What You Lovingly Desire

Participants:

cassidy2_icon.gif coren2_icon.gif

Scene Title What You Lovingly Desire
Synopsis Coren is there for the second time Cassidy wakes up. They talk and she begins the healing process.
Date September 11, 2009

Oak Forest Hospital of Cook County, Illinois


Coren spent as long as he could at Cassidy's side. He rode along in the ambulance that transported her to the Oak Forest Hospital of Cook County, spent a frantic number of hours wait for them to assess the damage done to her and stitch up the most recent cuts. When she was finally assigned a room, he was near complete exhaustion. He barely slept the few days leading up to her abduction, and hadn't gotten a wink since she was abducted. After thanking Liz for coming with him and doing her part in making sure Azrael was unaware of their approach — and keeping him company at the hospital — he told her that he wanted her to make sure Lola got back to New York as discreetly as possible. Now that Cassidy's safe, his own welfare seemed to at least be addressed.

Eventually, however, he knew he needed to sleep, and had one of the nurses give him a sedative so he could rest up some. Now that he's come to — and discovered that Cassidy has already been awake once — he feels guilty for not being there for her when she woke up. Of course, he also feels guilty for having dragged her into this whole mess in the first place. He pulls his chair closer to her bed and takes up her hand, holding it against his lips to kiss it, as though maybe just maybe he can take away all of the pain. Of course he knows he can't. He brushes away a tear with her hand, giving it another kiss as he holds it between his hands. "I'm sorry," he whispers. Because deep down, he feels it's all his fault. He wasn't good enough to find the bastard the first time, to kill him. And because he got close to her and made her a target for that sadistic psychopath. It's all his fault.

The fingers in his hands twitch slightly, as Cassidy gives the first signs of waking. There are no thoughts at first, just a slow swelling of emotions as she slowly claws her way into consciousness. She takes a deep breath and then gives a long sigh, her eyes slowly opening. As they focus on the stark white of the room, her anxiety spikes for a moment. Fear and uncertainty rule for a moment, only until she feels him there in her head.

And for a moment, she's afraid to look at him. Afraid to see him and the pity or worse she just knows will be there, but still her head slowly turns towards him, until her eyes meet his. When she sees him, finally, the real him not the dream figure, the emotions she feels are almost overwhelming. Relief, joy and even guilt, just a few of the ones that wash over her. Her chin shakes slightly as she says, "Hey, partner." Her voice scratchy from the whole ordeal, cracks with the emotions that surge through her, but she tries to hold back.

If not for the fact that she has cuts all over her body, back and front, Coren would grab her right there and seize her in a hug. Of course, hopefully just knowing that will have something akin to the affect the actual huge would. Instead, he holds her hand as though it were a precious item he's unwilling to part with. The whole 'if you want it you'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands' idea is very much how he's holding her hand and considering her at this very moment. He gives the hand another kiss. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to break my promise, luv. I don't think I can not be overprotective of you." He may as well say it. She'll find it there somewhere in his thoughts or discover it on his own. Right now, nobody's getting close unless he says it's OK.

It may not be spoken, but the love he always hid because it was inappropriate and unprofessional — the love of his that was always ambiguous at best — is bright in his heart as he looks at her, even though his eyes are misty with tears. But they show little pity, just guilt and sadness. It will pain her to know that he feels that she's been broken, but he doesn't seem to blame Azrael. Just himself. He can still see that image in his head of her taking the scalpel to her wrist, and he knows the other things he saw, they weren't just horrifying waking nightmares. They were his Cassidy in so much pain she was going to end it all. Except she wasn't feeling much of anything then.

The fear and uncertainty that she feels are echoed in Coren. He doesn't need her own fear and uncertainty, having plenty of his own. For the first time in his life, he is truly at a loss. What to do, what to think, what to say. Only one thing comes to him, from what Liz told him the previous day. Tell her.

He holds the hand closer to him again and gives it another kiss. "Cassidy, I," he says, and the tears choke him up a moment. He wipes them away with his sleeve. "I love you. And I never want to lose you."

Even as she feels his need to hug her and hold her, Cassidy's desire to be held and feel protected by him are just as strong. For days the only thing that made her hang on so long was the quilt and his shirts. It was something that was his, something precious for her when the nightmarish days stretched on. She always felt like she died a little inside when they were taken away in favor of another day under Azrael's care.

"I think… " Cassidy starts quietly, the kiss to her hand makes her heart skip a beat, "… I don't care anymore." The soft touch of a smile is on her quivering lips. She gives a small sob, but not from sorrow. "I've only ever only feel safest with you." No, she's very much happy to see him. She's always worn her emotions out there for all to see, hard not too when your often bombarded with the emotions of others, but when it came to her own heart, she never really saw the signs in her partner, not like the others. She was afraid, too. So many times she questioned herself, when she couldn't feel anything from him. Tears slide down her cheeks to fall into her red hair as it fans out on her pillow.

She's not about to make him give up her hand, so ignoring the painful pulling of her stitches, Cassidy reaches across to brush fingers across his cheek. Though her fingers shake slightly, they brush tenderly at the moisture left by his tears. As she does, she catches sight of her bandaged wrist and she suddenly feels deep guilt and embarrassment as she remembers. "I'm……" Her voice breaks, as she stared at the wrist, as another heart wrenching sob escapes her at the thought of what she tried to do. "I'm sorry." She manages to choke out through the tears, she refuses to to look at him. "I doubted that I'd ever get out of there." Her hand closes in a loose fist as her whole body starts to shake with her pent up emotions. "I'm sorry I doubted you. I… should have known…." The guilt is thick in her, she should have never doubted he'd come for her. She dreamed it so many times, Coren coming to take her away from all the pain and suffering, but in the end she doubted and saw only one way out of her misery.

Just like she did when Azrael would leave her at night, Cassidy curls up on her side and starts crying. Her hand grips his tight, as her whole body shakes with each sobbing breath. The words I'm so sorry. repeating in his mind, a testament of just how broken the younger detective is.

His fault, her fault. It's such a jumbled mess of guilt that Coren is honestly unsure of which is his and which is hers. What he does know is that her bawling like a lost and hurt child is far from a good sign. He hooks his chair with a foot and brings it quite literally as close as the hospital bed will let him get so that he can wrap an arm around her — injuries be damned. He can see and feel the faint traces of the memories of what that bastard did to her, and if she spent her nights like this… he'd rather not see the panic of when the night in her mind ends.

"Cassidy," he says. And he does say it, because things said aloud seem to hold her attention better. "Cassidy, that's enough." He sniffs slightly and brushes away more tears, and then reaches for her face to brush hers away. "Cassidy, it's all right. It's going to be all right." Never mind all the cuts, burns, and scars. Or her foot. Or the fact that they're going to have to detox her from morphine. And then pain's going to be a bitch without such a strong analgesic. There are only more tears, because Coren had nearly given up too. There were so many times he thought they'd never find her — or worse, that they would, and there'd be just another body. Another victim. "Just…" only he doesn't know what he was going to say, "I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."

The memories still so painfully fresh continue to flash through her head, and it almost doesn't seem like Cassidy can stop, the sobs that come from an already abused throat are almost to the point of hysterical. Her body is curled up so tight, like she was around the quilt from the bed they shared on occasion.

The sound of her name, and the touch to her face, seems to startle her out of her self pity, and Cassidy lays there gasping and trying to get a grip on her emotions. The tears are still there, her eyes red from them, "I want to go home, Coren." Her voice so sad and full of longing. Her head shifts on her pillow so that she can look past the railing to her partner. "I want to get far away from here." Away from the place that will forever be in her nightmares.

Still on her side, Cassidy tugs on his hand so that she can echo what he was doing when she woke. Her lips still quivering with her tears, press against his fingers and rest there, her eyes close tight from a surge of mixed emotions. With a sniffle, she turns her head and rests her cheek there for long moments, one emotion standing out more then the others, filling the words that she says with meaning. "I love you, Coren." For a moment it looks like she might start crying again, but her eyes open to look at him. "I have for so long. I was so afraid… so afraid you didn't feel the same." Her eyes hold so much of that love for him. "I'm so glad it wasn't a dream."

And he knows what she felt it was. A dream, or maybe Heaven calling her home. Either one was like a stabbing pain in his heart. She was so gone, so broken when he found her after they'd blown that demon's head off. A few more tears escape Coren's eyes as he lifts Cassidy up a bit into a sitting position, all the while he pulls himself up onto the bed at her side, using the chair he was on to balance himself, and setting her against his side. "I'll take you home as soon as the doctor's clear you for travel back to New York. We'll probably be transferred by air to Bellevue."

Which brings him to the bad news. "The damage to your foot… he tore it up pretty good, he… damaged the plantar nerves — that's why you can't feel the pain in it anymore. It's going to make walking on it difficult until it heals and even after that it… it may not regain all of its functionality… or feeling." Giving the news to her is like slowly making cuts on himself.

He can feel her relaxing, tension flowing out of her, when he pulls Cassidy against his side. Her cheek resting on his shoulder, the pain is just a dull throb with the morphine, but she doesn't care. Closing her eyes, she swallows back tears, as she slides an arm across his stomach, mindful of the IVs attached to her hand. I needed this.

The redheaded detective sighs softly. To anyone else, she's just lying there even after he gives her the bad news. For Coren, her mind is in a flurry. Glass shoved and twisted into her foot. The molten burning of salt as the sick bastard presses into the hole he made in the bottom of her foot. Fingers curl into his shirt as she remembers, holding on to her link to reality. "Think… they will tell me I'm not fit for duty anymore?" She sounds calmer than she should, she should be crying over the news, but she feels kind of numb to the fact that walking will be difficult. She rests her forehead against his jaw so he can't see the worry, though he'll feel it. She can't hide her emotions from him. Worry and anxiety, over their jobs… not her foot.

While Coren shares Cassidy's worry about her own job, he doesn't seem to have any over his own. He's worked in law enforcement long enough to have no real qualms with leaving. Maybe had the caught Azrael back when he was with the Bureau he'd have resigned at some point and gone on to other things. Of course, he's somewhat grateful he didn't, because he wouldn't have met Cassidy that way — of course, he may well have still been with his second wife if it hadn't been for that case.

"I don't know luv," he says, stroking her hair, "I think once you're ready to go back, they'll stick you at a desk for a while until they're convinced." He doesn't mention his own job, and there's something in him that tells her not to ask, because he's not worried about it one way or the other.

"I guess that's a bridge we'll cross when we get there.." She goes quiet for a long moment and just listens to his thoughts, something that was missing for several days. She feels so much more complete with them there and she realizes just how much they are a part of her now. Something in that thought brings back a memory of the vision she was given, and softly Cassidy murmurs the words that were spoken.

"Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night in one another's company? For if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt and fuse you together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul, instead of two—"

Somehow in that moment, in that hospital room with her partner holding her, the words seemed to make so much more sense and they didn't scare her anymore.


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