She lay there looking blankly at the small window of her hospital room, mind busy going over what Don had told her the night before. Her emotions overwhelmed her at times and she found herself unable to hold back the tears and at other times the anger that swamped her.
Her lunch was sitting on her table, untouched as had her breakfast before that, she had no appetite.
She had refused to do her physio earlier, which had brought her doctor in to see her, concerned about her refusal to do her exercises, and not eating. But Olivia had ignored them all.
John and Fin had been in to visit, before her lunch had been delivered, and while she hadn't ignored them as she had the hospital staff, she hadn't been able to look them in the eye either, sure she had answered them when they talked to her, but she hadn't started any conversations either, and eventually they had left her alone.
They had been in the room where Elliot's wife had died, had been there apparently to help save her life. But now she was wondering if it had been worth it. How could they not look at her differently, knowing that Elliot's wife was dead because of her. Sure Don had told her that it wasn't her fault, but that didn't change the outcome one bit. Cathy was dead and she was alive.
Since Don had told her what he knew, what the investigators had found, things had been coming back to her, sometimes in flashes that were to quick to catch hold of, other times with such force that it was like she was living it all over again. But still parts were missing.
The one thing that she did know for certain, that she had known when it was happening at the time, and again now, was that she would have given anything, done anything to help Cathy, after all she was the one who had everything to live for. A loving family, beautiful kids, families, a career that she could talk to others about. Things that Olivia had always dreamed of having herself, but had long since given up on. Kathy had children that loved and needed her, and Elliot who loved and needed her, sure they had gotten a divorce, but people sometimes got back together after divorces, and it wasn't like Elliot had wanted to get divorced in the first place, all Cathy had to do was to tell Elliot that she still loved him and wanted him back. She had been willing to be Cathy's punching bag for a couple of hours, she wouldn't have told anyone about it, if that have helped.
She knew that she had tried talking to Cathy, to make her see what she had, that she hadn't lost anything, but nothing seemed to calm the other woman down.
She remembered offering to leave SVU or even New York if Cathy wanted her to, but that had only seemed to make Cathy angrier still.
She felt the tears streaming down her face again, felt the helplessness that had had swamped her that day in her apartment wash over her again, but she made no move to wipe the tears from her face again. She knew that they'd only be replaced by more.
God.
Her mother had been right.
She caused nothing but trouble.
Everything that she touched turned bad.
And not for the first time in her life, she wondered why her mother had had her. Nothing good ever came from rape, so why keep the result of a rape.
Wouldn't everyone have been better off if she had never been born?
And what about Elliot and his kids? How could they stand to look at her knowing that she was the reason that Cathy was dead? Was Elliot just waiting until she was stronger before he told her how he blamed her for everything? She wouldn't blame him if he did.
Now that she knew more about what had happened would his kids tell her how they really felt about her? Were they waiting for her to tell everyone what exactly had happened in her apartment? Had they just been pretending to be happy that she was alive?
Olivia closed her eyes as she felt an empty void swallow her.
That had to be it, they were simply waiting for her, for her to fill in the last hours of their wife and mother's life so that they could finally move on. They had been waiting for her to remember.
She almost had it all now.
Just a few more blanks to fill.
Then she could give them all what they wanted, needed, so that they could begin healing, so that they could go on with their lives.
She felt an old familiar feeling creep over her now, one that she hadn't felt for years, since she had joined SVU to be more exact, a feeling that she had almost forgotten. How cold it felt.
But it was something that she should never have forgotten about, maybe even something that she had no right to have stopped feeling in the first place.
She felt alone.
Empty.
And if she was being totally honest with herself, she felt that it should have been her who had died that day and not Cathy.
And with that thought the last blank spaces in her memory had clicked back into place.
She remembered.
Everything.
And knew that nothing that she had done, or could have done would have made any difference.
She pulled herself up painfully into a sitting position and reached over to her bedside draw and pulled out the business card of the detectives who had been investigating Cathy's case. Then she reached for the phone.
It was time for her to fill in the final details that were needed to fully close the case.
Her heart ached.
For all that had been lost.
And she dialled the number.