Title: Cold
Disclaimers: I don't own anything and no money is being made. Just took Dick's characters out for a little drive.
Rating: M Angst. Really dark place. Be warned that this isn't a happy tale.
Pairings: A/O
Summary: Without giving too much away this is my take on why Olivia flew off the handle at Alex for dropping that case like a hot potato.
~Olivia~
Tired, so very tired and cold. I am numb inside almost all the time except when I am not. Those moments are marked with raging emotions that batter me down until there is nothing left to salvage. I feel like I am coming to the end. The glass in my hand holds only water because even now I will be damned before I become my mother. But then I am already damned and have been living in hell all my life. Occasionally, I have been allowed a glimpse of happiness. I have tasted joy a few times. The first was after my childhood when I emancipated myself from my mother's care. That was a clear moment of happiness. Knowing I wouldn't be coming home to the yelling, the screaming, or the broken bottles that you would use to lunge at me with. The hope that lived inside me that eventually in time I would be able to find peace. That feeling, that joy, it didn't last long.
At least I was already in college. I had graduated high school three full years before I should have and was already through my first two years of college when I struck out on my own at sixteen. The necessity of finding a means to pay for college and a dorm was offset mostly by the college scholarship I had received. Leaving me to scramble to try to find enough money to pay for my everyday items and needs such as food. The second space in time when I was happy occurred when I fell in love. It is too bad that she deceived me at every point so that when I found myself in her bed, in a position of trust all I found was pain. That is when hard noosed Benson was born. Later to become Detective Benson who worked tirelessly for the victims of New York. That Benson was content until one day she met an ADA. Cabot broke through my barriers and pulled me kicking and screaming to the surface of the glacial lake that had been my existence.
Then she "died" and I went to hell. I lost everything that had held me stable. She had made me real again, made me believe in love again, made me feel again and left me. She took the raw clay that I was and sculpted out a new person that was vibrant and wonderfully alive. With her I was beautiful and I died that night right along with her former life, leaving me a husk that waited to see if she would ever return. But as time would tell, not only was she done with me but when she returned what remained for me was a bitter imposter that had taken up residence in my Alex's body. One that had been around for years and had avoided me avoided letting me know she was alive. Side stepped being the prosecutor that could have made a difference, one that would have fought to allow me to have my day in court with my attacker. She had abandoned me when I needed her the most, just like she abandoned that girl when it seemed her job was at stake.
My world is in flames. My name had been cleared and I was days away from officially being back to Detective Olivia Benson, the avenging "Angel "of the 1-6 according to the Ledger and to the victims that come through our door seeking out someone to help them every day. However, the damage is done. Being even partially incarcerated has brought back unpleasant memories for me. The smell of that cage where I was held, and suddenly once again I am not in control of what happens to my body. I can't stand the feeling of confinement, and even worse than knowing that those slime balls in IAB have looked at me hard enough to know about the counseling sessions as well as the group therapy. It makes me sick to know that my life has been so laid open to the world at large.
Looking out my apartment window I am left wondering what its all been for. All my sacrifices, all the horror I have been immersed in day in and day out. I wonder why I did it. Why I had to hurt myself this way. That obsession with seeing what my mother must have gone through has been killing me slowly since I first decided to take this job. I wonder if my mother knew that it would and in a rare moment of kindness pleaded with me to take another job. Or if maybe she had just not wanted me to see her as she had been before she donned the mask of an alcoholic. The possibilities that would have been there for her, had it not been for me, futures that could have been brighter.
Why does the phone not stop ringing! Don't you know I am tired? Leave me alone with your demands for my attention. My head is screaming as I make my way slowly to my desk. I am not even allowed to work yet so it couldn't possibly be important. I think back on where I had my epiphany on my mother's life.
Sealview is where I had my education. That place where I truly learned what my mother had been through. Sure, the official report is that I found nothing. When faced with an investigation that proved the state so completely responsible for at the very least several million dollar lawsuits it's not really a surprise that the record states that while the investigators turned up several questions regarding procedure no specific complaints could be validated. After all I do work for the government and that part of my report detailing what really happened before my supposed rescue by Fin was dismissed as not having enough proof.
The gutless wonder of an ADA that we had at the time when you should have been there told me in no uncertain terms that I had no case and couldn't make a complaint because of the lack of physical evidence. Evidence which had been meticulously destroyed before they allow me to crawl out of that hell hole of a prison three days later. You know after the TB exposure had been cleared up. The ridiculous hour shower I was made to take where the guard responsible for raping me got to put his hands all over my body while I was scrubbed clean in the freezing cold water. The days I was held in solitary confinement without Fin while they were "processing" my release. All of that to then be told I had no case was ludicrous. Leaving just one person suspicious, our beloved M.E., who wondered how I could possibly have known to ask our young witness that very specific question.
Flashbacks. I had been getting better. I was controlling the shakes and my life was slowly coming back into focus, back to the calm depths of still water. I had begun to believe that I would be okay. That I would make it through all of this, only to be put in that cage again. Then have my personal problems aired out like the dirty laundry it is. To have to look at that smug son of a bitch investigator while he asked me about why I go to counseling outside of the department. His eyes that clearly stated it was my own fault. What kills me though is that in a way he is right. If I had just found another way to find out who was hurting that girl, if I had just not put myself into the situation none of this would have happened. Had I just had a little more self preservation instead of self destruction I never would have seen the inside of that cell.
Cold my body feels so very cold. I am glad it's a gray day out, the slight drizzle of rain that is falling, it seems fitting. It feels like the right time, to let it all go. The pill cases next to me are empty and I feel so tired. Slipping into sleep would finish it I know. I should just close my eyes and let it all go…