I promise you nothing, l take only that which is free,
I'd give you a life full of risk, and the whirlwind of joy that can be.
Don't try to bind me, just love me without any greed,
And I'll give you the world, and my heart, and the air that I breathe.
"Please stay, Ethan," she pleads, tears building in her eyes. "It was nothing with him, I didn't even mean to…"
She's trying to make him feel better. She's embarrassed; he's caught her off-guard and she doesn't know how to react, not after last night, he's messed her around and now he's upset her on top of everything else, why couldn't he just take the hint, for god's sake, he should have realised the moment Eddie offered to come round and check on her, should have just bowed out gracefully, allowed him the honour, she's probably wishing it were Eddie that had turned up on her doorstep tonight instead of him, frustrated, and he can't blame her.
"It's fine," he covers hurriedly, fights to keep the disappointment from his tone because that's the last thing she needs, he's caused her enough distress already. "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow."
"No…" she tries, but he turns away, flushes, heads back out towards her front door hoping the ground might just swallow him up, or else he will awake on his sofa any moment now to find that this is all just a terrible embarrassing dream.
"He raped me."
Just like that, everything stops.
Her words don't quite register at first, and it's not just because her voice is so faint, barely more than a whisper, a frightened confession, scared, ashamed.
Ethan can't process it. He doesn't want to accept it, because this is Alicia… his Alicia whom he's neglected lately, it's true, but his Alicia still, and he knows her, she's strong, she's more than capable of looking after herself, this couldn't happen, not to her, it couldn't…
And yet, it could, of course, because if only life were that simple.
This is a crime from which no one is safe, however strongly they and their loved ones might desire to believe that they're protected, somehow, that they know how to handle themselves, that this could never happen to them because of a hundred thousand factors that seem to mean so much in theory, in reassurance, in blind naivety, but once it comes down to it, of course, that's all that they are. They are words, nothing more, words of empty meaning, because the horrible truth is that words alone and the confidence they might bring in those moments of safety, blissful ignorance, mean nothing in this world, not really.
She's Alicia. She's still his Alicia, nothing's changed, save for one thing.
She's his Alicia, however far he might have pushed her away over the last few months, and the painful truth is that she is far from as safely untouchable, invincible, as he believed until that moment.
This can happen to anyone.
This can happen to anyone, and it's happened to her.
And for goodness sake, Ethan tells himself as her bottom lip trembles, her eyes flood with tears and to his horror, before he's managed to process it all fully, pull himself together and work out what on earth he's supposed to do now, she's sobbing openly, distraught, as though just uttering those words has served as some kind of emotional release for her and the flood gates have opened, for goodness sake, she needs him to take control, do something, anything, to help her.
"Alicia…"
He doesn't know what to say. In that moment he's absolutely no idea what to say, what to do, and her name falls off his tongue before he's even realised he's spoken it, instinctive, as though somehow he's deluded enough to believe just his uttering her name will somehow help her, hold her together.
It doesn't. If anything, to Ethan's horror, it only makes her cry harder, face blotchy, breath coming in gasps and then her knees buckle as unexpectedly as they did back in resus and she's falling, slumps down towards the floor and he dives to catch her, room spinning, slow motion, as though he's watching this nightmare unfold from afar.
"Alicia? Alicia, Alicia?" It's all he seems to be able to say as he catches her under her arms, pulls her up against his chest. No words seem enough, nothing seems to even come close to what he wants to tell her, and Ethan isn't entirely sure he knows what he wants to tell her anyhow, his head a mess of emotions that don't seem to lend themselves to linguistic expression, a fierce, protective instinct rising up within him, nameless, inexplicable, oh-so powerful.
"Alicia, it's alright. It's alright."
It's not alright, of course, and Ethan can't see how it's ever going to be alright again, but he desperately wants her to believe that maybe, just maybe, it can be.
Get her onto the sofa. Get her seated, slow her breathing down, keep her conscious… God knows the last thing she needs is to hyperventilate to the point of collapse, passing out, come to only to find herself vulnerable, exposed, at his mercy.
Ethan would never hurt her, couldn't even contemplate it, doesn't understand how anyone ever could, and his blood boils at the realisation that there's one man out there, one man he trusted, was all too happy to take under his wing only a few short hours ago, who has.
But Alicia won't be thinking like that.
Her defences will be up like never before, fight or flight well and truly underway, and it dawns on him as he lowers her down onto the sofa, as she hisses in pain through her tears, sharp, panicked, breath catching in her throat, that it's most likely taken everything she has left in her just to tell him, to force out those three simple words that have changed everything.
And to think, he almost walked out on her, slammed the door and didn't look back before she could.
"Alright, you're alright. Alicia. Alicia, breathe." He sits her on the sofa and she flops forward like a rag doll, head between her knees, hyperventilates.
"Alicia." His hands find hers; cold, clammy, as they were when he got her out of resus and he looked no further once he'd ruled out hyperthermia, shit, shit… "Alicia, listen. You're safe, darling. You're safe, I'm going to keep you safe. I promise. You're alright. Breathe. Just breathe, you're safe. You're safe, Alicia." He squeezes her hands gently, limp, lifeless in his, rubs his thumb across the backs of her fingers as slowly, tentatively, her breathing starts to slow.
He loosens his grip, reluctant to leave her, but she's trembling, and all of a sudden, it's dawned on him that her attire is completely out of character, can't quite get his head around the fact that he hasn't noticed before. She's dressed in the same clothes in which she turned up for work this morning, running kit, hair scraped back into a ponytail, not the faintest trace of makeup, no bag, nothing, as though she stumbled out of the house this morning barely aware of what she was doing, going through the motions, autopilot, desperately trying to function.
And the worst of it is she wasn't even doing a good job of it, not really, and still he didn't notice.
She's thrown on the first clothes she could find this morning and somehow dragged herself into work, he's sure of it. He doubts she's eaten, she's probably dehydrated, the crying won't be helping but she doesn't seem to be able to stop…
"Alicia. Alicia, listen. Alicia, I'm going to get you a glass of water, okay, I'm going to come back and then I'm going to go upstairs, find you a blanket, or something. I'm coming right back…"
"Not… my… room…" Her breath is coming in hiccups, frantic, pleads with him. "Not… please…"
Slowly, it sinks in.
"He… he was here?" Fury builds within him.
He's trying to clarify things in his head, to make sense of it all, work out what on earth he's supposed to do from here, but evidently, it's entirely the wrong thing to say because she sways alarmingly, and how she can even sway when she's already doubled over but somehow, she manages it, gasps for air.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" He rubs her back as though she's a child, panics for a moment that he's doing the wrong thing altogether but suddenly she seems to settle, breathing slows, and Ethan hopes to a god he stopped believing in after Cal that she's through the worst of it. "It's alright. Breathe with me. You're safe now. It's over. You're alright. I'm going to get you some water, I'm going to find your spare room, get you a blanket, or something, whatever I can find, and we'll take it from there. Okay? You're alright, Alicia. You're alright."
Slowly, anxiously, she nods.
Ethan races up the stairs faster than he's managed before in his life, grabs the pile of blankets neatly folded at the end of the bed in the empty room, runs back down, fills a glass from the draining board, raids her ironing basket.
She's still when he returns. She's frighteningly so, slumped over, fingertips trail on the carpet, and for a moment he worries that she's passed out, before he takes in the gentle rise and fall of her chest.
She's handing over control, Ethan realises. She's exhausted, barely managed to hold herself together long enough to struggle through today, and now she's let him in and she's trusting him to carry her from here, too weak and pained and confused and traumatised to do it herself.
He should be flattered, touched, even, that after everything, after how he's treated her, still she trusts him.
Perhaps he should be flattered, and yet all he can feel is tremendous responsibility.
"Alicia? Alicia, listen. Can you sit up?"
No response.
"Okay. Okay, okay, I'm going to help you. I'm not going to hurt you, darling, I'm just going to help you sit up, it's alright." Gently, he grips her shoulders, guides her upwards, back against the sofa, rummages through the pile of blankets and clean clothes, no idea if he's doing the right thing or not but surely this is evidence, surely she hasn't showered the traces of her torment away, not when she's so otherwise bedraggled?
"Alicia, can you raise your arms for me?" He holds the clean jumper out in front of him as reassurance, wouldn't blame her if alarm bells are sounding, if this is a step too far whether she trusts him or not. But it isn't, apparently, and she obliges, child-like, numb, shakes violently, clammy, as her pulls off her running top.
It takes all of Ethan's self-restraint not to gasp.
Her ribs are littered with yellow, bruises in the early stages of formation, as though someone has gripped her, held her down, firm, no escape. She's tense, rabbit in the headlights, frozen in fear, too frightened to run, bloody indentations on her breasts, patterned, rounded, all-too-obvious, angry scratches reaching from her hip bones across her stomach that aren't so much so until to his horror her hands are there, fingertips dig as though it's a stress reaction, anxiety, maybe, he doesn't know, newly bloodied before he can stop her.
"Alicia." He catches her hands in his before she can do any more damage, squeezes, as though maybe, just maybe, he can transfer some of his energy into her, hold her together. "Hey, don't do that. It's alright. It's alright… you don't need to do that… come on, darling." Carefully, he raises her arms back above her head, pulls over the vest top, jumper, presses a cold glass of water into her hands, steadies them, doesn't trust her not to let it slip through her fingers, not when she's like this.
"Drink," he says softly. He's crouched in front of her, hands move with hers, raise the glass to her lips in unison. "It's alright. I'm here now," he tells her, though there's so much more he wants to tell her, so much she doesn't need to know just yet in so many words and yet she needs to feel it badly, needs to sense she's stuck with him, that they're doing this together, whatever happens next. "I'm here. You're safe now. You're safe."
Slip the jesses, my love,
This hunter you own from the hood to the glove,
When the circling and striking are done, and I land,
Let me come back to your hand.
-Heather Dale, Hunter.
Today I have had one of those terrible anxiety days when nothing whatsoever happens to make you sad, but you just can't stop crying. So I tried to do something productive to take my mind off things. This was written in one sitting, over two hours, on and off watching episode 37 of the last series. It is very, very rough, but I kind of want to keep it that way, because that was really the point of writing this; I wanted it to be emotionally raw, and I don't think it's going to have that same effect if I go through and edit it.
There is potentially going to be a part two; the inspiration for this piece was a really beautiful song called Hunter by Heather Dale, who you are probably sick of me recommending if you read Finding Avalon, but she has so many gorgeous unconventional love songs that are perfect for Alicia and Ethan. There is one more verse I haven't used here, so if you want and I can find the headspace again (which I probably can, it has not been the best couple of weeks!) I will happily write you a conclusion.
I would LOVE your thoughts on this one, and by all means feel free to shout at me if it's too dark and angsty!
-IseultLaBelle