Chapter Text
Prologue
It’s a beautiful summer’s day, the kind where the endless blue sky is reflected on the mirror-like surface of the pond, only disrupted occasionally by ripples as an unsuspecting insect flits along the surface. With sunshine warm on his skin, things seem almost perfect.
Almost.
It’ll be a long time before things are perfect again, if ever, but it’s getting close. It’s been too long since he’s felt this free and relaxed.
He sighs a little, settling further into his chair as his companion studies him from beneath a wide brimmed hat.
"You are happy." His companion states in his usual way.
Jack allows himself a moment to mull over the words, reeling in his fishing line as the colorful plastic float bobs eagerly across the surface. "Content,” he concedes. Not quite happy yet, but possibly getting there.
"It has been a long time.”
Jack doesn't answer as he pulls the hook up. No fish in the lake after all. Still, he had been sure this time...
"It's better now," Jack says once his line is cast again and a fresh bottle of beer opened. "But I don't think it'll ever be the same again."
"No. It will not be," Teal'c agrees. "There is still much to see, O'Neill. Much to live for."
"I know," Jack rolls his eyes at Teal’c’s attempt at pop psychology. "I’m okay now."
He can feel Teal’c’s gaze on him, but continues to stare resolutely at the water. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
Silence ensues as they fish, only to be shattered by the sound of flesh meeting flesh in an angry slap. He looks over at Teal’c, and tries not to grin at Teal'c's expression of distaste.
"Have we not fished enough yet, O'Neill?" The Jaffa asks, using his trousers to wipe the dead mosquito off his hand.
"No," Jack says scornfully, yanking on his fishing line. "We've hardly even started."
"I do not understand what is so pleasurable about fishing, O'Neill."
"Teal'c..." Once upon a time, Jack would have eagerly taken the bait and entered a lengthy debate with Teal’c about the pros and further pros of fishing. Today though, he just wants to fish.
"Dr. Carter also confided in me that she did not enjoy fishing."
He knows the Jaffa is testing the waters, so to speak, but the words still sting. Though the sting of grief is not as sharp as it used to be, the dull ache in his chest is as deep as ever. Jack fights to keep his tone indifferent. "She didn't come for the fishing.”
"Perhaps in time you will also not come solely for fishing.”
"Maybe."
They drop into silence, each lost in their own thoughts, until the harsh shrill of a cell phone shatters the peace around them.
"You didn't." Jack stares at Teal'c in disbelief.
"I did," Teal'c replies calmly, delving into his pack and pulling out what looks suspiciously like Janet Fraiser's old cell phone. He doesn’t answer it, but hands it—still ringing—to Jack with what could be classed as a smug smile on his face, then turns back to his fishing rod.
It’s a beautiful summer’s day, the kind that promises long, lazy summer days still to come, when that single phone call shatters the fragile pretense of peace Jack has only just begun to believe in again.
One
In all the wild dreams, hopes and fantasies he’s entertained over the last year, this scenario has never crossed his mind.
There had been desperate wishing for access to a sarcophagus. Frantic attempts to contact the Nox. Anguished desire to believe it was all a dream, and that his wife hadn’t died. At one point he’d found himself wishing she’d been taken by the Goa’uld, rather than just killed, because then at least there would be some fragment of hope left to cling to.
And some way of understanding her betrayal.
The reality is, Sam isn’t coming back. She’d died, and dead people generally stay dead.
But now, somehow, realities have collided, and there’s a woman in the infirmary who for all intents and purposes is a dead woman returned to life. He finds he can’t drag his eyes from the still figure hooked up to so many monitors and lines; it brings back a rush of terrible and broken images from the last time he saw Sam. She was just as still and pale as the woman is now, and she never opened her eyes again.
Because it’s difficult to draw breath, he finds himself making strange little gasping attempts in time with the hissing of the ventilator.
“She was found in a storage room after an alarm was triggered,” Hammond breaks the silence. “It’s the same storage room where the quantum mirror is kept.”
Jack has vague recollections of a time Daniel went jaunting between realities, and Sam threw around terms like ‘tropical cascade failure’ and ‘forks in the road’ and ‘it’s incredible’. Even though Jack has been living in a science fiction movie for the last three years he’d had a lot of trouble buying the ‘alternate reality’ business back then. The presence of the woman in the isolation room below makes it a little harder to discount the theories.
“What do we know about her?” Jack’s voice sounds a lot steadier to his ears than what he feels. His eyes track the faint rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin hospital gown in an attempt to ground himself.
“Nothing,” Hammond admits as Janet Fraiser joins them on the observation deck. “Dr. Fraiser ran her DNA as soon as we found her. Everything so far indicates this is a Samantha Carter, most likely from another reality.”
“There are some anomalies.”
Jack glances at the doctor, before once again finding his gaze drawn to the subject of their conversation.
“Go on?” Hammond invites.
“There’s a protein marker we can’t place, and the presence of naquadah in her blood, similar to Cassandra.”
“Does that mean she’s a risk?” Hammond asks abruptly.
“I don’t think in the same way Cassandra was, no. I’ve been doing regular scans of her heart and there is no evidence to suggest anything like that is taking place within this woman. Her potassium levels are also remaining stable. I think the differences in her physiology could be explained by the fact that she is from an alternate reality, and we don’t know what she’s been exposed to, or even what technology they may have had access too.”
“What about her injuries, Dr Fraiser?”
“Severe.” It doesn’t escape Jack’s notice that Fraiser’s composure cracks for a brief moment before she gathers herself. “There are several wounds and burns consistent with Goa’uld energy weapons, including a staff weapon blast to her hip and burns to her forehead. Multiple fractures would attest to significant torturing, along with a hemothorax and lacerations to her liver which were likely caused by blunt trauma. To be honest, General, I have no idea how this woman managed to get herself to a quantum mirror and survive with these injuries. Right now she’s in a critical condition, and I don’t know whether she’s going to pull through.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Hammond’s voice is kind, and Fraiser—good soldier that she is—recognizes a dismissal when she hears one. With a polite ‘sir’ and nod of her head she leaves the small observation room.
Jack remains silent, staring down at the stranger wearing his dead wife’s face.
“What do we do, sir?” he asks; the bleak and empty despair that has only just begun to lift from him wraps around his shoulders again, and he struggles to understand what happens now.
“Until we know whether she’ll survive or not, Jack, there’s nothing we can do.”