Daniel knocked on the door to Cassie's room and waited to hear her. After a few minutes there was still no response and so Daniel said, "Cass, it's me, Daniel." A few seconds later she opened the door very slightly and looked out at him. As if satisfied that it was just him, she opened the door fully and moved aside to let him in. Slowly moving into the room, Daniel saw that it was still clearly Sam's room with only a few bits on the bedside table being obviously Cassie's. Including a stuffed toy that he had not seen in years. Reaching for the stuffed cow, Daniel smiled as he inspected it earning himself a curious look from the teenager. "I haven't seen Moomoo in years."
"He's always been around."
"Thought you grew out of him?"
"Felt like I needed him again."
Nodding in understanding, Daniel smiled at the memories the black and white cow brought. "I remember when you first got this. You'd never seen a cow before."
"We didn't have them on Hanka."
"You wouldn't let it out of your sight for months after that. Janet always said that it was comforting for you when you first came here." Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Cassie said nothing, but Daniel heard her sniff back more tears. "She used to hate trying to sneak it away from you to wash it." That seemed to elicit a small laugh from Cassie.
"You should see Daniella and her Elly. Shared her dinner with the elephant yesterday and not even Sasha can get it away from her." Cassie sighed and then said, "There's a lot of people downstairs."
"Your mom was very well loved."
"Only because she saved them."
"No, because she was easy to love. But, yeah, she saved a whole lot of lives."
"And lost her own." Cassie began sobbing and Daniel crouched down in front of her, enveloping her in his arms and holding her tightly, rocking very slightly in an attempt to soothe her. He wanted to tell her that it would get better with time, that he knew what she was going through, but it was irrelevant. Cassie already knew what it was like to mourn the loss of a parent, she already knew that it would feel better in time, so Daniel's words would just simply be empty platitudes. In time all of their pain would ease, Janet was not going to be forgotten.