Plot Synopsis: Kelly struggles to cope with the way in which she's handled sexual violence over the years after a friend asks her why she's never acted out dramatically. Jenny is there to talk her through it and provides personal insight, as well as a somewhat amusing little anecdote about how a certain Leroy Jethro Gibbs ended up with a black eye on his honeymoon.


Coping Mechanisms

March 2003

Kelly Gibbs walked out of her bedroom holding a mountain of books and loose-leaf paper, a well-worn pencil between her teeth, and carefully balancing a calculator in the crook of her arm. She set everything down rather loudly on the kitchen table and removed the pencil from her mouth, slipping it behind her ear. She was frustrated with the silence in the house and she hated being home alone. She couldn't listen to music while she did Chemistry; it resulted in horrendously wrong answers.

She decided to turn the coffee maker on to compromise and add some white noise to the quiet. She wasn't used to her family being gone when she got home from ballet, but Dad was with Elizabeth at a soccer tournament this weekend, and it seemed Jenny had gotten caught up at work.

Kelly brewed the coffee without any intention of drinking it, and simply enjoyed the smell and the noise. She picked up the telephone and put it next to her cell phone on the table, taking a seat in the open. Her dog came trotting over, thumped his tail, and sat contentedly next to her when she scratched his ears.

She tilted her head at the golden retriever.

"Will you keep me company while I convert all these moles into grams?" she murmured, puckering her lips. Machiavelli perked his ears at her and thumped his tail some more.

Kelly giggled and crinkled her nose, picking up her pencil.

She loved Chemistry, but she didn't feel like doing it today.

She had just resigned herself to actually beginning one of her problems when the dog darted off towards the door, prancing around happily. A moment later, Kelly heard the door being opened, and the sound of Jenny's voice cooing at the dog.

"Kelly?" called Jenny.

"In here," Kelly answered. "Did you bring—"

Jenny rounded the corner and grinned, holding up a bag of Chinese food. Kelly lifted her arms to the ceiling, chucking her pencil away, and pretended to thank a higher power. With Elizabeth out of the house, they were free to devour fast, unhealthy, greasy, delicious food without hearing a single lecture about it.

Though where the thirteen-year-old got all of her information about and preferences for organic food and healthy eating habits, none of them knew.

Jenny collapsed in a chair near Kelly and distributed boxes of noodles and rice. The room was filled with the aroma of Asian cuisine, and Kelly breathed a sigh of relief, carefully pushing her Chemistry textbook away from her.

"What do you want to drink?" Jenny asked, after munching a few pieces of shrimp off of her chopsticks. The redhead stood up, and Kelly shrugged.

"I'll finish the rest of that lemonade, I guess," she said, having no particular craving. She swallowed as Jenny went into the kitchen and went on: "I made you some coffee!"

"Sweet," Jenny answered, and when she returned with a mug of coffee and a glass of lemonade, Kelly pretended to gag, shaking her head at her stepmother's choice of beverage. Jenny could—and insisted upon—drinking coffee with just about everything.

Kelly smiled and leaned back in her chair, absorbing herself in Chinese food. She felt Jenny watching her. Sighing and glaring at the woman through her lashes, Kelly tilted her head back, cracked her neck, and stared at her head on.

"What?" she asked.

"I could ask the same of you," Jenny retorted, shrugging. She tilted her head at all of the homework. "What's wrong, Kelly?"

"Nothing."

"You do your homework in here when something is wrong."

Kelly frowned, poking at her noodles. Jenny knew her too well. At the same time, Kelly wasn't angry—and she didn't mind Jenny's probing. She wouldn't have ventured out of her room if she wanted to keep to herself tonight. The brunette shrugged a little and took another bite, chewing thoughtfully before she swallowed.

"Nothing's wrong," she reiterated honestly. "That's it, though, nothing's wrong. I guess. That doesn't make sense, but," Kelly trailed off. She shrugged again. "I don't know. I'm fine."

Jenny arched an eyebrow, staring at her stepdaughter. She pursed her lips and set her food down, leaning back and crossing her legs at the ankle. She stretched a little, letting her muscles unwind and loosening some of the tension SVU left.

"Kelly," Jenny said, laughing a little. "Did someone hit you in the head?"

Kelly smiled, tilting her head up in amusement. She shook her head, poking in the noodles again.

"Hannah and I were talking after ballet, on the metro," she said thoughtfully, meeting Jenny's eyes. "She's upset because her little sister is going through this over-dramatic phase and thinks everything is the end of the world, and she acts like their mother is out to get her. Hannah can't understand it, because they're both spoiled," Kelly explained.

"Hannah's father is the neurosurgeon, right?" Jenny asked.

"No, that's Kirsten. Hannah's father is the ambassador," Kelly corrected.

"Ah," Jenny nodded. It was difficult to keep up with the glitzy, high profile job most of the parent's of Kelly's school friends held. Kelly was on scholarship at a private school in Georgetown; most of her classmates came from wealthy, if not famous, families.

"Anyway, Hannah just said it was annoying because her sister had nothing to be so angry about and then," Kelly stopped, tilting her head. "Well, then she sort of bluntly asked me why I'm," Kelly paused again, her cheeks flushing. "She asked me why I'm not fucked up."

Jenny raised her eyebrows, pausing with noodles halfway to her mouth. She laughed slightly.

"Fucked up?" she repeated.

Kelly flushed again, squirming a little at the word. She bit her lip in a sort of bashful smile and nodded.

"Yeah, her exact words 'fucked up'," Kelly confirmed. She shrugged, and pushed away her carton of food. "It just really threw me off. It made me think. I can't stop thinking."

Jenny chewed slowly.

"Well," she spoke delicately through a mouthful. "What did Hannah mean by 'fucked up'? That's kind of vague," the redhead pointed out.

Kelly sighed and shifted uncomfortably.

"She…She means…I mean," Kelly changed tune. "I mean, when you think of rape victims, you think of terrible aftermath—you know, drug abuse, cutting, sexual promiscuity, alcohol," Kelly bit her lip again, and then gestured at Jenny. "You were a prostitute, right?"

"And a damn good one, too," Jenny retorted dryly, keeping her eyes downcast. A distasteful look crossed her face and she nodded reluctantly.

"So," Kelly tried, frowning. "So what Hannah was asking…what I'm asking, now that she made me think about it is," Kelly sighed and swallowed hard. "Why aren't I fucked up?" she asked seriously. She shrugged. "Why don't I…do anything?"

Jenny swallowed and took a sip of coffee, leaning forward.

"Do anything," she said slowly, feeling it out. "Like what?" she prompted. "Like what I did?"

"Like…cut myself," Kelly ventured uncomfortably. "Or starve myself, or drink, or shoot up. I don't do anything."

Jenny's cheeks whitened slightly and her eyes brightened with concern. She reached out and took Kelly's fingers holding them gently and tightly.

"You're not thinking about doing any of that, honey," she said imperatively, with questioning eyes.

"God, no," Kelly assured her softly. She bit her lip, looking uncertain and confused. "That's the ting, Jenny. I don't think about it. I mean, I do, if something triggers it, if someone mentions sex or criminals or court, I think 'I was raped a long time ago', but the way I think is so detached…it scares me," Kelly furrowed her brow. "Does that even make sense? I get scared that it doesn't affect me enough. Shouldn't I be a fucked up mess? Shouldn't I think about it all the time, shouldn't I be angry or depressed?"

"Do you want to be those things?" Jenny asked neutrally.

Kelly laughed in disbelief.

"No, not at all," she exclaimed.

Jenny nodded. She stroked Kelly's knuckle with her index finger, thinking about what her stepdaughter was struggling with. Jenny didn't relate; the aftermath of her own sexual abuse had left her so, in Kelly and Hannah's words, fucked up that should couldn't imagine ever dealing with it in a healthy way.

Kelly shrugged and looked away, resting her elbow on the table and glancing away for a minute. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and frowned, looking back at Jenny.

"It feels like a bad nightmare," she said. "Sometimes, I feel like it didn't happen. I start thinking that I should act out. I wonder what's wrong with me that enables me to be happy when something so traumatic happened to me and," she paused, her words catching in her throat. "I think that if I don't think about it, if I don't act out, then I'm not healthy, because I'm not dealing with it," she explained. "I mean I guess my hardest years were when I was thirteen and fifteen, maybe a little at sixteen, but even then..."

Kelly fell silent and gave a groan of frustration.

"I don't understand if I'm healthy, if you and Daddy and therapists and Lizzy have helped me so much that I'm healthy, or if I'm in a haze of denial and it's all going to crash down on me and destroy me in an instant."

Jenny nodded, slowly digesting the information and giving herself time to think about it. She leaned back, pursing her lips thoughtfully and crossing her arms.

"You were eight," she said hesitantly. "You were young when Grey raped you," she said. Kelly flinched immediately and Jenny gave her an apologetic look; she didn't apologize. "You didn't have a concept of sexuality. I don't think you…understood the kind of violence you endured, you get me? I remember you knew what sex was, and you knew how to blow the whistle on inappropriate contact, but you were too young to get it," Jenny paused. "You were more resilient. It was easier to help you; you had an educated support system—and you got closure, when your father shot Grey."

Jenny licked her lips and narrowed her eyes at Kelly.

"There were a lot of circumstances surrounding your case that ensured you wouldn't go to extremes to heal yourself; you had your sister and your father to hold you when you cried," she explained.

"And you," Kelly protested.

"Well, I tried," Jenny said dryly. "But honey, I'm more fucked up than you'll ever be."

Kelly grinned.

"I don't think you're fucked up," she said sweetly.

"We're our own worst critics," Jenny said shrewdly. "Let's cool it with the f-word, your father's going to sense we used it so much and he'll have a heart attack."

Kelly snickered and reached for her food again. She started to dig into it. Jenny looked at her stepdaughter thoughtfully. She chose her words carefully and crossed her legs, opening her mouth to speak.

"Kelly, it could happen," she said honestly.

Kelly kept her eyes on her food.

"I know."

"You know what I mean?"

"I think," Kelly answered, glancing up through her eyelashes. "You mean I could fall apart someday?"

Jenny shrugged, and nodded.

"Your father sits around and waits for it to happen."

"Daddy's always treated me like I'm breakable," Kelly answered bitterly. "He doesn't treat Liz that way."

"Lizzy is indestructible," Jenny said with a laugh.

"I'm not a China doll," Kelly protested, irritation written on her face.

"Oh, Kelly, he just worries about you. He knows every detail of how I handled it, and that scares him," Jenny explained.

"I'm not handling it like you did," Kelly pointed out. "I don't do anything," she reiterated seriously. She didn't know all of Jenny's story, she just knew the rough edges. Her father had told her, very uncomfortably, when Jenny had run into a ghost from her past a couple of years ago.

"You say you don't do anything," Jenny said fairly. "But that's because you're considering doing something to be negative—the cutting, the alcohol, et cetera," she explained. "I think you do act out. You are a neurotic perfectionist, Kelly, I've seen you break down in tears over an A minus," Jenny paused. "And I think you do that because you want people to think that you don't have flaws, because," Jenny stopped uncertainly, wondering if she should just stop. She plunged on, "because I think you see yourself as flawed, Kel," she said honestly.

Kelly fell silent. She ate her food, casting her eyes down again, and frowned, her brow knitting together.

"I don't want anyone to know I was raped," she said shortly.

"You see it as a flaw," said Jenny carefully.

"I don't think it was my fault," Kelly protested severely. "Yeah, though, I see it as a flaw, or like, an ugly scar or something. It's like something dirty that won't come off in the shower," she explained, irritated.

Jenny snapped her fingers.

Kelly reached up and swiped her palm under her eye quickly, taking a deep breath.

Jenny leaned forward.

"Kelly, it's been—it's been easy, so to speak, for you to cope because you've only been really coping in the abstract," Jenny said earnestly. "You were a kid. Your sexuality wasn't a factor, but you're in high school now. Being raped—this thing you see as a flaw—could become a very real trauma when you start thinking about maybe having sex," Jenny arched an eyebrow a little smugly. "Are you thinking about having sex?"

"No," Kelly answered. "I mean, I am now," she rolled her eyes. "Not in the immediate future," she decided. She looked nervous suddenly. "I don't have a reason to be at the moment," she explained. "But," she bit her lip. "Jenny, when I think about sex, I just think about…how much it hurt," she said quietly. "I feel like I can't breathe for a minute, and then I think about violence, and then I panic, because I don't think I can ever have a relationship. You know, and I'm eighteen, and everyone else is having relationships and I'm just...content to be my own, for a while? Because I don't want a boy to think he has a right to me?"

Jenny nodded earnestly, pursing her lips.

"Yes," she agreed. "And then you feel like an object, and you're afraid to be touched because you'll lose your control," she added.

"Maybe?" Kelly responded uncertainly. "I've never had sex," she reminded Jenny. "For me, it's more that…when people mention rape, it's in hush-hush voices, like it's a dirty subject. So I feel like a dirty subject."

Jenny tilted her head thoughtfully.

"I think it would be good for you to start seeing Dr. Huang again," she offered smartly, referencing her SVU colleague, a man who had seen Kelly through three years of therapy when she was younger.

Kelly picked up her glass of lemonade and ran her finger around the ring thoughtfully, taking a drink slowly. She looked down into the glass and started running her finger around it again, tilting her head back and forth slowly.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Anything," Jenny answered automatically.

"It's really personal," Kelly warned, eyes still downcast. "It's kind of awkward."

"It's what I'm here for, Kelly," Jenny assured gently.

"Okay," muttered Kelly under her breath. "So, when you," Kelly blushed. "When you and my dad have sex," she forced out, "do you, I mean, is it fine? Like, is it normal? Or do you freak out, like, does it bring back the trauma?"

Jenny leaned back in her seat again, uncrossing her legs and crossing them again. She sat silently, considering how she should answer in a way that wouldn't scandalize Jethro or scare Kelly, but would be honest. She'd always promised herself she'd be up front with Kelly.

"If I'm not on top," Jenny answered carefully, "or if we're not in bed, I have flashbacks sometimes—"

"What? What do you mean if you're not in bed? Where else do you guys—you know what. Never mind. Don't answer that," Kelly interrupted, and then stopped, her cheeks flushing even pinker than before. She waved her hand with an embarrassed smile and fell silent again.

Jenny smiled indulgently before going on.

"Jethro is…understanding. He's good about making me feel safe and in control," she said slowly. "And I love him. Love makes a difference."

"But sometimes you still freak out."

"Sometimes."

"What happens when you freak out?"

"I start crying," Jenny admitted uncomfortably, looking annoyed with herself. "I won't let him touch me, even if he's trying to comfort," she hesitated, and looked at Kelly frankly. "There have been a couple of times that I've hit him."

Kelly's eyebrows shot up gleefully.

"Really?" she asked, smirking. "You hit him? Like, how hard?"

"Blacked his eye once," Jenny admitted. "On our honeymoon."

Kelly gasped.

"He told Lizzy he missed a football you threw at him!"

"It wouldn't have been appropriate to tell a six-year-old his wife sucker-punched him while—"

Kelly held up a hand and flinched.

"Don't say anything, please, I get it, I know what you were doing with my father," she said, a pained look on her face. She sank down in her chair a little and cackled in amusement, her mood lightened. Kelly rested a hand over her abdomen and sighed, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. "You pack a punch, Jenny, that eye was black for a week."

"Like I said," Jenny said quietly. "Your father is good about it."

Kelly took another sip of her lemonade, balancing it in one hand. She looked at her stepmother thoughtfully.

"What if I'm with a guy someday," she asked slowly, "and I freak out and he…doesn't understand? And I don't mean...like at that slumber party," she added, flushing sheepishly. "I mean when I'm in a relationship."

"It will hurt," Jenny said bluntly. "And you'll get scared and angry, and you'll have to talk about it and work through it."

"What if he can't be bothered to listen?" Kelly asked in a small voice.

"Then he isn't worth it," Jenny answered simply. "This is something you probably can't deal with until you've been in some sort of situation that makes it a reality," she said honestly, "but we can talk about it whenever you need to."

Kelly made a face and squinted, arching an eyebrow.

"Even if I have awkward questions to ask you?"

Jenny laughed, tilting her head back.

"Even if you have awkward questions," she said pleasantly. She sat forward, her green eyes sparkling. "Hey, I'll buy you a pair of Jimmy Choos if you casually mention to your father that I told you about his infamous black eye," she bribed.

"Jenny, I seriously don't think I can mention that to Dad," Kelly answered seriously, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

"Jimmy. Choo," Jenny said persuasively. "Brand. New."

Kelly bit her lip. She shook her head and hid her face.

"I'll try," she acquiesced into her palms, biting her lip. Jenny smiled wickedly, gleefully looking forward to the expression that would situate itself on her prudish husband's face. She pulled her hands down and set her lemonade glass aside, ignoring her homework for once.

"Dad's going to think something's wrong if I start seeing Huang again," she said, frowning slightly.

"I'll deal with him," Jenny said dismissively.

"Are you going to cold-cock him?" Kelly asked wryly.

Jenny balled her hand into a fist and smacked it into her other palm. She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively and Kelly giggled, covering her mouth. She shook her head in disbelief and sighed, relaxing.

"What are you going to tell Hannah?" Jenny asked.

"Hmm?" Kelly asked, tilting her head.

"She asked why you aren't fucked up," Jenny said with a shrug. "What are you going to tell her?"

Kelly pursed her lips thoughtfully and looked over at her pile of Chemistry books. She smirked smugly and shrugged, looking back at Jenny.

"I'll tell her that if she was as fucked up as I am, she might be as good at Chem as I am."


-I think perhaps I may leave this open as a collection of bits and pieces that tag to 'The Orchid Thief.' Personally, it's one of my favorite pieces because of the issues it gives me a vehicle to address. Being able to explore some aspects of it in tags saves me from putting Director/Canon Jenny into contrived situations that are overdone, cliche, or unrealistic. Not to mention I quite enjoy Kelly - and Elizabeth! [Original Post Note]

feedback is appreciated!

-alexandra