A/N: This is a one-shot I wrote for a Mibba contest. I had to pick a story from to write a story about and the sentence is in italics so you'll know what I wrote about. I hope you enjoy.

Blood Stained Christmas
A One-Shot by Tatiana Knight

I sat in the Interrogation Room Two facing the one sided mirror with my head down and my arms folded on the table. My face was still slightly swollen but the doctors said it would go away soon. Bruises were still slightly visible on my face, mostly around both of my eyes; my arms were also bruised along with my fractured ribs. My jaw still felt weird from all the wire and metal that has been apart of my mouth for the last two weeks. I had been unable to talk, unable to tell my daughter Happy Birthday or Good Night for the last two weeks.

The door opened causing me to lift my pounding head to examine who came in. It was two male detectives, guns holstered at their waists. One was average height and tree like with dark hair and eyes; the other was tall and resembled a stick of bamboo with dark eyes and light hair. The darker one carried a manila folder with Holmes, A. written on the tab and a tape recorder. Both sat down across from at the rectangular table causing me to take a deep breath.

A tape recorder was set between us and clicked on while the dark one said in a monotone, "Sunday, January 10th, 2010, Nine forty-eight. Case of Andrew Holmes. Interrogation Room Two interviewing Serena Holmes." There was a brief pause before he began the interrogation. “Mrs. Holmes, I'm Detective Sullivan,” the darker one began, “and this is Detective Johnson. I assume you know why you were brought here.” Detective Sullivan stated.

I nodded as I tried to reply except nothing came out at first. I cleared my throat before I answered, “Yes.” My voice was rough. My voice didn't even sound the same any longer, either due to the lack of use. It almost sounded like I had been gargling nails.

"I assume you have been informed of your rights and you are able to have a lawyer present whenever you feel you need one." He said, making sure that all the bases were covered before they began.

I replied the same as I did the first time.

Detective Johnson opened the folder and pulled out a picture, pushing it across the table for me to look at. It was picture a man – her husband - laid on the ground, blood covered the front of his green and black polo shirt and his mouth was agape. The light brown eyes of her husband were wide open and lifeless, dull; which caused her to look away from him.

“You did this to him, correct?” Johnson asked, his eyes examining her face.

“Yes.”

“Why?” Johnson asked suddenly. “Was he cheatin' on you? Did you walk in on him cheatin' with a whore and you decided that you weren't goin' to deal with him messin' 'round on you?" He examined her face for tell-tale signs of shock or gault, "Or do you jus' not remember?"

Breath filled my lungs and I closed my eyes, only to let them pop open again. I saw the picture in my head when I closed them and it wasn't the image I wanted to see. I would have rather have seen my daughter's smiling face instead of the bloody scene I had created. “No. I remember every event of that night. And no, he wasn't cheating.” I gulped before shakily running my hand through my hair, "I would appreciate if you didn't assume what happened that day."

“Then tell us what happened, please.” Sullivan asked gently. Thats when I got it. Good Cop, Bad Cop. I found it funny how they thought it worked.

I let out a dry laughed before saying, “It's kind of ironic really. For Christmas my husband gave me a broken jaw, bruises and a new life as a single mother.”

“It was Christmas day and it was really cold, the sky was cloudy and snow was falling so thickly you couldn't see a hand in front of your own face. Of course, that's Maine winter weather.” She looked over the two men, "And I really don't have to tell the two of you that."

“I had stayed home with my daughter, I liked seeing her open her own Christmas presents for the first time. My husband had gone out the night before after a very loud verbal fight that ended in Serenity waking up and him leaving.”

“Of course, the fight was over our daughter. The problems had been there since before she was born, he had pushed everything away before she was born only to have it come back and bite us in the ass afterwards. I was only eighteen when I had gotten pregnant and he was twenty-one, both of us just getting the freedom we wanted when everything went down hill... Well down hill for him at least. I was was excited that I was pregnant. Scared but excited at the same time.”

“He married me after he found out, both of us were happy at first. Marriage was always portrayed as a good thing in movies and out in public but I had learned first hand that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.”

“Violence was in his blood. It ruled his life since the time he was young so I should have expected it to start ruling mine once we got married. Except I was naïve... so very, very naïve that I didn't see the signs. He pushed me around at first – little shoves whenever he was angry, but that soon turned into slaps and punches. I should have known it would get worse; but I defended it like every other woman in my situation. He didn't mean it. It wouldn't happen again. He'd never purposely hurt me. You know all that bullshit people feed themselves when they are in those situations.” I twisted my hands together in absent minded nervousness.

“Except, I had been one of those girls who vowed that they would never end up in an abusive relationship. I promised myself that the second a man hit me I would fight back and beat him to a bloody pulp, but that girl disappeared the second his hand collided with my cheek. I was only three months pregnant at that time.”

“Soon, fights became for frequent, over the stupidest of things. Dishes. Money. The car. Hell even the dog became a problem to him and it was always my fault. No matter how I did something, it was always wrong and it was always my fault.”

“Well, that day – as I said – I stayed home with my Serenity. She was so happy and it made me happier by the minute but I couldn't help wonder where Andy was. He had been gone all night and I couldn't help but worry; no matter what the fight was he was never gone all night. Serenity had opened all her presents and I put her down for her normal nap when he finally got home. He got home and slammed the door so I hurried down stairs to see him except I didn't know he was drunk off his ass. He was loaded – as you can probably tell from the toxicology testing you ran on him. Lets just say he wasn't happy to see me and started to yell at me. I had ruined his life. Serenity wasn't supposed to happen. I should have gotten rid of her and none of this would have happened. I was mad, of course, he was saying his daughter was a mistake and I should have gotten rid of her.”

“Against better judgment I argued back, yelling at him for saying such mean things about someone he helped make.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, “Lets just say that it didn't end well. He punched me. Hard. Which is how my left eye got black and blue. I had fallen to the floor and he kicked me, I screamed and he kicked me again. So I kicked him as hard as I could between his legs.”

Laughing bitterly, I continued, “I got up and stumbled into the kitchen. I got to the phone and he ripped it from my hands, tearing the whole cord out of the wall before he started to pound on me again." I paused before taking a shaky breath then whispered, "This time he didn't just punch and kick me.”

Everything was silent in the room now, one of the detectives started to click their pen but I didn't know which one. My eyes were closed to keep tears from showing up in them. Telling myself there was no need to cry since he was dead.

“What do you mean he didn't just punch and kick you?” Sullivan asked.

My bruised eyes shot up to him, “You know exactly what he did to me.”

“I need to hear you say it... for the record.”

I clenched my fist before saying, “He raped me. Alright? I'm not going to tell you about it. I just want to get over that part.”

Johnson cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably before Sullivan told me to continue. “Well after he was... done he got up and buttoned his pants. By that time my jaw was broken because he was angry that I kept screaming, and my other eye was black and blue because I refused to look at him while he... did that to me.” I scoffed, “He had the nerve to tell me to get up off the kitchen floor and take care of my screaming brat before he smothered her to death.”

“That was the last straw for me. I wouldn't let him threaten Rina, I didn't care how many times he beat me but when he threatened my baby I couldn't just deal with it anymore. I got up and grabbed a kitchen knife; the really big one that you found near his body, and went into the living room. I don't think he expected me to get up so quickly and when he saw the knife in my hand he laughed. He taunted me about how I would never use it on him because I loved him. How I could never kill the father of my child. Oh how wrong he was.”

“The second the knife sank into his chest he knew that I wasn't fucking around anymore. I could tell he knew that I wasn't just going to sit around and be the docile wife he could abuse anymore. After he fell to the floor I dropped the knife and went to my purse, my mobile was in it and I called nine-one-one. I didn't say anything, because I couldn't so I just let it sit there until they tracked the number and showed up at my door. I knew at that moment I was safe.”

I closed my eyes as a tear slid down my cheek. “You may think I'm a heartless bitch, but that's okay. If I get sent to jail for being abused and protecting myself then fine, I'll serve jail time; but now I know that Andrew Holmes can never hurt me, my child, or another woman ever again.”

"You didn't have to kill him. You could have gotten your phone, gone up to your daughter and called the police." Johnson told her, still trying to play the bad ass cop even though she could see through it. She could see it in his eyes that he felt pain for her.

"I had to kill him. It would never have ended. I could have called the cops, they would have arrested him and then what? He would have gotten out and come after me while I was laid up in the hospital. He would have gone after my daughter." I put my hands on the table now, squeezing them together until my small nails dug into the palm. "Leaving him alive was not an option."

Sullivan then put in, "You could have filed for an immediate restraining order."

"With what? My good looks?" I snapped in a heated tone. "I have been laid up in bed in a hospital with my jaw wired shut knocked out with morphine most the time being felt through a feeding tube. I couldn't do the paperwork even if I had tried. Even if I did do it, what would it have done for me? Can the paper fight him if he decided to break the restraining order? Would a paper cut stop him in his tracks?" I asked, sarcasm oozing from my every word. "I could have very well gotten one, except I would have been on my own and he would have come after me to finish the job." Sullivan went to say something but I intervened, "You assume I haven't been thinking about this. I have been thinking out it since the day his little shoves and slaps turned into knocking me around so much that I distanced myself from everyone so they wouldn't know what was happening."

"Have you ever tried to leave him?"

I gave an aggravated sigh, "No."

"Why? If he presented such a danger to you and your daughter why didn't you try to leave?" Johnson asked.

"I was afraid of him!" I screamed, jumping from my seat and knocking the chair from the ground as I slapped my hands onto the table. I hated these men knowing what Andy had done to me, I hated showing them my weakness. "I was so scared of him that at night I wouldn't sleep more than two hours at a time because I feared he would kill me or Rena while we slept. I was so afraid of him that I arranged for his boss to call me whenever he was on his way home so I could prepare for the beating I was going to get. I was so afraid of him that I considered abandoning my daughter and driving off the cliff and right into the ocean so neither of us would have to endure that any longer."

Taking a shaky breath I turned and picked up my chair, setting it back in the right position and sat down. I folded my hands in front of me and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down and fight back the tears that threatened to fall.

Johnson clicked off the tape recorder and stood up, "This interview is over. Can we get you anything? A burger? Pop?"

"I was to see my daughter." I told him, I hadn't seen her since Christmas morning and I was dying to see her face again.

Sullivan stood and said, "We'll see what we can do." Both of the detectives left then, closing the door quietly behind them leaving me all by myself.

It was a while before the door opened and Johnson came in carrying my daughter. She was dressed in Winnie the Pooh pajamas and her hair was ruffled from sleep, though she was wide awake.

"Mama. Mama" She jabbered as she reached for me.

This time I did let the tears fall as I stood and took my daughter from the detective, hugging her tightly to me. I cried into her neck as she hugged me back, she jabbered in incoherent baby babble and I took in every single part of it.

"Mrs. Holmes." Johnson said, trying to get my attention. When I looked at him he said, "I hope you get out of this. I really do because no lady needs to be put through something like that. I think you should've done a lot worse to him, but thats off the record, of course."