After a car wreck, once you're safe; a little beaten up maybe but no longer in danger, you're left to figure out what happened. Wide eyed and confused, there are details that need to be pieced together. There are facts that have to be ascertained. People want to hear about how you've survived. They want to know how it's possible that you made it out of the giant twist of metal that lies in front of them in the street. There were a series of things that had to occur for you to go from tooling along happily in your car to sitting on the side of the road trying to remember where you left your driver's license and insurance card. There were moments where you had choices, and each little moment added together to get you to where you are right now.
It's only in retrospect can you see the things that led you to that moment. While they're happening, they speed by, the important markers that later scream warnings to you aren't clear until the disaster has already happened. You know the whole time that you were an active participant in everything. You were part of the madness. How Olivia Benson's life got off track was the same as that collision. The same screeching tires, burning rubber, and heap of twisted metal marked her unhappy decline.
She knew she had been there the whole time. She had been in the driver's seat and now that she looked back, she could see the moments that led her to stare at the wreckage of her life. She wished, more than anything, that she could go back and fix it. She wished that she had the strength left to change the signs.
But when it was happening? If you asked her how it happened while her life was flying by her? How she had actually ended up sitting there with a beautiful woman across from her begging her with tears to stop her own self destruction and change? She couldn't tell you how she had ended up at this pathetic point, sitting here alone in the dark. She couldn't tell you how she got here at all. Honestly, she didn't even remember.
Of course, the things she did remember she wished she could forget. The incidents that started it were clear in her mind. The dank smell of the basement combined with the smell of sweat. In her ears, the sounds of her shoulders hitting the wall behind her echoed. The pressure of him tight against her and she struggled to breathe against the weight. The realization that this was it: there was nowhere else to go. His face flashed through her mind at the worst times, making her push away and retreat into her own private hell without a moment's notice.
She would feel herself disconnect, like the flick of a light switch, she would be gone. A sickening numbness came over her, her brain taking her back to that minute, her senses tricking her into high alert as what happened around her stopped so she could react to the trauma. She realized that without any warning she was there again and the worst parts were playing in her mind, over and over. She may not be in physical danger but her brain had never left its tortured state and it reminded her of all the things she wished to never recall. That day had started to mix with the millions of other things she had seen that she wished she could forget.
They were all there, dancing in her head: the victims, the death, the humiliation, the pain. She could lace herself into and out of crimes she had seen, identifying now too closely with the feelings of the victims. She saw herself everywhere, in every horrible instance, and knew how close she was, making the twisting feeling in her stomach crippling and the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears the only things in the world that mattered to her.
And as much as she tried, she couldn't talk about it. Not like they wanted her to. The counselor's were fine, but they couldn't understand what she saw. The feelings that were there weren't transferrable into words. No matter what she shared, there was an inadequacy to what others could understand. The groups she sat through addressed some of the issues, but she couldn't talk to other victims about things she knew. They didn't want to hear about nightmares she had not only about her own assault, but the assaults of so many others. She felt guilty for being there—guilty for taking up the space. She wanted it to just go away, and she held her breath waiting for it to be over. They were patient with her but it didn't make the feelings go away. Talking about it didn't make her stop her from waking up screaming; it just presented her with another opportunity to relive the trauma.
And then there was Elliot. She could talk to him, and he understood. She tried, looking into his blue eyes she could see the words dancing behind his eyes. "Victim." "Weak." "Broken." She hated herself for it. And more over, she hated him for thinking them. Since that night in the basement, she could barely stand to look him in the eye. The things that had happened, she never wanted to share with him. She didn't want him to see her weakness, she wanted to be the same strong partner he had always known and after being handled by him like she was going to break, she knew she could never speak to him again.
And then Alex came back. She had never expected—never hoped, and never thought it would ever happen. What were the chances? Olivia had finally accepted her loss and grieved her absence, realizing the chances that she would ever see the beautiful blonde again were nearly zero, and then? They fell back into each other with the same passion they had before she had left.
She hated how much she could love her one minute, exquisite perfect bliss filling her heart and soul, and then hate her, with the full fury of hell filling her sights and anger pounding through her and pouring out of her mouth and soul. She shuddered as fears of abandonment and intense pain coursed through her and mess with her head.
Alex Cabot was the one person who pulled her to the extremes. Olivia had spent so much of her life practicing her performance. She walked carefully down the middle of the road and didn't let herself feel anything too intense in her personal life. When she started to walk too close to the side, she ran from whatever pulled her. She was good at it, hell, she was a professional. She had spent her whole life practicing the façade.
Maybe that's why Alex threw her so badly. She pulled her to extremes she wasn't used to feeling. Images of Alex Cabot walking into the station that first day filled her head. An ethereal halo of light shined around her as the sound of her heels provided a light staccato rhythm against the linoleum floor. She extended her hand and Olivia swallowed hard. Her defenses flew up and she protected herself the best way she knew how—she used her mouth to push her back and disarm her.
In the weeks that came, the two sized each other up. As Olivia stared into the ice blue eyes, she felt a bubbling dislike for the young blonde run through her. She was too damn pretty. She was too damn forceful. She was too damn challenging. She was so full of herself. She hated this woman more rabidly and fiercely than she had hated anyone in recent memory. That should have been her first clue she was falling in love.
Olivia's hate had slowly become desire. She had learned to need Alex. She had learned to rely on her. She had found something in her that she could trust. She found her oxygen supply in Alex's presence. Each fight dragged them deeper into each other, each angry word drew them closer together until one day their passion exploded into a mind blowing asphyxiating kiss that took both of them by surprise.
They stepped away from each other, both questioning, then realizing that it hadn't been a mistake. It had been real. They had finally fallen into each other
And now? They had fallen again. Olivia could talk to Alex, and Alex didn't treat her like a victim. Alex listened and watched. Alex didn't judge. That was until Olivia had started using a crutch to keep the feelings back and everything at a bearably numb and distant level. Alex's reminders, her worry, her warnings, and finally her ultimatums had pushed Olivia back. She had pretended to cycle back to her hatred but instead her heart bled for Alexandra Cabot and the hole that she had left in Olivia's life. Olivia knew that what had happened between them was her own fault. She knew that she was the reason that Alex was gone. She knew that only she could change it, but for the one thing she loved more than anything or anyone.
Not every story ends happily. Olivia had seen too many that hadn't. She could list names and places. There were too many times she'd been seconds too late. There was the time when she had been so close herself. Olivia sat in their now empty apartment that was full of their old laughter. She looked at the places their tears had pulled them apart. She saw the places where Alex's ultimatums had turned Olivia's heart solidly against her. There was a time when Olivia loved Alex so much; she knew she could conquer the world. Now, the dawn didn't break with the same bright colors and she was forced to live in black and white. The gray's helped to remind her of what she had and what she lost.
She frowned into the pool of liquid in her hand and felt the cold heaviness in her other. It seemed easier to just end it. "It's not an out; you don't know that it works." She hears the words in her head, words she's used before to talk others down. She took another sip of her courage and leaned her head back heavily against the cushion of the couch.
She knows that she can take it all away. She could do this. She could erase all this pain right now. She can live happily in the world in her mind, where Alex still smiles at her, and the addiction doesn't course through her, uncontrollable. "There is always a world out there where we'll always be together," she thought with a wry smile on her face. There will be no more twisted metal or broken dreams.
She stares at the metal in her hands and wills herself to just do it. She lifted her hand and judged its weight. She judged the finality, the pain that would seep out of her if she could just work up the courage. She let herself feel the trigger, resting her finger against it without pointing it at anything in particular. She had pulled it before. It was familiar. She would only be scared for a moment. She sighed as she let her hand go limp and laid it next to her on the couch. She stared at her other hand, full of swirling amber and smiled.
She knew the numbness it provided and she was familiar with its feeling and its comfort too. She hated it for what it stole from her, but she knew she needed it now. It was her addiction, whether she wanted it to be or not. She couldn't remember how she fell down that road either. She stared with disgust at both her hands, taking the gun and throwing it on the table.
She was a brave coward. She couldn't do it, not really. Instead, she sucked down the contents of the glass and pushed the gun across the table, refusing to let herself feel the pain that threatened to take everything else away.
To Be Continued...