A/N: Sorry this is coming to you so much later than I thought, but at least it's coming before the first week of the new year is done! Happy New Year everybody!!!
It had been decided that Cassie and the band of thieves would leave the next day for Boston, via DC so that the three who needed to could sign the standard non-disclosure agreement for all matters relating to the Stargate.
Right now, though, Sophie was getting tired and asked Jack politely to be showed where she was going to sleep. Jack showed the three bedrooms to those who hadn't been to his cabin before. It didn't take very much conversation for it to be decided that the women would each take a bedroom, with Parker and Sophie sharing one, and Vala sharing hers with Daniel, Cassie keeping hers to herself, and the rest of the men would sleep in the living room to make sure they weren't surprised in the middle of the night.
Very soon after that was decided, most of the group decided to hit the sack. Cassie sat on the bed she had claimed as her own in the room she used to share with Janet on their trips to visit Jack's cabin. Her eyes were locked on the window, but she didn't really see anything as she listened to the sounds of the others bunking down for the night.
Her mind was buzzing at a mile a minute and she wasn't sure she would even be able to sleep even though her body was practically begging for rest now that the adrenaline had seeped out her pores.
As the others quieted down, Cassie slipped out of her shoes and curled up on the bed without bothering to huddle under the covers or to remove any of the rest of her clothes. Without even registering what was happening, Cassie's eyes fell closed and her breathing evened out.
She was dreaming. She knew she was. It was the only explanation for what she was seeing. Well, either that, or she was dead. The second option was not acceptable. She had to be dreaming.
Staring down at her with a hand device over her right hand and a syringe in the other, was Nirrti, in all of her gaudy, overly made up self. Her eyes flashed gold, momentarily making the black eyeliner fade.
Cassie tried to move her arms, tried to fight as Nirrti's left hand descended to her abdomen. It was no use. She was completely strapped down, not even her head could move.
Nirrti injected the drug straight into the skin covering where Cassie's uterus lay. Her eyes flashed again as her deep, almost mechanical voice gloated, "Your child will be the perfect specimen. A true hok'taur worthy of being my host."
Cassie began to whimper as she tried to thrash out of her restraints, wanting nothing more than to rip every strand of black hair from Nirrti's skull before breaking her neck.
Suddenly, she was pulled from sleep by someone shaking her arm almost violently. She jolted up on the bed, her fear catapulting the reflex to lash out at her attacker into quick right hook.
"Ow," a familiar voice griped as her heart rate started to return to normal and she remembered where she was. "That's gonna bruise."
"Eliot?" she asked, her voice still a little shaky as she tried to throw off the remnants of her nightmare. "What are you doing here?"
He tentatively stepped closer to the bed, one hand massaging his arm where her punch had landed. "I was in the bathroom and I heard you. Sounded like a real bad nightmare, so I came in to make sure you were okay."
Her breath was still ragged as she turned slightly to look at him. HIs hair was up in a quick pony tail and he looked as if he'd been going through an exercise regime before waking her up. "Did I wake anyone else?"
He shook his head once, "Don't think so." His feet took him forward a bit more to sit next to her on the bed as she regained her breath and her composure. After some minutes of silence he asked, "Wanna talk about it."
Cassie shook her head, her loose hair tumbling over her shoulders as she bowed her head. "Just a memory."
The two sat in silence for a while, Cassie not having the heart to ask him to leave when she so desperately wanted to not be alone, and Eliot not wanting to move for fear she might need him for something. She shifted so that her legs dangled off the edge of the bed, and he put his arm around her waist, drawing her in close to his side. If there was one thing he knew about it was nightmares ... and memories.
"Nirrti mostly waited until kids hit puberty before going to work on their genetics -- switching things up and seeing what happened," Cassie finally said in a small voice no more than a whisper.
"But not with you," Eliot said, much more a statement than an actual question. The implications of what she was telling him ... he began to realize exactly how much she was trusting him.
"No," she shook her head slightly before laying it on his shoulder, as if it would give her the strength to tell her tale. "I think my first trip to Nirrti's lab was when I was three. That's the first one I remember, anyway." She stopped for a few moments, taking deep breathes as she tried to keep her tears at bay. "She -- she used to ... inject me with different drugs to see what would happen." She shook her head again as hot tears began to flow down her cheeks and onto the cotton muscle tee Eliot was wearing.
His arm tightened around her waist and he was positive that if this Nirrti hadn't already been dead, he would have made her suffer through ten thousand hells before letting her die.
When her tears abated, Eliot shifted his weight, as if he was going to leave, but a hand on his arm stopped him. "Stay? Please?" The utter misery in her gaze decided him as she added, "I just want to feel your heartbeat. To remind me that she's dead and can't hurt me anymore."
"Okay," he whispered in reply before sliding back onto the bed and dragging her on top of him. For one night he could be a pillow to a distraught woman. For one night he could take comfort from her soft curves. For one night he could forget that he was the bad guy and she was the good guy -- not just some damsel in distress in need of his protection. For one night he could pretend that things could work out between them. For one night he could be something other than a hitter and a thief.
For one night, he could be hers.
She watched the sleeping couple with a look of sereneness on her face. She was glad that Cassie had finally found someone who wouldn't run the other way at the first sign of danger. There was something protective about the way her arm was draped over his chest and lightly resting on his own arm. When she had first stopped by the room, there had been a bruise darkening on that arm, but as the couple slept, Vala had watched as Cassie subconsciously healed the hurt skin.
Cassie's brow furrowed as if from a nightmare. She made a small whimpering noise that caused Eliot to immediately tighten his own grip on her waist, bringing her closer to his side and out of whatever harm her sleep state had taken her to. The younger woman relaxed again, her breath evening out after the hiccup.
Vala felt someone come up behind her and turned to look at Jack and Nathan. She held a finger up to her lips in the universal motion for silence as she silently closed the door to the bedroom and preceded the two men into the main room of the cabin.
"Well that's new," Nate said with a wry look on his face as he sat down heavily on Jack's sofa.
Jack frowned paternally at the room before looking again at the clock to check the time -- 06:30. "I can't remember the last time Cassie slept this long."
Teal'c stepped into the room from the kitchen, his rich baritone low so as not to wake the still sleeping hacker, "It has not been since Janet Fraiser suffered her sudden demise." He had two cups of coffee in his hands that he passed to Jack and a blurry-eyed Daniel.
"I'm not sure Eliot has ever slept this long," Nate revealed with a slight look of shock. "Even if he is with a woman. He's always up at least an hour before the sun."
"Cassie had a nightmare last night," Daniel mumbled into his coffee cup. He took another drink before realizing the the others were all looking at him and waiting for an explanation. He shrugged, "What? Vala's a light sleeper. She woke me up at about one in the morning and told me to listen. I was about to go wake Cassie up when we heard Eliot go into her room." His lips curled up humorously, "She punched him."
Jack smirked slightly into his own cup of coffee before turning to Teal'c with a raised eyebrow as an unspoken question passed between
Teal'c inclined his head in an affirmative gesture, "I believe Eliot Spencer to be a good man."
"Okay, then," Jack replied with a nod of his own. "That's good enough for me."
Nate furrowed his brow in confusion, "Wait. What just happened?"
Jack's smile turned feral as he gazed at Nathan in a hard way that made many men freeze in their boots. "I've decided not to kill your hitter. That's what just happened."
Nate looked at him for a long, hard minute before he finally sat back and said, "Okay. Now what do we do?"
"Now," Vala said as she sat beside her boyfriend with a cup of hot tea, "We wait for them to wake up."
"Why wait?" Parker asked as she bounded into the room with boundless energy that seemed inherent in her nature, despite the early hour. "Who are we waiting for?"
"We're waiting for Eliot and Cassie to wake up after spendin' the night together," Hardison groused, his eyes still closed as he pulled the covers over his head with a jerk. "Now please let a brotha sleep!"
Eliot woke slowly for the first time in as long as he could remember. He felt safe and warm, the latter of which was entirely the result of the body pressed up against his in the most amazing and tantalizing way.
His eyes fluttered open in a way that would have made his teammates laugh. Keeping his breath even so that he wouldn't wake Cassie, Eliot turned to examine the room he had spent the night in. It was sparsely decorated: a nightstand on the far side of the full sized bed, black and white gingham curtains over the window, and a dresser on the opposite wall. Nothing fancy at all, and he liked the lack of fuss in the room.
His eyes flickered to the door and his body tensed. The door was closed. He distinctly remembered leaving it open the night before when he'd heard unsettling noises coming from the room Cassie was using. And now it was closed. That meant two things: 1) he had slept far longer than he had intended, and 2) someone had seen them sleeping together. He only hoped it wasn't Teal'c. Anyone else in the house he could probably take in a fight, but probably not the Jaffa.
The hitter started to shift around on the bed, trying to move from underneath Cassie without waking her up. Unfortunately, she was as light of a sleeper as he was normally, and under the shifting weight on the bed, Cassie's eyes flew open to see what he was up to.
"Um ... hi," he whispered, sitting precariously on the edge of the bed.
"Good morning," she whispered back as she slid down toward the center of the bed and stretched in a manner far too much like a cat for Eliot's liking. Oh the things that move did to her shirt, pulling it tight across her chest as her arms arched above her head.
She rose from the bed with a singular intention as she went to the closet. "I think there are some clothes in here that should fit you," she said as she began to riffle around.
He furrowed his brow in confusion as he watched her. Why wasn't she upset? It was like nothing could phase the woman except the mention of that ... what did they call it -- Goould? -- that had messed with her genes.
"Are we gonna talk about what happened?" he asked as she threw a shirt over her shoulder at him in triumph.
Cassie turned to look at him, her sleep tousled hair adding to the look of innocence she tried to cover her emotions with. "What is there to talk about?" she asked as she tossed him the pair of pants she'd found, "I think these should fit. You don't look any bigger than Daniel is."
"You had a nightmare," he pointed out as he pulled the flannel over his arms and began to button it up. It was a little loose, but better that than the other option. He looked at the waist of the pants and thought that they should fit, as well, but he wasn't about to change with her looking at him like that.
"I'm not the only one who gets nightmares," Cassie replied blandly as she went searching for something for herself to wear that didn't smell like dried sweat and have little spots of blood on it.
He had to concede that point as he had nightmares himself, but there was something that happened last night that he wasn't sure how to identify. "Yeah, but most people don't attach themselves to the nearest person they see after a nightmare. Especially not like that."
Cassie turned on him with a decidedly feminine sweater in one hand. Her eyes were hard and glinted steel as she furiously whispered at him, "What do you want me to say, Eliot? I was scared and when I'm with you ... the world doesn't feel so scary." Her eyes shut as the anger drained away from her. Tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes but she refused to let them fall. "It's nice to not have to be brave all the time," she added after a long moment of silence.
Eliot's mind went to his own past and all the times he'd woken up from a night terror and just wanted to hear someone's breathing as they slept on undisturbed. After he and Aimee had gone their separate ways, he'd had a hard time sleeping much at all. In fact, he was pretty sure the six hour stretch the two of them had just enjoyed was the most he'd slept at one time in years.
Without having a set mind to do so, Eliot rose to his feet and took the few steps needed to bring Cassie by his side again. He drew her into his arms and she came willingly. There was just something about her. They'd met less than a week before, but ... he'd be as broken as Nate was if she were to go away and leave him alone after this.
Something shifted in the air and Cassie leaned back a little to look into Eliot's eyes. She could see it, too.
"I can't promise forever," he told her in tones so low she had to read the words on his lips rather than hear what he said.
A smile turned the corners of her mouth as she shook her head, "I'm not looking for it."
She leaned back in, ready and willing to let him capture her lips in a mind-blowing kiss ... when someone started to bang on the door.
"Rise and shine, campers!" they heard Jack shout into the room. "Daylight's wastin'!"
There was no other response to give as the jolt back to reality worked as good as a bucket of cold water. The couple started to laugh.
A/N: I bet you thought they were going to start snogging, didn't you? Soon, but not yet. Right now they gotta run. As in: Big scary ubber-bad guys on the verge of attacking them.
Snogging will come soon, though, I promise. As will plenty of humor to balance out this surprisingly deep chapter. Oh, and if you haven't seen Stargate SG-1, please look at the Wiki page so you know at least some of what I'm yapping about.