Ignore errors. I really hate proofreading- I figured you guys were anxious for another chapter and wouldn't mind a few errors instead of waiting for me to procrastinate proofreading for another day.

They stood for a time, both perfectly content to drink in the presence of the other. Finally, Olivia broke the silence, "How are you here?" She asked, without looking up

He dropped another kiss to her hair, and said, "Lets sit first."

She nodded against his chest, and slowly dropped her arms away from his waist. Now that he was there, she hesitated to let him go. His hand trailed the course of her arm before he led her to the living room couch.

He settled in and tugged on her hand for her to join him. She sat comfortably next to him, but it wasn't close enough. He pulled her so close that one of her legs rested over his. His arm snaked around her and he pulled her even closer. "I needed," he swallowed. "I needed a little time away from my UC gig, you know," he breathed deeply, "after everything."

She pulled back to see him better, "You can't just take a vacation for a week. That's not how all of this works," she shook her head.

"Nah, but it works that way if you can convince your "boss" that your wife is hounding you to take your kids to Disney for the week." He grinned.

"There is no way anyone fell for that."

"Well he did, and once he bought the story I got a little time approved from Bell." He reached for her hand and toyed with her fingers. "I told her I was burning out, and needed to duck out. Just for a while until I can finish what I started."

Olivia's gaze fixated on their tangled fingers, "How long?"

"I swung four days…with both of my bosses." He brushed her hair away from her shoulder with his free hand, "I needed to, uh, talk to you, and I didn't want…" he let out a long tense breath. "I can't leave.." he shook his head, and her confusion grew with his hesitance.

"What?" she asked carefully, not sure she wanted to actually know the answer.

His deep blue eyes were on her, and she felt the intensity course through her. "I looked into," he squeezed her hand. "the case. Not for any info or anything. I don't need anything other than what you told me, but I…"

She knew where he was going with everything. He wanted to know if the man who put her through hell was dead or still tucked safely behind prison walls. He wanted to know, and she knew exactly why. If he wasn't already dead, he would make sure was. She waited for the rest of his explanation.

"I wanted to see if he, uh," he rubbed his hand against the scruff in his face, "if he was alive or convicted, or what happened. I didn't want to wait a week and ask you. It's not something you text a person."

"Definitely not," she agreed.

"So I was just looking for that information, and I came across…" he hesitated, and she knew he was trying to find words to explain what he found. There weren't really words that could adequately describe the feeling of being held hostage again, by a psychopath. There were no words. "Liv," his voice came out raspy, and she knew that his emotions were getting the better of him. "How did, God," his voice ached with anguish, "how could that happen again?"

Her heart pounded, as it always did when she thought of anything regarding William Lewis. She knew she would need to tackle the rest of the story, but she hoped she could hide some time before having to dig it all up again. Unfortunately, the timing surprised her and she did not feel in any way prepared for this conversation.

She focused on her breathing, and the warm weight of his arm around her. She was safe. She was okay. With another breath she cleansed her body of the heart wrenching anxiety gripping her body. She leaned her head back onto his shoulder and began. "I thought everything was over. I was finally feeling myself again, and moving on with my life. And then," her stomach tightened at the memory of his face lighting up her phone screen. "And then I answered my phone while going into work, and there he was. Smiling. Taunting me. Happy to see me." Her body involuntarily shuddered, and his arm tightened around her.

"There was this," she couldn't help her roll. "Lady in the jury. During sentencing she thought it was important for me to know that my actions during the abduction were out of line."

"You've got to be f-ing kidding me," his voice shook a little and she felt his hand tighten around hers.

"Yeah. She found a way to get him out." She waved her hand dismissively. "The details aren't super important. It took him minutes to kill someone before calling me." Elliot shook his head in disbelief, but remained silent. Her eyes dropped to their hands and she played with his fingers lightly. "You've been on a manhunt before. You know how it is. It's tense. Chaotic. And he was in control."

"Who led everything?" He wondered. It was a good question, considering she was already rising though the ranks.

"Lieutenant Murphy. Cragen retired, I was a sergeant and couldn't lead long term. He was a good guy, but the whole thing was…" she sighed. "A damn mess." Her eyes focused off in the distance, and she tried to not get lost in it all. "I know I played into it. I know he manipulated me into…"

He shook her gently, cutting her off. "No." His voice remained soft, "you don't get to do that. You don't get to blame yourself for any of it."

He was right, of course, but it still weighed on her. "I know," she said softly and then continued. "He terrorized a pair of girls. He uh," she shied away from discussions of assault. She could always remove herself. Pull her emotion away from the job, but this? This event cut her deeply. "He raped the older of the two, hung her in the closet and left her alive…with a message for me." She felt his sharp intake of breath. "He wanted me to tell the truth."

Elliot scoffed. "About what?" His voice growled.

"The assault…" she clarified, "His assault. He wanted me to tell the truth about…" she sighed. "About the beating. I never…" she bit her lip, "I never admitted that, uh, that it wasn't in self-defense. I always said it was to subdue him, I never told anyone that it was…what it actually was."

"Liv, no one could possibly condemn you for what happened to that man," Elliot shook his head in frustration, "He pushed you to the absolute edge. Anyone in their right mind would understand that."

Olivia adamantly shook her head. She felt like a broken record when she said, "You weren't here. Police brutality had just hit the news loop, and what I did was…"

"Justified," he argued.

"I could have killed the man." She held her hand up to stop him from speaking. "I'm not arguing whether or not he deserved it, but I didn't tell the truth about any of it."

"You would have lost your job," he said in exasperation. "He deserved what he got, and you deserved to keep your job without the politics of it all."

She wanted to move on. She had struggled for a long time with the shady gray area she felt she walked at that time, and she really didn't want to debate it now. "Regardless, he wanted me to "tell the truth" or he would hurt the younger sister." Olivia swallowed deeply, "she was only twelve."

"So you became the sacrificial lamb," his voice dropped with anguish, and she knew he understood why she made the choices she made. He knew because he would have done the same.

"I guess you could say that, but at the time it seemed like my only option. Or at least the only option I could live with."

"That's understandable."

"It didn't really make a difference anyway. It was just another way for him to humiliate me and control the game." She felt his body tense, and she knew there was a lot of anger brewing beneath the surface. She turned her body and dropped a reassuring hand to his chest. "Look at me," she said softly. His stormy blue eyes lifted and her stomach clenched at the pain and agony she saw there. "I'm okay. I'm alive."

She kept her eyes focused on him and he lifted a hand to her cheek. "I just," his eyes dropped. "I wish I had been there."

There was no point in lying. She wished that too. Through the whole ordeal she just wanted her partner. "Me too." She whispered.

Elliot blinked back some tears and pulled her towards his shoulder so her cheek ultimately rested on his chest. Her torrent of anxiety was somehow eased by the thumping of his heart. He ran his fingers through her hair and said, "Tell me the rest." He blew a long breath. "If you can do this, I can do this."

She bit her lip, but kept her head against the warmth of his chest. She felt safer there. Braver.

"It's a long story, and the most of the details of how I ended up with him again aren't really that important. Really, he just used a child as bait to manipulate me into meeting him alone." His hand brushed gently through her hair, as he continued to silently listen.

"The granary. That's where he took me." She felt tears sting her eyes at her next admission. "I was sure I was going to die there."

She felt his body stiffen beneath her as he tended his muscles again. He kept his arms around her, and she could feel him shaking at the thought. She didn't dare look up to his face. If he cried, she surely wouldn't be able to keep herself from losing it too.

"Amelia, the girl, was okay. Traumatized, obviously, but physically okay. It was obvious he wasn't interested in her. I was the prize, you know." She let her hand drift across his chest, and she silently picked nonexistent lint off of his tee shirt. "He gave me a choice." She swallowed and closed her eyes. The thought, the memory, made her heart race with panic.

She felt his warm lips press a kiss onto her temple and his low voice tried to ground her, "I'm here. You're here. Nothing, no one can hurt you here."

His words brought tears to her eyes and her voice became thick with emotion. "He told me he could either rape the girl and have me watch, or I could choose for him to rape me and let the girl watch."

She felt his breath quicken beneath her, and she could sense the beginnings of a panic attack. She finally whipped her face up so she could see him. "I can't…" he couldn't seem to form words. "God Liv…"

She hurried and grasped his face with both hands, and tried to help him center himself. "Look at me," she commanded quietly.

Elliot's eyes remained closed, but tears continued to stream down his cheeks. "I can't," he admitted, his voice heavy with emotion. "I can't… I won't ever forgive myself for this Liv. I should have been there," he choked back a light sob. "I should have been there," he repeated again softly.

She sighed and brushed his tears away with her thumbs. She tried again, "Elliot. Please. I need you to look at me." Finally, his eyelids lifted and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He tried to blink back the tears, but it was futile. Once she was sure she had his full attention she spoke. "He touched me, but he did not rape me."

He blinked away more tears and nodded his head to indicate he understood. She rubbed her thumb against his cheek bone softly, affectionately. "I didn't fight. He got off on the fight, and when I didn't react the way he wanted he lost interest."

Elliot's breathing began to slow so she tucked herself back into the position she previously found so comforting. She rested her cheek against his chest, and her fingers began to nervously toy with his crucifix. She worried about how he would take the next part. She wasn't sure he could handle it. To be honest, she was so emotionally shot she worried she wouldn't be able to handle it, but they had made it this far. She could take them across the finish line. She breathed in deeply, "he needed a new game…that was when he pulled his gun out, ejected all but one bullet, and spun the chamber." She took one more breath. "Then he slid the gun across the table, and made me put the barrel to my head."