Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha

by Moonrays and fridays

She can't remember the last time she asked anyone to call her Sam. But she remembers the first person who did. SJ. Past storycan't explain, check it out.

AN: I've never heard the song just saw the lyrics, well, the name.

This just sorta..happened. Blame it on a philosophy conference and trying to revise causality. How much effect can one person have on your life? Feedback would be wonderful.

(Oh and as for Never go back, i have to wait to see ripple effect because i missed last weeks show, so ch3 will be up once i have something to base it on!)

Hope you like!

Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha.

She can't remember the last time she asked someone to call her Sam. She was torn between it being too personal, letting people know who she was before she was ready herself, and the fact that Samantha has always been that irritating nerd who used to get trampled on.

At eleven she could confuse her parents with her babble. Her father would hold up his hand to hush her. She was loved but not heard. Liked but misunderstood.

At twelve she understood sub atomic particles. She could write a thesis. Her teachers predicted she would be a great scientist. Her classmates predicted she would be a pain in the ass.
Her class project wasn't a volcano, but a fully functional mini aeroplane that ran on toothpaste.
Others, green with envy. Her pride hidden behind embarassment, and a terribly average need to be liked. But Samantha Carter was not a cheerleader. She was not a follower. And Carter's did not cry.

At thirteen she lost her mother. Her life fell apart. And she forgot that Carter's didn't cry, and only remembered that her mother had always said she was allowed. It was only fitting.

From fourteen she was the quiet girl. She did what she was told, she didn't argue. She did the best, but not to her ability. She was average. And she found that she liked the invisibility of it all.

Atsixteen and three hundred and sixty three days, she was tired of being a nobody. She was tired of being able to be so much more than average, but not being allowed to. She was tired of working at a level that they could understand. There was an energy building up inside her, the potential, all that she could achieve, just out of her grasp.

And on the day of her seventeenth birthday she realised it didn't have to be that way anymore. So she decided to be the exact opposite of everything she was, wasn't, should be, couldn't be.

She was a mass of confused buzzing energy, with a brother with his own problems, and a father running from a family that he never really knew, and the loss of a true love that she could almost imagine.

So she grabbed the one nameless friend that she doesn't remember, and did all that she shouldn't have. She got her stomach pierced, the slight stinging pain soaring for moment, vindicating her need to be someone else, anyone else. She stripped away all that she used to be, and became something else.

The shopping came next. Dear Daddy's credit card for emergencies. He thought he knew her. Not like he'd notice until he was next home anyways. He'd probably actually have to talk to her to argue. Then again, the credit card wouldn't be the only thing. The piercing. The hot pink tips of her hair. The empty vodka bottle in the cabinet. The grades would be next. The "attitude". Whatever.

What did school matter anyway? She understood it all and more. The people knew nothing. The teachers who insisted they knew more than she did couldn't scratch the surface of what she knew was an endless fountain of knowledge. They weren't worthy. And so, she obviously couldn't be either. A young girl half their age. What could she possibly acheive that they couldn't? What was the use?

Her dad would be back from a mission -"Top secret bullshit."- the following monday. She had this Saturday night to live, before he came home and pretended he could look at her and not see her mother.

Before he asked her about the stars and pretended he had any idea about what her dreams were.

Yes, she wanted to touch the stars; she wanted to reach out and see how beautiful it was when something that burned brightly, unknown for years, and then burst into this beautiful tragic death, gone with a bang, leaving all those stupid humans to wonder how it ever remained anonymous.
But she also wanted love. It sounded stupid even to her. Just one more thing she never said. She wanted someone to see who she was. To want her. To know her. But she wasn't holding her breath.

It was the last night she had. She knew that her father would want to move again. It was like clockwork. She didn't really care for Washington anyways. A lot of politicians, tourists and too many anonymous airforce men hanging around in the area. Who all knew Little Miss Samantha Carter was the General's daughter. The good little girl who was going to be an astronaut.

"My daughter's a right little firecracker. She's going to go into space one day." The General would say.

"Yes sir? Would that be her dream or yours?" She thought wryly.

Who knew anymore? This was her last chance to be That girl.
The girl with the pink tipped blond bob, the leather biker jacket, the black trousers and the red top that should have clashed with her hair. But it didn't.
She liked to wear Combat boots. Who knew why. She wasn't the most ordinary of girls.

And she hoped that was all anyone noticed when she waltzed into a bar at eleven on a saturday night. She tried to look unimpressed. It wasn't hard. There were two pool tables. One was free.
She ordered a beer, only because her father hated it. Whisky was a real man's drink. But if it pissed her father off, she would gladly partake.

She put it on the side of the pool table as she set up the balls in the triangle, chalking the cue as she surveyed the man at the next table. Early twenties, completely focused on his game. He potted a shaky ball. Not bad technique, but not completely sure. This was an opportunity.

Her first few warm up shots were unecessary, and yet perfectly awful. She smiled, bent over the table as the twenty something noticed her black ball being potted, too early.

"Oh crap!" She almost shouted, stamping her foot slightly. She turned to take a sip of her beer, and smiled at the stranger, shrugging.

"Wanna play a game?" She offered, shrugging so as not to appear too eager.

"How old are you?" He raised an eyebrow, amused.

"Old enough to kick your ass in this game. Bet you ten bucksI win." She smiled.

"Fine. Only because you insult my honour." The man racked the balls and set up the game.

"Ladies first." He indicated. Samantha's first shot was awful, only to be followed by a terrible second, an excruciating third, and a downright painful fourth where she potted the black and the white.

The manwinced.

"Ouch. Bad luck. Still...I was going to say good game, but in no known universe can that be called a good game." He shrugged, sticking his hands in his pockets.

She pretended to look offended.

"Alright we play again. Double or nothing. I just have to get back in the swing of it...come on, it's early."

"Alright, I've got nowhere to be. Twenty bucks, and the loser buys the winner a drink." He consented.

She cocked her head to the side slightly. The guy was good looking, but not conceited. Here alone, but apparently comfortable with that. He didn't seem that screwed up or even after anything...and if he was, she wasn't even sure she'd mind.

"You're on." A true shark would have waited and tripled the score, but she knew he wouldn't fall for that, no matter how much she batted her lashes. And twenty bucks and a free drink wasn't bad for one night.

In the end, she took more pleasure from the look of shock on his face when she potted five balls in a row than the actual money. And even more alluring was the wry smile that graced his own lips for a fraction of a second, when he decided to start to play his best as well. He wasn't as good as her, but then he hadn't been stuck in countless waiting rooms whilst his father tried to appear diplomatic.

She decided to play with the fire a little more. It felt good to be free after so long. So long Miss Goody Goody. Buh bye nerd. Geek. Freak. Hello Miss No-Name.

She took her time with her next shot, arching over the table, running her hands gently over the cue.

"Excuse me." She smiled, speaking softly, as she leaned over his hand, resting on the table, potting the ball perfectly.

"No, excuse me." He said as he stood next to her to set up the next shot, his arched hand with the cue resting on it resting on top of hers. He potted it also and smiled in triumph.

Last ball, and as he went to hit it, she said innocently.

"You're really hot, you know." As if it was a normal conversation topic.

Of course, he missed the shot as she intended. It continued in that fashion for a few more moments, her purposefully not concentrating so that she could prolong that spark that excited her. She won.

"Pleasure doing business. You owe me a drink." She smiled, folding up the notes and putting them in her pocket. She would have put it in her bra, but even the crazy version of her couldn't do something so...brash.

They walked to the bar, sitting down next to each other.

He spoke to the barman "One beer, one orange juice." She looked at him accusingly.

"Sorry, make that two beers." She nodded seriously.

"So how old are you?" The man asked.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty four." He shrugged.

"Wow, wasn't expecting honesty."

I wasn't expecting him to actually get distracted by my question either. She thought in suprise.

"So what are you doing in here by yourself on a saturday night?" She asked, sipping her beer and smiling.

Look at me now Daddy Dearest!

"Just thinking,I guess." He mused, fingertips playing with his beer glass. The man could not sit still. She wanted to grab his hands and make him stop fidgeting for one minute. It was annoying, and yet strangely, after a few moments it became rhythmic. Soothing, almost.

"Good thoughts?" She asked, trying to remove whatever rain cloud had suddenly befallen him.

"I'm going away on a long trip day after tommorow. AndI might not come back." He shrugged. "I'm trying to think of the best way to say goodbye to the peopleI care about."

"Intriguing." She leant forward, resting her head on her hands, her elbows on her knees.

"You wouldn't by any chance be off on a top secret mission to some far away country because the government owns your soul and your paycheck?"

His lip quirked for a minute. "Yes, I'm airforce." He said sarcastically.

"Kind of figured. There's always a lot around here. So what rank?"

"Lieutenant. At your service ma'am." He tapped his forhead in a lazy salute,a "Here's lookin' at you kid." Sort of thing.

"You got a name lieutenant?" She asked flirtaciously.

"Yes miss,I do." He sipped his beer, and said nothing.

"Any time you feel like telling me what it is." she pouted.

"Everyone calls me John." He said, fairly unimpressed.

"John? John..." She said softly, trying it out.

"It's not right." She said suddenly, feeling ill at ease for no particular reason.

"What's not?"

"That's not your name." She said, pretty features screwed up in confusion. "I know that sounds stupid, but that's not what your name should be."

"You know somethingI don't? Because I'm pretty sure that it's on my birth certificate..."

She sighed audibly. That geek Samantha Carter, being weird again.

"I don't know. It's like if you look at a chair and you call it a table. It's got the wrong name...you're not called John."

He looked at her puzzled for a moment, but said nothing.

"You feel it too don't you?" She asked almost desperately, "You said everyone calls you John, it doesn't mean it's your name."

"I guess you're right."

He just looked at her for a moment, as though he'd never seen anything as enrapturing. And she found she quite liked being the enigma, even more than she liked being the Bad Girl.

And the moment was broken by another, much more obvious Airforce Officer shouting,

"Hey Hanson!"

The stranger turned around to answer...

"Hanson, stop being such an ass!" Not-John shouted across the bar at the younger man, trying, to no avail, to catch the interest of a woman who was not buying what he was selling.

"It's my last night sir! Just trying to get my kicks before Good Old US of A sends me out to my death!" Hanson shouted back drunkenly.

"Suck it up Airman. If you wanted safety and security, you should have become a priest." Not-John sighed into his beer as he turned away, quietly whispering "asshole."

"Is it a dangerous mission you're going away on?" She asked hesitantly, as he looked into the bottom of his beer glass, wordlessly ordering another.

"Yeah." He sighed, "I got two proud parents, a chipper C.O and a girlfriend who is not going to be pleased, whenI actually get up the nerve to tell her."

"Wow. Sorry." She shrugged, unable to offer anything else. Or maybe there was.

"I know it's not the same, but my Dad's airforce, and you get used to it. If you care about someone...or even if you don't actually...you get used to them coming with certain restrictions."

He turned his brown eyes to hers, once again shocking her for no particular reason.

"And you're telling me you don't blame your Dad for not being around?"

"I blame him for not caring enough to be around when he's around." She said simply.

"Okay...you lost me."

"Even when he's home he's thinking about the next job he can get to run away again. At least you don't want to leave the people you love. He wants to. I don't blame him for not being there,I blame him for not wanting to." She said, fairly cold, and clinical about it.

"So...you do know he loves you though, right?" He said hesitantly, unsure of how far he could go with this stranger who he seemed unable to close off from.

She scoffed. "If this is turning into an after school special,I don't care how much it costs, I'll buy my own beer."

"Aah, don't do feelings. A girl after my own heart." He saluted her with his beer.

"I do feelings! I'm not just a cold clinical person like everyone thinks!" She almost shouted before she realised what she was saying.

"Who thinks that?"

"Everyone who doesn't want to know anything else." She answered, pouting.

"Don't do that, you look your actual age." He said, pointing as she chewed her lower lip. "And must you speak in riddles?"

"Yes. Actually." She gulped her beer down. "I supposeI should go. See ifI can find a club round here that's stupid enough to let me in..." She smiled ruefully.

"Or you could go home, drink a lot of water and take some aspirin before going to bed?" Not-John said hopefully.

"New games to play. Gotta get it out ofmy system. I have this feeling that everything's going to change, and I'll never get the chance again." She shrugged.

"I thinkI know what you mean." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, "Things just change, ya know? And...Well I'd rather not die beforeI have a name." He smiled at her, winking.

"Come on Miss, I'll act as your taxi service tonight." He stood up, gesturing with an arm and following her out into the night air.

"So how comeI still don't know your name?" He asked as they walked through the car park.

"Because if you don't know yoursI can't trust you with mine?" She offered jokily.

He just frowned at her in confusion, and sighed thoughtfully.

"Okay." she said quietly. Stopping, and grabbing his hand to stop him walking. He turned to face her, looking down on her.

"My name is Samantha." She whispered, and the Officer was disturbed to find that it almost brought her to tears, the very idea that her name defined her. "Samanatha the Good Girl. The know it all Geek. The invisible girl." She muttered to herself.

He stared at this girl, who he guessed to be about eighteen, but suddenly looked much younger, with those funny bits of colour in her blond hair, and intelligence and mischief behind those blue eyes, on the verge of tears. And he felt a strange, sudden wave of love for her. Like she was important. Like there was something someone was trying to tell him.

It was one of those defining nights, he decided. One of those nights where strange shit happens, and if you go with the flow, something important and special will come out of it.

"Look at me." He said quietly, gently lifting her chin up to look him in the eyes, before he smiled at her, shaking his head.

"That's not your name." He smiled at her, willing her to believe what he knew was true the moment he said it.

He stroked her cheek once. "Samantha is a pretty name. But it's not sharp enough for you. It's not special enough. And it sure as hell isn't smart enough. You're called something else. Some name so special that evenI won't be allowed to say it. The Powers that Be won't let me." He raised his eyebrows at her.

She smiled a little at first, slowly working up to a grin as she started to blush slightly.

"We'll see." She said coyly, before promtly starting to walk again.

He caught up to her, directing her towards his vehicle. Whatever sort of car she was expecting a Liuetenant in the airforce to be driving, she was expecting it to actually be a car.
What she was faced with was a motorbike.

"You want me to get on the back of that thing?" She asked, looking vaguely appalled.

"That gonna be a problem?" He asked, throwing her the spare helmet.

"Can't wait." She grinned, slipping it on.

Now, Samantha knew that getting on the back of a motorbike of an older man was not the cleverest thing to do, but then again, she wasn't feeling clever. She was feeling downright stupid. And yet there was something about this guy with no name. The disarmingly handsome, yet somehow already broken man. He seemed emtpy like her. Full of potential, but not really existing.
Maybe that's why he was going on this big top secret mission. She hoped he survived. That he didn't get hurt. That he didn't get captured. That if he did, he'd get rescued and wouldn't have to escape all on his own.

But her mind was running away with her. She was on the back of a stranger's bike, with the wind blowing fiercely against her face, and she was exhilerated. She'd never felt so alive, so free. She wanted to do this everytime she felt like nobody. Everytime she felt like Samantha.

They stopped at a red light, and Samantha felt the restrains of life once again. Stupid red light. Time was so relative. It wasn't fair that she was almost home. She'd even given him the long directions.
And as they were waiting in the traffic, she heard the song from the next car, wisps of the lyrics floating in and out of her consciousness.

"Hit the road...don't come back...no more, no more, no more..."

It wasn't a particularly clever or inspiring song. Wasn't even something she'd really listen to. But it told her something.
Not to run away, although how much she would love to. She would love to just run away with this fellow nameless stranger, and ride off into numerous sunsets, have someone care who she was, or try to know who she was.

But all too soon she was home. Her nice little white pickett fence all too ironic, and the little yellow brick path leading up to her house taunting her with it's lack of magic.

"No place like home." She muttered irritably as she dismounted and took off the helmet, shaking out her hair.

"Follow the yellow brick road Dorothy." He smiled, remaining on the bike, pointing towards her house.

"So I'm Dorothy?" She raised an eyebrow.

"No..." He looked confused. But then smiled.

"I know your name." She grinned like she had all the answers in the universe, he thought, bemused. Maybe one day she would.

"Well that's lucky, because I know yours...what it's meant to be." He returned softly.

"You're Jack."

"I am?"

"Yep."

"Well you look damn pleased with yourself. How did you come up with that one?"

"That song on the way here? "Hit the road Jack, don't come back." I figured it was fitting at least for tonight, seeing as you're going off to some secret mission, and even if you do come back, I'll never see you again." She said solemly.

"Hmm. Jack. Jack. Hi, I'm Jack." He tried out in several tones of voice. "I think i like it. Better than John anyways." He shrugged.

"So what's my name?"

He smiled. "Short, sweet and spunky."

"Spunky?"

"Your name is Sam." He said, completely seriously.

"Sam. My name is Sam. A boy's name, but it's kinda cool...I think." She shrugged, "Can't get worse than it already is."

"It's perfect." He nodded.

"I guess I better go." He said a few minutes later, although hesitantly, and slightly sadly.

"Before you leave, maybe we should actually meet?" She offered, and he looked bemused and slightly worried.

"Hi, I'm Sam, Sam Carter." She offered her hand for him to shake.

"Jack O'Neill."

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise."

They stood smiling for a moment before releasing their hands.

"Be careful." She said to him.

"I will." He smiled and turned to drive away.

"You know, Sam Carter, I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again some day. There's something special about you."

And though that night he sped off into the darkness, and went on with a life in which he played the good soldier, and her father came home and sent her off to the academy because enough was enough, there was a time many years later twenty or so years later when he called her that name again.

After nine years of knowing him, after all the places they'd been, the things they'd been through, it happened when she returned to Washington of all places.

"Hello Samantha." He drawled.

"How many times have I told you? My name is Sam." She walks into a living room that connects to a garage. And in that garage is a loved old bike that isn't as fast as it seemed. Next to it is her one.

Because sometimes people can see who you really are. And she reflects as she sits on the sofa next to him, taking a sip of his beer, that maybe it isn't so scary. Maybe it's defining.
And that's fine by her. She's just Sam Carter. And he's just Jack O'Neill. And they're okay.