Title: Albus Festivus
Author: Sarae
Status: Complete
Category: Romance
Pairings: Sam/Jack
Spoilers: Reference to spoilers I've read for Heroes, Chimera, Grace and the Lost City. Also spoilers for Window of Opportunity.
Season: After season Seven
Rating: T
Content Warnings: Some sexual inference
Summary: It's Christmas time. It's Sam and Jack…what more do you need to know? ;)
Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, SciFi Channel, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
Author's Note: This is sap, fluff and pure fantasy, but isn't that part of why we write? I want to thank Audrey for her meticulous beta reading and Rosemary for her constant encouragement. I appreciate both of you ladies more than I can say.

Albus Festivus

© 2003 Sarae

Chapter 1

"White Christmas! It's 7 am on December 23 and I'm lying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket watching White Christmas. Carter, you're pathetic," Sam thought as she made herself as comfortable as possible. "No one can ever find out about this. I'd never hear the end of it."

Sam sighed and took another sip of the decaf coffee she'd grabbed at the drive thru on her way home from work an hour earlier. This time off had not been her idea, nor had it been a welcome suggestion from General Hammond. Keeping busy was keeping her sane. Ninety-six hours of solitude were a hell of a lot more than she wanted.

"What the hell am I gonna do for the next four days? Oh, and I know Daniel and Cassie will be over here, knocking on the door by tomorrow, if not later today. I guess I shouldn't have lied to them," she thought feeling another twinge of guilt. "But she has Janet's mom, and Daniel will spend time with them, and well, I didn't really lie. I mean, I just told them Mark was expecting me. He is. I just have no plans to visit him. Ah, stop thinking about it! Watch the movie. It'll take your mind off things. You need to relax. Come on, you'll never have the reality, so enjoy the fantasy."

Her eyes were growing heavy. She was toasty warm, snuggled under her blanket and she desperately wanted to sleep. If she was going to have four days off, she was bloody well going to spend the majority of them sleeping. If she could just relax…

The movie was helping. She was relaxing, feeling sleepy, and before long, she was dreaming. Jack was suddenly a crooning ex-Colonel and Daniel was his younger, exuberant partner. They'd just arrived at a nightclub owned by Teal'c to watch Sam and Janet perform their sister act at the request of their brother, Jonas, an old Air Force pal of Jack and Daniel.

Sam really had no idea how long she'd been asleep. She was warm and comfortable for the first time in weeks and dreaming happy, silly, sappy scenes. She and Jack were sitting in front of a cozy fire in an inn owned by General Hammond, eating liverwurst sandwiches and drinking buttermilk, while he sang to her about counting blessings instead of sheep. But then, she heard him calling her name. He called her Sam…not Carter…and he said it softly, almost like a whisper. Suddenly, he wasn't beside her, near the fireplace any longer. She felt panic arise in her as she stood to look around.

Again she heard him softly calling her name. She called out to him, "Where are you?" As he continued to call her name, her consciousness slowly pulled itself out of the dream state. She opened her eyes slightly, and reality came crashing back to her. The White Christmas DVD menu was playing repeatedly on her television and she was still on the couch. She squinted to make out the time on the VCR under the DVD player. The realization that she'd only been home for three hours caused her to groan. That meant she'd probably only slept for about an hour, or possibly an hour and a half.

Sam sat up and rubbed her right hand over her face before bringing it up to scratch her head. "This is going to be a very long holiday if I can't sleep more than an hour at a time," she thought. "Should I watch the rest of the movie or try to sleep in my bed?" Sam mulled the choice over. Finishing the movie won out, but as she moved to pick up the remote, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Someone was watching her. She could feel it.

Her heart was beginning to pound rapidly as she took a deep breath and slowly turned to look over the back of the couch. She cried out slightly, startled by the ghostly apparition she saw standing between the couch and the bar that separated her kitchen from her living room. Then he called her name again.

She stumbled in her haste to get off the couch, never taking her eyes from the sight before her. He had been calling her. He awakened her from the first pleasant dream she'd experienced in months. But then, she wasn't sure she was really awake? She was beginning to think her dream just took a very bizarre turn. He called her 'Sam', after all.

"Jack?" she asked, as she pulled herself to her feet. "Did I just say that?" she thought "Damn! I've really got to watch myself. I might think of him as Jack, but I shouldn't call him Jack. "

The smile and look of relief that spread across his face made her heart skip a beat and she found herself returning the smile as she moved slowly toward him. Just as she reached out to touch him with a tentative hand, he disappeared. She took a step back.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked as she continued to back up. "You are losing it, Carter." She felt a sob catch in her throat as she brought a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were stinging now and she blinked to try and keep the tears from building up in her eyes. "This is not funny," she said, just in case he had not been a hallucination. She'd experienced enough strange phenomena in the past few years to rule out any possibility.

She dropped her hand and grasped the back of the couch with both hands as she took a deep breath and tried to clear her head. Just when she had calmed herself down, another apparition appeared. This time it wasn't Jack.

"Thor?" Sam asked, not entirely sure the Asgard she saw before her was Thor.

"Greetings, Major Carter," Thor said.

"Why are you here?" she asked, trying to keep her mounting excitement at bay.

"Colonel O'Neill has…"

"Uh, that's 'General' O'Neill, now." Sam interrupted Thor. Thor turned his head and Sam could swear she heard Jack somewhere in the distance, but she couldn't understand what he was saying.

"General O'Neill?" Thor questioned as he turned back to face Sam.

"Yes," Sam said, smiling. She was pleased that her ploy had worked so well. She now knew Jack was alive and she had his attention. "He was promoted…posthumously."

"Quid!?" Yep, that was Jack. She would recognize his voice anywhere.

Thor conferred with Jack again. She knew that's what he was doing, she just didn't know why.

"General O'Neill is puzzled," Thor continued.

"Well, what is General O'Neill puzzled about?" Sam asked, trying to hide her giddiness.

"He clearly is not deceased, so how could he be posthumously promoted?" Thor asked.

"The Air Force listed him as 'missing in action and presumed dead'. He knows the drill. It has been several months since we put him in the stasis pod. We had no way of knowing that he was with you," Sam explained. "Why is he hiding?" she asked as she saw Thor turn to converse with Jack again. Sam was losing patience with using Thor as the middle-man. She wanted to talk to Jack. If she couldn't be face to face with him, she wanted to be face to face with his holographic projection. She liked Thor well enough, but he wasn't Jack.

"He is not hiding Major Carter," Thor said as he turned his face back toward Sam. "The communication platform is too narrow to make both of us visible to you. O'Neill has asked me to communicate with you because he is still struggling to regain his ability to speak in your language. He has made a remarkable recovery, but more treatments are necessary."

"And that's why he hasn't returned?" Sam asked, trying to clarify the situation.

"Yes," said Thor. "However, he wanted to inform you that he is recovering and will be returning…" Thor stopped mid-sentence as Sam heard Jack say something else she didn't understand.

"O'Neill wants to know when you will be going back to the base," Thor said, cocking his head slightly.

"Oh, not for a few days," Sam replied, feeling a slight blush creep onto her cheeks. "General Hammond insisted that SG-1 take a few days off."

Sam could hear more conferring between Thor and Jack. She was really beginning to get anxious. What if Thor would not let him back on the platform before he left? Suddenly she was making a wish like a child. Closing her eyes, she wished to see Jack for just a few more minutes. It was all she wanted for Christmas.

"He wants to know if you have plans for the holiday," Thor asked and Sam got the feeling he didn't really know what he was asking.

"Uh…no," Sam said. She looked away, feeling embarrassed and not really knowing why.

"You will not be spending time with your colleagues for the next several days?" Thor inquired.

"No," Sam said, again avoiding eye contact.

Suddenly Thor disappeared, or rather the image of Thor disappeared and Sam felt very alone. She waited, barely breathing, for something to happen. But nothing did.

"So, thanks for stopping by," she said sarcastically, after several minutes had passed. She walked around and plopped herself back on the couch. For half a second, she considered calling Daniel and telling him Jack was alive, but then decided it would be best if she kept the whole thing to herself. She could picture psych evaluations, physical evaluations, more reports. "Nope," she thought, she didn't need the hassle for a thirty-second transmission; a thirty-second transmission that had been one-tenth Jack and nine-tenths Thor.

Sighing heavily, she pulled the blanket back over herself as she shifted around to get comfortable again. "At least I know he's alive," she thought and she felt a wave of warmth rush over her. She picked up the remote and clicked the link to start the movie again.

A few minutes later, Sam sighed again and pointed the remote at the TV to switch the movie off. Her mind refused to let go of Jack. Now that she'd seen him…she wanted to 'see' him. Sleep was no longer an option. She was wide awake and her mind was running on overdrive. At this rate, she would go stir crazy before noon.

"I really did see them, right?" She asked herself that question over and over. She'd been so sleepy when the vision of Jack first appeared that she was beginning to question herself. Why had they come? Why had they contacted her? Just to let her know he was alive? That was it?

She supposed that was reason enough and she chided herself for thinking she needed more good news than that. It was just that she had so many questions now, and had no way to ask them. He had to know that would be incredibly frustrating for her. "Oh, that man can be so exasperating," she exclaimed.

She picked up the mess from her breakfast and walked into her kitchen to put it in the garbage can. Knowing that she could not find the answers to her questions, she desperately tried to decide what to do next. Sam really didn't want to put this burden on Daniel and Cassie. She didn't want to travel to San Diego either. Trying to get a flight at this late date would not only be expensive, but the crowds would be horrendous. At the very least she didn't want to be around for Daniel to try and cheer up. He'd been hovering over her like a mother hen for the past several weeks and it was beginning to annoy her. She knew he was only concerned for her welfare and wanting to help. Trouble was, she didn't want any help, he didn't deserve her current mood and she was just too exhausted to keep up appearances.

Sam ran some options through her head. She kept coming to the same conclusion, no matter how hard she tried to think of another choice. She didn't know if it was the holiday, her weakened state or the fact that she had quite possibly lost her mind, but she had made her decision and was determined to follow through. "MacKenzie would have a heyday with this one," she thought as she went into her bedroom to pack.

Several hours later, Sam unloaded groceries, set up the small fir tree she'd purchased and started a fire in the fire place, more to replace the musty stale air than to warm the place. She opened the sliding doors to the deck for a while to help air things out. It had been several months since she'd last been to Jack's house.

He'd left the house to Cassie, with Sam as the executor. Neither of them could bring themselves to even contemplate selling the house yet. So, Sam made occasional visits to clean things up, get the place ready for winter, etc. She'd been trying to distance herself from it, knowing that eventually, Cassie would need the money it could bring for school and other expenses.

However, this holiday, Sam was beginning to settle in. The fire and the tree were creating a homey, cozy aroma and atmosphere. She dug into the bag of decorations purchased that day. This close to Christmas, the selection was limited, but the sales were good.

By the time the tree was decorated, the sun had set. The moon had risen and was casting a blue glow on the snowy landscape outside. The large windows surrounding the stone fireplace provided an exquisite view. She'd placed the four-foot tree in the corner to the left of the fireplace so she could sit on the couch and enjoy both the lights from the tree and the snowy vista outside.

Sam fixed herself a cup of cocoa and put her White Christmas DVD in the player. She turned off all the lights except the multi-colored twinkle lights on the tree. The glow of the fire and the Christmas lights provided a cheery, warm atmosphere and her spirits brightened as she snuggled into the couch to watch the movie again.

It wasn't long after she sat down when everything caught up with her. She was exhausted. She really needed to sleep and the couch just was so comfortable.