Chapter Fourteen: A Picture Holds a Thousand Words

Olivia was already back from the hospital, and she was sitting in the squad room at her desk. There was nothing to do; she had already completed all the paperwork to be done, and so far there was no reason to go to the hospital once more to tell Kelly some more "news". Anyways, she dreaded those visits there, because little did Kelly know that there would always be bad news awaiting her. Olivia just always hated to break it to her, knowing all the excruciating things she'd already been through. She was only a young 13-year old girl; there really wasn't any need to hurt her some more.

Sitting there at already began to bore her out, so she just got out from her seat and headed toward the soda machine. Olivia was more of a coffee person, but she felt a craving for some orange soda. Once she already got her soda, she went back to her desk, drinking the soda. She could feel it slide down her throat, and it was so relieving to finally drink at last. She hadn't eaten or drank for hours; to be exact she never digested anything for a couple of days, due to the busy schedule she had been following for the past week. Olivia thought it would be best not to confess about her lack of food and liquid, otherwise her "brothers and sisters, and the father of them all" would be worried as hell that she was beginning to be less healthy than before. Besides, working in the SVU had already caused her to have sleep deprivation, and that was bad enough breaking it to anyone that she would be fortunate enough to have 4 hours of sleep every night. Even though she never really came out and told it to them, the dark circles under her eyes had given it away.

"Hey, Liv." Elliot greeted as he sat down on his desk chair; his desk was right across from Olivia. He was busy talking to Cragen in his office, so it was his first time seeing Olivia since she arrived back from St. Vincent's.

"Hey." she responded.

"Jesus Christ, do you look tired."

"Hey, it isn't like I ever get to sleep. Neither do you, Stabler, so don't turn into some hypocrite." laughed Olivia.

"Well, anyways, how's Kelly doing?"

"Not the greatest. I feel like I'm ruining her life even more when I open up those hospital doors to tell her some news that she'll later dread."

"Liv, it isn't your fault that she's been through hell. It's part of your job, you know, having to actually listen to the victims and break some bad news to them. But I'd have to agree, it isn't easy."

"Yeah, listen to Stabler," said Munch, who happened to overhear their conversation, "I'm not saying it's any better having murder victims rather than rape victims, or in your case rape and abuse victims, but you have to deal with the living ones that already suffered. When you're dealing with murder victims, it's different. Hey, it wasn't my first choice to come here in the SVU; it was the only spot open, but I don't regret it. Working in the homicide isn't the same as this."

"And in the Narcotics all you do is bust all those drug dealers. You're not really dealing with many victims; all you do is kick those drug dealer's asses. It wasn't that hard, but transferring here was harder." declared Fin.

"I get what you're saying, guys. It's hard, but you just have to get used to it." Olivia said.

The next minute everyone found themselves surrounded by silence, although a short time earlier they were all chattering in the squad room. Olivia was still at her desk, hesitant of what to do at the moment. That's when she happened to glance at a picture she had of her and her mother smiling, which was taken about seven years before. Although there were smiles spread upon Olivia's face, there was a whole entire history behind that smile. In that photo, Olivia could automatically picture who she and Serena could be; Kelly Como and Rhonda Como. Olivia pictured herself portraying Kelly, and Serena was Rhonda. They both had to go through the same awful things, although Olivia had, fortunately, never been raped and ended up pregnant.

Olivia couldn't take this pain anymore. Before she had met Kelly, whenever she would look at that picture she would just see an alcoholic mother who abused her daughter. But now she saw a young girl begging for help, although it was too late to do so. Olivia grabbed her coat and ran out the door of the 1-6 into her car. She sat there, with the picture in her hands, remembering everything about her mother, while tears were running down her rosy cheeks. Olivia had never cried this much before, ever in her life.

Olivia Benson was laying on her comfortable twin bed, finishing up her math homework when she could hear the opening of the kitchen door. She instinctively knew that it was her mother coming home from a night at the bar, partying with her drinking buddies and hitting on the younger guys. Usually, she would arrive home around midnight or so, but coming home at 10:00 was the earliest she had ever come.

Olivia could smell the liquor from Serena's breath even from her own bedroom upstairs. To any outsider that happened to walk in to the Benson's household, they would be surprised from the strong smell of vodka, but Olivia was always used to it. She had been living with her mother four fourteen years then, and she was never shocked to see her mom drink a dozen bottles a night or come home smelling like beer and cigarettes.

As Serena strutted up the staircase, Olivia could sense that she was going to open up her bedroom door to ask her for more favors. All those years Olivia had been nothing but nice and respectful for her mother, and all Serena did in return was treat her like she was her own slave.

Sure enough, Serena rapidly opened up Olivia's bedroom door. She was always used to the dull look of Olivia's room, and to any foreigner they would have never guessed that it had belonged to a fourteen year old girl. There were no posters to be found pasted on the walls, neither any photo frames of any sort. Olivia's bed sheets were plain white, although she did have a light blue furry pillow. There was nothing to clue that a typical teenager had lived in this room, but it had belonged to one, a girl with the most painful childhood that not even one person could even imagine had happened to an innocent young girl.

"What are you doing?" Serena despicably asked.

"Nothing; I was just finishing up my math homework, Mom." Olivia had always addressed her mother by saying "mom", but Serena was the opposite; she never used Olivia's name while calling her, instead she acted like Olivia was nameless. Other times, Serena would concoct some nasty name to greet her daughter.

"It's a little after 10. You should have been done your homework hours ago."

"Mom, you never care when I do my homework. In fact, you never even ask me about my grades. I mean, what if I was failing?"

"It doesn't matter what your grades are, you're a failure no matter what."

Olivia kept quiet for a moment, until she spoke up. "And why do you call me that?"

"You, my dear, have always failed. You've failed to do everything, yet you still think that everything is so easy in life. Well I got news for you, young lady, life isn't fair."

"I never said that life was fair. And I never think that everything's easy."

"You may never have, but I know that deep inside that's what you are thinking every moment of your life. You are a failure because you've grown up into a young woman who's lived her life around just her mother and the fact that you never knew your father, because he was the rapist."

"Mom, it's not my fault that you were raped."

"Oh, so now you're blaming the whole thing on me? You're blaming me for giving birth to you? Well think again; you're lucky that I didn't give you up for adoption. Now I'm starting to regret letting you be a part of my life. I'm starting to wonder what the hell I was thinking when I decided to keep you."

"Mom, just stop it."

"No. I'm not going to end this conversation because you all of a sudden want me to. You know that it's true; you're a failure and it's you're fault that I was raped and had you."

"No it wasn't!" This time Olivia was starting to raise her voice with her mother, something she hardly ever did, knowing the way her mother had always reacted.

"Don't you use that tone with me."

"I just did!"

"That's it. You are going to get it, sooner or later! I'm going to make you pay for every little thing you've done to me and my life-"

"I NEVER did anything to you!" Olivia interrupted, this time fully enraged.

"Yes you did, and don't tell me you didn't!"

"Let me tell you a little something, Mom. You are the one that got drunk. It's your own darn fault that you were raped, if you ever decide to take the blame on me once again. I bet you even wanted to get raped. I bet that you wanted to raise an innocent daughter, just so that you could make her life miserable than it already was!"

"Miserable? Is that what you're saying? You're telling me that you have such an awful life, but I'm part of you're life! And nothing can change that!"

"You can say what ever the heck you want, but I might as well just run away! I probably know that I'd make a better living on the streets than in this, this "torture chamber"!"

"Fine! Go ahead! I don't give a shit what you do! If you think that you're life would be all perfect in the streets, then do what ever the hell you want! Let me inform you though, those streets are too damn dangerous. You can go out there and be a prostitute for all I care, or even get raped, and then you'd most likely end up pregnant! And that will teach you a lesson, won't it?"

"I was exaggerating. I'm not going to literally go and make a living on the streets being hungry and homeless, and all that you'd think I would do."

"And why is that?"

"Because I know what you would do knowing that I'd never spent another minute with you. You'd go out and party with some of your drinking buddies at the bar, and take advantage of every second without me, and try to forget that I was never born in the first place. But for all these years all you've done is treat me like crap, and I'm not going to let you get away with it, ever."

"Don't you even think about talking to me like that, and don't ever try to tell me again that you think I wanted to be raped. You really believed that I wanted to end up living with someone like you? That's sure one hell of a theory."

"Yeah, right."

"What did you just say, little woman?"

" It's none of your business."

"That's it! I've had enough of this bull shit, and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Without warning, Serena took her daughter by the hand, and slammed her up against her bedroom wall. Never before had Serena been this violent with Olivia. Sure, she had done many other things, but not as bad as this. Before Olivia could break out of this situation, her mom went up to her, nose to nose, and started talking to her with the most despicable expression on her face.

"You can say what ever the hell you want, but that's not going to change who you are, or what you've been through. Now just in case you forgot, I just wanted to remind you once more that you father is a rapist. You are his daughter; the daughter of a rapist. Do I make myself clear?"

Tears started flowing down Olivia's cheeks, and she wasn't going to respond to such a clarification like that.

"Answer me, and stop that crying! Crying is a sign of weakness!"

There was still no reply from Serena's terrified daughter.

"ANSWER ME!" Serena thundered, with her face getting redder and redder the more she showed anger to her daughter.

"Yes." cried Olivia, as she sank down to the floor, cradling her head in her hands. Here sobs were so loud that any of her neighbors could make out what she was doing.

Serena banged Olivia's bedroom door shut, leaving Olivia in this unpleasant state. There Olivia was, lying on her cream-colored carpet, crying to herself, and remembering everything clearly that her mother had just told her, that she was a daughter of a rapist and nothing could change that, no matter what she did or said.

Now every time Olivia would look at that photograph, she would remember an appalling history behind those two smiles, and picturing poor Kelly with Rhonda. It didn't matter that Olivia and Serena were grinning; all that made a difference in her life was the dire fact that she had been through so much, in so little time. That was the only time where Olivia remembered and believed what her mother had said; her father was a rapist and nothing could change that. And nothing could change that about Kelly, either.