Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine. But I'm trying, believe me!

Author's note: This story is taking so long to review, not because it's hard to get out, but because there's so much terrain to cover. These two characters are practically 900 dimensions, and that's just scraping the surface. So, I've tried my best.

This is for Scar, for prodding me along with great support. Please, read and review. Thanks!

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"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken"

Fydor Dostoevsky.

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Thursday, October 14th

His last effort to resist wakefulness ended at about dawn. Five hours of broken sleep was more than he felt he deserved, but his whole being was too exhausted for him to continue. So he slept without resting.

More than anywhere, the pain he was feeling had settled behind his eyes, pressing in on the nerves that dictated what he was seeing. What he did see in front of him were those damn bars of wood holding the mattress above him.

Strong, hard, supportive. Everything he wasn't at the moment.

It wasn't what he wanted to see right now.

More than anything, he wanted to go back downstairs to the precinct and see Olivia with her head bent over a pile of paperwork on her desk. He wanted to see her look up at him briefly, the corner of her mouth turning up slightly as she noticed him noticing the mountain of work they had to get done.

He wanted to see her reach for his coffee mug without asking if he wanted any, just because she knew that he was quickly reaching the end of his caffeine induced lucidity.

He wanted to see Olivia.

Despite the light that had crept through the curtained windows, the room was still quite dark. And extremely quiet, save for the detective he recognised from narcotics who was snoring lightly from the corner of the room. He successfully manoeuvred his way to the locker room, purposefully keeping his eyes averted from the locker immediately to the right of his.

He dressed quietly, pulling on a clean suit that Kathy had, had pressed for him. She had smiled coyly, rubbing her expanding belly as she claimed it was the reason she could no longer do it by hand. He had smiled back half-heartedly, assuring her it was ok, because he had other things on his mind that were more important.

Things like attending a gynaecological exam for a seven year old to determine whether or not her forty year old uncle had abused her.

Things like testifying in court on behalf of an eleven year old boy whose maths teacher had told him it was "ok" to touch him in his places that even his parents weren't allowed to go near.

Things that she would never understand. Things that he would never want her to have to see with her own two innocent blue eyes. His own were jaded enough for the both of them.

You never talk to me anymore Elliot

I just want to keep the kids safe from all the bad in the world, you know that

I never said anything about the kids, Elliot, I'm talking about us

It's too complicated right now

Will it ever get any easier?

I don't know

Elliot slammed the locker door closed, revelling in the way that how the noise reverberating around the room took his mind momentarily off Olivia.

He paused at the door to the squad-room, his eyes panning the room full of people; it was buzzing with officers working over-time. Fin and Munch weren't at their desks, and he assumed they were out on a lead. Lake was at his though, speaking on his phone, his pen a blur as he wrote frantically.

His gaze moved to his desk; and Olivia's empty one. The pain in his gut intensified and he fought hard to keep the bile rising in his throat down.

Cragen watched his approach to his desk carefully, taking in his haggard and exhausted appearance. But he stopped short of saying anything. Which was a wise thing to do. If Cragen said something to upset him, he was in no position to be held accountable for his actions, which would almost certainly involve contact between his fist and someone's head.

"You sleep ok?"

He shook his head. There was no point lying to Cragen; not when time was of the essence.

"Do we know anything else?"

Cragen sighed, "Not since last night, Elliot"

Elliot looked up at his Captain, trying his best to keep his emotions in check. He'd expended enough emotion in public for the rest of his career, and he'd never felt so overwhelmed by anguish and despair. The last time he'd felt like this was when he entered his house in Queens and not seen the smiling faces of his children.

Another pang of guilt sliced at him when he realised he hadn't tried to contact his wife in almost 24 hours. He made a mental note to check his phone when he got the chance.

"We're all working around the clock to find her, Elliot," Cragen moved to stand to Elliot's right. He paused in his speech and Elliot felt a sense of dread before the words came out, "But I want you out of the field when we get a lead"

His head shot up so fast he was sure he'd get whiplash, but before he could answer, Cragen had raised his hand to silence him, "I don't want to hear it. You're too emotionally invested in this to be effective in the field."

"But Cap, she's my partner. She needs me," his voice broke, catching in his throat; his body began to vibrate with anger and remorse.

Cragen shook his head, "if you were out there and found the person who had her, what would you do Elliot?"

He knew the answer before he said it, but it didn't make it right. If he found Robert Ashton before anyone else, he'd kill the son-of-a-bitch without a second thought. He had Olivia and he was taunting them and there was no way that Elliot would allow the asshole to get away with it.

"…here, running any leads we get through the phones," he barely noticed Cragen was speaking until he caught the end of his sentence.

He felt the burning behind his eyes intensify, and the images in his line of sight began to blur. Without answering Cragen he found that his feet had carried him to an empty interrogation room off the busy corridor.

The interrogation room where they had interviewed Robert Ashton two months ago.

"It make you feel good to attack women from behind Robert?"

Ashton was looking at Elliot with sheer contempt, his mouth fixed with a permanent sneer. His eyes had previously been on Olivia, devouring her as she moved behind Elliot. He wanted to slap the look he had on his face off with his open palm. He wanted to see his hand imprinted on the side of this fucker's cheek.

He wanted to see him hurt for looking at Olivia like that.

"I get them however I want them"

His eyes were on Olivia again, who was now in the corner of the room with a disinterested look on her face. It wasn't the first time that she had been the object of some perp's random affection. But Elliot's gut felt that this time it was different.

It was something in Ashton's eyes that unsettled him.

Ashton turned back to Elliot, "And I get whoever I want"

And now Ashton had Olivia at a place he refused to disclose. The only thing they knew for sure was for the moment, Olivia was alive and breathing. Her physical condition was unknown and he hadn't heard her speak since Wednesday afternoon. At the time, her voice had been small, fragile and scared as hell, and it killed him to know that she was swallowing her pride just so she could let him know that she was hanging in there.

"It's Ashton!"

Elliot's heart constricted as he and Morales bolted to Fin's desk, where he put his phone on loud-speaker so they could hear Ashton's voice.

"Where the hell is she Ashton?"

He didn't realise that he'd said anything until the words had fallen from his mouth; loud and punishing. Possessing a strength that at that moment, he didn't really feel he had. Not when his other half wasn't there beside him.

Not when his partner was in the hands of an asshole capable of the worst sorts of crimes known to mankind.

"Detective Stabler?" Rushton's voice was cocky and self-assured.

Elliot's fists closed and opened repeatedly; and it was all he could do not the pick up the phone and throw it half-way across Manhattan.

"I'm so glad I could reach you Detective, did you get my note?"

Elliot bared his teeth, shaking his head angrily at the audacity of this prick. The note that he had left on the windshield of Elliot's car that morning had torn at Elliot's insides; it was simple and to the point, but each word was like sword through his heart:

You turn your back on your partner? Well I like them from behind.

She's mine now, Detective. And there's not much you can do.

But we all have a chance at redemption.

Wait for my call, or she dies

Robert Ashton

He had even signed off on the note personally, and that was dangerous. If Ashton felt there was nothing to lose, he would have no problem getting rid of any excess baggage if the time came to run. And at that moment, Olivia was excess baggage.

"I read your note, you prick, now tell me where Olivia is!"

It was taking all his might not to scream at the phone in front of him, but if Olivia was to come out of this alive, he needed to calm down. And he owed it to Olivia to do all he could to get her out of this unscathed.

"You mean Detective Benson, Detective?"

He listened as he heard a struggle wherever Ashton was. He turned to his left as he watched Morales typing furiously as he tried to get the computer to trace the call.

"You know who I mean, Ashton, I want to hear Detective Benson's voice"

He heard Ashton's derisive snort and he clenched his fist so tightly his nails began to cut into his palm.

"El?"

His heart constricted and his throat dried up completely as Olivia's voice echoed in the squad-room. A room he felt was now twice the size it normally was, but to him it was empty. As far as he was concerned it was just Olivia and him in that room at the moment, and he was going to do his fucking best to make sure she stayed with him as long as possible.

"Yeah, Liv, it's me, I'm here"

His voice was hitching despite his best efforts to keep it even; not just to keep his emotions in check, but so that Olivia would stay calm as well. At the moment he didn't care one iota that he was in a room surrounded by his peers; including his Captain.

For the first time in a long time, the focus of his attention wasn't on himself and how the world somehow had it in for him.

It wasn't on how he was going to survive playing father and husband at an age when retirement was a viable option.

It wasn't how he needed to appease his hormonal wife because their relationship was on a knife's edge.

It wasn't on how his partner of seven years couldn't understand that he was distancing himself from her because it was in their best interest, because it was best for their partnership.

It wasn't on how he was bitter and angry at how his partner up and left him without so much as a goodbye.

His focus was now on the fact that his abducted partner had without question, put all her faith and belief in his hands. So he had to stay calm for her.

He had to be the person that she had always believed that he was when she showed up for work every morning like clockwork and sat across from him.

"El, I'm sorry"

He didn't notice that he was crying until the tears completely blurred his vision, a lone one escaping and falling to the stained desk-top. His hand reached for the phone-set as though he could reach out and physically touch the side of her face.

"No, Liv, I'm sorry"

He could hear her breath catch slightly as she inhaled, and his fingers inched further towards the speaker. Morales was saying something next to him, but all he could hear was a rushing sound. And Olivia.

Always Olivia.

"You stay strong for me Olivia, okay? I need you to stay strong for me, because I can't do this alone"

He felt the walls that he had so carefully build around his mind and heart crumble as he listened to Olivia's ragged breathing on the other side of the line filter through to his ears.

"El, I don't know where I am, but it's dark…"

She was cut off mid-sentence as the phone was wrestled from her, "now that's enough Detective. We don't want to go and give away all my secrets now, do we?"

"Ashton, you bastard, put her back on!"

Elliot ignored Fin's attempt to quiet him, shrugging out of his touch.

"Now, now Detective Stabler, we're doing this my way ok?"

Elliot remained silent, stewing in the contempt that he had for this guy; for the nerve that he was displaying, and the ill-placed belief that he would somehow get away with this.

"I'll call again tomorrow morning. In the meantime, figure out how much you're willing to risk for Detective Benson and then double it. Because I want to make you pay for what you've done to me Detective Stabler. You can't afford any more mistakes; I look forward to talking to you tomorrow"

Elliot sat there long after the dial-tone had worn out, replaced with an automated message about re-dialling the number and trying again.

Sitting there, staring at the spot on the desk where his tears had fallen, he realised, he was willing to risk everything.

Elliot shook his head, regaining his composure as best he could before he made his way back into the squad-room. Lake was waiting for him, his haunch balanced on the edge of Elliot's desk.

"What've you got?"

Lake's eyes reflected concern, but he wisely put away any questions he wanted answered, instead holding out a sheet of paper, "Morales says the phone used wasn't a landline, and that the cell-phone used had some sort of in-built scrambler that had it jumping from cell-tower to cell-tower"

Elliot took the piece of paper, scratching his chin so that Lake wouldn't notice his shaking hands, "So we're screwed?"

Lake shook his head in the negative, "not entirely. Morales was able to narrow down the possible locations using some new computer program. They're definitely still in Manhattan, or, at least they were when they made the call. We'll have to wait for his call today to know if they're moving around or not"

Elliot nodded, "thanks"

Lake stood straight, pushing his hands into his pockets, "Look, I know I've only been here a short time, but if you ever needed someone to talk to…"

"Yeah," Elliot interrupted Lake, "thanks"

Lake nodded, standing beside Elliot awkwardly before realising that he was no longer engaged in the conversation and moving back quickly to his own desk.

Elliot closed his eyes, rubbing them with his finger-tips, as he tried to get various images of Olivia in distress out of his mind. He was startled out of his reverie by his desk-phone ringing shrilly at his left. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he believed that it could be Olivia ringing him, telling him that she was running late because traffic was a bitch.

Telling him that she'd accidentally slept through her alarm and to cover her arse for ten minutes.

Telling him that she was okay and that she'd be there soon.

"Stabler"

"Elliot?"

Kathy

"Kath, now's not a good time"

He heard Kathy sigh on the other side of the line, "it never is, is it Elliot?"

Elliot moved his neck from side to side in the hope of working out the kinks, "Kathy, some bastard has Olivia and we're all working around the clock to get her back, so I may not be home tonight"

Elliot waited for the impatient sigh, but it never came, instead, "okay Elliot. You do what you need to. The twins say hi. I love you"

Elliot's heart twisted in his chest, and he found himself repeating her terms of endearment out of routine rather than desire.

Hanging up the phone, his eyes roved over the various images of his family on his desk. Usually, they would make him smile and swell with pride.

But today it was different.

When Gitano had the gun to his head in that warehouse, and he was waiting for death to come to him, he expected to see his life run before his eyes. Just like everybody said.

He'd heard that when you were facing almost certain death, the most important elements of your life are meant to rush by in a whir of memories. He thought he'd see his childhood, his army days, his marriage, his children, even his work; those images he had on his desk-top.

But in that dingy warehouse that smelt of stale cigarette smoke, with the smoking muzzle of a gun sitting against his right temple; as death stared at him square in the face.

All he could see was Olivia.