"Well, look on the bright side," Daniel says.

"My daughter is in the infirmary, with a high fever, and reading minds; what exactly would the bright side be?" she asks.

"At least we know it wasn't your kissing a boy that caused you to get sick when you turned sixteen," he says.

"Very funny," Cassie snarls.

Daniel realizes that his attempts to cheer up his daughter may have backfired, so he lightly grabs her hand and says, "Honey, it's going to be okay. The Tok'ra are going to help her."

Just then, the Tok'ra comes out of the infirmary, shaking his head.

Cassie rushes in there to see her daughter tearless. "I know what you're thinking, mom. So you don't have to hide it."

"I tried really hard not think anything sad that you might overhear," Cassie says.

"I wouldn't even need the ability to read minds to know what you are thinking. All the brews that the scientists thought up didn't work, and the Tok'ra didn't work. I'm going to die."

"Honey, we don't know that for sure," Cassie objects.

"Come on mom, let's be serious. Do you even have anything left to try? No, you're out of ideas. So I have one last request before I get too out of it to do anything. I want to say goodbye, to the whole crazy SG-family."

Cassie nods, and heads off to get everything arranged. It is no small task, with how much the family has expanded in recent years.

-0-

The O'Neill family arrives first. Jack is looking his age for the first time that Anne can remember. It happened when he retired, finally. He's thinking about how it should be him dying, and not her. That she's too young. That he should have figured out some way to save her. He's been in command so long that he honestly believes that it is his job to fix anything that goes wrong.

His wife, Sam, is done being tempted by big projects all over the galaxy. No more flying cities of spaceships, or politics for her to try to control. She's in charge of the SGC, now, her husband's old post. She thinks it's peaceful, easy, compared to the way it used to be when there were enemies always at the gate. She likes it that way.

Ty and his family are there, too. Ty is thinking about how unfair it is that she has to die before she's even lived. Eli is thinking about the fact that she is probably reading his mind, and worried about what she is going to find there, but even after a gentle probe she discovers no objectionable secrets.

Their children, while not being exactly particularly young, are so innocent that they don't realize that she is dying, and what a big deal it is.

Emma comes too, although in recent years she's been missing far more team events than she comes to. Now that she has a husband and kids of her own (who don't come) she doesn't feel the pull between the two families of her childhood as strongly as she used to.

Hannah is there with her husband and three boys. Anne was particularly eager to use her new talent to get a look inside the head of this cool soldier, but Hannah is honest to a fault, and everything that she thought was things that she would easily say.

Jenny is crying inconsolably. She apologizes that the rest of her family isn't here. She couldn't bear the thought of her kids being this close to death, and her husband was willing to stay with them. Jenny's emotions might be a great deal more blubbery than her sisters, but she hides them no better.

The Dunns came in next, and Anne is shocked to find out that Grandpa Teal'c is just as peaceful inside of his head as he is on the outside. She has always kind of figured that inside of his head, there was constant chatter. Instead, it was like ocean waves; peaceful, loud, rhythmic.

Meditation. Constant meditation.

Tammy comes in with her kids, but they don't stay long. There is a list of things that they have to do that makes Anne's head ache just to think about it.

Becky sits next to her, and holds her head. She's thinking a million thoughts about all of the things that Anne is going to miss, and they are even sadder than the ones that Anne already thought of herself. Becky is also a little pissed that Cassie didn't think of this before she had Anne.

Anne knows she was a mistake. That was the first thing she mind read when she got this power. How badly Cassie never meant to have her. How she almost aborted her. Anne was furious when she found out. But she understood. It's hard to watch someone you love die.

Anne isn't sorry that she was born, though. She isn't sorry that she got a chance to live.

Luke and Lexi come next. Their spouses and children were left behind with the rebel Jaffa. While neither of the twins actually became Jaffa, at least not biologically, they were accepted into the culture. Anne realizes exactly how a part of the culture they are now that she can see inside of their brains. They are as calm and full of meditation as their father's.

Vala locks eyes with her, and Anne is pretty sure she could read the emotions in the older woman's eyes even if she hadn't had the ability to read minds. Vala has suffered a lot, more than anyone ever should have, and this is the worst suffering she's had in a long time.

Grandpa Daniel comes in, bashful of what she might find inside of his mind. As had as she probes, she finds nothing more than hieroglyphics and the memory of dead people - ancient, and personal.

Olivia brings Ben. They're having a baby, Anne catches the thought. Olivia raises her eyebrow, and shakes her head just a little.

Anne nods her head. Olivia hadn't meant to think it. They were going to keep it all silent until after this was all over.

"By that I mean, until you're all better," Olivia mentally clarified.

Olivia's daughter starts playing with Ty and Eli's kids as soon as they are in the same room. Daniel remembers with fondness that that was how Olivia and Ty were when they were that age.

Her uncles Will and Drew are thinking about work. Will's wife and Drew's girlfriend are thinking about work too.

Claire is holding her new daughter in her arms. She doesn't say a word, but Anne can read her thoughts. She's sad thinking about what she would feel like if her baby was sick. How she would want to rip the world apart at its seams.

Anne doesn't doubt her ability to do it. She just wishes that ripping the world apart at the seams would do some good.

Anne's big sister Aaliyah is an interesting mind to look into. A lot of people who meet Aaliyah nowadays don't even know she's autistic, at least until they try to have a deep conversation with her. Inside her mind, it's still all pictures, not words. It seems random at first, but the more time you spend inside of her brain, the more the internal logic of it all wins out, and it all starts to make sense.

Keisha and her husband doesn't say long, because her four rambunctious boys seem to view the infirmary equipment as a playground. There is no room in her mind for anything other than thoughts like, "My God, he's going to eat it."

Jayla, a lawyer, is practicing her argument in court. At first, Anne is offended. She would have thought her sister cared for her more than that.

Then in a moment where she forgets her argument, the real reason behind it slips through. Jayla is terrified she'll start to cry if her mind isn't constantly occupied.

After a while they are all ushered out of the room by Cassie, and Anne is left alone with her father.

She wonders why Rya'c is still there.

He tries to read in her face if she wants company or not.

She smiles at him, and he sits down in the chair.

"Do you mind if I kel-no-reem?" he asks.

"Can I join you?" she asks, and at first she thinks it that she is only asking, because whether she wants to or not, she is likely to join him when she can read minds.

Within a few seconds, though, she is swimming the waves of meditation even more deeply than her father. It is the first peace that she has had since the disease caused her to fall over at her birthday party a few days ago.

She opens her eyes.

"Did you get some sleep? You were out for a few hours, and we weren't sure if you were meditating or just sleeping," Anne's mother asks from the chair where her father was when she'd closed her eyes.

"I think it was meditation. Mom, can you do me a favor? Think something?" Anne asks.

"I remember when I was sick it relieved the pressure inside of me a little bit when I could use my power. I'll give you a nice buried thought to pull out. Don't get too excited, it's not a secret," she says, looking at her daughter.

"I don't have any idea what you are thinking."

"Really?" Cassie asks skeptically.

"Seriously, take my temperature, I bet its down."

"You think you're cured?" Cassie asks.

"Yes, I think it was the meditation," she says.

"You're not even a real Jaffa."

"I realize I've never had a Goa'uld in my stomach, but that's not all there is to being a Jaffa. They're different even before that happens, and I have as much Jaffa in me as this disease," Anne points out.

"Anne, I don't want you to get your hopes up."

"Run all the tests that you want, mom; I know the truth," she insists.

The Next Day

"You know what I'm thinking?" Cassie asks her daughter.

Anne shakes her head.

"Didn't think so, but I just wanted to make sure that none of your special talents made it out of the illness."

"So I really am cured?" Anne asks in excitement.

"You really are. So now that you are going to live, what do you want to do?"

"Everything!" Anne says.

The End!

Thank you to all my readers who stuck with me during what has turned out to be a very long story indeed!