Nothing worse than either of the shows, though.
Thanks to Christy for her beta reading work.
The pain was still there. She was pretty sure she hid it sufficiently well at work. These days, Daniel only asked her if she was OK every couple of weeks. Jack was just Jack. Teal'c knew. She knew it. It showed in every look he gave her. But it seemed that he was content that she was still competent as a warrior, and so, he would never mention it.
She only really slept when she was exhausted. Off world, she could force the issue, by taking the early night watch, but when they were grounded... well, there was only so much she could find to wear her out. Long hours in her lab, interspersed with gym sessions, sparing with Teal'c or at her health club, didn't always lead her to the arms of Morpheus. On those nights when sleep eluded her, she would ride aimlessly though the Spartan wilderness that surrounded the city, searching for a piece of mind that she no longer had.
Tonight, it seemed, would be a riding night. The temperature was low, but the air was dry. It was, she suspected, one of the last good nights she'd get before the weather broke, and the higher roads became too dangerous for a lone rider at night. Sad as she was, she wasn't suicidal. She donned her leathers and mentally planned her route to take in a favourite star-gazing spot that she and Janet had found a few years earlier. Then she gunned the engine of the Indian and made her out of the city, away from the setting sun.
Looking up as she passed the city limits, Sam Carter noted idly that Orion had reappeared in her night sky.
It was time for the game to begin again. The hunter was back in the night sky, and he was ready to play. He had not been idle these past few months, taking time to find a place to store his stuff and then replacing all the useful things he'd left in Philly, a car, a uniform, an identity, a gun and those other tools he needed. Then there had been a little overtime here and there that had made him seem invaluable to the over-worked cops of the area, and had given him time to find a likely target.
Samantha Carter's 49 file had made interesting reading, despite there being so little to it. It seemed that the woman had been reported missing by her commanding officer from the Air Force Base where she worked, when she'd failed to show up, and they.d been unable to contact her. Her car had been found in the lot at a health club near her house, but standard canvassing had turned up no witnesses to the event, despite the busy location.
There the police file ended, with a note that the investigation had been passed over to the Air Force. There was, however, a report from a Colonel Jack O'Neill, which grudgingly explaining a little more about the incident.
Apparently, a vagrant had seen Carter abducted. She had fought hard before being overpowered by three "ninjas" and bundled away in a van. O'Neill also reported that Carter had managed to escape from her captors at least once before he and his team had been able to arrive to recover her and take down most of those involved.
That was all there was, barring the sarcastic little aside about "national security" from a clearly exasperated investigating officer. There was also an FBI warrant and an Interpol red notice for a man by the name of Adrian Conrad, who had apparently been the ring leader behind the abduction.
Reading between the lines, he concluded that there was no doubt that the good Major Carter was considerably more resourceful than her listed geek desk job appeared to suggest.
A few evenings patrolling the streets in his new police cruiser told him that her listed address was still current and that she still frequented the same health club. Most usefully, he also found that she had a habit of taking long, lonely rides outside the city. Though he could detect no obvious routine in when these would occur or the route she would take, there was one place that she would often stop.
She would, he concluded, make fine prey.
He watched the rider head out of the city, then put the cruiser in gear, and headed towards the look out.
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