CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO
sanctuary.
season six, episode twenty three.

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

CASSIE WASN'T AFRAID TO DIE.

Death was never something she ran from, or even went out of her way to avoid. Death lingered, she noticed. Crossing the road or walking to her car after dark, it was always there, watching, waiting. Choking a bit on her food, dropping a knife while cooking, speeding to avoid being late to work, and every time, death followed. It was patient, picking and choosing when to make itself known. Bombs, ferry boat crashes, ignorant bus drivers, being shot. Death was always there, one step ahead.

Death didn't stand for the elderly or slow for the children. Death didn't lend sympathy to grieving mothers, soldiers at war, or even people at war with themselves. It came when it desired, and left when it was done. Death was brutal, and selfish, and final.

But Cassie, for lack of a better word, couldn't find it in herself to give a fuck.

Perhaps it was her lack of religious beliefs. Or maybe, it was that she'd seen death, faced death, so many times, that the dramatic effect of oh my god, this is the end and there's no coming back had pretty much worn off. There had actually been times after Bonnie and Denny and George died, that she longed for it. Longed for a permanent escape from the whirlwind of emotions she felt, from the fear of continuing to live. Sometimes, her life was even scarier than the prospect of her death.

Cassie wasn't afraid to die.

Well, she didn't used to be, at least.

ONE HOUR,
TWENTY ONE MINUTES.

Cassie really didn't want to go to work.

It had only been a few days since she'd been banned from the OR, and already, she was growing the urge to quit her job, again. Only this time, it wasn't out of guilt or grief, but rather due to the amount of sheer annoyance she felt every time she was forced to pass by Derek, carrying a stack of charts while doing post-ops, or pre-ops, or even more post-ops. At one point, a new doctor had actually mistaken her for an intern.

Besides, Mark's bed was nice. It was only in his nature to splurge on things like expensive silk bedsheets and hand-stitched duvets, but Cassie never grew tired of the way they felt on her skin; of course, nothing beat the way he felt while they were under them.

And as if Mark could sense her distain, he pulled her even closer into his chest, the length of her back now flush against his chest.

"We could call in sick," he mumbled into her ear, his voice hoarse and deeper than usual due to his grogginess. It sent a shiver down her spine, goosebumps rising on her arms and the back of her neck. "Stay here all day."

Cassie, who unlike Mark had been wide awake for about an hour, didn't respond right away. Her gaze fitted over the inevitability overpriced pieces of artwork that sat perfectly aligned with each other on his bedroom wall, silently wondering which of them had meaning, and which he impulsively bought on a whim.

They were all surprisingly pretty, and suddenly Cassie realized that he'd purchased most of them after they'd broken up; she was also a bit jealous, as she definitely wouldn't mind waking up to art like that everyday.

"I would, but Ethan said he'd let me sneak into his OR and watch his exploratory laparotomy," she replied, very reluctantly removing his arm from her waist and getting to her feet. "He promised I wouldn't get caught, but honestly, I'd love to see the look on Derek's face if I did."

Stealing one of Mark's plain black t-shirts, of which he seemed to have an endless supply, Cassie tossed it over her head, simultaneously searching the floor for her pants.

Mark frowned at the mention of Ethan, which only deepened into a scowl when Cassie brought up Derek.

As much as it was a relief for Cassie to get everything off her chest, she underestimated the effect it would have on Mark; more specifically, how he would feel about Derek lying to her face for eleven years, and therefore lying to him, too. Plus, she wasn't sure that he'd fully grasped the whole Harper Avery's granddaughter thing, not that she could blame him.

"Screw Derek, Cass," Mark scoffed, moving to sit up against his headboard, but still refusing to get up. "The guy's a dick."

Cassie rolled her eyes. "The guy is your best friend."

"Yeah, my best friend who's a dick."

With a snort, she didn't disagree, eventually finding her jeans strung over the top of a tall lamp in the corner of Mark's room (how they even got there in the first place, Cassie couldn't remember, as she was a bit preoccupied at the time of the incident). Within just a few seconds, she was fully dressed and staring down at a shirtless Mark, who was staring right back up at her.

She couldn't help but to savor moments like these.

It had been so long, too long, since they'd been able to just be them. Mark and Cassie, cheesily and helplessly in love, intelligent when they were apart but completely and utterly moronic when they were together; that's who they really were, and fuck, Cassie missed it.

Only, she wasn't sure if Mark still felt the same way.

He'd been distant, unusually so, after they slept together for the first time since their breakup; and after the second, and the third, and-- well, Cassie didn't have the energy to count every time they were together in the past week, but it was safe to say that Mark hadn't exactly been verbal with his thoughts.

Cassie soon came to realize that this must have been how Mark had felt, pretty much every single day in the past nine months, because of the way she was acting.

(Yeah, getting a taste of her own medicine sucked.)

"Anyways," she diverted the topic, wearing an uncomfortable and clearly nervous smile, "Um, I know we said no talking about any of this, but I was just wondering--"

"Damn, I'm running late, gotta go take a shower."

Cassie blinked once, and Mark had not only managed to dodge the question, but jump out of bed and disappear into the bathroom before she could so much as react to the startling interruption.

Feeling her heart sink in her chest, she followed after him, opening the door mere seconds after it was slammed shut. Cassie was fully aware that barging in on someone in the bathroom was major psychotic ex-girlfriend behavior, but right then, she didn't particularly care.

"Mark," she started, not batting an eye at the fact that he was somehow already naked and under the spray of the water. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Mark paused, a bar of soap in one hand and a bright pink loofa in the other, staring at her as if she were the crazy one. "The hell is wrong with you? I'm just trying to shower!"

Cassie's eye twitched, and Mark knew he was in for it.

Obviously, he wasn't just trying to shower. Although, he was proud of coming up with the excuse on such short notice.

In reality, Mark didn't want to talk about it.

If he talked about it, he knew he would inevitably wind up saying something to scare her off, like mentioning how he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life (or something equally melodramatic). Besides, the last time he passionately confessed how much he loved her, Cassie dumped him, and he really didn't feel like going down that road again. Not talking was just easier, at least for the time being.

While Mark took the time to internalize every single thing she'd ever said to him regarding her commitment issues, Cassie seemed to be rendered speechless.

(Was he fucking kidding?)

"Are you fucking kidding?"

Out of all the potential questions running through her mind, for some reason, that was the only one Cassie was able to verbalize.

Mark set down the loofa. "What?"

Cassie just stared at him, her expression incredulous with her mouth hanging open, as if she were just waiting for the right moment to go off.

She wasn't sure if this was all some elaborate plan to get her attached and then break her heart, just like she broke his, but every time he refused to give her even a semblance of reassurance that her feelings weren't one-sided, Cassie could feel her heart slowly beginning to crack at the edges.

And Mark could see it written all over her face, only, it still wasn't enough for him to just say fuck it and tell her how he felt anyways.

"Is this really just sex to you?"

But like a deafening wake up call, booming alarms began to go off in the back of his head when he realized just how much of a fucking idiot he was.

Cassie wanted him back.

That's why she slept with him that night at Derek's party, and that's why she was still sleeping with him today. Cassie wanted him back, and he wanted her back, too, but he'd been so busy convincing himself that he didn't to even realize what was happening.

They wanted each other back.

This wasn't how he imagined it eventually going down, him naked and covered in soap and Cassie wearing her clothes from the night before, but he figured he could try to work with what he had.

A deep breath in, a deep breath out, and he was ready to tell her. Well, as ready as he could be while entirely exposed aside from the steam on the glass door. He swallowed harshly, a subconscious effort to stall himself, before he finally decided to just say it.

"No, Cass, I still l--"

(But while Mark was coming to terms with his epiphany, Cassie seemed to have reached a different conclusion of her own.)

"You know what, now I'm late, like, for real, so I'll just save you the trouble of coming up with an excuse."

Within an instant, the bathroom door slammed shut once again, her loud, thunderous footsteps echoing in his head until she was finally gone.

Mark blinked.

(Well, he seriously fucked that up, didn't he?)

THIRTY FIVE MINUTES,
THIRTEEN SECONDS.

"Wait, so, he didn't say anything? Like, at all?"

Cassie shook her head, violently stuffing her mouth with the bagel she'd purchased across the street from the hospital. Jackson walked in step beside her, the two of them making their way to the locker room after meeting for breakfast at Cassie's favorite local café.

"No!" she shouted through a mouthful, Jackson cringing at the sight. Cassie payed his sour facial expression no mind. "He just, like, stuttered. Like he was trying to figure out how to let me down easy, or something."

"So what'd you say, then?"

"Nothing, I just left," she shrugged, before adding hastily, "God, I'm so sick of stupid men and their stupid egos. No offense."

After what he'd just heard, Jackson couldn't blame her.

"None taken," he spoke casually, not matching her venomous and increasingly ear-piercing tone. "But, you probably should've heard him out anyways. You never know if that was actually what he was gonna say, or if it was something else. For all you know, he could've been saying the opposite."

Cassie stopped walking, and Jackson took a few more strides forward before he realized. He backtracked almost immediately, watching as she slowly chewed on the remaining portion of her bagel, her eyes in a death stare set directly onto his own. It was more than unnerving, though he supposed that was her goal.

Eventually, she swallowed, deciding to stand there for a good five seconds of uncomfortable silence before she spoke.

"Who's side are you on?"

"I'm not on anybody's side--" Jackson blurted out, tripping over his words when he realized that was not the right answer, at least, based on the glare he received from his sister. "Yours, I'm on yours--" Cassie rolled her eyes at his quick self-correction. "--I'm just saying that maybe you should try to be logical about this before putting words into his mouth."

Cassie narrowed her eyes.

"I know you're, like, new here--" she gestured between them, as if here were alluding to their blossoming friendship, "--but this is not a place of logic, alright? This is a place of complaining, making assumptions, and jumping to delusional conclusions when we're angry."

Slowly, Jackson nodded, decidedly not convinced that her methods of confronting her issues were even remotely healthy.

"Okay... but I still think he actually might've--"

"Jackson," Cassie interrupted him without remorse, "I may like you now, but if you don't shut up and let me complain, I'm seriously gonna punch you in the face."

It only took one look into Cassie's eyes for him to know that it wasn't an empty threat; that, and the fact that she'd just finished telling him the story of how she broke Izzie Stevens' nose. Which, he thought silently, she seemed just a tiny bit too proud of, but once again, he really couldn't blame her after hearing the whole story.

(Also, he was there when she slapped Derek, and after hearing the sound of her hand colliding with the older man's face, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that it hurt like a bitch.)

"So... stupid men and their stupid egos, huh?"

FOUR MINUTES,
TWENTY TWO SECONDS.

"This shit is depressing, man."

Rue tossed the patient's chart at her uncle, the folder hitting him right in the chest with a thud. Rolling his eyes, Ethan passed it over to Cassie, who then began to read it as well.

Caitlyn Meyer, age sixteen, in for an above-the-knee amputation due to a surgery she'd gotten at a different hospital, which resulted in an infection eating away at her muscle tissue; in the notes section of the chart, it mentioned how the girl was the lead in a traveling ballet company.

"Oh," Cassie frowned, throwing the chart back at him in the same manner Rue had a few seconds prior, "That is depressing."

Ethan just nodded in agreement, not exactly thrilled about having to perform a severe, life-altering surgery, but commiting to it anyways for the sake of the kid.

"We're operating on her later today, after our laparotomy," he told them both, before turning to face Cassie. "Rue will be the assist, but I'm sure the Chief wouldn't notice if you snuck in to observe this one, as well."

After he spoke, he turned around to put the chart back into it's designated spot, earning a polite smile from the nurse behind the desk.

The nurses station in the east corridor of the first floor had always been known as the quiet one, typically staffed with only one or two people as there were few patient rooms surrounding it. It was Ethan's favorite for that reason, making it a great place to brief his residents on the case without interruption.

"Even if he does notice, who cares?" Rue snorted. "All he'll do is call you irresponsible or whatever. That's nothing, I mean, Ethan tells me that every day, and he's not intimidating at all."

Cassie stifled a chuckle, her eyes moving between the second year and the older attending. It was obvious Rue was joking, but that didn't stop Ethan from once again rolling his eyes at her when he asked--

"Speaking of being irresponsible, how's Lexie?"

(If looks could kill, Ethan would be dead by now.)

Unable to hold back the laugh bubbling out of her chest, Cassie slapped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to muffle her sounds of amusement at the comeback. She wasn't laughing at Lexie being cheated on, but more so at the expense of Rue being called out on it.

Rue didn't say a thing in response, but she also didn't hold back when she reached out and punched Ethan in the arm; not hard enough for it to bruise, necessarily, but hard enough to leave an imprint of her fist on his skin for at least the next few hours.

"Okay, ouch--"

"Oh, man up," she scoffed at him, before turning to glare at Cassie, who was watching their interaction with a shit-eating grin. "And what are you laughing at? You went crazy and dumped the only decent man in this hospital for no reason."

If Cassie didn't know her, she would have taken it as an insult. But in reality, the fact was simple; Rue could take it, but she could also dish it out. That, along with her impressive surgical skills, was the reason Rue was the chosen favorite out of all four of Cassie's interns.

(Aside from Lily, of course. May she rest in peace.)

And Ethan, despite the fact that he'd known Rue since she was a baby, was impressed by her ability to casually deflect from the main topic of conversation.

"I was actually asking, you know."

Cassie grinned at the way Rue obviously did not want to talk about her ex-girlfriend who refused to take her back, knowing full well that Lexie would come around and forgive her any day now; it was really just a matter of time. Tapping her on the shoulder, Cassie wiggled her brows when she asked, "Would it make you feel better if I said that Lex won't shut up about you?"

Rue paused, her facial expression unchanging other than a twitch of her lip when she responded, "Go on."

"I--" Cassie briefly looked over at Ethan, who shrugged as if to say your problem, not mine. "I mean, well, that was kinda it, but--"

"Oh my god, just tell me what she says about me!"

(Clearly, sass ran in the Caldwell-Lennon family.)

"Honestly, she mostly just talks about how she wants to forgive you, but she-- oh, hold on, I'm getting a page."

ONE MINUTE,
FIVE SECONDS.

"Wait, you guys, we're in a lockdown."

Cassie frowned down at her pager, which was clipped onto the waistband of her scrubs, her eyes squinting to read the small print. She could sense her anxiety spike in her chest as she processed the news, absentmindedly feeling the bottle of prescription Xanax in her pocket which she'd forgotten to put in her locker.

Only half a second after she spoke, Rue's pager went off, and Ethan's, as did the nurse's who'd smiled at him only minutes before. The sound of several different pagers echoed throughout the nearby hallways, and for just a moment, everybody seemed to pause.

Rue looked Cassie up and down, not even bothering to check her own. "Doesn't really affect us though. We just can't leave or let anybody inside."

"No, that's a lockout, Rue," Ethan corrected her, staring down at his pager in a similar manner to the way Cassie was. "This is a lockdown."

"There's a difference?"

"Lockout means nobody comes in, lockdown means nobody moves," Cassie explained, her voice shaking despite the fact that it was most likely nothing to be seriously concerned over; well, that's what she had to tell herself to avoid a panic attack.

"Oh," Rue frowned, feeling the anxiety radiating off of the girl next to her. "Well, I mean, it's probably just a psych patient on the loose, or something equally lame."

"That's a code yellow, not a lockdown."

Cassie honestly didn't mean to be a downer, but something inside of her just felt off.

THIRTY SECONDS.

Rue wasn't half as concerned as Cassie and Ethan.

"Are you sure it said lockdown?"

Ethan rolled his eyes. "No, Rue, the entire hospital just got the exact same page, and every single person read it incorrectly."

As much as the uncle and niece's bickering distracted her, Cassie couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Thinking back, she'd never actually been in a lockdown before, at least, not while at work. Once, when she was thirteen, there was a lockdown at her school when a kid packed a steak knife with his lunch, though, she was pretty sure that this wasn't the same thing.

Even when there was an active bomb in a body cavity, a lockdown hadn't been issued, so what could possibly be happening now that warranted one?

Maybe Rue was right, and she had read it wrong.

Increasingly unsteady fingers reached to unclasp the pager from her waistband, only to fumble once it was finally unhooked, sending it tumbling to the floor beneath the desk.

FIVE SECONDS.

"Crap."

Cassie sunk down to her knees, only to lose sight of the device once she was on the ground.

ZERO.

When she heard the gunshot, Cassie screamed.

Vaguely, she recalled reading an article about the different trauma responses a person could have in a distressing situation. Anger, fear, guilt, flashbacks, dissociation, sadness, shame, fatigue, aggression, panic. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.

And no matter how hard someone may try to, it was impossible to control which one they would get.

Cassie, for instance, wasn't sure if she fell under any of those categories. Maybe there were more, ones that weren't mentioned in the article due to inconsistencies or unpopularity, or perhaps she was all of them at once.

Or maybe, she simply had no response at all.

When the second gunshot sounded throughout the corridor, Cassie remained on the ground.

Flight. That was one she recognized, when she crawled around the side of the desk on her hands and knees. The instinct was to hide, at least, it was in that moment. Sitting beneath the desk, her knees pulled to her chest, Cassie saw that her hiding spot was a surprisingly good one; she sat in the indent between two built-in filing cabinets, in the place where the chair would be pushed in if no one were sitting in it.

It wasn't until a trembling hand grabbed ahold of her own, that she realized she wasn't hiding by herself.

Ethan put a finger up to his lips when she opened her mouth to speak, and it was only then that Cassie understood that the hallway had gone silent, and the voice she'd been hearing was only inside of her head.

Dissociation. That was another.

At the third gunshot, Ethan broke their eye contact. Cassie heard the sound of something falling to the ground behind them, but they were facing the wall, and couldn't see what it was. They were both thankful for that.

"Did you see where Rue went?"

Ethan's question came out so quietly that, for the briefest of moments, Cassie couldn't decipher it from her own thoughts. She shook her head; no, she hadn't seen Rue, because she hadn't seen anything. Truthfully, she wasn't sure if she'd gone blind, or if she was crying, or if the world was moving so quickly that every single thing was a blur, but her eyes remained unfocused no matter where she attempted to look.

"Please, I-I have two daughters at home-- their names are, um, H-Hadley and Elise-- please, sir, I--"

The fourth gunshot went off, and Cassie could hear Ethan crying. Sadness. That must have been his.

And when they heard footsteps approaching, he squeezed her hand tightly in a death grip, searching for some form of comfort. Consciously, she knew she should have, but she didn't reciprocate the action.

Numbness. It wasn't on the list, but Cassie thought it should be. She believed it was a good descriptor for what she felt, at least, on the outside. Her hands tingled, but she'd lost sensation in her fingertips. Also her toes, and her legs felt odd, as well. Everything was just numb. Maybe, if she made it out alive after all of this, she'd email the author of the article and suggest some small changes, now that she had the insight.

When the fifth gunshot blew through the wall directly in front of them, Cassie's vision cleared up completely.

"I know someone's under there."

Fear. When she finally felt it, she felt it hard.

There was a shooter in the hospital. There was a man shooting people in the hospital. The gunshots, the screaming, the sounds of bodies falling to the floor, they were all connected to each other. The bodies were dead. People were getting shot, and they were dying. They were begging for their life, begging to see their wives and husbands and parents and children just one more time, but they all died.

(Was she going to die? What about Ethan, would he die, too? Or Rue, who wasn't anywhere in sight, would she die? Was she already dead?)

A frenzied gasp lodged itself in the back of her throat, her airflow restricting despite no physical obstruction. Eyes blown wide, her head snapped to the side, only to see that Ethan was already staring back at her; in one long motion, he let go of her hand and covered her mouth, making her instinctively flinch. Up until then, Cassie hadn't noticed how frantically her chest was heaving, nor the way her panicked breathing could be heard clearly within the dead silence.

Ethan kept his hand placed securely over her mouth, not daring to make another movement.

Cassie looked into his eyes, which were glistening with tears as opposed to hers, which remained dry despite everything that was going on around her. Ever so subtly, she leaned towards him, resting her forehead gently against his own, conveying a short but clear message--

If we have to die, I'm glad we're not alone.

Her entire body recoiled when the footsteps drew nearer, unable to stop herself from cursing something unintelligible into Ethan's hand; his grip on her face tightened without any conscious effort. And Cassie appreciated it, as she could feel him catching the cries which were actively trying to escape.

"Come out."

Freeze. Out of every single possible option, this one was, without a doubt, the most deadly. Cassie knew it the second she heard the shooter's heavy boots come to a stop only inches behind her, separated by nothing but the thin barrier of the desk. Ethan pressed against her mouth, as if to say do not make a fucking sound. And it wasn't difficult for her to oblige, as she was half convinced she could no longer breathe at all.

Cassie heard the quiet click of the pistol being cocked.

"Listen to me closely, sir," the shooter spit out, speaking the formal title with clear animosity, "I'm gonna tell you one more time. Come. Out."

This time, it was Ethan's turn to freeze.

Sir.

All at once, Cassie finally got it. When the first gunshot rang out, she'd been on the floor. Ethan only joined her after the second one. Maybe she was wrong, maybe the recent timeline in her head was all kinds of fucked up, but as far as she knew, the shooter never saw her. This time, when she gasped, Ethan's hand was no longer there to muffle the sound.

He just sat there, staring at the floor.

When he looked back at her, she could see it clearly in the luminescence of his eyes. While she was coming to her startling conclusion, Ethan had come to the exact same one.

The shooter never saw her.

"No," Cassie immediately clutched onto his arm, her voice so hushed that it was impossible for her tone's urgency to get through to him. Her fingernails pierced into his skin, searching for some way to wake him up from the trance he'd put himself in. "No, please--"

"Thank you for letting me love you," Ethan interrupted, and Cassie swore she could feel her heart stop beating, "I'm sorry I wasn't enough."

Panic. She'd been feeling trace amounts of it since the beginning, but it didn't really make itself known until now. Cassie had dealt with severe anxiety attacks her whole life, she was medicated for it, but never in her life had she felt a panic like this one. This panic, this fear, this numbness, it all combined into one singular emotion after Ethan spoke.

Guilt.

He could've ran. He could've followed Rue, his family, wherever she'd gone when the gunshots fired into the hallway. He could have ducked into a storage supply closet and hid beneath the linen bedsheets, or ducked around the corner and hidden in the nearby office. Ethan had options, but still, he chose to follow Cassie.

This was all her fault, wasn't it?

"No, Ethan, please." Cassie didn't know she was crying until she tasted the salt on her tongue. When he made a slow movement to expose himself to the shooter, she pulled him backwards, only for him to forcibly remove her hand from his arm. Briefly, he gazed at her with some form of regretful acceptance swimming in his irises, though, it didn't last long. "Please don't--"

Ethan rose to his feet with his hands outstretched in front of him, looking the shooter right in the eye.

"My name is Ethan Caldwell." His tone was almost relaxed in nature, but Cassie could see his Adam's apple move frantically as he spoke. Fear. "I'm a pediatric surgeon, I-I operate on children--"

"You kill them, you mean."

"What? No, I-I perform surgery on... on kids, kids who are sick, or-- or dying. Please, sir, just... don't shoot, please."

As hard as he tried to stay calm, to keep his voice steady, to accept his fate, the fact of the matter was this; he was staring down the barrel of a handgun with an angry, older white man on the opposite side of it. And if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that this man wanted him dead.

In the corner of his eye, he saw someone move. Dark, glowing skin caught his attention, though, it seemed to be paling the longer he focused on it, almost as if the person were losing blood. As if the person were shot.

And when he noticed the waist-length hair, he knew exactly who it was.

The shooter was saying something, going off on a tangent about surgery, or operations, or liars, or something else of that nature, but Ethan didn't care, because his niece was bleeding out on the floor five feet away, her terror-stricken eyes latched directly onto his own.

"You're not even listening."

(In the end, ignoring the psychotic man with a gun easily landed at the top of the Ethan Caldwell's Stupidest Moments list.)

The pistol moved to aim higher, and soon enough, it was pointed at his head with a violent, shaking hand.

He looked back at Rue, one last time, before turning back to the rageful man standing in front of him. Out of all the ways his life would end, he never imagined it would be so gruesome.

"Please, I--"

"You people never listen."

When the sixth gunshot fired, it blasted through the front of Ethan's skull.

Cassie had always loved the rain.

Growing up in New York, it was comforting to her when the grey clouds rolled in, teardrop-shaped sprinkles falling gently onto the pavement. It was easy to romanticize, even with all the rats and the stray needles and the garbage overflowing from the bins. It was peaceful, a gentle mist on her skin, calming her in a way nothing else could.

Seattle rain was different, she soon learned, but not necessarily in a bad way. It rained a lot there, which she appreciated, but it was also so much heavier. Soaking her shoes, leaving her raincoat drenched for hours as it sat on the communal coat hanger in the locker room. There were also a lot of rainstorms in Seattle, but those had a much different affect on her psyche.

Cassie never liked storms.

Rain was one thing, but a real, fanatical, thundering storm was entirely something else. The natural explanation for her distaste was the whole loudness of it all, as that had been an anxiety trigger of hers for as long as she'd been alive. But it was also the danger of them, the unsureness, the not knowing.

For all she knew, a rainstorm could turn into a windstorm, which could turn into a tornado, which could turn into a cyclone, and then a hurricane, and before she knew it, she'd be fully submerged beneath a violent sea which desperately longed to swallow her whole.

The bullet shot straight through Ethan's head, and when his blood splattered across Cassie's face, it felt a lot like that.

Wine-colored brain matter pooled in lopsided circle around her feet, the thick, gelatinous fluid soaking her white sneakers and infiltrating the soles of her feet. And she watched it, watched it flow from the wound as if a shallow dam had burst within the confines of Ethan's skull.

She could taste remnants of it on her lips, no matter how desperately she fought to keep her mouth shut, the metallic tang sending her into a blind, helpless, frozen state of hysteria. Her entire body erupted into a fit of vibrations, head frantically twitching and eyelids glued open, forcing her to stare. Not allowing her to look away, not even for a moment.

Ethan didn't look away from her, either.

When he was alive, he had the most beautiful eyes. A dark chestnut brown, soft, comforting. Cassie didn't recognize the cold, desolate, vacant eyes she was gazing into now.

Dead.

She didn't hear it when the shooter's footsteps receded, leaving her free to remove herself from the blackening puddle of blood and brain fluid which soaked her scrubs. She didn't hear the sickening squelch when the bullet wound on Ethan's forehead finally stopped oozing, or the last, life-ending breath of a nurse a few feet away. She didn't hear the the deafening bang of the gun firing off from the main lobby, nor the screaming that soon followed.

All Cassie could hear was her own heartbeat, a tragic yet vicious reminder that Ethan no longer had one.

The constant thud pounded in her eardrums like a ticking bomb, counting down the seconds before it would be her turn to die, too. The man could still be there, he could be watching, waiting, all for her.

"Cassie?"

It wasn't as if she'd never died before, or even as if she'd never been shot before (she had Izzie Stevens to thank for that one). Truthfully, Cassie was surprised that she was frightened at all. She was a doctor. A surgeon. She'd seen people die, and she'd seen people bleed out. This shouldn't have been any different, right? It was normal. It was routine. It was just another day on the job.

"Cassie, I... I know you're over there... please..."

Except that it wasn't.

It started that way, with all of the Mark drama and the bagels for breakfast and the depressing patients and the relationship talk, but it wasn't. It wasn't normal to be talking to your friends one second and to be shot at the next. It wasn't normal to shoot people you didn't know, and it wasn't normal to get a bullet put through your head just because you existed at the wrong time and place. Nothing about any of it was normal.

"God dammit, Cassie, just help me!"

Rue yelled out into the empty hallway, and for the first time since the bullet lodged itself into Ethan's brain, Cassie let herself breathe.

Rue was alive.

When Cassie stood up, her legs shook beneath her body, the sensation of the red liquid drenching both her shoes and her scrubs making her choke back a gag. Carefully, she stepped over Ethan's limp, lifeless body, and with bated breath, she turned, slowly, bracing herself for the carnage she was about to witness.

This time, she wasn't able to stifle her vomit.

Emptying her stomach onto the floor, Cassie clamped her eyes shut, a suffocating sob making it's way up her throat as she did so. Whatever she expected, this sight was a million fucking times worse.

They were all dead.

But as much as she wanted to grieve, to cry, to scream, to give up, she couldn't. Because Rue was still alive, and Cassie would be damned if she let her die, too.

"Jesus fuck, are you okay?"

When Cassie knelt down by her side, Rue stared up at her with some form of wild concern in her gaze, and it took Cassie a moment to realize that the concern was for her.

"I should be asking you that."

The words that left Cassie's mouth were broken by a crack in her voice, a high pitched sort of whine that let Rue know she was holding back tears. Though, as much as she cared about Cassie, that wasn't her main concern.

The entirety of Rue's legs were covered in blood, to the point where Cassie had to search for the entry wound on her skin; she found it at the middle of her right thigh, directly to the left of her femur. She breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw that it didn't hit the bone.

"It could, fuck, i-it could be worse," Rue winced, hastily attempting to apply pressure to the gaping hole in her skin. Her next sentence came out in a shaking breath, a mixture of the pain finally catching up to her and the reality of their situation finally settling in. "Hah, I-I could've ended up like Ethan."

Cassie didn't laugh.

"You saw that?"

Rue chuckled, the stray tear falling down her cheek betraying her indifferent facade. "Asshole couldn't even manage to say goodbye to his own niece, huh?"

Cassie wanted to cry, too. Ethan's blood dried quickly, the stripes painting her face reminding her of the fact that he was gone. But she didn't have a right to cry, did she? He wasn't her relative, or her boyfriend, and they weren't that close. Rue had a right to cry, not her. So with trembling fingertips, she wiped the remaining tears from her face, forming streaks of red underneath her eyes as if she were preparing for battle.

"Do you know if it's a through and through?" she changed the subject, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. "Or is it still in there?"

With her free hand, Rue held up a bloodied, hard piece of metal with a pained grin. "Fished the little f-fucker out myself-- ouch, dude!"

When Cassie applied pressure, she was far from gentle. She knew it would hurt, maybe more than Rue could take, but it was necessary. Now that her mind was clear -- well, as clear as it could possibly be -- she remembered that no matter what, when someone has a GSW and there are no medical responders nearby, you always apply pressure, and you press hard. Even a minor gunshot can turn fatal if the person bleeds out.

"Okay, I need a tourniquet," she mumbled to herself, searching helplessly for one nearby. Of course, people don't typically leave them laying around in random hallways, so, it seemed as though she was out of luck. Or, she would have been, until she got an idea. "Rue, apply pressure really quick."

Doing as told, Rue placed both of her hands over the wound, as only one of Cassie's remained. Using a combination of her free hand and her elbow, Cassie managed to grab ahold of the bottom of her scrub top, before harshly ripping it across the bottom hem. It was times like these when she thanked her past self for accumulating arm strength, because her scrubs seemed to be made out of a shockingly durable material.

After ripping the piece of cloth all the way around her waist in a semi-even circle, Cassie quickly slipped her hand out from beneath Rue's, tying the fabric across the top of her affected leg, tightly.

"Jesus christ motherfucking shit--"

Cassie couldn't blame her. She'd been shot before, too, and fuck, it felt like her insides were on fire while she was still conscious. Even in the midst of a fucking shooting, she could still find it in herself to be thankful for not having to experience that again.

"You're gonna be fine," she told her, more than relieved that she actually meant it. "You're gonna be okay, Rue."

Rue laughed again, her head thrown back onto the tile out of exhaustion and blood loss, and Cassie knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth.

Humor. They should add that one to the list.

"Yeah, unlike--"

"Don't say Ethan."

The bleeding slowed down, but it refused to stop.

There really was only so much Cassie could do, let alone without any surgical equipment. Even after her tears had diminished, and she'd successfully convinced herself not to think about Ethan's corpse a few feet away, her hands were still shaking. Her entire body was, really, as she'd been actively fighting off an impending panic attack every second after the first gunshot.

Rue, despite her heartbeat returning closer to it's usual nature, was still laughing. But as dark as Cassie's humor was, she found it difficult to see the amusement.

"Seriously, how-- how much of an idiot do you have to be to-- to ignore the guy with a gun?" Rue's giggling was loud, ignoring Cassie's advice to shut up before the shooter came back. "I thought he was smart. He-- he used to teach me all that advanced m-math crap growing up, I-I thought he would be smart."

"Okay, can you--"

"Smart people aren't supposed to die like that," she continued, her voice losing it's hilarity, leading Cassie to pause her movements. "Smart people don't get s-shot in the head, I-I mean, why did he get shot? That doesn't... why... why did he die, Cassie?"

When Cassie removed her stare from Rue's leg and moved it back to her face, she saw that she was crying. Hard.

The question gave Cassie a disturbing case of deja-vu.

She remembered it clearly, breaking down into a fit of sobs on the floor of her laundry room, broken glass shattered around her and digging into her skin. She remembered the way her throat tore when she screamed at Mark, where did he go?, heartbroken and grieving and endlessly in pain, because George was her family. She knew what it felt like, and she knew it painfully well.

Flashbacks. Cassie hated this one the most.

"I don't know." All she could do now was hold Rue's hand, searching for some way to comfort her, but ultimately coming up empty. "I wish I did."

It was quiet, now. Neither of them said anything else, because truthfully, there wasn't much left to say. Rue would be okay. Cassie wouldn't dare to say it out loud, but really, she was lucky, given the current situation. Had the bullet been just a fraction of an inch to the right, the prospect of saving her life would have been slim to none. But it was all okay. Rue would be okay, and eventually, she would be too.

They just stayed there, Rue laying on her back and Cassie applying pressure to the injury with her free hand, waiting until help would inevitably arrive.

Everything was okay.

Or, it was, until the thundering, agonizing, gut-wrenching screams interrupted the silence.

THREE MINUTES EARLIER.

Even on a bad day, Mark didn't scare easy.

He'd never been the type of person to freak out, at least, not in the usual context. He'd get angry, or annoyed, or sad, but he'd never panic, not even if something was truly worth panicking over. Looking back, there had only been three times in his life when he'd genuinely felt fear.

The first, when he was in the middle of a surgery, all the way over in New York, and got a call that Cassie had been shot.

The second, when he watched paramedics wheel Cassie's cold, lifeless body into the trauma room, shortly after one of them reffered to her as DOA.

The third, just now, hiding from a psychotic man with a gun, when he realized that he had no fucking clue if she was still alive.

The worst part, was that he didn't even have time to think about it, because one of her best friends was slowly bleeding out beneath him, and he'd be damned if he let her go through that again.

"We have to get him out of here, Mark, we have to get him out of here, he could come back--"

Out of all the people he could have been stuck with, the woman his ex-girlfriend slept with would have been his last choice. Unfortunately for him, though, he didn't seem to have one. Granted, he did like Lexie, before all of it. He liked that she was a good friend to Cassie, especially compared to the other two-thirds of the twisted triplets, who slowly yet successfully managed to shut her out undetected. Lexie was nice, and a good surgeon, and Mark sort of respected her, but fuck, she was getting on his nerves.

"Lexie, he's losing blood. We can't move him."

(This was why he refused to work with residents.)

"But--"

"Just shut up and help!"

Alex writhed beneath them, a groan escaping his lips when they turned him onto his side to check for an exit wound.

They'd found him in the elevator, alone, a bullet penetrating his chest, blood slowly seeping out of the indentation and onto the ground. He'd been unconscious, and so Mark and Lexie had dragged him into the office in the main lobby, locking the door and closing the blinds to avoid being seen. They grabbed pillows for his head, creating a sort of makeshift bed on top of the desk; it was a good idea, aside from the fact that they had few medical supplies that were actually useful.

Blood poured from Alex's chest and across his torso, and Lexie had to close her eyes to avoid bursting into tears.

"Nothing," Mark sighed, his gloved hands holding Alex upright. "Oh, damnit, the bullet's still in there somewhere. We're just gonna have to wing it."

His voice was calm, which was shocking, considering the fact that his heart beat was going about a mile a minute.

Lexie took a step back from the desk when Alex was placed on his back once again, her reddening cheeks and glistening eyes on full display. She knew that Alex could see her crying, and she didn't want him to be scared, but her efforts to keep herself together seemed to be failing miserably. "I-I don't know what to do."

Mark looked at her, looked at the tears which had begun to pour down her cheeks, and felt a sudden urge to start crying himself. It really was a lot to take.

"Start an IV, I'll set up a chest tube."

Alex let out a cry of anguish, praying to god that he'd pass out from the pain. It wasn't manly, by any means, but he honestly didn't know how much longer he could go with his chest on fucking fire. Mark ignored it, because he knew that in a few moments, the pain would be exponentially worse.

"You're gonna be okay, Alex, all right?"

Lexie came back to the desk, IV and breathing tube in hand. She wrapped it around his ears and into his nose, hearing Mark preparing the drain behind her. Alex, his voice stuttering and body twitching, looked up at her once she was done, a semblance of both rage and terror shining in his eyes.

"I-I'm gonna kick that guy's ass when I see him."

He started choking on his own blood after he spoke, and that's when Mark and Lexie knew they couldn't wait any longer.

"Alex," Mark emphasized, speaking loudly over the gasps and gurgles of the man below him. "Now I need to put in a chest tube. You with me? Okay?"

"No, no chest tube--" his words were cut off with a heavy wheeze, proving to them that he did, in fact, require one.  It was risky, sure, but without one, he'd be dead within minutes; and he knew this, but then again, he also knew it would hurt like a bitch. "I'm okay, don't-- don't cut me."

Mark promptly ignored him. "Lexie, you get the betadine ready, and I'll do the rest, okay?"

"Okay, okay..."

Lexie couldn't look at Alex when she rubbed the numbing cream on the area they were about to cut into, knowing that with no other painkillers, he was essentially fucked. It was going to hurt, badly, even worse than the gunshot that was the cause; this time, there was no shock factor. There was no adrenaline rush, or trauma response, or any subconscious defense mechanism that could help him.

This would, in it's simplest form, be torture.

He could feel it coming, the way Lexie held his hand and stared at the ground. The way Mark hesitated, despite the fact that he knew had to do it anyways. He felt it when Mark repositioned his hand, steadying it, getting it ready to make the cut.

And once he did, Alex knew there was no turning back.

The scream he let out was almost inhuman.

"Oh my god," Lexie rushed out, watching with wide eyes as Mark sliced through the skin on Alex's chest. Another blood curdling scream, and she was openly sobbing above him, carefully running a hand over head as if that would do anything at all to help. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."

"Shut him up!" Mark barked out, the screams only growing in volume. Lexie just stood there, and so with pronounced fervor, he ordered, "Lexie. Shut. Him. Up."

Lexie didn't want to shut him up. She knew she needed to, she knew there was a possibility that the shooter would hear him and come back to finish them off, but god, she just couldn't. He was already feeling so much pain, physically and mentally, and she couldn't add onto that. She couldn't add onto the hurt, because it was already all too much.

"I-I can't..."

"Lexie shut him up!" Mark didn't have the time to be nice, voicing Lexie's inner thoughts in a tone that left no room for argument. "If that guy with the gun hears screaming, he's gonna head this way. Do something to shut him up, now!"

(She couldn't do it, but she did anyways.)

A towel was shoved into Alex's mouth, Lexie holding either end of it tightly against his face to prevent future sounds from coming out. He was still writhing in pain, very loudly, but it was muffled enough to be contained inside the office walls.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Okay, go easy, don't cause any more damage."

Cassie spoke in a pained whisper, her feet dragging roughly against the floors of the hospital.  Rue's left arm was slung over her shoulders, her right hand gripping the other woman's for balance. As demented as it was, they were actually glad to pass through the deserted hallways, because them being empty meant that the people in them were still alive.

"Dude, you are quite literally making me walk off a gunshot," Rue snapped, putting even more of her body weight onto her shoulders simply out of spite. "You've reached your-- ouch, fuck, you've reached your limit on telling me to do stuff."

With a sigh, Cassie paused, readjusting her hold across Rue's back before starting up again. She was fully aware that it was an idiotic horror movie cliche, going towards the sound, but she couldn't help but feel like she recognized the voice. And if she did recognize it, if someone she loved was dying, there wasn't a fucking chance that she would just sit back and let them.

Moments after they made it to the main lobby, the screaming got louder, and louder, and louder, only for it to be completely cut off, the area growing silent once again.

Cassie saw that the door to the office was closed, the blinds shut, and it only took half a second for her to speed up her steps, Rue's injury be damned.

When they made it to the door, it was locked.

"Is somebody in there?" Receiving no response, Cassie briefly glanced at Rue, before they both heard whispering and shuffling coming from inside, which essentially answered her question. "Um, I'm--"

Rue removed herself from Cassie's hold, resting against the side of the doorframe when she shrieked--

"Jesus, just open the fucking door!"

"Shut up!" Cassie hissed out, fully aware that they were fully exposed and being quite loud. If the shooter was anywhere around, he'd be able to hear them. Sending Rue one last warning glare, she stepped closer, her voice quiet yet clear against the door when she said, "This is Dr. Cassie Harper, I'm a surgical resident... um, if someone in there is hurt, I-I can help, I just... I need you to unlock the door."

The whispering and the shuffling from inside grew louder, until it stopped directly on the opposite side of the wood.

When Mark opened the door, for just a moment, he swore he was met with an angel.

"Cass."

He seemed to be frozen in place, his entire body tensing up and forcing his feet to remain planted. She was alive.

"Oh, hey."

Cassie breathed out a grateful sigh of relief when she saw it was him, her words coming out as a mere whisper from the tip of her tongue. But before she could even think about the fact that Mark was safe, she looked over his shoulder to see the culprit of all the screaming; the sight made her blood run cold, her alleviation dimming and the fear coming back at full force.

It was Alex.

Her expression dropped into one of alarm, and so did Mark's, only, for a different reason. All he could do was stare at her, stare at the blood on her face and soaking her scrubs and her shoes, his gaze tracking her every movement when she brushed past him and made a beeline towards the side of Alex's makeshift bed.

From one look, he knew it wasn't her blood, but that didn't lessen his concern; if anything, it deepened further into full blown dread. Every hair on his body stood on it's end, a worried breath catching in the back of his throat when he saw how her entire body was shaking.

(What the hell happened to her?)

Meanwhile, Lexie didn't notice any of that. Truthfully, she hadn't processed Cassie's appearance at all. It was as if the world stopped turning, she and Rue being the only ones left. It would be a lie to say that the entire time she was saving Alex, she wasn't wondering if Rue needed to be saved, too. But she didn't need to be saved. She was okay. She was--

She was bleeding?

Rue knew exactly what Lexie was thinking, even before she opened her mouth. "It's seriously not that b--"

Without blinking, Lexie pushed past Mark, her hands moving to cup the sides of Rue's face when she crashed her lips onto her own.

A beat passed, and Rue reciprocated it, only breaking the kiss to wince in pain, a hand carefully placed over her injury; Lexie noticed this as she pulled away, not letting go of the death grip on her cheeks. Her gaze quickly danced across Rue's features, a hand moving to stroke her hair back away from her face.

"I'm sorry, I-I just..." she sniffled, "You're hurt."

Mark, seeming to snap out of his Cassie-induced stupor long enough to at least acknowledge the situation at hand, finally turned towards Rue, his gaze immediately drawn to the bullet wound on her thigh.

"You good?"

Rue, who's previously soft, doe eyes were focused on her ex-girlfriend as if she were the entire world, snapped her head towards him, her expression dropping down into a scowl when she did so.

"I got shot."

Mark took that as a no. "Right."

Lexie willfully ignored him, gently ushering Rue inside and creating some sort of mock-hospital bed on the floor using some of the extra pillows and bedsheets. Alex was still awake, his chest tube secure, but he was far too incoherent from the pain to notice the new additions.

Shortly thereafter, Rue layed down, choosing to get comfortable in her seat. She had no plans of going anywhere until she was carried out by a SWAT team, or something.

"Alex?"

Cassie's voice was soft, fragile, even. So unlike herself, that it managed to not only silence the rest of the room, but get Alex to acknowledge her presence even in the midst of his deliriousness.

"I-Izzie?"

Mark would have laughed, if the situation weren't so serious. But even then, he found himself biting the inside of his cheek out of resistance.

"What? No!" Cassie's tone left no room for him to think otherwise, despite the fact that she couldn't help it when a breathy laugh escaped her. "Okay, now you have to stay alive so I can kick your ass for that."

Alex chuckled too, as much as he could.

Neither of them had realized that Lexie had moved to the opposite side of the table, taking Alex's blood pressure while Cassie had been too busy being mistaken for her least favorite blonde.

"BP is ninety palp--"

Cassie's head snapped up to look at her, finally allowing herself to be relieved that Lexie was okay, too. "That's not good, Lex."

The blonde nodded, equally stressed about losing her friend due to lack of medical equipment. "I know, I know, we gave him a chest tube, but--"

"He's losing a lot of blood," Mark interjected, moving to lean down directly over Cassie's shoulder and get a better look at Alex's wound, the side of his chest pressed against her back. For half a second, he allowed himself to savor the closeness, even in the middle of it all. "Damn, he needs a transfusion. I don't... I don't know what we're gonna do."

This didn't happen to Mark.

He didn't freeze up, or shut down, or let his mind run wild with different possibilities. When his patient was in trouble, Mark just fixed it. Every time, he knew what to do. He knew how to handle the situation. But this?

This, he didn't know how to fix.

"I-I can feel his heartbeat speeding up," Lexie continued, her voice unsteady. "I-I can-- that isn't good, that's not good--"

Cassie paused, allowing herself to feel the fear one last time, before she forced herself to get over it.

Fight.

Standing up straight, Cassie reached into the blood-coated pocket of her scrubs, taking out the bottle of Xanax which luckily hadn't fallen out. She walked over to a separate table, dumped out three or four of the pills, and promptly crushed them with her elbow, grinding them roughly against the hard surface.

Mark, Lexie, and Rue just stared.

"Are those your anxiety meds?"

Mark's question came out incredulously, not glancing away from her for even a moment when she scooped up the pills, which were now a powdered substance, instead, and gathered them in the palm of her hand.

Briefly, Cassie raised a brow in his direction.

"Yeah. Why, you want one?"

Without hesitation, she opened up Alex's IV, sprinkling the powder into the bag so it mixed with the fluid. It was risky, very risky, but there was a very likely possibility that Alex would've had a heart attack if she didn't do it. She just hoped to god it wouldn't backfire, because she really couldn't handle the guilt of two deaths on her conscience. 

Vaguely, she could hear Rue whine something along the lines of, "Wait, why does he get drugs and I don't?"

With bated breath, Cassie watched the numbers on the blood pressure stethoscope, her anxiety rising when it didn't immediately change. But then, within a few seconds, Alex's heartbeat returned to normal; well, as normal as it could possibly be while he was fucking dying.

(In an instant, the fear forced it's way back into Cassie's psyche, but she didn't even care, because Alex was okay, for the time being.)

Nobody said a thing, other than Alex, who let out some sort of groan of relief before choking out, "Sorry I-I called you Izzie."

Cassie forced a smile down at him, hoping he felt at least a little bit of comfort at the action. She dusted off the excess powder onto her scrub pants, but feeling the excess blood that remained damp, she cringed, moving to wipe it off on her scrub top, instead. She then turned to Mark, determination written all over her features when she told him--

"I'll go get the blood."

This time, it was Mark who's heart rate had raised to a dangerous level.

"No you fucking won't."

He didn't curse at her often, but when he did, he somewhat reminded Cassie of a middle schooler who'd just learned the word for the first time.

It wasn't that she wanted to leave the safety of the office. It wasn't that she was just bursting at the seams with excitement over making a trip to the first floor blood bank and back. It was simply that she couldn't sit there and do nothing, and she sure as hell couldn't sit there and watch Alex bleed out right in front of her.

Alex was one of her best friends, and Cassie loved him, and if anyone in that room was unfit to be practicing medicine on him, it was her.

"Mark," she emphasized, her chest heaving, "I can't be here right now, okay? I-I can't--"

"Cass," he countered, using the same tone she'd used with him. "That's insane. No, no, I'll go."

Cassie took a step closer to the door.

"You're the only attending here, okay? You know what to do, and... I can't be here, Mark." Her voice cracked when she said his name, though, she refused to cry again. He didn't say anything else, and so she turned to Lexie, who's tears had dried up on the apples of her cheeks. "Lex, help Mark keep him alive, and keep an eye on Rue. I'll be right back."

The door swung open, and she stepped through, only pausing when Mark's voice called out after her.

"Come back to me, Cass."

Cassie stopped in the doorway, her neck craning to the side, her softened gaze meeting his own.

"I will."

By the time she'd gathered the blood, Cassie had walked past four different dead bodies.

The silence had infiltrated her mind, her own pounding heart beating in her ears, only reminding her of the way Alex's heart had been beating out of his chest only minutes before.

Despite the blood coating her skin, and the ground beneath her, and the walls surrounding her, and the people lying motionless against said walls, Cassie moved at a rapid pace, the thudding in her ears increasing with each and every step she took.

Alex was still alive. Alex was going to stay alive.

At some point, her quick steps turned into a jog, the supply cart full of blood bags and leftover medical tools rattling as it cleared a straight path for her down the emptied halls.

Alex needed the blood. She had the blood. Alex would be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

When Cassie turned the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks, her body recoiling and her fingertips loosening their hold on the cart.

The first thing she saw was the gun in his hand.

Slowly, her eyes dragged themselves up his torso, his ironed, button-down dress shirt and his coffee-colored jacket, the tailored trim telling her that he had someone. Someone who cared.

Or, he used to.

Cassie wasn't afraid to die.

It was something she'd been sure of her entire life; well, for the majority of it, at least. She'd died before, and it wasn't all that bad. If she died, she'd get to see her mom again. She'd get to see Denny, and George, and maybe even meet her grandparents for the first time. It might hurt, and she might not be able to say goodbye to the people she loved, but she wasn't afraid. Not in the slightest.

Dying was scary, but death was far from it.

The man placed his finger over the trigger, and that's when she finally saw his face. That's when she recognized it.

Cassie wasn't afraid to die.

She wasn't afraid when she pushed the cart away, or when she put her hands back down at her sides, leaving her defenseless. She wasn't afraid when she took a step forwards, saying his name with such understanding and certainty that he was convinced she had a death wish.

Cassie wasn't afraid to die, because it was her fault that so many other people did.

"Mr. Clark."

author's note ━━━━━━━━
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