Here's the second take...let me know what you think... " ) Bensler

The Tenth Year

by Bensler

Chapter 2 – Confession

SVU Squad Room - Wednesday, October 1st - 10:47 p.m.

Hours have passed since she and Fin discovered Eric Byers. Dead. By Jake Berlin's hand. Hours since they witnessed his mother hold her son's lifeless body. Hours since Cragen had sent Elliot home. Suspended. Stripped of his gun and shield. And hours since her phone calls and text messages had gone ignored by Elliot. She knows he needs her because she needs him. This case has affected them both. Deeply. All their cases affect them; become in some way forever a part of their being; a part of who they are, what they are and how they respond to life.

But the cases with kids? Those cases dig a trench in their gut, shred their hearts and worm their way into the deepest, darkest recesses of their minds, gripping them with claws of steel forcing them to replay the images, both real and imagined, forever imprinted into their minds. These cases refuse to let them forget the depravity, debauchery, torment and pure evil visited upon these youngest, helpless victims of man's uttermost wickedness.

She thinks back upon the last two days' events.

SVU Squad Room - Tuesday, September 30 th - 10:10 a.m.

The overcrowded squad room is bursting with various cases that range from Greek week shenanigans to domestic abuse while Cragen tries to placate the new ADA, who is insistent that she be a part of each case. Elliot tells Olivia that there is a three year old with a suspicious fracture at the ER and the two of them are about to head out, when a teenager, Eric Byers, enters the squad room in a state of despair.

Olivia took him aside to talk with him while the others tended to the new cases and Elliot left for the hospital. The boy attempted several times to tell her what is wrong with little success. Pulling a picture from his jacket pocket and is finally able to admit to Olivia that he has unnatural desires towards his younger stepbrother, Cory Kelly.

In the nine years plus Olivia had been in the Special Victims Unit she thought she had seen and heard it all. Now she sees she was mistaken. Staring dumbstruck at the crying young man sitting in a chair by her desk, her stomach roiled as she tried to think of what to say.

The young teen was distressed over what he knows, with everything within him, is morally, ethically, and spiritually wrong. She wants to call his parents and it is then that she learns his mom remarried and his stepfather does not like him. His twisted desires for the six year old are sinister and he is filled with self-loathing and disgust. He tenderly caresses the photo of Cory as he talks about him. Olivia is sickened by what she knows is going on in his mind and tries to take the picture from him. He holds it tightly between the coil of his fists and his thumbs as tears stream down his face and he asks for help. Finally, he relinquishes it to her.

Taking the picture with her, she goes to talk to Captain Cragen. The teen wants help before he does something to Corey. He realizes it is a matter of time before he can no longer control his impulses. The sad thing is there is nothing the squad can do. No crime has been committed and there is no kind of facility or program to help would-be pedophiles. Help is only for those who have committed the heinous act of child molestation.

In the course of the ensuing investigation, she and Elliot are suspicious that Eric may have become involved in looking at online child pornography. When Eric admits that he had found a website that promised to help curb his pedophilic urges, the detectives decide to investigate this "self-help" website for pedophiles. This in turn led them to its creator, Jake Berlin, who photographically stalks children and puts their pictures on his website for other pedophiles to enjoy. However, his code of 'honor' is 'look, but don't touch.' Honor among pedophiles? How noble.

Elliot's rage at Berlin is barely contained and the man takes immense pleasure in antagonizing him. He asks if Elliot is a father, and can he see pictures of his kids. When he promises not to drool, Elliot glares at him. Later, back at the precinct, the detectives are reviewing more pictures on Berlin's website, when Elliot suddenly leaves. Munch realizes too late that one of the pictures is of Elliot's daughter Elizabeth when she was much younger. Incensed, Elliot goes to Berlin's, beats the man up, and is in the process of trying to delete the picture from the computer when Olivia and Fin get there. She tells him what he is doing does not look good. He is still at the computer when Cragen and Munch arrive and Cragen orders him away from the computer, but then makes Berlin delete Elizabeth's picture.

Cragen suspends Elliot, taking his gun and shield, and telling him he almost ruined not only his own career, but that of three other officers. Berlin is threatening police brutality. Though Olivia understands Elliot's rage there is nothing she can do. Eric's stepfather has gone ballistic upon finding out what they suspect Eric of doing and is also questioned as a potential suspect in his son's abuse. Shortly after Eric is goes missing. Olivia wants to find him and stop him before any real crime is committed.

Too late she and Fin find Eric…Berlin has killed him after seeing Eric's online description of raping a young boy…not Corey, but someone else. Unknown. Eric's mother is holding him and she later tells Olivia she loved him but she would rather he be dead than live to rape little children. Olivia is horrified there was nothing they could do to help this young man before his life ended in such a tragedy.

SVU Squad Room - Wednesday, October 1st - 11:47 p.m.

The squad room is silent except for the low hum of the computers, soft footsteps in the hall from time to time, and the distant ringing of a desk phone on the night shift clerk's desk. Calling him one more time, she waits as the ringing stops and she hears his recorded voice. Again. Sighing as her shoulders slump, she leaves one more message.

"El…come on, El. Just let me know you are okay…please…call me."

She closed the phone and leaned over her desk in defeat. She wants very much to talk with him. Her partner. Not that they have done too much of that lately. Talk. She misses him and the friendship they once had. She thought they were getting it back, but something always seems to happen that knocks them off track again. Rubbing her head to try to stave off the headache that was beginning, she decided to call it a day and gathered her things to head home. It is almost midnight.

She has just logged off her computer and locked her desk drawer when she stands to leave and there he is. Elliot. He is standing not ten feet from her. He looks drained, beaten, discouraged. She wants to run to him and hug him. But they don't do that. Hug. They did once and she will never forget how it felt to have him against her. How complete she felt. How safe. How loved.

They stare at one another for what seems like an eternity but is probably only a minute or so. Neither says a word. Words really are not necessary between them though she knows tonight they will be spoken. Tonight they need to be spoken. She thinks his eyes look red rimmed. She thinks he has been crying. She wants to comfort him, but is not sure how. Nearly ten years as his partner and she does not know what to do for him, except be there. She is the one to break the first silence tonight.

"I've been calling."

"I know."

"You didn't answer."

He sighed.

"I knew you'd understand."

She nodded.

"I was worried about you."

"I'm sorry. I should have let you know I was okay."

"Are you?

"What?"

"Okay?"

His blue eyes pooled with tears. He shook his head.

"No."

He is broken. She wants to fix him. That is what they used to do. Fix each other. Watching him struggle with his emotions, she is dying bit by bit. His tears spill over and run down his cheeks. He does nothing to stop them, wipe them away, or hide them from her.

And she forgot.

She forgot about the things they don't do. She goes to him. Gently she wipes her thumb across one of his cheeks pulling the tears away with her hand. As he reaches up, he forgets, too, and takes her hand in his, entwining their fingers.

She pulls him to her desk where they both sit on the top, but she never loses her grip on his hand. She waits. She knows he needs to talk. It has to be on his terms. She cannot force him. Insist. This time it his turn to break the silence that has once again settled between them. Several minutes later, he sniffles, sighs and the words begin.

"A kid comes in and tells us he wants to turn himself in before he acts on these unnatural urges to sexually abuse his six year old stepbrother and we can't do a thing to help him. What kind of society can't help someone like him, Liv? A kid. He was just a kid himself."

"I know. It doesn't make any sense, Elliot. He seemed so sincere in wanting us to help him get rid of those urges."

"He was so young. A kid…not even an adult and yet he's already aware of these perverted feelings inside of him and he's battling them and he has all the telltale signs of becoming a predator but he's fighting it. He's fighting it and we can't do a thing to help him. Until he rapes a little kid we can't help him!"

"I've never had a perp turn himself in before he even committed a crime. I wish there was something we could have done," she held his hand in both of hers, caressing the scarred knuckles.

"Do you think it's nature or nurture…or I guess the lack of nurture…that screws people up like this?"

"I'm not sure what I believe about that, El. I mean, we all know that environment plays a big part of who we are, what we become, but I don't know if I believe you are born with certain deviant sexual predispositions. I tend to believe it is learned."

"Yea…me, too. Otherwise, I don't know how I can reconcile it to my Catholic faith. To God. I mean, I don't think He would let someone be born with those feelings, when it's so clearly wrong. I don't know, Liv. I just don't get. I don't understand how anyone could be attracted to little kids, how they could hurt them. They're so innocent. So sweet and full of life. "

"In their twisted minds I don't think they realize they are hurting them," her voice was soft and quiet.

"When I saw Lizzie's picture on that screen…I'm telling you…I wanted to kill Berlin. I could have killed him, too, except I kept thinking who would protect my kids from sickos like him if I'm locked up? Liv, he had my little girl's picture on that site for all those perverts to…to look at, drool over, fantasize over and…"

"Elliot…don't go there."

"Don't go there?" He snorted. "I've been there all day and night. If I had it do over, I would kill him."

She looked at him and then her gaze fell to the floor, "Fin said he didn't know how you showed the restraint you did?"

"What are you talking about?

"He said if that was his kid…he would have done 'em."

"No one messes with my kids…no one should mess with anyone's kids."

The silence engulfs them for the third time. Olivia's mind is spinning. She keeps seeing the lifeless body of Eric Byers, his mother covered in his blood. Tears spring to her eyes and as one spills over and starts its journey down her cheek, Elliot sees it and looks up in time to watch her wipe it away. More tears replace it.

"His mother was covered in his blood. There was blood everywhere. I couldn't do anything to save him," she runs her hand through her hair and sighs.

"Olivia, it's not your fault."

"Then whose fault is it, Elliot?" she asked angrily. "He came to us for help, he asked me to put him in a program or something to help him get rid of those urges. I couldn't help him. I should have found a way…I should have…"

"What, Liv? What else could you have done? What could any of us have done?"

Shaking her head, she tightened her grip on Elliot's hand and brought her other hand to his once again, and traced his fingers, lost in her thoughts.

"His mother said she was glad he was dead. His own mother. She said she would rather he be dead than alive to rape little boys."

"I can't imagine how she felt…to know your own flesh and blood is capable of doing something so horrific."

"Yet she loved him, El. She loved him, but she was glad he was dead. Because when she looked at him, she saw a monster…" her voice trailed off abruptly.

Nodding his head, he gave her a sideways glance and saw that she was quite preoccupied with whatever was going through her mind.

After what seemed to be an eternity of more silence, her soft voice, barely a whisper, put her thoughts in words, "Do you think that's what she saw when she looked at me?"

Instantly, Elliot knew what she was talking about, but wished it were anything but this. He tried to brush it off, tried to minimize it. He did not want her to go there.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you…" she took a deep breath. "Do you think my mother saw a monster when she looked at me, El?"

"Olivia…"

"Did she? Did she see the image of the monster that raped her and left me as a reminder every time she had to look at me, see me, hear me?

"Liv…honey…don't…"

"No! Did she?" She hollered, jumping up from the desk to face him. "Is that why she couldn't ever really love me? Because she saw a…a m-mon-monster every single time she looked into my eyes?" her eyes glistened as tears formed. "Am I a monster, El?"

"Olivia!" He took her by her shoulders and shook her lightly. She refused to meet his eyes.

"I didn't look like her…with her fair skin…light hair…green eyes…I'm dark…my hair, my eyes, my complexion…I look like…like him. That's why she hated me…" she began to sob.

"Olivia…she loved you. She was your mother. You're part of her, too. In her own way, she loved you. You are not a monster. You are a beautiful, wonderful woman, kind and compassionate, loyal and loving, worthy of being loved…you're my best friend, Liv, and you gotta know there are lots of people in your life that love you…"

He was careful to word it so it did not sound like a confession of his love…but he knew she would understand. She would make the connection.

When she began to sob, his heart broke in two.

And he forgot.

He forgot that they didn't do this. They didn't touch. Neither did they hug. He had hugged her once. After the car accident. He could still recall how she melded to him, the smell of her hair and cologne, the feel of her hands on his back. And tonight he forgot they don't hug.

He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and he hugged her. Tightly. Closely. He held her and gently caressed her back and murmured soft assurances into her hair. He was glad he forgot they did not do this. Touch. It felt so natural, so right, so good. She had held his hand until his tears dried and now he would hold her and do the same for her. He held her and she held him. Slowly they began to fix each other. And slowly they began to mend.

~ ~ eoeoeoeoeo ~ ~