Melt Your Heart
I'm mostly over on AO3 these days so I forgot to post the last update here, so you get two updates for the price of one today! :)
Chapter 36: When She's Ready
As promised, Cassie went to visit Joanne while Sam was at work on Sunday. She was a little apprehensive about the visit; worried that Joanne would want to pump her for details regarding what had - and hadn't - happened between her and Sam, but she needn't have been concerned.
Over chai tea and orange spiced muffins, Cassie and Joanne bonded over their love of travel, and all the wonderful places they had visited over the years.
"Isn't it strange to think that our paths could have crossed while we were on our travels, and we'd never have known it?" Joanne mused, dusting muffin crumbs onto her plate.
"Oh, I would have known," Cassie replied, surprising herself - and Joanne - with her conviction. To give herself a moment, she stood up and put their empty plates into the dishwasher.
If Joanne noticed that Cassie seemed quite at home in her brother's kitchen, she didn't mention it.
Cassie came back to the table and poured more tea for them both.
"I'm glad that one Radford is civilised enough to drink tea," she commented, a wry smile on her face as she refilled Joanne's cup. "The few times I've managed to get Sam to drink some, well, you'd think I was trying to poison him.
Joanne smiled fondly. "Yeah, my brother is very much a coffee guy." She fiddled with her cup and saucer; she had so much she wanted to ask.
"I'd noticed that." Cassie laughed. "You'd think being a doctor he'd know better…"
"Well, he's only really a doctor when it suits him," Joanne blurted, then covered her mouth. "Sorry, Cassie. That sounded terrible."
"It's okay," Cassie said gently. "But I do know he is very worried about you."
"Yeah," Joanne sighed. "I know. Sometimes I just wish he'd be my brother, y'know, not Doctor Radford." She eyed Cassie over the rim of her tea cup. "Did he tell you what's wrong with me?"
"No," Cassie confirmed. "To be honest, we didn't talk about you much. Only that you liked to travel, too."
"But you know I'm sick?" Joanne continued.
Cassie nodded, wondering how much Joanne had overheard.
"I have Episodic Ataxia," Joanne explained, and Cassie nodded again, although she didn't fully understand the implications of what that meant. "It's manageable…it just means I'm not able to do all the things I used to do in quite the same way I've always done them. It makes travelling particularly tough."
Cassie reached for Joanne's hand across the kitchen table.
"I'm so sorry," she said, gently squeezing the other woman's fingers.
"Thank you. It's complicated, it's…progressing, and I don't know what to do." Joanne confessed.
"And Sam?" Cassie asked gently. "He knows?"
"Yes," she replied, sighing. "He doesn't like that I'm still off travelling, but when I got the diagnosis, I swore to myself that I wouldn't let it define me. And I certainly wouldn't let it stop me doing all the things I love." She squeezed Cassie hands. "Us Radfords are stubborn like that."
"Oh, really?" Cassie said, and they shared a rueful smile. "I can't say that I'd noticed."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Cassie asked when she arrived back at Grey House, walking into the kitchen to find Abigail lacerating an apple with a paring knife.
"No," Abigail replied, pouting as she set the knife down.
Cassie waited, filling the kettle, measuring out the tea, and selecting two mugs from the cupboard. Her cousin would fill the silence when she was good and ready.
"I feel a complete and utter moron," Abigail finally said, her voice almost drowned out as the kettle started to reach its boiling point.
"What happened?" Cassie asked gently, taking the kettle off the hob and pouring the water into the teapot.
"Stephanie." Abigail grimaced.
"Is she alright?"
"Oh, she's great," the younger witch continued sarcastically. "I got to meet her new boyfriend today. The day after I, like an idiot, invited her here for Christmas so she wouldn't have to be alone."
Cassie kept quiet, deep in thought as she finished her tea preparations.
"Did she say yes?" she asked eventually.
"Yeah, she did. And she seemed quite pleased that I asked, which makes me feel even more ridiculous."
"Well, maybe both of them could come and stay with us. It's not like we don't have the room."
Abigail stared at her, for once truly speechless. Okay, so that was a remarkably simple solution. She just needed to figure out why it made her skin crawl.
Sam turned up before dinner, still wearing the outfit he'd worn to the hospital, and offering Cassie the washed Tupperware boxes that had previously held George's turkey chilli.
He definitely hadn't hidden them from Joanne so he'd have a legitimate excuse to pop over to Grey House.
Definitely not.
But they were 'friends' now, and it was time to figure out what that meant for the both of them.
"Thanks for bringing these back," Cassie said, holding the boxes a little awkwardly. "I, um, spent some time with Joanne today."
"Yes, she was still buzzing about your visit when I got home," he replied, smiling fondly.
"I'm sorry about what she's going through; it must be hard on both of you."
"Yeah," he sighed. "Yeah, it is. And it's hard not to go into overprotective big brother or know-it-all doctor mode with her. I know that neither of those things are what she needs."
Cassie tried to lighten the mood, because the anguish in his eyes was painful to see.
"She mentioned something about the Radfords being stubborn," she said, her expression deadpan except for a little twinkle in her dark eyes. "I had to tell her I wasn't aware of the phenomenon."
Sam laughed a little at that, feeling some of his tiredness and tension melt away. Coming to see her had been a good idea.
"But, I might have been a little stubborn myself…" Cassie continued.
"Oh, really?" Sam raised an eyebrow.
"Your suggestion about taking James and Catherine to pick out a Christmas tree? Well, it's actually a lovely idea, and I'm sorry that I seemed so set against it before."
"What are you saying, Cassie?" he asked, not daring to get his hopes up.
"If the offer is still open, then the three of us would love to take you up on it," she told him, trying to sense what he was feeling before he put the words together.
"Of course," he grinned. "How about next Saturday? I'm not scheduled to work then."
Cassie smiled. Yes, there was still an ache in her heart when she looked at Sam and everything she was denying them both by not being together, but this made it sweeter. They were building a real foundation now, not just one built on simmering chemistry and unresolved tension.
"We'll be ready and waiting."
So would he, whenever she was ready.