A/N I cannot begin to thank you for the reviews, follows and favorites.
SVUNY; Every word you have written to me means more than I can tell you. To hear what you liked about each chapter has made me so happy, especially chapter 9, which had particularly worried me…..Thank you seems such a small response….
MrsChilton; Thank you, I do kindda put my heart and soul into it, do you think I should change my summary to make it clearer? Any suggestions? As I've said I would like Barba and Liv to get together too…..
Guest; Thank you, I tried really hard to keep Fin from being mushy, he definitely doesn't do mushy. I never though about the similarities between 'Lyndsay and Nadia' and 'Amanda and Kim', genius observation!
FicFriend; I'm definitely not ruling out Liv and Barba, I don't seem to have full control though they seem to write themselves…..
thelisa17; I love Fin too. I loved the crossover though because I really liked Nadia, it was sort of the road not travelled for Liv…
Please keep telling me what you think?
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…."
The day seemed to last forever, as we combed the beach looking for her. We had every live body we could get, walking the line, looking for any tiny clue that could bring her home.
The beautiful desolation of this place, its grey cloud filled skies seemed the perfect backdrop for our darkening stormy feelings. The gnawing emptiness and our reluctant preparation for the inescapable impending storm, all served to bring home the sobering reality, the chances were that now we were looking for what remained of Nadia.
The searching kept us busy, allowing us to keep our minds off the stark reality, but as we started to search the woods, our worst fears were grossly surpassed. We started to find bodies.
Not Nadia. Bodies that had been here long enough so as to be completely decomposed, little more than skeletons. Their remains scattered here with as little care as the natural debris littering the shore, carried here by a wind or a wave.
Our suffocating agony unrelenting, until Amaro and Halstead call to us, beckoning us to where they were searching. I could barely force my legs to carry me over to what I knew awaited us.
Amaro meets the two sergeants with the words we had waited so long for….."We got her…..", but the sadness in his voice and the slump of his shoulders make it clear that this is no happy ending.
My leaden legs follow Lyndsay to a shallow hole where Nadia lies partly wrapped in a tarpaulin. Its blackness serving to further highlight her lifeless pallor, as the sickeningly familiar green of her painted nails is mirrored in the green of its reverse side, peeking through the sand. Her eyes stare lifelessly into the skies. This tableau of evil, hinting with every detail at her unthinkable suffering; the harsh red rings on her wrists, the blood on her face, her unclothed vulnerability….. Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of her laying there.
When the bodies started to turn up, we knew. But no knowledge can prepare you for the reality. The crushing weight on your chest as you look upon the broken, lifeless body of the young woman. Wanting desperately to look away but somehow needing to see her, to understand its horrible finality.
Voight's voice breaks the momentary silence that has fallen after Nick's sympathetic condolence."Cover her up", he demands, in a choked voice, as his eyes flick to Lyndsay. She is battling to keep control as Halstead tries to pull her into his arms. She can't seem to allow herself this comfort, but they each keep a hand grasped tightly on the other.
We continue to stand around her temporary grave struggling to absorb the reality evident in front of our eyes. She is dead.
I look to Liv. I noticed the few steadying breaths she took in a futile attempt to calm herself, as she came to stand by the broken body. Now her face is frozen in shock. I look around to see my partner to my left, Nick to my right, Carisi just beside Liv. Their faces all reflecting different moments in the journey from shock to grief.
Nick who had a slight head start on reaction time, moves first, wrapping his arm softly, around my shoulder. "Amanda, there's nothing more we can do for her, let them do what they need to, so we can get her out of here…." He gestures to the forensic teams and CSI techs all respectfully standing back, awaiting the go ahead. She wasn't NYPD, but she was one of us, the much-maligned 'Blue Line' meaning she will, at least, be treated properly in death.
Carisi follows Nick's lead putting a hand on Liv's arm "Nick's right Sarge, we should let them get it done so we can get her home….."
Voight just gestures with his head, and Halstead starts to lead a grief-striken Lyndsay away.
Fin goes to stand beside Voight . I'm struck by his kindness as he just says, "I'll keep you company".
Voight just nods his acknowledgment. Somehow there is no discussion, it's just understood, he won't leave her, here and like this.
As we start to walk back onto the desolate beach the blissful numbness that had greeted me as I looked down at her remains, begins to fade, and I find myself leaning into Nick. I look to see Lyndsay stumbling, blindly through her tears, back to the command area, led by a distraught looking Halstead.
I somehow find myself surprised to see tears on everyone's faces as I look around.
I don't know why, but it hurts even more to see all these strong police officers in tears. If ever a situation warranted it, this is it,… finding the broken bloody, seemingly naked, body of one of your own in a shallow hole, definitely justifies a few tears. But it is yet another incongruity in a day chocked full of strangeness, and it pushes me over the edge, my tears are added to the river being cried for her loss.
Nobody speaks as we sit into the command truck. Everyone too wrapped up in their own emotional battles to be able to find words. Time ticks slowly by until Liv tells everyone to head back to the squad and go home.
Still wrapped deeply in a veil of silence we stumble into the vehicles that brought us here, leaving one behind for Fin and Voight. Someone has thought to get young officers to drive, so we all sit as passengers, lost in our own personal grief.
As we walk back into the squad, the normal hustle and bustle of a busy Manhattan precinct breaks the spell and our silent journey ends.
"Guys, everybody go home." Liv announces jadedly from her office door.
We all nod our acceptance of the instruction.
"I'll drive you guys" Carisi tells Halstead and Lyndsay. "Do you want to stop anywhere? Can I do anything? Get you anything?"
They both just nod their thanks, and Halstead looks to Lyndsay for confirmation as he tells Carisi "No thanks, there's nothing."
Liv looks on proudly as Carisi leads the two Chicago detectives out.
"That means you two as well!" she adds softly.
I start to gather my things, blindly shoving random stuff into my bag, neither knowing nor caring what is forgotten, as Nick says "Come on Liv, I'm dropping you on the way".
She tries to gesture into her office but Nick is having none of it.
"No Liv. Not today. You go home too. It can all wait. Come on, grab your things." His voice leaves no room for argument and I remind myself she may be his sergeant but he will always be her partner.
She sighs deeply, nodding her capitulation, as a voice behind us interjects, "Thank you Nick, I'll make sure she gets home. You go ahead, get yourself and Rollins home….And Amaro, Rollins,... I'm sorry for your loss."
This acknowledgment that we have suffered a loss is too much for me and I start to sob openly.
Barba's face is pulled tight in sadness and shock at the day's outcome. His usual cocky, composed, perfectly put together appearance nowhere in evidence as he tugs his tie further still from his open shirt collar.
I nudge Nick softly as he looks about ready to argue with Barba.
He takes one look at my state and realizes he can leave Liv to Barba, he will have quite enough on his hands with me.
The tenuous grasp I have had, all day, on my churning emotions is now long gone, and I sob the whole way out to the car. Trying desperately but ultimately failing to stop seeing Nadia's cold, dead body thrown carelessly in a shallow sand pit on a bronx beach. He helps me into the passenger seat wrapping his arms tightly around me, "It's ok Amanda, we'll have you home soon.".
He wrenches himself away from our comforting embrace and jumps into the driver's seat, pulling us out into traffic.
As we come to a stop outside my apartment he turns off the car, coming round to my side, I try to pull myself together, "Thanks Nick, I'm sorry, I'll be fine from here."
"No you won't Amanda and neither will I. Neither of us should be alone right now…."
I recognize the truth of his words, I won't be ok, nowhere near ok and as I look into his eyes I realize how shaken he is too and how he, quite possibly, does need it as much as me. I nod, allowing him to lead me up to my apartment, letting him take my keys and open my door.
We fall straight onto my couch, coats still on, in an emotionally drained fugue.
He is first to speak, an immeasurable time later, "I know it's ridiculous but I didn't expect to actually find her there…."
My hand slides into his as my tears start again.
His head drops onto my shoulder as his own tears flow.
I finally find my voice, "She looked so…..scared. I can't bear to think about what he did to her….."
"But it's all you can think about…" he finishes for me.
"Do you think she knew she was going to die?" this thought somehow scares me worst of all. As if what he must have done to her isn't enough, the agony of knowing that she suffered through his violations, only to then face her own death, is just sickening. I find myself hoping she didn't see it coming.
He shrugs his shoulders despairingly.
I look at him carefully now. I can see every emotion he is feeling reflected on his face. I want to comfort him but just don't have any words. I have no idea how to still the internal turmoil for him anymore than I do for myself so I do the only thing I can, I lay back onto the couch pulling him to lay beside me and wrap my arms around his despair-ridden body.
For a moment he's not quite sure what I'm doing and he begins to pull away. "Lets just hold each other until it passes…." I plead and he relaxes beside me, his arms wrapping around me in return.
"We were so lucky to get Liv back…" he says what has been in my head since this nightmare began.
"I think it came closer than we know…" I start but am unable to finish.
"Liv knows what she suffered….."
I feel him nod, "For a second I could nearly see Liv in that grave….but for the grace of god….." His voice croaks.
"I'm worried she saw herself in that grave….". I can't even begin to imagine the feelings that she tried to hide from us, as she saw the alternate ending to her own kidnapping play out before her eyes.
"How are you Amanda?"
This time the question doesn't surprise or anger me.
"It's hard, Nick. I keep thinking that I was so lucky, I was only raped, it could have been so much worse. I mean look at Nadia…"
He starts to try to talk me out of this train of thought, as I knew he would, but I put a finger lightly on his lips.
"I know I shouldn't compare myself but I can't help it, I know that what happened with Patten was bad…..it has changed who I am. I can close my eyes now and feel it all. He hurt me…...I don't just mean the cuts, the bruises, the physical injuries…...he hurt me, not just my body.
I just look at what has happened to Nadia, to Liv and I feel like I shouldn't be so bothered, so affected, but I am Nick. And I feel guilty for it. And when I look at Nadia lying in a grave I can feel what she must have gone through as Yates raped her."
He holds me tighter, stroking my hair for a few moments and I recognize his 'deep in thought" expression.
"You identify with her?"
I haven't considered this possibility before…. but I remember reading her file as we started to investigate her disappearance, her 'difficult' childhood, running away to try to start her adult life better than her young life had ever allowed, striving to be a cop, when all reason would suggest it was an unachievable goal. Her life could so easily have become something else entirely….
"She could have been me….." I acknowledge.
"But like you, she escaped her past, she found herself a new family and was building a good life for herself…..."
His soft-spoken, husky, heart felt words touch me. She had a family who will miss her. I saw only part of that family standing beside her temporary burial place, but I have no doubt she will not be forgotten, her life will be celebrated, and her loss mourned deeply.
I understand in that instant, that my own new family has been watching me, trying to talk to me about my recent troubles, not in an attempt to fix me, as I had assumed. They have been mourning my losses, feeling my pain alongside me.
"She wasn't alone." I whisper, "she knew they would find her, they will fight for her…..."
He nods.
We continue to cling to each other as darkness falls. Simultaneously comforting and taking comfort from the presence of the other until we fall into an exhausted slumber….leaving the horrors of the day behind but knowing the following day will bring it's own new horrors. But horrors we know we will all face together.