A/N- Thanks so much for all of the reviews, you guys are AMAZING and it means everything. Please let me know what you think of this chapter and any guesses what will happen next?

Huge thanks to my wonderful friend and beta Ashley.

!! TRIGGER WARNINGS !! -PTSD, Flashbacks, Implied SA.

"Is this the right place?"

David slows down, panting for breath and holding his arm across his chest. Running after Elliot for the past twelve minutes has physically taken its toll on his body.

"This is where the map says." Turning back to look at David's grimaced face, Elliot rolls his eyes and proceeds to offer some instructions to the plan. "Can you manage to check this area if I look at the far end? You're looking for anything that may lead us to where she might have gone next."

"Yeah sure," David mocked, narrowing his eyes towards Elliot, whose mind-set on this whole situation is becoming very wearing.

"You do realize we are on the same side, right? We both want her safe."

David moves closer to Elliot, squaring directly up to him. He is tired and exhausted with the whole situation; the part of his brain that exerts control is depleted from being wrapped up in his own guilt.

"What makes you think she even wants you here? What makes you think we want you here? Me, Fin, Rollins…even Noah…" He continues his tense position. "We are the people who have been here throughout the whole experience, we are the ones who picked up the pieces and helped her move on, and we helped her create a new life for herself after him. So tell me what makes you think she would want you here now?"

David's words cut like a knife, every single harsh reality rang true.

David wasn't destroying some immense illusion that Elliot had been under. He knew all too well of the pain leaving her without a word would have caused. He had spent too long convincing himself that Olivia missing him was conceited, and the delusion made it easier to lie in a bed next to Kathy, procrastinating and prevaricating for the rest of his life, burying his true emotions. Except the truth triumphed; the indescribable bond he and Olivia had created was undeniable, and when his marriage fell apart because of it, he could no longer continue to lie to himself.

"If she doesn't want me here, then that's up to her. I will respect her wishes and I will leave, but not until she is safe and tells me herself." He stares back to David, pumping the tension through his muscles, not releasing his composure. "Now are you going to check this area or not?"

Backing down, David's eyes search over his designated region, before walking away in search of hopefully finding anything that will lead them to where she is.

After coming up empty, David spins around the vacant lot, looking desperately as he begins to panic, the uncontrollable negative thoughts overpowering his ability to remain collected. "He's had her for ages Elliot. It's been hours. I can't bear to think what he's doing to her, what she's going through."

Refusing to put time aside from finding Olivia, Elliot has no patience and unreasonably snaps at him. "We don't have time for you to have a breakdown, I told you. I can't have you slowing me down." He looks at him stern but sympathetic. "I know you're worried, David. I am too, but we can't think about this now. We need to put everything we have into finding her."

"I know, I know," David replies. Aimlessly taking a seat on the nearest doorstep, he flails his arms down in surrender. "I just don't know where we go from here."

"The cameras." Elliot points above David's head. "We find out if there's anything on those cameras."

Olivia didn't expect to fall asleep; she was on too high of an alert to imagine it could ever have been possible.

It may have actually functioned as a welcome break if the momentary minutes of peaceful bliss didn't cause her to wake into a false sense of security, a false premise that this had all been an awful nightmare. When she first woke, she half expected to be centered with the familiar smell of fresh coffee pouring itself from the machine followed by the sweet innocent sound of Noah greeting her good morning, but instead she was met with the numbing, damp chill from the room, her pained arms still shackled and restrained above her head, the unfailing dull ache from her lower back creating a burning lack of feeling through to the back of her thighs.

She closes her eyes and wills herself to fall back asleep, but the uncontrolled soft tears silently fall from her eyes as she pictures the purely radiant smile of her boy. The inaudible sobs gain volume to a hyperventilated cry with the thought of his small but protected world shattering around him.

The image creates an unbearable pain inside of her, and every breath she takes carries an illustration of her son's life after her departure, his lack of knowledge of the cruel world generating an impossibility of navigation through this loss of trust that he youthfully holds with the world. His freedom from guilt, sin, and evil obliterated with three delicate words he will hear: "I'm so sorry."

She knows it is fruitless, but she persists and heaves again and again on the chains, the piercing click of the metal hitting the iron of the radiator fills the room around her, but when she cannot free herself, her low frustrated scream overshadows everything else.

"Are you trying to get my attention or do you actually think you're going to be able to free yourself?"

She flinches at that voice, the sound dropping her chin to greet her neck before she consciously attempts to stop the tears and regain control. She considers the alternate story to what just played out in her head, the image of that little boy's face now giving her all the will in the world to fight this beast. She owes her boy that, to fight relentlessly, to do all she can to make her way home to him, and if she can't, she knows she fought with every last morsel of her being to get back to him.

"Oh, come on Olivia. Don't tell me after all that time we shared together you've gone shy." His body entering the room brings its own sense of darkness with it.

"Have you forgotten all that time you put into being sexually obsessed with me?" He pauses to blow out a wolf whistle. "Remember when you forced me to tie you up? Remember when you begged me to sleep with you?"

Lewis runs his tongue across his lips as he crouches down in front of her. "Remember Olivia, when you told me I needed a real woman? I'll never forget that voice you gave me then. I've replayed it over and over in my head."

"You're a sick son of a bitch," she snaps. "You are twisting your own fairytale, Lewis. Do you honestly believe what you told the court? Are you that far gone that you think my comments were true? That I actually wanted you? Even the sight of you repulses me!"

The blow to the side of her face was instant, his rough calloused knuckles whipping into her skin, temporarily affecting her anger and rage. The deep ache of the lingering headache she's been enduring immediately splits into a severe throbbing.

"There she is. I must say it took you a while…maybe our encounter broke you more than you thought," he snipes, venomously sneering towards her.

The confidence of her own words comes as a longed-for surprise. "You'll never break me Lewis."

"It's nothing but luck that the guy was in." Elliot instigates a conversation on the silent drive to their destination. "Just sheer luck." He takes his eyes off the road to look over to David, who hasn't offered any information since they watched the sketchy CCTV footage of Liv being struck from behind and bundled into an older style van.

"Yeah I know. I just can't stop thinking about how much I failed her," David replies, keeping his gaze entirely focused out of the passenger window. "That happened to her, Stabler. That really happened to her, and she went down quick. What if she's dead?"

Elliot tugs at his lower ear as he drives, thinking over the correct phrasing to use. Liv was the victim in this but so was David, and Elliot knows to some extent that he himself is too, but he hasn't earned the right to wear that badge over the last almost decade. If offering David support and compassion means he's going to be in a good place for when they find Liv, then he is going to do it.

"She's not dead. If she was dead, there would be no need to take her. Olivia's strong, she'll be fighting, and we are going to find her."

David looks at him, his tone showing how upset he is "You weren't here last time Elliot. You didn't see what she went through. The aftermath, the marks…they were not just physical."

Elliot winces at the flashback of the images he was sent. "I know," he says, his expression pained and remorseful.

David nods in understanding before continuing "The flashbacks and the nightmares…there are times we would be sat laughing, having fun, and then out of the blue her face would drain. She would be noticeable hot, and if I so much as lifted a finger in that immediate moment, she would panic. As time went by, that slowed down, and the panic changed to a flinch, but the flinches Elliot, they break my heart."

Elliot's own heart is breaking. It's breaking for her that she went through all of this.

Listening to David continuing to elaborate is leaving a regretful taste in his mouth.

"She once told me that in those moments" David takes a moment to pause before continuing "she isn't always experiencing some replay and watching it back. Sometimes it's an echo of her feelings. Apparently that was worse than watching it back in her head, because on times like that, she can be experiencing the happiest of days, and then all of a sudden, her whole self is overwhelmed with fear. Her exact words were… a fear so inebriating it renders her completely helpless."

"Shit," Elliot whispers. It was the first word his brain could grip onto; all others were lost to him.

"She then felt sad, you know?" David looks to him.

"Because of the...erm…trauma?" Elliot replies, still reeling from the image of Olivia is such emotional turmoil.

"Yes, but that's not what I mean" David says "She felt sad because she allowed herself to go back there and feel all that again. Can you imagine? Having all of that emotion forcibly rushed upon you, and then when you finally start to move beyond it, you're dragged down by feelings of guilt for even experiencing it? It's just, I just, I can't."

David throws his face into his hands and abruptly shakes his head from side to side. "Even if we get her back, I don't think she will survive it all again. She can't add to all of that. And what if he, what if he's… I can't even say it."

"David, you can't think like that. We need to get her home, safe and alive. As horrific, and trust me when I say horrific as those things are, those are things we can all help her through." His voice doesn't display the effect David's words held on his heart. Instead, it appears stern, prioritized, matter of fact even.

Sending him a nod of acknowledgement, David calms himself and leans his head into his hand on the window ledge, closing his eyes and seeing if the protective chant he taught Olivia helps him now.

"I'm pleased she had you," Elliot announces, his voice softer. "I'm pleased you were there for her. I wish I'd known, and I would have come back, but I didn't. I can't change that, and I can only try to help going forward, but trust me when I say, I am pleased she had you."

"Ok, this is it. This is the area she tracked the van too." Elliot pulls up quietly so the engine is making a slow hum rather than the usual rumbling that's associated with speed. He is grateful he had made allegiances with a local hacker, someone who didn't have difficulties or scruples with tapping into the road cameras. She had managed to follow and track the van to this area before it went off grid.

"There's the van," David shouts, animatedly pointing to the side of an old abandoned warehouse. "What are you doing? It's over there," he responds to the stopping of the engine and Elliot pulling his keys from the ignition.

"I need to keep the car here. We cannot alert them that we are here. Do you have phone signal?" Elliot asks, removing the gun from its holster and checking it over. When David exasperatedly scrapes his head from side to side, Elliot lets out another low groan exclamation.

"I'm going to head in. You walk back until you get call service and call Fin," Elliot advises as he slowly and carefully shut the door to the car and strategically made his way closer the warehouse.

·

"Finally," Lewis hisses, peering out the tiny window of the compact room he's positioned in with Olivia. "It's Show Time. Someone has arrived to attempt to save you Olivia."

Unable to see what's happening Olivia's sense of panic and dread intensifies. Lewis unravels the metal chains and pulls them down so they position in front of her hips. The physical relief her shoulders feel from finally being able to move her weakened, constrained muscles conflicts with the rush of terror at the apprehension as to what's to come.

Her ankles are still bound and the quick succession of movements makes her dizzy and clumsy. She falls into Lewis' arms, and she instantly experiences a wave of self- disgust by allowing him the pleasure of catching her.

"Oh Olivia, getting eager again aren't we?" he smiles, his eyes cascading that evil glint of excitement mixed with pleasure.

She steadies herself, her bound ankles absorbing all of her concentration to her feet until she feels ready to look back up towards him.

The sound of the knife flicking up is crippling; the flashbacks and memories of physical pain flooding back to the forefront of her mind pulls her back quickly, and losing her stability, she crashes backward on to the floor. Using her bound legs to shuffle herself further away from him, she breathes in and out until her back hits the wall behind her, and her room for creating distance between this man and herself comes to an abrupt end.

Noah

The Slide

Giggling

"Oh Liv. That's what they call you isn't it? … Liv," he retorts, moving closer towards her. His fast paced motion yanks her up by the chains, and he presses her upright body into the wall, his hands taking rest against her hips. She sucks her body back but it's already as close to wall as it physically could be.

"You've nowhere to go… Liv." He moves his hands up the joint of her blouse and violently rips it from the seam, the two ripped pieces of material hanging loosely, exposing her bra, bare skin and scars.

Lewis takes a step back and stares in awe. "My previous masterpieces." Her draws his finger slowly over each one, taking his time to watch her reaction.

The scars are numb; she hasn't felt pain from them since they healed, but right now they are burning. His disturbing touch is causing a confusion between past and present, and when he leans in to place his lips against one, she desperately swings her body in revolt.

"Get off me," she firmly hisses. "Get off me now."

Slowly withdrawing, he teases her. "Ok Captain, you're the boss," he says, his hands in the air either side of his head. "You don't want me to touch you. That's fine." Reaching into his bag from earlier, he pulls out what looks like a makeshift gun.

"How about I touch you with this instead?"

"You're pathetic you know that?" she enrages. "What do you want to achieve this time? What is it Lewis, huh?"

"You'll see," he whispers, casually dragging the gun down the side of her face and over her shoulders before stopping at her chest. "An idea," he quietly mumbles to himself, tersely turning away and locking the gun into the hold of his waistband. He picks up the knife again and trails it across her bare chest.

The knife's movements are heavy enough to incite fear from her but not deep enough to draw blood, but yet, it still doesn't stop the soreness emitting from the sharp long-lined scratch. He continues to travel the knife further down over her abdomen, toying playfully with torturous shapes on her skin.

"Why are you closing your eyes? Are you not enjoying this?" The knife continues its journey downwards until it lingers over her crotch area.

"No, no, no. No!" she yells at him, the whispering volume of her voice quickly left behind.

She instinctively bucks the bottom half of her body, protesting his assumed threat, the heat from her body gaining temperature as he lets out a colossal cackle.

"Tell me, what is your plan?" she attempts to distract him again. His manner is different now, but familiar. It's like it was all those years ago, just before she managed to free herself from the bed.

Lewis ignores her, moving the knife to her right hip and digging it through the material on her pants. She releases a gasp when the cold blade prods at her skin before he aggressively slices it down, causing a diagonal rip in the material to reveal her underwear and bare right thigh.

"They are going to be here any second. You don't have time to do anything to me." Her tone may sound poised and assured, but inside, she feels far from it. She's biding her time, attempting to throw anything that could act as a curveball out into the conversation to give her longer.

'He said someone is coming, so someone is coming,' she internally chants to herself.

"The thing is Liv, I don't have to do anything to you now. After last time? After the trial? You were so desperate to decline my plea offer. Do you never wonder what they thought of you for that, Olivia? Do you not think that your friends just respectfully accepted your version of events? Your defensive proud rejection just showed you ultimate weakness. You were terrified of your friends, colleagues, husband having those images in their heads."

He rips again at the material on her leg before continuing. "Because I'd bet they didn't believe I hadn't touched you. Me? A serial rapist who had the most perfect target, the best unspoiled victim?"

"I was never your victim in that way Lewis," she blurts out and he locks his eyes onto her.

"You really think they are going to believe you again Olivia? You really think your ex-partner is going to come in here, see this half naked mess you're in, and believe I didn't take what I wanted from you?"

He presses his body up against hers, and she doesn't release the cry he expects. She's still, silent, thinking over his last sentence and not allowing herself to go back there again, not allowing herself to believe Elliot is coming.

She can't have hope like that. Not again.

"You think he's going to look at you the way he did all those years ago? You think he's going to have love in his eyes? Or is he going to see you for how you are… damaged?"

Her tears are falling and she's trying her best not to sob. She's not upset; she's mad, she's furious.

He roughly transfers her from the wall, linking her chains back up to the radiator, rendering both of them out of sight from the outward facing window. He smiles that repetitive grin he's been showcasing his entire return and moves the gun to rest along her temple.

"If he even shows up, of course, if it's even him. I had all of your files sent to him, you know. Your old partner read every sordid little detail, he has seen every scar, every burn, and he's probably imagined every place I touched you."

·

As Elliot moves through the warehouse, he can hear the muffled echoes of a male voice. Slowing his pace and crouching down, he makes his way forward, weapon in hand.

He can't make out the word, but he can make out the threatening tonality of the voice.

"Please be ok Olivia, please be ok," he repeats to himself as he makes way closer to the doorframe harboring the voice. He's crouched down behind the frame, out of sight but still in ear shot of what's happening through these doors.

"Fuck you Lewis."

Olivia.

Elliot exhales a deep suspenseful breath at the sound and strength of her words.

She's alive.

He can hear Lewis getting impatient. He's never met him before, but he's a detective and he can tell when the situation begins to escalate. He carefully peers his head around the frame, and taking extra care to remain concealed, he watches as Lewis holds the gun on Olivia and listens intently.

"Guess he didn't want to come after all..." Lewis reaches round and peers out the window. "You must be too much trouble for him. Come to think of it, I bet he was pleased to be rid of you. You do know he went to Rome, right? All the way to the other side of the world just to get away from you."

Olivia is silent. She hated this, and she hated not knowing what to believe.

"Did you try calling him? I bet you did." Lewis continues to bait her with painful questions. He obviously found her life a topic of interest for his time inside.

"You know our little bit of fun was all over the news. Did he call you? Reach out? Check on his ex-partner?"

She whimpers in response, her body frozen.

Lewis continues. "I just assumed he would, because if you remember…" His voice moves to a whisper as he closes the proximity between them. "He would have known what to do to me."

"Stop," she cries. She can't take it anymore; she can't do this again.

She's done.

"What's wrong? The truth hurt, Olivia?" he sings, waving his gun in the air.

Elliot can't stand it anymore. He hates this, and this monster is destroying her, putting thoughts into her head she will never be able to leave behind her.

It takes every bit of restrain in his body to not burst into that room and take him out with his bare hands, but he needs restraint, he needs to behave, and he needs to remain in this sufferable position until he knows making his move will guarantee Olivia's safety.

"You thought you ruined me, didn't you Lewis? You thought by hurting me you would break me? Twist me? Isn't that what you want?" she shouts, the fight in her fully restored. "To twist my life, my body, my thoughts, so that every single thing reminds me of you?"

"But doesn't it, Olivia?" he yells back. "Do all of those things not remind you of me? Tell me what happens when someone touches you."

Elliot clenches his jaw. If the son of a bitch would just move to the left slightly, he could take him out.

Olivia is silent again. She's exhausted and expended with his mind games.

After waiting several seconds for a reaction Lewis discharges a low elongated blow. "I guess no one's coming." He strokes her hair away from her face with the edge of his gun. "I may as well enjoy myself. Lie down for me sweetheart, like a good girl."

"Screw this." Elliot doesn't whisper, and his body transports itself through the doorframe, eyes and gun locked on Lewis's head, Staring into the dark soul of the one they call 'the beast'. He has never wanted to pull the trigger so mercilessly before in his life.

He flashes a look to Olivia, and in all the years lost between them, he can still read her, he can sense her relief, he can feel their bond.

"This is the old partner?" Lewis excitedly feasts his eyes over this long anticipated reunion.

"He's not quite what I had in mind. Disappointing… but beggars can't be choosers."

He smugly sneers over Elliot.

"Nice of you to finally join us Detective Stabler."