It's an update! Wow! Just had to prove that I hadn't forgotten about this little fic, and since I'm doing nothing this holiday weekend but whining about my broken toe (I'm such a baby), I figured that it was time.

A/N: content warning for a very brief Lewis flashback. This chapter picks up from where the last one left off.

Comments, questions, concerns? Let's hear them! Thank you once again for reading. :)

You throw open the bathroom door and race into the bedroom, where you find Elliot sitting up with his back ramrod-straight, eyes glazed over and skin bathed in sweat.

"El. Elliot." Your instinct is to go to him and reassure him that you're okay, but you can tell by the way his gaze is fixed on something invisible that he's still asleep and waking him abruptly is only going to make it worse. "I'm right here. You're having a nightmare. I'm going to turn a light on, alright?"

You reach for the dimmer switch that controls your overhead light and cautiously nudge it upward until a dim glow appears. Elliot still hasn't moved, but you can hear him chanting something under his breath. "El. I'm fine, I'm right here, but you need to wake up and you'll see it's just a dream. Please?"

He finally responds, making a sound like an injured dog trying to choke back a whine, and then he startles. "The fuck?"

"It's okay, everything's okay," you reassure him as his head moves back and forth, scanning the room as the back of his hand swipes at his sweaty forehead.

"You're…"

"I'm okay too. Just like you are." You finally move in closer now that you're sure he's mostly lucid, offering your hand to him so that he can know for himself that you're here with him.

He bypasses the proffered arm and grabs you around the middle, clutching onto you in desperation, and your sore body screams in pain but you will yourself not to move away because you can see how much he needs this reassurance. "You're here. I thought you were…"

"Where did you think I was, baby?" you ask, smoothing your hand over his head like you're pushing back imaginary hair.

"I…huh. I don't remember," he admits, mouth open as he tries to recall, and you can tell he's not faking. Brian would recollect dreams in exacting detail but then claim to forget huge chunks of the plot, and that's how you knew it had involved you in some way, but Elliot seems to genuinely be left with nothing but the remaining fear from whatever he was dreaming. "But…something happened to you."

"Nothing happened. Tonight," you add, not wanting to give him momentary false hope that the last few days had all been a dream. "I got up to get some water, and…maybe you realized I wasn't there and that's why you had a nightmare. I'm sorry."

"No, fuck- I'm sorry, I'm probably hurting you. It's okay, you can go back to sleep," he says, letting go of you and moving away until his back's against the headboard.

There's no way you're going to be able to sleep when he's sitting there looking like he's waiting for a bomb to go off, but you dim the light again and get back into bed. "Do you want to talk about it? Or about anything?"

"No," he answers abruptly. Then, without announcing that he'd changed his mind, he admits in a low voice, "God. I was so fuckin' scared."

"In the dream?"

"No," he scoffs. "When I was in jail. All I could fuckin' do was sit there and hope you weren't already dead."

You've spent the night in lockup too, albeit under slightly different circumstances, so you know that while it's survivable, it's not fun. "I didn't mean for- I never told them to arrest you."

"But you had me tailed." He swallows hard, and you can see the hurt in the way his neck constricts. "What was I supposed to do, sit at home and wait for you to call?"

When he puts it that way, it's hard to think of what you did as anything short of entrapment. Of course he was going to do something stupid, it was just a question of what that something was. "I don't know, but you couldn't be out there trying to- what if something happened to you? Your family needs you. I need you."

You expect your declaration to fall on deaf ears, but instead he stops whatever he was about to say and his eyes widen. "I…really?"

"I let you stay here, didn't I?" you ask, and the way he's looking at you in confusion makes you rapidly more uncomfortable at having this much emotion exposed.

"Yeah, but we-" He mouths something to himself that almost looks like a 'wow', shaking his head. "This last year, nothing has happened the way I intended it to. Or the way that it should have, at least."

You think about kissing in his car on a rainy night, about long conversations and fierce declarations of love and the look of pride and admiration on his face when he surprised you at your sergeants' ceremony. "Oh."

"No, goddamnit, that's not what I…Liv." He lowers himself down until he's propped up on his elbows and he can look you in the eye. "It was real, all of it. I love you and I'm never going to regret loving you, but there's a lot of things I could've done differently."

You still don't know what to say, and all you can hear is oh, shut up, I know you got a few good pity fucks out of this.

"Hey," he says gently when he sees you closing your eyes before the tears can spill out. "Listen to me. You didn't do anything wrong. It's all my…after you got hurt," he says, using your preferred euphemism for that ordeal, "I know there were times I was an asshole. You wanted space but I just kept pushing, and that wasn't right. Not after what you'd just been through."

"I didn't know what I wanted, really," you admit. "You'd been gone so long and it was overwhelming. There's so much that I wasn't sure of. I'd never- okay, I didn't realize that I'd had feelings like that for you before," you say, pronouncing the word with some disdain. "I guess I'd always kinda downplayed it to myself, and once you were gone, I just figured it didn't make a difference anymore, whatever I felt."

"Feelings," he repeats in the same tone that you did, shaking his head with a grimace. "I swear to God, Liv, until this year, I had no idea that you- I mean, if you- I thought you just saw me as. Not just some guy you work with, but as a friend, or a brotherly type. I guess when you've been married for a thousand years, you're shitty at picking up on that stuff."

You take the hand that's been clutching onto your pillow and use it to rub his shoulder in comforting circles. "How were you supposed to figure it out when I didn't even know?"

"But last summer, I should've…I was so fuckin' blown away that you still wanted anything to do with me, and I didn't know how to handle that. Other than being an ass," he adds, giving you a knowing shrug.

"You might have been a little bit of an ass," you concede, "but it would've been worse if you'd tiptoed around me like you were scared I'd break."

"I never wanted to make you into…shit. I don't know how to say this." He scratches the top of his head and squints in the way you saw thousands of times from across your desk when he was trying to organize his thoughts. "It wasn't fair to you, us getting involved like that when I was still married," and you want to question why he's talking about his marriage in the past tense, but you let it go. "You deserve more than that. I shouldn't have put you in that position, not when- that's not how you treat someone you love, y'know?" he says, voice breaking almost imperceptibly. "And I do love you. It was never just about the…other stuff."

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling at his reluctance to say the word. "I know, El. I know. I believe you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You've seen the way women look at him, even if he didn't always notice- he had plenty of opportunities to cheat if that's what he wanted to do. Hell, he was separated for how long, and he never took it further than goodnight kisses at the end of a date? You may not always be completely sure of your place in his life, but you're certain that he wouldn't have had sex with you if he didn't love you on some level. "I know you're not that kind of guy."

He starts to nod in relief, but it turns into a head shake. "But aren't I, though? How can I say I love you and then- do that? I feel like I took advantage of-"

"El, it's not like you were the only one cheating," you interrupt before he can lead the conversation somewhere that you don't want it to go. You were always a willing participant, if not the instigator, and he never pushed you into doing something that you didn't want to do. Not like you did with Brian. "I might not have been married, but it was still wrong and I knew that the whole time. I probably should've broken it off with Bri way before I actually did."

"I didn't want to be the reason you broke up with him," Elliot says, and this time you can't stop yourself from smiling.

"Oh yeah? Not even a little bit?"

"Fine, maybe a little bit," he concedes, smiling back at you. "I mean, I'm not gonna be sad that he's gone. I just wish you would've told me ahead of time; I would've thrown him a goodbye party or something."

"Now I know you're lying." You could get into all the intricacies of how technically he's not gone gone, but not tonight. That can be dealt with later.

"You cared about him- I dunno why, but you did, and I was glad that you weren't all on your own. Things are going to be different now, though, I swear to you."

Unsure what to say, you make a murmuring sound from somewhere low in your throat.

"I told you, laying on that metal bench all night was a come to Jesus moment for me," he says, looking at you with those eyes that are somehow still so bright even in near darkness, enough that you have to turn away. "I love Kathy, but she's not who I want to spend the rest of my life with, and sticking it out for another dozen years until Eli's grown isn't gonna be healthy for any of us."

"But you shouldn't…if I can't…I don't want you to be alone."

"Liv? Listen to me," he asks gently, waiting for you to look back at him. "This isn't all on you. I'm here for you as long as you want me to be, and I hope that'll be for a really long time. But if it's not, I don't want you to worry about me. I've got my kids, I've got my grandson, and if I'm lucky I'll have more kids-in-law and grandkids before much longer. I won't be alone."

You know he didn't mean it in that way, but you still can't help but tear up- both at his obvious love for his family, and because you wish that you could say the same for yourself, having that certainty that there are people who will be there for you. You have him, of course, and you have people like Nick and Fin who you are grateful to call friends, but it's not the same. You're not the same as them.

"They were all meeting without me," you blurt out, and Elliot frowns in confusion. "Nick and Fin and everyone. The department made them do a group counseling thing after…before I came back to work, and they kept meeting on their own. I wasn't supposed to find out."

"Did you wish they would have invited you?" he asks carefully.

"What? No! I don't want to talk to them about. That." You frown, eyebrows furrowed. "But it's my fault, that they were in that situation because of me. It hasn't been easy on anyone. Not them, not you, and- now I've made everything worse, haven't I?"

"Hey. Sssh, that's not true…Liv? Can I touch you?" He waits for you to nod, and then it's his turn to comfort you the way you had done for him earlier, arm around your waist and chin resting atop your head.

"It is, though. I don't know what I was thinking." That's the big question that you still can't answer; the why. You couldn't bear the idea of something happening to little Amelia, of course, but there could've been other solutions had you thought it through. And whether you wanted to prove something to yourself and everyone else, or you just hoped that maybe he would do the dirty work of ending your life for you…"You're right. I was selfish and it just hurt everyone else even more."

"No, stop. I shouldn't have said that in the first place. I'd been so terrified that I wasn't thinking, I was just reacting. You're not the one to blame for any of this," he says, and you can feel his lips oh-so-gently brushing over your hair.

"But-"

"No," he says more firmly. "How many times did we see it on the job? It's not just the victim who's affected. And I've heard you say it myself, that it's the perp's fault. No one else's. The rest of them, they know that too. Junior, Munch, Fin…I can guarantee that they don't blame you. Just like I don't."

You want to argue, but all that comes out is this pathetic little whine. "But I could've-"

"It doesn't matter. Even if you make mistakes, it's allowed. You're doing the best you can."

"How am I doing the best I can when I don't even know what that is?" you ask in a sharp tone, not even fully understanding what's got you so agitated all of a sudden. "Every decision I make is the wrong one!"

-you should've killed him

-shouldn't have gone after him on your own

-should've told the truth from the beginning

-shouldn't have tampered with evidence

-Brian's face etched with disappointment and frustration when he sees that you've sliced your palm with a broken glass, disbelieving when you say it wasn't intentional. "do you know how fucking sick I am of your 'accidents'?"

-Elliot kneeling on your bed, hand on your bare hip and looking cautious in the midst of his urgency. "Liv, we don't have to…" You shaking your head, eyes still puffy and face still tearstained, and you know this isn't right and you know this will change everything but you can't say no, can't turn him away. "I want to."

-back at your old apartment, wrists cuffed to the headboard. "don't do it, don't do it" he taunts and he laughs, holding your thighs down so you can't get away from his disgusting mouth, his tongue as he- "I knew you'd do it, you stupid whore. Guess you lose this round," and you hear the metallic sound of his zipper lowering. "Shut up, you made your choice. My turn now. Open your mouth."

"Liv. Olivia." Elliot's been trying to get your attention but he sounds so distant, and it takes a moment for you to realize that your own cries are what's drowning out his voice. "You're okay. Everything's alright. Look at me?"

You claw blindly at his shoulders, trying with all your might to pull him toward you, but your uncoordinated attempt is nothing more than scratching at his bare skin.

"Do you- is this better?" he asks, and you can't force out any words in response but he has to notice the way that your muscles go slack once his body weight's resting on top of you, keeping you anchored. You're still twitching, trembling, but you hold onto him with white knuckles and you slowly start to feel like you can breathe again despite the tightness in your chest. "There you go. That's good. You're doing good."

"I can't," you whisper.

"Can't what?"

You turn your head to the side, blinking until your eyes begin to focus. "'m always wrong."

"Do you trust me?" he asks, and you're so surprised by the question that you turn your head back toward him.

You nod, thinking it should be obvious since you're literally letting him hold you down, but he waits until you say "Yes."

"Then can you let me take some of that shit off of your shoulders for a while? Just until you're ready to handle it yourself?"

He knows that giving up control is antithetical to everything you've strived toward your entire life, but you've also never felt this utterly defeated before.

Reluctantly, you nod again.

"Good. Because we're gonna make it through this." He moves ever so slightly to one side to take some of his weight off of you, his arms still bracketing you in. "I've got you. Not gonna let anyone else get to you."

to be continued...