A Stargate Christmas Carol
Jessa4865
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I don't own them; I'm just taking them out for some fun. I'll put them back when I'm done. Promise. I also don't own Charles Dickens (or I would have made him less boring way back when I had to read him) or A Christmas Carol.
AN: It's just impossible to resist playing with Jack once the idea popped in my head.
Spoilers for the very beginning of Season 9, with little to no bearing on reality. Enjoy.

Jack hated Christmas. He wasn't sure when, exactly, it had happened, but it had. Perhaps it was losing his young son. Perhaps it was his divorce from Sara. Perhaps it was how, no matter what happened at the SGC, somehow he always spent Christmas alone in his house wishing for some inter-planetary crisis that would result in him having company or even a vaguely legitimate reason to call his teammates who always seemed to have plans for the holiday despite the fact that none of them had anything to do the rest of the year. Still, even then, he'd found a way to get through the month of December without being miserable or ruining anyone's good time or conspiring to hang mistletoe somewhere in Samantha Carter's lab. And yet, it had managed to happen anyway. He'd become a grumpy old man who actually seriously contemplated saying 'bah humbug' to the Salvation Army bell-ringer.

Instead he bit his tongue and hurried home. He'd managed to avoid the general merry-making in the Springs, but he'd be damned if he could get away from it in Washington. He grumbled and belly-ached and bitched an entire silent monologue all the cold, snowy way from his office - where he'd unnecessarily blasted his secretary for having a Christmas tree on her desk - to his huge, lonely, damn near empty condo - terrorized through the twenty-three story elevator ride by the horrid woman with jingle bell earrings and a blinking necklace.

By the time he'd reached his door, he'd been wished a happy holiday by at least ten people he didn't know. He told two of them that it would be a happy holiday if they disappeared right before his very eyes, but even that didn't make a dent. He slammed his door closed behind him, swearing he wasn't setting foot outside of it until sometime in January when his neighbors would go back to hating each other and keeping to themselves as good little Washingtonians usually did.

He threw his keys on the floor by the door. He kicked off his shoes on his way through the living room. His blazer fell by the bedroom door. He dropped face first on his bed, still half dressed, praying to whatever deity he hadn't offended by his lack of good will toward others that he could sleep until New Years. Now there was a holiday he could celebrate - just him and a fifth and he'd have a great night.

As he drifted off to sleep, the idea of calling Carter occurred to him. She was undoubtedly working - she was usually ignorant that it was even that time of the year - and of anyone, he knew she'd probably appreciate a call the most. But he didn't know how to talk to her anymore. It had seemed for a few weeks there that something was going to change for them finally, but in the end, they'd just kind of drifted apart, exactly the way he'd never imagined they would. The few times he'd spoken to her since he'd left had been stilted and weird and uncomfortable enough that he'd started to think he'd actually gotten past whatever that thing was that he'd been convinced they'd shared. That thought was immediately followed by the tight squeeze in his chest that told him he'd never get past what he felt for her, even if they didn't know what to say to each other anymore.

When sleep finally did claim him, there were tears in his eyes for losing what he'd never had.

The next thing he was aware of was icy cold wind that ripped him from his unpleasant dreams. Shivering, he realized he hadn't gotten under the covers and hoped that would explain why it was so cold he could see his breath in front of his face. Tucking himself up to his chin did little to warm him. His hand darted out to grab the phone, ready to rip someone a new one at two in the morning on Christmas because he was not in the mood for foul ups. He'd paid his damn heat bill, so there ought to have been heat. He stared at the phone for a second, trying to figure out who to call while his brain was slowing down from what he was sure was hypothermia. Then he noticed an eerie glowing fog in the hallway. There was no good reason why heat, or lack thereof, would cause the fog or the glow or the creepy moaning, although he sleepily suspected it had caused the lack of heat. He closed his eyes and swore under his breath.

The creepy moaning smoothed out into words. "Oh, Colonel!"

Jack's eyes popped back open as he swore again, his chipper Christmas cheer rising back to the forefront of his mind. "I'm a general for crying out loud! Get it right!"

"O'Neill?" The moaning was gone, replaced by an oddly hollow, yet entirely familiar voice.

Jack's eyes grew wide as the form of Charlie Kowalsky materialized out of the fog. "Kowalsky?"

He grinned. "General, huh? Never saw that one coming."

The sleepy haze hadn't quite faded, keeping coherent thoughts from forming. The sleepy haze also reminded him that was why it had always been good to have Carter around - because even Carter's sleepy haze was coherent. "Damn, Kowalsky, turn the heat back on."

The younger man only chuckled. "No can do, Jack."

The sound of his given name, which a sadly small number of people ever used, woke Jack. He blinked at the sight before him. "You're dead." His half-irritated, half-questioning statement merited another laugh. "What the hell is this?" Jack sat up, rubbing his palms together and blowing on them in a futile attempt to get warm.

"This-" Kowalsky motioned around the room with what might have been a commanding gesture had he been wearing a robe or chains or anything more impressive than a standard issue SGC t-shirt. "-is a singular opportunity to ameliorate unrelenting blunders of personal selection."

Jack grimaced and tried to keep his eyes from glazing over. If he had to listen to stuff like that, there'd better be a hot blonde in front of him. He shook his head. Nope, still Kowalsky. "Huh?"

Kowalsky folded his arms across his chest and sighed, a sad, disappointed sort of sigh. "I've been working on that for a long time. You're getting a chance to pull your head out of your ass, Jack."

"Oh, ok. Why didn't you just say that?" He shook his head again and remembered who - what - he was talking to. "Oh, that's so the last time I drink alone."

Kowalsky winked, which would have been creepy even had he not been a semi-transparent glowing apparition. "You weren't drinking, Jack."

"Yeah, ok." Jack yawned suddenly. "Can I fix things in the morning?"

"Oh, fine. Take all the fun out of it, why don't you? I go to all this trouble to haunt your ass and you don't even have the decency to be scared."

Jack rolled his eyes. "If you're trying to scare me with big words, you're nine years too late."

"Did you ever read A Christmas Carol, Jack?"

"No. And I don't sing them either."

Kowalsky sighed again, frustration evident. "Ebenezer Scrooge? Tiny Tim? Jacob Marley? Ringing any bells?"

"Bob Marley - I know that one."

"Forget it. Good luck, Jack."

Jack snuggled down in the blankets again. "Sorry, Charlie." He smiled at his own joke as he fell back to sleep, silly enough to think there was any sleep to get.