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“Oh, thank God, you’re both here!” Laurel couldn’t help herself from hugging Wes as soon as she saw him again, relieved to finally see a man she wasn’t half-terrified of (and yes, Frank fell into that category too at the moment.) Two men, actually, as Laurel was also grateful Connor hadn’t taken Christmas break as a time to decide to drop out of Middleton. “I was - I was getting really anxious.”
Michaela showed up asking about everyone’s holiday, luckily not actually expecting any answers from Laurel, just using the pretense of small talk to brag about her own.
“She's helping lock girls in a basement. Why would we want to protect her?”
“Did you hear her?” Laurel did hear their client. “She was 16 when she met him. She's a victim of his abuse, too.” Laurel remembered being 16 and kidnapped. She had met her family long before she was 16 and still left at the first opportunity, attended college across international borders and now law school too.
“But she's an adult now - who held those two girls captive in her own house.”
“And she's finally doing the right thing.” Annalise stated bluntly, before reminding everyone that they too had done something they needed a lawyer for.
Still, their client kept a pregnant teenage girl in a basement, mothered the two captive girls, facilitated her husband’s rape of them…
“Was Jackie ever there during the times that Mr. Groves visited you at night?”
“No, but she would visit us before, give us milk. She said it would help put us to sleep so we wouldn't have to... know what he was doing.” Laurel understood what wasn’t being said - their client had drugged these girls. Drugging was a crime in its own right, punishable for up to a year in prison. That woman ought to take a plea deal because the prosecutor had another charge to consider with this testimony. Laurel’s thoughts continued in that vein, but her body was stuck on prior testimony, on what specifically happened to those kidnapped girls at night, what specifically had happened to Laurel at night only a week prior. Laurel didn’t need to be there - Wes was taking detailed notes. So Laurel walked out mid-deposition like the terrible student she was.
Bathrooms were safe places to break down, always had been. Laurel shouldn’t have needed to break down, but New Year’s was a week ago - the memories were too fresh, being visited at night, being molested in her childhood bedroom by the same hands that had touched her throughout childhood, "it's just sex, shut up and take it," Xavier's mouth whispered, his breath on her neck, hands in her skirt. Laurel shut her eyes, took a deep inhale, the fluorescent lights from the bathroom visible beneath the dark of her eyelids, reminding her she wasn’t in Florida, it wasn't night. She was safe.