"Now, Mr. Kringle," Ed said, sitting across from him in one of the small IR's off the bull pen, "if you don't tell me where you were last night, between nine-fifteen and nine-thirty, I don't really have a choice but to book you for the robbery and attempted murder."

"I understand there are people living in the neighborhood who have told you I was in Mr. Kwan's store, demanding money from him and then hitting him over the head with my cane?" Kringle asked, cocking his head to one side.

"Yes, that's what the witnesses say," Ed replied.

"But I was under the impression that stores such as Mr. Kwan's have video monitors, which record events such as this unfortunate experience?"

Ed narrowed his eyes at the guy. "And you know that the tape was removed from the machine. We've got no nice, little, convenient videotape of this assault. Eyewitnesses place you at the scene, within minutes of the crime. You say you didn't do it, and yet you can't tell me where you were, can't give me an alibi." Ed slapped the table in frustration. This interrogation wasn't going as well as he'd hoped. The man across the table from him wasn't the least bit intimidated, which had put a very bad crimp in Ed's technique.

Kringle leaned forward and held Ed with his eyes. They were grey blue, like the winter sky with an approaching snow storm. Ed mentally shook himself. "Detective Green," Kringle said sincerely, "as I told you the prior three times you have asked me, and as I told your partner, I was in Europe last night. This is my busiest time of year, though there really isn't any time that's quiet. Well, perhaps the month of January could be considered--"

Ed interrupted him with a loud snort. "You couldn't have been in Europe, as you say, and been found sleeping in a box in the alley this morning at eight o'clock!"

"Well, of course I could have. There are ways of traveling which don't require the usual time that the current state of jet transportation does. The problem is, Ed, you don't believe me."

Ed chuckled. "And why in the world should I believe you?"

"Because I am incapable of telling a lie." Kringle's forehead creased. "How would that be, for me to ask the children to always be truthful, yet I could lie with impunity? That hardly seems fair, or appropriate."

"Because you're Kris Kringle. Santa Claus. Father Christmas, and all that." Ed folded his arms and sat back in his chair.

The man across the table from him smiled and nodded. "Precisely, Ed. As I have always been, so am I still. As I was when you were a boy. As I am now, when your Christmas wishes are more complex... more important... harder to fulfill."

Ed's heart started to stutter-step, despite his own better judgment. "Look. We're supposed to be talking about Mr. Kwan with his head bashed in, comatose in the hospital. That's hardly a nice thing to do to someone four days before Christmas, Santa," he said sarcastically. He wanted to tell the man to stop calling him by his first name, but he didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing it was getting under his skin.

"You know, you never did ask for things that were easy," Kringle said a little wistfully. "I mean, if you can imagine how difficult it was when you wanted to return to your homeland for Christmas, to see the snow, play in the snowbanks, go sledding down Cooper's Hill...."

Ed's heart stopped completely.

Jack walked toward the twenty-seventh precinct, with his knit hat pulled low and gloved hands shoved down into his pockets. The walk was going to do him some good, he knew, even though it was damned cold out. Snow was beginning to fall, too. Not that he minded a walk in the snow, normally. He just couldn't believe that he was being called to the precinct to help Briscoe and Green figure out if they should charge some homeless man with robbery and attempted murder. He still wasn't quite sure what the problem was, precisely; why they needed an ADA. The suspect either was a suspect, or he wasn't. They had evidence, or they didn't. And since Abby had been given the afternoon off to do some Christmas shopping, it would be his call.

He absolutely was not going to dwell on the other reason he felt a bit snarky about going to the two-seven. Who he would be seeing. Who was driving him closer and closer to the edge with each passing encounter. The two of them had had another disagreement a few days previous, and though it wasn't anywhere near as heated as the usual disagreements he'd had over the years with cops, this one had gotten to him like none of the others. Argue with Logan, or Briscoe, or put up with Curtis's holier-than-thou attitude? No problem. Like water off a duck's back, it was that easy to let it go. He could move on without a second thought. But then again, Jack had not had the particular issue with those cops, or any others, that he had with Ed Green. None of them had a dimple that made Jack's brain cease functioning. None of them had the seeming ability to look right through him. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

Ed sat at his desk and shuffled papers around. He knew he wasn't doing anything but that. Moving papers from one pile to another. Pretending to look them over and make some decision or other about them, as he moved a piece here, and another there. He was not thinking about what the suspect had said to him. He was not thinking about the cold reality which had settled in his stomach upon hearing the words. His words, written when he was seven years old, on a piece of lined paper his mother had pulled out from her desk.

"Here," she'd said, "write to Santa, then, and ask him for what you want." He had known, even at the time, that she'd done it out of frustration because she'd been unable to think of anything else to help her homesick son. He wanted snow. Real snow. Falling all around him, piles of it to tromp through, build snow forts with, make snowballs to pummel his friends. And sled down Cooper's Hill in the nearby park. He wrote, and his mother put the letter in an envelope. He licked the stamp, which had a picture of a camel on it, and applied it with a pound of his fist. He never told either of his parents, or siblings, how much he had enjoyed pounding that camel. The letter had been mailed. He hadn't had a white Christmas that year, or the year after that, either.

As for what Ed was wishing this year, well, there was no way he was going to let Mr. Kringle say one more thing about it. No way. That was his business, and his business alone. He hadn't said a word about it to anyone, save a close friend. He certainly had not written a letter to Santa Claus about it. So the man had no earthly right to make comment. None.

"Detectives," came the voice over Ed's shoulder that he'd been waiting for, and dreading. He turned his head, as Lennie answered with "Counselor," and watched Jack McCoy stuff his hat into a coat pocket, pull off gloves, and finally meet his eyes. Ed nodded, but was unexpectedly tongue-tied. It didn't help that the other man had the seeming ability to look right through him. It didn't help that his hair was tousled, or that McCoy ran a hand through it, attempting to set it right. It didn't help at all. Ed's eyes were drawn to the hand. No, that didn't help. He sighed, and looked at the papers on his desk, instead.

Jack slipped his coat over the back of one of the chairs in the IR. "Okay," he said, aiming for congeniality with his tone, "what's the problem?"

Green was standing against a wall, across the room, with his arms folded. Briscoe glanced over a shoulder at him, and said, "Well, the problem is that there is no actual physical evidence to tie this guy in, but we've got three witnesses who place him at the scene. He's got no alibi to speak of, and I think he might be due for a trip to Bellevue. He tells us his name is Kris Kringle. My partner, however, believes the problem might be bigger than that." He glanced at Green, again. "Go ahead, Ed, you fill him in."

Green sighed a deep one, and Jack caught the look he was giving Briscoe, which surprised him. The two of them had always closed ranks, supported each other, ever since the first couple of months of their partnership. Jack hadn't always been sure he could rely on their support, in that he sometimes felt that they were not showing him the full extent of their professional disagreement. But a united front was what they had always presented to Jack. This was different.

"Well," Green said in a low voice, "I don't think he did it. I've talked to him, one on one, and I don't think he's the perp."

Briscoe let out a grunt. "There's a reason he doesn't think this is the guy. He thinks we've arrested Santa Claus."

"What?" Jack asked, unsure he'd heard Briscoe right. He looked at Green, who was now studying the floor with every bit of intensity Jack had come to expect from the man. Usually this intensity was focused on a case, however much Jack had wished it would be focused on him. "Did I understand you right? Santa Claus as in... Santa Claus? What, he works in a mall or something? Salvation Army? That's why he uses the name?"

"Oh, no," Briscoe answered, "Santa Claus as in ho, ho, ho, I'm the jolly guy who lives at the North Pole, Santa. Right, Ed?"

Green glared at Briscoe. "I've got my reasons to think what I do," he said, with force. "He's not the perp, and that's what matters. I'd stake my badge on it."

That brought Jack up short. He glanced at Briscoe, and could tell that the man was shocked by the bet, too. Staking one's badge was taken seriously by cops. Jack sighed, himself, and even though it would be personally challenging, decided he'd better talk to Ed Green, separate from his partner. He asked Briscoe to leave, and as soon as he was alone with Green, he walked around the table and perched on the edge of it, five feet away from the other man. He could feel the tension radiating off of him. "So," Jack said.

"Look," Green said, more calmly, "I realize what this sounds like. I know we've got people who've pointed to him, I know he can't give us a logical alibi--"

Jack interrupted him. "What is his alibi?"

Green shrugged. "He says he was in Europe last night. We picked him up at eight AM. I can't explain it...."

"So where's the irrefutable evidence that he's not the perpetrator?" Jack deliberately ignored the Santa Claus reference.

Green began to study the floor again. "It's personal."

"Personal? How can it be personal?" Jack was beginning to feel fairly confused, and fairly certain it was not their proximity which was doing it this time.

Green began to pace, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. After two courses, from one wall to the other, he stopped. "I can't explain it," he repeated with frustration, "but he quoted a letter I'd written to Santa Claus when I was seven years old! He knew what I'd written in it, with details, and I'm pretty sure that unless he worked at the Dubai post office and somehow knows that the little Eddie Green who mailed a letter to the North Pole is the same person as the detective who was interrogating him, there's no way in hell he could know what he knows! You know?"

What Jack didn't know, was what to make of what he was hearing. "Are you sure that these details are really so specific to you? Could he just be making up something generic, like television psychics?"

The glare that Briscoe had received was now aimed at him, and Jack would admit he didn't like it. "It was specific," Green answered, "A specific thing that I was asking for. A very specific reference to something in my home town."

"As in?"

"Is that really relevant?"

Jack took a moment, chewing his bottom lip before realizing what he was doing. He stopped, and conceded, "No, it's not relevant. But...." He wasn't even sure what to ask. How do you counter something like this? It made no sense. And yet, Green was about as down to earth as one could expect of a detective, and a pretty good cop, too. Not a man to be taken by flights of fancy. He'd seen the worst of the worst in the gang squad. Jack had always had the impression that Green's feet were firmly planted on the sidewalks of the city.

"Talk to him," Green said in the silence. His voice dropped again, and Jack couldn't help it, he leaned toward him. "See what you think?" Green continued, "Lennie's hell-bent on arresting him, or at the very least getting you guys to put him away in a mental ward somewhere. I really believe that would be a mistake. He couldn't have done this crime."

Their eye contact lengthened, and this time it was no glare. It was not angry, or adversarial. It was something else entirely. Jack couldn't resist. He agreed to talk to Mr. Kringle, alone, and assess the situation for himself. It was what he'd been sent over here to do in the first place. He wasn't doing it to appease Ed Green. He was merely doing his job. Ed's soft smile of relief had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

Ed didn't think he could deal with sitting at his desk while Mr. Kringle was in the IR with McCoy. Ed figured he would be watching the room constantly, to evaluate McCoy's reactions, facial expressions, body language. As if Ed knew how to interpret those things, unimpaired by his own filters. His own emotions. So he took a short walk, ostensibly to the soda machine. He bypassed it, and tried his best to shake the feelings that were still slowly coursing throughout his body. Like the gentle vibration of music flowing out of his headphones. Dark hazel eyes locked with his. A man trusting him enough to do as he'd asked. Ed had recognized something in those eyes. He simply wasn't sure he could believe it.

Jack could see, obviously, why the man across the table could be taken for an in-the-flesh representation of Santa Claus. He assumed that whoever this person was, using the name Kris Kringle had been a shrewd move. It very likely gave him an advantage when he needed it. Looking as he did, anyone around him would question their own reactions, and perceptions. He was rotund; he had white hair and a neat beard, pink cheeks and an air of calm resolve. If he had done this crime, Jack knew prosecuting him would be difficult. A jury would have a hard time believing someone looking like this could be guilty. "Tough sell" didn't cover it.

"I understand," Jack said, "that you haven't been able to provide an adequate alibi for the time that this crime was committed."

Kringle smiled. "I have what you call an alibi, but it seems that the detectives do not believe it." He lifted his index finger off of the table, from where his hands were resting. "Perhaps I should amend that statement. I think that Detective Green might believe me."

"You claim that you were somewhere in Europe last night. Is there anyone who can back that up?"

"I'm quite willing to be specific, Mr. McCoy, about my whereabouts, within reason. It wouldn't do to have the location of one of my workshops revealed; I'm sure you can understand that. These days, there would be hoards of reporters, and film crews, all converging at the very time when we need to do nothing but work. It would be quite distracting."

Jack nodded, but not in acquiescence. "Why don't you be as specific as you can, then?"

"Very well," Kringle said, and smiled again. "I was in Germany, at workshop one-A." The smile vanished, and the man took a deep breath, making his cheeks pink up even more. "As for someone who can vouch for me, as you ask, I'm afraid that isn't possible."

Of course, Jack thought. Still, Ed had been so sure that this man knew something about his childhood. He'd take the old bull by its proverbial horns. "I've been given the impression that you have some insider knowledge about Detective Green's childhood. Is that an accurate statement, would you say?"

Kringle leaned back in his chair and chuckled, and if asked, Jack really couldn't describe the sight as anything but eerily accurate to mythology. The man's stomach jiggled up and down with each chortle; his hands held on to either side of the mound as if he were trying to keep himself upright. "Yes," he eventually answered, "insider knowledge is a very good way to describe it." He calmed himself, and said more seriously, "Would you like to have your own past Christmas wishes brought to the fore?" His voice softened. "As with Ed's, they were never anything easy, like a fire truck, or baseball mitt, Jack. In that, you are both very much alike. Never the easy road."

Jack's stomach flip flopped, harshly, and more than once. He swallowed. "Oh? And what do you think I asked for? When did I write to you?" he asked, feigning ignorance. He knew precisely when he had resorted to sending a letter to the one person whom he believed, at the time, could give him what he wanted. No matter how his father had tried to convince him that there was no Santa Claus.

Kringle leaned forward, clasping his hands together, fingers gently resting next to fingers. He was not clutching tightly, Jack noticed. The skin over his knuckles was soft, and wrinkled. Kringle sighed. "The letter I got from Jack McCoy of Chicago arrived in my office in 1953, written in a very neat hand. You asked me to help your mother by making your father stop being so mean. You also asked me to send your father any game other than darts, because then he might want to play something new with you." Jack's stomach was taking a dive; Kringle sighed again, and his voice softened even further. "That's what Jack McCoy of Chicago asked for. I understood precisely what was behind your requests. I'm sorry that I couldn't help you, then. Some things are beyond even my abilities."

Jack stood quickly, almost sending his chair tumbling across the floor. His mind was trying to grasp some thread of reality; his stomach was still roiling. It was impossible, he kept telling himself. He looked at this man, in his dirty, ratty clothing. His face showing nothing but overwhelming sympathy and compassion. If Ed had been radiating tension in this room not twenty minutes before, this man radiated the exact opposite emotion.

"Jack," Kringle said, "do you want to know why I'm here?"

"What do you mean, why you're here?" Jack put his hands on his hips, in an effort to hold on to something solid. He was now standing against the wall, as far away from the man at the table as possible. And he was getting pissed off at himself for it, too.

"Do you believe that I hurt Mr. Kwan? That I could be capable of doing what the young man you would call a perpetrator did? Inflict pain and injury to one such as Mr. Kwan?"

Jack tried to concentrate. This was an investigation. He was interrogating a suspect. He looked at the man, still gently clasping his hands together, still radiating compassion and concern. In any other circumstances, Jack would have to say that he was not seeing the body language, demeanor, or picking up the vibe of a guilty person. In any other circumstances, he wouldn't be faced with the possibility that he was conversing with Santa Claus. However, he couldn't admit to this person what he thought of him as a suspect. He had to try to think logically. "We have witnesses who saw you coming out of the bodega," he stated.

"You have witnesses who have told you that. They have their reasons, and I have my reasons for being where I was, in the alleyway, this morning. Available, and ready to be brought here. The people in the neighborhood know me as a stranger who appeared in their midst the day before this crime was committed. Strangers are never trusted. However, now you know I am not a stranger. Surely you must wonder why I'm here?"

Jack didn't want to concede anything. He couldn't. Not right then. He was curious, however. "Okay. Why are you here?"

Kringle smiled, and it was a wide one. It made his cheeks puff out. "Ah. I am here to fulfill your wish. Your present wish. Yours and Ed's. I couldn't help either of you before. But I can help now."

"My present wish?" Jack wouldn't categorize what he had as a wish, but he suspected what might be about to get thrown on the table, and he wasn't at all certain he wanted it there. He finally heard the entire series of statements. "Mine and... Ed's?" His stomach was flip flopping again.

Ed completely and totally ignored his partner's scowl. Jack had just told them that he believed the man who called himself Kris Kringle to be truthful. He had not perpetrated the crimes against Mr. Kwan and wished Mr. Kringle to be released as soon as possible. Jack had given Lennie a lead on the real perp, and ordered it be followed up. Then Jack had looked Ed directly in the eye, and asked him to meet him in thirty minutes. At a coffee place a couple of blocks away. He had something important to discuss. There had been that eye lock again, and Ed had found himself answering with a calm, clear, "yes," as if he could give no other reply. Jack had smiled, then left. Ed could still see the smile.

Lennie took Mr. Kringle from the IR and deposited him with Ed, while he went to retrieve the man's personal possessions. As soon as they were relatively alone in the hubbub of the squad room, Mr. Kringle took Ed's hand and shook it.

"Thank you, Ed," he said warmly.

It was less unnerving to look at the man, but still a bit disconcerting. "You're welcome, sir," he said.

"You believed me," Kringle continued, still holding Ed's hand.

"I believe you did not do the crime."

Kringle tilted his head. "You also believe in the truth, Ed. I will tell you the same thing I told Jack." He put his other hand over their clasped ones. "I could not fulfill your wish, when you were younger. I couldn't send you back home for Christmas. But now? Now, you go out for coffee with Jack, and talk, then take a walk in the park, in the snow, and see where you end up."

Ed's heart beat was going a mile a minute again. He couldn't be saying what Ed thought he was, could he? Or could he?

Kringle dropped his hand. "Just remember one thing, Ed. I can give you the present, but I have no control over what you do with it." He winked. "That's up to you. Up to both of you."

Lennie arrived, handing over the pocket watch and the signet ring. The watch was put away; the ring was slipped on the pinkie of the left hand.

"One question," Ed said, still reeling a bit from the images in his mind, of Jack, and presents. "Why is there a 'W' on your ring?"

"Ah," the man answered, "this was given to me many, many years ago. It stands for Weihnachtmann. One of my names is der Weihnachtmann." He gave a small bow. "Good day, gentlemen. Fröhliche Weihnachten."

Ed smiled at him. "Merry Christmas to you, too."

He left, and as Ed watched him head for the stairway, he heard Lennie snort from across his desk. Ed turned around. "What?"

"Winackman. He uses aliases, and you and McCoy think he's legit?"

"That was German for 'Father Christmas,' Lennie." He didn't elaborate. Lennie rolled his eyes and pulled the phone closer, then picked up the receiver. Following up on the lead Jack had given them. No doubt, Ed surmised, the lead that their former suspect had given them. He checked his watch. He had ten minutes to make it to the coffee place. He headed for Lieu's office, to tell her his presence was requested by the EADA, for a very important meeting. He didn't expect to return before the end of his shift.

The snow was falling in Central Park, dulling the intense cold of earlier in the day. The sun was just beginning to set, as late afternoon turned to early evening, one day past the shortest day of the year. Jack walked, and even though the internal warmth from the coffee was wearing off, a different kind of warmth was permeating his bones, his gut, his chest. He and Ed had been talking almost nonstop since Ed had burst through the door of the coffee place, his eyes alight, his heart plainly visible right there on the sleeve of his dark grey overcoat. Jack couldn't believe it had taken him so long to notice it. Somewhere inside of him, he knew; he was certain it hadn't become apparent only because of their visitor. Ed wasn't that shallow of a man, that he would only feel what someone else had contrived.

They had shared their letters, written so long ago, which had opened the subject of their childhoods. How much they'd missed. How much they'd wanted. How much they still wanted, and needed. The topic of desire was left unspoken, but understood.

Jack and Ed walked in the snowfall, and after coming around a bend, getting hit in the face with a sudden gust of wind, Ed led them to a small, open-air stone shelter, where at the very least, the wind was blocked by a stand of trees on the windward side. They were laughing, from the cold, and the giddiness, and the absurdity of their day. From the fact that nobody would ever believe they had actually been visited by Father Christmas. Jack happened to look up, and there, above their heads, hanging down from the wooden rafter was yet one more serendipitous thing. Green boughs, white berries, steeped in an odd tradition. Ed looked up, too, and quirked an eyebrow. Said something about being told to watch for where they'd end up, which Jack quickly forgot as Ed's mouth covered his, cold lips and colder nose moving against his own. Their lips heated rapidly, as did every other part of them.

When they broke apart, for breath, and a need to get whatever bearings were possible, Jack knew one thing. Ed would be coming home with him that night. Ed smiled, his dimple confirming something else. It would be a good Christmas. A very, very good Christmas. Perhaps the first of many. Perhaps. He hoped. He wished. He believed.

End.

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