A/N: This chapter has triggers - be aware of them. This was cross-posted on AO3 - and I'm just moving it here so those of you that don't read fics on AO3 can see it as well.

Disclaimer - I own nothing but the ability to play with words and characters.

Chapter Five - Ex Malo Bonum (Good Out of Evil)

One Week Ago

She'd disconnected after talking to Sergeant Bell and made her way home, stopping to pick up some ice cream on the way. She'd decided that since it was a Friday night, she'd let Noah stay up a little later and they'd watch a movie together. He was growing up so fast, but she loved her sweet boy. She couldn't have imagined that this is where her life would've ended up – especially after she had been declined so many times by various adoption agencies. However, all it took was a judge with a hunch and she had become a single mother with the largest family in New York to help look after her sweet boy.

She was actually looking for a distraction from the session that had just occurred.

Elliot Stabler had crash landed back into her life, disrupting every single modicum of peace.

1PP had wanted him to go to counseling for his PTSD and therapy because he hadn't been cleared by IAB after Jenna's shooting and yet, he was back here now. They'd not questioned his therapy or state of mind while he was working with Interpol or Private Security but when he was assigned to be NYPD's liaison in Italy, they began trying to figure out how to close out the investigation into the last shooting he had been involved in the last time he was in New York. But, the Brass knew that trying to get Elliot Stabler into counseling was not going to be easy, given his past and opinions on counseling.

Garland had been trying to warn her away from Stabler because of these reservations, but then, he'd gotten word from multiple anonymous sources telling him that the only person who could reign in Elliot Stabler's moods and temper was the one person he wanted the furthest away from the man. He had tried to reach out to see if she knew anything about why Stabler left because he'd heard rumors that the two of them were as thick as thieves. When she'd told him, honestly, that she had no idea that they hadn't spoken in ten years – well, he was disinclined to believe it until Sergeant Odafin Tutuola had verified that the two of them hadn't spoken at all.

It was this information that had been passed on to Captain Olivia Benson a few days before she scheduled a joint-therapy session with her former doctor. They wanted her to intervene. They needed her to handle this for them, and it wasn't a request, it was an order. She told them she didn't want this responsibility, but they'd all but threatened her. So, she agreed, reluctantly.

She didn't want the professional entanglements anymore with her former partner. They'd ceased being work partners the moment he'd handed in his papers and walked away from her without so much as a word. Now that he was back, she felt that familiar ache in her soul to be near him at all times, and she couldn't – she had responsibilities.

She couldn't just throw caution to the wind anymore. So, she'd been his support system when Kathy had been murdered. Though it was breaking her in half, and she was drowning in his very presence – she was absolutely addicted to this man. She forgot just what a spell his very presence had over her, and she wasn't sure if she liked it or hated it.

The one thing she did know, with no uncertainty was that she was single, and he was a widower, now single – gone were the boundaries that had reigned them in for so long to prevent them from acting upon their emotions. They were not work partners anymore; they were in two different units. True, she outranked him now in the NYPD, but she'd spent twenty-two years in love with this pain-in-the-ass. She knew he had fallen in love with her before he left, she wasn't blind. Now that he was back, he had reached out to her before he even reached out to his own children when his wife, their mother, had died. She couldn't stay away from him, because she had never fully let him go.

She wasn't really paying attention to the movie she was watching with Noah, but when he fell asleep, she carried him to his bed and tucked him in.

Her mind was preoccupied with the words Elliot had spoken in their first session, just hours beforehand. They were on repeat in her mind, "I want her to realize that it's always been her. She was the reason I had to leave, the reason I had to come back – it's her."And he had mentioned the letter. The letter was honestly the only reason she hadn't told him to fuck off and meant it since he got back. He hadn't even tried to apologize in person for being gone, and she wasn't giving him much to go on other than repeating her mantra of "Elliot…I can't."

Every time he'd tried to bring something up about the time he'd spent in Italy or attempted to get personal with her, she had responded with, 'Elliot, I can't.' She had walls she had erected around the room in her heart for him. He was trying to burst through them like the fucking Kool-Aid man, and she knew the second he had said it had always been her in therapy – that was it, she was going down with the ship. Come hell or high water, she would get what she wanted this time. She had declared him hers and that was it. Boundaries be damned.

So, she poured herself a glass of wine, grabbed her pen from her purse, and secured a few pieces of loose-leaf paper from Noah's school supplies in the hall closet and found herself sitting at the kitchen bar, her hand poised to bleed her heart through a pen onto paper. There were things he needed to know, things she didn't trust herself to say out loud. So, she began to write, allowing her heart to rip itself apart.

Therapy Session #2

Elliot Stabler was shocked when his former partner had shoved him back onto the couch, and even more shocked when she smacked a heavy envelop onto the middle of his chest, right over his heart. He had missed her closeness, and felt intoxicated every single time she had invaded his personal space. She was fierce, and he loved that about her. He could never lie to Olivia, and she knew this. Just like he knew he couldn't stay mad at her for more than ten minutes at a time, because the minute her eyes would pierce into his, it was like sinking into a warm log cabin smelling of freshly baked cookies in the middle of winter.

When he finally regained his senses and made his way into the parking garage, he had to find himself amused at her because there she was – the usually professional, composed, empathetic soul that she was – cursing and beating the shit out of her steering wheel. He'd only seen her lose her temper a few times in the years they'd known one another, but even then, it was cute. Maybe other people would find that frightening, she had an intensity that demanded respect and admiration, but for him, because he knew the exterior ice-queen she portrayed to perps was all a farce and as her eyes met his, he could tell she was embarrassed that he'd caught her emotional outburst.

So here he was, watching her drive away, with her letter in his pocket. She had made him realize his actions of lately were so uncharacteristic of him and requested that he not make any more monumental bad decisions.

If it meant he could see her smile at him like she had done the other day when she grabbed his hand at Organized Crime HQ, he would do whatever she asked. If it meant they could hold hands like they'd just done in her SUV, he would. His phone buzzed as he received a text message from his daughter, Liz. She was asking if he wanted to meet her and Kathleen for dinner, but he had other priorities at the moment, so he responded that he'd already made other plans and apologized, asking for a raincheck.

So, he climbed into his SUV and took a few deep breaths before turning the ignition on. With the letter in his pocket, he made his way back to his building, took the elevator up to his floor, opened the door to his empty apartment, grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and sat down on the couch. Pulling it out of his pocket he traced his finger over her neat script with his name on the outside of the envelope.

Dear Elliot –

I hope that the wine I'm drinking will give me courage and fortitude to write out everything I want to say to you. We used to be able to communicate so seamlessly. Just one look and you knew what was running through my mind, even without looking at me, you used to tell me I was being too loud. It was slightly unnerving but in situations where it mattered most, it was perfection. Now, I have so much to tell you that is important for you to know before you jump feet first into the clusterfuck that my life has become.

Okay, I know this is going to be the hardest thing that I ever do. I'm praying, for the first time in forever, that I can find the strength to get through this without wanting to stick this paper over a candle and drop it in the sink. I'm also asking for your patience above everything else – because I need you to understand why I keep telling you that I can't every time you try to say something to me.

It's hard for me, Elliot, to reconcile with the fact you're standing in front of me on an every-other-day basis now. When you left, Capt. Cragen told me you weren't coming back and I didn't believe him. You would never leave without telling me you were going away. I asked Fin if he'd heard from you. I left you voicemails. I became a total bitch to everyone around me. As days turned into weeks into months, into years, I missed you more with every single fucking passing day – it didn't become any easier, it got harder to breathe and it became easier to fake niceties to people.

I missed you, and I felt like everywhere I went, I saw your face. I missed your concern over my well-being. I missed you looking out for me. I missed your large-ass family.

I tried to move on, I dated Brian for two years (more about that in a moment) and I dated Ed Tucker. I was considering kids with Brian, and then he told me he didn't see himself growing old. He also told me he understood I could never bare my soul completely to him, and he was right. I couldn't because it wasn't his. It was never his to receive. With Ed, it happened gradually, but he was so different than the asshole we used to hate. He was patient, and made me happy. But even that was short lived, because he understood I had to give all of myself to the job and raising Noah.

Just as I had accepted that perhaps you really weren't coming back, you crash landed back into my life like a comet striking into the earth and I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that your family is back in my life after hearing absolutely NOTHING from them for ten years. I had grown to love and care for your kids during our partnership. I had locked away the parts of me that hurt too much for so long that it was getting easier to ignore the fact that they even existed at all. No matter how much therapy I've had in the ten years since you've been gone, I compartmentalized everything to do with you – I never even mentioned you to my therapist. Our therapist.

Fucknuts.

Why is this so hard? I'm telling myself to breathe. I'm telling myself to inhale, hold, exhale. I'm refilling my glass of wine again.

This is me trying to let you in all the way - I'm fucking trying, El. Shit, I really just called you that on paper, didn't I? Well, I guess that's it, that's the final straw, I'm unequivocally yours now. I've been holding off on your nickname since I saw you again.

In your letter to me, which you had written before Kathy's death, before you'd even seen me, you had written some things in the paragraphs that you said you had no plans on ever reading out loud at my awards ceremony – thank god for that, because if you had, 1PP REALLY would've had a conniption fit.

You told me you couldn't figure out where you began and I ended. You said that the threads had been wrapped around each other so tightly that you couldn't unravel them. You had to walk away because you felt like you were going to rip yourself to shreds. It must've been nice for you to be able to do something like that, just walk away. To cut the threads and detach yourself from me. I could never cut the threads of you from me. I don't even think you realize it, but if I were to destroy the tapestry, I would unravel and fall apart.

From the moment they introduced us at the 16th precinct, there was just something about you that instantaneously made me feel safe, secure, and at ease. I could never quite pin-point it, but it was as though someone had taken half of my heart and forced it to walk outside of my body. I was a goner from the moment your eyes met mine. Your eyes have always been the key, El. They look at me, and I find myself drowning. But even though I feel like I'm drowning, it's also the feeling of calm and peace in the death of me. We've had our fair share of disagreements during the years we were partners, and I tried my best to not let that discourage me.

You would protect me, and watch out for me. God, I've missed that. Elliot, you always made sure I was taken care of, even when your wife was bitching at you for spending too much time with your partner from work, you'd told her I didn't have anyone to look after me, and I would've done the same for you or her or the kids. I don't think she fully believed you until the car accident when Eli was born. She did joke around though and answer your phone when I'd call, and we'd have small conversations. I grew fond of the woman you loved because she loved you and for the most part, she made you happy. And your happiness was something I was consistently keeping in the back of my mind. I needed you the most about two years after you left.

I just poured myself a glass of scotch.

I have always hated vodka. Do you remember why? I'm sure you do…you remember everything about me. You remembered how I take my coffee, ten years later.

I don't know if I can do this, but Dr. Lindstrom would tell me that I have to try. I know that it's important for me to do this. I bet you're wondering what I'm rambling about, aren't you? I need to do this. Okay. Before I start this, I want to make a request of you…ask for something from you. I probably have no right to do so, but I'm going to. After you finish this letter, I know I've probably asked you to call me…I don't want you to call me, El. I want you to show up at my door. Do you understand? I'm going to pretend that you are nodding. I'm closing my eyes and I'm seeing you standing there in your newly tailored suits with your hands in your pocket nodding at me. I beg of you to allow me this request. Please. I'll write my address at the bottom of this letter because I no longer live at the place you remember. I had to move. I couldn't stay there anymore. By the time you're done with this letter, you'll understand why I couldn't.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

I bet you are wondering why I was able to identify your PTSD so clearly, that day I had you meet me when I dropped Noah off at school. Granted, you probably just assume that since I am a Captain, I have to know how to identify it. That might be true, but it would be a lie if I told you that it's the only way I knew. Of course, you knew I went to counseling after SCF, but I never told you what happened to me there – and it pales in comparison to what I am getting ready to write down. So, the fact that I'm trusting you with this piece of me and I never trusted you with SCF says a lot. It says I'm handing part of myself over to you that I have been unable to completely hand over to anyone else.

I can't believe I'm really getting ready to do this. I don't even know if you know what happened to me, to be honest because I never heard from anyone so I can only assume that you don't know what I'm going to tell you.

** TRIGGER WARNING **

Two years after you left, I was dating Brian. It had happened unexpectedly, and in the grand scheme of things, it's not important.

I had just worked this case that was exceedingly disturbing. Amanda Rollins had brought in this guy for flashing two female tourists in the park and was reported by this woman, Alice Parker. We couldn't run his prints through the CODIS system because he had an "accident" at work and burned his fingerprints off.

He lied about his background and personal life the more we interrogated him. Our ADA, Barba could only accuse him of public lewdness and he was ordered to serve two days of community service. None of us felt comfortable about this plea or situation but Lewis refused to plead guilty to the situation because he claimed that he wasn't guilty. Elliot, you would've had such a bad feeling about this guy. He screamed psychopath. He was released from custody because we couldn't do anything and he refused the plea deal, she he was being charged for a Class B misdemeanor. Less than twenty-four hours later, Alice Parker was taken to the hospital because she had been raped and tortured for eighteen hours straight after he had been released from our custody.

We tracked Lewis down again, and I interrogated him about Alice Parker's rape and torture with my partner, Nick Amaro. I did the thing I've done thousands of times with various perps, feigned interest in him. I ask about how he would've done it. He tells me EVERYTHING but then says it's all hypothetical when his attorney arrives. He never asked for his attorney, but he confessed to the whole fucking thing, Elliot. He told me everything. And then throws in "It's all hypothetical, of course." with his snake-like grin.

He told me I would be so lucky if someone were to do those vile things to me. My skin crawled and I had to come home and take a shower four times to feel clean. When it came time for Alice to identify her assailant, he pretended to attempt suicide so Alice couldn't identify him. His attorney tried to say he was unstable so he underwent a psychiatric eval and passed. His attorney tried to then say we were harassing her client.

Unfortunately, Alice died of a heart attack before we could go to trial. Barba tried to get another plea deal to push through, but Lewis kept saying SVU was harassing him.

Fuck. Why is this so hard to do. I'm a Captain of SVU now, and I have such a hard time trying to describe this whole case to you.

His attorney managed to get a mistrial and he was released. Cragen told me to take a few days off because of the mistrial and the fact that Lewis had gotten under my skin.

That night, I went home from work and walked into my apartment. I could feel things weren't quite…right. The atmosphere in my apartment felt off. As I walked into my living room, there was a gun pointed at my face and there he was standing in my living room, in the flesh, William Lewis. fuck. I don't know if I can do this, El.

For the next several hours, he tortured me. He forced sleeping pills in my mouth, forced me to drink whiskey and vodka. He lit cigarettes and put them out on my skin. I was in and out of consciousness. In between the sleeping pills, I tried to negotiate with him. I told him if he left New York, I wouldn't tell anyone what he'd just done to me. That he'd burnt me with cigarettes and keys. He didn't believe me. I told him my boyfriend was supposed to come over – and he laughed in my face. He grabbed my phone.

Brian had to stay at the courthouse and wouldn't be coming over. I tried to plead with him that he could still just walk away. Elliot, you have no idea what this psychopath was capable of. He told me it was too late. I told him he was making a huge mistake, that I was an officer with the NYPD and that the entire department and SVU would hunt him down when they realized that I was missing. I told him he might've put people through hell but that he should be aware that someday it would rain back down on him.

He now had my pistol…and on the bottom of my pistol was your mini badge, El. The last thing I saw in my apartment before he pistol-whipped me was your shield coming down at my face. Later that evening, he took me to the bathroom and allowed me to go – with him watching. He then tied me to my own bed and continued his torture, this time, he was walking back and forth with heated keys, burning my skin. He would climb on top of me and tell me all the sordid details about all his previous victims, his hand over the duct tape on top of my lips, his mouth inches from my ear. He would bite my neck, and run his fingers over my blistered skin and if I tried to fight him, he would press his finger into the burns.

This continued for two days. When he decided it was time to leave, he gave me more sleeping pills and put me in the trunk of a car. Brian hadn't come by, I was being forced vodka and whiskey and the sleeping pills. He was burning me. No one in SVU had come over because Cragen had told me to take the few days. In the moments where I was conscious, the moments where he was pressing the lit end of the cigarette into my skin, I thought of you. I couldn't help but run through it in my mind that if you were still there, you would've checked on me had I not answered your messages. You would've brought me over dinner, or come over to watch TV after having a fight with Kathy.

I prayed that wherever you were, you would hear my pleas and come running. You never did.

So as it turns out, he was fucking his attorney. He picked her up and took her out to her parents' house in Bellport on Long Island. I was in the trunk, bound and gagged. I managed to catch my fearlessness necklace on something in the trunk and left it there, hoping that if anyone actually was looking for me, they'd find my necklace and know I would never leave it unintentionally. After he dropped off his girlfriend at the train station, he drove back to her parents' house. Elliot.

Fuck. I don't know if I can breathe.

Inhale. Tell me to breathe.

When we arrived back at the house, he attacked her father and gagged and bound him to a chair, leaving him to die of a heart attack. He then took me upstairs to the master bedroom where he tied me to another chair with duct tape. He proceeded to rape and torture his girlfriend's mom. He forced me to watch and any time I would close my eyes he would torture her worse. Elliot, I had to watch as he tortured and raped another person, a victim, an innocent woman in front of me and there was nothing I could do. When he was done, he tied her up in the closet. Because, that was his MO. He would tie up his victims in their underwear in the closet. Burnt, Raped, and tortured to hang in the closet like a jacket. I have problems looking into closets now. I could never own a walk-in closet.

We drove around later that evening, after he had stopped at a store and procured some groceries. He would pour more vodka down my throat and all over me whenever we would stop somewhere. He purchased rope, duct-tape, wire, and a blowtorch. He planned on using them against me. He gave me a little bit more water, and then told me if I moved, it would be lights out for me. I wanted him to just kill me at this point. He put me in the floorboard and covered me over with a tarp, but a Suffolk County police officer pulled us over. The officer noticed Lewis' alcohol and asked what was on his floorboard. It was this officer's fatal mistake. I don't know what happened to this officer, but I do know Lewis shot him. he took the gun, badge, and patrol car and then hijacked another vehicle. He found a vacant house in Yaphank, on Long Island, next to the bay.

He took me into the bedroom and threw me on the bed, bound. He then used my cuffs and fastened me to the bed after he "helped" me go to the bathroom. He left me there while he ditched the stolen van. He came back. Then he started to taunt me.

He asked me if there was anyone who I wanted to see one. last. time. I didn't want to give him anything. I didn't want him to know. I didn't want him to see he was getting to me, but this was the fourth day. I hadn't eaten, my body was full of sedatives, and I was beyond intoxicated. He asked who it was I wanted to see one last time.

It wasn't Brian. It was you. You were the face that popped into my mind. You were the one I wanted to see one more time. You were the one I wanted to rescue me. I caught sight of your badge on the bottom of the gun and it was like you were standing there with me. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. The housekeeper and her daughter had arrived to clean the house. He brought them inside and locked them in the other bedroom and came back to tell me he had planned on torturing, raping, and murdering them before he would do the same to me. Slowly.

Elliot, I couldn't let the little girl's last moments be utter terror. I just couldn't. So, I began taunting him. I told him he had to prey on 60-year-old women and children because he wasn't man enough to get it up for a real woman. I told him he was scared of me. I knew the odds of my attempts in that moment were futile, but I didn't give a fuck if I lived or died, as long as I could at least TRY to keep the little girl and the housekeeper alive long enough to escape.

Elliot, do you know what utter terror is? Did you know that you'll do anything to survive? It doesn't paralyze you, it makes you hyper-vigilant. During the times he would torture me, he would wrap his hands around my neck and I thought for sure that he was going to kill me within the first eighteen hours…but he didn't. I told everyone he didn't rape me.

He began to unbuckle his pants and suddenly there I was, back in Sealview, I guess you should know now that the corrections officer, Harris, almost raped me. Fin arrived just as he was getting ready to violate my mouth. So, there I was, on the bed, facing another sadistic rapist and I somehow found the strength to break the bar with my cuffs and struck him on the face. Immediately, he reached for the gun from the night table, but I struck him with the bar again. This time, I broke his arm and then I kicked him in the groin. I grabbed the gun from the dresser and held it on him, telling him if he moved, it was lights out.

I should've pulled the fucking trigger. He remained so stoic in those few moments that he told me I could be in control. He would play with me. So, I pistol-whipped him and knocked him out. I then cut the duct tape off and cuffed him to the bed. I released the housekeeper and her daughter. I went back to Lewis in the bedroom. He was cuffed to the end of the bed, and still seemingly unconscious. So, I kicked his foot.

I told him how much I hated him, how much he disgusted me. I told him that if you were there you would know what to do with him. You'd break his back, his face, his neck. I told him I wanted to torture him with his blowtorch maybe used the keys and wire on him…and then I wanted to kill him.

Elliot, I had been fighting monsters so long that I too, had finally become one. He was feigning being unconscious and snapped his head up, looking at me, with his sick, twisted smile on his face…and he proceeded to tell me the story of his childhood, trying to get me to just pull the trigger. I should've pulled the trigger.

I should've pulled the trigger until the clip was empty.

He told me how his father violently raped his babysitter and he enjoyed watching. He was just as violent and sadistic as his father. It got me thinking about genes. About how I too had violent genes in my body.

I pointed the gun at his face. But then, I didn't pull the trigger. I took a step back and he told me that he knew I didn't have the balls to kill him. El, I don't know what snapped inside of me, but I reached for the bar again and Elliot, I bludgeoned him with my bare hands until he looked like he was dead. The entire time I could hear your voice in my ear telling me to not. fucking. stop. After it looked like he was dead - I then called SVU and the local police, and I took my cuffs off of his wrist. He wasn't getting up. They came and took him away. If you've made it this far in this letter – I'm hoping and praying that you don't think I'm a monster. Fin told me he was alive. He had a faint pulse.

He died on the way to the hospital four times.

He was due to stand trial for three separate crimes. My own assault, kidnapping, and rape. I kept fighting them on the last charge, he didn't rape me. The rape of Liz Mayer and murder of her husband. And the murder of the Suffolk County Police officer. His defense against me? It was consensual. Can you believe that bullshit? He wanted to plea guilty to first-degree rape and sodomy on me. He wanted to stand up in open court and provide a false story of what he did to me. He dismissed his attorney (new one, because obviously the attorney he had didn't trust him anymore since he had raped and murdered her parents). He played the court so bad.

I lied on the stand, Elliot. I told them when I bludgeoned him, it was necessary to restrain him and he managed to get free from his cuffs. He decided not to cross-examine me because he knew I was lying.

He created reasonable doubt by calling the housekeeper. He called an expert to testify that any of my blows to him were enough to incapacitate him and the rest were excessive force. Can you believe that? I'm beaten and tortured and kidnapped and they tried to say excessive force? What about self-defense?

He tried to get me to admit I was lying, but I remained steadfast that he had broken free. The jury acquit him of assault and rape. But convicted him of the kidnapping charge and assault of a police officer. He was sentenced 25 to life. Before he left, he glanced back at me and I just knew…Elliot, I knew. I knew what was going to happen. He was going to get out and he was going to come after me.

My service weapon is in evidence along with my original necklace, my clothes, and the keys he used on me. Your badge on the bottom of my weapon is in evidence. I'd lost the most important possession I'd had. I stood in Brian's bathroom and cut off my hair because he had pulled it while he was torturing me and I just couldn't stand to look at myself in the mirror.

I still cannot look at myself in the mirror sometimes, the scars have faded, some of them – not all of them. But, there will always be the scars that I forever have to explain to my partners. I think that's why I date within the police force and ADA's office. It's easier when they know my story because they know the extent of my injuries and the scars that are twisted across my body.

Back to Lewis, fuck, I need more alcohol.

He apparently had been making moony eyes at one of the jurors…because she baked him fucking cupcakes and he faked a seizure to get out of prison. He was pronounced dead, then auto-resuscitated. The Prison doctor, Janice Cole, was apparently fucking him too. Because after causing a lot of havoc…he killed a few guards, raped a nurse, and stole the nurse's keys and cell phone, dressed in scrubs and escaped. I was getting a bagel and coffee when I got the call on my cell phone, it was a video call and he told me he missed me and called me sunshine.

Don't ever fucking call me sunshine, ever, do you understand? Whatever happens between us, don't call me sunshine. Brian made the mistake of doing so and I almost shot him. He didn't know the reason.

The next part of this saga happens after I had been made a Sergeant - So, he goes to Doctor Cole's house. He raped her eldest daughter and left her tied in the closet. He abducted her youngest daughter, Amelia. And I was assigned protective detail by Lieutenant Murphy who had taken command of SVU as soon as Lewis had re-entered the photo. He told me to tell the truth, or the girl dies.

So, I had to admit I perjured myself on television. This has been covered up by 1PP and they released a statement later saying that the statement on television was false…but it wasn't false, Elliot. I did perjure myself. If you're curious, the video clip is out there somewhere.

I contacted him, and he told me I could save Amelia. Elliot, you know I couldn't allow that little girl to get raped or murdered or tortured. He had already had her sister deliver a message to me. Her sister had told me that Lewis had told her that what he did to her was what I missed out on.

So, I evaded the rookie security detail they'd assigned me. (They were really pathetic, to be honest) and I stole a civilian's car, and headed to the junkyard where he told me to meet him. When I arrived, he held me at gunpoint, disarmed me, removed my cellphone, pulled my hair out of the tie I had it in, and took off my vest. He took me to Amelia's location and taunted me. He felt me up while looking to make sure I didn't have any other weapon on me.

When we reached the top floor, he told me I had to choose between Amelia or myself that one of us was getting raped. I told him to rape me.

It was at this moment, that Elliot stopped reading and dropped the letter on the coffee table, running to his bathroom to vomit. Everything he had read thus far had made him feel numb, like he was out of body. It was almost like a story that he couldn't comprehend had actually happened to Olivia. He'd seen some things in his career, but reading her words, and her experience in the pages was just too much. He suddenly understood why she had pulled away from being grasped on the arm, why she just couldn't. And he wasn't sure how he was supposed to drive over to her apartment when he was finished with these pages. Rinsing his mouth out, he made his way back to the couch where he picked up the letter again.

Feel better?

I bet you had to throw up after that last sentence. I know I always do. So, there I was, on the top floor of this decrepit factory with little Amelia staring at me while I was bent over the steel table, and my feet duct taped to the legs of the table, my left wrist cuffed to the table as he began to fondle me, and I refused to show him it bothered me. I told Amelia to look away, and I thought of you. As I heard his belt buckle, I held my head down and refused to acknowledge that he was going to actually do what he had originally been charged with. It wasn't exciting for him, because he liked the fight…not the submission.

So, he had another idea. Russian Roulette and he would make sure I would never forget.

Elliot's face dropped and his breathing was hitched as he flipped the page over, he was shaking and his anger was boiling over. Who the fuck was this guy? He should've been there.

What the actual fuck was wrong with Cassidy? He deserves douchebag boyfriend of the century award.

Why hadn't he kept a better eye on his partner? Whoever this – he flipped through the pages to find the name of her partner – Nick Amaro was, had better hope he never meets him. What the hell kind of partner doesn't watch out for their partner?

So there we were, he had my radio and they were on their way to save me. He loaded a single bullet into the six-chambered revolver, he pressed the muzzle to his head and pulled the trigger. He kept the radio keyed. He slid the gun across the metal table to me, and I picked it up, because he was holding his gun pointed at me while I pointed the barrel against my temple. He threatened me that he would shoot much if I didn't pull the trigger, so…I pulled the trigger.

The entire time I stood there with the gun against my head, I knew that it could possibly be the last thing I did. And I couldn't help but think, Elliot. You flashed in front of my eyes and I couldn't help but feel the anguish go through my heart – and I wondered, who would tell you that I died? Would they tell you I killed myself? Would you ever know the truth? I thought about all the things I'd yet to do in my life because my career had been my life, and I thought about how you'd never know the truth. And part of me thought – well, maybe it's better he doesn't know just how deeply he's infiltrated my very being. I wasn't worried about Brian. I knew if I'd died, he would find someone else – or he'd just go about his job until someone shot him.

I'd never know what it felt like to be loved completely and totally. I'd never know what it was like to be a mother. So, I pulled the trigger. Click.

He heard the helicopters and realized that the police had found us by some providence. He taunted them, telling SVU about our game, and telling them we'd already gone through two chambers and there were four left. He put it to his head and clicked. Blank.

Three more. I took it. Click.

Two more. He took it. Click.

The last bullet. It was meant for me. He knew he wasn't getting out of there alive. I knew he wasn't getting out of there alive, and in that split second, I prayed. He told me it was "Game Over" and switched his hand to his left hand, putting it to his temple, making it look like I shot him. His blood was all over my face. And I stood there, staring straight ahead as my team came in and cut me off the table.

Elliot…I'm broken. And I promised myself after the whole damn thing was over that I was done trying to live my life for other people – the next case I worked, I found Noah. He was this beautiful boy in a dresser drawer and I fell in love.

I followed his case.

The Judge gave him to me after four failed foster homes. She said she had a hunch.

I became a mom. He was the good thing to come from the bad.

I've faced multiple hostage situations now, and I'm not scared to go into them because I faced down the biggest demon in my life and I came out alive and he shot himself. Declan covered my ass, telling 1PP that he had ordered me to lie on camera that I hadn't perjured myself. But now, you know the truth.

Those were the worst days of my life…and you weren't there.

I have PTSD, El. I'm learning how to cope with it on a day-to-day basis.

I never wanted to cause any discourse between you and Kathy. Did you know that she asked me to ask you to sign the papers the first time you guys split up before Eli came along? She said I gave you stability and I understood you in ways that she couldn't. I didn't have the heart to talk to you about it and it wasn't even necessary for me to intervene because you signed the papers anyway.

You had all of me, Elliot. Your letter was wrong. I didn't care that I would never actually have you, because just having you near me for those twelve almost thirteen years was more than enough. When I needed you, you just fucking disappeared.

Did you know, I would tell the men I slept with not to get used to it because it was never going to amount to anything? They were just there for me to use and throw away. I was married to the job, and you were my work husband.

Forgive me if I have a problem trusting you. But, don't you see what a mess you made me? I've compared every single man I've met or taken into my bed to you and they all came up short because of their inability to know what I'm thinking, or what I'm saying when I actually say something – or what I'm saying when I say nothing. They all have failed to protect me when I needed to be protected, and they don't understand WHY I can't walk away from SVU and why I can't stop doing my job. They also fail to ignite that giddy feeling I feel when your hand brushes mine or when our fingertips would graze one another.

I love you, I really do – but I don't think you fully comprehend just HOW MUCH you and your family mean to me. Please, be patient with me when I tell you I can't. You hurt me but all I want to do is hold onto you and never let you out of my sight ever again. You're my fucking air and I cannot live without breathing.

Now, if you listened to my request at the beginning of the letter, please, show me you can follow through.

I love you. I've always loved you. It's always been you. Be patient. I need you to get better, I need you to take therapy seriously. I need you to know that it's hard for me to trust you but I want to. I want to trust that you will never leave again. I want to believe that when you tell me I mean the world to you. I want to believe you when you say 'I love you'. I want to know what context you meant when you said I love you.

My skin is marred with scars and I hope you find them as beautiful as I finally do, because they show that I've survived and I'm still here.

I hope you actually chose to read this, El.

Always yours,

-Liv