Olivia doesn't realise Elliot is beside her until one hand is on her back to support her. She's too overwhelmed to take anything in really, and John walks towards her with a smile that seems utterly, completely unreal. "Olivia," he says, and her name sounds foreign in her own ears, coming as it does in his voice. He's close, too close, and then she's in his arms, being kissed on the cheek with Elliot still behind her and she hugs back automatically, too hard perhaps but she needs to check that he is solid.

When John releases her, and turns, she takes in the other people who she had seen but not seen. The woman is tall, with dark wavy hair and smiles and, thank god, she doesn't stand and come over. She's not sure she could deal with that greeting right now, and her attention can't focus on the woman anyway. Instead, she's staring at the boy on her lap.

"Meet Aaron," John says with undeniable pride in his voice, and the child, with hair as dark as his mother's and so clearly John's son in every other way, offers a shy grin but doesn't get off his mother's lap. All the characters in this scene stand still, and everyone's eyes are on her, as she looks at him. She vaguely remembers Elliot telling her of him in the hospital, but perhaps she hadn't believed it. Now he is flesh and blood real. He exists when before there was nothing. He is John's son...John's son...entirely coming to life while she was gone, and now she thinks she might faint. The floor lifts and drops under her feet, her knees begin to shake and before she can fall, she turns and runs, ignoring the startled sounds she leaves behind.

Elliot has felt the fight within her and waited for a reaction, but he expected tears, not this. Yet again, since her return, she has done nothing but surprise him. He calls to Kathy as he takes off up the stairs after her, for her to entertain their unexpected guests, and he enters her room just after her.

"Liv..." he manages to get out, before words begin to spill from her.

"I can't...I can't...he's so big, and John's so happy and it's all too much. Elliot, it's... it's too much. Please," and there, for the first time, she's pleading to him. He closes the space between them and she keeps staring at him for help. When he slowly, carefully wraps his arms around her, as he had in the morning when she woke, she doesn't give in to him but she doesn't fight back either. They stand there, with her forehead leaning against him, and he feels her body release. Neither say a word, she never lifts her arms around him, but for a while he knows she is calm and safe in his arms, and it feels okay.

"Stay here," he whispers to her, and as he lets go she sinks onto her bed, "I'll go and speak to them." For a moment she opens her mouth to speak, and looks at the door once, seeming as though she might come downstairs, but then sits still. "I won't be long."

Kathy and Kathleen are with John and Rebecca when he comes downstairs, Eli and Aaron playing on the floor, and he doesn't have a clue what he is going to say, but starts speaking anyway. "It's been a hard day, and it's all too much for her."

Rebecca immediately interjects with apologies, exclaiming that of course, they should have called, and Kathy reassures her, but John is looking at Elliot with a new found concern. As Rebecca gathers Aaron, and prepares to leave, he draws Elliot away and says, "how bad is she, really?"

How can he break her trust, or admit that she is falling apart? Elliot knows she will not want to appear weak, is still desperately trying to retain herself, but he also cannot lie to John. He lets his eyes tell one story, while he says, "she's not great." John nods.

"We're in town for a week or two, it's not decided yet. Call me, if you need anything." Eli and Aaron talk all the way to the door, and Kathy and Rebecca swap plans to meet for coffee. It all feels so normal, but Elliot takes the stairs two at a time when the door has closed, and the house takes on the strange routine, the cracking atmosphere that has grown. The rest of them eat, and go to bed, and Elliot sits on her bed as she paces round and round him, not even able to settle on cards this night.

"You won't be failing, if you take something to help," he offers, at three am, when the only thing enabling him to stay awake is her tension, her franticness, but she shakes her head.

"I can't. My mom...I can't be like her." She mutters that for five minutes after he has suggested it, looking at the carpet as she walks, and he tries to argue back but she's not listening, not even talking to him, just repeating again and again and again her fears. The atmosphere sparks with her fear, her anxiety, her reliance on some deeper form of adrenaline, and Elliot cannot work out how she has the energy to still move.

Dawn hasn't yet arrived, it's the deepest moments of the night when she stops, and leans with her back against the wall and her eyes closed. When she does so, the room feels as though it will spin with the cessation of movement and it feels odd to Elliot. Olivia pulls at the collar of the sweater she's wearing, and bangs a fist lightly behind her. "I can't breathe," the whisper appears out of nowhere, and he's standing up and taking a pace towards her when the room shatters.

The scream shoots through them both, making them jump, and Elliot immediately recognises it as Eli. He runs through the doorway before he can think, arrives at his bedside at the same time as Kathy, and picks up the boy who is crying and covered in sweat. He allows himself to be rocked and calmed by his father for a minute, before reaching for Kathy, and as Elliot hands him over, he sees Olivia's devastated face in the doorway.

He brushes a hand across Eli's head, reassures himself that he's okay, that he is settling and safe, and follows her as she leaves. She hasn't gone towards her bedroom though, but is standing before the front door, staring at it, shaking.

"I've got to go," she says as she hears him come down behind her, and doesn't let him ask the question before continuing, "it's my fault. He had that nightmare because of me. I can't do this, I can't be here." She's taking steps towards the door, opening it before he can reach her, and is one foot outside as he takes her arm.

"Liv, come back," she turns almost violently, a spark in her eyes despite her exhaustion, and it's the first sign of proper life he's seen in a couple of days.

"I can't stay here El." She is forceful, and he knows he will be unable to argue. She has never backed down, not when she sets her mind on a course of action. Not when she believes herself to be at fault for something.

"Okay, let me... let me get sorted. We'll go for a drive. We'll figure something out." He's afraid of her walking out, wandering the streets with nowhere to go. He's afraid of her state of mind and her exhaustion, and of where then hell she might end up. She relents, allows herself to be drawn back in and stands by the front door waiting.

While she does so, listening to the sound of him gathering clothes in a bag, telling Kathy...what, she doesn't know. All she can feel is the walls closing in, fuelled by the sight of John, of the body, and the sound of Eli's screams. They will trap her, fall on her and this time she'll never be free. She has to get out of her, has to. Or she'll lose herself.

When Elliot comes back downstairs, she is standing with her forehead pressed against the door, trying to break through. Her eyes are closed, every inch of her body wired, and he is too scared to touch her, for fear of the consequences. He grabs a couple things from the kitchen, before approaching her.

"We can go now," he says, and hands her a pair of shoes borrowed from Kathleen, and the coat she wore for the snowball war with Eli, that seems a million years ago. He has put clothes for him, for her into the bag, and the pharmacy bag has been slipped into the side. He can only hope, or pray, that either she will take something, or where they go she will get some rest.

The reporters have given up standing outside the house all night now, after getting nothing from his children when they ventured out to visit friends. He has seen a few still around during the day but no one has arrived yet, and the streets are empty as they pull away from the house. He still has no idea where they are going though, and Olivia is no help, staring blankly out of the window away from him.

He counts in cycles of ten to keep awake, makes himself look at every single object he approaches as he drives and after thirty minutes, he dares to speak. "Do you want to go home?"

"Home?" She sounds aimless, repeating the word without understanding. Elliot braces himself against the steering wheel.

"Your apartment. It's still there, as you left it." He eyes her, once the sentence is over, and the turn of her head is slow and disbelieving.

"What?" Her voice is small in the night, and the low hum as he still drives.

"We...we couldn't pack it up, not knowing. So we kept it." It had seemed so logical through all the years, the empty place sitting with what they could hold onto of her, but now he's heard the truth in her ears, it sounds strange and untrue. He waits for more reaction.

"Take me there." And it's a order, the strongest one she has given, with a bite to her eyes that tells him she is certain. He slides through the dark towards the dawn that is slowly rising over the city, and by the time they are sitting outside the building, there is a glow to the streets, people emerging from a faint, grey mist lightly tinted with the first sun. Olivia doesn't wait, doesn't hesitate and is out of the car fast. He follows, unsure of what to expect this time, when this time, what he dreads comes true.

Three steps away from the door, away from entering, she halts, slammed into a wall around the place. Her eyes take on the fear of before, except more so, and he is immediately aware of the tremor of her body. HE reaches a hand close, expecting her to jump away, prepared for the fight he thinks she will give against him, but nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.

There are people walking past them on the sidewalk, just emerging from the buildings, joggers and dog walkers braving the morning, but she sees none of them. He can't imagine what she does see, and shakes harder, speaks louder. "Liv!" But there is an emptiness that scares him when he moves round and looks properly into her face, and shaking with both hands on her shoulders brings him no reward either. For a brief moment he considers slapping her, but cannot bring himself to lay his hands on her like that, and searches around him as if a guardian angel will come and grant him a reprieve from this nightmare, will offer help, will fix things.

No one comes.

Finally he grips as hard as he dares, and turns her body. She reacts as a robot to his push and his guidance, blind and deaf, stumbling for him to catch as they step off the kerb. She reminds him of a sleepwalker he had seen on a documentary once, how the guy's wife would guide him home and back to bed when he had gone wandering, and he feels the same.

Once she is settled, still empty, he begins to drive again, and a thought dots into his head. He looks at her, wondering, but can come up with nothing else, and so takes his chance.

During the drive, it is impossible for him to resist stealing glances every ten seconds or so, but nothing changes. He's sitting with a statue. Despite the commuter traffic, it's all driving into the city and he doesn't require all his attention on the road. A good thing too, the combination of hours and hours with no sleep and his need to keep his eye on her mean he's nowhere near as alert as he should be. They might have driven for hours when they pull up outside Don's house, the quiet of the suburb all around, but it will be nothing as long as that.

Unsure as to what to do next, he weighs up the two options before getting out of the car and hurrying fast to the front door. He doesn't know whether Don is even here, though he doesn't know where else he will be, and cannot manage the thought of trying to get in back in the car once she's out.

Knocking hard on the door, it isn't long before he hears footsteps, and Don opens the door, a calm expression turning to surprise when he sees who is standing there. "El?"

Looking behind him, he waits until Don's gaze follows, and he knows he has seen Olivia sitting still in the car when he exhales under his breath, a low whisper of surprise that might carry her name within, but might not. "El?" he repeats.

"She needed to get out of the house. The kids, the noise, it was too much." There is too much to tell in one sentence and he wants Olivia out of the car and into four walls. "It was...sudden. Sorry."

"Of course. How is -" and Elliot interjects quickly.

"I'll need some help, I think. Getting her in." He hopes Don will get the message that there is something dreadfully, painfully wrong. He must have some idea, for them to turn up at this time of the morning, but he needs it understood fully. It's an utter relief when, as he watches, the professional Don kicks in and a change slides over him. Quickly, he grabs a coat, pulls shoes on and follows him back to the car.

Elliot slides into the driver's side and Don goes around to pull open the door of hers. The cold metallic scalds against his fingers but the pain soon vanishes when he sees Olivia sitting there, staring as though utterly absorbed by the hinges of the door, blank and still. The sight of her washes across him as ice water, stealing his breath. She is in a worse state, perhaps that even the night they found her, certainly than in the harsh glow of hospital lights. He thinks Snow White could not have achieved her skin tone, there isn't even a hint of healthy glow on tan in her cheeks and the blue, dusky shadows haunt her cheekbones.

Elliot is sitting next to her, talking quietly but with a firm tone to her voice and throwing glances at Don when he gets no response. "Liv, we're at Don's house. "You're gonna get some rest here, and some peace and quiet. Don and I will be here, okay?" Both wait, before Don tries, and it occurs that perhaps this is easier, her looking foreign to him. It softens the pain, for a while.

"Olivia, it's Don. It's all going to be okay." It might be a lie, it might be the truth, but there is no way to care now. She still doesn't react, and as he looks once more at Elliot, his mind gives him a picture of Olivia in the days before she vanished. The strength, the competence, even a smile and a hint of laughter thrown into the mix. Now, it seems impossible to even imagine.

Elliot takes over again. "You're going to come inside now, alright?" He puts one hand on her shoulder and another on her arm, and Don mimics him on the other side of her. He is surprised to feel a faint tremor shivering across her skin, not visible to the naked eye but clearly conveyed through their touch. Elliot, however, shows no shock, and Don wonders what they've been through in the past few days for this to be taken in his stride.

He follows Elliot's lead when he sees him exert more pressure against her, and finally her body seems to relent, though there is no comprehension in her eyes. She moves slowly, swinging her legs out, and Don cups the crown of her head as she stands, able to tell that there is no way she will assess the space on her own. Elliot is around her side in a flash and together they help her walk, Elliot muttering murmurs the whole way up the path. She is like an old lady, crippled and helpless, but niether focus on that.

When they make it through the door, Elliot says, without looking at him, "she needs to lie down," and Don guides them down the hallway and into a room that is obviously his spare bedroom. Elliot pulls back the comforter and they sit Olivia down on the bed and Elliot takes over as a father. "Hands up," he says, and she seems to hear something because her arms raise and he slides her sweater off over her head before placing one hand supporting her back and the other on her shoulder, making her lie down. Once she's stretched out, he takes her shoes off, and slides the cover back across her, stroking her hair out of her face as he does.

"Go to sleep now," he says, and after a few more minutes her eyes slide close, and a exhausted calm seems to drench her face. Don goes and lets the blinds down, so the light is there but dim in the room, and both men stand at the doorway and watch her. Slowly, Elliot fills him in, the interviews, the insomnia, the nightmares and then John's visit.

"I can't believe it's this hard," he sighs, rubbing his hand across the harsh stubble quickly, trying to create energy somehow. Don listens, but Elliot has little left.

"It hasn't been very long El," he finally says, eyes fixed on Olivia's form beneath the covers. "This is all to be expected." Elliot nods as if he hears, but Don can tell there is no belief within it, a doubt flickering around him. "What is it?"

"I guess I thought it would easier. That I'd know what I'm supposed to do. We dealt with this kind of thing every day, with..." and he catches on the last, unspoken word, that both Don and Elliot still hear in the space left. Victim.

"But she's not only a victim, is she. She's a cop, and she knows how she is supposed to act as well." It's the first time Elliot thinks like this, and pushing somehow through the cloud of exhaustion there comes realisation.

"Oh God," he whispers under his breath, thinking through the position Olivia is trapped in. She knows what is expected of her, what being a victim is, what the process is. Suddenly, ignorance truly does appear bliss, for them both. Don sees it hit him, pale washing across the skin and highlighting the exhaustion and stress already there. In the silence, he waits for Elliot to swallow, begin to absorb just what they face, and then he sees his eyes slide shut, and he sways on his feet.

"I'll stay here, if you'd like to get some sleep. You look like you need some." Elliot stays looking at Olivia, peacefully sleeping, and rubs his eyes as if he intends to fight it. He needs a nudge, and Don gives it, the one he knows will work. "You're no good to her like this." As expected, he responds to this, and Don gives him his own bed that he falls into with barely a sound. Don thinks he is asleep before his head hits the pillow.

It's peaceful in the house, a different kind of peace from what he usually has, which could maybe be described as loneliness instead. There is an atmosphere created by two people breathing deeply, dreaming, resting, and it's a good feeling, despite his concern. He calls Kathy, who is just glad they are sleeping, calls Fin whose worry he can feel through the phone, calls John who tries to cover his concern with the usual jokes.

During the day, Elliot wakes once to go to the bathroom and stops in to look at her, but Don reassures him that she hasn't stirred, and he retreats back to sleep. In the afternoon he hears her shift a few times restlessly, and goes to stand by her door, but she doesn't wake and he can't decipher her mutters. She stops, stills after a while, and he makes himself a dinner, unsure when anyone might wake.

There is silence when she feels herself start to wake. For a while she's been on the edge, her body heavy, consciousness too much effort to reach, but gradually she's floated towards the surface, and now she is warm under covers, and her socks are still on. It's the first thing that strikes her, and makes her begin to piece together what else is happening. The scent of linen is a foreign one, there is a clock ticking somewhere, and she can figure nothing else.

It's surprisingly easy to open her eyes, but things don't become any clearer once she's looking at her surroundings. After a couple of minutes of staring at the wall, her brain gives her clues, and she remembers a drive, Don's voice, Elliot somewhere. The puzzle clicks into place, and she tests her body, her mind by sitting up in bed. Dizziness floods for a second and there are the remnants of tension in every muscle, a brief trickle of anxiety trails under her skin, but its bearable.

Stepping out of the doorway, she glances one way, and can make out a body sprawled across a bed, and knows instinctively it is Elliot. She has seen him sleep enough times. There is faint noise, the sound of TV coming from the other direction, and she follows it.

Don is sitting there, and he doesn't get up when she appears slowly, just smiling at her. "You look better," he says, and it makes her sweep a hand through her hair and catch the knots with fingertips. "You want anything to eat?"

"No, thanks." It's the first thing she's said for hours, a catch to her voice and she sounds loud to herself but Don just nods and points for her to sit down. She does so, pulling her knees up to her chest and watching the TV, an old Jimmy Stewart movie that she vaguely recognises. The stillness, the companionable silence is foreign to her, here in this place, but also so familiar the ache builds and crashes over her, but she clings to it. It's something she can bear, this feeling, of sitting next to a man and being still. She won't whisper his name in her mind, but it's there all the same, an echo of...what? What she had forced herself to want, and has now lost.

If she thinks, it all becomes too complicated, so she stops and simply watches. Part of her still wants to pace, to move and shift and fight against the world but her body won't listen to her, raise itself to that level of tension.

She surprises herself when, at the end of the movie, she yawns widely and long. Don chuckles from his chair, "Sounds like you need some more sleep," but she doesn't respond, and only then does he look at her. "It's okay, you know." He could mean anything, be referring to any number of thoughts that flit between them, but his words are all encompassing and it helps, somehow. He doesn't nag further and it's that that helps, that allows her to stand and say,

"Goodnight," in quiet tones that match this house, and walk back to the bed that now seems so appealing. She stops again to look at Elliot, one leg falling out of the covers and the pillow over his head as he lies on his front, and his sleep calms her. She could stand and watch him, relish the safety she finds in him, and the relief that he is here. His back rises, falls again, and after a while she realises she is mimicking his breathing. It soothes, and when she blinks, her eyes stay closed longer than usual. .