AN: Death-fic. My first, please be nice.
Summary: Sam seeks to be reunited with her lost Jack. Poignant death-fic. Jack/Sam. Family/Hurt/Comfort Rated K.
HE STEPPED THROUGH.
He had stepped through the mirror and no-one ever saw him again.
What had ever happened to him no-one knew.
He had gone on a simple mission to collect a data-stream from an alternate reality that was offering to help and just simply never returned.
Had it been a trap? Had he been taken over and made a host or just plain killed?
Was the risk worth it?
Sam knew in her heart that it was not and never had been.
Even on the day he had decided to take the alternate reality up on their offer and go through to the dying world alone she knew that he was never coming back.
"Goodbye Sir." she had whispered and he had given her a lingering look.
"I'll see you on the other side." he joked, knowing that she was worried about him. The line was funny because it was a Samantha Carter that was waiting for him, desperate to impart what little knowledge she could before it was too late. That was why she herself had not gone...that was why she had lost him.
For months, after she had taken over control of the SGC, they had searched again and again for the right reality, but never found it. A few times they came close but every time they reached what should have been the right one all they got were massive radiation levels that indicated that the entire reality was gone.
First for years, and then for decades Sam had never given up hope that someday, somehow, he would be returned to her. Even now, on the eve of her eightieth birthday, when even if he had made it back he would already have died peacefully of old age, she held out for him. Nothing was impossible. If Ernest could return, if Daniel could...?
Her breathing machine beeped in distress as she struggled with her emotions. Her intense feeling of loss translating itself into a physical stabbing than ran through her chest making her cry out softly. From the side of her hospital bed Cassandra Frasier, with her greying hair took hold of her hand. "Go." she said quietly, tears in her eyes. "Sam, please. You don't have to wait anymore, we can take care of ourselves."
Carter watched as a fine youthful grip offered comfort to the person she considered to be her only child. Cassie's daughter, Janet Fraiser-Beckett squeezed her mother's shoulder gently, her small son riding on her hip. "Jackie." she said to the boy. "Kiss Maw-maw goodnight." and happily he stretched down to do as he was bid.
Sam shakily removed her oxygen mask and kissed her great-grandson. "You be a good boy now." she told him and he nodded, his brown eyes smiling, reminding her of another set of brown eyes that had always held a similar sense of wonder. She looked back over to the other two women in the room. "You all be good, and don't be sad." Sam kissed the back of her Cassie's hand, feeling the naquadah that had always given them such a special connection.
Slowly, almost absently she closed her eyes and forgot all about the room and everyone in it. Soon only one person lingered in her mind. "Jack." she breathed. "I'm coming."
Cassie bravely held back her tears as the regular rhythm on the heart monitor gradually slowed and then stilled completely to a steady green line.
A single sob escaped her and silently she allowed herself to be pulled into a set of loving arms. "Don't cry Mom, you heard her. She's finally gone to be with him."
Cassie nodded, the welling pain in her heart instantly beginnig to recede just a fraction.
...Somewhere, in some other universe, Sam stepped through and instantly reached for the hands that were waiting for her.
FIN
AN: Thanks for reading. All thoughts welcome...