A/N - Thank you, thank you, thank you for your reviews last chapter. A few of you have figured we're about to pick up pace and you're right. Hope you enjoy this x


A Fairytale By Another Name

She wakes with a start, initially unsure of what it is that's invaded her conscious enough to rouse her, but once she's blinked blindly into the darkness a few times, she realises it's Jack's whimpering. Erin pulls herself from the bed, shivers in the cool air and makes a mental reminder to ask Charlie to fix the window once all of this is done. If all of this is ever done, she adds.

"Hey little guy," she whispers, picking Jack up from his crib and noting that he's dressed in a different sleepsuit than earlier. So Charlie's at least taken care of that one. The baby burrows his little head into her chest in search of her skin and she feels such an overwhelming rush of love for him that she almost can't breathe. It amazes her even now after the three months he's been here with them how much she loves him; how utterly perfect he is. His whimpering subsides and she rocks with him a little until she hears an almighty thud - one that couldn't possibly come from anywhere other than the basement.

"Charlie?" she asks without raising her voice too much. She doesn't want to draw Jay's attention to his name and she doesn't want to unsettle Jack either. There's no answer so she hisses his name louder. "Charlie?"

Again, there's no answer but she hears another thud, louder this time, and her stomach drops. Jack must sense her unease, his previous quietness giving over to a small cry and then a louder one when she offers her lips to his head. She feels like a terrible mother and when there's a third thud and she has to lay Jack back in the crib despite his cries, that guilt over not being enough for him multiplies tenfold.

She takes the gun and heads downstairs, trying and failing to block out Jack's cries but she can hear them when she's in the hallway and she already knows - when she spies the open door to the basement - that they'll be heard down there too. The glock out in front of her, she takes a cautious step, first to her boots that are sitting by the door, and once they're laced on her feet, she heads down the wooden stairs as quietly as she can.

Erin opens her mouth to let Jay know she's armed but then thinks better of it in case she needs the element of surprise to help her out. As soon as he comes into focus though, she realises what that thudding was. Jay's lying practically motionless on the concrete floor, blood pouring from his nose and pooling beside him. One of his legs is bent at an angle which makes her think it's probably broken somewhere, and Charlie is standing beside him a little breathless.

"You piece of shit," she catches him spitting at the man they've held here for the past few days, the same man whose eyes are open, albeit barely, and fixing on hers.

All she wants to do is run. Run as far away as she can get with Jack: far from this city; from Charlie; from this basement and that rope and Jay; from the shadows of her past that still follow her everywhere because she's stuck in this life she never signed up for. And yet she doesn't. She can't because he feet won't move and her mouth won't open and she's not even sure her finger would work if she tried to pull the trigger.

Jay's still staring at her, almost lifelessly, until Jack's cries filter through to her brain and she turns her head back to the top of the staircase briefly; contemplates going to comfort him but she knows this is bigger. This mess is what she needs to sort first. She turns her attention back to the pool of blood on the floor and Jay's crumpled body and she knows he knows about Jack. Can tell somehow, from the way he's looking at her.

Only when she takes a final step on one of the creaking stairs does Charlie turn and notice her. Throwing in one last kick for good measure it seems, he turns and heads up the stairs without another word. All Erin can do is follow.

"I went to his place. There's cops everywhere," Charlie hisses, stomping into the kitchen and searching for the bottle of brandy she knows he's probably going to drain dry. She's still unaware of the time - the view outside of the windows nothing but blackness - but it ceases to matter at the present moment.

"You went to his place?" she asks, forcing herself to stay in the same room as him rather than comfort Jack. "Why?"

"To get payment. Figured there'd be a car or something I could sell. Pay the debt that way so we can kill him."

Erin's stomach lurches at the thought. "Where's his brother?"

"In the wind. Fuck Erin! You think the cops are gonna find out this leads back here?"

Yes. "Not if his brother comes back. You know where he went?"

"That's what I was trying to find out but that asshole down there wouldn't tell me anything."

She holds in the sigh threatening to leave her lips but it's a harder feat than she'd anticipated. "So what, you thought beating him up would help?"

"Helps in reminding him who's in control here." He turns with the bottle in his hand, victorious - if only in regard to finding the alcohol.

"Are you?" Erin can't help but ask.

Charlie's head snaps up at the same time as his eyes narrow venomously. "Of course."

She can't ignore Jack's crying any longer and heads up to his room, her life a never-ending series of staircases these days it seems. Her son's little arms are outstretched for her when she enters, her heart splintering when she sees the tears on his skin. And that's when it hits her. If Charlie had found out that the cops were at Jay's place, it means he'd either taken their child with him when he went there, or - possibly worse - left him while she was sleeping.

She scoops Jack from his crib and shushes him with a promise that's he's okay; that she's here, and heads back to the kitchen.

"When you went to Jay's place earlier," she begins, accusatory in her tone. "Where was Jack?"

"Here."

"You left our son here, with him in the basement and -"

"- And what? You wanted me to take him with me?!"

"One of us stays awake at all times," she bites. "That's what you said. That's how we'd keep Jack safe."

"He was safe Erin! There's a lock on the basement door, you sleep with a gun, you -"

"- Get a plan Charlie," she warns, her tone low and seething. "Get a fucking plan."

She leaves for the living room, picking up the stuffed animal from the floor so she can focus her attention on playing with their child. She half expects him to follow, to apologise but he doesn't. There's the noise of liquid tipping in the brandy bottle and all she can think of is Jay's twisted body lying below them and what if it were Jack?

Suddenly, she hears the sounds of keys scraping against the counter, followed by Charlie's boots on the floor.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"Out."

"Where?"

"To get a plan."

He says no more and shuts the front door behind him. Erin takes Jack and the stuffed animal and carries them upstairs, setting them in the crib he seems to spend more time in than she'd like. He's content enough though with the little white rabbit and she waits for the noise of the car engine to fade, then fills a plastic bowl with warm water before fishing a clean flannel out of the bathroom cupboard. With the bowl balancing against her hip and her gun in her other hand, it's hard to maneuver her way around without spilling the water. She's more than a little damp by the time she makes it down to the basement but it's a small trade-off for having the security of her weapon.

Her breath catches in her throat when she sees Jay lying there, body twisted and already swollen with bruises. She makes her way over tentatively, setting the bowl down first and spilling a little more of the water accidentally.

"Your face," she whispers, shocked even after all of this time at the brutality of the way in which Charlie operates sometimes. "You should've just told him."

Jay keeps his lips pursed closed - not that she expects him to talk to her after what she witnessed (and did nothing to stop).

She sets the gun down on the floor, barrel pointed at him like always but he stares at her the whole time, just watching; waiting, she supposes, to see what she'll do. To see whether she'll try and break him too. Except, Erin decides, he must sense she doesn't have the same intentions Charlie does because he makes no attempt to shy away from her. The silence is overwhelming and the heat of his gaze on her is only making her feel more suffocated, and so she speaks again.

"I brought something to clean you up with."

"You think he isn't going to notice if my face no longer has blood on it?" Jay grits out - the words threatening to betray his pain out loud.

She looks at him for a moment, that power in the blue of his irises - despite the overpowering pain there - threatening to overwhelm her at any moment, but she manages to find some casualness from somewhere deep inside of her, pull it up and out into the room before this all goes horribly wrong. Or, more horribly wrong. "He's not going to be thinking about your face."

Erin squeezes the water out of the flannel but then as she steps closer, realises the angle he's lying at due to Charlie's ministrations is going to mean the droplets will trickle onto him and so she sets the flannel back in the bowl, wiping her hands on her jeans.

"Do you want to sit up?"

Jay doesn't answer and she figures she can't really blame him. She looks back at his leg and the awkward angle it's bent at. She could untie him and even if he tried anything, he wouldn't be able to get very far. Besides, she's the one with the gun.

"I'm going to take the rope off," she tells him. "But if you try anything, I'll shoot. Don't forget that."

He still doesn't respond but he's watching her intently as she loosens the knot in the rope, sliding the ends until his wrists are free - save for the cable tie. He pulls them in towards his chest and she notes the redness of his skin where the plastic has grated it away.

"Your wrists are sore," she tells him, like it's a fact he might just have overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Her words are clumsy and she regrets them the instant they leave her mouth but for some reason, Jay responds.

"Tried to pull the tie off. Obviously it didn't work."

Erin isn't sure what makes her make the offer she does - stupidity, probably - but yet, "If I cut it, do you promise not to do anything?"

"My legs are tied to this radiator," he says. "And I'm pretty sure this one is fractured at the very least. Couldn't get far if I tried."

The thought should comfort her somewhat - at least in this situation - but it doesn't. It just sends another wave of guilt washing over her. "I'll be one minute."

She practically races up the stairs and to the kitchen, almost forgetting the gun in her haste. Grabbing the pair of scissors and a couple more cable ties from the drawer and with an ear out for Jack who thankfully remains quiet, she heads back down more cautiously, gun aimed at Jay until she's sure he hasn't moved. Again, she sets the it by her side - barrel end pointing his way - and reminds him not to do anything stupid. The tie breaks with one clean cut and she lifts away the plastic gently, careful not to slide it against the broken skin. It takes some effort and she can't not hear the wince that escapes his lips when he pulls his body up into a sitting position, but when her help, Jay finally arranges himself so his leg is at what she supposes might be a more comfortable angle.

"Thank you," he tells her softly; so softly she feels like a fraud. He shouldn't be thanking her for anything. Rather than say this however, she just nods and squeezes the excess water from the flannel.

He watches her the whole time, eyes boring into hers each time she looks up from the bowl of water which is now pink-brown with his blood. It's smothering, the way he looks at her sometimes, and she only notices when she wipes at his forehead that her hand is shaking. Jay's attention is finally diverted enough it seems for him to notice it too, and rather than commenting, he lifts his own hand, settling his palm over her wrist so that his thumb meets his middle finger.

Erin glances down at their joined limbs and feels her breath hitch high in her throat. She forces herself to swallow and continues wiping carefully at the dried blood, all of the time Jay's hand remaining on her wrist to stem the shaking.

Eventually, she needs to clean the flannel and so he drops his hand from hers. When he doesn't put it back there, she tries desperately not to feel the sense of loss that has no right to accompany this situation but it hits her anyway, smack between the eyes like a warning sign.

Once she's finished cleaning his face, she takes a proper look at his injuries. One of his cheekbones is flame red with undertones of purple and green, his eye matching that with a smattering of yellow too. His lip is split and she realises there's a caking of dried blood at the corner of his mouth and so she dips the flannel, squeezing the water out for a final time before tentatively sliding the material across his skin. His breath is hot against her hand; hot in the coldness of the basement where it fogs between them, her own mixing in too she supposes, until there's a culmination of them both: storm clouds gathering and threatening to spill over.

"You have a child," Jay says, eyes locking on hers and she keeps her hand there against his lip.

It's silent for way too long until she swallows past the lump in her throat. "If you do anything to hurt him -"

"- You think I'd do that?"

"I don't know you," she grits out, dropping her hand so some of the excess water from the flannel trickles down her wrist and drips onto her jeans. "Cops do shitty stuff all the time."

"Well if you're going to know one thing," he tells her, shifting slightly and her neck prickles, flames and burns as she edges back towards her gun, "it's that I wouldn't hurt a kid."

He makes no mention of never hurting her or Charlie, and she knows he would given half a chance. Knows he should, too.

"If you know where your brother is," Erin says, changing the subject because the last thing she wants to do is give away details about her son. "You need to tell him."

"So he can kill me faster?"

"So he can get the money and let you go."

Jay makes a sound something between a laugh and a groan - his ribs reminding him, she figures, that he's injured. "He isn't going to let me go."

She doesn't know what to say to that; isn't sure how he's managed to figure it out. They have to be better, she thinks. Bring him food and let him use the bathroom; try and convince him there's something better than the worst possible end to all of this so he'll give up the information.

"I've known that since the first day I got here."

"You need the bathroom?", she asks, bringing out the cable ties in order to end this train of conversation.

Something in his eyes flickers, disappointment maybe, but as quickly as it appears it leaves again. His reply is staccato and clipped. "No."

"Okay." She loops the tie around Jay's wrists, careful not to catch the sharp plastic against his broken skin. Next comes the rope - a perfectly executed figure of nine knot that binds him helplessly back to the radiator.

The atmosphere shifts and she can't look at him when she bends to collect the bowl and her gun. She turns to leave, limbs heavy and eyes burning with what she hopes aren't tears.

"Erin," he says softly as she's almost reached the top of the stairs. She tries desperately not to feel her heart jerk at the way he says her name but like everything lately, she fails in her attempt. Dipping her head, she turns it just a fraction towards him. "I don't blame you."

She says nothing more, just lets herself out of the basement and locks the door.