Day Twenty-Two

Nighttime really fucking sucked. She'd never realized it before, but lying there in her bed, staring at the minutes tick by on her clock, trying, and failing, to contort her comforter around her body in such a way that it might feel like Elliot was there spooning behind her, she finally realized that nighttime, especially being alone at nighttime, was a big fucking miserable experience. Usually, if she wasn't sleeping, she was working, mostly with Elliot, and therefore nighttime didn't suck so much.

But at some point, nighttime had become not so much a quiet respite from the pain of day in and day out of rape and murder and abuse, but rather the long ass period of time when she wasn't with Elliot.

So being sound asleep was really the only way to spend the hours. Except that she hadn't spent the night alone since she'd known the bliss that was Elliot's embrace, not if she discounted Howie's basement. Instead of seeing it as a failing of herself or neediness, Olivia determined that it was, in fact, simply a by-product of love. Puppy love. Her first foray into the wild ride. She wanted to be with him every second. She wanted to touch him, even the thought of something silly like holding his hand made her grin stupidly at her ceiling. She wanted to giggle and pass notes and confide in her girlfriends that he was so handsome.

And she wanted to hurry up and prove her point to Huang so she could spend every moment with Elliot.

She wasn't foolish enough to think it wouldn't wear off. She'd known Elliot for quite a few years and he knew exactly how to piss her off. And as she grew stronger, as Elliot realized she wasn't going to fall apart without him, they'd likely slip back into the patterns that made her realize he wasn't quite so perfect. Until then, however, she saw no problems with reveling in the happiness. It wasn't like she'd had a lot of it in her life

As she watched the digital clock tick one more minute into the nighttime, she told herself the creepy noises coming from the closet were in her head.

Two minutes later, she had one of her bookends ready to swing like a bat as she flung open the door. Unless the invisible man was hiding out in there, she told her racing heart that the noises had been in her head.

Two minutes after that, she was gripping her covers in fear, staring wide-eyed at the bedroom door, suffering from the displacement of the imaginary noises to the hall.

Fuck, it was after midnight, she declared, therefore she'd spent the night by herself. She grabbed her phone and called Elliot.

The smile was evident from his voice, although he was pretending to be disappointed. "I thought I told you not to call me."

"I miss you." She figured that her pathetic announcement ensure his forgiveness for the late hour of her call.

"I miss you too. But why aren't you asleep?" Although he was questioning her, she could tell from his voice that he wasn't sleeping either.

"Because I miss you." She felt stupid, but she loved the chuckle her words elicited from him. "And because I'm freaking myself out imagining noises."

"Did you check the closet?" He didn't need to say it to tell her how silly she was being.

Blushing from her behavior, she was thankful he was on the phone and not there in person to mock her. "Actually, I did."

"No monsters?" He was almost laughing, but he hadn't hung up.

"None at the moment. But that's not to say they didn't teleport to the living room when I opened the door." So what if she was embarrassing herself. At least she could hear his voice and although it was not a good substitute for being in his arms, she'd take what she could get.

"Why don't you check? I'd hate to have to worry all night."

"Fine." She was glad for the connection. It made her brave enough to ease open her bedroom door, slowly making her way to the living room, throwing on lights as she went. "Ok, it's all clear."

"You're sure?"

His reply was nearly lost under the sound of a loud thud. Her heart was racing as she whispered. "Shit, El, I think there's someone outside!"

His voice was soft, like he was right there with her. "But you live in an apartment building, Liv, there could be someone walking by, right?"

"No, I see a shadow right outside my door!" All her cop instincts had run off and hid, probably with her gun in Cragen's drawer. She wanted to run and hide too. Without her gun and badge, she felt like silly little Olivia.

"I'm right here, Liv. You'd better go check."

She wanted to whine, but she realized doing so would only draw the attacker's attention. With her heart in her throat, she tiptoed toward the door, took a deep breath, and looked through the peephole.

"Elliot!"

He was grinning happily. "I told you I was right here."

She threw the door open and flung herself into his arms. "You scared me!"

He was laughing, but squeezing her back at the same time. "I had to. You're so damn brave you would have left me to sit out here all night."

She released him long enough to slug him in the shoulder, but immediately made up for it by hugging him tightly once again. "I missed you."

"It hasn't been twelve hours, Liv." As harsh as his words might have seemed under any other circumstance, he was talking into her hair as his lips grazed across her ear.

Her arms moved, her hands slowly brushing down his chest before moving around his waist, playing along his belt. "I think you missed me too."

He chuckled, his mouth tracing around her ear, then moving to her cheek, her temple, her forehead, her nose. Finally, just as his lips were lighting on hers, he responded. "Now why on Earth would you suspect that?"

It only took a tiny shifting of her hips, just a fraction of an inch, before his body responded, his length starting to harden against her. She giggled as she kissed him. "Oh, just a hunch."

They made it as far as the couch, at least, the back of it. Standing up seemed to be taking too much energy away from touching Elliot and so she was glad to feel the furniture behind her legs, more than happy to let it support her while she attempted to unhook his belt. It was a involved task because not only was doing anything exceedingly complicated with Elliot's tongue in her mouth, but also her shoulder was protesting the way she'd stretched it up around Elliot when she'd first seen him, resulting in sharp, shooting pains reaching all the way into her hands.

But she continued with the business of unhooking it because if memory served her, Elliot's hands could make her forget that she had a shoulder altogether.

Elliot's mouth moved, abandoning her lips in favor of sliding down her throat, his tongue lapping at her pulse point, tasting her skin. He'd grown quite good at operating with one hand and so had her shirt up and off her before she knew what was happening. Not that she minded, because he immediately returned his tongue to her neck, carefully tasting his way along one of her shoulders and then the other.

While he was busy with driving her out of her mind, she focused on the damn belt, leaning her head against his chest while she worked the catch. As soon as she got it, she yanked it free of his pants, tossing it halfway across the room as a punishment for taunting her.

Elliot's laugh surprised her, especially because he'd lifted his face out of her throat long enough to notice how she flung his belt away. "Getting a little upset, are we?"

She pouted, then grinned. "It was being difficult."

He mirrored her grin. "Remind me not to piss you off."

Her hands found a new, easier goal. Still holding his stare, she pulled the hem of his shirt free from his pants, tugging at it and nodding her head to the side. "My shoulder's not cooperating."

He didn't need any more of an explanation, pulling the shirt over his head and tossing it near his belt. "Your shoulder doesn't need to cooperate."

She laughed while she pressed her lips against his chest, feeling his bare skin with her hands as much as she could without moving her shoulder far. "Good thing your right hand's still working, huh?"

His eyes were twinkling and she loved it as he stretched his right arm out, threading his fingers through her hair, turning her face up to his. "I'll take care of you, Liv."

She grinned, seeing him start to lean in, turning her head before he did, letting her mouth fall on his arm, against the globe and anchor. She'd always wanted to touch that mark, that carefully crafted design that had once meant so much to him that he wanted to emblazon it onto his skin. She lifted her mouth from the tattoo, moving her fingers to caress the skin there.

Then she looked up at him, too thoroughly enthralled with the way he was smiling at her to be embarrassed. Stretching up on her toes, she explained herself, just before dropping a kiss on his mouth. "I always wanted to do that."

The sparkle in his eyes disappeared, a cold, pained look overwhelming him for a moment before he stepped back, his hands still on her shoulders, his arms extended. "There's something I want to talk to you about."

She didn't know what could have such a sobering effect on him, not just then, but she didn't think it was something good. Her heart was pounding in her throat, choking her voice to a whisper. "What?"

He took her hand, leading her around to the front of the couch. He sat down, spreading his legs and gesturing for her to sit between them. As soon as she perched herself just on the edge of the sofa, he wrapped his arms around her, securing her bare back against his chest, nestling his face over her shoulder, pressing his cheek next to hers.

He shifted his right arm, turning it so his tattoo was facing up. "While you were gone, I made a promise that I would be honest with you if I got you back."

She shivered at the mention of the time she didn't want to think about. Turning to face him, she pressed a kiss on his cheek. "I'm here and I don't care what you promised. It's ok." Her heart was still pounding and the tension in his voice, in his body, wasn't the kind she wanted. It wasn't the good kind that she could remedy.

He moved his arm again, shifting it under hers. "Feel it."

Terrified of what she was going to find out, terrified it would mean that Elliot changed his mind about loving her, she mutely did as he indicated, slowly drawing her fingers along his forearm. She'd just felt the same patch of skin, but she somehow missed the raised area. She looked at it, the first close inspection of it she'd ever had, noticing several patches of raised tissue under the dark ink.

She leaned down to look closer, seeing a semicircular pattern to the scar. "What happened?"

"When I was a kid, I was out playing and it started to rain. My mom told me not to track mud into the house, but I was seven and you know I don't listen, so I thought I'd wiped off my shoes, but I still tracked mud onto the kitchen floor."

She shivered again, her own life with her mother telling her what was coming, her own memories of hideous, harsh punishments for small, typical crimes of childhood. She couldn't believe it, although she couldn't deny that she'd wondered about it, especially when she'd seen how fiercely protective he was of children, especially when she'd seen how dangerously out of control he could get with child abusers. But still, the idea of Elliot, her strong, protective, invincible partner, young and innocent and helpless at the hands of a parent seemed absolutely beyond comprehension. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the idea. "No, no-"

"My father said I should have listened better. My mom was cooking dinner so dad threw the pot off the stove and held my arm to the burner."

She shook her head again, so easily able to see the scene that it might as well have been happening in front of her. "No, god, El."

His arms tightened around her. "When I begged him to stop he asked me how I liked it when people didn't listen to me."

Tears spilled down her cheeks, hating the man who was long dead. "I'm so sorry, El. I didn't – I mean, I thought- but-"

He held her tightly, rocking her. "Shhh, it's ok." His lips pressed against the side of her head. "You were honest with me." He shifted, leaning to his left, indicating the tattooed crucified Jesus on his shoulder. "This one, well,-"

She shook her head, unsure she could take anymore. But before she could tell him to stop, she realized he was trying to open up to her, to confide in her the way she'd always wanted, although she'd never wanted to hear horror stories about his childhood. She couldn't stop him. She couldn't cut him off from sharing something he'd kept inside for so long. So she twisted to the side, running her hand along the scar that lay under the religious symbol, wondering if the designs he'd chosen meant anything to him at all, or if they had simply been picked because they would hide something he didn't want people to see.

She squeezed his hand. "What happened?" She didn't want to know, but she wanted to listen to anything he wanted to tell her.

"I was thirteen and I had a mouth on me."

Unable to hold back her laugh, she let it out, hearing Elliot join her.

"Yeah, hard to imagine me talking back, right?" His arm squeezed her again, letting her know he didn't want to be telling it anymore than she wanted to hear it. "Dad was drunk and told me to get him another beer and I told him to get his lazy, drunk ass out of the chair and get it himself. Instead, he took the empty one in his hand, smashed it against the table and chased me out of the room." He shrugged behind her, but their position allowed her to feel the movement. "Only caught my arm, guess I was lucky he wasn't faster."

He continued through three more, explaining the true reasons for the tattoos she'd previously believed stained his perfect frame. She couldn't see them that way anymore. She saw them the way he did, knowing he could look at those spots and see something that he'd chosen, something he'd had control of, rather than discolored scars he'd been helpless to prevent. There were a few other scars, small ones, ones he hadn't covered with ink. Some were simply accidents, like falling off his bike. One was from the bullet that tore into his arm, a day she hadn't been there, when Dana Lewis had kept Elliot from leaving her.

But those were just scars, just run-ins that he'd managed to survive. He wasn't ashamed of those. They were badges of honor.

Satisfied that he'd explained what he'd wanted to, she turned sideways, letting him shift her into his lap. Her hand ran across his chest, once again marveling at the muscles, at the strength he always used to protect her, when it could have been so easy for him to be a bastard like his father. She felt closer to him than she ever had, knew something about him, even if it was just some of the details, that he'd never shared with Kathy, and she wanted to take him to her bed, prove to him that she still wanted him, that she still loved him. Prove that she didn't think any less of him for having survived more than she'd known.

But as her hand trailed down his chest, she felt another bump, a small scar he hadn't mentioned. Her brow furrowed, trying to search her memory for details that maybe he hadn't explained because she already knew. The tiny bump remained on the left side of his chest, the deep red coloring assuring that it wasn't that old of a scar.

"What's this one?" She'd listened to the worst of it, she knew; she wanted the rest of it.

His eyes clouded and he looked away. "Nothing."

The refusal only sparked her interest. She reached up, her fingers turning his jaw back to face her. "Come on." She smiled, hoping the seductive look on her face would loosen his tongue. "I want to know who had the nerve to mar this perfect chest." She leaned down, kissing his chest, letting her fingers smooth over the scar again.

"Perfect? I think you might be exaggerating a bit." He shook his head, a laugh escaping his lips. "Really, it wasn't anything big. A crazy kid with a pen stabbed me. No real damage, just hurt like fuck."

Even while her mouth worked against his pecs, she tried to think. "I don't remember that."

"You were off with the feds."

Ice water ran through her, as she recalled those horrible, dark, lonely weeks in Oregon, those horrible, dark lonely weeks when she'd left Special Victims, those horrible, dark, lonely months when she'd thought she was losing him. Her tears were back, even as she assured herself that it was over, long behind them, that they would never be there again.

Leaning down, she pressed her lips against that scar, wishing she could have been there to stop it. "I'm sorry." And she was. For so much more than that visual reminder.

His splint pressed into her back, pulling her closer, while his good hand sifted through her hair once again. His self-assured smirk was back in place, reminding her that he loved her and he knew she loved him and they didn't need to hide behind walls with each other anymore. "It's fine, Liv." He leaned in to capture her lips before he glanced down, quite obviously eyeing her breasts. "Now, see, if you'd been stabbed in the chest, that would have been a catastrophe."

With a laugh, she stood up, using her hands to draw his eyes back up to her face. "I think it's about time we move this to the bed."

She didn't need to ask him twice. The glint in his eyes told her that, had it not been for his injured wrist, he might have thrown her over his shoulder and carted her off to the bed caveman style.

Instead he grabbed her hand, pulling her along with him. "Yeah, Liv, it's definitely about time." And before she could say anything else, he was kissing her.

Splintered.7