THE RESPONSE OF THIS STORY!!!!! Y'all, I hoped you'd like it because it's something that's been on my mind. What if Harris got out in a later season, and Olivia had to prepare to face him again, this time as Captain? It'd be a sight for sure. Even a little nerve wracking. Elliot would finally know too!

"My case file when Lowell Harris assaulted me and tried to rape me in the Sealview basement."

Elliot stares, dumbfounded at the tone of Olivia's voice and shocked because it all starts to piece together in his mind. He can close his eyes and recall her jumpiness to metal, the bruising on her face, how she'd worn long sleeves and never rolled them up...

He recalls her wearing more makeup, and although he hadn't commented back then, he wishes he would have. Maybe she would have opened up to him and talked to him. But it's in the past, and he cannot change it.

"Can the Captain and I have a moment?" Elliot asks as he holds her gaze, not sure if he'll be allowed alone with her. He sees her swallow and slowly nod her head yes, and Fin and Carisi leave the office. They signal their departure by closing the door, loud enough for the pair to know that they were alone.

"El, I'm sorry I never told you." She's apologetic, and he sees how remorseful she is, but he also knows that she didn't have to tell him. He didn't have the right to know. Sure, he wishes she would've told him because Lowell Harris wouldn't have had the chance to make it into the prison, let alone out of it. Elliot takes the hand that he's holding and presses the back of it to his chest, rubbing his arm up and down her forearm.

She's drawing from him. From his actions. She's taking the comfort he's silently giving her, assuring her that she's not at fault before he speaks.

"Olivia," he uses her full name to promise her that he isn't mad at her. "I didn't have the right to know. You didn't have to tell me. It's your story to tell, not mine. Yeah, I wish you woulda told me, but I understand why you didn't."

Her eyes widen, his hand that's rubbing her forearm stops to cradle her at the elbow, and the hand that's holding her hand to his chest squeezes. She steps in closer to him, and she withdraws from his embrace momentarily to wrap her arms around his frame. She rests her hands on his shoulder blades, and his cradle her above her backside. She whispers then, afraid to break the intimacy of the embrace.

"You would've killed him. I couldn't let you do that and ruin your family, El. You'd just had Eli. I wasn't going to let you ruin your marriage trying to protect me. Fin had my back."

Elliot pulls her closer to his chest and rubs his hands up and down her back, and she nuzzles impossibly closer to him. He breathes her in, afraid to let go, knowing that she was close to losing it.

"Olivia, I'm supposed to have your back, but I get why you didn't tell me. I would have reacted badly. Back then, I would have done anything to protect you from harm. That's why I left."

Olivia freezes. She's not sure if she should have this conversation right now, but she knows they need to have it: the real reason he left. She pulls back from his embrace and holds him at arms length, making sure she can see him and read his expression. She offers up an alternative. A way out of this conversation. She isn't sure that she's ready to have it right at this very moment.

"You left because you'd just shot a child, Elliot." He shakes his head at her, dropping from her hold and backing away.

"No, Liv. I left because I cared too much. If she would have shot you, I wouldn't have survived it. I'd become too reliant on you instead of my family. My wife. I knew it. She knew it. You knew it and felt the same. Someone had to leave." She desperately tries to cut him off, but to no avail.

"El, I-"

"No, Olivia. I had to leave because SVU had become your life. You'd dedicated so much and sacrificed so much more. And now you have this life, a son. You did that, without me." His tears are surfacing. They'd gone from Lowell Harris to this. So many grievances at once, and yet, no one could bridle the run of emotions coursing through themselves.

"Yeah, but I needed you, too. I needed my friend, my partner. And you left me, without so much as a goodbye. And-and then you send me this... this envelope with Semper Fi scrawled in your handwriting and your mini badge. I had no one, Elliot. You had your family." Her tears are forming as well, and they grab onto one another again, holding tightly to each other. Elliot's voice is a soft whisper. It's as if he was to be any louder, it would shatter the space around them, and this space had become sacred and needed in the span of an hour.

"Liv, I've always and will always be faithful to you. Nothing will ever change that. Not even this. We've come a long way since I came stumbling back almost 3 years ago. And Lowell Harris isn't going to change the course of this." His hands cradle her face and wipe away the tears that have started to gather on the lower lids of her eyes. Her eyes flit up to find tears pooling in his. She breathes him in. His scent. His presence. Everything. Because when she speaks, it shatters his soul.

"The basement was the second closest I've ever come to being raped." The words weren't stopping and Olivia had to get them out. Elliot deserves to know.

"When he had me in that basement, all I wanted was for someone to come in and save me. I screamed, and I cried. I'm a cop, El. I shouldn't have let him carry me to that basement. But it's not the worst thing to ever happen. And I know you don't know, but you should."

Elliot's eyes are shining with tears that match the ones falling from hers. She's shaking so much, and he's doing everything he can to keep himself from doing the same. He knows he isn't prepared for what's next.

"Olivia-"

"No, Elliot. I know you have no right to know, but I want you to know. If we're ever going to move forward with a relationship of any kind, you need to know because you're going to see what he did. How he left me."

He's clenching his fists behind her and holding her as if she was a lifeline. A beat passes before she forcibly removes herself from his embrace. His safe and warm embrace. And she wants to crawl right back into it because she's vulnerable. She feels uneasy, but she knows this has to be done. Maybe this isn't the right place or even the right time, but they've never been good with timing, and right now? The conversation has started, and she can't put it back on the shelf to collect dust now that she's pulled it down and opened its contents.

She walks to the door and locks it, making sure all the blinds are closed before she turns to face him. When she does, she notices the color has left his face and he's trembling with anxiety.

So is she. Her fingertips slide down to her first button. Elliot stands to stop her, but when he noticed the look in her eyes, he stands down and finds a place to rest on top of her desk. He sits, and studies the woman in front of him.

The room is silent, the air thick with emotions. Both are too afraid to speak. She continues with her buttons, and once she's reached the last one, she discards the blazer and the button up. Elliot swallows hard, knowing that whatever she's about to show him are scars, but they're not just any scars.

He watches Olivia as she takes a deep breath, seemingly preparing herself for something. Olivia doesn't just do something; she thinks it over. At least, the old Olivia did. This Olivia is more reserved, he's noticed. She takes her time, yes. But she's calculating, quick, and doesn't hesitate.

"Elliot, I met a man a few years ago. He was one of the worst perps we'd ever had come through SVU, and there have been a lot." She's fidgeting with the hem of her tank top, the only barrier other than her bra and jeans separating her skin from his view. Elliot doesn't speak, so she continues.

"He'd had a history of getting off on technicalities, and he was just a lucky son of a bitch. Well, Cragen did everything he could to make sure charges stuck here. He'd tortured an old woman, marring her body with keys and cigarettes, raped her for hours. She died from enduring that. He was going down. Until he didn't."

Elliot feels the bile rising in his throat. What in the hell did the old woman's demise have to do with Olivia?

Wait.

Olivia sees the wheels turning in Elliot's head, and she's sure he's piecing together why she's taking off her top. That's not even all the scars that she plans on showing him. Just not right now.

"By now I can tell what's running through your mind. He got off, and Cragen gave me two days. Mandatory. I went home alone, and no one told me to blink my lights." Her voice cracks, and she sees the tears falling from his eyes. Since she has started telling him, their eye contact hasn't broken. She doesn't want it to. She needs it because it grounds her. Keeps her checked into this reality and not the one that contains William Lewis.

"He was there in my apartment, El. He held me at gunpoint. He tied me to a chair and burned my with cigarettes, wire hangers, my keys. He hit me with the butt of my gun. The same gun where your mini badge was."

Elliot watches as her fingers shakily grasp the bottom of the tank top and slowly slides it up her abdomen. He won't look until she tells him. He watches her as she lets the tank top pile with the rest of her apparel.

"He branded me."

And he looks down. He immediately finds the raised scars and wants to kill the sick son of a bitch that has branded her. He feels the anger bubbling, but his tears are falling, both out of hurt and anger. He swallows down the bile that threatens to spew, and he stands. He watches her as she cowers away from him, ashamed of the scars. He lets his eyes find each scar and makes a mental note of their location before he does anything else.

Now, He walks towards her, grasping at her elbows and turning her towards him. Her tears have started falling, and she notes that his have too, and she reaches up to wipe them away.

"El, I was missing for four days. He had me for four days. And he did unimaginable things, and he made me watch... He tried to rape me, had me begging for my life at one point. And then had me begging him to end it too. But in that whole ordeal, I didn't want just anyone."

She's inching closer to him, pulling his forehead to hers. She needs this proximity of him. She needs this to ground herself. He knows this too, and he allows it all. He allows this embrace. Hell, he needs this too.

"Liv, I-"

"I wanted you, Elliot."

That's chapter 2!!! I wanted to end it here that way, we have more emotion in the next chapter. In the next chapter, we will have the rest of this scene and talk about Lowell Harris. That's my plan, at least. I plan on this being 10-12 chapters. Keep reviewing and letting me know how you like it so far!!