A/N: Read and review. Thank you for all of your incredible support. For the reader who asked about Amanda's memory, please see chapter 10, near the end, after the girls are admitted to the hospital. Sorry for any confusion.
Rating: T, this chapter
Spoilers: Closure, Scorched Earth, Justice Denied, Loss
Trigger warnings: suicide, death, hospital environment, grief, alcohol
Modus: In law, a modusor burden is present where a testator bequeaths something to a beneficiary, subject to a duty to perform in respect of the whole, or part of the bequest. Therefore, the beneficiary is required to do or deliver something (or not to do something) before they can enforce their rights.
Modus and Motives
Though she hadn't had a cigarette since her college days – which were literally decades behind her – Liv found herself wishing for one, the morning after her encounter with Rollins. In the driver's seat of her new rental car, she was parked in the lot of the Adrian PD building, with a steam-trailing coffee in her hand, watching the wipers catch snow.
At Siena, when she would party, she felt that lighting up gave her a dangerous, mysterious edge. The kind of guys she liked to talk to would separate more easily from the throng of alcohol-soaked bodies if there was a lone she-wolf to approach.
In reality, the haze of booze and cigarettes just made it easier to hide her inexperience and confusion. She had no real concept of how to flirt, and had been raised in a household where the altar worshipped at was career; sex was a danger you watched out for in dark alleys and over your shoulder. It absolutely was never tied to the concept of love, or healthy self-esteem.
Young-adult Olivia Benson generally had sex out of curiosity, boredom, or as a bargaining tactic, to deflect others from trying to get too close to her. At the end of those years, she could attest that the cigarettes she'd had, while leaned against brick walls in oversized blazers with shoulder pads, had been more enjoyable than most of the sex.
During and after the Academy, things had always been too busy to figure out how love and sex were supposed to coexist with her career. Liv had watched others around her on the force try, and fail. Ultimately, casual sex still seemed the best route – something she'd tried to get Cassidy to catch on to, all those years ago when they had first hooked up. Any time she had tried to build something deeper than that, it blew up in her face.
Then . . . then there was Elliot. Liv took a sip of coffee and a deep breath.
No doubt it would surprise most who knew her, that the men she'd wanted to really be with numbered less than the fingers of one hand. For 12 years, she had settled for what working with Elliot gave her – which, at times, had even been better than sex. The anger, the tension, the chemistry between them was enough to keep the entire precinct at arm's length, but in the end, it had blown up on her as well.
She blamed herself, until she got far enough from it to blame Elliot. But when things went wrong with David, well . . . she had packed up what was left of her interest in love, and settled into the familiar shoes of her mother: work, more work, and plenty of wine. Naïvely, sex with women wasn't even something that had presented itself as an option until well into her adult life – despite its tendency to be thrown at Olivia along the way in both seriousness and jest.
Before Amanda, there was another hard-edged blonde that had captivated Liv's attention. Liv had smiled over drinks, sported a leather jacket and hair shorter than her jaw for more than two years, and in the end, Alex Cabot had left her just as easily as men were known to do. Nowadays, nothing compelled Olivia to unlock the place she had put her thoughts of love to rest. She was 46 years old, and the raw truth of the matter was, she was too unsure of herself to let go and feel what Amanda was offering.
The younger blonde had already been up and gone to the police department with Fin and Carisi by the time Liv had gotten ready that morning. The faded wine stain on the carpet had mocked her from the corner of her eye, no matter where she'd stood in the room. She wanted Amanda Rollins as badly as she had ever wanted a cigarette, a fine wine, or any man.
In four years, she had witnessed the young blonde throw herself at father-figure men endlessly, the way Liv herself had when she was in high school. The words Rollins had spoken outside the interrogation room had painfully reminded Liv that what Amanda deserved was someone sure of themselves. Someone who was grounded and whole, ready to spend the time to spoil Amanda, to heal her and love her as loudly as possible. Olivia felt certain that opportunity for herself was gone by, be damned if she would interfere with someone else's chances to find what she never had.
I'm doing the right thing, she told herself convincingly. My career is where I'm needed. It's what I've always been good at.
Killing the engine, she pocketed her keys and grabbed her visitor tag for the building. Her coffee dispensed with the last of its steam as she walked quickly and determinedly into the police department. Flashing the tag at the front desk officer, she pushed through into the main squad room, looking around for her own people. The room was unusually quiet for so early in the day, with just a handful of cops huddled in a hushed circle near the back.
Liv crossed to, then through the doorway that led into the holding area, raising her head to find Fin, Carisi and the department captain standing close to each other in the hallway.
"Hey, Liv," Fin offered, but he was somber, and Liv stopped short.
"What? What is it?" she asked.
Behind Fin, Carisi folded his arms over his chest awkwardly. "Rhoda killed herself, Liv. She's gone."
Blinking was all Olivia managed for a moment. Then she continued forward a few steps, peering into the cell, fully expecting to see Rhoda's stiffening body, but the cell was empty. "Where is she?"
"Hospital," Fin told her, "she was rushed there, but she didn't make it."
"Where's Rollins?"
"Amanda travelled with her; she's still with the body," Fin explained.
Fuck, Liv thought. She turned heel and started back from where she'd come in.
"Liv!" Fin called, "Want me to come with you?"
"Stay here," she called back. To Amanda, she knew, Rhoda was anything but just 'a body.'
.
.
There was no beep or murmur of medical equipment to greet Olivia when she entered the room that the unit nurse had directed her toward. The lights were off, and Amanda was lit by the glow of the hallway fluorescents as she sat, bedside, with her head dipped toward the floor. On the stretcher, Rhoda's body was covered by a sheet, and the remnants of lifesaving efforts littered the room's floor.
Liv stopped alongside the chair, a hand pressed to her mouth in both frustration and concern. After a beat or two, Amanda raised her hand without taking her eyes off the floor, revealing a folded piece of paper. Olivia took the note and stepped into a shaft of light to read it.
Meeting you two has been the happiest thing to happen to me in maybe my whole life, she had written. I wish I'd had the same chance when I was young, before things went wrong, to see someone else like me. My story mighta been different. I hope I helped you with everything I told you. Find those girls, do right by em, like you did by me. Maybe we'll meet again, the next time around. Til then, don't you worry about an old fraud like me. – Rhoda
The second slip of paper had a crudely-drawn map of the property between the two cabins in the woods, where it appeared the bodies had been buried.
Olivia exhaled a shuddering breath, still unsure what to say.
It was Amanda who eventually spoke first: "Is it alright if I go back to the hotel?" Her voice was blank, leeched of all indication of her state of mind.
"Of course," Liv swallowed. "I'll take care of everything."
Without waiting on anything further, Rollins rose from the chair and went soundlessly from the room, leaving Olivia with the dead, full of her guilt and regret.
.
.
The day had grown interminably long after the morning's discovery. Paperwork, statements, interviews were just the beginning. Even after the ADA determined what would happen in court, there would still be the bodies to deal with, and now the cabins and their effects. Olivia let herself into her hotel room at the end of it all, clasping a brown paper bag with something inside resembling pasta salad, her feet throbbing in protest of standing.
She kicked off her shoes, dropped her gloves, hat, coat and scarf on the loveseat and poured a glass of the remaining Malbec in one sweeping sequence of movements. Starving, she opened the pasta and began eating it, right at the desk in her bare feet with the wine. In a couple short minutes, the container was nearly half empty, and her stomach had begun to quiet. She drank more wine, then finally let her body unclench from the day.
It was then that she became aware of a muffled noise from the adjoining room. Olivia went still, listening, her mind immediately recalling the last noises heard through the same walls. Her ears grew hot with embarrassment, ashamed of her dirty secret.
It sounded nothing like before. Rollins' muffled voice sounded annoyed, and off-balance. Liv crept closer to the adjoining door and tried to hear more. Every couple of seconds, a word would come out clearly: . . . DEAL . . . NOT . . . JUST . . . not enough to make any sense. Suddenly, Liv caught her breath, as she realized there were two voices in the room next door, and the second one was male.
Heart pounding, she pressed her hands to the door, pleading telepathically with Amanda.
No – Amanda, don't. Don't punish yourself like this. You don't need to do this.
"Do you want this, or not?!" the male voice suddenly came clear as a bell as he walked closer to the other side of the door.
Tell him no, Liv thought angrily, tell him to leave!
". . . rules . . . warned!" came Rollins' indistinct reply, ". . . decide . . . worth it!"
There was a silent moment, then a giggle that made Olivia's stomach knot with anxiety. She steadied her breathing, intending to talk herself into walking away, when the next sound she heard was the unmistakable sound of a slap.
" . . . the fuck off me!" Amanda shouted next.
The door was open and Liv had crossed the threshold into the room before the decision to do so had even finished developing in her brain. The sound of the adjoining door swinging shut behind her brought both sets of eyes in the room directly to where she was standing. One hand was resting cautiously above her holstered gun as she levelled her gaze at the man.
"You heard what she said," Liv told him icily.
It was one of the paramedics from the hospital; Liv recognized him from the day they had both been admitted. He was poised over Amanda on the bed, naked to his waist. Liv's stomach churned.
"Whoa! Relax, I'm up! I'm up!" he cried, scrambling from the bed.
Amanda got up as well, dressed in her bra and a pair of jeans, her hair mussed as anger and embarrassment flushed her cheeks. She tossed the man's shirt to him. "You can get out."
"Don't worry," he laughed, "you two are nuts, and it's not worth it!"
Neither woman spoke again as he dressed and left by the room's other door. At last, Amanda looked pointedly at Olivia without speaking, then went into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The rattled brunette sighed shakily, swiping a hand over her face, then returned to her own room.
.
.
More than an hour passed, without any further noise from Amanda's room. Olivia had finished her food, along with the majority of the wine, then changed into comfortable pyjama shorts and an old t shirt. Curled up on the bed, she was focused on not thinking, wondering if sleep would come.
Another noise, then, different again. Still muffled – definitely singular; not the man come back. The ends of her nerves were still buzzing from earlier, so she didn't hesitate this time. The adjoining door clicked softly closed behind her as she glanced around to find Amanda was still shut in the bathroom.
Her bare feet whispered over the carpet as she crept closer to the bathroom door. The sound, she determined, was the sniffling of Amanda crying. Olivia took a breath and knocked gently.
"Amanda? Are you okay in there?"
The blonde sniffed, cleared her throat, but remained silent.
Liv waited, then tried again: "Can I do anything to help?"
Still nothing.
As a last effort, she asked, "Is it alright if I come in?"
Amanda's voice, hoarse and pained came: "Yeah."
The door was unlocked and Olivia stepped inside to find Rollins completely naked, in a tub full of water that had long ago cooled off. Soft scents of soap and shampoo still lingered, but Amanda's eyes were dark with smudged mascara and red-rimmed from tears. Liv turned around quickly in her surprise, trying to afford her some privacy.
"Are you okay?" she tried again.
"Am I?" Rollins echoed, "I'm not sure I'm qualified to tell anymore."
"I - I'm sorry, if I overstepped earlier."
"It's fine. He lost his charm quicker than I'd anticipated," she sniffed.
Jealousy and protectiveness pounded in Liv's chest. "Did he hurt you?"
"No."
"Why don't you get out of that cold tub?" she suggested.
"I'm tired," was Amanda's response.
Olivia moved to the cupboard, taking out a clean towel. Looking only at Rollins' face, she turned around to the tub and held out a hand. "C'mon."
Amanda took the hand and rose from the water, dripping and covered in goosebumps. The older brunette wrapped the towel around her and then leaned to pluck the plug from the drain. When she rose to face her again, she said, "Amanda, I'm so, so sorry about Rhoda." She waited for her to call her a liar, or maybe laugh in her face.
Instead, she said, "Me too," weakly, and her eyes filled with tears again.
Liv folded her into a hug, rubbing the dry terrycloth of the towel into her chilled skin. "Let's go warm you up."
She sat Amanda on the bed, then crossed to the thermostat and cranked up the heat. Still wrapped in the towel, Amanda drew back the layers of plush blankets on the bed, then allowed Olivia to tuck her in.
"Are you sure there's nothing else I can do to help you feel better?" Liv asked her softly.
"You can stop looking at me like that," Amanda replied.
"Like what?"
"Like you still want me."
Liv's heart slid into the base of her throat, not expecting the answer to have hurt so much. With a sigh, she let herself drop onto the edge of the bed, sitting alongside Rollins as though she were an unruly child who insisted on pressing her buttons. "We probably shouldn't discuss this while you're not yourself," she murmured.
"I'm always me," Amanda told her indignantly, "good, bad and everything in between. It's all me, Olivia. But then, maybe that's what's so hard for you."
Liv shook her head helplessly. "What can I do - right now - to help?"
"I don't want to feel this. It was better when there were things I couldn't remember," Rollins said, her voice quavering.
Her gaze flickered from Rollins' face, to the empty space in the other side of the bed. "Just – " Liv closed her eyes, "let me stay."
The blonde pulled the top of the blankets down in reply, and it was all Olivia needed. She slipped into the bed and spooned herself against Amanda's cool, damp body and closed her eyes.
TBC