Warning. Mentions of sexual assault. Warning. Read with caution.
Find Your Voice
Chapter Two
Life's a bitch, ain't it, Addison?
. . .Maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because it matters. . .
-:-
He's done it again.
What?
He's done it again. He's shamelessly leaving her - his wife.
Why?
He's done it again. He's leaving her all alone and sodden with tears.
Where?
He's done it again. He's leaving her frightened out of her mind and shattered at their home.
How?
It's not their home, he has to remind himself of that. It's only his. It's not the brownstone - their brownstone - because that's their home and their home is thousands of kilometres away.
New York is their home.
But their brownstone isn't something they mention to one another anymore. It still exists. It's still unoccupied. It's still there and their's. It's still not a topic they willingly bring up. Because now, their brownstone equals to Mark and that's equivalent to that night. And that night is something they don't ever want to speak about, let alone think about.
It's, really, all just feeble attempts of deflection since that night is all he can think about when he looks at her, when she's around him, whenever she speaks and breathes too.
He sees her, then, with his best friend's hands everywhere on what's his and flesh-on-flesh that's too pale, that's now embedded in his memory.
It's always there, it will always be there - silently or perhaps, not so silently, but lingering as unrest souls.
Still, as hardly as it is talked about - only when he conveniently feels like bringing it up to throw her betrayal in her face - it's their uncomfortable silence that whispers everything of that night.
It's always the elephant in every room. And wherever they go, whenever they're alone in the same room, it's different.
Very different, indeed.
Not awkward, if they don't make it so, just different.
Hostile. Venomous. Wrathful. Secretive.
And he needed to get out of that trailer. He just had to. No explanations, no reasons whatsoever needed. But he has one. A reason that's more than enough; he couldn't, he thinks he had tried - he couldn't stand to see her like that. Just listening to her had broke him. He had to beg his other half to put one foot in front of the other and just walk out.
He didn't really want to, though. He had to.
It's haunted with no ghosts because it's haunted with something much more earth shattering and heartbreaking - her relentless screams.
No! No! No!
And when she flinched - he couldn't, he didn't know what else to do but run.
She couldn't look at him. Maybe wouldn't. But he had caught a glimpse of her blank stare. She was afraid of him.
She is afraid of him.
He never intended to hurt her. He was just wanting to comfort her because that's what you do when someone has been hurt. You comfort them. But then, she pushed him away. And now, he's away. That's what she wanted, what she begged him to do.
Go away!
He's driving away, fast like he's evading from the police. No, he's escaping Addison. But unlike the first time, he hasn't got any mode of compass or someone to seek refuge to. This must be how Addison feels on a daily basis. Alone.
She moved to Seattle for him. He chose to stay with her instead. But she's still very much alone.
He's just driving, driving with a mind that's empty with darkness.
Oh, that's false, because his mind is not pitch black, it's racing, sprinting with thoughts from all directions.
Up. Down. Left. Right. North. South. East. West. Diagonal. Horizontal. Vertical.
Suddenly, it's her pained and heavy blue eyes in his head, begging him to do something else other than stare at her the way that he did. It's all he could do; gawk at the broken in front of him. He didn't know what else to say to her so she could feel safe or even just okay.
No one had ever told him that one day he'd be in this predicament.
Then, she's bursting brutally in tears again.
She didn't have to say it. Besides he don't think he wants to hear it, hear her say it. Because only then, it will be true. It will be real - that she's been so very hurt.
Because right now, this could actually be just a dream, a horrible nightmare and he'll wake up any minute now.
For all he knows, she could've been robbed.
She actually was.
She didn't have to say it because her equally huge blues were telling him more than what he's prepared to hear. It's voicing the words she cannot dare say. It's telling him that someone had stolen and ripped something deep and intangible away from her.
Something irreplaceable.
Something that was hers and only hers.
He closes his eyes and grips at the steering wheel tight and shake Addison away from his thoughts.
Don't touch me!
Running is easy. Running away from what he doesn't want to face is child's play. He's doing it again. It's the mere thought of having to face them is making him want to sprint.
And it's Addison that he doesn't want to face. Only because it's much too painful to look at her.
His wife looks almost unrecognisable - just almost.
Dishevelled. Messy. Out of place.
The way her clothes stretched at the shoulders around her broken frame. Hairs that are matted and yanked out of it's roots. The torn hem of her sweater that exposed shredded skin that someone had mercilessly clawed. Lips that he chewed to a pulp. Her unbuttoned jeans - that he can't even begin to express, because it only makes his blood boil to think about how defenceless she must have felt.
His Addison is strong. A fighter. She fought back. He knows she must. She's never helpless.
But those aren't even the worst sights - it's how she so desperately clung to her body as if she were clinging onto something that isn't there anymore.
It hurts too much to look at her and that's why he's running. Again. It hurts too fucking much to see and to hear what had happened to her. It hurts. It hurts like nothing he's ever felt before.
This pain, it's incomparable to that night in New York.
It's her pain that he's feeling. It hurts his middle, his soul because she is ultimately him. They're united as one. They were fused as one when they got married. Not only did his surname became hers, but everything else did too.
His successes are hers too.
Her sorrow are his to claim as well.
Her pain is his pain because that's what loving her for a third of his existence have taught him - if it has taught him anything.
Everything inside him is burning in flames and it's just aching so immensely now to know that she must feel worse. Much much worse. He knows what he feels couldn't even come close to hers.
Someone had hurt her.
Someone had ...
He's making a right turn, flooring the gas pedal just above the legal limit, waiting to see where this endless and empty road will take him. Because, really, he's just numb and he can't seem to figure out why he is running away, because unlike the first time, she hasn't done anything remotely wrong.
How can you leave your wife alone in the middle of nowhere, you fool? You left her crying on the cold tin floor. You just left her there without even trying to comfort her.
He didn't want to run. But he is.
This is not her fault.
She's ... she's been ...
He can't say it. He can't think it. He can't even want to imagine anyone putting their hands on his wife, hurting her, causing her pain and forcefully holding her down, so much so that it left her marked.
But it's all he can really think about.
He hurt Addison.
There are unwanted images in his head, soul crushing cries that he's never heard before. It's so loud. It's echoing through the woods. No. It's vibrating in his skull and it's making the hairs on the back of his neck stand and he just stops.
Stops everything that he's doing altogether. He stops driving, letting go the wheel and pressing abruptly on the brakes. He stops his lungs from getting in a breath and if his heart could stop pounding too, he wouldn't protest now.
Addison is screaming. She's screaming in his ear.
He's never heard her scream so loud before but it is unmistakably her voice and he wants it - wants her to stop.
But he can't do anything to stop it, her. So, he screams it in his head.
Stop it!
And when that only causes her to scream his name, to cry out louder for him to help her, he finds himself drowning in sea of thunderous shrieks. And he screams along and louder too to quash hers.
"Stop!" he shakes his head, vigorously to stop the echoes of her cries.
DEREK!
The sound waves are reflecting his name one after the other, continuously in a loop.
DEREK!
He's never hated his name so much before.
"Stop it!" he clamps his hands over his ears. "I can't ..."
He can't take it.
But it isn't even shutting the images in his head.
Closing his eyes doesn't even help. In fact, it worsens the blow.
"No ..." he croaks, shaking his head, but the word is stuck in his throat.
What he's doing to his wife is making him sick to his stomach and dizzy with rage.
"No ... Addie, Addie, no ..." he leans over the steering wheel and then his body is shaking with sobs.
It only gets worse.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" he balls his fists and with each and every shout, he slams them onto the wheel. "Stop it! Don't!" he's ripping in thousands and what he sees is an agony like he's never experienced before.
He hurt her.
He's hurting her. Why? He can see it. Why?
She's scared and alone - someone had hurt her in the worst way possible and you think now is the right time to work on your inner demons? Don't you think she needs her husband, Derek?
He's the worst kind of hypocrite.
He's hurting her far more deeply, isn't he?
She's confused, charged with anxiety and he's only making her worse by not supporting her. She had just been terrorised and totally violated and he's here - alone and crying in the middle of the road when he could be with Addison.
He's wasting perishable time.
He ought to be helping her through this trauma, calming her down, comforting her, tending to her immediate needs and whispering reassurance.
She needs him more than ever.
And if she will let him, he'll hold her and wipe her tears away and tell her that what had happened tonight wasn't her fault, her doing or her causing, that he doesn't blame her and she shouldn't too because he knows she will.
He'll tell her that he'll be right by her side through every step, that it's their mission to get through together, that he will not give up on her and she shouldn't too because she can't grant the bastard the satisfaction of knowing that he'd taken power and control of her life.
He loves her and he's going to fix this – he's going to make it right and he's going to take away her pain.
He's going to kill him.
He didn't help her but he's going to.
She needed him and he wasn't there to help her.
He will, though.
He couldn't before because he didn't know. He wasn't there when it had happened. He couldn't have stopped it from happening. He didn't know where she was.
There's nothing he could have done.
Right?
He just didn't know.
He thought she was at the hospital.
He thought she was with the quints.
He thought she was safe in the NICU.
He thought she was okay.
And he had slept through it all.
And in peace too.
It hurts.
It hurts her heart.
And more so her soul.
It hurts far more than what's happened to her tonight - what she made happen, actually, because it's really just all her fault.
She shouldn't have gotten so drunk.
She shouldn't have picked him up. She's married for Christ's sake.
She's married ...
She don't think it's her heart that's even in pain because, to be honest, she can hardly feel a thing right now. This hurt - she just knows that that's what she's feeling - is somewhere deep inside of her.
So deep in treasure and so cruelly vicious that it's wanting to propel anyway and anyhow. Not hiding because it's falling, expelling from her eyes. But the thing is, it's numbing all the other sensations she's suppose to feel right now and she does not want that.
She craves to feel everything - every minuscule of every emotion and sensation that she ought to be experiencing after that thing that had just happened - no matter it's vast and potency. She wants to feel them like a force thrusting her down. She needs to feel all the fiery burn burning simultaneously. She should feel them picking at her skin like she's the plague.
It's not fair. It's not fair. She should feel something.
What's happening to her?
She's wants to feel them altogether.
Not one after the other, but all at the same time, like a chorus or a harmony.
All at once. Playing together as one. All at once. United. All at once.
She's desperate to feel something other than this pain.
It hurts so bad that she can't even feel her hands. They're shaking, she notices, and she holds them together to keep them from doing just that.
She wants Derek to take her hands and promise her that it's all going to be okay. She wants him to hold her in his arms and kiss her hair. But he's gone.
When she opened her eyes, when she had just almost pulled herself back together, he wasn't there anymore and so weren't his keys.
He is gone.
He left.
He's never going to come back.
He's disgusted. It's evident in his eyes. He had looked at her with recoil and repulsion, even much more repentant than after that night with Mark.
So, what is worse than feeling nauseous?
She's been tainted. He doesn't want to be with her anymore.
What's happening to her? Why isn't she feeling something else?
She would really like to feel - feel everything. Not just this damn pain, she's begging for something else. Please! Please! She'll do anything to feel more than this.
She's afraid that perhaps this pain that she's feeling is so mighty intense that it has fried up all of her nerve endings and synapses and neurotransmitters and that's resulting her in feeling nothing.
But it's not nothing that she's feeling because she does feel something. Only that that's the best way to put it and really describe what she's feeling - nothing.
She feels nothing.
Nothing is the emotion she feels.
She absolutely needs to feel more, though.
So, with her hands still shaking with pins and needles, she reaches out with both hands to claw at anything above - a chair - in order to pull herself out of this rabbit hole she's allowed herself to fall into and rises on unsteady legs and limps like she's broken something into the bathroom.
She somehow manages to peel off her clothes, and carefully too because she doesn't really want to touch them.
And she doesn't.
She doesn't like the smell of it and her skin smells the same. It smells like him. She doesn't like the look of it and she can see it smeared everywhere on her skin, shining bright like neon lights. Derek must have seen them too. It's clearly there and it's filthy with muddy paws. It looks like his hands.
And she flings the last of her clothing to a corner.
She wishes she could just throw herself into a wall too. She wonders how will that feel like.
Satisfaction?
After a while of waiting, she dips her toes into the steaming sea of water - no, she walks right into the scorching shower, breathing through the welcoming sting of the hot water as her skin burns and numbs inch by inch and over all the sides and corners of her flesh.
She smiles.
She sinks.
She'll be okay. She's going to be just fine. After this, she'll pack and go. She'll be fine.
She will be okay.
And for just a second, she's sighing in relief because her skin is screaming at her to stop the hot pouring water and she thinks she can be clean again.
She will finally be alright.
Droplets are trickling down her body, and she's counting them or at least she's trying to, because suddenly she can't keep up. She feels inadequate now, like how the heck will she ever be okay if she can't even count.
What's happening to her?
It's more than just water that she sees and she's choking on a gasp and water - lots of them - when a trail of red starts to swirl down the drain. Clutching at her chest and staring at the red, she tries to hack an air in but she only seems to keep coughing on the many water.
Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.
Just keep inhaling, Addison!
She needs more.
So, she adjusts the intensity and temperature of the waterfall by turning the faucet a little more to the left and pulling it higher. She wants to feel the rough pounding and the jagged edges of the water and she wants it to hit her skin like a hail of bullets and she needs it to be beyond scorching.
It hurts.
She doesn't know what hurts more - Derek or the what she did or this burning water. All she knows for certain is that she's hurting too much and she just wants it to stop.
Oh, it hurts. It hurts. And it still hurts.
She stands but her legs are wobbling. She don't think she can hold herself up for much longer. She bites on her lip and winces because the water is just so hot. So so hot. She tries to keep her eyes so wide open but it's just not possible because the water is angry at her and not to mention, it's getting in her eyes and it's punishing. But she still tries not to blink.
Don't blink, Addison. You don't want to see him, now do you?
Or do you?
She don't.
But then, she can't stop herself any longer.
She blinks.
She sees him and her whole body is convulsing for minutes on end, retching and gasping.
Holding onto the wall in front, she glues her eyes down at the floor tiles by her feet as the water pounds on the back of her head and slips without getting into her eyes.
Yes, something is finally right.
She doesn't have to blink anymore and she watches as her skin turns a hue so red it's basically blood.
As her hot tears mixes with the water, she begins to panic because she doesn't know which is which anymore. Both of them looks the same, it's nothing distinguishable or distinctive.
It tastes like dirt.
It's both salty.
It tastes like him.
Oh, this - wherever she's trying to do is doing nothing for her.
Why isn't anything she's doing working?
This is not enough.
So, she fumbles for the shower pouf by the corner, all the while never taking her eyes off the floor tiles, and presses the mesh hard onto her forearm and she begins to scrub in circular motions.
He touched her there.
She moves the loofah up to her chest not so gently, then down to her torso once the epidermis of her left arm and chest burn and brighten with crimson pumps.
He touched her there too. And there and there and there ...
He touched her everywhere and she can still feel him touching her.
No! No! No!
Why isn't anything working?
She's trying. All she ever does is try. Her marriage. Her relationship with her husband and now, this. She's trying. She really is trying to forget.
Why can't he see that?
She rams her fists against the wall fiercely, kicking and screaming. The painful water above muffles her pained wails and she can't see anything anymore because of the clouds of steam. And she screams so loud again and again and again, until that turns into a hacking cough because that's now all just too much for her. She's a pathetic human who wants pain but can't even take it.
There's no one here or for miles and miles.
Why couldn't she have screamed louder?
Especially when her sanity and dignity and worth was counting on that very expulsion.
Oh, she needs Derek.
And this time, she really does.
There was once a once upon a time when her husband can do no harm. Especially to her; he could never do her any wrong.
He's not perfect - oh, no, he's not - but she's not saying he isn't either.
Maybe back in the day when loving him had no consequences. When she was blinded with love and love and only love.
Maybe when loving him was young, wild, and free. When she would wake up to a rose on the pillow next to her after a night of heated argument and ultimately, she'd always always cave.
Maybe when loving him was cool, and hot, and sweet. When the rose on the pillow signified more than just an apology. It was a token of his love for her. It was an awaited kiss to her lips. And every time, she willingly forget every hurtful thing he'd said to her the night before.
Maybe when empty gestures, a brief pressing of lips against a wound that would take much longer to heal, a wound no amount of kisses could begin to repair.
But loving him - she've always known would be so precarious.
She loves him. She loves Derek, so much so that it physically hurts her to the bone.
And her heart is in shreds because he's not here.
He hates her.
Will Derek be back? To kick her out again?
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts so much to love him. But it's worth the pain. He's worth the pain. He's always worth it. And his ego knows it too.
Her hand is cramping badly but she doesn't stop the wire mesh from chafing her skin because he's licking her, chewing her, clawing her, yanking her, shoving her and she still feels him inside of her.
XXX
"Addison."
He parks his jeep, unbuckles his seatbelt and races out, all in one fleeting breath. Then, he's taking three huge leaps to the front door landing.
He's sorry. He shouldn't have left. He wasn't thinking straight.
If anything were to happen to her - but something has already happened to her, he's too late to make false declarations.
Shit!
"Addie, no." he mutters to himself as he pushes through the threshold. His heart kicks up when he hears the shower running.
No. No. No. No.
She's not supposed to do that. She knows she's not supposed to. She knows she shouldn't.
Addison knows it so well.
She's the one who gives talks at the women shelter and at the crisis centre too. She's the one who advices on the dos and don'ts. She's the one who does the exams at the hospital.
She knows.
And she has to know that she's potentially damaging evidence.
How are they ever going to prove it happened?
It's a matter of he said, she said. And it almost never ends well for the 'she'.
They've got nothing on him if not evidence. And she is the evidence. And he really needs to find the bastard who did this to her.
He stumbles into the trailer and runs a few steps to the bathroom.
He knocks. Twice. His other hand is already twisting on the doorknob. "Addison. I'm coming in. Okay."
But it isn't a question that he intends for an answer and so, he braces himself. Breathing through his nose as he turns the knob and there's no turning back now. There shouldn't be, he should see her.
A milky cloud of steam rushes past him when he pulls the door open. He can't exactly see her, but he can hear her crying over the sound of the pounding shower.
He slowly walks in, taking deliberate and purposeful steps. "Addie?"
He still doesn't see her, only a hunched outline of a body that he's sure is Addison, but then, his vision clears of all the steamy clouds, and what he sees next makes him suck in a breath.
He winces.
She's standing, looking almost like she's about to fall if not for that wall she's resting her forehead on, and she's practically convulsing under the current, scrubbing to a pulp. Rubbing hard to clean, he swallows hard, nauseated at the painstaking sight.
She's drawing prickles of blood everywhere. And she doesn't even seem to feel it.
He feels it and it stings.
"Addison ..." he takes another deep breath and another step forward, very well aware of her frailty, afraid to make any sound because he doesn't want to scare her again.
He don't think she has even heard him.
It's the first time, he thinks, in years that he really actually noticed her body. The prominence of her rib cage and the pointy sharp column of her vertebrae. Addison has always been slender but never so unrecognisably small.
Her body is a canvas of abraded weaves. Here and there, it's a surface of irritation and forming red and purple. It's not her flawless porcelain skin that he's staring at anymore.
She looks nothing like the woman he married. She can't be his Addison. No! She looks so small, so fragile, so broken, so not like Addison. Addison is tough, confident which at times, could be mistaken for being borderline opinionated, and strong.
She is strong.
Oh, almost too strong sometimes.
"Addie, it's okay." He knows it's not. Who is he trying to convey? It's not ever, he thinks. For her. For them too. Mostly though, for her.
He still walks slowly - almost beside her now and he's just realising that the water, as a few had splashed onto his face, is warm.
Reaching in to turn off the faucet - Ouch! - he pulled his hand back almost just as quickly because it's just too hot. Not at all warm as he had first thought.
It's more than just hot, in fact, the water is scalding. He doesn't understand how she could still stand under it.
He feels tears sting in his eyes, and he blinks to force them back. He can feel the well of emotions beginning to rise inside him - anger to sadness, horror then regret then back to anger again.
Chancing a quick glance down at her naked body, he notices just how red and inflamed her skin have become. Almost like she has had been rubbing and burning it raw.
No. That's exactly how it looks and that is exactly what she has been doing.
Derek sighs, then gritted through his teeth when he reached into the burning spray again to turn the faucet off.
The water stops and a split second of relief fills him, but then, he's anxious again because she doesn't stop.
He wants to put his arms around her to make her stop, but he knows not to.
He wants to kiss her skin better to take her pain away, at least some of it, because what's hers is his too.
Remember?
He can take it.
He thinks he can.
But that wouldn't change anything.
He wants to tell her he's so very sorry that he wasn't there to protect her, that he shouldn't have said anything at all.
Nothing is voicing out because he's having to force down the bile that's wanting to rise up his throat.
Stop, Addison.
Her hands clenches the shower pouf that's a gnawing friction on her slight hip. Her skin is red and peeling in shreds. She still doesn't stop and with their close proximity, he can see what she's been trying to cover up. He can actually see what's beneath the scraped flesh, what she's hiding, what she mustn't want anyone and herself included to see.
He feels a surge of anger and pure hatred well up from the pit of his stomach. He has been too shocked, too stunned, too worried to comprehend, but now, looking at her, he realises, for the first time, the full extent of what has happened to his wife.
Someone had hurt Addison so badly.
It's large buttons of fingertips and long melted streaks of hands after hands up and down her arms, her wrists, her torso, her hips, and her breasts.
He needs to find him and make him pay, hurt him like he had hurt Addison.
Why? Why Addison? Of all people, why his wife?
He has never had to worry too much about Addison because she is very capable, she always takes care of herself.
His hands shakes as he reached out to touch her. He doesn't and stuffs them in his pockets.
Who did this to you?
There's an awfully large pigmented ugly lesion on the small of her back and he watches his whole world crumble apart cruelly as he slowly but surely comprehends how she's got it.
No. No. No. Don't think about it! Don't!
But he can't help it. He can't help but think of how she got that nasty bruise.
It looks scary. Too scary to be on Addison.
He held for down from behind ...
He was behind her the entire time he ...
It's not true. It can't be like that.
No, not like that.
Derek closes his eyes, doesn't will the tears away, only his rage. And he splutters incoherents and instinctively runs his hands over his face.
He can't do this right now. Addison is scared. He needs to be calm for her.
"Addison, honey, stop," he starts but it comes out more as a plea.
"Stop."
A croak, his voice breaks. He reaches out slowly and carefully with his right hand until his fingertips gently rests on her bowed shoulders.
She fights.
He begs.
Someone is grabbing both of her arms now and she gasps and gasps, but those aren't reaching her lungs. She tries to pull away - her arms had gone numb so long ago and her stomach twists and turns when that someone is shaking her to stop.
Noooooo!
"Stop."
But she's not doing anything. She can't even feel her arms. Or anything for that matter.
How can she stop when she's not doing anything?
But then, she notices that this particular touch isn't at all rough, it's so gentle and soft and familiar and it's just registering to her that she finally feels something other than pain.
It's rubbing away all the anguish all over her skin and she stops because she hasn't felt this in so long that it's almost so foreign and new to her.
It's so soft that it's making her hiccup with sobs.
She hears her name from afar and she's searching, straining her ears to pinpoint where it's coming from.
It's doing something that stills her altogether. It's leaning in so close to her lips that she can actually feel the words it's speaking. "Please it's me, Addie. Enough ..."
It's Derek.
He brings their joined hands to the side of her face, never letting her go as he strokes with his thumb at the space where her crease should be when she smiles. "Enough."
Everything is whirling everywhere, it's making her so dizzy and nauseous that her eyes expels agony. Then, she feels damp woven on her cheek and she's inhaling something that she loves so immensely, that it hurts so greatly.
She's going mad with pain and she's savouring it, not dumping it in an asylum, because Derek is always always worth all the sacrifice and pain.
He grabs a towel that's hanging on the rack and wraps it around her shoulders, tugging at the two ends around her body when she made no incentive to move.
Goosebumps scatters across her aflamed skin and he slowly brings her into his arms, automatically moving a hand along her back to warm her.
He feels her body tense up when he touched her, she didn't flinch, so he didn't make a move to pull away either.
He sighs and closes his eyes, silently thanking her for finally calming down. She's resting under his chin, the crook of his neck and he kisses the top of her head.
I'm sorry, Addie. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't know. I didn't know.
She feels much safer now, he thinks. That must mean progress.
Is this how Christmas will be for them for now and forever?
It feels like forever later that he finally feels her relax - just the very slightest exhale, though, and like muscle memory, she reaches up to clutch his shirt in her fists and her nails slightly digs into his skin as she grips tighter and tighter.
But it's okay, it's more than okay because what matters right now is for Addison to feel safe, to know that she is.
He wraps one arm around her waist with tentative care too, so she wouldn't feel as though she's trapped, and the other softly stroked her hair - the red that is dripping wet, and in knots. He kisses her hair once more and holds her, muttering apologies into the netted tangles.
"You're safe. I've got you. I've got you." he repeats it twice so he'd believe it himself. To believe that who he's holding is the same Addison he so ruefully ignored yesterday and today and perhaps, for years and years, that he only realises now.
I won't let you go.
I'm sorry, Addie. I'm so sorry.
She closes her eyes for a moment - just a moment, listening to his familiar hushed voice and trying to get her breath to steady.
It's just Derek. It's only Derek. Derek is holding you. He's nice and soft and gentle.
But she still sees the guy from the bar and hands that are painfully skinning and groping her everywhere.
"I'm so sorry." he says again and again and again.
He's sorry.
She opens her eyes, no longer able to handle the worldly qualms that's making her deathly anxious again, and she looks directly into his and what she's staring at is an overture of agony and she realises for the first time tonight that she is the reason for his pained blues.
He's so sorry.
She is too.
It isn't his fault. It never is. It is all hers.
Why is he sorry?
But he won't be for long, not when he knows what actually happened - the truth.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
She picked up the guy.
She went to his apartment.
She got what she wanted.
You wanted to "not feel" - as you described it, remember, Addison? And here you are...not feeling. So, stop making a fool of yourself.
For a few minutes that's never enough, his eyes met hers, and they both just stared. They haven't done this in a long time - let time tick away while they both look at each other wordlessly, listening to beating hearts that's pounding with electricity.
Perhaps they should've.
They should've taken care of each other better.
He should've cared more about their marriage.
He should've respected her more, loved her more, understood her more, made her smile more, and know all that she's been trying for them is for them.
Their betterment.
He shouldn't have taken her for granted.
He realises it all now.
It's hours and hours of neither of them moving for him, and now, he's not sure what the next step is, what to say even, what to do. But it is like she knew what he was thinking - oh, Addison always knows - and broke their silence.
"You came back." she whispers. Her voice so painfully scratchy, it's barely intelligible. He understands her, though. Her teeth are chattering too and she's trembling against him with cold dampened skin that's hot to the touch.
She can't let go even if she desperately wants to.
She wants to but she's afraid he'll leave her again.
He came back.
He's ashamed. Definitely not his proudest moments. What he had done to her, his actions were so unacceptable.
He shouldn't have left.
He shouldn't have done a lot of things tonight.
"Addie," he whispers over the lump that has suddenly formed in his throat and presses a comforting hand to her cheek. "I'm so sorry."
... for everything.
She knows what he means. Everything that had happened to her. But nothing has happened to her.
Why doesn't he see that?
Why is he being so nice to her?
If she doesn't say it, then it's not true.
Right?
It's only logic.
Right?
She leans into his palm, and doesn't close her eyes this time. It's such a strange feeling to be both averse to touch and craving it.
"Addison," he starts again, his thumb rubbing against her cheekbone. "I shouldn't have - I'm sorry. I shouldn't have ran out like that, or left you alone, or-"
Shaking her head, "No, it's okay." she braces herself. "I understand."
He doesn't want her anymore.
Well, that has been a constant for quite some time now. Way before the whole Mark thing actually. That's nothing new.
She gets it, though. She wouldn't want her too if she were in his shoes.
If he wants to leave her ... okay - she'll manage. She thinks she can. She'll just pretend the last eleven years never even happened. She thinks she can move on with her life like that.
It's easy.
Right?
She'll tell herself anything just to convince herself.
Just like before.
But it is getting over Derek Christopher Shepherd, her husband, the man she's been with for over a decade - oh, no, that's just not possible. She might as well be dead if she ever does.
She tries to smile at him - he thinks it's a smile because he's watching as the corners of her lips try to curl upwards but it's just that her facial muscles aren't cooperating with her. Her face contorts into somewhat of a cry and a smile, but not so much as well. She looks so small, so uncomfortable and skittish that it's agonising to watch.
A pang of guilt fills his heart and he just can't look at her anymore. She's breaking into piece right before his eyes and he can't watch. He don't know if he can fix her or put her back together again.
... like before.
He did this to her.
Was it really necessary to break her heart tonight? ... Now, look what you've done.
Her eyes are shining bright with shed and unshed tears and he's afraid he might be hurting her again, and so he untangled the stiff and freezing hands that's resting on his chest, held her wrists out and took a step back.
She winces.
Her arms drops to her sides, limply unforgiving, when he let go.
He doesn't want to see what he's done.
He feels his eyes well with tears again as he glanced very briefly at her. Just a fraction of a second. She's watching him, she looks so horrified.
He can't look at her. He won't look at her. He doesn't want to touch her. He's disgusted of her. She looks at him, then at her own body, then back at him again.
He turns his head away and palms his hands over his eyes to will the tears away.
Oh, god ...
He hates her. He's looking at her the same way he did that night.
Is he nauseous?
She presses a hand to her stomach because it's suddenly churning so painfully.
The attrition of her sore skin is for all the times he has had let her down, for all the stupid that he's said to her, for every mishap that he's made in the last few years of their marriage and more.
She starts to shake harder.
"You're freezing, Addie."
He turns his head to scan the bathroom for her fluffy white bathrobe that's suppose to be hanging on the towel rack. But it's not there.
It's like he's looking at his bathroom for the first time. Everything looks so absolutely wrong and out of place.
This wasn't suppose to happen.
Addison shouldn't have gotten hurt.
She shouldn't be crying right now.
Everything is so confusing.
What even happened?
He still doesn't understand.
This is just a dream.
Right?
This isn't how they should spend their Christmas.
It's Christmas.
They love Christmas...
But it's Addison's cry that stops him in his tracks before he could even make a move to look for her robe. "Where are you going, Derek! Don't go!"
There's sheer panic in her voice.
He jumps at the shriek and rushes quickly back to her, grabbing hold of her arms as he does because she's shaking like a leaf and he's worried that she might slip and further hurt herself.
"No, Addie. No. You're cold. Let's get you dressed, okay?"
Her eyes are so wide, blue, hollow and she struggles to grab onto him.
She's crying again. Trembling violently, tears streaming down her cheeks.
He's going to leave. They always leave.
Reaching out with both hands, he tries to grab her face in his palms, but she pulls and pulls . "Addison, shh, shh, it's okay ..." he begs and for a second they're practically fighting each other. "It's okay. Shh, shh ..." he says soothingly, leaning in to whisper in her ear.
She can still feel his hands all over her, his harsh breath is ringing vulgar in her ears again.
You like being fucked like this, don't you?
She doesn't understand what's happening to her. She's hearing him, echoing everywhere in this tin can.
Where's Derek! Where is Derek!
She's not in control of her anything, not a single thing. Not even her emotions.
"I'm here, Addie! It's me!"
It was just sex. Sex! She's had sex before, so why is she so whinny and hysterically crying wolf?
She didn't like any of it. She didn't like that he didn't hear her at all. She didn't like the words he was hissing in her ears. She didn't like the hands that was so rough. She didn't like the intensity and pace. She didn't like him. She didn't like anything that he did to her.
"No! I don't!" she thrashes in his arms and yanks herself free out of his grasp, backing up so fast - one, two, three, four - that she hit her heel on the hamper, she curses, then, she's stumbling, landing painfully on the wet tiles, gasping for air, tears flooding her vision.
It's then as he hopelessly watched her run that he realised she wasn't grabbing onto him but grabbing out of his hold.
She's still afraid of him.
He's tired.
They've taken five steps further.
He feels defeated.
He took Addison away for his perverted gratification.
She can't breathe. She feels his hands tight around her neck - choking her, smothering her with his hands and she's grabbing it. She straightens and tries to push the knees, that's crushing into her back, away.
The entire universe is closing in on her, assaulting her, and she can't fight it off.
What's happening?
It's like she's lost all control of her body, of her brain.
She's certain, one hundred percent, and is totally convinced that she is about to die.
She curls up into a ball. Her head hurts. Her back hurts. Everything hurts. She's wheezing, choking - she's losing her mind.
Desperate, terrified, she bites into her arm, clenching her jaw tight until her teeth breaks the skin and she tastes copper.
"Addie," he chokes on a sob, wiping tears with the back of his hands. He has no idea if she could even hear him over her wails. "I'm so so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
Her breaths comes out in shallow pants and he crouches next to her. Reminding himself that he can't touch her this time.
"He's here."
She wants to stop him.
Stop! Stop! Stop! Nooooooooo!
He's not stopping.
She was screaming. She remembered so clearly that she was screaming so loud because she had initially thought he couldn't hear her.
So, why didn't he stop?
Why didn't he?
Why couldn't he have let her go?
Derek feels panic rising in his chest. No, it's anger. He has no idea what to do. She thinks he's here. Nothing he's doing is making Addison feel safe or even remotely better.
Carefully he tangles her fingers with his, "Addie, look at me." he tenderly says. Tears pooled in his eyes and he blinks, feeling them trickle down his cheeks.
"Addie, there's no one else is here. It's just you and me."
She shakes her head.
"No ..." It's a whimper.
Slowly, he started to rock her, back and forth, back and forth. "Believe me, honey. I promise. He's not here. No one is going to hurt you." he whispers over and over again. "I promise you, Addie."
"He is." she finally manages to splutter out words through her sobs. "I can still feel him ..."
"I can still feel him, Derek. And I don't know what to do."
Her eyes are a haunted blue when she looks up. She doesn't look at him and he doesn't make her. She've said the thing he had dreaded the most and swallows.
He knows what she means. He've tended to victims like her before.
His hand settles on her shoulder, and it scares her and makes her feel better all at the same time. Very very slowly, he pulls her into his arms.
She melts down against his chest.
He can feel her hot tears soaking into his shirt, and her whole body is racking with sobs uncontrollably - hers matches his too.
He also doesn't know what to do.
Hey guys. Thanks so much for reading. And I absolutely loved your reviews on the OneShot and here as well. Here it is - a brand new story.
I'm so sorry for the long wait. I was planning to update sooner but I spent all of last week at the hospital with freaking pneumonia. Damn you winter!
Anyway, how do you like this chapter? It's harsh. Yes. It hurts to write. Please let me know! So review. REVIEW! And I hope everyone stays well!