All Cappie wanted to do was collapse, either onto a bar stool or into bed - he didn’t care which. However, since the moment he’d woken up and all his Atlantis memories had come flooding back, there had been one pressing issue on his mind: he needed to see Rebecca. He hadn’t meant to leave her and he was pretty confident that she would know that but he had left her and he could only imagine what she must have felt when she’d realised what had happened. She’d had two weeks to live with the knowledge that he must have gone straight back to Casey, which, of course, he had.
The whole thing was very disorienting. The day he’d just experienced at home was a very fresh memory and it was real but so were the two years he’d spent in Atlantis. One didn’t cancel the other out. His relationship with Rebecca was just as real and just as relevant as the night he and Casey had spent together and the decision he’d made earlier today to win her back.
Despite watching the show and knowing what was going to come next if he ever returned home, he was surprised by how much one day could change how he felt. It complicated everything. If he was a betting man, which he absolutely was, he would guess that that was the real reason why Rebecca was mad at him. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
Feeling an uncomfortable knot in his stomach, Cappie climbed the steps onto Rebecca’s porch. He trudged across to the door and knocked, even though he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say. He was hoping that, when he saw Rebecca, inspiration would strike him.
Feeling sorry for herself hadn't been that hard. Over the last two weeks, Rebecca had been in a foul mood the majority of the time, and the rest of the time she'd gotten lost in two of the best parties Atlantis could have thrown back-to-back. Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's. With the help of her roommate, she'd forgotten all about the reasons why she was feeling sorry for herself and found new, pretty, and sometimes sweaty reasons to make herself feel great. But speaking of that roommate, she was now gone, and in her place was a vampire that had helped to terrorize the Atlantis population while she'd been "evil." Through some sort of magical voodoo, she was "cured" or something and now living down the hall.
Oh, and her boyfriend showed up the same day. Ex-boyfriend. Boyfriend. Whatever he was supposed to be these days.
Rebecca didn't know how she felt about Cappie's return. On one hand, she was glad to not be the only one here from home again and had missed him, but it wasn't that simple. The whole schtick with Atlantis was that you arrived one day, stayed a year or two or ten, and when you were eventually sent back, you were sent back to the exact point in time you left off from at home. Rebecca knew exactly what point in time that was for Cappie and who would have been there waiting for him.
While she waited for him to show up at the house, she felt like that freshman girl all over again. She'd been so insecure about his feelings for Casey that it had eventually caused them to break up not once, but twice. Or maybe it was once and a half since they'd never officially gotten back together that second time. Sure, Cappie might have had his old Atlantis memories, but he'd been two or more years removed from life back in Cyprus Rhodes. Now it was back to being literally yesterday for him.
She stared at the door at the sound of his knock but then finally stood with a sigh and opened to see him standing there. One of the first things she noticed was his hair. It was back to its normal, longer length. She liked it just fine this way, but it was just another reminder that this wasn't exactly the Cappie that had left her two weeks ago.
"Hey," she said and opened up the door wider for him to come inside the house. "Welcome back and all that."
The flat tone to Rebecca’s voice when she opened the door was more painful than Cappie he anticipated. He had hoped that she’d at least be happy to see him, even if they were both aware that things had changed since he’d last been here. He sighed, hitched a resigned smile onto his face and stepped into the house.
“You don’t seem as pleased to have me back as I’d expected,” he said as soon as they were both stood in the deserted living room, deciding to point out the elephant in the room straight away.
It wasn’t that Rebecca was unhappy to see Cappie, she wasn’t. She was just… anticipating the inevitable. And, okay, so she was a little mad at him, irrationally so, but at least she recognized the irrational part. She shut the door and followed him into the main room. “Sorry. It’s just really weird. Knowing you’ve been back home and showed up here again, remembering everything.”
Rebecca smiled a little. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it was still genuine. “It is good having you back, Cappie. You left at like one of the worst times ever because you missed the Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day parties.” She only remembered bits and pieces of Mardi Gras, so she considered that one to be a success.
Cappie looked down at his feet and nodded as he agreed with her assertion - it was weird. He wished he could tell her that it didn’t make a difference or that she shouldn’t let it feel weird but he couldn’t lie to her.
At mention of the parties, he relaxed a little. He’d had exactly the same thought when he’d realised how long he’d been gone. It was unfair. Both parties had been an annual staple for him since he’d arrived in Atlantis - this would have been his third of each - and he was gutted he’d missed them, although he couldn’t deny that both might have brought back uncomfortable memories. Especially St Patrick’s Day. He’d spent the previous year’s party with Casey, blissfully happy in ignorance of the fact that she was making plans to leave Atlantis soon afterwards. The year before that, he’d kissed Emilia for the first time, not to mention meeting Octavia. On second thoughts, perhaps it was for the best that he’d missed it this year after all…
“I hope you picked up the baton on my behalf, Miss Logan,” he admonished teasingly.
“Obviously,” she said with a knowing look although she didn’t go into detail. Mardi Gras happened to have fallen on the exact day Cappie left, and it was very easy to let her roommate practically feed her drinks and let the power of alcohol combine with Atlantis magics to make for a fun night. A lot of fun she didn’t remember, but once the drinks kicked in, she definitely made sure to have a lot of that - fun. Until the next morning when she hated the world and everything in it thanks to the hangover of all hangovers. St. Patrick’s had been similar, but she hadn’t gone that far.
Moving towards the living room, Rebecca sat down at one end of the couch. She hated feeling this unsure about herself, and there was only a small list of people she’d felt this way around. Usually it meant she felt something more than tolerance or even an ounce of friendship for, and it was why it was so easy for her to close herself off when an inkling of vulnerability started to rear its ugly head.
“So, you went back home,” she said after a moment of quiet. “And now you’re back.” A couple of nights after he’d left, she had finally sat down and watched to see how things ended for them. That particular bad decision had involved a lot of wine and talking back to the television - especially when it came to her getting back with Evan. But even if she hadn’t watched the events play out, she would have known what Cappie had gone back to the moment he left here. “I guess everything there is back to being fresh for you now.”
The look that Rebecca gave him told him all he needed to know about how much she had enjoyed the parties without him and the smirk fell away from his face, leaving him with a heavy feeling in his stomach. How could be blame her? He’d gone and she’d had no idea when or if he’d come back.
Cappie followed Rebecca into the living room but didn’t sit down immediately. Instead, he paced around a little bit, heading over to the glass doors out onto to deck to look outside before turning back around to meet her gaze.
“Yeah,” he replied, sounding a little defeated. He couldn’t deny it. The emotions he felt surrounding Casey were raw again, like they hadn’t been in a long while, not since she’d left him this time last year. He sighed and sank down onto the couch beside Rebecca.
“So, what now?” he asked gingerly. He had a feeling he knew the answer.
All Rebecca could do at first was just shrug. She’d been here not quite a year and in that year she’d somehow managed to start having feelings for Cappie again when she knew deep down that one day he’d realize that she wasn’t the one he wanted to be with anymore. It had always been a fear of hers, but in Atlantis the thoughts of home had managed to fade away and far enough away that it didn’t seem quite as scary. Then he’d been sent home and came back with home fresh on his mind all over again. She knew it wasn’t either of their faults, no matter how easy it was to blame him, but somehow she still scolded herself because she should have known better.
“I can’t do it again, Cappie,” she said quietly. “I know you didn’t choose to go home, and you didn’t choose to get your fill of home again, but I’m not sure if I can do it again. To wait until you figure out how to move on from everything. From Casey.” There, she finally said her name. She and Casey had actually been in a mostly good place the last time she’d seen her, but it didn’t stop the fact that she felt she was always competing with her in one way or another whether it was competing with her in their relationships or with the house.
She smiled sadly. “And I’m not sure if you want to do this again either. You and me, I mean.”
Cappie felt his heart sink. He wished he could tell her that she’d got it wrong, that he was going to fight for her and the relationship they’d had here in Atlantis up until two weeks ago but they had been through far too much for him to start lying to her now. His heart wasn’t it in anymore and it would feel wrong to pretend that nothing had changed for him. Not that she would fall for his bullshit anyway. She knew him too well, knew that his trip into the past would have messed with his head and put him right back into the depths of his Casey fixation. She wouldn’t believe him even if he denied it and he respected her too much to try to do that.
“I care about you,” he said, truthfully, a pained expression on his face.
“I know,” Rebecca told him. She did know Cappie cared about her. Just not as much as she cared about him or enough to cure him of his love and infatuation with Casey Cartwright. Though, truth be told, Rebecca wasn't even sure if she was in love with Cappie. Love was a big and complicated emotion and one that Rebecca had never been comfortable with in relationships. She was barely comfortable with it in the non-romantic areas of her life. Yes, she knew she had issues with emotional intimacy, but they weren't ones that would be solved anytime soon. It was easier to ignore them most of the time.
“I care about you too, but I'm not sure if this would have gone any further. Or maybe it would have, I don't know. It's hard to predict the future in this place when the actual future keeps changing.” She wasn't around when the people from the future timelines showed up the first time, but it seemed like half of those weren't destined to happen any longer for one reason or another.
“I still care about you; it's just… different now.” This was a path they'd been down once before, and it felt oddly familiar again. She didn't want to chop off his balls or stick needles into a Cappie-shaped voodoo doll (mostly), but their relationship had once again changed its status back to friendship. It was a strange feeling talking about it with him face-to-face since, in a way, she'd already gone through her own grieving process the last two weeks.
Cappie hated to admit it but he wasn’t sure he’d seen a future for him and Rebecca here either. He’d really enjoyed the time they’d spent together here in Atlantis but he’d been living each day as it had come, never thinking too far ahead. Rebecca had helped drag him out of a low place in his life and made him remember how to have fun with someone he felt completely himself with. But that was part of the problem. He felt so comfortable with her that he didn’t feel challenged and, although he hadn’t dared admit it to himself at the time, he knew the day would have come when that would have stopped being enough for him.
Cappie gave a deep sigh and reached out for Rebecca, shifting closer and wrapping his arms around her so he could rest his chin on the top of her head.
“Why do we have to be so goddamn sensible about this?” he asked wistfully.
Rebecca sighed a little and let herself lean into him. She and Cappie would always be close; she knew that. They understood each other in a way that a lot of people didn’t, and he’d been one of the first people at CRU who had helped to bring her out of her cold and calculating shell.
“I guess we all have to grow up sooner or later, Peter Pan. Apparently, it sucks most of the time.” There was both a light joke and a hint of sadness mixed into her tone. This was familiar territory for the two of them. The overall circumstances were much different, but the underlying reasons for she and Cappie not working out were the same in the two - and a half - times they’d parted ways. She was fairly certain that this was likely to be the last one.
“I am glad you’re back,” she said after a moment. “This place is ridiculously boring without you.”