#4 in the Life's Little Problems Series
Color Outside the Lines
A Little!Danny fic by: Maj. Cliffhanger
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Part 8
There was always an instant as Cam first woke when nothing quite made sense; a fleeting moment in which the familiar feel of bed and pillow intruded on the surreal setting of wherever his mind had taken him in dream. Only this time, there was nothing familiar about the cold, dew damp grass beneath his cheek. Confusion was answered by an adrenaline spike as a sharp headache made itself known. Starting at his neck and radiating up and around to behind his eyes, accompanied by a numb tingling in his fingers; it was a pain he instantly recognized.
He'd been zatted.
Opening his eyes, he discovered himself to be lying on a neatly cut lawn, his gun laying in the grass only a few inches from his hand where he'd obviously dropped it. There was a dark blue car pulled up to the curb with someone laying in the middle of the street beyond it. Movement to his left drew his attention and he turned his head to watch Gen. O'Neill also struggling with returning awareness. Between them, next to a trampled patch of grass, the bags of snacks and stuff Cam had packed for their trip had burst open where he'd tossed them aside at the first zat blast. Their contents - including Danny's requested mosquito repellent - lay scattered amidst the spilled bag of chocolate chip cookies the general had been carrying.
The repellent was the last piece of the shattered puzzle that suddenly had his memory falling back into place and his body jerking upward.
"Daniel!" he shouted, tasting panic even as he ignored the pounding in his head and glanced around. Sirens sounded in the distance and he knew SFs and local authorities would be swarming the area in less than a minute. "Daniel!"
Gen. O'Neill had managed to roll onto his back. Squinting up at the deceptively peaceful balls of puff floating by over head, he offered his opinion regarding his own pounding head in a single eloquent expletive.
Cam ignored him, frantically scanning the yard for any sign of his ward. Instead, the younger officer spotted the sprawled out form of Dave's eldest. Like Osprey, he had yet to move. Cam forced himself to crawl the short distance necessary to make sure the kid was still alive. If either he or Osprey had taken more than one shot....
"Danny!" Jack added his shout to Cam's earlier call as two and two came together and he realized what had happened. He too sat up with a jerk and scanned their immediate surroundings, ending with his gaze on Cam as he sought Andy Dixon's pulse point.
"He's alive," the lieutenant colonel confirmed as he felt the strong, steady heartbeat beneath his fingers. He sat back on his heels with a frustrated exclamation that had nothing to do with the unfortunate boy. "Damn it!"
"They got him," Jack surmised, none too happy with the revelation.
Cam glared at the yard in frustrated defeat. "They were wearing personal cloaks."
Jack had gone down before he'd been able to see even that much; but he did remember seeing Danny suddenly hanging in mid-air, only half-visible, so - that explained that. His backpack had apparently prevented the kidnapper from grabbing him close enough to simply make him disappear. With a growl, Jack scrubbed at his aching forehead. "Was there a car or...."
Cam shook his head, wishing he'd seen anything that might give them a clue as to where Danny had been taken. "Nothing," he sighed.
Though his head protested the move, Jack nodded. He wasn't surprised. This attack had been well thought out and perfectly executed. He could only hope that whichever neighbor had called in the emergency had managed to see something the two of them hadn't. "Call the SGC," he ordered as he dropped his hand and forced himself to think again. "Tell them to have the Odyssey lock onto Danny's tracking device and beam him up before his captors think to remove it – I don't care who sees what."
Of course! Why hadn't he thought of that? Cam quickly dug out his cell phone only to discover that the zat blast had apparently fried it. "Damn it!" he muttered again. Tossing it aside, he grabbed up his gun and forced himself to his feet. The effects of the zat were quickly dissipating as several government SUVs suddenly squealed around the corner at the end of the street. "The cavalry has arrived." A day late and a dollar short, he added silently. At his feet, twelve year old Andy Dixon offered a soft whimper.
It was then Cam realized someone else was missing here. He quickly glanced around to confirm it. "I think they took Dave's other boy too," he suddenly announced.
"Jason?" Jack scanned the area in surprise. It had to be an accident. There was no reason for them take the other boy – unless they thought he could be used to help control Danny. "Damn it!" That was not something he wanted to think about.
Cam automatically glanced toward Dixon's house and saw the leader of SG-13 making his way determinedly up the street in his wheelchair. Was it possible the boy had managed to run home and sound the alarm? Cam could only hope so even as three black SUVs skidded to a halt and several men in full tactical gear poured out of each to secure the area. Cam waved an arm to get their commander's attention.
"Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, SG-1," he quickly identified himself, "Stand down," he ordered, moving forward. "They're long gone. I need to use your radio--"
Something in that patch of trampled grass he'd noted earlier caught his foot and he fell. Hard. He landed on something, but when he looked.... "Cancel that," he called out scrambling back while bringing his gun to bear. "'Think I found one of 'em!"
What he'd thought was merely an area of trampled grass was actually the indention of an invisible and unmoving body.