#some good fics from a fairly wide array of sources

[alvindraperzzz]

Cassie Sandsmark Centric Fic Rec

Here are some of my favorite Cassie focused fics, in no particular order:

Orpheus Rising by ClockStrikesThree Cassie has lost more loved ones than she can count. When Tim dies, she can't handle it. She decides that enough is enough, and sets out for the Underworld to bring him back. Along the way she encounters monsters, sorceresses, and a god with a grudge. 

little things by sakuyamons Four times Cassie and Diana went to get ice cream together, and one time they didn't.

Blood of the Covenant by SoleminiSanction She doesn’t know if she believes him, but she does trust him. In which Cassie accompanies Tim on his quest to find Batman, and being together make all the difference.

Waiting For What Will and What Won’t by angel_gidget Five comparisons Cassie would come to regret, and one promise that made all the difference. Or, sometimes your dead friends come back to life and it takes awhile to adjust.

Collision Course by Cynder2013 Cassie has to run an errand for Hecate. She enlists Raven’s help. PJO crossover, part of the Young Hero Support Group series. 

As for all gifts by Teland Cassie thinks about how it feels to be a superhero, and all the ways she and Cissie differ.

Borrowed Time and Limina by D.L.SchizoAuthoress Cassie and Kit talk about dead people. Two short fics about the underrated friendship between Wonder Girl and Kid Eternity. 

Wonder Girl/Titans, Crack and Magical Impregnation by Anon Every character needs a good crack fic to their name, and this is Cassie’s. Cassie has been a hero for years now, and thinks she’s finally got a handle on how her powers work. Then she finds out the hard way that she unknowingly inherited her divine father’s ability to magically knock up people she’s interested in. 

Honey by neptunesenceladas The Teen Titans have just reformed after Graduation Day and between learning to be a team there is a moment of peace to mourn. Cassie helps Kori harvest honey for the first time since Donna passed. 

Who’s Afraid? by Cereal_Forks Twelve year old Cassie is sent to Watchtower County for the summer while her mother deals with issues at home. All she wants for her summer is to read comics or maybe have a little adventure, until she learns that Watchtower County is much more exciting than it appears, perhaps more exciting than she can handle. Core Four It au. 

[imagineclaireandjamie]

ARE U KIDDING ME THAT UNREAD FIC IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES NOW ITS SO GOOD EEEEK

As Yet Unread: Part One:

Crossing, uncrossing and then recrossing his legs, Jamie sat nervously in the uncomfortable hospital chair as he watched Claire lying unconscious before him. She looked altogether too peaceful for someone covered in cuts, bruises and breaks but her face was smooth and calm. For the moment.

She’d taken a fairly substantial beating from Randall and had been lucky that the postman had found her when he did. There wasn’t an inch of Claire that hadn’t suffered some form of physical assault. “Fucking bastard,” Jamie muttered beneath his breath as he tapped his fingers anxiously against the warped wood of the chair.

Spluttering awoke him from his annoyed ramblings and he turned his head to focus in on Claire once more. She’d been intubated, a breathing tube threaded along her throat to ensure that she could breathe properly whilst in her induced coma. But now, as she tried to wake, the tube was causing her to gasp and choke.

Pressing the buzzer for the nurse over and over, Jamie tried to soothe Claire by running his hand along her forehead, his fingers making circular motions against her fragile flesh. “Easy now, Claire,” he whispered, pressing the buzzer more forcefully now.“Dinna try and push it out, aye? Wait for the doctors to come in and remove it for you. Ye’ll be alright, dinna fash.”

In a flash the room was filled with nurses and one on-call doctor and Jamie was resigned to the hallway. Pacing, he waited, his agitated footsteps echoing along the empty corridor.

“You can come back in now, Mr Fraser,” one rather large, portly nurse clearly enunciated. “She’s fine, aye? Sitting up and asking for ye.”

Sliding past the lass, Jamie shimmied his way back into the recovery suite, his cheeks a delightful shade of pink as he glanced over at Claire, his eyes wide as he took her in. She was sat upright now, her arm still slung loosely across her chest in the cast she’d been placed in on arrival. Her broken leg was elevated but she was breathing by herself and more importantly, she was awake.

“Claire,” Jamie sighed, his shoulders sagging, “how do you feel?”

Claire shrugged, wincing as various pains and aches shot through her but she didn’t speak.

“I hope ye don’t mind me being here,” Jamie continued when it became clear that she wasn’t ready to talk to him.

Claire shook her head. Her eyes were alight with questions, but still she remained silent. She was grateful to him, happy to see a familiar face in amongst the crowds of medical professionals whom she didn’t know but the reason for her admission to Glasgow A&E began to eat away at her as she processed -internally- all of her lumps and bumps, assessing her laundry list of injuries.

“The police called me, ken?” Jamie said, continuing to talk when her eyes re-focused back on him. “That day,” he continued sadly, “when ye left wi’ him I kent what he was. Murtagh thought, wrongly, that ye might be agoraphobic, aye? Where ye dinna wish to go outside for fear of what might occur.”

Claire nodded, her chin falling forwards as she shifted her weight beneath the thin bed sheets.

“But when he came, the look in his eyes when he asked ye to go wi’ him was feral, Claire. I called the police as soon as ye’d left and told them something was amiss. But because nothing had been reported before, Randall had no priors with abuse or assault, they couldna -wouldna- do anything about it.”

Smiling dolefully, Claire shook her head again as she reached her free hand out from beneath the quilt to prod at the damaged fingers on her right.

“Yer right handed?” Jamie asked cautiously.

Claire nodded.

“They’ll heal, Claire,” he said, leaning towards her with a small smile twitching at his lips.

Claire nodded again.

“As will you, in time.”

For three days in a row Jamie visited Claire at the correct hours. Often he would arrive and she’d still be asleep, curled protectively around her broken arm whilst her leg was still slightly elevated - but not so much now that it disturbed her sleep. She was resting and recovering but she still remained stubbornly silent.

On the fourth day, tired, low and hungry, Jamie appeared with a fresh bunch of flowers to put in Claire’s currently empty vase.

“I didn’t know if there was anything ye might like, Claire,” he said quietly - placing the pre-cut stems into the waiting water. “If there’s anything you want me to bring for ye, biscuits or food you like, you’ll tell me, aye?” He added, trying to coax something -anything- from her.

Claire simply blinked her eyes open, raised her head a little and nodded.

Even Jamie could see the pain that simple movement gave her and he ran his fingers lightly over her exposed arm.

Jamie had spoken with the doctors at length about Claire’s wounds, he could see, scattered across her shoulders, neck and chest, the damage inflicted and even he could tell that it wasn’t a random array of injuries. Doctor Gowan, Ned to Jamie now, had explained at length that Randall must have known what he was doing to illicit the marks on Claire’s beaten flesh. The gashes across her back, belly and thighs had a dangerously precise nature about them - as if her abuser had known the exact places to strike at the exact moment.

“I have to work tomorrow, Murtagh needs some time wi’ Suzette and the bairn,” he whispered, not fully knowing whether Claire was listening to him or not. “But I’ll come back the day after. I promise ye, Claire, I amne leaving until you’re better whether ye want me to stay or no’, ken?”

Sighing, Claire smiled a little as she licked her dry lips and nodded.

Jamie waited, pausing by the chair he’d pulled to her bedside to see if she’d respond vocally to him, but after a moment, she closed her mouth, pulled the hospital blanket back up to her ears and snuggled back into the tiny cot. Tensing his shoulders, Jamie sat and took hold of her injured hand as he stroked her broken fingers. She had gained a little movement in them over the past few days but it was still early days for her recovery.

“The doctors are certain there’s no internal bleeding now,” Jamie parotted, hoping some inane conversation might encourage her. She knew this of course, Dr Gowan had informed her of the news himself but he had no new news for her and just talking out loud gave him some semblance of peace. She was here. She was breathing. And just knowing that his call had meant she had someone as a point of reference when she’d been airlifted in made his heart ache a little less.

She had been critical on first arrival. The surgeons thought she’d been left alone for at least two days as the welts across her body had begun to clot and heal but their biggest fear had been any sustained injuries that they couldn’t see. Those that lay beneath the surface of the skin were often the most dangerous and some internal injuries might not manifest for a few days. Because of this Claire had been under a strict monitoring regime that had her checked and tested over the course of a number of hours and the first few days of her hospital stay had been filled with those kinds of irritating interruptions.

“Mr. Fraser,” the nurse piped up from the doorway, her fingers drumming against the thin wood, “ye’ve ten minutes left and then ye must be gone, aye? It’s nearly tea-time.”

Nodding, Jamie stood and bent over, kissing Claire on the cheek as he went to collect his coat from the back of the door.

“I’ll leave ye be now, Claire,” he began, fiddling with the zip on the front of his jacket as he hovered in the doorway.

It had only been three days, he told himself. Three long days, but three nonetheless. Claire needed time and her own space. She’d never freely been afforded that before so the least he could do now was aim to be as constant a presence as necessary without crowding or forcing her into a corner.

Glancing back over his shoulder, he made sure she wasn’t distressed before turning back and heading for the lift.

Squeezing her eyes closed, Claire twisted her unbroken leg into the rough sheets of the Glasgow NHS hospital bed linens and tried to control the ever increasing pounding in her chest. She’d coped. She had created herself the tiniest of safe spaces inside her head so that she hadn’t drowned in a sea of despair and hurt. But she was finding re-discovering her voice almost impossible.

“He’ll be back, lassie,” a kindly nurse tittered as she came to draw the curtains in Claire’s private room - immediately detecting her anxiousness and the source of her anguish. “Just rest up now, aye? If ye sleep, time will pass, you will heal better and yer heart will lighten. I promise ye.”

One day away from Claire became two and then three as work on the old section of the Glasgow university lecture hall and classrooms became more detailed and time consuming. Jamie hadn’t meant it to be that way and as the days passed, so he became more and more apprehensive.

“Why don’t ye get yerself off, man?” Murtagh said as they laid down the final floor panel of the day. The light was dimming, the subtle red hue dancing prettily through the stained glass window panels. “I’ll stay tonight and finish this wee section off. Ye work hard enough. Susie says thank ye for always being the one to take the strain when we need it, but now it’s yer turn to go and look after someone who needs ye - and I agree wi’ her.”

“She’s verra wise.” Jamie said, rubbing his sawdust covered hands over his work trousers.

“Aye, I ken it. What she’s doing wi’ a cretin like me I’ll never understand.” Murtagh quipped, winking across at Jamie as he sanded away at a small section of the floor edging. “I’ll only stay long enough to get these borders all sanded and ready fer placing tomorrow in the daylight. Then I’ll be off too -but if ye dinna leave now, Jamie, ye’ll wear a hole in the new panels and we’ll have to remodel the entire floor again, aye?”

Snorting, Jamie threw the rag out of his back pocket at Murtagh’s head and pulled off his toolbelt. “Yer a funny one, uncle. Just be careful ye dinna sand yer own fingers!” He chuckled, watching as the sandpaper came precariously close to the offending articles. Grabbing his coat from the home-made sideboard, Jamie looked over his shoulder once to see Murtagh cackling and readjusting his hands to a more suitable position.

“Off wi’ ye!” Murtagh shouted, “tell me how to do my job like I amne up to the task, he muttered jokingly.

Starting up the engine of his van, Jamie set the vehicle into reverse and pulled out of the small car park and onto the main road. It was quiet now, rush hour well and truly over as he made the short trip from the university to the hospital, skirting the ring road in favour of some of the lesser known backstreets. It didn’t take him long to arrive and after paying the ridiculous pay and display costs, he strode quickly through the front door of the smallish intensive care ward.

There had been talk of moving Claire onto another ward now that she was more stable, but the injuries she’d sustained still needed daily washes and bandage changes and Dr Gowan had fought for her to stay where she was. He’d told both Jamie and Claire that once her arm had healed and was out of the cast, she’d be moved, but until then, with her mobility almost at zero, she needed to be monitored more closely.

It made Jamie happier - especially since he’d been away for three days now - to know she was somewhere with round the clock care.

Peeking his head around the open door, Jamie looked across the small suite to find Claire almost in the same position he’d left her in. Her arm, now in a new cast, had been balanced over a more stable cushion but her leg remained elevated and unchanged. She looked peaceful, but there was something about the way she’d hunched her shoulders that had Jamie worried. She didn’t seem relaxed. She actively seemed in some distress but her sleepy silence masked her fear.

“Claire?” Jamie whispered, wanting to reach out and touch her but afraid that the shock might scare rather than soothe her. “It’s me, it’s Jamie. I’m sorry,” he began, feeling instantly guilty for not making more of an effort to see her during the allotted hours over the last few days, “work has kept me busy and I couldna step out and just leave Murtagh dealing wi’ all the grunt work. But I’m here now. Murtagh and Suzette send their love.”

He kept talking, babbling as if she were alert enough to respond.

Shifting in her half-sleep, Claire sensed the position of the body closest to her and nearly shook as horror took hold of every part of her. She could hear, loosely, the words but it was all a random gaggle of noise, a high pitched blur that sounded almost as if her ears were filled with water.

She wanted to scream.

She wanted to cry out.

But the injection they’d forced upon her, plying her with a substantial amount of sedative drugs, had made it so that she couldn’t even move to shimmy away from the threat.

Unaware of this, Jamie brought his fingers to the corner of the mattress to straighten the sheet beneath Claire, his movements restless and agitated as he battled with himself. A group of thin hairs had plastered themselves to Claire’s forehead, the sweat gathered there holding them hostage and Jamie yearned to wipe them back into place.

“The n-noise…” Claire whispered gingerly, her senses returning a little as the drug induced haze began to wane, “...I…”

Jamie waited patiently, his whole body poised to act as soon as he needed to.

“I-is it always t-t-this way?”

“Which noise do ye mean, Claire?” Jamie asked quietly.

“It’s a hu-hum I think. Like a distant whoosh. But it...it n-ne-never stops.”

Glancing out of the window and back again, Jamie saw the headlights of the traffic whizzing by the hospital, the inner-city roads coming to life and then calming a little as the lights ran from red/orange to green and back to amber and red once more. He’d never given much thought to the sights and sounds of Glasgow but for someone who’d seen only a private country estate for the last ten years the almost constant background noise must have been rather disconcerting.

“It’s the road, Claire,” he said softly, reaching for the glass of water and the the straw that had been left on the side. Allowing her to drag her tired eyes open, he waited for her to take a sip before placing it back down on the side-table once more. “The dual carriageway that runs around the city isna far away but ye can probably hear the main road outside of yer window. We’re almost right beside an exit ramp and the primary access to the cathedral, the mausoleum and the brewery. Traffic never really ceases here, lass.”

“O-oh,” Claire replied, almost fully alert now as she settled herself beneath the heavy blankets. “It’s strange.”

“Ye’ll learn to tune it out.” Jamie replied with a small smile growing at the corner of his lips.

She was talking again. It might have been small baby steps, but she’d initiated a conversation with him and his shoulders seemed to lose the tight pressure that had been building up inside of them.

“How are ye feeling?” He asked, rapidly seeing the look of combined shame and dread cross her features. “What’s the matter?” Jamie asked cautiously, watching as her good leg curled up closer to her chest. She was protecting herself, he could tell, forming herself into a small, life-preserving ball as if his question was the foot that was going to -metaphorically- kick her in the ribs.

“Bad.” She gasped, the last forty-eight hours replaying in her mind over and over again.

“Did ye want to talk about it?” He asked with some trepidation, his eyes focused solely on Claire as she mentally prepared herself.

“I had a nightmare.”

“Aye, I thought as much.”

“You can tell?” She questioned, leaning into Jamie’s touch as his hands moved to take hold of her bruised fingers.

“Ye dinna look comfortable - that’s all. That and there are rings around yer eyes that say your sleep hasna been a restful one.”

“After I woke on the second night in tears again, the nurses,” Claire began, her fingers twitching gingerly against Jamie’s, “they sedated me. They thought it might help - I think. But I wasn’t compos-mentis enough for them to ask me.”

“But it didna help?”

“It d-didn’t make the dreams worse,” she said tiredly, “but I was trapped in my own head. I couldn’t move my arms or legs - all of my limbs just instantly became too heavy to manage - and it was like I was back there. In that room with him and I couldn’t breathe.” Her chest tightened as she spoke, the memories of her last twenty-four hours still incredibly vibrant. Twinned with her week in torturous captivity, Claire was rapidly succumbing to chronic fatigue. “...please,” she began to ask, knowing she didn’t really have the right to ask this of Jamie but needing to anyway, “stay with me? You help to stave away the memories.”

Shifting Claire slightly, Jamie moved to lie next to her in the small bed. Pulling her head against his chest, he placed his arm carefully around her shoulders watching for the sweat soaked bandages as he cuddled her softly. “Have ye told the doctors about the sedative, Claire?” He whispered, kissing her damp forehead as if compelled to do so. “If no’ I’ll tell them. I dinna want them trying to calm ye and causing you more anguish in the process. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“Not yet,” she replied, her eyes closed again as the subtle rise and fall of Jamie’s chest rocked her into an easier sleep, “it’s only just worn off properly, I think.”

Wrapping his arms more tightly around her now, Jamie exhaled steadily. “Dinna fash, Claire.” he sighed, “I willna leave ye.”

“When can I leave?” Claire returned, the heat of Jamie’s body beneath her giving her some semblance of strength.

“Once yer arm is out of the cast and ye can move around more freely. The doctors don’t want to leave ye bedbound and immobile wi’out some manner of support.”

Holding back her tears, Claire tried to remain positive but the question had been a loaded one. “It doesn’t really matter,” she said more calmly than she felt, “it isn’t like I have a home to go back to, is it?”

“Aye, ye do,” Jamie rallied quickly.

Claire bit her lip as their joined fingers - her sore digits tapping carefully against his unbroken ones. Moisture built in her eyes as a few stray droplets escaped, landing on Jamie’s covered chest.

“My home is yers, I even have a room ready for you….if ye want? Though it’s yer choice. Yer no’ obligated to take me up on that offer.”

“You’d take me in?” Claire hiccuped.

“Wi’out a second thought, Claire. Nay doubt.”

“Thank y-you…” she replied, leaving the statement of gratitude open ended as she twisted her raised leg to get herself more comfortable.

“Yer welcome.” Jamie answered happily.

Poking her head into the quiet room, Nurse Fitzgibbons pulled the door closed.

“Are ye no’ going to tell him it’s time, Glenna? Visiting hours are over.” Nurse Crook tisked seeing the twinkle in Glenna’s eye and knowing immediately what that meant.

“Ach, no!” She returned, her tone light and jolly. “Did ye no’ see the lassie the last few nights. Gi’ them their space.”

“Ye’ll get yerself into bother, Glenna,” Nurse Crook jested, heeding her superiors instructions.

“Nah, I willna.” She said confidently, nodding, her face plastered with determination as she lead Nurse Crook away.