Ye Olde Author's Note (well, novella)

Okay. So if you couldn't tell from the title, this is gonna be a little (okay, a lot) long. Hence, its own chapter.

So, this story came about because I was doing a season 1 re-watch and, by fortuitous coincidence, so was lawand_disorder. And somewhere around the 'Abigail comes to Middleton' eps, I said (somewhat naïvely, as it turned out) to her, "Hmm. I wonder if this season would have been any different if Cassie and Ryan were dating when Sam moved to town, given how much the writers were pushing that without actually, you know, doing it. That would be interesting to read." And I left it at that, because it was just one of those stray thoughts that people have from time to time.

Yeah, no.

My friend and ferocious beta reader gave me about 36 or so hours to do something with that idea and when I did not, she proceeded to inform me in no uncertain terms that I must write that story immediately and by 'immediately' she meant 36 hours ago.

So I did, because why not? I enjoy a challenge.

Only . . . that stray thought turned into a complete retelling of season 1. The goal was to see if I could keep everything the same, just with Cassie and Ryan actually dating instead of Ryan being the pitifully obvious lapdog he was (I mean no offense here; in my opinion, the writers actually did his character a massive disservice with that primary motivational choice and making him so pathetic as a result). So this is going to be the entirety of season 1 with Cassie dating Ryan, via my interpretation of how that would really go down.

BUT: Sam is not going to be 'the other man' and he and Cassie aren't going to get together at the end of the story. This is a literal retelling of the season, so at the end, they are aware of the other's interest, but that's as far as they've gotten. So please don't expect otherwise.

For those of you (well, us; it certainly annoyed me at times) who are going to get frustrated at Cassie's continual denial of things and/or going along with other people's wishes instead of her own, I will say that is an established character trait, one that we see a lot in S1, at least with regards to Ryan, and is pointed out quite explicitly in S04E02 (In 4/4, With Emotion).

THEREFORE: this is almost completely true to season 1 as it was aired and the dialogue was taken directly from the show. The ONLY exceptions to this are the few parts of dialogue that I had to alter in order to accommodate 'Cassie and Ryan are dating'. There is also one scene in the second half of the pilot (where Cassie tracked Ryan down to make sure he understood that her accompanying him to the real estate thing wasn't a date) that I altered timewise and made it 'date that night' instead, because, you know, they're dating.

Also, in the episodes with The Storm, I did some . . . call it clean-up, because the dialogue there is so CLUNKY sometimes that it drives me up the wall. I kept it as close to the original lines as I could and anything I changed was simply a matter of grammar, flow, reducing redundancy, or not making one (or both) of my characters sound like morons. But there are very few entirely new lines, and a couple that I eliminated completely, because to me, they are badly-written and/or don't fit the scene.

I've only added one scene out of nowhere (the Interlude), and that is solely because we are given no sense of time passing between those episodes and, given how things . . . um, ended, something needed to bridge that gap. That being said, I have had to write a lot of add-ons and extensions of existing scenes, since the writers in their infinite wisdom would just leave us hanging in the middle of a conversation and then pick up somewhere entirely different (also frequently in the middle), with no allusions to what happened between the two. And since that doesn't really work for the written word, there are quite the number of gap-fillers and 'before and/or after' sections because there was no other way to keep the story flowing. Or logical, really.

I also, having had the benefit of seeing all 6 seasons (I have not seen any of season 7, so if there's new information that isn't in this fic, that's why), incorporated that future knowledge into this story as it fits (Liam and Noah, for random example) because I am a continuity whore and I absolutely despise it when things are retconned for no reason other than laziness.

I'm also thorough, so . . . yeah.

Continuity is A Big Thing with me — though, that being said, I have not watched any of the movies, so my knowledge of them is sketchy at best. Thus, if a characterization is off, I'm mistaken about a memory/incident from a movie, and/or a timeline is just wrong, that's why.

But we don't get a lot of timelines on the show, at least in the first season (and, frankly, when we do, they seldom make any sense), so the 'two weeks' (or however long) later are guesses, because it wasn't specified otherwise. If anyone knows differently for a fact, please let me know so I can correct it.

Now, here's the biggie that may (or may not) cause screams of 'WTF?! THIS IS OUT OF CHARACTER! NOOOOOOOOO!'

About three sentences in to the prologue, I realized that in addition to a re-telling of the underlying story, this was also going to become a character study. It had to. But my interpretation of Sam and Cassie might be vastly different from a lot of people's, for the simple reason that I do not believe that anyone can be internally as calm, cool, and collected outwardly as they are portrayed (Cassie in particular), especially all day, every day — or, to be blunt, perfect (this is mostly Cassie, at least for me). I mean, I'm a human being and there are innumerable times where I've screamed myself hoarse mentally but been calm and smooth as glass when I actually had to talk to or deal with another person. My sarcasm is a whole other matter.

So, in this story, there is a great deal of introspection, which also means that Sam and Cassie are a lot more vibrant internally, and yes, that does include (but isn't limited to) sarcasm, humor (of all types; it literally runs the gauntlet), profanity-inducing anger, plain profanity, frustration, feelings of failure, confusion, and some good old-fashioned self-deprecation. We also get to see internal motivations, justifications, and why people sometimes make really dumb decisions when you know damn good and well that they know better.

Also . . . this story is, in places, going to get a lot darker and more serious than the show, so be prepared for that. The episodes where Grace and Nick disappear, for example; there was no way I could or would treat that as lightly as the show did (and yes, I appreciate that Hallmark prefers 'light' because it's uplifting, and that's fine; it just didn't fit with where my story was going). So . . . yeah. More serious, darker, and more intense. Which basically describes the entire story, actually; George Lucas would be proud.

In other words, my Cassie Nightingale (and Sam, to a lesser extent) isn't as calm, cool, collected, or perfect inside her own head as she's portrayed on the show. And sometimes, characters do call her out on some of the things she says, even if it's only internally, because sometimes, she says things that are not okay — as do the others; I tried very hard to give equal opportunity treatment to everyone, because everyone is human and thus deserves to be yelled at and/or doing the yelling when something stupid or hurtful is said, or done.

But I have tried my very best to make them people that I (and hopefully, everyone reading this story) can empathize with, sympathize with, understand, and relate to, without sacrificing who they are on the show, once it's all said and done.

I truly hope I've succeeded in that, and that you guys enjoy Serendipity.