Hey, everybody, I have been trying really hard to work on this fic but the current chapter I'm writing on is being very difficult and pretty depressing so it's been taking me a lot longer than I wanted it to. I don't want to have to say this, but I might not be able to update next week. I'm going to try very hard to avoid that outcome, but it may be a possibility. I apologize in advance if it happens. I also wanted to mention that I have finally gotten Twitter so if anyone wants to follow me on there my handle is honey_bee_bear. I haven't really tweeted much but I'm gonna try really hard to use it for story updates and things of that nature. Thanks everyone again so much for your love and support of this story. I appreciate every single comment, follow, and favorite that I get!
WARNING: This chapter contains graphic depictions of the rape kit exam and flashbacks/references to sexual assault.
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It had been 37 minutes since they had stepped inside the exam room, and each an every second ticked inside Amanda's brain with a dooming certainty that they were not closer to the end - only the beginning of something much worse. Entire eternities of agony lived on inside each minute, dragging out slowly like just another hand of torture. The clock on the wall with it's tiny, needled fingers assured her of this fact.
Olivia's strength was crumbling. She could feel it even without looking at her. The waves of mental exhaustion rolled off of her like an incoming tide, yearning to suck Amanda back in with her. She'd sacrificed her own stability to be inside this room, to be the one that Olivia clung to, and though she was far from regret, her body swayed with shared fatigue.
When Olivia had broken down, crying into her chest, she'd barely been able to withstand the brutality of the grief exuding from her. Their bodies touching felt like a disquieting transfer, Olivia's pain burrowing beneath her skin and digging down to the core of her beginning.
She'd felt this emptiness before, and for a moment, she'd been frozen. For a second, she'd been back inside that hotel room, dragging herself from the bed. Her head had been bleeding, staining her golden hair with crimson. Her lip, tight and swollen, had been spurting its own fountain of red. Above her, Patton had laughed as he buckled his pants with an arrogant gesture. When he'd noticed her hunched over the floor on hands and knees, clutching her aching lower stomach, he'd grown disgusted.
"Go get yourself together." He'd muttered with a dismissive wave of his hand.
She'd dragged herself to the bathroom, holding back the bile in the back of her throat until she'd managed to make it to the toilet. All the champagne he'd fed her came back up, leaving her gasping and sobbing in panic.
Her first thoughts hadn't been of her violation, but what people would think. Her first thought wasn't of revenge, but of holding onto this secret for the rest of her life.
When she'd filled the hotel tub with water and sank into it's depths, she'd washed away whatever evidence could've been held against him. She'd stayed there for hours, using up every tiny bottle of shampoo and body wash as she scrubbed at her flesh until it was raw. She'd washed his semen from between her legs despite the pain throbbing through her groin. She'd rubbed away the tell tale blood, and if she could've, she would've wiped off the bruises into the waiting drain.
Even then she'd known it was a mistake. She'd never been so foolish as to believe that he wouldn't do it again or that she was his first. The whispers and lies of her lascivious behavior hadn't driven her from Atlanta so much as the guilt she harbored for never putting an end to Patton's abuse. Moreover, she'd couldn't escape the guilt of her own fear. Fear had kept her from disclosing the incident to anyone, and now the same fear had pushed up the words from her throat - we can stop if you want.
Maybe she wanted to end this exam for her own selfish reasons, but she couldn't curb the instinct to put a stop to this madness, though she wasn't surprised when Olivia refused. When she looked into her eyes, she knew stopping the exam would've been the same mistake as her washing away the evidence of her own rape in that hotel bathroom.
Their moral duty didn't stop her from feeling ill as she slowly crossed to the door to call Erica back in. Each step reminded her that she walked a very fine line between being a professional police officer and an emotionally compromised one. It was a tight rope she'd balanced on so many times before that she knew the fear of falling before it even hit her.
She drew a breath as she grabbed the cold, metal door handle. She hesitated for as long as she could before she pulled it open slowly, head down. She stepped halfway outside the door, finding Erica quietly pacing.
"Everything okay in here?" Erica asked, softly, as approached. Her expression was even, though inquisitive.
"Yeah, yeah." Amanda nodded, quickly despite the heaviness pervading her chest. "She wants to continue."
"I meant are you okay?" Erica said with a frown, stepping in closer, as she lowered her voice. "We have plenty of rape advocates who could be with Olivia right now."
"Wh-what do you mean?" Amanda drew back, stuttering in a shocked tone.
She realized that wasn't in a prime emotional state at the moment, but she had it under control. At least she thought she had.
She tore her gaze from Erica's and glanced back towards Olivia. She was gripping the edge of the table again, her head lowered. Her long legs dangled to the floor, bruised and scraped. Her throat clenched at such a beautiful, yet morbid picture of agony, and startling reality.
She couldn't let her down. She'd made a promise and she intended to keep it.
"I'm fine." She whispered, vehemently, despite not looking back at Erica.
"I expect Olivia to be in this state of mind." Erica said. "But not you."
"You think I shouldn't be affected by this?" Amanda replied, quickly, finally looking over at the nurse.
"No." Erica shook her head, folding her arms. "I mean you shouldn't be triggered by it."
Amanda swallowed quickly, her heart slowing for half a second before taking off again. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised that a nurse who'd performed hundreds of these exams could spot a rape victim so easily, but it still jarred her. No one else had ever even questioned her, or perhaps they hadn't known how to. The only person she'd ever told was Olivia, and she'd blurted it out without thinking. Regret had instantly hit her, but a part of her had been relieved that finally someone else could have an silent understanding of what she'd survived. Now, it was her turn to do the same for Olivia. Erica and her intuition would not dissuade her. Even her own emotional distress couldn't.
"I-I'm fine." She repeated, sharply. "I'm just worried about my friend."
Erica eyes narrowed slightly, and Amanda could sense another inquiry on her lips. She turned away to avoid dealing with the inquisitive nurse, and returned to Olivia's side. Olivia knew about the rape, but she didn't need to think about that during her own exam. Patton was of no concern, and never could be. It'd been far too long to revisit old wounds now when Olivia's fresh ones needed to be attended to.
Erica shifted back into a neutral attitude, but Amanda guessed that it was more for Olivia's benefit rather than hers.
The nurse began to change her gloves as she sat back down on the stool and asked Olivia, "Are you ready to continue?"
Olivia nodded, her movements short and choppy. Her hair had tumbled over her face, hiding her expression from Amanda's eyes, but Amanda recalled the conviction in her dark, hazel gaze when she'd insisted they go forward with the rape kit. She clung to the sparks of resolve that she'd witnessed, hoping that that too would in some way transfer to her.
"All right, I'm going to have you stand up, and I'll start doing the visual exam." Erica said.
Olivia nodded once more and began to slide down from the table. Amanda could see the quiver in her limbs and she reached out to take her elbow. Olivia's trembling hand caught her own once more as she planted her feet on the floor, swaying slightly.
"I've got you." Amanda murmured, holding her steady as Olivia's fingers gripped hers tight.
Olivia glanced up at her through strands of hair, her brown eyes dull and hollow with a resolve to make it through this ordeal. Amanda's throat tightened once more at the vacant, yet pained expression. She'd seen it far too many times, staring in the mirror for months on end, just waiting for the memories to finally fade from her mind. She wanted to hold her close and tell her it would get better soon, but she knew the truth. It would never get better - only more bearable with time after the wounds had healed into white lined reminders of trauma that lay quiet, yet volatile beneath layers and layers of scar tissue.
She grasped Olivia's hands, gritting her teeth against the surge of pain that went through her.
She hadn't thought of Patton nor of that fateful night in a very long time, and the unearthing of such horrific memories seemed to shock her, almost as if she were seeing it for the first time in her mind. She wasn't that person anymore, that weak, naive girl who'd been willing to do almost anything to save her sister, the one who had trusted the wrong man. She'd told herself this so many times that she'd imagined that the rape had truly happened to someone else, even if they were some disconnected, former remnant of herself. Staring back into Olivia's eyes, however, she was reminded that no matter how hard she tried to forget that she'd always be that woman, crawling pathetically from the bed of violence and force to the waters of shame and regret.
Her fingers clenched harder around Olivia's fingers and she turned her face away, hiding the tears that rose sharply and eagerly to her eyes as if they had been waiting there all this time. She swallowed hard, pushing hard knots of emotion back down into her throat. She couldn't let Olivia see this blatant breakdown.
There was no reason to hold a candle in remembrance of that night. What would a vigil and the shedding of tears do when the consequences of the rape had already been cemented into her brain and every fiber of her being? There was no point crying for what had been lost when Olivia could yet be saved.
The knot in her throat sharpened as she took another glance at Olivia's gaze, filled with a distant nothingness. Her eyes were fixed away from her, off in an indeterminate direction. Her grip on Amanda's hands was robotic, an involuntary measure to hold herself up beneath this daunting task.
If it had been Amanda's choice she would've stopped the exam completely. She'd taken on the responsibility of urging Olivia to do the rape kit and now she had no control over the situation. She knew this was the right course of action, but her desire to protect Olivia almost overwhelmed her moral instincts.
The realization that she cared so much startled her. She'd been set on self preservation since the night Patton had taken away her ability to trust anyone, even her baby sister. She'd only allowed herself to fantasize of a day where someone broke through that wall of fear and anger, but she'd never imagined it would be someone who sat across from her every day. The concept had always been a distant, vague idea, strung along by the hopeful, yet naive yearnings of her heart, and now it was nearly too terrifying to entertain. She crushed it, forcing the confusing puzzle of emotion back down into her chest with the rest of her feelings.
It would be in her best interests to remain as a neutral, professional figure here, but how could she take on the cloak of her former role as impartial colleague ever again when she stood here at Olivia's side, damaging boundaries and scrubbing away lines in the sand with each and every second? If only she could bring some sense of comfort to Olivia she thought she might not be so frightened by sudden possessiveness and protectiveness… If only some sense of normalcy would return then maybe she could move on from this moment unchanged….
Looking up into her eyes, Amanda desperately searched for the light of vigor and strength she'd seen only minutes ago, but the dullness of Olivia's gaze sent sharp spikes of fear through her stomach, sending a chill through the warmth that had gathered in her stomach. She'd gone through panic, fear, anger, anguish, then panic again in the last few hours - so many emotions that her head was dizzy with the force of them colliding between her temples. She was watching Olivia's spirit being sucked from her with every step of the exam, and with it Amanda's own determination to leave this room untarnished.
Exhaustion tugged at the corners of her consciousness, reminding her that the past 36 hours had consisted of the the search for Olivia and her subsequent rescue. She'd pushed herself through up until this point on pure adrenaline, but this room with it's bright lights and heavy implications, had begun to feed on the last of her strength.
A dozen flurried thoughts ran through her brain, thrumming along the idea of dragging them both away from this torture chamber, driving them far away until the lights of New York City were but a memory in the rear view mirror. If they could only travel beyond the responsibility that weighed upon them then maybe she could escape the idea that she could've spared Olivia from this pain. She could've led them blissfully from the duty of the rape kit. She could've let Lewis go in the park, and never looked back….
Could've... should've….would've…
She could hear Erica explaining that the next step would be a UV blacklight search for any fluids that might be on Olivia's body, but her head was humming with the static of her own thoughts. Her movements were stiff as Olivia let go of her hands in order to loosen the hospital gown. Their gazes met for a second, stuttering to connect as they both drifted through the spaces between reality and disassociation. Olivia's brows furrowed slightly before her chin ducked away, and she turned slowly towards the table. She grabbed onto the edge and her hair tumbled over her face as gazed towards the floor.
Amanda's heart clenched in her chest as she wondered Olivia had seen the emotion pooling in her eyes, or if she was simply trying to make it through this. She wanted to reach out to her again as the absence of her hands in hers marked a swath of loneliness through Amanda's chest. She held herself back from touching her as the gown slipped past her shoulders, baring the length of her back once more. Amanda clenched her hands at her sides to keep them from expressing her anguish. She'd only so recently captured her naked, bruised flesh in the eye of the camera and experiencing the product of Lewis's violence again so soon churned her stomach into a sickened tidal wave. She could only imagine the thoughts that must be going through Olivia's head at having such invasive scrutiny thrust upon her again and again.
She lowered her eyes, and barely kept herself from turning away.
She was almost grateful when the lights went out with only the blacklight to illuminate the room. In the darkness she could hide her fear and regret, even if she drifted between the monsters that the shadows held. Wasn't she one of them for leading Olivia here, like a lamb to the slaughter?