By: Looneybin
Title: Who's Calling?
Time frame: Season 5, about the time of Revelations. I changed the episode in order to sort of meet my storyline. I can't copy the exact script for copyright reasons.
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate, yada yada yada, I say all this obligatory legal mumbo jumbo.
Unless you're touched in the head, anyone knows that you should not shelter under trees or speak on mobile telephones in an electrical storm. It so happens, that Rachel Baird does both these things. When the rain starts pelting down while she is walking through the park, she finds a large tree and sits under it. She pulls out her cell phone and punches in a number. She puts the phone to her ear and says, "Hi Michael! It's Rachel."
Before she can say anything else, a bolt of lightning strikes her. Rachel is killed instantly, but her phone, however, receives a mere zap before flying out of her hand.
There are some questions that will unfortunately never be answered. Who is this Michael? Why did Rachel call him in particular? The solution will never be known. The only thing that is known is that he was the one called and he was a friend.
Anyway, police find her the next day. Her body is taken away and the phone is given back to the phone company, as it does not have any value in their investigations. The people at the phone shop put a new case on it and insert a new SIM card. It is then put back on the market. A woman comes along and purchases it. Her name is Major Samantha Carter.
It is a couple of days since Daniel died. Sam is sitting in her lab. She hasn't been the same since she lost her 'brother' of sorts. She feels as if she is in a constant daydream. Sam is in her lab, typing up a mountainous pile of reports that were due in ages ago. Her new mobile is lying on the bench next to her laptop. She still does not have a clue why in the world she bought it. It is of newer design, with a silver case and tiny blue numbers. The salesman had said that it was second hand but barely used. It had been cheap and her old one was broken so she had bought it without too much question. Sam's eyes are drooping shut. Her head rests on her arms and she falls into a light sleep. Then, an electronic noise wakes her up. It is her cell phone. She is confused. She has only given her new number to her friends and they are on base. Sam picks it up and presses the answer button.
"Hello?" she says.
"Hi!" says the person on the other line. "I was wondering if you could give my wife a message for me. Tell her that the bracelet I gave to her under her desk."
"Wha...?" Sam shakes her head. "Who the hell is this?"
The man on the other end of the line seems mildly surprised. "Oh! My name is Rhys Hopkins. My wife is Lieutenant Linda Hopkins. Please deliver this message."
With this, the man hangs up. Sam takes the phone away from her ear and stares at it for a little while.
She has no idea of what to make of this situation, so she finds Lieutenant Hopkins.
"Your husband called me and said to tell you that the bracelet he gave you is under your desk," she says.
Hopkins glares at Sam. "Is this some kind of joke, ma'am?" Hopkins brushes past Sam and strides off, glancing back ather for a moment.
Sam has no idea what she did wrong. She goes back to her lab and pulls up the 'find' screen on her computer. She types in, Hopkins, Lieutenant Linda. The screen shows the woman she was just talking to.
Name: Hopkins, Linda
Rank: Lieutenant
Relatives: Mum and Dad Joe and Christine Bakgam'on, Sister Jessica Bakgam'on, husband Rhys Hopkins (deceased)
The last word takes Sam by surprise. She just manages to suppress a gasp before it escaped her lips. She closes the window quickly, not wishing to see those words any longer. Sam curls her hand into a fist and whacks her head as hard as she possibly can. She gets up from the computer and decides to take a trip to the commissary for some blue Jell-o.
She shuffles out of her lab and into the corridor, a whole heap of questions spinning endlessly in her mind. Sam is so lost in her thoughts that she collides head on with someone.
"Sorry," she mumbles. The person she had walked into was Lieutenant Hopkins. Sam tries to continue, however, Hopkins holds her up.
"How did you know?" she asks. Sam looks confused so she holds up her wrist. There is a beautiful gold bracelet attached to it. "It was just where you said it was. I don't know how you knew." She stops for a moment and sighs. "I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks." She turns and walks away.
Sam, given up on the idea of blue Jell-o, goes back to her lab and continues her report writing. Her cellular phone rings again. She picks it up.
"Hello?" she asks carefully.
"Hi! I am Emily. I believe you know a Sergeant Siler? I am his sister. I would like you to tell him that his book entitled'Backgammon: APlaying History'is beneath his report on the Stargate dialling computer."
Sam takes the phone away from her ear and stares at it. How the hell does this woman know about the Stargate? The woman on the other phone is still speaking as though everyone knows about the Stargate Program.
"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hellooo? OK!Tell him immediately, thanks." The woman hangs up and leaves Sam sitting there. She goes and tells Siler the message. He too displays the same reactions as Hopkins. But he comes to her a little while later telling her that the book was exactly where she said it would be.
Sam tries to go back to her report writing, but is disturbed by receiving phone calls from the dead relatives or friends of base personnel, asking her to deliver their loved ones messages. Sam obeys, and in each case they found their lost belongings in the exact place that she had told them.
She puts the phone down and heads to Daniel's office, hoping that being there might give her help her. Once there, she looks around his lab. Sam spies his glasses lying on what looks to be some sort of diary.
"Whaddo I do Daniel? You would have known, and now you're gone." she says, sounding like she is about to cry and tears in her eyes. Sam picks up Daniel's glasses and looks through them. She puts them back down on the diary and turns to see General Hammond standing in the doorway. "Major."
"Sir!"
Hammond walks in. "I just wanted to inform you that Colonel O'Neill requests that you remain on active duty while we try to find a replacement for Doctor Jackson"
Sam sniffs. "So what are we supposed to do? Keep working like nothing happened?"
"I understand how you feel," says Hammond, looking down and avoiding her eyes.
"With all due respect, sir, I don't even know how I feel," Sam says, her eyes bloodshot and wet. "We didn't even have a memorial service."
Hammond puts on his best reasoning face. "We're not even sure if he's dead."
Sam is getting annoyed. "And that is the problem! What are we supposed to do sir? Wait and hope that he comes back, or...just move on?"
Hammond walks over to her and says, "When I was in Vietnam, I saw my best friend shot down. I know he lived; I saw his chute open. But I never found out what happened to him."
Sam has tears streaming down her face. "So what did you do?"
Hammond collapses back into soldier mode. "I learned to live with it."
He walks out, leaving Sam all by herself. She suddenly realizes something. She hasn't got a call from Daniel. Which means either a) he can't call her on her 'Dead Phone' as she named it or b) he isn't dead. Whatever the answers are, she half walks, half jogs out of Daniel's office to find Colonel O'Neill.
He is walking down another corridor. Sam catches up to him and says, "Colonel, we need to talk."
O'Neill has obviously been expecting this conversation and replies almost immediately, "I don't want to hear it Carter. This is the job; we lose people all the time." He continues walking down the corridor, his pace quickening.
"But this was Daniel we're talking about." She tries to reason with him. He is unwilling to listen to reason.
"What do want me to do? He's gone! I can't change that." O'Neill walks away before she can say anything more. Sam sighs, turns and walks back the other direction. She does not go back to her lab. She goes to the locker room, sheds her green SGC uniform jacket and replaces it with a black leather one. She grabs the keys to her Harley Davidson and heads to the surface. Sam puts on her helmets, jumps on and leaves, heading toward her own house where she can grieve peacefully.
I'll deal with the punishment later, she thinks to herself.
However, the event transpires that there is a terrible accident on the highway, involving a lorry, an old useless handy van and a Harley Davidson motorbike.
Back at the SGC, a briefing has been called for SG-1's next mission. Not one of the members have seen Sam since she attempted to speak to O'Neill. He opts to go to her lab and see if she's there. On arrival, it is apparent that there is no one there. O'Neill looks around the back of her desk in case she collapsed or fell or something. There was nothing. He goes to leave. But an electronic buzzing stops him. It is Sam's cell phone. Since Sam is not there, he decides to take the liberty of answering it for her. After pressing the answer button, he discovers that Sam herself is on the other end of the line.
"Hi, sir," she says. "It's me."