The Long Way Home

Chapter Eighty Three: Tides of Change

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down, but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it, but
These are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most

Miley Cyrus – The Climb

Cassandra was livid. John had never seen his wife like this before and it scared him just a little. It was rare that she exhibited a temper and when she did she went off like a bottle of shaken soda. He was currently sitting on the couch trying to watch the 'A Team' while she slammed things around her desk, reorganising things without purpose.

John turned his head towards her, watching her movements with morbid fascination. She was gnawing on her lower lip, her eyes were narrowing and every so often she was making a low growl in her throat while she scrunched up paper and tossed it at the bin.

The anger was coming off her in waves, he could practically feel it in the air around him as she slapped the top drawer of her desk shut and moved onto the next. John had felt this brewing for weeks now, ever since she had been released from quarantine and he wondered what had finally tipped her over the edge.

He hit the pause button on the movie before peering over the couch reproachfully. He was unsure how to approach this, did he just go straight at it or should he be more tactile? His instincts were already coming into play as he rose from the couch, tossing the remote back onto it before striding towards his unsuspecting wife.

Cass was still engaged in a full out war with her second drawer, she didn't even feel his presence slinking towards her until his strong arms wrapped around her slender shoulders, hugging her tightly from behind. He buried his face in the hallow of her throat, his nose trailing up along the curve of her neck until his lips reached her ear.

"Talk to me." he beckoned, feeling Cass's body sag against his as the energy drained right out of her.

"It's Carson." she said quietly, her delicate hand rubbing across John's palm as she leaned back against her husband's inviting body. "I feel like I'm his pincushion."

"The tests are necessary, we need to make sure that the retrovirus isn't going to make you sick." John whispered against her sensitive flesh, giving Cass pleasurable goosebumps.

"It's not going to make me sick. He knew that weeks ago, he's been using that as an excuse to take as many blood samples as he could for the next stage of his retrovirus testing." she spat, her voice raising an octave.

John's entire muscular structure tensed at her words, his own temper being called to attention by the information he had just received. He had been waiting for news on Cass's condition for weeks and Carson had known...

"He wants to try the retrovirus on a live subject." she griped, her fingers squeezing around his wrist at the thought as she screwed her eyes tightly shut. "He wants to see the effects it'll have on me and a living Wraith."

"No." John responded savagely to the suggestion, drawing her even closer into his protective frame.

There wasn't a chance in hell John was letting any version of that retrovirus near his wife. He didn't care what Carson thought or how safe it supposedly was, he was not experimenting on his wife like she was one of his God damn lab rats. The serum had done enough damage to the two of them to last a life time and he would not tempt fate.

"I told him under no uncertain terms was I allowing him anywhere near me with that thing." she told John with venom in her voice.

"Good." John told her resolutely, his lips pursing against her flesh in a grim line.

"Which of course turned into a question of ethics..." Cass trailed off, tilting her head back on John's shoulder sighing at the memory.

The two of them had gone at it in the worse possible way inside their private office space. Carson had accused her of being selfish and she had tossed her own test results on his desk exclaiming that the retrovirus was making him into an awful person for trying to strong arm one of his friends into doing it's bidding.