Tears

<snip>
“I saw him Abs. I thought I was safe… He can’t be here…” Jade said, falling into a very confused Cass’ arms and burying her face into her neck and beginning to sob.
</snip>
Somewhat unaccustomed to this sort of intimacy, Cass shifted uncomfortably, but nonetheless coiled her arms around her obviously distressed friend to draw her in an embrace
"What happened?" she asked, but by this point Jade was inconsolable and merely clung onto her, weeping uncontrollably, her shoulders heaving with huge wracking sobs
While it was hard to tell for certain in torchlight, other than being extremely distressed, Jade didn't appear to be injured, so there was little Cass could do to help, other than to simply hold her and try her best to clumsily soothe away her fears
"Oh Abs," Jade eventually bubbled through her tears, her voice high and tight with misery “it was awful”
"It's Cass..."
This made Jade start and look sharply up in confusion; her eyes widening in shock as she peered up at Cass in the dim moonlight and hurriedly pulled away "Shit. Shit, I'm so sorry" she flustered "I... I thought..."
Cass shook her head "What happened?" she asked, shining her torch towards Jade and scrutinising her dishevelled appearance "You're covered in mud and scratches"
"I... Shit" 
Her dislike of coarse language forgotten in her agitation, Jade turned away to hide her flush of embarrassment, both with what had just transpired with Cass and the awful memories of her terror-stricken compliance with Tony, out in the jungle
How was it even possible that he was here!? her mind screamed 
Was this all a dream?
Folding her arms defensively in front of her, she disentangled a hand and raised it to her face to smear the remaining tears from her cheeks before clasping it over her mouth, absolutely mortified
What would Cass think!? - this was the second time she had wound up in a compromising position with her
How was Tony here!?
"Are you okay?" Cass asked carefully. She could sense that there was more going on here than she was aware of but had no intention of trying to force the issue
"Yeah" Jade turned back to her, gesticulating with her free hand "Yeah, I'm fine; it was just a bad dream. I... I was confused when I woke up. I'm sorry"
"That bang on your head probably didn't help either" Cass nodded, playing along with the charade for now "C'mon" she took a step towards Jade and extended an arm to coil it around her shoulders and draw her towards the Starbug's access ramp "Let's get you cleaned up before the others get back, eh?"
Wordlessly complying, Jade allowed herself to be guided to the bottom of the ramp where Cass let her arm fall and turned to her 
“Will you be okay here while I nip inside and grab your bag?”
Eyeing the pitch black interior of the powerless Starbug, Jade shook her head and repressed an involuntary shiver 
“There's no way I’m going in there” she said flatly
“That’s fine” Cass soothed “I’ll only be a minute while I get your stuff. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
Nodding mutely, Jade watched as she trudged up the ramp and disappeared into the interior of the Starbug, her torchlight visible for a moment longer before that too vanished 
“Yeah, we had Jade turn up...” Cassandra's voice drifted down, out of the darkness before becoming too muffled to make out

Jade wasn’t around when Cass emerged back out into the warm night air a couple of minutes later
“Shit” she hissed, slinging Jade’s bag back over her shoulder and shining her torch around her as she fumbled her terminal out from her pocket “Jade?”
There were voices somewhere nearby, just audible above the chirrup of the nocturnal insects 
Squinting out into the darkness, Cass wheeled to shine her torch out towards the trees crowding the edge of the beach
“Jade?”
The voices stopped. So did the insects
“Fuck this” hurriedly pocketing the torch, Cass activated her terminal; her fingers dancing over the display surface as she summoned her drones back from their search for the missing skutling and launched a scan of the area
The next thing she knew was an explosion of pain as Jade hit her from behind with an improvised cudgel; the first blow staggering her and then the second knocking her to the ground.
Jade was on her then, her face twisted into a mask of hate as her weight bore down on top of her and her hands closed tightly around Cassandra's neck


<tag>
Jade's (probably) possessed
Is there anyone around to stop her trying to kill Cass?
Do they fall under the influence of whatever's affecting her as well / instead?
And what happened to that little skutter?
</tag>