Roy was once again on her left side, his time on the witness stand thankfully over. And for once, her mind wasn't completely consumed by him.

It was hard to keep focus on the legal proceedings in front of her. Visions of the night before were jumping in front of her eyes – visions not of Roy, but of Jim. Dark clouds of guilt had built up around her and in each one of them she saw the same shocked, guilt-infusing expression on his face as he'd recoiled from her in the bathroom. That momentary look of fear, the profound hurt set back in his eyes that he quickly tried to hide from her. She hated herself for it.

Subconsciously the fingers of her right hand slid to her left, lightly running over the rough, thickened skin scarring the tender underside of her wrist, a stark reminder of what screaming at a man accomplished. She had bottled all the frustration and anger and fear she felt with Roy; for her own peace and safety. But Jim? He had backed away. He had been afraid, not her. And to top it all, he hadn't been angry with her in the least. She didn't understand that; Jim's calm reaction to her yelling at him like that – it felt too much like she was cheating him, getting a free pass when he had every right to be mad at her.

Deep down, she was certain that Jim wouldn't hurt her– yet there was that apprehensiveness chipping away at her that one day she would make him hurt her, that she would push him that far, the way she had pushed Roy, that soon enough he would see the truth about her; that she wasn't lovable, that she was a colossal disappointment and in the end he'd see exactly how useless she was. He'd end up feeling chained to her the way Roy did and then he would resent her for it, too.

Jim had sworn again and again that he wouldn't harm her, that he would be good to her, but she couldn't face the reasons why she had to keep forcing him to prove it. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to him. She wasn't fair, wasn't right for him – that small voice inside of her spoke up with increasing viciousness. She wasn't good enough, she treated him badly, she dragged him down into the darkness with her. She had completely rearranged his life, taken over. She would ruin him, ripping apart their relationship and the best friend she ever had in one shot. She mulled the future desolately over in her head, her gaze slumping to the floor. She barely noticed the smart black heels as they clicked past her and up the steps to the witness stand – she was lost under the weight of dark thought after dark thought piling on top of her. Unnoticed by her were two sets of eyes, one burning fiercely in her direction inside a hot, angry face; and from the front of the room, a second set of anxious brown eyes beseeching her in forgiveness.

Pam, mired in her own hell, sank deeper into self loathing as her mother began to speak softly from the front of the room. All the eyes of the world were closing around her and there was nothing to protect her from the thoughts pummeling her relentlessly. She wasn't good enough for her incredible boyfriend who does nothing but support and protect her. She didn't deserve the love she so desperately needed. Things weren't going to get any better; what was the point of putting Roy away when she would still be pursued by him, forever running from him? And if she did turn into Roy, become the abuser herself? She had made a good start in the bathroom. They would all be better off without her.

Round and round the thoughts went, up and down her, siphoning away all of her energy. It didn't matter what the outcome was. She was done fighting this war.

-TO-

The morning grew darker still as she fully comprehended, in her fugue, that the softly speaking woman on the stand was her mother.

The realization hit her with the force of a tidal wave. It was real.

She wanted to run. She needed to scream, to panic – to run and keep running. Anything to get away from this. She wanted to leap out of her seat and snatch her mothers hand, yanking her away from the attorneys and the judge – and from Roy. Her mom had never looked so frail, so tired before. The circles under her eyes had circles, giving her a puffy, sickly visage. A new guilt swept into the current of Pam's crashing emotions. She had been so blind, so self centered to not notice what she was doing to the people around her- destroying them, taking them down with her. Her head fell forward, heavy with guilt and anguish.

She almost wished she had never escaped that night. Never stopped the angry hands squeezing her windpipe closed, never fought back. If she had just laid down and let him get it done, none of them would be sitting there right then, being tortured over and over because of her, her, her who was nothing but a black hole, sucking everyone down around her. She shook her head slightly, to herself, trying to remember the reasons why she had fought Roy off that night, why she had tried so hard to live when she didn't deserve it.

Hearing her Moms testimony, declaring that she and Pam had always been close and that she loved – yes, loved- her daughter very much, every word felt like a knife driving through her.

"Is there any truth to the suggestion put forward by the defendant that you didn't believe your daughter at first about the abuse?" Murphy asked.

Pam's eyes slowly drifted upward toward the witness stand, her face expressionless.

"No, that's not true at all." Helene said softly.

"Pam testified the two of you had a disagreement after she left Roy. Could you tell us what happened?"

Nodding agreeably, Helene pressed her lips together, looking sadly at Pam. "Yes. Can I just say I never said I didn't believe Pam. The fight was before I even knew what Roy had done to her."

"Okay." Murphy said.

"When Pam phoned and said she and Roy had split up, I was worried. She wasn't herself and she only said she had to see me, she wouldn't talk to me. She didn't say what happened – I didn't know what to think. Then Roy called, in tears, saying that Pam had left him, left the house and gone to Jim. He said he couldn't live without her. I asked him again and again if he was certain she had left him for Jim. He told me he caught them together."

Murphy nodded softly. "Did you believe him?"

Helene paused for a long time. "I'm not going to excuse this. I can't. There is no excuse for it.. At first I did have some doubts about Pam because she was the one who left and because Roy was so explicit about what he said he caught them doing and because he was upset enough to threaten to harm himself. And, I'm not blaming her at all but I got the wrong idea as I knew she wasn't telling me everything."

"Did you ask your daughter if there was any truth to this?"

"I went about it all wrong." A look of shame crept over her face. "I really did. She was so upset with me and I don't blame her – I should have been there for her. I shouldn't have listened to Roy. When I found out what he had done I was devastated for her and I had betrayed her to top it all off."

"Did she forgive you?" Murphy asked gently. Pam held her breath.

"She did. She's a good person, better than me." Helene said, her eyes shining with unshed tears." I'm so sorry, sorrier than I can say that I had no idea Roy was abusing her, that he was so good at manipulating everyone like that."

The man smiled sympathetically, his voice soft and kind. "You considered him pert of your family. How do you feel towards Roy now, knowing what has happened to your daughter?"

"I'm…disappointed... angry." she admitted, looking down. "When Pam came to stay with us after she got the restraining order, it was a very difficult time, for all of us. We saw up close what he had done to her. I know I could never forgive him."

Helene's words only added fuel to the blaze of self-recrimination that was consuming Pam. She could trace back that difficult time through its apex to its start and each point began with her. She dated Roy. She kept on seeing him, she didn't leave him when she could have, should have. She ran away first to Jim's, then to her parents, taking her messes with her and forcing them to become a part of it. She did it, it was all her fault, start to finish.

"How long did she stay with you?" Murphy asked.

"About six months."

"And during that time, did she talk to you about the abuse?"

"Somewhat." Helene said carefully. "Mostly when she got upset. She was….. different, when she came to us. She was very quiet, emotional and she had panic attacks and night terrors. She cried a lot, quite randomly."

"Was there anything else about her behavior that concerned you?" Murphy asked kindly.

Helene visibly struggled to maintain her composure. The silence that followed was palpable, and Pam felt herself swell up like a water balloon. She grit her teeth hard, squeezing her eyes shut and fought down the hysteria trying to overwhelm her – shoved it down inside of her so hard that a sudden burst of pain exploded in her head. She pushed harder and harder, and the tears came to a stand still inside of her, the hysterics spread and smoothed out in her body as her emotions deadened and she felt nothing but the dull roar of physical pain inside her temple.

Helene swallowed hard and when she finally spoke her voice was quavery and frail. "Yes." she whispered. "She flinched every time I touched her."

-TO-

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. Pam was awash with apathy, soaking in numbness and it was with unexpected indifference that she took in Kenny, laying down lie after lie on the witness stand. She couldn't bring herself to care as he testified that she was untrustworthy, abusive to his brother. She was a cheat and a liar, he testified. She barely listened. It was a garbage anyway. All of it. She didn't care.

The witnesses were over. Both sides rested. It didn't matter to her, she was beginning to feel confused about who's side she was on. She thought longingly of bed – of being horizontal, of her dead muscles and over fatigued resilience lying still, unmoving for hours. She needed a rest.

Blearily she allowed Jim to lead her out of the courtroom and down the halls, past the security and metal detectors. Out into the dry air she followed dutifully, with Jim frowning at her from behind and her mother trying to talk to her from her left. She didn't notice the hulk of a woman seemingly emerge from nowhere, towering towards her. All of a sudden they were nose to nose, the womans hot, sticky sour breath almost choking her.

"Pray that my son doesn't go down." she warned in a low voice.

They stood, battle lines drawn, the ex-fiance and the ex-fiancee's mother.

Pam stared back at her through half-lidded eyes, unable to respond, unwilling to even acknowledge the woman. Taking a slow step back away from the woman who she had been held up against by Roy – maybe even suffered in lieu for the sins committed by her – she turned away, desperately wanting to stave off any more public humiliation.

"Hey, come on." Jim chided, stepping up beside Pam. "This isn't going to help anything."

Roy's mother turned her gaze on him fiercely. "It's her that's done wrong. She deserves it."

There it was. In that steely, all too familiar tone of voice, the answer was there. It always had been. Roy's hatred for the female half of the population.

My dad knocked us around.

I'm not like him.

My old man hit us for just looking at him the wrong way.

I'm nothing like my dad.

Roy was right. He was not his father. In that one moment she understood. The real terror in that household hadn't been Mr Anderson, but his abrasive, unpleasant, but certainly not downtrodden wife. The wife and mother that Roy had steadily kept apart from Pam, ensuring the two were never alone.

She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"How about we go back inside and get security out here? You wanna get arrested for harassment?" Jim spoke sharply. It was a voice Pam did not recognize coming from her mild mannered partner. It unnerved her. Everything was turning upside down around her. "Or you could just walk away and leave her alone." he said, much more calmly.

"Get away from my daughter." William appeared on Jim's left, his face red with anger. "You and that son of yours have done enough damage."

Roy's mother stood her ground for all of a few moments. She seemed to be weighing up something in her mind, looking around at each member of the Beesly family, Jim, Betsy and Michael and then, losing steam in the face of being outnumbered, she stepped back herself.

"What goes around comes around." she spat nastily at Pam, and disappeared down the courthouse steps with surprising agility for a woman of her girth.

"What did that old witch want?" Penny said airily, joining them on the steps.

Grimly Pam followed the woman's retreating back until she was out of sight. Her head throbbed.

The sins of other people, she thought. What goes around comes around, She was paying for what someone else had done to Roy. And everyone around her was now paying for what Roy had done to her.

What goes around comes around.

-TO-

Hours later, when meals had been made but barely touched and any attempt at discussion had been politely shrugged off, Jim wondered if she was awake or not. Again he stretched his arm out, wistfully sliding over the soft sheets in the ample space between them. Huddled up into herself on almost the very edge of the bed, it was as though she was a million miles away in another bed.

He didn't like it.

He wanted to be there for her. He wanted to be the man that she could trust, that would help her put her shattered pieces back together – he wanted to be the man who could make her happy. He wanted to do something nice for her, something to remind her again that he cared about whether she was happy or not, that someone was always willing to put her first for a change. Because he loved her. He always had.

Because he needed her, as difficult as that was for her to understand. As much as she relived her terrible relationship with Roy over and over in court – Jim was living it all for the first time, hearing the brutality, the pain his sweet girlfriend had suffered through; he felt that he was right next to her, living it all with her. It hurt him far more than he was willing to let her see. And if his arms itched fiercely to slide around her and pull her against his chest to reassure himself she was safe, that she was really beside him and free from danger, if his body yearned for that sense of assurance from simply holding her and silently feeling overwhelmingly thankful for the woman in his arms, for the soft scent of vanilla or lavender he was so familiar with, if through all that he needed her, needed her to let him love her, how was he supposed to tell her?

Sleep did not come easy to him that night – nor did it stay. He had only begun to slip away into a hazy pre-sleep state when he heard a soft sob from the other side of the bed. Quickly rolling over, a strange vibration shook him and he frowned, before realizing that the shaking of the mattress was being caused by her.

"Pam?" he whispered, reaching over and gently rubbing her shoulder. "Hey, you awake?"

The only reply was the slow, heartbreaking sounds of distress as she cried. Quickly he angled himself around her, gathering her up against him in the dark. Carefully he rocked her, kissed the back of her head, tightened his arms that were circled around her.

It wasn't working. The crying grew steadily more intense, more heavy as her breathing became rapid, jagged. Over and over he whispered calmly to her, receiving no response. He swept her hair out of her eyes and back over her shoulder.

"Pam?"

"Pam?"

He began to panic. He ran his fingers down her cheek, almost drawing back at the frigid temperature of her skin.

"Beesly?"

Nothing.

He slid his hand over his hair. "Hey, come on Beesly. You're safe here. You're safe here."

No response.

The cries of distress grew louder and more desperate, great struggling breaths that frightened him. Thoroughly concerned now, he leaned over and felt for her hand. Ice cold.

"It's gonna be okay." Jim said – to Pam or himself he didn't know. He snatched his phone off the bedside table and plucked up the blue fleece blanket from the end of the bed, anxiously draping it over her. This wasn't right – this wasn't just a nightmare or a normal panic attack. She was practically unresponsive and he didn't know how to help her.

"Pam." he said breathlessly, not expecting a response. "I'm calling the doctor."

Without any hesitation, he went ahead and made the call. Then he gathered her up in his arms again, silently holding her shaking body against his chest and waited with growing panic for the doctor to get there.