A glimpse of the past

Trigger warning: feelings.

As the video starts, you see this very same room as it was a long time ago, with the same old furniture, that was outdated even then. The video quality looks like a VHS from the 90's and it appears to be taken from a security camera. A woman is there, waiting impatiently, at first you think she might be Amelia, but you soon realise that it's instead a very young Cassandra. She looks so nervous and anxious and she looks beautiful and... happy. Her eyes shine when the door opens and a man enters the room.

He looks exactly like you, but with an air of confidence that makes him look completely different at the same time. He also looks young and beautiful, wearing his dress like it belonged to him alone. Your father looks back at her.

Cassandra barely waits for him to close the door before jumping on him for a torrid kiss. She sounds sloppy and needy. The way she kisses him, the same burning need, the same raven hair... She and Amelia look the same when horny. "Frank... I need you... My mom is not here... Take me on her desk. I want us to fuck on her desk... Maybe even leave her a surprise there."

"I'm afraid I will not do that." You hear your father's voice for the first time. It's so similar to yours. He sounds sad but sure of his words, like he just made a very difficult choice.

"What do you mean?" Asks the young Cassandra.

"I don't want this to be any harsher than it needs to be. I'm leaving to france. Tomorrow."

"What? Tomorrow? France? What do you...?"

He sighs, tired. "You know what I mean, Cass. This has been fun, but I have to spread my wings. I can't stay in this backwards city my whole life."

"But... Here you have wings. Am I not your wings?"

"No Cass, you are not them." He seems very sad to say that. "You always talk about not being like your mother, but it's been what? Seven years? You are still a part of her company, you still partake in her atrocities... You are still a Barton. Admit it, Cass: you will never change. You are too caught in all this crap to get away, and you like it here. You like being the next lady Barton."

"It's not like that, it's... I have responsibilities... I have..." She says.

"Yes I know... You always say the same, over and over. Oh, things will be so different, but they never are. I'm tired of that crap, Cass, because I do need to leave this place."

Back in the present, the older Cassandra speaks with a hiss that has become barely a whisper. The beginnings of a tear threads to appear in her eyes. "Turn that thing off, now."

"No, mother. I think we need to watch until the end." Says Lily unmoved.

The Cassandra of the past begs with a passion that you have never seen in her elder self. "Then let us leave... Together... You and I... Let's..."

"You don't really mean that." Says your father. "I know you don't. I learned it a while ago but it took me too much time to accept it, to accept that the woman I love has become everything we always despised. You will never leave these walls, Cass, not even for me. I might be hurting you now, but you have hurt me so many times before."

"But... But..." The young Cassandra is on the verge of tears, she closes her eyes to make them go away, but is a futile intention. Her voice sounds broken." I love you Frank, my Frank, my little flower... I love you with all my heart, I live to see you smile. Please don't do this to me, please don't..."

For a moment, he looks about to say yes, the decision in his eyes crumbling, but after a long silence, his broken voice answers. "Goodbye, Cassandra. You will always have a place in my heart." And then he turns away.

The first words of Cassandra are too soft to be recorded by the Camera, but slowly it rises, and before he has arrived at the door, she screams. "No... No... You can't... You can't leave. You can't leave me. You are mine! MINE!"

She runs to him, avoiding him any chance to leave. She grabs him with all her strength, even if her hands tremble. The Cassandra of the present is no longer able to look at the screen.

"Cass..." Your father says with immense sadness.

"YOU CANNOT LEAVE ME! YOU CAN'T..."

It all suddenly falls into silence. Their struggle carries them to one of the shelvings on the wall and she is far stronger. His head hits the corner of one of the shelves and that's it. His lively expression becomes suddenly neutral and his eyes remain open. It all looks so unnatural, so uncanny, but the silence is so real, the weight carries his body down, as her hands can no longer sustain him.

"Frank... ?"

The man does not say a word. His eyes are still open.

"Frank!, oh shit! FRANK!"

She falls over him, desperately trying to save him. Her hands looks for something to fix a button to press and make everything return to normal, but there is no such button. She cries and cries, she hugs him with all her strength, but life does not return to his body, and she would never hear his voice again.