Notes
Scenes from an absolute mess of a situation.
I don't own these characters, but they sure own me.
There will be more. How much more? That's up to the muses.

Chapter 1

Leaning over the cribs' sink willing the last bit of bile to stay down, he felt the presence of Munch leaning against the doorframe before the inevitable quip came. "Well, this is a trip down memory lane."

Brian shook his head, his raw throat making his voice hoarser than usual. "I don't miss this place."

It had been almost 14 years prior when Detective - now Sergeant - John Munch had watched Brian emptying his stomach in a squad room sink. A few weeks later, Captain Cragen had gently transferred him out of the unit. That case had been a little too close to home. 12-year-old boy, his basketball coach.

Different sport, same goddamn story.

The images he tried so hard to block from his mind and the visceral crawling of evil over his skin had propelled him into the men's room and his lunch out of him. It was a merciless beginning of the end for his SVU career.

A few details of the scene were different. Last time he'd put his fist into the mirror. This time his inability to eat anything for the past 36 hours spared a clean up not fixed by the running tap.

And this time, though his own demons still grabbed at his ankles as he moved from the bullpen to the bathroom, it was Olivia's body and not his own that he saw helplessly trapped underneath a monster.

"I shouldn't have let you read the previous case files. I should not even be letting you stick around, being involved with the vict-"

Brian quickly straightened up to his full height and spun around to face Munch. "Don't. Just, please don't. Liv would hate to know she was being called that."

He moved towards the door as he continued, "I've kept to the rules about not going out to find her myself. So while I have to be sitting on my hands feeling fucking useless I'll be doing it where the second you hear anything, I'm hearing it too." Brian paused and affectionately nudged a visibly resigned Munch on his way out the door. "Good luck to your wiry old ass trying to drag me out of here."

That first night in the hospital his heart felt like it was shattering with each heavy beat as he watched her. Olivia was here. Alive. She was a beaten, broken shell who hadn't been able to draw her gaze up above his chest yet. But she was alive.

"Can you stay?" she whispered with a weight so unfamiliar to his ears. He nodded to confirm he would, as if it had even been a question in his mind. Then his heart shattered again as he reached to hold her hand and she pulled away sharply, breaking down. The sobs shaking her entire body.

"Liv..." he choked out past the lump in his throat. "Babe, whatever you need. Wherever you want me to be. We're just so, so glad you made it back to us."

He didn't miss the timing of her wince, but he also didn't want to dwell on its meaning. Didn't want to think that a part of her wished she hadn't.

They left the lights on.

Through the night he sat helplessly next to her bedside and watched. He watched her cry as she looked anywhere but in his eyes. He watched her curl away from apologetic nurses who had to do their job. He watched the sedatives pull her into a sleep she desperately needed but fought not to fall into. He watched the nightmares drag her screaming back to wakefulness where the strongest person he knew looked so small and afraid.

Then he watched it all repeat until the early morning. Until his anger took over his body and Amanda took over his vigil so no one could watch him bloody his knuckles in an empty stairwell.

He was back in the squad room where the activity around him could have been any other day. Except he was sitting at Olivia's desk staring at the framed photo of her and her mother, and she was in Interview 1 being asked to re-live the worst moments of her life.

"Do you want me in there with you?" he had asked as they rode in the backseat between the hospital and the precinct, Nick at the wheel.

She'd shaken her head and looked at him with pleading eyes. At least she'd started looking at him again. "You can't hear this. Promise you won't listen in Bri?"

He touched her arm. She flinched. They apologized in unison. "I promise. We can talk when you're ready," he offered gently.

Sitting back there in the squad room during the hours of waiting and polite nods to those checking in on him, he tried to reconcile with the possibility that she would never be ready to talk to him. It would be hypocritical of him to expect otherwise.

As he unlocked his door and held it open for Olivia to step through first, he wordlessly thanked a god he'd long stopped believing in for his mother and her insistence in "tidying the place up a bit" if Olivia was going to be staying. His apartment was never dirty, but it did tend to fall into the unkemptness of a bachelor who wasn't there for long enough periods of time to be bothered by it.

It was something Olivia would usually never bat an eyelid at, her own dwelling suffering the same fate. But he was conscious of the fact they both suddenly had all the time in the world to spend between these four walls and the suffocation needed no additional help from his clutter.

She looked around with slight wonder on her face as her exhausted body made a beeline to the couch. "It looks…"

"Like my mom has been here?" he offered.

She let out a small puff of amusement, a hint of the first smile he'd seen on her face since - well since he mercifully got to look at her face again. "Yeah."

"My mother's a saint."

They settled on either end of the couch and fell into a silence that wasn't uncomfortable, but it had a different feeling to all the other silences they'd shared so many times in this space.

"Jerry's gone," she noted, breaking the silence.

"What?" He looked up and followed her gaze to the now empty spot where his cattle skull would usually be. Both Olivia and his mom hated it and he'd given it a name just to annoy them. Which they both took to using to personalize their dislike of it even more. He knew she wouldn't have had the heart to throw it away without his permission, but he also had to concede that his mother had easily won this round on Olivia's behalf.

"Well shit. Now we have the proof she loves you more."

The comment got a small, genuine laugh from her and her shoulders visibly relaxed a little. It made him feel like the fucking funniest person in New York.