A/N: Happy Update Friday! Are we ready for some more angst, hm? I actually forgot how much of it there was in the next few chapters. Sorry 'bout that, there's just a lot to deal with in the aftermath of that fight. Originally the next chapter was going to be the beginning of part four, and I might still leave it that way, but I am going to hold off on posting the cover art for it, because it occurred to me that the cover is a spoiler. A pretty big one. And I'm not ready for that yet. So, I'll probably hold off on the unveiling until chapter 34ish. Just FYI. Putting a TW on this chapter for rape and PTSD /TW. See you Monday.


CHAPTER 29: And Full of Terrors

. . .

"Just a little sneaky-peak. I can see what an impatient girl you are."

He crawls off of her and zips his fly, grinning down at the bed, at the woman on it. At Olivia. He's taunting her again, but that's nothing new. How do you know Lewis is taunting? His lips are moving. Isn't that the joke?

Or is it: How do you know William Lewis just raped you? You're spread-eagle on your bed, drugged to the gills, and it hurts between your legs.

Cue the laugh track.

(He did not rape me. I don't care if we made it to the 96 hour mark and the evidence could have washed away in my urine, he did not rape)

Well, then he did everything but. She was unconscious for some of it, maybe even most of it—she doesn't remember, for instance, how they got from the living room to her bedroom—but the wire coat hanger had been a real eye-opener. That's also when she realized her pants were down. Are still down.

She was too afraid of where he would put the hanger next to close her eyes again. But he lost interest in the sinuous metal question mark—will he, won't he?—after the first burn. I'll show you what real steel feels like, Detective. And then he was rubbing it against her: one minute crushing it into her clitoris until she groaned (he liked that); the next, teasing like a lover until she whined, her body rigor mortis stiff as she fought with all her strength not to react (he liked that more).

Her body was a traitor. Is. He's smiling at her breasts. From this angle, they look mountainous inside the stretchy black top, the peaks rock-hard from her exertions. His exertions, he'll argue, and she can't deny that his touch is responsible. Every sound that comes out of her, every scent that comes off of her, he conducts with his own two hands and cock. A regular maestro.

"So sweet," he says, and she can hear in his voice that he's sincere. That's the sickest part. He truly believes the orgasm was

(not an orgasm sex is for orgasms rape is not)

Sex. He thinks they just did it like two overzealous teenagers on a first date, fumbling in the backseat, hot and sticky. No one ever talks about the part where the boy brands the girl with a coat hanger, bites her breasts so hard his teeth practically slice through two layers of fabric, tells her she has a pornstar pussy ("but tasteful"), coasts his dick between her cheeks and asks her thoughts on anal. You're gonna love it by the time I'm done with you.

"I'm glad it was good for you, darlin'."

(He never called me that, it was darling. Hard "G" like his hard)

"Mind if I smoke?" He flashes the cigarette at her as if she can answer, shrugs when she doesn't, lights the tip. At first she thinks he's conjured fire with his bare hands, but then he waves out the match, struck by a thumbnail. Nifty trick, maybe he'll teach it to her, along with the anal. "Nothing like a Lucky Strike after a little slap and tickle, don't you agree?"

She blinks at him over the duct tape, feeling slow and stupid. He's receding in her vision, tunneled into a pinprick of smoldering light. The light darts closer, grabs her by the hair, and shakes till her brain rattles.

"No sleep, Livvy. Not until I say so." He sprinkles ashes onto her forehead like a priest on Ash Wednesday. He is her spiritual guide now, she supposes: Father Lewis. The man who decides if she lives or dies. The man who can take her to Heaven or Hell.

"And I want you to enjoy a smoke with me." He brings the tip too close, chuckling when she goes cross-eyed. Pulls it back and speaks conversationally as he observes her, pants and underwear around her ankles. He hasn't even taken her belt out of the loops. "You ever had a cigarette? Nah, I bet you're too well-behaved for that. Too good. Wanna try mine? I won't tell."

Sleep. She wants sleep and for this to be over. In whatever capacity that might entail.

"Come on,
(—baby, take a breath. Please.)
just gotta put it to your lips and suck," he goads, offering the cigarette to her by the wrong end, the hot, peppery tip. "Like they say in the movie."

It's "just put your lips together and blow," you fucking dumbass piece of shit, she wants to say, but can't: the tape and the way he's looking at her, like he's sizing her up for a skimpy swimsuit or a body bag. She's afraid to find out which lips he's talking about.

As if he's reading her mind—she's pretty sure he can actually do that—he glides his hand up the inside of her thigh until he reaches wet. His or hers, she can't remember. His and Hers, just like those matching towels for married couples, she thinks, losing focus. Whatever he's got her on, the thoughts and memories slip through her brain like sand through a sieve. She probably won't remember any of this later. It terrifies and consoles her.

He airplanes the cigarette towards her face again, as his other hand strokes her. "Uh-uh. Open your eyes," he demands, but she refuses. Won't give him the satisfaction. It's pitifully stubborn and childish, but it's all she has left.

"I said
(—wake up)
you little tease." His hand disappears from between her legs, and she thinks briefly, stupidly that she's won. Then he's on top of her, pawing her breasts, twisting them until she whimpers behind the duct tape.

(Up and at 'em.)

It does the trick. Her eyes spring open like faulty window shades
(—you're scaring me)
just in time to see him tweak the cigarette from his lips and sink it into the top of her left breast. Her shirt solders with her flesh as he grinds in the tip, scorching through at least a layer or two of skin. It's like a stake driven into her heart. A flaming torch.

The pain is too big for screaming. She sucks a blast of air in through her nostrils, her body begins to writhe

Then he had her by the shoulders, saying her name and feeding her lies. He told her that Amanda was there to protect her, to hold her. But Amanda had left her and wasn't coming back. That old saw about loving someone and letting them go was a crock of shit. They never returned to you.

He grabbed for her now, calling her "baby," the same way Amanda did. She'd gotten a lot of "babe" (Cassidy) and "honey" (Tucker) in past relationships—even a "ma chérie" or deux, courtesy of David Haden—but Amanda was the only person who had ever loved her enough to consider her their baby. Her own mother hadn't even done that much. God, how she longed for Amanda as she lay there, curled up like a fetus, a helpless, formless baby.

When he tried to pull her in, guiding her towards the dirty-ashtray, drunken-mother stink of tobacco and vodka at his chest, Olivia slung her elbow backwards and felt it crack against his teeth. Good, she hoped it hurt. Pain jolted her own forearm, and she cupped a palm to that elbow, the other hand over her ear. She couldn't listen to him swearing at her anymore. Swearing meant anger; he hurt her much worse when he was angry.

Please, God, don't let him climb on top of me again, she prayed silently. Don't let him do those things . . .

The thought went unfinished, evaporating as quickly as the dream she had already forgotten. By now, she'd learned to let go when she could, to accept that small blessing of oblivion. Her mind: an oubliette. From the French oublier—to forget.

Still got it, Ma.

Several moments ticked past, the fog gradually lifting from Olivia's oubliette brain, before she realized that the hand against her bare back wasn't hurting her. In fact, it seemed to be calming her with slow, circular strokes, the same way Amanda did it. She felt a twinge of hope that was almost painful, but didn't dare roll over to look. Playing possum, just as she used to when her mother came into her room at night—drunk, of course—either weepy and apologetic or spoiling for a fight.

"Liv," drawled a soft voice behind her. Not her mother, not Lewis. But the smell . . .

"Baby, it's me. Can you look at me?" The hand swept a lock of hair behind Olivia's shoulder, pressing to her skin like a starfish when she shivered. "I'm sorry I scared you. I couldn't get you to wake up, and when I saw the note and the broken glass, I thought . . . "

And just like that, the previous night came flooding back to her, or at least trickling in heavy, steady droplets. There had been wine—a lot of it; she tasted it fuzzy in her mouth, felt it fuzzy in her brain. Had she drunk two full bottles? No, just part of the one, and another glass (or two?) of the other. That was how she broke the glass, dumping the Nero d'Avola. After Alex and that kiss. After Amanda and that fight.

She vaguely recalled taking out her Moleskine notebook, too upset for sleep in the aftermath of the wine purge and her tantrum with the cell phone. But the harder she tried to write down her feelings, the harder she cried at the sight of Amanda's name alone on the page—and the comma hemming it in. (If not me, who's it gonna be, Liv?) She had cast the journal onto the bedside table and buried her face in Gigi's fur to cry, presumably until she fell asleep.

It occurred to her that she didn't even know if it was night or day, and she twisted abruptly to peer at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 2:47 AM. She hadn't even been out long enough to be properly hungover, just suspended in the hazy interim post-intoxication, where everything looked muted and a little off-center.

Even Amanda, seated on the edge of the bed, looked misshapen and distant, almost as if she were wearing a mask. Olivia squinted, attempting to bring the blonde's face into focus and tilting her head in confusion when she finally did.

Maybe it was a trick of light and shadow coming from the bedside lamp, more decorative than illuminative, but Amanda's left eyelid appeared inflated, lumpish, the way Jesse's did that time she got stung by the bee. The detective's lip, also a bit bee-stung, had a dark line down the middle, which she was worrying with the tip of her tongue. She withdrew her tongue quickly, tucked in the lip when Olivia stared and asked, "What happened to you? Your face . . . "

This time, rather than a faucet-drip epiphany, reality toppled down onto her like an avalanche of bricks. She rolled over, sat up ramrod straight, and peered closely at Amanda's features. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth with a sharp cry. It was the sound that preceded a head-on collision or watching your child run into a busy street. Her elbow throbbed. "Oh my God, did I do that to you? Oh God, Amanda, did I hit you in my sleep?"

Again, she reminded herself silently. Hit you in my sleep again.

Nearly a year had gone by since that night in the Catskills when she'd bloodied Amanda's nose during a night terror, and though what transpired afterwards had completely overshadowed that assault—however accidental—Olivia still harbored the guilt. The fear it might happen again. And now it had. She'd beaten her fiancée without any awareness of what she was doing.

She thought of the metal rod; how she sometimes felt it in her hands, like the phantom of a severed limb, though she didn't remember holding it, wielding it. She thought about the times, after Sealview, after Harris, when she'd lost control and pulled her weapon on innocent civilians, her finger just a twitch away from ending a life.

Jesus Christ, she hadn't made any progress at all, had she? And now she was flirting with a drinking problem to boot. No wonder Amanda had walked out on her. She would have been better off to stay gone.

"Shit. No. Liv, listen here. You didn't do this." Amanda wreathed her face with a swish of the hand, shook her head. She reached for Olivia's wrist, to tug her hand down, and caught her by the watch instead. Averting her eyes, she slid her grip farther down Olivia's arm and held it lightly. "I— I got into a fight. Some asshole punched me. But I punched him first, so. This ain't on you, okay? None of it."

"What?" Olivia asked, her gasp a few seconds behind the explanation as she struggled to comprehend it. She was still trying to comprehend that Amanda was there at all.

Her instincts were to pull her fiancée close, to cup Amanda's battered face in her hands, but even at this proximity, she could smell the cigarettes and alcohol wafting from the lank blonde hair, the lank shirt and jeans. It froze her. "Someone hit you? Were you in a bar?"

Now it was Amanda's turn to freeze, a strange, unreadable half-expression caught on her face, like the View-Master reels from childhood when they got stuck between stereoscopic images, requiring an extra pull of the lever to lock them in place. A shake of her fair head seemed to do the trick and the full picture came into focus: Amanda was preparing to lie.

"Not a bar," she said, and opened her mouth several times, only to close it back up without a sound. Finally, shakily: "But I went someplace I shouldn'ta. I— I fucked up, Liv. Hey, are you— babe, you're shiverin'. Come here."

That had been more honesty than Olivia was expecting, and it caught her off guard, along with the sudden change of subject. She was indeed quaking, she saw with a perfunctory glance down at her shirtless torso. (How she hated that stubborn little paunch. No amount of crunches seemed capable of flattening it these days.)

When she looked back up, Amanda was scooting towards her, arms spread, accompanied by the smoky, ethanol scent that burned in Olivia's nostrils like a sinus infection, weighed down her lungs like a heavy blanket. She found it difficult to take a deep breath, and despite wanting Amanda's arms around her more than just about anything, she shrank from their approach. Her back met with a hot, solid wall of fur, and she swiveled an arm behind her, holding tight to Gigi.

The look on Amanda's face was pure agony, made even worse by the hangdog droop of her damaged eyelid. Her retreat wasn't physical, but she seemed to recede all the same and her hands flopped to the bed, useless as discarded gloves. "Sorry," she muttered, and licked her bottom lip clean of a fresh bead of blood. She winced, her downcast gaze fixed on the comforter. "I don't blame ya for not wantin' me to touch you."

Momentarily, Olivia couldn't remember why Amanda would think such a thing. Then she glanced at the dresser, imagined she felt the hickeys like a row of basalt hot stones on her skin. It had been inappropriate, unquestionably. It had frightened and infuriated her, if she was being totally honest, and it awoke some things within her that she didn't want to know existed. And yet. She couldn't summon any of her previous anger, just a sad, hollow feeling and a yearning to know that Amanda still loved her. Would always love her.

"It's not that," she said, covering her mouth and nose this time. Her own breath smelled atrocious behind her cupped palm and she was almost certain her hair was encrusted with vomit, but those odors didn't produce the same visceral reaction she had to the others. "Were you smoking? And drinking vodka? I'm sorry, I just . . . " She gestured vaguely to Amanda's clothing. "Can't breathe."

"Fuck." Amanda shot an accusatory glance at her sleeve, sniffed it like she was checking her deodorant, grimaced. "Aw, hell. I'm sorry, darlin'. I didn't even think. Here, lemme . . ." And without finishing the offer, she began tugging off her boots with both hands, nearly launching them over either shoulder when they came loose of her feet. (Amanda was slightly inebriated herself, Olivia realized.) She let them fall heavily to the floor instead, and started on her pants.

Her movements were stiff, but she got the jeans undone and shucked them from her legs, wincing and kicking. The denim, softened by wear and wash, hunkered inside out on the carpet like a cowering dog. Ever impatient, she undid the uppermost buttons of her Oxford, then tugged it over her head without completing the bottom half. She poured the shirt on top of the jeans and punted both aside, well out of smelling range. From the nightstand, she grabbed one of Olivia's spare elastics and raked her hair into a haylike pile atop her head.

"There. That a little better?" she asked breathlessly, seated across from Olivia in the same white cotton bra and panties that she'd worn earlier. They almost looked too big for her, compared to the scant undergarments she typically wore, but somehow these were oddly sweet. Innocent, even.

A bit boggled by the whirlwind strip down, Olivia nodded absently, her eyes going to Amanda's torso and the patch of gauze taped to it. She'd been the one who changed her fiancée's bandages, up until about a week ago, when Amanda declared she could do it herself. This one was acceptable, although not as neat as Olivia's handiwork. What made her gasp, though, was not the detective's lack of first aid aesthetics, but the glowing pink aura that surrounded the bandage like a widening danger zone on a nuclear explosion map. The wound had been seeping, a grease-colored stain woven into the gauze.

"Jesus. Amanda." Olivia went to her then, unable to hold back any longer. Not when Amanda was hurting. The sear of tobacco was fainter now, the slap of vodka gone completely, and she pushed past the fear and prickling skin triggered by the former to cradle the blonde's cheek in hand. It was ice cold. So were her shoulder, her arm, her hip and thigh. "Oh my God, you're freezing. Oh, sweetheart. Did you get hit in the stomach, too?"

Despite the chill that seemed to grip her from head to foot, Amanda visibly warmed to the touch. She jerked as though it was a shock to the system when Olivia took the hand away and felt around in the covers until she excavated a wadded throw from the foot of the bed. "What?" Amanda asked, glancing down at her inflamed abdomen. "Oh. No, just the eye. I think that's from . . . overdoin' it. Too much walking and stuff, I mean."

The last part was added hastily, after Olivia paused in wrapping the blanket around Amanda's shoulders like a cape. That ashtray odor wafted up from inside the fleece folds, and Olivia had to
(—pick one. Burn her up here or down there? Your choice, Detective.)
turn her face aside for a moment and catch her breath. She almost gagged.

She'd been around cigarettes and smokers many times AL—After Lewis—and while it always bothered her, she hadn't been this affected by it since a suspect's father lit up in his living room during one of her first cases back on the job. The minute she exited the property, she'd puked in his hydrangeas. Why it should be such a gut-punch again now, she couldn't say. Probably all the wine (Don't forget the pills, Detective) and the emotional upheaval of the past week, or several, mixed with seeing her fiancée looking like one of the DV corpses they fished from the Hudson on the regular.

Maybe she could say.

"I think we should go to the ER and get that looked at. Make sure it's not infected or something." Olivia tipped her head at the wound, then indicated Amanda's swollen eye with another brief nod, finding it hard to gaze at for too long. It made her want to cry; it made her want to find the man who dared lay a finger on her fiancée and make him cry. "And you need your eye checked. He might've damaged the socket or your cheek or—"

Amanda caught at Olivia's hand as the thumb grazed across her uninjured cheekbone, so delicate and pale it reminded Olivia of eggshell. "I'm okay, darlin'. Really. Sore as hell, but I'll live. I just need some Tylenol and a bag of frozen peas."

"To eat?" Olivia asked, and then silently cursed her muzzy head when she realized what Amanda meant. She sounded like someone who had never been hit in the face before. "Oh. To put on your eye."

"Yeah." The corner of Amanda's mouth edged up in a vague smile. She folded Olivia's fingers over her own hand, but didn't kiss the backs as she normally would. "Daph tried to get me to ask for a frozen steak. Told her I don't even spend thirty bucks on makeup, so why would I pay it for a hunk of meat to stick on my face?"

"You were with Daphne?" Olivia heard the edge in her own voice and still couldn't stop herself in time. She had no right to be jealous of Amanda seeking out a friend after such a bad blow-up; she'd done exactly the same thing with Alex. But she had wanted Amanda, not an old (ex?) friend. It hurt to think her fiancée might have been confiding in someone else when, most of the time, Olivia could barely get two words out of her about how she was feeling.

Amanda winced slightly, though it was unclear whether she had reacted to the question or her injuries. She reached for Olivia's other hand, the one wearing the engagement ring, and held both in hers, as if they were already exchanging vows. "Yeah, I, uh . . . I called her," she said hesitantly, fiddling with the ring. "I's feelin' really shitty about— about what happened. I'm sorry, I know I shoulda called you instead . . . "

The blonde's gaze drifted over to the corner, to the debris of Olivia's cell phone. "Wish I had. It wasn't fair to leave you hangin' like that, not knowing . . . I just— I thought I needed space or something, or that maybe you did? I dunno. I don't know what I was thinking, to be honest. I'm so sorry, Liv."

There was a desperation to the words that took Olivia by surprise, easing some of the sting of confirmation—Amanda had been aware Olivia was calling, had chosen Daphne over her—and intensifying the ache in her chest. She knew then, right or wrong, for better or for worse, she would forgive Amanda anything.

Lindstrom would call it fawning, a term for the fourth trauma response (the rest: fight, the one Olivia preferred believing she relied on; flight, the one she actually relied on; and freeze, the one that led to most of her traumas in the first place), and a term which she despised. As if she were some weak baby deer or a groveling sycophant. He had accused her of it many times before, during discussions about her relationships—platonic and romantic.

According to the good doctor, Olivia manifested the behavior most notably by placing others' needs ahead of her own, blaming herself for and excusing others' actions, her difficulty saying no to those she cared about, and the guilt that inevitably followed when she allowed herself to be angry. Made sense. It explained why she had put up with Elliot's toxic masculinity and violent temper for so long—although, Lindstrom had an altogether different diagnosis for that one—and why she'd pursued Brian Cassidy, then stayed with him well past the expiration date, even after listening to him moan his way through a ten minute blowjob from a prostitute.

He might as well get it somewhere, she'd reasoned, while the bile crept up the back of her throat. She repeated the thought to Dr. Lindstrom later, adding, "Because he sure as hell isn't getting it from me." Of course, then the doctor had wanted to talk about her intimacy issues and strong aversion to oral sex. But that was a whole other therapy session in itself.

The "fawning"—she always thought of it in quotation marks, as if that could prevent her from doing it—even extended to her children. "They love you unconditionally, Olivia," Lindstrom had assured her, more recently than she cared to admit. "That isn't going to stop if you take away video game privileges or send them to their rooms. You can even lose your temper sometimes, and guess what? They will still love you."

Olivia had her doubts about that one, but she kept them to herself. Just as she wouldn't admit her fear that if she didn't fawn, didn't give in, she would lose Amanda. That she could work on later. She'd made do with her neurosis for the past fifty-two years; one more night wasn't going to hurt. Another night without Amanda most certainly would.

"It's okay," Olivia said, pressing the detective's hands flat together and chafing the backs with her palms. They were warmer now, but Amanda still looked cold, huddled beneath the pearl-colored throw. Or perhaps Olivia was projecting, sitting there shirtless and chilled to the bone. Gigi's body heat helped, but the dog had curled up behind her, leaving her back exposed to the elements of the bedroom—a cold place this evening. "It's okay."

Why couldn't she think of anything else to say?

"No, it ain't," Amanda supplied. She extended her arm—and with it, a cigarette-scented breeze—offering an invitation underneath the blanket, but snapped the flap closed at the sight of Olivia's queasy expression. "I acted like an asshole. A mean, abusive asshole. All that stupid— sorry, all that dumb shit I said . . . I didn't mean any of it. I was just mad. Lately I've just been so . . . mad."

"At me?" Olivia asked, her voice so small she barely recognized it. She cleared her throat to try again, but the words evaporated before they reached her lips.

Amanda winced again, and this time it was definitely because of the question. She shook her head hard, the knot of hair on top whipping back and forth. "No, darlin'. Not at you. Well, at first I thought I was, but then Daph— I mean, I figured out some things. Things I oughta tell ya." She swallowed audibly, tugged at her bottom lip, cringed as it split wider, trickling blood onto her chin. "Ow, damn. Ain't gonna be very good at it, I can promise you that. And I should probably clean up first. This lip, at least."

The prospect of Amanda willingly sharing her feelings was too intriguing to pass up. Olivia had her own theories about the detective's behavior—PTSD from being stabbed and shot, all within the same year; childhood trauma rearing its ugly head, in the form of Beth Anne; the anxiety and depression that accompanied being cooped up at home, recovering, wondering if you could still do your job when you finally got back to it; and then there was the possibility that she simply just didn't want to marry Olivia after all . . . .

But she wanted to hear Amanda's take, not her own armchair-psychiatrist diagnoses, cooked up by her own PTSD and Merlot-soaked brain, after the worst fight she'd ever had with anyone outside of her own damn mother.

"Let me help?" she asked hesitantly, prepared to retract the offer if it annoyed Amanda. The detective's determination not to be coddled had returned in full force about a week into her recovery, but it was especially pronounced since Christmas.

"You sure?" Amanda peered down into the dark tent of blanket around her and sniffed. "I know I stink. Don't want it to bother ya."

"It's okay," Olivia heard herself say yet again. She bit her tongue to keep from repeating her other favorite adage—I'm fine—as a follow-up. She was half dressed, half drunk, and on her way to a full migraine. It had just occurred to her that she smelled like her mother: boozy, vomitous, sweat-through as a whorehouse bedsheet. Probably looked like her too, bleary-eyed and bloated. (At least there was some family resemblance.)

She was definitely not fine.

"I can handle it." She sat up straighter, shoulders back, and met Amanda's uncertain gaze without wavering. Expecting to be turned down flat, she only blinked at the hand that was extended from inside the blanket at first. The knuckles were bruised, the fingers slightly inflated, as if retaining water. Olivia took it gingerly at the palm and allowed Amanda to help her step down from the bed like she was exiting a carriage.

It felt strange and a bit staged, as if they were actors in a play. The dramatic story of a lesbian couple whose relationship was about to implode, due to severe psychological damage and lack of communication. A smash hit, a shoo-in at the Tonys. But Olivia held on, not wanting to lose the contact, awkward though it may be.

She wasn't as off-balance as she'd feared, the room didn't tilt or spin around her; still, she let Amanda guide her to the door and help her on with the robe that hung there. The silken fabric was cool against her skin, and she shivered, tucking it around herself. She shivered a second time when Amanda swept the hair from under her collar, grazing the length of her neck with a soft, apologetic touch.

"Liv, I . . . "

Olivia nodded, catching Amanda lightly by the hand again. "Let's go take care of that lip."

. . .