AN: This is just a short little fic about alternate realities with spoilers for 'There But For the Grace of God', 'Point of View', 'Ripple Effect' and 'The Road Not Taken'. It turned out very differently to what i planned, so tell me if you like the ending, coz i didn't plan it that way.
Fork in the Road Stuff
Sam had often wondered about the decisions she'd made and the effect they had on her life. However with the return of Daniel from the alternate reality, her curiosity was renewed. Her thoughts had turned first to what had made her join the military and wondered why she hadn't in the other reality. She'd sought out Daniel to talk many times about Doctor Samantha Carter, and decided that they were very different, but not completely. She knew that faced with a similar situation that she too would sacrifice herself rather than submit.
When Doctor Samantha Carter (O'Neill, she reminded herself) had appeared through the Quantum Mirror, Sam had wondered whether her joining the military was an odd occurrence. The enormity of the universe was impressed upon her at that point for each decision that she and every other person in the galaxy, hell in the universe made an alternate universe existed. Sam wondered how many realities existed in which her mother was alive, or her parents never met, or never married and she was never born. What if she had married Jonas Hanson, or they had never met, or she hadn't been implanted with Jolinar and they had never met the Tok'ra so her father would have died of cancer. Was she really destined to be with Jack O'Neill, so far it was the case in both universes they encountered. Though she reasoned, it could not be the case in all universes, surely there were realities when neither had entered the military, or the Stargate program and consequently they had never met. It was strange for her to view even the most minor of her decisions as 'fork in the road stuff' as Jack put it.
Until Daniel had returned from the alternate reality she had never believed the theories of the multiverse. Despite her knowledge of the Stargate program, the idea that there were an infinite number of realities concurrent to her own seemed farfetched to say the least. Even after Daniel's return she found it difficult to believe, however with the appearance of the alternate her even she could no longer ignore the facts. Alternate realities exist.
She didn't think much of alternate realities again until teams started appearing from many nearby universes. Her father, Martouf and Janet, all alive and well, living happily in other universes, how many other people close to her had died needlessly? Maternity leave. That thought alone boggled her mind, who was the father, oh god, what if it was Pete. Maybe she reasoned it was Jack. That was a nice thought. Janet would deliver her babies in that universe, tears ran down her cheek, Janet would never be able to deliver her babies, that would be Carolyn, or some yet unknown doctor. What if she never had children at all, what if the decisions she had made had prevented that from ever been a possibility.
When Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter was pulled into an alternate reality by Major Carter's experiment it was to find that she was both angry at her other self for performing such an experiment but also mourning, a woman she had never met, but who she knew intimately. At least that's what she had thought, until she found out that she had married McKay, a shiver of disgust had run through her body at the thought. Things were screwed up in that reality, she wondered who her friends were, because Daniel, Vala and Cameron were nowhere to be found and Teal'c wasn't even on earth. Everything had been different, Earth's infrastructure was falling apart, even having saved them from the Ori she wondered how long until they destroyed each other. It was a strange feeling, home but not home.
When she'd finally made it back to her SGC and out of the briefing she had collapsed in her real lab, her real friends around her, with one notable exception. When her lab was finally empty she hit speed dial, hoping he was still at work and hadn't been too worried.
"Hey" she said smiling when he answered the phone after two rings. "It's not our fault" she blurted, before realising he probably didn't know what had happened yet. "I've been in an alternate reality. You and I weren't together, we never had been. Apparently I married McKay. But everything was falling apart, which means you and I aren't the cause" she babbled into the ear piece to Jack who had lost track of the conversation after 'Hey'. He'd got the important part, she was back.
"I love you" she finished calmly, for the first time in ten years she had knew that Teal'c had been right, theirs was the only reality of consequence. No amount of what if's and questioning could change the way things played out.