Archive of Our Own

03:07

She wonders if he’s sleeping at all tonight.

This morning, she corrects herself. 

Olivia can feel him next to her, shifting and just barely moving; almost delicate and slow as he tries not to wake her. She can feel it, though, in the dip of the mattress when Elliot rolls away from her softly; in the rustle of the sheets as he turns. She can hear it, too - in the scratch of his palm against his jaw, 

and in the way he breathes; a long, exhale out towards the ceiling fan that circles, slow and lazy above them. 

She’s not sleeping well either. She drifts in and out; gets to that point where she’s almost asleep - fuzzy and caught in between something that could be a dream, or could be a thought - then she’s slowly pulled out of it, awareness seeping back in. All of it coming back into focus. The weight of the comforter bunched down at her knees; the glow of the streetlights through a single strip in her curtains. Her mind, wide awake, even if her body is not. 

And Elliot, stirring beside her. 

Nerves, she thinks. 

It’s just nerves.  

Around three, she reaches for him. She slides her arm over first, hand reaching for the one he has draped over his own stomach. The back of her knuckles graze over the wiry hairs that run south below his navel, and it takes him a moment to respond. 

For a moment, she worries he finally fell asleep and she woke him back up, but then his fingers are tangling through hers, and his thumb is smoothing down the back of her own; and his voice isn’t sleepy at all as he asks. 

“Liv?” 

She turns; a half roll, slow and easy onto her side. Their hands stay entwined low on his stomach. Elliot still hasn’t moved as she settles, her nose pressed to his bare shoulder. Even at three in the morning, with the fan spinning above them and his top half uncovered, he’s warm. She lets her lips brush the outside of his bicep as she asks him.

“Can’t sleep?” she asks, keeping her lips right there. 

“Was trying to stay quiet,” he murmurs, voice gruff and soft, and moves their hands up so they rest over his heart. She can feel his chest rise and fall, every steady, even breath. Outside the city’s just starting to move, but here it’s just them and their quiet voices; the low hum of her white noise machine. 

Neither one of them is sleeping, but there’s no rush to it, like this. There’s nothing pressing, or immediate. Eventually, he pulls her hand up even higher, brushing the back of her knuckles with his lips before they settle back down on his chest. 

“How’d you know?”

Olivia has grown used to Elliot, sleeping here in her bed. She’s grown used to his soft snores, his head on the flattest of the four pillows she has. She’d done it the first time by accident; had come home with three medium firm, and then one that was too soft and she’d sighed when she pulled the huge plastic bag off of it.

“Shit,” she’d groaned, frustrated at herself for not paying attention. She replaces them every four months, like clockwork, all because she’d read an article a million years ago about dead skin and sweat that stuck. She grabs four every time for her bed, right from the same tall rack, and she can’t believe she’d messed up. 

“Noah won’t even use it,” she’d grumbled, pissed about being distracted and having to take it back, and he’d tugged it out of her hands.

“Keep it,” he’d grinned up at her from where he sat at the end of her bed, pillow tight to his middle. When she’d raised her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, he’d just shrugged, and tucked it behind his head as he laid down, plastic wrap and all, adjusting over and over again. He’d looked up at her with a smug smile, eyes soft and warm. 

“All your other ones have been hurting my neck,” he’d told her.

“Really, Elliot? My pillows are - ”

She’d start to laugh; started to shake her head and tell him to buy his own fucking soft pillow, when he’d sat up quickly, and pulled her close to him. One arm around her back, the other loose and curling at the nape of her neck, he’d surged up, meeting her lips with his own. Open mouthed and grinning, he’d kissed her; and leaned back so his head was on the pillow again. 

It crinkled loud underneath him as he’d kissed away her smart ass retort. Eventually, he’d pulled back, rolling them both as she’d yelped so it was her head, right at the edge of the still plastic covered pillow. He’d kept going, soft passes of his lips down the line of her jaw; the drag of his tongue and his teeth just so down her neck. She’d squirmed underneath him, rocking her hips up, pushing her head back into the pillow; ignoring how the plastic on the pillow made her hair go static.

“I love your hard ass pillows, Benson,” he’d told her, sliding his knees between her thighs, mouth hot and wet as he’d tugged at her collar. “Just don’t love the copay at the chiropractor.” 

Eventually, they’d swept the pillow to the ground. 

That was four replacement pillows ago. 

She’s almost due for another trip to the store - three medium-firm pillows and one soft - and Elliot Stabler and she have made it through almost six rotations of the pillows on her bed; and she knows by now how he likes to sleep almost flat. She knows how he rolls his head when he lays down, making sure there’s almost zero give to it at all. 

She knows now. 

Elliot officially gave up his apartment halfway into this last pillow cycle. 

So, yes - by now, she can tell when he’s sleeping; or when he’s tossing and turning. She can tell when work - when worry about a CI, or concern about someone on the team; or when his own choices come with a cost - or his family, or just the unsettled things that he holds too close to heart keep him up. 

“How’d you know?”

He asks her now, and she’s tempted to tell him all that. 

The way your breathing never slowed down; the way your heel accidentally caught on my shin. The way your knee popped when you extended it an hour ago, the way your breath caught when that happened. 

The way you itched your face, and then sighed. 

The way even when you’re trying to stay as quiet as possible, I can feel it. 

The way I feel it too. 

Instead, she scoots herself closer, tugging at their hands until he turns, too. He rolls on his side, their hands breaking apart, and his hand lands low, between the bottom of her rib cage and the jut of her hip. 

She lets her palm settle on his chest again. She can see his eyes like this, she thinks, and actually feel the steady beat of his heart. 

It’s a little too fast still, for three in the morning.

“I just did,” Olivia answers, tilting her chin up. The only light leaks in from below her door, a soft yellow strip from the hall, but she can see enough of him. Elliot’s eyes find hers. Even in the dark, she can see the way they soften. Automatically, almost instinctively, fully ahead of the rest of his body as he barely lets himself blink. 

Olivia feels her own body start to change too. The thing she’s been holding as well - the untethered feeling in her chest; the anticipation running up the length of her spine - starts to ebb as she looks back at him. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, then echoes it again; lower this time with a nod of his head. 

“Yeah.” 

The curl of his fingers tighten just slightly on her hip, and he scoots his own hips closer, even as he draws her in too. There have been so many times where they’ve done this by now - one or the other awake; the reach for a hand in the middle of the night.

Neither one looks away now. 

They breathe.

She waits until she feels the beat of his heart start to slow. His breathing slows next, and the hand on her hip relaxes. She feels her own body mirror his. 

He’ll wait until her eyes drift shut to close his own, she knows. 

Nerves, she thinks.

It’s just nerves. 

—

04:02

Shortly after four, Elliot wakes up again. 

It’s quick; a sort of a startle in some dream he can’t quite remember. Nothing that makes his heart race, or his breath catch, but whatever it was - it was enough. His eyes fly open, the muscles in his legs jerking them forward and he breathes through pursed lips; bracing himself so he doesn’t move anymore. 

Anticipation, he thinks. 

It’s just anticipation. 

I’m sorry, he opens his mouth, ready to say it, but as his eyes focus, he sees her there, still asleep.

He’s surprised to see Olivia so close, still. Normally she moves away as she sleeps, body instinctively seeking a cooler refuge at the corners of the bed.

He leans forward instead, his apology for not waking her up unnecessary. Her breathing is even and slow. Her toes press into his shin; her knee close to his under the sheets. Elliot brushes his lips against her hairline before he closes his eyes. 

“Morning,” he whispers to her, knowing full well she won’t hear. 

It’s breathtaking, sometimes, the thought of this. The casual intimacy of waking mid-morning to press a kiss to Olivia Benson’s temple. She doesn’t even stir as he does it, her body finally giving in to the last bit of exhaustion. 

His fingers settle on the curve of her hip, as he feels himself start to drift off again. 

So lucky, he thinks, as sleep finds him again. 

—

06:30

They sleep a little too late. 

Her five-thirty alarm becomes six, becomes six-thirty. She’d hoped to get a run in this morning before they left for the day; hoped that three miles as the sun rose outside would center her, just a little. Instead she presses the orange sleep button with one bleary eye cracked open and a heavy thumb, then sinks back into the pull of sleep. 

When they wake up, it’s slow for a weekday. 

For a Friday, too. 

“He’s - ” 

Elliot cuts himself off with a yawn. Somewhere in between five-thirty and now, she’d worked her way closer to him. One of her thighs drapes over his; and his hand moves slowly, tracing its way down the side as they listen. 

“He's up and moving,” Elliot murmurs, voice groggy. 

Outside their room there’s the thump of footsteps down the hall; the too loud sound of a bathroom door being shut by a teenager who's still half asleep. She nods into his chest. They need to be up and moving too, and soon, but Elliot’s arm tightens around her as he asks. “You set the coffee last night?” 

She nods into his chest. 

The groan of the pipes is loud as Noah starts the shower. 

Elliot’s chest rises and falls, and his hand trails low, sliding down her back. They need to get moving, they both know; but she expects it now, when it happens. His hand, moving faster now over her ass; down low in between her thighs. He stops right on the inside of one, fingers wrapping at the inside. He pulls, gentle. 

She goes, easily. 

She slides on top of him; her sleep shirt bunching up as she does. Warm skin against warm skin; the wiry curls below his navel against the soft slide of her belly. Her knees on the inside of his, his hands reaching up to smooth the hair away from her face as he leans up.

He presses his lips to hers and lets them linger as he asks, voice thick and sleep filled:

“Tired?” 

She considers it, as she gazes down at him. The lines around his eyes seem less harsh in the morning; etched less deep into his skin until he adjusts to the day. She winces a little as she presses herself forward. 

The catch in her left hip still smarts this early in the morning.

“A little,” she nods, and brushes her lips against his one more time. They both taste like sleep - not unpleasant, and a little stale - but she loves this moment, when they have it. They need to keep going, keep pressing forward. It’s Friday, they’re busy; they have a full day and plans, and the clock is still ticking, but - 

She loves this, when they have it. 

“I’ve been more tired before.” 

She grins as they break apart, and wriggles herself down so her head rests on his chest. He is broadest here, wide and strong; no give at all. From here, she can hear it and feel it, Elliot’s voice a rumble against her cheek. 

Any nerves from early this morning seem gone. 

“Happy almost birthday, baby,” he murmurs. She feels the press of his lips against her hairline; the slow dance of his fingers down her spine. 

“It’s gonna be a good day.” 

                                                                                                                                                                                                    —

06:58

The bustle of the morning isn’t always this way.

Sometimes one of them is just gone - pulled out of bed at one in the morning, in the front seat of their car while the other one sleeps. Sometimes she’s up later; on a run while he showers and leaves. Sometimes it’s one of them sleeping off a late night at the job while the other gets ready. It’s Olivia, and her knee pressed down at the edge of a mattress, and him reaching up and drawing her close - even in a half sleep, eyes barely open - so she can dip her head down and kiss him goodbye. 

Most of the time, though, it’s just like it is this morning:

Elliot turning the coffee pot on, then showers; rushed because they spent five minutes too long in her bed, hands roaming and lazy, languid kisses exchanged. The smell of her bergamot body wash (that he knows he uses too much of) on both their bodies as they dress. 

“Hazelnut creamer, or that cinnamon stuff - ” 

It’s Elliot, this morning, and a mug of coffee he sets by the sink as she blows dry her hair. Her bathroom counter is crowded with supplies - an overflowing makeup bag, serums and oils and creams for her hair and face both - and he has to nudge an unplugged curling iron to the side to make room for her mug. Her eyes meet his in the mirror and she shoots him a tired, grateful smile as she keeps moving. Her makeup is only half done; the top half of her hair damp, and piled up in a clip.

Her smile blooms a little bit larger as his own lips twitch up. 

Lucky, he thinks. 

“Hazelnut is fine,” she tells him over the low roar of the hair dryer, and god, he wishes they had a little more time in their day. 

He wants to peel the pink hair dryer out of her hands, and set it down in the sink. He wants to put a hand around her waist and a hand into that spot on her neck where the ends of her hair are still wet. He wants to back her up, Olivia’s ass against the sink and his tongue, hot and wet in her mouth. He wants to growl a little bit when she surges back, when she cups his head with her hands and uses her teeth and her tongue. He wants the bottom of her robe to gape open, and he wants to turn around and lock the door and he can see it - when her eyes go a little big and she shakes her head quickly under the heat of the hair dryer - that she sees it, too, staring back in the reflection of his eyes. 

Her teeth curl around her bottom lip, and she shakes her head just a little bit harder.

If they had twenty more minutes, maybe. 

Tonight, he thinks. 

The anticipation in his belly blooms all over again with his eyes on her in the mirror. 

Tonight. 

He grins, instead, and nods.

“I’ll be right back with the hazelnut.” 

—

07:22

Over quick bowls of cereal - Raisin Bran Crunch, Raisin Bran, and the low sugar ‘crunchy cinnamon squares’ that Ginny McCann buys for Connor at Trader Joe’s that Noah came home with last week - she watches and listens to Elliot talk about the Friday ahead with her son. 

He’s got a math test this morning.

“You study?” he asks her kid, head tilted at the workbook at the table. Elliot moves the cereal around his bowl, searching for more clusters of oats and honey among the flakes and the raisins. He nods when he finds one, and scoops it up before he continues. “Or you gonna wing it again?” 

“I didn’t - ”

Noah shakes his head and answers around a mouthful of cereal. There’s a smart ass retort on the tip of his tongue, and she catches it before he actually says it. Olivia raises her eyebrows, stilling her own spoon. 

“I studied, yeah,” he grumbles out. 

She swallows her own smile back. It seems like a million years ago when she’d stood in that hallway and told Elliot her son gets attached easily. He did, when it happened - when Elliot started coming for dinners and started staying after, late evenings on their couch watching America’s Got Talent: Fantasy Edition - Noah barely flinched. 

He’d made room for Elliot like he’d been waiting for him. 

Now, he antagonizes both of them. She feels it get under her skin, sometimes, which she supposes is the plight of raising a teenager. The under the breath grumbles; the snide looks over breakfast - she has to remind herself to bite her tongue every day. 

Elliot, for his part, shrugs it right off. 

“You’ll ace it, kid,” he says around a mouthful of bran and raisins. She can see Noah shrug, but she knows he doesn’t hate the praise. He ducks his head close to his bowl, slurping up the last of the milk as Elliot finishes. 

“You’re in honors for a reason.” 

She looks up just in time to see the ghost of Noah’s smile. 

If it was Sunday - if it was Sunday and nothing went belly up in the city - they’d linger, she knows. Over waffles and orange juice and turkey bacon and eggs. They’d talk about plans and tv shows, the latest gossip they have to pry out of Noah until he starts to get going. 

It’s Friday, though, and time is ticking. 

Olivia looks down at her phone as she picks up her bowl and heads to the sink. Velasco has already called once while she was getting dressed, updating her on a case they’d caught two days ago, and she can see the message from Fin now. If it was pressing, he’d call, but if it’s enough to text her this early, she knows she’s walking into some chaos. She needs to get there soon, if she has any hope for her night. 

For their night. 

She feels her breath hitch a little at the thought, something tight and warm uncurling again inside her. She breathes in, quick through her nose, then out slowly. Everytime it hits her, she’s taken aback just like this.

Behind her, Elliot busies himself shutting the lids to the cereal boxes. He is frustratingly meticulous about rolling the plastic inner bag down and making sure they’re sealed tight. He uses chip clips, sometimes, if the bag isn’t opened perfectly. The first time he’d done it, Noah and her had both stared. 

Now it’s just part of their day. 

“Almost ready, gorgeous?” 

He says it low, not loud enough for Noah to hear. She can still hear the plastic crinkling, and then she can feel him turn, his hand brushing her back as she nods as he says it. She rolls her eyes, shaking her head, but that feeling of warmth from before only spreads at his words.

“Almost, yeah, just a - ”

Before she can finish, Elliot draws close behind her. His chin to her shoulder, hand moving from the small of her back, to her hip; nose nudging at the gold chain of her necklace before he presses a kiss, quick. She smiles as she lets her body sway back into his touch. 

“Almost.” 

His other hand holds a box of Raisin Bran Crunch; destined to be tucked into the cabinet. He slides her as close as he can before he moves on, one more kiss right behind the bottom of her ear. 

She loves it here, truly. In their own little normal - high fiber cereal packed away in the kitchen, the last dregs of coffee sipped from a mug - right before they holster their guns in the living room. 

“I have tryouts tonight, don’t forget.”

Noah tells them as he slides off the barstool, reaching for his backpack to pack it, and they move apart. Elliot reaches over the counter for his bowl. When her phone starts ringing again and she sighs, thumbing it open and answering - frustrated at having her hands full and the way they’re already late - he moves her over with a gentle nudge of his hip to hers and a low murmur of “scoot, I got this.” 

It’s familiar and easy and it is them, today in her kitchen, cleaning up and stacking the dishwasher. 

It’s also twenty years ago and the two of them at the coffee pot in the precinct. It’s her eyes, burning from fatigue after 33 hours at work, and a stack of crime scene photos Cragen had told her to go over again. 

“Did you want - fuck - ”

It was her fingers fumbling as she tried to separate a flimsy paper filter from the stack. 

“God damn it,” she’d muttered, tossing down the stack of them. They were all tired, and on edge; and just twenty minutes ago she’d watched Elliot snap two pencils in half between his fingers after a shitty phone call. 

“These fucking things, I’m - ” She’d needed coffee, and she’d needed to look at those photos and she needed to keep moving. She needed to keep moving and the fucking seam on the filters wouldn’t give and she’d been about to throw it all down, and walk back to her desk when she’d felt it. 

“Hey, it’s - Benson.” 

It had been sudden, him closing the space between them. It had been Elliot’s fingers (the same ones she’d seen break two No.2 yellows right in the middle, knuckles and thumb not giving until he’d felt the snap) plucking the stack of filters out of her hand, easy and gentle; and it had been his hip, nudging hers, just like it is now. 

“Scoot,” he’d told her, moving her slightly. He’d pulled the large can of grounds up, and he’d separated the one on top from the rest.“I got this.” 

This morning, it’s an echo of that. 

Different, but familiar. 

Like everything about being able to call Elliot Stabler her own. 

She watches Elliot and her son in the kitchen. They chat quietly, both of them gathering their stuff for their day. Elliot fills up her travel mug full of coffee, then his own. On the other end of the line, Fin is talking about two witnesses who agreed to come in and look at a photo lineup on the iPads. They’re due in a little over an hour, and she’ll need to clear it with the powers that be. 

“Sorry to rush you along, Liv, but… ”

Olivia nods. 

“No, no - I’m headed in now,” she tells her Sergeant. 

They’ll be back here later.

Besides, the sooner she’s done - 

They need to keep moving. 

On their journey downstairs and out the door to their vehicles, they talk about Noah’s tryouts at school. The play is at the perfect time of the year for once, timed with a lull at his dance studio. It means he can try out for the first time, and he’s been running lines in his room all week; chattering excitedly (when he lets his guard down) at the dinner table and in the back of her SUV about The Wizard of Oz.

He’s been looking forward to Friday all week. 

“Nervous?” she asks Noah, her eyes dancing to meet Elliot’s over her son’s shoulder. She can see it, there, when their eyes meet. She is asking her son - about his tryouts, his own plans for the afternoon - but the moment isn’t lost on either one of them. She feels dizzy all of the sudden, at the reality of it. 

The right side of Elliot’s lips curl up in a smile. Shy, almost, but somehow sure all the same. She breathes through pursed lips when her heart starts to race. 

Her fingers wrap around the cold metal bar of the door handle, and she pulls it open with his hand on her back. 

“Nope,” Noah tells them as he walks through the door, his mop of curls moving more than the rest of him does. 

“Not at all.”

Elliot kisses her too long by the side of her car for a Friday morning. Inside the SUV, Noah’s probably rolling his eyes, but she smiles into it, meeting his grin with her own. She feels the kiss, low and swooping in her belly; then all the way up the length of her spine, just like this morning. 

Her anticipation only builds as his lips move against hers. 

She laughs into the kiss when Elliot moves to sweep his hands into her hair, then stops himself quickly, fingers flexing instead as they settle low, on the nape of her neck instead. 

“Hair,” he murmurs, chiding himself, and she nods. 

“Hair,” she echoes, pulling back. It’s too early in the day for her to show up to work with hair that’s a little too big; a little too mussed from his touch. 

He keeps his hand low, fingers softly curled so the pads graze the back of her neck. His thumb settles right at her pulse point. It’s racing, still, from the kiss and from everything else. 

He keeps it there for a moment longer than he probably should, waiting, she knows, for it to slow down. Elliot’s eyes meet hers and he holds her gaze. Inside the car she can hear Noah shift back and forth, anxious about getting to school. 

“It’s going to be a good day, Liv,” Elliot reminds her. 

—

09:48

He lets his mind wander as he waits for his boss to come back from the bathroom. 

They’re early, this morning - meeting purposefully offsite with the Lieutenant from another department far away from prying eyes and curious ears - and he’s fairly sure Ayanna is sitting in the stall and texting the Lieutenant she’s definitely not not dating not to give it away. It had been obvious enough the last time they all met, but when he’d started to mention, Ayanna had cut him off; kneecapped him right away before he could go on.

“We don’t all - ” She’d shaken her head as he’d grinned in the car. He’d watched the way the other woman had eyeballed his boss. He knew, but he’d given up, and he’d looked dead ahead, eyes fixed on the street in front of him as she finished. 

“We don’t all just date other cops, Stabler.” 

The irony was, he thinks now, if you’d told him two years ago he’d be dating Olivia Benson - living with Olivia Benson; picking her kid up from school, and watching reality cooking shows on her couch; buying her ginger ale when she caught a stomach bug three weeks ago - he wouldn’t have even been able to picture it. If you would have told him that his boss knew he’d moved in with Captain Olivia Benson, he would have laughed. 

For all his faith that things would work out, when he’d penned that line at the end of a letter, it had been the closest he’d ever gotten to letting himself picture it. Before then, he’d tried - so hard, he’d tried - to push any conscious wonderings away. 

He’d made his bed.

Subconsciously, of course, he couldn’t control it; but even when he still dreamed about Olivia - when he’d dreamed about her in Rome, with his wife beside him; in London and Paris and Prague, alone - it was always of her in the past. Olivia, at her desk, pencil tucked behind her ear, catching him up on a case over coffee. Olivia, her hand on his shoulder; pushing up off of him as she loaded herself in the back of a bus with a victim. Olivia in her apartment when he’d stopped by with a six pack and a grin; when for a moment it did seem like maybe. 

Her hair, her smile, her smell - all the past parts of her he kept too close - it was always Olivia then, though. 

Like even that Elliot - the unconscious one he couldn’t control - was still too terrified to picture it. 

To want it. 

 In a parallel universe —

It wasn’t until his last undercover when he’d truly allowed it to happen. When he’d laid - in shitty motel beds in southwestern Pennsylvania; in between the cinder block walls back in the city - and he’d let himself picture anything close to this. Waking up with her and falling asleep with her; her hand in his on the street. 

Lunches in her office and in the front seat of his car. 

The pillow she buys just for him.

A life - with her. 

— it will always be you and I. 

Ayanna makes her way back to the table, now. He’s half a cup of coffee in already - his second of the day, well against the advice of the generalist he’d seen a few weeks ago for a physical; the one who’d mentioned blood pressure that was right on the border - and he can already feel his knee twitching. 

It’s not just the caffeine, he knows.

It doesn’t help, but it’s not just the caffeine. 

His sergeant checks her watch as she slides into the booth. 

“Ten more minutes, and knowing her - ” 

She sighs, and Elliot fights back against the urge to grin. There are two full mugs of tea on the table on Ayanna’s side. She’d ordered them as soon as she sat down, asking for a side of honey too. 

He’s been working for her for five years, and he’s never seen her add honey to tea. 

Ayanna runs her finger down the handle of the mug. 

“Knowing her she’ll be late,” she grumbles, lips pursed as she looks out the window. 

He wants to tell her he’s not as obtuse as he looks. That he thinks it’s great, actually, if she’s finally getting serious with someone again. He wants to tell Ayanna that it’s amazing, actually - if she’s settling down, and drinking honey with tea in the morning with the petite Lieutenant with the high cheekbones and cute glasses she wears in her hair more than on the bridge of his nose. He wants to tell her he gets it, and that she should feel free to tell him -

“Weekend plans?”

From across the table his boss asks him, interrupting his thoughts and catching him off guard. He tries not to squirm. He turns back into the table, coffee cup to his lips. It’s just an innocent question, he tells himself. 

“Nothing too - ”

He stops himself. There’s a difference between omission and lying, he knows.

Elliot looks down at the scratched table top as he answers. There are little flecks of gray in a sea of yellow and green Formica. It’s actually retro, not just attempting to be retro. There are nicks and dings all over it. 

“Hopefully something outside. After last weekend…”

“The rain, yeah,” Ayanna nods, her spoon circling in her mug of tea as she adds half of a little green packet of stevia. She folds the end of it over on itself, and leaves the rest of the packet on the table, closer to the saucer and mug for their guest. 

Omission, he thinks. 

“Jack and I were practically crawling the walls by Sunday night.” 

He clears his throat, shrugging and leaning back in the booth as he nods. His own rainy weekend inside was a little bit different. Noah in Woodstock, and somehow very few interruptions; their phones only ringing a handful of times. 

It had been blissful.

He tries not to flush as he remembers it now. 

Olivia and him, the curtains in her bedroom wide open. The hard, incessant downpour outside; battering her windows each time the wind blew. The half empty mugs of coffee on her bedside table, their reading glasses folded besides them. 

The dig of her headboard against the back of his head. Her hands, one curled into his neck and one gripping that same headboard as she’d hovered close, head ducking down to find his lips with her own. 

That low, satisfied groan she’d made when she’d sunk all the way down on his cock. How her eyes had fluttered shut and her head had tilted back and how she’d looked; all golden skin and flushed cheeks as she’d started to move. The compass had moved with each rock of her hips, caught in between her chest and his chin. 

“Good, baby?” he’d murmured; gravelly and low next to her ear. Outside the rain had grown harsher; angrier and louder, but all he could hear was her. Her husky voice, her breathless pant when she’d answered. 

“So good.”

The rainy weekend was fine, for him. For them. 

“How about you?” he asks now, leaning in; trying to shake away the memory. He needs to get out of his head. They’re about to sit down and discuss a joint operation, and they all need to focus. 

“Not much, just…” 

Across from him, Ayanna shakes her head, voice trailing off. She lowers the spoon she’d been using onto the saucer. Her eyes dance up to meet Elliot’s, then dart left to look out the window again. When his own gaze follows her, he fully expects to see what he sees. The carefully dressed Lieutenant, - with her high cheekbones and her glasses carefully clipped to the front of her dress shirt - is striding across the parking lot. 

His boss watches her just a moment too long. Her eyes follow the other woman’s confident walk, the way she moves quickly to the front door of the diner. 

Then, Ayanna shakes her head, and she turns back to him. 

“No plans for me,” she tells him.

Elliot sets his coffee mug down. The ceramic hits the table a little too hard, and what’s left of his coffee sloshes up, not quite hitting the rim. 

‘Me neither,’ he starts to reply, then stops himself. 

Omissions, he thinks. Omissions aren’t quite a lie.

—

11:57

Olivia eats lunch in the front of her SUV.

She lets Fin drive them both back from the witness’s apartment so she can finish before they get back. When she’d taken over; when SVU had become hers - hers to steer, hers to watch over, hers to shepherd - she’d worried about too much time at the desk. She’d worried she’d be stuck in bureaucracy; mired in administrative tasks all the time. That she’d never get out in the field, or spend time with victims again. 

She shouldn’t have worried.

“God, this - ”

Fin checks the dashboard screen for the time. Since she arrived this morning, they’ve stood on the opposite end of the glass through two interrogations. They’ve visited the apartments on each side of their victim and it had been Fin who suggested they stop and grab lunch ‘while they can, before we end up eating those stale ass granola bars in the break room again.’ 

“This whole damn day is flying by.”

She nods, mind on the phone screen in front of her. The turkey sandwich she’s trying to finish is dry; too much bread and not enough anything else, but she barely notices. It’s not that they're extra busy at all, or that the case is extra hard. 

A normal day, a normal case for her - a woman’s whole life upended on the other end. She is trying to stay on task; to keep up the pace for that young woman’s sake.

“Yeah - it’s certainly moving,” she sighs. She looks up from her phone at the red light to see Fin looking over at her, a half grin on his face. He’s discarded his own sandwich; giving up after three-fourths of it and putting it back in the bag. She follows his lead, wrinkling her nose as she puts the last of her sandwich in the bag. She tilts her head at it, after.

“What - ”

She rubs her hands on the napkin on the console. 

“You don’t have to eat it all but I do just because you bought for once, Sergeant?”

Fin laughs, a loud bark as the light turns green. He shakes his head as he presses on the gas, eyes straight ahead again. They’re five minutes away. 

“Nah, just was gonna make small talk if you were actually done. Ask about your birthday or something, but - ”

He lifts one one hand off the wheel, a mock surrender. 

“I’ll let you be.”

“Wow, ok - ”

She rolls her eyes, but she does give him the grace of a real smile. She tucks her hair behind her ear and puts her phone down as she turns to Fin, shaking her head. “Can’t believe you remembered.” She keeps her voice light and teasing because they both know it’s not true. He usually does exactly this, she knows; acknowledges her birthday quietly. 

He's a good friend; Fin Tutola. 

“Why do you think I paid for lunch?” Fin laughs, head cocked quickly at the bag on the console. “Sorry it turned out to be…”

He shrugs, grinning. 

“Next year I’ll spring for something better, I promise.” 

Fin looks over at her now, same shit-eating grin as before on his face. 

“So, what is Stabler planning for your birthday this year? Big plans for tomorrow?”

She takes a long breath in, waiting. The hand that had been in her lap has risen now, thumb smoothing the back of the compass. She remembers a birthday from two years ago; when she’d been trying to push herself forward. She’d had Elliot’s voicemail memorized - not just the words, at that point, but every small part; his intonation, the breaths that he took, she’d listened to it over and over - but she felt like there was still so much work for both of them. 

They got there, slowly but surely. 

She remembers last year’s birthday, too. A day, just like this, actually. A Friday, with a case she’d probably recall in great detail if someone told her the names. A day at work, and then a night in with Elliot and her son; and she remembers looking around in that moment - looking at her apartment kitchen. The lights all on, and the music from her Alexa too loud; some song that always makes Elliot pause, even now. Billy Joel, and doors shut and reopened - he always listened to it so intently.

He still does now. 

There’d been the Alexa playing loudly, and every light on, and the happy chatter of Noah and Elliot. It had felt like it was a million degrees, the weather uncannily warm and her kitchen overheated from the pasta Elliot had made. Her phone had rung once during dinner, she remembers. 

There’d been a cake in the refrigerator from a place that charged way too much. 

Truth be told, it was one of the best birthdays she could remember. 

She swallows, and opens her mouth to reply to Fin about her plans for the weekend. She can be evasive, she’s well aware. Technically, he’d asked about tomorrow, and not tonight. 

In her lap, her phone vibrates once, then again. At the same time, she hears Fin’s ringtone; muffled by his jacket pocket. Both of them straighten up in their seats. The mental leap from personal back to the reality of what they do is easy, after all this time. 

“That’ll be Velasco,” he tells her, shifting to the left to pull his phone out of his pocket. His voice is no nonsense now. Her brain is already all the way back to the case, and the young woman that needs them. “I told him to text us those updated photos from the crime scene.” 

This is her normal, she knows. This is her life. She remembers the point in time where she’d sworn she’d never be able to live a life that was normal. When she slides open her phone, she sees two text messages from Elliot, and a text reminder to pick up her dry cleaning; all underneath Velasco’s message to her and Fin. 

This is just her everyday. 

This is why they’d picked today. 

—

14:23 

He’s not quite sure what the protocol is here.

He’s not quite sure there is a protocol for what they’re doing at all. 

He’d texted her around lunchtime to tell her he was planning to take off early and get some groceries, provided that nothing exploded (figuratively or literally) on the job. She’d texted him back a short list and he’d had enough of a lull after lunch to actually do it, grabbing everything she’d texted back: 

 Milk, eggs, turkey bacon 

Those noodles that Noah likes for dinner (???)

She likes them too, he knows. The cavatappi are her favorite shape, even if she can never remember what they’re called. 

“Find everything?” the cashier asks him now, scanning his member card and handing it back. He’d grabbed a few other things he’d needed as well - a bag of low carb tortilla chips that Olivia likes to stand at the kitchen counter and eat when she skips dinner on accident; dipping it into hummus and salsa. He’d put protein powder and oatmeal for himself. 

He’d tossed in the fake, organic Oreos that Noah eats, too.

Then he’d circled the aisles, searching for something he couldn’t quite figure out. 

About three aisles in, he’d thought about how silly it was; searching for the right thing in the middle of a Manhattan grocery store. He wasn’t going to find what he was looking for next to Amy’s Breakfast Burritos, or the frozen egg bites that he thinks are too dry and she thinks are just fine. It wasn’t in the coffee grounds that tasted like everything but coffee that Olivia buys and he wrinkles his nose at, and it wasn’t hidden in between the white and the red pasta sauces in the third aisle in. 

It was a ridiculous place to even look. 

“No, I’m - “

Elliot starts to shake his head now, and that’s when he sees it. The little racks of candy they keep stacked at the cash registers, right where parents are too hurried and frazzled to say no when their kids pull it off and beg for a treat. They’re there, the little tubes of candy covered chocolates that definitely are not M&M’s. 

“They’re - what? They’re organic, Elliot,” she’d told him almost two years ago. He’d raised his eyes when he’d sat at her counter and watched her open them up, and eat them absentmindedly. They’d just started back then - still brand new - but he’d grinned, because even if this was a do-over he hadn’t earned, somethings never actually changed. He liked to give her hell about how normal she was. 

“Those are - “

He’d reached over and tugged them gently from her hand. He’d made a big show of examining the wrapper, and then pulled one out, studying it. He’d popped it in his mouth with a grin.

“Those are M&M’s, Liv. The mini kind.” 

She’d sauntered around the counter then, meeting him on his side. She’d started shaking her head, ready to argue and he’d doubled down. 

“It’s fine to just admit it - you always did have a - “

Olivia pulled the candies from his hand, and took another step in. All fake indignation and bluster, as she put them back on the counter. Toe to toe, chest to chest, a big smile on her face as her eyes danced; and then his breath had hitched at how fast it all was. 

How close she stood. 

How when she smiled, he could see the lines around her eyes soften and how beautiful that was to him. It had been new and old both, back then, really giving into that playfulness.

They’d gotten there by the skin of their teeth. 

“A what, Elliot?” she’d asked, as his hand snaked down to find her waist. He’d squeezed there, and pulled her even closer. Her hair brushed against his face; and her breath smelled sweet, and his chest had felt tight at how happy she looked. 

With him. 

“A sweet tooth,” he’d murmured as he’d leaned in. She’d swayed forward and into his touch, and he’d brushed his lips against her, waiting. 

It was Olivia who deepened the kiss. It was Olivia, that night, who gasped when he’d backed her up against the counter; the tube of fake M&M’s scattering all over it. It was Olivia who’d laughed, breathless and low, when he’d kissed his way down her neck and told her organic M&M’s tasted exactly the same.

It was the first moment he can remember where it actually felt that light. Where he felt like maybe she’d realized she could have it; her own sort of normal. 

Elliot grins as he grabs them now. Tomorrow, on her birthday, they’ll have cake. Ice cream, too, because he knows her son will insist. He has her real gift tucked into his inside jacket pocket; kept safe and close to his heart, but yeah, he thinks. 

Fake M&M’s will work, too. 

–-

15:09

Olivia drains the last of her third cup of coffee. 

She should have stopped after she finished her travel mug from this morning, but Bruno had offered to make a fresh pot and she’d felt drained enough at the time to agree. 

She regrets it more than a little, now.

“Hey - hey - ” she answers the phone and she winces, immediately, at the sound of her own voice. Too fast; too high and too breathless, the first hey half strangled as she’d answered. She clears her throat now, and tries again. 

“Hi.” 

“You good there, Benson?” he asks, voice muffled and echoing at the same time. He’s unpacking something into the refrigerator, she knows. Milk and eggs and probably that coffee creamer he likes and she hates. It tastes like nothing, just watery almond milk, but he buys that for him, and he buys oat milk creamer for her and he knows to add twice as long of a glug to each cup of hers. 

“I’m…”

She is, actually. She is good. It’s not anxiety that has her knee twitching under the desk, and her heart rate just a little too high. It’s not nerves that has her stomach doing something she’d call butterflies. (She’d call it butterflies, maybe, but she’d make sure to pat the back of the Olivia of all those yesterdays as she did; pat her gently on the shoulder as she walks past her with a smile and a shrug. 

It turns out they weren’t wrong, when everyone talked about real love). 

It isn’t fear that has electricity running up and down the length of her spine. 

On the other end of the phone, she hears the creek of her kitchen cabinet door. Elliot’s putting away the reusable grocery bags, she knows. He’d probably fold them perfectly, all military precision as he tucks them away. Noah and her always just toss them in there, then shut the door before they fall out. 

We beat the odds, she thinks. Elliot in her - their - kitchen, putting away her groceries. Elliot, in her life everyday. Their own sort of normal days, just like this. 

“I’m good, El.” 

She knows he hears it in her voice.

Before they both go she reminds him to move the clothes in the wash to the dryer. He agrees, and he laughs when she reminds him to take out her sweater. He's got it, he tells her. Air dry on the rack.

“I’ll see you soon, Liv,” he tells her before they hang up. 

She doesn’t think she’s imagining that she hears it there, in his voice too. 

—

16:32

Elliot Stabler has carried a lot of things into the courthouse. 

He’s carried piles and piles of paper, back before everything went virtual. Stuck in a briefcase, or pressed into an oversized yellow envelope, tucked under his arm and walked up the stairs. He’s carried a computer, too; bulky laptops that got thinner and thinner with time; working in between proceedings whenever he could. 

He’s carried stuffed animals, too. Little plush bears and striped tigers for young victims set to testify. A stuffed caterpillar once, for a young girl who told her mother all she wanted to do was become a butterfly. 

He’s carried countless cups of coffee inside; back before the rules got too strict and it was easier to just buy one (or two) inside. 

Shit, he’s even helped carry a body inside; blood from the man’s bullet holes seeping on to his clothes. Too late, they all knew, but they had to try.

He’s carried a lot of things into this courthouse.

“Late night?” 

The security guard stationed in the front entrance nods at him when he flashes his badge. 

“Indeed,” he tells him. “On a Friday, even.” 

Elliot nods, a half grin on his face as he walks past the metal detector. He wonders if she’ll walk right past too; if she’ll do what he’s doing right now. Flash her badge like this is official business; leave her gun holstered on her hip as she walks to the side. 

Probably, he decides as he rounds the corner. 

He can’t wait to see her and find out. He hadn’t bothered with his firearm after he’d headed here. He’d tucked into the safe in her living room. 

In their living room.

He’d tucked it in there, and he’d slid on a suit that he puts on more often than he ever used to. Once a week, usually; standing in front of the mirror while Olivia finishes knotting his tie. Her nimble fingers working the knot all the way up while his own fingertips sink into the warm and soft curves of her hips. 

They usually stand together in the living room in the morning at the safe; the last step between the outside world and her home.

Their home, now. 

Tonight though, he hadn’t brought it and he could have gone through the magnetometer, he knows, since he didn’t have it. 

He had his reasons, though. 

He hadn’t wanted to let it out of his sight.

As he settles on a bench outside a small, not often used courtroom tucked to the side of the building, Elliot reaches into his inner pocket. The box is small and light. He shakes his head and laughs a little as he opens it up. The metal inside wouldn’t have even made the machine beep. 

He’s carried so many things up the stairs, and into the hall of this courthouse. 

This is the first time he’s carried a wedding band for Olivia Benson into the courthouse. 

—

17:03

Olivia wonders if there’s some sort of metaphor wrapped up in the thing where she’s three minutes late to her own wedding.

Probably more than one, she thinks.

“Hey, I’m just - ” She says it, half out of breath as she waves her badge at Elias, the night security guard at the courthouse. He waves his hand back; a lazy half salute to the Captain he knows well by now, and ushers her through. She’d run up the stairs to the courthouse, ear pressed to the phone as she called him. “I’m sorry. I’m almost here.”

On the other end of the line, she hears Elliot’s soft laugh. She hears him breathe, and then the rustle of his chin against the collar of his jacket as he tells her. 

“Relax, Liv.”

She hears him exhale, and the creek of the bench and she is maybe sixty seconds away. A minute between her and him and their future, and his voice is low, gravelly and thick in his throat as he tells her. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

It’s familiar, those four words. The way he says it tonight is a call back, and she knows it’s purposeful. A reminder, to that night eighteen months ago. 

That night they’d laid, quiet, heads on their respective pillows. 

His soft and flat; hers still firm enough. 

Her hand been low, flat against her abdomen. Her knee had been pushed up against his. She could feel him awake, next to her. 

Neither one of them could sleep. 

Insomnia, or too much coffee in the afternoon for her. Maybe both. Most likely, the endless lists she makes all the time; full of tasks and people and cases and everything else; turning over and over and over. 

Nothing new at all for her. 

What had been new that night was Elliot, there, beside her. Not new new; not really, but it had been the first time a real sleepless night had struck them both at the same time. Beside her, he’d cleared his throat, voice gruff as he started to ask. 

“You, Liv - you know - ”

By then, he knew about all the things that he’d missed. The good things; the bad things. He knew about the scar, small and thin and much longer than wide; tucked in between two of her ribs. The skin had turned silvery and soft with time, but he’d known, by then. 

He’d rolled over, shifting them both. With his head to his bicep, he’d waited for her to do the same. When she’d joined him, turned to her side so she could see him, he’d reached out his hand slowly in the dark. His fingertips had found it after a moment, the pad of his thumb grazing the scar lightly.

She’d felt her pulse start to quicken - a reaction that laid dormant, that rapid beat of her heart; the thrum of the nerves under her skin - but he’d kept it right there and she’d felt it pass almost as fast as it had come on. EMDR had slowly but surely worked its magic, and she could do that now, without feeling it all.

He could do that now, too. 

She’d waited then, for him to go on. She could see the moment his eyes focused all the way in on hers. Even in the dark she could see the heaviness there, and she understood, finally, what was keeping him awake. 

“You know I’m not going anywhere, right?” 

He’d said it slowly; quietly, his thumb smoothing across and down; a light circle he pressed into her skin. Part of her wanted to shake her head in answer, and tell him no one knew that. They can’t predict the future. He could be gone tomorrow, his own choice or not. 

“I’m here now. I’m - not… ” It wasn’t even the first time they'd talked about that. Not the first time that he’d told her he knew it was time to stop running; time to come home. She believed him, she knew that. “

“It’s…” 

She’d breathed through pursed lips, her knee digging into his thigh. She’d let her eyes drift shut for a moment. It didn’t feel bad, the way his thumb traced against that place. She’d rested her own hand on his chest; palm flat above his heart as she’d answered. 

“I know, Elliot,” she’d told him. 

She did know that night. She knew now, too. 

She was there that night, and she was here today because her heart had made a home in him, and it doesn’t feel bad, sometimes, his reminders. 

He’s not going anywhere. 

Elliot’s here, around that corner, waiting for her. There is no wedding band in her pocket, like she knows there is in his. They’d found hers last Sunday. They hadn’t had time to go and find one for him this week. 

They will, though. 

No one’s going anywhere anytime soon.

“Sorry, there was just - ” Olivia gestures to no one. She exhales as she slows down her walking. The familiar hallways that are normally busy are almost empty now. It sounds so silly to tell Elliot she’s late to this because something came up, but she’d been stopped at the elevator by a young Detective from Major Crimes who needed advice on a victim. “I got held up.” 

His response comes easy, matter of fact and warm. 

“You’re here now.”

She spots him as she turns the last corner, phone to his ear and a grin on his face. He is in that familiar suit. The inner right hem of the shirt has a small gray stain at the edge. He’s been meaning to stop by the store where he got it and grab a new one. 

Maybe soon. 

After all, he’ll have to get a new suit in April, when they do this again. In front of their family and friends, when they pretend it’s the very first time - with only the two of them the wiser. 

Elliot puts down his phone as she walks up to him. He holds his hand out, and she takes it. Her fingers slide through his as she closes the distance. 

“Ready?” he asks. 

—

17:17

They leave the courthouse hand in hand.

And married, somehow. 

They’d decided to do it last Saturday morning. 

He knows she’s well aware that it’s been in the back of his mind for almost a year. Not on the tip of his tongue, but in his mind, at least. He knew she was happy with how things were. 

He’d just assumed she didn’t want more. 

Until last Saturday morning. 

He’d stood beside her at the sink in their bathroom. They’d been getting ready to take Noah to Woodstock, making plans and lists for stops they needed to make on the way back. The coffee place in New Paltz for a sticky chai latte; the Costco in New Rochelle for the individual protein shakes that he likes. 

He’d grinned, when she mentioned the tuxedo bar cake they both like from the bakery. He’d reached over, his hand on her elbow; thumb smoothing on the soft skin on the inside. 

“Speaking of cake - your birthday next weekend? Want me to make reservations - we could try that one place, with the dumplings - ”

Olivia had shrugged, his hand moving with her as she'd continued to dab at the concealer under her eyes. 

“Sure, it’s - ”

She’d set the beauty sponge down, and looked over at him. She’d flashed him a smile that didn’t quite go up to her eyes. 

“That’s fine.” 

He’d started to ask - why the hesitation, why the not real smile - but her phone had gone off, and she’d pulled it up from the counter, shaking her head. 

(Noah, from down the hall, asking them to ‘hurry up

pls’ so he can get there in time for some gaming twitch stream).

In the front seat of the car, later, he’d decided to press her. He’d reached over as he drove, one hand on the wheel, the other light on the nape of her neck. He’d squeezed once, gently, and he’d heard her soft sigh as she leaned back into his touch, the soft curls at the bottom of her ponytail brushing against his hand. 

“Not feeling your birthday this year or what?”

She’d waited a moment to answer. The news on Sirius was set at a low murmur. Nothing new, the same stuff as always. Awful headlines, read by voices they recognized. Beside him, her eyes had stayed closed as she’d answered. 

“I never really do. It’s… ” She’d shaken her head hair, but she hadn’t ducked out of his touch. “I learned to celebrate it when Noah started asking questions, but there’s just so much - ”

She’d looked over at him, eyes blinking open. Her smile had been tired. 

 “It was never a real thing growing up.” 

He knew, of course. She’d said something similar a thousand years ago when they were first partners and he’d filed it away. He’d made it a point to be quiet about it - doughnuts or breakfast on her birthday, springing for lunch if they stopped - but to try to do something. Last year she’d seemed fine with the celebration, and it makes sense now. 

Noah and her, and the parallels in their lives. She’d never want him to feel the way that she did. He’d felt foolish for not getting it right away. 

“Ah, yeah - shit - ” He’d shaken his head, a sharp inhale through his nose. “Shit, I’m sorry, Liv.” 

She’d sat up straight in her seat, and he’d let his hand fall away as she’d reached over. Her hand had curled around his forearm and she’d shaken her head as she told him. 

“No, no - it’s good. Please don’t be sorry, Elliot…” 

She’d trailed off, but she’d kept her hand on his forearm. She’d looked out the windshield, lips falling open and he’d been so fucking tempted. Tempted to pull over, right there on the side of the highway. Unbuckle his seatbelt and pull her as close as he could and tell her that she'd done it, by now. She’d done her penance for her day of birth over and over again, but he knew - he knew - that she’d spent so much time working on that on her own. 

He knew he didn’t have to say it. 

He’d kept driving, instead, but he couldn’t help when the next words came out. Blurted, almost, quickly before he could stop himself.

“We should do something on Friday instead. Start some new, I don’t know - “

He’d shaken his head. It sounded ridiculous when he said it out loud. At the time, he’d told himself he wasn’t even sure what he’d been hinting at. 

“Some sort of celebration we come back to each year.”

He’d felt her relax then, a soft laugh from her lips as she’d settled back in her seat. She’d kept her hand on his arm though, thumb softly moving against the faded ink of his tattoo. He’d dared a quick glance over to see her smiling as she asked.

“Like what, Elliot?”

He’d had a list in his head at the time. Things that made some degree of sense, anyway. Dinner at a place they always come back to. They buy whatever the opposite of birthday cake is and eat it at their kitchen at the counter after Noah falls asleep. They go to the ballet or the symphony or some place where he has to stay quiet and she can lose herself a little in the music and the movement. 

But it’s always in the back of his mind, and it had been almost two years and he still hadn’t said it - not once - and she had been smiling then, expectant and waiting in the seat next to him and all he could think about was how much he loved her. How he wanted the best things for her, always. 

To be happy.

So he’d blurted it out. 

“We get married. We just - we don’t tell anyone, and we just - “

He’d stopped himself short, immediately. His breath had almost left his fucking lungs at how ridiculous it actually sounded. A secret wedding the night before the birthday you avoid thinking about. He’d looked over, mouth open, ready to laugh it off and he’d been shocked to see her staring back.

Contemplating it, he’d realized. 

He’d stopped himself again. He’d waited. He’d kept one hand on the wheel and he’d breathed and he’d had to look back and forth to the road twice before she answered, asking him quietly, seriously. 

“We’d have - what - a wedding we keep secret, and then…”

Jesus, he’d realized. She hadn’t been laughing it off or pushing it to the side. He’d been so, so sure this wasn’t what she’d wanted from this. That she was fine with the state of them. That marriage was a thing that other people did, not her. That she knew he was the marrying type, but she wasn’t. His stomach swooped, low and pleasant and warm, when he’d looked over again to see her staring down at her empty left hand. 

“We just do it. Just the two of us, yeah,” he’d answered, trying not to let his voice shake. 

He couldn’t believe it when she didn’t say no.

He couldn’t believe it when she’d told him she didn’t hate the idea. 

He still almost can’t believe that they’d ended up here; today. A ten minute ceremony in front of an old friend; a judge that knows to keep it all quiet. Two witnesses the judge had called in on her own. A trip to the jeweler on Monday, when Noah had a banquet for dance.

An hour long discussion in bed two nights ago, about why she feels guilty about not feeling guilty for their families not being there. 

(They’ll do this again in April, they’d decided. Tell everyone they got engaged and invite everyone they care about - Noah, and all his siblings and all his kids, and everyone that she counts as family too). 

This was just for them, though. 

For her.

An ordinary day, that ended with this. 

As they walk down the steps of the courthouse, he holds her hand again. With her left hand in his right, he can feel her thin gold band with his thumb and he can’t stop doing it.

He can’t stop brushing the pad of his thumb right there. 

Her heeled boots click loudly on the pavement as they walk down the steps. It would make much more sense to let go of each other and walk down faster. They need to get moving, once again. Noah’s tryouts end in twenty minutes and traffic will be abhorrent on a Friday night in the city. They’re already running behind. They need to stop and get the pasta sauce that he forgot about when he’d been at the store earlier. 

It’s just another night. A normal day, a normal night. 

But - his chest feels so tight that he thinks he might burst. His wife is walking down the steps of the courthouse with him. His wife is Olivia Benson. It had happened so fast - and he’s processing it now - and he wonders what will happen if she looks over to see him standing here, right on the verge of tears. 

They need to keep moving. 

He breathes, as she presses the keys to her SUV in the palm of his hand as they get close. They need to keep moving. He clears his throat as he holds open her door. 

“We need to - “

Her mouth crushes against his before he can finish. She surges against him, two hands reaching out to cup his face against her own. Her fingers dig, needy and insistent into the stubble on his face; into the weathered skin of his cheek as she kisses him hard. Her mouth is open immediately, needy and demanding with her tongue sliding against his lower lip. 

He can feel her smile against his lips, though, even in the urgency. He can feel it, the curl of her lips, the way she can’t hold it back. He pulls her in close, one hand on her waist; the other tangling into the back of the hair he’d been dying to mess up this morning, and he kisses her back. Deep, mouthy kisses, his tongue and his teeth working as he turns them both. Up against the frame of her car; her gasp into his mouth when her ass hits the cold metal, an opportunity he takes. 

It goes on and on and on, her hand leaving his face to dig into his jacket; her teeth nipping and her tongue soothing as she kisses him hard. It goes on, her soft little pants; his low needy groans, until she pulls back with a gasp. 

“My - oh fuck -”

He hears it then. Her phone, in her blazer pocket. Buzzing over and over. It’ll be Noah, or work, or the dry cleaner’s automated call back. She and two blazers she’s needed to pick up for a week. It pulls them out of the haze, though, and she settles against his chest for a moment, head on his shoulder as she sighs. 

“We need to..” He nods. Her breath is warm against the skin of his neck. His whole body feels like it’s on fire, but still, he somehow feels the heat from her mouth. “We need to get going.”

“Yeah,” he responds; voice thick with everything. The want, the desire; but the moment too. How he swears he can feel the thin band of her ring through three layers of his clothes. 

All of it. 

“Let’s go home,” he tells her. 

—

19:32 

They end up ordering in.

By the time they pick Noah up, and stop for pasta sauce - ‘And cereal, and can you grab chocolate milk? Can I just come in, too?’ - and make their way through the store aisles, no one actually feels up to cooking. 

It’s how most Friday nights end up. 

The three of them, menus spread out on the counter and pulled up on their phones as they try to come to a consensus. She’s fine with ordering in, but she draws the line at separate delivery people meeting in the hallway (again) because they can’t agree. 

It takes longer than normal. There’s a FaceTime call from Eli that Elliot takes - he’s dropping a class; it’s too many credits with being team captain this year on the team - and Noah ends up getting distracted, showing her the video of his try out that his friend had taken with his phone from the third row. 

They both change out of their clothes - sweatpants and a soft henley for him; a worn pair of leggings and a sweater for her. 

By the time they sit down to eat, it’s pushing seven thirty. 

It’s sandwiches, for Elliot and Noah, a big Greek salad with fried feta strips for her. Elliot pulls out on an extra plate automatically, piling his fries in between them. They talk about Noah’s day, mostly. 

Elliot’s hand creeps over eventually, settling underneath the table on her thigh. It’s a little much - he’s eating a sandwich, she thinks, he could use both hands - but she knows what he wants and she grins, small and just to herself, and slides her own hand to meet his. 

It doesn’t take him long. Fingers thread through, asymmetrical and all wrong, and she almost pulls her hand out to reset it. Normally, it’s his fingers entwined through hers, his thumb stroking in that same spot he did in the middle of the night when she’d reached for him in the front seat of the truck when Eli was gone. Normally, it almost feels like him reassuring himself that she’s there, that it’s real - he holds her hand like it’s still that night where they’d realized they could. 

All of the sudden, she realizes, this is that, too. 

Elliot’s thumb smooths over the thin gold band. Again and again and again. It fits so well that it barely shifts under his touch. 

“What did you think? About my try out?” 

Noah talks around a mouthful of a club sandwich, already dragging a fry through the ketchup plate before he swallows. He eyes his phone on the counter - it’s gone off four times now, his friends interrupting - as he waits for Elliot’s answer. She’d already told him how great he did; how he has to be a lock for the role of the lion. 

Elliot’s thumb keeps moving as he answers. 

“I think you did great, kid,” he tells him. He’s using his left hand to eat, and it’s taking him twice as long as it needs to be, but he’s not letting go. He clears his throat, and reaches for his glass of water.

“I can’t wait to come see you steal the show next month.” 

He shoots a slide glance over at her. He keeps talking to Noah as he does it - about the number of lines; and the costumes - and her son responds, eager and excited. Elliot’s eyes are warm; the soft lines around them soft and they dance down, looking at a spot on the table. Underneath that spot is their hands. Their hands, and his ring on her finger and she feels, suddenly, so deeply. 

Everything. 

She feels everything so deeply - loved and happy and whole - and it was just an ordinary day, today. Just their ordinary day, with a small, small extraordinary ending.

This is just their ordinary life. 

After they clear the table - together, repackaging leftover sandwich halves and the dressing she didn’t use - Noah takes off with his phone to his room. The kitchen is still warm and noisy, bright with the lights; the Alexa on the counter playing the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz, and it takes Elliot all of thirty seconds to have his hands on her again. 

“Busy day today, huh?”

He’s grinning as he says it, his hand sliding around her hip as he sidles up behind her at the kitchen counter. She’s just started making coffee for tomorrow morning - measuring the grounds, dumping them into the filter - and he is there. He ducks his head low, finding the soft skin at her neck, and he kisses her there softly. Once, twice, a third time; the brush of his lips gentle and light. 

“A little,” she answers, dumping the last of the coffee grounds in the back of the machine. She sways back; lets her head loll back onto his shoulder. She can feel  him - the solid press of his chest on her back; his already half hard cock against the swell of her ass - and she grins when his hand moves further in front, fingers right at the waistband of her pants. She thinks it won’t go anywhere; not this early in the night; not here, but they’ve got enough time between now, and Noah slipping into the shower, then coming back in the kitchen to plug his phone in, if it did. 

Thirty minutes on the inside, forty on the outside. 

Plus, her son is loud; walks like an elephant and gives plenty of warning. 

Elliot is behind her completely like this, and if she moves forward, she’ll be pressed up against the counter. If she moves backward, he’ll be pressed up against the island, and as his hand keeps moving lower - and she realizes they are going to do this - she thinks either way works. 

“Good day, though?” he asks, his mouth moving up the line of her neck. She can feel his nose nudging softly at her hairline, and she laughs when he uses his free hand to sweep the rest of her loose curls to the side. It’s up, up, up  with his mouth then; even as his fingers move down past the waistband of her pants. They move past the waistband of her pants, past the waistband of her underwear, palm and wrist flat against the lowest part of her belly as he slides down. 

“Yeah,” she breathes out, as his teeth graze right below her ear. 

Behind her, Elliot hesitates for a moment. She knows what he’s doing - giving her the out, giving her the chance to spin around his arms, and shake her head with a grin; mouth later as she slips out of his arms - but god. 

She feels so outrageously happy. 

She wiggles back into his touch and nods, and then it’s the sigh of his breath; his smile pressed into her neck. 

“Married, huh?” he asks, his teeth and his lips moving higher, his fingers and wrist moving lower. All she can manage is another nod, the back of her head bumping into his nose and his mouth. She tries, as his hand moves lower. 

“Married,” she agrees; her voice husky and low, thick with everything she’s feeling. 

He slides it down, past the thatch of curls, cupping her softly. She sways backward now, and he moves them both; his ass against the counter and his free arm circling her lightly so he can hold her close. She feels her breath come faster; feels her heart start to race when he glides one finger through her and groans, deep and close to her ear. 

They won’t even need ten minutes for her. 

“Fuck, Olivia - “

He presses down as he moves it up; a feather light touch that ends right at her clit and she bites her lip. She inhales sharp, holding back her own moan. He sucks into her skin, soothes it quick with his tongue and all the while, he’s working her clit so softly. Light, shallow strokes with his finger, then down, gathering and spreading the dampness that’s there as she lets him hold her tight, close to him. 

She feels his breath against her neck; urgent and hot as he slides lower. One finger sinks into her slowly, testing; and her breath hitches in her chest as he waits. She nods, head still on his shoulder, and she grips the arm around her waist with her hand. 

“More,” she pants.

She rocks into his touch; rocks forward so he knows, and it’s two thick fingers inside her then. Two inside her, moving in and out slowly and his thumb, rubbing less gently now against her clit as he asks. 

“Like this, baby?”

Her only response is a groan, a sharp nod of her head as she bites the inside of her cheek, trying to stay as quiet as she can. She can hear the shudder of the pipes that mean the shower is on, and normally she’d worry about being caught, but she’s already so close to the edge. She has no idea how they’d gotten here this fast - how she’d gotten here this fast - but Jesus, she thinks, as he mouths at her neck, two fingers slick and moving inside her - Jesus, she is. 

He keeps going, rubbing at her clit, pushing her higher and higher with each deep, eager thrust of his fingers and his arm tightens around her waist as she hinges forward in his arms, chasing it. The pressure from his thumb, the way he knows just how to do this, how to work exactly right as he crooks his fingers inside of her again and again - it all has her right there. She’s so close, rocking into his touch with her hips, even as he holds her tight. Her legs are trembling and she is aching, the pressure low and heavy and tight all at once and then it’s him, his voice low and close to her ear as he tells her. 

“Love you so fucking much,” he tells her; ragged and low and always she wants to say. Always you too; but she can’t. All she can do is groan; heavy and as quiet as she can as she comes, cunt clenching around his fingers over and over again right there in their kitchen. It’s blinding; fire through every nerve of her body, her knees threatening to give out as he stills his fingers and holds her tight and in the aftermath, it takes her a moment.

She breathes; deep, deep inhales and exhales as slides his fingers out, keeping her close.

“Love you too,” she finally murmurs, when she feels his lips press into the damp curls at the base of her neck. She echoes his own words back to him, too, sighing out the end as he holds her. “So much.” 

When he turns her in his arms, and kisses her slowly, she hums, happy and content against his lips. 

She can’t believe they’re here. 

She can’t believe she’d just gone and married Elliot Stabler. 

She doesn’t know what changed, that day in the car. What changed in the last two years, really. She doesn’t know what exactly made her go from the woman who said not yet about finding the love she craved so deeply, to the woman who said yes, when Elliot Stabler asked her to get married on a Saturday, driving down the highway to Costco. 

Time, maybe.

All she knows is she wouldn’t trade days like this - these normal, beautiful days - for anything. 

—

23:23

He can see her clock glowing in the dark. 

11:11, he thinks, would be the perfect time for a wish.

He doesn’t need to make one though, he knows. 

“El - “

Above him, Olivia groans it out; voice husky and thick as she rides him. His hands grip her tight; sunk into the skin at her waist. They’ve taken it slowly in here, tonight - used hands and mouths; tongues and teeth to work each other up - and now she’s rocking above him; perfect and beautiful in the pale light of the moon that creeps in. 

She rolls her hips harder, shifting herself down so her clit catches on him and he groans her name out; deep and raw and too loud. The hand on his chest that anchors her digs in as she does it again, eyes fluttering open so she can look down on him. 

No wish could be as good as this. 

“So - god, Liv - so perfect,” he tells her. 

It’s the truth. No wish could be as good as Olivia Benson - his wife now, Olivia - like this. Her golden skin; flushed at the chest. Her perfect breasts; full and round, the dusky peak of a nipple that he leans up now to take in his mouth. His elbow digs into the mattress as he catches it between his lips, tongue flat against the pebbled bud as he thrusts back and up into her. 

She’s taken control again tonight; two thighs straddling him; hips rolling like a wave as she takes what she needs. Above him her hand circles his neck, holding him to her as she moves. 

“Fuck, El. You feel so fucking good.”

He loves her like this; loves when she’s right on the edge in their bedroom. He loves how she relaxes; lets go just a little bit more, her words and her voice languid and heated.

She rolls her hips slowly; her head lolling back. He has a hand on the small of her back, and her grip on him is firm, but she’s loose and relaxed and he pulls back when she lets him, enjoying the show; his hips stilling as he lets her drive them. 

She stops for a second, and opens her eyes. She leans forward a little to capture his lips in a kiss and when she shifts forward; he groans into her mouth, the sensation of it; of her, tight and slick around him too much. Elliot bucks up into her; his mouth on hers. She laughs against him and he takes the opportunity, licks into her open mouth as he thrusts up into her again. 

She tastes like the wine and the organic not M&M’s they’d shared on the couch after the kitchen; rich and warm and exactly like her. 

Her laugh turns to a moan, and she can’t hold still, can’t not move. She grinds herself down against him; and he keeps moving; lips still joined. She nips at him, soothes the tender spot on his lip with her tongue; then does it again. Elliot thrusts up into her; swallowing her pants and whimpers with his mouth over and over and over. 

He knows she’s close; that the position lets his cock slam against the spot she needs it to; let’s the ridge of his lower abs grind against her clit, but it’s not quite enough. She’s almost whining now; desperate for the little more. 

He slides his hand between them; feels blindly for the spot he’s seeking. When he finds it; finds the swollen bundle of nerves, he moves his thumb against it in small, tight circles. He moves his other hand off the small of her back; lands it on the soft flesh of her outer thigh and grips. 

“Go, baby.”

He pants the words out against her mouth; and she rocks her hips harder against him. He feels her thigh start to shake; her mouth falling open and head falling back and he works her harder; pistons his hips up again and again; thumb on her clit stroking harder and harder, until he feels it, finally. 

Her walls contract around him and she’s got his name in her mouth as she stills, shaking through it. He’s fast behind her; uneven and jerking thrusts as he finishes seconds later; filling her. 

There, in the afterglow; covered in sweat and still joined; she tells him. Leans in, head on his shoulder, and says it quietly in his ear. 

“Let’s go look at rings tomorrow.”

He won’t be able to wear it for months, he knows, but he doesn’t correct her. Maybe he’ll just carry it around with him, tuck it into his breast pocket every day; right over his heart. 

Tomorrow, they’ll wake up in their bed on her birthday. 

Next to him, Olivia reaches for his hand. When he slides his fingers through hers, he feels the press of the band he’d slid on her finger earlier that day. 

Elliot falls asleep next to his wife, his heart fuller than he’d ever let himself hope.

—

Saturday 

04:48 

It hits her again in the morning.

She thinks it hits him again, too. 

They wake up before the sun. 

A call comes through to his cell early; and he’s showering and out the door before she’s even had her first sip of coffee. He’ll be back, he tells her - it’s a quick meet, papers that need to be passed on to a fed that’s passing through. Stuff they don’t want on email, or laptops. He presses a gentle kiss to her temple as he rushes out their bedroom door, and he is almost all the way out before he turns back, long rushed strides as he returns to her side of the bed. 

Olivia sits up more fully, draws herself up against the headboard as he does. She’s assuming he’s turned back to ask something; to tell her some news.

“Happy birthday, Liv,” he tells her. His eyes stay fixed on hers and she can see it; the raw feeling that’s behind them. “Every day, I’m - ”

His voice is a hoarse, emotion strained whisper.

“Everyday I’m thankful for you.” 

He exhales, and he blinks and she feels the sharp burn behind the bridge of her nose. Her birthday has always felt like this complicated day. Everything about her life, sometimes, feels like a long, complicated day, but these moments with him feel so clear. 

Then he dips his head low; presses his mouth to hers, and it’s not anything she expects. It’s not routine; not their now usual soft brush of lips as they part for their day. It’s intense, and slow. Drawn out; his nose bumping hers as he tilts into her, opening his mouth; tongue sliding out to find hers. This isn’t a kiss for a Saturday before 5 am; this is a three whiskeys in type of kiss; tongues rolling and seeking and fuck, it sends a jolt right through her, straight to her core - the way he cups her face, holds her there, sucks her bottom lip through his and when he pulls away, she sees his grin at the way she stills, unsettled and worked up and wanting. 

“We’re married, then?”

Her face changes. She feels the flush spread up, the ribbon of desire changing; adjusting to this. This feeling, new and different and god.

She loves it.

She loves him. 

She nods. 

“We’re married, Stabler.”

His eyes twinkle - they actually fucking twinkle - and she sees the flush on his face as his grin becomes broader, a smile so whole and large and unabashed that she thinks she’s seen it maybe once, twice before in their lives. 

“Ok then.”

Elliot moves to leave, groaning as the knee he’d been perching on resets with a loud pop, and she shakes her head. 

“Had to marry you before you fall apart on me.” 

She hears his huff of laughter as he leaves, promising to come home with coffee and whatever birthday breakfast she wants. ‘You want ice cream at 10 am, you just tell me.’ 

She settles back into her pillow. Hopefully, he’ll be back soon. Maybe it’ll take him longer than he thinks, but maybe not. Maybe he’ll walk to get their second coffees and the danish she knows she wants already, because it is her birthday, and when he comes back in a bit, he’ll shrug when she raises her eyebrows at his sixteen ounce cup. 

“Next week,” he’ll tell her. 

Next week he’ll do better at cutting back on caffeine. Next week, that will be just as busy as this week, he knows. There are jobs, and there are kids, and there are one hundred things each one has to do every single day. He could end up working for eighty hours, or she could be stuck at the precinct for days. 
It’s just their lives, she knows.

Their life, she corrects herself, as his eyes grow heavy.

Their life, together.