Warning!: There are some situations in here that might possibly be triggering. If you might possibly have any, please DO NOT READ THIS. I don't want anybody to be hurt or upset. There are mentions of bullying. If you have issues with swearing, you might want to skip this story. If you have problems with two people of the same sex being in a relationship, you may want to skip this story.

TRIGGER WARNING: Beatrice's situation with her ex-boyfriend is discussed a lot in this chapter, as is the aftermath of her experiences. If you have any questions or concerns before reading, please PM me and I will do my best to fill you in with the basics so you can skip the chapter without becoming too confused. The situation likely isn't realistic, as my knowledge in that area is non-existent, but I'd prefer being messaged to anybody being hurt.

Disclaimer: As always, I only own the non-Glee characters, and I'm not making money from this.

Ch. 31

The halls of Dalton Academy were strangely empty when Nick and Beatrice returned. He wasn't sure how Jeff had managed to make the other Warblers disappear, but he was plenty grateful. Beatrice grasped his hand as they walked, and Nick welcomed the pressure. It had been too long.

"Jeff said that he'd bunk with David if you wanted us to have the room to ourselves."

"Um..."

Nick waited patiently for her decision.

"I don't want to kick him out of his room, you know?"

"You aren't. He volunteered. We need time to hang out, and he understands that. He says he'd like to hang out with you, but that he can wait until tomorrow."

When she didn't respond, Nick squeezed her hand.

"All of them agreed to wait if you wanted them too. Said they'd only show up if I texted them saying it was okay."

"In that case, can we just stay in your room? It's been a rough month, especially with the dance and everything else."

Nick half-hugged her, leading her up the stairs with one arm still over her shoulder.

"Alright. We can do that."

"How have you been doing with the dance?"

Beatrice frowned, not liking that she was near tears again.

"I'm working on it. It was scary, you know? I didn't think that I would ever see him again, especially not there. I shouldn't be freaking out about it still, but..."

"You're allowed to be scared. Something horrible happened to you, and then you met the person who did it again. Being scared makes sense."

Beatrice laid back on Nick's bed, waited for him to join her before speaking again.

"I just want to be past it. The girls are helping a lot, letting me talk through it when I feel ready to, but I'm starting to feel like I can't move past it right now."

"Did you go to see the doctor afterward?"

"No. Too busy with school, and I was starting to manage it better. I just can't tell if he'll actually have good advice for me, or if it'll just bring back the nightmares."

"What about another therapist?"

Beatrice considered this for a moment, then sighed.

"Maybe. But I'd like to try working through some things on my own for a bit."

Nick rolled onto his side.

"On your own?"

"Not completely on my own, just...I want to spend time with friends, with you. I don't want to be defined by what happened to me, and sometimes it feels like I might be. Kurt knows me more for what happened than anything else. Many Warblers do too. I want to be free of the labels that come back with every reminder of... Kevin's...existence. I don't want him to have that power over me anymore. I don't want to let him be part of my life anymore. He doesn't deserve a place in my story."

Nick was silent for a few minutes.

"Would you prefer not to talk about it?"

Beatrice scooted closer to him.

"More that I want to talk about it selectively. My choice of who and when."

"Do you want to talk about it now?"

"I might need to more than I'd like."

He sighed, opening his arms so she could rest in them.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"When you and Jeff...found me. I wanted to know what I said and did?"

"How do you mean?"

"Did I show any signs of recognition, or did you have to wait until the hospital before I responded?"

Nick flinched, she could feel it. A full-body tensing that was unintentional.

"You didn't seem to recognize either of us, at first. You scooted away from me more than Jeff, which I have started to think was due to my hair color more than anything else. You kept trying to track both of us, but got worse when we moved closer together. We didn't know why that was, but we just tried to hover slightly farther apart after the first few tries."

"I didn't say anything?"

"No. Well, nothing we could understand. You were in bad shape, and a lot of things sounded like whimpers and mutters more than actual words. I asked the doctors if something had happened to your teeth or tongue because I wasn't sure what you were trying to say until you were screaming at the hospital."

Beatrice was silent for a moment.

"I didn't recognize you at first."

"I know."

"I don't like that I didn't recognize you."

He kissed the top of her head, a rare gesture for the siblings.

"It's not your fault. You were panicking. I understand why you didn't trust me."

"No, I...Nick, I was hazy. Everything was hazy. But I think that I started to recognize you and my brain went wonky because I remember..."

"What is it?"

Tears slid onto the bedspread.

"I remember being scared that if my boyfriend could hurt me, maybe my brother could too."

Silence. Beatrice waited, and waited, for some sign that her brother had heard her. Was Nick going to hate her now?

When a response did come, it startled her.

It wasn't vocal. It wasn't him shoving her away and screaming at her like she felt he should.

He leaned back to see her face. Then he rested his forehead against hers.

"I am so sorry that he did that to you. And I'm sorry that he was able to get into your head and confuse you until nothing made sense anymore. But I am not mad at you."

"You're not?"

"No. Hurt, yeah. But not because you did anything wrong. I'm hurt that he rewired your brain into thinking that everyone could hurt you if given the chance. And if it's still rewired into thinking that way, you're far braver than any of us realized, because you still give people a chance to prove themselves to be harmless. You still cuddle with me, dance with Jeff. You accepted Wes's request to be your boyfriend. You talk to people, you're making friends. Kevin can't win. Not because he's a bad guy in some movie, but because you're stronger than him and won't stop fighting, even when it hurts."

"I don't still feel like you'll hurt me. That disappeared fairly quickly. But everyone else...It's taken me a long time to feel like my old self again. And I still don't feel like her."

"Maybe you aren't like her."

She pulled back, confused.

"You aren't becoming her again, and you shouldn't. Because as amazing as you've always been, your new self is even better."