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Christmas 1998
Maybe it was the rerun of Star Trek on the TV, or the Chinese takeout sitting uncomfortably in his belly, but Jack was not feeling it. Christmas time nowadays was not the glittering, cozy holiday of yesteryear. Sure, he was heading into this one vaguely sober (he couldn't remember what he did last year after the sixth Scotch), but organising a team night for Christmas Eve wasn't one of his better ideas. He hadn't decorated - who was there to decorate for? SG-1 had meant to be on rotation to work Christmas Day - and he sure as hell hadn't got a tree in.
The constant rush of conversation didn't help either. Pulling away the bottle of Guinness from his lips (a bottle of Guinness he’d been nursing rather than drinking), he listened in as the discussion between two of his team members increased a notch in volume.
“You can’t be serious-”
“I am, Sam. A movie about terrorists with guns and violence can’t be a Christmas movie.”
“But it’s set at Christmas!”
“So? It’s the principle of it! Christmas is supposed to be about cheer and goodwill! What’s Teal’c gonna think the meaning of Christmas is if we show him that movie?"
Jack glanced over at the silent Jaffa, who was observing the steadily escalating debate with mild interest from his armchair in the corner. Meanwhile, Carter straightened her posture and squared her jaw.
"He's gonna think, 'John McClane is indeed a formidable warrior. The Tau'ri would do well to follow his example.'"
Ducking his head, Jack almost spat out his mouthful of Guinness. Carter's impression, whilst an octave higher, was spectacularly accurate. But Daniel wasn’t phased.
"But the only reason he was there was to see his wife-"
"At Christmas, Daniel! He goes at Christmas, on Christmas Eve, to fix things with her. To make their family whole again!" She slammed her bottle on the side table. "There's a giant teddy, Christmas fairy lights and Santa hats; ergo Christmas movie." With a little huff, she sat back, arms folded. "It’s a Christmas movie, just for adults."
This was a side of Carter he rarely got to see. She was always so collected and prim. Such a good soldier and so eager-to-please. Complaint; not someone who ever lost control and slammed their bottle with such fervour. Not even off-duty on one of their previous, admittedly rare, team nights, had he seen her be this passionate about anything non-classified or non-sciency. And they’d only had four beers between them! Granted, Daniel was a cheap date, of course, but apparently with Carter it was enough to loosen an opinion or two.
And he rather liked that.
He liked the way her cheeks were flushed and eyes were narrowed with irritation. He liked the way his usually calm and collected Captain looked like a force to be reckoned with tonight. He couldn’t lie to himself. His Second looked hot when she was mad.
Maybe this was the reason she usually stuck to one bottle then swapped to her preferred diet soda, and not the oft used excuse of having to drive Teal'c back to base. Question was, did she only get like this with Christmas movies? And why was she getting so worked up about this movie?
“For adults? More like for gun-happy soldiers like you lot,” Daniel accused, pointing an unsteady finger at Carter, then himself, and finally a rather perplexed-looking Teal’c.
“Handheld projectile weapons do not cause me any sense of mirth, DanielJackson.”
Teal'c's unexpected input and deadpan voice finally did it for him. The ill-timed sip of Guinness he’d just taken immediately came spurting forth from his nostrils, though fortunately, Daniel wasn’t done talking, and no one noticed his mishap.
“Okay, well, I know a movie that’s definitely not a Christmas movie but you probably think is a Christmas movie-” Daniel rambled with drunken enthusiasm, oblivious to Jack’s current effort of wiping down his shirt. “The Nightmare Before Christmas. For one-“
His heart stopped. A flood of emotions, deeper than the stain on his shirt, engulfed him.
He’d tried to take Charlie to the theatre when it’d first come out. He must’ve been around seven, but they’d had to leave early because he’d already been worked up about Hallowe’en being scary. Only, Charlie’d gone through a monsters phase a couple of years later, and they’d finally watched it together two Christmases later.
Their last Christmas together.
Charlie’d absolutely loved it, and they’d vowed to make it an O’Neill tradition to watch it every Christmas.
Instead, he’d been left with a hollow in his heart and had vowed to never so much as look at the VHS cover in Blockbuster.
Carter shook her head, the light from the TV bouncing off the highlights in her hair. "Don't know it."
Normally he’d have called her out for her ignorance; he’d have made some joke about his 2IC’s preference for sticking her nose in a computer over having a social life or keeping up with popular culture, but he couldn’t. He was frozen rigid. He couldn’t make a joke at all. Daniel’s inebriated yelps of incredulity at Carter’s lack of knowledge barely even entered his ears. His head was simply brimming with what he’d lost, and what he’d never have again.
—
Christmas 2011
Jack was curled on the couch, with a belly full of Christmas dinner, and a very warm weight leaning on his side. It was on the verge of uncomfortable since he’d admittedly had one gingerbread cookie too many; Sam had gotten mad at him for eating most of them before the guys came and had had to bake a second batch ("They won't be cool enough to decorate!" ringing in his ears), but he wouldn’t change a thing about tonight. Teal’c had gated in especially for Christmas; they hadn’t seen him for several months. And Daniel had booked time off from his research on the Atlantis moon base and had beamed into Colorado Springs earlier, courtesy of the Daedalus. And best of all, Sam was snuggled up against him.
They were all several beers deep- including Teal’c, who’d rather taken to alcohol post-Junior. Christmas music was playing softly, and Daniel was over-enthusiastically rambling on about some research piece or another from something he’d found in Atlantis’ database, not that Jack was particularly listening. He was simply soaking up the ambience. Everything was perfect. Apart from the growing ache in his stomach.
Finally the pressure abated when she got up, and he found himself rather wishing she’d stayed.
“So, I’m thinking we’d better pick the Christmas movie now before Daniel gets too drunk to make it to the end.”
“Hey! I’m not drunk!” Daniel protested, only he’d swished his beer bottle so hard a considerable amount of the remaining liquid had sloshed on himself, rather reinforcing Sam’s point. This made her break into a fit of giggles, further flushing her already-reddened cheeks. It was a beautiful sight (then again, she always was). Then he watched as she pulled out the taped-up package that had arrived from California yesterday. He’d been told not to open it as it wouldn’t be fair on the guys to get first dibs, and he’d reluctantly resisted the temptation to peek. He’d already been in trouble over the cookies, after all.
“So, Cassie sent us a few DVDs, presumably as an apology that she couldn’t make it,” she explained, tearing off the tape and opening the box flaps. It looked big enough to house half her post-grad dorm shelf. “Oh look, Gremlins,” she said, pulling the first one out. “That’s always a good one.”
“Yeah it’s good…” groaned Daniel, “except, Gremlins isn’t a Christmas movie.”
“What? Yes it is.”
“Isn’t.”
“Is.”
“Isn’t!”
“Is!”
“Déja vu,” Jack smiled, watching as the red-faced pair’s escalating exchange stopped, and they turned to look at him.
“Jack?” they asked in perfect unison, making him snort into his Guinness.
“Just remembering the time you two were bickering over Die Hard.”
Daniel squinted behind his glasses while Sam looked thoughtful.
“I don’t remember that,” they both said in unison again, making them both break into laughter.
“Well you were probably too drunk on your two beers to remember, Daniel. And Carter, well, I guess at some point your brain had to give to make room for all your genius,” he grinned affectionately, making her raise an eyebrow that would rival Teal’c. “Anyway, T, back me up wouldya?”
“Indeed,” Teal’c chimed in sagely, with a glimmer of a smile playing at the edge of his lips. “I vividly recall DanielJackson and SamanthaCarter becoming most passionate in their debate some ten years ago.”
“See?”
“Well, I do have a copy of Die Hard somewhere here… it’ll be in one of the boxes I brought when I moved in.”
“Ah yes, the ones you never unpacked…”
She grinned at him over her shoulder, her face doing that cute scrunchy thing that meant she was really happy. “Well, I was busy with other things…”
“You know, Teal’c and I don’t need to know about what you and Jack get up to when you’re home, Sam,” drawled Daniel from behind his bottle.
Teal'c pursed his lips. “Indeed.”
Daniel’s face exploded into a grin at Teal’c’s agreement. Meanwhile, Jack leaned back into his couch feeling rather smug, and said nothing at Teal'c knowing look. Sam's cheeks turned firetruck red.
"Anyway moving on, guess we could finally settle our apparent decade-long dispute by watching it?”
Daniel gave another groan. "Fine. But trust me, you’ll be proven wrong, Sam.”
“Daniel, if there’s anything you should have learned over the past decade and some, it’s that Carter’s never wrong.”
“Really? What about when she almost married Pete… ouch!"
Yep, Carter was still hot and still a force to be reckoned with when she got mad (the thrown throw cushion made a great projectile weapon). But the memory made him wonder something he’d thought about way back during that first Christmas team night.
“I have to ask, though; why did you get your panties in such a twist over Die Hard, anyway?”
She shot him a scathing look, probably at the use of the term ‘panties.’ He should probably keep the use of that term to the bedroom.
“Well… it was back in my Academy days when I was with Jonas. You remember how… carried away with his opinions he could get?”
Ah Jonas. Carter’s crazy, controlling ex with a god complex. How could he forget?
“Yeah, I remember,” he replied nonchalantly, but didn’t miss the slight darkening of her eyes and subtle tensing of her shoulders, making him regret asking a little.
“He flew off the handle when I wouldn’t back down and agree with him that it wasn’t a Christmas movie…" She shrugged, trying for calm but missing it by miles. "But that’s enough about my exes for one night...”
“Indeed. Perhaps an alternate movie provided by CassandraFrasier might be more suitable?”
Jack saw the tension leave Carter’s body at Teal’c’s rescue, and watched as she reached again into the box.
“Good idea. Urmm… oh, there’s Jingle All the Way, a classic. And there’s obviously Home Alone 1, 2--" Her brow furrowed as she read the box "-- and 3?" Shaking her head, the rummaging continued. "And oh, look-” she began, finding something else.
“What!? That’s not a Christmas movie!” Daniel cried out as Sam held up a new DVD, once again sloshing his beer.
“Double déja vu,” Jack remarked again, before his eyes caught sight of the DVD cover in Sam’s hand.
His breath caught. Years ago, the sight of Jack Skellington would have sent him spiraling into despair, deluged with painful memories of Charlie excitedly calling the skeleton “Daddy” since they shared a name.
Only tonight, he realised, he wasn’t being hit by that sense of loss and harrowing emptiness he’d expected at seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas emblazoned on the box... but warmth. It was warmth he guessed he’d long associated with Sam. And his friends being here. No, they were more than that. They were family.
“You okay, Jack?” He came out of his daze to focus on Sam. “I asked if you thought it was a Christmas movie?”
He must have been lost in thought and missed her question. Considering his answer, he set his Guinness down and shrugged. It’d come out in theatres around Halloween, but to him and Charlie, it was always going to be their Christmas movie.
“You know what, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Christmas movie. If we choose to watch it at Christmas together, then it’s a Christmas movie.”
Everyone fell silent and looked at him.
“Wow, that’s unusually sweet of you, Jack.”
He scowled at Daniel. “Danny, please don’t ever call me ‘sweet’ again.”
“Perhaps sentimental?” offered Teal’c with a whimsical quirk of his lips.
“Adorable?” added Daniel, and he suddenly had an urge to mimic Carter and pitch another cushion at him.
"Cute, maybe?" Sam piped up from Cassie's package, winking when he caught her eye.
The gentle teasing continued long after the double feature of The Nightmare Before Christmas followed by Die Hard ended. Teal'c had proclaimed both to be Christmas movies, much to Daniel's horror (kudos to the guy - he'd beat the odds and the beer and stayed awake to the end), but Jack didn't mind. In the twinkling fairy lights, with his arm wrapped around Sam, nothing could ruin the peace he'd found.