The sun had completely left the sky and the only light Violet was left with was the slight shine of the moon that came through the cracks in the closed blinds.

It was far past midnight and Hazel and Cha-Cha were still not back to further her torture.

Then Violet saw a shadow interrupt the moonlight outside the window and she started to panic again.

Her cheeks were stained with tears and coloured with purple from her abused skin. There was a long gash, curving in the shape of a moon from her forehead to the corner of her eye, where Cha-Cha had threatened to cut her eye out.

Violet's exposed skin was covered in a shiny layer of sweat, her stomach covered in blood, she was sure her bullet wound would be infected, and her black shorts were soaked through from the water.

The two pieces of her photo were still on her lap.

Then Violet heard the door creak open.

She whipped her head in a panic, not ready for another round of pain yet, and only saw one shadow move into the room.

"Oh my," A soft, woman's voice whispered. One that most definitely did not belong to Cha-Cha. "Violet?"

The woman shone a torch in Violet's direction, and she cowered away from it, moaning through the cloth.

"Sorry." The woman apologised and Violet flinched as she felt her touch her face. "I'm here to help," She promised and pulled the gag away from her mouth. "I know . . . Diego?"

Violet wasn't sure if that was the end of her sentence or a question, but she followed her saviors gaze to her lap where the photo of them as kids were.

"They tore it." Violet's voice was small and hoarse. "They tore us apart." She sniffed.

"Hey, hey." The woman cupped her face softly. "I'm here to bring you back to him." She untied her hands and Violet let them swing by her side as she leaned back in the chair.

"That's a nasty wound." She pointed to Violet's bullet wound.

"It's infected." Violet agreed and she saw the shiny badge of a Police Officer swinging around her neck.

"Come on, let's get you to a hospital." The detective helped her off of the chair.

"No, no." Violet stopped her. "Take me home, mom can stitch me up." She said through a groan.

The woman didn't respond, she just gave her an apologetic look.

"Let's just get you out of here before they come back," She swallowed thickly. "There's something you should know.

            -

"No, no." Violet refused to believe the news she had heard.

She had just learned from Diego's cop friend, Eudora, that her mother had been killed by those two maniacs who had tortured her.

"I know it's hard to believe, but Diego wouldn't lie about that, just like he didn't lie about you." Eudora spoke apologetically.

"And what did he say about me?" Violet asked, just wanting a distraction from the pain in her stomach and their destination as she wrapped the blanket Patch had provided her with tighter around her shoulders.

Violet hated hospitals.

They reminded her too much of where her father had sent her as a child.

"He said a lot of things, more than he wanted to." She chuckled as she drove her to the hospital. "He said that he thought it was his fault."

"Of course he did." Violet shook her head at his predictableness. "Stupid hero complex."

"He also didn't say much, kept staring at the sky."

"The clouds." Violet corrected. "He was staring at the clouds."

Patch didn't ask anyone questions, but she felt like she understood.

"He also cried."

"Diego was crying?" Violet would usually laugh if she heard this about him at any other time. But her voice was far from amused.

"He was crying because he didn't get to say something to you before you were taken."

Violet thought back to her and Diego in her bedroom before Hazel and Cha-Cha had interrupted them.

How he had held her so close.

Whispered in her ear.

What would have happened between them if they hadn't been interrupted?

What didn't he get to say?

"Come on, I'll give him a call as soon as they got you in a bed." Patch said once she pulled up to the hospital.

"And on drugs." Violet groaned as she tried to leave the car herself. "You're not leaving until I'm on a lot of drugs."

"Of course." The detective agreed and helped her into the hospital.

As soon as they walked through the doors, Violet was rushed inside to a bed and put on a lot of pain killers.

"I called Diego, he's on his way." Patch told Violet who had numerous doctors around her.

"Ma'am you can't be in here." One of the doctors tried ushering her out but she just shone her badge in their face.

"Look, I'm going to go back and get the guys who did this to you. You think you'll be alright?" She asked but Violet wasn't too concerned about herself.

"No, don't go back there, they beat the shit out of my whole magical family." Violet felt her eyes getting droopy from the drugs.

"I made a promise to Diego, I'll be back before you're awake." Patch patted her leg and Violet slipped out of consciousness.

          -

Violet blinked her eyes open slowly and she was met with bright, white lights. She started groaning as her head thumped against her skull and there was an uncomfortable feeling in her abdomen.

She took a minute to take in her surroundings and she saw the white sheets and white clothes she was put in, surrounded by white walls and medical equipment.

Violet was frightened.

"No, no, no, I don't want to be back here." She started mumbling to herself in a panic, looking at the IV tube running through her arm.

Violet tried to tug it out but it only caused pain.

"Woah, woah, slow down there V, you're safe." The most charming, calming, kindest, hottest, beautiful voice Violet hadn't heard in such a long time appeared next to her.

"Diego?" Violet almost sobbed when she saw his face. "Oh, Diego!"

Violet practically threw her body into Diego, hugging him tight, not worrying about his knives poking at her skin, only worrying about him.

"You're safe now," Diego mumbled into her hair. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I thought I'd never see you again." She sighed into him, taking in his familiar smell.

"I would never let that happen." His hands held her so tight that he started digging into her bruises, but she didn't care.

Violet finally pulled away to see his face, the face she thought the last she would see was in that photo, and she saw the same tired, scared little boy that lived in the polaroid.

"Are you okay?" Violet asked, the whole world knowing full well that she was not. "I heard about mom." She said softly, holding his cheek in her hand.

"Its not m - mom." Diego's chest started heaving up and down and Violet saw his eyes gloss over. "P- Patch."

Violet's comforting face dropped immediately.

The last she had heard from the detective that had saved her life was that she was going after the bastards that did that to her in the first place.

Eudora said she'd be back before she woke up.

Violet was awake.

Eudora wasn't back.

"No." Violet shook her head.

"They got her, V." Diego's voice was wobbly. "She's g - gone." Tears slipped down his cheeks and Violet pulled him back into her chest.

"Patch saved my life." Violet whispered to Diego. "I'd be right where she is if it wasn't for her." Violet could never be more grateful, yet guilty in her life.

"I told her to help." Diego mumbled into her chest. "I dragged her into this."

"Don't say that, Diego." Violet warned. "None of this is your fault."

"I shouldn't have listened to Luther." He shook his head in her arms. "I should've protected you, just like I promised mom."

"Stop, Diego, stop." Violet pushed Diego off of her to look him in the eye.

"It wasn't your fault, It wasn't my fault, It wasn't Patch's fault, it wasn't anyone's fault but Hazel and Cha-Cha." She said with a stubborn tone, telling him it was the end she would hear of it.

"Hazel and who?" Diego questioned.

"The guys who tortured me." She answered.

"T - they t - tortured you?" Diego's features hardened.

"Um, yeah. Kind of." Violet shrugged, trying to forget what had happened in the dingy motel. "They just wanted to know where Five was."

"They do this to you?" The back of Diego's finger brushed lightly over the moon shaped scar running from the corner of her eye.

"I was lucky with that one," Violet chuckled. "Threatened to gauge my eye out."

"That's not funny, Violet." Diego wasn't smiling. "Thanks for telling me that, I'll just have to give them a taste of what that feels like before I slit their throats."

"No. Diego. You can't." Violet stopped smiling too.

The look on Diego's face was one like Violet had never seen before.

He was going to kill Hazel and Cha-Cha in the most brutal way he possibly could to make up for Violet and Eudora.

"They tortured you, Violet." Diego was being the stubborn one now. "You're crazy if you think I'm going to let them get away with this."

"Crazy huh?" Violet scoffed at his choice of words.

"I - I'm sorry, V, I didn't mean it like that." Diego did a double take on his words, mentally cursing himself.

"If you really want to help me, then get me out of here." She asked with stern yet pleading eyes.

"I'll see what I can do." He sighed and got up to look for a doctor.

When Violet was alone in the small room, she felt shivers creep up her spine when she saw the medical equipment.

Her ears hurt slightly with every beat of her heart monitor.

It reminded her all too much of where her father sent her as a child.

Violet's heart monitor starting beeping faster, tracking her racing mind of the worst part of her childhood.

The part she tried so hard to forget about.

☁︎ ▬ι═ﺤ ☁︎ ▬ι═ﺤ

*1993*

"Dad please! I don't want to go back in there!" Twelve year old Violet begged her father as he dragged her down the halls of the Academy.

All of her siblings could hear her pleas, but they all stayed locked in their rooms with no way to help even if they wanted to.

Except for Diego.

"Let her go dad!" Diego ran out of his room, unlike instructed, and grabbed onto Violet's other arm, trying to pull her in his direction. "It wasn't her fault."

"Number Two, go back to your room or I will make it worse for her." Reginald knew all of his children's weaknesses.

Violet was Diego's.

Diego paused, hearing his fathers threat before encasing her in one last hug.

"You're strong." He hugged her tight. "Stay sharp." As Diego spoke, Violet felt his hand run over the waistband of her plaid skirt, but she was too distraught to think anything of it.

"Your flaw in your powers cost us the mission today, I will tolerate it no longer." Reginald started dragging her by the wrist again once Diego had gone back to his room, down the stairs to the basement and to the room where Violet had spent so many hours begging to be let out.

"I will be watching you, Number Eight." He said as he unlocked the heavy door. "I will let you out as soon as I can no longer see you."

With that, Violet's father threw her in the room and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it from the outside.

Violet started pounding her fists on the door, closing her eyes, refusing to even look at the room around her.

Her fists did not pound on any normal door though.

Her fists pounded on the mirrored door.

Her feet stood on the mirrored floor.

Above her was the mirrored ceiling and around her were the mirror walls.

With nothing to reflect but Violet.

"No! Please! Let me out!" Violet screamed, falling to the floor and pushing her palms into her closed eyes so hard she started seeing colours.

But anything was better than her reflection, reflected off wall to wall to floor to ceiling.

        -

Hours passed.

Too many to count.

Violet was still locked in the mirrored room, sitting in the corner with her knees tucked into her chest, rocking back and forth as she muttered incoherent sentences to herself.

The reflections, seeing her own self and only her own self for hours on ends, day after day was truly starting to take a toll on her.

It was doing things to her.

To her mind.

She felt as if she was going mad.

Insane.

So much so that she would pull her own hair out at night.

Chew the fingernails until they bled.

Pierce her teeth through her lips.

See her own reflection embedded into the back of her eyelids.

All of this, until she couldn't even form proper sentences to keep herself sane.

One word kept repeating over and over from her lips.

"Diego."

Finally, as if the biggest relief from being torn in half, Violet gathered together a memory.

A real one.

The feeling of Diego's hand running over the back of the skirt.

In fact, she could still feel it now.

Violet's shaky hand curled around her back, reaching to where his hand was, and sure enough, she felt something cold tucked into her waistband.

"Stay sharp.'' His words rang through her ringing ears.

"Diego, you amazing son of a bitch." Violet's mind was finally in the right place as she pulled a shiny dagger from her skirt.

"You want to not be able to see me anymore?" Violet shouted to her father who was watching through a hidden camera.

"I may not be able to control my reflection," Violet examined the shiny blade for him to see. "But - what is it that you always say?" She asked into the air.

"I can still adapt to the situation." Violet smirked to the floor where she saw herself smirking back and a second later, her face cracked.

Violet stabbed the dagger as hard as she could into the mirror, just like Diego had taught her.

She lifted her arms again and repeated the process until all that was left was shattered pieces on the cold concrete floor.

"How's that for a weakness?" Violet asked and she watched as the cracks made their way up the walls and to the ceiling.

Right on top of where she was standing.

Violet's mouth fell agape as the sharp shards of the mirror started trickling down on her, like twinkling, deadly, rain.

Violet panicked and backed up against the back wall, shielding her face with her arms as larger pieces began to fall.

Then she heard familiar heavy creaks and scrapes of the door opening.

"Help!" Violet screamed to whoever it was, and sure enough, Diego ran to the rescue, starting to pull her to the door while he sheilded as much of her body as he could with his.

"Diego!" Violet yelled in horror as she saw a long line of blood dripping through his hair, just above his ear.

"What is the meaning of this?" Their father's voice joined them after they finally made it out of the raining room of death.

"I will deal with you later." He seethed at Diego as he grabbed ahold of Violet and dragged her away again.

That was the last Diego, and the whole Academy had seen of her for four whole months.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves had sent his Eighth child to a mental institution.

☁︎ ▬ι═ﺤ ☁︎ ▬ι═ﺤ

"Just, stay put, okay?" Diego told Violet as he helped her to lay down on his childhood bed with a blue checkered blanket.

"No," Violet tried to stand up but Diego held her down.

"Please?" He asked nicely but she rolled her eyes.

"I just want a change of clothes." She said lightly, looking down at her white clothes the hospital had provided.

"Here." Diego kept his palm out for her to stay put as he rummaged through his old draws and pulled out a black hoodie and black sweatpants.

"Thanks." Violet took them and stood up on shaky legs to get dressed.

"You'll need help." Diego said softly as he shut the door. "Can you lift your arms?" He asked as he took the hoodie.

She nodded and breathed in slightly as she felt Diego's cold fingers brush against her skin when he pulled her shirt over head, replacing it with the hoodie.

Violet glanced in the mirror as he did and she saw his eyes linger on the bandaged bullet wound.

Then his eyes caught hers in the mirror.

"Sorry, I'll move that." He knew she hated them.

"I got the pants." Violet nodded, knowing it would still be a struggle.

Diego respected her privacy and covered the mirror with a blanket as she finished changing.

"Just, try to get some rest, okay?" He brushed the back of his hand over her forehead as she laid down in his bed.

"I'll try." She whispered back, cherishing his touch.

Violet closed her eyes, moments away from falling asleep to the sound of Diego's steady breathing.

Her eyes peaked open once more to see him unclasping his leather harness and neatly putting all of his knives back into his assorted case.

"For Patch." Diego whispered, thinking Violet was asleep, but she saw the single long dagger he tucked back into his waist, and he made his way for the door.

"Diego." Her croaky, tired voice stopped him, and he froze at the door.

"Stay." Violet whispered so quietly, Diego wasn't sure if he was imagining things until he saw her eyes open and almost begging him to stay. "Just until I fall asleep."

It was the same words she had spoken to him the night he had left her at the Academy eight years ago.

"Of course." He turned around, all thoughts of revenge slipping away at her request.

Violet lifted up the blanket, asking him to join her in the under the covers, and she didn't have to say anything for him to agree, slipping in next to her and wrapping his arms around her, holding her close.

Diego felt different like this.

No knives on him, no stupid batman harness.

Just pure, soft Diego.

Together, they fell into a peaceful slumber.

☁︎ ▬ι═ﺤ ☁︎ ▬ι═ﺤ