A/N: thank you for all your lovely comments on the first chapter! This one is slightly shorter but I think it reached a natural point to break. Thank you to Tripperz for reminding me that 'Marla' comes from Death Makes An Artist's story 'Last Train Home' (which is a masterpiece so it makes sense I borrowed her from there!). For those of you following 'Mine for the Summer', the next chapter should be up in the next couple of days.
There aren't any obvious signs of injury, but Olivia calls for a bus anyway, at the same time that Nick calls the ME's office. Ana clings to Casey, refusing to be put down, even once they're out in the hallway. Her tawny-colored fists are almost white with how tightly they're grasped around Casey's blouse, her face buried in Casey's collar bone, hidden behind a thick curtain of dark, unruly hair.
"I'll come with her to the station," Casey tells Liv, turning so Ana is protected from the stares of her neighbours.
"Good. Hopefully child services will be able to send a translator, but it would be good to have you there just in case," she pauses her sweeping look of the area, dark eyes settling on Casey, "I didn't know you knew how to sign."
Olivia doesn't speak like she's impressed, or intrigued even. There's a hint of suspicion in her voice, instead, and Casey is reminded yet again that they're no longer on a level playing field, that Olivia still doesn't trust her, despite the fact they've worked together for years.
"My mom's deaf - I grew up with ASL," she explains, adjusting her grip on the six-year-old.
"How did you know Ana was deaf?"
"I didn't… it was a hunch. The noises she was making, the rocking. I've seen it before."
Clearly done with this line of questioning, Olivia nods, moving across the hallway to greet Melinda Warner as she turns around the corner, a team of SOCOs behind her. Casey looks down at Ana - the top of her head - and sighs. She's eager for them to get out of here. Who knows what the poor child had to see; she doesn't need to be here whilst the police go over her home with a fine tooth comb, talking about her mother and sister in statistics and theories. Sure, she might not understand, might not be able to work out what anybody's saying, but in some ways that's probably scarier.
"Novak? The medics are here."
Casey nods towards Amaro, just as Ana moves, leaning her torso away from Casey so she can see her face. Her eyes are wide, scared. Balancing her with one arm around her waist, Casey uses the other to sign. It's a struggle to do one handed, but she hates not being able to talk to her.
"It's okay, you're okay," she signs, and Ana looks down, away from her, long eyelashes still glistening with tears.
By the time they make it back to the station, child services has sent over a translator, and they're ready and waiting in the child witness room. After being checked over, and cleared to leave, Ana had refused to get into the car without Casey. She'd been reluctant to sit with the medic in the back of the bus, too, so it was hardly surprising that she didn't want to travel without her either. Casey had called back to the office and had Marla cancel her appointments for the day, grateful that she wasn't needed in court.
Once they arrive, though, it's clear that prior engagements aren't all she has to worry about.
"All due respect, Miss Novak, it's not usual for a prosecutor to be in the room with a child witness," Sue Stein from child services, with her neatly cropped blonde hair, and ill-fitting suit is every bit as condescending as Casey is used to dealing with, though she rarely gets involved in this area of a case, "you're not exactly renown for being sensitive towards children on the stand, either."
"I think there's some extraordinary circumstances in this case," Olivia defends, unexpectedly, "Casey has a connection with Ana, Ana trusts her."
She hates that they're having this conversation about the little girl in her presence, as if just because she can't hear them, she isn't there, but Casey stands her ground. As soon as she dips to set Ana down, the girl starts to panic, clinging onto her.
"Don't worry, I'm not leaving you," Casey signs, smiling softly. Ana lifts her eyes to her and stares, lip trembling, then signs her response.
"What did she say?" Liv murmurs.
"She's scared. She doesn't want to go. It's okay, sweetheart, you don't have to be scared. You're not going anywhere."
Exhaling a sharp breath, Sue Stein relents. So long as Casey lets the translator speak for Ana, she can sit in the interview room.
"I don't feel good about this," Casey says, pacing the short space between her desk and the door to her office, the phone pressed tight under her cheek.
"There's nothing we can do, Casey. It's up to child services to temporarily re-home her, not us."
She knows Olivia's right, but that doesn't stop the anger from boiling over, "she watched her sister and mother get raped and murdered, Liv, she was so terrified she hid in a closet for hours. And what, child services can't be bothered to find her a home where she might actually be able to converse with literally anyone in it?"
They'd spent an hour in the child witness room, watching Ana scribble with crayons and play with dolls. She'd been hesitant to tell them what happened, wouldn't let the translator speak to her, only wanted to talk to Casey. Eventually, they'd got got enough scraps of information to know that she had seen what happened to her sister, watched as a man climbed on top of her, almost suffocating her, before shooting her in the head when he was done. Her mom had already been left dying in the next room.
She'd cried when Casey had to leave, even after she promised to come back and see her the next day.
"They don't have any ASL foster parents available. They're temporarily homing her until they do."
"After everything she's been through, don't you think she deserves to at least be with somebody who can meet her basic needs, Liv?" Casey says, her voice almost cracking. She doesn't want to cry, but this case is bringing up so many memories that it's hard not to.
"You know I agree with you, but the system doesn't always work that way."
Casey sighs. Yes, she knows that, too. It's just… infuriating.
"Where are we at with suspects?" she asks instead, sitting down on the edge of her desk. She's spent most of the afternoon working on other cases, though everything's taken longer than usual, her mind elsewhere. Alex had asked if she'd be around for lunch, but she'd worked right through her usual break.
"Warner's got DNA from semen on the sister's nightgown, waiting to see if it's a match to anyone on the system. There's not much else to go on. Mariel came here from the Philippines when she was 19 - eleven years ago. Worked mostly nights in a cafe in Queens. Rollins and Fin went over there, questioned the staff. They hadn't noticed anybody suspicious lurking around, couldn't think of anyone who would have a bad word to say about her. We've got nowhere trying to track down Ana's father - there's no name on the birth certificate, same for Nichole. Neighbours don't remember a boyfriend coming round, and the girls were never left with a sitter. It's mostly all dead ends - hoping we'll get something off the DNA. Rollins and Amaro are at Nichole's school. Ana was home-schooled."
Chewing her lip, Casey nods, just as a familiar face appears around her door, "okay, keep me updated."
Just the sight of Alex, slipping into the office whilst balancing two travel cups of coffee, a wide smile on her face, immediately melts some of the stress and tension in Casey's body. She radiates warmth. It's crazy considering their relationship was half-born out of frustration with each other, crackling between them like electricity, starting out hot and heavy and rough. Casey had never expected to end up thinking of her as home. Comfortable.
"You look like you need the extra shot I got you," Alex says, looking concerned as she nudges the door closed with her hip, "did you skip lunch?"
Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Casey takes her coffee gratefully, pausing to inhale a long sip of it, "I had a granola bar," she mumbles, setting the cup down beside her.
Alex closes the distance between them, putting her own cup down right next to Casey's, and leaning into her. Casey breathes her in, momentarily forgetting where they are, and letting Alex step between her legs, cradling her face in her hands. They kiss, softly, and it's so different from how they did when this all began - right here on this very desk in fact - that Casey can't help but smile against Alex's lips at the memory.
"What?" Alex says, pulling away.
"Nothing. Just thinking."
Blue eyes glittering with mischief and wonder, Alex tangles one hand in Casey's hair, searching her face, "oh yeah, about what?"
Casey tilts her head, smiling, her hands coming to rest on Alex's lower back, "about you, mostly."
"Mmmmhmmm, that's good to hear," Alex breathes, leaning in to kiss her again, deeper this time. She strokes Casey's cheek bone with her thumb, the other hand pressed against the desk for leverage.
Eventually, though, Casey has to pull back, leaving Alex looking crestfallen if not a little dishevelled. She presses one last kiss against her lips, then moves away.
"How's your day been?" Alex asks, casually, as though nothing happened. She's playing with a paperweight Casey keeps on her desk, a round and shiny dome that was a present from Donnelly, which is the only reason she kept it. She sort of hates it otherwise.
Casey sighs. Nice as it was to take a brief break from worrying about Ana, she feels guilty for pushing her concern aside so easily, knowing how scared and alone the little girl must be feeling. She wishes she'd at least stayed for the handover, but then she'd probably have got herself thrown off the case for getting aggressive with the caseworker. Which wouldn't have helped anybody, least of all Ana.
"Hard," she eventually says, frowning, "I know we don't talk about work but…"
"Is it the rape-homicide Liv's working?" Alex asks, and Casey should have known she'd be clued in. She nods, worrying her bottom lip again. "Sounds nasty," Alex says, simply, though she looks concerned.
"Did I ever tell you my mom's deaf?" Casey says, after a moment of heavy silence. Alex shakes her head. "She had meningitis as a teenager, and lost her hearing. I grew up with it; to begin with, I didn't even realise she was any different from anyone else. We all learnt how to sign, as well as we learnt how to read or write. I distinctly remember the day I realised that she couldn't hear, that that was why we had to sign to her - we used sign language for everything, even to talk to each other, to talk to my Dad - I started school and kids made fun of me for signing. I wasn't deaf, but I suddenly understood what it was like to be different. I spent years having nightmares where I'd wake up and not be able to hear anything. The silence was terrifying to me, as a kid."
Alex looks like she doesn't know how to respond, leaning against the desk, her hands folded in her lap. She reaches across and takes Casey's hand, knotting their fingers together, squeezing.
"Ana - the little deaf girl who survived the shooting - she's been different her whole life, and as if that hasn't been enough of a burden on her, she witnesses her family being raped and murdered. I just… sometimes I think there's only so much I can do to help these people, and I hate it. How many cases do we try, and then we just never even think about the victims again? We get their rapist or murderer or abuser sent away - or sometimes, we don't. Often, we don't. And then that's it. That's our part in it done."
"We speak for the victims who can't," Alex says softly, "we make sure somebody is forced to answer for what they did. Even if we don't always get the result we want, we try. We don't let victims go forgotten."
Casey turns to her, and she can feel tears building in her eyes, threatening to spill over, "but what happens after the trial? They do go forgotten."