TITLE: Danger - Unexploded Latkes
AUTHOR: A. M. Richardson
CLASSIFICATION: Stargate SG1 Short
SPOILERS: Set S8, spoilers for Chimera
RATING: G A couple of minor swear words that might be used on the show. Non-gratuitous religious references.
PAIRINGS: Friendship - Sam/Jack
SUMMARY: It's December 8th and Sam is surprised…
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was written for my dear, dear friend pittsburghgirl on the occasion of a long gone birthday.
Feedback is much appreciated.
My thanks to Gwen for the instant beta. hugs her and to Rob for help with military details - thank you!
SJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJ
Sam shivered against the biting December wind as she stepped out of her Volvo onto the tinkling Colorado Springs road. Hurriedly locking her door by remote, she teetered over to the frosty path, inwardly cursing her oh-so-stylish three inch high knee boots; her combat DMs were so coming home with her tomorrow. Feeling delicate snow-kisses on her hair, she wondered if a) the snow was going to lie b) what the odds were of a plow appearing along her street anytime before the New Year and c) if she should telephone General O'Neill tonight to beg a lift in his snow-chain clad truck in the morning. Although her vintage Volvo was safely tucked up in storage for the winter, the new model she was driving didn't cope with deep snow very well.
Surely, he wouldn't mind. He'd done it once before, two years ago after a dead auto battery and an early morning phone call.
However, things were different now. Very different.
She slowed as she neared her path. There was something on her doorstep. A small package. Fishing in her purse, she removed her personal 9mm and snapped off the safety. A quick recce of the neighborhood didn't reveal anything untoward, but she'd learned to be cautious the hard way.
There were greasy marks on the outside.
Crap. Her idea of a quiet night in was Chinese takeout and her 'Meet Me in St Louis' DVD, not a tête-à-tête with the bomb squad; the neighbors would love that. Edging closer, she could see a note stapled to the potential Semtex.
Her mouth dropped open as she read the typed words:
Happy Hanukkah, Sam
This wasn't possible.. who on Earth knew? And she chose her words carefully.
Mark? No way, no way in Netu, and she hadn't heard from her Dad in ten worrying months. Fleeting thoughts of her family's mortality and the unexpected nature of the message emboldened her and she stepped closer.
She could swear she smelt onions.
Against her better judgement, Sam eased the edges of the foil-lined bag apart and leaned over. Her mind was sent reeling back 30 years by a smell that invaded her senses. She could see a smiling thirty-something woman with fine features with long blonde hair and lips that were never without lipstick, and her Dad throwing a football to her brother across an icy lawn…
This was not happening.
The bag was stuffed with latkes.
Grateful that she hadn't called the UXB unit out to deal with unexploded potato pancakes and with a final backward glance to the empty street, she grabbed the package and negotiated her front door locks as fast as humanly possible. Kicking the door closed with her foot, Sam trotted through to her kitchen and ripped open the bag, appreciative of the security timers that switched on her lights at dusk. The smell of hot onion and egg was tantalising, but the origin of the delicacy was puzzling her greatly.
She then did what any sensible person would do; she slapped the latkes onto a plate, grabbed a fork and ate them.
Standing up. In her kitchen. And she didn't give a damn, because they were good. Halfway through the stack, a hunt was made for apple sauce, but after the cupboard and the larder came up with nothing, she gave up and polished off the rest on her sofa, her boots abandoned and her eyes half closed and her legs crossed beneath her, Buddha-like.
It was a good ten minutes of her staring at the empty plate later that she finally checked out the message that was left.
Happy Hanukkah, Sam
It was something she had never discussed outside of her family, and for the life of her, she couldn't think of a good reason why. She wasn't religious, she never had been. Her mom was the menorah-lighting Jewish-American princess who had married outside of her faith and had been consequently ostracised from her family. Sam chuffed softly. People could be so ignorant and prejudiced of the minor issues under their noses, when they had no idea of the wider state of the universe. Would they really be arguing that this person wasn't allowed to love that person just because their God had another name? And wouldn't that problem pale into insignificance if they knew that other 'Gods' would be quite happy to blow their world to quarks and leptons and nearly had. More than once.
BUT WHO KNEW ABOUT HER MOM?
The premature death of Ruth Carter meant that any observance of the ancient rituals she continued and shared with the wide-eyed Sammy simply ended. No more glorious, unusual food on high days and holidays, no more menorahs, no more sufganiyot – how she missed those jelly donuts. Any reference to her heritage was no longer mentioned between her father and her brother – well, they were barely talking at all after the fatal accident. Her Dad's dog tags said 'ROMAN CATHOLIC', but the only time he had set foot in a church was for two weddings that she knew of and that one funeral, the coffin for which bore the wrong shaped symbol. Because of course, that made all the difference…
After signing up for officer training, she vividly remembered the look on the quartermaster sergeant's face when she requested 'RC' for the 'religion' section on her dog tags, and the none-of-your-damn-business look she threw him back in return. Religion was nothing to her, a sad reminder of happier family times. She spent her Sundays pounding around the assault course, blocking out the fragmented organ music coming from the cadet chapel; she had better things to do.
But still, who knew? She had never told Pete, (and besides which, she knew he was stuck in Denver on a case), she had never told anyone else at the SGC.
The SGC.
Her personnel file.
Religion of father:
Religion of mother:
Because of all the other crap contained within, she knew it was held in a secure vault in one of the restricted areas. Two people were allowed access to the file – the CMO and.. the base commander.
The realisation hit her like a douche in the face. She peered at the message again. It was standard printer paper and the typeface was computer-generated. Fingering the bag that the latkes had come in, unexpected emotions followed the revelation. Did he do this? Why did he do this? HOW did he do this?
Sam grabbed her telephone and punched in the speed dial number she wanted. Setting her jaw, she listened to the connection and then the ringing.
Ring, ring
Ring, ring
Ring, ring
As the connection was picked up at the other end, she slammed the receiver back into its cradle so forcefully she was afraid she'd broken it. Leaning over the kitchen counter and resting her elbows on the polished surface, she covered her hand with her hands. Shit, she was too old for this crap. She was allowed to call him and say 'Hey, thanks for the latkes, that was really thoughtful of you, and you have a good evening too,' wasn't she? She unplugged the phone to be on the safe side and retreated to the lounge, rearranging photographs and straightening already straightened cushions. Throwing herself down on the sofa, Sam dug out the remote and switched the TV on.
"-so come on downnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-"
"-at least 20 off the list price-"
"-watch your mouth kid, or you'll find yourself floatin' home-"
"-deck the halllllllllls with boughs of hollyyyyyyyyyy-"
-click-
She sighed. Her stomach was churning and she tasted the onion again.
Sam Carter knew what she wanted to do, so why was she procrastinating?
To the left of her TV was a cupboard and right at the back was something wrapped in black velvet. It was out of its box, uncovered and resting on her dinning table in seven seconds flat.
The intricate brass felt cool to her fingertips, the embellishments familiar, yet not, the branches slender and elegant. She fingered the highest spindle where the servant candle would have been placed and was strangely disappointed she had no candles for her mom's beloved menorah. Another smaller velvet-wrapped package was bundled with the rest of the material, and Sam smiled as she unveiled it. She spun the dreidel on the table, grinning at the long forgotten memories of the game.
What does this mean, momma?
'A Great Miracle Happened There', peaches-and-cream
Where's 'there', momma?
In Israel, the Holy Land, honeybunch
Mamma! Stop calling me that!
But you are, my baby, and it's your turn, quick before Daddy gets home
Where was a Kleenex when you needed one? Kitchen towel would have to do. After a wipe and a nose-blow, she looked at the phone again. Yes, her lip would keep hurting if she would keep chewing it, but she wasn't going to call, and she wasn't entirely sure he would call back even she though knew he would have done last-number-callback.
Things were different now.
"Ah, to hell," she muttered as she fished in the fridge for a beer, and snapping off the lights she went to settle herself on her Laz-y-boy by the patio doors, pulling open the curtains to gaze out at the night sky before she did so.
She was wrong about the snow; the clouds had cleared showing a brilliant night sky, the heavens arcing above her, the constellations clear as a bell - how perfect were the winter night skies! She could certainly appreciate the General's hobby, even if he did profess to use his telescope to spy on the neighbors.
The scene seemed so reverent, expectant. She gazed back into the gloom toward her table declaring the remnants of her mom's religious life. Who was right? Who was wrong? God? Yahweh? Allah? Ra? Did any of it mean anything, or was it just an outdated sociological norm? She could never get the Michelangelo ideal astride the third pink cloud to the left, and if there was a God, because sometimes she just didn't know what to believe, 'he' wouldn't be that, for sure. And just why the frell was a scientist contemplating life, the universe and why she never had a Kleenex handy when she started crying?
Now she had a headache, damn. Sam started to rise from her chair to go get some Advil when something outside caught her eye.
There! There again!
A silver bow stretching across the horizon! She stood up to get a better view... a shooting star! How cool, and what a cliché; the General would love that. Alone in the dark, swigging beer, contemplating the nature of God, fretting about her mom and now, a shooting star.
She laughed softly to herself and dropped back into the chair to watch the heavenly light show.
Later, she missed the snow clouds forming again and the soft fall of diamonds onto velvet. When she awoke in the early hours, the room was lit from without by whiteness and she was covered with her mom's comforter.
But for the life of her, she couldn't remember going to get it.
SJSJSJSJSJSJSJSJ
ende