Picture Prompt #86: Couple sharing a hospital bed with her being the injured one
and
Quote Prompt #27: "Where have you been? Damn you, where have you been? How dare you? How dare you come to me now, when I am this?" — The Last Unicorn
See What I Am
~oOo~
The call had been one Elliot had feared for over two years. One telling him Olivia had been hurt or, worse, killed. It had been early in the morning when Cragen had managed to get a hold of him.
She's missing. He's one of the worst I've seen. I don't think we're getting her back.
The words had driven Elliot to break every traffic law to get back to New York. To her, hopefully. He'd been thirty minutes out when Cragen finally called with the good news. They'd found her.
He wasn't sure how Olivia would react to his presence. He'd thought for a long time how he'd feel when he saw her again. But this wasn't about him.
It was almost too much for him to take, walking into the hospital room. Olivia was sitting up in bed, bruised and battered. A bandage on one wrist. He noticed burn dressings that were visible on her neck and down under the gown she wore
How badly had she been burned? He couldn't keep his eyes off her. He barely noticed that he'd been left alone in the room with her—a moment of privacy for whatever was to come.
Olivia's gaze was unfocused until she caught sight of him. Her anger crashed over him like a raging wildfire. Her voice was hoarse, and her words slightly slurred, but they struck him nonetheless like shards of broken glass. "Now? Now you're here. Where were you when he was torturing me for hours?"
"I didn't know."
"And whose fucking fault was that? You walked out."
Elliot willingly bore the brunt of her anger. "I got here as soon as I heard."
Olivia let out a wounded sort of snarl mixed with a sob. She held a hand up as though to ward him off when he tried to move closer. "Don't."
"Liv."
"No. No." She shook her head. His heart broke at the tears beginning to stream down her face. "I begged for you. I begged God for you to show up."
"Liv."
"And you didn't come. You didn't." Olivia covered her face with her uninjured hand. She swiped at her cheeks, but the tears kept coming. "You showed up here when he's already…"
Elliot couldn't stand to see her in pain and not do something. He moved over to sit on the edge of her bed. "I'm here now."
"But you weren't." Olivia batted his hand away when he reached for her. "No. You don't get to come back now when he's fucking ruined me. How dare you? How fucking dare you? I needed you."
"Liv."
"He burned me. I'm a mangled mess of a woman. A monster. Like him."
Elliot threw caution to the wind and reached up to cup her face with his hands as gently as possible. "You will always be the most beautiful woman I've ever met. Scars don't make you a monster. Olivia. Scars don't make you anything other than human. I have them. Am I a monster?"
"No."
"Then neither of you. You are beautiful. Inside and out." Elliot leaned in closer until his forehead rested against hers. "And I'm going to be here to tell you that every single day until you feel like yourself again. Because you are not what he tried to make you. He doesn't control who you are."
"El."
"That's the pain and the fear and the trauma talking. It's the emotions and feelings. And just because you have them doesn't make them true." Elliot tried to keep his breathing steady and calming, hoping to slow hers down to avoid the nurses rushing in if her blood pressure went up any higher. "You are going to be okay."
"I wanted you to be here."
"And I'm here." Elliot was relieved when she leaned into his touch. Her breathing slowed a little, enough that one of the monitors stopped shrieking. "Don't let him win, Liv. Men like him? Monsters like him? They think they leave their mark by the amount of pain they've inflicted on the world. Pain fades. Scars fade. And you? With your love and empathy? With everything that makes you a person? You've left a mark that will remain forever of love and kindness."
Olivia was silent for a long time. She reached out to grasp at him with her uninjured arm. "Will you…."
"I'll do whatever you need me to do, Liv."
"Will you…" Olivia once again trailed off. She shuffled to one side of the bed and then patted the empty space beside her. "Please?"
"If that's what you need." Elliot took his shoes off before carefully stretching out on the bed beside her. He was partially off the edge, but it didn't matter. Olivia shifted over to rest her head against his chest, and her injured arm laid across his stomach. "Whatever you need or want, all you have to do is ask."
Olivia nodded against his chest. He brought a hand up to lightly comb through her hair. "I need my partner to be here for me. And I don't know if my heart's ready to trust you."
"Then I'll just have to prove to you that you can." Elliot brushed a kiss against the top of her head. "And anyone who wants to get to you, they're going to have to go through me first. I'm not failing you again."
The author of this SVU - Quills & Shutters story will be revealed in October