Author's Note: Thanks to muffin_donat2007 for our beautiful banners, and thanks to the readers for reading and reviewing. Warning! This chapter deals with violence and rape. Also, many thanks to my beta Judy. She’s a wonderful lady, and I’m thankful she takes time out of her day or night to help beta for me. Justin’s POV I flinched when Lindsay and Melanie’s lawyer talked about Jamie and her death. I feel like I’m being stabbed repeatedly when they bring up Shane and call me an unfit parent for letting Jamie die. Well, it wasn’t my fucking choice for her to die. If I could have, I would have died in her place. I feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes but I hold them in while we are in court. As the time flies by, I’m shocked and scared for Brian when his mother takes the stand. I listen as she says all kinds of horrible things about him and all I want to do is take away his pain. Melanie and Lindsay go up as well and they rip Brian apart too. Debbie goes up and I’m actually shocked when she doesn’t tear him apart like I thought she would. We finish the case. At the end Brian gets physical custody of Gus, while he and Lindsay both get joint custody of him as well. So we go home and celebrate that everything thing turned out okay. We each have a glass of wine, before retiring to the couch. We talk for a while and then the girls bring Gus and his things over to the loft. Brian and I have started talking about getting a house, since the four of us will all be living together. We need a room for Gus, a room for our baby, and a room for us. So we need to look for something to suit all of our needs. So we talk for a while and when Gus is brought over, we play with him for a few hours before both Gus and Brian fall asleep. When both of them have fallen asleep, I cover them up on the couch and scribble a note to Brian, telling him that I’ll be in my studio. I bought a studio here three weeks ago and I need to finish setting everything up and get some painting done. When I’m finished setting my studio up I return home and after checking on Gus and Brian, I curl up in a chair and fall asleep myself. Four days later It’s four days later, and Brian and Gus are at the zoo. I’m sitting in my studio, looking out of the window. I can’t paint for some reason but I don’t know why. I don’t have much on my mind. I mean, I have Gus, and Brian and our child on my mind but really that’s it. I have so much work to do to make up for the missed show. My agent called an hour ago and started hounding me to go back to New York. But I refused. I need to be here with Brian, to make sure that he, Gus, and our child are going to be okay. Sighing softly, I pick up my paintbrush once more. I left a note on the bedside table for Brian, telling him that I would be here at my new studio. He looked so glad to be going to the zoo with Gus, that it makes me smile. I turn back to my easel and as I start to paint, I hear something. I stop for a few moments and listen to see if someone is there. When nothing happens, I call out. When I’m met with silence again I shrug and go back to painting. I start painting Jamie. I miss her so much and I still can’t believe that she’s gone. I feel like a part of me has died inside and I don’t know what to do to fix it. I concentrate on painting, and as I start to paint her mouth I hear the noise again. Before I can do anything, something slams against me, making me drop my paintbrush and fall to the ground. I realize that someone’s here and when I’m jerked around to face my assailant, I flinch when I see that it’s Shane, with so much anger and hate in his eyes. Before I can do or say anything, I feel his hand squeeze my neck and he presses all of his weight against me so that I can’t move. Shane!” I gasp his name out, trying to get him to stop. I kick and claw at him, trying to get the man to release his hold on my neck. But it doesn’t work. Suddenly, my cell phone goes off and I know that it’s Brian. The noise of my cell phone startles Shane for a moment and he freezes, which gives me one chance to try and get free. I take a deep breath and push as hard as I can to get Shane off me. Shane is knocked off balance for a moment, as I push him off me and quickly get up. But before I can think that I’m okay, he slams his body against mine once more, pinning me against the wall before trying to choke me again. I decide to kick him in the balls, in hopes that it will make him release me so that I can get away. It works; he does release me as the pain courses through him. But when I get to the door, he grabs me again. I start to kick again, trying to get free but it doesn’t work. Shane presses me into the ground like I’m nothing. He presses all his weight on me and starts taking my clothes off. I start to panic even more and I’m terrified, since I know what Shane’s about to do. Before I realize it, my clothes are in a pile on the floor and Shane has me flipped over and is slamming into me, sans protection. The pain is intense since he’s big; he didn’t prepare me and isn’t wearing a condom. I gasp at the pain, and try to scramble away but it doesn’t work. I feel tears come to my eyes as I wish that Shane would stop. My cell phone continues to ring as this is going on. I’m glad that I didn’t get a chance to answer it, and Brian doesn’t know what’s going on. Shane slams into me a few more times and then he comes inside of me. When he pulls out of me, I collapse on the floor and just lie there. Shane tells me that I better not tell anyone what’s happened, or he’ll hurt Brian or my friends and family. I don’t reply, since the pain is too much. When Shane leaves, I’m relieved. I lie on the floor for some time, not wanting to move because of the pain. Finally, after an hour of lying there where Shane left me, I force myself to get up. I put my clothes back on, and try not to think about what just happened. But I can’t help it. Shane forcing himself inside of me is all that I can think of. So I decide to go and see about Brian and our child, thinking it will take my mind off this horrible situation I’m in. When I arrive at Brian’s loft an hour later, I use my keys to get inside. As I’m closing and locking the door back, Brian gets up to hug and kiss me but I flinch and back away from him when he tries to touch me. I can tell that he’s shocked at my reaction but after a moment, I know Brian notices the bruises and cuts on my face. I’m so thankful that I’m wearing long sleeves. Brian stares at me. “What the fuck happened to you?” I shrug off his question, not wanting to tell him. He already has enough to worry about. “It’s nothing, just a few scratches.” I grab some clothes and head for the shower. As I walk inside the bathroom, Brian asks if he can join me. I almost shout “no”, but I catch myself in time. Apparently though, the look on my face must say a lot for Brian backs off. I quickly go into the bathroom and close the door, setting my clean clothes on the closed toilet. Then I rip off my clothes that I wore today, tossing them on the floor as I get into the shower. I sit on the floor of the shower, viciously scrubbing my body, trying to get the feel of Shane off me as the tears fall quickly from my eyes. I don’t want anyone to touch me and I don’t want to be around anyone right now. But it’s not about what I want; it’s about Brian and our child. I take a long shower and when I step out and dry off, I am startled when I see Brian standing in the doorway of the bathroom. He looks over my body, and I see a light bulb go off in his head. “Justin, what...?” I cut him off, not wanting to talk about it. I sigh and say curtly, “Nothing happened; I just got into a fight. End of discussion.” Brian glares at me as I get dressed once more. “No, it’s not end of discussion. Justin, you look like-” I cut him off again, shouting angrily. “I don’t want to talk about it!” My voice echoes around the loft and Brian falls silent. But after a moment, he tells me that Gus is sleeping, and I cringe and fall silent. After a moment, he starts to talk once more. “You need to go to the hospital. He could have ripped you.” Brian pauses for a moment and then asks, “Do you know who it was that did this?” I ignore his words as I finish getting dressed. When I’m through, I clean up my mess in the bathroom, throw the clothes I had worn today in the trash and then join Brian in the living room. Brian sits on the couch and I take a seat several feet away in Brian’s new recliner. Forcing myself to act normal, I ask how he and the baby are doing. Brian sighs in disbelief. “You’re acting like nothing happened! Justin, stop being a twat and let’s go to the fucking hospital.” I shake my head no, not wanting to go to a hospital. I’ve hated hospitals all my life, but ever since the bashing, I’ve been even more terrified of them. “No,” I whisper softly. I pull my knees to my chest, trying to keep my tears at bay. “I’m fine; I don’t need a fucking hospital.” These words are whispered too, and I force the tears back. Brian gets up and starts to walk over to me, but I wave him away. “Let’s just talk, about anything else,” I say, trying to steer the topic as far away from what happened as I possibly can, about needing to go to the hospital. The last thing I want is for Brian to worry about me, when it’s himself, our baby, and Gus that he should really be worrying about. I fall silent moments later, and after several seconds of silence, Brian must realize that I really don’t plan on talking about it. So he tries to fill the silence with mindless chatter, which is something that neither one of us is good at doing. We are avoiding the subject and I’m going to continue doing this for as long as he will let me get away with it, which I know won’t be for very long. But the fact that Brian’s letting me get away with it even for a little while is something amazing in itself.