The Next Day
Jacob had opted for the treatment. This decision was perhaps more based on the fact that it had saved him the last time than the odds of it saving him this time. Still, he wanted to go down with a fight. He didn't want to go quietly into that good night, as they say.
If he wanted the treatment to have any real chance of working, he had to start it as soon as possible. That meant before Christmas, and that meant before he told his family. He had not realized how much having someone who loved him by his side had helped him the first time that he was sick. It really made all the difference in the world.
The treatment had come two days before Christmas, and by the time Christmas rolled around, the effects were pretty dire.
He told them that he had the stomach flu, and they believed him. Sometimes, people's minds choose to ignore the obvious.
Emma saw it, though. She and her father were spending Christmas with the O'Neills, as they had for every holiday since her father's return. When Jacob left the room for the third time, she followed him.
She pushed the bathroom door open, and rubbed slow circles on his back. He'd thrown up enough, mostly in the middle of the night, that this was only a bit of bile, and mostly dry heaves. He thought he wanted to be left alone to his misery, but found in surprise, once she was there, that he desperately wanted her to stay.
"It's back, isn't it?" she asks the one question, and there is no doubt what the 'it' is.
He nods as he leans away from the porcelain.
"Worse?" she asks.
He nods again.
She's silent for a whole minute. One minute of private grief before she is able to offer him some kind of comfort. "Well," she says with a smile, "You've beat it once before. You'll do the same this time. A person as good as you couldn't possibly die."
She's naïve, Jacob knows. He's been to war, and he knows that it is not the good person who survives. It's not the strongest or the wisest or the most moral. The one who survives is just the one who survives.
He nods his head again, because he's not going to rob her of her hope. She might need that, later on, to make the end a bit less bitter.
Two Weeks Later
It has been a long time since Cassie was surprised to see three squirrely children sitting in the booth of the coffee shop. There was really nothing she could do about it, of course. Nae's daycare provider had quit, and it was not what you would call easy to find someone to look after a child with autism.
Of course, she could have fired Nae. The flaw in this was that Nae was really good at her job, far better than anyone she could get to replace her. Cassie really didn't need that kind of weight on her heart either; she didn't need to be the reason those three adorable little children didn't have enough food to eat.
In any case, Cassie had found ways to cope. She had bought a CD player. Well, two, actually. The first one had died on the first night of its use. Aliyah, for that was the name of the six-year-old with autism, had loved the tape recorder. She'd been completely mesmerized by it. Well, not so completely that she had been able to sit still for more than ten minutes. When she'd gotten up to run around, the CD player, still attached to her by earphones, had crashed to the floor and shattered. She'd held it in her arms like precious thing, and grieved for it.
The next night, Cassie had bought her a new one. This time, when she got up to run around, she had carried it carefully in her hand. There was no danger of the second one crashing like the first.
It played soothing classical music, and it was probably the biggest reason why the times when Aliyah got up and ran were farther and farther apart.
In addition to the tape player, Cassie had bought Aliyah and her two sisters, the four-year-old Keisha and the two-year-old Jayla, all sort of distracting things. Books, crayons, coloring books, dominos, blocks, and other such tabletop games and toys.
"You don't need to do that; I can take care of my own," Nae lies.
"It's a business decision," Cassie lies back.
As the days press on, the business becomes more successful, and easier to run. Cassie goes from working either at school or her job every hour of the day to having many leisure hours. She finds herself spending most of those leisure hours taking three precious children to the library, the park, anywhere out of the shop where their mother works, and where they spend all together too much time.
"You don't need to do that; I can take care of my own," Nae lies.
"I want to," Cassie says. She's known since she was sixteen that if she ever had children, those children would die on their own sixteenth birthday. She'd thought that meant that she could never be a mother.
Now something is waking up inside of her, telling her that that isn't true. That there are plenty of kids who need someone as badly as she needs her adopted parents, and she could be a mother to them. Even if they never call her mother. Even if she's just Cassie, mommy's boss.
Maybe someday, when her job, and her school, and her life are all settled, she will adopt some kids, someone who will be hers totally and completely.
Two Weeks Later
Vala had wondered for a while now if she should announce her pregnancy to her husband. She didn't have the courage for this, because of the dread of the questions which would follow. Perfectly natural questions like, "When can I except my child to enter the world?"
Questions whose answer would be a lie, because it wasn't his child.
So she waited, and just hoped that he would figure it out. He should have figured it out by now, considering the act that she was really four months pregnant. Her tall, thin frame and the fact that this was a first-time pregnancy helped with the deception a bit, and it wasn't until she neared four months that she began to have a bit of a bump. She could easily pass for a women in her third month.
Still, Tomin said nothing about it. He said nothing, but when they made love in the dark of the night, his hands spent more and more time upon the tiny mound.
Why didn't he mention it? Was he waiting for her to, in the same way she was waiting for him? Was he unhappy with the revelation? Was he suspicious? Did he just think she was getting fat? What was sex education like in Ori-land anyway? Did men have any understanding of pregnancy and women's bodies when they married?
Then one day after prostration, one of the other women in the village looked at Vala's tiny mound and said, "You're in the family way, yeah?"
Vala had nodded her head, and the women had pulled her into a hug. Over the woman's shoulder she could see her husband. His face was so deliriously happy that everything inside of her fell to wishing that it really was his baby growing inside of her womb.
He'd known that was pregnant, perhaps, but he wanted confirmation, was all.
When they were back in the house, alone, she thought that he would talk of it. She might have taken into consideration the fact that this was the man who only had sex in the dark, and still, after three months of marriage, couldn't say the word 'sex'. He never mentioned it. He only made sure that she had more fruit, and tried to spare her from even the lightest work.
"I'm fine," she'd tell him. Wincing to see her limping husband complete her own tasks in addition to his own. She couldn't make him stop. It was his way of telling her that he loved her, that he was happy, that he was grateful for the life growing inside of her.
Vala put her hand to her stomach, and was filled with even more fear. What was this thing within her? How had it come to be? Was it some side-effect of space travel? Would it come out with three heads or something else that would let Tomin know in an instant that it wasn't his?
She can do nothing about it but wait.
One Week Later
Cassie's coffee shop was doing so well that she got a raise. The kind of money that she as making now was almost enough to lure her away from college. The only thing that stopped her was her father's disapproval, and the fact that his disapproval had been right more often than it had been wrong.
As it was, she saved her money, and balanced school and work. Juggling with two balls wasn't all that hard.
It was only when the third ball, the bowling boll was added in, that things began to fall apart.
"Thank goodness you're here, Nae didn't show," the stressed worker shouts across the coffee shop as the bell above Cassie's head announces her presence.
"She didn't call?" Cassie asks.
"No, I tried to call, and no-one answered," the worker says.
Then Cassie dropped her first juggling ball. She as at work, her job was to make sure that this coffee shop ran smoothly, so she should have stayed and called someone into work, or filled in for them. But Cassie had more important things to do. There could very easily be three little children in danger.
When she gets to Nae's apartment, she barely pauses to pull the key out from under the mat, and let herself in.
"Nae, Nae!" she calls.
The house is empty, Cassie starts driving down the road to the coffee shop, a different way than she took the first time. She sees it, the accident, and her heart stops.
Aliyah is screaming for all that she is worth, and the EMT is calmly saying, "I just need to examine you, honey, I know you're scared but you need to hold still."
"She's autistic, let me," Cassie says, but the words were not necessary. As soon as Aaliyah sees her she launches herself into Cassie's arms. The girl is shaking, even though the day is warm. Apparently the fact that the EMT was trying to touch her wasn't the only reason that she was screaming.
"It's ok," Cassie says kissing her forehead. She can feel there is a problem with the way she shifts her weight, "There is something wrong with her leg," she whispers to the worker, who looks at it.
Cassie knows it's broken, a crash bad enough to break the leg of a little girl in a carseat…
"Where is the rest of her family?" she asks, a bit more frantically than she intended to. It's funny how different words can sound coming out of your mouth, especially when you're worried.
"They took the adult female and another child to the hospital already, the littlest is ok… we're waiting for child services. Are you family?"
The color of her skin more or less gave away that she wasn't. Then again, Shelby and Rya'c were family, and their skin colors were no more different than little girl's and her own.
"No, but I'm a friend of the family. Would there be any way that I could take care of them until their mother gets better?"
The panicked look in the EMT's eyes let her know that their mother is never going to be able to take care of them again. The EMT nods his head, though, so she at least gets to take the kids home with her.
"The little girl, Keisha, is she going to be ok?" she asks, breathless.
"Yes."
"I have to go to her, she's got to be terrified," Cassie says.
"You can ride in the ambulance with this one, she's going to have her leg set when we get to the hospital. The other one was pretty calm. She can get by without you for a while."
-0-
"You're home late," Daniel says as he hears the door open. When his face actually turns toward the sound he sees that she has two children on her hips, and another one sitting right beside her. "Are you babysitting?" he asks, knowing who the children must be based on their description.
"Something like that," Cassie turns to Olivia, "Can you watch them for a bit?" She sets Aaliyah down on the couch, and gives her sister a few instructions on how to keep from upsetting them.
"Sure," Olivia says, even though she can tell that things were serious, and she wants to follow out here, and find out what is going on.
"What's wrong?" Daniel asks as soon as they make their way out of earshot. He has caught onto the serious mood of the moment as well.
"Rae died," she says.
"Oh, God," he says pulling her into a hug. "So you're looking after them until family comes."
"Rae's family disowned her after she had a baby out of wedlock, the first time."
"But surely now…." Daniel begins.
"I'm trying, but I don't think so," Cassie says.
Daniel fidgets. He remembers his time in foster care, "That's hard. Are we going to be allowed to keep them for a while before they go to foster care? It would be better if they grieved with people they knew."
"I was thinking more like forever," Cassie says.
"You want me to adopt three children? Cassie, I already have four children, I'm not going to make it seven. I'm sorry."
"I wasn't talking about you adopting them," she says.
Daniel stares at her confused for a long second before he realizes what he means. "You?"
She nods.
"You're a child."
"You only have to be above eighteen in order to adopt."
"Cassie, you're in college, and working…" he says.
"I'm going to have to drop out of college, but I have enough money to support myself and them. I mean, it won't be a lot, but their mom worked minimum wage, and I'm doing way better than that."
"You are not ready to raise three kids," Daniel says.
Cassie pauses, trying to find the words to explain to her position to her father, "You know, there isn't as much difference between how she ended up with three little girls, and what I did."
"So this is penitence for having sex when you were a teenager? No, you got out of that unscathed. You're not going to suffer for her sins."
"That's not what I meant. Those kids are no-one's punishments. I just mean… you wouldn't have kicked me out if I came home pregnant when I was sixteen, would you have?"
Daniels pauses, "No, of course not, but this is different. You're choosing this."
"Their mother chose them, too. In much the same way I'm choosing them. She got to choose to be their mother or they wouldn't exist. I choose to be their mother or they end up in foster care."
"This is different, Cassie; they're not your kids."
"I love them, Dad. I know them. They love me, and trust me. Aliyah isn't going to trust just anyone."
"Someone will take care of them."
"Dad, you didn't do well in foster care, and neither did Olivia. You were both well-adjusted, smart little kids. What about them? They need me."
"You cannot give up your life for them!" Daniel insists.
"What if I want to give up my life for them? What if I need to? This might be the only kids I ever have."
"You've given up on love and marriage already? You're only twenty years old."
"Even if I get married, I'm not going to have kids."
"Is there some medical thing I don't know about?" Daniel asks, immediately realizing how silly that was. They had the worst fight of their entire relationship when he'd found her birth control pills.
"The retrovirus. Any kids I had would have it. With the Goa'uld gone, that would mean that they would die in their sixteenth year. I'm not about to do that to anyone. I'd accepted a long time ago that I was never going to be a mother. These last couple of months, being around the kids, I'd decided that I want to be a mother. That means I'll have to adopt, so why not these ones?"
"You're too young," Daniel says.
"Then I'll grow up," she says.
He smiles, accepting the crazy situation for what it is, "Ok, then how about, 'because I'm too young to be a grandfather'."
She pulls him into a hug, "Thank you, Daddy!" Then she pulls away, and lets him in on the plans that she's been making for a while. "I'm going to move out. I just didn't have time today. I've been dealing with hospitals and work and taking care of them. I'll look for a place soon."
"Not too soon; you're going to need a little help," he says.
"I'm also going to need a little room. My bedroom was not really designed with four people in mind. I think I'd be willing to accept help even after I get my own place, though."