A/N: Just so you know, I had to AU the issue where Cassie kills the kids so it works here. Any complaints about that, well…there's nothing that can be done about it.
Lucky for him, Cassie was good at diverting Vlad's attention. Nothing else had happened that night; they had eventually just fallen asleep on the couch, but Herbert had never realized exactly how protective of Cassie Vlad really was. If he had known, he would have thrown her off him much earlier – not that he wouldn't have anyway, but it is nice to not have to wake up to something as large as Vlad standing over you with a knife when you're still confined to hobbling around the house.
He'd thought then that had been the end of it – Cassie had been so happy to see Vlad, she'd barely paid any attention to him, which was just as well since talking to her was the last thing he wanted to do after the night before and when she finally did leave, he still got stuck having to clean the rat guts out of the microwave.
That along with having to put up with all of Dan's little smirks and offhand comments over the black smudges that seemed to have melted into Herbert's skin made him hope Cassie never came back.
Yet, he wasn't exactly surprised to find her on his doorstep about a month later. He hadn't heard from her at all in that time period, and like always, she had shown up when he had all but forgotten about her.
As usual, she was covered in superficial wounds from some unknown attacker, but for some reason she was shaking as she stood there holding her jacket closed, and for whatever reason was avoiding all eye contact with him.
"C-Can I uh…come in?" she asked quietly.
As usual, a multitude of sarcastic comments came to the surface in his mind but he decided against using any of them. Instead, he nodded and stepped out of the way for her, and she came in almost too quickly. That just got him to wondering even more. "Where's Vlad?" he asked, closing the door.
Cassie just stood there with her back to him, dropping her bag to the floor. "I dunno," she said, feigning casualty. "…He uh…he and I aren't talking right now. I made him drop me off in Montana…I've been bumming rides lately."
Herbert figured this was what Dan would call a "red flag." He'd known there was something weird about Vlad, but he never would have expected this.
"Cassie…would you like to tell me what happened?" he asked, trying to get her to turn her head so he could examine her, only to get his hands slapped away rather violently.
"Don't touch me," she snapped, her real personality surfacing much to his detached relief.
"As much as I would like to acquiesce, I'm still a doctor," he snapped back at her. "Let me examine you."
"You're off duty," she retorted.
"That doesn't matter – if you've been assaulted, I'm required to…" he began.
"It's not what you think!" she shouted. "Vlad didn't do this to me, these kids we met in Montana did…I found journals written by my dad."
"I see," said Herbert. "So they overpowered Vlad?"
"No!" she said desperately, moving away from him and over to the living room. "I wasn't raped, you idiot! These were little kids – feral children hyped up on some super drug my dad made! It was turning them into slashers!"
More plaster fell down from the ceiling and he gave her a look to remind her that screaming in the old house was discouraged. "…Sorry," she said, throwing her arms up. "I know you don't want me here, it's just that I can't stand Vlad giving me the silent treatment, and I called Georgia, I can't stay with her because she doesn't have the space and I could call Chris and Lisa, but…"
"Isn't that a bit ridiculous seeing as you're here now?" he interjected. "I still don't understand why you're here outside of the fact that you're…"
"I had to kill them!" she shouted, causing more dust and plaster to fall from the ceiling and causing him to start having strange feelings he couldn't describe.
He remembered having to scream more or less the same words to Dan after killing Dr. Hill. He hadn't been a neurotic mess like Cassie was at the moment, or at least he hadn't been where the murder was concerned. In a way, he supposed he could relate.
"And?" he asked. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Kill these…slashers?"
"Normally, yeah!" said Cassie. "But they…weren't exactly slashers yet."
"So they were just children?" Herbert asked, deciding to take his chances and draw in closer.
"No," she whined. "Or maybe yeah, I dunno! Besides, I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, they were setting the cabin on fire! I had to make a choice!"
"Them or the two of you?" said Herbert.
Cassie shook her head, tears threatening to pour out of her eyes. "No…them or my dad's notes," she said finally.
If that was all that was bothering her, she could whine about it in the basement – that way, she could whine and cry and do whatever else she needed to do as long as it didn't entail doing him bodily harm and he could get back to work. Or even better, she could whine about it upstairs by herself until she was rational enough to stop screaming.
"Oh," was his only reply as he turned back towards the basement stairs. "As understandable as that is, I…"
"Understandable?" she shot back. "How the hell is that understandable? I turned a gun on a bunch of kids!"
"And you have a perfect rationale for it," said Herbert. "Now if you don't mind, you're welcome to stay here or use the phone in the kitchen to call your friends and arrange for a place to stay, but I have something I need to attend to in…"
"Don't walk away from me!" she roared.
"And what else would you like for me to say, hm?" he asked curtly, rounding on her. " 'I'm so sorry, I can't imagine what that's like?' I've been there before, but obviously you're here because Vlad disagreed with your decision and you can't decide if you were right or wrong. I'm not choosing sides -I can understand the choice you made and respect it, but I have…"
"Work to do, right?" she asked bitterly.
He sighed. "You can sort this out on your own," he said, continuing towards the basement. "Cry, beat up a pillow, scream, do whatever you need to, I don't care. Just allow me to warn you that screaming in this house could possibly land you in emergency, which by the way, isn't exactly reliable at Miskatonic seeing as very few people ever come out of it. I'll speak to you when you're less…emotional."
She then let loose a string of barking obscenities about what a bastard he was and how much she hated him, but he didn't really care because he was too busy locking the basement door behind him.
