DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CLOSER OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS - I'M JUST PLAYING WITH THEM.

AUTHOR NOTE: This is a present for ddagent, who requested some Flynn/Brenda lovin' on her Christmas wish-list. It's a sort of (very short) seasonal riff on the 'Nemesis' series, though not necessarily part of it.

Interlude

The air-conditioning has been belching out arctic jets for two days. It is a phenomenon particular to her office: the Murder Room is unaffected. If anything it seems warmer in there than usual. A faintly tropical atmosphere, as though to make a mockery of the perpetual winter of her designated space. She shivers, drawing the thin cardigan closer around her shoulders. The chill seems to have seeped into her bones; some nights it stays with her, even when she's at home and her husband's arms hold her; some nights she thinks that she'll never get warm again.

The usual lights have been draped around the Murder Room. And as usual she thinks it an odd thing to do - to make festive a place that is devoted to analysing the ugliest, the most depraved aspects of human existence. Yet, each year, they string up the lights, decorate their desks with trees and tinsel - even the most hardened of them. Sometimes - often - she wonders how they find the spirit for it.

But if they didn't it would be the end of everything - for her, even if not for them.

The lights glow invitingly, blue, green, pink, centred around Tao's desk - always the most sentimental of them - and she rises, pulled towards them. The icy blasts are giving her a crick in her neck and she needs to move. She pulls open her door and is struck by the silence, the stillness. There is no-one. Then a figure rounds the corner by the vending machines, blocking for a moment what little light there is from the corridor, then stops suddenly. Flynn looks as startled as she and then relaxes, smiles. Strange how something so simple can change his face so completely.

'Hey, Chief.'

'Lieutenant.' She looks around the deserted squad room curiously. 'Where is everyone?'

'Tao and Sanchez are down at the print shed. Gabriel's still over at Robbery-Homicide. Provenza's in with Pope-'

She stiffens. 'With Pope?

He grins. Heartless. 'Relax, Chief, it's something to do with his pension. I don't know, they found out he doesn't have one or something. As for everyone else' -he rolls his eyes- 'who knows.' Who cares, seems to be the unspoken coda. He stands, feet apart, leaning back slightly, the way police do the world over. He looks grounded; she envies that - feeling so often as though she'll simply float away.

Flynn's eyes move away from her face, straying upwards again and that familiar irrepressible amusement steals across his features. Brenda looks up, sees the tired bunch of greenery dotted with shrivelled white berries.

'Oh, for heaven's sakes...' She looks down, slowly, meeting his gaze and reminds herself that she trusts him. 'Did you put that there, Lieutenant?'

'Nothing to do with me.' His head tilts and the amusement deepens. 'Not that I haven't thought about it.'

She narrows her eyes but can't quite stop her lips from twitching. He can always make her laugh, even when she doesn't want him to.

'I suppose you expect me to kiss you now.'

He shakes his head. 'You've got it all wrong, Chief. It's the person who's under the mistletoe who gets kissed.'

'Oh.'

They watch each other and she doesn't move. One corner of his mouth curves.

'Merry Christmas, Chief.'

His hands come to rest on her shoulders, a light pressure, and she feels a sudden spear of- Excitement, perhaps. The world becomes a blur of neon strips, the garish Christmas lights and the sombre blue of his suit. She catches a light, spicy, pleasant scent that she identifies as his aftershave. She feels his fingers curl around her shoulders and she thinks that she should stop this, stop him-

He kisses her forehead.

His lips are warm, firm, lingering against her skin.

And it would be so easy, she thinks, all she would have to do is move her head a very little. It could almost be accidental. And there would be no harm in it, no meaning to it, just two colleagues who respect and like each other sharing a chaste exchange.

She tilts her head back and catches his lips with hers.

There is the bitter taste of black coffee - he doesn't take much sugar, she thinks abstractedly - and then an unexpected sweetness. And there is nothing chaste in it; he ravages her mouth and she puts her arms around him, pulling him closer. His hands slide from her shoulders, cupping the back of her head, holding her like a vice.

Vice, virtue- Things that once seemed so clear have lost their definition. it isn't supposed to be like that, like this, but she can't stop it and she can't let go.

She leans into him.

She becomes achingly aware of the physicality of him: of how much taller than her he is - her head forced back at an unnatural angle; the strength of his hands; the hard muscles in his back bunching under her hands.

Warmth pulses through her, waves of it flushing her skin and setting her nerve endings tingling. She hears herself sigh in contentment and feels him smile against her lips.

Ebb and flow and then comes the subsidence, like the turning of the tide - the slowing of breath, calm. His fingers stroke her cheek. They release one another. Reluctantly. Her lips burn.

And for a few disconnected seconds she wonders if she imagined this. She stands in her doorway under the mistletoe and he stands in the passage, just like before. Except that he looks a little dazed and she can still taste bitter black coffee.

Noise intrudes into their small world - Tao, triumphant, back from the print shed, with Sanchez trailing behind him. The Latino almost looks like he's smiling. Tao talks at her, that technical lexicon that she doesn't understand even when she's paying attention. The words slide past, filtering in and out like-

She smiles to herself. Like waves. Still that. And she still feels warmed.

Brenda moves further into the Murder Room, then glances back and sees Flynn reach up, pull one of the wizened berries from the sad little bunch over her door and slip the tiny memento into his pocket.

FIN