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Chapter 22

A/N: Thank you so much for your comments and follows! I really appreciate all of you! Please feel free to drop a comment and let me know what you like about this story or any other thoughts you may have. If you would like to connect via social media, my Instagram/twitter is faceinbud.

Here is Chapter 22, which I am unofficially calling "Meet the Parents."

Trigger warnings for homophobia, internalized homophobia, mild physical violence, non-specific discussion around the rape of a child, religious trauma, and abusive parents.

I need to add both a disclaimer that I do not own SVU or its characters and a trigger warning for SVU-related topics. I will try to be more specific when necessary.

"Can you do me a favor?" Alex asked quietly as they drove along the Long Island Expressway. Liv gave her a nod and glanced at her momentarily. "I know you're angry at my parents, sweetie. I am too. But I'd like to break ties amicably if possible. If it gets ugly, I understand, but do you think you'll be able to stay calm, at least at first?"

The older woman exited the interstate, turning to Alex at a stoplight. "Baby, this is your meeting with your parents. I'm just here for moral support. I'll try not to yell at them. But I might react if they say something harmful."

The prosecutor knew she could only ask so much of her girlfriend. But she also knew this day was going to be extremely difficult and she didn't want more conflict than was necessary. Alex wasn't even sure what she planned to tell her parents, or if she wanted to confront them about everything they'd let happen to her. Nausea tore through her body at an astronomical rate; her heart pounded, and her lungs struggled to oxygenate her aching limbs. Would she regret this? "That's okay, I'd just like to try to be peaceful...at first."

When they pulled up to the house at the top of the hill, Olivia parked the car. "You grew up here?"

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Olivia shook her head, eyeing the gigantic cross on the front door and the statue of what looked to be white-washed Jesus on the porch. "I hate it already."

Cabot gestured towards the windshield. "My room is the one above the door."

"Bars on the windows?" the cop questioned, uneasiness building within her as she noted the iron grid adorning the square windows above the front door, a sight akin to a prison cell.

"To keep me from running off and getting into trouble. After Tammy, I used to sneak out in the middle of the night to have ill-advised one-sided sex with questioning Christian schoolgirls. I think they knew, but we never talked about it. One day I came home from school, and they were just there." The blonde watched as Olivia's eyes remained glued to the second floor of the old house that had belonged to the Cabots for generations. "Can we go before I lose my nerve?"

Liv nodded, reaching for her girlfriend's hand. "How do you want me to introduce myself?"

"Can we try to be vague and see what happens?" She bit her lip. She despised any time she asked Olivia to lie for her, to pretend she meant less to her than she did. Referring to the woman as anything other than the love of her life was a gigantic disservice to the brunette and the connection they shared. But Alex didn't currently see another way. "Maybe they'll just want to assume you're a colleague."

"Well, I am a colleague, so that's not a lie. I'm just a colleague you kiss a lot." She smiled, attempting to ease some of the tension evident in Alex's body. "I won't let anything happen to you," the detective added after a moment, studying the other woman's conflicted features. "I have my gun."

It was a compromise Alex had agreed to after Olivia had asked the blonde to allow a few uniformed officers to accompany them to the Cabot residence and she'd refused. "Clearly, they're not my favorite people in the world, but please don't shoot them, Liv. I'm not a defense attorney, and I won't have deniability."

"I was going to make you turn around first." Alex just grunted, the closest thing to a laugh she could muster up, and she pulled her hand away to rub at reddened eyes. "I won't shoot them, I promise," the cop vowed. "But if needed, I won't hesitate to wave around my gun. They should know what it's like to fear for their lives."

"Remember what we talked about?" Alex reminded gently, blown away by the fact that the detective was angrier for her than the lawyer was for herself.

"Right. Calm. Peaceful. Amicable. You need to say your piece, love, and I would never dream of getting in the way of that. I'm only here for if your father gets physically or verbally violent, and to ground you if you're triggered."

"I'm already triggered," she admitted with a sigh, lifting her right hand to show the older woman the shakiness of the appendage as evidence. "But I'm going to keep breathing and remember the feel of your hand in mine. Just like this." She touched her fingers to the brunette's, relieved at the quiet in her mind as they connected, and Alex drew strength from her girlfriend's tenderness. Mr. Drill Sergeant hadn't reared his ugly head all morning, and the drive to the suburban neighborhood had been relatively pleasant until the survivor began recognizing exits—the local Church of Christ, her high school, camping grounds.

Olivia squeezed the blonde's hand once more. "You will get through this."

Alex had no desire to prolong the ordeal. "Alright, let's go ring the doorbell."

Mrs. Cabot smiled upon welcoming her daughter into her childhood home, cordially reaching out to shake the brunette's hand. "This is Olivia," Alex said shyly. "She's one of the detectives from my bureau."

Wilbur Cabot acknowledged her with a curt nod, but did not reach out his hand. Olivia was perfectly fine with this. She probably wouldn't have been able to stop herself from bending it all the way backwards if he'd offered her the opportunity.

After a few minutes of pleasantries, the ADA turned to her girlfriend, who had intentionally sat on the other end of the couch, and Alex longed to close the distance between them, needing her anchor as she began to float away. She planted her feet firmly into the ground, seeing out of the corner of her eye that Olivia was giving her a reassuring look. The youngest of them had come home for a reason, and the quicker she pulled off the band aid, the quicker it would stop hurting. She stood up, and so did the detective, mirroring her actions. The Cabots remained seated. "Mom, Dad, I want to move out of the penthouse."

"Why, dear?" her mother inquired. "You love that penthouse."

"It's a nice place, but…"

Mr. Cabot crossed his arms over his chest. "But what, Alexandra?"

"Well, I want to move in with Olivia."

"Why would you need to do that?" Jean asked, confused. "Don't you spend enough time with these sex detectives?"

"They investigate sexually based offenses, Mom, and I prosecute them." The woman grimaced, and Alex knew it was at the thought of her only child trying such taboo cases. The Cabot matriarch had always encouraged her to join the White-Collar Crime Bureau. "But Olivia isn't just any other detective to me." She saw Liv eye her cautiously as she took a step forward, wanting to shield the brunette from the ramifications of what she was about to say. She couldn't believe she was going to do this, but she'd spent seventeen years locked in the closet of her own mind, and if she were ever going to be truly happy, her parents needed to know who she was, even if they rejected her. She needed to be clear and explicit, leaving no room for doubt as she had as a child whenever she was confronted about her "abnormal proclivities." Alex hated silence now, and she decided she would have shouted her next words into a megaphone if one had been available to her. "I love her, Mom. Dad, Olivia is my girlfriend. We've been dating for almost five months, and I'm very happy with her. I only hope that you can be happy for me."

"Happy?!" The sole man in the room was about as red as a tomato, and he stood up, approaching his daughter, unadulterated disgust evident on his face. "Alexandra Esther Cabot, after all these years, you are still stuck in your sinful ways. We cannot be happy for your deviance. How dare you show up after all this time making demands, and with this...whore at your side?"

"The audacity," Mrs. Cabot chided with a disappointed click of the tongue. "Is this going to be another Tammy situation? Are you going to accuse this woman of rape as well? As if you could be raped by a woman. Alexandra, I thought you'd come around by now."

Now that the secret was out, a shocked Olivia stepped closer to the woman she loved, remaining behind her, but interlacing their fingers in support. They needed to be a united front, and so Benson bore her eyes into the empty ones of the man in front of her, stoking his ire. The older woman could hear the lawyer's agitated breathing as her chest heaved.

She was fuming. But she was more offended for Olivia than she could ever be for herself. The Cabots had chosen Esther for their daughter's middle name due to the biblical character's obedient and passive nature, not to mention her beauty. What they'd forgotten, however, was that the woman evolves into someone who takes a decisive role in her own future and that of her people, who learns to take back control and to make her own choices. "No," she commanded resolutely, and Liv registered that the woman she loved had never used the word so confidently, without an ounce of hesitation. "You do not get to say that about Olivia. She is good and pure, and she has never laid a finger on me, which can't be said for your precious Pastor Paul! Is he still leading baptism classes? God, I can't wait until the moment he drops dead."

"Alexandra!" The palm of the eldest Cabot's left hand met Alex's face more quickly than the attorney could dodge the hit, and before she could process the pain in her right cheek, Olivia was in front of her, shielding her, as her fist made contact with the side of Wilbur's face.

"Mr. Cabot," Olivia heaved, restraining the man's hands behind his back, "you just assaulted an ADA in front of an NYPD Detective, which I'm sure you know is a serious crime. Alex, do you want to press charges? I can get the local DV squad down here." Alex's mind was reeling. She didn't know what to say, didn't know if she was capable of saying anything. She gazed at her mom—who remained wordlessly on the couch, her eyes wide and her lips pressed together in a thin line—waiting for a reaction, but none came.

"You'd better think carefully about this, Hurricane Alexandra," the man sneered, spitting a drop of blood from his lip. "There will be consequences for your actions, and that's a fact."

Tears had come to her eyes, and her cheek felt like it had been stung by a hundred bees simultaneously, but that pain didn't even begin to compare to the repressed betrayal, destroyed trust, and warranted resentment that bubbled up to the surface of the blonde's skin like hot magma, the scorching substance burning everything unlucky enough to be in its path. Today, that included Jean and Wilbur Cabot.

Suddenly, little—nerdy, weird, late blooming, crazy, cries all the time—Alex Cabot was no longer allowing herself to be reduced to rumors and slander. The woman who had only minutes ago asked her girlfriend to be friendly to her abusive parents had exploded the box she'd been trapped in and, without a second thought, she began showing her father the consequences of his own actions. "You want to talk about facts, Daddy? Well, here are some for you. I was raped at eleven-years-old. Pastor Paul mutilated me, Daddy. You let him do that, you did! You didn't believe me, so I went to someone I thought I could trust four years later. And it happened again. You didn't believe me then either. You sent me to that horrible camp knowing it was teeming with people who were just itching to have authority over vulnerable kids. You want more facts? Your words don't scare me, Daddy. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm a successful attorney, doing something that I love, and I'm with a woman that I love and who loves me. Can you believe it, Daddy? She loves me." Liv's eyes met the blonde's as the younger woman's lower lip continued to quiver. She took in a cleansing breath and continued her rant, shifting her gaze to her father as she reamed him out and made him feel as small as he'd made her feel. "I'm willing to give up the Cabot lifestyle for that. It's all for show anyway. None of you are genuinely happy. Take me out of the will if you want. I don't care. And look at you, Mom, standing there submissively while your husband yells at me, yet again. Have you forgotten that I'm your daughter? Have you forgotten that I'm a person? Truthfully, mother, I pity you. I have love with Olivia. I have safety. Companionship. I have a partner in life. What do you have—a master?" She punctuated every word sharply, for the first time making it known that she was aware of exactly who her father was. "A heartless, sanctimonious, self-righteous, sorry excuse for a man, who gets his kicks by putting women down. You of all people should be happy for me, Mom. I escaped this existence, I escaped him, and I did it without an ounce of help from you."

Wilbur Cabot began struggling in Olivia's grasp, but he was no match for the detective's rage. "Alex, what do you want to do, love?"

"C'mon, let's just go. They're not worth it." Alex was done. Done with the lies and the abuse, the gaslighting and the fear. But most of all, she was done with wasting energy hoping against hope that one day, her parents would come around. That they would finally see her.

Olivia began following her girlfriend's lead, using herself as a human shield and backing up towards the front door, keeping her eyes trained on the man who trembled in anger. When she'd retreated far enough, she felt the other woman place her hand on her hip, squeezing lightly, and Benson intertwined their fingers. She'd need to get her out of the house so she could examine her face and her psyche. The grounding touch between them would have to do for a few more moments.

The SVU detective had fully intended to let Alex voice whatever she wanted to her parents, and she had, but now that the encounter was ending, the brunette had some words of her own. Amicable, calm, and peaceful be damned. Wilbur had lost that right when he'd attacked his daughter. "Mr. Cabot, if you ever think about coming near Alex again, I want you to remember that you assaulted an Assistant District Attorney, and a seasoned SVU detective witnessed it. I'll always remember that, and so will Alex. Your amazing daughter, who I love more than you could ever even imagine, is safe now, no thanks to either of you, but she will never forget your treatment of her. She deserved so much better." She stepped threateningly to both Cabot elders after squeezing Alex's fingers reassuringly, and she hovered dangerously close to the man's face, confident he wouldn't try anything again. She let her eyes meet both older adults', scrunching up her face in abhorrence. "I hope your shame eats you both alive."

As they walked out the door, Jean Cabot gave her daughter a look that vaguely resembled regret.

As soon as Liv had slammed the driver's side door, she turned to her girlfriend, whose skull was leaning against the head rest, her eyes closed tightly as she focused on breathing.

"Are you okay, love?"

"No."

"Yeah, that was a stupid question. Can I see your cheek, sweetheart?" She reached her hand out for the far side of Alex's face, but the blonde flinched away before her fingers could make contact.

Her nails dug mercilessly into her thighs and tears began to flow freely down her face, her head shaking from side to side vigorously. Even the air around the house held memories. "Liv, get me out of here please. Now."

Olivia hated the thought that something she'd done had caused this reaction. She turned the key in the ignition, and put the vehicle into reverse, still observing her girlfriend with her right eye. "Did I scare you...when I hit your father?"

"Liv, you were defending me," Alex sighed, her grip on her pants loosening just barely. "It's not like you approached a random stranger and punched him in the face. I'm not afraid of you. It's just...this house. It smells the same. It looks the same. I feel disgusting."

Olivia turned onto the main road, noticing the frantic beating of her own heart. So much had happened so quickly, and Alex wasn't improving swiftly enough for her comfort. "Hey, stay with me, Al. No one's going to touch you or hurt you, okay? You're with me, baby."

The blonde nodded slowly, swallowing hard as she blinked her eyes open and willed herself to focus on Olivia's eyes through the rearview mirror. They were directed at the road, but the expression in them was all for the ADA. "My own parents think I'm a sexual deviant with no morals. Meanwhile, their best friend spent years abusing little girls under the guise of religiosity, and my only crime is loving you."

"That's not a crime," the cop declared confidently, turning onto a main road and sighing in relief when the uninjured side of Alex's face—the one that she could see—began to regain color. "What we have, Al, is beautiful. It's not dirty or disgusting."

"I usually believe that. But the look on their faces when I told them—I don't know what I expected, but it still hurts so much."

Alex's crying didn't concern Benson in the same way her panicked breathing and trembling muscles did, but the sight of it was just as heartbreaking. She'd been making so much progress with allowing herself to feel emotions, but it still took a lot for the prosecutor to cry openly, and without even the need for blinking. Liv knew she'd only cry like this if she felt safe, and she intended to keep Alex thinking about that. The brunette reached out her hand towards the younger woman, laying it palm up over the center console and humming quietly in invitation. She was surprised—but soothed—when Alex gripped onto the lifeline. "Just focus on this. Does this feel wrong?"

"No, sweetie. It feels…" Her crystal blues lingered on their intertwined fingers, and Alex took her first easy breath since they'd originally left the highway. "I feel like I was born to love you," she whispered, acknowledging the truth in her words. If this was wrong, if looking at Olivia and wanting nothing more than to make a life with her, to hold her and kiss her, and—maybe one day—make love to her, if the warmth that began with their connected digits and spread to the top of her head and to the tips of her toes was wrong, then Alex didn't want to be right. She nodded in response to the thought, bringing their hands up to her own lips and kissing the knuckles that had made contact with her father's face.

Alex's eyes widened in confusion when the other woman pulled into a shopping complex. "Why are we going through a McDonald's drive thru?"

"Ice," she explained softly, rolling down her window.

"Can I get ice in a bag with some napkins, and," she paused, scanning the menu for a moment, "a large Dr. Pepper?" She turned to her girlfriend. "I don't like the idea of not buying something if I go through here. Do you want something, Al?"

"You think I'm going to order something at McDonald's? I may be injured and frazzled, but I'm still me, Liv." The grin actually reached her eyes. "Thank you though."

When she pulled up to the next window, Olivia handed over a couple bills and smiled. "Do you think I can also have a large cup of water, no ice?" After it was handed to her, she placed the cold cup into the drink holder. "It'll help your body come down from fight-or-flight."

"I've always been a freezer."

"Not anymore." Olivia was still processing how impressed she'd been with the other woman's composure and eloquence in the face of such trauma and dismissal. "Turns out when human Alex and attorney Alex join forces, they're pretty unstoppable."

Cabot took a sip of the water, relishing in the feeling of it sliding down her parched throat as the brunette drove towards the intersection. "Yeah, tell that to my face. I think I'm bleeding. His wedding ring must have scratched me."

"Turn your cheek for just a second." Liv couldn't help but grimace at the sight. "Yeah, sweetie, there is a little blood. Here." She rummaged through the paper bag the cashier had given her and produced a brown napkin. "Hold some pressure with this."

Minutes later, Olivia turned into a parking lot around the corner from the McDonald's.

"Are you not taking me home?" Alex asked, puzzled, dropping the napkin from her face. What was with all these stops?

Before she answered, Liv simply smiled for a moment, noting the significance of Alex calling the apartment "home." "Of course I am. I just think the park will help ground you. Have you ever been here before?"

"No. It must be relatively new."

"Perfect." A new destination meant no traumatic memories. "We have a long drive ahead of us, and I want to get a good look at your face and prevent some swelling if possible. But it's completely up to you. Straight home or break in the park?"

"It is a nice day," the attorney reasoned with herself, the elephant on her chest finally stopping its assault on her heart and lungs. "And nobody is here."

"That's what I thought," Liv agreed, taking off her seatbelt and turning fully to face her girlfriend, reaching out tentatively to brush some hair out of her face. Alex released a single tear at the touch, but she pressed her hand over Olivia's to communicate that she was okay. "And we can leave at any point if you decide you just want to go home."

The attorney gave her a nod and they both exited the car, Liv reaching into the center console for a first aid kit, and then she led the younger woman to a bench, handing her the cup of water she'd been sipping on, and carefully tucking blonde hair behind her ear to expose her injured cheek.

"I think the bleeding's stopped," she observed, "so let's focus on ice first. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine. You don't have to ask me if it's okay, Liv."

"No, baby," Olivia asserted, intentionally keeping her voice soft as she gingerly rested the napkin-wrapped bag of ice against Alex's cheek. "Asking is the least I can do. Are you in pain?"

Cabot reached her hand up to take over holding the ice against her face, wincing at the pressure. "It feels like my whole face is throbbing. It wasn't a closed fist, but he hit me hard, Liv."

"I saw, sweetie," the detective validated gently, smoothing over her hair with a tender hand. "I'm so sorry. Has he hit you before?"

"Only once. When I first told him about Pastor Paul."

Benson's memory was triggered as she guided Alex's hand to pull away the ice for a moment to give the other woman a break from the cold. "You said something about him still teaching baptism classes."

"Yeah," she sighed. "He'd be kissing seventy now if he's still doing it. I heard talk of him retiring a few years ago, but I'm not sure. Liv, I know you want to look into this, and I'm not going to stop you, but there's a limit to how much I can take, especially when the clock won't run out, but the evidence is long gone. Same goes for Tammy. Rape three would be the max charge even if there was evidence, and that statute is long gone. Find your peace with it, I get it. I do feel a responsibility to protect future victims, but right now I'm just too overwhelmed to even think about it. It just still hurts too much. If that makes me a hypocrite—"

"Shhh, sweetheart," Olivia cooed, regretting bringing it up when her girlfriend was already so exhausted. "I just couldn't turn off cop brain for a second there. I'm right here with you, okay? It's just me and you. We can drop this."

"You can tell me what you find, but...I'm not ready to commit to anything."

"We can continue this conversation later on if we need to, but I want to take care of you first. Let's take a few deep breaths. How's your cheek feel?"

Alex slid off her shoes and buried her toes in the grass, knowing physical contact with nature to be an unbelievable stress reliever. "With the ice, the cut hurts more than the bruise I'm sure is already forming, but neither is unbearable." She wanted to focus on the sensation of the wind on her skin, of Liv's hand continuously grounding her, on the smells of the fresh air, and on the sounds of the great outdoors. But there was an undeniable sting moving through her face—and through her heart.

Liv gave her a sad smile. "I hate that you're in more pain."

The Assistant DA sighed, holding the ice to her face as she bit her lip anxiously. Her father's words lingered in her mind, her drill sergeant taking part in the never-ending criticism. Why did Mr. Cabot see her as such a monster? And it had started when she was so young. If she weren't gay—No. Maybe it were true that if she weren't gay, her abuse would have been different. Maybe Tammy would have left her alone, and maybe Pastor Paul wouldn't have been asked to intervene, but the pull that had led her to Olivia's door had saved her life, and it would have done so even without the sexual abuse. Because the Ice Queen wasn't born out of abuse, she was born out of neglect. Her sexuality was her biggest curse and her greatest gift. "I never did tell you why I was alone with Pastor Paul that day, did I?"

"You said it was baptism class, right?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't my choice to be there." The brunette pulled the ice away from the younger woman's face one more time, deciding to give it a longer break from the cold, nodding to encourage her to continue. "I had a sleepover with one of the only friends I had as a child. My parents didn't approve of the friendship at first because her family wasn't religious. Eventually my father got them to join our church, so then I was allowed to stay the night. Cassandra Burr. She was my first crush. Her parents caught us cuddling in bed and they told my father. He was so angry with me. Said he always knew I was a deviant. He yelled for hours. He decided it was time for my baptism and forced me to get a talking to from Pastor Paul about sin. Instead of talking, he just tried to fix me."

Liv's brow furrowed. Was this encounter a planned "conversion?" Is that what Alex had meant when she'd told her father that he'd let Paul mutilate her? "Like he tried to turn you straight?"

"That's what he told me, at least." She remained quiet for a moment, both women letting themselves process in the silence. "I threw out my dress," she murmured weakly.

"What's that, love?" Olivia placed a bandage over the cut on her girlfriend's face.

"My Baptism dress," she clarified. The one she'd put on after she'd been dunked, something that in and of itself had terrified her. "As soon as we got home, I cut it into pieces and threw it away. My father was so mad, I had to tell him."

Olivia laid her head on Alex's shoulder, wrapping an arm around her. "Baby, I'm so sorry. I wish I could go back, find that sweet little girl, and save her from all this."

"Liv, I wouldn't be who I am without all this."

"That doesn't matter." Benson lifted her head. "You wouldn't be ashamed of laughing, of feeling, of loving me, though that thought is so unbelievably selfish."

"It's not," the attorney argued. "You deserve to be with someone who's proud to be by your side."

"I don't know if you saw yourself in there," Olivia began, languidly moving her fingers through light yellow hair, "but it looked like pride to me. You really held your own, my sweet. You've come so far already, and you are so incredibly brave."

"Look at me, honey." Alex held up her hand, just like earlier. "I'm still shaking. It's pathetic. I was terrified of an old man."

"Sweetheart, your father assaulted you today," she pointed out. "You were understandably scared. But you stood up for yourself anyway. Bravery doesn't imply the absence of fear. In fact, bravery requires fear in order to exist. You're my hero."

Gratitude overwhelmed Alex in that moment, and she just couldn't comprehend the compassion that was practically coming out of Olivia's pores. Her voice broke as she breathed, "I love you."

"I love you more. C'mon, sweetheart. Let's go home."

A/N: This has by far been my favorite chapter to write up until now. More than ever, I'd love to know what you all think. And—as the story will be 45 chapters, we are officially at the halfway point. So much will happen between now and then!