Theresa Cassidy

The first plant had lived a touch longer than Terry had expected, though she hadn't the motivation to replace it until recently. It tried hard to survive with the cup of water she fed it every now and then, but it's only been in the past month or so that she's cared to do something other than spend time on the couch, eating take out and watching television with her father. She'd wanted the comfort of his company and cared little for anything else, including the poor plant.

Terry stares at it now, all but one small branch of it wilted and dried out, the last few leaves stubbornly clinging to life. "I'm sorry about this," she tells it as she picks up the pot and heads into the kitchen where the new plant she'd picked up is sitting on a counter.

"This one is supposed to be unkillable," she calls out to Sean, wherever he'd disappeared to. "If ye somehow manage to kill this one too then yer a lost cause, da."

It's a distant thing now, her love for Jamie, but when she hears him - when he actually prays to her - she doesn't hesitate. Theresa Cassidy hears him, and the Morrigan answers the call.

It still amazes her, how easy it is to end something like the situation Jamie and Layla have found themselves in. She makes Jamie the man he once was, she dispatches the police with what amounts to a flick of her wrist, and it's done. It makes all her memories of the huge fights and struggles she's gone through in the past feel like child's play, and the memories of the women who have been the Morrigan before her agree.

Soon she finds herself having tea with the couple, and informing them of the team's whereabouts with ease. Being back in their presence is good - she can see them whenever she wants, but never visits - and she knows Jamie's answer to bringing X-Factor back together before he says it.

Strangely enough, she's okay with it.

There is a buzz in the back of her mind that reminds her the Morrigan has more important things to do than gossip and drink tea with mortals, and she says farewell to Jamie once more. Stepping out of the front door is only for their comfort; once the door closes behind her, she moves back to her realm.

What she expects to see are trees, rocks, a stream.

What she gets is a noisy city and and a feeling like the very air itself is pressing against her skin, trapping her in her own body.

The only outward sign of frustration she makes is a narrowing of her eyes (if she were to see them now, she'd be surprised to see the green irises returned, no cloudy gray covering them up), and she tries again.

There's no change. The same sounds and smells assault her senses, and a slight feeling of panic begins to envelop her - and the fact that she feels panic at all worries her even more. After taking a deep breath and pushing back those feelings, she listens. Beyond hearing, beyond seeing, she should be able to sense every single life on this street, in this city, in this country. Wherever she is, she should know in a heartbeat, but it doesn't work.

It's as though she's working with a burlap sack tied over her head and no information is coming through right. Darrow, she can get, and not much else. She tries again, and there is nothing but an endless stream of noise, too many minds to sort through the way she should be able to...no.

There.

Terry hears herself gasp as she comes back to herself. It can't be him. He's vibrant and similar to the lives around him - she almost passed him over at first - and she doesn't sense death around him, not the way she'd expect of a dead man, but... she has to see.

Without another thought to her current situation, Terry follows a tenuous thread, walking city streets until she stands outside a door, knowing he's behind it.

Her father, alive and himself.

How?


[She is wearing this.]