Those who have me on story alert are about to be flooded with chapter alerts. I updated on Ao3 and kind of forget to update this site, too. Oops!
When it was time for Cassandra to be discharged from the hospital, she sat on top of the hospital bed, dressed in bright colored yoga pants and a loose-fitting t-shirt. They were all clustered in the room waiting for Amelia to come in with Cassandra's medicine and the mountain of discharge paperwork. Ezekiel sat on the bed with her, happy to see her finally disconnected from all of the hospital machines. Stone stood against the wall, and Baird obsessively checked her phone, as no one had heard from Flynn since his after-lunch departure a day and a half earlier. Amelia and Stephanie strolled into the room with cheery dispositions and paperwork in hand.
"Ready to get out of here?" Amelia asked.
"A little nervous about being out of here, actually," Cassandra admitted.
"That's normal," Amelia assured her. "But I think you're in good hands."
She explained all of the different medicines Cassandra would need to take, their potential side effects, and the strict post-op medication schedule she would need to adhere to before handing the medicines over to Baird. Stephanie showed Cassandra where to sign on the discharge papers. When everything was in order, Amelia gathered the paperwork and asked if anyone had any final questions for her.
Cassandra glanced nervously back at her friends before turning to her doctors. She asked, in a diminutive voice, "How long do you think I have?"
"Until what?" Amelia asked.
"Until the tumor grows back," Cassandra asked.
Baird, immediately realizing she wasn't either kidding or still in denial over the results of the surgery, froze right away, her attention turning from trying to locate the Librarian to the girl sitting uneasily on the bed. Stone also realized the reality behind her question and crossed his arms against his chest, his face hardening into a frown.
"It's gone; you saw the scan," Ezekiel said certainly.
Cassandra couldn't bring herself to look directly at him when she said, "This type of tumor tends to reoccur."
"It might not," Amelia said, jumping in as quickly as she could. She attempted to diffuse the tension that instantly filled the room with Cassandra's statement; suddenly before her sat one very resigned patient and three astonished friends who all looked between Cassandra and her doctors with varying degrees of anguish and condolences.
"How long?" Cassandra asked again.
"It's gonna grow back?" Ezekiel asked incredulously. "All of this, and it's just going to happen again?"
"No, we don't know that," Amelia said. "It could, yes, but Cassandra's tumor was very slow to progress, so if it comes back at all, it would likely take years."
"But how many years?" Stone asked heatedly. "Two? Five? Ten?"
Amelia sighed sympathetically and said, "It may never come back at all. I am as confident as I can be that I got all of the abnormal cells. She had a one hundred percent resection, so that means there is nothing in her head to multiply right now."
"But it could still come back?" Ezekiel asked.
Amelia realized that it didn't matter what she said at that point; they had already made up their minds as to which part of the discussion to focus on, so she switched gears a bit and said, "Don't think about that right now. Focus on this week's victory." She looked at Cassandra and said, "You are, right now, tumor-free for the first time since you were a teenager, and that makes this a pretty damn good day."
Cassandra smiled faintly. "You're right," she said. "That does feel pretty great."
"If it comes back, you'll come right back to me, and we will figure out what to do, but don't worry until there's a reason to, okay?" Amelia said. Cassandra nodded. "So I'll see you in a few days. Where are you headed until then?"
"Umm…" Cassandra stuttered. She looked to Baird for an answer.
"About that…" Baird started, trying to conceal the fact that they had no idea where they were going or where Flynn had gone.
As if on cue, Flynn walked into Cassandra's soon-to-be-vacated room pushing a wheelchair. He parked it near the bed, bowed towards Cassandra, and said, "Your chariot awaits, your highness."
Cassandra giggled, and Amelia grinned and said, "Oh yeah, you're going to be fine."
A nurse came in to see Cassandra out as Amelia and Stephanie said goodbye for now. Baird helped Cassandra stand from the bed and sit down in the wheelchair, and Flynn insisted upon doing the honors of wheeling her out. Outside the hospital doors was a taxi van large enough for all five of them to ride in. Cassandra grinned a bit at being outside for the first time in three days, despite the gray clouds in the sky and the gloomy tone to the atmosphere around her. The driver came around to open the doors, and Ezekiel helped Cassandra climb up into the front seat while Baird and Flynn climbed in the back.
Stone gestured to the driver and pulled him aside. "She just had brain surgery," Stone said. "So I'm going to need you to drive like she just had brain surgery."
"Meaning what?" the driver asked.
"Meaning she's going to feel every bump and every brake and every little minor thing on the road that you or I wouldn't think twice about," Stone pointed out.
"We drive post-op patients all the time," the driver said. "You're just going to a hotel around the corner."
"Still," Stone said, pulling a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket. "Respect what she's been through, okay?"
The driver nodded, taking the money and shoving it into his own pocket. Stone went to join his friends in the van, and the driver rolled his eyes, chalking Stone up to another crazy loved one.
Despite the driver's best efforts, Cassandra moaned with every bounce or shake of the vehicle. She pressed her head into the back of the passenger's seat and closed her eyes, willing it all to be over soon. She winced as the van came to a stop again, but this time, Baird touched her shoulder to let her know the stop was their destination and not another stop sign or stoplight.
Cassandra's eyes widened when she opened her eyes and discovered the taxi driver had pulled up in front of a very nice looking hotel just a few long blocks away from the hospital. Ezekiel helped her out of the car, asking if she was alright, and she looped her arm through his with a small nod as they slowly followed an excited Flynn inside the lobby. Baird carried Cassandra's bag, and Stone brought up the rear. Flynn took them up to the fourth floor and used a hotel keycard to let them in to one of the rooms.
"Wow," Ezekiel said as they entered the suite.
"Nice work, Librarian," Baird said.
Flynn eagerly gave them a tour of the suite. It had everything they would need, and plenty of things they wouldn't, though Ezekiel was quick to point out that the video game system attached to the living room television was, in fact, essential. Stone walked out of the bedroom.
"One problem, Flynn," Stone said. "There's only one bed." Flynn pursed his lips and tilted his head in contemplation.
"There's…a couch," Flynn replied. He had only really been considering Cassandra when he booked the room. "It might pull out."
"It's fine," Cassandra said with a wave of her hands. "There's only one bed in my apartment, too, and it's smaller than this one. I can share. It's not a big deal. What's in the bags?"
She pointed to a cluster of shopping bags on the aforementioned couch. Flynn walked over to them and picked them up one-by-one.
"Pillowcases, extra pillows, towels, baby shampoo, a heating pad in case anything hurts too much, bandages, and pajamas that don't go over your head," Flynn said. Cassandra almost sighed in relief and looked at Baird.
"Gosh, there's so much we didn't think of," she said.
"Good thing we have backup," Baird grinned.
"Flynn, this is all wonderful, but I can't afford a room like this. I don't know how I'm going to pay for the part of the hospital stuff that my insurance won't cover," Cassandra said, slightly embarrassed about her impending financial troubles.
"Well, that's easy," Flynn said. "You're not!"
"What?" Cassandra asked, still holding on to Ezekiel for support.
"Librarians die, remember? We're pretty prone to death; it comes with the job," Flynn said. "Thus, the Library may have found it in its best interest to keep one of its finest alive for as long as possible."
Cassandra stared at him dumbfounded for just a moment before her face crumbled and she launched herself, as best she could four days post-op, into Flynn's arms. He returned her hug right away, and she cried with gratitude into his shoulder.
"Hey now, remember what Stone said yesterday about the crying?" Flynn said, gently rubbing her back.
Cassandra pulled away and nodded, wiping away her tears. "Thank you," she cried.
"You're welcome, sweetheart," Flynn said. Her grip on his arms tightened a little as she squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced.
"Oh, that was really stupid," she said. "I think I need to…not be vertical anymore." Flynn helped her sit down on the couch, and she leaned over, resting her head in her palms with a pained look on her face.
"Did you move too fast?" Flynn asked.
"Uh-huh," Cassandra groaned. "I'm really dizzy."
"Do you need someone to…" Flynn started.
"Just give me a minute," she promised. "But speaking of that, who's staying today?"
"I have to go," Ezekiel said quickly. "I have to go back to the Annex."
Baird and Stone both shot disapproving looks of disbelief at how rapidly he was trying to escape accountability in his direction, while Flynn looked a little confused at his fervor for leaving Seattle. Ezekiel realized that had come out wrong, and put on a guilty grin.
"I just have this project," Ezekiel said. "I need the Library, and I might need his help."
Ezekiel pointed at Flynn upon his last statement. Baird looked questionably at Flynn, and Flynn shrugged, indicating he didn't have the slightest clue what Ezekiel was getting at. Stone continued to glare at the younger man, and Cassandra, oblivious to everything happening in the room around her, continued to hold her head on the couch.
"Okay, I don't know what's going on, but I was planning on staying today anyway, so you go do whatever it is you need to do, and I don't think I want to know about it," Baird said.
"I'm stayin', too," Stone said.
Goodbyes were exchanged, Flynn passed out hotel key cards to everyone, and Ezekiel called Jenkins to have the Back Door set up somewhere within the hotel. Flynn and Ezekiel left with a request to keep them updated, and Cassandra gingerly tried to stand up from the couch. Baird hurried over to her, helped her stand, and held Cassandra's arm for stability.
"Bedroom?" Baird asked.
"Yeah," Cassandra replied. "How long until you wake me up to take the medicine? You know you have to wake me up because it's very important that I…"
"I've got an alarm set on my phone; don't worry," Baird assured her. "You've got a couple hours, at least."
Once Cassandra was settled in the king-sized bed in the bedroom, Baird joined Stone in the suite's living room. He was stretched out in a recliner, already engrossed in a show on the History Channel. Baird sighed and lay down on the couch, her eyes drifting shut.
"You can go get some books from the Library if you want," Baird offered. "She's going to be asleep for a while."
"Maybe later," Stone muttered. "You going to sleep, too?"
"Kind of hoping for it," Baird admitted. "Why does everything with hospitals have to happen so early?"
A clap of thunder roused Baird from her sleep just slightly less than an hour later. When her eyes slowly opened, she was met with the sight of Stone, who had also drifted off, blinking himself awake as well. Stone glanced outside the window behind him and then met Baird's gaze.
"That get you, too?" Stone asked.
"Yeah," Baird said. Amid the rain outside, she thought she could hear a tortured mewling in the background. "Do you hear that?"
Stone frowned. "What is that?"
Baird's eyes widened as she realized the cries were coming from the other room in the suite. "Is that Cassandra?"
Baird and Stone leapt off their respective pieces of furniture and swiftly traveled into the bedroom. Cassandra lay, sobbing, flat on the mattress in the dark, curtains drawn shut. She was curled up on her side, on the side of her head that remained untouched by the operation. Her hands were clutched around her ears, and her eyes were squeezed shut. Baird reached the bed first, getting down on her knees to be even with Cassandra's level.
"Hey, you can't…you've got to keep your head elevated, remember?" Baird asked. Her hands hovered over Cassandra's body in an attempt to figure out how to best maneuver her into the right position.
"The mattress is better at blocking the noise," Cassandra whispered between sobs. A clap of thunder sounded again, and she let out an excruciating howl.
"It's the thunder," Baird realized.
"The rain was bad enough, but then the thunder started, and it's like it's reverberating around in my skull," Cassandra cried.
At that, Stone disappeared from the bedroom. Baird's instinct was to call after him, but Cassandra's cries stopped her. Stone reappeared in the doorway just a few moments later, pulling on his shoes.
"Where are you going?" Baird asked.
"I'm gonna run down to a drugstore and get her some earplugs," Stone replied. "They said she could be sensitive to noise; we shoulda already had 'em."
"Will that help?" Baird asked Cassandra.
"It's worth trying," she said.
"Go," Baird told Stone. He was out the door almost faster than Baird's brain could register. Thunder sounded again, and Cassandra whimpered, bringing Baird's attention back to her. "Oh, god, I'm sorry."
"It's not you," Cassandra said. "But can you maybe talk quieter?"
"Of course," Baird whispered. "Cassandra, you really need to sit up a little bit."
"I don't know if I can move," she admitted. She sobbed and added, "I'm so tired."
Cassandra lay in the middle of the mattress, so Baird sat down on the side and reached across Cassandra to stack a few pillows in her lap. She thumped her fingers against the top of the pile and softly said, "How about just to here, okay?"
Cassandra nodded and pushed herself up, laying her head where Baird's hand had tapped. Baird knew Dr. Shepherd probably wouldn't approve of that level of elevation, but it was better than flat against the mattress. Cassandra slipped her hand underneath her head to cover that ear and leaned into it when another clap of thunder sounded across the Seattle sky.
"Seattle only reports approximately seven days of thunder a year," Cassandra said, trying to glance at Baird with teary eyes. "I guess it was about time for something to go wrong, right?"
"No, don't think like that," Baird said, placing a soothing hand on Cassandra's arm. "It's spring, remember? April showers and whatever."
"It's March," Cassandra reminded her.
"Close enough," Baird shrugged.
"Even though this is statistically unlikely, what if it does this all week?" Cassandra asked.
"Then we'll go home," Baird said. "Three hours in a car can't be as bad as this."
"Oh god, they both sound pretty bad," Cassandra whined.
"Hang in there," Baird said, soothingly rubbing Cassandra's arm.
Stone returned twenty minutes later with a box of earplugs and an umbrella. "Forgot one of these, too," he said. He pulled off his wet sweatshirt as Cassandra shoved the earplugs in place and lay back down, replacing her hands against her ears.
"Yeah, we were so focused on the surgery, we didn't do a great job preparing for after," Baird admitted. She glanced at Cassandra, who still lay in her lap, and asked, "Is that better?"
"Maybe a little," Cassandra said.
It took a little under ninety more minutes for the thunder to subside and the storm to blow over, and Cassandra remained unfortunately awake the entire time, shuddering each time the thunder echoed in her brain. Stone and Baird stayed in the bedroom with her to keep her distracted and to keep her tears away. When the thunder stopped, Cassandra fell asleep almost immediately, fully exhausted from the events of the morning and the distress from the storm. Baird stayed in the bedroom with her, slipping back to sleep as well, and Stone wandered back out into the living room.
A shrill alarm rang from the phone sitting on the coffee table just fifty-three minutes after Stone returned to the recliner and the television. He picked up Baird's phone and read the alarm's name.
"Oh, you've got to be shitting me," Stone groaned to no one in particular.
Stone silenced the alarm and walked the phone into the bedroom. Cassandra, no longer lying on Baird's lap, slept peacefully on one side of the bed, while Baird slept on the other. Stone shook Baird awake and held the phone in front of her face as soon as she sat up. Baird sighed and hung her head.
"So that means what I think it means?" Stone whispered.
"We've got to wake her up," Baird said.
"We can't wake her up after this mornin'; are you serious?" Stone asked.
"We have to, Stone," Baird said, climbing out of bed.
"Can't the painkiller wait another hour or two?" he asked as they headed out to the suite's kitchen where Baird had left all of Cassandra's medicines.
"It's not just the painkiller," Baird told him, pulling the pill bottles out of the bag one by one. "This one keeps her brain from swelling, and this one prevents seizures, and this one stops…something bad from happening…or not happening…or…"
"Alright, I get it; we gotta wake her up," Stone accepted. "This is gonna suck, Baird."
"Can't say I'm looking forward to it," Baird agreed.
Cassandra started whining almost as soon as Stone started attempting to wake her up. They tried to kindly tell her it was time to take her post-op meds, but they only received groggy groans in return. Stone put his hand out to gently jostle her again, but she was faster and robustly smacked his arm away from her.
"Stop it; don't touch me," Cassandra hissed, her eyes shooting daggers in his direction.
"Four pills, that's it," Stone promised. "You can even take them all in the same swallow."
"I don't care," she said. She closed her eyes and turned her head again, signaling her intentions of going back to sleep.
"I think you'll care if your brain explodes," Stone irritably replied.
"Okay, that was uncalled for," Baird said, stepping in between Stone and the bed. In the time it took for Baird to sternly look at Stone, Cassandra had rolled onto her side and curled her hand underneath a pillow. Baird finally noticed, climbed onto the bed, grabbed Cassandra's side, and said, "Oh, no, you don't; wake up."
"Leave me alone!" Cassandra begged, and the wounded tone of her voice almost made Baird want to comply.
"Look, I know you know you have to take these on time, so just do it, and then you can go back to sleep," Baird promised.
She placed the little plastic cup of pills into Cassandra's hand and curled Cassandra's fingers around it, thinking a bit of independence might spur her into obedience. Stone reached for the water bottle on the nightstand as Baird moved away, and, with a frustrated groan, Cassandra threw the cup of pills towards the wall. Baird gasped; Stone sidestepped the projectile, the cup crashed into the wall, and its contents spilled across the bedroom floor. Baird walked around the bed to pick the pills off of the ground. As she stood, Stone leaned in.
"I'm about this close to shoving 'em down her throat, and I think between the two of us, we could…" Stone quietly started. Baird cut him off.
"We are not going to hold her down and shove them down her throat…yet," Baird said. "I'm just…I don't know what to do."
Stone racked his brain for a moment and then sat down on the bed next to her. "Cassandra?" he asked. She didn't respond. "Alright, I know you're awake, so just listen to me, okay? Before you decided to do this, you warned us that part of helping after was waking you up to do things you wouldn't wanna do, and we agreed to do that. Now we're holdin' up our end up the bargain here, darlin', so I need you to wake up and help us help you."
Cassandra opened just one eye and looked at Stone. He gave her a few seconds, but she showed no signs of intending to do anything more than look at him.
"We can take you back to the hospital, and Dr. Shepherd can hook you back up to an IV, if that'd be more to your liking," Stone continued.
At that, Cassandra's other eye opened, and she used her hands to slowly push herself into an upright position. She held out her hand, and Baird hesitated.
"Are you going to throw this again?" Baird asked.
"No," Cassandra promised. Baird handed the cup of pills to her again. Cassandra rattled it around a bit and said, "I'm supposed to take these with food."
"Right," Baird said.
She hurried out to the kitchen that Flynn had left nearly fully-stocked and came back with a package of crackers. Cassandra did what she was supposed to do and slumped back against the pillows, arms crossed against her chest. She looked at Baird and Stone; a mix of shame and annoyance colored her face.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Baird asked.
Rather than responding, Cassandra threw back the covers, reached for Stone's arm to help her climb out of bed, and slowly started walking away. Baird reached for her as she passed, and Cassandra put her hand up.
"I'm going to the bathroom; I don't need help," she insisted.
"Okay," Baird said, putting her own hands up in surrender. Before Cassandra could cross the threshold from the bedroom to the bathroom, Baird turned and said, "Hey, do you want to go for a walk after you're done?"
"No!" Cassandra called.
"Okay, maybe later," Baird replied, deciding to force that issue at another time. She turned back around to face Stone, who was still sitting on the side of the bed.
"Really?" Stone asked.
"Well, it was worth a shot!" Baird defended.
The following two attempts at a walk down the hallway later that day were also rebuffed, and Baird, out of utter frustration, slipped back into her well-worn and familiar role as a military leader, sternly commanding Cassandra to get out of bed. Naturally, her no-nonsense attitude set off an already-overly-agitated Cassandra, whose head still throbbed from the added pain brought on by the morning storm. Cassandra grew so annoyed that she ended up unconsciously pacing around the bedroom, gesturing madly with one hand while she ranted about how she was not some military school child that Baird could control or treat that way. Her pacing was so slow that it was almost laughable, as she was talking about three times faster than she was moving, and Cassandra spent most of the argument with her hand against the wall to steady herself or take a break, but for the most part, she was moving all on her own.
They argued simultaneously, making what either of the women were saying nearly incomprehensible to Stone, who sat awkwardly on the bed, taking in the scene before him. He grinned a little as Cassandra, for the first time, seemed like her normal, albeit angrier, self before finally deciding to step in. He broke up the argument, and Baird retreated to the corner, while Cassandra immediately reached for him, seemingly only just having realized that she had been walking back and forth around the room. He helped her reach the bed, and she sunk onto the mattress with a deep breath. Stone deciding to start the talking down process with the woman wrapped around his arm.
"She's just tryin' to keep you healthy, alright?" Stone reasoned. "She doesn't mean to treat you like a solider; it's just…none of us really know what we're doing here."
"I know," Cassandra muttered, breathing at an elevated rate.
"You alright?"
Cassandra nodded. "I probably shouldn't have done that."
"No; that was good," Stone said. He turned to Baird and looked at his watch. "And that went on for about eight…maybe nine minutes, so between that and this morning and walking around the suite today…how about we say she's good?"
"That seems reasonable," Baird agreed.
"Alright," Stone muttered.
The strong vibrations of a cell phone against the bedside table woke Baird from her slumber the next morning. Silently willing the notification to be anything but an alarm to wake Cassandra up, Baird rolled over in the bed she was sharing with the younger woman and grabbed the phone. Flynn's face flashed on the screen, and she answered with a smile as she made her way out of the bedroom.
"Hey, Librarian," she answered.
"Hello, Eve," he said. "How are things going in Seattle?"
Baird nodded a good morning to Stone who was making breakfast in the kitchen and let her body fall onto one of the kitchen counter's barstools with a groan. "Before the surgery, she told us the first few days would be like taking care of an articulate toddler," Baird told him, turning the speaker phone on so Stone could join in. "Turns out she wasn't so far off. I think her new favorite word is no."
"She's pretty fond of leave me alone now, too," Stone added.
"Hothead Stone has become the voice of reason, though," Baird added.
"Well, I ain't gonna sit around and let you women kill each other," Stone said.
"You're the one who wanted to shove the pills down her throat," Baird reminded him.
"Sounds simply spectacular," Flynn said sarcastically. "Hmm…three s's…nonetheless, I'm calling to propose a trade."
Flynn, thinking Baird and Stone might want a day back in the Library or simply back at home after almost four whole days in Seattle, offered his and Ezekiel's caretaking services. Baird and Stone looked at each other over the phone that was lying flat on the counter.
"I can't see Jones fightin' or forcin' her to do anything," Stone commented. Baird made a face and pointed silently at the phone, indicating that she couldn't see that working with Flynn, either. Stone nodded in agreement.
"I don't think I can repeat yesterday, Stone," Baird admitted.
"So go home," Stone said. "I'll stay."
"By yourself?" Flynn asked through the phone. "I'm happy to help."
"I think it might be better if it's just me," Stone theorized. "Yesterday was two of us, and one of her, and I was thinkin' she might've felt a little ganged up on."
"That's a plausible theory," Flynn agreed.
"Are you sure?" Baird asked.
"If I need help, I'll call," Stone shrugged. "Go home; we'll be fine."