Hello! I am being pressured to post this ASAP by some people who will remain unnamed (they know who they are) so I will cut right to the chase. But first! I have two things to share. One- there is an AMAZING Those Graces 'trailer' vid up on youtube that is absolutely worth watching ten million times. I hate that I can't link here, but if you search for Amanda Copeland on youtube, you will find it there. She made it as a surprise for me and I was so happy I cried- so go watch it and enjoy! Also, cheertennis12 wrote another TG spinoff one shot- it's the last chapter, aka chapter 46, written from Amanda's POV and it is phenomenal. I might've cried when I read it. (I cry a lot, I guess).

A/N: this chapter picks up right where the last one left off, although I think it's less emotionally painful than the last one. The only real warning is for a discussion of the 'brunch incident' in chapter 42 between elliot and olivia, which some may find semi-disturbing. Title and quotes from photograph by ed sheeran, other quotes from rattlesnakes by lloyd cole and boys of summer by don henley.

{Jodie never sleeps cause there are always needles in the hay}

"So then, when I get to work the next morning-"

Dr. Christiansen holds up her hand, looking surprised. "You went back to work the next day after all that?"

"Yeah." When you see her sympathetic expression, you shrug. "I'm in charge. I have to be. If I'm not there, everything falls apart."

"I don't doubt that you're needed- but you're not there now and they're managing, right?"

"God, I hope so." You can't even remember the last time you saw your phone- you think Brian must have confiscated it for safekeeping. Or was it lying at the bottom of a stairwell in a million shattered pieces, an unfortunate victim of your latest little 'accident'? If only you knew.

"I'm not trying to worry you by saying that. The point I'm trying to make is, your own well being has to come first. Otherwise..."

"I end up where I am now." You pause for a moment, taking another look out the window. The snow has all but stopped coming down, and yet the fog that settled over the city seems to be refusing to lift. "But it's something I need. It keeps me sane, in a way...well, it used to. When I first came back, it meant a lot to have something familiar in my life again. And now, I don't have that same familiarity...but it gets me out of my head, you know? Gets me out of the fucking house. They made me take most of December off leading up to the trial and it felt like...he's the one who's supposed to be in jail. Not me."

"But he still is, right? He'll be there for life. You're the one who has power over their future, not him."

"And yet he ends up getting what he wants! He's a celebrity now. I found out through the grapevine...he gets more mail than anyone else at Rikers. It's like he has a fucking fan club. He's got total strangers wanting to marry him- watch, he'll get married before I ever do. So yeah, he's locked up- but he's getting more attention than he's ever had in his life and I know he must be loving every second of it. Meanwhile, I'm...I don't venture out much past places in our neighborhood. They know me there, they leave me alone. Beyond that- I get too afraid of being recognized."

"Has it happened often?"

"The funny thing is, not so much at first. It wasn't until there was all this pretrial publicity...and then suddenly it feels like everyone knows your face. You learn it so quickly, the look people give you when they figure out who you are." You laugh softly to yourself. "At least when you have a badge and a gun, generally no one's going to say anything. Not to your face, anyway."

"Do people actually try and talk to you about it?"

"I'm sure they would if I let them. If someone says 'hey, aren't you', I'll walk away, doesn't matter what I'm doing...I've had a few total strangers just tell me 'you should've killed him'. I know Brian's had that happen too and I...God, I just hate that more than when people bother me. Leave him out of it. But I guess...in a way, it's better than seeing people look right at you and then lean over and say something to the person next to them. It makes me wanna scream. You don't know me, okay, no matter what you've seen on TV or what you think you know...even the people I'm closest to. They have no idea and frankly? That's how I want it to stay."

{she tries her luck with the traffic police
out of boredom more than spite
she never finds no trouble she tries too hard
she's obvious despite herself}

Two days earlier

When you got the call saying you could finally rescue Claire from the swamps of Jersey, your first step was deciding who to bring with you on this excursion. You had zero desire to go on a road trip with Amanda, but you also didn't think it was such a wise move to leave her at the house by herself, lest she turn your office into a card room or invite whatever sketchy guy she's banging now in for a private tour.

In the end, what it came down to is- Fin knows too much. He knows you too well, knows something's wrong, but he also knows it'll backfire if he brings it up here in the squad room where you have an image to maintain. Once you're alone in the car together, though, you know he'll say something, and the only thing worse than lying to him would be telling him the truth. He always sees right through your bullshit, and at this point you're pretty sure that even the tiniest crack in your armor would have the potential to rip you apart completely. So Amanda it is.

She looks suspicious about being chosen for this assignment, like you might be trying to separate her from the herd so that you can devour her at your leisure. "You have a good rapport with Claire," you explain, and she shrugs as if to say she's not going to fall for your compliment trap, but she'll come along anyway.

Once you're in the car, she's slumped down in the passenger seat with her sunglasses on, staring out the window like a surly teen being dragged to a family reunion. She looks like she had a late night (but with who? You know it couldn't be Nick this time) and doesn't want to expend the energy needed to do anything beyond sipping at her coffee. Fine by you. The beer you started off your morning with- an old Benson family hangover remedy- kept the nausea at bay until 10 AM on the dot, at which time you made it to the bathroom before you could throw up on Fin's shoe again. Praise the Lord for small miracles. Your headache, though, was anything but small. You felt like your head was trapped in a vise, just like you were trapped in this hot stuffy oven of a car. Your palms were so sweaty that it was getting tough to hold onto the steering wheel, and you would've turned the air conditioner on or rolled the window down if it wasn't for the inevitable bitching from Amanda. She actually looks cold. The nerve of some people.

"Hey. Liv?"

"Hmm." You can feel beads of sweat trailing down your spine and the sensation just seems to make you start shaking even more.

"Do you want me to drive? No offense, but you don't look so hot."

"If I wanted you to, I would've asked."

"Oookay then." You're not sure what exactly, but something in your terse reply must've screamed 'Don't give up, Rollins, this is your lucky day!', because the next thing you know she's saying "I know that...we haven't always been the best of friends."

"Uh-huh. And?"

You have to give her credit here, she's not gonna let you shut her down. "And I know that in the past I might've said some things I shouldn't have. But...I just want you to know, if there's ever anything I can do, if you ever need someone to talk to-"

"Oh, so what, you can go running back to Nick and compare notes? Cause that's a really nice offer, but I'm good. And no matter what he tells you- I already have a shrink, remember? I don't need your 'help'."

"Liv..." She fidgets silently with her empty cup for so long that you assume she's given up. "The other day at the hospital. I dunno, maybe I shouldn't have, but I saw you-"

"You were following me?"

"I went looking for you," she corrects. "I didn't feel right about leaving you by yourself. And anyway, I found you."

God is real, and you know this because it was only divine intervention that kept you from slamming on your brakes in the middle of the highway when you heard this news. "So then you did what, stood there and stared at me?"

"Are you kidding? No, of course not. I went back to Avery's room- what?" she asks, seeing the way you're looking at her out of the corner of your eye. "C'mon. I knew you didn't...you weren't gonna talk to me. Which is fine. I thought about calling someone else so you wouldn't be alone but I didn't-"

"Who did you tell?!" you shout, voice reverberating off the driver's side window as you imagine how you must have looked to an outside observer at that moment. What exactly did she see? How much did she see?

"Liv, I didn't tell anyone. And I won't, okay, if-"

"Whatever it is you thought you saw," you say, trying to sound as haughty yet threatening as you possibly can while your eyes are watering over, "you're taking things out of context. So before you call Nick-"

"I told you, I haven't. This can stay between us if-"

"Oh christ, c'mon, like you're not going to use it as a bribe to get another story out of him about me fucking Elliot? And don't say you have no idea what I'm talking about, because I heard you asking Nick. I'm sure you think that's just fucking hilarious, right?"

"No."

Her quiet, terse answer shocks you out of your tirade, and you drive silently for a couple miles. Not only did sobering up make your head hurt, but it also made you more acutely aware of the pain radiating from the new burns on your arms. You had managed a halfassed attempt at cleaning them off last night, but you still wonder if the tenderness that makes even your softest sweater feel like sandpaper is a sign of infection or just a side effect of your skin coming in contact with open flame. Had it really hurt this much before or are you just not as strong as you used to be? Or had the pain from being burned back then just been overshadowed by the pain of- "He didn't rape me."

Amanda is confused by your sudden non-sequitur. "Oh. Okay..."

"He didn't," you repeat harshly, as if she was arguing the point with you. You're still not sure what she might have heard, what she might think, and though you didn't planning on putting it quite that bluntly until the words were already out of your mouth, well. She needed to know.

"It's okay. I believe you."

For some reason her sincere answer only serves to aggravate you even more. You almost want her to get in your face, to start yelling about how you're a liar and no one believes you, no one ever believed you, not even when you still believed it yourself. "You know why he didn't? Because he was afraid of me. I scared him shitless." She nods but says nothing. "All the other women that he did rape? It's because they were weak. Easy targets. They couldn't protect themselves but I could, and he didn't know what the hell to do with someone who actually fought back."

You expect her to ask why you're telling her all this, because right now you're asking yourself the same question. You're basically begging her to call you out on your bullshit at this point, seeing as how she knows damn well what 'aggravated sexual assault' means and it sure as hell doesn't lend much credence to your claim that he was terrified of you. But when you look over at her, wondering why she hasn't said anything, you see a tear make its way down her cheek from behind her dark glasses.

Both of you are silent for the rest of the drive.

{it's so hard to love when love was your great disappointment}

Hours later

Finally. Time to get the fuck out of Jersey.

As you were about to leave the hospital, Amanda made some excuse about how you could go on back to the city without her, that she was going to go visit some nearby 'friend' while she was in the area, and then promptly disappeared. There wasn't a single part of that statement that didn't sound shady as hell, and you knew you should probably be concerned, but you also knew when to mind your own fucking business. Unlike some people.

So here you are, literally just a few dozen feet away from the hospital doors (and freedom) when you round a corner and run right smack into another woman.

You recognize the voice before you even get a good look at her. "Oh great, you're here. Of course. This is just great."

"Kathy?"

"Yes? Are you surprised?" She looks like she was hit by a bus and then didn't sleep for weeks, and you know she's probably thinking the same thing about you. "How did you even- who told you to come here?"

"What? I was with a vic, I- why are you here? Is there some sort of problem I'm supposed to know about?"

"You tell me!" she says with her hands on her hips, imitating your snide tone. "All I know is, I'm trying to get dinner on the table for my son when I get a call telling me my asshole husband's here because he got into a bar fight with someone half his age! Because apparently, narrowly escaping one assault charge this winter isn't enough for him."

You get the distinct impression that she thinks both incidents were your fault. How surprising. "Kathy- oh my god. I had no idea that...is he okay?"

"He'll be fine. If I'm lucky, maybe the blow to the head will knock some sense into him." She laughs, and you can tell she's getting punchy. "He won't talk to me, can you believe that? What am I saying, of course you can."

The hospital corridor is getting noisy. A man at the pharmacy counter behind you loudly demands to know if his prescription "is a Class II narcotic? No? Why the hell not? Can I have one?"

You feel his pain. After suggesting to Kathy that maybe you should go somewhere quieter, you pass by a door marked 'CHAPEL' and despite not being an especially religious person, you have the sudden urge to run inside yelling 'Sanctuary!' to see if that really works. Too bad you're pretty sure you'd burst into flames before you could even get through the doorway. "Kathy, I'm...I don't know what to say."

"Yeah, I guess he doesn't either, because I haven't heard from him since a couple days after he called to tell me he was with Frank."

Somewhere in the distance, you can hear a woman start to play Right Here Waiting on the lobby piano for the third time in a row. You're convinced this must be what hell is like. "I still haven't been in contact with him, not since the day we were at your house," and 'in contact' is certainly a nice way to put it, how he fucked you hard and fast up against the wall of their garage, "or I would've said something to you."

"Oh, I'm sure you would."

"Excuse me? I had nothing to do with this, honestly- right here, what you've told me, that's all I know. I didn't come here to...to do anything," you say, shrugging a little helplessly. You've been a cop for decades, you're used to being blamed for things you had no control over, but this is a new one. And yet still, somewhere in the midst of the confusion and alcohol deprivation, your heart starts beating a little faster at the thought that Elliot's actually in this very building, breathing the same oxygen that you are after all this time apart.

"You never do, right?" She sighs loudly, and again you see it- she's exhausted. "Olivia. I like you. I really do. And I feel like I've been very patient over the years. Wouldn't you say so?"

"Um...yes, definitely." Was that the right answer? This feels like a trap.

"Good. Because you and Elliot- you have a bond. I get that. It's why I never agreed with him deciding to cut ties with you. It's why I wanted him to get in touch with you after your. Ah. Incident. And I understand that...I can't even imagine what you've been through. What you're going through. So again- I've tried to be patient, in light of all that. But my God, Olivia!"

"Kathy, I swear-"

"No. Stop. I don't need to hear it- I don't want to hear it. We're both adults, so let's just be honest. We both know you've been sleeping with my husband." A man walking past you overhears this and turns back around, shaking his head at you sadly. You stare right back at him for a few seconds before he takes the hint and keeps moving. Now if only Kathy would get the hint that this is not the day/month/decade/lifetime to have this conversation with you- but your finely honed detective skills are telling you that she's not going to be overly sympathetic. "Like I said- I don't want to hear it, so I'm not going to ask. But I will tell you, whatever it is...it's over. I'm asking you very nicely to end it and leave him, us, alone."

"It's done!" you bark abruptly at her, because even though you and Elliot never officially declared it so, it was pretty much finished from the second he saw the tears brimming in your eyes in that dingy garage. Maybe you could've salvaged it right then, but you didn't. You ran. You ran and then he did, and now too much time has passed and too much has happened in the interim for there to be anything left that's worth saving.

But God, how you miss him.

"It's done," you repeat, quiet and resigned this time. "We're not in contact, and-"

"And how long's that gonna last? Should I even bother getting my hopes up that he'll move back in when I know it's just a matter of time before you show up again? He won't even talk to the kids, Olivia, not even Eli. Kathleen has tried, but...do you understand how hard this has been on everyone? Eli cries every single day when I drop him off at school because he's scared I won't be there when he comes home. He asked Kathleen last week why Daddy hates him. You know how close he and El have always been, and now..."

"I'm sorry, Kathy, I...I didn't know he was going to do that. I never would've wanted him to and...I promise you I had nothing to do with this," and you choke on the words because they're all a lie, as much of a lie as anything you told Amanda earlier. If it wasn't for you, wasn't for him thinking that he had hurt you to an unforgivable degree- none of this would've happened.

She doesn't seem to be listening, looking off at something in the distance while running her hands through her hair in frustration. "We were doing so well. Better than we have in a long, long time. Until you..." She sighs loudly, and if you weren't struggling so much not to lose it completely you might've said something about how the last eight months haven't been that great for you either. "I don't know what you think is going on, okay, I don't know what bullshit he's been giving you but let's get this straight- he's not in love with you. And I'm not sure what this is...if it's some midlife crisis, if this is his way of trying to deal with feeling guilty about everything that happened...whatever. I don't know and I don't care, but if you're under the impression that whatever you had was more than sex- it wasn't. No matter what he might've told you. So please, please. You have a boyfriend, you have other people now so there's no reason why you can't leave El- leave all of us- alone and let us try and live our lives in some kind of peace."

By the time you even begin thinking about what to say in response, she's already walking away. "Are you...?"

"I have a six year old at home who won't go to sleep until I'm there, I don't have time to hang around and wait on that son of a bitch to decide whether or not to get his shit together. Goodnight, Olivia."

She walks away and all you hear is the squeaking of her shoes on the wet floor and he doesn't love you echoing in your head.

{little voice inside my head said
'don't look back you can never look back'}

Present day

You shift uncomfortably on the doctor's couch, wincing when you accidentally bump your injured elbow against the armrest. "I didn't know what to do. I swear to God, I probably stood there for ten minutes afterward just because I was so shocked and angry and...jesus, I was mad."

"At her?" Dr. Christiansen asks.

"At him! His problem was with me, not them and...I know how this is going to sound, but I really do honestly care about his family. Especially his kids. And I guess for a while I actually believed that he and I could keep...this...separate from them. I don't know what I was thinking. Just like I don't know why I thought it'd be a good idea to go see him right then." You tilt your head slightly to one side in thought. "Actually...no. I knew it was a mistake. But I just had to see him anyway. I had to."

{and if you hurt me
that's okay baby, only words bleed}

Two days earlier

All it takes is a flash of your badge to get Elliot's room number, along with a disbelieving look from a nurse who doesn't seem to understand why anyone would want to voluntarily interact with him in his current state. What can you say, you're living on the edge these days.

As you approach the door, you see him half-sitting, half-reclining with his head bowed, and you don't know if he's sleeping or just looking down. What you do know is that you're shaking so hard that your teeth are starting to chatter, and you're not sure if this is the right thing to do or if you're making a colossal mistake, because as badly as you need to see him, he clearly wants nothing to do with you and what are you even going to say, where do you even begin, oh fuck it you should just go home and have a drink like you were planning and- "Liv."

His voice sounds resigned, like he expected you'd catch up to him eventually and he's not at all surprised or curious as to how you got here. "Yeah. I...jesus, El, what the fuck happened to you?"

Acting solely out of instinct, you rush toward him. It's not the severity of his injuries that's so alarming to you, although that right eye's going to be swollen shut by morning- it's the sheer number of them. Kathy said 'a fight', but you can tell just by looking at them that a good number of these cuts and bruises and busted knuckles are several days old. There's a gash running diagonally across his eyebrow, being held together by a butterfly bandage that's starting to peel off, and you automatically reach out to smooth it down-

He slaps your hand away. Hard. It's the closest he's ever come to hitting you and you stumble backwards, stunned. "El-"

"Leave me alone. I'm fine," he slurs. When he finally looks up at you, making eye contact for the first time, he snarls at seeing the shock and confusion on your face. "Isn't that what you told me?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You look like shit."

"Says the man with his arm in a sling," you point out. He smells like cheap liquor and that's only making it harder for you to keep standing here. Not that you're in withdrawal or anything. Not that despite the insult, despite the enormous psychic minefield between you, you're still battling the urge to do the only thing you've wanted to for weeks- hold onto him and not let go. But you can't. You can't because he won't let you, and in your mind you see that blinking cursor after 'I love you' on the screen of your phone. It's still blinking. Still waiting for a reply that's not coming. You've tried to delete the fucking thing a thousand times, but you can't. You can't because you won't let yourself.

"'m alright. But these assholes don't listen. Said I gotta stay here until I sober up and they make sure I don' have a concussion. Said I'm lucky they don't handcuff me to the bed. Fuckers."

"Yeah." You rub the pink spot on your wrist from where his palm met your hand, growing more uncomfortable by the second as the reality of what's happening sinks in. This isn't him. You've seen him before when he's had a few too many, but never like this, and despite your wealth of experience dealing with mean drunks...you don't know how to handle it other than to give him an apologetic non-smile and say "I think I should probably go."

"Why the fuck did you come here in the first place?"

"You know, that's a good question. I thought we could talk, but now I see that...I'm not going to do this, not now. Maybe you can give me a call when...who the hell am I kidding, you're not gonna call," you say, because you can do bitter and angry just as well as he can even without chemical enhancements. "So just keep on doing what you're doing, I guess. Looks like it's working out real well for you."

"You still with dumbass?"

"What? Yes."

"Looks like it's working out real well for you."

"I'm keeping my promise," you point out, another surge of anger building inside you when you think about your confrontation with Kathy. "Remember that, the whole thing about not letting anyone else get hurt? Because you told me, you swore to me that I wasn't going to be the reason for your family falling apart. I begged you, don't do that to me, and you promised you wouldn't. What the hell happened to that?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that, huh? Just keep on living in that house acting like nothing's wrong...knowing what I did to you?"

You didn't want to talk about it today- or any day, but especially not today- and yet you knew that you'd set yourself up for it by coming here. "No. No...let's get one thing straight, okay? Whatever it is you think happened, didn't. So you don't get to use that as an excuse because...it wasn't like that. Let's just forget about it, please. I'm fine."

"There you go again. You're fine. Just like always," he says, struggling to reach up and rub at his good (well, better) eye. "So you and dumbass, you cry when he fucks you too?"

You can't stop yourself from physically recoiling at his words, grasping onto the doorframe because it feels like the floor's about to give way from underneath you. In your peripheral vision you can see a young security guard keeping a not so discreet watch on Elliot's room, so you stalk toward the bed and lower your voice so you won't be overheard. "You are so goddamn lucky that I know you won't remember any of this come morning, so I'm not even gonna waste my time. But I swear to God, Elliot, once you're out of here I'm going to break your fucking face. Again."

"Go for it," he says, shrugging the only shoulder he can move.

"What do I have to do in order to convince you that...I told you before, I'm not angry. Please. Forget about it, go home, and it'll be like it never happened."

"And that's it? You think that's gonna work?"

"Well, it'll have to. I...I can't talk about this with you. Not now, n-not ever," you say, taking a deep breath in order to force down the lump in your throat. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you're just going to have to trust me when I say it wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't my fault, nothing happened, and you're fine. That's all you have to say. And then...what? You walk out for good?"

"Isn't that what you want? You ran away, again, after telling me how many thousands of times that it wouldn't happen, and now...what do you even want me around for? To help you wallow in your self pity? Because if you want me to sit here and tell you that you're some kind of monster, you need to make other plans. You're an idiot and a selfish asshole but you're not-"

He automatically tries to sit up straighter and then grunts in pain when he moves too fast. Again your instinct is to reach out for him, but that didn't go over too well before and this time you're liable to hit back if he tries anything. "No. You didn't see the look on your face after we, after I...I know when I see someone in shock, okay, I know what I saw and you weren't 'fine', you were-"

"Maybe I was pissed off at you because you basically called me a slut, said you didn't want me around your son, and then five minutes later you want to fuck me while your whole family's right there inside the house. Did you ever think of that?"

"So why the hell didn't you just tell me to fuck off?" he asks, lowering his voice when he sees the security guard take a few steps toward his room, and now you've got him right where you want him- assuming this rent a cop kid doesn't break up your little tete-a-tete first.

"That's my fucking point, Elliot! It was my mistake, not yours. I should've told you to go to hell and walked away, but I didn't, and it's over now so please, God please just let it go."

"You should've, so why didn't you? Why won't you answer my goddamn question?"

"I said, let it go-"

"You can't tell me that you- I know you, Liv, and I know you didn't want that."

«look at you. look how much you want it. see that? what everyone else will see when they find out?»

"Did you hear me say no? Did you? Was I trying to fight you off? Did I do anything to make you think I didn't want it?" you fire back, your words picking up speed with every syllable. "Because I remember the whole thing pretty goddamn well and I know that not once did I...the whole time. For all you knew, I fucking loved it. Right? You know I did. You know I. I. I..."

«you dirty little slut. stop pretending you don't love it.»

"Liv. Hey. What's this about?" he asks, his expression instantly turning to one of concern. He may not know you as well as he thinks he does, but asshole or not, he'll always be able to read you better than anyone and he knows the two of you aren't talking about the same thing anymore. "What...did something happen? Liv? What's wrong?"

You can feel the rattling in your lungs, hear the wheezing sound low in your throat as you struggle to take in a full breath. He starts to reach toward you but you shake your head in warning and scoot over to the foot of the bed where he can't get to you. "It's not. I told you before, I can't talk about it, I'm sorry but I can't and I-"

"Visiting hours are over!" an obliviously cheerful nurse calls out from the doorway, and you use the brief interruption as your moment to escape, pushing your way past her without looking back.

"Hey! Liv, you can't- what the hell's your problem, lady?" you hear him growl at the unfortunate interloper.

Once you're safely on the other side of the nurse's station, you turn around and glance at Elliot through the window to his room. He's arguing with the nurse, gesturing angrily with his free arm, and you can't watch for more than a couple of seconds before your chest aches unbearably from being on the verge of hyperventilating.

Breathe. Breathe. You remember once when he was at your house and you woke up from a nightmare thinking you were suffocating, how he pulled you in close against his chest and told you to visualize breathing out all the shit in your head each time you exhaled.

"Then I'm just breathing it right onto you," you pointed out.

"Eh, that's okay. I'll hold onto it for a while. Think that way you can get some rest?"

You were skeptical- but the next thing you knew, the sun was about to come up and he was kissing you goodbye.

But that was a long time ago.

{thought I knew what love was
what did I know?
those days are gone forever
I should just let 'em go}