Auld Lang Syne
Christmas mornings are always special. This one was better than most.
I drifted in muzzy half-consciousness, deliciously warm and cosily snuggled into the duvet. Winter sunlight was streaming in the half- open curtains, but I wasn't about to move just yet. The bed and the duvet smelled of him, even though he wasn't there.
The realisation that I was alone was what woke me fully. I gazed blearily around the room, still half asleep, wondering where the Colonel - where Jack - could be.
I couldn't get used to calling him that.
I got out of my bed and put on his shirt, and wrapped the spare blanket around me, shivering against the cold. Just because it doesn't snow much in Colorado Springs, doesn't mean it doesn't freeze.
As I walked out into the hallway, I heard the radio, and Jack's tuneless whistling, and a vague sense of panic that I hadn't even noticed growing dissipated. He was still here. Despite the diamond ring on my finger, there was a part of me very much afraid that he would disappear without a trace - or that all this would turn out to be a dream induced by severe head injuries.
I padded, barefoot, into the kitchen, to find that he had made himself at home whilst I continued to sleep. He was still wet from the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist; damp hair sticking up at all angles. He was also making pancakes.
He turned when he heard me enter, and smiled at me.
"Merry Christmas, sleeping beauty," he said. I smiled back, and crossed over to stand next to him. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close and kissing my forehead.
"Why don't you grab a shower?" he said. "I'll put some coffee on."
"Okay," I agreed meekly, almost too happy to speak.
He smiled down at me, the most unguarded and loving look I had ever received from him. He leant down and kissed me gently on the lips, and pulled me close to him.
"You'll burn the pancakes," I said to him when he pulled away.
"Less of that, Major," he warned jokily. And he flipped the pancake perfectly. I couldn't help but laugh.
Standing in the shower a few moments later, delicious warmth flooding around me, I felt the first pang of bitterness in the beauty that my life had become. Because as much as I might wish it away, and as reckless as I could be for one night, reality was still waiting for me, somewhere up ahead. The New Year would come, Christmas would end, work would loom large on the horizon again - and I would be faced with the ugly fact that I was breaking the rules. And although I would love to ignore it, and pretend that everything was going to be perfect from now on because we had each other, sooner or later the dreaded words 'fraternization regulations' were going to be spoken, and then this perfect Christmas fairytale would crumble and we would be right back where we were.
I pushed it determinedly aside. I didn't want to think about that, not on Christmas Day with Jack cooking pancakes in my kitchen.
Jack. I still couldn't quite get used to that.
The next few days were like the dreams of Christmas I had had whenever I permitted myself to contemplate a personal life that included Jack O'Neill in any significant capacity. We walked in the cold and the frost, we met up with Janet and Daniel and the others, we sat in Jack's house, curled up on his sofa watching Singin' in the Rain and A Muppet Christmas Carol. We did the couple thing - and I found myself enjoying it a little too much. It seemed so natural to hold his hand as I walked in step beside him, and so comfortable to sit cosily wrapped in his arms, to wake up next to him and kiss him good morning before getting out of bed. The ease with which we both settled into a joint routine was disconcerting.
My disquiet grew as the holidays continued, fed in part by the pleased and knowing looks I received from my friends when Jack kissed me at Janet's New Year's party, and also in part by my own actions. I found myself doing things without thinking - making room for him, taking his hand - taking the drinks he offered me without breaking the flow of my conversation with Cassie - knowing when he walked in the room, anticipating his every move with an eerie accuracy. It unnerved me, and he started to notice.
"Sam," he said to me one evening, as we sat together on his sofa. "What's bothering you?"
I pondered how to say what was on my mind, but there was nothing for it but to come right out with it.
"We're going back to work soon," I said.
I felt the tension in his body immediately. This was it - the conversation we had both been dreading. But I felt that it needed to be said. We couldn't just continue in a cosy dream and never think about the consequences.
"Yeah," he said, and then paused. "You worried about that?" he added.
"Aren't you?" I asked. He shrugged.
"We'll figure something out. That old urge to retire is coming back."
"Jack, you can't do that," I said emphatically, sitting up and turning to face him.
"Why not?"
"You know neither of us would be happy quitting our jobs," I explained. "It's too important to both of us. You'd get bored within a week and want to come back."
"Ya know, I think it would be worth it," he said to me, and his expression told me the meaning of his words. I looked away from that.
"I wouldn't want you to do that," I said. "And I don't think General Hammond would let you. It would mean breaking up SG-1, and what we do - it's too important for that. There's more at stake here."
"So, what? You want us to go back to the way we were before?" he demanded. I could tell I'd made him angry, and disappointed, but I had to say it; one of us had to say it.
"No," I admitted. "I don't WANT to. I just think that's the way it has to be."
His expression was still angry.
"Look, some day all of this will over," I continued. "But until then, our job has to come first. It's not like we're working in an office somewhere - we're defending our entire planet from a threat they know nothing about. And as much as I wish that we could just lay all that aside as if it didn't matter - it does."
I could feel the tears start in my eyes, helplessly. I would have given anything for things to stay in this comfortable coupling - to spend my days and nights with him, doing everything as a pair - but the harsh fact remained that we both had a job to do that had to take precedence over any personal concerns.
Jack watched me for a second. "Come here," he said, and he sounded resigned and sad. He lifted me in his arms and carried me to bed, laying down next to me and cuddling me close to him, stroking my hair and kissing my forehead.
"I don't want this to end," I confessed in a whisper. "I'm sorry."
"No, you're right," he said, and I thought he hid the bitterness well. "It has to be this way."
Story Notes: Email: warrior_of_gondor@hotmail.com
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