Author's Comments: So, the producers of SVU have been tormenting us with pictures of props and locations and little tweets hinting at heinous things that are happening right now to Benson (they are filming "Surrender Benson" this week). I am so tortured by this, in fact, that I feel the need to torture Benson myself. Which leads me to my version of Season 15, episode 5 (the first story counted as a two-parter).

A few recaps from Twenty-Four and Let Her Go: After Lewis horribly rapes and tortures Olivia and kills Brian in front of her, Elliot returns and helps her recover, and their relationship develops into something more serious. Along comes Alex, who rips Olivia away from Elliot for a short time, but Olivia returns to Elliot, repentant but still sad about having to give up Alex.

Olivia and Elliot are both on edge in this story—Olivia from losing so many people in such a short time span, along with PTSD from her rape/torture, and Elliot from divorcing his wife and feeling insecure after Olivia left him, even though it was for a short time. So how will this emotional turmoil affect their relationship? You're about to find out.

This one's not so nice—lots of angst, and plenty of tension between E&O. Also, if you've followed me for a while, you know I have a thing for psych wards, so I reintroduced one in this story (the last one I did for SVU sucked, so I took it down a while ago). I also have a thing for basements, teehee…

Too Close

Chapter One

Part 1.

A bead of sweat ran down Olivia's temple and splattered onto the concrete below. Gun drawn, she steadied herself, preparing to charge into the abandoned warehouse, now used as a makeshift meth lab. Granted, she was not alone—uni's and members of the Drug Task Force surrounded her, readying to take down any members of a drug-dealing ring found in the place.

Olivia, along with several other SVU detectives, had their own agenda. A rumor had surfaced that Craig Hoffman, a man suspected of raping three separate teenagers, hung out with this particular gang, and may be present in the building. Olivia inhaled deeply, shifting her feet several times, anxious to get going. She caught a glimpse of Elliot out of the corner of her eye, his expression all business.

Fin flanked her on the right, and Nick followed behind her. "Go, go, go!" came the command from ahead, and she hesitated for just a second before Nick crowded her, pushing her forward with his momentum. She passed by several drugged-out meth-heads scattered about the dark room, already covered by armed uniforms. She passed through to the rear of the house, ducking to the side of a door before peeking in and then springing forward, gun drawn.

It was a kitchen, and she was the first person in. Seeing nobody, she pressed on, gun held straight out, beads of sweat pooling around the edge of her hair. As she continued toward the back of the room, her pulse raced so quickly that she found it hard to breathe. She had been in tense situations before, it was true. But ever since Lewis had damaged her body and her soul, it had taken extra courage for her to make it through moments like this.

She gritted her teeth as she came to a small enclosed porch off the back of the kitchen. Glancing back, she spotted Elliot coming up quick, Fin close behind him. As she skirted into the back room, she glanced to her left into blackness, and then to the right as movement caught her eye. Something came down hard on her hand, knocking the gun out of her hands. As it clattered onto the floor, the face before her became clear—it was Hoffman's.

"Liv, you okay?" said Elliot's voice behind her. Before she could react, Hoffman brought the weapon down toward her again, and she used her arm to block, grabbing onto it as she did. The cold, hard object in her hand registered, and she flinched as she realized it was a fireplace poker. Visions of Lewis holding a poker just like it flashed through her mind's eye, and she shook her head, still holding onto the item.

Her body froze, perplexed by the thing. Lewis had used the very same weapon to terrorize her—black, shiny, just the right size to rape someone. Only hers had been heated on the stove until it glowed. She threw it away from her as if it had burned her hand and backed up into the wall, solid behind her. "Liv?" said Fin's voice. "Liv!"

She looked up at him, not sure how he had gotten in here so fast. And then she looked around the room to see that they were the only two in it. She shook her head and said, "Where's Hoffman? And Elliot?"

"Ran out the back," he said, concern flooding his eyes. "You okay?"

She nodded curtly and said, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, I—"

But she couldn't tell him what had gone down, because she couldn't remember. Elliot burst in through the back door, saying, "What the hell happened?"

Standing with his face in hers, he said, "You had him! How did you let him get away? What the fuck was that?"

"Easy, Stabler," Fin said, putting up a protective hand to hold Elliot away from her.

"I—I don't know—" she said, staring into his angry face.

Elliot ran a hand over his whiskered chin and turned away from her, pacing the floor like an angry bull. "That was our best chance of catching him," he said. "The guy's a phantom."

Eyes still drawn to Olivia's distraught face, Fin said, "Don't worry, we'll get him."

Olivia turned and scurried out of the house the way she had come in, hearing bits and pieces of Elliot and Fin arguing as she retreated. She wiped a tear from her cheek and entered the night air, sucking in huge breaths of it into her eager lungs. Bending over like a runner finishing a marathon, she rested her hands on her knees and replayed the events that had just happened over and over again until she wanted to throw up.

Part 2.

Elliot knew after it was all over that he had been too hard on her. In the two weeks since she had come back to live with him, he had been inexplicably irritated and moody, and he had not stopped to examine the possible reasons behind it. But he knew it had to do with the fact that she had not hesitated to engage in a fling with Alex, which must mean that she no longer viewed him as her hero.

Instead, he was probably just a safety net for her. He had helped her back on her feet when she had needed someone the most, and it infuriated him that she had thrown all that away due to out-of-control hormones, like some teenage girl. He had never thought he would need a commitment out of her, but he guessed that the fact she could just up and leave him for someone else at any time was the cause of his emotional unrest.

Now he glared at her as she sat at her desk, absorbed in her computer monitor. He should just forgive her. But she had let a rapist go, and he was having a hard time letting go of that tidbit. He got up and headed toward her, and then walked right past her to the elevator without saying a word. Done for the day, he made his way to a hole-in-the-wall bar he frequented when he was out-of-sorts. In the past, he would have visited maybe once a week, but lately he had become something of a regular.

"Elliot, what can I get you?" said Frank, the bartender.

"I'll have the usual," he said, as Frank poured him a bourbon straight up. The hot liquid burned his throat as it slid down, simultaneously burning away images of Olivia's wounded expression after he had chewed her out.