Infinity

TITLE: Infinity (5A/?)

AUTHOR: Master F&M

FANDOM: Law and Order: SVU

RATING: Everything from PG to R—just like life.

SUMMARY: A Fin fic— to give him a life that the show refuses to give him

DISCLAIMER: L&O: SVU and all its characters belong to Dick Wolf, NBC, and whomever

                          else puts the show out for our enjoyment. I just get to play with them.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sam is a character of my own creation. She does not exist on the show.

FEEDBACK: Please give some. If no one likes what or how I’m writing, then I should stop

                      posting. But if you do like . . . then let me know so I will keep going.

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CHAPTER 5

            The flickering flame of a candle provided the only light in Fin’s bedroom. He’d taken to
lighting a solitary candle before going to bed each night to give himself something on which to
concentrate. He’d force himself to focus on the flame, watching it flow and sway as it staved off
the feelings of loneliness he knew would come to him if he gave them the chance. Eventually his
eyes would grow heavy, and he’d snuff out the candle before dropping off to sleep. Tonight,
however, exhausted by the sobs caused by the memory of his son, Fin had fallen asleep without
putting it out.

            Shadows caused by the flame danced across his face as it contorted into a frown. He
thrashed his arms and legs about, and moved them in a running motion as his body played out the
nightmare he was reliving in his dream. It was the same nightmare that always haunted him after
thinking about his son:

            Fin had been in his first year of college when he met Charlene. He was immediately taken
with her easy smile and pleasant demeanor, but would soon come to know that underneath that
demeanor was a very focused and determined girl. Like his own parents, the Carvers were
byproducts of the fifties and sixties and had been firmly rooted in the activities of the civil rights
movement. They had taught their daughter to go after whatever she wanted in life, whether it be
professional or personal, as Dr. King had died trying to provide her with the opportunities to do
so.

            Mr. Carver himself had started out in the lower rungs of a brokerage firm and had worked
himself up to being a partner. Dissatisfied that decisions affecting his future were still not solely in
his hands alone, he broke away from the group and started his own firm. His initial and
subsequent success allowed his business to grow, and permitted him to hire others to work for
him, until Carver and Associates was a very prosperous and highly profitable business. Mr.
Carver took pride in the fact that it was one of the very few firms in the entire state of New York
that was owned and managed by a Black man, and held it up to his daughter as an example of
what she could achieve if she worked hard enough. The Carvers were usually supportive of
whatever choices their daughter made, but she knew she was expected to succeed in whichever
field she chose.

            Unlike Fin’s parents, the Carvers provided their daughter with all the help she needed to
get ahead. Vernon Tutuola, however, believed that anything worth having needed to be earned.
As such, though he could have paid for his son’s college education, he insisted that Fin get a job
after he graduated from high school and work to pay for his own tuition. Fin held down two jobs,
plus put away the money his grandmother sometimes gave him because she felt sorry for him, in
order to save up enough to pay for at least two years at Columbia. He figured he would continue
to work during those years to cover the cost of his remaining time there. Always a good student
with better than good grades, Fin had no problem getting accepted into the prestigious school.
He therefore started his freshman year as a twenty-one-year-old who was very eager to get on
with the rest of his life.

              Despite his father’s wishes that he choose a career as a professional, Fin had always
wanted to become a cop. He thought that it was the best way he could serve his community and
would hopefully allow him to provide a positive role model for the younger kids back in the hood
where he grew up. He believed his presence as an officer on the streets, and not as a mouthpiece
in a courtroom as his father wanted, was the best way to get through to the many kids who
thought that their only options in life involved either gangs or drugs. He wanted to show them
that you could be on the right side of the law and still be down.

            Fin had met Charlene Carver while studying late one night in the university library. With
the librarian off helping another student, he asked Charlene if she knew about a certain text he
needed to reference. They discovered they were both in the same class, and struck up a
conversation about their workload. When she told him she was planning to attend law school,
he was impressed with how certain she was about her future. He hadn’t met too many eighteen
year olds who seemed to have such a handle on what they wanted to do with their lives. He also
thought she was incredibly pretty, and was attracted to her immediately. They made frequent
study dates, but spent most of that time talking about their personal lives, and discussing the
merits of serving the law aspect of the legal system as she planned to do, versus the order side of
it as was Fin’s goal.

            After a few weeks, Fin dropped the pretense that their relationship was purely academic
and asked her out on a date. She was skeptical at first because he was so very different from the
potential mates she held for herself in her mind’s eye, but she couldn’t deny the fact that she was
very attracted to him as well. She was drawn to the rough, streetwise exterior that she knew
housed an intelligent mind and caring soul. She was moved by the passion with which he spoke
when he talked about helping the next generation of kids living in his old neighborhoods and
trying to give them a hand up in achieving some positives goals. She was impressed with how
focused he seemed to be, and decided that as future husbands go, he was a more than suitable
candidate. So after giving it some thought, she accepted his invitation to dinner. She knew her
parents would not overwhelmingly approve of him, because he wasn’t, as her father was apt to
say, ‘up to our standards’, but she enjoyed his company and ght ght they could have a very
successful future together.

            Their relationship continued throughout that year, and into their sophomore year at
Columbia when Charlene discovered she was pregnant. Both the Carvers and the Tutuolas were
furious. Fin’s father raged on about how irresponsible he had been and how he had thrown his life
away by ‘knocking up that girl.’ Denise Tutuola, though more kindly disposed toward their son
than her husband, was also very upset and expressed great disappointment in him. They hadn’t
raised him, he was told, to act like just another hood from the ghetto with children spread out all
over the city. They had expected more of him as a man and as the older sibling of two sisters, and
he had let them down. Furthermore, they added, he should not expect any help from them in
dealing with his folly. He had made the mistake without them, so he could clean it up the same
way.

            Only Fin’s grandmother, Teresa Tutuola, had bothered listening to Fin at all. The two had
held a particularly close bond since the days when he was often left with her as a child. His
parents, being active in the civil rights movement, were frequently away at protests and
demonstrations, so Fin came to view his grandmother’s place as his own. He never quite felt as
at home anywhere else as he did sitting in Nanna’s kitchen enjoying a slice of her famous peach
cobbler.

             So it was she who listened as Fin explained that he loved Charlene, wanted to marry her,
andnn’t think having a baby was going to ruin their lives. He knew that it wasn’t going to be
easy with the two of them going to school, but he wasn’t afraid of hard work and of having very
little. He’d grown up with even less. When his grandmother offered to help out in any way she
could, Fin was very grateful and truly believed that Charlene and he would figure it out somehow.

She and her parents, however, didn’t quite see it that way.

            Maxwell Carver was fit to be tied when his daughter informed him that she had gotten
pregnant by ‘that boy from Harlem.’ He told her that her behavior and present circumstances
were an embarrassment to the family and to his position in the community, and threatened to
disown her outright. Lillian Carver had intervened on her daughter’s behalf and only managed to
calm her husband down by assuring him that Charlene would not be keeping the bastard child.
Charlene herself was mortified by her condition, and agreeing with her parents, decided that the
best thing for everyone was for her to have an abortion.

             When she informed Fin of her decision, he had pleaded with her to not get rid of their
baby. He explained that they would get married, and that after taking some time off to have the
baby, she could return to school to pursue her goal of becoming a lawyer. He reasoned that he
still had quite a bit of the money he had saved those first three years out of high school, and that
he would get a second job to help support them. He was also certain that as a married father, he
could apply for financial aid to help cover the cost of their tuition. If necessary, he would even
cut back the number of credits he was carrying and attend school part-time, graduating in five may maybe six years instead of four, so as to lower the cost even further. He didn’t care, he implored,
so long as he had his family, she and their child, with him. He was confident that they didn’t have
to give up their dreams, but could simply expand them to include their baby.

            Initially Fin’s pleas had fallen onto deaf ears. Charlene had no intention, despite her
fondness for Fin, of putting her life on hold for a baby she didn’t want. Raising a child at nineteen
was not in her game plan, and certainly was not included in any of her parents’ lectures on how to
become successful. The last thing she wanted was to have a toddler in tow just as she was getting
her feet off the ground. But Fin was so earnest and sincere in his pleadings that eventually she
relented. She had concluded that any man who so painstakingly drew out such a detailed plan on
how to get by while raising a child in their early years together, would undoubtedly provide an
ample life for them in the future.

            She knew her reversion would outrage her parents, but she also knew that as she was their
only child, they ultimately wouldn’t be able to see her suffer and would offer her their assistance.
The only point she had held out on was the one involving Fin and she getting married. She agreed
that they would live together, but was adamant that there would not be any nuptials. She told him
it was because she didn’t want anyone to think that she felt they had to get married, but secretly
she knew otherwise: that although she had faith in his abilities, she did not want to become a
Tutuola until after it meant something. She had not been willing to trade her father’s lucrative
Carver name for one of obscurity and far lesser value.