Chapter 33 - Benson
Thanks for the reviews nem, qt-angel, Lady Padfoot II, christopher-meloni-freak, SVUchik18, viol8dbyalizzard, AglaiaWar, and Mika Tsuki.
I must admit though, you guys kind of have me a little depressed. Everyone thinks that the last chapter was the end. Well, in case it's not apparent already, it wasn't! Believe me right now when I say that when this is done, totally and completely 100 percentfinished, you will know. Big huge banners, flashing lights, confetti... Just kidding about that. But I will definitely let you all know. And besides, I said my EO solution would make everyone happy. If they never hook up, I can name a bunch of people who wouldn't be happy. (You know who you are... ;)
SVUchik18, thanks for reviewing! Make my fanfic into an SVU episode? Wouldn't that be so cool if they would really do that? Then again, the day big huge producers like Dick Wolf create a show using a script a fifteen-year-old wrote is the day that (add desired 'never-gonna-happen' metaphor here). But I love that you think that! Makes my dreams for a writing career seem all that closer...
christopher-meloni-freak, thanks for the reviews! Oh my gosh, almost professional? You and SVUchik18 are making me cry! I love that you like my writing so much! I'm seriously thinking of becoming a writer when I get older, so you have no idea how much I appreciate reviews like that.
Lady Padfoot II, thanks for reviewing! Oh, you wanna see action do ya? I'll show ya action. Well, maybe later. I remember one of your earlier reviews where you said you didn't like it when a fanfic was just about people talking, right? Then you might want to skip over this and the next chapter. But don't worry, there will be more action. I just thought I'd give that a little rest after everything that happened.
qt-angel, thanks for the reviews! A twist with Brent? Do you seriously think I'd be cruel enough to do something like that? All right, I would, but I'm not going to! He's keeping his butt behind bars! Or is he..? Menacing glare, evil laugh Just kidding! I'm totally done with him. Well, there is his up-coming guest appearance later on, but he's not getting out of jail.
And here's a little riddle just because I feel like giving you a hint as to what's coming up. Okay, here it is. Long after Betrayal In The First Degree is completed, the story will continue! Figure that out! (I hope that's not too obvious...)
Well I should really stop rambling and just update, so here's Olivia... and Elliot! Two chapters, yay!
Official Author's Note - Now, being totally serious here, I feel I owe people an explanation about the beginning of this chapter despite the strict 'No more A/Ns about pairings' policy I set up. See, I wrote this chapter when I was being inundated (okay, so I only got like two or three) reviews asking me if I was going to pair up Olivia and John. Since no one believed me, I decided to have Olivia tell you. And that is the only reason it's even brought up! Thank you for listening, this has been an official A/N. ;)
Lyrics by Rascal Flatts - I'm Moving On
I've dealt with my ghosts and I've faced all my demons
Finally content with a past I regret
I've found you find faith in your moments of weakness
For once I'm at peace with myself
I've been burdened with blame, trapped in the past for too long
I'm movin' on
I've lived in this place and I know all the faces
Each one is different but they're always the same
They mean me no harm but it's time that I face it
They'll never allow me to change
But I never dreamed home would end up where I don't belong
I'm movin' on
I'm movin' on
And at last I can see life has been patiently waiting for me
And I know there's no guarantees, but I'm not alone
There comes a time in everyone's life
When all you can see are the years passing by
And I have made up my mind that those days are gone
I sold what I could and packed what I couldn't
Stopped to fill up on my way out of town
I've loved like I should but lived like I shouldn't
I had to lose everything to find out
Maybe forgiveness will find me somewhere down this road
I'm movin' on
I'm movin' on…
Benson
As I watched John leave, I was instantly pulled back to the conversation we'd had earlier in the kitchen. I was still waiting for this to be a dream. Finding and convicting him only five days after my attack, that was unbelievable.
"Liv?" Elliot's voice pulled me back into the present.
"Yeah?" I shut the door and turned around.
"Not that it's any of my business," he started, already showing that it would be a personal question, "but is there something going on between you two?"
"Who?" I turned my head to the side and studied him. "Wait, me and John?" I pointed to myself, incredulity in my voice. He didn't answer, but his look told me yes. "No! Of course not!" I was so taken aback by the question that I recoiled. A big part wasn't even that he thought that, but just the thought of John and me as anything more than friends… I slightly shuddered.
"Don't look so shocked." He watched me. "I saw how you looked at him in the hospital. And then you invite him to dinner, hug him good-bye?"
I stood with my mouth agape for a moment before answering. "We are just friends." I stressed every word in that sentence, making sure he understood. "That, and he's like old enough to be my father!"
Elliot just gave me a blank stare, like none of this was news to him. And he still looked like he didn't believe me.
"You've got it all wrong." I shook my head. "I was just thanking him," I motioned towards the door.
"For what?"
"For helping me with everything…" I quietly said. "Because that night, it was him who I went to afterwards. I thought of who I could trust. At the time, he was the first person to come to mind." I paused before I decided to tell him the other reason. "And, he caught him…"
"Caught who?" Elliot's voice told me I had ended any thought of a relationship between John and I that was anything more than platonic.
I looked up and locked eyes with Elliot. "The guy who raped me."
That seemed to send a shock wave of understanding through him. "They caught him, already?" His reaction was similar to mine.
"Caught and convicted," I sighed.
"When was the trial?"
"Wasn't one. Casey gave him a deal, fifteen to twenty years." My voice was empty as I told him what John had told me.
Elliot remained silent as he searched my face. "That's good, right?"
"Yeah." I nodded, sitting down on the couch. "It's great." And it was, really, but something just… felt strange about it.
"Then what's wrong?" Elliot could read me like a book sometimes.
"I don't know." I shrugged. "I mean, I should be happy that this guy's in jail, right?" I finally looked up at him, waiting for an answer. "But, I just… I just don't feel like anything's changed, you know?"
"What do you mean?" I felt him pushing me towards whatever I was trying to figure out, almost like a shrink.
"I mean, nothing's really changed." I sat back and stared ahead of me, lost in thought. "Yeah, he's in jail, but that doesn't take back or change what happened. I was still raped…"
"What were you expecting to feel when they put him in jail?" He was still gingerly pushing me along, speaking with care and concern.
I thought about it before I answered. "Closure." I met his stare.
He gave a warm smile at my response. "How many times have I heard you tell victims that closure is a myth?" His voice was soft, not accusing.
I shrugged, not sure what to say in response.
"You say it yourself Liv. You never get over it, you never put it behind you. Eventually, you learn to deal with it, to cope. But you'll never be the same afterwards. You change with it, everyday, for the rest of your life."
--XXX--
The next day I could still hear Elliot's words ringing in my head. I knew they were true, I wouldn't repeat them to victims had they not been. And I also thought about everything else, mainly, how I still was too terrified to go into my apartment.
Throughout my whole career, I couldn't tell you how many threats had been placed on me. There were always those cases that got too close to home, those perps that became obsessed, and the family members of victims who snap under the grief and pain. But I'd never let them scare me. I held fast onto my belief that they wouldn't win unless I changed my life because of them. I'd refused protective detail so many times… except the one time I wasn't given a choice. So no matter what happened, what threats there were, I refused to shuffle my life around for each creep that tried to scare me.
But now, why should this time be any different? The night that the bastard broke into my apartment, he didn't just attack me. He'd stolen a part of me, part of who I was. He'd stolen my sense of security, my belief in myself, the peace I was finally starting to find. He'd stolen so much, and I was ready to take it back.
And that's what brought me here, back to my apartment. In one hand, I held a bag from a hardware store. It contained a few different locks, one for the doorknob, a chain lock, and a dead bolt. Molly was having all the locks in the building changed after what happened, but I decided I'd rather do it myself, not giving her a chance to make it compatible with her master key. Elliot tried to tell me that the guy would have done whatever he had to do to get in, key or no, but it didn't ease my mind.
Staring at the familiar door, I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself, mentally and physically. Just as I was about to open it, a voice made me jump, catching me completely off guard.
"Hey Olivia!" It took a moment, but I quickly recognized the blonde, curly-haired, bubbly college student bounding up towards me, grocery bags in her hands.
"Hey Sarah." I smiled at my new neighbor. She'd moved in right next to me a week and a half ago. I met her in the hallway and helped her carry a few boxes into her apartment. She was nice, but she could talk to a doorknob for hours before realizing it wouldn't talk back.
"I haven't seen you in a while." She stopped and started talking to me.
"Yeah, I've been busy." I shrugged.
"Oh, hey, did you hear about what happened to Molly?" Her face lit up like a little schoolgirl at the prospect of passing around a little gossip. "Someone attacked her!"
"Yeah," I nodded, "I heard."
"Did the police come interview you too? Well, I guess that's a silly question. You are the police!" She laughed, still fascinated by my job. "They started asking me questions about an 'assault.' There were two of them. One was really old and the other was really creepy looking." While she started rambling about her encounter, I suddenly realized she met Fin and Munch. They must have been around interviewing people, using Molly's attack as a cover while they tried to find any witnesses. "Then I told them how you helped me move in. I think they might have known you."
She paused and lowered her voice, her expression turning serious. "I don't know if it's like, illegal to tell you or something, but I think that they were in your apartment, like they were looking for something." At the girl's ignorance and slightly ditzy comment, I couldn't help but smile. She was a really sweet, innocent girl, and a huge Hello Kitty fan by her own account. She was even going to school to become a vet just because she loved animals so much. And thinking about that, I couldn't help but wonder what she'd be like if it had been her apartment that Brent had broken into a week ago.
"Well, I'm sure whatever it was, they didn't find it," I assured her with a smile.
"Yeah, well, I should probably go home, put these away." She motioned to the grocery bag. "It was good talking to you. We should get together sometime! You know, hang out and talk." Her eyes widened in excitement at her suggestion.
"Yeah." I smiled and nodded. "That'd be fun." As she stood in front of me, waiting, I realized she wanted to make plans to do something right now. "Well, I gotta go. Nice talking to you!" I smiled and quickly slipped into my apartment before she could say anything else. I liked her, but I wasn't in the mood for hanging out with a girl over ten years my junior who might be confused for my daughter.
As I flipped the light switch in the living room on, I saw that I was in my apartment. All that worry and anxiety, and I didn't even notice myself go in.
Okay, the living room is one thing, but how about the bedroom? I challenged myself, that room being the main reason I was here. Creeping towards my bedroom, I was suddenly hit with a flashback to that night.
"Elliot stop! Why are you doing this!" I pleaded with the man I thought was my partner for another half-hour after I saw his face. I'd tried reasoning with him, threatening him, anything to stop him. I'd stopped fighting long ago, the horrible reality that I could do nothing finally sinking in. I only prayed that once he'd taken what he wanted, he wouldn't take it one step further to the only thing worse than rape.
Finally feeling him pull out of me, I sobbed in relief. I quieted myself as he suddenly stood up. Not knowing what his next move would be, I quickly assessed my chances of getting my gun if I bolted for the bathroom door. I knew they were next to impossible.
And besides, if he wanted to kill me, he had his own state-issued gun that he could have brought with him. Bracing myself and closing my eyes, I waited for the small metal cylinder to rip through my flesh.
Instead of hearing a gun explode, all I heard was the noise of a pair of pants zipping up. I opened my eyes to see the shadow outline of the man stumbling away.
As my flashback released me, I felt a cold sweat already forming on my brow. Wiping it off with my sleeve, I forced myself to keep going. The mere two-yard gap between my bedroom and myself seemed miles longer as I shoved my feet ahead, never stopping for fear I wouldn't be able to start again.
I couldn't tell you how much time had passed, but I finally managed to make it to the doorway. Taking another deep breath, I closed my eyes and readied myself for the worse. In one motion, I stepped into the room and opened my eyes, expecting to see my torn, blood-stained sheets and blankets scattered all over the bed, preserving the scene and memory. To my surprise, I was only met with a completely bare mattress, no sheets, no blankets, nothing but my bare pillows on top of it. Of course! Sarah said that Munch and Fin were in here. They probably took them as evidence. I never thought I'd be so happy to have my privacy invaded like that.
"So far so good," I remarked, charting my progress so far. I hadn't expected to get past the front door much less into my bedroom. Let's see if I can really push myself, I sighed, walking towards the bed. The closer I got, the more pictures of that night bombarded me. I pushed them away, not letting them get the better of me. Standing over the bed, I slowly reached out to touch it, each memory flooding back to me like a punch in the stomach as I relived it.
Wait. I pulled my hand back, not ready yet. I needed to get the room back to normal, make my bed, clean up everything that had been knocked over in the struggle, fix it like before the attack.
Going to my closet, I pulled out spare bed sheets and a comforter that I kept in there. I quickly made my bed and cleaned up everything that had fallen from its rightful place. Once I finished, I stepped back and looked around. It looked normal and peaceful again, like you'd never know the terror that went on inside a week ago.
Choking back my tears, I knew I wasn't completely ready. For now, I could only pride myself on how far I'd come so far and hope that, with time, I'd be able to face this room again. I'd never bought the 'time heals all wounds' line, but right now, it was all I had going for me.
I went back to my closet, this time to get out some tools I had, so that I could try and install some of these locks I brought, just so my trip here wouldn't be a total waste.
