Unreasonable Doubt

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

Chapter 6: Against the World

"Amanda!"

She turned her head to see Fin, Munch, Olivia, and Nick all standing there in the courthouse lobby, walking her way. Fin reached her first. "Hey, girl. You doing okay?"

"I'm gonna be okay." She attempted to smile but couldn't quite manage.

He laid a large hand on her shoulder, rubbing it gently. "We're all here for you."

She had to blink hard against her tears. No, she'd been wrong to think this would be anything like it would have been in Atlanta. Those people had been her colleagues; no matter what her old Captain's position, these were her friends.

Fin stepped back, allowing Olivia to gently hug the younger woman. They all cared, but Olivia was the one who'd been there, who actually knew what Amanda was going through, and they all knew that Amanda might need Olivia to help her through this. "If you need anything," she whispered, "someone to talk to, whatever. I'm here."

"Thank you."

"Come on, let's head upstairs."

"Detective." Barba came running down the hall and all but skidded to a halt in front of them. "Rollins."

"Yes?"

"Olivia told me what happened. I'm sorry." He moved quickly on to the matter at hand, and Rollins was grateful. At least some things were still the same. "I need your permission to charge him with stalking."

"What? Why?"

"Two reasons. First, to boost my case for holding him without bail. And second, if he does get bail, I can ask the judge to throw in an order of protection as part of it."

Again, she was choked up. She knew Barba well enough to know that this was his businesslike, unemotional way of saying he cared. "Okay."

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"People vs. Charles Blaine. Two counts rape in the first degree, two counts kidnapping in the first degree, one count stalking in the first degree."

The judge regarded the Atlanta man. "How does the defendant plead?"

"Not guilty."

"People on bail?"

"People request remand," Barba said briskly. "In addition to the two women he abducted and raped in New York, he's a suspect in twenty similar attacks in Atlanta, five of which left the victims severely injured, and the stalking charge relates to a member of the New York Police Department."

"Your Honor," the defense attorney protested, "the attacks in question stretch back two years. Until yesterday, he had never been charged with a crime."

"He's cunning," Barba replied. "If anything, that should be further reason to deny bail. He's evaded capture this long; what's to say he won't disappear if he's granted bail?"

"I agree with Mr. Barba. Bail is denied. Five minute recess!"

Nick squeezed Amanda's hand as they stood up and filed out of the courtroom. It was in the hallway that she heard a familiar voice. "Hey, Rollins!"

She stopped. So did Nick and Fin, recognizing the voice, the Atlanta accent so similar to Amanda's own, and Fin managed to grab Olivia's sleeve and stop her without being obvious about it.

"Captain?" she said softly, her mind racing. Does he know? She was vaguely aware of her colleagues clumping up behind her, silently backing her up

"You knew about this?" He gestured to the courtroom to indicate what 'this' he was talking about.

"Yes," she replied uncertainly, waiting for him to get to the point. She wasn't sure what to expect. Reynolds had been the one to save her from the Deputy Chief and to help her make the move to New York, but he'd worked with Blaine a lot longer than he'd worked with her, and this one he hadn't seen with his own eyes.

"You really believe he's capable of this? God's sake, Rollins. You know the man."

"Yeah," she said softly. "I do, and that's why I believe he's capable of this."

"C'mon. I know you had a bad experience with that deputy chief, but -"

"This is not about that!" she replied. Suddenly, she didn't feel sad and scared anymore. She was angry. "Guys like you all think their fellow cops - their fellow male cops, I should say - can't do anything wrong. If you hadn't walked in while that deputy chief had his hand down my dress, I bet you wouldn't believe that had happened either."

She'd kept her voice down so the entire hallway wouldn't hear, but she knew that her former Captain was getting every word, and so were her New York colleagues. Reynolds just looked shocked. "I helped you on that," he reminded her. "What's gotten into you?"

"You want to know what really happened in Atlanta?" She barreled ahead, not giving him a chance to answer. "Blaine raped me." For once, it didn't hurt to say it. Anger was driving all of this, pushing the other feelings out. "Just like he did all those other girls. He screwed with my car and then he offered me a ride and I took it, because why wouldn't I trust one of my own, right? And he raped me. And you know, until now, I'd actually been feeling guilty about not telling you, about using the deputy chief thing to get out of Atlanta when really I couldn't stand to stay because of him. But now I don't anymore, because if I had told you, you would've thought I was making the whole thing up!"

"And you're only telling me this now?" Reynolds replied, sounding skeptical. "What, two years later? With no evidence but your word?"

"Hey," Olivia said suddenly. "How many rape cases have you worked?"

"Ever?" Reynolds asked, turning to scrutinize the older detective. "Maybe twenty or so."

"Well, I've been SVU for fifteen years, and I work that many every three months or less. And I can tell you right now, there are plenty of reasons victims don't come forward right away. This insistence on evidence is one of them. Blaine didn't leave physical evidence at any of his crimes. Even if she'd come to you the night it had happened, she would've had no evidence but her word. Can you honestly look me in the eyes and say you would've believed her then? Because the way you're acting now, I can see why she didn't come to you."

"Come on, Amanda." Nick stepped forward and took her hand, lacing her fingers in with his. "Don't waste your breath on this idiot. Let's go."

She walked with Nick out to his car, flanked by the other two. She felt strangely light-headed as Nick helped her into the front seat. "I can't believe I just did that."

Fin was smiling warmly. "I'm proud of you, girl. That guy deserved every word of what you heaped on him."

"I didn't like him the first time I met him, and I like him less now," Nick added.

"It feels good," Amanda said softly, "like even though I didn't stand up to him directly, I sort of did anyway."

"You stood up to the system that protects guys like him," Olivia told her. "That's no small thing." She exchanged a quick glance with Fin, and she knew he was thinking of the same thing she was, of the moment when she'd arrested a corrupt prison guard who the system had protected, a prison guard who had tried to rape her while she was undercover as a prisoner.

"I'm gonna take her home, and then I'll be back at the office in an hour or so." Nick said as he climbed into the driver's seat.

"Home?" Amanda asked uncertainly as she pulled the door closed.

He smiled, realizing what was bothering her. "My place." He laid his hand over hers. "You can stay as long as you want, Amanda. I won't kick you out."

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"You spoken to Rollins recently?"

"The fact that you're asking me suggests you have." Cragen glanced over the Atlanta captain. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

"I know you," Reynolds replied. "That's your former unit, cops you handpicked, persecuting my guy, and you've worked with Rollins more recently than I have. Why would she say what she did?"

"You seriously don't believe her?" Cragen asked incredulously.

"You do?"

"Are you sure you really spoke to her?" Cragen was quickly moving towards anger. "Because if you'd seen what I did, you'd have to be the most cold-hearted bastard in the world not to believe her. She came to me because she was scared to death of him and didn't know who to turn to."

"When I talked to her, all I got was anger."

"How did you approach her?" Cragen countered. "If you accused her of lying or came in suggesting Blaine was innocent, I have no doubt she was angry."

"No evidence. It's his word against hers," Reynolds said, flailing a little.

"A lot of violent crimes are, Sam," Cragen reminded him without missing a beat. "Use your head for five seconds. What would Amanda gain by making all this up? This whole thing's going to be rough as hell on her, she'll be called a liar and a slut who knows how many times and in the end, she basically ends up right where she started. On the other hand, Blaine has every reason to lie about being a rapist." He took a breath, letting the other man gather his thoughts. "I get it on some level. It's not like I've never worked with a bad cop before - back in the nineties, what I thought was one of my best guys turned out to have covered up a murder. You're wondering how this could've happened, how you could've worked with such a monster for years and never known it. But don't let that translate to letting Rollins down. She was one of your people too."

Reynolds was silent for a long moment, closing his eyes and putting his face in his hands. "He really did it, didn't he? Oh, God, he really did it."

"I believe he did," Cragen said evenly.

"Oh, God," the younger man said again. "How did I miss it?"

"If there's one thing I learned working Special Victims, it's that rapists don't, to borrow a turn of phrase from a friend, glow in the dark. They can be anyone. One of the first things people who investigate sex crimes have to learn is that there's no such thing as someone who couldn't be a perp."

"You sound just like a woman who was with Rollins," he said wryly. "She told me that if I didn't believe Rollins now, I wouldn't have believed her back when it happened either, and so she was right not to tell me. I think she was a colleague of Rollins'."

"Taller woman, dark hair?"

"Yeah, that's her."

"Sergeant Olivia Benson." Cragen smiled. "She holds the current record for the longest term in SVU."

"I can see why," Reynolds admitted. "If I were a perp, she'd be the last person I'd want to cross. So, what should I do now?"

"My first advice is to back off. Rollins is going to have a hard time trusting you again, and the more you force it, the worse it's going to be. If you want to help her, help her behind the scenes. Do what you can to make sure no prosecutor lets Blaine off easy. Let her see that you support her. In time, she'll figure out that you're on her side."

Sorry, sorry! I know it's been forever!

Just to reiterate yet again, whatever's going on in Season 16 right now is not canonical to this story. After what I've heard, I've decided to not even watch the most recent two-parter until I'm done with this story (only 2-3 more chapters) so it doesn't mess me up on my plans here. For future stories, I'll probably keep any references vague enough that they could apply to this story or the canonical one.

Reynolds didn't necessarily seem like a mega-villain or anything, but he came off way too "good-old-boy" for me in the first episode he was in, so I ran with that here.

This chapter references the SVU episode Strange Beauty. The reference to sexual abusers glowing in the dark comes from the original Law and Order series episode Bad Faith; the friend of Cragen's who said that is his successor at the 2-7, Lieutenant Van Buren. The mention of the officer of Cragen's who covered up a murder is a reference to the Law and Order movie Exiled.

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