I don't own Law & Order.

Abbie knew she shouldn't be this scared. All she had to do was tell the truth, and she'd prepared for it. On top of that, she was her, Abbie, strong and confident and not afraid to speak her mind. She wasn't the type of person to let Cutter push her around and put words in her mouth. As a prosecutor, she'd always thought she'd be a good witness.

Yet she was petrified. Her hands trembled as she swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and she had to take a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking, and she knew that Matt Bergstrom had turned her into someone she wasn't, and she was going to have to relive it.

She couldn't meet Jack's eyes.

"Please state your name for the record," the judge told her.

"Abbie Carmichael."

Jack began his questioning. "Ms. Carmichael, did you know Matt Bergstrom,"

"Yes." Her voice was toneless, but it didn't tremble.

"How did you meet him?"

"I prosecuted him for multiple murders. He was a serial killer."

Cutter objected to the characterization, but the judge overruled it.

Jack continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "You prosecuted him, do you mean in court?"

"It didn't get to trial, he pled guilty."

"Can you tell the jury about the crimes he pled guilty too?"

She described how Matt Bergstrom had tortured and killed his victims. She knew what she was saying was horrifying, but she was still unable to look at the jury to see their reactions.

"While you were prosecuting Bergstrom, did he make any threats toward you, or act threateningly towards you?"

Abbie gave an involuntary shudder and described how when Matt Bergstrom had confessed his crimes, it had been as much threat as confession.

"Did you coerce him into pleading guilty?" Jack's voice held the emotion Abbie's lacked, and his tone now told the jury that the idea was ridiculous.

"No."

"You didn't frame him, did you?"

"No."

"What happened after Mr. Bergstrom pleaded guilty?"

"He went to prison."

"When was the next time you saw him?"

"I was getting take-out. I saw him on the street."

"Did you confront him?"

"No, I kept walking."

"What did you do then?"

"I went to see you."

"Why?"

Abbie knew they must have prepared for the question, knew she must have an answer, but she couldn't think of it. "I don't know," she said, still not looking up.

"Were you afraid of Matt Bergstrom?"

She didn't want to admit it. Despite everything, despite the fact that she was on trial for killing him and her only hope was to convince the jury that she was the victim, that he'd tried to kill her, that she'd been terrified of him and for a reason, to admit out loud in open court that she'd been afraid of Matt Bergstrom felt like letting him win.

"Yes," she said, still avoiding Jack's eyes. "I was afraid of him." She was not crying, as she'd almost feared she might, but her voice was as toneless as if she was a computer reading a script. She knew that the jury would never believe her if she was like this, that she had to connect with them and let them feel her fear, but she couldn't even bring herself to look at them.

"Then what happened?"

"We ate Chinese food." She didn't know why she said that.

"And after that?"

"I went back to work."

"What time did you leave at?"

"After twelve."

They went through the rest of the night, how he'd given her a ride home and offered to walk her in- for an instant she almost smiled, remembering her refusal- I don't know if that was a clumsy attempt at a pickup line or an overly chivalrous concern for my safety, but either way, I'm fine. She didn't tell the jury that, just that she'd refused, and that she should have let him walk her in. She managed to look at them then, for just a moment. They were watching her solemnly, and she couldn't read their faces.

Jack asked what happened when she went inside, and suddenly she was back in that moment, pressed against her door with the knife to her throat knowing she was about to die. She took a deep, shuddering breath and described it to the jury, her words vivid with detail but her tone still emotionless. She wasn't in the courtroom, she was in her living room, somehow standing over Matt Bergstrom's body with a knife watching his blood drip out, and simultaneously struggling against him, gag in her mouth and knife slicing into her arm. She desperately needed to look up at Jack, to see that it was over and everything was okay, but she couldn't. Maybe because everything wasn't okay, maybe because she didn't want to see on his face that they were going to lose, maybe because if she met his gaze she would start crying and she could not let that happen.

"No further questions," he said finally. And now the hard part was going to begin.

TBC

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