Chapter Fourteen

A/N: Thank you to AFemaleWarrior for reviewing the last chapter.

For minutes, the woman kept her eyes closed. She could not stand the thought that her Madeleine, her little girl, had been killed right in front of her, and knew that, if she opened her eyes now, the image before her could only confirm that fact. Even after all those years apart, or perhaps because of them, Julia knew in her heart that the sight of her only child dead as a result of her actions would kill her as well.

She could hear movement in the room, just a little, and assumed that it must be Roger, disregarding the body of the child that he had just murdered to continue with whatever horrific plans he had for the psychiatrist. But she found that she didn't care any longer. Maddy was gone, lying dead on the floor, so he could do what he wanted to her. She doubted that she would even try to stop him. Not now.

Suddenly, Julia felt a pressure on her wrists, and she could feel the presence of a figure beside her, attempting to untie the bonds that held her to the radiator. The person, whoever they were, did not speak a word to her, but when she had been freed from the ropes, the redhead recognised the scent of a certain aftershave, and immediately fell sobbing into the arms of her husband.

"Julie, it's alright, I'm here. I'm here." Caleb told her, holding the woman tighter than she had ever been held. She was shaking uncontrollably, as was he, she noticed, and even through all of the pain she was going through, she found herself glad that her husband was here to share the burden with her, knowing that he was the only person that would truly understand how she felt at that moment.

"Caleb, I tried to stop him, but I couldn't." Julia cried, clutching tightly to the man at her side as the tears flooded from her eyes like a waterfall. She felt as if she were drowning, clinging onto her husband to keep herself alive, but slipping further and further away from reality. 'I wish I was drowning.' the woman thought bitterly. 'At least then I wouldn't have to my baby taken away.'

"Julie, it's alright. It doesn't matter now, he's not going to hurt anyone else." Julia's head shot up, her eyes wide in horror. She could not have heard him correctly. Caleb would never be so heartless as to be the voice of optimism when his own daughter, a little child, lay dead on the floor. He would never be.

"How can you say that?" the redhead whispered, still trying to convince herself that he had not spoken the words she had heard him say. She took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself a little. It had always been a successful technique in the past, but when she was in such a state of despair, it served no purpose, and her next question came out as a scream of pain. "How can you be so heartless?!"

"Julie, you don't understand." Caleb reasoned with his wife, and still his voice was so unbelievably calm. "You don't know what's happened. This isn't what you think."

"Not what I think? Not what I think?" Julia asked, steadily becoming hysterical. If she had been calmer, she would have considered the irony of a doctor of psychiatry appearing so out of control, particularly in the house where she worked as a therapist for a member of the family that lived there. But in her current state, she could feel nothing but the blinding pain of her heart shattering in her chest, and she began to hit out at her husband. "My daughter, our daughter, is dead! She was murdered, and you don't even seem to care! How can that possibly not be what I think?!"

"Julia, turn around." Caleb instructed, his voice soft and yet the authority in it so clear. If his intention had been to shock her into submission, his aim had been achieved, as Julia immediately froze, her face the very picture of the horror in her heart. However, instead of the frustration the woman had expected in his tone, she soon realised that he was not angry. He was pleading. "Julie, please... just trust me, and do it. Please."

But when she heard his voice, and the tears of desperation that she knew he was attempting to hold back, Julia knew immediately what she was going to do. The haze of despair that had fallen over her mind had just begun to clear, and the redhead understood that her husband needed her just as much as she needed him. 'I guess it's time to face the music.'

And so, before she could change her mind, the woman turned her head to the side, facing the darkness of the room, which unfortunately did not hide the two bodies lying motionless on the floor. The redhead's heart plummeted to the floor, her final shred of hope torn away from her at the sight of her daughter, pale and still.

Then she noticed something, something that was so important and yet she had never even seen it before, unable to truly notice anything beyond the terrible depths of her own grief. Through the tears that had blurred her vision, she had overlooked the one detail that changed everything, and made all the fear and the sorrow and the heartache dissipate into the distance.

Balancing on legs so violently shaking that they could hardly support her weight, Julia stood from the floor and crossed the room, walking barely three steps before bending down again, by the side of her child. Tentatively, fearful of losing any more hope than she already had done, Dr. Hoffman turned Madeleine onto her side, exposing what she had expected to be a cotton dress stained with crimson. But she was wrong. There was no stain, only clear fabric.

'This makes no sense.' Ironically, this was the only thought that the redhead manage to process, in the load that fluttered around her brain like moths near a burning candle, and to try and prove herself correct, she began to feel blindly around her daughter's neck, searching for the beat beneath her skin that would confirm what she so wished to be true.

But then it happened. The movement that gave her the confirmation she had wished for, made all the pain worthwhile and gave her the determination she needed to carry on. A pair of eyes flashed widely open, glancing around the room, before finally coming to rest on the faces of her parents. Julia let out a gasp of disbelief.

"Maddy."

A/N: Please review!