Olivia sat in her darkened apartment, staring blankly at the black screen of her television. Despite what IAB had determined, the Brooklyn D.A still had a grand jury investigation to see if she should be charged for the murder of William Lewis. It was only by the grace of god that she had not been indicted and fired…well god and apparently Lieutenant Murphy according to the message her rep left on her phone about an hour ago. Still, Lewis had been right, no matter what had happened everyone believed that she had killed him.

Sighing deeply she closed her eyes and was immediately taken back to that desolate warehouse Lewis had brought her to. She could hear the small whimpers from the little girl across the room, see the dead look in Lewis' eyes as he watched her press the gun against her own head, feel the warmth of his blood as it washed over her face. A small knock on her door startled her out of her flashback. Olivia walked over to the door and reached for the handle hesitantly.

"Who is it?" she called out, nobody should be knocking on her door this late.

"Lieutenant Murphy"

Olivia nit her eyebrows in confusion wondering what Murphy could possibly be doing at her apartment. Her relationship with Murphy had started out rocky at best and she hadn't trusted him the day he arrived at SVU. He had wanted her to lie, again, even after she had confided in him the truth about what had really happened between her and Lewis the first time he had abducted her. Worst of all, he didn't even believe that she was telling the truth about not having killed Lewis which is why he had fought so hard for her to lie in the first place. Yet, despite not having trusted him earlier, Murphy had really come through for her. He had protected her against not only IAB but also the D.A and did for her what she would never do again, commit perjury.

"Lieutenant? What are you doing here?" Olivia asked, opening the door.

"I just came to see how you were doing."

"Ah I don't really know how to answer that to be honest."

Murphy gave her a sad smile, "I can only imagine… I just wanted to say how sorry I am for everything you've had to go through these last few weeks. But I have good news. I just got off the phone with Calhoun she told me the grand jury refused to return an indictment."

"Yeah, I know she called me about an hour ago. I want to thank you for everything you did for me. Calhoun told me what you said"

"I just told them the bigger truth. But you don't look too happy?"

"Happy? Let's see, I beat an incapacitated man. He wasn't going anywhere, but I did it anyways, I almost killed him! You know what the last thing Lewis said to me was before he shot himself?" Murphy's only reply was to stare at Olivia in silence.

"He said 'I want this to be the last thing you see before you die'. He's right. Every time I close my eyes I can see him. I see that little girl. I see all his victims. I can see his blood pooling around his head." Tears started to form in the corner of her eyes and she ducked her head to hide them from Murphy.

He took a step closer to Olivia and put his hands on her shoulders. "Olivia you need to stop. William Lewis was no man. He was a monster. None of this was your fault. He was an evil person who needed to be stopped. You are a good detective, Sargent and one of the bravest people I've ever met. Not only did you save that little girl but you also saved countless of Lewis' future victims and that is all you should be thinking about. That little girl has a future now because of you. When you close your eyes picture her surrounded by her future children and grandchildren and know that's all because of you."

Suddenly Olivia had become all too aware of his closeness and his warmth. A funny sensation deep within her stirred. It had been so long since she had felt anything. And after all the heartache and pain she so desperately wanted to feel something, anything again. Even when she was with Cassidy it had been a relationship built more on a fear of loneliness than anything else. And now here she was, with Lieutenant Declan Murphy, a man she barely knew and she wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them and feel his warmth against her. She lifted her head and met his eye as a few tears slipped through. Murphy reached up and brushed them away gently with his thumb and gave Olivia a small smile.

As if taken over by some unknown force Olivia reached up and pressed her lips to his. Murphy had been completely taken aback by her forwardness. For a few seconds he had remained completely still before surrendering himself to her kiss. He couldn't deny that the first time he saw her he had found her remarkably beautiful, but never in a million years would he think to find himself in her apartment kissing her.

Their kiss started out slow and quickly grew in intensity as Murphy ran his tongue across her lip lightly, begging for entrance. Olivia complied willingly, putting her arms around his neck and pulling him closer, as his hands settled on her lower back. The thought of this moving forward hit Murphy like a freight train and he pulled away from her slightly, abruptly ending their kiss.

"I'm sorry Olivia but we really shouldn't be doing this"

A pang of embarrassment struck her and she stammered out an apology. "I'm so sorry…I don't know what I was thinking. I just…I"

Murphy was quick to stop her. "Olivia it's not that I don't want this or that I don't find you incredibly attractive, it's just that you're in a really vulnerable place right now and I don't want to take advantage of that."

His complete sincerity surprised Olivia and she knew he was right. She was very vulnerable right now but in this time and in this place she really didn't care about that. Right now all she wanted was one night to forget about everything and just feel free again. So she took his hand in hers and said, "You wouldn't" before leading him to her room.