Always by your Side - A Descendants Story : REWRITTEN

Chapter 24

As Mal already suspected, none of them could keep Harry from taking her. No matter how hard Jay and Ben try to fight back, Harry always wins. And so it develops into a new daily routine; Harry comes in the morning to take Mal, they order her around all day making her do whatever they want, making her suffer by all kinds of things. At the end of the day they return her to the dungeon all beaten up and exhausted to the point she cannot stand anymore.

There are days when they just leave her be, giving her some rest. Those days she spends mostly just laying in bed. The others are all worried sick, trying to come up with all kinds of plans, but nothing seems to work.

And so three more months slowly crawl by, almost reaching Mal's due date. Everyone is trying to help her in whatever way possible, even Audrey and Chad for that matter. In times of crisis everyone really comes together.

"Morning, princess, time to get up," Harry announces, walking into the room another early morning.

After fighting off Ben, he takes her to the living room and the day goes by the same as normal. After a good 18 hours of working, Harry brings her to the kitchen to do the last chore of the day; the dishes.

While Mal's doing what she's supposed to do, Harry's standing lazily against the wall, observing her. "So, how are things between you and Beasty-boy?" he asks her.

Mal just keeps doing what she's doing, not turning to look at him. "What do you care?"

"Oh, well, I'm just saying- we were a great couple," he says, taking a few steps towards her.

Mal finally looks at him, as she takes a few steps back.

"And we could be again," he continues.

"Never in a million years," she tells him, her whole body shaking at this point.

"Don't you remember that beautiful night we shared back on the ship all those months ago?" he reminds her, smirking broadly.

Mal feels a lump in her throat, feeling scared as ever.

"We can be so great again together. You can join our side, rule with us. You'll have everything you could ever desire; power, money, castles, crowns," he tells her, still walking towards her slowly, as she keeps backing up.

"I will never join your side, Harry," she manages to get out.

"You might want to think about it, princess," he says. "Think of how much better your life would be, think of-"

"Never, Harry!" she repeats herself, louder this time.

Harry's face turns almost red. "You're making a big mistake here," he warns her. "A very big mistake."

Mal continues to back up, but eventually hits a wall and is then not able to get away anymore. "If you really want to play it this way, you can get it..."
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"Ben, Jeez, chill," Chad rolls his eyes, annoyed. "She'll come back, don't worry."

"It's 3 am, what is taking them so long?" he asks, desperately, pacing around the room.

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it can't be good..." Evie sighs, looking at the door which she hopes will open any second now.

"She's about 9 months along, she can't take all this anymore," Ben says, very afraid. "Something must've happened. What if she's gone into labour, or what if they've overworked her so much she-"

"Ben, please, don't do this to yourself," Evie says. "You can't do anything about it. Making up all these scenarios is not going to do anyone any good."

"Evie is right," Troy says. "We can only wait."

Ben finally sits down again, knowing they're right. They all keep waiting for the door to open for another hour, when finally Harry comes back with an unconscious Mal in his arms. He drops her on the floor and then instantly leaves again.

They all rush over to her. "We have to lay her down on a bed," Evie says, totally stressing out.

Ben immediately picks her up and carries her to her bed. She's bleeding on multiple parts of her body, including her forehead, looking even more beaten up than normally. Evie quickly gets a towel and wets it a bit to clean her up. Belle tucks her warmly into bed, making sure she's comfortable. And Ben is holding onto her hand, not looking away from her one second, making sure she's still breathing.

Evie, Carlos and Jay sit with Ben, watching over their sister. They all have tears coming down their faces. Nothing hurts more than seeing someone you care for so deeply being hurt so badly. Especially when you can do nothing about it.

It's only the next morning when Mal finally wakes up. "Hi," Ben whispers to her.

It's 8 in the morning and everyone is finally asleep, except for Ben. He crawled into bed next to Mal to hold her close. "Hey," she greets him back, groggy.

"You should get some more sleep," he tells her.

Mal just slightly nods, feeling her eyes already getting heavy. Ben plants a kiss on her head and soon after she's sound asleep again.

The days after they make her stay in bed, so she can recover a bit. They take good care of her, making sure she's comfortable. After three days she's finally able to really get out of bed again. Harry has fortunately left her alone, probably knowing she's of no use at the moment. Ben tries to talk to her about what happened and help her through it, and it does seem to work at least a bit. She's slowly coming back to life again, and they all realise that it is really time to come up with a good plan, because this can't go on any longer...
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