Redemption - 16/? [PG currently]
Title - Redemption
Fandom - Guiding Light
Pairing - Olivia/Natalia
Warnings and/or Spoilers - No spoilers. This is an AU (Alternative Universe) story, so while some stuff is the same... other things will be quite different. There are drugs. There is cursing. There will be other hard topics coming soon.
Summary - Olivia Spencer is falling apart and takes an undercover case in order to ignore her pain. But along with drugs and crooked cops and an unexpected ally, she finds a reason to finally heal and live again. Multi-chapter thing.
Rating - PG currently, hard-R in later chapters
Natalia didn’t see the kitchen, spotless and tidy. She didn’t knock on Rafe’s door, no matter the old habit wanting to kick in and just forgive. She ignored that familiar impulse and went straight to her room.
She didn’t taste the toothpaste. She couldn’t feel the fabric of her nightgown on her skin.
The pillow isn’t too hard or too soft or too anything.
She lies down and stares at the ceiling, hoping the wood and plaster will divulge some kind of wisdom.
And she looks past the physical, up into the clouds and watches the heavens for God.
She wants to hear the explanation, wants the path to be illuminated and then the destination would be seen. No more guessing. No more worrying. No more hidden longings or untruthful hearts.
Natalia Rivera believes in God and in good and bad and punishment and grace.
But the church didn’t hold sway over her like it did when she was young and alone.
She has allowed it to drift from constant to infrequent.
But her faith never wavered.
Her belief is tried and true, even now… even in her bed, in the dark, while her son serves penance by her silence and while friends duck their heads for her wrath and.. and even…
And even while I lay here, fingers reaching out for something I don’t even know… for someone I don’t even know… Oh God, is this when you take me apart bit by bit? Is this my judgment to carry?
Natalia didn’t want to kiss Olivia. She wanted to run away from the woman, run away from more deceit.
And she wanted to run away from Olivia’s words - those admissions of what is real and what Natalia has felt building for days now, a connection between the two of them.
Even as she burned with anger, Natalia heated up with wanting.
‘”I wouldn’t mind kissing you again…”’
It hit Natalia’s ears and echoed inside her body, rolled around dangerously, and then she was propelled forward by it. As if she had no way to stop it, as if it was inevitable.
As if I had to. As if I needed to. As if this was the final piece to this great big puzzle in my soul. The last piece, the hardest piece… the one that fits and does not fit all at the same time.
And they were kissing.
Natalia found her lips devouring Olivia’s mouth, just barely resisting the urge to lap the woman up… just barely resisting the ache to pull Olivia closer…
But I had to stop. I had to get away. I couldn’t feel this way, not about this woman, not about this person I don’t even know ,not about the one who put my son in more danger, not about a liar.
One heartbeat to start her. And another to make her pull away. Until it was pounding in her head and Natalia fled the night and Olivia.
She walked home. She didn’t look at the kitchen. She didn’t absolve anyone tonight.
Certainly not myself.
And she falls into an uneasy sleep, filled with dark wood and lit candles.
And these dreams are filled with God’s laughter, a mocking reminder of how little Natalia truly knows about anything.
/ / /
Rafe didn’t want to be here, in a car with Olivia Spencer and Frank Cooper.
He wanted to be home. He wanted to run back to his mother and beg her to forgive him.
But her silent walk back into their place in the late night told a story that Rafe couldn’t dismiss.
This is the angriest I’ve ever seen her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make this right… I just seem to fuck it up.
However, when it came down to it, the sooner he could finish helping the police - the sooner he could be back on the right side of the law. And the sooner he could show his mother that he was doing the right thing.
No more pot. No more deals. Just school and work and home. And then she will get it. I’ll make her see what is going on and she will understand.
“I’m not talking for my own sake, Rafe.”
Olivia’s voice is sharp and cold, shaking him out of his thoughts. He shoots her a look, trying to gauge her current mood.
Somewhere between ‘don’t give a fuck’ and ‘I might like to beat you senseless’.
He wonders if Olivia found his mother and got her to come home. He wonders why he just knew that Olivia would go looking for his mother. And he wonders, not for the first time, what the hell was going on with the two of them.
Seriously, it is like she is into my mom.
Rafe knows his face must be a real oddity, because he can feel his eyebrows dropping down - making him look suspicious and curious simultaneously.
Olivia stares at him and then shakes her head, opening the car door roughly and stepping outside.
“Rafe, c’mon, what are you doing?”
“Huh?”
Frank’s voice is a shock, dragging the boy from deep thought to the present.
“What do you make of her?” Rafe asks.
And Frank sighs a little.
“She’s a fellow officer and I respect her.”
“Wow, did you practice that or something?”
Rafe grins and runs a hand through his hair, watching as Olivia paces outside.
“So, what did I miss?”
“She wants you to get more deals, speed things up.”
“They might not go for that.”
“Well, right now it is the only option. Olivia is convinced there is an inside contact for Maldonado’s men and she wants to find the link quick.”
“Yea. She wants things done quickly all the time.”
They watch her then, study her and gather assumptions. But Rafe knows that he has no clue who Olivia Spencer really is. Neither does Frank. No one knows this woman.
Except, maybe… maybe…
The door slams and Olivia starts the car.
“You ready to work?” She asks and keeps her eyes forward.
And Rafe just nods ‘yes’.
They drive down the road and Rafe forces his gaze to stay ahead.
But he wants to figure Olivia out, to know what is true and what is false… before his mother gets pulled further in to… whatever is really going on.
The streets are quiet and the car creeps to a stop, allowing Rafe to slip out without making a sound. He jogs down a block or two, finding the club’s back entrance.
He is let in, once they pat him down.
They gather the takings and divvy out his share. They pass him another baggie of coke and Rafe clears his throat.
Several pairs of eyes lock onto him and the boy can’t stop the slow swallow of nervousness.
“Think I could handle more, you know. Better for all of us.”
One of the guys, Juan, comes over to him and leans toward Rafe’s face.
“You don’t need to think, eh?”
A couple of Maldonado’s men chuckle at this, going back to their work of counting bills and measuring white powder.
Juan pats Rafe’s shoulder, hard, and goes back to the other guys.
“What about the corners of Macon and Weston?”
Rafe forces the question out of his mouth, the rest of his body very reluctant to push any of these men.
Juan turns back toward him and his face is very annoyed.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
“You got some kind of problem with being quiet? Want me to fix that for you?” Juan asks loudly.
Rafe shakes his head no, catching the mixture of glaring and blankness on the faces of every other guy there. He can hear the muted sound of bass and drums from the club, trying to push its way past brick walls. And a door opens to the back of the room, jerking Rafe’s eyes toward the movement.
“ Look at me, you fucking-“
“Juan.”
A voice speaks up and everyone seems to go back to work, except for Juan. He just steps back and continues to promise Rafe’s painful death with his eyes.
Rafe visibly stumbles backwards, his knees weak and her stomach lurching, threatening him with the possibility of puking.
Calm down, just calm down… you’re alive, you’re alive and okay…
A man walks over to him, giving him the once over in a manner that didn’t speak of really caring and then did the same with Juan.
“What’s going on?”
“He is talking too much.”
“Are you talking too much?” The man asks Rafe and the boy jerks his attention fully to this guy in the suit.
“Just wanting to make more cash for myself and Maldonado.”
The man turns his back on Juan and studies Rafe in earnest now.
“So, done with selling weed, Rafe? Ready to own the world?”
Fuck, who is this guy?
“Speak up or I’ll cut your tongue out.”
Rafe freezes at that and feels a kind of desperate swirling in his gut, telling him that he pushed his luck and now he is going to die.
But then the man laughs and the rest of the men in the room laugh too.
And that is when Rafe Rivera realizes several things all at once.
I should have just gone to jail. These guys are fucking crazy.
And this has to be Antonio Maldonado, standing right here, kingpin of the streets and the one guy I don’t want to mess with.
But Rafe has to or all of this is for nothing. So, he smiles a little and keeps his head down. The man snaps his fingers before Rafe’s eyes.
“What do you want?”
“Money.”
“You do business on streets we don’t, so maybe we could cut you a bigger deal in exchange?”
“Only if Maldonado approves. Don’t want to piss him off.”
The man laughs again and rests his hand on Rafe’s shoulder.
“Maldonado approves.”
/ / /
Olivia stays in the car with Frank and they don’t talk.
And I am more than okay with that.
Olivia can barely focus on things anyway, so conversation with Detective Cooper would be even more futile than usual. She makes the rounds with her eyes - first her watch, then the street, then the streetlamp to the right and then repeat.
She tries to erase the last two hours, the walk to the gazebo and the truth spilling out and of Natalia kissing her. She tries to wipe it from her conscious mind.
But it isn’t working. In fact, those two hours just become more prominent in Olivia’s brain.
Great. Just great. I mean… why did she kiss me if she can’t stand me? Why did I tell her the truth when it would have been better, no, simpler and safer to just shut the fuck up?
“What did that steering wheel do to you?”
Olivia glares at Frank, but removes her hands from the steering wheel anyway, her palms red with unwitting effort.
“Why don’t you keep your eyes on the street, okay?”
“Why should I? You can’t stop looking over there every five seconds.”
“Something wrong with that?”
“No. But I don’t need to do the same thing.”
“Fine. Don’t watch me then.”
“I wasn’t watching you. I was trying to save the rental car from you.”
Olivia turns around fully now, actually glad for a distraction from the film-loop of images in her head involving Natalia Rivera and lips and flashlights.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“Uhh, well-“
“No, it’s okay. Just admit it. You are upset because they called in someone else to do your job.”
“You are not doing my job. You are assisting in an investigation.”
“You say potato and I say bullshit.”
“What?”
“I’d feel the same way, too. I mean, I deal in some pretty hard cases and if they sent you over there to help me out - I’d feel insulted.”
Instead of responding, Frank gets out of the car and stomps around.
Oh, Spencer, you’ve still got the touch.
Rafe and Frank return at the same time, one of them still sullen… Detective Cooper, you are so sensitive… and one of them chatting up a storm.
Rafe practically shouts for Olivia to drive and so the woman throws the car into gear, speeding off into the night.
“So?” Olivia prompts.
“Yea, got it. Fuck, I thought they were going to kill me. And I didn’t have a thing to protect myself. That’s got to change, okay? That has got to change!”
“Stop freaking out. You got more cocaine?”
“I said yes!”
“Rafe, just breathe.” Frank pipes up from the back and the boy seems to listen.
Sure. Don’t listen to me or anything. I tell him to calm down and he flips out more. But Cooper back there says ‘breathe’ and the whole world inhales.
“What happened, Rafe?” Frank asks and Olivia rolls her eyes.
This is payback, isn’t it? I give the guy a hard time and now I have to listen to him take the lead. Fine. I’ve already had to suck it up once tonight in some damn gazebo, I can do it again.
Olivia tunes in to pertinent information, like Maldonado showing up and this fellow named Juan. She decides to run a check on Juan in the morning.
But then it is just the two of them chattering and Olivia feels her eye twitch some.
Okay… I need to calm down. I am getting really worked up and I know it isn’t about this. This is really fucking wrong on so many levels.
But she can’t stop it now, even though it is making her temper shorter by the minute.
She got too close to someone... Natalia... and she told them everything and now… now Olivia Spencer has to wait it out.
And she isn’t good at being patient.
Not at all.
And that damn small voice, the one who made her talk in the first place and dragged her into Natalia's orbit... it keeps saying that this person, this Natalia Rivera... she just might be worth waiting for.
/ / /
Fandom - Guiding Light
Pairing - Olivia/Natalia
Warnings and/or Spoilers - No spoilers. This is an AU (Alternative Universe) story, so while some stuff is the same... other things will be quite different. There are drugs. There is cursing. There will be other hard topics coming soon.
Summary - Olivia Spencer is falling apart and takes an undercover case in order to ignore her pain. But along with drugs and crooked cops and an unexpected ally, she finds a reason to finally heal and live again. Multi-chapter thing.
Rating - PG currently, hard-R in later chapters
Natalia didn’t see the kitchen, spotless and tidy. She didn’t knock on Rafe’s door, no matter the old habit wanting to kick in and just forgive. She ignored that familiar impulse and went straight to her room.
She didn’t taste the toothpaste. She couldn’t feel the fabric of her nightgown on her skin.
The pillow isn’t too hard or too soft or too anything.
She lies down and stares at the ceiling, hoping the wood and plaster will divulge some kind of wisdom.
And she looks past the physical, up into the clouds and watches the heavens for God.
She wants to hear the explanation, wants the path to be illuminated and then the destination would be seen. No more guessing. No more worrying. No more hidden longings or untruthful hearts.
Natalia Rivera believes in God and in good and bad and punishment and grace.
But the church didn’t hold sway over her like it did when she was young and alone.
She has allowed it to drift from constant to infrequent.
But her faith never wavered.
Her belief is tried and true, even now… even in her bed, in the dark, while her son serves penance by her silence and while friends duck their heads for her wrath and.. and even…
And even while I lay here, fingers reaching out for something I don’t even know… for someone I don’t even know… Oh God, is this when you take me apart bit by bit? Is this my judgment to carry?
Natalia didn’t want to kiss Olivia. She wanted to run away from the woman, run away from more deceit.
And she wanted to run away from Olivia’s words - those admissions of what is real and what Natalia has felt building for days now, a connection between the two of them.
Even as she burned with anger, Natalia heated up with wanting.
‘”I wouldn’t mind kissing you again…”’
It hit Natalia’s ears and echoed inside her body, rolled around dangerously, and then she was propelled forward by it. As if she had no way to stop it, as if it was inevitable.
As if I had to. As if I needed to. As if this was the final piece to this great big puzzle in my soul. The last piece, the hardest piece… the one that fits and does not fit all at the same time.
And they were kissing.
Natalia found her lips devouring Olivia’s mouth, just barely resisting the urge to lap the woman up… just barely resisting the ache to pull Olivia closer…
But I had to stop. I had to get away. I couldn’t feel this way, not about this woman, not about this person I don’t even know ,not about the one who put my son in more danger, not about a liar.
One heartbeat to start her. And another to make her pull away. Until it was pounding in her head and Natalia fled the night and Olivia.
She walked home. She didn’t look at the kitchen. She didn’t absolve anyone tonight.
Certainly not myself.
And she falls into an uneasy sleep, filled with dark wood and lit candles.
And these dreams are filled with God’s laughter, a mocking reminder of how little Natalia truly knows about anything.
/ / /
Rafe didn’t want to be here, in a car with Olivia Spencer and Frank Cooper.
He wanted to be home. He wanted to run back to his mother and beg her to forgive him.
But her silent walk back into their place in the late night told a story that Rafe couldn’t dismiss.
This is the angriest I’ve ever seen her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make this right… I just seem to fuck it up.
However, when it came down to it, the sooner he could finish helping the police - the sooner he could be back on the right side of the law. And the sooner he could show his mother that he was doing the right thing.
No more pot. No more deals. Just school and work and home. And then she will get it. I’ll make her see what is going on and she will understand.
“I’m not talking for my own sake, Rafe.”
Olivia’s voice is sharp and cold, shaking him out of his thoughts. He shoots her a look, trying to gauge her current mood.
Somewhere between ‘don’t give a fuck’ and ‘I might like to beat you senseless’.
He wonders if Olivia found his mother and got her to come home. He wonders why he just knew that Olivia would go looking for his mother. And he wonders, not for the first time, what the hell was going on with the two of them.
Seriously, it is like she is into my mom.
Rafe knows his face must be a real oddity, because he can feel his eyebrows dropping down - making him look suspicious and curious simultaneously.
Olivia stares at him and then shakes her head, opening the car door roughly and stepping outside.
“Rafe, c’mon, what are you doing?”
“Huh?”
Frank’s voice is a shock, dragging the boy from deep thought to the present.
“What do you make of her?” Rafe asks.
And Frank sighs a little.
“She’s a fellow officer and I respect her.”
“Wow, did you practice that or something?”
Rafe grins and runs a hand through his hair, watching as Olivia paces outside.
“So, what did I miss?”
“She wants you to get more deals, speed things up.”
“They might not go for that.”
“Well, right now it is the only option. Olivia is convinced there is an inside contact for Maldonado’s men and she wants to find the link quick.”
“Yea. She wants things done quickly all the time.”
They watch her then, study her and gather assumptions. But Rafe knows that he has no clue who Olivia Spencer really is. Neither does Frank. No one knows this woman.
Except, maybe… maybe…
The door slams and Olivia starts the car.
“You ready to work?” She asks and keeps her eyes forward.
And Rafe just nods ‘yes’.
They drive down the road and Rafe forces his gaze to stay ahead.
But he wants to figure Olivia out, to know what is true and what is false… before his mother gets pulled further in to… whatever is really going on.
The streets are quiet and the car creeps to a stop, allowing Rafe to slip out without making a sound. He jogs down a block or two, finding the club’s back entrance.
He is let in, once they pat him down.
They gather the takings and divvy out his share. They pass him another baggie of coke and Rafe clears his throat.
Several pairs of eyes lock onto him and the boy can’t stop the slow swallow of nervousness.
“Think I could handle more, you know. Better for all of us.”
One of the guys, Juan, comes over to him and leans toward Rafe’s face.
“You don’t need to think, eh?”
A couple of Maldonado’s men chuckle at this, going back to their work of counting bills and measuring white powder.
Juan pats Rafe’s shoulder, hard, and goes back to the other guys.
“What about the corners of Macon and Weston?”
Rafe forces the question out of his mouth, the rest of his body very reluctant to push any of these men.
Juan turns back toward him and his face is very annoyed.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
“You got some kind of problem with being quiet? Want me to fix that for you?” Juan asks loudly.
Rafe shakes his head no, catching the mixture of glaring and blankness on the faces of every other guy there. He can hear the muted sound of bass and drums from the club, trying to push its way past brick walls. And a door opens to the back of the room, jerking Rafe’s eyes toward the movement.
“ Look at me, you fucking-“
“Juan.”
A voice speaks up and everyone seems to go back to work, except for Juan. He just steps back and continues to promise Rafe’s painful death with his eyes.
Rafe visibly stumbles backwards, his knees weak and her stomach lurching, threatening him with the possibility of puking.
Calm down, just calm down… you’re alive, you’re alive and okay…
A man walks over to him, giving him the once over in a manner that didn’t speak of really caring and then did the same with Juan.
“What’s going on?”
“He is talking too much.”
“Are you talking too much?” The man asks Rafe and the boy jerks his attention fully to this guy in the suit.
“Just wanting to make more cash for myself and Maldonado.”
The man turns his back on Juan and studies Rafe in earnest now.
“So, done with selling weed, Rafe? Ready to own the world?”
Fuck, who is this guy?
“Speak up or I’ll cut your tongue out.”
Rafe freezes at that and feels a kind of desperate swirling in his gut, telling him that he pushed his luck and now he is going to die.
But then the man laughs and the rest of the men in the room laugh too.
And that is when Rafe Rivera realizes several things all at once.
I should have just gone to jail. These guys are fucking crazy.
And this has to be Antonio Maldonado, standing right here, kingpin of the streets and the one guy I don’t want to mess with.
But Rafe has to or all of this is for nothing. So, he smiles a little and keeps his head down. The man snaps his fingers before Rafe’s eyes.
“What do you want?”
“Money.”
“You do business on streets we don’t, so maybe we could cut you a bigger deal in exchange?”
“Only if Maldonado approves. Don’t want to piss him off.”
The man laughs again and rests his hand on Rafe’s shoulder.
“Maldonado approves.”
/ / /
Olivia stays in the car with Frank and they don’t talk.
And I am more than okay with that.
Olivia can barely focus on things anyway, so conversation with Detective Cooper would be even more futile than usual. She makes the rounds with her eyes - first her watch, then the street, then the streetlamp to the right and then repeat.
She tries to erase the last two hours, the walk to the gazebo and the truth spilling out and of Natalia kissing her. She tries to wipe it from her conscious mind.
But it isn’t working. In fact, those two hours just become more prominent in Olivia’s brain.
Great. Just great. I mean… why did she kiss me if she can’t stand me? Why did I tell her the truth when it would have been better, no, simpler and safer to just shut the fuck up?
“What did that steering wheel do to you?”
Olivia glares at Frank, but removes her hands from the steering wheel anyway, her palms red with unwitting effort.
“Why don’t you keep your eyes on the street, okay?”
“Why should I? You can’t stop looking over there every five seconds.”
“Something wrong with that?”
“No. But I don’t need to do the same thing.”
“Fine. Don’t watch me then.”
“I wasn’t watching you. I was trying to save the rental car from you.”
Olivia turns around fully now, actually glad for a distraction from the film-loop of images in her head involving Natalia Rivera and lips and flashlights.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“Uhh, well-“
“No, it’s okay. Just admit it. You are upset because they called in someone else to do your job.”
“You are not doing my job. You are assisting in an investigation.”
“You say potato and I say bullshit.”
“What?”
“I’d feel the same way, too. I mean, I deal in some pretty hard cases and if they sent you over there to help me out - I’d feel insulted.”
Instead of responding, Frank gets out of the car and stomps around.
Oh, Spencer, you’ve still got the touch.
Rafe and Frank return at the same time, one of them still sullen… Detective Cooper, you are so sensitive… and one of them chatting up a storm.
Rafe practically shouts for Olivia to drive and so the woman throws the car into gear, speeding off into the night.
“So?” Olivia prompts.
“Yea, got it. Fuck, I thought they were going to kill me. And I didn’t have a thing to protect myself. That’s got to change, okay? That has got to change!”
“Stop freaking out. You got more cocaine?”
“I said yes!”
“Rafe, just breathe.” Frank pipes up from the back and the boy seems to listen.
Sure. Don’t listen to me or anything. I tell him to calm down and he flips out more. But Cooper back there says ‘breathe’ and the whole world inhales.
“What happened, Rafe?” Frank asks and Olivia rolls her eyes.
This is payback, isn’t it? I give the guy a hard time and now I have to listen to him take the lead. Fine. I’ve already had to suck it up once tonight in some damn gazebo, I can do it again.
Olivia tunes in to pertinent information, like Maldonado showing up and this fellow named Juan. She decides to run a check on Juan in the morning.
But then it is just the two of them chattering and Olivia feels her eye twitch some.
Okay… I need to calm down. I am getting really worked up and I know it isn’t about this. This is really fucking wrong on so many levels.
But she can’t stop it now, even though it is making her temper shorter by the minute.
She got too close to someone... Natalia... and she told them everything and now… now Olivia Spencer has to wait it out.
And she isn’t good at being patient.
Not at all.
And that damn small voice, the one who made her talk in the first place and dragged her into Natalia's orbit... it keeps saying that this person, this Natalia Rivera... she just might be worth waiting for.
/ / /