--- --- Barely Hanging On --- ---

Sam was only peripherally aware of Cassie, running through her house, calling out for Pete. The day had gone by exactly like the last. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes to hours, stretching on like eternity. Everything mashed together in a thick fog, flaring endlessly in front of her.

Somewhere upstairs, she heard Cassie yelping and, for the first time in what seemed like years, she felt something awaken inside of her. Hurrying up the stairs, she searched for Cassie until she found her, sitting on the bed and holding a letter in her hands.

Relief rushed through Sam and her heartbeat slowed down. Cassie was okay. Whatever had raised her awareness, if it had been fear or years of training, it was again buried under thick, gigantic layers of guilt, pain, shame, and a billion other emotions she didn't want to differentiate coursing through her all at once.

She felt darkness reaching out for her as she would have felt a real person, calling out her name. It claimed her and she slipped willingly into its arms, embracing it and seeking refuge in the numbness. At least it helped her to ease the pain, to silence the screaming inside of her. He was dead. Nothing would ever be right again. He was dead. Nothing could ever be right again. He was dead.

The paper in Cassie's hands slithered to the ground as she stood up, pulling out Sam's clothes of a closet.

"You'll come with me. I won't leave you alone."

Sam didn't need to look at the paper to know what was written there. He'd left. After four years of trying to make it work, he'd finally had the guts to make the final step. This was something she couldn't say for her part. She was well aware that it should've hurt, but it didn't. Everything was dampened by the pain of losing the man she loved. Yeah, she'd realized that much during the last days.

She loved Jack O'Neill; she'd always loved him. Of course, she had loved Pete too, in a way, but as much as it shamed her to admit it, she hadn't loved him enough. Pete had been caring, easy going, loving, but, most of all, available. And she had used his kindness because the alternative scared the shit out of her. Another blanket of guilt added to the already overwhelming layer at the thought of Pete.

She'd never brought anything but pain to the people who loved her. Jonas, Martouf, Narim, Orlin, Pete, Jack. The last words of his letter were still coursing through her brain. He had loved her. Her heart pounded painfully, the only hint that she was still alive. Everything around her was covered in darkness. She didn't care what happened to her, nothing mattered any more. He was dead.

Her fingers traced the lines of the silver watch at her wrist. It was the only jewellery she was wearing. She'd slipped her wedding ring off yesterday when Daniel had handed her the watch. The watch reminded her constantly of his words. Their timing had never been right. And, now, the watch was on her wrist, mocking her. But then, she knew she deserved the joke it represented. She deserved so much more pain. For all intends and purposes in her mind, she had killed him herself. If she hadn't allowed it to stay in that damn room... If she hadn't married Pete... If she had been there...

Darkness was calling her and she turned willingly into the arms of her new lover.

--- --- --- --- ---

Teal'c and Daniel waited for him in a small room. For the first time in days, he saw familiar faces. Outside the building, there were a thousand reporters waiting for him. Rumors of the death of Jack O'Neill, savior and hero, had spread and had caught up with those who had had the honor to call him friend. To Jeremy, Jack had been so much more than that. To him, Jack had been his family and he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat that emerged every time his thoughts returned to Jack.

The first time he'd met Jack, he'd tried to steal his truck. Jeremy had always been so much smarter than the other kids at school and he had skipped classes as often as possible. No need to die of boredom, or at least that was what he had thought at that time. His mother hadn't been able to take care of anything, let alone her son and he'd searched for respect in other ways.

If it hadn't been for Jack, he'd probably ended up in jail or something similar. Jack had shown him that there were other ways, that there were people who cared about him. He'd realized that there was more to Jeremy than met the eye and he'd seen right through him. It was all due to Jack that Jeremy could start with college next year at the age of fifteen. No one else had ever done as much for him as Jack.

Now, Jack was gone. Jack had left him, like everyone else he'd ever cared about had left him. And, even more, it was his entire fault. If he'd been at the lake earlier, if he'd waved just a moment later.

"Jeremy, we need to talk."

The boy's eyes narrowed on Daniel, Jack's so-called friend.

"Why?"

Satisfaction rushed through him as Daniel flinched at the harsh tone of his voice.

"We're trying to get you outta here. You would need to come with me to Colorado..."

"Why do you care? You don't know me, I don't know you. Why should you care?"

Jeremy knew he should feel badly as he saw the man's face pale and falter but he was too angry to really care. Life had messed with him again. It just wasn't fair. He wanted to scream, to shout at life, at Jack for abandoning him, at Daniel and Carter for leaving Jack behind, at himself for not rescuing Jack and for showing those jerks, who claimed to be Jack's friends, his weakness the night they'd shown up.

"I care because I know exactly how you feel. I know what it's like to lose your family. My parents died when I was a kid, my grandfather didn't want me, and I had to change foster homes more times than I can count. I finally found a new family with my wife, Sha're, but she was taken away from me. Jack helped me up again. He brought me back and he, Teal'c, Sam, and Cassie, they became my family, even if it doesn't look like that from where you're sitting." Daniel's voice strengthened as he went on, "Sam lost her mother when she was 13, Cassie lost her entire family at 12 and her second mother at 18, Teal'c lost his wife and almost lost his son. We all lost our families, our emotional homes, but we were able to build a new one; we became each others' family. You're part of that family as well, Jeremy. I made the mistake of letting down a family member once but I won't do that again."

Jeremy's defenses crumbled when he saw nothing but honesty in Daniel's eyes. He could feel the anger floating away, leaving nothing but grief and pain. Words of Jack's letter sprang to his mind as he watched the man. Jack had wanted them to be a family.

The silent blue eyes watched him warily, the tension palpable in the set of Daniel's shoulders. Confronted with two sets of eyes, sending nothing but loyalty and care in his direction, the tough mask fell to the floor. It had never worked with Jack either.

"Thank you."

His voice was barely audible but it was enough. He could see the smile twisting Daniel's mouth. The man looked at him for a minute longer before he reached for some papers.

"So, now that this is out of the way, we need to do some paperwork..."

--- --- --- --- ---

Cassie paced her small office nervously. They had offered her her mother's old, much larger, office but she had refused to take it. Somehow, it didn't seem right. Even today, she thought she could hear her mother's voice calling through the ESGC every time she passed that door.

Her death had been hard on Cassie at the beginning but, the longer she kept going, the easier it got. First, she'd felt nothing but pain whenever someone mentioned Janet Fraiser. Gradually, she had been able to think about the good times and she'd been able to return to her mother's workplace to continue what she had been fighting, and eventually dying, for.

She had applied for this job without the knowledge of Daniel. Of course, he would've helped her, but this was something that she felt she had to do on her own. Not that the ESGC could've turned down the 'summa cum laude' graduation from the Harvard Medical School. Her mother had always said that she was a fast learner. Even more so after the whole incident with Niirti. Her mother had run some test's back then to find out whether Niirti had changed something in her brain structure, but she hadn't been able to detect anything.

It hadn't taken Cassie long to build herself some sort of reputation within the ESGC. If someone had a problem to solve, they knocked at her door. So, when the former head of the ESGC's medical staff had recommended her for this position, she had taken it with delight. She was proud that she had managed this without the interference of her beloved 'uncle', that she had done this alone.

But, today of all days, she wished her mother could be with her right now. Jack was dead; once again her curse had taken away one of those she loved. And, to top it all, the latest results of Jack's autopsy were strange. There was a slight abnormality in the gene sequence and she'd no idea what to think about it. The abnormality was tiny, really, not worth mentioning, but it disturbed her. If only her mother could be here. She might have known what to do with this.

"Cass?"

Her assistant, Bridget, entered the room, a thick file in her hands. Forcing a smile on her face, Cassie took the folder and flipped it open. Her mother's handwriting filled row after row and she found her heart clenching at the unexpected sight. She had forgotten her mother used to write her reports by hand, rather than using a computer.

"You okay?"

The worried expression in Bridget's eyes pulled her back to herself. She nodded in the woman's direction, signaling her that she was okay, and the woman left. Cassie started curiously scanning the pages. This would take some time. Years and years of Jack's medical life written in narrow lines. And, boy, this man had led quite an exciting life. Either exciting or suicidal. According to the pages, she rather thought the latter. Broken bones, bruises, cuts wherever you looked. Yeah, Jack had never taken it easy, always gone to his limits.

Her hand felt for her coffee and she sipped absentmindedly. She sat there for hours, scanning what her mother had written. Suddenly, her eyes focused on one particular incident. Maybe this was the key.

--- --- --- --- ---

The heavy truck pounded through the snow framing the highway. They'd just left Nebraska and were now only a couple of hours away from Colorado Springs. Another storm seemed to crawl up on the horizon and Daniel hoped they'd be home before all hell broke loose around them. Although blizzards weren't unusual in this part of the world, their intensity and quantity was striking. He'd never seen that much snow, not even in Antarctica.

Normally, he didn't like the cold. He'd lived the better part of his life in hot places with sandy deserts surrounding him. But, today, the cold outside matched the cold inside, as if nature felt their loss and grieved with them. Even so, he wouldn't have wanted to travel until after the storm but Cassie had called yesterday, telling him they should get 'down there' as soon as possible. And Daniel had, like usual, followed his orders. Ok, well, perhaps it was rather unusual, but he'd always followed important orders. And this one seemed to be important. So he'd grabbed everything and everyone and left for Colorado.

Another of those dreaded Christmas songs tuned up on the radio and Daniel switched it off. Christmas Eve was two weeks away but it was the last thing he needed right now. Daniel wouldn't mind skipping it this year altogether. He'd never cared that much about Christmas. It only helped to beat home the message that he had no family. In general, the foster families had tried to involve him, make it easier for him, but he had always felt the loss of his parents so much more on this day than on any other.

His parents had loved Christmas. A smile touched his lips as visions of their Christmas in Egypt dwelled up inside of him. They'd been on a dig, a place so far out of the way that they'd barely seen anything but sand let alone another person. His parents had paid for that dig on their own, having found no sponsor. So, it had been just them and a handful of workers.

His parents hadn't been able to afford anything but token presents so, instead, they'd spent the next days together, all their attention focused solely on Daniel. The young boy had been so excited as his parents were normally too busy to spend their time with him. His father had shown him some games from Ancient Egypt and, when darkness had settled around them, the chilling cold of the desert surrounding them, they'd started a fire and laid down outside their tent, stargazing while his mother had told him endless stories about the Ancient Gods.

But, after their death, he hadn't been able to enjoy Christmas. It had only reminded him of that one perfect Christmas Eve so many years ago. That was, until he became a member of SG-1. Initially, they hadn't planned to spend Christmas together but somehow it'd ended up that way.

None of them had had a family to spend the day with so, during his first year on SG-1, Jack had volunteered to keep an eye on the base, allowing Hammond to go home to visit his grandkids, and Sam had tried to hide in her lab, with the relationship between Jacob, Mark, and her being what it had been. Teal'c had still tried to hide the fact that he had a family at all and, of course, didn't even realize what Christmas stood for, culturally, and Daniel had buried himself in work. They had ended up in the commissary, sharing memories and just enjoying not being alone.

Ever since then, they'd found themselves standing on Jack's doorstep on Christmas Eve. But not the last couple of years, not this year, not next year. Never again.

Behind him, he heard Jeremy shift in the seat, a soft snoring starting nearly immediately. The boy was now Daniel's responsibility. It was amazing how fast a bureaucratic system could work if the President of the United States made a personal call on it. Daniel owed him for that but, if it helped to ensure that Jeremy would be with them on Christmas, Daniel would have gone to hell and back. The poor boy had just lost his father all over again. He shouldn't have to suffer through a lonesome Christmas. It would be bad enough the way things were.

It seemed as if Zeus wasn't on his side. The first snowflakes started to swirl around the truck when they were still 80 miles away from home. At least he was driving Jack's truck. His old car would have broken down miles ago or slithered into one of those enormous snow banks at the side of the highway. Hoping desperately that this blizzard wouldn't have an impact like the last ones, he concentrated all his attention on driving again, a smirk covering his face when Teal'c started to snore as well, joining in Jeremy's soft rhythm.

--- --- --- --- ---

"So…" Daniel gestured with his glasses in hands towards the gray walls surrounding him as if he could still feel the freezing breeze. "What's up, Cass? What was so important that we couldn't even wait until the end of that blizzard?"

She knew he hadn't even taken the time to stop at home; he'd driven straight to Cheyenne Mountain.

She'd asked Teal'c to show Jeremy the commissary. This was nothing she'd want to discuss in the young boy's presence. That was exactly why she hadn't brought Sam to the meeting as well.

"And where's Sam? Why did you send Jeremy away? What have you..."

"Daniel."

He looked at her with a deer in the headlight expression, obviously realizing he had been too lost in thoughts to notice that she hadn't been able to utter one syllable, let alone a word.

"Sorry. Go ahead."

Walking over to one of the chairs, he sat down, his fingers nervously twisting his pants. She watched him a few moments, considering how to start. But, as usual, she took the fast way, cutting straight to the point.

"The corpse they'd fished out of that lake isn't Jack O'Neill."

For a few moments, she thought he hadn't heard her. His face still looked as if he was concentrating on what she was saying. But, gradually, she could see the words sinking into his brain, mirrored by the parallel upward movement of his eyebrows.

"What? I mean, how... We all saw... How... What?"

He stopped his rambling as his look finally settled on Cassie, scanning her eyes and searching for truth. She felt that he doubted her results and she went into defensive mode, her eyes narrowing on him. How dare he to doubt her professional abilities? Had he only employed her because she was Janet's daughter? Suddenly, a smile twisted his tightly pressed lips and she let herself relax against her chair.

"You're serious."

His smile was infectious, mirroring the overjoyed feeling inside of her she'd been hiding for a while now. She hadn't wanted to tell Sam without having spoken to Daniel first. Sam hadn't said a single word since their return from Minnesota. In fact, she could have only spoken two or three words since they'd gone up there.

And, since their return, Sam had done nothing but sit in the darkness of Cassie's spare room. She'd refused to eat anything. Cassie had even had a hard time making her drink some glasses of water. She'd seriously considered taking Sam to a shrink. Even now, she hadn't dismissed the thought fully.

For the moment, though, she forced herself back to the situation at hand. She jumped slightly when Daniel let out a loud whoop. He jumped to his feet, pulling her out of her chair and spinning her around.

And, for just one moment, she allowed the pressure and fear to fall from her.

She'd been so afraid that Sam had finally lost it. So afraid that there was nothing she could do to help her surrogate mother. Afraid that she would lose yet another mother. Afraid that she would be left alone for good this time.

But, now, with Daniel spinning her around as if she were 12 again, things suddenly didn't look so scary.