A/N: this chapter will shock you, not b/c of my plan for the plot, but b/c of other things that I use more in my stories for Life With Derek. But abide with me. Let's just agree to disagree, ok?
What, then, does one make of destruction? Is it a natural state of being? Or is it something that can be reversed?
Chapter 8
The next day Olivia was sitting at her desk with a stack of paperwork that seemed to go on and on forever. The one thing Olivia hated about paperwork was that there was always room to think. Running back and forth on cases, being on stake-outs, even questioning perps – there wasn't time to actually reflect on your life.
She pretended that everything was normal. New cases would come. Her case was just a case like any other case – it wasn't the end of the world. There were worse things that could have happened, after all. She could have been killed. That would have been worse, right? Would it have been worse? Or would it have been better? Olivia wished that her rapist had remained nameless…nameless and semi-faceless. Then it would be easier to ignore the blatant truth. But the way it presented itself, the truth was unavoidable.
"Are you alright, Liv?" Elliot asked.
"I'm fine," Olivia said, but that was just her usual response – it didn't mean that it was the truth.
She wasn't fine. Her hair was a mess. She had gray circles under her eyes because whenever she fell asleep she had nightmares and that was something she just couldn't handle right now. She had ended up showing up at work around 4:30 a.m., which was early even for her.
"Why were you here so early?" Elliot asked.
Wasn't it obvious? "No reason," Olivia shrugged.
The case was coming to no ends. They were at the point where they had solved all of the cases they currently had except for Olivia's case, which was slightly ironic. The funny thing was, though, Olivia didn't really know if she even wanted to press charges. And the fact that she was even having any sort of mixed feelings at all freaked the hell out of her. Olivia shook her head, momentarily forgetting that there were other people in the building. 'No,' she said herself. 'I know better.' She knew better. She could convince herself that she knew better.
The case was already shitted up, anyways. It wasn't like Casey would be able to convict Darren, anyways. Too many mistakes had already been made. Any decent defense attorney would have Darren's "confession" thrown out.
Finally, another case was called in. A six year old girl had been abducted. Eerily, the girl's mother's name was Hannah. Now, Hannah was a popular name, so it didn't mean anything, right? But what if Darren's sister hadn't died, but just pretended to? What if? Really, there were just too many mistakes in the world.
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The mother of the missing child was sitting on a bench in the precinct. It was obvious that she had been crying - her eyes were red and puff.
"Could you describe your child one more time, Miss…" Elliot asked.
"Lin," Hannah said when she realized she hadn't even told the detectives her last name.
"Anyways," Hannah Jaspers continued, "She was short, tall, brown eyes, black hair, skinny. Not your typical six years old, but then again, she's half-Chinese, so it probably won't be that hard to find her." Hannah Lin didn't look at all Chinese – in fact, she looked eerily like the grown-up version of the picture of Darren's sister Hanna when she was ten.
"Do you have any other relatives?" Olivia asked, obviously thinking along the same lines Elliot was. Was this Darren's long-lost, supposedly killed, sister?
"No," Hannah said. Hannah sighed. "Well," she said, "that is, unless you count the cousins I never talk to anymore. My mom's sister was, well….not stable, to say the least. Somehow she got herself killed, and years later my cousin, who…." Hannah paused, giggling nervously, "….actually had the same name as me, except she spelled it without an "h" at the end, died in a car accident. I lost contact with my other cousin, Darren. I wouldn't be surprised if he offed himself, though. He and Hanna were pretty close, they acted borderline incestuous."
"Incestuous?" Elliot asked, raising his eyes.
"You're a detective and you don't know what incest is?" Hannah said, almost laughing. A couple moments later, breaking the nervous silence, Hannah said, "Don't worry, though. Nothing ever happened between them, at least not that I know of, and I assume they're both dead anyways so it's not like you could arrest them."
"Darren isn't dead," Olivia said.
"What? My cousin's not dead?" Hannah asked, shock evident in her wide, brown eyes.
"Anyways, back to the subject. Your daughter, Mae Lin. When did you last see her?" Olivia asked. She did not want to talk about Darren right now.
"I had taken her to the park. My husband, Karl Lin, was out of town. I was sitting on the bench, reading a book while her watching her climb the jungle gym, and the next second I looked up, I heard her screaming. A blond man – probably in his mid-twenties – was grabbing her and trying to stuff Mae in his
van. I ran after him, but when I tried to reach for Mae the bastard punched me in the eye and I blacked out. When I woke up they were nowhere to be seen," Hannah Lin said. There were fresh tears in her eyes.
"We're going to find her, Miss Lin," Olivia assured the desperate woman. They would, right? But you could never tell these days. Sometimes they found them, the lost ones, the fallen….but you never knew these days. They tried so hard, but it seemed like the devil in the world was growing perpetually stronger. Was it useless? Was it a useless fight, the fight between criminals and law enforcement? What did it mean if law enforcement itself could be victimized? Didn't it mean that they weren't strong enough to capture the criminals? Didn't it? Olivia hoped not.
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Later that day, Olivia couldn't stop thinking about Darren. He was still in the hospital, so it wasn't like he was going to come after her again, and once he was released from the hospital he was going to prison pending a trial anyways, but that wasn't what Olivia was thinking about; that wasn't what Olivia was worrying about. She didn't even know what she was worrying about – all she knew was that she was extremely confused and that she absolutely shouldn't be confused but she was.
She still felt extremely guilty for injuring him enough for him to be in the hospital, even though she knew he deserved every single injury after what he had done to her. She still didn't understand the fact that he apologized. Was he just trying to make the jury somehow be more lenient towards him? Olivia wanted to tell the sick bastard that it wouldn't work. At least, she hoped it wouldn't.
Did Darren even know that he had a cousin? He probably did. For a second she wondered if they were….
But no, if he was in a relationship with his cousin (who would have had to lie and pretend that she thought Darren was dead, as she did), then why would he have felt the sudden urge to rape someone? Olivia definitely sensed that Hannah Lin was the rash sort of person who didn't really care about the rules. She sensed that maybe in the past, Hannah Lin and Darren had some sort of relationship that ultimately failed.
Did they?
What eventually happened?
What was the downfall like, and was it responsible for who he was today? And did he still love Hannah Lin? Or did he think Hannah Lin had somehow died, just like Hannah Lin had assumed Darren was dead? Maybe it was easier for the both of them, to assume that they were both dead to the universe. Maybe they wanted to be dead to the universe.
But then again, Olivia was probably just jumping to conclusions. But what if she wasn't…? What if some dark, horrible figment of Darren's past still lingered in the air, haunting his every step, causing to be the person he is to day (and Hannah Lin did look particularly similar to Olivia herself), and then, maybe, if
this tragedy, this unspeakable incest, was the reason that Darren raped Olivia, then maybe it wasn't completely Darren's fault. Maybe it was mostly Hannah Lin's fault. Or maybe it was no one's fault. Maybe….he was just alone. Maybe.
Would it be justifiable for Olivia to ask Hannah if anything ever happened between her and Darren, and whether or not it was a mutual attraction or some sort of bittersweet forced love affair? Probably not. If she was going to find out, she would have to find out from Darren himself. But maybe she didn't even want to find out.
But.
Incest was (is) a crime, and so if anything on that level occurred, it was Olivia's job to find out and provide the district attorney with ample evidence to prosecute the offenders. Right? Right? But what if incest shouldn't be a crime, at least if it's mutual?
What if…?
