Once again, I am so utterly humbled by the reviews that this story has gotten and thank you so much to everyone for your awesome praise, suggestions, input, critiques and opinions.
I wish I could just give you all a jellybean right now.
Obviously not a red one though. XD
Anywho, allons-y! Geronimo!
Chapter sixteen is nigh!
Another cold wind cut all but cut through Cassidy as she stood shivering in her driveway- finally having returned to Oakside, London, England.
A raging tide of relief crashed over her at the sight of her house. For so many days, held against her will, she had been desperately homesick in its wake and now she was finally home once more.
Simple, short footsteps away from the front porch of her house.
Yet even though it had only been seconds since the TARDIS had faded away into thin air and she missed its warmth already.
The wind continued sweep over the released captive in icy gusts, as though reminding her that she was in early Winter England once more and providing her with some kind of cynical, back-handed "welcome home."
She wrapped her arms around herself, cradling her goose-pimpled arms and suddenly deciding that she missed the doctor's trench coat too.
Despite the harsh temperature and less-than-comforting weather, Cassidy allowed a feeling of warmth to pool in her stomach.
"At least I'm not suffocating and being scorched to death by sunlight," she muttered to herself. "I'd rather this any day over being back in that hotel room…"
The warmth suddenly drained from her stomach as her memories from Summer Bank began to trickle back into the corners of her mind- filling her with nausea and unease.
No, Cassidy was not ready to start saying anything about her experiences aloud.
Not even to herself.
Not yet.
The wind was getting stronger now: as though it was urging her to walk up the steps of the porch and into her house.
"Why aren't I already inside?" she thought, eyeballing the front door as though it were the pearly gates of Heaven. "I told myself that I'd be running up to the house, kissing the doormat when I finally got home…why haven't I gone inside yet?"
Her body felt stiff and sore as well as being cold, not to mention the terrible fear to move that overcame her. She looked around, her eyes desperately searching the sheltered front garden, gravel path and small, country road that were at her back as though expecting to see someone watching her.
Waiting for her.
The paranoia was nothing short of killing.
The absence of having to constantly look over her shoulder, in fear of murderous hoards of Weeping Angels, felt strange to her.
Not to mention the absence of having to worry about the particular Lonely Assassin who had almost all but destroyed her.
"Michael," she dared herself to whisper aloud, calling upon the demon in Angel's garb by the name that she had chosen for him.
For a frightening second, she almost fooled herself that he would come when she called.
But the silent, shivering seconds ticked by and he did not come.
Why would he?
After all, the Weeping Archangel known as Michael- her once beloved project and fated kidnapper- was dead.
She would never look over her shoulder, wake up or even open her eyes to see him again.
No matter how she framed that information in her own mind, there was no way that she could change the way it made her feel.
A great weight had been lifted from her shoulders yet something still sat heavy in her heart.
For a brief second, she thought she glimpsed a silhouette of some kind out of the corner of one eye.
Suddenly breathing heavily, Cassidy whipped her head around- her head throbbing and her heart hammering- only to see nothing but an empty stretch of grass and a sprightly young birch tree, bending to the will of the wind.
"Forget it, Cass," she told herself. "Just fucking let go. You heard the doctor. He told you that this was over. Just let it be over." Swallowing and willing herself to look back up at the house, she took in the familiar sight of the whitewashed red-brick, high-arching windows and jingling wind-chimes dangling from the porch's gently sloping roof.
Slowly, her thoughts began to turn to more welcome, important matters.
"Mum," Cassidy murmured, forcing her quaking legs to start walking towards the house. Seeing her mother would make everything so much better. Throughout her entire ordeal in Summer Bank, it had been thoughts of her mother that had aided Cassidy in her emotional survival.
Now, she was finally within reach of her real guardian angel once more.
For the first time, she took stock of the fact that Nancy's trusty Fiat Panda was parked in the lower end of the driveway.
Nancy had probably only just dropped Maria Albright back to the house.
Had she been in hospital the entire time while her daughter had been away?
Cassidy wondered this with a furrowed brow, starting to hope that her mother's medical consultations hadn't been too strenuous while she was gone.
Either way, she was back now and ready to provide some long overdue support.
She made her way up to the steps of the porch and to the doorway.
The old doorbell system wasn't quite what it used to be and even after various treatments from repair men and women, it continued to be rather sporadic in volume, (Cassidy and Maria Albright privately blamed the friendly but disgruntled Victorian ghosts whom they had decided roamed the house at night). The brass door-knocker, while beautiful, was also on its last legs- often threatening to fall from his hinges if an unsuspecting visitor placed so much as a finger upon its ornamented latch.
Despite that, Cassidy's mother could never bring herself to replace it.
"It's falling apart at the edges and a bit on the shabby side but still quite the looker," the woman had laughed. "Just like me."
Using this trail of memories to put her mind back at ease, Cassidy stooped look for the spare house key- finding it in its usual hiding place: under the porcelain sphinx.
Ever since their first holiday to Cairo when Cassidy was nine, a proud, blue ornamental sphinx statue had guarded the door to their house, enjoying a position of great dignity between the flower pots.
Both she and her mother had decided that the sphinx had been a far better choice of guardian than a mere garden gnome.
After all, garden gnomes were far too closely related to goblins to be considered trustworthy- as far as little Cassidy was concerned.
"And if the great sphinx was good enough for the pharaohs," they had firmly agreed. "It's more than good enough for us."
The sphinx statue also had the dual role of guarding the spare house-key, which was always hidden underneath her polished underside.
Her fingers slightly clumsy as she fumbled with the lock of the door, Cassidy blinked when she noticed something brush against her foot.
Something was strewn across the doormat.
She looked down and the sight of a slender, green stem shot bolts of panic from her mouth to her stomach, the key suddenly threatening to fall from her now bloodless fingers.
A rose? A rose. The rose. One of the roses. One of the roses that he would leave for her. Not Louisa. Not Leon. He was here? But was he here? Where was he? Why wasn't he dead?!
She fearfully dared herself to look down again.
No.
No single roses.
Just a bouquet.
A regular bouquet of white carnations, wrapped in standard flower-shop plastic sheets and more likely intended to be a "Get Well Soon" gift for her mother.
"I can't even bloody well look at flowers anymore," she thought, near bitterly, taking up the bouquet and unlocking the door. "Come on, Cassidy. You're home. Be happy. Get on with your life."
With this tiny piece of self-motivation, she twisted the key and stepped inside.
The scent of home filled her nostrils and instantly, a greatly missed warmth washed over her.
She quickly decided against calling out to announce her presence, wanting to spare her mother the sudden shock of her homecoming and choosing instead to savour the sight of the main hallway.
Her eyes drifted from the rustic iron coat-rack to the woven Navajo rug on the floor to the polished foot of the stairs, finally falling upon the cat-shaped paperweight that lay on the floor beside the hall-table.
It was a seven year old Cassidy Albright's crudely made birthday gift to her mother, courtesy of a summer camp arts and crafts session.
Despite her sheepish protests that it wasn't half as good as the other children in her group's works of art, Maria Albright had insisted upon giving it a place of honour in the house.
"People picked apart Pablo Picasso's work because it was a little rough around the edges," she had pointed out, running her fingers along the cat's earthenware back. "And now he's considered a genius and ahead of his time."
Though she still had to concede that her sculpted tabby was no "Guernica", her mother's words filled the little girl with enough pride in her own work to put a smile on her face once more.
Putting the bouquet aside, she lifted the little pottery-kitten from the floor. Cassidy cradled it in the palm of her hand, running her thumb along its poorly shaped back.
The paperweight meant so much more to her than an excuse to think that she was a co-ordinated artist as a kid. It was a sign of a mother's faith in her daughter and the memory had been a pulling factor in her choice to specialise in pottery and statues while studying archaeology.
Cassidy traced its clefted, nail-mark features with the tip her little finger.
"I'm home…miss me?"
As though something within the house sought to answer her, Cassidy heard noise coming from down the hall and for the first time, noticed that the light was on in the kitchen.
Taking a deep breath and bracing herself, she made her way to the half-open door.
Following the familiar whirr and click of an old kettle wheezing itself to life.
What would she tell her mum?
What would her mother say?
She had been missing for days without any way of contacting her.
Cassidy took a deep breath, attempting to slow her heart rate and bracing herself for the inevitable confrontation.
Her entire ordeal- her waking nightmare- at the Summer Bank and all that had surrounded it, had trained her to become a good liar in situations of high pressure.
Maybe if she concocted some kind of tale about needing space following Louisa's death? Maybe if she finally told her mother about being suspended from work?
Her stomach felt sour.
Cassidy hated making up false excuses for her own short-comings. Though she considered herself to be risk-aversive, she also preferred to take her punishments where they were deserved.
Maybe in time, she would be able to tell her mother the true story behind her disappearance.
About the doctor.
About Michael.
About everything.
If anyone would believe her, Cassidy consoled herself- giving the clay paperweight in her hand a squeeze, it would be the woman who had always believed in her.
Taking a final deep breath, she placed a hand on the wood panel door of the kitchen and pushed it open.
"H-Hey," she said, coughing slightly, walking inside. "I…"
"Cassidy?"
Cassidy stopped dead in her tracks, her voice failing in her mouth.
There was someone in the kitchen, sitting at the table- just as she had expected there to be.
But it wasn't her mother.
Leaning on the table, her long, fair hair tied up in a nest-like, messy bun and with a cup of steaming tea in front of her, was Cassidy's cousin Nancy.
Her first cousin and the only cousin that Cassidy had ever been made aware of.
A long-time worker at London's busiest hospital and her mother's personal nurse.
But her mother was nowhere to be seen.
"Cassidy?!" Nancy exclaimed again, her sleep-shadowed eyes wide and staring. "Y-you...What are you…? Everyone thought that you… But now you're here…"
"Nancy," Cassidy said quietly, nodding as she looked around the kitchen and swallowed. "Hi. How have you been? Is Mum upstairs sleeping?"
Nancy continued to gawp at her younger cousin, her voice as incredulous as it was hoarse. "Jesus Christ, Cassidy. You look fucking awful…" She looked her up and down, taking in her pale, thin, rather scruffy and grimy appearance and regarding her as though she were a ghost.
"Yes, I know. Look, I've been…"
"Where the fuck have you been all this time?" Nancy's features contorted, quickly changing from shock to rage. The woman's knuckles turned milky as she gripped the rim of her mug.
Cassidy blinked, taken aback at her cousin's sudden anger. "Nan, I'm sorry. I know I…" She lifted her hands, inhaling. "I know that I've been gone for a while but let me explain."
"Explain?! Explain what?! Explain how you just fucking vanished from the face of the earth and left all of us here to do nothing but fucking worry about you?! Fine! Fine! Fucking explain that, Cass. Please do!"
Cassidy's eyebrows shot upward. "Relax, Nan. I can explain this. I've only been gone for a few days. Just let me talk to mum first and I'll tell you everything, alright?"
"A few days?"
Nancy rolled her eyes, shaking her head and wringing her hands. "A few days? That's what you call it?" Her voice began to rise in volume, becoming shakier and shakier with each increased decibel. "Cassidy! You've been gone for over three bloody weeks!"
"Three weeks!?" The bottom just about dropped out of Cassidy's stomach.
That murderous Archangel hadn't kept her for that long, had he?
Granted her perception of time in the Summer Bank Hotel had been torn to shreds, but she knew that she couldn't have spent more than a week in that room- even if it had felt like longer.
Had the doctor taken her back to her own time a few days late?
Or a few weeks late?
"I tried to call you! I called you every bloody day!" Nancy continued to shriek. "I sent you text messages and e-mails by the caseload and I got no fucking response! Not once! Where the fuck were you?! Everyone thought that you were in some kind of trouble!"
"I…I don't understand…I…"
"I fucking called the Museum and after three godforsaken days of calling, I finally got through to that damn curator who tells me that you were suspended from work weeks ago for your drunken behaviour at your presentation!"
"I…Nancy…I wasn't…"
"Apparently you never turned up for your hearing in front of the board of directors so your suspension was extended! With all the fucking disappearances going on around the museum, everyone thought that you'd been abducted too! And then all these crazy rumours about you being an art thief and having run off with Dr Hewitt…"
Cassidy's mouth was dry and a cold sweat had started to form along her hairline.
She stared into her cousin's eyes, seeing the tears there and shaking her head with disbelief.
This was not what she had wanted to come home to.
"None…n-none of that is true. I just had to go…" Her voice failed her again.
What was she supposed to tell Nancy?
What could she tell her?
"Just had to go? That's your fucking excuse?! Just had to go where exactly?!"
Nancy slammed her mug down upon the wood of the table.
Cassidy couldn't help but feel that her cousin wanted to slam her down against something too.
"Where is my mum?" Cassidy asked for the second time.
"She had to be confined in hospital after she got worse, Cassidy! I had to be the one to sit with her! I was the one who had to tell her that everything was alright!" She gave a loud bark of cynical laughter. "And sometimes when she got delirious and panicked, all she'd do was ask for you! And I didn't have the heart to tell her that her daughter was off God-knows-where doing God-knows-what with God-knows-fucking-who!" Tears were starting to glisten in the corners of her eyes. "Sometimes when she was so doped up on painkilling medication, I actually had to pretend to be you, just to keep that poor woman sane! Do you have any fucking idea what you put her through?"
Cassidy's heart was beating so quickly that it felt like single vibration in the depths of her quivering chest.
Or maybe she was so overtaken by shock that it had stopped beating altogether.
At that moment in time, the young archaeologist couldn't tell.
"I had to call the fucking police! Couldn't even tell your mum that there was a search being made for you. I was too afraid that it'd bloody put her into shock…and I told myself that if you were still alive and had no good reason for not coming back, I wouldn't forgive you…now you just show up and…"
A terrifying, nauseating kind of fear swept over her as she put the question to her cousin once more.
"Nancy. Where's my mum?"
Her cousin took a shaky breath, looking downwards and biting her lower lip. A long, uneasy, frightening silence settled between them.
Finally, she looked up.
"Maria is dead, Cassidy."
A ringing began in the inner-part of Cassidy's ears, slowly growing louder and louder as her chest heaved faster and faster, breathing quickly becoming a torturous ordeal.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Nancy stood up, still looking at her with the same grim, half-tearful expression.
"I'm sorry, Cassidy. Your mum is dead and buried as of five days. You missed the funeral."
The cat-shaped paperweight slipped from Cassidy's hand, falling to the floor and shattering into meaningless, jagged pieces on the tiles.
In another time and another place, she might have cried out.
Stooped.
Rushed to clean it up.
To fix it up.
Put it back together again.
But she knew she'd never put it back together again.
Cassidy knew that it didn't matter anymore.
Nothing did.
In a rare moment of peace, Clara Oswin Oswald found herself wandering alone through the labyrinth-like corridors of the TARDIS.
It was just over an hour after they had dropped Edmund Potter and Abigail Drake off at their respective home addresses, following garbled goodbyes and a final, wide-eyed gawk at the TARDIS' fantastic control panel.
The doctor had been oddly quiet following the departure of their last two refugees.
In fact, in stark contrast to his usual nigh-unstoppable banter and babble, the Time Lord had been near silent as he pandered around the TARDIS' main deck.
Clara had to drag speech from him and even when she did finally manage to get him talking, his conversation was watery and vague.
In another strange, uncharacteristic contrast to their established normality, the doctor also seemed very unwilling to discuss the details that day's adventure with his companion.
"That was nice, wasn't it? That Edmund said he'd look out for Cassidy at work, I mean. It's great to know that she's already got people prepared to look after her?"
"Hmmph…look after her…indeed…" He blinked, lifting his head. "Look after who?"
"Cassidy, doctor. You know, the girl you spent weeks researching, days trying to save and just managed to succeed in doing so?"
"Ah…yes."
"That was a narrow escape, wasn't it?"
"Mhmm."
"One of your better ones? Or have you got a story to top it?"
"Hnn…"
"Almost caught by a vicious tribe of time-travelling, living, humanoid statues and narrowly evaded them by leaping from the roof of a twelve-storey building. That's going to be a hard one to beat, I suppose…"
"Hmm."
"Doctor?"
The Time Lord did not answer her, instead choosing to fumble around in the tweed folds of his jacket, mumbling to himself.
"Doctor?" Clara repeated, her voice now weighted with a heady mixture of annoyance and concern. "Are you alright?"
"Alright?" He looked up at her again. "Ah yes. Of course. Do excuse me. I'll be back later. Just need to check something. Something to do with the TARDIS and her inner workings. Very technical. Re-calibrating the flandemordial phanatrix and what not else. I should be back in an hour. Entertain yourself however you see fit…"
Clara truly did not know which to be more shocked by- the dry, toneless way that he had spoken to her or the abruptness with which he had left her side.
She had never seen the doctor so unwilling to talk to her before.
But even though his behaviour had been rather strange surrounding the time of Cassidy Albright's abduction and throughout their entire rescue mission, Clara couldn't help but nervously feel that she had somehow contributed to his sudden standoffishness.
Fearing that she'd only spur this behaviour to further extremes, she decided against following him.
After all, the doctor knew best.
In her own general experience anyway.
Instead, she had decided to busy herself by rootling through some of the doctors' old trunks and boxes, left open around the main deck.
"So messy," Clara had tutted to herself, smiling slightly and starting to sift through an old dress-trunk of jackets. "And what a bizarre wardrobe you have, doctor. I can't tell whether your fashion sense is avant garde or virtually non-existent."
She plucked, played with and preened in a black leather jacket, smooth cream-coloured cricket jacket and brightly coloured, long-tailed jacket from the innermost corners of the trunk before heading off into the bowels of the TARDIS once again.
The doctor was taking his time with whatever maintenance he had decided to do.
Clara's knowledge about the TARDIS' inner-workings was limited but even during his most tedious of tasks, he often begged for company let alone allowed it.
And he never usually took this long.
She turned another corner, finding yet another silver-walled corridor with no doors.
"Doctor?" the companion called out for the fifth time, only to receive no answer for the fifth time.
Clara exhaled, starting to feel frightened for her dear friend.
She wished that she hadn't been so dismissive about his earlier behaviour.
He had seemed so deflated, so listless, so uncaring…so unlike the doctor that she knew so well.
Something about their whole experience with the Weeping Angels had disturbed the doctor and from the start, he had been unwilling to talk about it.
Winding a lock of silky, brown hair around her finger- tight as a spool of thread- Clara placed her free hand upon one of the walls.
"Alright, TARDIS," she whispered, starting to walk along the wall, trailing her fingertips along the smooth, polished surface. "I know that you care about him as much as I do…and we both know that he is most definitely not alright. So please, help me find him now…so that I can help him…"
No sooner had the words left her lips, her fingers suddenly met the threshold and frame of a fine, oak-wood door.
"I trust that this is it," she whispered, patting the door lightly and moving her hand to the latch. "Thanks, TARDIS."
The room was definitely one that she'd never been in before.
In an astounding dissimilarity to the corridor outside, the room was dimly lit by yellowish lamp-light with a low ceiling and a soft, thick maroon carpet.
What struck Clara instantly about the room however was that it was packed from floor to ceiling with towering stacks of leather-bound books.
No bookshelves.
Just piles upon piles of massive, clumsily stacked books.
She carefully edged her way inside, doing her absolute utmost to avoid causing an avalanche.
"What is this place?" she wondered. "A library? An archive, maybe? The doctor's sure never showed me this place before."
Before Clara could ponder this any further, she noticed a light source radiating from the deepest part of the room.
The closer that she got to the glowing light, the quicker Clara came to realise that the light was coming from a glass-bottle lamp. The glass-bottle lamp was set upon a small side-table, which in turn was next to a large, dark green, old-fashioned arm chair.
"Doctor?" she called out quietly, noticing that there was definitely somebody seated in the chair.
As she neared the furnishings, the occupant of the chair's silhouette became a lot more defined and Clara realised that it definitely was the doctor whom she was looking at.
She was about to call out again but something about his posture confused her.
It was as though he was sick, his forehead resting on his knuckles, his elbow propped on the arm of the chair and his shoulders hunched.
It was only when she saw his shoulders start to quake and heard the first of his quiet, anguished sobs that she realised with shock that he was crying.
"Doctor!"
She quickly hurried over, stooping down to his side, her skin turning cold at the sight of his reddened eyes.
"Clara?!" he exclaimed, abruptly sitting up straight, sniffing and turning his head into his sleeve. "What…what are you doing here?"
The doctor's fated attempt to be stern failed entirely and his companion knelt down beside him, her hands resting on the arm of the chair.
"Are you alright?" she asked insistently, dodging his accusative question.
"I…" He forced a flippant smile. "Of course, I'm alright. These old books. Dust. Gives me the sniffles."
"Don't play stupid with me," Clara insisted sharply, shaking her head. "And don't insult both your intelligence and mine, doctor. You're not "alright." You weren't alright at Summer Bank. You weren't alright in Los Angeles or in Cassidy's house. And you haven't been alright since you first remembered who Cassidy Albright was…"
"Clara," the doctor murmured, looking away from her, his voice warbling dangerously "There…there are some things that just aren't work talking about. Please…"
"This is obviously worth talking about if it's upsetting you this much!" she returned, kneeling up. "Please, talk to me."
The doctor looked down into the earnest eyes of his companion, his own eyes slowly brimming.
"Clara, there's no need to-…"
"I want to, doctor," she told him, lifting one hand to squeeze his arm. "I want to."
The young woman gradually knelt up, the folds of her skirt skimming the sides of the chair as her knees pressed into the fronds of the carpet beneath. "I know that there was more to the way you were acting at Summer Bank than just concern for Cassidy…"
The doctor only stared at her for a moment before taking a shaky breath and rubbing his forehead.
"The last time that I faced the Weeping Angels…I lost something…someone…two someones…two someones who were very dear to me…"
Clara remained silent, simply flattening her palm against the doctor's arm and giving him the chance to speak on. She could feel him shivering beneath her touch but despite her growing concern, she kept quiet.
"Rory and Amy Pond," he went on, his eyes wandering downward again to stare into the distance, as though there was an invisible screen of some kind that only he could see. A faint smile crossed his lips. "Two of the most loyal, brave, brilliant people that you could ever hope to meet…"
Clara had heard him briefly speak of Amy and Rory before. She knew that they were the ones who had travelled with him before her.
But the doctor had never quite explained in detail what had become of them.
"They…were with you when you encountered the Weeping Angels? You said that they had a hotel in New York…and that they were doing the same thing as in Los Angeles…"
"Winter Quay," the doctor confirmed, nodding and still watching his invisible television screen. "We were in New York City in the present day when they took Rory. We ended up following him back to a block of apartments- another Angels' farm – called Winter Quay. River, Amy and I." His face began to scrunch up from the centre, his nose wrinkling. "I…I'll admit I didn't know what to do…how to stop them at first…all I wanted to do was escape…there were so many people there though." He exhaled. "So many people who needed saving…and Rory's fate seemed sealed too…"
His barely-there smile returned. "But then it was Rory- clever, clever Rory- who figured out what to do."
"The paradox," Clara said aloud, nodding. "Rory figured out that you had to create a paradox."
"Well," the doctor shrugged. "He figured out how to cause one anyway. You see, we saw his older-self die in the hotel that night. Just like how you saw older Abbie pass away." The doctor's voice slowly lost its factual tone and most of its volume. "River and I caught up with Amy and Rory when they were on the roof…Rory wanted them to jump and …Amy wouldn't let him go without her…" He sniffed, giving a soft laugh. "They were so in love…love makes people so crazy…makes them make crazy decisions…do utterly crazy things…"
His companion took a few moments to find her voice and in the doctor's silence, she gently pressed her fingers against his arm, asking quietly.
"And…after they jumped…they survived, didn't they?"
"The more than survived," the doctor said, in little more than a hoarse whisper. "They won. They created the paradox and came out just as alive as you and I did today." He sniffed again. "I remember being…so happy that they were alright…" Tears began to form in glistening beads at the corner of the doctor's eyes. "But…afterwards…the TARDIS stopped in a cemetery…and while we were outside…" The doctor's voice shattered and he looked downwards, moving both hands to clasp in his lap.
Gingerly, Clara slipped her hand down his arm and came to place it over his hands.
"…go on."
"A surviving Angel," the doctor told her, tears now sliding down his cheeks. "A surviving Angel from Winter Quay followed us and took Rory. Sent him into the past…" The doctor coughed, his knuckles pulling taut under Clara's touch as his fists clenched in anger. "I try…I try to give every species in the universe a fair chance…but the Weeping Angels as a race are just…maniacal. Monsters. Completely unfeeling and constantly driven by sadism and revenge." He took a long breath, apparently trying to steady himself. "We just couldn't go back to get him…it would cause too much of a rift in the time-stream to ever repair…I…" Another tear fell down his cheeks.
"I tried to tell her. I really did…but she just loved him so much…she couldn't bear to go on without him…" The doctor slipped his hands from Clara's grip to run them through his hair. "But I just couldn't bear to lose her." He sucked in another breath between his lips, his head in his hands. "She walked right into the arms of the Angel…she looked to me to say goodbye…" The doctor sobs became louder. "And I begged her…I begged her not to…but then…I blinked…and in the blink of an eye…she was gone forever. Gone with Rory." He coughed. "And th-then I saw their n-names on a tombstone epitaph and I…"
The doctor fell quiet, dissolving completely into silent weeping.
Wordlessly, Clara gathered herself to her feet and leaning forward, wrapped her arms around the doctor in a gentle embrace.
He made no movement at first, going slightly rigid in her arms but eventually moved to return the embrace, his arms wrapping around her waist.
"Summer Bank must have reminded you of everything," she whispered. "You're so strong. Having all those memories and still being able to bring yourself to save Cassidy and Abbie and Stan and everyone in that hotel…"
"I'm not strong," the doctor retorted, coughing and shaking his head. "I'm weak. Old and weak. Here I am. Sitting alone in the dark, breaking my own hearts while reading an old letter that I've read a thousand times…"
"Letter?"
The doctor pulled away from Clara's embrace, bending to pick up a small wooden box that had been set at the foot of the armchair. He opened it and delicately took forth its lonely contents- a page torn from the back of a paperback novel.
He handed the page to his faithful companion- his saviour in more ways than she'd ever truly know- nodding. "Her letter. Her final words to me through a book written by her daughter."
Clara took the page as carefully as she could, squinting to read the black type-face lettering and feeling the weight and warmth of each word wash over her as she read.
Afterword, by Amelia Williams.
Hello, old friend, and here we are. You and me, on the last page.
By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone.
So know that we lived well, and were very happy.
And above all else, know that we will love you, always. Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think once we're gone, you won't be coming back here for a while, and you might be alone, which you should never be.
Don't be alone, Doctor.
And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to sea and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two-thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived and save a whale in outer space. Tell her this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends.
Clara could feel tears forming in her own eyes, mirroring those of the doctor's- already starting to spill as she looked back up at him.
"I did eventually go back to visit that little girl once or twice," he told her, smiling slightly again despite his evident sorrow. "It just about killed me to see her and to not be able to tell her anything but when I saw that hope sparkling in her eyes like a thousand stars in a thousand galaxies…I knew it was all worth it…" He gave a quiet laugh, wiping his eyes on the back of his cuff. "And I can still see her. Sitting on her suitcase with that stubborn, impatient little pout on her podgy little face. Bright, ginger hair. Offering me fish-fingers and custard if I agreed to stay another hour…" His voice trailed off.
"You're not alone, doctor," Clara said suddenly. "Amy and Rory didn't want you to be alone and you're not." She wiped her own tears.
The doctor exhaled, his shoulders slumping. "It's alright, Clara. In the twilight of my life, I've finally accepted that hermitude just might be something that suits me…"
"But you'll never be alone," his companion insisted. "I mean right now, you've got River. You've got the TARDIS. You've got Madame Vastra and Jenny and Strax…you've got all the people whom you've ever saved. You're a time-traveler! You must be able to understand that somewhere, sometime…there's always someone thinking about you and how wonderful you are. You've touched so many people's lives and those people will never forget you and whether you know it or not, they're with you every day, all the time." She smiled faintly.
"And you've got me. You'll always have me too."
The doctor was quiet as he very slowly took the letter from her and replaced it in its box, perhaps taking a moment to let her words sink in.
Then, without warning, he suddenly grabbed his companion in a tight embrace, one hand wrapped firmly around her back and the other coming to entangle in her hair.
"Don't ever change, Clara Oswin Oswald," he told her. "Don't ever change."
"I'm not changing and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon either," she assured him, returning the much-needed hug.
"Good…good…good Gallifrey, how long have I been in here? It must be weeks past lunch-time. We'd better find a good place to stop for a bite…"
She found herself smiling widely as they parted, almost feeling the doctor's usual happiness beginning to return.
"Just think," Clara decided to point out. "Think of the people who'll be thinking about you after today. Stan and Abbie and Edmund and Cassidy…"
The doctor had been starting to clean up, absent-mindedly poking at a few different books when he suddenly stopped in his tracks, turning to face Clara again.
"Yes…Cassidy," he murmured. "Cassidy."
"Doctor? Is something…the matter?"
"I just…worry for her…"
"But why? That Angel is dead…we saw him die…he'll never hurt her again. You said that. Right, doctor?"
"…"
"Right, doctor?"
He pressed his lips together, briefly raising a fist to his forehead before looking to his companion.
"You were right, you know. When you guessed that there was more to Cassidy Albright's story than I was letting on." The doctor sighed. "I just couldn't tell her anything at the time. I had to make her believe that it was all over. If she knew the truth, she could have changed everything. We intervened where we needed to intervene but the rest has to happen without her knowing…"
"The truth? What's the truth?"
The doctor beckoned for his companion to follow him from the room filled with books. "Don't ever get me wrong, Clara: I trust you more than anything. There's just a time and place to tell someone something important…so I'll tell you over lunch."
For Cassidy Albright, the next few days could have been recorded as photographs in her mind. They seemed to string together in barely-linked, surreal incidents, separated by the flashes of a camera.
Like pictures in a slideshow presentation.
For the most part, she felt as if she had left her body entirely.
As though she wasn't part of any of it.
She was just a spectator, watching someone else's life from the outside.
Someone else whose mother had died while she was away.
Not her mother.
"So she won't say anything about where she was?"
"No. Not a word. Can't get anything out of her…"
Cassidy knelt in the wet grass at her mother's grave-side, running her fingers over the words embedded in a polished marble tombstone.
"Rest in Peace, Maria Albright…"
It wasn't real to her.
It felt as though her mother was waiting for her at home, watching Coronation Street on the sofa and drinking tea.
Not buried under the dirt beneath her knees.
"Did he show up for the funeral?"
"Cassidy's dad? No. Well, if he did- I didn't see him."
"He hasn't tried to contact at all?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"…maybe it's better that way."
"Do you think maybe she ran off to see him?"
"Cassidy? No. Do you honestly think if she knew where he was, she'd do anything but avoid that location for life?"
"She's always been strange, though. Even as a child. Unpredictable. Odd."
Nancy and her aunt Christine stood behind her, watching her every move and whispering to each other.
She could hear every word of their conversation but she didn't really care what they were saying.
She didn't think they really cared that she could hear either.
Her aunt and cousin had been nothing but short and cold to her, following the obligatory sympathies.
They still hated her for "running away" when her mother needed her.
How could she ever tell them the truth?
"She's been kneeling there for almost an hour. We should tell her that it's time to go."
"You can tell her, mum. I don't want to make her cry again. She'll start a scene…"
Cassidy returned to the museum on Monday, finally having been able to return Curator Stanford's calls.
Apparently in Hewitt's absence, Edmund had been made the new head of their department.
Even if she was met by a furious Stanford and several irritated Museum Board members when she walked into the Curator's office, she hoped to get some time alone with Edmund to at least congratulate him before they kicked her out.
And maybe she could talk to Edmund about Summer Bank too.
Maybe he'd give her courage.
He wouldn't think she was crazy, above all else.
She passed several museum employees as she walked into the main reception at a quarter past seven on that Monday morning.
The majority- even the ones that she knew well- avoided eye contact with her, choosing to walk on the opposite side of the corridor to her or simply to pretend that she wasn't there.
Even Leon.
Though perhaps she should have expected it from him.
Cassidy walked past Omar.
She offered him a quietly mouthed "hello."
He responded with a curt nod of the head and kept walking.
Interns and janitorial staff hung around in groups, whispering as she neared Hewitt's office.
She heard words like "thief", "obsessed" and "insane", as she passed.
When Cassidy entered the Curator's office, she was taken aback to see Stanford, not fuming or furious or even looking remotely angry at her but very plain-faced and flanked by two police officers.
"Curator Stanford…hello…I…uh…about everything…"
"Miss Albright, the police would like to take you down to the station to answer a few questions..."
"I…I don't underst-…what have I done?"
"You haven't done anything, Miss Albright. This is just regarding your own disappearance. They'd just like to ask a few questions about where you were these past few weeks…"
That was a lie.
No sooner was Cassidy seated in the small, grey interrogation room of the district police station, she was immediately questioned about not her own "disappearance" but the others that had taken place, connected to the museum.
It was all a bit too clear, all of a sudden.
Stanford had wanted to take the heat off of the museum following the reported missing people and as such, had passed her on to the police as a suspect.
Not that she could blame him much.
She was an obvious suspect, after all.
"She keeps saying that she's forgotten where she was."
"No one forgets where they were for almost an entire month. Keep on her."
Her interrogators- a man and a woman- though far from cruel and slightly intimidating, were not all that good at keeping their conversations quiet.
Cassidy could hear them talking outside the door of the interrogation room.
She stared into the water in the plastic cup placed in front of her.
She drummed her fingers on the table and watched as miniature ripples began to spread through the pristine surface.
"I don't understand. Are we treating this kid as a victim or a suspect? As far as we know, she was taken by the unsub too, managed to escape and is now too traumatized to say a word about it…"
"Things don't match up though. She wasn't taken during the same time-frame as the other victims and her behaviour isn't that of a typical escaped survivor. Not to mention that this business with the disappearing and reappearing statue coinciding with the time that she was reported missing…"
"So we're back to the art-thief theory? Well, if that's the case- why hasn't she named her accomplices yet? She's got nothing else to lose. And a better question, why did she even come back? What was there to gain from it if the statue was already in her possession?"
Cassidy found herself looking at the clock on the wall, her eyes following the second-hand and watching its every jerky, ticking little move around the clock face.
How long were they going to keep her here?
"What about that girl, Louisa Fitzgerald? People say that those two were close and Albright was one of the last people to be with her before the ambulance was called."
"I thought she was cleared as a suspect for that? Her testimony says that Fitzgerald collapsed in front of her as though she was having some kind of seizure. The doctors blamed the death on natural causes…some kind of hyper-induced epileptic fit…"
"But Fitzgerald has no familial history of seizures of any kind. Not to mention the fact that Albright is still our only suspect in that case too. I mean all of these events surrounding the museum are too bizarre not to be linked and Albright is in the middle of all of them…"
They brought her tea, biscuits and sandwiches but Cassidy just couldn't bring herself to eat anything.
She hadn't eaten much in the last few days.
She hadn't slept much either.
Cassidy still couldn't believe that they were talking about her being a suspect in her best friend's murder.
They were saying something about toxicology reports now.
Talking about them in relation to Louisa. Had she been poisoned?
Talking about them in relation to Cassidy. Maybe they should check her for drug abuse?
They had already fingerprinted her, photographed her and taken swabs from the inside of her cheeks.
It was all procedure, they said.
They hadn't said anything about her needing a lawyer yet, though.
For the next hour, they continued to probe her.
They asked her about Sybil Darrow, about Ernst Hewitt…
"So you worked very closely with these people, is that right? Do you have any idea where they might be now?"
They showed her pictures of people whom she'd had never seen before, asking her to look at every single one individually and never once explaining who they were.
"Take you time. Just say if you see anyone that looks in any way familiar to you."
The low light was starting to give her a headache.
Something hard and blunt felt as though it was pushing against her temples, throbbing and aching.
It was when they started asking questions about her mum that Cassidy truly started to feel sick.
"Did you know that your mum was admitted to hospital on the 15th? Do you have any idea what kinds of medication she was on?"
Did they think that she had murdered her own mother too?
Something inside her chest had started to hurt and she needed the toilet.
The more questions that they asked her, the more unstable and frightened that she started to feel.
The man and woman had previously taken turns questioning her but now they were both sitting at the table opposite her.
A third officer soon joined them and the questions kept coming.
"Have you had any kind of contact with Dr Ernst Hewitt?"
"Did Louisa Fitzgerald have any financial involvement with you?"
"Within the past few weeks, have you taken any form of class A drugs or narcotics?"
It was third officer who finally asked the question that broke her.
"Cassidy, we've been told that you had a kind of… fixation on a statue of an angel that was at the museum…"
Cassidy's stomach pulled tight, her teeth gritting in her too-dry mouth.
"…now, don't get me wrong or anything- it's more than understandable that you'd be a bit hung up on the statue. After all, it was your project…"
Her neck started to feel stiff as she craned forward, her fists clenching in her lap and her breath starting to still in her lungs.
"…and you did a wonderful job of restoring it. You must have put so much work into it. From what I was told, the statue was beautiful…"
She started to bite the inside of her mouth as her heart rate escalated.
"…obviously the statue's vanishing act must be something that you'd know about, Cassidy. You were closest to it anyway. We know how much you care about your work and we're only trying to help out…"
Her entire body quivered, shaking from her ankles to the nape of her neck.
"…so what can you tell us about the statue?"
She opened her mouth.
She screamed.
She cried.
Her speech was completely unintelligible, meshed with ragged, strangled sobs.
Despite this, she tried her best to tell them what she needed to.
The officers gave her more water, pats on the back, wads of Kleenex.
"What's the matter with her?"
"What was she saying?"
"I don't know…I think I caught something about a…doctor?"
"She thinks she needs a doctor?"
"I'm glad we're all agreed on that."
When Cassidy's senses finally returned to her, she looked up to see a smiling woman walking into the interrogation room. She took a seat opposite her.
She had frizzy brown hair, large dark eyes and large front teeth.
She vaguely reminded Cassidy of a humanoid character from Watership Down.
"Hi there, Cassidy," she said brightly, her smile eerily unfading. "I'm Doctor Emma Collins. The police called for me because they thought that you might like to talk to a doctor. Is that right?"
Cassidy scanned the woman slowly, wiping her eyes with a clump of tissues and finally nodding.
"Right, well, that's what I'm here for. Don't worry, I have a lot of experience with talking to people who've been through traumatic experiences. You can tell me whatever you like. You can take as much time as you need to. And I promise that no matter what you say, I won't repeat anything that you don't want me to…"
Cassidy took a few moments to breathe, to center herself.
"Alright…"
And truly sick of being confined to silence, she told Dr. Collins everything.
Dr. Collins wasn't the real doctor that she wanted to speak to but she couldn't bear not being able to tell anyone the truth.
She told the woman everything.
She told her all about Michael and the Weeping Angels.
All about Summer Bank and the horrors that she had witnessed there.
She told her all about the things Michael had done to her and what he had almost succeeded in doing to her.
She finished speaking and Dr. Collins was quiet for a moment.
Her lip twitched before her smile- the one that had thoroughly faded while Cassidy was speaking- finally returned.
"Ok, Cassidy," she said softly, slowly rising from her seat. "Please excuse me for a moment." She hadn't written anything down while Cassidy had been speaking but she took her clipboard with her, all the same.
Cassidy could not see Dr. Collins but she could tell from her voice that she wasn't smiling as she spoke to the three officers.
"Cassidy Albright is an extremely unhinged young woman…"
Unhinged?
Was that what she was now?
Dr. Collins also used words like "delusional" and "borderline insane" to describe her.
Cassidy quietly wondered if those were really professional terms at all.
The woman officer came back into the interrogation room just a few minutes later.
Her voice was much gentler than it had before.
"Alright Cassidy, I'm going to ask you to gather your things and we're going to go…"
"Go? You're letting me go home."
"…no, Cassidy. Not quite. First we're going to call your cousin Nancy and then we're going to contact your family lawyer…can you give me both numbers?"
It was truly ironic.
Cassidy Albright had spent weeks wishing for herself to be free from a small, confined room only to finally be placed in another small, confined room only a few days after her liberation.
Mason Vale Rehabilitation Center- a place which specialized in "caring for" victims of psychological breakdowns- was quite the secluded complex, almost three hours outside of London city and much further from Oakside.
Her new bedroom/living space was much smaller than her room in Summer Bank had been.
It had a single bed, a small wardrobe, cupboard, side-table, desk and chair. There was a personal bathroom with a bath, sink and toilet adjacent to her room but that door was locked. If she needed the toilet, she had to ask for a key.
There were no windows in the room and the only door had a tiny, wire-laced pane of glass so that the nurses could check on her if they needed to.
The door swung open on Thursday morning at almost seven-thirty on the button.
"Morning, Cassidy. Come on, rise and shine."
Samantha was the main nurse on her floor.
Despite her briskness and filter-free banter, Cassidy respected her rule.
At least there was no, (or at least very little), chance that she'd try to murder Cassidy in her sleep.
"Uhm…do I have any visitors today?"
"None scheduled. No."
"Could I maybe call for one?"
She would have liked to talk to Edmund.
Apparently he had been trying to contact her but the museum staff had refused to disclose any information on where she had been interned.
"You know that's not how it works, Cassidy," Samantha told her sharply, folding back the sheets of the bed and beckoning for her to stand up. "Come on now. Time for your morning bath. I'll give you your medication after that." The woman scowled. "And no hiding it, this time."
Cassidy frowned as Samantha turned away to unlock the bathroom door, pottering around inside and preparing to draw her bath.
All patients had to take a mandatory anxiety pill with every meal, three times a day.
The medicine made her feel sick and sluggish, as such she had taken to hiding it in her mouth and spitting it up later but Samantha had found the capsules in her pillow case.
She had been reprimanded for breaking the rules.
The rules were supposed to help her get better.
The nurses told her when to eat and when to sleep.
They told her what she was allowed to read and what she was allowed to watch on television.
Cassidy shivered as she sat back down on the bed.
The room was very cold but she didn't like asking for the heat to be turned up. The sound of Samantha's grumbling reminded her far too much of her mother's irritated ranting about the boiler in their house in Oakside.
Her thin, grey standard-issue pyjamas were far too loose for her liking and they smelled funny but as far as the housing staff were concerned, her personal comforts were of little concern.
And the doctors.
She hated the doctors.
They regarded her like a wild animal and talked to her like a child.
They asked her endless questions every day and only ever saw what they wanted to see.
If she told lies, she was being difficult.
If she told the truth, she was borderline insane.
If she refused to speak, she was being obstinate.
If she was happy, she was delusional.
If she was upset, she was morbidly depressed.
If she showed no emotion, she needed more medication.
They called her a "typical" trauma case.
"Your father left when you were eleven? That must have been awful, Cassidy…"
"…so you were bullied rather savagely in school?"
"How do you think your mother's illness affected you as a child?"
Cassidy didn't like being asked about her mother.
She already saw her mother's tired, grey face every time she closed her eyes and sickening guilt hung over her every second of the day, like a blackened cloud.
Most nights she didn't sleep at all.
She just lay awake and terrified.
Her nightmares and night terrors about the Weeping Angels were getting progressively worse.
Cassidy would dream about Michael.
She'd dream about pulling back her sheets to find her bed full of thorny roses and looking up to see that murderous Archangel holding her mother's body in his arms.
And those were the milder dreams.
Regardless of the dream, she would always wake up screaming, shrieking and struggling and the nurses would have to restrain her while she was given an injection.
She sat on her bed, watching as Samantha drew her bath, hugging her knees and starting to cry again.
She had never been so alone.
She really had no one anymore.
There was no way out this time.
No one to save her.
She had tried calling the doctor.
She had said his name in her prayers until praying seemed futile.
Her life had morphed into a neverending nightmare from which there seemed no escape.
"Cassidy, come on. Bath-time."
She looked up.
No.
There was still one escape.
Completely broken beyond repair, she waited for Samantha to leave and without bothering to undress, she made her way over to the bathroom.
She contemplated writing a letter but decided against it.
There was nothing to explain and she had nobody to write to.
Cassidy wasn't even in control of her own actions anymore.
All she knew was that her life had been completely destroyed. She didn't want to live out another endless prison sentence.
She didn't want to be alone.
She just didn't want to go on.
Cassidy climbed into the tub, letting the warm water soak into the cloth of her pyjamas and taking a final deep breath, lay back.
The water shot up into her nostrils, burning her there.
The pressure on her chest was unbearable and after a few minutes, her lungs were crying out for air.
Her limbs began to jerk beneath the water and a familiar feeling of numbness overtook her body.
The water had started to seep into the corner of her lips and the folds of her eyes, stinging her.
"This is the hard part," she told herself. "Letting go and all. After this, everything is easy."
She desperately tried to quell the overwhelming fear that suddenly overcame her. "Soon it'll all be over. The Angels will never torment me again. Michael will never torment me again. Maybe I'll even seen Louisa and mum again soon…"
Part of her was trying to cling on to the light but as the darkness slowly fell, this part of her grew weaker and weaker.
"Maybe I should say a prayer? Mum's favourite prayer? Angels sent by God to guide me, be my light and walk beside me….oh…that's rather ironic…"
Her oxygen-deprived thoughts became more whimsical as her body slowly began to accept its fate.
Her lungs collapsed, her brain was slowly shutting down, her heart was starting to slow…almost coming to a stop…
"Are you dead already Michael?"
Cassidy Albright was only seconds away from leaving the world, entirely.
Suddenly a pair of colossal arms grabbed her by the shoulders, hauling her from the water and shaking her like a ragdoll.
Just as she lost consciousness, Cassidy heard monstrous voice roaring in her ear.
"I did NOT give you my permission to die!"
Hope you enjoyed!
Sorry about the delay and I hope that this chapter isn't a disappointment!
Thanks again for reading!
Just to clarify, the doctor didn't deliberately bring Cassidy home too late.
That was just a fated accident..Don't worry! All will be well!
…maybe.