Blessed is the Season
Summary: Five Christmases along the way.
Pairing: Sam/Jack
A/N: Thank you to mrspollifax for her beta work on this. Written for the LJ community sj_everyday 2012 Sam/Jack Advent Calendar.
ONE
Christmas Eve spent with alien raccoons. It might not be traditional, but hey, Jack could do worse.
Having determined that a small animal was the only thing rustling in the brush, Jack sets his gun down and leans back against the tree once again. At least it's a warm night, and so far the planet doesn't seem to be inhabited by anything bigger or more menacing than a raccoon, so chances are high this will be a nice, quiet mission.
Until he just blew those chances by assuming that this would be a nice, quiet mission. Ugh. When is he going to learn?
SG-1 is here now, on this particular day, because according to Daniel and Carter, another few days and they'd have to wait a decade for… There was something about the way the sunlight at the noon hour would align between two towers built in the center of yadda, yadda, yadda. It all boils down to one thing. SG-1 is only a few months into its inception, and they will be spending Christmas Eve together as a team on P7X-880, studying alignments of various stuff with other stuff.
Somehow it's only fitting. Not that he had plans for Christmas anyway, other than quality time spent with a moderately priced bottle of scotch, but still.
"Sir."
"Captain," he acknowledges as she sits down next to him.
"Nice night."
"That it is." He looks up at the sky for a moment. "Everything set for tomorrow?"
"Yeah, Daniel's just finishing placing the sensors at 90 degree angles from…" She glances at Jack. "He and Teal'c will be back within the hour."
Carter cutting off her own tech lecture for once; now there's a Christmas miracle of epic proportions. "Good."
There are crickets– or something similar– chirping in the distance. Once in a while the wind moves the trees, but otherwise it stays quiet.
Carter sighs in a contented way. "Have any childhood Christmas traditions, sir?"
"No, not really. Stockings, the usual stuff. You?"
"Mostly I remember the difference between the ones where my dad was home versus the ones where he wasn't."
She draws her legs up and perches her chin on her bent knees, wrapping her arms around her shins. He always feels like she suddenly loses about five years and two levels of solider invulnerability when she does that. It reminds him how young his team is, and how much they count on him to bring them home safely each and every time.
He thinks about Charlie briefly, about how Carter probably has more in common with his son than himself, at least in some ways. But glum doesn't feel right tonight. It's like a lot of things that have changed since the Stargate program came into his life.
"How much snow were they predicting back at home?" he asks, picking at a blade of grass.
"At least a few inches and some ice, I think."
"While we're hangin' out where it's 70 degrees, that's something."
She almost chuckles. "Not one for a white Christmas, sir?"
"As I grow older and the joints start to go, the concept of why a white Christmas is appealing is beginning to get lost on me, Carter."
She's quiet for a while, either listening for something or maybe absorbed in her own memories.
"Remember that feeling on Christmas morning?" Carter starts, a wistful smile on her lips he'd never seen. "I remember that I would run downstairs and there were all these presents wrapped in paper, all shapes and sizes under the tree, each one holding endless possibilities."
"Yeah."
"When my dad sat me down and told me there wasn't a Santa, I worried that I would never feel like that ever again." Her voice is quieter now, as if matching the music of the distant crickets. "But that's exactly the feeling I get every time I go through the Stargate."
Jack looks over at her, in her eyes he sees something of the spirit of Christmas he'd thought he left behind long ago. Maybe being off world with his team wasn't a bad way to spend the holiday after all, alien raccoons aside.
"Merry Christmas, Carter."
"You too, sir."
TWO
"Sir," Carter calls out from down the corridor.
Jack mentally cringes, then he wonders if he could get away with pretending that he didn't hear her. All day he's been measuring the slow tick of the second hand on his watch until the time that he can head up to the surface and be on his way to Minnesota, as far away from the SGC as he can manage to get in a short, three-day holiday weekend.
"Sir," she says again, gaining on him while the elevator oh so unhelpfully does not arrive.
He can't pull off the escape. "Yeah, Major, what's up?"
"General Hammond had something that he needed you to sign before you left for your trip."
She hands over a piece of paper and he squints at it. Damn paperwork. He pats down his pockets and determines that he's got no pen on him. Carter smiles at him, and hands over her own pen.
"Here," she says.
He takes it and uses the concrete wall as a writing surface to scribble his signature across the bottom of the form. In the course of all of this, he's managed to miss his elevator. It slams shut and scoots away before he hands the paper back to Carter.
"Mind giving it back to Hammond for me?"
"Sure, no problem."
Of course it isn't. She's more than happy to follow his orders. She's a fine officer, a stellar one, in fact. It's the part that kills him the most, because if she wasn't so great at her job he'd have less admiration for her and that might help the situation, or at least give him grounds to transfer her off his team.
He can't do that. It's not fair; she's done nothing wrong. She's oblivious to the fact that he's been steadily falling for her. Never in a million years would he have thought it was possible in those early days when she was first assigned under his command. Truth be told, she kind of annoyed him back then. He noticed that she was attractive, sure, but that was about it.
Now it's so dreadfully different, because he has gotten to know her. Really know her, and he sees past the brainy babbling science talk and down to the core of the woman who is amazing, fiercely loyal, capable, and cool under pressure. She shares his values and his respect. Her idiosyncrasies have become endearing.
He tries to deny it's happening. He pretends he doesn't notice how close she is next to him in the briefing room, how much he wants her to brush up against him. He tells himself not to care more about her safety than that of the boys when they're all off world and get into a sticky situation.
He's absolutely not counting up all her smiles.
"I didn't know you were going on a trip, sir?"
It cuts between his thoughts and pulls him back. He's standing in the corridor with Carter in front of him. She's rolling the edge of the paper in her fingers and looking at him funny. Like she could tell he was a million miles away, and wonders what the journey was like.
Jack's heart does that thing it does when he suddenly is reminded, painfully, just how much he's in love with her. She'd go on any journey to any place with him, but not that one special kind, the journey that leads to his bedroom, an aisle, or whatever.
She's still waiting.
"Sorry?" he asks.
"I said, I didn't know you planned a trip somewhere for the holidays."
"Cabin. In Minnesota. Ice fishing and beer mostly." He somehow manages to supply the basics. He leaves out the part that wishes she could go with him.
"Well, have fun, sir."
"I will. You too."
She turns to head back from where she came. He tries desperately not to watch her leave. He has gotto learn let her go.
THREE
It's been an absolute shit year.
Jack's not one to ever use that word, but he's hard pressed to find a more appropriate one. It's been full of scrapes and mishaps and problems. None of that on its own is a big deal, but it's all capped off by the fact that they lost Daniel. "Lost" is a safer word than "ascended" or "died," so that's what he's been going with, not that it seems to help him, Teal'c, or Carter much.
Jack turns his chair away from the TV and the fireplace, and instead, positions it facing the picture window where the snow is falling outside. He sits down with all the lights out, drink in hand, and watches. He silently toasts Christmas.
The entire set up is how he knows the exact moment that Carter arrives. Her car carefully steers off the unplowed street in front of his house and turns into his driveway. Nobody should be out in this, but apparently Carter is the exception. She's always been the exception.
By the light of the street lamps he watches her sit in her car. Leave it to his Carter to drive through a snowstorm, arrive safely, and only then decide to debate the merits of the action. She must finally convince herself to come inside his house, or maybe the weather is bad enough that turning around and going back home is no longer an option. Either way, she makes her way up the front walk to his door. He opens it before she arrives and it startles her.
"I saw you coming," he offers. She starts to slide on a patch of ice inches in front of the threshold and he reaches out to grab her.
They don't do this. They don't touch, so it raises alarm bells in his head when she doesn't immediately let go after straightening up, steadying herself, and stepping inside with him. She's still got her hand on his arm as he offers to make her a drink, and she doesn't turn it down.
Damn, this is bad. But somehow Jack finds that he doesn't care, not as much as he should. What he does care about is Carter being in a reckless and depressed holiday mood over Daniel, but pretending that she's fine. Of course she's not, and the last thing they need is her getting drunk, touching him, and then whatever happens or doesn't happen fills her with regret the next day.
He makes the mixed drink light on the alcohol. She takes one sip and knows it, her eyes shifting to him as she sets it down on the coffee table.
"So, making the rounds Christmas caroling, or what?" he asks.
"Sir."
It's not the kind that means, "Cut it out." It's the kind of "Sir" that shatters his resolve. She needs him.
Not in that way. Well, OK, probably in that way too. But she needs to lean on him. It's a rare Carter moment. She lets the pain of all the waiting and wanting shine through her eyes. Most of the time it's fine, but not when they've lost their friend and it's Christmas and they're both so very, very alone.
"Come here."
She steps into his arms and it feels like coming home for him. He's learned somewhere along the way that it must feel that same way for her too.
"We're going to be OK?" She whispers it against his cheek and he has to fight to steady himself. He thinks that she meant it as more of a statement than a question, but it didn't come out that way.
So he answers her, "Yeah."
He's not placating her; he honestly believes they'll get through this. Even this, as hard as it is, can't break them.
They sit down on his couch side-by-side and drink some rum while the snow continues to fall outside. They tell each other stories about the first year they started going through the gate. At some point she snuggles against his side and tucks her feet up next to herself on the couch. His arm ends up around her shoulders. They're still shaking with laughter over Jack's recounting the tale of the time Teal'c was made to participate in that fertility dance around a fire pit wearing feathers.
Carter falls asleep that way, and he sits for a long time in the dark listening to her breathing. Then he gently helps her get vertical without waking her, and puts the throw blanket over her legs.
"Next Christmas will be merry," he tells her, leaning over and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead to punctuate the promise.
He heads down the hall to his bedroom. Yeah, he thinks they're somehow going to be OK.
FOUR
"Daniel." Jack hadn't used this particular level of command tone with him in years. "You got me here, alright? That's enough. I'm not putting on the Santa hat too."
"But both Teal'c and I have ours on."
"Indeed."
Jack eyes Teal'c for any sign of Jaffa sarcasm in there somewhere. They're standing in line at a mall to see Santa, still miles from being anywhere close to the front of it. He does not want to spend the remainder of their time waiting having this argument with Daniel. As if that wasn't enough already, Daniel throws in the parting shot–
"We're doing this for Sam, remember?"
Jack sighs and takes the offending hat and plops it on top of his head. Yes, they are doing this for Sam. The very same Sam who is spending the holidays in another galaxy, despite the fact that she was supposed to be home last week. But when a man is head-over-heels in love with a woman irreplaceable to the Stargate program, things don't always go as planned. Like, take for instance, her not being home for the holidays.
So Daniel suggested that they all take a picture together with Santa and send it to Atlantis to cheer her up. No one seems to care about Jack's need for cheer. Nope.
The little kid in line ahead of them turns around and eyes all three of them suspiciously. Yeah, even the kids can figure out that this is a weird idea.
"Do you know Santa?" the kid asks Teal'c. Of course, because every kid in every corner of the universe always falls for Teal'c. It's like he's a magnet for anyone under the age of, well, whatever is considered puberty on the particular planet they happen to be on. This specific one is around seven or eight years old, by Jack's estimation.
Daniel appears worried at what Teal'c might respond with, so instead he jumps in. "Ah, sure. We're close personal friends with Santa, and a couple of aliens too."
The mom chuckles and takes the boy by the hand, Teal'c does his eyebrow thing, and they shuffle a couple of inches closer to the end goal and then stop and wait again.
After about 15 or 20 minutes, they close within sight of Santa and his elves scurrying around snapping the photos and charging the parents' credit cards. Jack notices some of the female elves are kinda hot in their little elf costumes. Maybe this won't be such a miserable experience after all, and heck, if they're selling those outfits, Jack knows a certain recently-made-full-bird colonel for whom he's not yet gotten any congratulation gift. Hmm.
"Besides," Daniel adds, as if Jack might still need convincing of participation in this escapade. "I hear there's going to be a special moment. Someone here has a relative that's just come home from serving overseas. They expect the kid's going to get up there and ask Santa if he can have mom or dad back home for Christmas, and the parent is going to pop out. It'll be great. You love that kind of thing."
Jack blinks, wondering if Daniel has been replaced by some replicator version of himself. Who in their right mind would think that he loved that kind of thing? It's Teal'c who goes for the sappy stuff. The man can practically recite entire Lifetime movies.
"I love that kind of thing?" Jack repeats.
"Sure. You know, the whole military aspect."
"Yes, Daniel, anything that reminds me of my job while on my downtime is something I cherish deeply."
"You're an old softie and you know it."
The woman with the kid in front of them chuckles at their exchange then realizes that she's let on that she's been eavesdropping. "Sorry," she says, "I just think it's cute when couples banter like that. How long have you two been together?"
Jack freezes while Daniel sputters, "We're not… I'm not…" and other useless things.
Teal'c gives her a serene smile and smoothly says, "Many more years than I care to count."
Jack wants the floor to open up so he can sink into it. Or maybe someone could beam him out of here right about now? That'd be great.
They finally make it to the front of the line, and it takes a moment for the photographer to get them all arranged. Daniel insists that Jack be the one doing the lap sitting while he and Teal'c stand along either side of Santa.
Santa looks like he's had a hellish day and is still looking at four more hours on shift.
"Sorry about this, buddy," Jack says. "But it's for a good cause, at least."
They snap the photo and Daniel says, "C'mon, Jack, tell Santa what you really want for Christmas."
Jack rolls his eyes and starts to get up. But Teal'c is giving him the eye, the one that intimidates even Jack. "Um, I don't know, six-pack of Guinness would be nice."
"No, Jack." Daniel says, even more insistent, and Jack didn't think that was possible. "What you really want most of all in the world– in the galaxy– for Christmas."
That's it, the taunting has gone too far. "Daniel, I don't think this poor guy in a cheap red suit gives a damn about the fact that what I'd like is for my girlfriend to be home for Christmas."
There's a hush in the crowd waiting. Oops, he forgot about all the kids surrounding them. But apparently Daniel didn't, because he's playing right into his audience.
"But we all know that Santa can do anything, right? Even magic." Several kids are nodding their heads in agreement. "So, Jack, why don't you try one more time and ask Santa what you want?"
"Santa, hi there." Jack clears his throat a little. "If you don't mind too much, I'd really like my girlfriend to be home for Christmas. She's in the military serving… far away. It's our first year together, I mean, together together, if you catch my drift… and that would be my Christmas wish."
The crowd starts oohing and aahing before Jack even realizes what is happening. Colonel Samantha Carter, in dress uniform, comes out of the gingerbread house a couple of feet away in the display.
She smiles as she walks over to him and plants a kiss on him. The crowd cheers. Daniel and Teal'c are looking mighty pleased.
"Let me guess," he asks Carter moments later, as they make their way back through the busy mall with Daniel and Teal'c trailing behind them by a couple of steps. "It was all Teal'c's idea?" He was the one that Jack eventually noticed near the end of the ordeal holding up a video camera and filming.
"Oh yeah."
"And the two of them are going to put it up on YouTube, aren't they?"
"Daniel's planning on calling it 'Grumpy old man gets what he wants despite yelling at Santa.'"
"Technically, I was yelling at Daniel. And you could have come out of that gingerbread house sooner, you know."
She grins.
FIVE
Jack drinks a beer while he waits on Carter, who is still finishing up in the bathroom. She looked just fine to him when he snagged a short glimpse earlier, but apparently more primping was still needed.
Do people say "primping" anymore? He's not sure. Maybe that died out decades ago.
He checks the clock on the microwave, not that he particularly cares if they're late. Heck, he would rather skip the whole thing entirely. He's retired now, after all, and he shouldn't be obligated to go to this fancy Christmas party and socialize with upper Pentagon brass. But it isn't about his career anymore. It's about Carter's. And because of that, not a single word of complaint will pass his lips tonight.
He still reserves the right to call them all nasty names in his head. Or imagine them getting eaten by a giant alien squid with fangs, just like that one he came across while part of SG-1. And didn't Daniel almost fall in the lagoon with the creature, if memory serves? He'll have to ask Carter.
As if on cue, she enters the kitchen while stuffing her phone and some other things into an impossibly small clutch purse. It matches the same color of dark green material that makes up her dress. He doesn't get to see Carter in a dress all that often so when she glances up at him, she catches him ogling her.
"What?" he asks. If she's going to put on a floor length number that shows off most of her back and a good amount of cleavage, he's going to ogle. And ogle, and ogle more.
She just rolls her eyes. "Ready to go?"
"I was the one waiting on you."
"You look nice too, by the way," she says, as he holds her coat for her to put on. He's in a regular suit and a red tie, no dress blues this post-retirement year. He wanted to wear the tie with the dancing Santas on it, but of course, Sam put the kibosh on that right away. He is, however, wearing boxers underneath that he got a couple of years ago and are only worn this season, ones with a strategically placed picture of mistletoe. It never fails to make her laugh.
After the coat is on, he steps forward and wraps his arms around Sam from behind. His lips brush her neck. He should say something like, "You look incredible. You'll be the most beautiful woman there. I still can't believe that you're mine." But he is who he is, and she knows him, so she shouldn't be surprised when it comes out more like, "Nice dress."
"Mm. Thank you." She turns in his arms and kisses him, feather light but with promise. So he's definitely going to be workin' the boxers later; that's good to know.
It turns out that the DC traffic isn't as bad as Jack expected, so they end up arriving pretty much on time. The ballroom is fully decked to the halls, fa la la la, and all that. They grab some punch and begin to "mingle." One of Jack's least favorite words in the entire universe. But again, doing this all for her, he reminds himself. It's become a theme in recent years.
Carter is a rising star of late. Who is he kidding? She was always a rising star, but now gaining increasingly more and more attention from all the right places. She's running the SGC at the moment, and Jack selfishly wishes that's where she'll stay and ride out the rest of her career. He likes Colorado. He likes who they are when they're living in Colorado, surrounded by trees and their friends and the ability to breathe.
But they've hung on to his two-bedroom condo in DC for a place to stay when they're in town for occasions such as this reception tonight. Neither of them have said it out loud, but he's pretty sure they both know that's a load of baloney. They could get a hotel room for a night. The real reason they haven't sold the condo is that in the back of both of their minds, they know there's a good chance they'll be moving back to DC sometime in the next couple of years. She's on that kind of trajectory.
Jack sighs and pushes it all aside, trying instead to pay attention to what Carter and General Elliot Banner are talking about. Elliot's got a hot young date on his arm, probably aiming to line herself up as wife number five. She winks at Jack.
Good grief.
He puts his arm around Carter. It makes her hesitate over whatever point that she was making to Elliot about magnetic imaging of something or other.
Jack smiles. Yeah, they don't really do PDA. He likes that it surprises her, even after all this time. Thankfully, that conversation wraps up quickly because Elliot's date with the winking problem wants to dance.
He follows Sam in the opposite direction, making their way over to a table in the corner. As they approach, Jack understands why Sam has angled them this way. She's got an old friend named Lisa from her academy days who has made a nice career in the Department of Defense Press Operations Center, and she's here tonight with her husband. Lisa's likely covering the event for her office.
Jack feigns interest in talking Redskins football with the husband while Sam and her friend catch up. It's nice, actually. How often does Carter get a chance to talk about "normal" stuff like Christmas shopping? The other couple have a daughter about Cassandra's age and a younger son still in college, and so the women swap news on that front. Jack suspects that Carter probably relishes the opportunity to do some friendly boasting to Lisa about Cassandra's budding medical career and the new boyfriend that's been in the picture since sometime over the summer.
Meanwhile, Jack and the husband have deteriorated into talking about the food. "Have you tried the lobster mousse? It's good. So is the bisque."
"Yeah, great," Jack replies. He gets a look from Sam, he sits up straighter.
By the time the dessert plates have been cleared, the activity on dance floor starts to pick up. He should dance with her, at least once.
"Jack, these heels start to hurt my feet if I do too much in them," she says when he brings it up. Why the hell did she wear them then?
"Come on, I'll hold you up."
They find a spot on the corner of floor and she steps into his arms. Now this, right here, is worth the entire torture of tonight.
"Keep your hands in an innocent place, Jack."
He smiles at her. OK, more like leers. She knows him too well to actually believe that he'd do something like that in public. Especially here, surrounded by people she's trying to make a good impression on. But he loves that she's put the image in his head.
"Or else you'll do what?" he asks.
She raises an eyebrow at him as they turn in a slow circle. "You really want me to answer that? With your extensive knowledge of my hand-to-hand combat training."
"You're sexy when you threaten me, do you know that, Carter?"
They get home after 11, and he's ready to fall into bed. Carter's in the bathroom taking just as much time to deconstruct the outfit, hair, and makeup as she did putting it all on.
Other than a Christmas or two after his kid died many years ago, and that one they spent without Daniel, he's never been one to get melancholy this time of year. Or nostalgic; he's found it's best to look forward and not back.
But there are a lot of ways that his life could have gone. He assumes there's alternative universes out there where Jack O'Neill retired many years ago instead of just recently, or his kid didn't die, or perhaps he and Sam have a bunch of little ones of their own running around. There are probably many more where Jack O'Neill is living alone, never made it out of Iraq, or ate a bullet before he ever got the chance to meet someone named Samantha Carter. Those lives are real. It makes his head hurt if he thinks about it too much, so he tries not to, but there are moments. Times when he can't help but match his life up against the 'What ifs' and breathe a sigh of relief. He's got it pretty good, considering.
Excruciatingly long and boring Christmas parties notwithstanding.
The door to the bathroom finally opens and Carter appears in a short nightshirt. She flips off the light and gets into bed next to him.
"You were quiet tonight," she says, "even for you."
"I was mourning the fact that I didn't have a Zat on me."
"Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad."
He hates to admit that it wasn't the worst ever. He had to endure one of these things all on his own the year she was late returning from Atlantis. That was much worse. "I guess you're right."
She rolls onto her side to face him. "Seriously, Jack, everything OK?"
"Fine. Great. Peachy." He puts an arm around her and pulls her up close to his body. Everything is great. He's one lucky guy, and he knows it, but there's these moments when he's reminded of how unbelievably lucky. He thinks that maybe he should buy her something flashy this year for Christmas? They usually don't exchange anything. Well, unless it's a joke gift like last year when he got her that raccoon stuffed animal, a callback to the very first Christmas they spent together.
But this year, he decides that he'll surprise her. She never got an engagement ring, they went straight to the wedding bands, so maybe diamonds? Earrings, yeah, that'll surprise her and she'll like them.
He reaches up and traces the cuff of her ear. She smiles at him before leaning in to kiss him.
"I've got a surprise for you," he says between kisses that are escalating to the more heated variety.
"Yeah?"
"I'm wearing your favorite boxers."
She laughs as her hands move under the sheet, down his belly to the waistband of said boxers. "It really must be Christmastime then."
"It's going to be one for the books, Carter."
"Oh, I've got no doubt about that." Her hand closes over the length of him inside his boxers. "And look! I even found a Christmas raccoon."
"Hey!" If she thinks she's going to get away with calling Jack Jr. down there a nickname like "raccoon" then she's got another thing coming. He may be retired but he remembers a few moves; flipping a laughing Carter over and pinning her under him is an easy task. He kisses her deeply, slowly, moving against her until the laughter floats away and is replaced with murmurs of love and joy.
"Merry Christmas, Sam," he whispers in her ear.