Chapter Text
That night, Olivia couldn’t sleep.
Noah had decided to sleep over and that meant she was alone in her house, and she couldn’t help but feel vulnerable.
The few moments where she achieved even a second of sleep, he was there.
She hadn’t even thought about him for so long, and now he was consuming all her moments; awake and asleep.
She wondered how she’d been able to forget him; in that moment, she’d been paralyzed by fear. For months of her life, he entirely consumed her every thought. Then, at some point, she’d just forgotten.
Maybe it’d been Lewis, maybe it’d been something else, but somewhere along the way, he’d slipped her mind. She could never entirely say that he’d been forgotten – she could never really forget what happened that day, and it would haunt her forever – but the memories had been tucked away in the depths of her mind, covered by time and new memories.
Until now.
It felt like her world had crumbled around her, while she just stood there, rooted to the spot where she resided.
How had it already been 20 years?
She could still recall that fateful evening in her mind as though it were merely yesterday.
Stepping up from her bed and taking the short commute over to her bathroom, she placed her feet down beside the sink and stared at the woman, who stared back from the ornately framed mirror which looked rather out of place in such an atypically decorated bathroom. The brown eyes she saw appeared so tired, but in the way of tiredness which sleep alone cannot fix. Her brown hair was now much longer and darker than it had been back then, and her face was now blanketed by wrinkles, a telltale sign of her steady aging, but she could still see the young detective who had become a victim to him, down in that basement all those years ago.
She could even see the ghost of a long since faded bruise which had previously shielded over the left side of her face, and when she went to run her fingers gently over the area, she felt a stinging, as if she still felt the battle wound from so long ago.
No matter how much makeup she smothered over the area, she could still see it. As clear as day, sat right there, taunting her with its explicitness. She knew it was phantasmagoric, but she still wanted it gone. It was there, ridiculing her with the fact that he couldn’t leave her head; when 24 hours ago, she had been fine, undaunted by what she would soon learn about his presence, which had now been out of prison for nearly a full day.
The fact that nothing had happened yet did not settle her racing thoughts – she knew that he would’ve been stupid to do anything so soon after his release, because of the immense risk of it being tied back to him.
No, she knew he’d wait.
How long was the real question. Not shorter than a week, but other than that, it could equally be in 10 days or 10 years. Or never.
But she was too doubtful to just assume that he would not come for her.
She also decided that everyone can find out on their own – no information leaked would come from her aptly moisturized lips. Because, if they found out from her, they’d assume that she was now under paralysis from fear and would need constant supervision. While their assumptions about her levels of paralysis since discovering this information would be entirely correct, she couldn’t handle the smothering she would gain from telling them.
Especially Amanda and Finn, the two she’d known longest and her best friends. Finn had been there back then, too. He’d know where her thoughts were going, and oh my did she hate being read so clearly.
So, when the clock in her hall chimed for 6 am, she got ready for work, Pheobe Bridgers playing in the background, knowing that she’d have to feign being completely fine.
Arriving at work an hour later, she had caked makeup over her undereye in a feeble attempt to hide the missed hours of sleep.
Her tiredness was so apparent, but not something that five cups of bad precinct coffee couldn’t fix.
Walking up to the coffee machine, she saw Curry standing there, engaged in conversation with Bruno.
Curry approached, “Hey Liv, how are you this morning?”
“I’m good, thank you,” she lied, internally screaming that she was mid breakdown, but she kept quiet about it, “how about you?” She added. The simple exchange of basic pleasantries oddly calmed her.
“I’m good,” Curry said, beaming so brightly that Olivia wondered if she’d ever been that happy, “I baked muffins last night, they’re just next to the coffee, please help yourself.” She then turned back to Bruno, carrying on the conversation they were engaged in.
As she looked at the delicious looking muffins, she realized she couldn’t remember when she had last eaten. But although the muffins looked so incredibly appealing, Olivia knew that she wouldn't be able to keep one down today. So, she just grabbed her coffee and retreated into her office to resume the mountains of paperwork which she had spent hours doing yesterday yet seemed to not have diminished in the slightest.
She loved being a cop, but the paperwork seemed never ending, especially since she’d become the team leader.
Then, Finn came in - they had a new case. A girl, late teens had just come into the precinct, alleging that a stranger had raped her.
Her description of the stranger was lacking – she claimed that he had grabbed her from behind and raped her from behind too, so that she never saw his face.
Olivia heard the story and stopped in her tracks; this was too eerily similar to the story which had been nearly the exact same story as Ashley Tyler had given when she came in 30 years ago. And this girl looked eerily similar to her.
Maybe it was someone else though. I mean how many victims have alleged that very same thing before – hundreds. It could not be him.
But it didn’t stop Liv from spiraling silently, without outwardly showing that anything adverse was happening. That was until she fainted while leaving the briefing room.
When she regained consciousness, Finn was sat next to her, paramedics rushing around her body.
“How long was I out for?” Olivia asked, too tired and confused to hide her concern.
“Not long, but long enough for us to be concerned, you're lucky the paramedics were already here to take the vic to the hospital,” he responded, shaking his head slowly. “What happened, Liv? Something’s clearly wrong...” he trailed off.
“I’m fine Finn, I just haven’t eaten anything in a while,” she said.
“Liv,” Finn whispered, in a tone which conveyed his disappointment, “why won’t you let me help?”
“Finn, it’s nothing,” she demanded, regaining her composure.
“Okay, but I’m taking you out for a meal right now.”
“What, Finn, that’s...”
“If you even think of saying unnecessary,” he threatened, “you just said you hadn’t eaten, so we need to rectify that.”
He looked at her face and quickly added, “you can pick where, if it matters that much to you.”
Ten minutes later, they were sitting at a diner around the corner from the precinct, each nursing a milkshake, waiting for their food to come.
“I’m going to the toilet,” Olivia announced, getting up.
She walked to the bathroom, still maintaining the perfect composure she’d been holding in public since finding out he was out. When she sat on the toilet, she didn’t need the toilet, just needed a place to sit and gather her thoughts for a minute.
She actually fainted.
That was a surprisingly glaring manifestation of her mental state right now.
She considered telling Finn about what was going on, but she thought he’d just overreact.
After regaining her composure, she walked back into the main room, only to suddenly stop dead.
Casey sat there, opposite Finn talking to him, and the look on his face was one of horror, but also understanding, and it was obvious what that meant.
He knew.
He knows.
It was so strange seeing Casey after all these years; her hair was back to its natural and vibrant red, and her wrinkles were more noticeable now, but she was still very much the same person.
Liv began to retreat to the bathroom, so she could climb out of the window or something, anything to get her out of the fast-approaching conversation, but Casey spotted her before she could get very far.
“Olivia,” she yelled, although not very loudly, “I needed to talk to you.”
The way Finn was looking at her made it so obvious that he knew, an idea which was reaffirmed when she walked over by the tone with which he said her name.
“Liv.”