Hello! Glad you're still with me after the last chapter! :D
A/N: this one is much, much less disturbing than the last chapter. That's not to say that it's happy, only that it doesn't come with any special warning. There is, however, a bit of a cliffhanger ending. Be prepared! Title and quotes from when you were young by the killers. Once again, there's another portion in italics from the POV of Jimmy Mac. He's going in for the kill...
Thank you so much for all the feedback. It makes me want to reach out and hug my phone.
Coming soon- all hell breaks loose. But first...
When you walk into work, you're startled to realize that you're the last one to clock in this morning. Even Amanda and Jimmy (who might as well be a member of the squad at this point) are settled in, and neither of them are known for their AM punctuality. You're confused because you know you woke up earlier than normal, even before your alarm went off, and all you did was shower, dry your hair, and put on your usual makeup. You didn't even stop for coffee. Is there a gap in your memory, or did you actually spend hours-
"Don't mind me, I've just decided to set up shop right here!" Jimmy's voice booms from inside the interrogation room. The window that separates it from your office has yet to be repaired, so this arrangement assures that he'll be able to see and hear everything as if you were virtual deskmates.
"Actually, I do mind. I told you that you could use the conference room, remember?"
"I don't see anyone using this space," he says, looking around him to demonstrate.
"Until we get this window fixed, it's my space. I can't have a breach of confidentiality. You know the rules."
"Ah, yes. But do you know, sergeant, that everyone in this office speaks at an incredibly high volume? One that travels easily through closed doors?"
"And what exactly is your point?" you ask, flustered at the thought of all the 'private' conversations you have on any given day that may have been broadcast to the public at large (specifically, Jimmy).
He picks up his laptop and briefcase, sticking his head through where the glass panel used to be. "You know what they say. The walls have ears."
"You mean you have ears."
"When are we going to have some one on one time, Benson? You've been dodging me ever since I got here."
"What do you mean? You spend more time in my office than anyone." This is true. He is also the only person in this office who's not actively avoiding you. Maybe you should just be appreciative of his company.
"Yes. And I've watched you fill out paperwork, listened to you talk with your colleagues, listened to your colleagues talk about you, watched Fin do his crosswords, looked through an entire scrapbook of someone's grandmother-"
"Wait. Who's talking about me?"
He just shakes his head as he turns to leave. "I can't have a breach of confidentiality. You know the rules."
{can we climb this mountain?
I don't know
higher now than ever before}
Elliot sends you a long text that reads like it had been written by his therapist. About how he's sorry, how he hopes you didn't think that he was leading you on, how it was a mistake, but it was his mistake, and how he understands if you're upset but he hopes it won't jeopardize your friendship.
It's the stupidest thing you've ever read.
And yet your eyes start to water without your permission, right there in your office while Nick and Amanda bicker outside, because you didn't expect it from him. You assumed he would be repulsed enough to want to keep his distance from you, to go home to his family where he belongs and not take the risk that you would confront him about why he ran. You didn't think he would try to apologize- for what? It wasn't his fault. He was bound to figure out the truth about you eventually. You were the guilty party from the beginning, the one who should've pushed him away and told him no back in that garage.
But he still wants to be friends, and you're embarrassed by how overwhelming this news is to you. Even though you don't know what the hell he envisions this friendship looking like, he's definitely not the kind of person who bothers with those sorts of pleasantries if he doesn't mean them, so he still wants something with you and...
[it's okay. let's just pretend it never happened], you reply, trying to keep it casual and not let on to the depths of your emotion right now. You want him to know that you're not going to ask questions, not going to put him in the uncomfortable position of having to admit what was really going through his head when he walked out of your apartment.
But it doesn't mean you won't wonder. About if he went straight to the shower when he got home, the way you did, trying to wash away invisible monsters clinging to his skin. About if he wishes he'd never kissed you, never shown up at Brian's apartment, never sent you those fucking flowers that you never asked him for.
Mostly you wonder if he's thought of all the things Lewis said about you at Bellevue, and if he's starting to believe them.
Maybe he should.
{you sit there in your heartache
waiting on some beautiful boy
to save you from your old ways}
In the afternoon, you take Jimmy along with you on a field trip to meet Baby Boy Doe. Seeing as how you still haven't been able to locate either of his parents, you thought that having Jimmy give a signal boost to his story might do some good. Besides, it gave you an excuse to check up on the little boy.
The foster mother is eager to see you when you get to the ACS office. "You the one who's here for the kid?"
"Well, I'm Sergeant Benson and this is-"
"Yeah okay, good. I'll be back later," she says before walking away.
"Ma'am, are-" You give up on trying to call after her because she's already disappeared from sight. "I guess you're not getting any soundbites from her, Jimmy."
"At least she left him a diaper and a drink," he says, holding up a single disposable diaper in a Ziploc baggie and an unopened can of Coke.
"Great." You sit down on a chair beside the baby, who's sleeping in his car seat. His eyes flutter open when he hears you, but he doesn't seem bothered by waking up in an unfamiliar place with a stranger staring at him, and you wonder if this is what he's used to. You know that this foster mother is the second one he's had since you found him. The first placement didn't work out because the mother was leaving the little ones, including Baby Boy Doe, in the care of her 12 year old daughter at nights. This woman at least claims to be at home watching him, even if the caseworker doesn't think she's particularly attentive. She made it clear when the baby was placed with her that she had no desire to foster an infant long-term, so he'll likely have at least one more move ahead of him unless you can find his biological family soon (assuming he has a parent who's equipped to care for him, which you know is an unlikely prospect).
The baby seems wary of you when you first reach for him, but then quickly goes back to the apathetic expression he had when he woke up. You try talking to him in a soft voice, smiling and trying to get a reaction out of him, and he just looks away. It seems strange to you. You're no expert on child development, but aren't babies supposed to make eye contact?
You decide not to force it and turn him around so he's sitting in your lap as you tell Jimmy the tale of how you found him. You've seen plenty of abandoned infants and children in your time as a cop, of course, but something about this little one has made it impossible for you to stop wondering about him and his story. Maybe it's the complete lack of information that makes it so easy for you to project your own unanswered questions onto him. You've imagined his mother in the position that yours was in, young and scared and alone with this child who has a face straight out of her nightmares. If it hadn't been for your grandparents and the minimal amount of support they offered her, might your mom have done the same? You picture her going out in the middle of the night with a sleeping baby in her arms, finding a bus station bench in a secluded hallway and hurrying away before she could be caught or change her mind. It's for the best, she tells herself, praying that some kind soul will come to the rescue and give her child everything that she wasn't able to give.
Someone in the office has found some formula samples and made a bottle for the baby (oh, how you wish there was something else you could call him!). This gets his attention, and he starts sucking frantically as soon as you put the nipple in his mouth. You're afraid he'll choke or start coughing, so you take it away to give him a chance to swallow, but he starts to fuss and ends up spitting out what he just drank.
"Are they...does he seem really hungry to you? More than a normal baby?" you ask Jimmy as the little boy goes back to gulping down the formula even faster, like he's afraid you'll take it away from him again.
"He does," Jimmy agrees. "But he doesn't look malnourished or small for- how old do they think he is?"
"About four and a half months, give or take." Not only is he nameless, but the closest thing he has to a birthdate is 'probably sometime in October.'
Jimmy starts talking about his own kids and his ex-wife, and you nod politely and pretend that you're listening while you watch the baby eat. This could've been your life, with a child of your own- everything could've been so different. If your suspicions had been correct the last time you took that test, you'd be in your second trimester by now. You'd be shopping for maternity clothes and making lists of baby names. But more than that, there's so much that could've been prevented. You would've stopped drinking, started taking care of yourself, and ended things with Elliot before the real trouble could begin. He might have been upset at first, but he's always understood how much you've longed to be a mother and he'd want you to do what's right for your child. As for Brian- like he told you before, you would've made it work. You'd be able to grow closer, knowing that you didn't have a need to end the relationship anymore. He wouldn't leave, not with a baby on the way, and especially not after how he saw how much you changed. Maybe he'd get a different job so he wouldn't have to be gone so often. You'd become a real family.
Of course, there was always the possibility that your nonexistent baby could've been Elliot's kid. It was highly unlikely, but if there was anyone who could get a woman pregnant despite using two different kinds of birth control, it would probably be him. How would he have reacted? You didn't allow yourself to think about it at the time, but now you wonder. Would he have been angry? Excited? Would he have left Kathy? You don't know that you'd want to be the reason for their divorce. Actually, you're sure you wouldn't want that responsibility, that knowledge that you broke up a family. And yet still there's a part of you that wants to know what it would feel like to be the one he chose. To feel like you were worth being chosen.
"Ever thought about having children?" Jimmy asks casually, like he's unaware what a loaded question this is. It's something you've been asked by well-meaning strangers for at least 15 years now, wanting to know the answer so that they can either chide you for your lack of maternal ambitions ("You'll regret it later- and who'll take care of you when you're old?") or remind you that time isn't on your side ("You modern women think you can have it all, but you'd better not put it off too much longer!").
You assure him that you love kids and you'd love to have some of your own, acknowledging that it feels strange to still be childless when most people your age are sending their offspring to college and planning for grandkids in the not so distant future. "My best friend, he's only a few years older than me and his first grandson's due next month...anyway. I know I'm not young, but according to my doctor, I'm healthy and there's no reason I couldn't get pregnant."
The baby has finished eating and, with the benefit of a full stomach, has decided you're an acceptable person to him. (If only that damn cat in your apartment was this easy to win over!). He still isn't really interested in making eye contact, but he relaxes into the crook of your arm enough for you to rock him a little. When you lean over to pull a tissue out of your purse, the shiny silver of your watch catches his attention, and he reaches out to grab at it. He's not successful, but his tiny fingers do manage to yank on the sleeve of your blouse and you're barely able to keep him from revealing a thumb-shaped purple bruise on the inside of your wrist.
Not that he would notice or even care. Jimmy might, which was your main concern, but the baby has moved on to attempting to jam his whole fist into his mouth. You think about how much you wanted a baby in those first few weeks post-trial; how you longed to have someone who was a living, breathing blank slate. Someone who loved you unconditionally regardless of your past, who gave you hope that the future would be better than the present because you would be better. You would have to be, because you were a mother now.
Your own mother wasn't ever going to win any parenting awards- she admitted that herself. But sometimes, when she wasn't asking aloud why she ever decided to keep you and saying that she would've changed her mind if she knew what kind of daughter you were going to be, she would admit that you 'saved' her. That you were the only good thing to come out of a terrible situation and had she not gotten pregnant, she probably would've ended up killing herself. But you gave her a reason to keep living, however imperfect that life was, and only now have you started to realize that maybe she did okay for herself after all. It could've been worse. Much worse.
When you get home later that evening, you purposely 'forget' your pill.
The next day, you make the decision to stop taking them at all.
You don't tell Brian.
{he doesn't look a thing like Jesus
but more than you'll ever know}
When you get home, Peanuts is in his usual perch on the arm of the couch. He looks at you, confirms that you're not Brian, then yawns and gets comfy again like he's not going to waste his energy on someone who's not his preferred human.
"I've got stuff to make dinner with," you announce to him from the kitchen as you pull a bottle of wine out of your grocery bag and pop it open. After you pour yourself a generously-sized glass and down about half of it, you start arranging your ingredients on the countertop. Peanuts comes running as soon as he smells the chicken. "Oh. So now you want to be friends? Too bad, it's not for you."
He remains unmoved, sitting right at your heels as you browse through your phone for the recipe you've chosen. Still no texts from Brian. He'd better not be staying late at the office, not when you don't know how good this will taste after being reheated.
You're pretty sure Brian isn't going to want to talk about last night. Which is completely fine, because you don't either. But he gave you what you wanted- needed- and you appreciate that. So you'll have a nice dinner and not talk about it and then everything will be copacetic in the Bensidy household.
He's still not home when you finish cooking, so you go into the bathroom and redo your makeup. You play around with your hair, debate whether you should pull some of it back with a clip, and then decide it looks better down. Peanuts seems to agree. He's been following you around ever since you took out the chicken, and he stays at your side when you take off your t-shirt and swap it for an old v-neck sweater that you haven't worn in a year. A glance in the mirror reminds you why. You pick another sweater, have one more quick drink, and you have just enough time to finish brushing your teeth before you hear Brian's knock at the door.
You're all smiles when you greet him, giving him a kiss on the cheek and telling him to hurry up and change because dinner's waiting. When he comes back out, the food is on the table- and so is Peanuts. You shoo him away and Brian looks at you like you've lost your fucking mind.
"What, you want to eat while a cat's licking your fork?" you ask. "People food is bad for him."
He shakes his head, reaching into the fridge for a beer. "No, no, that's...you made all this?"
"Yeah, why? Did you already eat?"
"No, it smells great. Just...wasn't expecting it."
After you both sit down and start eating, you take a sip of water and ask "So how was your day?"
"What?" There's that look again.
"Your day. How was it?"
He squints like he's doing long division in his head. "Are we- you're really gonna...fine. It was fine. Caught up on paperwork."
"Ah, that's good. Jimmy and I went to see Baby Boy Doe today."
"Mmm," he says around a mouthful of chicken.
"He's doing okay, I guess, but this new foster mom doesn't seem much more attentive than the last one."
He gets up and goes over to the fridge for another beer. "This chicken. It's good stuff."
"Thanks," you say, still a little puzzled by his strange behavior. He didn't...was he expecting that you'd be angry at him for what happened last night? Or that you'd regret it? Because you thought you made your gratitude pretty clear in the texts you sent him when you woke up, and you certainly hadn't changed your mind since then. Was he worried that he'd come home to find you in the same state as yesterday? "What I promised you last night...I didn't." You cast your eyes downward, toward the sore spots that you can still feel on your arms and chest. "I mean. I promised you I wouldn't and I kept my promise."
Relief flickers across his face, but only for an instant. "That's...I'm glad."
You finish the meal in silence. Once the dishes have been put away, he says that he's exhausted and going to head off to bed. He must have been telling the truth, because when you follow him into your room about twenty minutes later, he's already asleep.
You wake up around one-thirty and he's not there beside you. Instead you find him sitting on the couch in the dark, holding a beer and ignoring a muted news program on the TV as he stares out the window. If he notices that you've entered the living room, he doesn't show it.
You go back to bed alone.
I'd like to say that I'm a straight shooter. One of the old guard, left over from the days when a man said what he meant and meant what he said.
Unfortunately, I've spent too many years in this noble profession to think that such candor is going to get me anywhere with the public. Humankind is a complex lot, and if you're attempting to cut through the surface excrement and dig deeper, you need to be skilled in finessing the truth.
Sergeant Benson clearly thinks she possesses this skill. She allows me to see only what she has carefully curated for my viewing pleasure and presumes that I will unquestioningly accept this as gospel.
Jimmy Mac does not appreciate having his intelligence insulted in this way- as she is about to find out.
The first thing you see as you get off the elevator in the morning is Jimmy's face.
"You're becoming a regular morning person," you remark, and he laughs heartily. Too heartily. "What's going on?"
"I need to know if you're free tonight."
"Tonight? Well, I guess I am, but I was hoping to-"
"Good, good," he says, rubbing his hands together. "It's important, trust me. Happy Time at seven?"
You're a little confused at his choice of venues, because Jimmy appears to be a guy who prefers the finer things in life, and a local dive affectionately known as Crappy Time doesn't fall into that category. But you assume he picked it because it's nearby and he doesn't want you to use 'too much traffic' as an excuse to dodge him again. "Alright. But what's so important?"
"I've been doing some research, digging around for anything I could find on Baby Boy Doe, and-" He pulls his phone out of his pocket and shakes his head. "I'm sorry, but I'm running late- I have an all day meeting with my editor in chief. So we'll continue this conversation later, alright?" He claps you on the shoulder and you grit your teeth to keep from wincing when his hand brushes your arm. "Seven o'clock. Don't let me down."
Your morning goes by in a hurry, mostly because you're rushing around to get things done while Jimmy's not hanging on your every word. You don't even get a chance to eat anything because you spend your lunch break fielding a call from Teresa in the billing department at Mercy. You're still in financial limbo with them, your insurance having denied what feels like your 97th appeal, and all you have to show for it is being on a first name basis with the entire office. "Listen, Teresa-"
Teresa, who has learned her customer service skills from the mob, or maybe Satan himself, does not want to listen. Instead, she hangs up on you, but not before remarking that she hopes you get this sorted out "soon, because it'd be a shame if we had to get your employer involved." Click.
"Bitch," you snarl at the phone before slamming down the handset and storming into the squadroom. Fin went to meet with someone from Transit about the subway haircutter, so Nick and Amanda are the only ones left to bear the brunt of your ire. "Hey, you two." Nick has been standing behind Amanda's chair, the two of them so engrossed in whatever they're whisper-fighting about that they both jump when they hear your voice. "Where are we with Sean Garner?"
"Same as we were before. Fin and I went over there yesterday and we chatted with him a bit, but he's still not naming names," Nick says.
"Goddamnit, that's not helping me. Who else was at the house? The cousin? If only I could get a warrant for his place..."
"I dunno, Sarge, I'm starting to think Sean's telling the truth," Amanda says, ignoring your 'who asked you?' glare. "At least, he's not trying to cover for anyone else. Are we sure it couldn't have been self-inflicted?"
"We asked him. He said no."
"He said no when we asked him if his cousin was involved, too, but you don't think he's telling the truth there," Nick points out, and since when is he on Amanda's side?
"That makes no sense. Why would he do that to himself, huh?"
"Why does anyone self-injure?" Amanda counters. "Depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviors, attention seeking...I mean, there was some sort of anal penetration, right? Genital burns...some people get off on that. He could've been curi-"
You interrupt her with a curt shake of your head. "No. That's not what happened."
why does anyone self-injure?
some people get off on that.
"I think it might be worth looking into, though," Nick the traitor suggests.
"No one would do that on purpose. Do you have any idea how much burns like that- anyway. Unless you know something you're not telling the rest of us about this case, Rollins-"
"What? No. It's just a theory, and since we're at a dead end-"
"We're at a dead end because nobody's getting me the evidence we need for a warrant." You would go over to Sean's apartment yourself, but Barba expressly forbade you from 'interfering' with the investigation and although you won't give him the satisfaction of admitting it, you do listen when he gives orders. "So maybe if you guys spent more time out there and less time in here coming up with implausible theories, we'd be making progress."
"Liv, you feelin' okay?" Nick asks. "You...maybe you should sit down or something, cause-"
"I'm fine. Are you going to stand around and diagnose me or are you going to go knock on the door of that cousin?"
"Yes Sergeant," they mumble in unison, as excited as kids who've just been sent to detention. This job is thankless. How the hell did Cragen do it for all these years and still keep sober?
Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be), you don't have anything stashed in your purse or desk drawers. It's a minor disappointment, but you get over it quickly because you know that's not what you really want. You shrug off your blazer once your office door is closed, rolling up your sleeve and inspecting your arm, and you're disappointed to see that your handiwork from earlier in the week has started to scab over. The bruises on your wrists and thighs are fading, just like how the memories of that night itself are no longer quite as fresh. It's not that you've forgotten- God, no. You still think about it several times a day, whenever your heart starts racing and your chest gets tight, and it's as soothing as that aloe gel that you slather all over your burned skin every evening. But neither of those things last. The tingly sensation you feel when you first apply the gel wears off, and once again your skin feels dry and hot to the touch until you repeat the ritual. It's like how you start feeling restless, contaminated, itchy in a way that grows and spreads until you're at the mercy of an instinct that you don't entirely understand.
For now, you can fight it.
For how long, you're not sure.
{the devil's water, it ain't so sweet
you don't have to drink right now}
You spend the afternoon in such a flurry of activity that you're surprised when you check your watch and see that it's ten to seven- and you're even more surprised that the rest of your squad has slipped away without you noticing. Sure, as of late they've started only speaking to you when absolutely necessary, but at least Fin will usually pop in to say goodnight. Oh well. They probably just saw how busy you were and decided it was best to leave you alone.
On your short walk to the bar, your thoughts revert back to the hospital bill situation. Maybe Elliot was right, that you should get a lawyer and fight this instead of caving into their demands when you know that the law's on your side. You spend so much time telling other people to stand up for themselves, to not let fear get the best of them, and perhaps it's time to take your own advice.
But then again, paying them off will make this all go away. No more harassing phone calls, no more email arguments, and no more worries that Teresa or one of her fellow demons might 'accidentally' let some of this information slip out to someone at the department. Again, you're pretty sure that's illegal, but so are a lot of things. So is bringing up a rape victim's sexual history in front of a jury, and look how well that protected you. Once something's out there, you can object all you want- but there's still no going back.
And it's bad enough, the embarrassment of having people find out about things that actually happened, but for them to hear something that's not even true? Most aren't going to be like Elliot and take you at your word when you say you weren't suicidal. They'll react like Brian or Nick or all the faux-concerned hospital staff, and you don't want their fucking pity. You don't want to hear that it's 'understandable to feel this way' and you don't want another mandated psych eval and you don't want to go to work every day with your detectives and your superiors and even the guy who cleans the fucking toilet watching and waiting for you to crumble underneath the weight of it all.
So you guess that- once again- a decision has already been made for you. You'll put in a call to the bank tomorrow.
Happy Time seems unusually quiet upon approach. Usually you can hear it before you can even see it, but you figure that the lingering mountains of slush left over from the last blizzard have made people decide to drink at home. You, on the other hand, are trying to do less of that. So you'll have a few drinks with Jimmy here, where it's socially appropriate to do so, and meanwhile Brian will assume you are busy not drinking at the office. Everybody wins.
You're about ten minutes late, but you've still managed to arrive before Jimmy. No surprise there. You go ahead and order, and the bartender is sliding your glass across the table when you hear a familiar chorus of voices.
"Glad you could make it, man," one of them says, and you turn your head toward the source of the sound just in time to see Fin pull out a chair for Munch. Seated at the same table are Nick and Amanda, talking to one another with their heads so close together that they're almost touching.
It's like every other time that the squad's gone out for drinks after work.
Except for, you know, the part where you apparently weren't invited.
You duck your head, hoping not to be noticed, but Nick's already spotted you. He stops talking and then the other three start looking around until they see what he's staring at.
Shit.