Title: If Only
A/N: Continuum tag, but from my own little universe. There is nothing in the movie that alludes or even hints of a prior relationship between AU Jack and Sam.
Summary: If Only after seeing her, it didn't hurt so much to breath.
Disclaimer: No relationship-real or inferred-with MGM, Bridge Studios, Scifi, the actors, writers or Producers of Stargate. No monetary exchange has been made. Written for amusement and the fact that I get Auditory hallucinations and it shuts up the voices.
Never had the corridors of a submarine ever felt so narrow to him. They had to be freaks. They had to be. There was no other explanation. The best friend of an archaeological whack job? A Lt. Colonel they have no record of? And a dead astronaut. But did it have to be that astronaut?
Those eyes...that looked like they could eat him. The shine in them when she said, "Sir, you're alive." Right back at ya! Lame - just lame.
It was a struggle for him to not grab her and hold her close to him. Her hair was longer than he remembered. Four years ago it was short and fluffed around her like a halo. Angel he called her. Angel.
The Doctor watching the multi-screened video monitor couldn't seem to believe her eyes. He told her that if it wasn't her, it was her twin and he knew for a fact she had none.
"I don't know what to say, Jon." Elizabeth Greene-Samuels turned to her friend. "It looks like her. It sounds like her."
"Then it must be a duck, right?"
She smiled slightly at his attempt at a joke.
"Have you talked to her?"
He shook his head. "I...I can't, Beth. It hurts too much."
"Tell me something." Beth gave him a searching look. "How did she react when she saw you?"
Jack licked his lips before he answered.
"Like I was her whole world." His dark brown eyes softened and threatened to tear up. He quickly wiped at his eyes and looked back at the monitor. "She thought I was dead. Isn't that ironic?"
"Do you think what she said is possible?"
"The alternate time line thing?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Do you never wonder about other time lines coinciding with ours?"
Jack shook his head. He denied it to Beth with that movement, but his heart overrode him. He did wonder about it. She came out of the blue into his life and nothing was the same for him again.
Beth watched as her friend lost himself in memory. Jack loved Samantha Carter. From the moment that blue-eyed blond showed he couldn't intimidate her, he was lost. His marriage to Sarah had been over but for the shouting for at least 2 years before he admitted it to himself. The divorce had been difficult, but not unexpected.
What had been unexpected was Major Samantha Carter. Six years ago she breezed into his life and put life back into him.
"Are you going to talk to her?" Beth asked him. She knew they had already told the three visitors that they were going to be integrated into the population. They both knew the conditions that were placed on them and wondered how well that would go over.
Jack shook his head. "No, there isn't any point is there?"
Jack then sat down on the sofa in her office and put his head in his hands. He was torn, there was no question. She was the different and yet she was the same. Her earnest behavior and her technical explanations had her voice and its cadence. This Samantha Carter walked, talked, acted, looked...and maybe even felt like his Samantha Carter. He wondered if he walked, talked, acted, looked and felt like her Jack O'Neill. He was certain she had been involved with his alternate time line self. He didn't need to hear the words, his heart told him all he wanted or needed to know.
Beth watched him for a few minutes and then nodded. "I'll be right back." Jack didn't even look up when she left her office.
Nobody challenged her when she went into the room that Sam was using as her own.
"Dr. Greene...Beth....?" Sam was flustered. Seeing the people that she knew well and yet didn't know them at all was disconcerting.
"Ah," the amber eyed doctor said when Sam addressed her. "I take it there is another me you knew quite well?"
Sam nodded.
"Well then this should make our conversation easier. I take it your Beth Greene was direct as well?"
"Yes...yes she was." Sam smiled. Seems as if some things did not change.
Beth motioned for Sam to sit and then she sat herself.
"I have a story for you Colonel Carter. It started 6 years ago."
Cheeky. That was the first descriptive term Colonel O'Neill thought of when introduced to the Air Force Major that was attached to NASA. He had never met anyone as brash as she was. Imagine, challenging him to an arm wrestling match. What was she, nuts? He didn't mind women, he was married to one. Well, had been married to one. But they had their place and their place was not with his team. He didn't think the distraction of trying to protect the sensibilities of a female was a part of the Special Ops project he was in charge of.
And on top of that...an Astronaut. What the hell was an Astronaut doing in this program? Truth be told, it was four Astronauts that were in his group.
He thought it was funny at first - her quips - especially the crack about her playing with dolls. Until she told them it was the Matt Mason Astronaut doll. That and she was a pilot during the Gulf War.
However, it was the way she responded to his comment about having a female on the team that made him really take notice. She had accused him of being a misogynist, a sexist, and reminded him that she was every bit as capable as any man in his unit and just as strong.
Jack was impressed that she was able to stand up for herself without resorting to sarcasm or making some insane statement about the fact that her reproductive organs were on the inside of her body, instead of the outside like one other female officer had.
After that comment had been made, he thought that if his eyebrows rose any further on his forehead, he wouldn't need a hairpiece in a few years.
General Hammond called a halt to that line of discussion and announced that Major Carter was going to be part of his exercise and that was that.
Later, Jack noticed her by the water cooler and by her stance he knew she was still pissed. Swallowing what was part pride and part guilt, he walked over to her.
If looks could kill, Jack would have been dead were he stood.
"Major Carter, I'm, sorry if I offended you." Jack tried to make the tone match what he was really feeling.
Sam nodded and continued to fill her paper cup.
The silence upset him. For some odd reason he wanted her to react, respond, something.
"How about I make it up to you?" He asked. He grabbed her hands and gained some confidence when she didn't deck him for it. "Let me take you to lunch. We can talk and maybe we can work things out. You know, you'll really like me once you get to know me." He smiled and those deep dimples on either side of his cheeks deepened.
Then she smiled. "Oh, I think I adore you already, Colonel."
Jack's smile widened. "Call me Jack. You aren't under my chain of command, at least, not today."
"Then call me Sam."
"Not Samantha?" Jack asked.
"Nope...Sam."
Together they headed towards the base cafeteria.
Beth smiled at the memory.
"If i recall correctly..." Beth scrunched up her forehead. "...the lunch lasted three days."
Sam's eyes widened. That was something that never would have happened in her time line when they first met.
Beth continued to tell her that Jack's whole life turned around. He seemed to smile more and was more patient and approachable. Sam wasn't quite so prickly about her being a woman in a man's position. They spent a lot of time together and even though they each went on missions - some of them dangerous - they never really worried about the other until four years ago.
He loved the feel and the smell of her next to him. They were watching the Simpson's movie on DVD. She hated the show, the movie, the jokes and especially Bart. But she watched it because he loved it and because she loved him.
She was leaving in a few days for a trip to the orbiting space lab. They were trying to fit in as much time together as they could. This was going to be a 6 month rotation, and although in their two years together they've had periods of separation, this was the longest and potentially the most dangerous.
"I wish you didn't have to go." Jack dropped a kiss on the top of her head. He had a bad feeling about this mission and that struck him as strange.
"I do too Jack, but you know this is my area of expertise."
He stroked her arm. "I know." He said softly. Suddenly he sat her up and gave her a deep kiss and dropped to the floor on one knee.
"I was going to wait until you came back..."
"Jack..."
"No, let me finish." Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a jeweler's ring box.
Sam's eyes widened as he opened the box to reveal a deceptively simple diamond engagement ring. It was styled in the Rose Pattern-reminiscent of the rings from the late 1800's or early 1900's.
"Jack!" Her voice was full of wonder and her hand shook as he took it in his hands and put the ring on her finger.
"Samantha Carter, would you do me the honor of being my wife?"
Tears started coming from her eyes and the blue looked luminous from the sheen of the tears.
"Oh, Jack." She suddenly threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. "Your timing as usual stinks."
"Is that a no?" He was a little confused.
"No you big idiot, it's a Yes. But asking me now?"
His arms tightened around her. "I just love you so much and I want you to go there for the next six months knowing that there is somebody here on earth that will miss you more than you know."
Their lovemaking that night was slow, sweet and loving. There was an emotion attached to it that hadn't been there before, an urgency that made their coming together more personal and felt to each as if their souls actually touched.
Beth wiped the tears away from her eyes, as did Sam.
"After the accident, when they finally gave you - well, this time lines' you - up as lost, he was too."
Beth stood up and walked over to the window and looked out. "He wouldn't come out of his house for two weeks after that. He didn't eat either. I think he subsisted on beer.You can get 2,000 calories a day in beer, if you drink enough of them. He stayed drunk for a very long time. I thought he was going to die along with you."
"I had never seen a couple as much in love as the two of you were. It was like the two of you were one person. I know that sounds so hokey, but you complimented each other so well and then to have lost you - he was torn in half and the part that contained his heart died with you."
There was a long silence before Beth continued. "These last four years have been difficult. He turned back into that angry and cynical man he was after his divorce. If it wasn't for Charlie I don't know if he would have remained in the Air Force or retired up to his cabin in Minnesota. He tends to be a recluse by nature."
Beth then seemed to gather herself together and made a decision. "Come with me."
Sam followed Beth down the hall to her office. She was surprised to see Jack there.
"What's going on, Beth?" Jack asked her.
"You both need to say goodbye," Beth said. "Neither one of you had the chance to say good bye to the other."
"But we aren't..." Sam responded.
"No." Beth agreed. "But whatever the outcome of your being here...somebody's time line has ended. Ours. Yours. I don't know. I believe you when you say that these Goa'uld are coming and I have no idea what the future holds. I do know, however, that both of you need some closure. Your other died without you getting to say goodbye. Here is your chance."
"It's not the same, Beth."
"Perhaps not, but use this opportunity to heal some of the pain. You both had given so much to your country and not enough to yourselves."
Jack walked over to his friend, took her hand, kissed it and asked how she got to be so smart.
Beth only smiled and kissed his cheek. "I can only give you a couple of hours of privacy. Use it wisely." She handed Jack the key to her office and left.
Although she didn't see them, she could feel them moving towards each other, slowly and tentatively.
"You aren't him." Sam said softly as she reached out and ran her hand through his hair and then stroked his face. "But I miss him so much. Watching him die was so hard..." She couldn't finish.
Jack pulled her to him. She felt so much like his Sam. "I never got to say goodbye to her. The day she launched I had to take a team to Saudi Arabia. we had to sneak into Iraq. We kept missing each other when we tried to contact each other."
Holding her tighter. "By the time I was able to hear about the accident, I had heard that she was in the Command Module while everyone had escaped and that she crashed into the Atlantic. They never found her body."
"Oh, Jack." Her voice and her heart were breaking.
"After Ba'al stabbed him I thought I was never going to breath again. He was laying on the floor and his last thoughts were of my getting away. I protested. I wanted to bring him home, but he wouldn't hear of it. If it wasn't for Cam..."
Jack stepped back and put his hands on her face.
"I loved her so much. She brought so much joy and light into my life."
"He taught me to laugh and to not take things so seriously," Sam told him.
Suddenly it didn't matter that they weren't really the other. No words after that were needed.
Somehow they found themselves on floor and their lovemaking was slow, sweet and loving. Words that they were not able to say to the other were said and after a few hours a discreet knock at the door and the interlude was over.
They knew they would never be able to see each other again, but took solace in the fact that they were able to say goodbye.
Jack stood in the shadows watching as the three were escorted to different cars. They were going to different parts of the country. They were told they were never to contact each other. They were never to take any jobs that had anything to do with their old lives. And most importantly, not to talk to anyone about what they knew, what they thought they knew or what they felt was going to happen to this planet.
Sam was the last to be taken away. He stood in the shadows so he could get one more glimpse, one more look at that beautiful face that he loved so much.
While Sam was walking out the door to the waiting car, she felt his eyes on her. She guessed it would not be different with this Jack. She always knew he watched her, even when she didn't see him. She turned slightly to look into the shadowed area she felt he was in. Although she could not see him, she knew that he was there and it comforted her.