Chapter 16
A/N: So, this chapter took a bit longer to get out of me, but it's finally gotten done and I hope you all like it. I'd like to note that I spent quite a bit of time researching plane crashes for this chapter in order to make it as realistic as I possibly could without being too gruesome etc. I am not an aviation expert and I do not claim to be, so please forgive me if certain things may not be a hundred percent accurate. Although I wanted to try and do what I could on my part to make it believable, I didn't want to take too much from the headlines of actual crashes. I understand that extreme aviation incidents are pretty rare, but this is a work of fiction, and in the world of fictional writing, anything can happen. With that said I also want to take a moment to address that some of the response to the last two chapters was not entirely positive. I have been told I have lost readers/followers because some can't deal or have issue with the storyline. I'll be disappointed to lose any of you, but I thank you for keeping your opinions and feedback respectful. Not everybody can or will like everything I write. That is perfectly fine with me and I appreciate the honesty. That being said, I will continue to write this story for those of you who do enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. I hope to see some of the readers I may have lost back on the wagon with some of my future stories! :) I read and appreciate every single review no matter what, and I thank you for the support and love, always!
DISCLAIMER:
I do not own Law & Order SVU or any of its characters. Any additional characters and situations I have created are mere figments of my imagination, and any actual similarity to real persons is purely coincidental.
She was breathing free and light; something that she hadn't been able to do for a long time. Longer than she could remember. As she walked, she felt a buoyancy in her step she had never previously known. Her eyes all of a sudden locked on something so familiar, yet so strange at the same time. His sandy hair and everything about him remained exactly the same, but he looked so transparent and light that if she were to touch him, she imagined it being the like of touching clouds; her hands may just go right through his soul.
"Do you recognize me?"
His voice was almost the same too, although softer than she'd remembered it.
Almost as if he had read her mind and understood what she'd been thinking just moments ago, he did reach out, and he touched her. The tingle it sent through her was unlike anything there had ever been between them. He took her hand, and he held it, as if it he couldn't bear to let it go.
"Do you know who I am? Can you tell? Please tell me you still see it. That I haven't changed that much."
His name was something she herself hadn't been able to say for such a long time, but on her lips it rested, and in the moment, the space she was in, wherever it was, she felt free enough to say it.
"Ben?" There was a happiness in her, being able to free herself of the toxicity that had become associated with him, but a sob escaped her. Was she being tricked? Played? Fooled?
"Yes, my love. You see it. It's me. I'm right here. We could reach out and touch, and you'd feel me, just as I felt you."
The simple action of touching his face brought so much more feeling with it than she could have ever imagined.
"Did you suffer?"
"I can't tell you that, baby."
"I have to know."
Sighing, he knew he couldn't deny her the only answer she had been praying for, but it wasn't the one she wished to hear.
"I did. But I thought of you. Life didn't flash before my eyes, not that quickly, but you did. All I saw was you. And I was terrified. I'd never felt so much agony in so few seconds. Thinking of you numbed it, in the moments that I needed to be numb. I went blank, and I saw your face. You have to know I love you, even still."
"I love you, too. What about Mom?"
"I can only speak for myself. You'll hear from her only when you and she are ready. I do know though, that she loved you. Suffering doesn't last forever."
Suffering doesn't last forever.
Doesn't... last... forever.
Feeling herself jolt upright as her throat constricted with a scream that seemed like it was from someone else's being, instantly she knew she must have been dreaming of him again. Always, she seemed to dream of him, but never with the depth and complexity that she just had done. Never had he spoken to her. Never had she received answers.
Hearing the cry from the next room, Melinda was up and out of bed as quickly as her legs would allow. This occurrence had become somewhat of a ritual for her.
"Al?" the heartbreaking sight of the blonde sitting upright, curled as tightly into herself as her pregnant stomach would allow her to be as sobs wracked her body caused the other woman to situate herself next to her on the bed and embrace her tightly, pulling her face into her shoulder. "What's the matter, doll?"
Alex composed herself just enough so that she could be understood when she spoke, but was still sobbing and hiccoughing between breaths. "I saw him. I dreamt of him again. He spoke to me this time."
"Ben?"
She nodded.
"What did he say?"
"I was somewhere that felt light, buoyant, freeing. I saw someone I thought looked so familiar. He spoke and I knew it was heaven and I was seeing him. He asked if I recognized him, told me I could reach out and touch him, and I would feel him. I touched his face. I asked if he suffered, and he said he did, but that all he saw in moments of agony was my face, and I numbed him in minutes that he needed to feel nothing."
"Oh, honey."
"I asked him about Mom. I couldn't understand why she wasn't there. He told me he could speak for only himself, and that neither of us were ready for me to hear from her. He told me she loved me, and that he loved me, still."
"I'm sure he does, babe."
"Why does everybody get taken away from me? I've made mistakes, but this much loss just makes me wanna get into the coffin with them all. My breath has no purpose now."
Melinda sighed. Being a medical examiner and professional and knowing the SVU team well, she'd offered to stay with Alex off and on since her most recent loses. She worried about her well being in this trying time. It was one thing after another, and she had begun to feel overprotective of the other woman. Having medical knowledge, she'd deemed herself to be the best fit to help Alex ride out this rough stage in her life, and the blonde, for once, hadn't had any objections.
"Don't say that. Do you hear me? Sit up." she waited patiently as she watched Alex slowly and reluctantly raise herself up from her crumpled state into a sitting position, and proceeded to place her hands on either side of her ever-bulging baby bump. "This, right here, is your purpose for breathing. This baby is your breath, and you are theirs. They need you to sustain them. Every decision you make affects them."
"What if I'm not a good mother. What if I can't do it, without Ben here? What if I ruin him?"
For the first time that night, Melinda smiled. "Him?"
Alex smiled back, realizing what she had said. "Ben always said it'd be a boy."
"Honey, we all do things that somehow negatively affect our kids. Some are small things, some are irreparable. That doesn't necessarily make us bad parents, or even bad people. It means that we did the best we could with what we had, what we knew, at the time. All we can do is live and learn and hope that our kids know we love them, hope that that love is enough to warrant forgiveness in the times that we're gonna need it."
"He deserves to be here, to see his child. We went about things the wrong way, but we grew to love each other. He wanted to be a father. What happened to take that away, shouldn't have happened, and I blame myself."
"You couldn't have kept him here even if you had tried. He wanted to go on that trip, Alex. He was a grown man who made a decision, and it was met with bad luck and bad timing."
Once more information had started to come in, she'd learned that the flight Ben and her mother had been on had crashed just shortly after taking off, the most probable cause of the accident being undetected engine faults. Everyone on board had died, and the aircraft had burned into shards of something unrecognizable to the human eye. During the first few weeks after the crash, she'd had haunting dreams. Images flooded her mind that she wouldn't even wish upon her worst enemy. She'd hoped beyond all hope that neither of them had suffered in the ways her mind wanted to make her believe. Tonight, Ben had come to her and said he had in fact suffered, no doubt unimaginably. Though this pained her greatly, this dream had been one of few with a positive side, and she was glad to know that in his moments of suffering, in some way, he was able to feel she was there.
The cause of the crash had made her angry. She hadn't known that she possessed anger of that capacity. It was even greater now, than it had been after Raye's suicide, if that were possible. Although the airline had done their best to try to be kind, compassionate, offer help where it was needed with counselling and arrangements for her loved ones, she was still angry at them. Who wouldn't be? She couldn't even say the cause of the crash out loud without feeling her blood pressure rise. Everyone said that very little actually killed you. Flight accidents were so rare. Flying was safer than driving your car. All of it, she now knew, was bullshit. People said that kind of thing to make themselves feel better. Some experienced all the pain the world had to offer, while others simply got lucky. How could they let something so major as a faulty engine go undetected? Were they blind, or stupid? She assumed both. And that stupidity had cost her half of her family.
A dark skinned hand waving in front of her face slowly pulled her from her thoughts. "Earth to Alex!"
"Hmmm?" she'd been so caught up in all her memories, all her bitterness, she'd forgotten Melinda was even there.
"I said, you should try to get back to sleep. I'll stay the rest of the night. I'll just be in the next room if you need me."
She half smiled. "Thanks Melinda. You've been really great through all of this."
"It's what I'm here for, sweetie. Get some rest." Alex watched her shadow turn and walk away to the next room, drifting back to sleep with the hopes that she wouldn't dream anymore that night.
The next morning she awoke to sunshine pouring in her windows, and longed for the day to come again where the weather matched her mood. It seemed a long way off. She hadn't been to work in the months since Ben and Katherine's accident, and she had no desire to go back. The team, no doubt in an effort to be respectful, was putting no pressure on her to return. As much as she appreciated it, she wished people wouldn't feel like they had to give her so much space. It'd be nice to feel close to someone, anyone, after so much loss. She used to be so open, communicative. Now, it was almost like she needed someone to force it out of her.
Making her way out to the kitchen, she saw Melinda had left a note on the table saying she'd gone into work, but would be back later that evening. All the blonde wanted to do was sleep. She knew though, that she had to push herself out of these dark moments best she could when she was on her own. People couldn't be there for her twenty four seven, and if she sank too far, she feared the hole of depression would be so deep she'd never come out.
Grabbing her keys off the peg on the wall, she willed herself out the door and began the trek to the coffee and doughnut shop down the street.
She sat and watched the comings and goings for a while, her hot chocolate warming her insides with every sip. People watching had always been something she loved to do, although the reason was unknown to her. Maybe because she could imagine people to be anyone, could create scenarios where the people who passed her, were only good ones. In her heart of hearts, and in her world, she knew this was untrue. But people always only judged what they saw, didn't they? They'd never assume her to be someone who'd experienced as much life and loss as she had, if she passed by them sitting here, surely?
How long she'd sat there, watching others and creating personas for them in her mind, she didn't know. Time was only measured by the fact her hot chocolate had long ago been consumed, and the ache in her body had become too pressing of an issue to ignore. Peanut was moving and kicking at her insides, no doubt in attempt to protest against her staying there much longer.
It's funny how in moments when you think you're finished with something, you've given it all you have, learned from it, owe it no more thought, the forces or higher powers of the universe have other plans and find some way to throw it back in your face; In putting it right in front of you, they make you realize you're not finished, it's not over at all. What you thought never bothered you, you'd really just compartmentalized into the deepest parts of yourself, hoping to never have to deal with it again.
This is exactly the realization Alex Cabot came to leaving that coffee shop, eyes locking on Olivia Benson and seeing her linked arm in arm with another woman.
A/N: I apologize for the cliffhanger ending, and some of you may find the length of this chapter to be shorter than you would have liked, but I promise I will try to update very soon!