Come Sail Away (Cass) - Bathtub Beach

Her brow rose.

"Why would you think that?"

She folded her hands and brought them up to her lips, obviously thinking.

"Cass, are you leaving Alex?"

She frowned.

"I can break his bond, Cass. I can do it... but it's painful. Extremely so."

She tilted her head in thought.

"Cass... how bound to you is he? Is it a full bond?"

Cass nodded. 

"Fully to me, as I am to him."

She frowned.

"I remember being told once that a full bond will break all lesser ones. But if it's a full bond, there's not really any way, Cass. I'm sorry."

She rose to her feet. She let her toes dig into the sand a little bit, but she shook her head.

"No, Cass," she said quietly, taking a step toward the Toreador. "Don't run away from me. Please? I'm kind-of familiar with this one."

"But you're running away. Maybe not from me, but from the situation or... something."

She shook her head.

"Listen to me. I fell in love a very long time ago with a man that I knew I could never be with. And I lived with that, I pined for it. And every day, I kicked myself for it. But you know what? He fell in love with me, too. And like a couple of morons, we never thought that we would ever be together. So we never let ourselves be together. I went through no less than eight changes -- personality, beliefs, changing everything -- and he went through several, too."

"It doesn't matter. If he loves you, he fucking loves you. Do you know where that man and I am today? He's told me that if I held any sort of christian beliefs and we weren't Kindred, he would have proposed to me already. You do not get to decide if he loves you or not. He gets to decide that. He deserves that respect from you, if he deserves nothing else. Everyone changes. The world turns. Get over it and let Alex make his own choices. You took over as Primogen because that needed to happen. And you need to get over this, talk to your husband, find out what he actually wants and give him a chance to be the man you want him to be."

She shook her head.

"It is that simple. It takes time, obviously. It took me at least two lifetimes or more. But you know what? It happened. And from someone with experience, Cass, don't wait that long. Talk to him. Tell him what you're dealing with. He took vows with you, made them to you. While I don't know exactly what was said, I'm pretty sure that it boils down to the two of you, together, until death. You try to Lone Ranger this, Cass and you're right... he'll pull away from you. Because you push him away."

She stared at the Toreador for a long time, then shook her head.

"You're not going to talk to him. I'll talk to Orie, let her know that Alex might need a friend soon."

She jogged to catch up with Cass.

"No. It's not that I think you're lying. I think that I know this story. I know how it goes. Because you and I aren't so very different. I know how this goes because I've lived it. I've been there, Cass. And what I think? I think you've already made up your mind. I think that it doesn't matter in the least what he might say to you, even if you do pluck up the courage to talk to him. I'm telling you this because I don't want you to have to go through what I've gone through and there's nothing I can do to help you."

"I would believe anything he told me, Griselda. Anything," she said loudly as she turned to look at her. "And I would stay if he asked me to. I have and would go to the ends of the earth for him, as many times as I had to. I'd die for him."

She met the Toreador's eyes evenly.

"Do you love him enough to torture him to free him? Do you love him enough to torture yourself to free him, Cass?"