Guilt Undone
by MaureenT is a Stargate SG-1 fanfic set towards the end of Season Seven. Starting when Daniel Jackson asks Sam Carter out for a date and is turned down on the grounds that she doesn’t feel that way about him, the story quickly becomes darker when Daniel dies on their next mission because he asked to be alone on a planet that turned out to be more dangerous than it initially appeared.
The story can also be found here.
Guilt Undone contains examples of:
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: In a sense; the time machine depicted here has a limited charge, so can only make one or two journeys before it runs out of power, and won’t allow the user to go back any further than just over five years from their start date, presumed to be an attempt by the designer to limit the danger of users making too many significant changes to history.
- Future Me Scares Me: When Sam meets a version of herself from five years in the future, she is shaken to witness this other woman, who looks several years older rather than just five and has witnessed the death of virtually everyone she knows after Anubis gained access to an Ancient repository. Things have become so bad in her timeline that Samantha is willing to be erased from history so that Sam can have a chance to avert this future altogether.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: After Sam goes back in time, the rest of SG-1 and the SGC as a whole naturally have no idea what’s just happened to her, although Jack and Teal’c attribute the intensity of her reaction to Daniel’s near-death experience as just a ‘natural’ response to the near-death of the man she loves.
- It's All My Fault: Sam repeatedly states that Daniel's death is her fault, as he wouldn't have gone off on his own if she hadn't rejected him and left him feeling emotionally hurt. Jacob, Hammond, Cassie and Jack all try to tell her that it was just an accident, but Sam can't get past her own guilt over how her friend died because she told him she'd never feel that way about him even before she realises that she actually was in love with him.
- Like Brother and Sister: Puts a more emotionally painful twist on this; when Daniel asks Sam out, Sam tells Daniel that she only sees him as a brother and it isn't worth going on a date with him as that wouldn't change, starting a chain of seemingly simple events that lead to Daniel getting killed on their next mission... and then, after spending the next month grieving how her friend and teammate died because she hurt his feelings, Sam realises on the one-month "anniversary" of Daniel's death that she actually was in love with him.
- The Lost Lenore: Daniel is clearly the male version of this for Sam; even after five years since his death, Samantha has never stopped missing him and blaming herself for his death.
- Love Revelation Epiphany: Daniel reflects that he at least realised that he had feelings for Sam when he first met her after he returned from his Ascension, while Sam realises how she felt about Daniel a month after his death after dreaming about the life they could have had.
- One-Steve Limit: Technically; when the two Samantha Carters are interacting, to distinguish them from each other, the ‘present’ version is just Sam while the future version is referred to as Samantha.
- Point of Divergence: The dark future Samantha comes from specifically came about because Daniel was dead. With the aid of the time machine salvaged by the survivors of the SGC, they were able to determine that Anubis found the repository on a planet SG-2 visited shortly before Anubis went there, and concluded that Daniel could have translated the Ancient writing on that planet to reveal the location of the repository if he was still alive.
- Reset Button: After Sam’s future self gives her a complex time machine that can either send a person back physically or merge them with their own past selves to let them literally 're-do' preceding events, Sam goes back two months, and is able to start a relationship with Daniel and save his life.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Teal’c explicitly thinks of Daniel’s death as this, considering it unfair that after everything Daniel’s achieved in his life, he should die on some random planet in a manner that doesn’t save lives or accomplish some noble goal; he just ran into a few hostile natives by sheer bad luck.
- Shipping Torpedo:
- Sam does this to Daniel in the first chapter by saying that she doesn’t return his feelings (albeit in as kind a manner as possible), although she realises she was wrong a month after his death.
- It is explicitly stated that, unlike in canon, Sam broke up with Pete after he ran a background check on her.
- After Sam changes history and saves Daniel’s life, Jack reflects that he can accept that Sam has moved on as his own feelings for her aren’t as strong as they were.
- Shout-Out: Learning how the time machine can allow her to essentially "possess" her past self makes Sam compare it to the time-travel method used in Quantum Leap.
- Trauma Conga Line: Sam through a series of emotional blows in this fic.
- At first she just feels guilty over leaving Daniel broken-hearted when she turned down his request for a date by saying that she only saw him as a brother, then feels even sorrier when Daniel asks to be alone on their next mission, only for things to go as wrong as they could go when Daniel's attacked and killed by the planet's natives, with his last words being to weakly 'assure' Sam that it's not her fault she doesn't love him back.
- Sam spends the next month feeling increasingly guilty about how she caused Daniel so much pain before he died when all he wanted was a date, and it becomes even worse on the one-month anniversary of his death when she realises she was in love with him all along.
- Even when she's given the chance to go back in time to save him, Sam still has a breakdown when Daniel (who naturally has no idea why she's so upset over a 'dream' she had last night) thanks her for always being there for him, and nearly has an even greater breakdown when Daniel is still injured on the mission that caused his death before Jack confirms that Daniel survived his wound.
