When Olivia entered her apartment her only intention was to get a hot shower, to get the awful feelings off her skin.
She heard the door falling into the lock, left her key on the kitchen table and took her badge and her gun to put it next to the key.
She peeled herself out of her jacket during her way towards the bathroom. When she got inside her view passed the mirror and she got a look into her face. She saw tears streaming down her face and she even didn't recognize that she was crying.
She sat down on the edge of the bathtub and took a deep breath, it was years ago when she was crying the last time because of a case.
She thought of the little girl with the scared, empty, painful, alert blue eyes ready to jump of the hospital bed to hide in the farthest corner of the room.
The cases which involve kids are always the worst ones, but this case was different, there were a lot worse cases, but this time it was personal.
When she got to the hospital, Elliot was already waiting for her, his eyes had this "you gonna hate this look" and a few minutes later she knew what he meant.
He filled her in the facts he got a few minutes before.
The neighbors called the police after the girl knocked on their door in the middle of the night. She was four years old and she begged them for food, they recognized her as the daughter of the woman living next to them. The mother of three took the girl to bring her to her mother's apartment.
They found the mother laying on the couch. When they tried to wake her they saw the blood her face was covered in.
They immediately called the police.
Olivia took a look at her partner: "Why did they call us? Was she raped? And what are we doing here, when the woman is dead, shouldn't we be in the morgue?"
He turned his head and looked through the window of the room they arrived, during he was filling her into the facts.
She turned her head too to follow his view.
A little girl was sitting on the hospital bed, holding a blanket close around her body as she tried to protect herself.
She turned her head back to her partner. He swallowed hard and she immediately knew that she wouldn't gonna like what he was going to say next.
"She is covered with bruises and there is a scare on her back which the doctor thinks is from a belt buckle."
Olivia closed her eyes to give herself a minute to swallow down the big rock which appeared immediately in her throat. "Let me guess, they want us to find out if it was the mother?"
He nodded. "She doesn't talk to anyone."
She gave him a little desperate smile and said: "When it was her mother, then it might be better when a man is talking to her."
He smiled too, it was a sad smile with a lot understanding and compassion in it. "I already tried to talk to her, she started to cry."
Olivia gave herself another minute before she opened the door.
The girl tore her head up and stared at her. "Hi, I'm Olivia, what's your name honey?" The girl turned her head away from her and stared at the wall.
She took the chair next to the bed and pulled it closer. Then she took a newspaper which was laying on the desk next to the bed, she sat down and started to read.
It took about 30 seconds before she heard a gentle little voice. "I'm Megan."
She put the newspaper down and smiled at Megan.
The girl started to stare at her again, as she followed her eyes she saw that they focused her badge. She took it from her belt and gave it to Megan. "I'm from the police."
Megan took the badge and turned it around carefully.
"When does my Mum come to pick me up?" she asked, still holding her badge.
Olivia stood up to sit down on the edge of the bed.
She gently said: "Megan, your Mum is not coming back. She is dead."
When she learned one thing after the years in the Special Victims Unit then that is a huge mistake to lie to kids by trying to protect them.
But the same time she wondered if a four year old understands what death as itself means.
"Did I do something wrong?" Megan responded and Olivia's doubts of Megan's understanding grew.
"No honey you did nothing wrong," she answered the question and wondered how often she had said this sentence in the last years.
She recognized a dark blue bruise on Megan's arm. When the girl saw her staring at it, she said: "I made Mum angry because I dropped one of her bottles."
Olivia was shocked by this honest responding of her staring at the bruise. But she remembered that she was talking to a four year old girl which had no intention to lie because in her world it's a totally natural thing that you got beaten up by your Mum when you do something which makes her angry.
Suddenly she flashed back to her own childhood staring scared at her drunk mother waiting for the hit and the pain.
She tried to focus again and swallowed her memories down.
Back with the adult Olivia she remembered her detective skills and asked "Megan do you remember what happened tonight?" The girl shook her head.
The door had been left open a bit so Elliot could follow the conversation. "Liv!" she suddenly heard him calling. When she turned her head he motioned her to meet him outside.
She told Megan that she would be back in a minute and went outside to talk to her partner.
"I got a call from Fin, they found the man who killed her mother. He was laying in an alley next to the apartment building covered in blood, but he was sober enough to confess that he hit her with one of the wine bottles after they got into an argument.
The social worker is coming in a few minutes to pick Megan up, the doctor said she is well enough to leave the hospital."
She looked up to her partner and felt anger crawling up her stomach. "Why the hell did I have to come here when the case is already solved."
She knew how displaced this anger was and that she wasn't at all angry at her partner. Her anger was about the memories which were now so present in her head although she normally buried them deep down in the farthest corner of her brain.
Her partner tried to say something but she turned around let him stand where he was and went back into Megan's room.
She didn't leave the room until the social worker came in. When she introduced them she saw that the two of them had a little connection so she said goodbye to Megan.
She couldn't spare to think that Megan might be better without her mother, but the same time she bit her lips for thinking that.
When she came out the room she saw her partner leaning against the wall towards the hospital room.
"Still angry?" he asked, when she leaned next to him.
She stared at the floor cause she knew looking him into the eyes would make her try to explain her anger and she didn't want him to see her weak. That's why she told him almost nothing about her childhood, although they were partners for so many years and she would give her life for him and she knew he would do the same for her.
He said nothing cause he knew her anger wasn't about him. "Can I give you a ride home? There is still enough time to get a few hours more sleep." He smiled hoping she would take the offer and take it as a chance to cool down her anger.
She nodded cause she wasn't in the mood to get a cab or waiting for a young over motivated officer who had to pay his dues by driving around victims and detectives all night.
After driving 5 minutes in total silence Elliot tried to start a conversation but she didn't listen to him, her thoughts were with Megan and her own childhood.
When they were back at her apartment she went out of the car and left Elliot behind without even saying goodbye to him.
Now she was sitting on the edge of her bathtub crying and trying to breath. She suddenly wanted to talk, desperately wanted to tell someone everything about the fear, the pain and the anger which attended her since her earliest childhood.
Grabbing her cell she wondered if Elliot was already too far away to come back to talk to her.
When she heard the sound which signals that the person you wanna connect with its phone is ringing she heard Elliot's ringtone in front of her apartment.
She went to the door and opened it, he was standing in front of her apartment with a guilty smile on his face and said: "I'm sorry, I couldn't let you walk away like this."
She moved out of the way to let him in then went to the kitchen cabinet to get some bourbon. She took two glasses and passed Elliot to get to the couch. "Are we only drinking or are we talking, too?" he asked and followed her.
She filled their glasses with the liquor and took one of them. As Elliot took the other one she already emptied hers and filled it up with a second round.
She looked at her glass turning it around and playing with it to get the pressure out of her body.
She knew this was the time to tell Elliot about her childhood and she knew when she wouldn't start talking soon he would say something and she wasn't sure that she wanted him to say anything.
She wasn't sure how much Elliot knew about the abuse of her mother and how bad it was.
Before he could open his mouth to say something which would may have stopped her to talk, she began to speak:
"When I was five I woke up in the middle of the night. I had a nightmare and I cried for my mum. She didn't come and after a while I stood up to go looking for her cause I couldn't fall asleep again.
She wasn't there, it was Friday night and she was gone. I went into her bed and after a few hours staring at the door hoping she would come back I think I felt asleep again.
She didn't come back that night and the next day and the next night. She came back at Sunday evening. When she finally walked through the door I was so glad that she was back that I fell into her arms and started crying. But she pushed me away and said 'Olivia, go to your room I have a guest.'
I saw the man behind her who already started complaining that she didn't tell him that she had a child.
I was five years old and I couldn't stop crying. I was hungry and scared and I wanted my Mum to hold me.
But then he left and my Mum got really angry.
She started screaming at me that she should have had me aborted and that I should be glad that she doesn't know who my father is, cause she would give me to him so that he would never have to go out to rape a woman he even doesn't know.
I didn't know what abortion is or rape, but I knew that my mum was really angry and so I turned around and tried to get into my room. I thought when I make it into my room to hide under my bed she wouldn't beat me up for making the man leave.
But she was really, really angry this time and she came after me. She grasped my hair and pulled me back into the living room. She started to hit me, first with her hand but then with her belt. I begged her to stop but she didn't."
She stopped talking to take a breath and to take a zip of the bourbon. She felt Elliot's hand on her arm and then on her face wiping away the tears which were running down her face again.
"When she finally stopped beating me she screamed at me to go out of her sight.
I went back to my room, when I was standing in front of my bed I was scared to get into it, cause I was bleeding and I was scared that she would beat me up again when she would see that I made my bed dirty.
I don't know how long I was standing there. I think I lost consciousness cause the next day I woke up on the floor.
It was still dark outside, every inch of my body hurt and I was starving: I didn't have something to eat in almost three days.
I think I made a noise cause suddenly the light went on and my mum came in. I was scared to death that she would start beating me again. And I begged her not to. I promised her that I would be a good girl from now on. She knelt down to me and pulled me into her arms. I tried not to scream but it really hurt and I think I whined cause she started to cry and to apologize. She lifted me into the bed and then she went out and came back with something to eat and drink.
I woke up a few hours later and she was laying next to me holding me in her arms. I had to puke I barely made it out of the bed but I didn't made it to the bathroom and so I puked on the floor in the middle of my room. I thought when I would be very silent she wouldn't see what I've done and I could clean it up before she woke up."
"You were five years old?" Olivia jumped a little when she heard Elliot's voice so suddenly. She was so lost in her memories that she almost forgot that he was sitting next to her.
She turned her head to look into his eyes.
He shook his head. "None of my children would have had thought of cleaning up themselves when they puked."
She smiled at him and said: "I think your kids weren't worried about that you gonna beat them up when you got to see what they've done."
He thought of his own childhood and how he got beaten up from his father, but still it was hard for him to imagine a little five year old Olivia beaten up so bad that she had to puke and then worried about what her mum was going to do next.
"What happened next?" was everything he got out without letting Olivia know that he almost couldn't handle what she was telling him.
Olivia saw how he formed his hands to fists, the skin over his knuckles turned white and she knew how hard he had to struggle to listen to what she was saying.
"My Mum woke up."
He looked at her. She tried to go on but her voice broke. He put his arm around her pulling her onto his lap. When she was sitting between his legs he laid both arms around her body and pressed her gently against his chest.
"Tell me Liv, what happened."
"She sobered up during the night. She didn't scream at me or beat me again, she was worried. She took my blanket, wrapped it around me and brought me into the hospital.
I slept almost the whole time. I don't remember much."
"What did the doctor say when he saw your injuries?"
Olivia smiled a weary little smile. "He said I should behave myself better, so that my mum don't have to punish me again."
"You're kidding."
"Elliot, it was 1973! Raping your wife wasn't a crime, beating your children was part of parenting. When he went out of the room he said to my mother: She has a concussion. Be more careful the next time and don't hit her head again."
Elliot touched her chin with his fingers and turned her head gently around so that he could get a look into her eyes.
"When happened something like this the next time?"
She swallowed hard. "It took a while and the most of the time it wasn't as bad as then. But it happened until I was sixteen. She dropped a bottle and came to me screaming that no one besides her would ever get me. I kicked her, it was the first time I fought back."
Olivia felt so tired after telling Elliot so much from herself. She laid her head on his chest and could feel his warm skin through his shirt. She desperately wanted to sleep but she didn't want him to leave. She wanted him holding her just like this.
"Liv, you gonna need to sleep. Come on lets get you into bed."
He stood up and took her with him, softly directing her into the bedroom. She almost didn't respond to his action she was so tired.
She felt him open her shirt and open her belt, he pulled it out of her pants, but she couldn't get her thoughts together.
She heard him saying: "Come on Liv, lay down." She did what he said remembering his warm skin on her cheek and desperately wished this warm feeling would come back and he would not gonna leave her alone tonight.
When she was almost not awake anymore she could feel him laying down next to her.
He spooned her.
She tried to get enough power back to tell him that this wasn't what she wanted tonight. But right then she felt that he was fully dressed and she remembered that she had her own pants still on.
She felt him putting a blanket over her and he was holding her really tight and she could feel his warm skin again.
Before she slid into sleep she heard him saying: "Everything is alright Liv, I never let anyone gonna hurt you again."