Traveling Daughter

Chapter 5

Based upon Stargate SG-1

Note: I completely made up the "Hawking Number." I needed a reality identifier that didn't sound completely ridiculous. Named, of course, for Stephen Hawking. Also, Kaku equipment for Michio Kaku.

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

Cassie held her breath, eyes closed, almost a little afraid of where she'd be when she opened them. However, she knew she was running out of time so she opened them. Cassie smiled, they were at her house, well, her mother's house.

It was morning, she could smell the coffee. She could hear the shower running. Mom must be getting ready for work. She heard footsteps from the hall and saw someone coming.

Cassie noticed three things immediately. Two of those things shocked her, one didn't surprise her in the least. The two shocking things were that the figure who emerged from her mother's hall was Daniel, and the second thing was that he was old. Really old. 70s or 80s old, but he still had all this hair, white as it was. The third thing was that he was wearing pin striped pajamas. She was not at all surprised that Daniel wore pin striped pajamas. When was he from? 1915?

He paused at the end of the hall when he saw her. He stared at her for a second before removing his glasses, the ones with the large round lenses, wiping them on his shirt and placing them back on his face.

"Hello," he said in that skeptical tone he often used when something wasn't quite right. "Do I know you?"

"Daniel, it's me, Cassie."

"Cassie?" he repeated. "You look so young," he said, leaning back with a boyish smile.

She smiled. "Thank you." That wasn't exactly what she was expecting, but it was sure nice to hear.

"What are you doing here?"

"Umm, see, that's the thing . . . There was an accident, and I've been jumping realities . . . And time."

"Is that a Sodan Cloaking Device on your wrist?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. That's part of the accident."

"And the other part?"

"Arthur's Mantle and a stargate overload."

"Ahh," Daniel nodded. "Well, let me get Sam and we'll head down to the Mountain and get this figured out. Help yourself to some coffee." With that, he turned and headed back to the bedroom wing.

She got a mug out of the cupboard. The mugs were right where they were supposed to be, hey, it was her mom's house. She was halfway through it when she heard voices in the hall. It was Mom and Daniel. They were both dressed, and ready to go.

Mom looked great for being . . . 70? 80? Either way, she looked great.

"Cassie," Mom smiled. "You're so young."

"You're so old!" Cassie's hand flew to her mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that."

After about three seconds of silence, Daniel and Mom burst into laughter. "No, no," Mom shook her head. "It's okay. We are old."

Cassie laughed too.

"Okay, what happened?" Mom asked, turning the issue back to why she was there.

"Well, first, I'm from 2016. I was trying to adjust the Sodan Cloaks so they didn't irradiate the wearer, and my power source was hooked up to the main grid and there was a surge from the gate . . . One thing led to another and I'm jumping realities and time. Successive jumps have been automatic and decreasing exponentially in frequency. I'll only be here for about two hours."

Grabbing her coat, Mom headed towards the front door, causing Cassie to follow her. "What have you been doing to get home?"

"We've been trying to induce a jump with a simulated overload, tried inducing inverse conditions . . . Nothing's working."

"Did you try directing them and then destroy the cloak when you get back?"

"Direct?" she asked with a laugh. "How?"

"Determine your Hawking Number and induce an affinity for that reality in the Sodan cloak," Mom replied, getting into the car.

Cassie climbed into the passenger seat and Daniel got in the back. "What? None of that made any sense. What's Hawking Number?"

"Oh, right, that hasn't been figured out yet, has it?"

Cassie shook her head.

"That's alright. It's easy. When we get to the Mountain, we'll just boot up the Kaku equipment and figure out we're your from."

"Can you two just walk into the Mountain whenever you want?"

Daniel chuckled from the backseat. "Things have changed thirty years. The Mountain isn't as inaccessible or secret as it used to be. The stargate isn't even there anymore. There's still a huge hunk of R&D stuff there, but the stargate's in Geneva."

"Geneva?!"

"Well, we're much more globally oriented now, and you know the Swiss. Friendly. Good at locking things up. Always on time. Delicious desserts."

Cassie looked over her shoulder. "Banks, watches, and chocolate? Not your best joke, Daniel."

He shrugged. "Teal'c thought it was hilarious."

"Like Teal'c's sense of humor is what we should be judging our humor off of."

Mom laughed. "I believe his best punchline was 'the Setesh guard's nose dripped.'" With that, they all laughed.

- . - Time in Reality: 01:52

They had been at the Mountain for about an hour and a half. For the past 25 minutes, she had been lying as still as possible while the Kaku equipment scanned her quarks, which was weird. Then, right when she had regretted not eating more than leftover lasagna, the scan shut off and Mom came back into the room.

"So?" Cassie asked, sitting up.

"We have a baseline. We know where you came from. It shouldn't be too difficult inducing an affinity for that reality. It can be a little finicky, so I'll show you how to do it in case something goes wrong and you end up in the wrong place." They left the isolation room, heading towards one of the labs.

Mom was different here, very different. She lacked some of the spunk that she was known for in Cassie's home reality. Sure it could have been just age, people tended to mellow out as they got older. Mellow out or get cranky. Cassie wasn't surprised that Daniel and Mom mellowed out. Jack, on the other hand, Jack would've gotten cranky.

"What?" Mom asked, realizing her mind had wandered.

"What happened to Jack?" she asked, fully mindful that he may just have died of old age.

Mom got quiet for a second. "He was killed offworld in an ambush in 2004."

"Rescuing SG-13," Cassie said, realizing the parallels in the timeline.

"Yes, how did you know that?"

"That was the mission Janet Fraiser was killed."

"Who?"

"Janet Fraiser. She was the CMO here at the Mountain during the SG-1 days. In a lot of the realities I've been to, she was my mom." There was a moment of silence between the two, Mom being sympathetic to the loss, and remembering the loss of Jack. "Who was my mom here, you?"

Mom didn't look at her for a minute. "No, Sara O'Neill was. She died last year, peacefully."

"Sara?" Cassie repeated. "Jack was my dad? Wait, Sara and Jack never got divorced?"

"Divorced? Why would they get divorced?"

Cassie paused, realizing what she was about to say was dark. "Charlie accidentally shot himself when he was ten."

Mom stopped walking. "Oh my god, no wonder they got divorced. How did Jack survive?"

"He almost didn't. The Abydos mission brought him back from a bad place."

Mom smiled and continued walking. "It's amazing how similar things can be when they're so different."

Twenty five minutes later, Mom had finally finished describing the entire process and Cassie had repeated it twice, and everyone was confident that if things went wrong, Cassie could fix it in subsequent jumps.

"I come bearing Jell-O!" Daniel announced as he entered the lab.

Cassie smiled, "There's a man who knows how to get things done."

They enjoyed their Jell-O and laughed together. Cassie absent mindedly glanced at her watch, realizing the time.

Cassie got up and hugged Daniel. "Thanks for the Jell-O." She kissed his cheek before letting him go. She hugged Mom too. "Thank you, so much."

Mom hugged her back, just like her real mom did. "Anytime, just visit whenever you want."

Cassie smiled her mega watt smile, the one she learned from her mom and took a step back, making sure she wasn't touching anything she didn't want to take with her.

She glanced down at her watch. There was still about a minute left. Cassie looked up at Daniel and Mom, and shrugged. "Well, this is a little awkward."

Mom nodded. "Getting there."

She waived.

There was a blinding flash of light.

- . - - - . - Time in Reality: 02:15