I am so unbelievably sorry! I have been so busy with University work these past few weeks, I haven't had time to write any fanfiction.
But now I'm back and if anyone is still reading, (I really hope you are), I'll be able to update more regularly.
This chapter is going to be a little short but the next one will be up super soon.
As always, if you have any comments, critiques or suggestions, don't hesitate to let me know and most importantly: enjoy!
Leon continued to stare into the window, his eyes wide with complete disbelief at the scene that lay before him.
The window pane was hoary and fogged from November's frost-laden breath but not enough to obscure an onlooker's vision, be it into the kitchen or looking out from it.
Emotions flickered through the blue of his irises in the form of violently contracting hues.
In that single split second, Cassidy witnessed his fear, his worry and his confusion.
The man had seen everything.
And yet, he had no idea what he had just seen.
Doubtlessly, he could see Michael and had recognised the Angel as being the statue from the museum but at the same time, could not make sense of how it had formed into a different pose.
Or how it appeared to have moved in the mere blink of an eye.
In a brief instant of hysteria, seeing her former workmate and the former object of her affections, Cassidy had made the detrimental mistake of looking away from the Weeping Angel, instead choosing to gawk at Leon in incredulity.
Now, as she stared out of the kitchen window, her palms flat against the draining board of the sink, Cassidy could hear Michael's low growl at the nape of her neck- heavy with threat.
"He's going to kill him," she thought, her mind racing. "Michael will murder Leon in seconds if he doesn't run away now."
Before the human woman could even contemplate any further actions, Leon made the mistake of blinking and with Cassidy not looking at Michael, the infuriated seraph of stone was free to move.
The Weeping Archangel abruptly moved forward, entrapping his proclaimed human slave against the counter-top with the Atlasian weight of his body. She was caged by a colossal bicep of stone on each side of her, each trenched into the kitchen counter with the claws at the end of his fingertips.
Cassidy coughed, thoroughly winded, in pain from the weight of the stone against her torso and unable to free herself from his tenure.
She squinted forward, into Leon's shocked eyes, noticing that he was mouthing something at her.
The sound of blood pounding in her ears coupled with the thickness of the Victorian bottle glass made it difficult to tell what he was trying to say but it wasn't long before Cassidy made out his most repeated phrase.
The soft bite of his lower lip followed by clenched teeth, paired with the hardness of a "duh" sound and a rounded, hollow oration.
"Front door."
Cassidy's eyes widened and she shook her head profusely: he was going to try to get into the house!
"No! No!" she insisted, shouting as loudly as she could manage despite the constricted weight of her compressed stomach. "No! Get out of here!"
"I recognise that male," Michael repeated, in a manner that was far too coarse and far too demonic for the human voice that he spoke through. "That is the one whom you desired. I saw you pining for his attentions during my time in your precious museum. He drew you away from me once before and now he returns to tempt you away from me once again…"
"No, Michael," Cassidy pleaded, desperately trying to wriggle from his arms, pushing at his arms despite knowing that it was no use. "No! That may have been true once but he has no interest in me now and I have no interest in him. He's only here because-…"
"If it is a challenge that this bold and deluded young male desires, then I shall respond tenfold," he growled, still paralyzed in rock but no less dangerous.
Almost certainly unable to hear Michael speaking, Leon continued mouthing to Cassidy and gesturing. "I'm going around to the front door! Go to the front door, Cass!"
Cassidy shook her head, wishing she could only tell him what she was trying to convey.
He had no idea that she was trapped by the statue. Clearly, he had not yet come to terms with the fact that the Angel was capable of moving.
The captured human was also reluctant to shout any further assistance: the last thing that she wanted was for Michael to think that she was conspiring with him.
Despite the pleading in her eyes, Leon suddenly darted away from the window frame, disappearing from sight and presumably headed for the front door.
No sooner had the young man released Michael from his line of vision, the Weeping Archangel immediately seized his human captive.
Cassidy let out a partially muffled scream as one of his huge arms came to bind her at the neck, the other firmly locking around her waist. The beast started to drag her from the room, stalwart in the wake of her clawing and squirming and unsurprisingly deaf to her protests.
"If that red-handed, red-throated piece of human vermin even thinks that he can take you from me, I shall retaliate to his challenge tenfold!" the archangel bellowed.
Cassidy struggled to breathe, lashing out as violently as she could manage. She kept her eyes squeezed as tightly shut; she had no hope of breaking free of solid stone but an assault on the Angel's flesh was at least a little more feasible.
"Let me go! Put me down!" she screeched between harrowed, laboured inhalations. "Michael! Listen to me!"
"I will not give you the opportunity to escape with him!" the Angel reprimanded harshly. "I made that mistake once before! I will not watch you leave me again!"
For a split second, Cassidy imagined hearing something akin to worry in the tone of her captor's voice.
Imagined being the key-word, of course.
Her eyes still closed, Cassidy continued to wriggle in Michael's grip, desperate to prevent him dragging her from the room.
"When I have successfully locked you away," he told her. "Then I shall eliminate the male!"
His voice lowered to the timbre of cold velvet that sent shivers across the surface of her skin and his breath brushed across the delicate shell of her left ear.
"Which would you prefer, Cassidy? Should I send him hundreds of years into the past? Or should I twist his neck until his head splits from his body? I'll allow you to choose…"
The inhumanly smooth and inhumanly clammy skin of the Archangel's forearm grazed her lips as he tightened his grip on her neck.
"I…I choose neither!"
Without allowing herself the luxury of hesitation and with a fresh injection of courage, Cassidy wrenched her mouth free and quickly sank her teeth into Michael's arm as hard as she could muster.
Letting out a roar of surprise at her impromptu act of rebellion, Michael sharply withdrew his upper arm from the radius of her mouth- giving her ample leeway to slide from his arms.
Jumping to her feet, Cassidy immediately locked her gaze on Michael to activate his quantum-lock.
The Angel of stone was hunched over, a look of both shock and fury contorting his features. His pupil-less eyes glared at Cassidy from over one shoulder and his teeth were bared- full and feral.
"You traitorous, insolent little brat…"
Cassidy ignored the string of insults that were suddenly fired at her: she was deaf to all but the blood pounding in her ears and Leon's hammering on the front door.
Continuing to stare at Michael, she started to run backwards, using her hands to guide herself through the threshold of the door and out of the kitchen.
She made her way down the hallway, her wide eyes firmly set on the kitchen doorway.
"If he tries to follow," she muttered to herself. "I'll see him and he won't be able to come any closer."
Following the sound of Leon's shouts and knocking, Cassidy continued her retreat down the hallway until her back met the hard-wood of the front door with a dull thud.
"Cassidy!" Leon shouted, continuing to pound the door. "Cassidy!? Are you there?"
"I'm here," she told him hoarsely, keeping her back to the door. "Leon, listen to me. You have to get out of here now!"
"Cassidy, we were all told that you went missing…," he shouted through the hinges. " And then suddenly word was going around that you'd been found and been taken to the hospital but you ran away from there…"
The hospital? She wondered who in particular had come up with that savoury little lie, wanting to roll her eyes but instead, choosing to keep them staring straight ahead.
"I know! I know! I can't explain now! Just get out of here! Forget about me! Run! Go!"
"I didn't believe any of it, Cass. I really didn't! I'm so sorry that I ignored you when you came back! I just didn't know what to think! But I knew there was no way you'd ever do anything as bad as what they said you'd done. I knew someone had to be forcing you! Who's in there with you? Who took you away? I saw…I s-saw the statue…and…"
Her stomach clenched but she ignored the sudden feeling of discomfort, instead gritting her teeth and repeating her frenzied, shouted warning. "Leon! If you value your life, get out of here now…"
"I'm not leaving!" the young man insisted, hammering the door. "Cassidy, I'm not going to leave you here. I've already called the police."
The archaeologist's fingertips turned numb.
"What?! You've called the police!?"
"Yes, they'll be here in a few minutes. Your cousin Nancy's coming too. She's been helping to look for you. She called here last night and she said that someone hung up the phone before she could leave a message so she thought you might be here…." Leon's voice faltered slightly before returning, more assertive than before. "Please Cassidy, let me in. Everyone just wants to help you…"
Cassidy's eyes had begun to water, tears full of pus and salt, trickling from the corners of her obstinately unblinking eyes. "He can't help me now," she thought. "They can't help me now. Nobody can help me now…"
The Weeping Archangel in her kitchen had fallen silent and this fact unnerved her.
If the police showed up and caught her, they'd take her back to Mason Vale.
Her supposed "running away" from Mason Vale could be interpreted as her trying to escape the law: she had far too many deaths connected to her for the police to ever let her go again so lightly.
And if they caught her in the house with the statue she had supposedly conspired to steal?
That would be almost better than an admission of actual guilt.
Or worse, what if Michael attacked the police officers?
How many people would die at the hands of the creature holding her? Of what she had set free?
Her head spinning, Cassidy swallowed, grabbing the door handle and squeezing it until her knuckles were milk-white; she had no intention of leaving the house, she just needed something to hang on to.
"Leon, how long will it be before the police get here?"
"They said it'd take them about fifteen minutes with London traffic but I called them about five minutes ago and they said they've got their sirens on so it shouldn't be long unt-…"
"Alright. Alright. I understand. Leon, please listen to me. You have to get out of here. Go down to the edge of the drive-way and wait for the police there. Stay away from the house."
"What?! I'm not leaving you! I may not know what's going on but I know you need help…"
"Leon! This isn't a negotiation! This is me telling you to get out of here for your own good!"
"What's going on, Cass? Who's in there with you?"
Cassidy bit her lip, viciously chewing down in anxiety before quickly replying. "You're putting me in more danger by being here, Leon! Please, I'm begging you. For my sake if not for yours! Please go!"
The archaeologist couldn't remember having ever raised her voice in such a manner to the tour guide but apparently startled by her intense affectation, his head nodded behind the glass of the door-pane.
"A-Alright," stammered the bobbing silhouette's voice. "Just…just take care of yourself. The police will be here soon."
"Take care," Cassidy all but whispered, listening to Leon's fading footfalls in the gravel.
The more space between them: the better.
Michael was still worryingly silent and not only did she have no idea what he was doing in the kitchen, she had no idea what she was going to do either.
All she did know was that he eyes had become painfully dry and completely unable to stop herself, her eyes automatically blinked shut.
Then the Weeping Angel was in the hallway, only standing a few feet from her and reaching towards her with one clawed hand.
"And so your suitor leaves you alone," came the familiar growling voice from his closed lips.
"I told you already," Cassidy breathed, pressing herself as far back against the door as she could manage and locking her eyes on to his broad, stone chest. "He's not my suitor. He has no interest in me…" Her fingers slid along the glossy panels of the door. "And I have no interest in him either." Her hand found the edge of the side-table near the door and gripped it for comfort. "Didn't you hear? I sent him away."
"Your defiance is, at times, almost amusing to me. I had no idea that you still had such a rebellious streak still in you. Perhaps my human is not as tame as she would have me believe. Nor is she as weak and unhealthy. Perhaps, sickly or not, I must employ more effective methods of disciplining her…of breaking her…"
Cassidy could feel a cold sweat starting to spread across her palms but out of the corner of her eyes, she caught a glimpse of the glint of the hallway mirror.
A sudden idea entered her mind and she hastily glanced sideways to make certain that the mirror was in easy grabbing distance.
Her eyes only left the Weeping Archangel for a bare fraction of a second but when her gaze returned to Michael, he was right in front of her- both clawed hands set to seize her by the throat.
She let out an involuntary cry, taking a step back and swallowing.
"Are you afraid, Cassidy?" the Lonely Assassin all but growled, teasing her in the gravelly tone of voice that told her that his blank, grey eyes were travelling all over her much smaller form. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Yes," Cassidy replied carefully and with unyielding honesty, focusing on his carefully curved lips and resolving to keep her eyes on him. "But I'm far from paralysed with fear…"
Cassidy suddenly lunged to the side, tearing the gilded mirror from the wall and propping it up against the door, making sure that it was in the Lonely Assassin's direct line of sight.
She darted away from the range of his tenure, stepping back to briefly admire her handiwork- inspired by the Doctor's own actions.
"You impudent little wretch…"
"I'd be very nice to me if I were you," Cassidy said sharply, cutting over Michael's snarled threats with assertion that she surprised herself with. "I could just leave you there like that if I wanted to."
"And is that your plan, little human? To leave me here like this? Frozen? Bound? For there are many ways that I can free myself from this hold and when I am rid of this undignified bind, I will-…"
"I know. I know you won't be stuck like that forever. That's why I'm not going to leave you like this." Cassidy licked her dry lips, running a hand back through her hair. "People are coming. People are coming very soon. People will try to open the door and they'll break the mirror, turning you loose. Then you'll attack them. You'll kill them. Maybe you'll kill hundreds of people…" Her voice trailed off for a second before reinvigorating again. "And it would all be my fault because I was the one who set you free in the first place. Your no one's burden but mine. I wouldn't wish this on anyone else so I won't allow you to do this to anyone else. No one else is going to die on my account." Cassidy dared herself to look at the Angel, hoping that he felt her stare burning into the back of his neck as she had felt his so many times before. "You wanted us to be together? You've got your wish. I'm not going anywhere and neither are you…"
There was a long, thin silence before Michael spoke again, both commanding and demanding as ever.
"What manner of people are coming here very soon? Who are these people you speak of?"
He had apparently ignored everything else that she had said.
Either that or he had simply recognised the urgency in her tone and acknowledged that now was not the time to comment on such things.
"They're the police. Human law enforcement…"
"I am familiar with your law-keepers. Why are they coming here?"
"Why do you think?! I "ran away" from an institution. They're still investigating all the disappearances that you caused. It's like I said before, they're coming here to take me back to Mason Vale, to take you back to the Museum and they're going to lock both of us up and throw away the key…"
The still-petrified Angel took a moment to consider this information before dismissing it.
"That is no matter. I will easily free myself from them and reclaim you as I did before…"
"And then what?! They'll only come looking for you and I again and they'll send more people every time and it won't be long before either someone figures out that you're not an ordinary statue and sends you away to be studied and dissected or someone else decides I'm so dangerously crazy that I need to be lobotomized or something and…" Cassidy's voice warbled dangerously.
She was not going back to Mason Vale.
Not back to that room.
The nurses.
The doctors.
The medication.
None of it.
"Hush," Michael ordered firmly, face still frozen in a growl but voice smooth and even. "What do you propose that we do as an alternative to allowing ourselves to be taken, slave?"
Cassidy scowled. "I am not your slave." She took a deep breath and walked towards the mirror on shaking legs. "First I'm going to free you and then you and I are going to run away…as if we were never here…"
Still in slight disbelief regarding what she had just said, Cassidy took a hold of the golden frame surrounding the looking glass. "I'm about to move the mirror and my back is turned to you, so you'll be able to move."
"I understand that," Michael responded with a snort of what Cassidy identified as mirth. "But what precisely leads you to trust that I will not kill you?"
"You're more intelligent than that," Cassidy found herself saying, though she had been silently asking herself that same question. "And…you…you don't want to kill me…There's nothing to be gained from it. You said it yourself."
Gathering her nerves, she pulled the mirror aside and turned around as quickly as she could.
Michael was standing upright now, arms folded and face blank once more.
His face was tilted down at her, his strong stone brows and prominent, chiselled jaw-line both taut with an accusative stare.
Cassidy felt her breath halt in her throat and her cheeks began to warm.
"You're…you're going to co-operate then?"
"As you have stated, I do not wish to kill you and maiming you would serve me no benefit at this point in time."
"…right," Cassidy said slowly, nodding slightly before turning around and heading towards the stairs. "Right then."
"Where are you going?" His voice remained stationary as she jogged up the steps.
"To change out of these pyjamas and to put some decent clothes on."
"Is that really such a necessity?" His voice was now directly behind her as she traversed the landing.
"I can't walk around outside in my pyjamas. It's…a social convention! It'll draw a lot attention to me and people already think I'm insane!"
She ran into her bedroom, throwing the doors of her wardrobe open.
For a split second, she caught sight of her own reflection in the vanity table mirror and grimaced at what she had seen. "Ugh…"
The words "living dead girl" didn't even begin to cover it.
Her reflection depicted an image of a twenty-three year old with milk-white skin, save for a ruddy, rum-red forehead, nose and cheeks. Her hair was lank, thin and wispy at the ends and dry as straw at the roots. Not to mention the dark marks that curved in black, blotchy crescents around her eyes and the faded scarring lines that criss-crossed in blue, red and yellow on her neck, face and shoulders.
"If I'm going outside," she told herself. "I'll need to look as presentable as possible. As normal as possible."
Instinctively, she reached for a navy turtle neck jumper, with a mind to cover the wounds that latticed her neck.
"You really think that you are in control of this situation, do you not, Cassidy?"
Michael was standing in the bedroom, behind her but not too close for comfort this time.
"Honestly, Michael, I don't think I'm in control of anything at the moment…"
Her fingers found a bundled up pair of jeans in the back of the wardrobe.
"I have been contemplating your deserved punishment for a while now. I have considered denying the luxury of movement as soon as we are relocated to a more fitting dwelling. Perhaps I shall break the bones in both of your legs."
Cassidy shuddered as she tugged the jumper down over her sunken stomach.
"Why so severe? Aren't I making everything up to you right now? I'm giving you exactly what you want. You and I are running away together."
"And yet, you could be assuming for some reason that I am very, very dim-witted and this could all be a ploy to help your beloved suitor."
Cassidy grunted, forcing the button on the jeans to close. She'd lost weight during her time in Summer Bank but not a lot of weight.
"For the last bloody time, Leon is not my suitor!"
"You once showed great interest in him. I saw it at your museum…"
"Yes, I used to hang around with him…to get close to Abbie," Cassidy lied. "Abbie was like the little sister I never had. I thought if Leon thought I liked him, he'd let me hang around her more. I cared about Abbie, not him. You knew that, didn't you? That's why you kidnapped her, isn't it?"
The more she spoke to Michael, the less fearful of him she was becoming.
The injection to the Angel's ego seemed to work as he crooned agreeably. "Of course. I could tell that you cared deeply for the child…but my reasons for taking her largely stemmed from the fact that as she had the most life-years of all your companions, she was the most attractive trophy to present to the others at Summer Bank…"
The human girl gritted her teeth, scraping back her hair into a ponytail and plaiting the bristling, blonde fox-tail that plumed from the back of her head. "I see."
"If what you say is truly the case, then you should have allowed me to kill him when I had the chance instead of engaging in your tiresome little act of rebellion."
"Ok, firstly? As I've said before, I don't approve of killing as a method of solving problems," she orated, reaching for a bottle of foundation on her vanity table. "Secondly, if Leon disappeared from or was found dead on this property, it would only serve to destroy my reputation even further and increase police efforts to have me incarcerated and thirdly? Thirdly, I am sick of people dying because they are connected to me!"
Cassidy stopped for a moment, feeling a lump starting to grow in her throat.
Her mind began to dip, to dive, to spiral downward…
How many people had died because of her?
How many had Michael slaughtered or consumed in an attempt to get close to her?
And those who didn't die…Edmund…Leon…Abbie…
How would they be affected?
They would hardly forget any of this…
"Why do you keep a miniature statue of my kind at your bedside?"
Michael's disembodied voice snapped her from her trance, pulling her back to reality and Cassidy whipped her head around. "Why do I what?"
The initial question had confused her but when she turned around, she instantly understood. The Weeping Archangel was gesturing to the little angel figurine that she kept on her locker.
It had been a gift from her mother.
"It's a guardian angel," she explained dryly, rooting out her converse runners and tugging them on. "Some people…some humans believe that angels look after them in their daily lives. My mother believed that and she used to tell me that in times of trouble, an angel would come to watch over me…" Her hands stiffened and she gave a cynical snort of laughter. "And I suppose she was partially right…"
"So it is a form of idol worship?" Michael queried. "I thought it might be simply to admire."
"Admire?" Cassidy echoed, for the first time happening upon the realisation that the human concept of angels may have only come from the images of these monsters, if they were really as old as the Doctor said.
"Yes, you told me several times that I was the most handsome, wonderful being that you had ever seen when you were tending to my needs at the museum."
"Did I?" she muttered as she laced her converse. "I can't remember ever saying that."
"And in your written communication to me, you called me the most beautiful thing that you had ever set your eyes upon…"
She paused. "Written communication?"
"Yes, the letter that you wrote to me whilst you were in my care in the Summer Bank."
"In your ca-?!" Cassidy drew herself to her feet and slowly lifted her eyes to stare at the Angel incredulity. The back of her neck suddenly felt cold. "How did you see that letter?"
Before the Lonely Assassin could provide an answer of any kind, they were both interrupted by the unmistakable sound of tyres scraping across gravel.
"No, no no," Cassidy muttered under her breath, running over to the window and peeling back the curtain only to see two police cars pull into the driveway, with Leon in tow. "Not now, not now…"
Time had passed quicker than she had expected- though since Summer Bank her perception of time had been somewhat distorted.
Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Cassidy's desultory escape plan had involved getting a head start.
She watched through a sliver of curtain, as a number of police officers climbed from the cars, Nancy scrambling about in their midst.
Cassidy frowned: so her cousin did apparently still give a toss about her…and was showing it in the worst way imaginable.
A constable made his way down the driveway, Leon tacked on to his hip and frantically garbling warnings.
A hollow knock sounded out through the house, accompanied by a soft East London drawl.
"Sorry there, Miss Albright? Are you in there? Could you open the door for us?"
Cassidy dropped the curtain and walked over to Michael, keeping her eyes lowered to the Angel's sculpted mid-torso.
"Right. You have to transport us out of here."
"What do you mean, human?"
"Transport us. You know, teleport us. Do whatever you Angels can do. I saw you do it before and you definitely did it to get me here, to this house."
The knocking from downstairs became increasingly aggressive and much louder in volume. The lone constable's voice was soon accompanied by others.
"I cannot."
"What do you mean, "you cannot?"" Cassidy demanded to know. "I thought Angels could transport through space. Not just through time. That's what the Doc-…"
Her words were cut short by the distinct metallic of a megaphone being tuned. Soon a female police officer's voice rang out from the front lawn, amplified exponentially by her chosen apparatus.
"Cassidy Albright! If you are inside the house, we are asking you to exit the property of your own accord. If you do not do so within the next minute, we will assume that you cannot exit the property or are unable to leave the property without assistance and will come in to get you…"
"It is true that we Angels possess such an ability however I have expended far too much energy to bring you here. I cannot move both of us through space."
"What?! Isn't there anything you can do?"
"I could kill the intruding humans but you have already seen fit to forbid me from doing so."
At that point in time, Cassidy could see fit to tear her own hair out.
The knocking grew louder.
The pounding on the door became more aggressive.
The woman with the megaphone was shouting something again.
"Ok, if you can't send us through space, could you send us through time? Into the past maybe? Just a few hours ago? Maybe I could warn myself-…"
"It does not work that way. You have a restricted, ignorant view of time displacement and its mechanics. It would have to be a significant leap backwards in time…"
"What?! What does that even mean?"
"It is far too complicated for a creature of your capacity to even comprehe-…"
"Cassidy?! Cass?! It's Nancy! Listen to m-me…"
Cassidy gathered her nerves and peered out of the window once more. Her cousin, indeed, was now holding the megaphone, trembling violently and shouting into the mouthpiece following the whispered instructions of the police officer standing beside her.
"Cass…n-no one wants to…wants to…hurt you and…and you're not in trouble. Everyone just wants to help…to help you…so…please Cass…if you just come outside and …co-operate with us…everything will be alright…"
"Oh, so now you care?" Cassidy hissed under her breath. "And I can tell by the way you're talking that you don't even want to be here…." She looked down at the quivering brunette and marked the crease in her brow. "And you're still afraid of me, aren't you?"
A pitchy screech sounded from the Archangel, punctuated by a low chuckle. "You assume much to think I have any fear of you."
She frowned, her voice growing increasingly angrier and increasingly louder. "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to my bloody first cousin who has fucking teamed up with the London Police Department to catch me like the apparent runaway lunatic that I am!"
The front-door rocked in its hinges downstairs.
"Cassidy! We're coming in to get you…"
"Why is someone always coming to get me?!" Cassidy screamed in frustration, gripping the sides of her head and doubling over.
"Why is your kinswoman leading the attack against us?" Michael questioned.
"Because," Cassidy responded with a grunt. "Because after I got back here following being held against my will in a hotel room in Los Angeles in nineteen twenty bloody-three, I returned home to find that I had been gone for almost three weeks. In the time I had gone, my co-workers had decided that I was a criminal master-mind and my mother had died and been buried. Unable to explain where I was for those three weeks and why I missed her funeral, Nancy decided that I'm a selfish bitch who ran away deliberately to avoid the pressures of looking after her. Then, when I finally told the truth about where I was, I was locked up and diagnosed as a first degree schizophrenic and now, Nancy doesn't think I'm a bitch, she thinks I'm insane and that I deserve to be locked away for public safety…" Cassidy's shoulders slumped. "She's my next of kin in terms of social security…she's the one who signed me into Mason Vale…"
The front door suddenly burst open, splintering at its latch and hinges and falling flat upon the hallway floor with a harsh, resounding slap.
"And this Nancy of yours believes all of this simply because you did not attend the burying of your mother's corpse?" the living statue persisted.
The shouts of the police personnel became louder and only seconds later, they were filtering out into the hall, searching the ground floor of the house.
"I wasn't even there on the day she died! I have no sane explanation as to why! Of course Nancy hates me!" Cassidy shrieked, her voice becoming pitchier as her panic levels began to mount. "What kind of daughter wouldn't be at her mother's side at a time like that?"
"Conclusively, Nancy has initiated this vendetta against you because you were not present on the day that your mother died?"
"Wh- yes! Yes! But it's more complicated than-…oh, why in the name of God am I bothering to tell you anything?! You hardly understand any of it, do you? Do you really?"
The voices downstairs raised in volume, Nancy's and Leon's joining them.
"Upon what day and what hour did your mother die?" Michael's voice was smooth and unwavering.
Cassidy looked at him with incredulity, her head starting to hurt as her heart rate steadily fell away into an uneven murmur. "My mother died of cystic fibrosis in London Bridge Hospital at half past three on the seventeenth of November."
She had learned these facts by heart.
Not by choice, of course.
Now the police were on the landing.
They were all shouting, their voices mingling and mounting and dissolving into the same chaotic chorus that made Cassidy want to scream.
But yet, above their shouts, she suddenly heard Michael's voice: low, deep and even.
"Cassidy Albright. Take my hand and close your eyes."
The Angel had been stationary up until now but when she looked at him at that moment, one of his hands was stretched out towards her- the palm up and open and his blank, grey eyes focused on her.
"That's her bedroom down there…"
"Cassidy! Are you there?!"
"I think I heard something coming from there."
"Constable, I think we may have potential contact. No sightings yet. The team can stand by."
"Patterson. Cropley. Head down and open the door but treat the situation with caution."
There was no way she was going to let them take her back to Mason Vale.
Either thinking far too deeply on the matter or barely thinking at all, Cassidy did something that she could never have imagined herself doing before that brief, fleeting second of madness.
She reached forward and took Michael's hand, closing her eyes as her fingers encircled his.
A bitterly familiar rush of cold air passed over her and when Cassidy opened her eyes again, she was standing on solid, tiled flooring. The first sound to meet her ears was a sound that she had been starved of for so long.
It was the jovial buzz of people talking, dotted with sudden sporadic bursts of laughter and childlike squeals of excitement.
The sounds of happiness.
She opened her eyes slowly, squinting slightly as they were assaulted by the bright yellow industrial lights above her.
It took a few moments of blinking and head-turning to realise where she was standing. Cassidy realised that she was standing next to the glossy folds and panels a news-stand. A gift shop news-stand, to be positively precise.
A hospital gift shop.
A familiar hospital gift shop.
She looked around, her head whipping from left to right. "This is London Bridge Hospital," Cassidy murmured to herself, her eyes falling from the green gown-clad patients in wheelchairs, to the busy nurses and doctors bustling to and fro, to the children with their parents, clutching the strings of novelty helium balloons; no one seemed to have noticed her sudden apparition. Her brow furrowed slightly. "But why would he send me here? What could-?" An arrow of realisation shot through her heart. "No…no…he couldn't have…he wouldn't have…"
Cassidy desperately fumbled with a stack of a nearby stack of newspapers on the stand, her eyes searching for the date and widening when they found it.
"Can I help you with anything there, sweetie?" the woman at the gift-shop counter asked her, seeming to have noticed her distress.
"Today's date," Cassidy breathed, turning to face her. "It's the seventeenth of November, isn't it?"
"Yes, sweetie," the woman told her with a smile, running her fingers through her fluffy golden hair and absent-mindedly toying with the cash-register's drawer. "The seventeenth of November, exactly."
"And have you got the time?"
The woman jabbed a thumb in the direction of a nearby clock on the wall.
Two o' clock.
Heart pounding and mouth dry, Cassidy looked back to the woman at the desk. "Sorry, for asking you all this but would you know if the ICU wards are open right now?"
The woman's smile became a little more sympathetic and she shrugged slightly. "I'm afraid I wouldn't know. I don't really work here. I'm just looking after this desk for someone…"
Before the archaeologist could say another word, she was interrupted by a sudden shout from across the lobby.
"Cassidy?!"
Cassidy turned her head to see Nancy, dressed in her nurse's uniform and making a bee-line for the gift-shop.
"Cassidy!?"
"…um," Cassidy stammered, having heard that voice not five minutes ago shouting at her through a megaphone. "Um…h-hi Nancy. How's it going?"
"How's it going?!" Nancy repeated, breathless and red-faced and full of incredulity. "Cassidy, where the hell have you been for the past two days? I haven't been able to get a hold of you anywhere!"
Two days.
Two days.
Not three weeks…
Cassidy's temples had started to throb but she ignored the building headache.
"I was in Scotland."
"You were in Scotland? You-…"
Before Nancy could even say a word more, her cousin was already talking.
Cassidy Albright was not prepared to listen to her cousin's guilt-trip lecture for the second time.
"I was trying to find Doctor Hewitt," Cassidy lied, having fantasised about the moment when she'd be able to give Nancy a sane answer for far too long. "I got to McIntosh's lab by train in about three hours. Hewitt wasn't up there but my phone was zapped of battery so I figured I'd better get back sharpish anyway." She spoke fast and never once dropped eye-contact with Nancy; she had trained herself to go for a long time without looking away or blinking. She had spent weeks in Mason Vale Mental Health Facility concocting this very story. "I accepted a lift from a friend of mine up North, figuring it'd be faster than a train-ride. We got into a bit of difficulty on the motorway and we ended up plummeting into a ditch. When I came around, I was lying on a sofa in a roadside B&B. I literally got back to London ten minutes ago."
Nancy chewed on her lower lip, her eyebrows wriggling furiously as she absorbed all of this information. Her large brown eyes finally settled on Cassidy's left cheek. "…you do look kind of cut up…are yo-…"
"Where's my mother?" Cassidy interjected, turning her face out of the light. "How is she?"
Nancy exhaled, rubbing her arms as if shivering from a wind that wasn't really there. "Maria is stable…but very, very weak…if I'm honest, Cass…" Her voice weakened and her gaze lowered. "If I'm honest, she could g-…"
"Can I see her now, Nancy?" Cassidy asked, placing her hand on her cousin's shoulder. "Please, I need to see that she's alright…and I need to let her know that I'm alright."
The brown-haired nurse managed half-smile, standing up straight. "I…I'll go check with her head doctor…it shouldn't be a problem…"
Cassidy just about managed to mouth a thank you to Nancy as she walked away.
Her mother was still alive.
Her mother was still alive and in the same building as her.
Her heart started to thud uncomfortably and she leaned back against the news-stand, not quite sure what feeling was coursing through her veins at that moment but knowing that it wouldn't be long before it engulfed her entirely.
The gift-shop was empty: the woman behind desk had disappeared, leaving her alone.
Cassidy massaged her temples and turned around to press her head against the wall.
"Why did he send me here?"
"To rectify the situation that your absence caused."
A deep voice from behind made Cassidy jump and twitch and turning around, she saw that the Weeping Archangel was standing behind her.
Michael had never looked more Goliathan, standing in such a mundane, peaceful setting, his huge, powerful wings and beastly muscles dwarfing virtually everything that surrounded him.
"I told you that I could not send us through space, but by consuming your life years, I have sent us into the past. If your cousin's vendetta against you and your pursuit in the future stems from you not witnessing her death nor attending her burial…"
"…you took me here to fix that…to see her…" Cassidy murmured slowly, nodding carefully as she understood.
"Yes and as soon as all has been restored to what should have been, you will return to the future at my side, without further complaint…"
"Cass!"
The young woman turned her head, watching as Nancy hurried out into the lobby once more. When she looked back into the shop again, the Lonely Assassin had vanished once more.
Swallowing back a heavy, painful lump in her throat, Cassidy walked back over to Nancy.
"It's ok, Cass," the nurse told her with a softness in her face that her cousin had not seen in a very long time. "You can see her now."
With a heart that was both heavy with dread and beating fast with anxiety, Cassidy followed Nancy into the Intensive Care Unit hallway. The walk was a familiar one but Cassidy kept her eyes fixated on the pale navy collar of Nancy's uniform.
This was going to be the hardest part of all.
She would have gladly faced a hundred Weeping Angels rather than witness what she was about to.
Cassidy Albright was about to watch her mother die.
Next chapter will be up fairly soon so watch this space!
Thanks for everything, everyone! Once again, sorry for the wait!