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“I still don’t like the way he looked at you,” Elliot says, pulling his car to a stop in front of Liv’s apartment building. “He’s out on bail, he could be anywhere.” He switches the engine off, turns just in time to catch Liv rolling her eyes at him.
“He’s not stupid enough to come after me, El.” She undoes her seatbelt, picks up her bag and reaches for the door handle. “He’s bold, but he’s not that bold.” She rolls her shoulders. “The only thing I’m worried about right now is how to entertain myself for two days while Cragen’s banned me from the precinct.”
He laughs. “I wouldn’t test that,” he tells her, knowing full well that’s what’s going through her mind right now. “Pretty sure he was serious about arresting you.” He grins. “Maybe you can add some more groceries to those.” He suggests, nodding at the small brown bag he’d all but strong-armed her into buying. “At least let me walk you up?” He asks. “Make me feel better?”
“No,” she tells him, her no-nonsense tone giving him no room to argue. “I’m not starting that.” She shakes her head. “I will blink my lights if it’ll shut you up,” she acquiesces. “But that’s all. I’m a big girl El, I can find my way to the fourth floor on my own.”
He huffs. “Fine,” he gives in, reluctant. “I’m staying here until you do.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” she grins. “My elevator’s out, so you’re gonna have to give me time to get up the stairs, okay?”
He nods, watching as she slips out of the car, jogging through the light rain to the main door of her building, disappearing inside.
He watches her window intently for the five minutes it takes before the light goes on, off, then back on again.
Nodding once, he starts the engine and drives away.
***
He heads to Kathy’s for dinner; a pre-planned thing with her and the kids. Probably why Liv didn’t want me walking her up, he thinks. She doesn’t want me to be late.
His marriage may have ended two years prior after the meltdown he had from the precinct shooting, but his partner is very dedicated to making sure he gets to all of his child related commitments on time. Moreso than when I was actually married, he thinks.
“You okay?” Kathy asks him as he helps her clear the plates after. “You barely touched dinner.”
He sighs heavily, leans against the counter. “Just this case,” he tells her. “The guy’s a psycho, and the way he looked at Liv…” He shakes his head. “Creeped me out. Her too, not that she’ll ever admit it.”
“Did you drive her home?” Kathy asks.
He nods. “Yep. Wanted to walk her up to her apartment but-”
“She’s an independent woman,” Kathy interrupts. “Who doesn’t need you mollycoddling her.”
He snorts. “Got it in one.” He rubs his hand over his close-cropped hair. “I just wish she’d let me look out for her. This guy… he’s bad Kathy. Real bad.”
She reaches out, squeezes his forearm. “Why don’t you stay here tonight?” She offers. “Guest room’s made up, and I’m sure Eli would love you to drop him at school in the morning…”
He shrugs. Maybe the distraction will help, he muses. “Okay.”
***
He can’t sleep.
He went to bed at midnight, but all he’s done since is watched the digital numbers on the clock by the bed slowly count up to one in the morning, then two…
It’s now a little after three, and he just can’t sleep.
He’s been wound up, anxious ever since he dropped Liv at her apartment, and blinking lights or not, he just can’t shake the feeling.
Rolling out of bed, he picks up his cell from the nightstand, calls her.
It rings out, eventually switching to voicemail.
It’s the middle of the night Stabler, he tells himself. She’ll be asleep.
He bites his lip. But she always answers. Day off or not… she always answers.
Dialling again, he tucks the phone against his shoulder as he pulls his jeans and shoes back on, having stripped to his t-shirt and underwear to sleep.
Still nothing. Dammit Liv… I hope you’ve just accidentally put your phone on silent.
Grabbing his gun, badge and radio, he opens the guest door door quietly, tip-toeing across the landing, past both Eli’s and Kathy’s bedrooms, hopefully without waking either as he makes his way down the stairs and out to his car as fast as he can.
Turning the engine over, he guns it, tearing out of the street as fast as he can.
***
Pulling up to Liv’s building, he’s ever thankful for the relatively quiet streets at this time in the morning. Getting out of the car, he glances up at her window.
The light is on.
He frowns, dialling her number again on his cell.
When it rings out for the umpteenth time, worry morphs into panic, and he sprints the remaining distance to her building, forever grateful that the keys she gave him for emergencies cover both the outer door and her apartment itself.
Racing across the lobby to the stairwell, he’s never made it up the stairs faster. Pulling his gun as he reaches her floor, he approaches her apartment as quietly as he can. Pausing by her door, he holds his breath, listening intently for any noise coming from within.
Nothing.
Silence is all that greets him, and that’s worrying him more. She can’t have simply fallen asleep in her living room… can she?
He considers. Well… if she has… then she’s gonna be really fucking pissed at me in a minute.
Putting his key in the lock, he turns it, opens the door-
To come face to face with William Lewis, standing in the middle of Liv’s utterly destroyed apartment, with a shape wrapped up in what looks like Liv’s bedding slung over his shoulder. Liv, he realises. Wrapped up… oh God…
His gun is trained on Lewis before he even registers his hand moving. “Stay where you are!” He yells. Liv… please be okay. Please please please God, don’t let her be dead.
He and Lewis stare each other down for three or four seconds, before Lewis smirks. Hefting the bundle on his shoulder, he throws the tightly wrapped shape to the ground in Elliot’s direction, before diving to Elliot’s right, towards Liv’s bedroom and the-
Fire escape, he realises. He’s getting away!
In that split second, he has a choice to make; there’s blood soaking through the sheets wrapping the bundle at his feet. He can’t see to Liv and chase Lewis, it’s impossible.
Giving Liv, possibly bleeding out at his feet, help, or chasing her attacker?
There is no choice; there never was.
Falling to his knees, he screams the 10-13 into his radio as he tears at the sheets, unwrapping his partner from the blood soaked fabric.
She’s conscious; he realises as he uncovers her face. Her eyes are wide, terrified. Mouth taped, hands cuffed behind her back, more duct tape keeping her trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey; unable to move, to struggle, to fight.
“Shh Liv,” he whispers, fingers stroking over the deep, bloody wound on her temple. “I’m here. You’re safe now. Ambulance is coming, okay?”
She whimpers behind the gag, and he carefully peels the tape from her face. Her hair is soaked with alcohol, he realises; and there’s a strong smell of burnt flesh that permeates the apartment. Oh Liv… what’s he done to you? He asks himself.
She whimpers again as he gently turns her, getting his handcuff keys and releasing her wrists. “Hold on Liv,” he tells her. “I’m gonna get you loose, okay? I’m right here, you’re safe, I promise.”
Unable to loosen the tape, he gets the knife he usually carries from his pocket, and she makes a noise that he knows, he knows will haunt him forever. “Hey, hey,” he tells her. “I’m not gonna hurt you, I just need to cut through the tape, okay?” He peers into her eyes. “It’s me, Liv. It’s Elliot.”
She eyes him, makes another noise. She doesn’t seem able to form words, and that is more terrifying to him than seeing her slung over Lewis’s shoulder like… well, a dead body, which is what he’d thought when he’d entered the apartment.
She has a bad head wound, but is also clearly traumatised and terrified. He’s hoping that her lack of communication is due to the latter, and not brain damage.
As quickly as he can, he cuts through the layers and layers of duct tape around her arms, torso and legs, freeing her. There’s blood everywhere in the apartment, he realises as he glances around. Liv is covered in it; from cuts, scrapes, even a few burns are bleeding too he realises. Her shirt is both pushed up to her waist, exposing injuries to her abdomen, and pulled down a little, exposing the cigarette burns to what he can see of her breasts.
If it wasn’t for the state that Liv is in, he’d go out and hunt Lewis down himself. As it is, all he can do is try to comfort her as best he can, try to keep her calm until help gets there.
Footsteps thunder in the hallway outside, and he looks up just in time to see the first officers responding to his 10-13 charge through the door, guns drawn. Turning himself enough so the responding officers can see his badge, dangling from the chain around his neck, he starts giving orders as his cop brain kicks in fully. “Perp is William Lewis,” he tells them. “He went down the fire escape three minutes ago. I’m her partner,” he indicates Liv on the floor. “Where the hell is the bus?”
Another pair of unis arrive, the second pair joining one member of the first, heading into Liv’s bedroom to check the fire escape while the remaining officer kneels down next to Elliot, wincing at the state Liv is in. “There was a bus at the end of the block when we pulled up,” he tells Elliot. “What kind of sick freak does this?” He shakes his head.
Liv is barely conscious, Elliot stroking her hair absently in an attempt to keep her calm. “We’re SVU,” he explains. “Lost a perp, he walked on a technicality,” he tells the uni quickly. “Now he’s gone after my partner.”
The officer gives him a grim smile. Getting to his feet, he slaps a hand on Elliot’s shoulder, squeezing briefly, quickly. “He won’t get far,” he promises, his tone dark. “I’m gonna go meet EMS, hurry them up.”
***
Ten minutes later and they’re racing to the hospital, lights flashing, sirens blaring, when it finally occurs to him to call Cragen.
He’s got one hand in Liv’s, the other on his cellphone, holding it to his ear as it rings four, five, six times before his Captain answers.
“Elliot, it’s almost four in the morning and I know you’re not on call, so this better be good.”
“Lewis went after Liv,” he says, keeping it short, succinct. “She’s hurt bad. We’re in a bus on the way to Mercy now. I’ve got officers looking for Lewis but…” I need your help, I need you to take charge, I need someone else to catch Lewis because if I see him first I’m going to kill him with my bare hands. All things he almost says, wants to say, but catches himself before he does.
Cragen swears. “I’ll wake Fin and Rollins, make some calls and we’ll meet you at Mercy,” he tells him. “Do NOT let Olivia out of your sight.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Elliot says, looking at the unconscious form of his partner on the gurney.
***
He’s standing outside the room they’ve taken her into, a side room in the ER. Watching intently through the glass in the door, one hand on his gun in case Lewis somehow makes it all the way here, so immersed in his task - to protect Liv at all costs - he almost doesn’t register the three sets of running footsteps approaching.
“How is she?” Cragen asks, red faced from the run. Fin and Amanda hover a few steps behind him, sporting mirroring anxious expressions.
“I had a bad feeling,” Elliot starts. “She wasn’t answering her cell or her landline, so I went to check on her. When I got up there… I walked in on Lewis about to take her elsewhere.” He blows out a shaky breath. “He had her so bound up with duct tape she couldn’t move, wrapped up in her bedsheets and I think he was gonna take her down the fire escape. I thought…” He swallows thickly, feeling the tears filling his eyes. “Cap, I thought he’d killed her.” Cragen reaches out, a hand to his upper arm, patting it reassuringly. “Her apartment was destroyed, there was blood… everywhere, and the smell… God… the smell…”
“What smell?” Amanda asks.
“Alcohol,” Elliot answers. “She’s covered in it, her hair, everything. Looks like he tried to drown her with it… and…” He swallows bile. “Burnt flesh. She’s covered in cuts, burns… he really did a number on her.”
“Did he rape her?” Fin’s blunt question should come as a surprise, but given their line of work and Lewis’s MO…
“I don’t know,” Elliot answers honestly. “Her clothes were more or less intact, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t.” He sighs heavily. “That’s a question for Liv, when she wakes up.”
“She’s not conscious?” Cragen asks.
“She was at first,” Elliot tells him. “But she’s got a nasty head wound. She wasn’t making a whole lot of sense when I found her. She eventually said my name when we were getting her into the ambulance, but other than that it was just a lot of pained noises.” Fin and Amanda both swear, and Elliot looks to Cragen. “Any news on Lewis?” He asks. “They picked him up yet?”
“About that,” Cragen tells him. “A man was knocked down in the street not far from Olivia’s building. Ran out into the road, got hit by a vehicle. By the time paramedics got to him, he was DOA. They didn’t realise at first, but it was him.”
“He’s dead?” Elliot asks. He’s pretty sure that’s what his Captain just told him, but he’s got to be sure. So much has happened in the last hour alone, he wants to be sure he heard correctly.
“Yes,” Cragen confirms. “He’s dead. I got them to send a photo through to confirm, it’s definitely him.”
Elliot slumps against the wall, relieved. “At least I can tell Liv that when she wakes up.” He says.
***
“Hey you,” he says when he finally sees her eyes blinking open. “You with me this time?”
“Ugh.” Is her response.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He says wryly. This is attempt three at her waking up; he’s hopeful she’ll actually stay awake this time.
She blinks at him, confusion her only expression until her brain kicks in, memories resurfacing. “El, he-”
“Is dead,” he tells her. “Lewis is dead, and you’re going to be okay, concussion and a lot of cuts and burns aside.” He’d been so relieved when they told him her head CT came back fine, just the concussion to contend with, on top of her other injuries.
The haunted look in her eyes proves that she’s not as sure about that as he is. Her lower lip wobbles, and he’s quick to perch on the edge of her bed, folding her into his arms when she breaks down. “I was so scared,” she whispers. “I just wanted you to come get me.”
“I did sweetheart,” he says. “I did.”
If she even realises what he just called her, she doesn’t react; instead burrowing herself further into his arms. “He’s dead?” She asks. “You’re sure?”
“Cragen told me himself,” Elliot tells her. “I don’t know how much you remember, but Lewis took off down the fire escape after I got there. He uh… he got hit by a squad car that was responding to my 10-13,” he tells her. “Bled out in the street before EMS could get to him.”
“Wow.” She mumbles. “Couldn’t have happened to…” She pauses, yawns. “A nicer guy.”
He snorts. “Come on, let’s get you settled,” he says, gently, oh-so-gently, repositioning her so she’s lying down once more. He moves from the edge of her bed back to his chair, but she won’t release his hand; gripping it tightly.
“How did you know?” She asks, a little more awake now she isn’t trying to keep herself upright.
“I had a bad feeling,” he tells her. “Couldn’t sleep. I know you blinked your lights but I just… I needed to check on you.”
“I'm glad you did.” She gives him a half smile.
“How did he get in?” He asks.
“He was there when I got home,” she tells him. “I didn’t know he was there. I blinked my lights, then about half a minute later he had a gun to my head.” She sighs. “Should’ve let you walk me up.” She closes her eyes, groans. “I’m never getting out of that one ever again, am I?”
“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “Never letting you out of my sight, after tonight.” He sobers. “I thought he’d killed you,” he says. The words stick in his throat. “When I walked in and you were all wrapped up like that I just…”
“I’m okay, El.” She squeezes his hand.
He starts to chuckle. “You’re the one in the hospital bed and you’re comforting me.”
She shrugs one shoulder, the only one she can given that she’s lying on her side. “Old habits,” she replies. “It’s usually the other way around.”
“I uh… I have to ask Liv,” he starts. “Did he rape you?” He hates that he even has to ask this question, but they all need to know.
“No,” she tells him. “He didn’t.” She bites her lip. “He groped me, touched me, but he didn’t rape me. He was moving me elsewhere for the… main event, he called it.” Chewing on her lip, she continues. “I think he was worried that someone might hear, or come looking for me.”
“Someone did.” Elliot says.
“And I’m very glad you did,” she repeats her earlier words. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” he tells her. “I’m your partner. I just wish I’d have gotten there sooner.”
“You got there El,” she smiles. “That’s all that matters.”
“I love you,” he blurts. Blinks. “I’m sorry,” he says. “This is the worst possible time to say that.”
She blinks, tilts her head slightly as if confused, as if she doesn’t quite believe what he just told her. “What did you just say?” She asks.
“I love you,” he repeats. “I have for a long time, and I should’ve told you before now, I don’t know why I didn’t but I almost lost you tonight, you could’ve died without knowing and…” He pauses, sniffs, tears filling his eyes. “I needed you to know.”
“I already did,” she tells him. “Figured it out a long while back, I guess I’ve just been wondering how long it’d take for you to tell me, if you even wanted to tell me.”
“So… all the boyfriends…?” He gapes.
“What did you expect me to do, sit around at home waiting for you to get your head out of your ass?” She raises an eyebrow. “Figured it’d either force your hand, or I’d have some fun. Win win for me.”
He snorts, shaking his head at her. “Cragen’s gonna kill us.”
“I think Cragen’s been waiting for us to get our acts together for years.”
“He’ll want to split us up.” He’s not arguing with her, he loves her and he wants this, them, to work., If it comes to it, he’d leave SVU so he could be with her, but he loves his job, being partnered with her. If he can have it all, if there’s even the smallest chance… he’d love to have that.
“Might not,” Liv tells him. “We’ve been way too invested in each other, far too close for years El, and he hasn’t done anything about it, so this… might not change anything.”
“I hope not,” he whispers, fear blooming to hope in his belly. “I love you, Liv, I really do.”
“Love you too,” she murmurs back. Yawns.
“I think you need to get some sleep,” he grins. “Go on, I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Never doubted it.” She mumbles, eyes sliding closed.
He smiles, settling into his chair to watch over her.