Disclaimer: By now you should know I don't own them…
A/N: This is a reworked (and hopefully better) version of The Way Things Used to be…
Cassie's POV:
Chapter One
Water pressed against me from all sides…my lungs felt like they were on fire…I was growing weaker…I wanted to give up…it would be so easy just to close my eyes and let sleep overcome me…so easy…
I screamed.
"Cassie! Baby wake up!" Still screaming, I backed against the wall…wait…wall?
"Cassie are you okay sweetheart?" I breathed deeply, and almost laughed when I realized that it wasn't water, but sweat on my face. And I was definitely not drowning. My eyes adjusted to the dark and I could make out the vague outlines of my parent's figures.
"Are you okay?" my dad repeated himself.
"Fine. Just a bad dream." I got up on my feet and walked out the makeshift door before they could ask any more questions. I really wasn't in the mood to discus anything.
I took another deep breath and gazed up at the cornflower colored moon, the cool night air swept across my bare feet.
Hey. I didn't bother looking around. I knew I wouldn't be able to spot Tobias; except for the moon, it was almost pitch-black.
"What are you doing up this late?"
I'm guessing for the same reason you are. Nightmares.
"You heard me?"
Yeah…are you okay?
"Yeah, I'm surprised no one else heard."
He laughed. I'm not; Jake practically bored them to death today at the meeting. James actually fell asleep.
"Hmm…wish I could've seen it."
…Sorry…I forgot…you didn't miss much anyway…
"It's okay, it's not your fault."
Yeah…
"Yeah…" We were silent for a couple of minutes.
… I…guess I'll see you in the morning…night.
"Night." I never went to sleep. I couldn't…and even if I did manage to close my eyes and rest for a few fleeting moments, I knew my thoughts would soon be plagued with nightmares…horrible visions of my death…not by dracon beams or the blades of a hork bajir, but by fire, or water…I remembered my dream from last night. I remembered watching as my skin burned and curled…like fried bacon.
So instead of sleeping, I walked. Even though the ground was hard and littered with twigs and small rocks, it didn't bother me. All those times of having to walk bare footed after de-morphing actually paid off.
As I walked, I thought about my life before the war, I thought about how I'd gone from being the innocent little girl who'd liked to pretend to be a horse, to a killer; a murderer. I thought about Jake. How could a relationship that had taken almost three years to develop, be shattered in an instant?