small golden shards that made a light chiming sound as they bounced off each other. "Wow," Blair breathed quietly, his eyes round.

Jim beamed. All the trouble it had taken him to get that thing, it was worth it to see the kid's reaction. "You like?"

"Wow." Blair replied, looking up at Jim. "How did you find this?"

"Long story, boring details." Jim shrugged.

"Uh huh," Blair looked dubious, but he couldn't hold the expression, his gaze going back to the ornately carved wood. "Wow," he said again after a moment.

Jim laughed. "You're repeated yourself, Chief."

Blair nodded. "I know, man. Wow."

"Alright, alright. I'm glad you like it. Now it's my turn again, right?"

Fortunately, the other presents were slightly less awe-inspiring, and they got through them more quickly. Once they'd handled that one tradition, they set out to make the huge lunch Blair had requested.

Not just once did Jim find himself suddenly moved to stop what he was doing and look around in happiness. This was what Christmas was all about- spending time with the people that mean the most to you, laughing, just being together. No threats from work, no psychos with guns, neither of them going into or coming out of the hospital.

When they were cleaning up after lunch, Blair went to his room and put on a tape of Christmas carols, and he and Jim set out to clean the loft, bellowing the words of the old songs in two different keys.

From under the blaring music and Blair's voice, Jim heard the phone ring. He tried not to frown. "Chief. Phone's ringing," he called, having to shout over the music.

Blair stopped his fa-la-las and his dancing only long enough to shoot Jim a look. "That's why we have an answering machine, man."

Jim laughed, and obediently went back to the dishes. He could faintly hear Blair's recorded voice as the machine picked up, and as a quick test of his own abilities, he concentrated on filtering out the loudest sounds around him- Blair and the music, and listened in on the message.

It was only a second later that he yanked his hands from the dishwater and grabbed the hand towel. "Sandburg, turn the music off."

Blair poked his head into the kitchen, stuck his tongue out at the Sentinel in refusal and went on singing into his broom.

"Blair! Turn the damn music off, now!" Jim raced into the living room up to the phone and picked it up, just in time for the person to hang up. "Shit,"

The music cut off abruptly a second later, and Blair came in quickly. "What is it, man, what's wrong?"

Jim pressed rewind quickly. "I think that was your girlfriend."

"Angie?" Blair grinned. "Oh, yeah. She was supposed to call. She's not really my girlfriend, though, Jim. I think we're gonna be-" He stopped as he saw the frown on Jim's face. "What's wrong?"

Jim pressed play silently.

After a second, a female voice, whispering and frightened, sounded in the now-quiet loft. "Blair? Are you there?" She sounded close to tears. "Please pick up the phone, Blair. I don't know who else to call." There was a pause, and a muffled sob. "Blair?" Once more, weakly, and then a click as she gave up.

Blair was pale. "That was Angie," he acknowledged, picking up the phone and dialing hurriedly. After a long minute he looked up at Jim. "She's not answering her phone," he said, his voice reflecting his fear.

Jim frowned. "Alright, calm down. Don't start worrying until we know something happened."

"Of course something happened. Did you hear her? I've never heard her sound like that," Blair dialed her number again, and hung up forcefully after a moment. "Damn it! Where is she?"

"Does she have a cell phone?"

"No," Blair paced a couple of steps, his eyes wild. "She sounded scared. Jim, we've got to find out what's wrong,"

"Whoa, Blair, there's nothing we can do until we know where she is."

"Call Simon, call the station," Blair wheeled to face him.

"And say what?" Jim saw the expression on his friend's face and picked up the phone, pressing the speed dial for Simon's office.

"Captain Banks," Simon answered after the second ring.

"Simon. Jim."

"Ellison, you're off today, take the hint."

"Simon...um, something's wrong."

"What? How the hell can you get in trouble on Christmas morning? Where are you, Jim?"

"The loft."

"Jesus. A holiday, you haven't even left your apartment, and something's wrong?"

"We got a call from a friend of Blair's. I think she's in some kind of trouble."

Simon paused. "Well, there's got to be a reason you aren't checking it out yourselves."

"We don't know where she is." Jim quickly explained the entire situation.

Simon sighed audibly. "There's just not much we can do. I'll send a couple of uniforms to her apartment, but that's it. If you hear something else, let us know. I'll keep my ears open. Angela Mallory, right?"

Jim could hear the scratch of a pen on paper as Simon wrote the name. "Right. Thanks, Simon." He hung up quickly.

Blair stopped his pacing. "Well?"

"He's going to send some officers to her apartment, but there's not much else he can do."

Blair breathed out loudly.

"Sandburg, relax. We really don't know that anything's wrong. And there's nothing you can do now anyway."

Blair nodded shakily. "I've got a bad feeling, Jim."

"I know," Ellison picked up the dish towel he had tossed on the couch. "Alright, forget about it for now. Just keep doing what you were doing."

Blair went without a word to where he'd dropped his broom, and Jim went just as quietly back into the kitchen. The music stayed off, Jim noted with a frown, and the two men finished their cleaning in silence.

Simon didn't regret his decision to work on Christmas. He got Daryl on Christmas Eve, so Daryl's mother got him Christmas day, and Simon had magnanimously agreed to come in and let a couple of junior officers off to be with their own families. And the day had started out relatively peacefully. There were the typical signs of holiday madness- drunks getting picked up and brought in, lonely, suicidal people talked off of ledges, etc. But for Major Crimes it was a calm day.

Of course, Sandburg wasn't helping matters. Ever since Jim had called that morning, it seemed the Observer was on the line every half an hour, asking about that girlfriend of his, worrying Simon into a serious bad mood. He knew what hell it had to be for the young man, of course, to spend the holiday worried about a friend, wondering what was happening, helpless to stop it....

Ughh. Simon definitely needed cheering up. Maybe he'd go hunt down some unfortunate rookies working the hell shift and force them to entertain him with some carols.

Of course, right when he developed a battle plan for the next few minutes, the phone rang.

"Banks."

"Simon, Blake here."

"What's up?" John Blake was a good man- worked in a different department every day, it seemed, today stuck in receptionist duty at the front desk of the building.

"Angela Mallory, you said keep an ear open?"

"Uh huh. Hear something?"

"She walked in about ten minutes ago."

"Here?" Simon raised his eyebrows. "She looking for Sandburg?"

"Um, no. She...uh, well, she...."

"Blake."

The other man stopped stalling and explained the situation quickly. Simon grew grave, straightening up in his desk and letting out a few choice words when Blake finished. "Alright, let me call Blair, I'll be down in a minute." He hung up, stared at the phone for a minute, then picked it up again with another choice word.

He listened to the ringing on the other line, reflecting on what a shitty holiday this was turning out to be.

Sandburg's voice came blurting into the phone after the second ring. "Yeah, hello?"

"Sandburg-"

"Simon! Did you hear something?"

Simon winced at the blankly hopeful tone in the kid's voice. "Yeah. The front desk just called up. Miss Mallory is here, she just came in."

"She's at the station? Why? What happened?"

"Um..." No, this definitely wasn't an over-the-phone kind of conversation. "Why don't you come on over here, Blair. I can fill you in when you get here."

The very gentleness in Simon's tone seemed to alert Blair more than anything. "Oh, God. Alright, Simon, we'll be right there."

The phone was hung up quickly, and Simon stood.

Damn, but this day was going downhill.

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