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Chapter 3

The light had come on. Don's mind was so sluggish that the implications of that took a while to penetrate. Maybe his captor had changed his mind. Maybe Don wasn't going to be left to die.

He didn't have enough energy to try to get off the floor when the door opened, the man appearing, gun in hand as always, but this time carrying a baseball bat in the other as well, swinging it as he walked.

"You didn't mean to talk, did you?" the man asked him, almost sounding regretful.

Don shook his head slightly.

"And you know what you did was wrong?"

It hurt to do, to give the man that much control over what Don did, but he nodded anyway. Survival was more important than pride.

"Good." The man smiled. "You're learning. You've been the most stubborn one I've had in a while, but you're learning."

The condescension helped to focus Don's mind and bring back a spark of the anger that he'd felt. He knew that he was fracturing, falling apart, under the mental and emotional onslaught of his captivity. The slide into despair had been so easy, the way slicked by his complete isolation from people and life.

"You may not have meant to talk, but you did."

Don knew that this had been too easy. After all, his captor had said that he'd leave Don to die.

"I can't let you get off without a punishment."

What, this hasn't been punishment enough?

"So, you have a choice. I leave you here without food and water and you die...or you become acquainted with the business end of this bat. It's your choice. I'll give you a few minutes to think about it."

It's my choice? There is no choice.

The only choice Don had was to accede to the beating. Short term pain, after all, was better than a definite death. At least, at this point. Maybe he'd change his mind about that later on.

"Made your choice?"

Don nodded.

"Do I leave you?"

Don briefly closed his eyes and then shook his head.

"The bat, then?" The man asked, holding it up in the air and forcing Don to agree to being hurt.

Again, Don nodded.

The gun was holstered. Even though Don knew that he probably didn't have the energy to get away, he knew that he had to try. It might be the only time where the gun wasn't a risk. He pushed against the floor, finding strength he didn't think he had, and tried to stand up. But it was already too late; the bat slammed into his stomach and he fell back to the cold concrete. Blow after blow fell against his torso and arms, and he got lost in a haze of hurt. There was a crack and excruciating pain radiated from his lower right arm. He'd stayed silent till that point, but the pain from the break was too much and he screamed. His captor didn't stop the assault, continuing on until Don could feel himself starting to fade away. Only when there was no new pain for a minute or so did Don realise that it had finally ended. The bat was used one last time to prod him over onto his back, forcing him to uncurl and causing his arm to hit the floor, plunging him into unconsciousness.

He drifted in and out, aware enough at times to swallow the water and sports drinks that were held to his lips and the mushy food that was forced into his mouth, but not enough to realise that it was his captor who was helping him. The pain was ever-present, the man wasn't kind enough to give him painkillers or to try to splint his arm in any way. Sometimes he threw up what he'd been given, the nausea caused by the constant pain too much. Those times always ended in more agony and a sudden abrupt drop out of consciousness, his jailor angry with him for making a mess.

Finally, Don's brain seemed to clear and he could stay awake. He was exhausted, weak, and everything hurt. There was spectacular bruising on his right arm and it was swollen. Not having a splint, he did his best to provide some support for the break by wrapping the bottom of his t-shirt around his arm, past his elbow. He had no idea whether the bones were properly aligned, but there was nothing he could really do about it. He'd lost more weight in the days that he'd lost (and the days before that) and had to tighten his belt again.

When his captor next appeared, instead of the glass of water that Don was normally given, there was milk. The trays even seemed to start coming more regularly and Don was able to eventually loosen his belt a notch. The light was even left on for longer.

Don didn't know what to think any more.

The soft light of sunrise diffused through the curtains had finally brightened the room enough that Robin could start to see the photo. She stayed on her side, watching as more and more detail appeared.

His smile, his nose, his eyes.

Her arms wrapped around his neck, her head beside his, her smile. Happy.

Two hours later, her alarm started beeping and she turned it off. She didn't need an alarm now, but she still set it each night in the hope that, maybe, it would finally be the night that she slept the whole way through instead of waking well before dawn. Half an hour later, she got out of bed.

Robin showered and ate breakfast mechanically, relieved that her parents weren't awake yet, before holing herself up in her study. The temptation to go into Don's was there, but, as always, she ignored it, after a brief hesitation. It was stupid, but she wanted it to be the same, exactly the same, if...

Burying herself in work had become Robin's salvation. Her family and Don's wouldn't allow her to completely hide in it, as much as she might have wished that they would, but it allowed her to almost forget, even if it was only for a little while.

At lunch time, Robin's mother knocked on the door. Knowing that the concern that her mother would show if she avoided them wasn't worth the privacy, Robin joined her parents to eat. Her parents talked quietly between themselves, not attempting to include her in the conversation, and for that she was grateful.

The morning had started off sunny, but patchy cloud was coming in, Robin noted when she rinsed her plate and glass in the sink. It wasn't moving fast; blue sky would probably dominate for a few more hours. It was a beautiful day.

She shut herself in her study again and started making notes for the arguments she planned to use. The focus that she'd had in the morning was gone, it took her several seconds each time to realise that she'd dropped her pen and was staring into space. Not arbitrary space, though; somehow she always ended up staring at the clock, watching the seconds tick past. If it had been the previous clock she'd had, she wouldn't have had to watch the seconds tick past, she'd have heard them disappear into memory. She'd loved that clock, but Don had hated it, hated how loud the ticking was if the room was quiet, so she'd put it in her study. When every second that passed suddenly meant another second without him, she'd understood how he felt. She'd tried to throw it away, but it had become unnecessary when Amita had discovered her sobbing in front of the trash can, unable to let it go. It was another reminder of Don, a memory that they shared. It didn't go in the trash, instead it was hidden away somewhere in Charlie's house, waiting for things to change and to be wanted again.

When she realised that it'd reached quarter to three, she forced herself to not look at the clock. To try not to think. Or notice that it was still sunny outside, the cloud sticking to the horizon.

The number of pages that she read through in the next two hours was pitiful, but she managed to not look at the clock, even once. She emerged when she started smelling dinner and joined her parents in front of the television as it finished cooking, curling up on the sofa.

Dinner was a repeat of lunch—her parents left her alone. After another couple of hours of work, she finally headed to bed, stopping to give both her parents hugs and say good night.

"Thank you," Robin said to them both, and she meant it.

On her side in her bed again, Robin kept the lamp on for a while, wanting to see the photo, wanting to see that they were happy. Needing to see Don's face.

She finally let the thoughts that she'd been trying to keep at bay all day crowd into her mind. She shouldn't be in her bed, in her house. She should be in a hotel, with Don. And her finger should now have another ring on it, to match the ring that would be on Don's. She should be married now.

If Don had purposely disappeared and left her (which she didn't really believe) and finally did come back again, at some point in the future, she didn't want him back. Not now. Not when he'd missed their wedding day.

Robin turned the lamp off and their smiling faces disappeared.

"Don," Terry said, warning in her voice, "we're meant to be studying."

"We're taking a break."

Terry was lying on her bed, head propped up slightly on her pillow, book opened. Don had mostly been able to ignore her position for the majority of their study session—he did have some self-restraint—but the longer it had gone on, the more distracting it became. He wanted to be on top of her, both of them naked. To that end, he'd climbed up her body and tried to pull the book from her grasp. She wasn't letting go.

"Fine," she breathed out in a put-upon sigh, releasing her grip. "But if you can't describe Stockholm Syndrome tomorrow, don't blame me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Don murmured, moving the book to the side and letting her pull him down for a kiss. When they pulled apart and he opened his eyes again, it was Robin's blue eyes looking back at him.

"I've missed you," she said, longing in her voice.

Don woke, the dream, part memory, part not, fresh in his mind. He'd unconsciously moved his arm and he hissed in pain.

The dream had been a warning, he realised. Since his captor had broken his arm and beaten him, Don hadn't even thought about escaping. He hadn't tried to stay conscious after he'd been dosed for his 'cleaning'—there was relief from the pain then. He'd just been grateful for the light being left on longer and more regular food. Grateful to the man who was holding him captive, to the man who'd beaten him, who was keeping him from his family. He'd been lost in a stupor, not really thinking at all, aware of the pain and not much else for who knows how long.

He'd been broken...but he was better now. It was time to fight again.

It didn't take Alan long to spot Robin. He walked over to the koi pond and joined her in contemplation.

"For some reason," Alan said after a few seconds of silence, noting the tense line of her back and the way her arms were tightly wrapped around her stomach, "whenever one of my family disappears," he winced at the choice of word, feeling the familiar pull of grief, "in this house I always find them out here, contemplating the koi."

"I'm not married to Don, Alan. I'm not part of your family," Robin replied, sounding weary.

"You are part of my family, Robin. You may not legally be part of the family, but that doesn't matter. Don loves you and that's all that matters."

Her breath hitched and her shoulders started shaking. Tears were something that she'd largely tried to hide from Alan, maybe because she knew that he was hurting just as much as she and didn't want to make it worse. For only the second time in the years that his son and Robin had been together, Alan pulled Robin into his arms and tried to comfort her. It only took a few minutes for the crying spell to run its length, and she pulled away from him again, grabbing a tissue out of her pocket to wipe at her eyes and nose.

"It's hard, seeing Charlie and Amita moving on, despite everything that's happened. The baby, in particular," Alan said astutely. As much as Amita's pregnancy was a source of joy for him, it was also a source of sorrow, and he could only imagine that it was worse for Robin, left to wonder whether she and Don would still be, or would have been, blessed by children. Left to see Charlie and Amita's lives moving forward together when hers and Don's couldn't.

"Don and I," Robin said quietly, "we hadn't decided. About children, I mean." She looked at the koi before continuing. "We both work such long hours, we're older, we didn't know whether it would be fair to have a child. Or even whether we could."

Alan could understand their worry.

"To be honest," Robin added, barely audible, "I wasn't sure I even wanted one. But now..."

"You don't get a choice. Not unless Don is found."

Robin rapidly shook her head. "If he walked away from me, if he just left me, I don't want him back. It's too late. And if someone took him...part of me wants him to still be alive, to come home to me. But part of me hopes that he's dead, because it's been too long. What could..." Her voice broke. "What could have happened to him in three months? How much could he have been hurt? What could he have been through?"

"I have the same feelings, believe me," Alan said. Except, if Don had left of his own free will, which none of them believed, Alan did want him back. He would shout and yell at him for what Don had put Alan through, for what he'd put everybody through, but he still needed him back.

"I don't know how much longer I can hope that he'll come back." A tear had slipped down Robin's cheek and she brushed it away. "I feel like I'm betraying him even saying that."

"At some point," Alan said slowly, his own heart heavy and aching, "we have to try to move on with our lives. Without him."

And it'll be so incredibly hard that you'll have no idea how you're going to do it, how you'll survive it, Alan thought. But you can. And that hurts, too.

"I miss him so much, Alan." The words were raw, full of pain.

"I know." Alan put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "I know."

Maybe it was Don's seeming lack of interest in life, in fighting any more, but his captor was falling into a pattern and becoming complacent. Don was almost certain of it. The drugging seemed to happen more regularly, and with the fact that Don was pretending to fall asleep, anyway, after a lot of his meals—captivity and pain were exhausting and depressing after all—Don had a feeling that his day was coming closer. The last time he'd been drugged, Don had managed to stay awake long enough to hear his captor open the door. It was a first, but Don was going to make sure it wasn't a last. He thought his body was getting more used to the drug with the more regular doses, enough that it was slower with taking effect. Not by much, but maybe enough to tip things in his favour.

Don knew that he was likely only going to get one chance, and if he failed he'd probably end up dead, considering his captor's explosive temper. Which meant he had to do whatever it took, he had to aim to kill or at least heavily incapacitate.

His meal arrived and Don ignored it, as he had been doing, before eventually 'noticing' it. It was part of his act. His dinner was a kid-sized greasy burger, mostly cold after sitting there for a while, with some limp salad to go with it and a glass of milk. Don choked most of it down, fairly certain that it was drugged. Once he'd finished, he pushed the tray away and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. He let his head gradually fall forward and to the side and his arms relax, feigning the appearance of sleep.

Just when he was becoming certain that, yes, his meal had been drugged—there was a lethargy starting to spread throughout his body—he heard the door open. It felt like forever before footsteps approached him, stopping right in front. He could hear his captor breathing, loud in the silence, and before the drug could drag him off into unconsciousness, he abruptly opened his eyes. A split second was all that he needed to see the shape that was crouched in front of him. Don leaned forward and grabbed the startled man by the shoulders, ignoring the fact that his arm still hurt with movement, before pushing back towards the wall as hard as he could, slamming his captor's head into the brick above him. His strike had been as quick as a snake, the man hadn't had a chance to fight back. An unfortunate byproduct was that he hit the back of his own head against the wall.

He shook off the dazed feeling and repeated the process, hearing something crunch above him. As Don was fighting off the blackness himself, having yet again hit his own head gaining the momentum needed, a heavy weight fell on him. The man had collapsed on top of him. It took all of Don's strength to push him off, feeling something snap in his arm again, and stand up, staggering in place. The drug's effect was increasing, the pain in his arm was excruciating again, and his head was aching and spinning. He put his left hand to the back of it and it came back wet and sticky. He was bleeding. Knowing that he was going to collapse any minute himself, Don did the only thing he could to guarantee his safety.

It happened in a haze. It was like he was barely aware that his left hand was punching his captor over and over again in the face. Getting bloody, his knuckles splitting and bruising. He continued until he couldn't any more, until his legs weren't holding him up, and he'd crashed to his knees, still not stopping. Until his eyes shut and he fell the last few feet to the floor to not move any more.

TBC...