66 hours had passed

Elliot insisted on driving, and since Brian Cassidy was the odd man out at SVU, he got stuck in the passenger side of Elliot's SUV.

"Why's it smell like syrup in here?," Cassidy sniffed.

"Pancake day."

Brian noticed the plate on the backseat and couldn't help but compare his life to Elliot's. If he did finally commit himself to Liv, he'd have to be all in. And she'd most likely want kids, and who the hell was he to prevent a woman like her from becoming a mother. But would this be their double life? Pancakes and diapers from 7am-9am. Taking down bad guys the rest of the day. Leaving for weeks at a time to go undercover and coming back to a kid that's grown a half inch, lost a tooth, and barely gives a shit that you're home, because really kids only wanted their mom.

He rubbed his eyes with one hand and sighed heavily.

"I don't know how you do it, man."

"What?"

"Pancake day. Italy. Kids. Don't you feel a little selfish not being here?"

Elliot slowly turned his angry half hidden under the brow blue eyes over to Cassidy and put him in his place. "Remind me again who or what you take care of, besides yourself?"

"Sorry…just seems exhausting," Brian mumbled, wishing he had just kept his big mouth shut.

"It is."

They drove in silence for a long time, while Elliot weaved through New York traffic and tapped and texted on his phone.

Finally he put the phone to his ear.

"Ma, it's Elliot. Call me back. It's important."

"It's important?," Brian said under his breath.

"What's your deal? You going to judge me all the way to Long Island?"

"No! I don't know your mother. Maybe she's not picking up because she doens't know how serious this shit is," Brian raised his voice slightly.

"I don't want this guy to think we know he's there, if he listens to her messages, it could spook him."

"She lives there?," Brian's eye grew wide.

"I don't know," Elliot mumbled this time.

"You don't know," Brian judged. "How do you not know?"

"We don't…keep in touch."

"Nice. Don't take care of you mom or your kids."

Elliot cooly let him have his jab, because he agreed with him, but he wasn't about to let him win. "So how long you and Liv been seeing each other?"

"Aw, man. Here we go. You mean she didn't tell you at dinner the other night?," Brian knew the game all too well. He could hold his own with Elliot Stabler.

"No," Elliot held back a grin.

Brian scoffed. "Probably cause you'd have punched a wall."

"Or you're not that serious, and she knows it," he won and they both knew it, but Cassidy never let Elliot have the last word.

"We've been dating long enough for me to know her more than you ever did," Brian unblinkingly stared at him with his own half grin.

"Hmm. Doubt that," Elliot swerved hard and Brian hit his head off of the window. "Seriously though, how long?"

"What the fuck do you care?," Brian finally snapped.

"Why you upset?," Elliot puffed. "I'm just curious."

"Like hell you are. We been dating a few months. If you must know," Brian held back his inclination to punch him in the middle of this pissing match with Elliot.

Elliot could feel his blood boil, but he'd been to enough therapy over the last three years that he could stop himself. He counted to ten, but he really couldn't let Cassidy not understand that Olivia's disappearance, was half his fault. A real man would have needed to hear her voice before she went to bed. I real lover wouldn't have let two full days go by without realizing something was wrong. Had Amanda Rollins not stepped called, who knows when Cassidy would have realized Olivia was missing. Elliot ever so gently poked the hornet.

"You love her?"

Brian shut down a bit. He stared out the side window afraid to say too much. "She saved my life. Took care of me after I got shot. That's how we started seeing each other."

"Yeah, but do you love her?"

"Would I be here if I didn't love her?"

"It's an NYPD emergency. Half the city is on this and all of Long Island so…probably," Elliot grunted as he turned onto the dirt round and stopped his car. "Let's walk the rest of the way."

"You got some nerve, Stabler. It's just like you to make this about yourself," Brian whispered as they got out of the car.

"I'm looking out for her. Which is more than you did," he softly cooly answered as he nodded for Brian to take the northern side of the house.

"Fuck you, Stabler. You left her. Move across the ocean. Don't call. Don't write. You ain't married. You could have tapped that at any time, but no, you show up. Randomly. During all of…this. And have the balls to tell me how to love her," Brian spittled through a soft hissing whisper.

"How long did it take for you to know she was missing?," Elliot waited but Brian was embarrassed to say it. "More than 24 hours?" Brian stood silent. "And you still haven't said you loved her, so she's just a soft place to land when it's convenient," Elliot peered through binoculars at his mother's house.

"I don't have to say I love her. She knows. And I work undercover. I'm protecting her by keeping her at an arms length."

"That's very noble of you. Glad to see you've matured over the last 15 years."

Brian was about to lose his mind when Elliot shushed him.

"Shhh. Lights are on. And that tan car is my mom's car."

Brian pointed to a second car in the brush. "There. That's the Jeep he stole. They have to be in there."

Elliot nodded. " You take the front door. I'll go up the side door."

Elliot then pulled a walky up to his mouth. "Fin, Cassidy and I are moving in. Suspect unseen. I'll let you know when we have eyes on him."

Elliot could hear a bit of Fin's voice and the rest was static. His heart raced. He could handle a lot of heinous situations, but when it came to Olivia, his whole world shook. If anything happened to her, he would live with the guilt of it for all eternity. Meanwhile, Cassidy couldn't even say he loved her.

Elliot watched Cassidy reach the front door and nod. He then turned over a rock and unlocked the back side door.

He could hear Lewis' voice followed by Liv's voice, and for the first time all morning he was able to fill his lung with a full breath of air. His chest relaxed and he got himself ready for battle.

Lewis was speaking.

"All that monologuing about how you're going to kill me and what your old partner would do. You're pathetic," Lewis spat. "That's the difference between you and me. You don't have the balls to pull that trigger."

"Don't tempt me," Olivia whimpered.

She heard the weakness in her own voice and it sickened her. Fourteen years on the job. She'd seen it all. Said it all. Taken the psych classes every year. Rehabilitated victims. Trained at the gym. People called her their hero on a weekly basis. But Lewis unhinged all of it in less than 3 days. And how? Had she relied on her partners too much? Had she gotten lazy? Sloppy? Was it Brian's fault? Or was she just not…good enough. The fear knocked out every ounce of confidence she thought she had.

Elliot popped his head in and could see Olivia standing over top of Lewis who was tied to the bed frame.

"Killing you would be too easy," she breathed in his face. She was shaking, but she was pissed. She wanted to fight that nagging fear in the back of her mind just as much as she wanted this man to slowly bleed out in a corner on the dark side of the moon.

Elliot was about to stop her, but she was in a cathartic trance. The energy coming off of her body language held him at bay.

Brian rustled around in the front room where muffled whines could suddenly be heard.

"I'm a cop. You're safe now," Cassidy whispered.

"She's with him in the back. I tried to help her. My son's a cop."

The sound of his mother's voice and then Cassidy letting her outside flinched both Elliot and Olivia at the same time. She backed up and tried to look out the window.

"Liv," Elliot spoke from the hallway.

"Elliot," she turned and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Beaten. Bloody. Sweaty. She'd peed all over herself. "Elliot," she started to tear up, and he opened the door.

"You're about to rot in a cell for the next 50 years," he said to Lewis.

"Ho Ho! Now it's a party," Lewis laughed.

"Back up is, right down the street," he said in hopes that he was right. He reached out a hand for her to come out of the corner of the room with him.

"Come on Liv, shoot me!," Lewis turned to face her. To taunt her. "Show your old partner what you learned while he was gone! Fucking shoot me!"

She slowly turned and aimed the gun back at his face. She shook her head no and clenched her lips together. "I'd rather leave you to die…alone in a box."

"Why?," Lewis mocked. "Is that what you're afraid of? Dying alone. Your daddy issues are so cliche. He abandoned you right? Your mom abandoned you."

She blew a piece of hair out of her eye and kept her aim strong. "Better than what your daddy did to you."

"Liv," Elliot whispered and took a step toward her and the gun.

"My daddy was a fucking hero. Not like this guy. My daddy taught me everything I know. Hired a woman to suck me off when I was a kid and then took me out for ice cream afterward. But this isn't about my dad or your dad is it?"

"Liv, give me the gun," Elliot softly said to her. Her eyes didn't leave Lewis' though. He could see her going for the kill.

"Why do you hesitate?," Lewis laughed. " Don't listen to him? The old partner who left you too! Shoot me. Come on. Watch my brains splatter and m head blled out. Come on. You know you want to," he pleaded. "Think of all those women I tortured."

"Liv, look at my eyes," Elliot gently took another step toward her. His gun by his side was ready to aim at Lewis if need be. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm here for you, forever. Don't listen to him. I'm not leaving you."

Lewis got louder. "He broke you. He never loved you."

"Stop it," she spat.

"Oh ho ho, that's it isn't it? He never loved you."

"I do love you, Liv. Put the gun down."

"Don't," she cried out loud to Elliot, without taking her eyes off of Lewis.

Lewis was getting off on all of it. He twisted on the ground grinning as he watched Olivia break down in front of Elliot. "Oh this is fucking great. How long did he deny you that, Olivia! He mentored you. Late nights. You fell in love, and he was what….going home to his wife!? While you what? Waited for him!" Lewis started laughing.

Elliot's eye burst with rage. "You got some imagination, Lewis. Should have been a soap opera writer. Instead, you mess with women and little girls. That make you feel like a man," Elliot barked at Lewis.

"Liv, look at me. He's not worth it. Look at my eyes. I love you, Liv." He walked to Olivia and touched her arm. She looked at him and sunk in the shoulders. "I love you, Olivia," he whispered. "Put the gun down," he softly said. The gun dropped to the ground and she slumped over.

But Lewis kept on talking. "Has you wrapped around his little finger, doesn't he? You would have done anything for him. And you did. Ow, please tell me he fucked you and left?"

"He would never," she whispered.

"Liv, don't listen to him."

"He would never? Or you were too broken," Lewis sat up and got louder and louder. "Your daddy broke you and then he broke you, and your mother was a worthless-"

She grabbed the metal rod from the bed and started flailing the metal at his head and his face over and over again until his body lay lifeless on the ground. His blood was everywhere. Elliot was in such shock that he didn't even try to stop her, until she let out an animalistic cry.

"Liv," Elliot rushed in and held her in his arms. "Liv stop. Liv. stop. Stop. . Shhhh."

The rod dropped to the floor. Lewis was dead. And she let herself cry into his chest.

The sirens could be heard outside.

Elliot cut the rope from Lewis' arms and kicked the gun into his lifeless hand. "I got you, Olivia. I'm not leaving this time." He held Olivia's hand and nodded to the door.

Brian watched helplessly from the side as Elliot walked Olivia out of the old beach house and into the light of day.

She stood in shock feeling the breeze in her hair and the sun attempting to peek through the overcast clouds onto her face, and his warm strong stable hands wrapped around her. Holding her up. Being her guide.

A nearby EMT waved for Elliot to bring her to the back of the ambulance. He spoke through a walky.

"72 hours. Victim alive. Vitals good."