A/N: Thank you all for reading and letting me know what you think.

The loud wailing of sirens came to a halt outside the building and gave Elliot pause in his search for the phone. Instead he ran his free hand through Olivia's hair, whispering reassurances. She tried to keep her gaze on him, but her eyes kept closing. Elliot's ears perked up at the approaching sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs.

"Hang on Liv, just a little longer okay?" Sensing her slipping away, Elliot pleaded more urgently, "Olivia, please don't leave me."

"O-k." Her words came out faintly and trailed off.

"NYPD!" Elliot's head jerked up at the sound and he let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. Help had arrived, he didn't know how and he didn't care, all that mattered was that Olivia had a chance.

He looked down at her and at the moment he became aware of how exposed she was. A protective instinct rose up in him, the urge to shield her from the stares of the coming strangers. He scanned the room looking for something, anything, to cover her bare legs with, Elliot's eyes landed on a faded quilt draped across her bed and debated leaving her side to retrieve it.

However, seconds later, the front door came flying open, swinging on its hinges, and officers flooded the apartment with weapons drawn prompting Elliot to stay where he was. Elliot overheard one of the officers speaking into his radio, "Just hold them for questioning."

A wave of relief so powerful washed over him that had he not been on the floor, he surely would have wound up there. They hadn't got away. His fellow officers had caught them, even though they didn't yet know what the men had done.

"In here!" Elliot yelled, urgency tinging his tone. "She's been hit; she needs a bus."

Three of the officers edged into the room. "Ambulance is on its way sir. Now why don't you back up and let us handle things from here." Elliot lifted his eyes from Olivia long enough to realize that the officer's weapons were aimed at him and suspicion was clearly written on their faces.

If it weren't for the severity of the situation he might have laughed at the audacity of him being a suspect. I would never hurt Olivia. His gaze fell back to his jacket which was beginning to turn burgundy. He rephrased his thought, I would never intentionally hurt her. Without budging from his spot, Elliot met the officer's glares.

"I am Detective Elliot Stabler, badge number 6313. This is my partner, Olivia Benson, badge number 4015. We are with the Manhattan Special Victims Unit. I am not leaving her side."

The officers hesitated and exchanged glances with each other. Their grip on their guns only slightly faltered.

Elliot could sense their apprehension, but he didn't have the energy nor the compassion to further explain. "Go ahead and run our badges if you don't believe me. But if you move me and she dies, I guarantee I'll make sure any of you never do anything more than traffic stops.

The finality of Elliot's voice settled the matter. Cautiously the officers lowered their weapons.

"What exactly happened here, Detective?" The officer, who couldn't have been much more than twenty one, inquired.

What exactly had happened? The question washed over Elliot's mind. So many things had occurred, but only one answer floated to the surface. Olivia got hurt because he couldn't protect her. He tried to find the words to answer the question, but all could say was, "They hurt her."

It sounded so simple, like the type of answer a child would give. But it was the only description Elliot could muster. Elliot caught sight of the tip of a stretcher being maneuvered through the door and he wanted to shout at them to move faster, but another question from the officers diverted him.

"Who?"

"The men you caught. The ones being held for questioning. They're the ones who did this." Elliot clarified, his eyes still on Olivia.

Again the cops exchanged confused glances before the third officer haltingly spoke up.

"We don't have any men in our custody."

Elliot's head snapped up in surprise, certain that he had heard her wrong. What did she mean they didn't have them? The female officer was looking at him with confusion as were the other two.

"What the hell do you mean, you don't have them." The main doors were the quickest way out of Olivia's complex and closest to the elevator, the men had to have used them. "They had to have gone right past you. If you don't have them, then who the hell do you have?"

"A couple of ladies. They stopped us on our way up saying they had seen something suspicious. A few men had brushed past them acting a little odd."

Fireworks were exploding inside Elliot's skull and it took every bit of his self-control to keep his temper in check.

"That was them! You could have caught the bastards and you let them get away. How the hell did you lose them?!" he roared, losing the battle with his patience.

The arrival of the EMT's interrupted Elliot's ire and the young officers shrank back in relief at the intrusion.

"What happened," The dark haired EMT asked, bending down to observe Olivia, who at this point was unconscious.

"She's been shot," Elliot brought up the most pressing issue, intending it to be the end of the questions, but the EMT's curious glance at Olivia's state of undress prompted him to say more. "She was also assaulted."

"Raped?"

Elliot hesitated, the word was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't seem to spit it out. He didn't want to. Saying it out loud would make it all real. Despite what he had seen, a small part of him fervently clung to the delusion that he was wrong. That what he saw didn't actually happen.

Elliot couldn't say it, to verbalize what he had seen would be too much. He feared he couldn't handle it. Elliot would rather be a liar than be forced to face the truth; still the words came out of their own accord.

"…Yes, she was raped." The words felt wrong on his tongue. Elliot grimaced, the sentence had such a finality to it; and he was desperate to take it back.