End of December ficlets part 1

[bluflamingo]

For fyrefly101, who wanted Colby/Lorne, happy ending and hot drinks
"Hey."

Colby stops in the process of pulling on his gloves. Evan's standing just outside the door to the FBI building, a steaming take-out container in each gloved hand. He's wearing a long, dark coat and thick scarf, but Colby's pretty sure he's in uniform under that.

"I thought you had a late meeting."

Evan shrugs, handing over one of the cups. "Got cancelled, I figured I'd see if I could catch you here."

"Congratulations," Colby says dryly. The cup is warm in his hands, and when he lifts the lid, he smells chocolate instead of the coffee he was expecting. "Thanks."

Evan smiles, the way he does when they're somewhere that kissing hello isn't appropriate, even with Don't Ask Don't Tell over for the better part of a year. For all that it's noticeably getting better, rising stars in the military establishment can't kiss their FBI agent partners in the middle of Washington DC and expect to keep rising. Not yet. "It feels like thirty below out here."

"The forecast said it's an unusually mild winter." Colby has no idea if that's true, but he also doesn't much care. Considering Colby's the one who lived in LA, Evan has developed a deep and abiding dislike for the cold since they moved to Washington two years ago.

"The forecast lies." Evan turns in the direction of their apartment, one hand ghosting over the back of Colby's coat. "They're trying to make everyone feel better about the constant snow."

"It's not snowing right now."

"It will." Evan gives the sky a dark glare, tucking his scarf closer.

"You can use it as an excuse to stay inside with the chinchillas."

"The chinchillas hate me," Evan says, with which Colby can't really argue. "David's still coming for dinner, right?"

"Yes, but he made me promise you won't invite anyone else to try to set him up."

"Not this time," Evan says.

"He'll stop visiting one day."

"I'll find him someone before then."

Colby laughs at him, sips his chocolate, and walks home, next to his partner.
 


For kyizi, who wanted John/Cam at Christmas/New Year, with John not realizing that Cam's moved in; she said she wasn't asking for fire-breathing lizards, but she gets them anyway

Maybe John should have realised what was going on when Cam brought a tree for the apartment. It wasn't like John would have bothered though, and anyway, they were planning on spending Christmas together, alien invasions permitting.

And sure, Cam spent a lot of time at John's place, but John's place was closer to the SGC. Plus, John was hardly going to throw Cam out in the middle of the night, which meant having breakfast together, and since they drove in together, it only made sense for Cam to start keeping a spare uniform at John's place. And for John to throw Cam's stuff in with his when he was doing laundry.

Okay, so John's an idiot who didn't see what was right in front of him for months.

It means he's not expecting to step inside his own front door and see someone else's boots lined up on the mat. "Cam?"

There's a fairly discouraging groan from John's couch. "M'here."

John leans on the back, peering down at Cam, who's sitting in the corner of the couch, shirt off, bandages coming over his shoulder and down his left arm. "What the hell happened to you?"

Cam tips his head back with a groan. "Fire-breathing lizards happened to me. I'm never accepting a mission on new year's eve again."

"I'm pretty sure the timing of the mission didn't have anything to do with it," John says mildly, trying not to imagine Cam at the mercy of what are, by the sound of it, essentially dragons. Since Cam's obviously in pain, John shouldn't be finding the image as funny as he does. "You all right?"

"Second degree burns, I'll live." Cam grimaces. "Lam put me on medical leave for a week."

John's not sure why he gets it, suddenly, then, and not any of the myriad chances he's had to get it before this. "You're living here," he says before he can check himself.

"I've got an apartment," Cam says, not even a little like he's correcting John, and he ducks his head.

"You're half-naked on my couch. Half-naked and injured, and you let yourself in, because you have a key to my place. I can't even remember the last time we went to yours."

"September," Cam admits.

John blinks down at him, not entirely sure what the proper response is to finding out his partner has basically moved in without him noticing. "I'm going to make tea," he finally says decisively.

He's not particularly surprised when Cam follows him, leaning in the doorway. "Is this a problem?"

"That you moved in without actually telling me?" John turns on the electric kettle – Cam's electric kettle. He turns slightly, enough to see Cam's worried expression. "Mostly that you didn't tell me."

"So you could say no?"

John crosses to Cam, presses close and to hell with tea. "No. So we could celebrate."

 

For spillingvelvet, who wanted Ronon decorating a christmas tree in John's quarters with Torren

John got used, back before they brought Atlantis to Earth and took it back with three times as many troops and so many new scientists he still hasn't learned their names after nearly a year, to sleeping on a narrow cot in a small room. When he got back to Atlantis after two weeks of leave with Ronon and Teyla, he found he'd been moved into a suite of rooms, almost an apartment, and since it wasn't exactly easy to conduct a relationship in a single bed, he didn't argue.

None of which explained why he woke up one morning and could hear voices somewhere in his apartment.

Years of experience of waking up in strange places that turned out to be Wraith cells had apparently conditioned him to lie still and listen, which he did, face pressed into the pillow the way he'd fallen asleep. He recognised Ronon's voice first, low and rumbling, and that made it easier to place the voices in the sunken area between bedroom, bathroom and kitchen that he'd marked as the living room. The second voice took him a little longer – higher-pitched, rising and falling in volume, the words indistinguishable.

Torren, John guessed, looking at his alarm clock. 0530, too early for Ronon to be waking him up to run, even if he wasn't inexplicably accompanied by Torren. John was tempted, for a moment, to lie there and wait to see what they were doing in his apartment; except that Ronon had an unnatural ability to know when John was awake, which meant his punishment for not getting up would probably be terrible.

John hadn't gotten around to guessing what Torren and Ronon might be doing in his living room. That didn't make the surprise of finding out any less.

"That's a tree," he said stupidly from the doorway.

Torren, resting one hand on Ronon's knee while he used the other to hang a shining silver ball that John definitely didn't own on a low branch, said, "Duh, Uncle John. S'a Christmas tree, for Christmas."

"I see," John said, not really seeing at all. Christmas was two weeks away and okay, it was a fir tree, or at least a damn good imitation of one, but they'd never celebrated Christmas in the city, and he didn't intend to start now, in his apartment.

"It's a great tree, isn't it?" Ronon asked, prompting.

"Sure, buddy." John went a little closer. It was a nice tree, bushy but not too bushy to get decorations on, a string of silver lights already winding round it, a collection of mismatched decorations on the lowest and highest branches. It would, he admitted, look good when it was finished, if the box of decorations by Ronon's feet was anything to go by. "Did you do all this?"

Torren shook his head firmly. "These is mine branches, and those is Ronon's branches and Ronon picks me up to do the top branch because it's a star up there Uncle John, see?" Punctuated by a red felt star thrust into John's face.

"That's a great star." John looked up to Ronon, who was studiously hanging a wooden duck from a high branch, and grinning the grin that said he was going to be no help whatsoever. "Why did you decide to put a tree in my apartment?"

"It's Christmas!" Torren frowned at John. "Mama says is for people from Earth and trees and presents and a man and a chimley and chocolate for everyone, 'cept Uncle Rodney says chocolate and Mama says no and Christmas and trees."

Well, that cleared that one up. At least John knew who to get a comprehensible explanation out of later. "Can I help decorate it?"

Torren solemnly handed over a wooden rabbit, painted green. "Not the star though."

"I won't touch the star," John promised just as solemnly.

He brushed Ronon's hand as he hung the rabbit, neatly between Torren's and Ronon's sections, and Ronon glanced over. "Okay?"

"Great," John said truthfully.
 


For scrollgirl, who wanted Teyla, Kanaan and Torren celebrating an Athosian winter festival, sharing it with the rest of Atlantis, and John/Cam in one of my established AUs (in this case, Hold On, Here We Go verse

The silence in the circle was absolute, the darkness such that Teyla could only pick out a handful of faces nearest to her. At her side, Kanaan held Torren tightly on his knee, Torren curled against him, finally still as the hour moved to the turning of the year. On her other side, Elizabeth sat equally as still, the unlit candle lying on her knee, waiting to be lit. To her side, Teyla could just make out Colonel Caldwell, who was looking around the circle as though checking on the other marines and officers present for the festival.

At Kanaan's side, Teyla heard someone move slightly, and ducked her head to hide her smile, certain it was Ronon. After all his years of Running, he seemed to find sitting still a challenge in anything less than life or death situations. Though perhaps it did not help that he had said the Satedans celebrated the turning of the year with wild parties, quite opposite to the Athosian way.

Teyla felt the wind rise, a cool draft on the back of her neck that stirred the trees above, the movement barely visible in the moonless night. She fancied, for a moment, that she could feel the old year sliding away past them, taking with it their trials, their failures and hurts, and leaving only the successes, the new friendships and families they had created in that time. She knew it to be only a childish fancy, but in that moment, it hardly seemed to matter. She felt a great peace fall over her, warm and soft as her oldest blanket.

The chime of the hour bell was so gentle that Teyla did not even start, only rose back to full awareness as though from a deep and restful sleep.

Kanaan handed her a lighter, offering a smile as he shook Torren carefully into wakefulness. On the other side of the circle, the flare of a second lighter illuminated Halling's face, then Jinto's as Halling turned to light his candle.

Teyla lit Kanaan's candle, then cupped his hand to help him light Torren's. When she turned to Elizabeth, her friend was already offering her own candle to be lit, which Teyla did, leaning in for a moment to touch her forehead to Elizabeth's. "May the Ancestors bless us all in the year to come," Teyla said quietly.

"May they bless us," Elizabeth echoed, as she had done the first time Teyla invited the residents of Atlantis to share the ritual with her own people.

Around the circle, candles were flickering into flame, revealing anew the faces of Teyla's friends and family, her comrades in the fight against the Wraith. Major Lorne was holding his candle to Aiden's, saying something that made both of them smile before Aiden turned to light Jennifer's candle from his. Rodney held his candle very carefully for Ronon to light, his face in the flame far more solemn than Teyla had expected from his many complaints about being asked to participate in the ritual. On the far side of the circle, John and Cameron sat close together, their candles already burning. They both looked peaceful, though John was also watching with a curiosity that spoke clearly to this being his first time at the turning ceremony, having only come to Atlantis a few months ago, with the 302 fighters.

Teyla looked around, picking out more of the pilots – Jiao Zhang and Megan Somers together as always, Major Holland, who was only on Atlantis because the Daedalus had arrived in the galaxy two days before.

She saw Kanaan's sister; Lieutenant Cadman, who Rodney despised but who was always eager to babysit Torren; Pernia, a young Athosian woman who recently joined Major Lorne's team; Amelia Banks, who traded krav maga lessons with Teyla for bantos fighting.

Conversations were starting up, people turning to neighbours, the bright lights of the candle flames blurring together to create a circle of light, welcoming the new year, holding back the darkness for one more night. Teyla breathed deeply, committing the image to memory, to be drawn out in times of hardship or strife. Her friends, her comrades, her people. Her family.
 


For skieswideopen, who wanted any combination of Cam, John, Sam and Vala, a Christmas-theme, what they do or don't get to do, who they see or don't get to see

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Vala asked, propping her feet on the dashboard and watching the airport recede in the side mirror. "You know, you could have let me drive."

"You don't have a licence," Cam said, not looking away from the road. "Why wouldn't this be a good idea?"

"Last time you brought me home with you, we were nearly kidnapped by bounty hunters. Also, I think your friend is in love with me."

"Most of the men you meet are in love with you." Cam glanced over then with a bright grin.

Vala patted his cheek. "Not you though, darling. Anyway, I'm not in love with him."

"I should hope not, since you're dating my best friend."

"It's not really dating when she's in another galaxy."

Cam sighed. "Tell me about it."

Vala patted his hand in sympathy – she'd expected to miss Sam less as time went on from Sam leaving for Atlantis, but the reverse had turned out to be true. She thought it must be worse for Cam, since John had been in Atlantis for more than three years. "Is everyone going to think that we're seeing each other again?"

"Let's hope so," Cam said quietly.

"Oh, Cameron." Vala put as much disappointment into her voice as she could, hoping it would mask some of her glee. "Did you perhaps fail to call a certain woman after exchanging kisses with her?"

"A kiss," Cam corrected, which was as good as a yes. "I think she's probably gotten the message by now."

"That's not very gentlemanly."

"Better than telling her I've got an Air Force boyfriend who lives in another galaxy."

Vala couldn't exactly argue with that. Not that that had ever stopped her before. "I'm sure you could have thought of something else. I manage."

"You tell people that you're married."

"Technically, I am. Tomin's people don't believe in divorce."

"Do they believe in having affairs with other women?"

"One other woman, and I never asked. Better to seek forgiveness than permission."

"Aint that the truth," Cam said.

"You know," Vala said thoughtfully. "I think it might be for the best if we did encourage everyone to think that we're together. Far better than having to answer all of their pesky questions."

"You're right," Cam said, "This is a bad idea," but he was smiling, and Vala felt better than she had since Sam left, and she thought that actually both of them knew it was the best idea he could have had for how to spend their Christmas.

Also, Mrs Mitchell liked her, and would surely give her pie, and Vala would happily do far more than let people believe she was together with Cam for Mrs Mitchell's pie.
 


For camshaft, who asked for Alison Porter/Laura Cadman, Tradition and sacrifice

"I thought I'd find you here," Laura said quietly, sitting down next to Alison.

Alison glanced over at her. Laura was wearing what had become the Atlantis military uniform after they shut down the gate to Earth two years ago, to prevent the nanite virus spreading to the Milky Way. Like all the military who had come originally from Earth, though, she was wearing her mission patch on her left shoulder.

Laura rubbed her knuckles against Alison's bare arm, offering comfort that Alison gratefully accepted, leaning into Laura until Laura took the hint and put her arm around Alison. "What are you thinking about?" Laura asked.

Alison reached out to straighten the photograph of Alicia that hung at her place in the hall the Lanteans had turned into a memorial room before Alison had even heard of the Stargate Program. "I was wondering if she'd have preferred to be here."

Laura made a small, questioning sound.

"We sent her back to Earth, when she died. And now when we die, we're buried at sea. Or most of us is."

Laura huffed a breath at the gallows humor they'd all developed since the nanite virus had left them all unable to die unless they lost big enough pieces of themselves.

"She always said she felt at home here. She asked to come out here, you know?" Laura didn't say anything, probably because she did know – Alison knew she'd told this story more than once. "She had someone back on Earth, it ended really badly. I think that's why she wanted to come out here."

"She had family on Earth," Laura said. "Do you miss your family?"

Alison shifted, not surprised that Laura had figured her out. Laura was a lot more perceptive than most people gave her credit for. "My sister turned eighteen this year. She probably thinks I'm dead."

Laura held Alison closer. "We'll get home one day," she promised.

"I miss Alicia," Alison said quietly. "I know you wouldn't be on the team, but –"

"It's okay. I'd rather have her here and not be on the team."

Alison rested her head on Laura's shoulder, closing her eyes. Thinking about Alicia, dead three years today. Thinking about her family, about maybe never going home.

"Do you regret coming here?" Laura asked.

"No," Alison said, honestly. "No, I don't regret it."
 


For niandrajoan and angelofmercy, who wanted Lorne/Colby, Cam/Shep; a happy ending

"What is this?" Sheppard asks, walking into the office Evan shares with Teldy and Hatsford without knocking.

"Sir," Hatsford and Teldy chorus, not even bothering to look up from their computers, getting a distracted nod from Sheppard, who crosses the office to lean on the edge of Evan's desk.

"What is this?" he asks again, offering his tablet, a file pulled up and waiting for an electronic signature.

"My transfer request. Space and Missile Systems has a vacancy for someone with engineering experience at LA AFB, said they'd hold it for me if I could get out there within the month. I need you to sign off on it, before it goes to General Landry."

Hatsford makes a slight choking noise – maybe a laugh, maybe a cough – and Teldy is smiling at her computer screen. Sheppard, on the other hand, is frowning.

"You're supposed to be taking over as military commander of Atlantis," Sheppard says, sounding more confused than anything else. "Your promotion's coming through any day."

"Pretty sure they won't take it back just because I'm going to LA," Evan says mildly.

There's a beat of awkward silence before Hatsford hops to her feet. "Time for a coffee break, too much time staring at a screen. Anne, coffee?"

Teldy sighs, gives Evan a pained look, but stands up and leaves anyway. Sheppard watches them go, then hooks their visitor chair over and drops into it. "I assume there's something more to this, since we've just been given some very ostentatious privacy?"

Evan's relationship with Colby has never exactly been a secret from Sheppard, more a sort of unacknowledged truth, and even less so since don't ask don't tell was repealed, but that doesn't mean he knows how to talk about any of this. Even less so when he's going to have to reference Sheppard's own open-secret relationship.

"He and I had a deal," he starts. "That I'd stay with you until you left, and then I'd go back. And you're leaving, so I'm going back."

Sheppard opens his mouth like he's going to argue, then closes it again. Then says, "It's been six years."

"I told him five, I guess I was pretty close."

"You didn't have to stay because I was here," Sheppard says, sounding close to lost. Like the words make sense, but not the way Evan's putting them together.

"I wanted to," Evan says, which is the easiest part of an explanation that covers how Colby and Sheppard knew each other, briefly, back when Colby was still in the army, before Evan met him. An explanation that covers how Mitchell let Evan take him out and get him very drunk when word came that Sheppard and the others had survived taking back Atlantis from the Replicators, and asked Evan to look out for Sheppard, to try to bring him home alive.

"I thought you wanted the position here."

Evan shrugs. "I do, in some ways. But I guess there's something that's more important. Worth going home for."

The smile that crosses Sheppard's face is wistful, but not completely. There's no mistaking the happiness under it, for all that the last couple of months haven't been totally smooth. Evan's fairly sure Sheppard was half-expecting the IOA to recall him to Earth when he hit the twenty year mark on his Air Force career, and it coincided nicely enough with Mitchell being tapped to join Homeworld Security down in Washington, but none of that would have made much difference to Evan if he'd been in Sheppard's shoes.

All that said, though, Sheppard seems happy with his decision to leave the Air Force, head to Washington to join Mitchell, and figure it out from there.

"You're a smart man, Colonel Lorne," Sheppard says, holding out a hand for his tablet. He hesitates for a second. "Sure about this?"

"Sure about it."

Sheppard adds his signature with a flourish and, from the bleep, hits send on the file. "So," he says, dropping the tablet on the edge of Evan's desk. "Are we flipping a coin to decide between Teldy and Hatsford, or do you have a cunning plan?"

"I always have a cunning plan, sir," Evan says, and grins.

Comments

[scrollgirl]

Gorgeous, seriously gorgeous. All of them, but especially mine. (And not just because I'm biased!) I love the imagery of inky darkness and then a candle being lit, then another, then another, with everyone's faces being illuminated, one by one, with flickering light. It's beautiful and intimate and otherworldly. It's like creation or revelation. And I'd forgotten that Hold On, Here We Go verse had all these resurrected characters, so it was in a way like Teyla had brought the dead back to life with her candle-flame. Thank you so much for the ficlet!

[bluflamingo]

I loved coming up with the ceremony. There's something really mystical about candlelight and darkness and circles. Hold On is, like most of my AUs, really just an excuse to unkill all the characters I love :)

[skieswideopen]

Oh, fantastic! They're all wonderful! And so many happy endings!

I really like Cam moving in without John noticing. And Cam actually letting Vala pretend to be his girlfriend. And I love the mostly happy, slightly bittersweet ending of the last one, choosing relationships over Atlantis and mostly being happy that way.

Thank you!

[bluflamingo]

Thanks! I think Cam would get kind of a kick out of pretending to be dating Vala - like, it would be kind of bizarre and maybe slightly humiliating at times but also fun and friendly, and the source of many in-jokes for years to come

[antares_dw]

Lovely stories with a lot of "Christmas spirit".

I think I like the Cam - Vala story and the John/Cam story best. *g*

And this is one of my favourite lines: John blinks down at him, not entirely sure what the proper response is to finding out his partner has basically moved in without him noticing.
The whole idea that John only finds out after months that Cam is actually living with him is great! *bg*

[bluflamingo]

Thanks!

I think Cam would probably figure it's easier to avoid John getting all twitchy about emotions by just doing the thing and talking about it when it was a foregone conclusion

[spillingvelvet]

I love these!!

[virkatjol]

I LOVE YOUR CAM/VALA INTERACTION!!! I'm going to pretend they weren't with other people though So adorable! I can just HEAR them saying it! LOVELY!

[bluflamingo]

Pretend away :) John and Sam could just be their friends, I guess

[fyrefly101]

So, so disgracefully late with replying, but I love mine. Thank you. The easy relationship, the rising stars, the setting David up?! Glorious!

And the rest were so lovely to read as well. Again, I'm sorry for replying to slowly, but thank you very much!

[bluflamingo]

Late responses are always a nice surprise, so no need to apologise :) And thanks for the prompt, I enjoyed writing those two again