I'm sorry that this has taken so long to get out. My real life went nuts this week, and I've been unable to find three minutes to myself. I'm so grateful to all of you for your patience and your wonderful feedback—I'm sure that Glinda would be humbled, too, at all the interest that her little story has generated.
Thanks!
Taken
Chase
"Quads?" Glinda had to ask. Although, with the pace the Colonel had set, even the single word had been a struggle.
"ATVs." Sam threw the acronym over her shoulder. She hopped over a fallen log and reached behind her to offer Glinda a hand. "All terrain vehicles. And they're a problem."
As soon as she'd conquered the fallen tree, Glinda had turned her attention to the forest behind her. Straining, Glinda could now hear the engine noises in the distance—it seemed like they were everywhere. Motors revving and stalling, the faint sounds of vegetation being crushed beneath wheels. Shouting—men yelling directions or questions to each other, their voices brash to be heard over the sounds of the engines.
Briefly, just before Sam gripped her shoulder and shoved her unceremoniously towards a break in the shrubbery, she'd caught a glimpse of one of the beasts—red plastic fenders, chrome accents, black seat and engine cover, huge, bulbous tires. A child's toy on steroids. But for whatever reason, she'd needed to see it so that she could know from what she fled.
And here she'd thought that quads were what one ended up with when the specialist fertilized too many eggs. The odd and varied things one learned whilst evading alien capture! Somehow, Glinda felt certain she would have lived quite happily for the rest of her life without this sort of education.
They'd sprinted off into the woods—trying to find a path where the earliest pink of the dawn hadn't yet touched. Where darkness had been their bane, now it beckoned as a sort of salvation. Darkness and thick shrubs and places in the woods where the lack of a path meant more difficulty for the vehicles than for those on foot.
Glinda followed the Colonel on a mad, haphazard dash further into the forest, ignoring the branches that whipped at her face and body, and the groundcover that seemed to cut a little deeper into her already tender bare soles with each step. She clung to her bag and simply concentrated on keeping up, intent on not becoming the proverbial weakest link in their tiny chain. But even as fit as she'd thought herself to be, she still found herself drawing heavy, hard breaths within a few minutes.
Glinda felt a fresh tinge of annoyance. Secretaries of a certain age weren't meant to compete in cross country races. Especially not when their pursuers were burly weapon-wielding men on wheeled motorized conveyances. And no amount of meditation or yoga could possibly have prepared her for the intensity of strain engendered by being chased by such men. Sun Saluting only allowed the one saluting to achieve relaxation when that person wasn't actively fighting for survival.
The pace set was brutal—more methodical than their mad dash across the corral. They eschewed the path in favor of the densest of forestation—taking no care whatsoever to stifle the sounds of their passing. Under their feet, the crackling branches and leaves created an odd, strident cadence that became Glinda's war drum—driving her forward, impelling her on.
After a long spate of running, the Colonel slowed to a brisk walk, and Glinda felt that clear blue gaze on her—quietly assessing. She wasn't sure how to take that level of scrutiny. As a service provider, she herself normally fixed people with that same look. Figured out what they needed. That Sam had winnowed out the fact that Glinda could use a chance to catch her breath both pleased and embarrassed her. And it allowed a glimpse into the power this woman would have both as a team mate and as a commander. And as a wife. And how wonderful she would be as a mother.
If she were allowed the chance to have the baby at all. Glinda screwed up her resolve and walked faster.
The Colonel led Glinda through the wildness of the woods, dodging bushes and undergrowth. Here the trees' canopy had allowed in more light, and their bare feet were muffled by the soft carpeting of flowers and grasses growing in and around the trees. They rounded a huge beech tree, aiming for a stand of hickory, crouching low as a sudden break in the trees bordered a small meadow. Sam again angled them deeper into the prevailingly wild mix of Virginia forest, somehow finding passage amongst the rocks, groundcover, and downed trees.
No time for thought—merely reaction. For these moments, at least, their entire purpose was not being found.
And somewhere, in the back of her mind, Glinda was transported back to her childhood, and games of hide and seek amongst the tall, waving stalks of corn on her father's farm. She knew this run—this breathless chase. She'd played this way with cousins and countless farm-hands' children—escape and flight and the excitement of the hunt. Bright skies and sweat rolling down her cheek and choking sputters when she'd inhaled the random bug. The smell of the earth itself—the dark, rich scent of joy and adrenaline.
It reminded her of life—of the living of life. Of the endless surprise of not knowing what lay just around each corner. She'd grown up free—with the sun on her neck and the wind in her curls. Where had she lost the child she'd been?
While trying to secure a comfortable future for herself, she'd lost sight of the thrill of the chase. Just as she'd lost the ability to lose herself in another person—to trust someone else with her soul.
The thought gave her the briefest moment's pause—she slowed as she approached a flat, wide boulder mostly buried in the dark, fecund earth—so intent was she on her memories that she skidded slightly on some moss and had to force herself back harshly into the present.
The engine noises and shouts had faded behind them, but Glinda, ripping herself out of her own past, didn't notice until the Colonel slowed, then halted, within a thick stand of young pines. Coming to an ungraceful stop next to Sam, the secretary leaned against a sapling and allowed the bag to slide down her shoulder to rest in the crook of her arm. She gulped in the cool morning air, swallowing it as if it were manna.
It didn't matter how far they had run—nor in what direction. What mattered was that, for the moment, no shouts or engines echoed in the distance.
"Are you okay?" Sam's voice sounded winded, tired, and Glinda glanced at her only to notice a sheen of sweat glistening on her temples, her bangs plastered to her forehead.
Unable to speak, Glinda nodded. Pressing a hand to the stitch in her side, she sucked in air in deep, painful gulps, fighting for control.
"We could find a place to hole up and hope that they go away." The Colonel's voice cracked slightly, soft despite her harsh breathing. "Or we could keep walking in a single direction and hope that we find a road."
Glinda watched as Sam stood straight and braced herself against a tree, peering into the distance first one direction, and then the other. Somewhere along the way, a branch had caught at her braid, and it lay askew down her back, long strands flowing free over one shoulder, shorter tendrils curling under the Colonel's chin. Wiping at the moisture above her brows, she then swiped at her nose with the back of her hand in a gesture that made Glinda's already iffy breathing stall completely.
Young—she looked so young. Like one of the fresh-faced recruits that paraded through the Pentagon from time to time. Not quite as sure of themselves as they are of their mission. Glinda herself felt much the same way just at the moment—as the run hadn't been the only thing to steal her breath away. It had forced her to confront a childhood that had been taken from her too soon.
But she needed to bring herself under control—needed to gather herself together. Straightening her arm, she lowered the bag to the ground. Glinda took one last deep, searing breath and used every bit of control she could summon to let it out slowly, with precision. She would be of absolutely no use to the Colonel if she hyperventilated. Or worse, if she keeled over. Such histrionics were decidedly undisciplined, and rarely, if ever, provided anything of redeeming value.
Glinda Baldrich was not one to faint—had never done so, as a matter of fact. And wouldn't succumb to that particular weakness without overwhelming provocation. She'd often considered herself to be obdurate in that regard—that she refused to allow the inane or peculiar to rob her of acumen and choice. She had felt throughout her life that strength and survival lay in the freedom of personal ability. And although she'd never passed through giant wormholes in space, she had survived the Pentagon through the Carter era, and not many in the military could boast of better.
She closed her eyes and found her center, felt her pulse begin to calm. Shifting against the tree, she turned to Sam and blinked her lids open again, focusing on her younger companion.
Cheeks flushed with effort, Sam's hand rested on her midsection. With her intelligent, careful gaze, she scanned the forest again, and then turned back towards Glinda. "What do you think?"
"We need to find a way out of here." Glinda found that her voice was stronger than she'd imagined it would be.
"You need rest." Sam, apparently, wasn't above pointing out the obvious.
But then, on occasion, neither was Glinda. "So do you."
"Okay." Sam shrugged compliantly, smiling around her exhaustion. "We both need rest."
"And yet, we can't sit in one place and wait for rescue." Glinda turned, examining the forest in a motion that had, to her shock, quite become habit.
"We haven't been doing so well in the 'rescue ourselves' department."
"'The best luck of all is the luck that you make for yourself.'"
Sam grinned. "Of course you'd quote MacArthur."
"Is there anyone else to quote?" Glinda reached down for the bag, grasping its handle and then righting herself again.
"General Landry quotes Dr. Phil from time to time."
"General Bodine was a Churchill man. And of course, General O'Neill prefers Homer." Glinda looked up and caught the Colonel's gaze. "Surprising. I hadn't thought him to be a man who would enjoy the classics."
A twinge at the corner of Sam's mouth competed with the fleeting pain that flashed through her eyes. "He's not exactly quoting the classics when he quotes Homer, Glinda."
Glinda crumpled a little inside, and knew that, once again, she'd said the wrong thing. "Ma'am—"
But Sam waved off her impending apology. She straightened and made a little circle, studying the woods, peering up at the sun's slow progress from the horizon. Glinda instinctively knew she needed silence, and stayed as still as possible, until the Colonel relaxed slightly and returned to Glinda's side.
The sun had risen, now. A glance at her watch told her that it was past five—not counting the time that she'd been unconscious due to the effects of the zat weapon, she'd been awake and active for nearly twenty four hours. She didn't know what had been keeping her going—adrenaline, perhaps. Or fear.
She certainly wouldn't factor in that brief moment she'd felt just now—when the excitement had surged within her like the tide on the shore. She wasn't the sort of woman to welcome this sort of danger. Relishing it would not suit decorum. But then, perhaps that was why she'd been able to let people go as she had throughout her life—she'd shoved such emotions firmly behind her, refusing to give them purchase or room to grow.
When you didn't care about something deeply, then losing it couldn't hurt.
A harsh breath from her companion broker her reverie, and she turned to see the Colonel regarding her with a close expression, her eyes kind.
But Glinda didn't want to answer the questions she'd seen within those brilliant depths. She grappled for something else—anything else to say. With a modicum of desperation, she blurted, "Do you think they've given up?"
Sam considered her for a lingering beat, finally turning her attention back to the forest. "No. But they have gone somewhere else. We turned east and angled around a bit—I tried to keep us going in a circle rather than straight off into the woods."
"So we're still close to the farm?"
"I think so—without a GPS unit or a map it would be difficult to say for certain."
Glinda looked up and studied the vicinity in which they had paused. Without the cover of darkness, the woods didn't loom nearly as foreboding. Typical of the area, the trees were a strange conglomeration of types—beech, ash, pine, and oak. The land, obviously private, had not been thinned by even the most conservative of logger. Here and there, trees had been downed by age or disease, and off to the west of where Glinda stood, a blackened stump of a trunk indicated one taken out by a lightning strike.
The land rolled beneath the trees. The playgrounds of Glinda's youth had been the vast flatness of midwestern farmlands. Here, the ground swelled and flowed beneath the trees, adding to the difficulty of their flight.
Despite her sudden tiredness, despite her need for a moment's respite, Glinda made her choice. "We should keep walking."
Nodding, the Colonel made another quick scan around them. "If we head east, we might be able to skirt the compound and then somehow figure out where the road is." Reaching under her blouse, she withdrew her zat from where she'd stowed it in her waistband. It glowed a dull, metallic gray in the morning light.
"Then east it is." Glinda shouldered the bag on the opposite arm this time, raising her eyebrows slightly as she returned her attention to her companion. "I'm assuming you know which way east is."
"Well," Sam smiled. "I am an astrophysicist."
"I've known scientists who couldn't find their own bathrooms."
A decidedly indelicate snort erupted from the Colonel. "Sadly, Glinda, I have too."
They walked together this time—moving amongst the trees that provided the best cover. Glinda found herself wondering at the calm exuded by the woman next to her—Sam moved easily in the woods, almost relaxed, her body lithe and loose. The zat in her hand seemed wrong, somehow, silhouetted against the bulge fleetingly displayed by the breeze at her shirt. Golden hair tousled and glinting in the sun, the flush of the run still pinked her cheeks, Sam seemed like the average expectant mother on a pleasantly casual stroll—nothing more.
"How do you do it?"
"Do what, Glinda?"
"Remain so calm."
Sam grinned and looked down at where her bare feet made a faint trail in the grass. "This isn't my first rodeo. I've been on the run before."
"But never like this—never on Earth, with the same challenges."
"Have I ever been on the run and pregnant?" Sam smiled. "No. But I have been in a similar situation on Earth. Kidnapped. Only then I was being used for experimentation, in a way. They wanted to know things about me in order to help a man who was very sick."
"And did you get rescued, or did you find the way out yourself?"
"I cut my restraints and got free briefly, but then was recaptured." Sam cast a look to her side. "Eventually Jack came—with Daniel and Teal'c."
"So you did need help."
"Glinda, from time to time, everyone needs help. No one can exist completely on their own."
She felt the wind tousle her gray curls as she tilted her head in assent. "And here I was thinking that I was so smart. I suppose that age isn't the best indicator for wisdom."
"Oh, I don't know." Sam's face relaxed into a smile. "I think you're pretty amazing."
"Amazing and wise are hardly the same thing. People can be amazingly idiotic."
"Yes, but they can also be amazing in that they totally surpass all expectations." The Colonel's eyes widened pointedly. "And in that regard you, Pinky, are incredible."
Glinda felt her cheeks respond to the General's name for her. She'd never approved much of blushing—that particular response showed weaknesses of character at which she'd always scoffed. But the heat in her face wouldn't be quelled by mere willed stoicism. She lifted her chin to the sky and felt the cool air on her forehead, her face, riffling what curls remained of her coiffure.
After a dozen or so steps, she sighed. "I'm just an ordinary farm girl, Colonel. Nothing incredible here."
"Farm girl?"
"My father owned a small farm in the Midwest." Glinda adjusted the purse on her shoulder. She was glad that she'd double-folded the handles, the extra padding had proved a lifesaver. "He raised corn and wheat, and we had a few cows and pigs and chickens. I remember helping him as a child, milking and slopping. It was a different time, of course, the late forties."
"After the War."
"He didn't go. He was a farmer and therefore important for the war effort."
"With small children—that kept him home, too."
"I'm an only child. And I was born after the hostilities had ended." Her smile carried a hint of ruefulness. "My mother wasn't able to conceive again. Eventually we learned that she had a growth of some sort. There wasn't anything anyone could do. She wasn't strong. She just kind of laid down and died."
"That must have been heart-breaking." The tone of the Colonel's voice carried an air of understanding. "My mother died when I was young, too. She was killed in a car crash."
"So we have that in common."
"Among other things." Another sideways smile—warm and kind. "But my father was military, and I had an older brother."
"Was it easier—having a sibling?"
Sam tilted her head to one side and scrunched up her nose. "Not really. Mark was difficult to be around right after. I compensated by trying to do everything to please my father. Mark couldn't get over his anger."
"He blamed your father."
"My dad had a propensity to get really involved with work." She paused, remembering? Thinking. "He was indirectly at fault for Mom's death, but I could forgive him. It just took Mark longer."
Glinda nodded. "My father never got over it. He mourned my mother for the rest of his life."
"That had to have been hard for you."
Glinda lifted a shoulder in response. They walked in silence for a while, Sam scoping the area around them. The sound of motors wafted through the trees from a great distance away, but her demeanor didn't change. Glinda took that to mean that the searchers were too far away to pose any immediate danger.
"He was never the same. He sold the land and headed east—his parents lived in Appalachia."
"Where was this farm?"
"Outside Topeka."
The Colonel abruptly stopped walking. Alarmed, Glinda turned to face her. "Do you hear something?"
But the odd half-smile on Sam's face took the cake. "Please tell me you mean Topeka, Kansas."
"Unless there's a Topeka in Oklahoma that I don't know about." Glinda watched as the Colonel held her hand over her mouth to quell her sudden grin. "Ma'am?"
"Oh—wait until I tell Jack. He's going to love this."
"Love what, Colonel?"
"Kansas. His secretary is from a farm in Kansas, and she's named Glinda."
"Well, the movie had just been at the local movie house and my mother fell in love with the name." Even to Glinda, her explanation sounded funny. She found herself smiling back. "Quite frankly, I've never cared for the name, but it's mine, so—"
"If you only knew the irony."
Glinda shook her head. "How could I know? And what irony?"
But a grating, mechanical noise in the distance behind them cut her off. The shift in Sam's demeanor was immediate and absolute. With a flick of a finger, she raised the head of the zat, nudging Glinda off onto a tangent from their previous trajectory.
And Glinda found herself running again—as the noise behind her grew louder, more ominous, and as a triumphant shout brought a raging chorus of replies—her feet made trails through the dew on the long grasses of the forest floor.
She chanced a look over her shoulder and felt a shiver work its way down her spine. Five of them, their ATVs bearing directly towards where Sam and Glinda ran. Already close enough that the expressions on their faces clearly read victory.
She hastened her pace, pulling up next to the Colonel just as the younger woman shoved her unceremoniously behind a sprawling shrub. Sam pointed frantically at a spot beyond, and Glinda directed her focus towards it—a huge, hollowed out tree trunk, surrounded by dense bushes. The men on their quads weren't visible now—and Glinda found herself lowering her body into a crouch, running along towards the tree trunk, using the bushes as cover.
"Go! Get in there!" With a harsh whisper, Sam pushed her towards the trunk, and Glinda dropped to her knees—heedless of her skirt or the pine needles and pebbles that bit into her shins. She crawled into the shrub, rounding the stump and pulling up in the thickest part of the mess—shoving over slightly when the Colonel made her way in and sat beside her.
"What—" Her whisper too loud, Glinda fell silent, biting her lips together, praying that the fast, nervous thrum of her heart wouldn't give them away.
The motors droned by, and a hasty conversation between two of the men had them breaking up and heading in opposite directions. The motors whined and grunted as vehicles passed the trunk once—twice—and then a third time on their way back to their original position.
Another shouted conversation ensued between the men, and then, one by one, the engines shut off, and their words were intelligible.
"Screw it. I'm heading back." The voice reeked of enmity—low and gruff, more a growl than anything else.
"He won't like it—he said not to come back until we've found them." This one seemed more of a whine.
"What if we can't find them? They disappeared for hours before—what makes you think that they haven't already found a way around us?"
"Dude—they're two women on foot. One of them old, and the other one knocked up. Don't you think we should be able to find them?"
The growler answered him. "Yeah, but Carl, the knocked up one has taken out more Goa'uld than you have."
"Still—she's pregnant—how far could she run? Especially with the old broad dragging her down."
Whiny stopped him. "Hey—that old lady did a real number on Phil."
"Phil was an idiot. He should have called for back-up."
"Again, Carl—think. Old lady. Would you have called for back-up?"
Carl quieted for a minute, and a hurried, murmured conversation that Glinda couldn't hear passed between two or three of the others.
Glinda sat with her back against the stump, willing her entire body still. Beside her, Sam had hunkered down as much as she could, sitting awkwardly, her body stretched at an odd angle.
"So it's settled." Growly again. "You three stay here and keep looking. Carl and I will go back and see what he wants us to do."
"Why don't you just radio?"
"Out of range."
"Your cell phone works."
"What are you talking about?"
"Dude. Cell phone. Ringing. Isn't it that girly ring tone you use?"
They quieted, and Glinda could hear a tune playing—Claire de Lune—a familiar song that had always been one of her favorites. For the barest of instants, she felt a kind of sick kinship with the monster beyond the hedge. A beast who just happened to share her love of Debussy. She swiveled her head to catch Sam's eye—to share, perhaps, a commiserating glance.
But the Colonel wasn't returning her gaze—her entire focus was on Glinda's skirt pocket, her face a portrait of horrified, sudden acknowledgment.
And only then did Glinda realize that the reason why she recognized the ring tone was that it was her ring tone.
And it was coming from her pocket.
