Everyone, thanks for the reviews! Even got some new people, always good. ;)

First, I would just like to announce that if you read the first chapter or the last chapter in BITFD, you know that there will be OE and this story. And yet, I still get people begging me to get them together. Honestly, I was all ready in the first chapter to have Elliot throw himself at Olivia and declare him undying love for her, but nooo! You guys wanted Elliot to ignore his feelings, then have them hook up. So, that's what I'm going to do. Like I said, I always keep a promise. If you want someone to blame for Olivia and Elliot not being together by now, look in the mirror. ;) Having said that, here's a new chapter. And, I did a little research on brain aneurysms, but a little of it I just stretched.

Chapter 2 - Cold Hard Slap of Truth

Stumbling into the squad room, Elliot came armed with a cup of black coffee in one hand and a bottle of aspirin in the other, nature's cure for hangovers. He'd already blasted his half-asleep self with cold water for a good half-hour, explaining the slight moisture in his hair. Hoping he could hide his sorry state and blood shot eyes, he sat down at his desk and buried his nose in a pile of paperwork.

"Hey El." The voice was bittersweet as it stung his ears. He wanted to listen to it all day and yet, he never wanted to hear it again.

"Hey Liv." Elliot kept his head down and tried to hide the new affection in his tone as he spoke her name. He had to hide what he felt at all cost. No matter what, she could never know the truth.

"Are you okay?" He felt his stomach twist into a thousand tiny knots as her hand delicately placed itself on his shoulder. Always so caring and concerned… Damn.

"Fine." Elliot forced a spasm through his shoulder, reluctantly tossing her touch away.

"All right." There was a small note of hurt in her voice as he watched her sit at her desk out of the corner of his eye. Elliot detested himself for pushing Liv away right now, but she was too close to him. One little slip-up in a conversation, and he could drop the ball at any moment. But he couldn't let that happen, couldn't show her the truth, meaning he had to watch everything he did and said around her. It would be hard, but if anyone was worth protecting from himself, she was.

"Olivia, Elliot." Cragen's voice actually brought relief to his ears as Elliot turned to look at him. "God Elliot, what happened?" He spoke with such shock and dismay that the detective's relief was all too quickly depleted.

"Good morning to you too, Captain," he snapped, slipping into another mood swing. It was always an ailment he suffered when hung over, due to the pounding and throbbing in his head.

Cragen simply frowned and turned to Olivia, handing her a folder. "There's a woman at Bellevue, late twenties. The husband found her unconscious in their kitchen, clothes ripped and a blow to the head. No underwear, so they think she was raped. But she claims she wasn't and she refuses to let them do a rape kit. See if you can talk to her." Olivia nodded absent-mindedly as she flipped among the pages.

Cragen turned back around to look at Elliot, slightly disquieted as he recognized Elliot's problem. Bloodshot eyes, mood swings, headache by the way he was rubbing his temples, if anyone knew what it was, it was definitely Cragen. Olivia also seemed distressed by the way her eyes frequently and indiscreetly flickered over to her partner. If not even she knew what was wrong, Don knew he had a cause for concern, and that there was no way he'd find out unless Elliot offered up the problem willingly. He was never one to divulge personal issues at work, or ever for that matter.

"Let's go." Elliot rose to his feet, still clutching his coffee cup in his hand as he made his way to the door. Olivia followed suit, still keeping a wary eye on him as they descended the front stairs of the station house.

"You wanna drive?" Olivia stuck her finger through the ring that held the sedan's keys and pointed it towards Elliot. Shaking his head, he twisted the top off an aspirin bottle. He tipped three white pills into his hand and transferred them to his mouth, taking them dry.

"Na," he opened the passenger door and stepped his foot inside. Biting her lip, Olivia watched him tuck his head in the car and shut the door behind him.

--XXX--

"What's up with you?" Olivia eased up on the gas and applied pressure to the brake as they came up to a red light. Keeping her hands on the wheel, she faced Elliot and made another failing attempt to read his blank expression.

"Nothing." He set his elbow against the window and rested his hand against the palm of his hand. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his forehead with his eyebrows furrowed in pain. "Just a headache."

"Strange, I thought they were referring to it as a hangover nowadays." She wasn't sure how she meant the comment to come out, just as a joke or seriously, so it ended up sounding sarcastic and harsh, not at all her intent.

"Un," he just grunted, sounding unmoved as turned to watch the same mundane buildings go by his window that did everyday, during every car ride. "We're here," he pointed out the obvious, anything to change the subject. Olivia merely kept quiet to guarantee that she couldn't say something else to push the already distant Elliot even further away. There was something he was hiding from her, but her own mind was too frazzled and cluttered with thoughts to try and sort out his. If he wanted her to know, he'd tell her. Hopefully…

It took the two only a minute to make their way from the hospital parking lot to the receptionist area.

"Detective Benson, my partner Detective Stabler." Olivia held her badge and identification out to the elderly woman sitting in a computer chair behind the counter. "We're here to talk to Karissa Perry."

"Just a minute." She held up a single wrinkled finger, donning a perfect manicure with cherry-red polish. All women over sixty or seventy seemed to be the same, spending hours a week and half their paychecks just to get their hair in that perfect curly bob and nails filed oh-so-perfectly. She clicked the tips of her nails against the keyboard as she typed in Karissa's name. "Are you sure you're looking for Karissa?" She gave a cursory glance over top of her huge frames, the nosepiece barely clinging to the very tip of her petite nose.

"Yes," Olivia nodded in confirmation, resting her arms on top of the plastic cover over the wooden desk.

She placed a hand over her mouth and chin in puzzlement as she read the glowing screen in front of her, the blue background reflecting off of her glass lenses. Pushing her hands against the counter, she slid her squeaky chair over to a filing cabinet a few feet away. She offered no explanation as she yanked a drawer open and flipped through the manila folders and colorful tags. The detectives stole confused glances at each other while her back was turned, unaware that she'd silently rolled back behind the computer. "Well you can see her, but she won't be able to tell you much. She's in the comatose ward."

"Comatose ward?" Olivia glanced back to Elliot with her eyebrows raised, a questioning perplexity in her eyes. She was met with the same expression and a half-hearted shrug. Neither of them had heard the word 'comatose' in Cragen's description of the woman. "What happened?"

"That's confidential," she slightly shook her head to the left and then to the right. "But you can ask the husband. Poor thing's so shook up," her voice took on a nurturing and motherly tone, much different than her brash one from before. "He was talking to her when it happened."

Olivia followed the woman's motioning hand towards the waiting room, a wall just covering everything of the man but his legs and jeans. "What's his name?"

"Mitch Perry."

She thanked the receptionist and headed towards the waiting room, Elliot falling in line behind her, not having spoken a word since they walked in the front doors.

"Mr. Perry?" The hunched figure buried in the waiting room chair was all too obviously that of the husband's. He was in his own bubble of heartache and misery, his once almost movie-star looking features now worn and drawn with a look of aging. The blonde locks of his meticulously gelled and styled hair were now tossed around his face in wisps. His baby blue eyes contained nothing more than huge pools of tears, waiting to overflow once the reality finally decided to fully kick in.

"Mr. Perry?" Olivia's voice was a low comforting purr, as she finally stood at his feet while he was absolutely unresponsive. "Mitch?" The detective quietly bent her waist until her brown eyes were level with his.

The personal identification seemed to pop his bubble once he finally gazed up to look at the source of the voice. "Yes?" The man strived to keep his voice from quivering, a task becoming more and more laborious as time increased.

"Hi." A warm smile crossed her lips, making Olivia glow as she spoke. "I'm Detective Olivia Benson." She flashed her badge. "This is my partner Detective Elliot Stabler." She brought Mitch's gaze over towards where her partner had been silently waiting and watching, a good few feet away, his hands folded in front of him. "We're here to talk to you about Karissa."

"But I already told the cops what happened." His eyes darted around, following Elliot and Olivia as they took a seat to the left of him.

"Yes, but we're with the Special Victims Unit," Olivia tried to clarify the same mistake that a lot of people made. Nobody wanted to talk to the police even one time. To them, twice seemed like torture, or the sign that the department couldn't work together or get the story straight.

"Special Victims? What's that?"

"It's a branch of the police department that works on sex crimes."

"Sex crimes!" Perry's eyes widened in disbelief and his voice rose in pitch as he echoed Olivia. "You think she was raped too? God…" He shot up from his seat and brought his shaking hands to his face, hiding the tears that were spilling again. "Oh my God…" he repeated, taking the thought like a blow to the face as he paced around in a small circle. "Not 'Rissa. Not her…" He pleaded, leaning his arms against the wall as he buried his face into the sleeves of his jacket. Sobs racked his shoulders up and down.

"Mr. Perry," Olivia rose to her feet and tenderly placed her hand on his arm in sympathy. She was barely touching him when he spun around towards her. Olivia jumped back in alarm, not knowing his intentions. Elliot noticed this and scrambled to his feet, ready to defend her.

Instead of lashing out or striking Olivia, Perry just crumbled into her arms, leaning his face against her neck and wrapping his arms around her, like a child hugging its mother. Olivia made no attempt to return the embrace. Her arms merely hung slack to the sides, her body stiffened, and her discomfort was apparent to all but the shaking form clutching onto her. She barely felt comfortable coming into close contact with strangers of any kind, but some guy holding onto her that she didn't even know? That wasn't on her list of things to undertake any time soon, if ever. Feeling his warm, sticky breath against her neck, she flashed a pleading look of help to her partner.

Elliot was all too quick to step in, pulling Perry away and holding him over a chair where he quickly collapsed into a blubbering mass. By the time Elliot glanced up to check his partner's condition, she was gone.

"Liv?" It took a second to locate her standing outside the waiting room, between the receptionist area and front door. "You all right?" He folded his arms and remained professional as he kept his emotions and compassion for her in check.

"I'm fine." Her nose and forehead wrinkled up in disgust as she rubbed the area of her neck where she could still feel the nearly microscopic specks of Perry's saliva on her skin from when he'd breathed on her.

Before Elliot could stop himself, a tiny grin slipped onto his lips and a thought crossed his mind. She looks so cute…

"What?" Olivia felt his eyes on her and stopped, focusing her attention back at Elliot. "Are you laughing at me?" She cocked her head to the side and hid a grin as well, losing the vexed expression she'd tried to muster up.

"Um, no." His smile melted and he shook his head to try and shake loose his previous thought. "Maybe we should talk to Karissa's doctor instead," he casually interrupted, passing by Olivia as his legs reluctantly took him back up to the receptionist.

"Okay," Olivia agreed indifferently, stifling back the familiar thought that again, Elliot was still concealing something from her.

--XXX--

"Which patient were you here about again?" Dr. Lauria ran his hand over his dark brown buzz cut and forehead, taking off the layer of sweat forming. Using his other hand, he shuffled through the four clipboards in his arms, nearly dropping them.

"Karissa Perry," Elliot irritably repeated for the third time, narrowly avoiding a nurse huffing by with a blood tray in hand. He and Olivia were ducking through the traffic in the hallway as they followed Karissa's doctor, who seemed to have a million too many thoughts and patients as he tried to get everything straight.

"When was she brought in?" He glanced his hazel eyes up long enough to turn a corner before his head snapped back down like a reflex. His loafers were obnoxiously smacking against the tile, bringing every passer-by's attention to his flipped up collar, half-untucked shirt, and white lab coat tails flailing along behind him.

"Sometime this morning," Olivia answered, hustling to keep up with the doctor. As scatter-brained as he was, he could keep a pace.

"Here it is!" Dr. Lauria cried out triumphantly as he held up a clipboard and smacked face first into an attendant who, luckily, was empty-handed. "Oh, sorry!" He backed away from the petite woman and readjusted his glasses on his ears.

"That's all right doctor," she gave a fleeting smile and walked away untouched, as if that was daily happenstance with him.

"Anyway," he glanced behind his shoulder, making sure that the detectives handed been lost in all the hustle and bustle. "She's in the comatose ward, room 5061A."

"Thank you doctor, but we weren't looking for her room," Olivia kept her politeness, glad for the rest. "We want to know how she got there."

"Oh, of course." He cleared his mind and rubbed his temple for a moment, staring at the clipboard he placed on top of the pile. "I'll take you there now." He jumped away from the wall he been leaning against and took off in the same direction they'd came. Olivia and Elliot tossed each other tired looks and rolling eyes before following him again.

"Karissa was brought in about ten o'clock this morning. She was unconscious, a blunt force trauma to the back of the head, and she had multiple other cuts and scrapes. We stabilized her and she finally woke up. She was scheduled for an MRI and CAT scan about eleven-thirty, but she never made it."

"What happened?"

The doctor sighed somewhat remorsefully as he scanned through the papers about Karissa, familiarizing himself with the case again. "A few minutes before, Mr. Perry was talking to her. He said that she was lucid enough, just tired. Then she started complaining of a headache and stiff neck. Just as he was about to call a nurse, Karissa started vomiting, which was later followed by convulsions. We got her stable again, and rushed her up for the MRI."

"What did it show?" Olivia was already jotting down notes. Though having to take them on the run, they looked more like chicken scratch than words.

"Karissa suffered from a ruptured brain aneurysm. The headache, stiff neck, vomiting, convulsions, all classic signs."

"Was it preexisting, or caused by the head trauma?" If Karissa died because of the aneurysm, they'd have to charge the perp with murder as well.

"Judging by the size of the area," he pulled an x-ray of her brain out of the folder and held it up to the light. He circled his finger around a large dark spot. "I'd say it was a direct cause of whatever she was hit on the head with. And as with most ruptured aneurysms, Karissa sustained irreversible brain damage."

"Meaning…?" Olivia wondered aloud, though not so sure if she wanted to be given an answer.

"Meaning," Dr. Lauria finally stopped at a door. He wrapped his hand around the knob and glanced at Olivia and Elliot one more time before going in. "That Karissa will be in a permanently vegetative state for the rest of her life, only being kept alive by a respirator." Leaving that last thought to settle on the minds of the detectives, he entered Karissa's room.

As Elliot and Olivia filed in, they took in the whole room, giving their eyes any excuse not to settle to the bed. The mundane, white atmosphere, bitter hospital smell, lack of anything but medical equipment, they'd seen it all before. Finally swallowing the lumps in their throats, they turned to Karissa. Just as the doctor had said, the plastic blue and white respirator was sticking out of her mouth, held by a piece of tape.

Her as good as black hair reached just below her ears, covering her deeply tanned and motionless face. There would have been a look of serenity about her had the respirator, IVs, heart rate machine, and every other medical machine not been hooked up to her, like a million strings on a puppet.

Olivia closed her eyes and cleared her throat, getting the attention of the two men next to her. "Did you perform a rape kit on her?"

Dr. Lauria raised an unsuspecting eyebrow at her, turning back to the clipboard. "No. She claimed she wasn't raped and she refused to let us examine her."

"Would it be possible to perform one on her now?" Elliot asked what he knew his partner had been thinking.

"I suppose we could," he shrugged. "But you'd have to get permission from the closest family member."

"The husband," Olivia translated, feeling Elliot's gaze land on her. Suddenly, she felt a prickling against her neck, thinking back to her last 'meeting' with Mr. Perry. Don't think about that Olivia, she ordered herself mercilessly. You have to keep the line between victim and cop. He didn't mean anything by it, just forget it and move on. She knew that if she didn't, it would only further prove to Don and everyone else that she couldn't be back at work, thoughts that she couldn't afford right now. "Let's go." She smacked her lips and plastered a distinctly forced smile across her face.

--XXX--

"You sure you want to come? I can talk to him alone if you want." Elliot ignored the boundaries he'd set for himself when it came to Olivia. He'd seen her expressions the last time they'd talked to Perry, and his concern weighed out all else.

"I can do this El," she assured him, now with a genuine smile as they walked in the direction of the waiting room, talking their leisurely time now that they were short a doctor.

"Okay, but if want, just say the word and we'll leave." He spoke with such a fervor and passion that he received a laugh from Olivia.

"Why thank you O' Lord Protector of Mine," she mock saluted him, managing to hold a serious expression while doing so. "I won't let you down." She jerked her hand out towards him and then stiffly shoved it down to her side.

"You wouldn't have lasted a day in the marines with a salute like that," he rolled his eyes insultingly, the faintest hint of a grin on his face.

"But you'd be my partner and help me, wouldn't you?" She pouted out her bottom lip and looked up, resembling one of those big-eyed Precious Moments figurines.

Elliot felt his heart skip a beat as he gazed into her deep brown eyes. Realizing he'd been quiet for too long, he joked it off. "Partner? Did I say a day? Make it an hour."

Their good moods were instantly subdued once the detectives caught sight of Perry in the waiting room. His expression had lightened somewhat, as much as one's could after their wife being raped and beaten and left to live in a coma for the rest of her life. Tears were no longer streaming down his face, but the stains were still visible.

"Mr. Perry?" Elliot stepped forward, leaving Olivia behind him, a place she made no movement to leave at first.

"Detectives," he nodded absent-mindedly, noting that he remembered them. There was an awkwardness between them as they all thought about Perry's previous actions.

"Mr. Perry," Elliot began, folding his hands in front of him.

"Call me Mitch," he interrupted him in a shaky voice, "please."

"Mitch," Elliot emotionlessly corrected himself. "We have reason to believe that your wife was raped when she was attacked." At this, his eyes merely watered and he miserably nodded, having come to terms with that already. "We'd like to perform a rape kit, to try and find any evidence that her attacker may have left behind." Elliot produced a hospital document and a pen from behind his back and held it towards the hesitant Mr. Perry. "But we need your permission."

"Okay." He accepted the paper and haphazardly scribbled his signature at the bottom.

--XXX--

"Are you sure we should do this now?" There was a minuscule amount of worry in Elliot's voice, but that's all that was needed for Olivia to hear it.

"Why not?" Was her defiant response. "We're here, he's here, and we're on our way to Warner's anyway." It had been almost four hours since they'd first arrived at the hospital. Olivia and Dr. Lauria had finally finished the rape kit on Karissa. To Olivia, it was so emotionless and so cold, she tried to push it from her thoughts. That's not to say that a conscious victim was any better, most in tears through the whole thing, but when she just laid there, like she was asleep… Olivia just shuddered slightly, focusing on the task at hand.

The doctor had found semen on Karissa, and she and Elliot knew that they had to get a DNA sample from the husband, only to exclude any that may have belonged to him. Of course, there was always the chance that he could have been the attacker, but unless he was a sociopath, the two found that really unlikely.

"Hey Mitch." Olivia greeted him for the second time today, deciding that kindness coming from a woman would be the best way to get him to participate willingly.

"Did you finish? Can I go see my wife now?" He rose right away, desperation in his eyes as he nervously rolled his hands together.

"Yes, we finished the rape kit, but I need to ask you something." Olivia stepped to her side and blocked him from the exit.

"What? Whatever it is, just as long as I can go see my wife."

The detective took a deep breath and released it before continuing. She had to be cautious with her words, knowing how sensitive this situation was. "The rape kit was positive." At his confusion, she clarified. "We found semen in your wife."

He closed his eyes and bit his lip, turning his gaze away for a moment as he sighed angrily. "Why do I have to know this?" Perry demanded of her, a typical reaction.

"Because we need a DNA sample from you, to compare to the semen we found."

"What?" His eyes widened again, though as a result of anger this time. Trying to keep that line between cop and victim, Olivia refused to show any fear or hesitation. She kept her position without movement. "You think I did this?" He growled, his face scrunching up in rage.

"No." Olivia held her hands up defensively. "We just want to-"

"I'd never touch my wife!" Without warning, he curled his fist up and sent a right hook to her face, causing her cry out. It met her jaw with a sickening thud, sending Olivia's head to the side and the force throwing her back against the wall.

Before either could react, Elliot leapt at Perry, knocking him to the ground. He shoved one of his wrists on top of the other and pulled a pair of handcuffs out. Just as he was about to slap the cold metal against his wrist, Olivia's voice paused him.

"El, stop!" She didn't physically interfere, but she yelled loud enough to pull Elliot's gaze at her. A small line a blood beaded up at the corner of her mouth, barely enough to offset the expression on her face, a mix of fear and something else Elliot couldn't read. "Let him go."

Elliot, still dazed, looked down to see Perry's figure shaking underneath him. He was sobbing and mumbling incoherently, Elliot only being able to make the word 'sorry' out.

"I'm fine El." She reached down and grabbed his arm, yanking him to his feet. "Let's go." Flashing a last look at Perry, she picked up Karissa's sexual assault kit box and walked out of the waiting room, Elliot behind her.