"Alicia? Alicia come on, don't be like this, please…"
Close your eyes. Close your eyes and just breathe, block him out, forget everything because he's a doctor, no matter what else he might be he's a doctor and he's the only one here right now to help you, he's a professional, this became work in an instant and he'll respond to it as work, he will, he won't… not now, not with an ambulance on its way, he wouldn't go there, of course he wouldn't, trust him, let him help… pressure, just pressure…
"No!" The scream she unleashes is not her own, the strange, unfamiliar voice of a woman in utter crisis, out of control, afraid. "No, no…!" She tenses, back arches and it hurts, god it hurts, but she can't, she just can't, she has to make him understand.
She can't let him near her. She knows she should, knows what this is, she knew it before she hit the ground because there's only one place in her arm that would gush like this, she hasn't lost it completely, not yet. She's cold… shock, must be shock, she knows how this goes from training, nights spent in medical school hunched over textbooks during late night library sessions and pre-exam panic cramming sessions, from two years on the front line of an A and E department. It's shock… it must be shock, and perhaps it's affecting her clarity but this isn't clarity, this is instinct, fight or flight and flight isn't an option, she doesn't need to attempt any further to know her body simply will not let her stand and stagger away and so fight it's going to have to be, whatever is left in her and however long it takes because she can't have him near her again, she can't…
She'll take her chances waiting for the paramedics to arrive over letting Eddie near her.
"Alicia, your arm, I need to…"
"No!" She squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head, struggles against the heavy numbness of limbs that no longer feel like her own, cold, dull, deadweight. She can't face looking up at him, she can't do it, not all the while he's towering over her and she's vulnerable all over again, it's the same, it's happening again and she can't, she can't…
"Alicia, if I don't do this…"
"Just get me…" She struggles to think, head throbbing, where is she, what does she have on hand, what can she use, anything… "Tea towel," she manages at last. "Bottom drawer, left… oven…"
"Okay, okay…" For a few blissful moments he's gone, and she's safe, bleeding out, alone, cold, but she's safe; Alicia doesn't fail to appreciate the irony there. She's safe, and then his footsteps are back on the patio slabs and he's there, he's looming over her again and she can't stand it, she can't…
"Alicia? Alicia, just let me help, it's going to be a few minutes before…"
No, no, no, no, no, not again, not like this, please no.
"No! No, please…!"
She's protesting because it's all she can do, and yet what point is there when she knows that word is one he doesn't understand, one he doesn't respect?
"Just let me help you sit up, we need to get you moved, the glass…"
And then his hands are on her shoulders and reality morphs into nightmare, so rapidly that no part of her can distinguish between the nightmare playing out now and the one that's over, over and finished, except for the nights when it haunts her, unfolds all over again in her dreams until sleep becomes a fear, a punishment, because she must have done something, god knows what but she's done something to deserve this, that blog, Ethan, something, something she's paying for now and it won't go away, why won't it go away?
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Her voice is hoarse and unrecognisable, panicked, a frightened animal.
She's so startled, so taken aback by the violent explosion of fear and anger and hatred and resignation and more she can't even put into words erupting from within her that she shocks herself back to reality, eyes snap open and he's retreating, steps backward towards the empty space where her French doors once stood, throws the tea towel down beside her and she flinches, recoils, as it lands with a soft thud against her wrist.
"Fine," Eddie retorts angrily. "Fine, you want to make it worse, you go and do that. That's fine. I'm not a monster, Alicia, I want to help you…"
"I don't… need your help." She's crying, she realises now; it's taken her until now to realise she's crying, gasping, and Alicia knows deep down it's not her airways, it's the pain, it's the pain combined with the fear and the shock and the emotions of today, how quickly and violently Eddie has turned her world upside down all over again, another trail of his destruction she's going to have to drag herself back from the brink of and she can't do it, she doesn't want to, she's too tired to begin to fight this all over again. "Just stay away, please…"
It takes everything she has left to heave herself upright. Her right arm is useless, not even worth attempting, so her left pushes against the stone of her garden patio but it buckles, and then there's pain, shooting pains up her arm and shit… shit… She rolls, desperate, desperate to force herself up to a seating position before Eddie tries to help her again, rolls onto her side and there's a horrible crunching, the shattering of glass, and her side burns and she knows what's happened, but what was the alternative?
Accepting Eddie's help is not an alternative.
She's too far gone down the path of crippling fear for that.
Engage. Grip with your abdominal muscles, you can do this, don't think about him. He's not here, he's not here if you block him out, forget him… Push him out, Alicia. Push him out…
Somehow, she manages to force herself up into a seated position, sways, head spinning, throws her left hand out in a half-hearted effort to steady herself and then pain, more pain, pain rushing through her palm, shit…
Breathe. Breathe, Alicia. Just breathe.
With her left hand, bloodied, newly glass-filled, she fumbles, gingerly lifts the tea towel, hunched over exhausted, vision blurred. She can't angle her left arm, can barely grip, struggles to prop her wrist against her chest, she can't reach, shit…
"Alicia, come on, this is ridiculous…"
"No…" Her voice is even less like her own this time, frightened, weak, devoid even of the fight of just a few moments ago. "I'm okay, I'm okay…" She twists, struggles, settles on manoeuvring her right arm towards her left if her elbow is really too far gone to be of any use here, winces, for the first time able to assess the damage.
Brachial artery, Alicia, brachial, think… pressure, it needs pressure, you're going to have to grin and bear it until the paramedics here if you can't get your head around… no, no, not going there again, that isn't an option, no, no no no no no not again, not him, no, no…
Pressure. It needs pressure, pressure until the paramedics arrive and they can tourniquet it, just for a few minutes. Breathe, just breathe, hold it together and he won't come near you, just a few more minutes, you can hold him off… breathe…
Her heart pounds in her chest, and she cries out in pain, gasps, weak, exhausted, torn between the pain she knows she'll inflict upon herself if she continues applying pressure and the pain that's going to come later, take her slowly, drawn out, if she doesn't man up and bear this now.
Push down, Alicia. Just a few more minutes. It's just like in training. It's like training, block out the pain, don't think about it…
And then it all hits her, out of nowhere, as though the shock and the adrenaline and the pain and the panic has delayed it all until now, stopped her processing, but now her head is clearer, still so hazy, thoughts distorted but she can make sense of it all a little and it hits her, it's like that night all over again, the realisation the next morning, she can't…
He attacked her.
He threw her through the window, she's here now, hunched over on the patio, disorientated, weakly applying pressure against a brachial artery injury that's her own with an arm that may or may not be dislocated that's her own trying to coach herself through it in her head as though it's another patient, as though it's training, as though it's anything that distracts her from the grim reality of this mess because the truth is too much for her to handle right now and she needs to focus, pressure, she needs to keep at it with the pressure…
He attacked her. She was stupid, she should never have invited him in but she thought it was it, case closed, no chance of the police taking it any further after that god damned video. She thought it was her only chance to get some kind of justice, the closest thing she could achieve without the formalities of a court room and a crown prosecutor, just wanted to tell him what she really thought of him, get it out, finally tell him how she really felt that night, all the signs he missed, didn't want to see in his blind animalistic pursuit of what he wanted, no consideration for what she wanted and what she made so clear she didn't, nothing…
Shit, shit…
She can't do this. She can't do it, she can't, he attacked her, he refused to see it from her perspective just like she knew he would but she never imagined this, wouldn't have thought him capable of this, as stupid as it might sound. He's a rapist, yes, but that's a different kind of violence somehow in her head, or perhaps she just didn't want to admit it to herself, perhaps this is just another example of her dire attempts at self-preservation.
He could still be a danger to her now.
Alicia shudders, whimpers, presses down, regrets it, lost in that vicious cycle of pain and despair and more pain and fear, because it's going to get worse, she knows it is, it's hopeless, the fight within her is just gone…
What if he loses it with her again, she did a bad enough job of defending herself this first time around, she hasn't got the strength to cope with another attack, she can't, she's so tired, she just wants to sleep.
She can feel him on her, she can smell him. He's metres from her, hovering in her kitchen listening out for the doorbell, but she can smell him, and it's in her head, she knows it's in her head, knows it because she's been able to smell him lingering everywhere ever since that night, can't shake it, blocks it out just about when there's something pressing to focus upon and so she can just about struggle her way through a shift, can hold them off during the daytime because there's always something she can do, some kind of distraction, but as soon as she tries to sleep it takes over her again, dominant, unbearably so at the forefront of her mind and it's like that now, it's there, it's just there no matter how she tries to block it out and she can't overcome it, she can still feel him, he's smothering her, pinning her down but he's cowering in the corner of her kitchen, how can he be so real when he's distant, how…
And then the doorbell rings and Eddie is racing down the hallway, and at last, Alicia can breathe again.
This is my first attempt at writing for a while, and my second time ever writing for Casualty and my first was so terrible I deleted it a long time ago, but this has been in my head since last week's episodeand I finally decided to try to write it down today. This was originally going to be a oneshot, but now I'm kind of tempted to work it into a series of missing moments from Alicia and Ethan's perspectives going into the new series. (Hence the title, if I'm going to make this an Alicia/Ethan oneshot, it has to have this title).
Reviews would be amazing, please do let me know if you want me to continue.
-IseultLaBelle