Eyes Wide Open

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

Chapter 12: To The Heart of the Matter

"It's hard to believe," Olivia said softly. "He just looks like a normal guy in his fifties. Just wrapping my head around the idea that he's..."

"Evil incarnate?" Goren finished when she stalled. "I know what you mean. Remember that serial killer I told you about? Nicole Wallace? She had a higher body count than a lot of famous serial killers, and she came off as a sweet girl who couldn't hurt a fly. It's why she got away with it so many times." He looked through the window. "Has he said anything yet?"

Olivia shook her head. "He's barely said a word period, let alone anything about his crimes. We sent a DNA swab down to the lab; Warner's agreed to rush it."

Goren nodded. "What's next?"

"We'll put him in the box, but I'm not expecting that to go anywhere. We both know what happened in Germany. Meanwhile, we need to round up some fillers for a voice lineup. Once that's set, we'll call Alex in." She looked over at Goren regretfully. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you not to be in the room or to even talk to Alex when she comes in until after the lineup is done. There's too much of a risk of them claiming tainted ID - I know you wouldn't do that, but that won't stop a defense attorney from trying to get a good ID tossed on a technicality."

He looked up, and his eyes were full of pain just thinking about Alex's ordeal, but he nodded. "I understand."

xxxxxxxxx

It was no surprise to anyone that Olivia was able to grab her desk phone on the first ring. She'd been staring at it all morning, barely able to focus on anything else. "Benson." A pause. "Okay, thanks."

"Eames here?" Nick asked, in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer.

"Yeah." Olivia nodded. "I'm going to meet her off the elevator." She bit her lip. "I know she'd prefer to be treated as a cop through this, but...she's not. She's a victim, and I think she's going to need more support than she thinks or wishes she did."

Alex stepped off the elevator, looking pale but composed. She was six months pregnant now and there was no longer any way she could have downplayed her condition enough to conceal it. She gave Olivia a weak smile. "Hey."

"Hey," Olivia replied warmly. "You want to come sit down for a minute?"

"Okay," the blonde agreed noncommittally.

Olivia could tell that her friend's calm demeanor was a facade, and she knew how much it was costing her to keep it up. She led Alex into the interview room they often used for victims, a room that they'd set up specifically to be a comfortable environment for the vulnerable people the unit often encountered. "Here, just take a minute. Can I get you anything?"

"No - no, I'm good, thanks."

"How are you doing?" Olivia asked her gently. "I hear it's a girl."

Alex gave a weak smile at that, laying her hand on her stomach. "Bobby, I take it?"

"Not even born, and she already has a very proud daddy," she replied by way of confirmation.

"He's here?" It was a question that barely needed to be asked. Where else would he be?

"Yes, he's here. I can't let you two talk right now, but he's here for you. As soon as the lineup is over, you can have some time if you need it."

"Thank you." She quickly clasped her other hand over the one that rested on the baby bump, gripping tightly, hoping to hide the fact that, as she had just realized, they were both shaking.

Olivia, however, was too experienced to be fooled. She gently reached over, laying her own hand on top of Alex's. "It's okay," she said gently. "It's okay to be afraid. It's okay not to be okay right now."

"It's not okay with me," Alex whispered back, her eyes shimmering with tears that threatened to spill over.

"Oh, honey, I know this is really hard." Olivia remembered all at once the evening where they'd sat together in a bar, how much of a difference it had made to know that the blonde truly understood the tumult of emotions she was caught up in. "You and me - female cops - we always have to try twice as hard to seem strong, because if we don't, the good-old-boy system will eat us alive."

Alex was nodding in agreement. "Show a second of weakness, and they'll treat it as a reinforcement of every bad thing they believe about you for being a female cop. Not all of them, of course, but it only takes a few."

"So we build that up as part of who we are," Olivia continued. "I remember, after Lewis, sometimes it seemed like the worst part was how thin all that strength seemed, how vulnerable I felt underneath. Feeling vulnerable is scary enough, but when it threatens a wall that we've built up against another kind of threat, that just magnifies all of it to terrifying levels." She squeezed her friend's hand. "And I know that's what you must be feeling right now."

"Yeah," Alex said softly, a tremor she couldn't hide in her voice. "That sounds about right."

"I know you're afraid," Olivia soothed. "Afraid of him, and afraid of being afraid. But you're safe in here. I'd never judge you. I know that you're hurting, and I know that that in no way takes away from how strong you are."

To Olivia's surprise, Alex turned and wrapped her arms around the taller woman. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for...for just being here. Thank you for being my friend."

"Anytime," Olivia replied, gently returning the embrace. "I'm always here for you."

xxxxxxxxx

"I could kill you right here, or take you with me, and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it."

Alex seemed taken aback just hearing the words that her rapist had taunted her with, and Olivia couldn't blame her. But after a moment, the blonde shook her head. "No."

"Number two," Fin called into the speaker.

"I could kill you right here, or take you with me, and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it."

Again, a shake of the head. "No."

Fin leaned back to the speaker. "Number three."

"I could kill you right here, or take you with me, and there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it."

Alex's eyes went wide, her breath catching in her throat as she stepped back instinctively from the covered window into the room where she knew the men stood. "Oh, my God, that's him. Number three. That's the man who raped me."

"Are you sure?" Olivia pressed. "We still have -"

"I'm positive," Alex interrupted. "It's him."

Fin knocked three times on the glass as Olivia escorted Alex back to the interview room. The blonde was trembling as she collapsed on the couch. "Damn..." she whispered faintly. "That voice..."

"It's okay," Olivia soothed, running a hand over her friend's arm and shoulder. "I know that was awful for you, but it's over now."

A knock on the door startled both of them, and Olivia walked over to it, opening it a crack to determine who the newcomer was. When she saw who was standing there, she relaxed, smiling a little and pulling the door open. "Alex, there's someone here to see you."

She looked up, catching sight of the man standing beside Olivia. "Bobby..." she whispered breathlessly.

He was instantly at her side, gathering her into his arms. "I'm here now, baby," he murmured. "I'm here. You're safe. I'm here."

They were both vaguely aware of the door closing again as the Sergeant stepped out to give the couple some privacy, but neither of them really paid it any mind. Alex closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax in the safety of her boyfriend's arms as he cradled her close, whispering soothing words into her hair. After a few minutes, she realized that the fabric against her cheek was damp. She hadn't even been aware she was crying.

They sat there, wrapped in each other's arms, until they heard the door creak open. They both looked up to see Olivia standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry to bother you," she said softly, "but we're about to put him in the box, and since Bobby's interrogation skills are legendary, I thought you might want to take a run at him."

The former detective hesitated, prompting Alex to give him a light shove against the chest. "I'll be fine. Go."

He slowly unwrapped himself from her and stood. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. Go on, give him one of those famous Goren interrogations."

xxxxxxxxx

"Well, that was a waste of time."

Goren could only nod in agreement with Amaro as they walked from the interrogation room back into the main bullpen. While it had been clear to him that he was making Johnson uncomfortable during the interrogation, the man had nevertheless sat in silence for fifteen minutes before breaking that silence just long enough to ask for a lawyer. "Well, the confession was always just going to be gravy. The ID and the DNA will be more than enough to nail him."

"Speaking of which," Murphy added, having overheard the end of the conversation, "where are we on the DNA?"

"Still nothing," Rollins reported. "Want me to go bug the lab?"

"Do it," the Lieutenant confirmed. "I'd like to have those results to give the DA before the arraignment."

As the blonde detective headed off down the hall, Goren turned, intending to ask Murphy when the ADA was expected and when he thought the arraignment might happen. But the words never had a chance to leave his lips. The loud, echoing ring of a gunshot shattered the relative quiet of the squad room. Almost before anyone realized what they'd heard, another shot rang out, followed by the crash of glass breaking.

Someone screamed "get down!" but it was almost unnecessary; everyone in the squad room had already run for cover. Then they heard a dull thud, followed by a cry of pain.

Nick's face immediately drained of blood. "Amanda." The name came out as a whispered moan, and it was all he could do not to scream it out loud. "No, God, no."

Peering out from behind the desk, Goren saw two figures, barely an inch of space between them, come walking back into the squad room. His stomach sank as he realized that one of them was William Johnson, and the reason the two were standing so close together was that he had his arm tightly around Amanda Rollins, while the other hand pressed the barrel of a handgun into her temple. Her cheek was bright red where his blow had landed.

"Nobody moves!" he said loudly. "Try to stop me, and I kill her." He pressed the gun harder against the blonde's head, drawing a whimper of mixed pain and fear from her. "I'll do it. You know I'll do it."

"If he gets her out of here..." Nick hissed, pain in every syllable. He didn't have to finish the sentence for everyone within earshot to know what he meant.

Goren's eyes were drawn past Johnson to motion across the room. He barely had time to realize the door to the interview room had swung open before Alex stood in the squad room, her gun raised and aimed at the serial killer's head. "Drop it!"

And then time seemed to slow to an infinitesimal pace. It was all over in less than a minute, but to Goren, kneeling behind a desk, it might as well have been an eternity.

Startled by the voice behind him, Johnson spun, turning both his body and his gun to face the newcomer. At the same time, taking full advantage of the fact that his gun was no longer pointed at her head, Rollins planted her feet hard, stopping herself from turning with him and opening up a space between herself and her attacker.

Seeing the gun swing towards her, Alex quickly pulled the trigger of her own weapon, aiming for Johnson's now-exposed chest. At the same time, he fired two shots at her.

Alex's bullet entered just below the serial killer's shoulder. As he reeled in pain, Rollins took full advantage of his now-weakened grip to tear herself free of his hold and run towards the desks where everyone was hiding. As she came towards them, Amaro jumped to his feet, heedless of the danger, and reached out both hands to pull the shaken woman to relative safety, guiding her to the floor and wrapping his arms around her as they huddled together beneath a desk.

But Goren was barely aware of this happening not three feet from him. All of his attention was focused on Alex as she fell backwards into Olivia, who had been standing just behind her, losing her grip on her gun from the pain of a bullet in her right arm as her left hand instinctively moved to cover the wound in her abdomen where the second shot had landed. Olivia eased her to the ground, holding one hand over each of Alex's wounds, trying to keep pressure on them and slow the bleeding.

Johnson, meanwhile, had regained control of his weapon, and he raised it again, taking aim at Alex's head. "Fitting, isn't it?" Two shots rang out, and Alex closed her eyes as Olivia instinctively curled her own body over the blonde in an attempt to shield her as best she could.

But no bullets hit either woman. Instead, Johnson jerked abruptly. For a split second, he stood there, frozen, his face a mask of shock and rage. Then he simply fell forward, crumpling to the floor as two spots of blood began to form on his back where the shots had entered, and Goren stood behind him, still holding the gun that Amaro had set down when he'd stood to help Rollins to cover, staring at the smoke rising from the barrel as if he couldn't believe that he had been the one to fire those shots. For a moment, nobody moved. Not a word was spoken. It was as though the squad room was held in suspended animation.

Then all at once, a flurry of activity broke forth. Two officers, guns drawn, ran to where Johnson lay facedown on the floor. One knelt beside him, checked for a pulse, glanced at the location of the bullet wounds and then shook his head. "He's DOA. Looks like he was hit right in the heart."

Goren had never once fired his weapon in the line of duty. It had crossed his mind a few times over the years, watching other officers dealing with the emotional repercussions of taking a life, to both wonder about and fear his own reaction if he were ever put in that position. But in this moment, he was incapable of feeling anything at all about the actions he had taken. Every fiber of his being was focused on Alex.

He crossed the room at a sprint, dropping to his knees beside his girlfriend the moment he'd reached her. "Alex? Alex!"

"I can hear you," she said weakly, wincing in pain. "Bobby...the baby..."

His gaze dropped to where her left hand was covering her abdominal wound. "Oh, God. She needs medical attention, now!" The last was all but shouted.

"I'm calling EMS!" someone else shouted. Goren didn't care enough to figure out who.

But Olivia was shaking her head. "It'll be faster if we take her in. Can you carry her?" she asked Bobby.

"Yes," he said quickly, already reaching out to gather her up. Olivia helped him transfer her into his arms as gently as possible. As Alex's head and shoulders were lifted away from her, he realized that her clothes were stained with blood. Alex's blood. He suddenly felt sick.

Olivia, for her part, barely seemed to notice. She stood, pulling her keys from her pocket as she ran for the elevator. "Come on, let's go."

Bobby followed, still feeling numb and shocked by the day's events. The only thing he could think now was she has to be okay.

She has to.

So, Goren does in fact take down Sebastian - just not in the way that most readers seemed to expect! This was always my intent with this story. There is a sort of parallel here, Goren taking down Gage's nemesis while Gage took down Goren's, but it's also meant to highlight the differences between the two. While Gage killed out of some twisted conception of caring, Goren killed out of genuine love for Alex and his baby. While Gage planned and carried out a cold-blooded execution, Goren killed in the heat of the moment to stop an active threat, and that is pretty well established as the only reason Goren would ever kill. And while Gage will likely go to his grave without a shred of remorse, Goren will have to eventually face the emotional impact of the fact that he took a life, because he actually has emotions.

I'm sure some people would have liked to see Goren take Sebastian/Johnson in his preferred arena - with words - but I'd already established that he wasn't one who was likely to crack under pressure, and it seemed in character that if he thought he was in any danger of cracking, he'd do the one thing in his power to stop the interrogation and ask for a lawyer.

There are still at least a few chapters to go, so as always, stay tuned! And yes, this chapter's title could absolutely be taken in more than one way.

This chapter references the SVU episode Surrender Benson and a subplot that ran through much of Season 15.

Please review.