Winter

by Chronicleofabutterfly

He’s thrown her off guard by his admission he can tell because the knife isn’t digging into him as deeply now. He wanders if it’s the admission that has caught her off guard or if it’s the readiness of it.

Winter

One of Four one shots.

She looks like shit and he knows it.

He knows it because after ten years, he knows her like the back of his hand. Or so he thinks. Elliot leans back in his desk chair and exhales softy, three years ago, she would have heard his exhalation, she would have heard the worry and the frustration in that motion and she would have looked up, her large brown eyes would have widened with worry and then softened. They would have provided him with a welcoming to talk as she crossed her arms over her desk and leaned forward so that no one else could hear her ask if he was okay or if he wanted to go for a drink after their shift.

Three years ago she would have done that.

Now? Now she sits at her desk, her gaze blank as she stares down at the file in front of her. She hasn't heard his sigh. Or maybe she has and she's ignoring it. He almost hopes that's the case, that she's ignoring it, because for some reason, some dark depressing reason, not hearing it means something so much more painful.

He knows it's painful because just sitting close to her makes him want to cry from the sorrow that rolls off of her in waves. Yet, she comes to work; she sits at her desk, sits next to him at stake-outs, talks to him about random things. Things that she would never talk about. Stupid things like if he remembered filling his reports out in triplicate. She goes a million miles an hour when they're alone and it's a nervous energy that makes him stop and listen to what she's not saying.

She's so scared he'll ask again.

What happened in the basement, Liv?

Her focus momentarily shifts to her computer screen and he shifts abruptly, not wanting her to catch him starring. He grabs another pencil as quickly as he can, pretends to drop it and leans over to pick it up. He stays low for a moment, wanting to collect his thoughts before he asks her again what happened at Seal View six months ago, but his heart plummets when he notices her legs are fidgeting. Not just fidgeting but bouncing up and down uncontrollably as one hand rests in her lap, one finger picking and clawing at the wick of her thumb.

She's a fucking mess.

He grabs the pencil, sits up again and is momentarily taken back from the rush of blood that drains from his head. He casually grabs a file from her side of the mountain of paperwork that always exists and he opens it daring to take a glimpse of her.

Three years ago, hell- even eight months ago- she'd of noticed him anywhere near her share of the paperwork. She'd of grabbed his wrist and threatened to break it if he so much as thought about touching her paperwork or adding to it.

Now? Now she just stares at her computer screen and despite the fact that she went home at a decent hour last night and wasn't called in, he's pretty sure she's wearing the same clothes.

Speaking of clothes, they used to fit better.

He takes in a breath again, lets it out slowly and wishes like hell she could hear it. Has he been an ass to her for the past few months? Yes. Okay… okay, he's been an ass for the past three years but-

Oh, will you look at that little correlation.

You're not eating, are you? He wants to ask her. Want to go out tonight? It's Christmas Eve, I'm sure there will be good food somewhere.

He'd like to slide his turkey on rye across his desk to hers but he knows that tomorrow it will be there in the morning when he comes in, just like the soup he left for her on Monday, the ham and Swiss on Tuesday and even her favorite lasagna on Wednesday. Today is Thursday and so he slowly pushes his meal over to her desk in an offering.

Tomorrow he's thinking Pad Thai. She likes that.

Her eyes are sunken in and there are bags under her eyes that she hasn't even attempted to cover up. He grabs his lower lip, grinds it between his teeth and wants so badly to take her out tonight. He wants to show her that she can smile again, that whatever happened, she'll be okay because he'll make it that way. He'll war against the most demonic force to make her smile again because he can't remember when she smiled last.

He's startled by his revelation.

Shit, has it really been that long?

He immediately bows his head, pretending to bury it in the file and his breath instantly stops. The last time he remembered her smiling was… three years ago. Sure she's given the perfunctory smile, the one she gives out of social obligation but the last smile she gave that was pure and infectious and screamed that she was sexy and knew it- that smile was three years ago when he observed another man try to pick up on her.

She was so gracious when she let him down that Elliot had teased her when they got into the squad car. She'd tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and tilted her head back in laughter. The sun had filtered through the window of the squad car and highlighted her olive skin and she'd simply laughed.

He missed that.

He's been an ass for three years and he thinks that if he hadn't of been, she'd talk to him right now. She'd let him carry this burden with her, whatever it is.

He has his suspicions and he knows, he fucking knows that Fin knows exactly what happened in that damn basement and he won't say a fucking word and it grates against him. There are days that Elliot sees Finn and wants to rip his fucking esophagus right out of his fucking fat throat and slam his fucking huge forehead against his fucking desk until he tells him why his partner is a shell of her former self.

Until he tells him what he so desperately needs to hear.

She wasn't raped.

That's what he prays for each night, as if Providence could back up time just for her and erase what he knows happened in the basement.

She was raped.

He hopes she doesn't pick right now to notice him, to notice he's pulling at his tie because the thought of her fighting, and he knows she would have fought, but the thought of it makes it so difficult to breath.

He's had nightmares about it, nightmares of a single scene of her being raped. A single scene multiplied by thousands of pictures as they swarmed around him until he bolts up in his pathetically small bed, his sweaty skin sticking to his sheets. No one there to calm him, no one there to assure him it was just a dream.

His wife left him the moment Elliot asked her if Eli was actually his and she couldn't speak. He'd realized right then that you say exactly what you need to when you don't say anything and sometimes saying nothing is the most painful explanation. His wife left him two months ago and he wanted to tell her that because last time his marriage was on the rocks, he'd acted an ass and this time, this time he really wanted her to see that he was getting his shit together.

He wanted to tell her that he has a small run down apartment that he freezes his ass off in but he wants her to come spend Christmas with him after his kids make their obligatory visit He wants to spend time with her, get to know her again. He wants to see her face, see if it'll light up when he gives her the gift he waited in line for an hour after he had to fend of the crazed shoppers on Black Friday. He bought her a gift this year. Not a coffee cup or a gift card like all the other years, but he went to the crowded-as-fuck mall and picked something out for her.

He wanted to tell her all of that and even tell her that he's gotten his head out of his ass and is in anger management. Ironically, he thinks that is the only thing that keeps him from pulling his service weapon out, keeps him from aiming it ninety degrees to his left and shooting Finn.

He wanted to tell her all of this for so long but she's a fucking mess right now and the last thing he wants to do is unload his crap onto her. Not when she's hurting not when she's picked the skin from her lips with her teeth such that they bleed, they're cracked and look painful from where he's sitting.

If he's having nightmares, what the hell is she having?

He tries to shake the thought from his mind by looking back at the file. He shakes his head coming across what he thinks is the sixth mistake thus far and he's only on the first few boxes.

She's a fucking mess and her paperwork is even worse. He won't tell her, but there have been nights he's stayed later to fix the chaos that her lack of concentration has produced. He's come in early to clear the uneaten food from her desk, have her coffee made, coffee that she won't drink but he hopes she will. Knows she won't. He won't tell her he's done all of these things because she's done them all for him when his life hit the shitter.

"Was something wrong?"

Elliot jumps at the sound of her voice. It's not honey like it was so long ago, thick and sweet even in the midst of the shit they deal with. No. No, it's hollow and void and absent and – Damnit! It's not her at all.

"What?" he swallows and clears his throat looking up at her and seeing the wrinkles around her eyes, how they've deepened in the last six months. How they've become more pronounced and permanent. He wants to run his fingertips over them, he wants to show her that he can be gentle, he can be a help.

He can be her friend again.

She juts out her chin to the file in front of him, "You don't normally grab from my stack," she reminds him and exhales loudly, her hand running through her hair. It's a little oily and he's saddened that she's not taking care of her self. Not even in the most basic of ways.

It's okay to take a shower, Liv. Turn on the music and the lights. You'll be okay. I promise.

"I uh… I got something wrong in my report, wanted to see what you wrote so this shit actually makes sense," he said, hoping to hell it sounded casual. Realistic.

She nods absently and looks at the sandwich on her desk. For a moment, however fleeting it was, he thought she looked hungry, he could have sworn he saw her eyes dilate and he knew, just fucking knew she was going to reach for it and say thank you and take a bite.

The air was knocked out of him when she simply stood to her feet and nodded to the clock, "Do you mind if I head out?"

He looked up at her, her shirt was baggy, no longer form fitting, he could see the strap of her bra just below the sleeve of her shirt, hanging. Just hanging. Innocent to most but what it told him was she was loosing weight, her clothes, even her intimate ones no longer doing what they were intended to do.

Seduce.

Not that she came to work dressed with that intention but he learned a long time ago that she had a body like the devil and her bras, the way he could see their outline through her thin shirts, well her bras were sin. The beauty of all of that nonsense was she didn't have a clue.

"Do you want to grab a bite to eat?" Elliot asked softly as he leaned back in his chair, his hands laced behind his head trying to convey to her that he was relaxed instead of dying on the inside.

If he's dying, what's she doing?

She scrunched her face up pretending to actually be entertaining the thought as she pulled her bag from the floor, draped it over her shoulder, "I ate, thanks though," she said as she opened the drawer to her desk and grabbed her keys. "See you tomorrow."

Elliot nodded silently, his eyes falling to the uneaten sandwich on her desk.

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She's a fucking mess and she knows it.

She hasn't had a full nights sleep in months and as she steps out of the precinct onto the damp cement stained with freshly fallen snow, she knows she wont sleep tonight either. She thinks she should probably be cold as she walks the freezing city in a t-shirt she hasn't changed in two days, but she's not. She's not cold. She's not hot. She's not happy or sad or at war or peace.

She's not anything.

And this year – this year she fucking hates Christmas. The bells and the songs and the long lines when all she needs is shampoo. She can't quite say why she hates it, in fact she's always liked it. She's enjoyed the wide-eyed grins of kids, the songs, the smells, but this year she'd like to yell from the highest building for people to knock it the fuck off!

She's not anything right now. Not anything at all.

Not right now when she walks the streets to her home. She's nothing during this one small glimpse of her day where she absentmindedly walks home. She's stopped taking the sub way and her known short-cuts because quiet frankly, she appreciates that she feels nothing.

It is the highlight of her day. To finally not feel the overwhelming unknown. Will she get over it? Will she always have nightmares? Should she resign? She just appreciates that right now, during this small moment in her day, she's allowed finally not feel anything.

She has to be the warrior at work, help the victim, make sure they make it and it kills her to do it because what she needs right now is direction. Someone to help her, make sure she makes it. Therapy is okay, it makes her logical for a few hours after the session.

Until the first nightmare of the night strikes.

The nightmares that have run her out of her own bed and her own skin. Sounds of zippers, the smell of sweat, that light that seemed so bright at the time, the sound of a metal baton grinding against surfaces that when she wakes up, she thinks might have been her soul. Her dignity.

She spots a quarter on the cement and for some reason she is compelled to pick it up, the same way she's picked up other currency in the last months. She chuckles darkly to herself as she slips the quarter into her pocket and continues walking. She's picked up at least enough for a pair of sneakers in the last six months since she's taken to walking with her head down.

She could be a fucking millionaire if she hadn't of walked the city for the last thirty or so years all confidant with her held high and shoulders back like she owned the city. And she did own it.

She was confidant.

Until the realization that without her gun and badge she was simply another woman, part of the weaker sex. She'd been so weak that day, she'd allowed herself to be cuffed. She found herself sobbing uncontrollably as her suspect lowered his zipper, thrust his repulsive penis to her face.

Bite me and you're dead.

She'd been rescued just then by Finn. A co-worker, fellow cop and somehow that just made it so much worse. So much more real, because there was no way she could hide it. Not when he'd come to her side, taken a knee and released her hands from the cruel metal of the cuffs.

Shit they'd hurt. He'd clenched them so tightly that when she pulled down, fighting and screaming and begging for help- she thought for sure she would break something. Instead, she'd ripped skin.

She stepped out into the crosswalk, one hand rubbing her wrist. It was just a small scar, but to her, her wrists were mangled, ugly.

Her mind was immediately distorted and her head snapped to her right, the horn of a cab blaring at her to move and even as the screech of locked up breaks slammed into her ears, her feet stood still, begging the impact to come.

"Get the fuck out'da way ya crazy bitch!" an oversized, ball headed man yelled from the window, his hand slapping at the side of the drivers door. "What the fuck!"

She narrowed her eyes at him, wondered if her current state of mind constituted temporary insanity, because she was going to need that defense after she shoots this sonovabitch.

"Ah! What the fuck! I missed the fuckin' light now!" He bellowed and honked louder as if she didn't hear him the first time. He keeps yelling and all she hears is the word bitch and for some reason, the hot dog stand that she usually loves to eat at, the smell coming from it- is making her nauseous and the fucking ringing bell from the Salvation Army she's always given to, is making her furious right now.

The pedestrians walk past her and she can't do anything more than stare at the fat man behind the wheel of the cab. She can see actual perspiration on his face even when the snow just at her feet tells her it's freezing right now. She hears the word bitch come from his mouth again and she can remember the equivalent whispered in her ear, her hands cuffed behind her, her hair fisted into a possessive and sinister hand.

Fuck with the bells already!

She takes a step closer to the cab, her action literally daring the ass hole to call her a bitch one more time.

"You fucking cunt-whore!" he yells and opens his car door in anger. The traffic on either side of his yellow vehicle has now taken off, the light having turned green. He's pissed and she welcomes it. Her hand twitches and she knows she only has to move her bag three inches on her hip and she'll be un-holstered in less than one second. Hammer back.

"What the fuck part of move-out-of-the-way don't you fucking understand? Are you fucking deaf? You fucking pussy!" he hollers and he's getting closer.

Olivia feels her body settle. Her feet are solid against the cement and this mother fucker has no idea just what bitch he's called out. Or did she call him out? Did she just provoke this?

Yes. Yes she did.

The traffic around them is slowing again the next cars coming to a stop. He's three feet from her and his halitosis combined with the exhaust of the city, the fucking ringing of the bell over and over again and the hot dog stand smell is making her head fucking spin. She's got three options.

Shoot him. Hit him with her laptop. Vomit on him. Hmm. Decisions.

"Back away from me," Olivia says, her head low, eyes raised in a maniacal stare that she feels. Right here, right now she's a maniac.

He's ranting at her and the word bitch comes out, his spit falling on her face and it reminds her of being on her knees when her suspect hovered over her, the sweat from his face falling onto her cheek.

The fat man is irate. "Get. The Fuck. Out of the way you fucking whore-bitch!"

She moves her shoulder, the smallest of movements, feels the friction of the nylon strap scrape down her arm before her hand twists around the material and just as he takes one more step to her, Olivia pulls back, the laptop heavy in her hand as she twists her body at the waist, the bag flying in from the side of her like a wild punch only so much more lethal.

The moment it collides with the fat cabbie, she hears herself yelling nothing but sound and fury and frustration and pain and everything else she's not supposed to feel during her walk home anymore. "Fuck you!" she spits back, panting and out of breath from the simple act of beating the shit out of someone with her work bag.

The cabbie stumbles back, holding his face. There's blood slowly trickling from his nose and he's got a new level of rage happening right now. That's okay, she's got her own.

"You fuckin-"

She's unholstered, her .9mm only inches from his charging face when he stops, hands immediately raised and a brick of shit nested in his shorts she's sure. "Bitch?" she mocks him and raises her brow. The traffic starts again from the opposite direction but no cars on either side of the cabbie move.

"You're crazy," the cabbie accuses as he moves backwards and slithers back into his vehicle.

"No shit," Olivia whispers as she holsters her weapon. The only thing that shocks her more than her having provoked this ass hole, was that the cars simply started to move again, blending into traffic as if there hadn't been a crazy bitch with a gun standing in the middle of the cross walk.

She's convinced all of humanity has gone to fuck.

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"What's up with, Liv these days?" John Munch asks, his eye-glasses resting precariously on his entirely too large nose as he stares over them at his partner just across his desk.

Finn smacks his lips, "Shut up, old man," he snaps and clicks the mouse a little harder than necessary.

"Laugh now my friend, but when you're my age, some poor shmuck bastard will be telling you the same thing. So, the question still stands…" Munch leans in and lowers his voice. "What's wrong with Benson?"

Finn is beyond sick with people coming to him and asking him what's wrong with Olivia. This is why he hates organized society. All the fabricated care and concern and friendship bullshit; In the street, if you want to know something you fucking ask the person, you don't sneak around unless you want a bullet in your ass.

He'd like to put a bullet in Munch's ass if he asks one more time. He'd do it too if he didn't think it'd ricochet off his boney ass and kill him instead.

"Look," Munch sighs and it surprises Finn because it's not dramatic at all. It's filled with concern and Finn knows that Olivia is the only person capable of pulling genuine concern free of sarcasm from Munch. "I'm concerned. You had to have seen her. She couldn't even sit still. She's in the same clothes-"

Fin closes the file in annoyance and leans over his desk, his eyes narrowed in anger, "Do you think Olivia rolls over to me at night? Am I her damn keeper? Last I checked she's a big girl and if she wants you to know something, she'll tell your sorry ass."

Munch took a small breath, waited only a few short seconds to try again. "The report said you saw what happened-"

"I'm gonna break my foot off in your ass, John. Back off!"

"I'm only saying that-whatever happened- it's not your fault-"

Fin pushed his chair back, "I got to go take a piss."

"You know," Munch said, spinning his chair around to face Finn's retreating figure. "You and Stabler aren't the only ones that care about her."

Finn stopped and turned around, "If you want to know what happened ask her, but you leave me out of it."

"She's one of us, Finn and if she's hurting, all I'm saying is that I'd like to be there for her, too. Don't think I can't recognize the signs. She's thin as a rail, spacey, jumpy and just about every other label a vic –'

"You want to label her a victim?" Finn asked, his face registering anger but his voice low and stabbing, "Go ahead, but let me be there when you do it. I want to see her knock your cracker-ass out."

"I'd never label her a vic, but I'm not stupid Finn… something happened in that basement and Cragen isn't saying anything, he's blocking the reports and the case was held in a closed court. None of that really adds up and Stabler and I are sittin' her spinnin' our wheels wondering how a cop like Benson suddenly looses her sense of who she is," Munch said and stood to his feet. "So you can run off to the bathroom and throw your hood-tantrum, but you and I both know there is only one thing that'll do that to a woman like, Benson," Munch said as he grabbed his cup of coffee from his desk and walked away.

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Why was there a picture of Det. Olivia Benson on his desk? Why? There wasn't a picture of any of his other detectives on his desk, but there was one of her, a matted pony-tail, sweat covering her face as she grinned and held up a peace sign to the camera. She'd finished the charity run and beat her personal goal and he was there to snap the picture as she crossed the line. She'd invited him and he'd happily accepted wondering why in the hell she didn't invite her partner or one of her co-workers, friends maybe. He'd pushed that aside and reveled in the fact that she'd asked him. He accepted and bought a new camera for the sole purpose of snapping a picture of her doing something outside of the hell hole they called work.

But why was that picture on his desk? What possessed him to actually go to a store, purchase a frame, place the photo in the frame and place it on his desk? Why?

Captain Donald Cragen took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The picture was sitting on his desk because when things got hectic, when they got hard and he wanted to turn to the bottle he looked at the picture of her smiling and he was reminded that it was possible to overcome hardship and frustration and chaos.

He'd received her personnel file one week before she reported for duty and he didn't know what the hell to think. Her history was long and painful but then she'd walked into his office green and ready to take on all of Manhattan.

And she did.

She'd earned his respect quickly and although he's never told her, he's thought of her as his daughter. Maybe that's the real reason the picture sits on his desk. She's been fearless in this job and it didn't necessarily mean she was never scared, he knows she was terrified when Gitano held her partner at gun point, she was scared when she was held hostage and she was frantic when her brother surfaced. She was fearless because she did her job in spite of being afraid.

The corner of his mouth lifted gently and settled again. He wonders if she's scared to admit she's in love with her partner, wonders if she'll one day be fearless with that too.

Admit it despite her fear.

He looks back at the picture and shakes his head, remembers her voice.

If this is how I have to do my job. Then let me do it.

He let her. God help him, he let her go into a prison without a weapon or back up. He's read the report. There may have not been actual rape but something was stolen from her that night and the responsibility isn't hers for having gone in.

It's his for having let her. God help him, he let her.

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Finn is standing there with his dick in his hand, his legs spread in front of the urinal and it's been at least a minute since he's stopped pissing. He takes a breath and he hasn't slept in months. He can see Olivia cuffed to that door every single night he lays his head against the white of his pillow.

He's momentarily startled because it's just dawned on him that his dick was still in his hand and this is exactly how he found Harris, leaned over Olivia his dick in his hand. He exhales, fixes his clothes and adjusts his belt before standing in front of the sink. The liquid soap bothers his hands but he hates the idea of leaving without washing them. He presses the dispenser once then twice and turns the water on before slowly rubbing his hands together.

He wishes he'd gotten to her faster.

He wishes he didn't stand in that fucking vaccination line as long as he did.

He rubs the soap until his hands are coated in white foam and he thinks it should be this easy for her, the whole sting was supposed to be easy. She was supposed to get out without a scratch. Her hands should have been the only thing dirty because prison was dirty. That should have been the only reason. She should have been able to stand at a sink just like he is and wash her hands. That should have been the only thing dirty.

He rinses his hands slowly and he knows her. He knows that even with the therapy she's going to, she feels dirty and no amount of soap is gonna fix that. He fucked up. Really, he understands why she leaves her meals on her desk.

Sometimes, he leaves his too.

"Finn!" The door bursts open and Elliot is angry. There's a big surprise.

"What the hell do you want?" Finn smacks his lips. He's sick of Elliot's shit in general and if it needs to happen, he will kick his ass right now. He moves to the paper towel dispenser.

"What the hell happened in that basement!" Elliot demanded.

"Fuck you, Stabler. Fuck you and fuck your pouty-ass bull shit. Step to me like that again and I'll stomp your ass, understand?" Finn said casually, his eyes narrowed again.

"She's fucking falling apart right in front of us you selfish fuck and you can't even-"

Finn closed the gap in a split second his fist crossing clean across Elliot's chin sending him spinning into the wall.

"Fuck you!" Finn snapped again, pulling on Elliot's shoulder so that he faced him long enough that he could hit him again. Elliot's head snapped back and he stumbled but he managed to block the next punch thrown and anger management be dammed he was gonna kick the shit out of Finn.

Elliot charged Finn, grabbing him around his waist and shoving him back into the wall before punching once in Finn's gut then twice. Finn bent low, his breath taken away but took his opportunity and reached for Elliot's leg, he pulled immediately and Elliot landed on his back, his head thudding against the tile as Finn covered him, his fist raised in the air.

"Stop!" Elliot groaned, "Shit-stop. Fuck! My head," he groaned, holding the base of his skull.

Finn assessed the man under him, knew he was hurt and just for good measure brought his fist down against his face in one solid punch.

Elliot moaned rolling to his side, "What the fuck, Finn!"

"Come at me like that again, bitch."

"Fuck," Elliot grumbled and pushed himself up to sit against the wall. "Damnit," he moaned and rubbed the back of his head. "Shit that's gonna hurt tomorrow."

"Stop being a bitch," Finn snipped and flexed his aching hand as he sat along the wall a few feet from Elliot.

Elliot took a deep breath, brought his legs up to his chest and rested his forearms on his knees. They were quiet for a few moments until Elliot caught his breath. "She doesn't eat," he said softly.

Finn nodded, "I know."

"She's lost weight and she… she's not taking care of herself. She looks horrible."

"Well don't tell her that, shit. It ain't gonna help," Finn said and the exhaustion in his voice surprised him.

"Finn," Elliot shook his head and looked at him, "I need to know."

Finn pushed himself up from the floor and moved to walk away before stopping, "You know what Stabler? She needs to know, too."

Elliot furrowed his brows and peered up from the floor, "Needs to know what?"

"That you still give a shit about her. She's had a hell of a year… And where the fuck have you been?"

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She wants to take a shower she does but she can't because the last time she did, she was startled by a shadow in the small bathroom and she lost her footing falling in the tub. She'd hurt for days after that and her elbow stayed bruised and sore for weeks.

A fucking shadow had scared the shit out of her.

Instead, she's developed an interesting habit of brushing her teeth constantly. She may not have had to do the actual act, but his penis was close enough to her lips that she could see the mole, could see the ridges and the blue of his veins and smell the sweat of his groin. Somehow that was enough to make her lips, her mouth, tongue and teeth feel disgusting.

All the fucking time.

She's hungry but she knows if she eats she'll vomit. She's exhausted but can't sleep, restless but can't relax and she can't fucking think to save her life. She sits in the corner of her couch, her knees up to her chest as she huddles into herself, wishes she could fade to nothing.

It's Christmas-fucking-eve outside and that's only occurred to her right now. The snow is the only thing that has registered with her this winter and she thinks it because it startles her that she's no longer cold. She's no longer anything.

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He's decided that pad thai couldn't wait until tomorrow and he hopes that she wont interpret changing his shirt as getting into a scuffle with Finn. He carries the take-out in his hands and he forces himself to take the stairs slowly because he's still thinking of what he wants to say to her.

Thinking of the ways not to put his foot in his mouth.

Thinking of how not to hurt her.

Thinking of how to apologize to her for being an ass all this time. For not being there for her.

He's on the landing of her floor and walking slowly to the opposite side of the hallway to where he knows her door is. He thinks they'll be okay eventually but he's got to get her to open up to him or they'll never stand a chance. Not as partners or friends or anything else. He walks down the hall and he's only feet from her door when he freezes.

Something is entirely wrong, the hall is dimly lit yet there's a stream of bright light coming from her front door that is half opened, her keys still in the lock. He deposits the take out on the floor, draws his weapon slowly, quietly and gently pushes the door open just a little more, "Liv?" he calls quietly and makes his way into the hall, his service weapon is shoulder level, his arm extended and his palm is already sweating, his adrenaline in full throttle.

"Olivia?" he calls again when he enters the brightly lit apartment. Every damn light is on and there is music quietly playing in the background. He moves deeper into the apartment and scans the area, the barrel of his weapon acting as a guide for his eyes when they finally settle on her body.

She's dead.

It's his first thought because she sure as hell hasn't been sleeping, but after a moment where every nerve and receptor in his body is suddenly raw, he sees her chest rise and fall.

She's sleeping.

Relief is immediate and his weapon is holstered as he returns to pick up the forgotten meal. Within seconds he's back into the apartment and he stills the moment he places the take out on the counter. He trains his ear and hears a whimper.

His heart breaks as he walks to her. She's having a nightmare, one hand under the pillow, the other resting on her abdomen. She's still in her same clothes and he can't bare it any longer.

"Olivia," he whispers and she's still lost in her own misery. He takes a knee, "Liv?" he says softly and gently rests his hand on her abdomen. "Ol-"

Within a fraction of a second, he's swallowing against the barrel of the weapon she's pulled from under the pillow, her other hand clutching his shirt and chest. He's just scared the shit out of her, she's panting and her eyes are wild with terror and the only thing he can do as he begins to sweat through his dress shirt is slowly raise his hands and lower his voice as he tries to find her gaze. "Olivia. Olivia, it's me. It's Elliot."

She doesn't move. Doesn't blink or do anything else to acknowledge she's heard him. "Liv… Olivia, you've got to listen to me," his heart is pounding in his chest and he's scared if he moves he'll loose his balance and startle her into shooting him. He swallows again and his atom's apple hits the barrel of the weapon and it hurts, he flinches and she pushes the barrel against him even harder.

"Liv!" he's pleading with her, trying to appeal to her senses, "Honey, it's me. It's me. It's Elliot from work," he says softly and there's something in her eyes that register. "It's me, Olivia. I'm sorry I scared you. It's just me," he assured her and can see her eyes slowly soften. "Liv… give me your gun. It's okay," he whispered as the pressure from the gun slowly lifted. "It's okay, give me the gun. It's okay."

"El?" her brows dipped as he slipped the weapon from her hand. "Elliot?"

He's removed the slide from her weapon, after taking the magazine out and removing the brass from the slide. "Hey," he said softly and before he could think about it, his hand cupped her cheek, "Hey," he soothed, "are you okay?"

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His hand is warm against her and she's heard his question and she's aware he's taken her gun from her. No. No I'm not okay. Please make this go away. I'm so tired. "I'm okay," she nods less than convincingly and pulls away from is hand. "Please don't touch me."

His hand drops and his mouth hangs open in slight shock. That hurt a hell of a lot more than he could ever thought it would. "I'm sorry," he says because that's all he knows to say. He's fucked up so many things that he knows he owes her a million apologies and should start giving them as soon as possible.

Awkward silence falls between them and he thinks he messed up by coming, he should have went back to his apartment. He's an ass. "The door was open… your keys were in it. I was worried-"

"Thanks," she says, cutting him off. She can't deal with him right now. "I'm okay. You can go."

He tilts his head, his brows knitting together and he wants to pull her down from the couch, hold her against him and tell her everything will be okay. He'd do it if he wasn't terrified she'd beat the crap out of him. "Oliv-"

"What?" she asks, not letting him finish her name. She loves it when he says her name, low and gentle. It's been a rare occurrence the last few years. She's gotten used to the hard bitter way it sounds on his lips now and she can't go back to the opposite. Won't let herself. She thinks she officially hates him because he's bad fucking luck.

If he's with her in the field things like being held at gun point happen and if he's not with her, shit really goes to fuck. She's got to get away from him but she knows that when he's not around she can't breathe and right now, she needs breath no matter how stale and angry it might be.

He groans a little that she's being so short with him, "Why are you so upset with me?" he says and it's not demanding at all, it's pleading and that makes her exponentially pissed.

Her eyes narrow at him and in spite of the brightly lit room, her eyes are jet black with anger and bitterness and frustration and everything he knows should be directed at him. She stands suddenly and walks past him mumbling what he thinks sounds like a big fat fuck you.

He's up just as fast and following her to the kitchen, but his words are gentle, "What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he asks and he's standing right behind her, his body heat seeping into her bones and his proximity is fucking infuriating.

"I told you. Nothing. Get away from me," she tells him and there is a warning in her voice that he knows he should heed but he's too stupid to do it and instead he takes a step closer, blocking her now with his palms on the counter. His chest is so close to her back that the fabric of her shirt collides with him and he's doing everything he can to keep his arms from wrapping around her and holding her. She'd kick his ass.

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he says and his voice is just as calm as his insides are not.

Her eyes slam shut and she wishes she'd showered. Her hair must smell awful and it angers her even more that he's standing close enough to smell her. "Let me go."

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?"

"Nothing," she says weakly and sniffles.

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?"

She bites down on her lower lip and now, she's gonna fucking kill him. She turns in the tight area that he's made for her and she's surprised to see the compassion in his face, the desire to help her, the bright blue of his eyes, focused solely on her. For a second she thinks she's looking at him when he was her friend so many years ago. Now?… Now he's just him and she's not anything. Not anymore.

He's managed to take a small step forward, his arms still locking her in place and she's trapped and completely safe at the same time but she can't stand to see his face right now, it's too soft and caring and she hasn't seen that in entirely too long. She's been dealt a shitty hand. No sleep, he's taken her gun, taken her space and her distance and is threatening to take her last scrap of dignity by admitting to him that Harris provoked absolute terror in her. Brought her literally to her knees.

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he asked again, so much more softly that the whisper touched her face, caressed her skin and she hated him for this. For making her feel like this when she can't even remember who she is half the time. She's been dealt a shitty hand but every woman still has one card up her sleeve and she's not stupid.

He's a man and she's played the card enough to know it trumps everything else. Even emotional pain.

She bows her head, closes her eyes as if preparing herself for this, and really she is. She's preparing herself, putting herself out there to a married man in the hopes he will let his sexual needs prevail, in hopes that he will be distracted by the offer of sex and leave her the fuck alone, let her fade to nothing.

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?"

She takes a small breath and rests her hands on his forearms and she's not shocked that he's all muscle or that he smells like coffee and aftershave and fabric softener. No, she's not shocked by that. She is however; shocked by the fact that his breath just hitched as if he was not only not expecting the touch but that it took the air from his chest, too. She looked up and she's now scared to death because right there, in front of her, inches from her is a clear look in his eyes that he might have feelings for her.

Well, isn't that just fan-fucking-tastic timing.

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Sun is warm grass is green. Sun is warm grass is green. Sun is warm grass is green.

Shit. Elliot has just discovered that Anger Management doesn't work for desire. That's okay though. He's not going to fuck this up. He hopes she didn't see the look on his face, he hopes that the heat that torched it's way to his skin didn't register in a flush across his cheeks when she touched him. He hopes she didn't hear his voice do that stupid teenager shit but the way she's looking at him- he knows his cheeks and hitched breath fucked him over.

Her hands are moving up, gliding over his arms to his chest and she's sagged just slightly in the cramped half circle he has her in. Why the hell did he get this close to her? He was trying to irritate the hell out of her. Trying to get her to snap and loose her temper and finally just let everything come out and he didn't care if he was on the receiving end. He didn't however; anticipate this. Not now. He feels her fingers lace together behind his neck and he knows she's doing this to distract him. He's not going to fuck this up. "What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he says, trying to get this back on track.

She runs the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip and avoids eye-contact as she comes to her tip toes, her hands now loosening his tie as her lips find his ear, "Is that really why you're here, Elliot?"

His eyes close and he doesn't care that her clothes are dirty or that her hair is matted or that- wait! No. No this isn't why he came here. "What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he asks and gently covers her hand with one of his, stops its movements and wishes he hadn't because really he knows a woman like her will never be interested in him.

She smirks and the smirk is loaded with too much subtext for him to really understand. It says lust and playfulness but under all of it, he sees the hurt and the confusion and shit, she's gonna hate herself already for this tomorrow and she hasn't really done anything. "I don't think that's really why you're here, Elliot," she whispers and it hits his gut like a boxers punch and he's commanding his dick to stand down. Literally.

Not gonna fuck this up. Not gonna fuck this up. Not gonna fuck this up.

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?"

And before he can do anything else, her lips touch his and he'd like to tell you all the cliché shit about them being soft and pliable and sexy as hell but they're not. She's chewed on them so much he can feel the splits and the rough edges and there are spots that still taste of blood but her tongue passes over his and he groans. Her mouth is warm and giving and taking and tempting and-

Fucking this up! Fucking this up! Fuckingthisupfuckingthisupfuckingthisup!

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Wild card works every time. She strokes his tongue with hers one more time and she thinks it's pretty sad that their first kiss is with her this broken, him married and her whole intent, manipulation.

But, she hears his groan, feels him stop himself from getting any closer so she decides she'll do what she wants. She nips at his lip when he starts to pull away, holds his lip for just a split second before letting go and kissing him again. Her hands falling to his waist band and she hates that she's gonna do this to him but she's already pulling on the lead of his belt, feeding it in the opposite direction so that it's free. She thinks she heard him say something against her mouth that sounded like a no, but she decides she's probably hearing things, what with her tongue down his throat and all. She starts pulling at his shirt.

"No," he says and it's full of frustration and confusion and want as his hands stop hers.

"Come on, Elliot," she smiles and her smile isn't her at all. It's deceiving and scheming and all the things he's never known her to be. "You want this, it's pretty obvious," she says and gently tugs her hand free, purposefully grazing his hardening erection with the back of her hand as she stared at him and placed her hand back on his hip. The problem was she wasn't staring at him.

She was starring through him.

He swallows hard. He wants this, but not like this. Not with her in this much torment not when anything had been right between the two of them in too long. He exhales, takes a minute step backwards, "I want to know what happened in the basement at Seal View. That's why I'm here."

There was that damn smile again. She pulls him into her, jerking him by his waistband and he tumbles into her, moves his head to avoid slamming into her face. She touches the shell of his ear gently with her mouth, nips at his ear lobe, "Why do you want me to tell you? So you can fuck the pain away?" she chuckles darkly. "So you can fuck me until I feel better?"

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The words slice through him. Did she really think he'd do something like that to her? Use her emotional state to get her under him? Yeah, he's an ass a hundred and two percent of the time but, no. Never. He'd never use her like she'd just accused him.

He grabs her wrists and backs up immediately, roughly as if she's acid. He's horrified that she would think such a thing but then again he just let her kiss him during said emotional state.

He's fucking this up.

He's breathing hard and he can't catch his breath. He wanted to come here, make sure she ate, make sure she slept just a little bit and yes, he wanted her to tell him what happened.

She's starring at him, fake self-assurance oozing through a smile as she braces her hands on the counter behind her. He needs to say something but it takes a few moments to ground him self again. She'd kissed him and he'd wanted that for, at the least, two months, at the most… years.

"If you believe that I would do something like that," he swallows, still trying to find his breath, "then you've never known me."

"I knew you once," she says and it's so simple, her statement. "I haven't got a clue who the hell you are right now or who you've been the last three years," she adds with raised brows. "But yeah, I knew you, once."

Three years. See, there's that little correlation piece again.

He stares at her, realizes she's trying to make him leave, she's pushing buttons, looking for the big red one. Well, he only has one thing to say to that.

"What happened in the base-"

"Stop fucking asking me that, Elliot!" she screams and turns back around, her elbows on the countertop as she bends to rest her face in her hands. "Go home, Elliot!" she demands.

"Not until you tell me what happened in that basement, Olivia," he says and it's so damn soft she's incensed all over again. Before she realizes what she's doing, she's snapped, reached over to the cutlery block and retrieved the first knife she can grab.

Fucking pairing knife.

"You don't have the right to know!" she screams and she's turned on him, the knife pointed in his direction only feet between them.

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Sun is warm grass is green. Sun is warm grass is green. Sun is warm grass is green.

"I'm your-"

"Don't you dare tell me you're my friend Elliot," she seethed. "I will shove this thing right in your fucking chest, I swear. Don't you dare tell me that shit because you haven't been anything for a really long time."

He thinks she may as well shove the knife in his chest. Her words just stabbed into his heart, why not take out his lungs too? She's right, he hasn't been anything except the proverbial thorn in her flesh, always taking, never giving. He's bled her out and this is the result of him not being there, of Finn being the person he should have been.

Her savior, friend, help, confidant.

He feels himself take a step closer. She won't actually stab him, or at least he hopes that's the case. Kind of hard to tell these days with the crazy glint in her eyes like the one she's sporting right now. "I'm you're partner-"

Her brows rocket to her forehead in shock and revolt, "Yeah, when you want to be, right?"

"What?" his brows dip in confusion. "What's that su-"

"To mean?" she finishes his sentence for him because she knows how to. Because after years of working together its just what they do, and even that's been lacking lately but she's nailed this one and she's caught a second wind.

"It means," she says and punctuates her words with a dip of the knife's blade toward him, daring him to come closer. "That you don't get to come here and ask me what happened in the basement because you never gave a rats ass about me digging a little girl out of hole she was supposed to die in! It means, you never fucking asked me if I was okay when someone blew their fucking brains out in front of me or when someone else bled out in my arms and you never once asked me if I was okay after Gitano or any of the other shit I've dealt with in the last three years, so don't you fucking stand there and ask me how I felt about being attacked in a fucking basement you piece of shit!"

She was raped.

He tried to close the distance between them, tell her everything would be okay but she'd held that knife out and when he moved closer the tip of the blade dug painfully into the left side of his chest. Fuck he's trying not to cry and not because of the knife, but because she's absolutely right although she failed to mention a few others that came to mind. "I'm your friend, Liv," he chokes out.

"Then where the hell were you?" she says angrily her words low and vicious as she takes a step forward and adds pressure to the knife.

Shit, it's uncomfortable but not nearly as painful as her accusations, her questions her anger and fury towards him. "I-I had my head up my ass, Olivia. I was so focused on myself that, I-I-I failed you but I never forgot about you."

He's thrown her off guard by his admission he can tell because the knife isn't digging into him as deeply now. He wanders if it's the admission that has caught her off guard or if it's the readiness of it, the speed and ease in which the apology fell from his lips. He wonders if she realizes he's wanted to tell her he was sorry for a very long time, he just didn't know how to get there.

He feels the knife dig into him again and it's harder this time and he swallows a groan, "Liv, Liv that hurts."

"Good," she whispers. "Maybe now you've felt one-eigth of what I've been feeling," she says and shakes her head as her tears well in her eyes. "You don't have the right to ask me anymore."

He moves his feet, takes a step forward and can literally feel the instant the knife has broken through the first layer of skin. His eyes flinch just barely and he continues to step again, his nostrils flaring and his breathing heightened as he tries to will the sting away from his chest.

"What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he says again and takes another step the sting turning into pain as he swallows and stares at her. "I've not been your partner or your friend in a very long time," he whispers because if he gets any louder his words will turn into a cry. "I want to change that, I want to show you that I'm getting my life together and I'm here for you. I'm late," he chuckles dryly. "But I'm here, and I'm not leaving this time. I'm right here. I'm staying, so you can shove the knife in my chest if you have to, but I'm not backing down."

"Fuck you," she says softly but it's a challenge she's issued and she's pressing harder on the knife.

His head is literally shaking trying to control the pain that is now ripping through his chest. He'd take a bullet any day because this shit hurt. He knows his face is red, he can feel the heat in his ears, his fist flex at his sides, "What happened in the basement, Olivia?"

"Stop asking me that," she growls and her lips tighten as she places more weight behind the knife.

He holds his stare on her, his teeth sink into his cheek and his face is twitching as he feels blood trickle down his chest. He moves closer and growls against the pain, his teeth clenched as the blade cuts deeper into him. Fuck this hurts but he thinks maybe this is what it felt like every single time he made her feel less that important. "I'm sorry I took you for granted," he confesses. "I'm sorry I was arrogant of your friendship."

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She's pretty sure if she let go of the knife, it will stick in his chest. That's good because when he let go of her, his carelessness still stuck out of her chest, a knife he'd shoved in it without even knowing. She should have shot him when she had the chance. "Go. Home," she growls and announces each word with a thrust of her hand.

He whimpers, feels the trail of blood go warmer. She hasn't done any real damage at all, she's sure of it, but he looks as though he literally is in physical pain at this point. "Stop it," she rasps as he takes another movement forward, his face screwing up in pain as he looks away, looks up and then to his side, trying to look at anything for just a split moment until the pain settles into a dull ache and he has to take another step forward.

"What happened… in the basement, Olivia?" he pants and growls against the pain.

"Stop it, stop getting closer," she says and sniffles, "stop it."

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He doesn't listen, moves closer to her again and he folds forward just slightly at the sensation of the blade moving deeper into his flesh, he's guessing in one or two more moves she'll hit muscle.

He wonders if she knows the exact moment he cut into her chest with his lack of concern.

"What… happened… in the basement, Liv?" he asks and steps forward, his eyes slamming shut and he can feel the metal now deeper into his flesh as he opens his mouth in pain and moves closer to her.

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She can see blood start to seep through his shirt and she can't believe this is happening. What the hell is she doing to him? She can't take the sounds of his voice the way his insides are clawing through his throat to yell and protest the pain she is causing him. "Stop it. Please, Elliot. Stop."

She sees a tear accumulate and fall slowly from his face as he moves closer and she feels the blade move in deeper as if finally penetrating the layers of skin and searching for muscle to destroy. "What happened in-"

"STOP IT!" she shouts through a strangled sob and drops the knife. The pain of the knife backing out of his skin, momentarily flashes over his eyes before she recognizes the relief that sets in. She hears the knife crash to the floor like her dignity did when Harris cuffed her to the door and attempted to take what should only be given.

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He sees her break and his arms instantly reach for her and he thinks they're gonna be just fine because she's allowing him to hold her.

For all of one second.

She's squirming now, trying to get her freedom from him. He's got no right to be doing this now, not when she needed it months ago. "Let me go you sonofabitch!" she hisses and he feels her hands press against his face pushing and trying to distance herself.

"Stop," he says softly. "It's me. Stop. You're okay," he tries to reassure her and feels the sting of her slap right down to the marrow of his bones.

Sun is warm grass is green. Ten-nine-eight-seven-six… okay. Got it.

But he doesn't have her because in his shock he's loosened his grip and she's distanced herself again. She's got her arms around her middle and is tucked safely in the corner against the kitchen cabinets. "Please, Elliot. Just leave me alone?"

He nods his head slowly and begins to close the gap again, a little more confidently now that she has no weapon. "No," he says gently, "not until you tell me, what happened in the basement, Olivia."

She stiffens, she's pushed herself away from the cabinets and he knows this can't be good. It's an immediate shift in demeanor which is a good indicator that the result will be erratic.

He's fucked.

"You want to know what happened?" she says and it's not a question at all, it's a start of something that isn't gonna be pretty. "This happened," she growls and puts all of her body weight into a right hook that connects with his cheek and for the second time in less that two hours his head snaps to the side and he stumbles back.

One thing about Olivia: she hits like a man.

Elliot straightens, but there's water in his eyes from the shock of his face taking impact. He will not back down, not when it's this important. "What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he asks again and feels her fist collide angrily against his chest that is already throbbing in pain.

He's thrown slightly off balance because she's loosing steam and her punches are pushing more than impacting but he keeps moving forward, to his goal. "What happened in the basement, Olivia?" he asks for what might be the hundredth time and she's crying now, her tears streaming her face as her fists assault him, thud against him, play with taking away his air.

"I fucking hate you!" she screams as his hands cover hers, stills them over his chest for the second time that night. The words tear at him and he thinks they'll kill him tonight, after this is all over and he returns to his shitty apartment alone but he's determined to make this okay. "I hate you so damn much!" she screams and her voice cracks and falls apart right in front of him and he knows he's to blame.

He takes a step closer, his hands still holding hers to his chest as he rests his lips at her ear, he squeezes her hands in his, "And I love you," he whispers.

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You sonofabitch.

Olivia sobs against him. She doesn't care that he's married, she just cares that he loves her, that the last ten years haven't been in vein, that they might be able to re-build their friendship and their partnership. Of course they've never actually said such things to one another and they've certainly never used that specific word combination. They talk in code mostly, I'll give you my kidney is I love you while I'll do your paperwork while you go to that concert you wanted to see means I got your back, but neither has ever said this and the fact that he did makes her actually trust it.

She sinks into him finally and completely and she can feel his hand cup the back of her head, she can feel his arm snake around her waist and hold her safely against him. She's safe now, here when she has no more cards to play, no more weapons to hide behind or biting words to spew.

"It's okay, now," she hears him whisper over her and the words give her permission to break. Her eyes close and a torrent of emotion slams into her, building from the depths of her gut and rising as images of Harris flash before her, the cool cement of the wall as he held her cheek against it, the smell of him, of his laundry detergent of the dingy mattress and damp room.

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He holds her tightly as she cries against him and the only thing that he does is encourage her to keep doing it, to cleanse out what she's been holding in so long. "It's okay, now," he tells her again. "I'll be here, I promise. You'll be okay," he whispers again and tenderly strokes her back as she sobs against his neck.

Her hot breath hits his neck and it's not arousing at all. It's painful to know that she hurts this much that she's choking on emotion as he holds her, that she's sometimes coughing and struggling to get her breath. "It's okay," he says again and really he's starting to wonder if he's trying to reassure her or himself.

He lets his eyes roam the area and for the first time that night he really takes into consideration the hell she's been through. Her house is a disaster. He's sure every possible dish in the house is sitting dirty in the sink and he doesn't want to know what's growing on them either.

He feels her hands grab fistfuls of his shirt behind him and while she'd quieted for a few seconds, he knows another round is coming the minute his shirt is pulled tight, and it does. It's loud and he knows it will be haunting. He doesn't stop his lips from pressing gently into her hair as he holds her and if she's noticed the gentle caress she's not reacted to indicate so and he's fine with that. In fact, he presses his lips against her hair again as he looks into the distance of the living room, there isn't a hint of Christmas anywhere and he hates that because it's her favorite holiday and yet here on Christmas Eve she's falling apart and he's got no idea if he can put her back together.

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She's out of breath, feels like she's been sobbing for hours but she thinks it might only be minutes. She's exhausted even more so now even after the sobbing has stopped and the tears flow only on every other blink. She hasn't let her hands go from his shirt and he hasn't let her go from his embrace and she's finally grateful for that.

"I brought some pad thai," she hears him say and really the thought of food churns her stomach.

"I'm not really hungry," she says softly and she doesn't want to pull back from him but knows it's time now. Aren't there rules about how long a married man can hold his female friend?

She's out of his embrace now and the world seems too big again. Too scary. She wants to go back but knows she can't. She sees his left hand come up to push away a rouge lock of hair and tuck it behind her ear. She's instantly side-tracked, she thinks she heard him say something like she never eats anymore but she doesn't really care because she just saw something that gave her a third wind.

"Where's your wedding ring?" she says and immediately adds more distance between the two of them as if that scrap of metal had been a barrier all along. And it has.

He licked his lips, his head lowering, "You and I haven't talked about very much at all lately."

"Elliot?" she prods him again, "What the hell is going on?"

He shrugs his shoulder lazily, he's ashamed to admit it, he's ashamed to tell his best friend that his wife left him… at his insistence.

"Tell me!" she demands and grabs at his chin, forcing him to look up at her and she's stunned by his tears, because this time they're born out of emotional pain. "El?" her eyes search his and the only thing she sees is that he's as broken as she is yet he's tried so hard with her tonight. And then it dawns on her and she roughly releases his face and smirks in disgust, "Oh I get it. Kathy leaves and I'm what's left to be interested in so you come here," she chuckles darkly. "Maybe you really did want to fuck me until the pain went away-"

"Olivia," he groans at her crassness.

"I guess the question is whose pain you wanted to fuck away?" she asks and she's got her war face on.

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"That's not why I came here," he says quietly still unable to look at her. He feels like a failure and an ass all rolled into one. An assilure.

"You sure?" she asks and he thinks she should be careful because she's liable to slip in her own sarcasm. "Maybe you thought, oh hey, Liv looks like she hasn't been fucked in awhile, let's start there. Or maybe you thought,-"

"Eli isn't mine," he whispered before he knew what else to do. He could never think those things about her. In fact, the only thing he's really thought thus far in relation to this whole mess, was if Kurt Moss, her then boyfriend was treating her okay and then she'd suddenly broke it off. But hey, the confession of his youngest son not being his finally got her to shut up with the disgusting accusations.

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She wishes she'd gone to the grocery store and gotten a whole cart full of booze but since Harris, she's made a deliberate conscience attempt to stay the hell away from the stuff even going so far as to clean out her apartment until there was nothing there that could spiral her further out of control.

But boy could they use a little Captain tonight.

"What did you just say?" she says and she wonders if he hears the genuine shock in her voice.

She watches him stare at the counter-top and slowly take a seat on a bar stool. "Eli," he whispers again and she can tell just saying the name is killing him, "he's… he's not mine. Kathy was seeing someone while we were separated… I'd signed the papers and she… moved on and then…," she watches him crumble right in front of her, his face is red and swollen from her anger and his shirt is stain in blood and this has been on his heart this whole time. Shit.

She wants to be angry at him for this but really, she thinks if she was in his shoes, she'd need time to wrap her mind around the concept too. "H-how, I mean, when did you find out?"

He blinked slowly and looked up at her licking his lips, "He just… he's growing so fast and getting so big and… he doesn't look like me at all and he doesn't look like the kids when they were that age, I mean not even close."

"Elliot," she smiles softly, hoping to help him fix this. "Lot's of families have that happen. I mean, look at Simon and me… as much as I hate to admit it we have the same father and we look nothing alike. It happens. It doesn't mean he's not yours-"

"No," Elliot smiles softly, sadly. "But the papers I was served with from his biological father does."

She's got to pull up her own seat or fall on her ass from the shock. "What?"

Elliot shakes his head and he's fighting like hell not to shed tears, "Kathy never told him, she said she thought she was absolutely sure it was me but… I don't know… they ran into one another a few months back and he saw Eli and all hell broke loose," he admitted and took a deep breath before letting it out. "I asked her point blank after I got served."

"What did she say?" Olivia asks quietly, still not able to believe it all, just yet.

"She couldn't answer me, but… it was written all over her face and she never denied it. I asked Kathy for the divorce… I couldn't… I can't deal with that much deceit. She has no idea, no idea how much better of a father I wanted to be for that little boy," he whisperes and really she doesn't know what to say. She wants to ask him if he's gonna fight it, he is after all on the birth certificate. She wants to ask him where he was staying, if he was okay if he needed anything.

"You hungry?" comes out instead. "My uh… friend brought me some food, if you want some."

The corner of his mouth lifts, "Your friend huh?"

"Yeah," she nods softly and opens the small container before passing it to him, "I hadn't seen him for a really long time, but he uh… showed up today. I think he's sticking around. Or I hope so at least."

Elliot nods in agreement, "Yeah, I think he's finally getting his head out of his ass."

"Elliot," she exhales, "are you okay? Where are you living? Child support is a bitch, do you n-"

"I'm okay," he assures her. "Got a little dive and I've only got a few more years on the support unless," his face darkenes and he grows quiet before responding again, "I'm okay… think we can warm this up?" he says motioning to the carton of pad thai.

"Um," her face flushes red in embarrassment, "I sort of don't have any… clean…dishes for the microwave."

He stands and smiles at her as he looks at his watch, for a moment she's suddenly panicked that he's going to leave but then he speaks and she's relieved again, "I want you to take a shower and take your time in it, I want you to relax and try to forget that you stabbed me-"

"El-"

"I'm playing with you," he smiles and takes her by the hand, gently leading her across the apartment to what he knows is her room, "Go. It'll be okay. I'll be out here, I know you're not gonna be able to stomach those noodles anyway," he says softly. "You'll be okay. Take your time."

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Clean skin felt so good. Olivia stands in her towel and reaches for the blow dryer as the shivers take over her body. She needs dry hair and fast. She's not so stupid as to think that Elliot will leave well enough alone. She knows he's going to keep asking and she wants to tell him, she does but how does she get there? How does she actually do that, with him?

And what of his divorce status for the second time in three years? What did that mean?

The warm air blows across her damp hair lifting and separating the dark strands as she runs a brush through it following it with the blow dryer. It hit her right then, as she tossed her hair forward to add volume to her roots as she dried. He's available. He's available and he was aroused when she kissed him and he'd groaned into her mouth and came back to her lips when she demanded it. He's available.

To which she has only one thing to say to that.

They will re-build trust and friendship before she even thinks about it.

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She tosses on a sweater over her t-shirt as she steps out of her room and the first thing she notices is the smell of pad thai, the noodle and the meat and the pure deliciousness of it, but it's mixed with something else something… She can't put her finger on it just yet but as she makes her way into the kitchen she notices that there is a single plate of pad thai on the counter, fresh steam rising from it and just next to it is a take-out bag from the little soup shop across the street.

She unfolds the bag and takes out the container; the smell she couldn't quite place is the tomato soup he's bought for her to eat-

Wait. Was that a clean plate? She looks again and then surveys the kitchen and her living room, he's cleaned her apartment, complete with lighting a scented candle. She smiles a little and it feels just as good as her clean, freshly lotioned skin. Her home smells of clean linen now and it's one of her favorite smells from child hood when she unloaded fresh laundry from the dryer.

"El?" she takes a cursory look around the apartment again but really, where's he gonna hide in the small one bedroom apartment? The linen closet that is barely big enough to fit her linen? She smirks, looks back down at the meal he's laid out and decides he must have been coming back because there is a plate for him and a bowl of soup for her but she can't quite understand where in the hell he would go right now when both of them have been fighting so doggedly with one another.

And then it sinks in that he's giving her a choice between the two meals. He knows she probably won't be able to eat the one and so he's provided a back up in the form of the other. She feels the disappointment creep in that he's gone now and she thinks that's pretty ironic considering she went to great lengths to try and get him to leave in the first place. She thinks it's unfair though that he has opened her up and grated against every single emotional connection in her body only to leave in the end.

He asked her over and over again what happened in the basement and he never stuck around for her answer.

She should have stabbed his ass.

Her disappointment is starting to morph into anger deep inside of her and she moves to the plate of pan fried noodles and meat and vegetables and grabs it, ready to sluff its contents into the garbage disposal.

"You piece of shit!"

She's suddenly startled by the boom just beyond her front door and she almost drops the plate on the kitchen floor before getting it together enough to slide it onto the counter. The voice is undeniably Elliot's but who in the hell is he yelling at in her building?

"You oversized fuck!"

She thinks he's just encountered Mr. Duein across the way. He's obese yes, but he's sweet, always saying hi, seeing how she is and what he can do. He's brought her food a few weeks ago because he said he noticed she was looking tired. He thought maybe she hadn't had time to cook.

She's gonna kick Elliot's ass.

She storms to the door with renewed irritation and anger and frustration with all that is happening tonight but it's suddenly thrust opened, nearly hitting her as the air moves across her face, lifting her dark bangs. The door bangs against the wall and she hopes to hell the photo of her and Simon doesn't crash to the ground.

"Drag your ass in here," Elliot hisses, his back to her and he appears to have no idea she's standing right behind him, eyes wide with confusion.

Until she sees the object of his frustration. It's fat yes and it's cumbersome but its not her neighbor at all, in fact it's not human. No, the object that has him grunting and frustrated and cussing like a sailor is the fattest, tallest Christmas tree she's ever seen before.

"Come on!" Elliot groans and tugs at the skinniest part of the tree.

"Maybe if you take it from the other side," she suggests and watches him freeze as she chuckles. "It's just a tree, El. Don't let it kick your ass."

He turns to her and his smile breaks over his face. "I thought you'd still be getting ready… I went a few blocks over and got this, it was bitch to bring it back," he tells her and lets the pine branches lean against his frame dwarfing him with its size.

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He watches her take a step closer to him and she has this gentle smile on her face and he knows that it might have been a bitch to get the fucking tree two blocks with people all over the place and no cab money after he spent the ungodly amount on the tree, but seeing this smile on her face, no matter how gentle was entirely worth the scratches on his arm and the needles that irritated his face and his now empty wallet save his credit cards.

So worth it.

He watches as she closes the gap and gently runs her fingertips over the first branch she touches and ducks her head taking in the scent of the tree. Her smile turns to a grin and he feels his heart soar with the motion. "It already kicked my ass up all the stairs… want to help me pull it in?"

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I want to kiss you. Thank you for this, Elliot. Thank you for bringing Christmas to me when I didn't want it at all.

"You got this for me?" she whispers and takes in the scent of fresh pine and forest and Christmas again.

"Well," his brows widen in playful irritation. "I'm sure as hell not lugging this fire wood to my apartment. It won't fit," he jokes and stretches his torso to move the tree out of the threshold so they can reverse it.

She sees it then, the trail of stained blood down his blue dress shirt and she feels the sadness and regret that she's done that to him. It's a thin line, nothing life threatening she knows, but the fact that she'd done it, let him push into the knife without concern to his safety hit her in the gut and she blinks to hold in her tears as she watches Elliot wedge his large body between the door frame and the tree.

His inability to negotiate the tree with grace produces pure laughter in her and she can't hold in the tears or the mirth as he finds him self momentarily stuck. "Fucking branch!" he hisses and moves his leg with a jerk, she hears the tear of his slacks and she can't hold out any longer, the laughter erupts and she immediately is at his aide.

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I like your hand on me. Elliot stills at her touch on his back and watches as she reaches down near his leg and presses the branches into the tree's core, offering him a safe path although narrow. He's free but he'd stay locked up like that forever if she'd touch him again while she laughed. That was nice to be a part of.

"Okay, let's back it out all the way and bring it again from the opposite side," she says and it surprises him that she slips past the tree with ease and finesse and is already tugging it out.

She looks good. For a small second, she doesn't look like she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders, it doesn't look like she's drowning and still holding up an arm in hopes of a line. He thinks maybe he was her line and he's finally, mercifully been cast and this small perfect moment of her laughter, even at his expense, is the moment where she's grabbed hold of the line and known she'd be pulled into safety.

"Elliot?" she's tilting her head at him and her eyes are full of curiosity that he's starring at her in silence, "El? What?"

He blinks fast as if just realizing he'd been caught and he knew he was. Nothing. Nothings wrong. "You-you look good, Liv."

Her mouth falls open just slightly and she grins wide, bowing her head to stave off the blush that is creeping up. She's like a fucking teenager right now. She looks down at her faded jeans with holes in the knees and thigh, her NYPD sweater and her bare feet and she pulls a strand of hair behind her ear before looking up again, "Thank you. I feel better."

"Good," he says and he's sorry he's made her uncomfortable but he just wanted her to know. He finally, for once wanted to tell her what's on his mind when she asks instead of feeding her the same line. Nothings wrong. "Think you can help me with this death trap?" he teases and they both take hold of the tree carefully navigating the too large ornament until the trunk is facing the door. He tells her to wait just a second and moves to take hold of the trunk, "I'll go backwards," he offers and wishes he didn't because they both fumble through the house and her and her damn long legs are covering too much ground too fast and the trunk has just hit him square in the balls causing a stumble and he's on his back again.

Today, he thinks as he lays there, the tree over his body, head barely poking out, I've gotten my ass kicked by a fat headed man, a woman and now a fucking Christmas tree.

So with that said, it surprises him that a rumbling laugh is what falls out of his mouth.

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"Are you okay?" she asks, trying to step to the side of the tree to see him. "El? You okay? I'm sorry."

His laughter erupts as she takes a knee next to him trying to move the branches and she sees his face, his smile and there he is all over again, the friend she's lost three years ago. He's right here, under a tree he's lugged through the crowded city for her.

"Don't be. I'm okay," he insists and helps her roll the Christmas tree off of him. "The boys took a hit, though."

She shakes her head at the antics they've just participated in, "I'm not putting ice on'em so you'll have to deal," she likes that he's inviting her to tease, that she's comfortable doing so and that laughter is what is being shared right now, not the stern looks, the uncomfortable conversations and flat out avoidances that has defined them for too long.

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They are standing in the midst of boxes of ornaments and what seems to be a million lights that he's helped her retrieve from her hall closet. The city is still alive and bustling below them and they can hear the muted sounds of horns blaring and the occasional siren.

The scent of the Christmas tree has overwhelmed the fresh linen candle but they've let the candle be, the small flame flickering in the corner of the living room, strands of lights plugged in and decorating the floor for now. There's music in the back ground, it's low and soft and it adds to the comfort level between them.

It's cold and he has nothing to wear to warm him so she's been kind of enough to turn up her heater for all of five minutes before he said it was too hot. His indecisiveness brought a smile to her face and they ate their meal together, leaning over the countertop and looking at the tree leaning against the wall of her home.

She's been able to hold down her soup and she's eaten a few bites of pad thai. She knows he's got to still be hungry but he's saved her some of the noodles in hopes that she'll eat again this evening.

"Why didn't you get a tree this year, Liv?" he asks softly as he starts to string lights along the bottom of the tree, passing them behind it now that it's been cut so it doesn't rub against her ceiling, an issue they ran into when they tried to place the tree in the stand.

She takes the strand from his hand and wraps it around the front of the tree, tucking the white lights deep into the tree, "I don't know," she says and her voice if full of pain again. "Ran out of time, I guess," she confesses and hands the strand to him. "El?"

"Yeah?"

She reaches behind the tree waiting for him to pass the strand to her again and she's grateful she doesn't have to face him when she says this, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry I behaved that way, earlier. I'm sorry I tried to-"

He stills and stares forward. He doesn't want to hear that she's sorry for kissing him because he enjoyed every fucked up second of it. "It's okay," he says quickly because he doesn't want to hear that she regrets any part of him. "All the ladies want to know how I kiss, you're just the only one with enough balls to actually see."

She laughs at that. "You cocky ass hole," she teases and they let silence fall for a few seconds again.

"Liv?" he tilts his head and looks at her, his hand covers hers and he holds her fingers loosely in his own. His arm is stretched to keep in contact, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry I added to things for you."

She nods in acceptance, her brown eyes watering. She smiles and blows out a breath trying not to break at the tender apology he's given her like a gift that should be wrapped and carefully placed under the tree, only he's given it to her early and that's just fine with her. "Sounds like you had your plate full too these days."

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Her laughter is amazing right now, the way it fills her apartment and makes him feel like he belongs here, like he's supposed to be here forever now, like he's been here all along. "You seriously thought you killed Santa?" she asks him and he loves that his childhood story has elicited this carefree side to her but he still wants to know what happened in that basement.

"Yeah," he chuckles as he places a red glass ornament on the tree. "My brother," he explains convinced me to add more wood to the fireplace and I put so much that the coals were still red on Christmas morning…he woke me up and told me I'd killed him with the fire. I cried and cried until my mother showed me the presents under the tree. My father spanked the hell out of him," he says and chuckles more to himself. "What's this?" he asks picking up a new ornament to hang.

She looks at it and smiles warmly, "My first shoe."

Elliot looks down at the small white shoe in his hand and it strikes something within him to be holding something of hers as tiny as this, as if it doesn't quite add up, the gentleness of the infant shoe against her bad-ass cop routine. "I got Eli a pair of Nikes for Christmas," he confesses and there is so much sadness in his voice.

She knows if she looks at him, he wont talk to her about this so she grabs another ornament from the box and pretends to take her time hanging it, "You gonna fight for Eli, El?"

His eyes darken and he's suddenly so lost in his own misery, "I want to," he says and his voice decrescendos like there should be a but interjected but he simply stops talking and stares at the tree.

She glances at him from the corner of her eye and he looks like someone just shot his puppy… or stole his child from him. Her hand rests of the prickly pine and she pretends she's adjusting a light, "I'd support you," she offers.

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The clock has moved on far past nine O'clock and she's tired but not certain she can sleep although the thought of doing so feels more appealing than it has in a long time. The tree is finally complete and perfect and it has warmed a spot in her heart that had grown cold and bitter this year.

They've turned the apartment lights off to admire their work and to simply bask in the soft white light of the tree. The apartment is quiet and gentle and peaceful right now. Not the war zone he walked into hours ago and he likes it better this way. Sure it's fun to see his partner irritated with him, but it was devastating to know that she's hated him, that she's felt that way.

He knows that she didn't run out of time when it came to her tree, she just didn't get one and he knows that he's probably not entirely responsible for that decision, but he knows he didn't help matters either. He knows she was holing herself up in her apartment to avoid life, to avoid that things that she used to enjoy. He knows a lot, and he's learned a lot in the last hours but one thing still remains.

"Liv?" he asks from his side of her couch as they look at the tree, admire that for once the two have them have done something productive without having the overwhelming need to kill one another.

She knows what's on the other side of her name. She's bracing herself there on the couch, her head bowed to collect her thoughts as she pulls her feet to tuck beneath her. "Yeah?" she rasps because this is gonna hurt so badly.

He turns to face her more squarely and the soft lights of the tree make her look delicate and he's scared to ask her now, scared to break her after they've spent hours grounding themselves to one another again. He's realized how much he's missed her and so he's not sure he wants to risk asking. He swallows, "What happened in the basement, Olivia?"

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Her pulse races and she traces her index finger around the rim of the coffee cup that is filled with hot chocolate and child-hood memories. She licks her lips, takes a small sip before resting it on her knee and starring at the tree, "We should go shopping-"

"Olivia-"

"The stores are still open," she whispers and turns her face away, hides it completely by starring at the reflection of the tree in her window.

He places his mug down on the coffee table as he gets up to move closer to her. The couch dips with his weight and he is inches from her. "I can't tell you, Elliot," she says softly and shakes her head, "I can't. Please stop asking."

Before he realizes what he's doing, his warm palm is on her thigh and he's trying so hard to get her to see him, "Liv, look at me."

She closes her eyes, feels the tears already warm her cheek as she turns her face to him, she lifts her eyes to him and it shatters him into a million little pieces that she's hurting this badly but still can't bring herself to confide in him.

He pulls his leg to lay flush against the cushion between them, a triangle forming between them as he gently cups her face in his hand. He might be full of himself but he can swear he feels her lean into his touch, "I'm sorry," he whispers to her, "that I've become a man you can't trust, but I'm here right now and I'm asking you to give me one more chance to prove to you that I care about you, that I'm here and I'm not leaving you alone in this."

Her hand covers his and holds it against her cheek, her eyes closing as she bites her bottom lip and begins to cry quietly. The simple touch that she's not only allowing but holding onto makes him want so much more but before he can do anything else she's let his hand go and replaced it with both of hers, leaning forward to cry. To break apart and shatter.

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She remembers everything about that night. She remembers the metal of the cuffs, the starch of her prison garb and the way the wall felt as he pressed her against it. She remembers how her breast hurt, how the curve of her ribs stung with the pressure.

She remembers crying out for help and she remembers her moment of freedom where she ran like hell. For a moment, she'd felt like she was gonna get away scott-free but then she heard him getting closer and closer and then a suddenly.

Suddenly there he was.

She cries hard into her hands and she hates that she sounds this way that she's sobbing and hiccupping and coughing and struggling to breathe but she can't stop. She can remember the ache in her knees as she struggled against the cuffs, she can remember the sting in her hands as she slapped against the wall for help.

She can remember begging. She can remember saying please.

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His arms reach out to her, slipping effortlessly around her and pulling her close to him. She's not fighting him at all and it surprises him and encourages him at the same time. He pulls her into the triangle he's formed with his leg and allows her to sit there, his arms around her, his chin resting on the crown of her head as her hands hold to his bicep and she simply shatters in his arms. "It'll be okay," he whispers and kisses her hair so gently he's convinced she didn't feel it.

"I was scared," her voice barely breaks through the sound of his roaring heart beat in his ears and the simple confession blows his mind. For some reason he hadn't thought about her being afraid. He'd thought about her feeling shame and embarrassment, but for some reason fear hadn't necessarily crossed his mind and he's not sure why.

"It's okay to be afraid," he says softly and his voice is a healing balm rolling over her and encouraging her to speak, to not be silent anymore when it comes to them. To Seal View."

Her head is nestled safely against his chest and her hands are holding to his arm as he continues to hold her. He leans his shoulder against the back of the couch and in so doing takes her with him into a more relaxing position that really isn't them at all, but then who are they? They haven't known for years now and she'll take this as a new beginning. So will he.

Minutes pass and she hasn't said anything but her grip on his bicep hasn't let up and occasionally he feels the rise and fall of her shoulders and her wet lashes against his neck and he knows she's crying, still processing and still, just barely holding on.

"Olivia?" He's got to know because his mind is running scenarios all the time to fill in the gaps. "Did he rape you?"

She sniffles and shakes her head against him, her fingers digging into his flesh, "No. No. I promise you, Elliot. He didn't. Finn got there."

Relief floods him and he holds her tightly, holds onto her and tries to absorb and catalogue everything about this moment because she's just eradicated his worst fear and the sob that rips out of his chest surprises him and he kisses her hair again, adjusts his embrace so that it's even tighter and cries in relief, his tears spilling into her freshly washed hair.

"It's okay," and that's not him saying it this time, it's her soothing him as he holds onto her like she might slip away. Like she's slipped away before and he was scared, terrified that she'd leave again. "It's okay," she says softly and gently strokes his arm.

"I'm sorry," he whispers and takes a breath, "I just… All this time, I could only imagine the worst and… thank you for telling me, Olivia."

"Do you think… do you think I still have a right to be upset? Do you think that because I was only assaulted that I should… be more stable?"

His hand strokes her hair gently and it startles him how natural it feels, how great it feels to have her this close to him. How domestic it feels to be in front of a Christmas tree with a woman he's come to love in his arms. "How did he-" he stops, rephrases, "What did he do to you?"

She's silent for long painful minutes and she shifts against him, her arm snaking between him and the back of the couch to hold tightly to him as she rests against him. She says nothing and her breathing has evened out, she's shivering just a little and he wants to get the blanket from the back of the couch but he's scared that if he moves she'll shut off completely and his chance for her to open up to him will be lost.

He feels her hand fist the material of his shirt again and his lips press against her hair in assurance that whatever she says will be met with unconditional acceptance. "He took me into the basement," she says softly, the edge of her voice sliding over his shirt.

He looks at the Christmas tree, eyes the ornament that contains a picture of her and him at an NYPD Christmas Ball eight years ago, her arms around his neck in a playful hug. He was caught off guard and he's smiling at her while she grins at the camera. He never knew the picture existed much less she'd turned it into an ornament to look at, to hang from a tree at her favorite time of the year.

He should have been in the basement with her. He should have protected her and had he not been an idiot and walked into that prison an attorney, he would have been. Damnit.

"What happened?" he prods tenderly.

She shakes her head against him, "I-he-I-he…" she let her voice trail, still not able to quite get it together, to verbalize to Elliot what had happened in the basement. She wasn't raped, but she may as well have been because she feels so dead inside, it's as if she were.

Over and over again.

"Take your time," he whispers softly and his breath tickles at her hair as his hand draws gentle shapes on her bicep, trying to sooth her.

She separates her hold on his arm for just a second and wipes quickly at a silent tear. "He-he pushed me onto a-a bed that was there… just a mattress. And-" she chuckles bitterly and it catches him off guard.

"Liv-"

"I was cold" and just like that her voice is hollow and dead again. "I'm-I'm not sure why that's what I remember but… I remember when he pushed me down, I sort of bounced and it…it hurt my-my chest and it was cold."

He doesn't know what to say to that. He thinks she's just trying to sort this all out, trying to figure out what to say to him. How to say it, even and that's okay, she can take all the time in the world, she can tell him the most insignificant to the heart shattering and he promises himself not to flinch, not to make her feel less for anything that has happened.

Because she's more than he's ever imagined possible.

And a sonovabitch-Harris can't take that from either of them.

Suddenly, she's trying to sit up from him and he thinks he should let her go, let her re-situate her body until she announces, "We should go shoppin-"

He tightens his embrace again, "Stay," he says gently. "Stay with me. I want to know… please. I want to know what you've been going through but more that that… I want you to know that I'm safe and you can tell me and you can call when you're having nightmares and you can ask me to fix you a meal when you don't want to eat… you can do those things now, Olivia and I'm sorry you couldn't do them before. I'm sorry I left you to deal with this on your own. I'm so sorry."

It's slow, but the tenseness of her body gives in to relaxation and she leans against him again. She finds it slightly embarrassing that he's holding her this way and she's willingly accepting it, but despite the embarrassment and the scene that is completely not them, it's allowing her to talk.

It's allowing her to be so close to him, to confide in him and not make eye-contact. It's safe. For once in too long, Elliot Stabler is safe again.

"He… he's not the smartest guy, Elliot," she starts again, "he uncuffed me after he shoved me against the wall and he was… was… he was pressed up against me and I could… I could feel… him," she ends her confession quickly. There's awkwardness seeping from her words.

He wants her to feel comfortable but realization that he's a man and she's a woman unfolds and he hates that something like that may stop her from tell him everything. He meets her half way, "You could feel his penis when he pressed against you?" he offers and makes it as clinical as possible so that she has a fighting chance. She says nothing but he feels her hair move against the underside of his chin as she nods, affirming his statement.

"What happened when he un-cuffed you?"

She chuckles and it's mixed with so many emotions, he's not sure which on is at the forefront. There's shyness and victory and confidence and failure and still there's hollowness but he knows the hollowness isn't what drives this particular chuckle and he's so grateful for that. "Do you remember that elbow you taught me along time ago?" she says but still doesn't attempt to find his eyes.

She can feel his small smile against her head, "Yeah?" he says and it's more of a question and a statement at the same time.

"I'm pretty sure Harris remembers it too," she says softly and her mood shifts again for the countless time that night and she hopes Elliot is still with her in this confession.

Knows for once, that he is.

"I got away and I ran and… there was just… nowhere to go," she confesses and buries herself so much deeper into him taking comfort in the safety he's providing her.

She hasn't felt safe in six months.

She shakes her head again, the memories flooding through her as his body warms her, keeps the sinister chill from creeping into her body like it has every night since the attack. "I tried to hide behind these boxes and… I felt so weak, and I was… terrified. I wasn't a cop anymore, I was just trying to figure out what to do, how to live through this because I knew, he was going to find me. I knew that hiding there was just buying time."

He wants to tell her that the time she bought by hiding for however long she was there is probably what kept her alive. Brought her back to him. He wants to say that but she continues and he simply listens to her confession. He has to strain at times, her whispers are so delicate that the city almost over takes them.

"Suddenly he was there and," she exhales slowly and suddenly shuts down on him. He can feel it in her body. She shut down and his eyes are panicked and his heart is racing and he knows, he knows this is where he must have raped her. Because even though she has stated the contrary he knows she was. He knows that in this story, this is the dramatic pause before the climax and he's not sure after all of his pleading that he can take hearing her admit that some sick fuck raped her.

And he wasn't there to stop it.

"It's okay," he whispers again. "Whatever you say next, Olivia, whatever you've already told me… I won't think less of you. My opinion of you wont change. It hasn't changed."

She remembers the moment the boxes were angrily knocked over and a light was shinned into her face. She remembers jumping in sheer terror and she remembers, "I almost… wet myself. He scared me so much that," she sniffles, "I don't know why I remembered the things like being cold and…" she lets her voice fall off.

He's ashamed to admit that he's happy that her confession wasn't of rape but of being startled so badly her body almost lost its ability to hold its waste. "Its okay, Olivia," he says again and it's just as soft as all the other times he's said it.

"I've never been that scared in my life," she confesses, moves her head to nestle just a little bit closer to him as if with every confession that he hasn't met with anger or a challenge; she's allowed herself to trust him, to trust his embrace to trust his safety just a little more.

"You had every right to be afraid," he whispers tenderly.

"I tried to reason with him and eventually…" she stops for a small moment and lets her fingers graze him as she holds onto him still, refuses to let go, but needs to feel the sensation at her fingertips that he's there, that this new Elliot that she's missed for years is here and not a figment of her imagination. "I accepted what was going to happen and… I tried to detach myself and… I don't know what happened, before I knew what was happening my mind went blank and instead of just going with it like we tell the victims… I ran like hell and… I screamed and yelled and begged. Elliot I fucking begged for someone to help me."

He hopes the tear that is falling from his cheek doesn't crash against her skin and tell her that he's loosing control right now, that he's going to bawl again against her again. He sniffles and he feels her start to move like she wants to check on him and he simply will not allow this to be about him, not when he's made everything else about him. He holds her, "Don't you dare worry about me, and don't you ever feel less for asking for help in that basement, do you understand me?"

She's silent, taking in his gentle yet firm demand. His lips are against her hair again, "Do you understand me?" he asks again and she can feel the heat of his breath on her scalp.

"I understand you," she confesses and because he has essentially told her it was okay to beg, she feels a weight lift from her shoulders. She's heard it countless times in therapy that it was okay to have begged, hell she's even heard it from Finn, but she needed, absolutely needed to hear it from Elliot. Her partner. The one person she feared would loose all respect for her once he knew.

"Good," he rasps and simply continues to hold her.

"Elliot?" she asks after a short moment of silence again.

"Yeah?"

"Is it important to you… to know the rest?"

He swallows and his hand moves for the first time to gently run through her soft, freshly washed hair, "It's important to me to know that you understand I'm safe. Whatever that looks like for you… I'll deal with it."

His confession is so unlike the Stabler she's seen in past years and it brings warmth and maybe a little hope into her heart that he wasn't gone for good like she's thought. He wasn't some piece of shit version of his former self. Somewhere under all the bull-shit he's flung her way, Elliot Stabler was there all this time.

She licks her lips and closes her eyes, the memories still as fresh as the moment it happened. She feels her hands tighten around him, "He cuffed me to a door and… H-he told me if I bit him he'd kill me."

He slams his eyes shut, he knows he's about to hear her confess to him that she was made to perform oral sex on her rapist. He's preparing himself, reciting how the sun is warm and the grass is green even though he hears a fucking lawn mower and he's counting from ten to one in languages he doesn't even know.

He feels her head nod against him, "Finn got to me just as… I mean… he was so… close and…," she exhales, "Finn got there."

His sob falls from him because the relief has slammed into him in uncontrollable waves, "You weren't raped," he says and it's more to himself than to her. It's more about him telling himself that. "Oh God," he cries against her and holds her so tightly he thinks she might suffocate in his arms. "Oh my God, thank you."

"I told you that, Elliot," she says and she's not angry at all as she sniffles and she knows he thought she had said she wasn't to comfort him. She knows that because he's crying again in relief.

"He didn't-"

"No," she confesses. "No, Finn got to me," she says and pulls delicately out of his arms, for the first time since her confession to him, looks at him. "Finn got to me," she reassures him and gently touches his face, her thumb absorbs the moisture of his tear. "There was no… penetration of any kind," she says softly hoping the sterile way she says it will relieve him of this pain.

His brows furrow and he looks at her in assessment, "That's why… that's why you're killing yourself isn't it? You think… because he didn't penetrate you… that you should be over it by now?"

Her face crumbles into sadness and shame and embarrassment and she nods as she leans closer, resting her forehead against his as they both cry, "I'm ashamed, Elliot. So ashamed of all of it and it's not even remotely as bad as we see every day."

"An attack is an attack, Liv," he tells her tenderly and cups the back of her head, guides her to rest her chin on his shoulder as he holds her even after all this time. "It brings about horrible pain no matter what the actual acts were… I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry you've been alone in this, that I haven't been there. I'm sorry."

She lets the apology seep into her and she feels her spirit take it in, slowly revive. She'd wanted him to be there for her, she needed him and never thought that the Elliot Stabler she knew would ever emerge again, yet here he was. "You're here now, right?" she says softly before she sniffles and wipes at her face.

Warm tears fall silently from his eyes, she's forgiven him and he is grateful beyond all that he ever thought he could be. "You're gonna be okay," he says and she can hear the conviction in his words. "You're gonna be okay and when you need to talk or to vent, I'll be right here waiting and I'll feed you and I'll… I'll make sure you're taking care of yourself… I'll do anything you need."

She smiles softly against him and turns, her forehead tucked just beside his thick neck. He smells comforting and inviting and… like Elliot. Her smile turns to a grin when she sees the tree, the absence of gifts underneath it. "You'll do anything I need?" she whispers.

"Anything."

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"When I said anything," Elliot says as he twists and turns his body to avoid bumping into people who are frantically picking up items and that don't make sense but are all that's left only hours before Chirstmas, "I don't think I was referring to shopping on Christmas Eve at ten O'clock at night."

She smiles, the coffee he bought her, warming her hands, "There wasn't anything under the tree," she comments and stays close to him, pretending its nothing more than not wanting to get lost in the shuffle but the truth is, she's feeling raw and opened up and… well, shit- vulnerable. She needs to be close, and really… she wants to be.

"What?" Elliot smiles and he bumps shoulders with her in playfulness, "You didn't believe Santa would come?"

She grins as she brings the hot coffee to her mouth, her lips smiling even as she takes her sip, "No such thing."

Elliot tugs gently on her hand and leads her into an over crowded music store, "You must have been expecting coal."

He lets go of her hand as if the only reason he'd taken it was so that the crowd didn't take her from him and really, he wouldn't be able to stand it if it had. He's enjoyed this time of being a comfort to her and he simply doesn't want that to end. He wants more but he also knows they have so much rebuilding to do.

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The bags that are in their hands bang and scrape against the wall of the foyer of her apartment, he's laughing behind her because she's so loaded with bags that she can only waddle into her home, "See, if you'd of just believed in Santa," he begins to tease her, "you wouldn't of had to shop."

She chuckles and finally drops the bags where she stands, "Uggh, the sudden snow storm didn't help. Where'd that come from?" she says and shakes the snow out of her hair, takes her scarf off an drapes it over the couch as she makes her way to the thermostat sending it into over drive. "And why do you only have one bag?"

He shrugs and sets his small bag on the countertop, "I finished the kids' shopping awhile ago and I just needed one other person to get for."

She smiles warmly, "What'd you get me?"

"Nothing," he says simply.

"Liar!" she challenges, "then why'd you insist we split up to shop?"

He bites his lower lip and exhales, "I thought it might make you uncomfortable to shop for Kathy with me."

Oh. Well shit. She hadn't of considered that. "Oh, right. Sorry," she says and she's not the least bit mad or curious. She's nosey and irritated.

Elliot narrows his eyes at her and smiles, "Of course it's for you."

She raises a brow, "I knew it! What is it?"

He chuckles, "You'll have to wait… do you want me to help you wrap your gifts? And by the way, Finn is gonna kick your ass when he opens up your present."

She smiles and shrugs, "It's all they had… I waited to long to shop this year."

He eyes the clock, "It's Christmas in a few minutes."

She looks at the clock, he's right but wrong too, "It's not Christmas till the sun comes up… that's what my mom used to tell me when I'd wake her up to open up gifts."

He smiles and shakes his head at her antics, "Where's your wrapping paper?"

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"Now that's a Christmas tree," Elliot yawns and stretches from the couch as she kneels on the cushion and sits next to him, "complete with gifts and everything."

She smiles and huddles into herself for warmth, she's turned the thermostat down for his comfort and in so doing has made her self uncomfortable, "I got a paper cut wrapping your present you better fucking enjoy it," she deadpans but can't control her teasing smile.

He laughs and his hand finds its way to her thigh, "Stop your bitchin' Benson."

"You like it when I bitch," she says and feels herself shiver from the cold.

He smiles and stands slowly, not truly wanting to go, "I should get going so you can blast your heater," he says and turns to gather his things before he feels the softness of her hand caress his wrist.

"Don't leave," she says. "Spend Christmas with me?"

His brows arch just slightly as he looks at her and sees that she's not teasing at all, he's very much wanted here, right now. He nods gently, "Okay… the kids will be at my apartment at one though-"

She smiles, "So you'll stay the morning with me? Have breakfast?"

He grins as he sits back down, closer to her this time, "You're gonna eat something?"

She licks her lips, bites on her lower one, "I'm feeling like I might want something to eat in a few hours, yeah."

"Okay," he says and watches her shiver again. "Here," he says and pulls the blanket from the back of the couch draping it over the both of them. "We can try to catch Santa in the act since you're a doubting Thomas."

She chuckles and nestles closer to him as they warm under the blanket and then she suddenly remembers, "I should look at that cut-"

"It's okay."

"I'm sorry you had to wear your jacket the whole time we shopped… you had to have been hot."

"Well, I have been told I'm a hottie, but no. I was fine temperature wise."

Her eyes are large when she looks up at him, "Who the hell has been calling you a hottie?"

He laughs and it's booming and teasing and all the things she remembers about how he used to be, how he is now, "I say it to myself every morning I look in the mirror, Liv. I say," he points his finger to an imaginary mirror, "Elliot Stabler, you sir, are a hottie."

She laughs and lowers her head again, her body is warm between him and the couch, his arm draped around her as they share a blanket he really doesn't need but wants if it means staying this close to her. "Ass hole."

"I say that too, sometimes," he teases and then lets the silence follow because for once, it's comfortable between the two of them.

Minutes pass and her breathing is even and her hand is simply resting over his abdomen. She hasn't moved or spoken and he thinks she might have fallen asleep. He finds him self emboldened and moves his hand to stroke her hair gently. It's the epitome of the things he's wanted to be able to do with her.

He smiles because it speaks to all the things he's wanted to be able to do with her, laugh with her, tease with her, hold her and spend a holiday like Christmas with her. He never thought she'd forgive him for any of the things he's done in the last years or hasn't done for that matter but she's done that. She's extended forgiveness by allowing him into her heart one last time, by allowing him to hold her, give her a tree and wait for the dawning of Christmas morning. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop it," he whispers.

Her brows furrow, she knows he thinks she's asleep but she's not, she's simply enjoyed his touch, his scent, the sound of his heart beating in his chest, the warmth of his solid body against hers.

His safety.

"I don't blame you for anything, Elliot," she says softly and covers his hand with hers, "I don't… so don't blame yourself."

He's startled that she was awake but quickly defends his logic, "But I-"

"I forgive you," she says as her eyes lids begin to droop, "I forgive you but only because you need to hear it, not because you're at fault."

He exhales and closes his eyes, "Thank you," he whispers and holds onto her hand, his thumb moving over her knuckles as the minutes grow longer. The city is quieting beneath them, it's well past midnight and New York City has quieted for this one holiday that speaks of certain things to certain homes but in this small apartment where sleep has finally taken over its occupants, it speaks of rebuilding, renewal, forgiving and moving forward. It speaks new beginnings into the heart of a man who's realized the errors of his ways and has been extended forgiveness. It speaks to the heart of a woman whose sanity has been hanging by a thread, who has experienced trespass and confusion and shame and has found acceptance in a friend she thought she lost.