AN: As you may be aware I currently have 11 fics on the go and in order to figure out which one to update next I put all the fic names into a hat and then drew one out - this was the winner! So after I post this I'm going to put all the names back in the hat and draw again and that will be my process from now on lol.

Meanwhile I want to dedicate this chapter to AmyJ as a Happy Belated Birthday for yesterday! I'm so sorry I couldn't get this out in time love and I'm also sorry that it isn't The Woods but the cards had spoken haha. I hope you enjoy this chapter (I put my heart and soul into it) and I'm so glad you had an amazing birthday. Love you. X

Also, thank you to everyone else for continuing on this journey with me and for all your kind words and support, they make me so happy. I have been waiting to write this scene for YEARS - LIKE 5 YEARS! I'm so glad I'm finally up to this point and I really hope you like where I've taken this and how the dots connect. X

"When my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth. No grave can hold my body down, I'll crawl home to her."

- Hozier.

She turns onto her side, the comforter slipping as she props her body weight up on her good elbow. Their eyes lock as she takes him in through the quiet darkness. He is staring back at her in silent observation, the energy between them is no longer overcome by desire but it's something else.

Something she can't put words to.

She is still riddled with exhaustion mentally, physically, emotionally, she knows she needs to sleep soon because it's nearing on 1am and they have a long drive tomorrow but she feels wide awake in this moment.

He blinks quietly back at her in silence.

She doesn't know what he is thinking but her mind has just slipped into a reality she hasn't dared to acknowledge.

She wonders for a split second in time what it would be like to stay.

With him.

What if she never went home?

What if she never went back?

What if they both slipped away and they disappeared into the darkness..

Aiding and abetting.

Her eyes coast across his features as visions of them on the run flood through her like a rapid. They'd move further into hiding, they'd adopt new names, she'd dye her hair lighter, maybe she could somehow get a hold of her savings and they could invest in a cabin in the woods or a small cottage.

But the fantasy vanishes just as soon as it appears. She has a life back home - a purpose, one that she can't just walk away from and even if she did want to leave it all behind, he would never let her. That's what his stare is telling her right now - he is visibly choking the oxygen out of the misguided illusion before it has a chance to fully form.

He would never let her give up everything for him.

She stares at him through the darkness and she can see his plea for her to stay focused on the moment.

Stay present Liv.

She relents, scooting closer, letting the fantasy fall to the wayside and instead raises his arm up above her head and sinks down into his side. She nestles into the crook of his neck as if it has always been her space to claim and she doesn't care how it looks now. She doesn't care how needy this will appear.

She had slept on him like this the night prior, only last night it was in an effort to appease her shoulder, tonight she knows she is pacifying an entirely different pain.

Her hand rests against his breastbone and she angles herself to intentionally avoid his wound. She focuses on the rise and fall of his chest beneath her palm and she thinks it will be hours until she can quieten her mind enough to sleep. She can hear the distant sound of highway traffic outside their door reminding her of where they are and she is unable to fathom that he is here with her now, a living, breathing reality beneath her body.

A few beats pass before she feels his hand move down the dip in her lower back and her eyes slip closed when he starts to run his hand up and down her spine.

She doesn't want to leave his cocoon.

Him.

She doesn't want to leave him.

That's all she is thinking.

She swallows against his throat and it's moments before his hand is slowly skimming upward, running across her shoulder blades until his fingers are fanning into her hair. Her skin breaks into a plethora of goosebumps and she sighs contentedly into his neck. She feels sated, yet stimulated as waves of peaceful euphoria lap against her sides. She lets him touch her - she takes it all, every last second, soaking it up after being starved of his physicality for far too long.

He starts to shift under her, sliding a little further down the pillow to meet her more intimately, she lifts herself up as he adjusts his position, their noses knocking in the darkness and when she settles back down, her hand is now resting against his abdomen just below his wound, her fingers absently coming in contact with the raised scar on his stomach.

She begins to softly run her fingers over the flesh as he starts to caress her lower back. It's the same scar he refused to talk about in the trailer and she tries to reconcile what could have occurred that would have made him shut down and not want to speak about it. She assumes Tony or Nathan were involved, perhaps it was punishment for not following orders or simply collateral damage on the job. She wonders how far the scar spans in length given that it disappears beneath his waistband but figures it will be one more thing she will never know about him.

She can sense the shift in the room as she continues to coast her fingers across the jagged edges, her fingertips asking the unspoken question. She notices his hand is no longer moving on her back, it's instead resting limply against her in silence and he is no longer drawing breaths through his chest.

"Eighteen months ago." The words expel against the crown of her head. "Tony picked up this cop.."

She blinks against the darkness, her attention is on his words but she can feel it, he is hesitating - he is unsure. She feels the trepidation move through his breath, into his chest until he is balling the lip of her t-shirt between his fingertips just so he has something to hold onto.

"She was.. Jersey PD.." he continues, his throat horse, his heart beat hammering against her palm. "We didn't know she was a cop at the time - she was undercover, nothing to do with us. It was just a wrong place, wrong time situation." A few beats pass before he continues. "Much like you."

She lays there in silence as not to startle him, thankful for each word he is offering and when he fails to continue once more she begins to softly trace the outside of the raised flesh in silent encouragement, trying to soothe him back to her with her own will.

"So I," he whispers gently. "I took her back to the trailer." His voice is thick and uneven. "Like I did with you.. like I always do and I was seconds into explaining that I was there to help her."

She hears him swallow, his throat catching, his chest suddenly straining for breath beneath her and she tilts her face up to his in the darkness. She can only make out his outline but she doesn't drop her focus.

"But she," the waver in his voice is unmistakable and he lets out a shaky breath. "She had a knife on her and it only took a second. She was aiming for my… she'd gone for my…"

But he doesn't need to say it.

She squeezes his hip in reassurance.

"The knife entered here," he grasps her hand and moves it back to his pelvis, where she had been touching before. "Then she dragged it further downward."

She keeps her hand still underneath his as his chest continues to rise and fall. "There was a lot of blood Liv.. I… I've never seen so much blood and we don't do hospitals.. that was our one rule. If it was our time, it was just our time."

He releases her hand and she watches him scrub his palm over his face. She feels her own tears start to prick at the thought of him bleeding out on that trailer floor with no medical aid in sight.

"I had to rely on Tony and a couple of the other guys to patch me up, that's why the scar is so jagged and raised. But I was so lucky Liv… so lucky," he mumbles underneath his palm, his voice distorted.

A bout of disbelief charges through her at how easily this could have been fatal, how close he was to bleeding out, not to mention the possibility of it getting infected.

"But when they saw the damage, what she did to me - what she had tried to do to me.. they.. Jesus Liv .. they tortured her for days," he chokes back the emotion. "It was brutal ..and they made me watch the entire thing like I was supposed to be fucking enjoying it." She hears the sob wrack through his chest, until it expels heavily through his throat and she presses her eyes closed. "I felt like it was never going to end .. it went on for days … I've never seen anything like it ..and it was all my fault, I should have searched her, like Tony had told me and she'd probably still be alive."

You know the rules Chase, search her in front of me and she's yours.

She feels his hand lift and smooth across her neck and she swallows against his touch as he holds her cheekbone, drawing her face upward so it lines up with his. Her pulse starts to thrum with awareness in that moment, all of the pieces slowly coming together.

"Tony would have torn you to absolute shreds if he found that knife on you Liv." His thumb swipes her cheek, his glassy eyes pleading for her to understand. "He would have ripped you to fucking pieces right in front of me, I'd seen it first hand. And I couldn't let it happen.. Jesus I couldn't… not with you, I had to do something.."

Her fingers curl into his side as he continues to stroke her cheek, her eyes settled intently on his. She knows what he is trying to tell her, what he is trying to say.

"Everything I did in that trailer… was to save you from a similar fate. I know we were alone in that trailer Liv and you didn't understand it at the time but I needed you to be scared of me, I needed you to fucking hate me. I needed you to leave and never look back. Please tell me you understand that now, even if you still can't see it, even if you don't believe me-"

"I believe you," she whispers, cutting him off, her voice low.

He blinks back at her and she can see the wave of relief spilling through his features as if he'd been carrying that guilt for lifetimes and not merely days.

She stares back at him, running her teeth across her lower lip trying to stop her own tears from forming in that moment. She takes a few breaths in, debating whether or not to say it, whether or not to ask but for some reason she needs to know.

"How far did it.." she begins, her throat catching part way. "..how far does it go down? The scar."

She sees a flash of apprehension cross his features before he slowly moves his hand back to hers, the one that's still resting on his raised flesh.

He starts to draw her hand lower, following the trail until he is slipping both their hands beneath the lip of his boxer shorts. Her chest pounds as she feels him run her palm down the juncture of his groin until it's moving across his inner right thigh. Her breath catches when she feels the long scar stop just outside the hem of his boxer short.

"Jesus," she whispers, realising just how long and how deep it spanned.

She cannot believe he survived this.

"It nicked the femoral artery.. a few inches to the left and.."

But he doesn't have to finish the sentence.

He slowly moves his hand out of his boxers but she doesn't follow suit, the majority of her wrist still beneath his underwear. She is breathing slowly, her heartbeat a languid throb as she slowly starts to trail her fingers back up the line of flesh, smoothing over the closed wound as if she could soothe the memory with just her touch. She finally slips her hand out of the lip of his underwear and returns her hand to the jagged skin at his pelvis. She sinks back down into his side, closing her eyes. Her chest pounds as she recalls their intimate moment in the trailer. She'd had her hand wrapped around his hardness, she'd been stroking him after she'd just clenched around his fingers but she hadn't realised he'd been suffering from his own trauma.

"She missed her target," he whispers slowly as if it were any consolation but she knows first hand that it's not.

"Tony acted like she hadn't.."

She presses her eyes closed, tears brimming now as images of what the woman would have been subjected to start to fill her chest. She feels a wave of nausea roll through her gut at the thought of him having to watch that for days, already knowing first hand what it was like to witness such terror.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers through the darkness. "That this happened."

He is silent and still for a few moments, until his free hand slips down the side of her cheek, until he is cupping her jaw line and stroking the side of her cheek.

She swallows against his touch.

"I was so close to the end Liv," he whispers. "I could feel the life physically draining out of me.. I was so desperate in those last moments to cling to anything I had left, any reserve. I thought about my kids... " He whispers. "But Liv.." He lets out a heavy breath as his eyes search hers. "You were the last thing I saw… and I clung to you like my life depended on it, because it did.. you were the only thing that saved me in those final moments. You brought me back from the brink."

She presses her eyes closed, her own harrowing memories hammering into her chest in that moment.

It had been no different for her.

'Someone who you would give anything to see just one more time.'

He had saved her time and time again.

'You're gonna cry his name out at some point. They always do.'

Every second that passed in that beach house she'd held onto those crystal blues like a lifeline praying he was enough to get her through.

And he was.

"Can you even imagine what that was like?" He whispers through the darkness, cutting off her memory, his voice suddenly steadier, less fragile - more hollowed out and raw. "Half an inch to the left and it would have been.. lights out."

'One move, lights out.'

The first thing she hears is the ringing in her ears and it's practically deafening - then it's pins and needles that start to overtake her entire body. She presses her eyes closed as she feels the familiar rise of anxiety churn through her chest as her body tenses. Her mouth is dry, her mind flitting chaotically between the beach house and the motel room, to her apartment, to the bed beneath them.

'Welcome Home Detective Benson.'

She can smell burning flesh, she is choking on vodka - it's trickling into her lungs, seeping into her pores.

She is screaming at herself to flee, fight or flight.

Ride this out Olivia.

Don't.

Do.

This.

Here.

"Liv." Elliot's voice is trembling. "Olivia."

No.

She takes a deep breath but she chokes on air, she is breathless as if Elliot's presence is now physically stifling her. She slips off him, knocking his hand out of the way, rolling onto her back, focusing on the rise and fall of her chest as she stares up at the roof. She blinks up at the ceiling fan trying to anchor herself to this moment but it feels like the walls are closing in on her. 'There is no threat Olivia. You are safe.' Her therapists voice is in her ears now, but the nausea is starting to churn, roll and overtake.

She can still get a hold of herself, she can still manage this if she just breathes.

One, two, three, four - breathe.

One, two, three, four - breathe.

Elliot is still calling out her name from above but it sounds like he's speaking to her through a tunnel now. She hears the desperation in his voice and it's matching her same desperation for breath. She tries to fill her lungs, short, shallow gasps but her chest isn't contracting or expanding. She thinks his hands are on her but she is numb to touch, the ceiling fan above her shakes violently but it may be her body that he is shaking.

Then it's light that is pouring into the room and she clamps her eyes shut because it's far too blinding.

She rolls over into a foetal position, her chin to her chest as she finally manages a breath from this position but all she sees is headlights.

Ain't we got fun.

Turn out the light Elliot.

His palm on her hip, holding her, coaxing her.

"Breathe Liv," he whispers from behind and she blinks back the impending tears.

"I can't… it's.." she whispers. "I'm.. I just need…"

God she just needs a minute.

That's all she needs.

A minute to ride this final wave to shore.

She's nearly there.

"Take your time," he encourages and there is something stabilising about his voice now - the tone, the timbre it's breaking through, snapping her back to her earlier years on the force. He is pulling her up and out of the black hole with his voice alone - the same voice she had heard during Lewis only now it was visceral - tangible, real.

Beside her.

'I'd give you a kidney.'

She lets him become her anchor then, it's not the bed or the ceiling or the four walls that ground her back to reality, it's Elliot Stabler. She knows he can still feel her body trembling as he holds her but she is slowly softening, sedating, coming back down.

She opens her eyes with relief as the final tremor of anxiety move through her body. He sinks into her back then as if they'd both just run a marathon, his chest cocooning her as his palm slips up and holds her forearm against her chest. She lets out a shakey breath and they lay like that silently as soft waves of calm begin to soothe her.

"You're okay," he repeats into the back of her hair and she knows she may be okay now, in this very moment, but she knows she won't be next time.

When he's gone.

He doesn't speak again, he doesn't ask questions, he doesn't press her on what just happened, he reads her so well it's like he already knows - and what she needs right now is quiet.

A few waves of silence move through them as they both simply breathe, then it's moments before he finally speaks.

"I would have you know," he whispers softly, his gentle breath expelling against the back of her hair.

Her damp eyes slip open and she blinks at the grimy wall in blurred confusion.

Would have what?

She doesn't have the energy to ask.

"Beat the living shit out of him."

She holds her breath, her damp, glassy eyes blinking in confusion. She must be imagining this, she must be dreaming that he just said that because he doesn't know - he can't know.

He's been under for three years.

No media.

No human interaction.

No basis on reality.

"Who?" Her voice finally succumbs and cracks but she's not sure she should be asking, she's not sure she even wants to know.

A few more waves of unyielding silence pass before he responds.

"Tony," he whispers hesitantly, his voice barely audible. "I'd have choked the life out of him if he laid a finger on you Liv. Every last breath.."

Her eyes flicker in confusion, the parallels jarring her.

She swallows back the congestion in her throat as a few idle tears continue to fall, making their final descent into the sheet below. She sniffs back the residue in her nose as the ringing in her ears slowly starts to slip into a quiet hum.

She could have sworn he had been talking about Lewis.

She groggily finds his hand on her hip and draws him closer, until his knees slip into the backs of hers and his mouth presses against her locks.

"Just tell me what you need," he whispers. "Anything Liv."

But her heart breaks in that moment, because the one thing she needs, he can no longer give her.

Him.

TBC