Part Twelve

In an attempt to put Kathy's plea, and Elliot's threat, out of her head, Olivia turned to her regular stress relief. Not only was the place a mess from the attack, which she refused to think about, but she also had the slightly obsessive desire to wash down every surface that the crime scene techs might have touched. Those techs went in and touched some rather filthy places, she knew, so she told herself there was nothing wrong with deciding her entire apartment was in serious need of antibacterial cleanser. Focusing on that allowed her to clean up the mess Elliot had made tearing after her without having to deal with the fact that it had been Elliot or that she'd been attacked.

She straightened what needed straightened, mopped the floors, scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen, sprayed every surface with Lysol, found the few dust bunnies that had dared to gather in such a short amount of time and chased them out. With a slightly paranoid way about her, she took her sheets, blankets and pillows to the laundry room, making sure to triple check that her apartment was locked up tight when she left and carrying her gun with her to stare at the machines while she washed them in hot water with bleach twice. She moved the oddly striped and spotted mass of ruined bedding to the dryers, not even caring that she was just going to have to replace it all anyway. Hell, she was already considering getting herself a new mattress and possibly even moving, just so Elliot wouldn't even know where to find her when he got out of prison.

After the bed was remade, half-bleached bed clothes and all, she picked up the broken lamp in the living room and the torn shade from the bedroom, triple checked her locked door again, and then shoved the items that she couldn't wash down the trash shoot.

And then the idea occurred to her.

Elliot had been so damn excited about the possibility of the DNA on her thong clearing him. It had been two days since she'd tossed them, but judging from the smell emanating from the closet which housed the trash shoot, the dumpster had not been emptied yet.

She went back to her apartment for plastic gloves and a flashlight before descending the steps to the basement. The place was dark and smelly and open to all residents, so she wasn't sure what sort of hideous things she might discover if she were to look. She just refused to look and promised herself a steaming hot shower as a reward for traipsing down there into what might as well have been the great beyond. Surprisingly, the beam of her flashlight revealed, dumpster aside, the floor was clean, except for some rather thick piles of dust.

As she suspected, just inside the automatic door, only operated by the super and the garbage men, was a nearly overflowing dumpster from which was coming one of the most awful smells she'd ever experienced. Olivia kicked at it several times on each side, giving fair warning to any rats that might have been scavenging that she was armed and about to invade. Having had the unfortunate opportunity twice in her career, she remembered to push aside the shoot so she would not have new garbage rain down on her head. Then she pulled herself up over the side, perched herself on the lip and started throwing aside all the bags of trash.

She hadn't bothered to bag the thong when she tossed it, so she hoped that would make it easier to find. Most of the space was filled with bags, a good majority of them leaking substances she was fairly sure were radioactive, or at least smelled like something that should be marked bio-hazard. But when she'd finished removing all the bags, praying the super didn't have cameras down there that would identify her as the culprit since she had no intention of putting them back, there was still a fairly large amount of loose crap.

Afraid of the rats and whatever creatures that might thrive in bio-hazardous, radioactive waste, she kept one hand on the edge of the dumpster, both feet well away from the soup that had accumulated under all the garbage, and used a discarded broom handle to fish for solid objects. It took several hours of fishing alone, even after she tossed aside the broom and tried instead using a plastic bowl. One bowlful at a time, she examined and then poured out the murky liquid. She knew the super, or the Department of Health, was going to be pissed about the mess she was making, but as she slowly, but steadily emptied the remaining contents of the dumpster, one thing became so painfully clear that she didn't really care who got mad about what.

The thong, the one Elliot had sworn would clear him, wasn't there.

Sitting on the edge of the empty dumpster, staring at the pile of dripping bags and the river of slop oozing under the door, Olivia was at a total fucking loss. Her olfactory sense had mercifully abandoned her a long time earlier; her sense of being covered in filth also disappeared. Her brain was busy, wrapped around the mystery. Wondering who, even in their fucked up stalking mind would have sifted through that gross pile, and puddle, of shit to steal back the panties after she threw them in there.

It was an altogether different level of depravity, she thought, than just jerking off with them in the first place.

To steal them back, Elliot would have had to do the same thing she had, since he'd been at the precinct or in custody since that morning. Which, as she'd had no qualms doing, would have left a sizable mess all over the place. Even if he'd taken the time to put the bags back in the dumpster, which she had no intention whatsoever of doing, there would have been evidence of them having been moved in the first place, since most of them were covered in the foul glop that lived in the dumpster. And there was none. Aside from the dust, the floor was pristine.

She was baffled. Really and truly puzzled, perhaps, she decided from not having slept or possibly from having breathed in vapors of all sorts of things that weren't meant for human consumption. The only way he could have stolen those panties back without leaving a sticky, smelly dead giveaway behind him would have been to snag them right after she'd thrown them away, when they would have been near the top of the pile of trash.

And she knew Elliot had been at the precinct then, talking to IAB.

As she climbed down from her perch, she tried to make sense of it. Elliot could have had an accomplice, like the man who'd bought the damn flowers. Or maybe he'd spent the day, in violation of his restraining order, going through the dumpster and cleaning up after himself, magically removing any trace of having made the mess Olivia had. But she really couldn't picture that since the man was actually more averse to ghastly odors than she was.

Maybe Elliot was a fucking criminal mastermind, stealing back the thong after he'd planted the idea in her mind that it would clear his name, knowing that she'd have trouble understanding why he would steal something that would exonerate him.

Or maybe he was telling the truth.

Shuddering, she practically ran for her apartment, taking the steps two at a time, terrified of the poor woman she met on her floor. The woman gagged as she passed, and it took Olivia several minutes to realize it was the new perfume she was sporting, eau de dumpster.

She was in a full-on paranoid fit when she entered her apartment, fear causing her to draw her weapon and check every room twice. She threw open every closet, even got down to check under her bed, in case the monster who'd lived under there when she was three had come back.

Finally, the fact that she was stinking up her apartment, the one she'd just cleaned again, got to her. Scared to leave the door unattended, she pushed a table in front of it. Still unconvinced, she shoved the couch in front of it too. Praying it wasn't the night a fire would start, she felt secure enough to take a shower. She left her filthy clothes waded up in the bottom of the tub because she didn't feel like dealing with the laundry room again. And the sofa blocking the door was a bit of a deterrent as well.

She put on her pajamas and walked into her bedroom, staring at the bed. She'd washed everything. She'd made sure her apartment was secure. And she reminded herself that rapist tendencies aside, Elliot wasn't particularly dirty. But she still couldn't bring herself to lie down. Instead she grabbed the newly striped blue blanket and dragged it to the couch, telling herself that the persistent stench of bleach was better than any traces of Elliot's cologne despite her body's preference for the latter. Luckily, she fell asleep quickly.

The nightmares were to be expected, she figured, but it didn't make them any less horrible. It would start out like that night, with a dark, heavy figure on top of her. She'd pull off the mask the way she hadn't been able to when it had happened. Sometimes it would be Elliot, angry and upset, using his strong arms to hit her and shred her clothes and force himself on her. Sometimes it would be another mask, a series of covered faces, or even an inhuman black hole with bright blue eyes, eyes that were always Elliot's. And sometimes, the ones that woke her screaming louder than she had that night, there was some hideous creature atop her, beating her, raping her, with Elliot's face watching from the foot of the bed, laughing at her terror.

Shaking in fear, she abandoned the idea of sleep. She could barely see the television from her position on the recently relocated couch, but she didn't care. The drone of the voices made her feel safer, the happy faces weren't necessary. She sat there with droopy eyes, letting the pair of excited women try to sell her some sort of automatic crafting device that would make her scrapbook come alive. She drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours, never getting deep enough under to actually be troubled by the notion of a living scrapbook.

Mercifully, morning did eventually come. The sun seemed to be taking its damn time coming, time she spent by putting her rearranged furniture back in its proper place. She normally would have had no problem heading off to work before dawn. In fact, half the time she went out to work in the middle of the night. She wasn't afraid of the dark.

She was afraid of the rapists who lurked in the dark. Particularly the ones stalking her.

The day was one of the longest she'd ever put in. Not only was she stuck at her desk, pushing paper and pretending that it didn't make her feel useless and impotent, but people kept asking her how she was feeling, like she'd had the flu or something. Munch's attention, even Fin's, didn't bother her too much. She got the impression that they were just trying to get through an extremely awkward period, unable to make the usual kind of small talk, unsure if they should bring up any cases due to what had happened to her. Cragen did bug her, mostly because she couldn't tell him to fuck off the way she had the eight millionth time Munch had asked if she was doing ok.

She wasn't doing ok. She seesawed between being convinced that Elliot was being punished unfairly and knowing that he was hell bent on driving her completely out of her mind. She felt sick when Carlisle showed up, popping into Cragen's office to request his keys, all but the copy of Olivia's, and to demand the location of his car. Olivia explained that it was right where she'd left it, outside her building, uneasy about the idea of knowing Elliot was going to be there even if she wasn't. But then Carlisle, who seemed to read her mind, assured everyone, loudly, that her client would not be violating the restraining order, that she herself would be retrieving his car for him. As the redhead walked away, Olivia figured she'd take one look at the ancient piece of shit Elliot called a car and feel about it the same way Olivia had felt about climbing in the dumpster.

Fin offered to pick up her lunch when he was heading out for his own, something he did on occasion, so she didn't feel too bad accepting the favor. But then Munch and Cragen both did the same. And then Greyleck appeared, having tried and failed to endear herself to the unit more than once, and suddenly asked if Olivia wanted to grab a bite to eat. Olivia pondered asking if the woman knew she had to unclench her jaw in order to put food in her mouth, but she didn't really feel like alienating another person.

It was a little before five when she stood up to leave. It was early for her, but she'd caught up on everything she could find to do. The sun was down and snow had been falling since noon, certain to make the trip home long and cold and upsetting for someone who was afraid of her own shadow. Munch came up behind her to offer her a lift home, laying his hand on her shoulder unexpectedly and sending Olivia three feet away in surprise. With a racing heart, she shook her head, desperate to be alone. Munch hadn't gotten to the door before Fin appeared, asking if she wanted him to walk her home. With a growl, she said no, getting a whole five feet before Cragen emerged from his office to see if she was looking for a ride home.

She stomped away, not even giving him an answer. As she pushed through the front door, grouchily stepping onto the snow covered street, Greyleck was there. Olivia couldn't figure out what was so odd about her until she realized that she was actually smiling. Thoroughly disturbed, Olivia tried to push by her.

Greyleck grabbed her arm, causing Olivia to jerk away and nearly lose her footing on the slick street. "Hey, I didn't mean to startle you. I was just going to see if you needed a ride home."

"No!" She hadn't meant to shout, but the frustration made it unavoidable. And just because she saw her lovely personal protective detail rolling down the windows, she kept shouting. "I don't need a fucking ride home from anyone! Everyone leave me the fuck alone!"

With her regular expressionless stare back in place, Greyleck shook her head. "Geez, fine, whatever." Olivia watched her walk away, back to a warm car, and seriously wished she'd taken someone up on the offer.

Shivering, she started home, alone except for the entire population of Manhattan plus two cops watching over her. The truth was she just wanted to be alone. Elliot was the only person she'd ever really trusted in her life, a character assessment that had only just blown up in her face. If she couldn't trust him, someone she'd trusted so completely for so long, she wasn't going to bother with anyone else. She'd rely on herself. She'd watch out for herself. She'd survive without him. And, as the snow started to come down harder, she told herself she'd stop missing him. It was too soon to miss his presence at her side, his intoxicating cologne, his warm smiles, his rare teasing. Besides, she reminded herself, he'd been the one to betray her, to destroy all that she'd thought their friendship meant.

She knew she shouldn't feel so guilty for wanting to hate him.

She knew she shouldn't think it was so impossible to hate him.

But she knew it was. She shook her head at her own ridiculous thoughts, pulled her coat tighter to stave off the wind driven snow, and realized she needed help. Real fucking help. She was never going to get through the attack by her most trusted friend alone.

Olivia pushed the call button for the elevator repeatedly. The distraction of smacking the button over and over helped keep her from the nervous desire she had to peer over her shoulder. Despite knowing who it had been that night, despite rationalizing that Elliot simply wasn't stupid enough to come after her again, her body responded like any other victim. Whenever she was alone, and most of the time when she wasn't, she prepared physically for an assault. Her senses were on alert, hyperaware of any noises around her, ready for another attack. She was terrified and she hated it. And she hated that it was Elliot who'd done that to her. Still, she refused to give into the terror he'd instilled in her, refused to alter her life in any way besides obviously not working with him anymore and sleeping on the couch in the middle of the living room and being afraid to be outside in the dark.

But she couldn't hate him. She just couldn't. She didn't know what the hell was wrong with her. The man had broken into her apartment, snuck into her bedroom, and climbed on top of her. He'd held her down, staring at her coldly while she fought and screamed and tried to get away from him. He'd chased her when she ran, striking her, scaring her, hurting her. And then, even after he'd seen all the evidence against him, proof of what he'd done, he still refused to give anyone, especially her, the satisfaction of admitting it. He wouldn't explain himself, his reasons, and she needed that to understand it, to get over it. She imagined the therapy process to fix everything that he'd broken in her would take the rest of her life. She didn't think she would ever really be ok again. Because even if she did eventually stop looking over her shoulder, she knew she would never trust anyone. Never. What was the point?

The elevator doors opened finally, but at the same time a car backfired outside, sending Olivia jumping and ducking inside, a terrified shout ripping from her throat. As the doors slid closed, her cheeks burned in embarrassment even though there was no one around to witness it. Cragen had been remarkably kind to her by not insisting that she take time off, but she knew she needed to get some kind of hold on herself if she wasn't going to let him down. With a resigned sigh, she stepped out onto her floor and promised herself she was going to call a doctor. Someone. She wasn't fooling anyone that she was ok, not even herself.

Her mind was on the fact that she was ready to sign up for counseling without being forced into it, such a deviation from normal for her. Perhaps she was more preoccupied by the fact that it had been her partner who'd caused the change, which only brought her back to the whole damn thing again. It was a vicious cycle that she was actually willing to talk about provided talking about it would break it.

Admittedly, her newly-developed paranoia about her surroundings was on the back burner as she turned her key in the lock. She was tired; even a short day had taken more out of her than the traditionally long days ever had. Tossing her bag on the floor, she stepped inside and felt along the wall in the dark for the light switch.

And then he was on her again, so fast she couldn't scream.