Don Cragen had just spoken with IAB. This year's Psychiatric Evaluations were about to take an unexpected twist and he knew that his four Detectives were going to have something to say on the matter. This year, three psychiatrists would individually evaluate them and make a report on them for IAB and Don knew there was a chance his unit wouldn't come out of this unscathed this time around, whatever one shrink missed the other would definitely pick up and that left a lot of ground covered.
When there was a knock on his office door he braced himself by taking a deep and calming breath knowing that the shrinks had arrived.
"Come in." He called.
George, Elizabeth and Rebecca all filed into the office on right after the other looking just slightly apologetic, it was obvious to Don that the shrinks didn't want to partake in this investigation as much as he didn't want his unit to do.
"So how do you want to proceed?" Don asked trying to get it over and done with.
"Well we'll be observing first. So have you got any cases?" Rebecca asked, her being the most confident out of the three.
"Yeah Stabler and Liv are out at a scene what seems to be an open shut rape suicide but we have to be sure." Cragen replied. "And Munch and Fin are working a suspected child abuse case they're currently at Mercy General interviewing the kid."
"Ok, how about I start with you Don?" George asked wanting to get interviewing the man he looked up to out of the way as soon as possible.
"Sure. If you two ladies want anything to drink you know where the machine and the coffee pot are." He smiled and the two women nodded their acknowledgement and slipped out of the office leaving the FBI appointed shrink with the Captain.
"So you spoke to Ed Tucker?" George asked though he already knew the answer he had to make sure that Don Cragen wasn't on guard.
"Yeah, seems a bit pointless to me but we'll roll with it because we have to, I haven't told the guys yet because I'm sure they'll have a thing or two to say about this nonsense." Don replied with an aging grin on his face.
"I agree with you Don, I don't know what angle IAB are working though." He lied, only because he felt like he had to but he did agree with the Captain this was a load of nonsense.
"So let's get this over and done with." Cragen smiled.
"Ok, tell me since the last time we talked how have you been?" George asked as he opened his legal pad ready to take notes.
"I've been as good as can be." Cragen shrugged. "But that's not what you want to ask is it? You want to know when the last time I wanted a drink was? When was the last time I went to an AA meeting out of the blue because the urge was so strong? Right?" Don asked and George chuckled lightly.
"Actually, this time around it's not what I want to know, now I can't vouch for the other two but I know you Don and I would know if you'd fallen off the wagon too." George smiled gently and he saw Cragen relax a little into his seat.
"Then George tell me, what is it you want to know?" Don chuckled.
"Tell me about your Detectives." George said and with a slight frown Don thought for a moment.
"What do you want me to tell you about them George?" Don asked confused. "You know them as well as I do…"
"I want your opinions on them, your opinion on your subordinates." George replied conscious of how he answered the captain's questions.
"Munch is just as insane as ever, he still thinks Elvis and Kennedy are on the moon or in the jungle or somewhere, Fin is just as gangster as ever I think he misses Narcs, Elliot's a hot head and Olivia's… Liv's… she's ok." Don's mind had obviously wandered while George scribbled as fast as he could.
"Tell me more about Olivia?" George inquired earning a look of confusion from the more senior man.
"I don't know exactly what you want here George?" Don questioned carefully.
"It's no secret that you and Olivia are closer than meets the eye Don." George replied sarcastically. "Tell me about your relationship with her."
"Well." Don sighed, he wasn't comfortable talking about it but George would know if he was hiding something. "I finally had the talk with her."
"The talk?" George asked in utter confusion, there was no way he meant anything sexual because George was pretty certain Olivia knew all about the birds and the bees before she even met Don Cragen.
"About…" He hesitated and sighed softly. "About my death."
"You talked to Olivia about your death?" George asked in utter confusion.
"Yes." Don nodded. "Olivia is like a daughter to me and I have made no qualms about hiding the fact. I am not getting any younger and someday I will die. Everything that is needed to know after my passing is known to Olivia, she will handle everything, my estate, my finances, the lot of it and she has all necessary papers and has signed the necessary forms."
"You've asked Olivia to deal with all of that?" George was quite taken aback by the Captain's revelation.
"I have. I don't have any other family. She is … she is my everything." Don sighed softly. "I know it will come and when it does I know it's going to be hard on Olivia, but it always is hard on children when they lose their parents." Don propped his elbows up on the desk and clasped his hands together. "I have made sure my 'daughter' will be taken care of when I am gone." He added cautiously.
"You've written Olivia into your will?" George was visibly in a lot of shock and he couldn't hide it.
"George." Don let out a heavy breath. "Olivia is the sole beneficiary of my will."
George who had been writing as Don spoke lowered his hand slowly and looked right into the grey eyes of the aging Captain.
"Does she know?" George asked.
"No she doesn't." Don replied. "All she knows is that when I go she will be the one who has to sign everything and deal with the lawyers and the funeral arrangements. I have a lock box which has some of my wife's old jewellery and a copy of the will. She knows when I die to go to that lock box. She has a copy of the key for when the time comes and I know Olivia has placed all the papers and the key in a drawer and has chosen for now to forget about them and when I die that's when she'll look at them."
"When did all of this occur?" George asked scribbling a few more notes.
"It was something I'd been thinking about for a long time. Olivia and I grew pretty close quite quickly but the day we came the closest was the day or night rather, that she came to my house and told me everything about what happened in Sealview." Don explained as he glanced out through the blinds to look at the Detectives who were walking into the bullpen.
"She told you about what happened in the basement?" George asked brining Don's attention back to him.
"Yes." Don nodded. "She needed someone to talk to and after a lot of thinking she came round to my place, she was a nervous wreck I've never seen her looking so… so anxious before, when she walked in here on her first day she radiated confidence then all of a sudden, nearly ten years later she was stood in my doorway and she looked so small George, so small. So without either one of us saying a word, I invited her in and made us a coffee."
FLASHBACK
"Thank you." Olivia smiled as Don handed her over a mug of steaming coffee.
For the past ten minutes, while her superior had been in the kitchen making coffee she had been sat on the couch in the living room trying to work out if she had done the right thing in coming here. It had been six whole months since Sealview had occurred, but three whole days since she'd held a gun to the back of a man's head and she knew that she had to tell him. He'd already ordered her to take some personal time without making it official so a notation didn't have to go into her jacket but after Margot had told her she needed to talk to someone, a friend or a family member she knew she owed Don Cragen an explanation.
"Is everything ok Liv?" He asked as he settled himself into his old battered arm chair.
"No." She answered, her voice shaking.
"What's going on?" He asked gently, his eyes looking over at her while hers stayed transfixed to the mug she was holding in her lap.
"I can't do this." She said jumping to her feet. "I shouldn't have come here… I'm so sorry."
"Olivia." Don said having gotten to his feet after putting his mug on the coffee table, he grabbed her biceps before she could do the same and then leave.
"I'm sorry." She said and he could see the tears shinning in her brown eyes.
"Talk to me Olivia." He probed softly and he slipped the mug out of her hands and placed it on the table before lowering her to sit on the couch.
He slipped onto the couch beside her and took her hands in his own. She looked so fragile, so hurt, he'd never seen her like this before.
"I held a gun to the back of Dominic Pruitt's head and pulled the safety off." She said her voice just a hoarse whisper Don had been lucky to have heard it.
"What?" He asked in complete disbelief.
One of his hands worked its way to her chin and tilted it up so she looked at him.
"I'm sorry." She whispered.
"I'm not looking for an apology Liv." Don said softly. "I am looking or hoping for an explanation of some sort though."
"I had a flashback." She admitted and the confusion was evident on her superior's face. "I had a flashback to what happened in the basement at Sealview." She said the tears now slipping slowly down her cheeks.
"What happened in the basement Olivia?" He asked his thumb wiping her tears away as the fell.
"I shouldn't have gone with him." She said her voice cracking with the supressed sobs.
"Shh, hey don't blame yourself." Don told her, treating her just like he would any other victim because right now that's exactly what she was behaving like.
"He told me he was taking me to the hole." She said swallowing back the lump in her throat. "He cuffed me and led me out and when I realised we were going in the wrong direction he became a little rough then… then I saw the mattress…" She closed her eyes, she didn't want to see the look on Don's face when he finally found out the secret she'd been harbouring for so long. "... I fought him Don I really did…" She hiccupped.
"I know Liv, I know." He replied trying to keep his voice even because he felt like crying at that moment but he knew Olivia could close up at any moment and had to stay calm.
"I fought against him and I ran and I screamed and I hid and … and he wouldn't stop. He finally found me and then he cuffed me to the bars on some door and … and he said… he said 'bite me and your dead'… that's … that's when Fin busted in… he didn't… he didn't get the chance to do anything…" She hiccupped hard and fell forward into Don's chest as she cried.
Don wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back. As she spoke a million different things had been going through his mind. Not that knowing made it any better. He'd suspected something bad had happened to her but being in prison, especially as a complete innocent person, couldn't have been easy so he'd put her behaviour at first down to that, she'd been jumpy and flinched just as victims did but he and many other had put it down to just the trauma of being behind bars.
"Olivia." He whispered as her sobbing began to slow but she made no attempt to move. "Your trauma… what you went through, it's no more or less traumatic than someone who was raped, you were still violated Liv…"
"Don't." She said finally pulling away. "Please don't talk to me like a vic Cap."
"It's Cap now?" He teased. "Ok Detective Benson, you are taking at least a week, you're going to therapy you're not going to pull your gun on anyone again…"
She finally cracked a smile at his teasing.
"I'm taking two weeks because I need to get my head together, I'm already in therapy and no I don't think I'll take my gun on anyone again. I know I'm lucky that Pruitt didn't report it." Olivia replied wiping her tears.
"Yes you are." Don agreed. "But they both knew didn't they?"
"Excuse me?" Olivia asked in surprise.
"That you have PTSD, they knew, they've seen it before, the marines." He explained.
"Yeah." Olivia nodded. "They knew."
END FLASHBACK
"She stayed at my place for the first time that night." Don smiled subtly after telling George the story.
"She's stayed since?" He asked scribbling notes.
"At least one Saturday a month, when she isn't on call and then we go out for lunch on Sunday together, we call it Daddy/Daughter day." Don smiled and George saw him eyeing something on his desk.
"What are you looking at?" George inquired as whatever it was made Don's eyes sparkle.
Still smiling he picked up a photo frame and handed it to George unashamedly. George looked at the photograph. It was cute. Four smaller photographs on one photo paper that had obviously been taken in one of the machines found in large department stores or shopping malls.
"Olivia had been complaining that her work boots were close to falling apart and as we were walking through the shopping mall together I pointed it out and told her a story about having never used one before, she grabbed my hand and said 'well Don there's a first time for everything.'" He grinned happily. "She's cut up the photos, one is on her desk, one is in her wallet, the other two are in her apartment, one on the shelf in the living room and one on her dresser."
"You've been in her apartment?" George asked in surprise, he'd been there a couple of times for beer and a pizza but Olivia was particularly privet and the only person Olivia had as a regular visitor to his knowledge was Elliot.
"Yeah for coffee after a Sunday out or for a coffee before we go out, George she's like my daughter of course I've been to her apartment." He replied.
"Ok." George continued to scribble notes.
"I thought you wanted to evaluate my mental health and not Olivia's." Don said and George just raised an eyebrow.
"I ask all of you about your families, like you said, she's like a daughter to you." George smiled.
