Sorry for the delay, Flu A took me out for a few weeks. I've had 4 respiratory illness since I started this story so that's been fun haha finally back to writing and excited about the direction we are going.

A couple notes ahead of the chapter: I'm slowing things wayyyy down now that Elliot is back. There are a million and one things to be covered with Olivia's recovery, pregnancy, her housing situation, Kathy, Elliot's kids, the squad, therapy, etc. Why not drag it out a little?

This chapter has a lot of introspection from our two mains, lots of internal monologue. Hope it's alright 3

May 24th 2013 - Long Island Community Hospital, Long Island, New York - 4:32pm

When the OBGYN arrived to perform an internal examination on Liv, Elliot reluctantly agreed to leave the triage room at her request. For a fleeting moment, his good sense left him and he considered arguing that he had a right to be there, that she was carrying his baby, that he belonged in the room during all baby-related matters. It was an outmoded and misogynistic argument, and a patently misleading one at that.

He wasn't clinging to Liv because he was a possessive bastard who felt entitled to her space, he was clinging to her because he felt like he would throw up anytime she was out of his line of sight.

He wasn't a total bastard though. If Liv didn't want him at her bedside while her legs were in stirrups, well, he couldn't blame her for that one bit. She deserved her privacy, he knew that. It didn't change the fact that leaving the room, leaving her, left a panicky fidgety buzzing in his chest and a pit in his stomach that he couldn't shake.

There was a small waiting area across the hall from the triage room and Elliot figured he had enough time to grab a coke and stretch his legs before returning to his rightful place at Liv's bedside. Maybe the drink would be enough of a distraction to calm his racing thoughts until he could lay eyes on her again.

Instead, his heart rate kicked into overdrive as he rounded the corner and was greeted by dozens of expectant gazes in the waiting room.

He'd forgotten about them, forgotten about the sea of concerned faces who'd spent the better part of two days searching high and low for Liv. He felt bad about it, but in his defense he'd also forgotten about her squad, the media, his own family, food, water, using the bathroom, breathing, everything, everything but Liv since the moment he found her in that bathtub.

Near frozen in shock at the number of eyes on him, he gaped at the crowd of officers silently until Cragen approached behind him and patted his back, muttering softly, "go ahead, dad, give 'em the good news."

Elliot sucked in a deep breath and tried to ease the tension with a shaky smile as he announced, "Liv and the baby are both okay, they're stable."

There was a collective response from the room at large, a symphony of murmurs, breaths, sighs, general sounds of bodies and minds relaxing after a period of great stress. He caught sight of Fin who looked like the weight of the entire world had been peeled off of his shoulders. Amanda Rollins sat next to him, face buried in her hands as tense laughter and sobs burst from her mouth and echoed through the hospital corridors. Fin wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a one-armed hug, shushing her gently, which only seemed to make her cry harder. Nick Amaro sat on the other side of Amanda, and Elliot watched him collapse backward into his chair, boneless, as if the tension in his body had been sucked out with a vacuum.

It was a moment that Elliot would never forget.

He knew the palpable, clawing fear that Liv's squad had experienced when she went missing, knew it intimately. It was a choking, paralyzing terror that could leave a person useless, take away their ability to cope, work, function. He'd seen the families and friends of victims cave under that fear for 2 decades, yet he'd watched her squad thrive in it, challenge their fear, use it as motivation to work harder and faster and longer and better.

Some might say it was their police training, but Elliot knew better. Training means very little when someone you love is in danger. He knew that they'd worked through their fear because that's what Liv would have done if one of them were missing. She wouldn't have slept, or ate, or stopped for a second until they were home.

They'd given their all to the most important manhunt of their lives, and the outcome was better than any of them could have dared to hope for. Liv was alive and still pregnant somehow and mostly in one piece.

It was truly a miracle.

As the quiet moment of celebration continued all over the waiting area, Cragen whistled loudly to gather the attention of the cops, and addressed them in a kind but commanding tone, "I wanted to take a moment to thank every one of you. The hours of manpower and energy you poured into this investigation did not go unnoticed, and I can't begin to express how grateful I am. Though many of you don't know Detective Benson personally, you poured yourselves into this like she was your own wife, or daughter, or mother. Each and every one of you demonstrated the true brotherhood that exists in the NYPD and I couldn't be prouder. On behalf of the 1-6 and Special Victims, and on behalf of Detective Benson and her daughter, thank you. Thank you all. Please, everyone, go home, rest, see your families, eat, sleep. You've earned it."

Several officers approached Cragen to shake his hand and exchange quick goodbyes while many others started to disperse, gathering their coffee cups and candy wrappers, patting one another's backs and moseying toward the exit.

The brotherhood that Cragen spoke of was strong in moments like these - moments where one of their own was hurt and they came together to do something about it. He knew many of them would go home to their families a little quieter than usual, hug their kids longer, hold their wives or husbands a little closer in bed, and they would see Liv's face in their mind's eye as they drifted off to sleep.

Elliot knew that experience all too well.

After just a few minutes, the waiting room went from wall-to-wall cops to nearly empty, just three chairs remaining occupied by Nick, Amanda and Fin.

He decided that he didn't want to engage with the three cops and he really didn't want to field questions about Liv's condition or her injuries, so he turned his back to them all and focused his attention on the waiting room TV instead.

An episode of The Andy Griffith Show was playing without sound and he stared at it unblinkingly, not paying a bit of attention to the plot. He thought it a bit odd that the television was not on a news channel. He'd assumed that the squad might want to see how the media was covering Liv's rescue. 1PP would do an official presser soon if they hadn't already, and Elliot wondered idly if any of the news vans had left yet, or if they were all still parked outside like fucking seagulls fighting over scraps in the Walmart parking lot.

God, how he hated the media, hated the way they exploited tragedies for their own gain, hated that they were so fixated on Liv. He knew that they would write dozens, maybe hundreds of articles about Olivia Benson, the pregnant detective taken by an evil sociopath. This was the exact type of crime that they would heavily sensationalize, and all of those breaking news articles and clips would exist in the world for their little girl to stumble upon someday.

He and Liv could try to keep the evils of Compton and Lewis from darkening their daughter's mind, but they could only shelter her so much thanks to modern technology. Kids learned how to use Google in elementary school now, for Christsakes. One Google search of her mother's name, and their daughter would find a veritable cyber platter of life altering news and trauma that she would never be able to unlearn.

All of it in the name of news and entertainment. It enraged him.

He wondered how much information they already had about what she'd endured. Did they know about the burns? The cut on her stomach? Had his family been watching the news? What did they know?

God, he'd forgotten about his kids and his wife. What must they be thinking after he'd bolted from the apartment? He'd been so preoccupied, everything had been about Liv, Liv, Liv for hours, every waking second. He hadn't thought to reach out once.

He walked back over to Liv's door and plopped down across from it, he was tired of being away from her and the familiar anxiety was creeping back, making him jittery, restless. He pulled his phone out and dialed Kathy's number, paused, then erased it and pulled up the family group chat instead, not ready to hear his wife's voice or answer the many questions that he was certain she would ask.

Back when he was a detective, he'd sought comfort from his family's presence after the tough cases, especially when the older ones were still little. Hearing their small voices always grounded him, seeing that they were safe from the evils of the world was an antidote to his soul after his most harrowing days at SVU.

It was ironic that now, in the aftermath of the most frightening 24 hours of his life, he craved distance from them. The older 4 weren't small children anymore, they were adults who understood more about the world than he wanted them to.

What could he possibly tell them about this?

"She's fine, kids, the guy just tortured her for days, but she killed him so that's good. And she doesn't think that he raped her at least. She almost bled to death, but she didn't. And the burns will heal eventually. Not all the way, of course, she'll have scars on her for the rest of her life, but it could have been worse ."

He certainly couldn't say that. Those details were too brutal, too personal. He didn't want them to picture the hell that she'd endured, wanted to spare them the visuals.

They knew about the warehouse and Compton, knew enough about what had happened to him and Liv to eventually understand why he cut her out of their lives. After his Easter dinner confession, he'd received very little additional questioning from them, and he'd appreciated that they were willing to accept his explanation and move forward while he and Kathy built their new life.

Now, in the plot twist of the century, he was suddenly expecting a baby with Liv and bringing her back into their lives very pregnant and very broken, and he didn't know what any of it would look like, so he definitely could not explain it to them yet.

He owed them everything, they were his family, but so was Liv and right now he owed her more.

She would need a new place to live, a new nursery, help getting to and from appointments, not to mention she was unable to get out of bed or walk on her own. She needed him more than anyone else did right now, and he would prioritize her needs for the very first time in all of the years he'd known her. He would finally be a partner deserving of Olivia Benson, or he would die trying. That was the only thing he was sure of as he sat in that waiting room.

He didn't know where it would leave his marriage. Kathy was an understanding woman, but everyone had a breaking point. He was having a child with another woman and he was going to put that woman and her needs before his own wife. Their marriage had broken before under less extreme circumstances.

He knew that should have bothered him, he wished it bothered him. He wished he was more worried about Kathy, wished he was a better man, wished for a voice in his head screaming at him to call his wife, to put her first while forsaking all others, to remember the vows he'd taken before God.

Instead, he closed his eyes and saw Liv, only Liv, lying in that fucking tub, belly sliced open and bleeding to death.

Maybe he wasn't a good man, maybe he'd never been a very good husband, maybe he was a shit father, maybe it didn't matter anymore. Kathy might leave and his older kids might hate him and he might suffer a great deal of pain and loss, but nothing would compare to the absolute torture that Liv endured for days on end at Lewis' hand because he'd fucking vanished from her life and nobody had bothered to check on her.

That's what it all came down to.

He quickly typed a text and didn't allow himself to second guess it before pressing send.

"Liv and the baby girl are both okay. At Long Island Community Hospital, she'll be here awhile. Love you all."

He powered off the device, not wanting messages or calls to distract him from Liv. As the screen dimmed, the door to her room opened and the OBGYN walked out with a smile on her face as she laughed, "Detective Benson said her partner would be sitting out here like a watchdog, and that I should let him in before he starts barking at everyone."

Elliot pulled himself off of the floor and shoved his phone into his back pocket, putting thoughts of his wife and kids away with it and putting his focus back where it belonged.

His partner.

May 24th 2013 - Long Island Community Hospital, Long Island, New York - 5:08pm

Olivia watched in tired amusement as a scowling, haggard-looking Elliot picked at his dinner tray in disgust. She'd seen the same exact scowl on his face once when he'd ordered a meat and cheese omelette from one of their regular breakfast spots and received one filled with multicolored peppers and tofu instead. He'd spat the bite into a napkin and called it an abomination before taking a massive swig of her apple juice to get the taste out of his mouth. The familiarity of it was comforting to her.

When someone from the hospital first delivered the extra dinner tray for him, Elliot had accepted it graciously. Once the lids were off and the food smells started mingling with the general antiseptic odor of the hospital and the still-quite pungent smell of vodka and cigarettes on her hair and skin, it created a rather nauseating aroma in the room, and she thought maybe that had ruined his appetite since he was suddenly looking at the meal like it was a snake raring to bite him.

The lackluster offering of bread, "salisbury steak", mashed potatoes, canned peaches and juice was hardly a feast, but Olivia was grateful to have it. Now that she'd become familiar with the feeling of clawing, desperate hunger in her belly, the fear that she might never get to eat again, the near-manic willingness to do anything for even a single bite, she would never take food for granted again.

She watched as Elliot picked up his roll and scrutinized it like a piece of evidence, another wave of nostalgia hitting her in the gut. The bread looked a little damp and a little stale and she had to laugh as he set it back on his tray, incoherent grumblings of revulsion on his tongue as he declared, "You don't have to eat this crap. I can have something delivered."

"No, this is okay, El."

"You deserve something better than this dog food," he complained," I should have offered to get you something before they brought these hazmat trays."

She coughed out a small laugh and grimaced at the wave of aches and pain that rippled through her body. His description of the meal wasn't completely inaccurate, it vaguely reminded her of the inmate trays at Rikers, but she still wanted it, and maybe some of his, and maybe a third tray after that. She was still, so hungry.

Yet her tray remained untouched. She was scared to eat. Her stomach had not been completely empty for the past 4 days, but full of vodka and mystery drugs, a potent combination for a pregnant woman who tended to battle with nausea several times a day. She was worried that her stomach wouldn't tolerate the food, that she might get sick and hurt herself more, even rip her stitches.

She knew she still had to try to eat something. She wasn't the only one who'd been starving for days.

With a level of effort that Olivia deemed embarrassing, she picked up the fork from her tray and stabbed at a canned peach, bringing it up to her lips unsteadily and popping the entire thing into her mouth.

Her determination waned a bit as the muscles in her arm and hand screamed and shook and seized up with her efforts, and she dropped the fork back down to her tray with a clang. She leaned back in the bed as she chewed the peach, breathing heavily through her nose like she'd just completed a significant physical feat.

Officially, she could not feed herself, and the realization sent a surge of fear through her which clawed at her throat and left her near breathless.

How am I going to get through this? How am I going to take care of us?

She tried to quell the growing panic inside of her, not wanting Elliot to see just how helpless and rattled she really was. She feared he would confront her, and the carefully crafted mask she was putting up for the world would crumble away, and everyone would see how truly broken she really was after everything that she'd been through, and she wasn't ready to face that.

As she breathed deeply and prepared to grab her fork and work on getting another bite, Elliot leaned over and plucked up the utensil, scooping up a bite of mashed potatoes and bringing it up to her lips without hesitation. Her mouth fell open in surprise as she barked out a small, disbelieving laugh.

"I can feed myself," she lied, wheezing, reaching up to grab the fork from his hand so she could prove her strength, only for her arm to give out after a mere second of effort. Sighing in defeat and letting her arm drop back down to the blanket, she insisted, "I really can, I'm just tired."

She closed her eyes and leaned back in the bed, embarrassed, tempted to fake sleep so she could spare herself any further humiliation.

"You're in pain, Liv. Just let me help you, I swear I won't tell anyone," Elliot promised, a bit too cheekily for her liking, "Doc said you need food, both of you."

He looked pointedly at her belly and she sighed. Now that Elliot was back, she feared she would be reminded that she was pregnant every 3 minutes for the next 15 or so weeks.

Elliot brought the forkful of potatoes up to her mouth again, an expectant look on his face. She wanted to argue with him some more, it felt good to tell him no, but she found that she didn't have any fight left in her.

There would be plenty of time for them to fight later. On this day, she'd fought and won much bigger battles, and she needed to heal from them before taking on another opponent.

She wrapped her cracked lips around the fork, accepting the bland potatoes into her mouth and chewing them quickly, taking very little time to savor them before swallowing hard. The act of being fed by Elliot felt intimate, too intimate and her cheeks warmed. Her mind wandered to a time in the not-so-distant future where a tiny girl would sit in a high chair while the same man scooped pureed bananas onto a spoon and guided them into her toothless mouth. The parallels were not lost on her.

She knew Elliot felt it too, the significance in that act of feeding her. He was usually one to break tension with humor or sarcasm, but he remained silent in those moments, devotedly feeding her bite after bite as he picked at his own tray. When his eyes met hers over a forkful of meat, she saw something in them that frightened her.

He had this loaded look in his eyes, one that she'd seen when he was speaking to one of his older children on the phone, or sharing a warm moment with Kathy, or praising Eli for doing well in school. The look held reverence, warmth, care, love ; it was a look full of promises from a man who had no business promising her a damned thing.

He'd left her for 6 months - didn't reach out, didn't say goodbye, didn't check on her. If Lewis hadn't taken her, there was a good chance that she would not have seen or heard from him until the Compton trial, which Barba had assured her would not take place until after their daughter was born, so he would have missed the entire pregnancy and birth because he disappeared and made damned sure that she had no way to reach him. Nothing that happened to her changed what he did, or didn't do, or the fact that the man was married.

If she needed a reminder that he'd never seen her as more than a coworker, she just had to think back to the unanswered calls, the unacknowledged messages, the appointments where she'd stared at the ultrasound machine alone, looking at her baby's silhouette and carrying the weight of it's whole existence on her shoulders alone.

She knew that his presence at her bedside in the aftermath of her abduction was due to fear, and obligation, and nothing more, that his affection was a trauma response from discovering that she was pregnant and hurt. She wouldn't let herself get caught up in him, it was all fleeting, she knew that in her heart.

But still, as he fed her bite after bite, and wiped her face when gravy got on her chin, and didn't seem fazed by any of it, she felt loved by him. It was nice to be cared for, especially when she felt so raw and vulnerable and exposed.

Even if it wasn't real.

He fed her almost the entire tray before she reached her limit and eased herself back on the bed, tired and sated. His initial complaints about the meal were forgotten and he quickly finished off his own portion and her leftovers before setting their trays aside and wheeling her overbed table away so she could have more room to move.

She struggled to get comfortable with only one arm working, and wiggling herself into a good position was irritating the cigarette burns on her hips, inner thighs and ass, not to mention that almost any movement sent sharp stabbing pains through her middle where Lewis sliced her.

Her pain was reaching an unmanageable level. With her adrenaline gone and the imminent threat of death no longer hanging over, she could finally feel each burn, cut and bruise in its full glory, and there wasn't a single inch of her flesh that wasn't sensitive to the touch. Due to the cocktail of drugs and alcohol still working their way through her body, she wasn't allowed any Tylenol, which was the only pain medicine she was willing to take while pregnant anyway, and her body felt like one massive bruise as a result.

It reminded her of her early days in the police academy when she would run to the point of exhaustion and feel it in her muscles for days, sometimes weeks after. That ache was child's play compared to her body after 4 days in the company of the Beast.

She tried not to show how frustrated she was, but she could feel the angry tears pricking at her eyes. She'd never hurt so much or been so helpless, and she just wanted to relax. It was such a small thing, to lay back, to find a comfortable position in bed, and she was not able to do it.

"Let me?" Elliot said, reaching one arm around her back and the other under her slightly raised knees, not touching her until she gave a slight nod of permission. She felt the warmth of his hands press gently, so gently on her as he effortlessly lifted her up a few inches and placed her a bit lower on the bed. She was able to stretch her legs out more and ease her back fully on the inclined mattress.

She breathed out an exhausted, "thank you."

The smile he gave her in return was watery and it made her want to weep, which she could not do because she was certain that the pain of it would send her into cardiac arrest. She needed to break the moment, get them out of the emotional whirlwind they were stuck in before shit got too real.

"Think they'll let me shower?" She asked once he'd settled back in his chair at her bedside, "One of us needs to, this room is a biohazard."

Elliot barked out a laugh and pressed the "call" button next to her bed, "Doesn't hurt to ask, Liv. I think they'd pretty much give you whatever you want."

One of her triage nurses quickly entered the room, flashing a kind smile which did very little to hide the emotion in her eyes. Olivia was used to the look by now, the mixture of awe and pity and nerves that all of the medical staff had when they looked at her.

She posed the question of a shower and was relieved that the woman's answer was not an immediate 'no'.

"It's possible, but we'll need to change the bandage on your abdominal wound to a waterproof one, it'll be uncomfortable. If you'd like a sponge bath instead-"

"- a sponge bath isn't going to get the smell of vodka and cigarettes out of my hair. Sorry, no, please, you can do whatever you need to do, I just need a real shower."

The nurse acquiesced and some of the tension that Olivia had been carrying in her shoulders and neck dissipated with the promise of a shower and a private room and a few hours of hopefully dreamless sleep in her near future.

"Once we move you into your room, they'll get started on your bandages and then help you into the shower so you can get clean and settled for the night. Just hang tight in here a little longer."

As the nurse was speaking, Olivia saw Cragen slip quietly into the room, his brow furrowed in a look of concern that she was all too familiar with. Before Olivia could say another word, her Captain spoke , "Is there a SANE nurse available to complete the rape kit before she showers?"

Olivia's breath caught in her throat and she felt Elliot stiffen next to her. They hadn't spoken once about a rape kit since she'd been found. For some reason, she hadn't considered that her Captain would want her to get one or that anyone would assume she needed one.

Olivia knew if she got the kit done and it concluded that she was raped by William Lewis, she would spend the rest of her life grieving over an assault that she was not even conscious to remember. As far as she was concerned, the only thing a rape kit could do is give Lewis more power over her, more space in her head, more fuel for the nightmares.

She would not let him sully her victory. "Absolutely not. No kit."

"Lewis had you for almost 4 days." It was a statement, not a question, and she didn't appreciate the connotation.

Her nostrils flared and she snapped back at him, "I'm aware of how long it was, thank you. I-" She stopped, feeling herself getting too worked up, feeling like she was dissociating from reality again. She breathed deeply and calmly finished, "We aren't supposed to discuss any of this until my interview."

Cragen sat down in the empty chair on the other side of her bed and waved the nurse out reluctantly. The blood had drained from the woman's face and Olivia felt a bit sorry for her. Mere hours ago, the same nurse helped hold her down while her bloodied abdomen had been stitched without anesthesia. The woman had trauma associated with Olivia now, and she imagined that her case would stay with that nurse for a long time, resurfacing in unwelcome moments like so many of Olivia's own cases did.

Once the door was shut, Cragen lowered his voice and leaned forward to appeal to her once more, "This conversation will stay between the three of us." He waited for Olivia and Elliot to agree before he continued, "Olivia, you killed William Lewis. Nobody is lining up to mourn the bastard, but if some overzealous family member comes out of the woodwork to claim police brutality against him, you might need the evidence from the kit to justify lethal force."

" He tried to cut my baby out of me. Is that not justification enough?" She asked, words clipped and tasting bitter on her tongue. It was a sentence that no expectant mother should ever have to utter.

"My God," Elliot breathed out, his tone shocked and panicking. He placed his head in his hands and slumped in his chair. To her, it had seemed obvious that Lewis was trying to take the baby out, but she supposed that maybe Elliot hadn't let his mind go there, that it was too horrifying to comprehend. It was a hard pill to swallow - the knowledge that, if she had not escaped, Lewis would have carved her up and removed their child and left them both in that beach house to die.

The memory sent a chill up her spine and she had to push it away, far away, down with all of the other brutal memories that she would eventually have to face during the long road ahead.

"Captain," she stated slowly, her patience thin, "if Lewis' family wants to take me to court for police brutality, let them. They can look at the photos of my injuries and decide for themselves if he should have walked out of that beach house after everything he did."

A tense silence stretched out over the room before Cragen, who was no longer looking at her, spoke again in a low, mournful tone, "I'll ask you this once now, and once tomorrow for IAB's records." He swallowed hard, and she already knew the question before the words left his mouth, "Did he rape you?"

A terrible anticipation hung between them, and Olivia wished more than anything that she could flee the room, flee the scrutiny of the two men who knew her better than anyone else in the world.

"To my knowledge, he did not."

Cragen's skepticism played out over his face like a feature film.

"You can tell me, Olivia. It won't impact your job, I promise." Cragen assured.

"I just told you, to my knowledge-"

"-but what does-

"-I was passed out drunk and high half the time, he could have-" She closed her eyes tightly and fought it, fought against the fear that was building in her, pushed the anxiety as far away as she could. She had to cope, she was too injured to have a flashback, and she couldn't go back there, not yet. She couldn't go back there. She couldn't.

Cragen reached over to place a gentle hand on her arm and she hissed at the contact, causing him to withdraw it immediately. She could feel Elliot heating up next to her, feel the vibration of him, the aggression building in his body as the tension escalated between her and Cragen. He was letting her fight her own battles for now, but she knew better than to think it would last if her Captain kept pressing.

"If you think there's a chance he did, the kit-"

That was it, Elliot's last straw. She watched the vestiges of her former partner's composure break before her eyes.

He slapped his hand down on the end table and a thunderous sound boomed through the room. Elliot snarled at Cragen, voice low and dripping with danger, "You heard what she said. Drop it. Now."

Olivia tensed, the monitors indicating a spike in her heart rate, and she clenched her eyes closed again in a bid to calm down. She felt Elliot's hand on her knee, a gentle squeeze that she took as an apology easing her stress only slightly.

Everything was out of control, and she was so tired, and she wanted to cry almost as much as she wanted to sleep, but she couldn't do either, and now Cragen and Elliot were fighting and it was way too much for a day which had already almost taken everything from her.

She dared to look at them again. Elliot kept his deadly gaze fixed on Cragen's face, eyes blazing and ready to strike, itching for a fight, welcoming it even. He was wound up too tightly, only the slightest provocation away from exploding. It was only a matter of time, and a matter of who would be his unlucky opponent.

There was a beat where she wondered if her Captain was also wound up that tight, if there was a chance he might let himself get beaten by Elliot just to let it out.

Then, as she should have expected, Cragen surrendered. He put his hands up and offered, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you like that."

Elliot's grip on her knee loosened slightly, and she saw the almost imperceptible sag of his shoulders in her peripheral vision, the moment the inferno flickered down into a small flame once again.

The Big One would happen soon, the Big "Elliot-Stabler-meltdown-to-end-all-meltdowns" which would surely leave someone battered or bloodied or verbally lashed to pieces, it was coming, oh yes, she knew it was right on the horizon. By some miracle, they'd skirted it for a bit longer.

Thank God for small favors.

"You up for visitors?" Cragen asked suddenly in what Olivia guessed to be a desperate attempt to change the subject for the sake of Elliot's sanity, "The squad refuses to leave until they can lay eyes on you for themselves."

Her first instinct was to immediately say no. She smelled bad, looked worse, and was too tired to carry half of a conversation. It was humiliating for people to see her in such a state, made her feel exposed and vulnerable and not like herself at all.

But she thought about the Hell they must have gone through while looking for her, 2 days imagining the worst, knowing what Lewis was capable of and knowing that he'd had her in his evil grasp. They would have been beside themselves. Even though it was her ordeal, they'd all been victims of Lewis, and they would live with the memories of what he did for the rest of their lives. If seeing her for a few minutes would help bring them enough peace to leave the hospital, she would not deny them.

"Sure."

Cragen typed out a quick text and, within moments, the door opened.

Fin entered first, slowly, cautiously, the warm smile on his face reminiscent of the way he'd looked at her that day in the warehouse. She could see through that smile. Fin was a tough cop, took no shit from anyone, but he was kind and he took things to heart, especially when the people he loved were involved. He was suffering, she knew, and she ached to ease it, to put her hands on him and draw it out and take it on herself somehow.

He walked to the edge of her bed and placed both hands on her socked feet, giving a small squeeze as he spoke in the softest voice she'd ever heard from him, "You're a sight for sore eyes, Liv".

She swallowed hard at the emotion bubbling up in her chest and said, "Back at you, Fin."

Amanda followed close behind Fin, arms crossed self-consciously over her chest. Olivia observed her red, tear-stained cheeks and the bags under her eyes that alluded to several sleepless nights.

Olivia worried that Amanda was blaming herself. She'd been the one to collar Lewis, the one who couldn't let go of the feeling that there was more to him, the one whose dogged pursuit of him led her to call them all in on a Sunday. If the roles had been reversed, Olivia might blame herself too.

But Olivia didn't blame Amanda, not one bit. Amanda wasn't the one who dangled herself in front of Lewis for a confession, she wasn't the one who'd cross contaminated the evidence, she wasn't the person who'd broken into Olivia's apartment and tortured her. There were many people who could be assigned some blame, but Amanda was not one of them as far as Olivia was concerned.

The younger detective approached her bedside and spoke softly, "I'm real glad to see you, Liv."

She set an offering down on the bedside table - a pack of peanut butter crackers - and the familiar gesture had tears welling up in Olivia's eyes. As Amanda pulled her hand away, Olivia grabbed it and squeezed, whispering a cracked, "thank you, Amanda."

Finally, her partner entered the room.

Nick looked like he'd taken several beatings in the time since she'd last seen him. His eyes were puffy and dark - worse than Amanda's - and his neck and shoulders were more tense than she'd ever seen. He was a shell of the man who'd driven her home from work on Tuesday.

Cragen vacated his seat so Nick could take it, and he settled next to her wordlessly. He was wound up tight, fidgety, as ready to blow as Elliot had been just a few minutes prior.

She waited for him to say something, to break the terrible silence between them, but he remained quiet beside her, hunched over on his elbows, hands clasped together and knees bouncing anxiously.

He stared at her belly, only her belly, and she thought back to the day where he'd stood at her side and they'd learned together that she was having a little girl. He'd inserted himself into that day because he knew that she needed someone, and she could recall the easy smile on his face, the way he'd gripped her hand and made her feel less alone, how that ultrasound was the start of her coming out of a long depression that had been swallowing her up for weeks.

For months, Nick drove her to appointments, and to and from work every day, and kept her fed, and kept her sane, and was more than she could have ever hoped to have in a partner after Elliot left.

He was family, and he loved her, and he loved her baby, and he'd thought he'd lost them both.

"She's okay, Nick. We're okay." She soothed, placing her hand gently on his hand, squeezing as tightly as her tired muscles could manage. She felt a tremor flow through him and realized that he was crying.

"I'm sorry, Liv," he weeped, voice cracking and wounded, "I'm sorry I didn't walk you up. I should have walked you up, I should have checked the apartment," he wiped his cheek with the arm of his shirt and sobbed, "I should have protected you."

Her heart ached at the sight of his brokenness. Olivia placed her uninjured hand on his head and affectionately ran her fingers through his dark hair, "Lewis would have shot you dead, Nick. I'm so glad you didn't walk me up." He let out another sob and she shushed him sweetly, fingers still gliding through his locks in a sweeping motion that she hoped would comfort the man as she told him, "this is not your fault. You are not to blame. You can't put this on yourself," She looked around at the others, all wearing matching forlorn expressions, all carrying blame on their shoulders that did not belong to them. She focused her gaze on Elliot and stated, with as much conviction as she could muster, " None of you are to blame for what happened to me."

Elliot stared back at her as she said the words, and there was a split second where she swore she could see inside of him, could see the burning rage he felt at Lewis, the fear he'd carried when he thought she was dying, the love he already felt for their daughter, the depth of every emotion that lived in him. More powerful and brighter than any other feeling, she saw a blazing guilt so heavy and awful that she couldn't look at him anymore.

It would destroy him, she knew that. His guilt would eat him alive, devour him from the inside out and leave nothing for his kids and Kathy, nothing for her and her baby. Elliot would burn alive under it if he let himself.

She wanted to soothe it away, to pull him into her and reach inside of him and grab that stinking putrid guilt and ease his soul from it.

And then she remembered that he'd left her without a trace and she thought that maybe he should keep the guilt in him, just a little longer, maybe he deserved to feel it for a little while.

Just a little while.

This chapter was originally 11000 words, but I felt terrible about how long I've made you all wait, and I promised justcole a chapter by Saturday night, so I'm posting this now and I'll post the other 4000ish word part of it in the next day or two when I finally wrap up editing. Word of warning: it's STILL May 24th, the longest day ever. LOL It's almost over, I swear.

If you're so inclined, please leave a comment. I love discussing the plot and the drama and the Bensler with you wonderful people. I'd also love to know what your favorite part of the chapter was to give me an idea of what works well in the story.

As always, thank you for the reviews. And for those of you reading this on , sorry for the typos in previous chapters. It's like parts of sentences were deleted, I'm not sure how but I'm trying to be more aware. Please let me know if you see any and I'll fix them.

Much love until next time.