Mum (Danny and Val) Warning: talk of sexual abuse

[daniel_marlow]

Ever since being rescued and arriving at the hospital, Danny had been unconscious. Greg had drained him so effectively, that Danny's body needed time to recuperate. There were tubes and needles sticking out of him all over and his scrawny body seemed dwarfed by the bed and the machines surrounding him.

After two days though, Danny started to stir. A low moan escaped his dry lips and for a moment, it looked like he was going to wake up slowly. Instead, however, he panicked. All of a sudden he sat up and looked around frantically. A shriek escaped his lips and he tried to pull the IV out of his arm. He hadn't even realised his mother was in the room.

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[createdwebs.insanejournal.com]

When Melissa had been one she'd gotten a terrible case of the flu and ended up in hospital. The doctors had told her at one point that she and Ross should say their goodbyes. Those days sitting by her tiny daughter's incubator had seemed like the longest and most sleepless nights of her life, and she couldn't imagine a time spent in hospital that could have felt so gut-wrenching, so terrifying, so unendingly exhausting and confusing and upsetting.

Not until now. Not until she sat by the hospital bed of her son as he drifted somewhere far from her, after being taken for twelve days. Twelves days had been a lifetime to Val and she was scared - so scared, scared beyond thought - that twelve days had been even longer to Danny.

She didn't sleep while Danny slept. She remained awake. She held vigil. She stood guard. No one could touch him without her consent, no one could be alone in the room with him, not ever again.

Val wanted him to wake up and see her there, but in another way she was petrified of his waking because once he was awake she was going to have to face everything that had been done to him. She was going to have to try and tell him how everything was alright, when she was sure that nothing would ever be alright again. It had taken so long and so much work to get him to the point he had been at, and now all of that was destroyed. She didn't know if, when Danny woke up, he could ever be whole again. Val didn't know if what woke up would even be recognisable as her son anymore.

Things had been taken from him, and how much could be taken until there was nothing left.

She spoke to him while he was unconscious but she never touched him. She couldn't stand the idea of being another pair of hands on him after whatever he'd gone through. It was bad enough that the doctors and nurses touched him. She hated them for doing that, hated that his skin and his body was an object for them to handle. She wanted to push them out of the room and barricade the door.

Sometimes, when she was tired and exhausted from crying, when she was overwhelmed from thinking that this was an impossible thing for Danny to recover from, she thought about ending them both. They were brief, fleeting, dangerous thoughts, but still they were there. She thought of locking the door and setting fire to the room; she'd drape herself over the bed as they burned, like some kind of dark pagan rite. He wouldn't have to wake up in a world that was nothing but violation and she wouldn't have to hear him crying.

It had been a moment like this - she could press a pillow down into his face - when Danny woke, and Val felt the stab of guilt at her thoughts and relief at his waking at the same time, a confusing mix of emotions that made her vision spot.

"Danny, Danny!" she said, not touching him, holding her arms out in front of him so that he would see her. "I'm here, mum's here, you're safe and here with me!"