Thnnk all of you who ahve taken the time to review. I must confess that I am not this prolific of a writer. I have already written throung chapter 10. I am just doling things out daily. My Beta seems to be busy right now, so if someone is interested in Beatng 10 let me know.

Olivia spent the night at the hospital, unable to wake up, diving in and out of hellish nightmares regarding her mother. She felt like she had been running all night, her body and mind were wrung out. "Please wake up! Come on wake up." She begged. Slowly her eyes fluttered open. She took in her surroundings then looked at her body. She breathed a deep sigh of relief. She was Olivia Benson, adult, SVU Cop and…injured. A loud groan escaped as her back and head screamed simultaneously in pain.

She nearly screamed herself when a voice asked, "Are you all right?" Cragen watched as Olivia's eyes went wide with fear and her skin paled.

"Jesus Christ, Cap, what the hell are you doing here?" she placed a hand over her heart.

Cragen was going to lie and say he just stopped in before work until Olivia noticed the obviously slept in cot. "Did you stay all night?"

"Busted," he thought to himself. He had hoped to be gone before she woke up so she didn't get pissed off that they, (the men), were babying her. Cragen guessed that maybe he was kind of babying her. He didn't stay overnight for Fin when he got shot. He doubted he'd stay late for Stabler or Munch. He didn't think that they'd for him, either but for Olivia there would be hardly a second thought. It wasn't that they didn't think she couldn't take care of herself; hell she'd been doing it for most of her life. They were all forward thinking men, never doubting that she had their back on a case, but it just seemed worse if something happened to Olivia.

Maybe it's because she was more at risk in this field. She would be more likely to be raped or attacked by a suspect than one of the guys, or maybe it's because she had no one outside of work to take care of (love) her. No matter what the reason, she was just going to have to be pissed. "Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

"You're awake," Elliot strode into the room. "Hey, guys, she's awake."

"Hey, nice to see those brown eyes of yours again." Munch walked over and hugged her.

"Now you can do your own damn paperwork." Fin laughed hugging her also.

"What is everybody doing here? Did the doctor tell you I was dying or something?" She eyed them suspiciously.

There was a brief silence as they looked at the floor. Elliot smiled, "No we just wanted to be here for the lecture."

"Lecture, what lecture?"

"The one Dad's going to give you," Fin said.

She turned to Cragen, "About what? I didn't do anything risky, it was just an accident wasn't it?"

"Well not exactly, but it wasn't your fault. You don't remember how it happened?"

"Most of yesterday is a blur. I do remember something spooked…" she paused, trying to remember the child's name.

"Megan." Elliot helped but was only rewarded a glare.

Her eyes said what she didn't; "I would have got it if you hadn't interrupted." "Megan. Is she all right, she didn't get hurt in the fall did she?"

"No, she's okay. In fact she's going to be great!"

She waited for Elliot to continue, "Go on."

"Later, I promise. It was McCabe that spooked Megan."

"McCabe?" it only took a moment for her to remember. "That jackass with the buzz cut?"

Elliot laughed, "Some how I knew if you couldn't remember anything else you'd remember McCabe."

"That son of a bitch, he's lucky I'm stuck here right now."

"Don't we know that," Fin added.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" she crossed her arms in front of her but winced when her bruised back muscles complained.

"Hey, I just know that if I was the one who fucked with you on this I'd made sure you were dead or I would have just shot myself to save me some pain. Besides we'll take care of it for you. Big brother style."

She should have been angry but just couldn't find it in herself to be.

"No, I will handle it," Cragen warned.

"Speaking of pain, how are you feeling?" Munch looked over the top of his glasses.

"Fine, I'm just a little sore. As a matter of fact I feel pretty good."

"You should, after all the stuff they had to give you." Fin gave her a disapproving glare.

"What? I just banged my head and bruised my back, right?" She looked questioningly from one man to another.

"That's all that happened yesterday, but the doctor found a few things in your blood work that weren't good." Cragen was getting into full boss mode now. He knew he'd have to steel himself for the onslaught of excuses and anger that he knew were coming. "You haven't been taking care of yourself."

"All right, cut the crap what the hell are you talking about?" Olivia was starting to get very irritated.

"The doctor said that you have a low iron count, your blood sugars are noticeably low and your electrolytes are off, and you are also dehydrated, hence the IV bags. Dr. Andrews said that this was a good indication that you weren't eating properly and probably not sleeping either."

She wanted to wipe that smug look off all their faces. "Cap, we've all been there. How many times have you sent us home and we come back to work the next day and you're wearing the same clothes?"

"Okay, I'll give you that we all function in various stages of sleep deprivation, but there is no excuse for you not eating. Now I know I am not your father but you are apart of this family and if one of us has to spoon feed you, we will make sure that you eat!"

Olivia felt a slight bit of sadness when he said he wasn't her father. She wasn't sure why, he wasn't her father, but if anyone ever came close, it was Don Cragen.

She looked from face to face and knew they would spoon feed her if they thought it necessary. They cared. She thought a second or two about a smart-ass comeback but after remembering some of the terrifying things she dreamt about last night she just said, "Okay."

The men stood stunned until the Captain spoke. "Good, now that we have that out of the way, some of us need to get to work."

They quickly said their goodbyes to Olivia.

"I'll see you in a little while," she called to the retreating forms.

Cragen stopped in his tracks. "Elliot, I think you should stay here, keep Benson company until the doctor comes in. I want a full report on when he says she can go back to work and what her restrictions are. Make sure she does what she is told."

"Do I get combat pay?"

"Elliot, you're such an ass," she snapped.

"Detective, if I see you in my station a minute before your okayed to go back I will personally send you back to the hospital." He knew he was pushing her current good mood so he swiftly turned and left.

"You can just wipe that smirk off your face Stabler, you still have to work with me."

"Yeah but you're going to be on ass duty for a while, I'm sure I can earn your forgiveness by the time you're back in the field, armed."

"Shut up, Elliot!"

"So you want me to tell you about Megan now?" He asked with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

Olivia shot a deadly glare at her partner before she answered, "Yes, tell me. You said she was going to be doing great."

They were only interrupted a few times with nurses checking on Olivia. She gave the same stock answer to all of them when they asked how she was doing. "I feel great this morning."

Meanwhile,Elliot told her the whole story about finding Megan's grandparents and how they had been looking for her. He also told her about what Megan's mother had told her about her grandparents. "She was really excited to see them. It was great Liv. I talked to Casey last night and she said that she could get a quick hearing to give Rena Gilbert's parents custody pending a trial. They're going to file for full custody after that."

"Rena's not going to give up easily. They better be prepared for a fight."

"Oh, they will be. Casey's going to give them Simone's number."

"That'll work," Olivia laughed.

"By the sounds of things you must be feeling better this morning." Dr. Andrews walked into the room.

"Yes, I feel great. Can I leave now?" she asked hopefully.

Andrews laughed, "Not right this minute, but maybe today."

"Maybe today? Why maybe?"

"Because you have a concussion and some deep bruising on your back, plus I need some more blood work done to see if your numbers have improved. If your blood works comes back okay, you tolerate the oral pain medication well, you promise to eat better and get some rest and if you show no lingering effects with your concussion, I will send you home."

"When can I go back to work?"

"She's not in any kind of hurry, is she?" the doctor asked Elliot.

Elliot just shook his head. "That's my partner."

"That's right, you're a police detective aren't you? Than means that you could ride a desk for awhile."

"Not happily," Olivia warned.

"I think you might if it was a choice between sitting at home or sitting at a desk," the doctor countered.

"Good point," she agreed.

Elliot thought that he could really get to like this guy. That was until he opened his mouth again. "In that case I trust you enough to know when your body is ready to go back, but I don't want you out in the field for about 7 days. If all checks out with your regular physician after that then you can go back to full duty."

"Sounds good to me. Thank you Doctor."

"Someone should be by in a few minutes to draw some blood. I'll be able to tell you if you can leave by early afternoon. In the meantime it looks like breakfast is on its way. I would suggest that you eat all of it if you want to leave today." With that, the doctor turned and left the room.

It was Olivia's turn to look smug. "I believe you have a phone call to make," she said to Elliot.

"I cannot believe that he left it up to you to decide if you're well enough to return to work. That would be like…like…"

"Letting you?" She grinned.

"All right that will be just about enough out of you." He encountered a food services worker on his way out to go call Cragen. "Eat your damn breakfast."

"SVU, Cragen."

"Yeah, Cap, it's Elliot."

"You hear from the doctor?"

"Yeah, you're not going to believe this. He said that Liv could decide when she was well enough to go back to work, but no field duty for a week."

"That's just great. When does she get out of the hospital?"

"We won't know until this afternoon. He says that he has to see if there had been any improvement in her blood work. If that checks out okay and he's satisfied that she's still not suffering any ill effects from the concussion, she'll be out by the end of today."

"It's pretty slow around here, go ahead and stay until she's released. If anything comes up that we can't handle, I'll call you."

"No problem, I'll see you tomorrow Cap." Elliot went and got some breakfast before he returned to Olivia's room. "Good news, Cap says I'm all yours for the day."

"Well if we weren't stuck in a hospital, I might be able to do something with that," she said playfully.

Elliot stood stunned for moment before responding, "They give you some more pain meds, Liv?"

"No, just must be residue from the ones they gave me last night."

"Oh, so you're saying you don't want me unless you're drugged."

"You brought it up El."

"Ms. Benson, I'm Mandy from the lab, I need to draw some blood from you, but first I am going to take these IV's out. I'll leave what we call a heparin lock in your arm so we can still get blood without having to stick you." Olivia pushed the table holding the remains of her breakfast out of the way, and held out her arm.

"Oh, very good job on your breakfast, Ms. Benson." The male nurse from yesterday came in.

"It's Detective Benson." It was out before he thought about it. "Sorry, just a habit ya know, when we're out in the field."

"Don't worry about it, my wife goes through it too, she just made detective in robbery- homicide in Queens. Although I don't think her partner is quite as quick to correct things when they're out."

"My wife's a nurse at Gracie Square," Elliot said.

"Really? I know a few people there, what's her name?"

"Kathy Stabler."

"Blond right? "

"Yeah."

"I know her, she's a pretty good nurse. Funny I thought she was divorced or something."

"Separated," Elliot dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Hey, sorry man, I didn't mean to bring up any bad feelings."

"Facts of life I guess. Don't worry about it."

"The name's Jake Barton."

"Elliot." He stuck out a hand to show there were no hard feelings.

"Now back to you Detective Benson."

"Olivia."

"Okay Olivia, I'm going to check your vitals, then give you some medicine."

"What kind of medicine?" She inquired.

"Some ferrous sulfate, for the anemia, some potassium and a pain pill. So on a scale of one to ten, ten being extreme, rate your pain for me."

"One. I don't need any pain medication."

Jake rolled his eyes, "Lean forward so I can listen to your lungs."

She did her best to stifle the groan when she moved, but the pain was intense.

Elliot could see a solid pattern of bruising over most of her back. "Jesus Liv."

"El, I'm fine." She betrayed herself by flinching each time Barton moved the stethoscope around asking her to breathe deeply.

"Care to rate your pain again?"

"Five?" She didn't mean for it to sound like a question.

"Okay, let me tell you something, the doctor wants to know if you can tolerate the oral pain medication, and the better you manage your pain the quicker you will heal. Face facts, you are going to take the medicine."

The nurse finished up his exam and handed Olivia her medication. She took everything but the pain pill.

"I'm not leaving until you take them all."

She stared fiercely at him for a while before she finally gave in and took the pill.

"Damn, I feel sorry for any suspects you interrogate, that look just about killed me."

"I see Elliot isn't the only one who feels like a comedian today."

"Sorry just trying to lighten the mood. Nice meeting you Elliot."

"So who brought the flowers and balloons?" she finally noticed the gifts

"Munch brought the carnations and Fin brought the balloons."

"Okay, spill it, I really am dying right?"

Elliot chuckled, "No, I assure you, you are not dying, but we might kill you if you don't start taking care of yourself."

"All right, I'll take care of myself. Who are the roses from? If you tell me they're from you, I'll know there is something wrong."

"What you don't think I could do a nice thing for my partner by bringing her favorite flower?"

"Carnations and orchids are my favorite flowers, El."

Elliot looked very puzzled, "Doesn't every woman love roses?"

"Not unless you are saying I'm not a woman."

"No, I'm not saying that. Not at all."

"Okay so who are the roses from?"

"Romeo."

"Romeo? Who the hell is that?"

"That would be one Officer Lee Mathews."

"That young blond kid at the scene? Jesus he can't be much out of high school."

"Probably not, but he wanted to make sure you knew he stopped by. He is really cute when he blushes."

"Shut up, Stabler."

He ventured on, "Munch told him to come by the station."

"Oh no, he didn't!"

Elliot smirked and nodded his head. "He took great delight in it too."

Olivia groaned, "I'm going to kill Munch."

Olivia and Elliot talked for about a half an hour before she faded into light, fitful dozes. He used these opportunities to stretch his legs and to check in with Cragen and the guys.

"How she doing?" Munch asked. They were all on speakerphone in the Captain's office.

"She's rest…sleeping for now. We're just waiting on the doctor to see if he's going to release her today or not."

"You corrected yourself and said sleeping instead of resting. Is she not doing any better that last night?" Cragen asked.

"No, pretty much the same, Thrashing, mumbling things. The only thing I could make out is that she is cold. I got the nurse to bring in extra blankets. They even brought in a blanket that they had warmed, but it didn't seem to help. She fought tooth and nail against taking her pain medicine."

Cragen debated for a minute before telling the other detectives about the things he heard last night. They were all worried about her and maybe if they could put this all together they could help her. "She kept apologizing last night for speaking to the Nelsons."

"Who the hell are they?" Fin wondered.

Cragen hung his head, "People who she was definitely supposed to avoid because after she apologized, she pleaded for someone to stop hurting her anymore."

"Someone?" Munch mocked, "Let's not play games here. We all know who that someone is. Serena Benson!"

Silence hung oppressively over the phone line.

"Come on guys, you can't deny this, especially after the Eldridge case. We all know that Olivia told Casey something that made her plead her surefire murder conviction to a 5-year manslaughter charge in a juvenile facility. Casey just gets a distant, sad look in her eyes if you ask her about it and says that if Olivia wanted us to know she'd tell us."

"You asked Casey about what Olivia told her? That took some stones." Elliot couldn't believe that Munch would do something like that.

"Yeah, I tracked her down at O'Malley's getting drunk out of her mind after the trial. I was worried about Benson, was I the only one?"

"Take it easy man, I got the same song and dance from Novak when I asked her too." Fin offered.

In turn each admitted to trying to talk Novak into telling them what Olivia had said.

"See Munch, we all care about her, she's our baby girl." Fin was the only one brave enough to call her that out loud.

"All right, we all would like dig up Serena Benson and kick her ass, but we can't, so let's just focus right now. Elliot, let us know when you find out anything from the doctor, we'll keep up on things here."

'Please don't hurt me anymore." These words weighed heavily on Elliot's mind. When he got back in the room Olivia was awake flipping through a magazine that Cragen had left.

"Hey there, I wondered if you died from boredom while I was asleep." Her voice was cheery, but he could see the exhaustion in her eyes.

"Naw, just thought I'd stretch my legs a little and check in with the Cap. You know, make sure the place hasn't fallen apart with us."

"And has it? Fallen apart, I mean."

"No, they seem to be holding together."

"Good, now all that we need is the doctor to let me go and we can be rid of this place and get back to work." Elliot just rolled his eyes.

It was almost five o'clock before Dr. Andrews returned to the room. "Yes I'm going to let you go home today," he answered the expectant question in her eyes. "I have a few prescriptions for you to fill and some instructions to follow when you leave. You are going to be sore for a few days, so I want you to take the pain medication I'm giving you. I know Jake already told you about pain management and healing. I'm going to give you a sheet on concussions and signs that you need to be seen immediately. I'm not kidding. Post concussion syndrome is nothing to play around with. You need to follow up with your regular physician before you can go back to full duty."

Jake Barton returned shortly after Doctor Andrews left to give Olivia her prescriptions and home instructions and said his goodbyes.

Olivia went to the closet. "El, my shirt is in pieces, what the hell am I going to wear out of here?"

"Must have cut it off you." Elliot took off his jacket and dress shirt, giving her the t-shirt he wore underneath.

"Thanks, now let's get the hell out of here." Elliot took her to get her prescriptions filled, picked up some food, and took her home. After dinner he made sure she had everything she needed before he left. "I guess I'll be picking you up tomorrow for work?"

"Ass duty is better that nothing." She smiled "It's okay El, I can take a cab or something."

"And Cragen would have my head mounted on his wall, not to mention other parts of my anatomy that I would rather keep. I'll see you around 7:30. Get some rest!"

Olivia was left alone with her thoughts, "Sleep, yeah right, whatever. Sleep means dreams and I have had enough of those for now." She took all of her medication except the pain pill, and then curled up on her couch with a book.