TITLE: Five AU versions of themselves someone from the SGC/Atlantis/Destiny met: Sam Reviews
AUTHOR: Roeskva
CATEGORY: Angst, Romance
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment only and not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
SUMMARY: Like the title says. Sam meets five AU versions of herself.
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTERS: Sam, Jolinar, others
STATUS: Complete
PAIRING: Mention of Sam/Jolinar/Martouf/Lantash and Sam/Martouf/Lantash
WARNINGS: Mention of: torture, violence, character death
SPOILERS: Hathor, In the Line of Duty, The Tok'ra I
NOTES: Inspired by the sg1_five_things prompt 119.05 (Five AU versions of themselves someone from the SGC/Atlantis/Destiny met)
NOTES 2: Be warned. I like the Tok'ra a lot and believe Earth would have been much worse of without them. This shows in the glimpses of all the five AU Sam's below. Thus, if you do not like the Tok'ra, you should probably not read this. Same goes if you do not like the Sam/Martouf/Lantash ship, which is mentioned in two cases.

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Sam's POV.

1. She differed more from me than any other of the 'Sam's' I had met. Not only had she never been host to Jolinar, but she seemed bitter in a way I do not believe I ever am, and she did not trust anyone. In her universe, Earth had not met the Tok'ra until the Asgard had introduced them several years later. By then, Earth - being without allies after the extinction of the Tollan, and already in a full-fledged war with the Goa'uld - desperately needed friends. So did the Tok'ra, after Cordesh's treason had caused the death of many of them. Earth had been in chaos after the Stargate project was unavoidably revealed, when several Re'tou terrorists got through the SGC's defenses and attacked the US and several other countries.

By the time the Tau'ri and the Tok'ra were introduced to each other, it had been much too late to save Earth from Sokar's all-out attack. This Sam lived together with a few hundred other survivors from Earth, constantly on the run, changing bases often - just like the Tok'ra. Disillusioned, Teal'c had returned to Chulak, and there he had died in an attempt to rally the Jaffa.

Sam's life was a constant battle to survive, and after the death of the last of her few friends and old team mates, she was not sure she even wanted to try anymore.

2. She came through our gate one day, after a malfunction. After looking around in confusion, she greeted us as Captain Samantha Carter, a visitor from another reality. When I sensed the symbiote, I thought perhaps the me from that universe was still host to Jolinar. I should have recognised the oddly familiar, seductive behaviour she displayed.

Too late I realised my error. By then, Hathor had already turned the heads of all males on the base, including my team mates, of course. Without a symbiote, Teal'c was not immune this time. It might well have been the end for all of us this time, if several of the Tok'ra had not arrived in a Teltac, to take a look when no one responded at the SGC.

I do not think either Daniel or the Colonel will ever forgive Malek for the comment he made after saving them from a life as Hathor's love slaves. In Malek's defense, their clothing was rather hilarious.

3. This Sam was a member of one of the many SG-1 teams that came through our gate when a spacial tear in the subspace fabric directed wormholes here from several universes. She - like maybe a handful others of the Sam's - was still host to Jolinar, and they worked part-time for the SGC and part-time for the Tok'ra.

I had too little time to talk much to either of them, but I did get a chance to speak to the other version of Jolinar. It was a very strange experience, seeing how things might have worked out if Jolinar had lived, and I must admit part of me felt jealous of the close friendship she had with her Sam. That, and the fact their Martouf and Lantash were still alive - and their mates.

4. Our visit to this Sam's universe was another one of those weird mishaps that seems to follow SG-1. When we met her, she had just escaped from the NID. Stupidly, they had taken her to the alpha site in order to better be able to 'study' her, without all those troublesome questions from her former friends and associates. She had knocked out a guard and somehow gotten through the Stargate a few days later. She was thin and malnourished - exhausted from more than a year of continuous interrogation and experiments.

Suspicious of us and all other humans, it was only my presence and knowledge of things in our common past that made her trust us enough to stay and talk. She and Jolinar had long since blended fully, of course, and these experiences had brought them closer together than even a normal blending. They had kept each other from loosing hope and going insane.

I knew how very easily this could have been my fate. Would I also have been taken by the NID if my Jolinar had survived? Would I then have been able to trust my friends and - former - team-mates? Would I have felt they had given up on me? Betrayed me by letting the NID take me? Or would I realise they had not had a choice? This Sam was angry at everyone on Earth, but when she calmed down, she admitted she knew her friends at the SGC were not to blame - for the most part. They had tried to stop the NID, but it had proven hopeless. No - she only blamed her friends for not trusting her enough to let her and Jolinar go, when that would have been their only way to escape.

How would I feel in her situation? After all that had happened to her? About being host to Jolinar still? The symbiote seemed to be a closer friend to this Sam, than any I had ever had. But then, they had been through things no one could imagine. Things one should have to go through, and that tended to forge deep bonds.

Jolinar had made sure there was no scars, but I noticed one of Sam's fingers was still a little shorter than it should be. Asking - and I kind of wish I had not - I learned the NID had cut it off, during one of their tests of Jolinar's regenerative abilities. Sam scoffed at this minor injury - the finger would soon be back to normal, and she had experienced worse.

True, her physical injuries had healed, miraculously so. I doubted the psychological damage ever would - even with the help of a symbiote.

When we left, we gave Sam the address to Vorash. If she and Jolinar were in luck, the Tok'ra in this universe had a base there too. Earth had never met the Tok'ra here, and when Jolinar tried the address to the desert planet we originally met them on, the Tok'ra were long since gone.

Earth could never again be a home for this Sam. I very much hoped the Tok'ra would. If she and Jolinar found their way there.

5. It happened while we were visiting the Tok'ra, getting help from Anise and Freya on a strange device we had found among the ruins of an unknown civilization. Anise and I were working together, Daniel assisting us, while Teal'c stood several feet away, patiently listening to O'Neill's complaints about the mission and how he had been dragged here when there was Simpson's and a hockey match he wanted to see.

Suddenly, the device activated, and there was a flash, and it felt as if everything...shifted. When we had collected ourselves, it was obvious something had happened. The lab - or rather its contents - was different. The big scanner the Tok'ra used for a wide range of material analysises stood in another place than I remembered, as did several other smaller devices and apparatuses. Even the tables were moved around.

Then I saw her - at the same time she saw me. It was...me! Another me. Beside her stood another Anise, and they both stared at us with the same dumb-founded expressions I imagine we all wore.

Then happened something even stranger. A little blond-haired girl, no more than 3 years old, came into the lab. She immediately walked up to me and addressed me as 'mom'. She told me she, her daddies, and her baby brother were waiting in the mess hall - had done so for almost half an hour, and if I had forgotten it was her birthday? And I had promised not to be late. The cook had even made her a big cake. She looked decidedly unhappy, and I was contemplating what to do, when my other self hurriedly grabbed her and stepped away from us, demanding to know who we were.

I still remember the expression on the child's face as she stared between me and her mother, trying to determine what was going on.

Their Anise had called security, and we soon found ourselves surrounded by very stern looking Tok'ra - including Martouf and Lantash, alive and well, and very ready to protect Sam and the girl. They turned out to be the other Sam's mate, and the fathers of her kids - which, perhaps strangely, did not surprise me, now I knew they were alive here.

It took a lot of explanations before they believed us and set us free. It took almost a day to figure out how to make the device activate again - and send us back to the right reality. Fortunately, we made it home before we suffered severe entropic cascade failure. We were even allowed to participate in the celebration of the little girl's birthday. The cake was amazingly good - so good the Colonel stopped complaining and still mentions the cake from time to time.

He did not appreciate Teal'c's suggestion he should join the Tok'ra for the cake, though!