A/N: Sorry for that cliffhanger...or am I? But seriously, thanks for sticking with it!

There's an ache in Liv's side that brings her back to consciousness. Her eyes are still closed as she swims somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. It feels like a heavy blanket has been tossed over her body, her mind and she feels like she has to fight the thing off if she's really to wake. For a moment it doesn't seem important, the warm blankness of rest beckoning her back. But then she remembers a gunshot and pain and Elliot collapsing just a few feet in front of her and she fights her way to alertness.

She groans as her eyes blink open into a harsh fluorescent light and she pulls her right hand over her face to shield the brightness. She wants to reach her left hand to the ache in her side and that's when she realizes it's pinned in place, her fingers gripped. She squints her eyes open again, turns her head to find Elliot's bald pate bouncing light back at her. His head rests on their joined hands. She breathes a little easier that he's here by her bedside and not in his own bed, hooked to his own monitors.

Her eyes having adjusted, she reaches over with her free hand, skimming it across the top of his head and he starts awake, blinks up at her for just a second before relief floods his face.

"You're awake," he's standing, pressing the call button, hovering over her. "How do you feel? Are you in a lot of pain?"

"El," Liv gasps softly as she looks at his face. "Your eye-"

"Worse than it looks," he brushes off, grasping her hand as she reaches towards his face.

The nurse arrives then and he gives her a small smile before he releases her hands and steps back.

"How's your pain?" The nurse asks brightly as the light is flashed in her eyes and the monitors are checked.

"Not great," Olivia admits.

The nurse nods, checking the file and making a note. "It should heal well. The bullet went through, no major damage."

"Does that mean I get to leave soon?" Liv asks hopefully and is met with the nurse's amused smile and Elliot's groan of disapproval.

"They want to keep you overnight, but hopefully in the morning." The nurse turns back to Elliot. "And you, visiting hours were over 30 minutes ago. She's awake now so say good night because you both need your rest."

With that they're alone again.

"Did they get Wheatley?" Liv asks after a strange silence where Elliot stares for too long.

He nods, "they pulled up before he could even get his car started."

"How long have I been here?" She feels anxious to fill the quiet.

"About 6 hours…you really were lucky. You didn't even need surgery. I-" But he shakes his head, as if deciding he can't voice what was there, rubs his hand over his head. "Amanda took Noah for the night. And everyone else is still outside. I'll let them know you're awake."

"How did they find us?" She's actually not sure why it matters right now, but the conversation while Wheatley held them is surfacing in intervals in her head and she doesn't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.

Elliot smiles, a bit proudly, "The SVU and OC squads work well together."

Liv smiles softly in return. Then takes another good look at Elliot, his face still swollen, a bandage on the back of his head, his eyes dry and red. "You should go call your kids. Try to get some sleep." Liv responds quietly.

He nods, pulling his gaze away from her as he shuffles his feet. "It used to be me in the bed and you standing here. I think I preferred that." He chuckles softly and looks back up at her.

"Not fun, is it?" She says with a knowing smirk.

He lets out a quiet exhale. "No. I think I should add it to the pile of things I have to apologize to you about."

She takes a shaky breath, the revelations of the past day stirring uncomfortably. Olivia shuts her eyes for a moment before slowly opening them and looking back to Elliot's intense stare. He nods then and turns away. He's almost out the door, one hand on the door handle, the other on the jamb, as he tilts his head back towards her, his eyes downcast.

"Thank god you're ok. I don't know….what I would have done…" He lets it hang. Finally he gives her another tight nod, his hand slapping the door jamb twice before he crosses the threshold and the door drifts closed behind him.

Olivia lets her head drop back to the pillow. She's exhausted and desperately wants to sink back into the deep restfulness of sleep. But she's completely alert right now, unable to avoid the tumult of feelings Wheatley had managed to create.

Strangely enough, the kidnapping itself felt like the least of her worries. After all, she'd managed to escape mostly unscathed. Of all the times she's been held hostage, this had somehow been the calmest. The insanity that there have been multiple instances to make this comparison is not lost on her. She was glad she had gotten over her prejudices against therapy, because she'd certainly be making an appointment after this.

It was all the things that Wheatley had brought up, the emotional torture of it, that she's reeling from now. She hadn't been ready to tell Elliot any of it. She had suspected she may never feel ready for that. But now it was all out there. Everything laid bare, or at least everything that Wheatley could manage to extract. Everything that Olivia had said to placate or please the insane mobster. She wonders how much of it was true and how much of it was the game. And she can't help but think that there was at least some veracity to every word that passed her lips, every emotion Elliot would have seen on her face.

Olivia longs for the feeling of Noah tucked safely in her arms, of her own bed and a good glass of wine. But she has to settle for the poor substitution of the hospital bed. At least she had the IV drip and the extra dosage of painkillers the nurse had added that are finally lulling her back to that black void of unconsciousness.

Elliot's there before she wakes the next morning, standing at the window, his back turned to her.

"Did you even go home?" She asks groggily and he spins on his heel, closing the distance in a stride.

"I slept and called my kids, as instructed." He tells her with a softly sarcastic deference as he gently picks up her hands and settles on the bed at her hip. "It's already 9. I was starting to think you might sleep the rest of the day."

She tries to push herself up, groaning as the pain in her side intensifies. "Hey, stop." Elliot scolds as he presses a hand into her shoulder to still her. "I know you're practically a superhero, but you're not quite healed yet."

"You're one to talk." Liv scoffs at him, watching him smile with good humor. For a moment she gets lost in the pull of his tender gaze, but the doctor walks in and the moment gets cut short.

There's a flurry of activity then between a final exam and instructions for the stitches and changing bandages. A nurse helps her dress and Amanda and Fin are just showing up as she signs the discharge papers.

They fill in the gaps, how they tracked Wheatley's location based on the men he'd hired. How he's back now, under lock and key in solitary. They're still investigating how he got out, what resources they still need to cut him off from.

"I'll take you home," Elliot says softly after Fin and Amanda have left.

She wants to argue, because she's not sure she's ready to be alone with him. But she doesn't have any other options and it doesn't look like Elliot's in the mood for any arguments. It makes her think of blinking her lights and rejected FBI protective details with a nostalgic longing for simpler times.

Elliot argues with the orderly about pushing her wheelchair and Olivia bites back a laugh when he finally gives up. He insists on literally picking her up and placing her into the passenger seat and she flushes with a strange combination of embarrassment and pleasure. He never would have acted like this when they were partners. He was always careful to make sure she felt respected, treated as equal. And she wonders if that's part of this insanity now. Like he doesn't need to check himself anymore, like he can just step up and take care of her without these concerns in his head. Like it's something he's always wanted to do, but knew better. It makes her appreciate it all the more, even if she's not sure what she wants from him right now.

In spite of all of this, or maybe because of it, she's tense and quiet during the ride. She can feel Elliot's gaze coming back to her, over and over, as she stares out the window and is grateful he doesn't break the silence.

As they pull up to her building, she unbuckles her belt, holding her hand up to him to stop his objection, "I'm going to walk, El."

She doesn't bother to turn towards him and look at him frown. After all, she's moving slowly enough that by the time she opens her door and manages to step down he's already there, frown still plastered to his face. "This is a bad idea."

She rolls her eyes, "I'm fine."

But he steps into her side anyways and she doesn't argue with the offer of support, because she's already wiped out from getting out of the car.

They make a slow journey into her building, up the elevator and into her unit. He doesn't let go of her until they've made it to the couch and he's placing her into the cushions.

"El, I'm fine," she insists as he picks her legs up and stretches them across the couch.

He hovers next to the couch, and she can't help but feel the shock of him standing in her home. He looks completely out of place, a piece of the past dragged into her present. The feeling somehow more acute than it was in the precinct, in her office.

Elliot seems to feel it too as his eyes begin to take in his surroundings. He quietly wanders over to some hung pictures, looking them over. Olivia knows that they're all more recent, primarily photos of Noah, but including people that Elliot's never met. She wonders if he's looking for a picture of them, like she used to display so prominently before. It's not guilt, but she still feels a twinge in her stomach at the memory of putting away those pictures, of clearing the reminders of Elliot away.

He turns back to her, his eyes meeting hers as if he understands suddenly what she's had to do in his absence. She hears the paper bag in his fist crinkle and the sound seems to bring him back to the moment. "You need your pills," he mutters, moving towards the kitchen to fill a glass of water and returning to hand it to her. He opens bottles and shakes pills out into his palm that he hands over to her, watching carefully as she swallows them down.

He speaks suddenly, his voice raw, "The things you said to Wheatley...were they true?"

If she'd been hoping to delay this conversation, it seems the hope was misplaced. She doesn't look at him when she responds in a whisper. "Which things?"

"You said...you said you hated me. Is that really how you felt?" Elliot has his eyes squeezed closed, forcing the words from his mouth.

Olivia sighs, "I don't know…"

His eyes snap open and he looks at her sharply. "Yes, you do."

Liv feels a surge of irritation. "You want me to tell you I hated you?"

"Didn't you?"

She's surprised to feel the drop of a tear against her cheek and she swipes it away. "Sometimes...often." She sighs, focusing her gaze on her hands. "There were times I understood. I knew why you left and I got it, that you didn't feel you had a choice. But that was the leaving itself. Which was hard enough to deal with. It was the way you did it that was so much worse. You didn't talk to me. You didn't warn me. You never reached out for all those years. And when things were bad, when I needed you so much...I didn't have a way to reach you. You never showed up. You never wrote a letter or called. It's like I never mattered at all."

There are more tears now, falling easily from her eyes. If it weren't for the blurring of her vision, the wetness dropping to her hands, she might not even notice. She's too tired to bother wiping them away.

She looks up then, as Elliot runs his thumb across her cheeks, clearing the moisture away. He pulls his hand back slowly.

"Liv...the problem was always that you mattered too much." His voice is hoarse over the words.

She takes a stuttering breath, exhales slowly through pursed lips. "You say that, but it's not how it felt. It felt like you didn't care."

"I know...I think I wanted you to think that." He's not looking at her again, digging the heels of his palms into his thighs as he perches on the couch next to her. "I told you I needed to blow things up. I needed to walk away and not look back. It felt like I was burning a bridge to you. That not saying goodbye, not telling you I was going...it would hurt you enough that I'd know I could never go back."

He finally looks back to her. "I was right, wasn't I? Because you did hate me. You still do, I think."

"It was never that simple." Liv responds without thought.

"Thin line between love and hate?" She hears the hope in his voice. But she's not ready to answer this question and they sit in a tense silence.

Finally, Elliot speaks, "I love you, Liv."

Her eyes dart to meet his, feeling more startled than the last time he'd said it. "You didn't want me to say it when Wheatley had us. And I probably shouldn't have just blurted it out at that intervention. But it's true, Liv. It's always been true. And I can't keep running from it. I can't keep avoiding it."

She wishes then she felt strong enough to get up. She needs some distance from him and the intensity in his eyes, in his body. She needs to move, but she's too weary, too exhausted.

He reads her, just like he used to. "You're tired. I shouldn't be doing this now," he stands, moving over to the adjacent seat. "You should sleep."

She looks at him askance, "shouldn't you go?"

He scoffs, "you've been shot. You just got back from the hospital. I'm not going anywhere." He props his socked feet onto the coffee table. "Sleep," he instructs with a wave of his hand.

"Excellent bedside manner, really." Liv intones with sarcasm. "What are you going to do while I sleep?" She asks because his eyes are still glued to her.

He shrugs, "Monitor your well being. Now stop talking and sleep."

She'd argue more, that he's refusing to leave, that he's apparently planning on watching her sleep. But she is truthfully so exhausted and the meds are well past kicking in. So she rolls her eyes at him and pushes herself further into the couch with a sigh. Her eyes close and she takes a breath and sleep pulls her in without a fight.