Title: Time to Free the Monster

Rating: R

Genre: Het

Pairings: Don/Robin, Charlie/Amita, past Don/Liz

Characters: Don, Robin, David, Liz, Alan, Bradford, Colby, Nikki, Charlie, Amita and McGowan.

Spoilers: All of season 6, set after 6.12 Arm in Arms

Warnings: Violence, sexual violence (including varying degrees of sexual assault (m/f, m/m)-somewhat graphic), discussion/thoughts of suicide, some swearing. More explicit details on sexual assault warning can be found at my livejournal (linked in my userinfo).

Word count: ~100,000 total

Disclaimer: Do not own, not being paid. All for fun! Some dialogue taken directly from episodes in season 6 (mostly the last episode)-I do not own this dialogue.

A/N: This fic will be posted every second day until complete. Thank you to ALEO for alpha reading as I was writing and giving invaluable speculation, encouragement and advice on the story. Thank you to krazykitkat for alpha reading as I was writing and giving encouragement. Thank you to munchkinofdoom and pixie_on_acid for taking on the huge task of betaing. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Summary: Don Eppes starts acting out of character and putting lives at risk. Has he had a psychotic break, is this who he always really has been, or is there something more going on?

Chapter 1

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Friedrich Nietzsche

"There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man." Polybius

...

"Some wine?" Don asked with a grin, laugh lines around his eyes crinkling. He gestured with a flourish to the already opened bottle and didn't wait for Robin's response, pouring a generous glass before handing it to her.

She took a sip, revelling in the taste and how comfortable and loved she felt. Her hair was still wet from the decadent shower she'd taken with Don and was hanging loosely down her back. Decadent, as he'd washed her hair for her and given her a scalp massage. She snuggled further into the warmth of her favourite light-grey sweater. The sofa was just the right size for tucking her jeans-clad legs up underneath her, feet warmed by the foot rub Don had just finished, and still leave Don room to join her. If she were a cat, she would have been purring with how happy she felt.

Don made to move away to the kitchen, to retrieve a beer no doubt, but Robin protested, entwining her fingers in his before he could move away.

"No, Don. Please, have some wine with me."

He mock-strained against her grip for a second before giving in. "Okay, but only because you're a pretty lady." There was laughter in his voice as he grinned at her again.

Her nose wrinkled as she smiled, feeling a little embarrassed but warmed at his playful words. "Stop that."

He'd taken the idea of the day being for her to a ridiculous extreme, although she wasn't above exploiting it, as proven by her requests for the foot rub and him to stay away from the beer.

Don settled down beside her, pulling her sideways into his arms. They sat, drinking their wine, Don occasionally pressing a kiss to her hair, and in the comfort and safety of his arms, Robin began to feel a little dizzy and drowsy. The feeling came over her quickly, surprising in its intensity, but Don was to her rescue again, pulling the glass gently out of her fingers. She tried to rouse herself when she heard a crash, but it didn't work, whatever was making her sleep was too strong and she fell into oblivion.

Waking up was hard, her mind slow. Robin was cold and there was something that tasted like crap in her mouth. She hadn't had that much to drink, she was pretty sure. Panic immediately blossomed when she realised she couldn't move, her arms and legs held in place by something. She opened her eyes, screams trying to escape from around the gag that she'd realised was in her mouth, body bucking as she tried to free her arms and legs. A terrified look around the room showed her that she was in her bedroom, tied to her bed and stripped to her panties and bra.

Don sat at the bottom of the bed intently watching her, his face blank. Panic gave way to fury. They'd tried restraining her once, and only once, during sex. She'd freaked out and he'd immediately untied her. For some reason it didn't bother him to be restrained occasionally, even with all his control-freak issues, but he knew how much it scared her. She swore at him through the gag, calling him every name she could think of as she continued to struggle. The last thing she remembered was sitting in his arms on the couch, drinking wine. Ignoring the why, how the hell had she managed to fall that deeply asleep that he could carry her upstairs to her bedroom, strip her and tie her down? She couldn't have...Oh, God.

A spike of pure terror shot through her. She'd been drugged, it was the only explanation. Don drugged me. She denied the thought. Don loves me, Don would never hurt me like this. He loves me. But Don was still just sitting there, studying her like she was a bug caught in a web and he was the spider, waiting for her struggles to grow weak. Ignoring the tears that flowed down her cheeks from fury and fear. Ignoring the fact that every time she struggled she was rubbing her ankles and wrists raw. Ignoring the screams that tried to pass through the gag. Ignoring the fact that she was terrified out of her mind and he was deliberately hurting her.

She'd never been able to understand when the spouse or partner of someone she was prosecuting for a violent crime said that they'd never seen it coming, that they couldn't believe that the person could be capable of it. How could they be so blind to something so major and terrible? How could they still deny it in the face of all the evidence? Now she understood. She'd have never thought that the man who'd rubbed her feet, liked snuggling down with her and watching old movies, held her in his arms after they had sex, who'd saved her life, who loved her could ever do something like this. Part of her still denied that he could, despite all the evidence to the contrary. But there was nobody else here to force him to do this, to force him to hurt her. It was all Don.

Don stood up and walked around the bed until he stood beside her chest. Robin's eyes remained on his, drawn into his gaze, searching for something to explain why he'd done this to her, to indicate that something else was going on, but there was nothing there. The bed dipped as he sat down beside her, his hand reaching out to touch her face. She wanted to whimper and shrink away from him but she forced herself to remain still as he touched her face, fingertips ghosting down her cheek in a grotesque parody of a caress. What looked like a brief flash of remorse washed over Don's expression, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by the blank gaze and slack features that she'd seen when she'd first woken up. His fingers didn't stop on her cheek, instead they skimmed down her throat and stopped just above the swell of her breast, resting lightly against her sweaty skin. This time she couldn't prevent the whimper and recoil at the sense of violation, disgust and pure fear that the intimate contact evoked in her. The fact that Don's touch shouldn't evoke such feelings added to the intensity. She didn't even want to think about the possibility, but she had to; the word wouldn't leave her mind. Rape.

"So beautiful."

Don's words were quiet, almost reverent. She'd started crying again, unable to control the outpouring of fear. Her nose was starting to clog up and her breath caught in her throat. The coughing fit that it resulted in was scary, the gag and her lack of movement making it feel harder to breathe. Don's hands had moved to near her head, hovering above her almost like he was trying to figure out how to help. When she finally dragged in and out some semi-even breaths she glared at him with as much venom as she could summon. He had no right to care about her, not now, not with what he was doing to her.

Don stared at her for a few seconds before his hand abruptly raised and he slapped her across the cheek. The blow was stinging and snapped her head towards the side. The shock hurt almost as much as the slap did and expelled the tiny bit of her that still believed that the man she loved couldn't hurt her. She turned her head back to face him, knowing that the only thing she had left was defiance in the face of whatever he was going to do to her. He'd drugged and stripped her, tied her up, touched her and hit her. If he let her go, she'd go to the police, no matter what he threatened. He had to know that. Which meant he wasn't going to let her go. Her jaw trembled with the realisation. From the moment she'd woken up, it had been there in her mind, but from the second that she'd seen that it was Don who was doing this to her, she'd buried it back as far as she could. Don wouldn't do that, Don can't be doing this.

He was going to kill her.

TBC...