String Theory-Complete!
Title: String Theory: An AU Series
Author: Annerb
Summary: Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Classifications: AU, Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Sam/Jack
Rating/Warnings: Mature: violence, language, sexuality
Author’s Note: This story was born of my impulsive decision to claim Sam/Jack in the au100 livejournal challenge, promising to write 100 AU stories. Out of the resulting panic, this series was born. We’ve been given glimpses of Dr. Carters on the show, but I have always been very curious to see how the dynamics between all the characters might evolve with a non-military, non-SG-1 Sam. And then I made a promise to myself not to worry about stylistic consistency, but to instead make every ficlet experimental in some way. Almost two years later, here we are. Special thanks to katcorvi, syxp, holdouttrout, and every one of you who followed this story as I wrote it. I might have abandoned this beast long ago if not for your enthusiasm and support. And now I am pretty sure this is the longest Author’s Note I have ever crafted. Lol. Enjoy!
Ficlet 40- Save You
As Jack and Sam make their way through the village, a young couple approaches them, broad, proud smiles on their faces.
“This way, please,” the young woman says, taking Sam’s arm.
The young man bows as well. “Yes, please, you come.”
Jack catches Sam’s eye, but she just shrugs, willing to go with the flow. After a short walk, they stop in front of a small tent dyed a darker shade of ochre than the others. The young man pulls open the flap, gesturing for them to enter.
“Many blessings,” the woman says.
Jack and Sam step inside, the flap closing shut after them. The tent is quite small, a single lantern hanging from the center post, casting flickering shadows against the cloth walls. Nearly half the space is taken up by a low pallet made of blankets and stacked rushes.
“I guess we’re staying here tonight,” Jack says, spotting their packs off to one side. Someone must have brought them up from the pyramid.
“I hope we didn’t put them out,” Sam says, looking back over her shoulder.
Jack thinks allowing them to stay here is probably seen as a great honor to the young couple.
“Oh,” Sam says, apparently realizing the same thing. “Of course.”
The slightly bitter edge to her voice tells him Apophis is still heavy on her mind.
I wish I could say I did it for Earth or those enslaved Jaffa, but all I was thinking was that I couldn’t survive watching you die. Because even if I failed or it didn’t work, at least I’d be the first to go. I’d never have to see… That’s the bravery you’re asking these people to honor.
He knows she still blames herself for breaking.
“Cozy,” he comments, trying to dispel the strange vibe that seems to fill the small space.
Taking a few more steps into the tent, Sam’s hands lift to unwind the cloth around her shoulders. “I feel like I have sand everywhere,” she says.
“Yeah,” Jack agrees, watching her run fingers through her unbound hair. “Deserts tend to do that.”
It isn’t what he meant to say, and even worse, something of his deep-seated dislike of deserts leaks into his voice and she’s staring at him, her hands frozen mid-motion.
He turns away, trying not to think of grit in his teeth, blinding sand ripping at his face, and the thumping retreat of the helicopter.
Everybody breaks.
Pulling off his jacket, he folds it carefully, feeling the ribbons and awards tugging against the fabric and the choking hold of his tie and carefully buttoned shirt. Dropping down to sit on the floor, he loosens the tie with agitated motions, pulling it up and over his head.
“Jack?” She’s moved across the tent, her eyes still intent on him.
He rolls his shoulders as if to free himself of the unwelcome memory rising to the surface, but it doesn’t help and she’s still staring, so he doesn’t bother to hold the words back. “You asked me once…if I ever broke.”
She stills, like she’s scared the slightest motion on her behalf might chase away the honesty lacing his voice. Then she deliberately squares her shoulders, taking another step.
“I did,” she says, confirming that she still needs to hear the answer.
“Do you remember Cromwell?” he asks.
He watches her try to place the name, the brief flash of horror as she remembers, the man probably most memorable to her for his death in the gaping maw of a black hole. Does she blame herself for that death? Jack never thought to ask her. What a strange circle of guilt the three of them make.
“He was my commanding officer, long before the Stargate Program,” he explains. “During a mission, I was hit by enemy fire. He left me behind.” His hands clench, his nails biting into his palms. “The people who captured me…they’re the kind of people who make a quick death alone in the desert seem…kind. I was their prisoner for four months.”
He doesn’t elaborate, but he knows he doesn’t have to. He can see the possibilities running through her mind, knows none of them are close to horrific enough, but he’s glad of it.
She kneels in front of him, sitting back on her heels. “Show me.”
He pulls her hand beneath the collar of his shirt, feeling her fingers settle on the old scar, tracing it from one end to the other. He can still feel the roughness of the rope sometimes.
“I took the chance when it came.”
There’s a glint of horror in her eyes as she makes the connection, as she realizes what he’d tried to do, but there’s no judgment, just understanding. It’s so much easier to tell her than he imagined. He knows she understands because she’s been there too, now. He wishes none of that had ever happened to her, but he can’t deny that it adds another layer of intimacy to this thing between them.
Never dropping his gaze, Sam tugs at the neck of her own robe, the rough linen sliding down one arm to reveal an angry scar, a starburst of burgundy staining the smooth skin just the above curve of her breast.
“This is the one that broke me,” she says.
He’s read the reports. On an intellectual level he knows what happened to her, but seeing her body, the indelible mark there, impacts him on an entirely different level. His fingers are not entirely steady when they reach out to slide across the scar, tracing the outline.
“Does it still hurt?” he asks.
She considers the question for a moment, biting her lower lip. “Only in my head,” she explains.
“Yeah,” Jack says, because he understands how the body can heal but the mind can still convince itself it never will.
Her fingers move to the sash at her waist, slipping the knot free. She lets the fabric fall open, revealing three more dark patches down her torso. She bypasses all of them, instead running one finger along a faint line at the bottom of her stomach. “This is where...,” and she can’t finish, her eyes dropping to the floor.
He touches the thin scar and she looks up at him with unapologetically raw sincerity, his chest constricting painfully. There are some things he knows can never be fixed, but she isn’t asking him to.
She reaches for his shirt, the barest moment of hesitation, as if giving him time to stop her, but Jack doesn’t move, sitting quietly as her fingers release each button. She slides her hands under the edge of the farbric, pushing it down and over his arms.
He watches her fingers trace each scar on his arms and chest, searching, curious, but more than anything simply acknowledging them as part of him. He knows he would tell her each story carved there now, if she only asked. She doesn’t though, and he thinks it might be because the time for talking is finally over. Her hands slip lower, spreading warmly across his stomach, her fingers dipping gently into the waist of his pants, trailing just under the edge, his pulse jumping at the unexpected contact.
“Sam,” he warns, catching her hands and holding them still. His eyes skim up her body, the gentle curves exposed by the loose edges of her robes tantalizingly close after so many long months of distance.
In answer to his unspoken question she shrugs the robe off her shoulders, shuffling even closer to him, letting the last of the fabric pool to the floor. Her complete lack of hesitation or embarrassment as she kneels there in front of him undoes any last concern he may have had, the mere act of looking at her unleashing a tight rush of desire.
Lifting both hands to her face, he pulls her gently, lowering her mouth to his, kissing her with everything he’s never been able to put into words. She presses closer, melting into the kiss until she’s in his lap, the warmth of her body melding into his and there’s nothing left to think of but how beautiful she is in the golden light of the lanterns, her eyes drifting half-closed as he patiently rediscovers her body. In response, her hands skim across his back, fingers tracing the trail of his spine, her foot grazing along his leg, urging him even closer.
They’ve been so careful of each other since she returned. He hasn’t touched her like this for months, or ever, if he can dare to be even a little more honest. With them, sex had always been about need and friction and unguarded passion, like an explosion. Here there is only deliberation and tenderness and it disarms them both with its honesty.
It feels right that they should finally surrender to each other, to this thing between them that’s been building and falling apart and leading them somewhere neither had ever expected to go; it feels right that this happens on the warm sands of Abydos that have brought him back from the brink once before.
The experience leaves Jack feeling completely emptied, turned inside out, his heart thumping in his ears as he lowers his head to her chest, feeling the soft sheen of her skin under his cheek and her equally erratic heartbeat. He waits for some feeling of recovery, pulling himself back together, but as the minutes slip by it doesn’t come. He turns his head into her body, kissing his way up her neck, rolling to the side and taking her with him. She ends up half-sprawled on his chest, her hair falling like a curtain around them, blocking out the rest of the universe.
There’s an eminently satisfied look on Sam’s face as she gazes at him, her lips half-curved into a smile, eyes heavy and Jack says it without thinking.
“I love you, Sam.”
She’s completely still for a moment as if he hasn’t spoken, but then her eyes widen, chasing away some of the dazed befuddledness in her expression. She doesn’t look panicked though, it’s something else completely that he can’t identify.
“I’m sorry,” she eventually says. “Could you say that again?”
Jack reaches up to caress her cheek, his thumb sliding along her jaw. “I love you, Sam.”
She grabs for his hand, her eyes suspiciously bright and for a while, all she can do is nod. Then she presses a kiss against his palm, a slow smile transforming her face. “I have loved you since long before I was smart enough to know it.”
“But you’re a super genius,” Jack teases, smiling up at her.
She glares at him, her elbow tapping him in the ribs, but she follows it with a kiss, hot and wet right below his ear and he thinks he may have discovered the best version of the Sam glare yet.
“If I was a super genius,” she says against his neck, “I would have dragged you back to my lab and had my way with you that first night I spilled my coffee on you.”
He likes the sound of that. Trailing his fingers up and over her ribs, he feels her shiver against him, her breath catching.
“Are you finally ready to admit you did that on purpose?” he asks.
She pulls back, her lips hovering just above his. “Never.”
Jack can live with that.
Ficlet 41-Intermezzo
Sam is waiting outside the locker room when SG-1 steps out, fully kitted and ready to go off world.
“Morning, Sam,” Evan says as she falls in next to them. Teal’c nods his head and Jack just smirks because it’s only been an hour since they drove into the mountain together this morning. And before that…
Daniel makes some unintelligible sound of protest at their obviousness before kidnapping Sam’s mug of hot coffee. “Missions should not start this early,” he mumbles once he has enough caffeine in his system to form actual words.
“Isn’t this the tropical beach planet?” she asks. Jack’s been talking about this one ever since he first caught glimpse of long, white sand beaches and crystal blue waters. Apparently SG-1 rarely gets the nice planets.
“Yeah,” Daniel confirms, brightening a little. “P4X-884.”
“Well, when you’re not working on your tan, try to find something shiny to bring back for me. And technologically advanced,” she says as they near the gate room.
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Evan says.
“Also, promise me no shenanigans. I have a lot to do in the lab this week and will in no way have time to come up with some crazy plan to save your asses.”
“We will be most vigilant,” Teal’c pledges.
“Okay. Have fun.”
“It’s good to have you back, Sam,” Daniel says, holding out her empty coffee mug.
“Thanks,” Sam says with a smile as the rest of the team disappears into the gate room, leaving her alone with Jack. They’ve already said their goodbyes, but they still take a moment to look at each other.
“See you in a few days,” he says with that confident grin that first caught her eye almost four years ago.
“I’ll be here,” she confirms.
With one last smile he follows the rest of his team into the gate room, taking his weapons from the munitions sergeant. Sam turns back to the stairs, taking them up to the briefing room where she refills her coffee and watches SG-1 get ready to depart below.
The gate groans into motion and Julia appears by Sam’s side somewhere around the fourth chevron. They stand silently until the wormhole whooshes into life and SG-1 disappears one by one into the event horizon.
All these years later, after all the things she’s seen and done, the Stargate still has the power to take Sam’s breath away. So much for ‘theoretical’ astrophysics. Maybe she should come up with a new name for her discipline. She’ll add it to her to do list.
Having whisked SG-1 off on yet another adventure, the wormhole blinks out, leaving the room grey and empty once more.
“Ready to get to work?” Julia asks.
Sam turns to her and smiles. “Definitely.”
~Fin~
And you ask yourself, “Who do I want to be?
Do I want to throw away the key
And invent a whole new me?”
Got to tell yourself, “No one, no one,
Don't want to be no one but me.”
Your life plays out on the shadows of the wall
You turn the light on to erase it all
You wonder what it's like to not feel worthless
So open all the blinds and all the curtains
No one, no one
Don't want to be no one
But me.
We are moving through the crowd...
“No One” by Aly & A.J.
Link to: Bonus Scene