A/N: I'm back with your daily dose of chaos. Elliot fans, I bet you'll like this chapter.
Elliot felt like there was lava running through his veins. He kept his hands on his knees, clutching at them, desperately trying not to form a fist, or do anything that she could perceive as a threat.
Olivia had been nervous, and timid with him when they sat down on the couch together.
"I think there are a few things I need to explain to you," she said, her voice shaking slightly.
It hurt that she called for Tucker, wanted him close, and she was keeping Elliot at arm's length. But after she began to tell her story, eyes shut tight, head slightly bowed, he guessed he could understand why. A little. If he rationalized it like she was a victim.
But she wasn't a victim. She was a survivor.
"He was all over me on the bed," Olivia whispered. "I couldn't… through the drugs, I just couldn't fight him off. Even though that's what he wanted anyway."
Elliot could feel his blood pressure rising with each word. And one of the only thoughts running through his mind was, "how dare he."
How dare William Lewis do that to Olivia in her own home. Her own bed. She wasn't his to claim. She wasn't anybody's to claim. How dare he use things she bought for pleasure to cause her pain. How dare he take away her sense of safety and security.
How dare William Lewis find a way to come between the two of them?
"You weren't there, Elliot," she continued. "I wished you were, but I'm glad you weren't. I didn't want you to see me that way. To see what he'd done. But now every time I feel someone else's weight on the bed it just comes back to me."
He wanted to bring up that she let Tucker crawl in right beside her. But Tucker's words were still there in his mind.
"Think about what she needs."
So he didn't.
But they were still so in sync, it was like Olivia knew.
"Tucker saw it all," Olivia said. "Well, not all of it. Not that. But he rescued me. He saw William Lewis. He ended William Lewis. He already has a reason to think differently of me now. But I guess I was just hoping… if I never had to associate you with Lewis… that somehow I could stay the same in your eyes."
"Olivia," he said gently, but she didn't move. "Look at me, please."
She shook her head no.
"Just for a second," Elliot coaxed. Normally he might lift her chin, but he knew telling him these things had been hard for her. He didn't want to do anything to upset her.
Slowly, Olivia lifted her head, opened her eyes, and bit her lip.
"You cannot possibly think that I would think less of you after this," Elliot said, doing his best to keep the hatred he had for William Lewis out of his voice. "You really have no idea how much I admire you, do you? How strong and resilient I think you are? How you can be the toughest badass one second and the most caring nurturer the next? You have to know somewhere inside of you that no matter what you told me those things would never ever change."
"You weren't there to look over your shoulder at me," Olivia whispered, her eyes boring into his. "And I wasn't able to do my job."
Elliot felt the air leave his lungs. He'd thought about that exchange numerous times over the last few days. He knew she would remember it. He knew she would blame him, blame herself for the way it all transpired.
"It didn't happen on the job, Liv," Elliot said. "He broke into your apartment somehow."
"I still wasn't able to protect myself," she said. "I hesitated. I didn't pull my gun. Who else would have been in my apartment, Elliot?"
"Me, maybe," he said. "I have a key. Maybe I'd come back early and come over to surprise you. I know you gave your neighbor Mrs. Carston a key for emergencies because she's in her 90s and she gets lonely from time to time. You said he didn't tamper with the door. It was locked when you got home. How were you supposed to think it was a perp?"
"I should have done more," she said. "You were right all those years ago."
"No, I wasn't," Elliot said. "Olivia, I said that out of fear. Gitano scared me. He could have killed you. I could have lost you."
"I almost lost you too," she said. "But the difference is, I didn't think any differently of you because of it. You thought of me differently after Gitano and all he was able to do was knick me with a knife. What Lewis did was far, far worse. And now I'm no better than my mother."
"Olivia, I know that's what your brain is telling you right now because you're still processing everything," Elliot said. "But none of it is true. I didn't think any differently of you after Gitano. I was scared."
"Scared of what?" Olivia snapped. "Scared I wasn't going to have your back? Scared that I was going to let you down, be a pile of paperwork you had to fill out because I couldn't do my job the right way?"
"I was scared because I realized how much I loved you," Elliot yelled, his anger finally boiling over.
Truthfully, he hadn't even realized he'd said it until he registered the look of utter shock on her face.
"Excuse me?" Olivia asked, her voice suddenly sounding scratchy like her throat was dry.
The way Elliot saw it, he had two options at this point. He could run out her front door like a coward, the way he walked out of the hospital after they rescued Rebecca Clifford because he was on the verge of saying those same words seven years earlier. Or, he could finally face what he'd been trying to hide from her for seven years. Okay, 16 if he was being honest with himself.
"I said I was scared because what Gitano did made me realize how much I loved you," Elliot said, clutching at his knees again. "You could have died, Olivia. On a sticky, dirty bus station floor and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop it. I was angry at myself because loving you got Ryan killed, but I didn't care about it as much as I should have because I was too busy breathing a sigh of relief that you were okay. And it scared me to death. I was separated. Most of the kids were mad at me. I told you the truth back then. You and the job were the only things I had left. I couldn't lose you."
Olivia swallowed thickly.
"I always thought when you said that, you meant you didn't want to lose your job because you had to look out for me," she said.
"The job came and went Liv," Elliot said. "It was you I couldn't lose. Hell, I left SVU two years ago. And while I became a lush and Kathy had to force me to pull my head out of my ass, I knew once I sobered up that I could never lose you. And Lewis, just like Gitano, almost took you away from me. So if you think what you told me tonight is going to change anything, you're wrong. You're so very wrong."
Elliot studied her face, trying to understand what she was feeling. Tears were pooling in the corners of her eyes.
"I don't deserve…" she started. But Elliot wouldn't let her finish.
"You do deserve someone to love you, Liv," he said. "What happened doesn't change that. You have to heal. But someday you're going to realize what I'm saying is true. I promise you."
"I just feel so… empty," Olivia admitted.
"You know that's okay, right?" Elliot said. "It hasn't even been a week. Nobody expects you to snap back immediately. Especially not me."
"I know you hate Tucker," Olivia said. "But he was good to me. When you weren't there."
It stung again. The realization that he hadn't been the one to bust in and save the day.
"When I asked for you when they were doing the rape kit, he could have left," Olivia said. "But he didn't. He stayed with me. He told me an embarrassing story about himself to get my mind off the exam. He makes me feel safe, El."
Elliot didn't know how painful it could feel to hear the woman you love tell you that the things you wanted to give to her, someone else was already doing them.
"I want to be a safe person for you too, Liv," he said. "I'm trying to be good here. Really, I am. I just don't want to do anything that's going to cause you more pain. When you wake up at night with bad dreams I want to climb into bed and hold you and let you know it's going to be okay. But it scares you."
Olivia sighed. He knew he shouldn't have said that because it was just going to weigh on her mind. She reached up and pulled at a lock of her hair. It was longer than he'd ever seen it, and he noticed in the few days they'd been home from the hospital that she'd been fidgeting with it.
"Lewis, he kept pulling my hair when he had me tied up in the chair," she said. "I loved that it was getting so long, and now it's just another reminder of him."
Anyone else might have missed it, but he saw the way she shivered a bit as she talked about it, remembering where Lewis' hands were.
That gave Elliot an idea of how to help her feel less empty, more like herself.
"Let's cut it," Elliot said.
"What?" Olivia said.
"Let's cut your hair. Tonight, right now. We'll go to the bathroom and you can just… chop it," Elliot said. "I've heard Lizzie say something to the effect of if you want to change your life, change your hair. So give yourself a fresh start."
Elliot rose from the couch and extended his hand to her. She looked at him skeptical but took it and he led her to the bathroom.
When they got there, he pulled out a towel to put at her feet in front of the sink to catch the hair. He found a comb and a pair of scissors and handed them to her. Olivia stood there for a moment, scissors in hand, tears in her eyes once again as she stared at her bruised reflection in the mirror. She lifted a chunk of hair, opened the scissors, then froze before shutting them again.
"El, I don't know what I'm doing," she said. "This is going to look ridiculous."
"No it wont," he said. "Anything has to be better than that pixie cut you had in the early 2000s."
That got her to snort.
"I thought you liked my short hair," she said.
"I'd love you even if you were bald," he said. "Really."
"Yeah, well I wouldn't love you if you were bald," she said. "But judging by your hairline it shouldn't be too long now."
"Ouch," Elliot said, faking his hurt. But he was glad some of her sense of humor was coming back.
"Okay, maybe if you have a beard, too," she said. "That could be… interesting."
"I'll try anything you want," he said. "But let's not rush it."
She looked a little lighter when she turned back to the mirror, but she hesitated with the scissors again.
"El," she said, softly. "Would you do this for me?"
His eyes went wide.
"Are you sure?" Elliot said. "If you don't know what you're doing, well, I really don't know what I'm doing. And you said the memories of Lewis touching your hair aren't good."
"He's already taken enough from me," Olivia said. "I want to trust you. I want you to know that I trust you."
She turned and held the scissors out to him. It was a big gesture and he knew it. Now all he had to do was make sure he didn't screw it up.
Slowly, he took the scissors from her and ran his hands through her hair to gather the long layers behind her ears. He felt her flinch but pressed on.
"I've got you, Liv," Elliot said. "You can trust me. I just hope you don't hate me when you see what it looks like when I'm done."
She chuckled slightly. Then he took a deep breath and made the first cut.
About half an hour later, Olivia was the proud new owner of a semi-symmetrical chin-length bob.
"Well, what do you think," Elliot asked, placing the scissors on the vanity and watching her eyes in the mirror.
Olivia turned her head from side to side, scrutinizing his work.
"I think if the private security thing falls through you can open Elliot's Barber Shop to make some quick cash," she said.
"So you don't hate it?" he asked.
"I actually have an appointment for color next week," she admitted. "So I'll probably ask my hairdresser to fix it up just a bit. But this will get me through until then. And make some of the bad memories go away."
"I'm glad," Elliot said, gathering the towel and shaking the hair into the trash can next to the toilet before tossing it in the dirty hamper.
Olivia was biting her lip again, leaning back with her hands on the sink.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I don't want Lewis to control me forever," Olivia said.
"He won't," Elliot said. "It'll just take time."
She let out a deep breath.
"I don't want to sleep alone tonight," she said. "I don't want to have to call Tucker again to come to talk me through a nightmare."
"Okay," Elliot said. "Do you want the couch? I can sleep in the recliner."
"No," Olivia said. "That's silly when you have a king-sized bed."
It took a second, but Elliot got what she meant.
"Liv, there's no need to rush this, rush your healing," he said. "Just because I said a few things earlier…"
But she cut him off by grabbing his hand.
"I trust you, El. I do," she said. "If I can let Tucker in, well, I want to try to do the same for you. Since you think you're in love with me or whatever."
"Not think, Liv," he said. "I know."
She just nodded at him, and pushed down the light switch, plunging the bathroom into darkness as she pulled him across the hall into his own bedroom. The bedside lamp was still on, and it illuminated the nerves etched into her features.
"We don't have to do this," Elliot said. "You don't have to do this. You're in control. Just say the word and I'm back to the couch."
She puffed out a long breath.
"I want you to get in first, get comfortable as you'd normally sleep," she said.
Elliot was going to protest again, but now she was wearing her determined face. He'd seen it aimed at perps and tough cases many times. She was going to face this head-on.
So he climbed to his typical side of the bed, fluffed up the pillow, and slid under the sheet, laying on his back and stretching an arm out. Olivia made her way to the other side, flicked off the bedside lamp, and slid in too. Her breathing was a bit shallow as she settled in. With a bed so big there was tons of space between them, but Elliot wouldn't dare move closer. Not unless she invited him.
It took about 10 minutes, but eventually, Olivia scooted herself to the middle of the bed, so the tips of his fingers brushed her shoulder.
"El, can you slide over," she asked. "Closer. Can I… I think I want your arm…"
"Move me where you want me, Liv," Elliot said. "You are in control. You make the decisions."
He felt Olivia tug him closer to the center, gently. She didn't move his position, just his location. When he was close enough to feel her breath over top of him, she slid down further under the covers. She laid down over his outstretched arm and put her head where his shoulder met his chest. If he tilted his head down, her new haircut would tickle his nose.
She felt around his stomach for a few moments until she found his other hand. She clasped it in hers and pulled both up to rest on the other side of his chest. Then she let out a big sigh.
"I think this might work," she said. "But if I have another nightmare, I might wake up and not realize you're you."
"We'll deal with that later if we have to, okay?" Elliot said. "Are you sure you're comfortable with this?"
"You're not overtop of me," she said. "And you don't smell like him. You smell like you. It's relaxing."
"Good," Elliot said.
He went to move the arm she was laying over to run a hand up her spine, but he stopped short.
"Can I touch your back?" Elliot asked. "Or is that too much."
"I think that'll be okay," she said, and he tentatively started tracing lines up her back with his fingertips over her big t-shirt."
"Get some sleep, Liv," he said.
"Thank you, El," she whispered. "And just so you know, Gitano scared me too. For the same reason."
He wanted to say more. He wanted to have a long conversation about what that implication meant. But they were sharing a bed. She was working on rebuilding her trust in him and her faith in herself. She didn't have to say that she loved him back yet. They didn't have to talk it to death. It didn't matter who saved her.
All that mattered was that they were together now, and nothing was strong enough to break up Benson and Stabler. Not Gitano. Not Stuckey. Not Tucker.
And sure as hell, not William Lewis.