A/N: I continue to be wonderfully overwhelmed by all your great reviews! Thank you! And please keep them coming! I'm so happy people are enjoying this story. I'm even glad people are finding it creepy because I wasn't sure if I'd succeeded at that or not! (Sorry about any nightmares though!)

I've been asked if this story is going to be Sam/Jack. To answer that question, I'm going to borrow words from Sam and say, "Not exactly." It's definitely not a romance, let me put it that way. One of my goals with this story was to make it appeal both to people who like S/J stuff and those who aren't so keen on it. However, before all the readers in the former category run off and abandon me now, let me just say this -- if this story were to end in such a way that would allow for a sequel, that sequel would definitely contain some S/J comfort. Not romance, but comfort.

I hope that you'll all stick with me and continue to enjoy what's left to come. I really appreciate everyone who has stayed with me so far! Thanks!

Now, enough of these author's notes. Let's get on with the story. ; )

Spoilers: Slight reference to Entity and one quote from that episode. Nothing major.

Previously…

He snapped off picture after picture, and with every click of the shutter, with every burst of white light from the flash, horror ripped through Sam, wiping all clear thought from her mind and leaving her only with terror and fear.

Chapter 4

Jack stared at the piece of pie sitting on the plate before him. He'd added it to his tray automatically, but now it seemed oddly unappetizing to him. He couldn't enjoy things like pie with a member of his team missing. He couldn't enjoy anything at all to be honest.

He felt Teal'c's eyes on him from across the table.

"You are thinking of Major Carter," the Jaffa surmised.

"It's kinda hard to think about anything else right now." Jack stabbed at his pie with his fork.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "The lack of progress with the investigation grows frustrating."

Jack looked up at his friend. "No obvious or even unobvious connections to her work here at the SGC, no leads at all -- yeah, you could say it's frustrating." He dropped his fork onto his plate and pushed his tray aside. "And meanwhile, Carter's out there somewhere..." He paused, forcing down the familiar welling of anger and frustration. "She needs our help, Teal'c."

Teal'c bowed his head slightly in agreement. "We will not give up until we find her, O'Neill," he assured Jack.

"No," Jack agreed with feeling. "We won't."

There was a moment of silence, broken only when a young airman approached the table.

"Colonel O'Neill, sir?"

Jack looked up at him. "Yes?"

"General Hammond would like to see you in his office, sir."

"Thank you, Airman," Jack dismissed him and the younger man left.

"Perhaps he has news of Major Carter," Teal'c speculated.

Jack pushed back his chair, getting to his feet. "Let's hope so." And leaving his pie abandoned and forgotten on the table, Jack set off for the General's office.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

The door to the General's office was open when Jack arrived, and Hammond beckoned him in immediately.

"Come on in, Colonel."

Jack entered the office. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

Hammond regarded him from across his desk, watching as he took a seat. "Yes. I just got off the phone with Detective Morrison -- he's the detective heading the investigation into Major Carter's disappearance."

"I remember," Jack said quickly. Morrison. That was the detective he'd pestered at Carter's house. Jack felt his stomach tighten. "Is there any news, sir?"

"They haven't located Major Carter."

Jack felt his brief spark of hope dwindle quickly away.

"However," Hammond continued, "they've been going through the various sets of fingerprints they lifted from Major Carter's house. They've eliminated all those belonging to Major Carter and friends such as yourself and the rest of SG-1."

"And?" Jack wasn't feeling very patient.

"And they've got one print they feel might well belong to Major Carter's abductor. The police are running it through the system as we speak," Hammond finished.

Jack turned this news over in his mind. "But even if the print does belong to her abductor, it'll only be helpful if the bastard is already in the system."

"That's true," General Hammond agreed. "But at this point, it's the best we've got to go on."

"Well, it's not enough." Jack got to his feet, unable to sit still any longer.

"Colonel."

Jack looked back at the General.

"You've done everything you can, son," Hammond said gently.

"Have I?" Jack's frustration was building dangerously again.

"I believe so, yes," Hammond said with assurance.

"The way I see it, nothing I do will be good enough unless and until it gets Major Carter back here safe and sound."

There was a pause. Just as Hammond seemed about to speak again, Jack jumped in first. "Permission to be dismissed, sir?" It came out rather abruptly, but Jack suddenly needed to be out of the office. Staying in one place too long allowed his broiling emotions to sneak too close to the surface.

General Hammond looked at him carefully, a hint of fatigue and sadness showing in his eyes. Jack didn't fail to notice this. He knew Carter's disappearance was weighing heavily upon the older man as well. It was weighing upon everyone who was close to her.

After a moment, the General sighed and nodded once. "Permission granted."

Jack gave a curt not of acknowledgment and strode quickly from the office.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

General Hammond watched Colonel O'Neill leave his office with a heavy heart. It was obvious that Major Carter's disappearance was eating away at the man, slowly but surely.

I know how important Major Carter is to you.

That's what George had been about to say just before Jack had asked to be dismissed. But maybe there was no point in saying it. After all, they'd had that conversation before. And, in all likelihood, Jack would have responded in exactly the same way.

"She's a very valuable member of my team, Sir."

Yes, she was. But that wasn't quite what George had meant. Not that time, and it wouldn't have been what he'd meant if he'd said it again this time, either. But what more could they really say about it?

With a deep sigh, George turned back to his paperwork.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Sam was lying on her side again, aching and exhausted. The room's lights were off once more and she'd been in darkness for a long while, although grey daylight was now beginning to filter in through the cracks between the boards on the window.

She'd been alone again now for some time. Left alone to wonder what would happen next. She had nothing to do but lie rather painfully on her side, thinking. And her thoughts weren't very comforting at the moment.

What she wouldn't give to have her hands freed from behind her back. Her position was growing more uncomfortable with every passing hour. But more than anything, Sam just wanted to be free of this hell hole. Free from that psycho with his knife and his camera.

She didn't know how many rolls of film her captor had gone through during their photo session, but it had seemed to stretch on forever. Sam would never have known that a camera could have brought her so much horror. But maybe it wasn't so much the camera as the man behind it.

He had to be crazy. None of this made any sense. And that in itself was frightening to Sam.

At least being held captive by a Goa'uld would have been familiar. And maybe it wasn't a good thing that being a prisoner of a glowing-eyed alien with a snake in its head would be familiar, but at least it would have been a situation that she'd dealt with before. A situation that she'd dealt with and survived. This, on the other hand...

Even if her freak of a captor didn't decide to murder her in the next few hours, Sam knew she was still in trouble. She needed water. Badly. She knew she was becoming dehydrated, and her throat and mouth were uncomfortably dry. And her physical discomforts only served to lower her already sagging spirits.

Needing some source of comfort, something to hold onto, Sam allowed her thoughts to stray to her friends at the SGC. She pictured each of them in her mind, taking the time to see every one of them clearly. Daniel. Teal'c. Janet. General Hammond. The Colonel.

She closed her eyes against a sudden welling of desperate tears. Where they looking for her? Of course. They must be. They'd have known something was wrong when she didn't show up for work. But would they be able to find her? Did they have anything to go on? Hell, even she didn't know where she was. A concrete room. That was all. She might not even be in Colorado anymore, for all she knew. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious before waking up in her chilly prison.

As she felt her fear beginning to overpower her once again, Sam took a deep breath and forced herself to focus. She couldn't rely on anyone else finding her in time. She needed to figure something out for herself.

Something.

Anything.

Struggling up off her aching shoulder, Sam sat up and looked around. Maybe there was something she could use to work through her bonds. Something sharp...

Nothing in the room fit that description. She glanced up at the boarded window, thinking momentarily about possible nails, but she quickly discarded that possibility. With her hands tied behind her back the way they were, there was no way she could reach the window.

Her eyes strayed to one of the corners of the wall that marked the transition from the alcove to the rest of the room. The corner wasn't exactly sharp, but the concrete looked rough. Very rough.

Her heart beating a little faster with new hope, Sam maneuvered her way off the mattress and over to the bumpy and irregular edge of the wall. She sat on the cold, concrete floor, her back to the wall. Pressing the ropes around her wrists up against the edge where the two walls met, she began moving her hands up and down, working the cords against the rough cement.

Before she'd even started, she knew it was going to be slow, hard work. But she had no other choice.

She just hoped she would have enough time.

TBC…