A/N Intala; Thank you so much. I really believe that Fin has so many pent up emotions from what happened, how could he not? I think he understands her shame and how she feels about not reporting it, because even though he insists it's her story to tell, he somehow also believes he should have done more, that maybe if he had have pushed her to report...

Has any song ever so perfectly encompassed all these emotions better than "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits?

'In the fear and alarm

You did not desert me

My brothers in arms'

As always, the man beside me sees everything. He sees the deep breath I take as I look out at the blonde woman, who tries not to look into the office, with its closed door. She tries not to look at me sitting on the wrong side of my desk, with her partner. I see Amanda's face crease into a deep frown as she factors this development into whatever scenario she is imagining. I don't miss the noticeable, deep breath she sucks in, her head shaking slowly as she wraps her jacket around the back of her chair, flicking her hair out of her eyes trying to resist another quick glance into my office. I know I should really take a few minutes, now, and tell her what is going on... I can see she is worried for me.

Fin leans in and pats my leg encouragingly, "I'll take the kid and chase down the lead on the Mendez case..." He gestures out at Carisi.

He stands up, looking carefully at me, waiting until he has my full attention, "You have nothing to be ashamed of Liv, and she understands better than anyone..."

He goes to the door, opening it a hint before turning back to me, "I'm here Liv..."

I just nod gratefully, as he walks out into the squad room, telling Carisi they're going to check out the Mendez lead. I hear Carisi, running to catch up with Fin, peppering him with questions.

I see the frown on Amanda's face deepen further, as her partner leaves without her.

I try to take a moment, to figure out how to approach her, but before I can come up with a plan, she is standing in my door.

"What's happened Liv? Are you ok?"

I can't help the chuckle that escapes as I realize she probably barely watched her partner's back leave the squad, before she was in my office.

I haven't had a chance to plan this, in the smallest way, so I don't even know how to answer her simple question...

The sigh that escapes my mouth is enough. She silently closes the door and quickly sits into the chair Fin has scarcely vacated, her eyes latching onto mine.

"Sorry I didn't mean to worry you Amanda, I'm fine, I just wanted to apologize for last night and explain..."

She rolls her eyes at my attempt to apologize but leans in wordlessly to listen to whatever I am about to say.

"Last night Fin told me, he had just heard..." I find the words don't come as easily as I had anticipated they would...and just like that, I realize I haven't told anyone...the only people I have talked to, are Rafael and Fin, and they both already knew. Somehow the words that were difficult to find a moment ago, are now impossible.

I can see I'm terrifying her, that she is mentally running through a list of possible reasons for my struggle to speak.

"I'm sorry Amanda, everyone is fine, no one is hurt..." I vainly try to reassure her that there is no bad news coming. "It's nothing like that..."

"What is it Liv?" she prompts me cautiously.

This is not going, even remotely, how I had hoped and I still can't find the words to tell her, so I take a deep breath and just start talking, hoping that the words find their own way out before I really send her into a full blown panic...

"I've just realized that you're the first person I'm telling...both Rafael and Fin knew..."

She seems to realize with my disjointed words, that it is something intensely personal. She calms slightly, the panic lessening while her worry deepens, looking encouragingly at me.

"The man that...Harris...that sexually assaulted me...years ago...he...he died yesterday..."

I hear her breath hitch sharply. I see the understanding spread over her features...

"Wow. Are you ok?" she asks carefully.

I shrug slightly, "It hasn't really made a difference".

She chews her bottom lip considering my answer.

I hurry to try and explain, "I expected a big emotional response, a huge wave of relief, or anger at how he escaped justice...and I am a little relieved that he can't ever hurt me again, and I won't have to face him being released, but...it isn't how I thought it would be..."

She nods sadly. "It somehow isn't the big ending you thought it would be..."

I nod my agreement at her understanding.

"It isn't the big ending I thought it would be..." I borrow her eloquent words, taking them for my own...

"This is how you felt after Patton's plea deal..." I realise as her words leave my mouth.

She gives me a brief, sad, half-smile.

"What happened to him Liv?"

"There hasn't been an autopsy yet but they suspect it was a heart attack..."

"He was still in prison though, right?"

It's only as she asks this most basic question that I realize she knows nothing of the detail of what happened... How, after so many conversations, can she know none of what happened?

I nod, "I'm sorry...you don't know anything about it?..."

I can hear the disbelief in my voice as I say it. She merely shrugs at me.

"The details are so important...that somehow they just don't matter..." she says it so softly, and with such absolute belief, that her words shock me. I know my face has given me away completely, as I sit stunned, looking at her.

She seems to realize that her words were inadvertently, said out loud, and taking in my stunned appearance, hurriedly attempts to explain them.

"I know it sounds dismissive, but I really never meant it that way...it's something someone said to me, after Patton...he explained it, that the tiny details that made the experience so much worse for me, the things that no one else may understand the effect of, are the details that make the experience all that it was,... so much so, that they're almost too personal to share, it's the feelings they caused that are what need to be told...". She looks at me timidly from behind her hair as she waits to see how I receive her words.

Immediately, it's Lewis' words that fill my head. His taunts as he led me, to what I believed would be the place I would be raped and die in. I try not to see his face, hear his voice as he tells me 'what he does, nobody ever recovers from...'.

As always, his whole speech, plays completely intact in my head, every last word the same every time, there is never any deviation, no substitution of words. It is seared into me with such force, I can't edit it in any form. Even from the grave, his words echo, tauntingly on, in my head.

I know this is one of the details of my story that is so important, that it doesn't matter... I have only shared this with Rafael, only one person, and he was horrified by the cruel words. I could see the disbelieving, agony, they caused him, but the summarized sense of his monologue would have had the same effect. I don't regret telling him, it was a relief to say the words, even if hearing my voice parroting his words, made me question if maybe Dr. Lindstrom was right, that I am allowing Lewis to control me even now, when his death should have ended any influence he ever wielded.

It isn't lost on me that the words that have done countless harm to me, have become so ingrained, that they have slowly, become my own words.

Their full detail has been rendered completely unnecessary, saying 'he taunted me, using my reaction and fears, against me, to convince me I can never heal', says as much to anyone else.

I nod deeply, understanding the sentiment fully.

I struggle not to ask her who said those words to her, but I am sure I can hear Nick's voice in their simple, complexity.

"You don't know all the details of my...rape" she says it softly, hesitatingly, in case I hear some implied offer to tell me, hidden in between them. I can see she is still not completely comfortable in using the word, but she understands it is what happened.

"I suppose I don't really. I know what you told Barba, the outline...but you don't even know that about Harris..."

Again she shrugs, "I don't need to know them, if you don't want to tell me Liv...I know how precious the control of those details is...it feels like it is all you can control..."

I cannot begin to tell her how grateful I am, to not have to go back into that memory now. And she isn't offended, she understands. She understands in a way Fin or Rafael never can...

"Thank you..." I whisper quietly, allowing her to see the relief I am feeling. "He is in prison...We got him for rape and murder...I didn't have to..."

She puts a hand softly on my knee, nodding that she understands, gently correcting me, "He was in prison"

"He was in prison, but he died yesterday" and for the first time I find a little freedom in the words...

"I'm sorry Liv."

It feels odd hearing those words. They have all said them... I know that it's what you say when you hear about a death, but it feels out of place here. I'm not sorry he's dead.

"I'm glad he's dead..."

She looks at me carefully, "I'm not sorry for him dying, Liv, I'm sorry you have to deal with this...that it's hurting you...Can I do anything?"

I know that she means it, as she asks if there is anything she can do, and it means more than she can know but I shake my head.

"Thank you for telling me Liv, knowing you trust me, means a lot, and it's so fresh, it can't have been easy...I'm sorry for pushing you...I was worried..." she motions to the door, to her uninvited appearance.

"No, it made it easier, Amanda...I was trying to figure a way to bring it up...without making a big deal of it...and I really appreciate that you were worried about me..."

'Through these fields of destruction

Baptisms of fire

I've witnessed your suffering

As the battles raged higher

And though we were hurt so bad

In the fear and alarm

You did not desert me

My brothers in arms'

"Do you want to talk about it Liv?"

I don't know how to answer her, I don't really want to think or talk about it anymore, I want to just escape from it for a while, but I'm worried she may want to talk, it has to have brought up memories for her, or that she may feel offended if I don't want to talk to her. She weighs up my reaction before saying, "I get it, especially when it's fresh, it feels, a bit like it's all you talk about..." she grins at me mischievously.

"It does feel like it has been the subject of every conversation for the last few hours" I agree suspiciously. "Why am I thinking that you are up to something?"

She gives me her very best 'who me?', rolling her eyes theatrically.

"Really though Liv, I want you to know that I'm happy to listen if you ever want to talk...I know you'd probably rather talk to Barba or Fin, but I'm here..."

I shake my head, "No Amanda, talking to you is so much easier, I know the two guys care, but you can understand in a way that they can't, I don't feel I have to be careful when I speak to you...So thank you..."

She smiles widely back at me and I understand she just finds it amusing that I do in fact understand the value of silence as well as talking.

I smile softly, "I suppose you need a little silence sometimes..."

She chuckles gently, nodding at my correct interpretation of her amusement.

"So any suggestions on how I tell Carisi?" I ask her still smiling, but desperate for some clue of how to handle the conversation I dread.

Her face immediately become serious, "He was so worried about you last night Liv...Fin barely convinced him to go home..."

I can't help the immense swell of gratitude I feel towards the newest member of our team.

"I want to tell him Amanda, and he deserves to know...I just don't know what I should tell him, or how to tell him...I guess it's not something I have any practice sharing..."

Her hear bobs up and down a couple of times and I know she understands.

She considers carefully for a few moments, before she decides, "What I have found...is that you can't really plan these conversations...you say as much as feels right...and my guess is that at the first opportunity, he will open the door, asking are you ok..."

She is right, I can't plan how much I will tell him, because that will depend on any questions he might ask or how he reacts. The prospect of an unplanned conversation on this subject terrifies me.

She can see how nervous I am. "He really just wants to know that you are alright Liv..."

I know she is right but it does little to settle my growing nerves.

Her phone starts to shrilly demand her attention. She reaches into her pocket, her face showing her reluctance to leave our conversation. I gesture for her to take the call, gesturing to my own mountain of work, smiling softly in understanding.

She nods, talking softly into the phone, she stands up heading towards her desk, stopping briefly at my door.

"Yeah hang on a sec..." she quickly covers the phone, "I'm here, anytime..."

I nod, trying to stop the tears that are pricking at eyes as she unconsciously mirrors the words of her partner. She heads back to her desk, scribbling madly as she continues to cradle the phone between her head and shoulder.

As I watch her I can't help my eyes wandering to the area where I used to sit with El. I wonder what he would have said had I ever found the words to answer his question of what happened in the basement. I am sure that he would have been upset. I'm sure he would have been there for me. I'm sure he would have tried to do anything he could to help me...so why did I never tell him?

I know I can't really answer that question, like so much with El, it is unfinished. I think that eventually it would have come out, but I will never know.

In that moment I allow myself to imagine...

I'm sure that if he had still been in my life, it would have come out after Lewis. I don't see how it could have stayed a secret then? When I was so broken and clinging so desperately to the coping methods I had learned that first time, after Harris, in that support group...

I try not to wonder what he is doing now, why he has never tried to contact me?

I know it is the unexpected news that has reminded me so sharply of his absence and I try to tamp down the too familiar feelings. I saw his face when he was forced to shoot that girl. I know that it broke something inside him. I know that as Fin was a reminder for me, of what Harris tried to do to me, I was a reminder to El, of all the pain and darkness we had seen, how all that tragedy culminated in him shooting a girl that probably reminded him of his daughters. I still hope that some day...

'There's so many different worlds

So many different suns

And we have just one world

But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell

And the moon's riding high

Let me bid you farewell'

I suck in a shaky breath, trying to control the tears that have found their way to my eyes.

I have enough paperwork awaiting me to fell a forest. I walk back around to the right side of my desk, reaching for my glasses, gently scolding myself...

'You have enough present drama, no need to go into the past looking for more'.

I settle in to work, trying not to panic about my imminent conversation with Sonny.

'But it's written in the starlight

And every line in your palm

We're fools to make war

On our brothers in arms'