CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE
death and all his friends.
season six, episode twenty four.

[ please refer back to the trigger
warnings in the previous chapters ]

           "DR. HARPER."

He spit out her name as if it were poison on his tongue.

And perhaps it was, in a way. It certainly pained him to say it, though, not as much as it pained her to hear it spew from his lips like venom. He watched her closely, each of her minuscule movements accompanied by a pronounced tremble of his gun. Every time, it made her flinch more than the last, and he almost felt guilty. But she deserved it, didn't she? She deserved to be at the mercy of his hands, because his wife had been at the mercy of hers.

He could have shot her right then, no warning, not even a chance for her to choose her last words. He could have cocked the gun and pulled the trigger in quick succession, not allowing her so much as a hail mary or a prayer. He could have, but Gary much preferred to relish in it, instead. Relish in her death.

Cassie knew he wouldn't let her go peacefully.

She could feel it, the rage steaming from his ears, the hurt and the regret swimming behind his eyes. She could feel the anger radiating off of him as if a hot burst of energy were charging inside of his chest, patiently waiting for the right time to explode. She could feel his pain.

She opened her mouth to speak, only to close it mere seconds later. Because really, what could she possibly say that would make him change his mind? Sir, you don't have to do this! I'm so sorry, please, spare my life! Both were objectively options, but neither of them would work. Cassie knew better than to think that they would.

"This is about your wife."

Her voice was, shockingly enough to both herself and the man pointing a gun at her head, entirely steady. It was a bit unnerving, in a way, because that meant she'd accepted it. Accepted her untimely fate.

But Gary didn't want her to accept it, he wanted her to suffer.

"You doctors, you... you surgeons... you're all the same." His voice was strong, rugged, everything she'd expect from an old white guy who clearly had issues with his masculinity. She hadn't even said anything about being a surgeon, and for half a second, she wondered if he'd practiced his little speech in the mirror that morning. "All of you people are heartless, you... you let people die and then call yourselves a hero. And you... you're no different than the rest of them."

He wasn't wrong.

In fact, Cassie was the exact same as the rest of them. She was born, grew up, went to the same schools, learned the same things, took the same exams. She woke up that morning, went about her life as usual, and ended up stuck in a nightmare in which the people she loved, the people she cherished, the people she needed were bleeding out right in front of her.

They were all the same, now, because of him.

"And you are?"

It was impulsive, and it was crass, but if Cassie was going to die, there wasn't a chance in hell she'd go out like a fucking coward.

Gary's eyes narrowed into slits, and she could see the way he latched onto the pistol even tighter. He couldn't believe her tone, her audacity, when he was the one with the power. He was the one she was supposed to be afraid of. She wasn't supposed to talk back, she was supposed to beg.

"Excuse me?"

"Did you know that in over ninety-five percent of mass shootings, the perpetrators are male?" As she cited off the statistics, it occurred to Cassie that perhaps nervous rambling should be considered a trauma response, as well. "I mean, sure, most people don't choose to shoot up a hospital, so you get some points for originality, but at the end of the day, over fifty percent of shooters are white, and seventy-four percent use handguns, like the one you're pointing at me right now. You say we're all the same, but you're no different."

He didn't respond, but he didn't put down the gun, either. Truthfully, she was shocked he didn't shoot her right then and there.

The longer Cassie stared down the barrel of the gun, the faster her chest heaved up and down, her weighted breath the only sound that either of the two could hear. Her face flushed, blood draining down into her heart, her eyes growing wider and wider each second he refused to respond. Panic. It was something she'd been well acquainted with her entire life, but that she felt an immense supply of over the past few hours, now more than ever.

(Cassie wasn't afraid to die, but for some reason, her body was trying to make her think that she was.)

"You don't know anything," Gary spit out, looking her up and down as if the very sight of her disgusted him. "You're too young, you're a child."

"And yet, you're about to kill me."

When she said it out loud, something shifted.

It was funny, really, the way she didn't understand how much she wanted to live, until she no longer had the option to.

It all made sense, now. People's fear of death, their fear of the unknown. Their fear of god, the fear that singlehandedly bound their arms behind their back and forced them into the submission of religion. The kids who screamed when they heard a monster in their closet, and their parents who were secretly scared too, but checked behind the doors anyway. The people begging for their lives, begging to see their loved ones again, their parents, their spouse, their child, not because they wanted to say goodbye, but because they didn't.

Cassie didn't want to say goodbye.

When she left the office, she told Mark she'd come back to him. When George left for Iraq, he told her the same thing, and then he died. That pain, that suffering, that endless bout of grief that up and changed her entire world for the worse, that was what Mark would feel if she didn't return. The heartbreak, the anguish, the never ending feeling that the world would be better off without him, everything she felt when George died, just amplified. She would be the one who got killed, but he would be the one who was dead inside.

The gun cocked, and Cassie could feel the sob violently crawling it's way up her tightened throat.

"You know, I've been looking for you all day."

She could taste the salt on her lips, the liquid pouring out of her eyes, successfully removing the dried blood on her face as it slid down her cheekbones and created a microscopic puddle on the floor beneath her.

"Just me?"

She needed to know.

Because it wasn't her who pulled the plug, it was Lexie. And she wasn't the lead doctor on his case, Richard was. And she wasn't the one who forced them to kill his wife, Derek was. If he was looking for her, then he'd without a doubt be looking for them, too. And April, and maybe even all of the nurses who treated his wife while she was still alive. If he wanted to kill her, he wouldn't hesitate to kill them all. 

"No, no, not just you." The way he spoke was condescending, almost like he couldn't fathom her having a clue of his plans. "You see, I only planned to shoot Dr. Grey... and Dr. Webber... Dr. Shepherd."

"How's that working out for you?"

Her voice cracked, but she needed to know.

"I got Shepherd... shot him right in the heart. You know, I've never shot a gun before today? Ha, it turns out, I have pretty good aim." The chuckle he let out was all but nauseating. "So, I got him first, and now..."

Cassie could feel her veins turn to ice.

Derek was dead?

He couldn't be dead. She just saw him, earlier that morning when she passed by his office. She saw him sitting in his chair, on the phone with either Meredith or some random board member, a stack of paperwork in front of him and a stressed hand rested on his temple, carrying the weight of his head. She remembered rolling her eyes before walking past the glass walls, because she still refused to speak to him, and was far too tired of being the bigger person.

Because she was still mad.

She was mad at him, and she let him know whenever she got the chance, and now, he was dead. The man who helped raise her, her best friend growing up despite the age difference, the man who silently sat next to her for hours just to help her feel a little bit less alone, the one fucking person who was always there when nobody else was, was dead, and the last thing she told him was that he wasn't her family.

Even after everything she'd just discovered, after every thought she had about wanting to live and fearing death, Cassie once again arrived at her original conclusion.

Maybe, dying wouldn't be the worst thing.

"And now me?"

She didn't bother asking for forgiveness, or mercy, or a deal with god. If she were planning to do any of those, it wouldn't be for her to live, but for the universe to find a way to let her die, and have Derek take her place. That's all she wanted. She just wanted him to be alive.

"You were right before," Gary spoke, his face void of emotion when he angled the pistol at her skull. "I am going to kill you."

He pulled the trigger.

When Cassie was ten, she learned how to ride a bike.

It wasn't until she was in her double digits that Derek was finally able to convince her to give it a shot. Her rampant anxiety surrounding it was never due to fear, but rather because the simple fact that she didn't want to fail.

He'd explained to her a countless amount of times that it was impossible to fail at riding a bike; if she fell, all she needed to do was get back up and try again.

But Cassie, naturally gifted as she was, had a difficult time understanding that concept. When it came to trying new things, she either did it once, perfectly, or she never did it again. And when she was six, she fell off the bike she'd borrowed from Amelia, therefore vowing to never ever go through that for a second time.

But then, Derek offered her a hundred dollars if she allowed him to teach her, and Cassie may have been a kid, but she wasn't an idiot.

If it weren't for him, she would have given up from the beginning. It was nearly impossible to count the amount of times she'd bruised her elbow, or skinned her knee on the pavement, but every time, he was there to patch her up and get her back onto her feet. And eventually, through seemingly endless trial and error, she could ride a bike without falling flat on her face.

It was the first time that Cassie was forced to try.

Out of everything in the world that came easily to her, trying was the one thing she just couldn't seem to get right. It was habitual, giving up or giving in the moment things got dicey. The moment things got hard. After all, that was ultimately the reason she broke up with Mark, right? Because it was too hard?

When Cassie was twelve, the wheel of her bike got stuck on a rock, and she was thrown roughly onto the ground. All it took was a deep, bloody gash on her temple to make it so that she never rode again.

Supposedly, trying had it's limits.

Perhaps it was a strange case of deja-vu, but she swore she was back there again, twelve years old and fragile, face-down on the concrete and bleeding from the side of her forehead.

But when she heard the slow, methodical footsteps move against the hospital floor, she realized that this wasn't deja-vu, at all.

A foot kicked her in the back of the head, the sole rigid against her skull. And as much as it hurt, as much as she wanted to wince from the pain, Cassie let her head follow it's natural movements, as if her muscles were entirely disfunctional, her blood cold, her bones snapped.

As if she were dead.

Eventually, the footsteps receded, and Cassie was wrapped in a numbing, dreadful silence.

She couldn't open her eyes.

There was a single attempt after she heard him leave, when the muscles behind her eyes attempted to pry open. But it didn't work the first time, and so she stayed on the ground, her chest heaving despite her mouth remaining snapped shut in fear.

You have to try, Cass, Derek's voice echoed in the back of her mind. Just get back up. Just try, for me.

Cassie, as much as she'd prefer to let herself go easy, as much as it both mentally and physically pained her, forced herself to try anyways.

She was alone.

Eyelids fluttering, her vision blurred, head pounding, chest heaving, and that was the first thing she noticed.

The next thing was the blood.

There wasn't much of it, but as she laid on her side against the cold tile, her limbs vibrating in place and the tips of her fingers and toes going numb, it caught her eye. A small, weak splatter on the floor, less than an inch away from her nose. It really wasn't much, only the amount which would come from a regular cut, nothing she hadn't seen before, but that didn't make it any less alarming. Blood itself was alarming, wasn't it?

Cassie blinked once, and then she remembered.

He shot her.

But this didn't feel like a gunshot. Perhaps it was a severe case of shock, but based on the burning, red-hot pain she'd felt the last time, which came instantly, this was simply nothing.

He shot her, right?

The burning never came. Not from her abdomen, or anywhere below or above. Not from her head, or her neck, the exact place his gun had been pointed only seconds earlier. Was it seconds? Or had it been minutes, or even hours? Had she passed out? Had she died? She had quite a bit of experience dying, and it sure as hell didn't feel like this.

(Truthfully, she didn't even know what this felt like, because she had no fucking clue what this was.)

A nearly silent creak from behind startled her.

All at once, a gasp lodged itself in the back of her throat, prompting her to sit up straight, both of her hands moving to either side of her body to help her balance. Her legs remained outstretched, uninjured, and so did each of her arms, only worsening her confusion.

Slowly, she felt something slide down her cheek.

Quivering fingers came up to brush it away, only to be met with some sort of thick, colloidal substance. Blood.

Her blood.

Cassie wasn't sure how long she just stared, the drops of red cascading between her fingertips, breathing so harshly that if she weren't already having a burst of anxiety, she would have induced one.

She was bleeding. She was bleeding, but not that badly. She was bleeding because she was shot, except she wasn't shot at all, was she? Because if she were shot, if she were dying right this very second from a gunshot to the head, she wouldn't be able to process any of it. She wouldn't be able to see the blood on her hand, which had made it's way down her arm and began to drip from her elbow.

If she were shot, she wouldn't be breathing.

Slowly, she craned her neck to the side, her body naturally following her head's movements. The hand with the blood was placed back onto the ground to steady herself, though, the speed at which it was shaking made that rather difficult. Her eyes snapped open with fear, glistening while remaining dry, a visible shudder making it's way up her back and forcing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand end to end.

When Cassie saw it, she froze.

The wall behind her was cracked, and at exactly her standing eye-level, there was a bullet sized hole in the center of it all.

He fucking missed.

If it were any other time, in any other situation, Cassie would have laughed. Because she'd died twice in some of the most unexpected and unrealistic ways, and yet the one time her death was planned, when it was motherfucking imminent, the shooter missed by a goddamn inch.

Well, less than an inch, actually.

The wound on her left temple stung when she touched it, fingers hovering over the graze with uncertainty as she let out a harsh breath.

He missed.

As if it were instinct, Cassie collapsed onto her back, her spine stationary against the cold floor. Her gaze latched onto the overhead lights, so blinding they should have made her squint, but she didn't. She just looked fixedly up at the light, wide, reddening eyes growing sensitive from the brightness.

It didn't make sense.

She wasn't supposed to survive. She wasn't supposed to be there, still breathing, her blood remaining inside of her body. She was supposed to end up like Ethan, her brain matter smeared across the floor after she begged for her life, slowly seeping from a hole in her head as if it were a leak in a blood bag, pouring out over her skin and staining the white tile.

She was supposed to be dead.

The light above her never dimmed, only, she did grow used to it, after a while. A part of her, a small part which she'd never admit to having inside her brain, wondered if she would've seen the same thing, had the bullet gone into her head rather than through the wall.

An even smaller part wondered why it didn't.

Cassie Harper did not get lucky. This was an objective truth. Specifically in near-death scenarios, before this day, luck had never been a contributing factor.

She didn't believe in heaven. It wasn't that she didn't believe in any sort of an afterlife, but simply that she had a difficult time finding truth in religion, because she needed proof.

She didn't believe in fallen angels, or saviors, or god. She didn't believe that people could communicate through prayer, or even communicate with the dead at all. It just didn't make sense.

She knew better, really, she did, but Cassie didn't get lucky. And now that she had, her imagination seemed to be stretching dangerously thin in the search for a reason why.

The light glared against her irises, and she blinked.

If she didn't know better, she'd think there was someone listening. If she didn't know better, she'd think she could feel them, holding her hand. Telling her it was all okay.

That she was okay.

For just a moment, Cassie allowed herself to believe it.

As hard as it was to open her eyes, it was a million times harder for Cassie to get back onto her feet again.

"I got Shepherd..."

The words echoed in her head. The malice, the pride, the sneer in his tone making her shiver despite him being long gone by then. But as much as she wanted to give in, to give up, to say fuck it and just let the floor take her body, she didn't. She kept trying. But at the end of the day, trying was never enough for her, was it?

At the end of the day, she couldn't get up, because Derek got shot. Because Derek was dead.

It was almost instinctive, the way her cellphone appeared in her hand. The way she had a shred of hope that he was okay, even though Gary told her with a laugh how he'd brutally killed him. How he'd shot him in the heart, the place where a full recovery was one in a fucking million. It came naturally to her, the way she dialed Derek's number from memory, holding the bloodied phone up to her ear as it rang.

Cassie didn't expect an answer.

So when the dial ring stopped, she paused, her eyes glued onto the ceiling and not daring to move away.

"Cassie? Are you-- is that you?"

"Kepner?"

Her voice came out as a croak, a mixture of dehydration and hoarseness, but it was also far louder than she intended. Why April Kepner of all people was answering Derek's phone was beyond her, but the simple fact that it wasn't Derek was what sent her into a blind panic once again.

"Yeah, are-- no, it's Cassie, shh! Are you hurt?"

"Is Derek alive?" The rustling on the other end of the line made Cassie furrow her brows, moving the phone away from her ear to avoid the obnoxious sound. Vaguely, she could make out one other distinct voice, but failed to understand what it was saying. Out of aggravation alone, she was able to force herself back up into a sitting position, her voice growing stronger when she repeated into the speaker, "Kepner, is Derek alive, yes or no?"

"He-- he got shot, I--"

"I know he got shot, I'm asking if he's alive."

The silence on the other end was deafening.

"How do you know he got shot?"

Meredith. That was the voice.

Cassie had never been so pissed off at the exact same time that she was so fucking terrified. She knew that Meredith and April were most likely in shock from it all, but so was she, and yet, only one of them seemed to be capable of answering a simple fucking question. "Gary Clark and I had a nice little chat, and he told me he shot Derek in the chest, so if one or both of you could get your head out of your ass long enough to tell me if he's okay or not, I'd really appreciate it, thanks."

(Cassie swore she could hear Meredith scoff.)

"He-- Cristina and Jackson are, um, they're operating on him right now, they won't let us watch so we don't know how it's going..." April stuttered out, and Cassie let out a heavy sigh of relief at the short list of names, "I'm sure he'll... that he'll be okay...but are you hurt? You don't... you don't sound good."

Derek was alive. That was all Cassie cared about. Not herself, not her own nonexistent injuries, not the fact that his life was in her friend's and brother's hands, but just that he was alive.

"I-I'm fine, Kepner, I have to go."

"Oh, um, okay? But we could stay on the ph--"

"Okay, bye."

Derek was alive.

But Alex was still alive, too, and he needed blood. And so, getting to her feet with shaking limbs, Cassie grabbed ahold of the cart, starting down the corridor as fast as her feet agreed to take her.

There were only two narrow hallways between where Gary had found her, and the office where the others were hiding.

Cassie wanted to run, she wanted to sprint, but forcing herself to merely get up seemed as though it were a massive feat in and of itself. Her hands still vibrated against the handle of the cart in front of her, and she was sure if her eyes opened any wider in frantic hyper-vigilance, they'd pop out of her skull. Paranoia racked her brain, even though she knew Gary was gone for the time being, because she heard another gunshot coming from the floor above where she stood.

The surgical floor.

Cassie chose to be optimistic, only for a second. Because if she weren't, if she allowed herself to think about the amount of people she knew and loved who were on that floor as she walked beneath it unharmed, she didn't think she'd make it.

The office came into her view, and she sped up her steps, wasting no time in grabbing ahold of the door handle and letting herself back into the safety it provided.

But when she saw the sight before her, she paused.

Mark was crying.

In all honesty, Cassie had never actually seen Mark cry before. He'd seen her cry, an embarrassing number of times, but while he always seemed to be comforting her, she never needed to do the same. Perhaps it was toxic masculinity, or maybe Mark had cried, just never around her, but the sight was disturbing, and longer it went on, the more concerned Cassie became.

To anyone else, it would have been easy to ignore his tears. They we're in a pressing situation, to say the least, and his crying was limited to barely-visible, slightly dampened cheeks. To anyone else, it was just a reaction from the stress, but Cassie couldn't find it in herself to believe that. It had to have been something else.

"What happened? I-Is Alex okay?"

The man in question, who at first seemed to be unconscious, turned his head towards the place where she stood anxiously, speaking through a pained chuckle. "I'm fine, but loverboy might n...need one of those pills you gave me. Hah. You're, like, one s...step away from bein' a drug dealer, Cass."

(Cassie had never seen Alex high before. And despite the fact that she was the one who drugged him, she wasn't a huge fan.)

Cassie missed the way Mark's eyes averted up from the ground at the speed of light when the door opened, his breath hitching when he opened his mouth to speak.

"You came back."

His odd tone set off an alarm in Cassie's head.

The room went silent, and only then did it occur to her that they'd all heard the gunshot which was supposed to end her life.

Perhaps, they thought it had.

Lexie was still crying, since she'd never stopped, holding Rue's hand in a death grip as a minuscule source of comfort. Rue seemed somewhat happy to see Cassie walk through the door; of course, she didn't want her to die, but the sight only reminded her that Ethan never would. She had to look away shortly thereafter. At the same time, Alex was so delirious, he hadn't even noticed that she'd been gone.

Cassie glanced at the cart. "Yeah, I-I got the blood."

Mark couldn't care less about that blood, as he was far too focused on hers. While she was gone, Rue had explained to him what happened with Ethan, sans the gory details, which explained the blood from before, but this blood? This blood was new, and it was aimlessly dripping onto the the floor from a cut on her face; no, not a cut, but a wound. This blood was from a gunshot.

Mark finally gained the momentum to stand from his seated position next to Alex, bounding up to her at a speed which nearly made her flinch out of instinct.

"Screw the blood, Cass."

Alex frowned in offense. "Hey--"

Mark placed a hand on the side of each of Cassie's arms, unintentionally squeezing hard enough to where she couldn't move; truthfully, he didn't want her to move. Eyes fitting over her face, her wide eyes, her trembling lips, the tear tracks on the apples of her cheeks, he just looked at her, like if he blinked, she'd disappear again.

All at once, his left hand moved from her arm to the center of her back, his right coming up to cup her head, pulling her into his chest with such fervor that Cassie made a sound of surprise at the impact.

"Don't ever leave me like that again," he whispered with pronounced vehemence, a stray tear making it's way down his face and falling gently against her hair. "You don't get to leave me, not like that."

Up until then, Cassie didn't realize how much she needed a hug, especially from him. She didn't realize how much she needed him to say that she was needed, that she was loved. She didn't realize how worthless she felt after everything, until he made her feel the opposite. She didn't realize how much she needed him.

She hugged him back, hard, wincing when her cut made contact with his scrub top, but ultimately ignoring the pain. It wasn't that bad, and the relief she felt being held against him was far stronger than the slight sting on her head.

"Okay," was all she could say, entrapped in his arms with no means or will to escape. "Okay."

"I mean it--"

"I know."

There were a million things she could have said other than that. A million things she should have said, that she wanted to say. But at this point, trying to say anything seemed as though it was the hardest thing in the world. And Cassie did try, but she just couldn't.

Her perseverance kept her alive, it kept her sane, but at the end of the day, it was bound to run out. She wasn't done trying, she wasn't done saving Alex, and she hadn't even begun to apologize to Rue, but she could feel it slowly dwindling down into nothing the longer the day went on.

When she pulled away from Mark, it wasn't because she wanted to. It wasn't because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life holding him, or being held by him. The only reason she let go, was because Alex needed a blood transfusion, and she'd be damned if she nearly died for nothing.

"Guys," Lexie called out, her voice trembling, "Um, I-I think his vitals are tanking... I-I think..."

Any sense of relief Cassie had previously felt, vanished when she watched Alex's eyes roll to the back of his head.

"Crap," Mark cursed wildly, letting go of Cassie and rushing over back to his previous position in one quick movement. It was his job to watch Alex's vitals, and the second he let himself think about something else, it all went to shit. Go figure. "Lexie, start the transfusion."

The blonde did as told, albeit through blurred vision, because she didn't have a choice. Rue still couldn't look, burrowing deeper into the bed of pillows her girlfriend had concocted for her as silent yet thick tears fell down her face, only able to think of the one thing she was painfully trying to forget.

Moving to the opposite side of the table, Cassie took Alex's limp hand into her own, squeezing it with trembling, blood-coated fingers. She watched the way Alex's chest moved up and down at an abnormally slow rate. She watched the way his eyes fluttered, and how despite that, he didn't regain consciousness. She watched him breathing in, breathing out, every puff of air reminding her that his heart couldn't take the stress for very much longer.

"Okay, i-it's started, but.."

"Lexie, pass me the..."

"Okay, but what if we..."

Breathing in, breathing out. Cassie copied his inhalations, getting lightheaded after only a minute from the lack of airflow. Faintly, Lexie and Mark's voices echoed in her head, and she knew they were speaking, maybe even to her, but she didn't care.

He couldn't die. She wouldn't let him die.

Breathing in, breathing out. His face wasn't regaining any color, and his eyes had stopped fluttering open. It was all familiar, the look of someone she loved lying half dead beneath her.

It was too familiar.

"Please don't die," she whispered, any semblance of hope in her body leaking through her words, just like the fear was spreading down her cheeks in the form of her tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I-I should've been here sooner, but please, George, don't die. Please don't die."

Cassie may not have noticed her slip up, but the others did. Truthfully, they had a difficult time ignoring it.

When SWAT pushed through the door, Cassie jumped.

Only minutes prior, Mark told her there was nothing else they could do for Alex but wait for help to arrive. And Cassie understood that, she nodded along, she said yeah and okay while he explained the situation, but honestly, she hardly even heard him at all.

All she could do was keep holding Alex's hand, two of her fingers resting on the pulse point of his wrist, counting the beats per minute of his heart. All she could look at was the blood, a sick combination of her own, Alex's, Ethan's, the last of which had dried all over her scrubs, making her look like something out of a knock-off Carrie production. All she could hear was the slow drip, drip, drip of the IV providing him fluids, only to see out of the corner of her eye that it was nearly empty.

She couldn't even feel Mark holding her other hand.

(Dissociation. It was a persistent little fucker.)

But SWAT arrived, and it was all supposed to be okay.

It may have been a radical idea, but Cassie assumed that they'd have some sort of protocol for mass shootings, a protocol that told them not to make sudden, floor-shaking, excessively loud noises without any warning. But alas, here they were, guns drawn and briefly pointed at the people who nearly died from a gunshot.

"This floor is clear," the officer closest to Cassie had told them, closely eyeing her blood covered form, "We're going to evacuate you now."

It should have been a relief, getting out of there. And it was, except for the fact that getting out meant facing the repercussions.

It should have been a relief. Off the top of her head, Cassie could remember a phone number she once saw Ethan dial back when she was in college, the phone number for Rue's adoptive mom. His sister. She'd have to give her a call and explain to her what happened. Explain that she was the reason her brother got shot. The reason he was dead.

It should have been a relief. Her anxiety never dissipated, not when she was surrounded by police officers to escort her outside, not when she could see the hospital's front doors, not when she walked through them, not when she felt the cold, fresh air. Oddly enough, it only grew worse. Every step she took, every breath, every blink, her chest contracted more and more, rising and falling, tightening against her organs, crushing them.

It should have been a relief. But Derek was still shot, and Gary was still out there somewhere, and Meredith and Cristina and Jackson and April and Bailey and Callie and Arizona and Richard and even fucking Owen were still upstairs somewhere, and their lives were still at risk.

That is, if they weren't already dead.

"GSW to the right chest, we put in a chest tube. He's got three liters of LR, two units of packed cells, and... and about two milligrams of Alprazolam."

Mark's voice rung in Cassie's ears, along with something else she couldn't quite decipher. He walked a few steps in front of her, his legs managing to stretch farther and move faster than her own, pushing Alex's gurney towards the ambulance ahead, where they saw Teddy waiting as if she'd expected them.

Only a few yards away, Lexie passed off Rue to a different ambulance, and Cassie could hear the faint, I love you, don't worry, you'll be okay, I love you, I'll be there soon, don't worry, I love you, which consistently left her lips until the doors finally shut.

"Alprazolam?" Teddy couldn't help but repeat, lifting up the gurney onto the ambulance with the help of Mark and a paramedic. "You guys had access to a med cart?"

Mark briefly glanced over at Cassie, who wasn't invested in, or even listening to, their short conversation. "Yeah, not exactly."

Cassie found it impossible to look away from Alex.

He was still unconscious, lying limply in the ambulance while Teddy messed with some wires and IV's while getting him ready for transport to Seattle Pres. He was stable, and Teddy and was talented, and she knew that he would (unless something went wildly and unexpectedly wrong) be okay; but that didn't stop her from picturing how it would be if something did.

On a list of everyone Cassie loved, Alex was slowly but surely rising to the top. He'd always been a good friend, but in the past few months, he'd become one of her best friends, because he not only did care, but he showed it. She wasn't sure if she could handle losing him, too.

"Will he be okay?"

One of the first times she'd ever spoken directly to the cardio surgeon, and her hoarse, cracking, unusually quiet voice wasn't even her own. Teddy just sighed, not out of exasperation, but simply because she couldn't guarantee an answer.

"I'll do my best to make sure he is. I promise."

Nodding, Cassie glanced at Alex, before her gaze was soon drawn over to Mark; he was now only a few feet in front of her, already looking back with an unreadable expression.

"Go with her."

It wasn't that she wanted to be alone. The opposite, in fact. She needed him so desperately, it was like every single moment she didn't have him in her arms was physically harming her, badly. She needed him like how she needed to breathe, like how she needed to drink water, to eat, to sleep. She needed him to live.

But even more than that, she needed Alex to survive.

Mark furrowed his brows, not able to imagine leaving her at a moment like that. He could see it written all over her face that she was still scared, but if anything, that only made him want to stay more.

"Cass, I don't think--"

"Please." Desperation was obvious in her tone, along with the half-urgent, half-defeated expression she wore. "For me?"

Maybe it was manipulative, pulling the for me card.

Because the fact of the matter was, just as Cassie would do anything or give up anything for Mark, he would do the exact same for her in a fucking heartbeat, and she knew it.

Mark stepped forwards, large hands coming up to cup both of her cheeks, studying her in the same way he had when she'd returned to the office. His gaze fit across Cassie's body as if it were the last time he'd ever see her, or maybe, he just wanted to look at her, remind himself that she was real. That she was alive. That she was his.

His left hand moved behind her neck, pulling her forwards so he could lay a chaste kiss on her forehead before he left. He purposely avoided looking at the cut on her temple.

"Once the medics get you checked out, they'll take you to see him, okay?"

(While his hands were on her, Cassie strained to restrain herself from shaking. It hadn't seemed to stop, but she was glad he couldn't feel it.)

"Sloan, we gotta go."

Cassie sent a curt nod of thanks to Teddy, before responding with a quiet and rushed, "Okay."

She blinked, and in what felt like only a second, the ambulance had pulled away, taking Mark and Alex with it. Rue's ambulance followed closely behind it, and through the windows, Cassie could vaguely make out a sight of Rue arguing with the paramedics; it was a good thing, as it assured her that she'd be alright despite everything that had gone down. Well, as alright as she could be with a dead uncle and a lifetime worth of nightmare fuel.

"They wouldn't let me go," Lexie scoffed from behind her, finally removing her latex gloves and tossing them senselessly onto the ground. "She's my girlfriend, and-- and they wouldn't let me go."

"Hm?"

Cassie should have smiled when Lexie told her the good news. She wanted to smile, to hug her, to say how happy she was that her and Rue were back together after so much heartache shared between them. But she couldn't, because she wasn't able to look away from where the ambulance once was, her eyes glued onto the empty air. All she was able to get out was the one sound, hardly above a mumble.

"Oh, yeah," the blonde laughed, slightly bashful. Lexie seemed to take the noise to signal that Cassie wanted her to elaborate. "When you were gone, we sorta made up. I just figured, life is short, and I-I don't want to waste it pretending like I don't love her, or-- or that I don't want to be with her. Plus, she almost died, and, well, you know."

"I... um, I..."

Somewhere along the way, Cassie had looked down. Her hands, her arms, her scrub top, the entirety of her waist, down her legs, into her shoes, every inch of her covered in a sticky, half-dried, daunting red.

She knew it was there the whole time, but something about seeing it in the daylight felt different. She knew it was just blood, a bodily fluid she came into contact with nearly everyday, but something about it was different. She knew it couldn't hurt her, it never had before, it logically didn't have the ability to, but this time, it was different.

It was all over.

It had seeped through the thin material of her scrubs, taking residence upon her skin, itching, burning, gnawing at her like a poisonous snake loose from it's cage. It dripped down the sides of her arms, some of it still in it's gelatinous form, and she could feel it move in the interior of her shoes, in the crevices and the corners of the back of her knees, beneath her feet, inside her socks.

It was in between her toes, sloshing around them, carefully moving and clinging to her skin with each flex of her muscles. Her hands, her fingertips, beneath her nails, she felt it cracking from the dry air and molding to her palms with the wind. A tacky clump on her temple, lines of it down the side of her face, each bend of her cheek pulling and tightening around it as if it were some sort of forced adhesive she couldn't scrub off.

And she tried, she really did. She tried to scrub, her compromised hands only smearing it near her lips, making it worse. Reactivating the wound on her temple from the pressure, a new stain of wine-colored fluid dripping from her chin onto the gravel underneath her. Frantically rubbing it away, using the only unsoiled part of her scrub top to get it off, but it only seemed to make even more of a mess.

She couldn't get it off.

Cassie tried, and tried, and tried, and eventually, she was trying so hard, she hadn't heard Lexie calling her name for what was nearly a full minute.

But it wouldn't come off. It was like it had become a part of her, the blood, but she didn't want it. She didn't want it on her skin, or in her hair, or in her socks, she just wanted it off.

"Um, I-I need someone to help!"

Lexie's shouting went unnoticed by Cassie. She couldn't hear her. She couldn't hear anything. Not the paramedics shouting back, not the sound of her own hiccuping sobs, and not the way her heartbeat rushed into her ears, the blood on the inside of her head causing just as much of an issue as the blood on the outside. She didn't hear the portable oxygen tank being set up behind her, and she didn't see the mask being put in front of her face, in front of the blood, either.

"Ma'am, just breathe into this for me--"

"Miss, I know she's your friend, but you need to--"

"Back off! Just-- Cass, hey, it's Lexie, you're okay, it's just a panic attack, I promise you're okay--"

Cassie didn't feel okay.

But she was, right? She was okay. She survived. She didn't get shot. She didn't die. She hardly even passed out. She was supposed to be okay. She was supposed to sad, and scared, but in the end, okay. She was okay, so why couldn't she act like it?

Why couldn't she breathe?

(That's when it hit her. She couldn't breathe.)

"I-I can't, I can't, I-- I can't--"

Panic.

It was funny, the way one single emotion could portray itself so diversely. When Ethan got shot, she froze. Panic. When she found Rue, when she found Alex, she fought. Panic. When she stood in front of Gary, when she accepted that she was supposed to die, when she heard about Derek, when Alex started crashing. Panic, panic, panic, panic.

It swallowed her whole, impeding on her airway, tightening against her abdomen, her muscles, her heart. Like a boa constrictor with the intent to strangle and kill, it wrapped itself around her neck, hindering her breath before it could even begin to make it's way up her throat.

The blood was still there.

Cassie just wanted it off. That's all. She just wanted the blood to be washed away, or remove itself, or something, because the longer it was on her skin, caking onto each and every pore and penetrating her epidermis, she could feel her chest heaving more and more, her insides begging for some sort of release. She needed it off, and she needed it off now.

Or maybe, she just needed to breathe.

It wasn't as easy as it may have seemed, getting herself to inhale. And Cassie tried, hard, but the simple fact that she couldn't only seemed to increase the tension in her lungs.

It wasn't until a pair of thin yet comforting arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders, that she was finally able to choke back the stiff air which surrounded her.

Lexie had read an article, once, that said external physical pressure against the nervous system can help anxiety. Although, in that same article, she read how there was a fifty-fifty chance that it could help someone experiencing a full fledged panic, and that it may do more harm than good, but for Cassie, she was willing to take the risk.

"You're safe, Cass." When she felt the wildly heaving chest beneath her begin to slow, Lexie's arms tightened their hold, allowing the other girl to rest her body weight against her. The paramedic who was supplying her oxygen took a step back. "Everyone is safe. You're safe."

Cassie didn't believe it, but while sobbing painfully into Lexie's shoulder, she allowed herself to pretend that she did.

When they arrived at Seattle Pres, the doctors were kind enough to let Cassie and Lexie shower in one of the locker rooms.

Rue didn't end up needing surgery, just some antibiotics and some serious stitches, but she'd also been asleep for in the hospital bed she was provided for the past few hours. At some point prior, she'd called her mom and explained what happened; as selfish as it was, Cassie was just thankful that she didn't have to.

According to Lexie, Rue was just tired after the long day, but Cassie knew it was more than that. She didn't go in to see her, though. She didn't think she could handle the guilt.

Lexie also mentioned how she ran into Ollie and Ryan, who went to visit their fellow Harper-intern and make sure she was okay, especially after everything that happened with Lily less than a year prior. Apparently, they'd both decided to transfer to a hospital in Portland together, effective immediately. They said they just couldn't imagine going back to place where so many people died, and truthfully, Cassie didn't blame them.

Sitting cross-legged on a bench outside of the unfamiliar hospital, wearing a fresh pair of scrubs provided by the same nurse who'd helped her wash the blood off of her skin, Cassie waited to hear the news on Alex.

Lexie had gone to grab snacks, promising to bring her back some flamin' hot Doritos, but Cassie politely declined, as she could hardly keep her stomach down without any outside contributors. And after everything that went down, everything she saw, everything she heard, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to eat at all, at least not for the next twenty four hours, and especially not something that was red.

As she played with the bottom hem of the green scrubs, Cassie wriggled her nose, the stitches on the side of her head moving along with the rest of her face.

She did the stitches herself, despite the adamant disapproval of the trauma surgeon in Seattle Pres' ER. The only person she would have trusted to do them correctly was Mark, and he was still in surgery with Alex at the time, so she really didn't have another choice.

Think of the devil and he shall appear, she thought idly, not removing her gaze from her ankle when Mark took a seat beside her.

"He's gonna be okay." His voice was noticeably quiet. "It was a little touch and go for a while, but Teddy's closing up now, and then you can see him. He's gonna be alright. And, uh, we're still... we're still waiting to hear about Derek... but Yang said he looked good, so... yeah."

Cassie just nodded, her face blank.

The whole thing reminded her of the trolley problem, in a way. Save one and kill five, or divert the trolley to save five and kill one. Sacrifice herself for Ethan and let Rue and Alex die, or let Ethan die to save Rue and Alex. It was simple, there was an obvious choice, and yet in both scenarios, someone died because of her. Of course, she knew it wasn't the same thing. This was real life, a real trauma, not some old ethics thought experiment which had no consequences; she knew that. But then again, the debate continued over and over in her head, was it right to divert the trolley?

Truthfully, she couldn't be sure.

"Ethan died because of me, you know."

Either way, she felt the guilt, and she felt it hard.

Mark's eyebrows scrunched together, his head turned to inspect the side of her face. And he saw it, when he looked at her. He saw the guilt, the remaining fear, the lasting anxiety which hadn't gone away. The sun had only just began to set, but he could see her exhaustion, the tiredness of her muscles, the dark rings under her eyes.

He knew she blamed herself, and he knew she always would. That was the thing about Cassie, Mark noticed; no matter how many people looked up at her as if she ruled the world, she only saw herself as the designated martyr, beneath them all, carrying the weight of it on her back without a right to complain.

"Ethan died because of Gary Clark."

Cassie shook her head. "If I just--"

"You lived, Cass." Mark's voice was sharp, cutting through her bubble of self-pity like a heated knife. "You're alive, and I'm not gonna sit here and let you apologize for that."

(He could see right through her, couldn't he?)

"He told me that he loved me."

Cassie didn't mean to change the subject, at least, not consciously. She knew Mark just wanted to ease her guilt, to wash away as much pain as he could from her cracked skin. But no matter what he said, she knew, they both knew, that it was impossible. Cassie couldn't even dare to think about herself right now, because Ethan was dead, and the last thing he told her was I'm sorry I wasn't enough. His last moments were occupied with self hatred, with disappointment, with sadness.

And those feelings, despite whatever Mark said to convince her otherwise, were entirely her fault.

Mark didn't know exactly what happened right before Ethan died, but he did know about the feelings the pediatric attending had for her. And he didn't want to speak ill of the dead, but when the man was alive, it really was painfully obvious.

"I can't blame him," he shrugged, his hand moving to grab ahold of her own, stopping her from further ripping the hem of the complimentary scrubs. And Cassie let him, despite the fact that the action eerily reminded her of how Ethan did the same thing. "You're easy to love."

Cassie couldn't help but laugh at that, the sarcasm dripping from her tone like honey when she responded, "Yeah, that must be why I dumped you just for trying to."

Her gaze eventually trailed away from her scrubs after she spoke, her eyes meeting Mark's with unshed tears glimmering under the sunset. There was a dark sense of humor behind her irises, but Mark didn't return it, his own eyes only narrowing a fraction of an inch at the implication of her words.

"Don't talk about yourself like that."

Cassie couldn't help but be grateful of the fact that whatever road this conversation was heading down, at least for the time being, it distracted her from everything else. Gently, she nudged him with her elbow, their hands jolting slightly from the movement. "Don't act like I wasn't the one who fucked everything up. We both know I was."

(If Mark could've metaphorically slapped her in the face and screamed shut the fuck up, you're perfect, he would have.)

"It wasn't the right time for us," was what he responded with, not giving into her defense mechanism of self-deprecation. "You can't... you can't expect yourself to be able to grieve your best friend and keep everything else in your life the same, Cass. I never blamed you for that, it just... it wasn't the right time. It still isn't, and that's okay. It's not your fault. None of this is."

It still isn't.

(Mark didn't believe it, but at that point, he would say whatever necessary to help erase her guilt. And Cassie didn't say it out loud, but she didn't necessarily agree, either.)

"Yeah, I just--" Cassie let out a sharp breath, removing her hand from his own and crossing her arms over her chest. A single tear fell down the apple of her cheek, but she used her shoulder to quickly wipe it away, removing it before it could leave a trace. "I just wish that it didn't feel like it was, you know?"

Mark sighed, his now empty hand moving to rest against the center of her back. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

She let his hand stay there for a while, savoring any closeness to him that she could get. It helped, in the most minuscule of ways. It was as if she were stuck in a block of ice and Mark's fingertips were an open flame, melting and melting away until he got to the core. He was warm, loving, safe, everything she'd been deprived of all day. All year, truthfully.

(Oh, how pathetic it felt to be so deeply in love.)

By the time the sun had fully set, Cassie had fallen asleep against Mark's shoulder, and his eyes had closed shortly thereafter. When they awoke, they couldn't be sure who'd initially leaned against who, but neither of them particularly cared.

"Hey, guys, wake up."

Mark slowly blinked up at Lexie, who stood in front of them with several bags of chips in her hands, accompanied by some granola bars and what vaguely looked to be a knock-off version of a Twinkie. He could feel Cassie jolt beneath his arm, startled despite the gentle nature of Lexie's voice.

"Did something happen?" Cassie planted her feet on the ground, ready to spring up from the bench at any given moment. "Is everyone okay?"

Lexie nodded, and even with the clear signs of impending trauma written all over her face, she seemed okay. Happy, even, if Cassie allowed herself to believe it.

"Okay, so, Rue is still asleep, Hunt got shot in the shoulder but he's okay, and Alex is awake. Oh, and he's asking for you, Cass," the blonde rattled off, and Mark could sense that her cheerfulness was a facade, presumably to make Cassie feel better. He appreciated it more than he let on. "And Derek is okay, too. Thank god."

(Thank god? Cassie preferred to blame him for all of it, instead.)

Mark let out a heavy sigh of relief when he heard the words Derek and okay right next to each other. He'd seen what losing a best friend did to Cassie, and he knew that there wasn't a chance in hell he'd be able to make it through the same thing.

Glancing over at the woman in his hold, who seemed as though she were stuck in place, Mark softly moved his hand to rest on her back, prompting her to get to her feet. "You ready?"

She looked up at him.

It was a loaded question.

Cassie would never be ready to see one of her best friends recovering from a gunshot wound. She would never be ready to see Derek with paled cheeks and tubes and wires sticking out of his skin. She would never be ready to go back to work, to go back to the hospital, to see patients again. To see all of the blood.

But despite all of that, she got up anyways.

(After everything, Cassie supposed that maybe, trying wasn't completely hopeless.)

"Yeah. I'm ready."

Everything was over. Everything was okay.

But lying on her back against her cotton sheets, eyes tracking the blades of the ceiling fan as it spun around in circles, Cassie couldn't help but to feel as though there was something else, something missing.

The moonlight coming in from the windows lit up her room, shadows casting across her bare, pajama-short clad legs. She didn't want to look at the clock, as it would only serve as a reminder that sleep wouldn't be coming to her any time in the near future.

Everything was okay, except for that it wasn't.

It wasn't okay, because she was alone in her bedroom, and Mark was alone in his apartment, and it didn't make any fucking sense why they weren't together. Perhaps the shock was wearing off and the post-traumatic epiphanies were settling in, but as she watched the fan spinning above her, cool air blowing against her tainted skin under the dim lights, she couldn't help but to finally admit it to herself.

Cassie could make it on her own. She could exist without relying on someone, on him. She no longer needed someone to love her in order for her to love herself. She could be happy, and she could be happy alone.

But fuck, she didn't want to be alone anymore.

It was almost uncontrollable, the way her feet removed themselves from the safety of her comforter, planting themselves on the carpet with a thud.

It was instinctive, the way her hands reached for Mark's old crewneck sweatshirt she'd never given back, the gray fabric soft against her skin after she'd thrown it on over her tank top. The way it still smelled like him, just a little bit, reminding her that what she was about to do was a good thing, despite the alarms going off in the back of her head as she exited her room and made her way past the kitchen, eyes focused on the front door, her steps moving at an embarrassingly quick pace.

"Where are you going?"

Cassie stopped in her tracks, head snapping to the side, blinking harshly as if she were waking up from a dream.

"What?"

Arizona couldn't help but send a concerned look to Callie, the two of them sitting on the living room couch watching trashy nighttime television together. Cassie supposed that it was comforting, since it was clear that neither of them could sleep.

"It's four in the morning," Callie informed her, and that's when the younger girl noticed the pile of tissues on the coffee table, unable to stop herself from wondering how she and Mark would react if one of them were injured earlier that day. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I just..." Cassie's tongue felt dry, as if she were speaking through a mouthful of cotton. "I'm gonna go talk to Mark."

Both women could tell that there was a certain weight to her words, so with a shared knowing glance, they each sent her a smile. "Well, good luck."

(Cassie would have said thanks, if her brain could've focused on quite literally anything other than him.)

By the time she was pounding her fist against the outside of Mark's apartment, an indescribable amount of anxiety had built in her chest, though, she wasn't even sure why. All she planned to do was ask to be his girlfriend again, right? Besides, it was Mark. Even if he said no, she didn't have any reason to be nervous. Worst case scenario, she'd write it off as a sleepwalking mishap.

The door swung open, and Cassie was actually shocked to see Mark wearing a shirt. He always slept without one.

"Did I wake you?"

Mark paused.

Call him cheesy, or pathetic, but right then, in that moment, he swore she'd never looked more beautiful.

It wasn't that he liked her better with no makeup on; honestly, he kind of had a thing for red lipstick, and he was pretty sure that Cassie looked hot no matter what was on her face. It wasn't that she was wearing his sweater, either, although he couldn't help but take notice.

It was her confidence.

For a moment, he was half convinced that it was the old Cassie, the Cassie he first fell in love with. The Cassie who didn't care what people thought, who always did whatever she felt was right in the moment. He could see her in the woman standing in front of him, only it wasn't her, at all. This Cassie was new, a collective of the aforementioned traits as well as something else, something it took Mark a moment to put his finger on.

Strength.

It flamed from her skin like a hot vapor, clouding his senses the longer he stared. Even after the shooting, and learning about her biological family, and losing her best friend, and her pseudo-father, and her mother, Cassie was strong, but she was also resilient, and vulnerable, and sensitive. And all of those things, though he didn't say it out loud, looked fucking amazing on her.

Cassie tilted her head in confusion, and it was then that Mark realized he hadn't said a word since opening the door, let alone answered her question.

"No, uh, I couldn't sleep."

(He thought it sounded a bit childish when he said it out loud, but Cassie was entirely understanding.)

"Me neither. Can I come in?"

Cassie spoke quickly, not a single break between her words, as if she was trying to force them out of her mouth so she wouldn't have a chance to go back on them.

Mark didn't respond verbally, simply moving to the side and allowing her to enter his apartment. Truthfully, it felt odd to have her there, as she'd only been a few times; after all, they'd broken up shortly after he moved in. It wasn't a bad odd, though; it was rather nice, actually. And Cassie seemed to be thinking the same thing, her eyes taking in the furniture setup as her bare feet forced her to pace around the center of his rug.

"So, uh, I'm glad you--"

"I have something to say."

Cassie didn't mean to interrupt, but she was pretty sure that if she didn't say it now, then she never would.

There still wasn't a valid reason as to why she felt so anxious, and yet, the nerves didn't go away. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she was supposed to take her daily anxiety medication in about two hours, or more likely, because she'd nearly fucking died, but she knew that if anyone could help calm her down, it was him.

Mark seemed a bit startled, but moved to stand a few feet across from her, gently resting against the back of the couch.

He made a motion for her to continue. "Okay."

"Okay," Cassie repeated, wringing her fingers in front of her stomach, feet shifting back and forth in a rocking motion as a subconscious search for comfort. "Okay."

Jesus, she was really fucking nervous.

"Cass," Mark laughed, her clear display of hesitancy concerning him. "It's me. Just, you know... just say it."

Just say it.

Fine.

"It is the right time." Sensing his confusion at the vague statement, Cassie let it hang it the air for a moment, before elaborating with bated breath, "Earlier, you... you said it wasn't the right time for us when we broke up, and that it still isn't, but I-I think you're wrong. I think it is."

His eyes noticeably brightened, but when he made a move to respond, she continued speaking over him, no longer able to hold back what she'd been wanting to say for so long.

"It is the right time, because I love you." It wasn't a confession. He already knew. But if anything, that only made it more meaningful; she didn't have to say it, but she did. "I love you, I love you, I love you, and I am so sick of acting like I don't."

The yellow-hued lamp which was illuminating the room flickered, and when it did, Mark could see a faint reflection of himself in her eyes.

"I love you, Mark, and I'm ready." Cassie wasn't crying, she wasn't laughing, she wasn't out of breath, but somehow, she seemed to be on the verge of all three. "I'm ready to be with you, to love you the way that you deserve to be loved, and to-- to let myself be the one who you love, you know? I-I'm ready for you, I'm ready for all of it."

Sometimes, she wished Mark wasn't so good at being so damn stoic when he wanted to be. She wanted to know what he was thinking, if she should shut up or keep going.

(But at the end of the day, shutting the fuck up wasn't exactly one of Cassie's many talents, was it?)

"Do you... do you remember when you moved in here?" Her words didn't lose their fervor, but her voice went quiet, just a bit. And Mark only nodded, the corner of his lips twitching while his arms crossed over his chest. "I got angry, because I thought you wanted me to move in with you... and I-I just think that's funny now, because the only reason I was angry-- I mean, I wasn't even angry at you, I was angry at myself, you know?"

As quickly as her volume lowered, it raised again, her hands moving to accentuate her points. Mark just stared, his gaze never once leaving her face despite her own snapping wildly across the room.

(He always loved it when she rambled.)

"I was angry, because I couldn't figure out why this perfect man was asking me to live with him, and my first thought was that I didn't deserve it. That I didn't deserve you."

That was the first moment that Mark was inclined to interrupt her, but he didn't, despite the notion of her ever being less than enough forced him to clench his jaw indignantly.

Cassie took in a deep breath, no tears escaping her eyes despite the build up increasing significantly. "George died, and Lily died on my table, and I just... I think I blamed myself, or something? You know, I-I think I just figured that if I couldn't even keep a parent or my best friend around, that maybe, I-I just deserved to be alone."

"You don't."

It was the first meaningful thing Mark had said since she'd walked in, and it was all he planned to say until she was done speaking, but he couldn't help himself.

As if the two simple words restored her self-assurance which had unknowingly faded, Cassie straightened her back, wiped her eyes before a single tear was let loose, and continued.

"I know," she emphasized, a breathy laugh echoing in the otherwise silent room. "I know that now, because of you. You loved me when I hated myself, and I-I'm so fucking sorry that it took me until now to realize that I deserve it. That-- that I deserve to be loved. But I know now, and I'm ready."

Cassie took several steps forward, though, there was still room between them. Mark had to restrain himself from closing it.

"I'm ready to let you love me." Cassie let her emotions take her under, let the waves crash against her heart without so much as a barrier. "I'm ready to finally be happy. God, Mark, I'm ready for all of it, okay? I-I'm ready to brag about you in public, and kiss you in private, and walk to work with you, and go on dates with you, and--- and to move in with you, and grow old with you, and have kids with you, and to marry you--"

"What?"

"What?"

In less than half of a second, all of that momentum, all of that unbridled confidence, had dissipated entirely into thin air.

"What did you just say?"

(What did she just say?)

Honestly, being completely and utterly transparent, Cassie didn't have a single fucking clue of the answer to that question.

For the first time, she was speaking from her heart. Screw the logic, the facts, the anxiety, the never-ending fear of not being enough, because she was just speaking. It wasn't planned, it wasn't practiced, she didn't recite it in the mirror ten times before waltzing through his door and screaming her adoration in his face. For all she knew, she'd been talking for hours, as she'd completely lost herself in the words, in the truth.

Mark, on the other hand, had been listening intently.

"You said that you wanted to marry me."

Cassie blinked.

"I did?"

It felt a bit like a fever dream, thinking back on what she'd said. It was as if she'd been pushed into the ocean with no knowledge of how to swim, searching the back of her mind for anything that could help her remember how to float. But he wasn't lying, and when she thought back to thirty seconds prior, she heard it in her own voice, right there, loud and clear, front and center in her mind.

Mark didn't move a muscle. "You did."

(Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck--)

"I did."

(Fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck--)

"Cass, it's okay if--"

"I did say that," she cut him off before he could finish his sentence, knowing that it would end with something along the lines of --if you're not ready. Her heart beating rapidly in her chest, she decided not to think, to keep following her instincts, to own it. "I said that. I, um, yeah... so. Do you?"

(FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK--)

Mark's eyes noticeably widened, his entire body straightening out from it's resting place against the couch. As his arms loosened from their place around his abdomen, his head slowly tilted to the side, his entire form vaguely resembling a very confused puppy.

"Do I want to marry you?"

A shaky exhale left Cassie's mouth. "Yeah."

"Are you... are you asking?"

(What the fuck was she doing, what the fuck was she thinking, oh dear god, oh no, oh what the fuck--)

"Um," she hesitated, only for a brief moment, her legs shifting beneath her while she tried to convince her lungs to take in air and allow her to keep breathing. "If... if you're saying yes, then... yes, but if you're saying no, then, um, no?"

Mark just looked at her.

Aside from when she was experiencing actual panic, he'd never seen her so nervous. He'd never seen her so quiet, so shifty, but he'd also never seen her so hopeful.

It was all incredibly impulsive, he knew that, but he also knew that Cassandra Lynn Harper, anti-commitment extraordinaire, wouldn't dare to ask a question like that unless she were absolutely fucking certain.

He loved her, the way she looked up at him with such love and passion and fear and possessiveness and understanding, and the way her hair stuck up in the middle after presumably laying down for so long, and her smile -- god, her fucking smile -- and her generosity, and the way her forehead got a line in the middle when she frowned, and her ridiculous taste in music, and her voice, and her laugh, and just her. Jesus, of course he'd want to marry her. Anyone would, and god, he wanted to fucking scream it.

"If you want me to say yes, you'll have to ask me properly."

(Of course, he wasn't going to let her off that easy.)

Cassie couldn't help but scoff a laugh, the sound making Mark grin so widely he feared his face would break in two. And she saw it, saw the way he was once again dying for her to just say it, only this time, he knew exactly what it was.

"Okay, um... okay, but do I have to get down on one knee? Because you're really tall and I don't think my neck can stretch that far. Also, I don't have a ring."

This time, Mark laughed, and the sound sent a chill down the back of Cassie's spine, the hairs on her arms raising in sync. And fuck, she wanted to spend the rest of her life hearing that laugh.

Pretending to think for a few seconds, he eventually replied, "I suppose that just the question will suffice."

A wild and uncharacteristic blush building on the apples of her cheeks, the reality of their situation setting in, Cassie couldn't stop the way her face burned with the smile she was trying to hold back, working up the courage to really ask. And even though his answer was already crystal clear, it truly did take a lot of confidence to do so.

She took a deep breath.

"Mark Sloan, will you marry me?"

He grinned.

"Yes, Cassandra Harper, I'll marry you."

Rather cheekily, Cassie tilted her head to the side, resisting the very pressing urge to literally squeal out loud. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

Mark rolled his eyes, and pulled her in.

When he kissed her, it was far from one you'd see in a fairytale. It wasn't magic, there weren't sparks, he didn't sweep her off of her feet and ride into the sunset on horseback. It wasn't part of a story, or a myth, or folklore, because it was real. It was comfort, like a stray cat rubbing around your ankles, or watching a romantic comedy in front of the fireplace, or a soft cotton sweater that swallows you whole. It was gentle, it was warm, and it was home.

It didn't make everything okay, it didn't erase the trauma they'd gone through or cure their impending PTSD, but it gave them something. Some semblance of hope, of possibilities for the future, the smallest bit of ease from their pain. It gave them each other.

"Angel?" Mark murmured against her mouth, pulling away for the briefest of moments. The tip of his nose brushed her own, his hands moving down her back when she hummed a quiet mhm? in response. "I love you more, you know."

Cassie's hands tangled themselves in his hair, coaxing him back down to meet her lips. "That's not possible."

author's note ━━━━━━━━
cassie at the end of the chapter:

my children are engaged shut
up i know it was cheesy but dear
fucking lawd i am so happy for
them i don't care that i'm god
in this scenario IT WAS REAL
TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in other news, rip ethan you
were a real one 🙏 so sorry
you got shot in the head that
one's my bad 🫡 but everyone
else important lived so like.
thanks for taking one for the
team buddy!

& i know this chapter took a
lot longer than expected to get
up, but to be honest with you
i don't care bc it was worth it!
season 7 is gonna be a super
fun yet super messy shitshow,
so buckle up folks!