fun in space | rick sanchez

26. the ABC's of beth

"Cassie?" He asked, standing from his chair as he noticed the look of pure terror on his girlfriend's face.

"Stop, Rick," Cas held her hand out, not noticing the green wisps that licked at her fingers yet. Rick held his hands up in defense, "I-I, don't want to..." She trailed off after that, her voice shaky as the high pitched voice that haunted her dreams began to sing the song like he had a year ago.

"Cas, let me help you," Rick urged, realizing now wasn't the time do anything but speak to her.

"Turn it off," She told him, a whimpering tone in her voice as she reached up to clutch her head. Rick was quick to reach for her phone on his work bench, shutting the music off as she gripped at her dark green hair in frustration. "Turn it off," She whimpered and Rick furrowed his brow at that, cocking his head again. Her hands began to glow, some of the metal objects beginning to shake like she was and a few of them beginning to slowly crush in on themselves like she was crushing them with her bare hands.

"Cas, baby, I turned it off," Rick said and Cas shook her head, tapping it lightly with her glowing green hands. "Cassie, look at me," Rick urged and Cas' green eyes met his. He could see the pure terror in her eyes, the red color in her eyes from the tears that fell down her cheeks and the way she shut her eyes tightly to try and stop the pain in her head.

"Turn it off," She cried, still hearing the high pitched voice in her head sing along to the song. "Please, Rick, turn it off." Rick was quick to put the dots together of what she wanted, typing the code into one of his many hidden areas. Cas knew that after her first night terror, one day something like this would happen. Pure terror and post traumatic stress taking over the reasonable parts of her brain. Rick hated it but she made him hide sedatives all over the house so he could knock her out if this ever happened. He hated having to shoot the dart into her arm but he knew this was what she wanted him to do in this scenario to prevent collateral. He just didn't count on how much it would hurt to even think of hurting her.

Cas woke up slowly a while later. Her hands still shook as her eyes adjusted to see her room around her. Rick sat on the small bed, which replaced the futon only a few weeks ago, next to her, looking over as he saw her wake up. "You good?" He asked, looking down at her and Cas sat herself up, rubbing her head.

"No," Cas whispered, shoving the blanket off of her and standing up. "I don't have that song on my playlist, Rick. Which means I didn't play it. You didn't play it."

"Which means?" Rick asked, furrowing his brow and giving her a look to continue.

Cas bit her lip, not really wanting to talk about the last few weeks in Gravity Falls but she knew she had to. He had a right to know as he was the one that had to shoot her with a dart only hours ago. She ran both hands through her hair, trying to figure out how to even word it in the first place. "It means... maybe my dreams aren't actually just dreams," Cas told him and Rick stood up to stand across from her at that. "When Weirdmaggedon happened, my father and I were taken by... him and he sang that song to taunt us. That stupid fucking song!" Cas snapped loudly, her hands glowing green and she clenched her fists in anger.

Rick watched as the bed they just sat on slid across the room and into the wall, the metal poles bending slightly. "Jesus, Cas, okay, baby." Rick almost flinched but reached out to grab her hands, the wisps disappearing just as he did.

"I-I'm sorry," Cas whispered, looking at the damaged bed and then back at Rick. "Can we just... can we just go watch tv? Please?" She asked and Rick looked at her carefully. Rick wasn't sure that was the best course of action to deal with the clear signs of post traumatic stress syndrome she was showing but he gave in nonetheless at the desperate way she gripped the sleeve of his coat. "Please?" She whispered.