Benedict Cumberbatch: Life With Ben

Chapter Fifteen: Nightmare Gone Wrong

We pulled up outside of Ben's house and it had just gone 22:30 and I couldn't stop yawning and my eyes couldn't stay open. Ben walked around to my side and opened my car door and said, "Claudia, darling, we are home!" I felt his hand brush past my leg as he reached for my bag and placing it over his shoulder. I wiped my eyes and said sleepily, "Where am I?" I must have dozed off for a while but I didn't realise. "We are outside my house. Come on Princess, take my hand and then you can get inside and get ready for bed. You've had a busy day!" Before I took hold of his hand I took my shoes off in his car. He bent down and took hold of my shoes and with his free hand he grasped my hand and helped me out of the car. I shut the car door as he locked it behind us. He guided me up the concrete stairs opening the door. He placed my shoes into the shoe cupboard and led me up to the spare room what will be my room for the weekend. He placed my bag on the end of my bed and said "Right Hun, let's get your pyjamas out!" I took my glasses off and placed them on the bedside table and helped to find my pyjamas in my bag. "Did you pack any pyjamas?" Ben asked whilst taking my clothes out of my bag and not coming across any sleepwear. "Yes, they are here!" I said taking hold of my pyjamas what were under my toiletries bag. "The bathroom is right next door to you, so when you're ready feel free to get yourself sorted! I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything, okay?" "Okay, thank you!" I said smiling, sleepily, as Ben kissed me on the forehead, before exiting the room. This led to me getting my bits together and I went to the bathroom and got dressed.

I walked into my room and put my clothes back into my bag and my toiletries away as well. I took my hair down and my hair slowly twirled down my back finishing just above my bottom. I walked down the stairs in my check pyjama bottoms and my white vest top. I got down to the kitchen doorway to find Ben sitting at his breakfast bar drinking a hot cup of coffee on his own. "Hiya!" I yawned with my hand over my mouth. "Hi!" He smiled, "Are you off to bed?" "Yes, I wanted to ask you something before I go to bed" Ben placed his coffee on the breakfast bar and patted the stool alongside of him asking me to come and sit down. My eyes were a little bit fuzzy as I didn't have my glasses on but I could make out the outline off everything so I didn't walk into anything. I sat alongside Ben as he looked right into my eyes. "What's wrong, Darling? What do you need to ask?" "Well, I'm going to be off to university soon, right?" "Right." "Well, I didn't have the funds to pay to board during the holidays, so I've got find a hotel or a B n B to stay in, so-" Ben cut me off, " You can always stay with me during the holidays! That's only if you want to though. Don't feel pushed into deciding, but Hotel Cumberbatch has one vacancy and the charge is free for such a pretty girl like you!" Ben winked whilst taking a sip from his coffee. "All I was going to ask was if you could help find one nearby, but if you are sure" Ben nodded. "Well, then, that would be perfect thank you!" I flung my arms around his body. I got up and he took my hand and said "Come on then, let's get you to bed, Princess!" He guided me up the stairs once again, going past the pictures what were still hanging on the wall. We got to my room and he peeled the luxurious silk sheets back so I can get into them. I snuggled down whilst he tucked me in. He leant over me and kissed me gently on the lips and whispered, "Good night, my beautiful Princess! Go to sleep and I shall see you in the morning. I love you!" I looked up at him and smiled, "You too, my King. I love you too!" I slowly closed my eyes as Ben walked out of the room turning the light out and shutting the door.

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4:56 am

"Stop it! Don't do that! Please!" I screamed in my sleep. I was having a nightmare. A nightmare of which, someone was about to slit my wrists. I was being held hostage by two men. Both of which had sexually assaulted me before tying me to a chair to slowly kill me. "Stop!" I cried! I couldn't stop screaming. I felt someone shaking me. It was neither of the two men. I couldn't see who it was. "Claud! Claud! Wake up please! Wake up!" A voice kept saying as I screamed louder. The voice got louder and I jumped. I sat bolt upright, sweating and crying. Ben sat on my bed in his black and grey check pyjama bottoms and a Pink Floyd top. "Claud, wake up! Please!" I sat crying checking my wrists to make sure they were not bleeding. I saw Ben and I flung my arms around him and started to cry again. Ben put his arms around me trying to calm me down. "Shh! Shhh!" He whispered into my ear, "It's not real! It was all a nightmare! Calm down!" He let go of me and said, "Do you want to talk about it?" I shook my head trying not to cry anymore. "Okay, can I guess what happened?" I sat in silence sobbing and shaking. Ben went through scenario after scenario before he got it. "Look. It's not real. It's not going to happen! I promise you, it will never happen!" I looked at him and sniffed to try and make sure I didn't cry, "It has happened. It already has!" I took my bracelets off of my wrists and I showed him the scars. "What? When?" I looked at him and tried not to cry. I told him what happened "I was 9 years old and it was the first time I was allowed to walk home on my own from school. A man came up to me and said he was one of my Dad's friends and they were going to take me home in his car. Me, being my gullible self got in to his car when I saw the other man. They drove me in the complete opposite direction of my house. I told him we were meant to go left not right, and he said he had some business to do before we went home. We pulled up outside a warehouse and the men let me out of the back of the car. They took me to "his" office where there was a chair and a desk with nothing on it. I asked what he had to do and he got angry because I kept asking questions. He walked towards me and picked me up and put me on the desk. He said to me to be quiet or he will do something I would later regret. I sat crying. I had just realised he wasn't going to take me home. I sat on his desk as he gave me a drink. It was orange juice but what I didn't realise was that he had drugged the drink as I later woke up attached to a chair. "You will not tell anyone this will you?" The man said for me to stupidly reply, "I need to tell my Mum and Dad, I tell them everything!" The men looked at each other and one said to the other "We have got to. She will tell people!" The other man said "Pass me the blade!" They walked over to me and said to me they didn't want to do this but this will enable me not to tell. The man walked over to me as I started to kick and scream. He dragged the blade over both of my wrists. I lost loads of blood. I wouldn't be here today, if one of the men didn't punch the other in the face and tried to save me." Ben cut in and said, "But he tried to kill you?" "Yes, but he was different. He saw my tears and the blood. He took of his shirt and tied it around my wrist and he used his tie to tie around my other wrist whilst calling 999." Ben looked at my crying face and sat holding my hands whilst trying to wipe my tears from my eyes. "I'm sorry, I should have told you!" I blubbed. "Claudia, please, I didn't expect you to tell me just yet. Especially not at 5 o'clock in the morning! Look, Darling, you must be so tired still, why don't you go back to sleep." He stroked my hair and smiled. "Please don't leave me, well not until I go back to sleep? I don't want it to happen again and if it does, I do not want to be alone." "Claud, I do not want it to happen again, either! Does it happen a lot?" Ben asked quite upset and scared. "It hasn't happened for months! But, then again, I thought I heard one of the men in the restaurant yesterday, so that probably triggered something." Ben looked at me & asked why I didn't say anything about sitting in the same room as the man who nearly killed me. But the thing was that he wasn't there, it was his voice in my head. Ben tucked me back into bed and sat on the edge of my bed smiling, trying to calm me down and reassuring me that the men will never touch a hair on my body ever again & if they do, then they will have to get through him first. "How do you normally get yourself to sleep?" Ben asked, "I listen to a playlist on my iPod and I read stories on my phone. Why?" I replied yawning. "Okay," Ben said to me whilst stroking my hair. He cleared his throat and started to sing. He started to sing a song that reduces me to tears but also makes me very sleepy. "I have died everyday waiting for you, darling don't be afraid, I have loved you, for a thousand years, and a thousand more!" Ben sang, slowly and sweetly, as if he was singing a lullaby to an infant. I slowly closed my eyes and feel asleep. Ben leaned over me and whispered; "I will love you for a thousand years and for a thousand more, my darling." he kissed my forehead and walked back out of the room to leave me to sleep as the sun crawled through the blinds.