A/N: Didn't mean to have that much of a delay, but real life happened!
The sounds Elliot heard that roused him from his (admittedly light) sleep weren't necessarily foreign. Not anymore.
How he wished they were though.
He sat up as quickly from his place on the couch and cracked his neck, craning his ear to hear if it was just a nightmare or a full-blown terror.
Both were bad, but in his limited experience in the last few days, the second option was far worse.
Three Days Earlier: Mercy Hospital
Elliot didn't know how long he and Olivia had been holding on to one another at her bedside, openly crying. Something they hadn't done together, not really, since their run in with Gitano.
"I'm sorry," Elliot kept whispering against her hair. "I'm so so sorry."
Elliot was sorry for a lot of things. Being overseas, for one. Not being able to get to Olivia himself when she needed him.
But also he just kept thinking back to Gitano. He remembered the words he threw at her like daggers as they were walking through the precinct.
"I can't be looking over my shoulder making sure you're okay."
Yes, he could. He would, always. Even if she told him not to.
"I need to know you can do your job and not wait for me to come to your rescue."
It was a little bit rich, considering in all the years since she'd been the one to have to look over her shoulder to make sure he was okay. The animal smugglers. Dale frickin' Stuckey. His kids. His wife.
If he remembered it all, he was sure she did, too. And he wondered if she was torturing herself over it. Tormenting her own mind as to why she hadn't been quick enough, smart enough, keen enough to prevent any of it from happening.
He didn't have all the details yet, just what Tucker told him. But from that, anybody could tell it wasn't her fault. She shouldn't have had to be on guard in her own apartment, where the door hadn't been tampered with upon her arrival home and she wasn't expecting anyone to be behind a locked door.
"How did you know?" she asked, head still buried in his stomach, throat hoarse from crying, dehydration, and who knew what else.
"How'd I know what?" Elliot asked.
"To call," Olivia said. "To send Tucker."
"You didn't answer me," Elliot said. "And I knew you'd have some kind of wisecrack about me working an autograph signing for some YouTube singer."
"Why Tucker?" she asked, pulling her head back a little to look up at him.
Elliot moved to try to sit next to her on the bed, but she winced. Even though she'd just been in his arms, there was something about him being with her on the bed that unsettled her. He clocked it right away, so he dragged one of the chairs up to her bedside and sat down.
"I tried the guys first," Elliot said. "A few times. Nobody answered."
"And you thought Tucker was the next logical call?" she asked.
If Elliot was being honest with himself, he didn't know why exactly he decided to call Tucker. He could have called her building super to see if she was home. He could have called the bartender at their favorite place or the guy who owned their favorite sandwich shop. Hell, he could have called Kathy and asked her to run over to the precinct.
But he didn't. He'd been scrolling through his phone trying to decide who to call next and Tucker's number was just there. So he dialed it.
"I thought maybe he arrested you again," Elliot said, trying to keep it light. "I wanted to figure out how much collateral to put up this time."
Olivia tried to smile, but her eyes were sad.
"You didn't have to do that then," Olivia said. "You didn't have to come back now. You were working."
"Like hell I didn't," Elliot said, placing his hand, palm up on the bed for her to take if she wanted it. She did, gently.
He wanted to say more. Wanted to tell her he'd fly to frickin' Mars if he had to just to be with her. He wanted to tell her if he'd known, if he could have, he never would have left in the first place. Not the job, definitely not the country. Not anything.
Just thank God he hadn't left her. He'd thought about it, in that month he'd been on leave. When he was two sheets every day and considering eating his gun. He wondered what it would be like just to be gone permanently. Then he'd think about Eli, losing a parent that way so young. He knew what it'd done to Munch. Then he'd think of Olivia and who would watch out for her if he was gone.
There were times during that period when he tried to convince himself she was actually better off without him. He thought about taking Eli and Kathy and running away. Going somewhere overseas, letting Olivia build a life where his bad decisions didn't always come back to bite her in the ass. He thought about everything she could have if he wasn't around.
She could rise through the ranks, because the thought of leaving their partnership wouldn't be holding her back.
She could have a boyfriend, start a family, because he wouldn't be there with some nearly Pavlovian need to scare every man withing 100 feet of her away.
She could have stability, because he wouldn't be there to drag her down into the muck everytime someone with the last name Stabler had a crisis.
But in the end, he couldn't leave her. He had to leave the job, but never Olivia.
He wanted to pour all these things out to her, tell her about meeting Charles on the plane, but he didn't get the chance. Tucker was back with her meal.
"I, uh, I didn't know what you liked," Tucker said, awkwardly standing in the doorway. "But I love the beer battered fries from Maloney's Pup and their special dipping sauce. So that's what I got. And the biggest glass of raspberry tea they had."
"I love beer battered anything," Olivia said.
Elliot didn't miss how her eyes lit up when Tucker walked into the room. Or maybe it was just the sight of real food that didn't come from the hospital cafeteria.
"Enjoy it," Tucker said, before turning to leave.
"Ed," Olivia called, softly, causing him to turn around. "Stay."
She motioned for Tucker to take the seat on the other side of her bed. He hesitated at first before striding over and sitting down.
Elliot had to try to quench the heat spreading through his veins. It wasn't a new feeling. He was always jealous when Olivia looked at another man as anything but a perp. But this was Tucker. Head of the Rat Squad. The man who put her in jail.
And the man he called to save Olivia's life (althought Elliot hadn't known that would be the case at the time). Which he'd done.
"Would you like a few?" Olivia said, opening the fry container.
Elliot opened his mouth to tell her no, that she should eat up and try to regain some of her strength, but the words died on his lips when he realized Olivia wasn't even looking in his direction. She was holding the container out to Tucker, and smiling at him.
"I got them for you," Tucker said. "You've got to be hungry."
"I don't know if I'll be able to eat them all," Olivia said. "Just one? You can't pass up the dipping sauce."
Tucker smiled back at Olivia and reached into the container, grabbing a fry and dunking the end into the sauce container before popping it in his mouth.
"Rest are yours," Tucker said.
"You'll finish them if I can't?" she asked.
"Sure," Tucker said. "Whatever you need."
Elliot had felt like an outsider. He was so used to being Olivia's right-hand man. The one she shared her food with. The one she shared those looks with.
He wondered if this was the kind of thing people saw on them for years. Because if so, it looked an awful lot like flirting. And something deep in Elliot's gut twisted because it looked like just a little more than that.
The urge to scowl was there. To huff or make a sarcastic comment and shut it all down. But Tucker's words from earlier still rattled around in his head.
"Think about her for a change," he'd said. "What do you think she wants."
So Elliot said nothing. It was difficult. He could feel his blood pressure rising, but this was about Olivia. Not about him. So he kept his hand palm up on the bed, and she eventually took it again. The three of them settled in to watch some bad sitcom on the hospital television while she ate, and afterwards when she was getting sleepy, Tucker bid them all goodnight, and went home.
Olivia had to stay overnight for observation and Elliot insisted on staying with her.
"He's dead, El," Olivia said. "He can't hurt me anymore."
"Maybe not," Elliot said. "But I'd still like to stay all the same."
"Visiting hours are over," she said.
"And I was very nice to your floor nurse," Elliot said. "As long as I don't get in their way if they come to check on your overnight, I can stay."
Olivia had agreed and nodded off while Elliot watched a playoff hockey game. The third period was just wrapping up when he felt her start to move around. Then the movement turned into pained moans, which turned into shouting. It brought nurses running and Elliot jumping up, trying to wake her.
"Liv," he called trying to shake her shoulders. "Liv, it's me. It's El. You're dreaming. Wake up."
She was shouting unintelligible things and flailing, almost yanking out her IVs.
"Liv, baby, listen to me," Elliot said. "I'm here. Just wake up. Come back to me."
Elliot leaned forward, sitting on the bed trying to calm her.
"STAY AWAY FROM ME," Olivia shouted, her eyes popping open.
When she noticed Elliot on the bed she pushed him off.
"Not on the bed," she said as she shoved. "Never on the bed, please, no."
"Okay, Liv, okay," Elliot said, climbing off. "You're in the hospital. You're safe. I'm here."
She'd had a glassy look in her eyes when she woke up, and she stayed that way for a little over an hour. She'd pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped herself in the sheet, like she was trying to shield herself from the outside world. Eventually, she'd come to and apologize to Elliot, which he assured her she didn't need to do.
But it seemed like that was just the beginning of her battles with sleep.
Present Day
Olivia had only been staying at Elliot's apartment for two nights, but he was on edge every time he heard her make a noise in her sleep. He'd given her his room, opting to move to the couch for however long it took for her to heal up and look for a new place.
His boss hadn't been too happy about his running off from Italy, but seemed to accept the excuse of a family emergency. He'd given Elliot the equivalent of a desk duty assignment while Olivia healed so he could be home with her. That meant spending a lot of time on his phone and laptop in the apartment scheduling jobs and talking with clients. And it was a hell of a lot of paperwork. But Olivia was worth it.
Anytime he got too close to the bed while she was in it, her eyes would go wide and her breathing would quicken.
He knew there was something she wasn't telling him, but he didn't want to push too hard. It hadn't even been a week since her attack yet.
But it did make handling these nighttime situations a bit difficult. When he moved out of the family home in Queens he bought himself a big King Sized bed. A little splurge, a lot of room to move around. But Olivia seemed to have a penchant for sleeping right in the middle of it, and to get to her to try to wake her up he had to at least be leaning on the bed. Which always seemed to cause her more stress upon returning to the waking world.
He was tired and frustrated. And Elliot had half a mind to go over to Potter's Field, dig up William Lewis and shoot him again, just to get the satisfaction for himself.
The past few nights, Elliot had been staying in the room with her after the terrors happened. He'd lean against the wall to the side of the bed, feet stretched out in front of him, staring up at Olivia while she tried to soothe herself. It hurt because all he wanted to do was climb up there and hold her.
Tonight, he decided maybe he would do just that and see how she reacted.
When he finally made it to the bedroom, she was already up, sitting in the middle, knees to chest head bowed overtop of them.
"Liv?" he said, nudging the door open.
"Sorry I woke you," she mumbled.
"I wasn't really asleep yet anyway," he said, coming to stand at the side of the bed.
He flipped the bedside table on and Olivia didn't react. That was a good sign.
Slowly, he tried to ease onto the bed.
"Not on the bed," she said, her voice wavering in panic.
"Olivia, what happened with you and Lewis and a bed?" Elliot asked.
The rape kit didn't show any signs of that kind of assault, but something happened. Her behavior told him more than some medical exam could.
"Nothing," she said.
"Liv, I want to help you," Elliot said calmly. "I want to be here for you, for whatever you need. But I don't know what to do."
"You weren't here for me," she muttered.
She said it into her knees, but he heard it and it stung.
"No," Elliot said. "I wasn't here when you needed me. But I am here now and I just want to help. I'll do whatever you need. Get you whatever you need. Even if you don't know right now. Even if it's something silly. I just… I want to help you Liv. Really, I do."
That got her to look at him. Her eyes weren't glassy but they were wide.
"Anything?" she asked.
"Anything at all," Elliot said. "Whatever you need to feel better."
"I want Ed," Olivia said in almost a whisper.
"Ed as in Tucker?" Elliot said, confused.
"Yes," she said.
"You want me to call him?" Elliot asked, still not quite understanding where the request was coming from.
"I want him here," she said. "I want to see him."
Elliot looked skyward and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was two in the morning and Olivia was summoning Ed Tucker to his apartment after a nightmare.
The Lord was most definitely testing him.
But one more look at Olivia, he knew he wasn't going to deny her anything. Not now. Especially not after this.
"I'll call him," Elliot said. "My phone is plugged in out in the other room. I'll be back in a minute."
And for the second time in a week, Elliot heard an annoyed, gruff voice on the other end of the line.
"Do you have any idea what the hell time it is?" Tucker said.
"Yeah," Elliot said. "But it's Liv."
"Everything alright?" Tucker asked, his voice softening.
"She woke up from a nightmare and asked for you," Elliot said. "Think you can stop over to my place. I'll send you the address."
"Give me twenty," Tucker said. "I'll be there."
Tucker texted when he arrived rather than knocking on the door. Elliot led him to Olivia who was still sitting in the middle of the bed.
"Hi, Olivia," Tucker said from the doorway.
Elliot's stomach sunk when he saw her smile at Tucker's voice.
"Got something you want to talk about?" Tucker asked and Olivia nodded.
Time seemed to stop as Elliot watched Tucker walk towards the bed–his bed, with Olivia in it, one they hadn't shared yet– and kick off his shoes, then slowly he slid onto the mattress and wrapped an arm around Olivia's shoulders. She put her head on his shoulder and let out a content sigh.
Elliot couldn't help it. The rage was bubbling inside him and he had to leave the room.
He went back into the living room and started to pace. Every nerve ending tingled. His jaw clenched so tight his teeth hurt.
Elliot had been shot, blown up, blinded, stabbed, tripped, chased, sucker-punched, and cold-cocked (many of those things at the hands of FBI Agent Dana Lewis). But nothing had ever hurt quite like seeing Olivia recoil from him and run into the arms of Ed Tucker.
Knowing she wasn't alone, Elliot slipped out the window onto the fire escape and took the steps two at a time to the roof. Once he was finally up there alone, he punched the heating vent as hard as he could. It hurt, and would probably hurt even worse tomorrow. But after what he saw taking place in his bedroom, a few fractured knuckles were nothing.