"Oh, Cassie, baby, she's precious."
Tears welled up in Cassandra's eyes as she looked up to find the short brunette who had opened her heart and home to the orphaned eleven-year-old. The doctor's eyes sparkled as she played with little Addison in her arms. "Mom..."
Janet set Addy on the floor, and the baby crawled away. Instead of following after her, Cassandra's mother walked over and let a finger brush away an errant strand of hair. "Hi, sweetheart. Sounds like you're having a bit of a rough time of things. Anything I can do to help?"
Cassandra crushed her mother in a fierce hug. "I've missed you."
She won an equally fierce embrace. "I've missed you, too."
Janet walked her out to the patio of a beautiful house that Cassandra didn't recognize. Two mugs of coffee steamed in the spring sunshine as Cassandra's kids laughed and played in the backyard. "Why don't you tell me what's going on?"
Cassandra almost laughed at just how long the answer to that question would be. "Oh, not much. We're just living through a global pandemic, which has me thinking of the first time I became an orphan—something I hadn't thought about since Greg and I had to make plans for our kids in case we—"
She stole a shuddering breath as she looked at her mother. "Well, you know."
Janet sipped from her mug as she surveyed the backyard. "It's hard to think about leaving your children, letting them continue on without you, isn't it?"
Cassandra's eyes filled with tears. "Yes."
Janet took another sip before she reached for Cassandra's hand. "I'm so proud of the woman you've become, Cassie. It was my privilege to be a small part of teaching and guiding you."
Fear clutched at Cassie's chest as she was struck with the unmistakable sense that everything was about to change. "Don't go, Mom. I still need you."
Her mother's smile was melancholy. "I'm here, baby. I'm right here."
Cassie's pillow was wet with tears as she woke. She wiped at her eyes and cheeks as she sat up, and her hands came away dripping with tears. She tried to regain her composure, almost hiccupping with the sobs that the dream had shaken loose.
The ceiling above her creaked, and Cassandra turned her gaze upward. From the sound of the footsteps and the direction in which they were going, Jack was letting Aqua outside.
She carefully peeled back the blankets, then took another pass at wiping her eyes. She wasn't sure she actually wanted company, but she also had the feeling that sitting here alone wasn't going to help her feel any better.
She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and padded up the stairs.
Jack turned from the coffee pot as she opened the door and walked into the kitchen. "Hey, Cass."
She gave a tiny wave. "Hi, Jack."
He waved at Aqua who nuzzled up to Cassie's leg as if the chocolate lab mix was a cat. "Sorry if we woke you."
Cassie shook her head as she crouched to the floor and pet the dog. "I was awake."
"There should be coffee in a few minutes."
Cassie just nodded, her mind consumed with the gentle action of petting the dog. Between the dream of her adopted mother, Aqua's eager affection, and Jack standing in the kitchen, Cassandra felt more like a child today than she had even yesterday. "You know, given how many hours you spent at Janet's house when I was a kid playing with my puppy, I would have expected you would have gotten your own dog a lot earlier than this."
Jack's lips lifted in a half-smile. "Yeah, well, being off-world as often as I was put a crimp in that plan for a while. Then, after I got to the Pentagon, I just didn't have time to train one, and I was already with Sam who's more of a cat person to begin with and..."
His voice trailed off. "You don't really want to know all of this, do you?"
Cassie sighed as Aqua padded over to the food and water dishes by the French doors that led out to the patio. "Hey, anything to keep from going down the rabbit hole of how I almost caused the destruction of the very people who would later become the closest thing I have to family."
Jack motioned for her to come sit beside him at the kitchen table. "First of all, that wasn't your fault."
Cassie tugged the blanket around her shoulders a little more tightly. A memory tugged at the back of her mind. Of sitting on a concrete slab in a missile silo with a regulation gray blanket over her shoulders as Sam, tears streaming down her cheeks, said that she had to lock the door. "That's precious little comfort."
Jack took a moment before he nodded. "Yeah, okay, I get that, but second of all, that's not how everything turned out. You're safe. We're safe. It all turned out okay in the end."
The coffee dripped into the pot slowly, marking time though it had all but stilled between them.
"Were you going to send anyone down for me?"
Jack frowned at her. "What?"
The question had only started to form just then, but now that it had, she realized it was one she needed an answer to. One that only Jack could answer. "If Sam hadn't disobeyed your order and left me in the silo the way she was supposed to, would you have sent a team down to collect my body?"
Jack's expression was hard to read. "Depends."
Cassie quirked an eyebrow up. "On?"
The coffee pot was through, and Jack took the opportunity to stand and pour two cups of coffee. "Look, Cassie, it was a long time ago. Things didn't happen that way. Let's just be glad they didn't."
He put one of the coffee mugs in front of her, but she didn't move to take it.
"The answer's no, isn't it?"
Jack looked up at her, midway through sitting in the seat he'd vacated to get the coffee. Then, he sighed as he finished sitting. "Probably, yeah."
Numbness crept over her. "So, if Sam hadn't been holding me when the bomb was supposed to detonate, you would never have known I was still alive."
Jack raised his hands in surrender. "Sam would probably have wanted to send a team in the appropriate gear after the blast. Even though everything we knew about the expected explosion would have indicated that—"
"Any trace of me would have been vaporized."
Jack's eyes twitched, almost like a wince. "Yeah."
Cassie just bobbed her head as she took a sip of the coffee. "Then, I guess I'm lucky Sam was willing to disobey orders."
Jack shifted in his seat before he spoke. "Look, there's something you need to understand about me back then."
Cassie peered over the rim of her coffee mug at him. "What?"
"What happened to you was the first time someone had ever tried to use kids in combat for Sam. It made her sick to her stomach, as it should."
"Not you?"
Jack took a long moment. "Are you kidding? After what happened to my kid, I wanted to rip Nirrti's throat out with my bare hands for what she put you through."
Cassie shuddered under the weight of his sincerity. She didn't often think of him as a warrior, but there were moments like this one when she couldn't help but remember exactly how skilled he was in the art of waging war.
No, it was much more comfortable to think of him as the fun uncle who had brought her a dog when she was in a new place and without many friends.
Jack just stared into his own coffee cup without sipping at it. "No, the only real difference between Sam and me back then was experience. By the time you came along, I was intimately aware that kids could get caught in the crossfire."
Cassie didn't speak, just studied him as he finally took a sip of his own coffee.
His dark eyes were haunted by something. Likely a memory. Something other than Charlie. Stories she suspected he wouldn't tell her. Probably hadn't even told Sam.
Cassie leaned forward and put a hand on his arm. "Thank you for answering honestly."
Jack raised his head in surprise. "It's the least I can do, Cass."
Tears pricked at Cassie's eyes as she shook her head. "I've never known you to do the least you could do, Jack. Especially not when it came to me or my kids."
He swallowed down emotion as he patted her hand. "You're a good kid, you know that?"
Even at thirty-four, Cassie chuckled. "Yeah? Well, I had some pretty good role models."
Then, a question she hadn't even thought to consider popped into her mind. "Did you ever consider adopting me?"
Jack's head snapped up before he bobbed his head once slowly. "Obviously, I wasn't going to fight Sam. She seemed the logical choice."
Cassie's throat thickened. "But she didn't adopt me"
Jack's expression grew tender at the thought of his wife. "No, but don't let her fool you. That was a harder decision for her than she wanted you to know. Even now."
His eyes grew sad again, like the way he'd looked as he had cradled Addy in his arms just a few days earlier. "Especially now."
Cassie blinked. "Why?"
Jack almost seemed like he was going to say something before he took a sip of his coffee. "That's really something Sam should tell you. When she's ready. But as for me, ultimately, I still had a lot of doubts after Charlie. Janet was the best parent for you at the time."
"Do you know I dream about her sometimes?" Cassie let the coffee steal her attention, losing herself in the translucent dark liquid with a bitter scent that wrapped itself around her brain stem and jolted her awake. "When I found out I was expecting Harrison, I dreamed of her that first night. Ever since, she's come into my dreams with these tender moments where it almost seems like she's met my kids... And for a split second..."
Cassie trailed off as she shook herself back to reality. "It's crazy, really, since she's been gone for so long, but sometimes, I almost feel like I could touch her."
Jack patted her knee as he stood. Like he knew the feeling. "I was gonna make breakfast. What are you in the mood for?"
Cassie shook her head as she looked out the window, a pang of homesickness for her kids. For her husband. "The coffee's fine, thanks. I was thinking I might go back to bed, actually."
"Whatever you need to do, Cass. We're here."
She managed a distracted smile as she took another sip of the coffee. If only she knew what that was...
Cassie stood in the center of the village where she'd grown up. The houses untouched by anything but time. Perfectly preserved specimens of lives that had ended abruptly and without mercy.
The ache in her chest was worse here. Stronger when she could smell the wildflowers she used to pick for her mother's table or hear the creek which had run past her family's farm where she used to cool her feet at the height of the summer before her father called her back to the harvest.
A figure moved in the house that Cassie had once called home. A woman with gentle brown eyes, soft dark hair, and a homespun dress that stirred such old memories in Cassie's heart that she almost had to force herself to breathe again. "Mom..."
The figure stood before Cassie with a tender smile on her pink lips as her soft hand caressed Cassie's cheek. "I have missed you, my sweet daughter."
Cassie's tears watered the ground. "I've missed you, too."
She took Cassie's hands in her own as she stepped back as if to survey the younger woman. "I can scarcely imagine it. My little wildflower fully grown. Beautiful and safe. With children of your own. Tell me of them. Of the man who won your heart. Of the family who took you in as if you were their own kin."
Cassie's throat thickened. "You've never come before. It was only ever Janet. Why now?"
There were tears in the other woman's eyes. "Oh, my sweet girl. You never needed me until now."
"Never needed—" The words stuck in Cassie's throat. "How can you say that?"
It felt as if her mother flickered, then jumped back several feet away. "You have a question. You've been too afraid to ask it. Too ashamed that it means you might not love me if you did."
Cassie shook her head. "No, Mom. Never."
Her mother gave her the look Cassie imagined she'd given her own children more than once when they tried to tell her an untruth. One that she already knew was false. "Come. Ask. Only then will you find peace."
Something, maybe a nearby branch, creaked and stole Cassie's attention. "Who's there?"
There was no answer, but as Cassie looked back, her birth mother was gone again.
Cassandra cursed. It wasn't enough time. It felt like she would never get enough time.
"Sam?"
The astrophysicist was headed toward the stairs when Cassie called out for her. Sam offered the woman a look of chagrin. "I was just dropping off some breakfast. I didn't mean to wake you."
Cassandra looked over at the plate on the coffee table they'd moved out of the way so she could use the foldout sofa. Apparently, Jack had pulled out all the stops with breakfast. Scrambled eggs. Bacon. Waffles. "Looks delicious."
Sam walked over and sat beside her on the bed. "Jack said you two had a bit of an intense talk first thing this morning."
Cassie shrugged as she sat up. She pressed the hair out of her face. "Greg said I had questions I might not have felt safe enough to ask when I was a kid. I didn't realize how right he was until I started talking to Jack this morning."
Sam patted Cassie's leg. "Feel better?"
Cassie reached for the plate which Sam passed over to her. "A little, I guess."
Sam didn't press, and while Cassie appreciated it, she felt like she had to get some of this off her chest anyway. "I was painting something when I had my little breakdown. Greg said it wasn't my usual palette. I think it was one of the things that showed him how I was really doing."
Sam quirked her head to the side as Cassie paused to taste her breakfast. "What were you painting?"
Cassie had a crisp piece of bacon halfway to her lips before she stopped and set it back on the plate. It wasn't that her appetite was gone. More like it would take a few minutes before Cassie was in the emotional headspace to handle eating. "The concrete walls of that nuclear testing facility."
Sam inhaled, her whole body tensing with the memory. "Ah."
Cassie chewed on the questions stewing in her mind for several moments. "Sam?"
"Hm?"
"Jack said something this morning. Said it was a harder decision for you not to adopt me than you wanted me to know even now."
Sam's gaze darted up the stairs as if to thank her husband for this gentle nudge.
"Then, he said something about especially now. What did he mean?"
There was a long moment as Sam settled a little more permanently on the bed beside Cassie. "I didn't adopt you because I knew what it was like to lose a mother young. I knew that if I was going to have children, I would have to give up my Air Force career. Not because the Air Force would demand it. Not even because my kids would demand it. It was just this vow I'd made to myself. If I ever had kids, I would do everything in my power not to put them through the same hell my family went through when my mother died."
"And that's why you never had kids." Cassie pressed, gently. "Because of your Air Force commitments?"
"That's not the only reason. There was a time when—" Sam played with her wedding and engagement rings as if she was trying to distract herself from some unpleasant truth. "Well, of course, there was how long it took me to find the right guy."
Cassie squinted at Sam, sensing there was more to the story.
Sam straightened, as if she'd discovered some well of inner strength that she could rely on. "When Janet died, I realized how foolish I'd been in not adopting you. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons you were in exactly the right place. Not the least of which was the way Jolinar treated you."
Sam shuddered at the memory. "That could have gone much worse if I hadn't just been your surrogate aunt."
Cassie turned her attention back to her breakfast, not much more interested than Sam in reviewing that particular memory. "So, no regrets?"
"I didn't say that." Sam tried to smile despite the pain in the corners of her eyes. "I just know there's nothing I can do to change the past. So, I have to take the lessons I learned and try to move forward."
There was a long moment as Sam seemed to have something she wanted to say but that she wasn't sure how to express.
Cassie took a moment to crunch on her piece of bacon before she pressed a little harder. "What?"
Sam caressed Cassie's cheek the way Cassie's birth mother had done in the dream. "I don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't be more proud of you... Even if I'd given birth to you myself."
There was a measure of peace that came with the statement. One Cassie couldn't have anticipated she needed. Blinking through a wave of tears, Cassie smiled at Sam. "Well, as long as we're being completely honest here, you're one of the people who taught me what kind of mother I wanted to be. Patient. Kind. Gentle. Understanding. Fun."
Sam's eyes brimmed with tears as she smiled. "What a lovely thing to say."
"It's true." Cassie curled her legs to her chest as she pondered the ache that still seemed to throb in her chest, even with each step she took toward healing. "Hey, Sam?"
"Yes?"
The memory of standing in the middle of her birthplace tugged at her heartstrings. Like a siren call that was getting too hard to ignore. "If I was ready to take you and Jack up on your offer to take Greg through the gate—would you come with me?"
Sam squeezed Cassie's arm. "Absolutely. Daniel, Teal'c, and Jack would probably be there, too, if you wanted them to come along."
Cassie leaned her chin against her knees like she had as a small child. "I'll think about it."
Sam kissed Cassie's forehead. "I can't promise when we'll be allowed to go—"
Cassie managed a brave smile. "That's okay. I just think I might be ready to face it all now."
"Well, there's no rush. You do this on your time table, okay?" There was a hint of something in Sam's eyes approaching amusement and maybe even a little curiosity. "I have it on good authority that you're not through with Stargate Command for a good long while."
Cassie took another bite of her breakfast as her brain tried to mull over that particular turn of phrase. What a strange thing to say...