BURN
summary — when years of abuse piles up, and you’re face to face with your ex in a familiar manhattan court room, olivia and amanda remain by your side through it all
warning(s) — mentions of sexual assault, discussion of rape and domestic violence, physical abuse, emotional/mental manipulation, trauma, mentions of child abuse/childhood sexual assault, cursing, derogatory names, panic attacks, anxiety, angst/hurt, comfort, soft olivia benson, protective amanda rollins, sonny carisi is my italian baby and what about it, verdict reading, john buchanan warning, men/minors dni
authors note — and we’re back for part two of stay alive (reprise), requested on ao3. once again brought to you by high aura and not proof read/edited
“Can I ask you a question, Councellor?” Your voice carried through the courtroom, catching through the wind and propelling itself through the room until it disintegrated upon contact with the double doors behind Olivia. You’d been up here for an hour. Carisi throwing questions at you that only further stripped you down, left you naked and exposed in front of your decorated squad members. John Buchanan trying to take away your account and rewrite the narrative to fit your girlfriends — ex girlfriend. Olivia had sat beside you when you’d blocked her contact and her mothers — retelling of events, was one of the most humiliating things you’d been forced to endure for ‘justice’, the frustration of it leading you to quick emotions that had every potential to hurt this case. This she said, she said case that never should’ve been anything more than a simple conviction and plea deal.
You’d been willing to drop the assault charges if she just admitted to the rape.
She hadn’t though. You should’ve assumed she’d try to get away with it, even though you were a New York City detective trained to weed out the sexual predators tainting Manhattan. Even though you had Olivia Benson in your corner and she was relentless on a good day. Regardless, she’d looked Dominic Carisi dead in the eyes and denied accountability, instead spinning wild narratives that painted you as the crazy, traumatized, cop in your relationship. She hadn’t even had the maturity to call you a Detective when she’d told everyone in the interrogation room you’d asked her to fuck you till it hurt. You didn’t. You never had. But it felt futile to stand listening in Olivia’s offices and tell Amanda that at the time. She knew it, Olivia knew it, Carisi knew it. You’re sure John Buchanan knew it as he sat beside her with his hands clasped, the only reason your girlfriend could even afford him as her defense is because of your paychecks that you split in thirds and distribute amongst yourself, your savings account, and her. You’d given her everything. All that you had left and had rebuilt after somebody else tore your world apart.
You shifted your gaze to the judge, Elizabeth Donnelly, and she inclined her head just slightly in interest, She nodded her head, affirming that you had her permission to ask the defense a question at all. Buchanan didn’t hesitate to accept once he’d seen Donnelly nod approvingly, always ready to somehow talk himself up, never afraid of what could be at the forefront of a witnesses mind. That would be his downfall one day, even if you failed to bring him down a peg like you aimed to do now.
“Do you enjoy asking your colleagues for help? You just recently went through a lawsuit of your own. Your son. What was that experience like for you?” Your voice was firm, laced with that edge only Olivia could pull from deep within you when she joined you in the interrogation room. You preferred to gain your intelligence through compliance and trust. You were the stations star victim cross whenever it was particularly sensitive. Olivia cherished, assured that you never loss that intent to connect and understand, but she’s knows there’s more to you. She’s found your bark, but she knows there’s bite in you too, it’s just hidden beneath decades of trauma and reopened wounds.
Buchanan blanches at the reminder of his son's trial — it ended with him walking out scott free, but that was not the principle you tried to hone in on — and blinks at you uninterestedly. “Relevance, your honor?” He snapped his gave back to Donnelly, but if there was one thing you had going in this courtroom that felt like a slowly sinking ship with you tethered to the cabin, it was your relationship with the Judge. Elizabeth Donnelly would go as far as she could to stretch your point without tainting the laws of the courtroom. Her fairness would not give or gain, she’s never sacrifice your trial in such a way, but that meant her patience for this case was through the room. She’s scrape over once sentence of evidence a day if it meant sending you out with the verdict you deserved.
You are a New York City Detective, a prized addition to the police force. The favor is in you, but the jury is a wildcard. You hold your breath at the thought of the jury.
“Move it along, detective.” She instructed pointedly, her firm gaze trailing to look at you. There was only support in her eyes, shining brightly like the sun. With every day, you think it gets easier to handle this, but then you remember what this is, and it breaks you down from the inside again.
“It’s just a question, Counsellor. Did you enjoy having to ask your buddies for a favor?” Buchanan sighed, because evidently you were not going to be shut down by Donnelly who raised an eyebrow in the same curiosity. It was an odd question, one that hardly anybody thought to ask. Why were you asking? Buchanan couldn’t figure it out, and you know that infuriates him more than anything.
“I suppose it did, Ms. Y/L/N.” He refused to call you detective, refused to acknowledge that you amongst the group of people that got this city out of shit and scandals. In some way, you’re sure your devotion to the force has touched his families. This city is big, but its so small. You can’t fathom how he sees any case as a stomping ground, any person as collateral, any victim as a liar until he’s walking away without a win and only a paycheck from his client.
“Detective.” You seethed, unable to stand it anymore. Carisi had told you to let his taunts fall off of your shoulders, he’d warned you that Buchanan plays mind games, that he’s ruthless and looking for bloodied hands, and you’d known that. For an hour, you’d let him call you whatever he wanted, kept your composure when he’d tried to insist you liked kinky rough sex because you’re a lesbian and that’s the only way you can get off. He’d made you out to sound like a vile person, not even a detective, because it was like admitting you were that title gave his case something it didn’t already have. The minute he acknowledged your role, the jury was swayed in your favor. You’d pieced that together, but it didn’t make sense to you right now. Winning this case didn’t make sense to you. You just wanted someone to believe that it happened again. You wanted him to believe, because right now, he’s the loudest opposing force and your heart cant handle living another four decades knowing theres an egotistical man out there siding with your rapist because of a paycheck. It makes you feel dirty. Dirtier than you already felt. “I am a Detective. A special victims detective beneath Sergeant Benson. And that is the only thing I have ever wanted to be since the first time I was raped at twelve-yeas-oldold by my mother’s husband. So, Counsellor, this is not how I want to spend my Wednesday. There are people out there who could use my help, because they don’t have another way out. The last thing I want to do, is be unmade on this stand like I don’t stand in front of teh barrel of a gun and with pedophiles every day just to make sure your granddaughter, doesn’t end up like me. Your client, she raped me. Just like she bashed my head into the fireplace we hung stockings on last December. Just like she threw a wine glass at my head because after I made her dinner after removing a seven year old from her abusive hours ago, I was tired and forgot to do the dishes she left scattered around the apartment — my apartment. The one that I pay for, that I signed the lease to, that I pay every utility bill for with my job as a Detective. That was not a reason for her to rape me. Maybe I like rough sex, maybe i’ve never even considered it, you are not at liberty to prod into my sexual fantasies and shame me for the hypothetical of it all. If you think rough, consensual sex leads to your body being stitched together by a nurse because you were so overlooked in the entire thing — used as nothing more than an object — than I worry for you, Counsellor. Her assault left me with third degree teas, rough sex does not lead to three stitches because she raped me so brutaly I had third degree tears. Do you know the force it takes to tear the perineal area all the way down to the anal sphincter muscle. Oh, you grimaced Counselor, was that to much information for you?”
“That’s enough, Ms. Y/L/N.” He tried to concede, to wave you off and shut you up like he’d been doing since Carisi stepped down, but you couldn’t. Not when you were finally speaking your mind. Judge Donnelly didn’t look bothered by your outburst, infact, you think you might even notice a sheen of pride glazing over her typically set and forced eyes. You cant look out into the audience. You can’t find Amanda and Olivia because Fin sits between them, and Kat sits off to the side. You can’t look down at Carisi, because you know he’s looking at you the way he looks at Bella in the pictures of them as kids. If you look at them you break, you lose the spark of anger that’s fueling you to finally, finally defend yourself against her.
“It’s Detective!” Your voice is shrill, and you're vaguely aware of how your throat vibrates with the force of your correction. “I will not sit up here and be unmade any farther by you! Or you! You, who rebuilt everything that had been broken after I went through this the first time, who came to therapy with me when it felt suffocating to remember that at twelve, i’d lost the one thing I was meant to decide to give away when I was ready. You and your words flooded my senses! Your defenses and your excuses and your apologies left me defenseless, and I’m trying so hard — so goddamn hard — to see what I did at the start, to see how I used to loved you, but I never loved you. I loved the narrative you painted in my head with blood. I loved the way you held me after you beat me because nobody had ever apologized for hurting me before. I can’t do it anymore! You raped me! You beat me! For years! You fed me clorophil because you thought it’s as clorophorm and you wanted to fuck me while I was unconscious. Even though you know that’s what he did! Even though you know he’d choke me out and then do whatever he wanted. I’m done! Your lies are transparent. They’re evident in everything you say. You told me you were a paranoid liar, and you should be! You should be! You raped me! Your biggest fear is being abandoned, and I tried for so long to never let it come to me walking away first, but I’m done. I’m erasing myself from the narrative you’ve spun, fed to anyone who will listen, forced down my thraot until I started questioning if I had it wrong. I don’t. I never did. You nearly crushed my windpipe. You bruised both of my knees. I needed twenty-three stitches between everything you caused. You forfeited any right to my heart, my life, my bed, when you decided I was just something you could manipulate.” You seethed, eyes directed at your ex, the woman you would’ve given the world to when you’d been drowned in her blue sorrow. The water had looked so beautiful from up high, you didn’t know how deadly it would be.
Her eyes flamed with rage, a look you’d seen a million times. “You stupid bitch! All you’re fucking good for is a cheap fuck. You’re damaged goods! You’re lucky that I wanted you at all! You let your step-father fuck you, you really think any of these insufferable morons would believe that I raped you? You’re crazy! Everyone knows that getting raped twice basically means you were asking for it!”
“Judge!” Carisi and Buchanan raised at the same time, but you didn’t even realize that she’d admitted it, that you’d gotten too deep into her head, into her traumas, that her anger had unleashed the truth you’d been so ferociously trying to unmuddle.
“I hope that you burn.” You spat, shaking your head, standing up from the stand, no longer willing to be everyone’s entertainment for the afternoon. You’d need to return, they’d need to read the verdict, but for now, you were done. You couldn’t sit in that room for another minute.
You found the bathroom in a haze, moving on autopilot as you entirely bypassed Olivia who tried to reach out for your hand before you could flea. You don’t recognize anything as you weave through people in the courthouse, somehow finding the bathroom but you think that’s solely because it’s never been moved in the years that you’ve dedicated your life to law enforcement in Manhattan. The beige and grey scenery didn’t help, only forcing you to feel like you were spiraling farther and farther from the current moment. You couldn’t decide if the grey stall doors looked so dark because they were, or if your vision was swimming with dark spots as you held your breath desperately. If you let it out, if you exhaled everything that had been weighing on your chest, you think you’d die. It would crush you, smother you, drown you in the pain of constantly loving and being hurt. At every phase of life, you’d been shown that you’re nothing but disposable and dispensable.
The bathroom door pushes open, blonde hair and caramel highlights cutting through your vision in the reflection of the mirror. You couldn’t look at yourself. Your eyes had been fluttering to everything else. You don’t know if anyone else noticed that toilet paper in the third stall, a red heart drawn onto the first hanging square, but your eyes had locked onto it, unwilling to move away and be forced to submit to Olivia’s affection. She’d drown you. She’d break you. She couldn’t. You had to get back in there. This wasn’t over yet. It felt like it was never going to be over.
”I can’t breathe.” The words don’t sound like your own, nor do you recognize your mouth moving at all. You don't know when holding your breath became not being able to breathe, but as you try to draw in a gulp of air, everything gets caught in your throat and a desperate sob stumbled out, hoarse and utterly devastating. “I don’t— I can’t—“ Your hands grab at your throat, at the skin that’s not even begun to heal from when her hand had wrapped around it unforgivingly. Your nails claw at the bruised skin, something that should’ve made you wince, but the dull ache of pain was diluted by the panic circling your eyes like sharks in the water.
“Alright, alright, hey,” Amanda concedes, whatever praise she was ready to bestow upon you pocketed for a time when you weren’t turning purple beneath your own hands. Her touch pulled yours away from your neck, and every nerve in your biceps flexed with burning pain as you fought against the nurturing guidance. “No, no, hey, don’t fight me. It’s Amanda. Just Amanda, only Amanda.”
“I can’t breathe!” You sobbed, finally recognizing her blue eyes, accepting their comfort even when it felt like sandpaper being rubbed directly against the healing laceration on your forehead.
“What are the ten amendments?” Amanda asked, grabbing your cheeks, only when she was certain the unexpected touch wouldn’t send you right back into the pits of unreachable panic. She couldn’t help you if all you could hear was the heartbeat in your chest, nor could she guide you when your vision was clouded with blood and darkness. But, she was pulling you down, letting your feet find the ground at a pace that wouldn’t entirely unravel you.
Benson inched up beside you, her hand waving over the automatic paper towel dispenser. You flinched at the sound it made, almost certain if you closed your eyes you’d see shattering glass. You’d never thought they’d sounded alike before, but you cant mistake the harmonized pitch of the dispenser and shattering glass. Water runnings breaks that train of thought, and your mind can barely grasp onto Amanda’s question, but it tries.
“F-Freedom of religion, speech, press, um, I-I don’t know!” You tried to explain, but Amanda shook her head, her hands on your cheeks pulling your gaze back to her, not letting you subconsciously worry about whatever Benson was busy doing at the sink.
“Freedom of religion, speech, press, and what else? What’s the rest of the first amendment?” Amanda’s thumbs brushed against the tear tracks on your cheeks. You hadn’t worn makeup, no energy to spare on the task, and you’re grateful. You would’ve looked even worse than you do now with mascara running down your cheeks like rivers.
“Um, petition and assembly.” You couched, craning your neck to miss Amanda’s face. You felt like a child, your face snotty and damp, your hand now covered in a cough that had sent a deep pang through your tired heart. Amanda didn’t bristle in the slightest, only let her lips twitch slightly. Coughing was good, it meant you were getting air in. The purple sheen was beginning to twinge, flush with peach tones again.
“How about the second?” She asked, and this time, the answer was at the top of your head quicker. The fog was clearing slowly, disappearing into the back of your head for later on when it was more appropriate to cry on the shoulder of your Captain and partner.
“The right to keep and bear arms.” You mumbled, sniffling, reaching up to wipe at your nose that was tickled with dripping wetness. You didn’t have a chance to make contact with your bruises and battered skin, Olivia’s hand grabbing yours and pulling it back, her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth as she inched toward you with a damp paper towel. Oh, so that’s what she was doing.
Rollins guided you through the remainder of the ten amendments, all while Olivia dragged the paper towel over your tears and nose, and assured that your rage hadn’t pulled any of the stitches in your face. Their coddling did eventually clear your mind as much as it could’ve, and when Amanda realized that your eyes were actively tracking hers, reacting to the inflection in her tone, she smiled.
“You did good in there.” She praised, and you figured that’s what she’d been dying to say all along. Now, you could nod, could begin to process what you’d done. You stood up to her, to him, to everyone who had ever thought less of you because of the circumstances you’d been forced into. You’d never yelled at someone like that before. Not unless it was a heated interrogation and not even iced tea from your favorite bodega could save your mood.
“I knew you could bite.” Olivia chimed in, and you offered a soft chuckle at her admission. You hadn’t laughed in a while, Amanda and Olivia would take that as a minor win. Suddenly, Bensons arms gripped your biceps, not a single hesitation in her features. You’d lashed out at them multiple times in the last few days, unable to help whenever a flashback randomly came over you, or something snapped and you remembered how it felt to not have a choice in contact. They’d both learned to be cautious, to be gentle and slow. But she didn’t do that now, and you didn’t even realize that you didn’t flinch. “You took your power back.” WHen she jostled you slowly, your head bobbing, not expecting the quick motion of your chest while your feet remained stationary, it dawned on you fully.
You’d finally let yourself accept what had happened, what had been done to you, and you cursed them out for it. You’d let them know it hurt you, even if your step-father wasn’t around to hear the message, something inside of you know that he got it — that he was suffering, wherever it was he found himself now. Your ex, with whatever verdict was found, would suffer with the weigh too her actions because you know that this will eat her up inside. Maybe not what she did, you can’t speak to her guilt or lack-there-of, you hope that with time she’ll realize, but if not, you know that just the simple fact of you besting her in open court will live with her eternally. You can find peace with that if its the only justice you get.
You stiffened when the door creaked open again, but then Sonny’s blue eyes found yours and you relaxed. Your chest panged with guilt at the red rim in his eyes. “The jury’s back. I can ask Donnelly for another five.” He said softly, looking only at you.
You shook your head, your shoulders falling backwards. Even if you didn’t want to do this anymore, more than ready to call it a night in Jesse’s bed while the toddler sleeps between Amanda and Carisi, but you can pretend that your walls are made of steel for another twenty minutes or so. You could see this through. You have the power, even if it still doesn’t feel like you wanted it to. “I’m ready.”
“I never doubted that for a second, kid.” Carisi nodded, turning around and marching back to the courthouse. You sighed, turned toward the mirror, and let Olivia fix your hair whilst Rollins gave you another pep talk, probably the seventh one you’ve received in the last four days. Even if you didn’t love it; didn’t love that they had to be in this position with you, you adored the sentiment behind her steady and unrelentless support.
In any other circumstance, you would’ve shouted after Carisi not to call you kid, but he’d been the one to wake you up that morning when he’d heard you tossing and turning, sobbing in your sleep so loud it trigged the baby monitor that him and Amanda had turned off seeing as Jesse was in their room on the nights you felt like Noah needed Olivia’s attention more than you needed a place to crash. The nightmares didnt happen often, if you were able to fall asleep, usually it was peaceful (albeit short) but whenever they did, someone came running, usually with a gun in hand. Amanda laughed at the trauma they all carried, but you were too deep in the tidal wave to laugh. Either way, it felt wrong to protest the nickname when Carisi had caught you with your head squishing one of Jesses beloved stuffed animals.
You stood beside Carisi, facing Elizabeth Donnelly. Olivia and Amanda sat beside you, both of their hands clutching the wooden banister separating your anxious bodies. “Has the jury reached a verdict?” Donnelly asked, and your gaze shifted, only just looking at the jury for teh first time. You hadn’t realized how they looked at you with such conflicted emotion, but not the ones you’d anticipated. Not disbelief, not disgust, not…amusement. They looked at you with pity, but teh kind of pity that came when you heard something truly devastating. The kind of pity that didn’t feel sinful, just heavy, because you know its deserved, you know nothing you can say will change the fact that terrible things happened. But, there was something else in their eyes, something that you couldn’t name, but felt empowered by. Without a single word, you knew the verdict, and your heart soared.
“We have, your honor.” A man stood, and it dawned on you that this was real, and suddenly that certainty dwindled. He extended a page of verdicts, watching it be passed along until Donnelly held it. You held your breath, only until Sonny’s leather loafer nudged your kitten heel, his eyes ablaze with protectiveness. You exhaled slowly, and your sure that somewhere behind you Amanda is staring holes into the back of his head, proud and in love with his care and consideration.
When the paper is passed back, you know that its time. That it's now or never. “On the charge of assault in the first degree, what is your verdict?”
You held your breath, but the words were spoken anyways. Carisi didn’t nudge you this time, he held his breath with you until both of your braids could process the single word utterance; guilty.
“And on the charge of rape in the first degree, what is your verdict?” Donnelly asked, her tone clipped, and if you weren’t so absorbed in hearing the verdict yourself, you’d have thought she was just as anxiously anticipating the call, the seal of your abusers fate.
“Guilty.”
You don’t recognize the wailing of your assaulter as she’s cuffed and dragged out of the courtroom. You don’t process the weight of Carisi’s hand clapping against your back, or the defeated look of John Buchanan as he shook his head and dipped out of the room — a piece of him knowing he never questioned you in the first place, but at the end of the day this was his job. You sobbed, loudly, ugly, unabashedly, and then you weren’t crying alone. Arms wrapped around your waist, around your torso, they squeezed your rib cage, your belly, any part of you they could touch. Somebody’s chest trapped Carisi’s hand to your chest, somebody’s tight embrace pulled you into the banister until you were flush against it. You didn’t care. It was over. You won. Everyone knows, but also, everyone knows. It was your story or it was hers, and you’d won. She’d never be able to say you were dramatic. You had your justice, even if there was still a wild road of recovery ahead of you. You weren’t alone. You hadn’t been alone this entire time.
”You did it.” Benson’s voice whispered in your head, her lips pressing against the side of your head in a fond kiss. You let your eyes close, let the sobs stop. You did it. You won.
