Alone
"Sam! We have to keep moving." Mitchell said, helping her up as she faltered.
"Why? If we're gonna freeze to death, this is as good a spot as any..." She shot back, bitterly.
He looked around. "Nah...I don't like this spot."
"Cam, come on..." She groaned with full-body and spiritual weariness. "What's the point? There's no one around for hundreds of..." She spotted two figures in the distance. She pointed for Mitchell's benefit. "Who's that?"
They could save Daniel, she thought as she picked up the pace.
"Wait! Which one of you is Mitchell?" One of the figures asked as they found one another.
"Jack O'Neill. Special Forces."
Her heart lightened as she pulled the scarf from her mouth. "We thought you were dead!"
He pulled his sunglasses down as he studied her. "Backatcha, ma'am."
She was surprised.
"You recognize her?" Mitchell asked, surprised.
Sam looked at him, almost thanking him for asking the question she'd been too afraid to ask.
"Sure do."
"Sir, we gotta go back for Daniel."
"What we have to do is get you people off this ice." He announced as he made provisions for their rescue. "Mitchell, I don't know what you're doing in the Arctic with a dead astronaut..."
Dead astronaut? She asked, realizing that her assumptions had been royally incorrect. He didn't know her at all.
-
With a new pair of box-framed glasses perched on her nose, she sighed as she walked into the classroom. She was a mathematics professor at St. Paul College in Minnesota, teaching Introduction to Algebra through College Algebra. The GE math courses.
She set the briefcase down beside the desk with a sigh as she looked around. The hall would accommodate four hundred seats. She was down to teaching numbers instead of ideas. Absolutely forbidden to even postulate about the things she knew those numbers to mean.
"Dr. Foss?"
It took her a moment before she remembered that her cover name was Helene Foss. She turned. "Yes?"
"I was asked to bring your attendance roster."
"Wonderful, thank you." She said, managing a small smile as she accepted the papers.
"Welcome to St. Paul." The TA said with a warm, welcoming smile.
"Thank you." She said, struggling to return it.
She looked at her watch as the woman left. She still had ten minutes before her class began. Time on her hands was a bad thing, these days.
-
"Go to the Gate..." She heard him say for the hundredth time in the deepest recesses of her memory.
"Not without you." She reiterated again.
"Go."
She knelt over Jack O'Neill, the man who'd captured her heart somewhere between their meeting in the Briefing room over ten years ago and the time that he'd proclaimed that he cared for her a lot more than he was supposed to.
Jack O'Neill, the object of her girlish "happily ever after" fantasies, was dead.
-
She sat at the desk as the students began trickling in a few at a time. Life was so different from how it had been only three weeks before – at least for her...
Exploration through the galaxy, the occasional assignment to R&D, tackling some scientific project...
"Excuse me, Professor?" A voice asked, looking at her.
She looked up only to find a face that reminded her so much of Jack's staring at her.
Uncomfortable silence reigned for a moment before she shook her surprise off. "Yes?"
"You...you look like..."
"Samantha Carter?" She asked with a sigh. She'd gotten that stare so many times.
"The astronaut..." He nodded.
"I get that a lot." She said, mustering a smile. "But I'm not her. You'll see on your syllabus when it gets passed out that my name's not Samantha Carter."
"Oh...right." He said with a relieved smile. "I just got confused when I didn't see Dr. Gregory. He's the teacher we have on our class schedules."
"You're in the right place." She assured. "Dr. Gregory went on sabbatical while he tries his hand at a math proof. You're stuck with me."
"Great." He said with a grin as he took his seat.
She looked at her watch once more. It was time to start.
She stood in front of the podium, her attendance roll in hand.
"Welcome to MATH 1730, College Algebra." She called as she looked out over the faces of her students. "For the sake of making sure we have everyone here for the first day, I'll call roll, but next time, I'll just expect you to be here and to be on time. When I call your name, just raise your hand. If I don't call your name, visit the Registrar's office or check you class schedule to make sure you're in the right place."
She had one hundred students in this first class, she thought with a sigh. This was going to take forever.
"Christine Adams, Henry Baker..." She began. Each name passed quickly off her tongue, and in no time, she was at the "O" section. "Charles O'Neill." She called.
Suddenly, her breath was trapped in her lungs as she looked up at the sea of students. Sure enough, the student from earlier raised his hand.
Jack O'Neill's son was in her math class.