TITLE: Acquainted with the Night

AUTHOR: 
Aelfgyfu

RATING: PG-13 (language)

CATEGORIES: drama, angst, missing scenes, epilogue

SUMMARY: Why can't the alternate universe ever be nicer than one's own? Missing scenes from "The Road Not Taken" and epilogue for "The Shroud"

SPOILERS: "The Road Not Taken" and "The Shroud"; scattered references to many episodes before those

WARNINGS: some bad language; more Rodney McKay than you might expect (or want)

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks once again to Redbyrd and to my Brilliant Husband for close readings, catching errors, and making many great suggestions. Remaining errors are solely mine (except for those that actually appeared on screen during the episodes, for which I take no credit).

DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters belong to Gekko, MGM-UA, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, Stargate SG-1 Prod. Ltd. Partnership, and probably other persons or entities whom I've forgotten. No copyright infringement is intended. In fact, my stories make no sense if you haven't seen the shows, so I encourage you to watch! And buy all the DVDs! Just like I do!

Acquainted with the Night

by Aelfgyfu

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light....

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And further still at an unearthly height

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night" (from New Hampshire, 1923)

Saving the Earth—the Jack O'Neill in her head added, "Again"—was heady, even if it wasn't her Earth. Sam watched in amazement as a huge yellow-orange flood of light went through them and the lab. She had seen the effects—or lack thereof—of weapons on out-of-phase matter before, but this was pretty damned impressive—more than impressive enough to more than warrant Bill Lee's exclamations.

Then suddenly he was hugging her, and she wasn't entirely sure that was warranted; she fumbled awkwardly, unsure whether to return the hug, and felt a rush of relief when she managed to pry herself loose that almost matched the rush at seeing the weapons fire pass harmlessly through. She knew her reaction was ridiculous. It must still be adrenalin.

It was just too weird to be hugged by a Bill Lee that wasn't her Bill Lee, although being hugged by Dr. Lee would be a little disturbing all by itself. Then other people swarmed all over her, shaking her hand, patting her on the back or shoulder, or occasionally hugging her (though not as enthusiastically as Bill Lee, and for that she was grateful). Some of them she was sure she had never met, but a few were people she had met at her Area 51, and she kept thinking that she really didn't know them at all.... So after a few minutes of congratulations and screams and hugs from strangers, most of whom apparently thought they knew her but called her "Major," she wandered off.

This Area 51 seemed to be arranged much like the one in her own universe. She walked away from the lab she'd been in, away from the whole cluster of labs, a little surprised that no one stopped her. Then she had a thought: they told her Vala was here. Suddenly she thought she ought to see Vala, even though she knew it wasn't her Vala—and she thought at the same moment how odd it was to be thinking of Vala as hers; even though they went shopping together and chuckled about "the boys" behind their backs (and sometimes to their faces), Sam didn't feel the other woman had entirely let her in. That was only fair, because she hadn't entirely let Vala in, either.

The day could hardly get any weirder, though, and Sam kept thinking about Vala. If she hadn't managed to escape yet—and if she had, she hadn't left Earth, and they'd apparently gotten her back—she must be bored out of her mind.

Sam concocted an excuse about needing information on alien technology, but then she didn't even need it; she smiled, waved her ID, and was allowed in by guards who were so relieved to be alive they probably would have given her their keys and their wallets if she'd asked.

One of the guards went back with Sam to open the outer door to the first cell.

"Hello!" she said brightly as she came in the room and recognized the woman lying on her back on the narrow bunk. There was no chair to pull up to the bars, but Sam knew she couldn't stay long. She walked up to the bars and waited for Vala to get up.

Vala turned her head as little as she could and still see Sam. Then she resumed staring at the ceiling.

"Vala?" she asked, realizing that this universe's Major Carter might not have met this Vala. "Do you recognize me?"

Vala turned her head again, this time studying her. "No," she answered flatly.

Sam shifted her weight uneasily. Yes, this was probably a mistake. But she wasn't doing this for herself; Vala must be going stir crazy here. "Well, I know you. Sort of," she smiled apologetically, realizing that she couldn't tell Vala the truth. "Let's say we have a mutual friend."

"Oh? And who would that be?" Vala looked bored, but she was watching Sam very closely through those half-closed eyes. Her voice sounded low and tired.

"Daniel Jackson," Sam tried.

Vala shook her head. "Is he one of the guards? Some of them think we're friends." She made the word sound nasty.

Were things that different here? "Daniel Jackson," she repeated. "He's the reason you came here! With your tablet!"

"I came here," Vala answered, "with my tablet, because the individual from whom I received it told me that it referred to a treasure on your godforsaken planet." Her voice was cold until she injected venom into the last two words. Sam stepped further back as Vala slowly sat up. "It took weeks to find someone from your planet. They took me back, with my tablet and my offers to cut them in on my find, and then they imprisoned me."

"You never talked to Daniel?"

"Well, I did if he's one of the scum that locked me up," the other woman said. "And I know they found my treasure, because occasionally they come and ask me how to use something they found, but all my attempts to cooperate have gotten me...nothing."

She walked slowly to the bars. Sam was glad she wasn't standing right up against them anymore. This Vala looked older, oddly, and more tired, and even thinner. Her tone chilled Sam.

"So if you're here to ask for my help, you can—"

Sam held up her hands. "I just came here to talk. I'm sorry. I guess...there was some kind of misunderstanding. I just thought you'd been locked up here—God, a year and a half?—and I thought you might want to talk to someone...."

Vala laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. It was downright creepy. "Oh, I've talked. I've talked and talked. I've offered information, made deals—I've earned myself desserts now! As if I wanted any of that gonach you consider food."

If she wasn't being missed, Sam decided, she damn well ought to be. She backed away, feeling for the door.

"So what did you come here to talk about? The weather? Can't see or feel it in here. Fashion? I could use some new clothes. When I'll be freed—as I was once promised?" Bitter anger flowed freely again at the end. "You people have told me you're fighting the Goa'uld. At least the Goa'uld, when they finished with you, would either let you go or end it!"

Sam practically dove through the door, nearly bumping into both guards; it looked like they'd been trying to decide whether to come in.

"Sorry, ma'am," one apologized. "I guess I should have told you not to go in there. She's a nasty piece of work."

Sam tried to smile a little. "I thought...I thought she was someone I met somewhere else. Off world," she added hastily. "But I guess I just...the name sounded similar."

They nodded and let her out of the cell area.

Sam wandered the labs some more, hoping to avoid people. She could feel her cheeks burning. Embarrassed? Why? Those guards hadn't seen anything. She hadn't done anything wrong.

Except maybe she had. She had told herself she'd do something nice for Vala, but what she really wanted was to see the Vala who had become her friend, who said outrageous things and made her laugh. The Vala who insisted that they would find Daniel all right, although Vala had witnessed so much evil in the universe, trapped within her own body, even watching it do some of that evil. A Vala who might encourage Sam to believe she could find a way home.

And Sam hadn't even realized what she really wanted until she didn't get it.

Far too soon Sam found herself back among cheering personnel, one of whom said, "We thought we lost you for a bit there!" and she didn't have to work hard to bring a smile because, after all, she had just saved the Earth, and maybe made Major Carter's death worth something.

***

Too keyed up to sleep, Sam managed to find her own equipment and set to work with her laptop. No one was asking her for anything at the moment, so she could finally return to her own quest. She had to reconstruct Rodney McKay's bridge between universes. If McKay could do it, surely she could too. She cursed herself for not having more data on the project, and then she cursed the laptop for not having more memory so that she could have put more data on it.

Suddenly someone was telling her that the President wanted her back at the SGC, and she saved and shut down everything, and then she was flying back to the mountain in a helicopter.

On the way, everyone kept thanking her, from her departure all the way into Cheyenne Mountain. People she was certain she had never met in any universe all thanked her. Everyone seemed to want to touch her. She was overwhelmed. She just wanted to sleep now, and then wake up and get home.

Landry thanked her and walked her down a hallway, towards the Gateroom. She didn't know why, but she did find some comfort in the familiar voice. His assurance that she'd "figure it out" gave her a moment of hope.

Then she was in front of a mob of reporters—or maybe it wasn't so many, but they were awfully loud and demanding—and she could remember to smile or she could talk, but she couldn't manage both at the same time, and she was so glad to be alone when they took her back to a VIP room to sleep that she managed to fall asleep without thinking too much about how really alone she was.

She woke up with that thought uppermost, however, not even enjoying the moment of peace she often found just before she realized that she was asleep on a strange planet. No, this time she woke up knowing right away that everything was wrong. Without an immediate crisis, she had to face the reality that she was stranded.

Of course, maybe she woke up knowing that everything was wrong because someone was knocking at her door. She answered it and found an airman; he had been sent to bring food and to tell her that she had a soirée to attend, so could she please pick some things out for tonight, and she was too surprised both at her presence being required and at an airman using the word "soirée" to ask too many questions. Such as why she was being given some dresses to try on instead of dress blues. She realized she had gotten back late at night, or very early in the morning, and had slept into the early afternoon.

She ate a salad, picked at a sandwich, and then made herself go through the dresses. Going shopping was fun, especially with a friend.... Picking from a pile of clothes brought to her in a small room with a tiny mirror while wishing she could just go home was not.

Left alone with the clothes, Sam momentarily wondered if this Samantha Carter was a civilian. Then she remembered that this Carter was Major Carter; she must still be exhausted to have forgotten. Major Carter, a woman taking an even slower path to promotion than Sam herself had. Not, as in those universes, a civilian. Not, as in those universes, married to Jack O'Neill.

Jack O'Neill. She hadn't thought to ask about him when she asked after the rest of SG-1; she asked later, when she met George Hammond and wondered how Lorne got to be the head of his flagship team while still a major. She wished she hadn't asked. Until that moment, she could imagine that the man she knew as general had received a similar promotion here, even if he hadn't taken Hammond's place, or at least that his knees had landed him a desk job. But instead, she learned that he'd never been promoted to general, that he died in the field not too long after Thor had revived him.... Why did she have to ask anyway? Well, no dumber than trying to talk to Vala. She struggled into a dress.

Sometimes she had wondered if the other Sams married to the other Jacks meant she should have taken that path too. She felt—well, damn it, safe with him. As Hallucination Jack O'Neill had told her when she had that head injury on the Prometheus. But God, he had to be better than McKay! She snorted and managed to get the dress on more or less correctly.

Crap, why had she even tried on this hideous green dress? Next! Where they hell did they get this stuff? The black dress looked like something she might actually buy for herself, even if she never had occasion to wear such things anymore, but the green dress looked like it had run away from a prom—in embarrassment. Surely these weren't Major Sam Carter's clothes? Or did the woman have as good taste in clothes as she did in men?

Sam could focus. She could focus on finding things that matched. Simple. She could do it without even thinking about the last time she'd really enjoyed dressing up, without thinking about Pete Shanahan, without wondering if they could have managed to work things out—without wondering if Fifth's scenario of her living out a life full of Pete and empty of the Stargate Program had helped to scare her out of what might have been a happy marriage.

Okay, she could get dressed without thinking about Jack, or Pete, but she wasn't doing it. The black dress was much better, though it felt strange to be wearing it to pretend to be Major Carter. Also on the cart were shoes to match the selection of dresses, a little evening purse, and assorted accessories.

She dropped a strand of pearls and tried again. The silver necklace and the silver bracelets. There. That should do it.

A few more minutes to do some makeup. It was all so disorienting, like home but not like home. Uncanny. Unheimlich. She remembered Daniel and Teal'c discussing Freud's notion of the unheimlich. She couldn't remember why they'd been talking about it. Maybe she'd missed the start of that conversation.

Daniel would probably have found comfort in the term, in being able to identify things and feelings with words. But she couldn't find any comfort there. Once she was alone again, in a limo, she turned on its TV and watched Julia Donovan talk about what had just happened, which only made events seem that much more surreal.

Bill called, and she allowed herself a moment of hope before he told her in a voice that conveyed what had happened before his words did, "The preliminary simulations were a bust. There's just no way we can replicate the conditions that originally brought you here. Not unless we can control the environment on both sides of the bridge."

She sighed and told him she'd be there tomorrow. She would much rather be there tonight. On to the "soirée."

She had barely gotten inside before she was accosted by well-wishers. A man whose name she instantly forgot thanked her "on behalf of the people of the great state of Idaho." She hardly knew what to say.

The man's wife added, "Keep up the good work, dear," as if she were a child in school. Oh, God. What she wouldn't give to have her team here, to smile and say mildly inappropriate things to people's faces and wickedly inappropriate things behind their backs! Of course, Vala might do it the other way round. Sam nearly sighed. She had been to these things before, sometimes with General O'Neill. He made them bearable.

Landry approached. "Enjoying the party?"

Did he understand how awful this was? She kept something resembling a smile on her face as she told him, "Uh...I'm not sure that's exactly the right word, sir."

Yes, she caught a glint of sympathy there—as he ordered her to drink and relax.

"I guess I'm just not used to all the attention," she apologized.

Landry raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "They do things differently where you come from?"

Yes. Where I come from, the Stargate is a secret. "Well, no, it's not just that..." When she had time, she'd ask him how that worked, making it public. Maybe they could learn some things for their own use when they went public—assuming she ever got back. But now wasn't that time. "I feel like an impostor, sir. I mean, these people think that I'm 'Major' Samantha Carter."

Landry chuckled. "That won't be a problem anymore. We're promoting you!"

Something about his tone rubbed her the wrong way. "Uh—yeah. That's not the point, sir."

Landry nodded sympathetically. "People here have been through a lot lately. They need something to believe in. Your timing is impeccable."

Impeccable? That's how he would describe the timing that got this world's Samantha Carter and another scientist killed and ripped her from her own world, her friends?

Suddenly someone burst in shouting. She made out the words the second time he yelled them: "No security without freedom!"

Sam turned to look, and the man continued even as he scuffled with men in suits and Charlie hustled her and Landry out of the way: "We will NOT be silenced by acts of tyranny. Our voices will be heard! No security without freedom! No security...!"

And yet he was silenced: while Sam watched in horror, one of the security men produced a Goa'uld pain stick and used it on the dissident before they dragged him away. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, his body limp—

Suddenly she and Landry were somewhere else.

"Prometheus," Sam realized.

Landry grunted agreement while walking into a room decked out unlike any she'd seen on any of her Earth's fleet. She was both surprised and not surprised to hear a disembodied voice welcoming them to Air Force One.

Sam waited for a moment. Hoping that Landry would ask the voice to start an inquiry into the use of the pain stick, but he didn't. Instead, he offered her a drink.

It was all she could do to maintain some semblance of manners: "No...thank you. Sir, what the hell just happened?"

"My security detail can get a little overprotective. Probably just could've gone out the back way." He poured himself a drink.

Was he really that obtuse, or was he keeping her off balance deliberately? "Uh, I meant the protestor, sir."

He let out a long breath. "Not everyone is happy about some of the compromises we've had to make."

"Compromises like martial law?"

"Believe me, Colonel, I have no desire to go down in history as the man who destroyed civil liberties in America." She could believe him; his voice was heavy. But then he smiled and added, "But I think you'll agree that compared to other Presidents, I've faced some pretty unique challenges."

Now she had Jack O'Neill's voice in her head, distracting her, telling her that "unique" was absolute and could not take modifiers. Oddly, the thought calmed her, kept her from asking if martial law really required Goa'uld pain sticks—and what other alien technology was being used against fellow humans. She tuned out Landry talking about the difficulty of losing a carrier group to a foe they'd never admitted existed, about Russian aggression and Chinese threats, about a possible fifth column here at home.

Eventually Landry noticed that she was barely nodding, and maybe not in the right places, and he allowed her to go back to the SGC and finally get a proper night's sleep. Assuming that she could, in fact, sleep.

***

That assumption was only half right. Sam was tired enough to fall asleep, but not tired enough to stay asleep. She woke up from a nightmare of pain sticks to find it was still what her father always called "oh dark hundred." She missed her father.

That thought sent her sitting bolt upright. In this universe, Jack O'Neill was dead, Landry was president and not general, Hammond was still on active duty—could her father still be alive? She still had Major Samantha Carter's clearance; they'd given her all the necessary key cards and passwords while she worked on their Earth's defenses. She could find that information.

She threw her BDUs back on and practically ran down to the lab belonging to this universe's Carter. She fired up the computer.

The mission reports were bewildering. She expected to find mostly the same missions that she had had over the past few years, but after the attack on Antarctica, nearly all similarity ended. Major Carter had written surprisingly few mission reports after that. SG-1 seemed to be a team in name more than anything else. Her counterpart had spent far more time in the lab than in the field over the past three years.

It was therefore all too easy to find the mission report describing Colonel O'Neill's death, even without really looking for it. As in her universe, they had learned of a secret base that once belonged to Anubis; as in her world, SG-1 had gone there. As in her universe, they'd been trapped in the fortress for days.

When they emerged to find themselves under fire from Ba'al, this Colonel O'Neill had shouted, "Dial it up!" and this Samantha Carter had dialed the SGC, under fire and not taking the time to think that they must have been listed as missing. But in her own universe, General O'Neill had heard their voices and let them through, breaking protocol. In this universe, General Hammond had directed them to dial another planet. And Colonel O'Neill had covered Major Carter while she redialed, and this Samantha Carter had connected to a safe planet only to realize that her Jack had been hit. Teal'c had grabbed him, and the three of them who could still shoot had returned fire while backing onto Cimmeria.

Why not the Alpha Site? Had that already been shut down? Sam had to wonder.

But that thought quickly left her mind. The wording of the report seemed so familiar that she could have written it, except that she wasn't there. The other Sam Carter was there, The Sam Carter who had made the same mistake she and Daniel had in their more forgiving universe—but in this less forgiving one, it had cost Jack O'Neill his life. "Doctor Jackson and I attempted to begin CPR despite the severity of Colonel O'Neill's chest and abdominal wounds from the staff weapons while Teal'c dialed the SGC. A medical team arrived in less than ten minutes. Doctor Brightman pronounced Colonel O'Neill dead shortly thereafter." The report didn't end there. "Dialing the SGC instead of a safe planet during a firefight, after prolonged lack of communication with the SGC, resulted in Colonel O'Neill's death. I accept full responsibility for my failures on this mission. Doctor Jackson and Teal'c behaved admirably under fire and did their utmost to ensure the survival of the full team."

Sam realized she had jammed her fist to her mouth at some point. She stopped reading. What was the point?

Sam tried to tell herself she hadn't killed Jack O'Neill, that it was someone who just happened to have her name and her face—killing someone who looked and no doubt sounded and acted like Jack O'Neill. And she knew her Daniel and Cam would say the same thing, that it wasn't her fault; Teal'c would likely take it as self-evident and say nothing.

But it was just luck that she hadn't killed anyone on the mission to P2X-887, luck that General O'Neill had been heading the SGC at the time and had let them through.

She took her hand away from her mouth. Get over it, she said to herself: you didn't really kill Jack O'Neill, and maybe your father is still alive.

Thank God Major Carter still had access to virtually all mission reports, not just her own, or Sam would have no idea what had been going on here the past three years. Her counterpart had gone on hardly any missions after Jack's death. She could find many technical reports and even theoretical papers, but few mission reports, in her own name.

In her universe, her father's symbiote had died working on the weapon on Dakara. Sam searched for the planet by name. Nothing. She tried the older spelling, Takara, remembering with gratitude a long discourse Daniel had given on the two names, after he descended. Again, nothing. She tried the designation, the Gate symbols; nothing. This SGC knew nothing of Dakara. Nothing.

After only a moment's thought, Sam quickly backtracked and wiped out all traces of her searches. She could not alert them to such a powerful weapon if they didn't already know. That weapon could lead to disaster. Instead, she searched for reports on the Replicators.

This time, she found plenty—and reading it made her blood run cold. In this universe, Hammond refused to allow her—Major Carter, she had to remind herself, not her—near the Replicator version of herself. They distrusted the intel the Replicator had given them, and in the end, they destroyed her, proving that the weapon worked. Very shortly thereafter, a fleet of Replicators, presumably led by Fifth, had appeared—and the weapon seemed to have worked completely.

No further war with the Replicators. Daniel had never been kidnapped and killed by her Replicator double in this universe. So the alternate Sam Carter had killed Jack O'Neill but not Daniel Jackson; Sam had simply done the reverse. The Daniel in this universe hadn't ascended again because he hadn't been murdered by someone wearing her face. All those people who had died fighting Replicators, here and on Dakara, hadn't. The weapon on Dakara was never needed and never found, as far as the SGC knew, at least.

Sam had figured out nearly two years ago what these reports now confirmed. If she hadn't been the one questioning RepliCarter—as she knew most people called it, though no one would say the name to her face—none of those people would have suffered and died. All those lost lives, all that pain and suffering, and then all that internal strife among the Jaffa—none of it had happened. Which meant that in her universe, it really was her fault. Not just Daniel's abduction and murder by her Replicator double, but all of it. If she hadn't made the mistake of trusting the Replicator, everything could have been avoided.

So the weapon on Dakara had never been found, let alone used. No need to tinker with it. Then her father was alive. Presumably.

Suddenly she could hear General O'Neill's Homer Simpson imitation in her head: "D'oh!" She should have simply been looking for Jacob Carter or Selmak. Why hadn't she thought of that? Did she want to wallow in her mistakes? Reading all these mission reports, she felt that she had lost either way: where her double had made mistakes she hadn't, or they had results she hadn't, she felt guilty that some Sam Carter had done it, and she might well have done it herself; where this Sam Carter had avoided mistakes, she felt doubly stupid, because she should have avoided them too.

Time to stop the pity party and get back to work, her dad would say. Searching for his name did turn up a number of reports. She skimmed the dates for the most recent one; that had only been two months ago, but it turned out simply to be a reference to intelligence Jacob Carter and Selmak had previously provided. Back, back, back—there it was, a report that didn't just mention her dad but...oh, God. The last report with multiple occurrences of her name was from the Alpha Site, where they'd been working on the weapon to defeat Anubis's Super Soldiers. The soldiers had attacked the site—Sam stopped reading when she saw that her father had died.

Her dad was gone. Her dad was gone, Jack O'Neill was dead, Teal'c had left, and Daniel was missing. Vala was in jail. God, she needed a drink. Preferably alcoholic; she wished she'd taken Landry up on his repeated offer. But she wouldn't find anything like that on base.

At this point, she would settle for coffee. Sure enough, a coffee maker was right there in her office. She was pretty sure Daniel had a better one, though, and better coffee. She needed more of a break. Would his lab be the same in this universe as it was in her own?

Sam went down a level, nodding to a couple of SFs making the rounds. They smiled in greeting and apparently never even thought to ask her where she was going. She went to the office. It was locked, but her key card would get her in. Indeed, it did.

At first she thought she had the wrong office. She nearly left because there weren't any artifacts, and the shelves only about half full. But there were boxes, lots of them. Sam walked to one shelf of books with an empty box nearby and gasped. Those were Daniel's, all right. She turned back to the boxes and opened the nearest one. Books. It was full of books. Daniel's books.

She continued to check boxes, opening just the ones on the tops of piles, but it was clear enough what was happening here. Daniel had been declared missing, as in her universe—but unlike in her universe, they weren't holding out hope. They were packing up his office. It would doubtless be reassigned—soon, from the looks of it. Then she looked at some other shelves, and engineering books had already replaced some of Daniel's language, linguistics, anthropology, religion, and assorted other titles.

Sam was already out of the office before she remembered the coffee maker. She hadn't seen it. That was probably for the best. She didn't want coffee anymore. Her stomach felt far too sour.

The time had moved from oh dark hundred to bright and early; soon the first shift of the day would be coming on. People would probably look for her. She seemed to be in great demand now. She had better finish what she started, fast.

Sam returned to "her" lab and went back to the computer, running a search on any contact with the Tok'ra since Antarctica. She came up virtually empty. Ties seemed to have been cut—not formally, but no one at the SGC had attempted to contact them in quite some time, and the Tok'ra hadn't contacted the SGC. At least, not according to these records. She was starting to wonder if things were being left out, or if Major Carter didn't have full access. The Tok'ra were major allies. Surely the SGC would want to know their status!

But there was nothing more she could find, at least not from here. What was Teal'c doing now? He had left shortly after Colonel O'Neill's death. In her universe, Daniel had convinced Oma to fight Anubis during an ascension, or near-ascension, that never took place in here. With no Replicators to battle and the weapon on Dakara not found, what was Anubis doing, since he was presumably not trapped in an eternal battle with Oma Desala? Or had something else motivated her to fix her own mess at last?

The files offered no answers. The Super Soldiers suffered some decisive defeats, and then there was no further mention of Anubis. Sam was bewildered. How could that be? Had something else happened? Maybe Oma had decided to fight him on her own initiative? Was he simply waiting a better time to launch a new attack? Were the Jaffa free here, or not?

Bewilderment turned slowly to anger as Sam worked her way through the files. Mission reports again were no help. Various memos and policy statements that Major Carter had received provided a clearer picture. With unrest on Earth, the SGC had pulled back. This SGC had far fewer teams, and, as she had learned, the flagship team was headed only by a major. The Alpha Site and Beta Site had been closed. Contacts with the Jaffa had been severed because the SGC feared being dragged into the Jaffa Rebellion (as if they weren't already involved!); Teal'c had had to make a choice, and he chose to stay with his own people. Contacts with the Tok'ra and Asgard had simply not been pursued.

The SGC had dwindled. Much of its space had been given over to other branches of the military and government; it was pure luck that Daniel's office was the same. A few of the offices and labs on their levels were not SGC space at all, and much of the space above them in the Mountain belonged to other agencies. SG-1 occasionally pursued opportunities to procure weapons or minerals useful for weapons. It was not truly a first-contact team any longer, leaving only one designated first contact/diplomatic team.

The Ori, however, were at least as threatening as in her own universe. How was that possible? Vala had never met Daniel; she had certainly never used the communication device.

Sam quickly opened the earliest file she could find on the Ori. If Daniel hadn't made contact here and the Ori still came, then it wasn't his fault! How relieved he'd be to hear that if they got him back! When they got him back.

The first report, however, had her heart somewhere around her boots. Daniel and an anthropologist whose name Sam dimly recognized, a Doctor Lindsay, had tried the communication device. Lindsay had suffered a heart attack during their experience in the Ori galaxy and never recovered, dying two days later. She started to read Daniel's report, but a familiar guilt burned through his precisely chosen words, and she closed the file and turned away from the monitor.

Sam felt nauseous and realized she really needed to eat, as little as she felt like it. She pasted a smile on her face and made her way to the commissary. Oatmeal. That should quell the burning in her gut. Oatmeal to neutralize the acid, then she could get some coffee. On her way to the commissary, she realized she had a lot more digging to do. If the SGC had been cut badly, resources had presumably been diverted to other branches of the military. And now that the Stargate program was public, its technology could be used on Earth, as she had seen last night.

She had hardly begun eating her oatmeal before Major Lorne sat down opposite her with a grin and a far too cheerful, "Good morning!"

Sam wanted to eat alone, and quickly, and get back to her research. But maybe she could learn some things from him. She returned his greeting.

"So, a busy day with the press?"

She hesitated. "I thought—I hope—a busy day in the lab, with my equipment."

"Oh, yeah." He didn't seem to notice her concern. "I'm sure you'll have time for that, too. I just thought, it must be really exciting making the rounds: receptions, the press, everything. I mean," he added, no doubt reading unhappiness on her face, "I'm sure it will get old soon enough. But you get to meet people, get out of the SGC...."

"How long have you been...?"

He stopped to dig into some eggs and bacon. "Stuck here? We don't really get leave anymore. It's just been one damn thing after another. They were rolling back the program to focus on security on-planet, and then that damned tablet had to come through with some alien bitch, and the next thing you know we've got the Ori in our galaxy, but a whole hell of a lot fewer SGC personnel than we had at our peak."

"But it looks like SG-1 has hardly had any missions!" Sam exclaimed.

Lorne looked surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I read through some of your Sam Carter's mission reports...."

"Oh! Oh, you've been staying on Earth a lot these past couple, few years," he said, again stuffing food into his mouth. "She has, I mean. SG-1...we've rotated some people in and out since Teal'c left. You went on missions where we thought we might get technology, but we left you in the lab for recon missions that were just to find out where the Ori were, gain intel, that sort of thing." He added, a little defensively, "We couldn't risk you! You just saved the whole planet, after all!"

"And Daniel?" she couldn't help but ask. "I...I went to his office for some coffee, and it's being packed up!"

Lorne shrugged. "Space is at a premium. Hey, if we get him back, he'll get his office back, but he's been gone for almost two months! We waited longer than we would for anyone else." He obviously expected this last statement to carry some weight. "Major—Colonel—Sam," he said, leaning forward and putting his fork down. "I want Daniel back too. We need him. But he's been gone so long—we have to face reality. He's probably never coming back. He's either dead or compromised.

"I know we work very differently from the place where you were. But we've been in crisis mode for so long now—"

"That you've forgotten how to live without it?" she snapped. "I saw last night how you deal with protestors."

Lorne's face showed only confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Goa'uld pain sticks? You're using alien technology against our own people!" She kept her voice down, knowing that many in the commissary, which was rapidly filling, did not know she was not their Major Carter.

"It's non-lethal," he said slowly, as if he were trying to see her point. "Beats the hell out of shooting them."

"Why not just let them protest?"

"Sam, where were you last night when you saw the protestors?" It seemed an honest question, but she felt there was something more behind it. She just wasn't sure what.

"At a presidential reception."

"How close to the president does your secret service allow protestors to get?" He was frowning, obviously interested in the answer.

"Well...I guess we probably wouldn't let them into a black-tie reception."

"And where did you see them last night?"

"It was only one."

"Where?" he repeated patiently. "How close to the president?"

Sam lowered her head. He had made his point.

Then she looked him in the eye again. "But pain sticks are torture! They're not...crowd control!" she hissed.

"They are when we use them."

"You've used them?"

He shook his head. He was losing patience. "Not me personally. But I've seen these protestors. Sam, they're nuts! They think we're the enemy!"

"From their point of view, we are the enemy," she told him. "We opened the Stargate. We brought the Goa'uld to attack Earth. And then we brought the Ori, didn't we?"

He nodded, obviously unwillingly. "But you saved the Earth from the Ori, just yesterday, with some help from people who have been with this program for a long time! And people all across the country who made the diversion of energy to Area 51 work. We saved them from the Goa'uld, too! We've brought back all kinds of advances! We've got beaming technology, advanced aircraft, non-lethal weapons...." He was ticking them off on his fingers.

"Did we—you—bring medical advances? Better cultural understanding? Peace?"

The corners of Lorne's mouth quirked a little. "Let me guess: you spend too much time talking to Daniel Jackson in your universe, too."

"I wouldn't say too much!" She shouldn't let that needle her. "He's a member of your team too, right?"

"Yes, he has been. A valuable member," Lorne agreed sadly. "And I'm telling you, I would kill to get him back! Look, Sam, I'm sorry. I don't mean to argue. I just...I don't think you're giving us a fair chance. We don't measure up against what you're used to, and so we must be wrong. But before we had pain sticks, we used tasers on crowds that got out of control. We tried a weapon that hit them with a wave of sound, but that caused permanent hearing damage. With alien tech, we can break up mobs without killing them. Isn't that what your people try to do? But sometimes tasers cause heart attacks. Pain sticks are actually safer. We've had hardly any heart attacks. No lasting damage. Yeah, it hurts—but that just makes sure they don't do it again, right?"

She had her mouth open to reply, but he added, "And don't be fooled. You can call them 'protestors,' but that makes them sound like they have a cause. They're not really for anything. They're just against everything. Especially us." He dug back into his eggs.

"The man last night was calling out for freedom. That doesn't sound like 'against everything,'" she said.

He shrugged. "It's always some excuse."

Well, if he was determined to have the last word, Sam decided, he could have it. She knew the Lorne in her universe hadn't exactly gotten off on the right foot with SG-1; she had first met him on that that mining planet inhabited by the Unas, where Daniel got so upset that they'd moved artifacts without telling him. But from what she'd read and seen herself, Lorne had really come into his own on Atlantis. He was in a position of responsibility, the leader of an important team, and he'd come through on a number of occasions. He was a valuable member of the Atlantis personnel. And if he was a little narrow-minded, well, she'd met a lot worse people in the military.

She kept eating oatmeal mechanically. She'd need food to get through the days to come. She wouldn't allow herself to think in terms of more than days yet, she had already resolved. It might take several, but she would get home. She had to, not only for her own sanity, but because her own Earth needed her. What if the Ori fleet came to her world while she was here?

Alienating the people who already wanted to help her wasn't the best idea. Until her equipment came back from Area 51, there wasn't a whole lot she could do to get home. Maybe she could learn some more about this place where she might have to live for a few days.

"I'm sorry," she said at last. "There's a lot I don't know about your world. It looks like mine, it even has a lot of the same people in it, but—well, you don't seem that different, and General Hammond seems just like mine, but President Landry? In my world, he was a general, and...well, he was very different," she finished lamely.

"Really? He wasn't president?" Lorne straightened in his chair. "I can't imagine anybody else right now, frankly. It does help that he has a lot of military experience. He only retired when he ran for president, I think. Who's your president?"

"Henry Hayes."

Lorne shook his head, then laughed. "Oh! I think he ran, but he didn't get the nomination. I'm not sure, though; I might be thinking of some other guy."

Sam saw her chance. "Hey, do you think I could catch up on newscasts? Recent ones, mostly, to know who's who and what's going on in the world."

"Sure!" He seemed even more eager to cover over their differences than she was. "I can help you get set up to watch some things. That's a good idea. You wouldn't want to make any big goofs when you're talking to reporters."

That was true. Landry firmly maintained that the people needed a hero, and the thought of people coming through from alternate universes was just too scary, so she would have to be Major Samantha Carter a little longer.

Major Samantha Carter. Ex-wife of one Rodney McKay. She kept that in the back of her mind. That connection might prove useful. McKay was a jerk, but he was a brilliant jerk.

***

Major Lorne made good on his offer, finding some media people, probably from the White House portion of the SGC, to give her video of some of the most recent newscasts. He also gave her a box with a stack of hard-copy mission reports. She thanked him sincerely, but she was glad to be left alone.

As intent as she was on her self-assigned mission, when another anonymous airman—or the same one as yesterday?—came a couple of hours later to tell her that she had an appearance to make, she was grateful for the interruption. So far, she had seen little but grief, delivered as if it were good news, with a "patriotic" slant that sickened her. Americans putting down a "fifth column" in their own country. The successful infiltration of a group opposed to President Landry had resulted in scores of arrests of people called "terrorists," though the report did not specify any weapons found with them.

She asked for a dress uniform, but she was told that a dress had been left in her quarters for her. She wondered again why she was being asked to wear civilian clothes. Had this American military been so oppressive on their own soil that a hero had to appear out of uniform so that she wouldn't be too threatening? Or did they want to make her seem more 'feminine' for some reason? At least they had some boots she liked.

She thought she looked pretty good in her dress blues, to tell the truth, but she knew some men didn't agree. She thought back for a moment with a smile to her first meeting with then-Colonel O'Neill. He seemed more comfortable the next time they met; was it because she was out of her dress uniform and in BDUs? Or just because he'd had some time to adjust to the idea of a woman scientist? Or maybe because she was just doing her job instead of insisting she could do it?

The smile left her face as she remembered there was no Colonel or General O'Neill here. If she didn't find a way home, she'd never see him again. Lorne seemed sincere, but God knew if these people were making what she would consider a serious attempt to recover their own Daniel, and Teal'c had been gone for years. Vala wasn't the same person at all. But Cam...he was still around somewhere. She'd have to look him up.

She couldn't help but wonder what Major Sam Carter's role had been in all of this. Had she had anything to do with turning alien weaponry against the people of Earth? Had she helped, or had she argued against it? Or had she just classified it "not my problem"? Sam remembered that journalist who had been killed in front of Jack O'Neill. She knew the Colonel had been deeply troubled, as surely as she had seen him bury it. He felt responsible. But he hadn't been able to do anything. Was this Sam Carter in the same position, or worse?

Sam remembered going through all this before, when what Cam called "SG-1 in Black" came through a rift they opened and tried to steal Atlantis's ZPM. Her teammates had pretty well convinced her that time that that Sam Carter was not this Sam Carter, that Sam made her own moral choices, and better ones. But how many Samantha Carters making the ends justify the means did it take until she recognized that part of herself? She knew she had it; she just wasn't sure how strong it was. In some universes, that part was very strong indeed.

With a few minutes before she had to leave, Sam found herself in front of a screen again, watching new footage with horror. She had to know just how bad things were on this planet.

General Hammond suddenly appeared. "The President's people are looking for you," he told her.

"I was just on my way out," she answered mechanically, still looking at the screen.

"They've been getting a lot of requests from the media for you to do some sit-down interviews," he continued. "Apparently, you've become quite the celebrity." A smile crinkled his face; he was pleased for her.

Sam looked at the man again. She had known General Hammond since she was a girl. He might not be exactly the same man, but he seemed very similar. Maybe he could help her understand what had gone wrong on this Earth.

"Have you seen this?" she asked him, gesturing. "It was an Irish village. It was just bombed by American F-302s."

She expected some of the compassion she had seen from the general over the years. Instead, she heard a defensive, "At the request of the Irish Prime Minister. That 'village,' as you call it, was in fact a training camp for terrorists bent on overthrowing several European governments."

Sam hid her surprise and disappointment. Of course he had to toe the official line. But surely he couldn't be happy about the situation. She walked to the box and tapped the reports. "You know, I've also been going over several mission reports. You abandoned the Alpha Site." She looked closely for signs of regret. "You cut ties with the Jaffa. You pulled back on almost everything!" She hadn't meant to sound so accusing.

"We didn't have a lot of choice! We devoted our full resources to planetary defense!" Now he was upset. Surely his defensiveness came in part from the knowledge she was right?

"Well, that's understandable," she conceded. "But now that the Ori attack has failed, does that mean you'll be getting back out there?" She was afraid to put too much hope into her words, and she couldn't stop the bitterness that spilled out when he told her that the decision hadn't been made: "Of course not. I mean, why be hasty, especially when those 302s are so handy for putting down your political enemies?"

"You know, I understand you're coming to see certain things about this world that you don't like. To tell the truth, we don't much like it either," he said, shaking his head, and Sam desperately wanted to believe him. "But you weren't here for the riots. You didn't see American citizens shooting each other over food, water, and gasoline! Hank Landry brought us back from the brink of chaos!" His voice rose and his jaw tightened.

"That was three years ago!" she shot back.

"The threat is still out there!" he shouted.

"That's the problem! It always will be!" She rushed from the room, cursing her own stupidity even more than Hammond's blindness. That wasn't the way to win support. She was letting her own fears and exhaustion rule her.

She needed to think more carefully about her interactions with people, since she was on her own here. She knew interpersonal relations weren't her strongest suit. What would Daniel have done?

As she waited at the elevator and gave the question some serious thought, she remembered Daniel yelling at people. Daniel yelling at a Jack O'Neill who wanted to take the military way out. Daniel even yelling at Hammond occasionally, maybe kind of like she just had.

Sam relaxed a little. Maybe she had just done what Daniel would have done. He wasn't always right; he wasn't always effective. But he usually outlasted people, and wore them down, and the good ones generally came over to his side. She might need patience, and she wasn't very good at that where people were concerned. This time, though, she had the advantage of being certain she was right. Things didn't have to be this way. Maybe she could give a fresh perspective to those in power.

Or maybe, she thought for just a moment, it was better to be like Vala. To say the things you had to say and not worry what people thought about you. Of course, she couldn't help but think, half the things that came out of Vala's mouth aimed just to keep people off the track, to keep them off balance and prevent them from knowing her too well. She couldn't ever be like Vala. But this SGC could really use a Vala of its own. Maybe not the one Area 51 had in detention, but one more like Sam's friend.

***

Sam couldn't believe a few hours later how relieved she was to be going to see Rodney McKay. But anything was better than what she had just been doing. First she had had to meet with an aide who briefed her on her schedule of appearances and provided what looked like briefing folders. Apparently Lorne's request for news had caused some alarm, and someone, maybe even Landry himself, certainly thought it best that Sam be able to pretend she was from this universe. But the contents weren't quite the briefings she was used to, she discovered as she quickly flipped through. They were talking points, with a little information but very definite slants about how she was supposed to feel about her government (good), the state of the world (dangerous, but under control), the galaxy (very dangerous, good thing we have defense), and the universe (when she got to a folder suggesting that American faith in God—a very Christian God—had saved the planet, she smacked the folders shut and handed them back without a word).

Before she knew it, she was at another press conference, surrounded by reporters who barely seemed able to ask the only kinds of questions she wanted to answer. The aide had tried to drill her on talking points, explaining they didn't want teleprompters because this wasn't a speech but Q&A.

She kept her scientific explanations vague and basic, but even so, most of the press seemed twitchy. Then they all started yelling questions at once: she heard one asking whether she prayed before she threw the switch (switch? Did he imagine a big, Frankenstein's lab type of knife switch?), another asking whether she was seeing anyone (as in hallucinating? was her first thought).

She finally managed to pick out a reasonable question and answer it. "Yes, we can use the device again if we have to."

This was worse than meeting the press in the Gate room. There were far fewer of them there. She tried to keep smiling, but she wanted to hide. More than that, she wanted to get back to her work, and back to her home.

The questions continued. Was it true she would be promoted for this? Was there anyone she'd like to thank? Could the Ori use cloaks or phase-shifting technology and surprise Earth?

"No, we don't believe the Ori ships have either phase-shifting or cloaking capabilities, so we will have warning before another attack, if they try one."

She wasn't keeping up with the questions at all. She looked pleadingly around for help, trying to smile all the same. Then someone right in front of her shouted, "What would your father say? Was he a big influence on your career?" Another reporter picked up the questioning: "Did he help you get your post at the SGC?"

The smile froze on her face, and the questions turned to gibberish. No—they'd already been gibberish, most of them. She just couldn't listen to them any longer. Reading that her father had died here too, just at a different time and in a different way here, had brought her father's death back to her. She'd told General O'Neill that she'd gotten more time with him, that she was okay, and she'd meant it, even. At the time.

At that point the aide who had handed her all the folders announced that Major Carter had answered enough questions for the moment and led her away.

Sam knew she must look dazed. "My father's dead," she told the woman who had pulled her aside.

The aide, whose name she couldn't remember, frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that. Was it recent?"

"Yes—no." Sam felt lost—and stupid. "It's just—it was a, a couple of years ago, but I didn't expect anyone to ask, and...."

The woman nodded with a look of genuine understanding. "It sneaks up on you sometimes. I know. My mother...."

Seeing the aide act human for a moment signaled her that now was her chance. Sam nodded sympathetically but didn't waste time asking about the woman's mother. "I'm...sorry. Look, I need some time.... I need a break. A little time to get away, without handlers, without press...."