So, since I've last updated:

#1: I visited my sister at college, she's a freshman and it was super nice to hang out with her again!

#2: I changed the story around a little bit as far as the Amanda and Liv friendship goes. In the show, I know Amanda wasn't around when Elliot left but in the story, she was. Deal with it.

#3: I'm on Twitter (come be my friend) - fearLIZness17

#4: If you'd leave a review after reading, it would be MUCH appreciated! :)

He had managed to jump on the next plane out of Boston and had landed in JFK shortly after. It was a quick flight, but it was spent with images of her playing in his head. He couldn't quite shake the conversation he had on the phone, Fin had given him barely any information. Truthfully, he was holding on to the fact that she was alive.

After just about running down a TSA officer on his way out of the airport, he hailed a cab in typical fashion. There was traffic, there was an accident somewhere downtown and the drive dragged on for longer than he would have hoped. He couldn't picture the last time he had seen Olivia and every bad scenario he could think of was flying through his mind. There was a lot of reflecting but he had no idea what he was getting himself into, or how things had changed since he'd left.

When the cab finally stopped outside of the 16supth/sup precinct, he threw a wad of cash at the driver, not even caring enough to make sure it was correct. Something about the precinct looked different and when he walked into the squad room, everything flooded back to him.

He couldn't believe that he pulled the trigger. He heard the screams, and then silence. It was as if time had stood still, bodies were all over the squad room and Detectives were huddled behind desks in order to shield themselves. He had heard her last words as he held his hand to her bloody chest in an attempt to buy her more time. He had lost that battle and was now staring a lifeless teenager, one who could easily have been old enough to be his daughter.

Looking up, he turned around to see his partner with a stunned look on her face. She didn't know how to react to the situation that had played out before her very eyes. Everything had come as a surprise to the entire squad room and instead of a work place, it was now a crime scene. She knew what was coming and she could see it in his eyes. He felt responsible and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure IAB didn't screw this up.

Two IAB officers had quickly whisked them away into separate interrogation rooms and when he was finally let go, he kept walking and never quite stopped. He had passed countless store-fronts, restaurants and people who were living their everyday lives. He wasn't even sure where he was walking until he found himself staring at an empty suitcase which was sitting on his bed. He had no choice in the matter, he had to walk away.

Munch had spotted him walking through the door and immediately questioned, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you too," Elliot laughed, "Fin called me."

Nick and Amanda had given questioning looks to Elliot who they had only heard of in conversations. Amaro was furious and as far as he was concerned, Elliot shouldn't have even showed his face in the squad room. He couldn't put it past him that Elliot had just walked out of his partner's life without so much as a goodbye, or even a word since. Nick had become increasingly more protective of Olivia, he obviously had big shoes to fill and he didn't want to be another disappointment in her life. Amanda was confused and had ultimately remembered what Kat had confessed to her and Fin one night. She had mixed emotions about the entire situation but it wasn't her call to make, she was just honoring her friend's wishes, even if her friend had no idea what was going on behind closed doors. She had remembered watching Olivia go through every stage of grief twice over and she couldn't imagine the toll it would take if it happened again.

Before anyone could fight him about his intentions, Fin swooped in and brought Elliot back to one of the interrogation rooms. It wasn't an ideal place to disclose all of the events throughout the past couple of years but since there was no other office, it would have to do. He was pacing, one of his definitive tendencies whenever his mind couldn't quite catch up to his brain. Five million questions were soaring through his mind before he finally asked, "What happened to her?"

Fin sat down as his eyes watched Elliot pacing back and forth, occasionally glancing over at the folder that was sitting on the table. "She was kidnapped."

"Kidnapped?" Elliot chuckled, "You're joking."

"No, I'm not." Fin was solemn, "It was bad, and things got ugly real fast." He paused before looking Elliot straight in the eye, "You better sit your ass down and prepare yourself."

Reluctantly, he pulled the chair out, folding his hands in his lap as he sat down. He had no idea where this was going to end up and he found himself thinking that he better get serious about the situation at hand because Fin wasn't making this up. "How?"

A picture of William Lewis was slid across the table, "Rollins picked him up in the park after he exposed some tourists. We only got evidence from a photographer who just happened to be nearby, she was shooting some birds in the park. We all had the day off but she had a feeling about him that just wasn't right. I mean the guy burned his fingers to avoid having his prints run through the system."

"He have any priors?"

"We couldn't find anything on him. There wasn't enough evidence to hold him and sure enough, he went to the photographers house. Cragen had gone over to return her camera after TARU had finished going through it. He had no idea that Lewis was even in the apartment until one of her neighbors found her bruised and battered the next morning." Fin slid a picture of Alice Parker across the table, "He held her hostage for 19 hours."

Elliot shook his head, "Did the rest of her body look as bad as what he did to her face?"

"Even worse." Fin replied, "He branded her, with keys, coat hangers, anything he could find. He held lit cigarettes to her body, forced alcohol and pills down her throat, among countless other atrocities."

"Rape?"

Fin nodded, "At least three times, she died from a heart attack a few days after she got out of the hospital. Warner didn't think it was from stress but we all speculated it was just the horror she experienced at the hands of him."

"I'm assuming you took him to court, right?"

"We picked him up outside of a bodega and brought him in for questioning. Nick and Liv were the first ones to go after him. She went after him hard, and Lewis came right back at her even harder. The second he threatened her, Nick just about killed him. Liv played it off and sat down in front of Lewis, asking him to spell out everything he did to Alice Parker. Lewis immediately grabbed the bait, before he began couching everything in a hypothetical so nothing could be tied back to him." Fin shook his head as he remembered how distraught Liv was, "Cragen pulled them out soon after Lewis' lawyer showed up, it really got to Liv."

Elliot sighed, "Of course it did, she probably thought she was close to breaking him."

"That's Liv for ya," Fin laughed, "Cragen sent her home to see Kat and to try to separate herself from the case. When we all reconvened, it was in court. Lewis' hotshot lawyer-girlfriend fought like hell for the son of a bitch. She tried to rip all of us apart, especially Liv but she threw it right back, like always." Fin paused, "His lawyer made Warner look awful, especially when she brought up the possibility of contamination in the DNA testing. It was news to Barba and the judge gave a short recess because of it. We all went back to the precinct and a few hours later, that's when we got the call."

"He walked, didn't he."

"Judge declared a mistrial." Fin quietly recalled, "Liv was horrified, as was everyone else. Cragen gave her two days of mandatory leave and when she fought him, he threatened to arrest her if she showed up to work."

"She's never taken a day off in her life," Elliot recalled how Olivia would show up even if she was incredibly ill or even through other pressing circumstances, "Please tell me you checked on her."

"Nick said she left here in near tears so we left her alone for a day. Day 2 had come and gone but when Day 3 came with no word from her, that's when I called Kat." Fin felt some sense of guilt for not looking after his oldest friend better but it was too late for that now, "She hadn't talked to her so that's when I met Kat at the apartment. I wish she hadn't gotten there before me, she saw everything." Fin slid Elliot a few pictures of the crime scene that was the Benson apartment, "Pictures don't even do this stuff justice."

Elliot surveyed each of the pictures and was genuinely horrified at what he saw. He couldn't even imagine the struggle she put up to get away from this sadistic person. Lewis had an agenda and he had obviously fulfilled it in the apartment, only to leave it completely destroyed. Fin had explained that Amanda had taken Kat under her wing and made sure that she was taken care of and okay as she could be under the circumstances. Elliot had asked about the next place that Lewis had taken Olivia and he had explained the Mayer's house, the horrors that played out and the intentions of Lewis. "He drove her around in a black SUV for one of the nights, she was laying in the back seat, hidden under a tarp. A rookie cop pulled Lewis over but Lewis shot him before he could place a call back to the dispatcher. He pistol-whipped a woman and her baby before ending up at some beach house out on Long Island."

The former Detective had noticed how Fin had hesitated once he talked about the beach house. He wasn't sure if he wanted to call him out on it but he decided to anyways, "What happened at the beach house, Fin."

"You need to prepare yourself, Elliot." Fin warned, "It's worse than any of us could have ever imagined and she hasn't given us her full statement, just pieces."

"I've heard it all at this point Fin," Elliot defended himself, "Just come right out and say it."

"It's different when it's someone you know, you'll find that out." Fin paused before slowly continuing despite his warning to Elliot, "He probably beat her, branded her, cut her with knives, etc. She was in really rough shape when we found her."

"She called you guys?"

Fin nodded, "I don't know how she did it, or how she even got a hold of a phone but she called Nick. We tracked the phone to the beach house and he found her passed out on one of the reclining chairs in the corner bedroom. The house was a disaster, it was like nothing any of us had ever seen before. There was blood on all of the walls and all over the floor. There were cigarettes and beer cans strewn everywhere, and the smell was awful. You never quite get used to the smell of burnt hair and flesh, it's not very pleasant."

Elliot shook his head, "Where was Lewis?"

"Uni's found him chained to the iron-framed bed in the next room. He looked rough, one step away from death with what she did to him. He was carted off to Bellevue for care, even though he probably didn't deserve it after all the things he did."

"And how was she, I mean, when you found her?"

It pained Fin to slide the picture of Liv across the table. Her ordeal wasn't public knowledge and there were very few people that actually knew the full story, or even the full extent of her injuries. The picture didn't even cover the rest of her body and the Olivia that Elliot knew, was the opposite of who he was looking at. It made his skin crawl and it took everything in him to not lose his cool over what Lewis had done to his most beloved friend. Fin spoke up as he saw Elliot's blood beginning to boil, "She was worse than what that photo shows. At first, none of us believed it her until she waved paramedics off inside the house. In true Liv fashion, she insisted she could walk out on her own two feet, but in reality, Nick did most of the work until she finally let EMS take over." Elliot was rubbing his face with his hands as he began to picture the scene in his head. He wished he could have been there, or even knew that this had happened. Fin continued, "They took her to Mercy, and she was quickly whisked away into an exam room. We didn't hear any news for hours."

"Was Kat with you?" Elliot questioned, "What did the doctors say when they came out?"

Fin nodded, "Amanda brought Kat in and the Doctors pulled the squad out into the hallway to tell us how she was doing. It was a lot worse than we had all thought. She had a fractured wrist, varying degrees of burns on her chest and arms. Practically all of her ribs were broken or fractured, she had a severe concussion. She had deep lacerations on her wrists, arms, stomach and her face. Her ankle was sprained, her eye socket was broken and almost every inch of her body was bruised in some way."

Elliot shook his head in disbelief, "No, that's not her. She never would have let things get that bad. She's one hell of a fighter," He sighed, "but she gave up."

"No, Elliot." Fin fought back. He didn't understand the partnership that they had, it baffled him. Fin absolutely hated Elliot but he put on a face so that Liv wouldn't stop talking to him altogether. "She didn't give up. Lewis over-powered her, he did everything he could to try to break her. That's not on Liv, that's on him."

"How long was she in the hospital?"

"Few days, she didn't want any visitors for the first day or so. The only person she really let see her was Amanda. I went in there twice to talk to her about bringing Kat in but she quickly refused, telling me to take her anywhere but her room."

"She was pushing you away," Elliot softly replied, "it's what she does when she's scared."

"Kat ended up sneaking in Liv's room on her own when we weren't looking. I'm sure it freaked Liv out to no end, but she somehow sucked it up for Kat's sake." Fin told Elliot about taking Kat away and how heart-breaking it was to tell the teenager that her mother just didn't have the heart to see her. He spoke about the flashbacks, the screaming and most of all, the crying. Bringing Olivia home was a different story, "Nick was the one to bring her back to her place. We all pitched in to fix it up because we knew she wasn't going to go anywhere else. She's been there for a couple days now, I saw her two days ago when I brought Kat back home."

Elliot was confused, "Why'd you bring Kat back home?"

"Amanda had given her the night off, the poor girl was exhausted and barely sleeping because she couldn't bear to leave Liv. It was a struggle to get her to leave at first but once we got to Amanda's, she settled down when she realized I wasn't driving her back until the next morning." Fin laughed, "She knew I meant business."

"How's Liv holding up?"

"It's hard for her, Stabler." Fin confessed, "She doesn't want help and she's struggling with being so vulnerable. Before Lewis, I could count the number of times I'd seen her cry on two fingers and now, her tears just don't ever stop. She's frustrated, she can't really move around much by herself and it takes a lot of effort on her part to even get up in the morning. Liv is on more meds than she knows what to do with, and although she would never tell you, she doesn't feel like herself. She's different, probably depressed and truthfully, Lewis did a hell of a lot more than break her."

He swallowed, digesting all of the information that he had heard about his old partner and his best friend. He couldn't even imagine what she must be going through and he felt so angry at himself for not hearing about Lewis sooner. However, only one question still remained in his mind, "Was she raped?"

Sighing and looking down at the folder before he looked at Elliot, Fin spoke, "That's something you'll have to ask her."

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