Andrew Wells (flymonkeysfly) wrote in btvsal, @ 2009-08-18 21:16:00 |
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Current location: | Shooting Star Comics |
Current mood: | sad |
Entry tags: | andrew wells, cassie allen, place: la |
Mind Freak!
Who: Andrew and Cassie
Where: Shooting Star Comics
When: Monday Afternoon
It was a slow day at Shooting Star Comics, and Cassie was just having a good time. She had an album by Dr. Dre playing low in the background, as was skating around the store, checking to make sure everything was stocked properly, humming along to 'Let Me Ride'. Yeah, so she had some bizarrely broad taste in music, but to her, Dre made for some good, slow skating music. She was wearing her favorite baggy blue jeans, and a snug-fitting, long-sleeved powder blue shirt with an Autobot emblem on it.
Andrew walked up to Shooting Star Comics and looked through the window for a moment. Ami and a few other people had mentioned to him that this store was pretty cool, so he figured that he'd pop in and check it out. He opened the door and walked inside.
The girl's sweet, whimsical voice called out over the aisles as she heard the door open. "Be right witcha!" She announced, as the sound of wheels could be heard zooming along the floor.
It was a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. Even though Ami had told him all about...well, everything, his first instinct was to brush it off. It wasn't like he knew a whole lot of people, anyway.
Trying to balance a stack of comics she'd been stocking, she zoomed around the corner, and practically ran into him. She crouched down, beginning to pick them up, looking down at the floor as she grabbed the books. "Sorry about that... I'm such a klutz..."
Andrew went flying to the ground, not exactly expecting a girl to come flying at him. "No, it's alright," he said, trying to sit up and pick up a few books at the same time.
"Thanks. Kinda feel like a goofba..." she stopped as she stood, and met eyes with him. Her eyes went wide... and it hit her. Every formerly 'repressed' memory, it all came flooding back to her. Her father. Sunnydale. Her friends. She had FRIENDS! And most importantly... oh my god... "...A-Andrew?"
Andrew stared at her in amazement for a second after their eyes connected. All of these random memories came flooding back. He knew who this was. He knew her well and intimately. "Cassie?"
"Oh... oh sh..." she threw a hand up to her mouth. "Oh my god...." she booked it over to the counter, running into the small employees' bathroom, where she could be heard loudly, violently vomiting.
Andrew just sunk back to the ground as Cassie ran off. He might just have to strangle Gwen for all of this, slayer or not. This mental mind rape was starting to get really, really old.
After a few minutes of rather sad retching sounds, the little blonde finally came walking out, her eyes wide and looking horrified. "Oh my god... Andrew.... what-what happened? Why did I... oh god... all this time!"
Andrew shook his head, still trying to sort out his head for a moment. He really wasn't sure what to think of all of this. "I'm not even sure if an explanation would really work right now," he said.
She threw herself at him, hugging him tightly. "I don't even care... just... it's like a weird dream just ended or something.... and now you're back."
He hugged her back. It had been far too long since he had gotten to see her. Had she been here all this time? Had he just not found her?
"Don't leave. Like... ever?" She asked, sadly sweet. "Like... never ever leave my sight AGAIN. No potty breaks, even."
God, what a messed up life. "There's...a lot that I've got to tell you," he said to her.
She sighed, holding back sniffles. "I bet. Oh my god..." it was as if something else just occurred to her. "We were going to open a store TOGETHER."
"Yeah...we were, weren't we?" God, so many things were coming in at once, it was kind of hard to sort all of them out.
"Look. We-we'll figure this all out. Somehow." She looked stricken, like she was still in severe shock. "For now, what matters is we found each other. And we still love each other. I know that. I can feel it in my heart!"
He sighed. He *did* still love her, and he felt that. Of course, there was another matter. He never thought that he'd be in a situation like this. Not Andrew the Geek. "There's something that I've got to tell you."
As everything slowly came back to her... she remembered past events, and then felt sick again. "Oh.... balls. You didn't.... you ended up with Dawnie, didn't you!!!"
"No, no I didn't end up with Dawn," he said to her. "I met another person, though. Do you remember Ami?" He couldn't remember if she had met her or not.
"Ami?" She asked, the hurt evident in her voice, even though she didn't admit it. Was she really that easy to replace? Had it been his lifelong crush, she could have almost understood. "No... I... I don't think so."
He sighed again. He didn't want to hurt her, but she deserved to know the truth. "We started dating a few months ago. If I had known, if I had remembered..."
"Oh." Normally, Cassie would have some cute, funny comment to make. But all she could do now was think of how she JUST got him back... only to find out she really hadn't. "Am... am I losing you again? Like... for good?" Her only thought here was that while it would kill her to only have him as a friend... it would be hell to not have him at all.
"No...I just...I don't know what to do," he admitted. "She can at least explain the memory thing, though." She probably would be better at this than he was, anyway.
She started concentrating, using that obscenely amazing brain of hers. "Oh man... this... this is all connected to that vampire gang somehow. That's the last memory I have that in any way coincides with knowing you, or any of our other friends. Everything else surrounding that time is a complicated, somehow convenient blur."
He nodded. "Apparently something happened with the time line. I don't understand all of it, but apparently, when that vampire was killed, something went wrong with the time line and Gwen had to go up and fix it. She became a higher being for a while. I guess we got messed up in that blow up as well."
"But... if we're remembering things..." she looked ready to panic. "I've read enough comics to know people aren't SUPPOSED to remember this stuff. Remember Crisis? Only guy who remembered afterward was freakin' PSYCHO PIRATE, Andrew. And he got crazier and crazier. I don't wanna be crazy!"
This would be funny if it weren't so serious. "No, I don't think that's going to happen. I think the time line might be trying to repair itself. I don't think that the world's gonna implode or anything like that, either."
"I... I can't even kiss you now, can I." The way she said it.. it wasn't even a question. She already knew the answer, but she had to say it anyway.
"I think it's for the best if we don't," he admitted. He was seriously going to beat someone in the head for this.
"This is..." she paused, looking for just the right words. "At once, the best, and CRAPPIEST thing that has EVER happened to me." The tiny blonde looked caught between thrilled to have him back, and ready to punch a wall. You know, whatever good THAT would do.
He winced. "I really don't know what do say here," he admitted. He remembered so much now, and yet it almost felt completely useless because of present circumstances.
"Ok. Let's... let's calm down. Everything that's happened... from the memory loss to getting those memories BACK... it all had to happen for a reason. There is no such thing as chance." She tried thinking, hoping like hell (for once) that the store would stay empty as they finished this. "I mean... I suppose it's possible that perhaps the timestream had been skewered, and in order to hold everything together, some things had to be at least temporarily modified, and perhaps if something happened, and that other piece that had split off got erased, and no longer exists, the blocks and modifications merely are no longer necessary!" Yep. she just spit all that out. Someone's been reading again, looks like.
"Ami kept saying that things are different now," Andrew said to himself. "Gwen had went up to hold the time line together and became a Higher Being, but then she was allowed to come back, or just came back, knowing her. Maybe her coming back has something to do with it."
"Exactly... I mean, if that's what happened, I don't see how she could just walk away, even if she WANTED to, without something having been fixed, one way or the other." And she made a valid point... whatever had split in the timestream, something HAD to have corrected itself, even if it meant in the most bad of ways.
"I don't know what it was that was fixed, though," Andrew said, still a little confused by all of this. "I don't know what's changed to make this all OK all of a sudden. Shouldn't causality be going insane or something?"
"Well. THAT'S what we need to figure out now." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe I can do some research. Look into the greatest tomes ever written on timestream maintainance." She grinned, and point to some big boxes in the back. "Mid-80s DC Comics."
He couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yeah, that might at least steer us in the right direction," he said. It wasn't like he had any other ideas at the moment as to how to figure this out.
"Look... just... go back. Talk to..." she tried her damnedest not to give that cute little frown. "Ami. See if she has any ideas. I'll look around, see if I can come up with anything. Maybe if we talk to the Watchers, they can help too."
He nodded. "So, you'll be here?" he asked her.
"Heh." She gave a cute, nervous chuckle, motioning around the place. "Me and my foster sister kinda own the place, so... yeah." She grinned. "I'm pretty much always here. Not like I have a social life."
"Well, I'll call as soon as I learn anything, or to just touch base, or something, OK?" He was failing at having anything to say right now. He was in too much shock to really be of any use.
She stepped away, just so that she didn't give in to that familiar action of giving him a great big kiss before he left. "Right. Um... call." She frowned, hating herself for asking him this. "Andrew? I know you got this gorgeous blonde girlfriend now... but... what we had. Do you miss it now? At all?"
Andrew looked down at his feet. He was pretty sure he was going to go to his apartment and cry himself half to death when this was over. "Now that I know what I was missing? Yeah, I do."
"I know I don't compare to her..." she gestured over her body. "In a lot of ways... but I still love you. And I always will." She looked ready to cry herself. "Even if you guys get married, have tons of sickeningly cute babies, and I end up with some guy who's not nearly as cutely nerdy as you... I'll love you to my dying day."
"Don't talk like that," he said. He walked back over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "I still love you, too, Cassie."
"I wanna hate her. I really do." Cassie sighed, looking more like the kid she really still was than ever. "But I know she's a good person. And she didn't... steal you from me. Nobody knew about this. So please. Don't break her heart, ok? If you guys are happy... BE happy. You can't throw away your happiness for me, ok?"
Right now he wasn't even sure *what* would make him happy for the moment. He just wanted to go beat his head against a wall until he was unconscious. He sighed, and bent down to kiss her on the cheek. "I'll be back, OK?"
"Yeah... I know you will be." She said, her voice heartbreakingly brave, even though it was easy to hear how hard she was trying not to cry.
With a nod, he turned around and walked out the door, trying to get out of there before the tears started falling out of his eyes.