You Know What - I'm Not Done (Caz)

[door]

Door had continued to be upset about what happened in the park for the days following it. She wasn't just upset in the most current use of the word to mean sad, she was also upset in the angry use of the word. She couldn't be too mad at that point in the park, mostly because her empathy screwed her up and all she could think about was how overwhelmed Caz must have felt.

None of that had changed - she was still upset, she still felt empathy for Caz, and she could only think about being overwhelmed. She feared that what had happened the other day had come off wrong. And she decided finally that, despite the fact that he had asked her to give him some time, she was going to need to demand a few moments of it.

So, now understanding what she felt and how she could explain it, she walked to Caz's apartment. She was nervous, yeah, but she knew that she had to get this off her chest. If she didn't, when he finally did come looking for her help as he said he would, she might be too hurt to offer it.

[cazaril]

It had been a sleepless three days for Cazaril, a man who was now almost fully in tune with his memories. Though he appeared to be stable - he looked sick and hadn't slept well. When he did sleep he dreamt, he dreamt of the world he'd had before this one. Of Morgana and Mordred, but every time, Morgana's eyes turned red, and she turned into something un-describably evil - and Mordred had cried out and disappeared.

Mordred had become his sole focus, though he hadn't been able to get hold of Morgana he had been trying to find out her address but hadn't found it. He was going through his old things when Door turned up at his apartment with an angry knock at the door. Caz was dressed in an old shirt and vest, jeans, his facial hair was growing back to shape, and he looked as old as he felt, which was far too old for an eighteen year old to look, his apartment was covered in boxes that were unpacked, though that looked deceiving enough.

He answered the door, rubbing his unshaven face. "Hi" he said, gently, not sure how she was going to address him.

[door]

"Hi." She looked down almost immediately after meeting his gaze.

She was taken back for a moment by Caz's appearance. Her first response was to say that he looked like hell but that wasn't exactly true - he just looked old again. He was somewhere between forty-five and eighteen, seeming to have this quantum balance of both. It was sort of bizarre. Nonetheless, seeing the clear exhaustion on his face and feeling his fatigue took some of the righteous fury out of Door's belly.

But she had come here to say something and it was important that Caz heard it. Yeah, it had some sharper edges at points and, suddenly, she was feeling a bit bad about those (God, he mustn't have slept for days) but if she didn't say something it would only cause hurt and resentment later. And she didn't want that with Caz.

"Um...I know you said you needed time and I-I promise to let you have it. I just...I wanted to clear up what happened the other day." She shifted, toying with her fingers slightly. She was still having a hard time looking him in the eye. "May I come in for a second? I won't stay long."

[cazaril]

The young man didn't say anything, at least he left her to speak, pushing the door open with his foot and when she was inside, he shifted a few boxes so she could walk without falling on anything.

"Door, if you have something to say, I'd like you to say it please, I'm...pretty busy." He looked round at her at last, giving her the opportunity to at least look him in the eye. "What happened the other day, has changed a lot of things, and right now I'm just trying to sort things out..."

Well, sort my life out, sort my son's life out, if he was even alive.

Caz still couldn't seem to grasp that part, those memories were still lost to where his son had gone, but he knew Morgana was responsible, and he knew that it had hurt. He was having to make assumptions and the more he thought, the harder it was not to imagine the worse.

[door]

Wow. That was...that was cold. Really cold. She kept her head together the best she could though, knowing that he was going through a lot right now and she needed to be understanding of...

God, she was sick of being understanding. She was sick of doing everything she could to make the man feel better or stronger or more safe. She had done nothing but try and help this man at every pass and he was speaking to her like...a pest. She wanted to chuck something at his head and just run off but she couldn't do that. Her nature was too empathetic, to sympathetic.

She stood there, the nerves that she felt gone. She loved this man and...she had never felt so far away from him. She felt like she knew so many sides of the man in front of her and, at the moment, she didn't recognize any of them.

"I wanted to tell you that what you experienced in the park wasn't a solitary thing. That I saw the world shift around you, that things all over changed in that moment. I wanted to tell you that you weren't the only one overwhelmed and that, while the last thing I wanted to do was make that harder, I had never felt so disconnected from reality. That you had someone who could at least begin to understand what was happening." She felt like she was speaking to a wall, like nothing she was saying was even going to matter. She had been silly to come, to think that somehow any of this would matter to him. "That you still had someone to lean on when you need them and, trust me Cazaril, you'll need it. I didn't want to leave things between us for God knows how long with me screaming and sobbing."

Door shook her head, her jaw clenched. She let out a frustrated sigh and turned around. "This was a mistake. I should have just let you be. Don't worry about it. I'm going." She had been an idiot. All of this...had been a mistake. And she needed to get out of that flat immediately.

[cazaril]

Of course, Caz immediately regretted feeling so cold towards her, this was not her fault, but he was still feeling crap about the whole event, and he didn't know if he could stand another argument.

"How could you possibly understand what I'm going through?" he asked her harsher than he honestly intended but the flood gates poured as he turned round. "How can anyone? In the last 3 years of my life, I have been magically infected twice - I have been chased by kings and princes, I have been betrayed by the person I loved most and my son has gone missing, and that's without the fact that my memory was removed and my age changed...to suddenly remember all of it? To understand that your life was more of a sham the first time round than the sham you were living after it? Well. I don't think anyone can understand that."

Caz frowned at her but this time he settled, more apologetic of his actions, his hands open in apology, "No one can understand this, I don't even understand this. How am I to expect my friends to help if I don't know how to help myself? It's why I wanted to be on my own, why I wanted to sort this out, to figure out even now how this happened in the first place so maybe I can get some sort of remnant of a life back. That is why I reacted the way I did at the park."

He put a hand to his eyes, covering them and raising his head to the ceiling in distress. Letting her go to walk away, but as she did turn, he croaked out something he wasn't expecting even himself to say.

"Don't go....please."

[door]

When Caz said that no one could understand what he was going through, Door wanted scream. She did. She had seen other places, other versions of her. Some were horrible, some amazing but all of them had made her realize just how unhappy she was here. But she didn't. She didn't want to cry in front of him again.

When his tone turned softer and his body language switched to apologetic, she only became more frustrated. She couldn't keep up. "If you can't help yourself than what else are you supposed to do but lean on friends? The idea of you driving yourself mad in here, trying to find an answer while banging your head against a wall?" She just shook her head.

Door was at the door, her hand on the knob, when she heard it. She turned around, her eyes trained on him. He hadn't sounded that way since he came to her room after finding out about everything. She watched him, the anger and frustration and hurt still burning in her stomach. But, try as she might, she felt the fire start to recede the longer she stared at him.

She turned fully around, pushing her back against the door. She slid her hands into her back pockets and looked at the ground. Of course she wasn't going to leave. How could she?

[cazaril]

"Better banging my head against a wall alone than making someone else suffer for my problem..." he muttered

Caz watched as she didn't leave, and he internally felt some sort of hope raise in his chest, he decided for the moment, to change the subject, to...talk about something else, anything else. Was it worth arguing over what happened when it had already happened? She was angry at him and he didn't know how to fix that and to his mind, he had every right to think what he thought.

"I've been going through my old things, trying to figure out where my son might have gone....I haven't found Morgana's address though I am sure it's not as hard to find..." his eyes looked down to the boxes. "It appeared that between the time Morgana and Mordred disappeared and the time you turned up at my house, I threw away everything related to them. Either that it was stolen, I'm suspecting the first due to the fact I still kept my things from Chalion."

At least Door could help with this, help him speak out loud, help him clear his mangled brain? Maybe? It was clear that old Caz was back, but it wasn't clear at how he disappeared in the first place, and why, and the stages just before and after. If he could figure that out...well. He might figure out everything.

[door]

She opted to let that comment go, the one about making people miserable. She couldn't say that she wasn't miserable at the moment. Was it directly his fault - no. But her feelings were too hurt to assure him of the contrary.

Door nodded, coming back in to the home. She was still angry, he was still angry, but they were just going to power through. That's what friends did, after all, right? She walked over towards Caz, standing beside him as she looked into the boxes. She looked at everything that had been packed up inside the cardboard.

She had almost forgotten. The day where she found him in his current state seemed like ages ago and she would have never remembered that she didn't tell him why she was there if he hadn't brought up the boxes. "They said you were leaving. You have given up your post. I'm not sure why, they didn't tell us, but that's why I came to see you - to say goodbye." It still felt odd, relating this Caz to the man who taught her English. But she couldn't exactly use different pronouns, now could she? "Maybe you were trying to go somewhere...maybe they had already gone ahead."

[cazaril]

Caz nodded, "I don't remember-" he began, his eyes seeming to focus. He hadn't realized he had actually handed in his resignation...

He looked over to Door carefully, biting his lip as he tried to concentrate. Tried to remember writing the letter, giving it in.

Nothing.

He sighed, "I am sure that was not the case...I wouldn't of let them go alone, if they were returning to Camelot I would of gone with them..."

Though, there was Uther to consider, he sighed, maybe Morgana had told him to come later, but even then that didn't explain anything. He growled annoyed that he couldn't remember.

"I don't know why we'd be returning to Camelot, Morgana loved it here and her father hated me, we were going to be married here so I don't understand..." he stopped. Even saying married actually brought a sour taste to his mouth now. He didn't feel right saying it.

Whatever had happened, he and Morgana had not ended on good terms, and furrowed his brow. "Do you remember anything else?" he asked, gently.

[door]

She kept her eyes on Caz as he searched for an answer, his eyes focusing. She watched as he tried to piece something together, seeming to come close and then have it all halt. She looked back down to the boxes when he started talking about Camelot.

She tried to hide the discomfort when it came to hearing about Morgana. Door didn't want to make it seem like there was anything that Caz couldn't speak to her about, but she really didn't like hearing about his former fiancee. She was rarely a jealous person (hell, never was a more accurate term) but she couldn't fight the little prickle of the emotion that ran up her spine when he spoke about her.

Door shook her head when Caz asked if she knew anything else. "I'm sorry. I was just another kid in your class." She wasn't going to be informed about what the man was doing or why.

She started to toy with the flap of a box, needing something to do to get some of the nervous energy out. "Um, there are other people from Camelot around campus. H-have you tried speaking to them?" With the exception of Merlin and maybe one or two others (that she was unware of), she hadn't spoken to most of the people from Camelot. Maybe they had answers...

[cazaril]

Caz swallowed, thinking about those from Camelot, those that were here. He now remembered who they were, but the problem was was 1) He hadn't really spoken to them in a long time, I mean, he and Arthur were always falling out over something, mentors and students and what not, and Kay was just....well Kay. Merlin was always difficult to talk to because they only had Arthur in common and that just left Uther.

The second problem was that they had probably assumed that he left like everyone else, and to appear and say that he was Caz might have them wanting to know also about what had happened to Morgana - and Mordred.

He didn't quite know if that was a good idea. His eyes furrowed again. "Maybe I could talk to Arthur and Merlin, but don't talk to Uther, my name isn't very....liked to the king."

He frowned a little and sighed, looking to Door. "And for the record, you weren't just "another" kid in my class even then." He sighed, "You were a talented student, and you cared, that's what all teachers ask for."

He sighed, "It makes me wonder, who I am supposed to be now...not an old man, or a young boy." He looked up from where he sat on a rather heavy box of books.

"You have magic, don't you...you mentioned....you could open doors?" he asked her, an idea coming to him, but he worded it slowly, as to address the problem and the question at the same time.

[door]

She lowered her eyes the moment he started speaking to what sort of student she was. Great. That was making this whole thing considerably less awkward.

When he posed the question, Door knew he was asking something but she didn't quite know what. "I guess, I kind of have magic but...it's different than that" Door licked her lips slightly, trying to think of how to phrase it. She needed the phrasing to be careful with Caz. "I open things. All sorts of things. I can create a door out of nowhere and it'll be connected somewhere...usually to my home?" She stopped for a minute, giving the man a chance to remember her telling him about London Below. It was a while ago now. "My dad used to say I had a knack for opening people - that people naturally confided in me." She didn't like how that particular aspect sounded. It always seemed so manipulative. But there it was.

Door went back to toying with the box flap again. She knew she had answered his question thoroughly, but she couldn't stop herself from continuing. "I open doors to people's minds, emotions. I've even been able to peak into other realities. You know, same people, different time and space. Different..everything else?" She bit her lip, assuming that her comment was too vague for Caz to really put anything together with. Which was probably for the best.

She ran a hand over her head again, shifting a bit. "Why?" she asked.

[cazaril]

He'd had the idea of course, he'd needed confirmation, and he had got it, he knew what he wanted to ask her, but he was almost sure she wouldn't do it, his eyes looking to her carefully, trying to read her, like he was sure she was trying to read him.

She'd asked him why, she'd asked why he wanted to know such a thing. Caz wondered if someone with magic would be able to sort out this issue, but to ask her now? He doubted she'd trust him. He'd done a lot of stupid things recently and he had to play it out carefully.

"Nothing, I just...wondered." he lied, rather badly, but he shook his hand flapping the thought of discussion.

"There are a few people I can talk to at Camelot, I'll ask them. I don't know how much good it will do." He looked over at her, not knowing what else they could talk about, they could talk about that kiss, they could talk about before all this started, but he knew he couldn't do that until he'd sorted everything else at first...

[door]

Door sighed. Caz was sort of a horrible liar. Would he have felt the need to hide what he wanted if they hadn't been yelling at each other moments ago. She got the idea of trust off of him, something about her trusting him and he seeming to doubt it. That bothered her; he might have been behaving like an ass but she still trusted him. She trusted him with everything.

"Caz, come on. I know things are tense at the moment and, yeah, probably neither of us would call the other our favorite person right now but we're still friends. I'll still do whatever it takes to help you." She shrugged her shoulders, toying with whatever she could get her hands on. Mad was a new emotion for her and she wasn't sure how she was supposed to handle it - particularly when someone she cared so much about was clearly in need of something. She wasn't the type of person to just stand there and let something like that go.

If he still needed something from her, after her description of what her magic could do, she was more than willing to try and make something happen. Her magic wasn't like Plum's, wasn't like Harry's. She wasn't sure that she could help but if he seemed to think she could, why not? "Why did you ask? What do you need?"