Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen

Never in her life could Olivia remember ever being so unbelievably exhausted. It had been three days since Elliot had busted through the wall in Howie's basement and Olivia hadn't slept more than forty-five minutes at a time. Elliot had been a trooper; she had to give him credit. Although she hadn't really been in the mood to mention it, he'd looked like shit when she'd finally looked at him in the emergency room and he had gotten the same amount of, if not less, sleep than she had. He was clearly exhausted himself, but he never said a word about it. Besides a few replies lost in yawns, and the dark circles under his eyes, he gave no indication that he needed or wanted anything other than whatever suggestion she was making at any given moment.

One thing Olivia had come to accept over the years, the one thing as reliable as the rising sun, was that Elliot was a bear when he was sleep deprived. But her world was upside down and so was Elliot's apparently, because as tired as he was, Elliot had never been nicer to her. And it was really creepy. Because the thing she wanted most of all was for something to feel like it had before. Before she became a victim.

Partners. They were just partners. That was their deal. Part of her had been relieved at his suggestion because she really hadn't had enough time to deal with the idea, the possibility, of them being anything more. By the time the shock of the encounter had faded, she was already well entrenched in another, more traumatic, more damaging experience. Not to mention the fact that she'd been so damn angry at him that she hadn't considered much beyond shooting the man. A few days in Howie's care and suddenly Elliot's transgression didn't seem so bad. At least not in those terrible, horrifying hours when she'd truly feared that she might never see him again. And, really, during those brief seconds she allowed herself to think about it, before she could remember that she'd sworn she wouldn't, she saw the whole thing from a completely difference perspective than she had originally, when it happened, while it was happening, and afterwards – with the notable exception of a few seconds of an embrace and a kiss that still made her toes curl – she'd been so furious with Elliot that even having sex with him wasn't enough to break through the anger. And, of course, he'd hardly revealed a soft side by being slow and caring. Not that she could blame him. She'd been so pissed off that she would have run him through had he let her see a weak spot.

The incredible wrath burned itself out quickly, faced with her incarceration in Howie's world. A few hours, a few days, hell, she couldn't tell how long it had taken, but she was well aware of the fact that the first time Howie snuggled up to her, she'd wanted Elliot. Wanted him there with her, not simply because she had no doubt he would kill any man who touched her against her will, but because she'd missed him, because in those almost inconceivably short moments they'd shared an embrace, she'd become addicted to being in his arms, because in all honesty she'd been addicted to the idea of being cradled in his strong arms for years, long before it had been even remotely possible.

Though it hadn't exactly been the sort of rendezvous that was written about in romance novels, though it had initially shaken her so deeply, she knew he hadn't intended to be so rough, to hurt her, to finally act on their attraction in such an animalistic manner. She'd seen it in those moments after, when he'd fixed her hair, when he'd kissed her so tenderly. But mostly, and this was the part that affected her far more deeply than a hard fuck had, she'd seen it in the dramatic way he'd changed. She knew there was a perfectly reasonable chance that it had been her abduction that changed him, simply because they'd never been through something like that in all the time they'd been partners, but Olivia staunchly believed that it had been the night in the crib that had transformed him. Perhaps her abduction had merely brought the changes to the surface.

He'd been so scared. Tough act in place as always, he'd been terrified to look her in the eye. She'd been through hell and just wanted to crawl into his arms and let him protect her the way he'd always tried, and in keeping with their timing which always seemed to be exactly opposite one another, he'd been afraid. Of her. Of himself. Of the feelings she stirred in him that he'd only recently revealed were out of his control. She'd reassured him, at least she'd tried, that nothing had happened that she hadn't consented to, but she wasn't entirely sure he really believed her.

But she just didn't have the strength to fight back those demons he'd always harbored, or to fix what someone had obviously broke in him so very long ago, so she let it go. He'd promised not to leave her and she'd promised Huang, in one of the most embarrassing conversations of her life, that Elliot had not raped her, and therefore she expected the mess of their relationship was settled enough for the meantime.

Unfortunately, Elliot was so nice and careful and sweet and thoughtful that Olivia couldn't help thinking that she was really, really, really messed up. Because no matter how she looked at it, she couldn't reconcile the fierce, passionate man that threw her against the wall and fucked her with the quiet, gentle guy who'd stocked her freezer with ten cartons of rocky road lest she run out. For her to make Before Elliot and After Elliot be the same Elliot, she figured that she herself had to very, very different.

And, since she had to face Huang everyday or deal with a pleading, frightened Elliot, she steered the therapy sessions to focus on how she had changed, rather than on what had changed her.

Huang was distinctly uncomfortable with the subject, which amused Olivia to no end. Huang wasn't easily swayed by the things they'd told him over the years, but he got a strange look on his face and half of his muscles tensed whenever she managed to mention her and Elliot and the crib. As embarrassing as it had been for her at first, she was determined to put it back on him. Besides, the simple fact was if she kept trying to talk about it, Huang would have no doubt that she was perfectly comfortable with what had happened, which in turn would keep him from figuring out that she really wasn't.

Her discomfort with the topic had nothing to do with Elliot or his behavior. She trusted him implicitly and, had she resisted, had she tried to stop him, she knew without question that Elliot would have stopped. He'd grabbed her and held her and touched her and fucked her because she'd let him, because she'd wanted him to. Her problem was that the ire, the control, the violence, of the act turned her on. She'd never felt anything like the release he'd coaxed from her body and it horrified her. She didn't know what that meant, but she didn't like what it said about her. And there was a solid part of her that feared she'd destroyed any real chance of a relationship with Elliot by enjoying what had clearly haunted him. That was something that she wasn't about to discuss with anyone. Not ever.

But like usual, Huang was able to tamp down his discomfort and focus on hers, immediately seeing through her attempts to distract him.

He shifted in his chair, swapping his crossed legs and rebalancing his notepad on his left knee without ever breaking eye contact. He didn't even blink; just stared at her, through her, with his unwavering attention. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She tried to distract him while she continued to build up the imaginary wall between them. "Talk about what?" She wondered what it was he was noting occasionally on his pad and suspected strongly that it might be a grocery list. Convincing herself of that made her feel better about playing stupid and trying to lie her way through another visit.

Completely unbelieving of her sudden stupidity, he gave her a measured half smile. Enough to assure that he was friendly. Enough to let her know that he wasn't going to let her get away with it. "Elliot was extremely upset about it. Talking about it helped him a lot. Maybe it will help you too."

She mirrored his half smile, but her eyes were far more guarded and it seemed more of a threat than reassurance. "Isn't that privileged?"

Although his smile faltered into a frown for a millisecond, he recovered quickly. "He gave me permission to talk to you about it. He was concerned about how you perceived the experience."

She wanted to congratulate him for hitting the nail on the head, but her poker face held. She stared at Huang for a long time, as though staring him down would prove anything. After an awkward silence, she folded and let her eyes drop to the table between them. "When I was in the fourth grade, I wrote this report on horses and I remember reading that they only blink every thirty seconds or so. Apparently, humans usually blink every five seconds."

Finally, Huang rewarded her with a baffled look that only lasted long enough for him to switch his legs around again. "Did something happen in the fourth grade that you want to talk about?"

She let out the nervous laugh that had been threatening, finishing it off by clearing her throat, feeling certain that every pause wasted more of the carefully measured time. "No, George. I was just wondering if one of your ancestors might have been a horse."

He rewarded her effort with a chuckle and a glance that shifted off hers for a precious second. "I'll make a note of that to follow up with the ophthalmologist."

"Good. Wouldn't want anything to ruin that piercing stare of yours." She squirmed in her seat as she muttered, realizing for the first time what it was like for suspects in interrogation who tried to stare down Elliot.

He nodded, giving her a bit of the time she seemed to be requesting. "So, back to the fourth grade. Want to tell me about it?"

She shook her head, wondering why she'd mentioned something that meant absolutely nothing while questioning if maybe it did. Why had she brought it up? And then she remembered she was trying to distract him. Waste time until Elliot got sick of the magazine he was reading in her bedroom and wandered into the kitchen for a drink, at which point she could ask him for one, which would lead to him inquiring if they were finished, when she would nod and say, quite convincingly in her mind, that she thought so. She figured therapy hours counted as much as results really, and so, when Huang showed up, she never let Elliot take more than one magazine with him. God forbid she actually had to open up.

With a sigh, she sat back. "Well, Cindy Baker was my best, best, best friend of all time, or at least the month of March, because she sat in front of me and let me look over her shoulder in Earth Science. And then there was Nicky, who was just as hot as nine-year-old boys could be in my mind." She paused, actually smiling at the thought of how giddy Nicky's smile had made her feel. "Oh, and we can't forget Alyson Bradley. She sat behind me and paused me notes about how Nicky liked her more."

Taking the bait, Huang grinned. "Now why would anyone like Alyson better?"

The grin fell from Olivia's face as she realized that like most of her stories about any random thing at all, this one wound up sucking too. "She pointed out that her teeth were white and mine weren't because my mother hadn't told me to brush my teeth for a few months and it's really not something nine-year-olds usually come up with on their own." She stopped for a moment, but seeing Huang's wince out of the corner of her eye, she figured the more she talked about something that really was about the least of her problems, the less she had to discuss the real ones. "So I decided that dirty teeth were better than no teeth and I clocked her in the face with my science book." With a proud grin, she looked up at Huang. "Took out two of her front teeth too. She got a bridge put in that didn't quite match the rest of her pristine smile."

Huang nodded, making a note that Olivia could only assume added toothpaste to his list. "Did that get Nicky's attention?"

"No, he thought I was a freak, but it got the teacher's attention and she got the principle's attention and he suspended my ass for three weeks. And when I came back, Alyson and Cindy were best friends." A thought occurred to her suddenly and she couldn't hold back the laugh, a real one, not the nervous one from earlier.

Huang's curiosity was piqued and he smiled. "What?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing."

"Come on, if something's making you laugh over a story as heartbreaking as that one-"

"Heartbreaking to a fourth grader. Amusing to the rest of us." She shook her head again, but found her mouth opening anyway. "I was just thinking how Nicky didn't appreciate my violent streak."

Huang shook his head, as though Olivia's nonsense had managed to short-circuit something inside. "And that's funny?"

"It is when you think about how Elliot would have reacted." She laughed again, imagining a thick mop of brown hair and bright blue eyes and a wide smile at Olivia's problem solving capabilities.

And then Huang's eyes seemed to glisten once again. "You think Elliot likes violence?"

The question stopped her laughter and sucked the smile right off her face. She hadn't been thinking that at all. She'd only been thinking that Elliot would probably be amused by the story. But the idea that Huang had planted, that she'd brought up the fourth grade for a reason, that she'd come up with that particular story out of her whole life's repertoire, that mentioning how Huang didn't blink was somehow all planned in her subconscious, bloomed, leading them back to discuss the rough sex she'd so thoroughly enjoyed with Elliot as though she'd secretly wanted to the whole time.

She shook her head once, finding her voice thick and uncooperative when she tried to speak around the lump in her throat. "No, I don't."

"Do you like violence?" His eyes may have been blinking up a storm, but Olivia would never have noticed.

Her eyes were locked on her lap, watching the image of her twisting hands mist over as tears formed. Her voice wouldn't work, but it didn't really matter. She didn't know what to say anyway.

Splintered.5