Something Good

Part 4: Physiological Response

A/N: Thank you all again for your wonderful reviews! Your words are so encouraging. Again, please let me know if you have any suggestions for this story. I was able to sit down and kind of outline it, and I'm seeing about 10 chapters total! That being said, I'm more than happy to edit some things if you all have suggestions.

I need to add both a disclaimer that I do not own SVU or its characters and a TRIGGER WARNING to anyone who is especially sensitive to the subjects of sexual assault and explicit sex. ANGST TO COME!

"Yeah, of course. What's up?" was Olivia's immediate and genuine response.

Amanda could tell that the rainbow jokes were effectively over, which is honestly what she wanted. A serious conversation needed to occur, but God, she wished she could just laugh through it. However, the blonde was astute enough to know that if she couldn't say the word "orgasm" out loud to her partner, then she probably had no business trying to experience one. There were other words she probably needed to learn to say aloud at this point, words like masturbate and clit, and other things she probably hadn't even considered. She'd have to discuss vaginas and penetration and oral sex in a lens that wasn't wrapped up in the cozy clinical world of Special Victims. Where to start?

"So, um." Amanda stalled. "I…uh…Jesus, Liv, why is this so hard? I mean, it's you. It's you! What do I have to be afraid of, really?"

"Well," Olivia pondered slowly, taking one of Amanda's clammy hands in both of hers, massaging it softly while keeping eye contact and searching for signs that the blonde wanted physical space. "You don't have anything to be afraid of because you are with me, and you can tell me anything. But," she continued, keeping her voice light, "I completely understand why it would be hard to believe that."

Amanda nodded, appreciating the empathy that she didn't always feel like she was worthy of, and reached up with her free hand to cup Olivia's cheek, running the pad of her thumb along the soft olive skin. "I know," the blonde whispered. "I mean, I trust you with my life, Liv, I really do, but somewhere deep down, I know there's still fear. And I want it to go away."

Olivia nodded, leaning her cheek into Amanda's careful touch. "You know as well as I do that your mind takes longer to heal than your body, but even so, your body remembers trauma. Your body remembers fear. Your body doesn't always know the difference between a car backfiring and a gunshot. It doesn't always know the difference between a safe touch and an unsafe touch. A thrilling carnival ride or a bear chasing you. So, baby, I want you to keep in mind that any time you get anxious when we're together, it's because of that. It's physiological."

"And involuntary," Amanda continued for her, dropping her right hand from Olivia's face and grabbing on to Olivia's, which were still playing with the fingers of Amanda's left hand. "Which means it's not my fault. And I shouldn't feel guilt or shame over somethin' that's not my fault." The blonde smiled softly, knowing the last time she had heard Olivia say these words was less than a month ago.

"Forget me coming for Barba's gig, I think you're coming for mine," Olivia declared with praise in her voice. "I just want you to remember that feeling bad about feeling bad isn't going to make you feel good."

Amanda allowed herself a moment to take it all in, willing herself to feel enough self-compassion to request Olivia's comfort and guidance. "Can we go sit on the couch with some hot chocolate or something? I'm a little cold."

A physiological response, the blonde told herself. Her body was trying to keep her safe by telling her that something was wrong.

"Of course." Olivia stood up. "Let me grab a blanket."

The brunette walked to a closet in the hallway to gather some blankets for the two of them as Amanda set about getting some hot water ready for their drinks. Olivia took a deep breath. Over the past six months, she hadn't given herself much time to just be in her own thoughts. She was constantly thinking about Amanda, about what she had been through and about what she deserved going forward. The SVU sergeant had justified it by telling herself that the blonde had never experienced a relationship of any kind with a person who put energy into her well-being. And that was wrong. Olivia's desire to rectify the situation caused Amanda to be the only thing on her mind. And although some people believed she was, the brunette was not a superhero, and understandably so, her mental health had been suffering.

Everyone trusted Olivia. Her squad knew she had their back and Barba knew she would bring him the best case she could. The survivors whose justice she fought for usually came around, and when they didn't, she understood why. It is so much harder to earn trust than it was to dismantle it completely. Olivia knew this with every fiber of her being, but she still couldn't stop herself from feeling a little hurt whenever Amanda pulled away from affection or hesitated to share something with her. The brunette had to keep reminding herself of the same things she found herself promising Amanda.

It's not your fault.

It's a process.

Your fear is involuntary.

It still hurt. Olivia, much like Amanda in some ways, had built her life around being useful to other people. And when the messages she was receiving told her that Amanda wasn't just going to get better, that even her best still wasn't enough, it had the capacity to bruise her fortress of an ego.

And then there was the pressure. Olivia was not a sex therapist. And her relationship with Mindy felt like a lifetime away. Before SVU, before Elliot, before Amanda. Was she even qualified to be guiding her girlfriend through this process? The brunette thanked her lucky stars for the combination of knowledge and experience that had led her to being as helpful as she was, but she wasn't some kind of orgasm whisperer. She was just a person. Just a person who loved another person. And that would have to be enough.

Amanda's voice brought her out of her thoughts. "Liv? Baby, do you want marshmallows?"

Olivia finished grabbing the two blankets and walked back towards the sound of her girlfriend's voice. "Sure, love, that sounds great. Thank you."

For what felt like the millionth time in the past few days, the two women settled down together on the couch, cuddled up with blankets and hot cocoa.

The brunette thought for a moment about what Amanda was going to share with her. She really had no idea. She knew that the blonde no longer wanted to discuss the whole "Green, Yellow, Red" thing, which was understandable, but what could have her attention shifted to? The unknown worried her because she didn't have a response for everything. She didn't know every answer to every question Amanda asked. She had love and good intentions, and she was going to try her hardest to put both things to good use, but what if whatever she could say didn't satisfy Amanda? What if the blonde still felt lost and confused? The last thing Olivia wanted to do what fail somebody, especially her girlfriend.

Amanda, for her part, was feeling slightly more secure in her own next steps. She was with Olivia, her Olivia, the gentlest, purest person on the planet. She'd never met anyone who disagreed with that assessment. She knew that things would be okay eventually. She was getting ready to speak when she saw a flash of uncertainty haunt Olivia's usually sure features. "Are…are you okay? Are all these conversations makin' you uncomfortable?"

Shit. Olivia shook her head vigorously and took a sip of her hot cocoa in order to afford herself a moment to choose the best words. "No, it doesn't make me uncomfortable, sweetie, it just…"

Amanda nodded encouragingly towards Olivia when in a rare role reversal, the brunette was at a slight loss for words.

"It's just…" Olivia sighed, placing her mug down on the table by the couch. For some reason, she always needed her hands to express her thoughts accurately. "It isn't lost on me how significant all this is," she explained slowly, "how important. And I'd be lying if I told you I felt totally sure I could do this right. So, that's…that."

Amanda nodded. "Liv, I don't need you to do everythin' right. I don't need you to be perfect. I need you. I just need you to be you."" The blonde thought for a moment before putting her own mug on the table and ridding herself of the blanket that kept her warm.

Olivia watched quizzically as Amanda, more confident than she had ever seen her outside of the squad room, climbed fully onto her lap and grasped her face with both of her hands. "You are enough, Olivia Benson. Do you hear me?"

The sergeant nodded, still utterly dumbfounded at her girlfriend's actions. "Loud and clear."

Amanda moved herself from her position straddling Olivia, settling in next to her in favor of this form of close contact. "That was a 'green' by the way," she noted.

"I'll write it down later," she promised, leaning down to kiss Amanda's hair. That was also a "green".

"Liv," the blonde sighed, feeling Olivia's lips brush the top of her head. "There's somethin' I wanted to tell you about, but it's important to me that you're not just sitting here worried if you're responding correctly." Amanda looked up, making sure to establish eye contact with her girlfriend. "You always wanna know what I want, right?" Olivia nodded. "Here's what I want. I wanna vent. I want you to listen, and then I want you to say what comes from your heart. That's it, baby, seriously."

Olivia didn't know how to feel about that. Amanda needed more than just empathy, didn't she? Before she could reply, Amanda continued.

"I know you, Liv, and I know you're never gonna think what you're doin' for me is enough. But it's not about what you do, it's about who you are. Olivia, you're everything." Amanda shook her head slowly to convey the sincerity of her words. "Everything. And I need that to get through your thick skull because relationships…relationships are give and take—you taught me that. You can't give your whole self to me. That's not what I want. I just want you to be here with me. I wanna do this together."

The brunette couldn't help but to be relieved by Amanda's words. It's not like she thought Amanda wanted to suck out her soul and use her for her own personal gain, but hearing the compassion in the blonde's voice reset the narrative in her conscious mind. She didn't have to be a superhero because empathy isn't a superpower, but both women knew it could have heroic results.

Olivia nodded. "I want to do this together too. Always together. I think I've been asking more of myself than you ever could."

"We're just people, Olivia. Good people with good hearts and good intentions. But people all the same."

The brunette nodded once again, leaning her forehead in to touch Amanda's, letting their noses bump together affectionately. "I'm supposed to be the queen of pep talks, you know."

"Well, you can have your crown back, your majesty, because boy, do I have something to tell you."

Olivia reached for her mug again and took a sip, appreciate the soothing feeling of the warm liquid sliding down her throat, giving her a hug from the inside. "Alright, baby, spill."

"Okay." The blonde couldn't stop a momentary chuckle from escaping her throat. "Yeah, my pep talk didn't make me feel any better. Okay, give me a second to find words."

Olivia deadpanned. "One. Okay, times up."

At that, Amanda fully cracked up. The joke had her laugh in a way that left her short of breath and tightened her core muscles to the point of soreness. "Okay," she heaved, still struggling to catch her breath. "That…that did make me feel better."

"Knew it would."

"So, today, I…um, I tried something that we kind of talked about the other day. The uh, the step I can do on my own."

Olivia tried to avoid looking shocked, but honestly, this was the last thing she was expecting Amanda to say. "Really?" Shit, she immediately thought, that probably sounded too eager. Then she reminded herself that she wasn't putting on a show. Amanda wanted her to be real and truthful, and the truth was that Olivia was genuinely surprised. "I mean, I just didn't expect…so soon."

Amanda nodded, appreciating Olivia dropping her "nothing fazes Sergeant Benson" façade. "I didn't either, and to be honest…" Amanda sighed. "It didn't go so well."

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry." Liv sat up further on to couch, wanting to give Amanda her full attention. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yeah, I…I, um...Mm. I'm sorry, Liv. This just isn't easy."

Once again, Olivia surrendered her mug to the coffee table in favor of reaching out a hand to clasp Amanda's. "You know how you told me you don't need perfect, that all you need is me?" The blonde nodded. "That's all I want from you. Just take your time and tell me what happened. I'm just here to listen."

A shaky breath. "I hurt myself." It was barely a whisper, and Amanda could hardly make out her own words. Liv definitely couldn't.

"You what, baby?"

One last shaky breath, as Amanda steeled herself to be honest. She couldn't ask for honesty and not deliver it in return. She felt hammering in her chest, and she shivered from the icy tips of her frozen fingers to the petrified ventricles of her sunken, terrified heart. She knew her voice would break, and she wanted to stop it, but she had to trust her eyes. Her body may have been seeing a bear running at her, but she saw Olivia, eyes wide and full of concern, patience, and love. There was no bear to be found, but it did no good to be angry at her body for thinking there was. "I hurt myself."

Olivia had to clarify. "You hurt yourself?"

Amanda nodded. "I don't know what happened. One second, it was fine—it almost felt good, and then—" a lump formed in her throat. "What did I do wrong?"

At the sight of her girlfriend's eyes watering and her lip quivering, Olivia could no longer fight the urge to gather her up into her arms. Of course, she still kept her senses alert and ready to act if Amanda showed any sign of discomfort while doing so. "Oh, baby, come here. You didn't do anything wrong. This isn't something you've ever done before—of course you're not going to be good at it yet. But it might help if we can figure out what happened. Do you think you can answer a couple of questions for me?" The brunette felt a week nod against her chest, as well as some tears soaking through the blouse she wore to work that morning. "Are you sure? You don't have to if you don't want to."

Amanda nodded again, this time seeming more confident in her decision. "Can I stay here though?"

Though she didn't explain further, Olivia figured the eye contact was making the blonde more anxious, and though the sergeant knew watching Amanda's facial expressions would be valuable in this process, she was willing to take what she could get and not force the issue at such a vulnerable time for the detective. "Of course. Whatever makes you more comfortable, okay?" She felt Amanda nod again. God, Olivia hated every moment of this. It just wasn't fair. She was long past feeling unqualified for the job she had to do—the brunette knew how to ask difficult questions as well as she knew her own name, she just wished it wasn't Amanda she had to ask them to. "Okay, sweetie. Can you tell me what you were doing before it hurt?" Olivia slowly moved her hand up and down Amanda's back, starting at the nape of her neck and ending just before her hips. The first time she attempted the movement, she waited for the blonde's body to relax completely in her arms before she did it again. Now, she could feel the muscles under her fingers tense again in anticipation. Ordinarily, this would have caused Olivia to cease the gesture completely, but as Amanda was still curling into her and not away, the sergeant assumed the younger woman's reaction had nothing at all to do with the touch.

"I was just movin' my hand around a little, tryin' to see what diff'rent things felt like, y'know?" Through her tears, her normal slight southern twang became more pronounced and the crispness of her words became less so.

"Mhm. What happened next?" Olivia's right hand came to rest at Amanda's shoulders, and she used her fingers to delicately massage the muscles that lifted to surround her neck. The sergeant had once read that people did that during conflict to avoid being struck in the jugular vein. It was an involuntary physiological response.

"Well, I moved my hand up a little, and um…"

"I'm listening," Olivia assured with a gentle squeeze to Amanda's thigh with her left hand.

That's probably the last thing Amanda wanted to hear at that moment. She wanted no one to be listening, especially not Olivia who she'd have to face again in just a few minutes. She shivered again, grateful when her girlfriend held her even tighter. "I found my clit I guess."

"You guess?" It was a gentle question on Olivia's part, but that made it no less significant.

Amanda ignored the question. "I just kept touchin' it and it just kept hurting and then I did it again and it hurt more." The blonde wasn't one for run-on sentences, but she didn't know where to end a thought and start the next one anymore. It was all just a chain of thoughts and words, and her train of thought seemed to go on forever. "It's supposed to feel good and it didn't." A pair of fearful crystal blues looked up at Olivia, and the brunette could have sworn she was the most pitiful she had ever looked. "Am I broken? Did Patton ruin me? I wanna be with you, Liv. Do I even have a chance?"

Olivia's hand left Amanda's neck and landed right at the back of her head. She brought her lips to the blonde's forehead and left them there for five, six, seven seconds, watched as Amanda's eyes gently closed and tears cascaded down her cheeks like a deluge of rain escaping from the clouds of her eyes. "You are not broken." Amanda could swear that every time she heard Olivia speak to her, her voice was gentler. This was no exception, except somehow her voice also sounded fierce. There was a fire behind it, a fire that she often saved for perps alone. But the combination of the tenderness and the ferocity left an impact on Amanda. She couldn't ignore Olivia's words even if she wanted to. There was no way to not believe her. It simply wasn't possible.

Olivia let her forehead rest against Amanda's, bringing up a free hand to wipe as many tears as she could. "I don't think what happened today was because of Patton, baby."

Amanda sniffed, eyes snapping open in shock. "You…you don't?"

"No, sweetheart. I don't. I think your body was convinced that's why you were feeling discomfort, but I think there's a much more straightforward reason why what you did hurt."

There was an answer? And it didn't have to do with Patton? Was there hope after all? Amanda shifted her body so that she was looking fully at Liv, as would the most respected professor's star pupil. "What…what is it?"

"I think one of two things happened, well maybe both did." Olivia paused. "Do you mind if I get a little clinical with you for a minute?"

Amanda shook her head. Clinical was the best. She could almost pretend they were talking about a stranger. The blonde then immediately trashed the thought. This was about her. That was the point.

"So, you know how the clit is extremely sensitive, right?"

Amanda nodded, trying to convince herself not to blush, but she knew she couldn't help it.

"Sometimes that's not always a good thing. We know that the straightest path to orgasm is clitoral stimulation, but not everyone is exactly the same. Some people like direct stimulation. Other people like more indirect touch. And there's also a difference in the amount of pressure that people respond to. So all that is to say," Olivia concluded slowly, making sure Amanda was following, "that the same type of touch that would feel amazing to someone may be extremely painful for someone else."

"So, the one of two things?"

"I think you touched yourself with too much pressure and/or before you were aroused enough."

"Well, I don't think I was aroused at all. I mean, Liv," Amanda scoffed for a moment, "what am I supposed to do? Light candles? Play music?"

Olivia chuckled, wiping the last of the blonde's tears. "How about we come up with a plan for the next time you want to try, if you do decide to try again?"

"That would be good. I didn't exactly feel sexy in my pajamas at nine in the morning."

Olivia thought for a moment before deciding to chance the next statement, cupping Amanda's cheek with her right hand and running her thumb along the blonde's lips. "I think you're always sexy."

The blonde blushed as the combination of Liv's words and touch sent a shiver through her spine, but it didn't feel bad.

It was a physiological response.

A/N: Short chapter, I know! But I wanted to get it out before bed tonight and the longer I spent on it, the less genuine it felt. I think this was a really important chapter, and I didn't want to ruin it by adding more words. I hope you all like it and have a happy new year!