Wondering What Happened
Wondering What Happened
by Laura Y
TITLE: Wondering What Happened
AUTHOR: Laura Y
EMAIL: MrdrDoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: Missing Scene/Epilogue, Angst
PAIRING: Sam/Jack
SPOILERS: 2010
SEASON / SEQUEL: 4
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS: none
SUMMARY: Missing scene at the end of 2010, Daniel, Sam and Jack wonder why they sent the note.
STATUS: Complete
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
"Hey Sam."
"Daniel! What are you doing lurking around the base at this time of night?" Samantha Carter looked over her computer screen to see her friend and colleague standing in the door of her office.
"Me, lurk? I could ask the same of you, Sam. Why haven't you gone home?"
Carter waved her hand at the piles of papers on her desk and raised her eyebrows at him. "Look at this Daniel, I've got so much work piled up, I'm about to be buried."
"It's your own fault, you know. If you'd just stick with what you're given, you wouldn't have this problem. It's all your extra projects. Your reactors and generators and motorbike. Personally I think you do it just to make the rest of us look bad." Even though he knew that she wouldn't take him seriously, he grinned and added, "Just kidding."
"Actually..." Sam laughed at the look of surprise on Daniel's face. "OK, now I'm kidding. You do so much work on your down time that I could never make you look bad. And I'd never want to..." she trailed off.
"Never want to make Jack look bad?"
Sam dipped her head and then looked back up at Daniel. "Actually I was going to say deal with him afterwards."
Daniel paused, and then thought 'To hell with it' and asked what he'd been thinking about all night. "What do you think happened?"
Sam didn't even have to ask what he meant. She'd been spending as much time thinking about that little note as she had working on her research in the last few hours.
"I don't know, Daniel. I don't know if I want to know. Finding out from Janet that the blood on the note was mine...and the Colonel's...I just don't know." She sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. "But I can't stop thinking about it."
"I know, neither can I. I wonder if I was there, too. Or Teal'c. And why you sent it back." Daniel moved around her desk and sat on the edge of it.
"And how, Daniel. To use the Gate for time travel...it was either very far into the future, or...I don't know. We don't have the technology to predict solar flares, and that's what we'd have to do." Her voice trailed off.
"That's not everything, is it Sam?"
"No, Daniel. I'm wondering the same thing that everyone else is wondering. And the same thing that they refuse to say. I'm wondering if it worked." She sighed again, and Daniel put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm wondering if we died to do this. I'm wondering if the future we've just prevented was so bad that we'd take this chance. And I know logically that it had to have been, I'd never have been there, never have sent the note if it wasn't. And so I wonder what happened that was so bad. Worse than the Goa'uld? Worse than the Replicators? And why there was no other way."
"And you're wondering if we might run into it anyway." Both Daniel and Sam looked up at the voice from the door.
"Jack."
Sam was silent looking at the strange statement on O'Neill's face.
"And you're wondering if we erased two or ten or fifty years where good things happened too. And whether things will work out the same way anyhow."
Daniel felt as though he had suddenly become invisible, as Jack and Sam stared at each other across the office. Then Sam cleared her throat and he let his breath out in relief. He really didn't want to be in the middle of that conversation when it finally happened.
"Yes, sir. But no matter what good things happened, the bad had to have been worse. We wouldn't have done it otherwise."
"Well Carter, just think of it as the same thing as the alternate reality stuff. It never happened to us."
"But sir, that's the problem with this. It did happen to us. This was the future of our reality. And it was so bad that we turned back the clock. How can we know that locking this one planet out of the computer will stop it from happening again?"
"Yeah Jack, why couldn't you have put a little more detail in your note? Like who was on the planet and what they did." Daniel spoke up, but they didn't look away from each other.
It was Sam who replied. "We must have had our reasons."
"We? It was my handwriting, Carter."
"Yes sir, but my blood was on the note too."
If Daniel hadn't been looking straight at Jack when Sam said that, he'd have missed the way his hands clenched at his sides. Jack and Sam stared at each other still, forgetting that he was there. He decided that this would be a good time to make himself scarce.
"Well, I'm going back to my office. If anyone...never mind." He didn't think they even noticed him leaving.
"Do you think we died, Carter?"
"I don't know, sir. We'll never know. But if we did, it must have been because the alternate was worse."
"I don't know, Carter, I always assumed that I'd retire one day and spend all my time at my cabin, fishing with..."
"Sir?"
"Fishing with my friends, Carter. I'd like to think that we'll all get out of this command alive, and one day be able to look back fondly on all the fun and adventures we had together."
"You never know sir, maybe we did. That could have been part of the other future."
"I don't think so. If that was the future, I'd never have helped you change it. That sounds like the ideal future to me." He stopped himself before he added that it was only perfect if she was with him. He'd been awake for far too long thinking about this.
"Well Carter, it's nice to know that we'll still be together."
"Sir?" Sam couldn't believe she'd heard him correctly.
"Working together, Carter. Sending the note together," Jack added quickly, mentally kicking himself.
"Of course, sir. I can't imagine not working with you...working here. I don't know what else I'd do. I mean after the Stargate, anything else would just be..."
"Boring?"
"Yes sir."
"And you'd miss my wit and grace." O'Neill smiled and waited for her responding smile, the reason he made all those stupid jokes and comments.
Sam was quiet for a moment, looking at him seriously. She knew he'd meant the statement as a joke, but couldn't help taking it seriously after the events of that afternoon. She thought about not hearing any more of O'Neill's quips and dumb questions, which she knew he often asked just to get her to laugh. She imagined going through the Gate on a team without him. Imagined working in the SGC knowing that he wasn't there...somewhere.
As Sam didn't answer him, Jack's smile died and his mind drifted to where hers had gone. He thought about not hearing Sam explain some abstract theory, not seeing her smile at a new discovery, or work on an impossible problem that everyone but her knew she'd solve. He thought about going through the Gate with someone else at his back, about going through the Gate knowing that she wasn't going to follow.
They both imagined not working together anymore, not seeing each other every day. And both knew that this was not the time to think about the future, what may or may not happen, what both hoped and wished for. What both assumed would happen...one day. And as they looked into each other's eyes, both realized that he wasn't just joking, that he wanted to know the answer. That he was asking her far more than he could come out and say.
Finally, Sam answered, smiling and breaking the tension in the room.
"Yes, sir."
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Laura Y
Heliopolis Main Archive
A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
Wondering What Happened
by Laura YSite Navigation
Support Heliopolis