Chapter Text
The din of voices and Christmas carol muzak grated on Colonel Samantha Carter’s ears as she tried to tune out the crowded mall. This was the main reason she hated shopping—especially dreaded Christmas shopping. A particularly egregious version of White Christmas started and it seemed that the hobgoblin in charge of the PA system had cranked up the volume another couple of notches.
“It’s not even bloody Thanksgiving yet,” she grumbled in annoyance; that holiday was still almost a week away. She checked her watch for what seemed like the hundredth time and then glanced out the double doors to the rain-slicked parking lot, before turning her attention back to hustle and bustle of the mall.
Cassandra was supposed to meet her at this entrance ten minutes ago, but knowing the young woman, Sam resigned herself to waiting at least another ten.
New City’s Waterview Mall was not even the worst shopping plaza she’d been in that day, but with the cold November rain casting everything in a miasma of gloom, and her own anxiousness to get back to the hotel, she found her mood darkening with the sky.
She wished Janet had been able to come along, but the good doctor had used the convenient excuse of a symposium on viral genetics at New City University to bail on Cassie’s marathon-session of “let’s make every retailer on the face of the planet happy!”
She shook her head and tried to get back to a happier—or rather a less cynical—headspace.
Since Sam had been away in another galaxy as commander of the lost city of Atlantis for a year, and then commanding the USS George Hammond—one of the newest spaceships in Earth’s small, but growing fleet—she and Cassandra hadn’t spent a lot of time together in the last couple of years. Therefore, Cassie had been ecstatic that needed repairs and upgrades to the Hammond after the Battle for Icarus Base had meant that her “unofficial” second mother would be able to spend some quality time with her.
And Sam was glad to spend the time with her twenty-two-year-old daughter, but fervently wished that it didn’t include crowded malls quite so often.
Earlier that day, she and Janet had accompanied the young woman to the University’s Medical School open house. It was one of the four schools that had offered Cassandra a spot when she graduated with her Master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado in January, and one of their lead researchers was already interested in mentoring her in his lab.
Cassie had had her heart set for a long time on following her mother, Dr. Janet Fraiser, into medicine and the Air Force, but both Janet and Sam had insisted that she look at all her options before choosing such an irrevocable course. There was so much out there and Cassie had shown a remarkable aptitude not only for the biosciences, but also math, and most recently, music.
The young woman had put off going to college for over a year when Janet had nearly died off world after being hit by the energy discharge from an enemy Jaffa’s staff weapon. Both Sam and Janet had tried to argue with Cassandra, but she’d inherited more than her share of stubbornness; she wouldn’t head off to school until she was sure her mother was through her physiotherapy and literally back on her feet.
And truth be told, Samantha was grateful to Cassie for her intransigence. Sam had contemplated taking a leave of absence from the Top Secret Stargate program, but Janet wouldn’t hear of it—not with the threat from the Goa’uld System Lord Anubis hanging over them at the time, ready to subjugate Earth … not with the threat from the Replicators, as the artificial intelligences tried to convert everything in the galaxy into more Replicators … not with the threat from the Ori and their need for entire galaxies to worship them.
No, she hadn’t wanted to leave Janet at such a vulnerable time in her life, especially when their relationship had been so new, but circumstances hadn’t left her much choice; so yes, she was grateful to their daughter for shouldering such responsibility at such a young age.
Sam glanced at her watch again, wishing that she hadn’t acquiesced to Cassie’s request to go off on her own to purchase both her mothers’ presents.
“You so owe me for this, Janet,” she muttered under her breath.
“And I’m sure Mom will be happy to make it up to you,” said a laughing voice from stairwell behind her. She turned to meet Cassie’s impish smile as the strawberry blonde descended the last couple of steps, both hands laden with bags.
“You, young lady, are late,” she groused good-naturedly.
“I know, I know,” Cassie laughed. “But not all of us are as organized as you are. I bet you were done your Christmas shopping by July.” Sam’s ready blush response gave her away and Cassie swatted her with a handful of bags. “I was just joking—Gods, you’re unbelievable,” she complained. “Just for that you can carry the really heavy ones.”
Sam chuckled as she took the bags from Cassie and ushered her out the door. The rain had let up quite a bit, but it was still coming down fairly steadily.
They dashed out into the cold, wet night, laughing as they raced across the parking lot to the rental car. By the time, they reached the late model silver sedan, and Sam had opened it using the remote, her hair was plastered to her head. Quickly opening the trunk, she and Cassie flung the shopping bags in, anxious to get to the dry warmth of the car.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp sting on the side of her neck. Crying out in surprise, her hand automatically went up to the injury and came away with a small dart and blood that quickly washed away with the rain.
Tranquiliser, her rapidly fogging mind told her and she reacted the only way she could.
“Cassie! Run!” she screamed, but it was too late; her daughter was already collapsing like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
As Sam tried to fight the effects of the tranquiliser long enough to get her gun out of her purse, black-clad bodies surrounded them. Someone yanked the purse out of her hand and she lunged at her attacker, desperate to get a few punches in before darkness claimed her.
“The old girl has still got some fight left in her,” a masculine voice sneered. “Hit the bitch again!”
Another dart hit Sam just above her right breast, and then she was falling through the deepest black of space.
From light years away, she heard another voice ask, “What do you want to do with the car?”
“Leave it,” the first man replied. “Leave it all for Druitt and the rest of the Sanctuary’s freaks to find. They’ll know who it was. And who knows, maybe it will teach them not to interfere in our business again.”
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