Daddy - An SVU fic

20.Disclosure

Sitting in his Lancaster hotel suite, Elliot's mind was a mess. Brock had been right - after three long years he'd come back to find that the world, as he knew it had been completely turned upside down! During his time away he'd thought about her often, imagining how she was living her life without him. Had she forgiven him for the way he left? If she'd found someone special... was she happy? He'd run so many scenarios through his head of the person she'd be when... if he ever saw her again, it was the hope he held onto when he was so deep inside his cover that he felt he'd lose himself in the world he'd been sent to infiltrate but just thinking about seeing her again, making things right - it was his tether to Elliot Stabler. Still, with all the ways he'd imagined reuniting with her, never in a million years would he have thought he'd be coming home to find her the way he had. What exactly had happened to her?

Walking into that room, seeing her there in that hospital bed, beaten and emotionally broken - he wanted to kill the bastard who'd hurt her, would have with his bare hands if he could have but in that moment none of it mattered; the only thing that mattered was that she was there, in the flesh and the look in her eyes and the way she'd allowed him to hold her and cried in his arms let him know that in spite of what she said, she needed him there just as much as he needed to be there.

He'd learned from what little his director had filled him in on and from the news report that she'd been kidnapped and held captive for three months and that she'd only been found yesterday but, as his director had also explained, the case was very new and they didn't have much intel as of yet but they did know that she'd been raped and tortured consistently throughout her capture and that the man in question was himself a fugitive from the law for over 20 years and turned out to be the father of a man who had also gone after Olivia just last year and spent four days torturing her before she was found by the NYPD.

"How the fuck could they have let this happen to her twice?!" He wondered, anger seeping from every pore in his body as he'd skimmed over the files from the William Lewis case. Reading the man's history, the timeline of the four days he'd been alone with Olivia, her statement and the medical reports... She'd gone through this hell while he'd been off cluelessly galavanting on the other side of the world and she had no one! No one to protect her, no one to help her, no one who'd even noticed that anything was wrong until the psycho had her in his clutches for two days but his issue wasn't with them, it was with himself.

Partners for better or worse...

He'd promised her but when worse decided to pay him a visit he wasn't able to handle it and walked away without so much as a warning to one of the most important people in his life; his partner, his right hand, the one person who truly knew and understood him and loved him anyway in spite of his many flaws and how did he repay her? He left. He knew that he was all she had, that in spite of her resistance to ever have to depend on anyone, she depended on him, trusted him to be the one person who would never disappoint her but after all was said and done he'd been the one who'd disappointed her most; not only was he not there for her when she needed him most, letting her fall prey to this Lewis prick twice, but he failed her again while the bastard's father did unspeakable things to her for three months.

The things he'd discovered about her ordeal with the son was more than enough to make him physically ill. He had no idea what he'd be in for when he'd find out just what went on inside the house where Olivia had been held since April but he knew one thing - no matter how much she pushed him away, he would never leave her again, he'd be here, by her side - where he should have been all along. He would never let her down again.

Partners for better or worse...

***

After Elliot had gone she'd insisted that everyone leave her alone when they'd tried to offer her comfort after how upset she'd been with seeing Elliot today. She understood that they were only trying to help and be supportive but she couldn't help feeling suffocated.