The Twelve Days of Christmas (7/12) – Jenny L- rating G

For disclaimers etc see part 0:


A/N: This is dedicated to my little brother, who although he will
probably never read this, has just been offered a place to study
maths at Oxford Uni next year. Congrats little bro! I'm so proud of
you.

12 Days of Christmas pt 7; I'll be home for Christmas

Day 7 – Sunday 19th December


***
I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
***

`Uh, hi sir.' Jennifer Hailey opened her front door.

`How are you feeling this morning?' Paul gave a cheery smile, noting
the dark smudges under Jen's eyes and the way her pallor was
interesting shade of green.

`Fine sir.' Hailey winced at the movement of her head. Never again
she swore, never again was she going to drink so much, however
pretty the cocktails looked.

`That's good. I just wanted to check that you were still alive.'
Davis smiled.

`Sir. Did anything, uh happen last night. I mean I know you took me
home but the rest is sort of fuzzy.' When her alarm had gone off
that morning Jen had had recollections of half a dream where Davis
had told her that he loved her but she couldn't work out what was
real.

`Relax Jen.' Paul smiled. `We didn't do anything.'

`That's good. I mean it would be really bad if we did do anything,
what with you being a senior and all.'

`Yeah, it would be a bad thing Hailey.' Paul agreed with little
enthusiasm, noting how relieved she seemed that nothing had
happened. It had been stupid to imagine that she might return his
feelings; he really did have nothing to offer her. `I'll see you at
work tomorrow.'

Jen shut her door to Paul and stumbled back to bed before she was
sick all over her carpet. `Ah well', she thought, it had been a nice
dream it was just a shame about the reality. Maybe someday in the
future, the very distant future, she would meet a guy who really
would fall in love with her.

***
Please have snow
And mistletoe
And presents `neath the tree
***

Daniel was finishing up wrapping all his Christmas presents so they
could be delivered before Jack left today for the jaffa home world.
For Teal'c there was a book on the rules of ice hockey, a sport that
he was slowly becoming interested in at Jack's prompting. Daniel had
bought Jack a new fishing rod, he was one of the few people who knew
that Jack was retiring and was intending to spend a lot of time at
the cabin. Daniel had purchased the more expensive gift, hoping in
some way to try and make up for the fact that Sam was marrying Pete.

Sam's gift had been the hardest to choose. Things had been slightly
awkward between them ever since she had announced that she was
marrying Pete and the temptation had been just to buy a bland
wedding gift such as a vase or a toaster. However Daniel had stopped
himself, Sam was one of his best friends and whether or not he
thought she was making a mistake she deserved more from him. In the
end he had been online and found a collection of the so
called `greatest sci-fi movies ever'. Daniel knew that Sam enjoyed
watching them to see if they ever got it anywhere near right and
that was a small way that she could share her job with her fiancee.

***
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
***

Jack packed the last item, his sun glasses, in the top of his kit
bag, fastened it, and placed it on the floor. As part of the
negotiating team he would be away for two weeks, by the end of which
time his retirement papers would hopefully have been processed and
Carter would be on honeymoon so he wouldn't have to see her.
Eventually he knew they were going to meet, but he hoped that by
giving himself a little more time he would be better able to accept
the marriage.

The negotiations with the rebel jaffa were an exciting development
after the previous alliance had broken down. This time the jaffa
were a group that worked for Ba'al and had no connections with
Teal'c or anyone else he knew. They had approached SG-3 who had been
off world, at first the SG team were deeply suspicious that this was
another trap from Ba'al but over the last month everything had
checked out and Jack had decided that the group was legitimate. It
would be nice to have some of their jaffa allies back and it would
definitely be a help when the inevitable confrontation with Ba'al
occurred.

Finally Jack was finished and ready to go. He had already said his
goodbyes to everyone, including Sam to whom he had wished a happy
marriage. He was therefore surprised to see her standing in the gate
room, waiting for him to depart, especially as she was on leave to
give her time to prepare for her wedding.

`Carter, what are you doing? I don't think you are going to find any
bridesmaid dresses around here.'

`I came to wish you happy Christmas sir.' Sam bit her lip, wanting
to say more. `If things had been different…..' she started,
referring to his relationship with Sara.

`There's no point in what ifs, you know that Sam.' Jack replied,
even though the thought `what if she had never met Pete' was
constantly playing through his head.

`Chevron 7 locked.' Walter called out and the stargate sprang into
life. The team Jack was accompanying went through the wormhole
first; Jack stepped on to the ramp behind them and turned to Sam one
more time. `Goodbye Carter.'

***
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
***

`Pete Shanahan has….. staff weapon burns to the upper and lower of
his body.' Teal'c raised an eyebrow and dared any of the techs to
argue with him. He had only agreed to participate on the
encouragement of General Hammond who seemed to find the game most
amusing and assured Teal'c it was harmless.

`Thank you, sir.' The young tech knew that Teal'c wasn't an officer,
however he was big enough and scary enough that the tech who was in
charge of `Pete has' today thought `sir' was appropriate.

`I'm glad that General O'Neill was able to get away for Christmas.'
Commented the tech to Siler who was next to him, and to Teal'c who
was still behind him.

`Yeah. If I was him I wouldn't have wanted to go to Colonel Carter's
wedding.'

`Indeed. However I do not think that General O'Neill would find our
discussing it appropriate.' Said Teal'c, uncomfortable with the
amount of base gossip about his friend's love lives.

`Discussing what?' Asked Jay Felger who entered the room holding a
weird purple contraption.

`You mean O'Neill going away? You know that I would have been on
that mission with him if I wasn't needed here. I applied to go and
it said on my application that I was too valuable to be used off
world.' Jay boasted, not seeing Siler and the tech wink at each
other. They had been present when Jack had originally filed Jay's
application in the bin, it was his secretary who had rescued it and
written the comment to save Felger's feelings.

`So have you invented something new, Jay?' Siler asked, almost
seriously.

`Is it something that actually works?' mumbled the new tech under
his breath, unfortunately not quietly enough.

`You just don't understand my brilliance.' Felger threw up his
hands. `But it doesn't matter, because Colonel Carter does.' Jay
left the room, followed by Teal'c and the other two just looked at
each other.

The new tech suggested to his senior. `You know that Simmonds is
flying in tomorrow for the wedding. Well maybe we could lock the two
of them in a room together to discuss the Colonel and leave the rest
of us in peace.'

It was Siler who came up with the perfect answer. `Even better we
could lock them in a room with Pete, he'd be dead of boredom in a
couple of hours and all our problems would be solved.

***
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
If only in my dreams
***

Sam was busy trying to bring some organization to the chaos that was
her new living room. In one corner there was a pile of papers to do
with the flower people who were charging a fortune to bring the
wedding forward. Luckily for Sam the SGC catering staff had been
only too glad to step in when her original caterers hadn't been
available so the reception was sorted. Considering that Sam
suspected that most of the base didn't actually like her fiancee she
was surprised and moved by how many people had offered to help out.

All the decorations were being handled by the base techs who had
already planned to decorate the hall that had been hired for the
party. General Hammond was out right now with Jacob buying the
champagne which was going to be his wedding gift to her and Cassie
was looking for shoes to go with her bridesmaids dress. Luckily Sam
had ordered the wedding dress months ago, before Pete had moved the
wedding forward, so it was being delivered tomorrow.

A pile of papers dropped on the floor, the item that landed on the
top was a wedding invite, an invite that had caused Sam much pain.

~ General Jonathan O'Neill and guest ~

Sam had sat over that invite for hours trying to decide the best way
to give it to him before finding out that he was going to be away on
treaty negotiations. Although Sam knew it was for the best that she
married Pete she couldn't help that fact that Jack's `goodbye'
earlier in the day had sounded so final, as if she would never see
him again.

If this had been a perfect world then Sam admitted to herself that
she would have been marrying Jack in five days time, in fact she
would have married him years ago. But this wasn't a perfect world
and however hard Sam wished she couldn't have what was really in her
dreams so she was going to make do with second best. Unless of
course something really big happened in the next few days.

I'd love feedback if you feel so inclined…......... Jenny L
bray_4_amber@...