Chapter 7

I was standing in Central Park again in the dead of night, stars glittering above me. The park itself was silent and peaceful, and I breathed in the cool night air as a light breeze swept through.

"Hello Olivia."

I turned to see the man from my last dream standing before me, dressed finely with his hair slicked back.

"Who are you?" I asked, though part of me already knew the answer.

"I think you know that, Olivia," he smiled back, showing off his perfect teeth.

I nod, but his name still escapes me. He waves his hand, and I am suddenly surrounded by shadows, like the ones who batted at me and hurt me in my last dream. I flinch in terror and prepare myself to run, but I sense something different about these shadows. They don't seem as bloodthirsty or as angry as they had in my last dream. Instead, tonight, they nipped at my heels playfully and stroked my face.

"They like you," the man mused, his smile wide.

"It seems that way," I breathe.

"They are like you, Olivia," he told me, a shadow coming over to him. He stroked it lovingly, and sighs. "They came to me because they were broken spirits, lost and unloved. I have found you for these same reasons."

"Because I'm broken," I announced, understanding a bit more. "Unloved."

"Not necessarily unloved," he replied, looking longingly at the shadow.

I shook my head.

"I don't understand," I told him.

He looked at me, and I could see he was hurting. Badly.

"Elliot loves you," he told me, his voice brimming will pain.

"Is that a bad thing?" I ask.

He sighs, and looks away.

"My entire afterlife is spent trying to help people," he announced, "people who have died. I take those tortured, broken, and shattered souls, and I take them in. I heal these souls, Olivia. It just frustrates me that I can't help you."

"You're trying to drag me down," I accused. "You want me here with you."

"But don't you want to stay?" he cried, throwing his hands up in the air. "Look around you, Olivia! Look at all of the peace here! You don't have to hurt here, Olivia! You can stay, and never have to deal with that again." He gazed at me, and he whispered softly "Why won't you stay?"

"I can't stay," I replied as softly as I could. "I have to be there for everyone I love."

"But were they there for you?" he demanded. His sorrow had turned anger in a flash. "Did they try to help you in your time of need and pain? Did they take the extra time to make sure you were safe? Elliot left you in your apartment, alone. Your co-workers have left you alone. They don't even notice you're hurting, Olivia. Why do you want to stay with them so badly?"

I thought back to the people at the 1-6; my family. I thought about all of the times we had spent together, about all of the all-nighters we had pulled, and about all of the times we celebrated triumphantly over drinks the closing of a case.

"They're my family," I replied, "plain and simple. They need me, and I need them. If I asked them for help, they would be by my side in the blink of an eye. And as for Elliot, he was doing what he thought was best. I told him I would be alright. I let him go. It was my mistake, not his."

"There you go, blaming yourself!" he shouted. "When are you going to wake up and realize they're dragging you down? They're giving you something to worry about! They're giving you a reason to suffer! They're giving you a reason to stay and be miserable!"

"If I want to stay there, it's my decision!" I shouted back, annoyed. "It doesn't matter if I suffer, as long as I have them!"

He tossed his hands up in the air in defeat, and I huffed at him.

"You don't have them," he growled. "They're going to leave you, just wait and see. They'll ignore you, and they'll stop caring about you, and they'll leave you for dead. Just. You. Watch."

"They won't do that," I assured him, crossing my arms over my chest. "They wouldn't."

"You put too much faith in people, Olivia," he chuckled darkly. "You try to see the good in everyone, but sometimes, Olivia, there just isn't any there. Do you know what goes through your friends' heads? Do you truly know what they think of you? Maybe they laugh at you behind your back. Maybe they make jokes and call you weak when you cry about a case. But you don't know, do you? You don't, because you don't know them."

"And you don't know me," I retort. "You don't know what goes through my head! You don't know what I think! How do you know anything about me?"

"I'm inside your head, Olivia," he replied sharply, with a smirk. "I see everything. I know everything about you. I know what you're thinking right now. I know what you thought in the past. I can see life through your eyes. That's how I know, Olivia. And that isn't going to change."

I remained silent, because I knew he was right. Right now, he was inside my head reading me like a book. Reading my emotions, and my thoughts, and my memories, as though they were for public display. I felt degraded. I felt violated. I didn't want him there. I didn't want him knowing me; knowing the parts of me that I didn't even know.

"I'm leaving," I announced.

"No," he snapped, "you're not."

Somewhere in the distance, there was shouting, and the voices sounded eerily familiar. I could feel myself slipping out of the dream, and I could feel him panic.

"No!" he shouted. "I'm not done with you yet!"

But I was already gone.

When I wake up, I find myself in the cribs again. I remember what had happened in my dream, and I remember the yelling. It's still there.

"Where's Benson?" I hear Cragen shout.

"The cribs," Elliot replies.

Suddenly, Cragen bursts through the door.

"Yes?" I ask, now completely awake.

"We've got a development on the case," he replies, a wild look in his eyes. "I need you guys in Central Park, now."

I leap up, shivering internally at the thought of going to Central Park. But I push it away and grab my gun from my desk.

I have work to do.

Notes: There is a LOT coming up in the next couple chapters, just FYI. ;) Thanks for reading *points to lurkers* and REVIEW! YOU TOO!