Author's Note: So what was originally supposed to be chapter 8 is now split into 8 and 9, because this one ran away from me.
What the hell is going on?
She laid there whimpering in his arms; he held her tightly to him, like he had when she was a child having a horrific nightmare about monsters under the bed. Except, now the nightmares were all too real; Mom was dead, and someone had tried to kill her. The monsters weren't under the bed, not anymore; they were roaming the streets and causing irreparable harm. "I'm here, and Olivia's here too," Elliot said softly, stroking his daughter's hair. "You're safe now. We're not going to let anyone hurt you."
Liz looked up at him, and then over at Olivia, and she forced a thin smile. "Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Olivia."
"I hate to ask this," Olivia said, but her law enforcement training was peeking out, and she couldn't blame her. "Have you given a statement?" She'd half-expected the question, or one like it, to come up at some point.
"Yeah, uh, an officer at the scene – I think he said his name was Kerry – took it. Once I said my dad was a NYPD detective, he said he'd get in touch with you tomorrow, and I said that was okay, and," she rubbed at the bruise that was turning ten different shades of black and blue. Every part of her body ached something fierce. "Look, I really just want a shower right now, okay?"
"Take all the time you need," Elliot said. "There's towels in there already, and we'll find you something you can wear."
"Thank you." She began to walk toward the bathroom, before she stopped and turned to look at her father and the woman who had been a factor in her life since she could remember. She didn't know what Olivia was doing there tonight, but she couldn't be unhappy to see her. She knew what Olivia could do for her father, and had done for her family over the years, and maybe it was a private blessing in disguise that her father wasn't alone when he was confronted with what'd happened to her. "Both of you. For being here."
As she turned the shower to the most scalding, burning temperature the water heater would go to, she buried her head in her knees and began to openly convulse with sobs again.
She'd survived her attack, and her mother hadn't survived hers.
Why was she so lucky?
"You really need to get more food in here than crackers and leftover Chinese," Olivia said, rifling through the cupboards and refrigerator in the kitchen. "I know I'm one to talk, but this is sad." Their Thai from earlier sat on the table, almost forgotten in the wave of emotional confessions that had taken place since it was delivered. "And, well, I guess you have some leftover Thai now too. Definitely conquering the East Asian takeout scene here, Elliot."
"Yeah, well, you're still not going to catch me dead with sushi, so you can cross that one off your food atlas." He pulled up the number for the pizza place around the corner. He knew how skimpy his food options were – that was why he had offered Olivia takeout earlier; he hadn't been to the bodega in a few days – and he wanted to have something available for Liz when she got out of the shower. If she felt up to eating, that was.
"There's still options there."
"Yeah, well, I know Liz's comfort food is deep dish pizza with extra pepperoni," he said, as he placed the call and ordered it, along with a basket of garlic bread and an assortment of beverages. "Dickie – Rich – he used to get a kick out of peeling the pepperoni from her pizza when she'd turn her back."
"I'm sure that drove her crazy."
"Oh yeah. Don't ever mention bananas around Rich. Liz can fill you in on that sometime, that was one of her grand schemes to avenge her missing pepperoni."
She laughed, and he knew she was coming up with a thousand explanations for what banana-related trauma Rich could have endured. If only all their traumas could all be that light-hearted. "Duly noted. It sounds like raising twins was a special sort of craziness."
"It definitely was, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. At least Maureen and Kathleen were old enough to do some things for themselves and could help Kathy when I was at work late. I couldn't imagine how we would have done it if they'd all been young."
"If Octomom could figure it out on her own, you and Kathy would have had it in the bag," Olivia said with a laugh. "I'll be right back. I'm sure I can find something of yours that will fit her."
She found a baggy, old NYPD t-shirt and a pair of his sweatpants – Liz could roll them up and make them fit, and in the morning, they could either go over to Liz's place, or she could bring something from home, and get her some more fitting clothes. But she couldn't bear the thought of putting Liz back in the same clothes that had just seen her through whatever ordeal she'd endured.
She knocked at the door to the bathroom, and when she heard a muffled it's okay, she opened the door far enough to put the folded clothes on the counter. Before she closed it, she asked, her voice quiet, soft enough so Elliot wouldn't have to hear, "are you okay, Liz?"
To her, Liz would always be Lizzie, the little girl with the long blonde pigtails who looked at her parents like they hung the moon and stars in the sky every night, who always seemed more serious and put-together than the rest of her siblings. She wasn't the Stabler child she knew the best – that would be Kathleen – but each of the children had had a piece of her heart since the day she first met them, and Liz was no exception.
She heard sniffles coming from the shower. "Thanks, Olivia," she heard Liz say. "I'll be out in a few."
"I can stay with you, if you want me to."
A beat, a pause, another sniffle – and then, "would you?"
"Of course, sweetie," she said, and she put down the back of the toilet seat and sat down. "I'll be right here." As long as you – and your dad – need me.
Moments passed, and finally, with chattering teeth, Liz poked her head out from the shower to grab the towel from the towel bar. "Hot water's out," she said, and Olivia saw some of the scrapes from a new and more personal angle. At the realization that Olivia could see them, Liz started to pull herself back into the shower.
"You know how many times I've bandaged your dad up, and vice versa? Or how many scars I have?"
"I think it's a lot," Liz said, biting down on her lower lip as she made her way out of the shower and turned to face Olivia. "I – I remember when – I wanted to tell Dad, he was over in Europe on a job, but Mom convinced me not to, said it would only make him crazy over something he couldn't control. And now here I am, and he can't control this either."
"None of this is your fault, Liz," Olivia said, as she took the Neosporin from the medicine cabinet and gently dabbed it onto one of the nastier looking scrapes. Better to get things healing now, rather than fester for later. "Not what happened to me, or to you, for that matter."
"Dad always said there were evil people in the world who would do things he couldn't explain, but that he'd do everything he could to protect my siblings and I from it. And that his badge gave him special superpowers," she said, with a faint, nostalgic smile. "Rich used to beg Dad for a badge of his own so he could have those powers too."
"Your dad is a protector," Olivia agreed, as she affixed a bandage to Liz's shoulder. "It has nothing to do with the badge, that's just who your dad is."
Liz looked at Olivia in the mirror and attempted to smile. "You get him, don't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"You understand Dad differently than Mom ever did. Mom never understood why he wanted to go out and deal with everything. She was like, 'if he has to be a cop, why can't he be one of those ones that sits behind a desk and does paperwork all day?'"
"Your mom never saw your dad when Cragen had us on paperwork duty. He was like a caged animal itching to pounce on the next person who even raised a fist to someone else."
"I'd believe it." Her fingers nervously fluttered at the edge of the rolled hem of the sweatpants as she attempted to make herself presentable.
"I think," Olivia said, as she gently rested her hand on Liz's shoulder and smiled at her, "that if you're up for it, your dad and I ordered pizza, and if all the rumors are correct, you like extra pepperoni and that's what we ordered."
"Thanks, Olivia. Does he know –"
"About what happened? Yes. I told him."
"Good." She let out a breath and smiled back at Olivia. She had some of the same slope to her smile as her father did, even though the rest of her was purely Kathy. "You're brave."
"I think you're pretty damn brave too, Lizzie Stabler," Olivia said. "Now, let's go get some pizza before your dad eats it all."
Olivia had been gone for longer than he'd expected. He'd heard the door to the bathroom creak open, and shut, but he hadn't seen her come back out. When the delivery guy came to the door with the boxes and bags of food and drink, he handed him a handful of bills. "Keep the change."
"You gave us your card information on the phone, sir."
"Then keep it all."
With the delivery guy leaving seemingly very happy, Elliot carried everything to the table and grabbed a stack of paper plates from beside the sink and cups from the cupboard.
When he turned back around, Liz and Olivia were sitting at the table. "You two crept out of nowhere," he said, with a brief laugh; nothing warmed his heart more than to see any of his children interacting with Olivia, and right now, Liz needed someone desperately. Olivia was perfect for that.
"We had a little bit of girl talk," Olivia said, taking a slice of the pizza and dabbing off the excess grease before chewing thoughtfully. "She wanted me to stay, and I didn't want her to be alone."
God, she knows just what to do.
"I'm glad you were there, then," Elliot said, as the three of them fell into a quiet, companionable silence and enjoyed the pizza. He wasn't going to press Liz to talk, not until she wanted to; from the looks of things, she was clean, comfortable, and Olivia had apparently bandaged the worst of the injuries. "You can sleep in Eli's old room tonight," he said, "I don't know if I'd go poking around in there too much, though."
"Yeah, I remember all too well what Rich's room was like at that age," Liz said, scrunching her face in disgust. "Are there at least clean sheets on the bed? Maybe a fumigator?"
"We can get you fresh sheets, absolutely," Olivia said. "I can't make promises about the fumigation though."
"I'll hold my breath really, really hard tonight and pray he took all his gym socks with him to Carl's parents' house." Liz let out a loud yawn and looked at her dad and Olivia out of the corner of her eye. "I'm actually really tired from uh, everything. Can we talk in the morning?"
"There's no rush, honey," Elliot said. "You can tell me whatever and whenever you're comfortable."
"Can Olivia be there too?" She looked expectantly over at Olivia, and Elliot's gaze couldn't help but follow his daughter's. "I want her to hear my story too."
"Of course, I can, sweetie."
As Liz faded off to sleep in what had, until very recently, been Eli's room, Elliot and Olivia regrouped in the living room. "Did she tell you anything when you two talked?" Elliot asked.
"No, and even if she did, it's her story to tell, not mine." She sighed and rubbed her fingers against her eyes. It had been a long night, longer than she anticipated, and a lot more dramatic than she could have imagined. "The bruises and scrapes were bad, but I think the worst part of it is emotional. She suffered a trauma tonight, and I'm not sure how much she's going to be willing to say."
"Then I think you're the perfect person to be here for her," Elliot said, resting the flat edge of his palm against her knee. "You're not exactly the queen of expressing her emotions either."
"Please, you've seen me cry a thousand times."
"That's because you let me see you cry, and I'm pretty sure you wanted to gut me with a rusty fishhook most of those times."
"Only some of them, I assure you." She looked down at her phone and caught a glimpse of the time. "I really need to go home tonight – Noah's going to think I've abandoned him, but I'll come back after I drop him at school in the morning. If Liz is ready to talk then, I want to be here."
"I understand," he said. "Go take care of Noah. He's as important to me as Liz is to you."
"Thanks, El," she said, and she gave him a quick hug as they got off the couch and walked toward the front door. "You take care of yourself and Liz tonight, okay?"
"I'll do my best."
-to be continued-