A/N: How about a little Naomily? Yes? Ok, then. R&R, lovelies. You know you rock. ENJOY!

Here I am, lying in this freezing bed surrounded by four hollow walls that has never felt more foreign to me than what they do right now. Walls that have closed in and allowed me to be the center of attention oh so many times before. The center of attention inside a world I never really wanted to reside in, in the first place.

Freddie and I paced the same gravel road back to the reality we constantly keep running away from and parted at our red mailboxes, him turning left and me turning right but both heading for identical doors that hides so incredibly different lives and stories inside.

And here I am, lying amongst all these hidden secrets of mine, but only manage to think about the biggest one I've been carrying around for years and still do to this day.

It's a Thursday evening in the middle of December and I'm getting closer and closer to my front door with every heavy step I'm taking. With heavy ankles that probably looks like their dragging the chains from an entire state prison from a distance, just because I know what to expect when I get to that house. Just because I know what's hiding behind that white picket fence dream at the end of this road.

Just because I already know what's going to happen and that's why I've never walked slower than what I'm doing in this very moment.

The Fitches has a couple of lights on that leaves a faint glimmer upon this snow covered road that would be endless if I got to choose. Warm, indicating lights that are telling me that my final destination is just a few steps away now. Away from a door I'd rather pass than through my own.

And as I leave my footprints with lingering steps on this freshly fallen snow that'll soon be covered yet again as if I never paced this ground in the first place, I see the lights inside that house of mine as well, glowing with far from the same warmth as the house beside it.

I don't have time to take my shoes off before it begins.

I don't even make it to the carpet before I feel the first blow against my frosty cheek.

"Where the hell have you been?"

His fuming voice indicates a boiling blood inside his veins, a blood that never existed inside mine and I always wonder where he gets it from. I always wonder who it is that have created this raging beast within him.

When this happens, it's always when mom is out of town. That, and he being drunk. That's the only time he actually hits me. Something about healing and marks being gone when she returns.

I don't even have to lift my gaze to know how dark his eyes are in this very moment. I don't even have to look at him to know how his jaw is set and how he probably reflects the same color as the sky above us outside. How he mirrors the exact same darkness.

"Answer me!" he yells and I can smell the alcohol from miles away. It doesn't really matter what I say. There's not a single answer in this world that could save me from this. That could prevent this from actually happening.

"I was at work." I silently whisper as I cautiously try to soothe my now burning cheek with my hand.

"You were supposed to end your shift two hours ago. Don't bullshit me! Why haven't you done the dishes?" He growls, growing more furious by the second.

"I had to work an extra shift. Nina called in sick today, so I had to take her place. I didn't have time.." I try vainly. It was the best excuse that came to my mind. It was the closest non-existing truth I actually could muster up with.

"Bullshit!"

Another strike to my face. This time hitting my lower lip and re-opening a wound that never really healed in the first place. A wound I never think will heal anyway.

But I'm not giving in. I'm not showing any sign of pain and I'm not giving up. I'll never expose my vulnerability for someone like Tom.

And this is where it all begins. The round started mere moments ago and what's ahead of me is what I've been dreading all the way from the bus stop where I started taking those torturing steps. We don't need words and there are no excuses that could save me now.

He forces my frightened stare to meet his with a stranglehold around my neck that only spurs him on even more. That only makes him tighten his grip with those strong fingers that makes me gasp for air that doesn't live inside this room nor in this house or in this moment. That I never really think ever have existed.

And I know how he loves seeing me this way. How he loves seeing me bleed down his solid hands.

"You fucking bitch! Look at you! Your filthy blood all over my shirt." He says with a mocking sneer upon his lips while he grips even harder. While he's draining me on everything that is me. "Guess you have some laundry to do now, cunt."

I can feel how my back collides with the front door with a slam and how the door handle pushes into the small of my back as he releases my throat and shoves me backwards.

Forcefully I try to gasp for air which I hate doing in front of him.

A knee takes off and comes crashing into my stomach as a fist flies to my nose and if I didn't know better I'd think it just broke. If I didn't know better I'd think I'd die right here and now while standing on my thin and wobbly legs, feeling the blood stream down my face.

"You disgust me." He spitefully says before finishing this one way struggle off with a rough kick to my back that throws me off my legs and makes me fall to the dirty floor, bloodier and emptier than ever before.

With only one eye open I can see how his footsteps quickly disappear from my peripheral vision as I start to count.

1,

2,

3,

4,

5,

6..

I don't know what time it is. I don't know how long I've been lying here. I don't know when I stopped counting. I don't know anything.

The only thing I feel is the dried blood on my face that constricts the skin when slowly trying to pry my eyes open and a searing ache that only grows by the second. By every waken breath that I take.

A rush of panic spreads through my body.

Darkness surrounding me. Tom must've gone to bed and here I lie like a corpse that's been swept under the carpet with probably some broken bones and a way too bloody face.

If I stay here he'll just beat me again. If I get up and walk up those stairs he'll wake up by the creaking sound from the sixth step that always echoes throughout this empty house. I have to get out of here.

My eyes have begun to adjust to the dimness and I can distinguish the outlines of the living room right ahead of me. I can feel the dust from the cold floor that's seeping through my nose and starts to itch inside my throat. I'm carefully stirring my fingers awake, trying to see if every one is still intact.

Step by step.

Then the arms. A blazing pain from my left side stretches throughout my whole body that clearly indicates an injured shoulder. The right arm seems to be relatively unharmed though.

I use the strength that I have to shuffle over the floor and up against the door with it and manage to put myself in a sitting position. A forceful headache with the strength from a thousand hurricanes circulates behind my eyelids and I can't really see straight.

I have to get out of here. I have to get away from here, now.

I don't know I got up or how long it took me but what I do know is that I'm standing on the porch outside, looking at an illuminated residential area without the slightest clue of where to go.

The cold December air soothes my wounds and I would stay out here all night if it weren't for the fact that I'd eventually freeze to death. As I slowly turn my head to the left to allow the frosty breeze to ease the remaining damages that hasn't been getting enough attention from the icy snow flakes, it hits me.

As I see a faint light burn in the middle of this freezing night through the window in the otherwise dark house next to me, I know exactly where to go. The only place that my body allows me to go.

I don't really know her and I guess she knows just as little about me but she lives inside the only house that could ever give me the safety that I'm in need of right now. And inside this moment, with a growing ache inside this fragile body of mine, I couldn't care less about our clumsy, awkward and meaningless exchange of words throughout the years.

Knock.

Knock.

I let the only intact part of me loosely drop to my side as I await an answer. A single sign that tells me someone heard me. That someone's there.

But nothing. Nothing at all. Not even the slightest of movement.

So I try again.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

A little harder this time. But delicately enough to let the sleeping forms continue their deep rest. Hard enough to stir the awaken person but faintly enough to not alert those sleeping souls.

As I notice how the cold wind is starting to take a different direction and instead of relieving me from pain but letting me shiver from the cold, I'm hoping that she heard me this time. That someone heard me. Anyone.

So I wait.

I wait a little bit longer.

But still. No answer.

It's just when I'm about to turn and walk away after giving up all hopes of waking up from this awful nightmare that I hear footsteps shuffle down the stairs on the other side. Delicate footsteps that are closing in and approaching the front door that I'm currently occupying with my mere presence.

I didn't even have time to register her staring me down through the eye-hole before the door suddenly opens in a swift movement.

And there she is, standing in front of me, wearing way too little clothing and a devastated look on her face. A shattered look that seems to be more surprised to see me on these steps than by this scarred face of mine.

"Naomi.." she heavily breathes out.

And I can't do anything else but foolishly enough try to give her the smallest of waves with my functioning right hand and smile way too awkwardly for my own good. A smile being narrowed down by the dried blood that has placed itself like glue on my unmoving face.

"Can you move? Or, I mean.." She sighs to herself and quickly shakes her head like she's trying to shake off a weariness that was coming and maybe, just maybe, to wake herself from this unreal situation.

"Of course you can move, you came here, but, I mean, does it hurt? Well, of course it hurts, I mean, just.. come in. Can you come in?"

I think that's what she said. I hope that's what she said.

Sluggishly I nod, mainly to give her some kind of response to her question but also to avoid aggravating the whirlwind inside my head.

She opens the door a little bit more and steps back to give my ravaged body a bit more room to work with and with slow steps I pull myself into the warmth that I missed every second of while standing outside it.

I didn't even register her closing the door or how she managed to get my coat and my shoes off but I'm sitting on the end of her bed while she's going through drawer by drawer, trying to find a first aid kit that she said she had lying around here somewhere.

And while I wait, I try with the few senses that are still functioning in this state that I'm in, to take in as much as I can from this room. A room that's so unbelievably foreign to me. A room I've never actually been in before. That I've only catched a glimpse of when passing her slightly open door on my way to Freddie's. A room that's been hiding more than I ever could imagine.

And for some reason I always believed that there would be some kind of mess and disorder among her things. For some silly reason I've always been sure that her music and her clothes would create the chaos that is otherwise missing inside that personality of hers, well, from what I've seen, that is.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Spotless surfaces from left to right with thousands if not millions records and vinyl's in alphabetical order, filling shelves from wall to wall. Clean and folded clothes in a just as spotless wardrobe and a perfectly made bed with newly washed sheets that goes with every little detail and color inside this space.

You know, they say that your room often mirrors your personality. And it might be true. There might be some accuracy inside that statement. Because when I think about my cold and hollow room with hardly any furniture at all, I get this feeling that it actually says everything about my own emptiness. And if I would paint the walls in brighter colors and fill the empty spaces that I've got left with more gear then I too might even consist of more than what I do today.

I don't get to continue to contemplate that statement inside my fatigued head as she interrupts my thoughts with a gentle "hey" that immediately sends me off to a world so far away from this one.

"I found it.." she says with the slightest smirk upon her lips. "I told you I had it somewhere around here."

"I guess you were right." I say weakly. Mostly because I felt that I had to say something. To show her that I'm still alive and that I'm still here.

"Are you okay?" she suddenly changes direction and steers this conversation onto an entirely different path. Her facial expression changed astonishingly lot and her otherwise calm brown eyes are filled with worry.

I don't know if I'm supposed to be honest of if I should continue to tell her that everything's okay just because it's what you usually say. Because it's just something you do.

But as I avert my gaze and take a look around in this way too unfamiliar room I suddenly remember that nothing about this situation is normal. Nothing about this is what you usually do or go through. With crushed bones and bleeding wounds I realize that everything inside this moment is anything else but ordinary.

So I tell her the truth.

"I actually don't know."

And that also seemed to be the answer she was looking for. That appeared to be the small response she needed to hear from me. The only truth that needed to be said inside these walls. Because she's not asking for anything else.

"I don't mean to sound like a perv or something but I have to ask you to take your shirt off." she softly says with a flushed face as she looks down to the floor while kneeling in front of me.

"Not that I'm a doctor or anything, but I mean, if you've been h-" she cut herself in mid-sentence as her voice searches for the right word. The easy way out. And even though she might know the truth, she'll still do her best not to walk on that road tonight. "..hurt anywhere else than your face you might need to clean it and stuff."

I warily look down to my blood-spattered shirt that has colored the white that once occupied the fabric with a shade of the same dried blood that's now glued to my jeans and face. And since I live with the knowledge that my upper body have been taking a lot of beating and needs to be cleaned I also know that I have to do what she says.

So I do the only thing I can do under these circumstances.

"Okay.. but I can't really move my left shoulder." I say and she opens her mouth to say something but closes it again. Then she tries again.

"We can cut it up if you want. You can borrow one from me later, if it's okay with you?"

"Yeah, sure.." I shakily breathe out. Shakily because I know what's hiding underneath this shirt. Shakily because I know exactly what's she going to witness. What's she's going to think and what's she's going to know afterwards. Shaky because she will understand.

And she seems to be trembling just as much as me when she lets the thin fabric slide in between the sharp pair of scissors she's holding. She seems to quiver just as much as me because maybe, just maybe, she has a clue about what she's going to see. That she might be afraid to have confirmed.

As she sits between my spreaded legs on the floor right before me, slicing up my shirt, I can't do anything else but to breathe.

Breathe in the scent that is her. A scent of raspberry tea on a cold winter night, just like this one. A scent that takes me so far away from the wounds she's about to behold within a few seconds now.

A scent that tells me all about those snowy days when Jenna and Rob used to take us all skating on the ice along the pier. A scent that makes me remember my mom as the mother she was before Tom. A scent that makes me recall every single crush that I've ever had. A scent that makes me remember things I've never done, felt or experienced.

A scent I need to keep in mind as I hear how her lips draws a gasp she couldn't manage to hold in.

So I close my eyes.

I close my eyes and take the deepest of breaths to keep that scent as far inside me as I can. I close my eyes and evoke a life I've never lived just to keep myself from witnessing the one I'm currently residing in. Visioning a life where I don't have to be as ashamed as I am right now, in front of her beautiful eyes and my distorted body.

"I'm sorry." She whispers against my rising chest as she lets her warm breath invisibly stain my oh so damaged skin. I'm guessing she's sorry for flinching. For reacting although she already knew what was coming.

"It's okay." I say with a strangled voice that's threatening to break at any second now. As if this was nothing out of the ordinary. As if this was what I was supposed to say. As if I couldn't tell her the truth.

Which I no longer can.

Not when the truth is right in front of her, staring her straight in the eyes.

"This will probably hurt." She accidentally whispers a little too close to my ear as she re-positioned herself.

And I don't know what hurt the most. To have her this close to me in a much compromised position or her cold hands touching my bruises.

Cold hands, warm heart, isn't that what they say?

Cold hands that's everywhere right now. Despite the pain I'm feeling inside this vandalized and hurting body of mine, her touch actually hurts more than every single scratch on this living corpse.

Regardless of every blow I took, her warm and concentrated breathing against my neck is more excruciating than every beating I've ever taken. Because this pain is constricting somewhere else within me. A place I didn't even know could ache.

I feel a warm and moisture towel that's oh so carefully washing away every trace of blood and dirt from the bleeding gashes on my body.

Cold.

Warm.

Cold.

Warm.

Cold.

Warm.

Cold.

Warm.

Her hands are everywhere and my thoughts are nowhere. I've lost all track of time. Whatsoever. I don't know if she's been touching me for an hour or a minute. But the insufferable feeling stays the same.

The fact that I don't ever want her to stop. The fact that I didn't even want to start to begin with. The fact that I never want to leave this room. The fact that I never should've have come here in the first place.

She clears her throat gently to wake me up from this weariness that covers my face and I raise my gaze to meet hers that are saying things I don't want to hear right now. So I hide again. Averting my eyes.

"Um.. I left you a shirt and a pair of shorts for you to sleep in on the nightstand." she timidly says because she knows she's taken something for granted.

Because she already prepared for me to stay the night without even knowing where I might have taken off to with my wrecked body. Just because she's taken something for granted without knowing how grateful I am because of it.

"Just tell me if you need any help, alright?" she says as she slowly rises to give me the privacy I assume that I need even if she just saw my whole upper body only clothed in a bra.

"Okay." I hesitantly say and wait for her to leave before I try to put on these clothes that she left me.

It took a little while but I managed nevertheless. And here I am on the end of the bed again, in the exact same position as before, waiting for her return. A low and muffled sound comes from her speakers which I assume is some kind of music.

"Is it safe for me to come in?" A hushed voice on the other side of the door silences the almost muted melody I heard before.

"Yeah, the coast is clear." I say to somehow vainly try to cut through the tension that resides inside this room.

She reappears with a warm cup of tea that has the exact same raspberry scent that was streaming through my whole body earlier and I couldn't be more thankful in this very moment.

"Thank you." I whisper when she hands me the cup.

"It's okay." she responds with a small yet beautiful smile.

"No.." A deep breath. "Really. I mean it, Emily. Thank you."

And she looks at me with the most intense stare of them all, kneels to the same position she once occupied between my wobbly legs, with her hands on both sides of my body, locking me in, and looking at me straight in the eyes.

"It's okay, Naomi."

And when she says that, with a hoarse mixed with the scent of all those memories I've never owned in the first place, I believe her.

I can hear how the world outside of this room is coming to life and the streets are being packed with children hurrying off to school and parents being late for work. I can hear the juice glasses being taken out from the cabinet at The Fitches and how a cat have started a fist fight with the trashcan right outside my window.

I can hear everything but the only thing I can taste and feel inside this empty bed is the scent of raspberry and the memories that from that day on became real. That became mine.