Always by your Side - A Descendants Story : REWRITTEN

Chapter 16

TW: Mentioning of SA!

Mal seems to be rolling right back into her old routine; after a few days back at school, it's like she's never been gone. She goes on dates with Ben, hangs out with her friends, starts doing her job as Queen again, and even gets into arguments with Audrey every other day.

But then at moments when she's alone, her mind takes over and makes her relive all the horrible moments again. She knows that these thoughts will never fully go away, especially since the pirates are still on the loose somewhere in the kingdom, ready to take over with just one swish with the wand, but it seems to be harder to not let them take over her head than she thought. She'd start hyperventilating, panic attacks pulling her down, until Ben is there to bring her back again.

Sometimes she considers telling her friends about what exactly went down in that ship, what she's been through, but she never quite finds the right moment to do so. Her therapist told her that maybe it would be easier on herself if she told her friends, in order to not deal with it all by herself, but she doesn't want to dump her trauma on them as well.

"Are you still there?" Evie asks, waving a hand in front of Mal's face.

It's Saturday night when they're all hanging out in Ben's dorm. They're all discussing the upcoming game against Cinderellasberg, but Mal seems to be completely somewhere else with her head.

She looks up, suddenly realising where she is again. "Sorry, I was just- sorry," she quickly says, shaking her head slightly.

"Seemed like you were in another world for a second," Carlos observes. "Is everything alright?"

"I just- I sometimes just have these flashbacks," she tells them.

"To-" Jane starts.

"Yeah," Mal says, already knowing what she's going to ask.

"If you want to talk about it with us, you always can," Evie says. "I can imagine it might be hard, but maybe it'll help."

"I know..." Mal sighs. "My therapist told me so as well, it's just that I don't know how... I don't want to dump this all on you, you know."

"You're not," Jay assures her. "We only want to be there for you, give you whatever you need to get through this. Even if it's just listening to you, or being here with you."

Mal smiles slightly. "Thank you guys," she says. "I suppose it might help just telling you the whole thing... it's a lot, though, I just want you to know that beforehand."

"Remembering how we got you back, I can imagine it mustn't have been a hospitable stay," Lonnie says, showing her a sympathetic smile.

"Anything but," Troy agrees.

"Well, at first I thought it wasn't that serious, actually," Mall tells them. "They took me from the garden, got me unconscious somehow, and then brought me to their ship. When I woke up in a small dark room, Harry came in and told me they'd only let me go if Ben came with the ransom. I told him he was crazy for thinking that Ben would ever give his kingdom in return for me, but he turned out to be right after all..."

"I'd give anything for you, you know that," Ben tells her. "Nothing is worth more to me than you..."

"Harry always seems to know everything..." Mal says.

"I still find it weird how they only sent that ransom note after, like, 3 weeks of you being there," Jane says.

"They just wanted some time to torture me, have their fun, before letting me go," Mal says. "They're pirates after all."

"But why didn't they do that when they'd captured Ben back on the Isle, when we gave them that fake wand," Jay reminds them.

"Because they don't hate him as much as they hate me," Mal tells them. "They have personal beef with me, Ben never really did anything to them."