Chapter Text
S.H.I.E.L.D.’s basement, France
There’s been a lot going on lately. Training, fake missions, but it’s not how her story started, here in S.H.I.E.L.D. It happened less than a year ago, in something she could describe only as a living hell.
The amber substance, that was her eternal prison, or at least she thought she’d end that way. The Moonstone didn’t let her die after all. The demon, her old enemy, trapped her and her whole world crumbled. She was lost, thrown into a cave and her spark faded. There was no escaping, since her powers weren’t working. Everyone she ever knew has died, and she saw their doom right in front of her, unable to do anything about it. It broke her. She wanted to die, but she couldn’t.
Everything was dark for so long. Until one day, she felt the Moonstone awakening. There were strangers releasing her, holding a strange light that made her finally feel anything else other than endless emptiness and darkness. She was found at last. But it took way too long.
Once she got released, panic took over. She was way too overwhelmed to feel everything again, to be able to breathe, to be able to react… and they had their weapons aimed at her. As if she was some kind of scary monster. She was a threat, a powerful one and they were meant to stop her after she got freaked out and defended herself with rocks. By the time she learned what actually happened, Cassandra was accidentally attacked by men with weapons in an unknown facility meant to contain her.
She had no idea those guys would be the ones that eventually saved her life.
“It took 230 years. Till they found me in that amber. Two hundred and thirty years. Over two centuries. I’m probably the oldest person alive,” she said to her therapist, ready to dive deeper into the story of how S.H.I.E.L.D. found her.
Doctor Garner read her file already, but he wanted to hear it from her point of view, and she was finally ready to share this with him.
She continued: “At first, the information felt impossible. When Gabe told me, during that first day… It felt unreal. My head was spinning. I thought I was going insane. Yet, soon, the surroundings confirmed I was totally out of time. There was light, electricity, that’s something I’ve never seen before. They all took it as a matter of course…”
Her therapy wasn’t so uncommon after she got accustomed to it, she was very different and saying her experience out loud was making her a bit lighter. Cass still couldn’t recognize herself after she fell into this. She allowed them to help her, in order to save herself.
“...It distracted me enough to not focus on that pain. I was able to walk forward, into the containment room, still being ready for some trap instead.” She wanted to return a bit further into the past, not only after the situation got calm.
“At first, they attacked me and then suddenly, they were all nice to me. At that time, I was a mess, very confused and on alert. They hurt me, but it was just a scratch. Now, I can imagine if they left me more time, I would most probably implode, losing that self-preservation instinct. Because if I was left alone with my thoughts, right away, without immediate danger to fight, I’d realize I had nothing left. Nobody to live for. I would probably let them kill me. Them reacting and not leaving me alone kept me distracted enough to want to fight… Even if I had no strength, mentally.”
“Do you mean that the way Shield handled you helped you to keep fighting?” doctor Garner asked, being curious about her last statement.
“Yes… If things went calmly, maybe I wouldn’t have that push to try to act normal. After they started shooting at me, I didn’t have time to think. I just shielded the stone and created a cage to protect myself. I had just that much strength to keep it in. Afterwards, I completely broke down. Away from their gaze. If they didn’t attack me, they’d probably see my real self much sooner and I would be left vulnerable. That act, that I was somehow still strong was my only way out of that hell. I kept fighting to push it away, because once Shield knows just how broken and weak I am, it would become real. And I couldn’t really cope with that at that time.”
It was her first stage. The denial. Without it, she wouldn’t survive. Not right away. She could still act and pretend nothing happened, that she was just a person out of time.
“Once the situation calmed down and I had some space to react, alone; the act could continue. Gabe went to check on me. He brought me food. Information. Books. Just enough distraction to force myself to get back together after another sleepless night. Or I had nightmares… a lot of them.” She inhaled, remembering this part way too well. She still had nightmares, even though she learned how to deal with them somehow. “At the beginning, it was a torture. And I was isolated from everyone… coping got harder, but I could still keep pushing, trying to do that adjusting they suggested. I started to learn about history, about wars and technology. I was reading books, even at night. But the distractions were never enough. Eventually, I’d go through my first panic attack and then I decided to not sleep. That’s when they called you in from what I heard.”
Garner remembered that exact moment. It was right when she started to seem suicidal, almost giving up. “Yes, I remember. You still weren’t ready for therapy and acted hostile towards Shield’s help.”
“I started to get angry. Frustrated. Gabriel was their messenger and they wanted to force that help on me, but they failed…” Cass summed it up. That anger was useless at the time though. “Coulson had to clean that mess, since I got angry at Gabe. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
She inhaled again, remembering her insomnia. “It wasn’t the worst thing. I started to feel trapped. I pretty much realized what their goal was. To maintain me in my prison cell… and keep me distracted from wanting to escape. I still didn’t have the strength to fight it. But all those sleepless nights, they left a toll on me. With the Moonstone, I can stay awake for much longer, but after some time, my common reading distraction stopped working. I couldn't focus. There was nothing to do. Gabe even brought me a puzzle. He really wanted to help me, but I refused to sleep. Without those usual distractions, every dark thought eventually returned when I was all alone. It started to haunt me. I stopped perceiving their goals. I started to realize I had nothing to live for… and it got so far I started to…” she paused a bit, inhaling, “have suicidal thoughts. I created a dagger, because I was bored. I thought for a moment: Why not end it? It freaked me out. That state got so bad I could harm myself and I almost did.”
“I remember that recording,” Garner reacted, remembering that feeling of helplessness, to be unable to help her back then. She didn’t want it at the time, and she got into an alarming phase. “Agent Perez was really worried about you. Yet, he still found a way.”
“Yeah, he bored me enough for me to pass out… After two weeks of no sleep, he just comes in and brings the most boring lesson about… I-don’t-even-know-what. I remember that sleep. It felt like a restart button.”
She remembered how dangerous it was back then. That sleep anchored her in reality. It got her back into her human senses. When she was using the Moonstone as a source of energy, she was losing that sense of humanity. She had to go back or else she’d go insane or kill herself. It didn’t automatically negate nightmares, but it got her back to reality at least.
“…but the nightmares didn’t go away. Stronger ones were tied to red rocks, and they started to become a problem. At that time, I could still hide it, but that would change eventually.”
Doctor Garner probably knew where this was leading to. He didn’t want to interrupt her, letting her take the lead, since it was her time after all. She was finally open about this as well, so he was glad to listen.
Cass assumed what was happening behind the scenes during that event: “I suppose you were sitting at the edge of your seat as well when I found out.” She nodded at him, still thinking about this a bit more negatively.
“After monitoring blew right into their faces, everyone thought I would lose it… including me. You have no idea how much rage I collected inside. I kept it in for days, planning my escape. Suddenly, I learned that they knew all along. Everything. There was no privacy in that room. I thought that was it. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the enemy.” It was hard to share her side when she knew how bad this could turn out if she followed her plan.
She continued, remembering who made the difference: “He was the only obstacle. Gabe… I have no idea what got into him at that moment, but he had one clear goal - to help me. No matter the circumstances, he would go against his own orders to not engage. I pushed him out of the way with a blunt rock. He didn’t back down and still wanted to calm me down. I thought it was impossible. Shield just sent backups to protect him from me, but he stood in their way, not letting them hurt me even if I was the one attacking. At that moment, I couldn’t see him as the enemy.”
He noticed she paused and wanted to ask, still wondering: “What changed your mind in not running away?”
“You’d suppose it was him, but no…” Cassandra started, seeing Garner probably saw through her and thought it wasn’t enough to change her entire perspective on S.H.I.E.L.D. “I don’t know to what extent you watched the recording, but eventually, I told him too. I was in this kind of situation before and… I’ve seen what could happen if I made the other choice. And I know… it ruined my life. I didn’t want this to happen again, to throw away my life, to destroy theirs… I calculated options and started to get terrified, since I knew it would be so much harder if I let them help me after everything I’ve been through. I’ve been manipulated before. Backstabbed. Used… I couldn’t possibly know this would be any different if Gabe wasn’t there. After all, I needed someone to help me, because otherwise I was already lost. And after I let myself get vulnerable again, he embraced me. Just like that. He said I was safe.”
She hasn’t experienced something like this for way too long. People let her down often. Even the closest people couldn’t always be trusted, and she didn’t trust them either after she saw their actions.
Gabe was definitely not someone she expected to trust. He was a nerd, a S.H.I.E.L.D. guy, an agent in a spy organization. The only thing different about him was that he was just a junior agent. Someone not corrupted by their system… yet. He had his own methods. He had empathy nobody else showed for her.
“It got me way too emotional, but at that moment, I knew I was safe to break down. He didn’t judge. He was there for me.” Cass got emotional again. It was probably her most vulnerable moment, and it was public. She never cried in front of someone before. She wasn’t used to crying at all until that event.
Doctor Garner nodded, being glad she shared her most vulnerable moment with him from her perspective.
Cassandra wanted to dive a bit more into this, since this was her most important breaking moment in S.H.I.E.L.D. altogether. “Afterwards, we had an honest talk. It was suddenly weird that my mask was off, that I was somehow forced to be ready for reality.” Getting back to reality was something she was avoiding for so long, trying to pretend she was okay.
She sighed: “It had to happen. I couldn’t be in denial forever.” Then, she sadly smiled at Garner. They already understood each other in this sense and she trusted him with everything.
“You have that from your psychology book?” he asked, joining the conversation since she invited him.
“Five stages of grief… yeah,” Cass nodded, still feeling weird this whole experience got her into the study of psychology as her hobby. Well, she wanted to figure out what was happening with her and they gave her resources. “I actually have more books about that. I still keep some of them in my room.”
“That’s great,” Garner nodded, smiling at her, being glad she was naturally getting further from that deep depression.
There was a silence and he wanted her to keep going, knowing it could be exhausting for her, to talk deeply about her thoughts about the past in S.H.I.E.L.D. “Okay, what was next, if you want to continue?”
“From the book, bargaining. The lowest phase,” she started, being glad to keep going. “I had to deal with myself suddenly being honest and also with monitoring and agents. That day was extremely overwhelming. I’ve never experienced so many emotions in such a short period of time. At first, I thought I was going crazy because I didn’t recognize myself. Shield didn’t help by telling me they had to keep the monitoring protocol on. I felt I was suffocating in all of this. The room was getting smaller. I had to somehow talk it out since I had no idea what to do next. Gabe suggested therapy and that’s how we met.” She remembered that was her breaking point in actually accepting help. Everything was so overwhelming and it was hard to even exist.
Garner remembered how confused she was during her first therapy session. She had her own misconceptions about it, she hated to talk about her feelings. He knew about her trust issues and he had to go slowly on her, but they managed to get through the first few ones together without her quitting straight away.
She added, wanting to remind him: “Before that, the only other place I was going to was the dining room… when I was already past quarantine protocol. I took the opportunity to go further even if this didn’t work out. I just wanted to go out. And, you have a window in this session room, so that was a nice change. Otherwise, I was always just underground. Shield didn’t trust me that I wouldn’t run away.”
She remembered how it felt when she first walked into this session room. A window awe. No monitoring. That was a nice change. Yet, Garner was a new person and it took her some weeks till she got comfortable around her therapist. Sometimes, she just watched from the window, since it was her first interaction with the outside.
Cass didn’t really need to talk about their time during therapy, so she wanted to get into a different part of her story, when things started to improve.
“Then, Shield came with their new resolution to balance the scales. Since they still couldn’t let me outside for safety reasons, they came up with gym training. Basically, they saw me exercising through cameras and they wanted to make it up to me for being so nosy. By being nosy.”
He noticed her small smirk and supposed this was the part when she got more comfortable with them.
“It was actually an excellent decision and I got to meet my current Shield trainer. Megan. She’s cool, she's a badass, she has her own sword… I have no idea if they read my mind in that, but she was exactly that kind of dynamic person I was missing here. I definitely didn’t see this coming.”
Doctor Garner remembered S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resolution with letting her attend gym was what helped the most at that time. He thought it was actually even before therapy. “I think you started your gym training even before we started with therapy.”
“You’re probably right,” she assumed, not remembering the timeline in detail. Then, she got back into her thoughts about the gym: “Anyways, I expected something basic, like some exercises, some movement… but I ended up with a very curious agent. Like… Gabe was always handling me in kid gloves, since I was unstable and he had to be careful about all conversations, since at that time, I was sometimes very hostile. But Megan? She didn’t know about anything… or at least she didn’t seem to, so she went all in. She criticized my armor for gym usage. She teased me, she challenged me. I got to use my powers for random things because she was interested and wasn’t afraid of what Shield may think about it. That’s not something that ever happened here. It was awesome.”
Garner got to check out files of other agents Cass was interacting with and Megan’s energy complemented her: “I heard that she’s a rebel in Shield. It’s good you were introduced to someone like that at that stage.”
“You should’ve seen Gabe’s face back then. He was terrified when we started teasing each other. He never saw me like that. He’s still a bit scared of Megan… I suppose because of her energy,” Cass added, having this fixed as a positive memory between all of that void of depression.
There was a pause. One nice memory from that time didn’t negate her forming depression. That first gym training, it was the start. A distraction. She wasn’t overwhelmed with everything yet. She was slowly moving forward, having some good changes, but it was never enough. The frustration started to grow in points of stagnation. The moments she felt like there was no further progress. Therapy was slow, sometimes her intrusive thoughts got into her small ‘happy’ moments and then they disappeared.
She got frustrated with talks with Gabe, since she knew they were monitored. They saw her worsening state and the frustration. Gabe didn’t know how to help her anymore. Megan couldn’t keep her distracted forever.
“At that point, I was in a stage of depression. No matter those small nice moments, the overall experience got worse. I wanted to go out, thinking it would help me. They didn’t let me. Then, we got into the bigger fight, trying to get me out of here. You and me… that’s when I started to trust you, because you were willing to go against Shield’s Index, even if you’re the one that should comply with it. I needed to go outside. There was no room for error, this had to work. If Shield kept me locked for longer, I’d most probably rethink all priorities.” Cass remembered this was a very important moment here in S.H.I.E.L.D. too.
This was the first time she actually wanted to do something about it, something else than an actual fight. To go out there and stand up for herself. Against S.H.I.E.L.D.’s decision to keep her inside for so long. She deserved to have access to the outside. To nature. They were too scared she would run away since she was powerful enough to do so.
“We set up the meeting, but it was just as I imagined… from the start. I immediately formed antipathy towards the basement leader. He was cold and technical, but he didn’t want to back down. At some point, I thought there was no reasoning with them, since it felt like they cornered me. They were two against me, and then agent Gombert was the only one on my side… who also didn’t have that much say next to these guys. I still remember how my blood started to boil when agent Laval said ‘to feel more free inside’ during that meeting. Anything I said, Furlow turned it against me. How I didn’t think they trusted me at all; he flipped it that I don’t trust Shield. Which was true. I still can’t stand that he's on the top in this basement. I’m really glad you got into that one, because I have no idea how that would end up if you didn’t. There was no way I’d be able to do this on my own.”
“It was no problem, I saw you needed help and I was glad to present our argument that we prepared,” Gombert reacted, remembering how distressed she was during that meeting. One wrong exchange of opinions and it could end up pretty bad.
“Cassandra, the alien. Still insane…” Cass had to laugh at that, since it was how they operated behind the scenes. “They put me into an alien category and they wondered why it didn’t work on me. They knew I wasn’t some kind of extraterrestrial being from space. They just wanted to keep me contained. And later during the meeting, Furlow just had to ruin it again, after you almost resolved it. He definitely wasn’t smart. I wasn’t that submissive person they saw before. They wanted to treat me that way anyways. I just locked in and mirrored their own behavior, staying firm but straightforward. ‘If they want me to cooperate with them, they cannot keep me in the dark’. That’s what Furlow wanted, to hide intel even if he could share it with me. I’m glad he had to rethink everything and actually back down or else Shield would lose me. That was a small victory I needed.”
She smiled, this was their first mutual win and she grew much closer with doctor Garner afterwards. He was no longer just a therapist; he was someone who genuinely wanted her to get better here in S.H.I.E.L.D. They were allies. Just like with Gabe, she felt she wasn’t alone in this mess.
“It was definitely a ride,” Garner confirmed.
“Yeah… and then things started to get better. Gombert got to be the leading agent instead of basement leader Furlow. The only high-ranking agent that was on my side, even with all Shield’s limitations,” she explained, knowing the doctor knew how this went as well. “The assessment was a bit stressful, but he knew when to back down. That was nice for change. They had to ask about harder topics as well, but I had to let them know about red rocks, about all the threats… except one I hid.”
“...the demon,” Garner filled out.
Cass nodded, knowing way too well why she kept that part of her past locked in. “If I really told them about everything back then, I suppose they wouldn’t let me out. There was no way I would tell them. It didn’t really even seem relevant… They wanted me to talk about my powers, so I did. I still keep some secrets of the Moonstone to myself, since I know they could use that knowledge against me if they knew. I never told them how I learned to control those rocks. Agent Gombert knows only about the demon being the source of information to me.”
The doctor nodded: “Yeah, I remember you talked about your meeting with the hardest topic…” That one was pretty long on its own, but they deviated a bit from the main timeline. Garner suggested after a while: “Let’s return back to the threat assessment.”
“They assessed I wasn't a threat. That’s it. Then, they let me go out. Gombert made sure of it. He already discussed this with the director of Shield.” The assessment wasn’t as bad as she thought it’d be. It was however pretty long. All those technical requirements, the rules, all of the boring safety training.
“At that time, it was really a huge thing. I wasn’t out for like three months… or eternity. This was the first time they let me out. Now, I would fight them if they wanted to lock me again. I missed the outside so much. Nature. Fresh air. The sun. It wasn’t really that amazing when I look back at it. They had many agents watching me. Gabe had to be with me at all times, or someone else. Like a prisoner. I couldn’t go near the Shield fence. Damn…” she sighed. “At that time, it still felt more like a prison. Since it went well, they let me go out a few more times till it got frequent.”
“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, wondering whether it ‘feeling like a prison’ didn’t ruin it for her.
“I did,” she nodded, but it wasn’t completely as she imagined. “But it didn’t help so much with the depression. I thought it would get better exponentially. Outside was supposed to fix my mood, right? To fix me… It didn’t. It increased my mood sometimes, but it was just outside. Shield’s yard. There was nothing magical or healing about it.”
“Why did you think it’d fix you?” Garner asked, being intrigued by her thought process.
“I don’t know…” she confessed, “Probably I needed some assurance things could change for me. And if it was on the outside, it would also improve the inside. Which it did, but not as I wanted. Nightmares still kept me from sleeping calmly most of the time. My mood improved just for small moments. The depression was still too strong. And then, I had my first sleep paralysis. Then, I wanted to fix everything by telling you the truth, but I wasn’t at peace with it and that’s when I seriously endangered myself. I’m so sorry you had to see it… I wanted to force it out of my system, and it backfired.”
Garner reacted, seeing she still felt sorry about it even if she didn’t need to anymore: “Well, I need to say it was indeed scary to see you in that state. You, trying to force back red rocks wasn’t wise. Yet, you have nothing to apologize for. You did the best you thought you were doing at that moment… and you learned from it.”
She added: “...learned that the Moonstone can actually hurt me with red rocks. Damn, that was… terrifying. It brought me back to the past. I always wanted to avoid it, and suddenly they said I had red eyes, red spikes around my armor and I was completely somewhere else. It was like a vision… because I got so scared of the demon. I got overwhelmed… stupid Cass.”
“You weren’t stupid,” Garner wanted to insist, “you just didn’t know how to make it work. You learned that you should never drag those red rocks back towards you or else they can hurt you. You need to let them spread, just as if it was natural.”
“There’s nothing natural about red rocks…” she protested.
Garner wanted to support her, but he knew her powers were indeed scary: “It’s a weird and scary power, I know. But see it yourself. You never had any similar events happening to you ever since. It was maybe Moonstone telling you you needed to stop doing that. Maybe it was something else, I don’t know. I just know experiences like these can help you to realize things.”
Cass nodded. It made her realize she was self-harming herself by pulling those rocks back to their source. She was that source of fear. And she also affected Gabe, when he tried to pull her out of it. “You know… maybe it was supposed to teach me something… Yet, I regret that you all had to see it.”
She paused, but then continued: “Mainly Gabe. I don’t know whether he’s stupid or completely genius when he throws himself into such danger because of me. He could’ve died. I have no idea what could happen to him if he froze in my fear. And he did this several times. Back during the first day, he comes as an interrogator, completely unarmed… and he’s not even an interrogator. Just to calm me down. If I was some kind of evil person, he would die straight away. Then, he throws himself between agents pointing guns at me and me raging. It’s insane. And then that… He’s giving too much trust to me. If either of these events turned out badly, I don’t know if he’d still be here.”
Now, the topic shifted a bit and she wanted to briefly tell how her perception of him changed during time: “He confessed he considered me a friend. I was scared to have anyone close again after what happened to me, so hearing this was… hard. Then, I admitted I considered him a friend too, but in the back of my head, it was never completely safe. I still believed he could let me down… Or more likely, I would actually hurt him. And then it happened. He was scared of my powers. Before that, Gabriel Perez was just a computer nerd whose eyes started to glow when he saw me using my powers. I left a negative mark on him. I still feel bad about that. But we were able to get through that phase… together. It took a while till we admitted our biggest regrets and fears, but we are good now.”
“Did you tell him about your past?” Garner asked, knowing she hasn’t discussed this with him yet, so it was possible she still didn’t.
She shook her head, knowing way too well she was a burden to him no matter what he said. “I told him about some things, but not much. I think it’s not the right time. There are wounds that need to heal and it needs time. I cannot just go to him and say I was connected to a terrifying demon that targeted anyone I cared about, that could still be a threat. He knows about my guilt… When the time is right, I’m going to tell him about my dark past. He should know about it…” She paused, inhaling. “Yet, with all of our talks and progress, I don’t think this can break us apart as friends. He always said ‘Focus on the present.’ ‘It’s not too late to change and try to be a better person.’. He’s the one that is hopeful. His hope is contagious. He saved my life.”
Garner understood. He didn’t know whether hiding her past from him was a wise move, yet this was up to her. He knew agent Perez would do anything to help her; they shared a deep connection. “He cares about you.”
“I know,” she nodded. He was really important to her. She knew she was extremely lucky to have someone like him close. Someone who actually listened to her. Someone who tried to understand. She was glad that they found her. It couldn’t have been the other way. She survived thanks to them. All of that pain, all of those struggles.
Cass started: “They are all important. They all care. Including you.” She paused, wanting to name all the agents that honestly cared. “Gabe. Agent Gombert… Even Coulson. Random otherwise cold agents that handle potential alien threats, and suddenly we bond. Once they saw my humanity, even my vulnerability… they wanted to help. It was really unclear at first, since the system is built that way, but once I got to know these people that genuinely want to help and not just control everything, like some other guys, then it makes such a difference.”
Garner nodded, not saying anything this time. It seemed the conversation naturally shifted from her history in S.H.I.E.L.D., and now she started to focus on these relationships.
“Without them I wouldn’t be here, that’s for sure. They help people. Even with their messed up methods… like monitoring. They found me, and then they saved me from myself. Probably, I saved myself too, thanks to therapy. I have no idea what I would do if I didn’t have this support. I really don’t,” Cassandra admitted.
After all this time, she knew they were the key for her healing.
“That’s what helped me to decide to join Shield. I think I can also help people. I could finally use my skills and everything to help those in need. To make up for my bad past. I owe them.”
