Two Million Light Years From Christmas

Chapter 4

A/N Thank you to everyone that has stayed with this story. This is a longer chapter because I wanted to make sure that the story was finished. Let me know what you think.

He didn't know why he had agreed to go back to the party with her. In all honesty he really didn't feel like rejoining the festivities. His confession had left him feeling physically exhausted and emotionally raw.

However, there had been a look in her pale blue eyes that had convinced him to at least make the effort. So he had wrapped the last of his waning resolve around himself like a blanket, hoping that it might provide a flimsy shield against any latent feelings still lurking within his wounded psyche and followed her out of the forest, back toward the clearing.

Sam was holding his hand tightly as they made their way through the screen of trees, much as she had done earlier when she had led him toward her impromptu celebrations. This time the touch felt different to him, as though he was being buoyed by the comforting reassurance of her thumb as it stroked absently across the back of his hand.

When they broke through the trees and re-entered the clearing, it was to find it practically empty. Only a scattering of people remained, those assigned the task of tidying up the residue left over by the revellers. The trestle tables had already been dismantled and a group of men were beginning to carry them back toward the village, the food and beverages had already been removed. Gone too were many of the torches that had been hammered into the ground.

But someone had managed to find more wood to put upon the camp fire and it crackled and glowed with all the intensity that it had shown earlier. Behind it, the Christmas tree stood sentinel, its lights shining brightly against its darker backdrop.

Slowly Sam moved toward the tree, coming to pause in front of it, reaching out to touch some of the embellishments lightly with her fingers.

"You know that this time of year is special for me, but do you know why?"

Daniel shook his head as he watched her, even though he knew that she couldn't see the gesture. He remained quiet, waiting for her to continue, curious about what new facet of her life she was about to reveal to him.

"In some ways we are similar, Daniel, maybe more similar than either one of us truly realise." She removed a small aluminium star from one of the branches of the tree, turning it over and over in her hand, gazing down at its shiny surface wistfully. She turned around to face him, taking a few short steps back from the glowing Christmas tree until she was standing before him. Extending her fingers, she placed the aluminium star in his hand.

"Where you choose to try and forget, I choose to remember." She nodded down toward the star in his hand. "This is one of the ways in which I choose to remember, Daniel. This is how I remember someone who has been lost to me, someone who had a very important and loving influence upon my life."

"Your mother?"

Sam nodded sombrely.

"Christmas meant everything to her, it was her special time of the year, regardless of whether Dad was home or serving overseas. Each year she would pull all the stops out to ensure that Mark and I had the most happy and enjoyable Christmas she could arrange. She would always put on a great show, and not just for us children, but for other families on the base whose father's were absent during the festive season.

I remember the house always being full of laughter, love and hope."

It was easy for Daniel to conjure an image of a young pigtailed Sam and her brother happily crashing into their mother's room on Christmas morning, eagerly sharing hugs and kisses before going downstairs to open their presents.

"You're holding one of those traditions."

He squinted down at the star nestled in the palm of his hand, at a loss to understand its meaning with regard to the story that Sam was telling. He let his gaze roam over the adornment for a moment longer before raising enquiring eyes toward her.

"The star represents those missing from your life, those that are no longer with you or absent for some other reason during the Christmas season. It's a tradition that my mom started when we were small children, when…" She gnawed slowly upon her bottom lip as though she were contemplating confiding something more, something deeply personal. "…Daniel, my dad was shot down when he was serving in Vietnam, he was missing for eight months. That Christmas was the first time that my mom ever put a star on the tree, it was her way of making us feel as though Dad was still with us on Christmas Day."

So now he knew the meaning behind the star that he was holding and how it had become a part of the Carter family tradition, but he still didn't know why Sam felt that it could somehow hold a significant meaning for him?

Sam gently took the star out of his hand and headed back toward the tree, replacing it upon a higher branch than the one that it had sat upon before. It twisted upon its looped fastening, turning in lazy circles, the soft glow of the firelight causing it to shimmer.

"I have tried to continue that tradition, making sure that there were stars upon my tree, each one a reminder of someone I have lost or someone that is missing from my life." Her hand tenderly caressed another of the stars before moving on to touch another. "Naturally they have grown over the years as my losses have mounted." She was silent for a brief moment and he knew that she was absorbed in her memories, memories of all those people that had once been a part of her life, but had been taken from her during her long association with the Stargate programme. "Adding Dad's and Janet's stars were particularly poignant, but in their own small way they comforted me."

Suddenly, Sam's words faltered, her voice fading away into the night. Her earlier genial countenance changed as a cloud of immense sorrow passed across her visage. Daniel watched silently as his friend struggled with this new and unwanted intrusion, observing her body tensing until it almost became rigid, the fingers of her right hand curling into a tight fist at her side.

"Since my mother's death, there has only been one year when I couldn't do it. One year when I couldn't bring myself to put a star upon the tree. The very thought of it filled me with so much grief that it threatened to completely overwhelm me." When she looked at him, Daniel could see the tears perching precariously upon her full eyelashes, her steadfast determination the only thing preventing them from cascading down her cheeks. "It was the only year when I didn't follow through with the tradition."

"Was it the year that you lost your mom?"

Much to his surprise she shook her head, causing the perilously perched tears to break from their fortifications.

"No, it wasn't then, it was much later than that …" she hesitated, her words suddenly drying up. The tears that had breached her defences now ran unabated down her face, teetering briefly upon her chin before falling to splatter quietly against the BDU jacket that she wore. "…but it was someone as equally precious in my life…someone whose existence had a profound effect upon me, in ways that I could never have imagined, someone that I now realise I had come to love so very much."

He could tell by the slight quivering of her voice that the memory was still a hard one for her to remember, so even though his curiosity had been piqued, he decided it would be better not to pry any further. It was obvious from Sam's intense reaction to the recollection that whoever that person was, she had been deeply attached to them and, judging by what she had just said, she had belatedly come to the conclusion that she had been in love with them.

He couldn't help wondering if the person had been Martouf?

Sam turned away from him, struggling to keep her emotions under control, embarrassed by her unaccustomed show of weakness within his presence.

Knowing that his friend was in need of his support, Daniel quickly crossed the small distance between them until he was standing close behind her. Gently he slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her softly against him until her back nestled against his chest. When she made no signs of pulling away, he allowed his hands to slip further around her so that they lay splayed against her abdomen.

Sam's hands came to rest softly across his, holding them in place, accepting his offer of comfort.

"It's a beautiful tradition and I think your mom must have been a very special lady, Sam." He rested his chin upon the soft blonde hair at the crown of her head, mirroring the gesture that Sam had made earlier when she had been holding him.

It felt good to hold her like this, to feel her body pressed tightly against his own. He could feel her heart beating softly against his chest, feel the warmth of her hands as they lay upon his, smell the tell tale aroma of her fruit scented shampoo mingling with her own unique essence.

In some ways it all felt a little too good and just a little dangerous.

"Daniel, will you do something for me." Sam's voice broke him from his thoughts and he pulled his head away from her as he felt her twist around in his embrace, her hands coming up to rest against his shoulders, her watery eyes staring up into his. "Will you add your stars to the tree?"

"Sam, I don't think that…"

"Remember them, Daniel, remember every wonderful memory that they ever gave to you." The fingers of her right hand brushed gently against his cheek and in yet another parallel of earlier, Daniel felt himself lean into the touch. "Choose to leave the darkness behind, bring them out into the light."

Could he do this?

Did he have enough strength to banish the demons of his past?

He knew that it would take a lot more than just sticking a few shiny stars upon a tree, but he also knew that in making that gesture, he would be taking the first hesitant steps into a more positive future.

He stared into Sam's eyes, seeing her own strength shining determinedly back at him and he knew that should he choose to do this, he wouldn't be doing it alone. Sam would be by his side, as she had always been since that day when they had met in the cartouche room on Abydos.

"Okay, I'll do it."

A smile spread across her lips, lighting up her eyes, making them twinkle in the firelight's glow. She took a step back causing him to reluctantly release her from his embrace.

Squatting down, she busied herself at the base of the tree, her fingers sifting through a small pile of decorations and embellishments, she piled some into her hand before straightening her posture and returning to him.

"Here."

She placed a number of stars in his hand. Daniel shifted them around with his finger, letting it wander across their smooth, shiny surface.

"Why are there four here?"

"One each for your mother and father, one for Sha're and one for…" Sam looked at him, her eyes willing him to make the mental leap.

"…for my unborn sibling."

His own eyes telegraphed his silent gratitude, amazed at the depth of her compassion and understanding.

"Come on, hang them on the tree." She led him by the hand until he stood next to it, then she took a step to the side, leaving room so that he could manoeuvre around the branches without her getting in the way.

Hesitantly, he took one of the bright stars from the palm of his hand and held it between his fingers. The jury rigged fairy lights gleamed across its surface and he could see his own, albeit distorted, reflection staring back at him.

For my mother.

With fingers that trembled slightly, he hooked the star over the nearest branch and watched it twirl around and around, the combined firelight and tree lights making it sparkle and flicker.

Moving slowly around the tree, he placed a star in honour of his long lost father and then another for his more recently demised wife. He hesitated at the last star, the one that represented the memory of his unborn sibling, his mind and heart suddenly faltering under the weight of loss that suddenly assailed him.

He couldn't move his hand, it was as if the tiny aluminium star had suddenly taken on the density of its real life counterparts. The more he tried to motion his arm forward, the more it seemed to refuse to go, as though a part of him was still reluctant, even after all these years, to finally let go of this last piece from his tragic past.

Sam's strong hand curled softly around his, giving it a comforting squeeze. He felt his arm slowly begin to move forward under her gentle guidance, felt it fully extend until his fingers were almost touching the tiny branch that protruded out before him. When the looped fastening slipped over the tip of the branch, he felt Sam's hand begin to retreat, allowing him to finish the task unaided.

"No," Daniel's eyes met with hers, "together."

Sam hesitated for the briefest of moments, then he felt the warmth of her hand encapsulate his once more and together they guided the little silver star until it rested comfortably upon its branch.

For the brother or sister that I never had the chance to meet.

As they pulled their hands away from the tree, Sam interlaced her fingers through Daniel's, giving them another reassuring squeeze. He returned the gesture, letting her know through his touch how grateful he was for her help, then before she could break the fragile link between them, he pulled her into a tight hug.

"Daniel, are you okay?"

"No," he pulled her slightly away from him, keeping his arms loosely entwined about her waist, not wanting to break the contact completely, but just enough so that he could look at her. He saw the frown line begin to form between her perfectly defined eyebrows, the concern regarding his remark begin to make its way into her placid blue eyes and knew that he needed to clarify what he had just said, "but thanks to you… I will be."

"You have nothing to thank me for, Daniel." He felt her return his embrace, sliding her arms around his midriff, caressing his back softly with her fingers, gradually easing the accumulated tension from his tired muscles. "So… do you feel up to sharing another Carter family tradition?"

"Sure, Sam, what do you have in mind?"

"Well, each Christmas Eve I hang a snowflake on my tree."

"A snowflake?" He couldn't help the hint of amusement from creeping into his voice. "Why a snowflake?"

"When we were little, Mark and I used to love playing out in the snow… that is whenever we got the chance." She looked wistful again as she slipped once more into the realm of her childhood memories. "You'd be surprised just how many Air Force bases are below the snowline… for years I didn't know what snow was." A gentle smile pulled at the corners of her mouth at the memory. "Anyhow, whenever it did snow, Mark and I would make the most of it, charging around the backyard in a frenzy, trying to catch as many snowflakes as we could before they disappeared.

Then one day dad told us that if we managed to catch a snowflake on our tongue, we should make a wish before it melted because those wishes were always the ones that came true. Of course we believed him, but try as we might, we never succeeded, the snow always melted on our tongues before we could even start to make a wish."

"That must have been disappointing."

She nodded her head in agreement.

"In order to curb our growing despair, mom decided that we needed a symbolic snowflake, one that could be used once every year to make a wish, so she made us each one to put on the tree on Christmas Eve because, according to mom, that was the time of year when wishes came true the most.

A small beep emanated from the military chronograph on Sam's wrist.

"It's almost midnight, if we are going to make our wishes, we better be quick."

She broke free from his embrace and moved back to the tree, squatting down on her haunches so that she could rummage through the adornments that still lay scattered around its base. She returned a few seconds later holding two large aluminium covered snowflakes.

Daniel glanced over her shoulder toward the tree, noticing that it already seemed to have its fair share of that particular embellishment. "Sam, have you taken a look at the tree. I'd say that you've already used up enough wishes to last you for at least the next decade."

Sam chuckled with amusement.

"Oh, they're not mine."

"They're not?"

"No, those belong to the village children. They helped me make all the decorations, so naturally when I told them the story behind the snowflakes, they wanted to make their own and put them on the tree. Those are their wishes, Daniel, not mine."

Ah…so that was why he had seen her doing a fair impersonation of the Pied Piper after supper.

She pushed a snowflake into his hand.

"Make a wish, then slip the snowflake onto the branch, but hurry we don't have long."

Taking her own snowflake, she walked around the tree until she found a spare branch. Then she closed her eyes, her brows furrowing slightly as she made her wish. For a brief moment, she was not the incredibly smart astrophysicist or the courageous military officer that he had come to know, but a little girl again, making her special Christmas wish.

Then the firelight caught her features in that particular way, the way that it had earlier in the evening, when Daniel had found himself so inexplicably drawn to her.

He felt the air catch in his throat.

She was so incredibly beautiful, with the firelight catching her features in that one perfect moment, burnishing her with its golden fire, mesmerising him with her exquisiteness, allowing him to see past the drab uniform that she wore, unveiling the sensuous woman that lay beyond.

Of course it was something to which Sam was totally oblivious. She never saw the potency of her natural beauty.

She never recognised how it made Daniel feel whenever he caught a rare glimpse of her in this way.

She was unaware of the yearnings that it always evoked within him.

More so now…than ever before.

"Daniel…quick!"

The sound of her voice startled him, causing a blush of deep crimson to flush his had been caught staring at her, but obviously she was less concerned with him ogling her, than she was that he might miss his chance to bestow his wish upon the tree.

Without further hesitation, he strode toward the tree, looking for a free branch on which to hang his snowflake. Finding one, he reached his hand out to slip the decoration over the protrusion, but then he hesitated, realising that he didn't have a ready wish at hand.

What could he wish for?

Then a small smile turned up the corner of his mouth and he knew exactly what he was going to ask for.

He slipped the snowflake onto the branch, suspecting as he did so that the chances of his wish ever coming true would be astronomical.

The watch on Sam's wrist began to beep again.

He felt Sam's hand on his shoulder, felt her tug at him gently as she turned him around to face her. She took a step toward him, letting her hand slip softly around his neck as she moved into his personal space.

"Merry Christmas, Daniel."

"Merry Christmas, Sam."

"Guess you just got your wish in under the wire." Her eyes twinkled with unconcealed merriment.

"Tell me something, Sam, do they ever come true?"

She looked at him long and hard, her blue eyes losing some of the merriment that he had just witnessed. They wandered casually across his features as though she were drinking them in, as though she were memorising him in case she should someday forget. Behind the veil of normalcy that he saw in the blue depths of her eyes, he could detect a hidden anguish, one that had taken root deeply.

"Sometimes…" Her head lowered, her gaze dropping to stare at the ground, "…sometimes if you wish hard enough…if you want something badly enough…sometimes then…if you're lucky…your wish comes true."

"That sounds like the voice of experience."

When she looked back up toward him, he was surprised to see a sheen of wetness in her eyes.

"That year that I told you about earlier… the one when I couldn't put the star on the tree..," he watched her struggle to blink away the tears, saw the pain and anguish etch its way around her eyes and mouth, "…it was the year that we lost you, Daniel…it was the Christmas after the events on Kelowna."

He knew his eyes had widened, could feel his mouth gaping open in surprise at her words, but he couldn't say anything. Since that day when they had found him on Vis Urban, nobody had spoken about the time when he had ascended, it was almost as if it were a taboo subject. He had assumed that his friends had had their reasons, that maybe the memories were too painful for them to recount, but judging by what he was now witnessing with Sam, he had underestimated the impact that his elected departure had caused.

"I couldn't face putting your star upon my tree, to do so would have meant admitting that you would never be a part of my life again." A solitary tear slipped over the parapets of her eyelashes to run unsteadily down her cheek. "By the time of the holidays everyone had come to terms with what had happened, they had moved on…everyone that is…except me. I couldn't do it, Daniel, I couldn't just accept that you were gone…that I would never see you again." Another tear erupted down her face, following the same path as the earlier one. "There was this big hole where you had once been, a chasm so cold and so large that it felt as if a part of me had been torn away."

Daniel's hands came up to softly cup her face between them, his thumbs gently soothing away the tears that now ran unabated down her cheeks.

It was tearing him apart to see her like this, to see the raw torment that she had had to endure at his absence. He hadn't known, he hadn't realised that she had been hurting this bad and after all the years that had passed since then, her torment didn't seem to have diminished.

"That year I wished harder than I ever had before. I put every last ounce of hope that I had into that snowflake, every last drop of faith into wishing that somehow you would come back," she brought her hand up to touch Daniel's cheek, to let it rest against his chin, "and you did…you came back to me." She took a deep cleansing breath and blew it out softly through her mouth. "So in answer to your question, Daniel… yes…sometimes the wishes do come true."

Providing that you wanted them badly enough.

At that moment something clicked into place in Daniel's mind, a recollection from earlier when Sam had been recounting that time when she had not been able to comply with her annual tradition.

"…it was someone as equally precious in my life…someone whose existence had a profound effect upon me, in ways that I could never have imagined, someone that I now realise I had come to love so very much."

His eyes widened in shocked understanding.

She had been talking about him.

It wasn't Martouf that Sam had belated realised that she loved… but him.

The revelation caused his equilibrium to falter and the world around him seemed to stutter for a nanosecond before continuing upon its axis.

Sam had feelings for him, feelings that, up until now, he could never have dreamed possible.

Even though he had harboured those same feelings for her, he had never expected to find them reciprocated. In the long, lonely nights when he had lain alone in his bed, he had contemplated their being together, envisioned them taking their unique and deeply bound friendship to another level, one that would bring them intimately closer, but in the cold reality of daylight, he always banished those thoughts, too afraid of the implications that would result with such a profound change in their relationship.

But now…

"Sam… can I ask you something?"

"Hmm…" She sounded a little distracted, as though her mind had been focused upon something else. She was still standing within his personal space, her hand resting gently against his shoulder. "… oh, um, sure, Daniel, what do you want to know?"

"Tell me what you wished for just now?"

There was a look of hesitancy in her eyes, followed by one of uncertainty. Her gaze swept away from his to glance back over his shoulder toward the Christmas tree, toward where she had made her wish.

He could tell by the way that she was focusing firmly upon the tree that she was having an internal debate with herself, she was probably arguing the wisdom behind answering his question, then she seemed to make a mental decision and her focus returned to his face.

"I've been making the same wish for quite a few years now, wishing that there could be more to my life, that I could have something outside of the confines of the Stargate programme, outside of the military."

"A personal life?"

"I'm tired of being alone, Daniel, tired of waking up in the middle of the night with nobody to hold. Tired of coming home to a lonely house, it's why I stay on base a lot of the time. I wouldn't throw myself into my work as much as I do if I had someone to come home to. If I had someone to love."

"Is there a specific someone?"

The hue of Sam's eyes darkened and he saw an emotion emerge from within their depths that startled him. It was an emotion that he had rarely seen, certainly one that Sam usually disguised well, even during the most heated of battles when all hope of their survival seemed lost, but now on a planet millions of light years away from their home it surfaced.

Fear.

She was afraid.

The irony of it was almost laughable.

She was as afraid to tell him how she felt, as he had been to tell her. No doubt she harboured the same insecurities, the same uncertainties as he did about changing the course of their relationship.

One of them had to break the impasse, had to break free from the mental paralysis that stood between them.

"Earlier you said that I came back to…you?" He put enough emphasis upon the last word to cause Sam's eyes to widen in understanding. "You didn't say that I returned to the team." He took a small step forward, closing the short distance between them. "You specifically said that I returned to you."

Emboldened by the fact that she hadn't stepped away as he had come nearer, he took another half step, effectively causing them to stand toe to toe, the slight height difference between his and Sam's bodies the only thing from keeping him from looking straight into her eyes. Wanting to negate that effect, he slipped his fingers under her chin, tenderly tilting it upward, until those depthless blue orbs were once again focused unswervingly upon his. "Before that, you said that there had been someone that you couldn't contemplate losing from your life, someone that had become precious to you, someone that you had realised that you had come to love very much."

He slipped his fingers across her lips, feeling the soft, moist skin brush across his now heightened nerve endings, continued to run them smoothly down over her chin, across her neck, feeling her pulse quicken under his fingertips, until his hand rested gently against the nape of her neck.

"I didn't realise who that person was until you started to speak about my ascension and the effect that had upon you." With his other hand, he swept an errant strand of blonde hair out of her eyes, sweeping it back into place atop her brow. "You were talking about me, weren't you?"

Without waiting for her response, he guided her mouth toward his, sliding his lips across hers in a gentle exploratory kiss.

The feel of Sam's lips beneath his was incredible, so incredible that he had to feel more of her against him. Using his free hand, he gently tugged her toward him until her warm, pliant body was fully encapsulated within his arms. The sensation of kissing Sam, combined with the exquisite feel of her body pressed so intimately against his own conspired to reawaken emotions that he had thought he had buried long ago upon another planet light years away from Earth.

Awash with these newly rediscovered emotions and sensations, Daniel set about deepening the kiss, slanting his lips further over hers, increasing the pressure, moving his lips across hers in a tender caress.

He could now feel Sam's hands sliding slowly up along the length of his back, feel them come to a halt as they entwined around his neck, the heat of her body pressing closer against his as she pushed herself more firmly against him. He could feel the wet warmth of her lips as they reciprocated his kiss, brushing against his with an intensity, a level of desire that matched his own.

When he swept his tongue across her full bottom lip, she opened her mouth to him on a stifled moan. Their tongues tangled in a flurry of activity, swirling around one another before delving into each other's mouth to lay claim to the newly found treasures that awaited inside.

When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers, giving himself a few moments to gulp some much needed oxygen into his lungs.

"Let me be the one that you come home to, Sam, let me be the one that you turn to in the night, the one that you wake with in the morning."

"It was never in any doubt, Daniel." He felt her place a soft kiss against his lips before returning her forehead to rest against his. "I think my heart has belonged to you for a very long time, it just took me a while to realise it."

He pulled his head away from hers so that he could look at her, so that he could see the acceptance of their changed relationship in her eyes, but what her saw made him chuckle with mirth.

For a military officer, she couldn't look less squared away if she tried.

Dishevelled didn't even come close to describing how she looked.

Her BDU's were rumpled and creased from where he had tugged and pulled at her during the heat of their kiss, her hair was uncharacteristically mussed up where his fingers had sifted through it, spiking up the golden strands into a multitude of tiny peaks. Her lips were full and swollen from his relentless assault upon them, the soft skin around her mouth slightly reddened from the friction burns caused by his evening stubble.

All in all she looked like a woman who had been soundly kissed.

"Pleased with yourself?" Raising an eyebrow, she gave him a look of mock indignation.

"Inordinately." He grinned back unashamedly, glad that he could banter with her in this new and more intimate way. "I have to say I like the look on you, Sam."

There was now a radiant glow to her skin that had nothing to do with the firelight, but everything to do with the man in whose arms she was still entwined.

"So, where do we go from here?" He let his hands rest softly against her waist. "What happens next?"

"You douse the fire, Daniel."

"What if I don't want to douse the fire?" He knew that his disappointment had been conveyed in the tone of his voice, but he hadn't expected Sam to halt things quite so quickly.

"I wasn't talking about this fire…" She ran her hand across his abdomen causing his stomach muscles to twitch and clench under her ministrations, before dropping her hand lower, smiling shamelessly at his reaction. "I was talking about the camp fire." She tilted her head to the side, to where the camp fire still blazed. "Throw some earth on it, make sure all the embers are out, we don't want to set fire to the forest."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to disconnect the tree lights from the generator on the MALP. We'll come back in the morning and take everything down. We'll need to move the MALP back to the Stargate so that we can check in, see how the quarantine is going?"

"Would it be wrong of me to wish for the quarantine to last just a little bit longer?" He didn't want to go back home yet, not when he had just discovered how wonderful it felt being with Sam in this new and exciting way.

"You plan on making me miss New Year too?" She smiled brightly up at him, even though her voice had had a note of mock disapproval within it.

"I'd like to say that I'm sorry that you missed Christmas with your family, Sam, but right at this moment… I'm not…this wouldn't have happened between us if the quarantine hadn't come along."

"I know, I feel the same way too. A part of me feels as if I should thank SG-11 when we get back." She tugged at his arms, pulling them gently away from her. Spinning him around, she tenderly shoved him in the direction of the waning camp fire. "Come on, get that fire out and I'll finish up with the tree, then we can go back to the village and unwrap our Christmas presents."

He stopped, turning his head so that he could look at her over his shoulder.

"Ah…Sam, I didn't bring my present with me. I left it back on base… in my office." He tried to convey in his expression how sorry he felt at that oversight, even though, based upon their original schedule, he would have had enough time to give her his gift before she left for her flight to San Diego.

"Who said that I had your Christmas present with me, Daniel, it's under the tree in my lab. I was going to give it to you when we got back." She gave him a devilish smile, letting her eyes run unashamedly across the length of his body in a manner that he could only describe as predatory. "I'm sure if we put our minds to it, we could each come up with something worth unwrapping."

His mouth went decidedly dry at that remark.

However, it had the desired effect because he quickly pivoted on his heel and strode purposefully toward the camp fire with the intention of dousing it in record time.

Without doubt, this had turned out to be one of the most emotionally charged Christmas experiences that he could remember. He had finally confided in Sam the reason why he had shunned the celebrations before and had gotten to make peace with his demons.

More importantly, he and Sam were taking the first tentative steps upon a new road together and he hoped that the journey would be a long and happy one.

Whistling softly to himself, he started to think about all the different ways that he intended to unwrap his special Christmas gift.

The End.