3 Months Later

It was kind of a crappy day for Cassie, overall. When she'd checked her e-mail this morning, there had been three separate e-mails from girls she'd gone to high school with. All of them were proclaiming how awesome orientation week was and how much they were going to rock college.

Then Cassie had screwed up some filing at work, and gotten yelled at. Jeez, here she was, doing a minimum wage job, and she couldn't even get that right. So much for rocketing up the corporate ladder so quickly that she would never regret not having gone to college.

Then on her lunch break, one of the other secretaries had snubbed her, and she had no idea why. She'd thought that high school girls were catty, but girls in an office were way worse. Did any of them get the concept of "grow-up"? Like, at all?

Then she'd sat through the most boring and pointless meeting for three hours in the afternoon. The worse part of it was, she couldn't even lose focus like the rest of them, because she was the one typing up the minutes.

She decides to stop by James' house on the way home from work. She knows that she probably shouldn't. He told her that he was going to be really busy for the next couple of weeks, and wouldn't be able to see her, but after the day she was having, she could really use some lovin' to clear her head.

She knocks on the door.

There is no answer, so she pulls up the key under the mat. It's probably a little too personal. It's not like he gave her a key. It's not like he even purposely showed her were this one was. Just once when they'd gotten tipsy on a night out on the town (she'd been drinking with a fake ID he'd gotten for her) he'd been too drunk to find his keys (they had of course taken a taxi home, they never drove drunk). He fumbled for the key under the mat to let them in his house.

It wasn't like they were wild like that all the time, only when James was at his grandmother's.

Anyway, she was probably overstepping her bounds a little by letting herself into his house, but right now, she didn't care.

As soon as the door is open, she hears a sound that makes her freeze in the hallway. It's a sound that she's familiar with, very familiar with. When that sound is being made, she is usually a lot closer to it.

Who the hell was James cheating on her with? She freezes wondering if she should just let herself out the door, but then she gets mad. Really, really mad, and she marches into his bedroom, and flings the door open.

"What the hell?" a feminine voice asks.

"Cassie?" James asks sounding very much like a rat caught in a trap.

"You know her?" the women asks pulling away from James, and covering herself with sheets up to her chin.

"Just… our kids hang out together," James stammers.

"Our kids hang out together? Really? First of all, they aren't my kids. They're my brothers, and second of all, we hang out together too. You stay at my house so often you could just about say we're living together," Cassie says with her arms crossed in defiance.

"Living together? What the hell are you doing with our son when you're over at this child's house?" the woman says, glaring at James.

"She's legal age, and Jaden's fine," James protests.

"Your son? Your son, as in both of yours. As in you plus him made a baby?" Cassie says to the women before her, "You told me your wife was dead," she says to James.

"You killed me in your little fantasy?" the woman says, getting out of bed with a sheet covering her. She begins to pick clothes off the ground and dress herself all behind the sheet. Cassie is impressed by the talent, and thinks that she wants to acquire it. Not that she's planning on having a whole lot of times in her life where she's going to have to get dressed without someone seeing.

"It's not like that. I just thought a story of a dead wife would give me an angle, and edge you know, get some info," James says.

Cassie's mouth drop open, but she can't actually process what she is hearing.

"You're still sexing up your informants for info? I thought you dropped that when we got married," the women says with less spite in her voice than Cassie would have expected.

"You have been gone for a long time," he protests.

"You marry a foreign correspondent, and you get long absences."

"I didn't marry a foreign correspondent."

"Well, I guess I shouldn't have got all successful on you then," she teases.

Cassie's stomach is falling out from under her, because the bitterness has gone out of their argument. Now, they just sound like an old married couple having a discussion; which, after all, they are.

"Don't worry," the woman continues, dropping the sheet to reveal a freaking power suit that looks more like it's fresh from the cleaners than plucked off the floor, "I cheated on you in Europe too." She walks over and kisses James lightly on the lips before giving Cassie a head to toe examination, "But my choices were far more age appropriate."

Cassie just stands there and stares at James for a long second. "Come here," he says softly, reaching out his arms.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she screams, "I come into your house to see in you in bed with your wife, and your reaction is 'come here'?"

"Next time, you should call ahead."

"I walk in on you having sex with your wife, you admit that you were using me to try to get information for what, a story? Which means you're a journalist, which means you've been lying about what you do for a living for the past couple of months."

"That is not true! I told you that I was a professor, and I teach one journalism class at the community college."

"James, I thought we had something serious. We were sharing a bed like half the time. Your son and my brothers were… God, your son! Do you realize that I love your son? The whole time I've thought he was a half-orphan. God, does he even know his mother is alive? I mean, he heard us talking about her like she was dead. He must think…"

"Come on, he's like two; he doesn't have any idea what we are saying."

"I am just starting to realize that I didn't know you at all. Like, at all at all," Cassie says, walking out of the room.

"So, babe, are we over?"

Cassie actually sees red as she turns around. She'd always figured that was more of a metaphor than literal truth. "We are so over that I'm debating setting your bed on fire with you in it."

"Dude, I never figured you as a violent chick before. That's hot."

Cassie stomps out of the room, and sees James' wife in the living room, playing with Jaden, who apparently was home the whole time. She figured that he must have been gone. With her, James had always been careful to keep the volume low when the boy was in the house. Apparently he just knew how to play the room, and catered his behavior to the tastes of whoever he was around at the time.

"If you have any sense at all, you're going to leave him. Take that little boy, and get out right now. Hope that he's too young to remember this."

The woman laughs, and Jaden joins in. He's too young to get the 'joke', if you could even call it that. But he does understand that when someone laughs, you should too.

Cassie bends down next to him, "I love you, little man. I am so, so sorry you aren't mine."

-0-

When Cassie gets home, she is relieved to find that all of her siblings are in the backyard with her father. She takes the opportunity to slink up the stairs to her bedroom and cry herself to sleep.

-0-

Daniel makes the rounds saying goodnight to his children. Cassie didn't come home again. It's not like it happens often, but every once in a while she's still missing. He knows where she is now, and she is eighteen. He keeps trying to remind himself that if she'd gone to college like all of her classmates, she'd be gone every day now. He still hates it when she's gone.

He does what he always does when she's gone; he goes into her empty room and thinks about Cassie, and Janet, and what Janet would do if she were around now.

Of course, Cassie probably wouldn't have gone off the deep end if Janet had been around.

Except this time, Cassie's room isn't empty. It contains his teenage daughter curled up in the fetal positon on the floor. He drops to his knees beside her.

"Cassie what happened? Are you hurt?"

She shakes her head, even though the honesty of her answer obviously depends on exactly what your definition of hurt is.

"Cassie, sweetheart, tell me what's wrong," he pleads. He wants so badly to touch her, to comfort her, to make all of this go away. But things have been so bad between them lately, so toxic, that he isn't exactly sure if she'll accept that from him.

"You were right about everything, Daddy. I should have listened to you. I am just a stupid, stupid, kid," she sobs.

The word "Daddy", something she hasn't called him since Janet died, made the decision for him. He crawls down on the ground, and wraps his arms around her, "You are not stupid, honey. Tell me what happened."

"James cheated on me. No, not even that, he cheated on his wife with me. Which, apparently, she doesn't care about."

"He's married?" Daniel asks, bewildered, and not even able to process the whole of the statement his daughter had made.

"And you didn't even know I was still dating James. So now you're probably going to kick me out. Which I totally deserve for disobeying you. Only I don't have enough money to live by myself, and now I'm totally regretting the decision not to go to college. I stayed home because I thought I needed to take care of my siblings, but I don't. I mean, you're here, reading them stories and putting them to bed while I'm out sleeping with a married man. What the hell was I thinking? I thought I was a better parent than you? I have no idea what I'm doing! I'm so stupid!"

"You're not stupid, and you were there for them when I wasn't. I'll never be able to thank you enough for that. You kept this family together. I am not going to kick you out, and I knew you were still dating James."

She stops crying to look up at her father, "You did?"

He nods.

"Then how come you didn't kick me out?" she asks.

He smooths her hair down, "Because you're my daughter, and I love you. And I'm your father, and I don't stop being your father just because I don't agree with every choice you make. This is your home, Cassie. Whenever you need it. I will always be there to pick up the pieces, to catch you when you fall. Just like you did for me. That's what a family is, kiddo."

"Is it ok if I keep living here?" she asks.

"Yes, honey, of course it is."

"I wish I could still go to college. I don't want to be a secretary forever. Secretaries are mean. I want to do something where I don't have to work with people. Well, at least where I don't have to spend so much time working with people."

"It's not too late to go to college. We'll get your application in, and get it figured out."

"I don't know what I want to do with my life."

"That's ok, you'll figure it out."

Cassie turns, and makes eye contact her father, "I need you to tell me what to do with my life."

He smiles, "Honey, you're going to figure it out."

"You're better at this than I am," she says softly, "You were right about how I should have gone to college. You were right about me not dating James. You were even right about me not taking the next step with Dominic. You're better at figuring out my life than I am. Just decide how the rest of my life will go. Pick my major, my career, maybe cook up a nice arranged marriage. That's what would have happened on my planet."

"Honey, I am better than you at this. But that's because I have more experience. We all suck at life when we're eighteen. You're going to mess up. A lot. But your mess ups, they're not going to define you. I try to protect you from so much, because you're my kid, and I never want to see you hurt. But the truth is, life hurts. Sha're, that was a great year, and then there was a lot of pain. Your mother, the best six years of my life, but it almost killed me when I lost her. You, you're one of the best thing that have ever happened to me, even though this last year you've almost killed me with worry. I love Olivia to bits, but her crush on Ty keeps me up at night."

Cassie giggles.

"You know he's gay, right? I mean, he has to be. She's going to get her heart broken. And Will and Drew, you know they made your mom so sick. So sick. But she wouldn't have traded them for anything. Life hurts, and I can protect you from all the pain, but only if I protect you from all the good parts too, and I won't do that."

"Are you sure?" Cassie asks.

"No, but I will hold you when it hurts," he says, wiping the hair off her face the way her father, the first one, the one who left, used to.

"Thanks," she whispers.

"He was just using me to get information on the Stargate program for a stupid story."

"Did you tell him anything?" Daniel asks, concerned.

She shakes her head.

"See? Not stupid; not stupid at all," he assures her.

The next morning, they wake up on the rug in Cassie's room. Tired and crumpled, but both of them not feeling alone for the first time in a long time.