Fall to Pieces

Chapter Fourteen

Disclaimer: See first chapter

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Olivia hung up the phone with Heather and settled back into her paperwork, she would be working for many more hours, there was a lot of paperwork to do. Across from her Elliot sat at his own desk, doing his own paperwork, eyes red and puffy from lack of sleep and physical and mental strain. Munch and Fin were, like them, sitting at their desks writing. The rest of the day would probably go accordingly.

The cause of all of this was, of course, Rotherson. Despite the fact that he was now in the morgue they still had loose ends in their case that had yet to be tied together. As soon as his body arrived there (the morgue) his DNA was taken for a sample and was currently being processed, with hopes that the results would be back within the hour.

She was exhausted, her head ached, and she felt like screaming. This wasn't all together uncommon; she was normally plagued with these things when she worked a case, most cases, in fact. So it didn't bother her as much as it would most, but that didn't mean it didn't get to her. She had taken Advil for her headache, and that wasn't working, and there really wasn't anything she could do about the others. So, she would have to just deal with it. Like she normally did.

She glanced across the desk to look at Elliot; he seemed to be having a harder time than she was, which was understandable. He had, of course, just shot and killed a man, and while it hadn't been the first time he had done so, she knew that it never got easier. Along with eyes that showed a significant lack of sleep, his shoulders slumped and his face was pale and sunken. He caught her looking and his eyes narrowed, as if to ask her what was wrong. She shook her head, answering without speaking; they both went back to their work.

About forty-five minutes later ME Warner called, the results of the DNA testing had come back. Both samples-the semen and the skin from under the victim's fingernails-matched to Michael Rotherson; there was no room for error. They had their perp, case closed. Miraculously, at the same time, another case closed. It seemed that this case wasn't Rotherson's first, he had raped another woman, almost 4 and a half years prior. The MO was a bit different, but again there was an exact match to Rotherson's DNA. That victim had also died, so the only thing for them to do was contact her family, give them some well overdue closure. And, of course, more paperwork.

Five hours later she looked up from her paperwork, feeling lightheaded and ready to pass out from fatigue. Her phone rang and after letting out a groan she answered it, "Detective Benson."

"Mommy!" An energetic voice called out through the phone.

"Hey, Cassie." She said, a small smile forming and spreading across her face. "What do you need, honey?"

"Nothing," the seven-year-old said, "I miss you."

"Well, I miss you too honey, but mommy has a lot of work to do."

"When will you pick us up?" The young girl asked, her voice filled with hope.

"I don't know, honey. Maybe soon, maybe not. I wish I could tell you."

The young girl was quite for a while, then sighed into the phone. "Ok, momma. I love you."

"I love you, too. Goodbye, Cassandra." She hung up the phone with a sigh and settled back into her paperwork. It was going to be a long, long day.

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At the end of the work day he stacked his to-do papers in one nice, big pile on his desk and sighed as he reached for his coat. Munch and Fin had already gone home but Olivia was still sitting at the desk in front of his, chewing on the end of her pen like she always did. She hurriedly wrote something down sloppily, as a result of writing for hours and hours her handwriting had gotten rushed.

As he got up from his chair she looked up, a frown on her face. "You leaving?"

He nodded, "You should too, go get your girls."

"Yeah," she said. "I thought you would want to talk though, I was waiting for you to finish."

"Go see your girls," he said, shaking his head. "I'll be just find."

"Bullshit, Elliot. You're forgetting that I know you, I know you need to talk about this, so here I am, talk."

He sighed, "How about this, you go pick your girls up from the babysitters, feed them, help them with their homework, give them their baths, watch TV with them, tuck them into bed, then call me and I'll come over. Alright?"

"It's a plan," she said. "I'll see you later, so don't think you're going to get out of this, ok?"

He smiled, "I wouldn't dream of it."

She gathered her things together as he left the station, and then she too began to leave. She dropped in on the Captain to tell him goodnight, he looked up at him with the same frown she had given Elliot only moments before.

"You talked with him about it yet?" He asked.

"Not yet," she said shaking her head, "later."

"Good," he said, "good."

She nodded and told him goodbye, then got into her car and drove to Heather's house, picked up the girls, then went out to eat.

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It was nearly 10 o'clock when she finally got around to calling him; he picked up on the second ring. "Stabler."

"Hey, El. It's me, the girls are in bed, you ready to talk?"

"Yeah," he sighed, "I'll come over right now."

They hung up with each other and she put on a cup of coffee. While she waited she went into the girls' bedroom and watched them as they slept. Their patterns were usual, Becca was mumbling incoherently and Cassie was snoring lightly. Nearly 15 minutes later she heard a light knock and the front door and quietly left the room to let Elliot in.

He looked worse then than he had hours before at the precinct, he staggered into her apartment, shoulders slumped and smelling of alcohol, but not so much that she would think him drunk. Nonetheless, his walking had obviously been effected so she helped him over to her couch and set him down, seeing for the first time the dark, purple bruise around his eye.

"What happened?" She demanded, headed into her kitchen to get some ice.

He didn't answer her and when she came back into the living room he was laid out on the couch, appearing asleep. But, she knew him well enough to know he was faking it, and proceeded in sitting him up straight. "Oh no you don't," she told him as she pressed the ice over his eye, causing him to wince. "Now, tell me how this," she gestured towards the ice hiding the bruise, "happened."

"Pissed off the wrong person." he shrugged, "I miscalculated the time it would take for his fist to hit my face. No big deal."

"'No big deal' my ass," she said angrily, " I hope you thought to press charges."

He shook his head, "Actually, he thought not to."

"What do you mean?" She asked, a confused tone in her voice.

"I hit him first," he told her, "not as hard as he hit me, though."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

He shrugged again, "Dunno."

She sighed, "How much did you have to drink?"

"2 beers."

"Why did you hit him?"

"He was in my way."

"How was he in your way?"

"What is this, 20 questions? He was in my way, not that hard to understand. It's not anymore complicated than it sounds, Liv, he was just in my way."

"So you hit him?"

"I wasn't in the best mood."

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, well I figured as much. I swear, Elliot, you're more trouble than the girls are. You know you're extremely lucky that he didn't press charges, right?"

Yet another shrug.

"How long ago was this?"

"Right before you called me."

She looked at her watch; it was almost 11 o'clock. Sighing she said, "Do you want to talk about this morning?"

"It's either you or the Huang. You're better looking, so I choose you."

"Don't joke," she told him. "I'm asking you seriously, Elliot, I want a serious response. Do you want to talk about what happened or not? I just want to help."

"I was being serious," he said. "You think Huang is better looking?"

"Elliot," she warned.

"Fine, let's talk. He was going to shoot you, I shot him, end of story."

"No, not 'end of story', that's just the beginning of the story. What did Tucker say to you?"

"Oh, Tucker? He was surprisingly believing, didn't accuse me of killing the guy just because we had picked him as our doer. Actually, he didn't accuse me of anything; it was a bit odd now that I think about it. Maybe he got laid."

Olivia eyed him suspiciously, "Are you sure you only had two beers? Nothing else? No vodka, Jack Daniels, anything?"

"Nope, just the beer."

"Hmm," she sighed. "That man didn't hit you upside your head, did he? No concussions?"

"No, why?"

"I'm trying to find an excuse for your acting like a 15-year-old. Come on, Elliot, I asked you to be serious with me, I expect that you do."

The seriousness in her voice finally got to him and he sobered, sitting straight and looking her in the eyes. "Fine, I'll talk. Ok, first of all, you don't need to be worried about me. I understand why you are, you've been in the same situation that I have, you know how hard it is to deal with. But Olivia, I'm fine, trust me that's the truth. While it's not easy knowing that you've killed somebody that man was scum. He raped women and was about to kill you, and God help me but I'm not sorry he's dead, it doesn't make me feel guilty to know that I took his life away, because now he can never hurt another woman, whereas if we took him to court he could have gotten away. Now, that's not a confession or anything, don't tell that to Tucker, but I'm not going to loose any sleep over what happened this morning. It's not going to cause me any distress or make me have a mental breakdown or anything, ok?"

"But it did cause you to go drink and punch somebody for the simple fact that he was in your way? Gotta tell you, Elliot, but that really doesn't make any sense to me."

"If you must know, Olivia, I punched that man because he was a pig. There was a young woman at the bar, probably mid twenties, and he was hitting on her. As he got drunker and drunker his slurs got even more inappropriate and degrading, until he finally tried to get her attention by invading her personal space and forcing her to dance with him. I noticed, asked him politely to leave her alone, then when he wouldn't told him I was a cop and would arrest him for harassing her if he didn't cease and deists, still he was unfazed. So, I resorted to violence."

"Oh," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

She nodded, looking down at her hands.

"You know," he said, "when Rotherson had his gun pointing at you the only thing that I could think of was that I never got to tell you how I felt, I never got to really kiss you, or make love to you, and how much I was going to regret it if you were gone. I shot him on instinct, but I wasn't thinking of you as a partner, it scared me. I thought that I would be able to deal with having these feelings for you, maybe I won't."

She took his hand into hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Your mind was on work enough to focus on keeping me safe, whether it was as your partner or something else. I don't see a problem with that, you don't have anything to be worried about, I know that if we were to ever be together you would be able to separate work and relationship."

"Yeah, maybe." He looked down at their hands and intertwined their fingers. "That's why I had to tell you though, I wanted to make sure you knew, just in case."

"I already knew," she told him. "I think I've always known."

He looked back up at her. "So," he said, "now that we know how we feel, what do we do about it?"

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A/N: I know, I know, it took so long for me to get this chapter out. Sorry! But, I've had a hectic week, and I'm going to have another! Monday I have bible study at church, Tuesday I have a friend who's acting in a play that I have to go see, Wednesday I have to go to a nursing home for Leadership class, and then youth. After that we're all going out to eat because it's a friend of mines 18th birthday. Thursday, not so sure, but I do think I've got something to do then. Friday is Football night, of course. Then the weekends are always crazy...ugh. Y'all are lucky that I'm getting this chapter out, I should be working on my psychology paper (ahh! It's due Monday). Anyway, gotta go work on that then.