A New Start
Cassandra was sat in a VIP suite at the SGC, and people were at a loss as to what to do with her. Standard U.S. policy was to help return people to their rightful homes when possible, but they would be returning Cassandra to a planet that had no other living people on it. SG-1 had spent time with her when they were not on missions, but they couldn't just keep her on the base forever.
"What did the Pentagon say?" asked Carter.
"They refused your application" Hammond said.
"What for?" Carter exclaimed, then she blushed as she remembered the rank of the man she was talking to.
"They said that your work was too valuable to be distracted by caring for a child" Hammond said.
"What about Doctor Frasier?" asked Daniel Jackson, looking up from some information on another planet they would be going to.
"The same story" Hammond replied. "And the CIA have been talking about coming here and solving the problem. I am sure you're aware this involves either an injection or a 9mm solution…?" and four of the five people present were disgusted.
"What do we do, General?" asked O'Neill. "We can't let them kill Cassandra. The kid just lost her entire family… entire people even! I'm sure that she'd keep our secret" he went on.
"Colonel, I went over this with the Joint Chiefs. The girl can only be given to people with the right clearances" Hammond's Texan accent got more deep – never a good sign.
"It would be very hard to find somebody" said Teal'c.
"Couldn't we hide her someplace?" asked Carter.
"We would be found out one day, Captain" Hammond said. As the debate went on, O'Neill felt his knee twinge, though he did not show the pain he felt. Doctor Frasier had felt her way around it some weeks before, consulted her books and told the Colonel that he had only a few more years left before he would be forced to take either early retirement or to take up a desk job. The routine of a 9 to 5 job would be murder to him, but at least he'd be able to go on some of the more routine missions… he stopped thinking as an idea hit him.
"I'll take the girl, Sir" he said.
"Colonel?" Hammond snapped round from where he had been speaking to Daniel.
"I'll adopt the girl, Sir" Jack said. "Most of our missions are less then eight hours long. I could drop Cassandra off at school, come here for the mission, then come home in the evening. If we've got to stay a night for some reason or other, then she can either spend the night on the base or I make arrangements in advance"
"I could look after her sometimes. Cassandra seems to like me a lot" Sam said.
"So long as you don't start analysing her" Jack said, referring to an incident in the SGC's early days. The scientist had fallen asleep in her lab one night, woken up, performed tests on a black liquid that was in a plastic jug and then alerted everyone to the fact she had discovered liquid coffee on another world. It wasn't until hours later she realised she had in fact performed a full set of tests on her coffee, and left the rest of the base disappointed.
"I don't think that the joint chiefs are going to like that" Hammond said. "You are also highly valued" he added.
"But I can provide for her the best" Jack countered. "My house is buttoned up tight because of my Special Forces days, I'm the closest person to the base who lives off site, we both like the Simpsons…" Jack shrugged. "It makes sense really"
"I agree, General Hammond" Teal'c spoke from his customary seat. "O'Neill is the right choice for such an undertaking. He may even be able to teach Cassandra better jokes…" and a slight grimace went over his face.
"What has she been saying, Teal'c?" asked Daniel.
"What sort of biscuit do the Goauld eat?" Teal'c asked.
"I don't know, T" Jack said. None of the others could figure out an answer either.
"Jaffa Cakes" and the table burst into snickers, snorts and smiles – even one from Hammond.
"General?" Daniel looked at the senior of the three officers in the room. "I agree with Jack. Sam works long hours in the labs doing her tests. I know she and Cassandra get on very well, but I don't think that is very fair on the girl. I work long hours too, plus I didn't have a very good childhood – fostering and all that. The only other person is Teal'c, but I don't think that the Government would let him and Cassandra live off base. At last chance, they were going to cut him up for tests"
"An event I am only too pleased did not happen" Teal'c said in his dry manner.
"The Colonel is the only other person that lives off base in their own house" Sam said. "I'm still looking for one" she added.
"I don't think my landlord would like the whole idea" Daniel said.
"The girl does not appear to like meditating" Teal'c said.
"Very well" said Hammond. "I will talk to some people about the idea" and the meeting was dismissed.
# # # # #
"I still do not understand" the small girl said.
"Okay…" Sam said. "Each of these cards has a number on it" she explained the rules again. "You pick a number and ask me if I have any of that same number. If I do, then I have to give you them. If I don't have any of that number, then I say 'Fish' and you take a card from the pile" Sam looked at the girl.
"And this is a game that people play on your planet?" Cassandra asked.
"All over the world" Sam confirmed.
"What happens when I win?" Cassandra asked.
"Well sometimes it is just for fun, but we are playing for chocolate bars" Sam put some on the suite's table. When Jack came in half an hour later, most of the pile was on Cassandra's side of the table and the pair looked at him observing the pair. "What did Hammond say?" asked Sam.
"He just got off the line from the Joint Chiefs and the President" Jack said. "They've agreed that I should be the one to look after her"
"Look after who?" asked Cassandra. She had no idea what the adults were talking about. For all she knew, it could be some secret weapon that they had in the SGC.
"Cassandra…" Jack started speaking as he sat down at the table. "We have been trying to think of people you could live with on Earth. Because the Stargate is secret from most people, we decided that it should be one of the SGC. To cut a long story short, it seems that I am the only suitable person that you could live with" then he rocked from the impact of the girl jumping into his lap and hugging him tightly.
"So I don't have to live in that deep hole?" she asked.
"Nope" Jack said. "What we're going to do is make sure you are alright to go through the Stargate, go to your planet and you can take anything that you want to bring back here with you. We'll have to make sure that you can read and write English, so I'll be helping you with that. And I'm sure Sam, Daniel and Teal'c will all help you as well" he added, and Sam nodded in complete agreement with that.
"I thought I couldn't go through the Stargate" Cassandra said.
"Well we think that the thing that was inside you is small enough to let you go through twice" Sam said. She had been working with Frasier to determine if Cassandra could go back through the gate and bury her parents.
"We thought you might want to be there when we bury your parents" Jack said, then tightened his grip on Cassandra as she started to cry.
# # # # #
Hanka was still the same as Cassandra had left it, but the girl thought it should have changed in her absence. Her mother and father had been left in a cold storage unit in the base where SG-7 had set up the monitoring equipment. SG-1, Frasier and a few other SGC personnel left her alone with the bodies whilst they worked on saving the information from the observatory.
"Cassandra?" Sam approached her.
"Yes?"
"Is there any custom that you follow when members of your family die?" the Captain asked.
"We sit by the dead the night before we burn them" Cassandra said after thinking hard. This was not a surprising fact, as many cultures did this for their dead – both Earth and alien. She got some details from the girl, then went away to round up as much straw as they could find. One SG team was dedicated solely to picking up all of Cassandra's things from her home, as well as that of the rest of her family from her home. They remained on the planet during the night, and Cassandra stayed by the side of her parents until it was time. She stood rock still as the flames consumed the bodies of her loved ones, but the girl let the tears run down her face until they led her away when there was nothing left to see. They gathered the ashes up and placed them in two stone jars that Cassandra identified as being used in burial rites. After being placed in what appeared to be some kind of sacred ground, they left Hanka as a cold and dead world.
# # # # #
"We're here" Jack said. He switched off the engine of his pickup and helped out Cassandra with her seatbelt. It had been a full week since the visit to Hanka, and Cassandra had been cleared in every way to leave the base. Jack had spoken to a couple of people who assured him the best thing was to take her home with him and start the process.
"This is your home?" the girl asked.
"Not any more" Jack said.
"Oh"
"It is now our home" he said, then smiled as Cassandra realised what he meant by that. He let her go inside his little home, and lead her on a tour of the entire house from kitchen to bathroom to her room. "And this is the guest room" Jack said.
"Guest room?" Cassandra frowned as she went over the word in her mind. "Am I a guest here?" she asked.
"Oh" Jack figured out what was the matter. "It is your room of course, I'm just used to calling it the guest room" and the girl seemed to understand that. "You can decorate it as much as you want" he added. "Now there are a few rules here: have fun, eat pizza on Saturdays and remember to have more fun. I'll put your bags and those boxes in here while you go take a look around the garden" and the Colonel felt a warmth spread through his body as Cassandra skipped downstairs and went outside. Dinner was takeaway pizza, and Jack watched as his newly adoptive daughter ate her way through an entire cheese pizza by herself. Either she really liked pizza, or she was exceptionally hungry.
"What are we going to do tomorrow?" asked the girl after they had tidied up.
"General Hammond has given us all a week off work, so I thought I would show you around the local area" Jack said. "We'll have to get you signed up for a local school, buy you some more clothes, a bike, toys, books to read and lots of other cool stuff" he said. "Now sit in the living room while I make a quick phone call to say that we're both fine" and Cassandra headed off to look at some trophies Jack had on his mantelpiece.
#
"… by herself. I wonder if I should get Doc Frasier to take a look at her" Jack said on the phone.
"Maybe" said Daniel. "How is she taking her new home?" he asked.
"She likes it so far" Jack replied. "Taking her out tomorrow to get some stuff for her" and after a while he hung up as Daniel was called away.
"Is this yours?" Cassandra came back into the kitchen with one of Jack's pistols in her hand. He looked over and a cold panic calm over him as he thought back to Charlie…
"Point that bit at the end upwards" Jack said calmly. He moved over and carefully took the gun from the girl's hands and removed the clip. He explained that she should never touch any gun she found in the house. "Say… nearly missed the Simpsons" and he took Cassandra into the lounge to watch some TV. The girl was bright eyed during the adverts as she saw things that she would never have imagined back on Hanka.
"I think I'm tired" Cassandra said after the second episode. All the excitement and different emotions of getting a new parent, eating new foods and getting a new house had caught up with her. Jack scooped her into his arms before taking her upstairs and letting her put her pink pyjamas on in the bathroom while he sorted out the bed.
"Good night. Cassandra" Jack was about to leave when he left a lamp on for her. He went downstairs and put some coffee on – knowing it would be a long night ahead of him.
A/N:
Somewhat short, but all of my first chapters do tend to be this, don't they?
This is a little something I have been working on and off for over a year now, and I thought that I should finally publish it – lest it bug me for evermore! The original format for the fic was that Jack adopts Cassandra, and then goes on to save Lya from the Nox planet after everybody else is killed, and then takes in the girl who had those things in her mind – the same one that Jack "kidnapped" from the SGC and took her out for a day to have fun before she returned to her home planet – can't remember her name at the moment. Some elements from the original fic will be in this, such as the girl requesting asylum on Earth. I also wondered what Jack would do in situations where he was going to stay behind because he had nothing to fight for, and give him Cassandra to think about. How would it affect what happened in key episodes?
Anyway…
I am dedicating this entire fic to XRaiderV17 who, like me, thinks Lya of the Nox is one hot alien babe… *Author looks at you, you and… you* **shrugs** We all have our opinions!
We'll have Jack showing Cassandra more of Earth, beginning to teach her how to read and write in English and the start of a loving relationship of father and daughter, and Jack's love and understanding of Cassie's nightmares and troubles concerning the death of her parents and loved ones on Hanka.
Hope you like my second entry into the Stargate world…
Regards;
Pixel And Stephanie Forever