Objection | SVU

Chapter 33

{A/N: Thank you all for your support and responses to my note that I posted a while ago. I'm doing well and I'm a week post-op, hoping to start PT on Friday and three weeks from today (or maybe before) ditch my crutches! Anyway, here's another chapter!}

Carisi and I arrived on the scene outside of the FBI New York Field Office, where Thompson was holding Benson. Our team was in the Mobile Response Unit a few blocks away, and Rafael was with them. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Fin asked me, and I looked at Carisi and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I nodded my head and Carisi spoke for me, saying, "Yeah... Benson would do the same for us."

Before we left the Mobile Response Unit, Rafael pulled me aside away from everyone else so that we could talk. "You know what you're doing, right? Going in to confront an FBI Special Agent unarmed and at his will and beckon?" I sighed and replied, "Yes, Rafi... I understand... Liv would be doing the same thing for any of us, in a heartbeat. If we don't go in, he's gonna kill her... i'm not going to be unarmed. I'm bringing a gun in hidden." Rafael stared at me with wide eyes as he said, "If Thompson sees that gun on you, he'll kill you and then he'll kill Liv..." I gripped his shoulder tightly and asked softly, "Do you trust me?" He replied, "Of course I do, cariño... I just can't bear to see you get hurt again." I smiled lightly and replied, "Don't worry about me, okay? Do what you can to help the squad while we're in there."

I heard Carisi call out, "Jess, you ready? It's almost time." I responded, "I'll be right there." I looked back at Rafael and hugged him tightly. He immediately clutched on to me, like he was clinging to life. He whispered in my ear, "I love you so much, cariño... Please be safe." What he said next broke my heart.

"I can't lose you."

*

Carisi and I walked into the building - it was completely empty and dark, and the emergency lights were on. I heard shuffling downstairs, and it took all of my self control not to draw my hidden gun in case Thompson could see me. Carisi also opted to carry his gun in a hidden location. We saw the administrative staff on the first floor, all sitting against the wall behind the welcome desk. "Where is he?" Carisi whispered, and a male replied, "Next floor up... He has some agents and your captain as hostages." I asked, "Are your agents carrying?" A different male voice replied, "Yes, but he isolated them and took their guns." 

So it wasn't a violent takeover by Thompson... He had thought this through and had meditated this for a long time, and he probably had accomplices. I suddenly began to realize the true magnitude of this situation. "Carisi..." I trailed off, and he looked over at me, and I could tell that he knew what I had just concluded. I took a deep breath and headed toward the stairs to the second floor, and Carisi asked the FBI staff, "Did he actually rig the place with a bomb?" The first male that had spoken up said, "We don't know... We didn't see any rigs or anything run through the master electrical panel down here, but we can't be 100% sure..."

Carisi's eyes met mine and we proceeded upstairs very carefully. As we approached the top stoop of the staircase, I heard Thompson's chilling voice say, "Ah, Carisi and Mitchell, just on time. Unless you want your Captain to die, stay right at the stoop." We froze and saw Thompson with Benson in a headlock across the way, and I knew that by the time I bent over and drew my gun, he would have time to kill her. Thompson got an FBI agent that he was holding hostage to come over and pat me and Carisi down, and I suddenly got very nervous.

The agent patted me down first, and once he bent forward toward my ankle, I held my breath and tried to think of a fast way to get out of this situation if things went south. To my disbelief and surprise, the agent very clearly felt my gun holstered on my ankle and kept his mouth shut. He did the same to Carisi and failed to report both of our guns... He was on our side. I glanced at him, and he gave me a look of hope and determination.

We were their only chance out of this, and we couldn't screw it up.

I looked up toward Thompson, and I carefully said, "Okay, we're here and we came. As an act of good faith, can you let these agents go? This has nothing to do with them." Thompson replied coolly, "You think I'm dumb enough to let almost 20 FBI agents go? No, no, no... Detective Mitchell, that's not how it works..." Carisi countered, "At least let Benson out of that headlock, Thompson..." Thompson reluctantly let Benson go, and she gathered herself as she crawled over toward me and Carisi. I could tell that she was disheveled and terrified, and I tried to tend to her as Carisi engaged with Thompson.

"Why did you go through all of this, Thompson?" He asked, and Thompson replied maniacally, "Isn't it the perfect ruse for a serial killer? FBI agent?" I frantically thought and realized that, to get into the FBI, the psychological testing was grueling. There was no way he made it into the FBI in this state of mind - something made him pop.

"What made you pop, Thompson? What made you break? You couldn't have cleared the FBI psychological evaluation like this... So what was it?" I asked him suddenly as I broke the silence. I decided to push his buttons a little and said, "Was it that you didn't get a promotion? Failed relationship? How did you past your psych eval, Thompson?" After a small period of silence, Thompson jeered, "Oh, well aren't we the clever one, Detective Mitchell... Or should I say Detective Barba?"

I froze and realized that this was much bigger than I could have ever realized. Both Carisi and I were miked up, and the squad in the Unit van could hear everything that was being said. I knew that Rafael was going ballistic in the Mobile Unit, and I did my best to stay calm.

"I know that you're married to ADA Barba and that you have a very honorable law career ahead of you. You're both a very promising detective and a very promising prosecutor..." Carisi intervened and venemously said, "Why all this, Thompson?" He smirked wickedly and replied, "What, Detective Carisi, Fordham Law graduate... I can't be interested in Detective Mitchell?"

"Why all this, Thompson?" I asked, my teeth gritted in anger. What he said next made me freeze.

"I want you, Jessica. I've wanted you since we were in college together at NYU. Do you not remember me, Jessica? Because that wouldn't be very nice."

I suddenly remembered him, a recluse and laughing stock of my class, trying to talk to me one night at a party during my freshman year of undergrad. He had followed me throughout the house that night, and I had to have one of my guy friends who played volleyball at NYU escort me out of the house and back to my dorm because I felt so uncomfortable.

"I remember you... Don Thompson... My year at NYU. I had to ask Jared Rusk to escort me out of that house that night when you stalked me." Thompson laughed heartily and replied, "So you do remember me, good..." Carisi whispered to me, "My god, Jess... He's still obsessed with you."

The next question that Thompson asked me made my stomach churn and made me realize the magnitude of the situation with regards to me and my well being, as well as his psychosis.

"Why did you pick Rafael Barba over me?"