Author's comments: Begins where Twenty-Four left off.

Nothing like an intriguing sex crimes caseto bring Olivia out of her funk and get her back to her normal bad-ass self. I can't think of any spoilers for this one just yet. It's a nice, normal (ha!) SVU case, with elements of Olivia's healing from the Lewis debacle intertwined.

I usually stick with stories that are more personal to the main characters, but this one's more like an actual episode (almost). There's a personal reason I'm writing it (and no, not because it happened to me, lol). So welcome aboard to Season 15, episode 2 (or 3, the last one could have been a two-parter).

Oh, and I probably won't be working so fast and furious as the previous story, so there may not be a chapter EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sorry. I do have a life outside SVU, believe it or not.

I Wanna Dance Without You

Chapter One

Part 1.

"Elliot Stabler, Manhattan SVU," he said, holding out a hand to shake that of the doctor's. "And this is Amanda Rollins."

The doctor escorted them to a hospital room, saying, "She came in as an attempted suicide. But when I examined her, I noticed that her panties had blood seeping through them. I asked her about it, but she refuses to talk about it, just wants to be admitted to the psych ward."

"How old?" Elliot asked.

"Sixteen. Name's Anna, but so far I have yet to get a last name."

"Why don't you let me talk to her, Elliot?" said Amanda. He knew she was right—the girl might feel more comfortable talking to a female.

He stood back as Amanda approached the patient, a doe-eyed brunette girl who looked younger than her age. She studied Amanda warily, one hand resting protectively on her belly. "Hi, Anna, I'm Amanda. I'm a detective," Amanda said gently, in a voice Elliot knew she had acquired from observing Olivia. Amanda began to take a step closer to the side of Anna's bed, but stopped when the girl startled. "It's okay, I'm here to help you."

"Are they going to admit me?" Anna said, staring down at the bandages around her neatly-slashed wrists.

"Yeah," said Amanda. "But I have some questions for you first. The doctor noticed there was some blood on your panties."

Anna looked up at Elliot, and he took that as his cue to leave. "I'll be out in the hall," he said. As he paced the sterile floor, he thought about Olivia. Three months had passed since Lewis had snuck into her apartment, subjecting her to twelve hours of rape and torture so brutal that it had left her with permanent scars, most of them unseen.

A month ago, she had gone on trial for assault after she met Lewis in an abandoned warehouse, making him strip naked, and then shooting his nads off with a gun, right in front of Elliot and Amanda. Elliot had lied on the stand, matching his bogus story with Amanda's, and Olivia had been spared the punishment of a prison sentence.

Elliot would never regret his decision, despite the investigation into his perjury by Internal Affairs. He and Amanda were placed on suspension, and just returned to work two weeks ago, after IAB failed to prove that they lied. A note in their files cited sloppy paperwork, and recommended they be sent to a training session on documentation. Amanda went. Elliot skipped it.

Olivia seemed better than she had before the shooting. Elliot would like to think her emotional healing was tied to his renewed presence in her life, and the fact that they had been intimate. But he was a little nervous accepting that she was okay just yet, because the last time he had thought she was doing fine, she was secretly suicidal and staging her own demise, to follow shortly after she shot Lewis.

She had seemed like her old self lately, just bored, and perhaps a little distant. He thought she might be missing work, but there was no telling if she would be able to return. Having been through the worst sex crime imaginable, it was hard to see how she would be able to go to work each day and be reminded of her own experience. Maybe she could work in a different unit, homicide perhaps . . .

Amanda emerged from the girl's room. "I couldn't get her to tell me what happened," said Amanda. She wouldn't even tell me her full name, or who her parents are."

"Why did she try to kill herself?" said Elliot.

"That much I was able to get," said Amanda. "Her counselor dropped her as a client, and she was upset about that."

"Wonder why she was in counseling."

"I don't know," said Amanda, "but the other question I have is, why would a counselor drop her?"

The doctor returned, and Elliot said, "So what's gonna happen to her, doc?"

"She'll be placed on a 72-hour hold in the psych ward until we can find her parents, if she has any."

"We'll work on that in the meantime," said Elliot. "We may not have a sex crime just yet, but we still have a missing girl."

The doctor nodded and went back into the room to check on Anna. On their way out, Amanda said to Elliot, "You know," and then she shook her head.

"What?" said Elliot.

"Nothing. I was just thinking that it would be nice to have Olivia here. If anyone could get her to talk—"

Elliot scratched his head, his mind racing now. "Maybe . . ." he said. And then he shook his head, saying, "Nah."

Part 2.

Olivia squatted down and placed flowers on the grave, which only had a thin layer of grass over it. She stood, brushing wisps of hair away from her face, but never fast enough to keep the wind from blowing them back. "I'm sorry, Brian," she whispered, staring at his gravestone.

After her trial, she had been elated. She no longer had to face the prospect of prison, and Lewis was in jail awaiting trial, permanently injured due to her actions. Elliot was in her life again, and their relationship had deepened into something more than just work partners. They had admitted feelings for one another and lived together in his apartment. In fact, Elliot had played a huge part in her healing. If not for him, she would likely have felt unworthy and unable to partner with any man again.

But she still had the flashbacks and an overall sense of uneasiness due to her ordeal, symptoms of PTSD that would take time to alleviate. And then there was her job. She had been an SVU detective for fourteen years. It was more than just a career to her—it was her life's purpose. Without it, she didn't know what to do with herself. She had run through the options—rape counselor, detective in another unit, but none of the other options seemed as appealing. There was an emptiness inside her ever since she left her job, and Elliot wasn't enough to fill it.

But she couldn't imagine returning to work either, just yet. Everything about her job—the pictures in the files, the stories, the perps themselves—would all remind her of what she had been through. And she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't overreact when apprehending a suspect and do something over-the-top, possibly hurting someone again, or worse.

She didn't hear her phone ringing, but she felt it buzzing in her pocket, and fumbled around until she found it. "Benson," she said, more out of habit than anything else. No need for formalities when she was no longer working.

"Hey, it's me," said Elliot. "You still meeting me for lunch?"

"Yeah," she said, "It's going to take me a little longer to get there, though. I'm at the graveyard."

"Oh," said Elliot, his voice dropping. "Wait there—I'll come pick you up."

Part 3.

Neither of them seemed to be in the mood for talking. Elliot picked at his food, while Olivia sipped from her water, watching people come and go through the door to the cheap diner. Usually she was the quiet one lately, but Elliot seemed to be lost in another world.

She studied his face now, thinking he had been silent a little too long. "Anything wrong?" she said.

He shook his head, but said, "Just a case I'm working on. You know."

"Wanna share with me?"

He looked up from his french fries and peered into her eyes, probably trying to decide if she could handle it. "We have a teenage girl at the hospital, suicide attempt, who won't tell us anything about herself."

"Was she raped?"

Elliot paused for a second, and Olivia got the feeling he was trying to judge from the tone of her voice if she was over-reactive. "We don't know. She had blood in her underwear, but she won't say what happened."

Olivia rested her elbows on the table and rested her hands in front of her mouth. Questions stirred in her head, and she tried to shake them and focus on something else, but her mind snapped back like a rubber band to the girl repeatedly.

"I'm working on finding her parents," said Elliot. "Surely there will be a missing persons report eventually. Somebody's sick with worry over this girl, I'm sure. She's not the runaway type, and she's not a drug addict. Tox screen came back negative."

Thoughts swirled in Olivia's head as she fiddled with her straw. "Who questioned her?"

Elliot's eyes flashed up at her. "Rollins."

"Huh," said Olivia. "I'm surprised she wouldn't open up more. Did you try?"

"Nah," said Elliot, pushing his plate away. "There's no way she'd talk to a man. Girl's scared half to death."

Olivia looked down at her half-eaten food and sighed. She wanted to say what was on her mind, but she didn't think Elliot would take it too well. Unable to keep it in any longer, she said, "What if I tried?"

Elliot's head popped up. "You mean you wanna come back to work?" he said, rubbing the back of his head.

She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm just . . . I think it might help me get my mind off . . . things."

"Liv," he said, "Do you think you're ready for that?"

She pulled her lips in between her teeth and said, "Yeah. I think so."