Home by Roheryn (SnowWhite)
Spoilers: Continuum
Summary: Living in the alternate timeline Sam thinks about where she belongs. Inspired by the song „Home" from Beauty an the Beast. S/J
Disclaimer: I own nothing, the characters belong to MGM and the lyrics to Disney/Tim Rice
A/N: Thanks to my beta-reader and almost co-author Corinna!
Btw, I assumed that somebody as smart as Sam would finally figure out that the timeline was already altered when Jack died, so she knows there's a chance of getting him back.
Is this home?
Is this where I should learn to be happy?
Here she was. Alone in this city full of people.
They had given her a place to live and permission to do so. She was told to settle in.
Never dreamed that a home could be dark and cold
Closing the door behind her, she stepped into her empty flat.
Sure, there was everything one needed to survive and for somebody who had spent a remarkable amount of nights alone in an underground lab it shouldn't be too strange, but now the dullness and loneliness of this place almost killed her.
Every day the blank walls seemed to become more blank, like pages of a book never written in.
She hadn't even bothered to take photos during her trips here in order to decorate this place a bit more colorful.
What would the pictures show anyway?
Her in a life that should already have ended?
Or the life of a woman who had no history here?
Her alone, without them – without him?
This timeline was nothing but wrong.
I was told
Every day in my childhood
Even when we grow old
Home will be where your heart is
Never werewords so true
My heart is far, far away
Home is too
„Home will be where your heart is"
She heard this phrase first in the stories her mom read to her. Then when her dad had to go abroad for serval months and the last time she had thought about it was when someone ordered her to go „home". That almost sounded contradictorily, since she used to sleep more often in a sleepingbag somewhere in outer space than in her own bed.
But she had never felt less at home on any planet than this one.
Earth.
This might be Charlie's Earth, Janet's Earth, Kawalsky's Earth... but not her's.
Is this home?
Is this what I must learn to believe in?
Try to find something good in this tragic place
Just in case I should stay here forever
Held in this empty space
She sat down silently in the armchair by the window - her first and only attempt to make the flat look as if somebody actually lived here.
It wasn't for the first time she wondered whether she should just give in to the circumstances and finally start a new live by letting go of the past.
If she wasn't to return to her former timeline, it would be better to forget it sooner than later, wouldn't it?
Oh, but that won't be easy
I know the reason why
My heart's far, far away
Home's a lie
But then, how could she let go of the the memories that were the only reason for her to endure day after day in this incredible wrongworld?
Slowly she pulled a worn piece of paper out of her pocket. It wasn't the glossy picture anymore it had been three years ago. Yet every wrinklejust showed that it had accompanied its owner on every mission and combat both on- and off-world.
Despite all the unshed tears in her eyes she had to smile; the day captured in this photograph had definitely been the happiest in her whole life.
It had been sheer luck that the picture turned out this good, because none of them had beenpaying attention to the camera. She could remember well how the grey-haired man next to her photo-self threatened to throw their spectacled best friend into the fishless pond behind them if he didn't put his camera down for one moment. Later this turned out to be their favourite image. It wasn't professional, but it was perfect; just him and her.
That was why she had carried it to whichever galaxy she had visited and she knew her heart would always be wherever the likewise negged counterpart to her photo was.
No matter how hard her attempts to adapt would be, she would never belong here and everytime she would refer to this flat as home, she would be lying.
What I'd give to return
To the place that Iknew lately
And to think I complained
Of a dull provincial town
Because you can't call a place „home" if you'd do anything to get back... home.
Where she could have team nights with her friends or have fun working for hours on the most incredibile „doohickeys" in the universe. Where she would be teased by him because of that.
She remembered complaining when she had to stay at her house or the infirmary and answering back to those who told her to „get a life" or invited her to fish in the middle of nowhere.
Is this home?
Am I here for a day or forever?
Shut away
From the world until who knows when
But was there a chance of going back? She had no idea how Ba'al had messed with the timeline – at least no idea that would do any good now.
As free as she seemed, there were limits for her all over the place. She wasn't allowed to do some professional reseach on... anything. Not even past solar flares. Or to discuss the situation with the only peolpe that had at least a slight idea of what they were dealing with, hell, she wasn't even allowed to contact her friends!
Everywhere she went she had to play act, not telling anyone who she was or what her real interests were. Even her name had to be kept quiet, because it was still too well-known. She wasn't allowed to be herself anymore.
Oh but then
As my life has been altered once
It can change again
Build higher walls around me
Change every lock and key
Nothing lasts, nothing holds
All of me
Her gaze and mind wandered through the open window, up to the bright stars thousands of lightyears away. Yet she had beenthere.
Back in her time at the Pentagon, interstellar travel during her lifetime seemed utopic to her and the sheer existance of alternate realities had been theoretical calculations.
But if all this was possible, how could it be impossible to break the chains which tied her to this place?
Maybe she had to wait, maybe it would become even worse, but it couldn't last forever.
Until then her heart would wait for her in the time and place it belonged to.
My heart's far, far away
Home and free