A/N: Hi guys, I'm back from a bit of a break! Unfortunately Christmas is a really hectic time for me work-wise so I had to set writing aside... but I hope that this will make up for it. I've been working on the sequel to Mine For the Summer pretty much since I finished writing the last chapter, and here it is! I really hope it's everything you hoped (though I doubt it's what you expected!) and that you'll bear with me once again as I continue our favourite gals' story.
Warnings: this story starts off pretty dark and has mentions of suicide, self-harm, blood, domestic violence... if any of these areas are triggering to you please do not read beyond this point.
I really appreciate you all taking the time to leave me comments and I hope to be able to update this very soon. Thank you for reading!
She's always had this sense of justice, even as a little kid. Even before she knew the word 'law', she understood it, had an idea of wrong and right, and what was fair and what wasn't. Her brothers used it to their advantage, scribbling her name in blue crayon on the upstairs landing of their townhouse, framing her, knowing Casey would never just sit and take the punishment, that her crying and begging her parents would only result in her getting in more trouble. In third grade, she got her first detention, refused to admit to pushing over a kid who she absolutely did not push over. She wasn't apologising for something she didn't do. Without an apology, they kept her back at recess for a full twenty minutes. She refused to write out an apology either. She hadn't done anything wrong.
It only makes sense that that sense of justice should come back to bite her on the ass as an adult.
As a lawyer, you learn not to dwell on what's fair and what isn't. That isn't the point. You can't get tied up in all the cases you don't win, all the guilty people who get to walk free. There are times when you have to look beyond 'guilt' and 'fair' and 'justice'. Everyone deserves representation, everyone has the right to a fair trial. (That being said, she knows she could never be a defence lawyer, still feels her skin crawling from her years working white collar cases).
Somewhere in the past seven years or so, though, she's lost sight of herself. The reasons she became a lawyer in the first place seem fuzzy, distant. Half-memories. She has no life outside of law. It's lonely. It's a lonely profession, most of all if you aren't interested in the politics of it, if you don't have the time or the patience to kiss-ass on the side. Most nights, she doesn't even make it to her bed, let alone to any one else's. Her couch - the same couch she's had since she moved in - is permanently imprinted with the shape of her, curled under a blanket and falling asleep with the taste of whiskey on her breath, the distant fuzz of the television playing static across the room from her.
"What should I do?" she'd asked, her voice small, hollow, at the realisation that this wasn't something that was going to just disappear, that this wasn't Liz Donnelly calling her into her room to send her out with her tail between her legs, but something much, much worse.
"Something else."
Something else? There is nothing else.
Once you cut lawyer out of her - with a scalpel, careful to pull every last inch of it away from the rest of her, like a tumour, like a part of her that's rotted - she's nothing. She's nobody. For years, that's become everything she is. She hasn't dated, hasn't even played softball in years. Casey Novak is nothing and nobody. A lump. An empty shell of a person.
(She looks through the contacts in her cellphone and, aside from a family she barely speaks to, they're all lawyers and cops and court officials and judges… she can't escape from any of it).
And to top it all off, she'd had to stand there, watch whilst a cop - a good cop - on her squad (not her squad, not any more, someone else's squad… and shit if that doesn't hurt more than anything else) was hauled into a police car because of her mistake.
A man is dead because of her. Another man's life is over.
She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.
She'd left before Elliot or Olivia could make eye contact, because she knows what it's like to be burnt by Olivia's tongue, she knows the look of anger she'd have found in Elliot's eyes. She knows that if he was quick to throw Fin under the bus, he won't hesitate to let rip into her. Olivia, too. And it's what she deserves, she knows, but she'd rather make a clean break.
Her apartment still faintly smells of burnt food where she'd fallen asleep reheating Chinese take-out two nights ago, waking to the sound of the smoke alarm. Clothes are strewn across the floor, no differentiation over clean and not clean. There's a stack of books and journals and newspapers next to the couch, with an empty yoghurt carton balanced on top, the spoon still sticking out the top of it. The coffee table is a mess of paperwork she never got round to finishing (and now never will), two biros with the ends chewed, an empty packet of chips, and half a bottle of Jim Beam.
Briefly, she imagines her apartment as a crime scene. It's not much of a stretch. There's a reason she never has people over.
On instinct, she pours herself a glass of amber liquid, not bothering to replace the cap. She's already kicked her heels off, and her jacket soon joins them on the floor as she sinks into the couch, lifting her glass to her lips, and silently congratulating herself on making it this far before crying.
The hot burn of the liquid has barely reached her throat when the first tear falls, and before she knows what's happening, she's full on bawling, one hand clenching around the glass, the other clinging to the edge of the table. She can't quite get a hold of herself, to stop the rage that takes over her, unsure if she's more angry with her bosses or herself.
(She did do it - this time - but the resulting punishment feels the same as it did all those years ago.)
She gulps down another mouthful, can barely see in front of her through the haze of tears, what little make-up she didn't cry off in Donnelly's office now clinging to her eyelashes, all but glueing them closed. Her nose is running, too. She's an ugly crier. She knows that.
(Charlie told her that, once, right after he threw a plate at her. But god, she doesn't want to think about Charlie. Not now. She hasn't even collected that photograph, the one that lives in her desk drawer. It's all still there, her whole office, as though tomorrow she might go back to it.)
Throwing back the rest of the whisky, she slams the glass on the table. The drink burns her throat, and the tears burn her eyes, and it takes her a long moment, eyes closed, leaning heavy against the coffee table, to realise that now her hand is burning too. She opens her eyes, and the glass has smashed. Her palm is bleeding. She stares at it like a person who doesn't see blood on a daily basis, in crime scene photos; on the ground around a man who she let die.
(On the carpet of this exact same apartment, and soaking through a crisp blue blouse and a soft grey sweatshirt and, soon, more items of clothing than she could count, balled up in a trash bag in the bedroom.)
It takes a moment for the pain to properly register, the world flooding back into focus.
Casey tugs shards of glass out of her hand, drops them into the carcass of the glass, the base of which is still hole. It stings. She gets up and goes to the bathroom. The kitchen sink is closer, but it's filled with dishes, and the first aid kit is in the bathroom, anyway.
The cuts aren't deep. She runs the faucet over them, carefully cleaning away tiny pieces of glass that look like glitter, watching her blood swirl down the basin, turning the water pink.
Casey stares at herself in the mirror, eyes hollow and dark, face red and blotchy. She's cleaned up after herself in this room too many times.
This mess, though? She doesn't know how to clean it up.
(Maybe the punishment doesn't feel right because it isn't enough.)
She pushes her hair out of her face, wipes under her eyes. At some point, she stopped recognising herself. That's the whole damn problem.
The glisten of tears starts again, as she holds her bleeding hand to her chest, and ducks down to rummage through the contents of the cupboard under the sink. She has to use both hands to rifle through the baskets of scented soaps and candles and other shit that lawyers buy each other for Christmas and birthdays but surely nobody ever uses. By the time she pulls out the right packet, blood has dripped its way down her arm, her sleeve spattered with red.
It doesn't matter anymore.
She sighs, sitting down on the toilet, her heart thudding in her ears. She wishes she'd brought the bottle of Jim Beam in with her. Her hands shake. Not just the bleeding one, but both of them, as she tears open the packaging, carefully removes a slither of metal. She presses it between her finger and thumb, doesn't flinch when it breaks the skin, fresh blood brighter than the rest.
She does know how to clean up, after all.
She considers leaving a note or something, but it seems tacky. Everyone will know why she's done what she's done, anyway. She can imagine them all at the DA's office, their excited hushed tones as they talk about how Casey Novak couldn't even face the Bar, how she took the easy way out.
(Her mind drifts, for the first time in a long time, to Alex. It's hard not to. Her heart clenches at the thought of her, and not for the same, bitter reasons it used to.)
(It's almost enough to stop her. Almost.)
She leaves the shower door open.
In the end, this is what ruins it. A shower door that isn't quite closed.
The pounding on her door drags her back into consciousness and she immediately knows something's wrong because the shower cubicle isn't full, like it should be.
And, she's awake. Alive.
From where she's slumped in the corner of the cubicle, she could reach the door and close it, but her body won't let her put that plan into action. Self-sabotage, as always. The water's running cold, and there's a headache building behind her eyes, and it's all going to be for nothing because the damn shower door is open.
Her arms and legs feel like lead. She attempts to grab one arm with the other hand, to force herself to play along, but her skin is slippery with blood and water, and her muscles don't work.
The pounding gets louder.
Who even is that? Who even cares enough to disturb this? Maybe it's Olivia or Elliot, or even Fin, come round to yell at her some more.
If she could just close the damn door.
Maybe it won't matter. Maybe she cut deep enough that it won't matter. She tries to look, but her vision is so blurry she can't get a solid glimpse of anything, just a mess of red.
If she'd cut deeper she'd be dead. Or at least unconscious.
Self-sabotage.
God, she can't even kill herself right.
She lets her head fall back, hitting the back of the shower hard, and then, though it takes effort, she does it again. Her head throbs like maybe she fell and hit her head in the first place. Maybe that's how she passed out.
Maybe the pounding she hears isn't the front door at all, maybe it's just in her head.
Disorientated, she tries to reach around, to find something to hoist herself up by. She can close the door, and start again. The glint of the razor blades on the floor outside the shower, sailing on a pool of water, mock her.
If she could reach them. Or the door. Either one…
God, she's pathetic.
The pounding on the door finally stops. Casey lets her eyes drift closed, and the silence is beautiful. Peaceful.
…if only for a moment.
"Oh my god, Case!"
She blinks awake, bleary eyes trying to make out the figure as they reach to turn the water off, bundling her in their arms.
"No no no no," they mumble, pulling her close.
She turns her face into them, meeting cotton and wool, and perfume. Something fruity and floral.
"I've got you, I've got you."
She has to crane her neck to look up at her. And when she does, her heart almost stops.
Alex.