Warning: child abuse

Family
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

…this is the 100 drabble challenge of a connected variety that will go in an order that resembles chapters so this collection of singular one-shots will kind of look a lot like a full-fledged fiction…

Drabble 10: Breathe Again

Danielle whimpered, standing still in the center of her room. Really, she wanted to be pressed into the corner, curled up and feeling safer, but she hurt too much to try to move. She trembled, terrified, bruises slowly appearing all over her. Her arms and legs hurt from where she'd been roughly grabbed. Her chest hurt from when she'd been tossed into the wall.

"Sorry," she sobbed, her breath rasping in her throat. Tears traced huge trails down her cheeks, her wide eyes staring blankly around the empty room. "I bad," she cried – not too loudly, however, "I sorry."

She was bad and she believed it. She shouldn't have snuck into her father's limousine; this was what she deserved for that. Her father loved her and he did this because he needed to. To make her understand, to protect her, he had punished her.

"I be… I be good," she promised to nobody, desperate for him to understand. "Daddy, I be good."

Moving her fingers slightly – they were still a little numb from one of the hits she had taken – she could feel the crusty, dried blood on her hand from where his sharp fingers had dug in earlier and had drawn blood. Mostly red, tinged with a supernatural green, the mess on her arm did a good job covering up the hand-shaped bruises that were forming.

Her unsteady legs unable to hold her upright anymore, she sank to her knees, crying out in pain, new tears rushing down her cheeks. "Daddy, Daddy, I be good. I sorry!"

Surely her father would appear at any moment, rush in and take away the pain and hurt. Soon she would be punished enough for being bad. She would never do anything that would make her father need to do this to her ever again.

'I hate doing this to you, Danielle,' he had said, tears in his own eyes as he punished his daughter. 'But I have to. You've been a bad girl.'

She had made her father do this, that much was clear in her almost-four-year-old mind. Her father loved her very much and it had hurt him to have to punish her. It was her fault she was being punished.

It was her fault she had made her father cry and that tore at her young heart like nothing else. She loved her father as much as any child – her entire universe revolved around him – and she wouldn't do anything that would hurt him.

"I bad," she sobbed one last time to the empty room, "I be good. I promise."

The door clicked open and her father walked in, slowly taking in the sight of his young, trembling daughter. "Danielle?" He slipped through the room, kneeling down in front of her, his eyes calm and steady as they gazed into hers.

"I sorry," she whispered, wanting to throw herself into his arms and have him make it all better. She had made him cry, she had hurt him inside, and she needed to make him understand that she knew that it was her fault. She wouldn't do it again. "I be good."

For a long moment, icy blue eyes met her sapphire ones, judging the extent of her apology. Then he nodded, a small smile appearing on his face. "Okay, Danielle. I accept your apology."

With a gasp, happiness cascading through her, Danielle pushed herself to her feet and threw her arms around his neck. She flinched in pain when his arms wrapped securely around her for a moment, but the knowledge that he loved her again warmed her heart.

A sharp poke in her arm made her gasp, but her father just held her close. "It's okay, Danielle," he murmured. "It'll make the pain go away."

Danielle let a small smile cross her face as blackness started to eat at her mind. She had known that her father would come and take the pain away – he loved her and that's what father's did. "Love you," she breathed as she slipped into unconsciousness, her heart full of love and her mind determined to never force her father to hurt her ever again.

Vlad picked her up carefully, placing her gently on the small bed before cleaning the wound on her arm and wrapping it up. His fingers rested in her soft hair for a moment as she slept, his eyes sad as he surveyed the purple and blue bruises that covered her slim arms. "Don't make me do that again," he whispered to her. "Don't be bad. Be good."

When he stepped out of the room, Vlad took a deep, shuddering breath. That was over. Hopefully she'd learn her lesson. Hopefully he'd never have to do that again.

Pushing the incident out of his mind, Vlad let a smile cross his face. Striding confidently into a new world, he could breathe again.

Family is not who you have or what they can do...
it's the love that grows despite everything that can come between you.