Creek Mountain, Colorado, 1992.
There had always been something easy about being perfect at everything for Samantha Carter. Something easy about being where she was wanted, being who others wanted her to be rather than being herself.
When you paid close attention, the perfect soldier never needed to think: others always did it for her. They ordered and dictated her life while promising her a great career as if to justify all the demands.
Sam had made this strategic choice very early in her life. It had been her first fallback solution after her mother's death. Because everything was a strategy for her. Being the one her father needed was only the logical next step after her brother left, and becoming the perfect soldier in the U.S. Air Force was just another fallback and survival strategy, especially after the day she lost trust in men.
She could have hated her father until the end of her days, but becoming the perfect little girl was easier; less painful. And truth to be told, she had always been fascinated by how he never asked questions the night she came home with torn clothes and a dazed look. As if hearing the truth would have forced him to accept it.
Her life was defined, drawn out for her; her thoughts were under control since her brain was constantly occupied. The survival instinct was a brain's reaction to protect itself from certain things that weren't always the most logical. She had read this one evening in a magazine her father had left lying around.
With such logic guiding her daily life, Lieutenant Carter found herself summoned to General West's office. A man whose attitude she hadn't liked from the first moment she saw him, but she would never have expressed that either.
The words "national security," "important mission," "necessary for the country," and "Stargate" were mentioned. Sam immediately understood them as a "total mess," "suicide mission," "few soldiers qualified for it," and "ticket out."
Of course, she accepted.
They could have asked her to jump off a bridge wearing Russia's colors and she would have accepted anyway.
And she was well aware that it was easier for them to send a lieutenant fresh out of the Academy on a suicide mission than to risk sending and losing too many higher-ranked officers. Because it was so much easier to be the perfect soldier that everyone wanted rather than to accept that she had been lost in her own life for over ten years, even though she was only twenty-four. Always easier than accepting that she had never been able to take a real breath for years, as if a weight had settled on her chest for the rest of her days.
She found herself assigned to a certain Colonel O'Neill's team. The man was taciturn, his features marked by an internal battle that seemed to be winning, and with a natural authority that was reassuring to her. She wouldn't need to think: he would do it for her. And if she had to be honest with herself – which she rarely did – she found herself immediately attracted. The piercing brown eyes, the natural authority, or his powerful hands, Sam couldn't say what had intrigued her first.
Colonel Jonathan O'Neill was sixteen years her senior, had seen more things than she could probably imagine. She suspected that if he was leading this suicide mission, he too had no issues with the idea of not coming back. If she had questions when she saw his wedding ring, she didn't voice them. The perfect soldier didn't ask questions.
Yet, she felt that electric current pass between them the moment he laid eyes on her for the first time.
Daniel Jackson had been the second encounter that probably changed something in her life. The endless scientific discussions occupied her mind in the sweetest way, but if she were to be honest, Sam would admit that it was the man himself who caught her attention. The glasses, the messy hair, and the constantly dazed look, Daniel reminded her of her brother. The brother she had back when their home resembled a typical American family.
As typical as military families could be, at least. And she had this urge to protect him throughout their mission like an older sister would want to protect her little brother.
For hours, the perfect soldier Carter had worked tirelessly on setting up the computer program that could operate the Stargate, savoring the proud looks from her superiors. What she hadn't anticipated, however, was the sensation she felt the first time the gate activated before her: that irrepressible urge to jump into the void, that tiny possibility of finally ending this sad existence.
On Abydos, the overblown reactions from the team members when they finally understood that Daniel wasn't able to provide them with a return ticket indicated to her that she was the only one who knew the true nature of this mission. She looked at O'Neill, raising an eyebrow, and he responded with a shrug. Two suicidal soldiers on the same team were already a lot, what more could he have said? O'Neill stared at her a few seconds longer than necessary, and a new shiver ran through her.
Had she been a little more naive, she would have taken it for desire.
Sam let the men set up the camp, unwilling to spend time near them now that they realized they were stuck on this planet: the lewd propositions wouldn't be long in coming, and she would have been bothered to find herself opening fire on one of her comrades.
Instead, Sam followed the colonel into the depths of the pyramid and stopped next to him as he performed a final check on the bomb. Why had she followed him? She didn't know. Something about him attracted her. And after all, they had come here to die, hadn't they? They didn't exchange a word for many minutes, but Sam busied herself helping with the checks, recalibrating a parameter on the bomb with disconcerting ease.
"How old are you, Lieutenant?" O'Neill finally asked, probably tired of the silence. Initially skeptical of her presence, he found himself captivated by the young woman's intelligence and determination. Her blonde hair framed her delicate face, and her blue eyes shone with a light he had seen in only one other place: his own. It was a dangerous light, that of a soldier who has nothing left to lose but their own life.
Sam locked her blue eyes on his, surprised by the question. She raised an eyebrow again but didn't take long to respond. Even on the other side of the galaxy, the perfect soldier could not fail. "24, Sir." She glanced around them before asking in turn, "Is that a problem?"
Jack quickly looked her over, admiring her regal bearing and the confidence she exuded despite her young age, before refocusing on the nuclear warhead he held in his hands. "No."
If the question had concerned the mission or any attraction between two people who had lost faith in life, they both would have been unable to answer.