Happily Ever Now a 12 Monkeys fan fiction. {ao3}
This is my first story for 12 Monkeys. Any incorrect information is no one's fault but my own. This has been in my head for a while and I knew I had to write it. I'm sorry if it doesn't make any sense but hopefully it does.
I hope you all enjoy this. Please let me know what you think.
I am considering continuing this with what happens between Cassie and Cole after their reunion but I would like to see how this one goes first.
It started off slow for Cassie a cool winters night in 2013, getting into her car as she spoke to Aaron on the phone, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she was missing. Hanging up, she set her phone aside before she looked into the back seat. Seeing the seat empty, she couldn't understand why she felt disappointed. Something inside of her was telling her that that night was supposed to change everything and perhaps it just had.
The next two years passed in a blur, with each new outbreak of disease reported and every time she travelled to help treat a new epidemic, she couldn't stop herself from looking for specific symptoms, symptoms that didn't necessarily match up with the disease being treated, she knew she was looking for a virus that may not even exist with no explanation as to why.
Everything began to come to her one night in January when she found herself walking into the John Adams Hotel in Baltimore. Standing at the reception desk, looking back at the stairs she had just walked up, she could see it as if it were really happening, the man walking up towards her, blood staining his shirt.
“Cole.” She whispered to herself, a soft smile forming on her face as she remembered the man who had changed everything for her. She knew him, he had meant more to her than anyone and in ways she couldn't yet understand.
It takes her a week after her trip to the hotel to end things with Aaron, she knew in her heart that she didn't want to be with him, there was a part of her telling her that he couldn't be trusted. It didn't make sense, she had memories of events that hadn't happened, would and could never happen. She told him it was over as he tried to give her a ring.
Cassie knew they had saved the world and in doing so, he had been erased. She wasn't going to see him again, but still, deep down there was hope. Time owed them after all.
The months passed and she takes a job at the CDC, keeping tabs on everyone she had known in 2044, in that timeline. She had sent flowers to Jones when she had found out Hannah had been born, surprise filling her when she received a thank you note a while later. It was simple but it had told her what she'd been curious about but too nervous to ask, she wasn't only one who remembered what they had done.
She follows the news as Jennifer takes over The Markridge Group, the fact that she succeeds in bioengineering a Unicorn surprises everyone but her. If anyone could do it, it was going to be Jennifer. The next morning she finds an package on her desk, to anyone else, the contents would make absolutely no sense, but to Cassie it told her that she too remembered the world they had once lived in.
2016 turns into 2017 and she's been having weekly lunches with Jennifer for months. It seems like such an unlikely friendship to anyone else but they both know they're the only two who understands what they had been through. They talk about the world they used to know, the changes in their lives now. It's not much, an hour a week but it went without saying that it was something they both needed.
It's a late night in her office when she stumbles upon the house built of Cedar and Pine. It was just an image on her screen, a single look at the image of the outside told her all she needed to know, this was home. The moment she steps inside she feels more at home than she could ever remember feeling, it took her thirty seconds to tell the estate agent that she would take it.
Moving into her new home, Cassie quits her job at the CDC, choosing instead to open a small practice in town. Her weekly lunches with Jennifer turn into biweekly dinners with her and the Jones family. It had been a shock when she had opened the door to find Jennifer with Katarina, her husband and a two year old Hannah waiting to be let in. The dinners with Team Splinter as Jennifer had named them felt more normal than anything else in her life, still she found herself wishing for him to return to them.
2017 becomes 2018 and in a blink of an eye Winter turns into Spring. It's the Spring evenings when the weather is slowly beginning to warm up she finds herself sitting on her porch steps, holding onto hope that just maybe time would work in their favour. As the sun begins to disappear behind the trees, she whispers those three words that seemed to be so prominent in their relationship; See You Soon.
Jennifer comes to her one day at her practice, leaving her a gift she insists she doesn't open until she's home. It's a small box that feels so familiar to her and once she opens it she knows why, a butterfly, the butterfly from 1959 sat in the tissue paper as the sun sets. Placing the box beside her, she looks out towards the trees, hoping that night would be the night.
Another week passed before something felt different. Sitting on that very same porch, her eyes glanced over to the trees, she was sure her mind was playing tricks on her as she watches him step out. It's in that moment her body moves on its own as she stands up, her lips slowly curving into a smile as she runs towards him.
“You're really here?” She whispers, her hand touching his cheek.
“I'm here.” James says in response, their arms soon wind around one another, pulling each other as close as they possibly can. Explanations of the how came later, promises of forever were whispered between lips touching and desperate embraces. It wasn't what either of them had imagined nor expected but it was what they had, it was Happily Ever Now.
