A/N: And I bet you thought you'd have to wait a few more weeks to get this ...

They stopped somewhere in Iowa to switch cars and catch a bite to eat. Parker seemed to have attached herself to the woman who'd caused such a huge disruption in their lives. She was pretty sure Nate didn't like her, but that didn't really matter. He'd come around.

"So," Hardison started as they sat at an out of the way diner in the middle of Iowa. He was steadily mixing ranch dressing and catsup together for the plate of french fries loaded down on the plate in front of him, "Aliens, huh?"

Cassie nodded, a slightly blank look on her face as she mindlessly stirred the thoroughly mixed cup of tea in front of her. "Aliens. Robots, too, but I can't talk about that," she shook her head and lifted the cup to take a sip of the camomile tea one of the waitresses had been happy to provide.

Sophie had gone to the bathroom with her bag of tricks sometime ago, but now she was walking up to their booth with recently brushed hair, makeup fully in place, and fresh, wrinkle free, tailored clothes draped over her curves.

"DId you order yet?" she asked as she slid in next to Nate.

He nodded once, even though his eyes were still trained on the dessert menu, "Got you a salad with vinaigrette on the side, just like always."

She sighed, eyeing the fries on the other side of Nate, "Damn. I was hoping for something a bit more unhealthy than that."

Parker snorted at that, her eyes dancing as she countered, "This from the woman who wouldn't even touch chicken fried steak when we were in Nebraska?"

Sophie shrugged, "I guess I changed my mind."

Cassie could feel her stomach rolling around inside of her, unable to settle despite the tea. She doubted anything she ate would stay down at the moment. "I'll switch you, Sophie," she suggested as she looked across the table at the grifter. "My stomach feels like a bunch of Russians are dancing with vodka on their heads." She shook her head with a wry smile, "I probably won't be able to keep very much down anyway."

Sophie gave her a reassuring smile as she thanked her for the offer, "It will get better, Cassie. The first trimester is always the worst."

The male members of the team gave Sophie a weird look at that statement. "Since when would you know about pregnancy, Sophie?" Nate asked curiously as he took a sip of his coffee.

She rolled her eyes at him as she let the irritated note in her voice show through, "I am a woman, Nate. It's practically a hobby of ours to study pregnancy."

He frowned as he opened his mouth to refute that claim, but Parker nodded, "It's true. Sophie and I watch pregnancy shows all the time."

Hardison looked across the table at the thief seated between Cassie (close to the window) and Eliot (seated on the outside to allow him to easily jump up to defend the others if need be). She shrugged in response to his non-verbal question. "Some people do crosswords?" he asked with raised eyebrows. "Man, girl, how many hobbies do you have?"

His tone made Parker look down with a hunch to her shoulders. Cassie frowned at how dejected the normally perky thief looked and quickly thought up a way to make her feel better.

"I have fifteen," she said, loud enough for the whole table to hear as one of her hands gently patted Parker's comfortingly. Cassie nodded with a smile on her face. She tilted her head as she thought, "Well, twenty-two if you count cooking and all the different martial arts and fighting forms I ... dabble in."

Eliot looked curious as he leaned forward to look around Parker at the alien woman. "Only six?"

Cassie's smile turned dangerous as her eyes glinted with unknown steel, "That I count as separate forms." She held up her hand and counted for them all to see, "Teal'c taught me two, an ancient form of martial arts and a slightly more modern form of staff fighting; Jack, Sam, and Mom taught me different levels of Air Force hand to hand -- which I count as one; Jack also taught me a form of fighting that I'm not allowed to talk about; before I came to the USA, my birth family made sure that I was proficient in knife fighting; and even though there's extreme differences I choose to group Eastern fighting styles into one form with many styles. That's six."

Eliot's face went from confused to bearing a healthy level of respect and awe. "You do know most people would group Eastern fighting styles into at least seven different forms, don't you?"

Cassie's face lost the danger and steel in it as she shrugged, "But they haven't seen everything I have. You know, kenpo reminds me a lot of some of the fighting Teal'c and his people do. From what Colonel Mitchell has told me, there's a group of highly trained warriors that practice a more developed form of it. Very dangerous men to cross paths with."

Eliot inclined his head slightly in interest, "You'll have to show me some time."

Cassie wrinkled her nose, "I'm not that good at it. You should ask Mitchell next time you see him."

Eliot nodded slightly, "I just might do that."

The conversation would have continued, but just then the waitress came up with the rest of their food (since Hardison and Parker had already quietly demolished the plate of fries she had brought out) and all talk ceased.

Just as guaranteed, Sophie got her burger slathered in BBQ sauce and cheese, and Cassie could hardly stomach the cucumbers and tomatoes that covered the lettuce.

They were just finishing up eating when Cassie felt the first tingle on the edge of her consciousness. She fell deep into her mind and prodded out where it was coming from, and how far away the naquadah was.

With a jolt she grabbed Parker's arm as it reached across the table to take another one of Hardison's fries while he was busy arguing with Eliot about something to do with sports.

"What is it?" Parker asked, confused as she pulled her arm back and looked at Cassie curiously.

"We have to go," she said softly so as not to be overheard. "Now."

Nate's brown eyes caught hers and he searched them for something she wasn't sure about. "You're sure?"

Cassie nodded once, "Positive. They'll be here in about ten minutes. Maybe less."

"How can you tell?" Eliot asked with a frown, knowing she had done something similar when Vala and Teal'c had surprised her with a visit.

"My field of awareness is limited," Cassie responded bluntly. "Based on how the signal in increasing in intensity, my guess is now eight minutes before they bust through that door."

"Then we better burst through first," Nate said as the team began to ready hastily for their departure. He threw some money on the table -- no doubt about twice as much as what their bill was.

Less than two minutes later the souped up Volvo was once again speeding down the highway and away from the danger that now seemed to lurk behind every corner.

Hardison was watching the scene back at the diner unfold from the safety of his cell phone and a tap into the security camera he had been a little surprised to find in the middle of nowhere. He whistled from the back seat as he showed it to Eliot and Sophie before asking, "How'd you know?"

Cassie looked over her shoulder at the three in the back seat before shrugging and saying, "Can't we just call it my Spidey-sense?"

Hardison frowned before saying, "We could, but now you got me interested. Sam only ever told me the basics of what I was working on fifteen years ago."

Now it was Cassie's turn to frown. "Fifteen years ago the Stargate was still an unknown that scientists were trying to puzzle out. Sam had no clue what it did fifteen years ago."

Hardison had the decency to look a little sheepish as he replied, "I might have kept in touch for a few years."

Cassie sighed and shook her head, her stomach protesting the prolonged stretch, so she turned to look out the window as she spoke. "The Goa'uld have a mineral in their blood that makes most of their technology work. It's called naquadah. After a while it gets into the bloodstream of the host as well and starts reproducing like white and red blood cells. When you have naquadah in your body, you become sensitive to other naquadah deposits. The Stargate is made up almost exclusively of naquadah and feels like ... a big beacon when I get close to it. People with naquadah in them feel more like a ... blinking light in my mind that gets louder and stronger as they get closer."

"But you weren't a host?" Nate asked for clarification. He was pretty sure if she had been host to one of those things they'd seen yesterday that someone would have said.

"No," Cassie shook her head slightly before leaning against the door of the car. "Nirrti had a nasty habit of messing with the genetic code to see what would happen. She ... did something to my DNA when I was growing up, and when I was ten she put a naquadah bomb in my chest."

"Woah! Hold on!" Hardison nearly shouted. "There's a bomb in you?"

"Not any more," Cassie sniped at him. "After they figured out it was there and a way to disarm it, the naquadah was reabsorbed into my bloodstream. Now all it serves is as an early warning system to Goa'uld presence, and allows me to control their technology. It won't reactivate unless I'm around the Stargate for too long." No need to tell them about what else she could do thanks to Nirrti's interference. There were some things they were just better off not knowing.

The car fell into silence as the team took in the information. Cassie watched the scenery as it passed, her mind keeping a tab on the part of her mind that controlled the blinking radar in case something reappeared on it. She closed her eyes and evened out her breathing to mimic sleeping and halt any future attempt at conversation.

"What's the plan?" Sophie asked when they switched cars in Cincinnati a few hours later.

Cassie held her bag slung over her right shoulder and held in her left hand in the way women wear long strapped purses. "I won't risk your operation," she said as she shook her head. "I'll head ... somewhere else."

"No, you won't," Nate replied with an iron look in his eyes. "We told your friends that we would keep you safe."

"You don't understand just how powerful these people are," Cassie told them, trying to convince them it was safer if she left now and took her enemies with her. "They're not like humans. They don't feel remorse, or guilt, or anything else. The Goa'uld that's after me has no conscience and she wouldn't even blink before making you die a thousand times."

Hardison's eyes got wide as the hacker began to realize how much danger she posed (not that he was really remembering what could happen to him anyway should the rouge agents of the NID get ahold of him). "D-did you say a thousand times? As in: they kill you, bring you back, and kill you again?"

Cassie nodded with disheartened eyes, "I've seen it done. I won't ask you to go through that. Not for my baby and definitely not for me."

Eliot stepped forward and grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at him when she would have rather looked anywhere else. If she walked away now, neither one of them would know what could be between them. Perhaps it was safer that way, but Eliot was far from a safe bet.

His blue eyes bored into her hazel ones as he said, "You don't have to ask us. I already told them that I'd keep you safe. I don't want to face Teal'c or General O'Neill if I don't keep that promise. That's one fight I know I wouldn't be walking away from."

Sophie took the few steps necessary to rest her own hand on Cassie's arm reassuringly. "We're in this. Together," the grifter promised.

"All of us," Nate added, his callused hand covering Sophie's as his thumb brushed the shoulder beneath.

Parker shrugged, not moving from where she stood, "You promised to jump off a building with me. I can't let you leave before we do that." She thought for a moment before perking up and adding, "And maybe once the bad guys are dealt with we can steal a painting together."

"Aw, hell," Hardison complained as he rolled his eyes and stomped his foot on the ground. "Sam'd kill me if I didn't help in all this."

Cassie let a small smile grace her face at that pronouncement, remembering when she had been younger and seen Sam angry for the first time. It was a sight to remember.

Nate clapped Cassie's shoulder, "Great, then. We're decided. You're coming with us. Hardison, identification for Ms. Fraiser."

"On it," the hacker said, his fingers running rapidly over his iPhone. "What name d'ya want?"

Nate thought for a moment, stepping back to pace a moment before stopping to say, "When we went to Chicago Sophie and I were going as the Bakers. I still have Tom Baker's ID one me and it would be good to have her as ... yeah, as a cousin or something. Yeah, okay, make her a Baker and we'll claim a family vacation if need be."

"I like Lizzie," Parker perked up and said with a smile. "Lizzie Baker sounds cool."

"Common, too," Hardison said with a wink to Parker as he pressed some more buttons on his phone. "We need to drive to Kinko's."

"You can get a fake I.D. from Kinko's?" Cassie asked as the group made their way to the new car rented under Eliot's very good fake I.D.

"Naw, man," Hardison says with a shake of his head as they got into the rented sedan. "But you can sure print one off there if you know what to do."

Cassie frowned as the news sunk in and they made their way through the Cincinnati traffic to the nearest copiers.

In the beginning the universe was dark. That was the theory anyway. Others believed the universe has always been without beginning and without end. No one was quiet sure who was correct. It didn't really matter, though, it was just a friendly debate.

Where the specks of light met, darkness didn't matter. Of course, it was dark where they were, but when you've shed your corporeal form light and darkness cease to matter.

"The child must survive," one of the beings of light said.

"We cannot intervene any more than we already have," the second of the three beings said with what would have been a shake of his head had they been in corporeal bodies.

"She must survive," the third being said, "Even if it means that we must continue to intervene. Both the mother and the child are too important to let die."

"How can we choose her path for her? It goes against the very beliefs that set us apart from the Ori," the second being questioned.

"The others have examined the evidence," the first said, "And it has been decided that she must know what is necessary for her to make her choice. Reason must prevail and the child must live."

"And if the one they call Cassandra Fraiser does not agree?" the second questioned again, clearly not fully comfortable with the idea of interfering more then they had already.

"Then free will and reason still will have been upheld."

A/N: For those of you new to the SGC party, the little lights at the end are, in fact, ascended Ancients/Alterans.

Happy birthday to me. It means that my joy gives you another chapter less than a week after the last one.