A/N: I thought maybe I had coined the title of this chapter myself, but it turns out it was also the title of a 1957 movie and a 1995 TV movie. Ah well. Thank you for your understanding about me needing a little break there for a bit, guys. And thank you for the compliments on the cover arts! Obviously I have no self-control whatsoever when it comes to making them; there's a new one at the top of this chapter on AO3, lol. I have another in mind, but it will fit better with one of the upcoming chapters, so I'll probably wait for that. I hope everyone's still enjoying the story as well. Trigger warning for references to gang rape and child abuse.


Chapter 44.

Death in Small Doses

. . .

Fin placed the photo facedown inside his desk drawer. Kat's family had wanted most of the tchotchkes from her desk: the backup watch she kept "just in case something happened to the other one"; the weird little collection of pennies she added to at every crime scene, claiming there was always one to be found somewhere; the random troll doll with green hair that she blew on for good luck before performance reviews and Wednesdays (girl was crazy superstitious about Wednesdays); and her miniature courtesy badge, still snug in the black velvet lining of its display case. Her mother had cried when she learned she couldn't have the real one.

That tore Fin up because he might have prevented it. The girl was so proud carrying around her shiny silver badge, he hadn't had the heart to tell her most of the NYPD carried fakes. Very impressive but slightly smaller fakes that would get their ass in a sling if the brass found out, but at least if you lost it you didn't have to pay the penalty (ten days' pay, for Chrissake) or do a shit-ton of paperwork explaining why you were such a dumbass. Poor Kat had died wearing the real deal and it would probably sit in evidence somewhere for the next eighty years, tarnished by her blood, until the current SVU squad was long forgotten.

Liv was supposed to outlast them all and go down in history as the best damn cop the city had ever seen, but now he didn't know . . . Man, he just didn't know.

Maybe he had held the picture back on purpose, then. Not to be shady or selfish with the family, but for the memory. He was still pimped out for the wedding, pinching his lapel and acting fly as hell, as if the brides on either side of him were his entourage. Liv and Amanda were prettier than ever that day, and so damn happy they had both jumped at the chance to smoosh his cheeks with kisses for the camera. Striking a squatty hip hop pose in front of them, high heels and all, was Kat, flashing peace signs and an enormous grin. They had all been hitting the champagne pretty hard before Carisi called out that it was time for a shot of just the squad.

Immortalized together forever in that goofy picture, in a frame with dry macaroni noodles glued to the border by one or another of the Rollins-Benson kids, and now at home in Fin's desk drawer. The squad. Family.

"Is every unit as close-knit as this one?" Kat asked him once, early on.

"Nah," he had replied, "It's different here. More . . . personal. More'n just a job."

"Why?"

"'Cause of her, I guess." He'd tipped a nod toward Olivia's office, where she could be seen hunched over her desk, those chunky readers, as thick and black as electrical tape, balanced on her nose, poring over a case file. "She's been here since I got here, and the place has changed so much since then, everybody else coming and going. She's the only constant. Best I can figure, she's the heart of this place, and that's why it's so special."

Kat studied their captain for a long time after that, the wheels obviously turning in her nimble, impetuous brain. She reminded him of a Jack Russell Terrier, always looking for trouble. (Had. Had reminded him.) "What happens when she goes?" she asked, finally. "When the heart stops beating?"

He got annoyed with her then, goddamn him. Overeager young punk thinking she was going to come in and be the next generation of SVU, when he and Liv had practically built the place from the ground up, dedicating twenty-plus years of their lives to it. And giving up so much. "Man, what you talking about 'when the heart stops beating?' Liv ain't going nowhere. And if she does, well shit, I'll put in my papers too. After that, makes no difference to me how bad they fuck this place up."

"Really? You're that loyal to her?"

"Yeah, guess I am. Get back to work, Tamin. Those DD5's ain't gonna write themselves."

Their last conversation had been about Olivia too, out of Amanda's earshot, though they could both see the detective in the interview room staring staring staring at the laptop screen. She was so still, seldom blinking, barely breathing, she looked like a department store mannequin. "I'm off to Sealview, Sarge. If that bitch knows anything, I'll get it out of her. You okay?"

Hell no, he wasn't okay. He had just watched a good friend and the most honest, trustworthy, and courageous woman he knew taking it up the ass again. He hadn't even witnessed shit like that in Somalia or anywhere else he was stationed as a Ranger. "Huh? Oh. Fine. Just, uh . . . try to get it fast, Kat. I don't know how much more of this she can handle."

"We'll get her back. We have to. She's the heart, right?"

No heart could go through what Liv had gone through and not be thoroughly, irrevocably broken. The captain had been home for days, with no word of a return to the one-six or a status update that he didn't have to hear secondhand from Carisi or that Daphne girl. Kat was dead, her funeral attended by only one of her squad mates—just the service, he couldn't bear standing graveside while her bright white casket went into the ground. And Amanda, his one-time partner and protégé, and the closest he'd ever had to a little sister, was now a killer. He understood why she did it, just like he knew he would do everything in his power to help cover it up. But he would have spared her the burden of such terrible and costly revenge if he could.

He would have spared them all.

"Nothing changes except what has to." It had sounded so wise, so profound coming from Cragen. From Liv. But Fin finally heard it for what it was: a bullshit excuse for a bullshit world that didn't give a fuck who it destroyed, just chewed you up, spit you out and kept on turning.

. . .

Why?

. . .

One week. I still cry when I go. There's so much blood.


Serena stares at him, blank as slate. He probably thinks she is mildly retarded. Just a dumb slut got herself knocked up by a guy who didn't even have to marry her to coax her legs apart. (He keeps glancing at her nude ring finger, and she wishes she'd thought to wear the diamond her father gave her as a graduation gift.)

The cop had snapped his fingers in front of her face to break the trance she was in that night three months ago. She learned to hate cops that night. She learned to hate a lot of things. A bulleted list of her most despised subjects read as follows:

- Men
- Herself
- Sex
- Cops
- Irregular monthly cycles
- Dark stairwells/landings below street level
- Walking alone at night in the city
- Judgmental looks
- Whispers
- The fetus growing inside her, as much a stranger to her as the man who put it there

And now, doctors. For they delivered the news that you were carrying a monster's child, all the while treating you like the monster itself. Oh God, what if its DNA somehow leaked into hers and she became like the stranger with the sideburns and no face? Just a rutting, grunting beast in the dark.

She decided then to kill it. There were herbs and things you could take. One of her hippie friends would know. If all else failed, she had a closet full of wire coat hangers at home. A bottle of vodka too. Sterilized twice over, she thought, and almost laughed out loud.

"Is there someone you can call?" asked the doctor, doing everything short of recoiling from her in distaste, dirty girl that she was.

"No," Serena said, gathering her pocketbook and white lace gloves. She had worn the damn things to appear more ladylike, virginal. On her way out the door, she tossed them in the trash. "There's no one."

. . .

Amanda made an appointment for my tooth. She says I have to go this time. Can't stand to see me wincing with every bite. I think I'll stop eating altogether. What's the point?

. . .

I'm fading and the last sight I see is a shadow-man standing over me. Amanda gave explicit instructions that only the dentist and one female assistant, who would act as a chaperone and under no circumstances stand above me unless medically necessary, were to be in the room. The likelihood of me being aware of who stood where during the procedure was very slim, they assured her, but she was adamant. She offered to be here and hold my hand as I was put under—to be one of the faces above—but I couldn't bear for her to see me like this. Not again. I remember why as the light goes out, his hand comes toward my mouth, and I start to

'Scream. Scream, goddamn you!' I bellow the words at her, but she is too scared to listen. I know I should have compassion for her; that she isn't weak or pathetic for not getting up from the desk, fighting back, running (Jesus run please you have to—) Even if she did break free and make it out of The Box, they have her outnumbered and trapped God-knows-where. He'll just drag her back into the beach house and rape her again on those filthy mattresses in the basement. And she's so hurt, it's no wonder she can't escape. She needs to go to the hospital, but her mother won't take her when it's bad like this—too afraid of getting caught.

Still, I can't stand to look at her lying there, waiting for the next one to take his turn. It makes me hate her. All those years on the force, all those years defending others and pretending to be so tough, so in control, yet she can't say 'stop' or 'no' when her time comes? She lets him put it in her hand, rub it up and down like she's greasing a pole or some fucking thing, and doesn't move a muscle while he fondles her in return. How's that for father-daughter bonding? (Of course she knew who he was, she had to. If she denied it, she was a lying little bitch, just as her mother always said.)

I bet she wanted it all the other times too, even here in this den of piss and shit and come and blood, four five six guys at once. Otherwise, why would it keep happening? You didn't experience that many assaults—that much senseless violence—without inviting it on
(myself)
yourself, you know? I've spent my entire career telling people differently, but where she's concerned, it's the truth. It's how she was conceived, for Christ's sake, how much more proof do I need? You reap what you sow, and she has spent her life reaping the seed her father sowed all those years ago: her own self.

It would be better if they killed her. Just ended it now, before she passes on the curse of herself to her wife or kids. She came so close with Tilly. (Not my baby please God not her—) They're probably already damaged from experiencing her numerous traumas secondhand, but they're young enough that if they grow up without any more of her turmoil, they should turn out all right. Serena's abuse didn't really start affecting her—or at least get as bad—until she was around ten or eleven. She wonders sometimes if she would have escaped her curse if Serena had just given her away at birth, or in grade school, even.

She'll never know, and as I watch the next guy on top of her, holding her mouth open to put things inside (can't swallow my mouth is so dry I need water but why can't I move), I slip out of the rancid shadows, so thick I feel them on my skin, and put my gun to her head. The men ignore me and go on fucking her, but she looks up at me with the saddest, most hopeless brown eyes I've ever seen outside of a mirror. Do it, the eyes say. Do it, goddamn you.

There's a dry (click) the first time I pull the trigger. The bullet vacates the chamber on the second try, I see his face, and then I am gone.

. . .

The damn thing had ripped out of her body like the demon child in Rosemary's Baby. Horror novels weren't her typical literary fare of choice—the writing was much too pedestrian, the plots outlandish, the characters one dimensional and incompetent—but she had developed an appetite for the morbid during the first trimester. Some women craved pickles or potato chips while they were pregnant; Serena Benson had craved the dark and demented. The uglier, the better. She had even considered auditioning for the lead role when she read that Rosemary's Baby was being made into a motion picture late last year.

A woman impregnated with the spawn of a hideous monster. She would have made the perfect Rosemary because that was the exact story she was living. But by the time filming began, she was too far along to play early ante- or postpartum scenes. Yet another hope dashed by the small squawking bundle they placed in her arms. There was still a pinkish mixture of its vernix and her blood around the little monster's abnormally dark hairline and the eyelids like plump pink labia, squinting around sightless black marbles. She got the urge to lick the cheesy gunk off its face, taking back from it whatever parts of her body she could, but she restrained herself. They were already looking at her oddly as she avoided touching it any more than she had to.

"Congratulations, you have a little girl," said one of the nurses, probably trying to convince her the thing at her breast was a real baby. Her baby. No one had said anything positive to her about giving birth out of wedlock yet—whether or not they knew about the rape (she had only told Meg and her mother, the latter of whom accused her of having an affair with a married man and making wild accusations to cover it up)—and it piqued her interest just the tiniest bit to hear a woman, not much older than she, acting as if this were a joyous occasion.

"It's a girl?" She peered down in surprise, but hesitated at lifting back the swaddling to get a look at the evidence. For some reason she hadn't considered that the thing might be born female. She didn't think demons had a particular sex, and if it did come out human, it would surely be male, like its disgusting, grunting brute of a father, would it not? Girls were different. They could be shaped into almost anything, made to do almost anything they were told, and they didn't go around attacking other women who were walking home alone at night.

"Mm-hmm. She's a pretty little thing too. I've helped deliver my fair share of babies, but I've never seen a newborn with that much hair or eyes so striking." The nurse rounded the bed to stand beside Serena and gaze down admiringly at the infant, who was soothing itself—herself—by suckling her fingers. Everyone else had cleared the room with nary a word or glance back at the girl who had "gotten herself into trouble" and her bastard child. "Very alert. See how she's focusing on you already? Oh my, you've got a smart one on your hands, Miss Benson!"

That caught Serena's attention more than any comments on the baby's looks ever could have. More surprising than the sex was the possibility that the child might be intelligent. The father was a Neanderthal, a mindless beast that just wanted a place to stick it, whenever and wherever he took the notion. Serena had done her damnedest to kill his offspring in the womb, drinking heavily in the hopes that alcohol would flush out the clump of cells, where herbs and other "home remedies" (several involving street drugs, mostly psychedelics) had failed. She chickened out with the coat hanger; she had heard far too many tales of botched abortions, and knew far too much about her own anatomy and how easily she could perforate something and bleed to death or die of a horrific infection, to try it solo. If nothing else, she would have risked missing classes and bringing down her grade. She refused to do that—or to die—for him and his spawn.

In the back of her mind she had hoped, at the very least, for some brain damage. Then she could put the thing away in a home and forget about it, free of the responsibility, resting assured that it was not a part of her in any way. Any child of hers would be brilliant, driven, focused, a force to be reckoned with. They would forge their own way and change the world in the process. That was the kind of child Serena had always wanted: one who shared her aspirations, her vision, and her determination.

"You don't want a kid, you want a campaign manager," Meg had teased before the rape and the subsequent pregnancy. Back when Serena still laughed—and fully agreed. "A little radical feminist who comes out waving a copy of The Feminine Mystique in one hand and a burning bra in the other."

The baby girl held neither, but she was looking straight into Serena's eyes and the nurse was right, you could see the mind at work behind those big dark eyes. Brown, not black as she originally thought. There was an intelligence and sophistication to brown eyes that she had always admired. And the face wasn't the angry, screaming prune she first glimpsed, either; it was indeed rather pretty, with long lashes to match the full head of hair, a tiny heart-shaped nose, and sweet pink lips that curved into a natural pucker.

Serena felt herself being drawn in by the baby's (her baby's) charms and was powerless to stop it. When they brought her back later to nurse, she didn't look away or cringe, even as the little girl latched on and drank deep. The thick sable strands were soft as silk to her fingers as she played with them, watching the baby feed. No devil horns protruding from the scalp, no scales or fangs. After months of preparing for an abomination, she had given birth to perfection.

A perfect blank slate to be made into her image.

So when they asked for a name, Serena gave a longtime favorite of hers, Shakespearean and Old Hollywood—before the likes of Monroe, Mansfield, and Ann-Margaret came along and tarted things up—when women were strong and classy and didn't whore themselves out for attention: Olivia.

Olivia was sophisticated; Olivia was bold and independent; Olivia was twice as smart as any of the men and didn't have to flaunt it. Most importantly, Olivia was hers and she would be whatever Serena told her to be. Her mother's daughter, never taking a man's name to be legitimized or seen as a whole person—Olivia Margaret Benson was already a whole person all on her own.


I am so broken. I don't know what day it is anymore and I can't brush my hair without shaking and crying uncontrollably. The kids look at me like I'm a stranger who frightens them. Amanda makes me take at least two bites of everything whether I want to or not. Last night I dreamed I was breastfeeding all of them—the Kid, the Crier, the Driver, Little Brother, the Sandman, P . . . (I know they have real names, but I can't stand to write them.) My children were starving and I didn't have any milk left for them. By the time the men finished, I was shriveled up like a mummy.

My phone says it's June now. Almost summer break. How am I going to survive this?

. . .

June 3, 2022

I guess each completed rape was to make up for all the almost-rapes that came before. I lost count of how many there have been altogether. What a strange thing not to be able to remember.

Maybe I should ask to see the recording. Everyone else got to watch it—why not me?

. . .

June '22

Everything aches. "Healing nicely," according to doc and dentist, but doesn't feel that way. I still can't pick up Sammie without feeling like I'm being stabbed in the side. I tried nursing her today, but she fussed for Amanda. Probably sensed how on edge I was. I've taken several showers since I got home, and I can still feel them on me. The thought of her putting her mouth where theirs were makes me want to vomit.

I managed breakfast with the kids this morning, though. Coffee and a piece of toast. They acted like I'd just won a triathlon, especially Jesse. She's almost as vigilant as Amanda. It's sweet, but it scares the hell out of me. I can't let them grow up like I did, taking care of their damaged mother. I would rather be dead than put them through that.

Amanda caught me counting Valium a little while ago. I think she's worried I'm going to swallow the whole bottle. She keeps double-checking the wine to make sure I haven't been drinking too. I feel like I'm on suicide watch.

. . .

Why don't you just kill yourself? Serena posed the question to her silent, hollow-eyed reflection, not surprised when it gazed back vacantly and didn't respond. The pathetic bitch was too cowardly and weak to answer her, let alone to take the out that she offered. She had dangled the bait numerous times in the past year, but the woman in the mirror never went for it.

There was her career to think of. She was just getting started with the work she had always wanted to do, poured so much time and effort into, slaved and sweated over vats of smelly, gelatinous cafeteria food for. It was that same devotion—and a late-night walk home from the library—which saw her in this present mess, a single mother to an infant who never stopped needing, wanting, taking, demanding, crying, puking, shitting, and always, always fucking eating. Her nipples were raw and chapped from its gummy, voracious little mouth, reminiscent of the suckers on a parasitic worm. She wanted to stop feeding it altogether, but then the crying would become unbearable. She hated the sound of a squalling baby more than words could express, so it was either nurse or press a pillow over the child's face.

The first time she had thought about killing her daughter outside of the womb, it terrified her. She had almost broken down and gone to confession, a place she vowed never to set foot again after being dragged there on a near weekly basis for years by her devout Catholic mother. "While you're under my roof, young lady, you will go to Mass and confess your sins when I say so, do I make myself clear?" It was that rule that started Serena's propensity for tall tales—she had to have something interesting to tell the priest—and resulted in her mother accusing her of lying about the rape. Nobody believed the boy who cried wolf, and in 1968 upstate New York, no one believed the girl who cried rape. At least in a church she might find some mercy or a sympathetic ear. Maybe even some advice.

Then again, they might strap her to a gurney and lobotomize her for being a nymphomaniac and wanting to commit infanticide.

She had skipped the priest, and once she discovered she wasn't about to be struck down for entertaining thoughts of harming her baby, she began to entertain them more frequently and in greater detail. It should all look like a tragic accident, no way to be linked back to her. A fall from the fourth-story balcony, perhaps, though that would have to wait until the baby was toddling and could feasibly get out a poorly latched door. Accidental overdose on Serena's sleeping pills was a possibility, but also dependent on the child's mobility. An apartment fire would be convenient, as long as she didn't mind the inconvenience of losing the rest of her belongings. A gas leak, a freak drowning in the bathtub, a stray cat come in through the window to steal the baby's milky breath . . .

Those were all just hypotheticals, of course. She could never actually kill her baby girl. Even if she did drive Serena crazy; even if she was willful and intractable, not the malleable little carbon copy Serena had anticipated. Maybe as she got older she would grow easier to love, but for now she was an obligation Serena hadn't asked for. And Serena Grace Benson did not back down from obligations, no matter how they were presented to her.

Suicide remained an option, although she worried—ironically, she knew—what would happen to her daughter if she wasn't there to raise and protect her. Would Olivia get a good education? Would she be adopted by a couple who doted on her, lavished her with love, attention, gifts? Or would the father molest her on the sly, while the mother indoctrinated her with lies and religious mumbo jumbo, making her fear her own "sinful" seven-year-old body?

Like methods of murder, the list of possible ways her daughter could be fucked up was endless. But just as she'd refused to give up her final semesters of college for a rape and unwanted pregnancy, she refused to let anyone else rear her child. The only person who got to fuck Olivia up was Serena herself—she had earned that right with her body and soul.

"Maybe some other time," she told the mirror. Sighing, she collected the Smirnoff bottle and trudged for the living room. Olivia was crying again.

. . .

Crying again. It's all I seem to do now and it happens without warning, regardless of whether or not I want it to. Amanda took me to get my hair cut today, and I cried the entire time. I felt their hands and dicks in my hair, pulling, yanking, ejaculating. I couldn't lie back for the shampoo, so the stylist wetted my hair with a spray bottle and I jumped every time. She probably thought I was a basket case. I guess I am.

I barely looked at the results—can't stand my reflection—just saw an above the shoulder bob. Amanda had a picture from when it was short before. She and the kids keep telling me how great it looks, but it feels strange. Too light. It's like my head is gone, and honestly, there's been such a disconnect between it and my body since I got home, sometimes I have to feel for one or the other to be sure they're both still there.

I'm just so . . . numb.

. . .

I think Amanda is getting sick of me. I don't blame her. I told her to go back to work, but she won't leave me by myself. Not even with the dogs. Gigi has been on high alert for the past couple weeks. The poor thing could probably use a break from me too.

At least I'm not spending all day in bed anymore. I've moved out to the couch. The kids were missing me, Amanda said. She asks me to hold Sammie all the time now, like I'm going to forget how. I know she's just trying to keep me busy and get my mind off of things, but it doesn't help. Is this how my mother felt when I was born? No wonder she wanted nothing to do with me. I love Sammie Grace more than life itself; she is one of the best things that's ever happened to me (my three other loves and sweet Amanda fill out the rest of that list, of course). But it's hard being what she needs—they need—right now. I can't imagine trying to do that for a child you didn't want or love, who reminded you of your assault every time you looked at her.

I'm sorry, Mom. I wish I had helped you heal instead of making it worse. I wish I hadn't come into this world cursed. You should have had the option to abort. It would have saved everyone a lot of heartache in the end.

. . .