Desperation

Sam sat at the small counter watching as the coffee dripped slowly off her spoon. Again and Again. It seemed to her as if she had been sitting right here on this stool for days. In reality--‘reality’ what an awful word that had become—she had been here almost every day since they had discarded her in front of her new apartment building. Everyday for the last 100 days she had come in this very diner just to get out of her apartment for a while.

Sam had never been this depressed or desperate before in her life. Not even when her mother died when she was just fourteen and life as she had known it completely changed. Her father seemed to disconnect from her and her brother Mark. Losing her mother had been the most difficult thing in her life until this happened.

Everything changed in minutes after her mom’s death and she had not known if she could make it through her early life without her mom’s care, love, and friendship. Her dad had not stepped up to take care of her and Mark, so they had learned to make do. But it had changed Samantha, made her close up unable to express herself completely to those she loved; always afraid of being rejected.

That was until she joined SG1 and met the other members of her team and a few others who worked at the SGC. They had become her family and they had helped Sam to be more like the young girl she had been before her terrible loss of her mother. She had even learned to love – really love her husband, Jack O’Neill. And he had loved her back she thought maybe even more than she’d loved him; because he had been able to let her become engaged to another man simply because he wanted her to be happy. Something she could not have done. She’d panicked when she realized that Jack was only dating someone even though she had been engaged at the time.

Thinking of Jack made the tears that were never far fill her eyes. Sam took several deep breaths trying to collect herself. But now when she thought of him the first image that came to her mind was the face of the man filled with scorn and hate, the face of the Jack O’Neill that lived now, the face of that Jack O’Neill just before he walked out on her, Daniel and Cameron in the infirmary of the submarine that rescued them from the Artic Ice.

Not her Jack. Her Jack was gone. Dead. That was the second image that came to her mind and it planted itself just as firmly into her mind’s eye as the angry man who had erupted at Daniel’s explanation of who their Jack O’Neill was. She had not missed the scorn or the hate-filled eyes. She’d also heard what he said to the guards outside the infirmary.

Tears broke and trailed down her cheeks although not one sound came from her. Sam had mourned and mourned hard. She’d lost everything. Everything. This couldn’t even compare to the loss of her mother. It made her mother’s and father’s deaths seem like nothing; because now she had nothing. Not even her own name!

No Jack!

No husband.

No Cassie.

No friends.

No job that she loved.

No future.

Not even her own name!  She was someone she didn't know.  Not Sam.  Not Samantha.  Not Carter. 

She couldn’t get past any of it yet. And she so worried over Daniel, and Cameron, but Cam had a way about him—he was so like her Jack—he’d make it though this easier than she or Daniel. She knew Cam would be telling stories of his gram-maw to every one who’d listen.

But Daniel was a different story. Sam loved Daniel more than her own blood brother. She and Daniel had leaned on one another for so long. Daniel had quickly got under her skin, even before Jack, but in a completely different way. She’d grieved with him at the loss of Sha’re and Janet. They were both geeks in their own right and had a lot in common.

Now he was alone, injured and having to learn to cope without any of his friends. She knew he would also be grieving for Jack’s death and the loss of his dear Vala, and Teal’c and herself as well as Cam in his life. So her tears were split. Sometimes they fell purely selfishly for her own losses and sometimes they were for Daniel’s losses born out of much worry for him and not being able to talk to him.

She knew if she tried to contact Daniel, and she knew that she could go through the back door and find him if she tried, that they would stop her before she could get to him. Maybe even put her in prison for breach of her confidentiality agreement. Or worse they would stop taking care of Daniel. She knew with his injuries he needed their help much more than her.

Sometimes she cried for her loss of Cassie and Teal’c. It was so hard, maybe harder that she could cope. Not having Jack to come home too…. Sharp pains ran through her chest. They were as real as this diner. She understood how people died of grief.

100 days. Stranded…. …100 days since they unceremoniously dropped her off in front of her empty apartment building to an empty life. She knew she’d never be able to look at the face of her beloved husband again and she also knew she’d never want to look at the face of this timeline’s Jack O’Neill again. Her heart had more than enough cracks in it from that experience. That was one face she wanted to forget because it had a way of replacing the face of her wonderful beloved Jack. Her own loving husband.

She was stranded in a timeline that she absolutely hated. Words could not explain her despair and pain. 100 days. Funny that she would remember that the 100th day was such a symbolic number of days, especially since it had not come from any of her own experiences but her husband’s.

They had expected her to find work, but they had taken any possibility of the kind of work she loved away. She was supposed to find something outside her own fields of expertise. She couldn’t even teach for God’s sake! Every job interview she had blown because she didn’t have a clue as how to do the things that her resume stated she did. So every question the interviewer asked about her previous experience fell on death and dumb ears. She had no answers. After a couple of months of that Sam just stopped looking for work. She knew they would stop her allowances soon if she didn’t learn to take care of herself, but she really didn’t care. She wished she had died on that frozen ship. She had no will to live like this.

And she was so tried of people stopping her or looking at her in that way they all had. She was beginning to really feel like a ghost. Her own ghost, only that Sam had been happy. She had belonged here. She was respected and loved here. Something she’d already realized she would never be again.

This was the 100th day here in this city. She remembered Jack trying to explain to her about Edora and 100 days of mourning and then just like magic he was supposed to be over his grief, be able to put it behind him and move on with his life. That’s the way Jack had explained the ways of the Edorans. Laira used this period of time to help Jack learn to live with being stranding on Edora. She had let him grieve that long then she had simply shown him how much she loved him.

Sam never forgot Laira and until now she had secretly hated her. Now she understood. Jack made the comment to her long after they were married that Laira had kept him alive. If not for her he’d have grieved himself to death or killed himself trying to dig up the gate that had been buried so deep.

Until now Sam had secretly harbored that deep seated anger at Jack for giving up and trying to move on. Now for the first time she completely forgave him for Laira. Sure, she’d told him that she understood at the time it happened when he explained to her and again when they ‘cleared the air’ of all things they thought could come back to bite them in the ass when they first decided to be together.

But she’d never really let that little bit of anger go, because she couldn’t understand how he could have possibly thought she wouldn’t come for him some way somehow. She had reasoned that he had no ties to her and that he was free to commit to anyone back then. But she had loved him deeply and it had hurt her when she heard Jack ask Laira to come back with him. It had caused Sam to lock up her feelings so tight that they didn’t surface again for a long time. Not even for him.

But now she was truly glad that he’d found Laira, because she loved him too much for him to feel like this. Completely and totally alone. It was far worse than death. Death. Jack was dead. That thought brought back the anguish and grief full force.

She dripped the coffee off her spoon and thought of ways she could end this. She would too, but somewhere in the back of her mind the thoughts of Baal lingered. If there was some way she could she intended to make him pay for Jack’s death and all the anguish he had somehow caused her and the rest of her team.

She knew they would need her if –no when--Baal attacked Earth in this time line. She lived only for revenge. She had no idea how or what she’d be able to do, but she knew they would need her when the inevitable happened. And she knew Baal would come. She just hoped and prayed that it would be soon.

Sam had visions of Baal’s death mixed with her periods of terrible grief. She would take such pleasure in his death and she just prayed that she would be able to watch. Then and only then would she possibly be able to move on in this timeline. God, she understood Teal’c and that Jaffa revenge. It was the catalyst that keep her alive, that kept her grieving and for her at this time feeling pain was at least feeling something.

She paid for her dinner and walked back toward her apartment. She would go to bed and dream of Jack and of Baal. Both dreams thrilled her.