A/N: One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb ... Oops. Sorry about that. Wrong tone, I guess. Here's the next part ... semi-on time.

Cassie looked up as Teal'c came into the kitchen, her hands ceaselessly working the green dye into the fondant. "Amanda, go man the front, please," she ordered as politely as possible as the other woman came in from her smoke break.

"Sure thing, boss," the young mother replied as she put her apron back on and made her way through the swinging door toward the front.

Tesa was in the far corner of the kitchen, showing Jason some helpful techniques for decorating cakes. She looked up at Cassie's somewhat irritated look and thought it best that there wasn't an audience for whatever was about to happen. "Jason, there's a big delivery that needs to be taken to the hospital over on 5th Street. I could sure use your help."

Jason's head whipped up to look at her in shock. Deliveries? What kind of ladies was he dealing with here? "Give me a minute," he said with a nod as he put the recently finished cake in the refrigerator, along with the rest of the unused frosting.

Vala was sitting next to the sink, her hands busy searching through a pile of cherries for a special order cake. She looked up at the others in the room and knowingly went back to weeding through the pile of cherries for those perfect enough to decorate the top.

Tesa sent Cassie a nod as Jason and she left with the three big boxes full of pastries for the nurses and doctors at the hospital. There were some things she knew it was just better if she didn't know about. Two years ago she had learned that lesson about Cassie the hard way.

After the two had gone, leaving the three extraterrestrials alone in the kitchen, Cassie continued to pound out some of her aggression into the fondant in silence.

"What's wrong, Cassie?" the black haired woman asked without looking up from the pile of cherries.

"You tell me, Vala," the younger woman replied as she added a drop of brown to the dye to get the necessary color for Parker's money cake. She worked the dye into the softened dough quickly as she added, "Either one of you care to tell me what exactly's going on here?"

"I do not know to what you are referring," Teal'c responded as he stood a few feet inside the kitchen, behind where Cassie was working.

"Like hell you don't, Teal'c," Cassie spat out as she threw the fondant into a plastic bag and sealed it tightly. She turned angrily toward the man who had been an uncle to her after her family had died. Her hazel eyes flashed with untold emotion as she pointed to him, "There is no way in hell that you show up with Vala thinking that I'd been kidnapped less than an hour after I left with Eliot. Especially after Jack ran a background check on him."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow as he inclined his head slightly toward the irate female. "Yesterday afternoon Colonel Carter discovered a breach in base security. Vala Mal Doran and myself were sent to ensure your safety, Cassandra Fraiser."

"From what?" Cassie demanded again. She glanced at Vala before turning back to Teal'c. "Need I remind you both that secrets are the reason that I was almost killed two years ago?"

Vala sighed and looked up from the cherries, "Someone stole the files on what Daniel called the Nirrti incident." Cassie's sharp intake of breath at the mention of the incident made Vala pause but not stop, "And the files dealing with Khalek. Really it was all the files having to do with the genetic manipulation of humans to create a hok'taur."

"Not the least of which has to deal with me," Cassie concluded with a sigh of resignation.

"General O'Neill is under the impression that those responsible for the theft will attempt to kidnap you," Teal'c added. "He has asked that we watch over you until the rest of them are able to arrive on Monday."

"And that deal included helping me in the shop?" Cassie asked after another moment of silence.

Vala shrugged, "I did it myself for two weeks at Sol's. I'd rather not get rusty."

A few hours later found a crew members of Leverage Consulting were found back at their Chicago offices discussing the trip back to Boston. It wasn't something that Hardison or Eliot was exactly keen on doing, but Nate seemed to be insistent.

"My jobs, remember?" he reminded his teammates. "We can't let personal feelings get in the way of helping people who come to us and who need us. The Boston Free Clinic needs us."

Hardison shook his head adamantly, "Not yet, Nate. We can't leave yet."

Sophie frowned at him as Nate questioned, "Why not, Hardison? If we stay, Cassie's friends show up and we all get caught. Is that what you want?"

"We won't get caught," Hardison said determinedly, his eyes and the jut of his jawline showing his faith in those four words.

"He's right, Nate," Eliot pipped in from where he sat on a breakfast stool. "If they wanted us caught and off the streets, we would be."

Nate turned on the hitter with a glare, "How do you know that, Eliot? Do you even know who the hell it is we're dealing with?"

"The Air Force," he replied. The hitter's blue eyes bored into Nate's brown eyes as he added, "Cassie's fighting style has distinctive AF special ops qualities about it." He shrugged slightly, "Mixed in with some Asian fighting techniques, as well, and a few things I'd have to examine more closely to identify."

Parker's head came up as she frowned at the others, "When did you see her fight?"

Eliot looked down, having forgotten for a moment that he hadn't shared that bit of information with his team yet. He looked up again at Parker's inquisitive face, "The day you tried to steal her pocket watch."

Parker grinned at the memory, "That was fun. But she lied to me." The thief frowned as she continued, "That watch is too heavy to be silver plated. It wasn't even the right weight to be stainless steel. Too light and too heavy at the same time."

"Can we please get back to the issue at hand?" Nate snapped at them as he started to pace back and forth across the room. "We need to get back to Boston and help these people."

"On Tuesday," Hardison supplied. "I ain't leavin' Chicago until then."

"Why not?" Nate asked, trying desperately to understand why his team was suddenly not following his directives.

Hardison let a steely look enter the gaze he leveled on Nate. "I made a promise."

"To whom?" Sophie asked, a frown creasing her brow for a moment before she remembered herself and smoothed her face again.

"An old friend," Alec replied, turning to Sophie briefly before looking down at the food he hadn't really been eating. "You could say I owe her one."

"Don't tell me," Nate nearly spat as he started pacing again, "She wants you to keep an eye on Miss Fraiser?"

Alec shook his head, "Puttin' it like that makes her sound like a job or somethin', man. I'm just suppos' ta keep my eye on her until someone else gets here on Monday."

"Then why aren't we leaving until Tuesday?" Nate asked in confusion.

"Dude!" Hardison exclaimed, "I haven't seen 'er in almost ten years. I ain't leavin' the same day she gets here."

"Did you two have a thing?" Eliot asked the hacker with a smirk playing at his lips.

Hardison turned bright red at the insinuation, his silence causing much laughter from his teammates.

"Why aren't you afraid?"

The question seemed to come out of nowhere as far as Cassie was concerned as she made dinner later that day. She looked up and found Vala watching her curiously.

"What?" Cassie asked as she methodically sliced the zucchini for the lasagna she was making. "Why should I be afraid?"

Vala picked up one of the knives from the block and started playing with it as she said, "We just told you that someone wants to kidnap you and possibly study your body chemistry. Why aren't you afraid of that?"

The younger woman looked up at Vala as she set down her knife and moved the zucchini to the side and picked up a red onion. "The only thing to fear is fear itself, Vala."

Vala's brow furrowed, "Didn't someone famous on this planet say that?"

Cassie's lips twitched up in a smile at how little of history Vala knew about the planet she now called home. "Yeah. Someone famous said it. But that doesn't mean it's not true."

"Sure, but they've never been tortured by a Goa'uld with a sarcophagus."

There was nothing Cassie could say in response, so she just continued dicing the onion that was going into her sauce. It wasn't a dish she normally made when she was by herself, but she knew that Teal'c had a particular fondness for the cheesy meal, so for him she put in the extra effort to pull it off. It didn't take too long for Vala to continue her diatribe against Cassie's apparent stupidity.

"If they get you, do you know what they'll do to you? Even if they don't have a sarcophagus --"

"The pain inflicted by a pain stick alone will make me want to tell them whatever it is they want to know just so the pain will stop," Cassie completed for her without looking up. "And even after you tell them what they want to know, the most you can hope for is a quick death from which you don't return." Cassie's eyes were hard as she looked up at the other woman, "This isn't my first time at this particular picnic."

Vala's brow furrowed again, this time in a more amusing if the situation hadn't been so serious. "I wasn't aware we were talking about picnics."

"It's a metaphor," Cassie said tensely. "It's not my first time facing this threat, Vala." Something painful and distant passed through Cassie's eyes briefly, leading Vala to wonder just what she wasn't saying.

Luckily, it was Teal'c's arrival in the kitchen that stopped the conversation from continuing further. He stood with his hands behind his back as he gazed serenely on the scene in front of him. "Do you require assistance, Cassie Fraiser?"

"Sure, Teal'c," Cassie said with a smile. She motioned with her hand to where a pile of chopped vegetables sat on the counter, waiting to join their brothers and sisters in the simmering pot of tomato paste and water. "Can you add these to the sauce and make sure it doesn't burn?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said as he went to wash his hands off before handling the raw food. "Are we expecting Eliot Spencer and his teammates for dinner?"

Cassie startled a little at the question, causing Vala to smile mischievously. "Why would you think that, Teal'c?" Cassie asked, her voice just a tad higher pitched than normal and a rosy tint appearing on her cheeks.

Teal'c's right eyebrow rose as he responded, "There is enough food in preparation here to feed, as O'Neill would say, an army."

The young woman shrugged as she smoothly slid the onion into the pot Teal'c was faithfully and meticulously stirring. "Better safe than sorry, Mom always said."

"Indeed."

As our story would have it, thirty minutes later there was a buzzing at the intercom letting Cassie know that she had a visitor. Five visitors to be in fact. The brunette even had a fruit basket to give to their lovely hostess.

Sam busily typed away on her computer, trying to finish up the preliminary report she was writing about something that no one really wants me to go into as it would be far too technical and brainy for anyone but a theoretical astrophysicist (such as Colonel Samantha Carter) to understand. I believe it had something to do with magnets.

There was nothing more she wanted in the world than to finish what she was doing and meet her husband in Chicago for an impromptu trip to see Cassie. At least, that had been the original plan, anyway. After it was discovered that there was quite possibly another attempt in progress to kidnap the beloved young woman, Sam only wanted to get to Chicago to make sure that she was all right.

The last time the Trust had kidnapped Cassie, the SGC had nearly lost her. It tore Sam up inside, even now, to remember the heartache and pain she had seen in Jack's face every second Cassie Fraiser had been missing. She had no doubt in her mind that it probably reminded him far too much of how he had lost his only son, Charlie, and how close they had previously come to losing Cassie. It was luck and providence that had allowed them to rescue the poor girl only a few hours after she had been taken.

Well, luck and the tracking technology that allowed them to focus on any concentration of naquadah on Earth. At last, something good from one of Nirrti's experiments.

"Hey, Sam, you almost done?" someone asked from the doorway to her lab as he knocked on the metal frame.

She looked up and saw her long time co-worker and friend, Dr. Daniel Jackson, standing there. With a weak attempt at a smile Sam replied, "Just about, Daniel. I'm wrapping it up now and then all I have to do is email it to Dr. Lee and print off a copy for the General so we can get started on this thing."

"So five minutes then?" Daniel clarified a bit impatiently. "SG-2 and SG-5 are almost ready to go."

Sam nodded as she finished typing and saved her ever so important file to five different places, sending it in an email to Dr. Seymour Bill Lee, all before hitting the print button. "I'll just need two."

The archeologist noticed her frenzied state as she waited rather impatiently for the printer to finish spitting out the document. "Worried about Cassie?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded as she bound the papers in an official looking folder. "Don't get me wrong -- I know she can handle herself, and she has a lot of good people around her. Teal'c will keep her safe. I know he will. But ..."

"That doesn't stop you from worrying," Daniel finished for her as the two headed out of the lab.

She nodded wordlessly as tears pricked at her eyes. Damn pregnancy hormones. "And I can't help her, either." Her free hand went to settle over her stomach, where her long awaited child was growing inside her.

Daniel patted her arm thoughtfully as he tried to cheer her up, "You are helping her, Sam. Just because your pregnant doesn't mean you're useless."

She gave him a watery smile as the pair stepped into the elevator, "Thanks, Daniel, but we both know that you and Teal'c and Jack are doing more for Cassie than I can right now."

"We can't protect her forever," Daniel replied sagely as the elevator slowly made its assent to the level that held the General's office. "Sooner or later she has to stand for herself."

"Daniel, I'm not trying to shelter her from all the evil that's out there," Sam argued, "Just a little bit of it." Her eyes held old fear in them as she looked at her friend, "I don't need to remind you what happened last time we let our guard down, do I?"

Her companion had enough sense to know that he couldn't change the pregnant woman's mind, so he kept silent until the elevator doors opened on the correct sub-level of the underground facility. "I'll feel better when we're with her, too," he finally mumbled as they started to walk down the familiar corridors.

"Think she'll be surprised that we're coming tonight instead of Monday?"

"Not a bit."

A/N: For those of you wondering, I am not telling whether or not Sam and Alec had a thing ten years ago. I am also not saying whether or not Eliot and the crew were actually invited to dinner ... just that they showed up. This will prove important in the next chapter. Random fruit comments will now be a staple of this story because one of my friends is pregnant and she seems to be craving different fruits and berries every other day. Monty Python might even make it in here. ... I really cannot say.