Archive of Our Own

1. Scott Levine, her lab partner from intro level physics

Scott wasn't a scientist by any means, but he was bright and funny and they'd clicked right away – their relationship just never grew beyond that initial connection. After a while they drifted apart, and Sam, buried in her studies, hadn't felt much like sparing the energy or the time to do anything about it.

She wondered, later, what would have happened if she had. He'd been a family man, proud of his little brothers and happy to discuss his parents – and he'd wanted kids. They would have had three kids, Sam thought, who would always have the best science fair projects. They would spend Thanksgivings at his parents' and Christmas with Mark. There would be Halloween costumes and school plays and little league games, and if Sam weren't always there to see it, Scott would be, and he'd make sure they knew how much she loved them.

Sam liked to think there was still a way she could have all of that, her career and her family, but as more time went by it got harder to believe.

She tried not to think that, forced to choose between the two, she would pick her career every time. She worried about what that said about her.

2. Jolinar of Malkshur

The brief time she'd carried Jolinar had left her with several confused impressions, and while the Tok'ra helped her understand many things, there were others that she could not ask. It would have been awkward, possibly rude, to ask strangers, and her interactions with Martouf were too charged, while her relationship with her father and Selmak was always too raw.

She had to figure it out for herself, through observation, noting how Martouf's eyes shined when he spoke of Lantesh, how Jacob spoke of Selmak nearly the same way he had spoken of Sam's mother.

It was a strange, unsettling notion at first, but it made more sense as it sunk it. The Goa'uld didn't care how their hosts felt, but the Tok'ra did; Tok'ra symbiotes had to get along with their hosts. And why would it really stop there? After years living with someone, more intimately than any husband and wife…without love, the relationship could never be symbiotic. It would only be torture, for both parties.

She could only imagine how Jack would fly off the handle at the idea, but she wished sometimes that she had had more time with Jolinar, to understand what that sort of relationship truly felt like. How you could be connected to someone that deeply, so that you could never be alone, so that they could never leave you.

Except Jolinar had left her, with only the shadow of a bond between them.

3. Narim of the Tollan

It had been bad timing, every last moment of their association. First he had been busy with the relocation to the new homeworld, then she had been preoccupied with the reconstruction of her own mind, too involved in the difficult task of getting reacquainted with herself after Jolinar to get acquainted with Narim in any meaningful way. She hadn't thought so much of the opportunity until it was irrevocably lost.

He'd been a little strange, and they had different loyalties, different priorities; quite possibly, nothing would have come from it at all. Yet he had ultimately been a good man, and maybe they could have gotten past that, worked around things. Perhaps he would even have trusted her enough with some of the information that had always been held back from her as a outsider. If not scientific discoveries or technological breakthroughs, perhaps he at least would have told her more about his society's history and culture, shown her their artwork or played her their music. Maybe that way, something of Tollana would still survive.

And yet, if the timing had been different, if SG-1 had stepped through the gate to a different address on their list, they never would have met at all, and Narim would have died. She had given him a few more years of life, and that was all she could give him. It would have to be enough.

4. Rodney McKay

The very thought of being in love with Rodney McKay, when she'd heard about her alternate self's marriage, was disturbing. He was abrasive and arrogant and he'd called her a dumb blonde and – and – he was McKay. She couldn't think of someone she'd be less likely to marry.

The shock value wore off and, as with many things McKay-related, gave way to a cynical sort of amusement. That was the nature of alternate universes, after all; even the most improbably things happened somewhere. Somewhere, Rodney McKay was a nice guy. It wasn't as thought that were the worst surprise that universe held, after all.

The more time passed, the less it bothered her, though she thought of it from time to time and felt slightly guilty. Perhaps it wasn't so unfathomable after all. Rodney could be a nice guy on occasion. At least, there were some nice things about him. He had certainly seemed to care about her alternative self – no, more than that; her McKay cared about her in some strange, overly presumptuous, but not entirely unwelcome way.

They hadn't worked out in that universe and they would never happen at all in her universe, and at some point Sam began to feel – not regretful, just slightly wistful. There was a side to McKay that most people didn't see; that was something she didn't need an alternate universe to teach her, because she'd already known that for a while, had seen glimpses of it. She would like to see more, to see in him what her other self had seen in the other McKay, but there was too much between them now for romance.

Still, McKay might trust that information to a close friend, and that was an option still open to them.

5. Daniel Jackson

Things would have been easier for her if she could have fallen for Daniel instead of Jack.

It wasn't that she spent her nights lying awake pining for Jack, that she trailed after him with love-sick eyes on missions and day-dreamed her way through debriefings. There was nothing so melodramatic as that. There were just times when she would think about the things she wanted that she couldn't have and her stomach would twist painfully.

She could have had Daniel, but she didn't want him. Some dark part of her whispered that it was a defense strategy, that she didn't really want to risk falling in love with someone she could actually be with. She nearly went out of her mind with frustration and anger at that thought. She didn't like this situation, and it wasn't actually in her power to pick and choose who she fell in love with. All she could do was be as happy as possible under the circumstances.

She didn't know, in any case, that she would have been happier loving Daniel. It wouldn't have made things perfect, or even easy. There would still have been the same battles to fight, the same fatigue, the same heartache. She would have lost him for a year, would still have to worry about his safety every time they stepped through the wormhole, every time she let him out of her sight on base. She just would have had someone to go home with who really understood, and she wanted that too badly to stop wishing for it, no matter how far beyond her reach it seemed.