Welcome to chapter 38.
Please enjoy your stay!

For anyone who opted to skip chapter 37, all you missed was that Cassidy and Michael got caught up in "the moment" and consummated their lust for one another.
Nothing plot-shattering happened…other than the interspecies lovin'.

This chapter may suffer from a lack of action per se, but I feel like some character development wouldn't go astray.

Cassidy could remember the sky looking like a cracked eggshell with strange spurts of toppling, azure yolk. She could remember how warm and humid it was- particularly for the month of May in the middle of London.
Perched somewhat precariously on a window sill in one of the storage rooms, she felt a sudden flood of relief when Louisa appeared with two more chilled wine coolers. Beaming widely at the much coveted gift, Cassidy immediately pressed the cold, rounded bottle against her forehead.

"Son of a bitch," she muttered, sighing faintly. "I never thought I'd be so happy to see a bottle of Tesco's finest."
"Bit cheap of the museum heads, init?" Louisa commented, inspecting her own bottle. "Special event, prestigious talkers and they won't even open their wallets for the good stuff…"

Two floors below them, there was a guest speaker- a historian from Austria, apparently- giving a talk about the marriage of classic and contemporary art styles.
Or something like that.
Louisa and Cassidy, for separate reasons, had both ended up being late to the session and thus were stuck with seats at the back of the gallery.
It was far too hot to concentrate and neither could see or hear what was going on particularly well.

At one point, Cassidy felt Louisa tugging on her sleeve and turned her head to see her friend smirking and gesturing towards one of the half open doors. Unseen by anyone who mattered in terms of their employment, the two managed to sneak off into the main hall- only to be greeted by the sight of the refreshments table.
Only minutes later, the two women had made a nice little hideaway for themselves in one of the upstairs storage rooms, complete with a small supply of mini wine coolers.

"You seem a bit melancholy," Cassidy commented, studying her friend's face as she continued to enjoy the effects of her makeshift cold-compress. Despite her usual mischievous streak, Cassidy couldn't help but notice that a Louisa seemed a little lower than usual.

The receptionist smiled weakly and waved her hand, taking a moment to admire her newly painted nails before shrugging. "I ran into an old boyfriend earlier today. He was in buying tour tickets…"

"Messy break-up?"

"You could say that. He was fine while we were together…but when I told him that I thought we'd run our course, he took it really up his snot, y'know? Like he wasn't used to being the one who got broken up with? Pretty face, smashing body…but a real bell-end when he was pissed off…you know the sort."

"Ah…"
Cassidy had never been one for dispensing useful romantic-relationship-based advice so she simply tried to be encouraging. "Well you definitely came out tops in the end, yeah? I mean you didn't take him back despite the bell-endishness, did you?"

"No, I didn't," she exhaled, taking a good, long slug of her wine before laughing. "But…oh my God, Cass. I'm such an actual saddo. There he is, right in front of me today and part of me just wants to slap him across his fucking, smarmy, little face but this other, slaggy part of me just couldn't stop thinking about how I'd really have loved a bonus night…"

Cassidy slowly peeled back the screw-cap on her bottle raising her eyebrows. "Bonus…night?"

"Yeah, like when you've broken up with someone and you have one last fling with no strings attached…"

"Can't say I'm particularly acquainted with the concept."

Louisa laughed slightly, shaking her head. "You're better off that way. Nothing good comes of it ever…but fuck it. Am I wrong for wanting to screw him again? Does that make me a slag? Fucking doesn't but that's not how he'd retell the whole thing to his mates later…" She rested her forehead against the window. "Why are pretty men always such knobs, Cass?"

Cassidy giggled, shrugging and shaking her head. "I don't think it's all of them, somehow."

"Just the ones I'm unfortunate enough to meet, right? Be honest...have you ever wanted to get your leg over someone you've let go?"

"Well, I haven't really ever…gotten my leg over anyone…"

Louisa's eyes widened in realisation and she broke into peals of slightly tipsy laughter as she clapped a hand on her friends back. "I keep forgetting…sorry. Then again, you're like the least prude virgin I've ever met."

"That's reassuring."

A little later, (and a few drinks later), Louisa's head was neatly tucked under Cassidy's chin.
She gave her friend's cheek a poke.

"Oi, Cass. Mind if I bear a little bad news to you?"

Cassidy exhaled, absent-mindedly fingering the spot where Louisa's lace-front met her scalp.
"As long as it's not life or death bad news. I'd rather live in denial with regards to some things."

" 'S'not life or death but it's not exactly peaches and cream to hear, love."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm a glutton for punishment. Go on."

Louisa lifted her head from Cassidy's chest, looking her square in the face with slightly unfocused eyes. "Right so…basically…your first time is gonna be shit. Pure shit."

Now it was Cassidy who felt slightly unfocused. "Uh….you what, now?"

"Your first time in the sack right? Having sex? It's going to be shit. The movies make it look all steamy and romantic with like…wine and rose petals and fucking Victoria's Secret lingerie…but it's really not. It's really awkward and weird and messy...both during and after…"

"Well," Cassidy replied, crossing her legs. "I'd always felt that it was a little overly romanticised in popular media…"

"It hurts too, y'know? Having your cherry popped…and you might bleed. And…" Louisa tilted her head for a moment. "You're straight, right, Cass?"

Cassidy paused for a moment, in focused consideration. "I suppose I'm hetero until proven otherwise, yeah…why?"

"Having sex with guys for the first time kinda sucks. You won't come first…or maybe at all. He'll definitely bust a nut but you'll probably walk away thinking "I could have done better going solo." Girls aren't much better unless you know exactly what you want and you're able to somehow convey that to them…and even then, that's just taking…if you're giving, well, that can be confusing if you're not exactly used to that territory…but look, it all gets better with experience…"
Louisa continued to dispense garbled, gushed, slightly-biased sexual advice and factoids, (most of which she would recant the following day), and Cassidy's eyes wandered back to the open window, faintly wondering if the wispy clouds in the sky were going to dissipate all together.
She wondered if they would ever simply give in and yield to the sun.

First there was darkness, then there was a cave, then a river.
The dream repeated itself again and again.
It had not stopped repeating itself since she had first met the Archangel.

What was different this time was that as her eyes opened in waking, she could recall the entirety of the dream in intense vividness.
In spite of her fortunate recall however, Cassidy Albright found herself quite distracted as she awoke.

Her heavy eyelids slowly lifted, roused by the sound of spattering, sleety snow against the sitting room window.
Funny, she thought, it sounded rather like fingers, drumming against the panes.

She stared up at the living room ceiling, taking a brief second to recall the events of last night before attempting to sit.
Pain.
A sudden, impossible-to-ignore pain ripped through her lower regions, accumulating in an intense sting in her crotch area.

She doubled over, pressing her forehead to her knees and waiting for the discomfort to subside before summoning the willpower to sit up once more. She noticed for the first time that she was completely alone. The dimly lit sitting room was empty and the Archangel was nowhere in sight.

Sudden loneliness joined sudden pain.

Sudden guilt was an immediate third party as her mind- clear for the first time in a while- traced over the events of the previous night.

She could remember the feeling of his body leaning over hers.
His shoulders were strong where her hands gripped him.
His lips and tongue danced along the pulse-lines of her throat, the occasional growl slipping from his lips and thrumming along her skin in a vibrating rhythm that only served to add to the building crescendo of stimulation.
He filled her flawlessly.
And his body felt perfect against hers.

The body of a murderer.
Hewitt.
Darrow.
Louisa.
How many other hundreds of humans had fallen at the pseudo-Archangel's hands?

And she had slept with him.

The guilt was bad enough but the shame was enough to make her physically nauseous.
She had willingly laid back and given him what he had once been willing to forcibly take from her, subjecting her to fear and humiliation.

"No," Cassidy told herself, muttering under her breath. "He's different now. He was different before. He kills people to survive, not because he's a maniac…he didn't know what Hewitt or Louisa meant to me…" She raked her fingers through her tussled hair. "And last night, everything was on my terms…I started it all…he was my conquest…I have nothing to be ashamed about…"

She repeated this rant over and over in her mind as she looked around, trying to find her pyjamas. She was quite cold, having forgotten to put on the heating system the night before. She managed to locate her oversized Primark shirt on the sofa at her back but after she'd draped the faux silk material over her shoulders that she realised that the majority of the plastic buttons had been torn away the night before.
A rather bemused, uncontrollable smirk crossed her face as she skimmed along the thread-torn hem as she recalled how she had coaxed Michael to tear it away from her.

Michael.

She called the Weeping Angel's given name aloud, repeating herself a little louder when she got no immediate response.
There was something unnerving about the lack of an audible reply.
She could hear distant creaking and clanking coming from the kitchen and at that point she realised that there was a distinct smell of hot coffee.

"Michael?" she called out again. "Please answer me!"

Relief surged over her like a bath of hot water when she heard the Archangel's reply:
"Have patience. I will return to you presently."

She attempted to stand up again, only for tiredness and more aching beneath her navel to keep her sitting down. Sighing slightly, she pulled herself up on to one of the cushions and was about to scrabble around for one of the console remotes.
After finding the one for the CD player, she immediately flicked it on- feeling that the room was far too quiet and that far-too-quiet rooms were something that she wasn't all that comfortable with any more.

One of the 1920's CDs that she'd picked up in a thrift shop for three pounds fifty, during her research for the museum's "Roaring Twenties" exhibit. A grainy fanfare of muted trumpets provided an opening to the song before a crooning woman's voice began to pour from the speaker.
In the midst of her searching for the television remote, she found the little makeshift book that Abbie had made for her. Smiling faintly, Cassidy decided that now might be a good time to give it a look.

She traced her fingers over the waxy crayon lines of the cover page, there was a stick-figure drawing of a distinctly female figure with wavy yellow lines for hair, small blue dots for eyes and a red line forming her wide smile.
Cassidy's own smile grew; Abbie's penmanship was a little difficult to decipher but it wasn't long before she had a firm enough grasp of the little girl's calligraphy alphabet.
"The Lonlee Prisess bi Abbie Drake" the title proclaimed, which Cassidy was certain translated to "The Lonely Princess."

The majority of Abbie's handwriting was roughly in the same vein but the story pencilled carefully in amongst the meticulous crayon drawings definitely shone through.

Translating as she read, Cassidy began on the first page:

"Once upon a time, there was a lonely princess. She was very lovely and smart but she did not have a lot of friends. She lived in a big castle, all on her own. Sometimes she was scared because monsters were in the woods around her castle but they only came out at night so she could walk in the woods in the day time."

Suddenly the "princess" with wavy, squiggly yellow hair seemed to look a little bit familiar.

"One day in the woods she found a really big statue. The statue was broken so the princess took it home to fix it."

Cassidy paused for a moment, running her thumb over the grey-coloured, fuzzy blob that she supposed was to represent the "statue."

"The princess took a long time to clean the statue and wash the statue and fix the statue. Soon the statue was perfect again. The princess liked the statue a lot and decided to keep it.

She looked after the statue for a long time and did not feel so lonely anymore when the statue was around and the princess felt happy again. But she still got sad because the statue could not talk to her or play with her.

She wished that he was real.

The statue wished that he was real too because he was in love with the princess and wanted to take her away to a safe place where they could be happy together."

Cassidy sniffed a little, taking great care as she peeled the pages apart and studied the next few pages with intensity that she did not originally plan to have.

"One night, the princess was sleeping in her bed and a monster came out of the dark. The princess woke up and fought the monster. She hurt the monster and it ran away but it broke her statue.

She was sad and crying and she fixed the statue again. Please, be ok said the princess to the statue, I love you.

Then a big light was in the room and the statue turned into a handsome prince. He said to the princess a witch turned me into a statue but now I am real again. I love you. Please come and live with me. We can go someplace safe and be happy and there will be no more monsters."

Cassidy wiped the corners of her eyes, holding the final page up to her face.

"The princess said I love you too and she went with the prince far away to a place with no monsters and they lived happily ever after."

"Happily…ever…after…" the archaeologist murmured under her breath, studying the final crayon drawing of two stick figures surrounded by wavy yellow and purple lines.

"Cassidy? Are you alright?"

She lifted her head quickly, only to see her Lonely Assassin standing over her, holding what appeared to be a steaming cereal bowl.
It was only when her face scrunched up with initial confusion that Cassidy realised that two small estuaries of tears were running down her face, just about skimming her chin.

She dabbed at her eyes as she spoke, shaking her head and assuring him that her sudden onslaught of emotion was not because she was unhappy.
The steaming cereal bowl apparently contained coffee, (which Michael was only too proud to inform her that he made himself after extensive weeks of watching her make it), which the Archangel insisted that she drink, (with or without his assistance, though preferably the former).
He also brought her several pieces of crudely cut yellow apple slices.
The pieces seemed more as though they had been torn apart by Michael's claws rather than sliced normally but tasted just as good.

As she ate, he held her, stroking her stomach.
Her eyes closed in a kind of relaxed bliss, he was free to move and embrace her.
After a few well-placed squeezes around her shoulders and strokes along her upper-thigh, Cassidy found a smile growing across her face. She tilted her head enough to dot his lower jaw with kisses.
Then he was kissing her lips, her face, her neck…

A sudden fear struck her and without a second thought to it, she blurted out:
"I'm not on the pill."

It was perhaps a little ridiculous and a little bit of an afterthought and it aroused notable confusion from Michael.
"You are not…on the pill?"

Between sloppy mouthfuls of apple, Cassidy did her best to explain what she meant by the statement only to have Michael quickly dismiss the concerns.
"Angels reproduce in lunar cycles. At this moment, it would be rather impossible for us to conceive now. It would be rather impossible in any respect…"

Ah, yes.
There was a nice reminder.
That wouldn't be normal because their relations were between two separate species and therefore completely unnatural.

In the background, a new tune started to pour from the speakers.
Cassidy could vaguely recall it being one of her favourites.
A jazz orchestra blared out a vaudeville tune and a singer's sultry alto gently glossed over the tune.

"I'm a country girl,
I ain't seen a lot
But you came along
And my heart went pop…"

"Are you regretful?" he asked her, sealed in stone when her eyes trailed over him.
"…no," she murmured, shaking her head. "No, not at all…"

"You took a little streetcar,
Right into my heart
And an apple of love
Fell off my apple cart…"

She slowly leaned back, trying to adjust herself on the hardwood floor. When her lower lumbar region was more than slightly curved with the intention to stand, only to double over in pain.

"You looked at me,
My heart began to pound.
You weren't the sort of guy
I thought would stick around…"

"You are far more greatly injured that I had originally assumed," Michael observed scornfully as he scooped her up from behind. Cassidy raised her hands in protest, her sleeves falling to her elbows. For the first time, she noticed that her usual pallor was marred by lines of faint red.
"I hurt you," she heard the living statue say, his body no more than a pale grey haze in the corner of her eye as she examined her arms. She traced the lines with macabre interest; they weren't cuts or permanent scars but they faintly reminded her of the injuries that she had often suffered at his hands.

These were different. They didn't fill her with derision.

"Hey, but it don't have to be eternally.
My bad, bad angel put the devil in me."

They weren't marks of her forced slavery.
They were marks of her survival and of the fact that she had won him over.
Last night had been the instigator and was now in complete control of him.

To test her point, she immediately doubled over, letting out a long pained moan.

"You lured me in
With your cold grey eyes,
Your sinful smile,
Your bewitching lies…"

Instantly, his arms were around her, holding her and supporting her to stand. "Do you require rest?"
"No, no," she told him, keeping her eyes closed so that his body remained comfortable to nestle against. "No…I think I might shower though…"

"One and one and one
Makes three:
My bad, bad angel, the devil
And me.

You put the devil in me."

She chose to ignore the small, murky red stain on one of the cushions at her feet.

Only minutes later, she was standing in the doorframe of the bathroom, her eyes dipped and her hair stretching to the small of her back. She made sure to place the watch that River had given her out on to the dressing table- it seemed fitting after all that had happened that she should actually do what River had told her to do and to keep wearing it.

She could see Michael out of the corner of her eye again, taking up a familiar place at the other side of her bedroom and could almost sense what he was about to do.
She blinked deliberately and abruptly swerved to the side.

"Oi…"

The Archangel managed to catch her by the forearm, a wide smirk on his face.
"You're getting faster, human."

"Yes," she said, thrusting her chin up defiantly. "Now, let me go, Angel."

She blinked again and he relinquished his hold on her arm.

She could hardly believe her own boldness as she stood before him- nude and quivering.
Memories from the night before were slowly slipping into her mind. She had enjoyed the chance to forget everything.

She could still hear the music from downstairs, seeping upwards from the floorboards.

"Now, my dear…"

She looked at him as his equal, her eyes level with his.

"Whatever are you staring at?"
"You."

"…I ain't the girl you knew…"

"Do you like staring at me?"
"It's a habit that I would appear to suffer from. You certainly find favour in it."

"…because the angels get Heaven…"

"What makes you think that?"
"If you did not like me looking at you, you would at the very least close your eyes so that I were not forced to keep my gaze."

"…but I get you…"

"Are you coming or are you just going to stand there and watch?" she asked him she found herself saying, adopting a slightly teasing tone as she took a step backwards into the bathroom.

"And the tree of life grows tall, you see…"

"There are many reflective surfaces in that chamber," he informed her, sounding slightly irritated. "Suppose I were to catch sight of myself? I would be entirely at your mercy. Again."

She shrugged, pseudo-nonchalantly, turning to pull back the shower curtain. "Fine. Suit yourself. I just would have thought after all this time gawping from afar, you'd finally jump at the chance to get in here…" Truly in a position that she would have never envisioned herself in just over twenty four hours ago, Cassidy turned on the water without bothering to glance back at the Weeping Angel. "What's the matter, Michael?" she taunted playfully. "Aren't I worth risking something for?"

"My bad, bad angel…put the devil in me…"

Cassidy had only just stepped under the stream of water when Michael's bare arms caught her around the waist, holding her torso rigid and pushing her against the tiled wall of the shower.
Pulsating hot water gushed over her crown, sliding down her face in heated streams while the rest of her body shuddered from the sudden, unforgiving cold of the wall.

"I would and have risked everything for you," the Archangel growled against the shell of her ear. "And I would do so again…"

Cassidy slowly closed her eyes, daring herself to push her body back against his.
"…then do so again."

"He put the devil in me…"

Yes! This is a shorty but I have good reasons for it! (Final act of the story will be starting in the next chapter!)
The song doesn't belong to me, of course. Some of you may recognise it from the Doctor Who Soundtrack. Look Up "My Angel Put the Devil in Me" by Yamit Mamo and Murray Gold. It first appeared in the episode "Daleks Take Manhattan" and is sometimes used as Jack Harkness' theme.

Thanks so much for reading folks!
Work has gotten tougher for me so I'm experiencing a backlog of PMs to get through! But I will reply to every single one before the weekend is out. I PROMISE. Thank you so much to everyone who's reading even if you're not reviewing or PMing! Just knowing that I'm entertaining people is good enough for me!
I will also write a response to every review! Sorry if I've been a little more silent than usual lately!
Real life can get annoying sometimes!

On the note of smut in the story, I'm interested as to people's opinions of it. As in, did you think that it helped to further the story and would you like it to feature again or did it feel like an unneccessary pornography break and it should be a one time thing? (^_^') All opinions are respected of course as always, I'm just happy for feedback!

On the plus side though? New season of the Doctor!
Hope you're all enjoying the new episodes!
Until next time!