This is my first fanfic ever, but read on!
Katherine Benson was fiercely independent, she took after her mother that way. There were times that she wondered how her mother kept herself together after all of those hard cases Olivia took on at the precinct. Kat wasn't immune to the cases her mother took on, she knew the gravity of each and every one as well as how important it was to catch the perpetrator - today was no different.
Kat emerged from her bedroom that morning promptly at 7:15am wearing jeans, a blue v-neck and her favorite pair of flats she had gotten on her birthday one year. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a messy bun, a necklace dangling around her neck – one that she never took off.
"Hey mom," she greeted her mother with a smile as she made her way into the kitchen to grab breakfast.
Olivia had already been up for about an hour going over the case she received the night before – it was one of the tougher ones she had to deal with. She looked up from her papers grateful for a break, smiling back at Kat and added, "Morning, you finish studying for that test you have today?"
Kat laughed as she took a bite of her toast, "God, Mom. I've got it covered, don't worry." As Kat put her backpack on her shoulders, she looked over at the case Olivia was looking at. "What's this one about?"
Olivia sighed and looked up at Kat, "You know I can't talk to you about this stuff, babe."
Kat rolled her eyes before picking up the file her mother was transfixed on, "Like that's ever stopped you from telling me before." Olivia sat back in her chair, looking up at Kat and chuckled, "You're going to make a great cop someday."
As Kat was flipping through the file, she suppressed a gasp as she came across a picture of a girl about her age who had been severely beaten and left for dead after a gang rape at a Hudson frat party.
"Benson." Olivia immediately said as she picked up her phone, occasionally glancing up at Kat who was flipping through the pages of notes in the case file. "Yeah Amaro, give me 15 minutes and I'll be there."
Kat glanced down at Olivia who was now frantically trying to get her things together. "What'd Amaro want this time?" She laughed as the statement was practically dripping with sarcasm.
"The vic just woke up at Mercy and she's ready to give her statement, I gotta go." Olivia grabbed the case file out of Kat's hands, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze before saying, "I'll be home hopefully tonight, you ace that test, you hear me?" And just like that, Kat was alone in the apartment once again.
Olivia made it to the hospital as soon as she could, traffic had been a nightmare. She confidently walked through the doors and up to the nurses station where she flashed her badge at one of the nurses who ushered her to a room down the hall. Amaro came walking from around the corner, two cups of coffee in hand.
"Hey partner," he said as he passed a cup to Olivia. "You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," she managed to say just before she walked into the hospital room where the vic was waiting.
It wasn't a pretty sight by any means. The poor girl was all of 19, sitting in a hospital room alone, terrified and covered in bruises. Olivia didn't blame her for initially not wanting to talk to her and Amaro at first, but when she finally gave in, SVU was right there.
Olivia made her way over to the side of the bed and in the softest voice she could manage began, "Hi Julie, I'm Olivia and this is my partner, Nick. We're from Special Victims." Julie's eyes darted between Olivia and Nick, she was doing her best not to panic under the circumstances but she was clearly struggling.
Against her better judgment, Olivia reached out and gently took Julie's hand in her own. "I know you're scared about what happened to you but I promise you that we'll do everything in our power to get you justice." Julie let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding and nodded before speaking, "Y-you're here to t-take my statement r-right?" Her voice cracking as she tried to keep the tears at bay and not lose it completely in front of the two detectives.
Olivia gave her a sympathetic smile and nodded all while never breaking eye contact with Julie, "That's right, do you think you could tell us what happened that night?"
Julie reluctantly began, avoiding eye contact from the start. "I-I was at a frat party on Tuesday night at Hudson with a few friends. We had been invited by a guy in my History class, he told us to come around 10." Julie rambled for a while on what he looked like and how he acted towards them when they first showed up to the party. "I had a few drinks at first and was talking to this group of guys John introduced me to when I started feeling dizzy, like the room started spinning."
She paused for a few moments, tears threatening to spill from her eyes at any given moment. "Th-the next thing I know, I'm upstairs in a room with 4 of them and they're all holding m-me d-down on the bed." At this point, the tears had long since spilled over the edge and Julie was having a hard time keeping it together.
Olivia quickly and softly intervened, "Julie, when they were holding you down, did you say no?"
"Y-y-yes, I said it over and over again but nobody cared. They just kept laughing and throwing me around like I was some kind of doll." Julie continued, trying to speak through her tears, "I must have blacked out, I'm not sure. I don't remember how I got here."
"If we brought you in for a line-up, do you think you could identify your attackers?" Olivia said, her eyes full of empathy for Julie and her situation.
Her eyes went wide at the realization that she would have to see her attackers face to face and she started to panic, "I-I can't see them, I don't want to see them!"
Olivia squeezed Julie's hands ever so slightly, "Honey, it's okay. They won't be able to see you and I'll be there the whole time, I promise. I won't let anything happen to you, can you trust me on that?"
She wiped the tears that made stains on her cheeks, Julie ever so slightly nodded at Olivia's sincere gesture and whispered "Thank you."
Olivia got up from the side of Julie's bed, thanking her for her bravery and handing Julie her business card – something she did with every victim she came into contact with.
Nick was waiting for her outside the hospital room, "You did good, she really trusts you, you know?" He gave her a sincere smile as he noticed that she seemed a little off.
"The poor girl, she has so much of her life to live and this happens to her." She glanced up at Nick, "It makes you think."
"Look, I get it." He smiled at her as they walked down the hallway. "I know Julie reminds you of Kat, all of the victims this age do. This job, once you're a parent, it changes you in a way you never thought about before."
She chuckled and nudged his shoulder with her fist as they began to drive back to the precinct, "Thanks for the pep talk, Nick. I appreciate it, partner."
Kat had gotten home from school about an hour ago, she was in the process of making spaghetti – a Benson favorite. The living room was already a mess, school papers and textbooks were all over the place from a marathon homework session she had done when she first walked in the door. She was in the last semester of her Junior year and she was beyond ready for it to be over.
Waiting for the water in the pot to boil, Kat returned to her place in the living room, attempting to pick up the papers that littered the floor and the couch cushions. She knew that when her mother came home that night, she would freak out if everything wasn't cleaned up. It was a routine, making a mess and cleaning it up before Olivia walked in the door – she had gotten in trouble if she didn't clean up so many times already.
As Kat made it back to the kitchen to throw the spaghetti in the pot to cook, she thought she'd clean up the rest of the apartment. It was the least she could do for Olivia, after all, Kat knew this case she was working was taking a toll on her even if Olivia never let it show. Olivia was the strongest, most selfless person she knew and she was grateful to have that. If only she could be half the person her mother was, Kat would be satisfied.
Breaking her out of her thoughts, was her phone that must have been ringing for at least a minute now. "Yeah?" Kat answered without bothering to look at the caller ID. "Oh hey, Mom."
"How did your test go today?"
"Great, I aced it. Definitely one of the easiest things I've ever taken this year."
"That's great, sweetheart." Kat was a great student, one of the top in her class so her performance in school was the least of Olivia's worries.
Olivia paused for a short moment and Kat beat her to what she was about to say. "You're not coming home tonight, are you?"
"I'm so sorry, this case is a lot harder than we thought. The stories don't quite line up, mostly on the perps end. I have to go interrogate him in a few minutes, I'll be home hopefully by the morning."
Kat sighed, realizing that it would be another night spent by herself in the apartment. Not that she minded being alone, having her mother there was just nice. "That's okay, I made some extra spaghetti for you. I'll put it in the fridge if you're hungry later." Kat paused again before saying, "Be safe tonight, I love you."
"I love you too, I'll see you in the morning Kat." Olivia said before they both hung up the phone.
Now that the spaghetti was ready, Kat put half of it in a left over container for Olivia when she came home and the rest in a small bowl for herself. She made her way over to the couch and turned the TV on as a way to drown out the silence in the apartment.
As Kat got older, she realized that there was a chance that Olivia wouldn't make it home night after night – it scared her to think that it was a possibility that her mother could be gone in the blink of an eye. She sighed, slowly coming out of her head as she cleaned up her dinner, realizing it was almost 10:30pm.
Turning the TV off, Kat made her way to her room at first before making a quick turn around to the room adjacent to hers. Turning down the covers, she made her way into the bed silently thinking to herself that she was silly to think such awful things and that Olivia would be home when she woke up the next morning.
I was going to bring Lewis into this story within the next few chapters and play that out, what do you think? Any ideas are welcome! Please read and review. :)