Cassandra's Very Long Story
Cassandra had caused a split in her and Cassie’s timelines the moment she walked into room seven.
That had been her intention.
In her time, she had gone back to school and almost immediately after she realized she was trapped Captain Marvel appeared. He’d felt her despair through their link and nothing was going to keep him from her. Billy stayed with her, with an occasional trip back to Milliways, for the rest of the semester. They took much pleasure in decorating their house together and they started school together in the fall like they’d planned.
After Cassandra (who was still called Cassie) graduated, she and Billy had a formal wedding ceremony in Milliways - at least partly to make Janet happy. At the reception Jack (who had made it back to Milliways) surprised Cassie with a job offer at the SGC as an assistant. She made a comment about the timing of the military, and after discussing it with Billy, accepted.
Over the next years, she and Billy settled into a routine of him being in school and her working for the SGC. She talked with him about her work and asked for advice (often to the chagrin of her superiors) and more times than not he thought of things that no one else had. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, that after he graduated he too got a visit from “Uncle Jack” with a bit of humble pie and a job offer as a technician and consultant.
Although neither of them started out as an SG team member, after quite a few years, they became one. They were both placed on separate teams, which they didn’t like much, but they were used to working apart. Very few people knew about Billy’s wizard skills or his Captain Marvel abilities, and the same very few people knew about Cassie being born on another planet or that her race was used to create a genetically advanced human with special abilities. After Billy’s body caught up with Captain Marvel and the two joined, his team began to report miraculous things that they couldn’t explain: an enemy ship would suddenly be disabled, a species that was hostile with the previous team was more than cooperative, or finding a radar plane they had given up on. They were considered to be the lucky team, which amused William and Cassie to no end.
Time passed slowly, with threats to Earth rising up and being defeated. The SGC went through several management changes - some better than others. One of Jack’s last official acts before he retired (for the final time) was to push for Sam to head the SGC program. She could have too, but she refused it, saying she was a scientist, not an administrator. The position eventually went to Sheppard, and SG-1 as it had been, was disbanded. Teal’c had been getting pressure to spend more time with his people, and Daniel and Sam wanted more time with their respective studies.
Cassie spent quite a bit of the time she wasn’t off world in Sam’s lab learning as much as she could about alien technology and how the base worked. By the time Sam (semi) retired, Cassie knew almost as much as she did about..well, almost everything.
This came in handy on more than a few occasions, too. More than one foothold situations and alien invasions were either prevented or stopped before they reached a crisis level by the joint efforts of Cassie and William. And since most people who had known their secrets were either retired or dead, their calling attention to themselves was not always a good thing. But they always managed to scrape by.
At some point William preformed a spell that slowed down Cassie’s aging process. He did not intend to make her immortal, but as a result of the spell she would probably live several thousand years. It also made her less likely to get hurt -- bullets might move slightly to avoid her, although she could still be shot.
After several seemingly random ambushes and casualties on various planets, more pressure was put on the president to shut down the Stargate program. The president, in order to pacify the civilian consults, ordered that all SG teams travel with a well trained medic. This stirred a bit of chaos into the state of affairs since there were more teams than “well trained medics,” and the best doctors needed to stay on the base in case of emergency. Cassie, and a few other people who had been medics before they joined SG teams, were pulled from their team. The teams were shuffled a bit and medics were assigned to each team.
William’s team was set to go on a routine scouting mission on an agrarian planet of a race called the Sren. The medic assigned to their team was, ironically, ill and so Cassie was sent to go instead. They found some interesting ruins that were photographed to be taken back to the base. Cassie noticed William skirting around the outside of the ruins and began walking up to him to see if he was alright when she saw a figure dart out behind the trees, grab him, and pull him away as if he didn’t weigh anything. She cried out and ran where she last saw the figure, but it, and William, were completely gone from sight. She could feel a burst of shock and panic from William fling across the link, and then that, too, was completely gone. Cassie yelled at the rest of the team and told them what she could. They split up and began searching. After three hours, Cassie felt the link between herself and William suddenly reactivate. She knew immediately something was wrong; he felt different. She tried to control her mounting panic as she ran and called the rest of the team to tell them William was at the Stargate.
Cassie and the best doctors the SGC had ever seen ran as many tests as they knew how to run as soon as the team brought William’s unconscious body back. They concluded that although he seemed fine otherwise, his brain seemed to be much more active than it should be. Cassie sat with him and talked to him and kissed his face for several days. The other doctors told her whenever they found out anything new..but the only thing they could tell is that his brain seemed to be changing. She agreed, for the link felt much different than it ever had.
When William finally awoke, Cassie was there and she hugged him happily. He seemed confused and disoriented, and shrugged her away. He began to speak a strange language and she blinked. He began to speak more passionately and anger began to shoot across the link. Confused, she tried to soothe him, but that only made it worse. She pressed the call button and several nurses arrived. She asked for a doctor, the best linguist on the base at the moment, and a phone. The doctor and the linguist arrived around the same time, both equally baffled. With the phone Cassie called Daniel, who was now living in Rome. Daniel and several younger linguists worked together around the clock to decode the language William was speaking in. It took several days for them to make any real progress. Daniel had barely gotten the words “I think I’ve got it!” out of his mouth before the mountain shook and alarms and warning lights started going off.
In the days and weeks that followed, Earth was under almost constant attack by a race SGC intelligence had never heard of called the Molkon. Cassie was very grateful for the distraction as any time she entered William’s room he seemed to become more agitated and she was asked in quiet tones to leave. The SGC resources were split between fighting the Molkon and trying to keep riots from breaking out. They, obviously, could no longer keep the Stargate program a secret and the public discovering the Stargate program due to a relentless attack on earth is probably the surest way to incite panic and paranoia - which is exactly what happened. After a few weeks Daniel came to Cassie and she could tell by his face that it wasn’t good. He told her that the Sren, in an attempt to communicate, had imprinted their language, culture, and an impressive amount of their history on his brain. Although William remembered who he was, and the basics of his life, his whole feelings about it had changed. It was as if he had grown up in that culture. They apparently had very different feelings about women and although he remembered marrying Cassie, and remembered how he had felt about her, none of it made any sense to him any more. The whole thought of it seemed to make him somewhat repulsed. Daniel went into a rambly cultural discussion about how the same attitude appeared in some tribes in the Middle East, as well as some parts of Africa, but Cassie was no longer listening. At some point Daniel noticed Cassie’s spaced out look and tried to reassure her that they were going to do everything they could to get the real William back.
Cassie put all of herself into defending the planet, but as weeks progressed.. Daniel’s team was losing hope. No one had told her, but she could tell. When she saw them in the hallways, they wouldn’t meet her eyes. She observed them, and although William could once again speak English, that was the only sign of progress they’d made in several months. William was also being even less cooperative than before. He threw things, or did not talk at all. Cassie watched, thinking that William was acting like a caged animal. What she didn’t understand, then, is if he wanted to leave, why he didn’t. It isn’t like a few soldiers could stop Captain Marvel from leaving if he really wanted to. But she couldn’t ask him, and few others knew.
Meanwhile, Earth was losing the war. Millions of people had been killed, including several of the best SG teams. And after William’s team was basically slaughtered at the start of the war, everyone else was shaken almost to the point of inactivity.
Cassie was going by William’s room on one of her late nights and when she reached the door to the observation room, she noticed the guards were gone. She didn’t even bother looking inside, but ran to the gate room, pressing an ‘intruder alert’ button on the way. The gate room was locked and she pressed in several combinations before finally just bypassing the system. She got it open in just enough time to watch William go through the Stargate and the wormhole close.
When she was asked about it later, she explained that even though she went up to the control room right after, William had programmed the computers. He knew how to get around the security, and knew how to program it to not record a dial-out. A good portion of those in charge seemed relieved that he was gone. He was a drain on resources - something they could not handle right now. Those who were concerned about him were only concerned that he was a risk to security. Even Daniel, who felt for Cassie, seemed somewhat relieved.
Cassie watched everyone give up, and understood their reasons. After some time, though, she’d had enough of it. Science did this, and science could fix it. Over several weeks she planned what she would need to take: some basic medical and science supplies, food, and her laptop. The only personal items were a picture of herself and Billy taken in Milliways before they were married, the anklet Prue had given them so long ago with almost fifty years of memories, a cat named Cal mah, and her wedding ring. After everything was packed and ready, she followed William’s plan and left during the middle of the night when security was low. Even though they had tightened security and made new pathways in the computer, Sam had taught Cassie some tricks that no one else knew about, and William had showed her a few things. And taking out security with a zat gun, especially security that is not expecting anything from you, is not as difficult as it should be.
Over the next few months she went to several different planets, mostly to throw anyone off her trail who might be following her. But eventually she went back to the Sren home world. She was greeted at the gate and led to a large city. After a talk with a rather disturbing, tall man, William came in the room. Cassie had almost completely forgotten about the link since it had almost gone dormant in his last weeks in his last weeks in the SGC. But apparently it was not completely gone because when he entered the room Cassie felt waves of displeasure and anger build up in him. She talked with him for several hours, but he seemed to talk in circles and nothing made any sense to Cassie. Everything she said to try to persuade him just upset him further, until he stormed out of the room and the tall man told Cassie that if she was found bothering any member of their society again she would be punished as severely as their law allowed. Cassie, quite disheartened, was escorted to the gate. When they asked her where to dial she received a flash of clarity and she asked if there was a planet that was interested in trade. They nodded and dialed.
She went to the planet, just planning on finding a place to sleep. However soon after she arrived she felt something happening with the link between her and William - like someone was fiddling with it. Then, like a knife being raised and then slammed onto the butcher’s block, the link seemed to crescendo to fill her consciousness and then slam down shut into nothingness. She staggered, and lost consciousness. After a few days she woke up to friendly and concerned faces. They asked her many questions, but she answered only one. “I’m Cassandra. Just Cassandra.”
Cassandra worked in what was the all-go-to place. It was used mostly a tavern, however it was also where the most current information about anything anywhere could be found, and some of the best trades on the planet were made there. The owner’s wife more or less took her in, although she said that Cassandra reminded her of her mother. Cassandra used the situation as best she could to her advantage. She sought any kind of information, and found that sometimes people would pay her as highly for her information as they would the ale. Mostly she sought information about the Sren and any type of technology that might help her fight them. She told no one about her past, and quickly got the reputation of being the old, mysterious woman. Information came slowly, and technology even slower. The townspeople became suspicious that Cassandra had lived with them for one full generation and yet hadn’t seemed to age. She had overstayed her welcome.
She went to another planet she’d heard of, and found a similar operation. She had her own booth, but there was a lot of gossip swapping between the venders. She lived there happily for several years until one day she felt the familiar although unusual presence of a Goa’uld. After arming herself she walked around carefully, and discovered a Tok’ra she’d met many years earlier when working at the SGC. They greeted and Cassandra could tell things weren’t good. She decided to shut down her booth for the rest of her day to catch up. He told her that after she left the war effort basically fell completely apart. They had infiltrated any defense Earth had. Then a secret intelligence was acquired that mentioned a nano-virus and the evacuations began. Not even a full day of evacuations was completed before an airborne toxin was released that was especially designed to kill humans, and only humans. The day following they sent troops down to personally kill anyone left. It was slaughter. Everyone who was left from Earth was assembled at the Alpha and Beta site - perhaps three thousand people. Cassandra took all this information in, surprisingly detached from it. She was curious if there was anything left of Earth, and if anyone was living there. He, however, wasn’t sure. He had come expecting to negotiate for a deuterium alloy, not run into Cassandra. Although he urged her to come back with him, she resisted, but encouraged him or anyone else to come and visit her.
A few years passed before she heard anything else about Earth. Apparently the toxin was still in the air, and although they were working on something to counteract it, they had been unsuccessful so far. And to everyone’s knowledge, Earth was uninhabited by any other alien presence. All the information she found out about the Sren was most discouraging. They, apparently, did this from time to time, although no one understood why, and no one had ever been able to get anyone back to their original state after having their brain’s transformed by the aliens.
Rumors were starting to flow again about how old Cassandra was, signaling her need to move, and the day before she had decided to head out a man from a very remote part of space arrived. He claimed to have traveled through three galaxies and seen civilizations rise and fall in an instant. Cassandra was one to ignore his talk as idle boasting, until he pulled out the tablets. No one else was paying him any mind, and so she eased over to the table to take a closer look. She could not fully understand what the tablets were talking about in one glance, but she was fairly certain that he was not just boasting. And that, quite possibly, he hadn’t really understood what he had and the potential he held. There was also the potential it was drunken scribbles, but that was the chance you took. She traded some of her finest items for it, and left earlier than she’d planned. She felt that, somehow, she’d found what she had been looking for.
She had acquired a small cargo ship and for quite a few years she roamed - keeping mostly to herself, trading for supplies when she needed to, and occasionally taking the persistent job offers to be a bounty hunter. Her employer would have made her full time if she’d let him, she, apparently, had a knack for finding things and people that people wanted to keep hidden. She, however, wasn’t thrilled that she was working for him at all, and so she only took jobs when either she or he was really desperate. She refused to get in the middle of wars, or do something that would devastate a civilization - in this way she was holding to her principles. But, mostly, her philosophy was the less she knew the better.
In her spare time she worked on the tablets. The difficulty was that it seemed to not only be written in another language, but also in code.
Nevertheless, over time, she made progress. (Admittedly, the self-proclaimed linguist she captured on one of her “missions” helped a great deal) And thus she made her way to another planet, in search of tablets that “told tales of this universe and another - and of the shred between the two.”
The description of the planet where the new tablets was somewhat unclear, and Cassandra visited several planets in her search. She found the people on the fourth planet to be quite hospitable and helpful. They invited her to stay with them and showed her special attention, saying she was their honored guest. They called themselves the Balrati. After dealing with many different cultures and having never found one to be quite this welcoming, Cassandra was somewhat wary of them. And so when, after two weeks, she found out they were a telepaths, she felt her suspicion was justified and got ready to leave. Their representative intercepted her and pleaded with her to let them explain themselves. They, as a culture, did not usually welcome outsiders, especially non-telepaths. However, when they meet Cassandra, they sensed a latent telepathic ability. For this reason, they allowed her to stay and were willing to help her find what she came for. They were also interested in helping bring her abilities to the surface. Cassandra argued with them at first, telling the representative and governor that Nirrti had gotten rid of her abilities, but they showed her that, indeed, her abilities were still there. The next few months were spent trying to get her abilities active and getting used to them. She also spent a fair amount of time with the scientists of that world, learning and sharing technology. After a time, the tablets Cassandra came after were found and translated. To Cassandra’s astonishment, the tablets were a written record of the events on Earth. They followed the SGC from its establishment up through when the Molkon attacked, with amazing accuracy and somewhat of a distant point of view. The tablets explained that the Molkons attack was never supposed to get that far. Once the Molkons achieved their goal of annihilating the human race, not only did the two universes split as they should, but there was a tear.
Cassandra discussed the tablets with the Balrti. After much discussion it was decided that no matter the possible consequences, a tear between universes is nothing to mess around with and it must be fixed. Logically, they reasoned, the best way to change the past is to travel into the past. They just needed to find a way to do so - and control the conditions.
For many years Cassandra worked with the Balrti. They did many experiments with alternate universes using something similar to a Quantum mirror. Some years were more productive than others. After a time she decided she had as much as she enjoyed the Balrti’s company, she needed to return to Earth. She took her ship, and found that although most of the vegetation and wildlife had grown back, the world was still largely uninhabitable due to the biochemical warfare. Cassandra believed, however, that the toxin still in the atmosphere had an antidote. She took a sample and discovered the antidote was fairly easy to devise, especially compared to what she’d been working on. She produced enough to distribute it within Cheyenne Mountain, and began work to make things livable.
After Cassandra had been living at the SGC for many years, the humans came back to reclaim Earth. Cassandra didn’t mind humans living on Earth - humans should live on Earth. However, she needed the Stargate and the SGC in order to save Earth and the human race. And minimal interference from outsiders. She argued with those in charge, but a compromise was reached. They would allow her to use the SGC and the Stargate, but she would submit to regular checkups at their choosing. Since she was hoping to not be there that much longer, she figured this could be doable.
Cassandra had many ideas about what event, or events, would change the outcome of the Molkon attack. She believed that several small things needed to change and then one big thing.
The small things were actually harder to accomplish. For each jump into the past the measurements need to be precise, but in order to accomplish little things nothing else could change. That means that measurements had to be perfect and required years to calculate and test and redo and simulate and redo.
Eventually, Cassandra finished all of the small changes and she began to calculate for the big change - Billy. Captain Marvel, she reasoned, would have made a huge difference in the attack. William did not fight the Molkon because of what happened on the Sren home world. If she prevented what happened on the Sren home world then hopefully, that would fix everything. She thought that if she had her powers when William had been captured that would have made a difference. Certainly if she had known then what she knew now - that would make a significant difference. So, her plan became to find a time in her past traumatic enough that her powers would have activated. Go back and change the past - to save the Earth, yes. But mainly to save herself and Billy.
That had been her intention.
In her time, she had gone back to school and almost immediately after she realized she was trapped Captain Marvel appeared. He’d felt her despair through their link and nothing was going to keep him from her. Billy stayed with her, with an occasional trip back to Milliways, for the rest of the semester. They took much pleasure in decorating their house together and they started school together in the fall like they’d planned.
After Cassandra (who was still called Cassie) graduated, she and Billy had a formal wedding ceremony in Milliways - at least partly to make Janet happy. At the reception Jack (who had made it back to Milliways) surprised Cassie with a job offer at the SGC as an assistant. She made a comment about the timing of the military, and after discussing it with Billy, accepted.
Over the next years, she and Billy settled into a routine of him being in school and her working for the SGC. She talked with him about her work and asked for advice (often to the chagrin of her superiors) and more times than not he thought of things that no one else had. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, that after he graduated he too got a visit from “Uncle Jack” with a bit of humble pie and a job offer as a technician and consultant.
Although neither of them started out as an SG team member, after quite a few years, they became one. They were both placed on separate teams, which they didn’t like much, but they were used to working apart. Very few people knew about Billy’s wizard skills or his Captain Marvel abilities, and the same very few people knew about Cassie being born on another planet or that her race was used to create a genetically advanced human with special abilities. After Billy’s body caught up with Captain Marvel and the two joined, his team began to report miraculous things that they couldn’t explain: an enemy ship would suddenly be disabled, a species that was hostile with the previous team was more than cooperative, or finding a radar plane they had given up on. They were considered to be the lucky team, which amused William and Cassie to no end.
Time passed slowly, with threats to Earth rising up and being defeated. The SGC went through several management changes - some better than others. One of Jack’s last official acts before he retired (for the final time) was to push for Sam to head the SGC program. She could have too, but she refused it, saying she was a scientist, not an administrator. The position eventually went to Sheppard, and SG-1 as it had been, was disbanded. Teal’c had been getting pressure to spend more time with his people, and Daniel and Sam wanted more time with their respective studies.
Cassie spent quite a bit of the time she wasn’t off world in Sam’s lab learning as much as she could about alien technology and how the base worked. By the time Sam (semi) retired, Cassie knew almost as much as she did about..well, almost everything.
This came in handy on more than a few occasions, too. More than one foothold situations and alien invasions were either prevented or stopped before they reached a crisis level by the joint efforts of Cassie and William. And since most people who had known their secrets were either retired or dead, their calling attention to themselves was not always a good thing. But they always managed to scrape by.
At some point William preformed a spell that slowed down Cassie’s aging process. He did not intend to make her immortal, but as a result of the spell she would probably live several thousand years. It also made her less likely to get hurt -- bullets might move slightly to avoid her, although she could still be shot.
After several seemingly random ambushes and casualties on various planets, more pressure was put on the president to shut down the Stargate program. The president, in order to pacify the civilian consults, ordered that all SG teams travel with a well trained medic. This stirred a bit of chaos into the state of affairs since there were more teams than “well trained medics,” and the best doctors needed to stay on the base in case of emergency. Cassie, and a few other people who had been medics before they joined SG teams, were pulled from their team. The teams were shuffled a bit and medics were assigned to each team.
William’s team was set to go on a routine scouting mission on an agrarian planet of a race called the Sren. The medic assigned to their team was, ironically, ill and so Cassie was sent to go instead. They found some interesting ruins that were photographed to be taken back to the base. Cassie noticed William skirting around the outside of the ruins and began walking up to him to see if he was alright when she saw a figure dart out behind the trees, grab him, and pull him away as if he didn’t weigh anything. She cried out and ran where she last saw the figure, but it, and William, were completely gone from sight. She could feel a burst of shock and panic from William fling across the link, and then that, too, was completely gone. Cassie yelled at the rest of the team and told them what she could. They split up and began searching. After three hours, Cassie felt the link between herself and William suddenly reactivate. She knew immediately something was wrong; he felt different. She tried to control her mounting panic as she ran and called the rest of the team to tell them William was at the Stargate.
Cassie and the best doctors the SGC had ever seen ran as many tests as they knew how to run as soon as the team brought William’s unconscious body back. They concluded that although he seemed fine otherwise, his brain seemed to be much more active than it should be. Cassie sat with him and talked to him and kissed his face for several days. The other doctors told her whenever they found out anything new..but the only thing they could tell is that his brain seemed to be changing. She agreed, for the link felt much different than it ever had.
When William finally awoke, Cassie was there and she hugged him happily. He seemed confused and disoriented, and shrugged her away. He began to speak a strange language and she blinked. He began to speak more passionately and anger began to shoot across the link. Confused, she tried to soothe him, but that only made it worse. She pressed the call button and several nurses arrived. She asked for a doctor, the best linguist on the base at the moment, and a phone. The doctor and the linguist arrived around the same time, both equally baffled. With the phone Cassie called Daniel, who was now living in Rome. Daniel and several younger linguists worked together around the clock to decode the language William was speaking in. It took several days for them to make any real progress. Daniel had barely gotten the words “I think I’ve got it!” out of his mouth before the mountain shook and alarms and warning lights started going off.
In the days and weeks that followed, Earth was under almost constant attack by a race SGC intelligence had never heard of called the Molkon. Cassie was very grateful for the distraction as any time she entered William’s room he seemed to become more agitated and she was asked in quiet tones to leave. The SGC resources were split between fighting the Molkon and trying to keep riots from breaking out. They, obviously, could no longer keep the Stargate program a secret and the public discovering the Stargate program due to a relentless attack on earth is probably the surest way to incite panic and paranoia - which is exactly what happened. After a few weeks Daniel came to Cassie and she could tell by his face that it wasn’t good. He told her that the Sren, in an attempt to communicate, had imprinted their language, culture, and an impressive amount of their history on his brain. Although William remembered who he was, and the basics of his life, his whole feelings about it had changed. It was as if he had grown up in that culture. They apparently had very different feelings about women and although he remembered marrying Cassie, and remembered how he had felt about her, none of it made any sense to him any more. The whole thought of it seemed to make him somewhat repulsed. Daniel went into a rambly cultural discussion about how the same attitude appeared in some tribes in the Middle East, as well as some parts of Africa, but Cassie was no longer listening. At some point Daniel noticed Cassie’s spaced out look and tried to reassure her that they were going to do everything they could to get the real William back.
Cassie put all of herself into defending the planet, but as weeks progressed.. Daniel’s team was losing hope. No one had told her, but she could tell. When she saw them in the hallways, they wouldn’t meet her eyes. She observed them, and although William could once again speak English, that was the only sign of progress they’d made in several months. William was also being even less cooperative than before. He threw things, or did not talk at all. Cassie watched, thinking that William was acting like a caged animal. What she didn’t understand, then, is if he wanted to leave, why he didn’t. It isn’t like a few soldiers could stop Captain Marvel from leaving if he really wanted to. But she couldn’t ask him, and few others knew.
Meanwhile, Earth was losing the war. Millions of people had been killed, including several of the best SG teams. And after William’s team was basically slaughtered at the start of the war, everyone else was shaken almost to the point of inactivity.
Cassie was going by William’s room on one of her late nights and when she reached the door to the observation room, she noticed the guards were gone. She didn’t even bother looking inside, but ran to the gate room, pressing an ‘intruder alert’ button on the way. The gate room was locked and she pressed in several combinations before finally just bypassing the system. She got it open in just enough time to watch William go through the Stargate and the wormhole close.
When she was asked about it later, she explained that even though she went up to the control room right after, William had programmed the computers. He knew how to get around the security, and knew how to program it to not record a dial-out. A good portion of those in charge seemed relieved that he was gone. He was a drain on resources - something they could not handle right now. Those who were concerned about him were only concerned that he was a risk to security. Even Daniel, who felt for Cassie, seemed somewhat relieved.
Cassie watched everyone give up, and understood their reasons. After some time, though, she’d had enough of it. Science did this, and science could fix it. Over several weeks she planned what she would need to take: some basic medical and science supplies, food, and her laptop. The only personal items were a picture of herself and Billy taken in Milliways before they were married, the anklet Prue had given them so long ago with almost fifty years of memories, a cat named Cal mah, and her wedding ring. After everything was packed and ready, she followed William’s plan and left during the middle of the night when security was low. Even though they had tightened security and made new pathways in the computer, Sam had taught Cassie some tricks that no one else knew about, and William had showed her a few things. And taking out security with a zat gun, especially security that is not expecting anything from you, is not as difficult as it should be.
Over the next few months she went to several different planets, mostly to throw anyone off her trail who might be following her. But eventually she went back to the Sren home world. She was greeted at the gate and led to a large city. After a talk with a rather disturbing, tall man, William came in the room. Cassie had almost completely forgotten about the link since it had almost gone dormant in his last weeks in his last weeks in the SGC. But apparently it was not completely gone because when he entered the room Cassie felt waves of displeasure and anger build up in him. She talked with him for several hours, but he seemed to talk in circles and nothing made any sense to Cassie. Everything she said to try to persuade him just upset him further, until he stormed out of the room and the tall man told Cassie that if she was found bothering any member of their society again she would be punished as severely as their law allowed. Cassie, quite disheartened, was escorted to the gate. When they asked her where to dial she received a flash of clarity and she asked if there was a planet that was interested in trade. They nodded and dialed.
She went to the planet, just planning on finding a place to sleep. However soon after she arrived she felt something happening with the link between her and William - like someone was fiddling with it. Then, like a knife being raised and then slammed onto the butcher’s block, the link seemed to crescendo to fill her consciousness and then slam down shut into nothingness. She staggered, and lost consciousness. After a few days she woke up to friendly and concerned faces. They asked her many questions, but she answered only one. “I’m Cassandra. Just Cassandra.”
Cassandra worked in what was the all-go-to place. It was used mostly a tavern, however it was also where the most current information about anything anywhere could be found, and some of the best trades on the planet were made there. The owner’s wife more or less took her in, although she said that Cassandra reminded her of her mother. Cassandra used the situation as best she could to her advantage. She sought any kind of information, and found that sometimes people would pay her as highly for her information as they would the ale. Mostly she sought information about the Sren and any type of technology that might help her fight them. She told no one about her past, and quickly got the reputation of being the old, mysterious woman. Information came slowly, and technology even slower. The townspeople became suspicious that Cassandra had lived with them for one full generation and yet hadn’t seemed to age. She had overstayed her welcome.
She went to another planet she’d heard of, and found a similar operation. She had her own booth, but there was a lot of gossip swapping between the venders. She lived there happily for several years until one day she felt the familiar although unusual presence of a Goa’uld. After arming herself she walked around carefully, and discovered a Tok’ra she’d met many years earlier when working at the SGC. They greeted and Cassandra could tell things weren’t good. She decided to shut down her booth for the rest of her day to catch up. He told her that after she left the war effort basically fell completely apart. They had infiltrated any defense Earth had. Then a secret intelligence was acquired that mentioned a nano-virus and the evacuations began. Not even a full day of evacuations was completed before an airborne toxin was released that was especially designed to kill humans, and only humans. The day following they sent troops down to personally kill anyone left. It was slaughter. Everyone who was left from Earth was assembled at the Alpha and Beta site - perhaps three thousand people. Cassandra took all this information in, surprisingly detached from it. She was curious if there was anything left of Earth, and if anyone was living there. He, however, wasn’t sure. He had come expecting to negotiate for a deuterium alloy, not run into Cassandra. Although he urged her to come back with him, she resisted, but encouraged him or anyone else to come and visit her.
A few years passed before she heard anything else about Earth. Apparently the toxin was still in the air, and although they were working on something to counteract it, they had been unsuccessful so far. And to everyone’s knowledge, Earth was uninhabited by any other alien presence. All the information she found out about the Sren was most discouraging. They, apparently, did this from time to time, although no one understood why, and no one had ever been able to get anyone back to their original state after having their brain’s transformed by the aliens.
Rumors were starting to flow again about how old Cassandra was, signaling her need to move, and the day before she had decided to head out a man from a very remote part of space arrived. He claimed to have traveled through three galaxies and seen civilizations rise and fall in an instant. Cassandra was one to ignore his talk as idle boasting, until he pulled out the tablets. No one else was paying him any mind, and so she eased over to the table to take a closer look. She could not fully understand what the tablets were talking about in one glance, but she was fairly certain that he was not just boasting. And that, quite possibly, he hadn’t really understood what he had and the potential he held. There was also the potential it was drunken scribbles, but that was the chance you took. She traded some of her finest items for it, and left earlier than she’d planned. She felt that, somehow, she’d found what she had been looking for.
She had acquired a small cargo ship and for quite a few years she roamed - keeping mostly to herself, trading for supplies when she needed to, and occasionally taking the persistent job offers to be a bounty hunter. Her employer would have made her full time if she’d let him, she, apparently, had a knack for finding things and people that people wanted to keep hidden. She, however, wasn’t thrilled that she was working for him at all, and so she only took jobs when either she or he was really desperate. She refused to get in the middle of wars, or do something that would devastate a civilization - in this way she was holding to her principles. But, mostly, her philosophy was the less she knew the better.
In her spare time she worked on the tablets. The difficulty was that it seemed to not only be written in another language, but also in code.
Nevertheless, over time, she made progress. (Admittedly, the self-proclaimed linguist she captured on one of her “missions” helped a great deal) And thus she made her way to another planet, in search of tablets that “told tales of this universe and another - and of the shred between the two.”
The description of the planet where the new tablets was somewhat unclear, and Cassandra visited several planets in her search. She found the people on the fourth planet to be quite hospitable and helpful. They invited her to stay with them and showed her special attention, saying she was their honored guest. They called themselves the Balrati. After dealing with many different cultures and having never found one to be quite this welcoming, Cassandra was somewhat wary of them. And so when, after two weeks, she found out they were a telepaths, she felt her suspicion was justified and got ready to leave. Their representative intercepted her and pleaded with her to let them explain themselves. They, as a culture, did not usually welcome outsiders, especially non-telepaths. However, when they meet Cassandra, they sensed a latent telepathic ability. For this reason, they allowed her to stay and were willing to help her find what she came for. They were also interested in helping bring her abilities to the surface. Cassandra argued with them at first, telling the representative and governor that Nirrti had gotten rid of her abilities, but they showed her that, indeed, her abilities were still there. The next few months were spent trying to get her abilities active and getting used to them. She also spent a fair amount of time with the scientists of that world, learning and sharing technology. After a time, the tablets Cassandra came after were found and translated. To Cassandra’s astonishment, the tablets were a written record of the events on Earth. They followed the SGC from its establishment up through when the Molkon attacked, with amazing accuracy and somewhat of a distant point of view. The tablets explained that the Molkons attack was never supposed to get that far. Once the Molkons achieved their goal of annihilating the human race, not only did the two universes split as they should, but there was a tear.
Cassandra discussed the tablets with the Balrti. After much discussion it was decided that no matter the possible consequences, a tear between universes is nothing to mess around with and it must be fixed. Logically, they reasoned, the best way to change the past is to travel into the past. They just needed to find a way to do so - and control the conditions.
For many years Cassandra worked with the Balrti. They did many experiments with alternate universes using something similar to a Quantum mirror. Some years were more productive than others. After a time she decided she had as much as she enjoyed the Balrti’s company, she needed to return to Earth. She took her ship, and found that although most of the vegetation and wildlife had grown back, the world was still largely uninhabitable due to the biochemical warfare. Cassandra believed, however, that the toxin still in the atmosphere had an antidote. She took a sample and discovered the antidote was fairly easy to devise, especially compared to what she’d been working on. She produced enough to distribute it within Cheyenne Mountain, and began work to make things livable.
After Cassandra had been living at the SGC for many years, the humans came back to reclaim Earth. Cassandra didn’t mind humans living on Earth - humans should live on Earth. However, she needed the Stargate and the SGC in order to save Earth and the human race. And minimal interference from outsiders. She argued with those in charge, but a compromise was reached. They would allow her to use the SGC and the Stargate, but she would submit to regular checkups at their choosing. Since she was hoping to not be there that much longer, she figured this could be doable.
Cassandra had many ideas about what event, or events, would change the outcome of the Molkon attack. She believed that several small things needed to change and then one big thing.
The small things were actually harder to accomplish. For each jump into the past the measurements need to be precise, but in order to accomplish little things nothing else could change. That means that measurements had to be perfect and required years to calculate and test and redo and simulate and redo.
Eventually, Cassandra finished all of the small changes and she began to calculate for the big change - Billy. Captain Marvel, she reasoned, would have made a huge difference in the attack. William did not fight the Molkon because of what happened on the Sren home world. If she prevented what happened on the Sren home world then hopefully, that would fix everything. She thought that if she had her powers when William had been captured that would have made a difference. Certainly if she had known then what she knew now - that would make a significant difference. So, her plan became to find a time in her past traumatic enough that her powers would have activated. Go back and change the past - to save the Earth, yes. But mainly to save herself and Billy.