Hey there… I'm really surprised you think I'm not *THE* worst action writer ever, and I will try my best on keep it your way on future chapters.
For now, let's move out of the action… :3
Enjoy!
M.
PS: The weekend was really fic productive… hopefully the muse stays around :D
Chapter 8 – Bad day
After the incident with Sarah O'Neill, Phillips had returned to the house in search for her car. Then not too long after the press conference, Sam was spotted leaving the hospital. She was so glad Phillips had decided to driver her that day, because he was pretty good at losing the paparazzi who rarely tried to follow her around. Yes, she was well known, but she also was boring. She was married, there were no affairs and she spend more time in her office than out there. And when too much press was following her on one city, she always tended to disappearing out of thin air… well, she just traveled to another city in where she wasn't being searched for.
"We need to get back to the store, Phillips. We will still need what we were buying," she told him at some point
"Okay, ma'am. But I will come with you this time," she nodded absentmindedly looking out.
"First to the office, though, I need to make a call," he nodded and took the fastest route to the building. She needed to get General Hammond's people up to speed and make sure they would take all the precautions with the man who was currently under police hands.
She was pretty grateful when the elevator didn't stop until it reached her floor, and her secretaries knew better than ask. If a call came about the incident they would quickly divert it to the press management offices. They both were on the phone went she passed by them with a quick wave and once on her office, she grabbed her phone and dialed the number.
"Hammond," the voice came from the other side.
"General, there was an incident today."
"Sam?"
"Yes, they tried to take me again, Colonel O'Neill was zatted. I will need your CMO to call a specific Doctor, I'm sending you an email with the information."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm… uninjured," she told him, because deep down she wasn't okay. "One of the attackers was zatted during the incident. It's currently under police surveillance."
"Okay, I'll see he's brought under our jurisdiction. Are you sure you are okay?"
"I will be… just, I wouldn't tell this to my father if I was you," she sighed.
"You said one is under police surveillance?"
"Yes, there were three of them, at least one was either a jaffa or a host, they had three guns and a zat. I can't give you accurate descriptions of them but I can see if the place where it happened has some footage that might be of help, I'm pretty sure if there was, the police would already have them." She added mechanically, Hammond sighed. He knew her for most of her life, and he knew that way of talking often pointed to her still having not tackled her emotions, choosing to keep them at bay until she had time to dwell. After all, it was the same clipped tone she used when she called him the day her mother died.
"We will need a debrief as soon as the Colonel is back to the conscious world," he added, maybe if she saw him she would open up with him, the General thought.
"Yes, I agree. We can fly to Cheyenne tomorrow. If he's ready. I do have a favor to ask…" she said somewhat uncomfortable, she wasn't one to ask for favors from the military. "Jess safety… it worries me,"
"I see,"
"She's mostly at school but I need to know someone is watching her, I can have a private security following around, however…"
"You are pretty sure there are goa'uld involved"
"Yes."
"I'm going to press for a team to have her secure. However, she's not a security liability, Sam"
"I know. That's why is a favor. As I said, if this can't happen, I can move private resources and then we can see what to do with the clearance when they see something weird, like a zat."
"Sam, I get your point … and I'll try my best to get it across. But I know you can do a more … candid… presentation about why she needs the security measures during the briefing."
"Will do, I gotta go now," she hung the phone and exhaled slowly. She turned around to observe the city behind her.
"Sam?" a voice called and she turned around abruptly, her heart beating fast and her eyes wide.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, we told her she shouldn't be here, but she walked past us before we managed to get to her," Tess apologized, grabbing the shoulder of the kid.
"It's okay Tess, she's welcomed whenever she wants and she knows it," she said coming to stand looking closely to the kid, "You can go now," she smiled politely to her secretary who frowned at the uncharacteristically behavior of her boss, but turned around and closed the door nonetheless. The moment they heard the click, Sam walked towards the girl and the girl ran to her.
"Mom," she said embracing her hard in the middle. She noticed her daughter was taller, now she reached her almost to her chest, her brown hair had some lights on and a hint of purple in the tips than she knew better than question. Her blue eyes were still the same she had seen opening for the first time almost 13 years ago. She had grown so much since the last time she saw her, almost two months ago, when Jess decided she was going to stay as an intern until the exams finished, and then both her and Rodney ended up traveling around after that. Oh, she called her every day, but their relationship was fragile no matter how much she tried to repair it.
"Jess, are you alright? Is there something wrong? Who brought you?" Sam questioned before her daughter had any chance to answer. Sam felt the slim body sob and she put some space between them to take a good look at her daughter. Jess was crying but quickly cleaned her face with the sleeve of the sweatshirt she was using over her school uniform. "Are you hurt?"
"No," she answered, shocking her head, "I was just worried, are you okay?"
"Yes," Sam answered trying not to make her even more upset than she already was. But Jess frowned when tears keep spilling against her own will. Her mother cleaned the tears with the pads of her thumbs and moved them to the couch on a side of her office. She sat and pulled her baby over her lap, something Jess hadn't let her do in a long time. "Talk to me, Jess," she whispered and Jess buried her face in the crook of her neck.
"I was leaving the cafeteria when someone turned the tv louder, they said they kidnapped you, mom." She said between sobs, "I didn't believe it was you, and tried hard to keep concentrated on my books, I have an advanced calculus test tomorrow," she explained, "and then, Miss O'Hara came to me and she told me you gave a brief press conference and that you were okay… but I had to see you on my own." She explained, her mother caresses giving her some peace.
"But you are okay?" she asked, and Jess nodded. Her most pressing concern quickly dissolved, "And how did you get here?"
"I took the bus, and the metro… no one knows I'm here"
"Jess… you know that's highly dangerous."
"Mom, don't start over protecting me again," she rolled her eyes, all trace of worry quickly erased.
"I won't… if you stop doing things you aren't supposed to do, Jess." Her daughter quickly left her arms and stood on a defensive stance. Sam closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying hard not to create yet another conflict with her, "what if something happened to you and no one knew where you went?" She whispered, letting out one of the fears that currently were running rampant through her mind.
"Then you would probably remember you have a daughter," Jess hissed at her, and Sam had to take a deep breath, trying to contain the pain those words caused.
"I've never forgot about you, Jess."
"It doesn't show," she mumbled turning around, "Look, I just wanted to know you were okay, can you get me back to school now?"
"Jess, please," she pleaded but, she was already taking out her headphones, and finishing their conversation over the music of the darn cd player they had got her.
Sam closed her eyes, she knew in that moment she had managed to make her daughter angry again. She hated that ability of hers to open her mouth and screw her relationship with her daughter to new levels. She pinched the bridge of her nose, she had become exactly what she hated of her father after her mother's passing, but she they had fixed their relationship somewhat, so she had hopes. She called to her secretary who located Phillips and once the driver knocked her door and opened a little, she touched the shoulder of the angry pre-teen.
"Let's go, Jess," the girl marched out of the room and towards the elevator, both grownups following close. Sam walked with Jess to the principal office once they arrived to the building 45 minutes later. To avoid any issues, she told the principal a driver had picked her up, and got a not amused "Next time, I would be lovely you'll let us known beforehand, and avoid the whole staff going on a goose chase to find your daughter. Ten more minutes and we would have placed calls to the 911 and you"
Sam agreed with the Principal, it wasn't something she wanted happening either. She couldn't help to think what would have happened if they called her and Jess wasn't there yet. She probably would have called the Air Force and waited for a call to tell her where to go and how they would do the exchange. She shuddered.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" Phillips asked, he couldn't avoid the question even knowing how much she hated being asked that one. She nodded.
"Can we go to the store now?" She asked when they started to move.
The moment she entered the store with Phillips on her heels, the vendor squealed and came quickly to check she was seeing her really.
"Ma'am, your friend, he told me you were kidnaped. I called the police." She added nervously.
"Yes, it was a failed attempt. Can we continued with the purchase, it's ill-advised for me to be here after what happened this morning."
"Oh, yes… I kept them apart, just in case." She smiled, "let me get them for you," added to the selected suits, she picked some shirts she thought would bring his eyes out or he would like, avoided the pink ones that her husband liked and soon, several bags were now in her possession. Phillips looked at her amused and then took the suits out of her hands with a smile, "Thanks ma'am!" the vendor added happily and accompanied them to the doors, then she frowned, "where's your friend anyway?" her eyes widened because she shouldn't be asking those kinds of questions to her clients.
"He's recovering," Sam smiled, "if you hadn't believed in him and called the police, he would have been in a much complicated place right now. Thank you"
The girl smiled brightly, apparently she had not only gained a decent extra over her sales, but she somehow had helped her customer not to be kidnaped and her friend to still be alive. "What a nice day" she smiled.
But as the definition of the day often is a matter of perspective, for Sam that day fell under the other side of the scale. She couldn't remember a shittier day. She was almost abducted, the Colonel was unconscious, his wife was angrier at her, her daughter hated her even more… and she still had to deal with the emotions she was barely holding. They got to the home, without a word spoken and with Sam looking from her cellphone to her window, making all the humanly possible to avoid Phillips eyes in the mirror. She asked him to tell whomever was on shift to take the bags and hang them at whatever room the Colonel had chosen before sprinting towards the elevator and the safety of her room.
Needing some reassurance, she decided to call her husband, and started to regret it when the fourth ring reached her ears.
"McKay," came his voice, and she bit her lower lip when she noticed he was distracted enough not to check who was calling, "Hello?"
"Rodney," she whispered
"Sam? What's wrong?" she sighed, the news of her almost abduction hadn't traveled to L.A.
"Nothing, I just…"
"Sam, Jess called… you have to stop overprotecting the kid. You know, two more years and she will be the same age you were when you left to college, she's only asking that from you, it's not like she's emancipating herself like you did at thirteen"
Yes, calling Rodney was a bad idea. How he managed to have a decent relationship with their daughter was something she still had to figure out. If she was an absent figure, Rodney was worse. She at least spent half of the year in their home, while he, was mostly away except for Jess birthday, Christmas and new year.
"I know that Rodney, but she took the bus and the metro to get to the office without letting anyone know where she was going," Sam explained.
"So? She was going to the office, you would be bound to find out where she ended up. And come on, Sam, just because she goes to a private school doesn't mean she can't take a bus. I took the bus half of my life and I'm fine"
"Look, I'm not over protecting her, she just knows better than leaving without telling anyone. And she has a driver for crying out loud. This is not why I was calling you"
"Okay, so what? You went to Cheyenne; did they assign you someone yet?"
"Yes,"
"Someone competent I presume"
"Colonel O'Neill,"
"From SG-1? Won't he bring more troubles? I mean, SG-1 is known for getting head first on issues," Rodney mused. "Is that why you are calling? Something happened?"
"They tried to abduct me again," she whispered.
"Oh, you have to call to the SGC then, and I have to go. See you soon," and he hung up on her. She sighed. Even more stressed out than before, she walked to the anteroom trying to decide if she was better hiding herself in work or dealing with her emotions on a bath when a knock on her door got her attention, "Come in," May one of the kitchen staff entered with a tray that she quickly lowered in the table.
"Oh kid, I'm glad you are okay. I brought you something to eat, I'll bet you didn't get anything," Sam smiled gratefully to Anita, she forgot completely she hadn't had anything since breakfast apart from the thousands of coffee cups she had consumed. But the smell of a freshly cooked meal made her stomach growl. "So, what happened?" Anita asked, once that May left the room.
Sam told her everything she dared to tell without falling apart or giving classified information away. After she finished, Anita prepared her a warm bath and she smiled gratefully at the older woman and was left alone to deal with her emotions.
Entering the bathroom, she connected her cellphone to a charger, knowing it shouldn't be long before she got the call to pick the O'Neill's out of the hospital and no matter how much she had picked and prodded the battery, the small thing still had a limit. She turned the radio on, and while undressing, tried to find anything decent to listen to, half of the stations were talking about her day and how unsafe the city had become. She sighed and moved the dial towards the classical one, "you can always count on the classics" she whispered.
Then in a graceful movement, she entered the tub and dipped her head underwater. Surrounded by the warmth her mind provided her all the memories of the day, until her lungs were burning and she had to gasp for air. She didn't notice the tears at first, then when the first sob wrecked her body, she got out of the tub and moved towards the shower… and cried under the hot spring until her cellphone brought her out of her stressed misery. She sobered up the best she could, with the years of practice under her belt.
"Carter," she answered looking her face at the mirror, grateful that her eyes didn't get puffy after what she just did. "I'll be there in an hour"
She added her request for a driver on the software that was put around the house for such things, she completed her shower and dressed, grabbed her wallet and cellphone and without looking back she went down.
"Kid, McIntyre is waiting for you," Anita told her when she spotted her. "I thought you would agree that Phillips was in need of a rest," Sam nodded agreeing. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"Oh, there's no need Anita. I'm okay, I only have to get there, pay the bills, drive them home and return. Nothing I can't manage," she kissed the old woman cheek. And got out of the house, she inhaled deeply when she saw the car waiting for her and the newest driver, Angus McIntyre waiting for her.
"Good Evening Ma'am, where to?" he asked politely and blushing under her gaze, she jumped in the front seat, something she rarely did. Before giving him the instructions to the hospital. She talked with the man the whole way to the hospital giving him directions whenever he looked lost. When they finally got there, she thanked him and smiled when the blush tinted all the way to the tips of his ears. "Should I wait for you here, Ma'am or do you want me to come?" he asked, Michael Phillips had told him to always ask, if he didn't know for sure. Anita had told him not to lose sight of her.
"Walk me to the door," she affirmed when, standing straight, she felt an ounce of fear running through her body, he nodded, "You can come along if you want to, McIntyre, the inside is always warmer than the outside. Or you can go back and wait in the car. Either way, I won't be long," she told him, making her way towards the elevator.
She entered the elevator and nodded when she saw the driver doubting, the doors closed and she pressed the button. She walked the distance separating her from the room and smiled when she heard the happy exchange inside the designated room.
"And when I put the uniform, four people came out of nowhere and they started to make me turn and raise my arms," Charlie laughed.
Sam flatted herself next to the door with a sigh, and decided to return after she solved everything else, she knew the moment she entered that room the happy environment would disappear. But there was just so much time she could take before having to go there. And that moment, had gotten faster than she hoped for, with a deep breath, she knocked the door separating her from the O'Neill's.
"Come in," Colonel O'Neill's voice shouted over the noise of his kid and the tv. And she smiled.
"Good Evening Colonel, Mrs O'Neill, Charlie…"
"Hey, Mrs C. School looks awesome! Tomorrow will be my first day." He smiled, "And then next day I get to go to the beach! You think my dad will be able to come?" he asked and Sam nodded.
"Will see, kiddo," Jack told him, he was already on a set of clean clothes, someone had packed for him. "Ah, thank you for remembering the clothes," he said patting his pants.
"I'll make sure to thank Anita, it was all her doing," she told him, avoiding the glare she felt from his wife. "I'm just here to tell you, you are free to go. McIntyre is waiting for us at the parking lot."
"are you sure? Your Doctor was pretty adamant on let me stay the night," he smirked.
"Yes, your Doctor talked with him and she told him he better sign you off before you start to create havoc, her words apparently." He snorted
"Yup, that does sound like the little Napoleonic power monger we have as CMO," he added,
"I don't think Doctor Frasier would be too happy if she hears you calling like that."
"Oh, he calls Janet like that all the time," Sarah added, interrupting their exchange. "She's a good friend"
"That's what I've been told. Doctor's aside, I'll wait for you outside," she told them and left the room.
"Jack, you should stay with us, so I can take care of you," Sarah's voice reached her.
"Sarah… I know you can, but I assure you there's nothing wrong with me. Also, all my stuff is back at the house, it doesn't make sense for me to stay with you if I have nothing there."
"Nothing?"
"Sarah…" he warned, eyebrow raised and looking at Charlie who pretended wasn't listening to them by keeping his eyes fixed on the tv.
"Okay, but I still believe you should ask for a reassignment, it's not safe for you!"
"After one day? No… I can't ask for a reassignment if I haven't even tried and you know it."
"Fine!" she shouted and stormed out of the room.
She found herself coming closer to the darned Doctor Carter who was standing by the nurse station, talking with one of them about who knew what, she approached the younger woman and she hissed to her, "this is all your fault, you are going to make a child fatherless because of a whim"
Jack saw his wife approaching his charge and cringed, he saw Sarah telling something to the Doctor but he was too far away to know what it was. When she turned around he knew it wasn't something pretty, but he also saw the Doctor quickly composing herself before she saw them and all was hidden under a bright smile.
The ride to the condo was awkward, but Sam chose to ride on the front seat just to avoid having to be too close to the O'Neill woman. She decided against accompany them to the penthouse, and waited for the Colonel in the car, telling him to take his time. She went to the back seat and closed her eyes, and looked at the young driver. She only hoped he wouldn't do any comments, and thankfully he didn't.
The Colonel was back around twenty minutes later, he apologized for taking so long and explained that his son wanted him to tuck him in, a pang of jealousy took over Sam's body, she cleared her throat.
"Did you talk with Hammond?" he asked, looking at the window.
"Yes, we are going there tomorrow. If you feel up to it?" she asked looking at him.
"Sure, not the first time on that roller coaster, and I'm pretty sure Janet will be thrilled to check me up," he looked at her and he saw the stress lines in her eyes and how his comment only managed to make her lips just curve a little on a semblance of a smile. He knew if he was in her position, he would be still trying to come up to terms with the day, but he wasn't her and he wasn't even a close friend to her, so he opted out for something that could keep her mind out of the day. "So, dvd player then?"
She nodded, this time she looked around before she tried to pick the box out of the back of the car, and he picked the same box they were watching the last time. They laughed all the way, not even noticing how the city became townhouses and how those transformed into green walls and high fences. All in all, Jack thought, watching his charge laugh wholeheartedly at the yellow cartoons, it wasn't such a bad day.
