-1Chapter Nine:

The weeks slowly passed as Millie worked late every night to redo the coursework she had failed. She'd managed to get out of eating almost every meal with excuses ranging from 'I'm not hungry' to 'I had a big lunch'.

"I'm just not hungry Dad!" Millie protested pushing the plate of food away from her.

"Just have a small bit then."

"I don't want it!" Millie cried getting up from the table.

"Where do you think your going?"

"I have course work to do! Piss off and leave me alone!" Millie screamed from the top of the staircase before slamming her door shut. She threw herself down on to her bed and looked at the English essay which stared back at her. She went back to typing and before she realised it was getting late. She finished for the night and tried to sleep. However sleep ran away from her again. Getting up she pulled a hooded top over her head and picked up her diary before tip toed down the stairs.

She turned the alarm off and slid the patio door open quietly as she walked out into the garden. She settled herself down on the dry grass and in the moonlight she opened her diary and began to write,

Thursday March 21st.

3am.

Today's been rough. Another day without sleep. So that's why I'm sitting in the garden at 3am trying to somehow organise my thoughts in to some sort of order be it random if any.. It would be better than the way I'm feeling now. Its like there's some giant assed drunken party and everything is all over the place. Things don't make sense to me. Its hard to describe really. I can't explain it and that's what's irritating me! I can still hear his voice telling me he would kill me. I can still feel the cold metal of the gun on my neck. Then I wake up everyday and have to watch it all over again on the news. The press just wont give it up. There's more important things in the world than this. Dad has managed to get a court order so the press cant come near me. Thank god

It feels as if my whole world has fallen apart. As if suddenly I'm not me. This isn't the me I know. I wake up and cry because I can see it all happening again. The look in my Dads eyes as he pulled me out the pool. The fear that something had happened to me. He told me he was proud of me. Why? I totally went against everything he told me today so why would that make him proud. Its as if he could have seen me. Like he knows more about this whole thing than he's lettering on.

That's fine I don't really want to know but something keeps bugging me. I want to know what he found at that house that has made him so damn upset. He's beating himself up about it I can tell. He always does it. I wish he would stop its making the whole house sad. Or is it just me imagining it. He does it all the time. Hides things from me, hides his feelings. Like when Speed died. I miss Speed a lot. I though when I heard that Dad had got shot…the same thing had happened. It brought it all back. I thought I'd lost him too. Sounds weird but I can still remember the way I used to convince him to take me for ice cream when mom and dad where out.

The stars are nice tonight. The sky's clear again, I wish my mind would clear like that. Its as if your trying to look at the moon though hazy cloud. Like you can see it, but you cant. I know it doesn't make sense does it? My mind has never really made sense to me. Though its never really been like this. It's beyond a joke now. I can't get to sleep no matter how hard I try. I need to sleep before my whole body gives away. So that's why I'm sitting in the garden at 3am trying to find someway of somehow getting everything in here so I can forget about it. But its not like that will happen will it? I'll wake up with the dream night after night.

Heather and Lisa don't know what really happened to me yet. They think nothing happened. They won't know. I can't bear to tell them. . So in 5 hours time I have to get up and go to school. So I'm going to attempt to get some sleep then there will be a whole new argument over breakfast. Fucking great.

I feel as if I have done something really stupid. I cut myself for the first time. It felt so strangely soothing, its like my troubles just bleed out me and I can get on with life after its as if…

Millie snapped her diary as a light flicked on in the house. She swore under her breath and snuck back into the living room. Sliding the door behind her and arming the alarm. She paused at the bottom of the staircase as she heard the bathroom door close and took her moment. Running up the stairs in to her room without making a sound she slid her diary back into its hiding place and climbed into bed. The light went off as whoever it was went back to bed.

"Close call." she hissed. Turning over and cocooning herself in the covers. Sleep came to her as the sun began to rise.

The alarm screamed out across the house and a sleeping Millie threw it across the room silencing it forever before roiling back over and went back sleep. An hour later Horatio stood at her door watching her sleep. Not having the heart to wake her he left her a note telling her he had gone to work and not to bother going to school. The shrill ring of the phone woke Millie who dragged her self up and bolted down the stairs.

"Hello." She mumbled sleepily.

"You okay Kiddo?"

"You woke me up." Millie mumbled complaining.

"Sorry. Are you okay on your own for a couple of hours?"

"Yeah. Why are both in work so early?"

"Millie, its three in the afternoon." Horatio told her.

"Is it? Oh bugger. I've missed school."

"Don't worry about that. I called in sick for you."

"Thanks Dad."

"I should be home around five okay."

"Yeah great see you then." Millie hung up and crawled back up the stairs. She began the never ending school work she had to do. Going though her deadlines one by one, she realised she still had a music project to do. Groaning she pulled on one of her several black long sleeved tops and got dressed. Taking her music book she trundled down the stairs and dusted of the piano.

God she hadn't played this thing is years. She sat down and taped a few keys to make sure it was still in tune. She opened her music book and propped up on her knee. Looking at music she had written in it a couple of days she lay her hands on the keys and played the small segment of music twice before ripping the page out and throwing it away. She paused looking at the piano. She lay her hands gently on the keys and closed her eyes and played the notes that came in to her head. Weaving together a song between the flurries of jotting down notes and lyrics.

It took her hours to perfect the song, she never heard the door open as she began to sing. He hadn't heard her play the piano in so long. Too long.

"I open my eyes
I try to see but I'm blinded by the white light
I can't remember how
I can't remember why
I'm lying here tonight"

Her soft voice carried across the air gracefully, stopping he waited and listened. The slow, soft piano gently flowed a long with Millie's voice. He had always enjoyed hearing Millie play. It was something she found easy and was happy doing. He used to look forward to her coming home from piano lessens, determined to show him what she had learned.

"And I can't stand the pain
And I can't make it go away
No I can't stand the pain"

He sat his car keys down gently on the kitchen counter and leaned against it. As he tried to think about the words. He knew recovery was going to be hard for Millie who, Horatio though had been taking it quite well.

"How could this happen to me
I made my mistakes
I've got no where to run
The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me?"

He could feel the pain in Millie's words and knew within a heart beat that he would have taken it all away from her. He blamed himself. Knowing that the kidnapping was aimed to hurt him and it had. He held his head in his hands as his stomach plummeted.

"Everybody's screaming
I try to make a sound but no one hears me
I'm slipping off the edge
I'm hanging by a thread
I wanna start this over again"

Had she been calling out to him? He knew the answer to that. She'd been doing it for months. She'd been crying out to him for months and he hadn't listened. He told himself if he had listened. If he had taken the time to stop and just listen, just looked that bit deeper he would have seen it. Then none of this would have happened.

"So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered
And I can't explain what happened
And I can't erase the things that I've done
No I can't"

Fear rose again in Horatio as he began to wonder what has going on inside his daughters head. What was going on? What was happening to her? All he wanted to do was hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right but he wasn't sure that it would be. Would Millie ever be able to put this behind her? He knew deep down Millie blamed herself for it, feeling that she had jeopardised her friends safety and the only thing he rested happy in was the fact she wouldn't be pulling a 'Millie Plan' again.

"I made my mistakes
I've got no where to run
The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me?"

The key changed as Millie shifted the song up a gear. The piano building as she repeated the chorus, making no attempt to cover the emotion in her own voice as she felt a tear escape. The piano solo kicked in as her hands glided across the keys. Her concentration fully on playing, her eyes cast down towards the keys and her tearstained notebook, not noticing her father. Who stood, head bowed behind her. Listening and watching.

Millie played the song out perfectly. Every note on time as the tempo of the song slowed. Ending with one chord that rang out across the house, chilling the air.

"I haven't heard you play like that in years." Horatio told his child who snapped round.

"You weren't meant to hear it." Millie told him in an almost childish tone looking back down at the piano keys, her hair falling and covering her eyes. Horatio bent down her eye level and looked at her sadly.

"You know, I thought it was beautiful." He told her. Millie finally looked her Dad in the eyes.

"Thanks."

"Where did you learn to play like that?"

"I'll come clean with you but promise me you wont be angry."

"Depends what it is Millie."

"Well." She turned to face her father. "I forged your signature on my course choice form and switched my subjects. I wanted to take music but I didn't think you'd let me because you seemed so adamant on me taking academic subjects. Which I don't really like but I try hard at them because I know I'll need them in the future. I'm sorry." Millie took a deep breath. "Don't worry I know I'm grounded." Horatio looked at his daughter with sad eyes. Seeing only the same emotion in his daughters eyes.

"I wont pretend that I am not angry at you for doing that but I'm glad you told me, and quite frankly I'm impressed."

"So I'm not grounded."

"No your not. You know Millie. You can always talk to me. You know that right?"

"Yeah….I guess its just sometimes…it feels as if I can't do anything to impress you…" Millie said in an almost whisper.

"You know I am proud of you no matter what you do Millie. I am always proud of you and I thank god everyday for giving me such a beautiful, talented girl," Horatio said truthfully, brushing the black bang of hair that had fallen in Millie's face hiding her eyes.

"Really?"

"Yeah. C'mon here." he said pulling Millie in to a hug. "I will always be proud of you Millie." He told her as Millie began to cry.

"I just feel as if I can't do anything right." She told him crying. "As if everything I do isn't good enough for anyone."

"That's not true Millie."

"Yes it is. Everyone is always yelling at me in school…and all they do is whisper about me behind my backs and the teachers have a go at me in class for not trying hard enough…you have no idea what its like. Everyone expects so much of me…"

"Sweetie." Horatio began, however he was cut off.

"I hate that school, there all stuck up jackasses." Millie told him drying her eyes. "Seriously its all about parties and who's with who…"

"That's what high school is like."

"Well school stinks." Millie snapped wrinkling her nose up, just like she did as a young child.

"Yeah it does." Horatio said agreeing with her. "Promise me next time, when your upset. Come and talk to me okay."

"Yeah. I promise."

"That my girl."