Christmas Eve by Denise

Christmas Eve
By Denise

Sam knocked on Daniel's office door, then walked right in. "Come on Daniel. We're going to be late," she said fighting the urge to pull the heavy tome he was hunched over away from his face.

"Huh? Sam. What time is it?"

"Time to leave," she said, grabbing a piece of paper to mark his place and shutting the book.

"Look, why don't you go ahead and I'll catch up?"

"Daniel. If I have to go, you have to go. You weaseled out of the colonel's party last year, you're not getting away with it this year," she said, cocking her hip and folding her arms over her chest. Last year Daniel had managed to avoid the colonel's Christmas eve extravaganza…which was mainly an excuse to invite people over and try to lull them into a false sense of security before he slapped them upside the head with non stop hockey videos and a flagrant appeal for gifts. Times like this she vaguely wished for the morose man she'd met three years ago.

"We could both go AWOL," he suggested lamely.

"And then he'd sulk and harass both of us incessantly for the next three weeks. I'll take the party," she said with a grin.

"Fine," he caved in. "But first chance we get we're making a break for it."

"Deal," she said, grabbing his coat and tossing it to him. They made their way to the elevators. They rode to level 11 in silence then switched cars and Sam punched the key for level 5.

"Aah Sam. NORAD doesn't like visitors," he said recalling the time the elevator had gotten stuck on the NORAD level. To this day he still thought that the marine guarding the door would have shot him.

"We're not visiting. I offered to drop this off for the general." She held up a thick envelope.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure. Likely some report or something."

"Why isn't the general delivering it himself? Or are you still trying to make up for keeping aliens as house guests?"

"Funny. It's started to snow outside and both of General Hammond's grand daughters are in their school play tonight. He was afraid if he stopped here General Davis would start to talk and hit him up for eggnog and he'd be late."

"But if you drop it off…."

"Who cares about chatting with a major? We'll be in and out in no time," she said as the doors opened. "Plus a little sucking up never hurt anyone," She quipped, stepping out and walking up to the desk.

Daniel followed her as they were escorted through several checkpoints, each time their shiny red 'visitor' badge gained them access further and further into NORAD. They finally stopped outside General Davis' office.

"Can I help you?" a burley marine asked, his hand hovering too close to his weapon for Daniel's comfort.

"Hi. Yeah. I'm Major Carter from downstairs. General Hammond called. I'm delivering this to General Davis." She held up the envelope.

"Oh. Right. They said you were coming. The general's on the floor. Come on, I'll take you there." The man led them through a maze of hallways until they came out into a large room. Daniel stared wide-eyed at all the computer screens and monitors. The place looked like mission control at NASA. "He's down there helping Clancy with her Santa Tracking." The marine pointed at the large black man hovering over one of the screens.

"Thanks Sergeant." Sam started to walk towards the general, Daniel trailing behind.

"Ma'am. I can't allow him on the floor," the Sergeant said, eyeing Daniel's civilian clothes.

"He's got clearance Sergeant," she protested, her face coloring.

"Sam, it's ok. Can I just stay here?" Daniel said, motioning towards one of the older looking consoles at the back of the room. "I promise not to go anywhere."

"Well…"

"It'll just be for a minute," Sam said giving the man the full benefit of her pleading blue eyes.

"Sure," He caved in. "But he stays right here."

Daniel sat down. "Won't move an inch," he said. The Sergeant walked away.

"Sorry about that. I should have thought…."

"Sam, it's ok. Go." He waved her off.

With a thankful grin she turned and weaved her way through the myriad of consoles. Daniel watched her go then turned his attention to the screen in front of him. It was old and slightly dusty. He chuckled as he thought about how it looked like something out of an old war movie. Looking at the other consoles around it he figured this was like some things in the SGC, too old to be used but not worth the bother to rip them out.

He reached out with his muffler and wiped the layer of dust off of the screen. Suddenly it sprang into life; little green dots appearing and little lines drawing themselves across the round screen. Panicked he looked up but no one seemed to notice anything was amiss.

Wondering vaguely if this was supposed to be happening he watched the lines fill in. Words appeared, spelling out that it was a scan of the Colorado Springs area. As the beam slowly spun around he watched a little blip appear from the north. A series of numbers appeared on the side of the screen that he recognized as longitude and latitude and he guessed the third one was altitude. At least that made sense as it kept fluctuating. He watched the blip move a bit, stop or even disappear then reappear only to move a little bit and repeat the process.

Utterly fascinated by the show he didn't even notice Sam return. "Ready?" She asked.

"What? Oh Yeah." He got to his feet. "Everything cool with the general?"

"Everything's fine." She led the way out of the main room and back to the elevators.

"They really go all out on the Santa Tracking don't they?" he asked, getting into the elevator with her.

"What do you mean?"

"It can't be easy to make such a fancy program with all those little blips and everything. Do they do all that detail for each city or just Colorado Springs?"

"What detail? All they do is answer the phone and tell kids Santa will be there some time in the wee hours of the morning. The hardest part is keeping the time zone straight so they don't tell them Santa came yesterday."

"No. I saw it. Little blip that moved over Colorado springs…. It went up and down, stopped at each house…" The elevator door opened at the surface and she shot him a skeptical look. "Have you been nipping a little eggnog?"

"No. The screen I was sitting at…"

"Daniel. That part of NORAD has been out of service since the Viet Nam War. There's not even any power running to those consoles. They'd get rid of them but someone usually brings up the historical significance so they keep them around." She signed out and headed to the tunnel entrance. Even from here he could feel the bite of the strong North wind that was swirling the heavy snow around. It was a good thing they were leaving when they were. Too much longer and they stood a chance of getting snow bound. "Uggh. It's bad out here. Do you want to carpool or drive yourself?" She asked, pulling her hood up on her parka.

"I'll meet you there," he said. They separated and Daniel slogged his way to his car. He struggled to get the key in the door wearing his thick gloves. Pulling the door open he paused as a faint jingling sound carried over the whistle of the wind. Looking around he saw no other signs of life save Sam who was just getting into her car. He opened his mouth to call to her and see if she had heard it too when he heard the jingling again, this time coming unmistakably from above him. He looked up, blinking his eyes against the assault of the heavy snowflakes as the jingling faded leaving no other sound but the grinding of Sam's car and the whistle of the wind.

With a shake of his head and a funny grin he got in his car and pushed the key into the ignition. Maybe a Christmas party wasn't so bad after all.