Hi! I'm a long time reader but first time writer of fanfiction. Like many, I was deeply affected by what happened in 4x03. I don't know where the show will take the storyline from here (I'm greatly anticipating Sunday!) but I wanted to write a piece that explored the impact that the assault had on Anna, as I'm sure the show will do in the coming episodes as well.
Spoilers for season 4 and warning for sexual assault.
I've gone with a T rating, but let me know if you think it should be changed.
DA and characters are not mine.
There are wounds that never show on the surface that hurt more than anything that bleeds.
She can feel him under her skin, like poison running through her veins. Her tears feel like acid against her cheeks and remind her of the cuts and bruises that mark her face. The floor of Mrs. Hughes' office is too cold, the wall against her back is too hard, the darkness is too consuming, threatening to swallow her whole.
Anna, you must tell somebody. She still hears Mrs. Hughes' voice in her head, remembers the fear that had hit her as hard as Mr. Green's fist when she recognized that she would have to face her husband later that night. And now, curled up here in the corner of the office, waiting for the material solaces of water and a dress that Mrs. Hughes will bring her, she remembers her response, Nobody else must ever know. You promise me? At the time she had been so certain that it would destroy her and the people she loved and cared about if any of them found out, but after seeing the worry and pain in Mrs. Hughes' eyes, hearing her own broken voice plead so desperately, I need your help, she isn't so sure if she can face what has happened on her own.
Rape, she realizes. That is the word. That is what has happened to her. She was raped by Mr. Green. Mr. Green raped her. She knows that there are all sorts of awful four-letter words that should never be uttered. This word, she thinks, is another one. It clouds her thoughts, so loud that she imagines somebody is next to her yelling, you were raped, you're damaged goods now, nobody will ever want you or love you after what he's done to you.
The next thing that comes to Anna through the haze is John. Oh God, she thinks, John. His beautiful smile comes to her first, the way his eyes light and go up at the corners when he sees her. For a moment, she feels his strong arms around her, and she can imagine, just for an instant, that she is back in the cottage, curled up next to him, his warm body against hers, the reassuring rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.
But the comfort of imagination is fleeting, and Anna knows that John, good, honorable John can never know her like this. Bile rises in her throat, and she feels like she is going to be sick. She knows what this is – shame, guilt, self-blame – and she knows it is eating away at her slowly, that she should shield herself from these thoughts that will destroy her long after the bruises have faded, but without it, she has nothing. I must have done something wrong. She claws at her scalp, willing herself to rid her mind of these voices. She had told Mrs. Hughes only half of the reason why John can never find out. She fears losing him again to the animal in him that comes out in the face of the world's evils. She fears that he will murder Green and be hanged. But more than that, she fears that he will no longer love or want her. If he knew, would she still be the wife that he had almost given his life to have? Slut, whore, the voices in her head scream. Is that how he will see her? Will John understand that she is not whole? That Green has taken something from her, and that she no longer belongs completely to him? She fears this more than anything, and in the haze that surrounds the first few hours after the assault, Anna decides that he cannot know. The man who she trusts more than anything in the world, the one who she has promised her life to, cannot know of the shame that now marks her. If it is already destroying her, than at least she can spare him from it.
There is a soft knock on the door and Mrs. Hughes enters with a basin of water in one hand and a dress and towel draped over the other arm. Anna tries to compose herself, and finds a dark edge of humor in the notion of trying to appear presentable at a time like this. There are some kinds of damage that can't be so easily hidden, she thinks, as she rises from the corner of the room and holds the front of her dress closed.
Mrs. Hughes is gentle and kind, setting the basin down on the table, handing her the cloth and folding the dress over the back of the chair. "Do you want me to stay?" she says softly in her Scottish brogue. There is the unspoken question too: How broken are you?
"No," Anna replies, her voice already breaking, "I'll be fine." Really all she wants to say is: Of course I want you to stay. I want, I need you to put all the pieces of me back together. I need you to tell me what I do now, how do I keep on going? But she doesn't say these things, and Mrs. Hughes leaves the room, the door closing softly behind her. Only until the clicking of her shoes has faded down the hallway does Anna begin to remove her dress. The front of the dress has come apart down the middle, a mirror of her body that has also been torn in half. The seams on the side of her corset have torn, and as she unlaces it, she inhales sharply at the burn of a broken rib. When all the layers of her shame that can be easily removed are pooled in a pile at her feet, she begins to assess the damage. Her forearms are already a mottled purple blue where he held her, and she thinks she can see the shape of his hands in the bruises that span her left shoulder and right thigh. Every breath is painful, her lungs protesting against even this simple task. She feels the ache acutely between her legs, and realizes that she has been digging the fingernails of her right hand into the skin of her left palm. She stares at the little crescent moon shapes that her fingernails have left behind– a sky she holds in the palm of her hand.
Anna places the washcloth into the basin and begins the long task of washing away the memory of him from her body. But she feels him everywhere; he is in her blood stream, contaminating everything. She can still taste him, whiskey and cigarettes and lust and violence. She scrubs at her skin until it is raw, but even then she cannot rid herself of him and what he has done to her. Sobs wrack her body, but she manages to get herself into the clean dress.
Anna curls herself into a corner, and in this vast castle of a house, her friends chattering just outside in the hallway about Dame Nellie's performance, her husband only rooms away, she has never felt more alone.
Thank you so much for reading! Please comment and review. I really appreciate the time you take to give me any kind of positive or critical feedback. Let me know if this is something worth continuing. Thanks again!
