By Shaz1 (@shazkowalski)
None of the recognised characters belong to me. I am merely temporarily borrowing them for this story! Written for the NCIS: LA Christmas in Fiji challenge – I hope its ok!
Edited by TC (@teamcallen)
Special thanks to Shaz, who put this together for our enjoyment. Any grammar stuff that snuck through is my bad, not hers.
Not a Matter of Belief
“Mummy! Mummy! I want to see Santa!” The little girl hollered, pointing excitedly at the shop window in front of her.
“Alisha, we don’t have time- you know I have to get to work.” Her mother answered in frustration. Her husband was miles away with work and the Christmas preparations were proving even harder than usual with her six-year-old daughter getting more excited by the day, whilst she had to balance work and home by herself.
“Please, mom, I wanna see Santa!” The girl whined as she stopped in her tracks staring at the poster with a frown. Her father had taken her to see Santa every year- and she couldn’t bear the thought of not sitting on his knee this year. She reasoned softly to her mother, “How will Santa know what to get me for Christmas if I don’t go to see him?”
Lauren sighed at the face of her daughter- she never could resist the soulful brown eyes that looked back at her. She glanced at her watch, knowing that she was bound to be late for work. With one last sigh she headed into the store; anything to keep her daughter happy. “Fine, let’s go and see Santa- but no asking him for a pony.” She relented softly.
“I promise.” Alisha replied happily, skipping beside her mother as she followed the queue of children to see the man in the big red suit. They made it as far as being third in the queue before all hell broke loose.
At the first scream from in front of them, Lauren instinctively tightened her grip on her daughter’s tiny hand, clutching the child closer into her even as chaos swirled around her. She flinched as a series of loud bangs erupted, people throwing themselves to the floor as the gunfire reverberated around the area.
Grabbing Alisha in her arms, she dove behind a shelf, her heart pounding in her chest as the footsteps drew closer to her position. Nausea was building in her gut as she pulled the little girl closer into her and wrapped her coat around the tiny shaking form. Raising her finger to her lips in silent warning to the small girl, she sent a prayer to whatever god was listening that her daughter would be kept safe. Her prayers went unanswered as within seconds her vision was full of combat trousers and black boots- before fading to black as she slumped to the floor, her hair a matted mess of blood and her last conscious thought being that of her beloved daughter.
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Wanna know how our team gets involved in this ?? And what Callen plans for Christmas are ??
Read the whole story on our board…
