Title: The Incredibly Boring Life of Amanda Anderson
Author: Sarae
Status: Complete
Category: Romance
Pairings: Sam/Jack
Spoilers: Stargate Continuum
Summary: Continuum scene addition: A snap shot of the life Sam lived during the year in the alternate timeline of Continuum.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or settings, but occasionally, they provide a wonderful escape for me. So, thank you to those who have had a hand in creating them. No infringement is intended.
Author Note: I'm not sure what to say about this one. It just sort of rolled out of watching Continuum, seeing pics of Amanda and Rick at the Continuum premiere, seeing the adorable ComicCon photo and wondering what Sam would do with a relatively average, boring life. Special thanks to Audrey for her awesome Beta reading, encouragement and instruction...and to Rosemary for undying encouragement and prompting to write and post. I love you both.
The Incredibly Boring Life of Amanda Anderson
© 2008 Sarae
Even as she walked through the concourse at DIA, she expected to see someone waiting to arrest her. So, it wasn't until she actually pulled out of the rental car lot that she started to relax. The moments of relaxation were short-lived because by the time she entered the on-ramp to I-25 South, the wary apprehension had given way to nervous anticipation.
For over nine months, she'd followed their rules and lived the quiet, banal, mundane life they'd created for her. They'd dumped her in a VERY small town nestled in the mountains of northern Idaho, a town with less total population than the number of those who worked at her SGC. And she'd made the best of it, she really had.
Though stripped of everything familiar and purposeful, Amanda Anderson was similar to Samantha Carter in many ways. Initially, she'd experienced some unwanted attention. Even in this rural setting, this reality's Samantha Carter had been very recognizable. So for the first few weeks, she'd had to endure the curious stare or occasional, "Has anyone ever told you, you look like…"
To combat boredom and to try and distract herself from dwelling on all that she'd lost, she'd spent the better part of the first six months working almost constantly. Except for some high school sporting events, second-run movies at the local two-screen cinema and the occasional production of a small melodrama theater company, there was very little to do in the sleepy little valley where she now lived.
So, as a systems analyst for the school district, she'd devoted herself to writing programs to make maintenance and technology help-desk requests and work order tracking as efficient as possible. She'd redesigned the communication and collaboration programs with open source programming and operating systems. And when she ran out of things to do after six months, she got really bored.
Fighting the depression that ensued when she allowed herself to think about what she'd lost, had been a constant battle. The winters in her new home town were cold and long. Exploring the area on skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles provided some distraction, but really it left too much time for dwelling.
Her daily duties had become far less than challenging. With the improvements she'd made to the technology infrastructure and software, her duties took very little time out of her day. So, to keep herself busy, she'd begun researching…a topic she hoped would not raise a red flag with whoever was watching.
Unfortunately, after the first day, she'd been hooked. In fact, after that first day she'd become obsessed. While this reality's Jack O'Neill still had his son, Tyler, he'd lost his wife several years ago. According to the information she gathered, he had never remarried. It hadn't been easy and she'd had to take it very slow, but knowing just about everything there was to know about her reality's Jack O'Neill had helped her covertly uncover information about this reality's Jack O'Neill.
She was surprised to find that he still lived in Colorado Springs and in the same residence in this reality that SG-1 had visited so many times in her reality. But what surprised her more was that he'd retired shortly after their incident in the Arctic. From what she pieced together, this past
school year had been Tyler's senior year. He had just graduated and had received a scholarship to play basketball at Washington State University, which, in some bizarre twist of fate, was not that far from where she'd been dumped.
In her current occupation, she worked only 11 months of the year. She was currently on her month off and had informed her colleagues she would be traveling. It was true.
The drive from Denver to Colorado Springs had been slow and tedious. At least that's the way it felt. The thing was, she really had no idea what she was going to do when she got near his house. She just felt excited for the first time in months at the thought that she might get a glimpse of him, and even more excited that she might get to see him with his son.
She was being careful, using only cash, but knowing they could trace her rental in a heartbeat. Truth be told, she wasn't intending to break any of their rules. She wasn't contacting Cam or Daniel. She wasn't trying to alter this reality in any way. She wasn't planning to give away any secrets that would jeopardize national security. She just wanted to see him, even if it wasn't really him.
Her him was dead, though she couldn't allow herself to think about that for very long. She knew what she was planning bordered the fine line between sanity and psychosis, but everything about her life felt crazy and surreal. It was getting to the point where she just wanted to choose how she went insane.
She really hadn't come up with a plan for what she would do after she saw him…or what she would do if he found her stalking him. She knew him well enough to know that she would have a heck of a time getting a glimpse without alerting him to her presence and she wasn't entirely sure if a glimpse would be enough.
A quick drive through reassured her that his neighborhood was identical to her reality. It was amazing the effect of being in a familiar setting had on her. If it was possible to feel calm and excited at the same time, that was how she felt.
