Author's Note: Please read & review! Hopefully it picked up a bit for you this chapter, and please let me know if I should continue! Hope you enjoy! :)

They spent most of the drive in silence. Not an awkward silence, but not their usual comfortable silence either. It was heavy with worry on Elliot's end, and full of memories on Olivia's. When they got there Elliot got out of the car as well, Olivia wasn't the least bit surprised, and she was entirely too tired to argue.

"I'll walk you up," he said. He wanted to be sure she got up okay, and at the same time he wanted to look around her place for anything suspicious. He really was worried about her, or he never would've even thought of doing that.

"Come on in. I'll make some coffee," she offered, hoping he would refuse while a small part of her hoped he wouldn't. And he didn't.

"Tea sound okay?" As they walked in he glanced toward her bedroom. The door was open and the bed was made; it didn't look like she'd slept in it in a while.

"Sounds fine, I'll go ahead and start a pot." She walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a kettle out of the cupboard and filled it with water.

While grabbing a couple of mugs out of another cabinet Elliot said, "Since when did you start making your bed? I thought you always said there was no point in making it just to mess it up again when you got home because no one would be there to see it made." It was a loaded statement in that it was true, and they both knew she hadn't been sleeping. He wasn't blunt, though, because she wouldn't respond to that. She probably wouldn't open up to this either, but it was worth a try. It was all he could do to try to get her to talk to him.

He was trying to get her to talk to him, but she wouldn't. This was her mess to deal with, and that's precisely what she would do. The last person she needed to find out about this was him. "Yeah, that was my opinion, but lately I've just felt like making my bed. I dunno, maybe I've had a change of heart." She gave a small smile. A pregnant silence followed that was interrupted by the whistling of the kettle.

As they drank the tea they both enjoyed the sort of small talk that could make Elliot pretend nothing had happened between them and could make Olivia pretend nothing had happened to her. But eventually the tea ran out and it became harder to pretend as the normality disappeared and reality set in. Elliot could tell it was time for him to go, but he wasn't going to leave without one last shot at getting Olivia to open up.

The tea was gone and Olivia knew the night was almost over, and she sensed that Elliot knew it too. But he hadn't moved to get up yet and looked like he was considering something. She waited patiently, suspiciously, until he said what she was afraid of.

"Look, Liv, you and I both know something happened in the basement. And you know I know, so why are you still lying to me? I just want to...be there for you. Why won't you let me in?" It was a risk, and he knew it, but he had to try.

What he said wasn't unexpected or even unusual for him in this kind of situation, but for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on it made her angry, and she wanted to yell at him but she didn't know what to say.

Then, before she even knew what she was saying, she replied coolly, "I wouldn't want you to have to be constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure I'm okay."

She regretted it instantly. The hurt in her eyes was almost too much to bear. "But he deserved it," she thought. "He never should've said that in the first place if he didn't mean it." It had hurt her when he said it, and now she was hurting him back. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that, but nothing could be done about it now. Just like what he said to her, this too could not be taken back. So she broke eye contact, took the mugs, and started cleaning them in the sink.

"I wouldn't want you to have to be constantly looking over your should to make sure I'm okay." The memory came flooding back to him like a thousand needles piercing his skin at once. He had regretted it the instant he said it, but knew that he could never take it back. And in that instant he wished he hadn't tried at all, if only to avoid this hurt. Obviously there was no way she was ever going to talk to him, and it was entirely his fault. And it hurt so much. Stung, he got up from the table and headed to the door. There was no point in staying now; he was just intruding. He hesitated at the door, trying to think of anything he could say, anything at all, that could fix this. All he could come up with was, "I'm sorry." It came out much feebler than he'd intended, and much quieter than he expected, to the point where he wasn't sure if she heard it. And then he left without looking back. He didn't deserve to. He had already caused enough harm.

She turned around when she heard him say, very quietly, "I'm sorry." As she turned the door was already closing on him. He had sounded so...sincere, and so sad. She wasn't sure, though, if it was enough, because it still hurt her to this day. It still affected her, more than she had previously thought. Because after her outburst she began to wonder why she was keeping what happened in the basement a secret. She thought it was because she needed to deal with it on her own to reconcile with herself what happened. Now, she wasn't so sure...

For now, though, she was going to brave sleep. Despite the near certainty of nightmares, she couldn't keep her eyes open another second if she tried. And she didn't want to stay awake anymore, because now she felt like crap and was doubting herself. She sighed, locked her door, and went to bed.

***

Elliot continued to watch Olivia closely but he didn't try to talk to her again. He would look out for her as best he could, but he didn't dare attempt to get her to talk again; the last thing he wanted to do was cause her more pain. The following day she came in looking as tired as ever, but thankfully she didn't look any worse. She seemed determined to ignore what happened last night, and so he followed her lead, even though he didn't entirely want to. He felt guilty, like the reason why she felt she had to deal with whatever was going on by herself was his fault. Maybe that was a little selfish, but...that's how it felt.

Olivia decided to just act like nothing happened. It would just make things simpler, because he would doubtless do the same. Plus, she had more to worry about; other people in the precinct were starting to pay more attention to the way she was acting. Munch had already teased her about "trying out the raccoon look" because her eyes had become so dark. She was able to chuckle her way out of a confrontation, but she knew it wouldn't be the last time. Fin had started sending her furtive glances, like he wanted to talk, but she kept ignoring them. The only thing that hadn't happened yet was for Cragen to confront her. She knew it was only a matter of time before he, too, started questioning her.

As the week progressed, her emotions, the flashbacks, and especially the nightmares were all getting harder to resist. At night she now slept with the lights on (when she slept at all) and she had found herself slipping into flashbacks at work. It had only happened once on the field, and luckily she was able to fight it off fast enough so that Elliot hardly noticed. But whenever she was at her desk and started to daydream a little, she would get flashes of what happened in the basement. And not only Elliot, but also Fin and Munch had all noticed it at least once. She was going to have to stop this soon if she was ever going to get them off her case. But she was getting so tired of fighting...this, she knew, was part of the problem. But she was determined to conquer this on her own. She didn't want to admit to herself that she needed to talk to someone for this, or that she needed to cope at all. "Nothing really happened," she thought. "Nothing happened so I shouldn't need to talk to anyone. This is just ridiculous, to react like this. He didn't even rape me. Nothing happened." Denial. The word came to her from experience with victims. "But I'm not a victim! Nothing even happened!"

***

It was late Wednesday night when Munch got a call from Fin. He was drunk and needed a ride home. It wouldn't have been unusual if only it were Friday night. He sighed and went over to help out a friend. When he got there, Fin had ordered another drink, which was half empty.

"What're you doing? Work's going to be hell for you tomorrow, you know." Fin mumbled something unintelligible in response, threw down a few dollars, and walked out of the bar with Munch, who asked, "So what's up? What's got you drinking on a Wednesday night?" Munch didn't really expect much of a surprising answer. It had been a tough week so far, and it was only Wednesday. But what Fin actually said definitely peaked his attention.

"It's my fault she's like this. My...my fault she can't sleep. Shoulda been there."

"Who're you talking about Fin?" He already had an inkling. After all, it was him who went undercover with Liv...

"In the basement" was all he said.

They had reached Fin's apartment and Munch pulled over. "Fin, what happened in the basement?"

Fin shrugged a little. "His pants...were down."S all I really know..." He started to trail off.

Munch helped Fin up to his apartment with his mine buzzing. "His pants were down?" he thought. "This may be more serious than I'd imagined.... She couldn't possibly have been...no, he wouldn't even think it. Not unless he were sure it was true. But he had to find out. There was no way she should be left to her own means to deal with this....Whatever it was, it seemed pretty serious."

Munch's thoughts were interrupted when, at the door, Fin said, "Don't...tell Liv. I promised." Unfortunately, Munch wasn't too sure he'd be keeping that promise if he learned that something had happened that the Captain needed to know about, not just for Olivia's job, but for herself.

***

The next day, Munch had decided to take a trip up to Sealview. After getting clearance, he took a look around the basement and, in short time, found what he was looking for. There was a security camera in the far left hand corner. It was nearly obscured by the crates piled in front of it, but the lens was still unobstructed.

Noticing what he was looking at, the female guard who accompanied him said, "That was put in a while back. This used to be used for high security prisoners but the cells have since been removed. It's just storage down here now."

"Any chance it still records?" he asked, but not with much hope.

"Actually, yeah. They keep it on because we've had some things stolen here in the past, but nobody really checks it. Like I said, it's just storage. If anything goes missing, they check it out. But it's been a long time since anything was stolen."

Luck, it seemed, was on his side. "Would it be possible for me to see one of those tapes?"

"Sure, just give me the date." They headed upstairs and Munch gave her the day Olivia came out from undercover. After fast-forwarding through hours of nothing, Munch found what he was looking for.

He was shocked, appalled, angry, worried and concerned by everything he saw. But he was also relieved that Harris was stopped. "Fin barely made it. Ten more seconds and she would've...." This was definitely too serious to keep to himself. What was affecting Olivia so negatively was in all likely hood only going to get worse, and for her sake she needed to get help, whether she wanted to or not. She couldn't handle this on her own. He wouldn't expect anyone to be able to, not even Olivia, who was so strong, and who looked so broken. That was it. That was the thing about Olivia recently that he couldn't put his finger on. She was broken and fighting to regain control and normalcy. She was broken.

He headed over to the precinct and was glad Olivia wasn't there. He wanted to tell the captain first. He needed to know, so they could figure out how to handle this. It wasn't going to be easy to get Olivia to talk. "And later," he thought "I'm going to have a bone to pick with Fin." He walked into Cragen's office.

He held up the tape and said, "Captain, you're going to want to see this."