A/N: Last chapter. Trigger warnings still apply. Thanks for reading.

I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

- "Take Me to Church," Hozier

Chapter 3: Amen, Amen, Amen

. . .

The captain began to writhe, and by the time Amanda realized what was happening and withdrew her hand, Olivia had reached absolute panic. She wrestled uselessly with the bulky nylon knots, only succeeding in cinching them tighter. The way she wrenched her arms around, Amanda feared she would reinjure her shoulder. Why hadn't they considered that beforehand?

"Get these things off me," she pleaded, genuine terror in her wide brown eyes. Her feet pedaled on either side of Amanda, heels digging into the bed covers, but finding no purchase. "I need them off. Now."

Amanda crawled up her girlfriend's thrashing body to grab at the ties, trying to find the bight among the various loops she had made minutes earlier. "I know, baby, I'm tryin'. You gotta hold still." She located an excess bit of stocking, and praying it was the right end, pulled. Nothing. Fuck! "Hold still, Liv. Almost got it."

That had been a flat-out lie, but when she gave the bight another mighty tug, it suddenly loosened and the entire sock unwound from Olivia's wrist like a shriveling vine. "Hang on. Let me," Amanda said, reaching across to the other restraint Olivia clawed at. That one came undone with a single yank, and all at once, the captain was free and squirming out from under Amanda to slam herself back against the headboard, at the farthest corner of the bed.

She drew her knees up under her skirt and hugged them, huddling into a tight ball. Her feet poked out from under the skirt, one resting atop the other, the pantyhose seams crooked across her toes. She was trembling so badly it shook the mattress on Amanda's end.

"What's wrong?" Amanda asked, reaching out her hand, but immediately drawing back when Olivia shied from it. She knew her captain had just experienced a panic attack or flashback of some kind, and she shouldn't take it personally; nevertheless, it stung a little to be rejected. "Was I too rough? Did I hurt ya?"

For several moments, Olivia wouldn't speak. Almost didn't seem able to. She scrubbed her mouth back and forth against her knee compulsively, then dug her top teeth into it hard enough to leave a mark. "No," she said thinly, and took a breath as if there were more to add. Only, it didn't come. Her eyes were out of focus, staring at something in the middle distance.

"Did I go too fast? Was it because I ripped your pantyhose?" Amanda inwardly cursed herself for that bit of inspiration. It had seemed sexy as hell when she was caught up in the moment, but now, with Olivia literally cowering from her, it felt insensitive—monstrous, even. Fleetingly, she recalled her own tattered blouse from the encounter with Patton. It had no buttons, so he'd torn it right up the middle. Later, she'd burned it and the rest of her clothes from that night in a wastebasket in her kitchen, setting off every smoke alarm in the apartment.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn'ta done that to you, darlin'," she said, shaking her head at her own stupidity. This whole thing was a bad idea from the get-go, and she had known it. She should have trusted her instincts, but she'd tuned them out, telling herself Olivia was a grown woman who knew what she wanted. If the captain was ready to explore some new sexual territory, who was Amanda to say no?

Or . . .

Or had Amanda just been so eager for sex, she'd ignored all the warning signs on purpose? She had gotten turned on seeing Olivia vulnerable and there for the taking. Her taking. For a second, before she knew something was wrong, she had even enjoyed watching Olivia struggle against the stockings.

"Shit, Liv." She wrung her hands anxiously in her lap. She didn't know what to do with herself if she wasn't holding the other woman or offering some sort of comforting touch. Maybe it wasn't only Olivia who craved their physical contact after all. "I'm so damn sorry."

"Stop." Olivia shook her head, but she reached a hand over for Amanda to take, without moving from her spot in the corner and without unfurling from a hard, protective little ball. When their hands were joined, stretched across the bed like lovers parting in a movie—fate taking the couple in opposite, far-flung directions—Olivia held on so tightly it hurt. "This isn't your fault. It's me. I thought . . . I thought I could take it."

Amanda turned towards her, sitting cross-legged with an elbow on one knee. She leaned in, closing some more of the distance. "Take it? What does that mean? Take being tied up?"

A sickened expression passed over Olivia's features, and Amanda considered grabbing the ice bucket or the wastebasket from the bathroom. There was nothing weak about the captain except, on occasion, her stomach. But she had Amanda in a death grip, and she looked more heartsick than nauseated.

"Yeah," she said dully, her eyes brimming with tears. She didn't let them fall, though. She'd done a lot less crying lately, which had seemed like a good thing. Like progress. "I thought enough time had gone by. That I could do it without thinking of . . . them."

Them. Amanda didn't need to ask who they were. Olivia's ghosts had long since become her ghosts as well. Most days it was fine; it felt good to walk ahead, wielding the torch and battling back the demons that ran rampant in the darkest corners of Olivia's mind. It felt noble and brave and made it easier for Amanda to forget about her own problems—those specters she had once called chief and daddy.

But she'd failed horribly at protecting Olivia this time. Worse yet, she had become the one Olivia needed protection from. Maybe she should have grabbed a puke bucket after all. For herself.

"Why would you think you had to?" she asked, a brittleness in her tone she hadn't expected. That was never a good sign. She should just stop talking Right Fucking Now. "Who the hell said you needed to 'take' anything?"

Olivia noticed the change too, her watery gaze flickering over to Amanda with uncertainty and more than a little shame. "No one said I had to," she practically whispered, her voice getting lost in the folds of the skirt draped over her knees. She turned her cheek against it, an imploring look in her dark eyes. "I just . . . wanted to. For you. And for me. To prove that I could."

It was difficult for Amanda to be angry, with Olivia peering up at her like that, so fragile and in need of reassurance. Difficult, but not impossible. "Don't. Don't you put this on me." She released the captain's hand, pulling free when it didn't let go of hers. She got to her feet at the far side of the bed, needing some distance. If she could see Olivia shaking, or feel the mattress shuddering beneath her, she'd never finish saying her piece. (But God, wouldn't it have been better if she hadn't?) "I didn't ask for this. It was your idea. And for what, Liv? To see how far I'd go? To hurt yourself and use me to do it? Jesus, that's so—"

She had almost used her old standby, the word she relied on when she was irrationally angry or upset and making a scene—stupid. It was a weak, childish word, and one she hated to hear coming out of her own mouth. It was the kind of thing her father used to scream while he beat the shit out of her mother. And after that look on Olivia's face when Amanda had let the word slip during their argument about food a couple weeks ago, she had vowed to never use it again.

"Is this like the not eating thing?" she asked with a heavy sigh. When she got no response, just a forlorn and grievously wounded expression from the woman she loved most in the world
(please god I want to stop)
she gave another exasperated huff and let her hands slap against her thighs. "Are you trying to retraumatize yourself? Or hell, retraumatize both of us?"

"What?" Olivia stared at her, aghast. Her bottom lip and chin were quivering uncontrollably and the teardrops were collecting on her bottom lashes, poised to fall. She wasn't going to win this fight.

Normally, it would have been enough to stop Amanda cold and send her straight to Olivia's side, remorseful and apologetic. But now it made her angrier. She hadn't been so enraged since that day at the courthouse, waiting to testify in the Pearl woman's trial for murder. She'd wanted to annihilate anyone who got in her way that day, reducing them to a pile of ash with her words—and if she hadn't exercised every last ounce of self-control, her fists.

The bitch of it was, she hadn't even known exactly why she was so mad. She certainly didn't give a shit about some bastard who psychologically terrorized his wife, cop or not; and she should have sympathized with the wife, she knew that. But once she'd started down that path, taking up for the dead husband who was most likely an abusive prick, there had been no turning back. That was what her anger felt like now. A runaway train, and Amanda was just along for the ride.

"You bring me to a hotel room to sleep with my boss. You tell me to tie you up and fuck you." She paced back and forth, counting the grievances off on her fingers as she listed them. "You wait till I'm inside you to . . ."

Olivia began to weep openly, the tears coursing down her cheeks in silence, her eyes following every one of Amanda's big, impassioned gestures. She didn't look frightened. In fact, she looked resigned, as if she had known this day would come. As if she was used to being yelled at by a raging lunatic.

"Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?" Amanda halted in place, arms out expectantly at her sides, waiting for an answer she didn't really think would come. She wouldn't answer herself if the tables were turned.

"No," Olivia said sadly, her voice steadier than it should have been, considering how much she was crying. She did take a few hitching breaths before she could continue, and she finally emerged from her tight little cocoon, extending both legs with stiff, careful movements. "I don't know how it makes you feel. I don't know how anything makes you feel, Amanda, because you never tell me. And if I ask, you either shut me out or you bite my head off. Or both."

"Well." Amanda had no defense against that one, mainly because it was true. So, she did the next best thing—she bit. "I'll tell you how that made me feel," she said, jabbing a finger at the stockings that still dangled like pathetic, limp cocks from the bed frame. "That made me feel like a goddamn rapist."

An eternity seemed to pass while they processed what she had said. Amanda didn't even know if it was true or not. It didn't matter, though. Once she saw the look on Olivia's face, she knew there was no taking it back. She didn't recall ever seeing such an expression on her captain's face before—until now, she thought she had memorized every detail of those lovely features by heart—and she hoped to never see it there again. Olivia looked like she had just been gutted with a rusty steak knife.

She looked crushed beyond repair.

And when she cast herself face down on the bed, sobbing into her open palms and apologizing over and over again, Amanda feared she had done just that—crushed every bit of progress Olivia had made towards putting herself back together after Calvin and Amelia, after Orion. And destroyed whatever love she had for Amanda, whatever trust. Amanda had hurled mean words just as ruthlessly as her daddy hurled his fists, and with the same results. Maybe no broken bones, but definitely a shattered heart.

She went to Olivia then, crawling up beside her on the bed and practically lifting her under the arms like a child to pull her into a fierce embrace. When the captain was sobbing against her chest instead of the bed covers, Amanda pressed rough kisses into her dark hair, brushing the long strands down her back with firm, repetitive strokes. "Shh, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that," she said, choking on the lump of emotion lodged in her throat like a hot coal. "I'm so sorry, Liv. I swear to God, I didn't mean it."

"Then why did you say it?" Olivia asked, barely intelligible over the crying. She seldom fell apart, but when she did, it was the same way she did everything else—with her entire heart and soul. If she had taken a breath in the past several moments, Amanda hadn't heard it. "I would never . . . I c-couldn't . . . "

Whatever Olivia was trying to put into words didn't come, but Amanda got the gist: she would never intentionally put either of them in this position; she couldn't have known how horribly wrong the game would go. She could never hurt Amanda like that on purpose.

"I know, darlin'. I'm just— I'm just a dumbass, okay?" Amanda tried to lean back and nudge Olivia's chin up for a look in her eyes, but the captain wasn't having it. She kept her head down stubbornly, wetting the front of Amanda's blazer with her tears, the lapels clutched in her fists. "I get upset and say whatever crazy thing pops into my head first, you know that. It's my worst quality, and I hate it. I was just scared. Thought I hurt you, and I'd rather die than do something like that."

"Don't say that." Olivia was still crying, her back quaking with deep, bone-rattling tremors and erratic breathing, but she had a little more control over her voice now. She had finally inhaled.

"It's true. If I thought for one minute I reminded you of any of those fuckers who hurt you—"

"You don't. It wasn't you. I can't— not being able to move my hands . . . " Olivia released the lapels and flexed her fingers several times, as if they had gone numb and she was restoring blood flow. "It just took me right back there. And being called a good girl, a nice—" She stopped short, shuddering in Amanda's embrace.

Amanda had to strain to hear the conclusion, which was something softer than a whisper, something as ephemeral as a sigh: "Lewis called me that. A nice girl. And Harris said I was a good girl when he put himself . . . "

Olivia touched her lips tentatively, unable to finish. She looked to Amanda now, fingers pressed to her mouth, eyes pleading for a reprieve from the rest of the story; from repeating the horrible truth she'd spoken aloud one late night, all those months ago, when she couldn't hold it in any longer without self-destructing. She had seemed so much better since then. Or was that just wishful thinking?

"When he raped you," Amanda supplied in her gentlest tone. At the same time, her arms tightened instinctually around the captain, as if she could somehow protect her from the violation this long after the fact. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, nodding almost imperceptibly.

So, Amanda had reminded her of those scumbag rapists after all. And it didn't matter how inadvertently it had come about, or how many precautions she had taken against it, she'd still hurt Olivia in a way that felt irrevocable and insurmountable. Perhaps she hadn't spoken completely out of turn with the comment about feeling like a rapist. But was it really necessary to hit Olivia with that when she was already down and utterly defenseless?

Just because a jugular was exposed didn't mean Amanda should sink her teeth into it.

"I'm so sorry." She didn't know what else to say. (Funny, she could think of all the right words to make it hurt the most, but never the right ones to help soothe the pain.) It took a moment for her to realize why her vision was suddenly blurry. Feebly, she pressed her forehead to Olivia's and let the teardrops fall. "I didn't know. I swear to God, Liv, I didn't know."

Olivia removed the hand from her own lips and covered Amanda's, fingers just barely making contact with skin. "You couldn't have. It's my fault. I should have told you, but I— I didn't know, either. Not until I heard it. Not until I felt . . . " She opened her eyes and slid her palm over to Amanda's cheek, her other hand joining on the opposite side, to swipe the tears away with her thumbs. "Do I really make you think of him? Patton."

She whispered the name so softly it was almost pretty. Like the lyrics of a sad old song. Amanda reached up to cradle Olivia's face in her hands, mirroring her captain. She gave the tiniest, tenderest of shakes, for a moment reminded of the fire and brimstone preachers during prayer service, the laying on of hands. But it passed quickly, and she looked Olivia directly in the eye, unashamed of the tears. "Absolutely not. Do you hear me? He's a sick fuck who abused his power and took advantage of women so he'd have someplace to stick his shriveled little dick after his wife got tired of it. That is not what you do. Ever. And that is not what happened here."

"But the hotel—"

"Has nothing to do with it. It's four walls and nothing more." Well, that was a lie and not a very good one, but up until now she had believed it to be true. Just as she had believed Olivia knew her own limitations well enough to go along with this horrendously bad idea. "Can I ask why you picked a hotel, instead of staying at home, though?"

Easing back a little, Olivia swiped under her nose with the heel of her palm and gazed around the room slowly. She studied everything but the headboard. That, she refused to acknowledge. "I thought it would be better if we were out of the apartment, where the kids could walk in. After that night in the living room— you know . . . Jo and Maggie?"

Amanda nodded. She would never forget that night, role-playing Detective Jo Rollins, the tough-talking and unscrupulous P. I. who couldn't wait to bed the tall, brunette seductress Marguerite, otherwise known as Maggie. Otherwise known as Olivia Margaret Benson. It had been the most fun and quite possibly the hottest sex Amanda ever had. It had been for Olivia, too—hadn't it?

Practically reading Amanda's mind, Olivia said, "That was perfect and so amazing."

"But?"

"But later, when I thought about Jesse wandering in and what she might have seen, what any of the kids could have seen . . . " Olivia blanched and gave a shake of her mussed brown hair. She looked almost more ashamed now than she had during Amanda's tantrum. "It reminded me of walking in on my mom servicing that guy when I was a kid. How much that affected me. I don't want that to happen to our kids."

As Amanda was about to point out that seeing their mothers, who loved each other fiercely and passionately, expressing that love in a healthy, positive way would be far less detrimental to a child than witnessing their drunken mother giving a blowjob to a complete stranger—and then being physically abused by said mother—Olivia added vaguely, "And it brought up some other things."

"Other things?" Amanda prompted, sweeping a lock of hair behind Olivia's ear to get a better look at her downturned face. She suspended her fingertips lightly under the captain's chin, but let Olivia be the one who decided whether or not to make eye contact. It took several moments, several false starts before her gaze finally drifted upwards.

"The way I got off. On your thigh." Olivia bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, and Amanda couldn't help but wonder how often that had been her only defense, the only means of escape from the horrors unfolding around her. Unfolding on (or in) her body. "It's the same thing Amelia did to me. I used you like she used me, for my own perverted—"

"Hey, no. You listen here." Amanda settled her palms on Olivia's shoulders and shook her head adamantly. "That is not the same. You didn't use me for anything. I was one hundred percent on board with that. Baby, I love makin' you feel good. Hell, sometimes I think I like getting you off more than I like getting off myself. And there's nothing wrong with how you did it. You go right ahead and do whatever feels best to you, 'cause you know I'm game."

"That's just it," Olivia said pointedly, then faltered almost at once. She worried her bottom lip this time, as if fearful of what it might say next. She looked even younger and more vulnerable when she did that. "You're always so . . . ready. So free. And that's not a criticism, I love that about you. But sex is more complicated for me. Sometimes I can't— sometimes I can't let go like that. And I'm just so afraid . . . "

Tears were swimming in Olivia's eyes again, and the rest of the sentence seemed to have caught somewhere in her throat. Amanda stroked her hair encouragingly and, with the patient tone she used when one of the kids had trouble articulating strong emotions, asked, "Afraid of what, darlin'?"

"I'm afraid I'll lose you." Olivia let the tears fall in earnest, making no attempt to hold them back or hide her face. She seldom looked anyone directly in the eye while she cried, even Amanda. "I'm afraid you'll get bored if I can't keep up with you. I wouldn't blame you if you did. You deserve someone who's not so— not this—" She made a small, helpless gesture, and lowered her head to weep as despairingly as an abandoned child. "God, I'm still just so broken."

The sorrow that gripped Amanda's heart was so profound, she nearly gasped in pain. She guided Olivia's head onto her shoulder, shushing and petting and feeling utterly useless to ease the other woman's suffering. This went much deeper than fear of losing a relationship, or being triggered by a sex game gone wrong. If Amanda were still a betting woman, she'd put good money on this being an issue that stemmed from Olivia's childhood—the idea her mother had instilled in her that she was unlovable, unwanted, and tainted since birth. No, even before that. Since conception. Olivia had said it herself: she was worried her experience at ten years old had shaped her entire view of sex and violence. But it went further back than that, to the way she came into the world. Only to be reinforced time after time during adulthood. Only to be thrown back in her face and berated for by her damn girlfriend. Why the hell hadn't Amanda just kept her stupid trap shut?

"Aw, Liv. Is that what's been eatin' at you all this time? Worrying I'm going to get bored or something?" Amanda pressed her lips to Olivia's nodding forehead and left them there long after the kiss ended. "That's never gonna happen. I do like sex. Love it, even. But I love you more. You're what makes the sex so damn good in the first place, darlin'. Getting to be that close to you, share that intimacy—it actually means something to me now. And if you told me that you never wanted to do it again, well . . . I'd be disappointed for sure, but I'd learn to live with it. So long as I got to be with you."

"Really?" Olivia sounded simultaneously doubtful and hopeful.

Without a moment's hesitation, Amanda said, "Yep." It would be more complicated than that, of course, and they both knew it. But she believed wholeheartedly that it was true. She would do whatever it took to be with Olivia Benson. Her captain. Her city girl. "You're more important to me than a few minutes of fun in the sack. If you need to slow things down for a while or . . . altogether—"

"I'm not saying that."

Oh, praise the Lord, Amanda thought, but managed not to breathe a sigh of relief. She could abstain from sex only so long before she started to get grouchy and mean. Too long, and she turned to much unhealthier outlets to slake her appetite. She didn't want to find out what she would turn to if her hunger for Olivia went unnourished.

"I like sex too," Olivia said, her tone charmingly frank as she peered up through long eyelashes. Amanda couldn't resist another kiss to the forehead. "A lot. And with you . . . it's the best it's ever been. I guess I just want to be able to try different things and keep it interesting." She cast a wary look beyond Amanda's shoulder, which blocked her view of the headboard and the dead stockings. "But some things, I— I can't."

The admission sounded as foreign to Amanda's ears as it did coming from Olivia's lips. But it felt momentous somehow. Like a step in the right direction. Or at least Amanda hoped so.

"And you know what?" She relaxed the arm that held Olivia up, letting her settle back far enough to gaze into her pretty face. "That's totally okay. We don't have to try everything. Some stuff . . . "

Outside, Amanda only struggled for a moment to find the proper wording; inside, it seemed like forever. "Some stuff just ain't gonna be good. For either of us," she finally said, cringing inwardly at the stilted delivery. (She wondered if there would ever be a time any reference to Patton, no matter how indirect, didn't make her skin crawl. It had been ten years, for Christ's sake.) "And I don't want you doing things that don't feel right to you anymore, ya hear? No more trying to 'take it.' I'm plenty interested, without all that Twenty-Five Acts crap. Just . . . talk to me next time, Liv. Tell me what you're feeling before we get to this point."

"Will you do the same?" Olivia asked, absent the least bit of guile or rebuke. It was a simple question, in search of a simple answer. A deserved answer. "I need to know how you're feeling sometimes, too."

It was stated so delicately it almost sounded like an apology. Amanda squeezed Olivia tight, praying she could follow through when she replied, "Yeah, I will. I promise."

"Do you want to go home?" Olivia asked a while later, when they were exchanging contagious yawns instead of conversation.

"Nah. We're all paid up for the night. Let's stay."

Olivia hesitated as she watched Amanda untying one of the stockings from the headboard. After a moment, she joined in, freeing the mate and wadding it up with the other. She rolled the ball around in her hands a few times, then abruptly pitched it out of sight. "Are you sure? We can try to get a refund. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"I'm not." Amanda thought it over after she said it, relieved to find it was true. Four walls and nothing more. No damask bedspread, no Jack Daniels. Nothing but the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, who had chosen her—needed her—for some reason unbeknownst to Amanda. "Let's stay. I just wanna lie here and hold you for a while. Can we do that?"

"Yes."

When Olivia began to undress, Amanda placed a hand on her arm, stopping her as she was about to lift the silk blouse over her head.

"You don't have to," Amanda said, though her heartbeat fluttered wildly in her chest, like a burst of winged things upon release—butterflies or doves. Pretty, untamed things. It always did that when Olivia took off her clothes; she had a feeling it always would.

"I know. I want to." A soft smile graced Olivia's lips and she swept the blouse up and over, spilling her long locks around her bare shoulders so artfully it could have been practiced. "Besides, these pantyhose are disgusting. I feel like haggis."

Following the captain's lead, Amanda unbuttoned her blazer and shrugged it off. She hadn't worn a blouse underneath, just her whitest and laciest bra. It probably looked ridiculous with her fake pearls and high-waisted pants, but Olivia eyed her with an ever-widening grin. "Daphne would be disappointed she didn't think of that comparison first," Amanda said, her own gaze roving as Olivia unzipped her skirt at the waistband, worked it down her hips and thighs, and gave it an expert kick aside with one shapely foot. "Being part Scottish and all."

"She's part Scottish?" Olivia tilted her head, regarding Amanda thoughtfully as the blue twill pants came off, revealing the lacy white panties underneath. They were the most godly-looking underwear Amanda had been able to find among the pile stuffed into her dresser drawer, but they still didn't entirely cover her ass cheeks. "Well, that explains a lot."

"Yeah. How about we forget that Tyler broad for the time bein'," Amanda suggested, voice trailing off as she drank in the sight of Olivia inching her way out of the torn nylons. Hastily, Amanda slid off her own panties and unhooked her bra, discarding both without a second glance. She touched one of the hands Olivia had slipped inside the control-top band to slide the pantyhose down, down, down. "Let me?"

Olivia eased her hands out of the way for Amanda to take charge. "Yes," she said, shifting her hips and legs as needed to help glide the stockings off.

"Yes," she said again, when Amanda paused with the clasp of her bra in hand, dotting kisses along the slope of one freckled shoulder.

And as they spooned together beneath the covers, Amanda in back, nuzzling into the soft, sweet strands that were as intoxicating as any drug and reaching around to stroke her fingers through divine silky warmth, Olivia said yes and yes and yes and . . .

. . .

THE END