AUTHOR's NOTE:
Sibling AU inspired by my realization / my own tag "Amaro is More Olivia's Brother
Than Fucking Simon, Pass It Forward". Cover art made by me.
"Close your eyes,
Just feel and realize:
It is real and not a dream
I'm in you, and you're in me "
("Beyond the Invisible" - Enigma)
As he walked towards the coffee shop, he was uneasy and unsure, and he absolutely hated feeling like that. Maria has said someone wanted to talk to her, some alleged old friend of his. That smelled like a setup, so he decided checking it out with his own eyes who the hell was that.
It was one thing for people wanting to set him up for being a cop, but it was an entirely different thing if they were targeting his wife.
He entered the cozy, dim-lit place and he had no trouble at finding the woman he was looking for. She was facing the other side, but he knew it was her because she was alone and Maria had said she had dark brown hair falling down a little past her shoulders. He got to her booth, in time to see her putting down the cup of tea she was drinking.
He quickly sat in front of her, ready to unleash his well-known wild temper on her and demand some answers.
"I'm sorry Maria couldn't make it, but I just had to come and see this old friend of mine…", he started, anger tainting his voice, but he was out of words at the moment he saw her surprised face.
"Oh, I'm sorry, this is so embarrassing…!", she said, putting her hands up. She was definitely not expecting he would be the one showing up. "I-I thought you were somebody else, I'm very sorry for wasting your time..."
Confused, he was out of words for a moment, but then he remembered the reason why he was there.
"You aren't wasting my time, Detective, but I'd like to know why you told my wife to meet you here."
"What are you talking about?", she said, trying to buy some time. She probably wasn't expecting him to recognize her, either.
"Everyone in the force knows who you are, Detective Benson. Now answer my question."
Instead of giving him what he wanted to know, she just stared at him as if she was seeing the Ghost of Christmas Past.
"What?", he asked, impatience harsh in his voice like a desert storm in the making.
"Nothing. This was a mistake.", she said, trying to get up, but he held her hand so she would stay sit in place.
"Come on, Benson. I'm not stupid. What do you want with my wife? Just tell me what this is all about."
She held her stare, now even looking a bit frightened. His own expression of anger turned into doubt.
"Have we ever met…?"
"No, I thought you were somebody else.", she repeated, quickly getting up and walking away, leaving him with a major interrogation in his eyes.
What in the hell was that…?, he asked himself, seeing her leave the coffee shop. That was strange. Why in the heck a well-known cop from Manhattan SVU would look for his partner? Was he under investigation, maybe some false report on him?
That still wouldn't fit.
If she was as good as her reputation claimed she was, she wouldn't commit such a rookie mistake in an investigation. She said she didn't know him, that that was a mistake, but she forgot that he was a cop, too. He knew when someone was lying to him. Not that it would require exceptional cop skills to see that - he wondered how she could be claimed to be a good cop, and at the same time be such a terrible liar.
Something was off and he would find out what was it.
Olivia climbed the stairs of her building, thinking about what she had done the night before. She regretted it with every fiber of her being.
She had pulled his record before going after him - just starting at the narcotics, mostly working behind the desk, sometimes going out to act on the streets. Short-tempered, but nothing bad in his file. Yet. It was only a matter of time.
It runs in the family, she thought with sarcasm as she walked through her hallway and took her keys out.
"Detective Benson!", she heard him call out of nowhere, making her reach for her gun as she jumped back. It was Detective Amaro. She didn't ask how he knew where she lived.
"Are you trying to get yourself shot?"
"I'd like to remind you that you're the one who owe me some answers, Detective."
"I've got nothing to say to you."
Amaro's expression was one of irritation, but it soon melted a little. He still acted in a defensive manner, nonetheless. He walked towards her.
"I know why you look familiar."
"You were the one who said everyone in the force knows me." she replied with stormy insolence.
"Don't test my patience, Benson. I meant I know you from somewhere else.", he replied, his last sentence sounding less harsh then the first as he looked at her, doubt on his face. He took an old-looking piece of paper from his pocket and held it towards her.
She stared at him, unsure. Olivia picked the piece of paper - a small newspaper clipping - and looked at it.
It was an old picture of her in her twenties, under the title "Scholar of the Month"; below, there was her name and a praise to her academic achievements in college so far. She swallowed, feeling like she had rocks going down her throat.
"Where the hell did you get this…?", Olivia asked, once more looking at him with something that was too alike to fear.
"In my father's old stuff."
Amaro saw the Ghost-of-Christmas-Past type of look dwelling in her dark eyes again.
"Come in.", she simply told him as she turned and opened her door, letting him go in first. As soon as they were inside the apartment and the door was closed, she asked, "Where is your father now?"
He paced a little around like a caged lion, his hands on his hips in a worried and nervous manner, until he turned to her.
"Bastard is dead. Ten years ago."
"So, why did he have this?", she waved the clipping towards him.
"I don't know, and neither did my mom, that's why we kept it. It didn't make any sense.", Amaro's face held an expression Olivia couldn't tell what it meant. It seemed something between doubt, fear and anger. She was not sure.
"How you didn't recognize me before, then? If your father had it all this time, why only now?"
He sighed, rubbing his face and looking at the clipping in her hand, not at her.
"I haven't seen that in like, fifteen years. I knew who you were before, for you work as a cop. But seeing you in person yesterday… I don't know. It kinda… made me remember."
There was a moment of silence.
She wanted to ask if he had a picture of his father on him, but the little he had revealed already showed he wouldn't have it in his wallet or anything. She decided to give it a shot, nonetheless.
"Do you have a picture of him?"
"Of my father? Hell, no.", he answered what she was already expecting to hear. "Why?"
"I wanted to see his face."
Amaro squinted at her, confused.
"Why would you want to see him?"
He saw Olivia sighing in what he identified as distress, and he watched as she hesitated, looking down. When she turned her eyes back to him, they were red as if she was making a wild effort not to cry.
What the hell was going on?
"Benson...? Why would you want to see my father's face?"
"Because he raped my mom." she finally answered, her reply hitting him like a pile of bricks on his head.
"My father...?" at first, his question had dashes of disbelief. But he was cop after all. And he soon started to connect the dots, realization falling upon his face.
He looked at her face again, this time really paying attention - the large and dark brown eyes, the painted, curved brows, the dark sleek hair, the golden skin. Her nose, round on its tip, the shape of her lips; the chiseled, proud jaw like a lioness ready for battle.
He had seen all of that before, in a different context. He had seen all of those features before, on his father's face.
"I am his daughter.", Olivia revealed, at the same time his brain placed together all the things he was seeing. His eyes were full of dismay when he looked at her brown eyes, now realizing, so alike to his'.
"I… I wish I could say that no, no way this is possible; that he was a normal guy who loved my mom and loved me. But he didn't. He was an abusive son of a bitch. So, I can't say I'm... I can't say I'm really surprised." he told her, an anger in his eyes that Olivia knew was not directed at her. He then looked at her, this time with sadness on his expression. "I-I'm… so sorry. I'm so sorry he did this to your mother... How did you discover we are related?"
"I ran my DNA through kinship analysis."
"You wanted to see if he had other victims. Or a record."
"Yes. But I found you instead." she replied. "You are my brother."
Hearing that word out loud made it sound so weird. He had been an only child his entire life up to that moment, and now he was learning he had a half older sister, who also happened to be a decorated cop in the force.
That was insane.
"I think I need a drink.", he joked nervously, rubbing his forehead.
"I have wine and bourbon.", Olivia offered, looking as lost as he was, and also probably needing a drink herself with the rollercoaster of a night that one was already being.
"Whatever you have, really."
They sat down in her living room, in silence, each holding their doses. Amaro slowly spinned the glass in his hands, looking down inside it as if he would find all the answers he needed in there.
"I always wanted a sister."
"What?"
He looked at her, the sketch of a smile on his lips.
"I've always wanted a sister." he repeated. "Not a brother, a sister."
"That's… unusual.", she said. "How does it feel?"
"Fucking surreal."
She laughed in a nervous manner, not expecting him to be so sincere.
"It really is, isn't it." she was not really making a question.
"So… tell me, what happened... to your mother?"
Olivia took a long breath before speaking.
"She was attacked in the vicinity of the college she attended, one night. She chose to have me, but let's say that had consequences."
"What do you mean?"
He looked at her. Olivia was sitting next to him on the sofa, half turned with one of her legs tucked underneath her. She wasn't looking at him, and his sharp perception could read the distress she probably carried everywhere with her, simply for existing.
"She had a drinking problem. Sometimes…" Olivia hesitated. "sometimes she was abusive, or would beat me because she was so out of herself. She died years ago, falling head first from a flight of stairs because she was drunk."
Sadness once more tainted his brown eyes.
"I'm really sorry, Benson... For your mother, for all the suffering my father has caused in your lives."
Liv smiled sadly at him, touched.
"Don't be. It was your father's fault, not yours.", she said. "What was it like, for you?
It was his turn to change his expression into a frown, even clenching his jaw a little.
"He used to beat the crap out of my mom, as he made me watch him do it. Because he was angry. Because he was jealous of her talking to the guy at the grocery store, because he felt disrespected." he said, trying to prevent anger from reaching his words, but not really able to. "He would hit me, too. At first because I was an easy target, but then I grew up a bit and actively tried to draw his attention to me instead of my mom."
Olivia watched him as he vented, not really knowing what to say. She was trained to talk to, and used to deal with victims of domestic abuse, but that time it was different. She was hearing first hand how the bastard who assaulted her mother would also repeatedly attack Amaro and his mother. The pattern was evident - the man had many issues with women and vulnerable people around him.
She leaned forward and gripped his shoulder.
"Like you said, bastard is dead." she usually wasn't a vengeful person, but sometimes outrage was way too heavy to keep carrying inside her. She looked straight into Amaro's eyes, her dark-clouded storm against his, certainty imbued in her words. "He won't hurt you or your mother or anyone else, ever again."
Amaro looked back at her, eyes burning with all the hurt he went through years before, coming back at full force. And now, Olivia's story was added to that hurt. There was no way he wouldn't look at it as if it was part of his own story, from that day on.
How could one single man's miserable existence leave a trail of sorrow and destruction so massive behind him? How could he destroy Amaro and his mother in their daily lives with his presence, but also destroy another woman's life by just crossing her path once - and by extension, devastating Olivia's life without ever meeting her?
Amaro placed his hand over hers on his shoulder, and gave it a tender squeeze, acknowledging the pain she felt, but also her support. Their dark, stormy eyes poured as they couldn't keep the tears back.
They were headstrong and short-tempered and sometimes, way too full of anger when witnessing injustices, but they weren't more than defenseless cubs at that moment, vulnerable against their own past, their own history. It was Olivia who broke the silence, with an also broken voice.
"At least... It's nice to know that I have a fellow officer like you as a brother."
"It runs in the family, it seems." He smiled a little, wiping a tear rolling down his face. "It's… kind of insane, now that I notice... you know. The similarities."
"Between me and him…?" Olivia asked, not really thrilled, also wiping her own tears.
"Between me and you." he corrected. "Our professions, our features. Our tempers."
"Seems like my reputation really precedes me.", she said, a dash of amusement in her voice replacing the sadness from before.
"I've heard you take perps out of the street like no one else in New York. If I got that gene like you, I'd be honored."
Olivia felt her chest fill up with a strange, warm feeling. That was a brand-new emotion to her - was that what it felt like, being looked up by someone, more specifically, by her younger brother? The thought invaded her mind, not without surprise and a hint of happiness following it.
"I… I try my best to be a good cop.", it was all she was able to answer. Amaro noticed the flush on her cheeks and gave a small side smile to her.
"Look, Benson…"
"Please, call me Olivia."
"Then, I'm Nick."
"Fair enough, Nick." she nodded, as if they were setting an agreement, tension and gloominess starting to melt away. "What were you going to say?"
"That we've started off on the wrong foot.", he concluded.
"We did, and that's my fault." she admitted. "I'm sorry for going after your wife like that. I didn't mean to scare you."
"That's okay. I'm not sure if my reaction in your place would have been different, to be honest."
"It runs in the family, it seems." she repeated what he said before, humor in her voice. He chuckled.
"Man… that's so insane." Amaro said, more to himself than to Olivia as he leaned back against the sofa, feeling his tension cease a little as well. The thought was inevitable to him. "Do you think we would have got along if we had met as kids…?"
"I'd probably babysit you." she laughed a little. "I'm almost seven years older than you, kiddo."
"Really?" Amaro said, looking at her a bit surprised. "You look younger."
"Don't flatter me."
"I mean it." he said. "Maybe I'd go for you to kick Billy Fernandez's ass, he used to bully me when I was seven, instead of bugging my best friend back then to do so."
"A feisty kid like you wouldn't kick his ass back?"
"He was like, five years older."
"Oh, that changes everything, then." she paused for a moment as if she was thinking. "I'd probably just scare the brat away, telling him to pick someone his own size."
"I wish we had time machines, that would be something."
Olivia laughed, agreeing with him.
She imagined a little, seven-year-old version of Nick next to a fourteen-year old version herself. She wasn't a saint at that age, but she had always liked kids. She thought that having a little kitten of a brother tagging along her everywhere would be as annoying to a teenage girl, as it would be cute.
And for a moment, Amaro imagined how it would be, having a teen sister to be obnoxious with, and how it would be like to count on someone like her to stay in with him if his mom had to go somewhere, or as he said, defending him against the big boys that picked on him. That was a strange thing to think of considering they had barely met, but it was a nice thought nonetheless.
With that in mind, they looked at each other once more, moving together as if in sync.
A new kind of feeling had just born inside them. They couldn't name it yet, but it was as real as the soft smile they exchanged.
