Title: At Christmas I No More Desire a Rose
Author: Joolz
Feedback: If you
really want to :-) [email protected]
Rating : G
Category: GEN, angst, friendship, holiday
Season/Spoilers: early 1st season/ spoils The
Movie, COTG
Archive: please ask first
Summary: A holiday wrestled into submission, and the
true spirit found.
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Not my lovely characters, just playing with
them.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At Christmas I no more desire
a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s
newfangled mirth;
But like of each thing that
in season grows.
--Love’s Labour’s Lost,
Shakespeare
Jack sat idly on
the sofa with his hands resting on his thighs, regarding the new addition to
his living room. The seven foot Blue
Spruce was decorated with white lights set to random, slow, fade-and-glow, with
shiny gold and white garlands, glass balls of different colors, and wooden
ornaments shaped like animals that his grandfather had cut out and his
grandmother hand painted. The Christmas
tree was beautiful. The Christmas tree
was supposed to be making him feel better.
The Christmas tree was failing.
Last year Jack had
been a basket case. It had been the
first Christmas since his son’s death and if that weren’t enough he had just
moved into this new house after his wife had left him (not that he blamed her),
and had been surrounded by packing boxes.
On top of that, he had recently returned from being the first man to set
foot on another planet, where he had battled aliens and found his life, and
couldn’t even tell anyone about it. The
Christmas cheer going around had been too much for him, and he’d spent most of
the holiday in the bottom of a bottle.
This year was
going to be different. Okay, so the
last few months had been more than a little weird, what with the renewed alien
hostilities and all. He had lost some
more friends, but he was determined not to give in to melancholy. He was damn well going to have a nice,
normal, human, merry Christmas if it killed him: thus the tree blinking
cheerfully in his living room. It was
nice, but something was missing. Maybe
an angel for the top, or candy canes.
Maybe he should put on a Christmas CD and let Bing Crosby get him in the
mood.
Maybe he should
just go to bed.
Jack got up and
unplugged the light cord from the socket, plunging the room into darkness and leaving
the tree nothing more than a looming shadow, misplaced and cold. He shuddered slightly as he realized that he
felt much the same way.
O’Neill muttered
to himself, “Aw, cut the crap,” and strode purposefully toward his waiting bed.
+++++++++++++++++++++
It was Christmas
Eve and the base was down to a minimum of personnel. Everyone who had a home to go to was there or on their way. Jack was sitting in the mess hall, one of the
few takers for the overly ambitious veal cordon bleu holiday fare. He was pushing the boiled carrots around on
his plate when Daniel Jackson walked in, his nose literally buried in a
book. Jack admired the instinctual way
that the younger man avoided the chairs and other obstacles in his path without
ever looking up. He passed down the
serving line holding his tray one-handed and barely managed to mumble a “Merry
Christmas” in response to the cafeteria worker’s obnoxious salutations. Deeply engrossed in whatever it was, he slid
into a chair at a small table on the other side of the room.
Jack noticed how
Daniel’s shoulders were pulled in tightly under a bent neck, a frown of
concentration almost completely hidden by long, unruly hair as he read and
speared carrots at the same time.
A sudden image of
the Daniel Jackson he had first met intruded into Jack’s memory. That Daniel Jackson was almost stubbornly
unaware of the people around him. He
had casually dismissed two years of work by the other scientists, not
spitefully, but because he was right and they were wrong. He had seemed to know no fear or self doubt,
whether he was explaining the meaning of a ten thousand year old cover stone to
a room full of military brass, making the first contact with a multitude of
humans on another planet, or facing an alien god. He stood up straight, shoulders broad, and walked forward
casually as though he did that kind of thing every day. Jack knew that some of the oblivious
confidence was a defense mechanism and that in fact the archaeologist saw and
understood a lot more than he let on.
He had seen and understood Jack in spite of his carefully maintained
shield of aloofness.
That same almost
arrogant self-assuredness was still sometimes visible, especially during
briefings and interactions with strangers on missions, but in his daily life
Daniel had withdrawn into himself to an alarming degree. Jack watched the absorbed scholar chew on
the end of his pen, unaware that it was leaking a blue stain onto the corner of
his mouth. His cold, half-eaten meal
was pushed to one side, and he still hadn’t looked up once.
Jack felt a
tightness in his chest as a full realization of exactly how much Daniel had
lost washed through him. Daniel’s
dreams had come true. He had eagerly
chosen to live and work among an authentic ancient culture: to live it rather
than just study it. He had fallen in
love with a beautiful, brave woman and found himself a home amongst a
boisterous extended family. In a matter
of minutes it had all been taken from him. What kind of hole would that leave
in a man’s soul?
The sound of
voices at the table behind Jack broke through his thoughts. Some idiot was urging a friend
conspiratorially, "There’s that civilian egghead. Let’s go play some bait-the-geek, what d’ya
say?”
O’Neill was just
starting to turn around, prepared to kill or at least seriously maim, when
another voice at the table stopped him.
Ferretti commanded, “Forget it, buck-o.
You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, there.” After a surprised silence, he enlightened his no-doubt open
mouthed audience, “Let me tell you something. That man has more balls than all
three of you put together.”
The idiot
objected, “Fuck that shit. I’m one
hundred percent United States Marine.”
Ferretti snorted,
“That may be, but you’d still pee in your pants if you had to face half the
things he has. Look, I made the same
mistake myself, misjudged Dr. Jackson and lit into him. But that was before I knew him. Do you know how many of us are left from
that first trip through the Stargate?
Exactly three: me, the Colonel and Dr. Jackson. Me, I was lucky. The Colonel was good. But
Dr. Jackson saved all our lives, both under enemy fire conditions you can’t
even begin to imagine and because he’s just so damn smart. The guy might not look like much, but
underneath? Solid. You?
You would be lucky to be allowed to shine his shoes. Don’t you forget
it, boy.”
As the other
mumbled in acquiescence, Jack smiled to himself. Damn if Ferretti hadn’t said it just right.
He stood and
deposited his tray in the collection area, then strolled over to the small
table. Pulling out a chair he turned it
around to straddle it. “Hey, Jackson.”
Daniel glanced up
briefly. “Hi, Jack.”
Jack reached out,
slid his broad palm onto the open pages of the book, pushed it down onto the
table, and closed the cover. Now Daniel
looked directly at him, eyes wide and not a little annoyed.
Jack cut him off
at the pass. “So, Daniel, can you
cook?”
Confused fish-lips
fluttered in response. “W..what?”
“I asked if you can
cook, because one of us had better be able to if we’re going to have any kind
of Christmas dinner tomorrow.”
Guppy-boy was a
little slow on the uptake. “Christmas
dinner?”
“Yeah. It’s Christmas tomorrow. You know, Deck the Halls and Jingle Bells. Happens
every year on December 25th.
You’re going to have to help me with the bird, because I’m new at this.”
The thick eyebrows
slowly rose up Daniel’s forehead.
“You’re inviting me to Christmas dinner?”
“Well, sort
of. I’m inviting you to help me make Christmas dinner. You’re gonna have to do your part. So can you cook?”
“I...um...well,
ah.…” A rare smile spread across Daniel’s face, reaching the sparkling blue
eyes. Then suddenly the light went out,
as though he had just remembered that he didn’t have a right to be happy as
long as people he loved were suffering.
Jack talked on, hoping his words would brush away the ghosts that he
knew so well himself.
“I thought about
having Teal’c over, too, but he still isn’t allowed off the base. Besides, all this hohoho and sleigh bells
stuff would probably freak him out. You
and me, though, we’re old hands at Christmas.
Bring on Santa and Frosty the Snowman, we can take ‘em. Hell, I even got a tree. So you are going to come, aren’t you?”
The smile was
tentative, but it was there. “Yeah,
sure.”
Jack stood up
again. “Good. Be at my place tomorrow at 10:00 hours, and don’t be late. We have a lot to do.”
He paused, “And…
ah… you have…” He waved a finger toward Daniel’s face and motioned with his chin. “…ink there. On your mouth.”
Daniel grabbed his
napkin and rubbed furiously. “Is that
better?”
Jack grinned at
the mess he’d made. “Gettin’ there.”
+++++++++++++++++++
In the event, both
of them were very much needed to wrestle the ‘bird’ into submission. Jack had opted for chicken rather than a
traditional pork roast, but that didn’t mean he knew how to prepare it.
Daniel placed
himself in charge of the cookbook while Jack wielded the baster.
“It says right here,
you have to pull the skin up and push pats of butter underneath with your
hand.”
“Excuse me? This is a chicken. Its skin is attached.”
“Well, just try
it. Just pull it up a little. Yes, like that! Now push the butter in with your fingers.”
“I am NOT putting
my hand in there. That’s
disgusting. You do it.”
“I can’t do it,
I’m holding the book. I would get my
hands messy.”
“For crying out
loud. I’ll hold the book…”
When he allowed
himself to think of it, Jack was nearly floored by the strangeness of it
all. On the one hand they regularly
went to other worlds hoping to find a wife and her brother who had been
abducted by aliens; the same aliens who wanted to wipe all life off the face of
the Earth as soon as inhumanly possible.
On the other hand they were just two guys trying to cook a chicken. It was so surreal it made him dizzy.
Eventually the
bird went into the oven. The microwave
would take care of the store-bought cartons of mashed potatoes, gravy and green
bean casserole, and there were pecan tarts from the bakery and Cool Whip for
dessert.
In the meantime
they drank copious amounts of wine and made bets on how deep the snow was going
to get outside. In this way Jack and
Daniel did Christmas. They talked and
laughed and with great pride picked every scrap of moist, tender meat off the
chicken bones.
Replete and as
satisfied as he had felt in a long time, Jack finished putting the crockery
into the dishwasher. When he returned to the living room he found Daniel
sitting on the arm of a chair looking at the Christmas tree. The younger man seemed lost in thought, and
Jack’s wistfulness returned. He moved
silently to stand next to his friend and gently laid his hand on Daniel’s
shoulder. Startled, Daniel looked at
him in surprise, but didn’t pull away.
They stayed like that, contemplating the tree, for several minutes.
The soft lights
glistened on the shiny garland and caused bright spots of color to flash from
the glass bulbs. The depth and shape of
the shadows shifted, now illuminating, now shrouding in darkness. The green branches and simple ornaments
spoke of mortality and continuity.
The tree was
beautiful. It would be wrong not to
appreciate the beauty in life, for as long as the gift of life was still
his. To value it would honor those who
were gone more than any regret or grief.
Beside him, Daniel
whispered, “It’s beautiful,” and Jack could see a sheen of tears in his
eyes. Once again they had been thinking
he same thing at the same time.
Jack’s voice was gruff
as he answered, “Yeah, it is.”
Daniel turned to
him and said softly, “Thank you for inviting me over.”
Jack squeezed
Daniel’s shoulder lightly and responded, “I’m glad you came.” And he found that he was glad; for Daniel’s
company, for the beauty of the tree, for a lot of things.
This Christmas
stuff wasn’t so bad after all.
The end
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