Ah, yes. Another 'missing scene' for the amazing, yet ship-light movie that is Stargate Continuum. Another 'what happened during the time Sam had to pretend to be someone else' drabble. Is it a cliché? Yes, but remember. In every cliché there is a core of truth and secret satisfaction… Or something along those lines.

Anyway, here's a baby fic. Not as in 'S/J with child', but as in ficlet. A longish drabble if you wish. The characters aren't all mine. There might be some, but they are of no real importance anyway.

I hope someone gets something out of this! Emotion, or… other… feelings. ;)

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The life I wanted

This was a mistake. Sam shouldn't have come here. She shouldn't have left the safety of the life she was forced to live and she shouldn't have complicated things by looking up one Jack O'Neill. She blamed him, though. She really did. If that man would not have been so very handsome and equally predictable in every reality and universe she could possibly imagine, she wouldn't have been here. Here being very relative, of course. She had been sure she was a strong independent woman, who didn't need a man to survive this minor bump in the road. Did she, or did she not survive worse situations before? SG-1 had travelled through time, went to hell, pulled a Bruce Willis and saved earth several times, while treating it like a school trip. How hard could it be to eventually reset an altered timeline, anyway? Sam shook her head, knowing that she couldn't fool herself any more. She needed Jack in her life as much as she needed science. She could live without him really, she just didn't want to.

For a moment Sam could have sworn she was back home, in the timeline she was used to. The park looked the same as she remembered it. From where she stood, she could see the fountain that didn't work most of the time. She saw the funny looking tree she and Jack tried to name, because they felt sorry for it. A project that failed because they, first of all, couldn't choose whether it was a Bart or a Homer and second kept coming to the conclusion that it was ridiculous to name a tree to begin with. On her left she saw the bench where they had sat to discuss the direction in which their relationship would go and ended up making out like two teenagers in love. And on her right… On her right, she found the stretched field where, just like in her timeline, Jack was bending and adding rules to a game of football.

He was there with Charlie, who didn't look much different from the photographs Jack had shown her. He was older now, but he still had the smiling eyes and the expression that reminded her of his father. He was alive and looking happy. Sam watched as he and Jack played against each other, backed up by two teams of children. On the edge of the field she noticed a woman pulling sandwiches and drinks out of a bag, while looking at Jack with the same intensity she probably would have shown if things would have been the way they were supposed to. The whole scene looked surreal and made her feel like an intruder. In fact, she felt like one everywhere she went lately. This life simply wasn't hers.

She began to walk away when she heard someone call out her name. The real one. Carter. It sounded so familiar that it made her stop in her tracks and turn around, even though she had become very skilled in ignoring all random mentions of her actual name. She saw Jack frown and say something to his son before jogging over to her. Sam prepared herself for Jack's commanding officer tone and probable accusations of her being unprofessional and …insane.

When he reached her, she felt her back straighten and she noticed she held her breath.

''Colonel Carter? What brings you here?''

Jack looked at her, clearly confused. She needed a plan. A good, solid excuse. A lie. Anything. She shouldn't have been here.

''It's not Carter anymore Jack. Sir.'' She inwardly cursed at herself for the slip-up. ''…It's Johnson. Sally''

She was glad he didn't get the irony that was in her new last name. Thank heavens.

''Sally? Funny. You don't look like one''

He smiled and looked at her, amusement evident on his face.

''I'm glad someone finds it funny, Sir''

She felt miserable. How in earth was she going to explain her presence? How could she stand here with the man she had loved for so long and not tell him how not having him around was maybe hurting her more than not having any contact with the only people who felt what she felt, because they had gone through the same? Her thoughts shifted to Daniel and Cam and she wondered if they had felt the urge to visit places or people from their past yet.

''I'm sorry, …Sal''

Sam blinked. Why? Why did they give her a name that sounded like hers? Why did she end up with a name that, coming from Jack, made her feel the same way she did when he whispered it in her ear the moment he woke up in the morning? She had blown up a sun and this was the way the universe punished her. She was sure of it.

''Yeah sure. I uh…'' She needed something to say. How's life? Who's that woman over there? I love you. ''So… you actually remembered my name?'' Yes. That worked. She felt proud of her ever increasing and returning military skills that she liked to call 'forming sentences without giving in to hugging a now perfect stranger'.

Jack grinned. ''After our …encounter, I read your files. Yours, not the astronaut's. Interesting stuff, Johnson. The travelling, the missions, the bad guys… It would make some great science fiction. Someone should make a TV show out of it.''

''Actually, Sir, someone did. I guess that's one of the up-sides of living here. Not having to be confronted with a cult series about your life.''

Jack's grin widened and Sam slowly started to feel comfortable with this Jack O'Neill. Maybe she could say goodbye and slip away before he remembered that she wasn't supposed to be here. With him, feeling the need to pull him into a hug. Or jump him. She had to go somewhere else and try to come to grips with the fact that her Jack died. That her Jack wasn't playing football in the park with his son anymore. That her Jack turned into this Jack who was seeing the most important part of her life as science fiction and was here with a gorgeous woman that wasn't her. She really should find a way to…

''So, Sal. What are you doing here?''

Sam sighed. Darn it.

''I was just…'' Wind. Mist. A brick wall. Her mind was drawing a blank.

''…Reminiscing over the good old days?'' Jack cut in, pulling up an eyebrow.

Reminiscing. Yes. That was what she was doing. She wasn't semi- stalking this not-so-much-her Jack. No, she was finding comfort in things she remembered from way back when the world was right.

''Yes. I… Yes. Exactly. I just wanted to go back to where I used to live and see how… different things are now. You know, who's living in my house, is that fountain still not working, do the neighbours still have a baby boy, or did they get a dog…''

''…Is my husband still my husband, or is he just a very nasty Air Force officer who loves someone else?''

Sam blinked and wondered if he had really just said that. He didn't know, did he? She never mentioned that she and Jack where… Oops. She started to blush and wasn't sure she could look him in the eyes.

''That was the best part of the file, you know. Finding out that I was married to the Big Samantha Carter, whom I only knew as heroic astronaut. If all things related to you and your companions wasn't so darned classified, this is the one thing I would tell my friends about first.''

He laughed and shot her a reassuring look, indicating that he was only kidding. The thought flashed through Sam's head that she only knew it was meant to reassure her because she knew that look. She knew the meaning of pretty much every Jack O'Neill look, smile and gesture there was and that thought overwhelmed her. Sam had spend so much time learning how to deal with this man and how to react to every single mood he ever had, that he had become a part of her. A part she had grown to love, so much more than she ever could have imagined when she first met him. She wasn't going to cry. Not in public and certainly not in front of this not-so-much-her Jack., but damn it. He died. He really did die. She bit her lip and felt her knees buckle, slightly, but enough for Jack to notice.

''I'm so sorry, Sam. I forgot about…''

Sam shook her head. ''Sally. And it's alright, I just…You're him. You're not some duplicate Jack or a figment of my imagination. You're the same person. You're made of flesh and blood and if I were to shoot you, you'd… listen, just forget about it. I shouldn't be here''

She turned to walk away and yet again that voice she knew so well stopped her from actually doing so.

''…You'd shoot me?''

There it was, another unmistaken Jack facial expression. The Mock Surprise Look. To make it even worse, it was combined with The Boyish Smirk. The one that made her smile, no matter how bad the situation was.

''I actually did that, you know. More than once. Sort of.''

Now it was her turn to smirk. Banter she could do. That was easy. No being sad. She looked around to check for people within hearing range. She took a step closer to Jack and whispered:

''See… In my world, everything is possible. Take any science fiction cliché you like and we've seen it. Switching bodies? Did that. Aliens threatening the existence of earth? Had those. Little grey men? Allies. Time travel? We could have gone to Woodstock. We prevented an asteroid from hitting earth, visited alternate universes and we have bases on different planets. I'm not sure you believe everything I say now, Jack but reality is that me shooting you, is a very minor event on my radar.''

Jack blinked and stared at her for a moment before breaking into a full blown grin again. Sam stared at him and took in his eyes, the way his mouth moved, and the way his hair was messed up… He looked good. Her mind went places it shouldn't be going and a little voice inside her head was screaming something to her that she couldn't quite make out due to the fact that she noticed that Jack used the same cologne he did at home. Stop. She was trying hard not to reach out to his cheek to touch the stubble and make a joke about him needing to shave when she secretly thought it looked sexy. Staring! Her inner voice had broken through and was laughing at her. Sam found herself staring and felt the blush on her face. Looking for something to distract her, she looked past Jack and noticed they were being watched by the woman that was unpacking food earlier. She shot Sam a glare that came across loud and clear. Hands off.

''Look Jack. It was nice to have this chat with you, but I should go. I shouldn't be here. In the first place because I was forbidden to be and in the second place because you have a life of your own. I guess I just had to see it to make it more… real.''

He grabbed her arms as she was struggling with the urge to wrap them around him.

''You know, Sal, this must be the strangest encounter I have ever had with anyone. I don't know you. I read your file, but I don't recognize myself in the stories. It read to me like the stories Charlie used to write about me being a super hero. It's me, but I'm doing stuff I know I can't do. Then here you are, in the flesh, trying to get back a life that, from my perspective never happened and I find myself wanting to know everything about you. It. …About your life. If you're right about those enemies your file mentions, about them attacking… us, don't you think we should talk about it?''

She sighed. He gave her an opening. An opportunity to hang around, to make him part of her world. All she had to do is say 'yes'. Yes.

''No, Jack.''

No. That easy. She felt her heart beat a little faster and she was sure the little voice in her head was about to speak up again, but she didn't really care. Sure she had to find a way to get things back to normal, but she realized that this wasn't the way. Not now. Right at this moment she had to wait and sit out the time she had to spend being Sally Johnson. She couldn't handle the presence of not-so-much-her Jack O'Neill. The time would come eventually, but not today.

''I bet you'll be one of the first they'l contact when the world needs saving and they'll tell you all about it. It's not up to me, Jack. I just came here to …remember the life I had. ''

Sam looked at him, smiled, said goodbye and walked away. She knew he was watching her, but she couldn't bare to turn around again. She was done. She'd seen Jack. The Jack he would have been if neither she nor the Stargate program would have crossed his path. He had his son, he had someone else and he was alive. What else could she wish for the man she loved? She knew he was happy without her and even though her eyes now started to fill with tears, she was happy knowing that at least Jack O'Neill had the life that he had always wanted.

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Is a Shippy fic a Shippy fic if there's no kissing/hugging or ''I love you''?

*shrugs* Maybe… maybe I'll continue this one. :P

Hope you enjoyed!