Disclaimer: We don't not and never will own Law and Order SVU or its characters. We borrowed the title and were inspired by the Santana and Musiq song entitled Nothing At All. You can find the song on Santana's Shaman album.

A/N: We were thinking of something to add to Aftermath, and we came up with this. Reviews are welcomed, flames too, suggestions appreciated. Thank you and bye-bye.

Nothing At All

I was victim of your cries

A product of his rage

I was your beautiful distraction.

The little girl sat down in the warm sunlight streaming into the living room and took a moment to marvel at how, in this light, her hands had the looks of doves ready to take flight. She began to sort through the photograph pile on the table next to her, gazing at her little cousin with mud on her face, the gangly boys, she and her cousin with their matching short yellow dresses, their scabby knees showing. She looked nothing like them. It was the first time in her life that she realized she looked nothing like anyone in her family. Not her mother. Not her cousins. Nobody.

"Olivia, put those pictures down and get your coat, it's nearly seven."

Her mother played the lottery faithfully, but never won anything. Not even a small amount.

"Mommy why do you play so much?" She'd asked once. At least with Cracker Jacks and Frosted Flakes she won things. "You never win anything."

She said it reminded her of love.

Olivia's mother reminded her of her favorite candy. Round, colorful, tangy, sweet on the outside, but bitter on the inside. Her mother's bourbon soaked slumbers and guttural screams kept her afraid of the dark. Her own mother begging her not to touch her, not to hurt her, questions spread across her young mind like a stain. Not even Lissette, her fast teenage cousin, had a real answer for her.

"Your mother ain't never been known to step in no dog shit or gum. You know why?"

Olivia shook her head.

"Because she always walks around with her head down."

Maybe that's why mother couldn't see him, the man in her dreams, coming. Trusting nobody as her friend, she could not recognize her enemy when the latter actually appeared. Mother always dragged her cousins and neighbors into their apartment. Mother always encouraged her to reach for sunshine but never reached for it herself.

Her mother was always telling her to get out of bed, but she always lied in hers. There is a casualty, a feeling so overwhelming and predictable that it has the force of kismet, which almost consistently compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the hint that saddens it.

Aunt Sarah said, "I knew you were going to be a girl. You sucked all the beauty out of your mother like a leech, you still do."

All the light of her character had been withered up by her dark haired brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive, had she possessed friends or companions to be repelled by it. Her mother trusted nobody but Chopin, but she still gambled.

Olivia never understood any of it, nothing at all.