Thanks for all the reviews, follows and favourites! They're all really nice and encourage me to write.

Also I have to add that this chapter contains abuse, arguing between parents, and reference to self harm. If you're uncomfortable with these, feel free to skip that part.

Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Yelling and screaming could be heard from downstairs. I was curled up, knees to my chest against the wall just to the right of the top of the staircase. Mum and Dad were fighting again. Tears streamed down my cheeks, as I forced myself to stop crying but failed miserably. I didn't understand. I thought they loved each other.

I was only ten, I didn't understand much about this. I didn't understand why my parents always argued. And worst of all my father took it all out on me. He was the one with the temper. He would explode at the drop of a hat.

My sister, Laura, was his favourite. She was a few years older than me, and he had always favoured her. My mother would try and make things equal, but my father would just yell at her and tell her to shut up. He always tried to be dominant.

CRASH!

I leapt up, dashing down the stairs and standing outside the kitchen door. My parents were yelling at each other and it was obvious my mother was crying.

"Why Steven? Why did you do it?"

"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP WOMAN! I AM THE BOSS OF THIS HOUSE, AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!"

I didn't dare to enter. I would be beaten and screamed at. And worst of all my mother would have to watch. She was the only one that truly loved me. My sister was an obstinate, stuck up prat who always thought she was the best, obviously because of the way my father treated her.

My mother was nice to me. When my father wasn't around, we'd do mother and daughter things together. It was one of the only parts of my childhood that I truly enjoyed.

"How can you betray me like that? SHE WAS A BLOODY PROSTITUTE! YOU'RE MY HUSBAND AND YOU SLEPT WITH A FUCKING PROSTITUTE IN OUR BED!"

SLAP!

I winced as I heard a scream from my mother. What was my life? Why couldn't I have normal parents who loved each other?

"YOU WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN'T DO! I THINK YOU DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED FOR THIS!"

"NO, for God's sake! Who are you Steven? I thought I loved you, but I was wrong. You're an abusive, selfish son of a bitch. You don't give two fucks about me. You don't treat me with any respect whatsoever. I tell you what, go take our marriage certificate and stick it RIGHT UP YOUR ARSE!"

Another scream and sob was heard from my mother as she fell to the floor. The tears were now streaming down my cheeks as I quickly wiped them away with my sleeve.

"FINE! YOU'RE NOT WORTHY ENOUGH TO BE MY WIFE ANYWAY! AND GO TAKE THAT BITCH OF A DAUGHTER WITH YOU TOO. YOU'RE NOT HAVING LAURA. GO AND FUCKING FIND SOMEONE WHO YOU THINK IS 'BETTER FOR YOU'. FUCK OFF!"

My heart almost leapt out of my chest as the kitchen door flew open and my father stepped out into the hallway. When he saw me, fire burned in his eyes. I was absolutely petrified.

"YOU," he roared, grabbing me by my collar and lifting me in the air til I was level with him. "Were you listening?! Were you spying on us?!"

"No, Dad," I sobbed, and I screamed out as he slammed me against the wall, causing every bone in my body to spear me with pain.

"YOU WERE, YOU LITTLE BITCH! YOU WERE LISTENING IN!"

He slapped me across the face, then let me drop to the floor with a thud. I screamed out and tried to run, but his boot slammed me in the ribs, knocking the wind out of me. Nothing would help me.

"Dad I'm sorry," I cried but he ignored me and instead reached for the baseball bat. Suddenly he wasn't my father any more, he was a horrible, cruel monster, like in a fairytale. The monster that the good guys have to defeat. Except there were no good guys to defeat him.

And he lifted the bat in the air, and I could almost feel the impact already. I screamed out, as the bat was swung at my head in slow motion. Everything slowed down. It was only me and him in the entire world.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, NATASHA!"

/\\\

Sweat pouring down my forehead, I bolted upright. As my eyes began to refocus, I could just make out the outline of an unfamiliar place. Then it all came flooding back to me. It was only a nightmare. None of that was really happening to me. At least not any more.

It seemed that I had a flashback. A flashback of when my parents got divorced. My life wasn't all goody-goody. There were bad moments too, but there were also good moments, for instance meeting Dan.

Then I realised; where was I? My heart drummed like a baton against my chest. I looked around. Unfamiliar surroundings. I looked down. I was in a bed. A thick duvet was covering me. I looked across. It was a double bed. And someone else was on the other side.

Everything came flooding back to me. Last night. After the game of Mario, which Dan and I won, I fell asleep on the sofa after a popcorn fight. I wasn't in the living room any more. And when I looked, it was Dan next to me.

A thought suddenly occurred. But we couldn't have done anything, right? I had fallen asleep. I had clothes on. If you could call a bra and knickers clothes. Wait, why was I only in my bra and knickers?

When I had kicked this unexpected flurry of thoughts from my mind, my thoughts returned to the nightmare. That had actually happened. And thinking about it made tears prick at the corners of my eyes.

Soon they were streaming down my cheeks. The more I thought about it, the worst it got. I started sobbing, but not wanting to wake Dan up, I buried my head into the pillow and let it absorb my tears. But unfortunately, Dan did wake up.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he said sleepily, reaching an arm over and around my back. I continued to sob into the pillow, clutching the sides in a death grip.

"I-I don't really want to talk about it," I said but the pillow muffled my voice. Whispering calming things to me, he shuffled across the bed and held me tightly against him.

"You can tell me anything," he smiled against my ear, holding me as I sobbed into the pillow. I turned over and wrapped my arms around him, crying against his chest.

I had only just met him a day ago, and was contemplating on whether I should trust him with this information. Rose barely knew anything about it. I always clammed up whenever she asked. I wanted to forget my past and move on. But it always came back to haunt me.

"I-I don't know. Can I trust you? I only met you yesterday," I asked him, and he gazed down into my eyes. Inside the deep brown depths all I could see was kindness and maybe even love. Like he actually cared and wanted to protect me, to help me.

"Of course you can trust me. I want to help you, be there for you. But you don't have to. But it does help if you tell someone instead of keeping it all locked up."

He had a point there. Maybe I could tell him, and then he could maybe help me to forget my past for good.

"Yeah, but I don't think you'd want to hear it," I told him, and he just kissed my forehead. I smiled against his chest.

"Why not? Is it about family?"

"Yes."

"Oh... so do you want to tell me? I really want to help you."

"You really want to know?" I look up at him and he nods.

"Yes, I want to be there for you."

He really was sweet sometimes. I shuffled up and lay back on my pillow, and he lay next to me. We turned on our sides and faced each other, our hands clasped together in the middle.

I took a deep breath and he urged me on with a smile which brought out his adorable dimples. I couldn't ever say no to those dimples.

"Right... so since I was about five, my parents started arguing constantly. Every time I went downstairs, they were yelling and screaming at each other. My sister Laura was no help. She was my Dad's favourite since she was born. He treated her like a princess. So she became this stuck up bitch who always thought she was better than me. I hated her. We never talked and when we did, we were arguing. We weren't really proper sisters in a way, I guess we were kind of enemies.

"So my parents argued day in and day out, throwing things at each other. My father thought he was the boss of the house and always treated my mother like she was less than him. She's told me she's been wanting to divorce him for years, but was afraid that it would affect us as her children. She was the only one that truly loved me. When my father wasn't around, we'd go out and do stuff together. We were really close."

A lone tear escaped from my eye, and rolled down my cheek. Dan gently brushed it away with his thumb and I smiled, continuing.

"But w-when my Dad got angry he took it all out on me. He used to beat me, and sometimes in front of my mother. I hated my father, he was always so horrible to me. And my sister went round telling everyone at school that I was a fat no life prick who was boring to hang around with. So I barely had any friends. I got bullied. Then... then..."

I was actually sobbing now, but Dan whispered to me to shh, and reached an arm around to rub my back soothingly.

I looked him straight in the eyes. "My life got so depressing. I felt like I was worthless shit. I-I started to cut myself."

His eyes went wide, as I showed him the faint scars on my wrist. "I stopped a few years ago when life got better. When I went to uni I met Rose and Lydia and Cat. Then I knew what it was truly like to have friends. I am so grateful for them."

He shushed me and gently patted my back, bringing my arm up to his lips, and kissing each scar individually. I felt so loved. Someone actually cared about me.

"Natasha, you are not worthless shit. I'm glad you stopped. There really was no need; self harm solves nothing."

"That's what I learnt, eventually," I smiled as he continued peppering kisses on my scarred wrist. "I kept it from all my friends. But after five years of this constant abuse and arguing between my parents, they..."

I choked back another sob and Dan shuffled closer to me, pulling me into his body and wrapping his arms around me. "This was in my nightmare. I was ten years old. My parents were arguing downstairs in the kitchen. My Dad had betrayed my Mum... he slept with a prostitute."

"Oh God Natasha, I'm so sorry," Dan said, kissing my cheek.

"They were fighting. I went downstairs to listen. My Dad was beating up my mother. She told him... she told him she wanted to divorce him. He went mental. He stormed out and found me there, and he took out all his anger on me."

"Shh, shh, it's OK, I'm here," Dan whispered against my neck, as I broke down into sobs and snuggled closely into him.

"I ended up in hospital with a cracked skull. He hit me with a baseball bat."

"Fuck," Dan hissed silently.

"So my parents divorced and I went to live with my Mum. My sister went with my Dad and we never saw them again. Thank fucking God. I hated them both. And from then life went uphill. We moved away, and I went to a new school. I was slightly traumatised, but I made a few good friends. Yeah."

"Thank you for telling me," Dan said, pulling me close as I cried against him. "I'm so sorry about what happened with your parents. I wish I could've done something to help."

"For one, go and beat up my dickhead of a father," I chuckled, and he smiled back. "He annoyed me so much."

"I wish I could."

I continued to cry whilst he held me for a while, just letting my tears out. Tears helped me. They relieved the stress. They made me feel better. Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep.

After a while when my tears slowed down, Dan whispered to me, "Feeling any better?"

"A bit," I admitted, rolling onto my back, and stretching my aching limbs. "I've been meaning to ask you, what happened last night? Why am I in my bra and knickers?"

He blushed bright red. "Nothing happened. You fell asleep on the sofa. You were sweating and looked rather hot, so I carried you in here and tried to cool you down. Don't worry, I didn't look, and your clothes are over there by the cushion."

I wouldn't have minded if you did look, was what I really wanted to say.

"Oh," I smiled sheepishly, contemplating whether to pull the sheet up to cover my exposed body, or to just leave it. I decided to leave it. "So what's the time?"

Dan rolled over and checked the bedside clock. "Half eight in the morning. A bit earlier than usual for me, but oh well. Want to get up?"

I jolted in surprise when I heard some footsteps outside. It must be Phil.

"Dan? You awake?" he called out through the door.

"Yeah, why?"

"I'll get you two some breakfast just for today. But you're getting lunch. Delia Smith pancakes?"

Dan looked to me expectantly. I nodded and mouthed, with lemon and sugar.

"Yeah please, two with lemon and sugar. Cheers, Phil."

"Don't expect me to do this all the time, I'm feeling in a kind mood at the moment."

We both chuckled and lifted the duvet off of ourselves. My eyes widened when I realised he was only in boxers. And blimey did he have a nice body. But I tried my hardest not to stare too much.

"Right, shall we get up?" Dan exclaimed, climbing out of bed and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Yeah, I guess," I replied, almost rolling out of bed and onto the floor.

/\\\

We sat at the table munching on our pancakes and telling everyone how delicious they were. Dan and Phil were chatting about their radio show and I listened in, occasionally asking questions that they eagerly answered. Until we heard a knock at the door, which sent us all bolting upright.

"Are you expecting anyone?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, and both shook their heads.

"No. I'll get it," Phil said, reluctantly getting out of his chair and walking towards the door. When he opened it, he was met with the sight of a very shocked, and most definitely excited Rose.

Other people say this, and I am going to reinforce it. Abuse or self harm is never the right answer. Always tell someone if any of these happen to you.

Please review, follow and favourite. I read every single review, and your kind feedback makes me smile! And wasn't Dan and Phil's radio show yesterday totally epic?

See you when I post the next chapter :)