Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me. They most likely belong to Dick Wolf and/or NBC/Universal. I do this for free, fun entertainment and do not mean to offend anyone.
A/N: So my goal to have Sunday be my posting day for this story from now on. Hopefully I can stick to it and get a chapter out to you guys every week. Also a slight warning to die-hard fans of the show, I take liberties with Alex's family from this chapter forward. And as always I hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 7 – The Day from Hell
Alex didn't usually hold any particular dislike for Mondays; in fact she often couldn't wait for the beginning of the work week. She liked the distraction that work provided from any possibility of a personal life. Alex knew she was a good lawyer – she was confident in her skills and felt comfortable in the courtroom – but that confidence didn't translate to the rest of her life. As such, weekends were the days that she dreaded because there was little probability of her services being asked for, and the only thing that saved her from herself was the fact that there was always more research to do for her cases; there was no such thing as being over-prepared.
Unfortunately, this Monday was turning from a bad day into the worst day she'd had in a while. It had started as a bad day when she'd arrived at her office to find a young, cocky lawyer setting up shop. He'd flashed her what he'd undoubtedly thought was a winning smile, nearly blinding her with the artificial whiteness of his perfectly straight teeth, and introduced himself as Jeremy Bradford. Apparently, Mr. Bradford was a new ADA and until another office became available, he would be sharing with Alex.
The only thing that kept Alex from smacking that fake smile right off his face and demanding that he get the hell out of her office was the knowledge that she was mostly still stressed from her run-in with Olivia on Friday night, and she really didn't want to get fired for assaulting a fellow employee; then she'd definitely have too much time on her hands. She did, however, immediately seek out Elizabeth Donnelly to protest the new office arrangements. Donnelly informed her that Bradford would be staying with her since she was the low man on the totem pole, so to speak, being that she was fairly new herself, although Liz did seem to be entertained by her spirited argument to get her office back.
Alex was very particular about how she liked her office set up, and she really hated clutter, which would now be unavoidable with another attorney sharing the small space she'd previously had to herself. She already used every available space for her case files and notes, and had no idea how two of them could possibly coexist without territorial scuffles. But Alex had enough experience dealing with less than ideal situations that she would just ride this one out until Jeremy Bradford was moved into his own office.
It was late that Monday morning, and Bradford was already grating on Alex's nerves, when Captain Cragen called to ask Alex down to the precinct to observe an interrogation. She was more than happy to get out of the office, especially since the new ADA seemed unable to shut up whenever someone was within hearing distance of him. Alex didn't care to know the details about Bradford's life, and she immediately shut him down when she'd realized he was working his way up to asking her out. She would have put the brakes on any offer, but Bradford didn't even fit her most basic criteria since his dick was permanently attached.
Alex had nearly made it to the precinct when another call popped up on her phone. With all the different people who ended up obtaining her cell number, Alex didn't screen her calls when unknown numbers came up, but she really wished she'd had the good fortune to ignore this one. It was what turned her day from bad to awful, but that was to be expected whenever her half-brother found a way to get into contact with her.
The gist of the short, unpleasant conversation was that Michael was being held in booking at the police station and he needed her to come down and clear up whatever misunderstanding he'd had with the police. He demanded her presence and Alex hated the entitled way he commanded her to take of it, and despised even more the fact that she would at least go to see what sort of trouble he'd gotten into this time. Even if he never contacted her except for when she could help him out of legal problems, Michael was still her brother.
Besides, it was just a small detour from her true destination and hopefully it wouldn't take too long to sort out. Predictably, it would end with her saying there was nothing she could do and that she wouldn't use her position to get him released. There would be a lot of yelling and name-calling while Alex stood silent, and then Michael would just call their father like he should have done in the first place, which would end with everyone in the family being mad at her – an outcome she was very familiar with.
Resigned to the rest of her day being tinged with the anger and annoyance that always followed any interaction with either her brother or her step-mother, Alex headed towards booking as soon as she arrived at the precinct. She knew that until Michael was forced to actually face the consequences of his actions, he would continue to get into trouble. With a father that continuously bailed him out and a mother who wouldn't believe he'd done anything wrong even if she witnessed him murdering someone, Michael had never had to grow up.
Alex spotted Michael sitting in a hard-backed chair adjacent to one of the desks that was shared by all on-duty personnel, mostly used for when they had to complete paperwork. He had the same blue eyes as her, but where Alex's were cold because they were always shuttered and private, Michael's were cold because he really was unfeeling when it came to his fellow man; he had only ever cared about himself and the material things he possessed.
Michael had medium brown hair that he'd inherited from his mother, not that one could prove it by the way Alex's step-mother religiously dyed her hair blonde. He kept it cut short and neat, learning from an early age that appearances were important.
Michael had a thin frame, one that even a muscle-building workout regimen couldn't bulk up. It did however make him deceptively strong, which Alex thought kind of suited him since it allowed him to strike unexpectedly. There wasn't a sincere bone in his body and the only person she knew who was more two-faced than him was his mother. Alex knew well how malicious he could be, and wasn't looking forward to the coming argument that could turn volatile at any moment.
When Alex drew closer and Michael finally caught sight of her, there was no gratefulness in his eyes, no gratitude that she was taking time out of her day to deal with his problems. All she could detect was irritation, for having to wait for her and for the fact that he was even being detained, and the ever-present undercurrent of hate that Alex knew his mother had planted at a very early age. There was nothing about this man that made her proud to call him her brother, and that fact made her feel both sad and incredibly guilty.
"God, Alex, it took you long enough," Michael said harshly as he rose to his feet, purposely using his three inches of greater height to try to make Alex feel dominated, which didn't work anymore. "Just tell these assholes who you are so they'll let me go," he said with an unbelievable amount of disdain. Alex felt herself bristle at the insult to the men and women that she worked with, and the backhanded insult to her chosen profession. Michael had always thought that serving the people was a lowly job and certainly one much too degrading for a Cabot.
"Sit down, Michael," Alex said firmly, knowing that he wouldn't because he didn't follow commands – he just gave them. "I need to know what you did before I do anything." She was well aware that Michael had only called her instead of their father because he didn't want his arrest to get back to daddy – not when daddy controlled the money and the last time he'd been arrested his allowance had been severely cut for a few months.
"It was a misunderstanding, Alex," Michael said in his most charming voice as he realized that Alex would not respond to his usual bullying tactics. He wore his most innocent expression, the one that always worked on his mother and usually got him out of trouble with any woman he might have wronged. Too bad Alex had always been immune to his charms because he really just wanted her to get him out of this dirty place.
"Fine. My girlfriend and I had a little argument, and her maid called the cops when Lauren started yelling." He said the word maid with such undisguised disgust that anyone would have been able to tell how little respect he held for anyone in the service industry, as though they were lower than human. "The police came and dragged me away, Alex. They grossly mistreated me and wouldn't even let me talk to Lauren so that she could straighten this all out."
Alex heard the snort of disbelief that came from the officer sitting at the desk and charged with keeping an eye on Michael. Obviously, the officer had a different view on how things went down. Knowing her brother as she did, Alex was absolutely certain that he was leaving the more incriminating events out. She figured that she already knew how the blanks were going to be filled in, but needed to ask anyway.
"What is your account, Officer Moore?" Alex asked the young officer. He was rather handsome, with his square jaw and clean-shaven face, which Alex only noticed in-so-much as she aesthetically appreciated it. Officer Moore had his black hair cut in a close-cropped military style, but it was his sparkling green eyes that were his most stunning feature.
"I told you what happened, Alex. Just tell them to release me," Michael demanded. He hated being kept here like some common criminal when he had other things he could be doing. And he really hated that Alex refused to just accept his version of what had landed him in this situation. All she had to do was tell them who she was and they would let her go, and then he could talk Lauren into officially dropping the charges; the bitch was lost without him, so it wouldn't be difficult to change her mind.
Alex shot Michael a look that told him to shut up because verbalizing her command would just have led to another argument. She turned back to the officer who was now sitting back in his chair watching the interaction between brother and sister. "Please, Officer Moore, your account," Alex asked once again.
"We responded to a call about a domestic dispute at Miss Sanderson's apartment, called in by a maid on her cleaning service. When we got there, we found Mr. Cabot trying to beat down the bathroom door to get to Miss Sanderson. My partner pulled him into the living room while I identified myself to her and asked her to open the door. She would only do so after I had Mack take Mr. Cabot out of the apartment. When she opened the door, I could already see a bruise forming on the left side of her jaw and there were marks on both her arms. We arrested Mr. Cabot and he took a swing at Mack, earning him the additional charge of resisting arrest."
Alex could hear the disgust in Officer Moore's voice as he described the injuries to Lauren Sanderson, and knew exactly how he felt. A man who hurt a woman without provocation was a lowly coward, and they saw it way too often in their line of work. And on top of that, Lauren Sanderson was the daughter of a prominent New York politician, which would put everyone's actions under scrutiny if the young woman pressed charges and the case went public.
She was surprised that Michael had stayed quiet through the concise recounting, but Alex could see the way his jaw was tightening painfully and his eyes flashed with fury. Alex knew that he was capable of the assault and didn't doubt that he'd done it. "Did Miss Sanderson press charges?" Alex asked the most pertinent question. She hoped the young woman had the fortitude to do so, but knew that Michael could only be released if Lauren had recanted her original statement.
"Yes," Officer Moore said with a gleam of satisfaction in his green eyes. "My partner is still going over her statement with her. She seems pretty adamant about this being the last time he hurts her." His disgust was back full force and Alex found herself hoping that Moore and his partner hadn't been overzealous when they'd collared Michael because an excessive force accusation would prove troubling if the case went to court.
Alex turned to face Michael fully, wanting to convey the immovable nature of her next words. "I can't help you, Michael. If Lauren is pressing charges then you have to be booked. There's no way around it." She saw the fury burn even brighter in his eyes and should have anticipated his next move, but she didn't. And before she could register anything else, Alex's head snapped to the side and a sharp stinging radiated through the left side of her face.
Officer Moore got to his feet so fast that his chair fell over backwards and he forced Michael over the desk with his hands behind his back, cuffing the man who'd just slapped his own sister in the middle of a police station. Michael grunted from the rough treatment, but was more intent on calling Alex a bitch, and a lot more colorful names, to protest how he was being handled at the moment. All of his anger now focused on Alex, a target he was comfortable directing his ire at.
Alex stood stunned for a moment, transported back in time twelve years to the last time she had allowed someone to touch her in anger; only then it hadn't been Michael who'd smacked her across the face. She'd been seventeen and the next day she'd left the house she'd grown up in, the only place she'd ever lived. Alex had never had the desire to return to that opulent palace devoid of any warmth, and now she avoided it like the plague, fearing that it would suck the last bit of humanity from her soul if she ever went back.
Pulling her consciousness back to the present, Alex tasted copper on her lip and darted her tongue out to flick over the cut. She was angry, more with herself than with Michael because she should have been able to predict his mood. "Smart fucking move, Michael, hit an assistant district attorney," Alex growled at him. "Book him," Alex said to Officer Moore, meeting his concerned eyes and telegraphing that she was okay.
"You want to add new charges?" Moore asked as he pulled Michael up from the desk to stand on his feet.
Alex looked into Michael's hate-filled eyes and was sorely tempted to file additional charges, but couldn't bring herself to do it. "No, just charge him on the assault and resisting arrest," she said to the officer. "Don't do anything even more stupid, or daddy might not bail you out," Alex said to Michael. It was an empty threat and she knew it, but Michael really needed to learn to control his temper.
Unwilling to stay to listen to Michael's continuing tirade against her, Alex walked to the nearest ladies' room to see what she could do about her split lip. There was a beaded drop of blood on the cut but none had fallen from the wound. She rinsed it with water and a rough paper towel, but a new drop welled to the surface as soon as she'd washed one away. There was no way she'd be able to mask it until it stopped bleeding and she doubted she had the time for that.
As soon as she remember the time crunch she was on, Alex's phone went off and she snapped at the caller. "What?" There wasn't anything that could make this day any worse and Alex had officially been pushed into her foulest mood. She didn't want to take it out on undeserving people, but her run-in with Michael had turned her into the bitch that he'd accused her of being.
"Excuse me, Counselor," Captain Cragen said facetiously. "I know what a terribly busy woman you must be, but we are waiting for you. Can we expect you soon, or should we request the presence of a different ADA?" Alex was still new and the captain didn't completely trust her, so his sarcasm was understandable. He had been on the job for a long time and would not take kindly to a hot-shot new ADA demanding to do everything on her own schedule.
"I'm sorry, captain. I'll be there in a few minutes." Now she really didn't have time to try to cover up the cut on her lip. She grabbed her briefcase and headed towards the elevators. During the ride up to the SVU squad room, Alex flexed her jaw, working some of the sting out of her face. It was throbbing now and Alex knew that she'd have a bruise to contend with by tomorrow – just one more thing to cover up.
Alex strode purposefully into the squad room, hoping that Olivia and Stabler were already in the interrogation room and she would only have to explain her injury to the captain. She should have known that wasn't going to be possible with the way her day was going. Of course Olivia had to be sitting at her desk and then she just had to look up as soon as Alex walked through the doors. Alex actually felt her heart jump at the anger she saw cloud Olivia's face when the detective's eyes zeroed in on where Michael had struck her.
Olivia pushed abruptly away from her desk, her sudden movement and complete disengagement from the conversation she'd been having with Elliot startling the other detective. He could only watch curiously as Olivia strode determinedly across the distance between her and Alex before gently taking Alex's chin in her hand. The care that Olivia showed while handling the attorney was impressive, considering the waves of unmasked fury rolling off the detective.
"Who did this?" Olivia demanded to know with a deadly calm growl escaping from between her clenched teeth that sent shivers skittering down Alex's spine. The angry hand print on the side of Alex's face made it clearer than anything else that this was not an accident, and Olivia wanted to kill whoever had dared to hit Alex. She gently ran her thumb along Alex's lower lip, carefully avoiding the rapidly clotting cut there. The only thing that overshadowed her desire to hurt whoever had touched Alex was the need to comfort the blonde; she wanted to be the one to take away Alex's pain.
Seeing the war waging in Olivia's expressive eyes, Alex let her hand come up to touch the strong fingers cupping her chin. Normally, she would have jerked away from the physical contact, but it was almost as if Olivia needed to touch her to reassure herself that Alex was alright. And if Olivia drew comfort from that innocent touch then Alex didn't want to just rip away from it. Besides, Olivia's fingers felt nice against her skin – a thought that Alex only allowed herself to embrace for a moment.
"It doesn't matter, Liv," Alex said softly so that only they could hear her words. She gently pulled Olivia's hand away, glad that she didn't come up against much resistance because she wasn't sure she would have had the conviction to keep pulling away. Even though she let her hand be drawn away, the look in Olivia's eyes said that it damn well did matter who had hurt Alex. "Please, Olivia. I don't want to talk about it and it sure as hell won't ever happen again."
The fire and absolute certainty in Alex's voice as she stated that last part was what convinced Olivia to drop it for now. She nodded her acquiescence to Alex's wishes while at the same time promising herself that she would eventually get Alex to trust her enough to tell her about it. But as Olivia turned away from the attorney, all she could think about was how warm Alex's skin had been under her fingertips and how much she wished she could touch Alex whenever she wanted to. Olivia was more determined than ever to win Alex over.
