One Month Later
Spoilers for "Rite of Passage"
"Do you think we should let Cassie go out tonight?" Janet asks Daniel as the two prepare dinner using a newfound rhythm.
"It's her birthday. I know she didn't want us to throw a party for her… no matter how many times we asked. But I just couldn't let our little girl's birthday go completely uncelebrated."
"You do know she's going somewhere with Dominic, right?"
"Dominic? Who is this Dominic?" Daniel asks, dropping the spatula into the pan.
"Dominic is the boy our daughter has been hanging round with for some time," Janet says, reaching around her husband just in time to prevent the spatula from splattering sauce all over her kitchen.
"Cassie has a boyfriend? How did I not know that Cassie has a boyfriend?" Daniel asks in horror.
"He's not her boyfriend yet. He hasn't said anything official yet, although Cassie hopes he will soon."
"So wait a minute, you and Cassie have discussed her not-a-boyfriend?"
"At length."
"And you didn't think to tell me?" Daniel asks.
"I am telling you after being sworn to secrecy. I just found out Friday, and you've been offworld since then," she says, bestowing a little kiss on her husband's cheek.
"Thanks," he says. He picks up the spatula and continues stirring the sauce. "So we're just going to let her date then?" he asks.
"She's sixteen today, Daniel, that's old enough."
"I know, but shouldn't we meet him or something?"
"You mean, shouldn't we scare the pants off him or something?"
"Yeah, we could invite over all of SG-1," Daniel teases with a grin. His wife shakes her head at him, obviously not finding it funny. "Ok, but it wouldn't have to be like that. I feel like we should get to know anyone that our daughter is spending a lot of time with, especially if he's of the opposite gender."
"I can tell her to invite him over as long as you are going to play nice."
Daniel nods his head.
"And you have to pretend that you don't know anything about this until she tells you."
"Of course, I'm not going to rat you out, babe," he says.
"'Rat me out'? I think you have been hanging out with teenagers altogether too much."
-0-0-0-
"Cassandra!" Janet calls up the stairs. "I'm not imagining it; I mean, she was here, was she not?" she says to her husband, who is putting their son in his highchair.
"Yeah, but that only lasted until the presents ran out."
"Cassie!" Janet shouts up the stairs.
"What?" Cassie snots as she comes down the stairs, brushing her hair and wearing a lot more make-up than a family dinner requires.
"Speak to your mother with respect," Daniel says, pulling out one of those painfully parental lines he swore he was never going to use on his own kids.
"Make a wish!" Janet says in a cheerful voice.
"Dominic's waiting," Cassie sneers.
"Perfect, invite him in," Daniel says.
This earns him a glare from his wife.
"Mom! You said I could go." Cassie protests.
"Yeah, I did… after."
"We're meeting a bunch of people."
"Your mother told me you were sick when I was off world, so maybe we're going to change our minds and not let you go out with your friends after all."
"Fine!" Cassie grumbles, spinning out of the room.
-0-0-0-
Cassie's stomach flutters when she catches sight of Dominic. She's had crushes before… mostly on people that she didn't get any closer too than a CD cover or a movie screen. But this was different, this time she had a crush on someone who talked to her, who listened to her, and walked her home while actually carrying her books like a scene for a movie in the 1950s.
She's been wondering lately if Dominic is going to be her first boyfriend. But he never says anything, not even when she not-so-subtlety hints. But she's not that into labels, and then NOT being called boyfriend and girlfriend might just keep Dominic away from the inquisition she's pretty sure her father has planned for him.
"They're not letting me leave yet, so, I mean, if you want to meet up with everybody then…" she says, trying to make everything sound very casual. She doesn't want Dominic to know how disappointed she is that she's being deprived of even half an hour of him.
"Wait a second… here. Happy Birthday," he says, handing her a box.
Her heart swells with joy. She doesn't even really care what's in the box. The fact that Dominic gave her a present bodes well for their future relationship. She opens it up to see a beautiful prism. "It's just like the ones from class," she says, remembering the science lab where he had been her partner. It was the first time the two of them had really talked, and that had been a month ago. Had he been planning this ever since then? Or, when he heard it was her birthday, had he though back to something she had told him so long ago to think of something to give her? Either possibility was amazing.
"Yeah, well, you… you said it was pretty, so… This one's for decoration, so… I thought you could put it in your room."
She holds it up to the porch light, and it scatters rainbows across both of their faces. He takes a step toward her, and she realizes he's about to kiss her. Panic mixed with elation rushes through her as their lips meet. Then the porch light blinks out, and Cassie feels herself falling to the floor .
Dominic calls her name, and when he can't get a response from her he screams for help into the house. Janet opens the door, and runs over to her daughter in full doctor mode. Olivia has the presence of mind to grab William as everyone else rushes out of the room. She is now standing with the toddler balanced on her hip. She's so small that the action causes her to stand completely unbalanced.
This leaves Daniel to question the boy. "What happened?!"
"Nothing! She just fell," Dominic says, completely panicked.
"She's running a temperature," Janet tells her husband, "What was she doing when she 'just fell'?"
"I… I kissed her," Dominic stammers, looking from one to the other of them.
"You what?" Daniel says, glaring at the boy.
"It's her birthday, all right? Look, I'm telling you! The light just exploded, and she just… passed out! That's what happened!"
"We need to get her to the infirmary," Janet says.
"Get in the car Livy, I'll grab my keys," Daniel says.
-0-0-0-
Daniel stares in horror at the video in front of him. There is a girl about his daughter's age, from his daughter's planet, having some sort of seizure. He's read the file, and knows that there was nothing that the team from Earth could do to stop it. The only way to stop it, according to the locals that were now extinct, was to let the sick teenager wander around in the woods by themselves. He can't let his daughter do that, especially considering that whatever she should be looking for easily could have stopped existing in the five years since people had lived on that planet.
He can do it, though. He can go out into the forest, and wander on her behalf, and hopefully bring back whatever it is that is going to make his little girl better.
-0-0-0-
Janet walks into Cassie's room, and is completely frantic when she sees that her daughter is not in the room. "Cassie?" She runs down the hallways to see her daughter staggering painfully down it, "Cassandra? What are you doing?!"
"I have to go…" the girl mutters.
"Honey, you're not well enough to go anywhere!" Janet says, trying to take her daughter by the arm and lead her back to the safety of her hospital bed. Cassie breaks away.
"I have to go into the forest!" Cassie demands.
Janet walks in front of her daughter, so she can look her in the face, "I need you to get back in bed, OK?"
"You're not my mother!" Cassie says bitterly.
"Okay, then what have I been to you these last few years?" Janet asks, having learned from years with an increasingly snotty daughter not to be offended by comments like this.
"You don't understand!" Cassie says, spitting out the typical teenage rebellion with a touch more truth than most can do it.
"OK, listen to me… if nothing else, I am your doctor, Cassandra, now let's go!" Janet says getting a grip on both of her daughter's arms with the intention of taking her daughter back to bed whether she wants to go or not.
"So what?" Cassie, says pushing her away.
"I care about what happens to you! Honey, don't you know what you mean to me?" Janet says letting some of her own insecurities come into play once again.
"Don't you get it? It doesn't matter!" Cassie snarls.
"It's the only thing that matters, please! Let me try and help you," Janet says, full of compassion.
"You can't! If you wanna help me, then leave me alone!" Cassie snarles.
"OK! Just hear me out. Let's get you back into bed, and then we'll talk. OK? SG-1'll be back soon…" Janet sooths.
Cassie shoves her mother against the wall with no small amount of force, "No! Leave me alone!"
Cassie makes a break for the elevators as her mother calls her name. A couple of airmen catch her, and they drag her back to the infirmary with her legs kicking uselessly in the air.
Cassie screams the word "no" again and again frantically under her breath, ending with a plea to be let free.
"I can't do that!" Janet says with tears coming to her eyes as her daughter manages to free herself from the grasp of the guards.
"You're killing me!" Cassie screams as the lights explode above her head.
-0-0-0-
"Hey, kid how are you feeling?" Daniel asks as he comes into his daughter's hospital room.
"I know what's happening to me."
"Oh, OK… What?" Daniel says having been taken completely by surprise.
"I'm changing… into something… and there's nothing you can do to stop it," Cassie says with a touch of pride in her voice.
"Hmm… you know how me and your mom feel when someone issues a challenge like that," Daniel says with a grin.
"You guys aren't really my parents. They died with Nirrti poisoned my village."
"We know that, just don't mention it around Janet."
"Why?"
"Because she loves you, and she deserves better. We all love you for that matter," he says rubbing her arm.
"That doesn't… change… anything," Cassie says.
Everything in him wants to tell her what kind of a shellfish brat she is being. That when he was hospitalized with a nasty flu when he was twelve years old he didn't get a single visitor. That Cassie sitting here with families and friends around her all the time is different from that. But he knows when Cassie has this teenage attitude on none of that is going to make a difference, so he doesn't say all the things he wants to he just quietly tells her, "You're wrong about that."
"It's different. I'm… different now. I can do things…" Cassie says opening her hand, and staring at the knight as it flies out of her hand.
"How did you do that?"
"I just… thought it. I thought I wanted a knight, and it… flew into my hand."
-0-0-0-
"Cassandra? What are you doing?" Janet asks alarmed when she walks into her daughter's room to see her spinning a knight in the air.
"It helps… to do this," she explains.
"How?" the doctor asks.
"It's almost like… the heat is leaving my body, and going into the chess piece. You haven't got a cure, have you?" she asks, looking at her mother quickly.
"No. We're still trying…" she says, wishing that she had better news for her daughter.
"It's all right!" Cassie says sharply, and angrily.
"No, it's not," Janet says, seeing through her daughter's anger and knowing that her daughter is disappointed in her, "But we are going to find the cure."
"I want this to happen, Janet," Cassie says.
"Don't say that," Janet pleads.
"It's going to happen anyway," Cassie says definitively.
"You're ill," Cassie says dismissively.
"You know that it's more than that now. I can feel a power inside me," she says spinning the knight, "This is only the beginning."
"And along with it, your body is undergoing an enormous physical strain," the doctor in Janet cautions her daughter.
"You think it's gonna kill me?" Cassie asks with concern.
"I'm… worried about that possibility, yes," Janet admits making the split second decision not to hide the truth from her daughter.
"I don't care!" Cassie shouts.
"Well, you should!" Janet says embarrassed by the way her voice is shaking with emotion when her daughter is not that involved in that conversation, "I know the limitations of the human body…"
"Maybe I'm not human anymore," Cassie says.
"Of course you are," Janet says shocked, and ever so slightly offended by the suggestion.
"Maybe dying is part of the transformation."
"I don't care whether it is or not!" Janet says with a furious voice, clearly ready to fight for her daughter. The knight falls out of the air. Janet reaches over to pick up the knight, but it burns her hand.
"I'm sorry," Cassie says quietly.
"Sweetheart, sometimes, when a person is sick, it's important for them to fight. I want you to fight this, OK?" Janet says, hoping that her daughter's calmer demander means that she is going to be willing to listen to reason. She gently strokes her daughter's hair.
Cassie looks at her mother for a brief moment before making the knight rise up again, and starts spinning it in the air.