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Status: Complete
Category: Christmas Fic!
Pairings: Daniel/Janet
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Season Seven.
Spoilers: Blink-and-you'll-miss-it Season Eight Spoiler
Summary: 'Tis the Season for stresses of Christmas!
Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognised characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Author's Notes: Yet another Daniel/Janet Christmas Fic :-)
“That’s it…Yes! Just…a little…higher!”
“Are you sure about this? I, I think it might be a little…big.”
“Daniel, it is not too big! Trust me, I’d tell you if it was.”
“Mom?! Daniel?!” Cassie bustled into the room, dropping her bags at her side as her eyes widened at the scene in front of her.
“Cassandra! We…we didn’t expect you back until later.” Janet’s shock at hearing her daughter’s voice caused her to spin around a hand to her chest.
“H-Hey Cassie.” I said, unable to see her blinded as I was by a sea of green.
“Daniel, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like he’s doing?”
“My God,” her voice was filled with awe and a little horror, “it’s enormous!”
“See, I told you it’s too big.” I was right, as usual, not that Janet would admit it.
“It’s not too big.”
“Mom, face it. There’s no way you’ll be able to get anything on the top of it.”
“Cassie’s right, sweetie. We’ll need something we’ll actually be able to fit presents under.”
“Fine, fine. We’ll take it back and get a smaller one.” She mumbled grudgingly.
“Great, now I’m gonna go make myself some hot chocolate. I’ve been dreaming of it all day. Either of you two want one? Mom, Daniel?”
“Uh, no Cassie. I’m fine thanks.”
“I’ll make us something later.” Janet replied distractedly.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t offer!” she sing-songed as she flounced out of the room. I stood beside Janet, placing an arm around her shoulders and she twisted her lips childishly.
“It’s just so pretty Daniel” She pouted beautifully and I couldn’t help but smile, though knowing if she caught me I’d wake up the next morning with a bruise on my arm the size of a large melon.
“I know it is honey, it’s just a little-”
“Too big, yeah I know.” She sighed and tilted her head looking at the monstrous tree that took up half the living room and the top of which was bent against the ceiling. And that was with it leaning to the side.
Cassie returned not long after, with her mug of chocolate and curled up in satisfaction in her favourite corner on the couch. Janet followed her every movement with her eyes and, waiting until she was perfectly settled on the couch, pounced.
“Cassandra Frasier,” she started, “are you just going to sit there and drink to your little hearts content while your numerous shopping bags lie around the place just waiting for somebody to trip over them?”
Cassie grimaced at her disapproving mother, her cocked eyebrow, unrelenting tapping foot and crossed arms. “Mooooooooooom.” She pleaded looking despondingly down at the mug in her hands.
I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Cassie, my wife could be quite sadistic when she felt like it, and it only seemed to increase in recent months.
“I’m sure Cassie was going to move them as soon as she finished her drink, isn’t that right Cassandra?”
Cassie nodded furiously, “Of course Daniel, of course.”
Janet turned her death glare towards me. “Daniel are saying it’s okay for Cassandra to leave her things strewn around the place like this is some kind of pig sty?”
“No, no, of course not honey.”
“Good, because you know if anyone was going to trip over and break their neck it would be me. And in my condition!”
It took all my resolve not to roll my eyes. I knew pregnancy could have a huge effect on women and their hormones but I never knew how much. Janet was at one moment incredibly excited and bubbly at the thought of Christmas, singing “’Tis the Season to Be Jolly,” and in another was like a cornered weasel ready to spit and attack at anything that upset her. And it could be over something as small as not putting the milk carton back in the fridge. It was a rollercoaster ride for her and all those that lived with her.
Cassie, eyeing us carefully, silently placed her mug on the coffee table, making sure it was on a coaster – she’d learned her lesson from the other day – and slunk out of the room, grabbing her bags before racing up the stairs to her room.
“See,” I tried to soothe her, “she’s taken the bags up to her room so there’s nothing for you to break your neck over.”
“Yeah,” she sighed and looked up at me apologetically, “I’m sorry I just feel so…bleh, you know?”
“Well you don’t look bleh,” I kissed the top of her head, “you look beautiful.”
She smiled up at me, “What did I ever do to deserve a husband as good as you?”
“You just got lucky I guess.” I teased her and her smile widened.
“I guess I did.”
She hugged me closer to her and gazed forlornly at the Christmas tree. “I can’t believe it’s too big Daniel. I just want a big Christmas tree with loads of presents underneath. I just want a perfect Christmas.”
“And you’ll have one,” I reassured her, “just not with that tree.”
She chuckled into my chest. “Okay, okay, we’ll change it tomorrow afternoon. I’m going shopping with Sam in the morning.” She yawned loudly and her eyes starting drifting closed. “What time is it?” She mumbled.
“Just after 8:30.”
“Mmmm. I’m so tired, I think I might just go on up now and get a decent nights sleep so I’ll be fully vitalised and refreshed to spend lots and lots of money tomorrow.”
“You bringing the credit card?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, just don’t you know…get over excited with it.”
“I won’t.” she promised and with a final indulgent smile left me with a huge coniferous and the beginnings of a plan.
The next day was dark with rolling black clouds overhead when Janet and Sam left, reassuring me that they’d be in the mall the whole time so I didn’t need to worry about Janet catching pneumonia or something.
As soon as they were out of sight I hollered up to Cassie to get herself out of bed and gather down the decorations from the attic by the time I got back. She appeared at the top of the stairs still in her pyjamas and wiping the sleep from her eyes. I reiterated my orders and she mumbled something incoherent before sticking her tongue out at me.
In that moment it was hard to believe she was nearly twenty one.
Tying down the tree to the truck I drove into town to exchange it for a more modest and appropriate tree. By the time I arrived back at the house Cassie was up and about taking the last of the decorations down and leaving them in the front room.
“Can I put the angel on top of the tree?” she asked excitedly already lunging for it.
“No,” I told her firmly, “the angel goes up at the very end.”
“Fine,” she fished out the boxes of lights and handed them to me.
“They’re in a knot.” I said frustratingly remembering why I didn’t like Christmas preparations.
“Hey I wasn’t the one who put them away last year,” Cassie said looking pointedly at me before putting on one of her many Christmas CD’s.
After nearly two and a half hours of a mass of lights, baubles and tinsel, while Cassie hummed out of key, we managed to get the job done. All lights had been placed on strategically and were now twinkling colourfully around the room.
“It looks pretty good,” Cassie commented.
“Pretty good? We’re looking for perfect here Cassie. Your Mom wants perfect.” I crossed my arms and looked at it.
“It’ll look perfect when the angel is on top. Can I put her on now?” she whined and I rolled my eyes.
“Go ahead.”
“Oh goody!” she giggled like a schoolgirl hungrily gathering up the gold and silver angel and standing on tip-toe placed it on top of the tree. “There,” she said in satisfaction, “now it’s perfect.”
“And just in time,” I answered looking out the window and spying Sam’s car come up the driveway, “she’s home.”
Janet was chatting animatedly with Sam when they walked into the home. Her conversation soon stopped and her eyes widened when she saw the Christmas tree.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked her after nearly three minutes in stunned silence.
“What do I think?” she repeated quietly to herself. Eventually remembering how her legs worked she walked around the tree, scrutinising every aspect of it. “I think…it’s perfect.”
Her smile almost blinded me with its brilliance and, if it were possible, made me fall in love with her all over again.
She came into my open arms and grinned into my jumper. “Thank you, it’s wonderful.”
She turned her face towards me and I leaned over and kissed her.
Cassandra made a disgruntled noise and wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Hey Cass, fancy seeing what I got Teal’c and the General?” Sam said to the young woman refocusing her attention on something more appealing.
“Yeah. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, not to be made physically ill by disgustingly in love parents.” Cassandra leapt from her position on the arm rest of the sofa and practically ran out the door after Sam.
If only I’d really known how easy and stress free those Christmas preparations really were, I muse as I hear the smash of a glass ball behind me.
“Mom, Billy just broke one of those ball things!” Cassie yells.
“Cassandra, I thought I told you to watch him!”
“I was! I just turned my head for a second to untangle this knot of lights that somebody,” glaring at me, “managed to get them in last year.”
I sigh and look up at the bare tree in the corner of the room. Yeah, last year definitely wasn’t this bad.
“What you thinking about?” I feel a warm hand slips into mine and look down at a pair of the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever beheld. A pair of eyes that our son has been fortunate enough to inherit.
“I was thinking about last year’s tree.”
“Funny, I was too. It was so beautiful Daniel and you don’t know how happy I was to come home and find it all done.”
“Not like this year.” I raise my eyebrows and look over at where Cassie is sweeping up and Billy is throwing silver tinsel all around him, grinning happily.
“No,” she sighs, “not like this year. Do you think we’ll ever have a stress free Christmas?”
“No, the words ‘stress free Christmas’, don’t really go together, now do they?”
“I guess not,” she chuckles.
“But I have to say, I think this one’s pretty perfect so far.”
“Really?” she raises a curious eyebrow up at smile, a smile lurking on her face.
Behind us another crash sounds.
“Billy!” Cassie shrieks and Billy laughs happily.
We both sigh in unison.
“Well, I did say so far.”
~~Finis~~
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