The road was appalling - not designed for nice, shiny new city cars like Sam's. She winced each time she heard the ptwang of grit flicking out from under her tires and hitting her paint job, her teeth clattered together as the car went over, through and around holes and pits in the road.
Road was an overstatement, she decided. Track would have been more appropriate.
The directions she had been given told her there was a place she could park her car and as she rounded a bend at the inconceivably low speed she was forced to drive at, she spotted the patch of scrub he'd mentioned. Checking her mirror in case anyone was behind her, she indicated unnecessarily and pulled off the track. With a sigh at the smoothness of the grass now beneath her tires, Sam pulled to a halt.
This was a really dumb idea.
Almost as if it was agreeing with her, her cell phone started its chant from the back seat where she had tossed it. She glanced over her shoulder resentfully, and ignored it as she had done the last seven times it had rung that morning. She'd made the mistake yesterday of actually picking it up and had argued feverishly on the phone for a good hour in the parking lot of some café.
Grabbing her bag from the passenger seat, she opened her car door and stepped onto the grass with a definite squelch.
" Thank God for combat boots," she muttered, shaking her head and standing up. She'd been warned to dress appropriately - with unnerving accuracy he'd told her what to wear exactly, picking out items from her wardrobe that he hadn't technically seen. At least not in this reality. Pale blue jeans were a must, he'd said, a slight smile about his face. The ones with the embroidered cherry on her back pocket.
She'd asked him why it mattered what pair of jeans she wore and he'd blushed.
Then she'd got it. It was funny really - she'd been going to throw those jeans away because they were too snug and she was feeling a tad too old for them. Now she was seeing them from a completely different light.
He'd also requested a white T-shirt, so long as she wore a white bra underneath. At this point, she'd hit him on the arm and he'd changed his suggestion to her pale blue T-shirt, with the little navy zip-up sweater, the one with the hood.
It was into the pockets of this sweater that Sam shoved her chilly hands. The weather was slowly warming up, but it was still early in the morning so the air was just the wrong side of fresh. Trudging carefully back to the track, Sam took in her new surroundings. Trees, lots of trees. She breathed in deeply, feeling the good air clear her lungs. She'd been stuck inside that mountain for too long - months of ending the war with the Goa'uld and occasionally being zapped off to help the Asgard with more 'stupid ideas'.
But it was done now.
Done and gone. The systems lords had fallen. The replicators were on the run.
Sam stopped in the middle of the track and let herself grin. Seeing that nobody was around, she didn't think it too bizarre to do a little joyful dance. It wasn't as if she'd been able to celebrate completely - getting the wrong reality Colonel John O'Neill back home last week, and then following his orders and driving out to Minnesota, hadn't exactly been the perfect circumstances for going out and getting completely drunk with the rest of her co-workers.
She kept on walking.
The cabin was the only one along this stretch of the lake, at least it had been in his reality. He'd been extending it recently, added another bedroom, a second bathroom. When she'd asked why, he'd simply smiled and shook his head. Just someone he wanted to come fishing with him, that was all. Didn't want her to worry about... things.
"Ah," she'd said knowingly. "*Her*."
"Yeah," he'd said. "Her."
Sam wrapped her arms about her torso, smiling dreamily. To be honest, doing this kind of thing wasn't really like her. Going out to the middle of nowhere to meet a man she didn't technically know, who didn't actually know her - it smacked of madness, frankly. But Sam had been overwhelmed the previous week. Colonel Jack O'Neill had knocked her sideways in every way that counted in a very short span of time, even if he couldn't be her Colonel O'Neill. In addition to that, he'd tried to make her understand that the way he was acting wasn't how he acted normally around her, as in, the other her. He'd explained that the honesty he was treating her too was nothing like how he really was - that he felt that just because he was in an alternate reality with an alternate reality Sam Carter, he could tell her things, everything, that he couldn't tell the other Sam.
But he had wanted too, that was what struck Sam. He had wanted to tell her things. A man like that...
Sam and her ex-husband had been divorced for three months, nearly to the day. Before that, they'd been separated for two years, bitterly so. The love that propelled the first three years of their marriage had faltered, then died completely in the fourth year as Jonas began to resent her importance in the Stargate program. The fact that she was on the flagship team, one of the two civilian doctors, had bugged him. Her close-knit relationship with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Kawalski, Dr Daniel Jackson and the Jaffa, Teal'c, had been the cause of many an argument in the Hanson household. Then when her father had been made a Tok'ra... that had been the final straw for Jonas. He'd moved out, silently raging.
Counselling hadn't worked - if anything, it had made things worse, battering Sam's self-confidence as Jonas was allowed to vent his frustration at her lack of 'wifely' skills while all she could come up with was that he was controlling.
Things had begun to seem hopeless. Three months after the divorce, the Goa'uld no longer a threat, Sam had been faced with the prospect of no happy ever afters in her personal life. She was to have her own SG team, her own SG department - all the researching possibilities offered from other worlds. Her career was set for life. If anything, it showed up her complete lack of a personal life still further.
Then he had come through, confused, dazed, frustrated. She'd liked him immediately, liked the way he looked, liked the way he wasn't quite the perfect soldier, loved his sense of humour. Kawalski knew and respected him, which further raised his stock in Sam's eyes. Daniel knew him too - this was Jack O'Neill, he'd informed Sam proudly.
"*The* Jack O'Neill?' Sam had responded, answering the Colonel's smile with one of her own.
"You don't know me?" He'd blinked in surprise - as if the concept was beyond him.
Sam had shook her head slowly. "Only the stories Kawalski tells when he's drunk."
"Hey! I'll have you on cooking detail for the next month!"
The Jack O'Neill had looked around at them, then lifted a finger accusingly. "You're SG-1, aren't you?"
They'd nodded. Okay, three of them had nodded, Teal'c had simply half- bowed.
"Weird. Where I come from, I'm the CO of SG-1." He smiled at Kawalski evilly.
"Don't go getting any ideas." Charlie clapped Sam on the back affectionately. "Sam'll get you home, won't you?"
A little embarrassed at her CO's never ending belief in her abilities, Sam looked at the floor.
"Am I alive in this reality?"
"Uh, yeah." Kawalski laughed. "This time of year, you'll be in Minnesota."
"Oh. In that case, Carter'd better hop on it or I'll be facing," he scrunched up his face suddenly, "entrophic... cascade... failure."
She'd raised her eyebrows at that and started her explanation before Kawalski had asked for one. "Cellular entrophic cascade failure, sir. The increased entropy generated by both of them existing in the same reality can cause a kind of... temporal distortion."
Kawalski looked at her like she'd grown another head. Then he appealed to O'Neill. "Do you understand what she says?"
But the Colonel was already looking at her, the expression on his face softer. "You don't know me in this reality, then. Not at all?"
She blushed a little at his attention. "No, Colonel, I don't."
"I'm Jack, then. Can I call you Sam?"
The cabin was coming into view as Sam walked down the track. The trees were thinning out and between them she could catch glimpses of the lake he'd told her so much about. The fishless lake that he fished in at every chance he could get.
There was a figure on the edge of the water, too slim to be an adult. Charlie O'Neill, she guessed. The young boy who had accidentally shot and killed his mother with his father's sidearm eight years before. In the other reality, Charlie had shot himself, sending his parents into months of grief that resulted in the Colonel going on a suicide mission to destroy Ra. The ghastly look on his face had been enough to tell Sam that this tragedy had never left him.
As she approached, the boy turned around, revealing slightly too long hair, drooping over his forehead, and long arms and legs encased in baggy denim shorts and a ratty old T-shirt with a sports team scrawled across the front. Probably a hockey team, Sam thought, though she had little knowledge of the sport herself. He looked gangly and unsure of himself, broad shoulders but not enough bulk to yet carry it off. She imagined he still had some growing to do as well, though he was nearly her height.
Spotting her, he called out in a slightly panicked voice, "Dad!"
This was it, Sam realised. She was standing on someone else's land, trying to meet a stranger, and this was the moment it fell apart.
On the up side, he was a stranger. If he told her to get lost, she could leave and never see him again.
On the down side, she thought it might just kill her. She was half in love with this man already.
A man stepped around the cabin, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Sam let out a tight, controlled breath as the sight of him sent shudders through her insides. He'd been attractive in his uniform - the other Jack O'Neill. This Jack O'Neill... well... yum.
"Car break down?" He was wiping his hands with a rag, then he dropped it onto an outside table, stepping forwards with his hands hooked into his back pockets.
It was on the tip of tongue to nod; it would make the most sense, after all. But she couldn't bring herself to lie. She shook her head.
This seemed to amuse him. "Out for a walk? You'll find the main road is that way." He pointed back the direction she came.
Sam shook her head again. She turned her head to look at her bag and began to fumbled for the catch.
"Charlie, go inside," he said sharply.
She glanced up at the tone in his voice. "Oh, no, I'm just... getting my card out." She slid one of the white cards from a special pocket, handed it out to him as behind him his son ran into the house as ordered. "I work on the Stargate project."
Jack O'Neill frowned. "I'm retired," he said defensively.
"I'm not in the Air Force," she said, laughing slightly. "I'm a civilian scientist."
He walked forwards, unaware that his son was now standing at the window inside, his nose pressed to the glass, watching her with unashamed curiosity. Taking her card from her outstretched fingers, he read it swiftly. "Dr Carter, what are you doing here?"
Sam decided her best bet would be honesty. As honest as she could get, at least. "I just... wanted to meet you."
He blinked. "You wanted to meet me?"
"Yeah. I know it sounds crazy... actually, it is slightly crazy, but I do have an explanation for it. Only it's classified." She made a face - never had those words sounded more crass than they did now. "If you want to check up on me, you can call Kawalski."
Jack looked down at the card again. "You're Sam?"
This time it was her turn to be surprised. "Charlie's spoken about me?"
"Said you were his number one geek." This time she was rewarded by a half smile.
Sam grinned, then laughed. "Sounds like Charlie, all right." She shook her head, trying to be weary of him, but failing miserably. "Though he hasn't called me 'geek' in months." They'd been too busy being at war for the usually quite relaxed atmosphere of SG-1 to interfere with work.
"I guess that last time I spoke to him was about a year ago. He got awful quiet. He's... all right?"
Realising what he might be thinking, Sam hurried to reassure him, her hand going out naturally and touching the back of his wrist. "Oh, yeah, he's fine." Her eyes flicked to the skin-to-skin contact, at the warmth she felt under her fingertips, and she drew her hand back. "And Daniel, too," she added helpfully.
"Daniel?"
Sam paused. "Uh-oh."
"Daniel? Daniel *Jackson?*"
Well, that was several stages of stupid, she thought, closing her eyes. The other Jack had known about Daniel - they were best friends, had been best friends before what Jack had cheerfully called the 'jellyfish event' occurred. This Jack, the real Jack - at least for her - had left Daniel Jackson on Abydos. This Jack had refused to un-retire, refused the chance to join the Stargate programme. He didn't know that the Stargate was working.
"Doc, I think you just did something stupid."
"Oh yeah."
He chuckled, the warmth of it filtering through her senses until she was able to open her eyes. "The Stargate was unburied then."
Hey, they were miles away from civilisation. The man knew a considerable amount anyway...
Oh yeah, there was a good reason for Sam not to have joined the Air Force.
"Yeah."
"Daniel came back."
"Yeah."
"Nice of him to call."
"I imagine he was ordered not to," Sam sighed deeply. "Heck. Six years of complete secrecy and I blew it in one fell swoop. My dad would be so impressed."
He looked a little confused, understandably.
"My dad's an Air Force general. Or he was. Now he lives off-world."
"On Abydos?"
"No... *Dammit!*"
He laughed at her again. Laughed so hard he had to bend at the waist. "Shit, Doc, I'm surprised you lasted six years."
"It's not fair. There are extenuating circumstances." Namely that she'd been talking to a much more informed Jack O'Neill only four days previously. "You, at least, know more than the average person. Even if you didn't know that for the past six years we've been on the edge of total take-over by the Goa'uld system lords."
As she'd suspected, that shut him up completely.
"It's all right," she assured him, folding her hands around her chest. "We defeated the system lords. Now. Earth is free from parasite oppression. You know, your son is going to fall through that window any moment now and land in the water barrel."
Jack turned and looked at his son. He grinned. "You wanna meet him?" He didn't wait for Sam to respond, instead gestured for his son to come outside.
But Charlie O'Neill shook his head tightly and stepped back from the window, disappearing out of sight.
Wincing slightly, Jack turned back to her. "He's quite shy, particularly around... women. It's that age, you know."
Sam nodded understandingly. "Doesn't take after his father, then," she said.
His eyebrows shot up. "I guess. Kawalski been telling you stories?"
She shook her head. "No. I met another you four days ago, that's all." Hell, why not go for the rest of it? She'd dug her grave already. "Has it got any fish in it?" she said, nodding towards the lake.
"No. What?"
She was enjoying herself so much so she turned and walked towards the water. "Alternate reality you. Trust me, it's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me in the last six years. But it came close. In his reality, he was still in the Air Force, on SG-1, which is the flagship team. Working side by side with me, Daniel and Teal'c."
"Okay, this is getting weird..."
"You've seen weird before, Colonel."
"Yeah, and I was working on forgetting all about it!" he exclaimed, rubbing a hand on top of his head and ambling towards her again.
"Well.... tough."
"This other O'Neill... he made you want to meet me?"
"Kinda. Well, actually, he kind of... sent me here. Even told me what to wear." She looked down at herself critically, noticed she had mud splash on the back of her jeans. "Gave me directions, told me where to park my car. Oh, and I have a letter for you." She went to open her bag, noticed he fidgeted nervously when she did so, so she thought she'd leap this particular obstacle effectively. She tugged the bag off her shoulder and handed it entirely to him. "Here, you take it out. I don't carry a gun, only use one off- world if Kawalski makes me. I prefer zats, anyway, because at least they stun first, kill second and completely obliterate last."
Rather than take her word for it, he took the bag and looked through it, pulling out her purse, the receipts she kept in a messy bundle at the bottom, the gum packet, car keys. Eventually, he pulled out the letter - which had, typically, found its way to the bottom, and as he did so, something gold, glinting fell out onto the ground.
They both looked at it.
"Most people wear them," he said casually.
She swallowed. "Not when they're divorced."
Jack bent down and picked it up, fingered it lightly before handing it back to her.
Sam looked at it in the palm of her hand for a moment. She remembered Jonas's smile as he slid the ring down her wedding finger, she remembered the photographer crouching down out of the corner of her eye. She remembered the tears in her father's eyes, and the fact that Mark hadn't come. "I don't know why I keep it," she told him.
"For the good times."
That rang true, certainly. She looked up at him through his eyelashes. "Do you still have yours?"
"My wife died."
"I know."
His smile was small, bitter. "He tell you that?"
Sam paused. "No. His son shot himself that day. Charlie died in that Jack's reality. He and Sara never recovered - they got a divorce a few months after he joined the SGC."
They stood there, then. Jack O'Neill listened to the quiet, holding the letter in his hand and looking down at it while he considered that particular variation on his life. "That's why he joined the programme, then," he said eventually, turning the letter over in his hands. "Because he had no one."
"I guess."
Half turning, Sam looked once more at the wedding ring in her hand. There had been good times, no doubt about it, but in the end all that was left was the feeling of bitterness, residual anger and failure. There was no reason for her to keep it anymore. No reason at all.
So she threw it in the lake.
After the ripples had died down, he asked her a question: "Have you had breakfast?"
She dragged her eyes from the lake and instead looked at the letter she had refused to peek into over the two-and-a-half day journey. "You're not going to open it?"
"You've not read it? It's not sealed."
"Yeah, I know, but it's not addressed to me." She hopped from one foot to the other. "He damn well wrote it in my lab, too. Right in front of me."
She got the full benefit of the Jack O'Neill grin then. White teeth, tanned face, crinkled eyes. "What a bastard."
"I figured he knew me really, really well."
"Really, really well?"
The implication was clear. "Oh no! They worked together. He was her CO. She was in the Air Force. A Major, actually." Sam started blushing. "At least, if that's what you meant, which you might not have. If it wasn't what you meant..."
He waggled the letter at her warningly, his face set in a way that was similar to the expression Kawalski wore when she tried to explain things to him. "You're babbling, Doctor."
"I know. Can I read it? You can't just wave it in my face like that...." She reached out to grab the letter, but he snatched it back with his deceptively quick reflexes.
Agonisingly slowly, a small, satisfied smile quirking his mouth, he pulled the flap from the envelope and slid the folded sheet of paper out. She watched fervently as he unfolded the paper and his eyes started skimming the words. He didn't look up at her until he'd finished, then, when he did, it was a long, searching look that took her in from the bottom of her shoes to the top of her head.
Then he smiled.
Sam's imagination went into overdrive, and she blushed. "What did it say, then? Did it explain... everything?"
"Some things." He shoved the letter back into the envelope, folded it, and put it in a back pocket. "He left out others for me to find out."
Well. That could mean anything. "Can I read it yet?"
"Ah, ah, ah, Doctor! We'll have plenty of time for that later. Come on. Charlie and I were about to have breakfast."
He started towards the house and Sam hovered uncertainly behind. This had gone well. In fact, it had gone better than she could have possibly imagined. For one thing, he hadn't told her to get lost. Nor had he phoned the police.
"You will let me read it though? Won't you?" she called, wandering after him slowly.
He chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Maybe. So - where's your mole?"
She was speechless.
The chuckle turned into a laugh and he stepped through into the cabin. "Somehow, I knew that would shut you up."
And, still speechless, Sam followed him inside. ***
//I don't know how to start this letter. Let's face it, it's not every day you write to yourself, is it? So you'll understand that I didn't begin with the usual beginning. Writing 'Dear Me' seemed a little too cliché and you probably know how I, we, feel about clichés.
The woman who presumably gave this letter to you is Dr Samantha Carter. And, unless you've gone off to read this by yourself, or she's out of the room or not there at all, she's right now standing in front of you. Don't look at her at any time while you read this letter. It'll really bug her, I promise you; she's not very patient.
I am writing this letter in the hope that she'd tell you about me one day - but knowing Sam she'll tell you straight away, probably as a point of honesty. In that case, it can't be too long after I left this reality to return to my own.
So.... I'm you. And you're... also you. But me as well. Look, it doesn't make any sense to me so get her to explain it to you, won't you? She does this cool thing with fruit that you just have to see, and she has a nice line with metaphors and similes as well. Most of the time I still don't get the concepts she throws at me, even with the help, but it's nice to look at her while she at least tries to explain.
In my reality, I work with Major Samantha Carter, USAF. She's my second in command, in fact. My own personal genius, a theoretical astrophysicist, would you believe it? Took me a couple of months to actually *say* that, let alone find out what it meant. I can't count the number of times she's kicked alien ass for me, or pulled me out of trouble or found a way to save lives, planets, people. She is, in every sense of the word, *miraculous*. I don't know what I would do without her.
You're probably wondering why I sent this Sam to you. Maybe you already have an inkling. God knows she's gorgeous. First thing I thought when I saw her (my Sam, that is) - swiftly followed by irritation, but that's another story. But the outside really isn't the best thing about her, even if it is a *very* nice outside. There's this... quality to her. Without getting too poetic, I can honestly tell you that she has an enthusiasm for life that I've never really seen before. Whatever she does, she does it with a light in her eyes and a glow about her that has half the men on base drooling after her, while she is completely oblivious.
It should be obvious by now that I'm one of those men. Except she's not oblivious. And she reciprocates in kind, God knows why - what the hell would someone like her see in me, of all people? Maybe it's different for you, but the fact that she loves me boggles my mind. Sometimes I lie awake just thinking about it, trying to work it out, but the puzzle is ongoing and I've never put it together. Maybe one day I'll ask her and one day she'll tell me, you never know.
Anyway, frat regs being what they are, the war with our Goa'uld ongoing, and considering our respective positions in the command structure of the SGC, there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing we will do about, I might stress. The longer I go on, the stronger I feel like my world would be nothing without her. Though every day could be our last, I respect her too much to risk anything to cross the line we set to protect our careers. I say 'our careers', but I'm doing this for her. The SGC sustained me after Charlie died and Sara left, SG-1 became my family and Carter became almost everything to me - these are the reasons I stay. I doubt that I will rise beyond Colonel - my attitude to my superiors being what it is - but she'll fly high one day and deserves to. An affair with her CO would in no way help her career.
Until I retire, there is nothing we can do. And if we die tomorrow, every chance we could have had will die with it. I try not to regret that, and repeat to myself all the excellent reasons for why we haven't talked anything over, haven't done anything to cement what we feel for each other. But it's difficult. No, it's nearly impossible, and distinctly painful.
Which is why I sent this Samantha Carter to you.
As I understand it, all alternate realities differ in one way or even billions. So while physically this Sam is the same as mine (down to the mysterious mole, I'm told), this Sam is a Doctor, she's not in the Air Force. And she was married to a man who, in our reality, went completely nuts off-world and thought he was a god. I know enough from the hints my Sam has dropped about Captain Jonas Hanson to know that he was a control freak, something of a dangerous guy, Black ops trained. I know she was engaged to him, gave him the ring back when she felt too smothered. But this Sam didn't, and judging from what I've found out about her in the last day and a half, she's just a little battered from the experience.
She's still Sam Carter, though. Still brilliant, passionate, loyal, honourable and honest. She still works through the night, forgets to eat, loves her job, her career, and her family. She still likes my sense of humour, is one of the few people who will actually laugh at the ridiculous things I say, and doesn't seem to think I'm beyond hope.
I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm setting you up.
Your life has been different from mine. The obvious differences are Charlie and Sara, but I won't go into that. You will be a different guy than me, but not so different that you will ignore this letter, and the woman that came with it, even if it takes you six years to get to know her as well as I do. She doesn't know why I sent you - she might have an idea, of course, but unless you tell her she won't know for sure. I think telling her what to wear got her real suspicious but I've always liked those jeans on her and I hope you get a kick out of them as well.
I have no idea how to end this letter either, so I'll just finish by saying that I fell in love with my Sam Carter with no intention of falling in love again. I hope to God you do as well.//
* * *
It was definitely his handwriting.
Jack wiped a hand across the back of his mouth and looked through into the living area where Charlie and their guest were sitting at the table, lightly discussing something. He hadn't wanted to leave Charlie alone with her - his son wasn't comfortable with strange women at the best of times - but Jack had been desperate to read through the letter again. Just to see if what he'd read was still there on paper.
Alternate realities?
He was trying to decide if that was more weird than going through an alien circle onto another planet. At the moment, the evidence was leaning towards just as weird, but just as believable. The handwriting was his, no doubt about it, and unless someone somewhere was conjuring up an elaborate plot for no discernible reason, it was the real thing.
Which meant...
Jack was trying not to think about what it meant.
He looked back into the room again. She was smiling at something Charlie had said, her face lit up. The other Jack hadn't been kidding - she was gorgeous. It wasn't an obvious kind of good looks, it was more subtle than that. She glowed with health and life and energy. The kind of woman who could light up a room - and there he was, spouting clichés just like the other Jack had done.
The fact that Charlie hadn't frozen up and gone silent in front of her was testament to her abilities as a people person. Jack had had two girlfriends since Sara had died, one who had obviously been a rebound and one who had been an old family friend. Neither had got on with Charlie - the first hadn't understood him, the second had understood him too well - and consequentially Jack hadn't been comfortable seeing them further.
He looked down at the letter again. The possibility that he could fall in love with another woman was one Jack had put on hold, then put off completely. It had seemed too complicated, what with Charlie's dislike of potential mother figures and Jack's own lack of resolution. Frankly, he felt too old to start again.
But this Jack had managed it.
This Jack was in love with another version of *that* woman. Hopelessly, so it seemed.
"Dad! Are you *growing* the beans in there?"
Her soft chuckle.
Jack quickly poured the boiled water into the cups and picked up the tray. "My, aren't we demanding this morning," he said, mock-glaring at his son. He was surprised to see how cheerful Charlie was looking and he wondered what he had missed. "So, what have you guys been talking about?"
"Hiking. Sam says she'd like to take the east trail walk after breakfast."
Sam? Jack thought. When he'd left, Charlie had been calling her 'Dr Carter'. "Sure, we can do that."
"If you're not busy...." She looked a little embarrassed, if anything, she looked more shy of him than she did of Charlie. Then again, she didn't have any expectations about Charlie, whereas he was a little more ambiguous.
"Not at all."
"You'll probably need a warmer sweater," Charlie suggested, looking at the little zip-up sweater she was wearing doubtfully. He reached across the table for the cream and poured it liberally into his cocoa, his spoon clinking against the side of the cup as he stirred.
"I have some stuff in my car."
"Dad'll help you," Charlie announced.
Jack raised his eyebrows at his son's decision. "Sure."
Which was why, directly after breakfast, he and Dr Carter found themselves walking side by side down the track. She kept shooting him little looks out of the corner of her eye, then looking away if he caught her gaze. Her cheeks were almost permanently pink and she didn't seem to know what to do with her hands. It was good to know she was just as uncomfortable as he was.
As they approached, Jack could hear the tinny sound of a cell phone ringing. "Your phone?" he asked.
She nodded tightly but rather than opening the back passenger door and grabbing the demanding item, as he'd expected, she opened the back and pulled out a neat little holdall, which he took from her. She slammed the door shut and started walking towards the track.
Confused, Jack glanced back at the phone, still flashing away on the back seat. "Um, aren't you gonna get that?"
"It's not important."
Frowning, Jack walked after her. "How do you know?"
"I just do."
Since she hadn't seen the ID, Jack assumed someone had been calling her frequently. He was a little concerned - she seemed to be rather important in the work that she and Kawalski did. Saving the world and all that. "It could be work."
"It's not."
She sounded so sure. Jack stopped in the middle of the track. "Is there something you need to tell me, Doc?"
Three metres ahead of him, she too stopped, and sighed. Her head half- turned towards him. "It's just... my ex-husband."
Irrationally, Jack felt a flash of anger. He didn't know where it had come from, he didn't understand it, but he stored it away to think about later. "He been bothering you?"
Dr Carter - he really had to call her something else - nodded her head. "Sometimes...." She stopped, started again, "We divorced three months ago. Before that we were separated for two years. Three and a half years married. Sometimes he calls me up to tell me it's all my fault, that's all. I made the mistake of actually answering yesterday and he's got the idea that I'll listen to him. Usually I don't. He won't stop until he gets a distraction and with the SGC on downtime for the next two weeks it would be best if I just ignored him."
Jack had crept forward throughout her speech until he was standing just to the left of her shoulder. "You work with him?"
"He's leader of SG-9, one of the teams we send through the gate. They were going to promote him last year but he had an improper relationship with a woman off-world. Somehow that became my fault as well." Her smile was forced, and entirely hurt.
Jack was moved far enough to put his hand up to squeeze her upper arm in support - the very idea of tormenting a woman like that was beyond Jack's comprehension. Particularly, he realised, this woman.
She turned her head towards him, looking up into his face with eyes that were wide, dark and full. Jack made a decision then and there - whatever happened could happen. He wasn't going to ignore her and he wasn't going to treat her like a stranger. At the very least, he would gain a friend. At the most.... he didn't want to think about it in case he jinxed it.
"Do you like hockey?" he asked suddenly.
She grinned, finally, and it pleased him to see her lose that tragic look on her face. "I know next to nothing about it, Colonel."
It had been years since anyone had called him that, and he *really* didn't want her to. "Jack," he said sternly.
Her dimples quivered in amusement. "Sam, then."
Casually - he hoped - he looped an arm about her shoulders and they started walking, the ringing from her cell slowly dissipating the closer they came to the cabin. "Okay, Sam, me and Charlie will fill you in on the hike. Then there are some classic moments we've got on video that you just *have* to see to understand the beauty of the game." ***
It had been a week since Jack had got back, and a busy week at that. The discovery of another set of alternate reality mirrors had sent the geeks in the SGC and Area 51 into excited jibber-speak. There was literally a buzz about the place as men and women ran past in white coats, all excited over a new incomprehensible project. This time, unlike the last time, the President had not ordered the immediate destruction of the mirrors. They were to be placed in high security, the remote device to be kept separate, but he had given permission for the mirrors to be studied.
And guess who was heading the study?
He found her in one of the larger labs in front of a white board, marker in hand, writing out calculations for her adoring public. Finding the corridor empty, he decided it wouldn't look too weird if he leaned against the door jamb and watched her... no, listened to the educational nonsense she was spouting out.
She was doing most of the talking. Of course, sometimes the odd scientist, usually one of the ones seated on stools at the front, would put something in and she'd smile and nod, maybe add a little note to whatever she was writing on the board. They all seemed to be agreeing with what she was saying - sometimes the murmurs in the room would rise to a high pitch of approval, sometimes they would all just be nodding in unison.
Finally she turned, and saw him. He grinned at her proudly - he couldn't help it. He was just so damn glad to know her, that was all.
A little unsure of him, Carter smiled back and a few people in the room glanced over their shoulders at him. "Um, Clay, why don't you finish this for me?" she said, handing the pen to one of the geeks at the front.
"But Major Carter -" 'Clay' began, looking around the room nervously.
"You'll be fine. You were the one who fed me this idea this morning," Carter said, grinning at him as she moved away, towards the door. "Sir?"
"Hi. How's it going?" Skilfully, Jack moved away from the door jamb, inviting her to step outside with him where they could be a little more private.
She followed obediently and leaned her shoulder against the wall by him, her eyes moving around the corridor, over him, over the walls, the lights. "Most of its theoretical at the moment, so we're not getting very far. How are you?"
Jack knew she wouldn't usually ask, but his disappearance the previous week had disturbed her. She'd come back from a scientific expedition with SG-12 to find Hammond standing at the bottom of the ramp. To all accounts - and he'd had it from nearly every single airman on base - Major Carter hadn't taken the news of his extended absence very well. Hammond had refused her request to look for him on the grounds that she'd been drained from her two week mission, and he'd sent her home. And then sent her back there when she'd come in the next day.
It was to her house he had gone, before he'd even gone home, the moment the Doc had let him out of the infirmary. He hadn't even thought about it. One moment he'd been getting into his car, the next he was standing on her front porch with her in his arms, his own arms wrapped about her tightly. Ever since then, things had been warmer between them, almost how things had been before... well, before.
Part of this was her doing - her inability to help him while he was trapped in another alternate reality and the helpless way it had made her feel. Part of it was his. When he'd woken up in the other reality and found that this Dr Carter didn't even know him, he'd been a little shocked, to say the least. Seeing her on SG-1 without him, taking orders from Charlie of all people, had certainly wrecked the ongoing Sam-Jack alternate reality relationship pattern. Worryingly. But it had been nice to talk to the other her, without feeling that he shouldn't be. In fact, once he'd started talking to her, he didn't seem to be able to stop, and she listened while she worked, asked him hold that, don't touch this, move that. It had been refreshing.
"Still a little dazed," he answered his major finally. "You want to get lunch?"
She looked down at her watch. "It's half past eleven."
He scuffed a boot against the concrete. "I'm hungry."
Evidentially, she took pity on him. "Cake?"
Carter and cake, was there anything better? Jack thought happily, following her down to the commissary, hands in his pockets and just a little swagger in his walk.
In the end, they shared cake; Carter didn't want to spoil her appetite for lunch. They fought cheerfully over the chocolate frosting and chatted in a way they hadn't done in years. No one interrupted them. Daniel didn't suddenly run into the room demanding their attention (which would have been difficult - unless he'd just glowed into the room or something), Thor didn't beam either of them up. The klaxons didn't blare, the lights didn't flash. Nothing interrupted them.
It was so great.
Afterwards, when they'd licked their fingers and wiped the last smudges of cake from the plate - laughing at themselves as they did it - they walked slowly back to the labs, hands brushing at their sides. No one was in her lab so he was able to come and sit with her, and found he was talking to her like he had talked to the other Sam Carter.
That was, until he entered dangerous ground.
"The other you was married," he blurted out at some point.
Something in Carter's hands snapped and she winced. "*Damn*. I was?"
"You were. That is, you were divorced."
"Really? Who from?"
"Hansen."
That made her pale. He wondered, once again, how exactly their relationship had fallen apart.
"Jonas?" she squeaked. " Jonas Hansen? I married him?"
"Apparently. You got the divorce three months ago, after a two year separation. It was messy, I was told."
"With Jonas, I could imagine it would be. So he didn't go nuts off- world, then."
"No. He just stayed nuts at home. She said he was extremely jealous of every man she worked with."
Carter began toying inside the doohickey again, tweezers in hand. "Sounds like Jonas. And she put up with that? How long were they married?"
"Three years? Over three years, I think."
She was shaking her head. "Man, I must have been really screwed up to go through with it. God, we didn't have children did we?"
"No."
"And you said in the briefing that you weren't in the SGC. Where were you?"
"In Minnesota. With my son."
She looked up sharply, sympathy in her eyes. "Oh, Colonel, I'm sorry."
He didn't really know how he felt about it, to be honest. That Charlie wasn't his son. That Charlie had shot Sara rather than himself - and Jack didn't know if he would rather that situation than his own. In fact, he didn't think he knew at all, nor was he supposed to know. It wasn't anything he'd ever considered before and the idea really threw him. "It was just weird. There you were, explaining things to Kawalski, 'yes sir'ing him instead of me. He was just as proud of you as I am..."
"You're proud of me?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Well... duh, Carter."
Now she was blushing. "Oh. Sorry. I mean, thanks." She looked down at her doohickey firmly as the flush left her face and she regained control. "What was she like?"
"Like you. Only... not so confident."
She wrinkled her nose. "That'll be Jonas's doing."
"That's what she said."
"You talked to her about it?" Carter sounded really surprised and she fiddled with her tweezers for a bit.
He approached the bench, then decided to push her a little further. He pulled out another stool and sat down on it, perching his feet on her stool. "I talked to her about everything."
Carter froze, which told him all the things he'd wanted to know. "Everything?"
"Everything," he confirmed, watching her closely.
She put down the tweezers and swivelled around on her stool until she was facing him. "Why? Because she wasn't me? Because you liked her better......"
"Just because I could."
She looked a little hurt. "You could talk to me about things, Colonel."
Jack started shaking his head long before she finished. "Carter, you're missing the point. I am talking to you about things. Now." He looked at his watch. "For three hours, in fact. Hey, do you want to get lunch?"
She was blinking at him. "Three hours?" she said, sounding astonished.
"Yeah. Time flies when you're... I'm not going to finish that cliché."
Carter's smile was spontaneous. "I guess we can get lunch, then."
In no time at all, they were walking back to the commissary together. They queued together, they got virtually the same meals (except for the flavour of their jello) and the same drinks. They sat opposite each other and continued to talk.
And talk.
And talk.
And talk.
By the end of the meal, Jack was exhausted. It had been a pretty intense week and a half for him, after all. Getting to know one Sam Carter, telling her all the things he was now telling the other Sam Carter... it was confusing and exhausting.
"So," Sam propped her head up on her arm, "you sent her to see you?"
He nodded, pushing aside his plate and resting his chin on his hands. "I figured... I figured it would be a nice idea. She liked me." He grinned at her.
She grinned back. "Of course she did. There's no denying you're a likeable person."
Jack knew she was winding him up, but he was enjoying it. "No, I think she *liked* me liked me."
"Really? Whatever gave you that impression?" She slid her head down, mimicking his position on the table so that their heads were level and there were only a few centimetres between them.
"Just a hunch."
"A hunch."
"Do you really talk to your plants?"
"Don't change the subject. Do you think she went?"
"You're probably the best person to ask."
"I don't know. She wasn't military, she had been married to Jonas. She's obviously a completely different person to me."
Jack was already shaking his head. "No. She was you. I wouldn't have..."
"What?"
"I wouldn't have liked her so much if she wasn't you."
"Oh." She smiled, her eyes going to the table, and then back to his. "I think she went. I would have."
"Great." He was really pleased with himself. So what if he was matchmaking? He knew Sam would make the other him happy. And he could have a chance with her that Jack hadn't had yet.
She yawned suddenly and he refocused on her. "Tired?"
"Yeah, I don't know why."
"Working too hard."
"I've barely done anything today. You're bad for me."
"Great isn't it?"
She giggled, her hand slipping out from beneath her chin and moving towards him. He watched it warily, saw it lift up over his arm and her thumb grazed his top lip. "Tomato sauce," she said, dimpling, and pulling back her hand.
"Oh." Yeah, right, he thought in satisfaction.
Sam pulled back her hand and closed her eyes. "Do you tell her to wear those jeans of mine that you like so much?"
Jack jerked. "Wha... I don't know what you mean."
She kept her eyes closed, but he would bet anything they were twinkling mischievously behind her eyelids. "You know the ones. The blue ones. With the cherry on the back. The ones you ogle."
"I do not ogle you in those jeans." How had she known!?!
"I have video footage of you doing it."
"Video footage?"
"Yup. Daniel's thirty-fifth. There was definite ogling going on."
Oh.... crap.
She opened one perfect blue eye. "Why do you think I keep on wearing them?"
Jack laughed.
THE END
Speechless by Jojo
Story Notes: // indicates Jack's letter //
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]