Hey guys. I'm back with a new chapter to Love, Life and Fear! I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter.

I think it's in the summary but this is an ESTABLISHED E/O story! Meaning that Elliot and Olivia ARE in a relationship and have been since before this story begins!

This chapter begins the whole story really. It explains a little about the established E/O and there's a message from our mystery kidnapper/murderer in the last chapter.

Enjoy! AND PLEASE REVIEW!

Chapter 2: Fault

1-6 Precinct, SVU Squad Room

Manhattan, New York

April 7th

7:49am

The clock on the wall clicked onto 7:50am and Captain Don Cragen walked in to see one of his best detectives, Olivia Benson, slumped in her seat, a half drunk cup of coffee just centimetres from her limp hand. Her head had lolled back and now rested to the side, almost lying on her shoulder. Her other arm rested across her stomach and her dark brown locks spanned across the top of the chair. Those beautiful brown eyes of hers were closed and she was snoring lightly, her chest moving to indicate her slow breathing.

She was still in the outfit she'd worn yesterday, her make-up slightly smudged and looking as though she hadn't eaten a full meal in over a day.

Cragen felt like every member of his team were his children, his family, so seeing Olivia sleeping in a chair pulled at Cragen's heart strings. If he knew she'd been here any later than midnight, he would have shuffled her off to her home or the cribs at least, not leave her to practically pass out from exhaustion at her desk.

Walking quietly over to Olivia, Cragen crouched down so his face was level with Olivia's and then placed his hand on her shoulder and shook her lightly. "Olivia, wake up."

Olivia mumbled something incoherent and turned her head to the other side.

Cragen shook her again, this time a little bit harder. He, however, didn't have time to see if she would wake due to the obnoxious ringing from his office. He sighed but rose from his crouched position and stalked off to answer the phone.

Meanwhile, deep brown eyes fluttered open and took in the sight of the familiar SVU squad room. Groaning, Olivia Benson sat up straighter in her seat, wincing at the sharp pain in her back from falling asleep in her desk chair. Standing slowly, Olivia sighed in relief when she felt rather than heard the joints in her back pop, leaving her with a comfortable, dull pain instead of the harsh, sharp pain she'd woken up with.

"Good morning, sunshine," Cragen called, poking his head out of his office. Olivia groaned again as Cragen's loud voice send a throb through her head.

"Morning, Captain," Olivia mumbled back. She knew she wasn't a morning person without having at least one cup of coffee and her cup from last night was surely ice cold by now. Resting her head on the wall beside her desk, Olivia closed her eyes and willed her head to cease throbbing.

Suddenly, the aroma of fresh coffee wafted into Olivia's nose. She sniffed and caught a hint of honey mixed in with the smell of coffee. Opening her eyes, Olivia looked down and saw a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam mug, a male hand holding it out to her. Olivia looked up and saw her partner of seven years, Elliot Stabler, smiling down at her, his blue eyes brightly burning into her own deep brown ones.

"Here you go, partner. You look dead on your feet," Elliot chuckled, a hint of concern in his expression.

Olivia smiled back at Elliot and shook her head lightly, telling him in her own way that she was fine. "I'm just a little tired, El. I was up all night, finishing off my paperwork so we can get out of here on the weekend."

Elliot glared at her slightly. She shouldn't have neglected to sleep just because of some paperwork. "Liv, you're not supposed to do that. Do you remember what happened last time you went more than thirty-six hours without sleep?"

Olivia blushed and looked down. "Yes."

"Then why did you go almost all night without any sleep? I know you were up before five am yesterday morning." Elliot stared at her.

Olivia's blush intensified and Elliot's expression softened. He placed two fingers under her chin and lifted her face so he could look her in the eye. "Liv, just remember, I care about you and I don't want you to keep neglecting to sleep and then having it affect your health," Elliot said softly. He placed a light kiss on her cheek, handed her the coffee and walked over to his desk, flopping himself in his seat.

Olivia glared at her boyfriend. He knew they had to keep it out of the office or they'd get separated but deep down she was touched that he cared so much for her.

Elliot and Olivia had been dating for the last five months, since about three weeks before Christmas. Kathy and Elliot had gotten a divorce the year before, in July, because Elliot had discovered that Kathy had been cheating on him for over six months with a man she'd met while she was out running after the kids were shipped off to school.

Kathy and her boyfriend, Chad Daniels, had wanted to move toAustraliato start their own family. During the divorce, Kathy had signed over all parental rights to Elliot, claiming her children were holding her back from living her life. Each Stabler child was infuriated but also sad. They were losing their mother to another man and they had a hard time dealing with it at first.

Maureen had decided to come back to the house even though she was still studying at college. She felt her family needed her more.

Olivia offered to be there for Elliot whenever he needed her, because she was his partner. Almost all of the Stabler children were happy for Olivia's support.

Kathleen, however, was furious.

She couldn't believe her father had already moved on from her mother and with Olivia no less. Kathy had always been insecure about Olivia and constantly told this to her second eldest daughter, prompting Kathleen to hate Olivia so her mother would be more at ease knowing not all of her children were swayed by Olivia's charms.

Finally one night, when Kathleen had been particularly harsh to Olivia, calling her a 'home-wrecking whore' and a 'filthy husband stealer', Olivia ran. She collected her things with tears pooling in her eyes, gave Elliot and everyone of the Stabler children an apologetic look, even Kathleen, and had run out the door, into her car and sped away.

Elliot knew she was going to her lonely apartment, her place of solitude. As soon as Olivia had left, Elliot grabbed his daughter and pulled her into the kitchen, the rest of the Stabler children watching the exchange between father and daughter.

Elliot explained to Kathleen that all Olivia wanted was to help Elliot and his children get their feet back on the ground after Kathy had left them hanging. Olivia was their stability and Kathleen just didn't see it. Elliot explained to her that Olivia was the only constant support Elliot had, the only person that could help to take care of his children with him.

Kathleen listened to her father rant and as his rant went on, she saw just how much of a brat she had been to Olivia. Feeling incredibly guilty, Kathleen apologized to her father, her sisters and her brother, promising to apologized to Olivia the second she had the chance.

The next morning, Olivia had gone into work and sat at her desk, staring at nothing. Elliot had walked in, grasped her arm, pulling her out of her seat as he lead her outside. She protested and struggled but Elliot's grip was tight. Not that Olivia struggled much anyway.

Olivia was surprised to see Kathleen Stabler sitting on the steps to the station house, tears slightly pooled in her eyes. Kathleen turned and launched herself into Olivia's arms, apologizing repeatedly to the woman who helped keep her family together, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Olivia had looked over Kathleen's should at Elliot but Elliot just smiled, happy to see Kathleen finally accepting his partner.

That day had been almost seven months ago now.

When Olivia and Elliot had finally given themselves a chance at a real, official relationship, the Stabler children responded with congratulations, tears and hugs. Kathleen, surprisingly, had been completely fine with Elliot and Olivia dating, only dragging Olivia aside once to warn her not to hurt Kathleen's father.

Olivia had laughed and embraced Kathleen, saying, "I'd never do anything to hurt you, your brother, your sisters or your father. You guys are my family too."

Kathleen had burst out crying at those words and fell even more in love with her father's partner.

Olivia was startled out of her thoughts by Fin bursting through the squad doors with Munch, the two of them chatting heatedly about Munch's latest conspiracy theory.

Hearing his other two detectives enter the squad room, Cragen stepped out of his office and walked over to stand in the middle of the four desks.

"Liv, Elliot. I've got a new case for you. Blonde female, early forties, found in basement room at the end of an alley way. Some kids wanted to play a little whoopee and stumbled upon our Jane Doe. Warner's on her way there. Go," Cragen said to them, feeling a little bad that he had to send out Olivia when she clearly hadn't gotten much sleep.

Elliot and Olivia nodded, grabbed their things and left.

Cragen turned back to his arguing detectives. "Munch, Fin. You still haven't gotten the paperwork for the Eames case to me. Finish that now and I might let you go with Elliot and Olivia when they do the canvas later," Cragen barked at them, telling them to quit their yelling and get to work.

"On it, Cap," said Fin, sitting down in his seat.

"What have we got?" Elliot called over to Melinda Warner, their Medical Examiner, as he walked down the stairs into the basement like room. Olivia followed after him. Ryan O'Halloran, head of the Crime Scene Unit, had already begun looking for evidence and collecting samples of soil, blood and fibres.

"White female, early forties, head bashed in with what we assume is that candle stick holder over there. Her clothes are torn but it seems as though they were cut off of her with a knife. She's got a couple shallow stab wounds and a deep cut on her thigh, just missing the femoral artery. There's vaginal trauma as well as anal trauma but both are post-mortem. There's semen on her clothes and on her thighs so rape is the logical explanation. From the lividity, I'd say she's been out here about thirty to thirty-six hours. Someone also cut her finger nails down to the nub," Melinda told them, showing Elliot the victim's hand.

"She must have caught a piece of the killer when he was cutting her clothes off and he chopped off her finger nails so we wouldn't have any evidence to find. How sick do you have to be to rape a dead body?" Olivia thought out loud. She was looking around to see if there was anything else that they could count as evidence. Olivia walked around, looking up at the ceiling and the walls.

Splash.

Olivia looked down and saw she'd stepping in a small puddle of water right next the far corner of the room. With the small bed, wooden chair and the big pile of timber 4 by 4's, Olivia couldn't see the stairs, Elliot, Melinda or most of CSU. O'Halloran was with her but he'd found something interesting on the wall and had walked closer to take samples.

The puddle had come from behind a large cardboard box that rested almost against the edge of the wall. The bottom of the box was already sopping wet.

Olivia snapped on her latex gloves and moved the box slowly in case anything came rolling out from behind it.

All that was behind the box was a broken, glass vase with a single red rose lying in the middle of the glass. The rose looked fresh, as though it had been placed there within the last day or two. There was also a note. Although there was water around the note, it wasn't wet because someone put it in a zip-lock bag to prevent water getting to it.

Olivia picked it up and read the note. It said:

'Gordan F Sheline.'

Puzzled, Olivia called O'Halloran over to bag and tag the note into the evidence log. She told him to collect the glass from the vase and the water to see if there were any fingerprints or unusual substances in the water.

"Liv! Come here. We just found the victim's handbag. It's wedged in between a couple of these 4 by 4's," Elliot called to her. She walked around the pile and saw Elliot as well as two CSU technicians trying to carefully pull a black and white leather handbag from between two 4 by 4 wood beams.

Finally, Elliot and the two CSU technicians managed to dislodge the bag without damaging the outside too badly. Olivia looked over Elliot's shoulder as the CSU techs opened the bag.

All four of them gagged, the techs dropping the bag and backing away. "Ugh, what is that smell?" Olivia asked, her words slightly muffled as she had her fingers pinching her nose to block the smell.

Elliot took a brave step forward and peered into the bag.

He wasn't prepared for what greeted him.

Disgusted, he backed away, catching Olivia's waist and dragged her away as well. "Liv, it's… it's a severed hand in there. Probably been in the bag as long as our Jane Doe has been down here, maybe longer. Warner! We've got something over here for you to look at!" Elliot called.

Melinda looked up from the victim and saw Elliot looked distressed, Olivia looked physically sick and she could hear the two CSU techs, who'd run past her after they'd discovered the hand, puking up in the alley way. Melinda wrinkled her nose at the sound and smell of vomit but sighed and ventured over to Elliot and Olivia.

Although Melinda had been around death for many years, the smell of that rotting hand in the bag had her almost gagging as well. Composing herself quickly, Melinda lifted the hand out of the bag. "From what I can tell, this hand belongs to a child between the ages of six and nine. There's no pooling of the blood at the joint so that means that this hand was severed post-mortem and probably put in her bag by her murderer," Melinda explained, waving a CSU technician over so she could place the hand in an evidence bag that he held out to her.

Olivia watched, disgusted. The perpetrator was about one of the sickest perps she'd ever seen. And she was going to do everything in her power to catch him.

"Uh, Olivia? Elliot? There's something else you should see," Melinda said, looking nervous.

Olivia and Elliot ventured closer to Melinda, still keeping their noses blocked and saw that she held a folded up paper in her hand.

The note was addressed to Detective Olivia Benson, NYPD.

With her still gloved hands shaking slightly, Olivia grasped the note and opened it. The note read:

'Dearest Olivia,

I hope you enjoyed my gift. She took me forever to find.

But she's only the first clue.

The hand resting on top of this note was the second clue.

Figure out both and they'll lead you to clue number three.

Have fun on your scavenger hunt!

You'll find a surprise at the end.

And maybe a familiar face or two!

Love,

The Master.'

Elliot saw the moment Olivia's face had gone pale. He pulled her into his arms, not caring about being professional at work because she looked so distressed. CSU had finished their sweep and were packing up. Melinda was taking the body to the morgue and Olivia and Elliot's embrace went unnoticed.

Olivia looked up at him with wide, frightened, sad eyes. They seemed to send him a message, one he knew only he could understand.

This is my fault, El. All my fault.