I cheated. I work my stories on a predictable rotation. I couldn't help it.

TW: LIGHT description of sexual assault. I'm trying to keep the details vague. To be honest, this story isn't going to be about the assault itself. The even is important, but I'm much more interested in writing HOW the characters move through the healing process rather than providing graphic details of an assault. Keep that in mind as you proceed and wonder why the description of the event itself is relatively short. I think it's enough to know that it happened and it was brutal and life altering.

-000-

"How is she?" Fin asked as he settled into the armchair adjacent to Olivia's couch.

Olivia dropped her head into her hands and stared at the floor. "Exactly as you would expect her to be." She lifted her eyes to her friends face, "I've done this," she waved her hand around, "Thousands of times…but…" she struggled to keep her emotion in check.

"Liv," Find voice gentled. "She's one of your own. It's never gonna be easy when it one of yours."

Her thoughts stumbled, "She not…." She stopped her thought. Lizzie might not be hers in the traditional sense, but god knew that girl was one of hers, at least in every way that mattered.

"She's yours. You and Stabler might not have your act together, but he'd take a bullet for Noah just like he would for one of his own kids, and I'm pretty damn sure you would do the same for one of his."

Olivia shook away the chills that rolled through her body at Fin's observation. He was right…like always. Lizzie and Dickie were barely in kindergarten when she was partnered with Elliot. For years she picked up the slack, remembering birthdays, Christmas shopping, and random school pick ups. She watched those kids grow from young children to teens to adults. Fin was right. They were hers.

She sighed. "It's just… I hate this Fin. She's such a good girl," woman, she corrected herself internally. "This whole time she's worried about Kathleen and me and Noah…she didn't deserve this."

Fin leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and folding his hands together. "We've done this for over twenty years Liv. None of 'em deserve it."

"Of course," she obviously knew that, but this just hurt.

"When's tornado stabler gettin' here?" Fin leaned back into the chair.

Olivia cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Uh, he's not."

Fin sat back up in surprise. He looked her over once and shook his head in disbelief. "You're kiddin' me. You didn't call him. Damn Liv! He's gonna be…I don't wannabe around when that bomb drops."

She glared in his direction. "He's undercover."

Fin rolled his eyes. "Oh please. Don't give me that shit. There's no way he didn't leave you with some kinda way to contact him."

He wasn't wrong. A slip of paper with a phone number scrawled over it laid in her jewelry box. She would have used it by now if Liz hadn't told her not to. "Liz told me not to call him," she admitted. She knew what she was risking in keeping this secret, but she didn't feel like she had a choice.

"Damn," Fin muttered. "He's gonna be pissed…" Fin eyed her seriously.

"Well then he shouldn't have left." Her words came out a little more bitter than she intended.

Fin's eyes widened at her sudden intensity, but he quickly recovered his typically calm demeanor. "You can't hold all this against him liv."

"I don't…" but was that true? After all, she wouldn't be living her worst nightmare while simultaneously being triggered by her own trauma, if he was here to pick up the pieces. "At least… I don't want to." She hesitated. Fin was her best friend. He knew everything about her, even the things she never voiced out loud. "It's," she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. She felt a headache coming on. "I know it's not his fault. This would have happened if he was here or not, it's just…" she struggled to say the words.

Luckily Fin said them for her. "It reminds you of a time he wasn't there for you."

Tears pressed the corners of her eyes and she wiped them away before they had the chance to spill down her cheeks."I thought I was over it. It's not like it was his fault. I felt like… I forgave him for not being there…at least I thought I did.

Fin shrugged. "Forgiveness doesn't exactly walk a straight line." He chuckled ruefully. "Ask my kid. We're good most of the time, but every now and again he's triggered, and he's pissed, and he deserves to be." His eyes held hers. "It doesn't mean he hasn't forgiven me for all the abandonment shit I put him through. It's just..sometimes memories bite you in the ass and you gotta remember how to let that shit go all over again."

"Yeah," she said with a sigh.

Both their heads turned when the sound of Noah's bedroom door clicking open nabbed their attention. Olivia jumped to her feet as Liz peeked her head out from Noah's bedroom. The bags under her eyes had somewhat eased,

"Hey," Olivia said softly, "come sit down. I'll grab you some water."

Liz did as she was asked, but her eyes kept flitting over to where Fin sat. Olivia held out a water bottle for Liz to take, and then introduced Fin. "This is Fin Tutuola, my Sergeant I told you about."

Liz nodded slowly before taking a swallow of water. Fin leaned forward and threaded his fingers together. "I haven't seen you since you were… God like 8 I think."

Liz shyly smiled. "Yeah I kinda remember."

Fin smiled and Liv sat close to Lizzie on the couch. "I'm gonna need to ask you some questions. I'm gonna need you to try to remember what details you can."

Olivia felt Liz tense next to her. "We'll take it slow," Olivia tried to reassure her.

Liz took a deep breath and let it go. "Okay," she said while reaching for Olivia's hand and gripping it tightly. "We can start."

-000-

"Find anything interesting in the bedroom?" Velasco asked when they were driving back to the precinct.

"Not really," Churlish sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. "Just the normal stuff. Clothes, pictures of family and stuff." She rolled her head to the side. "The Stabler guy had FIVE kids?"

"Woah seriously?"

"Looked like it. There was a picture of Liz and a bunch of other adults that looked like her. I'm assuming they were her siblings."

"Damn. Five."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Churlish added, "I think Brandon has a couple brothers, or close friends maybe. There was a picture on the dresser."

"You take a picture of all those?" Velasco's asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Yeah. Of course."

"Good. We'll need to find out who they are and if they are his brothers or college buddies." Velasco stopped at a light and turned his attention to Churlish. "This Brandon guy doesn't seem like the type to physically hurt anyone. It's always possible, but it just doesn't seem like something he would do."

"But maybe someone close to him?"

"I don't know. Maybe." The light turned green. "Something was off with him, and maybe it was the break up or us showing up at his place, but maybe he knows something about someone who wanted to hurt her."

"Well, I'll show you the picture when we get back to the precinct and we can see what we can figure out."

"Yeah, and Sarge should be interviewing the Vic sometime this afternoon. Hopefully her statement will give us an actual direction to go."

"Hope so," Churlish said and let her gaze wander out the window. She was itching to get moving and this case was already snailing along. If they didn't get any information soon it would probably stall out before it even got started.

-000-

Olivia splashed some water on her face, and patted it dry. Damn this day. She thought. Her mind kept drifting back to the conversation in her living room. Her stomach tumbled around as Lizzie's words ping ponged through her brain. Bar close to Kathleen's place. Two men….

"I was frozen." Lizzie whispered. "I just…Dad made all of us girls take…uh…" Liz swallowed nervously. "He made us take self defense seminars. Like every summer. My friends got to go canoeing and I had to…" Lizzie's lip quivered. "I had to learn how to keep myself safe." She choked back a cry. "A lot of good that did."

Olivia squeezed her hand. "It's normal baby. It's a reflex." Olivia shoved away uncomfortable memories of her own moments of frozen terror. It could happen to anyone. No matter the training. That was something Olivia was painfully aware of.

"It was dark. I…I know that you want descriptions, but..I…I just…." Her gaze fell to her hands. "I just closed my eyes and tried to be anywhere but there."

Her next words came out in a rush. "One held me by the hair and pinned my arms back…while the other…" she closed her eyes as if she was trying to disassociate herself from the memory. She kept her eyes closed, but spit the words out. "The other raped me. After that he forced me to my knees and… the second guy…" she began stuttering again, and Olivia wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her tightly against her shoulder.

Olivia wasn't sure she actually heard the words because they were spoken so quietly. She felt nauseated. She wanted to run. She wanted to be anywhere but here. Memories of William Lewis and Sealview rushed to the forefront of her mind, sending her mind and body into a terror filled spiral. Her limbs felt tingly and she knew she needed to calm the hell down if she was going to be what Lizzie needed right now.

Liz's sniffles and the warmth of her body pressed against her shoulder slowly brought Olivia back to the present. She reminded herself to breathe.

"They just…left me there. I…I don't know how long I laid there. I just…I couldn't move. Nothing felt real anymore."

Olivia brushed Liz's blonde hair away from her tear soaked cheeks. "How'd you get to the hospital?"

Liz took a slow shaky breath. "It took me a while to, you know, get myself together." Olivia closed her eyes, and tried to push away thoughts of sweet Liz lifting herself from the ground and putting herself back together. "I didn't…I didn't want to call 911 or anything. I…it was weird. I just pulled my coat on because my clothes were…" she shook her head. "I called an Uber, pretended like nothing happened, and had the driver take me to a random place a block from the hospital." Olivia understood that feeling…the feeling of going into autopilot. Being there without actually being there. "I guess once I got there and the nurse came in to see me I freaked out a little." Liv squeezed her hand in support. "All I could think was that I didn't want anyone to touch me and…and I knew I wanted…I knew I wanted them to call Olivia."

A knock on her bathroom door startled her, pulling her away from the events of the afternoon. Noah's voice floated in from the other side of the door. "Mom! Someone's knocking at the door."

Noah knew he wasn't allowed to answer the door after dark. Their building had adequate security, and she was home, but the rule had stuck around since he was small. "Okay, one minute." She hurriedly tossed a sweater over her cami and snatched her phone from the bathroom counter.

She pulled open the bedroom door to see Noah sitting crosslegged on her bed with a book in his lap. He glanced up, eyes nervous. "They keep knocking," he said, and if on cue she heard the thumping on the door.

She waved at Noah for him to stay in her room, and hurried down the hall. Liz had taken one of the prescribed sleeping pills and was sound asleep behind Noah's bedroom door.

The knocking persisted, and her stomach clenched nervously. Whoever was here was insistent that someone answer the door and the idea made her nervous. Her heart pounded as she looked through the peephole on the door. A tsunami of emotion flooded over her. Excitement, anger, affection, annoyance. She felt it all before yanking open her front door.

And there he was, hands stuffed in his pockets as he nervously paced in front of her door. She sucked in a breath when he stopped and his electrifying blue eyes met hers.

His voice croaked out pained and low. "Where is she?"

-000-

I meant to include more Protelliot in this chapter…but the word count got away from me. Rest assured, Elliot will be in the next chapter in full force.

Just a reminder, I love you guys! Thank you for all the kind comments and encouragement!