Shaking, she clambered to her knees, pushing herself towards the coffee table. She could see her gun sitting there, useless when she'd needed it, yet still promising her safety if she could only get it in her hand. She wanted to believe that she was safe, but the fucker might have only run off to get something to bind her with. She needed to be ready in case he came back for her, for what she'd denied him.
Once her gun was there in her hand, she thought about something else. Help. The help she'd expected her neighbors would provide. She didn't hear sirens. And if the bastard came back, she'd prefer someone else was there with her. So she picked up her phone with her left hand, calling the first number that came to mind.
His voice sounded comforting to her, even though he'd been so angry when they'd spoken last. But she didn't care; she figured what she'd just endured would outweigh an argument.
She sounded scared, even to herself, as she forced out something. "El?"
She heard the squeal of his brakes as he slammed them on. "Liv, what's wrong?"
She was shaking so hard that she dropped the phone and it took her a minute of searching in the dark to find it. He was screaming her name when she brought it back to her ear. "El? I need you."
He promised her that he'd be right there.
Her eyes locked on her phone, on the illuminated display that told her it was 8:18 in the evening. She wondered where Elliot was, how long it would take to get to her.
At 8:19, the light on the display went out. Petrified of the darkness, she opened it so the light would come back. She thought about the wine she'd drunk, fearing that she could have avoided the whole thing if she'd only stayed up until normal people went to sleep instead of getting drunk and going to bed early.
At 8:20, she started hearing things. Creepy, threatening things that made her whimper. She couldn't stop shaking. She couldn't stop crying. She knew she wouldn't stand a chance of fighting him off if he came back.
At 8:21, she heard heavy footfalls in the hallway. She wanted to scream, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. The door creaked as he pushed it open and she honestly thought she would die from fear. She closed her eyes and hoped he wouldn't find her, even though she was sitting right there in the middle of her floor. She heard him flip the light switch and knew she didn't stand a chance of being hidden.
He took two steps toward the hall. "Liv?"
She was so surprised to hear his voice that she couldn't find enough air to respond.
"Olivia?" He was calling down the hall, slowly making his way toward the bedroom. "Where are you?"
He was too far away. She tried to speak, to get his attention, but all she could manage was a sob. It was enough.
"Olivia! Oh my god!" He was at her side in a flash, dropping to the floor to sit beside her, his hand shaking as he reached out to touch her.
She jerked away, scared momentarily of any hands reaching for her. She wanted to explain herself, to say why she'd called, to be in enough control to loosen the grip she had on her gun.
But he did that for her, reaching for her slowly, telling her that he was just going to take her gun, promising that he wasn't going to touch her.
Her hand fell away easily, too weak to put up a fight.
"It's ok, Liv. You're ok now." He was sitting beside her, his voice aching with the need to touch her, yet obeying her direction to stay out of contact.
With a sob, she realized he was too far away and she leaned over, reaching for him. He gathered her into his arms, holding her close, rocking her gently, telling her that he'd protect her.
He stayed with her all night. He was there, holding her when the uniforms finally arrived to answer her neighbors' calls. He was there, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders while she described the assault to Cragen. He was there, holding her hand while she put up being examined and x-rayed at the emergency room.
She was barely aware of it most of the time. In her head, she kept reliving those horrible moments, when he was on top of her, when he was hitting her, when he was chasing her. She'd start to shake and cry and Elliot would gently hold her close, talking her back to the present.
The night went on forever, right into the following morning. She'd spent most of it at the precinct, making her complaint official, going over the details time and again. She felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. Instead of her usual work attire, she was wearing her pajama pants. Because her shirt had been torn, Elliot had given her his sweatshirt to go to the hospital. She wanted to get to her locker and change her clothes. She wanted to go home and forget about what had happened.
They hadn't found any forced entry, and although Olivia was sure she'd locked her door, the memory of arriving home and doing so had been erased by the wine she'd consumed. Most of her neighbors were at work by the time they'd started canvassing, but Cragen assured her that her case was taking priority.
And then he asked her to start from the top, again, to go over everything that happened, again, to make sure she hadn't missed anything, again. She sighed out of frustration. And Elliot, who was acting as her friend and not as a cop, stepped in.
"Damn it, Don, she's been over this a hundred times. She told you everything." His voice was hard, but his arm stayed wrapped around her shoulders.
Cragen's eyes darted to Elliot's, but only for a moment. "I know you're aware of this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Sometimes things get missed. Sometimes memories get confused. I want to make sure we get all the information we can. It's better to talk about it now while the memory is still fresh."
She wanted to speak up, to dispute the idea that the memory would ever go away, but she'd long since run out of steam. The only reason she was still sitting up was because she was leaning against her partner's solid form. And he knew it.
"She's told you everything. It's not going to change."
"Elliot, if you're going to interfere, I'll have to ask you to leave."
"The fuck you will." With his words, Olivia could feel his muscles contracting, ready to respond to the threat. The last thing she needed was for Elliot to get suspended because he'd hauled off and hit the captain.
Mustering all of her energy, she lifted her head and fixed Cragen with a tired stare. "There's nothing else to tell you. I doubt anything else is going to come to me, but if it does, I promise I'll call right away." She took a breath to yawn, her weight sagging back against Elliot's side. "Can I please go home now?"
Cragen raised his hands in surrender and left the interview room, telling them that he was going to check on what information had turned up. Elliot's arm tightened around her and for a moment, she thought she might just fall asleep sitting there.
"Do you want to change here or do you want me to take you home first?"
"I just want to go home." She didn't know how she was ever going to feel safe there again, not when the son of a bitch had somehow gotten inside, but she knew she wouldn't feel safe anywhere else either. There were too many people in and out of the crib. A hotel was out of the question. She had nowhere else to go.
"Ok, home it is." He stood, offering his hands to help her to her feet beside him.
They emerged into the bullpen, the sudden noise and activity level making her feel even more out of place in her half-dressed state. She wanted to disappear, thinking that might make the eyes she felt staring at her go away.
But there was one pair of eyes in particular that wasn't going anywhere. Whitman. She heard Elliot curse under his breath as the IAB investigator approached them.
"Detective Stabler, I'm so glad I caught you before you left. Captain Cragen just told me you were about to leave." Whitman's eyes seemed to twinkle and Olivia wanted to strangle him, if for no other reason than because he was going to prevent her from going home.
"I don't have time for this shit right now. You'll have to torture me some other time." He tried to step around Whitman, but Cragen appeared in the doorway to his office and shook his head.
Olivia took a deep breath and accepted that she was going to have to get herself home. "It's ok, El. I'll be all right."
Whitman smiled at her words. "See, now you don't have any excuses."
She'd taken two steps when Elliot called her back. "Wait, Liv. Here." He fished in his pocket and held out his keys. "I don't want you walking home. Take my car. I'll come by later to get it."
She was too tired to argue, even when she heard Cragen tell her that he was sending a protective detail to watch her. She just nodded and kept walking, thankful that Elliot's offer would keep her from falling asleep halfway home. By the time she'd gotten to the car, having ignored several million strange looks from fellow cops, she was pissed off. She always got pissed off when she was tired and she felt she had plenty of things about which she was perfectly within her rights to be pissed.
The ribs on her left side hurt like a bitch. The doctor had assured her that they weren't broken, but it didn't help the fact that they felt like they were. Her cheek wasn't broken either, but she couldn't talk without the bruised and swollen skin telling her not to. She was angry that Whitman had to choose right then to pop in to bug Elliot.
She was angry at the idea that her partner didn't think she could take care of herself. She was angry at the idea that some fucker had gotten into her apartment in the first place. She was angry that the fucker had climbed into her bed and touched her. And she took the anger out on the gas pedal, interchangeably of course, with taking the anger out on the brake pedal. She'd never felt so helpless and pathetic and weak in her life. And rather than feel the pain of that, she kept funneling it all into sheer anger.
Her phone rang three blocks away from the precinct. Without looking, she knew it was Elliot, calling to make sure she had the ability to get to his car and not be attacked in the process. She silenced the call without an answer, hurling the phone onto the seat beside her. She didn't want to feel the vibration when he continued to call. But she heard it anyway, the "silent" mode of her phone leaving something, namely silence, to the imagination.
Still, she was determined not to care what noises her phone was making, not even when it rolled off the seat the next time she slammed on the brakes. Not even when it rolled under the seat with her next sudden acceleration.
It was only after she reached her apartment that she fished under the seat to find where the damn phone had wound up. Her hand closed around it and she pulled, finding that something soft had attached itself to her watch during the search.
The hazy yellow sun shining through the dirty windshield was playing tricks on her, she was sure.
So with a pounding heart and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she rubbed her eyes and tried again.
There in her hand was her missing thong.
Fabric hardened in one area with a crusty stain that absolutely had not come from her body.
Shaking, she threw it on the seat next to her. It couldn't be hers, she told herself over and over. He had a wife. He had daughters. It could have belonged to them.
But as the easily recognizable smell of her own detergent washed over her, she knew exactly why she'd smelled his cologne in her bedroom the night it had disappeared. And why those icy blue eyes had scared her so badly when he'd been on top of her.
Wiping at the tears that had spilled down her cheeks, she unsteadily got to her feet, hiding the underwear in her pocket so she wouldn't have to look at it. She sure as fuck didn't want them anymore, would never, ever feel clean putting them on. But she wasn't about to leave them in his car where he could use them for his own pleasure again.
As soon as she threw them down the trash shoot, she went back into her apartment, daring to enter what had once been her safe haven. She wanted to be scared, to think that she had to double check that she was alone, but there was a peace surrounding her, whispering in her ear that Elliot was at the precinct, being interrogated by IAB over something unrelated, leaving her safe.
Her eyes moved slowly over the disarray she'd left behind when they'd gone to the hospital. The blanket piled on the couch that Elliot had so carefully wrapped around her shoulders when she was shaking. The table and lamp laying broken where they'd fallen as he'd scrambled to chase her from her bedroom. Halfway down the hallway was the sheet that had been tangled around her legs.
With a shaking hand, she pushed open her bedroom door. Her bed was a mess, covers thrown down on the far side. The nightstand was upright, but all of items that usually lay atop it were on the floor. The lamp was intact, though the shade was torn and askew. The novel she left there for long nights was resting against the closet door, the bookmark halfway between it and the bed. The alarm clock was on its side, flashing the wrong time, evidence of the cord that was half pulled from the wall.
She could feel it like it was still happening, the crushing weight of his body pushing down on her, his hot breath coming through the mask he wore, his cold eyes staring into hers, his erection eagerly pressing against her body. She sobbed, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she remembered pushing at him, fighting his strong muscles. The memory of his fist striking her face enough to knock the wind from her lungs a second time. She could feel the terror through her once again, recalling how she'd fought and clawed and run from him. There was the horrible sensation of doom following her, knowing he was so tall, so strong, so fast that she'd never be able to get far.
And she remembered the way, when he'd caught up to her in the living room, viciously throwing her to the ground, intent on fucking her, that she'd gone for the mask, promising herself that, if nothing else, she'd be able to identify the bastard who'd dared touch her against her will. She'd thought for a brief moment that he'd never live to see his trial, that Elliot would certainly tear him apart long before he saw the inside of a court room.
The way he'd run away from her, more desperate to hide his identity than to rape her after all.
She cried out from the pain of it. God, she should have known.
Even with a fucking mask covering his face, she should have fucking recognized the son of a bitch she'd spent most of her adult life with.
With a choking sob, she ripped the sheets from the bed, intent on burning them. Hell, she wanted to burn the whole fucking bed, even the apartment. She wanted to burn herself, destroy every bit of herself that he'd touched. She'd spent hours, hours, in his arms, clinging to him after he'd tried to fucking rape her. There was something entirely sick about the whole thing, something some psychiatrist needed to treat him for. That he could fucking do that to her, only to comfort her afterwards. No wonder he'd been so eager to stop Cragen from questioning her. He'd probably been terrified the whole time that she would remember that it had been him.
As she threw the sheet to the ground, she heard something hit the floor. Something heavier than a sheet. She wasn't even sure she cared, but it was something to focus on. Something she could expend energy on. She grabbed at the wadded up sheet, shaking it until she heard a ping.
Something metal had fallen from the sheet, rolling across the wood floor and under the bed. She dropped down to her knees, reaching blindly under the bed, grabbing at the small object.
Her heart was in her throat, pounding away and choking her as she pulled the ring in front of her face. She didn't have a fucking wedding ring, so the plain gold band certainly wasn't hers. The size and thickness was decidedly male. She reached out, switching on the lamp without bothering to right it, letting it cast odd shadows from its place on the floor.
She had to wipe the tears from her eyes to read the inscription, knowing from the evidence she'd found in the car what it would say. And there before her was the writing, plain as day, condemning everything she'd ever held sacred in her life.
"E, With Love, K"
She let out a scream of anguish and pain the neighbors were sure to hear before she ran for the bathroom, her stomach rejecting everything she'd ever eaten. She'd never, ever felt so sick. She'd never really wanted to die before that moment.