A/N: I HAVE RETURNED.
BEWARE: Keep a box of tissues nearby as you read, for there are feels ahead.
The doctors say that there's nothing more they can do for her and that she only has a few days, so Cassandra comes home, back to the annex, back to her own bed. That's where she and Stone are now; Baird and Flynn are curled up on the couch downstairs as Ezekiel is rereading The Lightning Thief and some of the milder cuss words emanate from the direction of Jenkins's lab.
Finally Zeke can't take the silence any longer, so he shuts and sets aside his book and heads upstairs to Cassie's room.
"How is she doing?" he whispers as he quietly latches the door behind him, not really expecting- or getting- an answer. He shrugs and sits down on the bed, absentmindedly rubbing Cassie's shoulder.
Stone wakes up then and grins weakly at Zeke from his side of the bed. "Hey," he greets sleepily, propping himself up on his elbow. "She's been asking for you. I think she-" Stone stops a takes a breath, trying to hold back a sob. "I think she said something about wanting both of us here when…" He can't finish his sentence, but Ezekiel understands. He's already shucking off his boots and sliding under the covers, startling Cassandra awake, and she smiles at him as he tugs at her hair with a devil's grin. The grin fades into something softer as she rolls over. The two of them hear her breathing deepen, and they know in their hearts that she will never wake up again.
That's how Baird finds them in the morning: Stone, his arms wrapped around his girlfriend, his breath quietly whistling through his nose; Ezekiel, snoring like an elephant, his arms flung over his best friends; and Cassandra in the middle, no whistling coming from her nose, no snores reverberating from her mouth, not even breathing at all- just a little girl, cold and still.
And Baird watches this, and she knows, and as Flynn and Jenkins come up beside her, she knows that they know, too.
Robert is sitting at the kitchen table, focused on the Sudoku puzzle, when the phone rings. He glances up at Lissette, but she's busy rooting around in the fridge, so he gets up and picks up the phone, wondering who would be calling him on a Sunday morning.
"Is this Robert Cillian?"
He doesn't recognize the woman's voice and almost hangs up. But he registers her taut, grief-stricken tone, and he registers that it's well-controlled: she must be experienced at delivering bad news. "Yes, it is."
"This is Eve Baird; I'm a friend of your daughter's. I'm afraid I have…"
But Robert doesn't hear her, because he knows, even before the phone hits the counter. He falls into his wife's arms, and they sob like they have just lost the world- and in a way, they have.
A/N: So this is my first fanfic in years. I wrote this sometime in late December, but never got around to typing it up, partly because my cat tore up the second page and the notebook I was writing in was exiled to my pants drawer. I probably will not write a Chapter Two- my heart is exploding from feels at the moment.
-Beth M