The
first week after the Colonel's death, Sam handled herself with more grace
and equanimity than she would have thought possible.
Of course, it helped that she was able to keep busy. There were funeral arrangements to take care
of - which meant dealing with the mortuary - and his will to be sorted out
- which meant lawyers - and the wake, which was at her house because Daniel
was still living on the base. There
were a million things to juggle, things that would normally have been carried
out by his next of kin, but he had no close relatives and only an ex-wife
whom he hadn't seen in several months. This
left matters up to friends: a quasi-amnesiac, an alien, and Sam.
She
didn't really mind. The funeral home,
the lawyers, the sympathetic friends and co-workers were a challenge, but
at least it kept her mind off other matters.
On
top of everything else, there was the police investigation. Just as, in the absence of
family, responsibly for the Colonel's affairs was shuffled down to Sam, so
was the initial suspicion for his murder.
No
matter what movies and cop shows wanted you to believe, most murders were
committed, not by strangers or serial killers, but by people the victim knew:
a sadistic neighbor, a devious uncle, a psychotic spouse with motives no sane
person could truly understand. Because
his neighbors were elderly, more likely senile and arthritis-plagued than
homicidal, because he had no living uncles, and because Sara Thompson (née O'Neill) had been at a relative's baby shower
on the night in question, his friends were the most likely suspects.
However, alibis were had all around. Teal'c and Daniel had been on base; there were
reels and reels of tape and dozens of witnesses to vouch for it. No one among the investigative team doubted
where Sam had been, and there was also no doubt that she hadn't pulled the
trigger. Once she'd been cleared of
suspicion the detective in charge, a man named Ethan Ramsey, cognizant of
the fact that she was a scientist and an all-around intelligent woman, had
told her about trajectory and angle and probable distance as conjectured by
the CSI and a great many other things that she had promptly forgotten.
She was constantly surrounded by people during that
week. Her home telephone and her cell
phone rang relentlessly with people wanting to know where services would be
held, wanting to know that she could call them if she needed anything, wanting
her to know that the Colonel would be promoted to Brigadier General, posthumously.
She resented that last one, a little, because it made it that much
harder to call him the Colonel in her head.
-
- -
She
didn't remember much about Jack's funeral.
She knew that she'd gotten up for it, that she'd dressed in uniform
for it, that she'd checked herself in the mirror to make sure that she appeared
fresh and sharp and professional so that no one attending would be able to
look at her as Jack O'Neill's former second in command and think a single
unflattering thing about him. She used
more than a normal day's worth of makeup trying to even out the blotchiness
of her skin and to hide the shadows around her eyes, but then again it was
hardly a normal day.
After
that, things blurred in and out.
She
was inside, in a darkly-paneled room, and a man with a deep and solemn voice
was saying, "...you have raised up in company
with Christ, set your heart on what pertains to higher realms where Christ
is seated at God's right hand. Be intent on things above rather than on things
on earth...."
She
was in a car. Janet was driving, and
Teal'c was in the passenger's seat. Daniel
was next to her, he put a tentative hand on her shoulder, she automatically
tensed and he drew it away.
She
was outside. There was a hole in the
ground, a box over the hole. A young
man in uniform with brilliant green eyes was standing in front of her, trying
to press something soft and cottony into her hands. Janet touched her elbow gently and said, "Take
it, hun." She took it.
She
heard taps. Not the real thing played
by a real person, of course. It was
a recording on a CD player. Not even
posthumous Generals were worth stretching the budget.
- - -
Sam's
house had always seemed large. Too large. It had been
her father's, actually, but he'd conveyed ownership to her years ago. It wasn't as though he needed it anymore, having
traded in all the comforts of home for claustrophobic Tok'ra tunnels.
When
he was on Earth he'd sometimes come to stay with her, and that made the house
feel a little less cavernous, but it was too big for just one person. There had been times - in bed, walking through
the front door - when she'd been acutely aware of that fact, when it had seemed
as though the hallways and rooms went on forever, when she had damn near ached
for the sound of someone in the bathroom, someone foraging for a midnight
snack, someone in the shower when she woke up in the morning.
Now,
suddenly, her house seemed too small. She
was standing in the living room and people in uniform and somber civilian
attire drifted to and from and around her, eating a little, drinking a little,
smiling and talking a little about the man they'd come here to remember. There were people from the SGC and people Jack
had known in the earlier days of his military career, and the two groups seldom
mixed.
Sara
was there, too, with an older man Sam guessed was her father. The other woman also wore too much cloying makeup,
also looked tired and frayed around the edges, and vaguely Sam remembered
the feel of something soft and cottony being pressed into her hands. Why her
hands?
"I
had a dream Saturday night," said Sara, voice hollow, eyes bright. "It was about Charlie. He was crying. You have to understand... ever since... ever
since all those years ago, when I saw my little boy or whatever he was...
when I saw him in the hospital, all my dreams about him have been good. Happy. I see him smiling
or running or laughing with his father... with Jack. But that night he was crying. He was crying so hard, I could hear him but
I couldn't see him, and I looked for him but I couldn't find him anywhere..."
Sara's
father led the tearful woman away. Sam
saw them leave a few minutes later. She
hadn't said anything to Sara; she couldn't think of what to say. Jack had died on Saturday night.
- - -
Daniel,
Teal'c, Janet and Walter Davis cleaned up her house after the wake. Sam tried to help, determined to stay busy,
but Janet would hear none of it. "Go
get into something more comfortable," said the doctor, who long ago had
stripped off the more cumbersome aspects of her uniform, "and take a
rest. I know you're not tired, Sam,
but it'll do you a world of good to get some sleep."
Sam
smiled, or tried. "Doctor's
orders?"
"Friend's orders. They can order
too, you know."
So
Sam pulled off her blazer, stepped out of the skirt, stripped off her stockings
and put on sweatpants and a t-shirt, drawing the blinds to darken the room
before easing herself into bed. It
was still early afternoon and her mind was furiously busy, but her body was
surprisingly stiff and sore. She lay
on her stomach, pulling the sheets and quilt up around her like a protective
cocoon, closed her hot, grainy eyes and listened to the sounds coming from
the rest of the house. The
clang of dishes in the kitchen. The hum of the vacuum cleaner. Various other noises she couldn't immediately
put a finger on.
An
hour later, she was no closer to sleep than when she'd first placed head onto
the pillow. She heard a soft creak
and opened her eyes.
Daniel
froze in the doorway, a guilty look creeping onto his face. "Sorry... did I wake you?"
"No."
"Oh, good." His eyes flashed
around the darkened room. "Um,
do you mind if I come in?"
"Sure,"
she said, although she didn't move an inch.
He
slipped inside, closing the door behind him, his eyes narrowed into slits
behind his glasses, straining to see her through the relative darkness. "Teal'c and the rest of us... we're just
finishing up. We were about to go,
I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
Sam
slipped one arm under the pillow, propping her head up a few inches. "I'm fine."
He
scratched the back of his head, looked disbelieving. "Are you sure? Maybe someone should stay--"
"Daniel,"
she interrupted, "I haven't had a moment to myself since all this happened.
I need some quiet. Some peace."
Shifting
his weight from one foot to the other, he surprised her by saying, "
Sam
put her head back down on the pillow. "That's
nice."
He
was looking at her strangely. "You
know, the first thing he said... well, he asked me how you were doing."
"What
did you tell him?"
Daniel
fidgeted. "Actually, he didn't
ask. He
said you'd be taking it really hard."
She
sighed, letting her eyes flicker shut, hoping he'd get the message. "Daniel, honestly, I'll be okay. I'm not going to break down."
"Actually,
Jonas seemed more concerned that you might, uh, try to find the people who
did this."
Sam
opened her eyes.
Daniel
blanched. "That wasn't a suggestion,"
he cautioned.
Deciding
that he wasn't going to get the hint after all - and he rarely had before,
so why start now? - Sam sat up in bed, arranging the bedclothes around her,
trying to stay as calm and nonchalant as was possible when discussing the
murder of a friend. "The police
don't have any leads. They can't even
come up with a murder weapon. All they
know is that it was a sniper. That's
a far cry from a name and address, Daniel, so even if I wanted to... to avenge Jack, I wouldn't know where to start."
Daniel
scratched the back of his head, his eyes starting to un-squint as he became
more accustomed to the darkness. "I'm
still catching up here, but the last time someone we knew was - supposedly
- killed by a sniper..."
"It
was the NID," Sam finished, a headache beginning to pound in her left
temple. "And yes, they were my
first thought too. But it's not exactly
something I can take to the cops -- that he was shot
by some government lackey. Unless we
have a triggerman, we have nothing. The
NID is too big to take on as a whole."
"You...
we did it before."
"With a narrow scope. Specific goals."
Although vengeance was a rather specific goal.
Daniel
took a step back, leaning against the door.
"I'm sorry... it sounds like I'm encouraging this and I'm not. I'm just babbling... I'm thinking out loud because
I guess... I feel guilty."
She
frowned. "Why?"
"Well...
two reasons. When I first heard, all
I could think was that if I had been there..."
Sam
shook her head. "It wouldn't have
made a difference."
"Yeah,
I know that. I guess."
"And the other reason?"
His
forehead wrinkled almost comically, his eyebrows drawing together in such
consternation that Sam might have laughed under other circumstances. "I have... all these memories," he
began slowly. "Five years of memories.
Of us, of SG-1.
But at the same time... I don't know.
In a way, it almost feels like we just met.
There's that... new feeling. And I can't help but think that I'm not... feeling
this loss as much as I might have, you know, before. As much as I should, as much as you and Teal'c
are." He shook his head in disgust.
"I know that Jack was a friend, I know
it. But it's like... I'm still in shock. Like it hasn't sunk in yet
to the point where I'm really grieving."
She
didn't know what to say to that. Maybe
he was right. Maybe the gaps in his
memory were more than just an absence of information; maybe he was missing
more, more that would only come back with the passage of time. Maybe his year away, maybe almost dying himself
had given him perspective that the rest of them lacked. "It's different for everyone," she
told him finally. "You shouldn't
let it make you feel bad."
The
headache was spreading. She winced,
putting a hand to her forehead.
Daniel
took notice and straightened, reaching back for the door. "I'm sorry... you wanted peace and quiet."
He turned the knob. "I'll give you a call tomorrow morning,
okay? Just to check
up."
In
defiance of the pain, she shook her head.
"I'll see you at the base tomorrow," she corrected him.
"Ah... not if Janet has anything to do with it. She told me she doesn't want you setting foot
back there until Monday. She's already
cleared it with
"Doctor's
orders this time," called a voice from the direction of the kitchen.
Daniel
smiled faintly. "Teal'c and I
get special permission on account of that where's we live, but you... you're on a forced vacation."
Monday. It was only Wednesday;
what was she supposed to do for the next four days? Sit around her house,
sink into depression with no distractions other than the inanities of television
and the constant playback of her own grief? At least at the base she would have had a project
to work on.
She
forced a smile. "Sounds
great. Talk to you tomorrow."
"We'll
let ourselves out," said Daniel, moving back through the door. He paused, looked as though he might say something
else, but apparently decided against it. The door closed and he was gone.
Still
sitting up in the bed, Sam listened to the sounds of her friends and colleagues
finishing up. The
chug of the dishwasher. The click of the closet door closing. The distinctive sound of the
front door being locked.
And
then: silence.
Silence.
Peace and quiet.
What
she would have given for the sound of someone, somewhere.
- - -
What had been dinner for four
became dinner for three and then dinner for two. Having arrived at the restaurant only a few
minutes after Sam, the Colonel used annoyance to mask his concern.
However, the use of his cell
phone cleared the matter up within minutes.
The first call revealed that Teal'c had received an unexpected visit
from one of the leaders of the
"The more things change..."
quipped the Colonel, re-clipping the phone to his
belt.
She laughed politely.
What would have been a pleasant
atmosphere for dinner for four or even three abruptly became awkward for dinner
for two. Softly crooning music that
reeked Italian charm, elaborate although no doubt reproduced murals on the
walls, a blown glass jar in the middle of the table reflecting the light of
the single candle placed within...
As though on cue, they both
laughed nervously. Sam smoothed her
napkin once, twice, three times.
Six years and they'd never
eaten out, just the two of them.
Then the waiter arrived, and
the strange tension was broken. Food
was wonderful that way. Over steaming
plates of Linguine alla Marinara and Capellini
Pomodoro - boy did the Colonel have a fun time pronouncing
that one - and mushrooms stuffed with Parmesan and Romano cheese, they were
able to act as though they did this every Saturday night. They even had a glass of wine each, owing to
the fact that they both lived close by - well, he did - and that they had
excellent driving records - well, she did - and saving the world had to have
some perks, even if they were small and secret.
Because they had been seated
in a corner booth a respectable distance from the kitchen, they were even
able to talk a little about work... after the Colonel drew the pleated blinds
to foil any laser microphones aimed at the picture window. Sam told him about the special project that
had been discovered in
She took it as a compliment.
Of course, there were things
besides work to talk about. Silly, inconsequential things. Meaningless things. They laughed.
They had fun. They didn't worry
about someone from the base seeing them and thinking something, because if
two friends who happened to be of opposite gender couldn't go out to dinner
once in six years without worrying about their jobs, there was something seriously
screwed up with the world they were trying to save.
They split the bill, paid the
tab. They walked outside, across the
dark shopping center lot, to where both their vehicles were parked in the
same general vicinity. The Colonel
was mocking her tastes in motorcycles.
Then it got bad.
A sharp crack.
He fell.
On her.
His neck.
Shot.
All the blood.
Oh my God.
Someone screamed. She didn't listen. She was on the ground, stunned, and then she
wasn't. She rolled him over, went to
feel for a pulse in his carotid artery, but there was no where to feel for
a pulse.
So much blood.
His eyes were open, unseeing.
He was already gone.
Someone was still screaming.
Maybe it was her.
- - -
She
woke up engaged in mortal combat with her quilt, soaked in a sour sweat. Choking. Shouting madness into the
dark room.
Trembling,
she fumbled for the light, flipped it on.
Her
stomach roiled, but she hadn't eaten anything since the night before, maybe
not since before then. Or maybe she
had. She couldn't remember.
Her
face was moist, tacky with the tears she'd not yet shed while awake.
She
drew her knees up. Placed
her forehead against them. Squeezed
her eyes shut. Rocked
back and forth. Tried to breathe. Tried to keep her heart from bursting through her chest.
At least it was quick. Please God, let it have been quick. Quick and painless and he never knew what happened.
Please God. Please, please, please.
She
opened her eyes. Stopped
rocking. Added
a P.S.
Please God. Let me find the bastard.
- - -
Daniel
hadn't forgotten how to be timely... when he wanted to. The phone rang, she
rolled over, picked up the handset and said - in a voice that sounded like
something from the crypt - "I'm still alive."
He
didn't answer for a long moment. Finally:
"That isn't funny."
"Yeah." She cleared
her throat. "I know. Listen, I don't suppose the good doctor..."
"Nope. I just saw
her in the commissary. She said that
if she so much as senses you skulking around - 'skulking' was her word, by
the way - she's going to send you to Mackenzie post-haste."
Now
it was Sam's turn to fall silent. Janet
hadn't specifically mentioned a trip to the shrink, surprising Sam, who had
assumed that everyone who was witness to a friend's gruesome death was shipped
off to the booby hatch without so much as a phone call. It was just like her, however, to save that
particular peril for a threat.
It
wasn't that Mackenzie was really a bad guy.
He meant well. But Sam knew
how her mind worked, and she knew that rehashing the whole thing wouldn't
help her. Eventually, the nightmares would go away.
"Well,"
she said at last, "if you call later and I'm not here, don't send out
the SWAT team. I'm thinking about going
to the gym."
"The
gym," he echoed. "Sounds
good."
"Yeah,
well, it's either a trip to the gym or I go buy out Baskin Robbins. The two are kind of mutually exclusive."
"I
guess they are," said Daniel in the tone of voice that made Sam think
he couldn't remember that Baskin Robbins sold ice cream.
Silence
reigned over the line.
"It
feels weird, doesn't it?" asked Daniel.
"Just... going on with life. Like it never happened."
She
didn't say anything. They'd both lost
loved ones before, they both knew the painful, disconcerting realization that
the Earth will continue to turn, the Sun will keep rising and falling, the
tides will be maintained no matter how much you're hurting.
"I'll
talk to you later."
"Bye,
Sam."
She
rolled onto her back, stared at the ceiling.
Sighed.
The
phone rang again.
Muttering
darkly, she grabbed the handset again, bringing it to her ear. "Daniel, bug off."
Daniel
didn't answer her. In fact, nothing
answered her. There was a distinct
lack of a reply of any kind, even when she asked, "Hello?", even
when she checked to make sure the phone had turned on when she'd picked it
up.
"Hello?"
she asked again.
The
phone clicked. Clicked. Clicked. Over and over again, like someone was tapping
on the other end of the line, but more mechanical than that. The sound sent an unexpected chill through Sam.
Someone
was listening in.
She
dropped the phone back onto the cradle. Stared at it. Expected it to ring again.
It didn't.
Filled
with strange apprehension, Sam got up and dressed for the gym.
- - -
At
the gym, she rode in place next to a woman named Jenny, a stocky redhead forever
in battle with her physiology. They
were friendly but not friends; Sam's schedule was too erratic for her to make
it to the gym with any great regularity, but Jenny was personable and naturally
gregarious. They huffed and puffed
in tandem while riding stationary bikes, although Sam did most of the riding
while Jenny did most of the huffing and puffing.
As
usual, Jenny was full of stories about her three sons, which she poured out
to everyone in hearing range every time she 'took a break'. Sam felt she knew the boys as well as if she
actually was a family friend.
It
was nice to be able to put her mind somewhere else. But it couldn't last.
The
gym had several televisions mounted up near the ceiling in strategic locations.
Maybe it was just TV-obsessed American culture, but it was
a ready distraction from the burn of muscles and the itchiness of accumulating
sweat. Usually an army of bikes and
stair-climbers drowned out the sound, so the TV set was muted and set to closed-caption.
Today, however, it was just Sam, Jenny, and a few other devotees, and
the sound was turned up and the channel set to the Wayne Brady show.
It
wasn't the host's continuous patter, however, or one of his guests that caught
Sam's attention. It was a commercial.
She was hunched over on the bike, leaning into the handlebars, focused
on the rhythmic pumping of her legs, when a sudden swell of dramatic music
made her raise her head. On the small television screen, an American
flag rippled in a computer-generated wind, and a man's face was transposed
against that patriotic backdrop.
Sam's
legs cramped, stiffened, and the stationary bike coasted to a stop.
"Uh,"
Jenny grunted, perched atop her own bike, bringing her water bottle to her
lips. "I can't believe we're getting
these already." She took a drink.
"Like anyone even feels like thinking about politics right now."
"Uh-huh,"
muttered Sam, eyes fixed to the television.
Jenny
didn't notice her preoccupation, replacing her bottle in its holder and slipping
her feet back onto the bike's pedals. "I
don't know about you, but I don't start thinking about it until at least November
first. It's all the same, isn't it?
Just a lot of old white guys all wanting to live in the old white house
and spend our money..."
Running
her mouth faster than the pedals of her bike, Jenny babbled on. Sam didn't listen. The TV was exhorting her to vote for Senator
Robert Kinsey for President.
"I
have to go," she said briskly, interrupting Jenny, who watched in confusion
as Sam leapt off the bike, grabbed her gym bag and hurried out the door.
- - -
Because
Sam was banned from the base, they met at her house instead. In the time it took Daniel and Teal'c to arrange
a car and make the drive down the mountain, she was able to take a shower,
change, and better form her hypothesis.
Kinsey. Of course. She'd thought about the NID, they all had, but
she hadn't been able to answer one important question: Why now? There hadn't been
any particularly nasty run-ins lately, no reason that she could see for them
to want to get rid of the -- of Jack quickly.
But she hadn't thought of Kinsey.
He'd
won the primary, virtually unchallenged in his own party, and now the national
campaign was beginning. Kinsey had
always felt threatened by Jack and, from what Sam knew, for good reason. She'd never been told any specifics, but ever
since he'd managed to get
But
would it stop Kinsey and his minions from going after Jack himself? If no one else
knew how to keep Kinsey in check, maybe that ability had died along with Jack.
Her
thoughts spun madly, but in spinning they seemed to create something, as though
her mind was a loom.
A
few minutes before Daniel and Teal'c arrived, the phone ran. She picked it up suspiciously, bringing it to
her ear and listening for any strange taps and clicks, but the other end was
silent. She said hello twice before
hanging up.
Maybe
there was something wrong with her phone, or the line. Daniel had called that morning, but no calls
since then had come through, and she had contacted the base on her cell phone.
Before she could test this theory, however, Teal'c and Daniel arrived.
- - -
They
weren't immediately convinced.
Even
after 'immediate' had passed, they still weren't convinced.
"Look,
it makes sense," said Sam a half hour later, for perhaps the third time.
"Kinsey has the party nomination.
He's fundraising, actively campaigning now.
Maybe he thought Jack would try to discredit him, go to bat for the
other candidate with whatever information he had.
It makes sense that Kinsey would want to... nip that in the bud."
But
as before, Daniel and Teal'c merely exchanged glances, and that was even more
infuriating than a spoken rebuke. "What
is it?" she demanded.
"Well..." Daniel squirmed on the couch. "I just can't see Kinsey up on top of the
supermarket with a high-powered rifle..."
She
groaned. "Obviously I don't think
he did it himself. He hired someone...
maybe even someone in the NID. Maybe not."
"Does
that not place us back in the first square?" asked Teal'c... rather carefully,
Sam thought. He was seated next to
Daniel, while she was perched on the edge of the coffee table.
"'Square one', Teal'c. And
no, it doesn't. Sure, we still don't
know who the shooter was," she admitted, "but we know who gave the
order."
"Um...
no," Daniel contradicted. "We
don't, actually. We don't have any
real evidence that Kinsey put a hit out on Jack.
In fact, considering Kinsey had a photo-op with Jack not even a year
ago-" he looked to Teal'c for confirmation of this "-most people
would probably... er... not believe it."
Sam
glared at him furiously.
"I
didn't say that I don't believe it," he added.
She
pursed her lips, trying not to explode, trying to keep it all inside when
what she really wanted to do was strangle
somebody. Why didn't they understand?
Why the hell couldn't they understand?
"We take this to the police," she said finally, with a modicum
of calm. "It's their job to find the evidence.
But as Jack's friends, we have the responsibility to give them any
information we have that they might find helpful.
Robert Kinsey is a name, and therefore it's the best lead
we have."
"Is
it not the only lead, Samantha Carter?" said Teal'c gently.
"Yes. Yes, it is," she answered, not allowing
her tone to soften in the least. "I
don't know about you two-" they both flinched "-but I don’t want
to see this case just get filed away for a simple lack of activity. I'm going to pick up the phone right now and
call Detective Ramsey and tell him what I know.
You can stay, or you can leave."
They
stayed.
The
phone worked.
- - -
Ethan
Ramsey was dubious, but Sam forgave him where she hadn't Daniel and Teal'c.
After all, everything Ramsey knew about Kinsey was from television
and newspapers, not unfortunate personal experience.
And even though it seemed that most Americans these days were unfailingly
cynical about their elected leaders, 'unethical, power-hungry spendthrift'
was a long way from 'cold-blooded murderer'.
"So...
you think a
Maybe
he was slightly more than dubious.
Sam,
Daniel and Teal'c sat in the detective's office, trying not to notice the
hustle and bustle of the police station churning on the other side of the
door. It made Sam uncomfortable, thinking about how
much local crime there must be to keep the station so busy, how much work
people like Ramsey had on their plates. The
mysterious murder of one reclusive man - albeit an Air Force officer - would
not remain high on their list of priorities for long.
"Jack
and Kinsey'd had run-ins before," said Daniel
earnestly. "On
more than one occasion, as a matter of fact."
"Senator
Kinsey disliked us all intensely," said Teal'c, his golden tattoo hidden
behind a Colorado Rockies cap. "But
his enmity with O'Neill was the greatest."
"Enmity..." muttered Ramsey, scribbling into a small
notebook on the other side of his large wooden desk. He regarded Sam with sharp brown eyes. "I take it you corroborate all this?"
"Completely. Detective,
I wish I could tell you everything... explain all of our suspicions to you,"
she said fervently. "However,
it involves classified information it'll take time for the Air Force to release.
But yes... Kinsey has this loathing, this almost religious fervor against
the work we do at
"We
think Jack might have had evidence that Kinsey was working with the NID on
several illegal operations," Daniel added, "but we can't prove it. At least not right now."
"We'll
go through Jack's house," Sam said eagerly. "Top to bottom. If he did have documents of some kind, they
might be hidden there." And after
all, the house now belonged to her.
Ramsey
still looked bewildered and less than persuaded, but he nodded at Sam. "Right. I'll start... asking around, I guess. Whatever information you can get me would be
extremely helpful, though. I've never
accused a Presidential candidate of murder before," he said faintly.
"There
is a first time for everything," Teal'c observed.
- - -
The
investigation got off to what Sam considered an encouraging start... and promptly
bottomed out. None of Ramsey's superiors
were prepared to let him go on the record as fingering Kinsey for the murder,
and the detective himself obviously wasn't convinced enough to go out on a
limb for them.
To
make matters worse, Daniel and Teal'c weren't nearly as upset over this as
Sam was. In fact, they seemed to have
been expecting it and were surprised by her rage.
Everything
was working against her.
Even
the telephone was back on the blink. It
would ring at seemingly random intervals, both day and night, until she was
forced to unplug it before she went to bed simply to ensure a decent night's
sleep. When she picked it up to make
a call, sometimes a full thirty seconds would pass before she was rewarded
with a dial tone.
It
was as if someone had tampered with the line...
She
kept having the dream, the memory, and somehow - although she hadn't thought
it possible - it became worse with every viewing.
Every night she was increasingly more aware that she was trapped in the nightmare. Sometimes she even tried to change the outcome,
begging Jack - of course, then he was still the Colonel
- to take a different route to the car, or to linger in the restaurant a little
longer. He always acquiesced, but that
didn't change his fate. No matter what
she did, he was hit by a sniper's bullet, hit in the neck, and he was always
dead before he struck the ground. She was always splattered with his blood.
She was always shouting for someone to call 911, even though she had
a cell phone of her own and even though she knew he was past medical intervention.
Saturday
night was particularly hard. Janet
had offered to come over but Sam had declined, wanting to spend the time alone.
She sat on her couch and watched the hands of the nearby clock move
inexorably towards the time when, one week ago, Jack had died.
Been murdered.
Been taken away.
Anger
percolated in her veins like poison. She
tried to tell herself that she would have handled this better if he had died
offworld, died in the line of duty, died in one of the ways
she'd always expected. A
After
ten-thirty, when Sam had been watching the clock for an embarrassingly long
amount of time, the phone rang. Warily,
she picked it up. "Hello?"
Nothing.
Sam's
hand tightened. "Hello?"
she said again, more harshly this time, prepared to slam the handset down
if she received no answer.
But
a reply came. A man's voice, hesitant
and even startled. "Um,
Ms. Carter?"
Simultaneously
relieved and paranoid, Sam demanded, "Who's this?"
"It's
Detective Ramsey, ma'am. Ethan Ramsey.
Listen, I'm sorry to be calling this late at night... especially, um,
this night... am I interrupting anything?"
Sam
let out a nearly inaudible sigh, chiding herself to get a grip. "No, you're not. What's going on? Do you have news?"
"Well...
not exactly. In fact, no," he
said, apologetic. "I've been trying
to get in touch with the Senator, just to ask some questions if nothing else,
but his people keep stonewalling me. I
know the man has a campaign to run, but they won't even agree to a telephone
call. Hell, they won't even tell me
where he was one week ago tonight."
"I
can tell you where he wasn't," said Sam darkly, shifting on the couch.
"He wasn't anywhere near
Ramsey
was silent for a minute. Finally, he
asked, "Your friend
"Very
much so," said Sam, figuring it was the understatement of the year and
hastily adding, "but not to the point where we'd want to... you know, where we'd be accusing him without very good reason.
I mean..."
Ramsey laughed gently. "I know what you mean. And no, I didn't get t