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Carter opened the door to her house, tossing her keys on the side table at the entry. Sighing to herself, she dragged herself to the living room and fell down on the couch. Closing her eyes as she leaned backwards, she knew she was going to have to get up soon to get something to eat and make her way to the bed for a long 12 hour sleep that she desperately needed. But for that moment, she wasn’t interested in any of that. She had just spent hours sending all of the 16 SG-1 teams back through the gate to their planets and universes. And before that, she had been on the Prometheus on the way to Atlantis with the evil SG-1 team in black who wanted to steal their ZPM.
After she had gotten everyone through the gate back home, she then had to coordinate turning the weapon back over to the little pushy Asgard, Kvasir, who had been impatiently waiting. Rolling her eyes beneath her eyelids, she sighed again and settled even further back into the couch cushions.
She was interrupted by the phone in her pocket ringing. Taking her third sigh in as many minutes, she dug out the phone and flipped it open answering without opening her eyes. “Carter.”
“Carter. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on today? I had to hear through the grapevine that several of my dreams had come true.”
“Hi, sir. Good to hear from you. How are you doing? I’m doing fine, a little tired though.”
“Yes, yes. That’s usually my line.”
Rolling her eyes again, she said, “Right. What are you talking about exactly?”
“What am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that there were over 10 of you in one place.”
“And?”
“And you didn’t even think to tell me?”
“Well, I was kind of busy trying to stop more of them from being brought here.”
“Yes, well, when that type of thing happens, I should be on the short list to be informed.”
“I assumed General Landry would have told you.”
“He did. Eventually.”
“Well, ok then.”
“But you should have told me.”
“Again, I was a little busy. I actually had some great conversations with the many variations of myself. It was quite illuminating.”
Jack groaned a little bit, before covering it with a cough, “I bet. Did you talk science with all of them?”
“Oh yeah, we were all in a room at one point all discussing the issue with Dr. Lee.”
“Geez, Dr. Lee got to be there and I wasn’t? Did you talk about black holes and exploding things?”
“Yeah, we talked about all of those things. And more.”
“Think I could get my hands on a recording?”
“I mean, I’m sure there are security tapes you could watch.”
“Right. Yeah, good. That’s good.” Jack cleared his throat again.
Sam opened her eyes finally and sat up on the couch a little, “So, is that all you wanted?”
“How was it seeing Janet again?”
Sitting back on the couch again she said, “It was hard. But, I guess it makes me happy that somewhere out there in a number of universes, she survived and is living her life out there.”
“Yeah, that is nice.” Jack sighed. “And I saw she was on a team with ol’ Marty?”
“Yep.”
“And how is he?”
“He seemed good too. Apparently, he and I tried to have a relationship in his universe.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but it didn’t work out. I was married to someone else and out on maternity leave in that world. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Jack replied without hesitation.
“Right. Well, I haven’t even really taken the time to comprehend all of the things I heard about today. It was a lot.”
“Well, if you wanna talk —” Jack trailed off.
“Aren’t we doing that right now?”
“Yes, but you know what I mean.”
“I do. And thank you. Maybe after I’ve eaten and slept half a day away.”
“Well about that —” Jack paused when he could hear the doorbell ringing in the background.
“Oh, hang on. Someone’s at my door.” She dragged herself off the couch and opened the door to find a delivery girl handing her a bag of what appeared to be Chinese food from her favorite restaurant. She smiled and said thank you. Closing the door behind her, she brought the bag into the kitchen. “Did you do this?”
“I did.”
“How?” She pulled out the first container to see the egg rolls.
“Carter, I’m a general. I can do anything I want.”
Sam laughed at this, “Right.”
“But technically, this was all my assistant. I mean I told him what to order and from where, but he called it in. I figured you’d be exhausted after everything.”
“Thank you.”
“No big deal, Carter. I’ll let you settle in and eat.”
“Sir?”
“Yeah, Carter?”
“I wish you were here with me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it looks like you ordered half the menu here, I could use some help.” Sam smiled as she spoke continuing to pull out all of her favorites from the bag.
“Right, and is that the only reason? Help you eat all of the food?”
“No, probably not.”
“I wish I was there too, Sam.”
“Only a couple of more weeks, right?”
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Hey, Carter?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sure you sent all of the you’s back home? You didn’t keep one around tied up in a storage room at the SGC?”
Sam chuckled at his question, “No, pretty sure we got them all back home.” At Jack’s sigh, she asked, “Why?”
“I was thinking it’d be nice if there was a spare you hanging around. Maybe you could come out here for a while and let the other you work at saving the world.”
Sam sighed at his words letting a small smile take over her face, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“I can’t think of much that would be better.”
“Well, to be honest, it would have been hard to pick one to stay behind. I mean the evil one was obviously out, but the others all had their own lives to get back to and their own worlds to save. And even if I did pick one, what’s to say that she would have been content just having to work all the time, while I got to have all the fun?”
“That’s true.”
“Considering my tendency to be a little evil, I would bet that she would have turned the tables on me and switched places. Then she would convince you that she was actually me. And well, then I’d have to, you know, ‘take care of her.’ And considering she wouldn’t ‘officially’ exist, I’d probably get away with it. But we’d know, and would we survive that kind of thing? Murdering oneself seems like a slippery slope.”
“Geez, when you put it that way.” She could practically hear him rolling his eyes through the phone.
“Exactly, so I think it’s probably better that we sent them all home, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine. I’ll just keep having my fantasies over here though, ok?”
Sam chuckled, “Fine. But don’t forget you have a Sam Carter in real life. As Teal’c said last time this happened, ‘our universe is the only one of consequence.’”
“How could I forget? I’m the luckiest guy in the universe.”
“Exactly. Now, I would really like to dig into this Chinese food that your assistant so graciously ordered for me.”
“Ok, sure. Sam?”
“Yes, Jack?”
“You know I’d help you do anything in the world, right? Even if that meant murdering some crazy, evil version of you that was trying to seduce me?”
“I know. And I would do the same for you.”
“Ok, good. Just wanted to make that clear. G’night, Sam.”
“Goodnight, Jack.” Sam flipped the phone closed and stuffed half of an egg roll into her mouth. Then she couldn’t stop the grin from taking over her entire face.