Reach out for me - TNN Story

Chapter 45 - Not All Heroes Wear Capes.

A/N - I was debating whether or not to actually add the flashbacks in and or let Maeve get a therapy dog/psychiatric dog but I'm just going to let it flow, may just be that the dog hasn't been given an assigned role at this moment.
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The office was quiet...
It was painfully quiet....

"So..." Marjorie sniffed as she watched the clock. She was still shaking that much she couldn't really even get most words out until she was calmed.. even then she hardly made them out.

"....m-my mother.....and a-abuser are dead..." she sniffed as her body just collapsed in on itself into tears following as she cried and cried.
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They all didn't know what to do in that very moment. Marjorie was dumbfounded and couldn't ascertain how or why their mother was now dead, she loved her mother.... Before she found out her horrors that her own mother caused to her younger sister. Yet again no words were spoken after the revelation occurred.

All sat in Maeve's office just shell shocked, Reece and Winter hadn't come to pick up their spouses yet but they wouldn't know what state they'd find them in. "So mum....is really dead?" Marjorie tentatively broke the silence, bile rose in Maeve's throat as she repeated the words of Simon.
"As much as it's sad....karma's a bitch" Mia just let it out, eyes fixed on Auts, wondering what was going on in her mind as well.

She thought she hid it well. The panic under lying her dead breaths as crying evaded her sight, not Mia but Maeve was gone, out of sight. "Charlotte where's Maeve?" Autumn asked cautiously as she looked into the attached bathroom and her not being anywhere to be seen. "Maeve?...Mae?.." Charlotte called out looking everywhere..., "Sweetheart it's alright, you can come out now.." Mia now followed the search to look around the room when they first heard it.

Small whines and sniffles.

"Quiet..." Autumn raised her hand and followed the direction the sound came from, as they all approached the desk the noise grew louder. Slowly Autumn knelt down on the floor - witnessing Maeve curled up in a ball under her desk hyperventilating. "Mae..." Autumn went to reach out but Maeve flinched away, pressing her back further into the foot space under the desk.

It would be one thing that Autumn was shocked but in that moment she couldn't recognise the 35 year old in front of her, she could only make out the little 8 year old girl - who pleaded and begged Autumn at the age of 8 to help her fend off people. Who were supposed to love her, care for her. But in that moment Autumn saw the broken remnants of Maeve, seeping out at the hearing that the worst two abusers of her life - were now dead. Dead and there was nothing she could do.

Autumn looked up and shook her head, a pre warning for the others, "How about... you guys just step out of the room.... For just a minute or two.." Autumn looked at them pleadingly, both Mia and Charlotte could tell whatever state she was under that desk wasn't a good one, so they left and Autumn reassuringly scooted under the desk and wrapped Maeve into a hug. "Shh...it's okay.. you're all okay..." Autumn soothed and rubbed her back the many of times she did when Maeve was younger. "I-It's not.....n-no it's me ..." she could barely muster between staggered breaths and the shaking. "Nothings your fault....Laura and Nick.... Are gone..." Autumn sorted spoke as tears poked her eyes, "And..you're free now Mae... you're free from them" she smiled cuddling her closer.

It took a while but she managed to slightly calm down Maeve, enough that she could talk properly. "I...I wished that they died two weeks ago. When things got hard and they kept sending letters...." Maeve confessed, now laying on Autumn, still under the desk. "I...I feel guilty for enjoying the fact that they're gone..." she said.