I raise you: a handful of mid-war Cassie/Jake headcanons because that’s what I have feelings about right now.  For this meme.

A: what I think realistically

Cassie isn’t oblivious to the toll the war is taking on Jake—far from it.  He shows up to her barn sometimes when he can’t sleep, sits in the hayloft or quietly organizes cabinets, and Cassie starts making sure to be the first one into the barn in case Jake’s fallen asleep there.  (One time she is unsuccessful about this and her dad wanders in to find Jake asleep in the hayloft—he scrambles and blurts out a blatant lie about having gotten in a fight with Tom the night before and Cassie tries really hard not to cover her face because.  It’s a mess. Jake is a passable liar by virtue of necessity, but he gets jumpy whenever he’s confronted by coming up with legitimate reasons to be at Cassie’s other than wanting to see Cassie.)  Sometimes, when Cassie can’t sleep either, she wanders out to the barn herself—if Jake happens to be there, conveniently available for company and quiet conversation about dreams and nightmares, that’s nothing more than a coincidence.

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

Cassie is largely unaware of the fact that she’s viewed with a high degree of bitter, bitter jealousy by a lot of the other girls at her school and not a few of the boys.  Jake is a good-looking, level-headed, friendly person, who is widely known at the school as a Catch.  This is somehow made more of a thing due to the fact that he just.  Doesn’t notice.  (This is canon, don’t even fight me on this, three girls ask him to that dance in book 29.)  Jake smiles at Cassie and talks with her in the halls and doesn’t even pick up on other people hitting on him, and therefore several of those people are deeply frustrated.  It’s made worse because what are they going to do about it. Cassie is an angel, it’s not like they can even really hate her for it, and even if they did, God help the person who decides to fuck with Rachel’s best friend.

Incidentally, no one is more frustrated with Cassie and Jake than Rachel. Guys!  Go on a date!  Watch a movie!  Hell, just get together at someone’s house and cuddle!  G O D.  She literally cannot believe how unsmooth Jake is, it causes her physical pain, and Cassie, sweetie, hold his hand, do it for Rachel, she is dating a bird and she is having more success than these idiots.

She despairs of them, she really does.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Cassie and her mother used to be really close—like, they told each other everything. It kills Cassie to lie to her, constantly, incessantly, unavoidably, for three years.  Cassie screams in her sleep, and she tells her mother nothing.  Cassie cries for three days, and she tells her mother nothing. Cassie develops an overwhelming phobia of termites, and she tells her mother nothing.

She wants so much to be able to tell her mother the truth about just one thing, and so when her mother asks if she can ask about Jake—hesitantly, because Cassie is so withdrawn these days—Cassie barley even pauses to feel embarrassed.

“Of course!” Cassie blurts, and her mother smiles a little, almost shy.

“Well,” she says, sitting down beside Cassie, “are you two dating?”

“Um…sort of,” Cassie says uncertainly.  What does one even call her relationship with Jake these days?  On the one hand, no, they don’t exactly go on dates that much, despite Rachel’s best efforts, and there’s still that level of mild discomfort with, like, the concept of being a couple, but on the other hand…they’re so far past dating it’s not even funny.  

“Sort of?” her mother laughs, amused.  “Well, have you kissed him?”

Cassie feels herself blush and opens her mouth to say yes—but stops.  If she says yes, her mother will want to know when and how and…and Cassie can’t tell her. Can’t say yes, we kissed on another world.  Can’t say yes, and I cried into his shoulder because I thought he was dead.  Can’t say yes, I kissed him because we were facing death and I was afraid I’d never get the chance again.

Honestly, she can’t say yes at all.

So she looks away and says, “No.”

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

Right so it’s technically post war but THIS FIC.  Canon ending can suck a dick.

Also, give me an AU where everything is fine and Cassie is a morph dancer who performs on street corners like a busker (she’s the equivalent of a Julliard-trained violinist whose day job pays well and who plays in subways for fun) and Jake sees her transforming into an osprey and falls in love on the spot.