A/N: I was in the mood for some holiday fluff, so here we are. This story isn't going to be anything profound, just shipper fun.

Obviously, the characters don't belong to me, etc. etc.

If you choose to review, that would be swell. :)

Part One

"I think the only part of me still warm is my feet." Audrey Parker blew into her cupped hands as she crossed her shared office with Nathan Wuornos, trying to imbue her frozen digits with some semblance of warmth. Yeah, it was a losing battle.

Nathan glanced over from where he sat behind his desk and saw Audrey wearing the insulated boots he had given to her several months ago to help her acclimate to life in Haven as a local. The corners of his mouth turned up ever-so-slightly. She had a long way to go if she was going to get used to a Haven winter if her pink nose and cheeks were any indication. But at least her toes wouldn't fall off.

"You know I hate you right now, don't you?" Audrey's harsh words were softened by the lack of any real malice in her tone.

"I suppose I should ask why."

Audrey laughed, sounding sardonic rather than gleeful. "I've been out there for the last two hours freezing my butt off trying to convince Mrs. Nelson that she doesn't live next door to Santa Claus."

Tapping the cap of his pen on his desk, Nathan was fighting off a full-out grin. "She wants a restraining order every year, barring him from coming down her chimney."

"Now you tell me," she muttered. "Okay. I've just got to know. Is anyone normal in Haven?"

Nathan shrugged.

"Would've been nice if I could have argued with her inside her house, rather than outside. Seriously, I hate you right now. You've been in here toasty warm—"

"I've been doing paper work, covered up in it, absolutely miserable." For effect, Nathan scowled.

"You're just trying to make me feel better."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is it working?"

"Maybe a little," she replied, wrinkling her nose.

"And you know that I don't feel warmth."

"Or cold," Audrey grumbled, an involuntary shudder running through her.

"Guess there are advantages." Nathan couldn't say he felt particularly fortunate most of the time over his loss of feeling—perceiving pain, hot and cold. But remembering just how brutal Haven winters could be, he definitely didn't miss the discomfort that could go along with them.

Taking a folder, Nathan walked to the file cabinet, his back to Audrey. He could hear movement behind him and sense her closing in the distance, but it wasn't until he felt her small, icy hands on the nape of his neck that he nearly jumped out of his skin.

It had been so long. And what a strange sensation it was. Cold and warmth warred. The cold of her hands—she wasn't over exaggerating when she'd complained—and the warmth of what he realized was his own skin. He shivered. He actually shivered before instinctively squirming away from her touch to avoid the cold, and the sensations faded like a silent death coming to his nerve endings.

Audrey smiled at his reaction, though she shivered herself. "Didn't think you danced, Nathan. Guess you can't complain that I never share with you."

"You're like Frosty…only louder," Nathan grumbled looking at her sideways.

"I think Frosty was probably warmer than I am right now," she replied, her teeth chattering.

"C'mere." Taking her right hand, he cocooned it between his own hands, rubbing vigorously in an effort to warm her up.

Cold. Softness. Strength. He felt her.

When Nathan touched her, he was still surprised, though he wasn't sure what surprised him most: that he could feel her or that contact with Audrey could feel so…remarkable.

A few months ago, he couldn't have imagined himself initiating any kind of touch. With anyone, really. He had been closed off for so long, and touching someone and feeling nothing, well, it was a cruel reminder of what he'd lost.

Of course, with Audrey, it was different. She was the only person he had felt in nearly three years. He didn't go out of his way to touch her—that would have seemed too self-serving to him and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her off—but he also wasn't stupid. When the opportunity arose, he generally didn't turn it down.

What a strange balancing act it had been! In some ways, it had been easier before she knew he could feel her. Since she'd taken his hand months ago on the rocky shore to give him his father's badge, a cloud of expectation hung between.

When the dust settled, they tried the whole "What do we do about this?" conversation, which in retrospect had mostly been fueled by multiple shots of Jack Daniel, the ultimate truth serum. What were they to be to each other? Friends? Friends with benefits? Something more? What?

They didn't settle anything that night, though they did discover how many shots of Jack it took for Audrey to get a hangover (five) and Nathan, who typically wasn't a silver lining kind of guy, found some silver lining in his affliction. No hangover, though Audrey did give him the evil eye as she grappled with her own, much as she had after coming in from the cold.

After a minute of rubbing her right hand, he gave her left hand the same treatment. He was surprised to see her eyes flutter slightly and a sound escape from her lips that wasn't quite a sigh but more than a normal breath.

Nathan wondered just how cold her lips were.

Not liking the direction his thoughts were taking him—or perhaps liking the direction too much—he forced himself to release her hand.

"We need to get you some gloves. Real ones, not those flimsy things," he tilted his head in the direction of the gloves she had flopped down on her desk earlier in the day, the ones she had forgotten to take with her when she went to see Mrs. Nelson. "And a good winter coat. Can't have you freezing to death."

Nathan's words jarred Audrey from her daze. His warm hands had felt heavenly—so much so, Audrey was halfway thinking she'd go out and freeze every time if that meant he would warm her hands up for her.

Audrey had to bite back her protest when he broke contact with her and walked to his desk chair and yanked up his coat, which was draped on the back of the chair. He returned to her and placed the coat around her shoulders.

"Sorry for being mean. I don't hate you."

"Better not, Parker."

"It's just—it's not even Christmas yet, which means it is going to be a very, very long winter."

Nathan nearly snorted. "Didn't you come from Boston?"

Audrey shrugged. "Technically. I was on the move so much, going wherever my cases took me. Last winter, I spent several weeks in southern Texas. Not exactly southern Florida weather, but it was nice." Audrey pulled his jacket more tightly around her, breathing in Nathan's scent. "I had my apartment for," she mentally added up the timeline, "roughly seventeen months. I think most weeks I was only there only as average of a day or two."

"You've stayed put here now for six months. So better or worse, Haven is home."

"I'd say for worse, right now. I'm pretty sure winter up here is going to bite."

"Doesn't have to. We can go skiing, sledding, ice skating, ice fishing, play ice hockey…" With each addition to his list, Nathan could see Audrey pull his coat around herself even more tightly. He knew he shouldn't tease her, but sometimes it was so easy to get a rise out of her and too difficult to resist.

"What's wrong, Nathan? Can't come up with something we can do together that involves heat?" Audrey stopped, realized how her words could be construed, and searched Nathan's face for a reaction. His eyes narrowed slightly, as though studying her for a reaction, as well. "Okay. So that wasn't just me. Awkward. Let's try that again."

"You want to try awkwardness again?"

"Stop being difficult. Besides, unless the Troubles take a break for bad weather, I doubt we'll have the chance to do much of anything fun."

"Things have been quiet lately," Nathan observed. "Just normal weird instead of Haven weird."

"Makes me wonder if we're heading for something big," Audrey murmured.

"Hard to imagine there'd be anything bigger than what we've already dealt with," Nathan replied. The showdown with the rev, the woman who had shown up claiming to be Audrey, trying to figure out Audrey's origins…the last few months had been surreal, but they had come out on the other side of it, mostly intact, even if they didn't have all the answers they wanted or needed.

"You know you aren't supposed to say things like that. Anytime anyone says something like that, something bad always happens."

"Nathan, hon. Here it is." Laverne Mitchell entered the detectives' open office, carrying a garment bag and wearing a big smile. The middle-aged woman rarely made it out of the dispatch room, and as such, Audrey was surprised to see her. Nathan, not so much.

"No kidding," Nathan commented to Audrey, thinking that if he believed in fate, Laverne's entrance had been on cue. Reluctantly taking the bag from the older woman, Nathan hung it on a hook on the wall and unzipped it. "I can't believe I got roped into this."

Laverne laughed as she waved her hand dismissively. "You'll be fine. You have a way with little ones. We just need to fatten you up a bit."

Audrey looked from the gray haired woman to her partner. "Believe me, I've tried. This guy can eat anything, he has the metabolism of—" Audrey stopped abruptly as Nathan stepped aside and she spotted what was in the bag. "—Santa Claus?"

to be continued in part 2