Chapter Twenty-Nine: Angels Afraid to Fly
I was still numb by the time we got home. Casey managed to get me to sit on the couch, but from there, I was unwilling to move. At some point, Casey handed me a cup of tea, and I considered her with caution. She never stopped amazing me. We had rearranged the entire apartment in such a manner as to make her life easier. The teas were on a specific shelf in a specific cabinet with specific markers indicating which one was which. Her ability to adapt was amazing. I wished I was like her. Instead, though, I was like me, and me had just lost my father. I did not want to be me in that moment. I really just did not.
"Drink it," Casey eventually commanded. "It will help you to relax. Do you want to talk?" I felt her hand on my leg, a supportive gesture at its root. I leaned against her, wanting close contact and not trusting my voice. I shook my head. "Okay. Do you want to be here in silence?" Again, I shook my head. It was everything I could do to not cry. "Can I talk?"
I nodded my head, unsure of what I expected her to say. She shifted on the couch, her hands covering mine on the cup. Gently, she took the cup from my hands and set it down on the table, her hands returning to cover mine, rubbing over my arms as she sought out my fingers. "Alex, I need you to know that I love you. More than anything, sweetie, I love you."
"I love you, too," I whispered.
"Your dad loved you, too," she said, her voice soft and uncertain, as if she was unsure of how I would react. Her worry made me smile. I loved that she was always so worried about everyone around her, and it was one of those things that made me secretly happy that most of her energy was spent on me. It might have been selfish, but in that moment, I needed to be. I wrapped my arms around her, my head on her shoulder. She stroked her fingers through my hair, finding all of the tangles and bobby pins that had been in there from earlier in the day. She gently pulled them out, one at a time.
"I know," I finally murmured, almost fifteen minutes of silence later. "I love him, too. I know I told you I was not particularly close to him, and I guess I wasn't. I regret that. I wish I had tried to get closer, to know him better, especially after WitSec. He worked a lot while I was growing up, but I've learned that he did it for me."
She said nothing, continuing to comb my hair with her fingers. The pins were all out, and she had worked through most of the tangles, so having her repeatedly stroke my hair wound up being very soothing. "When I came to live with them, I was terrified. They were told that I would need almost daily counseling for quite some time until I built up the coping skills to deal with what had happened and move into weekly counseling. Those first few months while they were still my foster parents, it was my mother who worked and my father who stayed home with us foster kids. In the end, it was just me and him at home because the other foster kids went to adoptive homes or their previous homes, and they didn't want to take anyone else in until I was okay. We were really close then. I was afraid at first because of my experiences with my own father, but he was really good to me. I was so upset and hateful when he went back to work after I was adopted. He couldn't stay with me like he had been, and I felt betrayed. I'm afraid I never really got over that feeling. I never really tried to reconnect."
Casey tucked my hair behind my ear. "I'm sure he knew," she mused. "Parents have a funny way of knowing us, even when we don't think that they do. And, even though you were adopted, Alex, your adoptive parents chose you for a reason. Of all of their foster children, you were the only one they ever adopted. They knew how special you were, and how special you would become."
I smiled softly, kissing her neck. "You always say the right things," I murmured. I kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry, but I think I just want to go to bed."
"Can I hold you?" she asked me.
"I'd like that," I whispered, a sob choking me as I tried to swallow it.
That night, I cried myself to sleep with Casey's arms around me and her face pressed into my back. I felt so bad that I was the one breaking down, but I could not let go of her hand. My world was becoming a larger and more lonely place.
The days following my father's death were a whirlwind for me. Casey's levelheadedness was my saving grace during that first week. I had told my uncle that I wanted to handle his funeral and wake. My mind frame was not quite in the right place for it, but I knew I would regret allowing someone else to do it. Casey helped so much, making phone calls and talking on the phone with the funeral home.
In speaking with my uncle, we decided against a viewing, and we opted to bury him right next to my mother. During those days of planning, members of his family called and wished their sympathies. They were all people that I knew and had known the majority of my life, but, as with all things in the Cabot household, we were not close. I was a little surprised to receive phone calls from both Jenna and Darren who were both retired. I had not realized that I had been remembered by them. I had just figured that I remembered them because, growing up, I had been so close to them. But, they were just doing a job. I had always wondered, and that gave me the answer.
Jenna and I talked for several hours, and that helped me immensely. I could not begin to be grateful for my supportive friends and family. Casey held me in bed when I could not sleep and snuggled close to me in the mornings when I felt the most lonely. I enjoyed holding on to her as well. I think it was something we both needed.
I woke to Casey stroking my hair the Saturday of my father's funeral. "Good morning, beautiful," she whispered.
Leaning up, I caught her lips against mine. "Good morning, Firefly," I mumbled into her mouth. I grazed the backs of my fingers against her neck and cheek. Carefully, I touched her lips, my own eyes fluttering closed. "Don't move." She nodded, and I traced her face with my fingers the way she so often traced mine. I breathed in her scent, leaning up to kiss her again, both of us going by touch, scent, and memory. It made me smile to think how well we had both come to know each other. I still relied heavily on my eye sight, but the fact that she knew me by the way I breathed was just impressive.
"Thank you," I breathed, tucking her hair behind her ear as I opened my eyes. "Thank you for everything, baby. I couldn't get through this all without you." I hugged her, holding her against me. She wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my neck.
"I love you, Alex," she said, twisting and resting her head on my shoulder. "You never have to be alone, not with me here."
"I know," I purred, pulling her into my lap as I sat up. "I know. You've got my back, baby. I know. And, I've got yours." She lay in my arms for a good hour. We were always so comfortable with each other. It made me smile to think how far we had come when I had tried so hard to hate her. It was so strange for me to think that I had ever felt anything other than the ridiculous, head over heels, teenaged love.
Casey sat up, kissing my cheek. "We should get up, baby."
I nodded. In a few hours, we would be burying my father. The medical examiner had released his body a couple of days ago, and Casey and my uncle had helped me organize a funeral. I had no idea how to do any of it, and I could not keep myself together enough to make the arrangements. I had made all of the phone calls advising his family and friends of the funeral, and a decent number of them stopped by to say their respects. I barely managed to speak, and only then with my fingers white around the podium as I squeezed tightly to the wood. All of my years in the court room had not prepared me for this. It was something that my uncle had wanted me to do, and I wanted as well. The man had taken care of me when I was more than just a little alone in the world.
He had soothed my nightmares those first few months after the shooting. He had held me close when I screamed. He had done more for me than I had ever expected from an adult. Him and my adoptive mother. As an adult now, I was grateful for everything they had endured with me. I had not been an easy child, and I had been even worse of a teen. I had sometimes wondered growing up if they would send me back with the social worker, if an adoption could be undone. As an attorney, I knew it was possible, and I knew all too often the dreadful statistics of adoptive parents turning down an unruly child. What foster child was not unruly, though? I knew my trauma had been damaging. And, my trauma was mild compared to things I had seen in Special Victims. Yet, he had dealt with it, never treating me as less than his biological daughter. It was meaningful to me to speak.
I had turned over the reception to Casey. We were hosting it at one of my dad's favorite restaurants, but considering how sheltered I had been from anyone I knew dying my entire life, I had no idea how to handle any of it.
I could not be more grateful of my wife, her family, and my own uncle because without them, I would have been lost. I was numb through his funeral, Casey's hand tight in mine. I was even numb at the reception, unable to eat. Casey forced me to drink water, but I didn't bother to make the necessary effort. It suddenly felt like my father's funeral was practice for the rest of my life. As long as I loved people, until the day I died, I would always have to accept that people would die before me. Unless I died first, I would be burying a lot more people the rest of my life, and that morbid thought just would not leave me alone.
Exhausted, I lay against Casey, the detectives with us at the bar after the reception cleared up. We had occupied a booth in the bar, a pitcher of beer between the detectives and Casey and I with all the soda we could stomach. I might have gone for a drink, but it had been so long since I consumed alcohol that it just did not seem appealing any longer. I sipped my Coke, happy to lay against my wife after a long day. Her arm fit perfectly around me, and it kept me grounded in the world of the living.
I felt her fingers trace my forearm in tiny circles, and I leaned up against her, kissing her cheek. "You know, Alex," Olivia said, "the way you talked about him supporting you, about going for Special Victims to give people the same treatment he gave you – I mean, Alex, if you ever want to come back, we'd be happy to have you."
I smiled. "Thank you. I'm happy where I am now, though. I've got everything in the world I want." I rubbed Casey's arm and squeezed her hand. "I think I'll sit the legal practice out for a little while longer."
"That's right," Fin teased. "You two still have your honeymoon phase to get through. Give it time, you'll both want back into the deep end of the pool."
Casey flushed, her head bowing. I pressed my lips together. "I, um, I lost my law license," Casey replied, her voice quiet. "The Bar said I couldn't practice anymore."
"There are blind attorneys," Amanda chirped, her brow furrowed.
"It's not the vision thing," Casey answered, pushing her hair behind her ear. "Um, there's other stuff going on that prohibit me from keeping my license. My, uh, my head's not where it used to be."
"Fair enough," Olivia said. "That's completely understandable. Besides, someone has to have the full time occupation of keeping Cabot together."
I snickered. Casey grinned brightly. She came alive for just that moment. "Yea. She'd be a mess without it."
"I don't know how I did it before I met you," I teased.
"You weren't in love before you met me," Casey shot back. "Love does funny things."
"Aw," Nick teased with a grin. "You two are too damn cute. Who the hell would have thought that Cabot and Novak could be such softies?"
I gave him a classic Cabot smirk, wrinkling my nose. "You're just jealous, Amaro," I purred, carefully running the back of my calf up his leg as I bit my lower lip. "You didn't ask this out while you had the chance."
"Oh," Fin said as Nick flushed bright red. "She got you."
I laughed, leaning against Casey, kissing her cheek. "Amaro's a brighter shade of red than I have ever seen, he might even be brighter than you at your most," I murmured into her ear. She grinned, laughing. Even though she did not see anything around her, her eyes still lit up. The doctors said that it would be several months before the white clouds completely overtook her eyes, diminishing the light reflected out of them.
That seemed to lighten the mood which helped me out considering the nature of the day. It seemed to help Casey, too, who had been looking burdened since our wedding night. Of course, she was trying to keep my head above water while she was swimming as well. We chattered with the detectives, talking about life as well as old cases and current cases. It did not miss the detectives that they had two people qualified to advise on legal matters. Casey may have been without the bar license, but as long as I did not disagree with her, I could always go on the whole bit about how there was an attorney present who agreed.
I knew I appreciated the case talk, and I was fairly certain Casey appreciated it as well. For me, it made me feel human again. If the tiny smiles flickering over Casey's lips and the press of her fingers on my arm were any indication, I thought it made her feel human again as well. It was amazing how much it meant to be valued for something that a person could do instead of having the detectives worrying over her medical condition or my grief. They meant well, but Casey and I were a lot alike, a lot more alike than I had first realized. We valued being valued, being able to do something for those around us. The detectives. The victims. The witnesses. The potential victims. Ourselves.
That night, though, when we were alone, Casey with her head on my stomach, both of us listening quietly to the radio, Casey took my hand in hers, playing with my fingers. If it were anyone else, I would have thought it absent minded, but with Casey it usually meant so much more. Generally, she wanted to talk, and I had no idea what she might want to say that cost so much preamble. "Alex," she whispered.
"What, baby?" I asked.
She licked her lips, and I instantly knew it was hard for her to say what she wanted to say. I sat up straighter and she knelt beside me on the couch, drawing a pillow to her chest as she bit her lower lip. "It's okay, Casey, you can tell me anything."
"I want you to make me a promise," she said, her words slow, filled with effort.
"What do you want me to promise?" I asked when it sounded like she was not going to continue without prompting. I reached over and took the pillow from her, drawing her to me. She moved stiffly into my arms, her fingers tracing along my neck as she seemed to consider what she was going to say. "Casey, you can say anything, honey. I promise you that much."
When she glanced up at me, though, there were tears in her eyes, and she seemed to be fighting them. "Alex, today, you were so passionate about how supportive your dad was in your legal career. And, when we were talking with the detectives about their cases, you lit up. I feel like I'm not doing anything but taking you away from that."
I opened my mouth to protest, but she seemed to have been expecting it because she placed two fingers over my lips. "I'm not going to argue about it. If I weren't so sickly, we would both still be practicing law." She was right, but I did not want her to think badly of herself because of it. She could not help being sick. "When I die, though, Alex, I want you to go back to law. It's who you are. It's so strongly a part of you, and I am blessed that you've put your career on hold for me, but I don't want you to abandon your career when I'm no longer a burden."
"You're not a burden, Casey," I murmured, taking her two fingers in mine and kissing them before I set them in my lap. "I am so grateful to be in the position where I can be here with you during the day, and it's not because you are or are not sick. It's because I want to be able to be with you and go places with you. I got lucky in that I can afford to do what I want and not what I have to do, Casey. And, what I want is to be here, with you."
"But, when I'm not here," Casey pressed, ever relentless, "what then? I don't want you to be here alone. There are cases that could use your expertise and your experience handling them. You love being a part of a case, Alex. You can't tell me that you don't. Yes, I want you all to myself while I'm alive. And, I could not tell you how much it means to me that you're so ready and willing to help take care of me, especially when I'm just too sick to care for myself. But, when I'm gone, I want you to go back to your passions."
"I can do that on one condition," I finally answered. She gave me an expectant look, as though I were about to burst her bubble. "You stop thinking that I somehow left what I was passionate about to be here with you. I am very passionate about being here not only for but with you. This is something I want to do, Casey. You did not take me from it or anything else in my life. Yes, there's a high likelihood that we would both still be practicing law if you weren't sick, but we wouldn't both be able to prosecute SVU. We'd be lucky if Branch let either of us prosecute SVU after dating behind his back while I was supervising the unit. I'd most certainly be demoted. You'd be stuck in misdo court for a year as punishment, and we both know he'd do it, too. I miss it there, yes. But, I don't regret leaving, not for a heartbeat, Casey. The cases were blurring together. Victims were starting to look the same and sound the same and be the same, and that was dangerous not just for me and my career but for their cases and the interests of justice and the law. I would have reached that point, Casey, whether or not you were ill. I would have left for the integrity of the cases regardless of our status as a couple or your illness or anything going on in my life. I needed the space. That I have a cute wife to spend my time with while I'm getting that space is a serious bonus, Casey, not a burden."
She smiled softly. "I'll try, Alex, but it's hard. I look at where your life was before I made you start socializing with me and where it is now, and I can't help but to think that -"
I cut her off, my thumb between her teeth, fingers curled under her jaw to deter her from speaking. "I made that choice, Casey, not you. You put out the invitation, I just responded. No, I did not think we would be happily married at any point along the way, but I am as guilty of getting us here as you are. And, you know what? I'm glad to be your co-conspirator in this. As difficult as it is to acknowledge that you have not taken anything from my life, much less anything that I would not be willing to give, you have not detracted in any way my ability to live the life I want to live. It's the little things, every day, that make me grateful for where we are, and I know we've both been handed a lot to deal with, especially these last few months, that are unexpectedly stressful, but don't apologize for something that was not done wrong."
"I can work on it," she murmured, kissing my cheek before she cuddled against me, wrapping my arm over her shoulder and playing with my fingers. This time, it was significantly more absent minded and less like she wanted to say something that was difficult. We had talked, briefly, about her death. I had proof-read her will as well as her living will. She had made me power of attorney a long time ago, and that included her medical power of attorney. I hated the idea that, one day, the decision to medically intervene in her life may rest in my hands, but I knew it was important for her. For a woman who had been told all her life that she did not have much time to live, there were days when I thought Casey would outlive me.
But, she had been honest when she had told the detectives that she could not practice law. If it were merely her eyesight, the ABA might have still let her practice depending on her braille reading ability and the area of law she wanted to practice in. Most likely, she would not have been allowed in a court room, but a corporate style paycheque could have been her direction. What had been the stake in her career had been those irrevocable moments when she was quite literally not there. The doctors had said her spaciness was due to a blood flow issue that had cropped up with her eye sight degenerating. Her body was quite literally not getting enough oxygen in the blood stream to appropriately circulate it. Occasionally, that meant my already spacey Casey spaced out even more. It made for a very cold Casey in sometimes warm environments and a very, very cold Casey when it was truly cold out and was the second major sign that her body was starting to shut itself down.
I understood why it was much more painful for her to talk about death and dying after our marriage and not before. Mortality was settling in. She had always been the girl that defied the odds, and now, the odds were catching up to her. She still had that treatment available to her, but every day she did not take it was a day that propelled her closer to death. The downside was that if her body rejected the new marrow or any part of the treatment, then she was not just back at square one. Even if she had taken the treatment a year before, or even the two years before when it had become available under clinical trial, if she had rejected it, she would be in much worse shape. At this point in her life, rejection of the treatment would sign her death warrant. I knew then, once she had sat me down and explained it to me with medical websites and pamphlets from her doctor why she had so stubbornly refused it. She would rather take a slow but sure death over an unknown and possibly immediate one. It was a fine ratio she had to try to balance. Had the treatment been available to her as a child, she would likely have lived a normal life. As it was, would taking the treatment propel or diminish the rate at which she approached her own demise – no one knew. And, that, well, that was the most frightening part of all.
I had just buried my father. I was not yet ready to do the same to my wife.
