HI. This is my longest chapter ever. I should be doing homework, but this is waaay more important! Haha. I really loved writing this chapter. I hope it's OK. I'm really sorry for any mistakes in spelling or grammar or any of that stuff, I do NOT have a spellcheck/grammar check function on my computer so it's all done by proofreading, and well, it's almost 4am, i'm tired!

PLEASE REVIEW.

x

The past two days had been a whirlwind. Alex had dealt with the police, given her statement and finally been told that they would use the physical evidence coupled with her statement and allegation and "work on her case". Ha. Although she believed that police officer when she said she would work hard on it, Alex squirmed at the idea of them being sat in a room, looking at photograph's of her battered, bare body, at the polaroids of her tear-streaked, bruised face and black-and-blue back. It made her cringe to think about how total strangers might look at them, what they would think, whether they would think about the girl in them, or if if didn't affect them at all.

And now, they were on a plane, flying somewhere over the South, and as she stared out of the window at the clouds and blue sky, somewhere far below people carried on their lives, unassuming, immersed in their own little worlds, and she suddenly feltvery small and insignificant. After all, what was one girl to the world? Just a speck of dust in the vast expanse that is the universe. What happened to her, what had happened to her, was infinitesimal. The grand scheme. She was a tiny cog that had stopped turning – the rest of the machine would carry on without her.

"Alex? Did you hear a word I just said?" Justin shook her arm gently. He was sat next to her, with Max next to him, and their mom and dad were behind. Teresa had originally insisted that Alex sat next to her, so she could keep "an eye" on her, but after Alex complained and said she didn't want to be babysat, she let her sit next to the window, next to her big brother. It was where she felt safest, and right now, that was what she needed. She liked the feeling of having him next to her, and she liked that it was OK for her to reach out and hold his hand if she felt like it. She liked that if she felt sad, or like she might cry for no reason at all, then he would be there and he would stop her. He was her big brother. He was her rock.

"What? Sorry. I was kind of in a daze." Alex replied distractedly.

He smiled. "I know."

"Justin…" she began. She turned and looked at him, and their eyes met. His were still smiling, kind, gentle, reliable.

"Yeah?"

"Well, have you ever felt…overwhelmed? Like…like the world is so big and your so small, and there's nothing that really matters?" Her voice was small, she sounded so vulnerable. Scared. Justin hated it.

"Alex…it's OK to feel overwhelmed. You've just been through something really…" he paused, swallowing, "really horrific."

He shifted in his seat, turning to look at her. He frowned, as she avoided his gaze, fiddling with her fingernails.

"No, I know, but I mean…like, you don't matter to the world?" She asked him again, struggling to verbalise what she meant, what she felt.

"Of course I have, Alex. I think everyone at some point wonders what they've got to give to the world, whether anyone actually cares about what they have to offer. You just have to realise that you might not be able to change the whole world, but if you can change someone's life, just matter to even one other person, then you've achieved something." Justin tried to explain, too. He knew what Alex was talking about. She felt worthless, pointless, unimportant. He had felt like that too, once, although admittedly under quite different circumstances.

"But what if you just feel like…" She paused. "Like your life is a total waste of time."

Justin didn't know what to say for a second. He wanted to shout it to her, to make her see sense, to make her see that she mattered to him, that she mattered so damn much.

He took a deep breath. She was still staring intently at her fingernails, so he lifted her face towards his with a finger.

"Look at me, Alex. You are going to achieve so much in your life. You are capable of anything. You can't let this take that away from you, take your whole life away from you. You can't give him the satisfaction. Mom, Max, Dad, they love you so much. And I…I don't know what I'd do without you. Please, please realise that." Justin surprised himself with the words that were coming out of his mouth. He didn't realise he would speak so passionately, so truthfully. He hadn't even properly realised before that he wouldn't be able to live without her. She gave him a purpose, made him feel needed.

Alex looked up with tears in her eyes, smiling and almost-crying at the same time.

"Justin…I…" she didn't know what to say. And then, suddenly, she did. "I don't know how I would survive without you, either. I really need you. I don't know how I would have gotten through the past few days without you. Thank you."

He felt his heart swell, and he stretched out his arm despite the space-constraints of the plane, putting it around her and pulling her into his shoulder. She rested her head there, content for a while, and he was happy, too.

Hours Later.

"Do you want something to eat honey?" Theresa asked across the open-plan kitchen-cum-living room that made up the bulk of their loft.

She was cooking dinner, and Max eagerly ran up and sat on one of the stools around the island. "Yeah! I'm starving!"

Theresa laughed, passing him a plate full of food. "Not you, Maxie. Your sister. Alex, honey, you should probably try and eat something."

Alex was sat on the sofa, staring at the TV, not taking anything in. It felt extremely strange to be home. Everything felt different somehow, like she was a stranger there, like she couldn't quite get comfortable. She felt out of place, stiff, detached, and she didn't quite know why. She just felt so different.

"Umm…actually Mom, I think I'm gonna go lie down. I feel kind of tired, long journey and everything." Alex got up from the sofa and made a quick exit for her room. She heard her mom fussing behind her but chose to ignore her, she didn't want to eat anything and she didn't want to have to answer the question "Are you feeling OK?" for the hundredth time.

Alex felt something stirring in her stomach, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She felt like she wanted to scream, or throw something or just….let it out.

She was tired of it, tired of her mom worrying constantly, tired of feeling so wrong. She had wanted to get home so badly, into her own surroundings, into familiarity, only for it to feel so horrible, like a reminder of happier times, times when she was her old self.

It took a photo, for her to break down.

As Alex walked into her room, she sat on her bed and absentmindedly glanced at the array of framed pictures on her nightstand. One of them was of her, and Harper, and some of their other friends from school. They were just goofing around in the park, but it made Alex's mind flash back so vividly to that day just a few months ago – the sun, the breeze, her laughter. She had been so innocent. Looking at her face, her smile, her shining eyes, she looked like a girl with everything to look forward to. Alex smiled wryly to herself, in a sick way enjoying being lost in a memory until, without warning, his face crept into her mind and she was back there again, feeling him on her, his weight against her, just…everything flooding back.

Her breathing hastened, she couldn't quite…no, she couldn't catch her breath. She felt like her throat was constricting, like the room was constricting. The photograph fell out of her hands and smashed onto the floor below, and she in turn slid off the bed until her back was against the side of it, her head in her hands, fists clenching tight. She just wanted it to stop, to stop remembering, to stop seeing his horrible grin and his glinting eyes and to stop feeling how her back crunched against the wooden shack behind her, the skin tearing, the bruises forming by the inch. She wanted to stop feeling him inside her – the worst of it all, how he took and took and took from her.

"Stop, please, stop….stop it…stop…stop…" her voice was a mantra, said through her teeth as she gasped for air. Somebody was touching her, grabbing her upper arms. She writhed violently, trying to hit out, when she finally heard them say her name and calmed, looking up, trying to make her eyes focus.

It was her brother. It was her Justin.

"Woah, woah, Alex. Calm down, calm down!" His voice was firm. He needed to get through to her before she hurt herself, or him. Her held onto her arms as tight as he could without bruising her, and she eventually stopped moving, looking at him with a slow recognition like she had just been somewhere else entirely. He guessed that place had been somewhere horrible.

"J-Justin?" Alex was out of breath, her voice terrified. She looked at her brother like he might not be real, like he might be some part of this "day-mare" too.

But Justin was real, so very real, and he shook his head sadly, angrily, hurting to see his sister like this, and he put a hand on her cheek softly, murmuring to her.

"It's me, Alex. It's Justin. I think you were – you are – having a panic attack or something. You have to try and calm down for me, OK? You're alright."

But Alex wouldn't calm down, she kept saying things over and over…"He's here, Justin, I saw him, I felt him…on top of me…please help me, Justin!"

Fuck it. Justin grabbed her under her arms and pulled her up, her legs like jelly, not supporting her body at all. He sat her on the bed, looking at her square-on.

"Alex. Listen to me. You're in your room, at home. That guy is not here, I will never let him near you again, I promise. Please, calm down, try and breathe."

Alex looked at him with her wild eyes full of tears now, becoming still and silent. For a second the two stared at each other, a silent moment of understanding, of recognition, before she started to sob, hard, fast, unrelenting. He hadn't seen her cry like this since she first came into the hotel room battered, bleeding, barely functioning, and he had caught her before she found the floor. He didn't know what to do but do what felt right, so he put his arms around her, letting her collapse into him, his hand on the back of her neck, holding her tight. He felt her tears, hot and wet on his thin t-shirt, and he just let her cry.

Eventually, Justin untangled her from himself, laying her down in the middle of her double bed and covering her up with a blanket. Her face was pale, eyes swollen and red, and she was doing that weird hiccupy, gaspy thing that you do when you've been sobbing for so long it becomes a reflex. Her hair stuck to her forehead in damp clumps and she curled up on her side putting one of her thumbs in her mouth. She looked like a tiny, petulant child, lying there like that.

She was still pretty out-of-it, so he went into the bathroom and got a washcloth, wetting it with cold water, and like a repeat of that surreal, bizarre moment when he gave her water, holding the bottle to her lips as she slipped into a drug-induced sedation, he pushed the damp hair from her eyes, wiping her forehead with the cool material, more caring than he had thought he was capable of being. He sat beside her, dabbing at her face, trying to make her just breathe again.

He sat there for god-knows-how-long. The washcloth, long abandoned, Alex alternating between lying there on her back silently staring at the ceiling, and lying there sleeping. He didn't say anything, because there was nothing he could say. Over an hour passed, and Max came in, sat on the bed opposite Justin without a word, and took Alex's left hand. He smiled at Justin, his sweet, innocent grin, as if just holding his sister's hand was the most normal thing in the world.

Another hour later, and Theresa knocked on the door of her daughter's room, pushing the door open slowly. There was just a lamp on, casting a warm yellowish glow over the room, the room that was filled with all the familiar bits and bobs and pictures and nick-nacks that made it so indescribably Alex. And on the bed, were her three babies. Max, nearest the door, sleeping on his side facing inwards to Alex, holding her hand, his face peaceful, content, child-like. Alex was in the centre, asleep on her back, her pale skin glowing almost eerily, her features for once free of worry of stress or anything else that Theresa never wanted to see there again. And finally, on the other side of Alex was Justin, her big strong boy. He was sat up against the headboard, a frown resting on his eyebrows as he slept, his hand, like his brother's, wrapped around Alex's.

Theresa smiled, it would have been the perfect Kodak-moment if the circumstances hadn't been so…so tragic. She took it in for a second longer, before closing the door again. They had used to do this, sleep in the same bed, when they were little, when Max was barely out of a crib. For one night, they could be little again. Just for one night.