.030 – Death
Cassie stood before the little stone marker, the wind blowing her short black dress around her knees.
She didn't know how long she'd been standing there – for all she cared it could have been minutes, hours, or days. She felt absolutely nothing. Just a clean void where her emotions should be. Her hair whipped gently against her blank face as she stood staring at the piece of stone.
Dimly, she registered a presence come up behind her, smelling of books, parchment and dust. Daniel, a small part of her remembered, but she dismissed it like everything else. The rain that was pelting her white skin should hurt, should be freezing her, but she felt rather like she had been submerged under water and was just floating listlessly in nothingness.
"Cass," Daniel began, his tone cautious. "I'm sorry about – "
"Why," she broke in, her voice flat and emotionless.
"Well, you obviously loved him," said Daniel, a bit shocked at the girl's cold attitude.
"It's just a dog," she said in that same voice, shrugging a thin shoulder.
"Cass," Daniel said softly, placing a warm hand on her shoulder, "Cass, what's wrong?"
"It's just a dog," she said again. This time, her voice trembled, and wavered. As though the touch of Daniel's hand had snapped her from whatever protective state she was in, she curled her arms around herself as tears ran down her cheeks. "Why am I so sad? It's just my dog. It's not like - " she paused, and tried to swallow around the large lump forming in her throat. "It's not like it's Mom, or Sam, or Jack… just a stupid dumb dog. Just Homer."
Her voice broke as she spoke her pet's name, and she began sobbing. Not the quiet sniffles of the child that Teal'c had found in the ruins of a dead world, but the gut deep wails of a broken soul. Daniel tugged on her shoulder until she had turned into his heartfelt embrace.
"Why," she sobbed into Daniel's shoulder. "Why does everyone leave me?"
"Shhh," soothed Daniel, as he patted the girl he though of like a niece on the back gently. "I'm not leaving."
"Everyone says that," Cassie looked up through tear laced lashes, her features twisted in grief and anger. "My parents, Janet, Sam, Jack – and you all leave. All of you, go away and leave me alone. What's wrong with me that you can't stay; why does everyone leave?" She screamed it in his face and began beating her fists softly on his chest.
"Cass –" said Daniel, at a loss for what to say.
"Everyone leaves," Cassie whispered, as she laid her head on Daniel's shoulder and let her tears run down silently once more. "I left. I left him in that centre, and I come back and he's gone. How many times will the ones I love die when I can't say goodbye? Why do they go where I can't follow?"
Daniel remained silent, knowing that she didn't expect an answer. The two stood there in the rain for a long time. He knew this was about more than a dog; although Cassie had loved him from the moment Jack had put him into her arms. Daniel knew he couldn't fix this problem for the little girl their team had adopted – this problem would only solve itself in time, weather it was at Sam's funeral, Jack, Teal'c, even him. They would all die eventually and (God willing) leave this young woman behind. She would have to face it eventually.
Even SG-1 couldn't cheat death forever.