I suspect part of that bitterness came through from writing them now, with the perspective of what their future brings--I know more about what informs their decisions back then, if that makes any sense.

As much as I love them at that point, I can't keep them there forever. I might want to mitigate later circumstances (and sometimes entirely ignore canon), but it's still there to play with (and, well, also hard to resist the SAM IS A PILOT moment as an urge for cracktasticness)

(I've never been opposed to AUs, though)

Thank you for the lovely feedback =D