A parallel universe

Chapter Twelve

After they brought a girl out on stage El called it in and everyone was arrested, with Liv managing to stay out of Burton's line of sight. Anaya order them all to go home and Liv got out of there before El could talk to her. Olivia now lay in her bed in her pyjamas when the phone in her hand rang out. 
"Hello" Liv answered, bringing her phone up to her ear. 
"Hey Liv" Elliot's gruff voice came down the line.
"Hey" 
"What happened? Where did you go?" 
"I got tired. I missed Noah too" 
"Okay. Are you sure that you're okay?" 
"Yeah El, just tired" She lied. He could always tell when she was lying if they were looking at one another. 
"Okay then, I'll see you tomorrow for the interviews" Her heart stopped for a second. 
"Yeah, see you then" 
"I love you Olivia" 
"I love you El" She muttered before she hung up the phone. Olivia lay back on her bed, looking up at her phone she hit play. 
Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking

Both teams had gathered in the SVU squad room, waiting for the men they'd arrested to be brought up for questioning.  
"Look, before we start the interviews there's something you all should know" Liv announced, silencing everyone "I-"
"Olivia!" Burton yelled across the room as an officer pulled him towards interrogation "Olivia, please you know I wouldn't do this! Please Olivia! You know I didn't rape you!" Elliot was filled with anger in a second, he rounded the table heading for interrogation when Liv stood in front of him, stopping him in his path. 
"Stop" She ordered. 
"He said he raped you!" He bit, his anger still radiating off him.
"He didn't, at least not like that" 
"What, does that mean?!" Her eyes dropped to the ground. 
"Sixteen and twenty one" He started moving but Liv caught his arm again "This is my fight, not yours. It's ending right here, with me, like it should've all those years ago" He nodded. 
"What does sixteen and twenty one mean?" Bruno spoke up, pulling their eyes away from each other. 
"I was sixteen when Burton Lowe groomed me, he was twenty one. I still thought it was love until four years ago" 
"Four years ago" Elliot repeated, remembering what she had said in the hotel room. 
"Tell them what else he did, Liv" Fin told her gently. 
"He raped twenty seven women, most of them had brown hair and brown eyes. All had a mixtape he had given me when we were- when I was a kid. He has a pattern and a motive" 
"What's his motive?" Churlish spoke up. 
"He wants to relive the time before he lost the love of his life, before I broke up with him. Burton Lowe wants to relive my-" She laughed out of anger "It was rape but I didn't fight. I know that now. It was rape because he was fully grown and I wasn't" 
"I'm sorry Liv" Anaya frowned. 
"At least you didn't screw him the day before you found out what he was. At least you didn't always know what he was" She muttered. 
"Liv-"
"Don't try and talk me out of it. I screwed up El. I'm not going to let him get away with it a third time" 
"You want me in there?"
"We both know that you'll beat the crap out of him, if not kill him" 
"Liv-"
"I'll be fine. As much of an asshole as he is he hasn't hurt me yet. I'll be fine" She assured him, earning a nod in response. Liv moved towards the interrogation room door as the others moved towards the two-way mirror. 
"You can back out Liv, you know that" Anaya reminded her. 
"You want a full confession, I'll get you one" Liv reached for the door handle but Anaya stopped her from opening it. 
"That's not what I meant and you know it" 
"He knew that I was hurting and used it to get in my pants, and then he raped twenty seven women just because they reminded him of me. I'm going to get him to confess" Anaya dropped her hand from Liv's wrist and let her push open the door and go inside.  
"Olivia, please talk to them, you know that I wouldn't do this-"
"Burton stop. Just stop"
"Olivia what is this all about?" She threw down the black folder that they had taken from the warehouse.
"Camera's caught you looking at one specific page, one specific underage girl-"
"What? What are you-" Olivia opened the book to the page the camera's caught him looking at, a sixteen year old girl with brown hair and brown eyes.
"She's my replacement"
"Replacement? Why would I need to replace you? Olivia, I don't understand"
"You asked for my forgiveness, for what you had done to me and to those women-"
"They lied. I only ever loved-"
"Stop Burton. Please stop. I know what you did to them, I listened to every single one tell the same story about the blue couch in your office, about the mixtape. The same one that you gave me back when you groomed me"
"Groomed you? I loved you! I still love you-"
"What is my favourite colour?"
"Pink" She shook her head.
"What was my favourite movie?"
"Ghostbusters" She shook her head again.
"What colour were my panties?" She asked but Burton said nothing. Olivia scoffed and turned to leave, she had the door handle in her hand when he replied.
"Pink" he muttered. She released the handle and turned back to him, her tears finally spilling over.
"The only thing you remember is the colour of my panties and my body. Doesn't that feel wrong to you?" She leaned on the table, getting close to him, her tears subsiding for a moment "It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about every time you touched me, every time I enjoyed your touch. I was a kid! I was a little girl who needed her mommy" Burton dropped her eyes "Do you remember the night you proposed? I ran home to tell my mom, I stopped calling you after that. Do you know why I stopped?" He shrugged.
"I figured that she kept us apart" Olivia shook her head.
"No, Burton. The truth kept us apart. I told her that we were engaged and that I was going to marry you and move out and never see her again. And I said it with the biggest smile on my face. And when it was all over she dropped the bottle of vodka she was holding and it shattered all over the floor. She picked up the jagged edge of the bottle and she came at me with it" Her eyes welled again as she avoided his "She was screaming 'I'll never let anyone else have you' and the only thing that saved me was when I kicked her across the room. I ran. When I went back the next day she was more sober than I'd ever seen her, and she looked me in the eye and said 'Burton Lowe is just like your father.' I went to my room and stayed there for two days"
"I'm not-"
"You climbed on top of twenty seven women when they kicked and screamed-"
"You didn't. Not then and not four years ago"
"No, I didn't. Four years ago we had continental sex. But thirty nine years ago when I was of the age where I could consent, I wasn't old enough to consent to sex with an adult, which you were"
"I loved you Olivia"
"No, no you didn't. Love and sex are two very different things. I know because I have had love in my life. I have been loved by three great men, one that loved me even when I couldn't stand him touching me, one that helped me sleep at night and another who is waiting for me to be ready. That is love, love isn't sex, it took me a long time to realise that. Love is joy, compassion, empathy. What we had, that wasn't love. I allowed myself to believe that it was because I didn't know what that looked like then but, now I do. Confess Burton. Write a wrong. You claim to love me-"
"I do love you. I never stopped"
"So do this for me. Confess to it all" He nodded.
"I'll confess. I'll confess to twenty seven rapes and the rape of a minor when she was sixteen"
"Thank you"
"Did you love me?"
"I don't think that I can stop" She admitted, her tears falling freely "You saved me from that house, with her. For an hour at a time I could forget her rape, I could forget the abuse. For a little while I wasn't Olivia the mistake, I was the love of someone's life, and that, knowing that I was worthy of love and of respect, that saved me"
"But it's hurting you now"
"It's been hurting for a while now" She admitted sadly.