She was pitying herself. The thought occurred to her as she listened to the loud clanking of the MRI machine. It was snapping photos, carefully mapping every millimeter of tissue in her body that wasn't meant to be there. Foreign and unwelcomed.
Nothing but a scrap of cotton covering her body under the imaging. Her badge and gun were locked up at home, which was something she despised the idea of getting used to. Her signature golden-plated 'fearless' necklace away in some small locker outside the radiology room. Removing the chain from her neck felt like removing a piece of her body. Each day that passed, it became harder to accept how vulnerable she felt without the items that made her feel safe.
Self-pity, she didn't do that often. It wasn't her favorite game, and it certainly wasn't her favorite card to have in the hand that she was playing.
Beaten and nearly raped in the dirty basement of Sealview Correctional Facility and she still never pitied herself. Growing up with a drunk and abusive mother, no pity. Discovering that her father was a violent rapist, still no pity. Poisoned with nerve gas. Pointing a gun at a serial rapist, knowing she could kill her partner and best friend in the process. Watching a colleague blowing her brains out on the ceiling in front of her. Having her throat nearly slit in the middle of the GW bus terminal.
No self-pity.
How was this any different?
She used those moments to further her own grief.
Why was this different?
The machine let out another roar from within, but returned no response to her countless internal questions.
Why wasn't she being strong? Any logical person around her would vehemently try to convince her that she is being strong. The better question that remained was why didn't she feel strong? She had survived so much worse.
Well, the worst part of this hadn't even started yet.
Still, not an ounce of self-pity in those horrific, life-changing experiences.
Maybe nothing was different. Nothing at all. Maybe all of those horrid situations had broken her, slowly and over time. Was this just the final indignity that the events of her past had been lying upon? The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. She was so goddamn sick and tired of being sick and tired. Maybe that was it; maybe she just snapped. Not in anger, not in rage, but with the newfound ability to see the fact that she was suffering; and then to feel something about it. She was tired of not feeling anymore, now she had to face the idea of feeling everything.
Was that so wrong? Wasn't she entitled to just an ounce of self-pity?
Clank.
The MRI machine still didn't answer her.
That was her own fault though. She was looking for answers in all of the wrong places. What sort of answer was she supposed to find while laying paralyzingly still in the center of an industrial tube? Well, not any answer she'd want to hear anyway. All the damn thing could do was ruin her life further.
There was no answer to be found from where she was lying. No rhyme or reason that the metallic snapping and grinding of the machine could rationalize with her.
A few more days, that's all she needed. She wasn't jaded enough to chase the past a mile into her future and wallow in denial. All she wanted was a few more days of drowning in self-pity without feeling guilty. Her old life wasn't coming back, but did it really hurt to just pretend for a minute that it was?
For once, drowning felt so damn good. Her head was completely submerged into the waters and she could breathe easier than she would be able to on land. There was no more oxygen left in the atmosphere of being strong. The pressure became too strong and she just wanted to melt into the flow of letting those walls of unassailable internal strength come crashing down.
She'd undoubtedly feel double the guilt if she had chosen to surround herself with support and still pity herself. That was the best rationalization she could come up with for her reasoning behind doing the exact opposite; a little less guilt and a little more time. With nobody around to watch her, the guilt could melt away in tandem as she melted away into the pain.
She'd need to tell people eventually. Elliot was probably going out of his damn mind with worry. Several days away and the only contact she'd had with him was through the front door of her apartment. Lying on the floor, both of their backs pressed to the same surface as his fingers crept under the door and brushed against hers. As staggeringly comforting as the connection felt, it still brought on guilt.
For days, she had sat in her own home and felt like a stranger. All it took was being mere inches away from him to bring back the relief she was missing. It was just something about knowing that where her face was pressed against the cold wooden door, his was too. The mirrored actions, the way she could smell his familiarity without seeing him. It anchored her.
Which was precisely why she didn't want to tell him the truth.
They were partners, they were meant to lean on each other. But she couldn't ask to lean on him like this. Not now. That was reserved for the job. Cases, victims, any sort of stress that came with the shared territory. Of course, he'd instantly do everything he could to reassure her that he wasn't just her support from 9-5. He was her best friend and that's what best friends did, but she couldn't allow that. She just couldn't. He'd signed up for the badge, the partnership, but not this.
Still, her mind fought against every fiber of her being that wanted to finally just tell the damn truth.
But she was a glutton for punishment and she knew it. If she could pick between suffering with support and suffering alone, she'd always choose the latter. It was too much to ask of him, so she'd do this alone for as long as possible. She refused to get comfortable with the idea of him keeping her steady during a time like this. The few times she had heard his heartbeat against her ear, she had become addicted. There was no saying just how much she would depend on that now if she let herself.
There was no saying that his heartbeat in her ear would be permanent.
She wanted to be alone. She wanted to suffer. The numbness wasn't too bad, not when the absence of pain became almost pleasurable. Just another part of the grief cycle, the lack of feeling anything at all.
No, she could get through this just fine without him. It'd hurt like hell, maybe worse, but she could do it.
She didn't want to tell him at all. Though, some things she just couldn't control. Even if she tried, he'd notice soon enough. Hell, he already knew something was wrong. But soon, her body would change. Her mind and her spirit would warp into something that nobody had ever seen in her before. Maybe she'd become brittle and weak, lose her hair and bare more scars than she once had. Change was inevitable.
She'd tell him when she was ready. Or when he found out. Whichever came first.
"Ms. Benson... are you alright in there?" an unfamiliar voice sounded through the intercom. Damnit. She had forgotten that even in the center of the MRI machine, she could communicate with the radiologist and vise versa. With an invisible camera steadied on her face, that poor doctor had probably watched her sulk while volleying a million negative thoughts through her mind. If only Munch were here, she'd be able to crack a joke about how Big Brother was watching even during a medical procedure.
"Yeah, sorry. I'm okay," she sniffled, just realizing that she had started to tear up during her time in the not-so-silent-silence. She fought against the urge to wipe away the tears as she mentally reminded herself to stay still.
It was easy for her to forget that she wasn't alone, at least not in the moment. The consistent clunking of the machine had provided a sense of white noise for her to drown away in. The world drifted away beneath the sound, but she wasn't as alone as she'd hoped she was.
The intercom clicked on, but there was a brief moment of pause in which she could feel the hesitance coming from the other side. "I know how scary this can be," the voice started out soft and comforting. Like a motherly consolation that she'd never had the experience of savoring. "I've seen a lot of people in and out of here. After a while. you develop sort of a sixth sense about which patients are the strongest. If it's of any solace to you, I think you might be one of those people."
It certainly struck a nerve. First time in a long time that a good nerve had been stricken. Olivia closed her eyes and clamped them shut to ward off the oncoming sting of another flow of tears. She tried to take a deep breath, but the walls of the tube squeezed her body too tightly.
It was lonely in the machine.
It was lonelier in her head.
But she didn't like self-pity.