A/N: My apologies if I've muffed up any fencing terms. All that I know about the sport comes from Wikipedia, the USFA site, and several exciting you-tube videos. This is another Alex character study that grew out of the idea of, "What if the SVU characters each had a secret hobby?" Very mild AO, if you want to see it that way. Depending on how this story goes, I might have Elliot cross-stitching next. Or something. Reviews, critiques, and other comments are appreciated!
Disclaimer: The following is a piece of fanfiction. No money is made off this. There is no copyright infringement intended; all characters, episodes and backgrounds belongs to Dick Wolf and NBC.
Foil
Obstinate Alex donned a Kevlar-lined jacket when she was thirteen, ditching pointe shoes for a plastron and favouring breeches over tutus.
She didn't give up ballet because she didn't like dance. While other teenagers daydreamed about ponies and princes, the fencers lunging and circling on the television screen entranced her. Probing openings and fleeting touches, thrust and parry, give and take. On weekends she defied Cabot traditions and ogled white tights on muscled calves at the local club. Fencing was dancing, pure, controlled grace on a strip six feet wide and 40 feet long.
She joined a women's foil team in university. The activity kept her from insanity by law journals. Nagging professors were projected onto her opponent's lamé. Frustrations would be expressed in an answering, almost vicious riposte. There was a refuge behind the mask, a sense of sheltering darkness. No one could see her sweat, her tears. It was safe, there.
Fencing seemed to fit Alex the way other sports never did. Growing up she'd been too gangly, too awkward, too arms-and-legs for basketball, volleyball and other things like that. Inline skating had been a passing fad. She's actually old-fashioned in many ways. She still does her exam outlines by hand. She likes to make dinner the old way, by setting everything on fire. Her sport echoes bloody duels from the old world, fought in the halls of academia, fought to strengthen character, defend honour.
And since she started working with the SVU, late night practices seemed a good way to forget about the guilt. Cases would worm their way inside her defences, finding chinks in her guard, unexpected attachments, parasitic, clinging there for life. Sporadic practices became a steady routine. She would head to her locker and pull on the breeches, the jacket, and the gauntlet glove; taking a breath, she would don the mask, heavy and musty-smelling, a black curtain separating her from the pressures of her small world.
She always wipes down her foil after a contest. She tries to make it shiny. She wants the blade to stay clean, unmarred by fingerprints or dust. She tries to wipe away the ugliness. Her efforts are almost obsessive, like her concentration. Most people get intimidated, after several trials. Opponents were few.
Those practices never work, of course. Shouting matches with her squad released tension; late night calls from a persistent detective compounded her restless sleep. Nights out with the squad helped, a little, much to her surprise. Understanding laughter and smiling brown eyes, and conspiracy theories swapped over cheap beer. The balance is always rocky, but there was always the foil.
And although New York City seems as tired and worn as she is tonight, the bigger world is new and changing, charging into tomorrow without a look back. She supposes she was an arrogant fool, not to have realized that earlier. There are no rules to help her keep up, no honest referee to keep even score. No one salutes, anymore. People have moved beyond that. She has no protective armour, except a flimsy layer of Kevlar that is all too thin for being non-existent.
See, Alex is a throwback. She fights by a fencer's rules, a fencer's honour. But bullets travel faster than a rapier thrust.