The hallways outside of the exam room were loud and bustling, filled with nurses and doctors rushing by, their brows knit with stress, hands filled with clipboards of charts. It was a relief to finally leave the room, but stepping into the hall was another kind of hell. Anyone of them could've accidentally brushed up against her. They all had the capability of staring at her.
Her arm ached from the needle puncture. They'd drawn two samples, and she'd watched with heavy lids as the blood filled the capsules only because it was some kind of distraction from the discomfort of the rest of her body. Aches, burning scrapes, invaded places of her all screamed at her from below. Exhaustion crackled insistently in her brain, causing her motions to be sluggish.
She had lost track of the time, but they'd been in the exam room for at least two hours, perhaps longer. She felt raw from the scrutiny, like an old wound continuously being reopened. She wondered when that feeling would end or if she would ever heal.
Amanda was at her side, holding her arm as they walked her back to her hospital room. Erica had left with the rape kit box in her hand, and an assurance that the evidence inside would end in a conviction for Lewis. The sentiment was heartfelt but that was all it was - a shallow sympathy for what she'd just endured.
"Do you want me to stay with you?" Amanda asked as they reached the room. "We can finally get you a shower."
Olivia was already shaking her head. "No...no, it's okay."
"Liv…" Amanda began, softly.
"I just...want to be alone." She whispered.
They had reached the bed and she grabbed onto the railing, clutching the cold metal tightly. Amanda's hand hovered at her side with fearful hesitance.
"I just want everyone to stop looking at me." She said in raspy, hushed tone.
"I don't want to leave you…" Amanda murmured, and Olivia could sense the tears wrapped up behind layers of steeled courage, but as much as her concern touched her, she felt like a leech, feeding on Amanda's strength of will.
"You should go home." Olivia said, glancing over at her. "You've been here for hours."
"That's not important." Amanda insisted, her blue eyes wide with alarm.
"I'm going to the bathroom." Olivia murmured, unlatching her hands from the rail and moving past Amanda.
Amanda had suffered enough with her throughout the rape kit and putting her through anymore would be the peak of selfishness. There was nothing Amanda could do for her now. There was nothing anyone could do.
"Liv…" Amanda stuttered after her, her tone caught somewhere between shock and pleading.
Olivia closed her eyes against her imploring voice as she grabbed the door handle to the bathroom. She wrenched it open and pushed inside, eager to find some space in which no one expected anything of her. She slammed the door and leaned against it, breathing heavily. Silence rang against her ears, and she opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling.
Quiet.
Nothingness.
Only her thoughts pervading every second of her existence. Only every single memory of Lewis and the rape kit. Her mind burgeoned to bursting point with the seconds of grief and trauma which had been vividly captured and stored inside her brain. Her temples ached with the pounding recollations. She felt like fissure in the ground, just before an earthquake, ready to break apart at the slightest shudder.
She groaned, lifting her hands to her head. Tears of anger and horror and sadness rushed to her eyes, filling her chest with a tidal wave of emotion. Her voice echoed sharply against the bathroom walls as the sobs she'd locked inside her chest throughout the exam finally flooded to her mouth.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to break the mirror in front of her, and tear down every brick this building. She wished her gun was back in her hands, pointed straight at Lewis's head. She wished that she was standing over him again, holding him at her mercy with that metal rail.
She could still hear the sound of his bones breaking in her ears. She'd imagined it with every click of the camera throughout Amanda's pictures of her. She'd thought of it when the scraping and swabbing became unbearable. She'd given him a beating for every step of the rape kit and more, but it would never be enough - not until she'd made him think that existing wasn't worth anything after all of the pain she'd forced upon his body. She'd hoped to take even that from him at the end of that unyielding metal bar.
She'd never been angry that someone wasn't dead before; and she didn't just want to see the life drain from him. She wanted to be the one hurting him, killing him. She was desperate to be a murderer, and that thought pushed sharp pain through her lungs, stealing her very breath.
Had it really only taken four days for him to scoop the humanity from her chest?
Sobbing, Olivia sank down, her knees failing her at the thought of losing herself to this man, this monster. He was slowly but surely plucking away everything she had to live for, but she couldn't even take his life without betraying herself, whatever pieces were left from his pillaging. No, she couldn't even wound him without him taking pleasure in her collapse.
Standing over him, wielding the metal bar, she'd felt simultaneously like the most powerful and weakest person in the world. She'd had no mercy, no humanity, nothing which resembled her former self. She'd been a better person when she'd been under Lewis's control, willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
Her lids fluttered closed again against the rise of tears, and she gave way to the onslaught of horrific memories burned into her mind. Maybe if she could remember enduring the torture of innocent people, if she could remember what she was fighting for, then she could find a way to reconcile her reprehensible actions.
She could remember him tying her to a chair in the Mayers's bedroom. The sun had been going down, and it slanted sharply through the curtain into her aching eyes. He'd left her alone for several minutes, but she'd been so inebriated that she couldn't find the strength to attempt an escape - even when she could hear the Mayers screaming from other parts of the house…. Even when he'd dragged the poor woman into the room, stripped of her clothing and sobbing. God, he'd been brutal, but she'd begged through the tape, using what was left of her voice to bargain with him to just let them go… to take her instead. He'd laughed, snorted another line of coke...kissed her with the promise that he'd do everything he'd said he would, and that she'd like it….
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The sudden pounding on the door jarred her and she gasped.
"Liv?!" Brian's voice reached through the door, sharp and panicked.
She heard the door knob turning and felt her body jostling as he tried to open it with her slumped against it.
"Liv, let me in!" He cried from the other side.
He pushed on the door hard and her weakened body slumped to the side. She felt her cheek hit the cold tile, but the shock of impact was a far away rattle. She stared across the tile floor, listening to the echoey sound of her heartbeat and the buzz of reality just beyond the peripheral of her brain. If she closed her eyes she could see the beach house, she could feel the suffocating heat rolling off of the sand just outside.
"Liv?" Brian's voice barely punctured her distorted reality as he fell to his knees in front of her.
He grabbed her arms, pulling her upright, but her head flopped and dangled against her chest like a broken rag doll. The room was swirling in front of her, and she felt as if she was drifting away. Brian's horrified expression seemed to be at the end of a very long tunnel, and her reality was light years from this bathroom. When she closed her eyes, she could feel the cuffs around her wrists, the metal bedframe and hard mattress beneath her body.
"Liv!" Brian's voice reached the pitch of panic, but to her ears, the sound was muffled.
It could've been anyone's screams. There were a dozen mouths inside her head, stretched open to release the screech of suffering and abject agony. They were all screaming because of her, but she was Lewis's target. She deserved to scream. She'd offered herself to him so many times that she'd lost count, but maybe there was one final chance, here inside this beach house, to convince him.
"I think you'll want to keep me around." She mumbled, closing her eyes as a tear spilled down her cheek. "I know what you like."
Her mind's eye yawned open to Lewis's expression of amusement. He'd been so close she could smell his sweat, the scent of drugs and alcohol, blood and sex. Bile had risen in her throat, but she'd known it was her final chance.
"I know how to get you off." She murmured. "Kentucky… Alabama…I know details that you might not even remember."
"What?!" Brian's confused, horrified tone barely shattered the veil of her memories.
He shook her, his fingers gripping her arms so tightly that they could've bruised, but in her mind she could only see Lewis's sneering face staring back her, his lips twisted in a sickening smile. He had her here, exactly where he wanted her- stripped of her dignity, playing the very last card she had in her deck. She might be just as weak as Alice Parker had been when he'd raped and tortured her for 18 hours…
Brian grabbed her face, trying to pull her gaze to his, but her head lolled in his hands as she slipped away into the blackened minefield of memories exploding in her mind. She couldn't feel Brian's hands nor hear his voice. All she could feel was Lewis's body next to her own, aroused at the sound of her manipulation, her final play at survival.
"Olivia?" A second voice, a soft, Georgian accent, rattled at the cage of her subconscious.
"What the fuck is happening?" Brian's demand swam in the background.
"Get the doctor." Amanda returned, before Olivia felt her next to her, grasping her face and shoulder. "Olivia? It's Amanda. You're okay, you're safe."
Olivia's eyes fluttered open at the sound of Amanda's voice, and the feeling of her hands upon her suddenly came into sharp focus, stealing her breath away. The light on the ceiling was bright, searing her eyes with unrelenting beams. Her whole body seemed to throb with the thudding of her heartbeat in her ears.
Confusion muddled her brain as she blinked against the harsh light of the bathroom, taking in the plain walls, the sink, the toilet… There was no beach house. Lewis wasn't here.
She shifted her gaze towards Amanda's wide, distressed one, feeling horror and shame well inside her chest.
"Amanda?" She whimpered, reaching up with a trembling, weak hand to grasp clumsily at her arm.
"Yes, I'm here." Amanda returned, her tone breathless with a quavering fear that was barely hidden.
"I'm sorry…" She whispered, choking on a breath as tears clogged her airways.
"No, I'm sorry." Amanda breathed, tears gathering at her lids.
She pulled Olivia into her chest, holding her tight. Olivia sank into her arms, sucked of the final bits of strength that she'd had left.
The room blurred and tilted in her vision and she closed her eyes. This didn't feel real. The only thing that felt real was Lewis's voice in her head, his taunting tone singing to her horrors of brutal torture and humiliation; and maybe this was all that would ever feel real again.
xxxxx
"What the hell did they do to her, Rollins?" Brian's voice was low, confused murmur against the hospital walls, and she wondered if he even expected an answer.
Amanda was leaned against the wall outside of Olivia's room, her arms crossed tightly over her churching stomach. Brian paced anxiously across from her, and the sound of his boots hitting the floor grated on her nerves. She needed another smoke, but she couldn't leave, especially not now.
"Lewis or the doctors?" She finally returned, her voice raspy.
Brian's footsteps came to a stop and she heard him emit a low sigh.
"I never once thought that she might be in danger." He whispered. "When she didn't pick up, I figured… she's lost in the case…she has her head in a file…."
"No one thought he would do this." Amanda returned.
The last thing she wanted to hear was Brian's own self pity. Maybe in a way she blamed him for never checking up on his own girlfriend after two days of radio silence, though she could as easily blame the entire squad. She could just as easily blame herself. With her head lowered, she wondered again if she hadn't been in the park that day if none of this would've happened. If she hadn't been so relentless about uncovering the mystery of William Lewis, maybe he wouldn't have kidnapped Olivia, and this horrible nightmare wouldn't even have been a possibility. At the very least she shouldn't have pushed Olivia into doing the rape kit….
The sound of the door opening drew her attention and she pushed off the wall as Olivia's doctor exited, her brows drawn.
"Doc, is she all right?" Brian asked, rushing over.
"She's calm now." The doctor replied. "I gave her something small just to take down her blood pressure….but it is extremely worrying that she's showing such strong signs of PTSD already."
Amanda swallowed, finding her throat dry. She knew that Olivia had a long road ahead of her, but watching a medical professional be distressed over her mental state made the entire situation seem much more dire.
"What can we do?" She asked, quietly.
"She needs rest, a less stressful environment… A therapist." The doctor said with a frown.
"She's already got a shrink." Brian breathed, running his hands through his hair as he turned away. His voice was thin and strained, his shoulders taut.
"Can we see her?" Amanda asked.
"If she wants, but like I said, do not put her under anymore stress."
"She's a rape victim." Brian snapped, spinning around. "What in the hell are we supposed to do about that stress?"
The doctor cleared her throat, perturbed by Brian's outburst, but clearly, she was a professional.
"Sir, that's just going to take a lot of time." She advised.
"Yeah, and I suppose tomorrow you'll be on to the next patient." Brian groused, pacing away once more.
Amanda pursed her lips and stared towards the floor. If she thought lashing out might change something, she might let her own emotions get the better of her; but she already knew this helpless feeling. She'd lived through the hell of recovery and to this day there were things she couldn't escape. Brian, on the other hand, had left SVU for a reason.
"Thanks for your time." Amanda murmured to the doctor, stepping around her towards the door.
"I'll be back to check on her soon." The doctor said with a short smile before she strode off down the hall, her white coat flapping behind her.
"Hey, don't you think it's time you went home?" Brian asked when they were alone.
"I'm not leaving her, Cassidy." She replied, grabbing the doorhandle.
"I can take it from here." Brian insisted, his fingers reaching for her shoulder.
"Don't touch me, okay, Cassidy?" She snapped, turning towards him.
Her patience was thin, her ability to cope worn down to almost nothing. She'd left Olivia alone for five minutes and they'd barely been able to pull her out of a vivid flashback. She wasn't going home simply because Brian thought he was more capable of supporting Olivia than she was. She couldn't simply burst out that she too had been raped. She couldn't make him magically understand that the road that Olivia walked was one that very few could comprehend - and that he was not one of them.
"Look." She breathed into his shocked expression, "You may not realize this, but this isn't going away. If you can't handle this right now… then, I'm sorry… You're not gonna make it through the next month or two months or however long it will take for her to recover… And even then…"
"What?" He snapped, his eyes flaring in anger."You think I don't love her enough to stay with her through this?"
"Olivia is going to be messed up for awhile, okay?" Amanda hissed, "You have got to get yourself under control if you're going to be of any help to her. Jumping in doctor's faces and running off everyone who isn't you isn't going to help her."
He scoffed a laugh and threw up his hands. "Well, I guess you're just the expert on my girlfriend and my relationship now."
"You feel threatened because I care so much." She returned, savagely, narrowing her eyes at him. "Well, guess what? Olivia needs people in her life right now who will care more about her than their own pathetic feelings."
She spun back around and shoved the door open before he could protest further than indignant sputters. She slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it. Her heart was racing in her chest with righteous anger, but when she gazed across the room at Olivia's frame curled up in the bed, her thoughts of Brian began to disintegrate.
She sighed, her breath exiting in a trembling stream as she stared at Olivia's back. The blankets were wrapped tightly around her body, and even from this distance she could see the clench and shiver of her frame, the remnants of the flashback.
She pushed slowly away from the door and quietly approached her. Her chest was tight with the ache of compassion for her, but even her unique understanding had it's limits.
"Hey, Liv." She murmured as she reached the bedside.
Olivia sniffed softly, but hardly move from the fetal position.
"Do you want company or…." She hesitated, despite her insistence to Brian just moments ago.
For a long moment Olivia didn't answer and she felt her heart slowly falling. For an inexplicable reason she could not tear herself from the other woman's side. Maybe she felt responsible. Maybe she protected her out of duty. Maybe she pitied her…. But what words could describe the overwhelming sense of protectiveness that filled her, the desire to shield her at any cost? These feelings terrified her, and yet she couldn't look away, not even for a second.
Finally, Olivia reached back, groping for her hand. Amanda quickly clasped hers in return, her chest swelling with relief.
"Don't go." Olivia whispered, pulling her hand taut against her side.
She could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin cotton and she wanted to grab onto her, hold her until she could convince herself that nothing bad would happen if she let go.
"I won't go." She murmured, sinking in closer to her.
Olivia pulled her arm around her waist, clutching Amanda's hand to her stomach. Amanda willingly followed her lead, and slid into the bed next to her. Olivia breathed in a soft, trembling tone as Amanda laid down behind her and pressed her face into Olivia's hair.
"I'm scared, Amanda…" She whispered.
"I know…" Amanda murmured in return, pulling her closer until their bodies were touching, sharing heat.
"I'm afraid of waking up and looking in the mirror and not recognizing myself." She continued, her voice wrought with tears.
"I won't let that happen." Amanda breathed, passionately, hugging her tightly. "He can't take your spirit….I believe in you…"
Olivia quieted before whispering, "What if he already has?"
"No." Amanda insisted, lifting her head to catch as much of Olivia's profile as possible. "If he had you wouldn't have made it through the rape kit. You wouldn't have agreed to it at all."
"Maybe." She returned, her tone hollow.
"Listen…" Amanda said, searching anxiously for words. "I know it may not seem like it right now but he's already lost. Hurting you is gonna be his final mistake."
Olivia didn't answer and her silence rang dully in Amanda's ear as loudly as if Olivia had verbally disagreed. Amanda clenched her arm around Olivia's waist as she laid her head back down, but her heart beat out a fearful cadence in her chest.
She had to believe that Olivia could overcome everything Lewis had put her through, but few things were certain. She was only sure of one thing and even that she was afraid to name. With Brian just outside the door she doubted she even wanted to try.