A/N: So guyssss... I'm so good at my job. JK, if writing was my job I would have been fired a long time ago, because consistency is clearly not my strong suit. However, my real job (an internship with the Attorney's Officer for my county) will be over shortly, and then school will also be going away, so you know what that means! More writing time! (And finding a real job. Also, that.)

While the past week had been stressful, I was glad for the distraction. It had been an entire week of the pre-Christmas torture that I had completely missed, because I had been so focused on the mission that there hadn't been time for anything else. I wished for the same to be said about the next two and a half weeks, but I was sure it wasn't to be.

I dragged my suitcase from the car to the living room to my room, and dumped all the dirty clothes out onto my bed. I put the very few other things from my luggage away, and dumped my clothes into an already partially filled laundry basket. My favorite chore. I hate laundry.

I could hear John in the hall dragging his own luggage to his room, and despite my exhaustion from the mission stress; I picked up the laundry basket and headed out to the laundry room across the courtyard. Although it felt like it should be night time, it was really quite early morning, and therefore it was not an appropriate time to go back to sleep. There would be a de-briefing at two. I set down my basket, laundry detergent and box of dryer sheets, and I wandered back to the apartment.

"Do you want me to take your laundry over, John?" I asked through the closed door of his room. He opened the door seconds later.

"Okay," he said, and I waited while he piled clothes into his own laundry basket. I took it from him, and our hands touched. As I crossed the courtyard to the laundry room for a second time, I was aware that maybe I shouldn't be carrying laundry. The basket bumped into bruises with each step. I was happy to set the basket down, and as I went about my usual laundry doing routine, it occurred to me that it would make a lot more sense, since I was going to do a load of lights and a load of darks anyway, to just put John's clothes in with mine. I had emptied my own basket into two washers, and I hesitated for a moment, before sorting John's basket into lights and darks, and tossing the piles in with my clothes. I started the washers, and sat in the laundry room, resting my eyes while I waited.

When it was time, I switched the loads to the dryer, being careful to pull out the items of mine that weren't supposed to be dried in the dryer. I dropped a couple of sweaters and a handful of bras into my laundry basket with my detergent and dryer sheets, and headed back to the apartment to spread the clothes out to dry on a rack in my room. I brought the basket back to the laundry room, and sat down to wait again. When the dryers were done, I dumped our clothes into the baskets, and carried them one by one back to the apartment.

I kept my eyes focused on the ground through the courtyard, as with each previous time, to avoid looking at the Christmas decorations that had taken up residence while we were gone.

I took a quick shower, and when I was done, Casey was in the kitchen, putting away groceries. I hadn't bothered putting make-up on to cover the black eye, because it didn't matter whether Casey saw it or not. We had sandwiches for lunch, and I wound up doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, while Casey went through the security footage from the time we were gone.

Chuck and Sarah showed up just before two, and our de-briefing went off without a hitch, although upon entering the apartment, Sarah's gaze lingered for a second too long on the baskets of laundry in the living room. She noticed what Casey had yet to.

"Good job team," General Beckman said. There was some discussion about what had taken place, but not with much detail, as that would be sent along in reports later.

Once the debriefing was over, Sarah and Chuck left, and I sat down on the floor to sort laundry. Casey disappeared to his room to write reports.

Our clothes were tangled up together, kind of like our lives now, I guess. Funny, I hadn't thought of that before. I've never done anyone else's laundry before. It had been a rude enough awakening when I first moved out, that then I had to spend hours doing something my mother had always done. I dumped out the basket of lights first, and began folding, putting Casey's stuff in the basket, since it was his, and my own stuff in a pile on the floor. When I had done the same with the darks, I took my basket to my room, and set it on the bed. I sat down at my desk to begin writing pages upon pages of detailed reports.

A few hours later, I saved my progress, and made up a quick dinner of spaghetti and salad. When it was almost done, I picked up Casey's laundry basket and headed for his room. I knocked on the door, and upon hearing a grunt, opened it. He was sitting on his bed, with his computer on his lap, so I set the basket on his desk.

"Dinner's ready," I said on my way out, as the timer rang.

As soon as we had finished eating and cleaning up, I went to my room, and fell asleep.

The reports took days. I traveled to the Orange Orange and back to the apartment, and all my spare time was used on the reports. It took three days. Three more peaceful days of pretending it was June instead of December. Then it was back to the real world.

The real world was harsh. There were Christmas decorations everywhere. The apartment was the only safe haven. Even the Orange Orange was decorated. Thankfully, Sarah did that on her own, and I didn't offer to help. I spent some time out gathering thing from the list I had made from the letters, and other than that, I tried to stay in the apartment, so I could keep on pretending that it wasn't almost Christmas.

Working all day in a Christmas infested world took its toll. By the time I got home each night, I had spent hours working at the Orange Orange, I had worked out at the gym, and usually done about an hour shopping for things on the list. Then there was making dinner, and cleaning of some sort, and by eight o'clock, I was done with everything. And then there were the three hours I had to kill before going to bed. Busy was good. It kept me from thinking too long and hard over what was missing.