AN: Set pre-canon, canon-compliant with Season 1 and Season 2 (so far). No knowledge of Every End is a Beginning required.
ALL-NIGHT DINER
(PRETTY MUCH EMPTY ALL-NIGHT DINER)
LA
Jack sighed as he ate his steak, eggs and fries, not really tasting the food at all.
It was 2 am on Christmas morning, and here he was, sitting in an all-night diner with one waitress and one fry cook (who, to really rub it in, were flirting with each other over the counter).
He'd only gotten in from his mission at 9 pm on Christmas Eve, and debrief had taken two hours, even if Patty had done her best to minimise how long it'd taken. It didn't matter – debrief or no debrief, it was far too late to head down to Dallas to his sister's place for Christmas.
That meant that Jack was spending Christmas resoundingly alone.
He took a deep draught of his coffee, wishing it was Irish coffee.
He sighed.
He missed spending Christmas with his sister and her husband and their kids. Missed the noise and mess and the being-all-up-in-each-other's-business, and his sister's really misguided and extremely obvious attempts to set him up, and her really-not-good cooking, even the bacon stuffing (which was the only thing containing bacon he'd ever eaten that wasn't great).
He missed Christmases, those quiet, low-key, nothing-special, but still family Christmases he'd spent with Diane and Riley those handful of years when they'd been family.
(That made his heart ache very painfully, his mind cloud with regrets, so Jack somewhat forcefully shoved another bite of very rare steak – just how he liked it, though he couldn't care less right now – into his mouth, chewing far harder than necessary.)
He missed his and Sarah's makeshift Christmas celebrations, that little ceremony they used to mark Christmas, the little tradition they fulfilled as close to the date as they could, wherever they were. Going out for beer in some local dive bar, eating their body weight in local bar food, laughing and teasing and challenging one another to stupid drinking competitions or games of darts or whatever the local bar games were.
He missed not being alone for Christmas.
He missed being with family for Christmas.
(He'd always thought, in some part of his mind, even if it'd been buried and ignored and not a priority for years – he was young, he was handsome and charming, he liked flirting, liked the chase, he travelled all the time, he wanted to have fun, be a sort-of girl-in-every-port kind of guy like James Bond – that he'd have the whole wife-kids-white-picket-fence thing.)
(He kind of had, for a while. Even if he and Diane weren't married. Even if Riley wasn't his biologically. Even if none of the three of them were really traditional white-picket-fence types.)
(And then he'd messed up.)
Jack sighed again and drained his coffee cup and dropped some notes on the table, getting up and heading for the door.
There was a large bottle of good old Texas whiskey and the entire works of Bruce Willis (Die Hard was totally a Christmas movie) back at Chez Dalton waiting for him.
AN: Poor, poor you, Jack, I'm really sorry to do that to you…but hey, soon enough, you're going to find yourself with some surrogate kids (they're a handful, but a good handful) and plenty of family to spend Christmas with! (You'll also find yourself missing your sister's bacon stuffing…)
Jack-likes-really-rare-steak is my personal headcanon (see Irreconcilable Differences) and the reason why Jack says that Mac can't cook when Mac says he'll make him a steak in 2.07, Duct Tape + Jack.
Tomorrow's ficlet: 'I got you a very nice present with some very special wrapping to unwrap later…'
Who says that? To whom? When? Any guesses?