Disclaimer: Still not mine, not that that's much of a surprise.

Chapter 10

Although not much progress had been made on the case of the missing woman, two more women had been reported missing, one a single mother of two and the other a local school teacher. Munch and Fin had set up a board that now displayed all the missing women's pictures as well as when they were taken, how they were took and then general details about them, but still there was nothing that related all the victims.

As Fin and Munch presented their findings to a squad room full of detectives and officers, Olivia walked in. She quickly went over to hang her jacket up, all the while listening to Munch and Fin who carried on even though they were stumped to see her back at work after only one day off. Elliot quietly got up and walked over to her.

"What have we got?" Olivia whispered to him.

"Two more missing women," he whispered back. "What are you doing here?" he asked her flatly.

"I work here Elliot, remember?" she said as she tried to brush past him.

He quickly slammed his hand on the wall to stop her from getting past, gaining some much unwanted attention. "Come on guys lets focus." Munch said taking the attention back before carrying on.

"You shouldn't be here." Elliot said, scolding her.

"Will you please lower your voice." she warned him.

"Then tell me why you're here?" he said.

"Oh so it's okay for you to work after something happens to fuck your life up, but it's not for me?" she spat back at him.

Cragen quickly walked over to them, grabbing Elliot's arm and placing his hand on Olivia's back as he led them to his office, closing the door behind them. Olivia and Elliot both just look pissed off at each other.

"She shouldn't be here yet" he said to neither her nor Cragen.

"Elliot I still have a job to do." Olivia reminded him.

"You should still be in the hospital." he yelled.

"Oh like you always do what they tell you at hospitals?"

"This isn't about me Olivia!"

"NO your right it isn't and it has nothing to do with you whether I work or not!" she yelled.

"Can you two both lay off for a second!" Cragen yelled above them, "First off, Elliot, she's right you don't get to say whether or not she works. I do." he reminded him.

"But…" Elliot began.

"Shut –up Stabler!"

Olivia couldn't help but smile, she hated when Elliot acted this way so found it very satisfying when he was then pushed off the high horse he had voluntarily climbed up on.

"Secondly, he is right Olivia you should be in hospital still or at least at home." Cragen said.

"Captain if I sit at home then I will never get better, each time another woman is snatched from her home I will feel guilty for not doing my job and trying to find the creep who is doing this." she said confidently, "Please Capt. I've got enough shit on my shoulders I don't need anymore by sitting at home and letting this guy continue what he is doing all because Lowell Harris beat me up a little..."

"A little?" Elliot scoffed in disbelief.

"Please." she begged Cragen and ignoring her partner.

Cragen couldn't refuse her pleas. After all she had a point they needed as many people on this case as they could get. "Fine but you take a back seat on this for a while. No heroics do you understand?" he said clearly and firmly.

"Absolutely sir." she said.

"Good now go catch up with Munch and Fin." he told them.

Elliot just huffed and stormed out. Olivia slowly followed him, slightly more graceful.

"Oh and Olivia," Cragen said making her turn around. "It's good to have you back." he said.

She just smiled at him then walked out to sit at her desk as Munch and Fin filled her in.

- - - - - -

It hadn't even got to halfway through the shift when a call came in about another missing woman. The four detectives all went to the woman's apartment where they met up with CSU who had already began finding what they could. All four of them expected to hear the usual on this case 'we got nothing' instead O'Halloran ran upto them with a beaming smile.

"You found something" Munch asked hopeful for once on this case.

"Yup. We got two sets of prints and hairs and even two blood samples. Neighbours say that the woman who lives here is into kick-boxing so we're hoping maybe she attacked her attacker and that one of the blood samples is from them. Hopefully neither belong to her and we may find that we have two perps." he said excitedly.

"Good work." Fin said.

"About time we got a lead on this thing." Olivia said.

"Yeah, I hope he's right about the two perps." Munch said.

"Why's that?" Olivia asked.

"Because otherwise one of those blood samples could belong to our missing vic." Munch said.

"Lets split up, talk to as many people as we can. Lets see if any of them heard anything." Fin suggested.

Olivia and the others nodded in approval.

"Okay you two take the floors below," Fin said to Olivia and Elliot, "And we'll go upstairs. Meet you back here," Fin said as he took charge.

- - - - - -

El and Liv had gone through one floor already and had pretty much nothing to tell for it. Just some 'we heard bangs' and 'she's a lovely girl, always kept herself to herself' but nothing that really helped.

After another hour and a half asking more people did they hear anything and getting nothing else useful they began making their way back to the vic's apartment. The lift in the building was conveniently broken which meant they had to take the stairs. Each one was absolute agony for Olivia but she didn't dare complain once because she didn't want to hear Elliot say 'I told you so'.

He was now a full flight of stairs above her and she was really starting to struggle. Elliot leaned over the rail and shouted down to her. "Ill send a cab to pick you up when I get there." he joked.

"Screw you!" she yelled up to him, totally out of breath. She was becoming light-headed, really light-headed.

Elliot suddenly heard a smack he looked over and saw her lying on the steps, he spun around on his heels and ran back down to her, jumping off and missing steps as he went until he finally got to her. She had already began trying to push herself up but Elliot quickly but gently pulled her to her feet. "Liv, Liv honey you okay?" he asked as he held her in one arm and lifted her chin up so he could see her face. "Liv are you alright?" he asked again.

She rested her head on his shoulder as she waited for it to stop spinning. Elliot continued holding her, resting one hand lightly on her head to support it. "I'm fine." she told him.

"Come on." he said as he began helping her slowly up the stairs.

"El please don't tell Cragen, I really don't want to be thrown off this case. If I have to sit at home all day and night I'll go crazy." she confessed.

"I won't tell him if you promise to take it easy and let me take the lead?"

"Deal." she said, suddenly remembering the last deal she had made.

"Lets get back up there." he said as he continued to support her.

TBC

I'll be updating as soon as possible.