Disclaimers and spoilers with prologue
Nothing worse than either of the shows, though.
This part is unbeta-ed. Hopefully, it's not too awful.
"White male. Indeterminate age. Average height. Average build. Average woodsman gear."
"So that narrows it down to, what? Ooh, practically every hunter in the state."
"Yeah."
"We get anything from the hospital?"
"Yeah, the ER doc who checked her out first offered up his notes... Dehydration, exposure, cuts and bruises, feet torn to shreds. Consistent with running through the forest in her skivvies all night, he said."
"Running?"
"Yeah. Said she'd probably only kept going so long because of adrenaline. Thought she might have been chased. She got a concussion too, from when he got chased off."
"Chased?"
"You got something?"
"Maybe. Gotta do some digging. See if she's awake, yet. Remembers anything."
She swam up through the layers of consciousness, numbly. Fuzzy around the edges, head aching and nauseated, she struggled to form coherent thoughts. In her dreams, she had been visiting with the dead.
This time, her location was warm and almost comfortable. The smell of antiseptic was strong, but strangely comforting and there was a droning noise that was both familiar and incomprehensible.
With no obvious immediate dangers, she decided to wait until things resolved themselves. There seemed no need to force the issue. Gradually, the noise resolved into a voice, so familiar that she barely needed to be awake to register the tension underlying the random one sided conversation.
She turned her head towards the source of the voice, and grunted at the pain this simple movement caused.
There was a pause, then a gentle hand landed on her uninjured shoulder.
"Steady," said Daniel Jackson, "You've been out for some time."
Opening her eyes, carefully, she attempted to focus on her team mate.
"I have ice chips," he continued a little too heartily, proffering a plastic cup.
She smiled, weakly, and reached out with her unfettered hand, managing, somewhat unsteadily, to transfer an ice chip from the cup to her mouth.
"How long?" she whispered, though cracked lips.
"Twelve hours. Jack's been driving everyone nuts phoning for hourly status reports."
"What happened?"
"We were hoping you could tell us. Jack got a call from the ER early this morning, saying you'd been found in the wild country and were pretty beaten up. The doctors found your tags, and phoned around the bases 'til they found someone who recognized the name."
As Daniel spoke, Sam worked through her injury inventory. Overall, she felt as weak as a baby. Her hands and arms showed signs of abrasions, and she realized that she could feel the tingly, itchy sensation of small scratches all over her body. Her left shoulder was sore and the skin tender under another bandage. Her head throbbed. Finally, and most worryingly of all, her legs appeared to have been thoroughly immobilized.
"Daniel... did I come off my bike?"
"Your bike? No." Daniel looked a little confused. "Some fishermen found you up in the woods, apparently."
"Ugh. Thirsty." Her body chased away all thoughts of her bike, the woods and fishermen, with an anguished cry for liquid.
"Yeah. Doc said you might be. Also said, nothing but ice chips for the moment."
More steadily, this time, she reached for another ice chip as a cheerful middle aged man in a white coat entered the room.
"Ah, the sleeper awakes! Finally, I might be able to get your CO off my back.
"My guess is that you're thirsty as hell and your head hurts like a bitch.
"I see Dr. Jackson has started you with the ice chips. So, I'm going to do some quick checks and then we'll see what we can offer you in the way of pain relief."
"Rush."
"Detective Rush? I'm Detective Falcon with the Colorado Springs PD."
Lilly's gut twisted. She had been dreading this call. Dreading hearing about that another woman's life had been cut short and the feeling that she should have been able to prevent it.
"How can I help you, Detective?"
"You put out a notice, a while back now, with some details about a possible serial killer. I think your perp might have relocated.
"We had an abduction a couple of days back. Sketchy details we've got so far from the good ol' boys who found her and the hospital's description of her injuries look an awful lot like your boy's MO."
"You've found her head, then?"
"Oh no, ma'am, we've got all of her..."
"She's not dead?" Disbelief, relief and a vague sense of disappointment warred within her.
"No, ma'am. Couple o' early morning fishermen managed to scare him off before he could finish it off. He just gave her a good swipe upside the head and bolted."
Relief won out, and Lilly sighed.
"What makes you think it's my perp, Detective? He usually left his victims very dead."
She thought fleetingly about the one who got away... for a while, anyway.
"ER doc who checked her over said it looked like she'd been running... chased, even, though the woods for the whole night before she was found. Seemed like she'd been just in her underwear the whole time, too."
"You got a description, Detective? A statement?"
"Fishermen describe Joe Schmo, the average guy. The vic hasn't given anything up, yet. She's only just come to and her folks are real protective of her."
"Her folks? She's a minor?"
"Nah, she's with the Air Force down here, but we haven't got past her CO, yet."
"She been through your office before?"
"Er... yeah. Couple of years back, she got snatched. Sketchy details, though. The Air Force took over, went all National Security on us."
Lilly's heart pounded.
"I need to talk to this woman, if that's possible. I'm going to have to run it past my Lieutenant, though. Can I get back to you?"
"Sure thing, Detective. You think it's your guy?"
"I think there's a very strong possibility."
He'd scanned the news and the papers for the past couple of days. No sign of his little escapade.
So, they'd kept it quiet.
If they hadn't come and asked him for her prior incident file, he'd have almost believed they weren't going to do anything about it.
He wondered idly if a little bird had told his favorite person in Philadelphia, yet.
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