Eyes Wide Open

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

Trigger Warning: semi-graphic description of assault in this chapter. If you want to read the chapter but not the graphic part, I recommend skipping down past the first scene break (as marked with a series of xes).

Chapter 5: A Changing Game

"It's hard to die from falling down the stairs. It's basically a series of eight-inch falls. Your natural instinct is to cover your head."

Elizabeth Rodgers' words were the first thing that floated into Alex's fuzzy head. She was lying on a concrete floor of some sort, and she couldn't immediately remember how she'd gotten there.

She reached out a hand, trying to get her bearings, and felt a smooth, rounded corner. Stairs. I fell down the stairs. That at least explained why the ME's words were in her head now.

She blinked her eyes open slowly, letting her surroundings come into focus. I'm in a parking garage.

She took what was meant to be a steadying breath and almost gagged. She was surrounded by a scent, a sickly-sweet scent she always associated with the horrible, terrifying day she'd spent tied up in a basement, courtesy of Jo Gage.

And then the memories came rushing back with such an intensity that it took her breath away.

She'd been on her way back from a meeting - a confrontation, really - with one of the local precincts, a precinct she'd had to inform that the Homeland Security Task Force was taking over one of their cases. On her way back, she'd decided to stop by a food court, reasoning that it made sense to eat on one of the rare occasions when she felt hungry instead of sick. Even four months into her pregnancy, her nausea wasn't giving her much respite. Her first pregnancy, where she'd carried a baby for her sister, seemed like a walk in the park compared to this one.

And then, in the space of a few moments, everything had changed. As she'd been walking past the stairwell, the door had opened, slamming into her. Before she'd had a chance to react, a hand had grabbed her by the hair, jerking her backwards into a pair of arms. She'd smelled it then, the smell that still haunted some of her worst nightmares. A gloved hand had pulled her gun from its holster, dropping it to the ground, and she'd heard him kick it away as she was pulled backwards and into the stairwell. She remembered the horrible feeling as the door had slammed shut that she was now cut off from any chance of help. She hadn't stopped fighting him for a moment, but it had become all too clear that his skills were equal to hers, and by hitting her with the door, he'd given himself the element of surprise he'd needed to get the initial upper hand, an upper hand she now couldn't seem to regain.

He'd thrown her up against the wall, slamming her head into the concrete so hard that she nearly blacked out. He'd taken full advantage of her momentary daze to shove a hand under her skirt and yank down her stockings and underwear. She'd fought him harder than she'd thought she was able to, desperate to stop what she knew he intended, but it hadn't made a difference. If anything, it had seemed to excite her assailant.

"I could do anything I wanted to you," he had whispered in her ear after he'd finished, still holding her pinned against the wall. "I could kill you right here...or take you with me...and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it." He'd let that hang in the air, appearing to relish Alex's fear. "But then," he'd added finally, "it might garble my message, and I want to make sure your boyfriend hears me loud and clear." He had run his thumb across her chin, leaving a trail of what she immediately knew by the smell was Pierre LaRitz. "He was trained by the best, but that was decades ago. I wonder, does he retain enough skills to catch me now? Or has he gotten soft in the years gone by?" Then, barely giving Alex time to process his words, he'd pulled her away from the wall and shoved her down the stairs.

How could this happen to me? The short phrase seemed to cycle through her mind on endless repeat. How could this happen?

She felt through her pockets until her trembling fingers finally closed around her mercifully unbroken cell phone. She was so shaken that it took her three tries to unlock it, but finally, she was staring at her contact list. She pressed a name and then held the device to her ear. Please pick up. Please...

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"Still no luck on those files?" Rollins grumbled. "I feel like we're trying to follow directions with half a map."

"Believe me, I understand," Goren replied. "This is frustrating me too."

"I thought you had a contact," Fin pointed out.

"I do. But this isn't her fault. She gets it; she wants to help."

Olivia's phone chose that moment to beep loudly, and she stepped away as Goren continued. "She just doesn't have that much influence."

"Benson," Olivia said into her phone, tuning out the conversation in the squad room with practiced ease.

"Olivia?"

Olivia just barely stopped herself blurting out the woman's name. "Yes, what is it?"

"I need your help." It was quick, without preamble.

"What's going on?"

"Please," she replied, and it was only then that Olivia realized the other woman's voice was shaky. "I can't - not over the phone."

The Sergeant felt an unpleasant twist in her stomach. Her mind was starting to form a scenario, and she just hoped she was wrong, that her own experience was biasing her reaction. "Are - are you okay?"

"I don't know." There was a pause; it sounded like she was fighting back tears. "Please, Olivia. I'll explain when I see you."

The more Alex talked, the more Olivia suspected she wasn't going to need an explanation. She prayed she was wrong, but that possibility was seeming less and less likely. "Where are you? I'm on my way."

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Even as focused and concerned as she was, Olivia's training and experience drew her attention to the abandoned weapon lying on the parking garage floor a few seconds before the woman in front of her bent to pick it up. Instantly, Olivia's own gun was in her hands. "Police! Don't touch the weapon."

The woman turned, hands raised, and it was only then that the SVU detective saw the badge clipped to the stranger's belt. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, holstering her gun. "From the back, you look like a civilian."

"Understood." The woman gave a small smile. "If our positions were reversed, I probably would've done the same thing."

"Mind if I ask what the FBI is doing here?"

"The FBI isn't doing anything," the woman replied wryly. "I just find people are less inclined to jerk me around if I wear the badge where they can see it."

"Let me rephrase." Olivia smiled slightly despite herself. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for a colleague - no, a friend," she corrected a moment later. "She was here the last time I talked to her, and now she's overdue and not answering her phone. Maybe I'm worrying too much, but I have a gut feeling that something's wrong."

Olivia just nodded, her mind focused back on the reason she'd come now that there was no immediate threat to worry about. She had already pinpointed the door Alex had described, just yards from where she'd seen the FBI woman bend down to pick up the gun, and now she stepped through it.

Even as the door swung shut behind her, the detective's eyes had already fixed on the figure huddled on the next landing down. "Alex?"

"Olivia?" the familiar voice called back.

She barely waited for the confirmation before she raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time until she was finally able to kneel next to her friend. She immediately noticed that the other woman's underwear and stockings were pulled down, and she knew that her awful suspicion was true. She barely needed to ask the question that nonetheless came to her lips. "Alex, what happened?"

"He came out of nowhere." Shock was evident in her voice. "I didn't even see him until he grabbed me."

"It's okay," Olivia assured her, slipping into a role she'd played almost every day for a decade and a half. "It's okay. It's not your fault."

"He raped me," she whispered, and then immediately recoiled, unable to believe what she'd just said. She felt herself start to tremble. Hearing the words that had slipped from her lips made it all too real.

"Alex?" Olivia's voice managed to cut through the torrent of her emotions. "You're safe now. Just stay with me."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that." She forced herself to focus on the detective. "You're the expert; what do I do now?"

The tone in that question tugged at Olivia's heart. She could tell Alex was trying to be matter-of-fact but she had sounded more lost and vulnerable than anything. "I'd like to take you to the hospital, have you checked out to make sure you're okay and have a rape kit done. You think you can do that?"

"Yeah," the blonde said softly. "But - can we take a car? I don't want an ambulance, I'm not that badly hurt, I can't deal with - with this turning into that level of emergency." She finally raised her head, letting Olivia see her frightened, tear-filled eyes. "Please."

"Okay. We'll take the car."

"Alex?" Another voice echoed in the stairwell, and Olivia realized after a moment that it was the woman she'd encountered in the parking garage. "Alex? Are you in here?"

Alex flinched ever so slightly, dropping her gaze back to the garage floor. "Oh, God, no," she whispered. "I can't let her see me like this."

But it quickly became clear that that was inevitable. Just as Olivia had easily been able to see Alex, the newcomer quickly made out both of them. In moments, she was down the stairs.

The shock on her face as she took in Alex's condition was evident, but to her credit, she quickly forced a mask of composure on herself. She sat down on the top step and reached a hand out to the blonde, not touching her but holding it out for Alex to take if she wanted.

Alex spoke first, still staring at the floor. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your calls," she whispered. "I didn't know what to say."

"It's okay," the other woman said gently. "I know. It's okay."

"Carolyn," Alex began shakily, "don't -"

She didn't even know how to finish that sentence. Don't tell anyone. Don't make a big deal out of this. So many other things. All she knew was that it felt like the world she'd known was crumbling around her, and if the other woman's behavior changed, it would just be one more piece coming down.

And somehow, Carolyn understood. Ever the profiler, she read everything that was packed into those two words. "I won't. I promise."

Alex finally looked up again, accepting her friend's extended hand. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Alex looked slowly back to Olivia. "Can we -"

"Of course." She stood and helped Alex to her feet.

The three women walked back up the stairs in silence, a silence broken only after they were back on the parking level when Alex abruptly choked. "Sorry -" she managed. "I'm going to be sick." Then she bolted for a nearby garbage can.

"Carolyn, right?" Olivia asked softly while the blonde was out of earshot.

"Sorry." It was only then that the FBI woman seemed to realize that there hadn't been a formal introduction. "Yeah. Carolyn Barek. Sorry."

"It's okay. Listen, I know this is a lot to ask, but can you - can you stay here and keep an eye on things until I can get officers here? If we're going to have any chance of nailing this bastard, we need to make sure we don't contaminate the scene."

"Understood." She bit down on her lip, glancing over at where her friend was still bent over the garbage can. "Just get him."

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Alex spent most of the ride to the hospital in complete silence, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed on the dashboard. Olivia let her have her silence until they were a few blocks from the hospital, breaking it with a soft question. "Is there anyone I can call for you?"

"No," Alex replied. "Thank you. I - I know better than to expect to be able to go through all this without the people in my life finding out, but I don't even know how to start that conversation." She finally unclasped her hands, bringing them to her face in what Olivia knew was an attempt to either hold back tears or hide them, or both. "Just - just let me start getting my head around what happened to me before I have to deal with everyone else's reactions."

Olivia felt her heart clench. Years of experience made no difference; this never got easier, and this case was twice as hard as most. Alex wasn't just a case, she was Olivia's friend. "Okay," she said simply. "Whatever's easiest for you." Silence filled the car for a few moments before she spoke again. "And Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm here for you. You're not alone."

Alex glanced over, and as soon as she saw the gratitude in those eyes, Olivia knew she'd said the right thing, even before the blonde spoke a shaky reply. "Thank you, Olivia. Thank you so much."

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Alex silently complied with the doctors' directives, stripping her clothes off to place them in labeled bags and then laying down on the exam table. Olivia reached out a hand and Alex took hold of it, clinging to it as the nurse examined and photographed her body.

The nurse was professional and as gentle as she could be, but the last thing Alex wanted was their hands and eyes all over her body, a body that had been so brutally violated barely hours earlier. It was taking all her strength not to pull away or fight them off as she'd tried so desperately to fight her attacker off.

Finally, when they were finished, she was able to force a single sentence through her lips, to ask the question she desperately needed answered. "Nurse, is my baby okay?"

Once she heard the words through Alex's lips, Olivia couldn't believe she hadn't noticed. The cut of Alex's jacket had minimized the appearance of her swollen, rounded abdomen, but in the hospital gown, it was plainly visible. It also, she thought, explained why Bobby Goren had been so interested in her sons.

"Your baby seems to be doing fine," the nurse confirmed. "But if you'd like, I can send an ultrasound tech in here to make sure."

"Yes," she managed, "thank you."

The tech was in the room in minutes and quickly confirmed what the nurse had suspected. "Your baby's doing fine." She turned the screen so Alex could see the image of the developing baby.

"Thank you." Alex looked as though she might cry, and Olivia didn't blame her. It probably felt like the first light she'd seen since the start of this ordeal.

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The brunette woman was waiting for Amaro when he stepped out of his car. "You Barek?" he asked, despite his very strong suspicion that he already knew the answer.

"Yeah." She gestured to Amaro to follow her. "Scene's over here."

"Can you walk me through what happened?"

"I don't know exactly. I got here after it was over. But I'll show you what I've found."

"Fair enough," he agreed.

Barek stopped at a spot a few yards from a stairwell door. "I found her service weapon here," she began. "I picked it up before I knew what had happened - at the time, my primary concern was that there was an unsecured weapon lying out in the open. Here." She pulled a glove from her pocket, reached into her jacket, and lifted out the gun. Amaro quickly caught on and held out a bag so she could slide the weapon into it. "I picked it up bare-handed," she admitted, "so you'll have to take exclusionary prints from me, but maybe there's something else on it that will help."

As Amaro carefully stowed the evidence bag, Barek kept talking. "Now, the actual attack happened in this stairwell here." She pulled the door open with her gloved hand, bracing it open with her shoulder. "Look at the floor here."

He looked where she was pointing. "Scuff marks."

"Yeah. Starting about a yard from the doorway and leading back into the stairwell, stopping here, a few feet from the wall."

"So he drags her in here, and then - there's blood here," he noticed, pointing to a spot on the wall.

Barek nodded. "It looked like she was bleeding from a scrape right around her hairline. But she's about the same height as I am."

"And that spot is about an inch over your head," Amaro realized. "So he - he must have lifted her clear off the ground before he slammed her head into that wall. And - are those fibers stuck to the wall?"

"Looks like it." She examined them for a moment. "They match the coat she was wearing, and there are more scuff marks, all in this small area. I'd say he had her pinned against the wall - she struggled against him but couldn't get away - oh, God." She broke off abruptly, drawing a deep breath in an attempt to stop herself from crying as she wanted to. "I'm sorry."

"This your first time dealing with something like this?" Amaro asked sympathetically.

"No," she mumbled, embarrassed. "That's what makes this so bad. I did three years as a crime scene tech. It's - this isn't just a case to me, no matter how much I wish it was. This is my friend's blood on the wall. She struggled here, fought like hell while some sadistic monster attacked her."

Amaro was nodding along as she spoke. "Finish walking me through this and then you can go, I'll wait for CSU." He didn't want to force her to stay in this place, not after seeing how much this was affecting her.

"Thank you."

"And Barek?"

"Yeah?"

"You might want to find someone you can talk to."

"Me? I'm not the one who was -" she choked again, struggling not to cry.

"I know," Amaro replied gently, "but look at yourself. You're barely holding it together." He gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "Secondary victims are common in these kinds of cases; it's normal to be affected when something bad happens to someone you care about. The best thing you can do for her right now is to take care of yourself; it'll put you in a better position to help her."

"Okay," she whispered. "Thank you."

Okay, lots of stuff to cover so this AN is going to be longer than most.

First of all, reviews from last chapter. Yes, Bobby does have a risk of passing mental illness on because of his mother (as far as I know, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia aren't genetically linked to each other, so his nephew's disorder could have come from his mother's side or Bobby's stepfather's side) but Alex does address that. As for Brady, I'm of the opinion that he wasn't mentally ill, just warped in a different way, so that wouldn't have anything to do with the potential outcome for Bobby's children. As for Elliot's oldest child, I cross-referenced the birth years given for them and Olivia would have only been fourteen when Maureen was born (consider, Elliot wasn't even twenty).

And now this chapter. I promise, the violence isn't gratuitous, it's an important part of the story's plot (which probably answers a question I left open-ended in this chapter). As for Barek having been a CSU tech, that's entirely my own invention as the character in CI didn't have much of a backstory at all (I'll be creating a more detailed backstory for Barek in a planned sequel).

This chapter references the CI episode Brother's Keeper.

SVU SPOILER ALERT ON THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH: For those of you who follow SVU, my storyline will not include the little bombshell that was dropped at the end of the Season 16 finale - Amaro is in this story for the foreseeable future. Consider that in this timeline 1. Amaro was never demoted because he never beat up the cameraman and 2. With Murphy still in charge, Olivia remains the unit Sergeant, so there was no reason to discuss Amaro's potential for promotion. For the most part, just assume that in my timeline for next season Amaro will take on what Carisi does in the canon timeline, since Carisi is not a character in this series. END SPOILER ALERT

Please review! I know people are reading this and I love reading your reviews, and I do reply to all signed reviews (and some guest reviews, as you can see in this and previous author's notes).