From Here to Alternity: Lost you in the Canyon
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this chapter. See chapter one for specifics. Please don't sue. Unless you want my great big writer's block – that you could take. This has been edited to correct boneheaded mistakes now that I've seen Season Six. It's not new.
(See bottom for AN)
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Previously in From Here to Alternity:
General Hammond cleared his throat and the whole room shifted its focus."Gentlemen, Doctor, thank you for coming in on such short notice. Doctor Fraiser, I know that you need to be in the infirmary so I'll try to make this brief. Has anyone here had contact with Major Carter since she left the base a week ago?"
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Stargate Command – Spring 2003
Downtime Day 8
General Hammond's question fell into a sudden, shocked silence.
Jack's eyebrows rose in a very Teal'cian gesture as the negatives came from around the conference table. "General, why –"
"Just a minute, Jack, let me finish. Does anyone know anything about Major Carter's itinerary or travel routes? Did she mention any particular timetable for her trip?"
"No, sir, not to me. Sir, what's wrong with Sam?" Janet's observant eyes were clouded with worry for her best friend. Sam had been a little emotional, er… intense while Colonel O'Neill had been missing. And just like the last time Sam busted her ass to rescue him, he'd given a general 'thanks, everybody' to his team without recognizing Sam's tireless efforts. Janet didn't need Sam to spell out how hurt and frustrated she'd been by his behavior. Still, Janet hadn't noted anything that would cause this kind of anxiety in General Hammond.
"None of you? So she could be anywhere on any route between here and California?" Hammond's tension spread throughout the room and infected all his personnel.
"No, sir. What's going on with Carter?" Jack O'Neill demanded as his stomach clenched into a cold knot. He saw concern edging into anxiety on Janet and Jonas' faces and was glad he didn't have a mirror.
Hammond's level voice belied his grim expression. "Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Fraiser, Jonas… I don't want this to become common knowledge around the base, but I spoke with Mark Carter this morning. Major Carter was supposed to be in San Diego late the night before last and she still hasn't arrived." Hammond watched the shock creep onto his officers' faces. Their reaction mirrored his own when he'd heard from the major's brother. "MarkammHammondH hasn't spoken to her since she confirmed her arrival date and she hasn't called in here. I checked with her department and she hasn't called anyone about projects that they're monitoring for her. It's highly unusual for her to be out of communication this long even while on vacation."
Jonas piped up. "How long has it been exactly since Sam's brother talked to her?"
"It's been a week since anyone has had contact with her." Hammond admitted.
The colonel's face paled as Hammond's implication sank in. "Waitaminute! Lemme get this straight. Sir, you're saying that Carter's missing? And nobody noticed for a week!" Jack strove valiantly to keep the dismay out of his voice, but he had recent unpleasant knowledge of what being missing could mean.
"Not precisely, Colonel. The last time anyone had contact with Major Carter was 6 days ago when she called her brother from Albuquerque. However, he didn't expect her to arrive until… 37 hours ago." Hammond's stern gaze swept the room. "I don't want anyone to start a panic. We all know how foolish we'd feel if Major Carter pulled into her brother's driveway to find an anti-kidnapping task force about to do a bloodhound search for her." He could see the occupants of the table imagining her reaction as vividly as he did. It still didn't outweigh the need to find her by much. "That said, if she hasn't contacted one of us or her brother by 1900 hours, Mark is going to file a missing person's report with the San Diego Police. They suggested that we collect any information we have for when the search begins."
"What are they waiting for! Sir." Janet remembered just in time that this was still a military briefing. Sort of.
Hammond ignored her near insubordination. "There's a 48 hour window before the police can get involved in an adult missing persons case. They won't start to look for her in that time unless they receive a ransom note. Since there has been none, no one is currently searching." Hammond looked disgusted but resigned as he continued. "But even if we could've had searchers out already, we don't know where to start. It's a three day drive to San Diego on the interstate for a person driving alone, but once you factor in the secondary roads she was planning to take, Major Carter could literally be anywhere from Albuquerque to San Diego."
Jack barely waited until his commanding officer finished explaining the circumstances. He tried to hide his concern in sarcasm, but it ran underneath his words like a river of fear. The last time Carter had been out of touch for this long on Earth, they'd had to resort to Maybourne's intelligence sources to even begin to find out where she could be. And Maybourne was, as of 10 days ago, safely ensconced on a 'gateless tropical planet full of friendly natives. That meant they had no semi-reliable bad guys to fall back on. "For cryin' out loud, doesn't anyone have any idea where she could be? I mean, I know the space from here to California is big, but there's only so much road you can take to San Diego. Just plot the most logical course and you'll find Carter."
"It's not that simple, Colonel. Her sister-in-law confirmed that Major Carter was planning to camp her way down on a scenic route – a plan I endorsed when she mentioned it to me 8 days ago. Depending on what she planned to see…" Hammond's voice trailed off. Then he cleared his throat and continued.
"She'd been pushing herself very hard to get her team back together and I thought she could use some time to relax. And Teal'c and Jonas, too, of course. I know she hasn't had much time to come to grips with the events of the last few months." Hammond's voice was carefully neutral, but he caught Jack's slight wince in his peripheral vision. He was aware of the treacherous emotional currents running between the remaining members of the original SG-1, but took conscious care to not notice unless he couldn't avoid it. Any mention of the major's near obsession with retrieving her colonel would have to be dragged out of Hammond.
He continued. "Mark assumed his sister was caught up in sightseeing; he wasn't seriously concerned until this morning. Major Carter was apparently planning to take her niece to the opening of a space exhibit at a local museum this afternoon and he doesn't believe she would miss it voluntarily. BUT, before we all go out and start beating the bushes, remember how unlikely it is that she'd run into something between here and California she couldn't handle."
"Sir!" Jack and Janet burst out roughly at the same time before Hammond cut them off with a gesture.
"I'm aware of your concerns, people, but this is what we know at this point. Any search we organize would be worse than looking for a needle in a haystack unless we can pin her itinerary down. If no one has any idea where she might be, all we can do is go through her office and see if she left any notes about her vacation plans."
"Sir, with all due respect, is that doing enough? I know Sam had been overtired lately and maybe that would let her be distracted." Janet carefully didn't look at Col. O'Neill, but Jonas seemed to have no such compunction. She raised her voice until she had the Kelownan's attention again. "Still, I can't believe she'd intentionally break a date with Meg. I talked to her the night before she left and she was very excited about having some time with her family. She mentioned that Mark and Jessica are expecting another baby and she wanted to make sure that Meg and Allen didn't feel left out."
"I'm sorry, Doctor Fraiser, but my hands are tied." Hammond quelled Jack's pending outburst with a look and continued. "I don't like it any better than you do, but the Air Force has no jurisdiction outside the grounds of this base. I've already requested that we be kept in the loop, but I also know the local police aren't thrilled about the military horning in on their territory. Officially, we don't have any reason to be involved. However, if there is any, and I mean any suggestion that this is not a purely random mishap, we've got permission to be there in a heartbeat. Jurisdiction or not. That's as much as I can do for the moment." Hammond's vast forehead wrinkled in frustration.
Jack grunted but sat back. He muttered not quite under his breath, "If this were off world…"
Hammond ignored the insubordinate undertones in O'Neill's voice and answered as if he'd asked a question. "Granted, if this were off world I'd be moving Heaven, Earth and the alien planet to find her. But this is the United States and there are boundaries I have to respect. As I said before, I don't like it any better than you do.."
Jack shifted guiltily and nodded. "I'm sorry, sir, but you know as well as I do that the locals will start off with the usual twenty questions and spend days wasting their time. 'Does Carter have any reason to disappear?' No. 'Does Carter have a disgruntled ex-boyfriend or anyone else with a personal reason to come after her?' No. 'Did she ever mention feeling uneasy or threatened?' No. That'll go on until they start asking the useful questions."
Jack shifted from annoyance to frustration. "'Is there anyone who would want to harm Carter?' Why, yes there is. You see, for all these reasons we can't get into, there's a semi-covert government agency and a whole slew of alien conspiracy nuts who'd love to haul Carter off to a lab and dissect her. 'Why?' We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you. And yes, there is something unusual about Major Carter, but we can't tell you what it is. Why? Because it's classified. And the work that takes up all of her time? You guessed it - classified. The reason she was currently on vacation and available to be kidnapped? Also classified."
Hammond couldn't help but see the anger-tinged anxiety driving Jack's sarcastic outburst. George Hammond wasn't just a commanding officer, he was Jack O'Neill's friend. And that friend knew that O'Neill needed to get a grip on his 'unsoldierly' emotions in order to be of any use to his missing 2IC. As much as both the Colonel and the Major were scrupulously correct in their professionalism, he'd have to be blind and deaf not to notice the feelings they both tried to hide.
Jack cared deeply for all his 'kids', but he'd cared so much for Carter that he'd been accused of being a programmed assassin during the za'tarc incident. His conscious attempts at proper military behavior had been so out of line with his suppressed feelings that he'd almost been incarcerated and indefinitely sedated. Major Carter had been able to make a less damning admission during that time, but her recent actions spoke for themselves.
Now Colonel O'Neill was reacting the way he did best, with sharp tongued insubordination that grated on Hammond's nerves. For both personal and professional reasons, and especially those reasons that straddled the line, Jack needed to calm down and regain his focus.
"I know you're not suggesting we break protocol and tell every county sheriff between here and the Mexican border about the reasons someone might kidnap the Major," Hammond snapped. Jack was smart enough to say nothing as he stared mutinously at the table.
Jonas waited until the General's expression softened. "General Hammond, is there any reason to think the same people are responsible for Major Carter's previous disappearance? That could cut down on the search area."
"As far as we know, Jonas, Adrian Conrad's organization is dead. According to your reports, he and his Goa'uld were killed during the Prometheus incident. The Steveston, Oregon Project was shut down after you discovered it. If they're running any other Stargate related experiments, we haven't been able to find them. Furthermore, the NID have to know that we'd find out if they were involved. There's simply no reason for anyone to take Major Carter for Jolinar's… influence. I can't see any reason to consider his people viable suspects at this point."
"Sir, maybe this is Stargate related, just not in the way the previous attempt was. Maybe they don't want Sam for Jolinar's brain, but her own." Janet added unhappily.
"What?" Jack asked, puzzled.
"Sam is the most experienced scientist we have with practical knowledge of both the Stargate and wormhole physics. This may have nothing to do with her symbiote –" Janet was cut off.
"EX-symbiote." Jack stated clearly, staring Doc Fraiser down as if she had become part of some medical conspiracy to steal her best friend and dissect her.
"Ex-symbiote." Janet agreed coolly, continuing. "Sir, I agree that if there's not another mature symbiote ready for removal on Earth, whoever took Sam would have no reason to study her. And if they've penetrated our security well enough to find out when Sam has downtime and where she's going, they probably have access to a pretty complete medical file on her as well. They wouldn't need to kidnap her to get basic answers. This may be the more straightforward situation of someone attempting to get information on the Stargate itself or to build some facsimile of their own."
Jonas jumped in. "Yeah. Remember that the Ascended alien, Orlin, built a Stargate in Sam's basement out of materials easily obtained here on Earth. There'd have to be a lot of people out there who'd want that technical knowledge and think that Sam had it."
"Actually, I'm afraid that you may have a point." Hammond admitted. "That's another aspect to Major Carter's disappearance we'll have to consider."
"Alright, so we have no idea who took her or why. We can't search for her yet because we don't know where to look. We can't check up on the bad guys since we don't have Maybourne's usual slimy help. What can we do to find her if she didn't tell anyone where she was going and what she planned to do on the way?" Jack demanded.
He noticed that Jonas straightened up at his remark and began to blink. Slowly. Like he was trying to… remember something? Jack felt a tiny surge of hope. "Jonas? You have something?"
General Hammond had noticed as well. "Mr. Quinn? Jonas, is there something you know?"
Janet caught her breath at the young man's brilliant smile.
"Well, she did mention something about seeing the Grand Canyon along the way. I'd never seen it and she promised to bring me some information from the guest center when she came back. I think she was planning to stay there for a few days." Jonas blinked at the sudden relief in his bosses' eyes, although the fear was still detectable underneath.
"Thank you, Jonas." Hammond's tone was almost gentle as he made eye contact with all the intelligent, resourceful people sitting around that table. "I can't order any of you to go out and look for Major Carter. I just don't have the authority. You can't do a thing to help in San Diego, but now we have another place to start the search. And the Grand Canyon is a National Park. Any investigation on federal property is in the hands of the FBI." Hammond willed his people to hear between the lines.
"Now, I know they won't be able to move on any information they have until the locals or the park police get around to passing it on. And most of the information they might need in order to consider all the possibilities is classified. And we can't tell them outright what they're not cleared to know. The only way they'll know to pursue your other avenues, Colonel, is if someone with that knowledge were … influencing the investigation from the beginning." General Hammond met his 2IC's eyes with a significant look.
Jack's sharklike grin told Hammond all he needed to know. "Yes, sir." Jack responded in a more hopeful tone. The Air Force might not have been able to apply much extra pressure without opening some classified cans of worms, but he could shadow the investigation and see who exactly was responsible for Carter's disappearance. If it turned out that Carter had been taken for what she knew, he'd be ready to swoop in and find her faster.
It was a good thing he had another week of leave. And no one really needed to know where he spent it. Especially whoever was keeping tabs on his team with enough detail to snatch one of them.
He leaned pseudo-casually over towards the lone woman at the table. "Hey, Doc, I think I'm gonna be out of town for the next few days. If you need any more weigh-ins from me, they'd better happen now."
Janet's worried eyes overshadowed her calm face. It wasn't exactly dangerous to let Colonel O'Neill go, but she'd bet dollars to donuts that he'd come back in worse shape than he was in now. She'd feel better as a doctor if he stayed close by.
Of course, she'd feel better as a friend if he broke every speed limit between here and Arizona and didn't rest until Sam was found.
She noted his determined look and sighed. Trying to hold him here would be worse than futile. Plus, her nurses really might mutiny. "That should be acceptable, Colonel. I'll need you to make a final weigh-in now and another when you return for duty. Remember that you're supposed to be eating at least 4000 calories per day as well as your vitamin and mineral supplements. I'll still need to go over your blood work from this morning, but I don't think there's a medical reason to keep you here."
Jack's grim smile let her know that he would push himself all the harder the further he got from her check-ups. However, his reserves of strength were still depleted and she felt uneasy letting him off the hook completely. Well, if she couldn't keep him here, she could at least keep him honest in his reports from the road.
Her own shadowed eyes would have been mischievous in a happier situation. "As I said, I don't have a legitimate reason to keep you here, but I'd feel better if there were someone near you to monitor your condition. You still have traces of the 'alien loco weed', as you put it, in your system. Jonas, didn't you say something about wanting to see the Grand Canyon? Maybe you could go with the Colonel and keep an eye on him for me."
Jack's death glare was actually improving. "I don't need a babysitter, Doc."
Janet pursed her lips as she glanced at Hammond. "No, of course not. You're always so honest when it comes to reporting your condition and so happily compliant when it comes to doctor's orders."
Jack blinked in surprise before scowling defiantly. He was the smartass at this table, thank you very much. And he wasn't intending to run himself down while looking for Carter. It just might kinda ... happen. He was a grownup, for cryin' out loud!
Janet met his gaze with a 'don't mess with me, flyboy' stare. Missing friend or no, she couldn't let him lose all the progress he'd gained this week. If, God forbid, Sam wasn't found in the next day or two, they'd all need him healthy to lend the search his particular brand of determination. "Sir, would it be alright for Jonas to accompany Colonel O'Neill on his… vacation?"
Hammond's answering smile was weak, but it was a smile. "Yes, Doctor Fraiser, that sounds like a very good idea. Jack, Jonas, I can't order you to report in from your vacation, but I'd appreciate it if we heard from you at least twice a day."
"And Teal'c, sir? Shouldn't we bring him back to help?" Jonas asked, already running down the mental list of things he should check before they left.
Hammond considered that a moment and then shook his head. "No, Teal'c will call in sometime tomorrow with a list of supplies the Jaffa need. If you haven't found anything by then, I'll tell him that you two are on… vacation… and see if he wants to join you. I expect he will."
The general rose from the table as Jack, Janet and Jonas followed suit. "I have to make some phone calls and alert the park police to Major Carter's last probable location. I'll let you know if I hear anything further on this end. Dismissed."
Hammond's subordinates murmured their 'yes, sir's and scurried off to make ready for their part in the search for Sam. Once the room was clear, he dropped his face into his hands and rubbed fiercely at his eyes. He had kept on the bravest face he could for his officers, but he had a very bad feeling about this.
Hammond wasn't even considering the police's theory about car trouble and cell phone blackouts, but they'd have to waste time disproving it before they could get on with the search. As if the woman who could build a particle accelerator from scratch couldn't fix her engine or find a phone! Not that he could explain that to them. He sighed and headed into his office.
At least the Grand Canyon might help. Actually, he pondered, squinting in concentration, if she had been kidnapped on federal lands, the SGC could probably slip some people into the official FBI investigation. He felt bad enough already at not joining SG-1 and there was so little he could do. Officially. As soon as he could touch base with Mark and the local police, he'd have to call some friends in Washington and see what they could do on that angle.
He hoped there was some kind of good news. Somehow. Anyhow.
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AN: This chapter drove me crazy – I hope it wasn't as bad as I thought. Probably was. Frelling necessary information. :-( BUT, the action starts in earnest next chapter and I'm having fun writing it, so stay tuned. I'll try to post before the weekend, but no promises. Review! It makes me write faster. ;-)
PS: The title of this chapter comes from a Marc Cohn song off his latest album (Track 5 on "Burning the Daze") – and it's awesome. Find it and listen!
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Next Chapter: Sam, Lies and Videotape, part 1 – the search begins at the Grand Canyon; an homage to everyone's fave actors and Feds, and more O'Neill hiding his concern. Yadda. ;-)