This is just a tiny interlude, shoving itself in between episodes 1x01 and 1x02. This is putting about a week in between the two episodes, although they would have you believe that they happened within hours of each other. Just a drabble really – something I wanted to get out and because I already ship Cassie & Adam so hard, well….

I own nothing except the urge to kiss Thomas Dekker.

And it should be noted that I have not read the books in any way, shape, or form.

It was early. Way too early for most of them to be up, but Diana had insisted they all meet at the house before school and they had all begrudgingly agreed.

"I'm here, I'm awake, let's do this," Faye whined as she flopped down onto a chair, unceremoniously dropping her books next to her.

Diana waited patiently for the rest of them to settle down before realizing they were all staring at her, waiting for her to speak.

"What's this about?" Melissa asked tiredly, although she had a feeling she already knew.

"Cassie Blake."

"Oh, God, she's only just moved here and I've already had enough of her," Faye moaned, pulling out a compact and checking her makeup. "I get that she makes us stronger and I have to say that I don't hate it, but other than that, really, what's the point of her?"

"We need her to complete the circle. We need her to accept this," Diana explained in her patient, understanding voice.

"She wants it, I know she does," Adam spoke up. "We just need to convince her."

"Easier said than done," Diana noted. "But we do need her."

"Speak for yourself," Faye muttered.

"What we need to do is leave her alone."

Everyone's eyes were drawn to Nick who was leaning against the wall closest to the door. Faye snorted and Diana knew she couldn't keep the shock she felt from appearing on her face. Nick may not be the most responsible person, but she thought he understood what having Cassie here meant. Melissa's dark eyes pierced Nick, willing him to speak more on the subject, but he remained stoic.

"Aw, does someone have a soft spot for the orphan?" Faye teased. "You gonna comfort her? Think of all the stories you two could share."

"Faye!" Melissa hissed, glaring at her best friend. While they had all lost a parent, aside from Cassie, Nick was the only one that had lost both. Sometimes Melissa felt as if it bothered him more than he let on, and Faye commenting on that was in poor taste, in her opinion.

"I have a soft spot for sleep," he replied, unfazed by Faye's comments. "Ever since your little fire stunt in her car, she's been having nightmares. Screaming her head off every night, three or four times. Wakes up half the block."

Diana whipped around, glaring at Faye.

"What? I didn't know she was going to have nightmares. I thought she was past the 'bad dream' stage." She turned to Nick and mock whispered, "Do you think she wets the bed, too?"

"Just leave her alone for a week or so. At least until I can get some sleep and she can stop reliving that damn fire."

"It was just a little one!"

"Her mom died in a fire a month ago," Adam snapped. "Of all the stupid, selfish things to do, Faye…"

"Sorry," she said with a roll of her eyes, not sounding sorry at all, "But you got to play Prince Charming and rescue her so I don't know what you're complaining about."

"That's not the point," Adam insisted, working to keep the unexplainable fear he had felt that day out of his voice. "You were lucky I saved her. You were lucky I stopped the fire."

"Come on-"

Adam stepped away from his spot on the wall, growing angrier with Faye by the minute.

"I get it, you wanted to test her, and you're right – we all did want to know if she was aware of her powers. But using fire when you knew her mother had died the same way less than a month ago, that goes beyond careless and straight into cruelty."

Faye shrunk back in her chair, feeling properly chastised. "Jeez," she muttered quietly. Adam didn't usually get angry – that was Diana's role. She had long since ran out of snappy retorts because in retrospect, she did feel a little bad. But she had already apologized to Cassie and that had been…mostly sincere. She didn't mean for it to get that out of control!

Adam grabbed his backpack and shared one last scathing look at the group.

"We leave her alone this week. And if she still wants anything to do with us after that, then we should consider ourselves lucky."

"Cassie!"

"Mm?" Cassie Blake looked up from her locker's padlock that she had been focusing intently on. She couldn't stop the soft smile that crept up her face as she saw Adam leaning against a locker next to her. "Hey."

"I've been calling your name for two minutes now," he teased softly.

"Sorry, I'm a little tired…" She let her eyes meet his (Stupid, Cassie! She chided herself) and she felt the same feeling she always got when she looked at him. The stomach sinking, heart racing, warm tingly feeling. Before it could reach all the way down to her toes, she shook herself mentally and looked back to her lock, studying it as if it held the world's answers.

"Just a little?" Adam didn't want to embarrass her by mentioning that Nick could hear her nightmares. She had to tell him in her own time.

"Yeah…" She gave him another smile but this one was only accompanied by a glance. Her fingers clumsily maneuvered her combination but as she gave the lock another tug, she wanted to let out a little cry of frustration. Not working.

Adam studied her as she tried the lock again, and he took note of the dark circles underneath her eyes that were hidden quite well by makeup – but not well enough. He could see the sheen of aggravation in her eyes as she tried again, unsuccessfully, to open her locker. She gritted her teeth and forced back the tears that were threatening to fall as she took a deep breath and went to turn the dial again, when a warm, calloused hand closed over hers. For a second, all she felt was the warmth before the energy registered with her. He was…sending her energy?

She couldn't meet his eyes and she actually let her own drift close for a few moments before they jumped back open, studying the connection of his hand on hers. She felt it. Felt it in every pore of her body, every cell, every atom. He was giving her energy and it was slowly revitalizing her. It wasn't enough to make the ache of sleeplessness leave her entirely, but it was enough. It was like a cup of coffee being directly injected into her veins, sharpening her vision, heightening her senses. Slowly – ever so slowly – his hand lifted and left hers alone, abandoned, still gripping the padlock.

She followed the hand with her vision and raised her eyes to meet his. He rested heavily on the locker next to her, breathing deeply. His eyes were half opened and he seemed to be trying to center himself. He finally managed to open his eyes fully but they were heavy and unfocused. She realized what had happened and gasped. She involuntarily reached out and grasped his arm, causing his eyes to rest on hers.

"You're exhausted…"

"But you're not."

With that, he smiled a ten watt version of his usual 150-watt smile and trudged off for his first period, leaving a confused and amazed Cassie in his wake. The warning bell rang and she deftly turned her combination, opening her locked without a hitch. With another shake of her head, she couldn't stop the tender smile that spread on her face as she started towards class.

Cassie couldn't explain the relief she felt as she made it through the day awake. She might not have had endless supplies of energy, like that girl in her English class, or hell, even had enough energy to go to the boathouse after school, but she survived. And that was more than she had been expecting. Another thing that had made her day a little more bearable – no unexpected visits from the Wizards of Waverly Place fan club. She had almost been banking on today being chock full with Faye interruptions or Diana's gentle pleading. She had actually worried that morning that she might snap or say something completely unforgivable due to her crankiness. But she needn't have worried about that; not one of them approached her that day. She spotted them at lunch, not sitting together yet not sitting very far apart, but no one approached her. She hadn't even seen Adam for the rest of the day. He had been yawning at lunch; she wasn't even entirely sure he saw her make her hasty exit, opting to eat lunch in the library versus trying to make a friend.

So as she crawled into bed, hoping that the light that still permeated through the window would keep the dreams at bay, she let her mind float and think about things that she had no right to be thinking about. People she had no right to be thinking about. Her eyes slowly shut and she hoped against all hopes that maybe his face would keep the nightmares away.

He felt creepy, but couldn't find it in him to care. It was only 4:30, and while he knew his dad wouldn't be missing him at the boathouse until the dinner rush, he felt a bit guilty knowing that his dad wouldn't care at all if he knew he was with Amelia's daughter, and even more guilty knowing that he would use that excuse if it came down to it.

He knew which window was hers. That much he had found out in a fairly neutral way; Nick had said their windows were adjacent and there was really only one possibility. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was doing something wrong, though. More so, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was doing something right. He couldn't shake the feeling that protecting her was right.

He was still contemplating what to do – did he climb up to her window, a la Romeo? did he knock on her door and risk the interrogation of her grandmother? did he go back to the boathouse and pretend that this never happened? – when the decision was made for him. Her screams pierced the air and he didn't really have much of an option after that.

She sounded absolutely frantic and that's the part that killed him the most. He waited a few moments (Nick wasn't lying about those screams waking the block, he thought helplessly) before he realized that no one was coming to help her. Her grandmother could not be home right now because regardless of being able to help, there was something to be said for trying to help.

She was coughing now, he could only assume in her dream, and Adam gave a furtive glance around the neighborhood before walking briskly up to her door. He tried the knob, not surprised when it was locked, and focused some of his frenetic energy into unlocking it. The loud noise that greeted him told him that he did a lot more than unlock it, but that wasn't his concern. He whipped the door open, taking the stairs two at a time before reaching her room.

"Let me out!"

He didn't know what to do. He tried to focus his emotions, his energy, but he felt inexplicably riled up and helpless – so helpless – that he found himself just staring at her. She was tangled in a web of sheets and blankets and her back was arched off the bed. In between desperate screams and pleas for help, she would grasp her throat and cough and struggle and it was too much and Adam didn't know what to do and time kept going and she kept screaming why wouldn't she stop screaming and she looked so small and what about Diana and he didn't know what to do and suddenly he was by her side, trying to wake her up as quickly as he could.

"Cassie, Cassie, Cassie," he murmured her name over and over again, wishing that she would wake up and this would all be over.

"I don't want to die," she sobbed loudly, and that was all it took for Adam to stop being gentle and start being forceful. He gripped her shoulders tightly and shook her firmly, willing her to open her eyes.

"Wake up, Cassie. It's just a dream. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up."

He felt a sudden burst of energy explode through his fingertips, straight through the grip he had on her shoulders and suddenly she was sitting right up, coughing hysterically and gripping his hand like it was a lifeline.

He adjusted himself so that he was sitting more comfortably on the bed and rubbed her back, allowing her to cough until her body adjusted to breathing.

She finally calmed down, wiping stray tears and sweat away from her face before she faced him, despite still breathing laboriously.

"What are you doing here?" She hadn't registered the fact that she was still holding his hand, while Adam tried to think of anything except that.

"Came to see if you were okay. Guess not."

She wanted to hit him at that moment. How did he always remain calm about everything? He gave absolutely nothing away, either, and she found that the most frustrating part. He spoke in his perfectly smooth, even voice, and she couldn't decipher what exactly he thought of her at this moment in time.

"I'm fine," she insisted, getting her breathing under control. She looked down and saw her hand clasped tightly around his and let it go quickly, putting it in her own lap. She felt the loss immediately.

"Didn't sound fine."

There was that urge to hit him again.

"It's nothing."

"Didn't-"

"If you say it 'didn't sound like nothing,' I will not be held responsible for my actions," she warned genially.

"Didn't…sound like a very pleasant dream." He gave her a teasing smile that only grew as she gave him one in return, shaking her head lightly.

"I guess I don't like fire that much these days," she conceded, still trying to get herself under control. Her heart was still racing and while she didn't want to examine just why that was, she did want to calm herself to the point where she wasn't a blubbering mess. She could only imagine what she must look like at that moment. Her eyes remained fixed on her hands in front of her, never once glimpsing at the boy in front of her.

"Don't imagine you would."

She swallowed hard. "It'll go away eventually."

Silence enveloped them for a few moments.

"Is it just the fire, or…?"

She wanted to give him a snappy retort, ask him if there really needed to be more than that fire, but she made the stupid mistake of looking up at his eyes and for once, she found herself able to read what was in there. She didn't want to look at it too closely, but it made her feel safe and warm and she knew – she just knew – that she could tell him anything and he wouldn't tell anyone.

"Being in my car…" she tried to find something else to focus on in the room, but her eyes kept landing on his. "It just made me think of what her last moments would have been like. All scared, and panicked." A tear betrayed her and landed with a soft splash on her own arm. "No one should feel that way in their last moments."

Adam placed his hand tentatively on her knee, unsure of whether it was appropriate or not, and doubly unsure as to if she'd even let him keep it there. He didn't know what to say, so he just rubbed her knee gently with his thumb, and without even realizing it, he felt the same rush of energy, only…different.

He felt all his calmness, all his peace, all his lethargy, seep out of him and slip from his fingertips to the blonde girl that had taken his life by storm. He watched her eyelids grow heavy and start to struggle to stay open, and, smiling to himself, he allowed her to lay back on her pillows, never removing his hand from her leg.

"Thank you," she murmured softly, barely conscious. She was so sincere and so grateful that Adam felt like he would do anything to get her to say those words to him again.

He slowly removed his hand, pulling her blankets up and tucking them around her, all the way up to her shoulders. As she drifted off, he stood, shook his head a little, chiding himself for being so dumb with his magic. He was restless now, with not even the tiniest bit of her previous fatigue still lingering in him.

It was worth it.

Cassie woke up the next morning fully rested. A note was on her nightstand from her grandmother, who hadn't wanted to interrupt her first full night's sleep in days, saying that there were leftovers in the fridge.

She pulled herself up and looked around before allowing a full blown grin to take over her face. Just barely, she remembered a smooth, even voice whispering, "I will always rescue you."