Wow everyone! I had absolutely no idea that this fic had such a following!
I was so surprised when the story garnered so many reviews, faves and follows but I'm absolutely over the moon to have people showing such interest in the characters.
To be honest, when I first uploaded this story, I was filled with a lot of apprehension so as a writer, anyone who reads this story (let alone these amazingly awesome people who leave me reviews, favourite and follow) has given me such a feeling of absolute elation!
So thank you, very much.
As always, your continued support is incredibly heart-warming. Thank you so, so much! I really hope you enjoy this chapter and continue to enjoy Shackled!
The end is actually in sight! Only a few more chapters 'til our climax!
Thank you for the brilliant, fantastic reviews and messages.
As always, I'm both delighted and amazed that people are still reading this!
The current few chapters may seem as if things are getting a little softer but things are going to get quite scary again soon!
Her heart was palpitating.
Her heart was palpitating which was quite odd, considering that, given the context of the situation at hand, her heart should probably have been altogether silent.
It had been quite a while since Cassidy had dreamt of being in the cave.
The cave with the river.
At that very moment, Cassidy was not dreaming about being in the cave.
She was dreaming about a funeral.
Her funeral, in fact.
The young woman had no idea how she knew for certain but nonetheless, as she gazed up at the slightly blurred, grey-washed and rain spattered steeple that loomed over the graveyard that she stood in, Cassidy was quite certain that she was attending her own funeral.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see her old mentor, Ernst Hewitt, dressed in a vicar's garb. He looked somewhat older, somewhat more withered, than the last time she had seen him- all those weeks ago.
She opened her mouth to greet him but she could make no sound.
With a heavy, anxiety-weighted brow, Hewitt gestured for her to start walking down the damp, dirt path into the rows of tombstones. She did so, obediently and mutely, noticing for the first time that the path was lined with crowds of people, dressed entirely in black, their faces obscured by dome-like umbrellas.
"Odd," Cassidy's non-existent voice echoed as she became faintly aware of a quietly sobbing chorus. "It's not raining…"
Four faceless men and women, also clad entirely in the same sombre vestments, came to her sides and lifted her up. They held her upon their shoulders as though she was in a coffin, somehow- inexplicably- managing to keep her limbs stiff as iron girders and their gait, steady as a schooner upon clear water.
Her pall-bearers moved slowly, carrying her in a solemn, sepulchral procession twixt the steady rows of mourners.
Cassidy strained, craning her neck to look around at those who had come to see her away. She took stock of her own body for the first time and noticed, with a tinge of embarrassment, that she was wearing nothing but a thin, grey pair of pyjamas. She shivered, realising that the garment clung to her body because it was damp.
"Odd…it's not raining…"
She turned her attention back to the neat lines of people. As she was carried by, their faces rose to meet hers.
At first, she couldn't quite see their faces, their features slightly hazy and warped by some unknown manipulation of light, like an under-developed photograph.
She could hear their voices though.
Echoing and broken.
A hyper-exposed tape-reel.
"Poor woman. What a waste of talent…what a waste of life…"
"Was it suicide? I heard that it was suicide."
"She didn't deserve this. Not this. Nobody deserves this."
"They found her lying in a bathtub that morning…the parameds said that she had to have been there for hours before anyone realised that she hadn't left the bathroom…"
"I can't believe that she thought that that was the only way out…"
"I had no idea what she must have been going through."
"It's heart-breaking…"
Cassidy's hazy head was abruptly snagged and pulled under by a sudden pang of confusion. Suicide? Bath-tub?
"I tried that before," she thought, feeling as though she'd lost control of her own ability to think. "I thought I'd stopped myself before the dark took over…"
As her head started to feel heavier, Cassidy could feel a familiar burning in her lower nostrils, a weight on her chest, phlegm building in her throat.
"…I thought I decided not to do that…"
The sobbing steadily grew fainter around her, her own heartbeat becoming the most prominent sound to permeate the inner recesses of her ears.
"I decided not to….or maybe…maybe…someone saved me?"
Before Cassidy could ponder the subject any further, she felt herself being lowered back down to the ground. She was now standing in the centre of a circle, the mourners huddled around her.
At her feet, a neat, rectangular pit had been carved into the earth- a blackened precipice in the centre of the unruly blades of grass.
The pit was marked by a stone of whitish marble, gilded lettering proclaiming: "Here lies Cassidy Catherine Rosaline Albright."
The vicar- who now looked a lot more like Curator Stanford- took her by the arm and helped her to step down into the grave that had been dug for her.
The damp, pliable earth felt quite soft beneath her feet and it was then when Cassidy realised that she was barefoot. She also realised that she was no longer clad in the oversized grey, pyjamas but in a short, white, gossamer dress.
She felt her face heat up slightly, hoping that the people who stood, hunched and shuddering, at the borders of her grave didn't think it inappropriate.
Cassidy settled down into the sods of clay, looking up at the greying sky above.
She could hear the vicar's voice droning above her.
It reminded her of the way the vicar's voice used to sound when she and her mother would go to church on Sunday morning.
She remembered the way her mother would smile down at her as she tried to follow along with the words in the hymn-book.
The vicar's sermon was almost always about death and dying and younger Cassidy might have slightly resented this if it wasn't for the fact that the topic of death pervaded she and her mother's conversations.
Her grandmother Catherine had died a little after she and her mother had moved into Oakside and Cassidy, having never had to suffer a bereavement before this day, felt the need to question the idea of someone dying and for some reason, not really being dead.
Her mother would insist that Nana Cathy had "gone to heaven", to "a better place" and that she was "with God."
Yet on some occasions, on some nights when there was ad-break between Coronation Street or Time Team, Maria Albright- with lidded, faded eyes- would contentedly declare that the elderly woman was "still with them."
This prompted many a question from younger Cassidy.
Cassidy at twenty three years old could really only remember one.
"Will we see Angels when we die?"
Above her head, the crowd was already starting to chant the very first prayer that she had ever been taught and the very first prayer that she had said before going to bed every night.
"Angel sent by God to guide me, be my light and walk beside me…"
Then the roses came.
In ones, twos, threes and fours, the mourners stepped forward, to look at her pityingly and to drop red, long-stemmed roses down into her grave.
She saw the staff from the museum, Richard, Alex, Petra, Omar, Edmund…
Edmund looked somewhat sadder than the rest of them, his glasses casting a glare over his shadowed eyes. He stooped as he dropped his rose, looking over the Elastoplast frames and straight into her face.
His mouth moved.
Cassidy could not hear what he was saying.
She shuddered.
Leon came to the edge of the grave too, looking rather fretful with a sobbing Abbie clinging to the leg of his pants.
Cassidy reached upwards, desperately wanting to console the little girl but when she tried to speak, she found that she couldn't.
Her cousin Nancy walked over too, flanked by her aunt, Christine- both shaking their heads almost pityingly.
Stan was there too, still as ashen-faced as the day she had first met him.
It was when Louisa Fitzhugh came to her graveside that Cassidy began to feel uneasy.
Her friend was smiling blithely as she dropped the rose in, also speaking at a pitch that the dead woman's ears could not quite latch on to.
Cassidy froze when her father's face loomed above her.
He did not drop a rose but he did appear somewhat sad or at least somewhat pensive
Saying nothing, he started to walk away, prompting Cassidy to want to sit up.
"Come back here!" she wanted to shout, anger rising in her throat and spreading throughout her chest. Stiffening the muscles like a kind of venomous starch. "Come back and face me!"
The sudden fury faded immediately, dowsed with melancholy and bliss as her mother approached the edge.
She dropped a fistful of rose petals into the hole, scattering them delicately all over Cassidy's doll-like body.
She could hear her mother's voice in her ears.
"Don't worry, Cassy. You'll be with the Angels soon…"
Cassidy closed her eyes gently, sighing.
Maybe this wasn't quite as bad as she thought it was going to be.
"You'll be with the Angels soon…"
The woman lowered her hands to her sides, revelling slightly at the feeling of a hand closing around hers.
Even at the hardest of times- her mother knew exactly how to make her feel better.
"Be with the Angels…"
Cassidy curled her fingers around her mother's, giving them a loving squeeze.
Though, something felt slightly wrong. Her eyes flickered open once more.
"…with the Angels…"
There her mother was, standing above her, where the grave opened up into the air above.
But…wait.
"…the Angels…"
If her mother was standing above her…then who was holding her hand?
Cassidy's eyes slid sideways, her body trembling despite its apparent paralysis and her breath catching despite knowing who the culprit was.
"…with the Angels…"
She turned her head to see Michael, or rather Iblis, stretched out beside her- holding her hand in a vice-like grip. She screamed, trying to pull away but as always, her attempts were in vain.
His face was perfectly serene, his blank eyes focused carefully on her face, his lips perfectly curved into a gentle smile.
"…the Angels…"
Cassidy looked up to where her mother had once stood with pleading eyes but now, where her mother had once stood- a cluster of Weeping Angels leered down at her.
Smiles set upon their grey, mask-like faces.
"You'll be with the Angels…"
Cassidy's eyelids betrayed her and when light returned to her vision once more, there were briars of stone arms reaching from the dirt walls of the grave, stretching out and reaching out to seize her.
She looked downwards, realising with horror that her legs had begun to turn to stone.
Cassidy looked upward, begging for there to be someone to help her standing there.
And low and behold, there stood the Doctor.
His jaw clenched and his brow furrowed as he looked down at her with sad, glassy eyes.
His expression, however, was marked with a callous disapproval rather than pity.
Cassidy tried calling out to him, reaching up to the open sky as her arm turned to stone from the shoulder to her furthest, pointing index but her voice died in her mouth.
And the Doctor simply shook his head and walked away.
She heard his voice as he left her though.
"Don't worry, you'll be with the Angels soon…"
She felt the Archangel's fingers tighten around hers and she turned in her grave, only to see his smiling face, leaning ever closer to hers.
She heard his voice sound out in her ears.
"Soon."
Cassidy awoke for the fifth time that night, pushing the sheets down from her shoulders and grunting at the throbbing in her temples.
Unaware of her own surroundings, she blinked slowly, trying to mark the changes in light in the room- the glowing border of her door-frame, the tongue of light that managed to prise its way through the gap in the curtains and across the bedroom floor.
She grimaced, nursing her head with the heel of her hand and wrinkling her nose when she felt the oily film of cold sweat that glazed over her forehead. She hated waking up grimy- not that she was particularly a fan of waking up anyway.
Cassidy shakily tried to coax herself into sitting up, wincing at the feeling of her over-sized t-shirt sticking to the small of her back and slipping down to expose her bare shoulders.
She could never understand why, in films, people seemed to wake up suddenly- ready to leap out of bed and sprint for their lives.
Of course, she had woken from a burst of adrenaline plenty of times before, but her quivering legs, groggy head and blurred vision would do no good for her in a real situation of emergency.
Or at least she could not bring herself to speculate that these troublesome features of her being ever would.
She massaged the mop of hair that clung to the back of her head, propping herself up with one arm and trying to ignore the ripping case of pins and needles that suddenly overcame her right foot as she untangled it from the wooden spokes of the bedframe.
Cassidy had been unable to sleep peacefully that night.
The Weeping Angel's - the one who had claimed to be Michael's sister- words rang relentlessly in her ears.
"Our brethren watching over you may not show such mercy."
That had implied that there were Weeping Angels stalking her.
Ones that she hadn't ever seen, heard or even been slightly aware of.
The words had also implied that up until now they'd been "showing mercy."
Clearly, they had no qualms about launching an assault if they saw fit and would think nothing of ending her if she ceased to be useful to them.
"But I am useful to them," she reminded herself, retracting her limbs to sit cross-legged and hunch-backed beneath the stilted warmth of the sheets. "That bastard is bloody drawn to me. I'm like bait…"
That was apparently why they had latched on to Abbie: because of her mental connection to him.
Cassidy- for what seemed like the thousandth time- questioned whether or not volunteering to take care of the little girl and thus, leading the Angels straight to her own home was such a great idea.
Then again, she assured herself, hanging her head and trying to still her breathing, the Angels would presumably just kill any ordinary babysitter or relative in order to obtain contact with Abbie.
Cassidy was a different story.
She was the Archangel's special human.
The one that was bound to bring him back.
No, Abigail was safest in her care.
Speaking of whom…
Cassidy's tired eyes slid sideways to look down at the little girl who occupied the other side of the bed.
Her little body was curled up completely, the sheets, blankets and coverlets drawn right up to her nose and the furry tip of her teddy bear's ear poking out just above the surface.
There had been absolutely no question of Abbie sleeping alone.
Abbie was just a young child, yes.
Abbie was certainly quite naïve, yes.
But Abbie wasn't stupid by any means.
She knew that they were both in some kind of danger.
There was no way she was going to sleep in a bed, in a room, all alone.
Truth be told, Cassidy couldn't quite blame her.
Since the two had arrived at the house, Cassidy had switched on every light, drawn every pair of curtains and locked the front door, back door and every door on the way upstairs as she and Abigail retreated to the bedroom.
If they were going to attack- she wasn't going to give them any advantages.
Abbie stirred slightly but showed no sign of waking.
Gently as she could manage, Cassidy peeled the sheets from her body and walked over to the dressing table. She took a small vial from her jewellery book and holding open her lower eyelid, let a few drops of the clear fluid into her eyes.
Constantly having to force herself not to blink was starting to take its toll on the health of her eyes. She often found herself waking to an excess of hardened, grit-like pus on the outer rims of her eyes. A conscientious google search had given her enough cause to decide that an investment in some eye-care supplies was warranted.
She managed to come across a fairly cost-effective, over-the-counter brand of eye drops. Granted, it was the same brand that the local stoners used to take the redness out of their eyes after a good, long hit of the green stuff but Cassidy quickly learned to take the pharmacist's disapproving glower with an equally disapproving glower of her own.
She replaced the vial in the jewellery box and set about dressing herself for the day.
The time on her phone read "7:07am"; there was no chance of her being able to get back to sleep now.
Feeling slightly less than enthused about the day ahead of her, Cassidy rootled through her drawers, looking for a pair of decent socks. Every now and then, she found her eyes darting towards the first, polished, wooden door of her desk drawer.
The locked one.
She wondered if she would ever unlock it and look at the contents again.
Since the end of the Summer Bank ordeal, the drawer had remained locked.
Somewhere between the twenty or so blindfolds, a reminder was nestled in the drawer.
A reminder that Cassidy privately wondered if she would ever have the courage to look upon again.
Her temples throbbed painfully and she returned to dressing.
"That's another question for another day," she told herself. "Another question for another day."
It was about eight o' clock or roundabout when Cassidy heard the scraping of gravel in the front driveway and the doorbell rang.
"Front Line Deliv'ry Services, ma'am. I understand we 'ave a deliv'ry f'you today? S'that right?"
She signed what was necessary, told the small team of porters to bring it into the front hall and paid them for their services.
As soon as the van left the front of the house, Cassidy jogged back upstairs to check on Abbie. Content that the little girl was still fast asleep beneath the blankets, Cassidy closed the bedroom door and locked it,
Part of her felt bad for doing anything that could potentially cause panic to the little girl but she needed to make completely certain that there was no way that she would be disturbed.
She couldn't risk Abbie running downstairs and getting in the way.
Cassidy made her way back downstairs and as soon as the tall, purple crate came back into eyeshot, she found her gait slowing to an almost reverent pace.
She hadn't meant to deceive anyone…or to cheapen the Doctor's efforts to save her.
She had bid under the phone, under the name "C. Bucket."
Truthfully, despite knowing all-too-well of her friend's vast intelligence, she hadn't expected Edmund to detect anything suspicious. She had enough experience with auctions to know exactly where the corners were cut. She knew full-well that Edmund wouldn't bother to check the address tags on any of the pieces.
Even if he had, Cassidy had arranged for the crate to be delivered to a mail collection centre in Surrey and then orchestrated an entirely separate delivery service to collect the "precious" statue and to bring it to her front door.
The whole affair had been pricey but thanks to her mother and to Stan, money wasn't really much of an issue any more.
The Angels wouldn't leave her alone until they had Michael…Iblis…whatever his name was.
Maybe they'd even take him away for good, if they finally caught him.
Either way, at the very least, the Archangel was better equipped for fighting his own kind than she was.
Just as Abbie was safest in Cassidy's care, Cassidy was forced to begrudgingly admit that she was probably safest with him.
She moved carefully around the crate, remembering what River had implied regarding him being able to hear everything that was going on outside its walls.
She inspected the keypad, repeating the numbers that had been prominent- running on an endless phonological loop- since she had been told them. She muttered the sequence under her breath, hovering her finger over the keypad and simulating the series of actions that she was about to enact.
Before she did anything, however, Cassidy reached under the hall table and took up the pair of old Aviator glasses that she had bought so many years ago in Cairo. True, the bridge of the frame was a little too tight for the span of her adult-sized head, (she had been about twelve when she had bought them), but what mattered was not the frame of the glasses.
This pair had mirror-lenses.
"Why didn't I think of this before?" she lamented gruffly, turning her attention back to the keypad and whispering the sequence aloud as she delicately touched the numbers on the pad. Finally, she carefully swiped her thumb across the upper part of the screen: the vital unlocking mechanism that River had mentioned.
No sooner had the pad of her thumb left the glossy, black screen, did the walls of the crate begin to glow.
Cassidy took a nervous, retreating step- watching as the wheels beneath the box seemed to retract, almost melting into the base of the huge, oblong construction. The walls of the crate seemed to glow brighter for a moment before starting to fade, disappearing into a thin, hazy mist and then clearing as though they had never been there before.
For the first time, the human woman realised that within her chest ached a fear that she was not aware she possessed. The Doctor had said that Michael would soon be dead within the crate. Suppose he was already wasted away? Suppose he was gone beyond repair? Suppose all her efforts had been for nothing?
Cassidy frowned deeply.
It wasn't just the implication that she was starting to feel more than just contempt for the Angel that made her insides constrict. It was the thought that without the extra muscle that he provided, she and Abigail would be at the mercy of the Angels that supposedly at them under surveillance.
At the core of the mist, Cassidy could see the gargantuan silhouette of the Weeping Archangel and as it cleared away, removing the final boundary between them, the human's expectations were all at once confirmed.
The Archangel was not happy.
His expression wasn't the first thing to strike her though.
What immediately stunned the human woman was the look of his body.
His imposing, threateningly broad shoulders were lined with vein-like cracks.
Deep crevices were etched out across his pectoral muscles and his wings had started to deteriorate at the edges.
Once finely curved, beautifully detailed plumage had turned to shapeless husks of stone.
She raised her eyes to meet the face that he had been forced to wear since he had been trapped in the crate but she did not for a second believe that any trace of fury upon his face was not befitting of his current feelings.
"You."
His voice was a tremor, overcast and shuddering with rage.
Or maybe the shuddering had nothing to do with his rage.
Cassidy looked him up and down, knowing that the glasses were protecting her but too nervous to experiment with the safety that they afforded her, she did not dare to blink.
"Me."
"You traitorous little wretch," Iblis growled, his human voice sounding laboured and waning. "I offer you freedom and you repay me by conspiring to imprison me."
"I had nothing to do with you being trapped in that box," Cassidy told him indignantly, folding her arms and leaning against the door-frame. "That was the Doctor's idea. I had no idea as to what any of them were planning…"
"A likely story…"
"Why the hell would I go to the bother of bringing you back if I had any part in trapping you in the first place?"
Cassidy mustered up all of her courage and tried a blink.
The Archangel made no movement and held a silence for a moment before speaking again.
"…perhaps you finally came to accept the inevitable truth."
The human woman made no attempt to conceal a look of derisive disgust as she surveyed the living statue. "And what "inevitable truth" would that be?"
"That you belong to me…"
Cassidy gave a sardonic laugh, her anxiety melting away as it became apparent that the glasses were working perfectly. "I should be sick of telling you that you don't own me, Michael, but what makes it so entertaining this time is that seeing as I'm the one who bought you on auction…I think it's you who belongs to me."
"…I suppose you think you're very clever, don't you, human?"
"I think you know I'm very clever, angel."
"I'd learn when to hold my tongue if I were you."
"I'd try not to strain myself if I were you. You're not looking too healthy there, Michael."
"Believe me when I say that I have strength enough to end you, if I so desired it."
"Of course you do," Cassidy found herself sneering scathingly. "You're trapped looking at your own reflection. You're absolutely under my control- just like a garden ornament! You should be begging for mercy…"
Something was so unbelievably satisfying about putting the Archangel in his place. The more Cassidy spoke, the more powerful she felt. She had been worried about seeing him again- worried that he would instil fear in her once again.
But the fear that he had once inspired in her had rotted and decayed in her.
Unfortunately, as Cassidy continued to tell him off, what she didn't realise was that the glasses were slowly sliding down the bridge of her nose.
In a moment of her release, Cassidy dared to look at him over the edge of her glasses and following this one fatal misjudgement, it only took one fateful twitch of her eyelids for Michael to be free of his quantum lock.
Desperation made him fast.
He lunged forward and caught her by the throat, pinning her against the wall at her back.
Cassidy's cry was stifled by the feel of the Archangel's fingers clenching down on her throat. Michael's second hand came to cover her eyes, forcibly holding them shut.
Not that Cassidy was particularly intent on opening them.
The threat of her brain losing all oxygen was bad enough- if he turned to stone, the weight of his body against hers would be enough to crush her trachea, break her neck or painfully split her skull right down the middle.
Her body began to spasm and saliva brimmed at the corner of her lips as she struggled to regain her breathing.
He wasn't quite choking her: he was more or less holding her against the wall.
Cassidy's arms came to push at his bicep, fiercely struggling and her legs kicking against him.
She felt him lean down to her face and her already disjointed mirror glasses were pulled from her face, presumably by his teeth.
Recalling the curved, knife-like appendages that he had at his disposal, Cassidy awaited the pain of his bite. She could hear him growling as he brought his face level with hers.
He removed his hand from her eyes but she refused to open them.
She wasn't going to be the cause of her own demise.
She wanted to face the Archangel's might with courage, without conveying to him that she felt any kind of terror.
Cassidy felt a rush of air as his arm pulled back- signalling an impending strike.
She relaxed her face, refusing to show any degree of emotion.
She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
But he did not strike her.
Instead, his hand stroked her face, running from the side of her jaw- tracing the line from the soft cartilage of her earlobe to the bare cleft in the centre of her chin.
He suddenly cupped her face, his thumb faintly brushing against her cheek.
"This face," she heard him whisper, his voice more evidently weak at their close proximity. "Your face…" His touch turned fluidly from anger to curiosity to complete reverence. "I feared that I would never see it again…"
Her hands held fast to his arm, not choosing to let go quite yet as her breath came in rapid pants. She felt the fingers that held her neck begin to loosen, eventually releasing her entirely. Not knowing how to react at first, her knuckles began to tighten around his arm as his hand moved to take her by the shoulder.
She quivered, flushing as the Archangel's touch continued to skim across her face and neck before- with shocking gentleness- he lowered his forehead to rest down against hers.
"My Cassidy…"
Then her senses returned to her.
In one, fierce, fluid motion she pushed against his arm, shoving and kicking against him with all of her strength. "Let go of me!" she insisted, her voice raising as her protests continued. "Don't you dare call me yours! I'm the one who bought you back! If anything, you belong to me!"
For whatever reason- perhaps it was his hunger or his sheer surprise at her sudden rebellion- his grip slackened and Cassidy instantly felt something give way in his lower arm. Obstinate in her refusal, she continued to push him away- continuing to shout at him.
She had spent too long in solitude, timidly contemplating her problems and remaining silent for fear of upsetting him. Now he was weak.
Now he could be the weaker of the two of them.
She found herself pounding against his chest, feeling the cold, scale-like skin beneath her knuckles. In the throes of her own fury, she attempted to draw upon every possible memory of anxiety, lashing out upon the Weeping Archangel in a fevered attempt to make him feel the pain that she had felt.
Her composure rapidly deteriorating, she clawed at his arms, raking her fingernails blindly across the skin. He offered no retaliation as she pulled at his hair, scraped at his neck and threw punches into his lower abdomen.
She knew that she couldn't be doing any real damage but with her eyes closed and her anger finally unleashed, Cassidy took comfort in the knowledge that she wasn't fighting an unstoppable beast of stone.
She could feel the curve of his bones beneath his skin.
She could feel the canvas of flesh that covered them.
His hair was coarse and wiry and the epidermal layers that sagged across his chest to form his pseudo-toga were soft.
"You're only flesh," Cassidy breathed aloud, her voice ragged and hoarse. "You're…only…flesh…"
One of her hands grabbed at his jaw, sightlessly clawing at his mouth. She had no idea what she was trying to do- only knowing lucidly that she wanted to inflict as much pain as possible upon him.
Her thumb latched into the corner of his lips and she shuddered, pausing to breathe when the tip of her finger suddenly probed the inner part of his mouth, sinking into warm moisture.
Her own daring briefly repulsed her but she did not pull away.
The Archangel made no movement to stop her, standing still as Cassidy-with shameless and more morbid curiosity than ever before- slowly dragged her thumb across the outline of his teeth.
She wasn't afraid.
She wasn't quite disgusted either.
Slowly, she withdrew her hand- returning it to her side, her eyes still tightly shut.
Her shoulders raised and dropped with each, slightly laboured breath. "You…you're …you're only flesh…"
Cassidy's eyes flickered open briefly, looking at the stone Angel where he stood.
Unsettlingly, he did not say a word and his expression was one that Cassidy had never seen before. His eyebrows were curved upwards slightly, arching in the centre as though conveying some kind of concern.
His thin, grey lips were barely parted and his blank eyes stared down at her.
Her eyes fell travelled up to meet his but instantly her temples began to throb, prompting her to shut her eyes tight once more.
Now, the Lonely Assassin was finally free to move.
She felt the weight of both hands on her shoulders.
Her mouth turned barren and her legs turned to melting wax- both mirroring the suddenly unbearable heat that rose in her chest.
Then- in an instant- his lips were on hers, making no immediate movement but simply resting.
It was in the slightest of movements that he offered that Cassidy realised that the Archangel's mouth was the slightest bit warmer than the rest of his hide.
After a few content seconds of clumsily and lightly kissing her lips, Michael delicately parted his own to allow his tongue to glaze the seam of her mouth.
No.
Not this time.
In one fast and fluid motion, Cassidy pulled away from the Archangel and brought her hand across his face in a harsh, resounding slap.
"NO! " she shouted, retracting her hand but refusing to recoil. "Don't you dare try that!"
She didn't know if he was acting upon hunger or lust but in either case, Cassidy had gone far beyond the point of taking any more of his self-divulged liberties.
He wasn't sucking any life out of her or kissing her.
Cassidy glowered at him defiantly for a moment, as though daring him to say or do anything in response and at the next flicker of her eyelids, his own hand reached out and returned a fast, stinging slap to her cheek.
"Do not take such a tone with me, ingrate!" he bellowed, his face contorted into one of a venomous rage when Cassidy's eyes managed to focus once more.
But her own face was a perfect mirror of his.
"It's not nice to be hit, is it?!" Cassidy shouted, her voice coarse at the edges, shutting her eyes and punctuating her words with a fierce strike to Michael's jaw. Her hand hurt but she didn't care.
"It is similarly not pleasant to be provoked to physical violence. Is it?" the Archangel growled, immediately following suit and returning the slap before Cassidy could open her eyes.
She groaned, placing a hand over her now-burning cheek.
That last slap had been dizzying and had certainly struck the air from her throat.
Cassidy steadied herself, deciding that it was time to play her trump card before she was driven to stooping any lower. She didn't intend to fight a losing battle.
"Heh…your sister was quite a bit more amicable than you. I guess being a complete and utter brute doesn't run in the family?" Cassidy looked up at him, her eyes taking up their usual position at his chin, unable to prevent a small smirk from breaking across her face. "Or is it just that you're the bad apple?"
A thin growl escaped the Archangel's throat for a moment and it took a few seconds this time before the stolen human voice emitted from his imposing hide of stone. "…my sister? What do you mean by this?"
"Well, she told me that she was your sister. One of the Angels that came around looking for you…"
She took note of the very evident quaver in his voice as he slowly responded.
"You lie, Cassidy Albright. You lie."
The human woman gave a dry laugh, shaking her head. "I wish I was lying…and I bet you wish I was lying too, don't you, Michael?" Her eyes narrowed and not just because she felt a blink coming on. "Or should I say…Iblis?"
Cassidy had been prepared for Michael to react quite negatively but the manner in which he actually reacted, very literally shook her to her core.
A shriek-like roar sounded out from the statue, vibrations rippling out from under where he stood to the floorboards beneath Cassidy's own feet.
The roar was followed by what sounded like gruff, frayed inhalations; she couldn't ever recall having heard an Angel breathe before.
It was a good few minutes before he finally spoke again and when he did speak, Cassidy heard something else that she had never heard before.
Terror.
In her Archangel's voice.
"It…is as I feared."
His face was frozen in an expression of snide contempt but his tone was something else altogether.
"Why is she looking for you?" Cassidy asked, settling against the door-frame, keeping her eyes locked resolutely on his stone skin. "It must be an important reason, right? I mean the reason she came after Abbie and let the two of us live was because she was certain that you'd come back looking for us…"
"Because, I, not you nor the infant, am their intended target," the Archangel replied. "I thought I sensed their presence once or twice. They have almost certainly been tracking me since discovering my absence…I did not think that they would locate me so quickly…"
"That's what she meant," Cassidy murmured, slowly coming to a realisation. "When she said that her "brethren" were watching over me…how long have they been watching?"
"I am unable to say. From the day that we returned to the present day from the yesteryears…from the day that we returned from your mother's death-bed…perhaps even from the day that you freed me…"
"Why haven't they attacked yet? And…who are they exactly? Other Angels related to you?"
She looked away for the first time, allowing him to move- certain that the depth of their conversation was keeping him sufficiently engaged and thus, distracted.
"Angels from my clan. They more than likely realised that I was too strong for them to manage and while engaging in reconnaissance, decided to wait out for an appropriate time to strike. I time when I was weakened…"
The Weeping Archangel was now looking away from her, his head turned to face the slightly open kitchen door. His face was back to an elegantly composed mask, his mouth tight in a slight frown.
Cassidy eyed the lines and cracks that latticed his abdomen, chest and face.
"You're weak right now…"
"Why did you return me here? The decision was hardly one in your favour."
The woman shrugged, her eyebrows furrowing. "Don't sound so irked. I saved your damn life…isn't anything better than starving to death?"
"That does not provide any sufficient answer to my question."
"I'm safest with you. Those Angels won't stop following me and Abbie until they at least see you again…and I don't know how to fight them either. You can fight them. I've seen you fight them... like you did with…Kyrie…in Summer Bank…"
Cassidy bit the inner part of her mouth out of habit and wrapped her arms around herself. "Why…why are they after you anyway?"
When she next looked to him, his gaze had returned to her, his wings lowered and the tips of the plumage slightly dragging upon the wooden floorboards.
"They perceive me as having escaped punishment…"
"Punishment? What do y-?" Cassidy's eyebrows raised suddenly as realisation spread like watercolour across the front of her forehead. "The chains…" Her mind drifted back to the day that she had found him in the thick of Sherwood Forest, compiling that memory with all that he had fleetingly told her before. "You were chained into the ground…I thought you said that…clerics or something…did that?"
"And who do you suppose baited the clerics into our territory and lured me out into the compass of their trappings?" The Archangel snarled. "They wanted to leave me there for millennia on end…the clergymen and my own clan alike…"
"So you're running, essentially. Since the day that we cut you loose, you've been running." Cassidy raised an eyebrow, slumping back against the door-frame. "What did you do, exactly to earn that kind of sentence?"
Before the Lonely Assassin could respond, there was a sound of footsteps from above their heads.
Without Cassidy's direct line of vision, Michael was free to react, immediately glowering upwards.
"Too light to be one of older ones…too clumsy…too unrefined…"
"That's Abbie," Cassidy told him, rolling her eyes slightly. "She must be awake."
"The infant?"
Unseen, the Archangel rerouted his glower to the human woman. "Why did you bring her here?"
"I had to! She was in clear danger without me. She needs your protection too!"
"Young children are slow, have poor logic, poor reasoning skills and almost no sense of preservation. She is nothing but a liability to your safety."
"And it's my bloody fault that the poor child's life is in danger to begin with! Well…it's your fault, really…but besides that fact, I couldn't just leave her alone, terrified and facing death…"
The Archangel heaved a sigh. "Humans…if you truly desire my protection, you must follow my word and my guiding from now on, if I am to preserve both of you."
Cassidy looked to him again, meeting his stern gaze briefly before her eyes returned to their safe spot. "Y-you…you're offering me your protection?"
She hadn't expected the process to be half as easy as that.
"I am. I bear a responsibility towards you. After all, you are still my property. I must conserve what is mine…and if the infant improves your temperament, I will make the extra effort…"
Of course.
Hearing Abigail start to struggle with opening the bedroom door, wailing for her, Cassidy made for the stairs.
She grumbled under her breath as she ascended the steps:
"You may still think of me as your property but I'm the one who actually has a receipt for purchasing you…"
It took a lot of prompting, coaxing and reassuring to get Abbie to come downstairs.
Cassidy had decided not to be coy and to immediately tell the little girl that the Archangel was downstairs.
Trying to calm her, Cassidy had been forced to lie through her teeth and to spin a little story about Michael "deciding to come back to protect them."
"So then," sniffled Abbie from her hiding place, (under the bed and bundled up with three or four of Cassidy's plush toys). "He's turned into a nice person and he's going to help us instead of being mean?"
Cassidy felt a venomous anger boil in the lower part of her stomach but not wanting to press any further anxiety on the child, she fixed a smile back on to her face and nodded. "Yes, that's exactly it…"
A little over an hour later, Abbie was happily drawing at the kitchen table, picking at a bowl filled with three different types of cereal and occasionally pausing to gawk at the antics of Ben and Holly on the little television on the counter-top.
Cassidy and Michael had reconvened to the back garden.
Abbie was still perfectly visible (and occasionally audible) from the window but it afforded them some necessary privacy when discussing their current situation.
"Do you think they're watching us now? Are we safe out here?"
She was aware that the legs of her trousers were starting to grow damp from the grass but she didn't care. A cold wind tugged at the corners of her jacket, whipping at the stretch of skin that was exposed between her waistline and the folds of her shirt.
"It is difficult to determine their surveillance patterns but we are safe for now…I will know when they draw close…"
His Herculean, grey body was slightly damp from the cold air and thus took on a slight gleam when crossed by the fading midwinter sunlight.
"So what did you do, exactly? Why did they feel the need to punish you? Why do they want you dead?" She pulled a wad of Kleenex from her pocket and dabbed at the corners of her rouge-pricked nose. "What exactly was your crime?"
"I was born male."
Cassidy blinked, running her fingers through her hair as she looked sideways at him. "What?"
"I was born male," he repeated. "Female births are desirable among my kind. Generally, my kind can reproduce with the certainty of females by converting your human statues to our kind. This only produces a mindless drone, of course, but this is still expanding our population. Natural births, through natural mating, opens the possibility that the cherub will be healthier but also may be born male…"
"And what's so awful about a male birth?"
"Males of my species are generally perceived as threatening and troublesome by our female counterparts. We are rare, nomadic and solitary by both our nature and by our culture…"
Cassidy's stomach started to tighten but she managed to cast a sceptical glare in his direction. "I don't know…you seemed to fit in quite well with all of those Angels at Summer Bank…"
"Clans want males for natural reproduction and greater protection. I was an asset to them…"
"So…your clan had you shackled because you were born male?"
"No, for treason."
"Treason?"
"Clans usually only require one male and we don't like being challenged for our position of power…my father slaughtered my brother before me and my elder sister who opposed him…my mother raised me in isolation but I could sense that he would perform another cull before I reached full maturity…so I sought to kill him first…but I was caught…and thus, punished for my treason…"
Cassidy was silent for a moment but words found their way back into her mouth far sooner than she had expected.
"And they'll take you back to return you to punishment if you don't end this now."
"And how do you propose that I "end it"?"
"Your sister. Reason with her."
"Karida? She won't be reasoned with. I cannot fight them either. Not in this state."
"Well…hunt, get better…then fight them. Surely if they saw you as such a threat before, they must have had reason for it. You can't keep running. You need to stand and fight…"
And once you've gained your place back with your clan, you can stay with them and leave me alone for good. No more Angels. No more.
"You have such little regard for the cost of risk, Cassidy. You sound quite foolish, at times..."
She kicked a nearby thistle, knotted in the dew-streaked grass. "Maybe I am a fool. It's not always a bad way to be."
The two stood in quietness again for some time, simply staring outward at where the sun seemed to weave out behind a black lattice of bows.
Cassidy renewed the conversation once more, this time with a question that had been burdening her mind.
"Should I call you Iblis from now on then?"
"…no. I would rather you did not."
"So...Michael is alright, then?"
"Yes."
Another silence and then...
"You know, you didn't have to stay around London or even around Los Angeles, just policing me…you could have easily run away further and kept moving…they wouldn't have found you. Why was taking me as your slave…" She gave a brief eye-roll of distaste. "…so important? More important than surviving? Foolish, wouldn't you say?"
"Perhaps I am, indeed, a fool. I have heard that it is not a bad way to be."
So again, I just want to say thank you so much for reading. I've had a rough time for the last while in terms of both my academic and social life and Doctor Who has always been such an escape for me.
I really do love writing this fic and knowing that it's providing entertainment for others (whether you're pointing and laughing at this fic or genuinely enjoying for it) makes me so much happier! :)
Disclaimer:
- I do not endorse relationships that are abusive, controlling or power-struggle-orientated in any way, shape or form.
-I am indeed going somewhere with Cassidy's dreams (it isn't just a random quirk).
-The Doctor, River and Clara will be returning quite soon...and Ten, Martha and Rose will also be making a cameo!