Title: Anchor
Author: Cassandra
Rating: T
Classification: The Librarians; Jake/Cassandra; angst; UST
Spoilers: Nothing specific, just vague general stuff.
Disclaimer: The Librarians belongs to Dean Devlin, John Rogers, and TNT. I'm just trying to borrow some magic, and no infringement is intended.
Written: January 2015
Summary: She didn't know what it was about Jake that could temper the storm, but it had started the day that they met.
Word Count: 2128
A/N: I started this after Fables of Doom with a vague little nugget about Jake being Cassandra's anchor during her hallucinations (though that ep was all backwards, believe me), and it turned into... something else. As my beta described it, it's a little "chaotic", but that's just what happens when Cassandra gets in my head. She's chaotic and bright and emotional, and as it's turning out, I love writing her. I will get to solely Jake soon, I hope, but for now this girl who shares my name has kind of taken over. So thank you, Susan, for reading this over and giving my tailspins a name. I hope y'all enjoy it, and remember feedback is love! :)

Calculations ran through Cassandra's brain like a freight train. The only problem was, there were no schedules, no stops, no way to get off. The numbers clashed with light, equations with sounds, shapes and feelings and physics and tastes and science and smells, until...

Well, until she ended up on the floor, curled up and babbling, the light of the train coming at her so quickly she would never be able to stop it.

But he could.

She didn't know what it was about Jake that could temper the storm, but it had started the day that they met. It was almost as if he had seen the whirling dervish in her mind, and he knew just what to do to guide her through it. They never really talked about it, but whenever she got lost, when it was too much, all he had to do was say her name and bring her back. Touching her arm, holding her hand, that deep, rough voice pulling her back from a wave of sensation she couldn't control.

No one she had ever known had been able to do that for her. Her condition – conditions, actually – had always left her collapsed and shaking on whatever surface upon which she had been unfortunate enough to stand at the time. Each episode left her more exhausted and fearful of her future than she had been before. She had been in hospitals, mental hospitals, therapist's offices, and to every oncologist on the eastern seaboard, and nothing short of heavy sedation had ever slowed her down.

It was a miracle. He was a miracle. Sometimes.

They had come a long way from their beginnings, but she still wasn't sure where she stood with him sometimes. Six months of running, fighting, learning, and being there for each other could change things.

The part where she tried to sacrifice her life for his had probably done something in terms of changing things, or at least she dared to hope.

She had jumped in front of a witch's spell in a dark cavern without thinking, knowing the witch was hell bent on taking Jake down after a long fight.

Something funny had happened in that moment. She had seen Jake running for her out of the corner of her eye, even as she saw the screaming crone and the deep red blast heading right for her. She was simultaneously calculating the velocity at which the spell was coming, and thinking that she was going to die, but at least it would be saving someone else. Heroic. At least it wouldn't be sitting down and letting the cancer take her.

A foot away from being taken by the crimson blaze before her, she had closed her eyes and felt Jake's hand clasp down on her forearm. Her eyes had flown open, the arm not weighed down by Jake had shot up, and the smoke in front of her had halted. With one forceful wave into the air, she had sent the spell back at the witch, shattering everything in front of them into a million pieces, even as she and Jake flew backward, away from the wreckage.

Neither of them had had a scratch on them. Cassandra had no idea what had happened, why she was still alive, or how she had stopped her imminent death. Jake had been silent, but she had also seen something haunted in his eyes.

They had made it home and he hadn't spoken to her for three days.

She hadn't done it to earn his trust. That was there for him to take or leave, but she was never going to betray any of them again. No, she had done it because she could see a world without herself, but not without Jake, and that scared her. It scared her because he was the one she could trust, the one who had kept her literally on her feet since he came into her life. Whatever they were, whatever it was that had drawn them together, it was too important for her to live without now.

When she finally found him alone, sifting through stacks in the back shelves, she didn't know what to say to him. I miss you, seemed too intimate, though it was the truth. I'm sorry I tried to save your life and now you're angry with me, was a lie. He could be mad at her forever, as long as he was there.

She approached him gingerly, her eyes downcast, like she would approach a wounded animal. He glanced up briefly, but then went back to his search for what was apparently the most important book in the world, if his intensity was any indication.

"Jake," she started carefully, "are you ever going to talk to me again?"

He glanced at her again, running his hands over an open book, trying to flatten the already unwrinkled pages. He looked like he was struggling for some kind of control, and she was starting to regret seeking him out. She swallowed hard and stood her ground, because one of the many things she told herself when she took this job was that she wasn't going to be afraid anymore. Especially not of him.

She saw him draw in a careful breath before those blue eyes slammed into hers, and the world was suddenly very still around them.

Jake stepped toward her with purpose, and she willed herself not to move. His hands came up to grasp her shoulders, his face suddenly very close to hers.

"If you ever," he said, deadly calm, "do anything like that again, Cassie, me not talking to you will be the last thing you have to worry about." He let that settle in for a moment. "Do you understand me?"

She nodded quickly, biting her lip to keep it from trembling, her eyes welling up with tears even as she tried to stop it.

"You don't get to sacrifice yourself for me, Cassandra. That's not your job."

"But I..." A sob cut her off and it was hopeless. Without thinking, she suddenly closed the distance between them, his loose hold on her slipping as her arms flew around his neck.

She was sobbing into his neck, but she didn't care and she didn't want to stop. She felt his hands slide around her waist, his strong arms encircling her, and she cried harder. She wasn't just crying out the last three days, but maybe the last ten years of holding it together. The facade was exhausting, she knew she wasn't as strong as she wanted to be, and something about this man around whom she was wrapped made her want to be so much stronger than that.

She had stopped even attempting to talk at some point, because all that came out was strangled moans, and still she couldn't stop even though she was sure Jake was horrified. He was rubbing circles into her back with one hand, while his other hand was buried in the back of her hair, and the effort of withstanding the flood that consumed her was starting to give her a stomachache.

He walked her gently back to a padded bench hidden deep within the shelves, sat them down, and carefully arranged her half in his lap. Jake clenched his eyes tight as he rocked her back and forth, and he felt at least partially responsible for driving her to this. Cassandra stared her mortality in the face every day of her life, and by doubting her abilities or trying to spare her, it had only made her try harder to prove herself. People far stronger than even her had cracked under that kind of pressure.

What had been practically wailing had calmed down to small, heaving sobs, but in the back of his mind it registered that the shoulder, and now the front, of his shirt was a lost cause as he held her closer. He tried to make gentle calming noises, but he never had known what to do with a crying woman. All he knew was that he had to stay.

Despite what he had told her in the beginning, Cassandra had been charging at every wall he had ever built since that day in a grassy field where he had held her hand for the first time. He didn't want to like her, but he did. He didn't want to get sucked into her charm and enthusiasm for what she loved, or her pain over what she had lost or could lose, but he had. He didn't want to let someone in, to know every part of who he was and what he had been hiding from his own flesh and blood his entire life, but it was too late.

They were in this... whatever this was, and it didn't look like either of them were going to be able to stop it.

"Cassie?" he finally said quietly, thinking she had fallen asleep despite the little gasps that still escaped her here and there.

She raised her head, her face tear stained and bereft of most of her makeup, and she found it hard to meet his eyes. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her blouse, realized suddenly she was cradled in his lap, and she was scared to move.

"I'm sorry," she said, barely above a whisper, and she knew she wasn't scared at all. She didn't want to move. She closed her eyes, dizzy with the sensation of... nothing. She knew things were calmer in her head when he was near her, when he touched her. But she had never been this close to him, and the peace that had settled into her, the blissful silence in her mind, had her thinking maybe she wanted to go on being this close to him forever.

"Cassandra?" he asked worriedly, and when she felt his arm move against her back, she clutched the forearm in front of her, not wanting to be displaced. "Cassandra, are you okay? Do I need to get -?"

"No," she interrupted with an emphatic shake of her head. "I'm fine," she said, opening her eyes. "I have never been better." The sea that was her life, inside her mind, had stopped roiling for once.

She knew he didn't understand, just by the look on his face. She took his free hand, and pressed it to her temple off his questioning look. "It's quiet, Jake. No calculations, no word storms, or patterns or lights or..." She sighed deeply. "You do this. I don't know how, but you do. You've known how to make me focus since five minutes after we met, and it's only gotten easier when you're around. Until, finally, this. Wonderful, brilliant, blessed silence!" she said, her eyes bright, still holding his hand as it came to rest in her lap. "You can't even imagine what this means to me. Not in a million years." She sniffled, her eyes getting wet again.

He just stared at her, not quite believing what she was saying. "Just please don't cry again, Cassie," he begged. "I can't take it."

Her mouth quirked up in a smile and he suppressed the thoughts that gave him, not for the first time.

"But how?" he asked. So much for being a genius.

"I don't know, Jake. I don't know how you anchor me, or what's inside me that saved our lives the other day. But I think it's this place. It knows. It knew I needed you to... It knows I want to be able to..." Now she was having trouble looking him in the eye again. She cleared her throat. "Maybe we've taken on the magic of this place... some of the magic we've dealt with. I think it knew we needed it..."

"Each other," he said softly.

Cassandra swallowed hard. "Maybe it did. I don't know how."

"Does it matter?"

"Not especially. I'm finding out there a lot of things I don't know." She was suddenly very warm, and very aware that she probably looked like a drowned rat whilst sitting on the lap of a very attractive man. She had been more comfortable when these were thoughts she didn't allow herself to have. She was trying to formulate a subtle way to extricate herself from his arms, even though she didn't want to leave, when he eliminated the problem for her.

He pulled her back against him, her head resting on his shoulder, and she could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek. That was all, just his heart. She closed her eyes, snuggled closer to him, and enjoyed the rare tranquility of her mind.

"That makes two of us, sweetheart," he said, pressing his lips to her hair.

Finis