When the Silence Breaks
Fandom: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Category: Pre-slash
Archive: Sure, but ask first.
Feedback: Yes, thanks
Pairing: Casey/Olivia
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season 5 "Loss" et al. If you don't know who Casey Novak is there's not much in it for you.
Disclaimers: Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and its characters belong to Dick Wolf et al. No infringement on any copyright is intended and no profit is being made.
Notes: Sequel to "Faced with the Spectre"
The silence wore on her at first. When she arrived home the first thing she planned was a drink. Not that she had expected a drive of near-silence, of artificial distance maintained in the small space of the car, but neither of them seemed able to speak.
She had tried the weather at first, the falling snow, the people determined that it was going to be the blizzard of the century out on the streets, the joys of winter in New York but got only yes or no, no indication of real interest. As she drove, her passenger seemed to curl herself against the door of the car, not fetal but close, dripping from the snow melting in the car's heat.
She had seen other co-workers outside of the office, often unexpectedly but never so far outside of their usual persona. That in itself may have been the compulsion, the way the image of her body moving replayed itself over and over in her mind at unexpected and often inconvenient moments, as it had when she blurted out her reply. She was caught, her voice spoke before her mind could impose itself. Questions in courtrooms are best asked and answered quickly and she fell into that habit even when not on the witness stand. Yet it was not a trial for her. She could think of the movement of her dancing and be compelled, curious and not suffer.
Suddenly though those seemingly innocent thoughts had sprung out into the world and had ramifications, and she forced herself to question why she replayed those images, when if they had been of a woman she didn't know they would have likely been forgotten. This left her mind drifting toward new questions and toward answers like that of how her comment had exposed them both.
Her presence in the bar would merit an explanation somehow and she was uncertain of which version of herself to give. Reluctant to lay herself bare, she empathised with the woman who seemed to be in a similar position and found herself unwilling to speak now as well, content to simply drive, slow and stop when necessary, knowing that when the silence broke she too would have to explain.
Next in the Series
