Romance Fan Fiction / Other Fan Fiction ❯ Stars Above - A Cassunzel Fanfic ❯ Chapter 2: The Talk (No, not that type of talk) ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2: The Talk (No, not that type of talk)
Cassandra gently ran her hands down her slender but muscular form as she
took a deep breath. As usual, Cassandra was up before the rest of the castle
so she had time to prepare for the day ahead. Cassandra took another shaky
breath, the last of many, before turning around and heading towards her door.
Facing Rapunzel was one thing, but a whole bunch of other faces? That was
a lot harder to handle. Rapunzel was forgiving, that was true, but that doesn't
mean the rest of Corona was. But who knows, if they forgave Varian, they
could learn to forgive her. Right? After all, she spent most of her life serving
and protecting Corona loyally. Not that they'll remember that. But it has to
count for SOMETHING, right? At least to the king and queen. The queen and
Rapunzel were quite similar. The queen would, or already have, forgive
Cassandra. As for the king.. well, he was another story.

Cassandra hardened her eyes, stood up tall and tightened her lips while she
stared determined at the door. Who cares what they think? The only thought
that mattered to her was Rapunzel's. The rest she'll deal with when the time
comes. With a new-found determination, she opened the door to her room.

And... She was immediately hit with a face full of people.

The castle was crowded. Terribly crowded. With maids and other
castle-workers running by, there was barely enough room to breathe, much
less move. She never remembered it being this crowded. Then again, she was usually up and about before anyone else to get the princess up for her
day.

Cassandra made her away through the crowd of people. Seemingly, she
seemed to be going in the opposite direction of them which made things
harder. After 5 minutes of shoving and pushing and hoping to God she was
going the right way, she bumped into a hard chest and fell back, landing on
her rump with an "oof!".

Cassandra rubbed her head and growled. "Watch where you're going!"

"I believe you're the one who ran into me, Cassandra," The voice above her
stated. Cassandra's eyes widened. She knew that voice. She MISSED that
voice. Well, kinda. She looked up and there he was; standing there with his
hand stretched out to her, smirking with that playful smirk he always gave her.
Cassandra smiled slightly and grabbed his hand before she was pulled to her
feet.

"I don't know, Fitzherbert, I'm pretty sure YOU'RE the one who ran into ME.
Sure your age isn't messing with your eyesight? Maybe you should get that
checked out." Cassandra teased. Eugene gave a fake offended look before
they both burst out into laughter. She missed their playful banter.

Eugene's eyes suddenly softened and he gave her a sweet smile that she
only ever got to see occasionally directed at her. "It's nice to see you, Cass."

Cassandra gave him a smile in return. "It's good to see you too, Eugene."

"Heading to Rapunzel's?" He asked. Cassandra nodded. "Alright, then I won't
keep you. You know how she is about being on time." Eugene rolled his eyes
and he and Cassandra shared a quick laugh. "But come see me when you
can. I wanna catch up."

"Alright," Cassandra gave him a playful shove. "I will." Eugene gave her one
last smile before disappearing into the crowd of people.

Cassandra immediately turned back around and continued on to the
princess's room. It took a lot of shoving and squeezing before she arrived in
front of the door. Cassandra panted with her hands on her knees before she
knocked on the door. "Raps? I'm here."

Almost immediately, the door swung open with a very eager-looking princess
on the other side. "Cass! Hi! Come in!" Before Cassandra could so much as
nod or utter a word, she was pulled into the room and the door was shut
behind her.

"Woah, Raps! What's the hurry?" Cassandra  stumbled from the sudden force
and put a hand on Rapunzel's side table to steady herself.

"Nothing! This morning it sunk in that you're ACTUALLY here and it wasn't a
dream!" Rapunzel jumped onto her bed with a giggle and bounced up and
down. "I wanna catch up more! I have nothing to do today so we can talk all
day!"

“I call bullshit.”

“Cassandra!” Rapunzel reprimanded.

Cassandra raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Rapunzel, I was your lady-in-waiting.
You NEVER had 'nothing' to do."

Rapunzel blushed lightly in embarrassment and looked down to the side.
"Okay, well, I don't have anything to do ANYMORE."

"Uh-huh.”

"Really, Cass, it's fine! I took a sick day!"

Cassandra sighed. "Alright, alright." She gently playfully shoved Rapunzel to
the side, causing a cute giggle to arise out of Rapunzel which made
Cassandra's heart warm, and she sat down on the bed next to her. There was
a slight awkward silence before anyone said anything. "So.. what do you want
to talk about?"

"Anything, everything!" Rapunzel exclaimed while moving to sit on her knees
to face Cass.

"Anything in particular?"

Rapunzel placed her hand under her chin and bit her bottom lip softly, the way
she always did when she was deep in thought, before quickly looking back up.
"Oh, I know! Did you fight any pirates? Wait, no! Did you make any friends?
No, no!" Rapunzel stopped then gave Cassandra a sly smile. "Did you meet
anybody?"

"Yes, yes and kinda." Cassandra answered while leaning back to lean against
the headboard.

"Kinda?" Rapunzel tilted her head cutely. "What was.. he like?

"S- HE was.. well.. wild. A bad boy. Handsome, sweet, caring, strong, you
know all that kind of stuff." Cassandra looked away and avoided eye contact.
What kind of answer was that?

If she had been looking, she would've noticed Rapunzel's jealous expression.
But she did notice the tone of her voice, which was slightly bitter and sounded
forced. "What happened?"

"We got caught trespassing on a property he took me out on. I tried to tell him.
And he turned and back-stabbed me. Ran and used me as bait. Left me to the
wolves. I spent 3 months in jail for a crime that wasn't even my fault because
he didn't listen to me." Cassandra sneered.

"That's horrible! How could he do something like that?" Rapunzel sounded...
relieved but also sounded like she was forcing out sympathy. Cassandra
ignored it.

She shrugged. "Some people are like that, Raps."

"But it's wrong! You loved him and he hurt you!" Now Rapunzel sounded
almost frantic. Cassandra knew Rapunzel well enough to know she wasn't
talking about Cassandra's past fling anymore. But to be sure, she played
along.

"Love is a strong word Raps. It's all in the past."

"But it shouldn't be! He hurt you after everything you did for him! He USED
you! He pushed you aside! Neglected you! You told him it was a bad idea and
he STILL didn't listen which resulted in you getting hurt!"

Ah. There it is. ".....Rapunzel, what is this REALLY about?" Rapunzel slowly
looked down and nervously played with her hands in her lap. "Rapunzel."
Cassandra said skeptically while narrowing her eyes in warning.

Rapunzel gave up, slumped her shoulders and sighed. "I-I didn't want to get
into this so soon, since you just got back, but... I think we need to talk about....
what happened." Cassandra gave her a blank stare so Rapunzel quickly
added, "B-But if you don't want to, that's fine! We can always-"

"I agree."

Rapunzel snapped her head back at Cassandra. She blinked once. Twice.
"You... agree?" She asked skeptically in disbelief.

"Yeah, I think we need to talk about it."

Rapunzel gave her another disbelieving look. "Okay, let me get this straight.
You, the Cassandra who absolutely refuses to talk about anything feeling
related, actually AGREES to talk about everything that happened?
Cassandra sighed.

"Yes, Rapunzel. I've done a lot of... soul-searching. We
can't keep pretending like nothing ever happened. If we're ever gonna get
past this, we're gonna need to talk about it eventually. So, why wait?"
Rapunzel went back into her thoughts for a second before slowly nodding.

It was gonna be a long day.

~ Later ~

Cassandra and Rapunzel lay in comfortable clothes, sitting side-by-side with
their knees touching on Rapunzel's bed. They decided that if they were going
to go through buried emotional turmoil, they might as well be comfy. The room
was eerily quiet as they both tried to figure out how to start off.  Eventually,
Rapunzel spoke first. "So.. uhm," Rapunzel looked away and shifted
nervously. Cassandra tilted her head towards her and nodded at her to
continue. Cassandra waited patiently while Rapunzel figured out how to put
her thoughts into words.

Rapunzel cleared her throat before continuing shakily. "Are you still.. Uhm.."

"Am I still mad at you?" Cassandra asked as Rapunzel slowly nodded, scared
of her answer. Cassandra sighed. "I suppose I was never directly mad at you
to begin with. After Zhan Tiri showed me who.. my real mother was, I blamed
you. I blamed you because you were.. special. I'm not. I felt like nothing
compared to you. Like.. we were only friends because I was with you every
minute of the day. I was your servant. And that thought, that hurt. It drove me
to madness. Always coming in second to everyone.. when all you did was
show your face and boom, you were a princess and was handed everything. I
had to fight for everything. And yet, I always seemed to come in second best,
in someone else's shadow. But when it happens to you by someone you care
about.. it hurts even more. So, I tried to make a destiny for myself. I never
wanted to hurt you, not at first. I didn't want to hurt anyone. The moonstone..
Zhan Tiri.. they took me over. Clouded my mind. Filled me with lies and deceit.
Until all I could feel was rage. She made me believe that everything was your
fault. That you used me and you were done with me. Until I thought my last
option was to destroy you. Which is where the red rocks came from. I was
scared. I never wanted to hurt you. But I was... I was so angry. It took me
over.. until I.." Cassandra's eyes filled with tears as she took a shaky breath.
"....Couldn't control it anymore."

"Oh, Cass.." Rapunzel's eyes were also filled with tears as she grasped the
older woman's hands and squeezed softly. Cassandra squeezed back. "..I'm
so sorry.."

Cassandra looked at her in confusion. She never heard Rapunzel sound so
heart-broken, so hurt, so small-sounding. "Why are you sorry? It wasn't your
fault, really, I was more dis-"

"But it is, Cass. It IS my fault. I should've been paying attention but I wasn't. I
should've known.. God, I was such an idiot. You're right. You tried so many
times to prove yourself, to make something of yourself, and I ALWAYS got in
the way; thinking it was a game. I stopped listening to you and because of
that, you got hurt. Badly. I was so focused on myself and the journey.. I didn't
even think to see if you were okay. I should've known. I should've known.. I
didn't realize it at first either. After you took the moonstone, I was so hurt. But
YOU were hurting more than I could ever imagine. I was so focused on
bringing you back, I didn't even listen to why you were doing what you were
doing in the first place. I'm so sorry, Cassandra, for everything. I've been a
terrible friend to you. I made you feel second best to me when in reality, you're
my inspiration. I look up to you. I... Cass, I'm so sorry." By now, Rapunzel was
in tears.

Cassandra's heart broke as she slowly leaned forward and wiped her tears
away. Rapunzel leaned into the warmth of her hand as Cassandra left it
resting on her cheek. "We've both done things we regret, Raps, but you're not
a terrible friend. You are the bestest friend I could have ever asked for. I hurt a
lot of people on my own and you tried to stop me. But yet, after everything,
you still believed in me. Believed I would come to my senses. You believed in
me when no one else did. And you never gave up on me. It didn't take until I
literally had the moonstone ripped from my chest for me to see it. I wouldn't be
here today if it weren't for you Rapunzel." Rapunzel gave her a watery smile
before launching forward and digging her face into Cassandra's chest while

sobbing. Cassandra's eyes watered as she wrapped her arms around the
princess and hid her face in her hair.

"I love you, Cass." Rapunzel said and sniffled after some minutes.

"I love you too, Rapunzel."

The two of them spent the rest of the day talking, laughing, sharing memories
and stuff that happened over the last 4 years while laying in Rapunzel's bed
side-by-side. Eventually, they both fell soundly asleep together in each other's
arms.