Dirty Little Secret

A/n: I'm trying to work quickly on this one. It's been in the works for a couple of months already (I've had a few bad bouts with writer's block).

Olivia watched from the couch as Elliot poured the entire contents of the whiskey bottle down the drain. She knew he was right, but at the same time she knew that she wanted that alcohol more than anything. She finally forced herself to turn and look away, as he put the cap back on the now empty bottle and threw it in the garbage. She closed her eyes when he began to walk back towards her, not opening them until he sat down at her feet.

"Tell me." It wasn't a question, nor was it a command. It was a request.

"I can't."

"Why not?" he asked.

"It's a long story, El," she told him.

"We've got all day. Tell me."

"You know the basics already. My mom was raped, my father was her rapist, she turned into an alcoholic."

"Yeah, I know." Olivia shut her eyes, willing the images to go away.

"She quit drinking when I started at the Academy, but I knew she started back. She was drunk the night she died," Olivia told him. She'd had friends who kept that part quiet, for her sake. She knew her mother's alcoholism brought up lots of painful questions. "When I was little…"

1234567890

Five year old Olivia sat at the kitchen table, drawing a picture. Her mother was staring out the window, with a glass of vodka in her hand. Without realizing it, Olivia begins to hum a song from a Shirley Temple movie she'd watched at a neighbor's house the day before.

"What is that noise!" her mother asked. Olivia looked up, startled.

"I… I was just humming," she said, keeping her voice low. She'd learned how to speak to her mother in a way that usually wouldn't make her even angrier.

"What were you humming?"

"I… I don't know. I heard it on the television," Olivia replied. Her mother turned around and threw down her glass.

"What did I tell you about the television!" her mother screamed. Olivia winced.

"That I'm not allowed to turn it on, because I might break it," Olivia answered.

"And you deliberately disobeyed me?"

"No, I saw it at Miss Sarah's!"

"Don't lie to me, Olivia!"

1234567890

Elliot could see that Olivia didn't want to continue, so he didn't force her. Instead, he gently pulled her closer to him, trying to let her know that he wasn't judging her.

"It's okay, Liv."

"She… she was so angry. I tried to tell her that I hadn't broken the rules, but she wouldn't listen," Olivia said. Elliot could tell she was forcing herself to continue.

"You don't have to go on if you don't want to," he told her.

"If I don't, I'll never tell you the rest." Olivia drew in a long breath before continuing.

1234567890

Olivia's mother stormed across the kitchen and pulled her daughter up off of her chair. "Why did you disobey me? Do you try to make me angry, is that it? You want to be punished?" she asked. Olivia tried as hard as she could not to cry out. Her mother kept pulling on her arm. "Answer me, damnit!"

"No, Mommy! Please, don't!" she whimpered. Her mother shook her.

"I said answer me!"

"Please, stop!"

1234567890

Olivia pulled up her shirt sleeve, exposing seven round scars on the soft underside of her upper arm. Cigarette burns. "That was the first time she ever hurt me, physically. I was five." Elliot gave her a hug, knowing it was killing her to tell him this. He remembered how much it hurt when he'd been forced to relive his own experience, and he hated to see her in that kind of pain.

"Sixteen was the worst of all," she whispered. "Did I ever tell you that I was engaged once?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. She nodded.

"I was sixteen, and he was twenty-one. He was one of my mother's students, in graduate school," she told him. She smiled, almost as if she was remembering something wonderful, but her face instantly clouded over into the familiar look of hurt she had displayed for most of the morning. "I made the mistake of telling my mother while she was sober. She was a violent drunk, but even worse sober. She literally dropped a full bottle of vodka in shock. She started screaming at me, telling me I was going to throw my life away. And then she picked up a piece of glass… she just started coming at me, and I was so scared. I kicked her, and she landed against the wall. And I just left her there. I didn't know what else to do."

Elliot just listened, letting Olivia tell him what she wanted to. "My mom and I didn't talk again until I went to the Academy. I left her house that day, and I didn't go back there until she died. We were just starting to put things back together when she died."

"She did more damage than you're telling me about, didn't she?" Elliot asked, knowing he wouldn't like the answer.

"I don't even remember what all the scars were for anymore. I was her punching bag when I was little. That's all she thought I was good for," Olivia told him. She turned to face him and once again buried her face into the collar of his dress shirt. He had no idea how to comfort her, but he was determined to help in any way he could.

"She was wrong about you. Look at the amazing person you've become," he told her. She sat up and stared at him.

"Amazing? I'm sitting here, self destructing over a stupid relationship, and you call me amazing?" she asked. She couldn't believe he would say that, lie to her face like that. She knew that she was showing weakness, and he was telling her that he didn't think any less of her for it.

"Liv, you put your past behind you every day to help people that are being hurt, just like you and your mom were hurt. I'd call that pretty amazing," he told her.

"I'm weak, Elliot! Not amazing. Just stop lying to me," she said, standing up and moving away from him. He shook his head, knowing he's probably screwed up.

"You've made the best of a bad situation. Your mom chose alcohol, but you chose to help others who were hurting. And everyone's allowed to be weak some times. You don't have to be a brick wall," he told her, standing up and following her. "It's okay to let yourself be vulnerable some times. It's only human. You're only human."