Agent Egrene stood up from his desk and made his way to John's private quarters. It had been about two weeks since his last dimensional shift. Even though he had control, for some reason, the time period remained the same as when he had no control.
Force of habit, perhaps? Or perhaps it was simply due to the relativity of time. Either way, he should be back by now. Agent Egrene went to John's door and knocked.
"John? Are you back yet?"
No answer. Perhaps he wasn't. Agent Egrene put his hands in his pockets and strode back to his office. SCP-85's room was on the way to his office; he passed by it when he noticed something was amiss.
He did a double take a checked. The door was ever so slightly ajar. He pushed the door opened and stepped into a dimly lit room to see two elderly individuals hunched over SCP-85's drawing pad.
"Who are you?" Agent Egrene shouted. He unstrapped the holster to his side arm and firmly wrapped his hands around the grip off the gun, but he made sure to keep the finger away from the trigger, just in case this was a simple mistake. The pair quickly turned around and put their hands in the air.
"Egrene! Wait! It's us!" The woman croaked through her ancient throat.
He recognized the body armor and the flowing text immediately.
"Cassandra?" Agent Egrene relaxed. He then saw the old man. Despite the age and the grayed hair, he still distinctly recognized it as John. "John?"
"Yep. Didn't expect to see us return as geezers, did you?" John laughed before he wheezed and fell into a coughing fit.
Agent Egrene rushed over to his side to support his ailing friend. "It's only been two weeks here! How long have you two been gone?"
"Didn't you say you were everywhere?" John playfully jabbed at him with his elbow. There a crack and he held his arm close. Clearly, old age did not remove any of his spirit.
"I meant in the Foundation, John. I can't follow you around unless you take me with you. I'm not omnipotent. Tell me how long it's been so I can log it." Agent Egrene helped John to a nearby seat. He was so ancient by now, that it was a miracle he still had it in him to walk.
Cassy took a seat next to him.
"Are you still able to hop, John? Do you have it in you to come to my office?" Asked Agent Egrene as he knelt down beside him.
"Of course! That doesn't take much," said John, "but I want to go to my room instead."
"I suppose that's fine."
"But I want to walk there." John practically demanded.
"Are you quite sure?"
"Yes!"
#
Agent Egrene trailed beside John and Cassy as they slowly dragged their feet down the halls of the Foundation.
"In the two week time span that you two were gone, you hop back and you're old enough to be at death's door. I need to know where you two went." Agent Egrene stood close to the both of them, but more towards John. His steps were less steady than Cassy's.
"Would you be upset if I told you that we decided to just keep journeying and not come back?" John asked with a wry, wrinkly smile.
"To the point where you come back so old? How did you two stay fed and clean? Did you just go to civilian locales and integrate whenever possible?" Asked Agent Egrene.
"Something like that," asked Cassy. She, too, gave him a wry smile.
"Still wearing the same clothing?"
"We stayed clean." Cassy laughed.
"Very well…" Agent Egrene frowned a little. "May I ask what you were doing in your old room, Cassandra?"
"Just seeing what I used to look like." Cassy responded. "I used to look so young. I didn't age in there. You knew that, Egrene." This was a statement, not a question.
"Well, yes, we figured as such. I also figured that being tied to a physical body would also age you, but to see it happen so soon. At least from my side." He shook his head and smiled.
They reached John's room. Agent Egrene opened the door for them and stood aside to allow them entry. John and Cassy went in and sat side by side together.
"Are you going to tell me anything about the specifics of where you went?" Asked Agent Egrene, who stood at the door frame.
"We already did," said the significantly older John.
"I'm going to need to know more, John." Agent Egrene gently insisted. "It's for the sake of the report. You know how it is."
"Can we at least have a day to relax first? We've been through a lot, you see." said Cassy. She leaned her head against John's shoulder.
Agent Egrene looked at the two of them for a brief moment. "...very well. A day's rest. I'll tell them that you two were to exhausted to talk when you came back. See you tomorrow." He nodded closed the door. His footsteps echoed down the hallway and gradually grew quieter before silencing completely.
John and Cassy lay next to each other in bed, hand in hand.
"Did you see the look on his face?" John laughed. He broke into another coughing fit.
"I sure did," Cassy grinned up at the ceiling. She gently squeezed John's hand, unable to go as tightly as she used to.
"He's totally on our side. So many rules broken, just for us," whispered John, "when I came back here after I saw you get killed, I thought I'd be alone forever. He changed that without a second thought. Even went straight to the Council."
"Do you think he'll ever tell us who he is?" Cassy wondered.
"He told us the first day he brought you back. He's everywhere, that's what he is."
"Oh, John."
They both spent the last minutes of their lives together holding hands in bed; a luxury that no other SCPs were ever allowed.
"I still think he's an SCP," Cassy whispered, feeling her last ounce of life slowly trailing out of her body. She stared at her arm and saw that her flowing ink was slowing down.
"I think you're an SCP..." John turned his head to look at her.
"Shut up, John…" Cassy turned her head to look at him.
They grinned at each other, their last breaths intertwined in the small space between their faces.
#
"John? Cassandra?" Agent Egrene knocked on their door. No answer. He knocked again. Silence. He had no desires to be rude, but it had been a full day. He tried the door knob. It was locked. He knocked again. "I apologize, but I will be forced to enter if I receive no response." Nothing. He took out a key ring and unlocked their door. He gently pushed it open.
"John? Cassy?" He looked to their bed and saw them both fast asleep. He allowed himself to smile at them. There wasn't a single day that went by where he didn't feel joy at the happiness he had brought to two lonely individuals.
He even stifled a bit of his old anger that he felt when he remembered the decision that the Council had made to allow the Atonement entity to enact destruction upon any and all SCPs. Oh, how that backfired.
He went over to John and Cassy and tried to shake them awake.
"John. Cassandra." He grinned as he put a hand on them and shook them. They were cold to the touch, and they weren't breathing.
Agent Egrene's smile vanished. He knew that they would grow old and die, just as any organic being did, but at the same time, he never truly focused on that aspect. He broke a good deal of rules to grant happiness to two individuals for which he felt a great deal of sympathy.
He did not weep, but he knew he'd miss them. He closed their eyes for them and had a moment of silence for the two SCPs that were spared from the greatest sorrow that no good-hearted man or woman should ever suffer: being alone.
He then had an idea.
He stepped out of the room and gently closed the door behind him. He locked it and went to the morgue. He retrieved two body bags and returned to their room. He unlocked the door again and placed their bodies in the body bags.
And then he made his way to SCP-318.
#
Oh, how the Council would have his head on a silver platter after this. This did not matter to him. He'd survive this. He always did. After all, this universe was so far split from the 'main' one, he had more sway here than he did there.
Agent Egrene took the drawing pad out of John's pocket before he opened the 'insert' compartment of SCP-318 and placed the body inside. He then squeezed Cassy's body inside. Considering how skinny they both were, the fit was incredibly snug. He jammed the lid shut and hoped that his idea would work.
His heart leapt with satisfaction when he saw the lights appear; the machine was going to work. Agent Egrene achieved his life's dream then. He had eased the suffering that the multiverse was much too keen on providing to the anomalous, even if this wasn't much. A side universe or not, Agent Egrene could not have felt any more joy.
Around the two or three minute mark, instead of hearing the voices that normally accompanied this machine, he saw text floating out of the compartment.
Hug. Hug. Embrace. Comfort. Love you.
Agent Egrene the bore witness to something that would forever sit in his mind; he witnessed the lines of text slowly form into the outlines of two people—one male, one female—and tightly embrace each other. They eyed each other closely, their faces so very close to each other.
He beamed with pride. They'd have his ass for sure, but still, he beamed with pride. Besides. He could make a convincing appeal afterwards. He always did.
When the lights stopped, he took the doweled parchment from the other compartment and went to his office.
He unfurled the scroll. Two living pieces of art looked around in their new environment before they quickly saw each other and hugged one another; old friends.
"Hello, John and Cassandra. Fancy of you two to step into my office." Agent Egrene's grin was wider than he had ever allowed himself before.
They both turned to face him, their bodies of art and text perfectly portraying shock and surprise. They were still holding hands.
"Egrene?" Lines of text formed near Cassy's head. "You brought me back again? How?"
"Me, too!" John exclaimed.
"Well. Cassandra died once in her art form. SCP-318 brought her back in her art form. That was one revive. She died a second time in a physical body, thus allowing a second revive. That's my idea, at least." Agent Egrene explained. "To be fair, I wasn't sure if my idea would work, but lo and behold. You two are here."
"But what about me?" asked John. "How am I here? Did you put us both in?"
"Yes," Agent Egrene nodded. "I have an idea, but only if you can confirm something for me. Did you go into Cassandra's world at any point in time?"
John scratched the back of his head with he free hand and looked down sheepishly. "Well. Yeah."
"I believe SCP-318 may have recognized this and deemed you of a similar enough nature to Cassandra after that." Agent Egrene concluded.
"But that makes no sense!"
"We study anomalies and contain them here, John. Even we don't fully understand all the inner machinations of every anomalous activity that we find." Agent Egrene smiled. "That said, what say you to this new form? Are you able to hop out of there?"
"Um…" John furrowed his brow in concentration, yet he remained as he was. "It doesn't seem like it."
"Interesting. So you're now bound to the realm of art alongside Cassandra. Fitting, isn't it? Once together to freely explore dimensions, now stuck to the same fate that Cassandra has; a work of art." said Agent Egrene.
"Are you...okay with this, John?" Cassy hugged his arm.
"Is this allowed?" John asked Agent Egrene as he stroked Cassy's hair.
"Let me worry about that." Agent Egrene concluded.
"Why, though?" John shook his head. "We're extremely grateful, but why? Why all the good deeds for two SCPs? We're 'wrong.' Our existence wasn't supposed to happen."
"I was supposed to die there, wasn't I?" Cassy asked. There was a subtle movement to her hand-drawn strokes when she said this; she tightened her hold on John's arm.
"Because when John came back without you, I saw a broken man. The Foundation does its fair share of breaking people. I wanted to change that, even if only a little." Agent Egrene whispered softly.
"Are you an SCP?" asked Cassy.
They couldn't believe what they saw next. Agent Egrene leaned back against his chair and laughed. No. He guffawed at this allegation.
"No," he replied as he caught his breath, "I'm not an SCP." He then sat back and clapped his hands dramatically, just the same as he always does whenever he comes down to business.
"You two will be marked as an unregistered Safe-class SCP. I'll have to keep you in my drawer for now, but rest assured, I'll keep you two updated on current events." He brought the old drawing pad and laid it down next to them. "Why don't you two come back in here?"
They nodded gratefully and stepped to the drawing pad.
"Wait!" John called to Agent Egrene, who was just about to place them in his desk drawer.
"Yes?"
"What about the other Cassy?" John asked.
"She is completely unrelated and unaware of everything that has transpired outside of her drawing pad as well as her room. Why do you ask?" Agent Egrene placed them back on his desk.
"Cassy here was pretty lonely before everything. Do you think you could do anything for that Cassy?" John suggested.
Agent Egrene shook his head. "No."
"Why not?" asked Cassy. She had a sad look on her face.
"Because I only have so much sway. I can do nothing for that Cassy. You two truly are a special case. I must go now, you two." He said nothing and quickly placed them within his desk drawer.
#
John and Cassy looked at each other. Even after all these years, he never once moved on from the black entity that once took Cassy away.
To this day, she could see the haunted look in his eyes whenever he showed it.
He was showing it now.
Cassy made sure to wipe it away by caressing him with a few lines of text.
Love you.
John grinned.
Love you, too.
