Disclaimers/Notes:
Law and Order SVU; femslash; A/O
All characters involved in and around LO SVU are © to the fantastic (if only mildly psychotic) and unfortunately named Dick Wolf. I own absolutely nothing.
The title is Latin and it translates into "Alexandra Against the World". A world of thanks and love to the lovely beetlebreath from LJ, my beta for this story.
-A
Alexandra Contra Mundum
Alex was born and raised Catholic. Flawless blue blood pumped through her veins, carrying with it the genes that made her tall, blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful, as well as the often all-consuming and all-pervasive guilt that her mother and priest had burned into her at a young age-the trademark Catholic guilt; guilt of being human, of the inability to be sinless. Alex, or Alexandra, as she was named upon conception, was bred and born for success and perfection. She was conditioned to carry with graceful ease all the burdens that came with being among the beautiful and wealthy; trained to be aloof and cold and perfect at all times, to be the perfect daughter, a veritable lap dog; a flawless Cabot gem. She was forced to bottle and cork all her eccentricities and fascinations as carefully as the bottles of Dom Perignon that numbered like the stars in her family's wine cellar. Her priest taught her that if her hand did evil, it was better to cut it off than to live with it, to gouge out her eyes if they strayed to any evil sight. So naturally when she found her eyes staring too long at a schoolmate's leg from beneath a pleated Catholic school girl skirt, she sat with scissors in her hand for hours, contemplating. But she did nothing and said even less. She maintained her silence even when, in her high school years at the overpriced boarding school she attended, she found herself staring into heated, long-lashed green eyes before full lips met hers and fingers drove her to breathless hysteria. But that could have been because her hand was stuffed in her mouth to keep her from screaming.
As a child, Alex had gone to Church every Sunday with her parents and elder brother, taken Communion, gone to confession, and fulfilled every obligation that she as a pious young lady was expected to. She'd gone to a private catholic school all her life and was expected to become a neurosurgeon like Father, or at least an anesthesiologist like Mother. It rocked the very foundations of the Cabot genealogy when Alex crossed her arms across her chest and said the one word her family never knew was in her vocabulary: "No." She demanded that she be sent to law school; she wanted to become an attorney, to prosecute child molesters and rapists like her Uncle Thomas (the one secret no friend, no lover, no one could pry from her unrelenting lips). The family was disappointed, of course; more so when they discovered that Alex had no intentions of becoming a thousand-dollar-an-hour defense attorney or starting her own practice, but wanted to work for and with the state. But she was adamant. And she was the priceless Cabot gem. They yielded eventually, but not without her grandfather Alexander Cabot II grumbling about how ungrateful she was. He was silenced by Alex's threat to out him and his strange predilection for liking young girls. She left Cabot manor for college, grateful for the reprieve. After years of studying for ridiculous exams and wearing turtlenecks to hide the hickeys she got from her "room mate", Alex earned her position as Assistant District Attorney of the Manhattan Police Department 16th Precinct- the Godforsaken Special Victims Unit. Sex crimes, she remembered thinking somewhat dully and excitedly, what a sordid dream come true.
Alex had worked with SVU for years, and rarely had time to stop and breathe, much less go to Church or live a normal life. Not that she really had any inclination or desire to do either. However, she still knew her Hail Marys and she still prayed them, especially when she heard the sharp roar of blood rushing to her exhausted brain when she saw pictures her detectives showed her of the victims and crime scene. She would beg God to strike her down with lightning when she would tune out the details of the crime bursting in disgusted torrents from Detective Stabler's mouth in favour of wishing for another cup of coffee and a warm, firm bed to collapse in. SVU was not only Godforsaken, it was Godless entirely; the roads and streets and alleys they found their victims in were not roads to Manhattan but smaller, winding roads leading into the very depths of Hell itself. Alex could feel the freezing winds of Coccytus being blown in her direction by Lucifer's leathery wings with increasing intensity with each day that dragged by. She'd convinced herself that her faith was unbreakable, as rattled as it was; all ill things that happened to her were merely consequences of her being a "filthy Sodomite." Even after all these years, she could still remember Father Marshall's fire and brimstone homilies about the depravity of the homosexuals. Odd, she mused, how unCatholic Father Marshall was for a Catholic priest; he seemed so…Southern Baptist.
Usually, Alex had no breaking point. If ever she broke, she hid it well and made sure to do it in solitude and complete isolation. But after she'd been with SVU for three years, prosecuted one too many case, seen one dead child too many, she carelessly let her cover of perfect control slip. It fell to the floor and splintered into a million pieces the night of the Avery case after they returned to the station after visiting Bellevue; it was her own Darkest Night, her personal Kristallnacht. She hated every second of weakness. It was then, at her frailest moment, that the door to her office creaked open timidly. Olivia walked in and Alex looked up, stormy blue eyes meeting Olivia's, only vaguely aware of feeling a hopeless droplet slither down the sleek ivory slope of her cheek. The unreadable vortex in Olivia's eyes was darker than the sun at night and Alex felt herself being pulled into strong arms. She felt Olivia's hand rubbing her back, heard her whispering nonsensical reassurances and knew that the other woman understood how terrified Alex was of letting other people see her cry, which is why Olivia never looked as Alex caved in completely, clutching onto the detective's leather jacket and sobbing brokenly, leaning her cheek against Olivia's shoulder and letting the warmth seep into her. Olivia held her gently without asking questions, and Alex choked out the only two words she could: "I'm sorry." They stood there for what seemed like forever until Alex's sobs subsided. The obnoxious chirp of Olivia's cell phone pierced the silence and she cursed, pulling away reluctantly to answer it. A heartbeat later, Olivia had apologized and excused herself, disentangling her arms from Alex's, muttering something about a perp and a body on 23rd. She turned around just as her hand touched the knob and strode back over to Alex, tucking her call card between the blonde's trembling fingers. She gently brushed a tendril of gold away from Alex's tear-streaked face and whispered, "It's always on" before walking out the door. A wave of emptiness hit Alex like nothing she'd ever experienced and she fought the urge to die. So, she thought grimly, this is unrequited love.
Alex was tense. So tense, she could taste the fatigue thrumming dully in her veins. She felt smoky, predatory bedroom eyes on her as the heels of her too-expensive shoes clicked against the cracked wooden floor, crushing broken glass and cigarettes beneath the heels like she did many a puttering mess of a defense attorney. She could hear the priest's voice like a hideous banshee's shrieking in the confines of her skull, telling her to flee the scene like a criminal. She knew she had no place there in the club, surrounded by women writhing to the music as if possessed; she knew she stood out in her starched suit amid the people clothed in the peasant garb of denim and cheap cotton. Her hair shone like a halo; truly she was a diamond among gravel, standing there with too many lesbians with mullets and nose rings eyeing her like dogs lusting after prime rib. She paused, wondering whether she should let her feet carry her any further into the belly of the building. Father Marshall would never have allowed it. She brushed past a woman with torn jeans, ignoring the invitation to take a load off and dance. She remembered a past lover who had affectionately dubbed her legal erotica. She squinted through her thickly framed glasses at a clock on the wall, surprising herself when she realized that she was in a lesbian bar in the middle of Manhattan at 12:25 am on a Saturday night. Her body begged for a bed, preferably with someone else in it, and Alex was too tired to even make an attempt at resist indulging herself. She recalled, with great reluctance, that the last time she'd gone to a bar to pick up company was in college; the awkward morning and hangover after nearly drove her insane. She wasn't entirely sure if she was willing to compromise her position and her reputation for another warm body, especially since the crowd wasn't quite the classy kind she was accustomed to. Her hesitation was only fuelled by her ungodly fear of contracting a strange disease and of the DA's office finding out that their star prosecution attorney had been seen lurking around in a lesbian bar. Then there was the detective who had held her as she cried mere hours before; the beautiful, strong, lean detective with smouldering brown eyes. And probably no interest in Alex whatsoever. She wondered if she'd ever be able to meet Olivia's eyes again with what she'd done staining her conscience.
She felt the music crawling and clawing up her legs like tiny spiders trying to shake her inhibitions loose. She felt them slowly slipping as she saw a familiar pair of lips tasting the rim of a glass, feeling a shiver race up her spine and then back down as burning eyes met hers. She approached, heels clicking a steady rhythm that was far slower than the flamenco beating in her heart. Her mouth went dry and a chill came over her; it was as if all the moisture and heat had been sucked from the air and concentrated into the seventeen inch space between the ADA and the detective. She forced her hand to steady itself as she reached out and rested it against Olivia's back, feeling a pang of bourgeois shame as she felt Olivia's thick muscles shift and quiver beneath the touch of her splayed fingers. Olivia got to her feet, lifting herself easily from the barstool she had haunted, wrapping her arms around Alex, both of them basking, wide-eyed, in the ridiculous irony of the moment. The irony, oh, the irony; it made Alex want to cry. She felt like she was being hurled to the ground from fifty feet in the air; her heart was in her feet and she fought the urge to gasp simply to reassure herself that she was still breathing. Somewhere in her skull, the priest was howling at her like a dismal typhoon wind; it wasn't real, it couldn't be. It was all too convenient. It had to be a dream. And yet, the distinctly tangible feel of Olivia's hands on her shoulders shaking her roughly and of her brain being rattled in her dried-out husk of a skull assured her that it was real. Olivia felt Alex's shiver as she breathed against her neck and asked, "Alex, are you okay?" Alex shut her eyes tight against the tender leather of Olivia's jacket, trying to block out the images of Cheryl Avery's mangled, bloody face. Yes. It was real. It was all too real. Her breathing became ragged as she wrapped her arms tightly around Olivia's shoulders and pressed her lips against the taller woman's and whispered, "Take me home, Detective."