Sorry, this one's a little long and a little slow. Lot's of confrontation coming up. Elliot vs Olivia. Olivia vs Huang, Elliot vs Cragen, Elliot vs Munch. Elliot vs Huang, Olivia vs Elliot. Let me know if you have any specific requests on the way you want this to go…

Looking down at her still full drink, she tossed it back appreciating the burn again. She rubbed her shoulders, tight from sitting unmoving all afternoon. She thought she knew what she was going to do. It would probably end up being a combination of all of the above.

Stepping into the shower, she started to cry silently. She was letting herself grieve for what she had lost. She was crying for Elliot, knowing that they couldn't really be friends like they had been, for their lost friendship, for leaving her other colleagues, for Fin and Munch and the Captain. She cried through her anger at Elliot for putting her in this position, and for herself for being weak enough and damaged enough for it to even be an issue. She grieved for herself and her mother and all of the things she hadn't accomplished at SVU. When she had cried herself dry, she got out of the shower, dried off, wrapped herself in a towel and padded into the kitchen. She poured herself another drink and tossed it back with the careless familiarity of someone who did that often. She placed the glass in the sink and the bottle back into the cabinet. The hot shower and the booze together made her head fuzzy, made everything seem a little softer and further away. It was a welcome feeling.

Slap: Chapter 5

She was up early the next morning after crashing early with all the booze the night before. She took her time getting ready for work and then organizing her desk, her files, making sure everything was copacetic before the other detectives arrived. She had settled on Option 1 for the time being, fully aware that it was a not a long-term solution. The week passed without any drama. She and Elliot spoke when necessary, were polite, went on calls together and worked the cases together, but they were not TOGETHER. The fell back into their normal patterns as Olivia tried desperately not to show that something was dreadfully wrong.

By the end of the week she was exhausted from the effort. She didn't think anyone else noticed, though Munch had been giving her LOOKS out of the corner of his eye. He'd been doing that since she'd showed up with her arm in a cast though, so she wasn't sure it was related. Fin went about his own business as usual and Cragen, for once, wasn't hovering. She'd been a little proud of how she'd handled the past week. She'd kept her temper under control, she'd not snapped at anyone, she'd managed to eat enough around her colleagues to keep them from getting suspicious. She still didn't feel like eating when left on her own, but that was fine with her. She didn't have an appetite anyway. She told herself it was the stress. She worked off the stress at the gym.

Little did she know, she wasn't as good of an actress as she thought. Everyone had noticed her slightly looser clothes, her cheekbones, the way she never smiled unless she thought someone was watching her. Munch had mentioned it once to Elliot, but he had shrugged and said he didn't know, that she seemed fine to him. Munch had sneered at him, disappointed in his friend for his lack of concern for someone who had, in the past, been a great source of his worry.

It was late on Friday afternoon, Munch and Fin had gone, Elliot was on his way out the door, coat in hand. "You leaving, Liv?" he asked.

She tried to control the flinch when she heard him use her nickname so casually. "Yeah, just finishing up. Don't wait." She waved him off. He accepted her response and headed home to his family. If she didn't think he was worth the effort to be mad at, he wasn't going to waste his time either.

Olivia closed the file she had been working on and started typing on her computer. She glanced up at the light on in the Captain's office. Everyone else was gone. This was as good a time as any. A few minutes later she hit print, folded the letter and placed it in an envelope. She walked slowly to the office, tapping the envelope nervously on the palm of one hand. She knocked and entered after his response.

She stood in the doorway, not sure what to do. Captain Cragen looked up at her. "Olivia, what can I do for you?" He studied her. She looked thin and tired. He knew something had been bothering her, but her performance at work continued to be superb, so he didn't really have a reason to haul her into his office.

She walked into the office slowly and took a seat in the chair he had gestured towards. She sat there for a moment, not saying anything. Cragen studied the papers he had been reading, giving her a moment before finally saying. "Have something to say, Detective or do you just enjoy the comfort of that chair?"

"Captain, I… I'm thinking about requesting a transfer," she said, glancing down at the envelope in her hand.

His head came up at once when he heard that. "A transfer? Are you sure?"

She nodded and spoke quietly. "I'm tired, Cap. I think I need a change, need to get out."

He nodded at her. He tried to think if there had been a case recently that had sent her over the edge but couldn't remember one, couldn't think of anything out of the ordinary recently. She an Elliot had a bit of a shake up a while back, but it wasn't any worse than anything else they'd gone through, as far as he knew. She'd laid down that ultimatum, but when Elliot had agreed to talk to the shrink it seemed to blow over.

"Are you tired of the job, Liv, or something, someone else?" He wasn't sure, but he was fairly confident Elliot Stabler had something to do with this. Either he was the cause or he wasn't helping her out.

She looked at him and considered his question. "I don't know, Don. I don't think it matters at this point, you know?"

He nodded at her again. "Where do you want to go?"

"I've thought a lot about that, I'm not really sure yet. The Bronx SVU has an opening, but I'm not sure I want to leave Manhattan. I was going to see what else is open, or going to be open. I didn't want to submit anything official until after I had spoken to you," she looked again at her hands.

The bald Captain considered the detective in front of him. She looked more than tired; she looked defeated. He'd always been concerned about her ability to cope with the harder parts of the job. He'd kept an eye out on the emotional state of all of his detectives when the cases got too rough. Somehow he had missed something here, something he hadn't been aware of, and he would put money on the fact that Elliot Stabler was involved.

He nodded at the envelope in her hands. "Don't give that to me until you are sure, Detective." She nodded silently.

He folded his hands and brought them to the desk, leaning forward. "Olivia, what happened between you and Elliot?"

Her head swung up and he saw flashes of anger in her eyes. 'Well, that got a reaction from her,' he thought. "And don't tell me nothing, Benson. Don't insult my intelligence when I am asking you straight out."

She sighed. She ran her hand though her dark hair, her eyes looked dark. She looked to the side, avoided eye contact with her boss, a man she greatly respected and whose respect she craved.

"We had an argument." She shook her head. "It doesn't really matter anymore. It's not really about him. We've had arguments before…" She looked to the side and bit her lip.

"Liv…" Cragen sighed as he looked at her, disappointed, not in what she was saying, but what she was not saying.

She was almost in a trance, not really focusing. "I slapped him and he slapped me back, but this isn't about that. I believed him, Captain, that's what this is about. It's not about anything that he did or said; it's about what I can and can't handle. And I can't handle myself any more."

"Benson!" he said sharply. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She looked up sharply. 'Shit,' she thought, 'what did she say?' This was affecting her more than she had thought, her stomach grumbled. It was almost 8 and she hadn't eaten since noon. "Nothing, Captain." She rose to leave. "You'll let me know about the openings?"

"Benson. Sit. Down." She sat.

"I think you better tell me what's been going on in my own stationhouse."

She didn't respond. "Benson…" His voice had a warning in the tone. "Are you telling me Stabler slapped you? You didn't really fall in the park, did you." That was a statement, not a question.

"Cap, do you really think this is about me getting slapped? Do you think I would just let him slap me without him getting a swift kick in the balls. Christ, I would have his balls in a vice-lock before he knew which way was up if it was about that."

"That's what I always thought," her Captain replied, "but here you are, with an arm just out of a cast, telling me you want to transfer out. I remember what happened in my office last month. So what is it about, Liv? If he's lost it, you need to tell me, for his sake, for his family…."

"I think he's fine, Captain. That's why I threw down that ultimatum, so he would be okay. He's not the issue, I'm telling you."

"But you won't work with him anymore." It was another statement that was really a question. He was watching his detective's reaction closely. He could see her crumbling before his eyes. He wasn't sure he could handle this. He'd never been good with the softer emotions. Anger, wrath, frustration, yes, but this? Whatever was eating this woman alive? He didn't know how to handle this.

"No."

"What the hell did he do to you?" She didn't answer, but stood and walked to the door, strode out of the office, grabbed her coat without stopping and left the building, leaving her Captain calling her name in futility. Her turned and thought about what had just happened and then picked up the phone to make a couple of phone calls.

Olivia went home and opened her fridge to grab something to eat for dinner. Standing in from of the open refrigerator, she zoned out for a minute, replaying with dread the way she had handled herself in her Captain's office. She slammed the door and went into her bedroom to change. It was dark, but she figured there would still be people in the park. Six miles at a 7-minute pace would take care of her nerves.

The weekend passed without incident. She'd worked her shift on Sunday with Fin; it went off without a hitch. Monday morning she was at her desk before the others, fresh coffee in the pot. Sipping hers contemplatively, she waved at the others as they walked him. Elliot said hello; she waved without saying anything.

Midway through the morning, Cragen stuck his head out of his office. "Benson, a word please."

In his office, he tore off a piece of paper from the notepad on his desk and handed it to Benson. "I made some calls." It was a list of open detective positions. "I'm going to need that back, most of those haven't been posted yet; I called a few friends and asked what they had in the wings."

Olivia considered the list, eyebrows raised. This was more help than she was expecting after what had happened on Friday.

"Ah, thank you Captain. I wasn't expecting…" her voice trailed off.

"Expecting what? Me to help? I figured you're already lost to me as a detective, I should at least try and make sure you land in a good spot. See anything you like there?"

She considered the list again. "Something in Manhattan. Homicide – the 0-9, or maybe Major Cases, the 2-7." She said, handing the list back to him.

"You still sure about this?" he asked her.

She hugged her arms around her middle and looked over her shoulder back out at her colleagues in the bullpen. "Yeah, I'm sure," she said sadly.

"I'll make some calls."

"Thanks, Cap." She left his office and walked back to her desk slowly.

Elliot looked up at her. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she said distantly. "Everything's fine."

Sitting at her desk, her head pounding, Olivia tried to focus on what she was reading. Unbeknownst to her, Munch was eyeing her from his desk, watching her leg bounce up and down as she massaged her temple. He noticed her defined cheekbones, the new cuts in the muscles of her upper arms, the way her pants, previously hugging her hips now hung on her hipbones, pulled down slightly by her weapon on her belt.

Suddenly he stood up, "I'm grabbing sandwiches, what do you guys want?" He wrote down orders for the rest of the squad and frowned when Olivia gently refused his offer. Not wanting to start a fight in the middle of the bullpen, he shoved the paper with the orders in his pocket and gave Elliot a glare, as if it was his fault she didn't want a sandwich. Elliot looked up at him in surprise.

Elliot sat, neglecting his own paperwork. He looked out the window; the sky was still dark and pouring rain. 'What the hell was wrong with Munch that going out for sandwiches now?' he wondered. Thinking about the glare the older detective had given him, he looked at his partner. He'd taken a huge step back from her the past few weeks. He'd half expected his partner to not allow this, expected her to confront him about it. He'd been doing a lot of soul searching and self-contemplation with Huang. Hell, he should've sat down with someone years before. He still couldn't get his mind around what had happened that day. He got up and walked up to the cribs to think for a minute in the dark and quiet. Head hanging, knees on his shoulders, he remembered their fight. He remembered the things he had said to her. He had no memory of her face, the look she'd had when she heard those devastating words. He knew she slapped him, but he didn't remember that in his black rage. He did remember slapping her twice, and the grip he'd held on her wrist, not wanting to let her go. He knew he had damaged her, damaged them, that day. He knew they needed to hash it out, needed to talk about it, but he, simply, was afraid. He was afraid of the things she would say, the things she would admit. He was terrified that if they brought up that day, they would lose what little relationship they still had. He sighed again. The past few weeks had been like living underwater. He felt he couldn't breathe sometimes. He missed his partner, his friend, but she was keeping her distance and after what he had done, he let her. He felt grateful that she was still speaking with him, working with him at all, grateful that she let him pick up a coffee, drive the sedan with both of them in it, the little things. He was grateful for that; he didn't deserve any more, in fact he deserved far less than what she was giving him. He was so sorry, he'd never been so sorry in his life.

He's spent the past few weeks being so sorry, he hadn't been paying attention to what was going on around him. Thinking back on the glare Munch had given him, he looked down from the top of the stairs at his partner. He hadn't looked at her in weeks. She had her hair down, tucked behind her ear. Something looked different. He looked at her face, focused on her paperwork, or so it seemed. Her left hand knuckled at her temple, her foot bounced up and down. His eyes moved from her jittery leg up to her hip, where her weapon hung off her belt, pulling her pants so it hung loosely off her hipbone. He noticed it jutting out a little bit. He'd never really considered Olivia's appearance. Well, he was a guy, he NOTICED her looks, of course. He had appreciated them more than just once or twice, but he never really thought about what she looked like. Now, staring down at her with her not knowing he was watching, he didn't like what he saw. His eyes pulled upwards and he took in her sinewy neck and sharp cheekbones. He frowned to himself. 'When the hell had that happened?' he asked himself. Somewhere else inside of him, a voice answered 'While you had your head up your ass worrying about what she thought of you.' He rubbed his hands over his face and jogged back down the stairs.

Just as he hit the bullpen, Munch walked in the door, water dripping from his coat and hat. He had an irritated look on his face as he began to divvy up the sandwiches. Walking over to Elliot's desk he ceremoniously dropped a turkey sub in front of him and then walked over to Olivia. He set the chicken salad sandwich he had been holding down on her desk, right on top of her paperwork. "What the…" she protested.

"Just eat it, Olivia. My treat." Munch told her with a pointed look.

She looked around for support from the others and didn't get any. She finally looked towards Elliot. He looked at her and said "Eat the sandwich, Benson." She gave him a dirty look as she unwrapped the sandwich.

Olivia peeled back the wrapper on the sandwich and took a bite. She was surprised at how good it tasted. Polishing it off in record time, she liked her fingers and looked up as she heard Elliot chuckle.

"Hungry after all?" he said. She smirked at him.

"You going to finish that?" he said, gesturing at his half eaten sub. He took the uneaten half and offered it to her. She took it, saying thanks, and taking a bite as she turned back to her paperwork. He sat as his desk baffled by her.

Olivia sat chewing the sandwich. She hadn't even noticed she was hungry. She made a mental note to thank Munch for the sandwich. She had a momentary pang of guilt when she thought about how her coworkers thought she needed looking after. For all intents and purposes she looked as if she was concentrating on her DD5, but dark thoughts were racing in her mind.

The past few weeks had almost destroyed her. It hurt every time she talked to Elliot, every time she looked at him. She missed him. No, she corrected herself, she missed the memory of him, the Elliot she had thought was her friend. Now she was sitting alone, in the dark. She thought about her apartment waiting for her to return to, cold and quiet. It never used to bother her, back when she thought she'd had friends at work. Since Elliot had let her know what he truly thought she dreaded the silence. It just reiterated all the things he had said to her. She was curious at his behavior towards her since then. He'd kept his distance, as if he too just realized what she was. There was a pit forming in her stomach. There was one more bite left of Elliot's sandwich. The appetite that had formally surprised her was gone. She crumpled the wrapper and dumped it in the trash.

She stood and walked quickly into the Captain's office. She asked if there was any update on her situation. He nodded at her and handed her an envelope. She looked curiously at him. He nodded at the envelope, wanting her to open it. She tore open the end and took out the papers inside. It was her completed transfer request, to Homicide at the 0-9. She read through the papers. "Monday?" she asked.

He nodded. "Problem?"

"No," she shook her head. "I just didn't think things would be resolved so quickly."

"Your reputation precedes you, Benson. More than one Captain was interested in snapping you up. "

She gave him a small smile and tapped the papers against one palm nervously. "I'd like to tell the guys myself," she said, leaving unsaid her request to keep things quiet.

"Of course. But I wouldn't take too long. Cops talk and I'm sure they know at the 0-9 already."

She nodded at him. He stood up to shake her hand and she left the office. She was eager and nervous and desperately sad all at the same time. She looked at the back of Stabler's head and swore at his again. 'Damn him. Things used to be so simple.' She absentmindedly rubbed her wrist.

Fin had been watching the interaction in the office. 'That did not look good,' he thought to himself. He knew something was about to go down. He didn't know what but he was sure he wasn't going to like it.