Nota Bene: I decided that I needed to put my big girl pants on and rewatch Season 4. I'll be posting missing Casskins scenes for Season 4, as soon as I can get them written, though it won't be every day. For a Casskisn scene that takes place during "The Wrath of Chaos", I refer you to a fic I wrote last year, "Prisoner of War". Enjoy!
Apep had been defeated, the world was safe from pure evil at last. Cassandra had been terrified that she might have lost Jenkins forever when she saw him being wheeled out of the Annex in monstrous chains and taken away by DOSA. But they'd rescued him in the end, defeated Apep, saved the world.
After they had all had a chance to catch their breath, Jenkins gathered them all together one day and explained to them that, now that Judson and Charlene were gone, the Library was what he called "untethered", and until Eve and one of the Librarians tethered themselves to the Library on the upcoming Vernal Equinox to keep it grounded in humanity and "sane", the consequences would be dire. The world would be thrown into a new Dark Age, where knowledge was considered evil and humanity would be plunged into chaos. It all made Cassandra's head spin, and it made her anxious. How would all of this affect her and Jenkins and any relationship they may have together?
Then Jenkins had been forced to tell them about Nicole Noone.
Now, several days after her return from Nevada, the Librarian and the Caretaker sat at Jenkins's workbench in the lab, each working their own project as they talked about the recent developments with Nicole Noone. It had been a huge shock to everyone to discover that for the last three years a prisoner in a dungeon had been hidden beneath their very feet. And while she still felt a bit uneasy with the idea of Jenkins being capable of doing that to someone, Cassandra agreed in the end with the older man's opinion that turning Noone loose was a mistake. In the short time Cassandra had been in the presence of imprisoned Guardian, she had clearly felt the rage and hatred that emanated from the woman. She wanted revenge. The Librarian had the distinct feeling that Flynn's decision would someday come back to bite them.
Today, as they worked, Jenkins filled her in on the history of Flynn's relationship with his first Guardian, and while she listened attentively, Cassandra was dying to turn the topic of their conversation to their own relationship. Or lack thereof, more accurately. Ever since Charlene left, they had been stuck in a very stagnant "friend zone", and Cassandra was getting tired of it.
"So!" Cassandra said suddenly, her voice sharp and crisp. "Do you agree with what Flynn said? About how Librarians can't have relationships outside of the Library?" Jenkins removed the screwdriver from the magic toaster he was working on and set the tool down carefully on the workbench. He sat quietly for a few seconds, considering his reply.
"No, I don't," he answered, looking up at the anxious woman sitting across the workbench from him. He stood up and walked over to close the door to the lab, then walked slowly back to stand next to the toaster artifact he'd been working on.
"That's one of the things that I strenuously disagreed with Judson on," he said, unable to keep the disdain out of his voice. "It was easy for Judson to sit and make proclamations like that while he had a partner waiting in the wings the whole time. I'm disappointed in Mr. Carsen for continuing to insist on that nonsense. Human beings are social animals, Miss Cillian. People need relationships; not romantic relationships, necessarily, many folks do quite well without those. But they do need friendships. I myself have friends all over the world, from every walk of life. Of course, my work here doesn't allow me to see them nearly as often as I would like, but I cherish those relationships, nonetheless."
"Real friends, or just people you know?" she asked, and the old man smiled wryly.
"A very astute question, Miss Cillian," he complimented her. "'Let your acquaintances be many, but only one in a thousand your confidant'," he quoted, then waved a hand carelessly. "From Sacred Scripture, the Apocrypha. The Book of Sirach. I find them very wise words to live by."
"So who's your one in a thousand?" she asked. He looked at her quizzically. "Your one confidant out of all your acquaintances?" she clarified. Jenkins looked down at the tools arrayed neatly on the workbench.
"It's…or rather…it was…Charlene," he said, his voice hushed as he idly toyed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. "I guess now, though, I have no one that I can confide in…"
"Have you had any romantic relationships? Outside of Charlene, I mean," Cassandra cut in bluntly, stung that he apparently didn't consider her a confidant. She took a perverse satisfaction in seeing him flinch ever so slightly.
"I've…had a few," he confessed. "A handful. Brief ones."
"So you cheated on her, then?" she said brutally. She knew she was going too far, but she simply couldn't stop herself. She just wanted to see him hurting, the way Cassandra was hurting. "The great love of your life, and you cheated on her. Interesting." Jenkins whipped his head up and stared in dismay at the bland-faced Librarian.
"Cassandra, why are you so angry with me all of a sudden?" he asked. She snorted.
"Oh, so now we're back to first names?" she muttered, dropping her hard gaze onto the workbench. The Caretaker went back to fiddling with the pliers.
"I guess I already know the answer to my question," he said. He left the pliers and sat down heavily in his chair.
"Cassandra, I'm very sorry if I've hurt you," he said earnestly. "That's the last thing I ever want to do to you."
"And yet, here we are!" she chirped with false perkiness, waving her hands in the air. Jenkins frowned, his eyes narrowing.
"I've tried to tell you that I'm not the one for you," he continued, his voice steady and slightly reproving. "I've tried to convince you that a romantic relationship between us would be a bad idea. I am simply too old for you. A long life cannot help but bring damage to a person, even to one with a normal lifespan. I am so much older, Cassandra—I'm…far too damaged now." He looked way for a moment, then back at the fuming woman.
"I know that I've sent you mixed signals over the last several months," he said tensely. "And I'm very sorry for that. I have tried to be as honest and upfront with you as I can…"
"Bullshit!" Cassandra snapped, laughing harshly. "You've been nothing but dishonest! With me, with yourself!" The redhead fixed him with an intense stare.
"Jenkins, I want to ask you a question right now, and I want you to promise to give me an honest answer! Please?" she asked, the weight of the world in her pleading voice. The immortal took a deep breath and looked away. He already knew what she wanted to ask.
"Cassandra, don't…please…" he begged. She ignored him.
"Will you give me an honest answer?" she persisted, staring into his gaze, not even blinking until he finally dropped his eyes in submission.
"Yes," he said. "I will answer honestly. I swear it." Now it was the Librarian's turn to take a deep, calming breath.
"Are you in love with me at all?" Jenkins lifted his white head and looked her directly in the eyes.
"Yes," he rasped, his voice tinged with emotion. "I…am in love with you, Cassandra Cillian."
The blood pounded in Cassandra's head as he finally spoke the words she had longed to hear so much. She sat there at the workbench, silent, the floodgates opening and new questions pouring into her brain.
"Then why do you fight those feelings so much?" she asked, almost afraid to hear his answer to that question. "Is it…is it because I'm…lacking in some way…? Like, I'm not attractive, or I'm not..." Jenkins brought his head up and looked at her, his brown eyes full of something like horrified compassion.
"No, Cassandra! God, no!" he protested vehemently. "You're beautiful! It's as I've told you all along—I'm the one who's lacking!" He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts.
"You were right when you accused me of cowardice that day you asked me out. You accused me of being afraid of starting something that I knew I couldn't finish, and you were right." The words spilled out of his mouth as he hurried to say them before losing his nerve.
"I've lost so many loved ones, Cassandra, so many friends! So many lovers! I've stood by and watched them all die, one by one! I've said goodbye to so many—too many! It nearly drove me insane, Cassandra! I had to stop…caring. I had to stop…loving. I had to protect myself, otherwise I would've become…" He didn't have a word for the thing he had feared becoming so long ago. He waved his hands helplessly.
"So you vowed yourself to Charlene because she was immortal," the young Librarian mused, a lot of pieces suddenly falling into place. "She couldn't die, so she was safe to love." An idea suddenly came to her.
"And since she loved Judson, even if she did die, the loss wouldn't be so great, because how could you feel the loss of a love that she'd never returned in the first place…?" Cassandra's shoulders slumped as the enormity of the old knight's convoluted thinking sank in.
"Oh, Jenkins," she breathed, all trace of bitterness gone. "How could you put yourself through that? How could you do that to yourself?" Jenkins straightened upright in his chair; he didn't like being on the receiving end of anyone's pity.
"You've seen for yourself what immortality has done to Miss Noone!" he said gruffly, instinctively taking refuge in his customary crustiness. "That was what I faced becoming if I didn't find someone to ground me! Immortal women don't grow on trees, you know! It was the only way I had of coping! Besides, there was always a chance that might change her mind about me…"
"So those were your only two speeds, then—'psychotic' or 'neurotic'?" she shot back angrily. "Uh-uh, no! I don't buy that! You can't sit there and tell me that you couldn't have found someone else to love if you really wanted to! But no—you went with a woman who had zero interest in you and who—just let me point this out—was thousands of years older than you! So that whole age difference thing between you and me that you're so concerned about? Null and void!" The Librarian jumped up from her chair and quickly gathered up her books as if preparing to leave.
"And just face it, Jenkins—you and Charlene? That was never going to happen and you know it! You just used her as dodge to keep from having to put yourself out there and risk being hurt again!" He opened his mouth to protest, but then shut it, the anger fading from his face.
"You're right," he conceded mournfully. "It was never going to happen."
"So let me see if I have this right, then," the Librarian said sourly. "You pledge your love for all eternity to a woman who you know will never love you in return, but now that she's gone, and you have a woman literally right in front of you who you are in love with, and who is madly in love with you—you don't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole. Am I reading that correctly?"
"Well!" he retorted, fussing with the lapels of his lab coat. "When you say it out loud like that you make it all sound rather pathetic and ridiculous!" Cassandra leaned over the workbench and arched her eyebrows triumphantly.
"Well, if the shoe fits, MR. Jenkins…!" The two glared at each for several seconds, neither willing to give the other the satisfaction of blinking first. Suddenly Cassandra burst into giggles, then outright laughter, causing the confused Jenkins to look askance.
"I'm sorry, Jenkins," she said, walking around the workbench to stand next to him. "It just struck me that we're both kinda pathetic and ridiculous right now!" The Librarian, looking tired, took a deep breath..
"Look, can we just stop playing this…game? Can we just agree that, right now, we are in love with each other, and start from there?" She began pulling at the hem of her lime-green skirt.
"We're both damaged, you know," she continued. "Just in different ways. I know that we would have a lot of work to do, alone and together, but…I think you're worth it." Jenkins remained silent, his expression unreadable. Cassandra wavered a bit, but then shrugged her shoulders and forged ahead.
"Listen, I'm not saying 'let's go get married today' or anything like that. I'm not even saying 'let's have sex today'. All I'm saying is, can we please just give each other a chance? Give us a chance? Just a chance. If it doesn't work out, then at least we'll know. We won't be sitting somewhere forty or fifty years from now wondering 'what if?'." She raised her eyes to his and took a step closer. He could see tears beginning to shine in her eyes.
"Because I really am in love with you, Jenkins," she whispered fervently, her voice shaking. "As unbelievable as you think that is. I think you're the smartest, kindest, gentlest, most wonderful man I've ever known, and I'm just not willing to walk away from you until we've at least given ourselves a chance." The immortal looked steadily into her eyes for several moments.
"So what I'm hearing, then, Miss Cillian," he began in a low, emotionless voice. "Is that I'm not the most handsome man you've ever known?" Cassandra blinked, not sure she had just heard what he said, and Jenkins burst into laughter at the utterly confused look on her face. As soon as she realized that he was teasing her, she broke into a wide, relieved grin. A playful Jenkins was a very good sign!
"Forgive me, Cassandra," he said, becoming more serious. "I've not made things easy for you, and I'm sorry." He paused for a moment and dropped his eyes.
"I…I am in love with you, too—very much in love," he confessed timidly. "And…I am afraid of being hurt. I am afraid of being too damaged for you to love back." Jenkins paused for a moment, afraid his emotions were going to get away from him. He raised his head and squared his shoulders with determination.
"But…I am also willing to give us a chance. I ask for patience, though. It's been a very long time since I've…courted…anyone." He looked at her again, a wondering, unsure expression on his face.
"Do people still use that term at all these days? 'Courting'?" he asked.
"Only very old people," Cassandra said, deadpan. Jenkins rolled his eyes and let his head fall back, a small whine of false pain coming from his throat at the dig.
Suddenly Cassandra reached out and laid her hand on his cheek. It was warm and smooth, and much softer than she was expecting. Jenkins brought his head forward and stared up into her crystalline blue eyes. She began to gently run her fingers through the hair at his temple, and the immortal, becoming rapidly dizzy at the sensation, slowly sucked in a shaky, silent breath. Jenkins closed his eyes and turned his face into her hand. How long had it been since he'd been touched like this? He couldn't remember.
He covered her hand with his and held it still, just long enough for him to impulsively kiss her palm softly. When he opened his eyes to look at her, Cassandra leaned down and kissed him, gently at first, then more intensely, her small tongue teasing its way between his lips and then quickly brushing against his tongue before withdrawing. As she stood up, the blood roared in Jenkins's head as he gasped quietly for breath.
"I guess we should get back to work, now, huh?" she murmured shyly, already hurrying back to her chair, her cheeks glowing as they turned bright pink. Jenkins smiled and dazedly nodded his head, wondering if this was really just some wonderful dream that he was about to wake up from any moment now. Best to double-check...
"Cassandra!" She stopped and turned around to face him again. In an instant he was out of his chair and had her small face between his hands. He kissed her again, much harder this time, and she responded eagerly. Tiny whimpers came from both as they passionately kissed, their arms wrapped tightly around each other, each hanging onto the other for dear life now that they had finally found one another.
