A/N: Just wanted to let you guys know I wasn't ignoring the requests for an early update over the weekend. I seriously wanted to comply, but I was in the throes of a Photoshopping frenzy and didn't have the cover art finished to post with this chapter... so I waited... then realized I don't need the new art until the next chapter. Sorry for making y'all wait, hopefully this chapter is worth it! Mild trigger warning for references to suicide. Mega angst alert if that's what you're into (like me). Possible continuity error this time, but it's small enough that I didn't think it necessary to start over reading the story from the beginning to double-check because oh my God, it took me, like, 2 hours just to search for where Dr. Hanover went on vacation, lol. Huge hugs and huge thanks to the readers who have commented saying this story/the Devilishverse has helped them navigate their own trauma. I cannot tell you how much that means to me. I'm not sure I initially wrote TDYK with healing in mind, but the longer I've worked on this series, the more it has become my own source of therapy and recovery. To know that it's helped others as well makes it that much more significant. ️[imagine the heart emoji the site won't let me add here]

Here comes the woman with the look in her eye
She's raised on leather, with flesh on her mind
Words as weapons, sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die

- INXS, "Devil Inside"

Chapter 49.

Devil Inside

. . .

My safety, my . . . something . . . ? My beautiful lighthouse in the storm.

Amanda had been repeating the verse to herself on a nonstop loop since leaving Dana Lewis at the diner, but she still couldn't remember the second "my" on the list. My haven? Homeland? Hideaway? None of those were right. Months had passed since she'd happened upon the lovely phrase, a reference to herself—ironically, while she was rifling through her wife's journal. Invading Olivia's privacy to the extreme, by reading her innermost thoughts and feelings, many of them about what a trustworthy and loyal partner Amanda was; how certain she was that Amanda would never betray her.

Some safety, some harbor.

Harbor. That was the missing word, and now that it had clicked into place on its own, she no longer needed to cross their bedroom in the four long strides it would take to arrive at Olivia's nightstand, unearth her journal from below several pairs of misplaced readers (a bottle of hand lotion, two tubes of Burt's Bees lip balm, a travel pack of tissue, and assorted ballpoint pens, some with lids, some without), and pretend it was all for the sake of her sanity: reminding herself of that gosh darn word. Whatever else she happened to skim along the way, well, that was fair game.

She no longer needed to, but she did it anyway. The shower head was running in the bathroom, and assuming Olivia wasn't taking one of her speed showers, which she only did on early mornings when the chief called her in unexpectedly—back when that used to happen—she could be a while. Her personal grooming time had gotten progressively longer in the weeks since the attack. At first Amanda had worried that she was having difficulty with her sutures or post-op bleeding, or perhaps the fractured rib she tried so hard not to make obvious. Then, when the responses to her name being called outside the door became more and more drawn out, Amanda's worries darkened, turning feral and vicious like beasts reintroduced to the wild. What if she was in there dissociating? Self-harming? Or worse.

What if Amanda kicked in the door and found her in a bathtub filled with blood, eyes vacant and staring, skin as pale as the tub itself, lips a sickly blue? The image was so vivid in her mind, she almost put the journal aside and went to the bathroom door right then, but if she banged on it or barged in, she might scare the hell out of Olivia, who probably hadn't heard her get home. They had spoken on the phone when Amanda's flight touched down, and come to think of it, Olivia had mentioned planning to shower. And come to think of it further, Amanda heard the faint interruptions in the spray as her wife moved beneath it, water falling in heavier cascades on one side and then the other. She was alive and okay. With any luck, she would be at least a few minutes longer, giving Amanda enough time to find some answers.

That's all she was looking for was answers. Maybe she had figured out the harbor thing, but she still couldn't guess what went on in Olivia's mind lately. When the captain wasn't sullen and withdrawn, she was tentative and quiet, practically jumping out of her skin at even the smallest noises. Amanda caught her blanking out often, a frighteningly far away expression on her face, and she had been absent-minded with increasing frequency since the incident on Tilly's birthday.

Getting that call from Noah had frightened the wits out of Amanda. Ma, can you come home? Mom crashed the car and she's being weird. She'd had to dump her poor daughters on poor Daphne to race home from the park in a cab—only mildly faster than sprinting on her own two legs would have been—and discover the "crash" was just a dent in the front bumper (albeit it a large one) and Olivia was being "weird" by leaving the kids to their own devices in the living room. That part was somewhat odd, but Olivia claimed she had just needed to decompress from the panic attack she experienced after running into the automatic gate of the parking garage. Understandable.

Even her anxiety about the guy who Amanda assured her really was their neighbor—he always found an excuse to jog alongside her at the park—wasn't totally unfounded. A strange man approaching your vehicle could and should put any woman on alert. The fitness guy was harmless, but Olivia had no way of knowing that, and Amanda fully supported the chosen solution: yelling at him. They were in New York City, for fuck's sake, if he couldn't handle being hollered at by a random woman on the street, he should damn well move.

Thing is, Amanda was pretty sure her wife had been drinking when she found her in their bedroom afterward, scribbling in her journal about the run-in. There wasn't any physical evidence, other than a faint aroma she might have imagined because of her suspicions, but Olivia had looked a little flush and she kept folding and licking her lips, an unconscious habit that became more noticeable when she drank. A few days later, though, Amanda heard an empty bottle rattling when she dumped the wastebasket in their bedroom into a larger trash bag. The bottle was one she recognized as being about a third full in the rack above the fridge days earlier.

Amanda had tried to justify that, too, and truthfully, who could blame Olivia for needing something to calm her nerves? If she were getting shit-faced every day and putting their children in dangerous situations, that would be one thing. But Amanda couldn't be angry with her for coping in a relatively harmless
(she is not an alcoholic goddammit)
way, anymore than she could be angry with Noah for his misinformation or Tilly for wetting her pants at the park. She couldn't be disappointed that Olivia wasn't able to share things with her after surviving such a horrific nightmare that no one would find easy to talk about. She couldn't be jealous of a fucking notebook that her wife confided in more readily than in Amanda herself.

She shouldn't be.

And yet. She leafed through the pages with a bit more force than necessary, as if searching a fat dictionary for an elusive word, her lip unconsciously curled in a vague sneer. Her disgust was for herself, for what she had resorted to, and for the heartbreaking details she uncovered as she snooped, things she should have prevented or at least known about: the nightmares that woke Olivia almost nightly, leaving her trembling in the darkness and clutching Gigi; the lack of appetite and how well she hid it from her wife (she had indeed lost the fifteen pounds Amanda suspected, and two extra—five of which Amanda seemed to have found via little exercise and tapering Sammie off the breast); the pain in her pelvic region, both real (from the hysterectomy) and phantom (from all the rapes, reimagined), which sometimes doubled her over; the dead spots she felt throughout her body, what she called her "imposter's skin." As if she zipped herself into a suit of someone else's flesh before facing the world each day.

Not even the world, just her family. The birthday party was the most outside interaction Olivia had attempted in a month, and it had been a disaster. Amanda scanned through the entry on that date—June 27, 2022—heart sinking as she read, confirming all the fears she'd had in the weeks since. Olivia had been triggered at the park and tried to tough it out, she was afraid of the bullies who picked on Tilly, and felt like everyone who looked her way was picturing her, naked and violated, on a dirty shipping container floor. She knew she had overreacted to Tilly wearing the swim diaper instead of "real underwear" (It was the same feeling as when they tore mine off of me, she wrote), and that she was in no condition to drive when she hit the boom barrier.

What if it had been a person? A child? A dog? And I screamed at the man who tried to help us. At first I thought he was one of them. The men who . . . . But now I think he probably was just a neighbor offering a hand. (How many of them have seen the recording, I wonder? How many people in this city? Hundreds? Thousands? What if one of them comes into the precinct someday and recognizes me?) I'm sure he thinks I'm crazy now, and so do Noah and Tilly. They've witnessed me in a full-on meltdown, something I never wanted them to see. Thank God Jesse and Samantha were spared.

A skipped line, then:

I finished off the wine as soon as the kids were settled in the living room. It wasn't a full bottle, not even half. But it's happening again, like after Lewis. I don't need to drink, but everything is easier when I do. Amanda came home in a panic because Noah called her (probably the right thing to do, honestly), and I could tell she was frustrated that A) I hadn't, B) I lied about being fine and endangered two of our children, C) she had to leave the other two and come to my rescue over nothing, and D) she's sharp, there's no way I fooled her with the wine. I was almost disappointed when she didn't confront me about any of it. Cold sober I would have fallen apart if she raised her voice.

I don't want to become my mother, but this must be how it started for her. I've resented her for so long, believed I could never do the things she did—yet here I am, making scenes in public, scaring and scarring my kids, drinking to get through the day, and alienating the one person who's trying to be there for me in any way that she can.

Alienating was a strong word for Olivia's inability to open up about the assault, and Amanda's heart went out to the insecure and self-critical individual on the page. It was still so difficult to reconcile that woman with Olivia Benson, her wife, her boss, the strongest, most grounded person she knew. She shuffled pages again, hoping to find a glimpse of that person, her Liv, somewhere in the lines of a more recent passage. What she landed on was some kind of poem that made her hold her breath until the end,

Hands
around my throat, no air
in my lungs, I scream
with no sound, the silence eternal.

The pain eternal, no
hands
to mend it, no
breath
to give life and warmth, to say,
"Enough."

I've had it; I am it; No more.
No more
hands
and no more
heart,
a soul without a soul, without a soul.

—then sigh, "Oh Liv, oh darlin'," out loud. Her eyes drifted to the next and latest entry, dated with today's date and probably written while she was chaperoning her kids through the airport.

July 11, 2022

The apartment is dark and quiet now. We've sent our babies away. It's so unfair to them. I'm the one who should have to go. I hope they can forgive me. I hope Amanda can forgive me. It would have been better for all of them if she had never found me. Or if one of them had killed me: the Kid, the Driver, the Crier, Little Brother, Gus. Even Matthew Fucking Parker. I had his goddamn belt in my goddamn hands, and I let them take it from me. If I hadn't, maybe

"You're reading my journal." It was stated so simply, as even and neutral as everyday conversation, Amanda almost forgot she was committing a cardinal sin of interpersonal relationships. She'd been so absorbed in pawing through her wife's most intimate confessions, like a thief pilfering only the priceless jewels, she hadn't heard the shower cut off. Nor had she noticed Olivia standing behind her, wrapped tightly in an oversized bath towel, another towel spread across her shoulders beneath her damp hair, watching Amanda snoop.

"Gah . . . damn!" she cried, too startled to pass it off as an innocent mistake. Oh, is this your journal? I thought it was a random book without jacket art or a title, which I came home and immediately rummaged from your drawer by mistake, to thumb through for no apparent reason. She had pulled some fast ones in her time and charmed her way out of just as many, but there was no getting around this one. They had to stop tiptoeing around each other sometime, anyway. It was going to destroy them.

"Liv, I— I, uh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't've—" She flipped the journal cover closed and steepled her fingers on top, like a businesswoman about to discuss the contents of an important document. "Ah, shit. Here. I don't know why I looked at it. Come take it." When Olivia made no move toward the outstretched notebook, Amanda laid it on the bed and stepped away from it as if they were making a money drop, the hostage and the ransom being released at the same time. She wanted it as far away from her as possible. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay. I didn't really see anything. Just, uh, just that little poem."

And the thing at the end that sounded like a suicide note. The hair on her arms still stood upright from reading that one, and she'd only made it halfway through.

Olivia regarded her for a long time (silence eternal), her expression blank and unreadable, then finally came to collect the journal. She skirted past Amanda, careful not to brush against her street clothes with bare, clean skin—that's all it was, right?—and scooped up the notebook, hugging it to her chest. She looked like the bashful high school girl from every teen movie ever, but her voice was devoid of emotion as she turned to the open nightstand drawer. "You could have just asked me," she said, and tried to slide the Moleskine into its normal slot. Something jammed it up and she wrestled with the book and whatever was blocking it, to no avail.

"Could I, though? You haven't exactly been . . . all that forthcoming lately." Choosing her words and movement carefully, Amanda stepped over to help with the drawer, but backed off quickly when Olivia jerked her hands and the journal away, as if expecting it to be snatched from her. Amanda deserved that, she supposed. But why Olivia felt the need to body-block her from reaching to dislodge the drawer, she didn't know. She put up her hands in surrender, leaving the task to her wife, who lasted only a moment longer before roughly kneeing the drawer shut like she was aiming for a perp's groin. "You're— I feel like you're keeping things from me. Maybe to protect me or something? But darlin', I don't need protecting, I just need you to talk—"

"And say what, Amanda?" Olivia spun on her heel, the one-eighty in stance mirrored by the one-eighty in her mood. A fire had ignited instantaneously under her skin and behind her eyes, restoring the natural glow that seemed to have vanished since the attack, leaving her skin tone flat and a bit jaundiced. She was beautiful angry, everything more vivid, more lively. There was a grace to it that didn't flow as elegantly—no, as fiercely, for she was always elegant—at a resting rate. "What could I possibly tell you that you didn't already see for yourself? That wasn't enough for you? Me lying there naked, spread out like a . . . fucking glory hole for them to stick their cocks in? You want a fucking camera inside my head too?"

Seldom did Olivia speak so graphically about sexual acts, outside of the dirty talk she and Amanda occasionally engaged in (used to occasionally engage in), nor was the F-word a major part of her vocabulary unless she was royally pissed. Taken aback by the appearance of both in such close succession, Amanda cringed as if Olivia had struck out at her with fists instead of words. But worst of all were the implications that she had somehow enjoyed watching the horrors on that livestream; that she was hungry for more and would stoop to the most invasive measures to get it.

(That's not what she was doing, was it?)

"Christ," she spat, as if the name was bitter gall. The same thing they fed Him on the cross. "Christ, Olivia, of course I don't want that. How can you even ask me that? I was in Hell seeing those things happen to you, being powerless to stop it . . . " She had begun to pace, a sure sign her emotions were churning, swelling, building toward a climax that, given how much she'd suppressed in the past month, would be explosive. She balled her hands into fists and shoved them in her pockets as deep as they would go, trying to stave off the blowup. Breathe, she pleaded internally, just breathe. "Felt like my guts were being ripped out. Felt like I's losing my mind. Don't you dare make it sound like I wanted any of that!"

"Oh, I'm sorry." For a moment, head bowed, face cast only half in shadow by her shortened hair, it did seem as if Olivia genuinely meant to apologize. Then she looked up. "I'm sorry it was so painful for you to sit there in a nice, safe precinct with a clean bathroom and a hundred cops covering your six. I'm sorry you had to suffer the humiliation of seeing your supposedly badass wife being overpowered and degraded. Talking about sucking yummy cock." She blanched at the phrase, her balance wavering as if she might faint. The moment passed. "Crying and sobbing like a . . . like a . . . " Her extended hand cast around at the air, finding nothing to grasp onto.

How Amanda wished she could take it and be the thing Olivia caught on and clung to. That beautiful lighthouse in the storm. But right now she was the raging sea. "No one but you was humiliated by any of it, Liv. The only thing any of us cared about was bringing you home safe. If I could have kept every single person in New York from watching it, believe me, I would have. For you. Just you, baby. Because I know how much you value your privacy. And how fucking hard you've fought— you fight not to be a victim."

Were they actually arguing over how much they hated to see the other person suffer? Dear Lord. Amanda longed to rewind, even for just five minutes or so, back to before she opened that fucking journal. (Before the fender bender and the birthday party; before the widening gap between them and the resentment that seemed to have seeped in through the cracks; before the abduction and the assaults . . . but then where would it stop? She'd have to go back even further to undo all the wrongs done to Olivia, back to day one.) Deeply frustrated, she butted the toe of her tennis shoe against the foot of the bed, not thinking how aggressive it might look to someone who had been kicked while she was down. "Fuck," she muttered. It hurt too.

Olivia didn't gasp or shrink back in fear, but there was a faltering in her resolve, an unease, most visible in her eyes and her crossed arms, which fell open in a defenseless way that made Amanda heartsick. Like an animal exposing its belly in submission. "Obviously I didn't fight hard enough," she said, and cupped her elbows in both hands. She was so slender and vulnerable-looking, Amanda could have cried. "It keeps on happening. Like it's my goddamn destiny or something. I thought maybe this time was just to make up for the incomplete rapes, but it surpassed even those. Just kept going on and on, like it was never—"

Her voice faltered there and she walked into the embrace Amanda opened to her, head dropping onto Amanda's shoulder, whole body atremble. "Nev-never going to end," she choked out before the tears consumed her. "N-never going to en-end."

She repeated the refrain as she cried, Amanda stroking her hair and shushing her, rocking them gently side to side. "It's over, darlin', it ended," said Amanda. "And if I have to kill every son of a bitch who looks at you sideways, I will. If I could go back and wipe out all the others, I'd do that too. But they aren't your destiny, Liv, you hear me? Our family, our kids? That's destiny. That's what you gotta fight for now. Let me take care of the rest. I know I let you down this time, but that won't ever happen again. I swear to God."

You're so full of shit, Rollins. Why don't you tell her the truth—it's not her destiny that's the problem, it's yours. You put her in this situation and you're too much of a fucking coward to admit it. You're so afraid she'll leave you, you're relying on a god you don't believe in.

Maybe she should have said it out loud—better to have out with it than let it fester, that's what she'd learned from Hanover when she was still going to therapy (she hadn't been in a month and couldn't envision herself going back at this point)—but she hadn't made that much personal progress, apparently. At least not enough to see her through the hard times. Next thing you knew, she'd be gambling and stepping out on her wife. Probably knocking Liv around like everyone already thought she did, and screaming at the kids just for being kids. Just like a Rollins.

Shaking the thought away hard, she cupped a hand to the back of Olivia's head, holding it the way you held a child's when you didn't want them to look up and see something scary or inappropriate. "Hey, I got an idea. We need to get out of the City for a while. Just the two of us. Well, and the dogs. How 'bout we go on up to Connecticut for a bit? Spend some time by the Sound. You always say how healing the water is, and how you'd like to live next to it someday. Let's try it out for a few weeks."

Despite the hand, which had no real pressure behind it, Olivia turned her head to look up at Amanda through a thin tapestry of their interwoven hair. "Seriously?" she asked, a tinge of hopefulness underneath the skepticism. Her nose twitched a little when she sniffled, thinking it over. "How, though? We'd need a place to stay, and a few weeks in an Airbnb would be so expensive, at least for a nice one."

Amanda heard the unspoken part: one that didn't remind Olivia of the hole where she'd been raped. She inched her fingers around to sweep the bangs from Olivia's forehead, clearing it for kissing. "I know a place," she murmured, pressing her lips to the spot and silently willing Olivia not to ask anymore questions. "Belongs to a friend, so it's free of charge. Might be kinda dusty from sitting for a while, but it'll just need some airing out. Shouldn't be too hard that close to the water."

"What friend? Daphne?"

It was the one question Amanda didn't want to hear, with a provided answer she hadn't even considered. She had completely forgotten their friend was born and raised in Connecticut.

"Oh, um, yeah. Yeah, Daphne. It's her . . . her grandmama's house. Left it to Daph in the will."

Usually Olivia's eyes narrowed when she spotted a lie, but this time they widened, her head slowly lifting from Amanda's shoulder until she stood fully upright. "You're lying to me," she said, no strong inflection one way or the other to indicate how she felt about it.

It came as no great shock to Amanda that she'd been caught, not with that lamely concocted story; she never was very good at making up excuses on the fly, especially not with Olivia, whom she was certain—even in those first years, when their relationship was a bit dicey—could see right through her. But being accused to her face of lying, whether she was or not, made her bristle reflexively. And so what if she did lie a little? She was only doing it to protect Olivia. "No, I ain't. I'm just jet lagged from flying our kids to Georgia and back at the crack of butt this morning." She stifled a fake yawn and still caught a whiff of pancake syrup on her breath.

"Daphne never said one word about a dead grandmother or a vacation house in Connecticut." Olivia was doing that thing where she read Amanda's face as if scanning the pages of a book and recording the pertinent lines. The old Liv was still in there after all. "She'd never be able to keep something like that to herself. She would have dragged us out there ages ago to go sailing or smoke pot or whatever."

"It's a recent thing."

"I saw her last week."

Amanda's leg began to jiggle. She was getting the urge to pace again. "Fine. Why'd you even bother asking if you're just going to shoot down everything I say?"

Another glimmer of the old Olivia Benson fire kindled behind those deep brown eyes. For a second the sparring almost felt fun, as it sometimes had before the attack, when Amanda knew there would be great make-up sex to look forward to later on. Not now, though. Not anymore.

"I wouldn't have to if you were telling me the truth." Olivia cocked her head and slanted her gaze downward, using the height advantage as she often did at work. Barefoot on the carpet next to Amanda in sneakers, there wasn't much difference, and it was difficult to convey authority while wearing a towel, hair hanging limp and wet. "Whose house is it? Why can't you tell me? Is it Alex's?"

"Oh, good Lord," Amanda said, checking her volume just in time, but not her tone. She couldn't help it; the last question had come out of nowhere. (Not exactly—Cabot did hail from some hoity-toity New England state or another, and it was like the little trust fund princess to own multiple vacation homes for the summering, wintering, or whatevering rich people did with their piles of money. But, still.) Utterly ridiculous. "Here we go. It always comes back to her somehow, doesn't it? She hasn't bothered calling to see how you are, or dropped by to make another pass at you yet, so how would I even be in contact with her? 'Less there's something you're not telling me."

Olivia returned the expectant look with a dry, emotionless one of her own. Her narrowed eyelids were the only indication she had heard the accusation in Amanda's rebuttal. It was absurd too, of course. Even if she wasn't recovering from a horrendous trauma, Olivia still wouldn't encourage Cabot's advances or lead the ex-attorney on in any way—Amanda knew that without question. That had been a low, not to mention stupid, blow.

"I haven't spoken to Alex in well over a year and a half," Olivia said coolly.

"Yeah, well . . . you got me beat, then."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," Amanda muttered, raking back the part in her hair with sharp, taloned fingers. Her scalp stung slightly in their wake, but she resisted the urge to hiss. She refused to invite sympathy during an argument, especially for her own dumb mistake. "Forget it. If you really wanna know whose place it is, I'll tell you. I'm sorry I even brought it up to begin with now." She paused in hopes that the reverse psychology—or at least her wife's pride—would take hold, making Olivia decide to relent as well, no explanation necessary.

But Olivia didn't budge, or so much as blink, just continued staring her down, waiting for an answer. One bare foot patted tersely on the carpet.

"Okay, fine. I'll tell you," Amanda said, and finally unable to draw it out any longer, added the rest grudgingly, "It belongs to Dana"—miserably.

The name didn't compute right away, and Amanda wondered if Olivia truly had forgotten about Dana's reappearance at the hospital. It probably did seem like some bizarre fever dream, the woman popping up out of nowhere after all these years, while Olivia was still in a profound state of shock. Maybe it hadn't even occurred to her to ask Amanda about it, and instead she had brushed it off as a post-op hallucination. But no, when she let go of her elbows, hands dropping open against her thighs in a disheartened gesture, there was an aura of betrayal to it. She hadn't forgotten at all. "Dana Lewis? You've been in contact with her? Again?"

"Yeah . . . " Amanda elongated the word, imitating Jesse when the girl was trying not to incriminate herself, as if slowing things down to turtle speed forestalled punishment. On their six-year-old it was cute; on Amanda it just made her sound more guilty. "I know you're still pissed at her, and I get it. What she did was kinda shitty. But . . . it was part of her job, Liv. She didn't do it to hurt you personally. And— well, she was sort of instrumental to me finding you in that shipping container. If not for her, I might not have been able to get Parker to bring me there. To you."

She also doctored my crime scene and killed one of your rapists—and has a hit out on another party (maybe two) involved. That, Amanda kept to herself, but she hoped the gravity of what she did say got the point across. For better or worse, Dana Lewis was one of the good guys. And she was on their side.

"Lewis is a self-serving, egotistical loudmouth who'll step all over you climbing her way to the top. If she offered you anything, you had better believe there are strings attached." Olivia was careful about passing judgment and usually held back on her unfavorable opinion of others; plus, there was that enormous blind spot she had for old friends and loved ones who had misused her. Not so with Dana. She didn't even flinch at the surname Lewis. "Why are you still talking to her, anyway? I thought I asked you to get rid of her."

For a split second, Amanda thought Olivia was saying she wanted Dana dead. Luckily she worked out the meaning before responding, though she forgot to bring her tone into line with it. "You did. 'Bout ran her out of your hospital room on a rail. Don't get upset, I'm not faulting you for it. That wasn't something anyone could've handled right then. But . . . she's been real good about checking up on you. I don't think she's as heartless as you're making her out to be. She cares about you, Liv. Today at the diner—"

"Diner?" Olivia looked up sharply, resembling one of the K-9 unit Shepherds scenting a dime bag or a victim's shoe on a wooded trail. If possible, she was even more shrewd now than she had been before the assault. It was exhausting, probably for her as much as Amanda. "You were with her today? When? I thought you were with the kids this whole time."

"I was . . . for most of it. She caught me between flights, asked me to meet her. She had some free time after I got in, so we met at that little place near the airport." Amanda hadn't expected to divulge the meeting at all, but now that she'd started, she found it hard to stop. "She just wanted an update is all. I's starving—you know how hungry I get when I travel—so she gave me some of her pancakes. Then she made the Connecticut offer, and . . . I don't know, call me crazy, I thought it would be good for us."

Olivia's entire posture changed once again, this time crumpling in on itself, her shoulders hunched defensively. Her eyes strayed to the nightstand, the drawer she had slammed shut on her molested journal.

"You talked to her about me? About us, our private business? What did you tell her?"

"I didn't—" Amanda made a disgusted noise, half scoff, half sigh, and fully out of patience. They should not be having this conversation while she was this tired and this cranky, but she didn't really have a choice, did she? Her wife was determined to drag it out as long and painfully as possible. "I ain't a blabbermouth. I didn't tell her anything personal, just that you've—we've—had a hard time adjusting since the, uh, the assault." They didn't have a shorthand for it yet. The thing so bad it transcended a name. "No big secret there. Then I mentioned that it's hard to find peace and quiet in the City, and that's why she suggested Connecticut. She doesn't want anything in return, Liv. Just for us to . . . get some semblance of our life back."

Olivia snorted, definitely not buying that Dana did anything simply out of the kindness of her heart. (Or maybe at the idea that they could get back to where and who they were before? Amanda couldn't tell.) "I don't want that lying bitch to know anything else about me or my life, Amanda, do you understand? If you have to talk about it with anyone, it should be me."

The urge to grab fistfuls of her own hair on either side of her head, and yank, seized Amanda. She gave a mirthless, withering little laugh instead. "How'm I supposed to do that when you'll barely say two words to me about it? Every time I try to bring it up, you shut me down and go—" Pour yourself another glass of wine, she wanted to finish, but she suppressed that too, gesturing vaguely as it faded away. "You won't let me talk to Daph about it. Fin and Carisi are too close to it. I can't go to the chief or Lamai. Kat's dead. Jules is too fragile. Dana's the only person I can talk to about any of it. She gets it."

"What about Dr. Hanover?" Olivia asked, a bit anemic in her delivery. She had paled noticeably at the mention of Kat, which came out too harshly if Amanda were being honest. The change made her want to go to Olivia and offer a warm embrace—she looked like she was shivering inside the damp towel—but stubborn fool pride kept her in place. Pride and the fear of being rejected.

"When do I have time for therapy? I'm either here with you or flying the kids halfway across the country. Let's face it, sweetie, our parenting duties haven't exactly been split evenly down the middle lately." Amanda was getting nastier by the minute, her self-loathing rising closer to the surface, and with it a sharp tongue to counteract how wrong she felt, how like her daddy. The only difference between them was she used words, Dean used fists. Always beating back that devil they carried inside. "That's fine, I'm not complaining. But I gotta have some kinda outlet, too. You've got your journal and your reds, and I've got Dana."

No one had perfected the art of looking stricken, as if you had legitimately raised a hand to them, quite like Olivia Benson. The worst part wasn't the hurt—well, that was some of it—but the way she didn't turn away from it, afraid of what came next. If she could only be weak for once and let Amanda take charge (the victor, so to speak), maybe it wouldn't feel as awful, as shameful, as it did when she stood there and took it. And came back for more.

"That's so goddamn unfair, Amanda." Her voice was low, head shaking. Reflexively she checked that the corner of the towel was still tucked in tight near her left breast, though she had already done so half a dozen times. She ran her hands back over her damp hair, pulling it taut against her scalp. The short ends rained excess moisture onto her covered shoulders. She looked like a battle-weary soldier emerging from her armor. "So goddamn unfair. I tried to be okay for the kids. I tried so fucking hard, but I felt like I was going crazy. Writing things down in my journal is the only way I know how to get them out of my head. Then, eventually, someday, I might be able to talk about them. With you, I hope. Or Lindstrom . . . "

She had skirted the issue of the wine entirely, Amanda noted, disgusted by the flash of smugness that came with the revelation: I'm not the only addict in this room, not the only one of us who's had a slip and tried to cover it up. Those were the old wounds from two years ago talking, and probably a bit of the old resentment (and guilt) from her early days at SVU, when she was still flouting Olivia's authority, confused by the mixture of jealousy and attraction she felt for the beautiful, accomplished, seemingly perfect detective turned sergeant turned lieutenant. And now, captain. But Amanda wasn't that same person anymore, and neither was Olivia.

"Better pick me, then," Amanda sighed. She had stopped listening to herself soon after her brain started its addiction to one-upmanship, but she should have held out just a little longer. Perhaps then she wouldn't have added: "He'll stick a needle in you if you get too out of control."

As the words sunk in—and the connotations came crashing down—Amanda wondered if she had really changed that much after all. Hadn't she told Olivia to her face that therapy was for suckers, despite knowing full well her then-coworker (and nothing more) was dealing with a major trauma? And here she was, doing it again, when Olivia needed therapy the most. Couldn't she at least have phrased it a little better than "stick a needle in you" for her wife, who had been drugged in the same manner and had all sorts of things stuck inside her? That was Amanda Jo Rollins for you, always going straight for the throat.

"What?" Olivia went a touch green at the imagery, but she appeared more confused than anything. In that moment her defenses were gone completely, and she looked like a lost child. Or an abandoned one. "What does that mean?"

"Never mind. Forget it," Amanda said, too hastily. Nothing made her sound half as guilty as when she dropped the accent and spoke faster. She tried to play it off anyway, knowing it was too late. No way could she look into those big brown eyes, filled with so many questions—so many fears—and lie.

"Amanda. Please. I don't understand why you would say that. Dr. Lindstrom's never done anything like that. He's not like Giacomo." Olivia folded her arms across her waist, hugging herself. She needed reassurance and to not have another piece of her carefully constructed support system stripped away, but Amanda couldn't give her that. Her trust in Peter Lindstrom was misplaced; maybe he would never drug and sexually assault her, as Giacomo had done, but he had no qualms with breaking the rules and overriding another's agency.

Amanda didn't trust him with her deeply fragile and highly suggestible wife, and she couldn't in good conscience allow Olivia to resume sessions with him, knowing what she knew now. "Liv baby, something happened while you were being held in that shipping container . . . "

"Tell me." Olivia sounded petrified. Her bottom lip was already quivering.

"I, uh, got pretty upset at one point. Hell, I was half outta my mind the whole time. But I really lost it when they cut the feed there for a while." Gradually Amanda edged closer to Olivia, hopeful she wouldn't be shunned, ready to retreat if she was. Some of the tension in the air had begun to decrease, and she thought she might be able to comfort her captain without being perceived as a threat. "Started pitching a fit, throwing stuff and yelling. Lindstrom was in the room when it happened. Fin had called him in because Hanover was on vacation, you remember? Bali?"

A queasy nod was all Olivia could muster.

"I guess . . . I guess he thought I was having a psychotic break or something. Fin was trying to calm me down— I, um, kinda headbutted him during the struggle. So, Lindstrom, he came at me . . . " Swallowing took effort, and Amanda's parched throat clicked audibly, as if the words were being pulled up and out of it on a slowly ticking chain. Link by excruciating link. "He had a syringe. Shot me up with a sedative, and I woke up in the hospital a couple hours later. I was so fucking pissed." She gazed off to one side, remembering. The rage was still near enough to the surface, it took very little to call it back up; unfortunately, the gripping terror was there too. "But mostly I was just so scared. Felt like he'd made me leave you all alone in that place. Oh God, Liv, I tried to be there for you in whatever way I could, I swear. I know it wasn't good enough, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I let that happen to you."

It flew out in a jumbled-up rush before Amanda even knew what was coming or that she would burst into tears as soon as she finished. She had gone to Olivia expecting to be the shoulder to cry on, but she found herself being pulled into Olivia's arms instead, her head guided onto one towel-covered shoulder. Strokes at her back, whispers in her ear. Sh-shh-shh, it's not your fault. Sh-shh-shh, you don't have to be sorry.

But it was, and she did.

How long she stood there bawling and apologizing, she couldn't say, but the slightly damp terry cloth was soaked through when the tears began to taper off and Olivia nudged her face up by the chin. "I can't believe he did that to you," said Olivia, her own eyes red-rimmed and glistening. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, though the trembling was already detectable in her voice, her hands, her hitching chest. "I had no idea. My God. I'm so sorry, love. He had absolutely no right, the bastard. Do you want to press charges? He could lose his license for drugging you against your will. He should."

Once again Amanda's expectations were dashed. She should feel triumphant that Olivia was on her side, but it was hard to be victorious when she saw how much it pained Olivia to speak unfavorably of the man. The trembling had turned to a full-body shudder that could have been blamed on the cold, except the room wasn't chilly and Amanda didn't see any goosebumps. No, she had caused this tremor; she had caused that despondent expression on Olivia's beautiful, tragic face.

"No, baby. Won't do me no good to go after him in court now. Making sure you're okay, that's my main priority." Amanda caught Olivia's hands lightly as she started to protest, bringing them together at chest level. "Here, let's sit. Can I help you dry off?" She indicated the towel cape and Olivia's damp locks. There was a wide-tooth comb already laid out on the nightstand she had snooped in, and she took it up with an eager look, heart thumping in her chest. If she got the go-ahead, it would be the most intimate contact they'd had in weeks.

She fully expected Olivia to say no—hair-touching was still too much of a trigger, for obvious reasons, even for Amanda, whose mind drifted to the braid in the cigar box every time—whatever trust in her the captain had left lost to her thoughtless, intrusive curiosity. But Olivia must have sensed how desperate she was to make up for it and be forgiven; how she would pull every single blond hair from her own head, strand by strand, if it would be apology enough to assuage Olivia's hurt.

Hands cupped into a protective little shell, like she had captured a firefly, Olivia curled them over the small bit of cleavage revealed by the towel, took a preparatory breath, and assumed a seat on the bed, her face turned away, hair falling in Amanda's direction. Something about the pose struck Amanda as religious, as though a white dove with an olive branch in its beak should be perched on Olivia's shoulder. The scene could have been etched onto a pendant, just like St. Jude, for poor lost souls to clutch and worry with their fingers while they cried and prayed and begged not to be raped again. For killers to steal and hide away in a tobacco-stained box with their other transgressions.

Pushing the thought to the back of her mind with all the rest (she was accumulating quite a collection), Amanda sat down behind her wife, every movement slow and deliberate. Olivia had ample opportunity to object to anything she didn't like, but she almost seemed to luxuriate in the feeling of Amanda patting her hair dry and lightly scrunching the ends with the towel. Her head tilted gently to whichever side was being worked on, and when her face was in profile, Amanda saw her eyelids drift closed for long moments at a time. She had never been an especially vociferous person to begin with, but she was startlingly quiet since the assaults. Seldom did she sigh or hum her approval, and Amanda could barely hear her breathing at night anymore, even when they lay side by side. It was unsettling, the silence that had enveloped her.

"I shouldn't have brought up Lindstrom like that," Amanda said softly, trying and failing not to startle Olivia from whatever thoughts she was lost in. The captain's shoulders twitched forward, and she did take an audible breath through her nose, though it sounded more like a sniff than a gasp. Amanda patted her shoulders in apology, then continued on with the towel. "I know he's been there for you to talk to through . . . a lot. I don't want to take that away from you. What he did to me doesn't have to affect your relationship with him, okay? You just let him help you, and don't worry about me."

She didn't expect that to fly, and it didn't.

"It doesn't work that way, and you know it. If he'll do something that unethical to one person, what's stopping him from doing it to someone else? How can I ever go back to him, knowing he hurt you like that?" Olivia sounded husky with tears, but her face was turned away again, her back unreadable. The ripple of her spine stood out more prominently in the places where her hair—when it was long and so beautiful—used to fall, Amanda was sure of it. "I hate that he did that to you. And you were already hurt from being tased. What if the kids had needed you during that time? Why didn't he think of that?"

Amanda could hear her getting more worked up as she went on, envisioning all the possible outcomes. Quietly she slipped from the bed and rounded Olivia, kneeling down in front of her to peer up at her worry-pinched features. With her hair hanging in half dry strings around her face, eyes hollow above pallid, almost gaunt cheeks, she looked like the skeletal specters they ushered out of makeshift (or occasionally custom made) cages in basements and cellars—sometimes even shipping containers—women, young and old, who had been held captive for weeks, months, years at a time. Part of her was still trapped in that hellhole Amanda thought she had rescued her from.

"Hey, it's okay. He didn't hurt me, not really." Amanda forgot herself and reached up to tuck Olivia's lank hair behind her ears. Encouraged when Olivia didn't shrink from her, she cupped a hand to her wife's cheek, stroking with her thumb the spot that had resembled a rotten crabapple until about two weeks ago. She could no longer make out the bruise. "Nothing compared to what you were going through. And look, I'm fine now. Let's just focus on getting you well, okay, darlin'? If you don't feel comfortable seeing Lindstrom anymore, we'll find you a new therapist. A better one. Maybe a woman this time, so you don't have to worry as much. How's that sound?"

Of course, Olivia had been abused by women too, so her guard would probably be up either way, but it might still be less frightening than putting her trust in a man.

"She's gotta be ugly, though," Amanda added, trying to lighten the mood. She couldn't bear that pained expression on Olivia's face, so much like their children's faces when they were hurt or broken-hearted. "I'm talkin' mud fence. That way there's no transference or any of that crap."

"Amanda," Olivia said, barely above a whisper. It was too weak to be called a scolding, which was exactly what Amanda had wanted to inspire—the false, flirtatious kind that were the captain's specialty when she dealt with her unruly detective—but the hint of a smile began to peek through on her lips, and that was better than nothing. She had recognized the joke and managed to find the humor in it, a big step in the right direction. If smiles were possible, then laughter might be too. Maybe even forgiveness.

"I'm just pulling your leg, little darlin'." Amanda tweaked Olivia's kneecap, trying on a gentle smile of her own. Not quite natural, for she was still smarting at being accused of . . . whatever she was being accused of with her lunch date—and that odd, needless mention of Cabot
(If only she had managed a few more minutes with the journal, just to see if Alex's name came up . . .)
but it was close enough. Maybe one day she would learn to switch her anger off as well as Olivia did, but it hadn't happened yet. "I'd trust ya, even if she looked like Charlize Theron."

"Daphne would probably dropkick me to get to her first if she looked like Charlize." Olivia gave a little hum of amusement, too brief to be laughter. It was the first joke she'd made in a while, though. Baby steps. Then, when the moment had passed, her hand came up, tentatively, to rest at Amanda's cheek. "I do trust you, Amanda. If you think we should go to Connecticut, I'm . . . willing to give it a try. God knows this city has nothing left for me. Maybe it'll be a nice change of pace."

God knows this city has nothing left for me. Though offhanded and an understandable viewpoint after the awful treatment she'd endured from some of the worst criminals in Manhattan, it still saddened Amanda to hear Olivia denouncing the place that had earned her Amanda's favorite nickname for her: city girl. And if that's how she felt about New York now, what did that mean for her position in the NYPD? How could they continue to live here, knowing the streets Captain Benson had kept safe for the past thirty years held no loyalty in return? The city she had loved for so many years would never love her back.

Those were things to fret over in Bridgeport, with some distance between them and the unforgiving town. Some perspective. A nice change of pace, like Olivia said, and maybe even a bit of a fresh start—somewhere Amanda had never violated her wife's privacy and where Olivia didn't feel compelled to drink because every sight and sound triggered a flashback, if not to the attack itself, then to the time before, when life was normal and their crowded apartment was home. Safe, sweet home.

"Yeah, I think it will. I think we should." Amanda turned her lips to Olivia's palm for a sound kissing. She smelled like soap from her shower, a scent that wafted even more fragrantly from beneath the towel where it was warmed by her skin. The thought and the salty-sweet perfume that accompanied it would once have been enough to turn Amanda on, and indeed, she felt a pleasant stirring low in her belly, but no way would she act on it. Not while Olivia sat there looking so defenseless and uncertain. Anything they did right then would be of dubious consent and succeed only in complicating matters even more.

She cupped her hand to the back of Olivia's, kissed it again softly. "I'm really sorry, darlin'. I know it's not okay to invade your privacy like that. I guess I panicked and made a bad decision. It won't happen again, I promise."

For a moment Olivia didn't respond, her eyes on the nightstand next to Amanda, a bit glazed but not with disinterest. More like . . . remembering. Or wishing to forget. "I believe you. And I'm sorry too. I do tend to bottle things up until I can't hold them in any longer, and that's unhealthy. Old habit. From now on, I'll try to be more forthcoming. I promise."

The silence they settled into as Amanda resumed her spot on the bed and commenced running the comb through Olivia's hair was easier than most of their quiet spells as of late, contented almost, though neither of them seemed able to look away from the drawer that contained so many secrets. Amanda began to wonder if it wasn't so much that they were adjusting to the quiet, but that they were learning to lie to each other comfortably. Which was worse, she couldn't say.

Either one felt like a little death, and as far as she could tell, God was no longer in the resurrection business.

. . .