Summary: If there was really any picture painted a thousand words, she was pretty sure she knew the one. She had, after all, seen it daily for almost two years before it quietly disappeared. And if actions really spoke louder than words, its place carefully hidden away among her daughter's things spoke much more than the picture itself.
Thoughts on Cassandra's painting in Singularity.
Spoilers: Season 1 - Singularity
Usually, when someone said "A picture's worth a thousand words," Janet thought of blackmail-type photos. God knew she'd seen enough worth a thousand words, and even one or two that were definitely worth more. The age-old cliché was not generally applied to artwork.
But if there was really any picture painted a thousand words, she was pretty sure she knew the one. She had, after all, seen it daily for almost two years before it quietly disappeared. And if actions really spoke louder than words, its place carefully hidden away among her daughter's things spoke much more than the picture itself.
The day her daughter, still a stranger at that point, had come home with her, she was still getting used to the idea of adoption and motherhood. The concepts were almost stranger to her than the girl who rode next to her in her car. Her daughter hadn't come with much: the clothes she was wearing, a pair of patterned pink pajamas, a military issue grey blanket, a dog, and a watercolor painting done on cheap paper. Trying hard to slip into the proud-mother-figure role, she'd asked for a closer look at the seemingly simple painting. Her daughter had silently handed the slightly water-wrinkled paper to her.
She'd been a bit confused. It had been rather good for a first try at watercolor. Though some parts were a bit sloppy, and the colors had blended together, the whole picture was done to the same scale. There was a figure on the paper, with brown hair, wearing a pink dress – obviously, her new daughter. The huge orange sun Janet remembered from her daughter's home planet burned down on the hundreds of identical brown, monotonous, dead bodies strewn around the girl. The only thing that stood out was a large, unproportional, simplistic blue stick figure, hovering slightly above the grass next to the girl in the pink dress.
Janet had looked up at Cassandra, her brown eyes meeting Cassandra's own serious gaze. She wasn't talking.
The picture was reverently hung on Janet's refrigerator – until now, shockingly white – once Janet had scrounged up a few more commercial magnets. Of course, she'd had to explain to Cassandra this strange new ritual, and then satisfy her curiosity about how magnets could stick to the refrigerator. In the months, and even years, to come, Janet often wondered if Cassie's newfound fascination with the EM fields were the reason for Colonel O'Neill's newest answer to the universe since "42".
Which she did find slightly amusing - but only slightly. She never told anyone, unless it got back to the Colonel. Contrary to what he thought, she did not enjoy having to use her big needles. On the bright side, it got Cassandra interested in the sciences, and she was that much further ahead when she began school.
For two years, the picture kept its place of honor among various memos, lists, reminders, and Cassandra's other artwork. With each picture, her control of the paintbrush was slowly mastered. She absolutely loved it, Janet could tell. It made her happy. Never once did she question her daughter who the blue figure in the picture was. Not only did Cassie seem unwilling to talk about it, but there just really weren't all that many options. Seeing her daughter with her best friend, she knew.
Samantha Carter hadn't always been her best friend. Although from the start they'd respected and liked each other professionally, it wasn't until the whole Hathor incident that they'd ever began anything more than a working relationship. It wasn't until Cassandra that they'd found more common ground than being two women in a predominately male workplace. But then, though Janet was legally responsible for Cassandra, Sam came first for Cassandra. It didn't take someone as smart as Sam herself to see it.
The worst part was that Janet knew Cassie had a reason for it, and the reason was legitimate. Real. True. Whatever word you wanted to use from Captain Thesaurus.
That was the only real damper on her daughter's artwork. She wasn't the blue figure, and her daughter didn't want her to be. The title "Mother" seemed beyond her – yet, it wasn't awarded to Sam. That was the only part in which Janet took jealous comfort. Even that made her feel guilty. Surely friends weren't supposed to be so envious of each other? And Sam didn't even know.
A thousand words to Cassandra – a thousand different words to her. Words of comfort, versus words of inadequacy. Yet the picture remained for the better part of three years.
In that time, Janet was emotionally accepted by Cassandra as her mother. A while after that, after much discussion, Cassandra legally became her daughter. Even though Cassandra had eagerly accepted the prospect of Janet becoming her mother once Janet awkwardly broached the subject, she often caught Cassandra sneaking undecided glances between her and the picture still hanging on the refrigerator, almost as if trying to decide whether or not to take it down. Cassie was almost thirteen at the time. In the end, it stayed up. It was only taken down once a few curious girl friends of Cassandra's unintentionally made fun of it. Janet didn't even realize it was missing for a few days afterward – it just quietly disappeared.
When she finally did realize that the picture wasn't looking back at her in the mornings when she got her breakfast, she assumed Cassie had taken it down so she wouldn't be laughed at, embarrassed by an old picture she'd painted "when she was little". She assumed it was thrown away. Janet unintentionally stumbled across it one day behind enemy lines in her daughter's room, also finding her assumptions were quite the opposite. Tucked away with birthday cards, old notes, letters, and other wrinkled mementos, it was hidden away so that it could not be made fun of. Cassie would not have it laughed at.
Yes, the action spoke twice as many words as the picture itself on any given day. Janet could easily mend the bones whatever sticks and stones might break, given six to eight weeks, but the implied words did hurt. A little. What these words were, Sam Carter would probably never find out, she knew.
Though Janet had not been purposely going through her daughter's things the first time, only looking for a borrowed necklace, she couldn't help but sneak in from time to time and stare at the creased paper. Every time she saw it, the corners were bent a little more, there was another crease here, finally a little tear on the edge there. Rougher around the edges every time she saw it next - frequent handling, frequent viewing.
And she was only caught once.
"Mom?"
Janet jumped guiltily, looking up at the suspicious tone in her daughter's voice. Cassandra stood in the doorway of her room, her long reddish-brown hair framing her inquisitive face. She had an eyebrow raised in a way that almost made Janet see Colonel O'Neill. But Cassandra wasn't looking at any of that – instead, she looked at what her mother held in front of her.
"What are you doing with that?" Her tone could have held a lot more anger and petulance, but it didn't. It didn't help put Janet back on balance, though, as she tried to come up with some logical explanation why she would be in her daughter's room. She looked from Cassandra to the painting, then back again. Dimly, the thought crossed her mind that this was sort of like some messed up role-playing game. She wasn't supposed to the one feeling guilty; Cassie wasn't supposed to be the one in control.
She watched Cassie walk over to her little box, looking to see what else had been searched through. "Don't worry, I didn't see anything else," she felt the need to say. There wasn't much else she could say. She felt Cassie sit beside her. "Mom, it's not like you've never seen it before. It's just and old painting."
Janet sat still, trying to decide how best to say what she wanted to, or even if she should say it. After a minute, she sighed, hesitating as she spoke. "Clearly, it's not just an old picture if you've kept it with your things all these years." She didn't meet her daughter's eyes. Cassie was smart – she'd understand what she meant to say, but couldn't.
It didn't take long for her to understand. She pulled the artwork away from Janet little more forcefully than she should have, a little angrily. Another tear appeared at the top of the page. "Fine. Since you've clearly wanted to know about this for ages - " she pointed to the picture. "Tell me what you see."
Janet finally met her daughter's eyes, and hesitantly looked down at the paper she held. "I see you, on your home planet. I see the people in your village lying around you. The blue stick figure is, um, what's presenting the problem."
"It's Sam." Janet looked up in surprise at the direct tone in Cassie's voice – it wasn't as if she hadn't already known it was Sam, but she hadn't been expecting Cassie to say it so readily. But she was angry, and tired of this. "I painted this picture the first night I was at the SGC, and she was the only one who stayed with me. Janet, she stayed with me the whole night. She told me all about Earth even when I didn't talk back, and she was the one who painted the stick figure, to let me know I wasn't alone anymore. That was all I needed, then."
"So you've kept this picture all these years to remind you that you're not alone?" Janet looked up, slightly hurt at these words – again, something she already knew… but it was different hearing it out loud. "Have I not been good enough for you all this time? Because I've tried, Cassandra, God knows I've tried." Her volume of her voice was beginning to creep up on her.
"No!" Cassandra's exasperated voice rang out. "Janet, why can't you get it?"
"Maybe if you didn't call me 'Janet' every time you were angry with me…"
"You and Sam aren't my real mothers! But god, Janet, you don't know what it's like to have everything you've ever known taken away from you and then have someone stay with you and let you know you're not alone!"
"Is Sam my stand-in? Is Sam who you really wanted to adopt you?"
"At first, yes! She was the only one I knew!"
Janet rose, trembling. "Then I'm sorry I've never been able to be who you wanted me to be."
"Mom!" Cassandra yelled, standing up. Janet almost lost it when she realized she had to look up slightly to face her daughter. Cassandra breathed deeply for a few seconds, and they just stood there, glaring at each other. When she spoke again, it was only a little louder than a whisper, but still angry. "You were my doctor when I met you. I only saw you when you were examining me or trying to keep me from dying. You had enough on your hands without having to watch over some alien girl, but you did when you could. Sam had the time to spend watching me, so she did."
"I'm sorry I didn't have the time, then," Janet whispered, holding her daughter's gaze.
"Mom…" Cassie warned. "You saved me from dying multiple times. You worked desperately against the clock to do it, too. Of course I cared about you then. You worked even harder than Sam."
"But she stayed with you…"
"If someone hadn't, I probably never would have talked. If you hadn't worked as hard as you did, I wouldn't be here now."
"I don't know about that," Janet said bitterly. "I didn't find a cure, did I?"
Cassie sighed, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "No one did, because there was no cure! It was a bomb!"
"Sam went back for you when she knew that thing inside you was going to explode." Her voice wavered in anger and something else she didn't want to explore. "I don't know that I would have."
Cassie hesitated, unsure of where to go next. "Yes, you would have."
"Now you're just telling me what I want to hear."
"Mom, you're telling me you worked that hard on me because you work that hard on every patient? I know you don't get that emotional on every case."
"Cassandra…"
"Janet…"
They held each other's gazes again, at a standstill. Cassandra was the first one to look away and run her fingers through her hair. Janet reached out slowly and touched her shoulder.
"I'm going to go," she said, "and if we still both want to, we can talk later. This isn't getting us anywhere." Cassandra nodded, and Janet tentatively patted her shoulder again, before turning. On her way out, she bent, picked up that picture, and carefully replaced it in with Cassandra's things. She glanced at her daughter before stepping out and closing the door gently.
"Mom?" Cassie's soft voice called from behind her.
She turned – Cassie held back for a moment, but then stepped forward into her embrace. Janet held her daughter tightly.
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."
It didn't matter who said what, because Janet had had enough time to think in the hour since she'd left Cassandra's room. And oh, did Janet think. And she came to some conclusions.
Cassandra was her daughter. Not Sam's. Cassandra knew that – and she didn't want it the other way. A picture may paint a thousand words – but the words may be words of the past. Just because words are old doesn't mean they mean anything less than they did when they weren't.
The past few years while she'd been thinking how she didn't deserve this, Cassandra didn't deserve what she'd put on her daughter either. What was more, her best friend certainly didn't. Janet trusted her beyond anything, and to some extent, she'd betrayed the trust that Sam had put in her. Sam loved Cassandra, yes; but she wasn't her mother.
Janet, on the other hand – she could proudly claim that she was.
"Do you need to talk about… it… anymore?" Cassie's voice spoke in her ear.
"No. I don't."
The next day, Cassandra couldn't explain how her picture was hanging on the refrigerator again.
I own nothing related to Stargate except for a fervent love for the characters' love for each other. It just makes you feel so warm and fuzzy inside.