Lost,
Where was she?
Flung so deeply into her own mind that Cassie could feel the unfamiliarity of the darkness. How much colder it is. How much lonelier. Somehow a deeper shade of navy blue than she was used to. It was similar to taking a plunge from the ocean's vast cerulean sandy bed, into a black chasm far below.
The water was different, and the feeling of solitude, of isolation all the more real.
Cassie felt... Cold. The kind of cold that allowed you to see your breath solidify before your very eyes. She told herself quietly that, and soon found her arms wrapping around a black silhouette she could only assume to be her body, or what remained of it, after the tentacles had consumed her. Existing, yet not quite above non-existence.
Click,
She could hear the switch of her tape recorder flick, plunging her into a memory where she remembered nothing but pain. Her head, her eyes, every fiber of her being. Cassie remembered straining her bruised wrists against leather restraints that were simply too tight. She could feel her hands grow cold. Her head locked in position with a metal brace, keeping her staring blankly into a bright, white operation lamp. She remembered being oh so exhausted, and yet she struggled to keep her eyelids from slipping. Voices came from a source she could see, and she wondered if she'd gone blind.
"Come now, Ms. Michaels. Don't make this any harder on yourself than it already is."
"Tell us. Tell us about your friends. Curt. Jacob. And Sai."
"We promise we'll make them suffer as much as you have."
Three names that were asked frequently to her. Three people who had been involved in the prevention of one Rocket plan, and one kidnapping. She was one of them, yet she could never answer any of their questions beyond their first names. Their last names? Where they lived? They'd only known each other for such a short time that she never even got to ask them that herself. 'And you think they're your friends? Just because you got stuck in a flooding cave together?' She remembered thinking. 'How pitiful, Cassie.'
Her eyes slid downwards, ready for slumber. But just as readily, the sound of a metal clang jolted her back awake. Eyes wide open, she wanted desperately to rise and run from the cold table she lay upon, but her ankles were also bound and she had nowhere to go. And she knew what struggling meant. She wasn't stupid enough to try and squirm out of her constraints. Again.
"Aww, aren't you sleepy Ms. Michaels? At least give me the satisfaction of watching y'all fall asleep, so we can have some fun together..."
That voice. It was always that voice. The one with the slight accent that she found so foreign and strange, but listening to it now, it was even more familiar than before. She never wanted to lay eyes on its owner. Always fleeting glances or brief glimpses.
'But you do know who it is.' That patronizing voice again. How did she find her way there? 'You've always known.'
Her body shuddered, and her throat was numb. She could neither feel pain, or know if it was alright. It simply felt as if wet cotton had been stuffed down its pipe, and she could neither speak nor breathe properly.
"Come on!"
A crack of a whip. So precise and accurate, lashing across her exposed torso. She wanted to scream out in pain, but only a pathetic cry came out. Her voice was long gone, and her eyes, growing only heavier. She was tired, oh so tired. She wanted to give in to the sleep, yes, just a moment's rest...
The metal clang sounded again, but she did not care for it anymore. She needed sleep.
"That's it, now..."
And then the cackle of electrons came and the metal brace clasping her head activated, sending waves of electricity into her temple, halting all thoughts and diminishing all feeling, and her eyes, they were back open once again. Her body convulsed, involuntarily struggling against their constraints and rattling the table,
While she watched the operation lamp flicker on,
And off.
"Please stop. Just stop."
Cassie was speaking, somehow. Ah, it was the voice of her present self, not the person she'd been witnessing the events through. The tape recorder hit stop, and the world faded around her. She was fortunate that day. It never did what she asked of it.
Once again, back in the void, clutching onto her own person for dear life. "I know what you mean now, so just drop it. Drop it and... Let me go. Please let me go." She whispered into her arm. Begging. Trembling from the cold. The utter pressure.
That voice, still ringing in her ear. So familiar and close, she could just reach out and touch it. Yet she despised it so. She burned in hatred at its very sound, and hated the fact it was forever burned into her memory. Why? Because it was Mathew. It'd always been Mathew, the sadistic blond agent who found joy in her utter pain and suffering. And that was why she despised him. That was why she had buried the memories so deeply in the void, and she found a strange swell of pride at how she was able to make herself forget so well.
But there, she was in the memory's storage, and she couldn't find her way out.
“You have been haunting my thoughts on and off, for a while now,”
Cassie let out a small gasp.
Her grip slowly loosened, and her eyes traversed the darkness to find the source of that distant voice. That warm, welcoming, forgiving voice that drowned Mathew's so easily. So foreign to her, for no one had ever spoken so kindly to her. Never as sincerely. But she found strength in knowing it wasn't foreign at all. She had known a voice like that, though briefly, she did.
“I thought that if I met you again it would all become clear to me, but the mystery has only grown.”
She could feel her heart beating, her silhouette filling itself to form her person. Cassie stood, and she proceeded to walk, to allow his voice to guide her. Was it even real? It had to be, and even if it wasn't, perhaps it would take her somewhere better, anywhere but there. And if it was, she could come back. She could come back home...
“One thing is for sure, dear Cassie. You intrigue me like no other has before.”
Cassie was running by then, drawn by the faint Spanish accent she could hear in his voice, 'Had it always been there?' She wondered, and it kept her going. Her gaze was set forward, to the direction of the disembodied voice of Salem. In the distance, she could see it, the light. A mere pinprick in the surrounding darkness, but the waters had receded and the deep was far behind. She picked up speed, moving faster and faster towards the ever glowing light. Until it swallowed her whole,
And she felt warm.
The white slowly materialized into colors. Shapes and forms. Her breathing grew deeper, heavier, as if strained by a physical exertion that did not happen. Her eyes slowly came back into focus, and found that they stung. She only had to flutter her eyelids for a tear drop or two to drip from them, falling onto the golden skin of the man that lay in her lap. But she didn't know that yet.
Her hands reached up to cover her face, and though the fabric of her gloves had managed to soak her tears, the feeling of it against her skin induced a flurry of negative emotions in her. It felt offensive and devious, so with a scowl on her face, she quickly yanked the cursed gloves off her scarred hands, only to notice a ribbon tied around her left wrist instead. Cassie blinked, and the burning hatred inside her diminished instead.
This ribbon, this black, intricately woven accessory was Salem's. She was just hearing about how big of a significance they held in his culture mere moments- at least, they felt like moments, ago. Thus, what was it doing on her wrist? Or had it always been there somehow? No, that... That couldn't be possible.
At this, the weight on her lap became apparent. Her eyes shifted their focus from her arm down to the man in question, laying right there on her lap. For a moment, Cassie was simply stunned. She stared on with confusion and uncertainty, wondering over and over if this was real, or just another hallucination. She tilted her hand down a bit too far, and the fedora came tumbling down from her head.
Flinching slightly, she managed to catch the hat before it could fall on Salem. She stared at it with wide eyes, observing how it had been turned right side out again, but finding the red R missing. Had that been his doing? Finding this hateful gift from Team Rocket, fixing it, and then returning it to her? Somehow, it was a lot less hateful that way. And a lot more precious. She wondered if perhaps it was the knowledge that it was now his gift to her that made it precious.
So Cassie placed it back onto her head.
Her hand, now bare, carefully reached down to brush gently over his cheek, feeling the warmth it radiated and relished in the way it made her fingertips tingle. She could feel his breath against her skin, and she breathed in his scent, reminding her of warm, sunny beaches and endless blue skies above a vast, pristine sea.
It was electric.
And she knew he was real, and everything she heard was real, and he'd always been there.
"You brought me back..."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Cassie knew she should be reacting differently to finding a man asleep on her lap. Realizing how he'd penetrated her bubble of privacy so smoothly it'd hardly trembled. But then, this wasn't just any man. This was Salem.
She found she couldn't move her eyes away from his sleeping face, and her hand simply refused to leave it. Instead, they lightly trailed the well bred contours of his face, tenderly brushing across his closed eyes, down the bridge of his nose, and over the serene smile he held on his lips. And even further down to his neck, over his Adam's apple, before resting contently on his strong chest where she felt his heart beating against her palm. "I don't understand what's happening to me..."
Leaning on her free hand for support, she began to imagine him with his eyes open, just so she could stare into his bright green irises. Her mind played her the memory her eyes had recorded, and she simply gazed into the projected image and memorized further the tranquil look upon his face. She didn't understand how, or why he seemed so at peace and content in their current life or death situation, but couldn't help but find it infectious. And so she smiled too. Grinning even, as emotion choked her softly, and she found she liked that as well. "I've never felt this before..."
Her hand, once again wandering, moved from his chest back to his face, and it brushed away his hair from his closed eyes. Her eyes instead caught sight of the dirt smeared across his forehead, and decided she didn't like how it stained the color of his skin. So she picked her gloves back up, simply to clean away the dirt with. As carefully as someone would tend to a raw wound.
As carefully as he'd tended her.
Cassie cold feel her heart beating against her chest. She could hear it in her ears. And she found it only beat faster when she laid her eyes on him, and only him, and she jumped slightly at the butterflies tickling her stomach. Yet it was different from the butterflies and flutters she'd felt before. It was far more intense and real,
And she was simply lost, but she felt found at the same time.
"How do you keep finding me?" She wondered softly, putting the gloves away neatly beside her before her hand dared to take hold of his shoulder. His muscles were stiff. But that was to be expected, with all the hard work he'd done just that morning. Thus, putting her free hand to work, she proceeded to gently massage both his shoulders, the way she did when Nine would come and lay on her lap.
Cassie knew he wasn't listening, yet she found an odd sense of comfort and satisfaction in it. Security, perhaps. It made her brave. She wasn't afraid anymore. So leaning down, she pressed her forehead against his, and as her eyes slid shut, she whispered quietly,
"But I'm glad you do. Thank you."