Thanks to my readers and reviewers!

SamCarterMcKay: Patience is a virtue... and short chapters mean more chapters!

MissPookamonga: This is scifi! I myself don't understand all of it! I guess Time Travel is supposed to be complicated. I am drawing my knowledge from SG1.

In the previous chapter

Upon seeing how uncomfortable Rodney was, future Sam came to a decision, "I might as well say it now."

Future John snorted at that, "Yeah right! Like you jumping into his arms was not clue enough!"

She sighed at that and spoke no more.

Rodney gulped and tried not to ask but still did, "So, you and I are...?"

Chapter 3

Sam looked up and continued his sentence, trying to detach her feelings from her words, "Married. Yeah. I know everyone on Atlantis thought it was weird. But to us it was very rational. I guess it was supposed to be that way."

John gasped and stood there gaping like a fish. He then turned to his future self who smiled softly in return. The news that Rodney actually got married in the future could be qualified as shocking or unexpected at least. Rodney himself was trying to process the information.

"I…I'm sorry for your loss," Rodney managed to say, weakly.

"I miss you a lot," said the future Sam sadly, glancing at him with tears threatening to come back on her face.

Rodney felt a sudden pain in his chest at the thought of her, well, Sam Carter in general, dying. He tried to repress his usual selfishness and opened up to her.

"I guess wherever I am, I'm missing you very much too," he told her with a kind smile.

She hugged him again and sighed happily in his arms, "This is the best thing that has happened to me since… a while."

Rodney gently tapped her back as she let go of him. He turned to Carter and Sheppard who were looking at him strangely. Carter cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. Addressing their visitors from the future she said, "Let's have you both examined by Doctor Keller and then we will have a debriefing to clear this situation."

After an intense medical check-up involving blood samples, x-rays and DNA tests, Doctor Keller confirmed that their visitors were not replicators and were indeed older versions of Samantha Carter and John Sheppard. With no apparent threat for Atlantis, they both joined the team, including Radek and Colonel Carter in the conference room where the meeting was held.

Colonel Samantha Carter, the commander of Atlantis, had had her fair share of Alternate Realities experiences but seeing her future self was something she couldn't deal with yet, especially seeing how enamored of McKay her older self was. This was not her first experience with time travel, but she had never encountered herself before. Not like this, anyway. She was not supposed to meet herself. To her scientific knowledge, two copies of her body could not exist in the same time and space without having some tragic consequences. However, the present situation proved that once again theories could be wrong or at least they were for now. At the moment, the problem was that by being here those two could change the future of everyone and consequently could cause a lot of damage like their own deaths. How to help them without affecting future events? wondered Sam.

John Sheppard was shifting uneasily under his future self scrutiny. Could he actually see a few grey hairs on his head? That trivial thought helped him to avoid the seriousness of the situation, especially with Ronon and Teyla having asked him endless questions about time travelling prior to the meeting. He was clueless himself. From the little he understood, this situation was a very bad thing and the two Atlantis resident geniuses looked very worried.

Teyla seemed very worried too. Meeting people from the future was an exiting prospect but the atmosphere was definitely not one of happiness. She shared a few questioning looks with Ronon who just sat stoically, before turning to watch Rodney.

Rodney McKay was freaking out. Everyone could see that. He was theorizing and trying to solve some very complex scenarios in his head. Next to him sat a woman he was married to in the future. He had managed to marry Samantha Carter, his long time crush. This was something that only happened in dreams and he wondered if his future would be like this, because if this happened to him, he was a darn lucky bastard. Well, maybe not that lucky since his future self was dead.

Rodney glanced at Carter, his Sam, who was watching her future self with a blank expression on her face. Rodney felt she should be more troubled about the whole ordeal.

"You seem pretty unfazed by all this. We are going to get married in the future! Shouldn't you react to that! You don't think it's weird, crazy, insane?" exclaimed Rodney, hands moving at a very alarming speed.

Samantha Carter sighed, she should have seen it coming. Out of all things that was the first on his mind. Rodney and his never ending questions, his curiosity was something he had plenty of but led him to trouble on many occasions. So let him be the one to point the obvious and try to mess things even more.

"Well, I think I have seen more troubling things then this. I was once transported to a reality where we were divorced but that's not the point," she replied tiredly. "Them being here has already changed the future. So we might not get married at all, which is weird in the first place as you said!"

Rodney gasped upon hearing the word divorced. "What?? We were married in another reality and you never mentioned that to me?" he blurted, clearly outraged by her not telling that piece of information till now.

"I didn't see the point", she answered flatly.

Rodney was trying to think of something cleaver to say. He suddenly thought that they should try to date. Something must have shown on his face because Carter quickly added, "Don't even think about it, McKay!!"

Rodney leaned back in his seat sulking and not willing to look at anyone. To his right future Sam leaned over and patted his hand.

A pang of jealousy…no, well, a very disturbing feeling rang through the present Samantha Carter.

Her future self whispered to Rodney, "Don't worry too much about it. She will change her mind."

Present Sam rolled her eyes at that, "Hmm, should we get started…Colonel…" Sam stopped right there because she didn't know if her future self was a Colonel. "Maybe you should introduce yourself and tell us what happened for you to end up here?"

"Well, you of all people should know I can't tell you about the future." Began future Sam to which Carter replied angrily.

"Maybe you should have thought about that before talking in the first place," she said glaring at her.

The room grew silent at once. The rest of its occupants stopped breathing waiting to see what would happen next. It seemed that the two Carters were having a silent conversation through a series of glares. Of course future Sam had known she had blown it by revealing her relation to Rodney but now there was no going back and her younger self was angry at her for that.

Future Sam decided to make amends by coming back to the point, "I can talk about the device though." She breathed and calmly started telling the rooms inhabitants what she knew, "It was found by … Major Lorne … at the time, and brought back on Atlantis. We had first thought it was Ancient because of the design but the lack of response to the gene led us to stop the research. We had this device in storage for years and we never managed to make it work. However, a few days ago a team discovered the address of a planet where lived a race whose writings were very similar to what was on the device. I personally went to this planet with the team and took the device with me. These people told us that it would change time if someone needed it."

"Is it controlled by emotions? "asked Rodney very enthusiast. "This race managed to create a program answering to emotions?"

"Something like that. The Tollans managed that a long time ago so I guessed other alien races could have achieved the same technological level. When we asked how the device worked they refused to tell us more. They said that only in time of need we would be allowed to use it."

"Really? And they let you keep it without asking anything in return?" said Rodney, his eyes growing wide.

"Yes. And from what we know, this race and these writings are similar to the excerpt we have of …" She stopped wondering if she should mention it but decided it could be helpful, "Well, the Furlings."

A suivre...
A/N: Yes, you did read Furlings. I have been wondering about them for a while and will talk a bit more about them in next chapter.

So what did you think of this chapter? I know... too short!

Please review!