Chapter 2

He gently tried to pull Olivia a little closer to him, but when she writhed in pain, he immediately let go. She held her side carefully and tuned away from Elliot to stand up. She was muttering something Elliot believed were swear words under her breath. Then it all made sense. She was in a bad situation that she couldn't get out of and Elliot had seen this situation many times before on the job.

Olivia was standing by the window which was between the bunks and the lockers. Elliot could hear her sobbing again. He sensitively went over behind her and clasped her hand in his. He slowly turned her round only to hear her saying, " El..I..I.." which he cut off with his calming voice by saying, "It's alright Livvy, things are going to be fine."

He held her for a while, neither of them uttering a word, until Elliot stepped away from her, but still holding her hand.

"Liv, can I…um…can I..eh..see..your side..were your..in pain?"

After a little bit of hesitation, she nodded slowly and Elliot closed the door to the locker room. He returned to Olivia and was about to lift her shirt up to look at her pain, when he asked her again if she was sure, and she nodded slowly, and turned her head away in shame. To Elliot's horror, when he caringly lifted up her shirt, he discovered that her back and sides were filled with bruises. He could hardly bring himself to look at the agony and pain his best friend was in, and with that, he softly lowered her shirt. She had started sobbing again when Elliot had saw what she had been hiding from him for God knows how long. She was still staring out the tiny window, afraid to look into the gaze of her best friend; afraid to see the sadness and shock in his eyes. He loosely wrapped his arms around her from behind; not too tightly as to hurt her sides and back, but not to loosely for his embrace to loose the warmth and protectiveness he was trying to offer her.

"Liv…don't take this..the wrong way, but…did..em…did..Marcus..do this?" He whispered to her after a long silence.

Marcus was Olivia's new boyfriend that she had meet when she went on holiday to Florida for a week for a short vacation 2 months ago and it turned out he lived here in Manhattan and he asked her out when they returned to New York. When Olivia dropped her head in shame, Elliot took that as a yes to answer his question. He slowly released Olivia from his embrace and began to head for the door muttering, "I'm going to kill that SOB" when the sound of her voice stopped him.

"Elliot," She faintly murmured, "Please don't touch him…if you do…he'll know I told you.. And he..he..will kill me."

Elliot stared into her eyes and walked back over to her.

"Liv, don't worry about Marcus. He's never going to touch you or hurt you again. I'm not letting you go back to that..to him..to this," He replied pointing at her side, "I've room at my place, so you can come and stay with me, okay?"

Olivia was still staring into Elliot's eyes when she nodded shyly and broke down into Elliot's arms. They both slumped to the floor and Elliot cradled her in his arms, until she stopped crying; what felt like hours later.