december 11- secret santa gift exchange
1D fanfic/Salute extra
Harry/Piper
*
"Christ, Harry, wear a bell!"
"Sorry," he said as his hands landed gently on her waist. He leaned his head over her shoulder so he could place a sweet kiss on her cheek. She couldn't help her smile afterward. "Are you ready to go? I was going to give you a ride home."
It astounded Piper sometimes how good of a person Harry was. He always offered to drive her home if he was in the building when she was leaving, no matter how tired he was or how much he wanted to go home. She was always his first priority. That was the most amazing feeling in the world, that someone put her above everyone else. She adored him for that.
"I wish," she grumbled with a roll of her eyes, "but I've got to go to this stupid gift exchange and sit around with a bunch of people who I don't like or who don't like me, or both, and I've got to pretend I'm happy about it because Q is going to be there and so is S."
It was a big deal having two of their superiors with them all at the same time. Q was not an uncommon sight around T branch because the technology branch fell under his own department, a sub-branch of Q branch. What was highly uncommon was seeing S out and about at a staff party, not only because her department was not connected directly to Q branch and therefore wasn't really part of the Secret Santa Gift Exchange, but also because she hardly ever came out of the labs. Piper was pretty sure she lived down there.
"Sounds exciting," Harry muttered sarcastically as he let her go, leaning against the closed locker beside her open one. "Are you sure you have to go?"
Piper gave Harry a look between a sardonic smile and a grimace as she plucked a package out of her locker, neatly wrapped in red and silver paper with a pretty bow. "I got Q in the draw."
Harry cringed sympathetically. Getting your boss is pretty much the worst thing that can ever happen to you in a workplace Secret Santa, especially when that boss is a highly decorated senior agent at the SIS (read: impossible to shop for). She'd spent ages trying to think of the perfect gift and had finally decided on something. Whenever Q finished with a particularly hard field extraction or had been working for days straight on a certain piece of code, he decompressed with some old scotch he kept in his desk. Piper had watched him swig it back from the bottle and figured he could use a couple of glasses. Inside the box were two fine glass tumblers with a frosted Q on each. She hoped he liked them.
"I'll come with you," Harry said, straightening up when Piper shut the locker door, her bag over her shoulder. He immediately took her coat from her and hung it over his arm carefully, surprising her with his thoughtfulness which honestly shouldn't surprise her at all at this point. He surprised her even further by taking her hand, threading his fingers through hers.
"Should we —" Piper lifted their conjoined hands. "Can we do this?"
"We can do whatever we like, petal."
"No one will get us in trouble?"
"I'd like to see them try," Harry said, the threat of challenge clear in his tone. He had a point. Piper couldn't think of a single person that would be willing to risk Harry's wrath in favour of getting them in trouble. The pain wasn't worth the momentary pleasure.
There were certainly stares as the two of them walked into Q branch where the party was being held. The T branchers had gotten used to Harry being around Piper a lot, for the most part (there was still a lot of inappropriate staring), but the Q branchers had never seen Harry giving Piper kisses or back rubs (she loved the surprise back rubs) or bringing her dinner when she was elbow deep in a project. All they saw was a senior agent, boldly holding the hand of a junior tech, and their minds were stuttering to a stop trying to figure it out.
"At least there's food," Harry murmured to her as they walked through the room. Piper's attention was focused entirely on all the stares and the whispers they were getting; Harry's was on his stomach. Piper and Harry separated for a moment, Piper to put her gift on the table at the back that was already stacked high, and Harry to grab a plate and fill it up with hors d'oeuvres and little snacks. They met back in the middle, sitting together on the edge of someone's desk and surveying the room.
"I don't think I know anyone here," Harry pointed out as his eyes scanned the faces in the room. Considering that Harry spent a majority of his time overseas, and that the only reason he had started venturing down to T branch was to see her, that didn't surprise her.
"If it makes you feel better," Piper said as she reached over to take a mini quiche from the plate they were sharing, "I've worked here for the better part of a year and I don't know half the people here. We're not a branch that communicates with each other very often."
Harry scoffed a laugh. "That's an understatement. I think I've witnessed two conversations when I've gone down to see you and they were both arguments about Lord of the Rings."
"It's solitary work."
"It must get lonely," Harry pointed out as he glanced over at her. She looked up at him and just sort of stared because in this light (the awful fluorescents), with his hair swept off to one side, curling at the ends around his collar, he looked astoundingly handsome.
"That's what I've got you for," she pointed out with a little smile that Harry mirrored.
"Damn right," he muttered as the room was called to attention, Q standing up to do a little speech. It was all holiday cheer and togetherness and this and that. Piper only half listened, mostly distracted by the way Harry's face looked when he was concentrating. His jaw was so defined that sometimes she just stared at it and wondered how he was blessed with such good bone structure. When those green eyes of his flashed in her direction, she flushed at being caught staring. Harry just nudged her and nodded toward the front, silently chastising her for not paying attention.
"We've got two volunteers as our Christmas elves, Tabitha and Kristen," Q was saying, waving toward the two ladies standing by the gift table. Tabitha, Q's PA, was amazingly beautiful and also a really cool lady. Kristen, the supply manager for Q branch, hated Piper's guts for no reason whatsoever. "They're going to be bringing around your gifts to keep things anonymous. I know it's going to be a madhouse in here once everyone is opening presents so I just wanted to say Happy Holidays to everyone and I hope you spend it well."
Everyone clapped politely as Q stepped back over to where S was sitting, sort of keeping to herself. Harry's eyes had followed Q and he perked up a bit when he saw the two department heads sitting together. "Oh, it's Jennifer."
"What?" Piper asked.
"Jennifer," Harry repeated, nodding toward S. "We went through basic together about five years ago. Did a lot of the training exercises together because I was the only one willing to partner up with someone who wasn't training for field work and who was older than the rest of us. It came back to bite everyone because she was amazingly good at hand-packing bombs and we won the wilderness challenge because of her."
"You were friends?" Piper clarified.
"Still are, I think," Harry said with a furrow of his brow, his consideration face. "I haven't seen her in a while because I've been away and she's been working. I didn't even know she got promoted to S. I should really go say hello."
"Go on," Piper agreed, nodding in the senior agent's direction. "Go catch up."
"Aren't you coming?" he asked as he stood from the desk, turning toward her a bit. She shook her head, giving Harry the best smile she could muster.
"I wouldn't want to interrupt. Or be a third wheel," she added when she saw the protestation on the tip of Harry's tongue. "I'll just mingle or something."
"If you're sure," Harry said. She nodded and with a shrug and a sigh, Harry turned and crossed the room.
Piper knew she'd made the right decision when S's face lit up for the first time all night at the sight of him. It was clear that she was spending too much time in S branch — despite being only 33, she looked much older. And so tired. The smile that seemed to take over her face at the sight of an old friend was unfamiliar but welcome. Piper found herself smiling as she watched S get to her feet, wrapping her arms around Harry's middle as he hugged her back tightly. It was comical, considering S was no more than 5'3" and Harry was 6', but it was also so natural looking. Piper could tell by the way Harry carried himself and the comfortable grin on his face that him and S had once been very good friends.
It was a little weird seeing Harry act so casually with someone who seemed so far above her on the totem pole at MI6. With Harry, the thought of him being a senior agent slipped her mind sometimes. He was just Harry in her mind — sure, just Harry was also a spy and he was confident, cool, and capable. But seeing him interact with the head of a department like they were old chums was sort of sobering. It reminded Piper just how important Harry was in this organization. It would do her well to remember that sometimes.
It also made a little spark of pride flare up in her because she was (sort of) dating him. She was the girl who Harry came to see when he got home from being abroad, she was the one he cooked breakfast for, she was the one who he drove home whenever he could. She was the one he kissed. She was the one he fucked. Something about that made her feel unbelievably powerful.
"Oh, Piper." Kristen was using her annoying sing-song voice and of course she was the one who was delivering Piper's gift. Piper plastered on a smile as she received it from her. "Here's your gift. Happy Christmas."
"Happy Christmas, Kristen," Piper answered back, trying not to sound like a bitch. It was hard. But she managed.
The gift she was handed was wrapped beautifully in crisp, expensive paper decorated with holly and mistletoe, tied up with a big red ribbon. She almost didn't want to open it, it was so nice. She wondered who would have gone to this much trouble for her sake.
"Ooh, nice one," Colleen said as she leaned over from where she had been sitting to Piper's right. She was holding a snowglobe with a winter village scene in it and intermittently shook it to get the little snowflakes flying around. "Looks pretty fancy."
"It does."
"Open it then. I can't wait to find out what it is."
Piper chuckled, not only because Colleen and her were having this weird moment between them — they usually only spoke casually and never about anything other than the weather — but because she was actually starting to enjoy herself and that had seemed impossible a couple of hours ago. She dug her finger under the edge of the paper with relish and carefully peeled it back, an excited grin on her face as she pulled it open. The paper went sailing to the ground as she turned over the piece of cardboard that was backing the package.
Her smile fell as she realized what she was holding. A pacifier.
"Is that what I think it is?" Colleen called loudly as she began to laugh. "Is that a pacifier? I don't understand."
"For the baby of T branch," someone called from the crowd and then there were laughs all around. Piper wasn't sure if they were meant to be hurtful but each chuckle, each giggle and cackle, was like a knife to her chest.
She was going to cry. She was going to cry in front of all of her colleagues which was just about her worst nightmare. She hung her head, her eyes trained on the stupid pink pacifier in its stupid plastic packaging. The laughter was echoing in her head. People had started chanting 'T branch baby' over and over like they thought this was all some kind of big joke. It wasn't. This had been done intentionally.
The fact that someone out there hated her enough to do something this cruel was gut-wrenching. Sure, she could be a little snarky and sarcastic, but she liked to think that she was personable and that she had a good heart. The idea that someone thought that this was funny, that it wouldn't cut her to the core, inverted all of her assumptions about herself. What had she done to make someone dislike her this much?
When the tears pooled up enough that one fell down her cheek, she reached her hand up to brush it away. This was it. This was the moment that her reputation went down the drain. Because if they thought she was a baby now, it was only going to get worse when she started acting like one.
A body took up the space in front of her and she recognized the fancy boots in her line of vision. Harry's fingers swiped the tears quickly and then gripped her cheeks so he could draw her face up to meet his. "Not here," he said, wiping off the tears as they began falling.
She tried her best to hold it in, sniffling and then gulping around the lump in her throat. She tried sitting up a bit straighter, looking a little less broken, and that helped her keep the tears at bay for now. "Let's go, petal," Harry said to her softly as he took her elbow in his hand and guided her back to her feet. She stood for a moment, collecting her wits, and let Harry brush some of the hair from her face.
He snatched the pacifier from her hands and made a point of tossing it straight in the bin in front of everyone before he put his arm around her waist and held her close to his side. They crossed the room together as everyone fell silent around them, just watching. Harry just patted her side gently where his hand was resting when Piper seemed like she was going to lose it, and she managed to make it across the room.
And then there he was. Samson. And his fucking goon friends from the field. He was grinning in a self-satisfied sort of way as his friends tried ineffectively to stop laughing. "Happy Christmas, Stoner," he said in a syrupy sweet tone that made Piper want to punch him, or start crying again.
It was Harry that made a move, his free hand shooting out to grab Samson around the collar and yank so that his shirt was choking him. His eyes widened as he stared at Harry, nervous.
"Learn to sleep with both eyes open," Harry told him before letting him drop down. He sent Samson one last withering look and then ushered Piper out of the room.
It wasn't until they were alone in the lift together that Piper finally lost control and began to cry in earnest. Harry pulled her into his arms, holding her in his embrace. He didn't say anything, he just gently ran his hand in circles on her back to try and calm her down. When she was still crying by the time the lift stopped at the basement level where the car park was, Harry just shuffled her sideways out of the lift, keeping his arms firmly around her. They stood in the empty hallway, wrapped around each other, until Piper managed to stop crying.
"You okay to walk?" Harry asked, his hand running through her hair gently, twisting one of the strands around his finger before he let it go. She nodded, reaching up to wipe off her face. She cringed when her fingers came back black. "Here," Harry said as he pulled the pocket square from his suit jacket and held it out to her. "Use this."
She smiled gratefully as best as she could and mopped up her face as Harry put his arm around her shoulders and walked her down the hall to the car park. He walked her over to the Aston Martin, his car of the day, and hovered by the passenger door as she slid into her seat, shutting it gently behind her. It took him a moment to cross around the back of the car but eventually he was in the driver's seat and he turned over the engine quickly. He reached over to turn on the radio, Christmas music playing softly, and then pulled out of the space with expert precision, racing through the garage and up onto the street.
The drive was quiet and Piper shut her eyes, letting Frank Sinatra's soothing voice wash over her as she tried her best to forget everything that had just happened. Harry didn't say anything, probably trying not to bring it up which she appreciated. He just kept his eyes trained on the road, one hand on the wheel casually. The other, however, had taken up residence on her thigh and only lifted when he needed to shift gears.
When the car stopped, they weren't in front of her flat. It took a moment for Piper to recognize where they were. "What's going on?" she asked Harry as she eyed her favourite dessert cafe which looked warm and welcoming on this cold December night.
"I thought you could use some cheering up," he told her as he turned the car off, pulling the keys from the ignition. He sat for a moment, looking at her. "I can just drive you home if you want."
Home, where her neighbour was probably a criminal and she would be alone with only a bottle of vodka in the freezer. Or here, where not only did she have a plethora of desserts at hand but she also had Harry. It wasn't a hard choice. "Let's go in."
Harry smiled, glad she'd made the choice and then he climbed out of the car. She'd already opened her door by the time he came around but she took the hand he offered to help her out of the low car. He reached down to straighten her plum coloured skirt so it sat properly above her knees and then buttoned the top button on her coat which had been undone. With her sufficiently bundled up, he took her hand and the two of them crossed the street and headed for the cafe.
It smelled like fresh desserts when they walked in, with a hint of brewed coffee. The place was practically empty, probably because of the temperature outside. Ricky, the owner, was working behind the counter tonight. He waved at Piper when they walked in and she smiled back.
The only other occupants of the cafe were a couple sitting nose to nose in the corner over a shared ice cream sundae, and four rowdy men that looked like they belonged anywhere but at a dessert cafe. Naturally, those rowdy men were with her.
Niall was the first to spot them coming in and perked up, waving in a big exaggerated movement. Liam, sitting beside him, smiled genially. Louis and Zayn, sitting across from them, turned their bodies to check and see what was going on. It was all smiles.
Piper looked up at Harry warily. "I don't understand."
"I called them," he said as he pushed her a little to keep her walking across the room. "I thought after that stupid stunt at work, you'd appreciate an evening with your friends."
Piper studied the four men sitting at the table and then glanced back at Harry. "Friends?" she said, the disbelief evident in her voice. Sure, she would love to call these guys her friend because they were all nice, funny, really cool lads. But they hardly knew each other.
"Friends," Harry repeated, with more weight in his tone. Alright then. Apparently they were her friends. What a great bunch of friends to have.
Louis jumped to his feet first, skirting around Zayn's chair so he could meet them on their way to the table. When her and Harry were about a metre from the table, Louis reached over to grab Piper's arm, tugging her forward into a hug. Surprised, Piper wasn't really sure what to do so she let her arms hang like dead weights at her side and widened her eyes in Harry's direction, pleading for help. He just shrugged his shoulders, his jaw moving as he chewed his gum. Too fucking suave.
Just when Piper thought Louis was going to back off, Niall jumped right into the hug, surrounding her from behind and squeezing her tight. It quickly morphed into a group hug with all four of the guys involved, Harry standing off to the side and watching with a pleased expression. Piper tucked her head into Louis's shoulder and took a deep breath. After the disaster at MI6, it felt so good to be surrounded by people who valued her and respected her. She was getting all overwhelmed again. She stuck her arm up between her face and Louis's body and managed to blow her nose into Harry's pocket square. The hug broke up pretty quickly after that.
"Come and sit, Pips," Niall said as he took her by the hand and led her back to the table, pushing her down into a seat. Liam sat on one side and Niall on the other, sticking Harry on the end and Louis and Zayn took their seats again. "Rule number one," Niall declared to the table, "is no crying allowed."
"I'm not crying," Piper insisted though she did blow her nose into the pocket square again. "I'm fine."
"I've always said that everyone who works for Vauxhall are bloody wankers," Louis informed her.
"We all work for Vauxhall," Liam reminded him and Louis just waved him off.
"Just don't let it get to you, Piper," Zayn said with a gentle smile and a shake of his head. "You're better than all of them anyway."
"Yeah," Niall agreed, "'cause you're with us."
Piper looked between all five of the men sitting around the table with her and felt a little flummoxed. A month ago, she hadn't even known they existed. Now, they were acting as her support system. They'd been looking out for her all these weeks, what with Zayn keeping an eye on Clive and Liam training her and Louis fixing up her flat. They barely knew her and they had all dropped everything to come out here and cheer her up.
"Everybody needs to stop talking or I'm going to start crying again," Piper informed them. Niall threw his arm around her shoulders, using the hand that landed on her other side to shake her a bit. She couldn't help the smile that crept onto her face. She caught Harry's eye and saw that he was looking fondly at her, his green eyes concentrated on her face. When she gave him a thankful smile, he returned it.
Ricky came over to the table and deposited an entire cake in the middle of the table. "It's your favourite, sweetie," Ricky told her as he plopped it down. "Banana caramel." He hadn't needed to tell her — she'd recognize this cake anywhere, layers of vanilla cake with sauteed bananas and thick caramel in between, frosted with chocolate ganache. "Enjoy it."
"How did you know?" she asked once Ricky had walked off.
Liam shrugged. "We just asked for your favourite cake. Wasn't sure what it would be but this looks amazing."
"Did you need to get a whole cake?" Harry asked from the end of the table. He'd crossed his arms and was frowning at the poor innocent cake sitting on the table. "How are we going to manage eating this whole thing?"
"We're going to polish this off in no time," Louis said with a scoff as he took one of the forks and dove right in. He moaned and let his eyes drift shut as he ate his mouthful. "Good god, this is fantastic."
"Are we not serving ourselves?" Zayn asked as he eyed Louis taking another forkful directly from the cake. "We're just going to eat it like that?"
"Why not?" Louis asked with his mouthful.
"Yeah, why not?" Piper echoed with a grin in Louis's direction as she picked up her own fork and broke off a large piece, shoving it into her mouth and chewing quickly. Delicious as always. Everyone mimicked the two of them, grabbing forks and digging in.
If Harry had been worried about finishing the cake, he didn't have to. They did polish it off. And he was the one, with his love of bananas, that did most of the work.