The Return, The Merge, and Other Such Things...

[withamagicword]

From here:

The portal led them into the grey of Otherwhere and Billy clutched Cassie to his chest, their minds still newly linked and pulsing with the power of it.

They flew, together, toward where a point of light stretched slowly into a door.

He stopped, moments short of it, and kissed her.

::I love you::

It was hard to tell who had initiated or spoke the words, for they were so intertwined.

The smile they shared was open and calm and with a nod, they moved again toward the door.

And then, they were there and Billy reached out to open it.

When the door opened, both stared, shocked.

Cassandra stood there, smiling, and looking eminently relieved at their arrival.

Billy eyed her, even as he reached to Cassie.

::Is this as weird to you as meeting one of my own other selves was to me?::

Cassie blinked, startled that this old woman felt.. familiar in some way?

::Just..a bit.::

Cassandra let out a sigh of relief as she looked from one to the other. Her eyes twinkled.

“It worked. I'm so glad.”

She stepped closer to the pair.

::My last gift to you: understanding.::

And before either could react, the edges around Cassandra blurred slightly, she stepped into Billy and Cassie and seemed to dissolve.

Cassie’s newly healed skin glowed for a moment.

“Wha-“

“Gauugh~” Cassie’s eyes rolled back in her head somewhat as close to one thousand years worth of information and memories suddenly merge with her mind. Her brain felt like it reached capacity - and kept going. And just as she felt like she would go mad with the sheer enormity of it, her body went completely limp in Billy’s arms.

Billy's mind exploded as the information dump hit him and he realized, through a haze, what had happened.

Frantically he began weaving a teleportation spell, looking up and seeing Sam and Janet. He extended his powers as far as he could, looping it around them as well, as it took effect, and there was a flash of light.

And then, the area in front of the door was empty and the door shut.

In Billy's room's, light exploded outward, sending Rena scurrying for cover as Billy and the others appeared. Billy staggered, feeling all the confusion and overload hit him, as well as all the magic he had expended today. He staggered to the couch and put Cassie down slowly and managed to turn toward Sam and Janet, barely.

"I'm sorry-" was all he managed to get out before the darkness swam up and drew him down into nothing.

Comments

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam swoons slightly, disoriented, and catches herself before she falls. It reminds her of the first time she went through the stargate - how it was before they recalibrated to the years of drifting.

She goes over to where Billy Captain Marvel collapsed. She peeeeeeers at him carefully and gently taps his boot with her shoe.

"...Is that Billy?"

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

Janet was in silent shock the entire that the...whatever it was, was happening.

She crouched down next to Cassie on the couch, making sure she was unhurt, checking her pulse. Just sleeping, it looked like.

"Well, whoever he is, he should be okay. He just passed out."

She tries to move him to be more comfortable but he's heavier than he looks. She gets a pillow for his head.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

"We might should get something else for Cassie.."
Sam coughs a bit. The sheet wasn't really covering much.
"I could go downstairs and get something.."

Pause.

"If I knew what to get.."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

"Maybe Billy has extra blankets and pillows somewhere," Janet wonders, looking for something that would resemble a closet.

She disappears into his room, returning a couple minutes later.

"That's funny, this blanket looks almost like the one Cassie has."

It's really an interesting observation.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam looks up and raises an eyebrow. "Huh.
Well, I guess he could have one like hers. Especially with all of that.. stuff he can do.

Where'd you find it?"

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

"On the bed," she shrugs, handing the extra pillows she grabbed over to Sam and heading to the couch to wrap Cassie up in the blanket.

"Look, it's even got that small tear in the corner," she points out to Sam. "Do you think Cassie might have given this to Billy?"

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam begins to place a pillow or two under Cassie's head, and another one under's Billy's as well.
"Well.. I suppose she might've.

Although she's always been attached to it. That's the one you gave her right after she moved in with you isn't it?"

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, it is."

Pause.

"She's always had it with her. She lost it for a days one time, I didn't think I'd ever get her to calm down."

She tucks Cassie in extra tight.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam smoothes back a stray strand of Cassie's hair. "She's grown up a lot since she first came to Earth."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

Janet smiles softly, sitting down next to Cassie on the couch.

"I remember how quiet she was when I first brought her home," janet laughs. "Kind of hard to believe that now."

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

"I know. Every night when you called you sounded so worried. And remember how difficult it was for her to adjust at first? I thought you were going to come to your wits end before you got her into a bathtub."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

"I think it was Dog and this blanket that helped her adjust while the rest of you were working."

Janet looks down at Cassie and takes one of her hands.

"I just want to know what happened," she says quietly, mostly to herself.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam looks at Cassie, and then at the Billy she didn't recognize. "-to both of them."
After years of working in life or death situations, she's an expert on keeping her expression calm, but her eyes are troubled.

"I don't think we're going to be able to figure anything out before one of them wake up. But they seem to be okay.
Billy left saying that Cassie was hurt but she doesn't look hurt to me. He might have a way of healing her injuries.
Either way it's all speculation at this point."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

"You're right," Janet says quietly, not looking up from Cassie.

Once again she's faced with her patients being her own family.

"It's been a tiring day," Janet sighs, standing up. "I'll be right back," she tells Sam, heading into the bathroom to splash some water on her face.

As she dries her face, she notices some rather...girly shampoo in the shower.

Huh.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Each to his own?

Sam went into the kitchen to fix some coffee. Coffee's the best thing in the SGC cafeteria - it's almost impossible to not become addicted.
Coffee filters, coffee filters.. She opens a few cabinets and hopes they'll be somewhere in the front. Noodles, pots, spices, apple spice tea, plates... Coffee filters shouldn't be that har-
Wait. Apple spice tea? She goes back a cabinet. Huh. Maybe Cassie converted Billy to her favorite tea.
Ah! Coffee Filters!

She pulls them out from behind the tea and before long she's pouring coffee into red mug and a star mug.

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

Janet gets a closer look at the brand. Hmmm. Cassie's favorite.

The blanket could be easily explained but this...

Janet seems to be connecting the dots very quickly.

Janet heads out of the bathroom, follwing the sounds into the kitchen to find Sam.

"Did you know Cassie's shampoo was in the bathroom?"

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

"Mm?" Sam looks up, then turns around and hands Janet the star mug, still steaming.

"Cassie's shampoo's in the bathroom?"

Sam frowns and looks thoughtful for a moment.
"And her tea's in the cabinet.."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

Janet nods in thanks.

"Not to mention the blanket." Pause. "Did you notice her spending a lot of time here?"

Especially during those three weeks Janet was locked out of the bar.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam nods. "A lot of time.

In the beginning she and Billy were painting so they had reason but even after that..


I hardly see her around anymore.




Although she comes home at night.."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

"Well, that's something..." Janet thinks over this news.

"Well, it makes sense, Billy is her boyfriend," she still has to ask though, with Cassie's history... "Do you think it's serious?"

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam's silent as she thinks carefully.

"After you died.. Well, you know about her guilt. Sometimes she and I would talk about it. One of the things that she felt the worst about was her boyfriends. She admitted the reason she went out with them was to upset you - just like you thought. And the other things..


She hasn't dated anyone. Well, not until Billy. In fact she compltely ignored the male species as if it were plagued..at least, that's how her roomate acted.

I think that Billy must be different and special or it wouldn't have gone anywhere, much less this far. And because of her mistakes before it doesn't suprise me that she is hesitant to tell us about Billy..or how serious it is or any of that. You know that by the third boyfriend we basically were expecting the same as the other two.

She hasn't talked to me about him, not recently anyway, but every once in awhile when she thinks I'm not looking I'll catch her looking off into space with this secret smile on her face.
Her attitude and mood has improved so much since coming to Milliways but recently there's something else there. Something new. She seems happier and more peaceful than she was..even before."

[bedside-manners.livejournal.com]

Janet should have realized it, should have payed more attention expecially when she met Billy and found out he wasn't at all like Cassie's other boyfriends.

She hadn't known what to look for. She did notice how happy Cassie was though.

"I felt that there was something different about this one," she grinned.

[smart-sam.livejournal.com]

Sam looks over to where a healed Cassie and a older Billy lay and laughs.
"I would say there is definitely something different about this one." She squeezes Janet's shoulders gently.
"We'll just have to trust her."

She grins.
"And drink coffee while we wait for them to wake up and tell us what happened!"

They head over to the table to talk, reminisce, laugh.. and devour several pots of coffee as they wait for morning.

FTB