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The first thing Cass notices when she wakes is that it's not the same place she slept last night. This is not typically cause for concern. She rotates through safe houses and other people's apartments after patrol often enough that she doesn't gain a sense of wrongness from that alone. No, what makes this strange is the soft comfort of cotton sheets after waking up on Babs' scratchy couch for over two months. She's in her own apartment, in the bed she shares with her girlfriend. But Steph is not here.
She throws the blankets off. Horrible imagines of Steph's body lying prone on the pavement form in her mind. Of bones sticking through the skin. Blood pouring out her mouth. Cass rushes out of the room. She needs to find Steph.
It doesn't take long. Steph is in the kitchen banging pots and pans and she rummages through the cupboard. The pressure building in Cass' chest recedes. Steph is fine. Nothing is wrong. Everything is okay.
"Hey, spooky, have you seen the green pan?" Steph asks turning around. There is blood slowly trickling down her neck from a large deep gash. A deathly pallor setting into the tone of her skin. How is she not reacting? Cass blinks and the blood steeps away. Oh right that's right, it's not real.
"No," she replied, her breath shaking. "You don't need it to make eggs, they be fine in another."
Steph rolls her eyes, returning to her search. "Maybe, but I refuse to make subpar eggs after the bad day you had yesterday. That's just asking for misfortune. Now go sit your cute little butt down."
Cass complies. She manages to make pleasant conversation with Steph, neatly avoiding the landmines of her own mental state. Throughout the next fifteen minutes of Steph cooking, Cass has recalled her icy blue lips and cold skin from her death in the harbor, the painful angle of her neck and the charred flesh that melted to bone.
A plate scraps across the table, loaded with scrambled eggs and toast. Cass lifts her fork. Her stomach feels like it is filled with stones. She doesn't think she can stomach it, but still she tries.
Steph's fork scrapes against the plate. "You know you can talk to me if about whatever's bothering you, right?"
Cass looks up from her plate. There's a bullet hole in Steph's forehead, her eyes are listless and glassy. Dead. She blinks hard and it's clears. Her girlfriend is still perfectly fine. Flushed skin, shining eyes, alive.
Her mind wanders to how she tried to tell anyone a week into the time loop about her struggles and couldn't get a word out. Screaming nonsensical words as the double edge sword of being given a chance to save a woman destined to die and be worked against at every angle dug deeper into her skin.
"Thank you," Cass says, knowing she cannot accept it. She takes a bite of eggs. Thet taste like ash.