Be not afeared, it may sound like it near the end, but this is not the last chapter. I've already started the next one, and I have an idea for the one afterwards, but then it's up to you guys and what ideas you have. Enjoy, and sorry about how short it is.
For the rest of the day, he waited and he worried about her.
On the next day, he waited and he panicked about her.
On the third day, he waited and he considered going to see her.
On Monday, he forgot about eating, he forgot about sleeping and drinking, he just waited by his phone set, anxiety settling into the pit of his stomach about how she had yet to contact him. He had texted her a few times, nothing that could be picked up upon as romantic or anything, but she hadn't responded, and he was so scared for her that he could barely believe it. By half past seven in the evening, his fingernails were worn down to the point where his fingers would start bleeding if any more got chewed off, and he was twitching nervously, one minute raring to go and get her, the next restraining himself from being too over protective.
He knew that she lived her own life, and he shouldn't be so hung up on her seeing as they spent only a day together, all in all, and in the grand scheme of things, that meant absolutely nothing to anybody. Luckily, the newspapers had stopped publishing images and articles about them quite quickly, and the television journalists had calmed down after the excitement. Both Karen and Arthur had tried ringing him, but he had ignored them, just in case Alex called when he was on the phone and she couldn't get through.
Sleeping in a bed without her being there was weird now. Ever since Daisy left, he had been sleeping by himself and he hated it, but he had had Alex there and it was one of the most incredible things and now she was just gone. He was so frightened that Jack might have hurt her again, and he would never be able to forgive himself if something bad had happened to her again. And if he did hurt her again, he wasn't letting her go back to him, and she would stay with him for as long as she needed to.
His train of thoughts were interrupted when a sudden shrill ringing began to sound urgently through the din of his empty apartment. He promptly fell of the sofa trying to reach out and grab for his landline telephone and quickly picked himself up, grabbing it on the third ring. 'Hello, hello? Alex?' he asked desperately, and he ran his hand through his hair in anticipation until someone answered.
'Matt? It's me, oh my God; you've got to help me. Jack's just gone out, please come and get me,' Alex wailed down the phone, her shrieks of pain making his ears just want to bleed in pain. Her voice was frantic and extremely frail, but she sounded like she was begging him and he immediately took that to mean something was seriously wrong.
'Alex, what the hell has happened? Has he hurt you again?' he yelled down the phone, beginning to pace angrily back and forth, back and forth, almost fuming with rage over Jack and if he had hit her again. She snivelled down the phone and he heard her crying softly before quickly answering, 'He saw the news before we did.' That was answer enough. His eyes burned ferociously and he almost roared out in agony for her.
'Okay, is Salome with you?' Matt asked, trying to calm down and b sensible about this before he let his emotions get the better of him. 'No, she's with my mother. Jack sent her back to L.A yesterday so she didn't get in the way,' Alex whimpered weakly, and his mind was made up. He was already at the door by the end of her answer, running down the twelve floors in the fastest possible time, and in his car when she murmured, 'Matt, please get here quickly. I don't know how long he'll be gone for.'
She was so scared that it ripped his heart apart and he was very close to completely breaking down himself, but he knew he had to be strong for her. It was going to take a long time for Alex to recover from this by the time he rescued her, she was going to be so emotionally ruined that he wasn't sure he would be able to pick her back up, and he if her damned husband had done anything to damage her physically, which he was pretty sure he had, he was going to obliterate him.
'Don't worry Alex; I'll be there in ten minutes max. Can you leave the door open for me?' he asked, beginning to pull away from the curb in his Ford Focus, stamping his foot down on the accelerator, pulling out dangerously in front of another car going at fifty down a thirty road. She humbly agreed and he cut the phone line dead, slamming the accelerator pedal down as far as it would go in attempt to get there as fast as possible.
Six minutes and five red lights later, Matt pulled up by Alex's apartment building, leapt out of the car with so much energy he nearly fell over, and sprinted up to the fourth floor where her small London apartment could be found. What he missed was the car that soon after pulled up behind him, the occupant recognizing the car parked in front straight away…
He burst through the open door to her apartment and quickly scanned the room for her. He started to become hysterical when he couldn't see her, but Matt's ears pricked up and he heard her voice call, 'Matt, I'm in the kitchen.' He hastened over to the kitchen, where Alex was slumped in one of the chairs by her small wooden table, a bruise on her right cheek pulsating with every beat of her heart, the one around her left eye having faded slightly. There were small black blemishes up her arms and her lip was badly cracked and bleeding a little.
'Oh Alex,' he gushed out, running over to her and putting his arm around her waist, pulling hers over his shoulders and gently pulling her out of the chair to a position where she was standing but only barely. She winced in atrocious agony when he accidentally bumped her on the ribs, where he presumed she had possibly broken one, and he began to carry her across the room to the door, hanging ajar when his plans to get her out without being seen were scuppered on sight.
The moment Matt saw Jack standing in the doorway, looking too drunk to even be standing at this moment in time, he carefully put Alex down and stormed over to him, viscous and outraged anger all over his pale face. He was over three inches taller than Jack, and although he was skinnier, it did give him a slight advantage. 'What're doing here you stupid berk?' Jack yelled angrily, pushing Matt back a few centimetres, 'Get your hands…off my wife!' he roared, staggering towards him lazily, wavering from side to side.
Matt completely lost it at that. 'I suggest you let us leave or I'm going to be forced to do something I really want to do but probably shouldn't,' he muttered darkly, pulling Jack up by the collar so furiously that he was raised a few centimetres from the ground. Alex looked fearfully upon the scene, her expression hard to make out by the vicious bruising everywhere, but she so dearly wanted to call out to Matt to be careful. Jack caught her eye and looked at her vengefully, with so much drunken hatred that she found it difficult to figure out if they had ever actually been in love or not.
'You're not going anywhere with that whore!' Jack yelled, and with that, Matt lowered him back onto his feet, took a step back to widen the distance to half a metre, and punched him squarely in the face, taking precision so he cracked in right in the centre, making sure he definitely fractured and may have broken his nose. Jack looked at him for one second, raised his finger and started to point at him, and then collapsed onto the floor. There was silence in the apartment until Alex suddenly cried out in pain, her maybe cracked rib hurting her.
Matt immediately went to her side, and seeing that she was in too much pain to walk, he softly scooped her into his arms and carried her over to the doorway, before remembering that she would be staying with him for a while so she would need some clothes and accessories. 'Alex, I'm going to go and pack some stuff up for you. If he wakes up,' Matt pointed at her unconscious husband lying face down on the floor, 'Shout for me and make sure you stamp on his face.'
Alex made her way over to the sofa in her living room, quite close to the front door, and collapsed down, whilst Matt went into her bedroom and bathroom and collected a few outfits (basic stuff like t-shirts and jeans rather than fancy dresses and…underwear. That was a little awkward) and her toothbrush and stuff. He hurried back to her, having stuffed quite a large amount of her wardrobe into a big bag he found in the corner of her room, and again heaved her into his arms, asking her if she could possibly hold the bag.
They walked gracefully down the steps, the evening darkness beginning to settle through the windows on each floor until they reached her car to which he gently placed and strapped her in. he went and sat in the driver's seat, but leant his hand across and delicately stroked her cheek. 'Alex, you're never going back there. You're staying with me.' She weakly nodded and managed a tiny smile, and they began the drive back to his apartment, hands held all the while.
He had known that if she ahd gone back, she would've gotten hurt, and yet he still let her go. It was killing him that if he had only put up more resistance to the idea, that she wouldn't be in an even worse state than he believe she would be. The left bruise which had caused so much anxiety a few days ago looked practically pretty next to the few she had acquired in his absence. The huge black and blue mark on her right cheek looked almost venomous and was covering a slash caused, by what looked like, nails.
The bruises down her arms discnerted him because he had no idea how they had got there. But the thing that worried him the most was the way she kept applying pressure to an area which was made up of her ribcage. He feared there may had been some sort of struggle in which he might've pushed her or kicked her, and she had cracked her rib. Oh, even thinking about it made him wish he had punched that bastard harder, but there was no point thinking about it now.
Alex was safe with him; he was never going to let her get harmed again, not least by him, and he was going to love her for the rest of forever, if she let him. He squeezed her hand tightly, one remaining tear falling down his cheek. 'I love you Alex, we're going to be okay. You and me, we're going to be fine.'
Later that evening, on an anonymous tip off, Jack Mahny was picked up by police for the attack on Alex Kingston which had been reported alongside the news of her kiss with Matt Smith four days ago. He was sentenced to five years in prison for domestic violence and abuse and plus the extra charge of drink driving, without trial, and that was the last that Alex and Matt saw of him.