Chapter 26 - Munch

Lyrics by Tim McGraw – Just To See You Smile

Just to see you smile
I'd do anything
That you wanted me to
When all is said and done
I've never count the cost
It's worth all that's lost
Just to see you smile
When you said time was all you really needed
I walked away and let you have your space
Oh leaving didn't hurt me near as badly
As the tears I saw rolling down your face
Just to see you smile
I'd do anything
That you wanted me to
When all is said and done
I've never count the cost
It's worth all that's lost
Just to see you smile…

Munch

"I'll do it Cap." I'll go force Olivia to relive that night again. I'll go torture her with the face of her rapist that we don't even have in custody.

As I glanced at the photo array in my hand, I tried to comprehend why I had volunteered to go get an ID from Olivia. I suppose I was still trying to protect her from everyone else in the world.

I felt my body shiver from the cold as I turned around a corner to get to Elliot's house. Originally I had went to the hospital, assuming Olivia would still be with him there. When I found out that he'd been discharged, I still figured that she'd be with him at home.

Finally arriving at Elliot's house, I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" I heard Elliot's voice yell from inside. Opening the wooden door, I gratefully stepped into the warmth, letting it envelop me. "Hey John." Elliot was in a pair of long sleeved, plaid pajamas with a bowl of soup in his lap, stretched out along a deep blue colored couch. The TV in front of him was on and a multicolored, crocheted blanket covered his legs.

"You look comfortable," I remarked, somewhat jealous.

He smiled, glancing over his situation. "I still think Olivia went a little over-board."

"Is she here?" I was quickly slapped back to the reason I was here with the mention of her name.

He nodded. "She was. She left and went to her apartment to get some things." His eyes flew to a clock on a wall. "I'm getting worried. That was a while ago. I offered to go with her, but she refused to let me." He sighed. "It took me ten minutes of convincing to let her let me even sit up. She means well though."

"She went to her apartment? Are you sure?" I didn't believe that she'd go there for anything, much less on her own.

"Yeah. That's what she said, why?"

"Just checking," I lied.

"What's that?" He nodded towards the paper in my hand.

"We want to get into his apartment, see if we can find anything." As I started to explain it, I was yet again reminded of how stupid the idea was. All right, maybe it wouldn't be such a stupid idea if I didn't have to have Olivia ID the guy. Even despite all my attempted safeguards, I knew she'd have to face him eventually in court, if not sooner. "Casey needs Olivia to ID him."

"Oh." With his one word response, I knew he was thinking the same thoughts as me.

There was a short pause between the two of us as I kind of worked up the courage to ask him something I wanted to since I'd left the hospital yesterday.

"How is she doing?" I awkwardly asked, trying not to make myself seem too vulnerable or out there.

Elliot subconsciously shook his head as he stared into the bowl cupped between his hands. "She's okay. I think she blames herself though." He looked up to me. "She thinks that because she's a cop it should have made her invincible to this." His eyes fell back down. "That she should have been able to stop it, or prevented it in the first place."

--XXX--

Please say she's here, please say she's here… I pleaded with myself as I ran up the steps in Olivia's building to the floor her apartment was on.

Thank God… I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders as I recognized Olivia's figure sitting on the floor, facing her apartment door with her back against the opposite wall. I slowly walked up towards her, so as not to startle her. When I was about halfway there, I realized that her eyes were red and puffy. She'd been crying.

I stood next to her, waiting for her to announce her acknowledgment that I was there. When she did nothing but stare at her front door, dried tears on her cheeks, I bent my knees and took a seat right next to her. We were both silent for the next few minutes. Finally, it was Olivia who broke the silence.

"I've been sitting here for the past twenty minutes and I still can't bring myself to go in there." The pain she was feeling was written all over her face and laced through every word she spoke.

"Liv, it's okay." I reached out to place my hand on her shoulder, but she shrunk back from me. I jerked my hand away and cursed myself mentally, for I should have known better.

Her eyes began watering as she just realized what she just did, like the full effect of her attack was just settling in.

"No," she shook her head. "It's not okay. I'm a cop, I'm supposed to be strong, composed."

Though every nerve and impulse in me was telling my brain to stop her, to scream that it wasn't her fault, and to pull her into my arms and try to keep those thoughts away from her, I resisted them. I had to let her pour out everything she was feeling for fear that she might keep it all bottled up inside, eventually building up to the point where she'd explode.

"Now, I can't even go into my own apartment," she softly moaned, the pitch in her voice getting higher. She bit her lip and started blinking her tears away, a stray one slipping down the curves of her cheek.

"Liv…" I racked my brain for something to say, something to give her even a small ounce of comfort as she wiped her eyes. "You say 'cop' like you're a robot or something. Olivia, you're not a robot, you're human. You have feelings and emotions just like everyone else. You were attacked and raped in your apartment. Of course it's scary going back in there, but it's all right. Just take your time with everything. You know you can always stay with me, Elliot, Casey, any of us until you feel up to coming back here."

Olivia stared at her lap while she mulled over my words. Suddenly, a small smile shone through her tears and she looked at me. "Thanks."

I smiled as well. "Anytime."

Olivia stared at me a moment before she rose to her feet, her eyes still on the door.

"Need something?" I asked her, standing as well.

"I came by to get some clothes…" She sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"No fear, Munch to the rescue." I smiled, heading into her apartment.

--XXX--

A minute later I was standing in Olivia's bedroom, trying to figure out what to pack. I had pulled out three duffel bags from the bottom of her closet and they were now lying open on her bed. Her sheets had been taken as evidence, leaving only a bare mattress behind.

After a moment of thinking, I finally just decided to pack her as much stuff as I could. I yanked open the top drawer of her bureau and found piles of shirts in it. I pulled one out and placed it inside the closest duffel bag. I did this until the drawer was empty. Then I moved to the second one and repeated the pattern until the bureau was empty and two of the three bags were stuffed with clothes. The third still had some room in it. I took it to the bathroom and emptied the medicine cabinet and everything on the sink into it.

That's when Olivia's gun and badge caught my eye. They were sitting on a small table along with a few crumpled up dollar bills and some change. I could almost see Olivia coming in here after work and casually emptying her pockets, unaware of the horror that would befall her later that night. I picked the gun up, feeling the cold metal on my hands. I silently wondered to myself, what would have happened if she had it by her bed that night? Or if she'd been able to reach it before the bastard fought her back onto her bed… My hand began tightly clenching the gun, like I could pick it up and shoot the very memory of him. I placed it back down and let my hand move to her badge. I picked it and the gun up, mulling over the idea of packing them for Olivia as well. My better instincts finally won and I carefully set them back down. I was thinking about protection for her, but Elliot would be enough when it came to that.

After zipping the three duffel bags up, I placed the straps of two onto my shoulders, placing one on the left, one on the right, and picked up the last one with my right hand. Maneuvering carefully though the doorway and the living room so that I didn't knock anything over, I finally made it to the front door. I slowly lifted my right foot up, trying to keep my balance as I gently kicked it forward, leaving me enough room to walk through.

"Okay," I heaved, struggling to push myself through the doorway that was about two feet too small to fit the duffel bags and me. "I think I got… everything." I groaned as I finally managed to squeeze out into the hallway.

"Everything but the couch," Olivia remarked in amusement.

"Do you want that too?" I tried to make my voice sound serious as I spoke.

Olivia just kept her grin, watching as I moved the duffel bag from my right hand to my left, shifting my weight with it. Suddenly she threw her arms around my neck, slightly catching me off balance. "Thanks John," she whispered.

As I felt her chin rest on my shoulder, I also felt my eyes begin to gloss over. I quickly blinked it away and wrapped my free arm around Olivia. "Anytime," I whispered back.

--XXX--

"John, let me carry one of those." Olivia held her arms out to relieve me of a duffel bag as I stumbled up to Elliot's front door.

"I have it," I groaned, almost falling over.

"Right…" She hopped up the stairs and held the door open, watching on as I heaved up the stairs.

"Hey again," Elliot greeted me as I dropped the duffel bags on the floor, almost right in front of the door. "Are you staying too?" Fake delight covered his face. "This'll be great! Just like a little sleep over!"

"No," I quickly put an end to that thought. "I'm just the bag boy, here to perform your every wish and demand." I gave a small bow towards Olivia.

"Hey!" Olivia started to argue and insist that she tried to help, but I stopped her.

"No need to thank me ma'am, just doing my job." I adjusted the collar of my coat.

Olivia just smirked and turned towards Elliot, her arms crossed. "I'm gone for more than five minutes and you send out back up to come find me?" She looked really agitated with him.

"No." Sincere innocence was in his voice as he spoke, shaking his head. "John came here looking for you. I just told him where you'd be."

Oh yeah. The ID… Strange how that conveniently never crossed my mind.

"Why?" She looked back at me.

"Well…" On the drive over here, I had a big speech all prepared and everything for when I told her that we had a suspect and that she needed to ID him, but my mind was now completely blank. I frantically searched my brain for something, anything to say. Isn't one big speech a day enough?

"Well what?" Olivia was becoming impatient.

Though I wanted to think about how to say it, carefully choose my words, my mouth overrode my brain and I just blurted it out. "We think we might have a suspect. Cragen wants you to ID him." I quickly produced the photo array from my coat and pathetically held it out in front of me, completely flustered.

The color from Olivia's face drained right away, a look on her face like I'd knocked the wind out of her. For a moment she just stared at me, mouth agape.

"Liv..?" I heard Elliot's quiet, inquiring voice to the left of me.

That snapped her out of her frozen stature. "Um, yeah." She shook her head, clearing it and trying to shake off her previous shock. "Okay." She reached her hand out to take the paper from me and I saw her hand just slightly shaking, something she couldn't hide.

"Here." I handed it to her. I watched on at each excruciating second that her eyes carefully scanned the six pictures. Brent's was in the lower left-hand corner. I prayed she'd point that one out.

Olivia forced her face to remain blank as she turned it back around. "Him." She held a finger out and pointed directly to Brent's picture.

"Are you sure?" I double-checked, reaching out to take the photos from her.

She bit her lip and her emotions as she nodded. "Yeah."

As I shoved the paper back into my jacket, I felt her eyes follow me, desperate to ask about him. I knew she wouldn't though. She'd been in SVU long enough to know that I wouldn't be allowed to tell her anything. Then again, had she asked me, I probably would have spilled out whatever I knew.

"Anything else?" She professionally asked me, trying to hide behind 'cop mode' as she threaded her left arm and head through one of the duffel bag straps.

"That's it," I softly told her.

"Okay. Thanks again," her voice was just as blank as her expression. Olivia leaned over and clutched the carrying handles of another bag in her hand and started walking away, I assumed towards a bedroom.

"Liv, are you-"

"I'm fine," she cut Elliot's concern off as she disappeared into the room over.

Sighing internally, I watched the doorway for another second before meeting Elliot's stare. We gave each other a mutual look of understanding, and not sharing another word, I silently left, closing the door behind me.