'Things Alex Has Learned' One-Shot
Rating: R
Summary: Goes into the part of "had to speak to a counselor" in a roundabout way from 'Insomnia'. Another sad one.
Warning: Mentions rape.
Alex looked to the clock when she heard the door close, 2:27 AM. She sighed in both relief and exasperation.
The case they had earlier that day had been hard for her lover, but she had no idea why. It had not been the most gruesome or hardest case they had ever had, but it had had an obvious affect on Olivia.
When Olivia had not gotten home or returned her calls hours after her work day should have been over, Alex had finally called Elliot to find out if they had caught another case. They hadn’t, he informed her, and casually mentioned that his partner had accompanied Hannah, their twelve year old victim, to the group home she would be staying at since her mother refused to have anything to do with her since she was accusing her mother’s boyfriend of attacking her.
Alex could still remember the look on Olivia’s face when the mother had slapped Hannah and said she would have nothing to do with her until she retracted her lies. Olivia had gone to Hannah’s side immediately as the woman had stormed out of the room. If only for a second, Alex had seen the pain on Olivia’s own face and the distance in her eyes.
She looked to the clock again when she realized Olivia had been home for a while but had yet to come to bed; it was almost three o’clock. She quietly got out of bed and made her way to the living room. There she found Olivia sitting on the couch, her gun and badge on the table in front of her and a glass of scotch in her hand, looking blankly at the black television set.
Alex sat down beside Olivia without her acknowledging her, sitting close but not actually touching. They sat in silence for long moments, Alex studying Olivia and Olivia still staring blankly and holding her scotch, never actually tasting it.
“Elliot said you went with Hannah,” Alex finally whispered, not wanting to disturb the quietness of the apartment. Olivia nodded once curtly and turned her head to look out the window. “Were you there the whole time?” Alex finally asked when no more information was forthcoming.
She noticed Olivia’s hand tighten minutely on her tumbler before she relaxed it and finally brought it to her mouth for a sip. “I went to speak with her mother.”
“And?” Alex finally prodded. She sighed when Olivia ignored her. After dating for nearly a year, her lover was still an enigma to her and trying to get Olivia to talk to was like pulling teeth. Get her talking about music or literature or art or anything she held interests in and she could go on and on, carrying on a highly intelligent conversation. But ask Olivia about herself or anything that may be bothering her, she was very tight-lipped.
“Why is this case bothering you so much?” Alex finally asked in exasperation.
“You don’t know what she’s going through Alex,” Olivia said through gritted teeth.
“She’s not the first child we’ve sent to a group home,” she pointed out gently.
“The first one under these circumstances,” Olivia mumbled as she stood from the couch and moved to stand in front of the window she had continued to stare out of.
Alex stared at her silently before her eyes opened wide in wonder and realization. Months prior Olivia had described to her one of her mother’s one night stands attempting to molest her. Had it happened again? Had Olivia actually been raped when she was older? Had her mother not believed her and sent her to a group home?
With these thoughts whirling through her mind, she nearly missed it when Olivia began speaking softly, her back still to the room. “You have no idea. She’s been placed in a home with the older teen girls. Girls that have been there too long, been through too much. Girls that are looking for someone to take all of their pain and frustrations out on. Hannah will make a perfect target for them; someone younger and weaker and scared, without a friend in the world because her own mother turned her back on her.” She brought the tumbler up to take a large swallow from before whispering again, “You have no idea.”
Alex sat silently trying to determine what exactly she should say. She finally decided on the one thing she knew would get a reaction from Olivia instead of her slamming closed the door she had just cracked open. “No, but you do. Don’t you?”
Alex jumped in surprise when Olivia through her tumbler against the wall beside the window, causing scotch to splash and the glass to break, and spun quickly around. “You’re damn right I do. Haven’t you gotten it yet? The shit we see every day, I’ve seen half of it before and lived through some of it as well. Don’t you understand? I’m damaged goods!” Alex had been surprised to see the vehemence in Olivia’s actions and face when she had begun her tirade, but she was shocked when Olivia began openly crying half way through and to hear her voice break with the last sentence.
Olivia harshly ran her hand across her face muttering, “Christ,” as she made her way to the door. Realizing Olivia meant to leave, Alex quickly jumped up from the couch and pulled Olivia into a tight embrace. Olivia grabbed her hips and tried to push her away, but Alex held on fiercely until Olivia squeezed her hips almost painfully and crushed them into her body before wrapping her arms completely around Alex’s waist and burrowing her head into her neck.
Alex began running her fingers through the hair at the nape of Olivia’s neck, an act she knew calmed her lover. As much as Alex hated to see her lover like this, she was also relishing in it. For the first time in their relationship, she felt needed. She always knew Olivia wanted her, and sometimes she even felt as if she might love her, but she had never actually felt needed before.
They stayed in their silent embrace for so long that Alex would have thought Olivia had fallen asleep except for the tension that always seemed to stay with her lover unless she was sleeping. “Tell me,” Alex whispered as she ran her nose through Olivia’s hair smelling the city, sweat, lavender: Olivia.
“It doesn’t matter,” Olivia said as she pushed away and flopped down to lay on the couch.
“We both know it does,” Alex pushed gently.
Olivia sighed and threw her arm over her eyes before she began talking. “After I was seven and the…incident, mom stopped having so many one night stands. They’d start coming back for a week or a month, and as I got older the longer they stayed. When I was twelve, she was dating a guy, Rick, for quite a while until he finally moved in with us. It was just as Hannah said: the looks, the touches, how he just wanted to be good to me like he was to my mother because I was such a good girl, helped her so much. And one day when I came home from school, he was there instead of work.” She paused and took a deep breath. “After he was through, he pulled me close and mumbled how he knew I would be such a good girl.” Alex couldn’t take her eyes off of her lover and noticed that the shutter that she felt running through her body was making its way through Olivia’s as well. “My mother didn’t get home until the patrols were there to pick him up. She didn’t even come see me, told them right then and there that she wanted nothing to do with me, that I was their problem.” She shrugged awkwardly with her arm still covering her eyes. “So I was placed in a group home, with older teen girls. It didn’t even take a week before a few of them jumped me.” She finally brought her arm down only to bring the other one up and watch as she clinched her fists, knuckles towards her. Not for the first time, Alex noticed that the pinky on her left hand wouldn’t fully bend. “Over the year I was there, I broke every bone in both hands defending myself.” She brought her hand back to her head to rub through her hair over her left ear where Alex knew there was a scar. “I made two trips to the hospital in the first three months I was there.”
Alex stared at her lover. She didn’t know what to say to her. Didn’t know how to comfort her. She moved to kneel on the floor beside the couch and laid her head against Olivia’s stomach. Olivia immediately began running her fingers through her hair. “But she came back for you. You didn’t have to stay there.”
“Yeah,” Olivia said, staring up at the ceiling. “She had tried after just a few months, but the courts ordered her to go to counseling and meetings and classes. It took her a while to get through all of it, but she did.”
Alex moved to snuggled in between Olivia’s side and the back of the couch. Her fingers began making random patterns across Olivia’s shirt clad torso. “You’re not damaged,” she said after a while. “You’re just…” she trailed off not being able to find the words.
“Yeah.” Olivia snorted self-depreciatively. “I’m just.”