A/N: ... Sorry for the author's note at the end of the last chapter. No excuses, I was just having a really bad week. My apologies, and and thanks for staying with it. Behold: snogging!
After convincing them all that nothing would be exploding in the next few hours if she was allowed to rest, and on the condition that Eliot stay with her and not let her out of his sight, Cassie was allowed to go back down the hall to rest and process the information she had just learned.
Once inside Eliot's apartment, he locked the door, knowing it couldn't stop any of his teammates, but also knowing that everyone but Parker would take the hint and not bother to try picking the lock.
Eliot heard more than saw Cassie walk further into the apartment before he turned around to see her huddled into the corner of his sofa, her legs held tightly toward her chest with her arms, and her cheek resting on one of her knees as she let the tears flow.
His feet took him toward her while his mind was balking at the idea of having to deal with a crying woman. He may be good with women -- hell, he was great with women, but the last time he'd seen one that he cared about cry he had ended up beating the shit out of the good-for-nothing asshole that had caused her that much distress. (June 2004: he had been visiting his sister and nephew in North Dakota and her "boyfriend" had made some choice comments about her and her family that Eliot couldn't let slide.)
He didn't really have that option here.
Slowly, hesitantly, he sat down beside her, one of his arms wrapping around her shoulders involuntarily as he pulled her close to his body heat. His other arm wrapped around her from the front, wrapping her completely in his arms and away from whatever danger (real or imagined) lurked in the shadows. Her crying increased to what could only be described as sobs as she turned her head into the nook of his shoulder and her body started to shake with the force of her grief.
It took some time, but after what could have been a few minutes or a few hours, Cassie calmed down to intermittent sobs punctuated with sniffling and shuttered breaths. "Wanna talk about it?" Eliot asked as one of his hands took up rubbing her spine up and down in a comforting motion.
Even as she shook her head negatively, Cassie moved her head so that it was resting against Eliot's shoulder and she could speak unmuffled. "I can't tell you much. I don't know that much more than you do, really."
"You don't have to tell me anything," Eliot assured her, knowing better than to push. In fact, the best way to get her to open up would be to tell her something about himself ... Something the others only guessed at and didn't know for certain. "Must've been hard," he said, pulling her still curled body closer to his, "Losin' not only one, but two mothers. I came close to losin' mine once."
Cassie caressed his shoulder with her cheek as she asked, "What happened?"
Eliot took a deep breath and started in on his tale. "When I was three my daddy died in a bar fight. My mama got married again when my twin sister and I were seven. The beatin's started slow, but when I turned fourteen ... that's when he almost killed her." He tried to remain calm and collected, but the rage he still felt toward his stepfather was too great for him to fully contain and his body remained rigid as a plank. "We came home from school to find him layin' into her with his fists and ... and a cast iron pan."
He shook his head as he remembered what happened that day, "I don't remember what happened next. My sight went red, I guess. My sister tol' me later I jumped up on his back and started in on him without warnin'. Didn't let up until he was worse of than our mama. Only thing that got me to let up was my sister callin' 9-1-1 to get help."
Eliot trailed off, a lump forming in his throat as he remembered just how close he'd come to losing his mother that day. "Even ten minutes later and it would have been too late," the doctors had told them.
Cassie shifted her weight, letting her legs out of their position so that they could drape over his. She pulled herself up slightly and kissed his cheek softly before putting her head back on his shoulder. "I didn't speak for a week after my mother died," she confessed. "I was all alone for the better part of a day, but she had died almost two days before that. It makes me sick to think about those last days and all my missed opportunities." She tried to burrow further into his body and he shifted to give her better access. "Sam kept on telling me how very brave I was ... am. Then Janet brought me back to her house." A brief smile flickered across her face as she continued, "I nearly screamed the first time I saw her turn on the television. Not to mention the first time I ate pizza."
The retrieval specialist squeezed her arm gently, "It must've been hard to lose her."
She looked up at the side of his face as she answered, "In some ways it was worse than losing Aris. It was so sudden -- she was saving a man's life one second, and the next she's fighting for her own." More tears fell from Cassie's eyes as she recounted the abbreviated version of Janet's death. "And then she was dead. You know she died while Sam was on the phone with me, telling me that she'd been hurt?" She looked down at his hand on her shoulder and picked it up, examining the calloused fingers as if they held the secret to life itself.
"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel now," she admitted. He let her turn his hand over as she traced a faint scar that ran down one finger and across his palm. "It's like my life is one big game of hot potato. Here's a baby, don't keep her too long or you might get attached."
Eliot took control of his hand again and used it to angle her face so that he was looking her in the eye. "Don't know 'bout them, but I kinda like the idea of gettin' attached." He leaned forward and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead. "That was a shitty way to find out you were adopted ... again."
She frowned, "See, that's what doesn't make any sense. I've heard stories about the day I was born -- from people who had no cause to lie to me about it. Stories about my mother's pregnancy with me. Not to mention there hasn't been an Alteran on this plane of existence in this galaxy for almost a thousand years."
"We'll figure it out," Eliot reassured her before leaning in again to kiss her cheek. She moved her face at the last moment, however, and his warm lips fell on hers.
She tasted like honey and something else he couldn't quite name. Pheromones, perhaps, but whatever it was he wanted more. She let out a small gasp as his lips brushed hers again, but to his pleasant surprise, she didn't let him move back, instead she grabbed hold of his neck and angled herself so that she could kiss him more deeply.
His tongue slid along her lips, demanding entrance to her mouth. She let him in tentatively even as one of her hands migrated to the back of his head and pulled him down with her as she leaned back on the couch. It took all his willpower not to let his hands roam up and down her soft body, but he managed it even while plundering her mouth with his tongue.
He used one of his arms to prop up his body so he didn't crush her, causing Cassie to moan in what sounded like yearning and despair that he was moving away from her. Eliot hushed her protestations by pressing his mouth more firmly into hers.
Time passed both agonizingly slow and agonizingly fast for the couple as they explored each other's reactions. It felt at the same time like three hours and thirty seconds had passed before there was a knock on the door.
Eliot broke away with a ragged breath and and glassy look in his eyes. "This is gettin' to be a pattern," he muttered before getting up to answer the door. As he shifted his pants to hide the bulge, he heard a snort from directly behind him.
"Could be worse," Cassie commented as she passed him with a skip in her step. She gave him a once over and fluffed out her hair as the person knocked again, more adamantly than before. "They could have waited ten minutes before knocking."
Eliot cleared his throat in an attempt to hide his discomfort as he let Cassie open the door to reveal a frazzled looking Hardison.
"Ummm, I need some help," Hardison asked as he nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His eyes darted from Cassie to where Eliot was standing with his arms crossed and a colossal glare on his face. Hardison's eyes widened and he took a step back, motioning behind him with his hands, "Yah know what? I'll just go ask Nate. I'm sure he knows."
Cassie rolled her eyes and sighed as she grabbed his arm to stop him from moving, "What happened?"
Hardison was still eyeing the murderous look in Eliot's eye as he replied, "I might have screwed up the frosting for Parker's cake ..."
Eliot's scowl turned into a frown as he groused, "How the hell could you screw up frosting?"
Hardison's pride reared its head at the implied insult, "Hey, man. It's not like I've ever made it before. Ya can't expect miracles."
Cassie snorted, "No, but I would expect you to be able to put the pre-measured ingredients in the bowl and use an electric mixer to blend them."
Hardison looked down guiltily and Eliot knew that he had done something to the ingredients that he didn't want to tell Cassie about. "Let's just go fix this so Parker doesn't kill you, all right?" the hitter groused out with another glare firmly in place on his face.
A short time later found the trio in Hardison's apartment, confronting a very angry looking Parker who happened to be brandishing a fork as if it was a dagger.
Cassie painted on a bright smile in an attempt to dispel the murderous look in Parker's eyes as soon as she came in view. "Let's see what we're dealing with here, shall we?" Cassie said as she brushed past the irate thief, leaving Hardison's well-being in Eliot's very capable hands.
She retrieved a spoon from the silverware drawer and peered into the mixing bowl with the frosting in it. Taking the spoon in hand, she dipped it in and found the cream cheese frosting not only too thin, but also smelling quite strongly of lemon juice.
With a quizzical look toward the thieves she asked, "Why does this smell like you put in ten times more lemon juice than necessary and no sugar?"
Hardison's voice sounded entirely too meek to belong to the man she knew he was as he responded, "There might have been an accident."
Cassie looked at the floor and saw a few missed grains of sugar, "Ah. And instead of using common sense and replacing the exact amount of sugar you spilled on the floor, you decided to just not replace any of it."
"Only half of it spilt," he replied defensively. "How was I supposed ta know what half was?"
Parker growled at him and Cassie heard him whimper in response. "I'll fix it Parker," Cassie said quickly, "Don't kill him just yet."
"Hurry up for I won't be responsible for my actions," Parker replied in a sing-song tone.
"Just give me two minutes."
It actually took 93 seconds for Cassie to fix the frosting to some level of decency and eatability.
"Done!" she proclaimed, causing Parker to drop the fork and rush over to her side.
The jewel thief stuck her pinky into the mixture and brought it to her mouth. Her eyes lit up with glee as she tasted the now properly sweetened frosting.
"Now, you remember how to frost a cake, right?" Cassie inquire as Parker started jumping up and down with joy at the prospect of frosted cake.
Parker nodded and gave the baker an overview of the same information she had given her a few hours earlier. "I take them out of the pans, cut the top off the layers so that they're flat, put frosting on top, put the second one on top of that, then more frosting, then the third layer. Then I make it look pretty with the rest of the frosting over the whole thing." Her voice changed to the sing-song cadence that Cassie took to mean she was happy, "And then I eat the whole thing."
Cassie stifled a yawn as she tried not to laugh at her enthusiasm. "Try not to get sick, Parker. I'm gonna go take a nap." She patted her stomach lightly, "Making a baby seems to take a lot out of a woman."
"Wait!" Parker demanded as she whipped out a knife and started cutting a slice out of the cake. "You have to try some first and tell me if I did it right."
She put on a beaming smile and sat down as she was requested while Parker placed a slice of cake and a fork in front of her. It wasn't too big, of course, because Parker loves cake too much to more than grudgingly share it with others. ... Especially when she made it herself.
Cassie brought a forkful of chocolate cake to her mouth and bit down. Her eyes lit up. It was good.
Within the last two years, business had continued to thrive in the barber shop somewhere in the cultural mass that is Indiana. Life had been good to Joe Spencer.
Ever since he'd followed his gut and gone to seek out General Jack O'Neill with two L's five years ago things had started to turn around for him. True, things hadn't worked out with him and Sharlene, but he was on great terms with his now college aged son, Andy. They spoke regularly as the young man studied film making in California.
Joe whistled as he swept the front of the shop, wanting to get the chore done as quickly as possible before Meg showed up for their date tonight. She was a joy, she really was.
A high school physics teacher by trade, she had a laugh that sent shivers down Joe's spine whenever he heard it.
It never crossed his mind that things had been going along too perfectly for the past few years. When the connection between him and Jack O'Neill had been severed, he'd been able to sleep easier at night not knowing what great enemies were out there. After his eight years attached to the stone and O'Neill's mind, however, he'd never be naive enough to think that they were free from the danger of alien incursions. There were always hints and clues lying around for those that knew how to look for them.
The bell rang on the door as someone walked in with the distinct clip of high heels on linoleum.
"I'm sorry," Joe said, turning around to find himself face to face with a woman he didn't recognize (quite a feat in a town of a few thousand). "We're closed."
She graced him with a smile that put an entirely different kind of chill down his back as she raised her arm and he saw that she was wielding a zat gun. His eyes went wide as the stone cold woman with bright red lips calmly said, "I know," and fired one shot right at Joe's heart.
He fell over the pile of hair clippings his broom had gathered. She advanced slowly toward his prone body, her eyes glowing briefly as she put one stiletto on his side before pressing a hidden button on her watch.
The thirty-something woman who was skipping down the lane and headed toward the barber shop was the only witness to the flash of light that filled up the inside of the shop and just as quickly disappeared. She gasped as she ran the rest of the way there, threw open the door and found no one inside, just a pile of hair and Joe's broom.
Meg did the only thing her frantic mind could think of: she called the one man Joe trusted -- Jack O'Neill.
Daniel was worried. There was no denying it any longer. Even the translation he was currently working on that SG-10 brought back from ... somewhere, wasn't holding his attention as it would have a week ago.
Two days without any news. Two days of not knowing anything and he was slowly going insane. It was a hard lesson for him to relearn after the years of relative peace what it felt like to sit on his hands doing nothing and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Hello Daniel," a familiar voice said behind him.
He turned around sharply, squinting at the ascended being in his office. "Morgan," he said noncommittally. "How's it goin'?"
Morgan le Fay sighed and closed her eyes as she shook her head ruefully, "Not well. The Others have given me leave to ... provide guidance to Cassandra Fraiser, but she is taking my presence and the information I need to provide her with ... less than ideally."
Daniel's squint turned to a frown as he realized the implications of what she was telling him. "The Others are letting you interfere in human life?" he asked dubiously.
Morgan gave him a look, "The child Cassandra is carrying is quite possibly the most important being your planet has seen since Merlin and Galahad."
"More important than the rules?" Daniel countered, anger swelling within him as he remembered how far things had gone in the past before the Others would help. It had almost led to their very destruction before they'd consented to helping the mere mortals below.
Morgan looked down in what could only be described as shame. Instead of directly answering his question, she chose to tell him a story:
"A thousand years ago by Earth time, there was still a small colony of us on this planet, aside from Merlin and myself. The illness that had spread among us millennia before was still present. We who were there had an immunity to it," her eyes flickered around the office, avoiding Daniel's eyes as much as possible, "But then some of us started getting sick. The virus had mutated to counteract our immunity."
She looked down at her hands as her voice broke, "Five of us were with child at the time."
Daniel's eyebrows rose in shock as he leaned forward, "What happened to them?"
Morgan turned to look at the empty doorway to Daniel's office, "The fetuses were extracted from the mothers, intact and unharmed, and placed in stasis on another planet before all but one of the parents ascended."
"Merlin," Daniel supplied the name of the "unlucky" one left behind.
She nodded, braving to look at her confidant again, "His work was too important. Once he had finished what he needed to on Earth, I took him to the lab you found him in."
Daniel closed his eyes and shook his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose, underneath his glasses, before asking the question gnawing at him, "What's this have to do with Cassie and her baby?" He had a sinking suspicion, but he needed to know -- now more than ever.
Morgan's eyes fell to her hands, nervously spinning the ring she wore as if it would give her strength. She cleared her throat as she said, "Cassandra's child ... is going to be the first Alteran born on this planet in nearly a millennia." She looked up and met Daniel's gaze with clear eyes, "Cassandra is the daughter of Merlin and the one you'd know as Nimue."
Vala was exiting the elevator on the sub-level of Daniel's lab, a skip in her step as she thought about forcing him away from his translations to go play with her. That is, until she heard him exclaim:
"Cassie's what!?!?"
Maybe playing could wait.
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