AN: Hi, welcome to my story. So I've always kind of found myself fascinated with Cassidy's story. The season two finale came as a bit of a shocker to me, and I was actually really genuinely upset that he was killed off the show. I felt there was a lot of territory to explore with him, and I would really love to see him in the movie. Kyle Gallner's pretty cool too. Anyway, this explores the events following Cassidy's jump off the Neptune Grand. Kind of a weird concept. It will probably turn into an AU story, but for now, we're just looking at the summer after graduation.


ONE

Preface

I stand quietly, waiting to hear a thud. To feel pain surging through my head as I hit cement. To hear people screaming at the sight of me. Anything really.

But as I reluctantly open my eyes, I see nothing. My surroundings are vast, open, and completely white. I take a few steps to look around, but nothing changes. The light seems to go on and on forever. It's never ending. I stand here, puzzled. I'd never seen anything like this before.

Am I in heaven? I think to myself.

"What the?"

Clap, clap.

I turn around to see who was clapping at me. A girl stands there alone, a sly grin spread across her face. Her eyes are wide and bright as they stare back at me, and the blood from her head wound still seems to be dripping from when her skull was bashed in. One could expect her to be lying dead on the ground, but here she is, staring back at me.

I knew heaven would be too good to be true. I must be in hell.

"Welcome," she says. "I have to say, I'm pretty surprised you ended up here. Didn't think you had the guts to do it."

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Then again, I'm not really sure you had the guts to kill Veronica either. On the other hand, maybe you did. I mean, you did rape her. And let's not forget about all those people you killed on that bus so many months ago. I've actually gotta give you props."

I pause for a moment. "How did – how did you know -?"

"I know everything," she replies back. "All you people think I'm just lying six feet under the ground somewhere… or I'm sitting cremated in some fancy, expensive, ugly urn that Celeste Kane picked out for me. But in truth, I'm everywhere. If you think for one second that I'm going to give up going about sticking my nose into other people's business – without them knowing I'm there of course – then you're pretty mad, and you really didn't know me at all."

I study Lilly Kane. Sure enough, she's wearing the same outfit she had on when Logan Echolls' father murdered her. I only knew because the crime scene video went viral weeks after her death. Her face had been plastered all over entertainment magazines and television networks.

"Or did you?" she says. "Little Beaver sits idly by and studies everyone. He watches and gets to know everyone from a distance. You got to know Mac, hoping that someday you could overcome your weird sexual repression caused by that oh so traumatic experience you had as a kid. You sure as hell got to know Veronica when you found out she was sleuthing to figure out who raped her. You got to know Gia when she started school with you and all you could think about was how much you hated her and how you wanted her to die. The stupid bitch had no idea what kind of monster her father really was. Am I right?

"You see, I know things too, Beaver. I watch people. Sometimes I sit by Veronica's bedside at night and watch her sleep. I figured it might give her some sort of comfort, or creep her out a little. Whichever is fine with me. Sometimes I visit Logan and search his apartment for any remaining pictures of me. You know, I haven't even been gone that long and I already seem to be forgotten by him. I knew he was a dick when we were dating, but I didn't know he'd be that much of a dick

"Sometimes I even visit Duncan, no matter how far away he is now. I get to see my would-be-niece and pray to God she gets her looks from me, and not my mother. And I feel bad for her, because not only does she have to live without ever knowing her awesome aunt, but also she'll never even know her mother, which you pretty much killed by the way. Oh, sometimes I'll even check up on Mac. You know, I really had no idea who the girl was when I was alive, but now that I'm dead, she seems pretty fascinating to me. Did you know that she and Madison Sinclair - ?"

"What do you want from me?" I cut her off.

"Sometimes I even watch you. I like to check up on things from time to time. Like, is Dick still a dick? I'm sure you could answer that one for me. I watch you suffer every day. You get up and go to school with the emotional weight of the world on your shoulders and you never tell anyone. Not your father, not your dick of a brother, not Logan, not Veronica, not your slutty stepmother, and not even your girlfriend. And I've always wanted to know, why not Beaver?"

I clench my fists and stare her down. "My name isn't Beaver."

"Oh, that's right. It's Cassidy. You know, it really shows how much love your parents have for you by giving you a girl's name."

"It's a unisex name!" I fire back immediately. It's something I've been teased for my whole life.

"Whatever you say, Beaver." The white background begins to fade and the night sky comes into view. The eerie lighting of the Kanes' pool slowly comes into focus. I now stand in Lilly Kane's old backyard near the edge of the pool. Blood can be seen splattered all over the cement where she stands. This is where she was killed.

"Would you like to take a dip in the pool with me?" she asks.

"No thanks," I blurt. "I mean… I mean, what do you want from me?"

"Well isn't it obvious?" Lilly says, tilting her head in that oh-so-cute "Dad, can I have money to go shopping?" kind of way. "I'm here to welcome you. I'm the welcome wagon. Kind of weird, isn't it? Sending me to come do this. I mean, we barely spoke when we were both alive. Sure, I'd come over sometimes with Logan to sit around and watch the two play video games for a bit before getting bored and leaving. But you were never around. Sometimes you'd sit in the corner and watch, left out like a sad little puppy watching all his friends being given to good homes while he's stuck at the pound. But most of the time you'd be in your room. You spent so much time in there, I kind of thought you were… well, you know. But now that I've seen you with Mac, I'm kind of thinking not."

"Can you just cut to the chase?" I stammer.

"Well, I guess I'm here to show you how good this whole dead thing really gets. Because nothing beats stalking your old friends and sitting around, thinking about all your mistakes and what a pathetic short life you had.

"You see this? This is where I was famously killed by an A-list actor. My boyfriend's father, in fact. You were killed… by yourself… when you hit the ground in front of some lame hotel downtown Neptune. You think people are going to remember you? Some psychotic little weirdo who was molested by his little league coach? No. They're going to remember America's sweetheart over here who was brutally murdered in her own backyard."

"Fuck off," I say. My temper is rising. "You don't know anything about me or my life. You think everyone cares about you. You think everyone misses you. Sure, maybe a couple of rich kids do. But most of us saw you as the town whore. What do you call a girl who sleeps with her boyfriend, her boyfriend's father, and the bad boy on the other side of the tracks all at the same time? Oh yeah, a slut. You got yourself killed, Lilly."

"Maybe so," she says, "but at least I have friends who care enough about me to solve my murder. Veronica went after Aaron. Even if he was deemed innocent, everyone knows he's guilty deep down. No one gives two shits about you. And even if they do buy into your sob story about Woody, I think they'll hate you more than they'll sympathize with you."

I glare at her. The girl is stupid, just like the rest of them. She doesn't understand. She doesn't know anything about me, and here she is talking to me like we're friends or something. We were never friends, not even when the girl was living. Not even when I was…

"Maybe people aren't going to sympathize with me, but you know what? I did what I had to. I had to kill the others because they were going to ruin my life. I finally started to dig up from the debris and they were going to stab me in the back. But they weren't counting on me stabbing them first. I took care of Goodman before I left. He got what he deserved. I'm not going to feel bad about it. And if I'm really gone, then Dick, Logan, Veronica… they'll all have to sit around and think long and hard about little Beaver, won't they? Right now, they're probably feeling pretty bad about themselves for treating me like shit all those years.

"Veronica's dad is gone and she's going to have to live without a father now. She'll finally get to know what it's like to be me. Dick's not going very far in life, but I hope he'll finally understand that I'm not the little bitch he's been making me out to be all these years. And I suppose Logan's suffered enough. I mean, his dad killed his girlfriend… and he got away with it. His mom committed suicide. He's still got his money and his little blonde detective to keep him happy, but I guess he has suffered enough.

"And you? It's been over a year now and no one cares about you anymore. You may have some lame memorial at our school and Veronica may look at pictures of you every once in a while, but no one really cares. How does it make you feel knowing that she's had sex with both your brother and your boyfriend?

"You were killed abruptly. You didn't really contribute anything to this world, and I went out with a bang. Sure, it would have been nice to live a little longer, but I set out to do what I needed to do. I guess you did too, considering your only purpose in life was to go around fucking everything you see, Lilly."

She doesn't say a word as she looks back at me. During my rant, I hadn't even noticed the scenery around me change. We now stand on top of the roof of the Neptune Grand. She smiles, gazing back at me. I expect some sort of quick retort to my rant, but she pauses for a moment before taking a few steps back and sitting on the ledge. The very ledge I had just jumped off of just moments ago.

"I think you and I are going to get along just fine, Cassidy Casablancas."


AN: So, yeah... Lilly may seem a bit harsh. But I always wanted to kind of explore the concept of the two together (talking or hanging out, I mean) because they seem like a really odd pairing. Lilly might seem a bit out of character, but I like to see her in this particular scene as an entity that plays on Cassidy's fears. She represents what Cassidy thinks of the others, and what he's worried they'll think of him.