AN: Hey everyone, this one's a little fluffier, so i hope it's still believable...well as believeable as sg1 can get. Please f/b coz im not sure if anyone will like this one! I think its cute, but maybe fluff is not liked in fanfic world? Im relying on shippers here! FB please!
Ch3. The Domino Effect.
Samantha Carter was not having a good day. In fact, her whole week had been kind of sucky. That's how far gone she was, she was using words like "Sucky." All she wanted to do was relax on her couch with a beer and a nice book on anything but black holes. She picked up a few books, a magazine, an unfinished thesis and threw them each aside within a few seconds of flicking through them indifferently. She stood up, walked around, and sat back down. Sam Carter was absolutely lost.
The phone rang, about half an hour later than she expected.
"Hello?" She yawned in answer, placing the phone between her neck and shoulder, stretching her arms out over her head, trying to release the kinks in her neck.
"Hey, sorry,I meant to call earlier, but then the Joint Chiefs decided they had to speak to me or the world was going to end..." A voice sighed.
"You love getting to say that don't you? For all that stuff about hating politics, you actually like getting to feel important!" She accused.
"Hey, I am important!" He protested.
"You just do it so that all your nieces and nephews can say "My Uncle Jack spoke to the President yesterday! He's so cool!""
"Hey, I am cool!"
"You want me to pick you up from the airport?" She offered, stifling another yawn.
"No, you sound tired. Anyway, I'm getting in a cab now, so talk to me, because if you don't tell me about your week I'm going to have to actually read the report!" She imagined him shuddering.
"And ya know what?" He said irritably, "I think I'm getting soft, because your technobabble seems incresingly hard to understand. I mean,I thoughtI had it for a few years and now...woah."
"Yeah, I guess being around all the other egg heads wasn't really helping me stop babbling."
"They were egg heads?"
"Oh yeah. Even I was beginning to see how annoying it is whenI talk like that!And one of them was a marine!" She shuddered. "kept popping gum in my face. Damn irritating."
"Ew. Bet we weren't together in that reality...although at least then there'd be no technobabble quicksand for me to drown in."
She rolled her eyes, he hadn't become any more subtle in the last few weeks, and to tell the truth, she couldn't deal with anymore changes. She needed to know this was her reality.
But then again, it couldn't hurt to wind him up a little bit.
"Actually no,I was with Jonas Hanson."
"The "Let's get happy with God" Guy?"
"Yep."
"Sam, that's gross."
"The Leader of Home World Security is using words like Gross? Have you been speaking to Cassie?"
"ActuallyI phoned her just beforeI spoke to you. We should invite her round sometime soon. I feel likeI don't get to see her anymore. And after this summer...well,I know she's feeling better, but she needs to know we're around."
"I almost wish she could have seen Janet, but then it could have been harder on her, to say goodbye again." Sam sighed.
"At least she would have got to say goodbye." Jack said simply.
"There are loads of things to talk about, but right now, my head is buzzing with the confusion of it, so I'm going to bed for a few hours. You've got the spare right?"
"Sure. See you soon."
"Yeah."
"Sam..."
"What?" She asked through her yawn.
"...Nothing, I'll talk to you about it later. Love you."
"You too. Bye." She smiled, and walked upstairs, undressing and collapsing onto her bed. It had been a long day, she deserved a few hours. Besides, she had a week's downtime to get her head around things. She fell into a fitful sleep, Martouf's hopeful face swimming into her consciousness as the guilt and want and sadness threatened to overwhelm her.
Samantha Carter slept.
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Samantha Carter awoke. And she was not alone, which was comforting beyond words. She was encircled in someone's arms, and she could feel him breathing on her neck. She tried not to move, she wasn't ready for it to end yet, it was nice to just be for a while.
"I know you're awake." He said wryly, speaking into her shoulder as he pulled her closer.
"I didn't know you were." She whispered back, reluctantly moving, turning over to face him.
"Hi."
"Hi." She smiled back as he kissed her chastly.
"So how you doing? Feeling any better?" He asked.
"Just...weird. I know we've met other alternates before, but seeing people who are dead, who we've loved and lost? It was just... That team with Janet? They had Janet and Martouf, everyone was alive, you were the leader of the base,I was married, pregnant in fact...It's just..."
She stopped and thought for a moment whilst he traced circles on her arm, patiently waiting for her to collect her thoughts.
"I think it was the first timeI was really jealous of another reality." She said slowly. "Is that crazy?"
"I don't think so. None of us were dead, we were all together, and they were fighting the same war as we were, but without half the pain."
"Exactly!" She sighed contentedly, snuggling further under the covers.
"So I'm assuming in that reality you were...married to Marty?" He asked hesitantly, unsure if he was overstepping that boundary. When it came to Jolinar-type stuff, he was never sure if he was allowed to be let in.
And when it came to two Tok'ra who'd been in love longer than he'd been alive, and the leftover feelings his "girlfriend" carried...he wasn't so sure he wanted to.
"Actually no. Apparently we had a long distance relationship, although I'm not sure if across the galaxy counts.
"And then he moved to the SGC to be near me. We lived together for a while, and then..." She smiled slightly, hiding her mouth under the covers, but he could still see her eyes smiling.
"And then?"
"And thenI fell in love with someone else, married him and am having his baby." She grinned, raising a Teal'c-esque eyebrow over the blue duvet cover.
"Hmm...interesting. Any idea who this lucky guy is?" He shuffled a little closer to her.
"I thinkI can take an educated guess." She leant up to kiss him.
"Me too."
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They returned to bed after retrieving coffee and toast from her kitchen.
"Oh yeah! And you know slightly-more evil Carter, she was married..."
"If you tell me she was married to MitchellI am leaving right now!" He said, making to get out of bed, but she pulled him back down.
"No, actuallyI don't know who she got married to, only that it was instead of the stint on Prometheus. She didn't go to R and D...she went on her honeymoon." She said meaningfully, staring at him.
"Oh." He replied softly, playing with the handle of the coffee mug.
"So...?" She asked, trying to get him to understand.
"So...So, whenI dropped you off in Nevada for your first day on the job, and we saw the sign for Vegas..."
"Yeah..." She urged him on.
"And whenI said that thing that we don't talk about because it's embarassing..."
"When you asked me to marry you." She clarified.
"And when you said no..." He continued in the same tone of voice.
"Hey! I did not say no!" She said loudly.
"I think "Jack, I love you andI wishI could say yes" translates into "No" doesn't it?" he half-smiled tiredly.
"No. It translates into "I would give anything to marry you, butI just broke off my second engagement a month ago, we haven't even been on a date yet, and if we get married you won't go to Washington which is where you're meant to be right now!"" She shouted in frustration.
"Oh." He said softly. "Right..."
"And becauseI followed my gut instinct-somethingI learnt from you, by the way-we ended up here, happy, instead of me being desperate, canniving and manipulating myself to save my own ass!"
He stared at her in confusion for a moment.
"Whatever it was you just said,I don't think you learnt it from me."
She sighed and calmed down.
"All I'm saying is, well I've been regretting not taking you up on that offer, and hearing about Janet and Martouf's reality made me regret it even more...butI think it was the right decision." She turned away and grinned.
"For now at least." She looked back at him quickly, grinning as realisation dawned.
"So that means...?"
"It means it's a raincheck, and ask me when we don't have to keep saving the planet every week?" She kissed him quickly.
"Story of our lives." He muttered, smiling none the less.
They stayed like that for a while, quietly lying in bed, her head on his chest in the cliche that they so obviously couldn't help but be; lost in their own thoughts, until Sam was brought out of her reverie.
"I almost kissed Martouf." She blurted out quietly. It was new, this being linked to someone. Having her decisions affect someone else.
"Okay." He shrugged and closed his eyes.
"That's it? No "What the hell?" Or "What are you playing at here Carter?" Or "For crying out loud woman!" She asked puzzled.
"I have never said "woman" in my life. DoI look like a goddamn cave man?"
She softly ran her fingers over the stubble on his unshaven jaw. "Well you were one for a while...then again so was I..."
"Look Sam, in your head, Jolinar or not, you were practically married to the guy for over a hundred years. I'm not jumping for joy here, but you had to save him from himself, then watch him die, then see Lantash die a few months later."
"I guess...But I'm still sorry,I didn't mean to do it,I just went to do it. Kvasir was there to interrupt anyway..."
"At the end of the day, Jolinar loved him, you may have loved him, to an extent you always will. But you happen to be stupid enough to be here with me right now." He raised his eyebrows.
"This is the part where you say it's not stupid, it's the best decision of your life, and I'm better looking than a tok'ra." He promted.
She said nothing.
"Sam?"
"I'm thinking!"
"Carter!" He whined, tickling her ribs under the covers. She wriggled away.
"Okay, Okay! Best decision ever! No contest! None!" She laughed, and he stopped, wrapping his arms back around her.
They were silent again for a moment.
"You know we're being horribly cliche about all this." She said, smiling up knowingly at him.
"What, being happy is a cliche?"
"No, just this..." She gestured at them, the bed, his uniform flung on the chair by her dresser. "The together-ness."
"Well you know, if we're going to do that, we might as well do it right..." He suggested.
She raised an eyebrow warily at him.
"Admit it, sometimes you think I'm alright." He looked at her expectantly, when she let out a sigh of laughter.
"Occasionally, maybe, when you aren't acting like a scoundrel." The words they had heard a million times before, that they had said and laughed at every time Teal'c had insisted on seeing it again.
"Scoundrel? I like the sound of that!" Jack took her hand, and pulled her ever so slightly closer.
"I happen to like nice men." Sam said snootily, turning away from him until he took hold of her chin ever so gently.
"I'm a nice man." He smiled laughingly before kissing her.
Much later, whilst thinking that he quite liked this reality as it was, Jack O'Neill mused out loud.
"I so owe Teal'c!"
And Samantha Carter, safe in the knowledge that her world didn't need saving tonight, proceeded to remind him why.
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AN2The quotes were from star wars the empire strikes back (sooo the best one!) incase no one go that. First ten people to feedback get a cyber donut!