Thanks for all the reviews everyone! Very helpful! It seems a majority now are either in favor of (or if not in favor at least have no problem with) an Isaac/Cassie ship. I'm not saying it's going to end up that way, but if you are completely disgusted by the idea you might not want to continue, because it is a possibility. Isaac/Cassie doesn't bother me for reasons that will appear through the story. Please note that even if I ship them it won't be easy/painless... well I won't give it away, but just know I would neverjust lightly toss them into bed together.

Sorry for the short and infrequent updates. My computer is down and my focus has been (and still is) getting that fixed. Once its up and running the updates will be more frequent.

For those concerned about the shortness of the chapters... this is the longest chapter yet! I have also made the other chapters a bit longer, mostly 1 and 5 had a bit more added. Reread if you want but not really necessary.

It did make a couple changes...

Another hint to Isaac's upcoming assignment... a line in chapter 1 now mentions some frequent trips to Area-51.

Cassandra mentions that though Jack has never mentioned him to her, she has overheard Jack talking about Isaac, but she doesn't elaborate.

Cassandra and Jack have a chat about his bike and Sam is brought up in chapter 5, with a new reaction from Isaac.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Chapter 7

Cassandra stood up. Sensing that he had lost her attention for the moment, Thor returned to the couch and his basketball game. She walked over to the bar. Her face was a mask of confusion. "A clone?" She asked uncertainly.

Isaac nodded and licked his lips tentatively. "Of Jack. Five years ago the Asgard cloned your Jack O'Neill. Long story short they created a fifteen year old clone, and now here I am."

Her face fell, and she looked down at the floor. Isaac watched her closely. Her face was pale and her lower lip trembled. He realized she was attracted to him too. That was encouraging, disappointing, and terrifying all at once. Now, she was feeling what he felt when he realized who she was. It was his fault. He was putting her through this.

She looked back at him after a few moments of uneasy silence. She rested her hands on the bar and leaned over it, studying his face. "You do look kinda like Jack, but you're not Jack. Are you?"

Isaac shook his head emphatically. "No, I'm Isaac." He tapped his forehead. "But Jack's memories are all tucked away here."

She gave an uncertain smile. "Well, this is… uncomfortable. Not the explanation I was expecting."

He nodded and gave her an understanding smile. "Do you want me to take you back to the academy?"

She bit her bottom lip and turned away from him, leaning her back against the bar. She crossed her arms, staring at nothing, as she mulled this development over. "No, I'll stay for a while." She turned back to face him and reached across the bar to lay her hand over his, his hand jerked at the unexpected gesture, and she gave him a reassuring smile. "So far I haven't seen anything about you not to like. Even though you're not Jack, if you've picked up any of his good qualities, then you're definitely someone I'd like to have for a friend." She squeezed his hand. "So what do you think?"

Isaac relaxed a bit and smiled. "Friends?" He could certainly use one of those, a good one at any rate. Thor was a little short on the conversation side. "Sounds good. I'm starving. You?"

"Famished," she replied and clapped her hands together. "How about pizza? Pizza is great for uncomfortable situations."

Thirty minutes later they were seated on the couch sharing a pizza. Thor sat on the floor watching them, and appeared slightly annoyed. He was in fact supposed to be sitting next to Isaac.

"So," Cassandra began hesitantly, unsure how open he would be about this, "you remember everything?"

Isaac nodded as he took a bite of pizza and grimaced painfully as he burned the roof of his mouth. "Damn it," he snarled after he was able to get the pizza down.

Cassandra chuckled.

Isaac blew on his pizza to cool it off. "I at least remember everything up until the time I was cloned. After that… my memories are my own, and Jack's are Jack's. We're different people. At least that's how the therapist explained it, and I've grown rather fond of the idea. I don't want to be a clone. Just me."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow at the therapist remark. "Therapist? I'm sure he thought you were insane."

Isaac smiled and ripped off some crust from his pizza. Thor perked his head up and licked his lips in anticipation. Isaac snorted and tossed the crust at Thor's feet, who quickly ate it up. "The Air Force made me go to a therapist for most of the time I was in high school. Once a week for three years. I'd just been cloned… or Jack had, whatever, and they sent me to have my head shrunk on top of it. As if I didn't have enough issues."

"Did it help?" Cassandra asked, tossing her left over crust to the ever-appreciative Thor.

Isaac sighed and looked at her, his face serious for a moment. "I guess it did, even if I don't like to admit it. I didn't really make many friends in high school, and the few I did have… what could I tell them? This guy though had top level clearance of course, so there was at least one person I could tell anything and he'd listen, and I didn't have a choice. The Air Force wouldn't allow me to retain my rank without knowing that I was stable and able to settle into a new identity. There couldn't be two Jack O'Neills running around."

"Still… do you ever look in the mirror and think that you're Jack?" She asked gently.

"Rarely actually, but it does happen. The memories are all very real, but the therapist brought up a point that I found helpful." Isaac stopped for a moment, wondering if he should talk about Sam. Cassie always could tell how much Sam and Jack cared for each other. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable but realized they were way past that.

She reached over and touched his arm and looked him in the eyes. "It's ok, Isaac. You know you can trust me."

He nodded and swallowed hard, tossing his half-eaten pizza back in the box. "The therapist explained it that I should consider it like a Tok'ra. God forbid, but still it wasn't a bad explanation. Sam kept lots of memories and feelings from her brief time with Jolinar. For a long time she had a hard time telling whether some things she knew or felt were her or remnants of Jolinar."

Cassandra smiled sadly, and Isaac knew she was remembering how hard she'd worked to cheer Sam up after Jolinar died. They'd all been so worried. "Yes, I remember," she whispered.

Isaac nodded and continued. This was getting easier for him. "He said I should look at it like that. It was like I'd had a symbiote. I had all these feelings and memories that weren't really mine, but Sam was Sam just with some of Jolinar tacked on. She could still be Sam. For me… it was like putting a symbiote in a newborn. I didn't have my own identity. All I had were the feelings and memories of this other person. I had to push those aside and find my way from scratch. Of course, it's impossible to ignore it completely, just as Sam is influenced by Jolinar so I'm influenced by Jack."

"Well, you are certainly different. There are similarities, like brothers. But you're right. Jack is a nearly sixty year old general who's been like a second father to me. He's married and happy and settled down. You, however, are young and from the looks of your apartmet, um, don't seem so settled."

Isaac frowned and glanced around the room. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her questioningly. What was wrong with his place? He thought he kept it relatively clean.

She gave him a big grin, in an attempt to placate his wounded pride. "You are most definitely not a general and certainly not a father figure. And I have to say Jack has not and, thankfully, will never look at me the way you did." She blushed.

Isaac's blush outdid hers and his mouth went immediately dry. "Yeah, well, sorry for that. I was ignorant at the time. Really quite stupid of me not to recognize you," he said apologetically.

"No worries," she replied. "I mean we'd never met before."

He stared at her curiously and chuckled. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

"So, you said you got to keep your rank or Jack's rather?"

Isaac nodded. "Yeah, that is one aspect of Jack's life I'm grateful to be able to hang on to. I've got a shot at becoming one of the youngest generals in history. Let Jack try and top that. And of course the nice pay and lack of debt allow me to live nicely and drive a kick ass bike."

She snickered and shook her head in amusement. She pushed some hair back from her face, a motion Isaac found utterly and frighteningly disarming. "Well, looks like you got it easy there, Colonel. So, what are you doing in class? Why aren't you off commanding an SG team?"

Isaac leaned back on the couch, took a prolonged drink from his Dr. Pepper, and smiled cryptically. "Classified."