A/N: This chapter contains dark and potentially triggering material.
Chapter 12
The following day, Amanda did a lot of pacing around the ward, becoming increasingly agitated and restless with every passing hour. To start with, it hadn't occurred to her that since her 72-hour observation period happened to end on a Sunday, she would have to wait until Monday to be evaluated and released by a psychiatrist. She should have known, of course, from all of Kim's hospital stays—patients were rarely discharged on Sundays or holidays. But this meant that she had to be inpatient an entire day more than she had planned, and this made her more than on edge. Worse, she had not had an easy night's sleep since she had been admitted to the small crisis unit, with the constant room checks, the ever-lit hallways, and occasional announcements and codes on the overhead pager. For the most part, she only dozed, and this shallow, uneven sleep had kept her from dreaming. But, the night before, she had fallen into a nightmare. Amanda watched Professor William Mackey raping his student, Jewel Matthews, up against his mahogany desk. The Professor grinded into her roughly, and the young girl braced herself against the edges of the desk with both hands, head lolling backwards, tears streaking her face, staring at Amanda with her big hazel eyes. Amanda stood there and stared back. She cried silently with Jewel. But she said nothing. Did nothing.
"Hello darlin." He drawled in her ear, breathing on her neck, his breath of smelling of bourbon, as it did the night of the motel. Amanda jerked around to face the man with a terrifying hold on her, after all these years. "Let's leave them to it…my office?" Amanda nodded, turned her back on the victim, and followed Patton from the room. Out the door was pitch dark nothingness. Amanda realized what she had done and who she was with, and skidded to a stop, but Patton clamped a hand over her wrist and yanked her forward into the black abyss.
Amanda had had more graphic, worse nightmares—but this one left her inexplicably screaming and shaking, so much so that when one of the nosy nurses offered a PRN, she had accepted, and let the Ativan dull her senses and put her into a sleepy stupor for the rest of the night. The next day, she had been okay until the medicine started to wear off, leaving her more jumpy and skittish than before, and more than ready to be released from this place. She had done her three nights. And then Nurse Tanya had reminded her of what day it was. "You're not gettin' out today, hon," she had said, during vitals, "The psychiatrist doesn't work Sundays."
Amanda yanked her arm out of the blood pressure cuff, incredulous. "I have been penned up in this place for my 72 hours," Amanda said. "My time here is over." She hadn't even realized she had raised her voice until the patient waiting behind her muttered at her to shut up.
Nurse Tanya regarded her with her squinty gaze. "When you are admitted through the emergency room, you are evaluated after 72 hours, Amanda. Our psychiatrist, Dr. Porter, decides whether you're safe to be discharged or not. You might be able to go home—or you could be admitted longer."
Amanda felt a surge of panic. Tanya wanted to take her temp and pulse, too, but she refused and rushed back to her room. Her roommate, Katie, moaned as Amanda stormed in, rolling over to look at Amanda with dull blue eyes. Katie didn't speak, Katie didn't even get out bed unless she was going to the bathroom, but Amanda looked at her roommate with severe depression and said, "Katie, they're keeping me here." The words sounded strangled.
She pulled on the Nikes that Olivia had brought her and then took off down the corridor at a jog, sneakers squeaking on hospital tile. When she felt trapped in her apartment, alone, she usually went for a run around the block, or did yoga. Now, she was so desperate to move that she didn't care how ridiculous she looked going for an indoor jog, and would have torn around the unit all day had the secretary at the nurses' station not told her "no running."
"I need some damn exercise," she shot back, thumping the counter in frustration, but forced herself to slow to a brisk powerwalk. Monday, Monday, Monday, Monday. She repeated the word to herself with each step, as if willing the day to come quicker. She just had to get out of here Monday. She knew how the discharge process worked—you had to answer a prompt and immediate "no" to the question Do You Have Any Thoughts of Hurting Yourself or Others? You had to be contrite, rehabilitated, profess to attend therapy and take medications and generally be a good and compliant patient. Kim had been hospitalized enough times to know how to sweet talk the doctors and nurses at her commitment hearings or evaluations so as to be released from psychiatric care. But Kim was a master manipulator, and Amanda was blunt and to the point and sometimes spoke first and then thought later.
If only she could emulate Kim now, talk to her, get tips and advice on how she could escape this confinement. She swallowed the bitterness and hurt at the thought of her sister—growing up, she had visited Kim in the hospital every time she had been inpatient. A foolish part of Amanda had hoped that Kim would do the same for her, now that she was in the same situation. That her sister, on the run from the law, consumed with drugs and sex and her own dark impulses, would know to come and see her. So far, though, Amanda's only visitor had been Liv.
Liv. Amanda's heart sped up as soon she thought of her Sergeant, quickened by both angry distrust and a longing to see her. Deep inside, she resented Olivia for in many ways saving her life, for insisting that she be admitted to the hospital. Yet, at the same time, she craved Liv's kindness and her company, her comfort. It was something she wanted as much as she might want gambling, or alcohol, or cigarettes- and she was terrified. What if her desire for Liv was just as dangerous? This was something she had never experienced before. She had always been fiercely independent, perfectly fine being on her own.
Amanda stopped pacing to lean against the wall outside another patient's room, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. Anyway, she doubted she'd see Olivia today, for visiting hour. Sundays were Olivia's day with Noah, the only full day she got with her son, and even then, she sometimes got called in for a case and had to contact Lucy. It was the nature of being Sergeant. Amanda resigned herself to a day of isolation and resumed her path around the unit.
Olivia didn't come to visiting hour, but she did call later that afternoon. Amanda took the payphone receiver from nurse Tanya, her heart hammering in her chest. "Liv?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
"Hey Amanda, how you holding up?"
"Not great," Amanda said honestly. "I can't sit still."
"Your breathing sounds heavy. Do you feel anxious? Maybe there's something they could give you to help you calm down."
The comment offended and angered Amanda, even though she had accepted Ativan the night before, after her nightmare. "I'm not some mental case that needs medication, Olivia," she snapped.
"Amanda. That's not what I said," Olivia admonished. "I'm just suggesting that you take care of yourself, that you ask the nurses and the doctors for help if you aren't feeling well."
"I'm only not feeling well because I'm trapped here."
Olivia didn't reply, and silence stretched between them on the line. Amanda gripped the receiver, which was quickly growing slick with sweat. "Why did you call?" she demanded, her voice quivering with emotion.
"I wanted to see how you were," Liv said softly.
"I don't need you to check up on me."
"Okay, Amanda. Alright. You're obviously angry right now. I get that. But, I think maybe it makes sense for us to talk later, when you've gotten ahold of yourself," Liv said. Amanda could hear a twinge of hurt in her voice.
"What's going on with Mackey and the trial?" Amanda burst out, unbidden. She didn't know she was going to ask the question until it left her mouth. Since her nightmare about Professor Mackey and Patton the night before, she had deliberately forced the thought of either of the two men from her mind, but suddenly they were all she could think about. "I haven't seen anything more on the news. How many more victims have come forward?"
"I'm not discussing the trial with you," Olivia said firmly. "You're in the hospital."
"Why the hell does that matter?" Amanda shot back.
"I told you I'm not having this discussion. I need to go, Amanda. I was called into the precinct, so I missed half my day with Noah. I don't have the time to argue with you. I need to get home to my son."
Amanda swelled with rage. "So you're not going to tell me any information. How many girls did that bastard call into his office for sex?" Amanda pressed. Her heart banged in her chest. "How many, Liv? Will you even tell me that much? How many lives were ruined? This was my case, too. I have every right to know."
"And I have every reason not to talk about this case with you, Amanda!" Olivia exclaimed, exasperated. "You worked this case and then went home with plans to put a gun to your head!"
Amanda breathed in so sharply that she made a whistling sound into the phone. I did put the gun to my head, she wanted to say, but she had lost her ability to speak.
She heard a long, heavy sigh on the other end of the line. "I'm so sorry you're going through this, Amanda. I really am. But I can't have you involved in cases right now, not in the state you're in, not before you're ready. It wouldn't be right as your commanding officer. It wouldn't be right of me as your friend."
Tears dribbled down Amanda's cheeks. "We're not friends," she choked out, and then slammed down the receiver.
Amanda lay on her back, silent, back in her room with Katie. But though her body was still, her mind was reeling. She knew what her future held, now. It was clear that when she got released from the hospital, she would not have a job for a long time. Liv would not let her work cases—would not even talk cases with her. Her time without work, without purpose, was indefinite. And, she was alone. Olivia Benson was out of her life.
Amanda evaluated what she would do next. Step one, get out of the hospital tomorrow. Step 2-Step 2 she had to think more about. One idea was to take to the road, to drive clear out of New York and head South, in search of her sister. She could pack up everything she owned into her little Sedan. Frannie would ride in the passenger seat, and they would live out of motel rooms and subsist on cheap fast food and travel the country seeking out Kim. But then her chest tightened, because she knew her sister didn't want to be found. Her sister had cleared out her apartment, stolen everything she had owned, and been on the run for months.
It wasn't the first time she had run from Amanda, either. The first time was when Kim was 15 and Amanda had just turned 21. Kim loved to drink and smoke cigarettes in the back of a pickup truck with two neighborhood boys, and now that her big sister was legal to buy alcohol, she was determined to have Amanda go to the liquor store for her, so that she could impress the boys with a case of beer. Amanda refused, the two fought, and Kim had screamed and raged then threatened to go to the railroad tracks a mile from their house and jump in front of a train. She tore outside and sprinted through the field behind their house, Amanda in pursuit, arms pumping wildly as she chased her sister through the tall grass, ears straining for the whistle of the train, desperate to grab her before she reached the tracks.
As Amanda re-played this moment in her head, the memory suddenly warped into an idea. She wondered what it would be like to throw herself in front of the train at Grand Central Station. She wouldn't have her gun when she got out of the hospital—Olivia had seen to that. But, she could drink a lot of alcohol till she was calm and numb, and then leap out onto the tracks at just the right moment. Never mind what happened to her body—she likely wouldn't feel much, would she? The train would obliterate her.
Amanda had her Step 2.
