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Sarah stood in the aisle of the store, staring at the display absently. Shifting the baby to her hip, she reached out to trail one finger down the chain of the locket. The gold metal glinted under the harsh light of the halogen bulbs, but nothing could diminish the subtle feminine beauty of the jewelry.
“It’s a lovely necklace.” A salesman behind the counter, sensing a potential sale, approached Sarah with a smile more glaring than the store lights. “It would be a beautiful gift for Christmas.”
Sarah smiled automatically, but her eyes studied the man swiftly and thoroughly - too soft around the middle to be a threat, too obviously greedy to be a machine. “It would,” she agreed.
“Perhaps you can tell your husband…”
“I don’t have a husband,” Sarah cut him off, her voice sharp. The man’s entire demeanor shifted, his greedy expression fading into one of judgment as he shifted his gaze to the baby in her arms.
“Oh.”
The disgust in this stranger’s voice broke through the wall she’d built around her feelings and for the first time in months, Sarah felt tears well up in her eyes. “He died,” she explained, knowing even as she spoke that she owed no explanation. “He was killed… in the military.”
The salesman’s attitude shifted palpably, jury and judge shifting stance. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Sarah finally managed. “Me, too.”
The salesman reached over the counter and turned the display so he could pull down the necklace. “Maybe you should get it for yourself,” he suggested.
“I don’t know,” Sarah started, but the salesman ignored her, opening the chain and removing the tag.
“I had two sons,” he spoke over her. “They were both lost in VietNam.”
“I’m sorry.”
He met her eyes. “Me, too. Me, too.”
“I can’t really afford this,” Sarah tried again, stepping back.
“Nonsense.” The salesman reached for a box and set necklace inside, folding the chain deftly under the cotton square.
“I’m serious,” Sarah insisted, voice hardening slightly.
“So am I.” The salesman closed the box and put a ribbon on it. “Free is certainly affordable.”
“I can’t accept this from you.”
“You’re not.” He smiled. “This is a gift from beyond.”
“What are you supposed to be? A Christmas Angel, because I don’t believe in those anymore.”
“Neither do I,” he answered. “That’s why I can’t wait for nameless and faceless miracles to do something when I could just do it instead.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because my sons believed that the world was worth fighting for,” he answered, voice cracking slightly as he dropped his gaze. “And I still want to believe that, too. So, I’m doing my part.” He passed the wrapped gift to her. “Merry Christmas.”
Fingers shaking, Sarah took the box from him. “Merry Christmas.”
Kyle collapsed into his bunk, exhausted. He kicked his shoes off haphazardly, rolling onto his stomach and burying his head under the too thin pillow. “Merry fucking Christmas,” he muttered, grunting when he felt someone sit on the foot of his mattress. “Go’way. I’m on leave.”
“No one gets leave, Reese. You know that.” The voice had Kyle jerking over and sitting up.
“Sir! I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”
“At ease,” John Connor waved an easy hand. “It’s Christmas.”
Kyle settled back slightly, unwilling to disobey the order to be at ease, but still uncomfortable with the fact that John Connor was sitting on his bed. “Um, Merry Christmas, sir.”
“Is it?”
Kyle shrugged. “We’re alive. That’s a pretty good Christmas in my book.”
Something shifted in Connor’s face. “You’ve been at war for a lot of them.”
“Yes, sir. All of ‘em, s’far as I can remember.”
“Me, too.” The rare admission of vulnerability caught Kyle by surprise and he nodded slowly.
“I suppose you have, in your own way.”
“They used to romanticize war,” Connor stood up. “I remember movies where soldiers were fighting in far away lands, just waiting to go home. They had no idea what it was like to fight when you were home.”
Kyle stayed silent, but he turned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, recognizing this as one of those inexplicable times when Connor sought him out for no reason at all. They were rare, increasingly so with the war effort increasing more every month, but Kyle had come to cherish them even though he didn’t understand them.
“Do you still have that picture I gave you?” Connor asked, changing the subject abruptly and Kyle reflexively reached for his breast pocket. Slowly, he pulled the photo out and passed it over.
“She was pregnant with me in this photo,” Connor said, dropping back to sit beside the younger man. “Barely, but she was.”
“I didn’t know you could be barely pregnant,” Kyle quipped, earning a startled smile from Connor.
“No, I guess you can’t be.” He handed the photo back. “She gave me a gift when I turned seventeen.”
“What kind of gift?” Kyle asked, expecting to hear about a gun or a knife.
“A locket,” Connor reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gold charm, holding it out in his palm, the metal dulled, but still shining against the black fabric of his fingerless gloves. “She told me that it was a gift from my father.”
Kyle’s breath hitched. As much as Connor seemed willing to tell him about Sarah, he could not recall any mentions of the commander’s father. He looked up to see Connor’s expression, patiently waiting, and he reached for the locket hesitantly.
Carefully, he pried the lock open, disappointed to find it empty. “There’s nothing inside.”
“That’s what I said,” Connor’s lips quirked again. “She told me I was a fool if I saw it that way.”
“What does that mean?”
Connor didn’t answer, staring at Kyle with enough intensity that the younger man started to wonder if he’d said something wrong. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand…”
“Hope. She said it was filled with hope.”
“Oh,” Kyle said around the sudden lump in his throat. “She had a beautiful way of seeing things.”
“Yes. She did.” Connor started for the door.
“Sir, you forgot your locket…” Kyle stood up, hand reaching out to return the trinket.
“Keep it,” Connor said, tone allowing no argument. “I’m putting my hope in something else.”