"So, can you teach me?" Kimberley asked over the ear piece.
"You do realise that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, right?" Dara questioned back.
"Yeah..." Kimberley says with a little guilt in her voice.
"You do know, I work, right?"
"Yes... But I was hoping you can count it as a Christmas gift to me! I would ask for it on Christmas Day, but I'll be really busy with my family and I figured you would too."
"Can you wait until after I get off of work?"
"Yes! I'll do it! Please, please, please!"
"You keep this up and I'll say no."
"Please don't be a Hum Bug."
"Kimberley!"
"Right, sorry... So, are you going too?"
"Yes."
"YAY! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
"So, are you going to let me get some sleep?" Dara asked as she glared up at her ceciling.
"Oh, yeah. Umm, good night. See you tomorrow."
"Night," Dara mumbles as she pulls her ear piece off and throws it on to her nightstand.
oOoBreakoOo
Dara carefully pulled her "van" up next to the curb and honks a couple of times. After a minute or two, Kimberley still doesn't come out. Pulling her phone out of its holder and pulls up Kimberley's number. She hits the call button and after a couple of rings, Kimberley picks up. "Kimberley! Where are you? This is your idea, not mine! I could be comportable at home!"
"I'm sorry! My mom, is uh, bothering me. I think I might be able to get a way in a minute or two..."
Sighing, Dara just shakes her head. "You know how to get into the vechile. When you can, get here. I'm just going to put my earbuds in and listen to some music. If I fall asleep, just wake me up."
"Okay, I'll try and hurry up."
"Please, do that." Dara hangs up, without letting Kimberley get a chance to respond. Quickly Dara grabs her Zune and shoves her earbuds in. Leaning back in her chair, she turns on the next song, and turns up the volume. Her eyes slowly begin to close and the next thing she knows, Kimberley is at her side, jabbing at her. "Uh, wha, what? I'm awake!"
"About time. I thought I was poking you for ages."
Dara blinks a couple of time and looks at her. "Yeah, sure you were."
"So, am I going to uhhh..." Kimberley indicates towards the driver's seat, that Dara was currently sitting in.
"Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because of the fact that you freak out when anything is around you. I'm going to take you to space, you'll have a nice big open place to roam."
"Okay!" Kimberley skips over to the passager seat, sits down, and smiles.
Dara just blinks at her, then makes the Puddle Jumper shoot upwards. After a few minutes of flying straight up and out, Dara stops the Puddle Jumper and gets up. She makes a motion towards the pilot's seat. "There you go."
Kimberley gets really excited and scrambles over to the seat. She slowly takes in all the buttons and the gizmos. She just happens to glances over at Dara, after she sat down, as she started to put in her earbuds. "Wait! Aren't you going to instruct me?"
"Don't kill us."
"That's really helpful!"
"Look, you start to freak out, then I start to freak out, then you freak out even more. This way, I can fall asleep and you can be relaxed. All you have to do is wake me up if something bad is about to happen."
"But-"
Dara doesn't even let Kimberley finish as she pushes her earbuds into her ears and jacks up the music. She leans back in her seat, yawns, and drifts off to sleep.
oOoBreakoOo
Dara was jolted awake when some loud music was played over the Puddle Jumper's speakers, louder than what was coming off her Zune. Glancing over, she doesn't see Kimberley at the controls. Slowly she looks out the window, mostly in fear, when she noticed they were parked in what looked like the Jumper Bay.
Leaning forward, Dara gets a look at Kimberley pulling something that looked like part of a Christmas Tree out of one of the overhead bins. Pulling out her earbuds, she realised the music that was playing was Christmas music. "What are you doing?" Dara questions really loud.
Kimberley jumps, not realising that was Dara. She gets this small, sheepish grin. "I was hoping to give the gang a small Christmas."
"You were planning this, weren't you?"
"No-"
"Kimberley!"
"Okay, yes, I was. I know you wouldn't do it, because you're such a Hum Bug when it comes to Christmas. I figured if I came here really quick, dropped the stuff off, and leave, you would be good. You just made it a little easier when you fell asleep."
Sighing, Dara just looks at Kimberley.
Giving off another smile, Kimberley says, "If you help me, it can go quicker and we can get out of here sooner."
"Fine. Get everything into a pile here, so I know what we are dealing with."
Kimberley gives off another smile and begans to rumage through all the overhead bins and pulling out stuff. After a few minutes, she had managed to create a pile so big, that it almost blocked the hatch door.
Dara just covers her eyes and begins to shake her head. "How do you manage to keep getting so much stuff in MY Puddle Jumper."
"Ummm, trade secret."
"Basically, I don't want to know, right?"
"Yeah."
"Okay," Dara sighes. "Let's get it out and take care of it. I want to get out of here, soon as possiable."
"Fine, you Hum Bug."
Both Dara and Kimberley grab an armful and walk out the back of the Puddle Jumper. They managed to take a few steps into the Jumper bay area, when they started to yawn. Dara carefully puts down the armful she was caring and manages to say through the yawning, "Forget this. I'm really tired and I don't want to sleep here. We're going."
Kimberley keeps yawning. "But, I want to give them Christm-" She couldn't even finish the sentense as another yawn interupted her.
The second Dara steps back into the Puddle Jumper, she looks around, then at Kimberley as she came in. "That's weird."
"What's weird?" Kimberley asked.
"I'm not tired. Not one little bit."
"Good! Let's get this Christmas stuff to them then."
"Or, how about this!" Dara goes up front and slams her hand on the button that played Kimberley's iPod through the Puddle Jumper's spears.
"Hey! That was my Christmas music!" Kimberley trys to get to the front to start the music again. Dara managed to block her path, until after a minute or two, the both of them started to yawn.
Barely keeping her eyes open, Dara barely managed to push the button again, making the music play over the speakers. Not more than a second or two later, they were wide awake again. "Something is not right."
"What do you mean?" Kimberley asks, not quite catching on to what Dara was talking about.
"Think about it. We kept getting tired, beyond normal, but when music is playing, I feel normal."
"Yeah."
"So, something is not right." Dara grabs Kimberley's iPod and earphones. She then goes over to the other side of the Jumper and grabs her Zune and earbuds. Dara hands Kimberley her iPod. "Here, put those earphones in and start playing some music."
"Why?" Kimberley asked as she starts to do as Dara told her.
"Because I think whatever is making us sleepy, can't affect us while listening to music," Dara replied as she put hers in.
Soon, they both had their respected music blaring in their ears as they stepped out of the Puddle Jumper. Dara grabs Kimberley's arm, mostly to make her wait. After a minute, she realised that nothing was happening to them. She quickly gives Kimberley a thumbs up, meaning they were good.
"Can you hear me?" Kimberley seems to ask a little loudly.
"Yeah. I didn't turn it all the way up. Just enough to block whatever is making us sleepy."
"Okay, so now what?"
"We see if everyone is okay and how to stop what is doing, whatever it is doing."
"Right!"
oOoBreakoOo
After checking around the whole Atlantis, that Expedition occupied, they found out that everyone was asleep. Tried as they might, they couldn't get anyone to wake up. After digging through the resent Mission information and Atlantis City reconnaissance reports, they were able to narrow it down to a new lab that the Expedition came across.
"You think they would learn not to mess with machines in labs by now," Dara comments low enough that Kimberley didn't hear her over her music.
"So, this machine is doing it?" Kimberley asks as she points to the machine.
Dara just nods at her, not wanting to raise her voice to often. After studying it a few minutes, Dara was able to figure out on how to turn it off.
As Dara reached over to turn it off, Kimberley grabs her hand and stops her. "Wait!"
"What?"
"What I was able to loosely translate from the Ancient text, it won't do harm to anyone, expect if they sleep to long." Dara just stares Kimberley down, as if she didn't completely understand what Kimberley just said. "What?" Kimberley asks.
"Since when did you start to pick up Ancient?"
Kimberley gives off another sheepish smile. "Instead of doing school work, I've kind of been studying it online."
Dara just smacks her forehead. "Is there a reason that you don't want me to turn it off?" Kimberley's sheepish smile, slowly becomes an evil idea smile. "You had an idea, didn't you?"
"Yup!"
Sighing, Dara asked, "What is it?"
"Instead of annoying them with trying to do decorating and handing out presents, what if we do it while they are asleep? That way, it'll almost be like Santa visited them."
"Sometimes I wonder about you."
"So, you'll do it?" Kimberley asks a little bit excited.
"Why not. You'll probably pester me until I'll help you."
"Yup!" Without waiting for Dara to respond, Kimberley grabs Dara's arm and drags her back all the way to the Puddle Jumper. Once she gets Dara in front of all the stuff in the back of the Puddle Jumper. "Here!" Kimberley grabs a handful of decorations and dumps it into Dara's arms. "These all go into Stargate Operations. Go and Decorate!"
"But-"
"Go!" Kimberley said a little forcefully, as she pushes Dara away.
oOoBreakoOo
About an hour or two later, Kimberley had finished her decorating. She was lucky enough to get about half of them to stay up. Realising that Dara wasn't even around, she decided that she better check up on her. Kimberley figured that Dara probably threw the decorations up, all in one spot and called it good. Imagen her surprised when she walked into the Gate room, that everything was up and looked beautiful.
Kimberley makes her way up to the second story tier, where she seen Dara hanging garland around Col. Carter's office door. "Nice!"
Dara jerks in surprise. "Thanks."
"How come, for such a Hum Bug, you can decorate really well."
"It's all in the details."
"I exspecially like the Christmas Bow on Zelenka's head," Kimberley commented, as she points to Zelenka sleeping in a chair. "I have to ask. Why does Maj. Lorne have Mistletoe taped to his forehead?"
Dara sighes and looks at her work. "So, are we done? Time to go?"
Kimberley shakes her head and smiles. "Nope."
"Seriously! We've decorated everywhere that probably needs to be done."
"We're done decorating."
"Then what are we... Please don't tell me we are going to hand out presents."
Kimberley's smile gets even bigger. "Yup. Come on."
Dara sighes and begins to mumble to herself as she follows Kimberley back to the Puddle Jumper. Once there, Kimberley loads her arms up with presents this time and loads up hers. "So, under the Christmas Trees, beside the Stargate?" Dara asked, hoping to end it quickly and getting out of there.
"Nope. We are to put the presents near them. That way they can get them when they wake up. If you want to leave sooner, you better deliver them quick."
"Sometimes, I hate you," Dara responds, just before she runs off.
Soon, Dara was making her way through Atlantis, stopping here and there to drop off presents to some of the people that she came across. Pretty soon, she was down to one present, which happen to go to one Lt. Col. John Sheppard. Wondering if Kimberley did it on purpose, she goes to John's room and swipes her hand over the crystals. The door opens up, revealing John pass out on his bed. Both of his legs were hanging over the bed and his boots were half off, as if he fell asleep in the middle of taking them off.
Sighing, Dara puts the present down on the nightstand and grabs at his boots. Carefully she pulls them off, puts his legs back on the bed, and covers him up with a blanket. As she turns to walk out, a song by the Betty Everett starts to play on her Zune. Slowly, Dara turns back and looks at John. Going back over to his bed side, she stares down at him. Slowly and carefully, she leans down and gives him a kiss on the lips. Standing back up faster, than she did to bend down, she stares down at him to actually see a smile spread on his sleeping face.
Smirking she turns on her heel and leaves, making her way back to the Puddle Jumper. As she made her way into the Puddle Jumper, she noticed Kimberley sitting in the Co-Pilot's Chair, without her iPod on or playing. Dara slowly pulls out her earbuds and notices that the music wasn't playing either. "Ready to go, Captain!" Kimberley exclaims.
"Shouldn't we turn off the machine?" Dara asks, raising her eyebrow towards her insane friend.
"Already did. We are ready to go."
"About time!" Dara exclaims as she sits down in the Pilot's chair.
oOoBreakoOo
John woke up the next morning, yawning. He hadn't felt like he slept that deep in ages. Licking his lips, trying to wake himself up more, he noticed that they tasted slightly like Peppermint. Wondering what happened, he slowly opens his eyes, to see a brightly wrapped present on his nightstand. Sitting up, he grabs the present that was about a size of a CD. Carefully he opens the small card attached to it that read, "To: John, From: Kimberley Clause and her Hum Bug helper". Putting legs over the edge of the bed, he opens the present to see a DVD with writing on it.
"Johnny Cash's I Walk The Line?" John asks to no one. Wondering if it would be a virus from Kimberley, he shrugs his shoulders, figuring it was worth it. He grabs his laptop and starts it up. Openning up the DVD tray and puts the DVD in. After a minute an image of Dara in a bikini top and jean shorts appears on screen. She was currently washing her Puddle Jumper and didn't realised she was being filmed by, he guessed, Kimberley. He noticed she had her Zune playing and her earbuds in and she was quietly singing to a song she didn't know as well. All of a sudden her voice got louder and clearer, because a song she did know, came on. It happened to be what the DVD was entitled.
"Okay, Kimberley. I'll let you get away with this holiday. Best present I've ever received."
