Shout-outs: Pinkypop22

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Rated: T

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Chapter 8

He almost thought she was gone for good but a few hours later, she showed up in her apartment, looking a little dejected and even more tired than usual.

"Hey. . ." Jake said tentatively as he joined her on the couch. "Are you okay?"

Cassandra forced herself to smile. "I'm just fine," she tried to assure him as she released a shuddery breath.

"Really?" Jake asked.

Cassandra shook her head and swallowed hard. "I'm going to die in the morning, Jake."

"Yeah. . . I know," Jake answered, wishing he could hold her hand and comfort her a little bit but their situation made it impossible.

"There was so much I wanted to do before I had to go and now I'm never going to get to do it," Cassandra told him.

"What is it that you wanted to do?" Jake asked, thankful that he could at least give her conversation as a distraction. "Maybe I can help you check a few things off it before you. . . before you have to go."

"Well, it isn't a terribly long list," Cassandra said. "There's only a few things on it, really."

"What do you want to do? Tell me and I'll try to make it possible, Cassie!" Jake answered.

"I want to go to Venice," Cassandra finally said. "I want to go to Venice and throw a handful of coins into one the fountains and make a wish. Then I want to get married and have a couple of kids, one boy and one girl and teach them how to dream. You see? There's nothing you can do to grant my wishes, Jake."

"I could take you to Venice though, if that's what you really wanted!" Jake insisted. "I want you to have at least one of your wishes before you die."

Cassandra smiled and shook her head. "You're sweet but it's really too late. There is one thing you can do for me though."

"Anything!" Jake said.

Cassandra looked away for a minute like she was embarrassed and then she looked back at him, taking a deep breath. "Would you mind letting me lie in bed with you while you sleep tonight? Or is too awkward for you? Too much for me to ask?"

Jake shook his head even though his pulse was going a mile a minute. He was accustomed to forward invitations from drunken young women in bars, they were easy to reject. He would usually call a taxi and send the girl home for the night before she could do something stupid. But this was a different sort of invitation altogether. Nothing was going to happen between them, it would be innocent enough. It was the first dying wish he would be able to fulfil.

Maybe this simple act of kindness to his dying friend would give him the courage to finally see the world like he had promised Mabel.

"Yeah," he whispered thickly. "Yeah, you can spend the night with me if you'd like."

Cassandra stood up and motioned for him to join her in the bedroom, it was hardly time for bed but he knew she was probably feeling a sense of urgency, she was running out of time.

As they both got into bed at the same time, Jake had a vague thought about how different his life would have been if he had met Cassandra under different circumstances after Mabel had died. Maybe if she'd been flesh and blood, she would have been the one who helped him move on when he had realized he had finished grieving.

Like they were in a synchronized dance, they both turned on their sides at the same time and looked at each other. Cassandra offered him a wan smile and placed her hand on top of his.

"I can almost feel that," she whispered as she rubbed her thumb across his knuckles.

"Me too," Jake echoed.

They lay in silence just staring at each other until it got too dark to see and Jake had drifted off into a troubled sleep, dreaming of Mabel and Cassandra chasing him and begging him to save them.

When he woke up the next morning, Cassandra wasn't beside him anymore and Jake had a sick feeling that he'd slept through the whole thing and she was gone but when he was more focused, he saw her sitting in the chair across from her bed, looking anxious.

"You're still here!" Jake said, sitting up.

Cassandra nodded. "For now, not for long."

"We have to do somethin'!"

"What are you going to do, Jake? Steal my body? That might just make things worse. I think we'll just have to face the music and realize that my time is up."

"I wasn't talkin' about stealin' your body! I've never done anything illegal like that in my life!" Jake replied. "But there has to be somethin'!"

"No. No there's nothing you can do," Cassandra said, shaking her head as she fought back a wave of tears. "It'll take a miracle, an act of God! I've resigned myself to my fate; you need to do the same thing too."

Jake looked at her and felt her despair like it was radiating through him. He closed his eyes like he was trying to resign himself to letting her go and then he released a breath. "I'm going to miss you Cassie."

Cassandra stood up and sat on the edge of the mattress, put her hand on his cheek and nodded. "I'm going to miss you too."

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He went to the hospital even though there was a chance Eve would send him away after what had happened the day before. He thought it was only right to try and say goodbye to the real Cassandra before she went.

The Cassandra that he knew was sitting in the passenger seat, quiet and thoughtful while she looked out the window at the rainy scenery. The air was different, there was finality between them and it was suffocating.

Jake tried to talk, tried to use the words of the great poets to protect both of them but he couldn't breathe enough to talk. So, he put music on instead and filled in the silent gaps with instruments and lyrics and voices that didn't belong to either of them.

When they got to the hospital, Eve hadn't arrived yet. So, Jake was able to get into Cassandra's hospital room without a problem. He sat down in the chair beside the bed and took her hand.

"Is it okay if I just hold it for a while?" He asked the other Cassandra.

"Of course," Cassandra answered. "You know I can actually feel it."

"What?" Jake asked.

"You're holding her hand," Cassandra said. "I can feel it and I wish it meant something."

"Yeah. Me too."

Eve arrived thirty minutes later but she didn't say anything about him being there. She was too tired to fight, too sad to make an issue out of it. She actually told him that he could stay if he wanted to. It would have been too much though, to watch the life leave somebody for a second time.

So, he kissed Cassandra goodbye, whispered a few words of parting and then left before the doctors showed up to start taking her off life-support.

As he got onto the elevator, there was some sort of emergency. The nurses and the doctors started to run around, calling for things in a jargon that he didn't understand.

He hoped somebody in the ICU had gotten a miracle.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note:

I'm winding things up here but I have an idea for a sequel. So, stay tuned for that and the soundtrack, which I'll post on tumblr/8tracks soon. I need a few more tracks for it because there were only five songs that inspired the story and I need 8. In the meantime, I hope you'll tell me what you think!

Until Next Time!

Love,

Holly, 5/5/2015_