Notes: Always one step forward, two steps back. Those last two chapters would be a step forward because things needed to be said and it's about time Olivia spoke her piece that hopefully will make Elliot see the root of her trust issues with him. Thank you Amy for beta'ing and sorting through the good and bad and helping me to make it what it is. I couldn't be more grateful for you. With that said: Enjoy. Reviews, as always, are highly appreciated.

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Two things register with her. Sharp, biting pain and Elliot's slightly blurry face in her field of vision. She's groggy, and the pounding in her head doesn't help her to make sense of his presence. She might be hallucinating. She is positive that they had a fight earlier. Even more positive that he'd left, telling her he was done with her.

It had been much easier to push him over the brink than Olivia had anticipated.

The anger she'd displayed still plays in the forefront of her mind. There were a hundred reasons for it, and yet she can't grasp a single one. Through the thicket of her screaming leg, Olivia hears Elliot talking to her again but she can hardly focus. Something about breathing. Breathing with him? She wants to. Tries. It's not so easy when her entire nervous system is short circuiting. Every breath she does take she holds in, scared that if she lets go it's going to get worse. Intellectually she knows it's not the case, but trying to reason with fear? It's not working so well for her these days. She grabs what little she can control by the head now, and holding her breath, not effectively breathing, it's something she can control.

When the cramp subsides she becomes more aware. Of her surroundings, herself, him. Him on her bed, his right arm around her waist. His face in her hair.

She can count the number of times this has happened in her life. Zero. Because they don't do this.

Yes, he'd held her before, hugged her, carried her. But this, him with her in this bed? It's vastly different. She's spent, and thinking about this is overwhelming her.

There are fine lines. Very fine lines that, even drenched with fatigue, even with pain radiating from her left leg up to her spine, she knows shouldn't be crossed.

Partners don't share beds.

Except they are no longer partners.

He's an investigator, and she's a fucking mess.

She digs her fingers into her pillow when Elliot moves his head away, pulling back just enough to look at her. It's like she's paralyzed when he asks her if she's okay now. She can't move, nod her head, anything. She's trying to croak out a response, but it's just a strange sound that doesn't sound like either yes or no.

He's here. And she still can't make sense of it.

She stares into the blue of his eyes. Worried eyes, she realizes. His mouth moves, and he's asking the same question from before.

"Liv, are you okay?"

The blue of his eyes, it's distracting. She thought she had seen them reflect any possible shade and emotion. She might not have seen this one yet. It's a first. It seems they are sharing many of those. It's uncomfortable, though. She just wants things that are familiar. Those she can gauge. More than that is too much. Hell, everything is too much for her these days.

"Yeah," she manages. Her voice is strained. Instantly his eyes soften and change in color. They are a fascinating thing, his eyes.

He moves. His hand does. She doesn't know what she is supposed to think about it on her hip when it settles there. There's the smallest patch of skin where her sweatshirt has ridden up and his thumb is on it and drawing circles too. Circles. Against her skin.

It's gentle. He touches her with a tenderness she didn't expect. Maybe it has to do with his build or his big strong hands that she knows are calloused. Whenever he had touched her before he had exuded strength. When he'd grabbed and hugged her. When he'd half-dragged, half-carried her to the bathroom when she'd vomited. When he'd held her up.

But this is soft and delicate, and her brain can't process that Elliot Stabler, who she's never seen as a person of tenderness, is capable of it.

For over a decade she had been scared of this. Apparently not without reason. Because his fingers on her skin paint pictures of everything lingering underneath. She'd been scared, but she had also wanted it. The thought makes her freeze. He notices because his thumb stills against her dry skin.

She swallows hard with the realization that it's one of the many things he's offered and then taken away. But this time he hasn't taken himself out of the equation. Something as trivial as his touch can make her world collapse. It's almost ironic.

She's trapped in a broken body. What's worse is that now she's trapped in a broken body that knows what it feels like to be touched by him. By Elliot. It seems there is a special place in hell reserved for her.

"Do you need your pills?"

His breath tickles her face, which makes it hard to think. Her pills. She hadn't taken them before bed. Purposefully she nods. He moves away fully now and fixes her medication, opens the bottle of water. I should have lied, she thinks, because she feels impossibly cold where his hand had lingered. It's an addictive thing, his skin on hers. She'd always known it would be.

He offers her two of her pills in his open palm, and she accepts them gratefully and pops them in her mouth. The water is not needed, but she takes a couple of sips anyway, thinking right now she can't deal with the color of his eyes changing to disappointment.

"Good?" His voice is steady, and she nods as he screws the cap onto the bottle.

"Thank you."

She doesn't know what she's supposed to say. The situation is strange. Convinced that finally the other shoe had dropped, that he'd left her again, she hadn't expected him back here ever. She'd been fully prepared to face the next day on her own, just her and Noah, back to what it used to be before her injury.

Of course, in the end it's still only a matter of time. Him being back now doesn't mean anything. She's easy to leave. People have proven it time and time again. Her mother, her first love, every man she's ever been with. They may not be completely at fault, because pushing people away comes easier than letting them in. And they'd all gladly let her. All of them. If any of them had truly cared, truly wanted her, certainly they would have held on.

But then, she could have held on, too. Twice in her life she had. Twice in her life it had been in vain.

She'd always wished she could have been for mother what the booze had been for her, but instead of letting Olivia in, Serena had shut her out. Every second of grasping at her mother's fragments of love had chipped away at her psyche.

Splintered from the start, Olivia thinks. She'd never truly been wanted. Her conception was an abhorrent act of violence, her birth a result of her mother's utter lack of alternatives. She hadn't ever been a conscious choice. If anything she'd been a mistake, tainted, unlovable.

Sometimes she wonders what it feels like to be wanted, worth someone's notice.

It's like she once told Elliot after finding out she had a brother. She'd been alone for her whole life. She doesn't know how not to be. How to trust infinitely.

In Criminal Psych, they'd studied Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development, and she'd wondered if Serena held and rocked her when she'd cried, if she'd held her hand and watched her baby sleep. If she ever played peekaboo, or couldn't bear looking into big brown eyes that were nothing like hers. It's not hard to imagine that Serena was unable to attend to her as an infant with stability and care. Maybe, that lack of consistency and reliability taught Olivia to be always suspicious.

But Elliot... She opened up to him more than anyone in her life. She'd turned inside out for him, allowed herself to cry in front of him, for God's sakes. She might as well have stripped herself naked, it would have been the same difference. She'd always, always gotten hurt, but she hadn't expected that from him. She'd believed he saw her, actually cared about her beyond the superficial. Finding she was just as disposable to him as she'd been to everyone else in her life had ripped her heart right out of her chest. She'd been bleeding and everyone could see it and she'd sworn to never, never give anyone that kind of power over her again, especially not him.

Heartache, she thinks, needs a home. And it's with her.

She needed to push him away, to control the narrative: the when and how, the little details. The first time around he had caught her completely unprepared. But when he looks at her like he does, every fibre of her being wants things to be different this time.

She loves him. She loves him, and she hates him. Hates him for still making her feel like they had something profound, that she was special to him. He'd worked his way inside her guarded heart-then and now-she's still caught up in all the echoes of their past, from the faith she put in him to his betrayal to his return.

And here she is just waiting to fall again.

"I'm sorry for what I said, Liv. That wasn't right." Though he looks away from her briefly, he doesn't move. His voice has that gravelly quality to it that he shouldn't use in her bed. The sight of him on her mattress, she drinks it in. It is not something she should get used to. This is not where he belongs.

Olivia's cheeks start to prickle uncomfortably. She needs the Percocet to kick in because without the pounding of her head and the throbbing in her leg she can maybe focus on something else than the naked fact that everything Elliot is doing tonight is turning her world upside down. She used to be better at detaching, even before he'd ghosted her.

"I need to use the bathroom." She needs a break because she can't have this conversation when his thumb is burned into her skin and he's sitting on her bed like he belongs in it. Like there's nothing wrong with it at all. For some reason, she can't form the words to tell him to get off, to go home, that she's too tired to do this. Jesus, since when is he so hellbent on apologizing and talking shit out? He never could be bothered before.

Before he left me.

It wouldn't have surprised her if he'd held his ground and tried to stop her, grabbed her arm (possessively, she thinks. He'd grab it possessively), told her not to walk away from him. That they were going to talk. He doesn't, though.

"Okay."

He allows her to scoot to the far end of the bed where her crutch leans against the dresser. Upon getting out she needs to find her balance first, as if her leg is the one part of her body that's still asleep. Olivia can feel Elliot's eyes on her, his gaze intense.

"Olivia," he demands softly, and she can't refuse to look at him, never could. Why is he so damned hard to deny? "Come back out, okay?"

She pulls her bottom lip in and gnaws on it, then nods. The request is not completely unreasonable, chances are she would have locked the door and talked her way into why she couldn't face him. He gave her enough reasons within the past couple of minutes.

Because he's in her bed.

Because he'd touched her, and she's still, ruthlessly, reeling from it.

Because she's scared he's going to touch her again.

Because she's scared he won't.

She doesn't know which comes first, but they're all pathetic. Her throat closes, and she limps away from him into the sanctuary of her bathroom. When she closes the door however, it doesn't feel like she's shut him out. He's still there, in her head, inside of her, his breath hot on her face, and the indentation of his thumb tingling on her hip. He's doing things to her that she can't, won't ever be able to make logic of, and it's eating away at her.

No one else has ever had this kind of effect on her.

There was a time when she'd wanted him to touch her, and now that he did, it feels like she's shattering beyond repair.

She shivers, cold in all the places Elliot hadn't marked on her skin. She wonders if, when she looks in the mirror, she'll even recognize herself. Closing her eyes tightly, she wills herself to breathe. The last time she'd felt this cold was at the beach house. Lewis, too, had marked her but in a painful, destructive way. She hadn't recognized herself in the mirror then. Her eyes had been hollow, her face cut and bruised, her hair drenched in a mixture of sweat-hers and his-saliva, blood, alcohol, and dirt. She might have beaten Lewis and chained him to the iron bed frame, but it had felt like her spirit had been splintered.

She scrubs her hand across her face at the memory, telling herself to get a grip. It's over. Lewis is dead.

When she runs her hand through her hair, and her armpit is almost level with her nose, she notices the sour stench of cold sweat. She hadn't showered since yesterday morning. Truthfully, she hadn't bothered to brush her teeth either and only rinsed with mouthwash. It's getting harder and harder to take care of herself; she just can't come up with the energy or motivation.

With Elliot as close as he was just a minute ago she probably should, though, because she still has shame concerning the neglect of her body.

She wonders if he'd noticed, if he's disgusted by her lack of hygiene. She undresses down to her underwear and steps in front of the mirror, looking at her face.

Self-consciously she pushes the bra straps off her shoulders and winces at the discoloration of her left breast. She'd bruised herself before, many times, but the extent hadn't been this intense often. The scar from Lewis' cigarette isn't as prominent now, and while she likes that, she hates seeing the mark. She feels a strange disconnect from her entire left breast; because he'd burned the same spot again and again and again, hit her there, pinched her. Jesus, she'd been black and blue for two weeks. She swallows back tears, shakes her head at the memory of Lewis. This is not about him. She won't let this one be about how he'd hurt her.

I'm done with this, it echoes in her mind. Again.

Slowly she cups her bruised flesh, feeling the swelling that isn't visible upon first glance, and whimpers faintly. It'll be worse by morning. For a second she feels like she is going to throw up but, closing her eyes, she presses on it and allows herself to feel it.

If he's done, then why did he come back? It doesn't make sense.

She relishes the discomfort, ashamed of it, but not able to stop because it's the only distraction she can think of. God, she's fucked up.

Stop. Just stop, don't do this, it goes through her head. She clears her throat and abruptly lets go.

„Stop," she whispers shakily to herself and opens her eyes. She feels lightheaded as she takes herself in once more. She wonders why it is so easy for her to fall back into the habit of assaulting herself, why it still works so well when she needs to feel something different than her emotional pain.

Even before Elliot had come back, he'd been entangled in that, her want, her needs, her fears, her pleas, the terrifying aftermath of Lewis. How she'd let him get to her and turn her inside out piece by piece by goddamn piece. Time and time again he dug into her and carved her innermost secrets out of her and what for? So that in the end she'd freely offered what he'd wanted. She'd given him Elliot.

For months she'd wondered if Lewis reminisced about all he'd done to her, imagining her screaming out her partner's name the way she had in every nightmare she suffered.

Olivia had wanted nothing more than for Elliot to come and take her in his arms after. She'd just needed him to hold her.

And even now the fractured parts of her, those that William Lewis had shattered with words and keys and cigarettes, beg for the man in her bed to pull her close and not let go.

After a shower and brushing her teeth Olivia returns to the bedroom in thin sweats and a gray t-shirt. Elliot is still on the bed, sitting up against the headboard. He looks so comfortable on it, it's easy to imagine he belongs there. His concerned eyes take her in but soften as she walks further into the room.

„The limp's worse today." He says this as if he's talking about the weather, like the unpredictability of her injured leg is something he has gotten used to.

„Hm-hm." It is pretty bad indeed. She's had more trouble than usual getting up in the slippery tub. It hurts like a bitch, too, despite the medication.

„You look better, though," says Elliot. Her hair is still wet and frames her faces in messy waves, the way it is naturally. She imagines after her shower she has a bit more color in her face.

„Way to make a woman feel special," she retorts with a humorless snort. „No wonder you're still single."

„I know. I'm a man of many talents," Elliot says lightly. She doesn't know what to say to that. This is one of the many things they didn't do much. Joke, bicker, pull each other's leg. Seemed kind of inappropriate in their line of work.

„Seriously though, Liv. You know that's not how I meant it."

„Yeah. I know." She wonders if he plans on staying like this, in her bed. Even when she moves closer, he remains in the same spot. If she'd make a big deal of it, he'd know it affects her, and somehow that outlook seems worse than tolerating it. She knows what it's like to be irritated by him, his words, his actions. If she's learned one thing it's to grit her teeth, so that's what she does as she puts the crutch against the dresser and climbs onto the unoccupied side of the bed. She shifts and wiggles. There is no getting comfortable. Olivia can't tell if it's her body or Elliot responsible.

"You wanna sleep?"

She turns her head, looking at him as she's giving the tiniest shrug. "Don't know if I can."

"Want me to go?" he presses on, as if trying to make amends for refusing to leave when she had told him to earlier.

"I don't know that either," she offers, unsure, looking at the ceiling. It's fairly warm in the bedroom but still she's shivering, goosebumps perking up on her arms. She never knows what to say to Elliot but their silences are almost harder to take. "It's chilly in here, don't you think?"

"You want the bedspread? Maybe a sweater?"

"This should do," she assures as he helps spread out the blanket and cover her up. At the same time he changes his position and lies down next to her. A little closer than before, she notices. Olivia doesn't know what to make of it. Turning towards her he exudes an intensity that makes her think he's going to implode any second. She is pretty sure she can hear his teeth grind.

"What is it, Elliot?" She's most likely not going to be able to go back to sleep anytime soon, so she might as well do whatever he's here to do.

He's quiet for what seems like a long time before he finally releases the words into the open. "I don't like how things are between us," he breathes. "And I'm not sure how to change that when we're not…" Olivia hears saliva clicking in his throat as he's swallowing. "I know I'm pissing you off half the time, and the other half you're just tolerating me. I just…-"

Olivia doesn't feel equipped for this conversation. It also feels like Elliot is putting her in a position that isn't entirely fair. There are all these expectations and hopes he has, and he is unhappy when she doesn't share them, partially because she knows better than to trust him, partially because she's so defeated from all the setbacks. And he repeatedly kept things from her. How is she supposed to not be angry?

"You can't put that all on me. You meddle in my life and then decide what information gets to me. You really expect me to be okay with that?"

"No, I do not expect that," he states slowly. "But it was well before that. You don't talk to me, Liv. And I may be wrong for trying to shield you from potentially harmful things but I can't apologize for that. Not when I'm protecting you."

„Who says I need protecting, Elliot?", Olivia pushes past teeth that grind angrily.

„You never thought you needed it. Even if you did, you wouldn't ask for it," he replies, sounding resigned. „But you don't always have to be so strong, Olivia. I am here for you. And it's okay for you to need someone."

„Is this the part where you try your hobby psychoanalytics on me?" Olivia asks cynically, thinking this is what she gets for letting her guard down all these years ago, when she told him she's been alone her entire life. „My shrink did a fine job, don't even go there." She's been over her pathological abandonment issues for what feels like a hundred times with Lindstrom.

„I'm not trying anything on you, but you are just proving my point, Liv," he says, sounding helpless. „You are not alone in this. You and Noah both, why can't you get that inside your head? You're fighting me every step of the way and I get it. I get it…,"

„No, you don't! You don't fucking get it, Elliot," she pushes out before her throat locks.

„I'm telling you when to go to your doctors and which doctor to go to, I'm telling you when to rest, and I watch how much you eat, and it'd piss me off too. But I'm not trying to strip you of your autonomy, Liv. I am looking out for you. I want you to get better." She can feel his gaze on her face, so hot she thinks he's marking her. Her body is rigid on her side of the bed, eyes cast to the ceiling. She can't look at him. She can't, or she'll break.

„You can fight me as much as you want. I'm not going anywhere, Liv," he whispers with conviction and her hands fist the sheet because all she can think is how he already did. And she never would have expected it then. As if Elliot is able to read her mind, he continues. „I know I let you down. I should have been there for you, I should have talked to you when I decided to retire. But I am here now. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice."

The sheet rustles as he's moving closer, his proximity almost scalding. There is nowhere for her to go. Her heart is pounding in her chest, in her ears, in her veins. She wishes for a barrier. The job, his marriage. Anything.

He says all the things she needed to hear, but it's years too late. When he rolls onto his side and puts his hand on her arm, murmuring her name, she realizes it will never not hurt to wish she's more than an elusive thing on his lips.

„Liv…,"

Despite the panic that is coiling around her insides, tears are sliding down her temples. She presses her eyes shut when she can see Elliot in her periphery, unable to take how he occupies so many of her senses at once.

She hates to crack in front him like this, hates how crying in front of him feels like peeling off layers of herself, meant to protect her.

„Want me to turn off the light?"

Olivia nods sharply.

Within two seconds complete darkness blankets the bedroom.

It's astounding that while Elliot knows so little of how her life has been without him, he still knows her so well. She needs places to hide behind. Walls and barriers. Now that she can't keep them up, there's still the dark that will conceal her raw emotions.

Despite her tears, Olivia makes an effort to be silent, pressing her lips together hard. Her jaw quivers so forcefully, she thinks her teeth will chatter.

Elliot thinks it's so easy to accept that he's here...and it's not.

It takes Olivia a few moments to get herself together. It's so quiet in the room, she can hear Elliot breathe. When she speaks, honesty burns in her throat like acid.

„I can't need you," she croaks, thinking he has stopped breathing now because she doesn't hear a thing.

„Why not?"

She swallows, parting her lips. No sound comes out. She freezes when his hand covers hers, finding her so easily even in the pitch-dark of the room. Her heart withers at how much she wants to want him.

„Because when I needed you," she whispers, as his hand holds on tight. „you weren't there." The breath she takes feels like fire.

„No matter what he did to me, I thought all I had to do was hold on just a little longer," she whispers shakily. „You were all I wanted." Finally her voice cracks. „Where were you? The one time I truly needed you, you weren't there, Elliot," she manages. It has never been rational. She knows he was no longer NYPD, he no longer had the resources, the authority. There was no way for him to get to her before everyone else. Even if she had called him, she couldn't have told him where the hell she was exactly. But still it was all she had needed. For Elliot to come for her.

„I know," he says, squeezing her hand.

„You weren't there," she repeats, and it comes easier this time. For once it feels like she can actually breathe.

Suddenly Elliot is all around her. His body rolls up against her side, his chest as solid as the barrier she had tried to maintain a minute or two ago. His face is in her hair, the stubble on his face chafing against her cheek.

"I should have been there," he says with conviction. "I should've come for you." His arm snakes around her waist and for the first time she experiences what it feels like to be held by him when they weren't almost done in, or she's just helped save his wife and baby's lives, or her leg's acting up real bad.

For the first time it is just him holding her.

"I should've come for you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Liv." He pulls her closer, impossibly so. His lips attach to her still moist temple, moving against her as he speaks. "Listen to me," he murmurs. "You need me now. I'm not going to let you down again, you hear me? Not ever again." He flexes his arm and rolls her onto her side and tucks her against him as if she's weightless until they are forehead to forehead, nose to nose.

In his embrace Olivia unravels. Searching for something to hold onto, she finds his shirt and fists it.

"Okay?"

Her throat is tight and dry, and she can't speak. Instead she nods just barely and holds on to him.

Elliot is still there in the morning, holding her.