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She felt a bit like a kid again, in both a good way and a bad way, as she sat on top of the kitchen table in the middle of the night. Dressed in leggings with little stars, plaid pajama shorts, and Ezekiel’s soft t-shirts, she surrounded herself in dimmed lighting, advanced mathematics textbooks from the Library, and golden numbers, swirling all around her. It was just like when she stayed up too late doing chemistry experiments in her parents’ kitchen – exhilarating, with just a tiny bit of fear of being caught.
They’d decided not to use magic, a pact she’d whole-heartedly agreed to after the horrifying conclusion of the Apep saga, but this, her gift…well, that wasn’t really magic if she was just playing with it, was it? The vast expanse of knowledge in front of her was still new. She’d gotten a grasp on the tumor-suppressed abilities that had once filled her with a crippling fear, and even though they’d agreed she wouldn’t deploy this unless absolutely necessary, a hint of that crippling fear had once again filled her body since she came out of her life-saving surgery in a haze of sparkling equations. She wanted – no, she needed – to get a grasp on these abilities, too, so she glanced at a problem in the textbook and looked out at the opposite wall, letting the equations surround her as her fingers manipulated the numbers only she could see.
As if to prove her point and give her away all at the same time, what she saw in the synesthetic miasma started to overwhelm her after just a few minutes, just like it used to do before she’d come to the Library. Only now, even though everything made a little more sense than it had pre-surgery, everything was fundamentally bigger, and she cried out, despite the late hour, as the numbers rapidly swirled around her messy red hair.
It only took a minute for Jacob to swing the kitchen door open, his eyes squinting as they adjusted to the light in the kitchen, and she immediately looked guilty as the fear of being caught came true.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, his whispered voice heavy with sleep, as he found her sitting on the edge of the center table, swinging her feet lightly back and forth.
“Math,” Cassandra said simply, tenderly rubbing the place on her forehead where she had begun to feel herself becoming overpowered by her abilities.
He walked over to her, concerned about the fading pained look on her face, and surveyed the scene as best he could three minutes after waking up. The textbooks rested against her thighs; she didn’t have anything to take notes with, and a tray of freshly-baked apple muffins sat on top of the oven. He looked at her again with a bit of a scowl.
“You’re doing magic!” he said accusingly.
“No!” Cassandra cried.
“You’re…you’re using your gift thing,” he clarified.
“Okay, yes,” Cassandra sighed.
“We agreed no magic, Cassie. All of us…we agreed,” he grumbled, accusingly again. She rolled her eyes at the way he was speaking to her, a gesture that went unnoticed as he again emphasized, “No magic!”
“I know!” she cried. “I know what we agreed, but the caveat to that agreement was unless we need it, and if we need it – when we need it – I don’t know how to control this yet, and I need to learn because what if…what if…” She was working herself into a frenzy as she spoke, a sense of panicked dread bubbling within her. “We killed someone, Jacob! I don’t want to do that again!”
“Okay, okay, shh,” he said, shushing her softly as he walked over to the table. He cupped her face his palms, tenderly stroking back and forth against her warm cheeks with his thumbs. “I ain’t mad,” he promised. “You’re right. Okay? You’ve got a point. We’ll help you get there, okay? Together.”
“Yeah?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he promised.
His fingers stilled against her skin, and his grip tightened just enough to tilt her head towards his for a kiss. Cassandra softly moaned as his kiss, slow and deep, matched the intimate mood in the hushed room. Her knees instinctively parted, and he stepped between them, gently pulling her to sit up a bit straighter as he moved in to her body. She held onto his sides, fingers curling into the soft cotton of his shirt, and let her knees rest against his hips.
Their kissing was interrupted just a few moments later as Ezekiel finally wandered into the room, too, asking what time it was on a sleepy groan. Slipping from Stone’s embrace, Cassandra glanced over to the oven to check the time. She turned, telepathically sending the answer to Ezekiel’s brain. It only took a moment for Ezekiel to cry out and swipe at the air in front of him as if he were trying to catch a bug.
“Get out of my head!” Ezekiel yelled, his accent thicker than it was when he was fully awake.
“You didn’t mind it in Shangri-La,” Cassandra said playfully.
“Cases only,” Ezekiel declared. “Stay out of my head in the house!”
Stone, who had been watching with a little amused grin on his face, suddenly nodded. “It is kinda unsettling, Cass,” he agreed.
“Fine,” Cassandra pouted.
Stone moved over to the oven, grabbing one of the apple muffins and biting into it as Ezekiel rubbed his eyes. His gaze settled on a stack of homemade pancakes sitting between the muffins and omelet fixings still left untouched on the counter.
“What’s with all the food?” Ezekiel asked.
“Math smells like breakfast,” Cassandra said with a shrug.
“What are you doing in here?” Ezekiel asked.
“You didn’t hear her scream?” Stone asked, his words muffled by the apple treat.
Suddenly awake, Ezekiel said with concern, “No. You were screaming?” He reached the table, wrapped his arms around her, and held her protectively as she wove one of her arms around his back and placed a small kiss on his bare chest.
“What woke you up then?” Stone asked.
“The bed got cold with both of you gone,” Ezekiel answered. Cassandra smiled softly and stroked his bare stomach. Ezekiel finally really looked at her and asked, “Are you wearing my shirt?”
Cassandra shrugged and coyly said, “You weren’t using it.”
They’d gotten together shortly after Apep. Apparently, creating life just to destroy it can bring people together. Nothing really had changed. They still bickered every chance they got – over cases and magic and how to solve problems, little quirks in each others’ personalities, or anything, really, that could drive Colonel Baird up the wall, but there was a comfort to their relationship now that wasn’t there before, a comfort they hadn’t known they all needed.
“So, seriously, what’s going on?” Ezekiel asked.
“We gotta help Cass with her gift,” Stone said.
“I…thought we weren’t doing that,” Ezekiel said slowly, his body slumping a little against Cassandra.
“I need to not be scared of it anymore,” Cassandra said, looking up at him from her place in his arms. “I can choose to not use it, but I can’t make it go away.”
He considered what she said before conceding, with a sleepy sigh, “Fair enough.” With a yawn, he added, “But can we start tomorrow?”
Cassandra chuckled. As soon as he had determined she was alright, the hand rubbing her back had slowed, and his eyes had started to droop. She hopped off the table. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“All of us?” Ezekiel sleepily mumbled.
“Yes,” Cassandra promised with another small snicker, wrapping her arm securely around his back.
They started moving towards the bedroom, and she glanced back to make sure Stone was coming, too. Cassandra caught his eye, and pointed to the muffins, crooking her finger back towards herself. Stone grabbed one for her and another for himself, following them with a smile.