Unbounded

Jezyk

Spoilers: It's set vaguely in the present time, but kind of pointedly ignored Undercover. So let's just say anything before that.

Disclaimer: They're not mine, but since the writers won't let them have any fun, it's my civic duty to make sure they do.

Warning: There is some nasty language and violence in this. The language is sprinkled throughout, but the violence will have a specific warning on it so you can skip that part if you wish.

Part One

It was a few minutes after three in the morning when Fin bid her good night, to which she'd replied that there wasn't all that much left of it and that the first half hadn't given her much hope for it being good. By the time she'd gotten through the front door of her building, his taillights were long gone. She didn't mind, considering he'd been nice enough to offer her a ride home. The weather had been unseasonably warm all day and so she hadn't worn a jacket when she'd been called back in despite the change in temperature. The long walk back home would have left her freezing.

In years prior, Elliot would have driven her home, but then again, in years prior, Elliot would have answered his phone when he was supposed to be catching. Elliot had been acting differently, though, his temper shorter than normal, his usually clear eyes clouded and dark. In the few months since she'd noticed the change, she'd given up trying to get him to talk about it. He was fine. His family was fine. His mood was fine. Everything was so fucking fine that she'd stopped asking. And when she paid attention, he did appear to be fine, at least around everyone else.

It seemed to her that he was simply pulling away from her, a pattern which, if she were being honest, had started before he and Kathy had gotten back together. The man was incapable of juggling two such intense relationships and so had chosen his family. She could hardly blame him. If she'd had a family, she might have done the same.

The only real problem was that her partner was the only family she had.

Sure, there was Simon. A half brother, the shared half being the dark, desperate, scary side of her that she pretended didn't exist. Which made the relationship a bit strained at best.

So when she'd picked up the phone to an irate Captain Cragen demanding to know where her partner was, she'd had no one else to call. She'd covered for Elliot, out of instinct, only to mentally curse him out as soon as she'd disconnected the call. Fin's number seemed to appear out of nowhere on her phone, and she requested his presence at her side while her own partner had better things to do. Fin had grumbled about the disturbance, a soft feminine laugh in the background revealing his reasons. But unlike her partner, Fin had answered, and he'd put his ruined plans behind him at once. She'd called Elliot twice, once on her way to the hospital to meet the victim. That first time was to chew him out for not giving her any warning that he was going AWOL. The second call had been back at the house, just before Fin had offered her a lift home. She'd been worried then, silently panicking that Elliot was lying dead somewhere with her rotten message on his phone informing him that he was several things that would make a sailor blush. She'd been so relieved to hear his voice when he answered that she hadn't had time to process his angry "fuck off" before he hung up on her.

With her mood firmly back to being pissed off at her partner, she pushed through her door, kicked off her shoes, and headed for her bedroom. There were only a few hours before she was due back at work, doomed to face her pissy, absentee partner and the boss who would be none too happy that both she and Fin had ducked out without filing a single piece of paperwork. Tugging her shirt off and discarding it on the hamper, she started the shower. No matter how tired she was, she'd never dare touch her bed without washing away the memories of yet another rape.

Her pants wound up somewhere in the vicinity of the overflowing hamper, which was good enough for her. While the shower was filing the bathroom with steam, she returned to the bedroom to drop her watch on the night stand. She kicked past the tank top and shorts she slept in, admonishing herself for having grown so defeated by her job in recent years that she'd become such a slob. She laughed at herself when she tripped over her pants on the bathroom floor, pausing long enough to gather the sloppy pile from that night, toss it in the hamper, and close the lid.

Guilt surrounded her the moment she stepped under the hot stream of water. Her mind immediately went to Abigail Powley, the young woman she'd met that night. All the woman had wanted was to wash away the filth in her memory. Olivia had take one look at the messy, softly curling hair around Abigail's face and known instantly that all the evidence and any real hope of finding her assailant was actually washed away. Unfortunately, for all of Abigail's desperate scrubbing, the filth and violation were all that remained.

Olivia hurried through washing her hair, realizing the futility of her own actions as well. The sympathetic pain she felt for all the victims was never so easily bested. Hell, most of the time she was sure that she carried emotional scars from each and every victim. She comforted herself with the thought that at least they were the details of someone else's nightmare that would haunt her dreams, rather than her own. As real as the pain was that she felt, she knew the victim's own pain was so much worse and she chastised herself to keep that in mind in the future.

Wrapping herself in a towel, Olivia emerged from the foggy bathroom and took a brief chill from the sudden change in temperature. She dropped the towel on the floor, having, for the moment, forgotten all about her earlier anger at herself for her habit of discarding everything on the floor behind her. Her mind was on getting under the covers as soon as possible to ward off the cold. She pulled on clean underwear and headed for where she'd left her pajamas.

Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at her clothes, the clothes she'd kicked out of her way, the clothes that were laying across her bed. Goosebumps rose on her damp skin, the memory so clear in her mind. She looked behind her, seeing an old sweatshirt lying where she'd obviously left it. She forced herself to take a deep breath, reminded herself to pick up her clothes before she scared herself to death, and pulled on her pajamas.

She was so tired that she almost fell into bed right then, but her career and the ever-present statistics of violence against women drove her to double check that the front door was locked. The shoes she'd abandoned by the door made her laugh out loud, thinking about how, if there were ever a fire, she'd most certainly burn up long before she escaped the obstacle course that was her home.

The shoes distracted her so much that she barely even registered that she had actually forgotten to lock the door.

When Elliot finally showed his face at the precinct, it was just before eleven the next morning. Olivia had already been snapped at about the paperwork on Abigail's case, completed the damn forms, and then been questioned as to her partner's noticeable absence by the time Elliot, rumpled and hungover, slumped into his chair. It wasn't the first time in recent history that Elliot had come in looking like something the cat dragged in, but it was the first time he'd made it so obvious.

Cragen, whose mood had been steadily deteriorating all day, was disproportionately pleased to see him. Olivia figured it was because he'd grown bored with yelling at her. From her perspective, she saw him stand and approach the door. She thought about warning her partner, mentioning that he was still wearing the same suit from the day before, pointing out there was a stain on his shirt. But his angry words from the night before rang in her ears, cursing at her for calling, yelling at her when she'd truly been worried about him. Selfishly, she thought getting ripped by Cragen might be enough to bring back her partner, and so, she stayed quiet.

Cragen turned away, moving to the side door of his office, talking to a man Olivia couldn't identify. Something about him was familiar, nagging at her. But her attention was drawn away by the sound of a pissed female voice, only fury clear from so far away, muffled by Elliot's head as he held the phone to his ear. Elliot's eyes met hers, confusion reflecting on his face. That was when she recognized the voice as her own, the words spoken in anger the night before seeming rather harsh in the light of day.

He pressed a button, silencing her tirade. "Jesus, Liv, what was with you last night?"

The remorse she'd felt for yelling morphed right back into anger. "What was with me? You were catching, El, and when you didn't answer your damn phone, Cragen screamed at me." She stared at his disbelieving face and it only upset her more. "Yeah, so I'm pissed. Deal with it."

"I wasn't catching last night." His voice sounded forceful and sure, however, even as the words left his lips, his eyes darted to his calendar, clearly checking himself. "I'm not catching until the fourteenth."

"Today is the fifteenth, genius." She watched the dismay cross his face as he looked to his computer for verification.

His face paled. "Jesus Christ!" He looked up at her, his face shocked and sorrowful. "I'm sorry. I must have gotten mixed up."

Part of her wanted to forgive him. But as well as he was playing his honest disorientation, she'd never known him to mix up the date in all the years she'd been his partner. And not knowing the date hardly explained his attitude when she'd called. She averted her eyes, refusing to allow herself to meet his stare, knowing that doing so would result in her unconditional forgiveness. "If you didn't know you were catching, why were you not answering your phone?"

"If I'd know, I would have answered." His attention went back to the phone in his hand, flipping through the log.

"You were obviously avoiding someone, El, so if it wasn't me, who was it?" She was sure she had him. He'd been home with his family and he wasn't exactly a social butterfly, so it limited the number of people who might have been calling.

There seemed to be nothing besides sincerity in his voice when he replied. "I wasn't avoiding you, Liv. I wouldn't do that."

She wanted to believe him, she did. But clearly one of them was stark raving mad. "You told me to 'fuck off,' El. Did I misinterpret that somehow?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head slowly. "I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry, ok?" he held her stare for a long, quiet moment. "Thanks for covering for me."

She opened her mouth to answer, but any words she might have spoken were lost under Cragen's shout.

"Stabler! Get your ass in here!"

He glanced at the captain's office, his eyes widening when he saw the other figure inside. "Shit, Liv, that's Whitman."

Her mind churned while she searched for the name, but she didn't have to figure it out. Fin let out a low whistle as Elliot climbed to his feet.

"Damn, Stabler, IAB? What did you do?"

Elliot didn't say anything, offering them a shrug. Olivia ignored Fin's eyes on her. She didn't have one fucking clue. Sure, Elliot had been acting a bit strange to her, but it was hardly a matter for IAB.

Giving up any pretense of work, she stared through the open blinds, watching as Whitman delivered a verbal blow that nearly dropped Elliot. She saw the way his whole body wavered, then tensed, the way he crowded Whitman, going nose-to-nose with the man who reminded Olivia of an angry, ugly bulldog. Although she was too far away to see it, she knew Elliot was shaking from unspent rage and she could only wonder where Elliot would dump that fury.

She watched in horror as Elliot pulled his badge and holster free from his belt, throwing them carelessly on Cragen's desk before storming out the door. The sound of the door slamming caught everyone's attention. She ignored the noise of comments from her coworkers. She ignored the gesture from Cragen that beckoned her into his office. No matter what issues she was having with him, Elliot was her partner. She was on his side and nothing was going to change that. So Olivia sprang from her desk, chasing after Elliot, hoping he was going to tell her what was going on.