Part Eight
Exhausted and shaken as she was, she couldn't rest. She couldn't sit down. As soon as she scraped herself off the bathroom floor, she knew what she had to do. She had a mission to accomplish, a horrible mission that she didn't want to think about, but she knew that as soon as it was done, she could return home and sleep without the fear of being attacked.
Before she could sleep, she had to turn in her attacker.
She had to have her partner arrested for assaulting her.
The tiny ring of metal weighed heavily in her pocket as she made her way up the precinct steps. Although her path was familiar, each step felt like it was carrying her further into the unknown. She'd been there thousands of times, pulling open the heavy steel door, nodding at the front desk sergeant, climbing the staircase, but this time with leaden legs. Her first days at the station, as a cop, hadn't made her feel so insecure, so inadequate, so naïve. Even those first terrifying weeks on the streets, when she'd been certain that she was about to be killed at any moment, either by an angry perp's bullet or her condescending TO's hands, hadn't been so scary. They hadn't left her slightly nauseous, with her stomach somersaulting and her heart skipping every other beat.
And rather than continuing down the hall, making her way to her locker to stash her bag, maybe grabbing a cup of coffee and exchanging barbs with Munch, she stopped at the door to the captain's office. The sound of her knuckles on the glass was sharp and painful, somehow resembling the unmistakable harshness of a hammer on a nail.
She saw the older man nod at her through the half-closed blinds. The hammering echoed in her ears, telling her that it might have been in her head the whole time. That was why she was there after all, to pound the final nail into her partner's coffin. Cragen's face had started in the semblance of a half smile, meaning to reassure her as best he could under the circumstances. He probably assumed she was coming to check on the status of the investigation. It only added to the guilt that she was about to etch a few more lines into his already over-worried forehead.
His feigned smile faltered quickly, reading her anguish as soon as she opened the door. He jumped to his feet, concern edging out the wariness. "Are you ok? Has something else happened?" When she didn't answer, Cragen motioned through the glass behind her. "IAB just got done with Elliot. They must have grilled him pretty hard."
It had taken all of her strength to get that far, to put one foot in front of the other all the way to the precinct, to walk those halls that seemed foreign and unwelcoming. Rather than speaking, which was beyond her for the moment, she collapsed into one of the chairs that were usually reserved for visitors to the captain's office. When the detectives where there, they were always standing, either getting chewed out or offering a quick update on their way somewhere. But she didn't have the strength to stand.
Instead she lifted her eyes, watching Cragen's observant glance as she fished in her pocket for the millstone that had hindered her movements. The gold circle was painfully light in her hand as she dropped it on the captain's blotter, belying the crushing weight of its meaning. Even being without it, she felt heavy and burdened and she supposed that would stay with her for a long, long time. Destroying a man's career, a man's life, was difficult for her, despite the fact that Elliot had certainly done his share to make it as easy as possible for her.
Cragen's face revealed a moment of atypical confusion as he looked from the ring to her face. Finally he shrugged with a smile. "Are you proposing?"
Her voice was thick and hurt and unfamiliar to her when it sounded, seeming like an excruciatingly loud shout in the quiet room. "It's Elliot's." She'd thought that simply finding it, identifying it, had been the worst pain, but speaking the words breathed life into the nightmarish idea, cutting even deeper wounds in her mind and heart. Swallowing hard, she sucked in enough air to force out the rest of the words, hoping they would be enough for him to catch on. She didn't think she'd survive long enough to explain further, not when she was pretty sure she was bleeding to death from the knife wounds in her back. "I found it in my bed."
He seemed to turn the idea over in his head, his cheeks coloring red quickly. His mouth opened, but he thought better of it or perhaps lost the ability to speak altogether. He sat back in his chair, looking slightly ill.
Welcome to my world, she thought. But besides looking sick, she slowly noted the blush, the discomfort, and realized he'd missed the point. Damn him for not getting it; damn him for thinking she was confessing to an intimate relationship with her partner of over a decade. She shivered as she shook her head, finding herself wishing that were the case. Destroying both of their careers for a love affair would have been infinitely preferable to presenting the evidence that would land her partner in prison and more or less tear the beating heart out of her chest. Because, even with the circumstantial evidence up to that point, she'd still believed that he couldn't be guilty, that he'd been telling the truth when he'd denied that very thing a day earlier.
"There's no way, Don, he's never-" She tried to suck in another breath, feeling herself sniffling before the tears could even start. "I don't know how it could have gotten there. It was in my sheets." She felt her chest constricting, making her labored breathing even more difficult. "He's never been in my bedroom." A few tears dared trail out, immediately swiped away more from instinct than desire to save face. Being proud and strong didn't make any difference anymore, not when she'd been so very wrong about the most important person in her life. "Not that I know of."
Cragen sat back in his chair; his stare locked on the ring like it was the devil himself. The color drained completely from his face, leaving him so pale as to mirror the color of his shirt. "So you're telling me-"
Fighting back the tears, she took a mental step away, protecting herself as best she could by pretending she was talking about someone else. Some other victim. Some other perp. "He got there too fast." She saw Cragen's eyes flicker toward her for a second in confusion, but they immediately returned to the evidence. "Last night when I was-" She couldn't form the words still, and clumsily found a path around them. "Last night, when it happened, I called him, and he got there too quick."
The captain finally dared turn his attention from the ring before him, his sharp glare sizing up the woman before him. "Olivia, you were terribly shaken up from that attack. Maybe you weren't aware of how long it took for him to get there?" Even with the certainty reverberating from her, Cragen had to be sure. Her words, her accusations, would have devastating consequences on her, on her partner, on her squad. "With what had just happened your perception of time might have been skewed."
She shook her head. That was the one fact that she knew. "I was scared. When I told him I needed him, he said was on his way, he'd be right there and I kept thinking the guy was going to come back-" She choked on her words, realizing for the first time in those terms that the guy had come back, that she'd called the guy to save her, and the guy had known it. "I just stared at the clock, praying that he'd get there soon." Even though she was already sitting down, the words were taking a toll and she hunched over, holding her arms around her stomach to protect herself from the attack that seemed to be happening all over again. "It only took him three minutes to get to me."
Cragen shook his head, wanting to deny it, even as he saw the pain she was in, pain he knew she wasn't faking. "There's no way Elliot could have gotten to your apartment from Queens in three minutes."
She tried to gulp down the air that her sobbing shoulders required, but she sniffled at the same time, forcing herself into a coughing spasm that lasted several seconds. "I know. I didn't pay any attention at the time, I was just so glad to see him." As she said it, she remembered so clearly the terror of hearing her door open and the sheer joy of recognizing her partner's voice. She'd thought he'd come to save her when in fact he was the one who'd left her in that condition. And the bastard had let her sob on his shoulder, had held her in his arms and promised her that he'd keep her safe. That fucker had sworn he'd protect her.
He hadn't mentioned that he'd be protecting her from himself.
"Maybe he was in the neighborhood." Cragen stood up, stepping around his desk to take the seat beside her. As her friend, he wanted to comfort her, to offer her the warm hug that she so desperately needed. But as her captain, he knew an assault victim would not welcome an unexpected touch. He forced his hands to stay in his lap.
She hiccupped, wiping at her tears, picking at some invisible thread in her pants. "I would have let it go, but then-" Her voice cracked and she covered her face with her hands, her muffled voice sounded every bit as hideous as she felt. "I found his ring." As soon as the words left her mouth, she looked up. She wished she could take them back, she wished she hadn't had to say them, she wished he hadn't had to think them, she wished they hadn't been true. She couldn't bring herself to mention the panties she'd found, the evidence she'd destroyed. Somehow, that was worse in her mind, more of a violation. And she wouldn't tell. She couldn't.
For a moment, his face lightened, an idea dawning on him. "Were you still in your room then? Maybe he dropped it when he found you."
She shook her head. "No, I was in the living room. He never went in my bedroom."
Cragen's face was drawn and tight, anger spilling off him in waves. Only his dark eyes reflected emotion, overfull with worry and hurt. "What are you telling me?" It wasn't that he didn't already know; it was that she needed to say it. As the victim, she needed to identify her attacker. As the partner of the perp, she needed to acknowledge what she was doing. Although he doubted that Olivia would have come to him without having thought through her actions.
Trembling, she tried to breathe evenly. Her head was spinning and she knew she was hyperventilating. Listening to her panting breaths, she couldn't help but remember it. The fear of waking up to find someone on top of her. The suffocating weight pushing down on her. The incredible strength that held her back when she tried to fight. The imposing height chasing her when she tried to escape. The smell of a cologne she recognized choking her when she tried to scream.
And the one thing that had been nagging at her since she'd looked up at him – the piercing blue eyes she would have said she'd know anywhere.
Unashamed of her tear-streaked face or her racking sobs, she lifted her head to face Cragen. "How else could his ring have gotten there?" Her breath hitched, her words cementing the idea in her head exactly as she'd feared they would, killing her from the inside out. "It had to be Elliot who tried to rape me."