Story Notes:

            Rating: G

            Length: 1800 words

 

 

Ripples

A Christmas interlude in The Burden of Power series

 

Jack hated Christmas.  Oh, he didn’t mind the holiday itself.  In fact, he rather enjoyed SG-1’s annual celebration.  He didn’t bother with a tree or decorations, but no one cared.  They gathered at his house on Christmas Eve, sometimes invited Doc Frasier and Cassie, sometimes even the General or Jacob, ate a dinner that Carter had ordered from some fancy restaurant or other, drank some wine, and exchanged gifts—all of which Jack would purchase online months beforehand.  Daniel, usually drunk by the party’s end, collapsed in Jack’s spare bedroom.  While the others did their family things, Jack and Daniel spent Christmas Day together, poking fun at classic movies or their remakes as they pigged out on pizza, popcorn, beer, and other unmentionable foodstuffs.  It was homey and relaxing, and Jack had loved it for that reason alone.

 

Okay, on second thought, it wasn’t Christmas that he hated.  The part he hated, the part he had passionately avoided for years, was the hype.  The glamour.  The rush.  He hated crowds and Salvation Army bellringers and the “beat the Joneses” mentality  that stuffed shopping carts with bigger and better presents.  He much preferred his quiet, hassle-free Christmas.

 

But, no, this year they had to have the whole enchilada.  Tree, lights, tinsel, ornaments, stockings for the fireplace.  Plus every winter activity one could imagine: caroling, tree-decorating, cookie-decorating, sledding, ice-skating, visiting Santa, driving through the city to view houses that were shoe-ins for December’s highest electricity bills.  They’d even hosted an orphanage Christmas party.  All because of Daniel.  Daniel, who was six and so very, very excited about his first Christmas.

 

True, Jack hadn’t put up much of a fight.  He still remembered the misery of last year, when he’d refused to celebrate Christmas at all.  Daniel was gone, off to glowyland, and Jack couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for a holiday he and Daniel had reinvented in their own way.  But now that Daniel was back, they needed to establish brand-new traditions because Daniel had absolutely no memory of past Christmases.  In fact, as soon as he learned the holiday existed, Daniel bugged every adult he knew for stories about their Christmas experiences.  Then he’d researched it on the Internet and practically bludgeoned Jack with a salvo of information.

 

Daniel wanted it all.  Every possible Christmas ritual he could cram into one month.  Jack, with the help of SG-1, had obliged, and if truth be told, he’d enjoyed the activities as much as anyone.

 

Until today.  Right now, he just wanted to be home, with his feet up on the coffee table, a beer in hand, and a Simpsons cartoon on the TV.  Heck, he’d even settle for one of Daniel’s history channel specials.  Instead, he was stuck in a crowded mall, two days before Christmas.

 

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Daniel asked.

 

They were seated at the edge of the food court, and Daniel’s six-year-old voice sounded small in the cacophony that surrounded them.  As Jack shifted in his chair, his leg bumped the pile of bags on the floor.  Reviewing the contents of the bags and comparing them to the list in his hand, he forgot Daniel’s question

 

It was his own fault.  Daniel had informed him in no uncertain terms that shopping online for Christmas presents was just not going to cut it this year.  Despite Jack’s horror stories about the mall, Daniel was insistent.  The gifts had to be bought.  Each one picked out and purchased in person.  It was all part of the “experience.”  Jack had given in with a sigh of long-suffering and promised the coveted mall shopping trip.

 

The problem was, he’d made the promise at the beginning of December.  One thing after another had delayed the trip, and the twenty days had shriveled to two.  Two days before Christmas.  The day every other man, woman, child, and dog had chosen to shop.  Packed into the a little tiny mall.  Probably exceeding the fire safety limits by a couple hundred people.

 

Jack scowled at the list of friends who were getting genuine mall presents and stabbed a thick line through Carter’s name.

 

Across from him, Daniel gave a heavy sigh.  “It’s everybody.”

 

Jack wasn’t sure whether it was the sigh or the confusing words that finally caught his attention.  He glanced up.  Daniel was watching the mob.  Absently, Daniel dabbed a French fry in ketchup and headed it toward his mouth.  A teenager with red and green striped hair strolled past, and the fry missed its goal as Daniel swiveled his head at the last minute to gape at the teenager.  Daniel readjusted the trajectory of his fry, smearing ketchup from mid-cheek to mouth like a gash of blood, and got the thing into his mouth.  Jack checked the contents of Daniel’s lunch tray and found it still contained two and a half chicken nuggets of a four-piece meal and a mostly-full portion of French fries.  Which meant the people, rather than the food, were holding the majority of Daniel’s interest.

 

“I thought it was just you,” Daniel said after he’d finished the fry.

 

“Daniel, what are you talking about?”

 

Jack spoke a little more sharply than he’d intended.  His tone brought Daniel’s focus instantly toward him and caused Daniel to hunch his shoulders.

 

“Are you mad, Jack?  Cuz I made you bring me to the mall?”

 

“No.  I’m just…”  He sighed and tried to loosen some of the tension in his shoulders.  “No, Danny, I’m not mad.”

 

“Just in a hurry,” Daniel said, nodding in that wise, oddly mature way he sometimes had.

 

Jack felt a flicker of shame as he remembered the last two hours of dragging Daniel through stores while Daniel clung to his hand and half-jogged to keep pace.  The guilt intensified as he recalled Daniel’s silence through most of the shopping.  Jack had quickly aborted Daniel’s first couple attempts to gawk at their surroundings, and after waiting through Daniel’s indecision about a gift for General Hammond, Jack had stopped asking for opinions as well.

 

Daniel continued, “Like everybody else.  Why is everybody?”

 

“Why is everybody what?” Jack asked, still not following the conversation.

 

“In a hurry.  The stores are decorated all pretty, and there’s so many things to see, but nobody slows down.  Nobody looks.”

 

Daniel turned back to people-watching, and Jack followed the direction of his gaze.  A man in a business suit stepped briskly past, totally focused on the cell phone pressed to his ear and the conversation he was having.  Waiting in line at a checkout, a stressed mother tried to corral her three children into standing quietly.  Two teenagers ambled by with one arm around the other’s waist, a hand in each other’s back pocket, and eyes only for each other.  Jack couldn’t count the number of people, arms full of bags, who were staring at lists and dodging other customers in their quest to shop as quickly as possible.  Daniel was right.  No one seemed to notice the store displays or the mall’s Christmas decorations.

 

“It’s kinda sad, Jack.”  Daniel picked up a chicken nugget and nibbled at it half-heartedly.  “I wanted Christmas shopping to be more funner.  I wanted to see stuff.”  He sighed again.  “I guess we could just go home and get the rest of the presents on the computer like you said.”

 

Jack made a snap decision and gathered up the bags by his feet.  “Come on.”

 

“Where are we going?” Daniel asked when it became obvious they weren’t heading toward the exit.

 

“Just a sec.”  Jack led the way to the mall’s customer service department, rented a couple lockers, and stowed their bags.  Then he turned the question back on Daniel.  “Okay, kiddo, where are we going?”

 

“Jack?”

 

“You wanna look?  Let’s go look.”

 

Daniel gave an excited bounce.  Then he forced himself to stillness and gnawed his burgeoning smile into an expression of worry.  “We don’t have to.  It’s okay.”

 

“No, Daniel, you were right.  They always have cool stuff out at Christmas time, and I wasn’t paying attention.  Where should we go first?”

 

“The toy store had a train set up,” he offered hesitantly.

 

After ten minutes of exclaiming over the train set, Daniel forgot his initial concern about Jack’s suggestion and was quite ready to investigate other store displays.  Hand in hand, they wandered through the mall, stopping whenever something caught Daniel’s attention.  Daniel chattered about a couple displays, sharing bits of arcane knowledge he’d picked up who-knows-where.  Other displays produced a spate of questions Jack was hard-pressed to answer as Daniel stared like a foreigner and tried to wrap his mind around things he’d forgotten.

 

With most displays, however, Daniel simply gazed, enraptured by what he was seeing.  Jack watched the wonder and delight play across Daniel’s face and remembered how the exploration of a new culture or some ruined temple used to bring that same look.  How could he have forgotten Daniel’s innate need for discovery?

 

Jack felt his stress melting under the spell of Daniel’s exuberance.  When Daniel began singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in a loud, clear voice that carried to the other shoppers, Jack chuckled and let the kid sing.  Most likely, Daniel didn’t even realize he was singing.  His attention was still focused on the Frosty the Snowman window cling-ons that decorated a shoe store.

 

Others noticed, though.  Shoppers halted in mid-rush, arrested by the sight of a child’s overflow of Christmas spirit.  When they continued on, their steps were slower, as if reluctant to return to their earlier hustle.  Jack watched with amusement when the customers around them began slowing, sometimes pausing to observe a store display, sometimes just taking a moment to breathe deeply.

 

It was like dropping a pebble in a pond of water and seeing it ripple outward.  Today, Daniel was that pebble, and the mall was his pond.

 

“You’re glowing, Daniel,” Jack murmured.

 

Daniel turned a quizzical glance upward.  “Glowing” usually meant Daniel was acting on the Ancients’ powers he’d brought back from his ascension.

 

“No, I’m not.  Don’t be silly, Jack.”  Daniel tugged him to another window and launched into “Jingle Bells.”

 

 Around them, the crowd still slowed.  Smiles transformed tired faces.  People nodded at Jack, in acknowledgement of a special gift.  And through it all, Daniel sang and looked at Christmas decorations, completely unaware of his own magic.  Causing ripples by simply being who he was.

 

Yes, you are, Dannyboy, Jack thought.  Yes, you are.