Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

A/N: Sorry about the delay, I've been on vacation without internet access!

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It was two weeks before Cassandra Fraiser's birthday and over the past few months Janet Fraiser had seen a disturbing change in her adopted daughter. Cassie was behaving like a typical American teenage girl. She wanted less and less to do with Janet and even seemed embarrassed to be seen with her. Cassandra wanted to spend as much time away from Janet as possible and even shunned visits from Sam and Jack.

"Cassandra," Janet began over breakfast Saturday morning "is there anything special you would like to do for your birthday this year?"

The teenager glared up at Janet over her bowl of Fruit Loops. "Yeah, one of my friends is having a party and I want to go."

"I think Sam wants to come over for cake and ice-cream."

"Fine. As long as I'm not late getting to the party."

"Who's having the party?"

"Kendra."

"Kendra who?"

"Kendra Banks. You don't know her."

"Well, I'm going to have to meet her parents before I'll let you go to her party."

"Why do you treat me like such a baby!" Cassie shouted "You think I'm going to tell someone about the Goa'uld or the stargate? That would be stupid! Nobody would believe me and I'd lose all my friends!"

"No, that's not what I think," Janet said calmly "I just want to make sure you're safe."

The young girl looked at Janet with hostility, but said nothing.

The Doctor decided to change the subject.

"Christmas will be here before you know it. Is there something special you would like to do for Christmas this year?"

"Yes, Kendra and her family invited me to go on a ski trip with them. That's what I want to do."

"What about spending Christmas Eve with Sam, Jack, Daniel and Teal'c?"

"That was fine when I was a kid, but I don't want to hang out with them. They're old. I want to spend time with kids my age."

"But Cassie, Christmas is suppose to be about spending time with your family."

Cassandra stood up "I don't have a family, remember?" She stormed out of the room.

Two weeks later, on her 14th birthday, Cassandra Fraiser became deathly ill with the Retro Virus Nirti had left behind.

When the whole ordeal was over Cassie had a completely different outlook on her life. She knew that Sam and Jack wouldn't give up on her and butted heads with General Hammond about how to proceed and even argued against SGC policy when they captured Nirti. The General refused to meet Nirti's demands to let her go in exchange for healing Cassandra, but Sam and Jack fought to give her what she wanted so she would heal the girl.

In the end it was Janet who defied orders, took a 9 mil and held to Nirti's head, ordering her to heal her daughter.

After she had been cured, but not yet released from the infirmary, Sam came to play a game of chess with Cassie.

"Sam," Cassie began hesitantly "I've been really mean to Mom lately."

"It's kind of a teenage thing that everyone goes through Cassie."

"But I told her she wasn't my mother and that she couldn't tell me what to do."

"Did you tell her you're sorry?"

"I don't know how to do that."

The two continued their chess game in silence for a moment before Cassie spoke again.

"I told her I didn't want to do Christmas with you guys because you're not my family."

Sam felt pain at the words Cassandra spoke, but just listened.

"I told her I wanted to go on a ski trip with a friend of mine."

"Do you still want to do that?"

"No, I want to be with you guys. You're my family. So, anyway, I was thinking, maybe as a Christmas present to Mom we could all rent a condo in the mountains at one of those ski places and spend Christmas together there. What do you think, Sam?"

"You want this to be a surprise for Janet?"

"Yes!"

"I'll talk to Colonel O'Neill, but I think we can work it out!"

"Sam..."

"What?"

"That's your favorite Beatles song!" Cassie grinned.

"What?"

"We Can Work it Out!"

Sam smiled as she remembered flirting with Jack at last year's Christmas Eve party.

Sam called a team meeting and told the rest of SG1 what Cassie wanted to do for Janet for Christmas. Everyone thought it was a great idea and Jack agreed to talk to Hammond to make sure they could all be gone from the Mountain for 3 days.

Jack also said he knew someone with a time-share condo at a relatively new ski resort that wasn't over crowed yet. He thought they could get the condo for December 23rd, 24th and 25th. They would come back on the 26th.

Soon the plans were all in place and the only person who didn't know about it was Janet. When Jack took Cassie shopping for a Christmas tree, the two came back with a small artificial tree in a box and Cassie refused to put it up. Janet couldn't figure out why they bought an artificial tree in the first place since the Colonel was so adamantly opposed to them, and then was even more confused when Cassie kept putting off setting the thing up.

Finally, Cassandra decided it was time to break the news to Janet. The Doctor had been insisting that the girl come in for weekly check ups after her ordeal with the retro virus, so all of SG1 met Cassie in the infirmary.

"What's going on here? This looks like a conspiracy." Janet said suspiciously as she saw Cassie standing with SG1.

"It is," replied the girl as she held out a picture postcard of the ski resort.

Janet eyed the group nervously then took the card from her daughter. "What is this?" she asked.

"We're taking you on a ski trip for Christmas, Mom!"

Janet looked at her friends, dumbfounded.

"Janet, we've already got it cleared with General Hammond, we've paid for the condo, Cassie and the Colonel got the small artificial tree so we can take it with us, we're all set!"

"Wow! I can't believe this!"

"Well, you can blame your daughter, it was all her idea," Daniel said.

"We're leaving the 23rd. We're all riding up together in my truck," Jack stated proudly.

Teal'c turned his head to look at O'Neill with a raised eyebrow at the statement that the entire group was going to ride together in Jack's truck.

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The 23rd turned out to be a cold, blustery day, but by noon the entire group was headed to the ski resort. Sam was crushed in the front seat between the Colonel and Teal'c while Janet, Cassie and Daniel took up the back seat. All the suitcases, food, beer, presents and the small tree were in the bed of the truck with a tarp secured over them.

The group arrived at the resort around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. When they checked in at the ski lodge to get the keys for their condo, the young man working behind the counter looked up from watching The Weather Channel.

" My name is Trevor, how may I help you?"

Jack told him that they had reservations for a condo and Trevor found the keys for him and gave him directions to the unit.

"The ski lodge offers ski and snow board rentals as well as instruction from qualified ski instructors. According to the Weather Channel we're going to get some fresh power over night!" Trevor enthused. "You have plenty of firewood on your porch, but the nearest grocery store is 10 miles back down the mountain, so I hope you brought plenty of food."

Janet assured the young man that they had and soon the group was pulling up in front of their private ski lodge.

"Wow! This is awesome!" Cassie exclaimed as she got out of the truck.

The lodge was built like a modern log cabin. The front door opened into the great room with a huge stone fireplace and high raftered ceilings. Toward the back of the great room was the kitchen, dinning room and off to the right, down a short hall, was a bedroom and bath. Above the dining area and kitchen was a loft that overlooked the great room. There were two bedrooms and a bath in the loft. One of the bedrooms had two twin beds while the other had a queen size bed and sliding glass doors that opened onto a small balcony. The downstairs bedroom also had two twin beds and the couch in the living room opened out to a queen size bed.

It was quickly decided that Daniel and Teal'c would take the downstairs bedroom, Jack got the hide-a-bed, Janet and Cassie the loft bedroom with the twin beds and Sam got the master bedroom.

Once all the food and luggage was hauled in and everyone settled in their rooms, Cassie began setting up and decorating the tree. Jack found a college bowl game on the big screen TV and Teal'c built a fire in the fireplace.

Janet began fixing spaghetti for supper, as it was one of her specialties. After supper the group watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on the big screen TV. Since they wanted to hit the slopes early the next morning, they decided to turn in shortly after the movie.

The next morning everyone was up, dressed and ready to hit the slopes by 0800. Just as they were about to leave the cabin, there was a knock on the door. Cassie went to open it and found Trevor, the friendly employee from the lodge standing there. He had ridden over on a snowmobile. It was snowing heavily and a brisk wind was blowing making it appear that it was snowing sideways. Cassie could barely hold the door open against the gale.

"Hi!" Trevor smiled at her in a flirtatious manner. "Tell your grandpa that we have blizzard conditions and the slopes are closed right now."

"My grandpa?" Cassie questioned.

"Didn't you check in yesterday with a gray haired guy? He seemed to be in charge so I just figured he was your grandpa"

"Oh, that's Jack. He's a friend of my mom's."

"Ok, well, tell your mom's boyfriend that the slopes are closed and I'll let you know when they will be open again."

"He's not my mom's boyfriend either."

Just then Jack came to the door "What's going on here? You flirting with my kid, Trevor?"

Trevor visibly paled and Cassie turned red.

"Sam! Help!" She yelled.

Sam came over to the door and stood beside Jack "What's wrong Cassie?"

"Jack's embarrassing me and he's scaring Trevor."

Sam focused her big blue eyes on Trevor who took one look at the gorgeous blond and swallowed hard. "Ma'am, I just came by to tell your daughter that the ski slopes are closed due to the blizzard. I'll let you know when they're open again." With that Trevor turned on his heel and quickly headed to his snowmobile."

"Well, Colonel, he was kind of cute. I think we better keep an eye on Cassie!" Sam teased.

"You think he was cute?" Jack asked, in what he hoped was an incredulous tone of voice.

"Well, he's too young for me, but yeah, he was kind of cute."

"You guys are hopeless!" Cassie said as she walked back into the cabin.

"Well, we so aren't hitting the slopes for awhile." Jack announced.

"I'm going to run some simulations on my laptop," Carter said, and with that she left the room.

"I brought some scrolls to translate, I'm going to work on them."

"I will assist Daniel Jackson."

"Hey, come on, there's all kinds of sports on TV, doesn't anyone want to watch a game with me?" Jack whined.

"Uh, I brought some medical journals, I've got some reading to do," Janet said as she hurried out of the great room.

"I'll watch TV with you, Jack," replied Cassie.

"Sweet."

As the day worn on the storm became worse. The sky darkened, the snow became heavier, and the wind blew stronger. The local TV station had begun running warnings across the bottom of the screen and even interrupted coverage of the game to announce that several highways had been closed by the Colorado Department of Transportation, including the one to the ski resort.

Around 8 PM, as Cassandra was hanging the Christmas stockings, the power went out. The wind howled and whistled through the trees and rattled the doors and windows.

"Well, this is great!" Daniel's sarcastic voice cut through the darkness.

"I'm sure they'll get the power back on soon," Janet encouraged the group.

"I doubt that since the roads are closed," Sam said.

"Indeed."

"Ok, campers, we've been in worse situations than this. There's plenty of light from the fire, we can sit here and play cards."

Teal'c set up several of his Kelnoreem candles in the living room to give the group more light. Cassie put her newest CD of Christmas Carols in her battery operated boombox and turned the volume down so it would be nice background music.

As the friends passed the time playing cards and telling stories, the cabin began to get cold. The fire barely kept the great room at a tolerable temperature, but the rest of the rooms were getting quite cold.

"I know it's not Christmas yet, but Cassie, I think now would be a good time to open that big gift from me," Janet said.

"Cool!" Cassie said as she hurriedly got the large box from under the tree and tore the paper off the package.

"It's a sleeping bag! Thanks, Mom!"

"I think everyone is going to have to sleep here in the living room tonight, it's getting very cold in the rest of the cabin."

"I concur with Major Carter," Teal'c stated.

Everyone was already wearing several layers of clothing and had removed the blankets from their beds. Teal'c took over the easy chair and foot hassock to perform his Kelnoreem while Cassie spread her brand new sleeping bag out on the floor near the fire.

Daniel, Janet, Jack and Sam stood in the center of the room, looking nervously at each other as they attempted to figure out the sleeping arrangements for the night.

"Why don't you open up the hide-a-bed and all four of you can sleep on it," suggested Cassie.

Four heads whipped around to look at Cassandra as if she had suggested spending the night in a room full of Goa'uld's looking for hosts. Before anyone could protest, Teal'c said "Cassandra Fraiser's suggestion is logical."

The group simultaneously turned their heads to look at Teal'c with their mouths gaping open.

Finally Jack spoke "Alright, but I get to sleep on the outside."

"Me too!" piped in Daniel.

"Ok, well, that means that Carter and Doc, you two get to sleep in the middle."

"Fine. Whatever." Sam said slightly irritated.

Jack opened up the queen size hide-a-bed and Janet and Sam climbed into the middle of the bed, fully clothed except for shoes. Jack took the outside edge next to Sam and Daniel the outside edge next to Janet. Cassie snickered under her breath as she watched the four try to get comfortable without touching each other.

It took a couple hours, but finally everyone drifted off to sleep.

Around 4 in the morning, Sam woke up to find herself laying on her side with her back snuggled up against Jack and his arm around her waist. In her groggy, semi-conscious state Sam was aware only of the warm comfort of Jack's body next to her's and the pleasant scent that she associated with him. She snuggled a little closer to the Colonel.

Suddenly Sam's eyes flew open as she realized where she was and what she was doing. Oh, my god! She thought, what the hell am I doing? I know this feels great, but I so can't do this! The Colonel is asleep, he probably doesn't even know it's me he's got his arm around. He probably thinks I'm Sara, or maybe even Laira from Edora. He would die if he knew he had his arm around me and we were sleeping together like this! I can't move! How am I going to get out of this?

Jack's arm tightened around her and she felt his lips brush her ear. He whispered one word, "Sam."

The Major tensed up. "Oh, shit! What have I gotten myself into?" she thought.

"Relax, Carter. We're just trying to stay warm and I'm trying to keep from rolling out of the bed." Jack whispered in her ear. "Go back to sleep."

Sam nodded, but had trouble relaxing. Finally she fell back into a fit full sleep.

At 7:30 the entire group was awakened when the power came back on. The lights came on, the TV started blaring, the Christmas tree lights came on and the electric heat kicked in.

Before anyone could even move Trevor was knocking at the door.

"Oh, my god! It's Trevor!" Shouted Cassie. "I can't let him see you guys like this! How embarrassing, all four of you sleeping in the hide-a-bed!"

"Hey, it was your idea!" Jack said as he rolled off the edge of the bed.

Daniel rolled off his side as well leaving Sam and Janet to scramble their way out of the middle.

Cassie quickly ran a comb through her hair before she went to answer the door.

"Hi, Trevor!"

"Hi. I just came by to tell you folks that the slopes are open and with all the new snow the skiing is great!"

"Thanks!"

After breakfast and showers the group hit the slopes for a full day of skiing. By noon they had received word that CDOT had gotten the roads cleared and they would be able to get home tomorrow as planned.

On the 26th, everything was packed, and everyone was in their places in Jack's truck for their trip back to Colorado Springs.

As they started down the mountain, Cassie handed a CD to Sam, who was still sandwiched between Teal'c and Jack in the front seat, and told her to play track 7. Sam did as Cassie requested and instantly Dean Martin began to croon "Oh, the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful, And since we've no place to go, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow."

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