Title – Holding You
Author – Moonbeam
Rating – R (descriptions of whipping for torture but very lightly done)
Summary – Hank is captured on a mission, when she comes back Alex helps her. Everything that happens causes a change in their relationship.
Warnings – Always a girl!Hank, torture, hurt/comfort
Disclaimer – I don't own anything, I wish.
Author's Notes – Not sure if anyone is actually reading this but I am enjoying writing it, hopefully not just for me, but if so oh well.

Holding You
by Moonbeam

Part 04 – Scare

Hank went downstairs and into her lab. There were in fact a few journals down there she really did need to read. She only stayed for twenty minutes. Throwing away or destroying a few things in the room which had either been ruined in her absence or would be ruined by the time she got back down to the lab.

She stuck to the back hallways hoping not to see anyone. Everyone should be out doing their morning fitness routine with Erik.

She made it to her room without seeing anyone. Raven would be back in three hours to apply more salve. She wanted to have a shower before Raven did so, wash it from her skin to start again. She preferred to have a shower every morning and just before bed. But she would not be allowed to until she was healed enough not to spend most of the time in the shower crying or she could stop using the salve.

Standing in her bathroom she saw Alex's shirt, it was green and faded and so soft she didn't want to take it off but knew laying down it would only aggravate her wounds. The other problem of course being the fact she couldn't actually take it off. She hadn't been able to get it on this morning. She stared at herself in the mirror for a long time contemplating her problem.

She did not look any different. She looked tired but she had been looking tired since she went to university as a teenager. Her hair was tucked up. She had bags under her eyes and she was pale. She looked down at her wrists yellow at the edges, still violent and red with blue and purple highlights around the cuts from the shackles. Her shoulder would probably look even worse; she had been slammed into the wall a couple of times. She'd thumped into it even more than that. It would be bruised and swollen and it hurt every time she moved. If she wasn't wearing Alex's shirt she would be able to crane around and see the marks on her back. She hadn't seen them yet. She doesn't think she wants to.

The only thing she can think of is to use the door frame to hang upside down and let gravity help her remove the shirt. She is about to do it when she realises she is not alone in the mirror. Alex is standing behind her breathing too heavily and watching her.

"What?" She asks not turning holding his eyes through the mirror instead.

"Sean tripped, we went down to the lab to get you to have a quick look. You weren't there. I think I had a heart attack when I was running up here."

"I'm sorry. I thought. I'm tired. I decided to come back and rest instead."

"Don't apologise, you can do what you want I just..." Alex stopped just staring at her for a long time, by the time he spoke again his breathing is under control. "Can you get it off?"

"What?"

"The shirt, it would be harder to take off than it was to get on I would think."

"Yeah, would you mind helping?"

"Sure. Lift your arms for me?"

Alex moved into the bathroom properly watching her as she lifted her arms slowly her eyes closing against the stretch of the skin on her back. Alex let his hands rest on her hips where the bottom of the shirt is sitting. She let out a little noise and he pulled them away catching the material and easing it up. His eyes are glued on the skin slowly being exposed. Hank's skin is creamy and he knows it is soft. He also knows he is about to see the marks on her back and he doesn't want to see them, not again but he cannot help himself. His eyes track the skin revealed by the edge of the shirt, his knuckles trailing along the baby soft skin on her sides as he does, he looks for the skin between the marks, she has three freckles in a triangle over one of the bumps of the spine, a small scar near the middle of her back shaped like a crescent moon, she obviously has never been a girl to sunbath there is only white, creamy skin on her back. When he gets to the bottom of her shoulder blade the skin starts to colour, yellow first, then as it moves up it turns mottled, blue, red, purple, green and in one spot that makes his skin heat a chunk of skin has been pulled from in the very middle of the bruising. Her back is bare to him now, the shirt catches on the bulk of her braid, long tendrils have fallen free and reach right down to the middle of her back. Alex wants to curl one around his finger and watch it unravel. He lifts the shirt the rest of the way off her arms before folding it and putting it on the bench.

When Alex lifted his eyes he found Hank watching him intently, her eyebrows knitted together a little. Alex didn't know what to say. Hank didn't say anything to him just stared at him like he was one of the test tubes downstairs in her lab. Alex reached his hand out was just centimetres from touching her uninjured shoulder when Charles voice echoed through his head.

: :Alex, is Hank okay?: :

"Yes Professor," he said to the room pulling his hand back and shoving it into his pocket. He wasn't sure what he would have done when he had touched her but it probably would not have been a good idea.

: :Good, you are not needed for the remainder of the training for the day.: :

"Okay Professor."

"Everything okay?" Hank asked still watching him in the mirror.

"Fine, Charles just making sure you are okay."

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"You weren't in the lab."

"So?" Hank finally turned around and looked at him properly.

"I…I just didn't know where you were. Are you going back to sleep?" Alex doesn't tell her that when he went into the lab and she wasn't there. It was obvious she had been but that she wasn't anymore he hadn't had time to think, he looked at Raven and when she shook her head his brain had exploded. His heart beat too hard and he ran from the lab. He needed to know she was okay. He hadn't even really thought of anything but searching for her in that forest and not being able to find her and the way she looked in that basement and then there she was in front of him looking at herself in the mirror and his entire world spun around very quickly because he was so utterly relieved he wanted to fall to his knees and wrap himself around her and never let her go again. The violence of the feeling shook him, the look on her face holding him still.

"I am, you can go back down and train though."

"They don't need me for the rest of the day. I am available for pillow duties if wanted."

Hank stared at him for a long time, his throat clenched at the possibility of her telling him to go away.

"I…you don't really want to lay there while I sleep on you do you?"

"Yes." The answer is simple and Alex prayed that Hank won't ask why, some things cannot be explained by words and kissing her now would probably just end badly. Horridly, he'd never be able to fix anything and he certainly wouldn't be able to stay here, to hold her while she slept and know for certain she was okay.

Hank stared at him for along long minute. "Do you want a book in case you can't sleep?"

Alex doesn't explain that he didn't sleep while she was away just sat down in her lab and closed his eyes whenever someone came to check on him, everyone knew he was faking and no one said anything. He will be able to sleep, he's exhausted but his bed is cold and empty and doesn't have the added bonus of the certainty that Hank is actually here and safe. Instead he walked over to the overstuffed shelves and pulled out the first book he saw not about genetics.

He put it on the bedside table, peeled his sweat shirt off, leaving him in his singlet and the soft pants he trained in and climbed into bed. Hank moved over and got in too but hesitated when it came to actually laying down.

"Hank you look like you are about to collapse, get comfortable before you do." Alex said one arm thrown out the other waving over the portion of his chest she had used the night before. Hank smiled and sunk down onto him wriggling around a little until she got comfortable.

"You are so warm." She said when she was finally still.

"I run about five degrees hotter than the normal person."

"I know. It just feels so lovely. I always seem to be cold."

"I'll keep you warm, go to sleep." Alex curled his hand around her forearm again and could feel her long toes against his leg, he wishes she'd grip him like she did last night but it is unlikely to happen after what he said this morning.

Moments after she relaxed her entire body went limp and she fell asleep, just before she did her long toes curled around Alex's calf and he fell asleep moments after with a smile on his face.

TBC...