☆ ゜・ 。。・ ゜゜・ 。。・ ゜★

27. Denied

Jocelyn wakes up, her vision was a bit blurry, but from the mirror across from her, she saw that her face was beaten badly, her left eye was bruised and swollen shut, stitches on her cheek and a busted lip. She looks to her right and sees her mom, sleeping by her side.

"Mama." Jocelyn whispers, her voice crackling from the damage that Teller did to her by choking her. She keeps calling her mom with her fragile voice. Claudia finally wakes up and looks at her daughter. "Mama." She cries like a little girl, crying for her mom. Jocelyn cries and her mother hugs her.

"Im here. Mija, im here." She holds her daughter close. They both cried together. Her mother takes a look at Jocelyn, she was unrecognizable. Her thumb rubbed the only soft untouched skin she had on her face. Jocelyn lays back as her head started to pound. She closes her eyes and held her mom's hand.

Liv got the call that Peña was awake and Amanda went with her. They got to the floor she was staying at. Amanda stops as she sees Jocelyn.

"Amanda?" Liv walks back to her. She sees that she was looking at Jocelyn. "Its not your fault."

"He did that the moment i left. I couldn't-" Liv touches her arm. Amanda starts to tear up. "I wasn't there to protect her."

"You didn't know." Amanda wipes her tears and tells Liv to go on with this. But she stayed quiet by Bensons side. She didn't know what to say to her but only im sorry. "Mrs. Peña, a pleasure to finally meet you, im Lieutenant Olivia Bensons, and this is detective Amanda Rollins, we work with Jocelyn."

"Yes, Jo talks about you all a lot." Claudia pats her daughter's hand. "Jocelyn, they are here." Jocelyn rolls her head over to see Liv and Amanda. She gives them a soft, weak smile.

"Im stunning huh?" Jocelyn cracks a joke. "Doc told me that i won't need surgery so thats sad, no nose lift."

"Jocelyn..." Liv goes to her side. Jocelyn sees her, that face. Liv couldn't look at her.

"What? What is it?"

"Tellers alive." She tells her. It was deja vu again. How? How can he still be alive? She felt him. Jocelyn just lays there. No reaction, no tears. In her head, shes just screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing everything in her way. How? How does he get to live? Its not fair. "Jocelyn..." Liv snaps her out of it. Jocelyn turns to see her again. The light in her is gone.

Jocelyn shuts down, Liv's voice was just noise. She can hear the murmurs of how IBA would like to speak to her about this situation, a possible trial if Teller wakes up and says not guilty, her time off. It was just the same thing that happened before. she cant go through this again.

"Mija..." Her mom calls her but sees her daughter dissociating herself. "She just woken up, maybe when shes better and ready, you can talk to her again." The three of them went outside, stood outside the door. Olivia nods. "You know, when Jocelyn wanted to be a police officer, i never really thought it was possible, her getting hurt on the job, shes too kind, never hurt anyone. I almost lost her, again. How is this fair? How can someone do this to my sweet girl?" Her mom starts to tear up as she looks at Jocelyn.

"We are very sorry Mrs. Peña."

"She's not going to be okay, right?" Claudia doesn't take her eyes away from her daughter. "Before all this, before working, she was so full of light, so happy, so radiant. What happened to her?" Claudia just walks back into the room and stayed with Jocelyn. Liv stands there as she knew what she is going through. This poor woman. Hasn't she gone through enough?

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After staying a week at the hospital, Jocelyn was cleared and ready to go home. Fin will do the honor of dropping her off. He volunteered actually. He wanted to check on her, let her spill anything to get off her chest. He couldn't shake that feeling when he saw her taken away on the cart.

"Hey girl." He walks in as Jocelyn was getting onto the wheelchair. He sees her fighting with them.

"Im not going to use that! I can walk!" She yells. "Get your hands off me." Fin separates the nurse and Jocelyn, who stumbled a bit.

"I got her." Fin shakes them off and takes Jocelyn to the car.

"Thanks for doing this, you didn't have to Fin." She squinted her eyes as the sun hits her as they stepped outside.

"The pleasures all mine." He opens the door for her and Jocelyn squints still, the sun was bothering her eyes and was started giving her a migraine. "Here." Fin hands her some sunglasses that he had and she rested her head on the window as they drove. "Whats the plan?" He kept her busy.

"Two weeks off, IBA meeting next week, staying with my brother." She sighs. "Sucks." It was going to be a full house. Her mother and brother didn't want her going back to her apartment so they wanted her stay at Alex's place until shes ready to go back.

"Tell me about it." Fin takes his glance at her. She just looked so tired, so defeated. "Wanna talk?"

"What is there to say?" She closes her eyes to reduce the light piercing in her eyes. "Hes alive. I cant do nothing about it. Im alive, now have to relive everything again." She shrugs.

"Do you hate that he's alive?"

"Yes." She gulps. She stayed silent for the rest of the 20 minutes of the ride. Fin respected that. He helped her out of the car and into the full house. Alex and Fin got her to the couch.

"Call me if you need anything." Fin squats and looks at her and shes all slumped over the couch. "Ill keep Carisi on his feet, dont worry. Rest up, heal. We got your back." Fin said his goodbyes. Then it all started. Her mother and Evelyn were smothering her if she needed anything every 10 minutes. Alex was asking Jocelyn about the wounds and asking about how she got those wounds on her face. Winona asking her what had happened. Tv was on full blast. Pedro crying nonstop, Alejandro and Winona were arguing, then so was her brother and mother. The voices made Jocelyn's head spin, pound. She tries to sit there and block it out but she couldn't handle it.

"It is not the way I do it!"

"My house! My rules ma!" Jocelyn quickly bolts out of the room and hides herself in the bathroom. She locks herself in and breathes heavily. Everyone dies down. What just happened? They watched her push Alex out of her way and the slam of the door. They were continuing their fight, a new one, about whos at fault.

Jocelyn covers her face in her hands, the pounding of her head was driving her crazy. She calls Sonny. Hes the only one who can give her peace.

"Hey? You okay? Everything alright?" He sounded worried as he picked up the phone. "Jocey?"

"Where are you?" She pinches her nose.

"Im at Bella's, why?"

"Can, can you come and get me? Im at Alex's and i just need to go away." She stutters. "Dont come in, just call me when you get here. I need to leave."

"Yeah, im on my way." Jocelyn hangs up and stays in the bathroom for while. Sonny apologizes to Bella as he has to cut dinner early and leaves to go to Jocelyn.

The call goes through. Jocelyn puts her hoodie up and says that shes going to be with Sonny and said nothing more as she slams the door. Sonny, who was about to get out of the car to open her door, sees the woman in pain.

"Hey, hey." He tries to keep her calm, seeing that shes on the verge of breaking. "Where do you want me to take you?"

"Anywhere." Sonny just drives. Jocelyn had turned down the radio. She's definitely not alright, Sonny thought. He puts his hand on hers, checking to see if she will let him touch her. She immediately grasps on.

Sonny just drives her to his place. He tries to help her but Jocelyn was done with the whole thing, acting like shes a glass doll. The whole time in the hospital everyone was too delicate with her. She walks beside him up the stairs and enters his place. Jocelyn slowly moves as Mulder greets her, she has him in her arms and kisses his face.

Jocelyn takes a deep breath, finally some peace and quiet. Its all she needed. She makes her way to look out the window and close her eyes. Sonny catches on, she hasn't said a word of what happened, hows she feeling.

"Want anything to drink?" He says to her, but she says nothing back. She places her dog down. She just kept quiet. Sonny hesitated to hold her, he saw how she was wrapping herself. He stands next to her, watching outside his window. Jocelyn felt calmer as he was next to her.

"Sorry, i didn't mean to ruin your night with Bella." She croaks.

"Oh no doll." He looks at her. "Dont be. If you need me, i'll be there."

"I just couldn't stand being in that house. So much yelling, so much questioning, crying. I need quiet." She closes her eyes. Sonny kisses her shoulder, she did jump a little.

She followed him to bed, she wore his shirt and laid on him as Sonny held her in his sleep. Before they went to bed, she hd made Sonny check the windows were locked and checked the closet. The sounds from outside, the arguments, the sirens, kept her up. Jocelyn snuck out of Sonnys embrace and wandered back to the living room and sat down on the chair facing the window.

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Jocelyn's leg bounced as she was waiting to be called in for her lovely meeting with IBA. Bullshit. She was a wreck honestly. She hasn't been sleeping well, only when Sonny is home. She hasn't even been to her place since the that day she was attacked. The last thing she wanted to repeat every damn detail to these guys.

"Detective Peña." Her head props up, looking at the men in front of her. She stands up, fixing her shirt and heads in the room. She takes a seat in front of the camera. "The camera is recording, is that alright?"

"Fine with me." She clears.

"You know why you are here?"

"I was attacked." She flips her hair to the side.

"Can you start from the beginning? We want a cleared image of what happened." Jocelyn wanted to show the scars and the pain that man gave her, but she dug her nails into her palm.

"Kevin Teller, he broke into my apartment, hid in my closet and attacked me."

"How did he get inside?" They started writing down the story in their little notebooks.

"My window, the latch was broken. Ive tried having
maintenance come by and fix it but they never came up until a few weeks ago, and well Teller got in." She crossed her arms.

"How did he know where to find you?"

"I dont know. After I moved here, i figured it would just be in the past." The questions kept coming. She was reliving the moment again. She closes her eyes but she kept talking to them for another 30 minutes. They let her go and they will call if anything comes up. She just wanted to go back home.

Jocelyn had made it to Sonnys, cooked dinner. He steps in and sees her by the stove, reading the instructions from the box. He drops his coat over the hanger and goes to her. He hugs her from behind and she leans back.

"How did it go?"

"I hate them, really. Bunch of dicks." She breaths out. He laughs into her neck.

"They're always in peoples lives." He takes a step back and sets the table.

"How was work?" She puts the plates together.

"New case, missing girl, i gotta be back in a few. I just wanted to see you." He kisses her. "I just really miss you."

"You just miss staring at me." He turns red as she places the plates down. "Ill see what IBA says, see when im cleared." And she's hoping for soon. There was a knock at the door and Sonny goes to get it as Jocelyn gets the rest of what they needed for dinner.

"Hi, is Jocelyn home?" Jocelyn walks up to the door with Sonny and sees her mom.

"Mama, come in please." Jocelyn invites her in. The mother followed the two inside. "Uh, mama, this is Dominick, my boyfriend." She introduces them. "Sonny, this is my mother, Vicky." Sonny shakes her hand.

"It is great to finally meet you ma'am!" Sonny smiles at her. "I wish to meet you sooner but, its been a hard few months." Vicky has heard about this Sonny guy from the kids, Alex, Isaac, Yessina. She was waiting for Jocelyn to say something. He looked like nice guy, he seems very sweet.

"A pleasure. It is nice to meet you."

"Ill have you two talk, ill be in the room." Sonny kisses Jocelyn's face as he walks away. Jocelyn and Vicky were standing there.

"He seems sweet." Vicky looks around the place. "Living together?"

"He is, he's very nice and he cares about me." Jocelyn laughs. "Uh no, this is his place. He's letting me stay here until I get the keys back to mine."

"He's taking good care of you?"

"Si mama."

"Why did you leave the other day? You-"

"I just wanted to be alone. I love you all, yes, but i need to be somewhere where im not getting asked what happened, the arguments. All i thought was Sonny." Jocelyn sighs. "Im sorry i left without saying anything. I just couldn't stay there. I felt like my head was going to explode."

"You sure you are okay here?"

"Si mama." Jocelyn takes her moms hand. "I trust Sonny with my whole life."

"You like him?" She starts with her questions.

"Very much."

"I have more questions to ask but it looks like you both were in the middle of something. I should go. Alex is waiting for me. Ill be back tomorrow, no excuses." Jocelyn just nods. Reasoning with her is a battle and she always looses.

"Tomorrow." She smiles. "Sonny!" Jocelyn calls him. Sonny walks out.

"Leaving? You can stay for dinner!" Sonny insists but Vicky pats his arm.

"Maybe another day."

"Well, you are welcome here anytime you want. Just know Jocey is here and is being well taken care of." Sonny shakes her hand.

"I know." Vicky kisses his cheek and kisses Jocelyn's. Vicky left and Jocelyn kisses Sonnys cheek.

"She likes you." Sonny smiles a bit as they sat together for dinner.

"Really? You think so?"

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Liv called Jocelyn that her apartment was now cleared and she gets her keys back. Jocelyn asked Liv to meet her at the apartment complex. She sat in her car looking at the steps she was shot at, her shoulder burns just by thinking about it.

"Hey, ready?" Liv knocks at her window. Jocelyn gets out and heads inside. Liv knew that she was very hesitant about this. Once they get to the door, Jocelyn freezes up a bit. "You don't have to do this, we can-"

"No, no. Its fine." She lies. Liv hands her the keys. Jocelyn twisted the metal around and opens the see the place. She sees that they had tried to fix the place. Jocelyn walks in more, she sees the stained wooden floor. She bites her lip. Liv slowly walks behind her. She sees her body go limp. She stops pretending to be okay. Liv rushes to catch her fall. Jocelyn sobs in the arms of Olivias. She had to have the thoughts of it with her. The wounds, the place. It was not fair. Liv holds her as Jocelyn lets it all out. Teller had damaged her. Teller had her. He knew that if he couldn't have her, he will have to do something to her so she can never forget him. He had won. He really hurt her.

"He won't hurt you anymore." Jocelyn keeps crying.