DECEMBER 2

"Decorations"

The snow from the previous day had stopped falling by midmorning, but a layer of glittering white covered Colorado Springs. The mountains along the horizon visible from the back porch of the house flared red and orange with the climbing sun. The temperature had plummeted overnight freezing the top of the snow into a hard crust that Cassandra and Homer crunched through with giddy delight all morning.

The oversized green truck pulled into the driveway around ten o'clock and announced itself with a loud grumbling engine. The girl and dog perked and whipped their heads with such similar expressions of happy curiosity Janet couldn't help but laugh aloud from her dry spot on the covered porch.

"Jack!" Cassandra cried, and Homer woofed. They took off at a sprint around the house and careened into Colonel Jack O'Neill. "Janet didn't tell me you were coming!"

From around the other side of the truck came Teal'c. He observed the furious hug Cassandra gave Jack and the way Homer licked the colonel's face with happy abandon and decided to keep his distance. He bowed his head formally to Cassandra, and she mimicked the gesture.

"Hello, Teal'c. Nice cap. Did General Hammond give you special permission to leave the base today?"

The Jaffa wore a maroon and white knit earflap hat like the snowboarders who came through town on their way to Arapahoe Basin to hide the gold tattoo of the symbol of Apophis – the false god that had enslaved his world and forced the Jaffa to kill in his name – on his forehead. Teal'c had been on Earth longer than Cassandra, but since he had been an enemy soldier when he denounced Apophis, not everyone in the government trusted him.

"Indeed he did." Like at all times, Teal'c was succinct and spoke only when he had something important to say. "O'Neill is here to teach you another of this world's holiday traditions, and he suggested I may enjoy it as well, though he did not share what activity we would be engaging in."

Janet joined them in the driveway with the garage door clicker in hand. She pushed the button and motioned to four boxes stacked on the floor next to her car.

"Decorations!" Jack announced.

A brief rummage through the boxes produced all the requisite Christmas decorations: icicle lights, large star, light strings, wreaths, and Santa's workshop figurines. Janet had also left by the boxes a ladder and staple gun. While Teal'c and Cassandra peered curiously at the items, wondering how any of this could be turned into decoration, Jack nodded with approval.

"Pretty good stuff you've got here, Doc. We'll have it up in no time. Just you go inside and do whatever you do when you're not at the SGC saving our lives."

Janet retreated into the house shaking her head at the Colonel's quirky humor. Left to his own devices, Jack rubbed his gloved hands together with glee. He glanced at the bed of his truck and all the additional decorations he'd picked up on his way over. Janet had a nice, traditional spread here, but Cassandra needed a really festive yard to get her into the holiday spirit.

It had been several years since Jack had decorated for Christmas. He couldn't bring himself to go through the boxes of memories and stumble on the Popsicle stick ornaments Charlie had brought home from school. The loss of his son had sapped away all desire to celebrate any holiday, and he thought he never would want to again. Then Daniel had shared his idea.

"We'll start with this stuff first. Teal'c, you wanna get the ladder?"

Cassandra had very little to do for the first hour and a half since that involved hanging icicle lights along the house eaves. Jack went up on the ladder, and Teal'c fed him the lights while holding the ladder steady. The girl chattered while he worked.

"Did you know there wasn't an Air Force during the Civil War?"

Jack made a sound that meant he'd almost fallen off the ladder again, but Teal'c addressed the girl seriously. "I did not, Cassandra. What is this Civil War you speak of?"

For the next half hour, while Jack connected the lights to the electrical supply, Cassandra narrated the events of the Civil War in the benign way seventh grade textbooks taught it. The Jaffa asked few questions, but said in a carrying voice to Jack that he approved of engaging in battle to end slavery.

With the lights around the house, Jack hung the large six-pointed star on the chimney and then brought out the multicolored light strings.

"Where else can we put lights?" Cassandra asked. "There are already lights everywhere!"

"Around the hedge, of course. Oh, right, putting up the Christmas tree is tomorrow's tradition. Well, trust me, if it's green in winter, lights belong on it."

The girl shrugged and took a package of lights. With Teal'c's help at the top of the miniature evergreens, she began to wend the string around the hedges. The first time, she got the lights so tangled it took all three of them fifteen minutes to untangle the mess of lights. The second time, she wrapped the lights so tightly they coiled around the trunk and were completely hidden by the nettles. But on the third try, with Jack's guidance, she produced a reasonably well decorated evergreen shrub.

The last item of Janet's was the set of plastic figurines of elves and reindeer in Santa's workshop. Cassandra turned over the figures in her hands, frowning at the green-coated, pointy-eared elf.

"Is it an animal? Or an alien species?" she inquired. "And who is that guy in the red coat? Why is he so much taller than these ones?"

Jack hesitated, but decided that at twelve, if Cassandra claimed to still believe in Santa Claus, she would be ridiculed by her classmates who knew better. He picked up the Santa figure and observed the rosy cheeks and half-moon spectacles for a minute.

"This is Santa Claus. Kids on Earth believe that he flies around in his sleigh on Christmas Eve and delivers presents to all the good little boys and girls. Those are his helpers, elves, that make all the toys. And those are reindeer. They pull his sleigh. The whole thing is based on some old myth Daniel could tell you all about."

Cassandra processed all of this with a furrowed brow and stayed silent for a long time. "So … Santa Claus is a Goa'uld?"

"What? Santa Claus is not a Goa'uld!"

Teal'c agreed fervently with Cassandra. "This Santa Claus is a false god whom the young of this world still believe in. He forces his slaves to produce his toys and flies around the world in a ship pulled by creatures with no wings that he wants children to believe are magical. He sounds very much to me like a Goa'uld."

Jack's mouth worked silently. "Well, when you put it that way …" He was going to have to speak to Daniel about this. The archaeologist would have some insight into the origin of the myth and maybe whether or not there had ever been a Goa'uld called Santa Claus.

"I don't want to put up decorations for a Goa'uld," Cassandra said. "I hope Janet doesn't mind."

"I am sure Dr. Fraiser will agree, once you and I have explained to her that Santa Claus seeks to enslave the children of this world with false beliefs," the Jaffa assured her.

Jack grinned mischievously. He couldn't wait to see the look on the Janet's face – and Carter's and Daniel's – when they had that conversation. In fact, it would probably make his week.

"We're only half done. There's more stuff in the bed of my truck."

Cassandra climbed onto the truck fender and stared down at the mass of yard decorations in the bed with wide eyes. When Jack and Teal'c started to pull out lawn ornaments, she eagerly trotted after them and helped direct their decoration efforts. Homer ambled around the ornaments, wagging his tail at the newly placed decorations and pouncing playfully on them.

When Janet came out of the front door an hour later to announce she had lunch ready, if they were hungry, she stopped short. Her eyes grew to the size of saucers, and then narrowed into angry slits. Mouth pressed into a thin line, she marched through the yard and directly up to Jack.

"Sir! When I said you could decorate my yard, I meant decorate, not build a theme park!"

For a woman barely reaching 5'1", Janet Fraiser had the presence of a linebacker when she was irritated. Jack towered over the petite woman, and out ranked her to boot, but he still felt sufficiently chided. He turned to survey the yard, doing his best impression of nonchalance.

Large ornaments crowded in on each other. The five foot long Santa and reindeers had been nixed, but there were still plenty of other three foot tall light displays: snowmen, candy canes, candles, spinning tops, and gifts tied in ribbon. The yard declared no less than three holiday platitudes. "Peace on Earth" Cassandra and Teal'c had placed prominently at the front of the yard. The giant inflatable snowman in front of the living room window spread out his arms in welcoming gesture and swayed in the cold wind blowing down from the mountains.

"What's wrong with it? It's … festive."

"Is that a dinosaur?" Janet demanded, pointing to a Tyrannosaurus Rex outlined in flashing orange lights. Jack couldn't really justify that one, so he didn't try. "Sir!"

"Janet," he said, holding up one hand to stop her from going on. For Jack, it was a kind of direct order his officers had become accustomed to, but she looked close to disobeying. "It's for Cassie, not for us. Look at her, and then if you still want me to take it all down, I will."

Janet felt her anger dissolve as she watched Cassandra loping through the yard with a joyful smile on her lips. The tacky, crowded, and poorly placed figures mattered less than the girl's happiness. She sighed.

"All right, sir. They can stay. But you are taking them all down and storing them at your house all year. And no promises that they're going up again next year."

"Deal."

Janet didn't realize until she'd said it that she planned on Cassandra still living with her next Christmas. By all accounts, this arrangement was temporary until a family with proper security clearance could adopt the girl. In just two months, however, Cassandra had become such an important part of her life, it had stopped feeling temporary to Janet.

"Cassie, it's time to go inside before you catch a cold."

The girl made half-hearted protests to her foster mother as Janet ushered her inside. Jack and Teal'c followed, discussing their favorite of the gaudy lawn ornaments. The doctor glanced over her shoulder, wondering how anyone could have a favorite, and saw several of her neighbors across the street staring in wide-eyed horror. She offered them a friendly wave, but they were too distracted by the dinosaur to see.