Work Text:
It’s 0300, and Dana can’t sleep. She ambles out of Robby’s bedroom and to his kitchen to get a glass of milk. Tea would be her preference, but she’s not sure she can make a cup without disturbing him. She pours the milk and leans against the kitchen counter, sipping slowly as she stares out the window at the city lights and the occasional cars driving by.
Out of nowhere, a male sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms around her shoulders. At first, she freezes, and then the “fight” half of fight-or-flight kicks in and she starts throwing her elbows around, trying to wrest her way out of his grip. She snarls, “Let me go!”
Robby takes a couple of big steps backwards and flips on the lights. “Dana! Dana, hey, it’s me, it’s okay.”
Dana looks around, hyperventilating and a little disoriented. She looks around at the décor (or lack thereof), the milk spilled on the counter, and Robby’s worried face. It’s not Julie’s house. It’s not 1982. I’m in Robby’s house. It’s 2026. I’m safe.
“Sorry,” Dana pants. “I… um… should probably clean…”
Robby steps over to her and tenderly places a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dana. I’ll take care of that,” he says, nodding to the plastic cup and the milk-covered counter. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” she lets out a big exhale.
Robby gets a wad of paper towels and mops up the mess, and then he looks her over again. “Let’s go sit down,” he says, motioning to the living room couch. Once seated, he takes her hand and says, “I’m so sorry I scared you.”
“It’s okay.” She gulps; why is this so hard to say when he’s probably already figured it out? “A long, long time ago, I was raped.”
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and then his eyes go wide. “Benji?”
She gives him a withering look and says, “God, no! Do you really think I’d have raised daughters with a man who did that to me? No, this was back in high school, before I knew him.”
Robby relaxes slightly, both relieved and embarrassed. “You, um, don’t have to tell me…”
“I want to. I should have a long time ago.” She looks down at their intertwined fingers and says, “I was sixteen. One weekend, I was over at my friend Julie’s house – her folks were out of town and we decided to have a party. After everybody else left, I went to sleep in her room, but I got up around five to get some water. Her older brother sneaked up on me in the kitchen. He was a big guy, linebacker on the football team. He put his hand over my mouth and he was inside me before I knew it. Up until then, I was a virgin. It seemed to take forever, but it was probably only a few minutes.”
He asks softly, “Did you tell anyone?”
“I told Julie, who didn’t believe me. She said her brother wouldn’t do anything like that, and I was probably asking for it.”
Robby finds himself almost growling. “Dana, that’s… I’m so angry for you right now.”
“I was angry too, for a long time. In college, I finally got therapy, and life got a lot better after that. Benji knows about it, and so do the girls – I wanted them to understand that if it could happen to me, it could happen to them, too. And that if it did, their dad and I would believe them.”
Robby thinks for a moment and then says, “It must be difficult to be a SANE when you’ve experienced something like that.”
“Doing those exams is always hard, regardless of what your background is,” she replies. “But it’s worth it. I tell them all that this experience does not define them. For me, it’s just one shitty piece of an otherwise beautiful puzzle.”
He strokes her cheek and says, “You are so amazing.”
“Thank you,” she says bashfully. “Right now, I’m amazingly tired. Let’s go back to bed.”
They walk back to the bedroom, still holding hands. He wraps his arms around her and she rests her head on his shoulder. “I’ll always keep you safe,” he whispers. She drifts off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.