Traveling Daughter

Chapter 4

Based upon Stargate SG-1

- . - - - . - Time in Reality: 00:00

Cassie opened her eyes when she felt the world solidify around her. She was still shaking. Mom was dead, at least one of them was. She had to concentrate on what was going on now. She had to find someone to leave her brother with.

It was dark, but there was a light in the hallway. She knew she was in someone's living room. She turned, looking at the mantle place to peer at the pictures in the darkness. She recognized several of the pictures. She was in Jack O'Neill's house.

She looked at the baby in her arms. He was awake, but quiet. She bounced him a little, trying to keep him calm. She was amazed he had done this well so long. It really was one of the miracles she asked for.

"What are you doing in my house?" she heard from behind her.

Damn Jack O'Neill and his stealthy movements. She turned slowly, holding tight to the baby in her arms. "Hi, Jack."

He immediately put the gun down, dropped the clip, and pulled back the bolt. "Do I know you, either of you?"

Cassie glanced down. He didn't recognize her. He unloaded this gun because he saw the baby and of his past experience with children and guns. She smiled. "It's me, Cassandra . . . Fraiser," she tried. The realities she'd been to, they knew her as Fraiser.

"I'm home for the first time in six weeks and you decide to take forever locking up the house?" she heard from the hallway. "What is this?" The owner of the voice flicked the light switch upon entering the room.

Cassie looked to the still illuminated hall to see - "Oh God, Mom!" It was her mom. She was wearing one of Jack's button up flannel shirts, with only two or three buttons done and nothing else. Nothing else. Cassie glanced at Jack, who was wearing jeans and no shirt.

"Mom?" her mom repeated.

"I thought you said your name was Fraiser?" Jack said.

"I did," Cassie replied distracted, not taking her eyes off her mother. "I do not even want to know what I just interrupted." As if on cue, the baby started crying.

"Who is that?" Mom asked.

"She said she was Cassie, but called you 'mom.'"

Her mom nodded. "Yeah, I heard that."

Cassie tried to shush her brother, who was clearly cranky about all the noise and commotion preventing him from napping. She looked up, seeing Jack and her mom staring at her. "Okay," she said over the crying baby. "There's a lot I have to tell you, so can you please go put some clothes on?"

Jack tilted his head. "You're the intruder into our house. How about we tell you what's going to happen and you do what we say."

"I came from an alternate reality," she deadpanned.

Jack watched her for a second. "Okay," he said and turned, heading to the hall and find some clothes. Cassie knew he couldn't argue with that.

"How did you get here?" Mom asked.

"It's a bit of a long story. Can you please go put some clothes on?"

Her mom looked down, taking note of her state of dress and suddenly looked embarrassed. "Yeah," she turned, following Jack down the hall.

Cassie turned her full attention back to the crying baby in her arms. She opened up the blanket and brought him up to her shoulder and rubbed his little back. She cooed him and whispered sweet comforting things while walking back and forth across the room. He quieted after just a few moments. "That's it," she said quietly, "that's it." She knew she was trying to calm him down as much as she was trying to calm herself down.

She looked up to see Jack and Mom come back into the room, both pants and shirts. The flannel shirt her mom had been wearing was still around her shoulders, though now completely buttoned.

Jack and Mom sat down on the couch. "Okay," Mom said. "Who are you and where did you come from?"

"First things first. I need you to take him."

They both stared at her. "What?" Jack asked.

"I need you to take him," she said with more force.

"Why?" Jack repeated.

"Because he's your son," she raised her voice a little more.

Jack stood up. "That is not my son."

"No, you're right, it's not!" she shouted, causing her brother to cry again. "His parents were killed when the Goa'uld invaded the mountain! They were probably shot where I left them, lying on an infirmary bed because you," she pointed a shaking finger at her mom, "just had him. And you," she pointed at Jack, "ripped him from her arms and threw him at me, saying Take him, Cassie. Save him. Save your mother's son." Tears rolled down her face, just like her brother's.

She looked down at the baby in her arms, trying to calm him once more, ignoring her own tears. Suddenly, she felt arms around her. She looked up to see her mom. She leaned into her, tucking her face into her mom's neck. She then felt Jack's hand on her shoulder.

Cassie leaned back after a few moments, and smiled at her mom.

"Your mom's okay," she said.

Cassie nodded. "I know. She's probably at the Mountain right now figuring out where I went, and she wasn't my mom, and - really - neither are you, but . . ."

Mom nodded. "I understand." She looked down at the baby, her "son." "May I?"

Cassie nodded and handed him over. She watched her mom smile and offer a finger to a tiny hand, which latched on immediately. "What's his name?"

Cassie opened her mouth to answer, but realized that she didn't know. "I don't know. If they named him, they never told me."

"Any suggestions?" Jack asked, watching Mom and the baby from over her shoulder.

"Paul," Cassie said.

"Paul?" they both repeated, looking from the baby to her.

"Major Davis fought off the Jaffa, giving me enough time to jump again. He saved both our lives." Jack squeezed her shoulder comfortingly.

Mom smiled at the baby in her arms. "'Paul' it is."

"Now, the real problem," Cassie said, breaking her mother's concentration. "I've been jumping realities because of this," she held up her wrist, showing them the device. "It's a Sodan Cloaking Device that I'd been interfacing with Arthur's Mantle."

"A what?" Jack asked.

"Oh, you don't know what those are . . . That's okay, you will, eventually. The important thing is that I was in the first reality for a day and a half, the second reality for about eighteen hours, and the last reality for nine hours."

Mom's eyes got a little bigger. "That's not good."

Cassie shook her head. "I'm running out of time. Ten or so more jumps and," she made a broad gesture with her hand, implying her disappearing into oblivion.

"What?" Jack asked. "I don't get it."

"The frequency of her jumps is increasing exponentially. She'll be here for four and a half hours. The next reality, two hours and fifteen minutes, and so on. Eventually, she'll start jumping so fast that she won't be in one reality long enough to fully materialize."

Jack nodded. "So we have to fix this, and now."

Cassie nodded.

"Alright, Cassie and I will go to the Mountain. I'll drop this little guy off in the Infirmary so they can make sure he's okay. You need to go buy provisions."

Jack nodded. "Right, baby provisions. I'll meet you guys there."

- . - Time in Reality: 00:43

The guard at the gate was more than a little confused, and rightfully so. It was the middle of the night. Colonel Carter didn't work at the Mountain anymore. She had a baby with her. And the woman with her was supposedly Cassandra Fraiser, but she wasn't even close to the right age.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to call down," he said, obviously not knowing what else to do.

"My husband is the base commander and I was on SG-1 for six years, what do you think the officer on duty is going to say?"

He paused for a second. "You're right, Ma'am. Though, if anyone asks, I'm going you say you hit me."

Mom chuckled. "If anyone asks, I'll play along."

They went to the Infirmary first. They had called Janet Fraiser on the way, but she hadn't arrived yet. So, they stood around while one of the nurses did a preliminary examination of Paul. They gave him a little explanation of where the baby came from and he just stared in disbelief.

Janet arrived a short while later. "Okay, what was so important that you had to haul me out of bed in the middle of the night?" she asked coming in the door. She saw Cassie and then the baby and froze. "Who are they?"

Sam smiled. "This is my daughter from an alternate reality, yours in this one. And the baby is my son, also from another reality. We're trying to get Cassie home, but Paul's going to be staying here."

"Cassie?" Janet repeated.

Cassie smiled. "It's good to see you, again, Janet." She gave the little doctor a hug.

Cassie filled Janet in on the story of Paul's birth, which wasn't much. She said she would take care of it, so Cassie and Mom headed to one of the science labs.

A short while later, Janet came into Mom's lab, right behind Jack and Paul. Jack had a duffle bag over his shoulder and the baby in the crook of his other arm.

Her mom went over to him and took her baby. He kissed her cheek and walked over to Cassie. "About earlier," he said quietly, pulling her aside.

Cassie shook her head. "You don't have to explain."

"No, I do. You need to know that you're leaving him in the right place. You are. It's just that . . . before . . . The first real vacation I get with my wife in six weeks and someone from an alternate reality shows up and tells me I need to take a baby. I screwed up the first time I had a wife and son . . ." he trailed off, seemingly forgetting his planned speech.

"It's okay, Jack. I understand. You're a good guy and you're the best dad he could ever have." She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "You may not be my dad where I come from, but I wouldn't want anyone else raising my brother."

He squeezed her back. "I promise I'll do the best I can."

She smiled, releasing him. "That's all I ask."

She turned back to the center of the room to see Mom and Doc Fraiser smiling at them.

"Well," Jack said, "You don't have to look at us like we're characters in one of those chick movies you watch."

Mom laughed, and they got back to work.

- . - Time in Reality: 2:15

Mom and Cassie were on their way up to Jack's office. He had taken Paul up there to try to get some work done, or so he claimed.

"I'm not sure this will work," Cassie said. "We don't have the all the data on the surge that sent me here."

"But we do have some of it, as well as data from similar surges in our gate. The model we created is very close to what happened. Most, if not all, of the deviations don't matter because of the accuracy of our instruments to recreate the conditions."

"You mean the inverse conditions?" Cassie corrected.

Mom nodded. "Exactly."

Without knocking, Mom opened the door to Jack's office and chuckled.

Jack was reclined in his chair, asleep, with Paul on his chest. He had both of his hands protectively over the baby's back, holding him firmly. Cassie glanced at Mom, who had tears in her eyes and a grin on her face. Mom turned to Cassie, "Thank you," she said before rounding Jack's desk, and sitting on the edge of it. She ran her fingers through Jack's hair a few times before leaning forward and kissing his temple.

Jack blinked a few times and smiled at her. "The boy's a good sleeper," he said.

Mom took the baby from Jack's hands and cradled him. "He gets that from his daddy."

Jack looked past Mom, as if first noticing Cassie. "You guys got something?" he asked, his voice hardening to his usual professional tone.

Cassie nodded. "We have a good enough scope of the conditions of the accident that we are going to create the inverse conditions in an attempt to stop the jumps."

"Inverse conditions?" Jack repeated.

"Yup," Mom answered.

"What if it sends you backwards?"

Cassie frowned. "I haven't really been moving linearly, so 'backwards' wouldn't really matter."

"Unless it sent you to where you just came from, and from what you told us - there might not be anything to send you back to."

"Hmmmm," Mom hummed. "We hadn't really thought of that."

Jack smiled. "We better be careful, Carter, it sounds like some of your brains might be rubbing off on me."

She winked. "We could only be so lucky."

- . - Time in Reality: 3:00

They had gotten everything set up to induce the inverse conditions. It wasn't that Cassie was in a hurry to leave, but she was nervous about recalibrating and trying again. She didn't know where she would turn up next and wanted to get it right in this reality.

"Ready to go?" Jack asked, walking into the isolation room, holding Paul against his shoulder.

Mom and Cassie looked up from their computers. "Ready as we'll ever be," Cassie said. She went over to Jack and leaned in to kiss the top of Paul's head. "I love you, little man," she said before kissing him again.

She hugged both Jack and Sam and said some goodbyes before they went into the observation room. Cassie put on her safety goggles and gave the thumbs up to Mom. Mom nodded and activated the control sequence.

Cassie waited as she heard the equipment spin up and charge. She checked her ground one more time, to ensure she wouldn't get electrocuted. The noise stopped and Cassie gave Mom another thumbs up.

Mom returned the thumbs up and hit button.

Cassie said, but nothing happened. "Did it go off?" she asked after a minute.

Mom nodded. "Yeah."

"Should we try again?" Jack asked.

Cassie nodded. "Let's spin it up again."

- . - Time in Reality: 4:05

They had tried it twice more, recalibrated and tried again, another three times. Now they were sitting in the commissary, having a bite to eat.

Cassie knew she would jump soon again, and wanted to make sure she got a good meal before she left. She was eating a chicken salad sandwich and Mom was enjoying some blue Jell-O.

Jack was feeding Paul some of the formula he had picked up. Cassie had never seen Jack like this before, oblivious to the world around him and a small smile on his face. Not a smirk, softer than that.

Cassie glanced at Mom, who was also staring.

"You guys are going to be okay, right?" Cassie asked. "I mean, with you in Washington and Jack here?"

Jack looked up, so not completely oblivious to the world, "We'll figure it out." An O'Neillian smile then covered his face, "We've got time. Technically, I have 10 days of paternity leave and she's got like a month."

Mom giggled. "That's true. Everyone loves uncharged leave."

"That gives you plenty of time to tell Grandpa Jacob and for him to get her and meet his new grandson."

Mom's eyes got wide. "Thank God we're married."

Jack frowned. "Not that I disagree, but why does that matter?"

"You know my Dad . . . If this had happened a couple of months ago, when I still worked here and we weren't married . . ."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, he might've had a stroke."

Cassie smiled. "He wasn't super excited when he first met me, but warmed up to it. He's gonna love that little cutie. And he's gonna start asking for more."

Mom blanched.

Cassie giggled. "Yeah, that's pretty much the response you gave him every time he brought it up."

"Well," Mom replied. "Some things never change."

There was a blinding flash of light.

- . - - - . - Time in Reality: 04:30