Well, here's that extra long chapter for you . Lots of surprises in store, some not so nice, but I did make a promise if you recall. Things may not be what they seem.
Thanks for the reviews as usual. Love them all. Keep 'em coming and I'll keep writing!
Enjoy, but please, no lynching is allowed!
NOTHING IS EVER THAT SIMPLE
By LetitiaRichards
Previously:-
Something was most definitely going on and he was sure he was about to find out what exactly it was.
Chapter 26 – Surprise!
When the elevator reached the top of the mountain. Daniel tied a blindfold over Jack's eyes, surprising him, and Teal'c took charge of Mac.
"Hey! What the...? What's goin' on?" Jack cried. His spidery senses kicking in. He'd known they were up to something, now he knew it.
Sam took his right hand and Daniel grabbed his left arm, guiding him out of the entrance, much to the amusement of the security guards stationed there.
The little group led Jack a little way down the roadway then veered off to the left. Jack tried to think where they were leading him. The only thing he knew that was off in this direction was part of the forest that covered this part of Cheyenne Mountain. He and his team often came up here for a few moments to enjoy the fresh air.
He was puzzled when he was led onwards and he couldn't feel the rough path under his feet. He should be on the trail by now, unless he'd been mistaken as to where he was?
He could hear other voices nearby. He tired to pick up to whom they belonged. He could hear Cindy's voice and... Ellie? He was stopped and General Hammond cleared his throat.
Sam whipped off the blindfold and Jack stood facing a brand new building. Not a large one, and it was only a single story edifice. Double doors stood closed off just a few yards directly in front of him.
His face creased in puzzlement and he looked to the others to see them all smiling.
Sam pointed upwards to the sign over the door. Jack took a step back in surprise, his eyes impossibly wide as he took in the name.
"You've gotta be kiddin' me? I'm dreamin', right? Any minute now I'm gonna wake up in the infirmary. Again! What'd I do this time? "
Sam shook her head in amusement. Her smile as wide as the ocean; her eyes as bright as the morning sun. She pinched him and he flinched with a frown.
"This is real?" he gaped, standing stock still, absolutely stunned.
"Actually Colonel," Hammond chuckled. "This was a project that I'd put forward after the, then 'Major' Carter's abduction. But after your horrific accident it made it doubly worth the effort and since then we've had an unexpected extra funding towards it. We'd like you to officially open it for use."
"That name's gonna change though, right?"
"What's wrong with it?" Daniel asked, hiding his own amusement.
Jack looked at him askance.
"You only have buildings named after you when you're dead Daniel and last I recall I was...am still very much alive, thank you."
That brought a little chuckle rippling through the small crowd waiting for him to inspect the inside.
"Come on Colonel, we're all waiting to see what it looks like in there."
Jack pursed his lips and shrugged.
"Okay. What do I have to do?"
"Just declare that 'O'Neill's Fitness Centre' is open for business," Hammond prompted him, making Jack shudder at the thought of the place named after him.
"Okay. Not one for speeches here, so I'll keep this short. I hereby announce that..." he hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment, before Sam nudged him to open them and get on with it, so using his fingers to draw imaginary speech marks in the air to emphasise his own name he continued. "...'"O'Neill's"...Fitness Centre' is now open for customers."
"Thank you Colonel."
There was a round of enthusiastic applause and Jack dipped his head, shaking it with something between resignation and amusement. It wasn't quite the same as having a spaceship named after him, but it came a pretty close second he figured.
Sam and Janet pushed him to step forward and both Daniel and Teal'c opened a door each for him to pass through into the interior.
Jack passed cloakrooms. Women's on one side and Men's on the other, until he entered another set of doors opening onto the main area of the gym. It was equipped with the latest machines, all high tech with monitors to check progress, heart-rate and Bp etc. He was familiar with some of the gear which he'd used downtown with Cindy.
She had come up beside him now and was explaining that with a fully equipped Physical Therapy building now at Cheyenne Mountain, there would be no need for staff who had been injured to visit the local gyms in town for their therapy. At least here, they would be safe.
There was a room at the back of the building which was where Cindy was leading him. She pulled open the door and Jack grinned as he surveyed the area.
"Cool!" he exclaimed when he saw the small Therapy pool, complete with hoist.
"How did you guys ever afford this on our budget?"
"Easily Jack," Hammond said, grinning widely. "They were a gift from a grateful patron, though she doesn't have a clue about what the Stargate programme is all about, only that her husband was dead against financing it. Apparently we did her a favour."
"Huh?" Jack sighed, still thinking he must be dreaming all of this.
The crowd of close friends 'in the know' laughed at Jack's lack of understanding.
"Mrs. Kinsey was more than happy to spend a little of her husband's excess cash. Putting it back where it belonged. It seems that Senator Kinsey had his hand in our purse Jack. He'd been dipping into our funding in secret, embezzling thousands of dollars for his own pet schemes. She's just returning the money that he couldn't claim was his in the first place. Apparently, she'd had a private firm of investigators looking into his accounts for months now. So in all truth, this was a gift from Senator Kinsey. Kind of ironic really isn't it? She's also filed for divorce."
Jack snorted with amusement. 'Oh yeah, serves the bastard right.'
"Good for her," Jack laughed. Justice had been done at last. Maybe now they could look forward to a reasonable amount of funding that was rightfully theirs. There were murmurs of agreement from all round.
Jack was feeling slightly overwhelmed by all this attention. He'd been so out of it for months now. Sam could feel the tension rising in him, seeing the muscles in his neck bunching, so she quietly ushered everyone from the room.
Jack knew what she was doing and was more than thankful for her vigilance and concern, giving him a moment to himself. He turned, standing near the edge, gazing blindly down into the depths of the shimmering green water of the pool.
The room fell silent as the doors closed behind the last person and Sam walked back towards him, standing at his side, waiting for him to say something. She took his hand in hers; she could wait, she was patient, letting him make the first move. Neither of them had noticed Cindy, hiding in the corner of the room behind the door to the changing rooms.
The physical therapist pulled the Beretta from her bag and walked over towards them, hiding it between the folds of her white coat until she was just several feet from Jack.
Planting her feet in a wide stance and taking a firm hold with both hands wrapped round the grip; her arms locked as she pointed the weapon at Jack's back. When she spoke, her voice was cold and hard.
"I should have done this earlier when I had the chance Jack."
Jack swung round, his senses alert as he came face to face with the muzzle of Cindy's pistol.
"Whoa!" Jack cried when he stopped at the sight; his hands going up and wide apart in shock, and to prove to her that he was no threat. "Cindy? What's goin' on?"
Sam jumped at the voice, swinging round too; releasing a frightened gasp when she too spotted the danger. They were alone here and nobody knew Cindy was in the room with them, and that she certainly appeared to be a big threat to Jack's life now. How come they hadn't known that she was involved with this? Was she? Or was this something else?
Cindy moved the pistol towards Sam and Jack went pale at the thought that Cindy might shoot her instead, or perhaps both of them.
Cindy laughed, a cruel deep snort of derision.
"I'm the Back up Jack. I played my part, telling them I'd get you into the gym for one of those goons. He failed and so did the other guy. It's all down to me now. But then I have a personal grudge too."
"Oh for cryin' out loud! Like what?" Jack prompted, trying to figure a way of talking her out of shooting them.
"Bitch," she sneered at Sam.
"Hey!" Jack cried defensively. What had Sam done to Cindy that warranted that spiteful label? "What's going on Cindy? What have we done to you that makes you feel the need to shoot us?"
He gradually edged nearer to Sam, trying to inch between the two women, hoping that he could deflect any shots that might be fired at Sam. He'd die saving her if it came down to that.
"It's all her fault. And yours!" she spat, full of scorn.
"What?" Jack persisted calmly, looking for an opportunity to get the gun away from her without getting either him or Sam killed in the process.
"She would have helped save him, instead, you arrived to rescue her. Her knight in shining armour. The 'Sir Galahad' of the SGC," she snorted, hate filling her.
"What?" Jack tried to think what and when she was talking about.
"When I was kidnapped Jack," Sam whispered, recalling the event that triggered this whole sordid fiasco.
He turned to face Sam with a quick jerk of his neck but turned back seconds later, unwilling to take his eyes off Cindy for longer than necessary.
"Crap!" Jack exclaimed, falling into realisation all at once.
"My husband was arrested thanks to you Jack. I wish Frank had killed you there and then."
"So, you're whose wife?"
"My better half was one of the doctors employed by Conrad to study Carter."
"Ah. I just didn't connect you with any one of those guys," Jack sighed with resigned understanding. Harry's words ringing true at last. "And you're confirming that it was Frank Simmons who shot me back then?"
Cindy silently fumed, she hadn't meant to give him that information, but no mind; Simmons wasn't her particular friend; wasn't even her husband's either. He was a friend of Conrad's though.
"I'm not saying anything more Jack. But I'm here for my husband. He lost his practice, everything because of that. Then one day he was found hanging in his cell. I will have my revenge. So I sold you out to Kinsey, but even they failed to take you down, obviously. You just won't play dead will you Jack?"
She levelled the gun at him, steadying herself with a deep breath; easing back on the trigger.
Jack pulled himself upright, sucking in a huge breath, ready for the pain when it came. He could hear Sam's hitched gasp of fear from behind him as she came to realise that he was about to die, and that she would probably die too.
He felt her hand slip into his and he gripped hers tightly in return, facing his impending mortality with her support.
Cindy's finger tightened on the trigger.
Jack moved quickly, pushing Sam sideways just as the gun fired. The loud retort echoing round the small room.
Sam shrieked in denial as Jack gasped in pain and recoiled from the impact, stumbling backwards to land with a splash in the pool behind him, a red stain discolouring the water and the T-shirt he was wearing.
Sam stood up shakily, waiting expectantly for her turn.
It never came.
Instead, Cindy walked forward, calmly handing the gun over to a shocked and tearful Sam.
"I didn't want to do it Sam. Funnily enough I actually got to like Jack. I just needed to prove to myself I could have done it."
Sam couldn't move; couldn't bring herself to turn round to look at Jack's body.
The doors burst open, weapons raised. The room filling with SFs. General Hammond pushed forward demanding to know what the hell was going on.
Daniel, Teal'c and some of the others entered but were unable to take their eyes off the pool, while Mac took in his master's still form and yapped out his distress.
Janet rushed forward, giving Sam a quick glance over for a moment. She barked out orders that Sam was suffering from shock and needed help. Ellie moved in to Sam's side, leading her away from the edge of the pool, and gently taking the gun from Sam's numb fingers to hand it over to one of the guards. Janet then quickly turned her attention to Jack who was floating motionlessly in the pool.
Two of the SFs took a readily submissive Cindy away on Hammond's orders.
However, before anyone could react further, there was a spluttering and splashing and Jack stood up in the water, his hands pushing the wetness away from his hair and face.
"Ow!" he complained, looking down at his chest for the expected damage.
"Jack?" Startled, Daniel's eyebrows shot upwards. He couldn't comprehend what was happening. Hadn't Jack just been shot? There was blood in the water and on his chest.
Teal'c and Daniel helped their friend from the pool. Jack discovered his legs felt like jello, both from the extra buoyancy of the water and from the shock of being shot at close range.
They helped him to sit down on a bench that ran round the side of the room, handing him a towel to dry his face and hair. Janet followed them and knelt down in front of Jack to examine him. He was hunched over, rubbing at a point high on the right side of his chest. Mac was all over him, but Jack was too busy trying to recover than to make much more than a token rub of the pup's ears, before Teal'c pulled him away so that Janet could get closer.
"Colonel?"
"It's okay Doc. I'm fine. I think it was just a Simunition cartridge. I'm just a little sore from where it hit me is all," Jack explained.
"A what?" Daniel couldn't understand why there was a red stain over Jack's shirt and yet he appeared to be okay.
Janet pulled Jack's wet shirt from over his head and wiped away the red stain from his skin with the damp garment, examining the area where it had impacted him. It revealed a discoloured patch of skin but no hole. Much to everyone's intense relief.
"Ouch indeed Colonel. But, you'll be fine. It's just a bruise," she smiled, more than satisfied that there was nothing wrong.
The petite doctor stood up and patted his shoulder, then moved back allowing Sam to see that Jack was okay. Sam's sob hitched in her throat and she threw herself into his arms, crying with relief.
Jack wrapped his arms around her, soothing her; and as quietly as possible the room cleared, leaving the two of them alone, clinging tightly to each other. Jack was having a hard time understanding why Cindy had chosen to shoot him with a training weapon instead of the real thing. Not that he minded in the least. It meant he was alive, and so was his Sam.
TBC
A/N - A Simunition cartridge or an 'FX bullet', can be used with real weapons but it is fairly harmless if used with safety equipment. They are used in military and police training methods, and it does hurt if you actually get shot with one, which releases a coloured dye on impact to show the exact spot where the 'victim' had been hit.
Okay – hands up those of you who thought I had actually killed him off this time! Oh ye of little faith!
