Cassie stared at the ceiling. Her head ached in exhaustion. She shook out the covers and rearranged them again. Next she rolled to one side, then the other. She tried laying on her stomach, but it just made the burning feeling in her gut worse. This was time three hundred and fifty-one for this little routine.
It wasn't shocking to Cassie that sleep eluded her.
The past week had been so emotionally draining for her. Cole came back, signaling the eventual apocalypse. Aaron fought with him. That pissing contest had been not fun to defuse. Factoring in Cole's abysmal health, Aaron's mislaid priorities, and the dead body didn't help matters. It had been hard to reconcile everything in the wake of Cole's death.
Cassie struggled with asking Aaron for help. She knew he didn't want to, but she needed him to help her. It was so hard to have no one around to discuss things with. It made everything seem more real, made Cole seem like less of a figment of her imagination. It gave Cassie a lifeline when her partner was back in his own time.
At the moment Aaron was causing more problems than he solved though. Cassie wasn't haunted by dead bodies or close calls. She was haunted by Aaron's words. They kept turning over and over in her mind. Just before Cassie had dropped Aaron off, he had left her with an awful thought to mull over.
"I can't bring you back from the dead like he can, Cassie. So I'm gonna fight like hell to keep you alive and I won't apologize for it. You'll never be in Cole's future or his rewritten past so if you die to save the world, he won't have to live with that decision, but I would and I just can't ever see myself doing that."
Cassie felt her stomach churn again. Aaron had been such a good guy before all of this; he could've been the guy if Cole hadn't come back. There was no way for Cassie to respond to him though. In that moment all she could think about was how he thought it would be okay to destroy the whole world, burn it down, just to save her. He meant well, but the idea upset Cassie greatly. She would never do that.
Hell, she had already proven that. She let Cole die. She didn't warn him, didn't stop him, at Aaron's urging. Cole was her partner, and she let him walk into that deathtrap. Cassie tried to focus all of her attention on how angry she was with Aaron. It wasn't fair of him to put all of that on her, to belittle their mission like that. She told herself that he was acting like a colossal asshole. She came up with a myriad of increasingly awkward ways to tell him off. She let her simmering rage distract her.
All of this mental juggling was Cassie's way of evading what was truly upsetting her. Cole was back, and everything was different now that he had been left for dead. There was no more 'let's just be us' or 'see you soon.' Every trip could be his last. The man she wanted a future with would never be able to offer her more than the present and a short one at that. Once he disappeared he wouldn't even remember her. Cassie would be left with the burden of his memory. Winning wouldn't really feel like it when Cole disappeared.
Tears slid down Cassie's face. It was so goddamned unfair. No matter what they did, she felt like she was spinning her wheels. At the rate their mission was going she would lose Cole, their fight, and eventually her life. She could handle sacrificing their lives for the mission, but failing to prevent the apocalypse was unacceptable. Even given the odds, the seven billion would always be worth trying for. Giving up was not an option. She knew she didn't have time to feel sorry for herself. There were bigger things to worry about, but she needed that release to cope. Her five minute pity party would allow her to be stronger. Cassie afforded herself that time to let out all of her despair and frustration. Once her tears stopped she grabbed a tissue from her nightstand and blew her nose. She cozied up under the covers and fell asleep soon after.
Cassie would continue on tomorrow and keep going until there were no more moves left. And if they did fail, at least she would go down swinging.