Nathan grinned softly as he glanced over at Lucas. The boy had his tongue firmly trapped between his teeth in what they used to refer to as the 'Michael Jordan' look as he concentrated on lights he was attaching around the windows of their enclosed porch.  Since this would be their first Christmas in New Cape Quest Nathan had wanted to make it special for the boy.  Lucas said that he'd never decorated a house before since his dad's staff had always done any decorations at the house he grew up in so Nathan was making sure that he learned how to do it this year.  Heck, everyone should know how to string lights properly.

"How's that look?" Lucas asked.

Nathan took a critical look at the boy's work.  "Looks pretty good. Now for the true test."

"What?"

"Plug it in."

Lucas got a nervous smile on his face and put the plug in the wall. Then Nathan watched his face turn to one of wonder as the lights around all the windows lit up and the various light figures that he'd hung in the center of the windows glowed.  Nathan nodded and patted him on the shoulder.  "Now we have to see how they look from the dock."

Grinning widely Lucas took off from the porch and down the stairs with Nathan following at a more sedate pace.  He walked out to where the boy was standing expectantly on the dock and smiled at his excitement.

"What do you think?" Lucas asked eagerly.

Nathan turned and put one hand up on Lucas' shoulder.  He looked over the lights with a small smile on his face and nodded.  "I think," he said and then hesitated, "that they look terrific."  The genuine smile on Lucas' face made a warm spot in his heart.  "Nice job."

"Not too bad for a first time," Lucas grinned.

Lights came sweeping across the walk as a car pulled into the drive.  "Now you can show Kristin," Nathan said to the boy and he took off running to catch her before she could see his handiwork. Nathan grinned even wider as he saw Lucas leading Kristin down the walk while she covered her eyes with her hand.

"Just a little bit more," Lucas said as he led her carefully to the edge of the dock.  "Alright, you can turn around now."

Kristin dropped her hand and first flashed an amused look at Lucas before turning to regard the decorations on the house.  "Oh my, it's lovely."  She turned to look at Nathan and Lucas.  "You two did a great job."

Nathan shook his head.  "Not me, Lucas did it all himself."

Lucas looked a little embarrassed.  "Well, with a lot of supervision from the Captain," he admitted.

"A fine job by both of you," Kristin said as she slipped her arms over those of each of the men.  "Are you coming shopping with us, Lucas?"

"Nah, I think I'd probably be in the way," the boy said quietly.

"Not in the least.  We're going down to the old town area and we're going to split up and get some shopping done and then meet for dinner.  You're more than welcome to tag along."

"Alright, I'll come.  I've still got one or two things I need to get."

Lucas walked slowly along one of the streets of the old town area casually glancing into the windows.  He was getting pretty frustrated with his inability to find anything for the Captain and the Doc.  He really wanted to get something special for them.  The two of them had done so much for him during the last few months that he felt they deserved something that might tell them how much he appreciated it... even if he hadn't quite gotten to the point where he could tell them with words.

He supposed that he could fall back on getting some kind of jewelry or a statue for the Doc.  She liked pretty things... but she really deserved something special.  And then there was the Captain... hell, he had no idea what to get him... And when he'd asked him what he wanted Lucas had gotten that time-honored response.  'Oh, you don't have to get me anything... save your money.'  Sometimes these adults could drive a kid crazy.

Lucas stopped as he passed by the windows of an antique shop and stared in the window.  There it was.  A small smile brightened his face as he looked through the window.  That was it... that was perfect!  Lucas walked through the doorway and listened to the little tinkling of the bell that announced the opening of the door.  A kindly looking older man sat behind a counter to the side of the door and smiled at Lucas as he entered.

"How can I help you, young man?"

"I'd like to look at something in your window, sir," Lucas said a little anxiously.

"Certainly," the man said coming around the counter.

He and Lucas inspected the item from the window display.  "Is the case included?" Lucas asked.

"It certainly is.  It was made to hold the instrument and a fine case it is.  As you can see, the instrument itself is brass and dates to the early 1800's and the case is solid oak.  I should tell you that the lining on the inside has been replaced recently."

"That's alright.  It's just what I've been looking for.  It's perfect."

"Do you know how to use one of these?" the older man asked as he gently laid the instrument in its appointed place in the case, carefully polishing the brass as he did.

"No sir, but I know someone who can show me," Lucas said with a smile.  "It's going to be a great present for him."

"A rather expensive present," the older man said cautiously.

"He's worth it, sir," Lucas said with a grin.  As they got back to the counter another item sitting in a display case caught his eye. He stared at it a moment.  "Could I have a look at that too, please?"  He pointed to the item.

"Of course," the man said putting the case down and he gently removed the item from the display.  He placed it on a red velvet pad for Lucas to look at.

Lucas looked up at the man.  "Do you think that would go well on a woman with red hair?" he asked.  "Not carrot-head type red, um, deeper.  Like a russet type red."

The man carefully inspected the item.  "I think it would complement russet hair wonderfully."

"I think so too.  I'll take it," Lucas said with a nod of his head. He frowned a little as another thought came to him.  "I'm meeting both of them for dinner though.  Could you bag them up really well?"

A soft smile covered the man's face.  "I'll do better than that. I'll wrap them the old fashioned way," he winked at the boy.  "This is an antique store after all.  We like to do things the old way."

Lucas watched with interest as the older man used brown paper to carefully wrap the case and then the box that the present for Doctor Westphalen had been placed in.  He finished off by tying both items together with twine and fitting the top of the boxes with a handle made from wire and a small cardboard tube.  Lucas talked to the man for a little while longer while the payment was being approved and ended up by shaking the older man's hand just before he left the shop.

"Thanks a lot, Mister Hedwig.  These are going to be perfect.  Merry Christmas, sir."

"Merry Christmas to you too, Mister Wolenczak," the older man said smiling as Lucas walked out the door.

Kristin and Nathan were already seated at the restaurant when they saw Lucas glancing over the top of the people at the door.  Nathan waved to him and the boy came towards them smiling with a couple of tied up packages in his hand.  He slipped into a chair on the opposite side of the table from Bridger and Westphalen.

"Good heavens, Lucas.  Where did you get a string holder like that?" Kristin asked.  "I don't think I've seen one of those since I was a little child."

Lucas got a disapproving look on his face.  "It's way too close to Christmas for you to be asking questions about where I'm buying things," he said with a small, secret smile.  "It looks like the two of you didn't do too bad," Lucas said glancing under the table at the pile of bags stacked between them.

"I know I did pretty good," Nathan said, "and only about a third of the bags down here are mine."

"I'm all done," Kristin said with a sigh.  "Now all I have to do is wrap them."

Nathan looked over at Lucas.  He'd started out the shopping trip in a bit of a bad mood but he looked considerably more cheerful than he'd been before.   They ordered up their meal and then continued the conversation while they waited for their food.

"Have you thought about what kind of tree we want to get?" Nathan asked him.

"What kind of tree?" Lucas repeated.

"Yeah, among the things that we don't have is a tree and any ornaments.  So we're going to have to get one."

Lucas stared at the table for just a bit and then looked hopefully up at Nathan.  "Do you think we could get a real one?"

"A real tree?"

"Yeah."

Nathan shrugged.  "Sure, why not.  I like real trees."

"I've never had a real tree," Lucas said quietly.

"There's a lot of things that you've never had, aren't there?" Kristin asked kindly.  The boy nodded shyly.

"Then a real tree it is," Nathan said.  "We can pick it out tomorrow morning and we can get some ornaments too."

"I've got some rather nice ornaments if you'd like to use them," Kristin said.

"Aren't you going to put up a tree?" Lucas asked.

"Oh, Lucas, I spend most of my time over at your place these days.  I think that, if you two don't mind, I'll just consider your tree as my own."

"That's alright with us," Nathan said.  "Are you staying in the area for Christmas?"

Kristin took a sip of her pop.  "Um hum."

"Not going to visit Cynthia or anything, huh?"

"No, she's going on a skiing trip with a friend for Christmas.  They invited me along but I'm afraid that I'd probably get in the way a bit."

"Why don't you spend Christmas with us then?" Lucas asked her.

"You aren't going to visit your father?"

"Nah, he's too busy right now so the Captain and I are staying here."

Nathan leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.  "I've got an idea on how we can spend Christmas."  He grinned at the expectant look on their faces.  "How about if we have a big Christmas dinner and invite all the single people from the boat and from your lab who are going to be in the area over to the house for the meal?"

"That's going to be quite a collection of people, Nathan," Kristin cautioned.

He shrugged.  "I figure about 18 or 20 people including us."

"You want me to cook a dinner for 18 to 20 people?" Kristin said doubtfully.

Nathan grinned again.  "No, I want you and Lucas to get the house ready and I'll cook the meal for 18 to 20 people."

A large smile had lit up Lucas' face.  "This could be a lot of fun, Doc."

She smiled over at him and his excitement.  "I think you're right, it could."  She regarded Nathan with a serious look.  "Are you sure you can manage cooking for a crowd that big?"

"You guys just handle the logistics and I'll handle the galley,"  Nathan said with a confident air.

Kristin looked over at Lucas who nodded at her.  "Alright, you've got  a deal," she said and then glanced at both of them.  "One more question though."

"Hmm?" Nathan asked.

"What are you two doing on Christmas eve?"

Nathan and Lucas exchanged glances and shrugged.  "Nothing I guess,"  Lucas answered.

"Good," Kristin said nodding.  "Then will you come to midnight  service with me?"

"To church?" Lucas asked.

"Yes, Lucas," Kristin grinned.  "To church."

The two of them exchanged looks again and shrugged.  "Sure, why not?"  Nathan answered.

"Wonderful," Kristin said smiling broadly.

The tree had been erected and Lucas had declared it to be the best looking Christmas tree on the block.  The invitations for dinner had been gratefully accepted by several of the seaQuest and Oceanographic Lab members and the week before Christmas had been spent collecting food for the feast, cleaning the house, deciding where to seat everyone and finalizing the menu.  During the last week the pile of presents beneath the tree had also started to increase and Nathan had pointed out to Kristin how Lucas always smiled and shook his head each time he walked by the tree.

Now it was Christmas eve and all the preparations were completed.  Lucas and Nathan were just finishing getting dressed for midnight service and Lucas came into the living room pulling on his collar.

"Are you sure that we need to be wearing suits to this?"

Nathan finished tying his tie and snugged it up tight.  "She said 'dressed up' and in my book that generally means suits."  He grinned over at the boy.  "Besides, I bet she'll really be happy that we took the effort and wore suits.  She can be kinda formal like  that."

"Yeah," Lucas said with a little smile.  "I guess she'll be impressed.  When are we supposed to pick her up?"

Nathan checked his watch.  "In about 30 minutes so we better get going."

Lucas shrugged his suit coat on and headed for the door.  "And she's staying here tonight?"

"Yeah, we didn't figure that there was much point in her going home after the late service only to get up early tomorrow to come back here so I'll grab the couch again and she'll sleep in my bed."

"You just want to keep a close eye out for Santa," Lucas teased.

Nathan smiled and patted the boy on the back.  "Someone has to help him carry in all those presents."

Soft organ music filled the air as Kristin glanced over at the two of them sitting next to her in the pew of her church.  As Lucas had suspected, the church wasn't one of those new, lots of metal and lots of glass type churches but instead was a more traditional, older church.  The two men had surprised her a little.  She'd told them to dress up but she'd actually expected nice shirts and pants... not suits... and suits on both of them.  She thought that perhaps Nathan would wear a suit but she was pleased more than they could imagine that both of them had taken the time to dress up for her.

While they waited for the service to start Nathan and Lucas were whispering to each other and as Kristin watched they exchanged a secretive smile and her mind was brought back to earlier this week. Somewhere along in the planning for tomorrow's dinner the two of them had decided that they needed Christmas cookies.  Home-baked Christmas cookies.  So they'd spent a night earlier this week in the kitchen of the beach house baking.  Kristin had a feeling that they'd added one more thing to the list of things that Lucas had never done before... or if he'd baked cookies before it certainly must have been a long time ago.  Nathan had shown an amazing amount of patience as he guided Lucas through the steps needed to create the dough. Answering all the questions that Lucas had about what they were doing and why... and that boy certainly had a lot of questions.

They'd made chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread men, and sugar and spritz cookies.  For over four hours the kitchen was filled with bowls of dough, cookie sheets, plates of finished cookies and a couple very happy cooks.  What Nathan and Lucas had enjoyed the most was the decorating of the cookies.   They'd used multicolored sprinkles, cinnamon dots, cut up cherries, icing and whatever they could get their hands on to create their masterpieces.  At one point Kristin had left them alone while she made a vid-call.  When she returned they had the same grins on their faces that they had now and she didn't trust it one bit.  As it was, on cookie night, the grin had been because their decorating had gotten a bit carried away and they had ended up creating a couple of rather risqué cookies supposedly hoping that she wouldn't notice.  Of course, she'd noticed right away and fixed them with a stern look.

"Some days I wonder if you two are good for each other," she had said in a chastising voice.

The serious look that covered Lucas' face had surprised her.  "We don't."

Kristin had relented, smiled at the boy and ruffled his hair.  "No, dear.  Really, I don't either.  You two are perfect for each other." She had been gratified by the slow but brilliant smile that lit up Lucas' face.

Later, when the two of them were cleaning up their mess Kristin had seen something that had heartened her tremendously.  Lucas had washed the last cookie sheet and Nathan was just wiping down the counter when Lucas came up behind him and rested his head against Nathan's back for a moment.  It wasn't a hug, but Kristin imagined that it was as close as Lucas could get at this time.  She'd seen the gentle smile that crossed Nathan's face as he recognized the action for what it was and reached back to gently ruffle Lucas' hair.  Her thoughts came back to the present and she reached out her hand to cover Nathan's.  He turned towards her and she saw another one of those smiles that lifted her heart.

Lucas stood in the living room munching on one of the chocolate chip cookies they'd made.  His tie was loose and he'd taken his jacket off as soon as he'd gotten in the car.  Nathan was just coming back into the living room after dropping Kristin's overnight bag in his bedroom.

"I want to thank the both of you for coming to church with me," Kristin said.

"No problem, Doc," Lucas said grabbing another cookie.  "It was interesting.  I'd kinda teased the Captain about you dragging him to church a few times but it was pretty neat."

"Well, Sunday services aren't quite as elaborate," she glanced over at Nathan.  "And I don't seem to be able to grab him to accompany me to church anywhere near as often as I'd like but you're welcome anytime."

"Right now, you need to go to bed or Santa's not coming this way," Nathan chided the boy.

"Yeah, and besides which fact, you need your beauty sleep," Lucas teased.

"You going to leave milk and cookies for Santa?"

Lucas looked a little embarrassed.  "You wouldn't think I was too dorkey if I did, would you?" he asked in a little voice.

"No, I insist," Nathan smiled.  "That old guy can get pretty hungry traveling all over the place."

Lucas grinned at them and headed for the kitchen.  Kristin smiled softly at Nathan and moved over next to him, slipping her arm around his waist.  Nathan drew her to him and kissed her softly on the cheek.  "Thanks for inviting us to church.  I think he really enjoyed it."

"Perhaps that will be some incentive to get you there a bit more often," Kristin teased him gently.

"Perhaps," he smiled back as Lucas came into the room with a glass of milk and a small plate with five cookies and two carrots on it.  "What are the carrots for?" he chuckled.

"The reindeer, Captain," Lucas said in a 'no duh' voice placing the plate down on the stone apron to the fireplace.

"Ah, of course."

"Goodnight, Doc.  Goodnight, Captain," Lucas said as he headed back towards his bedroom.  The goodnights of the adults followed him.

Kristin watched him until his door shut.  "You insist?"

Nathan leaned against the back of the couch and pulled her close to him so that they were face-to-face.  "Yeah," he said with a grin.  "Just how long do you think it's been since he left cookies for Santa?"

"Probably quite a while," Kristin admitted.

"It's part of my Christmas goal this year."  He smiled again at Kristin's quizzical look.  "I'm trying to let him do all the things that he's either never got a chance to do at Christmas or hasn't been able to do in a long time."  Nathan's face became a little more serious.  "I want to let him recover his childhood a little."

"That's a hell of a Christmas present," Kristin said tightening her arms around him.

"He's a hell of a kid," Nathan said sliding his lips down the left side of Kristin's neck and nuzzling the place where it met her shoulder.

Kristin leaned her head over to open herself to him and heard a noise to her side.  She opened her eyes and saw Lucas standing at the entrance to the living room with an embarrassed look on his face. She pinched Nathan in the side.  "Company," she said softly.

He raised his head to look at her and saw Lucas standing there.  "What's up, kiddo?"

"Sorry," he said softly.

"That's okay," Nathan said with a little smile.  "You're good at that."  One of Lucas' hidden talents had turned out to be catching him and Kristin in compromising situations.

Lucas smiled a little himself and held up the paper he had in his hand.  "I forgot to leave a note for Santa."

"Gotta do that," Nathan said as the boy went over to drop the paper next to the cookies.

"Yeah," Lucas said with a grin and headed back towards his bedroom.  "'nite again."

"Good night, Lucas," Kristin and Nathan both said.

Nathan looked back at Kristin and tightened his hold around her waist.  "Now, where was I?"

Kristin kissed him quickly on the nose.  "I was about to remind you that we have to be up early in the morning so we need to go to bed."

"Yeah," Nathan sighed.  "I guess so," he said in a disappointed voice.  "Do I at least get a good night kiss?" he asked hopefully.

"Oh, yes," she answered in a deep sultry voice as her lips reached up to meet his in a long, passionate kiss.

Nathan groggily opened his eyes and shifted a little on the couch.  A quizzical look crossed his face as he noticed that Lucas was sitting in front of the Christmas tree in his pajamas.  He had his legs drawn up to his chest, his arms around his legs, his chin resting on his knees and was intently staring at the large pile of presents under the tree.

"Good morning," Nathan said softly.

Lucas started a little and turned towards him.  "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to wake you up."

Nathan's heart jumped a little at the slightly panicked sound to Lucas' voice.  "You didn't wake me up," he said sitting up on the couch.  "It's seven, I'm almost always awake by seven."

"Oh, good," Lucas said turning his attention back to the tree.  "It's amazing, isn't it, sir?"

"What, the tree?"

"I've never seen so many presents," Lucas said in an awed voice.

"Looks like Santa liked your cookies," Nathan teased.

Lucas grinned and glanced quickly at him.  "He even wrote me a note back."

Nathan stood and slipped his robe on patting Lucas on the back as he passed him.  He headed into the kitchen to start up the coffee and then came back out.

"We have to wait until the Doc wakes up before we can mess with the presents, right?" Lucas asked.

"Uh huh."

The boy sighed and went back to watching the presents.  "Okay."

Nathan headed back to the bathroom and when he finished there he quietly opened the door to his bedroom and looked inside.  Kristin was lying asleep on her side facing him.  For a short time he just watched her before going over and sitting gently down on the side of the bed. He softly brushed a stray lock of hair off her face.

"Hey, sleepy-head," he said quietly.

"Hmmm?"

Nathan trailed the back of his hand back down over her cheek.  She shifted and opened her eyes a little.  "Good morning, sweetheart."

"What time is it?" she asked tiredly.

"A little past seven."

"Go back to bed, Nathan," she chastised him.

"I can't... there's a boy sitting staring at the tree and he's too anxious to let me sleep."

Kristin smiled a little.  "Really?"

"Um hmm.  And I told him we can't do anything until you get up."

"Oh dear," Kristin said with a chuckle.  She sat up and Nathan moved to allow her to swing her legs out and sit on the side of the bed. He held out her robe to her and she stood, slipping into it.  As she tied the belt he leaned over and kissed her gently.

"Merry Christmas, darling."

Kristin trailed her hand across his rough stubble cheek.  "Merry Christmas, my love."  They hugged each other a little before heading out of the bedroom.

Lucas hadn't moved when Nathan came back into the living room.  He was still staring at the presents.  "You want any coffee?" Nathan asked him.

"No, thanks," the boy said never letting his attention waver from the pile of gaily wrapped packages.

Nathan smiled and headed into the kitchen.  A short time later Kristin came down the hall into the living room and she also smiled at the sight of Lucas intently watching the presents.

She came up behind the boy and put her hand on his shoulder.  "It looks as if someone was a very good boy."

Lucas smiled broadly as he looked back at Kristin.  "I guess so."  He looked back at the presents and then turned towards her again.  "Hey, Santa left note on my note to him... and guess what? ...his writing is suspiciously similar to yours," the boy said with a grin.

"Really," Kristin said in mock disbelief.  She took the cup of coffee that Nathan had brought out to her. "It could be worse.  Santa's writing could look suspiciously like his."

Lucas laughed.  "Then I never would have been able to read what he said."

"Hey, my writing's not that bad," Nathan protested.

"Yes, it is," they both answered back to him together.

"You want to open presents or not, kid?" Nathan said in pretend irritation.

His smile almost broke Lucas' face in half.  "I want to open presents."

It took them over an hour to open the presents and as they got towards the end Lucas brought a small box over to Kristin.  "This one's yours, Doc."

Kristin glanced at the tag.  "Oh, it's from you."  She took the wrapping off the small green box under Lucas' watchful gaze.  Lifting the top off she beheld an intricate and superbly crafted jeweled hair comb.  The comb itself was gold with exquisite tooling and the jewels which topped it were deep green emeralds spaced with small diamonds.  "Oh my, Lucas, it's absolutely gorgeous."

"It's antique," he said with a grin.  "It was made about 1860 and it's English."

"It must have cost a fortune."

"Not that much.  Besides, I've got all sorts of money," he pointed his finger at Nathan.  "He never lets me spend anything."

"Did you see it, Nathan?" she asked showing it to him.

"No," he said looking it over.  "Wow, nice taste, Lucas.  That's a really nice piece."  Occasionally he was surprised by Lucas' fashion acumen.

Lucas had turned back towards the tree and brought out a larger package.  He handed this one to Bridger.  "This one is for you, sir," he said shyly.

Nathan carefully removed the paper off of a finely worked oak case. He glanced quickly at Lucas before slipping the catch of the case free and opening it.  Lucas' eyes never left Nathan's face and the boy saw his quick intake of breath and how he closely looked over the instrument within.  He lifted the antique brass sextant from its place in case and inspected it.  "Wow, this is great, Lucas."

"I know that your sextant was destroyed with the seaQuest so I thought that maybe you'd like a new one."

Nathan looked up at him from his inspection of the sextant.  For a moment he couldn't talk.

"It's okay, isn't it?" Lucas asked.

Finally, Nathan found his voice.  "It's great."  He turned the sextant over in his hands.  "Lucas this is a beautiful instrument. The workmanship is terrific.  Thank you."

"I thought that it looked pretty good," Lucas said with a smile.

"Lucas, that present in the back of the tree is for you," Kristin pointed out to him.

Lucas slid under the tree to pull out the box out.  He looked at the tag that was slid under the red ribbon around the box.  "It's from my Dad," he said surprised.

"Well, open it," Kristin encouraged him.

Carefully taking the wrapping from the box Lucas' eyes got big as he uncovered the remote control car that his father had sent to him.  "Cool."

As Lucas busied himself in getting the car out of the box Kristin sat back on the couch and leaned her head so that she could whisper in Nathan's ear.  "His father seems to have a pretty good idea of what kind of toys that he'd like."

Nathan grinned at her.  "We've had a considerable amount of discussions about it."

"Do you mean his father actually bought that?"

"No, I mean that I bought it for Lawrence to give to Lucas after talking to him."

"Oh, that's nice."

Lucas was now running the car around the living room.  Nathan frowned a little as he watched Lucas use the legs of the coffee table as pylons.  "Why do I think I'm going to regret having hardwood floors in this house?" he mumbled to Kristin.

She smiled at him and rubbed his leg.  "If you gentlemen don't mind I'm going to go take a quick shower."  She got up and headed towards the back of the house.

Nathan picked up their coffee cups and after taking another look at Lucas running his new car around the floor he headed into the kitchen to start up the food for the day.  When he came out a little later Lucas was again sitting in front of the tree with his knees drawn up staring at it.  Nathan went over to squat next to him.

"You alright?"

Lucas sniffled a little before answering.  "Yeah, I'm alright."  He hesitated a moment.  "I was just thinking about what a great Christmas you've given me."

Nathan sat down on the floor next to him and also pulled his knees up.  "Oh, it wasn't only for you.  I figured that both of us were due a good Christmas."  Lucas frowned over at him and Nathan explained.  "I can't say that the last several Christmases have been too great for me either."  He shrugged his shoulders a little.  "I guess Christmas is best when it's shared."

"I never thought about that," Lucas said softly.

"Which?"

"That your Christmases have been pretty lousy too lately."

"Yeah," sighed Nathan, "but not this year."  Lucas smiled and then leaned over towards him and rested his head on Nathan's shoulder for a moment.  Nathan nudged the boy's head with his own before Lucas sat back up.

"I'm next for the shower," he said standing and heading back to his bedroom.

Nathan stood and headed back to the kitchen when he saw that Kristin was in the dining room and had been watching them.  She gathered him into her arms as he came into the room and kissed him soundly.

"I think you've got a very happy young man there," she said as they leaned back from the kiss.

"Well, like I told him, I figured that he deserved a good Christmas for a change."

Kristin snuggled her head down onto his shoulder.  "You're a very good substitute daddy."

"Actually, I think I got as much out of this Christmas as he has," he whispered into her hair. "My last several Christmases haven't been too stellar, I'm afraid."

"Even last year aboard the seaQuest?"

Nathan shrugged.  "It was another day.  Nothing special.  The Christmases since Robert died had only been times for sad memories... and then when Carol died there didn't seem to be much point at all in Christmas."  He leaned his head into hers a little more and hugged her a bit closer.  "But this year is different.  This year I have you two to share Christmas with and that makes it much better."

Kristin pulled her head back a little to look at him.  "And I'm so glad to share it with you," she said as their lips met again first in a gentle kiss of celebration which quickly deepened into an intense exploration.  Nathan's hand had just moved sensually down Kristin's back until it cupped and massaged Kristin's rear end when Lucas came around the corner.

"Shower's free," he said as he continued through the room.  "And watch your hands, Cap."

Nathan quickly slid his hand back up to Kristin's back.  "He's getting awfully good at that," Nathan muttered.

"Yes, he is," Kristin said as she placed a quick kiss on his chin.  "Go take your shower."

Nathan had spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen coordinating the food and Lucas and Kristin had set the table and had the house all clean and ready for the visitors who were expected around 2 p.m. A little before noon Kristin was sitting at the counter which separated the kitchen and the dining room while Nathan checked the turkey he had in the oven.  Lucas came rushing in from the porch and slid to a stop at the kitchen door.

"Darwin is out at the dock.  Is it alright if I go and swim with him for a while?"

Nathan glanced over at the clock.  "Yeah, people aren't due until 2 so you've got plenty of time."

"Great," the boy said as he headed for his bedroom to change.  A short time later he went running through the living room with his towel and the portable vocorder in hand.  "See you later," he shouted as he went out the door.

Kristin shook her head amused and smiled at Nathan as he slid a plate of cookies her direction.  "Want a Christmas cookie?"

"Sure," she said taking one of the brightly decorated cookies from the plate and biting into it.  "How's the cooking going?"

Nathan looked back into the kitchen.  "Pretty much on auto-pilot now.  I have to baste the turkey again in a half of an hour but other than that, everything is just about finished."

"And how long does he usually swim with Darwin?" she asked glancing through the window at Lucas who had just dived off the dock.

"Oh, usually a half hour or more."

"Really," Kristin mumbled as she stood from stool she'd been sitting on and came around into the kitchen.  She stood in front of Nathan and brought her hand up until it trailed inside the open collar of his shirt.  "How about a Christmas quickie?"

Nathan felt the immediate raise in his pulse and breathing that heralded his desire for her and brought his lips down to meet hers.  "Oh, yeah," he mumbled as he placed quick kisses along her chin.

Kristin took his hand and led him back to his bedroom carefully locking the door behind them before she turned and slowly unbuttoned his shirt.  Nathan moved in and resumed the kiss that they'd started in the kitchen.  He pushed against her, leading her back to the bed and they fell onto it as their passion increased.

About fifteen minutes later Lucas ran into the house to tell the Captain about the boat decorated like a Christmas tree that was passing by.  He frowned as he didn't see him in the kitchen.   Maybe he and the Doc were in the den.  Lucas headed down the hallway but quickly determined that no one was in the den.  Standing in the hall with a confused look on his face Lucas suddenly noticed the closed door to Bridger's room and walked that direction.  >From the other side of the door he could hear some rather distinctive moaning.  The boy pursed his lips in a silent whistle.  Someone else must have been a very good boy last year.  It sounded like he was getting an extra Christmas present too.  Lucas smiled as he headed back out to the dock to play with Darwin.