Disclaimer: I don't own Law & Order.

Abbie didn't know how long she stood there for until she realized that there was nothing to stand there waiting for, no one was coming. Not even realizing she was still holding the bloody knife, she carefully stepped over the body, crossed the room to the phone, and called the police.

They arrived quickly, first two uniforms- who looked at her very nervously and demanded she drop her weapon, at which point she realized she was still holding the knife- then a medical examiner she didn't know, then the detectives, Detective Green and his partner, a young woman who was introduced as Detective Cassady. They asked her if she was okay, she said she was, they read her her rights, assuring her that in this case it was just a formality, she agreed to waive them, they asked her what happened, she told them, they asked her to come down to the precinct to make a statement, she agreed and got in the car. Through all of it she was too dazed to really think about what had happened.

At the precinct, in the interrogation room sitting at what felt like the wrong side of the table, they asked her to go over it again, in more detail. She started to, told them about Matt Bergstrom, a little about the case- it had been before either of them- about his confession, his sentence, about seeing him on the street, and going to Jack's office- only she stopped, right before that, and realized that he didn't know yet that any of this had happened, still thought that after he'd driven her home she'd gone inside and gone safely to bed. It seemed incredible, that he didn't know, as if he lived in an alternate universe where none of it had happened.

"I need to use a phone," Abbie told the detectives.

"Can it wait until you finish your statement?" asked Detective Cassady.

"No," she insisted. "I just need to make a quick phone call, I'll finish as soon as I'm done."

She convince them, or rather, refused to say another word until they let her make a call, and they decided it would be easier to give in than argue and brought in a phone.

"Jack McCoy." His voice was groggy, she'd woken him up.

"Jack? She suddenly didn't know what to say.

"Abbie?" any hint of sleep left his voice, replaced by fear. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"What happened?" Panic, now.

"I…" she didn't know what to say, how to tell him what had happened since he'd dropped her off in front of her house a million years ago. "Matt Bergstrom was at my house." Jack started to say something, but she continued over him. "He ambushed me when I went in, and-" how to say it? "and I killed him."

The silence on the other end of the line filled Abbie with terror. Finally, he said, "Where are you now?"

"At the precinct giving a statement."

"I'll be right there."

"You don't have to," she told him, although she was so glad that he was coming.

"Abbie, I'll be right there," he repeated, and hung up.

She'd finished giving her statement by the time Jack arrived, but they'd asked her to wait for a little while, so she was still in the interrogation room.

Jack came in, looked her over sharply, his eyes narrowing as he saw the cuts on her neck and arm, making he suddenly conscious of them. He pulled a chair around to Abbie's side of the table and sat down next to her, a gesture she was grateful for.

"I'm sorry," Jack told her. "I should have came in with you, made sure it was safe."

"Jack, it's not your fault."

He didn't reply to that, but Abbie got the feeling he didn't agree. They sat there in an oddly comfortable silence, until he asked her, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Abbie flashed back to time when she'd told him that she was a rape victim, and instead of asking her about it he had gently let her know that if she wanted to talk about it, he was there, and as she had then, Abbie began to tell him about what had just happened. Not just the facts, as she'd told the police, but how terrified she'd been, the thoughts that had been going through her head as she'd tried to fight him off, and how traumatic killing him had been, even though it was self-defense, even though he deserved to die, how she couldn't come to grips with the fact that she had ended someone's life.

She talked for a long time, her words for the most part a confused jumble of emotions, and he listened, until she finally stopped talking.

There was nothing he could say. He couldn't tell her they'd get him because she already had, and that was part of the problem, he couldn't tell her it would be okay because she knew enough to know that was a lie. He touched her arm, and they sat there in silence.

Then Detective Green came back in. He looked upset. "Abbie, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to arrest you. The district attorney wants to charge you with murder."

"What?" Jack shouted, enraged. Abbie was so shocked she was speechless.

"Branch called himself. His words were, 'We need to let the public know that just because she used to work for this office doesn't mean we'll let her get away with murder.' It's an election year."

"That's crap! It was self-defense!" exclaimed Abbie.

Jack got up. "I'm going to go talk to him and straighten this out. Will you be okay?" he asked Abbie.

"Yes," she said, but she didn't know whether it was true.

TBC!

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