Sam put the cookies on the coffee table; Santa Claus, reindeer, and Christmas trees competing for dominance in a pile that was taller than Janet would approve of if she hadn't been involved. The mix she'd put in the shopping cart had been sugar-free, the ones they'd baked were chock full of all manner of the cavity-inducing stuff. Sam reasoned that it was as much for her own benefit as for Cassie's. She didn't splurge on her diet often, but it was the holidays after all.

It was a good enough excuse for sneaking a Christmas tree or two, so she did and they were delicious. She figured the haul wouldn't last the night and wrapped up a few for later, you know, when Santa came. And the boys, she couldn't forget the boys. Every one of them over the age of 30 and they ate like teenagers on the run. Without gaining an ounce of extra fat, she grumbled to herself. She wished she had it that easy.

"Hey, Carter, looking good," said the colonel as he led the charge of men and child in from the snow. His nose was bright red and he had snowflakes melting on his eyelashes, but she had to agree. He was definitely looking good.

She suddenly realized what he'd said to her and stood up from her bent position. Oh. She must have given him a hell of a view.

"Sir?" She figured it was probably best not to repeat the question in case it had just been a slip of the tongue. If they didn't have too many of those already, they didn't have too much of anything.

He quirked his eyebrows up to the brim of his beanie cap without looking apologetic in the least. "The decorations, Carter." Then, there was smirking. "The decorations look good. I meant to mention it earlier, but I got drafted into building a platoon of snow Jaffa." The last part was said with a good-natured glare at Cassie, who looked no more contrite than her honorary uncle.

"You can't leave your base of operations unguarded, Jack. You're the one who told me that." With her hands on her hips, she was Janet's little doppelganger. The colonel seemed to sense it, too, because he took a discreet half step closer to Sam—yeah, like she could protect him from Janet, big or small.

He muttered, dubiously, "Right."

"Besides," Cassie carried on, ignoring the colonel in order to scope out the cookies, "I read it in The Art of War."

Sam's eyebrow rose all by itself while the colonel blinked in mild confusion.

"Wait, why are you reading The Art of War? That doesn't sound like any school assignment I've heard of." It sounded like something she'd found at the colonel's place actually.

The girl shrugged, picking up a Rudolph and a Santa Claus, whose head she bit off with great satisfaction. Teal'c reached around her and mimicked the action. The two aliens shared a secretive, commiserating smile that read, Mission accomplished. Sam had no idea what the mission was, but she was suddenly glad they'd never taken Cassie or Teal'c to meet Santa at the mall. Holy Hannah, talk about your intergalactic incidents.

Daniel wandered back in from the kitchen with his usual distracted air. Sam blamed Janet. She was probably the only living thing that could distract Daniel that way, though the doctor would rather die than admit it. Sam thought it was cute.

Evidently uninterested in Daniel and Janet's latest flirtation, the colonel looked suspiciously between their other teammates. "Daniel, you didn't give Cassie The Art of War for her birthday this year, did you?"

"No, Jack, I got her a collection of Incan, Mayan, and Aztec myths. You helped me pick it out, remember?"

Colonel O'Neill squinted with a distinct lack of recognition but nodded anyway. "…Yeaaaah. Right." He tipped his head and turned to Teal'c. "T-man, what gives? The Art of War? She's a kid."

"Fourteen!" Cassie chimed around her third—fourth?—cookie. If Janet ever separated herself from the Christmas turkey, she was definitely going to kill Sam.

"Uh-huh, like I said," the colonel quipped right back. "So, that's a pretty grown-up book."

Teal'c inclined his chin regally. "It is never too early to understand an enemy, especially one that has not been defeated."

Sam was inclined to agree with him. "He has a point, sir."

The look he sent her said clearly, Et tu, Carter. She raised her hands in surrender. She couldn't argue with reason and Teal'c was nothing if not eminently reasonable.

"Think of it this way, sir. It's a classic. Chances are she'll have to read it eventually, so at least she can familiarize herself with the subject now, ask us whatever questions she might have, and be more prepared later on. It isn't even particularly graphic given the subject matter. Also, sir, the book contains some pretty good strategies for use in everyday life."

The colonel dropped down onto the couch with an expression of perfunctory interest. He folded his arms across his chest and waited. "Do tell."

Sam sat down right next to him and prepared to begin her assault. "Well, sir, boys."

He blanched and frowned. "What boys? There are no boys." He snapped his attention back to a suddenly-silent and cookie-less Cassie. "There'd better not be any boys." She stuffed another cookie in her mouth. "Books, not boys."

"Nobody ever said I can't do both," she retorted in a hail of crumbs.

The colonel waved a hand. "I'm saying it. Boys are trouble."

Daniel found a perch near the colonel's shoulder with a hereto unseen cup of eggnog in hand. Sam frowned; she could seriously go for some eggnog.

"Speaking from experience, Jack?"

Sam didn't doubt it. He was trouble at forty-eight, she was fairly sure she'd have been helpless against him at eighteen. That is, if she hadn't been all of a year old at the time.

"Oh, yeah! I was hell and a half and I was ahead of my time. I definitely don't want to see what kind of stunts those walking hormones out there are pulling now."

Cassie sighed and dusted any remaining crumbs off her hand. "Come on, Jack, the boys at school aren't that bad. They're nice. They offer to carry my books." At his affronted expression, she rushed to add, "Not that I let them. I can carry my own books. I can open my own doors and pay for my own lunch." But then she blushed and grinned, "It's just nice to be asked, y'know?"

It was the colonel's turn to sigh and he offered her an arm which was her signal to take his lap instead. He didn't seem to mind and, curled up beside them, Sam had no complaints.

"I get it. You might not think I get it, but I do. It's nice when someone tells you they like you and when they like you enough to do nice things for you, it feels great. I get that, but I worry. I guess I just don't want you to grow up too fast. It seems like every time I see you, you're taller than you were last time."

Cassie tucked her head into his shoulder. "It's the vegetables. I keep telling mom I don't need 'em, but she won't listen."

The colonel cracked a smile, but held her closer, more protectively than she may have even realized. Cassie was growing up right before their eyes, and while Sam had seen it happening, she hadn't truly noticed until this very moment. SG-1's little girl was growing up. Sam had to blink at the familiar sting at the back of her eyes. Now, was definitely not the time to be the girl, no matter how much she wanted to hug Cassie and never let go.

Teal'c rounded the coffee table to rest a gentle hand on Cassie's shoulder. "You have the potential to be a great warrior, Cassandra Fraiser, but I hope you will never have to be."

Cassie smiled up at him. "'We make war that we may live in peace.' Aristotle said that."

"Daniel, what have I told you about buying her books?" The colonel didn't bother averting his eyes from Cassie's face. He was brushing leftover flakes from her hair. It was a small way of showing affection and Sam mourned vicariously for the boy who hadn't gotten to know that longer.

"You say that like being well-read is a bad thing," Daniel sulked, then murmured, "Besides, Sam gave her that one."

"Carter?"

Sam shot up straight. She was gonna have Daniel's ass for that later. "Sir?"

"Are we sending Cassie off to Air War College early, or was that just a bit of light reading?"

Sam pursed her lips. She'd actually forgotten about the book already. "Aristotle wrote a lot about physics, as well as war and philosophy. Cassie was interested in some of the history of what we do, so I lent her a few books. My copy of Ethics must have gotten caught in the stack, sir."

She didn't want to admit it, but she was a little put out that she had to defend her choice of reading material to her commanding officer. A diversity of interests could hardly be considered a sin. Bastard. She tried not to glare outright.

Catastrophic failure.

The colonel put his hands up in obvious deference. Cassie hightailed out of his lap ASAP, taking the half-empty plate of cookies with her. Teal'c followed. Daniel looked on with badly-hidden delight.

"Carter, you know me. I'm the last guy to deny the benefits of warfare. There's nothing wrong with your reading habits. There's nothing wrong with Cassie reading whatever you're reading. She's old enough to decide what she's interested in. I'd just like it if she could…be interested in something else."

Sam turned down the death glare a notch, keeping in mind that it was her CO that was the target, but didn't give an inch. "Sir, I understand that and I wish she was, too. So does Janet. But the thing is, sir, this is her life. She's been a casualty of war from the very beginning. It's understandable that she'd want some kind of framework to understand what it is we do every day and what she may choose to do someday. It's not out of the realm of possibility that she'll join the SGC as a member of a frontline team when she's older. I'd rather she got an idea what she's in for while she has time to back out rather than have her find out when her life, and that of her of teammates, is on the line." She dialed down the glare entirely and gave him her eyes in order to reach him in a different way. "We can't lock her away forever, sir. Not even to protect her."

"I guess not," he conceded, "but it'd be a hell of a lot easier."

She patted his hand consolingly. "Yes, sir." She may not have understood the losses he'd suffered before they'd ever met, but she knew Cassie well enough to understand the love she inspired in those who knew her.

Over the colonel's shoulder, Daniel didn't look so amused anymore, though he seemed to get it, too. He held her mug of eggnog so firmly his fingers had gone pale. Wherever and whenever he'd gone in his head, he returned before she could reach for him. He grimaced and backed away without a word on his way out the door. The colonel didn't watch him go but stopped her from following. They all had their ghosts of Christmases past and some had to be faced alone.

"Give him a minute; then, we'll bring him in."

"Yes, sir." She sat back down, tucking her feet beneath her as she re-took her place beside him. There wasn't much else she wanted to say. The colonel always meant well when it came to those he cared for and it showed. He didn't want to lose Cassie any more than the rest of them did; he was just a lot more vocal about it.

He rubbed his weary face. "I'm not trying to be an ass about this, Carter. I mean it. I want Cassie prepared for what's out there. But at the same time…"

"You want her to be a normal kid."

He shrugged simply, "Yeah."

Feeling a touch of affection she couldn't name, Sam nudged his shoulder with hers. "She's not so normal though, is she, sir?"

Bumping her right back, he grinned. "Nah, she's way better than that." Puffing his chest out proudly, he all but preened, "She obviously gets it from my side of the family."

Sam loved it when he got this way, when the humor was genuine rather than a cover for things they couldn't feel.

"The not so normal part, sir, definitely," she teased, hopping off the couch and retreating before he could respond. It took him a second.

"Wait…wait a minute. Get back here, Major. I resemble that remark!" He was already coming after her.

Sam giggled and headed for the kitchen. Since it was the holidays and they were on leave, she technically didn't have to follow any of his orders at the moment and she was more than happy to ignore that one. That was probably the best part of their time away from the mountain. No orders and no Goa'uld and cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. Slipping between Teal'c and Cassie, she stole one right out of Cassie's hand and took a bite. Perks of being bigger and taller. On the happiest day of the year, what more could an intergalactic space traveler who had everything ask for?

"Oh, Carter," he sang-sung from outside the kitchen, leaving her instantly suspicious. She stared at him through the doorway without taking a single step. "Come here for a second."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why?"

"Just wanna give you something." He'd stuck his hands in his pockets and was rocking on his heels. He might as well been standing under a neon sign marked, Danger. She found herself taking an uninspired half-step closer anyway. After all, how much trouble could the colonel really be while surrounded by witnesses?

After taking the last steps to bring her into arm's reach, she regretted that question. The small amount he towered over her cast his eyes in shadow, but she didn't have to see them to know what he was up to. The bright white berries and lush green leaves suspended above stood out just past her view of his face.

She told herself, He wouldn't. His thumb tracing the line of her jaw as he tilted her face told her he was thinking about it, weighing the consequences with his usual unacknowledged thoughtfulness. She could pinpoint the millisecond he decided to risk it, because that was when she decided to let him. When he kissed her, she didn't fight him. The kiss wasn't the heart of passion, though she felt that lurking behind his closed lips and hers. Though it didn't go far, she felt it to her toes. She'd held all the cards, but he was the first one to pull away.

"That's for the 'not-so-normal' bit, Major."

She smirked, feeling content as though some particularly clever cosmic plan had come together. "Yes, sir." Food, family, and peace of mind. Sam had everything she could possibly want for Christmas.

He winked at her and backed out of the suddenly silent kitchen, having gotten exactly what he'd come for. She couldn't quite manage a glare at the guilty plant in question, but she tried.

Despite herself, she was grateful for the mistletoe, too. It had made this Christmas a Christmas she wouldn't soon forget. She had a feeling the colonel wouldn't be forgetting it either.

…

"War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow." – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Who knew that better than a soldier?