Disclaimer: Not mine, BBC owns it. ;)

Author's note: Ok, since Pete wouldn't go away I wrote him into another short story ^^. 16.04.2012: Edited it a bit, thx to marigolds for pointing out a little plot hole ^^, also took care of some pesky typos...good thing I'm not a tatoo artist ;)

Her first impression of the boy was his remoteness, he hardly seemed to be there at all. His light grey sweats blending in with the grey walls of the hospital and the off-white bed clothes. He seemed a ghost with his pale skin and the dark shadows under his eyes, more apparition then child. He didn't look up when she lightly rapped her knuckled on the open door of his room, didn't stir at all not even to flinch. It was early afternoon and his lunch stood untouched on the grey bedside table, the green jello incongruously gay in this sombre setting. As she slowly drew closer to the bed she could just see the ears of a teddy bear peaking out from under the covers. It seemed to be clutched tightly to the boy's chest. There were no flowers or bright balloons with cheery messages in this room, no "Get well soon"-cards or even bad chocolate from the gift shop downstairs. The boy the world forgot sprung into her mind. His file said he had no family in the area, his mother's parents dead, his father unknown, all he had were an aunt inPakistan, who as yet nobody had been able to contact and an uncle in France who wanted nothing to do with his nephew and wouldn't even pay for the funeral of his little sister. His mother had been all he had and all he'd needed.

The woman had read his files, the police reports, his school files and the social service file. No matter how it had appeared to the outside world Ms. Travis had been a good mother, her son a good pupil and well liked in his class. He had never missed one hour of classes without excuse, hardly ever stayed home sick and had never caused any problems at all. He had been a friendly, intelligent and hard working boy with a good future ahead of him. Now all he had were nurses who were too overworked to give him more then kind words and extra jello and all he had to look forward to was the foster system.

The woman put down her briefcase next to his bed and dragged a chair over from the small chipped formica table in the corner. The chair's metal legs made a screaming noise on the linoleum floor. The silence in the room had seeped so deeply into the very walls that the sound seemed even louder then it was. Like a phone ringing during a funeral service, she thought. The boy hardly seemed to mind at all, still staring at nothing as she sat down next to his bed.

"Hello, Pete", she said softly, "my name is Angelica and I'd like to talk to you about what happened to your mum. I'm just going to put this tape recorder on the bedside table to record what we're saying, ok?"

She waited for a while, to see if he'd acknowledge her presence at all. When he didn't give any sign of having heard her the woman tried again: "It's ok if you don't want to talk to me right now, you have been through a very difficult time. And the policemen told me you've been very brave so far but they need to know what happened to your mum so they can punish whoever hurt her. You can tell me if you'd rather be left alone and I can come back later."

The woman slowly reached out towards the boy, all the time watching for a sign that he didn't want her to touch him, and when he didn't shy away from her hand she carefully pulled down the covers a bit and took his hand into hers. It seemed like he woke from a deep sleep at the contact, looking from her darker hand on his pale one to her face with a confused expression.

"You're safe Pete, no one is going to hurt you here, you have my word", she tried to reassure him. "Is it ok if I hold your hand for a while? I'm a bit scared of hospitals, I must admit. How about you, are you scared?"

The boy slowly shook his head, his lips forming the word No but his dry throat didn't make a sound. He licked his chapped lips and tried again. "No, I'm not scared" he croaked and tried to put on a brave face but was unable to hide his fear as his eyes couldn't keep from scanning every corner of the room for invisible enemies.

The woman reached over to his bedside table and grabbed the spouted cup. She shook it lightly feeling the water slosh about inside. "Here, you need to drink dear, you sound as dry as the Gobi Dessert." When the boy carefully took the proffered cup and raised it to his lips she smiled reassuringly at him. "That's it, don't drink too fast. Now you empty that cup and then maybe we can talk a bit?"

She watched the boy sipping his water while she stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. After he finished she put the cup back onto the bedside table. "That's a very nice fluffy teddy bear you've got there, Pete. I bet he makes for a fantastic guardian and protects you while you sleep. I used to have a stuffed rabbit who scared the monsters away at night. His name was Mr. Nibbles. Does your bear have a name?"

The boy hugged the stuffed animal closer to his chest, shaking his head. "Not mine", he whispered, "the night nurse lent him to me when I couldn't sleep. She said I would wake up the other patients with my sobbing."

The woman nodded. The nurses had told her about the boy's sleepless nights. He couldn't stay in a room with any of the other patients at all, he seemed afraid of them, and his roommates kept complaining that it was impossible to get any rest with a crying child in the room. "And does he help you sleep", she asked. The boy shrugged. "A bit, but I know he won't keep the monsters out, he's just a toy." He looked down sadly into the brown bear's glass eyes. "Nothing keeps the monsters out once you've invited them in, you know?"

She looked at the teddy answering: "Did your mum invite the men in that hurt her?" She could feel the boy tense, gripping her hand tighter.

"They weren't men, they were monsters. They killed her and drank her blood. I saw them, their eyes were black and they had teeth like a dog", he told her in a monotonous voice, devoid of any feeling, like a person in a trance. "She said he'd be good for us, her new friend. He'd marry her and be my daddy and we'd have a nice house in the suburbs with a big garden. She said I'd get a dog, and a tree house, because he was a nice man and he'd be good to us."

The woman wiped tears from her eyes at this matter of fact recital of smashed dreams. The way he told it made it seem like he retold the story of some other boy who'd lost his mother to the man who had promised to make it all better. "And this man, did he hurt your mummy", she asked, looking at the boy's face, trying to see if this was getting too much for him. But the boy was still looking at his teddy bear, telling it all to him instead of this stranger sitting by his bedside.

"He and his friends, they visited that night. Mum had just read me a bedtime story, I was supposed to be asleep, but I heard them knock. Mum invited them in, they were very nice to her. I heard them joke and have fun in the living room and I crept out of bed to peek through the keyhole. I couldn't see much but I saw mum and her friend kissing on the sofa, the other men were being noisy somewhere else in the room."

Tears were running down the boy's face but he didn't seem to feel them. The woman got out a handkerchief and wiped them away, telling the boy he could stop if he didn't want to tell her, but he seemed to be completely lost in the memory and didn't hear her at all. He just kept on talking like a flood gate had opened and the words just came spilling out, like he couldn't stop even if he wanted to. So all the woman could do was hold fast to his hand and try to help him through it.

"I opened the door just a very tiny crack because I wanted to see what was happening. They didn't know I was there, I was stealthy, and the door didn't creak. Suddenly mummy was screaming and trying to shove her friend away. I thought they were playing at fighting, like I sometimes do with my friends, but they weren't. The other men were all laughing and cheering him on, and when he let go of mummy his mouth was full of blood and he was laughing, too. He stood up, making fun of my mummy for loving him."

He was shaking now but his eyes were dry, like he'd run out of tears. Slowly the woman got up from the chair and, without letting go of his hand, sat down next to him on the bed. She pushed off her shoes and lay down next to the boy, taking him into her arms. He went rigid at first but then relaxed and let her pull him to her chest.

"Mummy tried to run away then, and they chased her. They knocked over all the furniture. Then Mummy saw me peeking through the crack and she put a finger to her lips telling me to be quiet. The men didn't see, they were still laughing, and they grabbed her and pushed her to the floor behind the sofa. I couldn't see her any longer but I heard her scream and beg them to leaver her alone. I wanted to help her, I wanted to protect her, she's my mummy and I'm supposed to protect her. I'm the man of the house s-s-she a-a-always said."

He was sobbing so hard by that time, that he couldn't speak any longer. "Shhhh, it's alright. You couldn't have protected her, Pete. If you'd have tried the man would have hurt you, too, and your mum wouldn't have wanted that. She wanted you to be safe, that's why she told you to be quiet", the woman tried to reassure him. She rocked him softly while his sobs shook them both. But the boy didn't seem to understand a word she said. Once he'd calmed down enough to talk he went on with his story:

"I couldn't move, I couldn't shout, it was like I'd turned to stone, I could just listen and look. After a while mummy stopped screaming and then the men came out from behind the sofa and they were covered in blood, their eyes were black, and they were licking the blood off their lips and fingers. They washed it off in our bathroom and then they left, joking and slapping each others shoulders like football players after a match. Once they were gone, I went out to mummy, she wouldn't wake up when I shook her. I knew she was dead but I didn't want her to be dead. Mrs. Sarin from next door always says I'm loud enough to wake the dead, so I was being as loud as I could, I wanted mummy to wake up again."

The boy went silent, sobbing harder again and slowly turned around to throw his arms around the woman's waist. He grabbed on to her blouse so hard his finger went white. It felt like he would never let go of her again. She stroked his hair and tried to calm him down telling him he was safe now, those men would never hurt him again. When nothing worked she started singing an old lullaby her mother always sang to her, tears running down her face freely for this brave boy who had gone through hell and bore the scars to prove it.

When the nurses came a while later to collect his food tray they found them both still in bed, the boy fast asleep yet still clinging to the woman. The tape recorder still running, recording the grave silence.