This chapter follows Law & Order: SVU 15x1 - Surrender Benson very closely. Trigger warning for abduction/sexual assault/dark themes. I encourage you to watch at least a little of that episode before reading this, though it is not necessary.
...
"Hey. There she is. Big beautiful brown eyes. So beautiful."
Alex? Olivia's head is pounding. That voice doesn't sound like Alex. She goes to open her mouth and finds she can't. Tries to move her hands and finds them bound.
"Give me a smile. Still feeling woozy, huh?"
What is the last thing she can remember? Coming home. The door already open. She'd called out for her wife, thinking she hadn't left yet for dinner. Maybe the babysitter hadn't shut it all the way?
"That's alright," the voice says. She could place it if her head weren't pounding. Why is it pounding like that?
"We've got time." Hands come to grasp either side of her shoulders, and the knowledge hits her square in the chest.
Lewis.
"Oh come on, don't be shy. We're past that."
Lewis in her apartment. Lewis, with duct tape and a taser and…what feels like the effect of a handful of sleeping pills.
Lewis. In control of her.
"You were so sweet when you were knocked out." He sets her up and comes around her side into her field of vision. He smiles at her, and she blinks, trying to unblur the edges of her vision.
He holds up a bottle of vodka. She would know that red border anywhere.
"Another drink?"
…
…
Her mother will not get out of bed. Olivia pushes her bangs out of her eyes and tugs at the comforter again, managing to roll her mother's limp form over onto her side. "Mom," she says, fighting the panic that arises when her mother makes no reply. "Mom, c'mon, you've got to get up. Your job starts in 35 minutes, and you don't have enough money for a cab."
Serena Benson doesn't move. Olivia stands very still, until she is sure that her mother is indeed breathing, and it's not just a figment of her imagination. She bites her lip, trying not to get angry at herself for the wave of relief she feels at seeing her mother still breathing. This happens every other day. At least. She should not still be so easily swayed.
"Mom!" she says louder. "Get up!"
Serena grunts, but doesn't move.
"You can't be late," Olivia says, pulling harder on the comforter. "This is the best job you've had in a long time. You can't lose it."
"I wish he'd killed me," Serena says, her voice muffled by the pillow she's pulled over her face.
"What?" Olivia leans closer.
Serena pulls the pillow off her face, opening her bleary eyes to look at her daughter. Her face is puffy from drinking, and her mouth looks puckered, dehydrated.
"I said I wish he'd killed me," she says, over enunciating each word. "I wish that you weren't ever born. I'd rather have died than look at you, day after day."
Olivia blinks, shock wiping her mind completely blank. Serena slumps back a little. "Or I wish I'd killed us both. Just done away with the whole thing. I'd rather be dead, than be reminded."
…
…
"Keep your eyes open," Lewis says, "Or she dies."
Olivia stands at the foot of the bed, trying to find a way that she can see nothing with her eyes open. She means to blink and her eyes stay closed. She cannot will them back open to the sight in front of her. The old woman. Her paper thin skin already bruising.
She doesn't see his backhand coming, but she doesn't really register the pain either.
"Look," he hisses into her ear. "Look or she dies. You want her to die?"
Does she?
Does Olivia want this stranger to die because she refused to watch the violation of her body?
Or does she want the woman to survive because of her, and have to live with the burden of knowing that if Olivia had just closed her eyes, if she had just disobeyed, she could have spared the old woman the greatest pain of her life.
"Do you want her death on your conscience?" he rephrases.
Olivia opens her eyes.
When he is finished. When the old woman has begged, and he has not heeded. When the old man in the front room finally stops breathing, head lolling onto his chest, Lewis drags Olivia back through the house towards the car.
"We're just getting started," he whispers in her ear.
She struggles against him. "Please, just let me see if she's breathing," she pleads. "Her throat feels raw. Her eyes are burning. If the woman is dead, if her last memory was Olivia's choice to subject her to this animal rather than let her slip into oblivion…
"Please," she says, aware her voice has risen, that it is hoarse and loud, ringing through the house. "Let me make sure she's okay."
Lewis grins. He grins. "Begging, Detective," she says, pulling open the front door of the house. "And I thought you weren't into me."
…
…
Emily and Jane are the only people she tells, and even then she only does so at the last minute. It's not until later that she wonders if she'd held out so long in some form of self-sabotage. Some unconscious desire to suffer alone.
She tells Alex she'll be gone for the weekend, relieved when her girlfriend accepts her lie about work as the truth. She's never been dishonest with Alex before, and her hands tremble just the slightest bit.
"I'll miss you," Alex says in her straightforward way, as if this emotion was not only acceptable, but completely deserved and natural. "Will you see Jane? Tell her hello from me."
Yes. She would see Jane. And Emily. They both drop everything and come to her side, Jane looking older and hardened, Emily softer and more relaxed. It is not lost on Olivia that the car parked in the lot of the hotel is JJ's sporty little Audi. She is ready to tell Emily that her new girlfriend is not welcome at her mother's funeral, but when she and Jane pull up to the main doors to pick her up, the FBI agent is alone. She makes no mention of JJ's presence. Not one.
They put aside their respective reservations and come with her into the cathedral, sitting on either side of her in silence while she tries to think of something she wants to say. Eventually, Emily leans forward and pulls a bible out of the pew in front of her. She flips through it for a moment and then hands it to Olivia, who looks down at the passage where Emily's finger rests.
"Where, O death is your victory; Where, O death, is your sting?"*
Olivia blinks several times, and her vision eventually clears. Is this what mourning is?
Emily puts her hand on her knee, leaning forward to whisper in her ear. The three of them are alone in the great room, and so she is clearly audible in the silence.
"Whatever you feel is okay."
…
…...
How much vodka has she had? How much does he plan to give her? When does the phrase I will not die here become, please don't let me die here.
He duct tapes her mouth, and she has to focus all of her drugged brain on breathing. She tries not to think of things that might make her cry because she cannot afford the congestion, but she cannot help but picture her son as she'd gotten him ready for school. She can't help but think of Alex.
Alex.
Please don't let me die here.
Her head is fuzzy from the combination of sleeping pills and alcohol. She rarely drinks, and never to excess. She has no tolerance and Lewis knows that.
He knows everything about her.
…
…
Emily lags behind on the walk to the grave, and Olivia doesn't recognize it as a deliberate move until Jane speaks. "The music was nice," she says.
"Judy Garland was Serena's favorite," Olivia says. "Isn't that odd?"
Jane shrugs. She is walking closer than she would normally, but she doesn't reach out to touch. Olivia is the first among the three of them to lose a parent. She is always going first, it seems. But she knows that Jane will be next. Her father's Cancer is back for what seems to be the final time.
When they get to the grave site, the coffin is already there, and the priest too. He smiles kindly at her, but she can't find the energy to smile back at him. She stares at the coffin, and then at the hole, perfectly rectangular.
The priest clears his throat. "Sleep on now," he says in a deep, melodic voice. "And take your rest-"**
"No," Jane cuts him off forcefully. Olivia snaps her head up to look at her, but Jane strides forward, snatching the book from his hands and rifling through it quickly. "Don't read that bullshit one," she says under her breath. "Read this." She shoves it back at him and then steps back into her place beside Olivia.
The priest looks between them, shocked, until Olivia nods curtly. He clears his throat again.
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes," the Priest begins, but falters, clearly unsure whether or not this passage is the one Jane meant.
"Read it," Jane says in her deep voice. And at another curt nod from Olivia, the man takes a breath and starts again.
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Olivia looks up at him, and then at Jane. That makes twice today that her best friends have manipulated the book that they profess to hate in order to comfort her.
Even if Jane were one for tearful thank you's and sappy confessions, Olivia would not be able to express what their understanding of this day has meant to her.
Jane shrugs again, and though most of her physical affection has been wrung from her by her father and her fear, she manages to reach out and grasp Olivia's arm, hard.
"Soon enough," she says lowly, "We will all bury our monsters."
Behind them, Emily makes a soft sound of agreement.
…
…
How many hours has she been with William Lewis? How many more horrors will he force her to witness? It is night when she regains consciousness, and it takes her muddled senses a long, long moment to understand that she is on the floor in the back seat of a car.
She is going to be late to dinner with Alex. They're going to have to pay the sitter extra.
No. Olivia blinks, and the nightmare comes back to her, full force. It is a new night, after a new day, and she is still with her abductor. She does not know if Alex is still breathing, if she ever even made it to the restaurant, or if the sitter, coming home with her son even made it through the-
The overhead light of the car blinks on as someone opens the back door of the sedan. Lewis. He lifts her up and props her against the seat, smiling that calm, unhurried little smile. He looks at the tears running down her cheeks, but he does not comment on them.
"Thirsty?"
She is beyond resistance. Her throat is on fire. She manages to make her head move up and down. Yes.
He pulls the duct tape off her mouth and tips her head back. More vodka. She retches.
He seems unbothered.
Moving her mouth is like swimming through molasses. "Where smy famlee?"
He doesn't answer, though he's stopped smiling. "I think we're going to find it soon," he says.
"Find what?"
Lewis takes a bottle of water from the grocery bag he's returned with and unscrews the cap. He turns her head to the side so that she can watch as he pours the entirety onto the cement outside the car.
"Someplace special."
….
Alex comes to the apartment.
Emily and Jane accompany Olivia to the basement apartment in the middle of Downtown Crossing, where mother lived for the last seventeen years of her life.
"The landlord said he'd give you to the end of next week to get anything you wanted," Emily says, her tone suggesting that they come back another day.
"I only need to the end of today," Olivia says, pulling the keyring out of her pocket. "I doubt there'll be anything I want in this dump." She moves towards the front door, dread building in the back of her throat, when all of a sudden, a voice behind her makes her whirl.
"Olivia," Alex says. "Livvie."
The three of them turn to see Alex Cabot stepping out of JJ's car. She's dressed in a black knee-length dress and a grey overcoat, and she looks sad and gorgeous.
Olivia's mouth falls open.
…
So. Here is their special place. An abandoned house in a row of other abandoned houses. No one there to hear her scream, no one there to wonder at a strange car in the driveway. She can hear Lewis rummaging around in a side room, his cheerful voice floating back to her.
When was the last time he drugged her? She yanks at the metal bedframe that he's bound her to, and feels some of her strength returned. The blurry lights of delirium seem to have lessened in the corners of her eyes.
She pulls on the metal bar again.
It bends.
…
"What are you doing here?"
"I called Amaro to ask him what time your train got back from the city, and he informed me that he was enjoying a long weekend with his family in Orlando."
"Damnit. Get your lie to lie. That's evasion 101."
"Emily and Jane sent me to voicemail. JJ picked up. I'm sorry I didn't make it down for the service."
"I'm not."
"You don't want me here?"
"Of course I don't."
"I…have to admit that I don't know how to respond to that. I expected an apology for underestimating me, not the continuation of it."
"Alex."
"Olivia. Enlighten me. You are my girlfriend. Your mother just passed away. How could you neglect to share that information with me?"
"Because you wouldn't get it."
"…You've told me your mother was not always in the right state of mind."
"Is that the wording I used? Is there a word that is more extreme than sugarcoating?"
"She drank."
"She was a raging alcoholic. She drank like a fish."
"She hit you."
"I wish."
"Olivia."
"I'm sorry. Don't let Jane hear me say that. No. She didn't hit me."
"I…wish you would have told me. She's your mother, and losing her is hard on you, that's clear. I wish you would have let me be there for you."
"You wouldn't know how."
"That's pretty unfair of you to say, Olivia, without even giving me the chance"
"You don't know me."
"The past year and a half says differently."
"You don't know this me. You don't know this kid. This kid who used to wake up every morning to…and wish that…you…you don't know anything about Boston."
"I'd like to."
"And I'd like to keep you. But we don't always get everything we want."
…
"What's that look?" Lewis again, on the bed, crawling up beside her, and when she focuses on him he is almost blur free. She has lost all feeling in her hands, the bottoms of her feet are numb from the binding. But her biceps flex at her command.
She glares at him.
"Are you feeling sad? Thinking about someone you're never going to see again?"
…
"You think I'll leave you? Now that I know the full measure of your past? You think that little of me?"
"No."
"No?"
"You don't know the full measure of my past. And if you did, I don't think it would make you leave me."
"Well, I am even more at a loss now than I was five minutes ago."
"I'm going to leave you."
"No. You're not."
"Alex. Just…trust me on this one, okay? I am not anything that deserves you."
"Liv-"
"Go home, Al."
…
Lewis leers at her. "So who is it? What's got you looking like that? Is it Mom? Dad? Boyfriend?"
She doesn't answer. Just one slow blink.
Lewis seems disquieted for the first time in three days. "No, huh? Someone else? Someone who you would give anything to see just one more time." He reaches out to play his fingers over her face. "You're gonna cry his name out at some point. They always do."
Olivia pulls surreptitiously at the metal bar that holds her hands. It gives a little more.
Lewis leans closer. He does not look even slightly amused any longer. "Just try to put him out your mind okay? Because you're not gonna make it out of this alive."
…
She banishes her best friends. She wants to be in the apartment alone. Emily asks if she is sure three times, and hesitates at the door, but eventually she climbs the short steps to the sidewalk and heads in the direction of the hotel.
Jane stays put, shaking her head obstinately until Olivia steps up and hugs her tight, waiting through the detective's automatic tense and relax before she speaks.
"I love you, Jane. I love you. Now get the hell out of here."
"I heard you tell Alex you're leaving her."
Olivia tries at a smile. "Eavesdropper."
Jane doesn't smile back. "She really…loves you, Liv," she says, only stuttering a little on the L word. "Remember when we never thought that would be possible?"
Olivia huffs. She pushes Jane gently towards the door. "Tonight," she says, appeasing. "The Robber. Okay?"
Jane squints. "Do you promise?"
"I promise."
…
"Little girls, huh? Old ladies. What is it with you? Are you afraid of me?" She doesn't know where the words come from, but she can see when they hit their mark. "We've been together for four days. There's been a lot of talk, but there's not a lot of action."
Lewis tries to smile and is not completely successful. "It's comin' baby," he says, but she can see the tension in his face, the twitch of his lip.
She keeps pushing. This ends now.
"I wonder if you're not man enough to get it up for a real woman," she waits, and he doesn't answer, though his jaw has tightened significantly. "Just wondering," she whispers.
…
Alex comes back. Olivia has not locked the front door behind Jane, and she's kneeling in the back bedroom, crying into a patchwork quilt when the counselor reappears.
"Olivia," Alex sounds concerned. "Are you okay?"
"Go away," Olivia says through her tears. She can feel shame heating her cheeks.
But Alex doesn't leave. She crosses the little room and kneels down beside the detective, leaning close. "You deserve me," she says, and her hands push Olivia's hair out of her face, running a thumb along her cheekbone. "And I'm not leaving."
"Al-"
"No. The detective that could collar criminals in her sleep, and the kid who hoped every night that her mother would stop drinking or just kill herself and be done with it." Alex pulls Olivia's head to her shoulder. "All of those parts of you deserve me. Boston Olivia is just as special and beautiful to me as New York Liv is."
Olivia holds the quilt in her hands. "This-this quilt is the only good thing I can remember," she chokes out. "She got sober for like...two weeks. There was a thunder storm. We wrapped up in this quilt and just…watched movies and ate popcorn. I was seven or eight." Olivia sniffs. She shakes her head. "I don't know what I can offer you, Alex. When it's just you and me together, when we're in the City, I can pretend-"
"Hey." Alex tugs the quilt from Olivia's hands and gives it a shake, unfurling it. She wraps it around the brunette's shoulders. "There are parts of me that I don't think deserve you."
Olivia shakes her head. "That's-"
"It's the truth," Alex says firmly. "Many parts. They don't matter right now, because the only thing that matters at this moment is you." She tilts her heads so that she can look Olivia in the eyes. "Listen to me. I am head over heels in love with you. I've never comforted anyone before. I've never felt myself to be particularly adept at it." Alex pauses, and seems to be gathering herself. "But I want to try with you. I don't want Emily or Jane or Elliot Stabler to be the one who takes care of you while I wait on the side lines. I want to be that person. And if you can trust me enough to let me try…then I will trust you enough to possibly fail."
And Olivia has not said it yet. She has been holding back and holding back, second guessing herself and talking herself down. But there can be no denying it now.
"I love you, Alex," she says, and she folds herself against the counselor's chest. And Alex kisses her hair and her temple.
"I'm here," she whispers. "And I always will be. And you deserve that kind of comfort."
…
When she makes him mad enough, when he throws down his knife and reaches to unbuckle his pants, to make good on the threats of the last 86 hours; that is when she pulls down as hard as she can on the metal bar her hands are attached to.
She feels it give way, feels her numb fingers close around it, and she surges up. He throws himself backwards too, in surprise, but she doesn't wait. She brings the bar around hard against his temple and jaw, feeling the jolt of metal on flesh wring up into her elbows.
He reaches for the gun and she brings the bar down on his arm, and then again across his back, and she has been looking at this all wrong.
Her wife and her son deserve a mother that will return to them, just as she deserves a family that will always be there.
When William Lewis falls and struggles to get up, she drops the bar and picks up the gun from the bureau. She swings it around to face him, and he looks up at her, afraid for the first time.
"Now," she says hoarsely. "We will both get what we deserve."