Welcome to "Wings"
I was going to wait a bit before I started working on a new story, but couldn't let this go. So here I am.
This idea came to me through a few conversations with friends on Twitter, so I really can't take any credit for the idea/storyline alone. I'm just putting words to it. After writing Rolivia fics for a long time, I wanted a different kind of challenge and decided to give EO a try. (There will still be a significant amount of Rolivia in this, but platonic this time.)
This is set in 2014. More or less right after Olivia's last encounter with Lewis. Basically everything up until where this chapter is set will be based on canon, with maybe a few creative liberties. Now, if you're looking for fluff, this is not the place for you. If you're looking for a lot of angst, heavy subjects, smut, healing and a little bit of action: Welcome!
TW for PTSD/Alcoholism/Mentions of assault/violence.
Junge Junge & Kyle Pearce – Run Run Run
CHAPTER 1 - FIGHT OR FLIGHT
The blood, his blood, trickles down her face as she keeps her head turned to look out the window. It feels warm and gluey on her skin, like she will never be able to get it off. It makes her skin crawl. She's desperate for a shower to clean the blood away, to rid her body of any evidence that he was ever near her.
Except, it isn't blood. Just her tears that she keeps wiping away angrily.
Her restless hands keeps alternating between brushing over her wet cheeks, and reaching for her belt buckle to check that it's not undone, to make sure that it's still secured around her hips. That the imminent threat of being assaulted is not as imminent as it feels.
Except, she's not wearing a belt. She's reminded of this every time her fingers touch denim, briefly wondering how much of a lunatic she looks like when she keeps doing that. Luckily, the cabin is mostly dimmed down, matching the dark night sky outside. So maybe no one but her notices how she keeps twitching in her seat.
As soon as she closes her eyes for more than a few seconds, hands are suddenly groping her, touching her in places usually reserved for lovers, or herself. Someone is grunting next to her ear now, and as much as she tries, she can't ignore the feeling of him being hard against her.
Her pain so easily turns into his arousal, his excitement in sync with her terror. The harsh and merciless rhythm of the Benson-Lewis dance.
Except, there's no one around to touch her like that right now, to grunt in her ear like that. No one close enough, anyway. She knows, because she keeps checking.
The deep breaths that she attempts are constantly interrupted because the smell of sweat and booze and something that resembles death keeps filling her nostrils. And breathing through her mouth doesn't help. It actually makes it worse because it feels a lot like dry heaving, and she's been doing enough of that lately.
But just like there's no blood on her face, no open belt buckle and no one close enough to touch her, there's no booze either, no death that she's aware of.
The smell of sweat might be real, though.
It's probably hers.
Definitely hers.
Even with all the reality checks, all the evidence that she's safe, a sense of panic still creeps up on her, gradually, and then all at once. Coming out from the shadows with a gun suddenly pointed at her head, slowly working its way up her body, taunting her until it hits her with so much force it makes her want to scream and beg for her life.
But you can't do that now. Just inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Five things I can see.
A dark sky. Parts of the wing. My hand gripping the armrest. The safety instructions in the seat pocket in front of me. A woman walking down the aisle.
Four things I can touch.
The armrest, my cheeks, the belt buckle that isn't there-
Focus.
Four things I can touch.
The armrest, my hair, the window, the travel book in my lap.
Three things I can hear.
The engine. A baby crying. A man snoring.
Two things I can smell.
Coffee. Sweat.
One thing I can taste.
Him.
When it becomes evident to her that the exercise Dr. Lindstrom is so fond of won't help, she presses the call button above her, opting for the exercise that she's fond of instead. Sorry, doc. I win this round.
Impatiently, she counts the seconds it takes for the flight attendant to reach her.
48, 49, 50, 51-
"Do you need anything, ma'am?"
"A glass of red wine, please."
The wine goes down easily. Too easily. Just like her first glass at the airport, just like her second after takeoff. Just like all the other glasses before she left New York.
She knows exactly what she's doing and how destructive it is, but the numbness is just so much better than the stubborn tears and her thundering heart. That warm and heavy feeling in her body is so much better than the flashbacks. Clinging to the plastic cup is better than constantly checking her non-existing belt.
It's just until we land, she thinks. Just one more to calm myself down a little. I'll stop when the plane lands.
For a split second, in a moment of rare weakness, she allows herself to wonder if that's what her mother used to tell herself.
It's just until Olivia comes home from school. It's just one more to help me sleep. I'll stop tomorrow.
She blinks, throws her head back against the seat. Empties the glass.
I'm nothing like her.
It would've been nice to get some sleep, but now that her mother has infiltrated her mind, along with him, she knows that any attempt at rest would be futile. So instead, she turns to look out the window again, looking at absolutely nothing.
She keeps asking herself if this would've happened regardless of their last encounter. Because him being convicted definitely wasn't the release that she thought she needed. Justice, maybe, but not release. Not the liberation she had been hoping for.
Beating him nearly to death, that was a pretty sweet release.
Watching him being guided out of that courtroom in handcuffs was merely a reminder that they would both be imprisoned for the rest of their lives, just in slightly different capacities.
It should've helped more that he's dead. Should've brought her some sense of calm, some odd reassurance. But it doesn't, not when she knows that he was right. His face is probably the last thing she'll see before she dies. He might be gone, but she's still stuck in that make believe prison cell that he put her in, so in the end it doesn't really matter that he can't come back to hurt her again.
The power he still has over her makes her stomach turn, but it also serves as the only rational way to explain why she's here, why she's doing this. After all, it has a name, does it not?
Fight or flight.
She used to be a stayer, normally the one who chose to fight. This time she had chosen the latter of the two, literally.
"So that's it, huh?" The woman standing in the middle of her living room throws her arms out, making no effort to hide her frustration. "You're just gonna leave everything behind? Just like that?"
"No, Amanda. Not just like that." She scoffs humorlessly. "And don't look at me like you're suddenly some expert in coping mechanisms."
"Wow. Ok." The blonde's raised eyebrows says it all. "At least I'm still here."
"Barely." Olivia shoots back with a glare. "You're still here because I let you be here."
They're both saying things they don't mean right now and she hates it. No goodbye at all would've been better than this. Maybe that's what he thought, too. Maybe he knew that they would say things they didn't mean. Or worse, say what they had wanted to say for years. Maybe that's why he left without a single word.
"Liv, the problem isn't that you're leaving." Amanda continues, ignoring Olivia's painful jab. "It's the fact that it sounds like you're not coming back. And you're not a quitter, goddamnit."
"Don't." The brunette says, pointing a finger at her. "Don't pretend like you know anything about me, Rollins."
The silence is deafening, suffocating. And she was already having a hard enough time breathing before Amanda suddenly knocked on her door.
"Listen." The detective briefly closes her eyes like she has to concentrate so she won't lose it completely. "I didn't mean it like that. And if anyone deserves a break, it's you. But-"
"Amanda, stop!"
She can't do this. She's too tired, too on edge, too determined to get out of this godforsaken city that has brought her nothing but pain lately. Lately meaning the last 46 years of her life. And she knows that if Amanda doesn't leave now, they'll both end up saying things they can never take back. Something very, very ugly. Something about blame and guilt.
"Please leave." Olivia pleads, not completely sure if she's talking to the woman standing in front of her, or herself.
With her eyes trained on the pitch-black night, Amanda's words plays like a broken record in her head. "You're not a quitter, goddamnit."
Isn't she, though?
Didn't she leave her hold apartment because she allowed him to poison it with his presence? She let him seep into her walls, her furniture, her clothes. Seep into her. Like rat poison, he was scattered all over the place she had called home for so many years.
Didn't she just end things with Brian? Blaming it on wanting different things when they were both painfully aware of what the true reason was. They weren't alone in their relationship anymore, because he was always there. Never mentioned, but always there.
He was there when she locked herself in late at night, never completely sure if the sounds coming from the apartment was him, or him. He was there when Brian touched her, the few times she allowed it, the few times she thought that she was ready. But she never was, not really.
So they could blame it on wanting different things, being on different paths, but the simple and horrid truth was this: Brian wanted just her, content with having no path at all. She wanted to be alone, her path leading straight to, and over a fucking cliff.
And now, she had left her job. The one constant in her life. What she came back to when everything else failed. There was always a case to work when the loneliness or the restlessness got to her. Always someone to save, when she couldn't save herself.
He had taken that, too.
He won. He turned her into a quitter. A runner. After being the one who stayed for so many years.
She shifts in her seat again, wincing silently because every muscle in her body is either tense or sore. She can blame it on the long flight as much as she wants, but her body has felt like that since last year. He took that, too. In the end, he took her body, too.
The hand she uses to rub her neck is clammy and all she wants right now is to get out of this aircraft, find a cab, drive to her hotel and get into that goddamn shower. A shower, and then another glass of wine.
The promise she made to herself about stopping once the plane lands is already forgotten.
It bothers her that she couldn't care less about what's going on back home right now. She should be worried about her squad, her people. But the way things have been lately, she figures they're better off anyway. They can do a better job without her there. She used to be an asset. But lately she's been feeling more like a burden and a distraction.
She does feel bad about leaving things like that with Amanda, though. At least she can acknowledge that. At least the numbness that she's constantly chasing hasn't taken over her soul completely.
After all, she never did do well with goodbye's, especially when the much needed closure was severely lacking.
While pinching the top of her nose, pretending that it'll stop her brewing headache, she realizes that she still hasn't even bothered to open the book that's been resting in her lap for hours. The one she bought at the airport in a pitiful attempt to normalize her abrupt escape from New York.
Just a woman going on vacation. Visiting a new city overseas, ready to explore, take in her surroundings.
The fact that she doesn't have a return ticket, and that all she wants is a silent hotel room with a comfortable bed (stacked minibar) serves only as an insignificant detail.
She's just a normal woman on a normal vacation, right?
Right?
Making an effort to stay in her faux holiday bubble, she opens the book, and that's the exact moment when the wheels of the plane makes contact with the foreign ground beneath her. The sudden rumble makes her flinch, close the book and stare straight ahead.
"Signore e signori, benvenuti a Roma."
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rome.
A/N: So that's that. You want more?