So I'm back from the greatest city in the whole wide world! I had a great trip even though SVU wasn't filming. Oh, well. Thanks for all the reviews and enjoy the next chapter!
Sometimes, Alex had to resist the overwhelming urge to call Olivia's apartment during the day, when she knew Olivia wouldn't be there, just to hear Olivia's voice on the answering machine. She thought about it often – she could press *67. It would block her number. She could call from a pay phone. She could call from a friend's cell phone. Ugh, who was she kidding – what friend? It had been months and she still hadn't made even one.
But it would be too dangerous. Because she knew that if she called once, she wouldn't be able to stop.
One day, she got home from work with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Today was just one of those days. She thought of the man who'd tried to kill her and all of a sudden, she wished he'd succeeded.
She couldn't help herself. Before she knew it, she'd dialed her old phone number, and she couldn't stop the tears when she heard her own voice over the telephone, saying brightly, "You've reached Alex, Olivia, and Joshua. If you have something important to say, say it after the beep. If you don't, then hang up and don't call back."
It had been months, and Olivia still hadn't changed the message on the answering machine.
She climbed into bed even sadder than she had been a few hours ago. It was dark, and she hated the dark. In New York, there were always lights that flickered on the street, from the streetlamps and police cars that drove around the city at all hours. The city lit up at night. In Wisconsin, she had to buy a nightlight, to make her feel better.
It was also silent. In New York, it had never been silent. There was the whir of sirens, fire trucks and police cars and ambulances and so on. There were the shouts of drunken bums and teenagers, and even from her apartment, she could hear the music blaring a few floors up, the pounding of sneakers hitting gravel, circling the city at all hours. New York, the city that never sleeps.
The silence bothered her, more than anything. The noise made her feel alive, even the sound from the television she kept on so she could pretend that someone was here with her. The first night, before she got the television for her bedroom, it had been as silent as her own grave, and she couldn't sleep. She'd pattered into the living room and slept on the couch so she could turn on the television. She flipped channels until she finally found the news, and she almost cried when, live from New York, they reported that a serial rapist had been convicted. Pictures flashed on the screen, one of Olivia and Elliot dragging this monster into a police car, a slim woman with flaming red hair and pasty skin following behind them. Alex balled her hands into fists when she realized this must be her replacement. She hated the woman already. In that picture, she was so thin, so pale that she looked like the living dead. How ironic.
She went out the next day and, against her better judgment, bought a DVR. She set it so that it would record every channel that had anything to do with New York, just in case she could catch a glimpse of Olivia. She watched every day, for three or four hours, but she never saw Olivia again. Not once.
The next day at school – it still seemed weird to say that – the principal wanted to talk to her before school. "What have I done now?" she muttered to herself. She couldn't for the life of her figure it out.
She sat down across from him, crossing one leg primly over the other, and waited. He was a pudgy man with a weak chin and eyes the wrong shade of brown, and he wore a suit and tie every day, which she thought was odd considering he worked with children who couldn't care less whether he dressed up or came to school in jogging sweats. My old boss could crush you like an ant, she thought to herself, and the notion made her smile to herself.
"What's this about?" she asked, her voice coming out funny. She cleared her throat and said it again, then waited.
"Matthew Bainer."
"What about him?" Even as she asked the question, she had a feeling she already knew the answer. This was what her life had come to.
He cleared his throat. "He's in the hospital. He was asking for you. I told him that it wouldn't be proper for you to –"
She didn't care what was proper or even what (he thought) was right. She grabbed her purse and was out the door before he'd even finished his sentence.
He was lying in a hospital bed, looking so small and pitiful that Alex wanted to hug him, and then she did, because he reminded her so much of her son. His face lit up when he saw her and he said, "Thank you for coming."
She smiled back, but the smile didn't meet her eyes. She smoothed out his sheets, an instinctive gesture. It was so meaningless in one way, and so comforting in another. And suddenly, she had the overpowering urge to confess to this six-year-old little boy that she was not who he thought she was. Her name wasn't Emily Jennings and she wasn't even really a teacher, just like she wasn't the hero she knew he fancied her to be. She knew because the look in his eyes was the look of reverence that she'd seen on child vics whenever they looked at Olivia, and she was almost proud of herself, and then she wasn't, because she knew she was not this child's champion.
She couldn't tell him.
"What happened, Matthew?" she asked gently, taking in the bruises that marred the ashen skin of his neck. The burns on his upper right arm that the hospital gown didn't cover. Cigarette burns. She cursed herself for asking a question she already knew the answer to and amended her words. "How did it happen?" Her real question was how the police officers had let it happen, even as she knew in the back of her mind that not all police officers were like Olivia and even Olivia made mistakes.
Matthew shrugged and looked at his hands. Then he met her gaze, accusations clear in his emerald eyes. "You said nothing bad would happen to me. You said they would help."
And suddenly, Alex didn't know what to say. She had never been good at this, finding the right words of comfort. She was always quick with a witty retort to a scumbag defense attorney, but when it came to using words for consolation, she was at a loss. She wished Olivia was here with her, to help this little boy. And her.
She realized she was using Matthew as a surrogate Joshua, and she knew that she shouldn't. But she could hardly help herself.
She knew better than to ask him anything more, and her heart constricted when she realized that there was no one else who was there for this little boy except for his teacher, who wasn't even really his teacher. She wondered vaguely where his father was. She wondered vaguely whether he knew. She wondered vaguely whether she should call him and tell him.
She discarded each idea.
Alex waited until he fell asleep, and she didn't touch him, rub his back or take him into her arms because it wouldn't have been appropriate and it wouldn't have been right and this was what she had meant, months – years – ago when she told Olivia that they were all special, really. She couldn't get too close to this little boy. It would have been the least ethical thing on the planet and she would lose her job.
Why did she even care?
Matthew wasn't Joshua. He wasn't.
And suddenly, the tiny hospital room with walls the color of vomit felt suffocating. The walls were closing in on her and she had to escape. She burst from the room and took the elevator up to the roof.
She'd always loved being on the roof, watching from above, when she could see people but they couldn't see her. Tiny specks on the pavement, and way back when she'd used to sit on the roof of the precinct with Olivia, they'd looked down and she'd tried to tell who was who. Some were victims, some were perps, some were witnesses, and the rest didn't matter. It always amazed her how the monsters blended right in.
She could do it, she thought as she stared at the ground from thirty stories up, maybe more. It would be so easy.
She walked right to the edge and stared down. Determination lighting her face, she watched the almost imperceptible flecks of color marring the gravel. And didn't jump.
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