AUTHOR'S NOTES: My genfic 'Hostage Situation' is a prequel to this story. It is not necessary to have read 'HS', however it will help with some minor references. In timeline, we went AU before the Season 8 episode 'New Order' and everything that has happened since then is not included in these pages. Characterisation of Pete Shanahan is taken from his depiction in 'Chimera' and nowhere else.
Please note, this story contains Sam/Jack; if that is not your cup of tea, then please don't read the story and then whinge about it containing S/J.
Secrets and Shadows: What You Don't Know
Part One
He had lain in bed most of the morning, his body trying to recover from the injury done to it. At midday, he had roused briefly for lunch, and his friends had come to visit him shortly afterwards. In truth, Teal'c had hoped to watch Oprah this afternoon, however his friends' presences and discussion made that unlikely in the near future.
"It's circumstantial evidence at best," Samantha said.
Teal'c pitied the weariness in her voice, in her pose. She sat on a chair near the foot of the bed, staring at the sheets and refusing to meet the gazes of her former team-mates.
Daniel Jackson leaned his hip against the side of the infirmary bed where Teal'c rested; beyond him, O'Neill lay on his side on the next empty bed. He was watching their team-mates closely, his expression giving no hints as to his personal opinion on the matter.
"But enough to get a restraining order out on him," Daniel insisted.
"Daniel..." O'Neill's voice was quieter, warning.
"At the very least..."
"At the very least, we're making plans to ensure that whoever or whatever may have been targeting us won't get a shot at us for a while," O'Neill said. His professional neutrality was evident, although his personal opinion was plain enough.
"What plans?" Teal'c saw the glance that passed between O'Neill and Samantha. So, too, did Daniel. "What's going on?"
Samantha took a deep breath. "We've cancelled the Targonian delegation's visit here," she said, simply.
Considering how much Daniel Jackson had been looking forward to the Targonian visit, his response was expected. "What?!"
"We're sending a delegation to Targonia," Samantha told him.
"Who? When?"
"Where, why, and how," O'Neill added dryly. "Carter, Meridian, Reeve, and Haley - enough technical skill to recreate a glider. Not big on the diplomatic front, but they'll do." He grinned as Samantha grimaced slightly.
"So kind, sir."
His teasing served its intended purpose; it brought her out of the temporary withdrawl into which she had gone upon learning of her former lover's actions. Not, Teal'c added, punctiliously, that his hand behind the actions was proven.
Daniel Jackson had been disconcerted to discover that, in truth, the cars that hit Teal'c were accidental. The releasing of all the air from Teal'c's tyres were not. He had stepped out into the flow of traffic, too distracted to think of passing cars, and been hit by one vehicle travelling too swiftly within the parking lot and thrust into the fender of another vehicle travelling faster than the speed limit.
As with O'Neill's car and Daniel's house, the evidence was circumstantial. That did not preclude Teal'c's forming of his own opinions, even if they were not voiced. He did not carry a good image of the Detective, particularly after the scene at Samantha's house last weekend.
"How long?"
"Two weeks," Samantha said quietly. "Enough time for things to quiet down over here..."
"Are you going to tell him?" Daniel asked, "Or do you just plan to vanish?"
He needed no elaboration, nor did her grimace. "I'll call him before I go," she said, defensively. "It's not as though..." She trailed off, but Teal'c could almost hear her unspoken words. It's not as though he can tell me what I can and can't do...
"We've upped the timetable, too," O'Neill added, smoothly stepping into the moment. "The girls leave on Sunday morning instead of Monday morning."
"That's going to make things busy."
"Really busy," O'Neill agreed.
"Sam?"
She crossed her arms over her body, "We don't even know if it's him, Daniel."
"I do."
"And how are you going to convince a judge of that?" Sam demanded. "Really?"
Daniel Jackson had no answer for that. "I'm not going to sit by while he wrecks your life, Sam."
"And I don't expect you to," she responded evenly. "But no restraining orders. Give him some time to calm down..."
"Calm down?" Daniel asked, skeptically. "Uhuh. Your ex-boyfriend and father of your child burns out the car of the man he thinks you're cheating with, lets the air out of another friend's tyres, and arranges to have a third friend burgled, and you think he's going to calm down?"
Were it not for the impossibility of it, Teal'c might have believed that the computer monitors in the infirmary ward had chosen to beep softer than before Daniel Jackson's pronouncement.
"Jesus, Daniel, which part of 'circumstantial' didn't you get?" O'Neill snapped.
Daniel coloured. His muttered apology to Samantha was suitably penitent, but there were bright spots of high colour in Samantha's face as she spoke.
"I want you to leave it alone, Daniel," she repeated, standing up. "I'm gone for the next two weeks, and I don't want you to do anything on my behalf when it comes to Pete. At all." She gave him a searching glare, then nodded at O'Neill, nodded at Teal'c, and left.
It was evidently not a topic which she cared to discuss right now.
The room was silent until the sounds of her footsteps had faded off into the distance.
"There are times when you take the cake, Daniel," O'Neill stated, more calmly than Teal'c would have expected from his friend.
Daniel glared at him. "You..."
"Daniel, regardless of whether or not you agree with her, you are going to respect her wishes."
"Jack..."
"Daniel..." O'Neill stared hard at him. "There is nothing to explicitly link any of the last couple of days to Shanahan. Not even the fact that he was waiting outside her house last night. So don't even try."
"If it is him..."
"If it is, then he won't stop this as long as Carter refuses to have him back. And sooner or later he'll slip up."
Daniel's expression flared with the brief gleam of vindictive eagerness, "And when he does..."
"When he does, we'll be down on him like a ton of bricks." O'Neill's smile was unamused. "But then. Not now."
A nod was all the response he received from that quarter. It would have to suffice. "Are we still doing dinner tomorrow night with the Dixons?"
"Teal'c won't be," O'Neill glanced towards Teal'c and the bandages that still swathed his body.
The pain of the wounds was a faint nag, nothing that he had not experienced before. He was healing adequately after the injury, but it would be several days before he was fit to move about on his own power, let alone leave the base.
This morning, he had refused Samantha Carter's offer of assistance with the healing device, stating that she required her strength for the child. He had seen the relief in O'Neill's eyes as he did so and was glad he had not succumbed to the brief temptation. A little extra pain was more than worth his friend's continued good health. And he was not entirely trusting of the Goa'uld device - even in the hands of one so well-meaning as Major Carter.
"Yeah," Daniel Jackson looked mortified at having forgotten Teal'c's state of body. "Are you going to file any charges against the people who did this to you?"
"I see little reason to do so," Teal'c stated. "It was an accident." Both drivers had been horrified by their actions; Teal'c remembered the cries of alarm as he lay on the ground and tried to remember how to breathe.
Already, he had received bouquets of flowers from the drivers - sent along to him via Memorial Hospital's Intensive Care Unit. Had he been available to the parties who injured him, Teal'c had little doubt he'd have received many apologies, and would have been pestered by the curiosity of his visitors - as well as the doctors and nurses who attended him. There was little that could be done to disguise the fact that his brand did not come off, or that he possessed a gaping wound in his belly where his primta once rested, and the less questions that came of attending him, the better.
Daniel frowned. "Jack, remind me again... Belinda Dixon asked us around for dinner...why?"
"Because she offered to cook a meal for Carter when the kid's born, and she wanted to meet Carter. And since Dixon didn't think that Carter would be willing to come around without moral support, he invited the lot of us."
"Generous," Daniel observed.
"Either that or whipped," O'Neill said lightly, a brief smirk outlined on his features.
"O'Neill," Teal'c observed. "I believe that, were you married to Belinda Dixon, you would also be 'whipped.'"
Now it was Daniel Jackson's turn to smirk. He swiftly blanked the expression from his face as O'Neill glared at him. "I think I'll go somewhere else, now," he stated, his mouth still twitching.
Teal'c hid his own amusement at O'Neill's infuriated expression as their friend departed in haste.
"You're sure you're okay about tonight? I mean, we can call it off, do it another time."
"That will not be necessary. I am in good physical health for my circumstances, O'Neill." Teal'c paused, pondering whether or not to ask the question. Both he and O'Neill had more realistic understandings of the world than Daniel Jackson and he wished for his friend's frank opinion. "Do you believe, as does Daniel Jackson, that Detective Shanahan is responsible for these acts?"
The silence was long, but O'Neill's expression was set. "For Carter's sake, I'd like to believe he isn't," he said at last, swinging his legs off the bed. "But it fits his personality profile." He shrugged, "Whether it is or it isn't doesn't make a difference. We're still going to stick by Carter."
And that, Teal'c knew, was what mattered most to his friend.
"It is well that she will be off-world for some time," he said. Of late, there had been few things to distract Samantha from her personal predicament. This mission would be a diversion, something in which she could enjoyably immerse herself without the distractions of her life.
"Yeah, Carter will love it in Targonia. And they'll probably love her and the girls, too." O'Neill shrugged. "The Targonians will keep her healthy and her mind off the stuff happening around here, so it's a good way to deal with everything going on right now." Judging by O'Neill's wince, the 'everything going on right now' was not something he particularly cared to deal with either; he changed the topic with considerable alacrity. "Do you need anything, Teal'c?"
"I am well, O'Neill."
"Right. Look, if you need anything, or if you get bored with daytime television...just gimme a yell."
"I shall."
Teal'c waited until his friend was gone, then used the bed controls to lie back, wincing only slightly as the motion jostled tender flesh.
Then he used the television remote to activate the overhead screen. It was, he saw, too late for Oprah, but he might be in time to catch Dr. Phil.