A/N: Posting this one in another last-minute rush, because that seems to be my new norm. I really wanted to update before the premiere tonight, though. Happy reading and happy SVU day!

Chapter 34.

Two Lies and a Truth

. . .

"Amanda."

His gentle tone and the worry—not just apprehension or concern, but genuine worry—on his normally untroubled features broke down the last of Amanda's defenses. She went the ten or so feet to where he stood and dropped into his waiting embrace, burying her face against his chest to release a long, mournful sob. "I didn't tell her goodbye, Fin," she cried, not caring if she could be understood or not. What did it matter now? "She's gonna die, and I didn't say goodbye. I love you. Anything."

"Liv knows you love her," said Fin, stroking the side of Amanda's head with an awkward motion, like he was trying to wipe off clinging spider silk. He clearly had no idea how to offer physical comfort, his embrace tentative and mannequin stiff. But it was better than what Amanda felt on her own, out there wheeling around in space with nothing and no one to hold onto. "Anybody with two eyes and a brain in they head can see that. I saw it that first day you walked into the squad room, jiggling around like you needed to score, all eager to shake her hand. I thought she was gonna run for the hills."

Amanda pressed her forehead to Fin's chest for a moment, listening to him describe the encounter she remembered like it was yesterday. And he was right—she had been in love with Olivia from the get. If she believed in such things, she'd think their love was written in the stars. But stars died eventually too. "Yeah, well," she said, swiping under her nose and pushing back from the safety of Fin's arms. She didn't deserve it, and besides, she was still pissed at him for the Lindstrom betrayal. "She still might get the chance."

Fin rubbed his hands together nervously, as if he wasn't sure what to do with them now that they had been rebuffed. He blew into his fist once, then stuck both hands into his pockets. "Is she really that bad off? What did the doctor say?"

Because Amanda couldn't possibly know what she was talking about, right? She scoffed and distanced from Fin by another step, hugging herself by the arms. Momentarily disoriented, she noticed that they were in the waiting area, several paces down and around the corner from the exam room where Olivia was slipping away from her. Fin must have brought her here, and she hadn't even registered that they were walking. Everyone wanted to take her away from Olivia, it seemed.

"All the doctor said was, 'Get her out of here.'" Amanda dropped heavily into one of the chairs meant for family and guests of patients. Unlucky people sent off to a designated space where they wouldn't be in the way or ask too many questions. Amanda wasn't used to being on this side of things. She was no good at it. Abruptly she stood up again and began to pace. "They threw me out when her stats started dropping. She was fi— she was awake and talking one minute, passed out and almost did a header off the bed the next. I caught her, but that bitch Este kicked me out anyway."

His effort to follow along visible, Fin frowned at the choppy narrative. He gestured for Amanda to sit back down, to no avail. Finally, he took the seat himself, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled before him. "But they didn't actually say she was dying, right? She might have just taken a bad turn, and it's something they can reverse."

"I'm not that lucky," Amanda muttered. When she heard herself, the nervous energy she was running on drained in an instant and she sat down numbly in the chair beside Fin. Her wife was on her deathbed and here she was talking about goddamn luck. Piece of shit. "I just mean . . . "

She didn't know what she meant. She didn't know anything anymore.

"I hear ya," said Fin, and he did sound as though he genuinely understood. He flicked a gesture at their surroundings. "I also sat in a waiting room just like this and heard her say the same thing about you when you got shot. That you's dying and she wouldn't get to say goodbye. I never seen her that distraught before, not even when Noah went missing. She was convinced, man. And yet, here you are. You pulled through, and so will she. That's what you guys do. That's what survivors do."

For one brief moment, Amanda considered that he might be right. Olivia had already lived through an inordinate number of assaults and suffered consistent abuse since birth or before (Amanda couldn't imagine someone like Serena talking to her baby in the womb, or having anything nice to say if she did), and she was more accomplished, more sane than anyone with her history had the right to be. But the small glimmer of hope was extinguished by ugly images of Olivia being gang raped, beaten, choked, sodomized. Spat on, laughed at.

"This isn't like those other times, Fin," Amanda said darkly. And what was darkness but the absence of light? Of hope? She had lost both in one fell swoop, right around the time Olivia was taken from her. Whether or not she'd ever get them back was anybody's guess. The only thing she knew for certain was that she couldn't do it without Olivia. "You saw what they— Even if she does recover physically . . . she ain't bouncing back from this one."

"She didn't exactly bounce back from Lewis, did she?"

Though he spoke gently and phrased it as a question, Fin obviously didn't need to ask. He had witnessed Olivia's struggles in the aftermath of William Lewis and had probably been there for her in ways Amanda couldn't be at the time. She'd let guilt, insecurity, and addiction keep her from reaching out to the woman who, back then, was just a colleague, a supervisor. Not her responsibility, she'd reasoned, whenever she caught herself wondering what would have happened if she hadn't set Frannie on Lewis, hadn't hauled him into the precinct, hadn't nixed the idea to call up Olivia and invite her out for a beer so she didn't sit at home stewing when Cragen insisted on time off.

The list of excuses had been long: Olivia was dating Cassidy (although, Amanda had heard rumors that they weren't even having sex anymore by that point), and they would want some time alone; Olivia wasn't really a beer girl, she preferred the fussier, more expensive stuff that Amanda could barely pronounce; besides that, she didn't seem to like Amanda much, so why bother her outside work; anyway, Amanda needed to take Frannie to the groomer, and there was that big game coming up.

Anything to avoid the awkwardness of I'm sorry. This happened to you because of me.

Always because of me.

"And y'all can say what you want, but she wasn't 'just fine' after that Calvin kid and his psycho girlfriend got hold of her." Fin shook his head as if he still couldn't make sense of that one—two children for whom Olivia had given so much, her time, her love, and almost her life, only to be repaid with a vile assault, an attempted murder—and, really, who could make sense of such a thing? Of any of this? "Or all those years with her moms treating her like dirt . . . "

Amanda glanced up in surprise at the mention of Serena. Olivia was intensely private when it came to her personal life, even more so now than when Amanda had first met her. Becoming her wife and confidant had opened those doors up to Amanda, but she didn't know how much of her tumultuous childhood Olivia had shared with others before Stabler's abandonment and the Lewis attack shot that all to hell.

She felt her jealousy flare at the idea that someone—Elliot goddamn Stabler or even Fin—might know more of Olivia's history than she did, if they had gotten it out of the captain before she'd fortified those walls around her tender, easily wounded heart. Quickly, and ashamed that the thought had crossed her mind, Amanda pushed it aside for later. Or never. It didn't matter what Olivia had once confided to a man who walked out of her life like she was nothing, taking all that trust, all that hurt he must have known she harbored from years of neglect and being told she was nothing, and throwing it right back in her face. Dirty fucking coward.

Likewise, it didn't matter what Fin had overheard or simply gleaned from twenty-plus years of working alongside Olivia. Most of it had probably come straight out of Munch's mouth, anyway. Amanda loved the old guy, but he hadn't known the meaning of just shutting the hell up.

None of it mattered now. All those little betrayals paled in comparison with the horrific violation of privacy Olivia had endured for the last three days. And she didn't even know the full extent of it yet. If she died, she never would.

Afraid to find out where her brain was going with that line of reasoning, Amanda interrupted it—and her sergeant—with an abrupt question: "So, what are you trying to say? By now she should be so desensitized that this won't even faze her? Because that's some fresh bullshit if I ever heard—"

"You know that ain't what I meant," Fin said, his calm, rational veneer absolutely infuriating. He'd seen the very same livestream as Amanda, looking sickened by the torture and degradation being visited on his longtime friend and boss. A man who had been deployed to Mogadishu and later watched the bodies of his brothers in arms getting dragged through the streets by Somalis; a former army ranger who must be aware that America's reluctance to intervene after that bloody battle saw it turn a blind eye on the Rwandan genocide—and he'd still looked away from the screen. Now he was the voice of goddamned reason?

"Well, what do you mean, Fin, because I don't have time to sit here and sort it all out while my wife's off somewhere, pro'ly dying alone." Amanda heaved a sigh, slouching down in the chair as if physically drained by great mental effort. She was being an awful brat, but she couldn't bring herself to care about anyone else or their feelings at the moment. All she cared about was Olivia and seeing her again.

"I'm saying she ain't dying, so quit acting like she's already dead. And I'm saying she's not gonna bounce back from this, no, but she'll find her way through it, same as always." Fin hesitated before bringing a hand down on Amanda's shoulder, squeezing. "She's got you this time. And the kids. I ain't never seen her as happy and at peace as she is with y'all. Long as she's got her family, she'll be okay."

Something in his tone made Amanda anxious. She studied him from the corner of her eye, trying to determine how much he knew, if anything, about her exploits at the Jersey port. He must have gotten some kind of update, otherwise he wouldn't be at the hospital, and he would probably be asking her a lot more questions. But why did he sound as though he was warning her not to start spilling her guts and ruin everything, at least when it came to protecting Olivia?

Maybe because that was exactly what he was doing. "Look, I know you're having a rough time right now, and I don't blame you for anything you said . . . or done. I'm just glad you got her here in one piece. In the meantime, though . . . there anything I should know about how this all went down? 'Cause I'm gonna have Garland and One PP breathing down my neck pretty soon, and I gotta make sure our stories— our account of events corroborate each other."

"All I can tell you is my end of things," Amanda said, and shrugged. The nonchalance that made her such a gifted liar—unless her nerves got the better of her first—kicked in all at once, and she felt the story falling into place, even as it was coming out of her mouth: "After you kicked me out of interrogation I was trying to blow off some steam by jogging the stairwell. Lewis was taking Parker somewhere . . . Bathroom, I reckon. He broke free, I caught him. Guess he was scared of me after I tuned him up that first time, 'cause he started blathering about how sorry he was for hurting Liv. So, I made him take me to her."

"Just like that, huh? No backup, no coercion. I grill him for how many hours without any progress, but he runs into you in a stairwell and suddenly just rolls over?" Fin arched his eyebrows, and for the first time in a while, or maybe ever, Amanda noticed the wiry gray hairs that had crept in with the dark. In his goatee and at his hairline too. Some of them may have cropped up within the last few days, come think of it. In fact, on closer inspection, he did look as though he'd aged considerably since the last time Amanda saw him. He looked almost old.

Then again, she probably did too. She felt old. "Well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't slap him around a little more. You, of all people, can't fault me for that." It was a low blow, using the sergeant's past misconducts to justify her own, but she had to be ruthless now. That's what killers did. And she seemed to recall an incident involving Fin and Nick Amaro threatening to gouge out a convict's eyes with a jagged spoon if he didn't sing—related to her after the fact by Amaro himself, while Amanda was still on heavy painkillers, her shoulder alive and crackling like a grease fire.

She had only been shot when the men used their authority and their brutality to get the answers they wanted, all in her name. How could Fin admonish her for doing the same for Olivia, whose life had been on the line, who was being tortured right in front of Amanda's eyes? And his. She gazed into them now, his sad amber eyes, daring him to challenge her story or preach at her about ethics and police procedure. Their friendship hinged on that moment and Fin's response, she felt, hoping he sensed it as well.

"I don't fault you any of it," he said after a lengthy silence. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but the any of it sounded heavier than the rest, more meaningful. The tone of someone who knew more than they were letting on. "But you know I have to ask, Amanda. I got Lewis' account of things, and as long as it lines up with yours, well . . . case closed, far as I'm concerned. You, uh, might want to change clothes before the brass show up, though." He eyed the rumpled, oversized shirt and jeans she'd stolen off a dead man whose blood lined the creases like dark red caulk.

"You talked to Dana? Before we— before I got to Liv, or after?" Noticing a rust-colored spot on the flap of the shirt, Amanda balled the fabric into her fist, as if Fin hadn't already seen. So far she was doing a piss-poor job of hiding the figurative blood on her hands—and the literal. She'd been stupid as hell, putting on Angelov's clothing, but what else could she have done in that moment? What could anyone have done? She was still standing there in bare feet, for cripes' sake.

St. Jude lay heavy on her chest, the back of the medallion sticking to her skin. She hadn't adjusted to its weight yet, but she didn't plan on taking it off, even after she switched clothes. It was hers now, and soon enough she would forget it was there, as if it were a part of her. Something that had always been and would always be. She got the feeling that, as long as she wore it, the deaths at the warehouse couldn't be pinned on her. Good old Jude protected his lost causes.

"After. She wanted to be the one to come check on you, but she's got a shit ton of paperwork and red tape to go through." Fin watched Amanda closely as he spoke, almost as though anticipating her questions before she asked them. He nodded when she cocked her head in inquiry. "That's how it goes when you kill somebody on the job, even if you're FBI."

Amanda's heart was pounding so hard she expected the medal to start bouncing beneath her collar. A quick glance down assured her it remained in place, and she took a steadying breath, composing herself. Luckily, she'd had to do that several times already, making it less conspicuous this time, when she couldn't hide her nerves. "Kill somebody?" she echoed, trying to disguise her interest as shock at the news that someone had died. "Who'd she kill?"

She willed him to say The Sandman, that slimy piece of human garbage who skulked around in the shadows, literally selling women and young girls. But the magic of St. Jude only extended so far, and Fin gave a halfhearted shrug, suddenly despondent.

"They're still IDing some of the bodies and tryna piece together the crime scene. I hear it's a mess. Real Wild Bunch shit." Fin lowered his head, scrubbing a hand back and forth over his finely cropped hair. "At least one of the dead is that Angel guy with all the tattoos, he was easy 'nuff to identify. But, Amanda . . . one of the others . . . "

Oh, God. Kat. With everything else that was going on, Amanda had forgotten about the young officer killed in the line of duty. She'd forgotten that Fin had cared for Kat Tamin, taking on a sort of fatherly role with the girl. If nothing else he had been her rabbi at the one-six, and those relationships ran deep, sometimes even deeper than blood.

At one time, he and Amanda were that close too. There had been a shift in recent years, though, and Amanda couldn't quite put her finger on it. Still good friends, always that, but not as willing to lay it all on the line for each other anymore. She supposed it had something to do with marrying Olivia, getting a family of her own. You couldn't put it all on the line for someone else when you had so much to lose yourself; so many people depending on you.

Somewhere along the way, Amanda had grown up. Tamin would never get the chance, and that was on her. The guilt was all-consuming, and yet she didn't regret it for a second. As senseless and unnecessary as the officer's death was, it had gotten Amanda to Olivia and helped put an end to that nightmare. Given the chance, she'd do it again in a heartbeat. Save for their children, there wasn't a life she wouldn't risk to protect her wife.

"—was Kat. Damn kid went and got herself shot dead." Fin folded his lips together tightly and shook his head, unwilling or unable to continue right away. He fidgeted needlessly in his chair, wrestling his emotions as much on the outside as in. A younger man would have gotten up, paced, punched a wall. The sergeant remained seated, a glossy streak on either side of his nose the only indication that he was crying. He thumbed the moisture away and went on, though his voice had softened by a few octaves. "I don't know what she was even doing there. Lewis said she musta gotten the location from Sondra Vaughn, but Vaughn's denying any involvement."

Forgetting herself, Amanda snorted outright at the news that Vaughn was still a lying traitorous bitch. What a surprise. She'd sell out her own grandmother if it kept her from having to accept any of the blame for her misdeeds. Hell, if her kid wasn't dead, Vaughn would probably find a reason to sell her out sooner or later too. Amanda hoped she'd get the chance to look Vaughn in the eye and tell her that: Your daughter would have hated you eventually too. And you will never get your hands on mine.

In her daydream Amanda leveled the gun at Vaughn's pretty face and pulled the trigger. If only she had done it the first time, none of this would be happening.

"What? You know something?" Fin asked, snapping her back to the present.

"No, I— that just . . . tracks with her. Vaughn, I mean." Amanda cleared her throat too loudly, plucked at the buttons of her ill-fitting flannel shirt. If her knee started bouncing, she'd be displaying all her nervous tells simultaneously. She gripped both knees in her hands, stilling all four parts at once. Killing four birds with one stone. More bodies to add to her total count for the day. "Kind of her MO, isn't it? Deny everything, until she can't. Then flip on whichever poor sap she got to do her dirty work for her."

"You seem to know a lot about it."

For a split-second she thought he meant that she was doing the same thing—denying what she'd done, letting someone else take the fall for her crimes. Just as she was about to lash out at him (he had a lot of room to talk, after his betrayal with Lindstrom), she realized he was referring to her knowledge of Vaughn's methods. She swallowed her anger as best she could, but there was too much for it to be digested properly. It would come back up eventually, like it always did.

"Yeah, well, she and I were business associates there for a while, remember? Guess I learned a couple things." Amanda let go of her knees, freeing them to do as they would. She wasn't playing poker with Fin, and trying to hide the truth usually just made it come out faster. If he noticed her anxious behavior and commented, she had a pretty damn good excuse to throw back at him. Surprisingly, though, her legs weren't bouncing, nor did her hands shake like a junkie's. She was actually sort of calm. "Back when I was worth teachin', huh?"

Fin narrowed his eyes. The corners were dry now, leaving behind no trace of the tears that had snuck quietly into the crevices of his careworn face. Men had it easy. They cried the way they orgasmed—one and done. Women's suffering, like their pleasure, could go on indefinitely. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"I don't know." Amanda sighed, dropped her head back to stare at the ceiling. Every hospital ceiling was exactly the same as the next. It might have been comforting if it wasn't so fucking depressing. "Nothing. Never mind. I'm sorry about Kat. I know y'all were . . . tight. She and I didn't really see eye to eye on much, but she's a good cop. She helped out a lot getting Liv back. Didn't deserve to go out like that."

Overtaken by a wave of vertigo, Amanda righted herself and blinked until the sensation passed. The waiting room came into focus in a wash of bright and gray, and Fin appeared through the haze, a ghost-image of himself. He watched her with the intent of a father waiting on his wayward teenage daughter to tell the truth, hoping she wouldn't let him down.

Not that Amanda had any such experience to draw on—Dean Rollins never gave a hoot what his pretty, young daughters were getting themselves into when they snuck out at night or stumbled back home in the wee hours. But if she'd had a father who cared and expected better from her, she imagined he would look at her the way Fin did now. And she resented him for it. He had no right to play the dad card, or the morally superior boss, or even the disappointed friend. She did not answer to him.

When she didn't look away, Fin breathed a weary sigh and rubbed his palms together, shifting his weight from elbow to elbow against his knees. He worked himself up to it a few moments longer before asking straight out, "Did you see her there? When you were looking for Liv? It would have been close to the time you were there 'cause she left the prison at—"

"I wasn't all that concerned with what new dumbass stunt Kat Tamin was pulling while those animals were ripping my wife apart, no." Amanda glared at him, the blood boiling in her veins. He should have just let the Kat stuff go. She was dead and there was nothing anyone could do about it, least of all Amanda. The only person he should be worried about right now—the only one who mattered in this whole damn shitshow—was Olivia. Why wasn't he asking after her?

"All I cared about was getting to Liv. I never even went into that warehouse, how'm I supposed to know what happened in there? Buncha lowlife traffickers are dead, well whoopee, I won't be losing any sleep over it. Wouldn't think you would, either. I am sorry Kat got mixed up in it, but sounds like that was her choice. She was a big girl, Fin, no one forced her hand. Unlike what those guys were doing to Olivia, your captain and one of your oldest friends. Remember her?"

"I didn't say anything about a warehouse, Rollins," Fin said quietly, when she paused to take a breath. He gazed straight ahead this time, not even glancing sidelong to see her reaction. Almost as if he didn't need to. "How'd you know that's where the shootout took place if you didn't go inside?"

Fuck.

They hadn't nicknamed her Annie Oakley for no reason, though. She was still quicker on the draw than most, despite trying to tame her impulsivity and her lying tongue in recent years. "What are you, the rat squad?" she snapped, perhaps too vehement, but too pissed for anything less. "I saw the building—big ole eyesore like that, you can't miss it. But Parker told me Liv was in one of the shipping containers, so that's where I went. No place else there could've been a shootout in that area without me seeing the bodies, except for the warehouse. It's called deductive reasoning, we use it all the time on the job."

"Right." Fin managed to make even his agreement sound skeptical. He went silent for a few moments, scrubbing at his goatee with flattened fingers and a contemplative expression, as if he were considering shaving the facial hair off. When he spoke again, it was with tired resignation, but also an underlying hope. He wanted to believe she was telling the truth. "Okay, yeah. That kinda makes sense. Ain't like you were thinking clearly, or as a cop, either. They'll pro'ly buy that."

A protest rose to Amanda's lips—who said she hadn't been thinking clearly or like a cop?—but she bit it back at the last minute. The sergeant seemed to be giving her an out, she would be a fool not to take it. Suave liar or not, her story was all over the place and full of holes. If she kept her mouth shut and let Fin and Dana finesse things for her, she had a much better chance of throwing IAB off her scent. Maybe it wasn't the honorable thing to do, or the brave thing, but it was what she had to do. For Olivia. For the children. She couldn't be there for them if she was behind bars.

For a long time after that, neither Amanda nor Fin spoke to each other beyond deep sighs and impatient grumblings under their breath that conveyed what simple words couldn't. Half an hour must have passed, although it seemed much longer, before Amanda couldn't stand the waiting and wondering anymore. She shoved herself up from the chair and began to pace the room.

Her father had never been much of a hunter—too much discipline required—but he'd had a lot of coon traps in the backyard. Hated the little scavenger assholes, as he called them. Amanda remembered well how the poor critters paced inside their cages, lunging off the sides chittering and hissing, practically turning somersaults in their agitation to be free. They must have known what fate would befall them later that evening when Dean loaded the trap and his 12-gauge into the pickup and drove down to the river.

Amanda felt like one of those raccoons now, hysterical with fear and confinement, sensing the doom that awaited her. If she listened hard enough, she could almost hear the baboom of the shotgun, a sound she'd dreaded and revered as a child. Daddy would be home soon, and he always drank too much on a coon shoot. His boots clomping up the porch steps made her stomach drop as if she were on a thrill ride. There was danger, yes, but also anticipation. Maybe even excitement. What was coming, what was on the other side of the door . . .

"Mrs. Rollins-Benson?"

The voice went off behind her like a shotgun crack, and she whirled around so quickly the speaker startled as well. It was Este, looking a bit more frayed around the edges than she had earlier, if Amanda wasn't mistaken. Then again, the same could likely be said of Amanda herself, who didn't realize she was holding fistfuls of the hair on either side of her head until the nurse glanced up apprehensively, as though Amanda might start yanking.

Shaking the strands loose hastily, she wrung her hands together in front of her, resisting the urge to grab Este by the shoulders and demand information. "How is she? Is she okay?" The hair tumbled into her eyes again, and she raked it back so hard her fingernails dug into her scalp. She wished for some scissors to hack off the annoying blond wisps, then felt sick for even entertaining the idea. At least she had long hair to fuss with. "She's not— Is she still alive?"

"She's alive," Este confirmed, cupping a hand under Amanda's elbow and attempting to lead her to a nearby chair. When Amanda didn't budge, Este resumed a professional distance, keeping an eye on Fin as if she suspected him of eavesdropping. "But she has a serious infection, we believe from . . . " Hesitating to go on, she glanced Fin's way again, not trying to hide it this time. "I'm sorry, sir, are you here for Captain Benson too?"

"He's her sergeant. You believe from what?" Amanda cycled her hands in the air, hurrying Este's explanation along. She didn't have time for dramatics or being let down easy, just cold hard truth. Anything less was for sissies.

Getting nowhere with subtlety around Amanda, the nurse cast another hesitant look at Fin, who took up quietly from his seat and went to stand in front of the picture window that overlooked the parking lot. Hands stuffed in his pockets, he pretended to be fascinated by the shade trees, asphalt, and endless stream of vehicles that passed below.

This time, when Este returned her attention to Amanda, placing a hand behind her arm to lead her aside, it was with more insistence. "The rapes were . . . violent, as I'm sure you're aware," Este said, once they were out of Fin's earshot. Amanda's expression must have warned her to dispense with the spoon-feeding, although she still kept her voice lowered. "There's quite a bit of internal trauma to go with the external. We've found some tearing that needs to be sutured, and it's likely the bacteria that's causing the infection was introduced there."

"So, what, like, in her cervix and stuff?" Amanda asked, unconcerned with sounding professional. She had seen her share of violent rapes and knew what types of injuries were associated with certain acts, and the complications that accompanied them. A bruised cervix was the minimum amount of damage she'd anticipated from what she witnessed onscreen—and that would have been bad enough. Sutures and infections meant even more invasive procedures and longer recovery time. "Can't you just give her some antibiotics? I thought most cervical tears healed on their own?"

Este's face registered mild surprise, as if she had forgotten the nature of Amanda's work, not to mention her personal experience with childbirth. Cervical and vaginal tears were common during delivery, but didn't typically require stitching, unless severe; Amanda had hardly needed any sewing up at all after Samantha's birth, a far cry from the Frankenstein scar left behind by Jesse's Caesarean. "Some do, but considering the advanced stage of the infection and the severity of her other injuries, the doctor feels it's best to go in for a closer look. She's been started on IV antibiotics, which we're hoping will get the infection under control."

Hoping wasn't good enough. Nor was the apprehension in Este's voice and mannerisms. As far as Amanda was concerned, they were equal to being offered thoughts and prayers after a personal tragedy. Didn't mean diddly. "And if they don't?"

"Then she'll be looking at a more extensive procedure," Este said, at first failing to meet Amanda's eye. She got it on the second try, but it would have been better if she hadn't. It wasn't fear or intimidation that stopped her, just plain old-fashioned pity. She didn't think Amanda could handle the full story. "If she becomes septic, her organs will start to shut down. At the very least, there would be permanent damage."

And at the very worst, Olivia would go into complete organ failure and die. Amanda knew the dangers of sepsis, without a rundown from the RN. She also knew that Olivia didn't have a whole lot of fight left in her after enduring the past three days. How could the shell of a woman whom Amanda had met back in that shipping container survive something like her own body trying to destroy her? It terrified Amanda even to consider it, but she had the feeling Olivia would simply stop trying—to fight or to live.

There were glimpses of it before: the careless combination of wine and pills that Olivia had relied on during the rougher parts of Amanda's recovery from the shooting; the risks she took with Giacomo, the near-defiance when she looked at Amanda and accepted a drugged drink from him; denying herself food as some sort of twisted punishment for existing; denying herself love because it was all she knew.

And there was the advance directive, better known as a living will. Most cops had them, even Amanda, relatively young as she was. She and Olivia hadn't discussed theirs in-depth yet—at first it was too soon after the shooting, then it was too upsetting to think about when life was so good again, and now . . . —but she got the impression that Olivia's directive had been completed and regularly updated for some time. Probably since day one of the academy, if she knew her wife at all.

It troubled and relieved Amanda that she didn't have Olivia's end-of-life wishes memorized by heart. At least this way, if she overrode them, she had the excuse of not being aware of what they were. Or that's what she could claim, though deep down she really did know.

Of course she did. She knew Olivia by heart.

"So, um, what can you do?" Amanda cleared her throat of the bile that was creeping up, her eyes of the tears that were seeping in. She would have time to lose it later, when Olivia's life didn't hang in the balance. "The, uh, the more extensive procedure thing you said?"

"Yes, that's partly why I came out here," said Este, her confidence visibly bolstered when Amanda didn't break down or start yelling. "For your consent. Right now our main concern is stopping the infection from worsening. The area in which it originated is delicate. Depending on how far the infection has spread, it's possible an excision will be necessary to remove it all."

Amanda heard the words (consent, excision, remove) and understood their meanings, but couldn't string them together in linear thought. They floated out there in space with the rest of her. "Excision . . . you mean cut something out?"

The nurse nodded, folding her lips into that sympathetic non-smile the healthcare profession seemed to require of all its personnel. It probably had its own academic course. "I'm afraid so. Again, that might not be the case here, but based on what we're seeing, there's a strong chance she'll need a hysterectomy."

Again the word didn't sink in for several more beats, and when it did, it resounded in Amanda's head like an echo chamber, though the delivery had been rather anticlimactic. Just another medical term that got bandied around by Este and her colleagues. To Amanda it was as startling as finding out her wife needed a limb removed.

The worst part was the uncertainty what Olivia would say. It was one thing not wanting to live on a ventilator, no brain activity to speak of, but how would she feel waking up with pieces of herself gone like that? Her reproductive organs, no less. Liv was funny about those kinds of things. She'd been so timid and awestruck getting to breastfeed Sammie the first few times—hell, even now—and she talked about having periods with an almost nostalgic air. She fretted over small bodily changes and whether or not she was feminine enough.

And then there were those regrets she had alluded to on the rare occasions they discussed her decision not to have biological children. Rape aside, that would be impossible now, and they both knew it. But what if having her womb taken away killed that little glimmer of hope she had inside, like a quickening that never got to be? Like another life aborted, this time without her consent? She might never forgive Amanda. She might spend the rest of her days wondering what if?

"I can request that the doctor leave as much intact as possible, if you think that's important to your wife," Este said, gently interrupting Amanda's reverie, her earlier warmth returning when she saw the impact her update had made. "A supracervical hysterectomy removes the top part of the uter—"

"I know what it is." Amanda sounded much calmer than she felt, pleasant even. She realized she expected herself to have an emotional blowout about as much as everyone else did. Instead, she just kept coasting on the flat, ignoring the sparks shooting off behind her. "If the infection is that far along and he doesn't get it all, she'll keep getting worse, right? She could end up dying?"

"That's the worst-case scenar—"

"Then do what you have to, to save her." No hesitation, no regrets. Clear head, clear eyes, clear heart. Amanda gave a decisive and final nod, leaving little room for debate. "If you have to take it all, you have my consent. Just . . . do whatever needs to be done so that she's okay again."

Este retreated through the automatic doors, disappearing as she had come, permission granted, like a jinni gone back into the lamp to work its sinister magic. Amanda watched after her for so long she began to feel woozy under the fluorescent ceiling panels. She vaguely remembered staring into one such light as she lay on a surgical cot, waiting for the sedatives to kick in and release her from the pain that bloomed in her shoulder, nuclear in its intensity.

Was that how Olivia felt right then? Was she even awake and aware of her surroundings—that Amanda wasn't there, as she'd promised to be? (I cried for you when they hurt me, but you didn't come.) Why hadn't Amanda asked if she could see her wife before the procedure that, despite survival, would be a kind of death for Olivia either way?

Realizing Fin was still there, standing silent by the window with a questioning look on his face, Amanda turned and walked to him with the same eerie composure that had stolen over her repeatedly since arriving at the hospital. She took a deep, steadying breath in anticipation of sharing the basics about Olivia's condition with him (he didn't need to know their private business, especially in regards to Olivia's reproductive health). But when her mouth opened, all that came out was, "She's never gonna be okay again, is she?"

And then she was in Fin's arms, crying harder than she had ever cried in her life.

Crying as if she would never stop.

. . .