When he made his way downstairs, his first sight was Alex leaning over a trash can, Don rubbing her back gently and helping to hold her hair back from her face. Seeing this was like being hit in the mouth, a blow that sent him reeling and paralysed him.

People vomiting on this job was nothing new, he had seen before from young cops not used to bodies or blood or death, from witnesses not able to cope with the pressure, but it was the first time he had seen Alex lose her composure like that. The scene before him, her obvious distress, and the smell of her stomach acid filling the air was enough to tip him over the edge. In the last five years, it had never taken much.

On the morning of day six it is easy to get up, despite it being a Saturday. No coffee or extra five minutes required, the moment he wakes, his body iss full of adrenaline and desperate to go; if he doesn't move, doesn't find her, he is going to burst out of his skin.

Now he's prowling round the squad room, anxious to get out there, but his temporary partner is in Cragen's office talking and Munch and Fin have gone to Staten Island after someone reported seeing a dark haired woman being dragged into an apartment four days ago. He's trying to keep the hope, the faith, but so far there are no leads to fuel the dimming light, just the DNA of an unidentified man. He keeps seeing her vanish in his mind, walking in through the door of her place and then fading into nothing. It doesn't work like that, she didn't simply 'go', but with no other solid information, it's the easiest way to think.

When Elliot is on his twelfth lap of the squad room Cragen bursts out of his office, Detective Adams close behind, their coats in hand and tension apparent.

"You..." For a second he pauses, and Elliot can almost see cogs whirring within his brain as he makes a decision. He feels sick, as though an axe is about to fall as he kneels before his executioner. "We've got a call."

Cragen seems reluctant to tell him more, but the fact he is not running out of the door signifies there is no good within this news.

"Coastguard have pulled a body out of the river. A bag over the head. General age and body type are right. Warner's on her way to the scene. So are we."

Elliot is frozen for a second as the knowledge seeps its way to his brain. "Right". Isn't this all wrong, not right? Then a shadow of composure falls across him and he steels himself. It isn't the time to be Olivia's partner. It's the time to be a detective, time to get through, time for answers. Without saying a word, he joins them as they hurry out of the building.

It is a short journey made faster by the lights and sirens, and they pull up to the windswept area before Warner does. Elliot can see a small group of people standing over what must be the body, and the thought crosses his mind for a fleeting blink that he cannot do this. That he should just sit in the car and wait for others to do the deed. If it is her, then she could have been in the river for all these days. She won't be Olivia. She'll be something else.

But without thinking further, he gets out. This is his job, and not only that, but his responsibility. He wants to see her, has to see her. No one else but he should be the one to identify her, to bring her back to them. No matter what nightmares seeing her brings.

Walking over to the group, he feels Cragen beside him. The people part without asking for badges, without having to be asked to step aside, and there it is at his feet, a sheet shrouding the vague outline of a body. He crouches down, automatically pulling gloves on, and for a second he can see what he is about to without having to do it. His sick mind has already put dead features on his picture of her, dyed her skin, added wounds. It's chilling, all encompassing and he thinks that nothing can be as bad as what is in his mind's eye.

He pulls the sheet back.

The woman's head is still covered in a bag, but he thinks he can tell from just the build of the shoulders that it's not her. He's not sure though, his memory is still playing tricks, blurring the lines. Glancing up at Cragen as he reaches for the knot of the rope holding the bag on, he receives permission and undoes it, as gently as if he was getting tangles out of a child's hair. Then it's loose, and he closes his eyes as he pulls it off.

It's not her.

The relief of this fact hits him at the same time as the realisation that he had known it wasn't her, right from the start, from the moment of Cragen leaving his office. He doesn't know how, or why, he had known this, but it seems too simple, too easy an end to this torture. How can something as unimaginably unbearable end in such a place, with a quiet look at a body and the gaze of a few cops?

Even so, he is forced to move away fast, pushing through the people still standing around and leaning against a squad car for support as he vomits again and again and again, burning bile rising from nowhere and searing his flesh, choking him.

Finally it stops, and when he looks up he sees Warner give him a sympathetic glance as she makes her way to the body. It's the first time he has seen her since she brought the DNA results in and she looks awful. He hadn't thought she would, that this would hit her like this. It's not like she won't have had cops in her morgue before now. But she hasn't got Olivia there. Just the dread.

When they arrive back at the precinct, Munch and Fin are standing by the coffee machine. Cragen asks them what happened with the lead, but Elliot doesn't listen. It doesn't matter, they would have called if it had been anything.

He spends the rest of the day shielded, wrapped in cotton wool, nothing getting in or out, and this time he doesn't argue when Cragen sends him home. He feels dazed the moment he leaves the precinct, but he ignores it. In fact, ignores everything, including his family, simply walking upstairs and going to bed. He is still awake when he feels Kathy looking at him before getting in beside him. He senses her grief, her worry, her despair, but he shows no sign of consciousness. What would be the point?

It is only on the drive in of the next day, with quieter roads and the relaxed aura coating everything that he realises it is a Sunday. Everyone is in though, and Cragen asks for their presence in his office.

Munch is sitting in one chair, the female detective in the other, and he, Fin and Adams dot themselves around the room. Elliot doesn't look at anyone, and holds his breath.

Cragen sits, encompassed in weariness. He avoids everyone's eyes as well.

"One P.P are scaling down the search," It's only now that he looks up, taking in everyone in turn, but no one reacts, just wait for the other shoe to drop. "The tipline is still open but there's very little activity now, just nutcases and whack jobs."

Elliot wants to snort, but suppresses it. Then he realises that what he really wants is to glance across at Olivia and give her a knowing smirk. He almost does, at thin air, just to see what would happen,whether the world would end and he could gratefully sink into insanity. Cragen is still talking.

"Detective Adams is also going back to his own squad. Detective Harris will be here for a while yet, helping us out on some of the other cases, getting things going again."

'Getting things going again'. Like they have stopped work for a holiday, gone on strike, been relaxing with their feet up. He closes his eyes, and simply listens.

"I'm not going to make any additional time off mandatory, unless I see the slightest sign that I should," There is an iron firmness laden over the words, "But the second anyone feels that they cannot do this any more, that they need some time or space, come to me. You'll go on paid leave, no questions asked."

Through his eyelids, Elliot feels Cragen's scrutiny of him.

"I'm also not going to expect you to take today off, despite it being a Sunday. Work if you must. BUT, each of you are expected to take a day off during the week this week, to make up for this weekend." He pauses.

"That IS mandatory."

It slams into him, the thought of a day off. Sitting still. With no work. Waiting for an answer that might never come. But his first desire at this mandatory sentence, to hit someone, will negate any chances of working for the next month.

"Munch, Fin, there are a couple more calls to chase up from the tipline overnight. It doesn't seem that they will come to anything but you'd better check. Then I need you to do paperwork on the Cardenilli trial. Alex called this morning, trial starts on Tuesday." His tone changes, and it's that that makes Elliot open his eyes to see Cragen looking at him.

"We got a call this morning about the John Doe child from last Monday. Someone recognised him but wouldn't give any more information, just asked to see you Elliot. Seems they got hold of your card."

He hands him the address and nods to Sarah. "Take Harris with you. She's gone over what we've got about the boy."

And so life resumes.

As he drives, walks, sits beside the grandmother of the child and shows her the picture, looks concerned while she cries, and even while he listens to the information she can give, he feels one step removed, like someone has put up a glass wall between him and the rest of the world.

Once they got the I.D and went to the boy's apartment, the case was easy to solve, a matter for Warner and the C.S.U guys rather than any detective work. He and Harris find the mother dead in the bedroom, strangled, and the father having shot himself in the head, a suicide note and confession next to him. Seems he'd been abusing the boy but then the mother tried to leave, stealing him of his prey. He'd killed his son, then come home and killed his wife, before being full of remorse and ending it.

Elliot feels none of the melancholy relief of a case that's solved, or sadness for those involved, just a mixture of relief that it didn't take up too much time away from Olivia's, and a strange annoyance that it didn't take longer and he couldn't lose himself in it. It feels like a betrayal, to leave her case for a minute, like leaving her side or abandoning her, but the truth is the few seconds he didn't think of her were like painkillers suddenly kicking in, the agony receding briefly.

He had thought day seven was going to be the hardest, the survival of a whole week without her impossible to take, but the truth is everyone tries so hard to make it easier that it almost works. He isn't even let down when a news item discussing the fact she has been gone for a week yields no new results. When he leaves the precinct, he notices one of the missing posters put up all over the city is beginning to tear, its paper edges rolling in, the colours not so clear.

He stands and stares, her dark eyes fading before him, and he wants to sink to his knees and sob, tear the paper down and scream at her to come home, to stop leaving, to stay. He isn't aware of getting home that night, or going to bed, but he must have done.

It's that night that the nightmares start, and the next day that he cannot make it into work.

She's floating in the river, face down, and he's trying to swim to her. She's falling from a building and he cannot reach her in time. She's bleeding out beneath his hands and he can feel her blood chilling. She's screaming his name, and when he wakes up with a gasp, it reverberates throughout him.

He lies there as the alarm goes off, and it is Kathy who has to lean over him and bring silence. He just doesn't move.

After an hour of her watching him, he hears her call Cragen, say that it's finally hit him, that he won't be in today. The words sound stupidly false, it hasn't hit him at all. There isn't anything to do so. Just an empty space, and spaces can't cause blows. How could emptiness ever cause as much pain as a body or blood or answers?

Still, he doesn't speak for the day. Kathy and the kids tiptoe round him and she puts a plate of sandwiches in front of him that he doesn't touch. He watches them waiting for him to shatter, but he won't. Not today. That would be too easy as well.

Cragen approaches him the next day, the same apprehensive way everyone else takes around him.

"Sarah's agreed to stay on here for a while. Would you rather.....well, she could partner John or Fin if you'd like."

Elliot can feel the effort it has taken to say that, and shakes his head. What if she comes back, and they've changed things round for no reason? Anyway, it doesn't seem fair that all of them should lose their partners. A tiny part of him considers for a second saying yes, split them up, let them feel this. But what would be the point?

"Also......we need the desk space. Would you like me too....."

He gestures towards Olivia's place.

Elliot gives him a long look, and Cragen nods. He cannot bear even his boss touching, moving, packing away her things. She's his, and so he will remove her, take her with him.

As he begins to box her stuff up, the room carefully empties so he is left alone. The paperwork he puts in piles for him or Cragen, the personal stuff goes into the box, her mother's case files at the bottom, the rest on top carefully, in case her hairbrush suddenly explodes and it isn't there, waiting for her to use it. When he's done there, the desk bare, he goes and asks Cragen for the combination so he can clear her locker, and maintenance come to open it.

He finds a sweatshirt that still smells of her and stands for what feels like an age with it in his hands, looking. In the end, it takes him till lunchtime to move again.

That night, he asks Dickie to help him scan the photo of her and her mother, to make it as perfect as possible. He can't take the original, leave an empty frame, but the print-out onto photo paper is nearly as good. He folds it up and puts it in his wallet.

Five years on, he pulled out his wallet and took the folded up picture from it. There were crease lines across it, the edges tattered from the number of times it had been taken in and out. When he thought he'd lost his wallet once, it was the one thing he cared about, despite the original sitting in the box in the bottom of his closet. He knew he shouldn't have done, that the kids pictures should matter more, but he could take new ones of them. She was a ghost, captured for an instant, frozen in time.

When he ripped his eyes from the photo, Alex was sitting sipping water, and Don was studying him. He looked at the picture again before tucking it back away, and then smiled for a second. How ironic, that she was the one that could still make him smile in that hell, when she was the one whom the hell revolved around.

The agony, the fires of despair, continued to burn him the moment he walked back into the squad room, and saw her.