Detective Elizabeth "Liza" Maxwell is the younger sister of Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz and the newest member of Intelligence. She's married to Callum Maxwell, an Emergency Medicine resident at Gaffney Chicago Medical Centre. Having lived in Seattle for th...
Elizabeth is in the breakroom making herself a cup of coffee when Jay walks in. He closes the door.
'You okay?' Jay asks her. Elizabeth turns to face him.
'Yeah.' Elizabeth nods. 'Why'd you ask?'
'You almost told everyone what happened when you were 13.' Jay raises an eyebrow.
'That was a long time ago, Jay.' Elizabeth says quietly.
'It's nothing to be ashamed of.' Jay tells her. 'What happened wasn't your fault.' Elizabeth stays silent. 'Liza, you went through hell those six years.' Jay states. 'What he did nearly cost you your life.'
'Jay, you can't blame him for that.' Elizabeth shakes her head. 'I was already using when he raped me!' Elizabeth shouts, not realising how loud she is. 'And I still kept using and using and using!' Tears start streaming down her face. 'I should be in Cook County for what I did! Screw that, I should be dead!'
'It was self-defence.' Jay responds. 'You can't keep blaming yourself.'
'I still killed a guy, Jay.' Elizabeth replies, her voice barely audible. 'I was 15 and I killed a guy.' She continues louder.
'He was about to kill you, Liza.' Jay steps closer to her. 'You had no choice.' The door opens and Voight walks in.
'That's enough.' Voight states. 'Halstead get back to work.' Jay sighs, walks out of the room and returns to his desk. Voight closes the door behind him. Elizabeth sees that everyone is looking into the break room.
'How much of that did they hear?' Elizabeth asks.
'All of it.' Voight answers. Elizabeth puts her mug down and sighs. 'I'll speak to them.' He adds. Elizabeth puts a hand on her forehead.
'This is not how I imagined everyone finding out.' Elizabeth says.
'I know.' Voight nods. Elizabeth sits down at the table and puts her head in her hands. Voight sits opposite her. 'I know what happened, from your file, obviously.' Elizabeth looks up at him. 'I know all about the treatments you've had, all of the suspensions. I know that you had to leave Seattle P.D. because you had a breakdown.'
'Then why did you reach out to me?' Elizabeth asks confused. 'Why offer me this job? If you know all that then you'd know I was seen as a liability to the department. That's why I was put on so many undercover cases. It's easy to play the broken woman or the drug addict when you've been there before.'
'I reached out to you because you are a good detective. You are the main reason most of your unit were able to close cases.' Voight tells her. Elizabeth smiles slightly. 'You see what other people don't because of your experiences.' There are a few moments of silence. 'I want you to set yourself up with the department therapist. I know you're already under therapy but-'
'If I also talk with the department therapist I'm covered if anything happens.' Elizabeth finishes.
'Yeah.' Voight nods.
'If it's alright with you, I'd like to explain everything to the team. They heard part of it so I might as well tell them the full story.' Elizabeth says.
'Are you sure?' Voight questions.
'Yeah, I don't want to keep any secrets.'
'Okay, then.' Voight nods. They both stand up and walk out to the bullpen. Everyone looks at Elizabeth. She walks to her desk, perches on it and takes a deep breath.
'Since you heard what Jay and I were talking about, there's no harm in telling you the full story.' Elizabeth starts.
'Liza-' Jay starts but Voight interjects.
'Halstead.' He warns before nodding at Elizabeth.
'When I was 13, I met someone through MSN Messenger. Obviously, back then, internet safety wasn't a big thing. I thought I was talking to 13-year-old Megan when I was really talking to a 26-year-old man, Stephen. At the time, I was in my rebellious stage. I was experimenting with all sorts of drugs, drinking, sneaking out, getting into fights. One day, I got a message from "Megan" suggesting that we should meet. So we arranged to meet a few days later. When the day came, I was high. Mouse and our parents noticed and stopped me from going but I snuck out anyway. I was told to get into a car half a mile from our house. When I got in, I realised that "Megan" wasn't really Megan but it was too late. He'd locked the doors and was already driving off. He took me to his apartment when he tied me up and raped me.' She takes a few moments to collect herself. 'After that day, he'd force me to go and see him once a week so he could get his "sex fix". He'd do all sorts. He'd try new things all the time. After about six months, a couple of weeks after my 14th birthday, Mouse and Jay, was visiting us, found the messages and found a whole bag of bloody clothes and underwear. They went to my parents and they roped in New York SVU,' she notices that Kevin, Adam, Hailey and Kim are looking at her confused, 'we were living in New York for my dad's job. We spent half the year in New York and half the year in Chicago for about five years. Anyways, that day was the first day of a weeks captivity. When they found the apartment I was being kept in, they banged the door and announced themselves. Stephen barged into the room he had me locked in, locked in from the inside, grabbed onto me and tried to kill me by strangling me. By some miracle, I was able to grab this knife he always kept in his pocket and I just kept stabbing him and stabbing him and stabbing him in the back. By the time the police had gotten into the apartment and to the room, he was dead. That started my proper rebelling against everything and a whole host of problems with my mental health. It went for about six years which is when I met Callum. He helped me get clean and get the help that I needed. We moved to Seattle where I studied law and joined the police academy and he started studying medicine.' She wipes the tears that have been falling from her eyes the whole time.
'You didn't have to tell us that.' Adam shakes his head.
'You were gonna wonder after hearing me and Jay shout so I just wanted to get it out of the way.' Elizabeth states. 'Callum saved my life. So did Jay and my brother.' Elizabeth smiles slightly at Jay and he smiles back his eyes glistening the way they did when they were younger. The way they did when they used to date.
~~~~~~~
The ending of this is awful but I just wanted to get this chapter out for you guys!
Let me know what you think
Much love
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