Rating: T (parts 1 & 2) / M (part 3), sexual situations/concepts and strong language

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Dick Wolf, NBC et al.

Spoilers: None – set in one of the later seasons, pick your fave and go with it.

Pairing: Elliot/Olivia all the way

Summary: Elliot and Olivia's joint abduction and subsequent therapy forces them to confront the truth of their relationship.

A/N: Thanks to those who have read so far and taken the time to review.

II.

"Alright, Elly, confession time. What's your favorite part of your partner's body?"

"You're a sick fuck, Duncan."

"That's the point. We both are. We're both incurable."

"You, definitely."

"Come on…" Duncan stood behind Olivia, one hand pointing the gun at her sternum, the other slithering down her side, from breast to hip, "don't pretend you've never looked, never imagined her naked, imagined running your hands over this fine form…"

Elliot's jaw twitched. "I don't objectify women."

"That's very evolved of you." Duncan looked down at his free hand, caressing the curve of her hip, then back up at Elliot, eyes dark under his brows. "But you've still thought about it. Haven't you?" Getting nothing from her partner, Duncan released Olivia with a jolt and drew back to appraise her, gun still trained on her heart. "No red-blooded man could blame you. I mean, look at her. She's not bad looking – for a pig. And she's definitely keeping it tight for a woman her age."

Elliot kept his eyes off his partner and on his tormentor. "You mean one over the age of consent?"

Duncan side-stepped over to him, voice lowered to a conspiratorial rasp and gaze flicking between him and Olivia. "Maybe she does it for you – that ever occur to you? Maybe she forgoes the donuts, does all those tummy crunches all for you. Maybe the hair, the lips, the tight shirts, maybe it's all for her married partner..."

Elliot looked away, chin tipped up but teeth rhythmically clenching.

Duncan turned to him, creeping closer, pushing harder. Face contorted into an expression of fevered sadism, he hissed in his ear, "Maybe your partner's one huge cock-tease, an on-the-job seductress—"

Elliot snapped, throwing a punch then clutching the other man and hurling him against the concrete wall. "You can go to hell!"

"Elliot!" Olivia called out in shock, in warning, in fear. But before her partner could launch a real attack, Duncan raised his gun. Aiming it right at Elliot's face.

"I'll meet you there," he chuckled before watching Elliot's muscles gradually soften and surrender. Duncan straightened against the wall, slurping up the blood that now ran from his nose. "Right after you tell me," he took a breath, re-focused his game, "what your favorite part of Olivia's body is." Wandering over to her, he stuck the tip of the gun under the hem of her shirt and started lifting it. "Or do we need to take a closer look?"

"No!" Elliot barked, still struggling to reign in his rage. He exhaled a low fuck then went on, every word taut with exhaustion, with desperation. "No…Look, just…leave her outta this, you don't need to do this. It's me you want, I'm the one who—"

Duncan started chuckling again. "Oo-hoo, the answer must be real bad, huh, Liv? That's what he calls you, isn't it? Liv…" He faced her, chest pressed to her wounded shoulder and voice whispering in her ear. "Bet you've noticed him sneakin' a peek, bet you know eeeeeeverything there is to know about your partner, including his dirty little secrets. So, come on. Spill, sweetheart. Is he a leg man or a breast man?" His voice returned to its normal, obnoxious volume as he grabbed a cheek of her ass and squeezed. "Or is it this glorious ass he spends his days lusting after?"

Olivia whirled round on the spot. "Get your hands off me."

Duncan put his hands up, glancing over at Elliot. "See? She wants you, El, not me."

"Who could blame me?"

"You like 'em feisty?" he continued, ignoring Olivia and addressing Elliot. "I like 'em feisty too. More satisfying when they give in."

"I'm gonna kill you," Elliot snarled in response, "you're a fucking dead man."

"No doubt," Duncan mused, unfazed. "But in the meantime…" he turned Olivia back to face her partner, "pick a part. Pick a part and I'll let you touch it."

Elliot straightened his spine. "And if I refuse?"

"Oh, Elly, you know the deal – we're playin' by my rules now. If you don't touch her, I will. And maybe I'll use my gun hand. Maybe your partner will lose a toe. Or get a bullet in her knee. Which do you think she'd prefer?" He pressed Elliot's weapon into her dislocated shoulder, making her cry out. "A shattered shoulder or the man she loves giving her what she already admitted she's always wanted?"

"Hurt her and I'll—"

"I'm not gonna hurt her," Duncan interjected, brows puckered with affronted bewilderment. "You are." Turning the gun on Elliot, he suddenly and impatiently growled, "Answer the question."

Olivia watched Elliot open his mouth, close it then shake his head, running out of strategy and stamina. So she answered for him in a simple, shameless voice. "He's a breast man."

"Well, who isn't?" Duncan humphed, tossing a contemptuous look at her partner as he headed back to his table. "How like you, Stabler, to be such a cliché."

"Laugh it up," Elliot muttered, moving back to his place at Olivia's side, "I'm gonna ring your fucking neck."

"And I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"You bet I will."

"But not half as much as you're gonna enjoy this next bit."

"I'm done playing your games."

Duncan stopped in his tracks. He faced him. Took two steps towards him. And told him with all the warped and repressed wrath that would inspire a man to abduct and torment two seasoned police officers. "You're done when I say you're done. Because you know what happens to Olivia if you refuse." He continued on his path, hitching himself up to sit cross-legged on the tabletop like a child. "So kiss your partner again and this time I wanna see your hands on her breasts. You've got two and so does she."

"What about me?" Olivia demanded, flapping her elbows at her sides. "Don't I get to say what my favorite part of his body is? Don't I get to feel him up?"

Duncan grinned, his levity instantly restored by her defiance. "Oh, sweetheart, this isn't about equality. This is about making you his victim. Just like he made Amy and Tess mine."

"Amy and Tess were your victims."

"And now you're his."

"No—"

"Yes." Duncan waved the gun at Elliot, "Elliot, you're up." Then he gasped with pleasure as he watched them reluctantly face each other, "And oh!…isn't that beautiful? You two can't even look each other in the eye. Believe me, Elly, after all this, she'll never look at you the same way again. You'll never be her partner now, you'll never be her hero. You'll be just another dirty perp, and every time she looks at you – you'll revolt her to her core."

-x-

Elliot wakes in a cold sweat, arms twitching in mid-air, biceps set to strangle mode. His breath comes hard and fast, his chest rising and falling heavily with each ragged inhalation. His sleep deceived hands expect to wrap themselves round Duncan's throat but all they feel is the insubstantial, stale air of the crib and the lingering sensation of his partner's body.

He gives his head a sharp shake on the pillow, trying desperately to dislodge what he wishes was a nightmare. But the memory is too vivid, too recent, too devastating to dismiss. The memory of her breath on his lips, warm and wet and tasting of blood, telling him to ignore Duncan. To obey him but ignore him. And God help him, he did. His palms had covered both her breasts as he kissed his partner for the third time, a hideous, hidden bolt of pleasure racking his body from his gut to his extremities. It lashed out and struck the crown of his head, the tips of his fingers, the depths of his groin, the length of his legs and the pads of his lips as they joined with hers. Over and over again. Rushing and receding and never taking a breath or a pause. Unable to stop themselves. Unable to comprehend anything, not danger or shame or fidelity. Unable to heed anything but her.

Elliot shifts onto his side, hoping the small adjustment will help him alter or escape the images in his mind's eye. But Olivia lies on the bed next to his, silently undoing his hope of respite. She must have entered after he did, falling as only she was able into a deep and instant slumber. She's turned her back to him, curling onto her left side, her shoulders hunched and socked feet pointed. Her t-shirt has separated from her jeans, leaving a sliver of skin bare at the base of her spine. It's pale and downy and unmarked by bruises he imagines her clothes purposefully hiding from him. At least he knows that when he held her there, keeping her close to him in that dungeon, palm pressed to the small of her back and a finger resting on the gap between her clothes, he wasn't hurting her, he wasn't exacerbating anything purple or red or yellow.

Closing his eyes on her, Elliot casts his weary mind forward to a time when this incident, these memories, these uncomfortable sensations lie in the distant past and no longer disturb him. That's why he does the therapy. For their partnership and his job and his future sanity. For the need in him for absolution and relief. For Olivia. And for his stubborn belief that Duncan was wrong and they can survive this. They can continue, as before, with their unique brand of detached intimacy and hypocritical denial. He looks forward to it – as he has always looked forward to the endless years of their safe status quo. That future feels endangered now but it has felt endangered before. They have always managed to pull it back from the edge, to draw each other away from a cliff they don't want to jump off, either separately or together. It's this thought that allows him to draw in a deep breath and release it, finding at least a measure of peace.

He doesn't know how much later it is that he hears Olivia's bed creak. He feels her turn and look at him. Her unguarded eyes on his face make the blood rush to his scalp, his neck, his cheeks. The dim light hides him though. So Elliot does not open his eyes as his partner studies him, sighs then rises and leaves him alone in the crib.

-x-

His fingers tap on the arm of his chair as they wait. "Think we'll be cured today?"

"Of what?" Olivia asks, leaning back in her chair, one leg folding over the other.

"I dunno," Elliot mumbles, glancing about at the untrustworthy FBI walls. "Each other?"

She shrugs as Huang enters his office and soundlessly closes the door. "Let's find out."

-x-

His hands were on her waist, on her bare skin, holding her beneath her shirt just as Duncan had instructed. It helped him keep her hips a respectable distance from his, helped him prevent her captive hands from being forced against his crotch. Olivia lifted them into the dip of her back so that he could shuffle closer, his chest grazing her back as he lowered his mouth to the curve of her shoulder. He kissed her there – because he'd been told to. He had not been told to let his tongue slide out and soothe her panicked flesh, her suffering shoulder joint. But Elliot let it do just that. Olivia's hands dropped slightly, her head fell back. When her head began to loll loosely on her neck though, Elliot straightened, a frown tugging his lips.

"...Liv?"

"Y'know, it's really not a good sign if they fall asleep while you're doin' them," Duncan remarked, examining his partner's heavy-lidded eyes.

"She's concussed," Elliot said, stepping round in front of her, both hands keeping her upright, "She needs a hospital."

"She hasn't got a hospital," Duncan told him with a careless tsk, "she's got you. Wake her up, Detective."

The second the order left his mouth though, Olivia's eyes rolled back in her head, her eyelids closing over as her knees suddenly buckled beneath her.

"Whoa— Liv!" Elliot caught her before she crumpled at his feet, easing her way to the floor. "She needs water!" he yelled, propping her up with a knee behind her back.

Duncan scratched his stubble and sniffed. Then, in his own time, he found a puckered old coke bottle on the floor and filled it with water at a rusty faucet. As he did, Elliot patted his partner's left cheek with the pads of his fingers then the right with their backs.

"Hey, Liv," he murmured, breath shallow and hot and anxious, "open your eyes. Open your eyes and look at me, Liv…"

He reached a hand up as Duncan approached with the water, looking down his nose at their dusty, intertwined bodies. Instead of handing Elliot the bottle though, he just upended it, letting the discolored water glug out and splash over Olivia's forehead, hair and eyes. She spluttered back to consciousness, her mouth spitting and choking, her faded eye makeup running down her cheeks.

"Oh look, she's back," he mused, crushing the bottle in his fist then tossing it away.

"She needs water to drink," Elliot grit, wiping her frantically blinking eyes.

"Get her on her feet," Duncan ordered, heading back to his tabletop perch. "We're not done with her yet."

Elliot tugged at the bottom of his shirt, using it to dab her dripping face, her bled mascara, her caked blood. "You gotta stay with me," he told her, the lump in his throat making his voice crack, "we're gonna get through this, okay? I promise you we're gonna get through this…" He stopped, eyes raking over her face to gauge how present she was. "You with me?"

Olivia's eyes landed on him, focused on him. "…With you."

A tiny smile emerged at her return. "Yeah?"

She blinked slowly, eyes shining. "Yeah..."

"Come on," his arms wound about her, "let's get you up—"

Olivia nodded, leaning into him as she slowly levered herself back up onto her feet.

-x-

After Olivia and Elliot leave, George sifts through the array of crime scene photos. The concrete chamber has been meticulously documented. The broken slabs, the barred window, the blood splatter. There are marks on the floor where each of the players stood. There are rulers held up to measure bullet holes and pools of drying blood. Similar rulers were later held up to Elliot and Olivia's injuries – the abrasions on Olivia's wrists, the gash on Elliot's forehead. And there are more than enough shots of Duncan's lifeless body on the concrete, his bloodied head and dead eyes after the sniper had taken the fatal shot.

He's been through the images several times but, like most crime scene photos, they don't tell the full story. The real story. He draws them into a pile, taps their edges against his desktop and slots them into the case file. Then he picks up the phone to call Captain Cragen. Like the photos, he doesn't relay the full story. He tells Cragen that he believes his longest serving detectives will survive this trauma, both individually and as partners. He speaks to their resilience and connection, consciously omitting aspects of their relationship that he witnessed but that fall outside their professional association and his purview. He recommends that once their injuries heal, they be cleared for duty.

On the other end of the line, Cragen pauses, perhaps waiting for more. They both know there's more to Benson and Stabler's story than what he's imparted. But out of unspoken respect for both detectives, neither of them says anything more.

-x-

"What d'you mean you moved out?" Olivia pulls up behind a haphazard column of cabs before turning to him, brows knit.

Elliot shrugs. "I mean I moved out. What's confusing about that sentence?"

She blinks at him. "Temporarily?"

"Kathy didn't even ask."

There's a brief pause. Cars honk and rev. Muffled and mingled radios pump out the latest lyrics. The FBI edifice looms coldly in the rear-view mirror. Elliot leans forward to fiddle with the knobs of the malfunctioning air-conditioning. Olivia palms the steering wheel, raising one hand then dropping it back again.

"So, where are you staying?"

Her partner points to a street up ahead. "Take the next right."

"Is this—" she begins then stops herself then reconsiders and goes on, "to do with what happened?" She presses the accelerator and their car inches forward in the bumper to bumper traffic. "With what Duncan said? Because it was mostly crap, you know that."

Elliot turns away, looking out the passenger side window and muttering about there being a little too much truth mixed in with the crap.

"We can deal with this," she insists, "we are dealing with it—"

"It's not about—" he stops, shakes his head, "it was before, anyway…way before…"

Olivia sighs, casting him a concerned look. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Instead of answering, Elliot unbuckles his belt and reaches for the door.

"Whoa—" she jams on the breaks as he exits the slowly moving car, "where you goin'?"

"Subway." He points to an entrance across the street then gives her a nod. "I've got it from here. Thanks."

"El—"

Elliot slams the door, tells her through the open window, "See ya tomorrow."

Mouth open on a redundant reply, Olivia watches him zigzag through the trapped cars before disappearing down the subway steps. She lets out another sigh as the light up ahead turns green and the late afternoon congestion finally begins to flow.

-x-

She kicks off her shoes by the couch, shedding her shirt on the way to the shower. She's currently hooked on them and it's not because of the stifling New York heat. It's not shame either that has her wilting under a cool stream of water twice a day on a good day. Her body doesn't feel violated so much as awakened, hungry for hands it doesn't understand it can't own. The cool, steady stream eases that hunger. It erases, if momentarily, the memory of his hands on her body and how very, very right they felt despite all that was wrong with why they were there. Every day – two, three, four times a day – she tips her face up into the oncoming water, lets it run over her closed eyes and into her mouth, rinsing out the metallic taste of his kiss. And one day – one day soon, she trusts – this ritual cleansing will succeed in washing away those lost sensations, that awakened hunger, the memory her body still holds onto of utter perfection.

Peeling off sticky jeans and underwear, Olivia stands naked on the bathroom mat and examines her injuries in the mirror. Her shoulder is still tender and her wrists chafed. And there's a giant, multi-colored bruise on her hip, probably from when she was tossed into the van. Her chin and lip have both gone down though. She actually got off pretty lightly compared to Elliot. But then Kyle Duncan was much more interested in inflicting psychological injury than anything physical. A few cuts and bruises helped his cause, kept them compliant, but it was by no means his endgame. She wonders now whether he researched her history as well as he did Elliot's. Whether he knew that, for her, being the instrument of torture for someone she loved was the worst form of emotional brutality she could conceive of. He could have found out – about her mother, about the plague her daughter's existence had always represented. Or it could have been a fluke. Two tortured detectives for the price of one.

She'll never know now. And she's not sure she wants to. But she feels like she's been apologizing ever since. Not verbally, of course, because that wasn't her and Elliot's MO. She does it with a look or a coffee or a quip as they sit chained to their adjoining desks. With one of the strawberry donuts with sprinkles that he pretends to hate. Or with a hand on his arm when he lay sleeping in his hospital bed. She'd wondered why Kathy had never showed, why she'd never returned her messages. Now, she knew. Or at least, she knew the minutest fragment of the story that her partner had casually disclosed. Elliot had never been great at keeping her apprised of the state of his marriage and he'd only gotten worse. Because ever since that horrible day, they haven't been able to talk to each other or relax around each other or stand being alone together. Any time they are, it inevitably ends with her ditching him or him ditching her. Because she'd lied to Huang when she'd said it hadn't impacted their partnership. It had. It had and they both knew it. It had and neither of them knew how to fix it. How to make it back or let it go. How to be who they used to be to each other. Whatever that was.

Olivia frowns at her mirror image then rotates her shoulder as she steps into the shower cubicle. She twists the knobs, deliberately placing her body under the sudden, shocking spray of cold. Her mouth gasps and her chest heaves. Then the water starts to thaw and her body starts to acclimatise. She secures her hair with a clip and moves closer, letting the water run down her face, neck, chest, stomach. Turning her back to the spray and opening her eyes, Olivia watches the tepid water run down the drain, praying that the ramifications of the Duncan case go with it.

TBC...