It was quite late when Julia arrived back at Dom's apartment, and Julia prayed Dom wouldn't wake up by her opening the door and cleaning up in the bathroom. But of course he did.
She had high hopes when she was already in the bathroom for ten minutes and there was still no movement, but there eventually was knocking on the door.
"Sweetheart?"
Julia froze and stared at herself in the mirror, the cold, wet towel in her hand she had pressed against her face.
"Jules is everything okay?"
He sounded tired, which meant he had been asleep at some point. She wondered whether she woke him up when she came inside, or when she was in the bathroom.
"Yeah," she mumbled. "I'm fine."
"You've been in there for a while," Dom pointed out, causing her to press her lips together again.
"I'm- I'm just getting my makeup off."
"That doesn't take so long, right?" Dom asked her, and she was just silent for a few seconds, which Dom filled with "did you even have makeup on?"
"I'm coming in a few minutes, yeah?" Julia told him, hoping he would be fine with that. Against her expectations, she heard him say "okay" before he walked back to the bedroom.
Julia sighed once he was gone and sat down on the edge of the bath. She could in no way get rid of the bruises on her face. It was even hard to touch her face, as everything hurt, and she could only use one hand for it. The other hurt too much she could barely move her fingers.
After a moment of trying to move some muscles in her face that only made the bruises bleed more, Julia stood up again and walked over to the mirror to confront herself another time.
She flinched when she pressed the cold towel on her eye and held it in place, not really knowing what the purpose was. It just felt good.
Just as she took it off to check the amount of blood, the bathroom door opened, causing her to jump and drop the towel.
"Fuck," she mumbled as she turned her body all the way to the other side of the bathroom so she was facing the door. Julia bent down to pick up the towel from the floor, but never turned around.
"I wanted to check on you," Dom's soft voice broke the silence in the bathoom.
"I'm good, Dom," Julia told him seriously, gripping the towel tightly in both of her hands.
"You're not. Something's off."
The way Dom's voice came closer betrayed he was trying to see her face, which made Julia turn the other way to still have her back faced towards him.
"Can you go to sleep, please?" she tried, but it was the last thing she said before Dom turned her around and looked straight at her face, lit up by the white bathroom light so that every single bruise was visible.
His mouth fell open and his eyes widen as she saw how his eyes scanned over her face, down to her bare arms that apparently also had bruises. She hadn't even noticed them.
"Yeah, they don't hurt," Julia lied to him, which he obviously didn't buy.
"What the fuck happened?" he asked her, his voice quiet, as he was speaking in disbelief.
Julia shrugged, looking down at the floor. Dom immediately placed his thumb underneath her head to make her look up at him again, and so that he could see her face.
"Come sit down."
He pushed her lightly to make her sit down on the bath edge again, like she had done before. He kept her in place as he took the towel from her and made it wet again before he started going over her face with it, very gently.
"Fuck," he whispered as he realized how bad it was. "What happened, Julia?"
"Someone attacked me in the streets?" Julia tried, which was far from convincing. Dom seemed to believe it for a moment, but he quickly shook his head.
"Tell me what happened. Did Max do this?"
He stopped dipping on her face for a second just so he could make good eye contact with her.
"No," Julia immediately denied. "Max and I are good."
"Then who?!"
Julia kept looking up into Dom's eyes and eventually whispered "Becca".
"Becca?!" Dom exclaimed, causing Julia to jump a little which made him immediately go silent and brush his fingers over her face gently. "How? What- Why?"
Julia closed her eyes for a little to focus on the feeling of his fingers over her cheeks, causing a burning feeling as he touched the bruises, but it still felt good. She guessed the best was to just be honest, before Dom would again get involved with something that wasn't what it looked like.
"I went to her house," Julia started, still having her eyes closed. She felt how Dom removed his fingers from her face, and she knew he had backed up.
"Why the fuck-"
"Because," Julia said, opening her eyes and looking at him even though she was afraid to do so as there was a chance he would be mad at her. He had told her to let it go in the first place. "Because she's the one who made those fake pictures."
"Huh?" Dom breathed out, laying the towel on the countertop. "How do you know?"
"Max and I tracked her. She's behind that account."
Every second that passed, in which it was silent between them too, made Julia more and more nervous. And she had all the rights to be nervous about Dom's answer, which became clear when he talked again.
"I told you to fucking let it go," he said, his mood completely changed from overly worried to angry. "I have told you a million times to let it go and forget about it."
Julia nodded. "I know. But I was just curious. And when we found out I just wanted to confront her."
"After I explicitly told you not to?!" Dom answered, making Julia look away in embarrassment.
"Why do you always do this, Julia?! Why do you never, ever do what the fuck I tell you?! I wanted you to forget about it! It's the only thing I wanted from you!"
"I wanted to protect you," Julia whispered, answering Dom's loud voice.
"You call this protecting me?!" Dom yelled at her. "You call going to someone's house and let them beat you up protecting me?!"
Julia shrugged, and felt how tears were threatening to fall out of her eyes for the first time that night. All this time she didn't really care about the pain and what she had done, but she just couldn't stand Dom being so mad at her.
"I'm sorry," Julia mumbled, her voice shaky. "I was just angry."
She heard how Dom sighed and mumbled some things to himself, followed by him grabbing the towel off the countertop and throwing it on the floor. "Fucking hell!"
"I'm sorr-"
"Look how you look, Julia! Look what she fucking did to you!"
Julia was staring at the towel that was laying on the floor, blood stripes covering the white fabric. It didn't take long until Dom got closer to her again and lifted her head to make her look at him.
"Look how you- What did she do? Did she only hit you in the face?" he asked her impatiently for some reason, holding onto her face so she could impossibly look away from him. Julia knew it was just a way of him to express how worried he was, but it still scared her. Every time.
"She hit my stomach a few times. And I hurt my hand."
Julia held out the hand that hurt and watched how Dom gently took it in his hands, examining it. It made her think he had stopped being angry at her, until he let it fall, causing her hand to hit her knee which made it hurt even more.
"Wait, your stomach?" he asked Julia, who bit her lip harshly to cover in how much pain she was, and nodded.
"Fuck! How could you even- That's so fucking irresponsible, fuck!"
For a second Julia frowned and wanted to ask him why, but then it hit her. She had put the baby at risk. And all that even though Dom had never asked her to do anything.
"Oh," she whispered as she let her hand stroke over her stomach as she looked down at it.
"I can't fucking do this," Dom told her as he walked away and opened the bathroom door to leave. She looked up to watch him leave, but held her breath once he turned around again. "You're fucking insane! How could you do this?!"
"I promise the baby's fine," Julia told him, her voice small.
"Bullshit! You don't know! You can't know that!"
"I'll get a check tomorrow," she said, but she could have better been silent because this seemed to make everything worse.
"A check?! Oh yeah, sure! Get a fucking check! Maybe you should have considered this before you got into a fucking fight for nothing!"
"She's the reason you almost died, Dom! I couldn't just let it slide! As much as I wanted to!"
"What was fighting her gonna do, huh?!" he responded. "The only thing it did was putting the fucking baby at risk!"
Julia's brain was absolutely racing, and she tried her best to come up with something to say back, just so she could try and calm Dom down. But she could only break down, right in front of him.
"You need to learn to fucking think!" Dom yelled at her. It felt like he didn't even feel a little empathy when he saw her cry. He didn't even stay with her as she did, he just turned around again and left the bathroom, leaving her all alone again.