Surface Exposed in the Holiday Light
By Bren Ren
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Summary: For the purpose of this story, the events in the Season Four Episode "Beneath the Surface" took place shortly before Christmas. Having just been released under one another's supervision, the team goes to Jack house for their holiday celebration. The spirit of the season helps Sam and Jack through their difficult transition back into the world where rules and regulations pile higher than mountains between them during the one time of year the whole world pauses to celebrate love and family.
Rating: Teen (strong language)
Disclaimer: I only wish these characters belonged to me, but I'm only borrowing them to give them a little holiday love, so I kindly thank you in advance for embracing the spirit of the season and letting me play with this awesome and inspiring couple!
Author's Notes: T'is a difficult holiday season for me this year, so I'm purging my mental demons through fic once again. Hence, here's a little Christmas Angst for you, but as always, I do promise a happy unending! This story is lovingly dedicated to my favorite Angst lovers, Jenn, APA, and Twilight, who excel in breaking my heart with some of the best heart-wrenching stories in all the Sam & Jack fanfiction archives. Merry Angsty Shipmas!
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Christmas Eve in Colorado isn't exactly known to be a warm environment. But tonight, it feels like being in a sauna, even almost three weeks after spending a month beneath the surface of that global ice cube.
It's Christmas Eve. I should be happy. Right?
Right.
So why am I standing outside, in the cold, in a blockbuster snowstorm, slowly poisoning myself?
I've gathered with friends who are as close as or even closer than blood family. We broke bread together, we exchanged presents—complete with a twisted "Gift of the Magi" moment between Daniel and Jo—O'Neill, we decorated the most pathetic Charlie Brown special left on the Christmas tree lot, we even sang—if you can call it singing—a few Christmas carols, complete with a rendition of a traditional Jaffa winter aria from Teal'c. Daniel's three-sheets-to-the-wind rendition of Kinsey Got Run Over by a Reindeer was to die for.
And J—Colonel O'Neill entertained us with laughable tales of Christmases abroad gone awry over his long military career—matched anecdote for silly anecdote with my own recollections of military-brat-turned-career-soldier muddled foreign holidays. And of course, the eggnog was extremely potent—sleeping arrangements have already been pre-assigned, and we all agreed that we need to get thoroughly plastered after the mental-mind-fuck of our last mission (and there's another sign that all is not right in my world, if there weren't enough already; I'm really not the swearing type, especially not during the holidays…). The gale force blizzard set in an hour after we arrived at the Colonel's log cabin style house.
We were only released from the infirmary today because of the holiday, and then only on the condition that we keep an eye on each other and report back for a check-up first thing in the morning the day after Christmas. With unenthusiastic and uncharacteristcally witless humor, Jo— dammit, I've gotta stop doing that! — O'Neill offered to host us all for the duration, at which point Daniel, with a little too much enthusiasm, suggested we go all out with the usual holiday festivities and enjoy a team Christmas celebration with all the trimmings.
But here I am now, standing out on the porch in the middle of a truly impressive display of winter mountain weather with no jacket on… smoking a cigarette.
I raise the filtered tip to my lips and draw a slow lungful of its black poison. I pucker my lips and blow out a steady stream of smoke. It's so cold out that the smoke almost appears to freeze in the air. The multicolored Christmas tree lights shining through the huge picture window tint the stream in a rainbow of colors, creating a wicked looking prism effect.
I take another slow drag and make an attempt to create those cool smoke rings Hollywood loves to use. I've done it once, the last time I smoked a cigarette, many, many moons ago. But not tonight, it seems.
"It's all in the tongue." His voice startles me so much I actually jump several inches off the ground. I hear his footsteps crunching the snow on the porch as he approaches me from behind. Then I can feel the warmth radiating from his body all across my back; he says nothing for a long while and I swear that heat is seeping all the way through my entire body. For the first time since we got off that frozen rock, my bones don't feel frozen solid anymore.
"After being cooped up in that ice box for a month, it practically feels like a sauna out here," he muses softly. The warmth of his breath wafting across my ear sends tingles down my spine and I can feel the pin-prick of rising goose-bumps across every inch of my skin.
"I was thinking the same thing," I answer softly. My head tips back just a couple of degrees, though not by conscious effort.
I lift the cigarette up to my lips once more. I've been smoking so slowly that it's only half-way burnt. I suck that acrid smoke down my throat once more, and I think I can feel my lungs blackening as they fill with the vile vapor. My hand lowers and I make another attempt to create that elusive circle. And again, I fail miserably. I want to cry, but I'm a big girl now. Big girls don't cry. And besides that, soldiers don't cry, either. So I'm doubly screwed.
He reaches around me and takes the cigarette from my hand; as his fingers lightly graze mine, their warmth actually burns my flesh. He takes a half step to my left, giving me space to turn and watch as he takes a long drag and lets it out in a series of perfectly formed "o's". He passes the torch back to me, and I take one final puff before extinguishing it in the snow piled on the railing. My mouth assumes the position and I gently puff out a bit of smoke. My eyes widen a bit as I watch the perfect ring-cloud float away from me.
"So when did you start smoking?" His voice is a little too carefully neutral, and I find myself wishing he'd consumed more eggnog. Me too.
I blow out one more perfect circle, then let the last little bit of smoke out in a steady stream that shoots right through the fading remains of the two circles I'd created.
"Not bad." I glance up into his eyes just long enough to enjoy having impressed him before averting my gaze back out at the wonders of nature's wintry wrath.
"The first time I smoked a cigarette was at the reception after my mom's funeral. I snuck one out of Grandma Em's purse and hid behind a tool shed. My brother caught me and ratted me out to Dad." I pause for a second, remembering the sixteen different shades of purple my father had turned when he first confronted me. "First Dad threatened to make me chain smoke a carton. Then I was treated to a nine hour lecture on the perils of smoking, complete with pictures and diagrams. Scared me straight PDQ."
The storm is pretty noisy, but somehow I still hear his faint chuckle, followed by the soft sigh he expels before speaking. "My old man was a smoker. Picked up my first one at twelve. I actually hit the three packs a day mark during some of my Black Ops missions." This comment surprises me. He almost never mentions his days serving in those dark forces. "Quit right after I got back from that first trip to Abydos. Cold turkey." Another light chuckle. Or more like a soft snort. "It wasn't pretty."
I turn to meet him face to face once again. "The second time I smoked a cigarette was the night I broke off my engagement to Jonas Hansen." My eyes dart away for a second as I pause to reflect. When I turn back to him, I can see in his eyes that I don't need to elaborate on that subject any further. "This," I conclude, "is the third cigarette of my life."
He stares at me thoughtfully for a while. "So…" he begins in a slow start. "Not exactly feeling the Christmas cheer?'
"Not exactly." I huff out something vaguely resembling a chuckle. "Here we are, all together, alive and well and not too much worse for the wear, it's Christmas—t'is the season to be merry and all that jolly jazz…" I trail off, close my eyes and seriously consider my next words. "I feel like I'm in mourning."
Again, he surprises me. "C'mere," he tells me quietly. I slowly open my eyes and raise them to meet his. To my wonder, I can see that the naked emotions I cannot hide are reflected right there in his eyes. I take that half-step into his waiting arms and suddenly I'm engulfed in his heart-melting body heat. I nestle my head into the crook of his neck, close my eyes and fight like hell to savor all these good, wonderful feelings I'm not supposed to feel.
"I stopped celebrating Christmas after Charlie died," he tells me after a lengthy silence. He's just full of surprises tonight. "Wasn't till Daniel started dragging me out to these holiday team get-togethers that I started doing anything you could call festive."
I lift my head, but I'm just not ready to look him in the eye, so I simply turn and rest the other cheek on his shoulder, my now-bleary eyes casting out across the flurries of snow. "It's hard to enjoy a holiday that's all about being with the ones you love… when the ones you love are gone."
"Yeah," he agrees. I can feel him rest his face against the crown of my head. "But I think I'm slowly starting to appreciate that this season… It's as much about remembering the ones you love who are no longer with you as it is about being with the ones you love who are still here." He pauses for a second, his head dropping just low enough that his lips tickle my earlobe with his next whispered words. "No matter how short that list may be." A self-derisive snort follows, wafting across the sensitive flesh beneath my ear and sending another wave of intoxicating (or maybe it's just intoxicated) tingling down my spine and into my very core.
Unable still to find words, I simply tighten my arms around him—just as a mighty gust of wind slams into us. It's strong and it's cold, colder than anything this storm has thrown at us yet, and for a split second, we're transported in memory back to that frozen hell we'd so recently escaped.
Hellish it may have been, though, there was one thing I still like about that place. One thing I still miss terribly nineteen and a half days after leaving it all behind us.
A name slips out past my lips in a tortured cry. "Jonah."
He holds me tighter still as his head dips down into the crook of my neck. "I'm here," he murmurs softly against my skin.
"No." I pull back so sharply that when I look up, I see his eyes bulging wide in shock. "You're here. But Jonah is… gone." I can barely choke out that last word, and it's only by sheer force of will that there are no tears welling up in my eyes. Yet.
His shock melts away faster than the snow drifting onto his smoking chimney, swallowed up in such deep sorrow that his eyes become as dark as black holes. Suddenly I feel guilt seizing me in a stranglehold for burdening him with my misery, until his next words force me to realize that it is not my misery alone. This is a deep mourning we share in equal measure.
"And so is Thera." I'm not sure if it's the grief in his eyes or the anguish in his soft tone, or maybe both and more, but I just can't hold back any longer. I'd been dry-eyed a half-heartbeat earlier, but the floodgates burst and the tears cascade down my face like waterfalls in monsoon season. And then I'm back in his arms, almost crushed by the force of his embrace. I cling to him just as ferociously as the tears continue their deluge, but not a sound escapes either of us for a very long time.
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