A/N: This is my first fanfiction posted on this site. Please read and review, and leave a comment saying what you think. I am open to any criticism and ideas, and I'm also looking for a beta. If you are interested, please PM me.
Warning: Material in this fanfiction might be triggering. However, nothing will be explicit.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters seen on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Those belong to NBC and Dick Wolf. I only reserve the rights to my own characters.
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!"
~ Emily Dickinson
Chapter 1:
Elliot Stabler walked down the bustling streets of Manhattan, staring at his phone like he had every day for the past three years.
Olivia.
He knew he should call. Hell, he should have called three years ago. He just couldn't face what he had done. He still couldn't, but admitting that would make him weaker than he already was.
She must hate me, he thought. He had been keeping tabs on her, following her cases on the news. He had been so tempted to call her during the William Lewis ordeal, but he had been caught up in the divorce with Kathy. Kathy was right; in the end, only she mattered.
He passed by her old apartment at least once every two weeks, wishing he could go back to the days where they would sit outside, talking about cases and joking with each other. Sometimes he would think to himself, Maybe we could go back to that. Who am I kidding. She would probably shoot me in the head if she even saw me. A civil conversation would be out of the question.
No one understood why he couldn't go back and talk to her, not Kathy, not the kids, not the therapist he'd talked to. Everyone thought that it was because they were sleeping together, even the shrink.
I was never unfaithful. I was always a good husband, even when we were divorced. Olivia and I just had a chemistry that Kathy couldn't deal with.
It was true. From day one, they had fallen in sync with each other, finishing each other's sentences, walking in perfect unison. No one had quite understood what it meant, though most jumped to the same conclusion. It had almost cost them their jobs plenty of times.
Elliot was walking back to his apartment from his job at the local gym. He had always been muscular, so when they were advertising, he stepped up. It gave him something to do, something to occupy his mind, at least for a few hours a day. It also helped him pay his rent, since Manhattan apartments were definitely not cheap, and his pension alone couldn't cover everything.
The route he took avoided the absolute busiest streets, leaving him alone - for New York City standards. He could hear yelling in one of the side streets, two middle-aged men surrounding something. Just as he was about to continue his journey of wallowing in self-pity, he heard a younger, softer voice that surely could not have belonged to either of the two men.
"Please, you don't have to pay, just please leave me alone. I don't want to."
The two men wouldn't back down. "C'mon, I know you like it. You're a little whore." "No one likes a whiner, so just take your present like a good girl."
He couldn't help it. He still had the instinct to go after whoever thought it was okay to take advantage of little kids.
"Hey, leave her alone," he called out to them, going further into the dark little alleyway. He could see the girl now, fear on her young, thin face. She was so pale and skinny she looked like she was going to pass out.
"Hey, what's the hurry, man? You'll get your turn. Can't you wait a couple of minutes?" The taller one said, angrily. Elliot could see the way he was holding her head against the wall, and realized what would happen if he let this continue any longer.
The men had yet to have a good view of him, since the passageway was dimly lit. Once he came into their view, they immediately started to hesitate, apologizing. He could see their grip on the girl slacken a bit as their fear permeated the air. "I said, leave her alone." He took another menacing step forward, and they started backing away with their hands in their air, as if surrendering to him. Once they had reached a distance seemingly sufficient to which he could not hurt them, they turned and ran off.
Elliot turned his attention back to the girl, who looked even more afraid than when he had first entered the scene. Now that they were gone, and he had done his job, Why, he thought, am I still here?
"I'll do whatever you want, sir," whispered the girl. "You won't have to pay, I promise. Just... Thank you."
She was avoiding eye contact, as though she felt inferior to him. The "sir" also bothered him quite a bit. After all his years at Special Victims, he could read people and situations fairly easily.
"You don't have to thank me, and you don't have to do anything for me. I just want to help you." He tried to step closer to her, but she flinched. She immediately looked up, horrified with what she had just done.
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to. It was an accident. Please don't hurt me," she ended with a whisper. She had finally gotten a good view of him, and she realized why the other men had been intimidated. His stature and bulging muscles were enough to scare even professional football players.
"I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." Elliot began to realize that she was more traumatized than he had originally believed. This fear seemed to have stemmed from something far more powerful and terrifying than the attempted sexual assault he had just witnessed.
He knew he couldn't leave her out on the streets; some other person would surely find her, and there was no guarantee that someone else would step in. He considered his other options: He knew this was a case for SVU if ever there was one, but the way she was acting, he knew she would never agree to talking to the police about her situation.
"My apartment is about five minutes away from here. Would you like to spend the night?" He cringed at his wording, which had done nothing to ease the little girl's fears. He opened his mouth to clarify.
"For-for the whole night?" she questioned. She seemed confused, like this was such a foreign request.
"However long you want. If you don't feel comfortable-"
"Oh, no! Whatever you want, sir," she interrupted quickly, as if attempting to correct his assumption that was so horrid to her.
Elliot shook his head. She still thinks I want sex. She's still scared that I am going to hurt her if she doesn't do exactly what I want.
He approached her slowly, calmly, and then kneeled down to her level, making sure not to box her in so that she felt threatened. He spoke slowly and clearly, "I am not going to hurt you. I don't want sex. All I want is to make sure that you have a warm place to sleep for the night where you aren't afraid that someone is going to take advantage of you. If you are uncomfortable, you do not have to come with me. This is your choice."
She looked up in disbelief, almost ready to accept, and then looked down, whispering, "Whatever you want, sir."
He sighed. She's been trained to have no opinions, no choice, to think that she is inferior. He needed to correct this belief, to teach her that she has rights, that she can say no.
Looking at her clothing, which consisted of a short skirt, skimpy shirt, and nothing covering her feet, he asked, "Do you have anything else to wear?"
"No, sir, not at the moment. Master would prefer me not to return back to the House until morning, but I could go back and change, if you'd like."
"No, it's fine. You just look a bit cold; those clothes aren't really ideal for fall." Master?
"I'm fine." She was quick to correct any assumption of his that would imply that she had needs, he noticed. "Sir."
"Here, take my jacket." He shrugged it off, handing it to her. She took it skeptically.
"What would you like me to do with it? Would you like me to fold it, sir?"
He looked back at her in disbelief. "You can put it on, if you'd like."
"Are you sure, sir? I'm not cold, I promise."
"Please, put it on." The coat concealed her arms and most of her legs, but her feet were still uncovered. "Why aren't you wearing shoes?"
"Oh, Master doesn't let me. He thinks women are more attractive with bare feet," she replied matter-of-factly.
He continued with this game of questions and answers. Whatever would get her talking. "What would happen if you were to wear shoes, then?"
Her face turned dark, her eyes cold. "I would get punished." She seemed to think about this, and then recited, as if she'd heard it countless times, "I'm a bad girl, sir. I deserve to be punished."
Elliot put his hands under her chin and gently lifted her head to meet his eyes. "You do not deserve that. You have done nothing wrong."
She shook her head, tears in her eyes. "Yes I have. I bothered you, I convinced you not to let me serve you, I tricked you into letting me come home with you, I took your jacket, I-"
"No. You didn't bother me, you didn't trick me, you didn't take anything from me. Sweetheart, I just want to help you."
She flinched at the word "sweetheart", and the spark in her eyes that had been there before went away, and she went back into submission. "If that's what you want, sir. Thank you."
He sighed. "You... You're welcome. Shall we go now?"
"If you want to, sir. I apologize for delaying you."
As they started walking to his apartment, Elliot was pondering the girl's erratic behavior. One minute she's fine and talking like a normal person, the next she's apologizing for having done absolutely nothing. Her 'Master' abuses her, that's clear. He probably has her working on the streets to earn money. No wonder she is so afraid of me.
Elliot stopped in the middle of the street, realizing something. "Could you please tell me your name?"
"It's whatever you want it to be, sir." She seemed confident and a little seductive with this answer, as if she had practiced it many times before.
"But what's your real name?"
"...I'm not sure."