A/N: Again, thank you for the reviews! I appreciate each and every one of them so much, they each give me the inspiration and the motivation to keep on updating as often as I possibly can, so please keep them coming! The next chapter is going to be Hanna's first day out of hospital and seeing her bedroom for the first time since she was taken all those years ago, there will be plenty more flashbacks, so if you have any ideas on what you would like to see the most, pop those in the reviews! I have a few ideas on the things the girls went through in there but I'm always looking for more imaginative, creative ways, as well.
Disclaimer: The characters and the show belongs to Pretty Little Liars, I own nothing other than the storyline of this story.
"The healthy man does not torture others – generally, it is the tortured who turns into torturers." - Carl Jung
The moment she got home, the older Marin slowly moved up the stairs towards her daughter's bedroom. It hadn't changed at all, she had left everything the way it had been since her daughter had gone missing. Every so often, Ashley would wash her sheets, in the hope Hanna would be home soon enough to be able to sleep in her bed. But she hadn't stepped foot inside that room in over six months, not since the body of a blonde woman had been found not too far from Rosewood and she had convinced herself that it was Hanna. It took the police taking her to the body to prove to her that her daughter was not the poor, murdered girl who had been stolen far too soon.
The worse thing was, Ashley had almost wanted it to be her daughter because she was exhausted. She wanted closure, she needed to have something to say goodbye to; she needed a grave to visit, she needed to bury a body so she wouldn't have to be terrified all the time. The things that ran through her mind sometimes, the most unthinkable things about what was happening to her daughter and her friends. That feeling of sadness when the dead body turned out not to be her lost daughter had finally distinguished any hope she had been clinging to before that. And thus, she had stopped wandering into Hanna's room, she had stopped washing her already clean clothes, she stopped laying on her bed and cuddling the teddy that Hanna had for so long.
Until that moment, her hand slowly pushing open the door as she bit down on her lip and looked around. It was the same as it always had been and she hoped that Hanna would take some comfort in the knowledge that Ashley had never given up on her. She didn't have to know about the past few months, Ashley would never tell her about the dead body, she would never tell her about the hope every single time she ran the police station to see if anything had been found. She would have to dust and clean before Hanna got home but she knew she had at least two weeks until that happened – her daughter's body was broken in both mind and the physical sense and she needed time to heal. She needed the doctors to be looking after her after they re-broke her arm, Hanna's organs were on the verge of shutting down before she had gotten to the hospital from starvation and dehydration, it would take a while to reverse the internal effects of what had happened to her. The doctor had told Ashley that Hanna was lucky, that a week or so later, then the prospects wouldn't have been so positive but all Ashley could think was how it didn't matter. A week or so later wouldn't have made any of the difference on the effects it had on Hanna's mind.
Her daughter was home, but was she really home? Her eyes were different, not only in colour but there was a pain in them that Ashley could never describe. She looked lost, almost as though she was just a child again who needed her mother to make it all better but she never could. She couldn't reverse everything that had happened to her, all those things that made her imagination run wild when the doctor had rattled off a long list of the injuries. The burns, the broken bones, the bruises, the cuts, the scars...
She shook it off and grabbed a bag from in Hanna's cupboard, chucking some of her most comfortable pyjamas in it, before she picked up the cuddly bear from the side and smiled, at least he would be back where he belonged. She tucked him carefully in with the clothes and then grabbed a few photographs that adorned Hanna's bedside tables, deciding to put them in her hospital room as well. Just a few hours to sleep and she decided she would get some flowers and some balloons on the way back to the hospital. Hanna couldn't eat yet but the moment she could, she would remind her daughter of all that favourite food she had missed over the three years. Her baby was coming home, and that was all that mattered for that moment.
At the hospital, Caleb held onto Hanna's hand as she slept, wondering how he could fix it all. The only thing he could truly think of was building a time machine and making sure that Hanna had never been taken in the first place. That was an unrealistic thought, so he knew he had to settle on just being there for Hanna as she cried, or if she ever wanted to talk about it. He had to hold her hand, wrap his arms around her, press his lips to her forehead and wipe away the tears that would fall down her face. He would tell her he loved her and he would make promises that he wasn't sure he could keep. He had told her he would protect her, but he hadn't been able to save her from the monster who had made her life a living hell for so long. He wanted nothing more than to protect her, but the damage had already been done.
The guilt had eaten him up for three years, and even before that. He had fallen in love with Hanna and sometimes, he knew it would have been so much easier if he hadn't – but he would take loving her with all the pain and the fear and all the unknowing, over losing her. Slowly, his lips moved to her hand, and he just stared at the way her eyelashes fluttered, her body was tense, small whimpers left her lips every so often and tiny beads of sweat dripped down her forehead.
He had no idea how long he had been staring at her for, when a knock on the door distracted him and he looked up to see Toby walking into the room with a small frown on his face, "They won't let me see Spencer," He explained, with a small shrug of his shoulders, "Apparently four's a crowd." Caleb just nodded his head in understanding, glad he didn't have to fight a mass amount of Marin family to spend time with Hanna whilst she was in the hospital. "I've waited three years and I get to hold her for all of two seconds..."
There were tears in his eyes and Caleb just moved his head towards the seat next to his, "She'll just be asleep anyway, it's the moment when she wakes up that really matters." He tried to make his best friend feel better but he knew nothing ever could. He wanted to be with Spencer and instead, he was stuck with Caleb as he had been for the past three years. Toby had lost himself in his work, he was building a house for him and Spencer when she got home, and Caleb would sit with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other as he watched him, pretending to offer his help. Instead, the help involved them both talking about the women they had lost, about how they were meant to be struggling in New York or struggling with a long distance relationship right then. They were meant to be worrying about the menial things and instead, their thoughts had been consumed with what was happening to their girlfriends as they spoke.
Being happy never seemed to be an option, because every time they smiled or they laughed, the guilt would creep up and hit them hard. But he could smile right then because they were home, "We have a lifetime to worry about holding them." He finally said, "We finally have the lifetime we've wanted for three years." Toby managed a smile of his own as he nodded his head, and a comfortable silence fell between the two as Caleb kept his eyes on Hanna.
By the time Hanna woke up, Toby was gone and Ashley was back, she could hear the gentle mumbling of her mother and Caleb, as her eyes opened and she glanced at the two of them. Even the slight movement of her head seemed to put them both on high alert and Caleb grinned as he stood up and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "You're awake... you've been asleep for almost twenty-four hours." He told her, and Hanna scrunched up her nose in confusion, wondering when the last time she had slept had been. Sometimes, A liked to play games, keeping them awake all night with the sound of an alarm, sometimes she simply couldn't sleep for fear of what was going to happen if she did close her eyes for even a second.
"I brought you some of your own stuff," Ashley motioned to the cabinet next to her bed, and Hanna's eyes moved to the photographs she could remember sticking up in her own room, she almost smiled as she looked into the happy face of her sixteen year old self, next to a grinning Caleb. They still had A back then but things weren't as terrifying, they would still get the odd break where they could just be normal teenagers but now, even that had been stolen from her. Photographs were just reminders of everything she had lost and everything she would never get back. Her eyes moved around the room, surveying all the balloons and the flowers that seemed to take up much of the room, "I got a little carried away." Her mother explained with a nervous laugh before she moved to the other side of Hanna's bed and ran her fingers through her blonde hair.
"Do you want to know about the other girls?" She whispered, noting the panic in her daughter's eyes, only giving her a small smile when she gave a timid nod of her head, "Okay, Aria had to have surgery, she had some internal bleeding..." Hanna gulped, the images of the baseball bat slamming down on Aria's stomach coming to mind and tears sprung to her eyes that she tried to hold back, she could practically hear the sounds as though she was right back there, watching Emily sob as she hit Aria with the bat, and then Spencer attempted to swing it right back at A. She would never forget the guilt in Emily's eyes, or the pain in Aria's; it seemed to happen too often until the day they all just did what A wanted them to do without questioning it. "But she's okay, and she's going to be okay... she'll be in hospital for a little while longer."
Ashley wasn't sure if she was making things worse, but Hanna had spent three years of her life with those three girls and she needed to know that they were going to be okay as well. "Spencer is actually going home soon," She left out the fact that the reason for that was her refusal to accept any of the help the doctors and the nurses were trying to give her, "I think Veronica and Peter are just going to arrange for someone to go and see her at home and Emily had a severe head injury, they're monitoring it but she was awake last time I spoke to Pam." Hanna only nodded her head, before Caleb gently stroked her cheek, he took a deep breath, his eyes meeting with Ashley's for a second before he looked back down at the girl.
"Spencer said you hadn't spoken in over a year..." He finally said; Toby had managed to get into Spencer's room and she had asked him how each of the girls were doing. He had explained that Hanna hadn't told them anything yet and she had just shrugged her shoulders, Hanna doesn't say anything. She hasn't for over a year. Toby had repeated the words back to Caleb and Ashley the moment Veronica had asked him to leave the room, and Caleb had felt his heart drop. Both had just assumed that Hanna's silence was just a response to the shock of being released and being back with the people she loved, they had just assumed that once it had all worn off, she would start speaking again and tell them everything that had happened to her. Instead, it seemed as though they would have to rely on the events being recalled from the people who had been there alongside her. "So uh, we bought you this," He pulled out an iPhone, with a shrug of his shoulders, "You can type anything you want to say to us this way, our numbers are in there and this way, you won't feel any pressure. If the doctors ask you questions, you can just type out your answers..." Hanna took the phone and bit down on her lip, slowly moving to just type 'thank you' to him before she showed him.
"No problem," He responded, moving to sit down as he pulled out his own phone and showed Hanna he would always have it to hand if she ever wanted to talk to him. Ashley gave him a smile; she had known that if Hanna had ever been found, then he would be amazing. He loved that girl more than she thought possible, and she was so thankful that her daughter had found someone who would be there no matter what. Three years he had loyally waited for her, even though Ashley had told him a hundred times over that it was okay if he wanted to find someone else, if he fell in love with another person, but he refused and whilst a part of her had felt sad about all the things he was missing out on, she was also relieved because it meant that no matter how much her own hope dwindled, it meant his hope was still burning bright.
Her eyes wandered back to her silent daughter, and the tears finally fell – Hanna hadn't spoken a word, and it was not a temporary thing. She had stopped talking so long before they had found her, whilst they hadn't given up hope, she could see it in Hanna's eyes – she had given up a long time before she had been let go. And she had heard Spencer screaming, she had seen the way Pam had left Emily's room and collapsed to the ground as she sobbed and she had heard the smashing of something against a wall in Aria's room. All of them were broken, more so than they could have imagined. She almost hoped they had just been on the run from the police, because the alternative had turned out so much more terrifying than she ever believed it could.
Hanna's fingers trembled as she slowly walked down the corridor of the underground 'dollhouse' that Charlotte had built for them. Spencer was walking in front of her and Aria and Emily followed behind, all of them in single file, walking in silence towards the door A had told them to be. Her name was Charlotte, it had been revealed to them a few months prior, but Hanna refused to put a name to that. She thought it would be a relief to finally know who it was, to put a face and a name to the person who had tortured them for so long. But instead, Hanna thought the name made them appear to be human, and A was anything other than human. Spencer liked to say her name over and over again as though it gave her some sort of power, and sometimes, she heard Emily whispering it a few times as though she was trying to make sense of it and Aria didn't say much of anything.
She frowned when Spencer opened the door and muttered something sarcastic under her breath. There was complete darkness until all four of them were in the room and then it all happened so quickly. Hanna had no idea how A managed to do the things she did with such ease with supposedly no help, Hanna was convinced there was a second person in there with them somewhere, although she was never able to prove it. Somehow, in the darkness, Aria and Emily were gone and until the lights came on, Hanna kept her hand tightly held in Spencer's as silent tears fell down her face. Mona was dead, who was next?
She had no idea how much time had passed until the bright lights came on and she was faced with a chained Emily and Aria in front of them. They were soaked, and Hanna knew what was going to happen next, she had undergone the same treatment many times before. The cattle prod was on the floor and Hanna felt sick when she realised what they were meant to do. A was there, with a smirk on her face, and her arms folded before she told them that they had to choose. Emily or Aria, who was going to get hurt first? Emily or Aria. Or both. The chains were somehow rigged with the amount of electricity needed to cause the kind of pain that made Emily and Aria scream loudly and horrifically. Tears fell down her face as she watched Spencer pick up the weapon of choice for that day, and she turned to look at Hanna as though somehow, the blonde had all the answers.
She just shook her head in response. She didn't want to choose between their two best friends, she couldn't choose between them. But it was one or both and she wasn't sure if Aria could take much more. Her tiny body had been beaten so badly just a few days prior because she had tried to set fire to her room with some things she had stolen. Her eyes met with Emily's and she mouthed an apology before she nodded her head towards her and then looked away, covering her ears as she sobbed hard when she heard a scream coming from Emily the moment Spencer pressed it to her skin. They knew the rules by then, keep it there until they were told otherwise. Keep it there until A had enough. Do what they were told because the consequences were severe enough to be feared.
The first few times, they hadn't been able to look at each other after they had hurt one another. They had avoided eye contact, they had sobbed apologies, they had felt the guilt running through them and they wished they could do anything other than hurt each other. If hurting themselves was the option, they always would. Now, it was just routine – the guilt was still there, that sick feeling still existed, they hated themselves but it was normal. Hurting each other was normal because they would rather do it to each other than have her lay a hand on them.
And then something hit her hard on the back of her head. The screams had finally stopped and she gave into the darkness easily, she could no longer hear Emily's screams for them to stop, she could no longer hear Aria's sobs or Spencer's angry cries, and that was the most welcome relief of all.
