Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Where’s your partner?”

Olivia tenses her shoulders at the now familiar question – it’s not the first time in recent weeks that she’s had to cover for Elliot’s conspicuous absence in the squad room. Maybe if his presence wasn’t so damn overwhelming, if he didn’t suck the air out of the room as he entered it. Maybe if he didn’t take up so much space with his own frustrations and his almost compulsive need to engage her in debates these days.

He’s been a bit holier-than-thou in light of his own failings in his marriage, and the tentative rebuilding of their broken partnership is rocky at best. Their newly constructed bridge to each other – formed on the cold steps of his apartment building in the near-light hours of morning – sways in the winds of his anger and her hesitation, and they’ve never been good at actually talking about their problems.

She used to believe their back-and-forth was a volley of theories that made them better detectives, better partners. Better friends, sometimes.

Now she thinks he might simply like fighting with her.

Or he wants to fight with anyone in striking distance.

Pity she can’t seem to force herself to duck his swing, step out of his space.

She glances over at Fin and Munch, both studiously looking down at respective files, their desks, each other. Anywhere but at her.

She tries for casual and cavalier, though she has a sneaking suspicion she’s going to fail miserably.

“He had to run an errand, but he should be back soon. He got here early this morning to offset the time,” she says, slapping a calm expression on her face and brushing her bangs out of her eyes as she looks up at her Captain.

“No. He didn’t,” he responds, the disbelief on his face unwavering, rolling his eyes slightly at her weak attempt at defense.

Well, shit. Her eyes flick to the squad room entrance. Where the hell are you, Elliot?

She opts for honesty – or as close to it as she can get – this time.

“I’m sorry, Captain. He’ll be back soon. He meant to be – he just had a personal errand to run.”

“Well, tell him he can run his personal errands on his personal time, Detective.”

Cragen’s voice is brisk, terse, and he turns on his heel, his footsteps the only noise echoing in the wake of his directive. The usual rumbling of the squad room has dulled, and she tries not to wilt under the curious eyes that she can feel on her. She dimly registers Munch asking Fin a question about a former case – one he already knows the answer to, and she feels a rush of warmth towards her coworker at the attempted cover.

He may be full of conspiracies and screw-ball theories, but she doesn’t underestimate his astuteness. His capacity for kindness still takes her by surprise, though.

It’s a small breath of fresh air, a quick, fluttering gasp, because that same goodwill hasn’t abounded amongst their small crew in a while. Cragen is pissed at her partner, at her, at them both as a duo – she knows this. She can’t exactly fault him. After the runaround with Simon, she knows she’s at the end of the very long leash that her boss usually allows her. And he’s given her slack, has kept her on, kept her with her partner, but he’s clearly exhausted with her. And that’s without his frustration over Elliot’s bullish protectiveness of her – periodic though it may be – along with his own ill temper and hare trigger.

It stings a bit – all of it. Cragen’s anger, Elliot’s indifference that only slips when she’s truly fucking up, the rest of the squad’s distance and wariness.

She misses the ease she felt in her unit years ago. She knows it was there, once. A partner who had her back, a Captain who was as good a mentor as he was a boss. The ragtag duo of Fin and Munch who were good detectives and even better sources of humor and relief when the job’s tension was at its most oppressive. Casey, in her earlier days when she took a softer, gentler approach. Ryan and Morales and Melinda, back when they didn’t have to avoid the cloud that darkened the squad room doors.

She finds herself missing Alex, even more than she assumed she would when her former ADA and friend went into witness protection.

Now everything seems irrevocably altered. Made all the more difficult, because she can still remember when it was easy. Easy to be Elliot’s partner, easy to be one of Cragen’s two best detectives. She tries to look back through the wavering shadows, through the looking glass towards simpler times.

Before Gitano demolished all the defenses that she’d thought were so impenetrable, before she put distance between her and Elliot in response, before she came back to find that her partner had carried on, changed. Before she realized maybe he didn’t want her as his partner any longer. Before she had a brother whose own complicated past threatened to pull her beneath the water’s surface.

She’s still treading, and she’s not sure how much longer she can stay afloat.

She thinks Elliot’s already holding his breath.

She doesn’t know how much time has passed when his heavier tread interrupts her musings, a darker mimicry of the sound of Cragen walking away. She steels herself, anticipating another fight, another round of cutting words that will steal her sleep at night. Weaken her resolves further and further until she’s a fiery pillar of anger.

Like he already is.

He says nothing as he sits, and she tamps down the irritation, even as a sense of relief wraps around her. He may infuriate the hell out of her, but she settles, when he is nearby. He is still the closest thing to home she’s ever known. She’s never had the luxury of a peaceful home, anyways.

“Cragen asked about you,” she tells him quietly, looking up from her paperwork and hoping her voice doesn’t carry across the walkway to Munch’s always curious ears.

He doesn’t raise his eyes to look at her, and the irritation stokes. She reminds herself how this man followed her, looked out for her, tried to protect her from the fallout of her brother’s misguided actions, even if he did end up being innocent.

He is your partner. And he’s going through his “worse” right now.

If the separation was difficult, the divorce itself has clearly been harder.

Elliot has always been a family man. It’s one of her favorite things about him, if she’s honest. It’s such a foreign concept to the way she was raised, and he seems born for it, made for it. He wears it like he wears his suits and the more casualwear he seems to have adopted since she returned from Oregon.

Like it fits him.

He doesn’t seem to understand that for him, a divorce doesn’t mean he loses his family, too. He may no longer have a wife, but he will always have his children. She can’t even fathom that kind of permanence, that kind of assurance. She wonders all the time what it must be like – to have so many other people walk around the same world as you with pieces of yourself in embedded in them. Innate to them.

Elliot is the only person who has ever carried the pieces of her.

“You tell him where I was?”

Well, that would be a neat trick. He hasn’t told her a thing in weeks.

“I don’t actually know where you were, El,” she responds quietly. She wants him to hear her, to see this for what it is. She misses her partner. He’s never been great at confiding in her, but over the years he’s gotten better. And she thought they rounded a corner, sitting on his stoop at five in the morning, knocking their knees softly together and appreciating the quiet calm and solicitude in the wake of a tough case. In the wake of their anger towards each other that had nothing to do with the case at all.

He lifts his eyes at that, and she can’t read a thing in their blue depths.

“It’s personal.”

“We’re partners,” she reminds him. He’s the one that taught her that, and she’s so fucking tired of being the one to hold them together. Even Oregon, even when she left – it was to preserve what remained of them before he shattered it to pieces.

“Not on this,” he says, and she hears her own words from the back of a police car in Jersey. And sure, she shut him out then when he was trying to protect her. But, come on, she thinks. His idea of protection is stalking her when he doubts her decisions, and she ultimately caved. She let him help, she let him try, both times that Simon’s presence in her life has threatened what little security she has.

She thanked him for trusting her.

Not on this. This is personal.

Well, screw him.

You’re a grown man with the emotional wherewithal of a toddler, she wants to say. You’re lashing out and you’re bringing everybody down with you.

You’re my best friend and I’d really like it if you could fucking act like it again.

I don’t ask you for that much.

She says none of those things, though, just continues to meet his eyes through the slightly obstructed view of her bangs and wills the threatening tears to recede. They come too easily, since Simon. Since Gitano.

She needs to toughen the fuck up. He’ll leave her if she doesn’t; she knows it in her bones.

“I tried that with my brother. Turned out I was wrong – it was better with you in my corner,” she all but whispers, and it costs her. It will cost her more later, if he ignores the peace offering – she’ll ruminate about it in bed when she can’t sleep, thinking of all the ways that she, her mother, and Elliot Stabler have fucked up her life.

It’s as much as she’s ever given him. She can’t give him any more than this and walk away clean. His position as the most important person in her life is already well-established even if she isn’t his; he is already all over her in all the ways that count, and she can’t hand over any more of herself.

“It’s not the same, Liv. I can handle my personal life. My family.”

She hears the implications in the unspoken words – you needed help but I don’t and I have a family to handle and you aren’t part of my life. They pierce like bullets, pain blooming at the entry points and resonating throughout her body, and she curses herself for a fool – not for the first time.

This is why you don’t rely on people.

It’s like handing someone a loaded gun and asking them to pull the trigger.

She wants to rustle up some rage and meet him on his playing field, to fight back and call him out. But she’s tired, and she won’t admit it until she’s alone and securely ensconced in her apartment, where the prying eyes of coworkers cannot reach her – but she’s more sad than angry.

Stop hurting me, Elliot. If you don’t, I’ll have to stop caring enough so that you can’t.

She hates herself a little for it, but she’s not certain she knows how to do that.

He changes the subject for them with a decisive end to her questions and attempt to connect, scootching his chair forward with a screech and canting his head to the side to include Munch and Fin in the next direction their conversation charts.

“What’s the latest on the Reynolds case?”

“I don’t know what the two of you were over there whispering about, but your diligent partner finished taking the victim’s statement while you were traipsing about the city on personal errands,” Munch responds, an eyebrow raised with the response. His eyes linger on her, a touch of worry behind the darkened glasses, and Olivia schools her expression, straightens her posture.

Nothing to see here.

Their latest victim is a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman who grew up in the foster system, who has no immediate or extended family to speak of. Olivia resolutely ignores the obvious parallels between them, even as she saw her own eyes staring back for just a moment when she first introduced herself. The victim’s eyes felt like a younger mirror of Olivia’s own; she recognizes the loneliness, the focus on building a career to establish a life she wasn’t born with, the way normal people are. And this girl has only just started to carve out that life for herself. Before someone – more than one someone – traumatized her and sent her reeling.

“Madelyn Reynolds, twenty-six. She’s a waitress and a law student. Moonlights as a part-time paralegal, too. She was walking home from work after a later shift at the restaurant when she was accosted by two males, both wearing masks. They pulled her into the nearest alley, subdued her, and they both forcibly raped her. More than once – she said that they took turns. When they were finished, they tied her to the piping along the building with her own tights, gagged her, and left her there. She managed to get free once they were gone. She said it took her at least ten minutes after they left. She went to the hospital, reported immediately,” she tells him, sticking to the facts and trying not to revel in the return of eye contact.

At least he’ll look at her directly when they’re talking about work.

“Results of the rape kit?”

“Both of them used a condom.”

“Crime of opportunity?”

“I don’t think so. She said one of them called her Maddy. It’s what her friends and coworkers call her. And it’s the nickname listed on her nametag, her work uniform, but she was wearing a coat. He called her by her name before he removed her clothes.”

“Did she say if she noticed anyone following her? Anyone strange or suspicious in the restaurant?” Fin asks, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his stomach. She envies the relaxed stance.

“She said no, but…” she stops, fiddling with her necklaces. They’re out of sync these days, she and Elliot, and this is merely a hunch. One that he could easily dismiss if he decides that he has more interest in the fight than the joint solve on this case.

“What is it?” he asks, and for a fleeting moment she feels the phantom warmth of his smile as he tells her she’s his partner, for better or worse. She feels the ghostlike memory of his fingertips on the back of her neck, assuring her and wounding her at the same time. Family is everything.

“They didn’t talk about the fact that they were going to use her own tights to restrain her in front of her. They didn’t discuss a plan. But they both participated in taking them off her, and then they cut them with a pocketknife to divide them. One used them to tie her hands, the other to tie her ankles. She said that they did it at the same time.”

“You think they planned that in advance?”

She nods. It’s a reasonable assumption. People aren’t telepathic, as much as she feels like she and Elliot used to be. He tilts his head, and she sees the question in his eyes. Why does that matter?

Maybe she’s wrong about the telepathy.

“The tights are part of the restaurant uniform. The tights, the nametag, even the location and the piping in the alley that they restrained her against.”

“You think they’re casing the restaurant for a victim pool.”

“I don’t know. Not necessarily,” she sighs. “But I think they at least watched her there first. They knew where she’d be walking, what she’d be wearing.”

Elliot nods, and she feels a sweep of sadness with the surge of relief that moves through her at the realization that he’s in agreement, or at the very least that he’s not going to debate her on it.

“Put a couple of unis on the restaurant, just in case,” Cragen’s voice sounds behind her. At least her partner is here this time, when their boss approaches. “And pull any nearby surveillance. Munch, Fin – take the outlying block. See if there could have been any other witnesses near that alley that weren’t affiliated directly with the restaurant.”

He gestures to Olivia and Elliot, doesn’t deign to use their names.

“You two, talk to the vic’s family. See if there could have been a personal angle if they knew her name. Work could have just been an easy place to grab her.”

“She grew up in foster care. No immediate family, Cap. But there is a roommate. We can start with her.”

“Good. Check out the roommate first. And follow-up with her other place of work.”

It’s cut and dry – the four of them would have done as Cragen said even if he wasn’t giving orders, but the routine and instruction is soothing, and she feels a little less like a raw nerve as she nods at her Captain, gathering her things and running her hand along the soft exterior of her coat.

She only catches it briefly, but she thinks she sees Elliot’s eyes darken at the movement, and she wonders when every little thing she does started eliciting anger from her partner.

She wonders how to fix it.

He’s pissed off at her. No, he’s fucking furious with her, even though he knows it isn’t fair. She hasn’t actually done anything to warrant the red haze that falls over his vision every time she looks at him with those beseeching eyes and soft expression.

He wants to tell her to go back to Oregon. He wants to tell her to get those ridiculous bangs out of her eyes, to cut her hair altogether, like she did in the early years. To stop wearing that long camel coat that accentuates her curves even as it makes her look less like a cop and more like a pretty upscale housewife.

He wants to tell her she was wrong to thank him for trusting her after that mess with her brother. That maybe he trusts her, too, but he doesn’t trust himself around her, and the tension runs through his veins, spreading like a forest fire whenever she’s around.

Because she looks touchable again, after years of toughening herself up so that she didn’t look like the tender-hearted rookie with silky hair and sad eyes with whom he was first partnered. She speaks more softly again; the lyrical cadence he remembers from the first year of their partnership is back and while it’s effective as fuck on the victims, while it talked Simon down from the ledge, it grates on him, the sound like sandpaper on his skin.

She looks touchable, and the first line of defense he had against what he feels for her is gone, signed away with his and Kathy’s names on sterile divorce papers, and now only their partnership remains as the holdout to stop him. To prevent him from reaching out to see if her hair is as soft as it looks, if she’ll feel as good against him as he anticipates, if she’ll moan into his mouth when he kisses her.

He has to stop it.

He doesn’t know if she’d be flabbergasted or flattered or furious to realize that he thinks of her like this. Probably the last of the three. There has always been a chemistry between them, sure – one that they jointly suppressed, routed to an innate understanding, an asset to their partnership. An electricity in their friendship. But she’s never crossed any lines with him, always respected the sanctity of his marriage, the protection of his family.

He’s never crossed any lines with her.

Besides that, she’s not only softer with him these days – that lilting voice is present in the squad room, during interviews, on the street. The fitted vests and tight jeans, the longer hair in the swinging ponytail, the softer makeup and bigger earrings are on display for anyone to see, and he battles himself to let her walk at his side when all he wants to do is yell at her.

Who are you and where is my partner? Why the hell did you decide it was safe to be this gentle, this beautiful, in this job?  

Where did your fight go?

It’s not gone completely, he knows that. She’s still a cop, a good one. One of the best he’s ever met, if he’s honest. He trusts her to have his back.

But he doesn’t trust himself to be clearheaded, these days, and it’s a fucking problem. It’s a dangerous one, in their line of work.

He trails after her as they walk to the squad car, weighing his words and keeping his eyes off her, to the best of his ability. The proposition of a car ride is a daunting, draining. She wants to talk, and he’ll have nowhere to go to avoid her. Maybe he should flip the tables on her and disappear for a while.

It might help in more ways than one. While he has a newfound obsession with watching his partner, he can’t deny that he misses his family. Deeply. He misses who he was with his family – and he misses being married. The divorce papers are signed, the settlement is moving forward, and the finality of it all makes him feel like he’s sinking. Like he might never break the surface again.

He misses waking up next to his wife, the familiarity of a routine, the certainty of having people waiting for him at home. It’s difficult to separate his feelings for Kathy from his feelings for his children, from how it feels to be a part of a cohesive family.

He accidentally makes two cups of coffee in the mornings, he mindlessly picks up the magazines that he knows his ex-wife likes from the corner store, he grabs his phone to call her at odd pauses during the day. The muscle memory hasn’t let him go yet, and it’s a reminder of what he lost. What he’s not sure if he’s going to be able to find with somebody else.

He failed. At being a husband, and maybe at being a father. And he’s failing at being a partner, too.

He looks to his right at Olivia now, at her bangs framing her face and dusting the tops of her eyelashes as she fiddles with her coat buttons in her lap.

I miss you, he wants to say. Everything is fucked up right now and my whole life has been taken away. Could you please go back to being who you used to be for me?

He defaults to the case. It’s the only way he knows to reach her.

“The vic still at the hospital?”

“They released Maddy earlier this afternoon,” she murmurs, and he clocks it. She always gets close; he’s learned that it’s part of her process, and she doesn’t anonymize victims by generalizing them. She uses their names. But something about the way she says this one’s nickname has him tensing, worrying that she’s already getting too connected. Too invested.

He thinks of the description of the attack – being pulled into a darkened alley, and he hopes that this case hasn’t reminded her of her mother.

Of course, he’s never been sure how all of them don’t remind her of her mother.

Don’t lose another piece of yourself to this, he wishes he could tell her. But they don’t talk like that to each other anymore.

“Her roommate is still at work. She said that she was going to call a friend, so she isn’t home alone.”

He nods, navigating the traffic and wondering what the hell is going through her head.

“Okay,” he says. “So, we’ll head to…” He looks down at the notepad near the dash, at the address for the pharmaceutical company where the roommate works. “Prisma Pharmaceuticals and then to the vic’s law firm.”

“Jenner and Lyle.”

“Right.”

She’s sticking to facts only, the case only. He usually likes that. It’s easier to traverse than sifting through the years of their partnership, the complexity of what they do and do not agree upon. What they do and do not feel for each other.

But this disconnect is nagging at him now, gnawing around his brain with a nettling sensation, like if he doesn’t ask, he’ll never feel relief. He’s been an ass to her, and he knows it. He can feel her trying, but he doesn’t have the energy, and he can’t figure out why it is that they never try at the same goddamn time.

“About earlier,” he starts, noting how her hands still against her coat when he changes the subject. “It was another – you know. The divorce.”

He can’t ever seem to get the fucking words out. All he feels is shame.

“I thought you already signed the papers?”

“I did. We had a meeting with the bank. Separating the joint accounts, setting up a trust for the kids and for the child support payments. Can’t just knock someone off a bank account; turns out you both have to be present and agree.”

The steps of divorce feel like a penance. With a breakup, he supposes, you can just stop seeing someone. But a divorce is a prolonged extraction, and every piece of the former marriage that is surgically removed leaves a scar.

She sighs a little, and he doesn’t mean to sound condescending, like she wouldn’t understand the ins and outs of post-divorce actions. He just doesn’t know how to explain. He doesn’t want to tell her about how much it is to un-entwine your life from someone else’s after you’ve been married.

He doesn’t want to tell her that it’s worse than when she left him, because she disappeared and at least he could lie. He could pretend to ignore the reminders.

And it’s not because she hasn’t been married herself, that she wouldn’t get it. It’s that he’s so tired – there’s always a next step and another thing that’s connected. Bank accounts, phone plans, electricity service, car titles, credit cards, mortgage documentation, wills, beneficiaries.

Divorce felt bad on paper. It’s life-draining in practice.

“You could have just told me that,” she says softly.

That’s the thing, he thinks. I couldn’t have. I can’t. I don’t even know it all myself, yet. It’s never-ending.

That and he’s a failure in Kathy’s eyes, in his children’s. In his own. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if he saw that in hers, too. He thinks back to Gitano, the wild terror when he saw her hit the floor with blood streaming from her neck, the shock jangling through him when she brokenly asked him how he could expect her to end his life. I couldn’t handle it.

“It’s not your problem,” is all he manages to grind out.

And just like that, he misses another chance. Her eyes shutter, eyelashes sweeping against her cheek as she turns back to her coat lining, before she seems to make a decision.

“You know what, El? You seem to have a response for everything. Tell me this. What do you do when your partner is being an uncommunicative asshole?”

The rage takes over before he considers the words, and they’re out of his mouth before he can call them back.

“I don’t know. Pretty sure you just fuck off to the FBI.”

He sees the words hit her; they’re tangible things that sway her back before she can catch herself, before she braces under the impact and clenches her fingers around her seatbelt to hold herself together.

Fuck.

Olivia is the strongest person he knows until the very moment that she’s not, and he’s seen her crumple a time or two to prove it. His shields, they’re constructed of all different materials – family, faith, and fury – and they come down one by one. But Liv’s are the same – mostly connected to the job, and he suspects, him. And they all fall together, tied by a flimsy invisible string. She goes from being a force to be reckoned with to a gut-wrenching display of vulnerability in seconds flat, and he feels his own certainty of his place in the world swept from under his feet right along with his partner.

“Liv,” he says, cajoling, backtracking – this is not what he wanted to do with her. To her.

But she can recant as quickly as she folds, and she can rebuild with startling vigor, and she does so now. The defenses are back, the mask firmly in place. The softness is gone, for the moment, she’s all sharp bristles and ice.

“Asked and answered, Elliot.”

“Listen –”

“Just drive,” she interrupts him, forcefully, and they spend the rest of the car ride in a frigid, aching silence.

So yeah, he’s pissed off at her. Partly because she left in the first place, partly because now she’s here, maddeningly soft and touchable, and partly because he cannot for the life of him figure out what he feels for her.

But mostly because she came back, yet he knows he’s losing her still.

“Tara Moreno?”

Maddy’s roommate turns, her light brown hair dusting her shoulders in waves as she moves from behind her cluttered desk. They walk through the open office space and she ushers them into the small conference room behind it. She’s young, a similar age as Maddy, maybe slightly older. Well-dressed and professional, but there’s a nervous energy about her as she gestures, pale green eyes flashing.

“That’s me. We can talk in here. Maddy called me. I was just wrapping up my meetings – she told me not to rush home. She’s with Val; they’ve been friends for your years but I –”

“Tara, it’s alright. I’m Detective Benson, and this is my partner, Detective Stabler,” Olivia tells her, wanting to calm her. Maddy explained their connection in their earlier interview – Tara was someone she’d met through a mutual acquaintance, who recently had her second bedroom open when her former roommate graduated from medical school. Tara and Maddy are friendly, good roommates, though not incredibly close. But she is clearly rattled, and Olivia can see the guilt clouding her features, anticipating judgment that she isn’t already at her roommate’s side.

She’s not here to judge.

They sit together, and she feels Elliot settle in the seat beside her. They’ve never been strict about personal space barriers, but he’s closer than he needs to be, and she feels the warmth emanating from him, feels the impression of his shoulder brushing against hers. She wants to beg him to be consistent. She doesn’t understand why he can be her most dedicated protector and then decidedly ignore her, why he can say things that claw under her skin to consume and destroy vital pieces of her, while the feel of him physically close to her remains a soothing balm.

“Tara,” Elliot starts, “how long have you and Madelyn been roommates?”

“Just about five or six months. One of my friends from undergrad met her in law school, and when my old roommate moved away, she knew I couldn’t make the rent on my own. And Maddy was looking for a place, so it just worked out.”

Tara fidgets, but her expression is earnest and saddened, and Olivia schools away the worry about her partnership to focus on the case. She and Elliot have both learned that what seems to be true isn’t always after first blush, and something about Maddy has her nerves on end. Maybe it’s just the fear. She doesn’t want to jump from horses to zebras, but she can already feel that this case won’t be run of the mill. She used to like that feeling – it meant longer nights with her partner, more in-depth discussions and debates, a headier high when they closed it in spite of impediments. She resents it, now.

“Has she had any atypical visitors, anyone new hanging around lately?”

“No, she doesn’t really have visitors at all. Her friend, Val – they know each other from when Maddy was in foster care, but other than that, she doesn’t have visitors over. She’s busy. You know, she works at Tivoli’s, the restaurant where…” Tara trails off, and Olivia winces. She can’t imagine Maddy will want to work around the corner from the scene of her assault any longer.

“Yes, we know.”

“Right. Well, she waitresses at Tivoli’s, and she’s only got a semester left in law school. Took her a bit longer, since she was taking night classes. And she works at a law firm, real uppity place – in Midtown – as a paralegal. Those hours vary. Depends on the case load the attorneys have, I guess.”

“Have you ever met anyone she works with from that law firm? Jenner and Lyle?”

“No, she’s never brought anyone from there home. Never even talked about anyone in particular. But she did say that she wouldn’t want to work there full-time, after she passes the bar. She never said why, but I get the impression she doesn’t like the place.”

“Any boyfriends? Anyone from the restaurant?” Elliot asks, leaning forward, and she ignores the sensation of his thigh lightly sliding against hers.

“No. Maddy doesn’t date. She’s focused on her law career, focused on building a life for herself. And she doesn’t mind the restaurant. She likes the manager, the bartender. It’s a family-owned place. They send food home with her sometimes – they’re nice.”

They continue with a few more standard questions; the ease of parrying off each other in an interview is rote for them both. She leaves her card with the young woman after they both thank her. Olivia’s eyes meet her partner’s, clicking in recognition of the value from Tara’s answers – the thread they’ll pick up in her discomfort evident at Jenner and Lyle. The restaurant feels more and more like an easy location, a red herring, but the men who attacked Maddy knew who they were targeting. They knew where she’d be, when she’d be leaving, and what she would be wearing.

Elliot is quiet as they trudge back to the squad car, and she follows suit. The sharpness of his earlier words still stabs at her, even as she knows the damage she caused when she left without a word wounded him, too. But she didn’t “fuck off” to anywhere, and she left to give them both a much-needed breather that Computer Crimes only began to provide. The lack of goodbye was courtesy of the FBI and Dana Lewis.

Though she’s never explained that to her partner.

“Law firm next?” she asks.

“It’s getting late. After business hours. They won’t be open.”

He’s right. She decides not to point out that they are both well-versed in the fact that attorneys work after standard hours. She wants to go home.

“First thing tomorrow?”

He starts the car, jacking up the heat as she huddles in her coat, and she gives him a small smile at the consideration. Give me something here, El.  

“Yeah. We can check if Munch and Fin got anything from surveillance and start with the attorneys’ office.”

The rhythm of the case descends around her, the familiarity washing over her like the heat from the squad car. She may not know how to navigate the new rough edges of their partnership, the jagged pieces that she created when she left and the new territory of emotion that his divorce has introduced. But she knows how to do this dance with him – the investigation, the interrogation, the closure.

So often it feels like the only thing she truly knows how to do.

He grips the steering wheel, big hands sliding up and down the sides, and she refuses to think about those hands anywhere else, how they have felt on the rare occasions that they touch her. His shoulders present a stiff line of annoyance, the tacit agreement they’d both upheld to focus on the case tapering off and wisping away. His hands loosen as he flips the signal before they turn, and Olivia tracks the graduated vista of her city, both familiar and majestic.

New York reminds her of him, sometimes. Impossibly big, too much action and sound and light, and yet all she has ever known. All she’s wanted to know.

The city flickers past as they drive, the setting sun giving way to dark while the lights of the buildings flash on, illuminating the night in lieu of the daylight. 

“It’s been harder than I expected,” his voice sounds in the space of their squad car, their old sedan that’s held a thousand conversations, sleep-deprived confessions, brain-addled case theories, and every so often… memories of who they’d been before they were partners to each other.

She turns, leans her head back against the headrest to listen. He almost only opens up to her in the car, just like this, while he is driving. She wonders if it’s because he doesn’t have to look her in the eye, that way. She wonders why he wouldn’t want to.

“I knew I needed to sign the papers,” he continues as she thinks back to his stoop, telling him that was a step in the right direction. “And I’d already gotten the apartment. Already moved out. But God, Liv. There’s so much to do, so much to… disconnect. And every single thing is a goddamn reminder.”

She wishes she could hang onto the anger, the righteous indignation at the way he sometimes treats her. She’s not blind to the way his rage can be channeled towards her. She’s never afraid of him. She’s sometimes resentful. But all that is balanced with the way he protects her, supports her. The way he knows more about her than anyone else in the world.

And she knows his whole life is being dismantled. His identity is evolving as he scrambles in the wake of what Kathy left behind. How hard must it be, to try to know oneself after spending decades in the role set for you at seventeen? How frightening, to reinvent yourself when you thought your path was set? The thought inspires a little charity in her.

“I’m not going to pretend like I know what you’re going through, El. But I’m here, if you ever want to talk.”

She doesn’t say need to talk; she knows he won’t cop to that. And she’s not sure if she can bring herself to admit rest of what she wants to say to him… but what the hell. He threw her a crumb in the admittance. She can throw him one back with a concession.

“I don’t know what it’s like to go through a divorce. I do know what it’s like to feel lonely, especially with this job.”

She breathes deeply, trying to calm the rush that runs through her with the words, berating herself for opening herself to more hurt as she remembers her condemning thought earlier in the day. That she loads the weapon and hands it to him to damage her.

He doesn’t say anything at first. But then – then she holds that same breath she took, freezing all motion, because she feels his fingertips on her neck, circling her nape, gripping her almost tenderly, and it’s not a phantom memory from a car ride in Jersey. It’s real. He is touching her. She can’t help herself; she leans into it, just a little bit.

And Elliot asks the last question she expected of him.

“Liv. You want to grab a drink?”

Chapter Text

They find themselves at a cozy, galley-like little bar he’s never been to before, one that’s a tad more upscale than he would typically choose. But it’s about equally distant between her place and his, and it was the first one he saw as he turned onto a less heavily trafficked street in the neighborhood. She said yes to his request to grab a drink together, relaxing into his impromptu grip as he grazed the back of her head and held the nape of her neck, and she seemingly forgave him for his earlier careless words. He didn’t want to give her any spare time to reconsider.

They huddle together on too-small barstools, elbows propped next to each other in an imitation of the positions they have assumed during interrogation a thousand or more times.

She peruses the menu, and he watches her eyes hover over the wine list before settling on their on-tap domestic beer options. They they lift and light on his, affection dancing in their depths. He feels like they’ve stepped into a warmer, other world where they are less restricted versions of themselves, and he doesn’t want to impede it.

“Order a bottle,” he tells her on a whim, suppressing a smile when her raised eyebrows disappear into the cover of her bangs. “A good one.”

“Didn’t take you for an oenophile, El,” she says, smirking.

“A – what the hell is that?”

The smirk softens, and he takes the rare opportunity to simply stare at her, take her in. The softness doesn’t infuriate him as much, in this darkened setting. Maybe it’s because they aren’t swaggering side-by-side, guns at the ready. She’s simply a woman at a bar, soft light illuminating the slant of her cheekbones, the shadow of her eyelashes. She’s just Olivia, here.

She’s also somehow progressed from touchable to kissable, and he knows he’s charting dangerous territory.

“A wine connoisseur,” she answers quietly. Her gaze is measuring, and he returns it, wondering how exactly they’ve come to this stalemate. Grateful that they have, regardless.

“Just pick a bottle, Benson,” he tells her, and she does, without engaging his opinion further. The bartender returns with a red, tells them it’s the best blend that they have, and Liv merely shakes her head at his questioning – and lightly mocking – look. It’s good, he finds – a bit fruity when he first takes a sip, but it settles into something deeper, something earthier as he drinks. It makes him want to talk, to share, to ask the bartender to go ahead and put a second bottle aside even though he knows she’ll steer them home once they reach the dregs.

And he finds himself telling her… everything.

“I… hate it. I’m angry with Kathy, and I miss my kids. Even going to Mass seems wrong because I should be there with my family, Liv. Going there by myself feels – it feels like an admission of guilt.”

He expects, as he weaves the tapestry of his own failings as a husband, that she will interject. Argue with him. Tell him where he’s wrong. But she doesn’t; she sits, dark eyes tracking his movements, his gestures. She sips the wine, periodically refilling both their glasses, and she lets him speak.

He hadn’t realized how much he needed to, until just now. The only person he’s talked about the divorce with any detail or depth is Kathy, and that isn’t a reprieve at all. Those conversations invite more fights, more heartache, more blame-laying, and he cannot continue to do it with the only other person who is directly involved. But he does need – he desperately needs to talk about it. The separation and the divorce have fallen so heavily on his heart, and he hasn’t had an outlet other than the resentment of his wife, the fear of his children, and the judgement of his priest.

“She wanted these things of me, and I provided for my family. I know I’m not perfect, but we were – it was enough, Liv. You know? Yeah, we got married young, but we made it work, and we had our children, and it was enough. And then she decided it wasn’t enough. But she didn’t tell me that she wanted something different, or that it wasn’t what she needed anymore.”

“People change and they forget to tell you,” she murmurs softly at his side, fingers stretching to pick lightly at the glimmering embossed label on the wine bottle.

“God. Yes. Olivia, it’s every day. It’s everything I do. I go to pay a bill, and remember that we have to separate it. I answer a phone call, and it’s a doctor’s office but they’re actually looking for my wife, who isn’t my wife anymore. I make small talk at church, but then someone I hardly know asks about the family, and I lie about Kathy. I have to update my next of kin, I have to change tax-reporting status. I – there’s so much day-to-day shit that I didn’t realize she took care of, but I get home at the end of the day to my empty apartment, and I realize there’s no food there, there’s no noise there, there’s nobody there, and I –”

Damnit. He trails off, because those last statements could apply to her, too, and he curses himself for never truly thinking about what her life outside of the squad room entailed.

She offers up more than he would have.

“I understand. Like I told you before… I’ve been alone my whole life.”

He considers it, gives credence and reality to the words that he’d known in statement but not in truth. What her childhood must have been life, her ascent to adulthood, even her life now – not having a construct of family to call upon after the worst of the worst cases. Who did she let patch up the broken and bruised parts of her after the job took too much?

But he feels the pain, that iron grip that won’t release him, the one that stokes the fires of his frustration at his spine, and he can’t pull his focus from himself to her.

“I didn’t want to be this person, this man. I don’t – I’m not – I go home to that apartment and that’s not my home. That’s not my life. That’s not who I am.”

“It doesn’t make you a lesser –”

“I didn’t say I was a lesser anything,” he interjects, regretting it instantly as he feels her still at his side.

Fuck. He is always hurting the people he loves, his partner included. He knows Kathy has had enough, but Olivia just told him that she didn’t have anyone else. She’s a captive audience, in some ways, and he doesn’t honor that. He uses it, instead. His actions may speak otherwise, but it’s not what he wants, for her.

“Christ, Liv.” He sucks in a breath. He is not this person; he is not this man. He is a better person than this, or at least he has the propensity to be so. “I’m sorry.”

She nods at his side, but he knows, he knows she is filing this away as yet another slight. The shards of his shattered life are piling around him and every time he reaches out to grab them, to gather them up, they cut into him and others, leaving him with the blood of regret, the scars of remembrance.

“No, listen,” he continues, and he’s begging a bit now – his earlier rage gone. She can grow her bangs as long as she likes, she can be as gentle and soft as she wants. She’s been the tough one for so long, already. He’ll take care of her, he’ll take care of them both, as long as she doesn’t bail on him.

As long as she doesn’t run again.

“I’m sorry,” he reiterates. He needs her to hear this. The wine settles in his stomach as the nerves take over instead. “You aren’t alone. You aren’t. I’m your partner.”

She smiles ruefully into her glass at that.

“You’re my partner.”

They slip into the silence, letting the murmurings of the bar sound as their background music, the melody of reconnection, allowing the rumblings of people who don’t see what they see on a day-to-day basis serve as the ambient setting of normalcy behind them. The wine is tempering, and he reflects upon everything they have been to each other – and how little he has known what to do with her. He is letting himself tread into untried paths, unseen trails, and he wishes he could read her mind.

She’s always been enigmatic. She is crystal clear in her anger, painfully transparent in her hurt. But she is a mystery in her happiness, in her satisfaction.

He wants to know her secrets.

And then she interjects to request one of his.

“Do you want her back?”

The question surprises him. Olivia has served as such an advocate of his marriage, his family, his home construct. But she’s never once asked him if that’s what made him happy. Maybe she didn’t have to – for so long it was, and then he insisted it was even when things were difficult. Now, he’s not so sure. But the change, embarking into such a life-altering unknown is paralyzing. And so instead of moving forward, he’s taken to blaming Kathy for forcing him to confront this in the first place.

But the wine is good, good enough that it’s gone down quickly, and it’s loosened his tongue. It’s unfettered his thinking behind it. So, he considers her question, admiring the way her smile tugs against her cheeks and sweetens her stare while he evaluates.

“Yes.”

It’s his first reaction, and it’s somehow as true as it is false.

“And no. Liv – God, I don’t know. I wish I could go back sometimes to the middle of it all. When the kids were young, but we weren’t struggling as much, when the job still wasn’t – as hard as it’s gotten. For a little while, I felt like I was good at putting the bastards away, and I was good enough husband that my wife wasn’t unhappy, and my kids – they were little, and safe, and they thought I was a hero. I was a hero to them. And now, now I’m the man who made their mother cry, who they visit in a shitty apartment every other weekend. And I – damnit.”

He feels her hand on him as he finishes his diatribe, and it spurs him further even as it calms him. He’s whining about his self-proclaimed shitty apartment while her hand slides over his bicep, while she pulls him to face her a little more closely, like they’re a couple on a date at the bar, not a couple of cops whose case load has begun to drag them down, whose codependency has started to fracture them.

Her lips are a plum, raspberry shade, darkened from the wine, and her eyes are wide but a touch soft and unfocused, a little affected.

“You are still their hero, El. That doesn’t change with you and Kathy – that doesn’t change. Ever.”

“I don’t fucking know what changes and what doesn’t anymore. All the things that I thought never would – they’ve changed. And all the things I told myself could never happen…”

Those oft-haunted eyes meet his at that, and he sees it all. The familiarity, the trust, the longing, the fear. They have been so much to each other, but he’s not so far gone that he doesn’t know he’s held more space in her life than she has in his. And that’s changing – the foundation of their partnership is shifting. He thinks she might want him as much as he wants her.

But she’s far more afraid of that.

And he’s afraid of pushing her.

“I guess I just wonder what could happen. I don’t know how to explain it, Liv. Does it make any sense that I wish I could go back, that I want to be back in the same house as my kids every day more than I can tell you, that I miss… a version of Kathy that I knew a long time ago – but that I… no. No, I don’t want her back.”

That’s the crux of it, too. The guilt overwhelms him, swallows him whole. Does it make him a worse husband, that after all these years he doesn’t want back the wife who left him?

Does it betray the bonds of his marriage that there is a relief in sitting next to Olivia, now – when there were times that he wished it were a possibility, before?

Her hand moves from his arm to his hand, and he watches her fingers gently weave between his. It shouldn’t feel this emotional, this transcendent, this erotic, for her to simply enclose his hand in her own. But it is, and he releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

A breath he is starting to recognize that he was holding long, long before now.

“You’re gonna be okay, El,” she whispers, and he hears her above the noise of the bar, above the noise in his own mind, and he wants to tell her she can’t leave him again because she’s the only one who can ever grant him the quiet.

The wine is almost gone now, the bottle resting before them is brighter where the light can shine through, and the deep red of blend has diminished. He feels it running through him, feels the soft, floating feeling of just enough alcohol buzzing through his veins. It’s a little dizzying with possibilities, almost enough to encourage him to lean forward now, to push those bangs from her forehead and kiss the slightly hazy gleam from her eyes. Replace it with something a little more potent. He thinks about asking if she is happy that she returned from Oregon. If she regrets the decision to leave at all.

But it’s too soon in more way than one – he hurt her today, and he isn’t blind to that. And he doesn’t want her to associate any first of theirs with a discussion about his ex-wife. And he’s not certain she would be amenable to any of this, anyways.

They are partners. She loves him. He believes that, even if she’d never admit it aloud. He’s just not sure exactly how, or how much.

So, he tightens his fingers against her hold, and pulls her a little more closely against his side.

“You know, I think maybe you were right,” he tells her, and soaks in the way she lets him touch her, just a little. Absorbs the closeness he didn’t know they could have.

“About what?

“I’m a xenophile.”

He’s pretty certain he got the word wrong, but he knows her. She’ll figure it out.

“You’re an idiot,” she responds, but it sounds so accepting and so fond, he thinks it’s the nicest thing he’s ever heard.

He takes her home, dropping her off with a blink your lights after they finish the last sips of their wine, and as he falls asleep in his silent, shitty apartment, he realizes that their case suddenly feels less like a burden and more like a chance.

She sleeps… soundly. When the morning light wakes her just short of her alarm without any nervous interruptions, she rises, and suppresses the surprise, along with the suspicion that Elliot is to thank for it. They communicated more last night than they had in years, and it elates and terrifies her at the same time.

What the hell are we doing?

The possibility was there last night, along with a return to some of the easy affinity that first brightened and warmed their partnership. It felt like a homecoming as much as it did a release. There you are, she wants to tell him. Don’t go away again.

Which is ironic, because she’s the one who keeps running.

The temptation to do that now beckons her. The threat of what they could lose if they explore that affinity, if they light the spark of what has always smoldered between them, settles itself around her shoulders like a physical weight. She misses her partner, she wants more, and she is paralyzed by the possibility of what more could destroy.

The case, the case – focus on the case.

Madelyn Reynolds.

Maddy.

But she can’t ignore the fact that her step is lighter, her coffee tastes a little sweeter, and for the first time in a while, she welcomes the day ahead.

She wants to see her partner.

He picks her up in the squad car, hours after he dropped her here, after they excised some of the hurt that had him putting their partnership on ice and her begging for scraps. She feels hesitant, a touch embarrassed, as she opens the door and ducks her head to get into the car.

She’s greeted by a wide, unhindered Elliot Stabler smile complete with dancing blue eyes and welcoming head tilt, one that she hasn’t seen in years, and she is forced to acknowledge that the warmth in her cheeks has nothing to do with her quick jog down the apartment complex stairs.

“Morning.”

“Hi.”

They hover in front of each other, awkwardly circling, but it feels good. It feels hopeful, and she wants this to continue. She wants their partnership to heal, but she wonders for the first time if their partnership should be something different, if the healing will be an evolution, instead.

“You wanna –”

“I brought you a –”

They speak over each other, and their smiles both grow as they stare at each other and fall silent. He is looking at her with an expression that is so reminiscent of the early years of her partnership that she wants to lean into him, ask him to hold her for just a moment, so she knows that it’s real.

She leans back in her seat instead, and mimes zipping her lips so that he can speak first.

“I grabbed you a coffee,” he says gesturing to the two cups cooling in the cup holders, and she picks up the first, fingers absorbing the warmth as she lifts it to her face.

“Thank you.”

“You sleep okay?” he asks quietly, and she wonders when he decided it was permissible to use his tentative, kind voice with her. It has a dreamlike quality, and it makes her think of his children and victims and I’m your partner.

She can’t stop the rueful smile at the question – though she’s sure as hell not going to tell him she slept better than she has in years.

“Like a baby,” is all she allows and startles when he snorts out a laugh.

“I hate to break it to you, Benson, but that metaphor makes no sense unless you cried the whole night long and woke up entire the house half a dozen times.”

Sometimes the reminder of how much he has in his life makes her realize how her own life holds, but right now she only feels happiness that he can talk about his family again. That he can bring up his babies and the life he led with them without the backdrop of the divorce diminishing the memories. That he realizes they are still his.

“It’s a simile. And I’m pretty sure an exaggeration.”

“You should have heard Kathleen in the early years,” he says, then turns his head, considering, and his expression holds secrets she isn’t certain she wants to know.

“You know, I don’t mind as much anymore,” he tells her, and she eyes the steering wheel, wondering why he’s so content to banter with her in their immobile squad car, where the race and rush and wrath have gone. What they’ll leave behind.

“What?” she asks. She can’t help herself.

The grin widens, and she feels her lips stretching to match his despite her hesitations.

“You correcting me. Handling me.”

Well, then.

They’re not really saying anything of import, but every word feels deliciously significant, weighted. They’re embarking on something different, she thinks, and wonders if she’s ready for it. If her anger has abated enough for it.

What might she lose if they change the rules to their partnership again  She still bears the scars of the last time. She still remembers the cool, open air of Oregon and the fact that she missed him desperately but couldn’t escape the feeling of him telling her it’s okay while a madman held a gun to his head. She’d prefer to live in a world he still inhabited than crusade to have more of him and lose him in the battle.

She has long accepted the extent of what he is willing to give her – and it’s been enough, because she has never known consistency from the people she loves. Serena was a fury-filled harbinger of nights spent trying to simply stay out of her way balanced with periodic good days, few and far between. Burton claimed to love her and acted as a reprieve, a safe haven from her mother’s chilling glares and vodka-soaked rantings, but he left her at the first push. And Elliot – Elliot has been her partner, her equal, her protector, and her best friend. And he has also railed at her for having the audacity to survive after he chose her well-being over a child’s. He has also run blindingly hot and achingly cold when it comes to his defense of her and his irritation when she tries to offer too much support in turn.

Like the others she has loved, he has never been consistent.

What would we be like if you were?

Perhaps it’s better that he hasn’t been. If he’d been this connected and this consistent with her from the start, she would have fallen in love with him years ago.

The thought blows through her, wind raising the crackling leaves of past hurts in her mind, stirring the anger forth. But the affection and ease in his eyes calm the makings of a storm, and she resignedly lets the breeze pass.

“Olivia,” he starts, and use of her full name weighs her down – all she hears is Oh my god, no, no. She remembers the realization that she wasn’t dying, that Gitano’s life hadn’t stripped away their chances. Chances she didn’t know she wanted until he hovered over her with anguish in his eyes and she thought, this man might love me.

And then the realization that Gitano likely had ruined them, after all. The need to run was overwhelming, as was the eventual need to come back. She remembers Elliot petulantly staring at her over coffee creamer and sugar when she first returned, the sting of betrayal exacerbated by the unearthing of his disinterest, the understanding that her leaving may have hurt him, but his replacement of her hurt her worse.

He wants to talk about it, the gentleness that enveloped them last night, tucked into the dark corner of a bar with red wine on their tongues and forgiveness on their minds. It’s more difficult, in the light of day, to place what he means to her. How she feels about his divorce, and what he could mean to her in the future. It’s more difficult to confront what she feels for him when they’re on the job unless there is a threat of losing him. And then she cannot hide the truth of it from anyone, least of all herself.

But they’re not in danger now, and she doesn’t want to lose the fragile peace between them.

She interrupts him, and internally pleads for him to let her.

“El – just –” the words fail her.

She’s not sure what she’s trying to avoid, what he wants of her in the first place. She turns back to stare at the façade of her apartment building, wondering if he could hold more space there than he has before, collecting her thoughts.

“You want to head to the precinct or check in with the law firm first?” she finally asks, hands nervously fiddling with the top of her coffee cup.

He seems to understand her predicament. He doesn’t call her on it, just keeps wearing that easy smile that has been absent for so long. He nods toward her seatbelt.

“Buckle up. Let’s talk to the sleazy lawyers first.”

And for the first time in months, she thinks her partnership is truly back in place. The relief and the longing form a new conflict within her as a strengthening fear takes hold.

Don’t change us yet, El. I don’t know how to follow you there.

She clicks her seatbelt in place as he pulls away from the curb.

She’s always been best at lying to herself.

Chapter Text

Devon Marshall is thirty-eight years old, with a full head of straight, blond hair, a painstakingly precise mustache, and sharp bluish gray eyes. He wears a clearly custom-tailored suit like armor – one that Elliot knows costs well over what he takes home in a month – and hasn’t been shy about flashing the Rolex on his wrist or the Gucci loafers on his feet.

He is the leading patent attorney at Jenner and Lyle, by all accounts on a winning streak despite his heavy caseload. He’s on the fast track to partner, claims the corner office with jaw-dropping Midtown views, and he’s billed the most hours against the cases Madelyn Reynolds most recently supported as a paralegal.

Elliot wants to punch him in his smug face within seconds of being introduced.

“I was so sorry to hear that Miss Reynolds was hurt, though I’m not sure that I can do anything for you, Detectives,” he tells them, eyes dismissively flicking between them and whatever is pulling his attention on his shielded computer screen.

“We don’t need much of your time. We just need to ask you a few questions,” Elliot tells the other man, wishing he could haul him to the precinct and talk to the prick on his own territory, instead. Devon uses the massive mahogany desk between them like a status symbol, clearly enjoying the false elevation he perceives it affords him.

“How do you know Madelyn?” Olivia asks, voice a little husky and low, the way she speaks when she wants to draw in somebody.

He feels it in his bones, the way she speaks, the way her voice changes with her intent and swirls around him like wafts of smoke.

Devon apparently feels it, too. Those grayish eyes narrow on Liv, tracking up and down her form, blatantly lingering on her eyes, her lips, her cleavage.

Asshole.

It’s bothered him before, watching other men fixate on his partner, take in her features and her smile, and foolishly think they have a shot. It bothers him more when those men actually do have a shot, and he’s spent years attempting to ignore the fact that Liv dates. That Liv goes on dates, lets a man take her out, lets him take her home, lets him touch her.

Allows anyone but him touch her.

He’s always been a selfish son of bitch.

“She’s a paralegal on my team. One of my most time-efficient ones, actually. I have her contributing on a few cases right now, primarily in a precedent research capacity, ah… what was your name again?”

“Detective Benson,” Elliot interjects. He can’t help himself, and he ignores the raised eyebrow Liv casts his way.

“Detective Benson, no first name,” Devon answers, his gaze never leaving Olivia. Elliot hates him more with each passing minute.

He pushes down his jealousy, ignores the familiar tang of it in his mouth, and focuses on the case. This is where they thrive, where their languages coincide, where they operate in tandem. He doesn’t remember when he started noticing that she feels like an extension of himself, but it’s most evident at the early stages of a case, when they are given the details of the crime and the pieces of the puzzle, when they begin to investigate. The curiosity connects them, the thrill of the hunt snaps and sizzles between the two of them like an electric current, and he feels most alive when he’s in her presence.

He feels her questioning the same theories, even when they leave the squad room for the night, setting down the case to pick it up the next day. In those moments, even when they’re apart, he can feel her at his side, pulling at the same threads of doubt, illuminating the same shadows of suspicion.

It certainly isn’t the cause, but that connection helped lead to the demise of his marriage – he knows this, just as well as he knows that if he ever shared that with Liv, she would run faster and further than she did to Oregon. Her misplaced need to protect him, to protect the structure of his family, has been as frustrating as it has been reassuring. He’s never as sure of her affection for him, her loyalty to him, as he is when she is attempting to preserve what she believes makes him happy.

But he also knows it removes her from him, ensures that she is only his partner, and never more, if he allows her to continue that path.

He wants to forge a new trail for them, with new hills to climb and new sights to see, even as he knows her fear of change will be their biggest obstacle.

More and more, he thinks he’s willing to find a way around it, to fight to remove all her concerns and hesitations and what-ifs.

“How long have you worked with Madelyn?” Olivia continues, nonplussed and focused.

“About two years. She has always been part-time, and she’s in night-school classes for her law degree. I only take on law school students who are in their third year, for my paralegal teams. Technically, she’s been in year three for the past couple of years since she’s taking fewer classes at a time.”

“Can you tell us about your relationship with her?”

“Professional. She’s bright – she’s got a spot as a litigator in this firm if she wants it, after she passes the bar. Look, I like Maddy. She’s smart, she doesn’t need much direction, and she’s been instrumental on the case development for some of my clients. I hate that something happened to her. All I heard was that she was attacked outside of that restaurant where she also works. How is she doing?”

Liv deftly dodges the question, steering him back to how he met Madelyn Reynolds, where he was two nights ago, and if he has ever frequented Tivoli’s himself. If they ever spent any time together outside of work. The answers are perfunctory, clear – after the firm hired her as a freelance researcher and he wasn’t involved in the interview or offer process, he was at the office and others were present so he alibis out, and no, he hasn’t ever been. Not his scene, he likes The Bar at the Baccarat for a quick drink after work if he has the time.

Devon is schmoozy and slick, and something about him makes Elliot’s skin crawl with his delivery, but he can see how he might be effective in court. He gives enough information, but not too much, without the sensation that he is holding something back. He is assured and a little debonair, and while he wouldn’t put it past the guy to hit on his female employees, especially given the way his eyes haven’t left Olivia, he doesn’t quite think this is their guy.

He catches Liv’s eyes, and she almost imperceptibly juts her jaw at the door. He lets the solidity of their partnership bolster him, leans into the fact that they are in-sync. They are fully connected, once again. The break in their partnership felt like forgetting how to use a limb – the reconnection feels like a healing, a return to full mobility. He’s at his strongest when they are aligned.

It’s the best thing about them, he knows. And it might be the thing that prevents them from exploring what else might lie between them. He understands his partner. He knows what she is willing to risk.

Gitano taught them more than one lesson. She’s never been willing to risk him.

“Thanks for your time. Here’s my card,” he tells the other man, hoping he doesn’t have reason to use it. “Give us a call if you think of anyone else.”

Devon accepts it, a smirking grin spreading across his face.

“Don’t I need yours, too?” he asks, standing to move around the desk, taking a step closer to Olivia.

Elliot moves to interject, but Liv beats him to it.

“That’s okay. We’re always together anyway. Besides, you’ve probably got better odds with him,” she says as she also stands and backs out of the room, leaving Devon leveling him with a woebegone look, her own smirk only appearing once she’s turned.

He wants to laugh – she’s irritatingly clever, and she can be such a goddamn pain in the ass sometimes. She can be so… familiar, thought-provoking, irritating. Good.

The rush of affection is steady and warm, and fuck, what is this feeling?

It was easier to be mad at her. Easier to be pissed off, to resent her softness and her smiles and her newfound steadiness. The anger still simmers – she was the one who changed the rules first, he thinks, but something new, something different, has started to bubble below it.

This is a recognition. Like remembering a fact that you thought he had long forgotten, that his mind had been reaching for while it was just out of reach, hovering on the edge of awareness. He’s finally able to stretch and grasp it. She is his partner, and their connection, the electricity between them has never faded. Their minds still meld, cases and investigations and foot-chases weaving between them and binding them together.

But now it’s more. He… likes her.

Life is new with that knowledge. Bright and sharp-edged. Dangerous with possibility and alight with transformation, the shifting planes of his world damaging and crumbling each other to create a new landscape of opportunity.

Every change is a loss. That’s how his partner views the world. But he knows that change can be revelatory, can be life-giving.

Just because it hurts, doesn’t mean it isn’t good. He’s learned more than once that the hurt can make the good better.

He wonders if he’s ready for that. He wonders if he wants to figure out a way to show her.

They walk back to the squad car, purposeful strides moving at the same pace, and she tries to ignore the security she feels when Elliot’s gait matches hers.

His changing moods are winding, wistful and confusing, stressful for her. Yesterday he was angry and standoffish. Last night he was forthcoming, but he held on to that unrelenting rage. Today, he is affectionate, and his eyes make her think of holidays and an almost childlike anticipation. She doesn’t know what to make of that, or how to keep pace with him.

And while maybe she prefers the affection to the anger, she worries that she cannot keep up. She’ll lose him in all this, if they don’t come back to an even keel.

At the beginning of their partnership, he looked out for her, and while it surprised her, she still bristled at first. She didn’t need a man to watch out for her, to protect her. The whole point of becoming a police officer in the first place – beyond her need to act as some sort of counterbalance to the violence done to her mother and the unwillingness of her conception – was to prove that she could take care of herself. That she was strong, independent. Able.

And then he leaned over Munch and asked you bothering my partner? as though she mattered more than he could explain. More than he had to justify. When he pulled away, removing their colleague and friend who had no intent of hurting her but was questioning the painful unknown of her paternal lineage all the same, she felt sheltered. Munch was unknowingly prying at her wounded parts, and Elliot shielded her, all the same.

It wasn’t until she saved him that she realized that she needed him as much as she appreciated him. That maybe a partner wasn’t a family, but it was something she wanted, relied upon, nonetheless.

It was a typical case, more run-of-the-mill than anything else, with a straightforward outcome. No twists and turns, no red herring suspects. The guy they first liked for it was the guy who did it, and they went to pick him up at Cragen’s orders. There shouldn’t have been any surprise, but like a rabbit caught in the snare, the suspect knew he was caught. He waited in the closet of his apartment as they searched for him and tried to clear it, springing on an unsuspecting Elliot after he pushed the bedroom door closed, slamming her partner’s head into the wall, and aiming a gun directly at his head.

She slammed into the room just as quickly, sneaking around the bastard while his attention was still focused on his quarry, disarmed the perp and locked him in a full-nelson hold until he sank to his knees, all while Elliot regained awareness on the floor – the knowledge of what could have been much, much worse steadily sinking into him.

Later, they sat side-by-side in the ambulance she had insisted upon despite his protests, watching the paramedic walk away after he’d bandaged the small cut at Elliot’s temple, the bruise still raising in deepening purples and reds on his skin.

“Liv, listen,” he started, and he was the senior detective, so she should have paid attention.

But she didn’t want it. She didn’t want thanks, not for that. He was the only person who had ever so genuinely cared for her before, outside the wavering attempts of her mother. A part of her that she couldn’t suppress was a little grateful for the chance to return the favor.

“Don’t,” she murmured softly, surprised a little at her own passivity, at how she was affected. She tried to follow the dizzying bluish blur of the siren lights.

“No, I gotta say this,” he told her, and she didn’t want it. Serena had never taught her that to care for something or someone was to fear the loss of it, too. Suddenly she had something to lose, and even as she felt strong for defending him, she’d never felt so vulnerable.

“Elliot.”

“Olivia. You did good. More than that. You saved my life.”

She shook her head, because it was impossible to tackle. She wondered about regular, normal people, whose jobs weren’t life-and-death. They never had these kinds of conversations. They could be coworkers, and friends – maybe even good ones – and never have to sift through the depth of emotion she was wading against.

But she couldn’t bring herself to say something dismissive, like just doing my job or it was nothing. She was too raw and reeling, and lying wasn’t an option. Words might have betrayed her. So, for the first time, and the only time since, she simply slipped her hand into his at their sides, invisible to the cops and paramedics still milling about around them.

They stayed like that, hands clasped and fingers intertwined, not speaking but holding the same space together, feeling the torrent of their connection create deeper grooves, unerasable canyons in their partnership. She knew then that the streams of who they were would never flow the same way again.

She had never felt so secure, so fated.

And so inappropriate, when she considered the wife and children he had waiting for him at home.

Sometimes she still feels the way his hand squeezed against hers, the sense of belonging that rushed through her at the sensation.

“What do you think?”

His voice interrupts her memories, and she struggles to reconcile the Elliot of old – who would briefly hold her hand, defend her and encourage her, rush to her side at the expense of a victim, but who kept secrets and held himself apart from her – with this terrifyingly open, at times both gentle and angry new one.

Who are you now? she wants to ask. How are you so sure about your choices?

“I don’t like him at all, but obviously I don’t like him for the rape, either.”

They’ll have to validate the alibi, but it’s unlikely he was bluffing given the size of the office – and the cameras tracking entrances and exits.

“Okay. Head back to the precinct? Catch up with Munch and Fin on the restaurant?”

“I want to check on Maddy,” she tells him, before she can temper the worry in her voice. The last thing she wants is an argument about how close this case might hit home for her.

To his credit, he remains quiet, breathing for a moment before he calls her out. She appreciates having a moment of crisp, cool air, as they wind through the traffic before he holds up her weakness to the slanting afternoon sunlight.

So much, so fast, Elliot.

“Okay. Yeah. I want to get her impression of Marshall. Precinct first? You want to check in on her at home, or ask her to come down to the station?”

His eyes are on the road, and she doesn’t know why he’s being this agreeable. She has always been able to read him through his eyes – they are pools of emotion that can be equally intoxicating and chilling, and while they sometimes terrify her, she knows him best through them.

“Her place? There’s no line-up yet, no reason to pull her back in. I don’t want to disrupt her any more than we need to.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. That’s fine,” he says, merging into a lane of traffic and briefly flicking his eyes up at hers.

And just as she so often feels – just as she felt when he sought her out while she watched her brother, feeling dread at the possibility that her brother was an emulation of their father, that the genes he’d passed on to her had already manifested as evil in her newly discovered sibling – she is compelled to tell him what’s in her heart, her mind. To tell him what is bothering her.

She’s always wanted to give more of herself to Elliot than anyone else.

“There’s something about this one, El.”

He nods, eyes never leaving the cars in front of them.

“Because she reminds you of your mom?”

She sucks in a breath, trying to acclimate to this new variation of Elliot like she’s adjusting to a new elevation. He’s never pushed her like this, even when she knew he suspected that a case carried vestiges of Serena, held hints of her father. She wishes she knew what it meant.

If he can reveal unseen parts of himself, she can do the same.

“A little,” she tells him, shaking the bangs from her eyes, and she wants to obscure the deeper truth, but she can’t. “I think she reminds me more of myself.”

He starts, slightly. If she didn’t know him so well, she would have missed it, but she sees the flexing of his muscles, the tightening of his fingers around the steering wheel, the minimal pressure he puts on the pedal as they speed up in time to the racing of her heart.

“Liv –”

“They all take a little piece of you, El.”

“Yeah, but –”

“She just… might take more than one.”

He sighs languidly, his exhaustion containing a drawn-out note to it that she’s heard before, as recently as the Simon debacle. Though they’re minutes away from the 1-6 now, she finds herself wishing that she could delay their arrival, that they could stay in the squad car, just the two of them, in their private sanctuary.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m a good cop,” she tells him, the old defensive hackles raising – there’s almost a comfort in the often-repeated reaction.

“You are. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to tell you – Christ, Liv. I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to do this every time.”

“Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

She almost welcomes the irritation as their voices pick up, as the cadence of their speech hastens. It’s like an old garment, this fight, and she’s relieved to find that it still fits.

“No. Not like this. I get that you can’t walk away from it. Hell, you tried, didn’t you?”

And that falls heavily between them. For as much as they’ve talked, they rarely talk about what matters, and their conversations about her ill-timed FBI-stint certainly didn’t address why she left, or how she felt while she was gone.

Or why she came back.

“Look,” he continues, and she turns her eyes towards the road in front of them, too. It’s easier like this. Eyes ahead. “All I’m trying to say is that she might remind you of both – you and your mom – but she doesn’t have to take anything from you.”

“Haven’t figured out how to manage that, yet, El.”

They turn right, sharply, and she feels the air shift as he leans a little closer to her. It would be so, so easy to reach out and grab his hand, tether herself to the world he lives in. So easy, and yet impossible in practice.

“Well, maybe if you talk to me, when you see yourself in a vic. See your mom. Maybe then you don’t give away parts of yourself. Maybe together we can figure out a way to keep them.”

The words make her want to cry, to crumple, and she will not let that evidence come to light. She can’t. She cannot let him see that.

“You moonlighting as a therapist now?”

“Think I’ll leave that to Huang. Just… I liked it, Liv. Last night.”

“Liked what?”

He waits, quiet for a few moments until they’ve reached the precinct parking garage, until he parks and shuts off the ignition, turning to give her his full attention. He lifts clear, surprisingly guileless blue eyes to hers as his hands continue to unnecessarily hold the steering wheel.

“Letting you in.”

Silence pervades the elevator ride upstairs, echoing her response from the squad car. That’s alright – he knows she needs time to process when their connection takes the fore. He can feel her beside him, standing so, so close. He could shift slightly and touch his shoulder to hers. She’s wearing that infuriating camel coat again, all beseeching curves and dark golden colors – the olive of her skin, the glint in her hair.

He knows he opened up too much, too quickly, on the heels of having abruptly altered the coldness and anger. But he was tired of the stalemate, and last night, talking to her felt like breathing again. She’s probably got whiplash at this point, but that pisses him off to a degree, too. Because she gave him some whiplash herself when she said it was too complicated but then I work here but then disappeared so quickly that his only farewell was a “not in service” message when he tried to call her phone number. One he used to know better than his own.

You did this to me first, technically, he wants to say. I’m not the only one who has had the gall to change things in our partnership. You spent months fucking me around every which way. At least I know the direction I want.

And he does.

Want.

The elevator doors open to the familiar bustle of the squad room, and he feels the tension ease away form her at his side. She’s comfortable here, and he gets it. Even if he does wish she’d want to seek out more for herself.

As long as that more entails him.

And, fuck, if these increasingly intrusive thoughts aren’t inconvenient.

He focuses. Tries.

“What’d you get from the restaurant?” he calls to Munch, who is loitering by the coffee pot, and tries to ignore the warmth in his belly at the relieved smile his partner shot at him.

“Well, not much, my friend, in the way of evidence. Though Tivoli’s ambience is spot-on. I’m going to have remember it for my next romantic encounter.”

“Yeah, cause a former crime scene is definitely the spot for you to sucker in your next ex-wife,” Fin says from his desk, not looking up from the file at hand.

Liv shucks her coat, and he does his best to keep his eyes focused on his gangly colleague instead of flashing to the soft, clinging sweater she’s revealed. She used to wear skin-tight turtlenecks, button-ups, tops of all sorts. And now she favors the looser, softer material that clings, clasps to her body like it’s flirting, rather than a sure thing. It’s more alluring, more maddening – worse, somehow. He feels like one of those cashmere sweaters, one that doesn’t grip her form all the way through, but that grazes the good parts and rests there, holding her.

Christ. He’s definitely in a bad way. He’s comparing himself to a goddamn shirt.

“Nothing at all?” the object of his musings – or the woman wearing the object of his musings – asks.

“Closing manager at the restaurant heard a scuffle outside, about twenty minutes before Maddy called it in,” Fin tells them. “Not in the alley where it happened – he heard something at the front door. Assumed it was a customer, even though they were just closing up, but when he went to check, nobody was out front.”

“So, this would have been around the time of her attack.” Elliot ponders, grateful for the case to take his mind off of Olivia Benson and her fucking sweaters.

“Exactly. We think the perps went to the restaurant first, up front, then maybe decided to head to the back, or knew that she was already leaving. But they definitely had it timed.”

“Anything on camera?” Liv asks, worry clouding her face and scrunching her brow.

“Cameras on the block are only owned by Tivoli’s. They’re usually active, and were still live. Someone scuffed ‘em up with black paint before the attack, so we got nothing.”

“The manager, bartender, and a couple of servers were still inside closing up. All say they had eyes on each other the whole time – from the disturbance outside to when Maddy called it in,” Munch adds, settling back with them, leaning against Olivia’s desk while she reclines in her chair and Fin scoots his back.

Elliot knows this squad is her family; it’s the closest thing she’s ever had to a home. He knows any balance he tips with them will tip the balance across all of them, Cragen included, and that’s all Olivia knows. Maybe the pushing is cruel. Maybe it’s not fair to ask of her.

Maybe it’s not fair to any of them.

“What about the law firm?” Cragen’s voice sounds behind them, reiterating the sanctity of their small circle. He does his best to dodge the guilt.

“Well, the attorney she usually works for is an overpaid prick, and he might need a lesson or two on sexual harassment in the workplace, but he’s not good for it,” he says, feeling more and more on solid ground as he clocks Olivia’s agreeing nod beside him.

“So, we got nothing?”

“Not exactly,” Liv says, velvety voice upping in tempo as she latches onto a theory. He lets it grip him and carry him along, too. He wants to solve the case. He wants to go where she goes. “Someone was scouting the restaurant. I don’t think Jenner and Lyle had involvement – I think someone was following Maddy, or tracking Tivoli’s. And she wasn’t working anything super high profile, case-wise, at the time of the attack. I think either it’s the restaurant…” she trails off, and he knows where she’s going.

He breathes in the thrill of that knowledge, picks up the thread.

“Or the roommate is involved somehow. She knew Maddy’s whereabouts, her schedule. Roommate, restaurant, or someone else – this wasn’t an accidental attack.”

He feels his partner breathe her approval at his side, sucks in a breath as she breaths out. This is why, he wants to tell her. This is why we should try, we should see if there’s more.

This doesn’t happen to everyone.

“Okay,” Cragen says, nodding at them both. “You two, talk to the vic again. Fin, Munch, let’s see if you can get anything on the roommate’s whereabouts, or any connection to Tivoli’s outside of Madelyn Reynolds.”

Liv snaps into action, adorning that damn coat once more, and they tread back towards the elevator bay as he calculates where he can snag them lunch on the way, or at the very least, a decent cup of coffee. They make their way to the parking garage in silence, and she buckles into the passenger seat without discussion.

She gives him the address wordlessly, the notepad from last night with more detail, positioned on the dash. And he drives, thinking that they are fucking this all up. Life feels harder, this case feels heavier, she feels goddamn softer, and the world still spins on around them.

She has a dark history, and dark hair, and dark eyes, and he just wants to lighten something.

They make it to Maddy’s Brooklyn neighborhood, and he comes to a decision. He pulls off, onto a tree-lined residential street that is foreign to her and recognizable to him, sliding into a spot between two cars, into a space marked with a clear time limit.

That’s just fine. He only needs a few minutes.

“Elliot – what –” she’s shaking her head and looking around nervously, moving her hand to her hip like he’s pulled over because there’s a threat, an unseen shift in the case.

There’s not, he wants to tell her. Nothing is wrong, I promise. The danger’s in your head. The danger is within us.  

Or maybe she’s right. Maybe there is so much to fear, so much to fucking lose, and he is the one willing to risk it and put it all on the block as a sacrificial offering. There’s no real guarantee that the risk begets the reward.

He doesn’t care.

He reaches across the car divider, shifting in his seat to face her, and grabs her shoulder with the hand nearest to her, stilling still her wary movement. He meets her eyes so that he can tell what she wants, if she wants him to stop. And he lifts his other hand to cup her jawline, her cheekbone, the roughened padding of his fingertips dotting the silky skin of her temple.

He can’t remember the words he might have spoken when he dared dream of a moment like this, and it turns out, he doesn’t want to use them, anyways. He knocks his forehead against hers, just for a moment, to give her the chance to say no.

Please, God, don’t say no.

And then he lets the whole world take on a different hue, closes his eyes against it, and presses his lips against hers.

Chapter Text

His lips slide over hers, soft and insistent, and their foreheads clumsily knock together when he leans over the console between them, pulling her closer towards him. They grab at each other – she’s not sure if she’s trying to yank him closer or shove him away, and it’s awkward even as it’s not. In this push-and-pull, something deep within her knows the moves he is going to make before he makes them. They have always shared unspoken communication in their physicality; movement is part of their partnership’s success.

That partnership is in question, but settled far on the back burner now, as her mind shimmers with possibility and her body vibrates with awareness. The fight in her flails, expires, and she tilts her head to allow him access, brings her fingers to cover his where they still cup her cheek.  

“Olivia,” he whispers, and usually her full name is uttered in frustration, exhaustion falling off the extended syllables, but not now. Now all she can hear is him savoring the fullness of who she is. She dimly hears the snick of the seat belt being released, feels his arms pulling the strap from around her – when the hell did he get out of his? – before his hands and mouth are back on her.

Her partner is kissing her. Elliot Stabler is kissing her. She thinks her synapses must stop firing, or maybe her heart has stopped beating, because her mind certainly isn’t functioning. She is not this woman, but she wants to still and rest in the expanse of his chest, to fall when he rises and rise when he falls and never stop. He shifts, and unspoken words sear across her mind – slow down – but then his mouth is gone, and she feels the drag of his teeth pulling at her earlobe, and Jesus. She yanks him back to her lips and ignores the bastard when he gives a light laugh.

She kisses him back before she can muster her bearings to pull back, before she fully comprehends what is happening. Their breath mingles in the quiet, and she feels his touch everywhere. Her mind rockets forward to what this will feel like when they explore more, when she has free reign over his body, and she shakes her head of the notion, disrupting the kiss. He follows her.

“El,” she sighs, but he’s relentless, and her murmurs are lost in the renewed onslaught of his lips, and she is at once more elated than she has ever been, and more terrified than she knew possible. “El, listen to me.”

“Stop talking,” he grumbles at her, and the growl jolts through her like a livewire. For a moment, she does. She locks her hands around the thickness of his neck while her feet scramble for purchase against the side of the car door, leveraging her way above the console to get as close to him as possible. His hands move to grip at her waist and slide up her back, and then they’re back on her face, holding her like she’s something precious.

His hands – Elliot’s hands – twist through her hair, pushing past her cheekbones and lightly weaving into the strands, pulling them loose from her ponytail, and he’s determined and firm, but she had no idea he could be this goddamned gentle. This nuzzling and fevered. Not with her.

She can’t – they can’t do this. She can’t do this. The panic invades like a downpour, raining through her mind and carrying all the possibilities of what could go wrong like thunder, clapping and booming, reminding her of how this could end.

How he will hate her when it does.

She can withstand most things – she already has withstood more than most – but not that. She wouldn’t survive if he walked out her life completely, if he left her to carry on by herself and remember the security and purpose of their partnership alone. She would wither on the vine if her partner’s loyalty disintegrated to hate.

“Elliot, please. Please. I want to, but I can’t,” she tells him between kisses, open-mouthed and desperate. She cannot reject him outright. She doesn’t have the fortitude to do so. It’s all she can do to gather the strength to beg him to stop.

She’s whispering protests but she’s kissing him back, and she’s not sure he hears her at all. He takes advantage of her mouth opening to speak, and she feels his tongue move against hers, probing and familiar, somehow. The heat rushes through her and suddenly she’s not sure who is the aggressor anymore. He tastes like precinct coffee and the spearmint gum he pilfers from her desk, and he smells like sweat and cedar. He feels like the few times her mother remembered to put presents under the tree on Christmas morning when she was a girl.

She didn’t know it could be so heightened. She feels like she’s underwater, dreamlike and intoxicated, and she doesn’t care that she cannot breathe, that the surface drifts further and further away. She sinks into him, mentally damning the console between them, because it will never be enough even as she knows it can’t happen at all. He deepens the kiss and screw it, she lets him, because she will need this – she will need this memory when he is gone. To remind her that once, in a steamed-up squad car pulled onto a quiet side street’s shoulder, Elliot Stabler kissed her like he fucking meant it.

She is whimpering and breathless but Jesus, so is he. He’s gasping into her mouth, his own sloppily tracing kisses in lines down the side of her throat and back again, and she thinks he might be smiling. As her hand trails down his face and pauses against his neck, resting under the hard line of his jaw, she can feel his pulse racing, the thrum tripping and quick beneath her fingers. He’s nervous, she realizes. Excited. He’s kissing her like it might be the last thing he ever does, and he’s nervous.

He is nervous and she is terrified.

Oh, God. What are they doing?

“Elliot, please,” she says, forcing away a choking sob, hating the words even as they drop from her lips. “Please stop.”

He pulls back, finally, lips swollen and eyes heavy-lidded, and she could so easily grow to love this expression on his face. It changes, though, once his eyes widen and light with recognition, when horror dawns over his features, and he frantically yanks his hands away from her as though her skin has burned him.

It’s only then that she realizes she is crying.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” his cursing is punctuated by three hits against the steering wheel, and she knows his knuckles will likely be as reddened and worn as his lips are. As hers must be, as well.

He turns his head, staring out the front windshield, and somehow it has only been moments since the whole world shifted around them. God. They’re parked in a squad car that may as well have been their second office on a sun-dappled street in Brooklyn. The sun still crisply shines, other cars that don’t contain years-long partners self-imploding still drive past them. Maddy Reynolds still waits for them, to help find the monster who shattered her security and invaded her body.

And they’re sitting, parked in a car, making out like a couple of hormone-driven teenagers, and she can’t stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks.

This might be it, she realizes. This might be all they ever get, and the end of their partnership after years of restraint, set into motion by one misguided, blissful, perfect kiss.

I’ve finally pushed him away. It should feel more like dying than it does. This is worse – this hollow feeling of loss that settles over her as she realizes she can continue to breathe even after she has clawed her own heart from her chest.

“Fuck,” he says again, and it’s softer this time, sadder but he turns his head back to her. And Elliot can be a pain in the ass. He can be condescending, arrogant, and willful, but she has always known there was a yielding, tender kindness rooted within him. Yet she’s never seen him look like this, the soft parts raised forward with devastation on his face, unchecked longing in his eyes. Desperate regret framed in the tense lines of his body.

“Olivia,” he sounds out her name, and she can feel the way his lips moved against hers as he releases the syllables slowly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Elliot, no. That’s not what this is.

“Don’t – I don’t –”

“I know you don’t. Didn’t. Jesus Christ. I shouldn’t have –”

Damnit. She’ll take a page out of his book. Fuck this. Whatever they’ve been doing to communicate or not communicate hasn’t been working for them – hasn’t in years, and she refuses to allow this to be a case of misunderstood motivations.

“No, El. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I never should have touched you. I never should have –” he barrels ahead, and she knows he’s not listening to a thing she says – he talks himself into and out of things with the same singularly directed mindfulness that he’d used when he kissed her.

“Elliot! For the love of God, shut up!”

He snaps his mouth closed and stares at her, wide-eyed. Well. That got his attention. She suspects the only reason it worked is because they may rail at each other, but she rarely yells at him unless they are mid-fight. Unless he has yelled first. She wishes she could bottle this power to force him to slow the hell down and listen to her for once.

“I want to. I – El, I can’t. We can’t. I know you’re going through a tough time, and the divorce has been hard on you, but –”

It’s his turn to interrupt.

“That’s not what this was.”

That stops her for a moment. Wasn’t it?  She wants to push back. Only last night he’d been describing the soul-sucking loneliness of life post-Kathy, of becoming a single father to his children, of navigating seeing his family on a set schedule of weekends on and off. How empty his apartment seemed, how lost he has felt.

“I know that you miss your family.”

“Liv, for God’s sake. Stop it. I – Jesus Christ, I just had my tongue down your throat. I can assure you I was not thinking of my kids or my ex-wife or the divorce. Or anything really, except how to get my hand up your shirt without you punching me or a uni deciding to nab us for indecent exposure.”

Her thoughts flutter like fireflies, appearing and disappearing too quickly for her to latch onto, lighting a path but not illuminating anywhere she can follow. She struggles to find the truth of what he is saying. Elliot Stabler does not want her. He cares for her, and he relies upon her, and intentionally or not, sometimes he uses her. That’s what this was, that’s all this is.

Right?

They stare at each other, and the openness of his face – the sheer emotion he allows to dance across it – reminds her of how he stared down at her as she squirmed on a filthy station floor, reminds her of how he used to look across their desks at her in the early years of their partnership.

She remembers asking Cragen for a new partner, she remembers boarding the flight to Oregon. That familiar feeling of knowing she’ll be adrift without him settles over her, even as she fights the almost overwhelming impulse to run. To open the car door and take off down the brownstone-lined street, maybe shed her identity in the process and becomes someone who doesn’t desperately need Elliot Stabler, someone who didn’t just let him kiss every coherent thought out of her head while they’re supposed to be on the goddamn job.

The job. Maddy.

“We have to go talk to Maddy, we need to ask her about the restaurant. We need to –”

“We need to talk about this,” he interjects as his softness gives way to a determined ferocity, and hell, if it isn’t annoying that he keeps interrupting her with things that are true.

“Look, things have been – tense. Different, between us. When I left. When I came back. And then last night,” she says, panting a little, grasping at everything, anything, trying to ignore the fact that she wants to be kissing him again. “I’m giving you an out.”

“Why – I don’t want an out. You want to hide, you want to run, I can’t stop you. But I didn’t kiss you because I miss my family, and I didn’t kiss you because I’m trying to fill a void. I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you.”

The words do nothing to calm the frantic pulsing of her heart, and the blood beats through her, sounding through her temples like a drum. She pushes back at the impending headache, trying to pull in deeper breaths, rubbing her hands down the sides of her thighs in an effort to self-soothe. She wills him to simmer and slow down, just a little bit, because she can’t keep up, she can’t catch her breath.

“Let me ask you this. Computer Crimes, Oregon. Why did you come back, Liv?”

“I missed New York, the squad.”

He growls in frustration, moves to put the car in gear, and she feels something inside of her break. Stop him, her heart whispers, and she hates it because it makes all the wrong choices, leaves her all the more broken, but the words come unbidden.

“I missed my partner.”

His hands still on the wheel, and he inclines his head towards her again, those glacial eyes measuring and flinty. She wants the warmth back. She wants him to let the emotion dance back in again.

“I missed you,” she reiterates.

They don’t talk like this, but they also don’t touch other, they don’t kiss, they sure as hell don’t grope each other in the squad car, so maybe all bets are off. No, they don’t talk like this, but they are now. They’re breaking all the rules. And maybe she should have told him more clearly what she felt when he screamed at her that he can’t be looking over his shoulder to make sure she’s okay.

Maybe she should have told him that she was certain if Gitano put a bullet in his head that day, that it would have exited out of hers. He would have killed her, too.

An ember sparks again in his eyes, and he leans over just a little, to lift her hand that’s nervously picking away invisible lint from her slacks. He slides his fingers around hers, and she recalls holding his hand years ago when they were new partners and she saved his life but she didn’t have the words, she remembers wanting to hold his hand after Gitano held guns and knives and unrelenting mirrors against them both.

“I missed you, too,” he says softly, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand in soft, comforting circles.

“But, El, this is –”

“This is more than missing my partner. This is not a reaction to my divorce. You don’t have to be ready, Liv. You can tell me you don’t want this at all, you can tell me to fuck off. I’ll still be your partner. But you don’t get to pretend that this is some misguided reaction. It’s not. It’s real.”

Those cobalt eyes are so, so close now, and she could lean forward and be kissing him again, back in that maelstrom of desire, that rush of release. But – without warning – Serena unkindly crosses her thoughts, the mix of cool reserve and heated passion that her addiction unleashed. Her mother used to respond to heightened emotion in a cyclone-like excision, and she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want it like this. She wants him steady and calm and sure, if she is going to take him at all.

She pulls her hand away.

 “I can’t do this. You’re my partner,” and again, she can’t reject him fully. Her emotions are too close to the surface, and it has been too many years of him being everything to her, and nothing she was allowed to claim. “I just need more time.”

He sighs at her side, and it’s the sound he makes when she falls prey to her own cliché and does exactly what he expects her to do.

“Time was something I thought we needed, too, until I thought you were dying. Until I tried to call you and the goddamn phone wasn’t connected, and there wasn’t even a forwarding number. Until you were gone.”

“You knew I was coming back!” she nearly whines, and for fuck’s sake, is that her voice?

Where has the tough, take-no-prisoners version of herself gone? Probably off traipsing around Oregon, smart enough to stay close to the ocean and the vineyards and far away from her unpredictable battering ram of a partner.

Maybe her answer isn’t fair, but he knows her, better than anyone. Shouldn’t he know?

“Did I!? How exactly? Did you even know you were coming back?”

Yes. She doesn’t even have to think about it. She knew it when she boarded the plane, knew it when she dodged him on the payphone, knew it when she awoke in the hospital with her defenses stripped and his name caught in her throat. She tells him the truth.

“Always, El.”

She thinks of Maddy, she thinks of his mouth on hers, and she knows they need to go. They can’t do this here, and she’d prefer to have this conversation under the cover of darkness, anyways. But she has to tell him one thing, in case they do what they always do and revert back to how they were moments ago, a day ago, pretend that this emotional combustion of a pitstop never happened in the first place.

“You all but told me to leave.”

“What?”

“The job, and me – it was all you had left. You said you couldn’t take it if we wrecked that. And we… we were going to. Wreck it.”

His eyes hold storms of a different nature, and it takes her a moment to register that he is angry.

“That is not – and you got what the hell, I should disappear to another unit or an undercover gig without a single word out of that?” he asks incredulously.

“I got that you needed some space so that we could get off the collision course we were heading towards out of that,” she sucks in a breath, steels herself and pulls from the reserves of her bravery to tell him the rest. To admit to the rest. All his talk about religion, and he has never once mentioned how much self-exposure it requires to confess.

“You yelled at me, Elliot. I thought I was dying, too, and then I wasn’t, and I was so relieved, but you – you weren’t. You were livid. You yelled at me.”

He looks at her like he did then, when he thought the cut was deep enough that he had to plead with his God to keep her with him. She would swear she can see tears building in his eyes, and she swings her head forward to stare down the street, where normal people carry on with their days around them, where their city moves forward despite the fact that they have violently torn off each other’s faceplates and armor in a way she never ventured to dare they would.

His voice lowers, and she strains to hear him.

“I should have said I was sorry. I was… I am. It wasn’t fair, and I wasn’t angry with you. I was terrified, Liv. It was the worst…” he trails off, shakes his head, and fists his hands, powerfully clenching and unclenching them. It looks like it hurts. “I made a choice. And a child died.”

Her refute is instantaneous, instinctive.

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“Wasn’t it? I had a duty to protect that little boy. A sworn oath. But I saw you fall. You were on the floor, and that bastard had slashed your neck. I saw what was coming – I didn’t think I could save you.”

Then why?

He continues talking, and he isn’t looking at her anymore. She almost feels likes he’s forgotten she’s there beside him.

“People bleed out from wounds like that. In minutes. In seconds. I thought you were gone. I knew I was supposed to save Ryan, and I looked at him, I thought about it. Planned on it. But you were dying, and I was certain it was going to be quick.”

She reaches back out to him at that, grazing her fingers over his tensed tattooed forearm to land on top of his hand, gripping his knuckles so that he cannot form and reform a fist anymore. They both turn their heads back towards each other, and it’s ridiculous really, that they are doing this in an idling squad car during a New York winter. It’s freezing outside.

It doesn’t matter. She’s warmer than she’s felt in ages.

He shudders, sighs.

“I didn’t want you to die alone.”

Oh.

Oh, Elliot.

This is madness, but his words reach deep inside her, their far-reaching tendrils pulling at places she’d long thought were stifled and boarded away. She kisses him now, running her hands up the hard planes of his shoulders, reveling a bit at the relieved sigh he expels when she presses her lips against his, as she nibbles slightly at his lower lip. She hides a small smile at his gasp, nodding when he goes impossibly still beside her.

Good, she thinks. Get out of your head, just a little bit.

“I’m not dying. I wasn’t dying. We’re still here,” she whispers against his mouth, refusing to let the tears fall against the roughness of his cheek. It’s too much, and she wonders – not for the first time – what life would be like if she’d been born to a mother who wanted her, who loved her fully. She wonders if she would be better at this. She wonders how much she would allow herself to have.

She memorizes the feel, the scratch of his emerging stubble against her face, his breath hot against her skin. How his eyes flutter closed in a boyish way that would probably embarrass him if he knew. The warmth of his lips suffuses her; her limbs feel heavy and her reactions slow. She glides her lips against his, diagonally, pulling away from at the same time.

Kisses can be goodbyes just as easily as they can be greetings; she knows this better than anybody.

“I need more time, El,” she says at last, leaning her cheek into his palm before she lifts away entirely, his other hand still twined with one of hers. “I think you do, too.”

And he may not want to acknowledge it, but he does. He bulldozed his way into this new variation of their partnership, throwing punches at her hesitations and her defensive counters, but she knows her partner. He doesn’t evaluate his own readiness once he’s chosen a course, and sometimes he finds himself halted, bleeding out on the path instead of standing strong at the finish line. She doesn’t want that for him. She doesn’t want to be collateral damage, or something he regrets.

“You need more time, but this thing, between us, is – we are –” he fumbles the words, and pieces of her heart crack and fragment when she registers how afraid he is.

But she doesn’t pull her punches. He’s the one who taught her not to.

“We both need more time to even begin to answer that.”

He looks resigned, a bit angry. Flushed, even as she sees his breaths materialize as puffs of air in the increasingly chilly car. But he stops pushing. The cold seeps into her bones now that his hands are off her.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. But you’re not gonna disappear, right? You’re not gonna run.”

Promises are terrifying things. She’s only known them as delicate vessels, filled to the brim with half-truths and the potential to shatter. But this one feels strong, and she is certain when she gives it to him.

“I’m not going anywhere. It’s like I said. I missed my partner.”

He nods once, twice. He takes his hand back from her, clenching a fist one last time, then flicks the keys to start the car again. The old heaters cough and sputter to action. She can empathize with them, she thinks – it’s been a forceful act of creation, coming back to life whether she was ready to or not.

And then he surprises her once more. He doesn’t raise his eyes back to hers, his impassive mask fully in place, but he reaches across her body – intentionally, maddeningly not touching her. He pulls the seat belt from her right shoulder, gently drawing it forward and releasing it slowly so it doesn’t snap sharply against her, then buckles it in place before leaning back and re-buckling his, too.

Her mouth runs dry while she blinks back the tears.

He clears his throat and pulls back into traffic, for the moment steering away from what they have set in motion.

“Let’s go talk to Maddy.”

Chapter Text

Elliot breathes deeply, quietly, trying to bring himself back to a recognizable rhythm. He should have known better than that. He’ll never forget what Olivia felt like beneath his hands, will never forget how she leaned into the kiss, how he told her about his fears – the sinking, nauseating remembrance when he thought she was dying, and he abandoned what made him a good man – and she responded by kissing him back.

Truthfully, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he was driving to their vic’s place alone; the fact that Liv still sits in the seat next to him has his head spinning. It could have been worse. She could have hit him, called him an asshole. She could have run.

She’s still here, he tells himself. Oregon can’t have her.

She’s quiet, eerily still, in her seat. He knows when she gets like this, when she retreats so far into the noise of her own head that he can’t even register her eyes soften with sights only she sees. When all he sees in her is the blankness. It scares him, sometimes, and he wants to grab her shoulders and shake her enough to bring her back. He’s felt that since the early years of their partnership, when those big sorrowful eyes would glaze over, and he’d do anything to distract her back into reality.

She’s promised not to run, but she meant physically.

He forgot to make her promise in more ways than one. He forgot to make her promise not to build her walls inside her head so that he can’t read the secrets in her gaze anymore.

Stay, Olivia. I’ll be open if you’ll be present.

But they’ve broken promises to each other before.

He pulls in front of their vic’s apartment building and tries to forget what happened the last time he put the squad car in park. Christ, if she leaves, he’s going to have to request a new car in addition to a new partner. He’ll never be able to explain that to Cragen.

He says nothing as she unclasps her seatbelt, but he remembers buckling her in, wanting to show her that he would protect her, in the ways that he could. And then she’s out of the car. In the momentary solitude, he lets himself gasp in a deep breath, one that he swears he could feel all the way down, oxygenating his blood and moving into his limbs. He follows her to the entrance.

Madelyn Reynolds lives in a small, cozy walk-up a few blocks from where he’d thrown a grenade in the field of their partnership, and he finds himself wishing that the apartment was a little further, that he had more time to regroup. The trek up the stairs, and he lets Olivia set the pace, trailing behind her so that they don’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow stairways. He can’t. He’s not ready for that.

God, what if she runs?

Liv raps on the door with three sharp knocks, and it makes him think of punching the steering wheel back in the squad car. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’d thought for a moment – Jesus, he didn’t think he’d truly forced himself on her. His partner has an almost lethal right hook; she can throw down with the best of them and she could have immobilized him, damn-near castrated him, if she’d wanted to. But… his heart had sputtered, a bitter, acid taste on his tongue, at the thought he’d essentially mauled her when she didn’t want anything like that from him.

And shit. He told her about the litany of thoughts that raced through his mind as he watched her fucking bounce off that station floor when Gitano sliced at her, stopping his heart and changing their dynamic in an unsuspecting swoop. He’d sworn to himself to take that to the grave, but then her words – you yelled at me – sunk into him, gripping his skin like the burs that used to latch to him as a boy digging past the sand and into the reeds off the shore, tearing into the sensitive areas. The parts where he hadn’t toughened the skin, where he had no defense.

And then she kissed him.

He can’t quite figure it out – how Olivia Benson can make him feel like he’s on fire, all while calming his darker impulses. How she can activate every single one of his protective instincts, while letting him heave a sigh of relief because he knows that she’ll protect him, too.

He doesn’t resent his wife and his children for their needs, their weaknesses. But he fucking loves his partner for her relentless offering, her strength.

She’s the first person in the entirety of his life who has ever made him feel like for a moment, for just a goddamn second, that he can lay down his arms. That someone else will take up the fight.

He does regret that he’s spent nearly ten years ignoring the fact that nobody does the same for her.

But then they were kissing, and she was silky, flexible, somehow undulating on top of him like there wasn’t a car console to hold them apart and he’s still not sure how she shot across it and back as quickly as she did. She tasted like precinct coffee and that spearmint gum he pretends not to like but sometimes swipes from her desk. She felt like possibility and disguised vulnerability and undiscovered sweetness.

Of course, she doused all that with her insistence that they wait, that they needed time. Sure, she’s right. He doesn’t care, for once. The reminder annoys the ever-loving shit out of him. She’s always goddamn right. But sometimes he’d just like her to be wrong.

He’d like her to be wrong with him.

Whatever happens, he knows he cannot live without her now. So, she can be complicated and twisted and a little dark, and he’ll help her sort through it, but she can’t shut him out. His coffee is shittier without her smirking at him above the rim of his cup. His desk makes less sense – the papers and files don’t draw together to create patterns and clues if she’s not hovering over his shoulder. His footsteps don’t echo with the same purpose without her by his side.

“Are you ready?” she asks softly next to him while they wait for Maddy to answer.

He’d like to ask her the same thing, but he knows the answer isn’t what he wants to hear, so he simply nods as the door swings open.

“Detective Benson – hello,” a dark-haired young woman says, standing in the doorway and clocking him with wary eyes.

Liv interjects before he can even open his mouth.

“Hi, Maddy. This is my partner, Detective Stabler. I mentioned him earlier to you, when we talked at the hospital?”

Her voice is lilting and lyrical, and he knows why it works even as it generally pisses him off that she doesn’t want to use it on him. But it’s effective, and Maddy’s posture loosens immediately, a kind smile spreading over her face as she looks at him again, all guardedness removed. His heart clenches – she’s young, and seems kind, seems innocent, and that always hurts him. Makes him want to scour the earth for the monsters who seek to destroy that and put an end to them.

But also – she looks like Olivia.

It’s almost uncanny. Her dark hair flirts with her shoulders and her jawline in a shorter bob that he’s pretty certain isn’t in style anymore, the locks thick and shiny. She looks like Olivia from their earliest years – even before then. She looks like the girl in the picture on his partner’s desk, hugging her mother despite the shards of a fractured past between them. She looks like the Liv who would give him easy, full, widespread smiles that took up her whole face and crinkled her nose. The Liv who would lean back in her desk chair and give him her saddest expression, who didn’t think to guard her vulnerabilities.

Goddamnit.

She’s not a new variation of Gitano, but if they don’t solve this case, this girl is going to gut him. She’s going to leave an indelible mark on his partner no matter what.

“Hi, Detective Stabler,” Maddy says, waving them into her apartment, and he feels himself softening even more. Her eyes are dark and round and a bit downtrodden, with glimmers of a willingness to fight.

Her eyes are like Liv’s, too.

He clears his throat, tries to move into statement-taking mode. He thinks of his children, the victims for whom they’ve found justice. Anyone but his partner.

“Nice to meet you, Maddy. I’m sorry for the circumstances. We just have a few more questions to clarify with you – we’ve been talking to some of the people you listed in your initial statement. Your ah – your roommate, is she here?” he asks.

“Hi,” she nods in greeting, eyes quickly shooting back to Olivia’s instead of his. “No, she’s still at work. You haven’t found the guys?”

That question is all too common, variations of it uttered in too many tremulous voices, with too many distantly hopeful expressions, and it breaks him down while reminding him why does the job in the first place each and every time. Besides that, the plurality of her reference is heartrending, here.

His partner saves him, once again.

“Not yet, Maddy. We’re still working on it.”

It’s an interesting, compelling thing about Liv – he hates to give the updates, like a doctor reluctantly conveying the fact that no news is good news, they’re still seeking a diagnosis – but Liv, she wades right in and lifts the cover, hands over the transparency. He’s never been sure if it’s because she wishes her mother was given that much consideration, or if it’s because she believes even if she’s given an interim update of not just yet, that she’ll solve it in the end.

For so long, it’s been enough for him to be a part of the two-pronged team that gets them to that outcome.

“Okay. You’re still looking, right?”

He’s willing to take over with that. Offense is his strong suit.

“We’re still looking. And we talked to your roommate, some of your friends down at Jenner and Lyle earlier. Is it okay if we ask you a couple more questions?” he asks.

Maddy nods, leading them from the tiny entry hallway into a small, albeit warm, living room. Throw pillows adorn the small couch while frameless posters of Matisse and Picasso reproductions highlight the walls, and it feels like a mix between the décor styles of an adult and a college student. It makes him think of Maureen, and he tries to shove the thought to the recesses of his mind.

They settle side-by-side on her unassuming cream loveseat, feet crossed over a sun-lightened rug and creaking hardwood floors. He tries not think about the fact that his thigh is now closer to Olivia’s than it was when he was kissing her, when he was hauling her over the goddamned squad car console to pull him closer to him.

She keeps her legs tight, tense, pressed together.

“Maddy, we did spend some time at your law firm, and we talked Devon,” she starts, as their victim settles into the battered, creased leather chair in front of them, hands clasped desperately on her knees.

“Okay. And you think – what did he say?”

“He reiterated that his relationship with you was strictly professional,” Liv continues, voice almost painfully gentle and patient. But he knows these tones. She’s building for the reveal, softening before she shares what’s going to hurt.

I need more time. I think you do, too.

“Well, that’s right,” Maddy tells them, pulling her cardigan more closely around her. She looks tired, a little ill, but the only bruising evident is a little bit of marking around her throat, and it makes him feel caged – angry and vaguely nauseous. He could have just as easily left those marks on Olivia for altogether different reasons.

He suspects Maddy has pulled her cardigan sleeves around her hands, has shackled her ankles with fuzzy socks despite the active heater in the apartment for a reason.

“He never – he was always a little forward, you know? But he didn’t do anything. I didn’t mean to imply that he did anything when he didn’t –”

“Hey, hey, Maddy – it’s alright. Take a breath for me. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? We have to investigate every possible avenue. And employers – they’re always a line of questioning,” Liv tells her, walking her through the path to alleviate her own guilt. “I need you to tell us everything, even if it doesn’t feel important. Because it might be. And we may question people, Maddy, but that doesn’t mean they’re suspects. That’s just part of our process.”

“Okay. Okay,” Maddy nods a little aggressively, and that reminds him of Kathy when she’s trying to talk herself out of being irritated with him. But she also holds her arm across her body, rubbing her right fingers up and down her left bicep, and the self-soothing motion reminds him of Liv.

Christ. He’s got to get out of his head with this one. They’ve come too close to the forbidden lines of each other when they’ve been this far in their heads before, but he’s already blown that to smithereens. He’s more afraid that they’ll come too close to the line of losing each other, of missing the signs of impending danger, if he can’t get himself together.

It makes more sense than he wants it to, lately – why partners can’t be involved. He’s fighting harder than ever to keep himself in the mindset.

“So, what now?” their victim asks, and he knows Liv feels it as much as he does.

It’s a heavy, unforgiving task, to uncover the truth one can’t bear to hear. To break someone’s heart.

“We don’t think the law firm, or any of your active cases, have anything to do with the attack,” Liv says a bit unwillingly.

“So, then, you think it was random?”

Of course, she doesn’t want it to be affiliated to the other areas of her life – the areas about which she actually cares. He steps in.

“We don’t think it was random. There was definite time monitoring of the restaurant, when you would be leaving, and even what you would be wearing – the uniform,” he tells her, tracking her stiffening posture with each word he utters.

“Can you tell us a bit more about how you and Tara met?”

“I already told you – it was just through a mutual acquaintance. She needed someone to move in – my friend Val, she thought it was a good idea for me to have a place of my own, but I needed the help with rent, and – maybe I should call Val? Maybe she could be here?”

Maddy’s voice continues to climb in cadence and volume – a little in pitch, as well.

“It’s okay, it’s alright, Maddy,” Liv says, and he thinks it’s not such a bad idea. They’ve cleared Val, for the most part. She’s got community ties, has known Maddy for years, they can’t identify a motive. The other young woman may be their vic’s only support system.

“You can call Val – and we’re not saying anything about Tara. About anyone, sweetheart. We’re looking at every thread that could lead us to the truth of what happened. It doesn’t mean that person was at fault if we’re asking questions.”

It's true, but he knows that Liv suspects the roommate nearly as much as he does. Or the “family friends” at the restaurant. Sometimes so much closeness is exactly that – too close. Maddy nods up and down again, eyes on the floor, until she settles just a little and looks up, locks on Liv.

“I understand. What do you need to know?”

Stronger than he initially took her for, this girl.

“What’s your relationship like with Tara?”

“We’re friends. Maybe not that close, but she’s a good roommate. And she let me decorate,” Maddy gestures around, and it warms him a little, to see how proud she is of her modest home. “We don’t really hang out, but I like her. Sometimes she invites me, if she has one of those sponsored corporate happy hours with work.”

“Has she ever asked you about your hours with the Jenner and Lyle, with Tivoli’s?” he asks.

“No, not with J&L,” she says, squinting her eyes a little as she internally debates. “Maybe the restaurant. I get a good discount, so sometimes she meets me there and we get Cacio Pepe for takeout,” she smiles, and his heart tugs. He’d swear it pulls in the direction of Olivia.

“And what about the restaurant?”

Liv picks up the thread of inquiry, gently moving Maddy away from the subject of Tara before she shuts down. It’s a move he taught her, and she’s better at it than he is now, and pride swells within him alongside the affection.

“Well, I have a set schedule there,” Maddy allows. “It can change when we make requests, but usually I work the same days of the week. Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.”

The same thought runs through his head as he knows passes in his partner’s. She was raped on a Tuesday. Someone knew her shift order.

“Who knew your schedule at the restaurant?”

“Pretty much everyone. My manager posts the schedule in back at the end of each week. Most of us work the same hours, so we really only check it if someone is going to be gone. And we can trade shifts, but we do have to get manager approval for that.”

Her manager’s name is Colin Abatello, and though he’s already alibied and not a person of interest, he’s likely currently being interviewed by Munch and Fin. He wonders what they’re hearing, even though it’s a little difficult to think of his coworkers, and what they might want to do to him if they realized what he just did to Olivia in their squad car. While on duty.

Focus.

“And anyone outside of the restaurant?”

That gives Maddy pause, the weight of potential recognition – potential betrayal – falling over her face.

“Tara. That’s – just Tara. Not even Val knows my day-to-day.”

“And does Tara have anyone around, anyone in and out of the apartment?”

Maddy’s face scrunches a little, and he ignores the recall it sends through him. Liv looks like that, when she’s toying with a theory she doesn’t particularly like.

“She has some friends she likes to go out with, on the weekends. They don’t spend much time here, though,” she gestures around her, “it’s pretty small. And she had a boyfriend – Justin something, I can’t remember his last name – but they’re off and on a lot. Last I heard, they’d broken up again.”

“Okay, we’ll check on that with Tara,” he says, making a note to ask Morales if they can pull anything from the roommate’s phone records, see if she had any contact with the restaurant staff outside of past carry out with Maddy.

“Thanks for this, Maddy,” Liv says soothingly. “You’ve been a big help. We’re going to keep looking, okay. Why don’t you call Val now?”

“What do I do while you look?”

Nothing, he wants to tell her. You stay here, bundle up and let somebody keep you safe. But he can’t tell her that, because there’s every likelihood that her friend and roommate is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who may have put her in danger in the first place, unfathomable though it may be.

“Why don’t you see if you can stay with Val for a little bit?” Liv suggests. “The change of scenery could be good. I promise Maddy – we’ll call you as soon as we know anything more.”

The young woman nods, standing with them as they all migrate back to the door.

“Do you want me to stay with you until after you’ve talked to her?” his partner asks.

“No, no, that’s okay. Thank you, Detective Benson,” he doesn’t miss the near hero-worship in their vic’s eyes, the tenderness in Olivia, and he suppresses a wince. It will hurt all the worse if this isn’t one of the good cases. The irony is that none of them are ever really good. It’s what he hates about the job sometimes – it starts after all the damage has been done.

Neither of them speak as they get back in the squad car, and he scours his mind for something to say to hear that has any meaning at all. He doesn’t know how to navigate this new land of both near and far, of closer yet more tentative than they’ve ever been with each other. She relieves him of the task.

“We have to get these guys, Elliot.”

“We will.”

He means it.

She feels like everyone knows that she kissed her partner like her life depended upon it the moment they arrive back at the precinct. The stares seem to land on them differently as they walk into the squad room, and she almost winces at how well-matched their strides are. It feels like an admission of guilt, now.

God. What would Cragen say? She does her best not to think of him as a father figure; she spent years in her youth trying to unlearn the somewhat innate behavior of painting paternal or romantic projections on every half-decent man she came across in a position of authority.

“Where the hell have you two been?” John asks, coming up behind her and startling her.

“What? Interviewing Maddy. We were just at her apartment,” she answers, and realizes she’s talking over Elliot.

“Interviewing the vic,” he says just as quickly, and maybe she’s simply paranoid, but she thinks he sounds nervous.

Munch narrows his eyes at them both, and god, between him and Fin, they see everything that happens in this squad. She schools her face, does her best to look normal.

My partner did not kiss me, bite my earlobe, and buckle me back into my goddamn seat. He didn’t.

“Hmm. Well, you missed a whole lot of nothing here today. We called a few of the surrounding businesses, spent some time at the restaurant. Talked to the manager, the bartender.”

“The hostess,” Fin adds, joining their group – they’re all hovering around their desks, a mix of seating and standing, falling into the sharing of theories like their own common language and she tries to hold onto the normalcy. This is good, this is what she needs. Elliot aside, she cannot lose the only family she’s ever known.

“Our Mr. Abatello keeps a pretty standard schedule, only edits for vacation and special requests. Most of the place is family, anyways, so sounds like it’s pretty to manage. All offline, he’s a paper-based guy. I like him,” Munch tells them, smirking at Fin’s answering snort.

“Of course, you do. You think the computers are gonna rise up and kill us.”

“They may yet.”

 Elliot cuts through the banter, but he rolls his eyes at her and she feels a dash of warmth run through her at the acknowledgment, at the recognition that it’s still just the two of them.

“What about the bartender, the other servers?” he asks.

“Bartender is a David Abatello; he’s Colin’s nephew. Seems like he’s got soft spot for Maddy, but they don’t see each other outside of work. Says she’s shy, but a nice girl. Good worker. Everyone said that, actually. She didn’t seem to have an enemy in the lot.”

“I don’t think I like any of the restaurant crew for it. Not anyone we’ve spoken to yet, anyway,” Fin tells them as John murmurs his assent.

“We talked to Maddy about Tara, the roommate. They’re new roommates, newer friends, don’t know each other that well. I got a strange feeling from Tara last night though, and she didn’t mention a boyfriend. But Maddy said she has one, on and off. Justin. I think there might be something there.”

Elliot backs her instinct, and that warm feeling spreads. They settle into work, finishing some of the paperwork and reviewing the documentation the hospital has now sent across, and she can feel the air settle around her as the case takes over, as the familiarity lulls them.

The hours pass, as they always do when the squad settles into a rhythm, and before she knows it, the waning sunlight casts elongated shadows of their forms and their desks on the squad room floor behind them. Elliot looks swarthier in the late afternoon sun, as early evening descends. His jaw is always a little more shadowed, his movements a bit sharper as hunger starts to gnaw an edge – particularly if they’ve fallen down on their shared responsibility of feeding each other – and his eyes look darker, deeper in hue.

He looks good, and she’s surprised at the stirrings of longing within her. Now that they’ve opened that door, she wonders how difficult it will be to close again. She wonders if she wants to at all.

She asked for time, but she can’t imagine him… leaving. Maybe she doesn’t want change; she’s self-aware enough to know it’s what scares her the most – but she doesn’t want to lose him, either. She can’t.

“Where are we on the Reynolds case?” Cragen asks, emerging from his office and bringing her back to focus and away from inappropriate thoughts about her partner. Her partner who she never used to fantasize about when she was supposed to be working. Damnit.

“Most of the restaurant alibied out, and we don’t believe the law firm had anything to do with it. We talked to Maddy Reynolds again today, and while she didn’t remember anything new, she did reveal that there’s less of a firm relationship between her and the roommate than we thought. She seemed a little spooked, and Tara Moreno acted a little too forced when we spoke to her last night. Apparently, there’s also a boyfriend in the mix – Tara’s – and we’re exploring whether or not he had any involvement,” she tells her boss, hating how much of this is conjecture rather than fact.

“So entirely speculation, at this point.”

She hates it, but he isn’t wrong.

“We’re going to talk to the roommate again, surprise her. I think we have to get her to share more on the boyfriend, maybe pit them against each other, but we don’t have any leverage,” Elliot responds.

“That’s not quite true. Turns out we got a partial from the pipe the perps restrained the victim against,” a new voice enters the conversation, and she turns to see O’Halloran walking towards their convergence, opting to stand next to her, leaning against the desk she’s sitting on. Elliot’s desk.

“Any matches?” she asks, relieved that there may be some physical evidence to direct their hypothesizing.

“None yet, and I don’t expect to get one on a partial print, but we can use it if you guys have a suspect.”

“We don’t,” Cragen says. “We have a theory.”

“A theory that we’re probably right about,” Munch pipes in, leaning back in his chair and rolling it away from his desk, eyeing the group at large. “And sounds like there’s a weak link in the conspiracy, if we are.”

“I’d prefer to have a match,” Fin grumbles, and despite her distracted mood, Olivia can help but suppress a grin. He’s grumpy, but he’s straight to the point, and he’s always reliable.

“Well, there was no other physical evidence at the scene – obviously, it’s a dirty, New York alley,” O’Halloran says with a soft smile at her, and she watches as Elliot’s eyes narrow. “But this was weird – the piping was wiped clean. This was the only print on it. At all.”

“They weren’t wearing gloves?”

“Evidently not. And they cleaned up after themselves.”

“God,” she murmurs, “while she was still tied up with them.”

It never fails to astonish her – the cruelty humans can inflict on each other for nothing at all.

“Yeah, but she was focused on them tying her down, I guess – I didn’t see anything about this in her statement.”

“There wasn’t,” she answers – and it makes sense, she was the one to take Maddy’s statement, she knows her best, but it occurs to her that she and Ryan are the only ones talking, volleying information back and forth. And Elliot looks… irritated. Or rather, he looks irritated at the situation. When he stares directly at her, he looks downright angry.

Ryan is younger than she is, and there’s no real chemistry there, but she can objectively acknowledge that he’s attractive. Besides that, he’s told her he admires her, when a group of them grabbed drinks after work once, and the alcohol loosened his tongue. She remembers smiling wide, unforced at him, because she’s seen mean drunks, but he was nice when under the influence. Complimentary and genuine. She knows he likes her – he likes anyone who is competent, who takes their time, who cares. It’s the code by which he works, it’s what makes him good at his job.

But Elliot has always been territorial where she’s concerned, especially around objectively attractive men, and it honestly should have occurred to her before now that their squad car rendezvous would likely only amplify that behavior.

“Well, they missed something, and we can at least use it to link them to the rape, if you bring anyone in. Maybe get one of them to flip on the other.”

“It’s something,” Cragen says decisively, if a bit unimpressed, and moves to go back to his office. He pauses to turn towards her, tilts a hand at Elliot. “You two – talk to the roommate again first thing tomorrow. Tell her we have evidence – we have a print. If you’re right, and she sells out the boyfriend, bring him in.”

“How come Benson and Stabler get to pick ‘em up?”

“To the victors go the spoils, my friend,” Munch tells his partner, standing with his empty coffee mug and strolling away from their desks.

“What the hell did they win?”

“If you have to ask, you haven’t been paying attention. They’re Dad’s favorites,” Munch’s musings drone on in her ear, their bickering tapering as he and Fin move farther away, and she nods to Ryan as he utters a quiet goodbye and heads back to the lab. She turns to catch Elliot’s eye.

But her partner is already packing up his things for the night, shifting off paperwork that’s likely past due to the corner off his desk and grabbing his coat from his chair, his movements halting and jerky.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. We’ll talk to Tara in the morning. I gotta get out of here.”

“Elliot, wait,” she starts, but he draws back, putting space between them, and the action feels achingly familiar. It could be yesterday again, him snarling at her in the car rather than trying to kiss her tears away. It could be a month ago, a year ago.

She’s so tired.

“I just – I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I need to get out of here, Liv.”

She lets him go.

And she wonders if it will ever stop hurting – the sight of him pulling away from her.

He finds himself loitering on his old front porch, unable to collect his own thoughts, knocking on the door that used to be his. He knows Ryan O’Halloran is a good tech, a stand-up guy. He knows he respects both him and Liv, and he wasn’t fucking flirting with his partner even if he did sit closer to her than he needed to, grinned at her more than was warranted. He knows he’s acting irrationally, that he was an asshole to Liv when he left, that being here could be a monumentally bad idea.

It doesn’t matter; he can’t quell the noise inside of him. He’s pissed off. Again. He wants to make something – anything – from this mess of a day better. He wants to do something right.

The door swings open a few seconds later, revealing the surprised, hesitant face of his ex-wife.

“Elliot. What are you doing here?”

Hell, if he knows. He’s just running in all directions today. Lately. The last decade of his life.

“Christ. I’m sorry, Kathy. I should have called.”

“It’s – well, let’s not make it a habit. Call first. But it’s fine. Bad case? Did you need to see the kids?” she opens the door, lets him inside, and they both instinctively lower their voices. It’s not that late, but it’s a school night, and his children are all in their respective rooms. He doesn’t want them surprised – or confused – by his presence.

“I wanted to talk to… you, actually.”

“Oh.”

They wordlessly walk into the kitchen, a path he knows with his eyes closed, and he breathes in the familiar scents. He doesn’t know what he thought he could gain by coming here. He’s just… lost.

“You want a cup of coffee?” Kathy asks.

“Decaf?”

“At this hour? Yes,” she gives him a wry smile, and turns on the timer on the coffee maker. He suspects it’s a ploy to have something to do with her hands as she measures out the grounds and grabs two mugs, but he gets it. He takes a seat and rubs his own hands nervously against the fabric of his jeans.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“I’m sorry, Kathy,” he says quietly.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, but he can see her furrow her brow as she grabs the sweetener for her cup.

“We’ve already had this conversation, haven’t we?”

“Not for – well obviously I’m sorry about the way things have turned out. But… I don’t know if I ever apologized for the reason behind it. I’m sorry I stopped talking to you. Sharing… things with you.”

She brings the two cups over to the kitchen table, sitting across from them, and he realizes they’ve both assumed the seats they take when the kids are present, too, when they have dinner as a family.

“I always knew that some of that was your way of trying to protect me. It’s just – after so many years, I think we forgot how to talk to each other at all,” she tells him, not unkindly.

“And that was my fault.”

“No,” she says, setting her coffee down and watching the steam billow before she looks back up at him. “No, it wasn’t. It was both of us. And I am sorry that I haven’t acknowledged that.”

It’s the sincerest, most direct conversation than they’ve had in months, he thinks. Longer than that. He rubs a hand down his face, hard enough that it almost hurts, and lets the remorse fall around them both.

She moves chairs, bringing her mug, and sits next to him, placing a soft hand on his arm. The muscle memory compels him to give her a perfunctory kiss, and he ignores it, focuses on what he feels now. Fond regret, he thinks. A desire to hold onto the memories, if not the woman he made them with. He wishes he could give her a hug. He wonders if they’ll ever be in a place where he can.

“Thank you, Elliot.”

He nods at her, blinks back the tears that he’ll deny if she calls him on it and takes a sip of his coffee.

“You think the kids are okay?” he asks her.

“Of course, they are. It’s better this than listening to us fight, than knowing we were unhappy and staying together for appearances. For them. You know that, right?”

“I do. I just… sometimes I feel like I stole your twenties. Your thirties.”

She looks taken aback, and sadder, gentler than he’s seen her for most of this whole separation process. Like the ice has somehow melted, the petty hurts have withered to something that no longer snarls and snipes. That doesn’t look back in anger.

“Elliot. We both did this together. You gave me – we made a beautiful life. Four beautiful children. Twenty years – it’s nothing to scoff at, you know?”

He nods, mutely. The guilt still reigns, the burden of his choices still weighs heavily. But she bolsters through his disbelieving look.

“I don’t regret any of it, and I never will. Ending our marriage, it didn’t end us. We’re still parents. I still remember the times we were so happy, even when it was hard. You didn’t steal my twenties, my thirties. But we’re different people now, and I’m not going to steal the rest of your forties, your fifties.”

That feeling sneaks upon him again, that one that whispers that this world is new, that this world hold opportunity, that the things he may have wanted all along no longer make him a horrible person, a reprehensible husband. It’s not that he ever felt trapped before. But he can’t help but feeling so very free now.

“Is this about Olivia?”

His brain and heart stutter in unison.

“What?” he can’t quite manage to deflect.

Kathy smirks a little, repositioning her hands around her coffee mug, the lopsided one that Kathleen made during her fifth-grade pottery phase.

“I talked to her, you know. Asked her to talk to you.”

What?

“When? Why?” he asks, and shit, if anything could set Liv off and running again, it’s a one-on-one conversation with his ex-wife.

“Just after she came back,” she says, and he wonders how much Kathy knows about how off-kilter and angry he was while his partner was gone. Probably more than he’s assumed. “She didn’t tell you?”

He shakes his head, mentally calculating that it’s been weeks since she’s been back, since she and Kathy talked. Wondering what it means that neither one of them ever said a goddamn word to him about it until now.

“Hmm. I asked her to convince you to sign the papers. Told her that you needed to feel secure before you’d do it, and that she could do that for you. I told her she gave you stability.”

Christ. He’s not sure if he’s annoyed with them both at this revelation – and manipulation – or if he should just acknowledge the steadily emerging truth that he doesn’t deserve either one of them.

“She didn’t encourage me one way or the other,” he answers, still a little awed that the two women in his life were trying to look out for him even as they were both pissed off and trying to leave him, too. “She said it was a step in the right direction, once I finally did.”

Kathy nods at that, and leans back in her seat, clear blue eyes scanning the kitchen they’ve spent so many nights corralling their children in, eyeing the sink that’s broken more times than it’s not, the years of evolving artwork pinned to the refrigerator.

“That was probably a better tactic. She’s always known you so well.”

He meets her eyes then, and he expects shadowed disdain, but they are guileless, knowing.

“This is about Olivia,” he admits.

It’s a relief, terrifying though it may be, to have it out in the open. He immediately feels the need to caveat, to defend, to preserve the tenuous truce he and Kathy have just impossibly reached.

“We never – this wasn’t –”

“I know,” she stops him, raising a hand to stop his flow of words. “I know you didn’t. I knew neither one of you ever would. Sometimes, though, even if you know the act will never occur, it’s just as painful knowing the want exists. Maybe even a little worse – you can’t even be angry. How can you be mad at someone for just… wanting something? None of us have control over that.”

Maybe she’s right, maybe they don’t. But he sure as hell tried.

“I loved you, Kathy,” he insists. He needs her to know that. It’s the truth. He loves her still.

“I know that, too. It’s why I’m letting you sit here, in what used to be our kitchen, whine to me about your crush on another woman.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t have a crush.”

But she just smiles, and it’s one of her sweet ones, like the one she gave him the first time he asked her out on a date, and the bittersweetness of it all swamps him for a moment. He’s seen her so stressed and frustrated and pent-up lately that he’d forgotten how lovely she looks when she’s being kind.

“Figure it out slowly, Elliot. You and I, we had to race to adulthood – and like I said, I don’t regret any of that. But not all of life is a race. And Olivia… well, I can’t claim to know her that well, and maybe that’s by design,” she pauses, and he thinks about that. He never did it knowingly, but he’s sure he subconsciously kept them apart over the years.

“But Olivia seems to me the kind of woman who has looked out for herself for a very long time,” she continues. “And sometimes people like that need tenderness the most.”

That thought settles over them, and they still in the quiet, remembering the feeling of home. Thinking about what Olivia Benson may or may not need.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, startling them both. He grabs it as he pulls away from the table – scarred with pencil pokes from homework sessions and careless forks and knives from so many family dinners – and he lets the sense of a home that’s no longer his wash over him, feels a bit more peace than he thought possible when he sees the name that flashes on the screen.

“Kath, I gotta take this – actually, I should probably –”

“Go, Elliot. It’s okay. It was good to see you, actually,” his ex-wife says, and he’s surprised to realize there’s no familiar tone of disappointment-laced sarcasm. They share a long look, and he thinks back to that first date, when he picked her up at her parent’s house, took her for burgers and Cokes while she told him about her favorite classes and cheerleading and the kind of music she liked best. He remembers how they planned to get married after college, that she’d be a doctor and maybe he would revisit his childhood dream to be an architect and they’d travel the world together. He sees her so clearly, waving to him from the shore of what could have been, what once was. He sees that girl in his daughters, he sees her before him now.

He gives her one last smile, and he lets her go.

The hope still threads his voice when he steps out on the back porch and answers the phone, ambling towards his car.

“Liv, hey.”

“Hi. Listen, I was thinking about Maddy –”

Of course, she was.

“You still at the precinct?” he interrupts before she follows the spark of an idea down too much detail for him to interject.

“No, that’s why I’m calling. I wanted to talk through some theories, plan out our approach for Tara and the boyfriend. I ordered some takeout – you hungry? I’m just around the corner.”

Shit.

“Yeah, I’m hungry. And yeah – I want to, but listen, hang on a sec. You already pick it up? I’m not home now. Yet.”

Shit. He hears her wariness in her silence, she doesn’t even have to speak for him to know that she’s gone tense as bowstring, poised to take flight. Don’t, Olivia.

“Where are you?”

He doesn’t want to answer her. She’ll read into it, and it’s not what she thinks, and… damnit. Please don’t, Olivia.

But she knows him better than anyone, and she’ll know if he dodges. She’ll know if he lies.

“I’m in Queens.”

“Oh,” she sighs, and the sound holds multitudes. Here it comes. “You know what, never mind. I’ll just see you at the precinct tomorrow.”

“Liv –”

“It’s fine. I need to get some rest, and I can always use the leftovers –”

“Liv –”

“It’s fine, and I told you we need space. I don’t want to –”

“Liv!” he’s in his car now, and he gives himself leave to yell. She quiets, and he listens to her breathing on the other side of the line.

“Yeah?” he hates the sound of her voice when it’s small. It makes him want to punch a locker, a perp. It used to make him desperate for things he couldn’t have. But he thinks maybe he can touch her, now. Figure it out slowly, Elliot, Kathy’s voice sounds in his head. Can’t take it slow if they’re not seeing each other at all, he reasons, and he lays it on thick.

“I haven’t eaten. I’m hungry. Starving, actually. I have even less food in my apartment than you typically do. If you don’t bring that takeout over –”

“Okay, okay,” she sounds like she does when she wants to be annoyed with him, but she’s really not. It makes him smile, and he’s willing to bet she’s reluctantly smiling, too.

“Why were you –” she starts to ask, then her voice falters. “You know what, we’ll talk about it when I get there. I still have to pick up the food. I’ll have them add some extra egg rolls. I’ll just… meet you there. Text me when you’re home?”

Home. It’s the first time he’s thought of his crappy apartment that way. The first time he hasn’t been infuriated by it.

“Yeah. I’ll text you when I’m home.”

Thirty minutes later, he’s already shot her a text, and he’s frantically tidying up, trying to make it look like a regressed bachelor doesn’t live in the place. Her own place may be a bit similar, but still – he doesn’t want her to judge him and give up entirely. He’s just about finished when he hears a knock on the door.

He swings it open, and his smile falls from his face when he sees the expression on hers. She looks grim, determined. Anxious. Maybe even a little scared.

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately, concern flooding him.

“Do you know what you want?”

“Yeah. Egg rolls,” he tries to joke, restore the dynamic.

She ignores that, nervous energy pouring off her, and he tries to figure out what changed between now and their phone call.

“Elliot.”

Tension ratchets through him. He can take it slow, but he can’t take the back and forth.

“I thought you wanted to talk about Maddy. You come here to ask me that instead?” he responds, attempting to keep the frustration from seeping too harshly into his voice. She’s trying, he knows this. She’s here. She brought him dinner. She keeps giving him more than he thought she had in her.

“Do you know what you want?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Do you?”

She didn’t reject him before, but she put him on ice. He can’t handle it if he puts himself out there and she does that again.

“Just about never, El. But I want this.”

“I thought you said you needed more time.”

She glares at him, ignores him again. Blindsides him.

“Promise me you won’t hate me,” she says balefully.

“This is the strangest seduction I’ve ever –”

“Promise me, Elliot.”

“I promise,” he breathes, hesitantly pulling her through the doorframe. She’s shaking, nearly vibrating, like the repercussions of what they’ve yet to do are reverberating through her.

He slips the plastic takeout bag from her fingers – that he hopes they won’t open until it’s long gone cold – and sets it on the little bench inside his apartment, the one usually cluttered with his workout gear and spare pairs of shoes that he’d shoved into the hall closet before she arrived. She lets him move her, closing the door behind her with her foot, bringing her hands up to grip his arms, meeting his eyes.

“I promise,” he tells her again.

She doesn’t even stop to kiss him – she pushes through his shitty, barebones apartment to his bedroom, pulling him by the sweatshirt behind her. She doesn’t need to; he’s already moving in-sync with her.

Careful here, his brain reminds him, even as he feels his heart thrumming the sound of finally inside him.

He listens to the latter.

Chapter Text

She is shaking.

She’s here. She came here willingly, and she is in his room – the takeout bag is gone somehow and they’re in his bedroom and she led them there but honestly, she merely guessed at where it was located in his new apartment. She stares at his bed, rocking back and forth on her heels a little, and she can feel him lurking, hesitating at her back. The bed is made. It’s made – the bed, where – oh God. It’s not made well, but the sheets are at least folded, and the comforter smoothed, and she wonders about how he behaves in the mornings. If he’s developed a routine on his own yet, or if he waits for Kathy to do the things she used to for him, floundering when his ex-wife is absent, if he wishes she were here, and oh God – this is wrong, she can’t do this –

She turns, intent on getting the hell out of here, and collides hard against his chest with a resounding thwack.

“Jesus!” he exclaims, and she wants to tell him to stop with all the religion expressions. Just once, she wants to stare him dead in the face when he yells Jesus Christ about something that has pissed him off or shocked him and tell him he’s not here.

I don’t know him.

But while Elliot’s words hold nothing that resonates within her, his hands are on her, warm and gripping – and for a second, she’s back in that squad car, desperate to get closer, to never let him go.

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs soothingly, the way he never did when she was falling apart in the precinct, when a perp pushed too far, at the hands of Gitano. And she hates it, she hates that she likes it, she hates that she wants more of it. The sound of her self-imposed mantra in the car echoes around her. I am not this woman, I am not this woman, I am not this woman, but of course he keeps talking and he’s somehow louder than her thoughts. “Hang on a second. It’s okay. It’s – we don’t have to do this, Liv. We don’t have to – I just want –”

Well, fuck. He’s rambling, and he’s nervous, and he’s not any better off than she is.

She can’t – the words escape her. Fail her. She lifts her face to his and kisses him instead. She opens her mouth and pulls a little at his jaw so that he does, with her. Ignoring the fact that he was married, that it would have been entirely inappropriate, maybe it’s too bad that she didn’t know she could do this years ago, because nothing else has ever been this effective at shutting him up. It might be better than the squad car – his mouth is hot and eager against hers. He walks her back into the room and his hands are everywhere, and before she knows what’s happening the world spins on its axis and she’s staring at a ceiling instead of his chest.

“What –”

But then he’s back – he’s above her with a hungry expression and straining arms. She’s lying on the bed with Elliot Stabler – and shit, he is actively unbuttoning her blouse and he is fast. It’s deliciously disorienting, and she thinks only about the sensations for a moment, about how tactile he is.

His hands are roughened, and she’s seen the actions that caused that. She feels it as his hands stroke up her torso, below the underwire of her bra, dancing across her ribs. She feels him punching lockers and hauling perps against squad cars and slamming his desk drawer closed. She feels him gripping the nape of her neck and buckling her into her seat and kissing her senseless.

Her hands drop to his waist. He is taut there but thicker – wider and more solid than she’d expected. He’s never been a slight man, and she registers that her earlier thoughts about her partner the battering ram were more accurate than she’d realized. It’s comforting, in a way, she thinks as she unbuttons his pants, more slowly than he attacked her shirt. He’s firm and unerringly present, and there is comfort in that. She slides his pants over his hips, watching his eyes as he braces himself above her to allow her the space.

Don’t resent me for this, Elliot. I couldn’t take it.

His eyes stay on her, sandbar blue and crystal clear. Before, in the car, they’d darkened to a cobalt, but they don’t now. Now, they remain lighter and earnest, and it’s almost too much to bear. She sucks in a breath, and struggles with it, letting it catch as she realizes there’s a soft sob snared in her throat. She swallows, blinks through the surfacing tears, and suppresses it. Nothing about this is sad – she doesn’t want him to think that’s what she’s feeling. But it’s so very much, and she can’t catch up with her own breaths, her own thoughts.

“You’re gorgeous, Olivia. You’re fucking beautiful,” and he sounds so, so honest.

“You don’t have to –”

“Don’t argue with me. Just for tonight. Let’s not fight,” he says, pulling her up a little so he can snake a hand behind her back and unfasten the clasp of her bra.

“Not arguing,” she mumbles and huffs out a laugh when she hears him grumble back that’s exactly what you’re doing. He keeps her lifted, just a little, as he pulls her bra away, and she’s so wrapped up in his murmurings that it takes her a moment before she realizes that his directive has changed.

“Take your hair down,” he pulls a little, where it’s gathered at the back of her head, but doesn’t do it himself. He brushes her bangs out of her face and kisses her, then asks her again. “Please? Take your hair down.”

She acquiesces, and she knows she’ll never forget it, no matter how long she lives. She’ll never forget the feeling of his eyes on her when she arches her back, upper half nude and exposed, when she pulls her hair out of her ponytail so that it falls around her shoulders.

“You’re perfect,” he murmurs against her skin, and it’s the best, sweetest lie she’s ever heard.

“I’m not,” she gasps as his hands move to the button of her pants, mimicking her earlier movements.

“Stop. Arguing.”

But he’s smiling, and she is, too. His hand pushes back through her hair, twirling through it and pulling just hard enough. Shorter hair may have been convenient, but she absentmindedly reflects that she may never cut it again. He pulls her jaw forward so that he can run his tongue against it, so that he’s in control.

Two can play that game.

She arches against him, still feeling one of his hands against her scalp, cupping the back of her head, but his other moves down her body, until the next thing she knows he’s focused on an entirely separate area. His other hand presses against her center, the determined heel of his hand working where wetness already gathers, where she’s already waiting. She rocks back against it a few times, and his smile widens.

She shifts then, kicking her pants off and she feels so much more… uncovered than she has with anyone else. She has stripped off slinky black dresses in one aware motion, she’s allowed silky robes to fall from her body when walking into a room with a waiting admirer, she’s risen from the bath without a thought to the fact that there wasn’t a stitch of clothing on her body. But this is Elliot. This is her partner, and this means more.

He means everything.

She usually likes to be in control, with her partners. She likes the look of awe that swings over their faces when she strokes, when she grips, firm and sure. When she presses her lips and bares her teeth where muscles ripple. But she’s never let herself fully succumb, never let herself go to this degree, and she forgets where her hands are meant to be. She forgets their pursuit when his slip up her bare thigh, the dip of her hip, her ribcage, her breast. She tracks his hands and bucks a little, pulling one leg up so that it follows the line of his leg, so that she can feel his breath hot and swift against her neck. She shifts her hips up, again – harder this time.

“Jesus, Liv,” and she can’t prevent the words spilling; she lets herself say it.

“He’s not here.”

He grunts out a laugh, but he’s breathing hard, and she loves it, adores that she’s made him feel like this – that she had the power to do so. She bucks again and locks her leg around his hip, so they’re adjoined, they’re aligned.

“Let me be gentle. Let me –”

“No. Next time,” she tells him, biting at his shoulder and canting her hips up until he agrees, until she feels him nudging against her entrance.

“Olivia,” he sounds so uncertain, so lost, and she wants to tell him it’s alright now. That she’s figured it out. That he’s not lost, because she has found them. But she’s suddenly breathing as harshly as he is, and she’s so tired of talking. She reaches down to grip the length of him, to slide her fingers up him and towards her, and it’s enough. More than. He slides into her, and they both open their eyes in surprise, in relief.

“Olivia,” he says again, and she nods her head against his, pressing kisses against his lips, leaving seeking ones in the air when he leans his head back to arch and adjust the angle.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes.”

He sends her over the edge first, cresting when she finally speaks his name back, before he follows.

For once, she doesn’t argue.

It’s only when he is deepest inside her that she lets herself think it, even if she doesn’t say it aloud. Only when he is buried so far within her that she can clench and hold him within her that she silently admits that she loves this man. That she thinks he’s the only one she ever will.

Awareness comes in increments, niggling its way through the satisfied, peaceful sleep that had enveloped him after she settled against his side, after he watched her drift away and finally closed his eyes, too. He’s warm, but not uncomfortably so, the light creak of his ceiling fan stirring the air in the room as the heater defends against the biting cold outside. He’s rested, but still physically tired, the way he feels after a workout has exhausted him and his muscles are strained but well-used. He’s hungry, he thinks, but it’s not too pressing he wants to watch her a little while longer – watch her unguarded and soft like she was after she came apart in his arms.

Then he wants to make her come apart all over again.

He smiles, finally willing his eyelids to open, when he finally realizes that the weight of her is no longer present at his side, that her arm no longer drapes languidly across his chest.  

No.

She’s not there, she’s not here. He never should have gone to sleep.

She’s gone, he realizes. She’s gone, because of course she is. Good or bad, when emotions get too deep, too consuming for Olivia Benson, she runs. She runs and she may come back, softer and quieter and more open – with longer hair and sweeping bangs hiding the residual fear in her eyes, but she runs. Regret descends like a haze, with fury nipping at its heels. I should have known better, he thinks at first, followed by how could she?

God fucking damnit, Olivia – but then –

He hears a clatter coming from the other room, from his kitchen, and then soft muttered curses sound in his head but they’re coming from her, not him. He breathes deeply, trying to reign his heartrate back to a steady pace, trying to stop the galloping fear from stealing his breath. Jesus, he is so screwed. It this is what happens at the mere thought of her leaving, he doesn’t know how he’ll handle things if she actually does it.

He slides on his boxers and looks around for his shirt, the grin reemerging on his face as he realizes that while all her clothes are still scattered on the floor, it is gone and she’s the culprit. He makes his way to the kitchen and takes in the sight before him.

She’s in his shirt, alright, the hem of it just covering the tops of her thighs, leaving her long legs bare, the golden expanse of skin gleaming in the light of the open refrigerator door. Her hair is down still – at his request – the locks that he twisted in his hands earlier, exposing the column of her throat and bending her towards him, flow down her back as she leans towards the freezer. When she turns back to him at the sound of his footsteps in the doorway, and her bangs are adorably askew.

And she’s holding a package of… frozen chicken tenders he can barely remember purchasing.

“Good morning,” she whispers, and it’s almost shy. God, he thinks, she might be too much for him, like this. He doesn’t know what to do with her. She makes his mind settle and his body want and his heart ache. She’s everything that’s familiar to him and yet he doesn’t know this Olivia at all. She’s glowing and new and this might just be his favorite version of her yet.

“Not quite morning,” he tells her with a relaxed smile, nodding at the flashing clock on the oven. The oven which is… on. Preheating.

“I was hungry,” she tells him unrepentantly. He can’t chase his smile away. If he tells her she’s precious, she’ll hit him, so he leaves the opinion unvoiced, but he can’t stop smiling.

“I can see that. You do remember that you brought takeout over, right? Thai food? Egg rolls?”

She’s smiling, too, and moving slightly, stepping out of his reach as he prowls towards her, but it’s flirtatious. The energy between them – that has always bound them, made them effective partners, sometimes made them almost able to read the other’s mind – it is ever-present, and it’s sparkling, crackling with new vibrancy, different colors. He delights in it. It’s fun.

He doesn’t remember the last time he thought anything was fun.

“Yes, but you have chicken tenders!” she says excitedly, like that explains everything – why she’s ignoring the perfectly good, reheat-able takeout food that she already bought, why she’s rustling in his kitchen and making a ruckus, why they’re out of bed at four in the morning and grinning at each other like idiots.

He has seen Olivia Benson strong, shattered, and even a bit savage. He’s seen her reel from a blow and remain standing, he’s seen her pull a gun with steady hands, and he’s seen her show startling depths of compassion and such sadness when the cases are simply too much. What he’s never seen before, never really even suspected was there – is what Olivia is like when she’s being sweet. She’s impish and irreverent and he thinks he might love her more than he realized, even as it takes his breath and fucking terrifies him.

She’s standing barefoot in his kitchen and grinning at him over frozen chicken tenders like he has waltzed in and surprised her with champagne and caviar. Her hair is more unruly than he’s ever seen it. Her bangs are a sweeping mess, and there is a sleep line on her face that was put there by the lines of his pillows, his sheets. Because she spent the night in his bed. He didn’t know she could look this gentle, and he wonders what emotional armor she adorns every morning to build up the tough veneer of Detective Benson when this fanciful creature is who lives underneath it.

He wants to keep her here and bolt the door. He of all people knows how capable she is, but he cannot fathom watching her run after perps now, letting her walk in front of loaded guns, standing by as she blocks blows meant for him. Not when he knows that this is what is wrapped inside the fallible blockade of a bulletproof vest.

This will be harder than he originally thought. The understanding takes shape and increases in import, leads him to think about future challenges he will have to address. This shift in them, while it’s all he has wanted for longer than he cares to admit – this will make him want to protect her even more. He still knows who she is, though. There’s no way she’s going to allow it. She’s going to fight him at every turn.

He doesn’t want to go there now. For just a moment, in the stillness of the too-early morning, still sleep-rumpled and locked away in his apartment, he wants to enjoy the good of what they are. Who she is.

“Those are for my kids. The twins eat them. They used to like the ones that were dinosaur-shaped, back when they were younger,” he says, leaning against the counter as she merely shakes her head and begins to arrange them on the baking sheet.

“Well, we’ll have to buy them some replacements, because this package is mine,” she says, and she is downright gleeful. He feels like he’s missing the point, like he’s been let in on the joke even though the punchline evades him, but he cannot force himself to care. He’s happy just to watch her. He reaches out a hand to help and she elbows him out of the way, sliding the pan into the oven and setting a timer.

“Mine,” she says again.

He can’t resist now; he needs his hands on her. He pulls her away from the stove, wrapping his arms around her, and breathes next to her temple, relishing how silky and soft her hair is there. He feels her answering smile at the touch of her lips against his neck, revels at how she goes a little a pliant and relaxes against him.

“You’re not gonna share, Benson?”

“Nuh uh. You can have the takeout,” she murmurs, swaying a little with him. We’re almost dancing, he thinks in wonder.

“Why aren’t we both having the takeout?”

“Because you have chicken tenders. And they are my favorite after food.”

He pulls back at that, trying to make sense of the words, and she looks so goddamn self-satisfied. Like she knows she’s being charming. Like she knows she’s got his heart in a chokehold and she’s happy with the knowledge. Like she’s happy with him.

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Chicken tenders – preferably with honey mustard, which you don’t have, but they’ll still do – are my favorite after-sex food.”

He barks out a laugh, ignoring the implications of the other men she’s been with who have led her to this conclusion, and kisses her lightly, nipping at her already-swollen lips between words.

“That is not a real thing, Liv.”

“It’s absolutely a real thing. Everybody has one. And it’s different from your regular favorite food, or the food you like best when you’re sick. It’s different than what you like to order at your favorite restaurant. Mine is chicken tenders – the more battered, the crispier, the better,” she pauses, closing her eyes and humming slightly – presumably at the thought of her favorite after-sex food. “You don’t know yours?”

He gives into her, tilting her in his arms and smiling into her hair so that they dynamics of his hold on her shifts into more of a hug. She raises her arms and hugs him back, stroking the tops of his shoulders with his fingertips and sending shivers down his spine.

“It’s okay,” she continues, not giving him the chance to admit that no, he never identified a specific food he liked best after he and Kathy were together. That isn’t the type of conversation they had, even when things were good – solid and steady between them. Liv can make this a tradition if she wants, and it will always be tied to her. “We’ll figure it out. Best way to do it is to get a hotel room, have mind-blowing sex, then order every single thing off the late-night room service menu. Try them all and pick what’s most satisfying.”

Olivia, in a hotel room. Sex geared at making him hungry enough to tackle an overpriced room service menu. It sounds like heaven.

“You think that was mind-blowing?” He sways them a bit more, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, laughing when her head lightly bumps against his.

“Hmm. I was speaking in future tense, but yes. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if we had the same after food?” he asks, then worries over the words and what they imply – that this isn’t a one-time run, that they will continue to do this. But she referenced the future first, and she doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t pull away.

“No,” she tells him simply. “You deserve your own.”

Joy snaps through him with a flicker. Quickly, potently.

And he knows. He’s in love with her. He can’t speak the words aloud – they still belong to the silent hours when she was asleep but breathing against him, steady and childlike, the burdens of the day lifted from the lines of her face in repose, her palm upturned and reaching out for his. The words still live in those minutes when the rest of the world is quiet and stationary, but where they reside doesn’t diminish their truth.

A memory encroaches on him; he thinks of his mother’s whimsical words to him from years ago, when she still seemed to hold all the knowledge, before his illusions about her and his father were shattered. Possibilities shine the brightest when the night is at its darkest, Elliot. They call it the witching hour, but there’s nothing to be afraid of – it’s just when magic has the most freedom.

It’s the best time to find them.

His mother was misguided – maybe misunderstood – for so many things, but he thinks there’s a kernel of truth to that musing. He can hold onto the possibilities for them both, in the quiet of their version of the witching hour, for now.

“I’ll hold you to that.” He drops a kiss on her forehead, and smiles internally at the bemused, slightly flummoxed look that crosses her face at the action. Could be part of the fun, he realizes, to acclimate her to affection.

He moves to heat up some of the food they never got to last night, nodding at the extra egg rolls in the faintly aromatic bag, tossing it in the trash and leaving the Pad Thai in the fridge for later. Maybe she’s going to keep her chicken tenders to herself, but he is going to join her on the fried food front. He figures they burned enough calories to warrant it.

They loosen into a new dance, a domestic one, moving around the kitchen to grab plates and utensils. They brush arms as they pass each other, standing a little closer than necessary. She leans against the counter while he pops the egg rolls in the microwave, and yelps in surprise when he turns to grab her, lifting her bare-assed on the counter and moving to stand between her legs.

“Not very sanitary, Stabler,” she says, but she kicks her legs up and wraps them around him, drawing him closer as she leans back a little farther. He foils her attempt to put space between their torsos, their faces – he lifts her arms and lopes them around his neck, effectively pulling her up and putting her exactly where he wants her. He marvels at the fact that she allows it.

“I’ll clean up later. ‘Sides, we’ll eat at the table.”

She looks completely affronted.

“Absolutely not. The other rule about after food is that it must be eaten in bed. Where the deed was done,” she tells him, and that’s ridiculous but she can conjure all the stupid rules she wants if it will just make her keep talking to him like this, keep him lightly laughing like this.

“I don’t even know where to start with that. Where the deed was done?” he laughs again, because he would swear that she’s blushing now. He wants to see where else she flushes, the shades it creates. “In bed? Now who’s unsanitary?”

“I’ll be careful,” she defends. “And I can’t explain it, but I’m right. Tastes better that way.”

“Hmm.” He kisses her, long and slow, drawing it out so that she doesn’t swat him away when his hand sneaks under his shirt, slinking up her side with tiptoeing fingers to cup her breast. She lets him, and she rolls her hips against him, but she mumbles into the kiss.

“I’m eating my after food first. You’re not gonna distract me, Stabler.” The microwave beeping punctuates her insistence.

“Spoilsport,” he says, popping the egg rolls onto the plate and wincing when the steaming pastry shell burns his fingers. She notices and grabs at them, not moving from her perch on the counter. She kisses the pads of them one at a time, sucking gently, and he’s genuinely touched at the gesture, but also aroused as hell, and he wonders how she can still be thinking of food. “Guess we’ll see if egg rolls are contenders for me.”

“I dated a guy once whose favorite was hot dogs.”

He shakes his head, not willing to go there, relieved that those other guys no longer have any damn claim to her. But her laughter rings through the kitchen like the sound of jingling, the sound of bells, and he decides – for once, for longer – to let the music sound.

She lets him plate her chicken tenders once they’re finished, seemingly trusting him not to swipe any now that he’s got his egg rolls, and she trails after him back to the bedroom, two plates in tow. They both plop back in the bed – sanitary or not – and she snatches her plate from his hands. It reminds him of how she steals the egg rolls from him in the squad room, how she divides their sandwiches and shares when they’re heads down in a case and taking a working lunch or dinner. How – when circumstances are dire and they’ve missed more meals than she realizes – she yanks the bags of peanuts or vending machine granola bars from his grip as soon as he puts them in front of her, like they’ve materialized from thin air.

He wonders how much is translatable, from their former relationship to the new one on which they’re embarking. How many flashes of Liv the partner will he see in Liv the partner?

She settles across from him, semi-reclined, with her leg stretched across his, connecting them while her hands are busy. It’s a little astounding how easily she has fit against him, how natural it feels to connect with her like this. And maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe they have been connecting in all the ways that they can for years, and they’ve just waded past the eddy lines in the streams of who they’ve been to each other to the deeper waters. They’ve swum out to where they can submerge, and it’s instinctive to hold onto each other as they slip under the surface.

“Oh my god,” she moans, low and throaty as she takes a bite, and he feels the sentiment everywhere, so he levels a mock glare on her.

“Stop making those sounds with your food if you actually want me to let you finish it.”

“Not much of a threat, but I’ll see what I can do,” she smirks, and he takes the moment to assess her. Admire her. She’s long and limber, more relaxed than he thinks he may have ever seen her, digging into her chicken tenders with vigor.

He’s all junkyard dog and has been most of his life, but Liv possesses a feline grace that used to put him on edge. She can be canty, ahead of the curve. She holds secrets like he holds grudges, and now he wants to follow her. He wants to learn them all and see if they change him, see if they change her.

“I like you in my shirt,” the words came from him, but he almost doesn’t register saying them. His holds are loosened, his defenses lowered.

Her smirk deepens, and she leans forward, balancing the plate in between them as she adeptly nudges his out of the way with her knee, and she kisses him. The desperation is gone from this one, it’s sated and safe and elongated, and he feels again that this could, in fact, be home.

“I think chicken tenders are my after food, too,” he tells her, savoring the taste of them from her lips.

“No. That’s not a fair assessment,” she smiles. “We’ll figure yours out. I have faith.”

“Do you now?”

“Every so often, El.”

She finishes off a chicken tender, and he smiles at the nearly feral way she bites into it. After food, he thinks. He’s going to buy boxes and boxes of chicken tenders. He’s going to buy honey mustard and any other condiment she wants.

He slides a palm up the silky surface of her shin, pressing slightly when he gets to her knee, glancing down her thigh as she watches him.

“I like you in my bed,” he tells her, watching the way her eyes darken with the words, the way her tongue licks against the crumb that lingers on her lip.

“I like being here,” she whispers. “In your shirt. In your bed. Though your mattress leaves something to be desired.”

He throws caution to the wind. “We’ll go test out new ones. I’ll let you pick.”

She’s finished her chicken tenders, and his egg rolls are long gone, so he picks up the plates between them, stacks them and moves them to the ground. He’ll worry about them when their witching hour is over.

He pulls on her ankle, watching as she slides like liquid down the headboard, levering himself over her once she’s horizontal and still.

“Does your after-sex food preference vary based on what time of night, what time of day it is?”

“No. It’s a one-time decision. Once you choose, you choose,” she says solemnly, and he has known for years that Olivia can have more than one conversation at a single time, that she can be talking about more than one thing in veils and layers.

“I better choose wisely then,” he says, working his fingers between them, against her, watching her pupils dilate and flare with the knowledge of what comes next.

“You better.”

Sunlight spears awakening beams through his windows, heralding the morning’s arrival, and he groans, rolling over to pull his partner into his arms. She must already be awake, because she laughs a little and squirms, shifting her ass against him in a way that they certainly don’t have time for, even if it weren’t unlikely after the evening prior. Not that he’d admit that.

“Tease,” he murmurs into her hair.

“Not a fair judgment,” she tells him. “A promise of things to come doesn’t always specify when.”

Well. She’s got him there. He shifts his arm below her cheekbone so that he can feel her face, her lips, her smile against him.

“You need to stop back at your apartment before we head in today?” he asks softly, reluctant to break the morning’s tranquility, the sense that they’ve started something so good.

But she surprises him, shaking her head against his arm, pressing a kiss to the inside of his elbow on the down swoop.

“No?” he asks, and she flips over in his arms, meeting his eyes below her bangs, and he fucking loves the blush that spreads across her face, the sun inching its way to start the break of day against a dark horizon.

“I packed a few things in my purse, just in case. An extra shirt, my makeup, hair stuff – what is that face for?”

“You packed a go bag?” he says, and he can’t help but gloat. He doesn’t doubt he wants her more than she wants him, but maybe the divide isn’t as far as he thought it was. She planned this.

“I packed a small overnight kit on the off chance – what seemed like the very off chance – that we ended up…”

“Doing exactly what we’re doing?”

She leans up, hair falling in pillow-softened waves over her arm to shroud his face, ensconcing them in their own cocoon for just a little while longer.

“Well,” she says, stopping to interrupt herself and kiss him, “yes.”

They ready themselves for the day the same way they do everything else – in-sync. It’s smooth and natural and easy, and internally scoffs at himself, that he was worried that might have been the hardest part. That their partnership might survive, the sex could be great, but they wouldn’t know how to navigate the delicate simplicity of domesticity, the regular tasks of life that shouldn’t hold such weight but inexplicably do.

He needn’t have worried. She moves out of his way when he steps out of the shower, she adjusts her body over the bathroom counter to give him space while he shaves, she intertwines one of her legs between his to rub her ankle against his shin while she’s applying mascara with a sternly given directive to be very, very still.

It’s only when they’re finishing their respective cups of coffee, nearly out the door that things start to fall apart.

“What do you want to tell Cragen?” he asks her, rinsing out his mug in the sink.

“He already knows we’re going to talk to Tara. He told us to do it,” she says with a shrug.

“Yeah, but not about the case. I mean – when we talk to him.”

“What do you mean, talk to Cragen?” her voice is sharp, and scared, and he knows he’s fucked up instantly. She straightens, halting in the middle of his kitchen, like she’s been struck through the center.

Figure it out slowly, Elliot, he remembers. But he never has been any good at listening to Kathy. He’s never been any good at listening to anyone but Olivia, really, and she’s given him some mixed signals lately. Mis-directions.

“Well, I don’t mean now. This just happened. We’re still… But eventually, Liv, we gotta disclose.”

She knows this. He knows she knows this. But he also knows this is why she was so uncertain in the first place, even when what’s between them was significant enough that they’d both chosen each other over the job.

“He would have to split us up, El. He wouldn’t have a choice. We wouldn’t be able to be partners anymore,” she says, and her voice is plaintive and pleading enough that it gives him pause, that he tries to remember how hard this is for her. That she loves him, but she may never be able to tell him, and that she’s never had the reliable support system he took for granted for so long.

“Olivia, listen to me – no, stop it,” he says when he approaches her, grabs at her wrists, and she immediately spins away. “Listen to me! You knew the second you walked through that door last night that we can’t be partners anymore. Quit acting like I’m doing this to us.”

“I didn’t –”

“You did. You knew it then, and you know it now.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I do and do not know. This was a mistake – this was –”

Fuck. He’s annoyed and disappointed, but he can see the panic, he can see that she’s not trying to hurt him but that she’s scared to death. He can see it because it’s how he used to lash out at Kathy, those early years in the separation when he just wanted to go home and undo the disintegration of the life they’d built. When she hurt him, so he yelled, he railed, he hurt back. He can see it because he yelled at his daughters, punishing them for no reason at all except that he knew the dangers in the world, and he wanted them to let him guard their lives from it.

He sees it all so clearly – Liv is cornered, and her back is up, and she’s going to come out swinging because the only way she knows is to fight back.

He tries to soften, because she matches him, knowingly or not. She always has. She counterbalances him when she’s in control, but when she’s the one spiraling, she defaults to his tempo. She finds the beat with her partner when she can’t do it on her own.

“I’m not. I promise, I’m not. You asked me not to hate you, remember? I don’t hate you. I never could.”

She’s trembling and glaring, her gaze still skipping from his eyes to the space behind him, to the door, but she settles, just enough.

“We can’t go back. It’s why you thought we needed time. And maybe you were right, but we both said we knew what we wanted. I meant that. Did you?”

She nods, but her eyes are shuttered, and he doesn’t like the look of betrayal that is lurking within their depths. There’s a downturn to her lips, a stubbornness to the set of her chin, and he knows this will not be quick, it will not be easy. But then, change rarely is, and he is asking her to reincarnate their partnership.

“I meant it.”

“Then I can’t do this. Please don’t run,” he cautions, holding a hand towards and he’s not sure if he’s holding it to stop her or because he wants her to take it. “I can’t touch you, be with you all night, and eat goddamn chicken tenders with you in the morning and walk into the squad room like nothing has changed. I can’t feel the way that I feel for you, and still be a good partner.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispers, and he sees that the admission takes from her. He sees it pull at her posture, her demeanor. Her expression weakens and he sees the self-disgust that cruelly follows it, and he wants to tell her she’s so far off the mark. She’s not going to lose him, and he doesn’t see anything in her that isn’t strong and stunning and justifiably proud.

“You won’t.”

He says it like an oath, and he will keep it like a sacrament. She just has to let him.

“You’re my partner.”

“I still will be. Just gonna be a different kind, Liv.”

He knew the next words were coming but it doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. They scratch at him and burrow under the skin where they don’t just sting, they settle like a deep, throbbing ache. The kind he feels in his bones, that worsen when the rain comes. The kind that sticks with him, a painful memory of all he would prefer to forget.

“I’m not ready for that.”

The familiar taste of anger and aggression are sour on his tongue, now that he knows what she tastes like. Goddamn her for being so fucking closed off, so resistant to change. And goddamn Serena Benson for making her that way. And goddamn him for pushing her too hard, too quickly when he knew she wasn’t ready.

She’s the one who showed up at his door, all intent and purpose, and she stormed into his bedroom and blew the hinges off the doors just as she surpassed the constraints of their partnership. But, he concedes reluctantly, he kissed her first. Desperately, longingly – he fueled every last modicum of fury and pent-up frustration and misplaced blame into a kiss, and he asked her to trust him. He asked for now, and she asked for time, and he’s the one who got his way – whether her actions precipitated it or not.

He can wait for her.

He will wait for her.

“I know you aren’t. We don’t have to talk to him today, tomorrow, this week. I don’t want to lose you either. But I do want this.”

“We don’t know what this is.”

And that’s the crux of it – this relationship is an unknown for her. Their partnership is not. The devil you know, he thinks.

“So, we figure it out. Together.”

She nods, but she’s still backtracking. She isn’t running entirely, though, so he lets her.

“Let’s get through this case first. Let’s get justice for Maddy, okay?”

“Yeah. Let’s get through the case.”

They leave, planning how they will talk to Tara together, how they will lure her in, how they will uncover whatever it is she has hidden from Maddy. It’s a good thing Elliot has developed a habit of picking her up in the squad car when they’re on active cases, because they have a built-in excuse for hitting an interview first or for showing up to the precinct together.

They walk side by side, like they always have, but the whole world is different now. Now, she knows how he looks when he’s inside her, she knows how he looks when he sleeps next to her, when he runs his hands up her body and tells her she’s beautiful. She’s not even sure she believes him, but she wants to, but this has been so fast. They dove in and she’s treading water, she knows how. But he’s never had to. She’s more afraid of him slipping under and not being able to help him than she fears drowning herself.

He seems so sure, though, that they both can swim.

She doesn’t know why she can’t get out of her own way. She doesn’t know how to compel him to level-set with her, to find even ground with her before they take off together.

I don’t know how to follow you there, she remembers thinking mere days ago, when the case was just starting. It’s true now, too.

“You okay?” he asks as they settle into the squad car – which she know thinks of the goddamn squad car where everything changed, and she nods beside him.

Because the truth is, she does not know how to navigate life if she loses him, and the partnership binds her to him. She has run – twice now – but she’s come back and while it’s taken time, he’s let her. He has let her come back, come home. He promised for better or worse, and he’s upheld it. But that was with regard to their partnership, not with regard to a relationship. She’s weighing her odds, whether she wants to or not, on what keeps him with her.

She doesn’t have the best track record with relationships. She has a better one with partnerships.

But he was right about one thing. They can’t go back.

“I didn’t mean it, El.”

He looks horrified, and she makes a mental note that they both have to improve their communication styles. They talk past each other, and around each other, and it won’t work if they only times they talk to each other are when he’s inside her.

“That it was a mistake,” she clarifies, smiling softly at the way his features relax, at the way his look gentles. Please always look at me like this, she wants to beg him. But she doesn’t – she never will. She’ll give him this, though. “It wasn’t a mistake. Not at all. Just… everything I said yesterday still stands. For both of us. We need time, okay?”

He nods, clenches his hands around the steering wheel, and she thinks about how those hands felt when they gripped her thighs, her waist. But these were light storms, and the clear from his face quickly as he considers something else.

“During this time… are we doing more of what we did last night?”

She can’t help her answering smile, even if it does hide shades of fear.

“Well,” she draws it out, enjoying the sensation of making him squirm, “you said it yourself. We can’t go back. May as well enjoy ourselves while we go forward.”

That smile – the one he wore when she told him about why and when she loves chicken tenders – returns, and she turns to leisurely gaze at the window, grateful for the fragile peace, the reprieve from immediate change. She can do this, she promises herself. They can do this.

She turns her thoughts to what’s next. To the job. To Maddy.

Chapter Text

“Detective Benson, Detective Stabler, hello again,” Tara greets them with a polite tone and downcast eyes, as she waves them into the same conference room where they’d last spoken to her. They chose the office again by design, though after a quick call, Olivia knows that Maddy isn’t home. She spent the last night at Val’s and plans to stay there until further notice.

She tries not to consider the fact that they both spent the night outside their homes, last night, for very different reasons.

“Thank you for seeing us this morning,” she says, taking the conciliatory lead first, without even having to glance at Elliot. She doesn’t take it for granted, the luxury of working with someone she knows so well, who she trusts so well. It’s part of what makes last night so precarious. She knows that even if they never explored anything more, even if they stayed partners until they hit compensatory – that would they have would still be wildly rare, infinitely precious.

She also knows that Elliot doesn’t see it that way. But that’s typical of him, to be willing to push for more, to lean around the corner before he knows what lurks behind it. Usually, she’s there to pull him back. But now… now she wants more, too, and she doesn’t know which of them will look out for the risks and pitfalls.

If they’re too wrapped up in each other, who is watching out for the danger? They’ve always watched each other’s backs, but now they’re facing each other. Both of their backs are exposed.

“Of course. Anything to help Maddy,” Tara responds, and if it’s entirely a lie, Olivia thinks she’s a consummate actress. Something sounds within her that they’re on the right track, but her heart breaks for Maddy when she considers the repercussions of what they might learn today.

They ease in, careful not to let their quarry know their suspicions. It’s a game, really, one she’s never played as well as he has when she’s with Elliot. Or maybe it’s a dance, a progression of how much to reveal and how understanding to be, how to encourage trust even as their badges might discourage it, how to bait and lure. He gave her a safe space to find that connectivity, and the intersectionality of their approaches stemmed from there. They grew together.

The problem is now she worries how well she’ll do the job without him.

If she’ll be able to do it at all.

“Did you talk to her bosses at Jenner & Lyle?” Tara asks, green eyes wide and unassuming, but she feels Elliot almost imperceptibly move beside her, and she senses it, too. There’s no reason for her to start in with questions other than as a deflection. There’s no reason for her to feign the offensive unless she’s already on the defensive.

Movement catches her peripheral vision as a group of pharmaceutical representatives move into the conference room next to them. There is a bustle in the office around them today, a stark difference to the quiet isolation when they were here two days ago. Two days that might have changed everything, her mind whispers. She ignores it.

Tara’s body language isn’t fidgety, but that nervous energy remains, that slight air of repressed guilt, and her eyes track the movement of her colleagues roaming the office behind them, watching the back-and-forth movement of those walking past through the paned glass that separates them from the noise.

“We did. Tara, can you tell me a little bit more what your home life is like, with Maddy?” she asks.

Elliot’s playing the stoic intimidation card, and she agrees with it, while she continues down the line of their agreed upon questioning. It’s already working – Tara resolutely refuses to meet his eyes, focusing on her and the motion behind her instead. It’s familiar, the sense of him at her side, the feeling that he is an extension of her, accomplishing the delicate subtext of the interview while she handles the vocal side. You’re perfect, she remembers, a flash of his body pushing her onto the bed and his mouth on hers.

She told him she wasn’t, but she thinks they might be, together. As partners – he doesn’t want to wreck that, the insidious voice inside her reminds. God. They shouldn’t have started this on a case. Her mind is chaos, and it spreads into offshoots and tributaries, and she doesn’t know how to sail the course.

But there’s always a case.

“I don’t know what you mean. We’re roommates. Friends.”

“Right, and she said the same thing. She mentioned sometimes she attends work events with you, might hang out with your friends periodically. She appreciated it – we’re just trying to understand if there is anyone she might have come into contact with that was outside the law firm. Just being thorough.”

Tara relaxes a little at that, nodding again when Jenner & Lyle is referenced, and Olivia half wants to roll her eyes. What did this girl think, that she was going to frame a well-established law firm and they were going to take it lying down? What she can’t yet ascertain is the level of Tara’s involvement. She hopes for Maddy’s sake that it’s surface level.

Tara walks them through a listing of friends and acquaintances, the types of parties they attend, the clubs they frequent. They press her for last names, and some she remembers – on some she falters. Olivia remembers those kinds of friends. Those mercurial friendships shortly after college, formed out of desperation and loneliness and availability. Those nights of dancing and drinking and flirting and half-remembered commiserations the next day, sometimes over mimosas as a lead-in to do it all over. But nothing of substance, no real connection other than the desperate desire not to be alone as they navigated the challenges of dawning adulthood in the city.

She’s left one glaring omission.

“Tara, is there anyone else? What about a boyfriend? You said Maddy doesn’t date much, but is there anyone you were seeing who might have been to the apartment?”

Her expression darkens, closes, and her eyes finally flicker – once – to Elliot. So, they were right. The boyfriend had something to do with it. And whether Tara instigated it or not – Olivia would bet she didn’t, and that she’s floored by the turn this has taken – she is complicit.

“I was seeing someone for a little while. It’s casual – he’s a club promoter where we like to go sometimes, Nocturne. He was over at the apartment every now and then. He and Maddy didn’t really know each other, though, and we’ve broken up. For good this time,” she tells them. The nervous energy has amplified, and she has left out a crucial detail. Again.

“What’s his name, Tara?”

She sighs deeply, and the tingling sensation she gets whenever they’re close to solving a piece of a case’s mystery sweeps over her, coaxing her to pull at the threads of the untangling tapestry until they’re left with clean, separate strands of fact. Elliot feels it, too, she knows. He hasn’t moved, but his posture is more firmly held, like he has to control himself, like he’s bursting from his own skin.

“Justin.”

At this point, the begging for a last name is rote. She just lifts her eyebrows and waits.

“Justin Renner.”

She opens her phone and gives them contact information for most of the friends she’s mentioned, and they make note of the ones she couldn’t quite recall. It’s a façade, though – Justin Renner is who they needed. She makes eye contact with Elliot and waits for him to land the killing blow. He nods, so she starts first. Gentle lead-in, it is.

She’ll miss this if they disclose. She doesn’t know why he can’t see how that scares her. She doesn’t know why he won’t miss her, too.

She doesn’t know how to tell him that even despite the wonder of last night, it hurts.

“Tara. We appreciate what you’ve given us so far.” Even if they did have to pry it out of her. “Is there any chance that Justin had a reason to be outside the restaurant, in the alley behind it?”

Carefully styled light brown hair swings and glints in the fluorescent light as Tara shakes her head decisively, but her fingers are bouncing against the table now, nerves releasing outwardly for them to see. Tell the truth, Olivia wants to tell her. This is the only moment this could get at all better for you.

“Justin went to Tivoli’s with me sometimes, when Maddy was working. He’s been there before.”

“Yes,” Elliot leans in now, and those tingles at the back of her neck intensify. “We know he has. We’re asking why his prints might have been found in the alley behind Tivoli’s, where Madelyn Reynolds was attacked and raped,” he says, voice unwavering and low, a restrained snarl.

It’s an exaggeration of what evidence they do have, though she doesn’t doubt that if Justin’s print doesn’t match the partial, it will be that of his accomplice. Tara’s eyes widen – and it’s not feigned surprise this time, it’s fear. Her posture deflates, and they both know. They have her.

“He didn’t,” she starts, but Elliot’s been waiting, he’s been reigning in this part of his nature so that he could release it when the time was right.

“He did,” he tells her abruptly, the overhead lighting reflecting off the cold marble of his eyes. “Tell us why.”

It’s a gamble, because if she were more experienced, older, Tara would have asked why this conversation didn’t take place at the precinct, if she was under arrest, if she could make a phone call. That she wanted her attorney. But that’s why they did this here, and she reacts predictably. She’s achingly young, Olivia thinks, and despite the horror she unleashed, she can’t imagine this girl’s life ending before it’s even really begun.

“He didn’t do anything. I swear – he asked about the restaurant, but I thought was because he was a club promoter –”

“And you thought a family-owned Italian joint was going to fit with his job profile? I don’t think so.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t – he couldn’t have –”

“We found his prints in the alley, Tara. He wasn’t just at the restaurant. His prints are on the pole that your friend was tied to while she was raped.” The snarl isn’t restrained anymore, it’s in full force, his disgust seeping into the words like an unattended spill.

She wants to tell him not to push her too hard, she wants to nod in agreement and snarl herself.

“No. That’s not – no.”

“Yes. And you’re going to tell us why, or you’re on the hook for accessory to rape.”

And Tara folds, her face crumpling in tears, as she ignores the fact that her boss, her colleagues can see her through the unforgiving glass doors of the conference room.

“He needed money. He owes these guys – it wasn’t shady, it was just an investment opportunity. It was supposed to be a sure thing! But he’d only fronted the first half, and they weren’t going to pay out unless he backed it in full. And they were calling it in, and he makes some at Nocturne but it’s not enough to pay them back at once, so he…” she trails off, studying her immaculately polished nails as she stretches her hands before her on the conference table.

It started with the money. God, the frequency that they’ve heard stories like this. It’s all so fucking avoidable. So painfully unnecessary.

She thinks of her mother, and wonders if it’s worse. To know that her own assault had no prompt or purpose other than unvarnished cruelty.

“So, he was going to hold up the restaurant, empty the register at the end of the night?”

Tara nods tearfully, frantically. “Maddy said on a good night that there’s at least three thousand dollars that they are handling, to pay out the busboys and bartenders and cash out. Sometimes more on the weekends, but Justin thought it would be safer for them to do it on a weekday.”

Olivia feels sick to her stomach. Try as she might to prevent it, Serena lingers in her thoughts so, so often on this job, tarrying on the edges of her mind so that she never forgets the harshness with which a stranger took her security and altered her life. The sorrow and the shame still bring Olivia to her knees. But this – Jesus. They did all this for a measly three thousand dollars. Which begs the question – why was Maddy caught up in this?

How did a simple smash-and-grab scale into a double, brutal sexual assault?

“What happened? Why did they end up in the alley with Maddy instead?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t talked to Justin. He hasn’t answered any of my calls since Tuesday night. Maddy usually gets off early on Tuesdays, and she didn’t this week. The place must have been busier than usual – I don’t know! Nothing like this was supposed to happen! They didn’t even end up robbing – no one was supposed to get hurt!”

So heartbreakingly pointless.

Tara isn’t an intentional accessory to rape, but she was to intended armed robbery. Elliot surprises her, showing a little mercy, and she wonders how much of his daughters she sees in these girls.

She sees her mother. She sees herself.

“Tara, we’re going to need to bring you down to the precinct. We can read you your rights and take you outta here in cuffs, or you can come with us willingly, and no one here needs to know what’s going on. Your choice.”

She goes with them. They’d both known she would. And for now, the dance slows to a stop.

She’s… bristly, in the car. And he can’t fucking figure it out. If she’s morose because they were right and Tara did betray Maddy, even if the level of intention wasn’t there. If she’s stressed because they bluffed their way through most of that interview and if the print is the second guy’s instead of Justin’s, their lives are about to get a whole lot harder. If she’s still freaking out over his words this morning about disclosing to Cragen.

If she’s pulling away entirely.

He thinks about this morning, about kisses and egg rolls and chicken tenders and their hands on each other. He hates that they exist in and outside of cases.

He loves the job. He has to – it’s not a job he could do if he didn’t. But he hates how much it takes, and not just time. Olivia said it herself, how it steals pieces of her, and she worries about what’s left. For years, he thinks they’ve been able to reinforce the other, serves as strengths to each other’s weaknesses, assurances to each other’s uncertainties.

He also knows the job is different for her. She let him in on that secret early on, huddling over a beer at a bar two blocks up from the 1-6, one that’s long since closed but had late happy hour specials and buffalo wings that he still misses. She told him about her mother, her silky dark hour brushing her shoulders in locks, making him wonder what it would feel like to run his hands through them.

Making him hate himself for the mere thought.

“She didn’t always hate me. She kept me. She had to have felt so –” he still remembers how she cut herself off, how she recoiled against a long-perceived hurt. “But I was a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her.”

“That’s not your fault, Olivia,” he told her, hands aching with the repressed desire to hold her, to ease some of the pain that lined her body. He’d already seen how well they worked together, how much he liked her, how much he trusted her. Their partnership was new, but her pain was already his.

And he’s never forgotten the tear-choked words she murmured into her glass, like the alcohol could soak up the reality instead of her.

“I look like him.”

It startled him, made him want to grab her shoulders, examine her, tell her that there was nothing remotely wrong with the way she looked. That she was beautiful.

“What do you mean? You said they never caught him.”

“They didn’t. But I don’t look anything like her, even in pictures of her family,” he didn’t miss that she referred to her mother’s family as her mother’s – not her own. “I look entirely different. My features are different. My genes – the dominant ones – they’re his.”

“Liv, listen to me,” he said, and he wonders now if that’s the first time he ever used the nickname that has imprinted itself on his soul. He waited until he had her eyes, and he winced at the soulful sadness that had surfaced. She feels things too much, he remembers thinking. “Your features – the things that make you you – those are not his. They’re not his. They’re yours.”

She nodded slowly, eyes never leaving his, like she was searching to confirm the truth of his words, to let him carry this weight alongside her. He cut the evening short, driving her home as soon as they finished their round, claiming he had to get back to Kathy and the kids. Which was true – he needed to remind himself of the man, the husband that he was.

Because sitting in that bar telling his partner that she belonged to nobody but herself, it first occurred to him that he wanted her to belong to him, too.

Sometimes he misses the early days – she was more open with him then, even as she was wary. Primed for flight. He doesn’t know how to reach her sometimes, and she can be so goddamn unpredictable. Last night she shocked the hell out of him.

He just wants to tell her this is alright. It’s been building, they both know it, and it’s time to stop fighting. But Liv… sometimes he thinks that’s all she knows how to do. She’s been fighting for her life since she was conceived.

They walk on either side of Tara as they lead her into the precinct, and while he hates what this girl has done, a part of him is nearly certain that she had no intention of her roommate being hurt at all, much less raped in an alley by two masked assailants. But intention doesn’t absolve the outcome, and Maddy will never be the same.

He tries to catch Liv’s eye, but she’s all business. And she’s spinning, stuck in her head. He can feel it from here. He hates when she gets like this, and he tries to push away the worry. It’s become a mantra in his head, like an obnoxious, repetitive children’s song his kids used to like so much – the ones that never ended and just lead right back to the beginning. Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run.

They hand off Tara to a couple of unis to get set up in a room, and begin the familiar job of briefing Fin, Munch, and Cragen on the latest. Olivia is unnervingly quiet, letting him take the bulk of the update and the answering of the requisite follow-ups, and unease churns in his gut.

“Do we have any theories as to why what sounds like a routine robbery morphed into a rape? You didn’t think this was a crime of opportunity,” Cragen gestures at Liv. “You think Justin planned this all along?”

She doesn’t answer, staring at the doorway where Tara Moreno had been escorted. Elliot nudges her, but it’s too late.

“Benson!”

He mumbles under his breath, giving her a hint as to the question she was supposed to answer. Was Maddy always the target?

She may be off her game, but she moves in and out of it seamlessly, and her eyes light back up with the theorizing of the case. This is where they excel, this is where she is comfortable.

“I think it was about the money, at least at first. Then it was a busier Tuesday night that they’d planned for, and Maddy got off later than they expected. I don’t know if he targeted her specifically, or if he was angry that she’d foiled his plans, if it was just retaliation. But either way, I think the plan changed mid-flight.”

He nods at her side. Sometimes they counter each other, playing the devil’s advocate to each other’s theories, and those ensuing arguments have held tones of the complexity of their partnership, the chemistry between them, the underlying anger that circles around who they are and aren’t to each other. But other times, they are each other’s staunchest supporters, and usually he knows which cases they can use to fight it out and which ones they need to circle the wagons protecting just the two of them.

He feels relief that right now, in the wake of last night, they’re on the same side. He thinks if they weren’t, she’d set fire to their partnership, and he’s not yet sure if they’re a phoenix or a bomb.

Cragen gives directives on the continued interrogation of Tara and next steps on the suspects, how they’ll go about determining the second assailant or if they pull Justin first – convince him to flip on his co-conspirator’s identity. Olivia has exited the game again, though, and she feels vacant at his side.

Once they’re given parting orders, she slips away, headed towards the cribs – a soft murmur of I need a minute echoing in her wake.

If he were smarter, he’d let her take her minute, give her time to compose herself. Give her space. But that feels like space from him, and his reputation is as a brawler, not a thinker.

He follows her.

Predictably, he gives her no time to collect herself. Elliot’s three steps behind her, swaggering into the cribs with fire in his eyes and frustration in his voice.

She should have known.

“Why are you acting like this? This morning we said we were going to focus on the case, to figure it out together. What’s going on?” he demands.

“Nothing’s going on,” she says, and the lie tastes bitter on her tongue. She doesn’t know how to tell him what is going on, how she feels like she’s spiraling out of control.

“Bullshit. You disappeared on me, back there. Somewhere between stealing my goddamn chicken tenders and briefing Cragen, you did what you always do and snuck back into your own head. Why?”

She feels… overcome. She wants to kiss him, she wants to slap him, she wants to run away and never speak to him again. She wants to tell him he is her partner and she doesn’t have much, but she has that, so he has to slow the fuck down and quit trying to take it from her.

“This just… it’s moving too quickly. And you’re reacting, and –”

“We talked about this. That’s not what this is.”

“Except that you do this, Elliot! You did this when you and Kathy split before!” she says, and she did not mean to take them down this path, but the ember of fury has been stoking in her since she came back from Oregon. They were always going to have to talk about this. That early morning on the stoop of his building was merely a stopgap.

“You and I didn’t –”

“I’m not talking about me!” she yells – she can’t help herself, and she is suddenly back in Cragen’s office watching another woman take her place. She could accept Kathy. She can’t accept that.

He stills, staring at her with such a shocked look stamped on his face, that it would be funny if she weren’t so scared.

“Olivia.”

“I don’t know what happened. Between you and Dani. But I know… I know something did. I can’t – I know I showed up at your place last night. But think about today, El. We’re good together. We’re good as partners. And maybe you’re, right, maybe there’s more. But I don’t… if the more that you want is the same as what you were thinking with Dani, then maybe we should stop it now.”

His shocked expression changes to disdain, a derisive grimace reshaping those lips that explored the entirety of her body just hours ago, and as ridiculous at is, she relaxes a little bit. She knows how to deal with him when he’s angry with her. It’s when he’s gentle with her that she’s bewildered.

“You want to bring Kathy into this? Dani? That’s your business. I told you where my head is,” he says, and she wants to pull the remaining hair out of his head. For all he can settle in and listen to a victim, for all he can hear the subtext in a suspect’s misleading statement, he rarely listens to her.

Sometimes she wonders if he’s gotten so used to her at his side, that he simply speaks his thoughts aloud, makes sure she’s still walking next to him, and takes her presence as affirmation. She could be screaming that she thinks he’s wrong, that she disagrees, and he barrels forth with the implicit certainty that she will follow in his footsteps regardless.

The problem that compounds her frustration is that for so long, he was right.

“And my head is there, too. But that doesn’t mean it has to change how we work together. That’s important too, El.”

“We can’t be –”

“I told you I’m not ready for that. So, for now we are. We’re partners.”

“And partners get jealous of ex-wives. Ex-partners. That’s what you’re going with?”

“You sure as hell got jealous of boyfriends before we ever even thought about crossing a line, so why the hell not?” the words spill from her mouth, and she knows – she knows this line of conversation is the wrong one to follow. It’s full of dangerous traps and rocky ravines, and she’s pretty certain her body is going to be the one broken and bloodied at the bottom when this is all over. And she’ll be lost, because he’s the only who would have come looking after her.

The only person in her search party is Elliot Stabler. So, if she screws this up, then she’s the one who is screwed.

“Oh, that’s rich. Look. I’m not having this conversation. You want this, you need to grow up. Kathy was my wife. And Dani – she was only here because you walked away. We both know that.”

“You know what, Elliot, it’s not actually about either of them. I supported your marriage – don’t give me that. And Dani – she… I don’t know why that was so easy for you, but it wasn’t easy for me. It wasn’t easy for me to work alone, it wasn’t easy for me to have an FBI handler, it wasn’t easy for me to come back and see how easy it was between you and your new partner.”

That stops him in his tracks, staring at her with narrow eyes, and her chest is heaving, and just last night when this happened, he threw her on his bed, he bared her body, her heart, and that was somehow easy. She doesn’t know how this spiraled, how they got here. She doesn’t know how they get back.

“When did you see –”

“I came into the office to talk to Cragen. I talked to Dani, for a moment. She said she was your partner.” She feels shame at the memory, weakness. She hates what she felt while she stood in Cragen’s office and asked him not to tell Elliot she’d been there. She hates that she still feels gutted when she remembers Elliot leaning over someone else, sitting at her desk, like it was so simple, so natural. She hates that it broke her heart to watch him simply glide a hand down his new partner’s back in a way he hadn’t done to her in years.

“Olivia. It was different, than you and me. You gotta know that.”

She does. She does on some level, because every time she’s fallen into bed with someone else while the shadowy thought of Elliot hinted in the corridors of her mind, she locked him away in the darkest of rooms. And it was different. What she doesn’t know, what she doesn’t understand, is how he could find that rhythm in the job with a partner who wasn’t her.

Why was it so easy to let me go?

“We’ve been partners for years,” she tells him, angry, stinging tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “And I have always had your back. And I have never made you ask for that.”

She thinks she sees echoing tears deepening the blue of his eyes, adding wet, salty layers that make it harder for her to read the truth of him. They couldn’t go back after he kissed her, after she showed up at his door, after he showed her new versions of who she could be. Who they could be together. And they can’t go back after this conversation, after these revelations. Maybe she should stop, retreat.

But something within her tells her just as strongly that he owes her this.

“But anytime I have needed you,” she continues, trembling with the anticipation of crossing another line, “you threw it back in my face and told me how I should have been stronger. That I shouldn’t have needed you in the first place.”

Why now? Why is it this case that has deconstructed all their carefully formed walls of repressed feelings and secrecy?

“I apologized for what I said after Gitano,” he says, and he’s a conundrum of emotion before her. His eyes are soft, and she thinks it’s because he can’t help it – especially after last night – to see her clear distress. But the lines of his body are rigid and strained, and he holds his fists at his side like he’d rather be physically fighting through their problems than arguing about them.

She can sympathize.

She senses that the slack she has left on the rope between them is rapidly diminishing, that he’s holding himself in control, but that he’s at the end of his tether. But so is she.

“This isn’t just about that!” she explodes at him, because truly, it’s not. Gitano was the match that lit the long line of gunpowder they had been accumulating, case after case, shot after shot. “It’s been… we have been uneven for years!”

“Yeah, well life isn’t fucking even, whatever the hell that means.”

“I don’t need it to be – that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying? What do you need?” he asks, and she can hear the desperation mounting. He’s in her face now, and they should not be arguing like this in the cribs. It’s stupid, it’s reckless, it’s beneath them.

If they got caught…

They’re going to get caught, and Cragen’s going to split them up, and he will resent her. She’ll lose him, and all because she couldn’t be content to keep him the way she had him, the way they were. All because he wanted more, and she wanted him to be happy. She wanted him.

The thoughts run through her head like a Ferris Wheel, the flashing lights and carefree laughter opposing the devastation she’s feeling, the childish wish that she could just get off the ride, that she could run home and pretend like she never sat down in one of the swinging carts, snatching at bravery she didn’t possess. But she can’t, the wheel has turned, and she has lifted, and her only recourse is to take it to the top.

“I need for you to say thank you!” she yells, and the words surprise even her.

“You need me to – thank you? For what?”

She’s cresting the top of the ride now, and if she leapt off it would be certain death, a macabre display at the bottom of something that was supposed to be fun and joyous, but she’s never been able to hang on to anything good for very long. Only him, only their partnership, and even that has been slipping through her fingers like sand for the last year and a half.

She jumps anyway.

“For giving away – for giving you years of my life!”

The words settle like a stone between them, even as she is freefalling. He stares at her with heartbreak in his eyes, and she knows all at once that she’s revealed too much. This is why she asked him for time, this is why she told him she wasn’t ready – such varying depths and heights have characterized their partnership, and they haven’t scaled them all, and he wanted to introduce a relationship without ever exploring the unknown territory they had yet to chart.

Where is the ground? She wants to ask him why she’s still falling, why she hasn’t landed yet. How badly it’s going to damage her.

Is it going to hurt?

“Olivia,” he whispers, and he doesn’t say it the way he did when he kissed her in the squad car, the way he did when he pressed at her entrance, when he slid inside of her and the life that she hadn’t known she wanted clicked into place. The truth of what she is saying encircles them both. They are ensconced within the precinct that has served as the home of their partnership, and they are further shielded by the confines of the world in which only the two of them exist.

She feels the weight of her words, the sacrifice they imply. What they say about how long she has felt this way, even when she shouldn’t have. When he was someone else’s husband.

Someone else’s partner.

She knows the urges pulling at her, yanking at her with vicious tugs.

“I have to go,” she forces out, her voice raspy, her throat aching.

He shakes his head and glares at her, that softness, that affection fading further and further away from her sight.

“It’s been one goddamn day and you’re already trying to find reasons to run,” he says, and his voice sounds like rust, too.

What if all they’re able to do is wound each other?

A voice echoes over her doubts, and she hears him, over the past few days. The Elliot who has apologized, who has opened up to her. Who has told her that letting her in felt good, who said that the reason he was so angry after Gitano was at his choice, not hers. This man doesn’t want her to die alone, she reminds herself.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, because maybe they’re wrong. Maybe they can go back, maybe they can put this back in the bottle. She’s cleaned up spilled wine before – sometimes you can salvage a glass.

But Elliot has been on a one-man honesty tour since this case started, and he doesn’t stop now. Some of the tenderness returns to his eyes at her words, and she takes what comfort she can.

“You did. You did, Liv, and that’s okay. I mean it, too.”

She can’t help it, at that – he isn’t leaving her out here alone, and somehow, she’s back at the base of the Ferris Wheel, marveling at the smiling faces that are carried to the top. She doesn’t know how she got down, but she knows that he had a hand in it. She moves into his space, wrapping her arms around the small of his back, pressing as close as she can into his chest, remembering how she gripped his waist when she pulled off his shirt, his pants, remembering how his eyes shone at her while she did.

“I always respected your marriage,” she reminds him, desperate for him to understand, because she needs him to know. If they’re going to move forward, she needs the way they start to be clean.

“I know. That’s not what we’re saying here. I loved Kathy. But you’re not wrong. You put your life on hold for me, and you were at my side no matter what, and I never thanked you for it. I couldn’t thank you for it, then.”

“You didn’t ask me for it, either,” she mumbles into his shirt. She doesn’t believe the words she’s saying, but there is a solace in the half-hearted denial.

“Maybe not out loud, Liv. But yes, I did.”

The nod of admission soothes an ache she hadn’t realized had been present for so long, the pain so innate within her it had become like a bitter friend. The realization that she wasn’t lying to herself, imagining things, projecting a nonexistent desire on a man who was paid to sit across the desk from her.

They haven’t given each other the words yet, but she loves him. And for the first time she is willing to acknowledge it, she’s starting to believe that he loves her, too. She pulls away from him, brushing at her eyes and straightening her shirt, restoring some of her armor – she needs to be at her strongest if she’s going to show him her weakness.

She tries to imagine what life looks like – from here. She doesn’t know how to lose what they are and gain what they can be at the same time. She reflects on what they’ve shared with each other – the flashing carnival lights, the Ferris Wheel and the fall – how it didn’t hurt like she’d anticipated.

She opens her mouth to tell him what she feels, cut off when another voice enters the fray.

“Benson, Stabler. Sort out your shit on your own time,” Cragen booms from behind them, and she stiffens as she watches Elliot’s face. It gives nothing away – their captain could simply be referring to one of their many ground-shaking arguments. He might not have heard a thing.

She clings to the possibility.

Oh, God.

“Fin and Munch are going to continue the interrogation of Tara Moreno in holding – you two go and pick up Justin Renner. Now.”

Chapter Text

Justin Renner’s place of work – Nocturne – is a typical city nightclub, meaning it’s a place he’d never want his daughters to step foot in, and while it might offer an escape under the cover of night, it’s nondescript and sad in the unforgiving light of day. The man himself is an echo of the place. He’s swarthy and sallow, a bit haggard for his age – maybe a few years older than Tara and Maddy. He pushes his slightly greasy dark hair back from his forehead and flashes a sardonic expression that makes Elliot want to cuff him a little more tightly than necessary.

“Justin Renner,” he says, flashing his badge as Liv does the same at his side, a smoothly practiced motion. We’re good together, he remembers her saying. As partners.

Of course, they are. They always have been. He doesn’t know how to mitigate her fear that if they become more, they will retain less. It feels condescending to tell her she doesn’t understand how it can be, how much it can mean to come home to somebody, to love somebody, to build a family with somebody. It isn’t fair to tell her that he wants a more significant kind of partnership with her, and she just doesn’t understand that it is a good thing because she’s never known that kind of stability before.

“Who’s asking?” Justin replies, his dark eyes shifty, already nettling under Elliot’s skin.

The badges might have been your first clue, asshole.

“NYPD. Where were you Tuesday night at 11 PM?” Olivia asks, steel in her voice.

“Don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Justin responds, his own tone cutting. They know this type. Elliot tenses, anticipating that he might lash out first, but the Justin’s of the world always cave and crumble. Light on intelligence and heavy on bluster. All feigned indignation and rage, and they flare out once they realize they’re caught.

“It is our business. Because Madelyn Reynolds was assaulted and raped on Tuesday at 11 PM, and your girlfriend’s statement puts you at the scene,” Liv tells him.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he responds, but his forehead glistens a little bit, a nervous sweat starting to build, and his eyes dart briefly to the exit. Elliot widens his stance.

“I think you do,” he tells him, warming up to the potential of a fight. “I think you know exactly what we’re talking about, Justin.”

The warrant for this bastard’s arrest was based on Tara’s interrogation alone, but it’s enough. He’s not sure if Cragen pulled strings or not, but he knows if they can get him to confess, to flip on his accomplice, before they determine who is the owner of the print – the more likely they are to take this to a double conviction.

But while he wouldn’t mind the excuse to throw a punch or two, Liv will be disappointed and Cragen will be livid, and the last thing he needs is another citation in his jacket. He doesn’t want to see the dimness of Olivia’s eyes when she heaves her put-upon sigh, and he’s given Cragen enough fodder for a coronary this year, already.

“Justin, we’re going to need you come with us,” Liv says steadily, reaching for his elbow, but he recoils back, and Elliot sees the venom coming from his eyes just like he can hear it in his voice.

“I don’t have a fucking girlfriend, and I wasn’t anywhere near that fucking restaurant. You keep your hands off me, bitch,” he yells, the whites of his eyes showing. Elliot tamps down his anger at the insult and profanity being slung at his partner, the frustration of it mitigated by the broadening smile on her face.

They didn’t need this, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt.

“We didn’t say anything about a restaurant, Justin,” she says, unclipping the cuffs at her waist as she reads him his rights, clearly enjoying every second of it. Elliot hovers behind, making sure there’s no last-minute dash, no desperate move to dodge a situation that has no real escape.

Two hours later, Justin has been booked and processed. He glares up at them in the interrogation room while Liv fans out pictures of Tivoli’s alley in front of him, pushing forward the one where Maddy’s tights – and ultimate restraints – are still tied to the alleyway pipes.

The juxtaposition is jarring, disheartening – soft women’s garments that were taken from their victim and then cruelly used against her. Something simple that was meant to keep her warm, used to bind her instead.

“Tell us what happened, Justin. We know you were there for the money. Why did you end up in the alley?”

Justin stares sullenly at his hands, one of his legs bouncing up and down, jostling the table.

“Why hurt Maddy?”

“You got all the answers, don’t ya? Why don’t you tell me what I was doing there?”

Elliot’s surprised that he hasn’t ended the interview, asked for a lawyer yet. He chalks it up to intellect, but Liv takes it one step further, assuming he will falter at the opportunity to flip on his counterpart.

“We know that two of you were in that alley,” she says softly, and he wonders if it’s difficult, for her to employ a softer touch with someone he knows disgusts her to her core. But it’s gentling, and effective, and sometimes even the toughest perps fall for it. “We know you were going to rob the restaurant. What we don’t know is why you ended up in the alley instead.”

She leaves the other part they don’t know – who he was with – unsaid. He moves from his position leaning against the wall, arms folded and face stoney, to sit next to his partner, to intimidate a little. She’s right, he will miss this – if Cragen splits them up. But… they’ve already seen how their unceasing sense of each other has translated into chemistry. They’ve already seen the swell of emotion that crests, lifting them with it in a freefalling, joyful tumble when they let down their respective guards.

“You got a window of time here, Justin,” he interjects, relying on the force in his tone just as Liv has relied on the false understanding. “You can tell us who you were with, and we’ll take that into consideration. But if you wait, and we grab him ourselves, your buddy could just as easily flip on you.”

Justin’s leg-bouncing increases, a more violent parallel to Tara’s own fidgeting when they questioned her.

They play cat-and-mouse for a little longer, but in the end, it’s just as he suspected. Justin assumes – as they led him to believe – that they have enough on him with Tara’s statement and the sword wavering over his head in the form of an unknown accomplice. Rodney Wallace, he reveals, has been in on it from the start. Rodney is a bouncer at his club and they’d both been interested in the investment opportunity, they both decided to make a grab for fast, easy cash.

“It wasn’t even my idea!” he screeches, and it never ceases to amaze Elliot, how quickly some of the younger perps they haul in here devolve into tantrum-throwing children begging for a second chance, for the compassion they denied to their victims. “We were gonna hold up the bar, but Maddy was there later than she was supposed to be, and she fucking saw us. Rodney thought if we grabbed her in the alley instead of going into the bar, no one would tie it back to the restaurant, tie it back to us.”

“And you thought raping her was a better alternative to her potentially outing you for robbery?” Liv’s voice is incredulous, furious. Broken.

Justin has no answer to that, but Elliot sees the shaking tremor of his hands, the pallor of his skin. He needs a fix. Adrenaline plus drugs mixed with their morbid mutual encouragement – he wonders if they even considered just scaring Maddy once they had her at their mercy, or if their pas de deux vilely fueled them both.

“I want a lawyer,” he finally says.

Morales expediently finds them an address for Rodney Wallace, and Cragen dispatches Munch and Fin to pick him up while they finish their reports.

They’re facing each other at their desks when she leans back, dark eyes swimming with enraged exhaustion.

“You okay?” he asks, and he really shouldn’t – he knows the answer.

“No.”

She turns her attention back to her notes.

He thinks about their fight in the cribs, about the way she wrapped her legs around him sitting on his kitchen counter this morning, the way he asked her to let him be gentle with her while she gripped his arms hard enough to leave bruises last night. No. Next time.

He thinks about Kathy’s words, that people like Olivia might need be the ones who need tenderness the most.

The problem is now he feels the nervous energy shooting through him – as though Tara and Justin transferred it to him while he listened to their empty excuses. Their argument left him on edge, too – the realization that Liv came back, saw him with Dani, and read everything all fucking wrong, same as she misinterpreted his comments after Gitano.

Tension builds in his shoulders, the kind that can’t be alleviated by a run or lifting weights. The kind he can expel with a fight, some well-placed punches, or if Liv let him bring her back to his apartment for a repeat of the evening prior.

But he knows that’s not going to happen – she looks bruised around the edges, the sense of fatigue emanating off her with every aching look she gives him. He watches her through another jaw-cracking yawn. He pushes to his feet, feeling a spark of irritation when she doesn’t so much as look up at him – but it filters away when he returns, setting a fresh cup of coffee next to her, and a soft smile flickers on her otherwise mournful expression.

“Looked like you could use it,” he tells her unnecessarily.

“Thanks. I just – God. This case, El. They weren’t even looking to –”

“We’ve seen assault for all sorts of reasons. Even when it is sexually motivated, it’s not sex.”

“I know, but this was just… greed. Stupidity. All of them – and she’s just been caught in this snare of people who are awful. But where else was she going to go? She doesn’t have any family. No support system,” she trails off.

He’s already told her not to associate herself, her mother too closely with this one. He knows exactly where she’s headed, and he doesn’t know how to stop her. He reminds himself that she’s doing the one thing he did ask her to do – to talk to him. Confide in him.

“She’s got a friend,” he tells her, thinking of Val. Maybe it’s not enough, but it’s something.

That sad smile flashes again.

“Yes, she does.”

He drives her home later, after they watch as Rodney Wallace is perp-walked into the precinct in cuffs, after she makes a phone call to Maddy that broke her heart a little further.

“Justin? And – I don’t even know the other guy. Tara knew?” Maddy’s words were frantic, stumbling over each other with the shock and betrayal. She assured her that they were both going away, that their lab techs were testing Rodney’s fingerprints right now (Justin’s lawyer had pushed back but Rodney hadn’t requested an attorney yet), but Justin had already confessed to the rape. Casey was already working the charges and planning to hit Tara with accessory.

Everything is too close to the surface, her empty words attempting to soothe Maddy, the memory of how much she revealed to Elliot, the knowledge that they’ve forever altered their partnership whether they move forward or not. Whatever that means.

He parks in front of her apartment building, where he picked her up only a day and a half ago, handing her a cup of coffee with change in his eyes.

And this is new. Awkward. Because as she unbuckles, shifting her coat around her, she wonders about his expectations. If he’ll want to come up with her.

“Want me to come up?” he asks softly. At least she can still read him. Even if she has no idea what to do with him.

“Maybe it would be a good idea for us to just get some rest tonight, El.”

His eyes widen, and if she weren’t feeling so melancholy, she’d laugh at chagrin chasing the barely disguised desire on his face.

“I didn’t mean – Christ, Liv. We don’t have to – we don’t always –”

She does laugh now. This man was married for twenty years, has four children, and still can’t seem to talk about sex without his skin flushing in patches of red. She explored those patches last night, kissing where they spread.

“I know – I just mean – maybe some space would be good.”

“Space.”

Her smile fades at the flat note in his voice.

“Just for tonight. I just – it’s all been…”

“I get it. Take your space. I’ll see you at the precinct in the morning.”

She wishes he wouldn’t jump to being cold and sullen. It makes her recall trying to weasel her way back into some semblance of good graces when she first returned from Oregon. He could flay her open if he wanted to, all he’d have is maintain his indifference.

All he’d have to do is walk out of her life.

But she’s given him as much as she can in the last forty-eight hours, so she forces herself to get out of the car, leaving him with a soft goodnight, Elliot before she closes the door.

She trudges up to her door, noting the new creaking sound the elevator makes, rolling her eyes at the hallway carpet stains she’s reported to management more than once.

It never ends.

After changing into comfy clothes and washing her makeup, the remnants of the day, from her face, she stands in front of her empty refrigerator and questions her own decision. There’s a bottle of Cabernet in her cabinet though, so she grabs a handful of crackers and pours a glass of that, watching the swirling liquid fill her glass. Didn’t take you for an oenophile.

The problem is that everything makes her think of him, which feels like an exercise in cruelty when his latest punishment is the silent treatment.

A sharp trill interrupts her musings, and she startles, sending a sticky arc of red wine onto her counter. She flips open her phone, and of course it’s him. Guilt or more blame-laying, she wonders.

But she’s always been a glutton for punishment. She answers the phone.

“Benson.”

“You know damn well it’s me,” he says. The words are sharp, but the tone is kinder than when he left her.

“What do you want, Elliot?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I wanted to apologize?”

She sighs, wiping at the spill on the counter, and it’s annoying that he can charm his way back to her resigned affection that easily.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“For telling you to grow up when we argued earlier.”

Jesus, she’d forgotten about that. Her blood stirs, anger warming her, but she’d rather be cold than fight. She grabs her favorite fuzzy blanket and her wine glass and settles, curling up on her couch.

“I’m going to give you a tip here, partner. When you’ve committed multiple offenses and you call to apologize, work your way backward from the most recent one.”

“Statute of limitations?”

“Something like that. Or a faulty memory.”

“Ah. Well. Then I’m also sorry for how I reacted when you mentioned space.”

“I didn’t mean a whole lot of it. Just – everything’s changed so quickly and tonight…”

“I know. I know, Liv. I mean it. I’m sorry. Space, time – sometimes to me they mean that you don’t want this.”

“That’s not what they mean to me,” she tells him gently. “I need them to process. To move forward.”

“So, you want to. Move forward?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

They settle into a soft silence, and she almost wishes she’d just let him come upstairs, that she could meet his eyes because she might love him the most when they are settled with each other, just like this.

“Where are you?” he asks, and she stretches out a little further, leaning her head back into the couch so that she can see the lazy shadows her dim lights cast.

“Sprawled out on my couch,” she says, smiling at the wry laugh that wrings from him, knowing he’s probably imagining her starfish-ed in a less than flattering visual, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“What are you wearing?” he asks, and her answering eyeroll is involuntary.

“You’re an idiot.”

But she tells him, outlining the soft silk of her tank top and the light stretch of her yoga pants.

“Sure you don’t want me to come over? I can pick up some chicken tenders on the way,” he says, and his voice is low and promise-filled, a version of her partner that was never reserved for her, and it sends a thrill through her. She’s scared, and she’s worried, and she wishes everything else didn’t have to change. But she wants him.

She sits up a little straighter, leaning her palms against her knees to ground herself.

“Not tonight, El. But I do want – whatever it is we’re – I want –”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he interrupts as she’s seeking the words. She wants to call him an idiot again, but she finds herself chuckling lightly instead.

“You’re not just my partner,” she finally tells him, setting her wine glass down on her coffee table and idling a light finger at the rim until it emits a low ringing tone. “You’re the person I talk to… about everything.”

“You don’t actually talk to me all that much, Liv. You’re not exactly an open book.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe that’s why I’m having such a hard time with this.”

“Okay,” he replies after a moment, and she can imagine his expression. It’s his considering one, the one he wears when they’re speculating around a theory, and they latch onto the same idea. When one of them leads but the other has no problem following. “So, tell me something.”

“What do you want to know?” she debates pouring another glass of wine. She can read what he’s trying to do, but she’s no good at this kind of thing. She understands the flirtation, the foreplay, the main event. It’s after all that that she feels like she’s missing the link.

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” she allows before she can call the words back.

“Olivia. You could never disappoint me.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“Well,” he pauses, conceding, but it’s gentle. “Maybe you’re right about that. But this – here – you’re not gonna disappoint me. I just want… to know one of the things that goes on in that head of yours. Just for you to let me in a little.”

She stalls, wondering how deep to go, how much to give.

“I like candles.”

“All women like candles.”

“That’s – no they don’t, and I’m not all women –”

“Fine. I’m appropriately astonished that the tough-as-nails Detective Benson likes scented candles in her apartment. Where you know I have been a time or two, right?”

“I didn’t say they were scented,” she mumbles, walking back to the kitchen to pour more wine, firmly ignoring the sandalwood scented candle on the side table, refusing to even think about the jasmine one in her bathroom.

“Doesn’t count. Try again.”

She’s not sure who established these rules, but he sounds happily amused and he’s no longer pouting and punishing her. The wine has blurred the edges of her worry, so she plays along.

“I used to like to read fairytales,” she tells him, tilting the wine bottle and wondering what he’s doing in his own apartment. If he wishes she were there. “The Hans Christian Andersen ones, though. Thought they were a little less trite.”

“You mean because they’re terrifying?”

“You know them?”

“Only because I accidentally bought Maureen a copy when she was ten, and Kathy almost killed me when Mo started sobbing about how The Little Mermaid died at the end instead of getting her happily ever after.”

She smiles at the thought, laughing softly. She loves stories about his children. Always has. And maybe it’s a twisted thing to think after the last night they spent together, but she’s always wondered who she might be if she grew up with a father like Elliot Stabler.

With a father at all.

And maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s that two nights ago he hovered over a bar and told her everything that frightened him, while one night ago he leaned over her and told her she was beautiful. Maybe it’s that she does love him, even if she knows a small part of her would have preferred never to have had him, nonetheless. That a part of her would prefer to never have known what it is she will lose when he leaves.

If he leaves.

She offers him a little more.

“I used to sneak into my mother’s room when I was young. Before high school – still a child, really. On bad nights, when she drank too much, and I knew she wouldn’t wake, but I didn’t want her to be by herself. I’d sneak into her room and watch her sleep. She was never angry, or bitter, or unhappy when she was sleeping. I used to hope it was because I was there.”

He’s silent for a moment, and she regrets it – she feels more naked than she was last night when he unclasped her bra and pulled off her pants, laying her bare on his bed. But then he speaks.

“I watched you sleeping last night. And you didn’t look worried or stressed or scared. I hoped it was because I was there.”

She revels in the words, wondering what it would feel like to get used to them. Get used to him, talking to her this way. Guarding her sleep. She re-corks the wine, leaving a couple of glasses leftover as she takes the last sip from her glass. The velvety remnants wash down the taste of her own tears building in her throat, and she puts the bottle back in the cabinet. She douses the light.

It’s easier somehow, in the dark.

“Thank you, El.”

He breathes quietly for a moment, staying on the line. If she were with him, she knows she’d be pressing a kiss to his neck, where she could feel his pulse.

“I’m gonna let you get some rest,” he says at last, and maybe it’s her imagination, but he sounds as affected as she feels. “But hey, I’ll pick you up, yeah? Don’t meet me at the precinct. Wait for me.”

She does. She always will.

“You’re sure Maddy’s strong enough to testify?” Casey asks both of them – presumably – she doesn’t look up from the files to make eye contact. She’s perched on Olivia’s desk, but she’s about equidistant from them both, tapping a pen against her hand as they go over the case so far.

“She’s tough,” Liv says quietly, and she’s right. He knows Maddy was floored by the revelation of Tara’s involvement, but she possesses a quiet strength, and he knows his partner’s been walking her through what to expect every painful step of the way.

“And Tara Moreno – she’s willing to implicate her boyfriend. No chance she’ll renege?”

“Already got her signed statement,” he tells her – it was a contingency of her deal to clarify to the jury that she had no prior awareness of a rape; her involvement was with the intended robbery only. Not that it helped Maddy.

“And we’ve got physical evidence on both of them, but the rape kit –”

“No DNA there – they both wore condoms. Which still kind of surprises me, given the fact that it wasn’t their original intent,” Liv says, and he hadn’t thought of it before, but it does feel like a potential loose end.

“Lots of guys carry condoms in their pockets,” he says, which is true, though Liv and Casey level him with identical looks that make him sink a little lower in his seat. But something still prods at him, and he can see Liv’s expression turn contemplative. She thinks they may have missed something, too.

“What about the print, then?”

“Belonged to Rodney Wallace. Both he and Justin have put the other on the scene – both claim it was the other’s idea to shift to assaulting Maddy rather than continuing with the robbery.”

“What did they say about the investment opportunity? They needed money fast – they owed it, right? Were they just gonna try again at a different location after Maddy? For that matter, why not just kill her?”

Cragen joins them, brow furrowed at the turn in their conversation. While he’s the one who taught him that too many leads are a red herring, he also taught them that too many unanswered questions at this point in a case are a bad sign.

“Both said that they were calling it off. That they would find another way.”

“We’re missing something here. Fin, Munch,” Cragen barks pulling the two from an intense discussion at their desks. “Take a run against Tara again. I want to know if she knows more than she let on – dumb and dumber both confessed. Who would they still be protecting?”

“You think she might be the brains behind the operation?”

“I don’t think any of us believe it was Justin Renner or Rodney Wallace. We’ve got them dead-to-rights, but let’s make sure there are no surprises. Benson, Stabler – take another pass at the restaurant. We felt good about the manager and the bartender, but there are hundreds of places they could have robbed instead. I want to know why Tivoli’s.”

Fin and Munch leave the squad room in tandem, and he stands to grab his coat, only then noticing that Casey is laser-focused on Olivia, a curious look in her face, brows pinched together in suspicion.

“What’s different about you?” she asks pointedly, borderline aggressive. He tenses, because Casey is whip-smart and if she outs them before Liv has had a chance to fully agree, this could all be over before it starts. The tightrope is exhausting, but her soft words last night were reassuring, the willingness to show him more of herself than she’s ever permitted in the past.

But he shouldn’t have underestimated her, because Liv flips the file in her hands closed with a decisive snap and pulls her coats around her shoulders.

“Bangs,” she says shortly, and falls in step beside him.

When they arrive at the restaurant, there’s a typical lunchtime rush, and they speak briefly to the hostess before she leads them to the back of house, past the bar where the bartender – David, he remembers – is lining up ice teas and glasses of white wine, despite the hour. They’re led into a small office, lined with schedules and menu iterations, and pictures of Tivoli’s from what looks like years long gone. Colin greets them warmly, gesturing to the couple of chairs that sit in front of his desk.

“Detectives, I heard you have the people who attacked Maddy in custody. I can’t tell you how revealed we are to hear that,” he says, his affable face revealing no signs of the missing piece they’re searching for. He looks like a traditional Italian New Yorker, and Elliot can see years of family history in the features of the faces in pictures on the wall. Dark, waving hair, darker eyes, ski-slope noses and wide grins. This seems like a place he would like. A place he’d want to take Liv, lure her out of her own head with wine and a heaping plate of pasta. He hates that they’ll forever associate it with Maddy – hates that it may never be a safe place for her again.

“We do – and now we’re prepping for trial, and looking to ensure we’ve covered our bases,” he responds to Colin’s cooperative nod.

“Anything you need. Maddy’s not back at work yet, of course, but she has a job here as long as she wants it. What can I do to help?”

“Well, we learned that Maddy’s attackers were an ex-boyfriend and a coworker of her roommate’s, and they were actually planning to rob the restaurant before they ran into Maddy and attacked her instead.”

“What an awful escalation.”

“Both had significant amounts of cocaine in their system, but we thought the same thing. They both claim it was the other’s idea, but we still don’t know how they were going to make up the money, and why Maddy became such a focus.”

“Make up the money? So, they owed someone?”

“Get rich quick scheme gone wrong,” Liv answers, tilting her head at the note of curiosity in Colin’s voice.

“So, they picked Tuesday for that reason, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s our drop-off day for weekend earnings. Saturday night and Sunday brunch are some of our biggest shifts. Banks are closed Sunday, we’re closed Monday, so Tuesday’s when David does the books, and then drops off our deposit when he gets a moment to step away on Tuesdays. Sometimes Maddy mans the bar for him while he does that.”

“Did he make that deposit on Tuesday?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t checked – it’s only been a couple of days, and sometimes there is a lag of a business day or two, but he’s never missed a drop before.”

“Mr. Abatello, we’re going to need you to confirm that $3000 deposit was made,” he says, and tenses at the look of disbelief that spread across Colin’s face.

“Detectives, that’s the cash payout for Saturday, Sunday, and at least part of Tuesday,” he says, eyes widening as they shoot each other uneasy glances. “Even on our worst weekend, that deposit is significantly more than $3000. We’re talking eight or nine, at minimum.”

Shit. They shouldn’t have missed this. They’ve been too wrapped up in each other, he’s been too caught up in the possibility of her. The reality of her. They’re better than this.

Olivia’s voice drops, calming and coaxing, as he stands and starts to move towards the door.

“Mr. Abatello, Justin Renner and Rodney Wallace were on the hook for $3000. They’ve been consistent in that statement, separately from each other. That’s what they thought they were getting.”

“Wait a minute. You think Justin Renner did this? There’s no way. He’s in here all the time – he’s been working with my David to get him extra bartending hours at that club of his, after the restaurant closes.”

Fuck.

“We’re going to need to bring David in, and the best way for us to do that is peacefully, and quietly,” Liv says, ignoring the way Colin shakes his head, rejecting the notion. “He’s involved, Mr. Abatello. Justin confessed, and David had access to the rest of the money. We’ll do this with as little disruption to your restaurant as possible. Can you call him back here?”

“This is insane – there’s no way –”

“If you don’t call him back here, we’ll have to arrest him at the bar, do you understand me?”

He nods, and lifts a phone at his desk, pressing a button labeled hostess stand. But it’s too late. They hear a thudding crash sound from the bar area as soon as the first ring sounds quietly in the room, the phone still pressed against Colin’s ear.

“He’s running,” Elliot says urgently, unnecessarily, tossing open the door to see a tall, muscular form already moving past them towards the back alley of the restaurant, where it all fucking started. He takes off in pursuit, Liv hot on his heels, and oh, God, he can’t do this. He remembers watching her, smiling at her in his kitchen. She was sleep-mussed and barefoot and happy, refusing to share her food with him, instructing him to choose carefully.

He hasn’t been fucking careful with her at all, and they weren’t careful today, and his blood is rushing through his ears as he pounds out after David, wishing for the first time that his partner didn’t have his back, that she wouldn’t be at his side.

Two nights ago, after their first frantic, longing joining, he watched her sleep before succumbing himself. And later, when he came the second time – after their chicken tenders and egg rolls – she took her time and let him take his. The rush, the desperation sated for a while, the hunger abated, she kissed him slowly and sweetly, nibbling her way down his torso, taking him in her mouth and looking back at him with sparkling eyes when he moaned. When he couldn’t take anymore and still take her, when he’d yanked her back up against him and slid inside her, those glittering eyes darkened, and she nuzzled her nose against his.

“Make it last,” she’d whispered.

Like she’d known they wouldn’t.

No, no, no.

They burst into the alley filled with bright midday sun to see David’s disappearing back.  Liv gestures as they both run behind him, pace increasing and breathing ragged. Their suspect takes a hard right, into an adjoining side street, and he waves an arm as they both follow. Elliot sees his partner, the flash of bangs pushed off her beautiful profile with the wind and the speed. He opens his mouth to tell her to circle around to the front of the street – he’ll continue in pursuit and take the bastard down, and he’ll give her the nonexistent, safe task of cutting him off at the pass.

But he is panting too hard to expel the words. He rounds the corner, planning for a last sprint and tackle, but then –

His gun is in front of him, and he fires it as soon as he realizes it’s no longer David’s back to them but his focused face, looming over a barrel of a gun – it takes a beat before he realizes that multiple shots have already sounded.

What?

Then he doesn’t see David’s face at all, or Olivia’s profile or anything but the clear blue sky narrowed by the alleyway buildings on either side. Not enough sky in New York, he thinks confusedly. Too much concrete, too many hidden turns.

Where is your partner? He hears the question in Cragen’s voice, a thousand times over. Across their desks, in their car, right beside him. Always.

Where is my partner?

It should hurt, he thinks, and he knows it’s not a good sign that it doesn’t, because he’s definitely hit. If he weren’t, he’d be up, he’d be running, he’d be standing in front of Olivia. That’s their unspoken rule. If one of them bleeds, it will be him. He failed her with Gitano, but he won’t do it again.

Where is my partner?

“Liv,” he tries to grind out, and he can’t feel a gunshot, but he can feel the edges of his vision blurring, he can feel the sweat pooling at his temples and the sick, drying taste in the back of his throat. “Don’t. Don’t try – let him go. Call for backup.”

Don’t go by yourself. Don’t leave me.

He doesn’t want her to chase him alone, doesn’t want her to feel like she needs to prove anything to him; he’s not looking over his shoulder for her, he simply can’t function if she’s not okay. That’s not her burden to carry. It was his before, it’s his now. Besides, she’s always fine, always the one helping him after he’s been hurt, he thinks dizzily. The sky wavers above him, the buildings seem to swoop and sway with it. Maybe he’s not in the alley at all. He doesn’t know where the fuck he is, anymore.

“Liv,” he says again but it’s a whisper and not a shout and Jesus. He thinks maybe it hurts now, but he can’t tell where the pain ends, where it starts. Everything hurts. Olivia.

He expects to see her above him, the way she always appears when he’s fallen, worried eyes and strong hands. He savors the idea of that sight even more than before she left for Oregon, because now her bangs will fall onto his forehead, create a space for just them, and maybe they can stay that way. He coughs, grimacing, and manages to turn his head.

He finally spots that cap of burnished hair, those swinging bangs. They’re pushed to the side, covering half of her face, covering her eyes – her eyes…

Her eyes are closed beneath them.

Olivia. 

He must already be dead, and that’s why the sky is spinning, because if he worried about the devil, dreamt about the unwanted afterlife in his religion, this is certainly hell.

Olivia. Wait for me.

The faces of his children flash across his fading vision, and he falls into darkness.

Chapter Text

When she was young, Olivia’s mother tried to temper her, smooth her outburst and caustic inclinations. Roughness that Olivia had not perceived as a flaw, but that must have scraped and scratched at Serena’s skin, because she reacted and recoiled. Redirected.

“You have an edge about you,” her mother once told her, standing in their kitchen as she had described her day at school, her frustration at a group project for which she was completing the brunt of the work, and facing the reality that she would have to share the success despite the unfair allocation. The words furrowed Olivia’s brow even as they cut at her heart. She wasn’t hard edges, she thought, she was rounded. She wanted fairness, she could stand up for herself, but that didn’t make her hard. She was careful, loving. It was all she was – the only thing she’d even been able to offer her temperamental mother was a soft place to fall.

“I don’t have an – I don’t know what you mean,” she told Serena; those were the days she still tried to appease, tried to atone for the sins which were not hers.

“An edge. That resentment. The anger, Olivia. I didn’t give you that. That didn’t come from me,” her mother told her, the syllable elongated on me, reminding her that she was separate, she was other. Even if parts of her were derived from Serena, enough of her was drawn from him – the man who hurt her – and those were the parts that her mother saw. The otherness clawed under her skin, into her blood, into her heart.

She loved her mother. But just as she could forgive but not forget, she could love and not like. The things she and Serena held up to each other were not comforting ones – mirror images, opposed physicality, regret and wrath and possession. The only belonging Olivia knew, and the person she most wanted to escape. The love of a life Serena preserved, and the sting of the reminder of her stolen life.

She and Serena loved each other, hated the sight of each other, ached for each other, alternatively clung to each other and avoided each other. And they never liked each other.

Sometimes Olivia found it hopeful – the human ability to love despite scales of harm, repressed hurts and remembered slights. Sometimes she found it heartbreaking. No matter what, it made her feel apart. Other.

The otherness was how she lived her life, until Elliot Stabler came along and claimed her, for better or worse, and she realized that she wasn’t other from everything, everyone. She was other from the children with whom she grew up, with their normal parents and homes and siblings. She was other from a life that might have been hers – with a different conception, a different family.

But there is no use in wishing away what has already come to pass. Wishing away the circumstances that led to her life. And besides, she was never other from Elliot.

That anger has swarmed her lately, nagging like flies then sharpening in intent, vicious and wasp-like – Elliot’s disregard when all she’d done was support him, his sharp, humiliating reprimand after Gitano, his coldness after she’d returned. It’s been easy to lean into – the anger. It was easy to rail at perps, to get a little too aggressive, to turn the tables on Elliot when he tried to intervene. The poster boy for rage is gonna tell me how to control my anger?

She has felt frustration, and desperation, and continual anger, and maybe she has been ground into that edge of which Serena accused her. It isn’t fair, really. She’s tried to be a daughter, to a woman who rebuffed the simplest emblems of that. She’s tried to be a woman, but she can’t be a soft one – not in her job. She’s tried to be a partner, but she can’t figure out how to be steady against Elliot’s shifting tides. She’s tried to be a detective in SVU, but she can’t be like most of the others – she must carry the connection of her conception.

The weight of what she has had to hold is constant and familiar. The things she carries are unbearable. Unescapable.

It’s all she feels right now. Anger. Rage. A blurring, hazy fury. She just can’t… can’t identify the cause. It’s all fire and righteous indignation and confusion. And where is he – she is angry with him, too. Angry with Elliot for keeping his separation from her, for whirling at her with cutting words then reverting to lax inattention. For asking her why she didn’t tell him – when she requested a new partner – then shouldering past her while she confessed that she couldn’t bring those words to his door. Thanks for stopping by.

She hates how he can minimize her, then channel everything he may ever have felt for her into a kiss in a squad car. That he can storm away from her the precinct then hold her as the orgasm he brought her to storms through her. She hates that she can run but she cannot leave – she hates that she knows in the deepest parts of her that the same isn’t true for him.

He can leave her – and he might. He might leave and then –

Her thoughts slide to a skidding stop, the screech of their standstill breaking through her heated memories, her mind pulling back on the tracks in between the stations of lucidity.

Where is Elliot?

Where is your partner?

Where is she?

It’s foggy; everything is drifting in on little cat feet, she thinks, the remnants of recollection of a poem she learned in high school narrating her perception. And what a fragmented description that was, she scoffs, clinging to her own practicality. Her mother liked it, though – she preferred to use words as winding pathways instead of straight, direct lines. Who wrote that poem, she wonders idly, and what would my mother think? It seems just as important as her musings as to the locations of her partner, herself.

That’s when she recognizes that there is a central point to the persistent ache that accompanies her – deep, throbbing, strumming in her right thigh. Unforgiving, stealing her breath, maybe her ability to move. And her eyes are closed, she realizes. How odd, to come to find that your eyes have been closed all the time you have been mulling over your situation.

It should be frightening. But even the fear is dulled, dimmed by the fog.

She tries to lift her lids, but finds that they are heavy, weighted.

Elliot.

She tries to call out; they are supposed to protect each other. She is supposed to protect herself.

But her body betrays her, and she struggles to make sense of where she is, if the danger has passed. What the danger was in the first place.

Why can’t I remember?

They solved the case – Maddy was safe. That knowledge struggles to the surface, comforting in its surety, and she clings to it, holding it tight to her chest even as the remainders of clarity dash away from her, hiding and mocking. She’s lost, down the rabbit hole, unsure of what’s real and what’s not. Unsure of where her partner is, how much she can claim him, how much she should.

She remembers his words, warm and smooth over the phone, holding the promise of something more. Wait for me. She remembers his hands on her skin, his lips in her hair, on her face. That was real, they were real. And she was so wary, afraid – but now, she’d give anything to be out of the darkness, to be back by his side, to tell him she’s not held back by fear any longer.

That she’s ready.

There are sounds, she realizes slowly. Someone is talking – deep, low tones are speaking – voices that are familiar. Voices she remembers. And a beeping sound, and something screeching against the floor – a chair, being shifted closer. Hospital, she thinks. She’s in a hospital.

She tries to lift her hands, but she feels a sharp, yanking bite in one of them – IV, she registers weakly – and her arms are heavy, sluggish. She turns her head in the direction of the squeaking chair, scrunches her eyes closed more firmly as a bracing wind-up to pry them open.

Then she snaps them back closed when the light floods them, sending a nauseating pounding sensation through her head, but she caught glimpse of a form at her bedside, and she wills them open again.

Elliot?

She can’t keep her eyelids open, can’t focus on anything for too long – her thoughts are a dizzying fall of shadows at dusk, and the fog is back, enshrouding them even further. Not Elliot, she knows. The alley shimmers in front of her for a moment, a mirage of the horror she thought might end them both. She thinks that she fell first, or maybe they fell at the same time.

That feels right, amidst all the confusion that feels so wrong. She’s taken nearly all the steps of which she’s most proud with him at her side, in-sync with her movement. If she must fall, she only wants to do it with him.

She’s a little scared again, of the fall. She wants the anger back.

Then the darkness takes her again, slow and deepening from blue to black.

He wakes suddenly, a violent reemergence into the hard white of the hospital room, the unforgiving feel of the firm mattress beneath him, and a registering of medically dulled pain pulsating through him.

Fuck.

The memories are a torrent – David Abatello, the chase, the alley, the turn. Goddamnit. They should have called for back-up; they should have had unis stationed outside the restaurant. They didn’t know what it was, but they knew that something was off, something was missing. And they waltzed into Tivoli’s like nothing could touch them – like they were sure that the monsters were behind bars and Maddy was on her way to healing and there were no insidious remainders waiting to ensnare them.

They walked right into it.

Olivia.

He tries to sit upright, yanking at the IV line taped to his hand.

“Hey – damnit. For goodness’ sake, Stabler, stop that,” someone’s warning voice sounds to his right – Munch’s, he realizes – even as he feels hands pressing back at his arms, not his shoulder. He registers that the pain pounding is an echo from his upper chest.

He’s in a private room, Munch positioned at his side, upper torso exposed but wrapped in thick, gauzy bandages. The overhead lights are bright and piercing, leaving red lines behind his eyelids when he closes them against it.

“Where’s Liv?” he asks, because he can – he’s hurting, and the mere attempt to sit up has made him feel weak and shaky. But he’s alive, he’s awake, he’s aware enough to know that while his colleague is playing Florence Nightingale to him, his partner is not here.

“Take it easy for a second. I’ll call the nurse. You were shot – took one to the upper chest. You somehow managed to avoid any major organ damage. It’s almost impressive, though a better move would have been to wear a vest. Bullet only penetrated soft tissue, muscle, so you’re going to –”

He feels his heartrate increasing, feels the pressure in his temples as the worry, the fear ratchet to the point that his breaths dash away from him, rushing strides ahead, and his heart races like he’s still running in that alley. His monitor keeps pace, and Munch’s eyes flash to it as he shakes his head, raises his hands – almost in supplication. Elliot wants to do the same. He wants to pray.

“John, please,” he interrupts. The desperation is clawing, snatching at his throat, pressing on his chest.

“Stabler, calm down – Elliot!” Munch barely raises his voice, but the change is effective, nonetheless. He is eccentric and borderline ridiculous at times, but Elliot usually forgets how coolly intelligent, how calming this man can be. Olivia never forgets it, he knows. He appreciates it now. The object of his scrutiny catches his eyes above the rim of his tinted glasses, nodding slowly, the movement shifting the entirety of his thin frame.

“Breathe,” he says, continuing to nod with him, and this would be embarrassing if he weren’t so preoccupied with his partner’s wellbeing, her whereabouts.

He fumbles, struggling to explain.

“She was down. In the alley. Munch, she was down –” and he can’t breathe but he can’t stop the flow of words, “– her eyes were closed, and I couldn’t see where she was hit. Is she –”

“She’s alive,” John says, and the air that’s he’s been holding, that’s been steadily building, whooshes from his body, leaving him lightheaded with the short-lived relief. He faintly realizes that Munch is holding his hand, gripping the one without the IV, leaning over his bed. This should be humiliating; it shouldn’t be happening in the first place – they are coworkers, and maybe even friends, but this is not how they behave.

But he sees a softness in Munch’s eyes, a sad awareness, and it suddenly occurs to him how very tired the other man appears, how much older he looks. It occurs to him that Kathy is not here – she is his ex-wife now, and the recollection still sneaks up on him even as he has moved forward – and that his children aren’t either. He’s grateful for that; he wants to see them but only once he can be reassuring, once he can be reminiscent of how they have always viewed their father. Strong and standing and sure. He has faltered in so many other ways, but he has been able to preserve that – he has let Kathy and Olivia see his failings, but he doesn’t want that disappointing knowledge to stem to his children. Not yet. He grips a little harder.

“She’s alive. What happened?” he forces out the words, bracing himself against what they might return.

“David Abatello was involved in the robbery – which did actually take place, we just didn’t know it yet – and the rape. Justin and Rodney were going to be his fall guys. He was behind it all. When you pursued him outside Tivoli’s –”

“I know all this,” he starts – which isn’t true; he doesn’t. He assumed David pocketed the intended deposit, but he wasn’t certain. But it’s not what he’s asking.

Where is my partner?

“When you pursued him,” Munch continues, ignoring his outburst but not removing his hand, “he turned after rounding a corner, and opened fire on both you and Liv. Seems he planned to leave New York once he was certain Justin and Rodney were charged, but then you and Olivia showed up at the restaurant. It was likely suicide by cop – he’s not dead, but you both hit him. He’s critical.”

He heaves a breath, reminding himself that she’s alive, that he’s alive – that he can handle anything else as long as those statements are true. Emotion courses through him, and he blinks back angry, regretful tears. He wants to see Liv’s face, run his hands through her hair, press his lips to her forehead and grip the nape of her neck. He wants to hold his children close to him and never let them go. He wants to be sure Kathy is still safely ensconced in the kitchen that used to be theirs, inexplicably willing to grant him absolution and access when he is at his lowest.

He wants his partner.

“Olivia was shot in the upper thigh; we think just before you were hit. Colin Abatello called 911 as soon as you engaged in pursuit of David. EMTs were on the scene quickly; they stabilized you. You were the more crucial case at first,” he reveals, a little reluctantly. “Liv was unconscious – turns out she hit her head when she hit the ground. Minor concussion. She was hit in the upper thigh; they weren’t as concerned.”

Dread builds, sending choking tendrils around his throat as he considers the implications.

“She’s going to be okay, Elliot,” Munch reminds him. “She lost a lot of blood – you both did – and she had to have surgery to repair some of the muscle damage and remove the bullet. Yours was a through-and-through. Like I said, lucky. It didn’t hit any major organs. They said you’ll likely need physical therapy for your shoulder; it was closer to your left side.”

He’s peppering information about his own injury into the narrative about Liv, and Elliot understands that, because he does need to know what has happened to him. What will happen to him. But the need to see her, to know how she’s doing, is overwhelming, and he wants to tell John to get to the goddamn point.

“She formed a blood clot, Stabler, several hours after she was out of surgery.”

What? How long…

“You’ve woken up a couple of times, but this is the first time you’ve stayed awake for any real length of time. It’s been over twelve hours. Closer to eighteen, actually.”

Shit.

“My kids –”

“Kathy’s been here. She was here for hours while you were first being treated, she was the one here the first time you woke up.”

He doesn’t remember, which is disorienting, but it’s accompanied with relief. He can’t help the swell of gratitude that washes over him. She shouldn’t have had to do that – not after everything that’s transpired between them. But the kids…

“I sent her home; she looked dead on her feet. She didn’t want the kids to see you until you were awake and fully coherent. She’s been calling on the hour, though, and your football team of children is clamoring to see you once you’re ready.”

“Jesus. Thank you, John.”

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever wanted children myself, but yours seem fairly decent.”

It would hurt to laugh, it feels impossible to contemplate it, but he smiles a little, at that.

“Olivia?” he prompts, the frantic concern threatening again.

“The doctors diagnosed her with deep vein thrombosis, and they were concerned about the possibility of an embolism. It was a severe case – they said it was a large clot; it formed extremely quickly. They were going to do anticoagulants but… given how fast – they took her back into surgery for a thrombectomy. They got it – they removed it. She’s been in the ICU. After the latest update, it sounds like they plan to move her to general recovery soon.”

He swallows down the tears, squeezing John’s hand – this is all so wrong. They should be faintly sneering at each other in the squad room, good-natured teasing interspersed with hotheaded debates, team of partners against team of partners, with crosshairs of closeness stretching diagonally amongst them, a consistent quadrant they have all taken for granted for far too long.

He’s taken so much for granted over the years.

Something else occurs to him, as he combats memories of Gitano and the sickening certainty that she was lost to him while she lay still on the floor, when he didn’t want her to die alone. He doesn’t want her to be alone.

“Who is with her?”

“Cragen and Fin have been taking turns when they’ve allowed someone with her. We all wanted to be on her watch, my friend. I got the short end of the stick, but somebody had to look out for you, too.”

He does laugh then, more of a dry, rasping cough that leaves an ache even as it soothes.

“Thanks for taking one for the team.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not actually so bad. Especially when you’re unconscious.”

The laugh sounds once more. It hurts a little less, this time. Liv would have laughed at that, too, or at least have shot him a rueful smirk with kind eyes – her nonabrasive brand of teasing that always made him want to needle her back. Made him want to knock his shoulder against hers like the old days before words like complicated and not ready became specific to them.

“Thanks, Munch,” he says, as they both pull their hands away. He continues with questions of When can I get out of here? When can I see her? – the spill of them liquid and fast, overlapping with John’s next words.

“I should call the nurse.”

But the other man pauses, even as he shifts to stand, to find his nurse and provide an update. It’s the first time Elliot notices that here is a new tension, a hesitancy to the other man, that maybe has nothing to do with his presence in a hospital room or the status of his partner’s health.

“I think they’ll want to work on getting you upright before we wheel you up to see Olivia. And she’s only allowed one visitor at a time – during restricted times in the ICU. She’s not awake yet, Elliot. You can’t do anything for her. You need to recover yourself.”

The words vex him, nettling, scheming things, because John is wrong. He can do something for her. He can be her goddamn partner. But, unsaid words hover, lingering in the air between them. He can feel that there’s more. His statements were… accurate, in an even cadence. Maybe too even.

“Munch. What is it?”

He hesitates, pushing his chair back a bit and settling that discerning, seeking look on him. That look that explains why John Munch is as good as he is at his job, even when he dives into conspiracies and wild theories. This man is as kind as he is sharp, and he is never more self-assured than when he knows his full-throttled conspiracy has proven true. He has an intimidating quality he usually opts not to use, one that is counter to his mantis-like frame and quick grin.

But he uses it now, gaze long and firm, and Elliot feels like all his blustering defenses have been stolen from him.

“You’re both good people, Stabler. And I… care for Olivia. So, I’m going to give you some advance warning,” he says, as a mix of guilt and foreboding settle in Elliot’s gut. “Cragen said it sounded like you were having an emotional fight in the cribs before he sent you to pick up Justin Renner.”

Half-hearted denials build in his throat even as regret starts to supersede the pain in his chest.

No. She’s not ready.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time. But then… he wasn’t in here when you were coming in and out of consciousness. Kathy said you didn’t say anything, when you woke up before. But you did talk, Elliot, while I was here.”

“Coming out of anesthesia, I could have said anything –” he starts to argue, settling into the familiar feeling of a fight he’s not equipped to wage.

John snorts, shakes his head as he stands.

“You don’t even know what you said yet,” he pauses, a vaguely sympathetic look warring with suspicion on his face. “You told me you love her.”

Goddamnit.

But Munch isn’t finished.

“You told me you love her, and you said that she loves you, too.”

Jesus Christ. It surprises him, though perhaps it shouldn’t. He’s felt so full lately. So consumed with her, by her. She’s plagued his every thought, and he has been so sure that the two of them together – exploring the more in their partnership – has been the right thing. Of course, he fucking talked about her, even without the benefit of his own wherewithal. She’s at the surface of his thoughts, he can nearly feel the tremor of her skin beneath his fingertips. He can remember how her skin pebbled and tightened when he blew cool air against it, worshipping the flesh he’d spent so long both protecting and avoiding.

Mistake, his mind whispers. You’ve made so many mistakes.

His misplaced certainty has gotten them both shot, has landed her in the ICU, where he can feel her slipping from his fingertips, even now.

Maybe he was wrong.

He pushed her, he pulled her alongside him while she told him she wasn’t sure, that she needed more time. And he barreled fucking forward because it’s the only way he knows how to be – in motion, evading or fighting. She didn’t stop him because despite all the things Olivia Benson is capable of, she does not stand in the way of what he says makes him happy. She pursues his happiness to her own detriment, opens her own veins when his blood runs thin, and he’s been a complete bastard for refusing to see that, acknowledge that. For taking advantage of it.

“John.”

“I’m not going to say anything, Elliot. It’s not my place. You two… you’ll have to say something. You’ll have to disclose, if this continues.”

“It isn’t what you think –”

“It’s exactly what I think. Show us both enough respect to at least admit that.”

Tears choke him again, and he wishes he could blame the pain meds, wishes he could slip back into oblivion and retreat to before all of this happened. He wants to be safely sealed within his apartment again, with Olivia smiling – atypically unguarded and sweet, informing him about after food and refusing to share. With her alternatively sharing herself, letting him hold her, letting him breathe in everything about her. He wants to watch her sleep one more time, watch how her ribs rise and fall, how she nuzzles into the pillow, into him, watch how she trusts him even while her defenses are removed.

“John. We… It just started, and she… she’s not,” he says. He cannot string a goddamn sentence together and that can’t be blamed on the medication either – his thoughts skip like rocks on the still surface of a remembered lake, and the ripples overlap with each other, but they don’t form a path that stays. They each dissipate before the next one finishes forming, leaving him to wonder if they were ever there at all.

“You seemed pretty certain that she is, when you were talking to me earlier,” Munch tells him, and he wonders just how much he said, how much is being held back.

“It’s new,” he settles on, and it’s so insignificant, so small compared to the truth. It isn’t new. She is his partner, has been his partner for years, and she has become so entrenched in his own self-identity that he can’t fathom a life without her. If he led one, he thinks she would haunt him. He would hear her voice in every sound, glimpse her form around every corner.

“I’m not one to pass judgment,” Munch tells him firmly. Elliot can feel that – that he isn’t judging, though this won’t be without pain and self-incrimination, either. “But Liv isn’t a woman to trifle with. You know that better than anyone. She doesn’t form relationships easily, Stabler, and you are her partner. You are her partner who was married for decades and has a passel of kids.”

Elliot wants to interrupt, but the words are true, and he wonders how much he needs to hear them. He stays silent, absorbing the blows.

“I believe you do love her. But you need to think about how you do, and what that means. What that means for your partnership. Because Olivia… Liv is like me. She gives more deeply of herself than you might realize, once she decides to do so.”

“I know my partner.”

“You know her as your partner. I know her, too, and I know her differently. She hasn’t had the benefit of a traditional family, and that’s through no fault of her own. This squad is her family. You might have had more in number and tradition, but that doesn’t make what she has less. Don’t take it from her. Don’t fuck with it unless you mean it, Stabler.”

The profanity – and the hardness in his tone – jars him, coming from Munch. He has always had a soft spot for Olivia; it’s never been a secret, but Elliot’s never recognized until now how much the other man tracked their similarities, too. He moves to the doorway now, but Elliot can’t help but give him a promise – one he isn’t sure he understands yet.

“John. I won’t.”

Munch gives a short nod, a wry smile.

“I’m glad you’re going to be alright. You’re a lucky son of a bitch. I’ve always liked you well enough, but I don’t know that you deserve this, my friend,” he pauses, his eyes lighting around the room, stealing outside the curtain where Elliot cannot follow. John gives one more warning before he goes.

“If you hurt her, I will make sure that you answer for it.”

And then he’s alone again, wondering about all the sins for which he should be made to answer.

Her captain is with her, the next time she opens her eyes. Her mind is clearer, more able to make connections and keep them, which makes everything both better and worse, somehow. She turns her head, catches his eyes, and tries to make sense of the new world she has entered.

“You come highly recommended by your former CO,” Cragen once told her in his office, his tone gentler than it has ever been since, holding a note of caution, in an interview days before she officially joined the unit. “SVU is volunteer-only, Olivia. Your file included the disclosure on your background, and while I can understand why you would want to be a part of this unit –”

“Captain Cragen, I assure you that my reasons for wanting to be here are professional. My background will not color my judgment,” she told him, righteous in her naivety and intoxicated with the proximity to her goal.

She can still recall the way his head slanted, softness and light recrimination in his eyes. A touch of pity. She wonders if he saw her desperation; an aged addict recognizing another’s budding addiction, different though the substance may be.

“That’s not what I’m implying. But I do want you to know that this unit has a burnout rate. A high degree of turnover, and for valid reason. Your history will be called upon, time and again. Are you prepared for that?” he asked her, and she recognized it for what it was.

A brief chance for escape with dignity. An out. One that she was never going to take.

“I am.”

When she strolled into the 1-6 on her official first day, all semblances of that gentleness – the kid gloves and tilted head – were gone. She appreciated it, but she never forgot, in all the moments of him yelling at her and her partner for their reckless antics or foolhardy decisions – that her captain could look at her like someone he wanted to protect.

He looks at her that way now. It feels oppressive, it feels like failure. But even as she wants to deny her need to be coddled, reassured – it also feels like safety.

“Olivia,” he says quietly, a statement rather than a question, a coax encouraging her to fully awaken.

“Cap,” she murmurs, but it’s weak and quiet and not at all her voice.

She hears it in her tremor, she sees it in his wince.

“You’re alright,” he tells her, and she wants to believe him, so she relaxes a little at the words.

“Hmm,” is all she can muster, but he leans forward, and places his hand on her lower arm. He has never touched her before, but he does now, and it makes her wonder if this is how a father would reassure his daughter. She’s ashamed at the thought, at how much she needs.

“You took a slug to the right thigh, had to have a couple of operations,” he says, and that speeds up the breath she is already struggling for, chest tight and pinching. He sees it; he soothes. “But you’re okay. Gonna have a sore leg for a while, Detective, but you’ll be up and good as new again soon.”

“Operations?” she trips over the word, mouth acrid with dryness and fear. She cannot cry, she thinks, even as the tears fill her eyes.

Look away, Captain, please.

But he doesn’t, he holds her eyes, and his are drooping, a little sad, but so comforting in their stalwart steadiness. She wishes she could hug him, even as she’s grateful her body’s weakness inhibits her.

“A blood clot, but you’re out of the woods on that front, Liv. You’re going to be just fine,” he affirms, glossing over what she is sure must be a more complicated answer that held hours of waiting and calmly delivered medical jargon. She absorbs it, sets it aside, ready to move on to her more pressing question.

“Elliot?”

He is her partner; she’s allowed to ask what has happened to him. She’d be remiss if she didn’t. But it feels far too evident that she’s desperate to know where and how Elliot is. If Cragen judges her singular focus, her inappropriate despair, he doesn’t let on.

“He’s okay, too. He took a bullet in the chest. Which sounds worse than it is – only muscle damage. He’s expected to make a full recovery. You’re the one who gave us a scare, Detective.”

Her captain’s hand moves to hover at her head, almost like he’d brush the hair from her face, but he doesn’t touch her again. He settles back in the chair, pulling it forward so that he doesn’t have to crane his neck to meet her eyes. He looks like hell, really, which means she must look all-out awful, but his eyes are warm, the balmy calm unfurling after a storm.

“Maddy,” she whispers.

Madelyn. My mother. Myself.

“She wasn’t there,” her boss says, concern lighting on his face, but she shakes her head, as best she can. That’s not what she means. She simply needs to know this wasn’t for naught – and he seems to understand.

“She’s asked about you. She knows you’re going to recover – you and Elliot both. David Abatello’s still in intensive care, though they think he’s going to pull through. Wait, Liv. Take a moment. Focus on you. I’ll fill you in on the case when you’re ready,” he tells her, pulling from the room as he seems to choke back some emotion and hold his hands closely at his respective sides.

She lets him go; she could use the break, too.

And then she’s lost to a barrage of doctors’ commentary and nurses’ prompting, tests and prodding and regular wake-up calls because of a concussion to which she doesn’t recall being subjected. The throb in her thigh persists, a touchstone to what’s real and what’s not, a painful but welcome reminder that she is, in fact, still alive.

The line moves slowly, Cragen and Fin, and maybe Munch but her lids drifted shut – he might have been merely a dream. Elliot, vivid and well, and certainly a dream, staring at her beneath the sharp slant of his brows with too bright blue eyes. Ice, she thinks, but that ice can melt and warm and alleviate her ails. But dream Elliot is unforgiving, set apart. Other.

She sees doctors who sternly advise her, nurses who soften the directives, and she thinks they’re both real, apart from her dreaming. Maddy drifts in and out of the room, soulful eyes and her Tivoli’s nametag askew. She’s fairly certain she isn’t there. Her mother, who she knows is not.

“People will always disappoint you, Olivia,” Maddy and Serena whisper jointly, eerie in their sing-song quality, while Elliot’s eyes stay cold and sharp. “You can only rely on yourself.”

She nods from her bed, pulling at her IV and clutching at the frayed collar of her hospital gown. They are right, of course, but Elliot’s commiseration rankles, and she is so, so tired. She doesn’t want to die – she’s relieved to know that she won’t, but if she could close her eyes and rest for a couple of years, she doesn’t think she would object.

Forgive me, Father – mother, Elliot, Maddy, all of you, for I have sinned. What are the limits, she wonders, to the grace that Elliot’s God grants? What kind of comfort does he offer? Her thoughts don’t take root long enough for her to ponder the man or entity behind the he in that question, and she’s idly grateful for that.

Her ghostly visitors fade away slowly, and clarity becomes a more constant companion, as the hours – maybe days – pass.

At some point, Fin inhabits the chair next to her bedside, and she would confess it to him, but the realization sneaks up on her that he is her favorite, in many ways. He talks to her honestly, and he smiles at her wryly, but he gives her just enough softness that she thinks she could close her eyes and drift to sleep without worry, even with him at her side. And when the moments feel too serious – her horizontal, bedridden status too depressing – he deflects with a sarcastic deadpan or near-asshole observation that she might have employed herself – and the world returns to right.

When she at last feels clear enough to the voice the question, she asks him what happened, to fill in the blanks. He’s the one who will give it to her straight.

“David wasn’t expecting us to come back to the restaurant after the arrests were made. Cragen had some guys we pulled from Homicide to help re-interview everyone while we’ve all been here – Munch is back at the precinct, and I’m headed back there once I’m done babysitting you,” he tells her with a half-snarl that tugs at her heart. He’s all talk.

You’re nothing but a big softie, Odafin Tutuola, she wants to tell him, but she satisfies herself with simply smiling with her eyes closed.

“You with me, Benson?” the slight panic in his voice is proof positive of her previous musings, and she forces through the herculean effort of keeping her eyes open so that she can appease him.

“With you,” she mumbles, her mouth cottony and sickly sweet with the aftereffects of pain medication. She would kill for her toothbrush, her bed. For the chance to see Elliot.

“Uh huh. Convincing. Anyways, Abatello had Justin Renner and Rodney Wallace attack Maddy at the restaurant, so any missing funds were automatically associated with the attack. They were supposed to come into the restaurant, in the original plan, but David said they must have panicked when their arrival coincided with Maddy leaving, and they pulled her into the alley instead.”

Focusing is still difficult, but Maddy is entrenched in her heart, and the penetration resonates more deeply than the bullet through her leg.

“So Maddy was a target all along?”

“Yeah. They were supposed to attack her in the restaurant. David said he didn’t order that they rape her, but they’ve both flipped on their stories. According to them, that was the deal all along.”

“They were going to assault her in the restaurant so that the investigation was focused on the rape instead of the fact that the robbery was in-house,” she says, warming to the new realizations.

“You’re pretty sharp for someone who is on enough pain-meds to put down a horse, Liv.”

And maybe she is, because she for some reason finds that humorous, hilariously so, and her giggles derail their conversation for a good several minutes. She thinks she’ll eventually be embarrassed by the expression on Fin’s face, but it doesn’t seem to matter, in the moment.

“You’re high as a kite, aren’t you?” he asks, and that is somehow even funnier. She grins triumphantly when he succumbs and laughs along with her. “I am so going to hold this over your head someday.”

The laugher continues without her consent or concern; she isn’t scared. And she isn’t angry, at least not now. She settles, after a while, enjoying the warmth of muscles used for unbridled laughter, fighting against the suppressed pain.

“When Maddy’s shift ran late, they panicked. They still attacked her, knowing that David would still take the deposit money, but either because of the drugs or the stress, they didn’t think about the fact that they no longer staged the robbery.”

So pointless, so stupid, she thinks, and the laughter isn’t as appealing anymore.

“David still had the deposit money, and he still chose not to make his usual stop at the bank. Guess he thought it was close enough that he could pocket it while we were distracted – but he was gonna make a run for it, leave entirely, ‘til you and Stabler showed up at Tivoli’s. We can’t figure out why other than the fact that they’re both damn fools, but Justin and Rodney kept covering up for David. Seems they thought he could still help get them out of it, get them a lighter sentence.”

“Idiots,” she mumbles, and the drugs must be wearing off, though she hesitates at pressing the call button to administer more. The clearheaded feeling is steely and sharp-edged, but the understanding it brings is a breath of fresh air in the stale, already cycled oxygen of the hospital room.

“No kidding,” Fin answers agreeably, then tells her how Casey’s been by to check on her, and she’s moving forward with the charges against all of them – David, Justin, Rodney, Tara. He stays with her until her energy flags, and her questions dwindle. He stands to leave, but his uncertain shuffling has her pulling at the edges of alertness again.

“Glad you’re gonna be okay, Olivia,” he says gruffly. “Don’t pull this kind of bullshit again, you hear me?”

She doesn’t bother telling him that there are tears in his eyes. She’s shed some for him, too – when their positions were reversed.

She asks about Elliot, over and over, more than she’d like to acknowledge. Time is opaque and drifting in the confines of the hospital, marked by doctor lectures and nurse visits and the waxing and waning of pain based upon the administration of medicine, the start of light physical therapy. She sits up, and it’s an achievement, she needs to be reclined less than an hour later but no one calls her deficient. Milestones are different, in the wake of an injury. Time slogs on and she yearns ineffectually.

He’s fine, Olivia. Asking about you, too.

Better shape than you are, kid.

I’ll check on his status, Detective Benson.

It’s been a couple of days, she believes, when she opens her eyes yet again, expecting to find the chair by her bedside empty, as it has increasingly become. But this time, when her eyes track from the ceiling to the white of her sheets and over to her side, where the chair and an assortment of cards and flowers have collected, they land on her partner.

Finally.

He is still and staring, his eyes shrouded in the shadows of the room, darkened under the thrown beams of one dim light, after the noise and brightness of hospital’s daytime routine. He looks more foreboding than she’s ever seen him, pale and gaunt, leaning stiffly against the side of a wheelchair. He’s in a hospital gown, too, she realizes – with an IV bag hanging on a mobile pole. It’s incongruous and comforting at the same time, because he is here.

“Elliot,” she whispers.

His face tightens; an intended smile that presents as a grimace, and the niggling worry increases. She’s imagined what will happen, when she’s finally able to see him – if she had been able to get out of this damn bed – and of all the possible scenarios she conjured, this one has no place.

“El?”

She despises the tremulous, pleading note in her own voice, but she’s been so worried, and she’s hurt, and she’s alone. He was so irritatingly certain about their path forward before the shooting; she’d like to borrow a little bit of that surety about anything just now.

“Hey, you,” he murmurs at last, and she releases a breath that has held stoking fear and frustration. The you rolls off his tongue like she imagines an endearment would.

He’s never used one – not on her.

He looks angry, but his voice is the one she has only heard when he talks to Kathy, or his children. Victims. It’s not a good thing, she knows, but it trickles over her, sweeping her along in the gentle rainfall. His voice is as thick as hers is thready, and while she’s not always sure what he feels for her, she knows that he does. Feel for her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and the question feels limited and foolish, but she doesn’t know how to say what she wants to convey.

“Been better. Are you?”

She’s nodding, and she doesn’t know why. She’s not okay. Not by miles. Lingering concussion headaches plague her, and her leg throbs with an intermittent dull ache and sharp stabbing, and she would give anything to get out of this goddamn bed to take a shower. She misses walking, running, working. She misses him, and she wonders if she’ll ever feel him inside her again or if David Abatello succeeded in killing the chance they had with each other when he failed to kill them.

He shakes his head, like he can see all of that in her eyes. She wishes he would roll a little closer, so that she could see his.

“God, Olivia,” he says, and it’s paper-thin, quiet as guilt.

She reaches, far as she can, giving him as much motion as she can.

Meet me halfway, Elliot. She doesn’t ask for much, but she asks for this.

“Will you hold my hand?”

The levy breaks, and he shifts to roll his wheelchair forward, grimacing with the pull as he reaches on either side and releasing a soft Jesus with the effort. She tries to shush him, tries to stop him from hurting himself further – she’s not sure how he’s gotten permission to be here but he looks like he needs to be back in his own hospital bed – but he gives up, gripping her hand hard, sliding his fingers between hers the same way he pressed her hands against his bed when he shuddered against her. He pins her with a stare.

She can see his eyes, now, and their cobalt wetness makes her wince. She has lived lifetimes in those eyes.

She almost died in them, only days ago.

He doesn’t say anything; but he lets the tears overflow and spill, leaving tracks of devastation down his cheeks. She’d kiss them away, if she could reach. A part of her wants to make him open up to her. He told her mere mornings past – decades within them – that it felt good to let her in. But another part knows that Serena hid behind her flowery language and wandering words. She doesn’t have to take the same route. She can conquer the depths of emotion that her mother refused to face.

She holds his hand, and lets herself cry alongside him.

Chapter Text

He hates being benched.

He hated it when any exodus from the 1-6 placed him at home – back when home was a treelined house in Queens that was full and bustling – encroaching on Kathy’s usual independent space and landing him amidst kid-filled routines for which he wasn’t usually present. Oh, that’s right – you’re not usually here this early, Dad!

He hated the thought of his partner teamed with someone else, feet pounding the pavement in a different rhythm. The sneaking, worrying suspicion that maybe she liked that song better.

He hates it now, when the lack of work leaves him alone and aching, a cycle of aftercare visits and changing bandages. He turns the television on to generate some chatter, finds it annoying after a while – a pesky visitor who has overstayed its welcome – and shuts it off again. Broods against the silence it leaves in its electric wake.  

And worries about Olivia.

He can still hear the soft, near-silent gulps of air that she took while she cried next to him in a hospital bed, the sight of her tears doing nothing to slow his own. He can still feel her against him, around him, soft fingertips grazing his jawline, his torso, his hip while she came beneath him. Can still taste her after she snuck into his kitchen and kissed him almost arrogantly, a promise that she would be doing it again and again. He’s not so sure, anymore.

He can still see her on the pavement in the alley, blood blooming beneath her, turning the street from gray to red – eyes closed but hand outstretched in a cruel mockery of the trusting way she slept two nights prior.

He pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes to block it out – it won’t work, he knows, he’s already tried – so hard that it the light can’t penetrate. Hard enough that it hurts.

Everything hurts, though, and he lets the familiarity wash over him.

“You’re on mandatory medical,” his captain had told him after coming into check on him again, several days after the shooting. After hearing that he was trying to check himself out of the hospital early, against medical advice. “Listen to the doctors. Stay. What are you trying to prove?”

Not a goddamn thing. There’s nothing left to prove.

He threw away the foundation of a partnership when he decided he was finally allowed to change everything he swore he’d never alter – when he kissed his partner, when he held her in the early morning darkness of his kitchen, when he ran into a goddamn alley without calling for backup and rounded a blind corner that he should have known was a danger zone. When he forgot to tread with any sort of hesitation and caution. When he almost got them both killed.

Cragen’s eyes had sharpened, his brows lowered over them with a shrewdness Elliot sometimes forgot was there. Hidden depths and discerning consideration.

“This isn’t your fault.”

He hadn’t responded. He didn’t have an answer to give.

“Isn’t hers either,” Cragen continued, trying to make eye contact when Elliot turned away, the weight of what he saw in those eyes too heavy to contemplate. This man was kinder to him than his own father had ever been, looked at him with understanding more times than he deserved. The scars we visit on our children, he thought. Sins of the father.

No, it wasn’t her fault. He could agree with that. She had asked him to wait, had asked him to slow down. To give her space and time.

I need them to process. To move forward.

“She’s going to be okay, Elliot.”

Would she?

Would he?

A relative concept, the idea of okay. A word batted and tossed around as both a question and an answer, allowed to possess too much meaning – and also none at all. Nothing was okay. He’d never be able to look at her again without seeing her illuminated by his freezer light, her loose-limbed and pliant beneath his sheets, her leaning over his bathroom counter applying makeup he doesn’t believe she needs. Her bleeding and motionless on a dirty New York street.

“Elliot.”

“Yeah. We’re both gonna be okay.”

It’s easier to lie with words that obscure the truth, anyways.

He’s always been a sucker for plausible deniability.

Sometimes, he wonders what God meant, putting him on this earth. What God wants him to achieve. His mother, with her flightiness and refusal to see that what she views as whimsy is actually illness and damage and danger, all rolled into one. His father, whose fists taught him diligence and evasion, who never really knew how to love his children. He’s spent his adult life – which started much too early with Kathy’s terrified, tremulous words: I’m pregnant, Elliot – trying to be the opposite of the people who raised him.

To stand for what they wouldn’t, what they couldn’t.

He’s been a Marine, and a husband, and a father, and a cop. He’s been a partner, in more ways than one. And he has tried to be a person who can hold his head high when he meets his Maker, at his final judgment. He has erred, he has fallen into traps of anger and jealousy and lust. Maybe pride, too. But he has balanced those sins with goodness, with love and protection for his children, with respect and dedication to his wife. He has stepped off the path a time or two, but he has tried with everything that he is to be what God wants.

And now he doesn’t know what God wants – maybe the fall is due to that pride. It’s a hell of a deadly sin, such an easy trap in which to get tangled and tied. He’s ensnared, now, and he is so goddamn tired, that he thinks maybe he was wrong all along. He doesn’t know what God wants, should never have presumed to be able to know, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now.

He doesn’t know who he is supposed to be.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the shooting. A couple of days longer since he held her in this apartment, since he woke the second time to find her sleeping at his side. Kathy has been in and out, a reminder of days gone by, unsurprisingly rallying to help him in the aftermath – dropping off groceries and necessities when she brings the kids for a visit. He worries – wonders what it will do to his children to see him hurt and laid low so often.

It's never occurred to him as clearly before, the fear they must exist with as daughters and son to a man who runs into dangerous situations, a cop who knows well the burn of a bullet entering flesh. Before, it was just part of the job – that he could get shot, that he risked his life for the safety of others, for his career. But now he sees Olivia, sees how she bled in the alley when he couldn’t call upon his own strength and go to her. When she wasn’t able to assure him that she was fine with a panted go, Elliot that he would come to regret, as well.

He can’t stop thinking about it – he’s fucked up over it.

And he worries that he’s fucking up his children, too.

The twins were quieter, less rambunctious than usual upon their last arrival. Kathleen’s typical perpetual chatter has been quelled, and Maureen – Maureen stared at him with her hair just like Kathy’s and her eyes just like his, and he felt each tear that he saw on her face more starkly than he felt that damn bullet.

“You promise you’re going to be okay, Daddy?” she asked him solemnly, sounding younger than she had in years, using the epithet she called him as a toddler, a young girl.

“I promise. I’m okay, baby,” he told her, hating that word again. Okay.

She wore Kathy’s expression in response, disbelieving but letting them both take refuge in the lie.

He has done this. Put that look on her face. Made his children grow up faster than they should, visit hospitals far more often than they should. The weight of guilt hasn’t lifted once in two weeks, nor has the growing sense of foreboding that never seems to leave him.

And beyond that – he misses Liv.

He misses sitting across from her at their desks, next to her in the sedan. He misses the swing of her ponytail and the way her bangs sometimes catch in her eyelashes, a touch too long. He misses her voice, her throaty laugh, the frustrated growl she employs when she is angry with him. He misses the way he feels with her, at work – purposed, effective. Right.

He misses her smile.

He saw her, after harassing his nurse on duty during the night shift, when he was still in the hospital. He cried next to her, her hand in his. He’s seen her since he discharged himself; he’s not gonna let her sit up there in the blank whiteness of a hospital room alone. He’s visited, listed to her tell him he looks terrible, that he should still be laid up, too. You look like you need to be in this bed more than I do, El.

But she feels… away. A little vacant, a little sad.

She asks about how he’s healing, asks about his kids, as she always does. She asks about Maddy. But she gives so little of herself, and he cannot find the woman who told him she lights candles and reads fairytales and used to watch her mother sleep. He cannot find the woman who kissed him senseless and made him promise not to hate her before taking him inside her. He cannot find his partner, any he more than he can find his purpose.

He wonders how much they lost in that alley, what they left on the street beyond their unflagging confidence and streams of blood.

He turns the television on again. The inane chatter of a mindless show is better than the outlines of his past self – and hers, shorter hair and harder jaw – that sit in silent judgment alongside him. Showing him the clarity of the line that used to stretch between them. Look at what we were, their translucent eyes seem to say. Look at what you did, how you changed us.

Ghosts of alteration are merely another kind of loss.

He fiddles with the outline of the bandage beneath his shirt, pressing just a little, until the ever-present throb sharpens and narrows to pain, and he thinks of Olivia.

Fin brought her home from the hospital, carrying her overnight bag at her side – the one she still isn’t sure who packed for her. It included toiletries, a soft, thinly lined bra without a pinching underwire, and her favorite pair of pajama shorts. She sincerely hopes the thoughtful home comforts were assembled by another woman. That Melinda or Casey retrieved her spare key from Elliot, and packed the necessities for her unexpected, extended hospital stay. She doesn’t ask, though.

She wants Elliot at her side now. She wishes she were strong enough that she didn’t. But he’s injured, too, even if he’s been home longer, and this makes more sense. She tries to remind herself of the logic of it, even as her heart rebels. She misses her partner.

Seems like missing him has been a constant state – sans a couple of nights and a handful of cases – since she found her own vision blurred and tilted, then honed to a clear view of emotions Elliot had never before allowed her to see, while she lay prone on a bus station floor.

Fin had rolled her down the humming fluorescent hallways in a wheelchair, a strange sensation because she doesn’t recall being wheeled in. He ignores her protestations, which were half-hearted at best. She can walk again, painfully. Slowly. She has referrals to a gamut of doctors for physical therapy, to rebuild the muscle that a bullet obliterated, to heal. She has a referral to a psychologist, too. Her mind might be a mess, but she doesn’t plan to use that one unless Cragen insists upon it.

She’d prefer to talk to Huang, check the box to get her gun and shield back, and forget that any of this ever happened.

And now she’s home, in her apartment that looks untouched – that shows no evidence of the sheer amount of change she’s experienced – since she was last within these walls. She limps past her scented candles and remembers the conversation she’d had with Elliot, safe from his touch but beholden to his voice, nonetheless.

It should be embarrassing. That even when she runs away, she’ll always come when he calls. But she thinks for the first time the scales aren’t fully unequal. They have been for years – she has thrown herself on the fire time and again so that he could walk away without even smelling of smoke. She’s gotten him home to his family, she’s gotten his kids to him. She has stepped in front of Cragen’s judgment, Kathy’s suspicion, even his children’s disillusionment.

I watched you sleeping last night. And you didn’t look worried or stressed or scared. I hoped it was because I was there.

He didn’t want her to die alone. He watched her sleep, he kissed away her concerns and hesitations. He rounded a corner they both should have cleared. He stood in front of her, his body blocking hers. Even if it didn’t do either of them any good.

But doubts niggle at her, like the tight, itching pain in her leg carries a continual reminder of the bullet that burrowed there.

Where is he?

After that first night, when she finally woke to him at her bedside, he visited. Stopped by. The is a casualness about even the terminology – dropping in, stopping by – that rankles. His tears were unguarded, the way he held her hand still recalled the Elliot who welcomed her into his apartment, who slid her down the bed by her ankle and looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. But the next time she saw him, wheeled into her room once more with nurses present and the threat of Cragen or Fin or Munch also paying a visit, he was back to the Elliot of before.

The Elliot who told her she had fucked off to Oregon, the Elliot who yelled at her in front of the entire precinct. The Elliot who laid a boy’s death at her feet and then left her alone with her self-recrimination.

She has asked him questions, tried to reconnect. He has been physically present, but she can feel it – the withholding. She doesn’t know how to do this – when people pull away from her. She didn’t understand it in her mother, either.

It’s why she prefers her relationships not to change. It’s easier, to never allow the threat of evacuation.

How are you feeling? (Ready to get the hell out of this place. I’m doing fine, Liv. You need to worry about your own recovery.)

How are the kids? (They’re good, Kathy brought ‘em by. Too used to seeing their old man in a hospital bed.)

I asked Cragen to let me talk to Maddy. Do you know if Fin or Munch has checked in on her? (Liv, she’s alright. Everyone’s involvement – David’s orchestration – was a blow, but she’s in therapy, she’s with her friend. She’s gonna be okay. You can’t do this to yourself.)

She doesn’t ask the questions she wants to ask.

Do you regret me?

Where the hell did you go?

Are you still my partner?

“You’ll call,” Fin asked her – ordered her, really – after getting her settled at home. “If ya need anything. And either me or Munch will be here on Friday to take you back to the hospital for your first follow-up.”

“You don’t need –”

“Liv, don’t even start with that shit. One of us is gonna take you. I know you don’t think you can actually get there on your own. And Stabler’s barely more useful than you are right now.”

Well. She’ll give Fin this, he doesn’t mince words with her. Even if she is barely two weeks out from a near-death experience.

“Fine,” she sighed, grumbling at how she’d been schooled, the ache of her leg making its presence known with more vigor, signaling the need for her to be off her feet, the need for the pain medication that makes her fuzzier and more melancholy.

“And you’re welcome,” he told her gripping her arm as he led her to the couch, shifting pillows around so she could lie down in some semblance of comfort. “You want to be out here or in the bedroom?”

“Out here is fine. I’m okay, Fin. Really.”

He rolled his eyes, an incongruous vision she never expected to see – Odafin Tutuola fluffing pillows in her apartment and doggedly refusing to meet her eyes.

“You’ll call,” he said again, and she heard their similarities in his voice. The isolation of them each, the reliance on work as a family – acknowledged or no. She might be the oft-referenced bleeding heart of the unit, but she’d venture to guess that Fin bled just as deeply when cut. He seemed to dodge the swipe of the knife better than she did, though.

“I’ll call. Thank you, Fin.”

He’d just nodded while she tried not to grin, the sight of him tucking a blanket around her too much to bear – she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.

Once he was gone, she settled on sleep.

She wakes with a start – pulled from a deep darkness by a pounding at the door. There is a blurred, bedraggled feeling of lost time floating around her head, a fog that hadn’t quite given the promise of lifting.

She yanks at the back of the couch, using it as leverage to pull herself to a sitting position, and cannot repress the hiss that escapes her lips. Jesus. That half-aware decision to postpone the drifty mistiness of pain medication was a mistake. It’s too new, the lines of scars that have yet to form are still too red and angry. Vibrant and garish – she has done her best not to look at them, not to think about how Elliot kissed his way up that thigh when it was smooth and unmarred.

Vanity aside, it fucking hurts.

She stands – barely. Hunched over, grasping walls, tables, the kitchen counter to brace herself against as she stumbles to the door. She knows who it is. At least she hopes she does.

She doesn’t usually mind it – being alone. Living alone. But it’s a stark, unpleasant reminder that man cannot exist as an island when one is ill, and she cannot physically support herself. Now – as much as she hates to admit it, this is the most hurt she has ever been. It was the most at risk she has ever been.

And the aloneness creeps in just as the otherness used to do.

There is no one to take care of her… a sobering revelation. And it’s always followed by an unsettling, vicious thought. She wasn’t there to take care of her mother. She knows… she knows there were extenuating circumstances. She couldn’t have alleviated her mother’s alcoholism, and she couldn’t have prevented her death. But being confined to her apartment, stuck in her own head like this – it brings it all back.

She makes it to the door, panting more than she’d like to admit, nauseous with the severity of the pain, but a little reckless, desperate to see who is on the other side.

When she swings open the door, he looks about as good as she feels. Sickly, wavering, mind-numbingly exhausted.

He also looks pissed the hell off.

“I went to the hospital,” he tells her before she can even greet him, all bluster and glares. It should be more worrisome to her, that she takes comfort in him like this. Mad, bullish, but focused on her to the exclusion of everything else.

“I was discharged today,” she says a bit dumbly, still taken aback that he is finally standing before her.

“I can see that. You didn’t think to tell me?” he demands. Now he’s accusatory, the anger flaring. Accusations and retractions have been building blocks of a partnership between them; they are familiar, too. Heightened emotion can’t be good for him – he shouldn’t even be here. He’s pale, gaunter than usual, a sheen of sweat building on his forehead, and she suspects he has ignored all doctors’ orders to come to her.

She ushers him inside.

“Come in. I did. Or Fin did? I thought…” she trails off, trying to remember exactly how it was communicated to her, who promised to inform Elliot. And goddamnit, her leg hurts. She can feel the pain zinging around her body, like it has no commitment to be contained to where the damage was done.

She gazes up at him, and she hopes to God the stare doesn’t look as helpless as she feels, but she’s probably not that lucky. His eyes soften, go wide.

“Hey,” he relents, seeming to realize he’s coming at her full throttle, loaded for bear, while she is nowhere up to speed. “Ah, damnit. Let’s get you off that leg,” he says, gripping her under her elbows.

She doesn’t miss the way he blinks – hard – when he does, and she knows he’s in no shape to be physically helping her anywhere, but the world has gone a little swimmy around her, the corners of her apartment waving and blurring together. She opens her mouth to tell him to take it easy, too, that maybe they both need to go back to the goddamn hospital.

Murmured curses and faint apologies sound in her ear as he steers her, supports her, closing the door behind them with a decisive snick. Fuck. I’m sorry, I got you. Stay with me, Liv. Christ, why aren’t you still in a hospital bed? She could say the same thing to him if she could calm the maelstrom of thoughts and emotion flooding her. Only the pain brings any clarity.

“El, just…” she mumbles, trying to tell him he doesn’t need to help her, that she’s got it, but she can’t. They both know it.

He settles her back on the couch, still doling out light assurances. It’s a vestige of fatherhood, she assumes, the inclination to comfort. Even when it’s mindless, even when it’s empty.

He sits beside her, once he’s got her sprawled out, her bad leg positioned farther away from him, propped up on a pillow he placed on the coffee table. She really should get a sectional, she thinks. Or a bigger place. A different job.

Improved self-preservation instincts.

“That better?”

It’s not, really. But she finds herself nodding anyways.

“Liv.”

She sighs, gesturing to the pill bottles that Fin left assembled on the counter. The sweeping pain and swirling of her mind so encompassing that her reasons to put off the meds – to keep a clear head – no longer hold water. He tosses out an annoyed grunt, and she thinks she catches the words stubborn woman, but they don’t have any bite. Her thoughts spin away like gossamer strands, and she just wants him to provide her some relief. She nods.

“Yeah. Realized ya took it a bit too far, huh, partner?” he asks unnecessarily, bringing back a couple of pills and a glass of water from her kitchen. He’s still holding himself with careful tension, moving slowly. But he seems to be in better shape than she is, at least.

Besides. Of all the words he’s pelting towards her, only one really stuck. Partner.

“We messed up again,” he whispers at her side moments later, after she’s taken the pills, swallowing them with the water that does nothing to relieve the dryness in her throat, her mouth.

“Don’t.”

“You were right. We rushed in, I rushed us, I get that. But here we are again, aren’t we?”

“Nobody died, El,” she reminds him. It’s important, the distinction. They didn’t choose each other over a victim this time. They were blinded, maybe, by each other. But they didn’t make the same disastrous decisions they have in the past.

She expects the words to settle him, ease the taut lines of his posture at her side, and she tilts her head when she registers that they’ve done the exact opposite.

“You almost did.”

Oh. And suddenly, his maddening distance, his beseeching looks but stilted words – they all make sense. She should have seen it, but she thought the night in his bed, the phone call, she thought that would have made them… different enough. Stronger enough, that they would be repeating a dance around what they are and aren’t allowed to mean to each other.

“We both should have handled that pursuit differently,” she tells him. “But you couldn’t have known. We had our suspects in custody. It was just supposed to be a follow-up. We weren’t supposed –”

“We knew when he took off. Or Jesus, we should have known. We’ve never…” he trails off, and she wants to yell at him. She doesn’t have the strength.

“We have been in situations like this before. You and I both know there have been so many close calls over the years! How could there not be?”

“Not like this. Not like Gitano. We’re – fuck. I’m losing it, Liv.”

A steady, suspicious weight settles in her gut, and she blames it on the medication. Blames it on the stomach-churning pain that still pulses through her, because he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do this to her, not after everything they’ve been through together.

“What are you saying?”

He shakes his head, doesn’t answer. Idly picks up her hand and turns his too-blue eyes to her.

“You got someone taking care of you?”

The question sends off alarm bells.

Don’t pull away, she wants to beg him. You’re a selfish son of a bitch, she wants to rail at him.

But she does neither; she cannot. She may not be able to love him fully, admit any extent of what she feels. But she cannot leave him either. If they’re to separate from each other, he’s the one who will have to swing the cleaving strike. She lets him hold her hand, thinks when he held more of her, and wonders if he realizes that he’s actually holding her from flying apart at the seams.

“Fin or Munch – one of them is going to take me to my follow-up appointment.”

His eyebrows pull together in disapproval, and she suppresses the urge to roll her eyes, to slap him. It’s easy to sit in judgement of people who have no one when he’s always had someone. Having people is innate to Elliot.

Fighting for scraps is innate to her.

“That’s not – they’re not… Liv, you shouldn’t be by yourself right now.”

She fiddles with the edges of her blanket. The statement pulls at her. He’s always been able to do that: cut to the crux of an issue, even as the words he leaves unspoken scream at her most loudly. She’s adrift, and her hard-sought independence isn’t a boon to her now. He’s right, but it feels condescending. It feels unfair.

He feels like he’s leaving.

“Are you ending this?” she asks reluctantly. She’s always been able to do this. Ask questions even when she doesn’t want to know the answer. She wishes she could claim it as courage, but it’s more likely she’s simply accustomed to disappointment.

He heaves a sigh, but continues to touch her, at least. A hand on her knee, the good one that doesn’t bend below scar tissue marking the removal of a bullet she wishes she could forget, of a blood clot she doesn’t even remember. This is why I didn’t want to change things, Elliot. If we hadn’t had that night, you would be my steady ground right now.

“This… it’s not something I can end, is it? I just think we need to take some time. It’s what you wanted in the first place.”

“But –”

Panic nips at her, teeth sharp and gnashing with vicious intent – small bites that carry the threats of how much damage he could do. How his abandonment now could rip her to shreds.

His hand tightens, though, and he stops her before the words can flow.

“I’m still your partner.”

And as much as he might desire more – as much as he might think that more is no longer in the cards for them – that’s all she’s ever needed.

“Okay,” she says it on a shaky exhale. The last two weeks – this whole case – they have been so, so much. She can probably survive losing the rest of him, but she needs her partner.

And then he shocks the hell out of her. Twice over – really. She’d thought after he kissed her in the squad car, that he’d lost the ability to do so.

“You gonna let me stay with you?”

She turns her head, realizes how closely they’re actually sitting, that her good side is pressed up against his, that she can feel the heat of him. Even bloodied and broken, their good parts fit. They have just agreed to pull back from each other – she thinks – but she can’t help herself. The weight of his gaze is too heavy but the feel of his hands on her, they bring her back to an even keel. She repositions, fighting the whimper the movement incites, so that they are lightly reclined on the couch, his arm around her, her hand gripping his right thigh as she breathes through the pain in her own.

“Careful, take it easy,” his voice sounds to the right of her, above her head.

The world has taken on a rosy hue, whether from the softly setting sun in the early winter afternoon, or from the meds finally kicking in, dropping their veil of lassitude. She watches the shadows, relieved that they are no longer sharply outlined and blue-hued, created by medical equipment and beds on wheels in the hospital’s harsh light. Grateful to watch the changing nature of the sun again.

She ought to tell him no. Ought to rebuild the armaments she let him dissemble, ought to take a cue from the fear she just narrowly avoided, the realization of how much he will take from her if he goes. She ought to be stronger, more self-aware.

Serena’s lovely face, unlined and smooth from years long past, ghosts across her mind. There are so many things she ought to have been.

“Liv?” he prompts. The exhaustion in his voice fades over her, too.

“Yeah. Yes, you can stay.”

Olivia Benson is his partner. She has saved his life, she tried to save his marriage. She has been his friend, his confidant, his handler. A thorn in his side and the other half of the best parts of himself. He’s had her in his bed, in his heart.

And now, she is his roommate.

He came over here, storming from the hospital where all of a sudden she wasn’t, with every intention of telling her that they needed to reevaluate. That their closeness has now – for a second time – assessed its fee in blood.

He can’t pay it again, no matter what he feels for her.

And then, she stood in front of him, swaying on a leg she shouldn’t have been standing on in the first place, bangs mussed like they’d been when she woke up in his bed, eyes tired and haunted. She looked fragile; she looked hurt. She looked young. He doesn’t like it when she looks like she did in their first year. It’s unsettling… reminds him of feelings he shouldn’t have had. Not back then. In those days, he’d given himself the permission to stand in front of her then, to touch her, to orbit in her space.

He gave himself that permission until Kathy walked into the precinct their two precious blond daughters hanging onto either hand, drawing attention from everyone in the squad room with their sweet little cries of Daddy! We came to visit you!

“This is my wife, Kathy,” he told his partner, introducing her in turn, brokering the meet of two women who had heard so much about each other, who had listened to him describe the importance of the other while they stood – or laid – at his side.

Kathy’s words were kind and welcoming, but her pale eyes cut like shears, and he watched Olivia take it. Feel it. There was nothing he could do, he told himself. A few months – and several brutal cases – later, his partner showed up to work with shorn hair, tighter clothes, and a stubborn jaw.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that in some ways, the new look made her appear even more delicate.

He stopped touching her after that.

He touches her now, though. He touches her all the time, even as they’ve agreed to take a step back. He lets her touch him, too.

Liv makes coffee in the mornings and brings him his cup – to his surprisingly comfortable camp on her living room sofa – before she even pours her own. She sets it on the coffee table, sometimes remembering a coaster, sometimes not, with a soft brush of fingers over his shoulder. He doesn’t pull away.

She smiles more than he expected her to – shooting an offhanded smirk to a funny line on the background tv show, softly tilting the corner of her mouth at him when he reminds her to take her pain medication or nags her to eat something before, don’t take that on an empty stomach, a full, eye crinkling grin when he acquiesces to her preference for their dinner order. He touches her almost every time she aims and fires that smile at him – a soft nudge to her shoulder with his good one as they sit on the couch, fingers grazing as he drops a collection of oval pills into hers, a hand to the nape of her neck when he picks up the phone to order takeout.

There is a tension, as he has put uncertain brakes against… whatever they are becoming, because the longer he spends with her, the more he realizes he doesn’t simply rely on her, want her. He likes her.

His partner is more winsome than he ever would have guessed, and her singular focus at work, on cases, does not translate to the relaxed, nearly shabby atmosphere of her home. Her interests are intellectual, varied – literature, music, classic movies. But her attention is fleeting. She leaves dog-eared copies of books upside-down and open on the arms of her couch; he realizes she reads more than one at a time, given the frequency. He teased her about it: Why are you reading more than one book at once? Those drugs got you confused? But she batted it right back. Right. Like we never worked more than one case at a time. She re-watches scenes of her favorite movies and rewinds them until he pays attention, but falls asleep before the film rolls the credits. She listens to the first chorus of a song and then skips to the next, which he finds infuriating. She pours glasses of orange juice or water or coffee and forgets about them, leaving an array of glassware decorating her otherwise nondescript kitchen, casting offhand rainbows from the window’s sunlight.

He follows her routines, surprised at how the flowing nature of hers enmesh easily with his more stringent, steady approach. His has had to be rigid, to raise four children. But it’s nice, he realizes, to weave his patterns with hers.

He sets up a record player, after an ill-advised shopping trip, on the third day – after he and Fin jointly took her to her first check-up, his coworker’s eyes narrowed but mouth closed at their realization of their current living situation. Never got to have one of these around the house; records are a surefire target to get scratched up by the kids. He doesn’t mention that it’s also to deter her habit of moving to the next song before hearing the bridge. He knows that from hours upon hours of stakeouts that she likes to listen to Nina Simone and Fleetwood Mac and Roy Orbison, but he didn’t know that she would sing along to her favorite tracks until he kept her up too late after her evening dosage of medication, laughing softly about gentle memories, things far from the files that crossed their desks at the 1-6.

It’s a Victrola, and he tells her he’ll move it to his apartment – when whatever it is they’re doing is over. But he buys her favorite music first, and he sets it up on her floor, a temporary residence until they get a table for it. She can’t maneuver herself down there to peruse the albums he has started to collect, to which Munch has inconspicuously contributed after a phone call to check on them both. He settles her on the couch first – hands  gripping her waist, sliding up her arms, clasping her shoulders – then leans against the wall opposite her, holding up title after title until she selects one to play and one to hold on deck.

They touch each other steadily throughout the day – out of necessity, and he should have expected that – hovering in her cramped bathroom while they help to rebandage each other’s wounds.

“Stand still, El,” she mutters, standing between his legs as he sits on her small counter.

“I am,” he tells her, even as he rocks back, earning him firmer hands on his shoulder and a stern, somehow endearing look.  

“I can do this myself, though. You shouldn’t be on your feet,” he tells her. She shouldn’t. She’s a better actress than he gave her credit for, he’s realized that on their infrequent undercover cases, but she’s an absolute showstopper when it comes to hiding her pain.

“We’ve had this conversation. It’s okay for me to up, a little bit. Building up to a few minutes an hour. The doctor said –”

“The doctor said to go slow. To take it easy. To stay off that leg.”

She rolls her eyes, and he ignores the rush of affection it sends through him.

No. She’s a pain in the ass, he tells himself. It’s mostly a lie.

“Just… hold still.”

He obliges, if only to get her off her leg and back on the couch. He sits through the ministrations, feeling the soft touch of her fingertips, gentle as they press the new, clean bandage against his skin. He waits to turn the tables.

“How’s it feeling?” she asks quietly. Her voice always seems to drop an octave when she references the shooting, the case. Maddy.

“Better than yesterday,” he answers, the words oft-used and relaxed. It’s become their custom. Better than yesterday. Just like the dance of not sharing the bathroom, different from the ease of that first morning at his place. Just like her coffee preparation, and his making of lunchtime sandwiches, their debate on what to order for dinner, the hesitation with which she finally leaves the living room in the evenings, a final, goodnight, El falling from her lips.

Her lips twist in a smile, but she nods, patting the bandage as she steps away, allowing him to pull the button-up – easier to take on and off – back over his shoulders. He tries to track if her eyes follow bare chest, his arms. Tries to determine if she’s affected, even as he confirmed their… adjusted pacing.

She’s elusive, though, despite standing before him. This is as much as he’s ever had of her. More than their night together, strange as it seems. She feels like… his, here. Unguarded and barefoot, makeup-free and easy. He knows it might devolve once they’re back on the job. He tries not to take it for granted.

“Your turn,” he tells her. Between the two of them, she is the trickier of patients. She sighs, but retreats from the bathroom, and he follows her to her haven, a space he still marvels he’s allowed into, her bedroom.

He asks all the familiar questions. You got it? Here – can I help you lay down?

As she has since he’s been here – with the exception of that first night, when her exhaustion and pain-shattered posture left her leaning heavily against him – she resists him, and settles herself onto the bed independently, under his watchful eye.

But she lets him pull at the soft, baggy hem of her pajama shorts, lifting it closer to the juncture of her thighs. He’s certain he’s not imagining it, that they both hold their breath when they reach this point in each day. When his hands are on her – in a way they had been before, entirely different in his new intent.

Her skin is smooth, golden-hued, and it sometimes shrinks at his touch, but he doesn’t think it’s because she doesn’t want him to touch her. Her pupils dilate, like before, her breath quickens, ever so slightly. He feels it – how good they were together, the crescendo over the edge, the way her body needed no guidance or adjustment to know how to move with his own.

“How’s it feel?” he whispers. The question holds reverence.

“Better than yesterday.”

Her voice is husky, and he likes it like this. Deep, if unsure, throaty and overcome. Thoughts, guidance from others, gallop through his mind; the fences he tries to erect doing nothing to slow them.

It was just… too complicated.

Figure it out slowly, Elliot… People like that need tenderness the most.

Don’t fuck with it unless you mean it.

She’s going to be okay.

His fingers tighten, and fumble with the bandage, brushing much harder than he ever would intentionally against her wound. She sucks in a quick breath in response; his heart stutters.

Shit.

“God, God, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry, Liv. You okay?”

It takes her a moment, and he hates that he can hear her battling tears. When she finally speaks, her voice is shaky, tense.

“It’s okay. I’m alright.”

But those tears are evident in her voice, and his heart clenches further. He pulls away the bandage and can’t ignore how the muscle lining her thigh tightens in defense. The wound is stark and twisted against her skin. It will leave significant scarring, a permanent reminder. He can’t help but eye the thin, pale line at her throat that marks the last time they nearly lost each other to the job. Because of decisions they made on the job.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry, baby.”

They both freeze, his breath caught in his throat as her eyes slam shut.

Hell. He doesn’t use endearments with her, didn’t even when he had her writhing beneath his body in his bed. She has never seemed like the kind of woman – always seemed like she’d be as likely to shoot him in response as she was to appreciate it. And now is hardly the moment. Her eyes open and shoot to his, dark and tear-filled. He doesn’t know what it means – that she seems to seek assurance from him, these days.

“Liv,” he starts, but she interrupts him. She’s always saving them.

“It was an accident,” she murmurs. He doesn’t know if she means the bandage or the pet-name, but he lets her have the implications of both.

“An accident, yeah. Better now?”

She smiles at that, still prone below him, with her hair spilling across the pillow. She hasn’t worn it in a ponytail since he took up residence in her apartment; it’s always wavy and down around her shoulders, a version of her he didn’t know existed. New and remembered, impossible and inevitable.

“Better than before,” she tells him.

He believes her.

“I’m gonna let you get some rest, okay?”

It’s about the time her pain meds kick in, and when they do, he can watch her defenses waver and fade, until they shimmer out of view. Two and a half weeks ago, it was all he wanted. Now, it feels like too much, too quickly. He knows he’s encroaching on her space, but he can’t stomach the worry of her navigating this by herself. He can’t bear to leave. Even still, it feels like taking advantage, to stay so close when she wears no armor.

“Hmm,” she sighs, and it sends frissons of want straight through him. She’s completely unaware.

Get it together, Stabler.

“Wake me in a couple hours?”

If he doesn’t, a nightmare likely will. She doesn’t talk to him about them, refuses to admit they rouse her from sleep and place her back in an alley, but her apartment is small, and the walls are thin. He hears how she wakes, hears the catch in her gasp and the tears she can’t quite suppress. The evidence is always meticulously hidden, by the time she limps to her bedroom door with her eyes on the coffee maker.

“Course.”

He runs a hand through her hair, brushing the bangs off her face as her eyes drift closed. Touching her, yet again.

He’s flicking through channels, a little while later, with her settled against him, hours after she won the battle to order in some Cuban food from the restaurant near her bodega. Comfort food, El. It’s what we need right now. He can’t think of food – and her – without seeing her insisting on the monumental importance of chicken tenders.

He pauses on a game, but assumes she’d rather land on a show, a sitcom, so he clicks forward.

“Hang on. I like baseball,” she tells him, abruptly.

He clicks back.

“How did I not know that? You like baseball?”

She bristles good-naturedly at his side, warming up to the promise of a debate. Almost feels like their give-and-take on a case. She seems to bask with the knowledge that something about her has surprised him. He hesitates to call any outcome of David Abatello’s actions, but he can’t say he minds this part, this opportunity to know her differently.

“I don’t follow a particular team, necessarily. Mostly the Yankees, I guess. But… yeah, I like baseball. Because they’re like little isolated stories, all on their own, you know?”

“Baseball is like stories?” he asks, not bothering to hide his answering grin at her beleaguered sigh.

“Yeah, it is. It’s an anthology, really.”

He snorts at that. Leave it to her.

“Explain, Benson.”

“It’s a collection of individual plays, repeated.”

“I’m familiar with how to play the sport.”

“Would you stop?” she snags the remote from him and puts the tv on mute, so her honied tones are all he hears. He wasn’t lying to Munch, drugged beyond belief and lying helpless in the hospital, he thinks suddenly. He does love her. He isn’t certain that he had it right that she loves him, too, in his semiconscious state. But he loves her.

She’s intent on her mission of explanation, though, nodding in earnest at him.

“You asked me,” she continues. “And each and every inning – really each at bat – has a beginning and an end, and they all count for something. You don’t have to watch the whole game to enjoy it. It’s okay if you miss innings. It’s easy to catch up. You can just… like the parts you catch.”

God, she takes his breath away.

“Yeah,” he responds, insufficiently – he can’t deny her. She’s right, after all. He can’t keep up with her, either. “You know what, Liv, I never thought about it like that before.”

She nods contentedly at his side, and he soaks it in. It’s rare, he realizes, that he does or says something this simple to make her happy.

He sits with it, long after she quiets. His partner, who has fought battle after battle, chipping away at the pieces of sexual assault and criminal activity in their city as part of a broader war. His Olivia, who should have known the whole of a joyful moment, but who is simply satisfied with the pieces.

He wants to give her more than fragments.

She succumbs to sleep, limbs falling slack at his side after a while, the cheery hum of the game still lulling them to peace in the background. He should move her, make sure she goes to bed, have her elevate that leg a little more. But he keeps her next to him, a while longer. And only when he’s certain she’s asleep – deep enough that he knows the pain meds pulled her under more than mere fatigue ever could have – he leans over and presses his lips to her warm, smooth forehead.

There were good times in his childhood, he muses, despite his mother’s illness, his father’s hardness. He loved Kathy for years, and that love has channeled into a different variation, now. He would lay down his life for his children; they are the best remnants of him. He has known what it is to have a soft place to land. A good one, built on firm foundations and a semi-reasonable mortgage and the bonds of family.

It has been different, to be partners in care, when they used to be partners in pursuit. But here, in these healing-filled days – soon sliding into weeks – with Olivia at his side, he thinks he might have found a new meaning for the word home.

Chapter Text

It’s a terrifying thing, really, how quickly people heal, how swiftly they calibrate.

Olivia thought she was exempt from that rule; set in her ways and satisfied with that. She wants to go back, talk to the version of herself from a week and a half ago who was dazed with pain, blind to what waited ahead. Tell herself to send her partner back to his own apartment, insist she is able to tackle the dunes and drifts of recovery alone.

Because now, in the harsh winter light of nine days later, accompanied by the entry into a new month, she has grown accustomed to him.

She likes him in her space, even when he disagrees with her dinner choices, when he leaves facial hair trimmings in her sink, when he talks on the phone with his children at an unnecessary volume – his laughter booming through the walls, carrying a joy and a relief that she cannot resent on his behalf. Even if it does rouse her from her pain medicine-induced haze more times than not.

Years ago, on an uncommonly good day shortly before her teenage years, she curled against her mother while she put on a rented movie – a musical – jiggling the frame in the VCR and promising that Olivia was she going to love it. That it was a classic. That they’d go to London someday, and she’d see the sights in Covent Garden for herself, buy flowers from the sellers on the street. None of that ever came to fruition; the promise was gone and forgotten a mere couple of days later. But Serena was right about one thing – she did love it, and she fell asleep that evening thinking about how she too might someday dance all night, wondering about the rain in Spain and where it falls. A spoken and sung line from the film surfaces, and the lyrical dissonance makes her want to raise her hands against it, bat it away.

I’ve grown accustomed to her face.

Turns out, she can sympathize with good old Henry Higgins.

Evidence of the new place Elliot has taken in her life presents itself everywhere. She’s grown accustomed to his face. She’s grown accustomed to damn near everything about him.

He’s the last face she sees before she goes to sleep, the first one she sees when she wakes.

Muted fear has started to shadow her, taking form in the blanket that trails behind her when she pulls it from her bed to the couch – his bed. The second coffee cup, which she actually pours first, each morning.  The toothbrush that didn’t formerly sit on her bathroom counter but now rests beside hers.

Every day brings new strength, a remembered memory of how damaged she was, a newly varnished memory to put in her vault of what it’s like to live with him.

“Sleep okay?” the words don’t startle her, not anymore – not when she expects another person to be there alongside her before she leaves the confines of her home.

“Yeah,” she smiles into her coffee cup, nudging his towards him.

“Feel okay?”

“Better than yesterday,” she murmurs. They are nothing if not consistent.

He stretches a little, and she tries not to notice that his better than yesterday looks good as new. She’s not caught up, still caught in the cycle of doctor’s appointments and physical therapy, but she doesn’t trail too far behind. They’re both mobile again, itching with remembered movement.

There was a moment, when he first arrived, first insisted on a record player and the sharing of music, that she sank into the pause, the reason to stop fighting so goddamn hard. She thinks he did, too. But with every day that passes, every modicum of strength they gain, she knows there is no longer a reason for them to perpetuate the bubble they’ve created. No longer a reason for her to claim him as she has.

Except… she’s grown accustomed to his face.

“I was thinking, we could swing by, grab Dickie today. He’s been wanting to try out some new gear for baseball,” he winks as he says it – she should never have admitted to even halfway liking the sport, “for the spring season. We’ll take it easy. Just one store and then lunch. How’s the leg? You feeling up to it?”

Truth of the matter is… she does feel up to it. She feels restrained, hemmed in by the enforced doctors’ orders and the fact that she has now spent almost a month without the ability to do her goddamn job. But she feels more sure-footed, again. Her right leg doesn’t feel like the start of a trial, doesn’t include the guesswork of whether or not she can rise upon it. She needs rest, frequent breaks, and she certainly wouldn’t beat even Dickie in a footrace – but she is able, once more.

It's just a question of whether or not she should be, now.

“El. I don’t know if that’s the best… maybe you two should just spend some time together,” she tells him, and she studies the way her coffee sloshes and stains the side of her mug – anything to distract her. She knows he’s going to call her on it.

“Hey,” he pulls at her arm. Maneuvers her so they face each other. Her kitchen has never been large, but damnit, it’s also never felt so small. “What’s going on?”

And she can’t lie to him now. Not like she could before. He is not just her partner any longer. He is her best friend in a world that has left her very little in the way of reliability. He is her confessor, the man who has lived with her in her recuperation, the man who bled next to her in an alleyway. He is the man who kissed his way down the side of her left breast and quietly whispered that it was his favorite, before lavishing the same attention on the right. He fed her breakfast in the predawn light and let her rediscover a side of herself that wasn’t so weighted, wasn’t so afraid.

She cannot hide from this man, and she cannot hide from the truth.

This was always going to end.

“He’s your son. And I don’t have an appointment today,” she tells him; he’s accompanied her to everyone she’s had, much to her initial chagrin. She has returned the favor. “You don’t need to… watch out for me.”

His brows knit, an all-too familiar expression, and she cannot suppress the way her whole body feels the responding sigh. He won’t take this lying down.

“I don’t need to… watch out for you?” he says, a droll imitation that makes her want to snatch his coffee mug and pour out the remainder. Maybe on his head.

“Elliot.”

“Olivia.”

He is frustrating and familiar, and she is fucking accustomed to him now – and she was supposed to be smarter than this.

“I just mean that maybe we should talk about it. You know, what happens –”

She cuts herself off. Because she doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know, what happens now. Now that she doesn’t physically need him in the same way, now that her limp is less pronounced, now that she might groan here and there – but she can get from room to room without assistance.

Now that she doesn’t need him to lay her down on her bed and push up the hem of her shorts to check her bandage.

His eyes narrow, darkened eyebrows encroaching on clear, concerned blue. And his form encroaches on her space, boxing her into a corner of her kitchen. For god’s sake. Has it always been this confined? The man dwarfs it.

“What happens when?”

She doesn’t know how, or when, he found this courage. The squad car, the cribs, his apartment kitchen – she still vividly remembers the dizzying vault when he all but tossed her on his bed – her home. He’s been so certain of late, and she doesn’t know what to make of that. The Elliot she knows doesn’t make decisions so easily, doesn’t retreat from years’ worth of confirmations so readily. She does her best to summon her own.

“When you go.”

His face – his face, that one she now can’t deny that she loves so well – shifts. In denial, in concern, in frustration. In relief? She doesn’t know. She cannot tell what he wants, what is right. Where she should aim. His face falls, the crags of his features smoothing and gentling like damp leaves evening the ground, and she doesn’t know what to make of that.

“When I go,” he says, canting his head to study her more intently as she shifts, leaning her good hip against the kitchen counter.

Don’t make me be the one to say it, she thinks. But somehow… she wants answers and surety even more than she wants him. She wants to know what this is.

“What are we doing, here?”

“Neither of us should have been alone, after that,” he says, and it’s true, but it’s still a mirrored deflection. And she knows that despite the divorce, Kathy would have let him stay at the house. She can’t delude herself into thinking this was mutual; he did it for her.

She hates that this terrifies her, but she knows she needs to nudge against him. Prick at his pride, push him more than he wants, force him to make a call. He is the strongest man she knows. The best one. And even still, he will take the opportunity to rest in more than one world, to take as much as he as given, before he takes a stance that could cost him.

“But it’s after. That.”

He nods, rubs at his jaw in a motion that is so, so known to her, that she half expects a file to materialize in her hands, for the squad room to flicker into being around them.

“You want me to go?” he asks after a long moment, ominous in its pause.

Why can’t we figure out how to stop talking past each other?

She wants to lie. She wants to claim the independent Detective Benson she used to be, who could send him home to Kathy and lay in her bed – or pick up someone charmingly faceless at a bar to satisfy an urge, boost her confidence when it was lagging. But for some reason, she finds that she can’t. She remembers how she felt before he arrived on her doorstep, all pallid features and righteous indignation, that he would have to be the one to cleave a separation between them. It’s as true now as it was then.

“No.”

He steadies a bit. Moves a little further into her space. It feels new, all over again. They haven’t – since they have – they haven’t. They have been roommates or nursemaids, caretakers and confidants. But they have not crossed those lines since she broke every rule that she has ever established for herself and cast all her instincts aside in the dim light of his apartment entrance.

“No?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she tells him. She will not cry. She will not.

“You want to talk about it, but you don’t know what I want you to say?”

Goddamn the new stable, self-assured version of Elliot Stabler. She spends half her time wanting to pull him from his perch on her couch to join her in her bed, and half wanting to shove him. On the good side of his chest.

The words hover, mirage-like, then dodge out of her grasp, wily wisps of things she never really had.

“El.”

Those eyes – the ones she has seen hard and flinty, marble-cool and dismissive, warm like shallow water in the afternoon light – they soften. Damnit.

“Okay. C’mere,” his murmuring tone does nothing to soldier up her defenses, and she lets him pull her, caught in his tide. She doesn’t know how to dig her feet, burrow them in the ocean floor sand to resist it, not anymore. He presses his forehead to hers, and it would be so very easy to tilt her jaw upwards and kiss him.

“We need to talk about it,” she reminds him, the words spoken into the same air he breathes.

He smiles, and she stiffens.

“No, no, Liv, come on. Don’t – of course we gotta talk about it.”

“You get your next clearance in three days,” she reminds him. It’s true. He won’t be back on active duty, but he rebounded almost obnoxiously quickly. Only muscle and soft tissue, her ass, she thinks sourly. Her gait may never be quite the same, and she refuses to ponder the implications of that for too long. It’s early days, still.

“I know. That been worrying you?”

This is new, too. An Elliot who absorbs her reactions and seeks to understand the emotion behind them before he responds. She’s not sure what to make of it.

She dodges the question.

“I just think we’re coming close to the time when we don’t have a choice. We have to figure out what’s next. I have appreciated this; you have to know –”

“Don’t. Come on, don’t do that – you know, minimize it. This wasn’t something for you to appreciate. This has been more than that.”

It’s a relief, to hear that he thinks so. Not that she wants him to know that.

“We have to talk about it,” she reiterates.

“Yeah. Yeah, we do. So, let’s talk.”

He pulls back from her, leaning on the counter opposite. Even with the space between them, she thinks her apartment walls close in on them. She can still feel his breath on her skin.

The woman is beyond infuriating.

He’s been… he’s been here. He fucking moved in with her. And she’s acting like he picked up her mail and dropped it off as a neighborly favor.

He has been… restraining himself. And she’s behaving like they’re friendly roommates. Like he doesn’t know what it is to lick the inside of her thigh to the center of her, to watch every goddamn muscle she has tighten in response.

“You stayed with me because you didn’t want me to be alone.”

Her eyes land everywhere but on him. In someone else, he would think that a sign of hesitation, insecurity. Not in his partner, though. He knows her tells. This is standard Olivia evasion. She’ll run, he realizes, if he lets her. Maybe not physically, this time. He winces – the comparison contains cruelty, now. They still aren’t sure how well she will actually run, ever again. He wonders – not for the first time – if her position of his partner will be taken from them whether they pursue what has been stoking between them or not.

He wonders what it will do to her, if that’s the case. She can’t walk away from the job; what happens if it walks away from her?

She’s beyond infuriating. But he knows she’s also got to be fucking terrified.

“Yeah. I didn’t want to be alone, either.”

The admission softens her a little. They stand in opposite corners in her cramped kitchen – it’s almost muscle memory to want to remind her to take it easy, to get off that leg, but he keeps quiet. Like two boxers in a ring, waiting for the bell to tell them they’re allowed to take swings at each other.

“You wanted to take some time,” she says slowly, like she’s weighing the words before they leave her. Before she gives them to him.

“You actually asked for that first, remember?” he reminds her. “Space and time.”

“And then you moved in with me.”

“And then we both got shot,” he retorts. The clarification matters. Besides that, he’ll never be able to unsee the sight of her lying unconscious, eyes closed and bangs askew, in that alley. “And then I moved in with you.”

“I don’t want to disclose to Cragen yet.”

The leap dizzies him. He’s disoriented, trying to catch up to where she’s going, bounding forward and leaving him behind, the requests for space and time shackling his feet.

“What?”

“If we do this. If we… you moved in with me, Elliot. And I don’t want you to go. I don’t know what that means. But if we… work is going to change anyways and –”

“Hey. Hey,” he cannot suppress the instinct to deny, to soothe that particular concern. “You’re gonna be fine. You’re gonna be back on the job.”

She nods, but the words feel too half-hearted. Neither of them knows them to be true yet. Her eyes meet his then, dark and fathomless. A little tired, a little bruised. He clenches his fists at his side. He wants to hold her; he doesn’t want to startle her. A step forward, a step back.

“What are we doing?” she asks again.

And he doesn’t fucking know. He hasn’t known in weeks, in months. He tells her the thing he knows is true.

“You’re my partner.”

“Okay,” she nods slowly, never breaking his gaze. That’s the thing with Liv, sometimes, he thinks. He’s learned when she watches him like this, he’s being tested. There is always a bigger question at play. Who else would put up with me?

“And…” she prompts. “You’re going to stay here?”

“I don’t want to leave.”

“Yet?”

At all. But she’s already made one leap. He’d prefer to scale the rest of their ascent with gradual steps.

“Yet.”

Maybe a couple of steps more at a time.

“There are some… terms I’d like to renegotiate,” he says, and with the agreed extension, the sword of separation that’s spent ten days silently hovering above them lifts, the tension eases. A hint of a smile skitters across her face, and he can see her gears turning. She always liked a good debate.

“Are there now?” She lifts her coffee cup to her lips, posture going slack, more reclined against the counter. He rolls his eyes as he catches the water glass, the juice glass still half-full accumulating behind her, and he gives in a little. He pulls her out of the kitchen, nudging her in the direction of the couch.

“Yeah. Sleeping arrangements, for one,” she stiffens, but that might be from the lingering ache in her leg as she sits. He’s spent the nights on the couch, which – while more comfortable than he expected – has nothing on a real bed. The biting twinge in his shoulder never quite goes away. And it’s the worst part of his day – when her bedroom door latches closed.

She nods silently into her cup, bangs blocking her eyes from his view.

“Nothing to say to that?”

“I want to hear all of your stipulations up front. Before I make any concessions.”

“Playing at an ADA, huh?”

She smiles, and the warmth settles inside him, blooming in his chest like there was never a bullet at all.

“I’ve learned a thing or two over the years.”

“Cabot would be proud.”

They both quiet for a moment at the reminder of Alex. The years have given them things – they have tested and strengthened their partnership – but they have taken, as well.

“You want to have sleepovers,” she says, and he snorts, appreciating the return to a lighter mood. “What else?”

“Look, the kids – they know I’m staying with you. And Kathy, well –” he stumbles here. It’s been tough, reassuring his kids. He’s seen his children, has returned to his apartment and spent time with them there, has been by the house several times since he got out of the hospital. The worry on their faces fades with each visit.

He knows Olivia loves his children. He’s taken it for granted, he realizes, the extents to which she’s gone, fighting to ensure he sees them over the years. But if they’re taking a pass at making this more… permanent, he wants the divides to be less steep, less stringent.

“El,” she interrupts, forehead creased in concern. “Your kids are welcome here any time. Of course, they are. I thought you knew that.”

Maybe he had. It feels good to hear it aloud, though.

“Thank you,” he tells her solemnly.

“What else?”

“Moratorium on the Traveling Wilburys. We have got to expand your musical taste.”

The latest record Munch sent over has eclipsed the playing and on deck selections for the past five days. It’s cheating, he told her after the first day. It’s still Roy Orbison, and you’ve got his solo record, too. But he’s found that Olivia typically gets her way. And he’s oddly content to let her.

“They’re a super-group, a band of the best of the best,” she scoffs. He likes them, too, just not round the clock. “You’re just not cultured. Who do you want? More Springsteen?”

Well, he’s not opposed to it. He wonders if she’s ever danced to Sherry Darling. Wonders if he could convince her.

“Broaden your horizons, Benson.” He grins at her put upon sigh.

“I haven’t heard anything that I’m not amenable to,” she says, a small nod of her head shaking her bangs into her eyes. They’ve glossed over the sleeping arrangements, but he is going to push her on it tonight, when he settles down next to her, when he watches her sleep.

“Yeah? Well, Alex might not be so impressed. She and Casey would both argue on at least one point.”

“Not if they liked all the points you made,” she responds, and the shyness – foreign on her lips, counter to the tough and armored Detective Benson who has stood by his side for years – feels like an invitation.

“Hmm. Good. I got one more to run past you. I’d like to pick up some chicken tenders,” he tells her, testing the waters. “Some boxes of the frozen kind, just to have on hand.”

She sets her coffee cup on the table, brings her hands back to her face, pushing at her forehead underneath her bangs. He might have taken one step too far.

“Can I think about it?” she asks, and he thinks his heart cracks at the words. It’s not a no, and she wants him to stay, and he tries to hold the fragments of his feelings for her together.

“You want to think about whether or not we should have sex again?” he asks incredulously.

Definitely a step too far.

“Yes. Is that so crazy? Can I do that? Can we just… stay like this for a little while longer? And I’ll… I’ll let you know?” her voice raises at the end, a lilting question that speaks to just how vulnerable she feels. He fights a proud smile he’s not sure she would appreciate; he might be breaking, but when he looks at her, all he sees is strength. This is an Olivia who isn’t hiding from the emotion, who isn’t kissing him goodbye in a squad car before they even take a shot.

She’s tentative. She hasn’t shaken her wolflike wariness, and he’s not sure he wants her to, outside these walls. But she’s got more staying power than he thought she would.

He thinks about grabbing one of her hands, pulling her more firmly to him, resting her against his good side. He remembers nearly two weeks ago, when they reclined side-by-side like this, still fiery with pain, and she told him he could stay. He remembers a month ago, lifting her onto the countertop in the middle of the night and pressing between her legs, with no idea what awaited them in the coming days.

They survived, just like she came back from Oregon.

He stays the course.

“Yeah. We can do that.”

She goes to see Maddy several days later, after a few phone calls and a desperate insistence to Elliot that she needs to see her in person. It’s been nearly six weeks – and what feels like a new lifetime – since she last saw her. Her bulldog of a roommate came with her; they shadow each other these days, even more than when their strides matched in partnership. But he’s waiting in the car, after a terse nod at the shake of her head, when she stilled his motion to unbuckle his seatbelt. Just let me talk to her, just me? I owe her that. He didn’t agree, she knows, but he let her go.

Memories resurrect as she sees the young woman’s face, framed by dark, silky hair that reminds of her of her own, years ago. The images recall her attempt to comfort, their innate connection, before bullets sent her whole world to hell. She remembers insisting that Tara’s involvement wasn’t a reflection upon Maddy at all. She finds herself having a similar conversation, even with the time behind them.

“It’s good to see you up and around, Detective Benson,” Maddy says shyly, her face a reminder of why Olivia does this job, day in and out. Despite the price it exacts.

She looks heathy, she looks good, skin aglow and some of the wary shadows gone from her face. They’re in Val’s apartment – where she has moved. It’s sunlit and new. A high-rise with a doorman, a dedicated mailroom. The apartment itself is sterile, repetitive. A carbon capture of any newly furnished lease that Liv’s ever seen, but it’s clean. It’s safe, and different, and while the specter of Tara doesn’t show its presence, Maddy’s reproductions of Matisse and Picasso do. She sees that a Degas – whimsical ballerinas – has been added to the mix. It’s a positive sign, she thinks. The nesting. A glimpse of Elliot holding up record options, propped up on the floor next to their turntable, flashes against the backs of her eyes.

“It’s good to see you, too. How are you doing, Maddy?”

“I was so worried about you and Detective Stabler. I’m so sorry that this happened – when I heard that you were both shot, that you might die –”

Her words run together, syllables advancing on each other, and the panicked, wavering voice reminds her of when she first took her statement, heart breaking at what she’d survived. She puts her hands on top of Maddy’s elbows, gripping them in steady reassurance, the way she always wished her mother had done when she brought a fear or a problem to her door.

“We’re both doing fine.”

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbles, dark eyes unlined and wide, and Olivia wonders if she ever looked that innocent, that pleading. Stars in her eyes and entreaties on her lips.

“None of it, Maddy. None of this was your fault,” she says. She closes her eyes – just for a moment – and she imagines the words, and the pardon they offer, are not hers to bestow. Imagines that Serena is presenting them to her, that she gave them to her years ago when the snags and thorns of their mired relationship left the wounds that still slowly weep.

A lonely girl’s wishes and dreams, spoiled hopes that don’t smart so sharply – not anymore.

“I feel like I should have known better,” Maddy says, her lower lip trembling, jutting forward like a denial as she confesses. “I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

And Olivia can’t let it stand. She cannot let this girl carry the weight of guilt forth; she will already have to carry the knowledge of her own victimhood, her weakness. What was done – what can be done – to her without her consent. That fact that people wear masks, disguise their intent. She can’t carry blame, as well.

Blame is what almost tore her and Elliot apart, after Gitano.

Maddy bears no fault.

“No. Listen to me, sweetheart,” she says, and she grips her arms more firmly. She thinks of Ryan and Rebecca, she thinks of Maria Recinos, she thinks of every victim she has held in her arms like she can stop the damage within them from flaying them apart. A fool’s errand, perhaps.

Maybe she’s been a fool her whole life.

“Listen. You did nothing wrong. You are not responsible for stopping this from happening, you are not responsible for anticipating that it would happen at all.”

“But I –”

“You are a good person, Maddy. And even if you weren’t, this shouldn’t have happened to you. But it’s not yours to carry. You didn’t ask for this, or encourage it, or warrant it. This isn’t about what was deserved. You understand that, right?”

Her head tilts, framing paralleled dark eyes that hold more knowledge than someone her age should. It’s too cruel, sometimes – and it’s not Elliot’s God, nor a holy ghost, or host of angels. It’s the cruelty of the world itself.

Somehow this girl’s response to the dark is kindness.

“You are, too. Good, I mean.”

She doesn’t know which of them initiates it, but her palms are sliding and Maddy’s arms are moving and then they are holding each other’s hands, the way she imagines people grant handshakes in the safe, assured confines of Elliot’s churches, his diocese and cathedrals.

She thinks she might forgive a version of herself – the small, repressed one that she didn’t know so desperately needed it. She thinks Maddy is a new Olivia, one who doesn’t have to justify everything that her own conception brought down upon her, one who has damage and trauma and regrets, but who will walk away into a life that isn’t shrouded. A life that isn’t marked by blood and bruises. One that doesn’t feature rape kits and prison cells.

When she leaves, giving Maddy a hug goodbye, she thinks that reborn girl walks away, without the burden of Serena’s ghosts, of her own.

She’s not religious; that doesn’t change. But this must be what baptism feels like.

It’s never hopeful or happy, leaving a victim at the resolution of a case. She and her partner leave, and the victim turns to face a mountain of healing, the demand to scale in their wake. But this time, when she goes, she feels confident that Maddy has the strength she needs.

“You okay?”

He asks it as she strolls from Madelyn Reynolds’s new apartment building – Val’s home – a place that, bittersweet though it may be, she doesn’t think she’ll darken the entryway of again. David Abatello somehow survived; the alley claimed blood but no lives that day. She may see Maddy again at the trial. But it likely won’t come to that – he’s got larceny and attempted murder of two police officers in addition to the orchestration of the rape. She hasn’t been back to the precinct yet, but Casey has called with updates on a plea agreement that would have him behind bars for the rest of his natural life. She hopes, for Maddy’s sake, that this is the end.

“Thought you didn’t like that word.”

It was a topic that had risen during the quiet, dark hours of the nights he spent in her home, when whispers were loud in the silence and secrets were easily given.

“I don’t. But I don’t think I have a better one,” he answers, frustration running through his voice. It’s ridiculous, really, the sheer affection that even a sour note from him coaxes from within her. No one has ever made her feel the way he does. She suspects no one ever will.

“I’m okay,” she tells him, reaching his side, leaning against the car where he’s been waiting. Falling in line at his side.

Their shoulders aren’t quite the same height. But they’ve always bumped together in unison, stood against others in solidarity. Moments span on, stretching and thinning in between them.

“So,” he finally says, stoic and seeking and God, so handsome, at her side. “Where do we go from here?”

She waits, refusing to speak until his head turns in inquiry, until she knows she has attention.

She can do this.

And then she leans over, a movement of proximity that she’s allowed only in rest and repose for weeks on end now, and she kisses him. He responds, with a speed that steals her breath. His hands come to either side of her face, tentative and tense, he kisses her back. Kisses her hard, then languid and sweet. Heartbeats pass between them, and a sound breaks from her throat as his tongue meets hers, slow passes and remembered sensation. She thinks of precinct coffee and adjoining desks, squad cars and chicken tenders, bandages and records.

“God, Liv,” he breathes it into her mouth, and she feels her whole body sinking into his side, pushing him back against the car, the warmth of them both holding the coming promise of skin sliding against skin. “Yeah? This is what you want?”

The question settles around her, echoing in the chamber of her heart. His arms pull her to face him more fully, and his hands grip her waist, she feels his fingers pulling tighter so that one hand traces the curve of her spine. Her hands drift down to rest on his chest, where she can feel the outline of a now paper-thin bandage beneath his shirt.

She grins against his lips, a little giddy with the release of decision. She nods, quickly, too many times. She’s sure, now.

“It’s what I want. You know what?” she murmurs the prompt between scattered kisses, alternating shallow and deep. “I think it’s going to be better this time.”

It takes him a moment to understand, a raised eyebrow and a quick spark of affront as his tongue mingles with hers, his hands climbing to press at her jawline, her temples, holding her firmly like he still needs to convince them both. But then his own jaw slackens; he pulls away for a moment, and those deep-sea eyes calm from storms to a serene surface. He smiles, nods back.

“Better than yesterday.”

Chapter Text

The next time they sit side-by-side in the sedan again, all he can think about is kissing her there. How he did kiss her there, for the first time. Unbuckling her seatbelt in a frantic effort to gain access, to get his hands on her – and then buckling again in a useless bid not to touch her, believing he had ruined it all in his race to change what lay between them.

He’s done it before – rushed in too quickly, committed too early, thrown everything he has in him at what he perceives to be his right, his cause. Sometimes, his duty. It’s how he’s led the entirety of his adult life.

He breathes in, wraps his fingers around the steering wheel, remembers what it’s like to wrap them around her bicep, the nape of her neck, her left ankle when he’s pulling her towards his direction on the bed. It’s what they are now; he has permission to grip her, tug at her now. He doesn’t even fight the rueful smile the knowledge elicits. It’s wry and a little repentant – she has had a grip on him, been able to tug at him for years.

He’s a man who has discovered more about himself than he thought possible. More about to whom he answers.

She meets his eyes now, bangs gently framing her face. Maybe they’re not even bangs anymore; years of listening to his then-wife and daughters have left him somewhat aware of hairstyle vernacular, the trends. Nearly a decade walking alongside a woman whose hair changed like the weather left him nodding at the magazines that littered his kitchen table as time passed, recognizing that sometimes his partner changed her style because the style itself changed. And sometimes because something happened to her that has compelled her to change.

It dimly occurs to him that many of those changes have been his fault.

But in the weeks since she’s returned from Oregon, the more recent weeks since the shooting, she’s allowed her hair to grow longer and longer. Now she wears the locks around her face, pushed a little to the side, out of her eyes but still swooping smoothly across her forehead. Layers, he thinks they’re called.

They make him want to grip the stubborn line of her jaw and pull her towards him, kiss her tenderly in gratitude. He doesn’t tell her why – he doesn’t want her to bear the burden with him. But somehow, he feels relief when he sees the waving layer around her cheekbone, determinedly freeing itself from its perch behind her ear and prompting her to lift a graceful hand to tuck it back again.

It keeps her soft. She’s still touchable, open to him. But she looks less like the Olivia whose bangs fluttered away from her closed eyes in the alleyway breeze as he thought she bled out in front of him. As he thought they both lay slipping away.

It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, she’s still at his side, and she still makes him feel like the best version of himself. She’s done that since they were first partnered. He wondered if her ability would fade once they tripped over the line they’d been toeing and gave this thing a real shot. He worried that his pedestal would falter, that he would sway in the wind of change and fall off – joining every other schmuck she’s ever dated in the throng of those who don’t deserve her. Fall in her esteem even as she let him inside of her. He’s not blind; he knows her admiration of him has existed for years. He knows it existed because he embodied the type of family man that she never had the luxury of knowing during the age when she needed one.

But he can see her eyes again, amidst the growing layers, and they hold no censure. He feels it all so clearly. His purpose, his partner.

She hasn’t given it to him in words. Hasn’t told him she loves him; a dull ache descends on his temples if he considers it for too long, but he’s not certain that she has spoken those words to anyone in her adult life. Maybe she won’t ever tell him aloud. But she kissed him outside of Madelyn Reynolds’ new apartment like she could undo every unkind word uttered between them. Like she could rewind their fights in the squad room and halt the swing of Victor Gitano’s knife, like she could help him hold his family together – protect his children and hang onto her, too.

He hasn’t given her the words yet, either. But he thinks he would follow her anywhere.

“You actually going to start the engine, or you just enjoying the ambiance?”

The object of his musings shakes her layered hair out of her eyes and grins at him, and it feels so good – to look at her and know they’re on the same page, to see her smile and want to answer it in turn with his own. To simply, finally give in.

“Just thinking,” he tells her, the corner of his mouth kicking up when her eyes narrow.

“Should I be worried?”

“Nah, Benson. I’m just feeling nostalgic about the squad car.”

Her eyebrows lift at that, and he finds himself recanting – missing the bangs for just a moment. He liked the way her eyebrows disappeared into them when he surprised her. But her eyes blink and soften, and he’s back as a proponent of the layers.

He can see her eyes again.

“That was – ah – well, we shouldn’t make a habit of that.”

It’s a tentative subject, what it will be like at work, how they will disclose, what will have to change to accommodate them. She has shown the most worrying signs of retreating – he expects it a little, he’s prepared for the dance – when he has raised it. He doesn’t want that now. He wants her steady.

“No promises. Buckle up.”

He watches as she does, the line of her arm, the way she leans back and alleviates the stiffness of her right thigh. The way the belt circles the waist he’d woken up holding this morning, one arm slung around her, and his nose buried her in her sleep-mussed hair.

“You ready?” he asks, one more time. He asked her a few days ago, when they first broached the topic of her return to work – after he’d already been back on limited duty for a full week. He asked her last night before he shimmied her out of her pajama bottoms and pulled her flush against him, this morning when he dropped a kiss on her shoulder as she made them coffee and slid the mug that is now his across the counter towards him.

She sighs lightly and leans her head back against the seat rest, then turns to squint at him, the movement pulling at her hair. She looks anxious. She looks beautiful. It’s going to hurt, he thinks, not being able to touch her at work.

How did this happen so quickly, so completely?

“How many times am I going to have to tell you yes?”

He doesn’t answer, just reaches out to tuck the spilling locks behind her ear for her, a gesture that is so intimate and new to them it still feels just a bit forbidden. He lingers over it, rubbing the silky strands between his fingers for a beat before he latches it behind the delicate curve of her ear, letting his fingertips stroke the ridge of her cheekbone as he pulls his hand away.

He twists the keys and puts the car in drive. And he takes them back to the precinct.

She has dreaded coming back.

And she’s wanted to be back here so badly her skin has itched in anticipation. The 1-6 is her home, the only one that has ever offered her a semblance of security, perps and wayward fists aside. And even with the changing nature of her relationship with Elliot, she isn’t certain that she can be Olivia without this place. But this place contains threats – and not in the way of the danger that just took her out of the squad room for eight weeks. It encapsulates the memories of a partnership and the potential to be separated from the connection that brought them together in the first place.

She trusts Elliot more than anyone else in the world. But even still, she doesn’t know if she trusts him enough to stay at her side when no more constructs hold him there.

His job has placed him at her side, day in and day out. It’s the most consistent relationship she has ever known. A weak, shameful side of herself that she doesn’t like to acknowledge whispers that without the requirement of the job, he would be free to leave her. He could walk away and never look back.

These days, even when she can feel the hard weight of him inside her, that voice tells her how much worse it will feel when he’s gone.

 She’s never felt so precarious in her entire life. Not even during the blindingly frightening seconds when she bled from her neck and swore she was dying.

Strangely, parts of the ambiguity don’t feel unfamiliar.

Elliot is so goddamn certain about what he believes is right, and she’s running to keep pace, fighting to make sure he doesn’t let his passion get the best of him.

Sometimes she fails.

“Well, look who’s finally deigned to grace us with her presence,” a wry voice sounds behind her as they walk into the squad room, strides matching. She smiles before she turns. She missed him. She missed them all. She can’t help herself; she offers more emotion than she usually would.

“Thought it was time. I missed you, John Munch,” she says honestly, whirling to face him. She tries to be subtle as she sidesteps away from Elliot, seeing the way he stretches an arm to support her, as he has so many times over the past two months of recovery – whenever she has wavered or moved so suddenly.

Not here.

His eyebrows raise, his jaw tightens. But he says nothing, nodding congenially at their colleague.

“This place doesn’t run without you, Olivia,” Munch responds, squeezing her upper arm as the three of them progress towards their desks. “I’m the only one who has even attempted to make the coffee, we are all behind on paperwork, my partner’s mood has been even worse than normal. And we all know it wasn’t the most pleasant of starting points in the first place.”

She sees the aforementioned grump seated at his desk, watching her progress – not disguising the way he measures the stability of her gait. It should bother her. Maybe it does a little. But she’s more awash with warmth at Fin’s concern, at the idea that she is needed in this place, that there is still a home for her here.

She nods at him, expanding it to a smile when he gruffly mutters, “Good to have you back, Liv. It was easier when you were both gone. Stabler’s been a pain in the ass the whole last week.”

The sounds of the squad room rain down around her, at once incongruous and soothing. The loud jangle of the phone, profanities mumbled and yelled in equal measure from the holding cell, the continuous movement of unis and complainants and eyewitnesses. She has felt like a shadow of herself without it, and she feels a renewed sense of certainty that she will never leave it willingly. Which leaves her with the question that has plagued her since Maddy’s case started, since he asked her to get a drink with him all those weeks ago.

How does she find a path forward with Elliot, and remain here?

“Detective Benson. Welcome back,” Cragen’s voice supersedes the thought, and she turns again – more slowly this time – to greet her captain.

“Thank you. Glad to be here, Cap,” she says, ignoring the fact that her leg does feel tight and strained, and she wants to be sitting in her desk chair more than she wants her next cup of coffee. She can sense Elliot fidget beside her; it’s a double-edged sword that his dedicated focus has now been aggressively fixed on her. He noticed her shifting moods before, perceived when she needed him to support her. Or corral her. But he seems unceasingly aware of her now. She doesn’t want to be reliant, doesn’t want to be grateful when he solves her problem for her, and yet… she is.

“Last week I cleaned up your paperwork, best I could. Primary updates are filed at the top, with the latest on the prosecution strategy for the Reynolds case,” her partner says with a canny look, gesturing to her desk and giving her a much-needed excuse to sit.

She eases into the chair, stretching the tightness of her right thigh under the desk, removing the burden of her weight. They’re all detectives, though. No one says a thing, but she feels the sensation of eyes upon her. The measuring looks prick at her awareness, drawing a line of apprehension through her shoulders. She senses the collective understanding that while Elliot is rapidly approaching a return to the field, she has a long road ahead of her.

“Well, now that we’re a full team in-house, I expect everyone’s DD-5’s complete and on-time,” Cragen announces, moving them past the emotion-laden realization that it’s been eight weeks since they all occupied this space. “Benson, you’re on desk duty until your physical therapist says otherwise. Stabler, you, too – for this week. Once I have the latest from your doctor, you can requalify. We’ll go from there.”

He leans forward to examine their current task board before spinning on his heel with a foreboding look.

“You discharged your weapon. That means a psych eval. Don’t make me hound you about that.”

Olivia studiously keeps her eyes on the files in front of her as Elliot settles into his seat. They haven’t talked about psych evals, or Huang, or the therapy that was no doubt going to be required of them. She can feel the frustration waft off him, and she suppresses the urge to do what she normally would in the days before – and promise Cragen for him that he will see to it. It feels like overstepping, now that she knows what he sounds like when he comes, now that they are so much more than what they were.

“Got it, Cap,” the words are terse, but they’re not argumentative, and she breathes a soft sigh of relief.

“And once you’re reinstated, you’ll rotate with Fin and Munch. We’ll operate as a tag team and can determine if we need to bring on a temporary addition while Liv recovers.”

She doesn’t miss how her boss refers to her, the way it changes from Detective Benson to Liv when he references her recovery, her potential replacement. A memory of Dani Beck’s willowy form strolls nonchalantly through her mind, and she forces the visual away, refuses to think about how she felt hearing Elliot Stabler’s name used as partner to someone else. How she felt peering through the blinds in Cragen’s office and thinking that the whole world had moved on without her.

She doesn’t know if she can do this. It was easier to say she was ready when they were both removed from work, isolated in their own bubble of healing and connection. Now, the relationship on which they are embarking threatens the world she has meticulously built for herself. Which path is safer?

How can she be sure?

“Given the targeted intent and the degree of violence, Novak is seeking the highest sentencing for both Justin Renner and Rodney Wallace, but the play is to opt for a reduced sentence for Wallace – if needed – to get a full conviction on Renner. He was the one with the plan to help Abatello, he orchestrated the shift in the attack on Maddy. Wallace’s court date is still being set, and Renner’s jury selection is underway,” Munch pipes in, giving updates that Casey has mostly kept her apprised of through their intermittent phone calls mixed with how’s the leg and when are you coming back, but she appreciates the distraction.

Elliot stiffens, and she watches him pick up a file, handling it roughly, nearly sending a nearby stack of papers to the floor.

“And what’s the latest on Abatello?” he asks, more growl than question. His fingers pinch tightly, creating creases in the file and irreparably damaging the corner. She sees the rage, the regret. If they were alone, she would run her hand over the tightly wound muscle in his shoulder, stroking her fingers against the closely cropped hair at the back of his head, soothing him until he settled. She would remind him that Abatello is going away for life and their lives will move forward.

She stays where she is.

“His attorney requested a stay, given his recovery. They’re moving him next week into gen pop; he’s been in health services at Rikers since they released him from the hospital four weeks ago. Abatello’s case is going to proceed once the doctor pronounces him fit to stand trial, but we still think he’s going to plead out. There’s a potential for Renner and Wallace to, as well. There’s obviously more than circumstantial evidence and confessions flipping on each other. We have a statement from Colin Abatello now, too.” Munch’s eyes dash towards her. “Maddy still might not need to be called, if that happens.”

She knows; she has spoken to Maddy once since that day in Val’s apartment, has made sure that she’s sought out counseling and that she is supported no matter what format the trial takes. But they have all had their moments of getting too close to a case, and no one here has been blind to the fact that Maddy hit close to home for her. That she was close to this even before she almost bled out in that alley.

“Thank you,” she tells him quietly.

“Okay. Munch, Fin – I want you two to head up interviews on the Turner case,” Cragen interjects, directing them to pick up what she assumes is the latest case. There’s always another case. “If any of them are brought in for interrogation, Benson and Stabler can support. And you, two –”

“We know,” Elliot says, as she simultaneously agrees, “Paperwork.”

They smile at each other across the desks, and a new warmth suffuses her. She remembers him whispering in her ear this morning, in the early hours before the sun started to beckon them to work. You’re beautiful, you know that? Every part of you. She’d teasingly refuted him, reminding him of the parts of her he’d griped about, the disagreements they’d had, the arguments they’d fought. But he countered her without missing a beat and stole her heart even more fully.

Nah. You’re my partner. I like you even when I don’t.

She holds his gaze now; thinks that she’d be willing to place a pretty hefty bet that he’s recalling the same thing.

A couple of comforting clasps on her shoulder later, Fin and Munch are receding shapes against the swinging squad room doors, and Elliot stands to grab her a cup of coffee while her eyes drift down to the files before her. The cycle begins anew. She shouldn’t take comfort in it – it means that terrible people have done unspeakable things. But she chooses to look at the other side. They are here, again, to seek out justice, even if they can’t right the wrongs.

She turns her attention to the next case.

“Drive you home?” he asks at the end of the day, once the shadows have grown long, when it becomes apparent that Fin and Munch are headed home from their respective interviews instead of reconvening back at the precinct tonight. He doesn’t want to be overbearing, but he can’t not see the lines that have bracketed her mouth since late afternoon, the tension in her movements and the way she shifts uncomfortably in her seat every so often.

He knows she’s in pain. He also knows she’s been trying to reduce the pain medication her doctor prescribed more quickly than he recommended.

Cragen is still in his office, but the blinds are closed – a frequent indicator that he intends to make use of his office cot instead of heading to an empty home.

“Ah,” he sees the hesitation, the way her eyes dart to their boss’s door, and he knows a conversation of reckoning is coming. They’re not gonna last a week like this. And she’s got more than enough stoking the flames of worry in her mind, already. “Elliot, I can just –”

“I want to swing by that Thai restaurant near your place for dinner anyways. No one at home cooking me dinner, ya know?” It pains him to admit it, but he sees that she needs the out, the coverage, just in case anyone is listening. They both know that the squad room has ears no matter what shade it wears – whether it’s dim and quiet or loud and bustling.

“Yeah, okay. If it’s on your way – then thanks,” she says lowly, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“It’s on my way.”

He means it. He knows where they’re going, even if she doesn’t yet.

Her pace is slow and her body a little slanted towards his as they walk to the sedan, and he wants to push her to talk about it. He wants to ask her what her physical therapist has said in the space between his dropping her off and taking her arm as she tiredly limps from the room where she didn’t allow her to accompany her. She’s stubborn to the end, independent to a fault, fierce even when she doesn’t need to be. His chest feels a little tight – it reminds him of the way he feels when he looks at his children laughing, like his ribs can’t quite contain his heart, and he lets the words wander hesitantly through his mind.

I love you.

He doesn’t ask while he drives, and she seems content to sit wordlessly with him. It’s something he doesn’t take for granted – Olivia’s willingness to just be with him in the quiet, as opposed to filling the silence. He doesn’t want to compare her to his ex-wife – and the thought isn’t fair even as it runs away with him – but his life has been filled with life and noise. Most of which has been joyous, even when the responsibilities threatened to overwhelm.

But there has always been a respite in Olivia – a cool breeze of strength and stillness amidst the stronger winds of his family, his commitments, the nature of their job.

He pulls up in front of her apartment building – her apartment, that is starting to feel like theirs. He thinks about the rent he is wasting on his own place. It sits empty, for the most part. He only occupies it when he doesn’t want to subject his partner to the rampages of four visiting children in various stages of preteen and teenage years. He thinks about that reckoning again – it’s fast, to think that they would officially move in together, to disclose, to alter their lives so drastically. But they’re also getting by on NYPD salaries, and he has a mortgage and future college educations on his future dime. He can’t afford the impracticality of two New York apartments when he wants to spend all his spare time in hers.

He tests himself. He waits, while they walk to her front door, while they pause in a kind of slumbering slowness as the elevator creeps to the fourth floor; he holds himself still when she presses a quick kiss against his now-scruffy cheek and saunters off to the bathroom with a murmured just going to change and wash my face – you want to actually order that Thai food?

He succeeds with some degree of feigned indifference until she limps, fresh-faced and relaxed – back into the living room, and he can’t help himself anymore. He doesn’t want to. He gently but insistently pulls her along with him, situating her on the couch as he makes short work of sliding his hand underneath the soft down of her hoodie. She snorts out a laugh, but arches her back to give him easier access, and makes no move to stop him when his hand reaches its target.

She is smooth and soft, and he releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He is already accustomed to the weight of her breast filling his hand, the way her eyelashes flutter against her cheek when his fingers graze her skin.

“You are… singularly minded.”

“Always,” he tells her. He should have expected it, how seamlessly the shorthand in their partnership has translated to an ease in humor, in trust. She has always backed his play, always supported his bullheaded intentions, and she does so now – even when they’re directed at her.

He works his hand around her hips, her leg, straightening her wounded thigh out beneath him so that he’s not putting pressure on it. He kisses her, long and slow, with lazy laps of his tongue against hers and the sweet feel of her lips widening against his in an answering smile.

“Hi,” he says. It feels inadequate. It feels stupid. But he missed her today.

“Hi.”

And he tells her.

“I missed you today.”

He expects a patented Olivia Benson roll of the eyes, or a deflection, a downward glance and a fixation on a shadow, on something that’s not there while she talks to anything but him. Come on, El – I was right across from you all day long, he imagines her saying. But she counters his expectations with a quick kiss on his lips and a soft bite against the tendon in his shoulder.

He suppresses a grin. She likes that spot.

“I missed you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not easy,” she says seriously, and he shifts her up on the couch again, somewhat reluctantly removing his hand from underneath her shirt, his fingers clenching against open air with the absence and muscle memory. He started this conversation, and he wants to see it through, startled as he might be that she has gone along with it.

“What isn’t easy?”

She considers it for a beat, and his heart catches in his throat.

“Being both versions of… what we are. I – we are good as partners. Even when we’ve been at our worst.”

He leans back a little – this is more than the conversation he intended on having. Shit.

Don’t bail on this, Olivia. Don’t run scared.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything. I’m just… I was happy to be back today.”

He knew that; he could see it in her eyes. He was happy, too, every time he raised his eyes and saw the previously empty chair holding his partner’s form. He could feel it in his own renewed purpose. He doesn’t say anything – just waits for her to get to the truth of it.

“I didn’t know how to act around you, at work. And that used to be the one thing I did know how to do.”

“I messed up. I didn’t mean to reach out when we ran into Munch – you looked unsteady for a second, but I know you’re not. I know you’re healing. And I know I can’t touch you while we’re there – that it’s different –”

“It’s not just that,” she admits, wincing a little. “I wanted to… act like I do, now, with you. But the squad already knows you stayed with me while we recuperated. There’s only so much leniency.”

“They don’t think anything about that, Liv.”

She raises an arched eyebrow but doesn’t fight him on it. It’s a lie and they both know it – Munch already directly called him out, even if he’s never shared the details of that particular conversation with Olivia. And Fin shot daggers at him each time he accompanied them to one of her doctor’s appointments, a perpetual scowl on his face. He did the same damn thing today. Elliot suspects that Cragen has turned a blind eye because he doesn’t know what to do about them, and he doesn’t want to do anything that can’t be undone until he has a preponderance of proof.

“I don’t know how we do this and work together,” she admits grudgingly.

“If we have to change partners, we’re – what we are now. We’re still partners. Maybe it would be easier that way. You think about that?” he asks, more urgently than he intends.

He wants her to understand what they have to gain versus what they have to lose. But he sees her on that bus station floor, on the concrete street of that alley, and he can’t be the one who takes anything from her. He needs her to get there on her own.

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

And there it is. She tilts her head back, and her layered bangs fall on either side of her face, and he sees her. He sees her imperfections, the line forming between her eyebrows as she frets, the soft lines at the sides of her eyes reminding him that while they’re not past what a marriage could fully offer, they’re not in the spring of their lives, either. He has his children to think about; there is more for him to navigate than the implications of the job. But in this moment, his every thought is with her. He loves even her perceived flaws more than he’d care to admit. He wants to kiss her there – between her eyebrows, at the corners of her eyes.

“What if things work out?”

He expects a rebuttal, he builds his reserves to argue with her, or let her go. But she surprises him again, her eyes more cinnamon than chocolate in the warm light of her apartment, and it briefly registers that they’re wet with tears.

“I’m afraid of what I’ll lose,” she tells him, voice breaking slightly at the end, and he’s so fucking humbled because Olivia Benson doesn’t do this. She doesn’t admit fear, she rarely admits fault, and she hides entirely from laying her own emotions on the line. And she has done all of those things tonight in trust of him.

“I’m not gonna –” he chokes down a breath, feeling it escaping his chest and leaving his lungs empty and aching. He can’t quite find the words and he cannot fuck this up. “I’m not going to let that happen, Liv. I’m not going to let you lose anything.”

He kisses her again, and this time it’s a promise. A commitment, a bridge that they’ve crossed and then burned behind them. It’s sorrowful in its desperate bid to give her certainty that doesn’t exist, but he promises what he can as he captures her lips with his, as he tastes the salt of her wary tears on his tongue.

Maybe things won’t work out. But he knows in his bones that he won’t ever regret her, even if they don’t.

And he’ll make sure that – if it ever happens – she will be the one who walks away from them whole, with her heart shielded and her hands clean.

“Okay,” she whispers against him, and he feels their connection, that rhythm of knowing that runs through the two of them, return in full force.

“I told you I don’t like that word.”

She scoffs, but it’s gentle, and he brushes her hair back from where it’s damply clinging to the drying tears on her face. He doesn’t know if she’s ever been quite as beautiful as this. She closes her eyes, her eyelashes dragging a little against his palm.

He needs her to be clear. He needs to know she’s his partner, if not at work, then in this.

“Olivia. What do you want?”

He nuzzles his head against hers, taking comfort in the closeness even as he waits on the honesty. Please, he wants to ask her. Come with me. It seems impossible now, that he ever walked into the squad room to realize that his partner had left him, that he ever picked up the phone to dial her number and realize she wasn’t going to answer.

He feels the weariness and the acquiescence in the next breath she takes; he breathes it with her and lets himself hope.

“Let’s disclose,” she concedes.

The births of his children aside, it might be the happiest moment he’s ever known.

She feels like she’s leapt off a precipice with the spoken promise of a safety net but no surety that anyone remembered to set it up below her.

Jesus Christ. She hears that name in Elliot’s voice, reverberating around her head. She agreed – they’re going to – what the hell is Cragen going to think? Who will she be partnered with? Thoughts flutter through her mind with the drifting weightlessness of leaves falling in autumn, and she thinks that’s fine, because she wants to crunch them all beneath her feet anyways.

He’s leading her back to the bedroom – what has rapidly become their bedroom. His phone charger is plugged in on his side of the bed, and his favorite pillow already has a crease in it that she can’t smooth out even when she flattens it after they wake. His water glass sits on the small table beside her bed, even though she’s told him to bring that into the kitchen in the mornings. And – despite all of it – she doesn’t care. She prefers her bedroom cluttered with the trappings of his presence than she ever cared for it without them.

That first night – the first time – he asked her to let him be gentle, and she nipped at him, desperate and dangerously determined, promising next time. The next time was a sleep-hazed joining in the early morning hours, the day before their worlds were literally shot out from under them. They’ve slept together, since – she’s learned that Elliot is inherently tactile, that he kisses up her neck and rocks the heel of his hand against her to gauge interest as foreplay, that she wakes with the length of him pressed against her, and more often than not he slides into her before he slips out of bed to start the shower. They have quickly settled into a routine that includes more physicality than she even would have guessed of him, but it feels different tonight.

His movements are slow and tempered, a restrained gentleness as he presses a kiss to her temple, her lips, her collarbone. Wordlessly following his movements, she lifts her shirt over her head, pressing against him when the chill of the room lands on her bare back. His hands chase it away, pulling her hair from its ponytail with one as the other traces the line of her hip, moving up to her shoulder. She shivers as they both land at her neck, as his hands frame her face and caress her jaw.

She closes her eyes; it’s too much to meet see everything she thinks he’s trying to convey. When she opens them again, his are still on her, so clear and nearly too earnest.

I know, she wants to say. I feel it, too.

She’s felt it before, over the years. It’s just never been the right moment. She thinks it’s the right moment, now.

She unbuttons his shirt as he unbuckles his belt, and they don’t break eye contact. She knows he wants to give her promises, to assure her – but this is more assuring than any words he could utter. He’s always communicated to her with his body: when he has blocked a blow meant for her, stepped in front of her when he shouldn’t, placed a reassuring hand on her back during a difficult case. It’s no different, and she understands what he’s trying to say.

He braces her when they lay together on the bed, a hand at the small of her back underneath her, supporting her right side where her leg still sometimes gives way. His muscles are taut beneath her fingertips, and Elliot has been usually either dedicated and sweet or oddly playful and teasing in bed, but a seriousness she’s never before seen from him.

Pressing the flat of her tongue against his skin, she runs it from his nipple to the hairs down his stomach, smiling up at him as he tenses further, an inscrutable expression gracing the hard lines of his face. She doesn’t know what it means, that they’ve crossed this hurdle, and yet he feels more mysterious to her than he has in weeks. Her palm slides down, circling and gripping him, taking comfort in his hardness – enigmatic facial expressions aside, he has been ready for her.

She feels swept away, the way she does when she’s had one too many glasses of wine and knows she’ll remember, but she won’t be able to recall the details. She feels his fingers first, stroking her and she chokes back a moan at the sensation and ignores the soft laugh he emits when he finds her ready, too.

He moves, pulling back and spreading her wide, as careful with her damaged leg as she is with the scarring that brands his chest, before he moves, easing into her with a moan of his own. He nudges upward as she rocks against him, her supple strength drawing him in with repeated movement and continued kisses.

All she sees is him, all she feels is him, and she feels pushed to a new realization that it will never be like this with anyone else, that even if it could – she wouldn’t want it to be. It feels sacred, and precious, and she presses her forehead against his as they move in unison. She lets him take over in a way she never does with boyfriends, other men she’s slept with. She may not know what lies before them, she may not know how to traverse this with him. But she trusts him more than she trusts herself.

His hips drive into hers until the relentless force finally shatters her, the burst of pleasure all-consuming until it burns off, leaves her breathlessly staring into the blue depths of his eyes.

“You, too,” she whispers, looking up at him. “Come with me.”

When he follows her, while she contracts around him to pull him closer, she wraps both her arms and legs around him to keep him there. He rests his forehead against her clavicle; she feels his warm rush of breath against the plane of her chest.

She holds him like that, long after the quivering that wracks his body slows and fades.

She wakes early, the sun only just beginning to simmer warm light into the night’s sky. She stretches out her hand and finds the crease of Elliot’s favorite pillow instead of the man himself.

She arches, cat-like, and revels in the fact that – another time, another man, she would have thought she was waking up alone, a fleeting connection that has dissipated in the night’s wake. But not with her partner. She closes her eyes again, smiling bemusedly at the muffled sounds that emerge from beyond her bedroom door.

She reluctantly lifts herself out of bed, wincing at the twinge of pleasant soreness between her thighs as she does the stiffness in her right leg. She cringes, catching the time that blinks in dim red numbers on her alarm clock. 5:15.

Why is he out of bed?

She stumbles into the kitchen, brushing the hair out of her eyes, to find Elliot, wide awake and grinning at her stove.

“Morning.”

“Barely. What are you doing?”

He pulls her towards him, and she can’t bring herself to pretend to resist. She finds herself standing over a boiling pot and bubbling, unidentifiable shapes of pasta.

“I was hungry.”

She leans a little, pushes her forehead against his bicep, and shakes her head against it. The déjà vu is a comfort with reversed roles, given what has happened since she murmured similar words in his kitchen.

“We have chicken tenders,” she tells him, still recalling their first night and that private, bubbling sense of joy that encircled them. “I bought some.”

“I know. Plus condiments. And I subsidized your stash. There are egg rolls, bagel bites, and a pizza in the freezer, too. It’s telling, though, that you had no idea. If you ever opened the damn thing, you’d have been floored.”

She smiles against his shoulder. She won’t tell him, but she had opened it, when scrounging for a half-empty pint of ice cream. She knew what it meant; she let him keep his secret.

“Seems to me that the only requirements of after food are that it’s kind of unhealthy, quick to make, and probably something you can also order in a hotel,” he says confidently.

“What happened to that idea? I was going to treat you to the full experience.”

“I like the real deal. Besides, I bought options. This is the one that spoke to me when I woke up.”

She pulls back, reaching for the torn-open cardboard box on her kitchen counter. It’s overwhelming – how happy she feels.

“Elliot. This is a box of dinosaur-shaped Kraft mac and cheese.”

“The shaped ones are better than the elbows. Every single one of my kids has told me so.”

She hums in helpless amusement, leaning her head against her cabinets as she watches him work, straining the pasta, rinsing it in her sink. She moves slowly – almost like her limbs are sluicing through water, hampered by the current, navigating the tapering exhaustion and the soft, domestic quiet between them – and pulls the milk from her refrigerator to hand him as he combines in the packet of too-bright orangey cheese mix.

“Breakfast of champions,” he tells her with a wink that she’ll never admit has always weakened her knees.

“Pretty sure that’s not FDA-approved, but I’ll take your word on it.”

“This – all of this – was your idea. You were the one who acted like I should have known that eating some ridiculous, childish comfort food was a widely known post-sex ritual. It’s Olivia Benson’s world and I’m just living in it.”

She smiles, shifting behind him as he stirs the blend into a bowl – a large glass mixer she’s almost certain she’s never used – wrapping her arms around his torso. She presses her face against his back – the one she has watched and guarded for years, the one she would step in front of a bullet for, the one that has shielded her more times than she can count. She lets his warmth spread to her front and basks in what they’ve become.

She leans into the groove of his back where his shoulders meet, feeling the facile play of his muscles beneath her cheek as he stirs.

“I love you,” she whispers, the words surging to the surface before she has the wherewithal to call them back, and feels his entire body stiffen against hers.

The fear immediately nips at her heels, and she tightens her arms in defense, even as he breaks her hold and turns around. His hands grip her face – hard­ – and pull her focus to meet his eyes.

“What did you say?”

She fights the parts of herself that want to hightail it back to the bedroom, shut the door behind her, and yell through the thin barrier that she’ll just see him at work later. She wishes he would turn back around, so she could confess to the parts of him that can’t see to the core of her.

She remembers their phone call the night before the shooting, his whispered words of watching her sleep and keeping her safe. It’s easier somehow, in the dark.

“You going to try to tell me you didn’t know that?” she asks stubbornly, almost antagonistic, pulling her gaze to the ground as she kicks her bare toe against his.

“Liv.”

“It doesn’t have to be a big – look, if we’re going to disclose, I just thought –”

His hands tighten further on her face, and one moves down to grip at her neck, and she feels so goddamn anchored to him. She doesn’t know how to lead a life that doesn’t pull back to him at the center, whenever he needs her there. She thinks even if he left, he would claim so much of her space. Part of herself would still be defined by him.

It’s too much, suddenly, the swell of emotion that’s lifting her; she feels like she’s in freefall from the crested height, and she’s a little nauseous with anticipation.

“You left the stove on,” she tells him, tears and regret thick in her throat.

“Forget it for a minute,” he answers gruffly, but she maneuvers around him, lifting the still-warm pot from the burner and turning off the heat with a quick flick. She redirects her attention to the now ready mac and cheese.

“Olivia.”

“You have to try a bite,” she instructs, refusing to let him respond to the words that escaped her. She’s not ready to hear what he has to say.

“And eat it slowly. You know, savor it, think about it. Tell me if you think it’s the right choice,” she continues, grasping at the veneer of her own control as she turns back towards him, lifting a heaping spoonful of cheese-coated dinosaurs to him.

His face is carefully blank, but he opens his mouth, one hand coming up to circle hers as it grips the spoon, steading her. She hadn’t even realized she was trembling.

He holds eye contact with her as he chews, refusing to release her hand, she wants the fall to be over. She just wants to fucking land already. Even if it wounds her, she wants solid ground. She already knows what it’s like to bleed. She holds her breath as he swallows.

“Yeah, it’s the right choice,” he tells her softly, lifting their hands together to drop the spoon back in the bowl, then spinning her towards him and wrapping his arms around her.

The bastard has made her dependent on this, she realizes glumly. She wants to be hugged all the time, now. She wants his hands on her. More often than they’re not.

“I love you, too,” the words are whispered into her hair, like he can tell she needs to keep her eyes closed, that it’s all too much. She feels relief and dread in equal measures. This what it’s like, she muses, to finally possess something so precious that it will break her, if it’s taken away.

She feels his words grating against her even as she wants to hold onto them, to become as accustomed to them as she is his presence in her home. They are foreign, and they’ve been withheld, and she’s happy they are in the open now, even as she feels like she’s tried on a piece of clothing that doesn’t quite fit. She shakes her head against him.

A soft chuckle ruffles the hair by her ear, and she ducks down further, pressing her face more closely against his neck, trying not to be annoyed that he can read her so well.

“Take all the time you need,” he says, presumably to the space above her head.

“I’m fine,” she asserts against his skin, reeling from what’s transpired. She tries to call back the stronger version of herself, who matched his stride in heels, who never second-guessed her decisions. She loves him more than she misses that version of her, but it doesn’t change the fact that she does miss who she used to be. That woman had so much less to fear, so much less to lose.

“Sure, you are.”

But he doesn’t push her, and she’s silently grateful that he lets her be. She’s given as much as she can, for now.

Deep breaths pass between them, and even with her eyes firmly closed, she watches the color behind her eyelids change as faint light hearkening the coming day starts to seep into the darkness of their space. After a few minutes, he pulls back, still gripping her shoulders to hold her in place while he takes a perusing look at her. His mouth quirks, like he both is both pleased and frustrated at what he sees. But he releases her and pushes some of the tussled hair out of her face with gentle fingers.

It’s enough.

He reaches towards the mac and cheese, and lifts a scoop, nodding at her and holding it out to her, a hand below the spoon to catch any rogue pasta dinosaurs.

“So. What do we do, if our after food is different?” he asks, emphasizing the term and popping the bite into her mouth. “Whose wins out each time?”

The space he grants her in the wake of their admissions releases the tension that gripped her. She grins as she swallows and sidles next to him in a way that feels so easy, so natural. She’s never known physical affection like this before, and despite the fear and the freefall, she never wants to let it go.

“We’ll find some middle ground,” she promises.

Chapter Text

It’s surprisingly anticlimactic when they stand together in Cragen’s office, the place they were first assigned to each other, and inform him of how their partnership has changed. They make a joint request for the disclosure documentation, sheepishly avoiding eye contact. Elliot can’t school away his own shocked expression when their boss merely sighs, pulls open a drawer, and extracts a pre-assembled file for each of them.

Hell, have they been that transparent?

“Both of you have your union reps look them over before you submit. Individually look them over,” Cragen tells them, leaning back in his chair to size them up, his glance briefly lighting on Elliot but landing on Olivia.

“You knew?” Liv asks, and Elliot winces at the note of shame that permeates her voice.

Cragen just shakes his head, fond amusement mingled with a put-upon eyeroll.

“I’m just relieved that you made this request before you were both cleared for field duty,” he tells them, nodding meaningfully to Olivia. Elliot requalified two weeks prior, an ever-present tightness in his shoulder and the new addition to his collection of scars the only remaining evidence of the Abatello shooting. Liv’s recovery has been more arduous, more frustrating – the bullet’s wake of destruction and multiple surgeries leaving her with a limp that progressively worsens over the course of the day. She’s on the road back to the job, and she’s bound and determined, but she may be looking at a promotion path to reduce her time in the field sooner than any of them anticipated. “Thought for a second I was going to have to ask what was going on between you, which would have been awkward for all of us.”

This is fairly awkward for all of them, but Elliot nods ruefully. That would have been worse.

“Captain, this didn’t begin until recently. We haven’t been… we haven’t,” Liv rushes to assure their boss in an embarrassed desperation that might offend him, if he didn’t know the reaction was intrinsically rooted in her fear. That it is more about what she feels for the closest thing to a father figure she’s ever known than what she feels for him.

There is a plaintive edge to her voice that would horrify her if she was in a headspace to recognize it. He’s torn, these days, between wanting to take care of her and resenting that her emotions are so close to the surface. He wavers, wanting to coddle her like he would Kathy or his children, then swaying back towards resentment that she is airing her vulnerability. Olivia has always been two extremes, standing tall and proudly waving her own brute strength like a flag, or crouching in shell-shocked defense, all sensitivity and softness.  

“I know when it began, Benson. You know you work in a precinct full of detectives, right? Not that I needed to be one to figure it out,” his focus comes back to Elliot, then. “You’re both single adults,” he says, and it startles Elliot to hear the description applied to him. Boy or man, husband and father, marine to detective. He’s been a husband longer than any other title he’s held.

Single adult. But not truly, he thinks, eyeing the woman at his side. His titles are different now, but she is still his partner. No matter what labels she does or doesn’t want to put on this, they are together. She is his.

They have fought together, bled together. He knows how it feels when she comes apart in his arms. He’s able to rest when he’s with her, and he thinks she has bloomed with him. She’s softer spoken, these days, but all the more acknowledged for it in the squad room. He wonders if those times she raged at his side, if she was simply holding a mirror to him, matching his movement. Flaring to his level. Now they match each other in different ways, and she differentiates herself from him at work, growing into the uninfluenced detective he suspects she was meant to be.

If she was beautiful in her leery restraint, she’s stunning in her warm surety.

She tucks a lock of hair beyond her ear and nods almost imperceptibly at him, as though she can hear what he’s thinking.

Mine. He senses the claim like a heartbeat more than a thought. He listens for the echo, feels it as a brandy-warm spread to his heart when she nods once more. Hers. It feels good to openly acknowledge what she means to him. It feels even better that she doesn’t fight it.

“It’s been known to happen,” Cragen carries on, oblivious to the interplay before him, despite his claims of detective abilities. “But you can’t be partners anymore.”

The hell with that. She’ll always be his partner.

“Look,” Cragen pauses, then forges ahead, pushing away his obvious discomfort. “It’s not the first time it’s crossed my mind to separate you two. Not because I thought you were… involved, but you know I’ve had concerns about how close you are. You have each separately had concerns about your closeness. The latest debacle with your brother,” he says, nodding at Liv, who stiffens at his side.

Elliot leans forward. He felt the need to protect her from that – an unceasing, desperate compulsion to top his partner from making all the wrong decisions – before they became involved, as Cragen put it. Now, he reluctantly understands why they can’t be partners. It takes all he has to stand still, to keep his mouth clamped shut. He wants to yank Olivia out of the room and tell their boss to shut the hell up. Which would get him fired – and potentially dead. Liv would kill him.

Cragen is unruffled, and simply lifts his hand with a quick, decisive shake of his head.

“Don’t look at me like that. Simon Marsden is just the latest in a string of missteps, and you’ve had your fair share, too, Stabler.”

He settles, but it has more to do with tension easing from Liv’s body at his side than it does with Cragen’s more equal distribution of blame.

“Assuming 1PP allows you to remain in the same unit, we’ll rearrange partnerships. Yours. And Munch and Fin. Typically, the Brass probably would insist I move one of you out. Since it’s a volunteer unit, and we’re still waiting for a fifth to rotate in, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

They’d been counting on that, with softly spoken hopes in Olivia’s bedroom, as though giving them voice wouldn’t carry a jinx in the private spaces of their new life. It’s not a guarantee, or even a permanent solution; eventually one of them will have to move units. They haven’t discussed the specifics, but he’s promised himself it will be him. He’s not going to force her to be the one who walks away from SVU.

Cragen lifts age-worn eyes to them both, corners of his mouth creasing in a smile that’s just a little regretful. “You’ve both given years to this place,” he tells them, parceling out his words slowly, intently weighing each one. “I don’t begrudge anyone on this team a little happiness. Just. Do me a favor?” he asks and waits until they both nod before he continues. “Be good to each other.”

The sentiment is a kind one, but Elliot worries about Olivia. The tension is back, the curves he’s felt beneath his hands are rigid at his side, and she feels primed for flight. He doesn’t have to ask to know what’s going through her head. Yes, the sentiment is a kind one, but it sounded enough like the start of goodbye. He wants to tell her the farewell isn’t for her.

Don’t run, Liv.

“Thank you, Captain,” he says, absorbing his boss’s guidance. Cragen may not like this, may not have chosen this for either of them. Elliot doesn’t mistake his resigned acceptance; he knows their captain would be downright disappointed in him if he allowed Liv to be the one to leave. He couldn’t stomach letting either his mentor or his partner down that way.

“Munch and I have discussed the pairing options. Elliot, you’ll be with him. Liv, you’re with Fin.”

That’s what they expected, too. And probably for the best, since Fin has taken to glaring at him like they’re former teammates and Elliot felt up his sister behind the bleachers.

“You’ve already talked to John about this?” Liv asks, clearly startled.

“As I understand it, Munch bought numerous records for the apartment you were sharing during your respective recoveries,” he says, a smirk crossing his face as he shakes his head at them. “I think it’s fair to say he was already aware.”

“He only bought Liv’s favorite albums,” Elliot tells their captain with a wry smile. “Thought he might have been making a statement.”

“Well, I’d say that’s something you’ll have to take up with your new partner,” Cragen tells him, standing and walking them both to the door. The words are for Elliot, but his eyes are on Olivia, and he lands a bracing pat on her shoulder.

“Alright, Liv?” their captain asks. It’s casual, but there’s a thread of worry peeking through the façade of his delivery.

And Elliot knows that Olivia could teach master classes on lies of omission, that she avoids the heights of emotion she doesn’t know how to scale. He knows change is what she fears most, alongside the normalcy of having something to lose.

He has learned that he can love her even when she doesn’t make it easy. That her bravery outpaces his own, even if it appears more quietly. He is willing to forgive her any reactions here, even if she lashes out, even if she tries to take off again. He will hold faith and assurance for both of them if she second-guesses their decision. Even if she wishes she could take back telling Cragen.

She has leapt off more than one ledge for him, now. Flung herself at the unknown, risked the recoil. That first night, that first declaration. He would likely be met with thinly veiled disdain if he told her, but he’s proud of her. Proud that she has taken the defensive, clawing parts of herself and tempered them. She’s pulled back her thorns so that he could get closer to her, and he knows it was no small feat for her to let down her guard.

She surprises him, and maybe their boss, too. She moves with purpose again, almost vibrating with the need to get back in the squad room. But she takes the time to toss a winsome smile over her shoulder as she pulls open the office door.

“I’m fine, Cap.”

She has repeated those words in evasion so often that they should be depleted of all meaning. But he can’t help how his heart swells and his smile grows to match hers, to match Cragen’s. Because for once, she sounds like she believes it.

The cases come and go – a recognizable tempo of investigation, chase, and closure – even while she’s still on limited duty. She’s relieved to have the act of disclosing behind them. She can’t deny that there’s a sadness to it, watching Elliot partner with somebody else. Watching her colleagues’ feet pound the pavement as they investigate leads with ease, while she is relegated to a desk, still and steady each time they run ahead. The three of them cycle a bit more than they would with a fully operating team, but Elliot is always in the field, partnered with Fin or Munch. She doesn’t hear the names Benson and Stabler in connection, shouted from Cragen as an order or a rebuke, anymore.

Now, she’s usually with Fin, who blessedly seems not to begrudge her the addition of desk time and paperwork support. Their styles work together, his gruffness and her directness, and she appreciates it more than she anticipated.

These days, she lifts her head to see Fin’s appraising glance across her desk, and it startles her less and less. She turns her head to the right to see Elliot across the room, no longer occupying the same side of the aisle, brow furrowed as he stares down Munch. Probably tuning out his latest farfetched musing, she thinks.

A mismatched team, the four of them. And the best people she knows.

It's a comfort, at least, that he is still next to her, if he cannot be across. Now, there are theories shared over dinner or in the quiet hours of early morning light, whispers of hunches and recommendations given freely for separate victims, different suspects.

She’s wary of the new sequence life takes, the new lines drawn across the four of them, the lack of ribbing or even frustration from the two men whose partnership she and Elliot disrupted. Fin shook his head, a muttered hope you know what you’re doing in her direction after Elliot and Munch left to check out a lead. But beyond that, he’s the picture of a supportive partner. And John, he never said anything at all, though he regularly leaves records in her locker that she knows are meant to needle Elliot. She has the full collection of The Traveling Wilbury’s now.

She’s never truly been a part of a family before. She didn’t know it was possible for one to alter yet still hold together like they have. She didn’t know of the beauty that grows inside resiliency.

She keeps track of Maddy, calling her with a regular rhythm – every time she leaves the precinct for physical therapy. A new order of business encompasses her Wednesday afternoons. She should move on, she cannot keep tabs on every victim like this, and she feels a little guilt that she’s given so much more of herself to this one. But, she reminds herself, she almost died for this one. And when she remains stuck at her desk, a sympathetic glance from Elliot as he trots away after Munch, she clings to that knowledge.

She’s still here, and Maddy is thriving.

“I’m not going back to work at the restaurant at all,” she tells Olivia excitedly one spring afternoon, renewed vigor lacing her voice. “Mr. Marshall gave me expanded responsibilities at Jenner & Lyle. I’ll be supervising some of the new paralegals, but he’s going to limit my hours while I’m still finishing law school.”

Olivia thinks back to Devon Marshall, his perfectly styled hair and arrogant demeanor. She remembers his light flirtation, asking her for her card when Elliot insisted on giving their potential suspect his own. She remembers her answer.

We’re always together anyway. Besides, you’ve probably got better odds with him.

It’s still true, and that’s what chases the melancholy away. He is her partner, in a different manner, but she still spends most of her time with him near her side. And the hours when he wakes her, a hand splaying across her waist to tuck her closer to him, fingers reaching to cup her breast as he pushes inside her, a forehead pressed against hers when he kisses her – these are the hours she wants to keep.

“That’s wonderful, Maddy,” she assures the other woman, letting some of her youthful hope wash over her. “And you’ve been getting through the trial prep? Is it going alright so far?”

Justin Renner and Rodney Wallace were both still going to trial, but with the respective confessions, it would be more about deals and sentencing. There was the small mercy that David Abatello pled guilty and would be serving a life sentence at Rikers. They’d gone lighter on Tara Moreno, but Maddy did reveal that her former roommate had been fired from her job and moved away from the city in the wake of the press and her own brief trial.

“Ms. Novak said you and Detective Stabler were going to testify, too, and that the confessions were airtight.”

Which was true, but Liv worries that too much assurance was just as much of a bad thing as none at all. The hope-filled feel loss and defeat more keenly, she knows. She wants the trials over, for Maddy’s sake. Though casework and trials have been a nice delay in hers and Elliot’s separation as partners, a dwindling removal from each other as they close out case by case.

“I will. And the confessions are solid. I just want to make sure you feel as ready as you can be. To face them again.”

“I am. I think I’m going to be okay, Detective Benson,” Maddy replies, and it is as close to a happy ending as most of the cases that came across her desk ever were. She wonders briefly what that kind of closure would have done for her mother, then lets the past fade back into the shadows.

There’s so much for her now, in the present.

“I think you are, too.”

Fin greets her when she returns to the squad room a couple of hours later, nearly pouting that she’s no longer letting him tag along to her appointments. It would be funny, if she still weren’t unsettled by the depths of his and Munch’s concern. The shooting has shaken all four of them, and they’re still rebuilding their foundations. Building new ones, in light of the disclosures.

“How’d it go?”

“As well as it ever does,” she says, wincing at the residual ache that the PT exercises summoned. Which isn’t entirely truthful. It’s slower than she would like, and the repetitions her sadist of a physical therapist assigns her hurt like hell, but it is getting better. She can go longer and longer without needing to take breaks, without a shooting pain in her leg sending her careening back into that alley when she stands too suddenly. She hasn’t requalified, but she’s becoming more and more certain that she will.

“Yeah? Well, you could’ve had company. Cragen said it was fine for me to take you.”

“If Elliot isn’t even going with me, I don’t think you need to. Over and above the duty of partner,” she says lightly, suppressing a grin at the way he squirms. He’s so easy to antagonize, and it’s been almost alarming how simple it has been to adjust to their new partnership.

“I don’t need to hear the details about you and Stabler, partner,” he bites back, but there’s a resigned shake of his head that makes her smile.

She lifts her hands in agreement.

“Wasn’t offering details. You should know, almost nothing has ever happened in a squad car.”

His groan echoes, drawing fleeting attention from nearby unis. “Christ, Benson. I don’t wanna know. Gonna have to dismantle that thing for parts.”

So very easy.

Her grin lingers on her face while she listens to her new partner’s harrumphs – she’s learning to catalog them, what his grunts and monosyllabic contributions mean. She misses the deep trust she had with Elliot; no one will ever replace him, not for her. And yet, she’s oddly grateful for this chance to work more closely with Fin. It dimly occurs to her that he feels the way she always thought family should. That she could grow to love him, just as easily as she antagonizes him.

She must still be smiling when Munch and Elliot stroll back into the squad room, Elliot’s voice suddenly sounding at her side. He gives her one look and frowns, his early spring overcoat adding to his hulking form and disgruntled demeanor. Possessive and predictable, as always.

“Why do you look like that?”

There’s an instinctive recall that prompts her to snap back at him, a snarl to his bite. She takes a breath, reading the exhaustion on his face, and she supposes he’s unaccustomed to reading the peace on hers. She swallows her response, and watches as he settles.

Idiot, she thinks fondly. Sometimes she wonders how they found their way to each other. How they persevered to break through each other’s defaults. She knows now that Elliot’s surprisingly sentimental. Souvenirs, tokens, favorite places – they all hold meaning for him. He’s a romantic at heart. But God knows his delivery leaves something to be desired.

“Looks like she prefers the place when you’re not in it,” John pipes in from his desk. “Might want to work on that, Stabler.”

It isn’t true. It terrifies her, but she likes everything in her world a bit better with him in it. Sometimes sensation that still calls a familiar desire in her – to pack up her things and head out of town. To leave him before he can leave her.

She knows he doesn’t want to, doesn’t plan to leave her. He’s said he loves her. She believes him. She also knows that love doesn’t prohibit disappointment, and it’s certainly no defense against abandonment.

In that case, it amplifies the hurt.

But she trusts him, and she loves him, and she can resign herself to a life spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, as long as it’s with him. Even when she’s tried to run away, he’s remained entrenched inside her. The person who understands her best in the world, calling her back to the only solid ground she knows.

Memorize him now, she tells herself. For as long as he’s hers.

She ignores the bickering around her for a moment before she turns back to him. The man she couldn’t imagine her life without, before and after they changed the rules of what they could be to each other. He’s still studying her, a divided focus while he tosses halfhearted insults back to his new partner.

“Just having a good day,” she tells him quietly.

He raises his eyebrows, and those blue eyes pierce through her, forever seeking and curious, searching out the truth in her with the same intensity he brought to their cases.

“That right?” he asks, and she hears a whisper of their former connection, when he was the one tasked with watching her back, while they were on the job. Now he does it all the time.

“Yeah. Better than yesterday.”

She feels a blast of warmth from his grin, even from a desk across the aisle.

Their new routine brings as much change as it does familiarity. They don’t walk into interrogation rooms together, but they walk in and out of the precinct side-by-side. They share meals and cups of coffee, but those are consumed in the quiet of Olivia’s apartment in the mornings, the evenings. They still argue, but now they make up with slow kisses and the quick removal of shields and clothing.

He learns new sides of her, provoking her with questions, taking pride in the way her defenses come down. Appreciating the way her evasion techniques lessen.

If you didn’t grow up in New York, where else would you want to live? (You really think I could ever live anywhere but New York, El?)

You ever think about buying a car? (In Manhattan? Not really. You never let me drive, anyways. Don’t hate the idea of renting one and driving upstate, though. Sometime in the fall.)

We always end up with takeout or hitting the Italian spot on the corner. Other guys – the smarmy one – what was his name? Eckerson. What kind of dates did he take you on? (Well, I sure as hell don’t want to go to Tivoli’s. He took me on the normal kind of dates, usually. Dinner, drinks. Dancing, once or twice. Why – you think you’ve still got competition? Don’t worry, I like our Italian spot on the corner.)

One night, settled on her couch with an assortment takeout boxes and dipping sauces – Indian, this time, because she told him he had to branch out, and he could get on board with garlic naan as enticement – he asks her the question that’s been percolating in the back of his mind.

“Did you ever think about me, before? You know, about what it would be like between us if we’d gotten together earlier?”

He’s thought of it.

He used to think of her. He loved his wife, and he would never have strayed when they were doing their best to retie the unraveling strands of their marriage. But he had eyes, even in the early years, and he knew Olivia Benson was exceptionally pretty. Assertive and loud in her beauty. Uncommon, and a little exotic. More than that, he knew Olivia Benson could suck the air out of the room when she dropped her guard enough to release a full-wattage smile. He knew she could slink into dresses that showed just enough to hint at golden expanses of skin, that she could slide her feet into heels that defined her calves and shaped hips that didn’t need the help in the first place. He ignored it back then; it was easier for both of them to channel the upspoken simmer of their attraction into the trust and chemistry of Cragen’s best set of partners.

He thought of her, and then did his best to stop.

Now he’s free to think of her as much as he wants.

He expects to hear something similar from her lips, an acknowledgement of what they were to each other, a recognition that they could have been more. A mutual reassurance that they never crossed those lines.

He doesn’t expect her to outright refute it.

Certainly not after she whispered a confession of I love you against his bare back weeks ago, lips pressed against his skin and cheekbone grazing his shoulder. Not after she admitted to the depth of those feelings first.

“No. You were married, Elliot.” She sounds almost angry with him, and he searches her eyes for the landmines he hadn’t anticipated having to avoid.

“I know that. I know that. I just meant… when you came back, that day you told me it was too complicated,” he trails off. He was never fully sure what she meant that day; too wrapped up in fury at her abandonment, too focused on his own flailing anguish as all his safe harbors disappeared.

“It was too complicated,” she tells him, filling in the unspoken words of a conversation that is hushed and hesitant. A little illicit, even now. “Of course, I was aware of you,” she says, and he represses the urge to scoff. He had outfits and haircuts and necklaces goddamn memorized, had written odes in his mind to certain undercover looks she donned, and she was simply aware.

“I’m attracted to you, El. I wasn’t blind to that,” she concedes, and he wonders if it’s characteristic of an objectively beautiful woman, to state it in such a manner. Of course, you were attracted to me. Like she knows she’s gorgeous, and walking through minefields of wanted and unwanted attraction is part of how life unfurls for her. He supposes it probably is. She’s not the type of woman who sits alone at a bar, even the nights she walks in by herself.

And he isn’t unaware of his own impression on the opposite sex, that there’s a rough-hewn rawness about him that women often find appealing. But with Liv, it’s more. He’s watched her literally turn heads.

“I cared about you more than I was supposed to. And we chose each other over the job. But I didn’t think of you like that, then. I couldn’t let myself.”

She’s always been more self-aware than he has.

He looks at her now, admiring the dark hair glinting in her apartment light, the smoothness of her skin backlit by the lamp on her side table. He waits her out, letting her finish the thought. She smirks faintly; she knows what he’s doing, but she continues anyway.

“If I did, I would have wanted you, this way. And before you and Kathy were separated… that’s how I would have lost you. You would have left. For us to be together sooner, you would have had to be a different man.”

He frowns, the words filtering through his mind, wondering at her ability to simply suppress certain feelings. To deny herself them.

He wants to argue with her. He likes the idea that they are meant for each other. Made for each other. Part of him aches to believe in the possibility that God sent her to him, even if he already belonged to another. It would absolve him of his sins, to some extent, if that were true.

“We’re more than our choices,” he says, because if they had found their way to each other sooner, wouldn’t he still be the same Elliot Stabler? Wouldn’t she still be Olivia Benson?

“Some more than others. Not that one,” she insists. “It would have changed you. And I wouldn’t have wanted you that way. Not the type of man you would have had to become.”

It riles him, that there is any kind of reality in which she doesn’t want him.

He starts to say something cutting, that she has no right, and she doesn’t know the type of man he would have become. But something in the tired openness of her expression stops him. Cragen’s words venture back through his mind. Be good to each other.

He reaches out a hand to trace her cheek, padding lightly at the soft skin below her eye, where her fatigue first makes itself evident. He releases his breath when she nuzzles into him, eyes drifting shut as she lets his fingertips graze up her cheekbone. She wants him, here. Still, he presses on.

“I like to think we would have figured it out. That we’d work out in a parallel universe, too.”

She sighs, seeming to sense that this is about more than admitting she found him attractive, back in the days when they were only partners. So very Catholic, he hears, muttered under her breath, but he disregards the jibe when she leans forward to press a sweet, straightforward kiss to his lips.

“Maybe my experience is limited, but that’s not what love is to me. That’s not how it works. It doesn’t just happen; you choose it, too. And that’s a nice thought, the parallel universe, but we only get one life, El. You just… do your best to make the right choices in it,” she says on a drawn-out breath, struggling with the effort to share the words.

She’s warming up to the topic. Shrouded, achingly serious eyes meet his.

“If Kathy had been the right choice for you, I never would have come to your apartment that first night. I always would have sent you home.”

God.

The urge to comfort is overwhelming. He wants her sure of them.

“You are part of my home now,” he says. Olivia, his children, his calling. “You’re my partner.”

“I was your partner,” she corrects in a soft voice, the warm one that draws him in and makes him want to lean closer, until he can make out the faint blurring of the black of her pupils against the brown of her irises. Pupils that dilate and eclipse when she lets him inside her. “Now I’m your choice.”

The statement rests between them for a moment, a fragile stalemate that pulls them apart and pieces them back together with its significance.

“My mother didn’t choose to love me,” she says finally, raising a staying hand when he opens his mouth to argue with her. “She didn’t. She might have tried, but not for very long, and not hard enough. I’ve made my peace with that. But it means… more than I know how to say, that you did. That you do.”

Oh, Olivia.

The knowledge that his partner was mostly alone in the world – barring him – has long accompanied him. He has known it when his eyes met hers over their desks after a long day, when a tough case broke down her posture and will, when victims like Maddy tore at the already shattered defenses of her heart. He’s never spent much time thinking about how that translates to the way she approaches relationships. For too long he was simply content to hold together the fractures of his family, then use what was left over to fill whatever space Liv allowed him. He held only the remainders for someone who clocked the choices made by those who cared for her, who deeply desired more. Who gracefully accepted the spares she was given.

He hates himself, sometimes.

She looks away now, intent on finishing her thought, needing the space to do so.

“If we’d just fallen into bed together, if you’d broken your vows, it would have changed you. And that would have changed me. And if it was that impulsive, if there was something… inappropriate about it, we could have brushed it away as a mistake. If we hurt people to become what we are, we would’ve resented each other. We would have regretted what it would have done to your kids. We would have taken one of those outs, El. You’re the one who told me what can happen when love turns to hate, remember?”

He’ll never forget that case, the painful renavigation of a broken partnership, the mutual tracking of changes between them. Swinging bangs and jean clad knees bridging harsh disagreements and the space between their apartments to rest against his. A flower in her tea. The memories swirl together in a dissipating smoke of anger that she left and relief she was back.

“But this,” she tells him, her gaze holding his once more, “this is the decision I want to make. This is the universe I want to live in. And you are the man I choose to love.”

He swallows harshly, unable to speak at first – he doesn’t want to completely embarrass himself. And Jesus Christ if he’s not headed in that direction. It shouldn’t be so consuming, that their partnership has translated to such a powerful connection, that the shorthand they spent years honing has shifted to innate understanding and a quiet intimacy. She knows the good and bad of him. She still feels like his partner; he remembers it in the way she used to know when to lean into fury with him on the hardest of cases, how sometimes she stood in between him and the perps as the one to hang onto control.

How somehow, in this moment, she is giving more voice to her feelings than he’s ever known her to do. How she refuses to pander to him, refuses to bend to his will.

In those private, stilted early days after the shooting, they only touched each other to assist with the changing of bandages and to support slow, aching movements around the apartment. In the stillness of that period, their partnership sprawled into a new life, spreading and rippling in broadening advances. They had to learn domesticity just like they once learned how to have each other’s backs.

That education brought its own pitfalls.

She was in his line of fire one afternoon, when his agitation festered and built, bubbling out of him.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded after he snapped at her, flinging unkind words over something inconsequential, a too-hot cup of coffee and a spill of a neglected glass on the kitchen counter. “Are you in pain? Did you take your medicine? Are you due for a dose?”

The questions were rapid-fire as she started to problem-solve, and he felt his hackles rise again, angry at his own impotency. Livid that any of this happened at all.

“No. Goddamnit, I don’t need your help; just go sit down. Off that leg,” he’d growled at her, inexplicably furious with the both of them.

She’d leaned back, unsteady on her feet, veering away from the harshness of his words. Her expression was determined as she narrowed her darkly discerning eyes, tweaking a brow at him. Then she was in his space again, cornering him more fully in the kitchen. She softly prodded him, pushing him against the countertop where her array of half-empty glassware sat in silent evidence of her quirks and his expectations. A stark reminder that they were something his ex-wife would have cleared away immediately.

“You don’t need to do that,” she told him quietly, and leaned her forehead against his good shoulder, so his lips hovered near her temple.

“What? Take it out on you because I’m tired of being a fucking invalid?” he said, temper cooling as quickly as it had heated.  

“You’re not an invalid. I don’t want to hear the complaining,” she chided with gentle firmness. “Your range of motion is better than mine. And that’s not what I meant.”

He sighed deeply, whispering a murmured apology that she merely shook her head against.

“You don’t need to pick a fight with me, when you just want to be touched.” She looked up at him then, questions in her eyes. “We might be… pausing whatever this is. But things did change, El. We’re different. We can maybe try to listen to each other a little better now.”

“You think I was picking a fight with you because I wanted to touch you?”

“I think you were picking a fight with me because you’re overwhelmed. And angry. And sometimes you communicate best when you’re yelling. But it’s kind of like the last time I got hurt, isn’t it?” she asked warily, broaching the subject of Gitano without raising his name between them. He remembered his whispered revelation in the squad car when all of this was starting.

I didn’t want you to die alone.

“You’re not actually angry. So, tell me what’s really going on.”

“I’m annoyed because you leave glasses all over the place. They’re everywhere. It’s a damn safety hazard. And it’s a good thing you only have one mug at the precinct.”

His muscles tensed as he pelted the words at her. She stayed pressed against him, unfazed and smiling into his shoulder, and the response lulled him. He couldn’t help answering in kind. Couldn’t help wondering how she read him so well.

“I miss my kids,” he finally told her, taking her advice to dig to the truth of it. “I miss being able to exercise. I miss work. I might even miss Munch and Fin. I miss you.”

He did, desperately. He’d been the one to put their physical relationship on hold after he damn near got both of them killed, while they were both still too damaged to fully enjoy each other, anyways. But it was a mistake, because he was aware of her, living in her home, and he couldn’t reach out and touch her anymore. Couldn’t draw a line down the olive skin of her arm and see the fading whiteness his fingertip left behind. Couldn’t press a kiss to the base of her neck, remembering how she looked when her locks weren’t long enough to pull out of the way. Couldn’t hold her, the way he’d wanted to countless times over the years they stood together.

“I’m standing right here, partner,” she said into the hollow of his neck, warming him with her breath, with the conviction in her words.

He wrapped his arms around her then, indulging in the tentative hug while minding both their injuries, and breathed a sigh of relief at the recognition of her weight against his. The misplaced anger melted away, and it was just her.

Her skin, her hair, her fingertips gliding up his arms. Her hands gripping the collar of his shirt.

Overabundant glassware or not, he was never going to let her go.

He feels that connection now, as she claims him, in this universe. They can speak a multitude of languages between them, words of history and longing, words of trust and lines left uncrossed. They can speak as they are now, and he hears the Olivia of their years of partnership answer in the shadows, just as he hears the woman he loves answer him in the light.

“You’re braver than I am, you know that?” he tells her at last, once he can bring his head back above the tide of feeling that threatens to pull him under.

She has the power to devastate him.

“Of course, I do,” she says, but her eyes are guileless, and her smile is wide. She’s self-deprecating and oh so confident, at the same time. He feels his emotions settle into a gentle swell of affection.

He kisses her then, or she kisses him. They’ve mastered this part, the shared responsibility, the beckoning promise of what’s to come. Her lips are warm and lush beneath his. He’s learned that he loves the way she looks when they’re swollen, when his five o’clock shadow wears against them, when her pulling tugs at his own lower lip prompt a rougher reaction in him. She sinks into him, kissing him deeply, her tongue against his, forehead knocking against him as he breathes into it. She lifts her hands up to grip either side of his face, and he feels gentle fingertips grazing his cheeks on their tip-toeing path towards the back of his head. And then she pulls back, relinquishing him with featherlight goodbyes peppered along the corner of his mouth before she falls away on a wispy exhale, a final squeeze at the back of his neck.

He laughs a little, thinks what the hell, and takes another risk.

“You got any more of that bravery stored up?”

“Why? Should I be worried?” she asks, pulling her legs up to rest them on top of his, stretched out on the couch. He watches her expression; the lines of strain that wrinkle her forehead at the movement. He idly reaches out to massage her leg, below the now-healed scarring, where he knows it still stiffens and aches.

“Nah. Just curious about something.”

“What is it?”

He weighs his words, kneading her skin, remembering how close he had come to losing her, after finally coming to grips with what he wanted from her. Where he wanted her to fit into his life.

Where he wanted to fit into hers.

“You said I’m who you choose. You love me,” he starts, watching her closely, images of an Olivia evacuating his life and hiking through lush green forests of Oregon in the back of his mind. She shakes her head with a grin, looking down at his hands on her thigh. He hears more slightly mocking murmurings under her breath, drifting up to him. You say it like an order. So damn directive.

He ignores that and playfully lifts her face to his, two folded knuckles tucking under her chin to bring her eyes to his. “What does that mean for you? What does the future of this universe look like?”

He watches fear leave its tracks across her face before her expression shutters, and he hates that it’s her first reaction. But she doesn’t pull away, the line of her jaw still rests against his fingers. The question is in the open, and he wouldn’t reclaim it, even if he could.

He closes his eyes and waits for her to answer.

Chapter Text

Spring warms into summer with predictable gusto, liveliness reentering her step as the remaining evidence of David Abatello’s bullet hampers her less and less frequently. The limp is dissipating, as is the cold, the early morning light glinting off the lingering frost in a warming sign of hope rather than the threat of snowfall. The warmth also seems to melt away the tentativeness that had encircled Elliot and her, releasing them to activities from which they never partook in the past. Long, ambling walks around the park, meandering strolls to find a new – but conveniently close enough for a repeat – restaurant, a morning’s interlude in a café’s corner-nook seating before they break into the toughness of the day.

The shifting weather also brings the downside of the thawing rush – less time with each other. The city’s invigorated energy brings the balance of time with Elliot’s kids to her doorstep, along with a heightened number of cases to the precinct. He balances it; she sees that. There’s a steadiness to Elliot these days, like the resistance against laying down the fight to proclaim his purpose – the determination to decipher his priorities so that he could be sure that his God did not find him lacking – has dwindled. It’s an odd feeling, to realize that while her wellbeing was deeply rooted in the happiness of her partner before, she finds that she simply enjoys him better now.

He's easier to get along with, easier to be around. He is freer with his smiles, and more open with his touches. Initially it was a quick jolt of surprise to realize that he could not only be infectious, but also – dare she think it – cheesy. She still studies him, when he tries to catch her in profile and believes she won’t see him observing her. She likes to watch how an almost stupidly sweet smile can spread across his face, leaving newly placed creases even as it chases away wrinkles of worry. How he shakes his head ever so slightly – like he’s not quite sure that they’ve truly gotten to where they now are. And how he gnaws a little at his lower lip, considering. But not like he used to shred at it with stress-filled abandon; not the way he did when he bit so hard that it looked like it hurt. When he used the pain to channel his thoughts. Now it’s a light nibble, almost like he can imagine her lips, her teeth there, instead.

It sends a shiver through her.

She wants to deny it. She wants to sink into it.

He’s so newly, startlingly affectionate, and then – though he’d argue with this point – immediately bashful, and she hopes that the give and take of their trade from professional comradery to a loving trust never, ever ends.

She doesn’t want it to fade, this angel-light and gossamer thin thread of fondness. It’s softer than anything she has ever known. She thinks maybe it has the same makings of birthdays with the expectation of candles instead of the fear of broken vodka bottles, of a happy Christmas morning where the light glints off the ornaments instead of the floor of an empty apartment, of a New Year’s kiss meant to last through the seasons instead of merely the countdown. She wonders if – maybe if only when she was an infant – her mother was this gentle with her. This type of sun-bathed, unvarnished loving. She suspects not. So, she takes it now.

She wants to hold onto it as long as she can with Elliot, and she hopes it is simply who they are, that it’s not just the shine of new.

But she’s never been here before.

He might have; but she has nothing to use as comparison.

She thinks about asking, more than she cares to admit. Was it like this, in the beginning, with Kathy? Did you love her this dearly? Did you think you were going to choke with the sweetness of it, sometimes?

She’ll never give voice to the questions; a part of her hates that she has given them any semblance of reign in the solitude of her own mind. Because she’s a little afraid, even still. That Kathy was to him what he is to her. That this… sweeping, almost monstrous feeling of certainty has taken her in its wake, while he has been left standing. Still solid, and stationary, for the bittersweet, head-ducking reason of it at all – that Kathy swept him away first.

She’s terrified that she is finally setting out on this journey with him, but she’s the one bridging the ravines and braving the storms alone.

She wonders if it’s at all like revisiting the scene of a crime. They do that sometimes, after they’ve cataloged the evidence, go back to get a better sense of what the doer saw in the striking moment, before the police descended. It’s important; it’s how they get inside a criminal’s mind. But it’s not like it was for the perp. It’s not like being there for the first time.

And then she cringes, because even without Kathy, how can he be caught up in the same tide of… she’s not even sure what it is. Love, he has insisted, again and again. A different kind of partnership. And it feels like romance. For her?

A woman whose best comparison for past love affairs is a secondary crime scene walkthrough.

Somehow, as the days crawl into warmer versions of the prior, it doesn’t matter. Her doubts persist, and his anger stokes, but they have long known how to address those aspects of each other. They are simply variations on a theme, now. An evolution of their handling of each other, no longer called into Cragen’s office because they are too close. Freedom to simply be that close and explore all that proximity has to offer.

She makes their coffee in the mornings and places his cup on the outer corner of his bed stand so that he has to set a foot on the ground – to truly awaken – before he can make an effective reach for it. He drives them to the precinct, a cocky tilt to his head in the seat beside her, but he always dangles the keys as an offering to her, first. She fiddles with his case files and makes idle recommendations to him and Munch (who doesn’t seem to mind all that much – Benson was always the smart one, partner. Let her help if she wants to waste her 30 down here instead of in the cribs). He makes her what should be disgusting blends of chicken tenders and mac and cheese with a knowing smirk on his face, telling her he’ll keep ‘em simmering in the oven while he slides his thigh alongside her, nudging one of hers out of the way until he can angle up against the most intimate parts of her.

They clink and grind and lock together, their fittings latching like an old-time rack and pinion catch. One with the shine rubbed away, but that’s still hard to break. She wants to fight it a little, but more and more, she finds herself wanting to trust it.

Olivia watches helplessly as her self-enforced restrictions of independence wick away, droplets dried with a heated gust, as if they were never there at all. She heats more easily at night now, too, and she pulls away from him, seeking the cool reprieve of the untouched sheets on her side of the bed. He yanks her back by morning, and she may grumble at the curl her sweat dampened forehead has put in her hair, but she can’t help but revel in it, just a little. That even in sleep, his inclination is to reach for her and pull her back to his side. It’s the spot she inhabited for so long, as his partner.

“Where ya goin’?” he mumbles under his breath, his hand sliding over the white expanse of the sheet as she sits up and tests her feet against the bedroom floor. Her nearly healed thigh is still tense, the most painful in the mornings. The itching tightness is something to be released and relieved, a new alternative to how she used to stretch and arch her back upon waking.

“It’s morning,” she tells him softly, smiling – but not bothering to turn around. She hears his hand patting around in exploration, seeking her out.

“Not really.”

His fingertips plunder until they find her, his hand looping around her wrist in victory. He has a point, she thinks. It’s early, still.

It used to be that when she woke early like this, she would lean down to pull her shoes from their easy access under the bed and lace them up before she could change her mind. She’d grab a bottle of water and go for a run, leading into a quick shower and a sharp, alert walk into the precinct. These days, it’s more difficult. She wants to slink back into bed with him, stay there as long as they’re able. She wants to ride into work with him, then walk beside him as they stride into the squad room. It all still feels so precarious – a tentative solution that keeps them playing at partners. One she knows no one believes can last. Least of all her.

She thinks back to that night, when she told him she was now his choice, not his partner. When he broached the possibilities of their relationship and questioned how to make them permanent.

“What does that mean for you? What does the future of this universe look like?”

She remembers freezing in his arms, an icy edge marring the soft honesty they’d brokered. She’d taken a huff of breath, more to delay the answer than ease the dizziness pushing at her vision.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” she told him. The evasion was familiar, a sparring feint when he got too close to the line of vulnerability.

She trusts Elliot more than anyone, even more than herself.

She still doesn’t know how to rely on anyone, other than herself.

Hasn’t she always been an amalgam of opposites? A violent father, a victimized mother. A too-quickly grown adult, a perpetually young girl seeking approval. A professional detective, a reckless cop. A dutiful partner, a woman in love.

“I figured you probably don’t,” he told her, that playful look stubbornly remaining on his face. “I’m asking you to think about it. Asking you to try.”

The thing is, she knows Elliot well enough to know when requests cost him something. She’s not so certain he always tracks it in her. She knew what it cost him; knew the weight that it carried, the depths that it reached.

But even as she understands that, she sometimes doesn’t know how to pay him back. She doesn’t know how to view it as anything more than an imbalance of the scales. And she has always hated being in someone’s debt, even when it was her own mother, even when it’s someone she loves. Even when it’s him.

“El, I love you,” she told him. She wanted to remember what a hurdle those words were. How much she’d given him by leaping to make that concession.

“I know. I love you, too. And I’m glad –” he growled, pulling his hands away from her to run them over his head in frustration, and she wanted to yell at him that he’d given her five minutes to try to answer a question he had to have known would be beyond daunting. An impossible peak, a dizzying divide.

Give me some goddamn time, Elliot.

She’d made so many concessions, adjustments. And she knew the restructuring of his family had been a price to be paid. But the more they were together, the more she felt that she didn’t do this to his family; he was already divorced, his children were coming to know their father separately from their mother, and they were succeeding at it. Their feelings flowed along with the current, and she left when she thought she couldn’t stop them from breaching the surface. When she came back, his control was already far beyond frayed. She didn’t cause this.

She’s a return to a soft place to land, a warm bed to fall into, someone to smooth his roughness and fury – that was a shift back to the familiar for Elliot.

She might be a new woman, but it was a known course.

She was one who had to navigate entirely unknown territory.

“I don’t know,” she found herself telling him simply, honestly. She ran her fingers over his, pressing where the coarser hairs of his hands stood stark against the paleness of his skin, following over his knuckles to drift to the crescent moons of his short fingernails. She loved him. “I love you.”

As a girl, she believed those to be the words that smoothed all the jagged edges. They were supposed to be the words that fixed things.

He breathed deeply, slowly at her side. She felt each gasp puff out, lifting her slightly, and she watched her own limbs as if from afar. Watching how her legs raised, draped over his, each time he took a steadying breath. Watching as her arms, one looped around his neck and the other pressing lightly on his chest, lifted in a marionette motion as he drew in air, let it seep back out.

“I love you, too. I’m –” he sucked that breath back in, and her heart ached with it. It looked like it hurt. That’s not what I’m trying to do. To hurt you. That’s never what I’m trying to do, she wanted to tell him. “I’m asking you about what comes next.”

And, of course, he was. Elliot lived his life in constructs, in sacraments, in steps. Birth, baptism, confirmation, marriage. Birth again, until there was death. An aberration of divorce. She knew, more than she thought he would acknowledge, that the language of Elliot Stabler’s life was written in the rituals and grace of the Church.

But hers wasn’t. She possessed a language all her own.

They’d found a way to translate everything else they’d ever faced; she couldn’t understand why he was pushing to force her to decipher this last unreadable page.

I’ll get there, she thought a little wildly. Fuck, Elliot, I will, but let me be the one to take the step.

She’d had enough of turning rounded corners with a blind eye, only to be met with a swing of a knife or a loaded gun, for a lifetime.

“I am happy, this way, being with you,” she told him, locking against the deep blue eyes like she could lose herself in their skies. Trying to convey how much she meant, how much she could commit, how very normal she could be if he’d just let her do it in her due time. “It’s already… more.”

And, just as she’d predicted, it wasn’t enough.

“You’re saying you never want to get married?”

He jumped ahead, a sprawl towards marriage when she thought they’d already established permanence. Frustration sparked, and the course charted a new direction, one she hadn’t intended, one she didn’t even really mean any longer.

“No, I’m saying I don’t feel like I need to get married.”

“What about commitment? Promising to stay with each other?

“You said that we don’t need the label of partner. That we don’t have to keep the connection of the job to promise to stay with each other. Why is it different for a marriage certificate?”

Shock, and the recognition of a battle lost, crested across his face, punctuated by a downturn of his mouth. All harsh lines and restrained frustration. He moved to answer, but his voice stumbled, his brow furrowing, and she took a bit of perverse pleasure in it. Doesn’t feel good, does it, being forced to face what you’re not ready to? He seemed to land on attack rather than argument.

“Fuck you, Liv.”

She sucked in a breath with the impact, the hurt. Hastily grabbed words, a pedestrian, rote insult, really. But it was a carefully placed blow, one she’d seen him land on countless unsuspecting perps. And everything simply… tumbled over her, dominos knocking over the next one in their path. A perfect, precarious mapping of all that they were, all that they could be and all that they spent years silently promising not to, sent falling to the ground. A meticulous pattern revealed, undone.

She turned her head towards him, shoving his gently kneading fingers off her still-injured thigh. Always, always her, bearing the goddamn damage of them. The memories all but plowed her over. They got caught in a case and he made a snap judgment – but he walked away scot-free.

She veered too close in the attempt to save a child? She walked away with a scar at her neck and a partner she was resolved to leave.

She returned in an attempt to rebuild? She was met with a wavering, lukewarm reception followed by a scalding kiss in a squad car. Made to burn more with the promises it did not carry.

She slept with him, spent the night, tried to forge ahead the night after that? The next day’s bullet left in her body was the one that left lasting damage in its wake, a physical therapy-laden reminder of both their mistakes.

She told him she loved him in the shadowy darkness before morning’s gaining sun? He rushed it out into the light, and even when she disclosed alongside him, it wasn’t enough.

All her scars, all she carried of what they might have the potential to be, and he made the demand. He set the pace, the rules. And yet the sharp objects never met his flesh.

She opened her mouth to rage, to let loose, like she has before.

You son of a bitch, you know that’s not true.

Fuck you, too, Elliot, she thought. Who gave you the right to be so goddamn self-righteous?

I should have known you were going to pull something like this.

She started to launch forth like she would at perp without cause, the way she only would when she knew Elliot was there to catch her and hold her back. But she was talking to him now, and she couldn’t rely on him to check her reactions. If they were going to preserve what they’d become at all, she was going to have to learn to do that for herself, in his stead.

She thought about the steady, true focus of his eyes, like they were blanketed in mist-dissolving rain, when Gitano held a gun to his head and they both thought it was over. She thought about how his voice lowered, then alternately hastened and slowed when he was trying to sooth her – a quick clip-clop of agreement and pause until she could regulate on her own. She thought about the kindness in his smile, warming the squad room’s chill across her desk. His hand, just then, skirting back towards the ache in her thigh. Subconsciously wanting to help her, even as they fought.

She heard his spiteful words one more time before she twisted them for herself. Fuck you, Liv.

“I’m not ready for marriage. I’m still good with fucking, though.”

She smiled, trying to take the edge off, to guide him back.

His eyes trekked from glacial to Caribbean in the span of a heartbeat, and she felt herself ease with their journey.

When his mouth met hers, she still tasted the questions. But she let him pull her from the couch towards her bedroom, ease her waistband down her legs until they were a puddle at her feet, then lay her back on the bed. She let him ask those questions against the crook of her neck, the curve of her waist, and the dip of her navel. She saw his asks for promises she couldn’t yet give against the lids of her eyes when he kissed them, after they’d drifted shut. It wasn’t until he inched his way back down, when she was squirming under his hands and his tongue laved at the core of her, that she finally lost herself to him. The questions went silent, then.

Their anger gave way to what she suspected would always bind them – that even trust, that passion that shifted like tides but never seemed to abate. She felt the pull as he nudged inside of her, fingers biting into her hips and words whispered into her ears, and she let herself surrender to it. This is everything, she thought. If he couldn’t keep hold of who they were and how they’d stood at each other’s backs, facing the world for each other, then she could.

She just wished she could make him see that promise – the one they’d made as partners – meant so much more than anything they could proclaim to each other now.

What more does it mean to say I’ll stay with you always, when you’ve already said I’ll lay down my life for you?

When he moved inside her, when she bit back a self-satisfied smile to his moan as she tightened around him, she promised herself all the things she would remember to hold against him once she came back to herself.

But after her rise and crest, once she let loose a broken cry that he claimed with a kiss, she just lay in the tide, letting the gentle lap of waves lull her to sleep.

She hears those questions now, though. She hears them in every too-long look, in every drifting touch. She knows she has somehow bought a stay of decision, and that there is still a day of reckoning coming. They work, for now. But she knows he’s biding his time.

More and more, she realizes that maybe she’s doing the same.

He tugs at her wrist once more, bringing her back to the present. And she can’t stop the swell in her heart when she turns to see his boyish grin. It was a rarity for so long. He’s right – it’s not quite morning. And while she could pull her legs from the bed to lace up her feet in running shoes, while he’s here with her, she can’t bring herself to prioritize anything else.

“Kids are coming over later,” he murmurs into her ear, his breath wet and hot and hers. Hers in ways it’s always been as her partner’s, and in new ways as the label she can’t quite bring herself to acknowledge. But they have disclosed, and they live together in her apartment that may as well be theirs until they find somewhere new, and when his children come over to spend time with him – she doesn’t always leave anymore.

She turns to answer him, only for him to stop her. It’s a new discovery for her, that she likes talking into, or around kisses. She likes how Elliot lets them linger, dragging out syllables she was trying to say, and then breaks to give her a moment to breathe, and plants staccato kisses on her lips to interrupt her words. She’d let it pass longer if she didn’t have some news to impart of her own.

“I know – Elliot, for god’s sake, listen –”

But he isn’t listening, and as he winds his way down her torso, she’s loathe to stop him.

“No.”

She smiles at her ceiling. She’ll never tell him; Elliot has no need for inflated certainty, but she does love how arrogant he is at times. She’s learned that the more pronounced his swagger, the happier he is. His goddamn cockiness is a barometer of his inner peace. Idiot, she thinks ruefully, but the bubble of affection carries her regardless.

“El –”

His hand palms over her breast, and he breathes out a stop talking as his mouth follows it, stealing her breath. She gives up for a moment, arching her hips against him and enjoying the rumble of his answering groan. But when he moves to the other side to share the attention, she stops him, pulling at his jaw to catch his eyes.

They are a different kind of blue, when she sees them so close, clear skies over the golden plain of her own skin.

“That, uh – that future universe?” And that catches him, finally. His mouth freezes at her neck, his hand almost imperceptibly tightens at her breast.

“Yeah?” he asks so quietly that she almost thinks she feels it in her skin instead of hearing it aloud.

“We’re probably gonna need a bigger place. I want your kids… I don’t want you to think I’m… I want them to feel at home,” she tells him, trying her best to settle, sucking in a breath when his focus turns back to her mouth, when he kisses her deeply.

“Ya sure?”

She takes a moment to consider. She sees her mother, herself. She sees a shadow of life years ago and she sees the wavering, elusive shimmer of it now. So quickly gone from present to past. She sees the furrowed brow and determined stare of her partner – and she sees this Elliot, lying sated and smiling in her bed.

“I’m sure.”

The things he assumed would be difficult about being with Olivia turn out to be the least difficult of all. He finds, as they settle into a routine of a new kind of normal, that the thorns he assumed she would carry over from her single life – clasped in her hands despite the blood they let, a bit of pain with her bouquet of offering – are not the cuts of secrecy or evasiveness or mistrust. He finds her almost shockingly willing to share with him, to try to explain when she has worries or disbelief.

What has been unexpectedly hard, is that now, in this new world they’ve created for themselves, she pulls back the shroud to let him see more clearly the hurts he always knew were there. But she won’t let him fight in defense of her, she still insists on standing at his side. And the cruel truth is that even if he wanted to defeat her invisible monsters, there’s no one there to slay. Her mother’s trauma, a legacy of damage, deeply rooted insecurities and self-blame. He doesn’t know how to rid her of these things, doesn’t know if he’s supposed to try.

He wanted to shake her, when she clammed up, dark eyes giving nothing away and the lines of her body hardening themselves against him, after he asked about their future. Frustration ignited to rage for a moment, then doused and smoldered into… sulking. There’s no better word for it when he recalls it now; he sulked for days afterwards. After all they’ve overcome, why are the easiest things for him still the hardest things for her?

Then, as he blamed and battled thoughts that of course she was going to self-sabotage, and that’s why her face pales and her eyes shutter any time he broaches the idea of something more, something binding between them – he recalls how she has shattered him with honesty and openness of which he didn’t know she was capable.

We have been uneven for years… I needed you to say thank you… for giving you years of my life!

I used to read fairytales.

My mother didn’t choose to love me. She didn’t. She might have tried, but not for very long, and not hard enough. I’ve made my peace with that. But it means… more than I know how to say, that you did. That you do.

I love you, El.

I’m sure.

She’s let him into her home, and she has altered the haven of their precinct to accommodate what he asked of her, and she’s smiled at his kids over greasy pizzas, raised voices, messes and spills in her kitchen. She’s held him in her bed, in her body.

And now, they’re debating an actual fucking property, standing in a brownstone with three bedrooms, smaller than he’d like for the kids but big enough for the four of them to cycle through – and as sizeable as they’re going to get if he keeps his promise not to force her out of Manhattan. Tight rooms, two even smaller bathrooms, and an island that will have to double as the kitchen table, but workable. She makes so few claims, hardly any requests. And he knows the city is a part of her; he’s not going to deny her this one.

It’s more than they should be able to afford on civil servants’ salaries, even the combination of them. That’s been yet another revelation about Olivia. She was a bit cagey about the extra money initially, though he hasn’t been exactly blind to the fact that – the first year of their partnership aside – her penchant for coats, jackets, the subtle pieces of jewelry didn’t come without a significantly hefty price tag.

It makes him wonder at her mercurial nature, and who she might have been without her mother’s damage to avenge. If she hadn’t been a cop. It used to… frighten him a little, how much more she was, how adaptable she was. Beautiful, intelligent, tasteful – things in opposition to his rough-edged brawn. Things that grant her access to worlds he never imagined for himself. And now, to find she had additional keys to the castle – family money that she’s been too smart to broadcast save for the infrequent weakness for a splurge on supple leather or golden shine.

“It’s not important, El. It’s always… been there. It’s just money,” she’d said to him, hours after her earth-shattering words – I’m sure.

It’s just money, he thinks now, knowing those are the kinds of words only someone who has had money can speak. It’s not. It’s more; at the very least, it’s yet another show of trust in him. One that’s got him fighting with himself to not feel emasculated, but to see her offer as a show of faith and generosity, nonetheless.

“My mother’s father. He died when I was young – I don’t really remember. But there was a trust, and…” she trailed off, wariness clouding her eyes as she waited for him to speak instead.

“The trust went to Serena?” he asked, realizing how deep her still waters lie, how many more mysteries of Olivia he has yet to uncover.

“Hmm,” she murmured in assent, relaxing at his side. He knows this about her now, that she deals more easily in facts, that they are a way to seek out the truth before he pushes her about how she feels about them. “Part of it passed to me when I turned twenty-one. And then the rest did, after she died.”

He didn’t know what to say for a moment, watching as she struggled with the play of emotions across her face. But he trusted their partnership – these newly revealed facets of her aside, she’s still his Olivia.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply. Because the money was no reparation for how she was raised, of what she was deprived. What she lost.

Her eyebrows raised in surprise, her eyes clearing with cinnamon warmth.

“Thank you,” she said simply. “So. We can use it? Just for the down payment, maybe. Then we can handle the mortgage together.”

“You want to buy, not rent?” he’d asked, struck with the sudden inclination towards decades of a promise, at least to the bank, even as he struggled with the need to provide for her rather than the other way around. But visions of her firmly at his side, saving his life more than once, holding her own as his partner for years before his lips ever met hers eased the consternation. That, and he wants to give her what she wants. Even if she’s the one earning it.

Those fringed eyes met his, deep and fathomless, a soft smile playing on her face. He’s got to learn, he thinks now, to follow her actions, not only her words.

“Like I told you. I’m sure.”

It might be the closest thing to I do that he ever gets from Olivia Benson.

Watching her face as she takes in the light-filled brownstone with spare bedrooms that she’s already designating for his children, with a fireplace that he watched her fall in love with and that kitchen island where he has plans to ease her down and lay her bare, he thinks this might be even better.

The place claims ownership of a creaking staircase, barely-there closets, and hardwood floors that he suspects could use a refinishing. There are cracks in the drywall, and the paint bears shadows and scuffs from the owners who came before them. The kitchen appliances are dated, though there’s a charm of longevity about them that reminds him a little of his house in Queens, and he wonders if his children might appreciate the familiarity. The bathrooms probably need to be completely gutted, but he can see a sheen of curiosity in Liv’s eyes when the realtor describes the options of a newly designed tub and steamer shower.

The play of light in this place captivates him. It streams in from a set of windows by the front entrance, and an arched opening above the door itself that spills sunlight into the walkway towards the living room and the staircase. He sees Olivia stepping in and out of it, all tentative feline curiosity, and it makes him think of that very first night with her, her leg propped up next to his as she toyed with a plate of chicken tenders on the bed. He wants this for her – anything that makes her feel like she has a rightful spot in the sun.

He waits until the realtor quietly leaves the room, allowing them a private moment – he’s not completely inept, even if he’s slowly coming to realize that she’s the savvier between them – and he asks for her next action, even if she can’t give him the words.

“Well? You want it?”

She moves away from him, spinning around in the open space with her hands lightly outstretched. It makes him think of his girls, when they were young and without abandon, and he has a sudden flash of a young Olivia, unhindered by the weight of her upbringing. The movement is slow but purposeful – more restrained than he can picture his daughters doing – and his heart clenches. Must be something in the anatomy of a woman that prompts this, he muses, and he likes that Liv is allowing him to see it. He approaches her slowly, hands lifted, fingertips moving through air until they touch the silky skin of her upper arms. He moves into her space, and it feels better than standing away from her. The connection between them draws him closer, snaps into place with certainty as soon as his hands are on her.

Trust her actions, not just her words.

He breathes in the scent of summer on her hair, calling to mind the singular tree that shadows the house’s steep front steps – those separately leading to this door and down to a garden apartment that he can’t help but imagine acquiring someday, as well. A maple, he thinks, remembering the star-shapes of the leaves and the way they left the sidewalk sun-dappled and shaded.

He thinks back, to hours of helping the twins with grade-school homework, when they had to collect and trace different types of leaves, showcased with accurate labels but the teacher-approved freedom to color them in with the shade of their choice. It’s nostalgic, and he thinks of their small bodies against his, the trusting hugs and endless energy, the bright exuberance and unbounded love. Voices smaller and higher than his children’s are in the present drift back to him, and he wonders – just for a second – about the subject neither of them have been brave enough to raise. He wonders what she wants, how much she wants. An image of Olivia, standing in the shadows of the squad room as his kids present him with a candle-lit birthday cake in the precinct, flickers in his mind.

Her eyes meet his, and he tries to divine their future, how much more of the world they build between them.

They’ll get there. She’s already family to him, maybe even to his kids, too. If she wants more of it, he’ll give it to her.

She smiles at him, and he feels it on his skin, the sun breaking through the coolness of a breeze.

“I want it.”

Months later, the rolling weeks give way yet again. She should expect it, after all these years, but the changing seasons still take her aback. This time, it’s marked by the recognizable canopy of green leaves drying and crisping into fallen fodder underfoot.

Mere months, and that brownstone is theirs. She feels it like an extension of her, one she hadn’t known she wanted. A place, yes – but a part that she breathes into when she opens her mouth. A part that has created roots and a safe harbor she spent years resolutely claiming she didn’t need.

It’s because they’ve become more than partners. It’s because Elliot is here. It’s because they make a space for his children, here. But she wonders, from time to time, if she could have found this on her own had she given herself permission. It’s because she’s allowed herself to mean it when she calls somewhere home.

She’s been painting, a sage-y green in one of the spare bedrooms that she thinks will suit whether it’s claimed by Elliot’s son or daughters, taking pride in the spreading vee shapes of clean paint covering the walls that are now theirs. She doesn’t claim to be a homemaker; she’ll never be the type of woman who spends hours upon hours decorating. Not that it is his forte, either. The few trips she and Elliot have made to choose furniture that doesn’t resemble a crushed mix of his bachelor pad and her single-woman apartment have resulted in sniping remarks and for the love of God, just pick what you want, I don’t care from both of them. But he’s peeled her out of her clothes afterwards, pulling her to the floor of every room of the house in appreciated attempts to apologize, and she likes the sense that they have left evidence of themselves here.

She sets the paintbrush in its tray, straightening as the sound of footsteps in the doorway break her from her reverie.

“Buyer’s remorse?”

The words are deliciously intimate, murmured into her ear before his lips fall onto her tank-top clad shoulder. She feels the scruff of his chin slip across the still-sweaty surface of her skin, letting her head loll to the side to knock her temple into his.

“Not at all. You?”

“Nah. Turns out, my partner’s a bit of a high roller. I know better than to object.”

She smiles, because if it’s been a sore spot, it’s also a place well-worn over between the two of them. They’ve discussed it for hours. What Serena left her, what she is owed from her grandparents, the concept of her having grandparents at all. That he needs to man up and accept any monetary difference between the two of them. That she wanted that house.

He pulls her from the room, down the brightly lit hallway to their kitchen, a rumbling looks great, Liv softly echoing off the walls.

She leans against the counter, watching how casually he moves, how settled he seems. He shifts her to the side, moving her out of the way of the refrigerator to grab them a couple of beers, deftly popping off the cap before he hands one to her. She takes a long pull before resigning herself to smaller sips, nudging her hip against his as she leans against the counter.

“Dickie did a good job with the shelves,” she tells him, nodding towards the open cabinetry that Elliot’s son had assembled. Of all the kids, he may still be the most lukewarm to her – Maureen was standoffish, but her coolness melted as soon as Kathy proclaimed her own acceptance of the situation – but he’d taken pride in his craftsmanship of some extra storage for their kitchen. And she couldn’t help but think that even if he’d butchered the project, it wouldn’t matter. It gave him a claim to stake here.

“You know I did most of that, right?” Elliot asks, moving in front of her to box her in, his arms trapping her against the kitchen counter. She could breakaway, if she wanted to.

She doesn’t.

“Looks like teenager grade to me,” she says, grinning when his brows swoop in mock indignation and his hands cinch at her waist, lifting her to sit on the counter before him. He runs a hand down her thigh, where a scar still serves as a reminder of Maddy and that alleyway, but one that doesn’t haunt either of them like it used to, nearly a year later.

“That’s quality work, and you know it, Benson.”

Olivia’s eyes drift shut at the name. Sometimes she still misses it, his role as her partner. She misses the shared theories and meals, the click of knowing eyes when they landed on a theory at the same time, the matched pace of their footsteps as they pursued a lead or chased a perp. She misses knowing, down to her bones, who they were meant to be and what they were meant to do.

But he is not just the leading act in her crusade, now. He’s the man who stands beside her outside her calling, and she hadn’t known how much she longed for the distinction.

“Quality,” she murmurs back, in between the press of her lips against his.

They stay like that for a moment, sharing kisses and sips until he moves to replace their bottles from the fridge, and turns to hand her a fresh one with an appraising stare.

“What?” she asks, wincing at her own abruptness.

“It’s a big house,” he says, gaze enigmatic, a little guarded.

“Not that big. You remember how many kids you have, right?”

His gaze goes darker, and she’s aware that she’s mis-stepped, unintentional or not.

“El?”

“I know. But – ah, we probably should talk about it at some point.”

She remembers him asking about marriage, about potential universes, and damnit, but she doesn’t feel any more certain about the right path than she did nearly half a year ago. Maybe she owes him more. She moves to jump off the counter, but his hands hold her forearms in place, a beseeching blue gaze she’s never seen before pinning her to the spot.

“What?” she asks again, trying to redirect the shards of impatience from her voice. Flinging them at him will do neither of them any good.

He pushes against her a little more firmly, so she can feel the ridge of his waist between the spread of her thighs.

“You bought a house with me,” he starts, and she opens her mouth to retort, but stills at the sharp shake of his head. “We bought a house together. We have a home. We disclosed, and we have our jobs, but they’re not in our way anymore. My kids… you gotta know my kids love you, Liv. And I love you. I don’t need you to make me promises that you don’t believe.”

He stops for a moment, until her breathing slows to match his.

“But this is it for me. Whether we put it on paper or not.”

She swallows the lump in her throat. This is Elliot, she reminds herself. This is Elliot.

He is her partner.

“For me, too,” she tells him. Maybe it doesn’t come with a dress and a priest and rings. But for her, it’s a vow.

She’s never going to walk down an aisle towards him; she’s starting to believe he knows her well enough that he wouldn’t ask her to. But she likes the look of her name signed next to his. She can do that once more, for them both.

He kisses her then, deep and steady and slow. She hears the questions again, against her lips, against her skin. Her lips spread in answer, a smile she didn’t know she was suppressing.

He still feels like the man she introduced countless times, Detective Stabler to her Benson. They have changed, their relationship has changed, but the pieces of them have simply shifted and reformed. She still sees the man whose measuring look across their desks was the surest anchor she has known.

She wonders if it’s the same, for him.

“El, do I still feel like… me to you?” she asks, the words bursting forth without her permission.

She expects a scoff, a furrowed look of confusion, maybe a short laugh – the kind he used to give when he disagreed with her theory but wanted to at least acknowledge that he heard it. But she gets none of that. She receives a still, assessing stare, one that she feels in her nerve-endings, the energy of it firing from her toes and fingertips.

“You are always Olivia, to me,” he says, his voice tumbling over the syllables of her name, so that she hears it in full, even as she hears Liv. Even as she hears detective and partner and baby. It occurs to her that this is the only man – the only person – who may ever know the fullness of who she is.

He wanted to talk about something – he was going to ask a question.

But she finds herself answering the one she needs to, the one he still hasn’t outright posed to her. She doesn’t want to wait.

“Okay, then. Yes.”

Chapter Text

“That’s it, Elliot! Seashell skylines and seaweed bridges. You’re going to be an architect, my boy,” his mother told him once, solidly sure in her flightiness, drawing worry from him, even as a child. Elliot remembers her distracted eyes roaming over the ocean like a storm rolling in off the coast, her gaze caught on the horizon instead of keeping watch on his progress. He’d pulled at her arm, begging her to look at the sandcastle he’d made, to listen to him. To stay present.

“I’m looking! You have my full attention,” she assured him. But he didn’t. Something else – everything else – had her attention. He knew long before then, that words could be empty.

“I promise,” she told him, so many times.

He couldn’t keep her focus that day. Her words were a series of voided promises after that.

He uses empty words more than he cares to admit, himself. White lies about a case run long. Promises to Kathy until the very last moment that no, no, he wasn’t going to make it home in time for dinner. Assurances and promises he couldn’t make – and couldn’t do anything but make – to his children that their young heartbreaks wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, that one day they’d look back and laugh that they cared about the crush who didn’t notice them or the difficult teacher or the unkind girl with the neighboring locker at all. Dedications to Olivia – you’re my partner, for better or worse – that hinted at something he wasn’t yet free to offer.

Words like that are usually meant to avoid pain; they’re not meant to be hollow vessels. And he knows Olivia didn’t mean her words – so surprising, so significant – as a casual acquiescence, either. Okay, then. Yes.

The days continue to pass, tumbling into weeks and snowballing into months, and somehow, they’ve celebrated another holiday season, entering the still icy days of New York’s early spring. He tells himself they’re treading on a stronger foundation than even he anticipated. They live together, his children know they plan to marry, Kathy has stiffly but resignedly accepted the acceleration of their relationship. The alteration of who they are to each other. Even the squad knows he wavers between referring to Olivia as his partner and his fiancé (never girlfriend – the appalled look on her face the few times he tried that was enough for him to find ways simply to refer to her as his Liv).

But she is not his wife.

And he tries not to worry that she doesn’t seem too troubled by their state of suspension.

“You want to run that by me again?” he asked her, that day in their kitchen, fixated on a little fleck of green paint smudged on her cheekbone offsetting the newfound certainty in her eyes.

“You still feel like you, to me. What we are to each other is different,” she told him, tentative but forging forward, giving him all new reasons to love her. “I thought it would change us. Not being partners anymore, being together instead.”

“Well,” he’d smiled at her, thinking about how familiar it felt to kiss her now, recalling all the ways he’d made her come with his name on her lips, “I’d like to think it changed some things.”

She simply looked at him, so intently, eyes wide and open, the way she looked when she was imploring someone on a case to confide in her, to believe her. And he’d shut his mouth, gripping his hands against their kitchen counter, waiting for her to overcome her next hesitation. Waiting to scale the next obstacle.

“I still see you, Elliot. The things I was afraid of changing… they didn’t. You’re still the person who knows the most about me, and you’re still the person I’d trust with my life. And you’re right. We bought a home together, and we changed the job to be together. I love you. And so… yes.”

He was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to appease. Tempted to approach her very cautiously, hand outstretched so as not to spook her. Leave it to Liv to build a case of evidence as to why they should get married, rather than waiting for the proposal. But he also remembered the dark cloud that descended over his mood, this shifting ground beneath his feet when she disappeared to Oregon. He remembers her inclination to run.

He wants to trust her. He tries.

“You know I haven’t asked you the question yet, right?” he asked, opting for the less risk-laden path of humor, feeling a rush of relief when a rueful smile played at the corners of her mouth. It was infrequently explored, given the nature of their jobs, but her sense of humor matches his – a sardonic wit tempered by a bright smile when she allows it. Another testament to the layers of their chemistry.

“I’m going to let you. But I have stipulations,” she said, calling him back that day when they sat on her apartment couch, both newly healed and still reeling from the Madelyn Reynolds case. When he was terrified that she was going to ask him to leave, and she shocked the hell out of him by being brave enough to ask him to stay. He smiled back, wanted to bask in the wonder of it all, the way they’d come full circle.

We’ve come so far.

“Of course you do,” he said, thinking about before, how he’d teased her about playing at an ADA. “Okay, counselor. Lay them on me.”

She moved into his space, plucking his near-empty beer bottle out of his hand and discarding it on the counter, settling her arms on either side of his neck and leaning back to meet his eyes. Soft fingertips knead at the coiled tension in his shoulders, and he let his hands drift up to grasp the lush dip of her waist. He could spend decades cataloging all the ways he wants to touch her.

“No wedding.”

“I thought you just said yes.”

“To a marriage, El. No wedding.”

Christ, he thought. If she was starting with that, this ought to be interesting. Bernie flashed across his vision – sandcastles and fading horizons – and he considered the merit of words. What they do and don’t carry. And how Olivia’s were full, straining with the weight of importance. He nodded, imploring her to continue.

“Courthouse. Elopement. No dress.”

“Oh, come on, Liv –”

She smiled then, and he couldn’t help but revel in it – it was still a shock sometimes, when she’d surprise him with the ease of her affection. She bumped her nose against his and shook her head, a tumble of hair obscuring the rest of their kitchen from his view.

“Maybe a dress. No church, though. Just… can we just sign the papers?”

He sighed – it wasn’t a surprise. Try as he might, he’d never quite been able to conjure an image of Liv walking towards him in a church. It was easier to visualize her in her soft sweaters, her leather jackets, her sunglasses holding back varying caramel shades of hair, swaggering at his side. Same as she ever was, chameleon-like haircuts aside. He thought that might be alright, as long as that’s where she stayed.

“My kids gotta be there.”

“Of course. Of course. I want them there,” she readily agreed, and he let his grip on some of his own wants go, as she was blending them with hers. It was one thing they didn’t navigate well in their partnership, that they were better at now: compromise. When they were partners, it was always one or the other’s too-close fixation on a case taking the fore – usually his. The shift in their relationship introduced a new balance of give and take. “I wouldn’t do it, otherwise.”

He pressed his lips to her temple, into the silky strands of her hair, a murmured what else drifting between them. Soft words, then, reverently given and received – no less full.

“That’s all,” she whispered softly, with what he hoped were gentle lies. She’s not there yet.

“You sure?”

Those brown eyes met his, and he wanted to ask, but he didn’t know how to form the words. Not without implying that what they had wasn’t enough. Don’t you want more? Do you want a child of your own? He sometimes thought that Olivia Benson was born to be a mother. He didn’t want to reduce her to it, but he thought for her, it would just be an amplification of who she already was. More love, more dedication, more goodness. He wanted to be the person who gave that to her, who made sure she became who she was supposed to be. It was near time to tell her that.

But he also saw how his children already looked at her – Maureen with her wary appreciation, Kathleen’s unhindered affection. Lizzie’s near hero-worship, which may simply be because she was a woman who did the same thing as her dad. Dickie’s grudging admiration. All four of them, willing to bring their problems straight to Olivia’s door. She may not be their mother, but he saw the love blooming there. And he didn’t want to take shears to it, cutting away and pruning the growth with additional questions, new expectations.

Not yet.

So, he asked a different question.

“Well, what about a ring?”

She leaned into a kiss, wet and just a little sloppy, her body pliant against him as though the conversation had wrung her out, leaving her exhausted and shaky. But she was committed.

She squared her shoulders, a deliberate move that amused him even as a frisson of arousal shot through him. The sense of negotiations, near complete, heightened. A rising hum warmed in his blood. Almost there.

“You buy me something flashy and I’ll shoot you. This is a contingent offer.”

She swallowed his answering laugh with another deliciously unbridled kiss.

She pulled him into their bedroom after that, pushing at his shoulders, kissing her way down his neck as they both clumsily stripped off their clothes. She grabbed at his shirt at first, then laughed with a mumbled then you get it off, as she whipped her own paint-crusted top over her head.

He pulled her to him, grinning at the soft little sigh that floated between their bodies, irrationally proud that he could draw a noise like that from the indomitable Olivia Benson. And then her mouth was back on his, and all real thought ceased. The noise of the rest of the world was gone, and there was only her – her dark eyes and full lips, her quiet sighs and golden skin flooding all he could see and hear.

“God, yes, please,” was whispered – he wasn’t sure if it was him or her or both of them.

She nipped at his jaw, soft bites against it while he walked them back towards the bed, a familiar groan sounding as his fingers found her and slipped inside, her thighs opening in wildly responsive invitation.

“Ready for me, huh?”

She repeated his words from that first searing kiss in the squad car. “Stop. Talking.”

She gripped him then, pulling at the length of him with a knowing look in her eye until his half-begged not gonna last, Liv finally garnered him some mercy. He braced a hand around her, feeling the softness of her skin, the sleek arch of the small of her back, and then flipped her on top so he could worship beneath her. When she rose above him, inching down to take him fully, he caught his breath, watching her eyes drift closed with the fullness of him, the promise of their connection.

“I love you,” he told her as she leaned over him, finding her own pleasure before her eyes opened again to watch him reach his. He felt like he was racing, barely hanging on to the tenuous strands of his own control before he plummeted after her.

I love you.

He whispered it again as she dozed softly beside him later that night. Full, meaningful words found him again, and he couldn’t help himself from asking, from filling those words with all his insecurities and wants.

“You’re sure about this?”

The reassuring rise and fall of her ribs were his only answer; she was already asleep, breath steady and soft, lost to the dreams he hoped gently pointed her forward, instead of pulling her attention back. He contented himself with pressing a kiss to the faded scar on her thigh, running a hand upon the pearled ridges of her spine, twining his hand in the hair she’d kept long – at his request – since Oregon, and pictured a simple, glinting band on her left hand.

He fell asleep to images of Olivia walking towards him down aisles of a different sort, not in a church, but a clearing, on a beach, in the woods, in a courthouse.

That night is never far from his thoughts, and he’s still in that limbo now, still waiting for a path forward, seeking answers while desperate not to send her fleeing. He trusts her, and he knows that when she promised him yes, she was sure. He thinks she still is. But they haven’t found a day that makes sense with all the kids, and she’s nervous about whether submitting marriage documentation at work will upset the balance they’ve finally reached – a tenuous truce of reordered partnerships that has allowed both of them to stay at SVU. And she has seemed so stable, so comfortable in the broadening significance of their relationship these last few months, that he doesn’t want to push her.

He just wants to ask again. You’re sure about this?

He wants to know what truths the words carry. If they’re empty or full.

He allows her time, knowing that for Olivia, it’s a gift in and of itself. They learn each other further, the routines they’d established in the wake of healing after the shooting shifting into routines of normal life. Kids on alternating weekends, weeknight visits and homework battles. Weekend walks and overlapping shifts, leisurely waking up to each other and frenzied coming together when their schedules at the precinct pry them apart. He cooks. She can, he comes to realize, but he eats better on the nights he assumes the responsibility. She follows with the dishes and tosses him chiding remarks with no bite when he leaves his laundry on the floor, his towel crumpled in the bathroom corner. He pulls her to his side on the couch at the end of the day and learns that while she’s hopelessly lost with current movies, she has an appreciation for classic films – she dozes lightly at his side to the likes of Roman Holiday and Bringing up Baby. They listen to their record player, and he kisses away the self- satisfied smirk on her face each time she brings home a new album that Munch has surreptitiously slipped into her locker at work.

They love each other. They fight like they always did, and now they fuck to find the center that holds them again. He wants an answer, he wants a commitment. But waiting aside, he wakes each morning to the blissful knowledge that he is happy. And he thinks she is, too.

And then on a regular weekday during that early spring interlude – the quiet, crisp days before the winter truly thaws – she returns home with a new nervous energy in her stride, single-mindedly talking about a new case. Telling him about a girl named Ashley Tyler who fought her when she tried to help, who was so angry at the cops that she had to be sedated in the ambulance.

Just like with Maddy, with Rebecca and Ryan, with Maria, he knows this is another victim who will stay with her. Suddenly, questions of marriage and rings and aisles are far from his mind because it’s as though Ashley trails them, like she takes up the same spaces they do. A shadow with baleful eyes asking for penance, distrustfully demanding payment for crimes that Liv didn’t commit.

And a case changes their trajectory once more.

She hasn’t felt this way since Maddy. The cases are always difficult, it’s the nature of the job. But she hasn’t experienced this all-consuming desperation in a year, this need to find this girl an answer. Hasn’t had the kind of case that unfurls its fingers, reaching the sharpness of its nails into the deepest parts of her to clench – painfully, purposefully. Not since she met Madelyn Reynolds’s eyes with her own for the first time.

Ashley Tyler’s soul-weary rage makes her want to cut from her own vein, to bleed on the ground in front of her in apology. She wants to promise – though they do not promise case closures to victims – that she will find justice for her mother, for her.

It’s a new balancing act, because while the rush and fury of a case is familiar, she is different. Elliot is never far from her mind these days, even when she is knee-deep in a case and prying her eyes open with copious amounts of coffee and sheer determined will.

Elliot is in her bed, and on her skin, and beating within her own heart. She couldn’t extricate him if she wanted to anymore. He is her home; they have built a home together, and she may be afraid, but she meant it when she told him she wanted to marry him. She wants something permanent. She wants to be part of a family. She wants to be part of his family.

But it is an adjustment, and she never feels it more keenly than when a case rattles them. When she and Fin stomp into the precinct, high on the rush of a successfully apprehended suspect, with the evidence of exertion still in her cheeks, crystal clear as she still struggles to catch her breath.

You had to chase the perp?

Why were you on foot? Could have pursued in the squad car.

You drew your weapon?

She bristles at the unintentional confines, the sensation that he doesn’t trust her. These are questions that he would never ask her as his partner, that she would rage at him if he’d dared pose them to her before. She still hears the razor-sharp whip of his condemnation.

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be looking over my shoulder making sure you’re okay.

They pinch and gnaw, settling under her skin, carving wounds in her armor that may scab over but will always leave a mark – words careless slung and deeply felt. She thinks of the dizzying depths that words can reach. Careful, Olivia, Serena’s own pointed statement echoes in the recesses of her mind, remnants of an argument whose victor never emerged. Careful. We may forgive things said and not meant. But we don’t ever forget them.

Ironic, coming from her mother. Truth in a rare moment of clarity.

But then she sees something in Elliot’s eyes, hears a whisper under his breath about how Fin better fucking have her back, and she remembers the look on his face when he cried at her bedside after David Abatello nearly ended them both.

She knows he sees her differently now. He sees her barefooted and makeup-free instead of heeled and done-up, armed to the hilt. He has the freedom to see her as a woman now, and she knows that soft Olivia and the gun-toting one who takes no prisoners can coexist. She knows that.

She isn’t so sure that he does.

Elliot has a deeply difficult time with gray areas, the spaces undefined. She anticipated it, that the minute she stripped away her clothing and her defenses, his mind would switch from viewing her as a trusted partner to a person to protect. It was part of her fear, her hesitation. She’s realized that it doesn’t change how she feels. She loves him, no matter what. And it’s only slightly terrifying, the revelation that there is very little he could do to change her love for him, her trust in him.

He could hurt her, and she would love him still.

Most days, it’s not a trial to love him. Most days, it is muscle memory, remembered motion and faith in her partner, even if he’s not truly her partner anymore. Now, though, with Ashley Tyler, she wants to step into hardship to spare this girl more pain. And she knows why Elliot doesn’t want her to, that she can’t reassure away the risk. She isn’t used to knowing that she owes someone – other than herself – the promise of her wellbeing.

“You don’t have to do this. Think about what you’re getting yourself into,” he tells her, a reiteration of words she heard from Cragen and Huang, the unspoken concern she saw in Fin’s unusually hesitant eyes.

“Elliot. You didn’t hear her. She’s desperate. Her mother – no one is fighting for them. I’ll be fine. But I – I have to do this,” she tries to assure him, even as he is shaking his head, tightening his hands into fists. “You’ll be with me,” she placates, a last-ditch effort that is as ineffective as it feels.

It should be a return of sorts, the first time they’ll work truly together since their last testimony preps for Maddy’s case. Fin posed as a lawyer to see Risa Tyler before her death, before the investigation careened out of their control, worsening in their failure Risa and Ashley both. And so, despite Cragen’s reluctance, Elliot is joining her undercover, backup in the form of a guard. She feels his tension, though, and she feels the disruption in how they read each other – because he’s not reading her as his partner, not anymore. Detective Benson, Liv. Now she is also Olivia, who likes expensive facial serums and scented candles and soft throw blankets. Who picked sage green for walls because she thought it would make his children feel more at home, who likes to run her fingertips along the tight muscle of his shoulder until she brings a flush to his skin. She understands it, to some degree – she has rolled over to reveal her soft underbelly to him. And at his core, Elliot Stabler is a protector. Before, she’d been very careful not to show him the parts of her that warranted protecting.

She knows this much about him: now that she’s lifted the veil, he can’t unsee them.

“For Christ’s sake, Liv,” he argues, and she winces at the guttural frustration in his voice. She hasn’t meant for any of this to happen. She wants him, and she loves him, but she cannot change who she is for him. She refuses to. “Just cause I’m there – this is too much. You’ll be completely exposed – this doesn’t count as cover. I can’t pull you without warning. I won’t be able to –”

“Completely exposed. Just like Risa was. Just like those women are now.”

“You aren’t one of those women! You’re not supposed to be in prison!”

“How many times have you taken an undercover gig? Sometimes it’s the only way.”

“That’s not – that’s not a fair comparison. Not like this,” he pushes back, a low growl building in his throat. She wants to match it with her own – that argument is insulting at best. Complete bullshit at worst.

“This is what we do.”

“This is more than what we do, and you know it.”

“Elliot, someone has to help –”

“It doesn’t have to be you! That’s not your –”

“That is exactly my job!” she yells, sucking in a breath, watching him expel a gasping one of his own. Damnit. They’re all but barricaded in the cribs, which looks bad enough – and it’s a situation they have tried to avoid since disclosing. They’d taken refuge here, Olivia ushering Elliot upstairs after Cragen gave the undercover op his approval, after they listened to Huang rattle off the variety of indignities to which she will be exposed, even if everything goes according to plan.

It's raining outside, pelting drops that bit at her skin as she dashed into the precinct this morning, thinking about how long she might be under, if the spring weather will have shifted by the time she’s out again. A feeling of surrender sweeps over her; she’s committed to giving up her freedom for this case, however briefly. She’s not going to turn back now.

Tingling pain centers at the base of her neck, zinging down her spine in little shocks, like her body anticipates the hostile environment. Elliot’s concern isn’t helping; she feels the weight of his fear and preemptive frustration pushing down on her. It’s irrational, right now. Nothing has even happened, yet. She wishes she knew that it wouldn’t.

She wishes she wasn’t afraid.

“It’s my job. It’s our job. You know that.”

His rage threatens and menaces; she can feel his irritated impotence like a tangible thing, as he grapples with the fact that he can’t stop her from taking an intentional risk. And she wants to rage right back, because before he’d laid her bare, before he’d been inside of her, he would have fully understood why she has to do this.

Why there is no alternative for her but to do this.

Her partner would have supported her.

She waits a beat before repeating words she’s given him before.

“If you can’t trust your partner… then it’s time for a new one.”

Disbelieving fury hardens his features, and she feels a moment of regret that she has pushed him to this point. She thinks of the day she agreed to marry him, thinks of how he still hasn’t gotten her a ring, but teases at how ostentatious it might be. And then she sees the words on his tongue before they’re even voiced aloud, feeling their sting like she felt the weight of his condemnation after Gitano. It feels good, a little. The pain, the bitterness. It hurts, but it’s recognizable.

“Fuck you, Olivia.”

Angry and familiar. The retort, the accompanying ache. He needs better material.

“You want to do this? You want to act like this isn’t about more than that woman and her daughter? Do us both a favor and don’t pretend like this isn’t another goddamn way to run.”

She closes her eyes and feels the sting shredding at her heart. Her heart that is worried, and uncertain, and still so newly his. She’s not running. She’s not. Fuck him, too.

The gray walls of the cribs loom around them, and for a moment, she feels like they are the only two people in the world. There is only them, and all that they feel for each other, in the cinderblock confines of these walls. If they could stay here, if they could keep their world that small, she wonders if they could be happy. Ashley’s face surfaces in her mind, like she’s rising up from the muck, a chance to be free of the murky water, and the sense of security of the cribs falls away.

She cannot ignore this girl. She’s never been able to ignore any of the victims. She has to give Ashley Tyler a chance.

“I’m doing my job. I’d appreciate it if you could hold it together enough to do yours, too.”

She watches the blow land, feeling a sickening sort of satisfaction as hurt descends in his eyes. She wonders if they’re too combustible, if there’s a chance they’ll fall apart before they’ve fulfilled the promises they’ve finally made to each other. She wonders if he’ll come to her when this is over, or if their new home has removed the ability for them to default to their separate corners to lick their wounds. When he was with Kathy, he stayed at the precinct when he needed to find his center. Will he do that again, now that he’s with her? She wonders if she’s making a mistake.

Turning away from him, she sees his hands lift from the corner of her eye. He moves like he wants to reach out to her, like he might want to pull her back. A part of her wants him to, a part of her wants to take back her words, admit that of course she’d prefer to stay with him. But his hands fall back through the air before they touch her. It feels like the years of their partnership before, when he left her each evening to go home to his wife, and she told herself that her safe return of her partner to his family was enough.

When she leaves the cribs, when she makes her way to the cover transport that’s going to take her to Sealview, when she strips away the clothes and confidence that allow her to delineate between detective and victim, she doesn’t have to look over her shoulder to see if he’s still there.

She knows he’s right behind her.

It was a bad idea from the moment it started. He knew the instant that Liv’s eyes turned on him, bleeding sympathy for Ashley Tyler. The wrongness of it festered, rancid and sour, in his gut. A splinter he couldn’t pull, a bad taste he couldn’t suppress. It was going to go fucking wrong, and he knew it. Sixth sense, self-fulfilling prophecy – he doesn’t know other than the fact that he felt it in his bones. He tried to stay on edge, to keep a heightened watch, and he thought he had it all figured out.

He fixated on the wrong guy.

It’s been hellish, to watch her demeaned and disrespected, to raise his own hand to her, however briefly. Despite how they planned it. It got her into the emergency services bay, and he knows they both have a job to do. He can’t let himself care, sift through the memories to find the bits for which he should feel guilty, until this is all over. He hit her, and she was made to apologize to him.

His days of worrying about how long she was going to linger in their engagement seem like a distant memory, and all he can feel is the agony of having hurt her, of having failed her. And when he realized Lowell Harris had his partner in the basement, when he realized he’d been distracted and detained by the tuberculosis test, leaving Liv wholly vulnerable, he wanted to fall to his knees and beg God to explain the tricks that had been pulled.

It's the hardest part about his faith. Attempting to keep it when he sees the worst of humanity.

The realization that she was gone, that the prison was locked down but that she wasn’t in her cell hit him like a ton of bricks. He was back – kneeling on a bus station floor, lying on alleyway pavement.

No, no, no, no, no.

He’s running now, racing to get to her even as he hears her screams echoing down the corridor and in the hollows of his heart. The hallway stretches on interminably, her cellmate’s hastily shared revelation that Harris had taken her on a loop in his mind. His own panting breath is the backdrop, the pounding of his footfalls punctuating his desperation. God fucking damnit. He’s not going to get there in time. He has to get there in time. And he wants to stop, wants to put his hand through the wall, because he can fucking hear her.

He can hear her, and she’s doing something he never thought she would.

She’s begging.

Somebody, help! Let go of me!

No!

A vision flashes, Olivia, walking toward him from Madelyn Reynolds’ new apartment, hair whipping in the wind with something new in her eyes as she told him she was okay, smiling at the fact that he doesn’t like that word. Telling him she was ready, and it would be better than yesterday. Olivia, in that squad car, crawling over the console to be closer to him, hands tangled in the seat belt in her haste. Olivia, returned from Oregon with softer curves and bangs that hid the apology in her eyes.

He’s coming. He’s coming to help and he’s going to stop it and then they’re going to have a long, hard talk about undercover operations and how much either of them should be willing to give to this godforsaken job.

Hold on, baby.

Please.

And then he’s around the corner, feet driving into the concrete floor with shaking force as he strains to get there goddamn faster because the screaming has stopped and he can see her now, but she’s on her knees. She’s on her knees, and her screams held tears at the end, and now they’re silent and he’s pretty certain his heart is broken. He thinks this is what true regret feels like; this is the ashy and acrid taste of horror.

Everything simply darkens for a moment. Enraged despair descends and all he sees is black. He doesn’t know for how long.

Her voice breaks through his fog, a piercing, panicked note that sounds so unlike her. He comes back to himself in increments, a realization that he is no longer running, that he has his hands wrapped around the prison guard’s neck, and that Olivia is off her knees. Her hands are prying at his arms, and the panic in her voice isn’t because of what Harris is about to do to her anymore. It’s because of what he’s about to do to Harris.

She seems to realize that she’s finally caught his attention, because she presses herself more closely against him, softening her voice and directing his focus back to her face – where he can see the evidence of a handprint that he knows will turn to a bruise. Son of a bitch.

“Elliot, stop. Let him go – you have to stop,” she murmurs over and over, and her eyes look so dark, so defeated. He hates that this man put that look on her face. “You’re going to kill him. Let him go.”

He looks down, at that, to Harris’s face that is now far more battered than Olivia’s. The other man is barely conscious, hovering on the line, but his eyes open in narrow, anger-filled slits as Elliot’s hands loosen from his neck. There’s still an air of arrogance. This jackass thinks it’s like the times before, that he’s going to get away with it.

“She was trying to escape,” Harris tells him hoarsely. “What the fuck, man?”

He wants to kill him. He wants to tighten his hands and finish the job, consequences be damned.

But Olivia is back in control, almost like she was never reduced to begging for mercy in the first place. He can imagine she never had to scream for her partner to help her, while Lowell Harris taunted her in a dingy prison basement.

“She is a cop. And you are under arrest for raping Ashley Tyler,” she says, pulling herself to her feet, swaying just a bit before she takes the cuffs Elliot offers to her, so she can restrain the bastard on her own.

“And the attempted murder of a police officer,” Elliot adds, not blind to the fact that she didn’t include that charge on her own, what that might mean.

“Who’s the bitch now?” she says, and she finishes Mirandizing him. He feels a small dash of relief at that fight in her, but she pulls Harris away from him and resolutely ignores his eyes on her back, where her hair has been pulled from its ponytail and her shirt has been torn at the neck.

Son of a bitch, he thinks again.

And maybe it’s over, maybe they can go home now, but he has the sinking suspicion that Lowell Harris did far worse than David Abatello ever did, even if he didn’t fire a bullet or pierce her skin. He trails behind her, as relief wars with regret and loses. She’s alive; he got to her in time. He’s almost positive he got to her in time. But he finds he cannot hear the echoes of her gut-wrenching screams anymore; he hears the heartsick silence left in the moments between her last cry for help and his hands pulling Lowell Harris away from her on that filthy mattress.

He got there in time, he tells himself firmly.

But he isn’t sure, and the doubt is a shadowy, slithering thing that seems to wind around them both. Binding them in the hazy ache of what she refuses to bring to light.

It’s hours later when he finally gets her alone, when he pulls her aside in a darkened, unused interrogation room back at the 1-6, and runs his hands up her arms like he can warm her, trying to assure himself that she’s whole.

“Olivia.”

She shakes her head quickly, so sharply it looks like it hurts. He winces, feeling the whiplash in his own tired joints.

“Hey, just –”

“Don’t,” she stops him in his tracks, as he’s trying to get his arms back around her. She’s bruised, more battered than she’s letting on, and she really should be at the hospital getting checked out. He’s floored that she made it out without broken ribs, but he knows she’s going to be sore for days. That worries him, but the shuttered look in her eyes worries him more.

She’s putting on a good show, but the shock is descending.

“Olivia,” he says again, gritting his teeth when she holds a hand up to him, shaking her head in defense. She doesn’t have to defend herself. Not from him.

“I’m fine, Elliot,” she says, and he can hear the thickness of her voice, the tears in her throat. He wants to pummel Lowell Harris’s face in, again. He wants to hold the bastard down and let her do her worst. He wants to take away the last few days, to give Ashley Tyler her mother back, for none of this to have happened in the first place.

His jaw works, frustration building. She’s not fine. He still isn’t sure if he got there in time and even if she is the one who put the cuffs on Harris, she was also the one he had defenseless on the ground. The prison issued an attorney for him, and they’re trying to get the charges dropped with accusations of entrapment. Which is a fucking joke; he heard the way Liv was screaming.

“We’re gonna get him.”

“Maybe,” she answers, but she’s already chalking this one up to a loss, and he sees the heartbreak written across her face. He should have killed him.

“Liv,” he tries again, searching for something from her, any kind of motion other than this blank dissociation. She stills against him, warm and alive, and he reminds himself that is something. It could have been worse. Small comfort, that he’s usually reminding himself at least her heart is still pumping blood, at least her eyes will still open to meet his, even if they seem icy and detached.

Despair chokes him, strangling him with this need to make her see him, to make her listen when he tells her it will be alright. To hear her give her own agreement and promise to him – promise that they will survive this. He doesn’t know how to help her when she’s like this. He’s never been able to handle it well, when she walls herself off from him.

If you don’t trust your partner…

She turns to leave, already eyeing their desks and the file on Harris he knows she wants to bury herself inside, no matter how much it hurts.

“Wait.”

“Elliot, I need –”

If he thought for a damn second that she was actually going to tell him what she needs, he’d let her finish. But he knows her, knows what she’s doing, and he sees the resignation on her face as she tries to deflect.

It’s against every basic training he ever received on how to treat a victim – he hates the idea of that word tied to her name even though he saw how Lowell Harris had her down, and he heard her screams – but he also knows how to treat Olivia. He knows when to push her, when to give her space, when to seek her out. He made the mistake of leaving her to her own devices after Gitano, and she left him fully, in the end. He wouldn’t survive that again. This time, he doesn’t rail at her, he doesn’t yell at her in front of their colleagues, he doesn’t put his guilt-ridden needs before her pain.

Decision made, he pulls her to him, anchoring him against her even as he feels her brace to pull away. She’s in his arms, and she’s shaking her head, but he feels the whoosh of air breathe out of her, a sigh of relief even as she tries to stand strong.

They have spent their careers, their lives, standing strong for others. He’s so tired of pretending like he doesn’t want to intervene for her. He trails soft hushes in her hair, nuzzling closer to her so that they’re locked in a hesitant, fraught embrace. The sounds of the precinct create an ambient effect outside the darkness of the vacant interrogation room. It feels like a place belonging solely to them, a place where they still exist as partners. He bites back a groan of relief when she softens against him, slight though the motion may be.

Her hands trace a path up his arms and over his shoulders, linking behind his back as she finally relaxes into the hug. He’s careful, mindful of where he knows bruises must be forming, where she’ll be sensitive and achy. He feels hatred stir anew for Lowell Harris, for David Abatello, even for Serena Benson. For any person who has ever put their hands on her.

“Talk to me,” he whispers against her temple.

“I just – we have to get him, El. He can’t walk on this.”

It’s a step. He doesn’t fool himself; it’s not nearly enough, she’ll need to let him – someone – in more for her to be able to heal. But this is a different Olivia than even the one he watched bleeding and broken in that alley not all that long ago. This Olivia is taking steps towards him.

“For Ashley,” he hears in a raspy voice. The one that lowers, deepened by withheld tears and unspoken rage.

“For you,” he says, giving rise to his own rage. He wishes she’d give herself half the grace she affords everyone else in this goddamn city.

Her arms tense around him, and he thinks he feels the shake of her head, disregarding her own justice, throwing herself to the wolves once again. Don’t, he thinks, his heart aching to give her the refuge she refuses to grant herself. Don’t pretend that you’re not a part of this.

And then it occurs to him, what he really means. What he really fears.

Don’t run.

Don’t leave me.

The clamor of a phone call, an update on Ashley Tyler, pulls them from the relative privacy of the interrogation room back to their desks before he can do anything more than hold her. She slips from his arms, eyes dark and shrouded, already retreating into the case. It feels like a cycle begun once more – Liv sacrificing more to the job than she should, him powerless to stop it.

And when Olivia cagily alludes to a condemning mole to positively identify Lowell Harris, he doesn’t push her. He stands as close to her as she will allow him, and he accompanies her as she goes back to Sealview, one last time. Talks to her cellmate, sees the women whose faces reflect shock that she was in fact a cop, but also that a cop cared enough to finally intervene on their behalf. He hates what happened, but he understands why she was so insistent on doing this. Pride washes over him as she tells these women goodbye. He watches as she does exactly as she said she would, securing justice for Ashley. And he tries not to think about what it implies, and the fact that if she knew about that mole, then he can’t lie to himself anymore.

It doesn’t change the truth they’re both avoiding. Whether or not he got there in time, she’s hurting just the same. And she is systematically laying the bricks to close herself away, spackling out the air, the light. Walling herself off in defense.

Even from him.

They fall back, a declining return to their routines – fewer words between them, more worried glances. And if their house with the large kitchen island and bathrooms that need remodeling and green bedroom walls feels a little less like the home that they carved out for themselves, neither of them mention it.

He doesn’t treat her like glass – he walks around her as though she’s surrounded by it. Like maybe he trusts that she won’t shatter, but there’s danger in the shards she has already pried from herself, the ones that already litter the floor around her.

The ones that block him from getting close.

She misses being touched.

She doesn’t think she could stand his hands on her now, though.

Munch and Fin give them both a wide berth at work, one that diminishes only slightly as the bruise on her cheek fades. What happened in the basement? Fin’s words circle her mind, water in a funnel that never seems to drain. She didn’t answer him, when he asked, just watched Elliot’s strained form pace the squad room while she insisted on being the one to speak to Harris. She didn’t know how to answer him – still doesn’t.

I let that bastard get the better of me. I’m not as strong as I thought I was – I learned that when I didn’t recognize my own screams. Elliot almost killed a man. I almost let him.

It’s the closest I’ve ever come.

He’s behind bars. It was worth it, she tells herself. Tries to, anyways. She pretends that she doesn’t feel like an impostor, that she didn’t seek justice for herself. The justice, that was for Risa. For Ashley. She pretends like it wasn’t that bad, and she didn’t need that type of closure anyways.

She wasn’t raped.

But in the quietest hours of the night, when Elliot sleeps by her side and she runs back through those basement hallways, hands cuffed behind her back and screams jaggedly tearing through her throat, she knows that she’s a liar. She feels violated.

She feels weak.

She feels dirty.

She’s not sure that she belongs here, anymore.

She goes through the motions of the life she has newly built, and it’s a strange feeling – like she is ill at ease in her own skin – to come to the realization that she cannot simply evade, the way she once would have. She bears the same responsibilities, but her relationship with Elliot has been evolutionary, additive. It includes the both of them, now. It includes the kids.

How could she live with herself if she disappeared on them the way she grudgingly admits she disappeared on Elliot over a year ago, when Oregon’s towering forests beckoned as foreign lands that could shield her from her feelings? When she sought out unfamiliar territory where she could disappear and hide. She cannot do that to Elliot’s children – not when they’ve come so far. She can’t risk the hopeful bridge that has started to assemble across them. It’s selfish, in a way, because some of the best moments in her life are compiled of the little instances, the throwaway agreements of sure, Liv can come! and hey, Dad, where’s Olivia?

She will not sacrifice the whiskey-warm joy that spreads through her when his kids look at her with affection and acceptance. And even as she shies from his touch, she won’t sacrifice what she has with Elliot, either. She loves him. He loves her. They’ve come too far.

Better than yesterday, she tells herself day in and out, like she can assure away the grit and grime Harris left on her with the remembrance of how she healed after Maddy. But it’s different. She’s different, and she knows it.

The precinct is the place where she still feels like her old self, and she clings to that. There, she is Detective Benson, and maybe she is Detective Tutuola’s partner now, but the trappings are familiar. Her badge, her gun, her glower – they make her feel strong.

Some days, she almost forgets that it’s a facade.

Hasn’t she been born from worse? Hasn’t she survived violence at a perp’s hands before? Condescending, unknowing fool that she was, hasn’t she told every victim that they’re strong enough to get through it?

New York swelters under the heating summer sun as the months pass by, time progressing forward – nothing else halted with the fact that she was sexually assaulted, that her whole world perception was ripped away from her. That for her, time had simply stalled. For her, winter frost still hung to branches in icy defiance of spring’s advance, and Elliot was still planning to give her a ring, and the surety with which she once policed this city was merely on a brief hiatus.

Time is fickle, though, and flighty, and it bestows its favors elsewhere because seasons pass, leading her back to her favorite time of year as autumn starts to hint at crisp, fall days – holding a fraction of the usual anticipation.  

She puts finishing touches on the house, she idly connects with a contractor to think about those bathroom renovations and the steam shower that once captivated her, but she feels hollow in her actions. She feels like a remnant of herself, a drawing, an outline on the wall, instead of a fully-fleshed portrait.

And while it’s empty, and lonely – even with the specter of Elliot’s worry dogging them both at every turn – denial serves her just fine, right up until the moment that it doesn’t, when she finds herself foolishly trying to break up a fight during a suspect apprehension. She’s thrown back against a glass frame that shatters with the impact in the fray, only to surge forward, with her service revolver firmly pressed to the back of an unarmed man’s head, her own blood pulsing so loudly through her temples she wonders if she’ll ever again hear anyone else’s voice permeate the din.

“Liv, are you okay? Can you hear me? Easy, easy.”

She cannot breathe. Air steals away, captive in her lungs, a viselike grip circling her torso, reminding her of the banded grip Lowell Harris slung around her waist before throwing her back on the mattress.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

She’s not going to let it happen, not again.

Then lucidity descends, a clearing of her vision so she can see the lines and detail, not only the blurred threats. It turns out the threat has already been diminished, that the suspect is on his knees, on the ground with his hands raised in the air, shaking in his own right.

“I’m sorry.”

Fin tells her to take her time, to feel her feet on the ground, to breathe. And their suspect’s eyes see right through her, like he knows exactly what happened.

And later, he tells her she needs to get her head together. That she’s in trouble, and she needs to talk to somebody. The unwelcome truth in his words makes her want to scream.

She projects her own fears, her own nightmares onto the entire case. Fin’s frustration builds, but he doesn’t report her, and she’ll examine her feelings about that – about her new partner – when she does get her head together. Somehow, she has both more and less than she’s ever known previously – more people who care, less control to manage her own emotions. A cruel joke, a cosmic twist.

It turns out that Dominic Pruitt is innocent, and somehow both gratitude and resentment storm within her. She stumbles over apologies and denials as the case progresses, dodging Fin’s concerned glances, trying to surface the fact that she has tried. She has seen a goddamn counselor. And that has been an exercise in futility in some ways, and irritatingly helpful in others. Turns out, there might be some redemptive value in the power of therapy. But she doesn’t talk about it with Elliot or the rest of the squad.

Frustrating, that after she put in the work everyone assured her would help, and she’s still dissociating the second someone lays their hands on her. Which can’t happen – not in her job.

Cragen suggests some time off – as much as she needs – and the regret in his eyes creates more cracks in her illusion of strength.

She finds herself confessing to Pruitt that she was sexually assaulted six months ago, because he deserved to know why she held a loaded gun to the back of his head. How has it been that long? Why hasn’t she been able to bring herself back, to find her way back to Elliot, to achieve the healing so has so confidently promised every victim she’s ever known that it was possible? She feels like a fraud for a moment, expecting the shame to follow the quick release of confession. And then she realizes that he is offering her forgiveness.

“Quit kicking yourself,” Dominic tells her, with more kindness than she thinks she deserves. “It takes practice. You’ll get there.”

It feels like absolution for every sin of secrecy she has committed these past months.

She doesn’t know why she hasn’t heard this from Elliot, why she has refused to hear this from Elliot. She thinks he’d be there to offer assurance in a heartbeat. But for months now, they’ve been shades of themselves that coexist. A blast of light that can’t reach the corners, and a shadow that wavers on the wall.

It occurs to her that Dominic – a Marine, a noble, good one at that – reminds her of Elliot. She needs to have this conversation, this sharing of forgiveness with him.

Obviously, without question, she’s lost her way. It wove and wound before, through steep mountains and dense forests – the squad car and the after food, Maddy and the shooting, the hospital and their tenuous truce afterward – but now she cannot even find the path. No one has dared comment on it, other than whispered questions about the basement, until now. Until Dominic Pruitt has broken open her shields and reminded her that she’s promised not to be an island any longer.

If that’s true, how could she possibly heal like one?

She wanders home after Pruitt leaves, a little dully, almost drunkenly. Like she’s clawing her way back from a bender. The parallel makes her wince. Don’t think of Serena now. She tries to admire the slanting light through leaves that are once again beginning to color. Her life has been tracked through the cycle of seasons in New York. Maybe she should have taken more vacations, more trips. She should have listened to Serena those handfuls of times she made sense, because the recommendation to create an identity for herself outside of this city, outside of being a cop, then a detective – those weren’t wrong.

Now that Elliot has integrated himself into the personal facets of her life, now that she knows what she can feel when his children come to her for advice, simply because they want to – there is so much more to life than she thought. She doesn’t want to lose those additional angles, and all the wideness that they offer now that she’s found them. It isn’t possible for her to go back. It isn’t an option for them to retreat to what they were before. Maybe that was the issue, though. They’d never finished defining what they were going to be, and then Lowell Harris crashed into their lives with the same level of destruction that David Abatello and Victor Gitano had wielded before him.

She stumbles into their brownstone, thinking about how they swayed together, nearly dancing in the sunlit foyer the day they decided to buy the place. He’d held her to him, and it felt good in the moment – to let herself be held. He keeps showing her that she can allow it, that she doesn’t have to be afraid. That she doesn’t have to be a fortress unto herself.

“Liv? You home?” Elliot’s voice sounds through their home, strong and warm enough that she could cry with the relief of it. She won’t. But she could.

“Here,” she chokes out hoarsely, eyes widening when he appears around the corner. How does she explain this? What happened in the basement, with this case. How she got here.

“What’s going on?” His voice is rusty and rattled, and she shoves away the guilt that she’s the cause. Quit kicking yourself, she hears again.

“Nothing,” she says at first, an instinctive lie, one that falls from her lips far too easily. His eyebrows raise, pull together, driving a furrowed line into his brow that she wants to lift her forefinger to and rub away. A quick shake of his head, a frustrated denouncement, startles her from her musings.

“You look – you look –” he all but stutters, cutting himself off with a wince. making her wonder how bad she really does look. It’s enough to have him eyeing her warily, tense and unsure.

Her own brows lifting, she mimics his expression, pushing him gently back into the living room as the door swings shut behind them, casting lengthening shadows on the hardwood floors, closing out the newly cool air. The leather couch with its creamy throw blanket that she likes to wrap around her shoulders in the evenings, the Persian-imitation rug that Kathleen had helped her pick out, the bookcase that houses Serena’s books – the ones she’s hung on to through the good and bad days of their relationship, and all the days after. In spite of recent months, this place feels like home.

She turns toward him, taking in the slightly overgrown scruff, the lines of tension at his eyes.

“I look what?”

He sighs, and she stiffens. Oh, she thinks. It’s not so much about how she looks. It’s about what he knows.

“Fin talked to you,” she says in a flat tone. She wants to be angry with her new partner more than she actually is. She probably would have done the same thing.

His jaw works, and his hands clench. She watches the physical reactions curiously, repressing the urge to twine her fingers with his.

“He didn’t tell me much.”

From the looks of it, Fin told him enough.

She opens her mouth to tell him she’s going to take a shower, to create a divide between them – he doesn’t follow her there anymore, playfully pushing his big body into the bathroom behind her, stripping off her clothes under the guise of helpfulness. She misses that viscerally for a moment, and it gives her pause, stops the deadened words from falling from her mouth. She wants the life in their relationship back. She thinks of Dominic Pruitt, and his advice.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” she concedes, shocking even herself. She starts to tell him the rest, but suddenly he’s speaking, too – urgently, in earnest. “I want to talk to you –”

“Look, you gotta talk to me. You gotta talk to someone, at least. ‘Bout what happened in that basement.”

He always did like to beat her to the punch.

They both still, and he reaches a hesitant hand out towards her, fingers splayed and shaking just a little. He doesn’t touch her, but he holds it there, so she could step into his touch if she wanted to. And that gift of control, of space, breaks her. Tears choke her voice, even if she’s able to keep them from streaming from her eyes, and the words just… tumble out of her.  

“I’ve been seeing a therapist. I should have told you – I wasn’t… I wasn’t ready. And I thought I was getting a handle on things, El, I really did,” her thoughts flit about like hummingbirds, moving impossibly quickly from one spot to another in a fragile, frenetic dance. “He didn’t rape me in that basement, but he did sexually assault me. And we both know that’s still – that’s still a trauma. And I’m trying, but I pulled a gun on an unarmed man earlier. An innocent man. I had a – I think it was PTSD, and I need – I need…”

She never recalls who steps into whose space afterwards, but finally his hands are on her and hers are on him and it feels good. It feels right, and she feels cleaner, more whole than she has in months.

“What do you need?” he whispers in her ear, and she could weep with the relief of it all. Endearments fall from his lips and she doesn’t collect them for perusal she will later deny, not like she usually would. She can’t, too focused on the sentiment, the offers he gives her wholeheartedly. “What do you need? Anything, Olivia. I’m so sorry. Please. God, please just talk to me.”

She hadn’t realized that this was taking a toll on him, too. Guilt swarms around her, but Dominic’s words keep it at bay. Quit kicking yourself.

And then the tears are streaming from her face, and she wonders if she’s been crying the whole time. He feels so warm and steady and present, and she presses her face against the hollow of his neck, slipping out of her heeled boots so she lines right up against it. He smells like him. Spearmint and coffee and outside air and a soft musk of sweat and a faintly scented shaving cream that has long faded. His hands grip at her back tightly, banding around her and replacing the memory of how Lowell Harris had done the same to restrain her. She sags a little, and his grip tightens further, one arm falling lower to brace her lower back so that he’s taken her weight, all but holding her aloft.

“I’ve felt so wrong these last few months. Like an imitation of myself. I didn’t know how to get back.”

Assurances are voiced over her head, and she wishes her mind weren’t so fuzzy with the release, because she thinks Elliot Stabler might be a tad poetic in this moment as he gives voice to all the things he wanted to say while he silently watched her struggle, but she thinks she gets the gist of it. She’s still her, he should have killed that son of a bitch. She’s strong, he loves her. She’ll always be his partner.

She’s not aware how much time passes, but when she rubs her temple against his to pull back and meet his cobalt eyes with her own tired, puffy ones, the shadows are past lengthening in their home’s entryway. It’s dark now – night crept upon them while she exorcized her demons. The darkness doesn’t scare her, in this moment. It feels like a beckoning promise, that she gets to face both the day and the night with him at her side.

It's more than she ever, ever thought she would have.

“How you feeling?” he asks hoarsely. He’d been crying, too, she realizes with a start.

She smiles, stretching the muscles around her mouth like cracks in the plaster; they feel stiff and new with disuse. But it feels real, a true grin, hearkening their emergence on the other side of all this.

“Better than yesterday,” she answers. She means it.

“You hungry? Or you think you could wait a bit?” he asks with a wide, almost reborn grin of his own.

“I could wait, if you want to. Why? Do you need to go?”

She doesn’t want him to, though she’s reluctant to admit it, reluctant to need him. They’re just finding their way back to each other; after weeks of walking on eggshells around each other, she wants to bask in the re-earned ease of his company for a while longer.

“Nah. There’s somewhere I want to take you.”

He pulls her jacket back around her while she toes on her shoes, still standing in their small foyer, like she never fully came home. Except that she did. She has.

He ushers her out the door, hails a cab at the corner of their block, quiet but seemingly happy, refusing to answer her repeated requests to know where they are going. It takes the full ride for her to catch on, realization dawning as they pull up to the curb.

He takes her to church.

Of course he does.

It was a gamble, bringing her here. He didn’t do it for the religious aspects – he doesn’t expect that of her. But Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, with its cresting spires and hushed arches, has offered sanctuary to untold, countless thousands. As he held her weeping and finding her way back to herself in his arms, breaking his heart in the process, that’s what he wanted to give her.

She doesn’t say anything, just follows him quietly, the evidence of her crying jag still written across her beautiful face, not that it would be commented upon here. He wants to wipe it away, to see her fresh-faced and rejuvenated, a baptism of sorts. He wants to keep it, lock the way she looks right now in his mind, a reminder of what she overcame and how she fought her way through the grief and the trauma. Even if, in the end, he wasn’t the one to help her do it.

He wants to find that Marine that Fin told him about and shake the man’s hand. Hell, he wants to hug him almost as tightly as he held Olivia in their doorway.

The evening light casts tempered shadows through the rosette-stained glass windows. Sweeping royal blues and vermillion insets play like flowing water on the marble floor as they make their way down the aisle. Chandeliers fall from impossibly long chains, lighting their way, beacons of hope from above. A few other parishioners scatter the long wooden pews, some more hidden past the arches in the enclaves on either side of them. Not too many of them, though; they’re timed between services on a week-night evening.

It’s quiet, but not eerily so. The stillness carries a reverence, a sanctity, a sense of belonging even for those who would reject it. He watches the calm sweep over Olivia, more and more tension seeping from her frame as they progress towards the altar. He stops her about two-thirds of the way through, and pulls her into a pew beside him, gripping her hand tightly in his, then flipping it over to trace the faint lines that crease in her palm.

He lifts it to his mouth for just a moment, placing a chaste kiss there. When he turns to his side, her eyes have drifted up, marveling at the stone arches that cross and meet, the power of the divine brought to life by man’s construction. She doesn’t need to believe in God to feel the godliness in this place.

He doesn’t speak, just leans his head to look up and admire with her. To sit in the sacred silence that they are so rarely afforded.

“It’s peaceful here.”

“Hmm,” he sighs in assent, eyes drifting from the dramatic arches of the pinnacled ceiling above them to lock on her profile. “Thought you might like it.”

“Beats therapy,” she mutters, and he suppresses a smile. Sometimes she’s so comfortingly familiar, and he wants to thank her and God for preserving the best parts of their partnership.

“Next thing we know, you’re going to be trying confession,” he says, squeezing her hand lightly as she shakes her head. How many times did he come here, desperate to lay his sins at the feet of his priest, seeking absolution for what he did on the job, how he felt about his partner?

Now she’s here with him. Emotionally battered, and he can see that she’s still jumpy. He wishes there was a way to take her out of the line of fire, even as he knows she’ll always be the kind of woman who throws herself in the reach of the flames. He accepted it as her partner, he has to learn to accept it as the man who loves her, too.

“That might be a step too far. I’m not going to convert, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she says with a light smirk, and the newfound serenity written on her face is like a balm on his soul. “But I can see why you might like it, sometimes. The quiet, the tradition.”

“The incense, the wine,” he says, shooting a soft smile in her direction. “The padded kneelers.”

She laughs quietly, and it feels right, to hear a sign of her happiness in the house of his God. They settle into silence, her hand gripped loosely in his as they sit in the pew, watching the play of the stained-glass shadows changing with the further darkening of the night outside. It means something to him, to be able to share this with her.

“I do want to marry you, El,” she whispers, and his heart falters for a beat with the words, with the strength in her tone as she delivers them. His heart feels like too much. Too big for his chest, beating too rapidly to be contained, holding more than he ever thought possible. “I want to make you promises. I want to be able to keep them.”

He sucks in a breath, trying to breathe away the tears that threaten, because God, he loves this woman. He hadn’t planned to do this here, but she’s given him an opening he’s been waiting on for weeks now.

He slides a hand into his pocket, where a ring waits in a small velvet pouch. He’d picked it up before Sealview, before he almost lost her again, and he’s been carrying it around with him since he pulled her out of there.

“I was never trying to run,” she continues, and he swallows down the guilt of his own careless words. “I wanted justice for Ashley. For Risa.”

“I know. I know, Liv. I shouldn’t have said that. I know I can be – I say things without thinking, sometimes. It doesn’t mean I – well, I’m sorry,” he sucks in a breath, bracing himself.

“Listen. I want to make you promises, too,” he tells her, and he slips the gold ring onto her finger as he speaks, her fingers stiffening then going lax and pliant under his. Her eyes drift down, and his follow, to see the evidence of their promises to each other. It’s smooth and simple and not flashy. One that he’d picked out with her stipulations in mind, that has a small row of diamonds inlaid into the band, so that she won’t catch them on clothing or cuffs. One that he can picture on her knuckle even years down the road, when age and time have changed the topography of her skin.

“Elliot.”

He ignores the staying note of emotion in her voice. They’ve come this far; he half feels like he should pack her off to Vegas and marry her before she has the chance to change her mind. He doesn’t even let her answer; he moves to the action.

“Where do you want to do it? Here?”

She just shakes her head and smiles, and he wants to capture the expression on her face. He wants to preserve the way she looks when she’s sure, and she’s happy. He wants to make her feel that way forever.

“Not here. Some place that’s ours,” she tells him.

Some place that’s ours.

He can do that.

He marries her three days later, in a place that’s theirs. A courtroom where they’ve both given testimony – Donnelly presiding with an eye roll and a sigh, his children in tow, and the rest of their squad shuffling only slightly awkwardly as the vows are exchanged.

She doesn’t wear a dress, but she doesn’t wear her badge and gun, either. Compromise, she whispers, when she reaches his side – traversing a makeshift aisle that feels like the right bridge for them. Hair tousled and curled and pushed behind her shoulder, an ivory sweater and a soft pair of equally pristine white pants that probably cost close to their mortgage payment. He doesn’t care; he can’t wait to peel them off her. Bruises long faded so that they don’t need to be covered, the light, subtle kind of makeup that makes her skin almost luminous in the afternoon sun, and a smile he thinks could probably light the whole of New York, if put to the test.

Jesus. It wasn’t fair that she looked the way she did. Sin and salvation. All the dreams he wasn’t allowed to have rolled into the most trusted connection he knows.

She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Chapter Text

“Where’s your partner?”

Olivia tenses her shoulders at the too familiar question. The words are sharp and commanding, and they still send a wince echoing through her. They carry purpose, refuge, and blame – a question tossed at her over and over, at times when she could and could not answer. Times when she ached to be with Elliot, when she felt desperate to cover for him. Others when she wished she could cuff him to his goddamn desk chair, so she didn’t have to act as his keeper to their Captain.

She hears that question in Cragen’s voice, always. She applies it to Elliot more often than not, sending a silent mental apology to Fin, shaking her head free of the cobwebs.

Fin, who has been a better partner and a more loyal friend than she even thought possible.

Where’s your partner?

She waits for an answer. When the no longer newly minted Nick Amaro’s brown, baleful eyes meet hers over his laptop screen, it’s somehow still a surprise to realize that those words come from her now. There has been so much evolution over the years – there are still times that she wishes she could walk into the squad room, badge hooked to her jeans belt buckle, short hair pushed out of her eyes, and rest easy in the knowledge that the connection between her and her partner was simple. Straightforward. That their purpose had never wavered.

She’s gained so much in the bargain of change, though.

The jangling, chaotic noise of the squad room is the same. The coffee is still sub-par, the walls still gray. The wrenching heartache in the eyes of the victims still claws at her soul. The perps still sicken her. But computers litter the desks instead of file folders now, and the newspaper clippings framed on the wall to mark the bittersweet victories have been updated to more recent years. The faces are new, different, and even eager.

It only breaks her heart a little.

Sometimes when she closes her eyes, her mother’s face surfaces, the shadows and blurred features that time brings with it brightening and clearing – until she can see her as she was before her death, as she was when Olivia herself was young. She finally understands some of the things Serena tried to tell her, using the words and theories of others. Poets, writers, lyricists. She was a professor and student of the minds of anyone but herself, resolute in her studies but equally as firm in her refusal to self-examine her own pain. As she chose to medicate and poison, instead.

A song sounds softly in the background of her memory, growing in strength as the detail of her mother’s visage sharpens. A song she loved in her less beleaguered moments, those that grew fewer and farther between as the years passed and the distance between them grew. Something by James Taylor. An artist – a poet of our time, Olivia.

Maybe Serena was onto something, because Liv has never felt the sentiment as keenly as she does now, as she climbs in years and experience. The lyric wafts through her mind, entrapping itself in her heart where she’s the softest, the warmest – even while she questions the wisdom of the words comparing life to such a lovely ride.

She has known how untrue that can be, how life can be vicious and cruel when it unsheathes its claws and pries away youth-held dreams. But still, Serena’s face remains clear, and the song’s words echo within her.

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

Not that her mother ever mastered that concept. She barely understood it. She seemed to long for it to be true, though.

Olivia pushes the warm tones and melodic lulling from her mind, shaking off the weight of melancholy. She wouldn’t change things if she could, and time does not stop for anyone. She can only be grateful that time held some kindness and kept her partner at her side.

Speaking of partners, she lifts an ever-precise brow at Amaro to prompt his reluctant response.

“Yeah. She was here. She’ll be back. Had to step out, but she cleared it with me,” he tells her, a firm nod punctuating his confidence despite a statement that reeks of lies. It annoys her, that her detectives seem to have all forgotten that her job was also to detect. That she used to be one of them. It pisses her off, that it even occurs to them to lie to her in defense of each other.

It amuses her, too, despite the annoyance. She always felt the same way about her own Captain. She lied for Elliot more times than she can count.

“Amaro.”

“Cap, she’ll be here any minute. I got it. We haven’t caught anything yet.”

“Not Captain. Commanding officer,” she says, more out of reflex than anything else. It’s an important distinction, but maybe only to her. She’s their lieutenant, which is heady – a terrifying honor – in and of itself. She is starting to believe she might be captain of her own ship, someday soon. But she doesn’t want to jinx it. Her promotions have been hard-earned, and not without bloodshed.

Her detective levels a charming smile on her, and a faint glimpse of dimples flash. She wants to laugh, to tell him not to bother. She’s spent years trying to develop immunity to a similar flare of a smile, clear blue eyes instead of a warm brown. She may not have figured it out, but she’s pretty good at faking it. Years spent studiously focusing on the file in front of her instead of the man on the other side of the desk have taught her that.

“Nick.”

“She’ll be here soon,” he says, more dully, but a touch more truthfully. She’s not sure who he’s trying to convince more – her or himself. Doubtful, but if Elliot has actually latched onto realism with his religion fixation, then she sends a silent plea that God spare her the trials and tribulations of Nick Amaro and Amanda Rollins. She lived that life once already. Not for the first time, it occurs to her that she should probably send a thank you note to Cragen. A fruit basket, perhaps. Or a year’s supply of Red Vines.

“She should be here already. And maybe you should call her,” she tells Amaro, not unkindly.

When he first started, she saw so much of Elliot in Nick. And then the months under her guidance unfurled some of the younger detective’s truths, the agony-ridden faces of the victims peeled back his defenses, and difficulties in his own life undercut some of his cavalier certainty. And then one day, she looked outside Cragen’s office – the one that was somehow, astoundingly now hers – saw the tilt of his head and the shadowing of his eyes, and she didn’t see Elliot at all. It hit her all at once, the realization that in so many ways, Nick Amaro was a reimagining of her.

His stubbornness, his dedication to the job, his clear desire to protect his partner from herself. The wary shadows in his eyes that spoke to someone who’d hurt him, something that tied him to this world more than 1PP’s acceptance of his volunteering for this department ever could.

She watches Amanda Rollins lead him on a merry chase, watches them both attempt to sort out the complexity of their partnership. And she’s not sure which of them she comes to care for more. For which of them she feels a more stirring sense of pity.

Holds consistent, she muses idly, when she ponders it. She was always hard-pressed to say who she wanted to defend more, when it came to Elliot and herself.

Nick gives one more decent shot at distracting her, well-placed enough that she finds herself trying to pretend it doesn’t work. He leans back in his chair, eyes the picture propped on his desk showcasing his dark-eyed, dimpled daughter and gestures to it over the stacks of paperwork and his idling computer.

“I’ll call her. But, Liv, hang on. Zara and I haven’t seen them since the holidays. How are your boys?”

The question catapults her back, in all the best ways.

Elliot left SVU shortly after their marriage. He always had a way of being the one to break her heart, even as he was the only one who could ever really hold her together.

Their cemented closeness certainly factored, but the realization of what he could have done, what he wanted to do at Sealview, was the stone that finally crumbled their tower of denial to the ground. She sensed it before he finally sat her down in their kitchen, blue eyes dark with concern and no small portion of regret. He admitted to having already spoken to Munch, who was thinking about yet another foray into retirement anyways. Tension lined his body when he confessed he’d talked to Cragen, too. Without her.

“I needed to know my options. I wanted to know what was possible, before I worried you with it. Even if we’re not partners,” he told her after carefully and emotionlessly presenting the benefits of moving departments, “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t watch you leave with Fin and think about what might happen in the field.”

She wanted to argue with him, to tell him that she should have been a part of this whole decision-making process. She was his partner, for god’s sake. She was his wife.

“That’s still going to be true, though. There’s always a danger. All you’re doing is putting space between us. The job still comes with risk.”

“Liv,” he said pleadingly, almost begging, and she hated to admit how much the clear anxiety in him elicited an answering ache in her. “Please understand. This isn’t – I am never gonna leave you. But I can’t be in that squad room every day and not be your partner. I don’t know how to do it. Think about what I – I almost killed a man.”

“A rapist.”

“It doesn’t matter. We both know that.”

Which was true. She just hated the consequences that emerged alongside the truth, what they would bring.

She tried not to be stung at how much research and planning he’d already done – he wasn’t sharing a whim or a new idea. He had built a full case for his exit from SVU, and this was simply his final plea to sway the jury. She knew the day would come – knew that he would leave her this way the moment his lips first touched hers in that stalled squad car on an icy New York afternoon. Knew that he would leave her in this way, even as he stayed with her in others.

She tried not to be angry. Tried not to feel resentment, the fear that this would fray the other areas of their connection. Tried not to remember that he told her they would be okay in the squad room, existing as coworkers instead of partners.

“You told me –” she started, then immediately silenced at the violent shake of his head, the slash of his hand as he raised it between them in denial. He seemed certain, and passionate. Strong.

She loved him like that. Intense, purposeful, full of whatever fiery indignation drives him. Sometimes it made her want to yell at him, step into his stride to slow him down, lessen the fallout. But she couldn’t deny that she loved him, like that. She loved him desperately, even in the moment she’d dreaded since she first realized she’d come to rely on him.

“Don’t,” he told her, and the fury shook in his voice. It dawned on her how much he still struggled, how much he might have suppressed in the desperate bid to ensure she was alright. “Don’t say I told you something different. The things I told you that first night – I told you we wouldn’t be able to be partners, not with the way things changed. And I know – I know you want us both to stay in the unit.”

“I do.”

She flung the words back, the pain building in her chest, the panic sending aching tendrils of an impending headache through her temples. She closed her eyes, trying to stave off the worst of it, so she didn’t see him when he grabbed her, gripping her shoulders hard enough to leave bruises.

Part of her didn’t mind. She hated herself for it, but she found herself liking that bite in his grasp. She liked that there would be evidence that he had held her.

“Yeah, well you said those exact fucking words in another context, and they matter more,” he said, and then he sighed deeply, regretfully, like he didn’t quite realize that he was yelling at her until the words left his mouth.

A beat passed between them, years of remembered partnership, these last couple of years of togetherness. Months of marriage.

“I know,” she finally whispered.

He married her. They signed the license, stood in front of a judge. They lived together; they were a family.

Why was it so difficult to let him go?

“It’s killing me,” he admitted after a beat, fingers loosening their grips, his forehead coming to lean against hers. Voice calibrated back to his usual gruff tenor, and she let her hands settle at his hips, pulling him closer.

He’s not leaving, he’s not leaving, he’s not leaving.

“I need you to understand,” he continued, and she couldn’t deny him. She did understand. Of course she did. She thought maybe she’d always understood his needs better than her own.

Her limbs melted against him, and she thought of the way he lifted and kissed her open palm in church, the way he helped her lay down in bed to rebandage her thigh after the shooting – all gentle hands and shuttered eyes. The way he hovered over in bed while he moved inside her, how he looked at her so intently, she thought he was trying to memorize her. She remembered the way he used to study her from across their desks when he was worried about her, until she heaved a sigh and pushed back from her chair, a muttered knock it off, El falling behind her as she ambled to the coffee maker to serve up Munch’s latest sludge and give them both some space.

The way he looked at her with light and a jolt of electricity in the clear blue of his eyes, the first time Cragen introduced her as his partner, and he reached out his hand that didn’t wear a wedding ring to shake her own.

“Tell me more about this unit,” she asked at last, bandaging the broken fragments of her heart at the loss with the soft, soothing reminders of how much more they meant to one another now. “Why Organized Crime? Assumed you’d consider Homicide or even Narcotics before you went there.”

And he did, drawing her in with his newfound openness, letting her see that he wasn’t merely running away from the shift in their dynamic at the precinct. This wasn’t Computer Crimes, it wasn’t Oregon. He was finding his own place, in a department that could use his skills, the way he thought. A unit that needed someone like Elliot Stabler to help its own variation of victim.

She let him go, even as she held him close.

And life pulled them forward in its hold.

The cases were more difficult without him. The days harder. When the nights rolled around, though, his arms wrapped around her, and the nightmares were more easily warded off. She accepted the ebb and flow, the give and take. In the wake of knowing only scraps from the table, the balance seems like a feast she never expected.

She shared cases with him, as he did with her, but she suspected they both withheld the more brutal details. It was a new way that they could protect each other, and that inclination to protect my partner had always been innate to them both. Fin, in particular, got along well with the other detectives on Elliot’s squad, and between the two teams, they found themselves on more post-case outings than they’d done in years. It felt like the old days, in some ways, when the significance of hers and Elliot’s attraction and mutual reliance hadn’t muddied the water of sheer, unadulterated friendship. She missed him, every day. But some days she felt freer.

And she still had the nights.

The years weren’t without their valleys alongside their peaks, though, and sometimes the embodiments of agony that came through her doors were worse than others. When a young girl named Jenna stormed through the relative safety of the precinct and brought it all crashing down with the wave of a gun, SVU’s newest detective at the time was forced to put a bullet in a teenage girl.

She didn’t see him as light and disarming then – Nick’s darkness suddenly rivaled her own; the ravages of guilt marked his face and influenced his actions. His absence was felt from the precinct, forcing her to relive Elliot’s leaving all over again. Amanda Rollins came on the scene in the midst of the chaos, with her blonde hair and her guileless eyes, and Olivia could feel herself snarling, lashing out. She couldn’t bear to acclimate to someone different, couldn’t fathom the change in a squad family that had once been the most stable thing she knew. She held onto Fin, in those days, with wry comments of you’re not planning to leave me, too, are you that they both understood were rooted in true fear.

He didn’t call her on it. And she didn’t tell him in so many words, but she loved him for that.

She was increasingly certain the squad would lose Amaro when Elliot stopped by one evening, a rare visit from his precinct that was out of his way but wholly welcome. He carried takeout in hand and wore a bashful smile on his face. She loved that look, that reminded her that he was hers, that while he didn’t claim her as his partner anymore, he claimed her as his family. But then his expression fell, and he quickly locked on Amaro’s tense shoulders and snapping rejoinders in the squad room. Before she knew what was happening, he had commandeered Munch’s guilt-ridden, furious partner and pulled him into an interrogation room, leaving the abandoned evidence of what would have been dinner on hers and Fin’s desks.

She raised her eyebrows, but said nothing, starting when she caught Cragen’s observant eyes. He stood in his office, watching from behind his blinds. He smirked when he saw her, gave her a self-satisfied nod, and returned to his desk. She swallowed down her own smile, and wondered how many times over the years he’d maneuvered them like chess pieces to ease their struggles.

She couldn’t complain. She didn’t know exactly how Elliot knew how to reach Amaro, but the younger man’s anger and grief simmered after that. Staring in his eyes felt less and less like drowning in guilt. He partnered with Rollins, eventually, as Munch took further steps back from the field and heralded the beginning of the passing of the baton from old to new guard.

She still wonders now if he took Nick to Saint Patrick’s, as he had her. If he found the same healing in the hallowed hush of the cathedral, just as she had.

She still hopes so, wholeheartedly.

She never asked either of them.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, she thought, knowledge of a biblical verse intermingling with her mother’s and her own studies of literature. She left what is God’s to Elliot.

They applied for adoption together, shortly before Nick Amaro darkened the squad room’s doors, years before any of them ever heard the name Jenna Fox. A little while after Munch first floated the idea of his next retirement, and directly after Elliot suggested that they start trying for their own baby. She couldn’t explain her immediate reaction, her instant denial. She watched with shock almost equal to his – hadn’t she always wanted a family? – as he adjusted to her changing gears, trying desperately to understand why she wouldn’t want to carry their biological child herself.

“What do you mean, no?” he asked, stymied, hurt. Steadily building towards enraged.

“I didn’t say no. I said not like that.”

“Then how the hell do you mean?”

“I want to try to adopt,” she answered simply, and his world fell like curtains cut loose, sweeping to the floor around him, letting in too-bright light that stunned him at first.

“What? Liv, we can explore – you’ve been on birth control. We don’t know that you can’t get pregnant,” he said, and an uncharitable part of her scoffed at the idea that Elliot “four kids” Stabler would consider infertility in the first place.

“I know that. That has nothing to do with it.”

“But we’ve talked about this. It’s not about the genes – it’s not about – why don’t you want to have a baby with me?” he asked, laying his vulnerability at her feet, and her face softened with sympathy, maybe even a little regret. He was at a complete loss as to why she would be so insistent that it be this way first, without even trying the good old-fashioned way that he was all too happy to practice with her.

“I do want to have a child with you. That’s not what I’m saying!” she finally exploded at him one night, exhausted with the cyclical questioning.

“Sure as hell seems that way.”

“You can’t possibly be this dense,” she answered, disdain dripping from her voice, masquerading the hurt. Such a damn throwback. “I know better than anyone that you can be an idiot, and I married you anyway. But you have to know better than –”

“Then what is it about? Just fucking talk to me!”

“I am! I talk to you more than – damn it, Elliot!” she forced out, voice breaking on the exclamation. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, heedless of how they would pull at her lashes, destroying what was left of her mascara. She sucked in a breath, like she was waiting for her own frustration to even, waiting for the energy pouring off him to steady just a little bit.

“I am talking to you. I talk to you more than anybody. I’m trying.”

The words were familiar. She’d told him that the night before they were both shot in that alley, during those long days while they recovered together and grew closer, when he pushed and pushed for them to take those incremental next steps. He tried to remind herself that each of those times, she had come around. He hadn’t been wrong.

He didn’t say anything at that, but the tension – that heightened energy – finally ebbed, and he watched her like a wary animal, waiting for her to cave into temptation and make her move. When she remembers it now, she doesn’t think she knew what she was going to say, that she knew why until that moment.

And then her expression cleared, like the sun through a window as early morning shadows fade – as though everything was alight with possibility.

“My mother didn’t want me.” Her voice was tentative, eyes turned downcast, hiding the realization he could see she’d already reached, landing on their kitchen island and the unwashed dishes in the sink. Anywhere but him.

“Olivia.”

“Don’t.” A pause fortified her; he waited. “It might have been better. I always wondered if it would have been better for both of us, if she had given me up for adoption. She couldn’t love me, not the way I needed, not the way I wanted her to. And what if someone was out there who could? Who wanted to? What would that have meant for my mother?”

His heart cracked, and it was a herculean effort to quell the urge to yank her towards him, circle his arms behind her back and rock her in the age-old movement of comfort until that heart-wrenching look was gone from her face. A moment of reprieve, but she wouldn’t finish then, wouldn’t tell him everything. He couldn’t risk that. It took him years to learn, but he knew better.

“And then I think about a baby. A child. What if there’s someone out there who I’m supposed to love, because the people that should have couldn’t? It’s not about you, or me really. I’ve always wanted to have a child this way. I just… the odds seemed slim the few times I toyed with it. You need an extensive support system, a foundation, to be considered prime parent material for adoption agencies.”

“You have a foundation now.”

“Yes,” she murmured, a look of relief passing over her face, leaving her atypically shaky and pliant under his hands. “That’s right. And I want to… I think I want to use that foundation to give a child a chance. It works both ways. It’s not about the genes.”

He wondered if it would always take his breath away, how intensely he loved her.

 I understand,” he whispered the words against her – wanting to give her the assurance she’s always been able to give him. That deep sense of being known, of being entrusted. She understood him when others couldn’t, and he could do the same for her.

He could give her this.

When her lips met his, he knew he’d made the right choice. If he ever doubted it, those doubts were erased the first time he laid eyes on their son.

They brought him home, and he tried not to focus on how Olivia’s hands shook, how she let Elliot hold the little boy first – not quite a baby, because as much as he wanted her to have those first moments, she refused to exclude older children. No, they brought home a quiet, dark-eyed near-toddler with an uncertain disposition. Who had been labeled by the state but not by someone who loved him, who wanted him.

And even still – her hands trembled, like she wasn’t certain he’d be allowed to be hers. To stay hers. He tried to put her at ease, to pull back from the gravity of the moment.

“Still on board with any of the names that we talked about?” He asked with a wink. They’d decided a couple of names – for either gender – that they both liked. Via argument, as they usually did.

“Actually,” she hesitated, but eyes sharpened, a glint of mischief in them, like a thought that had begun to take form had crystallized with rightness in her mind. “No. I want to name him after you, Elliot.”

“What? Why?”

She didn’t answer him, just smiled her most mysterious smile, and ran a gentle, steady hand down the downy softness of the boy’s head, the curled ridge of his back. She looked more like a mother than he’d ever seen her, even without a child cradled to her chest. Secret knowledge and age-old wisdom. Strength and softness entwined in one.

He came to understand a little, as he watched his youngest son grow. Something about the set of his jaw despite its still-baby pudginess, the stubborn little push of his chin. As their little boy shifted from toddler to boy to young man, he may have looked more and more like Olivia – his sandy blonde hair that deepened to brown and his pensive, sleepy eyes.

But his manner was so often like Elliot’s. Like he knew the world he’d been born to, had faith in the rightness of his place in it.

And his name was Eli Stabler.

Her words come back to him still, from time to time.

“Just what the world needs. Another Elliot Stabler.”

Years passed more quickly than he thought they would, as accustomed as he was to the passage of time and the way his growing children provided physical evidence of days gone by.

They were happy, and he believed it in the very marrow of him. He believed in their happiness for thousands of little reasons, dissipating moments. Because of the way she slept with a hand curled on his chest, or a foot lightly pressed to his calf if she was too warm. The way that she smiled more easily, the way the clothes she wore were less dark, less rigid. Because of the way she rubbed at the metal of her wedding ring, the way she still traipsed into their bedroom late at night with plates of chicken tenders and bowls of mac and cheese, a playful grin scampering across her face. The way she played records, and sometimes timed them to make sure the Traveling Wilburys were playing the exact time he arrived home. The way she opened to him when she lay beneath his body, soft curves beckoning him in, ankles looped around his thighs like she could pull him close enough to become part of her, as she took all she could of him.

The way her eyes lit up whenever she looked at her son, the way Eli sounded from her mouth, weighted and warmed with love and rewarded longing.

“That’s it, there you go. You’re so smart! Who’s my sweet boy?”

Her gentle words greeted him when he came home from work one night, accompanied by the backdrop of Eli’s giggles, and he couldn’t help but reflect on the past. How she used to stay at the precinct longer than necessary, how she would volunteer for the holiday shifts. And now… now there was a little boy whose entire world revolved around her. Now she had a partner in life, beyond the job.

“What are you two doing?” he asked as he rounded the corner to the kitchen.

Two wide smiles met him, punctuated by the same head tilt, and he felt his lips pull in turn. Their child may not have been of her blood, but God, at three years old, Eli had his mother’s mannerisms down to a near-science.

“Making dinner,” Olivia said, leaning towards him a little. He took a moment to appreciate the unlined restfulness of her face, the easy joy in her expression – today must have been one of the good days. Few and far between at SVU, he still remembered. But so very worth it when they did occur.

“That right?” he said, pressing a firm kiss against her lips, a softer one against the cut of her cheekbone as he leaned to pick up Eli. “And what, exactly, are you two making?”

An answering squeal was his reward, muffling her initial response. Which he was curious to hear, because based on the lack of pots and pans on the kitchen counter and stove top, they weren’t cooking a damn thing.

“Oreos!” came Eli’s boisterous reply. He felt Olivia all but melt against him, a means to get closer to the little boy.

“Cheerios,” she corrected gently, reaching to pull him from Elliot’s arms. “It’s cereal, honey.”

“Neither of which are dinner,” he admonished as he let her extract their son from his arms and prop him against her hip, unable to suppress a grin. Christ. She knew how to make chicken tenders and mac and cheese and probably half a dozen other things, at least without burning them to a crisp. Leave it to Liv to decide breakfast was for dinner and not even deign to include waffles. Or bacon. Eggs. Might as well be a criminal act. He moved to the fridge to investigate what they had and elevate their brunch to a more befitting spread.

“Let’s see what we can add, so we’re not eating Oreos and calling that a meal.”

“Cheerios!” Eli yelled, and he smiled at Liv’s effusive praise.

It had been easy, over the years, to coalesce, to let each other’s strengths seep into the other’s weaknesses, to give the favor back in turn. One of the best things about Liv, he’d learned, was that she didn’t demand that he be something that he wasn’t. She didn’t try to domesticize him in a way he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – navigate. She demanded the same consideration for herself. Some of the things he’d thought would change about Olivia after they married and had a child hadn’t changed at all. She still focused on the job to distraction, she still worked all hours. She hardly cooked, though he was somewhat surprised to find that she cleaned as a stress prevention tool. The dust-bunnies littering their house grew fewer and fewer as she climbed in rank.

She left early in the morning for runs with a nearly illegible note left on the fridge. She insisted on a nanny to help with Eli so that they could both continue to work full-time, and doggedly memorized his other children’s schedules to ensure they both showed up for them, too. She forced him to talk when the job was too much, but she didn’t try to solve things for him. She pushed him, she asked more of him, she fought with him.

She also slept in on Sunday mornings, padding to Eli’s room to bring him back to bed with them, even though they’d agreed time and time again that he was too old for that. She agonized over Christmas and birthday presents for his daughters, for Dickie, and she cut out of a shift early to take the twins when Kathy had an unexpected date. She trailed her fingers down his arm when she walked by him, she nuzzled against the muscles in his back when she hugged him from behind – her preferred method that he suspected was because it allowed her to be affectionate, even as she hid her face.

She was a study in contradictions, and he loved them all.

It wasn’t all cookie-cutter, it wasn’t perfect by any means – but their new life together melded into the world around them, weaving into its tapestry. It became a part of its fabric as naturally as any other thread, rather than bringing the world as he knew it to a shuddering stop, the way he always feared. He thanked God every day for the many people he was allowed to love, in all the different ways he could now love them.

They were solid, even amidst the difficult – his new job at OC, the way the 1-6 seemed to continually change after he started the exodus with his own transfer, her promotion to Sergeant at Cragen’s insistence that she test for it, the late nights with Eli and the blending of his children, the knowing eyes of Kathy. He didn’t take it for granted. He knew better than most how tides turned, and how viciously they could pull you under the current.  

The next time her brown eyes filled with the type of quaking fear he’d seen when Lowell Harris stood over her, he couldn’t help himself. They had too much to lose, they were too much to their child, to all his children, on top of it. Her disillusioned face met him when she came to him the first night, relying on his support as she relinquished control in his arms. He’d already heard – Fin had called him the second she left the precinct.

“Stabler, you need to know. Don’t fucking tell her I called you, but I wanted to give you a heads up. She’s on her way home for the night, and it’s bad.”

The man hadn’t even bothered with a preamble, and his heart caught in his throat.

“What happened?” he asked, fingers clenching on the steering wheel as he drove home from his own squad room, foot a little heavier on the gas as Fin’s words registered. Relentless rain pelted the roof of the car, a springtime torrent that would beckon summer, and he watched the windshields wipers move the droplets from side to side like tears, blurring the red of a stoplight – a garish, cartoon-like interpretation of blood spatter.

“Caught a case. A bad one. Just a – just a fucking psychopath, I think. Rollins brought him in, indecent exposure, but there’s a track record and we thought he’d done worse. Went back and assaulted, raped the elderly woman, the witness. He’d burned off his own fingertips – like I said, psychopath – and we didn’t have the physical evidence to hold him.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah. Stabler, the other thing – we thought the witness was gonna make it, but she ultimately died. Stress, her heart. Liv didn’t take it well.”

“Of course she wouldn’t,” he answered, rage darkening the edges of his vision on her behalf. For the innocent woman who’d died. Liv would take the weight of her death on her own shoulders, he knew. If she was anything like him – and God, in that way she was – she’d want to rush home and hold Eli as close to her as she could.

“Something about him, man,” Fin’s words sounded in his ear, and the chill they sent down his spine reminded him of the ashy fear that cloaked his throat, choking him as he ran down that goddamn prison basement hallway.

“What do you mean?” he tried to frame it as a question, but the words came out as more demand than anything else.

“He fixated on Liv a little bit.”

“Fin.”

“You know how it goes. She acted the part. Played into his fantasy, sort of. He toyed with her right back though, answered in all hypotheticals. Explained what he would have done, how he could have done it, then lawyered up. There was something… I don’t know. You know I’m not about this shit. I wouldn’t go behind her back. But this guy was different than what we usually see. I thought you should know.”

The unuttered words sound between them, the impending spark of a match unlit. I’m worried. It’s another Lowell Harris. It’s worse.

“Fuck.”

He thanked him – his wife’s partner – and rushed home to take care of her in the way he wasn’t allowed to when he acted in the same role. His feet pounded up the stairs to their door when he finally arrived, swinging open their front door with a slam, without a thought to the fact that his youngest son would already be asleep.

“Liv?”

He rushed through the foyer, hand gripping the newel post at the base of the stairs – the one she’d loved, that she commented on over the years because it was like an anchor to the house – rounding the corner and refusing to think about how he’d held her shattering form in that exact spot as she grappled with the aftermath of Lowell Harris and Dominic Pruitt’s forgiveness. God fucking damnit.

“Olivia!”

She wasn’t in the kitchen, in the living room, in their bedroom, so his feet pounded up the stairway, his heart beating in increasing desperation until he reached Eli’s bedroom door. It was open, Eli’s small bed neatly made in the corner with an assortment of books scattered on top of it, his favorite stuffed animal – a jolly-looking golden retriever who could be an emblem of the real thing to come if their persistent boy had his way – propped on his pillow. Elliot whipped around wildly, expelling a shuddering gasp of relief at the sight of her in the armchair in the corner, where they used to take turns when he wouldn’t sleep through the night.

“God,” he breathed.

Eli was asleep, appearing even younger in repose, in her arms. His small hand was curled in the vee of her shirt, and for a moment he saw a flash of her nursing, of holding Eli at her breast, even though that had never been the case. It was odd, all those years at her side as her partner, that he never saw how frequently present, how overwhelming the maternal nature of her could be.

“Shh. He fell asleep just a little while ago,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes.

“Fin called me.”

“I know,” a wry smile spread across her face as she looked down at their son. “The guilt got to him. He called to tell me right after.”

He approached her slowly, unsure of her mood, trying to gauge her willingness to accept help.

“Sounds bad.”

When she lifted her eyes to his, he remembered why he’d been so intent on killing Lowell Harris, despite his God’s commandments. Tired, heartsick tears filled their brown depths, heartbreaking self-recrimination written all over her face.

“Talk to me.”

“We couldn’t hold him.”

“Baby.”

A sharp shake of her head jostled Eli at her chest, and he shifted in sleep, gripping her shirt more tightly.

Elliot knelt beside her, the way he had when they first sat in this room marveling at the fact that this perfect little boy was theirs. Theirs to raise, theirs to protect, theirs to love. He pressed against her side, one of his palms coming to grip the nape of her neck, in the way that called back a vision of a younger, more cautious Olivia with bangs grazing her eyelashes, one gently cupping the downy softness of his son’s curls.

“He’s a monster. He knew every move we were going to make. He degraded and tortured and killed that woman. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again,” she said, rocking slightly, Eli still cradled in her arms. He didn’t think she was even aware of the self-soothing motion.

“Fin said he was particularly focused on you.”

She shook her head, but her eyes were on the light glinting through the bedroom window, staring at something he couldn’t see.

“We played the usual interrogation game. He was smart. He kept up the hypothetical deniability the whole time.”

“It sounds like more than that to me.”

“I know how to do my job, Elliot.”

“I know you do. I know you do. But please – play it out with me. Like we used to. What if this son of a bitch comes after you?”

Her jaw jutted out, in a way he loved and also resented, just a little. “I know how to take care of myself,” she answered, but it was half-hearted, like even she knew that her argument of the past didn’t hold the same weight, if it ever held any at all. He took advantage of it.

“It’s not just you, though. It’s not even just me.”

He pulled that stubborn jaw to him, and communicated with her in a way that for so long wasn’t available to him. He kissed her, slow and long. Chaste enough, with their son cradled in her arms, but when his tongue slid against hers, he pulled her chin upwards to run his hand down the delicate arch of her throat. Someone – he wasn’t sure who – gasped into it, a moan rumbling through it as she sighed into him, and they both leaned closer. Her mouth opened so that he was kissing her fully, hot and wet, as she panted into him and pressed her forehead into his brows. He sucked in a breath and moved from her lips, trailing open-mouthed kisses down her jaw and her neck to her collarbone, just above the spot where their son’s small hand rested.

Her breath sounded in his ear as he continued to kneel at her side, head tucked against her breasts.

“Please.”

“Okay. Okay,” she said, and dropped her head on top of his own. The relief was palpable, even as he wanted to take her from there, to spirit her from the city, out of sight of the monsters.

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. The verse echoed in his mind, beat in his chest.

He settled for calling in the reserves, thanking God that he didn’t have to throw himself on her mercy or go behind her back to put a detail on her. And, risking the wrath he’d invoked once before, years ago – but knowing she’d never put their boy at risk – he took it a step further. He put a detail on their house, too, with enough strength in numbers to allow for two teams.

His second decision proved to be the fruitful one. The lifesaving one. William Lewis was apprehended attempting to break into the back window to their storage space. When the second team on their detail – the one the bastard hadn’t realized were there after he’d killed the two good, decent cops guarding the front – caught him, he was carrying a gun, duct tape, a fucking blowtorch and a few bottles of dirt-cheap vodka.

Elliot had nightmares of what could have happened for years.

That first night after the bastard’s apprehension, he held her like what could have happened did. As though in some parallel universe, the unthinkable hadn’t been avoided, and that monster had gotten his hands on his Olivia. He gripped her to him, pressed his face against the soft flesh where her neck and shoulder met, breathing her in and feeling the rise and fall of her ribs.

“They got him,” she said at his side, but he could feel the latent tremors that worked their way through her. That psychopath had had plans for her, and neither of them would be able to close their eyes without thinking about what could have been anytime soon.

“I know.”

“He can’t hurt me. Or Eli, or you.”

“I know.”

A shuddery breath moved through her, like she was expected – counting on – an argument.

“Nothing happened.”

She was firm, bullish. And there it was.

“Yeah, it did, Liv. He could have killed you. We’re lucky. We’re fucking blessed that nothing worse happened.”

He heard an intake of a gasp then, and as much as he hated the idea of her in pain, he knew she had to process. William Lewis was the worst psychopathic mind they’d run across. And it could have just as easily gone the other way. Her breath came faster and faster, until she was heaving against him, laying at his side.

“Stop. Shh, deep breaths. Just take a breath with me,” he tried to soothe.

“It could have been –”

“It wasn’t.”

She was silent a beat, and he wondered for a moment if she had fallen asleep. But then her voice, low and dark with dulcet tones sounded in the dark, incongruous with the words she uttered.

“I would have wanted it to be you.”

“What?”

“If he’d… done what he planned to do to me. I would have wanted it to be you to kill him.”

Her brown eyes threatened to swallow him whole, and he turned her carefully, lifting so that his thighs bracketed hers on the bed. He thought about that goddamn warehouse and Victor Gitano, that goddamn alley and David Abatello, that goddamn prison basement and Lowell Harris.

“I would have.”

Hands grasped his arm, the one that banded around her. Fingers lightly trailing along the veins that flowed from shoulder to wrist. Her head was slightly bowed, as she curled against him and pressed her face to his other arm beneath her. He gripped them both more tightly, pulling her firmly against his body, only releasing his hold when she shifted to turn to face him fully.

He brushed her hair out of her face, thinking about Oregon and a kiss in a parked squad car, seeing her with those bangs once again.

“He killed two of ours,” she said, referencing the half of the detail that Lewis had killed to gain access. Their deaths were quick, but it was a small mercy.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s my –”

“It is not. It is not your fault, or mine for insisting on the damn detail. Or Fin’s for telling me this guy was one of the worst. Or even Rollins for bringing him in. Cragen’s, for sending you home. It was his, and I need you to tell me you know that.”

“I shouldn’t have taunted him the way I did. I don’t want to do that again. With you, with Eli – I don’t want to do that again.”

“You don’t have to. Give me the words, Liv.”

Her breath stuttered, but she stretched, so that her legs twisted with his, her belly soft against his own, her breasts pushed to his own chest. They’d always just fit so well; in a way he was aware of years before he was free to acknowledge it. A key in a lock, matched magnets snapping into place.

“It was his fault. He’s to blame,” she finally acknowledged.

“That’s right. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby.”

She allowed the endearments that night, their emotions both so close to the surface that neither of their usual rules applied. He let her set the pace, let her undress both herself and him. She chose what was bared, what wasn’t. Fervent I love you’s intermingled with thank fucking God as he kissed her, as his hand worked between them until she was warm and wet against him. And when he slipped inside her, when she came around him and he spilled into her, he sent up another silent prayer of gratitude.

No one believed in the healing potential like Olivia, and he was a close second. They had to be, to work the job they did for so many years. But she’d survived so much, and maybe it made him a selfish bastard, but he was so grateful that she didn’t have to heal from the victimization William Lewis had planned for her.

He thought about it more than once, over the years – what could have been. What the monster could have taken.

He thought more about how she rose from the ashes of every fire that touched her, and she would have done the same with this man who sought to degrade her, torture her. And he believed she would have survived, would have overcome, no matter what. He’d seen her do it before. But he continued to walk on the side of caution, calling in a detail anytime a case felt too personal, over the years. A gang leader demanding blood for blood, a mob boss trying to intimidate the SVU CO, a crooked politician threatening their family. She bristled, as he expected. He would have worried if she didn’t.

But she let him take care of her.

She did the same for him.

Eli grew into a boy, as Elliot’s older children grew into adults. He hadn’t even realized their family wasn’t complete until she came home and told him she’d found a baby in a drawer, of all places.

When she told him about the unnamed, seemingly orphaned child who hardly ever cried, he saw the look of motherhood in her eyes. It was practiced at that point, a mother figure to his children, the single most important person in Eli’s life (he knew where he stood in that pecking order, and he would never deny her it), still the woman of the precinct who could connect with the female victims as daughter, sister, mother, friend.

He would have worried about her, in the past. He would have worried that she was getting too close to something she could never keep. It would have pissed him off; the inability to stop her, but to wait for the fallout and agonize over what it would do to her when it was gone. What she might do to herself in the attempt to keep it.

But he’d seen her with Eli. Holding him in her arms, rocking him to sleep at night, feeding him cheerios from her desk when she had to take him to work the time their nanny fell through, smiling her full-wattage smile at him until his gummy, toothless grin answered in turn. He watched as she grew with him, tempering her affections to what he might want, but her eyes still bleeding the very soul of her onto that little boy each time she looked at him.

He knew what it was to watch Olivia Benson fall in love – he’d seen it more than once.

So, he braced himself, prepared himself and his children to accept one more, even before Olivia had admitted the possibility of that to herself. He didn’t count on falling so quickly, himself.

Noah was lively and bright-eyed, curious and playful. He was different from Elliot’s other children, but something about him felt so cohesive, such a part of Olivia already. Like the world had taken the last components of her that weren’t already expressed in their children – even the ones that were his and Kathy’s – and imbued them in this one small, sweet boy.

They attended the hearings together, for the most part, when schedules allowed for it. He watched Olivia watch Noah, and an aching part of him yearned to complete his family. To bring this boy home. When the judge all but offered the little boy to them, Liv stiffened at his side, her eyes frantically turning to his in question and denial. He wondered if she was expecting a rejection.

“I have a feeling about this, Sergeant Benson, Detective Stabler. Call it a judge's hunch. If you agree, I will order Noah Porter into your care as custodial parents for one year, at which time you will be given the option to permanently adopt him.”

They said yes. Of course they said yes.

Olivia loved him just as she had Eli – wholeheartedly and fully, with all the love that Elliot assumed had been denied to her in her own childhood.

When he stood in their house, which in retrospect had been painstakingly chosen with rooms that allowed for the children it now filled, he watched Liv press her forehead against Noah’s smaller one, watched her smile against the downy softness of his hair and the gentle slope of his head.

“What just happened?” she whispered, eyes glowing at him, gorgeous and captivating in the dimmed nursery light.

“We just had another kid.”

Her answering laugh was giddy, a tad frantic.

“That’s not how – that’s not how it works. Oh, my god, El, what did we just do?”

He approached her slowly, thinking back on all the times he’d had to ease her into awareness of the emotions she was already feeling. He would never tire of it.

“It’s not how it usually works, that’s true. But it’s how it’s working tonight. For our family.”

She sighed, breathing Noah’s scent as she held him more closely to her, but her eyes were still wide, her cheeks a little too pale.

“Is this what you want?” he asked softly.

A moment passed between them, then another. Her eyes seemed to contain fear he didn’t think he gave her, but he wanted her to answer first, to tell him what she wanted before he offered his support. Finally, she spoke.

“Yes.”

The relief that shot through him was as sharp as it was exquisite. Thank fucking God. That boy was already his child, too – judge’s agreement or not.

“Good. Me, too,” he told her, and the words were simple, but he came to his knees again, at her side. The same way he had when she agreed to let him protect her, the way he had when she rocked Eli, years ago. Me, too, he whispered again, against the silken skin of her neck and the curve of her jaw. I love you.

They didn’t put Noah in his own room that night, nor did they let Eli sleep in his. They brought them both to their own bedroom, the sprawling bed that Liv insisted upon, which he certainly couldn’t argue against now. As they fell asleep, he stroked the chocolate strands from her forehead, and kissed her lightly before she drifted off, and smiled at the sheer peace drawn across her face.

They adopted him officially nearly a year later, but Noah was their son from that day forward.

His kids took it in stride, albeit with some expected ribbing – geez, Dad, how many kids is too many? You trying to start a football team? – and Eli adapted to his new younger brother like he’d been waiting on a companion all along.

“Really? Another one?” Maureen asked him, her eyes so like her mother’s, narrowed in careful judgment.

“Last one.”

“You sure?”

His eyebrows lifted, even as his heart clenched. “I’m sure.”

“Good. Because we need some separation between kids and grandkids. I think if those detective skills were genetic, I could put them to use and find a ring in the apartment. Pretty sure Carl is planning on proposing. He hasn’t talked to you yet, has he?”

“Even if he had, sweetheart, you’re not gonna hear it from me,” he told her, swallowing back the rise of emotion. Carl hadn’t asked for permission to marry her, but he had asked to meet for a drink the following week, and Elliot wasn’t a fool. He knew what was coming.

Christ. One kid about to get married, another still in diapers.

He wouldn’t change a damn thing.

Liv said it was good, it was right, when he shared his suspicions about Maureen and her soon-to-be fiancé. He didn’t dispute that. He simply couldn’t fathom how time had moved so steadily, how his children had grown up so much.

Eli was a young boy; the twins had somehow grown into young adults. Kathleen, a force of nature who had learned how to manage her own mercurial tendencies, to change her diagnosis into a strength instead of a sentence. And Maureen – talking of marriage. He still felt like he was thirty-something, a youngish man who’d only set out on the path of what he wanted to be, who’d only recently found the person he wanted to walk alongside.

His home.

He was thankful that at the very least, they still had time left to them.

She learned in her youth not to have too lofty expectations of life. That given its best shot, life would do its best to disappoint you, and expect you to smile and strategize with the letdown. Serena reinforced those assumptions, her own tragic history informing the lessons she inflicted on her daughter.

But what Olivia came to realize is that so much, so very much of it was a choice.

She had so much more control over it than she ever thought possible.

And while her happiness wasn’t derived from him entirely, or even from their children, she learned how to use the power Elliot Stabler’s trust in her provided.

She relied on her squad in ways she hadn’t before, in ways she thought she wasn’t allowed. When Cragen formally handed off leadership of the squad, mere months after Munch had officially retired, she tried to swallow the tears, pretend that she wasn’t fucking terrified of stepping into his shoes while also trying to be a wife, a mother – roles still so new to her. Still so foreign and all-encompassing.

But as it turned out her detectives balanced their own foibles and misadventures, and the borrowed support bonded them, in some way. Fin remained her most trusted shoulder to lean on, the partner she hadn’t known she needed, and she pushed him with his son, his grandson. To be with Phoebe, when she reentered his life. To be part of the world instead of a sidelined and sardonic Greek chorus, though she appreciated the sentiment. Nick was her confidant and friend, his daughter a playmate to her own sons. And Amanda was her foil, light where she was dark, impetuous where Liv had learned to tread carefully. Carisi, even, rounding them out with unflagging enthusiasm and green kindness.

And at the end of the day, there was Elliot.

Their children.

Her boys.

“Any regrets?” he asked her one night, sprawled on the bed beside her, shoes removed, and jeans unbuttoned but still on. They were both exhausted – the end of a long day and a longer week finally seeing them both home with Eli and Noah at last asleep.

“About not begging Cragen to stay and keep the politics and the paperwork to himself?” she asked wryly, nearly facedown in the pillow as she lay on her stomach like a starfish. Her fingertips stretched out, trailing a line up his forearm as he rested on his back, glaring up at their ceiling fan like it held the answers to all life’s mysteries. “Every damn day.”

He snorted at that, a tempered chuckle, and brought his other hand up to catch her fingers in his. The silence was telling though, and she shifted a little, bringing a hand under her chin to prop herself up, to stare into his eyes. They met hers, after a moment, blue but stormy, and her heart tripped over itself.

“Hey. What are you talking about?”

He took a moment, their paced breaths, and the whir of the fan overhead the only sounds between them. His fingers tightened on her own.

“I kissed you in a squad car. Unbuckled you and hauled you over the damn console, if I remember correctly.”

She furrowed her brow. She remembered, too. But it was years ago. And he had sure as hell kissed her since. Even in another squad car or two.

“Yeah, you did. And it was a good enough kiss that I showed up at your door with take-out from that old Thai place, even though I had no intention of eating dinner.”

He turned to face her then, concern wreathing his face.

“You told me you weren’t ready.”

That tripping of her heart ratcheted into true fear.

“Elliot. What is this?”

“Kathleen called me this morning.”

“She called me, too – I need to call her back. I had a CompStat meeting.”

“Yeah,” he said, and she sighed in hopeful relief as a hint of a smile flashed. “I think she would have preferred to talk to you. She settled for me.”

“Is everything okay?”

“You know that guy she’s been seeing?” he waited as she nodded, inching a little closer to him. “She’s not so sure about him. Guess they got into some sort of fight – he pressured her for more, talking about a more committed relationship. She said he wanted to know if she’s thinking about marriage someday, if they’re on that track. And he got mad – sounds like a real asshole and she’s better off without him – but he got angry with her when she said she wasn’t ready for anything that serious.”

It's not the same thing at all, she wanted to interrupt him, to correct him. But she waited, letting him tell her what he needed to, first. She’d learned that much.

“I’m glad she stood by what she wanted,” was all she allowed.

“Yeah. She’s okay. Broke it off, but she seemed just fine. Gonna spend the weekend visiting the twins at school. But I – it got me thinking.”

Not necessarily a good thing, she thought wryly.

“Just tell me.”

“I kissed you in a squad car. I pushed you. I pushed, and I wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let you go at your pace, because I was so damn sure. But –”

And she couldn’t help it, then. She interrupted him with a gentle shh, stopping the flow of words down a winding stream of misinterpretation and falsities. She inched closer again, so their sides were touching, and she pressed her lips against his to silence him.

“I didn’t tell you I wasn’t ready. I told you I needed – that we both needed more time. After you told me that you didn’t want me to die alone. After I kissed you.” Her heart still pounds when she remembers those words, why he rushed to her side after Gitano cut her, why he chose her even when he shouldn’t have.

She would have made the same choice.

She still would.

“I also told you that I missed my partner.”

He scoffed a little but ran his hand down the side of her cheek, a familiar gesture that never failed to make her feel treasured, even a little fated.

“How do you remember all that?”

“Well. I’m a detective.”

“Captain,” he corrected, and her heart swelled as she mentally rolled her eyes. He had a decided thing about her rank and title.

“Still a detective at heart. And I’m pretty good at recalling details. I remember that day. I remember what I felt.”

“You wanted time. I didn’t give it to you.”

“I came to your door that night. We took our time. We just took it after Maddy’s case, after the shooting. I healed right alongside you, El. I remember that.”

He didn’t say anything, just kept stroking her face, like he couldn’t quite believe she was there. She could empathize. Even after all those years, she still felt like she might wake up one morning alone in her apartment, with the historical knowledge that she could have him on the job, but she could never have him here.

“You have to know it’s different. Don’t you?”

He kissed her then, slowly at first, nothing like the way he had that very first time. The mechanics were different, but the heart was the same, and she felt his hand drift across her stomach to pull him underneath her just like she once felt it stretch across her to unsnag her from her seatbelt.

She whispered I love you – or maybe that was him, and they traded the words between them. He took advantage of her mouth open and she felt his tongue gain entrance, winding with hers, just like it had all those years ago, when protests instead of declarations of love dropped from her lips. He tasted the same – coffee and mint, the consistency somehow at once reassuring and intoxicating.

Her feet pressed against the bed, scrambling for purchase so she could arch up against him, pulling at his unbuttoned jeans even as he pried her shirt from beneath her and yanked it over her head.

The lube was in their bedside table, a more common accompaniment to sex in more recent years, even as Elliot himself had gotten more creative, more adventurous. But she didn’t need it then, not with the foray down memory lane, the heat in the kisses he trailed down her breasts and the fingers that had already brought her close to the edge. She ached for him, and whimpered when he paused at her entrance, eyes hazed with arousal but still so clear, so focused on her.

“You want –”

“I’m ready,” she whispered, and she meant it for then, she meant it for all those years ago.

She would always be ready, when it came to him.

His eyes went dark then, and she fell into him, came apart around him, lost in the long-memorized dance of partnership and passion.

“I love you, Olivia,” he said again, when he was deepest inside her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clenched around him, smiling against his cheek as they both surrendered.

“Yes,” she whispered, just like the first time. “Yes.”

She didn’t know how long they laid there afterwards, limbs tangled and sweat cooling from her skin, but she knew she needed to get up, use the restroom, silently pad by the boys’ rooms to check on them. Routines that were somehow just as romantic as a frantic, desperate kiss in a squad car. She started to move, but felt a tug at her wrist, and let Elliot pull her back against him to press a quick kiss to her mouth, her forehead before he let her go.

“Better than yesterday,” he mumbled against her as he flopped back onto the bed, eyes drifting back shut. She laughed before she reached up to whack the back of his head. Asshole.

“You’re an idiot,” she told him. But he was hers.

And she thought maybe he was right. It had been a pattern that held true for years, since after Maddy Reynolds and a shooting, since what should have been just another case changed their course.

She hoped it would never end.

Years of change – families merged and squad rooms broadened.

She thinks about Nick’s question now, leaving the squad room with a measuring look after she has sent all the off-shift detectives home. She thinks about how her life has changed and changed again. About how romantic interludes and after food are snuck between soccer practice and dance classes now, and it’s still sometimes surprising to realize that she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She trudges home from the 1-6, knowing that Elliot has long since beat her there, Nick’s words echoing in her ears. How are your boys? So much more than she ever thought she would have, and she still doesn’t know what to make of it, other than try to take Serena’s quoted advice and enjoy the passage of time.

It doesn’t take long after she’s walked in the door – after she’s shucked her gun and badge and placed them next to her partner’s same setup in the gun safe, after she’s shed her coat and toed off her shoes in that foyer that charmed her into convincing Elliot to by the place. She hears his familiar tread, and she turns, a coy move that she will insist is uncharacteristic of her – but she wants to pretend like he’s the one who sees her first. She wants to see what he’ll do.

She always does.

Fingers trail against her collar, pulling her shirt back. She barely has time to sigh before lips press against the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, the spot she knows that he knows makes her shiver.

“Missed you today,” he speaks the words against her skin, and damnit if that doesn’t make her shiver, too. Even after all these years, even after all they’ve been to each other.

“Hi,” she breathes, part of her mind on him, part on the precinct. A part of it now and always on her boys as she closes her eyes and hears the slight noise from above – feet running down the hall, muffled voices and a turned-down television. Sounds that signify someone has waited for her. That she has a family, a home.

“Hi.”

His hand drops to her thigh, fingers skimming the place where a bullet entered, during the case that changed everything for them. She knows he can feel the slight ridge, the still-present scar tissue, through the thin fabric of her slacks. She lets him – an acquiescence that took years and wraps her arms around his shoulders to press her body more fully to his. To allow herself what was once such a luxury – a hug.

“How was your day?” he asks, a low rumble she feels against her temple almost more than she actually hears it.

“Fine,” she murmurs, even though she knows he won’t take the too-often used word at face value.

“Yeah?”

“Hmm. Amaro and Rollins are going to give me an ulcer. Not to mention Carisi,” she says, referencing their newest rookie, whose puppy dog eyes that trail Amanda she has tried to ignore. The last thing she needs is a goddamn love triangle in her squad room. She can’t exactly rail against the gods of karma, though.

“The new guy.”

“The new guy who’s already considering skipping sides to become an attorney,” she reveals, and smiles against Elliot’s commiserating grunt. Cop to attorney. That wouldn’t have ever even crossed the minds of the two of them.

“You need a vacation,” he says decisively.

Maybe he’s not wrong – she feels the exhaustion into her bone marrow these days – but how the hell is she going to swing that?

“Elliot.”

“Leave Fin in charge. He’d probably be thrilled.”

She laughs at that, it’s a blatant lie, and Fin would punish her for it for months if she took off and left him at the helm. But she stills when she sees the gravity in her husband’s eyes. He keeps talking, listing out evidence, tossing out theories. His case to convince is in full effect now.

“He could use the experience, you could use the break, the boys could use the adventure. And I want to, Liv. Let’s take a break. Let’s go.”

“I don’t know if I can get away – the squad is still getting its footing with all the recent changes. I don’t know if it’s a good time to leave, even for a little while. Can I think about it? I’ll let you know soon. If not now, then later – or you could always just go with the boys. Can I let you know?” she pleads a little, the way she always does when he pushes.

But his eyes are crystalline and beseeching, stirring a weakness in her that she’s never been able to steel herself against. She finds she doesn’t want to anymore – hasn’t for a long time.

“Just come,” he whispers.

She can’t refuse him. She thinks she could once, but she barely remembers now – and there is such a sense of homecoming in it, she finds, that she doesn’t have to.

“Okay. So… play it out with me. Like we used to. What if we did? Where are you thinking?” she asks, a callback to how they operated as partners sweeping through her even as the mental image takes hold – visions of them in Paris or London or Barcelona flashing through her mind, beckoning with their beauty and disconnect from here.

It takes him a few moments to answer, and they both listen to the sounds of their sons playing upstairs. They’ll see his children this weekend – save for Maureen, who is traveling with her now-husband. It makes Olivia wonder when other children will be brought into this family, even as it makes her quake with the still unrelenting fear, and the increasingly awed voice – how did I get here?

“You know where I’ve always wanted to go?” he asks at last, and the smile that drifts across his face is dreamlike, full of hope that’s long since been fulfilled, a hint of a tear in his eye that she won’t call attention to. Her heart beats in time to his breaths.

“Where?”

He waits a moment, looks out into the night sky through their foyer window, dimming in hue with the setting sun, as he twines his fingers with hers. A roughened thumb rubs over worn gold and a still-shining diamond, a motion now wonderfully familiar. When he speaks again, he swallows over the emotion-laden hoarseness in his own voice.

“Rome.”

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome,

There is a feeling that you should just go home,

And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.