The Morning After [W]

[ten]

TAG [W]: For language later on XD
For Brody...

---

If someone had asked Ten Everard 5 years ago where she thought she’d be just now, odds are good that she’d never in a million years have said Marseilles, France. Truth be told, she wouldn’t have ever come to this god forsaken country if it hadn’t been for a handful of reasons. Sure, her mum had been driving her insane essentially since birth, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to do back in Cardiff... but really, if it hadn’t been for Brody, Ten couldn’t think of a single reason why she’d have picked the Southern French countryside as a place to lay down any roots. It was, after all, full of French people, first and foremost among its faults. Still, if France had turned out to be good for anything, it was definitely the parties. The pampered, spoiled little kids Brody went to school with and even on occasion hung out with might not have a whole lot going for them, but sweet Christ did they know how to throw a party. This came in handy, considering the amount of time she had to kill while Brody was off with his other friends. Or worse, his girlfriend.

Sure, he’d tried to get them all together at first: his shiny new friends and the old one from way back when that had never really fit in with people like... well, people in general, really. It hadn’t taken long for him to realize the futility of the attempt, though. After a handful of awkward meetings and tense moments that had no doubt resulted in hurt feelings on at least one side of the line, Brody had seemed to accept the inevitability of things and had quit stopped trying to force his two ‘groups’ of friends into one another’s company. On the one hand, it left Ten vastly relieved to not have to worry about playing nice with people she loathed on mere principle. On the other... well, it meant she had a lot of empty time on her hands.

She’d filled it in as many harmless ways as she could manage at first, mostly just hanging around the house and trying to find random things to occupy her time. Brody’s many siblings were a constant source of amusement of course... but even that seemed to be a double-edged sword, considering Isolde (and even Sian, to a certain extent) barely remembered her; not to mention Morgan, who had never even set her vivid blue eyes on the Everard girl until she’d turned up at the airport.

The Hathaways, before their disastrous (at least to Ten’s way of thinking) move to France, had been like a second family to her so long as you didn’t take into account Glynn Hathaway’s vehement loathing of her. Now... well, now it was like meeting a whole different family of strangers and expecting them to welcome her with open arms. Isolde was still unsure, even after 3 months of constant attempts at gaining the tiny little blonde’s trust and Sian wasn’t much keener to accept the fact that she and Ten had actually gotten on quite well before. Aelwyn and the twins had their own lives and were out wreaking havoc as often as not... and then Glynn had returned home, and the home that had held the promise of eventual acceptance had vanished as quickly as a blink. Brody had ‘worked it out’ with his father. Supposedly. But it was hardly a secret that Glynn Hathaway wanted Ten out of the house at just about any cost, so she wasn’t exactly sure what his definition of ‘worked out’ actually was.

At any rate, while she was still a visitor among the Hathaways, Glynn’s return had sparked a sudden need to be as far away from the house as possible whenever he was likely to be around and the fledgling friendship she’d found with Maisha Taye took on a whole new role the spitfire mechanic was anything but dull and could be depended upon to find a party basically any night of the week. Her slightly (ok ok, more than slight) hard-partying ways had set Ten off down a path she’d intended to leave behind back in Wales, however; one that revolved much more around parties and booze than any kind of actual life. So it was hardly a surprise that she was out more nights out of the week than she stayed in... And as often without Brody by her side as she was with him it seemed, now a days.

Which brought her right back to where she was; creeping into the silent, still Hathaway house just as the glimmer’s of dawn’s first light gilded the horizon. It had been one hell of a party last night... at least, she thought it was. What she could remember of it. Brody had been there, had even arrived with her and Mai though a few hours into the party he’d been occupied somewhere else and Ten had been on her 8th (ok, 10th) shot. That was about the time where her vision got hazy... and the next thing she remembered, she was waking up next to a rumpled looking guy she couldn’t remember the name of and silently pleading with any God that would listen that she’d clean up her ways if He’d just tell her nothing much had happened that night.

All Gods being conspicuously absent, she’d done the only thing she could do; shrugged philosophically, tugged on her shoes and began the long walk back to the remote bit of land the Hathaway’s called home. She could have rung Brody. Or Mai, even. But considering her own embarrassment over what she’d woken up to, she wasn’t really in the mood for the lecture she’d have gotten from either one of them. So she took the 5 mile walk in stride, shivering a bit in the twilight air as she fought to keep her imagination from running away with her as she strolled through the heavily wooded area.

The 2 hours it took for her to make her way home cleared her head at least a little, though it still felt as if a small marching band was cheerfully banding inside her temples as she tugged off her shoes in an effort to make as little noise as possible. With her well-worn Converse clutched tightly in one hand she opened the heavy wooden front door, holding her breath as she prayed for the iron hinges to have mercy and refrain from screeching. The grimace that had twisted her face as she waited for the horrid sound eventually cleared as she realized she was in the clear, carefully shutting the door with a barely audible click before making her way as carefully as she could manage up the stairs towards the heavenly prospect of her bed.

Oh, bed. Warm, soft sheets and a pillow-y mattress seemed to call to her from the room she’d claimed as her own, just down the hallway past Brody’s room; a siren’s song, filled with more longing than a half-starved man would have for a 7 course feast. She closed her eyes against the need that rose up inside her, her steps becoming less carefully measured in her haste as she hurried down the hall. The creak of the one loose floorboard in the hallway right outside her room, the one loose floorboard she knew to avoid, stopped her dead in her tracks, and her blood ran cold.

Damn it.

Hesitantly, she turned around, gray eyes reluctantly rising to meet the icy blue eyes of her friend that she knew would be staring at her. Her voice, when she finally managed to speak around the inexplicable lump that had formed in her throat, was a little louder than she meant for it to be at first, though she quickly lowered it to barely more than a whisper.

“I-Er... Morning, Hathaway...”

[brody]

Brody watched the seconds ticking passed on the analogue clock above his desk, his silver-blue eyes alert and focused as the minute hand struck twenty-six minutes past four. His fingers, which had been rubbing habitually against the rough bristly on his face for the past seventeen minutes, now ached from the repetitive motion and forced him to flex them. This brought on a sigh - the fifty ninth of the night - and he closed his eyes. He was tired, there was no doubt about that, but he knew he couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to. His mind was more awake than he was and he doubted it had rested at all in weeks.

This was his punishment. There was no other explanation for it. This was what he had to put up with for all the cruel, crude, heartless deeds he had done over the years.

It started when she came. Ten Everard was Brody’s best friend from before they could talk, and to be honest that was probably how far back he had to repent for. They had been inseparable - two halves of one brat - forever. Even as tykes they lived like one solid mass of destruction. Brody could remember points over the years still fresh in his memory that their older sisters and even their parents had cared to point out just how good friends they were. ‘Ben and Tody’ was a common slip of the tongue, whether accidental or deliberate, especially from Charlotte who thought it was adorable. The collective title was only a hint at what they shared and even those against ’them’ knew how indestructible they were.

Or, almost indestructible, as it turned out. Glynn Hathaway had his limits when it came to the devil twins, and apparently that limit was fifteen and a half years, give or take a few weeks. Brody remembered the day he left her all too well. It was brilliantly clear and sunny in South Wales that day, and the only creatures that seemed to be happy about it were the birds and Glynn himself. Taffy was reserved, telling her children that it was for the best, but her smile didn’t meet her eyes. The older kids hated it; Imogen had a boyfriend, her best friend Charlotte and a tribe of Charl-ettes to think about. The twins had their groupies or homies or whatever they decided to be that week, and Brody had Ten. The others were young enough to be excited about the change - the really long holiday was how Taffy explained it to them.

While the others packed up the cars and truck with the last of their belongings, Brody made a dash for it. Ten’s home wasn’t that far away and he knew a short cut. But he hadn’t even rounded the corner of the garage when he met her. Ten had had the same idea as he, and defied their parents’ wishes to make her own flee across the meadows and he river to the Hathaway’s home. They had been running that fast and that hard that even now Brody wasn’t sure which was stronger; the impact of the force at which they collided, or the grip with which they clung to each other, so tight neither dared to breathe. It was the barest, rawest moment they had ever shared - weeks later Brody would still swear he could feel her heart beating beneath his fingers from when they clutched at her sides, his long arms wrapped so far around her skinny frame.

It felt like less than a blink before his father’s roar cut through their desperate, almost silent pleas with every deity they could believe in. He remembered burying his face in her hair and closing his eyes so tight that they stung. Glynn’s booming orders came strong and fast, telling him to move before he made him move. The bruises along Brody’s back throbbed, this body warning him to heed the coarse voice, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Ten’s arms clung tighter to him, and then Brody felt the large, gripping hand crushing his shoulder, forcing he and his best friend apart.

He had never seen so much defiance and pain mingled on Ten’s young face before that moment, and Brody glared back at her, furious. “Don’t you let them see you cry,” he had growled at her, his own voice breaking. “Don’t let them have that, Sunshine.”

The digital clock beside his bed at the other end of the room beeped once, snapping his eyes open to search the wall for the black plastic timepiece. Four thirty. She had been out later than this before, several times before, even, but all those times she had sent him a text or left a message for him to tell him not to get his pants in a twist. This time he had heard nothing. His phone had been sitting on the desk top for the entire night so there was no way he had missed her. He grabbed it and slid it open, swallowing past the lump in his throat that he hadn’t noticed forming. His brow ached from the deep set frown that had been there for the last couple of hours, and he rubbed it idly as he hit speed-dial 1. He didn’t expect it to ring, so when he heard Ten’s voice on her answering service he didn’t wait for her to finish, and hung up. Immediately he punched in a number he remembered a long time ago, had forgotten, and in recent months had become familiar to him again. It rang eight times before Maisha answered.

“What?”
“Is Ten with you?”
“I don’t know… phone back in the morning.”
“It is morning. Is she there, Mai?”
“TEN? IT’S YOUR BITCH! …ow…”
“She’s there then?”
“No, I just w-”
“Mai, she didn’t come home.”
“So?”
“She didn’t call.”
“Oh…”

Several minutes later he had gathered that Mai hadn’t seen Ten for most of the night. She thought she remembered her leaving not long after Brody did, but didn’t know who with or where to, but Brody didn’t push her for more information. Knowing Mai she had probably just made half of it up already to keep him from raising his voice.

Ten’s behaviour wasn’t unusual, but that was part of the problem. He could count on his fingers the number of nights since she came to France that he knew she was safe and well, and while most of the time he knew she could take care of herself, recent events and her decreasing enthusiasm for self preservation had led to more sleepless nights than Brody could really deal with. Once or twice in as many weeks he had to pick her up from the homes of men he didn’t know and he doubted she remembered their names either. It was getting ridiculous, it was getting dangerous, and he really couldn’t put up with it much longer.

He had just about decided to go and hunt her down, had even grabbed his car keys, when a loud and distinct creak sounded from the hallway outside his room. He was on his feet, the black desk chair sliding away from him across the wooden floorboards of his room with the force at which he stood. It hadn’t rolled to a stop before he had opened his door in practised silence and stepped out onto the landing. If his eyes hadn’t been used to sitting in the dark for the last few hours he probably would have missed her, but as it was she was as clear as day, several feet away, frozen mid step. Even with trainers on his feet he didn’t make a sound as he came up behind her as she turned. He couldn’t read her expression, but even in the dark her silver eyes seemed slightly glazed over. He had to fight the urge to rip and let her have it right then, but the idea of waking the entire house wasn’t exactly highly desirable. His livid blue eyes bore into her, just inches between them, as he fought for control.

“This is going to end. Now,” he hissed, his voice barely audible in the still hallway. He grabbed her arm and pulled her, probably a little more forcibly that he intended, back down the hall in the direction she came in. “Move. We‘re going for a drive before my sisters wake up and see you like this.“ He knew she wouldn’t argue as he shoved her silently towards the stairs.

[ten]

She’d known, from the moment she felt his icy gaze boring holes into her back, that whatever she turned to face wouldn’t be pleasant. Brody wasn’t known for his patience and understanding, after all, and while she typically didn’t try to antagonize his wrath, she’d ended up incurring it more often than not over the many years of their friendship. She knew the signs, even without having to see them, and the tension that was currently thickening the air was more than enough to have a shiver of dread running down her spine.

It wasn’t that Brody was a particularly angry individual, though one could hardly call him calm and collected. He was simply a very... forceful kind of person, especially where his own limits were concerned. Most sane, self-preserving people took the warning when his frigid blue eyes flashed into theirs and did not push their luck any further. Most people would have stopped their ridiculous behavior weeks ago, when it became rather clear that his patience was wearing thin. But then, Ten hadn’t ever really been the sane, self-preserving sort.

Oh, she’d noticed the exasperation he’d shown on the many trips he’d taken to pick her up at one party or another, and she’d have had to be brain damaged not to pick up on the stony silence that always lingered for a day or two after he had to drive to one of her new ‘friends’ houses in the early morning hours. She knew, without him having to say it aloud, that she had been treading a thin and dangerous line where her best friend was concerned. In her sane, sober hours, she was perfectly aware of it, and did her best to toe the line carefully lest he wind up regretting having her in France entirely. But it was the rest of the time (which, lately, had encompassed more than the sober moments) that she had more of an issue knowing and understanding exactly where the limit of her best friend’s rage lay.

This morning, it seemed, she’d found it unerringly.

Because while she’d expected to see the cold fury on Brody’s face as she turned around to face him, the blast of sheer and utter murderous fury emanating from his icy blue eyes had her taking a half-step backwards in defense before she brought herself up short and forced herself to look him in the eye. His jaw clenched, a tiny muscle there ticking in response to the anger apparently running rampant through his system and she could see him visibly fight for control before he managed to speak.

“This is going to end. Now.”

The sound of his wrath, clearly evident in the strained whisper of his voice, was hardly an improvement to the silence in the hallway. She opened her mouth to speak, though she didn’t have a clue what words she was going to use to try to diffuse the issue. Obviously, a simple “sorry” wasn’t going to cut it.

For the first time in her memory she was scared, actually frightened of the boy who stood in front of her, waves of violence coming off of him in barely constrained fury. Her mouth moved silently for a moment, silver gray eyes that had been slightly glazed over before his approach suddenly wide and bewildered as she tried in vain to assimilate the situation. This wasn’t her Brody... her Brody would never look at her with such...contempt. Her frenzied mind was only able to come up with a fleeting glimpse of the look Glynn Hathaway had had on his face when he first caught sight of her in his home before Brody grabbed her arm painfully and started to pull her back down the stairs she’d just come up.

If nothing else, the pain snapped her out of her dazed reverie.

Her brain, once bleary with exhaustion and the remnants of alcohol that still had her vision blurred along the edges flared at the move, and she felt the power rise up inside her too quickly to be controlled (though, truth be told, she wasn’t entirely sure she would have stopped it, even given the choice). Her vision cleared and focused in on him, suddenly razor sharp as she felt every ounce of her will narrow to a pinprick of power. She felt his hand start to go lax even as she pushed the energy towards him, focusing without even meaning to on the smallest inclinations of his mind and forcing him to stop mid-step and release her. She might have longed to prolong the moment... even gave credence to a brief, flitting image of him tumbling head over heels down the large staircase before she felt the control slipping and she took a staggering step backwards as the last strand of energy snapped and sent her reeling.

’Ugh,’ she thought, bringing a slightly shaky hand up to her brow for a moment while she tried to regain balance. Well, at least that little bout of insanity had cleared away the cobwebs that the liquor had left in her brain. And left it throbbing and threatening to roll down the stairs on its own. Really, she should have known better. Even in the best of circumstances, attempting something like that gave her the mother of all headaches, and considering the lack of sleep, the number of shots she’d taken the night before and the ridiculous fear she could still feel pulsing through her, this was definitely not the best of circumstances. Still...

“Alright, Hathaway!” she hissed vehemently, careful to keep her voice in the hushed whisper he’d been using, as much for fear of sending her own head reeling as in deference to the sleeping girls that still occupied the rooms all around them. She jerked her arm away from him, though the move was hardly necessary at that point, and started down the stairs on her own. “We’ll go outside so you can get the bug that crawled up your arse out, and then I’m going to bed. You wouldn’t believe the night I had.”

Without pausing to look back at him, to make sure he followed, she flounced back out the front door, taking several steps away from the wide bank of windows that covered the front of the house in hopes that their voices wouldn’t carry into the rooms beyond. She turned back to face him, hands on her hips as righteous (well, righteous to HER) anger flooded through her at his reaction. Sure, she’d been out all night, but it was hardly the first time she’d done such a thing, and he’d never reacted like this before...

“Ok, now what in the bleeding, blistering hell is your problem?”

[brody]

He didn’t register nor did he care just how tight the grip on her arm was. His mind had taken on the direct approach, simple, one-tracked. Priority one; get her downstairs and out the door and as far away as he possibly could before he would murder her. Priority 2; not waking up the rest of his family. Priority 3; not hurting Ten. Physical pain and remorse was beyond him at that moment in time. It had been for the past few hours as his worry grew to impatience and then to irritation, anger, fury… any longer and Ten may well have walked straight into a waiting noose. He was concentrating on his breathing in and out through his nose since his jaw was so tightly clenched.

Why his hand on her arm started to relax he had no idea, but it did and by the time he realised his fist held nothing his feet were slowing his decent of the stairs too. His mind full of determined thoughts slowed, once flowing like water over a bed of rocks they now slid like half-frozen syrup, lazy and pointless. All he wanted to do - though he wasn’t sure why - was to stop. So he did, hands loose now at his side with one foot one step below the other. He stared down the stairs and for the briefest moment he could think of nothing more important than throwing himself down them, head first, but again the reasoning behind it never came. He frowned, knowing a second later that a fall would at least hurt him and could probably kill him if his head hit the marble on the way down. He frowned. Why on earth would that notion even cross his mind, especially right at that…

Realisation stung like a bullwhip on a open wound. He blinked, bringing the full force of his lost glare down on Ten as she stumbled and brought her hand to her forehead. He had no urge to grab her from falling on the stairs or stumbling to a bruise or three. He actually had to fight the trace of pure and complete violence that ran through his veins like electricity, telling him to help her along her way. She was about to send him on the same journey and probably would have if her alcohol-sodden brain hadn’t gave out on her when it did. It was too much. He had been the brunt of abuse from his father for far too long to allow Ten to even try.

She was lucky she didn’t look up again to meet the fire in his eyes because Brody didn’t entirely trust his self control. He let her whip her arm away from some invisible grip and start down the stairs. He let her walk ahead about five steps - just out of arms reach - before he followed her, subconsciously avoiding the stairs he knew would creak underfoot. Across the hallway he didn’t take such care with stone owing no chance of disruption or noise no matter how heavy-footed his pace could be. His stride was a faction longer in his current irate mood that he had almost caught up to her before she reached the front door. Again he stopped and waited for her, counting his breaths, until she was far enough away from him that he couldn’t strangle her without warning.

The crisp, pre-dawn air was chilly after the warmth of the house but the goosebumps that raised on his skin didn’t register. He wouldn’t be sure it was entirely the temperature of the air that had such a physical reaction.

“I never thought I’d see the day you and Glynn shared a common goal.” he growled. Trying his best to ignore her unsurprising attitude. The idea that she almost tossed him down the stairs still had him reeling as much as the memory that he was quite willing to do it by himself.

“Get in,” he ordered, his words just as furious as the previous ones and no sign of his anger lifting out of the shelter of the house. He unlocked the glossy black door of his car, again ignoring her stubborn stance and impatient scolding. He really couldn’t comprehend standing and talking to her right then. Not when he’d more likely rip the head from her shoulders. He climbed into the drivers side and slammed the door shut without really meaning to and started up the engine before he took a second breath. He waited, refusing to spare more than a peripheral look at her as she held her ground. That barely lasted a few seconds before he slid down the automatic window on the far side of the car, closest to her, and finally looked at her again. The biting, scathing glare didn’t hold a light to what could have been visible in the dark corridor upstairs.

“Get the fuck in before I back the car up and run you down.”

His eyes told her he was deadly serious.

[ten]

As Ten flounced (and really, there really wasn’t another word to describe it, her feet stabbing with fierce determination into the ground with every step as her hips and hair swayed from one side to the other with self-righteous arrogance) out of the house, thoughts flitted across her consciousness too quickly for her to focus for long on any given one.

That misogynistic, arrogant little prat thought he could dictate to her what she could do with her time, did he? It was ok that he pranced around the bloody French countryside with some vapid blond plastered to his side every night of the week. That was just fine. But the second she decided to find a bit of fun for herself, he got all puffed up and condescending! Ok, so maybe she’d push a bit further beyond the boundry of decency than Brody did. Maybe she’d gone a little too far. Did that mean he could ambush her like that? Damn near rip her arm off?! No.

And she didn’t know what his little comment about Glynn was for. She hadn’t actually meant to ‘suggest’ he throw himself head first down the stairwell. Well, actually, she had meant it with every fiber of her being but she hadn’t actually meant for it to happen. If she hadn’t been so tired, ill and downright furious from his searing grip on her arm, Ten doubted the thought would have even occurred to her. Maybe. Ok, so it probably would have but she definitely wouldn’t have lost control enough to push the thought into him like that.

Probably.

Well, hell, he’d asked for it, hadn’t he? Not that she wanted him hurt, mind you. Brody Hathaway was the closest thing she had to family, considering she had next to nothing common with those people who supposedly shared the same bloodlines as hers. But he just made her so angry sometimes...

As he rounded the car and tossed open the driver’s side door, she opened her mouth to correct him. She and Glynn Hathaway had absolutely nothing in common. He was a foul, loathsome, completely sadistic bastard who delighted in torturing his oldest son. She was... well, now that she thought about it, she could kind of see where he was going with that comparison. It wasn’t true, of course, and it hurt more than a little that he thought she would actually try to hurt him, but...

Suddenly feeling lower than slime, she found herself muttering under her breath, “I wouldn’t have let you actually fall...” Not that it mattered, since Brody was already in the car and revving the engine impatiently. He wouldn’t have believed her anyway, so it hardly made a difference if he’d heard-

”Get in.”

The brusque, authoritative tone he used in those two short words had her back stiffening instantly. Ok, she’d messed up. She was almost ready to admit that. But did he have to be so god damned controlling? She almost turned on her heel right then and marched back into the house. Brody’s threats, be damned. Then she caught sight of the frigid glare of his eyes from in the car, and the glimmer of something else lying beneath the surface of his anger. Pain, maybe. And betrayal. ’Well, hell...’

She pulled open the passenger side door and slid into the soft leather seat. It was a credit to the effect that that pain and mingled fury in his eyes had on her conscience that his threat about running her over didn’t have her instantly getting back out of the car. It did however have her slamming the car door with unnecessary force as she tried to calm her own temper.

“Look,” she said, her voice as tense as the expression on her face as she trained her eyes on the trees that lined the Hathaway’s property, refusing to look at him for fear of losing her tenuous hold on her own anger. “I shouldn’t have thought about the stairs. I didn’t mean to, and you know I wouldn’t have actually done it. Not to you. I can’t believe you think I’d do something like that to actually hurt- Ugh, never mind.”

Huffing out a breath of annoyance, she chanced a glance at him and almost gulped audibly at the frightening expression on his face. “You know I wouldn’t.” The anger didn’t flicker, nor did his gaze as she tried to out-stare him. Ultimately, he won, and her eyes went back to the trees as she dug down deep for some false bravado. He might be scaring the ever-loving shit out of her, but she’d be damned before she admitted it. “So spit out whatever it is that you want to say so I can go to bed. My head feels like it’s about to split in two and some of us didn’t get much sleep last night.”

[brody]

The moment she moved to get into the car again Brody turned his harsh eyes away from her. He had no idea she was doing the same thing as she climbed into the seat next to him and slammed the door so hard he almost winced in pain for the car despite himself. The reflex didn’t happen though and he had turned the key and the engine flared into life before he heard the click of her seatbelt. Her words glanced about in his mind, missing the part of it that could have had him reconsidering his temper. He knew rightly that she meant for him to feel the full force of her anger and foul mood. It barely bothered him that all this came from he fact that she was just pissed she had been caught. Again. It was her childish and idiotic, careless attitude that had them in the situation in the first place.

He had clenched his jaw shut the moment she started talking, knowing now that if he lost it she had no chance of escape. It was one thing wanting to murder the banshee, but actually doing it was something he really wanted to avoid. For now. Instead he took his anger out on the drive. The engine roared in the dawn silence, the wheels skidding on the gravel of the driveway, shooting fistfuls of pebbles back at the front door before they caught purchase and lurched the car forward. He had already shifted gear before the end of the drive and without slowing to check the road beyond he found third year seconds after the gravel turned to tarmac and they turned right, away from the direction of the nearest town. His eyes narrowed, focused on the road in front of them as the French landscape flashed past. His grip was strangely light and gently on the leather of the steering wheel as they chewed up fourth and fifth with a ferocity that begged the engine to moan. Adrenalin met the anger in Brody’s veins and whether it calmed him or fuelled him was yet to be decided. Ten minutes passed without a sound that wasn’t from the car.

“What really gets me is that you have no idea what you’re doing.” His words were heavy, deep and drenched in venom. “You spend every night making up for some lost teenage years you didn’t have back in Wales where no one was there to take you home before you were raped or worse. Aelwyn has more sense than you do and she’s fifteen! Did you wrap yourself up in a bubble back home for so long that you have some twisted notion that you’re invincible or that no one gives a shit what you do, who you do or where you are? You’re meant to be making a better life for yourself here, not screwing it and everyone else’s up in the process.” The car lurched as it met a rise in the road, the wheels leaving the ground for a moment before bouncing back down and giving the car another lurch of power and speed. Brody showed no sign of letting up as the speed dial kept rising. They met no one else on the road, which was good because between the roaring of the engine and the hyperactive pounding of his pulse, Brody could barely hear himself think.

“I’ve had enough. I’ve had more than enough. Of having to pick you up from who knows whose houses, having to call Mai to see if you actually made it through a party without collapsing in the corner, defending you when Glynn blames you for crap that I have a hard time disagreeing with, reassuring mum that its just a phase and that you’re not as bad an influence on my sisters as she might think… You might be the centre of your own world but if you want other people to be in it, including me, you have to grow up.

“You’re beyond taking the piss when even Kynan cringes at the thoughts of what you get up to. You’ve turned into a vicious, nasty little slut. And even more or a shrew than you used to be.” For the first time since leaving the driveway he risked a glance to he side, examining with a frown the unreadable expression on her face. He sighed, irritation and defeat washing over him. “You’re not the same girl I called my best friend.” Shaking his head with another sigh, Brody too a longer blink than he had meant, tiredness consuming him for a split second. When he opened his eyes again and peered blurredly at the road ahead he swore his heart stopped beating. He hadn’t noticed the truck pulling out of a lay-by up ahead and by the time it registered in his head it was too late. The truck, easily twice as tall as his car, was pulling right into the road that he was fast approaching and it didn’t take a vision of the future to see what was going to happen. The truck was going to hit them, square on the passenger’s side.

Fear thundered through him as a violent string of expletives voiced his breath. He didn’t have time to think. Slamming on the breaks he did the only thing he could. His knuckles turned while on the steering wheel as he turned it as far as it would go. Tyres screamed, sounding the terror before it happened. The car span as he had hoped. The truck still hit with a sickening force but instead it smashed into his side rather than Ten’s. He felt the air bags exploding and the failing to do their tasks as plastic and metal screeched and groaned and hurtled towards him like and enraged monster. Glass smashed, shattered, raining horizontally through the car, but he couldn’t feel it. Blood pounded in his head. He could taste metal. And gravity seemed to reverse. He closed his eyes against the red-tinged, slow motion scene, wishing that ceasing to hear was just as easy.

[ten]

Ten’s heart gave a lurch and her stomach flew to her throat as Brody jerked the car into gear, all but slamming her against the back of the seat as the well-muscled engine roared to life and sent them hurtling towards the open road. Her reaction probably had more to do with the expression of cold fury on his face than the sudden acceleration though, considering the fact that she’d been in his car multiple times before, and usually with the same result; Brody liked to drive fast. Especially, it seemed, when he was angry as all hell.

The minutes passed in silence, heralding her own doom as she waited for Brody to begin whatever onslaught he’d intended. Each one that passed had the dread increasing in the pit of her stomach, and her heart beating faster against her rib cage as the trees flew past at an alarming rate of speed. Just when she opened her mouth, completely unsure of what to say but absolutely positive that one more second of the terse silence would drive her to insanity, Brody finally launch into his tirade.

’Well, ouch,’ she thought to herself, mentally wincing more at the completely unveiled venom in his voice than the words. She’d known what was coming... or, at least, had a small clue about the general tone of it. But knowing that didn’t make hearing Brody speak to her with such condescension any easier to listen to. This was her best friend... the one person in the world that understood her, cared about her despite it all. The one person that was now apparently ready to throw in the towel and join the ranks of the rest of the civilized world that thought she wasn’t good for much of anything.

“No one ever did care what I was doing,” she murmured under her breath as Brody took a hill with a bit too much speed and the tires lost traction with the road for one gut-wrenching moment. She glanced over at him and saw that the fiercely determined look on his face hadn’t even flickered, and swallowed the rest of the words that had been on the tip of her tongue. She couldn’t remember a time in her life where she’d been afraid to speak, reluctant to stand up for herself. Then again, Ten couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d ever felt like this particular brand of slime while in the company of Brody Hathaway.

Brody apparently hadn’t even heard her comment, so intent on the road flashing by and his own rage that he continued on with his rampage without more than a second’s hesitation. She tore her gaze away from him as he began to speak again, fixing her eyes on the smooth material of the dashboard as he systematically shredded every bit of dignity she’d tried to muster. As the words ‘slut’ and ‘shrew’ made their way into her sluggish brain, Ten felt the tiny bit of hope she’d been clutching to, praying that whatever Brody was angry about wasn’t that bad faded. It was as bad as it could possibly be. And the kicker was, there wasn’t a damn thing she could say in return.

A shiver of dread passed through her as his tone turned from anger to disappointment, as his voice took on that sadistic quality of resignation that she’d heard so often from her mother during her many lectures over the years. She automatically steeled herself against the feeling of inadequacy, used to the emotion after the years of listening to her mother rant on and on about the many ways she managed to disappoint her family. But nothing could have prepared her to hear the next words Brody uttered, as they were the last words she ever thought he’d say.

“You’re not the same girl I called my best friend.”

Now she did flinch, her face actually screwing up in response to the pain those ten words managed to inflict upon every fiber of her body. Her stomach sank to the floor of the car, and her heart seemed to harden and ache as if every drop of her blood had instantly frozen inside of it. He didn’t mean that. He couldn’t. She wasn’t...

“Brody, I-“ she managed to get out of her numb lips, eyes still fixed on the dashboard in front of her while she prayed for the strength to tell him he was wrong. “It’s not that I-“

His curse broke her off, and in the instant she looked over at him in hurt bewilderment that he would deny her even a chance to defend herself, Ten noticed the truck that had already begun to pull out in front of them. Her hardened heart stopped completely, and every cell in her body tensed in anticipation of what was to come. There wasn’t time for screaming, despite the fact that time seemed to slow down in those last crucial seconds and she felt as if everything stilled before chaos broke loose. Her eyes widened in terror and her hand griped Brody’s arm in desperation as she felt the car slide to the left, moving her away from the truck, and Brody-

”No,” she managed to gasp just before their world exploded and everything shattered around her. Glass and debris flew everywhere, and the screech of badly abused metal filled her ears even as she closed her eyes against the dizzying spin of the car. A flash of white-hot pain flooded her brain as her head slammed into the frame of the car and the last thing she remembered was her hand losing purchase on Brody’s arm as her world became suddenly dark.

[brody]

He blinked for only a second. He could remember only one breath passing in that instant before he opened his eyes again. Sharp, cold air dried his eyes, forcing him to blink before he could see. Disorientation clouded his judgement. Had he dreamed it? It had been so long since Brody had had a dream that he couldn’t be sure what it felt like any more. Bright light filled his vision. It took a few more breaths before his eyes adjusted. Sky. He could see the clouds of different shades of grey rolling and tuning over each over as he stared. His hearing strained. Voices. No, one voice. A man, fast paced, fluent French, panicked and high pitched. What was he saying? Emergency. Not moving. Accident. Car crash. Brody frowned. A burning hot pain shot across the skin above his eye. He tried to lift a hand to touch the skin there, to investigate why it burned, but he couldn’t move his left hand. He wriggled his fingers. On both hands they moved. It wasn’t a dream. There was too much detail. Too much pain.

He opened his mouth and tried to call to the urgent voice several meters away. His words caught in a bubble of air in his throat and he coughed. He could taste blood and it repulsed him. Turning his head he coughed again, trying to dislodge the air that held back his words, and his eyes took in the scene of what had happened. In an instant he remembered. He and Ten had been driving, too fast, and a truck had pulled out… “Ten,” he croaked, the syllable grating like barbed wire against his throat as he strained his neck to look for her, for the car. Somehow he had ended up outside it, on the ground several meters away from the shiny black and metal mess that was once a car. His car. He didn’t care. “Ten,” he called again, louder and yet more strained than before. There was no answer. The voice that had been the only thing he could hear fell silent for a moment, and then burst into a more hurried string of orders. He told whoever it was on the other end of his phone to hurry, that the man - he, Brody - was moving.

Brody had barely noticed he moved at all. The arms that had been so useless before seemed to break through whatever shock or muscle stubbornness that had held to them before because he had shaded his eyes with one hand from the glaring brightness of the risen sun in the sky. He had stared at the wrecked car for about a minute, his dazed, blurred eyes trying to pick his best friend from the wreckage. He couldn’t, but soon enough he could hear the far away screaming of sirens in the still of the morning. He had to make sure she was ok before they got here, whoever they were. Using what strength he had he pushed down against the cold, damp, sticky feeling tarmac and tied to turn himself over onto his knees.

The pain that shot through him was unlike anything he had felt before. Blistering, murderously sharp, it started in his hip and shot like lightening down both his legs and up through his body, collapsing his arms under his weight. The sound was wrenched from his lungs before he could control it, before he could recognise the familiar voice. His cry of pain was the last thing that filled his senses.

***

Sharp, sterile pain stabbed the inside of his elbow. He could feel the warm fluid travelling up his arm and into his chest. The air that filled his nostrils was colder than the air that touched his skin. Mumbled voices drifted through his mind as he forced his eyes open again. The sky was gone and in its place was a clinical white surface a few feet above him. They were moving, his centre of gravity twitching with the motion that led him to believe that he as in an ambulance. Another prick to his arm. His eyelids fell heavy, the voices distant.

***

A heavy, dead weight on his chest woke him. Pins and needles swarmed his right arm as the nerves in his body began to woke up. He couldn’t move it, the muscles feeling tight and sore and he felt his breathing becoming shorter with fear. Opening his eyes he glared at the ceiling. The white and black speckled tiles came into focus faster than he anticipated and he blinked to make sure it wasn’t a trick of the light. More voices killed any chance of silence, but these ones were familiar.

“Get- Stop it!”
“Sshh!”
“Momma! Sian bit me!”
“I did not!”
“Shut up!”
“Mum!”

Brody let his eyes flicker closed again, a half felt relief flooding his body when he put names and faces to the voices. Sian, Isolde and his mother. For the first time he managed to move a limb - the arm that remained free of the pins and needles - and lifted his hand to his face. He was mildly surprised to find a hard plastic oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. That explained the strange temperature difference between what he breathed and what he felt. He pulled it from his face, the tightness of it against his skin suddenly obvious and irritating. It was then that the voices in the room fell silent. A second later the weight on his chest and arm vanished and he felt the blood rush to his fingertips. Confused, he craned his head to see what had happened and spotted Morgan struggling against their mother’s grip, flailing towards the bed.

“Momma, noooo…” she whined, her bottom lip sticking out and already quivering before Taffy had her settled against her hip.

“Love?” his mother’s voice took his attention and he finally looked at his mum, her blue eyes bloodshot and strained.

“Shit,” Brody replied, answering the question he expected to follow.

“Watch your mouth,” followed, but not from his mother. Sian was wagging a skinny finger at him.

“Shiiiittahh!” squealed Morgan, kicking now to wriggle free. Brody tried to laugh, but the pain and discomfort that tightened in every part of him below his ribs stopped him short. He held a hand out to the youngest of his sisters who gladly climbed back to where she had obviously been lying across his arm and chest before he woke up.

“How ar-”

“Where’s Ten?” he cut off his mother’s question, the words voicing the thought before he realised it had formed. His sister curling into the side of him as he wrapped his arm around her had no stilling effect on his conscious need to know that his best friend was ok. His mother looked at him, the sadness in her eyes badly hidden as she sighed.

“Love, she hasn’t woken up yet. She’s not looking good.”

He clenched his jaw, ignoring the jab of pain he felt when Morgan moved to settle herself. If Ten was hurt, if any harm came to her at all he’d never forgive himself. She was his best friend despite everything he had said to her in the car, before the crash. He hadn’t meant to be so vicious to her but she was so damn stubborn that he had to be for her own good. She hadn’t been happy since she had come to live with them and he hated that he had promised she’d be better with him. He had failed her, broken his promise to be there for her. She had to wake up. And if she didn’t…

Morgan’s tiny hand pushed into the corner of his eye where she could see something happening that she didn’t like. ”Can I see her?” he asked, the effect of Mog’s tiny hand stopped the shine in his eye developing more than it could. He pulled her hand away and in turn received a face full of white-blonde hair as Morgan slapped her cheek against his chest, causing another shard of pain through his body.

Taffy shook her head. “They wont let anyone in to see her yet. Sweety, the doctor said you have to have an operation. They were going to do it before you woke up but I guess something came up…”

“But, Ten’s-”

“Don’t worry. The doctor said that once they get her breathing by herself someone can go and sit with her. So long as I can convince them to let me in as her next-of-kin. She has your name down for that. They need to get her stabilised, too.”

Stabilised? Breathing by herself? Brody’s own breath vanished as dizziness twisted his senses. He rubbed the back of his hand against his forehead, clamping his eyes shut tight as another pain streaked down his arm. He didn’t care. He was set for building up whatever stamina and strength he could to get out of the bed and go and find her himself, but the door to the room opened and a new voice sounded. He looked up, spying a doctor and a nurse making their way towards the bed. Taffy grabbed Morgan from the bed and this time the tot didn’t protest. The doctor started talking to Brody in a high speed of French of which he didn’t care to concentrate to understand. The nurse, though probably excitably attractive under normal circumstances, barely stole his gaze for more than a second before he watched as she pulled out three long syringes and pumped them one by one into an IV in the back of his hand. He had barely a minute to recognise the burning pain as the previous medication wore off before the new one seeped into his system and had darkness closing in on him again. This time, he welcomed it.