Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy, next chapter will get a bit more back to the plot of this story so I hope you enjoy this one nonetheless.
Disclaimer-Nothing but Bridget is mine.
Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.
And TRIGGER WARNINGS for this story in general.
Stand And Unfold Yourself
Chapter 14-The Eleventh Hour
Bridget might be physically safe but there is a case to be solved and wounds to be healed and cleaned and above all else Hank is still not entirely sure this is not a dream. Justin concurs. Al makes two phone calls.
21st November 2014
It was dawn now, the sunrise just showing through the horizon, a week winter sun but the sun all the same.
His leg was going to sleep, his arms were aching and he was pretty sure his left elbow was badly bruised with the force of the fall but hand to honest God Hank Voight didn't care. He had been dreaming about this for four years and now he had it he would take it in any form he could get. Bridget was curled up in his arms, head somewhere between his chest and his shoulders and he was curled up around her like some stereotypical animal curled around it's cub. She was shaking or he was shaking or maybe they were both shaking. It was hard to tell anymore.
She had been so fucking close to jumping.
It scared him even now with her safe on the ground. She had been so close. He had seen jumpers throughout his career, he had seen them and you learnt with brutal experience when someone is serious about jumping and Bridget had been fucking serious. She had been…God if he had been even a second too late then this all would have been over.
He had not been kidding either when he had said that if she wanted to go over then he was going to go over with her. He had not lost her, gone to prison, gotten out of prison, had to work some of the darkest cases Chicago had to offer and then found her again only to lose her to some lie that had been told by her…what? Pimp? Owner? Vile creature who Hank was going to kill when he got his hands on him?
Yeah, he liked that last one better.
But she had been so close, a perfect storm, a reckoning at the eleventh hour and he was still shaking with the aftershocks. Justin who was sitting on the ground chin up by his knees eyes big in his head like he was a little kid again seemed to be in much the same headspace and Jay who had shoved both his hands inside his vest seemed to be standing guard by the door with a wide eyed look that Hank had last seen on his face when they had pulled up to see Chicago Med had been bombed.
But none of that matter.
All that mattered was the girl trembling like a frightened hedgehog in his arms.
He was cataloguing the changes in her even as he pulled her closer. Whatever the fuck she was wearing was not fit for cold weather hell if Hank had seen her in this and she had still been living under his roof he'd have never let her out past the landing. Her hair was longer but it was matted and dirty and in need of a cut because it was just too long. Her legs were like twigs, she was half emancipated. Bridget had taken after him in terms of build and he had always been tall and skinny as a kid but she had clearly lost weight due to starvation and her skin was pale as snow which he knew meant that she had not been outside for a long, long time before today. There was blood matted all down her legs and her bare feet and her hands and he didn't even want to think about what was going to happen when they got back down to the hospital room and she was examined. He didn't want to think about what had happened to her or the events that had happened to her and yet it was all he could think about.
Bridget shivered a little and he pulled her closer feeling the ribs against her dress and he was aware suddenly that she had moved closer because she had sensed someone else in this little bubble that was intruding and he looked up to see Al who was staring down at Bridget with a look that managed to acutely describe how Hank was feeling and yet not describe it at all.
"Hey" Al said softly. "Hey Bridget it's me. You remember me?"
Dark eyes stared at Al for a second and then.
"I'm cold not fucking dumb Uncle Al"
Hank had to bite back the laugh and Al grinned gently. Jay snorted and managed to turn it into a hacking cough all at the last second and the tight grip Justin had on his knees seemed to loosen a little. Clearly somethings about the girl that he had allowed this to happen to were still there and that filled him with a sense of pride and hope and just…relief. Bone deep relief that they hadn't taken all of his little girl and destroyed her. That there was a part of the Bridget before this that was still there.
Sarcasm.
Swearing.
He'd take that.
Hell at this point he'd take anything.
God knows he wasn't too proud to beg at this point. Not for this.
This. Here. Right now. Forever. Please.
"Hank" Al said softly as Bridget retreated backwards.
"What" he said tightening his grip. He knew what Al was going to say and he knew that he wasn't ready to hear it.
"I called Benson she's on her way but we need to go downstairs and meet her"
"No"
"Hank you've…you got to get her checked out"
"No"
It wasn't Hank who spoke this time it was Bridget. She pushed back out of his embrace a little so she was staring up at her Uncle and her whole body seemed to speak of one utterly defeated.
"No rape kit, no more tests, no more prodding and poking. I'm tired. I just…just tell them to give me some drugs that will knock me out for a couple of hours so I don't have to think and then you can all…you can go if you want and I'll be fine"
Go?
Justin and Jay shared a look in the background like they didn't have a clue what was going on. Hank understood the feeling.
"Bridget" Justin said inching closer and Bridget eyed her brother with something that Hank couldn't see but it had him inching closer as if she was a bomb that could go off any second.
"Bridget we came here for you sure stopping these guys—"
"Justin"
"What Pops she—"
"You came here to stop them?"
"I came here to find you" Hank said quietly. "I don't really care about anything else"
And as God as his witness that was true. He really didn't. He should, he should care about that kid who was being chained to the bed right now. He should care about that kid who was being beaten and raped and God only knows what else and he should care about all the others past, present and future but he really couldn't bring himself to care in this moment. Not when Bridget was in his arms, not when he had finally, finally solved the impossible. The gaping chasm in his chest which had been his missing baby was finally closing and he could breathe again and who knew? Maybe tonight he could sleep again.
"You want to do what? Bring them down?"
Now her voice was a touch hysterical and Hank couldn't blame her. He tried to tuck her back into his arms but she pulled backwards staring at her brother as if he had just suggested they take a flying leap of the roof together.
"That can wait" he said shooting Justin a look and his son retreated completely chastised.
Bridget said nothing instead she just crouched there like an animal getting ready to spring after sensing the threat.
"We do need to go down Sarge" Jay said from his position at the door. "We keep making security nervous being up here and Benson's gonna want to know what we've got. If you've got a plan for us we need to think of one now."
Hank turned to look at Bridget who was still curled up on the floor looking around as if she was expecting this to disappear (he understood the feeling all too well).
"We'll go at your pace" he said to her and the dark eyes met his again and he saw the flash of defiance and then the flash of confusion concluding with the uncertainty that came with having a choice all of her own.
"I mean it Bridget" he said quietly. "You want to go downstairs we can go when your ready, you want to stay up here then we can. You don't want to do…" he had to physically swallow before he said the words. "Rape kit then we don't have to"
"No point" Bridget said finally. "It didn't really get that far. I just battered him"
"Yeah I know" Hank said.
"If this is a prelude to you arresting me then I'm gonna jump before I let that happen" she said and Hank realised with another swoop that she was completely serious. "I do not intend to go back into another cage alive"
There was a silence that seemed to resonate throughout each and every one of them as they let that statement sink in and then Jay spoke from his position at the door.
"Bridget?"
She looked at him.
Jay flashed her that killer smile of his.
"I think if they were coming for you, they'd have a lot to work through don't you?"
Bridget eyed him for a second and her mouth flicked upwards for half a heartbeat. It was the closest thing he had seen come close to a smile on his daughters face since before Camille had been diagnosed. Jay smiled again caught Hank's eye and nodded.
Huh. Hank really should look at pushing him up the career ladder. Or at the very least making sure that the boy knew he didn't totally mind he was sleeping with Erin.
(Or was going to—either way it was obvious to everyone with eyes).
"I…I don't want to talk to anyone…yet" Bridget said still curled up in his lap half within touching distance half not. "I don't want to be alone with anyone yet"
Yeah like that was going to happen. Hank had just gotten her back he was not letting her out of his sight for the better part of…forever.
"You set the terms" he said quietly and she looked at him for a while and then she edged a little bit closer.
"This…this is not some sort of fucked up dream is it?" she whispered. "It's not…this is real isn't it?"
Fuck.
Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry.
He reached out and took her hand in his and she watched him. He could feel all the bones in her tiny hand and she stared at him with wide eyes as if she was convinced he was going to disappear.
"I'm right here" he said again and she watched him with those dark eyes that had literally kept him awake at night.
"I am right here. And when your ready we can go downstairs. But not before okay?"
Slowly she nodded.
It wasn't enough, but it was a start.
Hey, right now at least, Hank would take what he could get.
Al stepped outside and took a breath in the sterile hospital environment that was the corridor. He knew that they had only half an hour before shit got real. It wasn't Olivia's fault, she had her eye on the prize and the prize was taking down the group behind this. It wasn't that he didn't trust her but going at Bridget's pace right now would lose them time and Al who knew Bridget, who knew Hank and who knew Olivia Benson knew that there was a clash coming because pushing Bridget right now was likely to get the investigation stalled permanently and then they were back to leverage and the truth was Bridget had murdered someone and that was…shit that was going to be a headache.
But there was something that he needed to do before he did anything else.
Two things actually.
So he dialled his phone.
"Al?"
"Erin"
"Al what's going on—"
"We got her"
There was a long pause as Erin took that in and when she next spoke she seemed close to tears.
"You…you've got her? You've…Al are you sure?"
"Yeah" he said voice clipped because he couldn't…wouldn't go into the fact that he could see the girl Bridget had once been in the crumpled form of what she was now. He couldn't go down the rabbit hole of Lexie and her playing with dolls and make up and gossiping. He couldn't because he could see Lexie in her place and that was throwing him off.
"She…she's alive?"
"Yeah"
Erin was silent for a long moment.
"Is she okay?"
"No" Al said quietly. "No she's not. And Hank's not"
"I didn't think he would be but—"
"She was on a hospital roof about to jump Erin"
Erin went dead silent in the middle of the conversation and then…
"Fuck it I'm on my way there now"
"Erin—"
"Antonio can run point from here I don't care if he takes my badge of me at the door I'm on my way."
There was a tone in her voice she had copied directly from Camille and besides Al knew better than to argue. Erin was accomplished at getting her own way and she had way of doing what she wanted and getting what she wanted done by sheer force of will.
"Can you let Trudy know that—"
"Yeah"
"Listen she doesn't want to talk about it, freaked out about what happened and Hank's gonna back her and—"
"SVU are gonna want answers"
"Yeah and Benson and Hank going head to head is something I don't want so can you make sure—"
"We've got some leads on our end that might distract them for a bit but Al if she's the only one whose been in the room when this boy was there, we are gonna need to talk to her"
"I know" Al said rubbing a hand over his face. That was the problem, father mode verses detective mode.
Shit.
"Get here" he said and then he hung up.
He fingered the second number for a second and then he pressed dial because there was one person he wanted to speak to tonight more than anyone in the world and while this was so not a conversation he wanted to have over the phone he knew that it had to happen.
"Alvin?"
"Meredith"
"Alvin what is it?"
"Meredith are you sitting down"
"Alvin what the hell is going on?"
Great now she was annoyed.
"Meredith—"
"No you got to New York on some case that I don't hear about, I can't get a straight answer out of Trudy, Lexie didn't know where you were and—"
"It's Bridget"
That stopped her dead as Al knew it would. When she next spoke it was in a hushed whisper.
"Bridget?"
"Yeah"
"Brid…Camille's Bridget?"
Al bit down his retort which was did they know any other? But before he could say something he knew he would regret he pressed on.
"Meredith I only have five minutes and then I don't know when we are next gonna be able to speak, are you sitting down?"
There was a movement on the other end of the phone and Al could picture his wife sitting down and stealing herself for what was going to come next. He could see the living room, see her, hear Lexie upstairs and for all the money in America he would have been there with them, with Bridget upstairs giggling and laughing with his daughter.
God maybe Meredith was right, maybe they should have just taken Bridget in when Camille had died. Maybe if they'd have taken her and Justin off Hank for a bit while he had hit rock bottom and then crawled his way back up they wouldn't be here now.
"Alvin?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm right here with you" she said and it was absurd that she was comforting him after everything but there she was.
"I am right here with you" she said again and Al nodded though she could not see him.
"Okay" he said quietly. "You ready for this one"
"Try me"
And Al did the one thing that admittedly he should have done when his marriage was in trouble but he never did.
He opened his mouth and he talked to his wife.
And there you go, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and I will bring you the next one sooner rather than later.
Next Chapter-Bridget and Hank share a moment, Olivia arrives and the case inevitably has to be discussed. Erin also arrives.
