Unreasonable Doubt
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.
Chapter 7: Three Months Later
Olivia might have been trying to conceal the grin on her face, but it wasn't working. The little bounce in her step wasn't exactly hiding her mood either.
Amaro spoke first. "All right, spill it. What's got you in such a good mood?"
To everyone's surprise, Olivia blushed bright pink and bit down on her lip. Then she shyly held her left hand out so Amaro could see it. More precisely, so he could see what was on it.
Amaro grinned too as he caught sight of the ornament on her third finger, and he stepped forward to hug her. "Congratulations, Liv," he said sincerely.
"'Bout time Stabler popped the question," Fin added, walking over to hug her too. "Happy for both of you, girl."
"It's great," Amanda agreed, also hugging her friend. "When's the big day?"
"Two months. I know it's soon, but this has been a long time coming."
"You can say that again," Fin muttered.
Amanda gently smacked her partner on the arm. "For God's sake, the man was married!"
"Still, you should've seen the two of them."
Olivia laughed lightly, notably not denying what they were saying.
"So," Amaro pressed, "how are the kids taking it?"
"Elliot's older kids aren't really around much, but we called to tell them last night and they all seemed happy for us - and I can usually tell when they're lying," she added. "Eli started jumping up and down when we told him. I know he still misses his mom, but he's gotten used to me and we're close - I think he sees this marriage as an assurance that I'm not going away."
"And Noah's too young to know the difference," Amaro finished.
"Well," Olivia said slowly, shifting her weight a little, "that's our other piece of news. We talked last night, and as soon as we're married, Elliot and I are going to start the process to legally make Noah our son."
This was greeted with another round of cheers and hugs. Olivia had been a foster mother to the boy for the better part of a year now, and even though Elliot wasn't on any of the paperwork, he'd taken to the little boy in the same way Olivia had taken to Eli.
"Hey." Murphy's voice floated over to them. "Hate to break up this party, but Rollins, I need you in my office. Now." Then his tone softened a fraction. "Actually, all four of you ought to come in for this."
Sharing confused looks, they filed in. Murphy closed the door and turned to face his assembled detectives, mostly focusing his gaze on Rollins. "I just spoke to the Atlanta DA," he told them. "Blaine's trial is scheduled to start in two weeks." And with those words, all the joy in the room seemed to evaporate.
Blaine had, as predicted, been extradited back to Atlanta to face the much greater stack of charges there. The DA in question had been informed about what had happened to Rollins, but he had yet to make contact with her.
Nick's hand slipped into hers, and she squeezed it as she spoke. "When do they want me to testify?"
Murphy let out a long breath before he spoke. "There's - there's no easy way to say this. They're charging him on the other nineteen rapes, but they're not going forward with the charges on the crimes he committed against you."
Gasps and exclamations of disbelief filled the room. Besides Murphy himself, the only person who didn't react was the one person most directly affected. She just stared at the unit commander as the voices of the other three swirled around her. Her legs suddenly felt weak and she swayed a little.
Nick saw when her balance became unsteady, and he instantly stopped the outraged rant he'd been in the middle of to put his arm around her waist and help her stay on her feet. Fin and Olivia noticed a moment later, and their protests were also swallowed up by their concern.
"I'm sorry, girl," Fin said softly. "I know that's rough."
"It's my fault," she said miserably. "They can't charge him for what happened to me because I waited so long to come forward."
"Bullshit," Olivia said crisply. "They've got nineteen other crimes matching the same pattern. Maybe it wouldn't be a slam dunk, but they have enough to get in front of a jury. Amanda," she added, her voice softening, "it's horrible that the system is treating you so badly after what you went through, but it's not your fault. If that DA wanted to, he could have indicted the guy for your case right along with the others. Seems to me he just didn't want to put in the effort."
"I still - I still want to go to the trial," she said softly. "I need to."
Murphy nodded. "I already had the paperwork drawn up when I thought you'd be called. Take the time you need, and I'll sort it out with upstairs."
"Thank you. Excuse me?" The air in Murphy's office felt stifling suddenly, and she just wanted to get out.
The others watched her go. Fin shook his head. "Someone ought to go with her. I don't like the thought of her dealing with this by herself."
"Niether do I," Murphy agreed, "but I'm sorry, I can't spare any of you right now. It's gonna be hard enough sparing Rollins herself." He sighed. "I don't suppose there's anyone else, anyone not in this department right now who could go with her."
Fin and Amaro shook their heads. Olivia started to do the same, then stopped herself. "Well, there might be someone. There are a few calls I've been meaning to make; I should be able to kill two birds with one stone." She pulled her phone out of her pocket, flipped to her contacts list, and scrolled down until she found what she was looking for.
He answered on the third ring. "Hello?"
"Captain," she replied out of habit, "it's Olivia. There are a couple things I need to tell you."
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Cragen was drawn out of the book he was reading by a soft cry from his right. He immediately turned his attention to the blonde detective sitting in the window seat next to him.
He gently took her shoulder in his hand and shook it. "Amanda, wake up. It's okay."
Her eyes flew open, her body going rigid. "Did I - did I call out or something?" she asked, embarrassed.
"I doubt anyone else heard." He gently took her hand in his and squeezed it. "It's okay. I know you're having a hard time with this."
"I can't believe they're not letting me testify," she admitted. "I finally manage to get it together to confront him, and then the DA just gets to say 'sorry, we don't feel like putting in the effort'? And just like that, everything I agonized over is worth nothing."
"Not nothing," Cragen corrected gently. "It was because you came forward that the team was able to link Blaine to those other rapes, and from there make the case on the Atlanta victims. And besides, you feel better, don't you, not carrying that secret around?"
She nodded.
"There, you see? I know how hard it was for you to talk about what happened, but something good did come of it. The good you get out of it is important too."
Tears sprang to her eyes before she could stop them. The way he talked to her so often reminded her of Nick talking to Zara, one of many things her own father had never done for her. She wiped at them harshly with her free hand. She couldn't cry here, on an airplane in front of strangers.
Cragen squeezed the hand he still held. "It's okay," he whispered again. "It's okay."
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"Rollins!"
She stopped, looking to Cragen briefly as she turned to face the Atlanta captain, feeling as if she was playing out the scene in the New York courthouse all over again. "Whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it."
He took a step back, hands raised. "Look, I'm sorry for what I said back in New York, okay? I was out of my depth, I didn't know how to react."
"I don't care," she said softly. "Just - just get out of my life, okay?"
"I believe you," he insisted. "I just needed time to get my head around what I was hearing."
"Which words don't you understand? I. Don't. Care."
"I get it, all right? I do, but just listen for a second, all right? I need your help."
"On this case?" she asked bitterly. "You guys didn't seem to need my help when you were making your witness list."
He flinched a little. "I fought the ADA on charging Blaine for your case, but he wouldn't have it, and in the end, I didn't get a say. But Rollins, we have a problem. All of the women were willing to testify when they thought it was just a civilian. But now they know their attacker was a cop, we've got a few we're on the brink of losing. The cops working with them have talked themselves blue in the faces, but it's not making a difference. I told you, I believe you. I believe you went through the same thing they did, at the hands of the same man. If they'll listen to anyone, they'll listen to you."
She drew a long, deep breath. "Okay."
"Amanda." Cragen spoke for the first time; he'd been letting her handle the situation once he'd seen that she could. "Are you sure you can do this?"
"I want to do it," she replied evenly. "I wanted to testify to take him down. If the only way I can do it is by proxy, that's what I want. But," she added to Reynolds, "I'm not giving a group seminar. I talk to them one-on-one or not at all."
"Understood."
"Where do you want me to start?"
"You took Terri Martin's original statement, didn't you?"
She nodded. She'd never forget that interview, less than a month after her own attack. She'd tried her best to help Terri, but she'd spent most of the interview just trying to hold back flashbacks in her own mind.
"She's one of the shaky ones; there are four total. I'll put each of them in a separate room."
"Okay."
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"Terri?" Amanda pushed the door open slowly. "I don't know if you remember me -"
"Of course," she said icily. "Detective Rollins. So they sent you in to talk to me too."
"Yeah, they did."
"You didn't listen to me the first time," she said, still not looking at the detective. "Oh, you pretended to, but I could see your eyes glazing over."
Amanda flinched but didn't deny it. "Terri, I'm sorry."
"I already told those other cops, I don't want to do this. Do you have any idea what it's like, Detective? To be thrown in a car at gunpoint, raped and degraded like that, and then to find out the man who did all that to me is a cop? Do you have any idea?"
Amanda swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. "Actually, Terri - I do."
"If you're just saying that -"
"I'm not," Amanda interrupted. "The same thing happened to me."
The other woman's head snapped around to look at her for the first time. "What?"
"About three weeks before he attacked you, Sergeant Blaine also attacked me. At the time, I thought he was just copycatting - I never thought he was the real thing. Oh, God, Terri, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry he hurt you because I was too much of a coward to tell someone what he did to me. I'm sorry that when you did what I couldn't, when I should've been listening to you, I spent the whole time tuning you out instead because I couldn't cope with what I was going through. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Terri was staring incredulously at her. "But - you're a cop yourself. Why wouldn't you tell someone?"
"There's a hierarchy in the cop world. Experience before rookie, man before woman. I knew whose side they'd take."
"Are -" Terri began hesitantly. "Are you going to testify?"
"I want to," Amanda replied, "but they won't let me. Because I didn't come forward right away, they're not even charging him for what he did to me."
"That's awful." Terri shook her head. "Look at us. You want to testify and you can't, and I don't want to touch that witness stand with a ten-foot pole and they're calling in the big guns to try and force me to change my mind."
"I know you're scared," Amanda told her gently, "but I know you can do this. I know you were ready to do this before you found out you were dealing with a cop, weren't you?"
"Yeah. But, I mean, I am."
"Listen to me. I of all people know what kind of image the cop title carries with it, but I also know that that title doesn't change what he did to you, and it doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable."
"What if the jury doesn't believe me?" Terri whispered.
"It's always a possibility, I'm not going to lie. But there are going to be nineteen of you out there, all telling variations on the same story. I think it's incredibly likely that the jury will believe you."
Terri took several long, audible breaths. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll do it."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." She drew another long breath. "I guess I just needed to be reminded of why I wanted to testify in the first place. None of the guys were looking at it from my perspective. All they could talk about was the damn case and how I was making it harder for them. And detective - you don't have to be sorry for keeping what happened to you a secret. I was inches away from doing the same."
"I'm still sorry about the way I handled your case. I should've excused myself and sent someone else in when I realized I couldn't handle it."
Terri shrugged. "Look, I'm not going to say you handled it perfectly. But I understand how hard it it is. I was angry because I thought you didn't care. Now that I know what was really going on, I'm not angry anymore. And I'm sorry they're not letting you testify. And I'll try to do you proud out there, okay?"
"Don't do it for me. Do it for yourself."
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"Any luck on those witnesses?" the harried ADA asked the Atlanta police captain. "Tell me your guys managed to talk them around."
"My guys had no luck," Reynolds said grimly. "I did find someone else who might have a shot, but I haven't heard - oh, there she is now." He waved the blonde woman over. "ADA Henry Patterson, Detective Amanda Rollins." He turned to the woman. "Any luck?"
She nodded. "All four women have agreed to go ahead with their testimony."
Patterson's jaw dropped. "How? We've had people talking to them for days."
"Talking to them, I'm sure. Listening to them, I don't know. What I got from them is that from the time they started questioning their decisions to testify, you were pushing it on them from your perspective. All they wanted was for someone to consider the situation from their point of view and then talk to them from that angle. Anyway, you've got your witnesses." She couldn't keep the biting edge out of her voice.
Patterson picked up on it. "Wait a second. Amanda Rollins? You're the one who -"
"Yeah," she said sharply, cutting him off.
"Look, I'm sorry, I know you were ready to testify. But it's been over two years, it just wouldn't have been possible -"
"Just stop, okay? I get it, you've got a slam dunk on the other nineteen and so you don't want to put in the work to convict him on charges for a twentieth attack when it wouldn't make a practical difference anyway. Besides the fact that I can't force you to change your mind, I'm honestly just too damn tired to try. But don't say it wouldn't have been possible. I'd rather hear you say you just don't give a damn. At least that would be honest." She turned to Reynolds. "Have you seen Captain Cragen?"
"Still can't break that habit, can you?" He smiled. "Pacing down at the end of the hall, last I saw. He's worried about you."
Cragen was, in fact, still pacing when Amanda walked up to him. He looked up and stopped. "How was it?"
"Four for four." She tried to smile.
"I had no doubt. But I actually meant, how did it go for you? Are you okay?"
"I'm - I'm tired." Understatement of the century. She was so physically and emotionally exhausted that she was a little surprised she was still standing upright.
Cragen wasn't fooled. One look into her eyes and he could tell how much pain she was in, how raw she still was from the assault she'd never dealt with, how many barely-healed wounds she'd had to rip open to do what she'd done that day.
He knew she'd never let her guard down in public, so he quickly located the nearest empty conference room. It was unlocked, so he guided her inside, closing the door behind them. Then he gathered the hurting young woman up in his arms.
Just like it had on the steps of his apartment on that day she'd finally spoken of the assault, his touch crumbled the walls that held back her emotions and she began to cry. He just held her tighter. "It's okay now, it's okay. You - you did an amazing thing today, you were so strong, and I am so proud of you."
She buried her face in his shoulder. "Thank you."
He held her like a child (and damn, she was more than young enough to be his child. She was practically young enough to be his grandchild. When had it happened that he'd gotten a full two generations ahead of the young end of the police force?), stroking her hair. "Your job is done. You can rest now."
She lifted her tear-streaked face from his shirt and locked eyes with him. "I'm not resting until that bastard is behind bars."
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"How do you find?"
The pause between question and answer couldn't have been more than a second or two, but to Amanda, it seemed like an infinite amount of time passed before the foreman replied. "We find the defendant guilty on all counts."
"What?" Blaine exploded. "You can't do that to me! You sluts were asking for it! I only gave you what you were asking for! Tell them!"
"Remove the defendant!" the judge ordered. "Short date for sentencing."
Amanda let out a long breath in relief, but when she turned to Cragen her expression was determined. "It's still not over yet."
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"I understand that one of Mr. Blaine's victims wishes to make a statement to the court?"
"Detective Amanda Rollins, Your Honor." She stood as she identified herself, stepping forward from the gallery. She took a moment to compose herself and then began.
"In 2011, I was working with then-Sergeant Charles Blaine on several cases, including a serial rapist that the media had termed the White Knight. I trusted him, in the way that most cops trust each other, and instead of respecting that trust he took advantage of it. He raped me. There's no question in my mind that he knew exactly what he was doing. I cried and pleaded with him to stop, and he mocked me for it." She turned and faced him. "I just want you to know - you didn't win. You might've put me through the hardest time of my life, but I'm moving on. I have people who will love and support me and I have the rest of my life ahead of me. Your life is as good as over. I just want you to remember that." She turned back to the judge. "Thank you, Your Honor."
"Thank you, Detective. If there are no others wishing to speak, I will impose sentence." He waited a moment to give anyone who might have been missed a chance to speak up and then continued. "Charles Blaine, a jury having found you guilty of nineteen counts of rape in the first degree and nineteen counts of kidnapping in the first degree, I hereby sentence you to nineteen consecutive terms of twenty-five years to life and nineteen consecutive terms of no less than ten and no greater than twenty years, to be served at a facility to be determined by the department of corrections. My only regret is that you will not live long enough to serve out your entire sentence. We're adjourned."
Amanda turned to Cragen, tears shining in her eyes. "Now it's over."
The End
Fear not, there's more to come! Keep an eye on my profile; within the next few days I plan on posting the first chapter of not one but two new stories for this series! One is called Eyes Wide Open and takes place a few months after what you've just read, the other is called A New Reality and runs roughly parallel to Unreasonable Doubt.
Another timeline note; as most of you will have noticed, Noah is mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. My basic rule for late Season 15 and all of Season 16 is that the cases that happened in the series also happen in this timeline unless they directly conflict with the storylines (i.e., the recently-aired two-parter isn't canon to this series) with a few notable differences - Amaro never beat up the cameraman at the end of Thought Criminal and so was never sent to prison or demoted, Murphy stayed in command of SVU (I like Olivia in the field), and Carisi does not exist.
UPDATE TO THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH (1/11): Okay, so when I wrote out that last paragraph, I had not seen either Pattern Seventeen or Forgiving Rollins in a deliberate attempt to let this story go where I'd already planned instead of allowing my thought process to be swayed by a storyline I was pretty sure was incompatible with this series. I was (I now realize incorrectly) led to believe that the storyline of Pattern Seventeen was much more closely tied to Forgiving Rollins. So, the Pattern Seventeen Rapist case is canon to this story, just with the caveat that by the time it took place, Blaine was already tried and convicted of the White Knight rapes, and that the creep factor with the Deputy Chief was down a few notches (since I did say he groped her, some of that could probably still line up with this timeline). I'm also starting to think I gave Reynolds too much credit (he didn't seem quite that bad based on his initial Season 13 appearance). In any case, this makes Forgiving Rollins the one episode in the series so far to be completely tossed out in this series' timeline. Also, update to the first paragraph of the A/N, both new stories are now available for your reading pleasure!
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