"FBI open up!" shouted Don Eppes with all his might, as he and his team waited, they heard a scuffling in the back.

"We got him sir," crackled Don's radio, "he tried to make a break for it, just like we knew he would."

"Copy," said Don as he crashed through a door. If this guy was wanted for kidnapping, he was sure the kids would be here.

The house was empty, completely clean. Passing the basement door, he suddenly heard a thud, a scraping of what sounded like a key, and the door opened. A woman and a man stumbled in, knocking Don out of the way. They fought each other with amazing speed and agility in the small hallway, but it was soon clear the woman had the easy advantage, and she quickly knocked him out with a quick jab over his neck. She then turned to Don, eyeing him suspiciously.

The woman had brown-black curly hair that was kept in a ponytail, a few strands framing her eyes. Her eyes were sea blue with a cloudy air -- they seemed so familiar.

"You," she said in an angry voice, bringing him back to reality. "Call off your team, this is now under the investigation of the U.S. Air Force." She started toward him, than stumbled. Don caught her, spotting a dark stain on her thigh, and it was spreading.

Don's instincts took over, "hey we've got two people in here! Looks like they need help" "Get me the paramedics stat!" A cop came in with two men, who quickly loaded her onto the stretcher. The cop cuffed the man, who began to come around, and read him his rights. Don could tell the woman was fading, slipping into unconsciousness. "Hey, what's your name? We should contact your next of kin."

"Cassandra Eppes, US Air Force. You need to call General O'Neill, two Ls, he'll be wanting to know that I located the artifacts." She grimaced in pain before she slipped into unconsciousness. Don stood there, in shock as the paramedics rolled her away.

"Don, do you have a sister? I thought that girl looked exactly like Charlie," said Megan, running into the house, Don suddenly knew where those eyes had come from."

"I don't understand. Cassi, my sister, has been gone for years. She left when I was 17 to go enlist in the Air Force. But she's stationed in Colorado Springs last I heard."

"Don, do you want to go with your sister? I can go get your dad and Charlie if you want me two."

Don found himself shaking his head. "Dad and Charlie have to hear this from me, they won't believe anyone else. Cassi's been gone for so long…" He jumped in his SUV and drove home

How am I going to tell Dad and Charlie? How are we going to tell Cassi about mom? Does Cassi know that I worked for the FBI? She's a year older then me, and I was still in high school when she left. Don did some rough calculations in his head. Cassi would be about 33 right now. Don arrived at Charlie's house, got out of the house and ran towards his father, who was gardening.

"Dad, I have to talk to you and Charlie, it's urgent."

Alan Eppes looked quizzically at his eldest son. "Charlie, get out of the garage, it looks like something happened." Charlie came out in the next few seconds, and, like his father, looked quizzically at Don.

Don danced on the spot, then stopped. "We found Cassi."

Alan looked at Don, confused for a second, but then tears of realization began to creep down his face as he suddenly gasped.

Charlie went ballistic, "Let's go! Now!

The three got into the car and drove to the hospital.

Charlie could remember Saturday afternoons when his mom and dad had gone to see Don at a basketball game, and they would just do what they wanted. Cassi would study her languages and Charlie would do math. When Cassi enlisted, that all ended. There was a huge fight, resulting in Cassi packing her bag and leaving, never to be seen again. After that, Charlie was alone in facing his Senior year, the worst year of his life.

As Charlie again returned to reality, he realized that they were at the hospital. Standing in the intensive care unit door. Don gathered up his courage and stepped up to the head nurse. "We're here to see Cassandra Eppes."

"I'm sorry, but she's asking for no visitors."

"We're her family," Charlie shouted, "We have a right to see her."

The nurse looked annoyed, "Look, she said that only when some guy named General O'Neill comes by that he and his group should be shown in to see her, otherwise, she doesn't want any visitors."

"Look, I'm FBI and she was involved in a case that we recently solved. I need to see her one way or another."

The nurse sighed. "Fine, only you can come in." She led him to a door and motioned him in.

He walked in apprehensively, trying to remember that she wasn't really his sister any more. She was a stranger. "Hello, I'm Don Eppes of the FBI, I need to ask you a few questions."

Cassandra sat up. "Go ahead." She sad rather stiffly.

Don took a step back in surprise. "What were you doing in that house?"

"I was retrieving some…stolen goods."

"Stolen goods? I thought a kidnapper lived there."

Cassi shook her head. "We were trying to keep the neighbors away from the house. The people living there are dangerous. I should have known somebody'd be smart and contact you. Don't you realize what house it was?" Don shook his head. Cassi cracked a smile. "Dude! It was the lot you and I used to go to and fight over who was gonna play older sibling with Charlie."

Don stared, "That's right, and you usually won because you would lift Dad's old weights behind our backs. So where have you been stationed?"

"I spent a little time in Afghanistan, but I've traveled all over. They like us geniuses who are multilingual."

Don laughed, "So does the FBI."

They stood there for a long while. Cassi finally broke the silence. "The knife wound isn't that bad so I'm probably going to be able to leave soon."

"Did the doctor's tell you this?"

Cassi laughed, "no, but when you go to the infirmary as often as I do, you tend to be able to tell how bad something is. But my boss will be here soon and I'm gonna have to debrief him, so I need you so leave."

Don's eye sparkled with glee, "secret spy stuff, huh? I'll leave you to it." He got up and walked to the door. "Hey Cassi," she looked up, "don't be a stranger." And then he left.

A gray-haired man followed by a blonde-haired woman and a brown-haired man approached the nurse's desk. The men were in military fatigues; the other was clearly a doctor. The older man spoke to the nurse in a quiet voice, "My name is General O'Neill, we're here to see Cassandra Eppes."

"Right this way." Said the nurse.

The three trooped into the room, to find Cassi sitting up in bed, reading the LA times. Cassi looked up and smiled at the three-some. "Daniel, Jack, Sam, you're late. My brother's already been by, snooping around, trying to figure out what's going on."

The man named Jack spoke up, "I never knew that you had a brother."

Cassi's voice was almost a whisper, "I have two brothers, Charlie and Don Eppes"

Sam looked surprised, "Your youngest brother is the math genius? The one who went to college when he was like 14?"

Cassi nodded. "He's the one. His IQ is 180 or something like that. He beat me by 10 points. Don's pretty smart too. His IQ is 150, however, Don's interests were more about sports and girls then numbers and languages. He is good at strategy, and he would have been an amazing military officer if I hadn't caused all the drama at home by joining the air force."

Jack interjected, "you never told me there was drama at home."

Cassi nodded again. "They thought I was wasting my talents as a linguist."

Flashback –

"How could you do this to yourself? You have one of the top linguistic minds in the world, USC offered you a free ride, and you go off and enlist," Margaret Eppes cried to her daughter.

"Mom," Cassi said in a calm voice, "you have to understand, all my life people have treated me different, like I'm fragile and special. The Air Force is my chance to be put on an equal scale. I don't have to be smart there, I have to be strong."

"I forbid you to go, we'll call them and tell them that we won't let you." Alan Eppes now sprang up. "If you're going off to enlist, then you won't be a part of this family any more."

"Dad, I'm 18. I can make decisions for myself. You can't baby me and tell me what to do any more. If you want to kick me out, then fine, but you have no right to say what I can't do. My life isn't a democracy."

Cassi stormed up to her room. She got out the bag the Air Force had issued her, stuffed it with clothes, books, and everything she could fit. As she was leaving, she ran into Charlie, the 13-year-old soon-to-be high school senior seemed to not understand what was happening.

"Cassi? What's going on? What's in that bag? Why are you leaving me?" he cried.

Cassi kneeled down and looked deep into his eyes. "Charlie, mom and dad are mad at me because I'm going off to fight in the Air Force. You have to understand, this is what I've always wanted to do. There will come a day in your life when you have to choose between what you want and what dad and mom want. I hope that day you understand the choice that I have to make here. I love you Charlie."

With that she left, running to the bus station, where her fellow recruits were waiting with their families. She felt somewhat bitter as the high school jocks stared at her. Then the whispers started. "She's going! She's a geek. She won't last two weeks." One voice echoed, "I don't know man… she's tough." Somebody yelled out, "Go home geek!"

Cassi turned around, "Next person that calls me a geek will have to answer to me." She shouted.

They all quieted down, it was common knowledge that Cassi could kick anybody's butt that she wanted too.

End Flashback –

"About a year of training and three years of tour later, I met Daniel and I was brought to the mountain. He helped me learn basic Gou'ald and Russian. It's been eight years to the day that I joined the SGC, nine years since I stopped talking to my family."

Jack whistled, "I wondered why you looked so awkward as we were coming in. Now I know that it's because you haven't talked to your brother in so long."

Cassi looked at Sam. "So, how long do you think I'll be bedridden? Did you talk with the doctor?"

Sam smiled. "They're letting you out with the promise that you'll stay on the crutches they're giving you."

"Something I'll make her adhere to," said Daniel, smiling. "No work, either missy, I know you're miss perfect work ethic."

"Did the team pick up my stuff?" asked Cassi.

Jack nodded. "SG-13 did about an hour ago, the Feds were getting kinda huffy about the false alarm, but I think they're happy it was a false alarm. The trust members got away though."

"Damn… so Daniel, what are we gonna do for three weeks, since I can't work."

"Jack's given me stand down, so we could go on the first vacation we've ever taken."

"Nowhere sandy though, I don't want to deal with sand in my crutches."

Daniel nodded, "and cruises are pretty much out, since the only way back is kind of attention getting."

"We could stay here."

"In L.A."

"Yeah, I could show you my hometown, introduce you to Colby, Amita, some other people that I've kept in contact with."

"Sounds good. I have a friend here that I'm sure we could crash with for a couple days, or we could say in the hotel."

"I haven't stayed in a hotel in years…"

"It's settled then, you'll take me around town and I'll drive you."

Jack and Sam smiled at each other as they gazed on. Daniel and Cassi had been going out for a while now. They both knew that Daniel had bought a ring and was planning a proposal soon.

Throughout the next week, Cassandra showed Daniel around L.A., showing him her old school, the places she hung out, the good restaurants. Cassi was unsure if she wanted to visit Don or Charlie at work. She knew people both at CalSci and at the FBI office. She wasn't sure if she wanted to tell her brothers that she knew about them and her connections with their coworkers.

But eventually, Daniel asked to meet her brothers and he knew someone at the FBI he wanted to see.

Flashback –

After serving her tour in Europe, Cassi started to look for an interesting job in the states that involved military training. She had temporarily served in Florida, trying to find a more permanent job.

Cassi was at the Air Force library practicing her verb forms from Chinese when a brown-haired man in glasses approached her. "You know Chinese? Wow, impressive! Do you know any other languages?"

She quickly stood up, saluted and spoke, "Sir, I am fluent in Spanish, French, both versions of English, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, several African dialects, Italian, Portuguese, and I can read Latin."

The man, whose name was Daniel, smiled, "No need to call me sir, I'm not military, how do you know so many, you can't be more then 25." Cassi lowed her hand, her body relaxing.

"Well, I'm a linguistical genius. I'm actually 21; I enlisted in the Air Force because I admire them. My parents actually had a fit when they found out, they had high hopes of me going off to college, and then work some desk job, but none of that for me."

The man smiled, "My name is Daniel Jackson."

Cassi smiled, "Cassandra Eppes."

The man frowned suddenly, "Your brother doesn't happen to be Charles Eppes does it."

"He is my brother, though I haven't heard from him since I left home, they all are peeved at me for some reason. I actually have to go, the list of our assignments for duty is being put up soon …"

"Go ahead! Good luck."

Cassi ran out of the library to the list by her dorm, it took her a while to find the E's, and then frowned.

Eppes, Cassandra -- Cheneye Mountain, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

She ran to her room, dialed the number to her advisor, and impatiently waited for him to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Sir, this is Cassandra Eppes, is there a typo on my assignment?"

"No, you're going to Colorado Springs at 0800 tomorrow."

"Okay, thank you sir."

Cassi boarded the bus that was heading from California to Colorado Springs 15 minutes early and was not surprised to see an empty bus. She sat down near the front and got her Chinese book out, memorizing how to conjugate "to translate." Someone else boarded the bus and Cassi looked up to see Daniel Jackson coming toward her.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" Cassi asked questioningly.

"I work at Cheneye Mountain." Daniel chuckled.

"I thought you weren't affiliated with the military." Cassi said questioningly

"I'm not, I'm a consultant on archeology and linguistics."

"Really! So you were testing me yesterday."

"Yeah, the work at the mountain is rather... challenging, we had to be sure."

"No problem, that's what I like about the military, even if your a genius, you still have to prove yourself. There is something that has been bothering me, how do you know about my brother?"

"There was an article on him in the New York Times last week, I cut it out because I thought he could be a potential canidate when he gets older."

"Charlie, no, he won't accept it. He wants to please Mom and Dad too much, so does Don. I guess you could say I'm the rebel in the family."

Daniel laughed. Then he decided to take a more mysterious note. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to look at some text for me, I've been having a little trouble translating it." He handed her a notepad.

"This seems like a very old dialect of Ancient Egyption... it seems like it says something along the lines of...Beware the Gods? And it goes on!" Cassi grabbed a pencil from her bag. "May I?" Daniel nodded, pulling his own work out, the two working consistantly through lunch and dinner, until the sun was setting.

"There," Cassi said, "loosly translating, this says 'Beware the Gods, for there are many, and when the chosen race rises up against them, the Gods will rise up under the Lords of the Heavens and they will attack the chosen race with all they have, until they are weary and defeated.' What does that mean? Where did this come from?"

Daniel sighed, "First we have to get you into the base." The bus then suddenly stopped and opened its doors. They were in Colorado Springs.

-- End Flashback

Cassi smiled at the memory as Daniel drove over to CalSci and parked in a visitor parking space. Cassi got directions to his office, and she and Daniel quickly found it. Charlie wasn't inside, but a pretty Indian woman was. Her back faced the door. Daniel started to turn away, but Cassi pushed the door open.

"Professor Eppes isn't here at the moment. You'll have to come back later."

Cassi's smile widened. Amita turned around with a frown on her face. But her face quickly brightened. "Sandra!" she cried, "what are you doing here? I thought you were in Colorado Spring!"

"I got myself injured again and I decided to stay in LA for a week or so, I want to show Daniel my hometown. Amita, this is Daniel; Daniel, this is Amita." She indicated behind her.

Amita smiled warmly. "I've heard a lot about you. Sandra won't shut up about you."

"Why do you call Cass Sandra?" asked Daniel.

Cassi smiled, "You'd never guess how many people call me by different names." She punched his shoulder lightly.

Amita also smiled, "I already knew a Cassi when I met her, so I decided to call her Sandra."

"And how did you meet."

"A spelling bee when I was younger. Sandra and I sat next to each other. We exchanged information afterwards and kept in contact with each other. When I went to CalSci and met Charlie, I immediately made the connection and I've been keeping an eye on Charlie ever since."

After saying goodbye to Amita, Daniel drove to the FBI office and was about to enter with Cassi, but his cell rang and he waved her a head of her.

After Cassi got her visitor's pass, she walked up to Don's office, and saw Colby facing away from her and hobbled up behind him. She playfully smiled and yelled, "BOO!"

Colby jumped, then smiled, "Well, only one person does that to me, and that would be Cassandra Eppes." He turned around and stood up to hug her. "It's been way too long Cass."

"Daniel says hey, so does Sam and Jack is getting into trouble in Washington D.C." said Cassi.

Colby smiled, "Ah, the days at the Colorado Spring Air Force Base, what adventures we had there."

"The team really misses you, your replacement, Alex Goldman, is nothing compared to you, you sure you won't reconsider coming back?" asked Cassi.

Colby shook his head, "I've had too many injuries, too many stories of near death experiences."

Cassi smiled, "but that's the fun of it silly!"

Don Eppes entered the office and called, "Colby, did the ME's office call yet

"Not yet Don." Colby called back.

Don caught sight of his sister, stood staring at her for a full minute. "Do you know each other?" he asked weakly.

They both shared a smirk, "Afghanistan, plus we were stationed in Colorado Springs for a while together."

Don gave Cassi a questioning look. Cassi explained, "We met in training, then were shipped off to Afghanistan together. After our tour ended, we were looking for jobs, all we could find were desk jobs, and then we were more or less pulled into a really cool job in Colorado Springs."

"What did you do?" asked Don.

"Ummm…. I translate Russian and Chinese and Spanish languages if we intercept them on our radios, I am also working on a handheld computer that will translate things for troops."

Colby looked uncomfortable, "I, ummm, guarded the door. So Cass, how's Janet the war monger doing?"

Cassi bit her lip and teared up. "Nobody told you did they?"

Colby shook his head. "What happened?" he asked in a warning voice.

"She, um, died in combat. We were taking fire and she went to save a soldier. She was hit in the back and died instantly.

Colby sighed. The world really was amazing, but more people than anyone could ever imagine had died for it, had died because of it.

What the hell are they fighting? Thought Don, "And what's so classified about Cassi's work. I looked up the base on the internet and it said that they did deep space telemetry.

Daniel saw a red-haired woman come around the corner. "Meg? How are you?"

Megan Reeves dropped the box of files. "How? But – you died didn't you?"

Cassi laughed heartily and Daniel smiled. "I was MIA… most people assumed that I was dead, but I really wasn't." Colby, Cassi, and Daniel all shared a secret smile.

Soon after, Cass convinced Daniel to go home, for the next thing she had to do alone. She took a deep breath as she stared up at her childhood home. The lights were on and she knew that all three Eppes men were home, probably eating dinner.

She knocked and there was shouting. A red-haired man answered the door. "Yes?" he inquired, "may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Charlie." She said.

"I'm sorry," the man said. She didn't trust him at all. "he's busy with something."

"Where is he?"

The man grinned, "He doesn't want to be disturbed." Cassi was on edge as it was. In a trice she had the man on the floor, her knife out.

"Tell me what you've done to my brother and I may let you live." She snarled.

"Cassi!" shouted Don. "What the hell do you think you're doing to Larry?"

"Larry?" she said, getting up. She stared down at the man, who looked terrified.

"He works with Charlie at CalSci."

Cassi's eyes grew big and wide. "I am so sorry, you see, I'm Black Ops, and when you said that Charlie was busy, I thought you were some robber person trying to kill my family. Daniel says I'm punchy."

A new voice joined them. "Donny? Who's at the door?" Cassi stiffened.

"I didn't think he'd be home." Cassi said.

Don closed his eyes for a moment. "You have to make up sometime." He said tentively.

"No I don't. I've gotten on fine without doing so for the past eighteen years and now I will continue to not do so."

"Am I missing something?" questioned Larry. "Don, who is this woman and why did she think I was a threat to Charlie.

Don helped Larry up slowly. "Larry, this is my sister, Cassandra." Cassi cleared her throat authoritatively, "fine, she only answers to Cassi or some other shortened form of her full name."

"Don, who's out there?" her father called. Footsteps were heard. The old man came into the room and Cassi looked away angrily.

"I only came for my stuff." She said sharply. "I'm not looking for a place to stay."

Alan looked hurt. "Would you like some dinner?" He asked softly.

Cassi shook her head. "I have a flight back home in a couple hours. I only came to pack up my stuff. Do I owe you anything for storage?"

"Cass…" Don started.

"Don't call me that." Cassi snapped, "my family calls me that. And my family is back in Colorado."

She ran up the stairs. Don started after her. "Don." Came Alan's voice, more tired and old than Don had ever heard it. "Leave her be, she doesn't want us right now."

"But Dad…"

"Don, you've got to understand that some things can never be fixed by words. This is one of those things. Too many things have been said, and too many bridges have been burned, on all sides."

Upstairs, Cassi was mesmerized by the state of her room. It was exactly how she had left it, but looked carefully cared after. She looked at the books that lined her walls. Como Agua Para Chocolate, Les Miserables, Don Quixote, all in their original languages, books on culture and grammer, vocabulary and society. Encyclopedias that she had long forgotten about to history books she had bought copies of and used every day. She missed the titles and feels of the bindings, the memories of where she went on such adventures.

Cassi sighed sadly and started to pack.