The Long Way Home

Chapter Thirteen: Freedom

You're keeping secrets on your pillow
Let me inside, no cause for alarm
I promise tonight not to do no harm

Brandon Flowers - Crossfire

It was day two in their Afgan hell hole and they were hungry, hurt and sleep deprived. Mathews was attempting to conserve strength by curling into a ball and cat napping in the furthest corner of the cell. Connors had been removed from The Cave, the day before for his interrogation. They had spent hours grilling the older man before they had returned him to their cage with a broken jaw and burn marks all over his battered body. He couldn't talk, instead he made antagonizing whimpering noises as Cass cradled his head upon her lap, smoothing the ginger hair away from his deformed features. She couldn't help much with the way the bones were broken in his jaw but she could provide some comfort to his injured form as Rucka prayed to their God on his knees beside her. He was the next to go and on the dawn of her thirtieth birthday he was the first of them never to come back.

Cass's heart was racing when she woke up, she could feel it pounding against her ribcage just underneath John's hand as she jerked awake from the reverie as if she'd just been shot.

"What's wrong?" he whispered into the darkness, his voice still thick with sleep.

His nose was trailing up an along the curve of her throat until he planted a butterfly kiss on that sensitive spot just under the lobe of her ear. His firm muscular body was curled around hers, spooning it lovingly on the compulsory single bed.

"It was a dream." she murmured, daring not to move from the safety of his embrace. "Go back to sleep."

There was shame in her voice, John could hear it as much as he could feel it in the wrought tension that had invaded her muscles. She was like steel, immobile and unrelenting in his arms as he kissed her naked shoulder.

"Cassie." he singsonged her name quietly, propping his head up on his hand before she flopped onto her stomach, maintaining the contact of their nude bodies as she peered at him from beneath her flurry of dark hair.

John's fingertips played along the knots of her spine as he doodled patterns on her supple skin. He knew she found the gesture relaxing, he had spent hours in the aftermath of their love making mesmerising every single contour of her body with his hands.

"We all have bad dreams." he told her, his head coming to rest on the pillow so that their faces were inches apart.

His fingers were still working their magic, massaging the physical echoes of the nightmare from her taunt form. She'd had the same dream last year as well. She wasn't sure if she could still call it a dream when in reality it was really a memory of an event that had occurred two years ago. There was still a terrible guilt resting there on her shoulders, she knew it wasn't logical. Both her and Luke had survived what had happened in Afghanistan by sheer luck. If it had been the other way around she wouldn't have wanted Connors or Rucka to harbour any issues over her death. After it was all said and done, there wasn't a damn thing left to change.

"Your thirty two today." John stated quietly as his thumb traced over the apple of her cheek.

Cass didn't question how he knew that. John was the ranking military officer to Atlantis, he had every single member of the expedition's files at his fingertips. It did make her wonder how much he really knew about her but she could never bring herself to broach the subject. Somehow she doubted that he would invade her privacy in such a manner. She thought Carson had probably told him about her birthday, he was given her the day off despite her protests.

John's thumb smoothed over her parted lips before his mouth descended on hers as he cupped the side of her face. He placed the most tenderest of kisses upon her pursed lips before he whispered into the corner of her mouth.