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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Olivia woke up to find the bed empty and the apartment quiet. She had no idea what time it was, but the early-autumn light flooding the room told her it was much later than she normally slept. She lay there a moment or two, called out Alex's name and got no response, and finally rolled over to check the clock: 9:45. She couldn't remember the last time she'd stayed in bed so long, at least not alone.

She threw a t-shirt and yoga pants over her naked body and headed into the kitchen to make coffee. She hoped that Alex was out getting breakfast. They could linger over the paper, then go for a run and have a late lunch somewhere. Olivia was planning a trip to St. Louis soon—everything they'd come up with in New York was a dead-end, and Cragen hoped that walking in the footsteps their killer had left halfway across the country might help connect some dots.

Alex was heading out of town herself in less than 24 hours, back to Washington for three days to do final prep the next case, some doctor named Rand Gordon. Her trial date was a week away, on October 7th, and even though she'd gotten a conviction on Bannon, she hadn't even allowed herself to celebrate. She seemed guarded and more than a little out of sorts, and Olivia felt like they were just going through the motions at home. Neither of them had time or energy to do much more.

By the time Liv had poured her coffee and opened up the paper on the kitchen counter, Alex came in, but she didn't look like she'd been getting croissants. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, and her face was sweaty and flushed with exertion. She stopped short when she saw Olivia.

"You're up," she remarked.

"Yeah, sorry I slept so late. You should have woken me up, babe."

Alex walked over and set her water bottle down on the table, immediately leaving a ring of condensation on the sports section, making a nearly perfect frame for Mariano Rivera's face. She leaned over and kissed Olivia on the forehead. Not exactly what I might've liked, Olivia thought, but I'll take it.

"I didn't want to wake you, honey," Alex said as she stepped into the kitchen to pour her own cup of coffee. "You've been working too hard, and not sleeping well when you do go to bed."

"Which you only notice because you're never asleep yourself," Olivia teased lightly.

"I'll be okay," Alex said. She sat down at the table and picked up the front page. "The end is in sight."

"Is it really?" Olivia asked. The attorney had said very little about these cases, because she knew Olivia was concerned, and because she now knew those concerns were wholly justified. She wasn't a good liar, not to Olivia, and not about things that mattered, so she was better off just avoiding the subject altogether.

"I think so," she said. "This case looks good. I think we'll get him, and then maybe I can turn in my DOJ consultant's badge."

"You won the last case." Olivia's tone was even, but there was no denying the question hidden in that brief sentence. You won the last case, and you're still wearing that damn badge, and still flying down to Washington every other week. What makes this one different?

Alex didn't want to touch that. It seemed like a casual observation, but she knew that any answer would lead to another question, and so on. She'd committed to Hammond that she'd finish this—she owed him—and she just needed to put her head down and get through it, so she could get her life back and stop looking over her shoulder all the time. She changed the subject. "Well, baby, we have a whole day together, if that phone of yours doesn't ring," she said. "What would you like to do?"

"I thought we'd go for a run together, and then have a huge late lunch somewhere," Olivia said. "But I see I slept through the run part."

"Oh, I didn't run," Alex said. "I drove over to SoulCycle for the 8:30 class."

"You drove to SoulCycle?" Olivia asked. "It's two blocks away, Alex."

"Yeah, I guess I wasn't thinking."

"Honey, are you okay?" Olivia was growing very concerned. Alex's behavior had grown increasingly odd, and this was just another thing on the list.

"Sure," Alex said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you never really go to spin class in the spring or fall. The weather's so great outside, you always want to run in the park. And you've never driven the car over there. Ever, not even when it was 7 degrees last winter."

"Don't interrogate me, Benson," she said. She smiled as if it might have been a joke, but there were sharp edges in her voice. She was irritated, and not hiding it well. "I was where I said I was. Wanna put surveillance on me?"

"No, Alex, I don't," Olivia said. "I wasn't interrogating you. I'm just looking out for you."

"Well, there are plenty of people doing that," Alex said, and walked out of the room toward the steps. "I'll take a shower and then we can make plans. Maybe a movie." She clearly wasn't open to further conversation, and Olivia sat there replaying the conversation, trying to make sense of it while feeling like she was reading a novel that was missing a page.

Upstairs, Alex stripped quickly and walked straight into the shower, freezing under the initial blast of cool water from above but willing to endure it to forestall any further questions if Olivia decided to follow her upstairs.

She knew her behavior was odd, and she could have explained it easily, but the truth would have sent Olivia over the edge. She was already afraid that the detective would notice the detail that was on Alex, and on their building, or that one of the doormen would see the same person loitering around one too many times and call the police. They were very protective of her, and as much as she appreciated it, right now that would be a disaster. She normally craved Olivia's company and attention, but lately she found herself glad that they were both so distracted that what little time they could manage was spent tucked up at home.

She had gotten up early and left the house quietly, so as not to wake Olivia. She hadn't been lying about her morning—she had driven to SoulCycle and she had taken the 8:30 class. But the why was the part she wasn't willing to disclose. She drove because it was safer. She went to spinning because it was safer. She changed up her routine because it was safer. That was her only concern now. Safer, safer, safer.

She had wanted to go running, really. It was a gorgeous Sunday, and they would nearly always take advantage of a day like that to run six or seven miles, and shower, and enjoy a wonderful lunch somewhere in the neighborhood, and then spend the afternoon in bed.

She couldn't run, though, not now. No one had forbidden it, of course. Just go about your normal routine, Hammond had said. But every time she thought about lacing up her shoes and heading out, she could see Tim Donovan sitting across the table, Liv on her right and Elliot on her left, while a disembodied voice on a recorder told someone when and where she liked to run. It would be a perfect opportunity to take a shot, and she knew it. Even an armed guard jogging beside her couldn't protect her in a wide open space.

She tried very hard to ignore all of this, focus all of her anger, and fear, and frustration on building a rock-solid case that would leave this guy with no options but to give her whatever she wanted. It wasn't easy. The years, and everything she'd been through, had stripped away all the bluster and bombast that had allowed her to sail so close to the wind all those years ago. Her stomach was in knots all the time, and she couldn't confide in the one person whose support she needed most.

She'd had a neighbor in Wisconsin, a private pilot, who'd told her that an airplane makes three kinds of motions in-flight: the roll, the pitch, and the yaw. The pitch and the roll don't really make anyone sick, but the yaw nauseates nearly everyone. Standing in the shower, she recalled the way he had held his hand out to demonstrate, flapping up and down from the wrist, then rolling side-to-side, thumb up and then down, and finally holding his palm down flat and moving his hand side to side, parallel to the ground.

Alex held her own hand out now, and found that it was shaking uncontrollably. She didn't like what this was doing to her, but she didn't see any way out now. There was no side door, no emergency exit, not one fucking escape hatch that she could find. She stared at her trembling fingers as salty tears mixed with the hot water running down her face.