Strong trigger warnings for this chapter. Consider that this fic is M for sex and violence and the sex was pretty damn graphic. So. I just don't want anyone reading anything that could be triggering without being fully aware that that's what it is.

As ever a huge thank you to my supporters, followers, favouriters and reviewers. And to my proof reader RaInBoWsKuLlDrOpS who is awesome. This chapter is dedicated to my beautiful fiancee too, because this whole fic was her idea and she has patiently helped me write it for ages as well as giving me a ton of material for my next project as well. I know I owe you another Continuum and I'm working on it, I promise! Just... yeah, got distracted by La Vie. Sorry.

Content Warning: serious injury, violent homophobia, medical stuff. No laughs here I'm afraid.

Marceline's fingers closed around the tiny remote for the microphone still hidden on her father's coat collar and she flicked the button to start the recording. She sent a tiny prayer of thanks to Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck, because surely the odds of her still having the remote in her pocket and Hunson still wearing the bugged coat must be pretty small. Then her head smashed right through the glass top of her coffee table and slammed heavily into the floor.

"WHAT WAS SHE TALKING ABOUT? WHO WAS THAT GIRL?"

The last time Hunson had been that angry it had ended with her mother having to spend a week recovering in hospital. Claudia had told the doctors when they gently questioned her that she'd fallen down the stairs. Marcy might have only been seven years old but she'd been mature for her age and more than capable of interpreting the disbelieving looks the nurses had shot each other over her Mum's bruised head.

"She was talking to Ash, she's his ex. She was mad we were out together." Marcy managed to gasp out against the weird grinding pain in the back of her head. Hunson loomed over her and his hands balled into fists again.

"BULLSHIT! SHE WAS TALKING TO YOU!"

His booted foot came out of nowhere and smashed into the side of her mouth. Distantly Marceline heard herself laugh without a single shred of humour in her voice. It gurgled up through the blood welling in her throat without any conscious control on her part; it was bleakly hilarious because he was going to kill her now anyway even though she had the evidence she needed. It didn't matter what she said anymore. When Hunson flipped he lost touch with reason completely and he probably wouldn't even remember beating her to death; he just blacked out with rage. She'd thought she could just slip back into the persona of the perfect daughter for as long as it took to get him back into jail but she should have known better. That would have been too easy and nothing was ever easy for her, it hadn't been since she was seven years old. And now her father had found out she wasn't everything he'd thought she was and he was going to kill her for it. She wasn't even mad at Lydia about that because how could Lyds have known Hunson was a violent sociopath with anger management problems? He'd have found out one way or another and Marceline knew she deserved much worse than getting yelled at in the middle of a fancy clothes store by the petite girl for what she'd done to Bonnie.

Bonnie... At least she had been worth it, Marcy thought. Worth a thousand beatings for those precious few hours they'd spent together; she knew she'd do it again in a heartbeat if she had her time over again. It didn't surprise her at all that she was spending what were probably her last few minutes on Earth thinking about the redhead. Hunson's boot connected with her nose and she felt a sickening crunch against her skull right between her eyes. She squeezed them closed against the blossom of agony and instead tried to picture her mother's face as perfectly as possible.

I'm so sorry, Mum. I tried. You saw that I was trying, right? That I did everything I could? I let you down. I'm sorry.

His foot slammed into her ribs next and Marcy spat blood, eyes flying open again at the impact. She'd sprayed a decent mouthful of it across his trouser legs; she was hazily glad of that. They were a pale khaki and it'd be hell to get the stains out. Good, that was evidence. Maybe he'd go back to jail for her murder instead.

"...WHAT SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT!"

Oh, sounds had gone weird too. His mouth worked furiously and his face contorted with rage but Marceline could only hear snatches of what he was saying. Her aching head was filled with a confused buzzing like white noise. Suddenly her view of the world tilted and the pain in her head ramped up a few more notches. Hunson had grabbed a fistful of her hair and was lifting her head and shoulders out of the wreckage of the coffee table by it, almost scalping her. She tried to focus harder on what he was hissing at her.

"-lie to me, you little bitch. I heard every word she spoke to you and I will not suffer deceitful little queers in this family. Tell me everything right now, or I will fucking gut you and set your corpse on fire like I did with your worthless whore of a mother."

She coughed and there was even more blood welling in the back of her mouth. But he wanted to know and he was going to kill her anyway. So why not? Marceline was feeling weirdly reckless again like she had on that spectacular night after the gig up north. Adrenaline really did make her fearless, then. Briefly she wondered if she'd inherited that from her mother; perhaps Claudia had been reckless when she was in danger too.

"Y'really wanna know everything, Daddy? Fine. Doesn't matter anyway, not now. So I met a girl. She was so fucking beautiful, she made me feel stuff... and we had a hotel room together and yeah we were sleeping together. You really want the truth? I'm gay, like, I fuck girls kinda gay. Always have been. I'm a fucking queer. And then you came back and fucking ruined everything. I broke up with her. Wouldn't let you near her, wouldn't let you hurt her like you hurt Mum. That was her friend so I guess I must've broken her heart pretty good. Fuck, I didn't wanna hurt her... Bon-"

His hand was clamped across her mouth and nose then, choking her. Marceline didn't think twice; she bit down as hard as she could until she felt bone crunch between her teeth and vaguely heard Hunson scream over the distracting buzz in her ears. Now his blood was in her mouth too but that was fine, more evidence. She didn't want whoever found her body to think she hadn't fought back. Marcy grinned dizzily up at him with lips ringed in fresh blood and unfocused punch drunk eyes.

She barely even felt his fist crash heavily into her face. Everything was getting too hazy and distant. It felt like she was struggling to push through a thick fog. Her father was roaring at her, screaming. She felt flecks of his spittle hit her face and somehow that was worse than the fist had been; a thousand times more disgusting. She couldn't make out the words completely but he was calling her all kinds of things as he hit her again and again. The snatches of his voice she could make out were screaming faggot, whore, abomination! Her head ached so badly with a deep growing agony that felt like it was blossoming right in the middle of her brain. Hunson was slamming her face against the ground and it was all so surreal; she couldn't even really feel it. When was the last time she'd even seen the lounge from that angle? She must have been small, playing on Simon's rug while he read in his armchair or messed around with the compact electric piano. Before she even moved in, probably. Those had been good times. Better to think about that and wait for the end because reality was too horrifying to deal with.

The last thing Marceline could really remember with any clarity was hearing a huge crack! somewhere above her and the feeling of being dropped back to the floor. The next second something heavy slumped down next to her and lay still. An unexpected voice spoke into her ear, full of panic and terror, bringing her back from her memories.

"Marcy hold on, I called an ambulance. I hit him, oh Allah forgive me, I hit him so hard with the cricket bat right in his head and I think I have killed him. Forgive me, I could not let him hurt you more."

She tried to open her eyes and only managed it for a few brief seconds.

"B-Mo?"

"Yeah, I am here. I heard him beating you. I heard it through the floor. I could not just let it happen, oh Marcy he was going to kill you. I'm so sorry, please don't die. I killed a man and you are bleeding and you're not allowed to die…"

B-Mo was sobbing hard and it was the weirdest thing she'd ever heard because Mo had never cried in front of her, not once. Marcy tried to lift her arms to hug him but the world spun crazily and went dark when she tried to move. Mo's tearful voice was distant and jumbled. It seemed to be blending into the growing wail of sirens outside her window.

"Please stay with me Marcy, stay awake, come on..."

Stay... stay...

...

Mo squinted at the messy address he'd copied down from Marcy's scrap book. He'd felt weird about going through her stuff that morning but he knew she kept the details of everyone she'd ever met written down the old fashioned way since she changed her phone so often and there was someone he desperately needed to contact. The row of old red brick terraced houses looked indistinguishable from all the others he'd walked past and Mo didn't really know his way around Leyton but he was determined. He was going to find Marceline's girlfriend if he had to knock on every door in London.

There, that was the house he was looking for. Two hundred and twenty eight Palace Green Road. It looked the same as any other house on the street; a little run down and obviously a short term student rental. When he squinted at the upstairs window there was a small pride flag sticker in one corner and he was sure that must be a sign and that it was the right house. He lifted his hand to the black painted door and knocked nervously.

A girl answered after a few long anxious minutes and his heart leapt into his mouth with nerves and recognition. That was her, Marcy's redhead. She looked like he'd woken her from a deep sleep and from the bemused expression on her face it was obvious she didn't recognise him. Her clothes were crumpled and blue eyes bleary; they were ringed with dark circles and she looked like she'd been up half the night crying. Mo's heart twisted with sympathy when he thought about the further pain he was going to have to cause her. There was a musty scent of stale alcohol on her breath when she spoke and Mo tried hard not to wrinkle his nose in distaste.

"Yeah? What do you want?"

"Um, hello, are you Bonnie Sugar?" he asked, careful to keep his tone respectful.

"That's me, and whatever you're selling-"

"I'm not here to sell you anything! I'm a friend of Marceline-"

The redhead slammed the door closed in his face. Mo blinked, that hadn't been the reaction he'd expected. He knocked again.

"GO AWAY!" a voice yelled through the closed door. Mo frowned and pushed open the letterbox instead to speak through the small slit.

"She is hurt! She is in the hospital and I think she would want to see you! Her father hurt her and he is in the hospital too because I hit him with a Sachin Tendulkar autographed cricket bat and now it is worthless!"

He cringed, why did his mouth run away with him like that sometimes? But it was the truth; Marcy would probably be furious when she found out her uncle's beloved collectible cricket bat was now covered in her father's blood and had been taken away as evidence by the police. Mo jumped back as the door swung open again. This time it was a short boy with floppy blonde hair hanging around his face staring back at him with wide eyes. Bonnie was sitting on the staircase leading up to the apartment above with her head in her hands; Mo thought she might be crying.

"I think you should come up to the lounge, mate." the blonde boy said. Mo vaguely recognised him as one of the people Marcy had been hanging with after her gig at the Fox and Hounds. There was something a little soft and young about his face and B-Mo's first impression of him was that he was probably really kind. Mo immediately liked him.

He shuffled into the narrow hallway and the blonde boy turned to the girl who was still crying on the stairs. He gently wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up into a standing position.

"Come on, lumpy. You can get yourself cleaned up and get some headache meds while I talk to this guy and find out what's happening, ok? Get changed and I'll come with you to the hospital."

"She's hurt, Finn." she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Yeah, I know. But it's gonna be ok." The boy- Finn- helped Bonnie up the stairs with Mo trailing them awkwardly. At the top of the staircase he gave her a gentle push towards one of the doors that Mo supposed must lead to her bedroom and she stumbled off to get changed and fix her face. Finn entered another door that lead to a small lounge decorated with a lot of pink and purple fuzzy cushions and old Audrey Hepburn movie posters.

"I guess this is gonna take a while, I'll make us some tea." Finn told him over his shoulder.

Mo just nodded and sank down into one of the sofas. He was still quite numb from the night before. He'd come straight from the hospital after stopping at Marcy's apartment to copy down the address and he hadn't slept yet. He'd been too consumed with worry for his friend to stop and rest.

After a few minutes Finn came back balancing a tea tray and plopped down on the sofa next to Mo, shooting him a tired look.

"Guess you had a pretty eventful night, too?" he asked with a bittersweet quirk to his mouth that might have been a smile under other circumstances.

"Yeah. I heard him through the ceiling; Marceline is my upstairs neighbour. And I heard what that bastard was doing so I came up to help her. My Dad told me to not to get involved but her father would have killed her. He said he was going to. I saved her life." Mo added the last part with a small amount of pride although it was tempered by regret that he hadn't been fast enough to stop her getting hurt.

"We should wait for Bonnie. She needs to hear this too." Finn murmured.

They sat in silence sipping their tea until she shuffled back into the lounge in a different set of clothes and her sleep-wild hair brushed back down into a smooth ponytail. She'd scrubbed her face until her cheeks were pink and looked at least more awake than she had when she'd answered the door. Bonnie sat down across from them and fixed Mo with a cold glare.

"Tell me, then. Tell me how she got hurt."

Mo took a steadying breath and launched into his story.

"I knew something was wrong because she slammed the door really hard when they came home last night and normally she is so careful not to disturb us. I am her downstairs neighbour and the floors are so thin in our building. And then I heard shouting and he was screaming at her. Her father, he is just out of jail and he burned her mother to death and he burned Marcy too but she survived-"

"I know about the fire, get to the point." Bonnie growled. Mo frowned but continued talking.

"Ok, so I heard them argue last night and I heard something smash against the floor right over our kitchen where her lounge is. Something really heavy hit the ceiling and the whole room shook and then he was screaming again. I heard him shout that he was going to kill her and that she was dirty and a whore. So I called the police and ambulance then I ran up the stairs. Marcy gave me her spare key ages ago so I just let myself into her apartment. Her uncle's cricket bat was in the hall. Someone had left it with a pile of boxes from his old bedroom and I grabbed it. I could see her father beating her; he had her by the head and was slamming her against the ground over and over. I couldn't let him hurt her. I grabbed the bat and I swung it at the back of his head as hard as I could. I thought I'd killed him but the hospital let the police take him in this morning instead. They said he was just concussed. They arrested him for attempted murder and they said I will not face prosecution because it was a clear act of defence."

"Is she ok?" Bonnie's voice was a lot softer than it had been and her face was so pale she looked like she might faint. She seemed to have forgotten all about her hostility to Mo when she'd heard his story. He looked down at his fingernails, unable to meet her eyes.

"She is in intensive care and she has not woken up. The doctors said her brain was swollen, they said she was bleeding into the space inside her skull. And she might be too badly hurt, she might not be the same when she wakes up. If she wakes up. They don't know yet."

...

It was a numb kind of surreal shock that filled Bonnie like a hazy cloud as she stared at her lover's motionless face. She felt like she was floating a few inches off the polished hospital floor as the nurse showed them into the small room. For some reason all that she could think was the room was too bright and it must be hurting Marceline's eyes; someone should switch a couple of the harsh white lights overhead off.

Marcy's entire face was just a swollen mass of darkening bruises. She was unrecognizable to anyone who didn't know her well; just a tangle of ugly looking injuries and cuts held together with surgical tape and wires. She had a shattered cheekbone and eye socket, broken nose and a hairline fracture extending right across her forehead. Mo had explained on the way that the doctor told him that the break along her head might have saved her life because it had given her brain a little extra room when it began to swell. There was a tube down her throat helping her breathe and a surgical hole in the side of her skull letting out the extra pressure inside her head. Bonnie had almost fainted with horror when she'd discovered that Marcy's heart had stopped twice in surgery and they'd struggled to bring her back the second time. She'd been medically dead for over a minute.

"Someone should tell her uncle." she heard herself say, although she had no recollection of choosing to say it.

"I already called his care home. They are trying to organise a carer to bring him in to see her." Mo replied quietly. He took Bonnie's arm and gently guided her into the cheap plastic chair by the bed. She sank into it guiltily; her knees might not have held her up for much longer anyway. Distantly she knew she was deeply in shock and that things weren't making sense the way the usually did. Everything felt so unreal.

"I, uh, I'm gonna take Mo for a coffee, right?" Finn told her awkwardly. "I'll be on my mobile if you need me."

She felt herself nod and heard the door open and close a couple of seconds later. Bonnie wasn't sure where they'd gone or why but she was grateful for the opportunity to talk to her lover alone. She carefully took Marcy's hand and pressed a soft kiss against it.

"I'm so sorry." Bonnie whispered, although she wasn't sure exactly what she was apologising for. Perhaps when she recovered from the shock a little more she'd know. She sat for a long time just staring at Marcy's broken face. At length the door opened again and a young doctor entered.

"I'm her girlfriend." Bonnie heard herself reply to some question from the doctor. She was, she decided. She didn't accept the breakup letter. She didn't believe Marcy had written it when she was thinking clearly and she wasn't going to let things end until they'd had a chance to talk it over. No, she wasn't going to sit there and be her ex. She was Marceline's girlfriend.

The solemn faced young doctor proceeded to explain something about brain lobes and trauma and swelling; something about Glasgow coma scales and how Marcy was lucky to be alive. Bonnie wanted to snarl at her. Lucky to be a vegetable for the rest of her life? Lucky her own father had beaten her into a coma? The doctor laid her hand on Bonnie's arm and said something that might have been comforting or might have been more medical babble. Bonnie just shrugged her off and shook her head.

"We've stopped the swelling to her brain but I have to make you aware that there's a chance your partner may not wake up again. She's had a critical injury and it really is touch and go at this stage. But she made it through the night and we're hopeful that she might wake up."

The doctor said some other stuff about leaving her contact details with reception and in lieu of any next of kin they'd let her know about any change in Marcy's condition. Bonnie nodded distractedly but never once took her eyes off Marceline's motionless damaged face. Eventually the doctor stood up and left. She squeezed Bonnie's shoulder again thought the redhead barely felt it. She wanted to know what they'd done with Marcy's hair; she was so vain about it and she'd be so upset when she woke up and found most of it gone. It seemed cruel that it would end up in a medical waste incinerator. They'd cut off most of her silky waist length mane and now it hung limply above her shoulders instead. She looked younger, Bonnie thought. Or perhaps that was the mass of medical equipment covering and surrounding her; making her look so small and vulnerable. Someone had shaved a fist sized chunk from the left side of her head where they'd performed emergency brain surgery and some clown of a nurse had tried to style it around her bandages. They'd gotten the parting all wrong. Bonnie stood shakily and gently rearranged it.

"You're going to get better." she told Marceline with absolute conviction. "However long it takes, I'm going to be here. And you're going to walk out of this hospital and straight into the passenger side of my crappy car. I still have your mixtape in the player. You're going to listen to it with me. You promised, remember? That's not open for negotiation. Then I'm taking us up the motorway; we'll go back to Newcastle and go to the science museum. We can stay in our hotel and I'll give you a massage again, anything you want. Just please wake up, you have to wake up. Please, Marcy."

After another indeterminate amount of time the door opened again and Bonnie still didn't turn to see who'd come in.

"Miss Sugar? My name is Detective Hope, could I speak with you?"

She did look around at that. There was a young man with curly yellow-blonde hair and a chubby cherubic face standing in the doorway. Bonnie stood and shook his hand.

"You are Miss Petrikova's partner?" he asked in a respectful tone. Bonnie nodded again. "How much of her troubled relationship with her father were you aware of?"

"Um, only what was in the papers at the time. Nothing that wasn't public record. She doesn't like talking about him." Bonnie replied croakily. She felt instinctively that she shouldn't mention Marceline's certainly of her father being her mother's murderer. The detective nodded encouragingly and she wracked her memory for anything she could add. "She kept me away from him after he was released from prison. Said he was a violent homophobe and he couldn't find out about our relationship." God, she'd been so right. All kinds of horrified guilt twisted through her stomach when Bonnie remembered that Marceline had been trying to protect her from the exact same kind of violence she'd ended up suffering. If things had been different it could be her lying too still in the hospital bed covered in tubes and wires, or Marceline identifying her body in the morgue.

"Are you aware of any legal or financial motives for the assault? We're treating this as attempted murder and you should know that your girlfriend was trying to gather evidence about her father's involvement in her mother's death, too. Anything you can tell me about that could help."

Bonnie shook her head; she'd had no idea Marcy was spying on her father but it was exactly the kind of dangerous and slightly insane thing she would do. Perhaps that's why he'd tried to beat her to death. Perhaps it has nothing to do with Bonnie and their brief relationship after all. She felt a slight shift in the blanket of guilt weighing across her mind.

"Well here's my card, please call me if you think of anything." the detective sighed. He placed a small square of white card on the small nightstand by Marceline's bed and took a moment to stare at her motionless face. He squeezed Bonnie's shoulder too before he left and she turned back to staring guiltily at the girl lying too silent and still in the hospital bed.

When Finn and Mo finally returned Bonnie was curled up in the chair by Marceline's bed with her head resting on the pillow next to the unconscious girl. She was fast asleep and still clinging to her girlfriend's limp hand.