Chasing The Wind

Pete Shanahan sat in the back booth of the all night diner. He had called Mark as soon as he could get himself together after leaving Sam’s house. To say that he was still mad was an understatement. He knew in his heart that getting this upset over a woman he’d only gone out with a few times didn’t make much sense. But after trailing his wife and catching her and her lover over six month ago, Pete still had not quite regained his equilibrium.

He’d also known from the beginning that Samantha Carter outclassed him by miles. She had a good sense of humor not to mention she was a blonde knock out. And Pete loved blondes. But she had seemed to really enjoy his company and had good times on their dates. So he thought he had a chance with her and he intended to move fast.

Tonight his plans had been to find out just how hot she really was, only not the way he had. He’d never forget that image of her on her knees as long as he lived. The more he thought about what had occurred at her house, the angrier he became. Only anger had already engulfed a large part of Pete resulting from the damage his wife caused and Sam’s seemingly unfaithfulness magnified his feelings of rejection, pain and anger tenfold.

Normally Pete was a responsible and caring person, but the last six months of his life had left him a shell of his former self. He had placed so much hope on Sam in such a short time that he didn’t realize he had transferred his feelings for his ex-wife onto Sam. If he’d been his normal self, he would have realized that he hadn’t known her long enough to have any real or deep feelings for her. But Pete was still to hurt to realize that Samantha Carter, as beautiful and as much fun to be with as she was, was a rebound relationship.

Since he didn’t realize what had happened to him and since he didn’t know Sam well enough to know that what she and her CO were doing was a new and first time thing, he blamed her for his current pain and hurt entirely. Pete was mad. He was mad at life for suddenly burying him in such a way that he didn’t know who he was or what to do next.

But right now he only wanted to return some of the hurt he was feeling, and since he could no longer hurt his real target, his ex-wife, he transferred every ouch of anger and hatred to Sam. He had sat in the booth in the back of the diner long enough for his legs to go to sleep. He was tried of waiting.

Pete had called a friend, Farrity, who worked for the FBI, and was waiting for him to get back to him. Pete asked him to run a check on both Major Samantha Carter and Colonel Jack O’Neill. He made a lame excuse for needing the information, but his friend really didn’t care. Pete and Farrity had helped each other out on several occasions and neither asked a lot of questions. They had been friend a long time and he trusted that Pete needed the information for a legitimate reason.

Pete finished his fourth cup of coffee. He’d been here since calling Mark. He needed a place to think, and he needed his coffee fix.

He’d stripped off the tux coat and tie but still had on the shirt and pants. He hated the monkey suit but had been willing to go all out to impress Sam. “Well, this sure went well,” he huffed under his breath.

Mark had talked to Sam before Pete called him. Finding out that she considered herself and O’Neill a couple made his temper flare again. If she was so into someone else why had she led him on?

How could she be attracted to such an old man? Why him? He had to be at least twelve to fourteen years her senior. Didn’t she realize by the time she was fifty that O’Neill would be an old codger, probably someone she’d be taking care of?

Well, he hoped the old fart made her life miserable, as miserable as his had become recently. The longer Pete sat brooding, the more things he thought of to cause them the same pain he was feeling now.

His phone rang bringing him out of his reverie. “Shanahan.” He barked in a sharp tone.

“Hey buddy. It's me. I got what you wanted.” Farrity stated.

“Just give me the highlights,” Pete demanded.

“Well there's a lot of backstop ID.” Farrity answered.

“They work for the Air Force. Deep space telemetry for NORAD, I know. Is that all you found?” Pete snapped.

“Actually it's what didn't turn up that say's the most. The backstop dead ends on both of them,” Farrity answered ignoring Pete’s attitude.

“She's been scrubbed.” Pete stated. “They’ve been scrubbed.” He quickly caught his slip up.

“Yep. Someone went in the system and wiped out every possibility of her and left only what they want others to see. She's probably connected with some top level stuff. Him, they left some early stuff, but nothing that would give you anything useful. The rest is just like her, scrubbed clean,” informed Farrity.

“Connected how?” Pete asked, not quite able to believe what he was hearing.

“Black ops, covert units. Things the government denies all knowledge of, you know what I'm saying? Look Pete, if you ask me, these two are highly connected. You might wanna back off from this one ok buddy? It’s way out of your league,” Farrity warned.

“Hey! It's not like I'm dating her or anything,” Pete barked, realizing the reason she was a trained level four combatant.

“Right!” Doubt was evident in Farrity’s voice. For the first time he realized he probably trusted his friend too much. He’d hacked into files that he was sure held tracers and now it seemed it was for Shanahan’s personal needs. He could feel his blood boiling. He’d just put his job on the line. He hated to do what he knew he had too, but it was his butt he had to try and save now.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Jack pulled away from Sam’s lips. He couldn’t believe his luck. He was kissing the one woman in the universe that he’d never in a million light years thought would kiss him back. But she was, and not just kissing him, but kissing him in the front yard of their Commanding Office’s home.

As soon as she could catch her breath, she began to protest his last statement. “But…….”

“No buts…,” he interrupted. “I promise you I’ll fix it. If George can’t convince them to let me marry you, I’ll resign.”

“Marry me?” Sam was so stunned, eyes wide and glaring. “Who said anything about marriage?”

Jack panicked. “You don’t want to marry me?”

“I… …I didn’t say that. It’s just that….” Sam’s eyes filled with tears and her voice choked. “I. uh.. I’m not ready to give up SG1 or you.……..I want you both.”

“It’s not like I’ve got much time left on the front lines, Carter. You know Janet’s threatened to take me off during my last couple of physicals.”

“No, I didn’t know… How would I?” She stared him down. Had he said anything like that to her she knew she would have remembered. “Why would she do that?”

“My knees,” he stated sadly.

“But I thought that Ba’al’s sarcophagus healed them?” She questioned as she watched Jack flinch at the mention of Ba’al.

“They were for a while, but I’m too old to keep running and jumping down alien gullies. It didn’t take long to re-injure them. One bad jump. Well you know.” He failed to tell her he’d landed wrong on one of the planets while looking for her when she was stranded on the Prometheus and re-injured his knee.

“Jack stop with all the old talk. You’re not old.”

“Talk to my knees. They have a different story. But you haven’t answered my question.” His tone and look gave away his uncertainty.