The complete "The Long and Winding Road" is available in the Stargate section of this website, but I thought people might be interested in how it originally was going to go. This is chapter one of the original version. Like the completed story, it deals with the after-effects of the episode "100 Days". I decided to go in a different direction with the story ,however, when I realised how similar this was to my Star Trek Voyager tale, "The Water is Wide".

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Carter tossed restlessly in her bed, lashing out at the blankets with one foot as they twisted around her legs. How could she have done something so...so...stupid? With a muffled curse she abruptly sat up, flung all the blankets onto the floor with one violent motion and gave them a baleful look. Then, still swearing under her breath, she climbed out of the bed and bent to untangle them. The cold floor on her bare feet didn't improve her mood at all and she aimed another kick at the unoffending bedclothes.

She was in love with her C.O.

Stupid

How had it happened? What was she thinking? Moreover... what was she going to do?

With a sigh, Carter dropped the blankets back on the floor and stalked over to the radio. She had been...well, not fine. In fact, she had been fairly miserable, but she was so used to that state of affairs that she barely noticed it anymore. No, she had been in the same mood she usually found herself in these days, when the song had started on the radio. It was some slow, romantic ballad. Who the hell wrote these damned things anyway? Weren't there any happy songs out there anyway?

Angrily she stabbed a finger at the radio's off switch then closed her eyes in the sudden silence. As she did, a lone tear slid out from the corner of her eye and she swiped at it furiously. She was not going to cry. Crying wouldn't solve anything. And neither would...

Neither would beating up on her blankets. With a sigh Carter crossed the room again and picked them up, spreading them back over her bed. Then she crawled back under the covers, resisting the impulse to pull them up over her head.

She was in love with her C.O. With Colonel Jack O'Neill, USAF, commander of SG-1. And he wasn't in love with her.

Which was probably just as well. If he was... well, let's just say the military tended to frown on things like this. Actually, frown was a bit of an understatement. He would probably be court-martialed if...anything...ever happened, and she could kiss her own career goodbye.

Not that anything was going to happen. Ever. He had made that clear while he was Edora. Painfully clear.

The pillow hit the floor with undue force. As did the alarm clock.

She had to do something. She had to get control of these emotions before she did something horrible. Morosely, she listed her options in her head as she stared blindly up at the ceiling. Kill him. Burst into tears on his shoulder and make a play for Most Pathetic Female of the Year. Find a man somewhere and have a torrid affair. Preferably with somebody who would drive Jack O'Neill insane with jealousy. Leave the country...hell, leave the planet...

Or go on as she had been doing for the last two weeks -- trying desperately to get her feelings under control, continuing to maintain a professional demeanour despite the pain she was feeling...and throwing things violently across her room at night.

With a muffled groan she pulled the blankets up over her head and closed her eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid

Daylight brought with it a measure of sanity and control. Not that Carter could see the sunshine of course, once she was inside the mountain that housed the SGC, but just the knowledge that it was there put a whole different spin on things. She was not in love with Jack O'Neill. That was professional suicide, not to mention emotional torture. And she didn't go in for either.

No, what she felt was merely the closeness and cameraderie of two soldiers who had been to hell and back (literally) and had developed a close and caring relationship...

So why hadn't he thanked her yet for coming up with yet another scientific miracle and rescuing him from Edora? And worse yet, why was it bothering her so much? She gritted her teeth as she pulled on her backpack and checked her weapons, resisting the impulse to beat O'Neill over the head with one of them until he had apologized for every single one of those hours of sleep she had lost during the last three months...

Daniel, Teal'c and the Colonel had finished their own weapons check and were heading up for ramp. PX3-1138. Another day, another trip to distant planet. Same as always. It was if he had never been gone. Status quo.

Bastard.

As if he could feel the baleful looks she was giving him, Colonel O'Neill half-turned and opened his mouth to say something. As he did, Carter launched herself forward, pushing past him and the other two as she headed up the ramp. "If I say anything right now, I'll regret it. So I'm. Not. Going. To. Say. A. Word." She barely managed to suppress a growl as she stormed up the ramp, her back stiff and her shoulders straight.

Carter didn't notice the startled looks the three men gave her, the questioning glance O'Neill sent toward Daniel Jackson, or the shrug the archaeologist sent back. She didn't wait for the others, entering the wormhole a good five paces ahead of the rest of the team...

...and was completely unprepared when something went suddenly, violently wrong. Without any warning at all, Carter was seized and shaken like a rag while pain coursed through her, tracing fiery trails along every nerve in her body. This wasn't normal Gate-travel. It shouldn't hurt like this! Even as the thought formed in her mind, though, the world was wrenched sideways and the agony became overwhelming. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't see. There was nothing but pain, fear, and darkness...

...and then, finally, whatever it was released her. With a gasp, Carter found herself falling out the other side of the wormhole, crumpling bonelessly to the floor. She felt the impact only distantly as the world continued to spin around her in several directions at once.

An eternity passed.

Finally, though, the spinning began to fade then stopped altogether. Carter took a deep, shuddering gasp, listening distantly to the sound of her heart racing. She was shaking, she realized, her body trembling like a leaf in a strong wind.

Slowly, hesitantly, bracing herself against the pain, which was at last beginning to ebb, Carter opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly. It hurt, but nothing like what she had just experienced. Blinking, she tried to focus.

Feet. In military boots. Lots of them. She tilted her head a little farther...and froze. What looked like the entire contingent of SGC personnel were standing before here, spread out through the Gate Room, their weapons trained unerringly on her. "I really hate being on the receiving end of this," she thought randomly...

And then a pair of boots were moving closer. She glanced up, and frowned. Colonel O'Neill was standing over her, an expression of stunned disbelief on his face.

"Sam?" He asked disbelievingly, a faint quaver in his voice.

Carter blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened. Her mind felt like it had been put through a blender, and it was difficult to think. She strained to remember. She had been here, in the Gate Room, just moments ago. Something had gone wrong with the Gate, and now... Where were Daniel and Teal'c? And...there was something else. Something that was hovering irritatingly on the edge of her mind. Something about their uniforms...

Without warning, O'Neill's hands were on her arms, pulling her abruptly to her feet. Carter reeled dizzily. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it...and then he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly, his racing heart hammering against her own.

For the second time since she had come through the Gate, Carter froze. He was hugging her? He was hugging her. In front of the entire SGC. What in Hades was going on? For an instant, her eyes flickered shut. Perhaps she was dreaming. But...she could feel every inch of his body pressing against hers, feel the corded muscles in his arms as he held her tightly against him, feel his heat against her icy limbs. If it was a dream, it certainly got top marks for sensory input...

Abruptly, O'Neill broke the hug and stepped back a pace. Carter swayed slightly and opened her eyes. It took several moments before she could focus properly. Finally, though, the man before her swam back into view. Carter frowned.

He looked...shattered. Like he had just seen a ghost...or found something once thought irretrievably lost. Dark shadows lined his eyes which held twin expressions of sorrow and loss, mingled now with stark disbelief. "Sam," he said again, wonderingly.

Carter swallowed and nodded wordlessly, fighting the increasing weakness in her limbs as well as the disorientation in her mind. The room was beginning to spin again and she took a deep breath. It didn't help. Her legs were beginning to buckle.

"You can't be here," he was saying hoarsely. "You died..."

"I didn't..." She tried to say. Her voice was weak and unsteady. A rushing noise was filling her ears and swirling red and grey tendrils of fog were creeping steadily across her vision. "Colonel," she managed to say, reaching out a wavering hand, just before the fog completely engulfed her. She was vaguely aware that she was falling, and that someone had moved forward to catch her...and then she knew nothing at all.