Christmas. In Atlantis. It's not that Samantha Carter had been home for Christmas in years. Whatever that meant. Not since she joined the Air Force and headed off into the Wild Blue Yonder. No, Samantha Carter, Wanderer of Galaxies, had most assuredly avoided "home" in the holidays of the last two decades. Even as a cadet, she preferred to make her place with her host family in Colorado Springs over visiting a house (not a home) that was cold and empty after the death of her mother. After she and her father had made their peace, there still remained little in the way of family celebrations. Selmak was nice, but ...omnipresent. She enjoyed Mark and his family, especially her nieces. But. Fish and houseguests...
So how was it that she felt so at odds with her surroundings now? The multi-national force she commanded in the Pegasus Galaxy had creatively decked the halls with enough shiny and bright to make her feel as though she'd become lost in a flock of magpies. The commissary whipped up cultural holiday delicacies with every meal. And, dear God, if Radek did not stop playing Elvis' Christmas Album, if she heard Blue Christmas one more time, she was going to lose her mind. But the holiday spirit was just not in her. "Yes, Samantha Carter, you are Ebenezer Scrooge," she thought. And so, she dredged up the ghosts of Christmas Past.
She and Mark, trying so desperately to stay awake to catch Santa Claus in the act. Her parents, watching indulgently as they ripped open their gifts in the morning. Her beloved host family's twin daughters, racing into "her" room on Christmas morning to wake her up, covering her with sticky stocking candy hands. That Christmas in the Middle East, where the First Shirt played Santa Claus and gave everyone gifts out of an overstuffed A-3 bag. An event made all the more surreal by the fact that the Shirt was a she. And Asian. And about the same size as the A-3 bag. Watching the lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington, knowing she would be headed back to her office in the Pentagon to work more on the calculations that would eventually help crack the Stargate. Her first Christmas after joining the SGC. The one where she and the recently-divorced Janet knocked back most of bottle of Limoncello with their Christmas cookies and spent Christmas day regretting that lemons were ever cultivated. The SGC Holiday parties. The third year, around the campfire on a distant planet, discussing the "meaning of Christmas" with Teal'c and Daniel as Colonel O'Neill sat quietly to one side and smirked as the conversation led to an detailed analysis of "evolution vs creationism." The first year Daniel wasn't there. The Christmas following Janet's... Samantha swallowed hard.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sam's First Christmas in Atlantis (with bonus second prompt of Snow in Atlantis covered, too), G
Date: 2007-12-21 06:18 pm (UTC)From:Christmas. In Atlantis. It's not that Samantha Carter had been home for Christmas in years. Whatever that meant. Not since she joined the Air Force and headed off into the Wild Blue Yonder. No, Samantha Carter, Wanderer of Galaxies, had most assuredly avoided "home" in the holidays of the last two decades. Even as a cadet, she preferred to make her place with her host family in Colorado Springs over visiting a house (not a home) that was cold and empty after the death of her mother. After she and her father had made their peace, there still remained little in the way of family celebrations. Selmak was nice, but ...omnipresent. She enjoyed Mark and his family, especially her nieces. But. Fish and houseguests...
So how was it that she felt so at odds with her surroundings now? The multi-national force she commanded in the Pegasus Galaxy had creatively decked the halls with enough shiny and bright to make her feel as though she'd become lost in a flock of magpies. The commissary whipped up cultural holiday delicacies with every meal. And, dear God, if Radek did not stop playing Elvis' Christmas Album, if she heard Blue Christmas one more time, she was going to lose her mind. But the holiday spirit was just not in her. "Yes, Samantha Carter, you are Ebenezer Scrooge," she thought. And so, she dredged up the ghosts of Christmas Past.
She and Mark, trying so desperately to stay awake to catch Santa Claus in the act. Her parents, watching indulgently as they ripped open their gifts in the morning. Her beloved host family's twin daughters, racing into "her" room on Christmas morning to wake her up, covering her with sticky stocking candy hands. That Christmas in the Middle East, where the First Shirt played Santa Claus and gave everyone gifts out of an overstuffed A-3 bag. An event made all the more surreal by the fact that the Shirt was a she. And Asian. And about the same size as the A-3 bag. Watching the lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington, knowing she would be headed back to her office in the Pentagon to work more on the calculations that would eventually help crack the Stargate. Her first Christmas after joining the SGC. The one where she and the recently-divorced Janet knocked back most of bottle of Limoncello with their Christmas cookies and spent Christmas day regretting that lemons were ever cultivated. The SGC Holiday parties. The third year, around the campfire on a distant planet, discussing the "meaning of Christmas" with Teal'c and Daniel as Colonel O'Neill sat quietly to one side and smirked as the conversation led to an detailed analysis of "evolution vs creationism." The first year Daniel wasn't there. The Christmas following Janet's... Samantha swallowed hard.