Look! It didn't take me months to update this time. Thanks to the new followers/favourites on this story. Leave a review and tell me what you think? Here's chapter 12 and it includes one of my favourite episodes from season 17. Hope you enjoy it! N
Chapter Twelve – The Incident
Annabelle knocked on the black door leading to the brownstone, where she heard a slight scuffle before it opened a small amount, "Morning Mrs. C, I think I left my tablet here last night."
"It's not here."
"Are you sure? This was the last place I remember using it, and it wasn't at the house at all."
She noticed Mrs. Crivello tense up at the muffled sound behind the door, before speaking again, "Why don't you come in and look for it?"
She nodded as she started to walk through the door, "Thanks. I have class this morning, or I wouldn't even worry about it." A surprised squeak left her lips as she was suddenly slammed against the now closed door.
"Another sound and I'll blow a hole right through your face." Green eyes surveyed the room as she took in the two guns pointed in her direction. "Who are you?" She stayed silent, eyes fearfully locked on the gun next to her face. "Answer me!"
She jumped, "Anna," she cleared her throat, "Annabelle. I'm Tess's tutor."
"Did you call the cops?" His breath was no longer hitting her face, so she knew that question was not directed at her, until she was pulled from the door and slammed against it harder than before, "Are you cop?"
"What? No. I just came to get my tablet before I went to class."
"You better not be lying to me."
"I'm not! You can check. I…I don't have a gun. Or badge."
"I plan on it." She tensed as his hands roughly roamed her body, before he pulled the cell phone from her back pocket. "Rox, tie her up. Stick her with the kid."
-xXx-
"Belle?" The redhead was brought out of her thoughts at the sound of the child's voice. "I hafta pee."
She bit her lip as she thought of what to reply, "help will be here soon. Okay? It's all gonna be okay, Luca." Annabelle tensed as she heard footsteps before the door was pushed open more, her eyes widening at the sight of Olivia Benson.
The new-found silence was broken by the sound of a text notification from the phone in Joe's hand. "Hey, they caught your rapist. We should celebrate, huh. Who's up for a party?"
"Don't, Joe."
He ignored her pulling out a knife, and pointing it at the people in the room, "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, hoe." Benson's protests were ignored as Joe began to pull a struggling Tess from the room. The only reply the lieutenant was given was a sharp jab to the face courtesy of Roxie.
Each sound coming from the next room made Annabelle flinch a little harder, especially when Luca began screaming for them to make it stop. Benson was working on convincing Roxie to untie them, while Annabelle was trying to mumble reassurances to the little boy in-between her own flinches. She froze as the knife came into her view. "Keep him quiet." Soon she was stuck watching Liv calm Luca down, before he cuddled into her side, Annabelle's arms wrapping around him in what she hoped was a comforting position.
Joe soon brought Tess back in and Annabelle could not even look at her, feeling complete guilt that she didn't at least try to do something to stop it. She caught Liv's eyes as Roxie's phone rang and their captures held a conversation with the third. She smirked when she heard Mrs. C's protests against doing what they wanted. The doorbell rang the moment after they hung up. "Let me answer me. Whoever it is, I will get rid of them."
"No, no, no. She goes!" Joe locked eyes with Annabelle before pointing a gun at Luca's head, "You love them, right?" He didn't get her a chance to even reply before he continued, "one wrong move and it's lights out for the kiddies. You get it?"
Another doorbell rang as she was walking up to it. Opening it, her eyes widened at the sight of Fin and Carisi. "Can I help you?"
"We're with the New York Board of Ed. Truant Officers. Tess and Luca weren't at school today."
"Oh. They're sick. I'm…babysitting. They should be better in TWO days or so. I gotta go." She shot the detectives a panicked look before shutting the door tightly.
Once back in Luca's room, Joe grabbed her face, "what the hell did you say to them?"
"Nothing! I mean, that I was babysitting. They were from the school."
"Bullshit!" She heard the smack of the gun to her face before she felt the pain beginning to radiate across her jaw. "They were cops! What the hell did you tell them?"
"Just that the kids were sick! That they'd be back in a couple of days!"
"They may have figured out that I'm here. So, their next move is to call for backup. Now is the time for you guys to go."
"You just need to stop talking." Annabelle wiped the sleeve of her long-sleeved shirt across her bottom lip, getting rid of the blood that had accumulated there while she watched Olivia try to get the two to leave.
The tense silence that had enveloped the room as police cars showed up was broken by Joe's sudden revelation.
"You're gonna call them and tell them to stand down."
"They won't, Joe."
"Oh? You don't think I'm serious. How about I shove this gun down her throat?" Annabelle tried to stay still as the gun was pressed against her lips, although a traitorous tear slipped from on of her eyes. "Open your mouth, whore!"
"Okay, okay. No need for that. Give me my phone, I'm gonna call my sergeant."
"Speaker on. No secrets."
Annabelle kept her eyes focused on Luca's terrified ones as the phone conversation went down. "We're moving downstairs. You," Annabelle closed her eyes when the barrel of the gun pressed against her chest, "will take care of the kid.
They had a barricade set up in the living room before Captain Tucker made the first call. Because he can fly? Yeah, he's gonna fly off the top of this house if Benson gets the chance to do it.
"How about I don't shoot them this second?!" A few seconds later and the phone call was ended.
Now or never. "Joe?"
"WHAT!"
"What if you let Mr. C and the kids go? They are no use to you. You have Liv. And me. I'll stay."
"Oh, you'll stay, will you?"
She nodded, knowing that she would have been a horrible cop, because she didn't know what the heck she was trying to propose. "Kids get whiney and annoying. Olivia and I will do as you say. Less baggage?"
He didn't reply. She bit her lip as she looked away, towards the window, staring at the small sliver of light revealed by the gap in the blinds. She jumped when Joe screamed something and punched the back of her chair, barely containing the scream lodged in her throat. Her eyes tried to focus on the phone when it was shoved in her face, "he really thinks Ralph should be in here."
"We're not allowed to let civilians inside." She stared down at the phone, wondering if she could pull anything while Joe was distracted by Liv, but giving up on it and allowing her fate to stay in Tucker's hands.
"Let's make another deal. We'll give you the fifty thousand that Ralph got, and you send the kids out."
Annabelle looked over at Joe, wishing she had better vision, and that she didn't need the glasses that were currently hanging from the top of her shirt, the swelling of her left eye bad enough that they would not stay on properly.
"Okay. Joe said he would send one person out."
-xXx-
"Get him out of here." Annabelle stood as Dodds and another police officer spoke to Joe in the doorway, in their underwear, as she slowly ran her hands through Luca's sweaty hair, wondering what she had done to warrant being allowed to have her hands free while everyone else, including Luca hand theirs tied. "Take the girl, too." Dodds started to reach for the redhead, "No! She stays." Tess gave out a fearful sound before walking towards the door, slowly, as if Joe would change his mind. "Wait, the vests. Take them off."
Olivia put the vest on Roxie as Joe walked towards the kitchen, before the woman slowly left the safety of the house and made her way to the requested car.
It wasn't until Joe began yelling that she realized that Roxie had given up, as he stuck the gun in Liv's face, she pressed Luca's head to her chest, whispering for his to close his eyes and not look, as she was afraid of what he would see, either from Joe or Liv. He whimpered as he grabbed the lieutenant by the hair and threw her onto the empty couch.
Benson's words were interrupted by the ringing of her phone, this time when he answered, Joe did not put it on speaker. "No, we're all going out of here together and if anything happens, everyone's gonna die with me. End of negotiations." "Fine. When I get into the car. I'll give you the boy, but I'm keeping my girls."
Joe made Olivia stand in the middle between Annabelle and Luca, the trio all holding hands as he kept his gun pointed at the back of Olivia's head. When he screamed, Luca's grip tightened on Annabelle's hand. "Joe, we don't really need them anymore, right? You keep your gun on me. Why don't we let them go? And just make it about you and me Joe. I'm all you need. You and me."
"Go. Go."
"He's letting them both go." Annabelle went behind the man, before putting herself between him and Luca and began guiding him as fast as possible towards the squad she had come to love.
When the sound of the gun went off, she threw herself over Luca as he fell to the ground, unsure if he had been shot or just fell out of fear. "you're okay." She noticed police heading towards Joe and Liv, so she quickly helped the seven-year-old up, before releasing him to his mother as paramedics came towards her. "I'm fine."
"You're getting checked out."
She flipped her head in the direction of the voice, before wrapping her arms about the man in the tan coat. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm the A.D.A. The real question is, what were you doing here?"
"Accident. Is Olivia okay?"
"Mhm. Cariño, let's get you checked out."
-xXx-
"Where are you?"
"At work. It's Wednesday."
"The doctor's told you to take two weeks off."
"Well, it's been five days. I have deadlines."
"You have a concussion."
"Rafael, I am fine. Don't worry so much."
"Someone has to worry about you." Annabelle just sighed, rubbing at her temples. "Don't forget mami is coming by for dinner tonight."
"I won't. I'll be home by 6." She noticed David walking towards her office, "I've gotta go." She hung up before he could get a reply in. "Hey, what's up?"
"Why did you not tell me you had a concussion?" She bit her lip, wincing as her teeth grazed where it was healing from the split. "You shouldn't be working."
"What's with everyone telling me that I shouldn't be doing my job? I'm fine."
"I know you are, but I would feel better if you stayed home and rested." She opened her mouth to argue, but he continued as if she didn't move, "Work from home for all I care, just rest. I can't let my best social media person be down, can I?"
She gave him a small smile before nodding and exiting out of the current program she was in after saving her progress, "alright. You win."
"I always do." She rolled her eyes as she passed, and he gave her a light smack on her bottom, "Don't make me punish you." His teasing grin took away the unease she felt at the touch. "I'll see you in two weeks. No sooner."
"The doctor said only nine more days."
"I don't care. Two weeks."
She sighed, "bye David." She didn't realize that she should have questioned how he knew about her concussion until after she had exited the building.
-xXx-
"How are you doing?" Annabelle looked up at the question, her brow furrowing in thought as she continued to absent mindedly cut her cookie dough pancakes up into smaller pieces with her fork. She eventually gave up on the words shew as trying to form and just shrugged her shoulders. "Have you thought about therapy? Barba said you haven't been sleeping."
"Neither has Rafael, obviously, if he knows my sleep schedule. Have you told him to get his head checked out?"
"Annabelle, I'm so—"
She shook her head, "don't worry about it. My bad. Seriously, I'm fine. I've just been trying to get caught up on my work."
"You've been working from home, and it's been less than two weeks."
"Yeah, I'm been doing my internship at home, but I've missed class. And two weeks away at college is like two months. I am so far behind that if I don't get caught up before Monday, there is a chance that I could fail. So, yeah I think I can go without sleep for three days just to make sure I don't fail my senior year."
"Is that the only thing that has been bothering you?"
"If you want to know if I feel like I'm going crazy because of the crap that Joe did, no. I'm fine, and I just wish everyone would quit asking me that." Olivia put her hand on top of the younger girl's, only to have her jump when her phone went off from beside her. "I've gotta go. I have a study group in a few minutes." She pulled out a couple of twenties and laid them on the table. "Thanks for the talk."
-xXx-
Leaving her final class of the day, Annabelle dialed a familiar number and held the phone to her ear, until the ringing came to an end. "Dr. Steven's office. How can I help you?"
"Hey, Sarah. Is Jake busy?"
"His last patient just left, I'll send you through."
"This is Dr. Stevens."
"It's me."
"Hey! How was your first day back?"
She sighed, before looking around and sliding down the brick wall to sit inside a semi-hidden nook, "it was okay. It felt good to be normal again."
"And?"
"And I'm glad to be back to it. I know Joe and Roxie can't do anything anymore. Roxie is in prison. And Joe's gone."
"Exactly. It was an incident that you should have been part of, but you were, and you survived. You're one of the strongest people I know. You've got this."
"I think I do." She noticed a text message come through from Rafael, "Thanks for talking me from the ledge these past couple of weeks."
"Always. I think you should tell you boyfriend though."
She grinned despite herself, "Yeah, yeah. I know. Bye."
"Love you, too."
Annabelle Stevens: Meet me for a late lunch? I need to talk to you about a few things – nothing bad. Promise.
