A Mother's Love - Part Thirty
Nov. 8th, 2011 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_angelsA/N and WARNING!: This next section contains probably the most upsetting scene I have ever written and involves the abuse of a small child. The abuse is NOT explicitly described, it is left to your imagination, however, after reading the whole section you will probably be under no doubts as to what has taken place.
If you would prefer not to read this part of the story, which is kind of important to the overall plot, I have marked it with two lines of asterixes and I would suggest skipping the marked section. I will then post a very brief and factual summary of what you have missed so you can catch up without any upset.
I realise child abuse is a very emotive subject - and rightly so! I am not condoning it in any way. Please look after yourself. If you have had experience of this matter, as many of us, unfortunately, have, and you feel that this will upset you - DON'T READ THE MARKED TEXT. Thanks - Indigo x
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Adele forced herself to stroll calmly across the parking lot only when she was around the corner and definitely out of sight of the warehouse, did she allow herself to collapse against the side of the building and try to control the shaking in her limbs. Danny was there, she’d had no idea that Silas had taken him, where the hell was John? Why wasn’t he looking out for him? How had Silas got the drop on him? But of course Adele knew the answer to that question only too well, Danny had been so upset after their meeting, after the things that she’d said to him that of course he would be an easy target.
She rubbed at her forehead to try and erase the images of him in her head, of him so helpless, of Silas hurting him like that... She felt sick, sick right down to the pit of her stomach and she hated it. Silas was a psychopath, that was for sure. It was a good job that Adele had managed to control herself back there, one sign of weakness to Danny’s predicament and Silas would have had her strung up right alongside him. That ‘what can I do for you?’ crap had been just that as well, a trap, designed to lure Adele in, have her begging for Danny’s life only to have Silas turn on her as well.
No, she had done the right thing there, there was nothing she could do for Danny, nothing at all, Silas was more than a match for her in every unpleasant way going. She’d done well to get out with her life, and now she needed to phone a taxi and get the hell away from that madman for good. Her shaking fingers brought out her phone but she closed her eyes, Danny’s brave little grunts of pain as Silas flayed his beautiful skin tortured her eyes and her mind and with a snap decision, she dialled.
It was answered on the first ring, and looking nervously over her shoulder in case she’d been followed, Adele cupped her hand around the mouth piece and spoke quickly over the furious voice at the other end. “Yes, yes, I know, John, now shut up and listen to me as Danny’s life is in danger here.”
A forty minute drive away, Hannibal and BA looked at each other as they heard Adele’s words and Hannibal immediately halted his tirade. “Go on,” he said instead.
“Someone called Silas Pike has taken Danny and is going to kill him.” She hated the way her voice was shaking.
Again, Hannibal and BA traded glances, “Pike?” BA asked and Hannibal waved him quiet.
“Where?” he barked into the phone instead and Adele was instantly there with her answer.
“A warehouse over in North Gardena, number 202 on West 134th Street.”
“And why does this Pike want to kill Face?”
“Because he thinks he killed his brother!” Hannibal frowned at the edges of panic he could hear in Adele’s voice, “But it wasn’t even him, it was your other man, Baracus!”
“Oh, man,” BA moaned, hanging his head and Hannibal reached over and squeezed his arm.
“And how do you know all this then, Adele?”
“Because I’ve just been there!” There was a definite note of panic in her voice now and Hannibal silently complimented her on her acting skills. “And he’s got Danny hanging from a rope and he’s beating him and burning him and he’s going to damn well torture him to death!”
Hannibal’s brows pulled together at those words and BA could see his fingers were white where they gripped the phone. “So I suppose that you would like us to come charging over there right about now, and storm into that warehouse, right?”
“Yes!” Adele cried out, “Oh, yes, but hurry, John, hurry, he’s hurting him!”
Hannibal closed his eyes. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered coldly.
For a second there was nothing but a stunned silence from Adele, before she finally persuaded her mouth to work again. “What?!” she gasped, unable to pull out anything more eloquent.
“I don't believe you,” Hannibal replied. “Ever since we have met you, you have just fed us one lie after another. You’ve poisoned my Captain, had him in ICU, twisted Face backwards and forwards until he doesn’t know who he is anymore, and now you just want to make it a full set by getting Bosco and I to charge in with all these ridiculous lies about Face and then you’ll what? Shoot us? Have the military waiting to lock us up? I wouldn’t put anything past you, Adele!”
“No,” it almost sounded as if Adele was sobbing now and Hannibal frowned again. “You have to come, you have to help him, Silas is going to kill him!” Hannibal didn't reply. “John,” Adele whispered, “Danny told me you love him, that you’ve loved him since you first met him.” Still Hannibal didn’t reply, “Prove that love to me now, John!” she pleaded, “Come and save him before it’s too late!”
“And what do you care about that?”Hannibal asked coldly, “Since when have you ever cared about Face?” Silence came down the line and Hannibal frowned before looking at the phone in his hand. “Go home, Adele,” he said quietly and pressed the disconnect button, before quickly switching the phone off. He leant back in his seat and let out a long breath with his eyes closed tight. “You know where you’re going, BA?” he asked.
“Sure thing bossman,” BA replied concentrating hard as he weaved in and out of the traffic, “be there in about half an hour.”
Hannibal nodded and clapped him on the back as he moved into the rear of the van to unlock the weapons store, hoping and praying that they would get there in time to save Face.
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Adele stared in shock at the phone in her hand, before grabbing it and redialling, swearing in frustration at the dead tone she got back. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest and she felt sick; as furious as she was with Danny after their little chat that morning, she couldn’t just leave him like that. She’d been so certain that John would come for him... Danny himself had been so certain of John’s love for him that morning that the callous reaction to her news rocked her to the core. She surprised herself when she realised that there was no savage satisfaction to the confirmation that Danny had been fooling himself for all these years, that John did only want him for the sex.
So what more could she do know? She had given Danny the opportunity to tell Silas it wasn’t him that had killed Brock Pike, but for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, he had stayed quiet on the matter. She had tried to alert John to the trouble Danny was in, but John was too proud and suspicious to listen to her. She’d done all she could, and now she needed to do what both Danny and John had told her to do, which was get the hell out of California and try to pretend that this entire horrendous episode had never happened.
She pulled the number of a taxi firm from her address book and pressed connect, listening as it rang three times, and then, just as the operator answered, Adele pressed the red button cut them off. She slumped back against the wall of the warehouse she was hiding behind and wondered why she couldn’t just walk away. She owed Danny nothing here. He’d told her to go, told her he didn’t want to see her ever again. He hadn’t asked her for help, hadn’t even co-operated when she had tried to throw him a lifeline, she’d tried to get John to help him, what the hell else could she do?
But still she couldn’t leave. The image of Danny, and those quiet little sounds of pain he’d made when Silas whipped him were all she could see and hear. He seemed to be there at the front of her vision all the time, that indecipherable expression on his face, and so she closed her eyes tightly, not wanting him to stare at her like that.
However, once her eyes were closed it was even worse, he was there as well, that exact same emotion in his eyes, but this time from another time, another place, and another situation that Adele had, quite successfully over the years, pretended had never happened. She couldn’t hold the memory back any longer; Danny’s words at the hotel that morning had ripped it from the deep dark hole in her head where it had been hiding and now it was thrashing about in her consciousness, like a bat trapped in a room, throwing itself against the walls looking for a way out. With a whimper of submission, Adele sank to the ground and let it come.
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She opened her eyes and winced at the sunlight trying to force its way in through the cheap nylon curtains of her bedroom in the back of the trailer. Her head pounded, her throat burned, her stomach was churning and the soreness down below reminded her of her partner from the night before and his none-too-gentle approach to sex. She sighed, she was actually a little sick of waking up like this.
With great difficulty and nausea, Adele turned on her other side to look at the little nest of blankets on the carpet next to her bed. She’d long ago given up trying to make Danny sleep in the main part of the trailer on a night; if she was alone he would creep into her bed as soon as she turned in, and if she had a visitor he would curl up on the floor, silent and usually unnoticed by her ‘guest’ and even Adele herself had long stopped feeling uncomfortable that he was there while she was ‘busy’.
But this morning her bed was empty and the blanket nest was empty and she sighed, partly in relief, partly in frustration. If her bed was empty then that was good, that meant that Bryce or Bruce or whatever his name was had already left and she didn’t have to put up with another ten minutes trapped under his hulking frame as she sweated all over her, but if the floor was empty as well then that meant that Danny was up and probably out playing in the mud again. She sighed, it was almost as if he did that just to deliberately annoy her. He knew how much she hated going to the laundrette.
She lay still for another few minutes and then slowly got to her feet, the draw of a quick shot of vodka proving too hard to resist, pulled on her dressing gown and yanked the plywood door of her bedroom open. She blinked and stumbled into the main living area of the trailer, grabbing hold of the side of the kitchen counter to steady herself and keep on her feet. It was dark and gloomy in here, this end of the trailer was obviously still in the shade of the trees and all the curtains were closed which was odd, as she was sure they had been open when she and Bryce/Bruce had taken to her bed last night.
She blinked again and her eyes started adjusting, but her brain took a little longer to catch up with what they were telling her they could see. She frowned as Danny’s face came into focus, pale, eyes wide and staring at her, but upside down which was odd and something her vodka soaked brain was struggling to come to terms with. Slowly the pieces fit together and she realised that he was laid in his back on the small table opposite her, his head tipped off the edge so her could see her, his feet pointing towards the couch at the end near the window. Taking a step in, Adele opened her mouth to shout at him, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing laid on the table like that when she suddenly realised that he wasn’t alone.
Almost in slow motion, she took in the scene before her, her eyes much, much quicker than her brain which was still refusing to connect the dots and come up with an acceptable reason for what it could see.
Danny was naked, his brown legs and torso in sharp contrast to the whiteness of his thighs and stomach. Bryce was also naked, one hand on himself, stroking firmly even as he watched Adele, the other... oh god... Adele felt the nausea in her stomach increase tenfold and she took another step in, looking down at Danny’s desperate pleading face, the tears streaking his cheeks, the way his hands reached out for her and she stopped, just out of his reach, clinging onto the door to stop herself from collapsing on the spot.
“Just what do you think you are doing?” she whispered, low and hard but the tremor in her words was impossible to miss. She clung on harder as her legs started to shake. “Get the hell away from him and out of this trailer before I call the police.” She didn’t want trouble from him, she just wanted him to go, now.
But Bryce didn’t stop, he continued to move his hands in synch, Danny’s face twisting in pain with every movement and smiled at Adele. “What am I doing?” he asked, his voice low and fuelled by lust. “I’m filling your cupboards with food. I’m stocking up your vodka supply.” Adele just stared at him as he leered at her, violating her son before her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He smiled, “And I’m making sure you have enough joints to last you the rest of the month...”
Still Adele didn’t move.
“Turn around,” he commanded in a voice used to being obeyed. “Go back to your pit and stay there until you hear me leave. And then I’ll go get your shopping.”
Adele looked down at Danny; his arms were still reaching for her, his silent tears leaving clean streaks down his grubby face, his eyes begging, imploring her not to go, not to leave him here with this man, to help him, to save him.
“Turn around,” Bryce ordered again and this time there was a threat in his voice and Adele thought of the food and the drink and the joints and the price that everyone had to pay in life, and turned around.
“Mommy!” It was the first time Danny had made a noise and she could hear him scrabbling around to try and reach her, Bryce swearing under his breath as he kept tight hold of his wriggling limbs. “No, mommy!” he cried, “Don’t go!”
Adele closed her eyes and started the slow walk back to her room, wishing she could close her ears as well. “Mommy!” there was panic in that little voice now, but Adele had reached her room.
“Be good, Danny,” she told him over her shoulder and then stepped in, closing the door behind her.
- - - - - - - - - - -
A while later, she heard the door to the trailer shut and Bryce’s car start up and drive away. She waited another ten minutes before dragging herself out of bed and staggering into the living area, eyes searching for her son. He wasn’t there, and for a horrible, sick minute she wondered if Bryce had taken him but then she noticed that the door was slightly ajar and so, pulling her dressing gown tightly closed, she stumbled out into the sunshine.
She squinted over to the tree and the water tap, but he wasn’t there and so with resignation, got down on her knees and looked into the gloom under the trailer. She saw him straight away, dressed in his usual shorts and t-shirt, and huddled into a tight ball next to a wheel. “Danny,” she called him gently, “come to Mommy.” He didn’t move, his face still pressed into his knees. “Danny,” she tried again, “I’m going to make you some breakfast. Come and show me what you want.” Still no movement. “Danny...” she made sure her voice was as sweet as it could be. “Don't do this, darling. It’s not nice to ignore mommy like this.”
And then he looked up and Adele recoiled in shock.
Gone was the way he’d always looked at her in the past, the adoration in his eyes, the desire to please, to love to and be loved. Now, instead of that, his little boy’s face wore the expression of an old man, a man who had seen too much, been betrayed in the worst possible way, and, even worse, finally saw that the betrayal was only the latest in a very long line, past and future. Adele felt a surge of guilt wash through her but quickly pushed it down, well, it was about time he learned that life was full of shit and if you wanted anything you had to pay the price. His blue eyes, dry of tears now, bored into her and she straightened up, knowing that her sweet little boy was gone for good.
“If you are not back inside in five minutes you won’t get any breakfast,” she told him sharply as she walked back inside. “There’s no point just sitting there crying like a baby.”
He didn’t come inside, not until Bryce came back with the food and the drink and the hash and dragged him out from under the trailer, and he didn’t cry, not until they were alone again that night and in a fit of guilt, Adele was helping him get ready for bed. He’d watched as she had taken his favourite cookie monster underpants off him and given him his pyjamas, going white as she’d noticed all the dark red stains inside his briefs. Without a word she’d thrown them straight into the trash and that’s when Danny had cried, begging and begging her to get them out again, and only stopping when she’d smacked him and dumped him in his bed by the table in the trailer.
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(Safe Catchup: This section takes place as a flashback to when Adele and Face lived together in the trailer.
Face usually sleeps in Adele's bed, or on her floor if she has a man with her.
One morning Adele wakes up alone and on going into the main part of the trailer finds the man she took home, Bryce, sexually abusing her son.
She is shocked, but Bryce offers her food and drink and drugs to be allowed to continue.
She lets him and walks out ignoring Face's cries for her help.
Afterwards, Face is more than aware of what she has done to him and their relationship is ruined.)
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After that fateful day, he’d never tried to get back into her bed, never made a nest on her floor. He’d never cried and he’d never looked at her with love in his eyes. Bryce came around twice more, not even bothering to sleep with Adele first, and then that’s when she went to Pablo. He was rich, single, overweight and had some very questionable sexual preferences. However, he had also wanted to take her to New York, had wanted to make her into a model in exchange for certain – rights. He’d also been quite happy for Danny to come along as well.
Adele had originally said no, Pablo turned her stomach and she felt that the price expected of her in exchange for his patronage was far, far too high. But now, well things were different; Danny wouldn’t do anything she asked of him, was sullen and sulky. She also couldn’t stand the way he looked at her now, the flat expression, the way that she was transported straight back to that moment on the table, his arms reaching out for her, the pleading in his eyes and she couldn’t stand it a moment longer.
Guilt was not an emotion that Adele readily embraced and so within three weeks of that morning with Bryce, she’d called Pablo, agreed to come to New York with him and told him that Danny was going to live with his father. He wasn’t of course and Adele was a little stuck as to what she would actually do with her morose son. In the end she decided to leave him somewhere obvious, somewhere the police would pick him up, but then, in looking for a place where no one would know her as she left him, she stumbled across the Orphanage on Tylery Road.
It was just after midnight and harder than she had anticipated to persuade a clearly frightened Danny to let go of her arm and wait for someone to answer the door.
“I don't want to!” he pleaded, his thin fingers gripping her arm tightly, “I don’t want you to go without me!”
“I’ve told you!” Adele hissed, worried that at any moment they would be discovered. “I have to go and I can’t take you with me! The bad man will get us!”
“I won’t let the bad man get us...” Danny promised, “Please take me!”
“No!” Adele fumed, eventually managing to get one hand off her arm only to have it reattach onto her coat.
“Why?!” Danny wailed, perilously close to tears now for the first time since Adele had thrown his first set of bloodstained pants away.
Adele knew that she was very close to missing Pablo come by to take her to the airport and so said the one thing that she knew would work, the one thing that always worked with Danny. “Why? Why can’t you come with me?” Danny nodded, his frantic eyes full of tears. “Because you aren’t a good boy,” she spat at him. “You weren’t a good boy for Bryce and you weren’t a good boy for me, so now you have to stay here.”
It worked. Danny’s hands sprang off Adele as if she was suddenly red hot and he backed away, settling himself into the corner of the open porch and sliding his bottom onto the ground. Adele sighed in relief. “Right,” she said adjusting her crumpled clothing, “wait until I have gone around the corner and then ring the bell.” Danny stared at her in silence. “And don't tell any of those people inside anything about me or the bad man will kill us both, right?” he nodded. “Promise?” Adele prompted him, her voice stern.
“Promise,” Danny whispered and Adele turned and without a backward glance disappeared into the night.
Face didn't ring the bell after she had gone and he didn’t tell any of the people in the orphanage anything about her when they found him at first light. In fact he didn’t say one single word to anyone for fifteen long months and by that time, his subconscious had done a grand job of wrapping up his whole past life with Adele and hiding it right at the back of his head. But of course, Adele, finding out that life with Pablo was every bit as awful as she’d thought it would be, knew none of that.
She had, however, carried that last image of him huddled on those steps in the dark with her for many years until she had managed to lock it away herself. The emotion on his face had haunted her and seeing it again today on the the man who was hanging at Silas’ mercy in that warehouse was what had brought all of this back to her. But now she understood what she was seeing; it was the expression of someone thoroughly betrayed and who now expected nothing more. That first day in the trailer with Bryce, Danny had begged and pleaded for her to help him and she hadn’t. After that he hadn’t even bothered asking anymore - he’d known it was useless.
And that’s what she’d seen in Face today; the pride, the resignation, the refusal to ask for help, even when he must have heard Silas offering her his freedom from pain and death, the acceptance that she wouldn’t help him, had never helped him, the futility of letting himself believe for one minute that she ever could.
She closed her eyes tightly against the rush of emotion those thoughts provoked in her. He’d asked her for help with Bryce, pleaded and begged her to save him and she’d turned away from him. The man who that scared little boy had become had decided he would never make that same mistake with her again, he would never ask for help that wasn’t going to come.
She opened her eyes and realised that this was the time when she needed to try and right that some of that wrong. Hannibal Smith may not care enough about Danny to come to his aid, but Adele owed him, she owed the little boy who had last reached out for her all those long years ago. Today was the day when she finally reached back.
Next
If you would prefer not to read this part of the story, which is kind of important to the overall plot, I have marked it with two lines of asterixes and I would suggest skipping the marked section. I will then post a very brief and factual summary of what you have missed so you can catch up without any upset.
I realise child abuse is a very emotive subject - and rightly so! I am not condoning it in any way. Please look after yourself. If you have had experience of this matter, as many of us, unfortunately, have, and you feel that this will upset you - DON'T READ THE MARKED TEXT. Thanks - Indigo x
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Adele forced herself to stroll calmly across the parking lot only when she was around the corner and definitely out of sight of the warehouse, did she allow herself to collapse against the side of the building and try to control the shaking in her limbs. Danny was there, she’d had no idea that Silas had taken him, where the hell was John? Why wasn’t he looking out for him? How had Silas got the drop on him? But of course Adele knew the answer to that question only too well, Danny had been so upset after their meeting, after the things that she’d said to him that of course he would be an easy target.
She rubbed at her forehead to try and erase the images of him in her head, of him so helpless, of Silas hurting him like that... She felt sick, sick right down to the pit of her stomach and she hated it. Silas was a psychopath, that was for sure. It was a good job that Adele had managed to control herself back there, one sign of weakness to Danny’s predicament and Silas would have had her strung up right alongside him. That ‘what can I do for you?’ crap had been just that as well, a trap, designed to lure Adele in, have her begging for Danny’s life only to have Silas turn on her as well.
No, she had done the right thing there, there was nothing she could do for Danny, nothing at all, Silas was more than a match for her in every unpleasant way going. She’d done well to get out with her life, and now she needed to phone a taxi and get the hell away from that madman for good. Her shaking fingers brought out her phone but she closed her eyes, Danny’s brave little grunts of pain as Silas flayed his beautiful skin tortured her eyes and her mind and with a snap decision, she dialled.
It was answered on the first ring, and looking nervously over her shoulder in case she’d been followed, Adele cupped her hand around the mouth piece and spoke quickly over the furious voice at the other end. “Yes, yes, I know, John, now shut up and listen to me as Danny’s life is in danger here.”
A forty minute drive away, Hannibal and BA looked at each other as they heard Adele’s words and Hannibal immediately halted his tirade. “Go on,” he said instead.
“Someone called Silas Pike has taken Danny and is going to kill him.” She hated the way her voice was shaking.
Again, Hannibal and BA traded glances, “Pike?” BA asked and Hannibal waved him quiet.
“Where?” he barked into the phone instead and Adele was instantly there with her answer.
“A warehouse over in North Gardena, number 202 on West 134th Street.”
“And why does this Pike want to kill Face?”
“Because he thinks he killed his brother!” Hannibal frowned at the edges of panic he could hear in Adele’s voice, “But it wasn’t even him, it was your other man, Baracus!”
“Oh, man,” BA moaned, hanging his head and Hannibal reached over and squeezed his arm.
“And how do you know all this then, Adele?”
“Because I’ve just been there!” There was a definite note of panic in her voice now and Hannibal silently complimented her on her acting skills. “And he’s got Danny hanging from a rope and he’s beating him and burning him and he’s going to damn well torture him to death!”
Hannibal’s brows pulled together at those words and BA could see his fingers were white where they gripped the phone. “So I suppose that you would like us to come charging over there right about now, and storm into that warehouse, right?”
“Yes!” Adele cried out, “Oh, yes, but hurry, John, hurry, he’s hurting him!”
Hannibal closed his eyes. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered coldly.
For a second there was nothing but a stunned silence from Adele, before she finally persuaded her mouth to work again. “What?!” she gasped, unable to pull out anything more eloquent.
“I don't believe you,” Hannibal replied. “Ever since we have met you, you have just fed us one lie after another. You’ve poisoned my Captain, had him in ICU, twisted Face backwards and forwards until he doesn’t know who he is anymore, and now you just want to make it a full set by getting Bosco and I to charge in with all these ridiculous lies about Face and then you’ll what? Shoot us? Have the military waiting to lock us up? I wouldn’t put anything past you, Adele!”
“No,” it almost sounded as if Adele was sobbing now and Hannibal frowned again. “You have to come, you have to help him, Silas is going to kill him!” Hannibal didn't reply. “John,” Adele whispered, “Danny told me you love him, that you’ve loved him since you first met him.” Still Hannibal didn’t reply, “Prove that love to me now, John!” she pleaded, “Come and save him before it’s too late!”
“And what do you care about that?”Hannibal asked coldly, “Since when have you ever cared about Face?” Silence came down the line and Hannibal frowned before looking at the phone in his hand. “Go home, Adele,” he said quietly and pressed the disconnect button, before quickly switching the phone off. He leant back in his seat and let out a long breath with his eyes closed tight. “You know where you’re going, BA?” he asked.
“Sure thing bossman,” BA replied concentrating hard as he weaved in and out of the traffic, “be there in about half an hour.”
Hannibal nodded and clapped him on the back as he moved into the rear of the van to unlock the weapons store, hoping and praying that they would get there in time to save Face.
__________________________________
Adele stared in shock at the phone in her hand, before grabbing it and redialling, swearing in frustration at the dead tone she got back. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest and she felt sick; as furious as she was with Danny after their little chat that morning, she couldn’t just leave him like that. She’d been so certain that John would come for him... Danny himself had been so certain of John’s love for him that morning that the callous reaction to her news rocked her to the core. She surprised herself when she realised that there was no savage satisfaction to the confirmation that Danny had been fooling himself for all these years, that John did only want him for the sex.
So what more could she do know? She had given Danny the opportunity to tell Silas it wasn’t him that had killed Brock Pike, but for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, he had stayed quiet on the matter. She had tried to alert John to the trouble Danny was in, but John was too proud and suspicious to listen to her. She’d done all she could, and now she needed to do what both Danny and John had told her to do, which was get the hell out of California and try to pretend that this entire horrendous episode had never happened.
She pulled the number of a taxi firm from her address book and pressed connect, listening as it rang three times, and then, just as the operator answered, Adele pressed the red button cut them off. She slumped back against the wall of the warehouse she was hiding behind and wondered why she couldn’t just walk away. She owed Danny nothing here. He’d told her to go, told her he didn’t want to see her ever again. He hadn’t asked her for help, hadn’t even co-operated when she had tried to throw him a lifeline, she’d tried to get John to help him, what the hell else could she do?
But still she couldn’t leave. The image of Danny, and those quiet little sounds of pain he’d made when Silas whipped him were all she could see and hear. He seemed to be there at the front of her vision all the time, that indecipherable expression on his face, and so she closed her eyes tightly, not wanting him to stare at her like that.
However, once her eyes were closed it was even worse, he was there as well, that exact same emotion in his eyes, but this time from another time, another place, and another situation that Adele had, quite successfully over the years, pretended had never happened. She couldn’t hold the memory back any longer; Danny’s words at the hotel that morning had ripped it from the deep dark hole in her head where it had been hiding and now it was thrashing about in her consciousness, like a bat trapped in a room, throwing itself against the walls looking for a way out. With a whimper of submission, Adele sank to the ground and let it come.
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She opened her eyes and winced at the sunlight trying to force its way in through the cheap nylon curtains of her bedroom in the back of the trailer. Her head pounded, her throat burned, her stomach was churning and the soreness down below reminded her of her partner from the night before and his none-too-gentle approach to sex. She sighed, she was actually a little sick of waking up like this.
With great difficulty and nausea, Adele turned on her other side to look at the little nest of blankets on the carpet next to her bed. She’d long ago given up trying to make Danny sleep in the main part of the trailer on a night; if she was alone he would creep into her bed as soon as she turned in, and if she had a visitor he would curl up on the floor, silent and usually unnoticed by her ‘guest’ and even Adele herself had long stopped feeling uncomfortable that he was there while she was ‘busy’.
But this morning her bed was empty and the blanket nest was empty and she sighed, partly in relief, partly in frustration. If her bed was empty then that was good, that meant that Bryce or Bruce or whatever his name was had already left and she didn’t have to put up with another ten minutes trapped under his hulking frame as she sweated all over her, but if the floor was empty as well then that meant that Danny was up and probably out playing in the mud again. She sighed, it was almost as if he did that just to deliberately annoy her. He knew how much she hated going to the laundrette.
She lay still for another few minutes and then slowly got to her feet, the draw of a quick shot of vodka proving too hard to resist, pulled on her dressing gown and yanked the plywood door of her bedroom open. She blinked and stumbled into the main living area of the trailer, grabbing hold of the side of the kitchen counter to steady herself and keep on her feet. It was dark and gloomy in here, this end of the trailer was obviously still in the shade of the trees and all the curtains were closed which was odd, as she was sure they had been open when she and Bryce/Bruce had taken to her bed last night.
She blinked again and her eyes started adjusting, but her brain took a little longer to catch up with what they were telling her they could see. She frowned as Danny’s face came into focus, pale, eyes wide and staring at her, but upside down which was odd and something her vodka soaked brain was struggling to come to terms with. Slowly the pieces fit together and she realised that he was laid in his back on the small table opposite her, his head tipped off the edge so her could see her, his feet pointing towards the couch at the end near the window. Taking a step in, Adele opened her mouth to shout at him, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing laid on the table like that when she suddenly realised that he wasn’t alone.
Almost in slow motion, she took in the scene before her, her eyes much, much quicker than her brain which was still refusing to connect the dots and come up with an acceptable reason for what it could see.
Danny was naked, his brown legs and torso in sharp contrast to the whiteness of his thighs and stomach. Bryce was also naked, one hand on himself, stroking firmly even as he watched Adele, the other... oh god... Adele felt the nausea in her stomach increase tenfold and she took another step in, looking down at Danny’s desperate pleading face, the tears streaking his cheeks, the way his hands reached out for her and she stopped, just out of his reach, clinging onto the door to stop herself from collapsing on the spot.
“Just what do you think you are doing?” she whispered, low and hard but the tremor in her words was impossible to miss. She clung on harder as her legs started to shake. “Get the hell away from him and out of this trailer before I call the police.” She didn’t want trouble from him, she just wanted him to go, now.
But Bryce didn’t stop, he continued to move his hands in synch, Danny’s face twisting in pain with every movement and smiled at Adele. “What am I doing?” he asked, his voice low and fuelled by lust. “I’m filling your cupboards with food. I’m stocking up your vodka supply.” Adele just stared at him as he leered at her, violating her son before her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He smiled, “And I’m making sure you have enough joints to last you the rest of the month...”
Still Adele didn’t move.
“Turn around,” he commanded in a voice used to being obeyed. “Go back to your pit and stay there until you hear me leave. And then I’ll go get your shopping.”
Adele looked down at Danny; his arms were still reaching for her, his silent tears leaving clean streaks down his grubby face, his eyes begging, imploring her not to go, not to leave him here with this man, to help him, to save him.
“Turn around,” Bryce ordered again and this time there was a threat in his voice and Adele thought of the food and the drink and the joints and the price that everyone had to pay in life, and turned around.
“Mommy!” It was the first time Danny had made a noise and she could hear him scrabbling around to try and reach her, Bryce swearing under his breath as he kept tight hold of his wriggling limbs. “No, mommy!” he cried, “Don’t go!”
Adele closed her eyes and started the slow walk back to her room, wishing she could close her ears as well. “Mommy!” there was panic in that little voice now, but Adele had reached her room.
“Be good, Danny,” she told him over her shoulder and then stepped in, closing the door behind her.
- - - - - - - - - - -
A while later, she heard the door to the trailer shut and Bryce’s car start up and drive away. She waited another ten minutes before dragging herself out of bed and staggering into the living area, eyes searching for her son. He wasn’t there, and for a horrible, sick minute she wondered if Bryce had taken him but then she noticed that the door was slightly ajar and so, pulling her dressing gown tightly closed, she stumbled out into the sunshine.
She squinted over to the tree and the water tap, but he wasn’t there and so with resignation, got down on her knees and looked into the gloom under the trailer. She saw him straight away, dressed in his usual shorts and t-shirt, and huddled into a tight ball next to a wheel. “Danny,” she called him gently, “come to Mommy.” He didn’t move, his face still pressed into his knees. “Danny,” she tried again, “I’m going to make you some breakfast. Come and show me what you want.” Still no movement. “Danny...” she made sure her voice was as sweet as it could be. “Don't do this, darling. It’s not nice to ignore mommy like this.”
And then he looked up and Adele recoiled in shock.
Gone was the way he’d always looked at her in the past, the adoration in his eyes, the desire to please, to love to and be loved. Now, instead of that, his little boy’s face wore the expression of an old man, a man who had seen too much, been betrayed in the worst possible way, and, even worse, finally saw that the betrayal was only the latest in a very long line, past and future. Adele felt a surge of guilt wash through her but quickly pushed it down, well, it was about time he learned that life was full of shit and if you wanted anything you had to pay the price. His blue eyes, dry of tears now, bored into her and she straightened up, knowing that her sweet little boy was gone for good.
“If you are not back inside in five minutes you won’t get any breakfast,” she told him sharply as she walked back inside. “There’s no point just sitting there crying like a baby.”
He didn’t come inside, not until Bryce came back with the food and the drink and the hash and dragged him out from under the trailer, and he didn’t cry, not until they were alone again that night and in a fit of guilt, Adele was helping him get ready for bed. He’d watched as she had taken his favourite cookie monster underpants off him and given him his pyjamas, going white as she’d noticed all the dark red stains inside his briefs. Without a word she’d thrown them straight into the trash and that’s when Danny had cried, begging and begging her to get them out again, and only stopping when she’d smacked him and dumped him in his bed by the table in the trailer.
*******************************************************************************************************************************
(Safe Catchup: This section takes place as a flashback to when Adele and Face lived together in the trailer.
Face usually sleeps in Adele's bed, or on her floor if she has a man with her.
One morning Adele wakes up alone and on going into the main part of the trailer finds the man she took home, Bryce, sexually abusing her son.
She is shocked, but Bryce offers her food and drink and drugs to be allowed to continue.
She lets him and walks out ignoring Face's cries for her help.
Afterwards, Face is more than aware of what she has done to him and their relationship is ruined.)
______________
After that fateful day, he’d never tried to get back into her bed, never made a nest on her floor. He’d never cried and he’d never looked at her with love in his eyes. Bryce came around twice more, not even bothering to sleep with Adele first, and then that’s when she went to Pablo. He was rich, single, overweight and had some very questionable sexual preferences. However, he had also wanted to take her to New York, had wanted to make her into a model in exchange for certain – rights. He’d also been quite happy for Danny to come along as well.
Adele had originally said no, Pablo turned her stomach and she felt that the price expected of her in exchange for his patronage was far, far too high. But now, well things were different; Danny wouldn’t do anything she asked of him, was sullen and sulky. She also couldn’t stand the way he looked at her now, the flat expression, the way that she was transported straight back to that moment on the table, his arms reaching out for her, the pleading in his eyes and she couldn’t stand it a moment longer.
Guilt was not an emotion that Adele readily embraced and so within three weeks of that morning with Bryce, she’d called Pablo, agreed to come to New York with him and told him that Danny was going to live with his father. He wasn’t of course and Adele was a little stuck as to what she would actually do with her morose son. In the end she decided to leave him somewhere obvious, somewhere the police would pick him up, but then, in looking for a place where no one would know her as she left him, she stumbled across the Orphanage on Tylery Road.
It was just after midnight and harder than she had anticipated to persuade a clearly frightened Danny to let go of her arm and wait for someone to answer the door.
“I don't want to!” he pleaded, his thin fingers gripping her arm tightly, “I don’t want you to go without me!”
“I’ve told you!” Adele hissed, worried that at any moment they would be discovered. “I have to go and I can’t take you with me! The bad man will get us!”
“I won’t let the bad man get us...” Danny promised, “Please take me!”
“No!” Adele fumed, eventually managing to get one hand off her arm only to have it reattach onto her coat.
“Why?!” Danny wailed, perilously close to tears now for the first time since Adele had thrown his first set of bloodstained pants away.
Adele knew that she was very close to missing Pablo come by to take her to the airport and so said the one thing that she knew would work, the one thing that always worked with Danny. “Why? Why can’t you come with me?” Danny nodded, his frantic eyes full of tears. “Because you aren’t a good boy,” she spat at him. “You weren’t a good boy for Bryce and you weren’t a good boy for me, so now you have to stay here.”
It worked. Danny’s hands sprang off Adele as if she was suddenly red hot and he backed away, settling himself into the corner of the open porch and sliding his bottom onto the ground. Adele sighed in relief. “Right,” she said adjusting her crumpled clothing, “wait until I have gone around the corner and then ring the bell.” Danny stared at her in silence. “And don't tell any of those people inside anything about me or the bad man will kill us both, right?” he nodded. “Promise?” Adele prompted him, her voice stern.
“Promise,” Danny whispered and Adele turned and without a backward glance disappeared into the night.
Face didn't ring the bell after she had gone and he didn’t tell any of the people in the orphanage anything about her when they found him at first light. In fact he didn’t say one single word to anyone for fifteen long months and by that time, his subconscious had done a grand job of wrapping up his whole past life with Adele and hiding it right at the back of his head. But of course, Adele, finding out that life with Pablo was every bit as awful as she’d thought it would be, knew none of that.
She had, however, carried that last image of him huddled on those steps in the dark with her for many years until she had managed to lock it away herself. The emotion on his face had haunted her and seeing it again today on the the man who was hanging at Silas’ mercy in that warehouse was what had brought all of this back to her. But now she understood what she was seeing; it was the expression of someone thoroughly betrayed and who now expected nothing more. That first day in the trailer with Bryce, Danny had begged and pleaded for her to help him and she hadn’t. After that he hadn’t even bothered asking anymore - he’d known it was useless.
And that’s what she’d seen in Face today; the pride, the resignation, the refusal to ask for help, even when he must have heard Silas offering her his freedom from pain and death, the acceptance that she wouldn’t help him, had never helped him, the futility of letting himself believe for one minute that she ever could.
She closed her eyes tightly against the rush of emotion those thoughts provoked in her. He’d asked her for help with Bryce, pleaded and begged her to save him and she’d turned away from him. The man who that scared little boy had become had decided he would never make that same mistake with her again, he would never ask for help that wasn’t going to come.
She opened her eyes and realised that this was the time when she needed to try and right that some of that wrong. Hannibal Smith may not care enough about Danny to come to his aid, but Adele owed him, she owed the little boy who had last reached out for her all those long years ago. Today was the day when she finally reached back.
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Date: 2011-11-09 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-11 11:32 pm (UTC)