Chapter 9

The first thing Olivia noticed when she awoke was that she was lying on her side, rather than her back as usual. The second was that she was covered in nothing more than a sheet, rather than her normal blanket. Finally the memories came back to her and she sat up, looking around. Elliot was gone. Well, maybe that was for the best. She couldn't believe they had been so stupid! How could she come onto him like that? He had a family, a wife and kids! She buried her face in her hands, wondering where Elliot was and cursing herself for her stupidity at the same time.

"Fuck!" Olivia shouted, pounding her fist against the mattress angrily. After lying in bed for another half hour with her eyes closed, trying to clear her head with some success, she finally got dressed. She wasn't scheduled to work, but with nothing left to do at home and boredom only allowing her confusion to grow and fester, it was the only place she could think to go. Elliot would be there, obviously, and that made her stomach twist into tight knots, but the other people surrounding them would keep him quiet, and her leg wasn't healed enough to work with him on cases, anyway. Olivia normally hated desk duty, but now she was almost looking forward to burying herself in paperwork.

When she arrived at the squadroom, trying hired – and only somewhat succeeding – not to limp, Elliot, Munch, Fin and Cragen were gathered together, obviously discussing a case. Cragen saw her first and excused himself from the group. She barely caught a glimpse of Elliot before Cragen was infront of her. "Liv, what are you doing here? I told you to take time off."

"I know, Captain, but I'm going crazy at home, I need something to do. I'll take desk duty, it doesn't matter."
Cragen considered this for a long minute, then nodded. "Alright. We just caught a big case and we could use your help, but I don't want you on the streets. Munch can partner with Elliot for now. And Liv…take it easy, alright?" He spoke with rare compassion and Olivia felt grateful. Their captain always looked out for them no matter what, and she was happy to work under his command.

"What do we got?" Olivia asked, following Cragen back to the group.

"One sick bastard," Munch said, gazing at the photos they had pinned up.

"He snatches kids, rapes them and then carves them up," Elliot said. His voice was calm, detached, but Olivia could see those traitorous jaw muscles clenching so tight she thought his teeth might shatter at any minute. The case was getting to him already; she really couldn't blame him.

"Carves…?" Olivia felt sick. Amazingly, even after a decade of working at SVU she still had to force herself not to throw up when certain cases came in. From the looks of the photos, there was no pattern to exactly how he carved them, but it was the only word that could possibly describe what had happened to the kids. They were girls and boys, too, but they all looked no older than five; not much of a pattern.

"Three kids in less than two days," Fin said. He and Olivia shook their heads in disgust; Munch, Cragen and Elliot never seemed particularly surprised by the cases they saw. Olivia wasn't sure what that might mean, and she didn't like to think about it.

They continued to discuss the case, tossing around theories as usual. Olivia was too distracted to participate much, though. Elliot was quiet, too, but he didn't always participate as much as Olivia, so that didn't necessarily mean he was distracted, but Olivia was pretty sure he was. When the discussion ended and they all got their assignments, Olivia went to her desk and sat down infront of her computer while Elliot left with Munch without a word to Olivia. 'I screwed everything up,' Olivia thought, holding back the tears that were threatening to fall. 'I turned him into a cheater and now he hates me.'

It took them all day to interview the families and the few suspects outside the family. No one had any information and no one raised any red flags for the detectives. They still had a few leads left, but they didn't look promising. "You're going home?" Olivia asked when Elliot shut off his computer, stood up and put on his jacket.

"You should, too. We can't do any more tonight. You want a ride?"

"No, I think I'll stay here for a while."

Elliot looked at her, his jaw tensing slightly. Of course she only said no because she didn't want to be stuck in the car alone with him, and apparently he knew it. "Come on. You need rest even more than I do."

Seeing that he wasn't going to take no for an answer, she grabbed her own coat and followed him out. To her surprise he said nothing on the car ride and didn't even seem abnormally tense. When he pulled up to her apartment building, just as Olivia was reaching for the handle, the locks clicked. "If I didn't know you better I might be a little scared right now."

"I'm sorry. I know why you didn't want to ride home with me and I thought I should just keep my mouth shut, but…Come on, we can't just pretend nothing happened."

"We can if we try really hard," Olivia said without a hint of humour.

"Liv, we can't…" He reached over to take Olivia's hand in his own, but she snatched it back.

"It doesn't matter what happened. I was upset, vulnerable, I was just being selfish and stupid. You're married, Elliot, and I'm not getting in the way of that."

"I'm leaving Kathy."

For a minute Olivia felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. When she finally remembered to breath in, she screamed at Elliot, "What the hell are you doing?! You can't leave Kathy! No, I won't be the reason your family falls apart, I won't be the reason Eli grows up being bounced back and forth between you and Kathy. No, Elliot, no. What the hell do you expect once you leave her? Me? Forget it, I'm not taking you away from Kathy. You want to leave her, go ahead, but don't expect to come crying to me." She unlocked her door and left the car, slamming the door hard and racing up the steps to her apartment.

Elliot rested his head against the steering wheel. Did he really expect Olivia to welcome him into her life, for things to turn out perfectly? Apparently he hadn't thought everything through. He wasn't just leaving Kathy because of what had happened with Olivia, he had been thinking about it for a long time. It was only when he realized just how much he cared about Olivia that the decision really made itself clear. Not only did he no longer love Kathy as his wife, but he realized he loved Olivia and wanted to be with her. Divorce was a sin, and he had tried everything to avoid it, but his marriage was over and he couldn't accept being miserable. Besides, it wouldn't be long before Kathy asked him for a divorce herself. However it happened, whoever made the first move, the divorce was inevitable. He wanted to tell Olivia this, but obviously she wasn't ready to listen.