Maddie Can Never Know

The Team Knows

He'd had the forethought to schedule himself off for a couple of days after his parents were set to leave as a chance to recuperate and prepare himself to go back to work as a perfectly normal version of himself. In actuality he didn't need to be completely normal anymore since everyone knew now, but he still took the days off.

It also meant that no one but Eddie had seen him since they'd found out, seeing as they'd been working. However, now it was two days after his parents had left and they were all scheduled for their day off so he was fully expecting it when there was a knock on his door.

What he wasn't expecting was for it to be Hen, standing there alone.

"Can I come in?" She gestured beyond him and he nodded moving to the side as they stepped into the kitchen, "just so you know everyone else will be arriving in about fifteen minutes."

That made more sense, "so why didn't you show up with the rest of them? Not that I don't appreciate the heads up, but I was kind of already expecting you guys?"

"You were?" She asked quirking her eyebrow.

"There's two lasagnas in the oven." He said grinning sheepishly, and Hen laughed.

"I guess we are that predictable, aren't we?"

"So, you just came for the heads up?" He said again, because Hen was acting a bit strangely, "because that seems like a lot of work for something that a text could've accomplished."

"I wanted to talk to you too, beforehand." She said and shifted a bit uncomfortably, almost guiltily, but that couldn't be right. "I wanted to apologise."

"For what?" He said eyebrows drawn together in confusion, "you literally didn't do anything."

"Exactly."

"What, Hen!" He exclaimed, "you didn't know, you COULDN'T have done anything."

"But I did, I did know!" She exclaimed looking at him guiltily, almost on the verge of tears, "I knew, but I figured you'd be fine because you weren't going to have to see them without someone else there like Chim or Albert. And you clearly didn't want to talk about it, so I left it be, and I'm so sorry."

"You knew?" He said, shocked, he'd thought he'd hid it well enough, "how?"

"I remember how you were when you started at the firehouse, when you were settling in. You always kind of made yourself smaller or froze when anything got physical. Most people, big, strong, macho men like you were trying to be especially would've tried to make themselves bigger or shoved back." She explained, "that mixed with the golden retriever personality and how you act when you think you're in trouble, you immediately go into survival mode, like you're waiting to get hit. It wasn't a hard guess."

"Wow, I didn't realise I was that obvious." He laughed bitterly, rubbing a hand over his face and sat down, "you're right though, he hasn't laid a hand on me in more than a decade now, but I've never stopped waiting for the next hit, I'm starting to think I never will."

A tear finally won the battle that Hen was valiantly waging and slipped down her cheek.

"None of this was your fault though, and I don't know how much Maddie said about that night, but I didn't get hit or anything." He said, trying to ease his friends undeserved guilt, "I freaked out because my dad mentioned what happened when I was a kid when he didn't realise Maddie was listening and she found out. I worked so hard for her to never know, and then she did. Also he was yelling at me, which definitely didn't help."

Hen nodded in understanding, "I'm sorry we all found out this way, it should've come from you, not the person who hurt you in the first place. That shouldn't have been taken from you, that's why I never mentioned anything."