Welcome to my new fic, thank you for clicking on it. But before you start, this fic comes with a big trigger warning. This fic is about emotional abuse. In this fic, Tom was put through an emotionally abusive marriage for years, and this is all about his recovery from that. There will be no physical abuse mentioned or written about, but this does heavily deal with the aftermath of emotional abuse.

Danny's POV

"Hey Harry, have you or Doug heard from Tom recently?" I asked, hoping they had. I hadn't heard from him for several days, and I was getting worried. Tom hadn't been... all there recently, I guess you could say. I wanted to know that he was okay.

"Erm, no, I can't say I have. Give me a sec," there was some rustling, "Oi Doug! Heard from Tom recently?"

"No, why?" was the muffled reply from the other end of the phone.

"That's a no from Doug, if you didn't hear that. Why are you asking? He not picking up for you either?" Harry didn't sound as worried as I hoped he would be. This wasn't like Tom; none of this was like Tom. He always replied, he was always there, he was just... he was a constant. He hadn't been constant; he'd been so distant and quiet. This wasn't right, something was terribly wrong.

"No he isn't, I've rung and texted him, and I've gotten nothing back. I think... I think he's in trouble." Saying it out loud made me feel sick, Tom couldn't be in trouble, he was Tom. He was never in trouble. He was always okay.

"Yeah, this isn't like him. Alright, let's meet at Tom's house, see if he's in. He could just be a bit busy with Buzz or something." Harry suggested, I hoped that was the case and it was nothing worse.

Not long later, we were all convened outside Tom's house, and I didn't think any of us had ever been so hesitant in knocking on the door.

"Maybe he's just a bit ill, or busy with Buzz, and we're worrying over nothing." Dougie tried to sound upbeat, it just sounded nervous.

"Possibly, but we have to make sure. He's not been himself recently, we have to check." I didn't mention that Tom's wife could have replied for him. I didn't exactly trust her to do it, I didn't know why, but there was something about her that just didn't ring true to me. And her car wasn't in the driveway, so she clearly wasn't here.

I knocked on the door, not getting a reply. I knocked again. No answer again. I had rung the doorbell, no reply.

But wait, what was that? Was that... was that Buzz crying in there? I could hear something faint, it sounded a bit like a baby crying.

That was enough for me to stop messing about, I shoved my keys in the door and unlocked it, racing inside, hearing the baby's cries clearer now.

Skidding to a stop in the bedroom, I found Buzz sitting on the floor, huge sobbing cries coming from him, his hands reaching out instantly for me.

"Oh honey, it's okay, I'm here now, I'm here." I picked him up, holding him close and trying to shush him.

"Where's your dad Buzz? Where did he go?" there was no sign of him at the moment, but Tom would have never left Buzz here by himself. He barely wanted to leave the room without his son in tow; he wouldn't just leave him like this.

"She, she left. She was... she was so angry and she left." A voice whispered, I whirled round, finding Tom, curled into a ball in the corner, he looked so broken. Broken and pale, too thin in his pyjamas, and he clearly hadn't moved in at least a day.

"I-I'm sorry. She just... she left. I-I couldn't stop her. She, she left me. She left us."