DISCLAIMER: None of these characters belong to me. I'm just playing in the Stargate sandbox.
TIMELINE: December 1997 - Season 1, after "Singularity"
SPOILERS: "Singularity"
ESTABLISHED SHIPS: None
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I wrote this story in November 2010 during NaNoWriMo. I've let it sit for a whole year because I didn't have time to edit it then, and I felt strongly about posting one chapter a day during the whole month of December. So that is what I'll be doing this year. Make sure to story alert so you get the shiny e-mail every day as I post!
Thank you for reading. Please review, if you are so compelled.
-Heather
I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY
"Christmas Bells"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
DECEMBER 1
"Snow Creams"
Snow floated from the steely sky onto the girl's upturned face. A fine layer of icy frosting coated long wavy blonde hair peeking out from a pink knit cap and clung to thick curling eyelashes. The mail retrieved from the box at the end of the lane hung loosely in one gloved hand. She had stood like this with her face turned skyward and bearing a beatific smile for nearly ten minutes when the snap and flash of a camera startled her.
With bewilderment in her brown eyes, she turned towards the snow-covered house with the bright red door. A petite woman stood in the doorway, her feet wrapped in warm knit boots and her short auburn hair covered with a matching cap. A brilliant smile to match the girl's shone on her face. She came out from the protection of the porch awning and down the freshly shoveled steps.
"What is it?" Cassandra asked, peering up again at the fluffy flakes falling from the cold, gray sky.
"It's called snow. We get a lot of it in Colorado between November and March," Janet replied. "When the upper atmosphere gets cold, water vapor turns to snow and falls to Earth. Sam could explain it to you better. You can ask her about it when she comes over today."
Cassandra beamed. "Okay, I will! When is she getting here?"
"In just a little bit. You should come inside and get warm so you're ready for a surprise when she gets here. I promise it will be worth it."
Inside the ranch-style house, Janet helped her twelve-year-old foster daughter out of the bulky pink winter coat and hung her cap, scarf, and gloves to dry over the register. The boots would take all night, she lamented, since Cassandra had jumped into every snow drift between the front steps and the mailbox. She didn't blame the girl for enjoying the first snow of the year. From the sound of it, she had never even seen snow before.
Very few people in the world had high enough security clearance to know that aliens called Goa'uld had transported human civilizations from Earth to other planets in the Milky Way galaxy thousands of years ago. Cassandra came from one of those human worlds and had been living on Earth for a little over two months.
As a doctor in Stargate Command, Janet had the clearance to know all of this. Her job also gave her the distinct privilege of becoming Cassandra's foster parent. She had known from the first when her commanding officer, General George Hammond, asked for volunteers with proper security clearance to take in the orphan girl that it was the right decision. It wasn't easy, being a single parent and first time parent to a twelve-year-old girl, but it was rewarding in ways Janet had never imagined.
"Why don't you go finish up your homework so you have all afternoon to spend with Sam?"
Cassandra agreed. She got her backpack from her bedroom at the back of the house and went to sit at the kitchen table. Her history book appeared in front of her first. It was her favorite class, partly because Earth history was completely new to her and partly because Daniel made history come to life with his many stories.
Along with Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson was part of SG-1, the frontline Stargate exploration team. He was an archeologist and philologist who had translated the language on the Stargate and made it work. Also, he had been an orphan raised in foster care and had taken a special interest in Cassandra. It made Janet's heart melt to watch them together, chatting about history and language and myth. Another member of SG-1 to show keen interest in the girl was Colonel Jack O'Neill, who had lost his son in a tragic accident a little over two years ago. Janet had never asked, but she thought Charlie O'Neill would be about twelve years old now.
The final team member, Teal'c, had kept his distance from Cassandra for several weeks. He was a Jaffa, a soldier enslaved by the Goa'uld, and unsure if the girl wanted him around. He told Janet if Cassandra had seen Nirrti's Jaffa on her home world, she would not find it easy to accept him as she did Janet, Sam, Daniel, and Jack. Cassandra, however, showed no signs of fearing or disliking Teal'c. She remembered only that he had rescued her on Hanka.
"Janet?" Cassandra called. "Was General Robert E. Lee in the Air Force?"
"Have you looked in the encyclopedia?" Janet called back. She paused over the grilled cheese simmering in the frying pan and heard Cassandra's stocking-clad feet scampering into the living room to pull the L volume from the shelf. A few minutes later she asked, "What did you find, Cassie?"
"He was in the Confederate Army. Why didn't he join the Air Force?"
"Air Force starts with A."
Cassandra's precociousness meant doing her homework took three or four times as long as it should. Whenever she stumbled on something she didn't know, she wanted to learn about it. Janet didn't mind in the slightest. In fact, she encouraged the girl's inquisitiveness by purchasing a full encyclopedia set and finally connecting her home computer to the Internet. Weekly trips to the library and weekend excursions to every museum within driving distance had become their favorite times together. It was good the girl had such a voracious appetite for knowledge or assimilating into Earth society would have been even more difficult for her.
With the grilled cheese and a bowl of piping hot chicken noodle soup ready, Janet came to see how her foster daughter had progressed on figuring out why a Civil War General had not joined the Air Force. She set the food down on the table and peered into the living room where Cassandra lay on the floor, her feet in the air, devouring the history of the United States Air Force.
"You must be hungry, Cassie."
The girl marked her place with her finger and looked up curiously. "I didn't notice it was lunchtime. But I figured out why he didn't join the Air Force. There wasn't an Air Force in the 1850's because airplanes weren't invented until the 1900's."
"That's right. Now come and eat."
Cassandra obliged her foster mother and came to the table for lunch. She never stopped sharing the pieces of information she had gleaned from the encyclopedia, but Janet let her talk, never letting on that she had learned most of the same information in her first year in the Air Force Academy.
Cassandra's dog raced out of the laundry room where he'd been gnawing on a milkbone to urge his owner to give him table scraps. When the girl had arrived on Janet's doorstep with an Akita puppy Jack had talked Cassandra into naming Homer, she had been more than happy to have them both. Then she had done some research on her foster daughter's pet and would have throttled Jack if doing so wouldn't have earned her a court marital for assaulting a superior officer. Growing to nearly two-and-a-half-feet, Akitas could weigh up to 130 pounds. Already the puppy ate his weight in kibble weekly.
After lunch, the girl went back to her homework and managed to finish her essay on the Civil War with minimal interruptions. Next came her language arts and then her science lessons. Janet said nothing about the mysteriously absent math books. Everyone struggled with some subject, and it would be more productive to let the math wizard – Sam – coax Cassandra into bringing out the pre-algebra books and worksheets.
By the time Sam's car pulled into the snowy driveway and left deep ruts at the end of the lane, Cassandra had finished most of her school work and occupied a seat on the window bench. Through the frosted glass, she watched the car doors open. Not only had Sam come, but she'd brought Daniel. Cassandra leapt up from her place by the window and bolted to the door. Hot on her heels, Homer bellowed his welcome as barks that echoed around the small house while Sam and Daniel came in out of the cold.
"Sam! Daniel!"
The girl threw her arms around the adults' torsos and squeezed for all she was worth. The force of impact knocked Daniel's round glasses askew, and Sam was forced to practically hogtie Homer to get him to stop leaping enthusiastically into the air.
"My home is certainly never boring anymore," Janet said. She greeted each of her friends with a hug and invited them to come in and make themselves comfortable. "Coffee?"
"Oh, yes," said Daniel, predictably. He was the reason Janet had invested in a coffeemaker in the first place. She couldn't stand the bitter drink, but once she started to entertain friends at her house, she'd quickly learned she was the odd one out.
When Janet returned to the living room, she found Cassandra settled on the couch between Sam and Daniel. The girl's head whipped back and forth as the adults took turns talking about their day at the SGC. All had been quiet or Janet would have gotten a page. The scene reminded her of when Sam and Daniel had brought Cassandra through the Stargate, each holding her hand so she wouldn't be scared.
"So what's the surprise?" Cassandra asked. "Janet said I would have to be warm when you came over because … well, she didn't say why after that."
"Ah, that. Boy, it is going to be fun!" Sam looked as excited as Cassandra. "Daniel, why don't you go ahead? It was your idea."
The archaeologist grinned in his usual sincere manner and began. "Janet, Sam, and I were talking a few days ago about all the holiday traditions on Earth and how you don't know any because this is your first year here. I know how confusing it was for me when I lived on Abydos, but I had good friends to teach me their customers. So we thought that we – the three of us and Jack and Teal'c – could teach you our ways, one a day, for the whole month of December."
The idea was so typically Daniel, always wanting to explore cultures and find commonalities, but it also suited Cassandra's personality perfectly. Since the first day she had left the SGC, she had shown keen interest in everything new, from swing sets to dog leashes to Halloween costumes. Her face lit up with pure joy.
"Really?" She sounded so pleased the adults broke into low laughter, all nodding. After all she had been through, she deserved happiness. "That would be so … cool." Jack had taught her an assortment of Earth slang soon after foisting the soon-to-be enormous puppy on her. Half the time Cassandra sounded just like the colonel, using all of his favorite phrases – especially "for crying out loud!" – and even mimicking his expressions to match them.
"Since it's December first," Sam said, "we thought we'd get started today. That's part of the surprise." The Captain motioned to a grocery sack on the trestle table by the door. She had brought it in unnoticed thanks to Homer's hyperactivity.
"But what about Jack and Teal'c? Shouldn't we wait for them?"
"We can't all be here every day this month, Cassie," Janet said kindly. "You know General Hammond needs us on base, and SG-1 will still have to go off world a couple times a week. But at least one of us will be here every day to show you a new tradition."
"Oh, okay. As long as no one will get their feelings hurt."
The adults couldn't suppress their proud grins. Cassandra's parents, whoever they were, had raised her well. Not once since she had come to live with Janet had the girl been rude or willful. General Hammond, with a grown child of his own, had warned Janet that stage wouldn't last forever and to enjoy it while she could because rough times were coming. Naturally, Cassandra was prone to sullen moods when memories overcame her, and Janet did her best at those times. Daniel helped a lot, and Sam had lost her mother young too.
"There's an Earth tradition, or at least a Carter family tradition, that after the first snow in December, you have to make a Snow Cream. That's what's in the bag." Sam retrieved the paper bag and headed for the kitchen. "Come on, slow poke! Or don't you want to learn something new?"
The teasing question had Cassandra up off the couch in a flash. Out in the kitchen, Sam arranged the ingredients along the countertop while Cassandra craned her neck to watch the sugar, flour, eggs, milk, and vanilla appear from the grocery sack.
"Ready?" Janet handed around four measuring cups and four sets of measuring spoons Sam had warned her they would need. "A fourth of a cup of sugar."
Cassandra poured out her ingredients first with intense concentration. Earth measurements were brand new to her, but with some help, she managed to get almost everything on the first try. At last, they had four bowls of Snow Cream base.
"And now for the fun part … we go collect the snow!" Sam announced.
Janet did a double take. "Excuse me? Sam, I'm a doctor, and I know what kinds of atmospheric toxins end up in snow. I can't let a child eat it."
"What did you think was in Snow Creams, Janet?" Sam asked, a laugh in her voice.
"Crushed ice. Like a Snow Cone."
Cassandra watched the exchange curiously. "But, Janet, I already ate some snow when it was falling outside. I caught it on my tongue."
With a triumphant "Ha!" Sam took the girl's arm and led her into the living room to wrap up in her heavy coat, gloves, scarf, and boots. Daniel offered Janet a shrug, as if to apologize, but only halfway because he joined Sam and Cassandra at the door with four bowls for collecting snow. Giving up the fight, Janet pulled on her own coat.
"Come on, Homer. You'd better go out with the rest of us."
The tan and black dog bolted through the front door when it was hardly opened a crack and bounded into the largest snow drift with a woof. In fifteen second flat, he was caked in a layer of snow and giving Janet nightmares of a winter full of wet dog smell all over her house.
"We each need about this much snow." Sam held up her hands to indicate the size of a basketball. "Make sure it's clean snow and nowhere Homer has been."
The hunt for a clean patch of snow deep enough for everyone began. From Cassandra's gleeful skipping through the snow, it was clear she was less concerned with finding snow to eat and more with playing. She and Homer rolled around the yard together, laughing and barking. Daniel found a place where the snow had blown high between the house and an evergreen tree. Sam demonstrated how to brush off the top layer and plunge the bowl into the drift, but not to the ground.
Going back inside was more of an ordeal than going out. For one, Homer started shaking off his coat immediately and flicked chunks of snow as far as onto the kitchen tile, which became downright dangerous when wet. Also, Cassandra was soaked to the skin, and Janet made her go change her clothes before they could finish making Snow Creams.
"I'm changed! I'm changed!" the girl yelled, thundering down the hallway and skidding across the kitchen in her socks. She had opted to wear another pair of blue jeans and a long sleeve USAF shirt. "We can finish making the Snow Creams now."
"Pour the mixture into the snow carefully, like this."
Following Sam's example, the Snow Creams were completed and they retreated into the living room to enjoy the ultra sugary treat Janet normally would have never allowed into her house. She had a feeling that would happen a lot during this holiday season.
Cassandra bit into her Snow Cream and let it melt in her mouth with a pensive expression. After a second bite, she declared, "I like this tradition!" It wasn't quite as emphatic as the first time she'd tasted ice cream, but much better than her reaction to peanut butter.
Daniel held up his bowl in a mock toast, a gesture that Cassandra had learned from the television. She followed suit, as did Sam and Janet.
"Here's to thirty more excellent traditions."