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The sheet of paper gently wafts down to the office floor sometime during the night of December 19, and is walked over by at least three people before Dexter scoops it up, dusts it off, and hands it to her with his latest blood analysis.
"Merry Christmas," he says, and disappears.
She can never quite tell when he's being serious.
It's a list, handwritten, and apparently faxed from the 19th century or whenever people actually unironically used fax machines. A shopping list. If it wasn't signed "Love, Frank", she'd have shredded the fucking thing then and there.
She's a lieutenant now, and it isn't as though all the serial killers and crazies go skiing in Colorado for the holiday. She's fucking busy. Reports, performance reviews... She barely has time to eat lunch, let alone do Frank Lundy's shopping for him.
She's so busy that she only has time to rant about this dismal state of affairs while simultaneously making coffee and signing off on a DNA trace analysis report from Masuka.
"Wait, Lundy's coming for Christmas?" Vince says, suddenly eager.
Dexter pokes his head around the corner. Ears like a fucking bat. "Uh, Deb? Is he going to be cooking? Because I know Harrison would just love a real Christmas dinner this year..."
Deb takes a gulp of coffee as the realization slowly dawns that she may just have missed out on two very important messages conveyed by this immensely irritating fax: one, that Frank Lundy, her long-distance boyfriend of the past two years, is coming to Miami for Christmas, and two, that he's going to cook for her.
"Fuck," she says with conviction. "I need someone who knows what a squash is. And much, much stronger coffee."
***
It's a genuine Christmas miracle that she gets everything done by the 24th, but LaGuerta stays off her back, Mike is a report-writing genius, and Quinn seems to be on some kind of personal mission to clear cases from the board.
"I should have minions to do this," she'd bitched to Batista when they finished a day's canvassing and stopped by the nearest market with her list. "What the fuck are the uniforms for, anyway?"
Still, by the time Frank's flight comes in on the morning of Christmas Eve, she has a kitchen packed full enough to feed a small army, her desk is almost clear, and, barring disasters, she has the entire weekend to find some Christmas spirit.
Joy to the fucking world.
"I missed you," Frank murmurs into her neck, arms wrapped around her as they stand on the airport concourse, swarmed around by hundreds of other travelers heading home for the holidays. "Lieutenant Morgan. Nice jacket."
Every time he's gone, she just about manages to convince herself that she doesn’t really need him around, and every time he comes back all she wants to do is hug him for days. "I'll be fucking High Commissioner by Spring Break. Retired Special Agent Lundy. Or is it Professor now?"
"How about Frank?"
"Frank." She slips her hand into his, smirking as he picks up his case. "I dunno. Seems kind of weird."
The plans they make on the drive back to her beachside apartment seem good and sensible, even with his eyes on her the way they are, even with his fingers lightly brushing her cheek when they stop at traffic lights and talk about nothing in particular. He'll cook first, and she'll catch up on some email. If they go to bed now they'll never get up, and then it'll be tomorrow and they'll have guests but no food, and they'll all wind up at KFC…
At least, these plans seem good and sensible right up until the point she unlocks her front door, and Frank says "Debra…" and she knows her heart will break if she has to go one more second without kissing him.
***
The sun has gone down by the time she wakes up, blankets tangled around her feet, discarded clothing still on the floor where they’d left it hours before. As she pulls one of Frank's shirts out of his suitcase and throws it on, she decides it must be the longest she's slept in months, probably since the last time he was here.
There's music coming from the kitchen, mingled with scents of fruit and meat, and when she steps out of the bedroom, Frank's standing there with a glass of wine and flour in his hair.
"This stuff's pretty good," he says with a grin, offering her the glass.
It is pretty good, but she can't take much credit for it – Angel had helped her out on that one. "What is this, drunk baking?"
"Oh, not even close. I've finished most of it. A few things to do tomorrow, but I think there'll be more than enough for four of us, especially since one of us is a toddler, and even he probably eats more than you do. I'll have to start earlier next year, though."
"Next year?" She remembers once hanging on every sentence of his that even used the future tense to refer to their relationship.
He slips an arm around her waist and pulls her close. "Mm hmm," he says with a kiss. "I'm thinking of keeping you around, Morgan."
He's a lot less tense than he used to be, even with the scars from a bullet wound she can still feel through his t-shirt. Maybe it's just the wine, maybe all these nostalgic Christmas aromas in the air, but the way he kisses her now, it's as though he'll never leave, and nothing will ever come between them again.
"Fuck." It's a lie. It's always a lie. But she grabs fistfuls of his shirt and pulls, because he's here now, every smiling inch of him, and she doesn't know any other sixty-somethings who look better naked.
"Debra… Wait." He lets her tug off his shirt, but then he steps away, pushing a plate of tarts that smell of raisins and cinnamon between them. "There's something I have to do first… But try one of these and tell me what you think. Trust me, you're going to need the calories."
She's getting pastry crumbs on the couch, trying to figure out if she should be insulted or shivering with anticipation, when he comes back out of the bedroom with things that look very much like...
"Christmas stockings?" Maybe it's true that men revert to childhood when they get to a certain age. "Seriously?"
"Well, how else are you going to get presents from Santa?" He looks around, presumably vexed by the lack of a fireplace, before tacking them up between artwork and an old family photo.
Deb finishes off the wine. She's probably going to need it. "Frank, if there's a fucking fat dude with a beard breaking into houses all night, I'd have heard something about it by now."
“I don’t know…” Frank straightens one of the stockings, which has been decorated with white faux fur and a particularly pleased-looking snowman. “I’ve been tracking him for years. Cities all over America, throughout the world, even. He goes by many names, and his M.O. may change slightly, but he’s still the same man.” A dramatic sigh. “If only the Bureau would believe me.”
She punches him right in his scarred shoulder for that. “Fuck you. If fucking only Trinity just went around leaving ugly reindeer sweaters for people. Fuck.”
But his arms are around her before she can say another word, lifting her six inches off the floor. “Debra,” he says, sincere as ever. “I’m not dead. I’m not dying. Nothing’s going to happen to me. Okay?”
He’s been saying those same three phrases for two damn years, ever since the parking lot, ever since she saw blood pooling around him and thought… She shakes off the chill of the memory and clasps her hands behind his neck, leaning in to kiss him. "Okay."
This is maybe the one day of the year she finds the Christmas pop songs on the radio endearing rather than irritating. Romantic, even. "Come on," she says, fingers curling into his as he sets her back onto the floor. "Let's go back to bed."
"Just a second. I have to check the oven, and..." She wants him so badly to laugh and agree and just come, wants his body over hers under layers of blankets so warm they'll be sweating. But she sees the hesitation in his eyes and the feeling of dread comes back. "Listen, Debra… I wanted to do this tomorrow, but Dexter and Harrison will be here, so…"
"What?"
His hands are warm on her shoulders. "It's good. I promise it's good. You know Quantico's great. It's fun. It's meaningful. But it's hundreds of miles away from you. So a few weeks ago I put in a transfer request to see if I could work down here as some kind of field office consultant... And it was turned down."
She stubs her toe into the carpet. "Not really seeing the good here."
"It was turned down," he repeats, patiently. "So I quit."
She's almost ready to hit him again. "You quit? You fucking love that job. And you fucking hate Miami, if you'd forgotten…"
"Debra. The first time I got on that plane to Oregon I knew what an idiot I was before the plane even got off the ground. And I feel the same way every time I leave you now. I've had my career. I've caught a lot of bad guys. But now I want to be with you. If you'll have me."
"Jesus… you know I'm barely even here." She angrily pushes hair out of her eyes. "You gave up your job just to see me for ten minutes a day when I'm probably shit tired and pissed at the entire world and…"
Only she could get so pissed at him for being so nice to her, and only he could take it all with a smile. "I love you. But if it's too much, I don't have to move in right away. I could get an apartment. I know this is a lot to take in. I don't want to impose."
"You don't want to impose?" Her hands go to cup his face now, as she looks into those earnest green-brown eyes and can't help but laugh. "Sometimes, Frank, you're the stupidest man in the entire world."
"I try."
"And the sweetest."
She's really, really missed kissing him over the last few months, really missed having him here, naked skin against naked skin. And now... he might be here every night when she finally crashes through the door, weighed down by files and office politics, might be making her dinner while Chopin plays on the radio, might take her in his arms and tell her everything will be just fine…
Debra stands on tiptoes to kiss the tip of his nose. “Those tarts are really fucking good, you know.”
“I know.”
"I bet you taste better."
He's still gaping at that, eyes wide, when she grabs his wrist and hauls him back into the bedroom.
She's already received the best Christmas present she would never have thought to ask for, but his gift is just getting started.