A/N: I am incompetant, and had forgotten all about the final scene at the end of Fracking Zombies, so this is a slight AU. I also play around a bit with character motivations in this, and I found 10K quite hard to write, so I would really like to hear what you think and whether you feel it works.
Rated T due to dark themes, including references to rape, non-consensual sex and some mild sexual content.
Contains spoilers up to and until season 2's episode Zombie Baby Daddy.
Any and all comments are welcomed.
Six Ages of Cassandra
I
You Are My Sunshine
Tobias knows that she's one of his from the moment he sees her running from a group of the dead. He hadn't planned on adding to his family, but the clouds part and liquid sunlight spills across the street, so bright it almost blinds him. He smiles, because it is so clearly meant to be.
He can't save everyone, but he can save her.
He waits until the last possible moment, until she takes a wrong turn, darting into an alleyway that turns out to be a dead end. Until she spins around, her eyes wide with fear as she stares at the advancing dead.
If there's one thing Tobias knows, it's how to pick his moment.
So he draws his gun and he kills, taking down the dead, and when he's finished, he fears just for a moment that he's left it too late. That she's been bitten or scratched. But of course she hasn't been. He has to remember to have faith in himself.
Up close she's so beautiful he can hardly breathe. And she's special. He can see it in the sunlight on her face, and in her wide, wary eyes. She's meant for bigger things than dying in agony in a dirty alleyway strewn with garbage. He was right to save her, this lovely, precious child.
"Thank you," she says. She's edging away, but now that he's seen how special she is, he could never let her go.
"Have you got somewhere to stay?" he asks.
"I did."
"And?"
"It got overrun."
He smiles sadly. "Everywhere seems to, eventually. You're welcome to come with me if you like. I have a place. It's safer than most."
She wants to believe him. Of course she does. Everyone wants to be saved. But she's not stupid, his special girl. She stares at him, her shining eyes filled with mistrust, and he knows he has to be careful. He can't risk losing her.
He shrugs regretfully, lifting up his hands. "I understand." And it's the hardest thing he's ever done to turn his back on her and start walking away, wondering what he will do if she doesn't follow him, because he can't let her get away. She belongs to him now.
"Wait!" And she comes after him. Just as he had known she would.
"I think you'll like it," he says. "We're a real little family. I think you'll fit right in, Sunshine."
And she does. He knew she would. He had known the moment he saw how special she was, and when Rachel meets her, he knows she sees it too.
They eat and they drink and he watches Sunshine watching them. Her eyes are still cautious, but she's growing more hopeful by the moment. This is a good place, this haven that he has created. They have food and the fence and plenty of guns to protect them from the dead and the not dead alike.
And afterwards he sees her lingering over Rachel's music box, a pretty delicate, filigree thing. Exactly the sort of thing he knew she'd like. She sees him watching her and looks away. "I don't know if I'm going to stay," she says.
She is lying. She knows that she belongs here.
He closes her fingers gently over the music box. "Keep it," he tells her. "Whether you stay or go. It's yours, Sunshine."
"My name's Cassandra."
"Oh, I don't know," he says. "You look like a Sunshine to me."
II
Black Summer Blues
Mouth parched, she kneels on the threadbare cushion, turns the key of the music box. Listens to the melody, as if it could drown out the screams of the stranger in the back, the thump of Travis's fists, the buzzing of the taser.
When the tune comes to an end, she twists the key again, glancing at Rachel, slumped in the chair, mouth slack, eyes glazed. She's not the same woman she used to be, but who is nowadays?
Certainly not Cassandra.
Hunger has changed her. Starvation has changed her. Tobias has changed her.
It's not just the cessation of her periods or the skin stretched tight over her bones or the painful sores in the corner of her mouth that she can't seem to get rid of.
Her body no longer seems entirely her own.
She's starting to think of her stomach as a living thing, an angry, hostile creature inside her, knotted and growling with fury. An animal demanding to be fed. Somehow that makes it easier to ignore.
Because there is no more food. Philadelphia has been picked bare as a sun-bleached bone. It's Black Summer and millions are dying of starvation. Maybe more than were ever killed by the dead.
Tobias calls from the back, his voice low. "Sunshine."
She closes her eyes. My name is Cassandra.
But she gets up and goes to them, into the room where the man is weeping, a broken, bloody mess. Travis grabs his hair, wrenches his head up. His teeth are smashed to splinters, his eyes swollen and half-blind. "Remember her?"
Tobias sits and watches, smiling in a way that terrifies her. But what terrifies her more is the rage that rises up inside her like a plume of smoke. It starts in her stomach, in the part of her that no longer feels like her, that wants nothing more than to eat.
"What should we do to him, Sunshine?" Tobias asks.
My name is Cassandra.
She can hear the music box again. One of the other girls, Moonshade maybe, must have set it playing again.
She's not a killer. But as she looks at the man, she remembers how he had wrenched her head up just as Travis is now doing to him. She remembers his breath against her neck, and the helpless impotent rage and terror she'd felt as he rifled through her pack. The battered can of peaches that had somehow, miraculously, fallen down the back of a drawer and been overlooked. The first food she'd found in weeks. Possibly the last scrap of food left in all of Philadelphia. And he feasted on it in front of her, planning to rape her when he was done. Expecting her to be grateful for the taste of the syrup on his mouth.
Tobias nods to Travis, who puts the knife in her hand.
She's not a killer, but she wants this man dead.
The man spits out blood and fragments of teeth. He falls at her feet, begging for mercy.
Tobias's eyes are dark, but he's still smiling. "Are you hungry, Sunshine?" he asks.
My name is Cassandra.
But she is hungry. So hungry. And she wants to eat.
III
The Girl With Fingers in Her Hair
As far as plans go it's a questionable one. But the group needs gas, and 10K's not going to argue. All he wants is to kill as many Zs as he can, maybe tag along for a bit until he's figured out whether he's better off on his own or staying with them.
Truth is it feels good to be around people again, even if he hardly knows them. They're okay, except maybe for the Murphy guy. He's kind of a dick, but the rest of them seem like good people. And he's not the only one new to the group. The Asian girl is too.
Cassandra.
She's edgy, and doesn't trust them yet, but he thinks she's probably the type who doesn't trust anyone. He watches her watching the group and the biker, who claims to know where the group can find gas. The Jersey Devil refinery, overrun from the start. Well, he might be lying about some things, but he wasn't lying about that.
The refinery is crawling with Zs.
But 10K still doesn't trust the stranger. And he especially doesn't like the way he looks at Cassandra, or the way she looks at him. Like they know each other.
10K is young, but he can recognise a hunted animal when he sees one. She's tough and she's hiding it well, but she's terrified. Not of the stranger, not exactly, but of something, and 10K is afraid for her. Because the stranger isn't here to help them. He doesn't want gas or a ride; he's here for her.
So he watches. Sees her fighting with the stranger, struggling at the top of the walkway. He reaches for a jagged shard of scrap metal and takes aim with the slingshot, but she's too close and he can't get a clean shot. Turns out she doesn't need his help anyway. She twists, kicks the stranger hard enough to knock him from the walkway. The Zs swarm in.
Cassandra leans out over the edge, and throws something down. It catches the sunlight leaving spots on 10K's vision. And then she's gone.
He takes out the Zs. Adds to his count. He pikes the stranger, and kneels to pick up the thing she threw away. It's the music box she used to distract the Zs.
It's heavier than it looks, still warm with the heat from her skin, and he cups it in his palm, wondering why she threw it away. He tucks it in his pocket, picks up the cannisters of gas he found, and returns to the group.
In the back of the pick-up truck, he sits opposite her. She's quiet, her mind elsewhere. He wonders what she's running from and if she's ever going to stop. He wonders if she realises she has a severed finger stuck in her hair.
In hindsight, it was a terrible plan. But he's upped his kill count, and it wasn't a total loss; they have some gas and he's made his decision. He's going to stay with this group a little while longer.
He doesn't know why she threw the music box away, but he hopes he gets the chance to find out.
IV
Loneliness is a Living Thing
Cassandra sits on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, watching 10K silhouetted against the window.
He's strange, this quiet kid. Awkward, maybe even a little bit weird, but who isn't these days? All the normal people died a long time ago.
She remembers her boyfriend from before the world turned, who ran half-marathons and drank green smoothies. She can't picture him killing zombies or siphoning leftover petrol out of abandoned cars. Or cleaning mashed-up blood and guts out from the wheel-arch of the truck. She can't picture him with a gun or a machete or doing any one of the things that need to be done these days in order to survive.
And oh God, she misses him. More and more each day, although it's not exactly him that she misses. It's the warmth of a body beside her, company that she chose herself in her bed. She misses sex for the sheer wanton joy of it, rather than a necessity of survival, a task set for her by Tobias. This one lives, this one dies. At random, leaving no patterns, no clues, and she'd never know which was which until a man was at her trailer and Travis would give her a look.
Sometimes she screwed them anyway, even if they were marked for death. Because she was tired and lonely, and because she was still hungry. Only it was a different kind of hunger, one born of loneliness and despair.
Because she hated what she had become, this thing that Travis had turned her into. Whore. Murderer. Cannibal.
Monster.
She's with different people now. Better people. But the loneliness has never gone away. She doesn't think it ever will.
"They're thinning out," 10K says, his gaze still fixed on the street below.
"Have you got anything to eat?"
"I think there's some crackers in my pack," he says, distractedly. She reaches for it, pulls it onto the bed. He turns, his eyes widening. "Wait–"
But it's too late. She stares into the pack at the music box. Her hand trembles; she doesn't want to touch it. Her skin itches at the thought of touching it, but she can't stop herself. She reaches into the pack and pulls it out, the filigree chain slipping through her fingers like water. "Where did you get this?"
"I found it."
She looks up, meets his gaze. Her eyes are hard and angry. "Where?"
"The refinery. I saw you throw it away."
"You saw..."
He nods. "I saw you kill that guy."
"And you didn't tell the others?" But she's already remembering how he was back then. It had been days before he'd even spoken a word. He'd been on his own for too long.
"I was gonna kill him myself," he says. "If he hurt you."
She presses her lips together. She's not going to let herself cry. She can't remember the last time she cried. "Thank you." She swallows, staring down at the box in her hands. She'd been so sure it was gone forever, that she'd never see it again. "Why'd you keep it?"
He doesn't answer, just gives her a look. A strange, strained 10K look. She doesn't know much about him, really; he seldom talks about his pre-Z days, but she guesses he's been lonely for a while too. Maybe longer than her.
"10K," she says, and stops. Because she doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know if there's anything she can say. So instead she gets up and walks across to where he stands by the window.
He's so young, she thinks. How can someone who's so good at killing be so innocent?
She kisses him. Barely a brush of her lips against his at first, but hardening, deepening, as he responds, placing his hands a little awkwardly on her upper arms. She draws away. "10K..."
He cups her cheeks. "My name's Tommy."
"Tommy," she repeats, and it feels like he's handed her a secret gift. It's strange, because it feels too young for him. It's a name for a little boy, for a child, and then she remembers that when all this started he was just a child. There's no way he's older than eighteen. She thinks he's probably younger.
His lips twist. "Don't tell the others?"
"I won't," she promises, and she kisses him again, hungrier now, pulling him back towards the bed. Because she doesn't want to be alone any more.
He joins her on the bed, dazed and breathless, kissing her neck, sliding his hands up underneath her top.
And she closes her eyes because she can't. Because she's back in the trailer, reaching under the pillow for the taser, a stranger's hands moving over her body, pressing between her legs.
She makes a sound in the back of her throat, something like a sob, and he's pulling away immediately, face flushed, breathing hard. "What's wrong?" His hand still rests on her stomach, so gentle. "Cassandra, you're shaking."
"I can't. I'm sorry, I can't. I want to, but..."
"It's okay," he tells her, and he starts to move away, to roll off the bed. She catches him, pulls him back, and he hesitates, then lies down behind her, his arm wrapped around her chest. Lying like this with him, the choking panic begins to recede.
She reaches for the music box and tries to wind it up. 10K shifts against her, his breath warm against her cheek. "It doesn't work any more," he says.
"It's the apocalypse, Tommy. A lot of things don't work any more." And she's one of them.
He flashes her one of his rare, precious smiles.
It's strange saying his name. His real name, she thinks, although she's not certain it is his real name. He's 10K now; he will always be 10K. He's not Tommy any more.
Just like her, because no matter how often she tells herself that her name is Cassandra, part of her is, and will always be, Sunshine.
V
Gone Feral
The thing that used to be Cassandra crouches on the rocks, watching him with yellow eyes. She's not human, not Z, and it fills him with incoherent rage, because she deserved better than to end up this inhuman, unnatural thing.
He knows that she's killed, torn out people's throats without a second thought, and the only thing that keeps him from mercying her for that alone is that he's just as much a killer as she is.
He tells himself it's not her any more, but when he sees the way she looks at Murphy it catches him like a fist to the gut, because it's the way she looked at him once. When she kissed him and he'd thought, just for a moment, that he was finally going to understand what it meant to be with someone. And not just sex, although the thought of that makes him light-headed, but a relationship.
10K and Cassandra.
No, Tommy and Cassandra.
Only it hadn't happened, and that was okay, because he hadn't really been expecting it to. Even when she'd been kissing him, it had felt like a dream. He knows not to rely on dreams.
Even so, he'll never forget that day, and he remembers how her breath caught in her throat, and the hungry look in her eyes, the same look he sees when she looks at Murphy.
And he thinks that maybe Cassandra isn't entirely gone after all. That maybe the thing that's taken over her body has been part of her all along, only he's never seen anything but glimpses until now. That it's not Cassandra exactly, but the thing that she calls Sunshine.
Over the last few weeks he's been trying to fix the music box. He'd found a set of tools from a jewellers in one of the towns they passed through, spent some time practising, until he could take the music box apart and put it back together again. It's not so hard, once he got used to how delicate the work is. Not so different from stripping down a gun.
She tenses as he approaches and he stills, his instinct telling him that this is a predator. A threat. She smells like Murphy too, that same not-quite-human stink that they've gradually stopped noticing. A little like the Zs, but not quite.
"Hey, Cassandra," he says, and he sits down. It feels wrong to be this vulnerable, with no weapons other than his knife, but she won't hurt him, he thinks. Or at least, she hasn't so far.
Her lips are dry and chapped, and he thinks of how soft they had felt on that day when she'd kissed him.
Don't, he tells himself. Because there's still a chance he can bring Cassandra back. Murphy tried, but he could only bring her halfway. Murphy is, and will always be, a selfish bastard, and he never loved Cassandra. Not like 10K does. So maybe, if she's in there, trapped inside this predatory shell of a thing, maybe he can bring her the rest of the way.
And if not, then at least he'll know what he has to do next.
So he silences his hunter's instinct, and forces himself to meet her yellow-eyed gaze. "Cassandra?"
She growls softly in the back of her throat, coiling up like a cat readying itself to spring.
He shows her the music box. Her gaze flicks from his throat to the box, and he sees something flicker in her eyes. It's you, he thinks. I know it's you.
She's still in there, somewhere. Locked inside. He can help her.
Her growling intensifies as he winds up the box and lets it drop. Catches the chain on his finger so that it dangles between them. As the music starts she slips from the rocks on all fours like a cougar. He holds his breath as she comes close. So close he can see the scratches on her legs where she's scraped her skin against the rocks.
She brings her face up to the music box, listening to the melody. She sniffs it, tilting her head, and suddenly she's staring past it, at him. Eyeing him like a cat eyeing a bird.
"Cassandra," he whispers. "It's me. It's 10K."
And she moves past the music box, and presses her face into the hollow of his throat. His hand jerks towards the knife in his boot, but he catches himself, fights with every sinew to stop himself from ending her there and then.
She sniffs him. He feels her breath, the brush of her matted hair, her breasts pressing against his chest. Her lips part and she touches the tip of her tongue against his skin. Tasting him. She's still growling, but the sound has changed; it's no longer a threat, but something closer to a purr, and his body responds.
He tells himself he doesn't want her while she's like this, while she's Murphy's creature, Murphy's pet.
Except he does.
The music box hits a jangling discordant note. He'd managed to get it working partway, but there's still something broken inside.
She rears back, lips peeled back from her teeth, and he knows she's going to kill him.
"Wait," he says, his fist closing around the handle of the knife. "Sunshine, wait."
And she freezes, her eyes on him, filled with hatred and raw hunger and fear.
There's a heavy tread in the leaves behind him. "Cassandra," Murphy says, his voice somewhere between amusement and anger. "Down girl."
10K stares at her, watches the way her expression changes because her master has returned. As she goes to Murphy he drops the music box, closes his eyes with despair.
He's going to have to kill her. Sometime soon.
When he killed the thing his father had become, 10K had told himself there was nothing of him left. It was the only way he could bring himself to do it. But afterwards he wondered, because what if that wasn't true? What if each and every zombie has a fragment of a once-living person trapped inside, screaming silently for mercy?
He hopes he's wrong, but it's partly why he does what he does. He lets the group think it's about revenge for the death of his father, for the loss of the normal life he never got to lead, but mainly he does it because he's starting to think of the Zs as trapped souls. And he wants to free as many as he can before he joins their ranks.
He hopes someone will do the same for him when it's his turn.
He stares across the camp to where Murphy and Cassandra sit. At the way she's pressing her body against him and the way Murphy lets her. It's not her. And yet, it is. Or part of her at least. And he knows he can't let the others suspect.
10K can't save her; he doesn't know how. But what he does know is to kill. How to give mercy.
He's good at that.
The thing that Cassandra has become rests her head against Murphy's knee. Her hungry gaze lingers on 10K.
She deserves better than this. And he is going to kill Murphy for what he has done to her.
VI
Shallow Grave
The heat of the sun warms his back. His neck is starting to burn, but he can't move from this spot. Not until he's said goodbye. Only he doesn't know where to begin.
The music box is warm in his hands.
They're waiting for him. Time to move on. To leave her behind. Again.
"You ready, kid?" someone asks. He's not sure who; he can't hear their voice clearly through the rushing of the blood in his ears.
Not yet, he thinks, or maybe he says it aloud. He's not sure, but they leave him alone. Just for a little while longer.
Just long enough.
He takes his knife and he breaks the music box, working slowly, methodically, just like he's stripping a gun. Piece by piece, cog by cog, bending and grinding and crushing, until it's nothing but a handful of unrecognisable scraps of metal glinting in the sunlight.
Broken beyond repair.
Just like her.
It's the only way he can think of to say goodbye.