Title: the afterlife was no good to us
Summary: "You know, after I'd build the tallest building in Neptune, I'd let you jump off it." LillyCassidy
Author's Note: Although Lilly does not have a spot on my favorite character list, Cassidy does and it kills me to contemplate him being alone after he kills himself. I also never was satisfied with the ending of Lilly's murder investigation (Aaron Echolls was always sketchy, but I would've never assumed he would've killed Lilly unless there was more motive), so I subbed in some of Cassidy's wicked ways. Also, who could blame me for wanting to write a little MacDick?! Anyway, this has been in the making for about a year or so (if not more!) and has now become the longest fic I've written. I'm so glad to finally, FINALLY finish it. Enjoy guys.
/
When he opens his eyes, the first thing he registers is that he has a headache that splits his mind in two. The second thing he notices is that he's in the sheriff's office, across from a girl with eyes that only increase the pain in his head.
"So," she says, eyes hardening, leaning toward to allow her breasts to spill over the papers scattered on the desk, "Why'd you do it?"
The third thing he notices is that the papers do not move underneath the weight of her chest.
"My head hurts," he says, dumbly, fingers reaching out to his temples.
Lilly smiles, putting her head in her palm, "Were you expecting more pain when you jumped off the roof of the tallest building in Neptune?"
Another flash of pain runs through his brain and brightness shrouds his vision for two seconds. He remembers everything. His fingernails try to claw the wood of the chair he's sitting on, but the oak does not budge.
"I was hoping you'd be more chatty," Lilly tuts. "Seeing as you'll never have to go into a courtroom and all."
Cassidy feels another flash wash over his mind, but this one is numbing. Bright. Over his skin, he feels the gentle push of water over his skin, like when Dick and him used to take baths together and the maid would pour water over their heads to keep them warm and safe and Dick once pushed him under the water so they weren't allowed to take baths together again and then Cassidy's mom found the maid and his dad in the pool house and the water level rises till it covers his mouth and then his nose and finally, his eyes…
Lilly learns that dead people can faint.
/
When he wakes up, he's laying on the floor in Lilly's bedroom. Everything is bare of her — if it wasn't for the phantom scent of her perfume, he would've never realized this minimalistic guest room, devoid of personality, much less Lilly's big one, belonged to her at one point.
"God," she says from the corner of the room, "The lengths you'll go to avoid talking about things…"
Cassidy clears his throat.
Lilly's eyes narrow, "Well, despite the fact you're not very good at sharing, we have a lot of time. And I'm not one to let things lie when I'm curious, Beav."
"Where are we?" he asks.
"My room," she says, rolling her eyes. "Duh."
"I know. But where are we?"
Her mouth twists into a smirk — the type she'd give when Dick would mock him in front of all his friends — and barks a laugh.
"We're home, sweetie. We're home."
Cassidy shuts his eyes and lays his head down again. When he wakes up, he's outside of the Neptune Grand. There is police tape covering the sidewalk around him. He raises his head and sees his blood still embedded in the concrete. Lilly is nowhere to be seen.
/
He avoids Lilly for the first few weeks, only watching Mac sit in her room with the shades drawn, cloaked in darkness. Mac wakes up from nightmares every night, and every time that she wakes up, her eyes seem to meet his. Without fail, he wonders if she can see him, with those beautiful blue eyes of her. She'll whimper, clutch her pillow, bite the inside of her mouth, and softly plead for restful sleep.
Lilly finally catches on, after a while, and joins him. They'll sit side by side on the end of Mac's bed and watch her chest rise and fall in slumber. Lilly doesn't get bored like Cassidy thinks she will. Instead, Lilly's eyes focus on Mac's throat. She reacts at Mac's sharp inhales, her switching of sides in bed, the way her fingers twitch in her sleep. For Lilly, watching Mac sleep is a little bit of a roller coaster and Cassidy itches to know why.
"Veronica loves her," Lilly finally explains, one night, with narrow eyes. "She trusts her, needs her, and I can't even hate her for it."
Cassidy's throat goes dry at the thought of Mac and Veronica interlocked in a too close embrace, his hormones finally kicking in a lifetime too late. Lilly snorts when she sees his flushed complexion.
"God, death gave you your designated teenage sex drive," she says, rolling her eyes. "I mean that Veronica loves her like she loved me. Friendship, you perv."
"I knew that," Cassidy insists, voice raspy.
"Yeah, okay," Lilly says sardonically, before turning her head back to Mac. "So, I have a question."
Cassidy doesn't want to hear her question.
"Rude," she says to the silence. "It's a serious question though and you owe me at least an answer to one, if not two."
Cassidy sighs, "Fine, ask."
Lilly flops down on the bed and looks up at the ceiling, mouth moving, but not making any words. She's plotting how to phrase her question and it's making Cassidy's toes restless.
Mac mumbles in her sleep, frowns, and moves to the side where Lilly is situated, so that Lilly and Mac meet in the middle, legs overlapping.
"Did you love her like she loved you?" Lilly asks, before biting her lip, careful not to move her legs. Clearly, she wishes she thought out her question longer.
"I loved her more," Cassidy blurts out, clapping his hands over his mouth in afterthought.
"If you loved her more, you would've told her."
"Don't," Cassidy barks. "If she knew, knew what Woody did to me, it would kill her. She'd get Veronica Mars and her daddy to take him down and that was my job."
Lilly sits up and narrows her eyes, "Killing people was not your job. That's not a human being's job, Beaver. That's what gods are meant for."
"Look around, Lilly. Do you see any gods here? There are no gods. There are human beings and they take and they take and they take and they kill and they abuse and they destroy."
"Cassidy," Mac whispers, softly. "Cassidy."
Lilly's eyes get wide. Cassidy's forehead crinkles. Both look as Mac twists in her sleep.
"I think it's time we go," Cassidy murmurs to Lilly. "She needs to sleep."
Lilly does not try to explain that Mac can't hear them, just nods, leans into Mac's ear to hum a prayer, takes his hand, and leaves the girl to have a night of sweet dreams.
"What did you whisper into her ear?" Cassidy asks.
Lilly leans into his ear, and unconsciously, Cassidy closes his eyes.
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
When he opens his eyes, Lilly is gone.
/
"Aren't you Jewish?"
She looks up at him, hand trying to clasp the one hanging off the side of Logan's bed, "Half born and raised."
When Cassidy sees Veronica laying next to Logan, Lilly hisses, "You shouldn't be here."
Cassidy looks at Veronica's sleeping form and feels a tug in his stomach. Before he can ask Lilly if ghosts can throw up, he spews ghost vomit all over her shoes.
"God, Beav," Lilly hisses, "Does Veronica Mars always have this effect on you?"
She catches the flicker of fire, the licks of flame everyone missed, behind his eyes when he takes his turn disappearing.
/
She finds him two days later, watching the waves crash onto the shoreline.
"Why here?" she asks, sitting down next to him on the sand. Her fingers try to pick up a pile of it to run through her fingers. The sand stays stubbornly in its place.
"Thought Dick might be surfing," Cassidy mumbles. "But I don't see him anywhere."
"Why don't you go visit him? Like, at your house, or something?"
Cassidy shakes his head, pulling his legs into his chest, eyes closing slowly like he's exhausted, "I don't want to see him. I just wanted to see if he'd go surfing."
Lilly sees the traces of vomit on his shoes. She's appalled. "You're still wearing those clothes you puked in?"
"Aren't you?" Cassidy asks, opening an eye to inspect her.
"God, no!" Lilly laughs, shaking her head like Cassidy is supposed to know that she's still expected to strut down the halls of Neptune High, Logan on one arm, brand new designer purse in the other. "I changed. Three times, I might add."
"It's only been two days," Cassidy says, both eyes open, eyebrow raised.
"We may be dead, Cassidy," Lilly says wisely, "But we're still pretty — or at least, I am."
Cassidy rolls his eyes, but gives in to curiosity, "So, how do you change?"
Lilly leans over and Cassidy can't help but skip an exhale. Her fingers ghost over his face before closing his eyes with her fingers. There's something motherly about it, something Cassidy has only experienced once or twice, but knows instinctually, like an evolutionary memory.
"Now," Lilly whispers in his ear, breath hot on his ear, "Open your eyes."
When Cassidy opens his eyes, he sees what his mom always dressed him in.
"You look like a young Bill Gates," Lilly says, laughing into her hands. "You decided, of all the outfits to wear in the afterlife, this is what you wanted to project?"
He fingers his sweater, looks back out into the ocean, and mumbles, "Mac said she liked this on me, one time."
Lilly looks at him sadly, strokes the sleeve of his sweater, before flopping down on her back to watch the sky.
"That girl," she says, softly, "Loved you not for the content of your sweater, but for the content of your character."
Logan's used that line around him every once in a while (he never noticed Cassidy was there to catch the repeats), so he almost laughs. But then, he's thinking about Mac and —
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asks.
"Why didn't you?" Lilly retorts, rolling her head to look at him.
Cassidy flops onto his back as well, placing his hands behind his head. They watch the sky together and Dick never comes.
/
Lilly gets bored of Cassidy's lethargic cycling of the beach and Mac's bedroom after a while and bids him goodbye for a few days. There's something sad in her eyes and Cassidy thinks for a moment that she's finally going to see Weevil.
But then, Mac gets out of bed for the first time in weeks and his attention is roused. Mac pulls out an oversized black shirt and denim shorts from a dresser and watching her causes blood to rush throughout Cassidy's body. There was always something about Mac that, when he was alive, he craved desperately to have to himself. But there was still blood to be spilled, then, and memories still crept at the edges of his mind when he laid his hands on her pale cream skin.
But now, Mac showers, washing her hair in big circles. She's careful in her efforts to wash her armpits and the underside of her breasts. Cassidy looks away when her hands dip lower, out of some modesty he still held after all the madness. She is methodical when she puts the razor to her skin, trying not to raise blood as she skims blades over her knee, leg bent and supported by the wall. Cassidy watches with held breath as she gets to her ankles, where she grits her jaw. He recognizes the signs of her determination and wonders, maybe, if her challenge is to not hurt herself today.
After shaving, she sinks her conditioned fingers into her wet hair, closing her eyes as she massages the thoughts that run rampant through a brilliant mind. Cassidy once teased her, touched her temples, and said he could turn her brain into gold.
She gets out of the shower and is more hurried in dressing than in her cleaning ritual. It's a beautiful thing to be allowed to see Mac get dressed. He wonders how quickly it took for her to change into clothes once she had been found wrapped in plastic, protecting her from dirt, from him. His throat gets dry at the thought and so he turns around, not allowing himself the luxury of seeing the girl he ruined most put her clothes on.
Lilly appears next to him and watches what Cassidy won't let himself see.
"Why are you here?" Cassidy asks, voice rough with unshed tears.
"I could feel you from miles away," Lilly whispers, her fingers interlocking with his.
He looks at her for a second, the corner of his eye only shows the crease of her lips tucked downwards in a frown.
Mac grabs a bag once she's done dressing and throws half her desk into it. She pulls her hair into a ponytail and sighs quickly at the sight of her reflection in the mirror. She averts her eyes and it hurts Cassidy in ways he can't explain.
The door closing echoes in his ears.
"Do you want to follow her or something?" Lilly asks, picking her cuticles with intention.
"No," Cassidy replies, eyeing the room for the millionth time. "I think I'm going to stay here."
Lilly rolls her eyes, "Well, this is boring."
He doesn't notice she's gone until Mac's mom comes into the room and makes the bed. Her eyes are sad, bones slow.
Cassidy sometimes wishes he never met Mac at all. Just to save her from him, from the aftermath of it all. Most of the time, though, he can't imagine ever being able to live the short time he did without her.
/
"Do you think you'll be redeemed for what you did?" Lilly asks, fingering the frayed edges of her sweater.
"Is that Logan's?"
Lilly rolls her eyes, puts her hands on the top of the picnic bench she's sitting on, "Redemption, Cassidy. Do you think about it?"
He purses his lips, "I didn't think you knew words that big."
"Die," Lilly hisses, raising herself from the bench.
"Good one!" Cassidy shouts back. "Real fucking clever!"
Here's the thing: Cassidy hates to admit it, but he does want redemption. Not for everything, but a few things.
He knows there's no way he can justify continuing to haunt Mac as a way to redemption, but he can't not be around her, not wish he brought her into everything. He thought he deserved to watch her after the cards he was dealt in life, but he isn't sure.
"Hey, Lilly," he calls.
She materializes next to him, fingers digging into the wood. She looks like she's anticipating something.
"I shouldn't see her anymore, should I?"
Lilly closes her eyes and doesn't exhale.
"One more time," she says. "Just one."
It takes him too long to use the last visit up, but eventually, he caves in and sits in her house for four hours, watching her sleep. When he realizes she wasn't sleeping at all, but just staring at the wall, his belly hurts. She gets out of bed, pulls on shoes, and he can't help but follow her.
Lilly stops him at the door, "Let her go, Cassidy."
"No," he says, rubbing his eyes. "No, I can't."
He follows her car, loses Lilly on the way. Mac pulls into his driveway and it takes all of Cassidy's love for her to follow her inside. He avoids looking at the filth that's invaded his family home, only watching Mac's back until she disappears into his room.
He sits across from her on his bed, elbows on his knees, hands in his palms, and watches her.
After a long time, she whispers, "Hey Cass."
It takes him long minutes to say it, but "I'm sorry" comes out of his throat, choked.
"I know you are," she says, looking at her lap.
He inhales sharply, ducks his head and then immediately lifts it up. His fingers twitch in hope. He thinks too long about what he should say to her, if this possible gift was not a fluke, that she opens her mouth.
"I miss you."
Her eyes burrow into his. Tears puddle at the base of her lashes. He looks away for one minute, because he feels Lilly behind him, standing in the doorframe of his bedroom, for approval. Her eyes are dark and muddy and when he turns back to Mac, her eyes are settled on the carpet again.
"I miss you too, Mac." His voice breaks at her name.
She doesn't let her tears fall, but his phantom ones fall onto the rug. For the first time since he's been dead, he causes a reaction from the living world. The rug is bleached by his tears, turns a shade lighter than the rest. But for the first time since he's been dead, he does not watch to see his effect on objects in the living world, just watches the girl in front of him.
"It may be an understatement," Mac mumbles, swiping her eyes with the back of her hands, "But what you did was unfair. To me. To them. To you."
"I know," Cassidy says, dropping to the floor, raising himself on his knees. "I know."
"You could've told someone. Could've told me, but you didn't. Because you thought justice would come by doing those things. That you thought you needed to kill those people," she says, lowly, "But… you didn't have to."
The carpet keeps changing from his tears, becoming more and more light, "Mac."
"I love you," Mac gulps on air. "I shouldn't. One day, maybe I won't. But I love you and I still think about you and I wish you told me."
"I should've told you," Cassidy says, hands reaching out to push her hair out of her face.
"Cassidy," Lilly says, finally leaving her post by the doorframe. "Stop." He turns to her and looks at her for long minutes. Her eyes are desperate and sad, pink around her lashes. It kills him to think he's killed parts of these two people.
"Don't touch her, Cassidy," Lilly begs.
Mac finally starts to cry, her shoulders shaking, knees trembling, ankles crossing. She takes large gulps of air as her hair falls around her wet face. Pieces stick to her chin and nose. Cassidy falls back and sits, watching Mac cry, with Lilly standing beside him.
Dick comes into the room with wide eyes. Cassidy immediately registers the look in Dick's eyes — that frantic, wide eyed wonder that would settle there when someone he cared about was hurt. Dick couldn't see how much pain Cassidy felt, but a few times, when things were clearer for Dick to see (bruises, tears, a bully screaming at Cassidy), that look would settle after the rage had ebbed and, often, Dick's knuckles were torn.
"Mac?" Dick asks, softly.
"I thought talking to him would make it better," Mac mumbles into her hands. "But I don't even know if he's here."
If it was possible for a ghost's heart to break, Cassidy would be sure that then would be the time for his to.
Lilly sits beside him and puts her head on his shoulder. It's her way of saying to let their lives play out, but Cassidy has never been one for fate to make it's rounds. He clenches his fists in anger? Sorrow? Lilly places her hand over the fist closest to her, enclosing it with her soft hand, and his fist gives out under her skin.
"Hey," Dick says, walking over and kneeling next to Mac. His chin hovers over Mac's bare legs and the sight almost kills Cassidy a thousand times over again. "Cassidy's always here, Mac."
Cassidy's breath gets caught in his throat. Lilly almost smiles. Her fingers link in Cassidy's and she squeezes his hand softly in hers.
Mac pushes her hands away from her face to look down at Dick and a piece of hair is attached to her eyelashes. Dick unconsciously reaches up to push it away. Cassidy watches raptly. Lilly spreads her thumb over the length of Cassidy's.
Dick leaves his hand hovering around Mac's cheek, softly tracing her jaw. Mac's eyes fasten onto Dick's, and Cassidy can see the events that will happen, knows what fate has in store, knows he could maybe do something to stop them, but squeezes Lilly's hand tighter instead.
"Dick," Mac whispers. Her voice is salty and it makes Cassidy's head spin. "I need you to kiss me, okay? Just this once."
"Okay," Dick says, eyes already training on her mouth. "We don't have to talk about it or anything."
"Promise you won't tell anybody?" Mac asks, pleadingly, already leaning in.
"Yeah, Mac," Dick murmurs, mouth close to hers. "I promise."
They kiss in Cassidy Casablancas' bedroom. Cassidy can already tell her mouth tastes like the ocean, that she'll kiss Dick's upper lip first, then sweep her tongue across the bottom one. He closes his eyes. He can feel Lilly's breath in his ear before she speaks.
"Hey, Cassidy." A beginning of a smile tickles his ear. "Open your eyes."
They're no longer in his bedroom. Instead, they're in Logan's pool house. Cassidy has a moment of deja vu and then blinks suddenly.
HIs voice comes out slow, "This place is supposed to be all ash."
Lilly jumps onto the bed, twisting to look up into the ceiling fan with the hidden camera. Her voice sounds shades lighter than it has for a few days now. She sits up, looks over to him, and smiles at his confused expression.
"It's a memory," she says, throwing her hands out to the sides, mouth set in her signature cheer smile. "This is why I planned to go away for a few days."
Cassidy turns around in a circle — three hundred and sixty degrees, counterclockwise. He feels a cold creep up his spine when he turns back to Lilly.
"Which memory is this?" he asks, quietly.
Her eyes get concerned, "It's not that day. This one was a good one."
"Who was it with?"
Lilly sighs and looks at her fingernails. When she looks back up, her voice is quiet, but strong, "It wasn't all about sex, you know. He cared about me, in his own way."
Cassidy snorts, "Don't they all say that?"
Lilly shrugs, "He cooked for me, sometimes. Like this memory, right now. He's going to cook me crab cakes, even though Logan's allergic. He's going to tell me about his family over a three-course meal. Logan's in TJ and Lynn's at the spa."
"Sounds like he really cares."
She shakes her head, "You don't get it… It was like… like…"
Cassidy looks at her, eyebrows raised, "Like you were playing house?"
Her mouth gets straight, "Do you want to go back to your room? Back to see Mac and Dick mend each other after what you did?"
"I'm sorry," he sighs. "Thank you. For bringing me here."
The right side of Lilly's mouth raises, "I don't know why I thought this would be a great place to go, seeing as you pretty much ruined Aaron and me, but I thought maybe you didn't need to see that."
"Seriously," Cassidy says, sitting next to Lilly on the bed, "Thank you."
Lilly gives him a full smile now and flops onto her back, kicking her feet in the air.
"So, how does this work?" Cassidy asks, genuinely interested. "How do we get to visit memories?"
Lilly drops her legs to the bed and stares up into the camera. Her mouth loses its smile.
"You never say sorry to me," she says, quietly.
"Huh?"
She cranes her neck to look at him, "You never apologize to me."
"I didn't know I had to."
"You don't. It would've just been nice if you did."
"Look," he says, quietly, "I should apologize about a lot of things, but I don't know if it's worth the time to apologize."
"How many times do I have to stress this, Beav? We have all the time in the world."
Cassidy stays quiet and looks at the fan turn. Aaron opens the door, rubbing his hands together.
"You're in for a treat," he says in a low voice.
Lilly doesn't even flinch, just keeps looking at Cassidy, even as he walks out the door, past Aaron.
/
He has nowhere to go that doesn't feel laden with emotional weight, so he decides to go back to high school. Lilly finds him sitting in the library, staring at the stacks of books.
"You know," she begins, "If you aren't ever going to apologize, the least you could do is get to know me a little."
His eyes don't leave the spine of A Brief History of Time. "I've known you for forever — don't you think I know you by now?"
"You don't really know me," she squeaks. "I'm not saying I'm a 'complex' person, but there's a lot I didn't really tell anyone, back then."
"Like the fact you were fucking your boyfriend's dad?" he quips.
"Fuck you."
"Look, I'm —"
"No," she says, face getting red. "Seriously, fuck you. I've been fucking Mother Teresa nice to you, even after all the shit you did to me. I know what you fucking did, Cassidy, and, yet, I've let you follow me around like a little puppy dog and mope about your girlfriend who you fucked over. I'm fucking done." She turns on her heel.
"Who will you have when I'm gone?" he asks her back. "I'm all you have now."
"Don't fucking remind me," she says venomously.
But she sits down at one of the tables and puts her head in her hands. After reading the spines of the books in one row, he sits down across from her.
"I'm — I'm —"
"It's fine," she sighs. "I shouldn't expect anything from a murderer."
"I don't mean to follow you around," he says, quietly.
She almost laughs, "That's not why I'm mad at you. In fact, I'm not mad at you at all anymore. That's what gets me mad."
They're silent for a while, both taking in the thick smell that only belong in libraries.
"What did you want to do when you grew up?" Cassidy asks.
"I always wanted to build the tallest building in Neptune."
Cassidy blinks, "Don't hate me for saying this, but I kind of pegged you as the kind of girl to marry the guy who would do that."
"Exactly," she says, slowly beginning to smile. "No one would expect it. I was just the rich, spoiled daughter of the man who created Kane Industries. That's why it would be so cool. I always thought I could go off to college and spook them all. I was way smarter than they thought." Lilly laughs, "Not like they thought I was smart at all, but." She takes a deep inhale, "They might've expected Duncan to do something like that — no, they always thought he'd be the one to be president. But they'd never expect me to do it. So I'd build the tallest building in all of Neptune, just to show them." She looks over at him, expression turning serious, "And maybe, you'd jump off of it one day."
Cassidy gives her a quick smile and when she blinks, it's gone.
"Oh," he says.
"Yeah," she agrees. "Oh."
"What else did you want to do?"
"I wanted to live," she says. "Not the way I was in high school, but really, legitimately live. I wanted to go everywhere and see everything. I wanted to make the world a better place and be with Veronica and watch her fall in love with Logan while I had a pulse." She shakes her head, "I wanted to be a surgeon, go on television, play professional chess. I wanted to be an aunt, to have a kid, to watch my parents grow old and die, to put them in the ground, to get my first grey hair. I wanted the big things and the little things."
"I don't know if I can say it to you," Cassidy mumbles.
Lilly stares at him with wet eyes, "Why the fuck not? You ruined all of that. I could be alive and out there. I didn't have to be here with you. I could've done so many things."
"You had everything I wanted. You called me Beaver. You laughed when I was knocked down. I knew, if you died, everyone would miss you while no one would really miss me."
"Dick misses you," Lilly says, tears falling. "You left him alone."
"Now he has Mac if she wants him," Cassidy says, tucking his knees under his chin. "I gave them each other."
"You're a fucking idiot," Lilly says. "You didn't give them each other. They're only together because you killed them by leaving."
"Do you think it's any different with Veronica and Logan? Do you think for one minute that they would be together if you weren't gone?"
"I know they would find each other," Lilly insists. "You think everyone loves me, but really, it was always going to be Veronica. It's always Veronica."
"Does it make you sad she didn't realize it was me? The one who set it all in motion?"
Lilly's eyes are cold when she turns to him. Cassidy can't tell if it's sorrow or anger or acceptance that has hardened her eyes, or if it is a combination of all of the above.
"It wasn't just you," she says, after a long time. "It was all of us. You, me, Woody, Aaron, Logan, Veronica, her mom, her dad. We all made it happen the way it did. It was always going to be the way it happened."
Cassidy doesn't say anything.
"Does that comfort you?" she hisses. "Does that bring you catharsis — that you weren't the only one to blame?"
He sighs, "It scares me."
Lilly blinks, pulls out a book from behind her, starts turning the pages blindly.
"Good," she says. "That's what you're supposed to be."
They sit together in the library, partners in fate.
/
Lilly disappears for a few weeks after that, but Cassidy knows she'll be back.
He goes to his grave.
There's really nothing much, just a stone with his name on it. No other engraving, but graffiti littering it. There's a piece of paper there, but the ink has blurred into the page from all the rain they've been having lately. Cassidy didn't really want to read it anyway.
When he sits next to his grave, he can't help but wonder what life would've been like if Woody never cornered him that day after he hit a home run into the parking lot. If his dad never teased him or encouraged Dick to do the same, if his mom never left. If he never had to prove himself or resent others for having seemingly perfect lives.
Would it have been different? Or would it play out similarly?
What if Cassidy was never born? What if his parents wore a condom or his mother aborted him or he died during birth or he killed himself after Woody first put his hands on his heart and told him, you are going to be a hell of a man. What if Cassidy was a hell of a man? Would Veronica be the same girl? Would Mac sleep peacefully? Would Dick get to place his hands on Mac's cheeks and kiss her?
He never thought of it in life — the what-ifs, the alternative fates. All he wanted was revenge.
He gets up from the grass, dusts off his clothes, and knows there's nowhere else to go, no one else to see.
But, nagging at the back of his mind, he thinks, Lilly.
And then, she's there next to him. She's crying, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, and he feels it bubbling at the back of his throat, a word.
"I'm… I'm just…"
Lilly sighs, closes her eyes.
"I thought you were going to be able to say it. But I guess I was wrong."
"Sorry," comes out of his mouth, strangled. "I never really thought about it. I hardly thought anything of you at all, honestly. It just seemed like… It seemed fair."
"Hardly," she says, with a choked laugh. "I don't know how setting Aaron off would be fair."
"Everyone loved you," Cassidy says. "Everyone cared about you and looked at you and knew your name and I was just… I was just so angry and weak and I thought… Well, I thought if I took that away from you… if I could take your life away from you… I could break someone too."
Lilly's voice is stony, mean, "It's really too late for apologies, you know."
"Didn't you say we had all the time in the world?"
There's a silence that falls over them. Lilly sits down on his grave and traces the stone with her fingers.
"I guess I'm a little naive, huh."
When finally she looks at him, he notices her eyes are a lighter shade of blue. When she leaves, the sky turns the same color for a minute before giving way to a darker shade until it turns black.
/
Before Cassidy walks into his childhood home for the first time of his own volition, he takes a deep breath.
He loses his footing on his way to the living room and almost lurches into the room that Dick has decidedly occupied as a new bedroom. There's not as much shit all over the place, but that's probably due to the trash cans the room is now decorated with.
Dick's playing a video game with glazed eyes with a beer in the cup holder next to him. Cassidy sits next to him, watching him play.
They sit that way for hours, just like they might've before, but instead of chatter about babes, beer, and beach plans, there is just the noise of gunfire from the game.
"I didn't mean to leave you alone," Cassidy says when Dick gets up to switch the game. "I didn't know you'd miss me."
Dick looks up from placing the new game in the console and smiles in the opposite direction. The front door opens and Cassidy can just barely make out someone muttering under their breath. Dick adjusts his smile to a smirk and gets up to meet the person.
Cassidy can hear Dick from his place on the couch, "I knew you couldn't resist me for long."
"Well," Mac responds, "Sadly, I know you can hardly feed yourself and I felt obligated to bring you enough things so you wouldn't wither away."
Cassidy just barely catches Dick's response of "whatever you have to tell yourself" before he lurches up and walks to his room.
The place is almost the same as the last time he saw it, when Mac and Dick first sought refuge in one another, save for the missing photo of Mac and him at the Spring Fling dance. Part of him feels relief that, maybe, she still loves him, despite everything.
He leaves the house then. He can already sense that there are two living people who need each other and not him. They need to heal because of him.
/
"I didn't really think Aaron was going to kill you," Cassidy says while they walk through the streets of Neptune.
Lilly laughs and steps on a crack on the sidewalk with intention, "What did you think he'd do after you sent him a fake email from a publisher about my tell all?"
Cassidy shrugs, "Maybe expose it? Get ahead of your apparent reveal?"
"Yeah," Lilly snorts. "Well thought out on your part."
Cassidy shrugs again and walks ahead of Lilly, looks inside a store window.
"Do you think they can tell we're here?" Lilly asks, whispering in his ear.
"I doubt it," Cassidy says.
When he turns to look at her, she kisses him. It's full of need, rage, and something else. She presses him against the glass, pinning his hands up by his head.
"I miss being alive," Lilly says, breathless. "I miss the rush of life."
She doesn't kiss him again but just looks at him, still holding his hands in their stabilized position.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" she inquires.
His eyes darken, narrow. He kisses her this time. Her mouth tastes like regret and life and coffins, dust.
"Sorry," he mutters into her neck. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry."
She takes his hands in hers and when he raises himself from her neck, they're in the Echolls' pool house again.
"Why here?" he asks, looking around the room again.
"Shut up," she replies before pushing him on the bed.
"Will Aaron come in?"
Her eyes are dark, searching his face.
"Not anymore," she says, putting her legs on either side of him, hands around his face. "He doesn't get to touch me anymore."
Cassidy's breath hitches when she kisses him again. He never thought, not in his whole life, that he'd feel like this. That he wouldn't be afraid of being touched, of being kissed, of being on a bed with someone without, as Mac had once put it, liquid courage running through his blood.
"No one can touch us," Lilly says into his ear, moving her hips so they shifted against his. "No one can touch us anymore."
"Just us," Cassidy says, pulling her face toward his. Against her mouth, he repeats it.
"Just us."
/
They watch the world they were once a part of with hands intertwined.
"Tell me again," Lilly says, "What did you do that all for?"
Cassidy closes his eyes, opens his eyes to look into hers. "I wanted something that made me feel like this."
She leans her head on his shoulder, watches their friends unravel new mysteries — ones that don't have anything to do with them.