She lay in bed watching shadows dance across the ceiling of her bedroom trying to rid the memories of the day that were rushing through her mind.
"You don't get to tell me how to live my life Lieutenant! What I do outside of work is MY business and MINE alone! You have no right to discipline me when it comes to my personal life!" Amanda Rollins had shouted at her in the cribs at the 1-6 earlier that day.
"I do when it effects your job! You are putting yourself and this team at risk when you do things like this Amanda! Do you really not see that? Are you so deep that you can't understand that?!" Olivia shouted back. She had found out that Amanda has started gambling again, and was worse than ever. She had worn out her welcome with some of the more stand up clubs in New York, and had started going to less appealing places. "The place I found you in today, do you have any idea what kind of people go there?"
"Yeah , I do, because I'M one of those people! I'm sorry if I don't live my life your standards. But that's the problem, it's MY life, and those are YOUR standards." Blue eyes bore into brown, filled with a kind of anger Olivia had yet to see in the younger detective.
"You're on leave until further notice. I want you to get your act together and clean yourself up. Get back into meetings. We will talk about this again when you feel you can come back to work and not go missing to gamble." Olivia turned towards the door leading to the squad room. "And get yourself clean, Amanda." With that she left Amanda standing in the middle of the room radiating anger. She had a feeling that Amanda was doing more than gamble, and judging by her lack of response to Olivia's last comment, she was pretty sure she was right.
Olivia rolled over in bed to glance at the alarm clock to find it read 4:45 a.m.. Giving up on sleep she got up and prepared for the day ahead of her.
A week head passed since Olivia's confrontation with Amanda and she had yet to hear from the younger woman. She had a long week at work and was thoroughly looking forward to two days off.
It was late when she got to her apartment. Stepping off of the elevator, she rounded the corner to find a figure sitting in front of the apartment door, knees to chest, head on knees. She looked closer, realizing who it was.
"Amanda?" she asked, stopping a few feet away from the blonde. She could see that she wasn't in a good state. Her clothes were wet and she was shivering. At the sound of her name, Amanda looked up weakly at the brunette with a distant pained look in her eyes. "Amanda? What's going on? Are you okay?" she crouched down in front of her and looked her in the eyes.
"I'm sick Liv. I'm real sick, I need help." The younger woman gulped back tears and reached for Olivia's hands. "Help me Liv." She begged, squeezing Olivia's hands in her own.
"Okay. Okay come with me." She hooked her arms under Amanda's and gently pulled her from the floor. When she got her on her feet she looped and arm around the small waist and unlocked the apartment door. They entered the living room and Olivia led her the couch. She helped her lay down and sat on the coffee table opposite of her and waited until the younger woman was comfortable. "Amanda, what are you on?" she asked straight out.
"Unfortunately nothing at the moment." Amanda replied, breathing hard from the effort it took to walk from the front door to the couch, sweat beading on her forehead, matting her blonde hair to her face. She smiled weakly. Olivia let out a sigh.
"How long has it been since your last fix?" she asked, her voice even and without judgement. She'd seen plenty of people go through withdrawals and knew it had nothing to do with what kind of a person they were.
"I don't know exactly. This mornin?" she said her southern accent suddenly stronger.
"Alright, let's get you more comfortable." Olivia set to removing the blondes boots and jacket. "Amanda, your clothes are soaked through with sweat. We're going to have to take them off or you're just going to feel worse."
"Yeah okay." She replied, slowly sitting up to take her clothes off. Together they peeled her clothes away from her damp skin, leaving her in just her bra and underwear.
"Do you want a tee shirt to wear?" Olivia asked gathering the discarded clothing together.
"No I'm fine." She lay back down on her side and hugged her knees to her chest. Olivia tucked the blanket that was draped over the back of the couch around Amanda's slender shivering figure. She went into the bathroom and returned with wet wash rags and began patting the younger woman's forehead, and placed one on her neck.
"You're burning up Amanda." Olivia admonished quietly, mostly taking to herself as the detective's teeth were chattering so loudly she was sure she couldn't hear her. She was worried she wasn't capable of helping her, that she wasn't up to this large of a task. For a moment she considered calling Fin, he had experience in narcotics, she thought maybe he'd be more equipped to deal with this. But she thought better of it, Amanda would likely be upset for him to know it had gotten to such a point. Amanda didn't know it, but it was Fin who has brought her erratic behavior to Olivia's attention in the first place. Carisi was like a goofy kid brother for Amanda, so she'd likely be unhappy if he showed up to help. But Olivia had an idea. "Alright, I'm going to go make a call. I'll be right back, okay?" she left the living room and shut herself in the bedroom and dialed a number on her cell phone. "Hey, Melinda, are you busy right now?"