A/N I can't thank you enough for the reviews I got on the last chapter. They mean more to me than I can explain. FicFriend;Thanks so much. I want Rafael to make a move too, he doesn't seem to be obliging, yet anyway...I haven't got a plan, as such, on that, I'm trying to keep true to the show with no huge deviations, but...I do like the idea of how he would go about it, especially now...;)
TheLisa17; Thanks so much for your encouragement, I'm so glad you think it's credible.
Guest; Thank you. I would love to see it happen on the show too. I'll try to keep spoiling you so...:)
When I started this I just needed to fill in some gaps in the story of Forgiving Rollins, for myself. I really thought it was short, the first 4 chapters I wrote, but it just kept going, and then the last chapter had a natural resolution to it, and I thought I could start the other story I needed to write but I find that it is all still one story….
Recognizable scenes and dialogue are from S16E20 "Daydream Believer".
This has to be killing her…how is she even doing this?
My heart thuds so fast in my chest that I start to worry I'm having a heart attack. As we cautiously walk towards the car, I look to Liv, her face is calmly set, but her eyes betray her fear.
I've been working background in the precinct with Carisi, since Liv, and then, Fin and Nick went to Chicago. I've seen what this guy is capable of. An invisible, icy hand clasps my heart, squeezing, as Voight smashes the window. Even though I knew it was coming, the sound batters my already frazzled nerves. His action gets us access into the car we are all terrified contains their friend's body.
Lindsay stands off to one side, her back to us, fearfully awaiting the 'all clear', or…..
I reach into the back seat, mirrored on the other side by Liv. My hands working autonomously from my brain, we search. I look at her drawn face, as we scramble desperately for any clue. I hear Fin's voice, loud and clear, proclaiming "Nothing,…no body….." from the trunk. Our relief is colossal, but fleeting,….. she is not safe, she is still with that MONSTER, but she is not dead in this car.
As Liv pulls a bloodstained scarf from the join where the seat and its back meet and Lindsay identifies it as Nadia's. The pale, strained faces surrounding us tighten even more, escalating anguish clearly visible on each one. Nobody answers Lyndsay's questioning assertion "So she could still be alive?". We all know how much we need to hear a positive response, we also know how unlikely this reality is.
Liv kicks into sergeant mode, giving orders, re-focusing us all on what we can do to help find Nadia. To an outside observer, she is all business, completely in control, but I hear her voice cracking, see her eyes drop to the ground as she battles to keep her emotions at bay. She still finds time to gently tell a distraught Lyndsay, "We're gonna get him", but her well intentioned words ring hallow.
We all rush off to continue the search but also to just escape the cloying despair and all encompassing anguish that seems to surround this car.
We hurriedly split into our partnerships, Fin and I in my car. Liv and Nick, taking the Chicago Sergeant and Detective in her car.
I hurriedly leave the abandoned shipyard, so eager to escape the scene that I hit a few unseen, unfilled holes, hard.
"Slow down Amanda…" I hear my partner grimace from the passenger seat.
I look ahead unmoving, frantically trying to stop the tears pricking at my vision, from falling.
We have barely exited the shipyard when Fin pleads with me to pull over.
I pull in beside a bodega, assuming he needs food, drink or a restroom break.
He reaches across, snapping the keys from the ignition before I can process what he is doing.
"Amanda…." he starts, "I can't imagine how hard this must be for you…."
I know my face shows my shock. For me? Why would it be difficult for me? I never met her…..I'm not reliving being kidnapped by a psychopath….I'm not currently living the flip side of a frantic search for a friend and colleague, battling to not use past tense when referring to them. Why would it be difficult for me?
"Fin what are you doing? We need to get back! Why would it be difficult for me? It's Liv we should be concerned about….Did you see her face, hear her voice? She was seeing herself tied up in the back of that car. She was seeing what Lewis did to her. She was feeling what Nadia is feeling….."
"Amanda, stop."
I look at my partner's face, the strain of the last few days all too clear in his tired visage. His pain and the creeping realization that we may be too late already, etched into the tough set of his mouth.
"Amanda, we know if she is still alive, he's raping her,…." He looks at me pointedly, but his tone softens considerably, "We never really talked…..after Patten…..it's only been a few months…."
Really? I thought the heart-to-hearts were all done now. My colleagues were leaving it in the past, where it belongs. But, he chooses now to talk? What is he thinking?
"I know you think this is a strange time to have this conversation…."
No shit Sherlock!
"I wanted to let you talk to me, or not, in your own time, but this changes everything…"
"No Fin, this…" I gesture wildly between us "changes nothing. Maybe going, working leads could change something…."
I grab the keys back off him and shove them into the ignition, taking off again before he has a chance to say anymore. Not to be beaten though, he gets the last word, "Baby girl, we are not done!".
The next hours fly by in a blur of leads and dead ends. Of finding the beaten and brutalized bodies, one living, one not, of his next victims. He decompensates until we have him in custody.
Still there is no celebration, only anguish, we don't have Nadia.
After his arrest, I find myself in interrogation, questioning the man who makes my skin crawl. His soft spoken, caring, small town, innocent mask completely undone by the dead, calculating eyes that stare back at me.
I know my part in this dance, I have played it out so many times that even my unknown partner doesn't shake me. I am the good cop. I'm the one who tries to be sympathetic, allowing him to open up to me as my Chicago accented partner, tries to knock him off balance. We don't even need to speak the same language to easily fall into this dance, in perfect sync.
My hard earned composure deserts me as Yates tells us how Nadia looked at him 'like a father figure', how 'she couldn't deal with the responsibility of being everyone's good girl', that 'she needed to spread her wings'. I feel the vomit start to rise up my throat as momentarily I see Patten not Yates in front of me. I shove all the emotion down as my Chicago brother loses his control at the words that have made me feel sick. I hurriedly push him back off our suspect, silently telling him not to ruin our chances as I put on my best southern charm, asking our perp "What do you think happened to her?".
He hedges, not really giving us anything useful, but I see an opening, "Where do you think this person would take her?.
Immediately I see I have him, the little shift in his seat, his eye movement, he's going to tell us…..
"ooh,…..ehmm….well he would probably take her to a remote location, where he could do whatever he wanted to her…."
"And after that?" I ask softly, not wanting to know the answer but unable to stop the words.
"Maybe he would take her body, to a special place, a sacred place…"
He keeps talking and the cop side of my brain may be listening but I can't process anything after I hear the word 'body'.
I keep pushing down the emotions, each time a word sinks in….'defile her again'….'Nadia's last moments'….'wondering if you're ever, even, going to find the body' but each of his venom laced words make it harder to push down, as the agony grows bigger, it is harder to contain.
I just need to finish the interview.
As he stops talking, basking in his hypothetically couched version of events, it's clear he will give us no more. I make a huge effort to calmly stand and walk from the room before bolting for the bathroom at full speed once the interrogation room door closes behind me.
I barely make it to the toilet before violently throwing up the meager contents of my stomach. The absence of content barely affects my stomach's continuing revolt, as my tears flow. I struggle to identify the emotions that all assault me simultaneously. I dry heave into my pulled up knees as I hunker down on the toilet stall floor. My tears burning down my cheeks as I hug my knees closer. Suddenly I feel hands reaching for me…..I can't control my broken body's reactions as I try to escape the anticipated hurt, scuttling back into the wall. I wedge myself between the wooden partition and the porcelain bowl, searching for safety. If I could speak I know my voice would be crying 'NO' but even that is now, beyond my capabilities.
I don't know how long I cower there in my tiny nook, but when the tears clear enough to see, and my brain allows itself to process my surroundings, I see my partner seated on the toilet stall floor in front of me. His eyes glued to me, his hands down on the floor, unthreateningly reaching for me…
I reach my hand out towards him, not reaching his but not willing to move, he twists his body to allow our hands to meet, without moving closer to me for fear of scaring me again.
No words are said as I grab onto his hands.
Again I have no idea how long we sit like this.
As I start to calm, words start to spill out of my mouth, their jumble and emotion belying the calmness descending upon my exhausted body.
"For a second when he talked about her being a good girl, I saw Patten in there. She's dead, isn't she Fin? He killed her.
That could have been Liv, we didn't understand how lucky we really were to get her back.
I though I was going to vomit all over him.
Will we ever find her?
Was he just trying to torture us, maybe she is alive?
He sounded so like Patten, some of the things he said about me…..
He really did rape her Fin.
I don't want to think about him hurting her…..
I hope she didn't suffer too much.
Maybe …..?
He says nothing as I spew my thoughts at him, until they are too fragmented to make sense of, holding my hand tightly.
A new wave of sobs overtake my hunched body and he can sit back quietly, no longer. He pulls me to him, replacing the tiny space I had wedged myself into, with his strong arms wrapped tightly around me.
He whispers tenderly into my ear, "Amanda, you're ok."
After a few minutes, the sobs have faded and I find my words, "She's not though, is she?"
He just looks pained as he sits back a little, looking me in the eye, shaking his head softly, "No Amanda, I don't think she is….but we will keep looking, we will bring her home to her family."
I nod, this may be all we can do for her now. "We have to get him…".
This realization strengthens me immediately. There is something we can do, something I can do….
I look at my partner with a new determination. "How did you know it'd be so hard?" I ask, referring obliquely to our earlier conversation just outside the shipyard.
He grins sadly, "Stick around long enough, eventually you play all the parts," he almost mutters to himself.
He turns his attention back to me, "Because I know how hard it is for me. And I didn't have my life turned upside down a couple of months ago when my rapist, ex boss, showed up, raped someone else and tried to destroy my career for the second time…."
For a second I'm shocked, stuck looking at him disbelievingly. Then I realize the truth of his words, his succinct, simple synopsis of my situation tugs at my weird sense of humor and I find myself laughing.
It's now his turn to look at me shocked.
"Well Partner, when you put it like that….."
His face breaks into a gentle smile, shrugging, his best false modesty "what, that little thing?, expression beaming back at me.
I delicately pull myself out of his arms, unlocking my limbs as I step over to the mirrored sinks. I try not to look at my reflection as I turn on the faucet and splash cold water in my face.
He stands up from his twisted position behind me, stretching his limbs carefully, waiting for a cue from me.
"Fin, I'm doing better." I look at his reflection in the mirror, finding it easier to not look directly at him. He says nothing, cocking his head slightly to one side.
"I have people around me now. People who want to help me."
This earns me an approving nod.
"I'm not good at…..this…." I gesture between us, to be greeted by his 'me neither' shrug.
"What happened…I didn't realize how badly it had affected me…I was so busy just trying to get back to work, to hold it together…the other stuff, I didn't notice it happening, it just changed over time….now I can see how I have trust issues, I can even kindda see why….." I grin tightly at this progress.
"I know I can talk to you…..you know what really happened, I don't need to say the words?" my words sound timid, scared even.
"Manda, you can always talk to me….." he nods and I think we're done. He starts to walk away but turns back, "Do you know what he did to you Amanda?"
I know he doesn't want to hear the words anymore than I want to say them, but I understand that after our conversation, all those weeks ago, in that Long Island bar, that he has to be sure…..sure that I have acknowledged it, that I am really dealing with it.
I look down, deliberately not meeting my partner's eyes, nodding, "I do Fin, he didn't take advantage of a bad situation I put myself in, he raped me".
I struggle to keep my eyes on the water swirling down the plughole but cant stop myself searching for his eyes in the mirror…..he seems to wait until we make eye contact again…..
"That's my girl" he says sadly, but proudly.
"You ready to go see if the others have anymore to go on?" he asks taking in a deep breath.
I nod drying my face, straightening my hair.
He waits for me at the door and we walk out, him in front of me.
Liv crashes into him. She had been on her way in, "How is she?" she asks him quietly. He answers quietly "She's good, Liv. Really…..". "Aren't you Manda?", he throws back over his shoulder to me.
She sees my red rimmed eyes, my tear streaked pale face and looks to him again. He nods swiftly, meeting her eyes. She reads my partner's confidence in me and announces "We may have a name for his place, you two ready?".
"Lets go…."