Reason To Be (A Zouis Family AU)

Interlude Four, Extra Seven

Never Going to Be the Same
[the one where harry comes face to face with someone he had hoped to never see again and he isn't sure he's ever going to get over the past — set thirteen months after part four]

Life has been busy. So busy, in fact, that the day of Brad's release came and went by without Harry really thinking much about it — he has school again and his new drivers license and car which he uses to travel from home to campus every morning, he has friends like Leila that he meets outside of classes for coffee and laughs, he has groups that he attends to help others overcome what he's so sure he's already overcame, and he has his family.

A million and one distractions that keep his mind off of Brad and the hell that he went through at his hands, to the point where he truly believes that he's over all of the abuse.

Because the nightmares rarely come anymore, and he doesn't flinch whenever someone raises their voice or sneaks up on him, and he hardly even thinks about the events of the previous year anymore, so he's past it. He's in a place where he can help others because he's fully recovered.

Except, right now, in this moment, standing face to face with his ex-abuser in the middle of the crowded Christmas market, he wishes the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. He can't speak, he can't move, he can't think — hell, he can't even breathe.

The moon is out and high already but the streets and buzzing and alive with festivity, fairy lights hanging overhead, cheerful faces standing behind stalls that offer gifts and hot drinks and sweet-scented foods, and yet Harry feels so far away from it all that he may as well be up there on the moon, amongst all the stars.

His heart throbs in his chest, lump jamming in his throat, eyes wide as he stares up into the hazel eyes of the boy — man — he had spent so long believing that he loved, that he had given his everything to until there was nothing left to give. Brad stares back, shoulders less broad than they had been all that time ago as if he's lost some weight, jaw twitching, nostrils flared. The shoulder pads of his winter jacket rise up as he hunches his posture, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

Harry knows that them bumping into each other like this is unintentional, but it goes against the restraining order that's still firmly set in place, the order that he hasn't even thought about until now because Brad has been in jail, locked away, his entire life ruined because Harry had told the police every thing and —

No. Brad ruined his own life.
He hasn't had to remind himself of that in a while.

Regardless, he's out now. Clearly. Standing less than a foot and a half in front of him, crowds of people brushing past them.

Neither of them speak for the longest time, and despite all the sounds and the happy voices and the sleigh bells and Christmas music, it's as if the entire world is silent. The entire universe. It all stands still and Harry feels small.

He sucks in a shallow breath after spending what feels like a lifetime of suffocating, averting his gaze down to the ground. Just walk away, that's all he wants to do. Just walk away, one foot in front of the other — it should be the easiest thing in the world. One step, two step, allow the crowd to carry him the rest of the way.

Except, when everything was still fresh and painful and he'd only just moved back home, he would dream about this moment; in sleep and in wake. The moment they would come face to face, how he would stand up tall and strong, look Brad dead in the eye and tell him that he never broke him. That for all the words and the punches and the control, that for all the taking and taking and taking, he's still here. He's here and he's alive and he's the best he's ever been.