A/N: This one comes to you partially inspired by the burnt orange blouse (you know the one, don't you?) and Tim McGraw's Let me Love it Out of You.

Thanks to JennBenson (well on her way to a permanent a/n addition) for the brainstorming and feedback sessions! I just love you.

MT – for you, lobsta.

(P.S. I haven't forgotten about You and I)

"Lieutenant, how nice of you to make an appearance." Chief Dodds greeted Olivia from his perch at the edge of her desk. From her doorway, she shot a questioning glare to Rollins.

A heads up would've been nice.

Rollins shrugged her shoulders, gesturing at the phone cradled to her ear apologetically as Olivia sighed in defeat and turned to enter her office.

She summoned every ounce of fake graciousness she could muster. "Chief, what brings you by?"

He ignored her question, crossing his arms over his chest as he considered her. "You have a team of trained, qualified detectives that could have been at the hospital in your stead today, Lieutenant."

"I know that," she sighed as she made her way around him to her desk, straightening and organizing reports that had been dropped off while she'd been out. "I just felt that this particular case needed a different…approach."

She didn't want to get into her whole life story with him. It took her long enough to peel back those layers for the people she trusted, forget about people she didn't.

"Do you think they need additional training?"

"No, no – it's not that. They're all great at their jobs." Dodds looked at her expectantly. "This was a unique case. Child abuse. I thought my…experience in this area - working more of these cases," she corrected, "would be more beneficial to the victim."

"You could've taken one of them with you," he scolded, shrugging.

"I did," she explained. "Carisi. But Anna was more comfortable talking one-on-one with me and I made the decision that there was a greater need for him elsewhere."

The Chief threw his hands up in mock-surrender. "Your squad, Lieutenant. I won't micro-manage." He turned toward the door and Olivia let out a grateful sigh. "I just think maybe your skills would be better utilized fulfilling more of your administrative duties," he added, eyeing her desk as he opened the door. After giving her a fake smile and bidding her an insincere good evening, she watched him walk briskly across the squad room before he turned for the elevators, disappearing from view.

Olivia dropped unceremoniously into her chair, tenting her hands in front of her face and taking a deep, calming breath. In light of being confronted with the trauma of her childhood all over again, a run-in with Dodds was the last thing she'd needed tonight.

After spending almost the whole evening with Anna in the hospital and then having to deal with Dodds immediately after, a weary Olivia plodded into the apartment long after Noah had gone to sleep.

She deposited her things in the foyer before making her way down the hall to Noah's room. No matter what time of night it was when she made it home, he was always her first stop.

Ed was sitting up in bed when she made her way into the room, stumbling as she attempted to remove her shoes and walk at the same time. "Walk much?" he teased, glancing at her over the frames of his reading glasses. When she didn't retort to his teasing, he looked at her fully, immediately noticing the difference in her demeanor. "You okay?"

She didn't look at him, instead muttering a half-hearted and wholly unconvincing "yeah" as she shirked off her blazer and made a beeline for the closet.

"Liv?" No answer. He set the iPad he was reading on the night table and removed his glasses, focusing all of his attention on her. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No, Ed," she said, releasing an exasperated sigh. "And I don't feel like playing Twenty Questions, either," she snapped. Behind her, Ed raised his eyebrows at her shortness. She looked around the closet as she unbuttoned her dress pants. "I thought I asked you to pick up the dry-cleaning today. I don't have any clean dress pants for tomorrow…"

"It's done," Ed assured her. "Had my hands full when I got home so I left everything in the front closet." Her shoulders sagged in defeat. The one thing she wanted to have a reason to get mad at him for, and she couldn't even have that. "Liv? Hey. Lookit me." When she did, he was struck by the sheer exhaustion and…pain he saw in her eyes. "What is this? What's wrong?" he implored.

Olivia felt the sting of tears burning at the back of her throat, and as soon as Ed recognized where this was going, he was off the bed in a millisecond, pulling her into his arms. She allowed him to guide her to the bed and she offered no resistance when he sat them down at the foot.

"Talk to me…"

She swallowed thickly, trying to get control over her emotions. They had run the gamut. "We caught this case today," she began. Ed steeled himself for the worst, because bad cases from SVU usually were. "I just…this victim, Ed. She's me."

"What do you mean she's you?"

Olivia took a deep breath, playing with the hem of her orange blouse before looking up and meeting his eyes again. "Sixteen, DV vic," she said, her tone detached. "Her mother's been hitting her for, God…years."

"Jesus…" He leaned in and pressed his lips to her temple, running his free hand in soothing circles on her upper back. His heart broke for her, knowing she would forever carry the burden and pain of her childhood.

"Yeah," she sighed. "It hit…a little close to home." Ed continued to rub circles on her back and she leaned into him. "No matter how many times I see it, I just can never understand how parents can treat their kids like that."

"I don't get it either," he said softly.

They sat in silence for a brief moment before Olivia spoke again. "Anna – that's the girl's name – she said her mom was on track to be some sort of athletic whiz-kid in college, but got pregnant in her junior year of high school and has been treating Anna like shit basically ever since." She rolled her eyes in disgust. "Some sort of payback for not being able to realize her dreams."

"That's terrible. How's Anna?"

"Scared," Olivia sighed. "Hurting. I helped her get situated at DCS – that's why I'm so late." She shook her head. "Well, that and Dodds. I just…she's me, Ed," she repeats. "And I didn't have a me when I was going through this. She needs to know she has someone in her corner."

"She's lucky it's you," he said simply, breathing into her hair. He knew that being there for this girl was going to take a little piece of her soul. It happened every time.

"It just—it brought up so many memories." Olivia was silent for a moment, receding into herself as snapshots from her own experiences played back in her mind. She remembered the scars, the bruises, having to lie when her teachers saw the new ones. She remembered being afraid to go home some nights, expecting her mom to be on a bender that would lead to more fights, more scars.

She remembered thinking, if only I didn't look like him.

If only I wasn't a constant reminder.

"Hey." He leaned back a little bit and pushed her hair behind her ears. "Anna is safe now." He waited a beat for her to acknowledge him, and she nodded, coming out of her reverie. "And so are you." At this, she looked up and into his eyes and he could see her brown orbs glistening with unshed tears.

"I know what it's like, Ed," she whispered. "I know what it's like to feel unloved, unwanted." She sighed, and he wiped a fallen tear from her cheek. "To wonder why she even let me exist if she was only going to punish me for it…"

Ed gripped the back of her head, tenderly running his fingers through her hair and leaning into her once again. "I didn't know your mom, and I can't even begin to understand what you went through with her," he squeezed the hand he still held in his. "But I have to believe that underneath all of it, she loved you, Olivia. She had to."

Her reply was barely louder than a whisper; so soft he almost missed it.

"She couldn't."

Ed let his eyes drift shut, as he comprehended her words. He couldn't fathom how lonely it must have been for her, growing up with a mother who she believed hated her. His heart broke for her, but he couldn't help but feel awed at how she'd overcome the unfortunate circumstances of her upbringing to become the amazing, strong, compassionate woman who sat beside him.

Life had dealt her a shitty hand initially; there was no disputing that. But she played her cards beautifully and wound up flourishing, against all odds.

He squeezed her hand to get her attention and gently urged her to lean back onto the bed. "Scoot back," he instructed softly.

She did as he asked, but her face read confusion as he lay alongside her, propped up on his forearm as his other hand gently caressed her. "What are you doing?"

"I know nothing replaces a mother's love," he began gruffly, his fingertips running up and down the arm that was closest to him, "but I'm gonna make sure you never feel unwanted or unloved again."

Olivia watched him as his hand stopped its exploration of her arm and drifted toward the silver clasps of her blouse. He was eyeing her with the same quiet intensity that she'd grown accustomed to from him, but it seemed…deeper somehow, tonight.

Reaching a hand up to caress his face, she chuckled as she felt him struggle with her blouse. "Need some help?"

He narrowed his eyes at her playfully before sitting up, attacking the clasps with both hands and all of his concentration. "I got it," he said stubbornly as he fiddled with the metal enclosure. Finally, she felt the material give with the release of one clasp, and he undid the other two with renewed purpose, pushing the blouse open and revealing the black camisole she wore beneath. "So many layers, Benson…"

She leaned up, helping him slide the blouse off her shoulders and down her arms. She maintained her position when he lifted the camisole, and she fell back against the mattress with just her bra keeping her from being naked from the waist up.

Olivia felt a flush creeping onto her neck and chest from the heat of his stare. "You are so beautiful, you know that?" he husked, leaning over her, braced on his forearms. "I love you so much."

"I love you." Her eyes darted from his eyes to his lips and she jerked her chin, silently requesting a kiss, which he was only too happy to oblige. She moaned softly as his lips met hers, wrapping her arms around his neck as the kiss deepened and he explored her mouth with his tongue.

Long seconds later, he tore his mouth from hers, panting as he pulled away slightly to look at her. "I love your eyes," he whispered, tracing her nose with an index finger. "Big, beautiful brown eyes. After everything you've been through, everything you've seen…you still manage to see the good in people, Liv." He kissed each of her eyelids, running the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip as he did. "You saw the good in me," he breathed.

"Ed…" she sighed, looking back and forth between his eyes and scratching at the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

He kissed her nose before moving to her neck, lightly grazing the skin just behind her ear, "I love this spot...right here. The sounds you make when I kiss you here…" he said wistfully, darting his tongue out to tease her. As if on cue, she arched into him, whimpering as her grip tightened on the back of his neck.

Olivia's breathing was labored as Ed migrated south, reaching a hand beneath her body to undo her bra as he became level with her chest. Once he pulled the garment from her body, she expected him to go straight for her breasts, but he surprised her by lifting her right hand in his and trailing open-mouthed kisses up her arm to her shoulder. "These arms… the way they hold me." He planted kisses across her collarbone, darting his tongue into the hollow of her throat, smiling as her breath hitched, before he guided his mouth through the same ministrations down her left arm. "The way they protect Noah, keep him safe."

Ed sat up to straddle her hips, intertwining their hands together and moving them above her head so he was hovering over her. This made the proximity of his face too tempting for her to resist, and she leaned up, capturing his lips in a searing kiss that both took him by surprise and intensified their connection that much more.

His tongue sparred with hers before he pulled away, loosening his grip on her hands and sliding his hands down her arms until he grasped a breast in each hand. "Of course, you know I love these…" he teased, and she rolled her eyes, muttering 'ass' under her breath as he touched her, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his hands. He leaned down, wrapping his lips around a pert nipple, relishing the groan he elicited from her, before he switched, his mouth lavishing the same attention on the other one before he pulled back slightly, still massaging her gently with his hands. "But what I love most…" he began, and she watched him, rapt, as his mouth lowered to the skin just above her left breast, his eyes never breaking contact with hers. "…Is your heart." He leaned up and kissed her lips again. "You have such a big, compassionate heart, Liv."

His lips trailed further down her body, ghosting over skin that was marred with the faded remains of her ordeal with Lewis. He pressed kisses against the scars that varied in size and shape; he knew she struggled with these, but he could never truly know how much. He could see and hear her breath hitch as his mouth moved from the scars Lewis left behind to a spot further down her torso, off to the side, sitting just above her left hip.

This scar was a different shape altogether, and he ran a gentle finger over the raised flesh before kissing it. She'd told him the story after they'd made love for the first time, about how her mother had thrown an empty vodka glass at her. Serena had pulled this many times but this particular instance, halfway through Olivia's sophomore year, there had been a tussle and Serena pushed Olivia to the ground, causing her to land on a shard of glass. It took six stitches to close up the wound, and Serena had barely remembered the fight at all the next day.

"I know these are really painful reminders for you and they make you think less of yourself, but they have only made you stronger in my eyes," he said with conviction, holding her gaze. "They're proof you survived."

"I love you," she whispered, swallowing the tears that threatened. She put a hand on his cheek, pulling him back to her for a sweet kiss before she reached for the hem of his t-shirt.

He helped her yank the cotton over his head before he returned to the slow, gentle affections he was lavishing on her body. Moving lower, his lips trailed between her breasts to her stomach. "You are so... good. How could anyone not love you?"

Ed shuddered as he felt her hands caressing the skin of his chest, beginning her own exploration of his body. "I need you."

He kissed his way further down her stomach, dipping his tongue into her bellybutton and smiling against her skin when she jolted underneath him. "Soon, baby."

"Now," she whined. She tried to reach for the waistband of his boxer shorts to move things along, but his hands stilled her movements and he pushed them above her head as he reached for her dress pants, already unbuttoned.

He shook his head. "I'm not done loving you," he said simply, reaching up for a quick kiss before gliding back down her body again. "I'll never be done loving you," he promised.

Ed planted one foot on the floor, kneeling onto the bed with his other leg as he pulled her pants down her legs and dropped them on the floor. Grabbing a foot in his hands, he lifted it to his lips and she blinked lazily at him as he planted kisses from the inside of her ankle, up her tanned calf, inside her knee and up her thigh before switching to the other leg and heading in the other direction. "These legs… God, these legs," he murmured against her skin. "I can't get enough of them… the way they wrap around me."

To illustrate his point, he knelt between her legs, bracing himself above her and nuzzling his nose against hers. He felt her wrap her legs around the back of his thighs, pulling him into her, and they both moaned when his erection pressed into her center. "Oh, God… " Olivia's arms wrapped around his neck, and she guided his mouth to hers, peppering his lips with quick kisses as her legs pulled his hips deeper into hers. She felt his right hand travel down her side before coming to rest on her thigh, hooking her leg higher on his hip as he ground into her. She gasped, moving her mouth to his ear and pulling his earlobe between her teeth. "Take it all off. I want to feel you."

He groaned at her words, his head dropping into her neck, and he pulled back, removing his boxers before pulling her panties down her legs so they were both bare.

As he found his way back between her legs, braced above her by his forearms framing her face, he ran his fingers through her hair. "I love you so much, Olivia," he declared passionately. "Everything about you. Everything that made you who you are." He lowered his forehead to hers and sighed, feeling her hands run up and down his back. "I am always going to love you."

Ed lifted his right arm, reaching between them to test her wetness, ensuring she was ready for him before he positioned himself at her entrance. As he sheathed himself in her warmth, he heard her moan into his ear, "Yes."

At first, he remained still inside her, allowing her to adjust to his size while also giving them both time to feel the weight of the moment they were in. Ed's arms still framed her face, and he felt her hands wrap around his shoulders, holding him close. There was nothing like being in her arms.

Laying there, skin-on-skin, with his weight pressing her into the mattress and his eyes peering deeply down into hers, Olivia felt sure she'd never felt more connected to another person.

"Okay?" he questioned softly, his breathing already picking up from the feeling of being inside her. It was a headiness he would never get used to, never tire of.

Olivia nodded wordlessly, her lips lifting in a small smile as she subtly shifted her hips and gripped his shoulders tighter to let him know it was okay to move. At the feel of him pulling slowly out of her almost all the way before pushing back in, she arched into him, her eyes rolling back as her head dug deeper into the pillow.

"Oh, God," she mewled; his hips finding a slow but steady rhythm as he moved into her. She wrapped her arms tighter around his shoulders. Burying her face in his neck, she breathed him in, tasting the salty sweat on his skin as he made love to her.

Ed pulled back far enough to see her face again, threading his fingers through her hair and she looked up at him, her deep brown eyes nearly black as she moaned softly with every thrust. He leaned down, brushing his lips against hers briefly before hovering over her mouth, breathing in her air. "You're beautiful, Liv," he husked.

She closed her eyes at his words, getting lost in the sensations he was creating. She could feel the heat building in her body, starting where they were joined and fanning out until every nerve ending was on fire. Her fingers dug into the skin on his shoulders and her whole body jolted when he hit a certain spot inside of her, and she panted in his ear, "Ed…God, right there."

He kept the pace slow but moved his hips purposefully, using his body to drive home the point he'd been trying to make with his words before: he loved her. Every part of her. Always.

She could feel her body begin to shudder, and her inner muscles began to clench around him, making him falter slightly as he continued to move within her. "So close," she gasped, eyes shut tight against the looming orgasm that was ready to crash.

"I know, baby." Ed pushed himself up onto his hands above her, watching her face contort with pleasure as she found her release, pulling him over the edge with her until they were a heaving, sweaty pile of tangled limbs on her bed.

Ed stayed on top of her while they calmed down, and then summoned what strength he could to turn them over so she was cradled into him instead. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lowered his lips to her hair, whispering into the soft brown waves now matted with sweat, "I love you so much."

Smiling, she turned her head to face him. Looking into his eyes, seeing the man who had become her safe haven when she'd never allowed herself to need someone before, she pressed her lips to his.

"I believe you."

A/N: Keep those requests coming…

Review?