Pathway to happiness

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: I am winging it. Please R&R and tell me if you like it.

Summary: The path to happiness is long and winding and paved with sorrow. For Olivia Benson the path is blocked with terrifying demons who won't let her pass.

"Look out!" her words rang through the air only to be followed by the sound of six gun shots. She saw him fall and she ran to him. She knelt beside him and held his fading form in her arms.

"Oh God!" she exclaimed "Elliot please don't die!" she screamed and cried and begged but it didn't stop him from slipping away from her. Before his eyes closed for the last time, he whispered three small words that were barely audible "I love you."

"I love you too!" she screamed "Please! Please! Don't die!" she got no response to her shouts and a deluge of fresh tears pored from her eyes, only to fall upon his body and intermingle with his blood.

She felt a presence beside her and looked up to see a man standing in the fog. She couldn't see his face but she knew, she just knew, in her heart, she knew that this man was the shooter.

He spoke "Its all your fault Olivia."

"What!" she asked.

"It's your fault that he's dead," the man continued "He took the bullets that were meant for you. He loved you and," the man gestured to Elliot's body "this is what he gets for it."

"You bastard," Olivia said in a low voice.

The man approached her "I'm not the bastard here, Olivia," he placed a hand on her cheek and chuckled slightly.

"You shot him," Olivia's tone was shrinking into a meek protest. This man filled her with an overwhelming sense of dread.

"I may have shot him Olivia but I'm not the reason he's dead."

Olivia stared at the man's blurry form in bewilderment.

"It's what you are Olivia," the man began to explain "surely you knew that what you were would destroy those closest to you."

"You liar!" Olivia found her voice again and shouted at the man.

"Oh but Olivia," the man laughed "I am right. It destroyed your mother and now it has destroyed the man you love."

"You did that," Olivia protested, referring to Elliot. Olivia was more than certain that she was responsible for her mother's death and didn't need to be told by anyone else but she didn't want to believe that she had caused Elliot's death.

"No Olivia. It was you. He died trying to save your worthless life. He died because he fell in love with garbage. You are the cause of his death."

"No!" she screamed. She was finding it harder and harder to disbelieve this man.

"You no I'm right," the man said in a sing song voice.

"No, no, you can't be," Olivia began, her resolve was quickly crumbling.

The man pulled Olivia to her feet. She whimpered as she was forced to let go of Elliot's body. He began to lead her away.

"Where are you taking me?" she struggled against his grip but she found it impossible to break free.

He stopped only a few feet away from Elliot's body and threw Olivia to the ground "It's time," he said simply.

"For what?" she asked as she attempted to get up.

He pushed her down again as he laughed at her "It's time for that one thing that you've known forever would happen to you, time for that one thing that you've known all your life that you deserved. Don't pretend that you don't know what's about to happen." She shuttered and tried to close her eyes but found it impossible. He bent over her and sneered "It's time and I'm going to enjoy it."

As he climbed on top of her she caught a glimps of his face. She screamed and shook and tried to get him off but she couldn't.

Olivia woke up in her bed with the sheets tangled around her body. She screamed again, it took her a few moments to realize that it had only been a nightmare. She untangled herself from the sheets and sat up in bed. Her cold sweat saturated her sweat pants and T-shirt. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She let her head drop between her knees and she cried.

She didn't know when it was that Richard White had become the face of her nightmares, the vocalization of her deepest fears and insecurities but he was and the nightmares had been a common occurrence for some time now.

She cried until it seemed like there were no tears left. She lay down again and pulled her covers up around her shoulders. She rolled over and took a quick glance at her alarm clock. It was 4am, she had only two and a half hours before she would have to get up to go to work but she needed the rest. So she rolled over again so that she was facing away from her alarm clock and shut her eyes in an attempt to get back to sleep.

"Worthless garbage," she saw him standing over her again. He kicked her in the side and the force of the kick caused her to roll over. When she did, she came face to face with Elliot's kids.

She attempted to tell them to run but White didn't seem to be interested in them at all. They just stared at her. Finally Lizzy spoke "You killed our dad!"

"No I didn't," Olivia tried to reason with the girl.

"It's your fault he's dead!" Kathleen shouted.

"No honey, it's not," Olivia tried to explain.

"He died because of you!" Maureen screamed.

"I didn't mean…" Olivia stammered.

"You killed him!" Dickie yelled.

"No, I…" Olivia began.

"You killed him!" they all screamed "It's your fault!"

"I…" Olivia trailed off again.

"He loved you and you killed him!" came the four voices again "You killed him!"

"I'm sorry," Olivia began to sob.

She woke up again to find that hot tears were running down her cheeks. She decided that sleep was futile at this point and she went out to her living room to watch TV.

She settled into the couch and picked up the remote. She turned the TV on and flipped through the channels. Finding nothing good on, she turned the TV off and went out to the kitchen to make some coffee.

As she waited for the coffee maker to finish making its sputtering noises, she sat at the kitchen table. Her eyes darted around her kitchen. Finally her gaze came to rest on a picture. It was a picture of her mother and her, taken the year before Serena died.

Serena was smiling at the camera, 'such a fake smile' Olivia thought. She got up from her seat at the table and took the picture off the wall. She looked closely at it. She remembered the day, it hadn't been a happy one. Her mother had been very drunk and had been bobbing all over the place. Olivia had felt so embarrassed as they walked in the park. Then Serena had gone up to a random passer by and shoved the camera into his hands and demanded that the man take their picture. The man had taken it quickly and as soon as he was done, he left very quickly.

Olivia opened a drawer and shoved the picture, face down, inside it and slammed the drawer shut.

She turned to the coffee machine and pored herself a cup. She sat back down at the kitchen table, put her head in her hands and just stared at the grain of the wood.

She really was human garbage and she believed that she had no business being on this planet but she still had her work, sex crimes were her life, they were her penance. The job would kill her, she knew it and she didn't care.

TBC

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