As Melinda left Olivia's apartment she picked up the phone and dialled Cragen again. I might as well but him on speed dial at this rate she thought as he picked up.
"How did it go?"
"Not well" she admitted. She cursed herself for being so stupid. She should have realized that Olivia wouldn't magically want to testify and press charges just because someone else knew about the rape. She had betrayed her trust and that was something she couldn't forgive herself for. At the same time she knew that she couldn't live with herself seeing Olivia live with a secret that heavy, never telling anyone and feeling like a hypocrite telling all these victims to testify and press charges while not having done that herself. But it wasn't her place to interfere.
"Well how did she react?"
"She wasn't happy, for, err, understandable reasons." Melinda sighed and continued. "She agreed to think about speaking with Rollins"
"That's good I guess."
"Rollins will be here by ten tomorrow, I'll call you then about speaking to her."
"Okay, Bye" Melinda ended the call and sat down in her car. Part of her wanted to go back in time and not tell Cragen about anything while part of her thought that this was the right thing to do. That that horrible person had to face justice and that Olivia would feel better once he did. Still she felt incredibly guilty as she drove home.
Olivia was still sitting in a pile behind the door. She felt numb. Melinda had told Cragen. And Cragen had called in a detective. She was already regretting telling Melinda. Well, to be fair she had started regretting telling Melinda right about the time that she was laying on a table with someone doing a rape kit. She knew what she wanted was the opposite of what she told the victims she dealt with to do. To them she said that it would feel better to prosecute, that it was good to do a rape kit, that testifying and telling the police about what had happened might be hard but that it would feel better afterwards. And she still believed that to be true, but… It was hard, it was painful and embarrassing and it made Olivia feel like the one thing she strived to always not be. It made her feel like a victim. And she could already imagine everyone treating her like one.
She knew that in theory that was the correct label. She had been the victim of a rape, and thus she was a victim. But being a victim and being a victim were different things and even though she had had events happening to her that she could aptly be described to be a victim of she had never felt like a victim before. And everything from telling Melinda to sitting here made her feel like one. She just wanted to move on and go back to what things were like before. She knew it wasn't that easy and that pressing charges might make her feel better in the long term it just felt too hard. And she detested herself for that. She was too weak to prevent the rape and too weak to do something about it.
She pulled herself off the floor and towards the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and realized she didn't just feel like a victim, she looked like one. It wasn't the wounds on her face, it was her expression. The combined look of desperation and haven given up. She looked down, not wanting to see more of the all too familiar expression. She had seen it on some many others but never thought she'd be wearing it herself.
She got in the shower, wanting to wash all of what had happened off. The manic cleaning was yet another thing that Olivia had understood in theory but not really understood not in the way she did now. Understood that even though you were clean and even though you knew that you wouldn't feel cleaner from showering you stood there under the scalding hot water and scrubbed and cried. So you were doing something.
Olivia continued with this endeavour for far longer than was sane but finally gave up. She walked over to her bed and sat down. She buried her head in her hands and cried some more.
This sucked. This whole situation. That Melinda had asked her and she was too weak to hold it in. That Melinda had told Cragen. That Cragen had decided to fly in a detective. All of it sucked. And the thing that sucked most of all was how weak she felt.
She tried not to think about it. And most of all she tried not to think about the detective that was being flown in. That she had agreed to think about talking to.
The next morning Amanda landed in New York. She had gotten here on short notice, but really she'd do anything to get out of Atlanta right now. To get away from the memories and flashbacks. Not that she thought it would work, and dealing with another SVU detective's rape was probably not the best way to get rid of the memories she had. Still, she had agreed. And now she was waiting for Cragen to pick her up.
He had filled her in on the phone, told her about the situation. About how the detective had gone undercover in a prison to prove a rape and managed to provide information for the case. How their medical examiner had realized just how the detective could have found out such information and confronted her. How the medical examiner had told Cragen, knowing that the detective would never do so herself. And first and foremost he had told her how important it was that the case was kept quiet.
As she had understood it there was one flaw in this plan. Rape cases needed a witness. Usually this witness was the victim. And she had heard nothing that gave the impression that this victim was willing to testify.