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Irrevocable Decision Chapter 10

Blinking hurriedly, Sam refused to allow the bitter tears of frustration which pricked at her eyes to surface. She pushed determinedly through the crowd milling by the bar until she found her father.

"Dad."

"Sam?"

She could feel his concern wash over her and she smiled wanly, hardly daring to make eye contact.

"I'm heading back to Mark's."

"Now? Can't you—."

"I need to go, besides," she explained more forcefully, "I don't want to get stuck here with the deteriorating weather conditions." She rolled her eyes in mock horror at the thought and managed a weak grin.

Jacob was no fool. He could see the pain she struggled to hide and determined to allow her to retain her dignity whilst promising he would give Jack O'Neill a firm lesson indeed.

"Okay, hon, I'll get a lift back with Jack."

Jack! Would she ever erase the image of their dance together. If she closed her eyes she knew she would still feel his hands holding her, his body so close she was sure... She shook her head in exasperation. Now was not the time to fantasise about your ex-CO. Not now. Not ever!

As he hugged her one last time and kissed the top of her blonde hair, Jacob could not help himself as he fell into his father's role.

"You be careful now – I don't want you--."

"Dad!"

-----

She had just settled her hotel account and was heading for her car when she realized someone was standing next to her vehicle.

'Shit!" She rolled her eyes. 'Now what?' She couldn't imagine what the ranger woman would want with her and right at this moment she was in no mood to see her, what about talk to her.

She smiled tightly. "Olivia?'

"Sam, before you leave, I think there's something you should know…"

-----

She was seething. As she sat in her car and watched the fading rear lights of Olivia's 4x4 she could feel her whole body wound so tight her one desire in life at that moment was to do physical damage to one stubborn, hard-assed former CO. She shook her head, furious at her own gullibility.

'How could he? How could he do it?' Dammit, he'd gone and done it. There was nothing that could be done to change that, but by God, she'd let him know just what sort of chicken-shit person she considered him to be. If he wanted out then she'd just have to accept it and get on with her life, but to try and use Olivia as his get-out clause. Hah! It had been a long time since she'd had reason to give anyone a dressing down but the one coming up would go down in history; she promised herself that if nothing else. As her hands banged down on the steering wheel, Oscar began to whine in consternation as he picked up the volatile atmosphere. Turning her head, the harsh light in her eyes disappeared and her tone softened.

"Shhhh boy, it's not you, okay? Settle down now, there's a good boy."

As she released the handbrake and pulled out of the hotel's car park, she failed to take the turning which would lead her to the nearest highway for Mark's home. She had other plans.

-----

He paced the deck, a beer clutched tightly in one hand, every so often raising it to his lips and taking a deep draught. A pulse in his temple beat erratically, testimony to his temper. He kicked out viciously at a discarded bottle at his feet, sending it spinning and crashing off the deck.

Sometimes he wished his f-cking memory would be shot to hell and right now his preference for drunken oblivion was intensified as he relived the final moments he'd had with Sam, grimacing at his own cutting words. 'Don't tell me this isn't something you've always fantasized about.' He'd thought himself so clever inverting his feelings – forcing them onto her. 'Oh yea, an award winning moment in your non-existent career, O'Neill.'

He had seen the misery in her eyes just prior to the revulsion and the memory was shattering to recall.

'Well, O'Neill, you've excelled at being a first class, f-cking bastard – you should be proud of yourself.' And he drank from the bottle again before hurling it as far as he could, cursing aloud as a new fall of snow began to drift down from the white heavens.

The realization of his success brought such a nauseous rush of emotions to him that he found himself grabbing onto the fence, bowing his head and groaning as if in physical pain. He shook his head from side to side, trying to eliminate the voices resounding in his skull.

He had crushed her with his false words, felt her pain as he had held her in his arms, but his success was a bitter victory to contemplate and without thinking he pushed himself off the deck almost at a run as he entered the dense forest covering. Heedless of the outstretched branches tearing at him, he raced along as if chased by a horde of Goa'uld and only when his tortured lungs craved oxygen did he slow, head hung low, arms resting on trembling thighs as he laboured for each painful breath.

It was the cold glint of metal within the brilliant white which eventually caught his attention, forcing his reeling brain to stop dissecting every word spoken to Sam since she'd appeared through his door, and he realized that he was staring at the tip of a trap.

From the little showing above the snow, it looked to be a device which had ferocious steel claws which sprang shut on its victim's limbs, often severing a leg and causing the animal to bleed to death even though it was no longer imprisoned.

In an instant, Jack's anger was channelled against the obscene piece of workmanship which, to him, was yet another personification of evil, and grabbing a rotting branch near his feet, he approached the poacher's trap and thrust the branch deep into its hidden teeth, ensuring it sprang shut with an echoing clang in the hushed silence of the forest. With a feral grin of satisfaction, Jack surveyed his handiwork and made the second mistake that day.

Stepping back off the little used path his brain registered his left foot making contact with an unusual object just as his sense of danger had him jerking back from the claws of steel he knew were snapping closed. No satisfying clang of steel claw meeting steel claw this time. Instead, a crunching sound as teeth tore through material and leather and entered warm flesh.

(Go to Chapter 11)