Part XVI

Cassie had to evade the cops a couple of times on her way out of the park, but it wasn’t hard. Their lights meant that she could see them long before they got close enough to see her, and she made a lot less noise than they did. It was still nearly morning when she got back to Sam’s, eased her bedroom window open, and slipped through it into the house.

“So, you’re back.”

Cassie was startled by Sam’s voice. She spun toward the sound and saw her sitting in a chair by the bed. “Sam, what are you doing here?”

“It’s my house, remember? I looked in on you, a little after midnight, and was surprised to find you weren’t here.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cassie. “I just couldn’t sleep. I went for a run.”

“Alone, at night,” said Sam.

“I can take care of myself,” said Cassie. “You know that.”

“I don’t care. I came in here, and you were gone. I was worried about you.”

“I wasn’t running away, or anything like that,” said Cassie.

“I know, but you can’t just go running off in the middle of the night, without telling anyone where you’re going. You gave us a scare.”

“Us?”

“Oh yeah.” Sam picked up her cell phone off the table beside her, and hit a couple of buttons. She waited a few seconds for an answer. “Hi Jack. She’s come back.…Okay, go home and try to get some sleep.…I’ll see you in a couple of hours.…Bye.” She snapped her phone shut. “You were keeping Jack awake too.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cassie. “But I couldn’t just lie here looking at the ceiling.”

“Cassie, I understand what you’re going through, but you can’t go running off by yourself like that. It isn’t safe.”

“I don’t care.”

“While I do.” Sam got to her feet and came to Cassie. She wrapped her arms around her. “I just lost one of my best friends. I don’t want to lose her daughter too.”

Cassie was surprised when she awoke in daylight. Sam had put her to bed—this time actually tucking her in after Cassie had changed into her pyjamas—before going back to bed herself. Cassie hadn’t thought that she would get any sleep, but it seemed that she had dozed off.

She was also surprised to find young Jack in Sam’s kitchen, reading the morning paper and drinking a cup of coffee, when she schlepped into it, still wearing her pyjamas. “Where’s Sam?”

Jack looked at her over his newspaper. “She had to go back on duty. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” lied Cassie.

“So, beating up that guy in the park made you feel better?”

“What?” asked Cassie “How did you know—?”

Jack turned around his paper, and showed her the headline: ‘Police Apprehend Serial Rape Suspect.’ “Seems he tried for the wrong victim, she kicked the crap out of him, and then called 911 for them to come pick him up. I was also in the park myself last night, and some cops asked me if I’d seen a girl.”

“He pulled a knife on me,” said Cassie. “What was I supposed to do?”

“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” said Jack. “But since you were…hell, if I’d been with you, I probably would have given him a couple of kicks myself. This guy is a real piece of work. He’s suspected of half a dozen rapes, and some of his victims were cut up pretty badly.”

“Does Sam know?”

Jack shook his head. “She had to leave before the paper arrived. You planning to tell her?”

“Will you, if I don’t?” asked Cassie.

“No, but that still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.” Jack put the paper down. “If you tell her, she won’t be much madder than she already is about you running out last night. If she finds out some other way…”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Why don’t you go have a shower, and get dressed,” said Jack. “It’ll make you feel better. I’ll make you breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry,” said Cassie.

“Do it anyway,” said Jack, sounding like a senior officer addressing a raw recruit. “That’s an order.”

Major Janet Fraiser was buried with full military honours. Cassie’s mother’s casket was carried to the grave site by six soldiers from the SGC, while a Marine honour guard stood with presented arms. The Air Force Academy Chaplain presided over the ceremony, saying words that Cassie didn’t really believe. The god of her childhood was a parasitic snake that had slaughtered her first family, and she had never really adopted any other. Janet herself had been an agnostic, not believing in any particular gods, but not rejecting the concept either. Cassie sat silently through the ceremony, trying to hold back her tears.

At the conclusion of the service, the honour guard fired off three volleys with their rifles. A bugler played “Taps” while the flag draping her mother’s casket was folded. A flight of four F-16s overflew the ceremony, in a missing man formation. The sergeant in charge of the casket team presented the flag to General Hammond, who in turn brought it to Cassie. He knelt on the grass in front of her as he placed it into her hands. “Your mother was a friend, a colleague, and one of the finest officers it has been my privilege to command,” he told her quietly. “We will all miss her.”

“Thank you, General,” said Cassie.

“If there is anything that I can ever do for you, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Cassie just nodded her thanks. The knot in her throat wouldn’t let her say anything. General Hammond briefly rested his hand on hers, before he rose, and went to speak with Janet’s brother.

Janet’s brother Ron, his wife, and their two children had come to Colorado Springs for the funeral. They had been told that Janet had died in a medevac helicopter crash, while transporting a man who had been wounded in a training accident. Cassie didn’t like lying to them about that, so she spent a lot of time avoiding them. They had never really been close, anyway. Janet’s family lived in Baton Rouge, and Cassie had only met them a few times.

The Fraisers weren’t the only civilians present. Jack was there, of course, as were several spouses of SGC personnel. One of them was a woman who looked like she was ready to give birth to a baby any day now. She was accompanying an airman whose stiff movements indicated that he was not long out of his hospital bed, and probably should be going back to it, now that the funeral was over.

Cassie wondered what her uncle, aunt and cousins would have said if they had known that there were aliens at her mother’s funeral. They seemed to be a little uncertain how to react to the amount of military brass that had come: two Air Force generals; Air Force and Marine colonels; lots of lower ranking officers, and enlisted personnel, all in their full dress uniforms. How would they have reacted if she told them that General Carter was also hosting an alien symbiote?

Cassie felt conflicted by Selmac. She knew the Tok’ra were allies, and Jack seemed to like this one (whatever his feelings about the Tok’ra in general) but she felt a little nauseous whenever she was too close to General Carter. Her Slayer sense, combined with what she already felt because of the naquadah in her blood, made her very uncomfortable around the Tok’ra, and she wasn’t completely successful hiding it. It was a good thing that she’d told Vi not to come to Colorado Springs when she’d made the offer after hearing about her mother’s death. There was no way that another Slayer would be able to not notice that there was something wrong about General Carter.

Bra’tac was there too, representing the Free Jaffa. He didn’t make her feel nearly as uncomfortable. He felt just like Teal’c, and Cassie had gotten used to him being around. They were both dressed in similar dark civilian suits. Anyone who asked about the marks on their foreheads was told that they were Mozambican tribal tattoos.

People started to pass by, stopping briefly to offer their condolences, and then continuing on their way, slowly filtering away from the graveside, back toward their cars in the parking lot. Cassie didn’t recognize most of them. The airman with the pregnant wife stopped in front of her. He couldn’t meet her gaze, at first.

Cassie spoke first. “Thank you for coming. I can see this is hard for you.”

“I had to be here,” said Airman Wells. “They wouldn’t let me out of bed, to come to the memorial in the base. Major Fraiser…It’s my fault she’s dead.”

Cassie shook her head. “No it’s not.”

“If I hadn’t been hurt—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Cassie. “You didn’t—” She had to stop herself from saying ‘shoot her.’ There were too many people around who didn’t know how her mother had really died. “You didn’t make the helicopter crash.”

“But if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been there.”

Sam had come over to join them. “She was there because she was a doctor, and an officer, Airman,” she said. “Janet was there because it was her duty as an officer, a physician, and a human being. Even if she had known what was going to happen to her, she still would have been there. That’s the sort of person she was.”

Airman Wells had straightened himself up, like he was coming to attention, on Sam’s approach—not that he had been slouching before. “Yes Major.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Cassie. “I blame— you know.” She looked toward Wells’ wife. “If you feel you have anything to pay back to my mom…pay it forward. Be a good Dad to your baby. Mom couldn’t ask for more.”

“Yes ma’am,” said Wells.

There was a gathering at Cassie’s house after the funeral. She couldn’t help thinking that it really was her house now. It had been ‘hers’ for years, but now she really owned it. Janet Fraiser’s will had left nearly everything to her. Some family heirlooms had gone to her brother and his family, but everything else was Cassie’s now. She didn’t know what she was going to do with any of it.

People came bearing food. More food than could possibly be eaten by them, and the others who had come. Cassie was a little overwhelmed by all the visitors. The SGC must have been running on a skeleton staff, and there were others: people who had known Janet before she joined the SGC; friends from medical school; others who had known her before she joined the military; some of Cassie’s friends from school, and their parents. It was hard keeping them all straight in her head. It was hard to keep repeating the lie about how her mother had died.

Jack and Colonel O’Neill were avoiding each other. It was kind of interesting to see how they always seemed to keep as far away from each other as possible. If one of them entered a room, the other would soon exit it. It was like there was some sort of Conservation of O’Neills law at work. Seeing Colonel O’Neill suddenly break off a conversation with Daniel, and head for the kitchen was all Cassie needed to see to know that Jack had come into the living room from the front hall, so she wasn’t at all surprised to hear him ask “How are you doing?” from behind her.

She turned toward him. “I’m getting kinda tired of people asking me how I’m doing.”

He shrugged at her. “I’m sorry, but it means that you’ve got a lot of people who care about you.”

“I know, but…how am I supposed to answer that? Am I supposed to tell them I’m doing okay, ’cause I really don’t think I am. I mean…sometimes I’m okay, but then I remember that Mom’s gone, and never coming back, and I just want to go cry by myself in a corner, but she wouldn’t want me to do that, so I have to go on, but it’s hard.”

“I know it’s hard,” said Jack, “but it gets easier. Every day it gets a bit easier. You’re always going to miss her, but after a while you stop thinking so much about how bad it is that she isn’t here anymore, and start remembering more about the good times you had together.” He stopped and thought for a bit. “Do you think about your first parents?”

“Of course,” said Cassie.

“What do you remember about them?”

Cassie smiled sadly at him. “Good things… they always made me feel safe. Mommy was always ready with a hug and a kiss when I scraped my knee playing. She made wonderful nobtail soup. She had the sweetest smile. Daddy would carve me toys, from pieces of wood. He was big and strong, and the gentlest man I knew.”

“You still miss them, but their being gone doesn’t hurt as much as it used to,” said Jack. “The same will happen with Janet. You’ll always miss her, but the hurting will get less as time goes by, and soon, you’ll be remembering the happy times you had with her.”

“I guess,” said Cassie.

“Trust me,” said Jack. “It just takes time, and some help from your friends.”

Jack was right. Things did get better, with time. Janet’s funeral had come at the end of the week after her death, and the beginning of the spring break from school. Sam had taken leave to help Cassie with the transition.

Cassie moved in with Sam. Her Uncle Ron had offered to take her back to Baton Rouge, to stay with him and his family, but Cassie wanted to stay in Colorado Springs. All of her friends were there. Her uncle didn’t put up any argument, once he satisfied himself that Sam really wanted Cassie to come live with her permanently. He stayed on another week after his wife and children had returned to their home to help settle Janet’s affairs.

Cassie, Sam and Ron went through the house together, picking out the things that Cassie wanted to take to Sam’s, what Ron wanted to keep, what to put into storage, and what to toss out, or give to Good Will. They decided that the house itself would be rented. Janet had had life insurance on her mortgage, so it belonged to Cassie now, free and clear, so the rent only had to cover the property taxes, and general maintenance costs. There was always someone temporarily assigned to the SGC who was looking for an affordable place to stay, and renting the house to one them meant that Sam would be able to do a much more thorough background check on any prospective tenant than if they rented it to a member of the general public.

Cassie threw herself into her school work and training, after the spring break was over. Anything to keep her mind off how much she was missing her mother. In addition to her regular school work, there was the extra paperwork needed for her college applications. She had applied to several, including Colorado State, Stanford and Caltech, plus, with Council support, she had applied to Oxford and Cambridge in England.

She wasn’t alone applying to the English universities. Jack applied to them too. It hadn’t been easy explaining Jack to the Council. Part of his knowledge of things military had been explained by the history that the SGC had manufactured for him. According to it, he was an Air Force Brat, and had travelled all over the world with his father as he had moved from one posting to another. He had picked up bits of several languages during that time, as well as learning things like how to handle weapons, and fly an airplane. Jack was a little miffed that the SGC hadn’t supplied him with a pilot’s license that actually matched his qualifications, but it would be a bit difficult to explain how a seventeen year old kid managed to get in enough flying hours to earn instrument and multi-engine ratings, to say nothing about flying Air Force jets (and a space ship or two.) Major Davis had told him that he should be happy with the private pilot’s license they’d given him.

Cassie started going out evenings, to patrol the cemeteries. Sam didn’t like it, but she was away too often to stop her, and had realized the futility of trying. So they had come to a compromise: Jack came along with her.

He was good company for the mood she was in. He knew when to keep quiet, and he also seemed to know when he should say something: a joke or a sarcastic comment, when she was slipping too deep into broodiness.

He also didn’t let her just wander around at random. He prepared maps of the areas that they wanted to patrol, and they planned each evening before going out. They developed a routine which ensured that each of the local cemeteries, parks, and warehouse districts was checked on a regular basis, but not too regular. They kept changing the order around so that if anyone was observing her, they wouldn’t be able to predict her future movements. He taught her the hand signals to use so they could communicate silently with each other when out on patrol.

Cassie always stopped by her mother’s grave, on the nights that their patrols took them to that cemetery. It seemed a little silly to her, but she always told her mother how things had been going. How things were with school, what Sam told her about what was happening with the SGC, how three different guys had asked her to the Prom, though she hadn’t decided if she was going or not. It made her feel better to be able to say those things, even though her mother couldn’t hear her anymore. But there was a chance that she could. She knew from both Daniel’s experience, and from what she learned from the Council, that sometimes the dead could still look in on the living.

Most of her nightly patrols were just an opportunity to burn off a little excess energy, while having time to sort through her feelings about how everything had changed in the last year. It had been nearly a year now since she had first heard the call. A year in which her entire life had been turned upside down. A year ago, she’d have been at home most evenings, doing her homework, talking about guys on the phone with her friends. Telling her mom how her day had been. She still did her homework, and talked about guys with her friends, but after that she went out to patrol the local cemeteries. Now she talked to her mother’s tombstone.

Jack always gave her lots of space when she stopped by her mother’s grave. She knew that he understood how she felt. There were graves that he visited too: Charlie O’Neill’s, Charles Kawalsky’s, graves of other people who had died in the service of the SGC. He sometimes had some things to say to the dead as well.

Tonight they weren’t in any of the cemeteries that held any of their ghosts. They were checking out some old factories near the airport, looking for any sign that something might have taken up residence there. They had been here on other nights, and found nothing, but Cassie had a feeling that that was about to change. She couldn’t explain why, but she somehow knew that tonight would be different.

She and Jack were moving quietly through an alley between a couple of abandoned warehouses when she felt it: the same chill she had felt in that cemetery in Cleveland. She knew that there was a vampire nearby. Maybe more than one. She signalled for Jack to stop. She stood in the alley, trying to feel where the vampires were. The feeling seemed to be coming from the building to her left. She signalled for Jack to wait where he was, and climbed swiftly up a pile of crates, to look in a window.

The glass was too coated with grime to see anything through, but there was a broken pane in the window that gave her a clear view of the interior. It also let her hear what was being said inside.

“Why have we come here?” asked one voice. “This town is dead.”

“Exactly,” said a second voice. “We can lay low here for a month or two. Once things blow over in L.A., we can go back.”

“But why here? Why not go someplace fun? I hear that things are picking up in Cleveland.”

“Yeah, and every vamp that goes anywhere near there ends up dust inside a week. There’s nothing in Colorado Springs. We can lay low here for a while, clean a few homeless people off the streets, and wait for whatever’s going down between Black Thorn, and Wolfram and Hart to blow over.”

Cassie could see the two vampires, in the middle of the warehouse floor. She couldn’t see anyone else. She reached out with her other senses, feeling for anything else, but she felt nothing. There was just the two of them.

“This’ll be a good place for us to hole up, during the day.” The vampire that seemed to be the leader of the two pointed to the floor. “Look at all the dust. No one’s been in here for ages. We can cover up the office windows, not have to worry about any sunlight getting to us.”

“I’d feel better someplace underground.”

“Get over it. Most places don’t have the sort of sewer system L.A. has. Now come on, let’s check out the office, and see what we need to make it habitable. Then we can go out and look for something to eat before dawn.”

Cassie jumped back down to the ground, and told Jack what she’d heard. “There’s only two of them,” she whispered. “We can take them, easy.”

“I wish I had more than a stick to use as a weapon,” said Jack.

“Guns don’t work on vamps.”

“I know, but I’d like to see what a zat does to them. Maybe I can get Carter to swipe one for me.”

“How’s she supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. She’s the genius. She can figure it out.”

“Later,” said Cassie. “Right now, we have to take care of these vamps.”

“We need a plan,” said Jack. “Maybe some backup.”

“There’s no time for backup, they were talking about going out to get something to eat tonight, and I have a plan.” Cassie started to run down the alley.

“Oh for crying out loud!” she heard Jack mutter behind her, before he followed her.

Cassie found the door with a broken lock that the vampires had used to get into the warehouse. She waited there for Jack to catch up with her. “So, what’s your plan?” he asked. “Ambush them when they come out?”

“Nope. They might use a different door.” Cassie took a stake from her pocket, and held it so it was concealed by her arm. She pushed the door open, and strode into the warehouse, making no effort to be the least bit stealthy. “What do you think Jack?” she called loudly. “Would this place be great for our rave, or what?”

“Ah…I don’t know,” said Jack, looking confused for a second. “The lighting kinda sucks.”

“That’s what the glow sticks are for!” said Cassie.

“Can we get power for the amps?”

“What are you kids doing here?”

Cassie turned toward the vampire. “Oh! I didn’t think anyone was here!”

The vampire smiled at her. She could tell it was thinking that it wouldn’t have to go out for dinner after all. “Me and my friend were looking the place over. We need a space to store some construction equipment.”

Cassie tried to look disappointed. “Oh…when are you going to be moving in?” She moved a little hesitantly toward the vampire, trying not to look like she was anxious to close the space between them. She hoped to get close to both the vamps before she made her move, but they weren’t cooperating. The other vamp was moving to cut them off from the door, to keep them from running.

“Not for a couple of weeks.” The vampire gave her a friendly smile. “I’m sure we can work something out for your party.” He reached out toward her. “Why don’t we go into the office to discuss it?”

Cassie was close enough now. “I don’t think so.” Her hand snapped out, plunging her stake into the middle of its chest. The vampire screamed as it turned to dust. Cassie felt her stake disintegrate in her hand.

The second vampire snarled, and charged at Jack, its face changing as it came. It leapt the last six feet, reaching out toward him with hands like claws. Jack didn’t have time to get his stake out. Instead he seized the vampire’s arm, and pivoted, using the vamp’s own momentum to turn its leap into a hard slam down onto the concrete floor, with Jack landing on top of it. It would have knocked the wind out of a living man, but the vampire barely seemed to notice. It grabbed at Jack, and pulled his neck down toward its fangs. Jack hit the vamp with a head butt, and broke its hold on him. He tried to scramble away, but the vamp caught his jacket, and pulled him back down.

Cassie grabbed the vampire from behind, pulling it away from Jack. It tried to pull away from her, but she managed to hold it with one of its arms twisted up behind its back, and with her arm clamped around its throat. It tried to claw at her with its free hand, but it couldn’t get hold of her.

“Stake it Jack!”

Jack had finally managed to get his stake out, and he stabbed it into the vampire’s chest. It exploded into dust in her arms.

Cassie coughed, and slapped vampire dust from her clothes. She saw Jack glaring at her. “What?”

“Next time, please tell me the plan, before you go charging in.”