Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, just a gazillion DVDs.
AN: This was written for the GW: Family Ship Thread Ficathon. I'll give the prompt at the end so as to not spoil things.
Tagged for the season 10 episode "The Road Not Taken".
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A World Away
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"The multiverse theory [...] posits the existence of an infinite number of alternate universes, each evolving concurrently with our own."
-- Lt. Col Samantha Carter
"If [...] two stars should really be situated very near each other, and at the same time so far insulated as not to be materially affected by the attractions of neighbouring stars, they will then compose a separate system, and remain united by the bond of their own mutual gravitation towards each other. This should be called a real double [binary] star[.]"
-- Sir William Herschel, 1802
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Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter had just saved the world.
It wasn't her world, but it was Earth, and that was (mostly) all that mattered. She'd shifted the entire planet out of phase, and the Ori had come and gone. It had worked.
Billions of lives were saved.
As the adrenaline of the experience faded, Sam rolled her shoulders and looked about herself.
The room was cluttered with equipment, the Ancient chair surrounded by a mess of wires and electrical cables, and Doctor Bill Lee was muttering over a console in the corner.
Her makeshift lab at Area 51 still smelled slightly of ozone, and Sam's intellect itched to see why the oxygen atoms had been altered so. In what way had the energy beam weapons interacted with the base material and how and why had that matter been re-integrated with the matter already occupying the surface of the planet? From where had the extra electrons come for the ozone?
She turned, surveying the room, eying the technology at her disposal, and prepared to study the phenomenon.
Sam wasn't sure exactly what pulled her attention away from thoughts of science to those of the heart.
At some point, despite her best intentions, she thought of Jack O'Neill and instinctively glanced at the doorway, expecting to see him walk in, all the while knowing it was nothing more than wishful thinking.
Her eyes settled on the individual at the door and the air left her body in a whoosh, but that was okay, because Samantha Carter no longer needed to breathe.
Because he was there.
Jack O'Neill stood in the doorway, handsome in his green BDU, hands in pockets. He had obviously been standing there for some time, and as he gazed at her, Sam closed her eyes and pretended she was home.
Jack.
She should have known. Jack O'Neill continued to be the only fundamental constant in Sam Carter's universe. No matter her or her counterparts' locations within the multiverse, the two of them would continue to be drawn to one another.
From the first irreverent moment of meeting (Sam sometimes wondered if she had she actually offered to arm-wrestle), she had felt the tangible weight of their attraction. It was a magnetic power that had gradually grown into the warmth of affection, then to the profound depths of adoration ... all eventually coalescing together into one bright center of unavoidable force. They had spent years circling each other like a pair of brilliant binary stars, a bright haven of warmth against the blackness of space.
Regardless of the times they'd sidestepped the issue, or pushed it away entirely, Sam and Jack had again been drawn toward one another, their efforts only serving to accelerate the force of their attraction until that moment when they were finally overcome by the stellar forces of their shared adoration.
Mingling energy had been finally liberated in an experience so bright, fierce, and hot – Sam would have sworn it had rivaled the brightest of novae.
She heard him clear his throat and her eyes opened of their own volition. Sam blinked once. Then twice. She swallowed back the threatened tears, the image sharpened, and she knew.
This was not her Jack.
He nodded at her. "Carter." His gaze was intense, laced with something disquieting and all together different.
"Colonel O'Neill," she said. The rank felt off-color on her tongue and she was left feeling somehow wounded by his stiff answering nod. Sam was unsure if he knew about her counterpart's unfortunate demise, and she found herself wondering if he could somehow sense that she was only a copy. And if that made her somehow inferior in his eyes.
Just then, Bill Lee came blundering between them, bubbling with excitement, oblivious to the emotional undertow dragging Samantha under. He motioned distractedly to the chair while typing a staccato rhythm on the console in front of him.
Sam watched as Colonel O'Neill acquiesced to the gesture, raising his eyebrows wanly and sauntering over to the seat in the center of the room.
Her feet were rooted to the floor.
Settling himself into the chair, leaning back purposefully, Jack began the invisible process of deactivation, his body rendered unnaturally still from the mental concentration required to operate the technology.
Just days she had been in this universe. So close to and yet so far from home. And she had yet to have any luck with finding a way back. Sam told herself she'd spent more time than this away from her Jack on a regular basis, but this was so very different.
She'd missed him before, on her trips off-world, knowing he was worlds away. She'd missed him when he was stuck in Washington at his new post as Director of Homeworld security.
But she'd never had to miss him from an entirely new universe and she found herself understanding the haunted look in the eyes of the Doctor Samantha Carter she'd once met. That woman's Jack had been a universe away and entirely out of reach – killed while fighting for their world's freedom.
When she'd arrived in this world, Sam had comforted herself with the knowledge that wherever her Jack was, at least he was alive.
And then … here he was. Sam found herself remembering how soothing Jack's embrace was. How soft his hands felt, wrapped around her shoulders when he would hold her close, whispering sweet and silly words in her ear. She would be able to feel the smile on his face as his cheek pressed to hers.
The lights on the Ancient Chair faded as Jack brought it back to an upright position.
He gathered Samantha's gaze as he stood, rolling his shoulders in a show of discomfort.
Sam stood fixed to the spot until Jack gestured for her to follow him from the room, murmuring something under his breath about reports.
"Nice job, by the way," he finally said as they made their way down the dim hallway. He offered Sam a tight smile. "Saved all our asses again. I don't know how you manage it, Major."
"Colonel."
"Yeah?"
"No," she corrected gently. "I'm a Colonel."
"Promoted are we?" he asked with the tilt of his head and a raised eyebrow.
"It's more complicated than that," came her reply, and Sam tried not to feel guilty about the non-answer.
Jack spared her a questioning glance from where he walked beside her. "Ah. I see."
But she knew he didn't.
The emergency lights snapped off as regular power came back on-line to the rest of the building, and she and Jack continued their walk uninterrupted down the hallway.
Sam followed him, wondering all the while how one was supposed to have a simple conversation with an individual when one knew what it felt like to sleep in that person's arms. The words he would whisper. How his breath felt in her ear. The taste of his tongue. How he knew just how to make her giggle instead of gasp while his hands roamed her body.
She knew she had to tell him about the accident that brought her to this world and destroyed the Sam this Jack O'Neill knew.
The tension coiled low in Sam's belly the very same way it did during preflight and she still – after all this time – couldn't decide if it was from anxiety or anticipation.
A polite touch at her elbow and she was being guided into a spartan, gray-walled office here at Area 51. Stark black letters on the door proclaimed the name Colonel O'Neill.
He offered her a seat.
"No thanks. I'll stand." The words bubbled out more quickly than she'd planned and Jack's head snapped around to look in her direction.
"Should I close the door?" he asked. His voice was low with something akin to concern.
Not trusting her words, Sam nodded, the motion of it jarring her view of the room more than it should. She took a deep breath to dispel the sudden vertigo.
When the sound of the door closing came, it was soft, and Jack stayed just behind her. Sam heard the rustling of cloth, and knew without looking that Jack would be tucking his hands into his pockets to still them.
The sound of a throat clearing quietly behind her caught her attention, and Sam turned.
He stood close enough to touch and passed the inspection; he was her Jack's mirror image. Every hair. Every scar. Sam tried to remind herself he was an entire universe away.
The inter-dimensional bridge that had sucked her into this reality was one-way, she knew that, but until now she hadn't allowed herself to dwell on the things she might have lost forever. Her eyes met Jack's for a moment, hesitating in those chocolate irises with their flecks of gold, but her gaze didn't settle there.
She instead allowed her eyes to roam his features.
His hair was sticking up on top, and Sam knew he would have been running his fingers through his hair nervously while waiting to see if the phase shifting technology would work.
She realized now that he had been Earth's back-up plan. Waiting in the wings, ready to jump in the chair at a moment's notice, ready to deploy the remaining drones as a last-ditch effort to save the planet from the Ori attack.
If her plan to make the planet disappear hadn't worked, they would have been lost. Sam knew this.
Jack knew too. She saw the weight of it in his expression.
His face was drawn -- Jack looked very tired.
Her eyes continued to roam his face, dropping lower, grazing across his chin. There was a day's worth of stubble there, and Sam had to discreetly rub her thumb across the palm of her hand to rid herself of the tactile memory of what it would feel like to caress his roughened jaw.
She watched as his lips parted, his tongue sneaking out to wet his bottom lip before he spoke. "Sam." Her name came across his lips sounding somehow ... broken.
Her eyes darted up to his, registering the openness of his gaze for only a moment before she stepped forward into his space. She felt her expression crumpling, and she swallowed hard against the tears that burned at the back of her throat. She was tired of holding it together. Surely it wouldn't be entirely wrong to seek some small comfort in the arms of a facsimile of the man she loved.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the only two words she wanted to hear, the words that would allow her to fall into his arms for a few moments of safety and warmth in this, the cold and empty universe that wasn't her own.
If he would only say, 'Come here,' in that soft murmured way. She'd dreamed of those words. She wanted to hear them so bad it hurt.
The ache started in her chest, and reached all the way to her toes.
She was alone. Friendless.
Empty and exhausted, she waited, so close to Jack she could feel his breath on her face.
He hesitated, his eyes darting somewhere over her shoulder. When his words finally came, they were emphatic. "I can't."
Sam's eyes shot up from where they'd settled on his lips, certain she'd mis-heard. The pain written in his eyes spelled it out for her. After a few seconds, he seemed to register the fact that her eyes had met his.
His gaze hardened and Jack pulled his eyes away.
Pressing his palms to either side of her shoulders, he moved Sam to the side and pushed past her with a shoulder. The touch was cold and emotionless.
He kept his back to her for a few long moments, leaning one elbow on the back of the chair. "What are you trying to do here, Sam?" he asked. "Why now?" His voice trembled just slightly, belying the strong line of his shoulders.
She was reeling. How could there be a reality without a Sam and Jack? The idea was foreign to her; she and Jack had been together in the other realities into which they'd had a glimpse. And sometime over the past few years, he had become the very foundation of her own reality.
When she answered Jack's question, Sam's voice came out stronger than she'd hoped and she wondered how sound still worked in a universe where the fundamental constants were no longer known. "I'm not your Samantha Carter."
Jack spun around, pressing one hand down flatly on the desk. "You think I don't know that? You haven't been my Sam for a long time. Oh, no ... you've made me abundantly aware of that." His other hand gestured in front of him wildly, emphasizing the acridity of his words.
"I'm not who you think I am. If you'd just listen to me--"
Jack cut her off, his voice like hardened steel. "No, you're not who I thought you were. Three years ago? I was listening. You walked away." He leaned in and gestured at Sam with an extended finger. "You were the one who walked away after what may have been the single most incredible night of my life."
Sam stared mutely at Jack as he struggled to rein in his emotions. His hand clenched and released between them, and he continued speaking, his voice regaining some of its earlier calm.
"I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but no. I can't do this. I mean ..." He paused, his head shaking side to side in obvious disbelief before one hand ran its fingers through his already messy hair. "God, Sam. I'm getting married in a week. You know that."
The world tilted off axis and Samantha was surprised to find she didn't go sliding off into the ether to settle along with all the other lost and disproved theories and adulations.
"Married. Right," she managed to stammer out.
His eyes were searching hers now, his brows knitted together in what would have looked like anger to anyone who didn't know Jack well. "The world almost ended today," he said. "And you know what? I'm glad it didn't." He swallowed, and Sam could see him hesitating, but he said it anyway, his voice going soft as the words tumbled out. "Because I'm happy now, Carter."
Her breath came short. There were no words.
So this was what it felt like to live in a world without her Jack O'Neill.
Jack inhaled deeply, wiped a hand roughly across his face in an expression of exhaustion, and when he met Sam's eyes again his coffee-colored gaze was absent its previous harshness, instead harboring a professional look of unimpassioned kindness.
That single look hurt more than all of his words put together.
"C'mon," Jack offered, hand stretched toward the office's only door. "I'll walk you out." His gaze was earnest and unflinching, though it hardly met her eyes, and Sam could tell as glad as he was to have said his piece, he couldn't wait to get her off the base.
Binary star systems, once disturbed, can fling one of the stellar bodies away from the event at supersonic speed and Sam found herself empathizing with the runaway stars and their plight.
Sam swallowed thickly and nodded. "Yeah. I should get home."
Jack nodded in hopeful agreement, oblivious to the deeper meaning behind Sam's words. He escorted her to the door, and Sam winced as he snapped off the light switch as they crossed the threshold.
The all-encompassing blackness behind them smacked of finality. The door snicked shut as they walked out and Sam knew the doors to this universe were truly closed to her. The floor of Sam's world had dropped out from beneath her and she was now hurtling through the abject emptiness of space.
She would do whatever it took to get home.
Far away on the other side of that inter-dimensional bridge, somewhere in the distance, she felt it. He was there. A presence pulled at her, and made her believe in the theory of gravitational capture, however unlikely the stellar phenomenon may be. Because she'd lived it.
Jack was waiting.
She was coming home.
Somehow, she would come home.
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The End (?)
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The ficathon prompt was, "AU, Jack is engaged to someone else, how does Sam react to it? Angst."
How could I resist a prompt like that?!
I know I stretched the truth there with this being OUR Sam in the alternate-universe ... but I hope it worked for you. In my mind, in this alternate-universe, Sam and Jack came to be together after Daniel ascended, but Sam panicked and pushed him away, marrying Rodney McKay in her haste to have a 'regular' relationship. And we've all seen what Jack looks like when Sam turns her back on him (SG1's "2010"). Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of backstory going on in my head, but it's not something I want to expound upon because the story is not a happy one.
Thanks for reading!