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Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Chapter 9

The guys all sat in the hospital waiting room, waiting to hear about how Olivia was. Since arriving there Casey, Melinda and Huang had all turned up to see how she was doing. After more than two hours waiting a nurse finally walked over to them. Every single one of them got up and looked at her. There was no give away expressions on her face so they didn't know whether to panic or not.

"How is she?" Cragen quickly asked.

"Are you family?" the nurse asked.

"We all work with her." Casey told her, tears in her eyes and her voice shaky as she waited to hear news of her best friend.

"Are any of you her family?" the nurse asked.

"We're all her family." Fin told the nurse. "Please how is she?" he asked.

The nurse nodded accepting the closeness of the group before she began. "She's got some pretty bad injuries. Your guy gave her a real good going over; broken ribs, cracked ribs, we had to stitch up a cut on her head, she has multiple bruises and scratches all over her body and we suspect her shoulder may have been dislocated. We sent her up to x-ray for a scan." she told them.

They all just looked at her. They all had guessed she'd been through a lot. Just seeing her at the docks told them that much. "Is she going to be okay?" Elliot asked.

"She's pretty lucky to be alive, she was extremely dehydrated. We're giving her liquids. We want to keep her in for a few days to check she's healing okay. Plus she need's to be on painkillers, possibly for the next few months." she informed them.

"She's that bad?" Munch asked.

"Like I said she's lucky to be alive." she said again.

"Can we see her?" Huang asked.

"Maybe one at a time. She should be back anytime." she said before she walked away.

There was no discussion necessary, Elliot was going in first. He quickly ran after the nurse as she led him into what was to be Olivia's room. It was just a little further down the corridor form where the others all waited. "She should only be 5 minutes." the nurse told him as she went to walk out.

Elliot quickly grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Was she…I mean did you…was there a rape exam?" he asked, not sure he wanted to know.

"You her boyfriend?" the nurse asked, honestly she had expected one of the women to come in first.

"She's my partner…work partner." Elliot told her.

"Oh. Well from the physical state of her when she came in we thought it best, however we found no traces of anything. There is some bruising however on her thighs consistent with having someone pin her down. We found some more bruising in that area so…our tests aren't one hundred percent conclusive yet. Maybe you could ask her about it?" the nurse said with a reassuring smile.

"Yeah," Elliot said. Pigs would fly before she told him the truth. The nurse was about to leave when nurses pushed Olivia into the room in a wheelchair.

"El?" she said, happy to see him, but hating looking so battered in front of him.

The nurses helped her into the bed before checking the machines then leaving the two of them alone. Neither spoke for a moment making it very awkward.

"How are you feeling?" Elliot asked, suddenly thinking how stupid a question it was, she looked like hell, but still as amazing to him as ever, if not more so. He knew she was a fighter and that thought suddenly gave him the confidence to walk over to the bed and climb on it next to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and let her rest her head on him.

He couldn't help but notice her arm in a sling. "So is it dislocated then?" he asked her.

"No it's just badly bruised." she told him, like the excruciating pain it was causing her was nothing. "Where are the others?" she asked.

"They're here." he replied quickly not allowing her to change the subject like he knew she were trying. "How's your head feeling?" he asked.

"Better." she answered truthfully. Now she could rest it on his warm chest it did feel much better.

He just nodded. He didn't want to have to ask his next question, but he knew he had too. He was about to speak, when she did.

"Where's Harris?" she asked.

"Liv what did he do to you?" Elliot asked her, not ignoring her question but needing his own answers first.

Olivia suddenly pushed away from him, the closeness suddenly too much for her. As she tried to scoot away from him he realized and so quickly jumped off the bed and stood next to it. "Olivia did he rape you?" he asked flatly, but if he didn't ask her now he never would.

"No." she said.

"Liv the nurses they found…" he began

"El they found nothing. Harris did not rape me." she said, it was half the truth.

Elliot just scoffed, he had known she wouldn't answer him. "Liv it's alright if…" he tried to say.

"How's Ashley?" she asked. "Is she here?" she asked, hoping Harris had kept his word.

"Yeah Liv she's here, but she's not doing too well. The Doctors, they don't think that she's gonna wake up." he told her.

Olivia looked at him for a second, not wanting to believe his words. Harris was supposed to get her help, that was the deal. She began shaking her head as she blinked away tears. Elliot could see this was hard for her.

"Liv…" he said as he stepped closer to her.

"El I'm tired. I just want to go to sleep." She said, she couldn't even look at him.

He just nodded and walked out he wanted to say something but what was there to say really. He knew she wouldn't believe him if he told her it wasn't her fault, which it most definitely wasn't and he also knew she wouldn't want to hear the 'we can't save everybody' speech. Instead he just went to find the others.

- - - - - -

Olivia had been told to stay in bed. The Dr's had told her she needed complete bed rest and had to stay in for a few days so they could monitor her. To Olivia though that meant feel free to get up and go whenever you want. Thankfully, and most likely thanks to Casey, there was a bag of her clotes in her room. She had woke up to find the bag sitting on the chair. The guys were all too familiar with how uncomfortable hospital gowns were. In it there were some sweatpants as well as a tank top and even a pair of trainers so she wasted no time in changing into them. She wasn't staying in this room or in this bed another minute. An NYPD sweater had also been shoved in the bag so she threw that on as well before tucking her arm into the pocket on the front of it. It was better than a big blue sling. She threw the bag over her other shoulder and then walked out.

There was one more thing she needed to do before she left the hospital. Finally she came upon the room she had been looking for. There lying in a huge bed was Ashley. The bed made her look tiny, so innocent and vulnerable. Next to her bed was Ricky, in a wheelchair. Olivia couldn't help but notice the small bandaged stump where his leg used to be. She knocked on the door, causing him to look up. Straight away he looked back down as she walked in.

She stood at the foot of Ashley's bed and just looked at her. She just looked like she was sleeping. The Dr's had fixed and cleaned her up some and she looked almost as good as new.

"They had to drill holes into her skull to try and relieve some of the pressure." Ricky told her.

"What else are they going to do?" she asked him, her voice croaky as she tried not to cry.

"Nothing." he said as he looked at her. "There isn't anything else they can do. Her brains just too badly damaged." he said trying now not to choke on his own tears. "That son-uv-a-bitch killed my sister, he ruined Ashley's life and now he's killed her. Look at me, I have lost my only family, what do I have left to live for?" he asked Olivia.

She wiped away the tears that insisted on falling. She had no answers for him. None that could make things better anyway. "I promise you that I will make sure Lowell Harris pays for what he has done." she said.

"It doesn't matter," Ricky said as his tears now fell freely. "It won't bring Riza or Ashley back. So what does it matter." he said coldly.

Olivia just looked at him, then turned to look at Ashley. She was so young and what life she had lived had been full of abuse and pain. She couldn't help but think about just how alike she and Ashley were in some ways. There was just one difference. "Ashley knew how much you and Riza loved her. So if there's one thing that will make you feel better somehow, let it be that. Know that of all the things in Ashley's life you and her mother were the best and the most important." she said.

Ricky looked at her, hearing her words and they did in someway help him. He managed a tiny crooked smile and nodded his head at her. Olivia nodded back before turning to leave.

- - - - - -

All she wanted to do now was to sit in a corner and cry and she was going home to do just that, that was until she heard his voice again.

"My god-damn shoulder is killing me you think I could get some painkillers anytime soon!" he yelled.

Olivia turned and watched a nurse walk out of another room, one were two officers stood outside. There was one more thing she had to do now.

Lowell Harris lay in a bed his wrist was cuffed to the railing and he lay with his head back looking up at the ceiling. "Comfortable?" He heard.

He looked down to see Olivia standing at the foot of his bed. He just laughed. "Walking so soon?" he asked her sarcastically.

"Yea guess you can't even beat a woman properly ha?" she said mocking him, she loved to do it so much.

"You're no woman, you're just some pathetic whore." he said.

"Oh so you can't even beat a pathetic whore properly?" she asked, again mocking him.

"Shut-up." he said.

She walked closer to him with a confident smile splashed on her face, she wasn't scared of him, he was a coward. "You like controlling women. You think that you can do whatever you want to them because they aren't always strong enough to fight back," she said.

He just smiled at her. "Go on," he said.

"You're going to jail." she told him.

"Please all they can do me for is assaulting a cop." he said.

"Raping a cop," she reminded him. "Not to mention murder." she added.

"I didn't murder you sweetheart." he said with his smug smile.

"You murdered Ashley Tyler. Her life support machine was just turned off. She died. Now you're going down for her murder." she told him.

Finally his smile was gone and he knew just how bad things were going to get for him.

"The guys at Attickers are gonna love your sorry ass. Get ready to be their bitch Harris. You're going away for a long long time." she said, this time she wore the smug satisfied smile.

He grabbed a handful of her shirt and pulled her towards him, she didn't even flinch. It just made her smile more, his last final pathetic attempt to intimidate her. "You better fix this or I swear I will make your life miserable." he said.

Using a new found strength she pulled her shirt out of his grasp and stepped back. "Good luck with that?" she said knowing full will there was nothing he was going to do to her or any other woman from now on. She picked her bag up again and began walking towards the door.

"Get back here you bitch. I'll get you!" he yelled after her as he tried pointlssly to free his arm from the cuffs.

Olivia just walked out, ignoring him. She felt nowhere near as confident or strong as she had just acted in there. Now she really was going home to be alone.

TBC

Poor Ashley, it killed me to do it.

Thanks for reading. As usual please review.