Oh my goodness, five absolutely lovely reviews for the last chapter. I'm speechless. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and of course to the handful of new followers/favouriters. And thank you so much to 'Parker' who left the most beautiful anonymous review (I wasn't able to thank you privately). Your reviews, ideas and thoughts honestly make my day and excite me enough to get my fingers itching to type and update for you guys as soon as possible.
Now this chapter is a bit different and I was in two minds whether to include it or not but I decided to go for it as some of the details are very important to future chapters. Unfortunately, our favourite Doctor isn't in this chapter as it's entirely Maeve-centric but I promise if you're patient with me now there will be tonnes of Raeve-y goodness to come. Enjoy!
TRIGGER WARNING: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
One year before
It was not long past midnight when Joe Donovan pulled his pick-up truck into the driveway of their family home. Branches of the overgrown orange tree scraped the top of his car roof and he made a mental note to trim it down on the weekend. With all the large landscaping projects he'd taken on, he'd been neglecting his own home.
Even though he had inherited and worked in the family landscaping business his whole life, Mary was the family gardener and was often pottering around with her watering can, planting new trees and cutting the flowers to make floral arrangements for the house. But she had recently undergone another round of chemotherapy and their son had been guarding her dutifully to make sure she rested.
Joe turned his coat up as he got out of the truck – D.C was chilly this time of year and especially this time of night. Aware of how late it was, he gently shut the car door as to not wake his wife or son if they were sleeping inside. He grabbed his toolbox from the back and whistled to Bossy, their dog, to hop down and follow him to the front door.
As he was kicking off his muddy boots on the porch, he noticed a powder blue bike with a wicker basket leaning next to the door and his face lit up with a smile.
His youngest must have visited tonight.
It's far too late for her to still be here, he thought. She must have been tired and taken Mary's car home and will pick up her bike in the morning.
Even though he was disappointed in missing out on the rare visit from his daughter, he knew it would have made Mary so happy. They barely got to see Maeve anymore since she started saving the world and curing diseases and revolutionising a whole lot of science things that were lost on him – but it didn't make him any less proud of his Space Cadet.
He stepped inside quietly and put his keys on the small hall table. Their house was narrow – as were many suburban houses in D.C – with a long hallway with the bedrooms coming off and an open kitchen, dining and living room at the end. Bossy made a bee-line for the end and Joe was about to follow when he noticed a familiar brown leather, slightly tattered messenger bag dumped by the door, weighed down by some kind of heavy book.
"Maevy?" he said quietly peeking into her old bedroom which Mary had rearranged slightly to make room for a small art space.
Joe continued down the hallway and saw the kitchen light on and quiet murmuring and rustling around. When he walked in, he saw Maeve sitting on the kitchen counter with her legs swinging back and long, wavy hair was curtaining both sides of her cheeks so he couldn't see her face nor had she noticed him. Bossy was under her dangling feet watching her Converse shoes sway with interest. Mary stood in front of Maeve with a pack of frozen peas in one hand and antiseptic wipes in the other. The first aid kit was unpacked on the counter next to Maeve.
This didn't concern Joe much at first. His memories of Maeve's childhood were littered with bruises, bumps, cuts, concussions, burns, dislocations, fractured bones and sprains. She was always brilliant but devastatingly clumsy. Not to mention her curious mind always made them end up in the Emergency Room because she threw herself off the room for a physics theory or blew up the backyard for a chemistry experiment.
"How are my girls tonight?" Joe asked dropping his toolbox on the dining table. Both women jumped and Mary dropped what she was holding in surprise and quickly stood in front of Maeve.
"Joe, honey! We didn't hear you get in!"
"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not always a loud, boisterous tradesman," he tried going around his tiny wife to put the coffee pot on but she blocked him again.
"Something wrong, Mary?"
"No, no," she waved her hands nervously. "I'll make your coffee, you go sit down. Tea, Maeve? Longjing tea to keep that beautiful brain matter of yours healthy?"
"Sure, Mum," Maeve replied quietly. She was fiddling with the sleeves of her shirt, pulling them over her wrists and avoiding her father's eyes as he watched her from where he was sat at the dining table.
His daughter was, for lack of more eloquent word, a complete chatterbox. Endless facts, boundless statistics, ceaseless trivia. She haemorrhaged information. Her brother had once asked her for help on a classic literature assignment in high school and three and a half hours later, he emerged from her room panting, desperate for food, air, sustenance. The rest of the family would roll their eyes and groan when she got excited and started on one of her energetic tangents but Joe always thought it was one of her most beautiful qualities and encouraged her.
Since she had gotten serious and moved in with that boy she met at University, he hadn't heard her talk like that in a while.
Bobby was always charismatic with the family and although Joe was far from the brightest in the Donovan clan, he was uneased by the seemingly charming boy. For one, he always stopped Maeve during one of her excited speeches to tell her to calm down or make fun of whatever she was so passionate about and make Maeve blush in all the wrong ways. The rest of the family didn't take any notice but Joe discerned how she would stay quiet for the entire evening. Bobby would also flash his charismatic, million-dollar smile and say sweetly things like: "The topic's closed for discussion, Maeve." "We'll talk about this at home." "Don't embarrass us in front of all these people, darling"
It sent shivers down Joe's spine and he so desperately wanted to talk to Maeve about it but Mary and his eldest daughter, Margot, had forbidden it. They were convinced Maeve would never forgive him if he ruined her first relationship. Then came the news of the engagement and that was enough to make Mary become more wary. They had all been at the well-to-do and snooty Putnams' for a barbeque for Bobby's grandmother's birthday. The champagne-drinking, Chihuahua-toting Putnams' would look at the colourful, beer-plied Donovans' with obvious distaste but they stayed composed for their Maeve who was agonisingly trying to gain their acceptance.
Then Bobby proposed to her in front of everybody with his grandmother's ring. He watched the inner torment battle across his youngest child's face as she struggled in the situation she was in and even glanced up at him for a brief second as if to scream 'please help me!' Margot quickly stuffed a bread roll into his mouth as he opened it to say something and by then Maeve had accepted awkwardly and was swept away by a horde of squealing sister-in-laws-to-be (The Flakes is what the Donovan's called this particular group of Putnam women).
He wondered if it was reluctant wedding plans and pretentious in-laws that had gotten his little one so down and quiet this evening.
"Earth to Space Cadet?" he said to her. "Is anyone home?"
Maeve's head popped up for a split second to acknowledge him but then dropped back down – but it was enough for him to notice. Joe stood up so quickly that the wooden dining chair fell backwards against the floor with a bang but he took no notice as he strode over to the kitchen angrily.
"Mary!" he thundered warningly. "If that's what I think…"
Mary dropped the coffee pot on the bench and quickly zoomed over with her palms out calmingly to where her husband was marching toward Maeve. "Now, darling, don't be rash."
Joe's large hands covered both sides of his daughter's face as he lifted it up into the light. Her eyes and cheeks were rosy red from crying but one cheek was extremely hot and scarlet – the skin slightly raised up and welted. He lifted up her palms that were covered in painful looking little gashes and grazes that went down to her wrists. Blood speckled the sleeves of her white shirt.
"Dad, it's not what you're thinking…"
Joe dropped his daughter's arms as he started to shake with rage uncontrollably.
"…I was just being a smart-ass as usual. You know that I sometimes don't know when to stop talking…"
"Joe, you need to stay calm, okay? We'll work this out. Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure…"
"…it was just a little slap out of anger. It looks worse than it is. You know how easily I welt and bruise …"
"You know what we need? Some tea to calm us all down."
"DAMN THE TEA, MARY!" Joe yelled and Maeve jumped at his voice and he immediately felt guilty at scaring her when she was hurt.
He spun on his heel to face his wife. "That…that…jumped up cretin has been beating our child!"
"Dad, he has not been beating me. After he hit me, I stumbled and fell into the glass table. You know how clumsy I can be. That's how I got all these," she explained as if to make him feel better.
"This isn't the first time is it?" Joe said angrily turning to Maeve again. "Is it, Maeve?"
Maeve's mouth fell open to say something but then closed it. That was enough for Joe.
"Did you know about this?" he rounded on Mary who was wafting around one of her incense sticks to create a calming aura.
She exhaled. "Of course I didn't, Joe. Do you think I would've let her go back all those times if I did? Why do you think she's here now? But there's no point getting frazzled."
"Frazzled? FRAZZLED? Mary," Joe pinched the bridge of his nose and paced the kitchen.
Maeve shifted off the counter and wiped her eyes. "I don't want you to fight over this. It's my problem, I can sort it out."
In any other situation, Maeve would have laughed at how her father's expression got more and more incredulous by the second.
"Maeve Emily Donovan, you are the most intelligent person I know but you are horrendously mistaken if you think you're going back to that apartment tonight."
"I have to agree with your father, pumpkin. You're staying here. You're not sorting this out tonight."
Joe nodded. "Yes. I will sort it out."
He grabbed his keys off the counter.
Both women jumped at him.
"You are doing no such thing, Joseph!"
"Dad! No!" Maeve grabbed at his sleeve as he tried to walk down the hallway.
At that moment, Jimmy Donovan's shaggy copper-haired head popped out from his bedroom door to see what all the commotion was about. He hobbled out on crutches from snowboarding in Austria or surfing in Waikiki or skateboarding on the way to one of the many jobs he had. It was hard to keep track.
"Hey, what's going on?" he said sleepily. "Oh! Hey Mae! What are you doing here this late?"
"That polo-shirt wearing, hair-jelled frat boy has been beating your little sister."
"What? Mae! Is that true? That's so uncool!"
"I'm going to go sort him out."
"I'm coming too," Jimmy declared and hobbled after his father.
Maeve grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back. "Absolutely not!"
Jimmy was very tall but a twiggy beanpole even without his injury.
"Dad!" Maeve called out after her father but the door slammed behind him with finality leaving his daughter teary and distraught in the hallway.
"It's okay, darling," Mary said smoothing down Maeve's hair and Jimmy took her small, shivering form in a bear hug that made her injuries ache in protest.
"Jimmy, can you move my art things into Margot's room please so I can set up Maeve's bed?"
After forty-five minutes and three cups of herbal tea, Maeve managed to convince her mother and brother that she was okay to go to bed. She closed the door behind her as she went to her old room. She closed her eyes and slid down the back of the door until she was sitting on the floor. Staring at the ceiling, she wiped away a few stray tears feel particularly pathetic and wondered dramatically how her life had come to this.
It had started out innocently enough. She working at the lab as usual – currently her team were working on a Neurofibromatosis case but she was analysing mutated cells and scans of the tumours by herself.
Her boss absolutely loved her work and picked her up straight away for the University after she lost her job at the hospital after her internship. However, her other, much older colleagues were less than impressed that a twenty-something-year-old had so easily fallen into and excelled in the position that they had spent decades trying to obtain. This isolation forced her to push her desk up against the window and work on her own theories by herself and report her findings directly to her boss.
She had left her desk momentarily to pick up some bloodwork she had requested and when she had returned there was a glass bowl of skilfully arranged forget-me-not's next to her microscope. Bobby had been very cold towards her lately since he had dropped her at work a few weeks ago and incidentally discovered that she was the only female in her department so she was surprised he had sent her flowers. He hadn't given her flowers since their first few date in college.
Maeve left early, placing the flowers carefully in the basket of her bike and rode to their apartment complex nearby. She bounded up the stairs merrily, still tragically giddy from her success at work today. She couldn't wait to share it with Bobby. When she unlocked the door, she found him lying on the couch boredly watching football with the remote resting on his stomach.
"Hello!" she smiled bouncing on her toes holding the bowl of flowers in both hands.
"Hi," Bobby replied half-heartedly not taking his eyes off the game.
"How was your day?"
He shrugged. "Fine."
Maeve was silent for a moment and he glanced over the couch to see her beaming happily and rocking back and forth on her heels expectantly.
He sighed irritably. "…and how was your day, Maeve?"
"It was wonderful. We were studying neurofibromatosis and the patient we were assigned had neurofibromatosis type 1 and had a tumour formation on the brain – that's not wonderful, of course. I didn't mean that. But what was wonderful is that the neurofibromas were benign so they have a much slower growth rate than malignant tumours and the positioning of them should make it relatively easy to operate. They can still cause damage compressing other nerves and tissue so they still have to be taken out but it should be much simpler than we first thought!"
Bobby stared blankly at her lit-up face before sighing out an 'okay then' and going back to the game. Maeve moseyed over to their windowsill and placed the crystal bowl of flowers on the ledge next to the bonsai tree Margot and her husband had given them as an engagement present. Maeve was still in a battle to keep the thing alive. She made a mental note to pick up a book on bonsai trees next time she went to the library.
"Forget-me-not's," she said happily fingering one of the small blue petals.
"Henry David Thoreau wrote: "The mouse-ear forget-me-not, Myosotis laxa, has now extended its racemes very much, and hangs over the edge of the brook. It is one of the most interesting minute flowers. It is the more beautiful for being small and unpretending; even flowers must be modest. Thank you, by the way. They're beautiful. I would have kept them at my desk but I wouldn't put it past one of them to pour hydrochloric acid into them out of bitterness. Did you know that giving flowers as gifts extends back thousands of years to the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and the Chinese as a way of communicating? The custom rose to prominence in the Victorian Era…"
"What?"
"Well, you see, that was in the time when it wasn't the social norm to openly express emotion so…"
"No," Bobby shook his head and his eyes were furious, confusing Maeve. "I didn't send you those."
Maeve drew her hand away from the flowers so fast as if the petals had burned her. "Y-you didn't?"
Bobby was suddenly in front of her, eyes burning with anger. She nervously picked up the bowl and inspected the bottom of it.
"Maybe they're from Mum, then. She's always-"
Bobby smacked the bowl from her hands and it crashed at her feet sending flowers, soil and glass everywhere. She jumped at the noise and even more so at his tone of voice.
"Don't be stupid, Maeve. You know they're from him."
The glass crunched under his shoes as he stepped towards her while yelling. She instinctively moved backwards until she was up against a wall.
"Who is he?!"
"I-I don't know. I told you, I don't know."
Bobby scoffed and Maeve put her arms around herself to stop herself from shaking.
"Maeve, come on. We went to the police and they said it has to be someone you know. You must know if someone is this infatuated by you."
Maeve shook her head from side to side and bit her lip to not cry.
"It has to be someone from your work. You're the only girl there in a whole department of creepy geeks that live in their mother's basements. I told you I didn't like it."
Maeve didn't say anything and that only seemed to make Bobby angrier.
"Are you enjoying this, Maeve? Do you like this attention?"
"Of course I don't! I hate it! I'm scared all the time. I'm scared to open my email or my letters. I even went to the police with you…"
"Yeah, and do you remember what the police said? That it's most likely a current or former lover."
"Well, it's not that…"
"How often is it?" Bobby asked angrily and Maeve felt claustrophobic with the limited space he was giving her as she sunk back into the wall.
"How often what?"
"How often is a stalker a current or former lover?"
"I-I don't know."
"Come on, Maeve, you're a genius after all. You remember everything you've ever heard or read. How often is it?"
"66% of the time," she said quietly. "B-but you know that's not true. I've only ever been with you."
Even though he knew she wasn't lying, it didn't make him any less mad. He gripped her forearms tightly.
"Then someone is getting the wrong idea from you. How do you even act when you're at work or when I'm not around? Do people know that you're engaged?"
"Yes, yes. I think so," Maeve said as Bobby shook her slightly and she tried her hardest to be brave and not cry. "Bobby, you're hurting me."
Bobby spun her around so she wasn't against the wall anymore and let her arms go but still kept advancing towards her.
"Well, you're not acting like it then. I've seen how friendly you are to people and god knows what you're like when I'm not around to see. Pretty little scientist prancing around your laboratory with your silly imagination off with the fairies. It's no wonder men don't realise that you already belong to me."
"I… I don't," she stammered quietly.
"Don't what, Maeve?"
She inhaled shakily. "I…I don't belong to you, Bobby."
The first thing she registered was a loud sound before an intense stinging on her face and a sharp pain in her neck from twisting to the side so suddenly. Her eyes filled with tears at the red-hot pain stinging across her cheek and her heart felt like it was beating in her face.
Maeve reached her hand up to the side of her face in shock and stumbled backwards from the dizziness and bleariness from the tears in her eyes. She felt Bobby's fingers unsuccessfully grapple at her blouse to keep her upright but her knees gave out and she fell back on to the coffee table.
Instinctively, she put her hands out to catch herself but they went through the glass and the pain in her face was quickly overshadowed by the stinging pain in her hands and arms before the unmistakable feeling of wetness soaking through her sleeves.
"Dammit, Maeve!" Bobby said putting his hands behind his head and scrunching his face. "Look what you made me do! You can't say that kind of stuff to me, okay? Not after everything I've done for you. We're a team. One can't be without the other, remember?"
Still in shock, she knelt on the floor covered in and surrounded by glass and the gentle dropping of blood dripping on to the cream carpet.
"A-a-ammonia gets blood out of carpet," Maeve stammered, tears flowing down her face and she was shaking in shock. "There-there-there are two molecules that-that go by the name ammonia. The f-first is a gas, made from a n-n-nitrogen atom and three h-hydrogens."
"You're getting hysterical," Bobby sighed. His voice was softer now – calmer. "I'll go get a cloth from the bathroom."
When he left, Maeve shakily got to her feet and looked at her hands. There were shards of glass stuck in her palms. She wandered over to the front door and mechanically picked up her messenger bag off the hook where she put it every night after work.
When she wandered out into the hall, her elderly neighbour was fiddling with his own set of keys.
'Ammonia gas is also known as anhydrous ammonia, which means ammonia without water. Ammonia reacts with water in the environment very easily, so almost all of the ammonia you will ever encounter is actually ammonium hydroxide.'
"Good evening, young Dr Donovan," he said smiling kindly at her. "Going for a late night walk? Got to be careful these days, especially a nice girl like you. I don't think your fiancé could stand you getting hurt."
'The ammonia molecule steals a hydrogen nucleus from water. This makes the ammonium ion NH4+ and leaves the hydroxyl ion OH- as the only thing left of the water molecule. Since they have opposite charges, they attract one another and hang around the same neighborhood. Household ammonia, used as a cleaning agent, is actually water and ammonium hydroxide.'
Maeve stared back at him with her palms hanging open at her side. He frowned.
"Did you know you're bleeding, pet?"
Maeve heard Bobby calling for her and somehow her feet managed to carry her quickly down the stairs to her bike rack where she undid the lock with shaking, sticky fingers.
'Ammonia is a base, like sodium hydroxide. Like sodium hydroxide, it can react with oils and fats to form soaps. As a cleaner, ammonia turns fats and oils on glass or tile surfaces into soap, and the water in the ammonia solution dissolves the soaps so the sponge or paper towel can carry them away. What is left is a solution of ammonium hydroxide, which then completely evaporates, leaving no streaks on the surface.'
Somehow, her feet managed to automatically pedal her the forty five minute journey to her parents' house outside of the city.
It was very late at night but her mother was still awake and shrieked when she saw her youngest daughter on the front door step – pale as a ghost, blood running down her arms and the side of her face blotchy and red. Her first thought was that the horrible person Maeve had said was sending her frightening letters and phone calls and emails had hurt her somehow.
"Baby, what happened?!"
"D-d-did you know animals make ammonia from proteins in the food they eat, a-and they use the ammonia to neutralize acids in their urine. That's why barns always smell like ammonia." She told her mother before the shock finally took its toll and her knees gave out.
Now she was sitting in her room, staring at the ceiling and contemplating just how much of a pathetically tragic human being she was. She lifted herself up gingerly on her sore hands and sat down at her desk. Maeve always thought it was kind of strange how her parents had left her room exactly the same since she left for University at fifteen. She had lived on campus for the first semester before the incident occurred and then moved back home and commuted from there until she moved out with Bobby after she got her internship at the hospital.
Part of the condition in which her parents let her go to University or college at fifteen was that she attended one in DC. So living at home and traveling to school was relatively easy. In fact, she needed her family the most during that time.
Her childhood desk was as messy as her adult one. Dusty books were piled up high, her sonic screw driver pen was sitting dutifully in her pen pot, there were various diagrams and drawings of molecules strewn across the surface and a metal photo frame she had engineered herself which held a photo of her family and a grainy picture of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look in the mirror that hung directly in front of her desk.
Maeve groaned when she saw that the welt was bruising into a distinguishable dark blue blotch on her face. She touched it tentatively and wondered embarrassedly why it had affected her so powerfully. She was a rambling, nerdy, skinny, child prodigy with a bad attitude and a penchant for proving people wrong in a public high school. She had taken many a hit among worse things. Maybe it was because it was Bobby who was hurting her and he was always the one who had protected her from those people.
"Stop, stop, stop!" she whispered angrily waving at her face as her eyes filled with tears again. "Enough crying you stupid girl."
She studied the bruise again wondering if Margot could somehow cover it so the people at work didn't think of her as any more pathetic and weak as they already did. Margot was always amazing at make-up.
She was so caught up in her thoughts as she stared at her reflection that was making her more nauseous the longer she looked, that she didn't hear the soft knock on her bedroom door followed by her father coming in until he knelt down next to her.
"Dad!" she gasped out in dismay as she saw the smaller but still noticeable bruise underneath his eye. He chuckled as he looked at both their reflections.
"Look at us, hey?"
Maeve smiled weakly but it turned into a strangled sob.
"It's okay, Space Cadet," he said hugging her and patting her back.
"I'm sorry, Dad."
Joe titled his daughters head up, forcing her to look at him. "Maevy. None of this, and I mean, none of this is your fault. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you again. I know I said that after last time but this time, I mean it. No man's ever going to hurt you again."
Maeve knew she sounded weak and pathetic saying it but she couldn't help expressing her fears. "I don't know how to be without him, Dad."
Joe sighed. "He kept you safe when you were most vulnerable. Even I'm thankful for the twit for that. But you don't owe him your whole life. He can't save you only for him to hurt you for himself. That isn't love. That's possession."
She looked into her lap and played with the hem of her shirt.
"Do you love him, Maeve?"
"Maybe? I don't know. I mean, I'd have to analyse my brain activity. It wouldn't be too hard to do actually. I'd just need to measure the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin in the nucleus accumbens."
Joe chuckled and put his arm around her. "Like I always say: 'Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with and love shouldn't be one of them'."
"You've never said that," Maeve frowned. "And you're quoting Tiffanie DeBartolo. It one of Mum's inspirational magnets on the fridge."
"Can't get anything past you, can I?"
"No, but you continue to try."
"Well, you're on your way to thirty now. Got to keep you sharp in your old age."
Maeve shuddered. Thirty.
"What I'm trying to say is, even if you don't believe it in that overcrowded mind of yours, someone is going to absolutely adore everything about you. Not just tolerate all your quirks but love you even more for them."
"Have you been reading Mum's copy of Eat, Pray, Love?"
"No, but I've had to watch Oprah in the waiting room when I take her to her appointments. I picked up a few things. I'm just saying don't give up yet. There's someone for you."
"I suppose I can hold off my subscription to Spinsters Quarterly for another year and take on your profound albeit stolen wisdom."
"That's my girlie," he said ruffling her hair. "Now get some sleep. Your sister's going to be here in the morning and you know Mags is a nosy parker so you'll probably get a grilling."
Maeve groaned. "I guess you're right."
"Goodnight, love you kiddo."
"Love you too, Dad."
I hope you guys didn't mind this Reid-less chapter. This is the first of two-parts of Maeve's "backstory" for now I suppose. The next chapter will be the end of her and Bobby's relationship, the seriousness of her stalking beginning to come to surface and her first correspondence with Reid. I promise it is all relevant to the story. Thank you for reading lovelies.