TITLE: Herzleid
AUTHOR: Christian
EMAIL: lonz@d.n-r-w.de
CATEGORY: Sam&Me, Angst, AU, Character Death
SPOILERS: none
SEASON/SEQUEL: none
RATING: PG 13
CONTENT WARNINGS: This is NOT a nice story
SUMMARY: If you really want to, you can get everywhere. But are you ready to pay the price?
STATUS: complete
Home: Stargate Atlantis Pandora
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Angel Star for beta-reading this and making it readable for the english speaking audience.



Herzleid


"Bewahret einander vor Herzleid,
denn kurz ist die Zeit die ihr beisammen seid.
Denn wenn euch auch viele Jahre vereinen,
einst werden sie wie Minuten euch scheinen."

- Rammstein, Herzleid


Life is like a street with many crossroads. Every once in a while you have to decide which direction to take, without really knowing where you'll be led. And suddenly you find yourself in a dead end and realise there's no turning back.

The physics of the alternate universes states that we don't really make a decision standing at a crossroad. Instead we split and continue our way in both directions - without one part of us knowing what fate befalls the other. We can only marvel what would have happend, if we had made another decision, what could have been but will never be now - at least not for ourselves. Even though all possibilities are equally true, we can only recognize one of the truths as our own.

My own way brought me nothing but pain.

***

The room is stacked to the ceiling with cold, metalic technology. It is clicking, buzzing and humming and as the sole living being in the midst of this grotesque pile of computers, generators and servo motors I'm afraid I'll be grabbed by the brute machinery and squeezed to a bloody pulp in a soulless act of slaughter. I sit in a metal cage, strapped by countless belts so that I can hardly move at all. Cold sweat is runing down my body and is soaking my overalls.

The chief engineer steps onto the platform leading to my cage: "T minus 10 minutes. How do you feel?" The man has so many bits of technology all over his body that he could be easily mistaken for a robot.

I murmur an incomprehensible answer and he just nods: "Take it easy. Free your mind. You want me to give you another quick theoretical overview?"

I try to nod, but one of the straps keeps me from doing it.

"Well then. The quantum exchanger" - he points to the machinery around us - "will allow you to do for the first time what no human has ever achived: The controlled tunneling to another space-time. Whilst you are usually bound to the causal principle of cause and effect, the Exchanger interrupts this bound and brings you directly to your destination. To put it short you are going to leave this universe and travel to a parallel universe. This experiment will show us how far you can control your voyage."

As with the quantum mirror! I think. But I'm not going to tell him, as well as I'm not going to tell him why I'm really here.

He smiles, completely misinterpreting my grim expression: "You don't have to worry. The electronics will assure that you return to our universe after a few seconds. You can be proud of yourself. You going to be the first human that travelled outside his own universe!"

Wrong! I'm not going to be the first. Or am I wrong myself in the end, and fictive universes haven't the same right to exist as "real" universes? This would destroy my belief in infinite variety. And it wouldn't justify the deadly risk I'm taking here. Suddenly I feel a deep hole in my guts, as if a dark vision from the future is haunting me and I have to fight against the urge to throw up.

***

Love, hate, passion, megalomania - all these are forces which can drive a human forward. My driving force has always been love. The love for a woman. What woman that was, I didn't realise for a long time. So I made a conception of her that no woman would ever be able to live up to.

Then I saw Samantha Carter and knew that she was the one. She is as beautiful as she is intelligent, as tough as she is soft. She is perfect. In her I found everything I ever wished for. The only problem is - she's not real.

At least not in this reality. But thinking of an infinite number of realities that's not really the problem. The real problem is to get to her.

Other people in my reality solved the problem for me. They are glad that I volunteered to be the test object in their experiment. So glad indeed, that they didn't even asked me why I was volunteering.

Their mistake.

***

The awesome machinery I've been confined to comes to life and I feel like I'm being ripped apart. My personality starts to stretch over millions of realities and I concentrate on one single thought: Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam ...

***

When I hear the metallic sream of the machinery and the thunderclap of distant explosions, I know that something has gone wrong. Horribly wrong. I'm thown around and something hits me in the face. Moisture. I taste blood. My own blood. My arm hurts. It's been ripped free from the straps. Pitch darkness surounds me. Sowly I free myself. Fight against dizziness and unconsiousness. Sam! What happend here?

I'm staggering out of the laboratory and into daylight. I see the ruins of an unknown city, humans and houses shredded by orbital titans fists, which rained down on them over and over again. The world is a cemetary.

***

She lies on her belly. Her uniform and body are torn apart. Blood is everywhere. Her blood. Her precious, life-preserving blood. Her blonde locks are stained red. Oh god, she is dead!

I run over to her, kneel down by her side, and turn her around slowly. I hear a snap and the bile is coming up my throat.

Her face is as pale as death, but beautiful for all eternity like that of an undying angel. The tears blur my vision and I pull her towards me, kissing her pale forehead, mixing my tears with her blood.

She groans and opens her eyes. Clear blue eyes like two gigantic oceans, each one big enought for a single human being to get lost in. But the oceans are empty now, her gaze reaching through me into the eternity of death.

"Jack?" Her body is quivering. Her pain must be incredible. I hold her close.

"I'm here, Sam", I say with a trembling voice, "Everything's gonna be fine."

"No." Blood pours from the corners of her mouth and her voice becomes faint. "I'm dying."

I feel a lump in my throat. What can I say to this woman - here and now?

"Jack. I love you", she whispers.

I know.

"I love you too. Don't go. Not now."

It's a wish she cannot fullfill. She dies there, in my arms, and all I can do is hold her and watch her lifeforce dissipate.

***

For what seems like an eternity, I kneel there, holding her dead body. The burning sky and the destruction around me shows me that there is no hope for me either. How I wish now that none of this had ever happend. That I sat somewhere comfortable and read this story with a shiver. But I cannot get there, because you are holding this place. You are the proof that whilst the way has reached a dead end here, it continues somewhere else.

You are my consolation.