Convalescence

Like I'm Gonna Lose You

The dreamscape shimmers gold - something, Cassie would have chalked up to synesthesia, if she didn't know about magic. Sometimes, it crept out even in her sleep, different pathways into her subconscious intersected to form a weirdly colored scene, or a smell so real, she wakes up swearing she smells it. Like, the time she dreamed in pink and woke up smelling freshly baked sugar cookies.

"Where am I?"

It looks like the Annex but...darker. A endless void dotted with galaxies swirls, and in it, she sees the past, the present, and the future. Where the Annex had been becomes a mere shadow of something that had, at one time, been greater than the space in time, it occupied. The void - it comes after...after, something she can't quite make out, a blurred curl of color and chaos forming a far-flung nebula.

"You're at the Annex, Cass." it's Jake's voice twirling down in front of her, as if the man himself had just dropped out of the void. "Don't you recognize it?"

"No." Cassie shakes her head. The disembodied voice laughs, and she can almost see the edges of a grin flickering at about Jake-height. "Where is everyone?"

"When Lamia returned with her Serpent Brothers..." Jake's voice grows soft, distant, longing for something, but she doesn't know what. She doesn't understand what she's seeing - how she's hearing Jake, seeing his smile, even though, he's not there. "We were ripped from reality. She tore the fabric, Cass. It was too much for the Library. It detached, took everyone with it. You were lucky to make it out alive. If Jenkins hadn't used that spell..."

"Spell? What spell?" Cassie is panicking, now, and she's not afraid to admit her. Her friends, her best friend, they've all been torn through time.

"Some spell changing your fate." Jake murmurs, and she can just see the glimmer of his hand reaching for her cheek. She can feel a faint tingle, but not him. It's not the same as Jake's touch. "I made Jenkins promise that no matter what happened, you'd never be dealt the hand we were. Your fate was separated from ours. I can no longer sense your magic, Cass."

"But...." Cassie's eyes burn with tears. "But, Jake, it didn't have to be this way...I could join you."

"No!" loud protest, Jake's form flickers into view for a fraction of second, and he's gone with a softer sigh. "Cass, what I did, I did to keep you in a reality that doesn't look as bleak as this one. It's not even reality, it's a sea of time, and every day we sink a little deeper."

"Jake!"

"I'm sorry, sweet girl." oh, that nickname. Familiar and foreign all at once, in a world where everything is the way she never wanted it to be. "It had to be this way. Maybe, one day, the Library will repair itself enough to return but until then...move on, Cass."

"NO!" Cassie finally screams. "I will find a way to get you back, Jacob Stone!"

"There's no way, Cass." his form is flickering, again, fading, melting into the endless void around her. Everything is melting and dripping into a black nothingness. "Love...you..."

"Jake! No!"

...

The dream is a fading memory when she wakes, but the tears remain, and her heart tattoos a heavy rhythm against her ribs. All she remembers is reality being torn and Jake being gone. The frantic sort of fear returns and it takes everything in her to look over at where he should be. Through the glassy blur of tears, she finds his sleeping form; arms tucked beneath his head, t-shirt pulled taut over his shoulders, and a peaceful expression softening the lines on his face.

"Oh, thank you, whoever you are that keeps him here with me!" she chokes out a teary prayer to whatever deity happened to be out there. "Thank you for not taking him."

Whether it be the remnants of fear, or the lingering gold shimmer of a dream, something pulls Cassie down to him. She hovers over him, kissing broad, strong shoulders, trailing strings of tender kisses up onto his head, crying into his hair because he's here. He's not gone.

"Cassie?" Jake's sleepy mumble is muffled by the pillow, he'd smashed his face into on the way to dreamland. "Cassie, what are you doi n'?"

"I had a dream, a nightmare," Cassie sobs into his hair, fingers sinking deep into the dark locks. She tugs on them as if needing affirmation that he is there beneath her, that she is touching him. "Lamia and her stupid serpents returned and they took you and everyone away from me. You made Jenkins promise to separate me from the Library, to protect me."

"Cassie, slow down, darlin'." Jake rolls over beneath her, blue eyes heavy with sleep when he finds her wet face in the dark. "Lamia and those snakes of hers are long gone, baby. They've been vanquished."

"I know it was just a dream but you were gone and I couldn't get you back and I can't..." her words trail off into a broken sob.

"I'm here, baby. I promise. I'm right here." he shifts until he can get his hands up to gently cup her face. "Cassie, I need you to look at me. I'm here, sweetheart. I'm always here."

Her eyes are still glassy with tears and he can see the raging storm of emotions she just can't get a handle on when she finally meets his. It takes him only a second to pull her down into a kiss. The intensity takes her by surprise but she settles into it with a soft noise of appreciation, as his hands reach for whatever part of her he can find in the dark.

Her breasts are small and soft in his hands and he likes the sounds she makes when he gently rolls her nipples under his thumb through her thin tank top.

"Please, Jake?" she moves against him, rubbing against him until he's almost aching. "Please? I just need to feel something."

Without another word, he rolls them over, and reaches for her shorts. He gets them down to her knees and she kicks them the rest of the way along with her panties while he rids himself of his sweatpants. She eagerly opens herself up to him, bending her knees to cradle his hips when he sinks down, easing himself inside of her.

It's less about sex and more about the need to feel, the need to know she's not alone. So, she holds him close, tenderly combs his hair with every deliberate push of his hips, sighing and whimpering at the feel of him, inside her. Something finally feels real. She listens to every breath, anchors herself in his soft moans and noises as the end draws near.

When they've both come apart, a little twitchy and sensitive with the aftermath, she merely rolls them over. A soft sigh escaping as she settles him deeper inside of her, rolling her hips absently until he's hard, again, and she's pulling and pushing, squeezing him, milking him for everything he's got, sobbing into his t-shirt as everything comes apart again.

She refuses to let him go, keeps him sunk deep inside of her, until the soft gold of the sun rises to meet them for round three and the last memories of the dream disappear into dawn.

Her and Jake talk all day, of things they fear, of memories they hold onto, the connection they share. They talk of loving harder and deeper and how they'll work to prove it to each other.

She never has the dream, again.