Archive of Our Own

Olivia wonders when it happened this year. 

The waiting room is a huge, open space with windows that overlook the park. When she glances up from her phone, she can see the tops of the trees, their leaves already starting the change to burnt oranges and reds. One day it’s summer, and the park is full of bright green branches that catch on the breeze as she runs through it. Then she’ll look down and the toes of her boots will be covered in leaves at the edge of a crime scene; the realization of the majestic beauty of the season’s change in the city marred by her reality. 

It always feels so sudden, that change. 

It’s different seeing it from this view instead. 

“Olivia Benson,” she’d murmured as she’d checked in twenty minutes ago. “For Doctor Milani.” 

She’s never this early to appointments. Or, she hasn’t been this early to any appointment in years. She’d dropped Noah off, and she’d come right here. She’d foregone her usual coffee even though no one had given her any instructions to do so. She’d assumed the caffeine could skew…whatever it is the doctor plans to check today. 

Olivia checks the clock on the wall. 

Nine more minutes. 

She glances around the space. She doesn’t know when they stopped putting magazines out in waiting rooms; when these places realized that people preferred the world inside their phone instead of the one inside those glossy pages. She tells herself that it’s necessary for her, for who she is. She wouldn’t have time to sit and flip through Newsweek or Time, even if she wanted to. 

She really doesn’t even have the time to be here.

She doesn’t even really need to be here, she’s - almost - sure of it. 

She turns her phone back over, thumb sliding across the screen to open it back up. To her email app, full of things she needs to know; alerts she needs and tasks she has to complete. Full of the reasons she’d told herself she didn’t have time to address whatever this was. 

Whatever this is - because it hasn’t stopped.

Or gotten any better, not at all. 

It hasn’t gotten worse, either, which is probably good news. Just shy of two weeks of the strange, dull ache under her breastbone and she’d finally relented. She’d finally called her doctor under the guise of an overdue work physical (a truth, six months well past due; another automated email alert stuck deep in her inbox) and pinned it on at the end of the exam as she slid off the table. Right when her nurse practitioner had given Olivia the all clear and asked if there was anything else. 

“It’s probably nothing,” she’d started.

Fingers on the last few buttons of her blouse, she’d said it hastily. Her nurse practitioner was all of thirty, a sweet young woman who advised her about multi vitamins and supplements that she’ll buy and never remember to take. They’ll get dusty, shoved to the back of the cabinet with all the mismatched lids from water bottles long gone. 

“It’s - I think it’s just heartburn,” Oliva had told her. 

In truth, she’d expected that to be it. She’d expected a sample of Prilosec shoved in a white paper bag, carried out and left on her front seat for a day or two when the job inevitably rearranged the priorities in her mind. She’d take it for a week, until that persistent ache faded. 

Then the rest of it would sit, gathering dust with her glucosamine. 

She hadn’t expected to be here. 

“With your — ”

Her nurse practitioner had hesitated, carefully selecting her words after Olivia had described her symptoms and she’d sat her back down. She’d listened to her heart and her lungs again, frowning the whole fucking time. Her arm had been curled tight around the iPad where they do all their charting. She’d been delicate about how she said what she said. 

“With your lack of a real familial history, I think we should be over cautious,” she’d told her. She’d gone on quickly, the iPad back on the counter while she tapped in a code. “Fifty-seven is young, but it’s not too young for someone who works in a high stress profession.” 

She never said the last part out loud. The part Olivia had worried about late at night, the part that had her laying in bed with her hand pressed to her chest. 

It could be something. 

Instead the young woman had her staff make her an appointment at this high end, above the tree line cardiologist’s office where Olivia sits now. The type of place meant to calm and soothe, with its wide open view of the park and warm lightning. 

She checks the time. 

9:14.

She lets her eyes skip over an e-mail, forcing the easy distraction, reminding herself not to waste this time. She does what she always does. She loses herself in a summary typed up by Carisi - the highlights of a case, and what he still needs from her team - and her mind hones in. It sharpens, focuses, fixates on what she tells herself it should, and her body almost relaxes. 

Until she can almost forget that now familiar ache. 

—

It started the night he left Cragen’s memorial. 

Elliot had ignored it for almost two weeks. 

It’s not like he doesn’t have practice. This isn’t new. He’s spent the last six months willfully ignoring the different signs from his body. Shoving his hands in his pockets, steadying his grip on a table - hoping the cops he surrounds himself with wouldn’t catch on. 

He’d let a mug of coffee go completely untouched last month in her office, knowing full well she would. 

When this new thing had started, he’d figured he’d just do the same. He’d ignored it; pressing the heel of his palm to his chest each time that it happened, gritting his teeth until the sharp twinge of pain disappeared. Telling himself that the more he thought about it - the more he acknowledged it, the more he let his mind worry - the more real it would get. 

Elliot had ignored it until he couldn’t anymore. 

Until he really, really couldn’t. 

“You good?” 

It had been Randall, of course, who caught it. The wince he’d made sitting down on the couch, the way he’d sucked in a breath of air - Elliot had been too slow to try to mask it. A dagger of pain under his ribs, quick and sharp and then echoing for a moment. He’d reached up, grimacing, and his older brother had been right there.

It had been Randall who’d forced him here. 

“You’re a real piece of shit,” he’d told him when Elliot had tried to tell him he was fine. He’d gone in on him, a long winded angry tirade as they stood in the kitchen. “You know what it would do to Ma or your kids if you dropped dead? Do you ever fucking think about anyone else but yourself?” 

It had been a short standoff, and then a truce. 

He’d never admit his older brother was right, but he is sitting at the edge of an exam table now, listening as Dr. Milani describes the next steps. An EKG or a stress test, a Holter monitor worn for two days. They’ll start at one of the first two and work their way up from there. All the same shit they did for his mother, on an outpatient basis since it isn’t - hopefully - as acute. 

“I didn’t hear anything,” she tells him, “but that doesn’t mean — ”

“Yeah,” he says. He nods brusquely. “I got it.” 

He knows what it doesn’t mean.

It doesn’t mean he’s in the clear. It means he needs to wait for her nurse to call him back later this afternoon and let him know which next step they have scheduled for him first. It means it’s really only the beginning of this, and not the end. Not hearing anything when she’d pressed her stethoscope to his chest isn’t good news, or bad news or any fucking news at all. 

Elliot sighs, and the doctor shoots him a tight smile.

Early fifties with a faded accent, she’s one of the highest rated cardiologists in the city. Her bedside manner is polite, not over the top. She’s polite, if not friendly. She doesn’t offer him a single reassurance as he reaches for his suit jacket. 

He’s grateful for that. 

“My office will be in touch,” she tells him. 

He mutters a thank you, and then he’s out the door, briskly walking down the narrow hallway to the receptionist’s area. He feels strangely hollow about the whole thing. He’s relieved to be done with step one, but he’s more relieved to be leaving. 

The distraction of the job beckons him, and Elliot slides his phone out of his pocket, sliding open the first of the alerts on the screen. He’d missed three texts from Bell about a meeting this afternoon with ATF. He turns a corner fast, and almost runs into the nurse at the entryway to the hallway. She stands, a chart in hand as she surveys the waiting room. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, his eyes darting back to his phone. “Excuse — ”

“Olivia?” 

Elliot’s head snaps up when the nurse calls out the name. 

It’s a coincidence, he tells himself, even as his evidently ailing heart skips a beat. There’s no way in hell that she’d be right here, right now. It’s impossible, improbable. It’s fucking illogical that she’d be - Christ. 

There she is. 

There Olivia is, gathering her bag and standing up. Her eyes widen the second it registers that it’s him, mouth falling open as her familiar brown eyes land on his. 

“Elliot?” 

She says his name quietly, but he can hear the shock in it. Not quite the same amount as at other times he has surprised her by being where she hadn’t expected, but it’s there. The total opposite of two weeks ago, when it seemed like she knew exactly where he would be. 

The nurse glances between them, waiting. 

“Hey, I — ”

“Are you — ” Olivia’s looking past him, eyeing the hallway behind him, and he watches as the shock changes to something else. Confusion, he realizes, as her brows furrow and her lips purse slightly. “Are you here with your mother?” 

He shakes his head. 

Olivia stares back at him. 

She’s where he was a moment ago. The surprise ebbing as the revelation flows in. They’re both here - alone. They are standing toe to toe in a top rated cardiologist’s office on the upper east side at 9:32 in the morning. His pulse, which has remained steady throughout this whole thing, begins to tick up at what exactly that means. 

Elliot’s mouth falls open. 

His voice is stuck in his throat. 

There’s a ringing in his ears, and his mouth is dry and before he can say a word, the nurse is shaking her head. Vaguely, he hears her ask if they can catch up some other time. Like they’re just two friends, two casual acquaintances. Like they’re not - like Olivia is not his — 

There it is. 

Sharp and angry, like a piece of his heart is being wrenched away from the spot it’s rooted to. Elliot forces himself not to flinch. 

“Sorry,” the nurse says again. She’s already backing down the hall. “It’s just that Dr. Milani doesn’t really have any room on her schedule for delays.“

Olivia nods, and starts to follow. She shoots a look over at her shoulder, and for the first time in a long, long time, he can’t quite decipher it. She blinks, eyelashes fluttering, before she turns back around and follows the nurse. 

Elliot stays there, rooted in that spot until she’s gone, and the pain in his chest finally passes. 

—

She finds him right where she’d expected him. 

It had been a shock to see him there. For the first years after he’d come back, it had been a shock to see Elliot Stabler. Olivia had unconsciously started to brace herself back then; ready to see a pair of familiar blue eyes that made her breath catch in her chest. It hadn’t worked at all. Despite steeling herself time and time again, it still felt like a knee to her chest every time she actually saw him. 

Just enough to leave her spinning and breathless. 

This shock wasn’t quite like that. 

And now she’s not shocked at all to find him waiting for her by the elevator doors.

Right outside Dr. Milani’s office, next to the bank of sleek, metallic elevators, Elliot waits. In his suit and tie with his jacket slung over his arm, he stands like a sentry, every muscle in his body drawn taut; his back ramrod straight. His eyes had clearly been glued to the door she walks out of now. He’s clean shaven today, and just like every time Olivia sees him, the space he occupies seems so huge. So fucking all encompassing as he just stands there and waits for her. 

He doesn’t hang back for her to approach. 

Elliot covers the space in two huge strides, at her side in an instant. There is zero hesitation as he meets her right where she’s at. 

“What’s going on?” he demands. 

It comes out like an accusation, and she narrows her eyes at him, her head shaking slightly in disbelief. Unbelievable, she thinks. Sometimes he is just so fucking unbelievable. 

“Elliot,” she warns him, voice low. The hallway is too quiet for this. She keeps walking toward the elevator, her bag and jacket hooked on her arm as she jams the down button. “You need to — ”

“Are you sick? What are you doing here?” 

His voice is gruff, and she should be so angry at him for it - for his tone, and the way he feels entitled to ask it - but the truth is, she’d spent more than half her time on the exam table wondering the same goddamn thing about him. She’d listened to the doctor talk about next steps and testing, and she’d felt sick to her stomach for the same reason he stood right here, resolutely refusing to move an inch until he knew. 

“Are you sick?” she challenges him right back. “Why are you here, Elliot?”

He stutters. “I’m - that’s not — ”

The elevator doors swoosh open. It’s almost soundless, no telltale ding to acknowledge its arrival. Olivia steps in and he’s right there on her heels, right like she knew he would be. She hits the button for the lobby. Next to her Elliot takes his place, and she hears how shaky his exhale is as the doors glide close. He scrubs a palm down his face, head shaking quickly. 

“Fuck,” he whispers. 

When the elevator’s descent starts, she feels it in her stomach, about six centimeters down from the ache in her chest.

—

They pick up an elevator full of people, and end up in the back; arms and shoulders pressed together as they ride in silence. They exit last, Elliot’s arm extending out to block her as the doors threaten to silently swoosh shut on them both. 

Olivia walks quickly, heeled boots clicking on the expensive black marble flooring. It must be a mess in the winter, he thinks, salt stained everywhere. His heart feels like it’s beating in time to her footsteps.

Quick, quick, quick.

She’s moving fast but not away. He knows this somehow. She’s walking toward the exit, but she’s not walking away from him. When he got here earlier the sky had been gray, but now he can see the first hints of the sun breaking through the clouds as they get close to the front. It catches on the lush brown of her hair and makes it shine. It’s a little bit darker than it was a few weeks ago, at the funeral. 

Or maybe he’s imagining that. 

Olivia stops, suddenly. 

“Do you want to get coffee, Elliot?” she asks. 

Elliot blinks, startled. 

“I - coffee?” 

“Coffee,” she echoes. “I didn’t drink any this morning.” 

He’s not sure what he expected. Her voice is even, not unsteady at all like his. Her jacket is still slung over her arm, and she looks down quickly at the screen of her phone in her palm as she waits for his answer. It feels like he has a split second to answer before Olivia changes her mind. 

Elliot nods. 

“Yeah, yes. I, uh - I didn’t either,” he says. “Have any coffee, I mean.” 

Her gaze stays on him for a moment. He feels like her cheeks are slightly flushed, which reassures him. Even if it means she’s irritated with him, it makes him feel better. 

Her heart must be okay if her cheeks are pink. 

When the twins were born a few weeks too early, that’s what the doctors kept telling them. Dickie had a small heart murmur; a little unclosed valve that came with prematurity. It’ll close, they’d told them, but keep a close eye on him. 

Rosy cheeks and a healthy cry is what they’d been told to look out for. 

“You don’t need to go?” he asks, stupidly. 

Her gaze goes funny for a moment; a deep ruefulness forming in the depths of her eyes as she stares back at him. It’s how she’d looked at him that night outside the bar after they hugged goodbye. 

Right before he’d said — 

“I probably should,” Olivia says, “but we both need coffee.” 

—

The cardiologist’s office is close enough to the hospital to make the area around it crowded; full of anxious patient relatives on cell phones and harried looking nurses and doctors, waiting in line for coffee in scrubs on their break. They take their coffees to go, walking back out into the day that’s still stuck between sunny and gray. Both of them pause when they’re far enough away from the doors. 

Olivia glances around the busy sidewalk, then looks across the street. 

Twenty feet away she can see an entrance to the edge of the park, and when she looks over at Elliot, his gaze is drawn in the same direction; to the exact same spot. They move in tandem, hands curled around matching paper mugs; footsteps falling in easy, natural sync. She’d marveled at that when he first came back - how quick her body remembered the pace of his gait; how eager it was to match it once more. 

They slow down together too, right as the sidewalk turns to the park pathway. Beside her Elliot stays quiet. She takes a sip of her coffee, wincing as the heat sears her upper lip. Underneath her jacket, the straps of her work bag digs into her arm. 

Olivia lets out a deep, slow breath.

“I’m not sick,” she starts. “I’m not, you know — ” She doesn’t say the word out loud. “At least, I don’t think so.” 

His jaw is clenched and the muscles of his neck are tight when she looks over. It’s not in anger, though. She knows that. He’s just trying to keep himself in check.

When he looks over, all she can see is the pain in his eyes. 

“Do they know…?” 

He trails off, lips pressing together hard.

She shakes her head. “Not yet. That’s why I came.” 

Behind them, a jogger calls out loudly. On your left, and it’s Elliot’s hand on her back, gently pulling her over toward the side with him. She lets him guide her over to the edge of the path, and then she stays there even as his hand falls away. Close enough that every step is a brush of their arms as they slow down to a stroll. 

His voice is gruff, quiet. 

“What - did something happen?” 

She wants to laugh at that, at how silly it is. For both of them, really. Something happens everyday. She is never free of something happening, by her own choice. She knows that’s not what he’s asking though. 

Olivia takes another sip, slower this time to avoid the heat. 

“No,” she says. “It’s just…this feeling.” 

Elliot glances over, brows knitting together in question, and all she can do is shrug as she looks back at him. She notices the underside of the trees are still bright green here, not changed at all. He’s so close she can see where he’s missed the smallest patch of hair shaving, and she wonders if it’s from the shaking hands he’s been so desperate to hide from her.

“A feeling?” he asks. 

“It’s — ” 

She pauses, her words and body both coming to a stop. His elbow nudges against her waist, urging her lightly, but then he’s still moving. Not far, just a shuffle of his feet and a turn, so he’s facing her now. Elliot stands in front of her, and she feels his hand on her free arm. It’s tentative, just a light brush of his fingertips, right above her wrist. 

She closes her eyes and breathes for a moment.

She raises the hand he’s not holding to her chest, at her collar. Above the spot where she actually feels it, where her neckline lays bare. If she presses here hard enough, she can almost feel the reassuring beat of her heart. 

“An ache,” she finishes, voice low. “It’s an ache. It’s just there.”

She blinks her eyes open, and he’s nodding slowly, barely any movement at all. She tilts her chin up to meet his gaze. His eyes are so blue, always so breathtaking. It reminds her of the first sight of the sky after the plane takes off, when the haze from the clouds finally clears. 

Above him, the under span of a huge old tree’s canopy blocks out the sky. There are some spots of red and orange, she realizes now. When she’s this close, she can see it. Olivia feels his thumb, moving slowly on the back of her hand. His voice is a gravelly, thick husk.

“You didn’t say anything,” he says. 

She breathes. 

He’s right, she hadn’t. They’d talked on the phone once since that night, and she hadn’t. She hadn’t told him about this feeling in her chest that started when he said what he’d said so casually, so easily. 

Then again — 

“Neither did you,” she points out. 

He studies her for a moment, then dances right around it. 

“Does it scare you?” he asks. 

She thinks about lying. 

She thinks about how quickly he’d know if she did. They both know she’s not fearless. And she doesn’t have to be, she thinks. Not here with him. 

“A little bit, yeah,” she breathes. 

Somewhere behind the thicket of trees that shields the park from the city, the double tap of a horn shatters the quiet, and the moment too. Olivia takes a deep breath in and his hand falls away. They start walking again; that same slow, steady stroll from before as she asks him: 

“Did something happen - what is it for you?” 

He shakes his head. 

“No, no - it’s - nothing happened,” he assures her.

She takes a sip of the coffee. It’s cooler now, but not by much. Next to her she feels Elliot do the same, but he tilts his head back and takes a much longer sip. When he lowers it, she glances over and watches as he reaches across his chest, his right hand rubbing at a spot on the opposite side. 

“What is it then?” she asks. “I mean, unless you were just being over cautious.”

It gets a laugh out of him, low and rumbling in his chest as he shakes his head. Her own lips curve up at the idea of it. Elliot Stabler, being cautious with his own life at all. 

“Hardly,” he says. 

They keep moving as their laughter fades. 

They walk past a half moon of black wrought iron benches where an old man tosses bread at a flock of pigeons and a young woman scrolls on her phone. A small breeze catches on the branches and pushes through. Olivia watches a small cluster of leaves dust their way across the path. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She feels the weight of his gaze on her as she does it and she turns to see him staring at her. 

“It’s less of an ache,” Elliot tells her, finally. “It’s a feeling though, like you said.” 

She exhales, shakily. She’s more afraid of what he’ll say than she has been about anything else yet today, but it’s not going to stop her from asking. 

She nods, and she swallows around the lump in her throat. 

They stop again. 

“What — ” Her voice is a little hoarse, and she tries a sip of the coffee to clear it. She’d always assumed this moment would be more dramatic. One of them shot, one of them stabbed. One of them bleeding out; one of them wrapped around a tree in the middle of nowhere while the other one fell to their knees. She’d never imagined it would be the two of them on a walk in the park after their cardiology appointment, confessing their ailments while they drank sixteen ounces of over-priced blonde roast apiece. ”What does it feel like?” 

Elliot looks past her for a moment. 

He lowers his head and she has to fight the urge to lower hers too, to force his gaze back to hers. To just let it happen, the way he had with her a few minutes ago. She has so much practice with patience and stillness and silence, but it’s failing her now. It’s been failing her since she looked up and saw him in Dr. Milani’s office. 

She reaches for his arm, high up and too late, she realizes her grip is too strong. 

“It feels like a knife,” he says. “Right in my heart.” 

Her fingers dig in, she can’t stop herself. 

“Does it scare you?” she asks. 

His gaze lifts to hers and this time he’s looking right at her when he answers, not past her or away in the distance.

“Yeah,” he confesses. “Yes, it does.” 

—

She finishes her coffee first. 

Elliot watches as she walks back from the trash can. She’s dressed for work, in her usual black pants and her usual black shirt. It dips low today in the front and they both may be going through something very concerning and fully fucking bizarre, but he can still appreciate that. He can still appreciate how gorgeous she looks. He can still appreciate how her body moves through space and time, headed back to him. 

She stops further away from him this time. 

Olivia studies him for a moment, and he stares right back. This is the part they started by the elevators, the part they ended with an unspoken truce as they made their way to the park. 

“When did it start?” Elliot asks.

If there’s a slight demand in his tone, he doesn’t try to hide it. Maybe they aren’t there for each other the way he wants them to be - every day, in every fucking way - but he’d thought it was getting better. He’d thought a moment like this might demand some sort of - well.

Contact. 

Olivia shakes her head, sighing. Frustrated, but not silent at least as she starts to shrug on her (black as well) jacket. “Two weeks ago, give or take,” she admits. She flips her hair out of the collar. “Right after — ”

She stops, and then her eyes narrow at him. 

“What about you?” she asks, and there’s just enough indignation in her voice, too. It’s the same sentiment, he knows. They are far too alike for their own good. From the stubborn tips of their toes, all the way to their fractured hearts. 

Elliot lifts one shoulder in response. 

“Same,” he murmurs. “About two weeks ago.” 

They don’t need to say the rest. Right after they said goodbye to Cragen, right after they buried him. Right after he’d been a coward, and she’d been his strength, and right after he’d tried to pour that right back to her in the only way he knows how, anymore. 

The coffee in his cup has grown cold but he keeps sipping it.

Olivia flips her collar down.

“You could have called,” she says pointedly. He’s surprised she’s actually saying it out loud. “You should have called. I would have — ”

He barks out a laugh, harsh and echoing in the little alcove of trees and greenery. 

He shakes his head. “C’mon, Liv.”

“You should have called,” she repeats. 

She crosses her arms, glaring at him indignantly and god. God, he loves her. He loves her fierceness and her fight and the way she doubles down here. He loves her blatant goddamn hypocrisy. He wants to kiss her right here, reach for her and press his lips to hers. He won’t, but it would be something, he thinks. The two of them, chest to chest, two irregular heartbeats trying to find their homeostasis together. 

“You didn’t call,” he points out. Then, because he’s a little bit of an asshole, and he knows only he can get under her skin this way, he adds, “Didn’t call when you got arrested, either.” 

Her mouth falls open, ready to protest, but he beats her to it.

“You could have called me,” Elliot says. 

He knows he spent ten years disproving that fact, and now another five trying to make his case to be at the top of her list again. He knows he has no right to say it and she doesn’t have to listen or believe him at all, but Olivia’s still standing there at least. Still standing here, in front of him.

Her lips shut for a moment, and she does that thing where he knows she’s trying to bite her tongue. Where he knows it’s physical even, curved into the back of her teeth as she looks at him. 

A beat of time passes, and he holds her gaze with his own the whole time. Another gust of wind blows, and he watches as a single leaf floats to the ground in its wake. Half red-half green, it’s been pulled from the branch too abruptly. 

Olivia breathes, and shakes her head as she starts to move again. 

Her voice is a low, raspy thing. 

“Yeah, well — ” She laughs quietly, and it dips even lower. “I heard you were still renting.” 

—

“What do you think it means?” 

She poses the question quietly, almost to herself as they keep moving. Elliot cocks his head as he looks at her, puzzled. It’s not that she has to clarify what she’s talking about. This remarkable coincidence, this mystifying twist of fate. 

It’s just a surprise that she’s the one asking. 

He always thought he was the believer. 

Elliot rubs at a spot on his chest, massaging a long healed scar under the fabric. 

“Are you asking if I think it’s some sort of sign?” he asks. 

He knows they could try to make sense of some of it; try to use logic and reason and their keen minds. They have the same insurance plan; and this cardiologist is covered. Their jobs are stressful, wearing on their bodies. There are rational reasons they could find for this.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe.” 

Elliot glances up.

The sky is still gloomy, but sunlight has managed to find its way through. Long, yellow-orange slants of it that burn their way through the monotonous gray of the morning. 

He clears his throat and looks back over at her. 

“You think it’s some sort of message from — ”

A sharp, piercing wail cuts him off as it starts. 

Somewhere close by, some cop giving chase to something or someone. It startles them both into silence. Her eyes widen and his mouth falls open, and it’s as rational as anything else, if they want it to be. There is no shortage of sirens in this city. 

They never seem to stop. 

It’s Olivia that cracks first. 

A shake of her head, and then her lips twitch up, curving into a smile. It’s catching, contagious, and Elliot follows suit until they’re both laughing. 

—

The texts come through on their walk back to the parking garage. 

Hers, then his. 

It must be an automated system; a nurse or medical assistant sitting down and pushing it through in between patients. Olivia’s phone buzzes first, and before she has it even halfway out of her pocket, Elliot’s does the same. She opens the message right at the edge of the park as they step out into the crosswalk. 

Reminder: EKG Appt with Dr. Milani

It goes on to describe the date and the time and to give the tempting instructions for cancelling or rescheduling. When she looks up from her screen, Elliot’s head is tilted, staring at her expectantly. 

She rolls her eyes, and turns the screen at him quickly. 

“I have an EKG scheduled for Thursday,” she admits. “Okay, Detective?" 

He smirks, and he’s so fucking smug about this victory. Elliot Stabler, eternal winner of breaking down her goddamn walls. His crooked smile widens as he turns his phone so she can see his. She doesn’t know what parallel universe they’ve landed in, laughing about their cardiac tests as they stand next to her SUV. 

“Stress test on Friday,” he says, 

It’s concerning - that they’re jumping right to a stress test, bypassing a simple EKG for him - but she doesn’t say it. Instead she opens her doors and she turns, facing him as she sits down. Not quite in and not quite out of her door, just like she’d done that night. One leg on the ground, and one ready to step on the gas. 

Elliot leans in, one arm on the frame, just like he had that night too. Her pulse rate ticks up, but she swallows and tries to ignore the echo in her mind. 

Love you. 

Olivia lifts her chin up, waiting. 

“You’ll call me?” he asks. “After?” 

She arches an eyebrow at that. “After my EKG?” 

It feels like a crazy question for him to be posing, but then again - here they fucking are. Running into each other at the heart doctor is just as crazy, she supposes. 

“Yeah, Liv after your — ” Elliot breaks off, head tilting slightly as he looks down at her. He searches her eyes with his and then he smiles softly and Christ, she thinks. 

Her stomach flutters.

And her chest still fucking aches, and they are talking about cardiac testing, but yet here they are with Elliot looking at her like that. He lifts his free thumb to his nose, his nervous tic of scratching it right before he says something stupid or crazy like — 

“Let me take you,” he says. 

Her eyes widen, and she feels herself laugh right out loud. He doesn’t balk at that at all, just keeps looking right at her. She reaches for the top of her steering wheel, head shaking. He astounds her sometimes, with how bold he can be. 

“Are you - are you asking to drive me to my appointment, Elliot?” she asks. 

He nods, solemn. “Yes.” 

She rolls her lip between her teeth, her eyes on the windshield. She’s parked in front of a cement wall, and she eyes the long fissure that runs down it. It goes from the ground all the way up to the next level, at least fifteen feet, split unevenly. It must still be stable enough, despite that.

“I can take myself to my doctor, Elliot,” she reminds him. “I've been doing it for a long time.” 

He shrugs, frustratingly nonchalant. Behind him she hears the chirp of someone else’s car being unlocked, the murmur of two voices and four sets of footsteps on the ground. 

“I know you can,” he says. “That’s not what this is.” 

If she were half as bold as him, she’d ask what it is, then. What is this, and what is is, and why does he think he should do this. Is it guilt, or a misplaced drive to protect her from something he can’t. 

Why does he want to — 

“Olivia,” he says softly. 

She glances up at him. Saying no would be so easy, she thinks. She could do it so quickly. There’s a plea in his eyes that she can see, that she can make out even here in the dark of the garage. The one that begs her to let him be there. She’s seen that look before and she’s walked away. She’s backed herself away, eyes firmly shut. 

And look at where it’s gotten her. 

Look at where it’s gotten them. 

The truth is, it doesn’t sound awful. Him being there for her. The other, horribly and not at all coincidental truth is that it’s a two way street, and there’s a part of her that wants the exact same thing he does. 

Olivia nods, just slightly. 

She reaches for the door handle, but doesn’t quite pull it shut. She lets it linger there, and Elliot doesn’t back away either. “Fine,” she tells him. “But I’m going with you on Friday, too.” 

When she pulls away, he’s still standing there, a lone figure in her rearview mirror. 

—

“Dad?” 

Wednesday night and the key in the door is his eldest daughters. She’d warned him about her plan to stop by to drop off a spare bouncer for Owen for his place, but he’d fallen asleep waiting. Maureen had driven into the city to offer respite to Becky for an afternoon; to sit and rock her nephew while the younger woman took some time to herself. 

He pushes himself up from laying flat, wincing at the pain in his back. 

“Hey,” he says groggily. “Sorry, I just — ”

Another flinch, and a sharp breath in as the knife in his chest twists when he tries to stand up. His hands start to shake right along with it. Elliot tries like hell to mask it but when he looks up, Maureen’s brow is knitted in concern. He grunts, and waves a dismissive elbow as he shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“It’s this damn couch,” he lies. 

She looks at him skeptically and he changes the subject as fast as he can. He grabs the bouncer and he asks about the baby; about the boys and about the shed that Carl’s taken approximately three years to build. He knows she’s aware of what he’s doing but she lets him.

She doesn’t push. 

They drink a glass of iced tea on his patio, and they talk about the rotten deal she’s getting on her minivan trade in; about the already empty Halloween candy shelves at the Costco in the suburbs. He feels her watchful gaze the whole time; searching, analyzing him for clues. She’s good about hiding it, at least. She has her father's intuition, and her mother’s unrelenting skepticism, and the wrong fucking kid went into police work, he thinks wryly. 

Still, she waits until the very end to ask again. 

A hug goodbye at her car, a reminder to text him when she’s in her driveway safely, and then Maureen pulls back, eyeing him. Her cell phone buzzes, but she ignores it. 

“You sure you’re good?” she asks him.

There’s not a world where he tells her the truth. 

He’s not good, not really. 

Don Cragen’s death has spun him, yet again. He’s tired, and he’s confused and he’s worried. He’s been trying to wrap his head around the last year of his life, and now there’s this too. He’s worried about Olivia, more than anything. He’s worried about her, and he’s worried about the fact that he wouldn’t even know if he hadn’t been there himself. He’s trying to grasp whatever it is the universe is trying to do, but lately it feels like all it wants is to punish him as much as it can, and he can’t stop praying that it’s not the case here with Olivia. She can’t be another victim to God’s vengeance on him. 

He is so wholly unsure how to interpret any of this.

“I will be,” he says, instead of lying. 

He hopes, anyway. 

—

She’s nervous. 

For both of them, now. 

She’s been telling herself that she’s not for two weeks, but Thursday morning has her out of bed a little after four in the morning; silently sipping cold water at her sink as her son sleeps down the hall. Noah has no idea what’s going on, and she’s determined to keep it that way. He doesn’t know that she’s getting scared now; that it’s kept her up for two nights. She has the rational fear of every parent - leaving him too soon, the way she was left - but the realities of her job have made her contend with that too many times to keep her up. 

It’s a different fear, now, and if it involves Elliot just as much as herself, well. 

She can’t change that. 

She’s tried. 

And now he’s here this morning. In a pair of dark jeans and a white cotton shirt; with his weathered green jacket and his big hands in his pockets and his eyes drawn right to her, and she feels something relax inside of her despite that fear for him. The ache in her chest remains, but she doesn’t hate how the rest of her eases at the sight of him; at his proximity. It’s how it used to be, a thousand years ago. It is the exact opposite of how she felt for so long when she saw him again. 

The corner of his mouth lifts when he sees her. 

“Hey,” he calls out. “You ready?” 

She offers a faint smile back as she approaches. 

“As ready as I can be,” she admits. 

He’s wearing casual clothes and he’s got his Jeep, not his NYPD issued truck, and it occurs to her that he took the morning, if not the day, to be here. She slides into the passenger seat, and it smells like him; warm and faintly like faded spice. There’s a vitality to it that she finds reassuring. He’s here, and he’s fine, and so is she at this moment. 

“I, uh - I stopped on the way.” 

He picks up a paper mug. Her mouth falls open to decline - to remind him about avoiding caffeine beforehand - but he rotates his wrist and the cup immediately. She spots the tag and small string on the side. 

“Tea,” he says. “It’s that herbal stuff you like - no caffeine. I double checked.” 

She hums, low and soft as she takes it. 

“Thanks,” she murmurs. 

He nods, and ducks his chin in the direction of the console between them. There’s another paper cup in there with a matching tea tag on its side. She grins, a laugh bubbling up from her throat as he wrinkles his nose at his cup.

“Tastes like flowers,” he mutters as he eases them into traffic. “You’ll love it.” 

It does taste like flowers; and it also tastes warm and sweet like sugar and honey and it’s the sort of thing they did for each other so easily when they were partners. Coffee and tea cups in the holders, a breakfast sandwich waiting on a desk. They did it easily, naturally, picking up on the changes and what the other preferred. 

He drives, and they talk and it’s easy. About the usual: work and the new chief; the school year starting again for Noah. They talk about the baby - he’s sent photos, but she hasn’t met him. She hasn’t met any of his grandchildren, which hits her sometimes. It’s not always big moments now - not just crises, death, a horrific case - but they aren’t quite to where they could be, despite his best efforts. Elliot is trying. He’s there, when she lets him be, but their daily ins and outs are as foreign to each other as they were when he was gone. 

It’s nice to just sit and talk about them. 

It’s a good distraction too, and it works, and Olivia almost forgets. Where they’re going, what they’re doing, why they’re here today together. It’s not until they pull into the parking garage that it hits her again; a sinking stone in her gut as he steers them into the dark. The Sirius radio goes suddenly dead with no signal, and she breathes in, sharp. The two of them are in the dark; soundless. 

He glances over, frowning. 

“Hey, hey — ”

She swallows, and shakes her head quickly. She tries to wave his concern away as he speeds into the first open space he can find. 

“It’s fine,” she says thickly. “I’m fine. Really, it’s — ”

“You’re not.” 

Before she can protest or say another word, he’s reaching over. She expects a hand on her arm, maybe her wrist, but he keeps going. She feels the brush of his fingertips at her shoulder, and then the warmth of his palm sliding back. Under the line of her hair, beyond the boundary of her shirt’s collar He’s at the nape of her neck, and his touch is gentle but strong. She breathes again. His thumb moves back and forth, an easy, perfect pressure. 

She tries to swallow back the sob that’s threatening.

“You don’t have to be fine with this,” he says. “You can be - fuck. Liv, you can be afraid right now.” 

She dips her chin and blinks fast, trying to clear it. His hand moves with her, still there, still present. His gaze stays with her too. 

“It’s not just…” Olivia lifts her head and finds his eyes with hers. Even in the dark, they’re still so breathtakingly blue. “It’s not just about right now, Elliot, or me or today. Okay?” 

His thumb slows, stops, low at the base of her neck. 

She wonders if he can feel her heart beat like that. 

Across the small space, he nods slowly. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.” 

She has to shut her eyes for a moment; close them off because it shouldn’t be this easy. Elliot shouldn’t know exactly what she means. Except he always did, and he always will, and that’s the crux of it all.

They’re twisted together, knitted and knotted into every fiber of the other. They run from it, they back away, but it doesn’t matter. He knows she loves him like he loves her. He knows.

This is simply how it is. 

Right down to the beat of their hearts. 

—

He sits in the waiting room, hands clasped in his lap, trying to keep them steady. 

When he was here two days ago, it was quiet; not busy at all. The later hour means more patients waiting, and Elliot watches them now as he waits. A young woman with a small child in a stroller; a middle aged man who sits alone. An older couple, white-haired and sitting close in the corner. She sits looking down at an unopened book in her lap, and the man with her sits, just looking at her. 

One by one, the people are called back, until it’s just him and the older man. He offers a tired, half smile at Elliot when their eyes meet. 

“Still waiting for your turn?” he asks. 

Elliot shakes his head, no. He’s almost forgotten he’ll be here tomorrow, that his turn is coming, too. 

“I - I’m just waiting on someone,” he answers. 

“Me too.” 

They’re both quiet for a moment, Elliot trying his damndest not to stare down the long hallway where he knows she is. The older man picks up the book his companion had left, turning it over to examine the back. From here, Elliot can tell it’s a romance, one of those cheap ones the girls used to sneak out of Kathy’s library bag. 

“She’s always reading these damn things,” he mutters. His eyes are still cast down, the book still face down too. He laughs softly. “Used to make me really upset when we were younger.” 

Elliot’s not sure if he’s talking to him or to himself, but he nods. 

“Yeah?” 

The other man raises his gaze to Elliot and rolls his eyes, still laughing quietly. 

“Oh yeah,” he nods. “I was an idiot, I um - I don’t know.” He drops the book back on the chair next to him. “I thought she’d get mad at me for not being some big romantic guy like in the books.” 

Elliot huffs a laugh, nodding. 

“It’s hard,” he agrees. He gets it, that difference between those words in the books and everyday reality. Sweeping someone off their feet isn’t a practical matter after a long time together. 

The older man breathes in deeply and eyes that same long hallway, then looks back at Elliot. 

“Picked a few fights over it until one day she told me to stop being so goddamn stupid,” he admits. “Her words, not mine. Told me all she wanted was for me to be there. Maybe flowers every once in a while, but not some fantasy she reads to keep her mind busy.” 

He wants to laugh at being the one stuck out here right now, listening to this. If the universe put this guy here for someone to hear it, he’s a day too early. Elliot gets it. All he wants is to be there for Olivia. 

Elliot looks down at his own hands, still in his lap. 

“How’d that work for you?” 

Another laugh, this one a little quicker. 

“Truth?” the older man asks. “Took me a lot of tries.”

He glances back up. The older man’s still staring at the hallway, wistful and unashamed. Suddenly Elliot remembers all the times back in Rome - at Mass, on vacation, walking to a dinner his late wife had planned. When he’d have the same need written all over his face, the same distant look in his eyes. Kathy would nudge him sometimes, like she knew exactly where he was instead of there with her. 

He’d really tried, too.

Elliot turns his eyes to that long hallway. 

“Yeah,” Elliot says thickly. “Me too.” 

—

It’s something, coming out of the doctor’s office to Elliot Stabler. 

He stands up as soon as he sees her, pushing off the chair and crossing the space. She shakes her head and walks to the door instead. Out into the hallway, out to the elevator bank. Elliot is on her heels the whole time. He reminds her of a spring, coiled tight and finally released. She taps the down button with a nail, and exhales. 

The muscles in his jaw twitch as he waits for her to say something. 

“They’ll call,” she says. “She has to look at it closely, again. But — ”

Elliot tenses, and she lays a hand on his arm. Her other hand splays across her own stomach as she lets out a slow breath. Underneath her cotton shirt, there’s a sticky residue left from the patches she needs to clean off. 

“She didn’t see anything alarming,” Olivia whispers.

She can pinpoint the exact time she last saw the look in his eyes. She’s seen it a few times now over the last twenty-six years, but the very last time was in a diner parking lot in Ohio; when he’d laid her down in the backseat of a federal Tahoe, his fingers frantically rolling back the hem of her blood soaked shirt blindly. Both of them reaching for the wounds, neither one of them able to look. It’s not deep, she’d told him, then harsher: Elliot - Elliot, it’s not that bad. 

Even with his eyes burning; bright red, she’d been able to see it then too. 

“That’s - yeah?” he asks hoarsely. “Nothing?” 

She laughs, she can’t help it. “Yes.” The look on his face is torn between disbelief and relief. “Nothing,” she repeats. She’s still holding on to his arm as the doors swing open and when they step through them together. When they turn and she finally lets go, she reaches down to find his hand between them. She only means to squeeze it, to reassure him, but Elliot holds on too tight. 

“She thinks it might be — ”

He doesn’t let go as the elevator starts to descend.

“She thinks it might just be the muscles around my heart.” 

—

Her apartment is quiet, and messier than he remembers from three years ago. There’s a laundry basket full of half folded clothes on her coffee table, and a counter strewn with papers and mugs. He loves it; wants to burrow into it and stay put for as long as she’ll have him this time. He’s not quite sure how he ended up here. 

Well. 

Elliot isn’t not sure how he ended up here, either. 

He drove her home, giddy, and he parked and she said something about coming up for coffee. She said something about decaf if he wanted, and then they were walking through the lobby, and now he’s here, standing in her kitchen yet again, telling her regular is just fine. In theory, he absolutely knows how he got here - car ride, park, lobby, hallway, door - but it all feels so fucking surreal. 

He’s standing in her kitchen at 11:42, and she’s going to be fine. 

She busies herself with making coffee, and he watches. She must feel it - feel him, and the way his eyes trail her, because he can’t bear to look away - because she turns around at the coffee maker; a brown paper filter in her hand. Her hair swings around her, and she’s flushed and gorgeous and so, so —

“What?” 

He blinks, and Olivia is looking at him. Head tilted, brown eyes seeking out his. The small curve of a smile playing softly on her lips as she waits for his answer. 

His lips twitch up in response. 

“Nothing, I’m just — ” 

He’s so far away from her over here. On the other side of the island, when all he wants is to be right there in her space. He’s dying - fuck, maybe truly, he’ll find out tomorrow - to hold her. He has been trying so hard to hold back and let her tell him what she needs, but he wants to, 

He wants to so badly.

“Can I - Liv,” he starts. “Can I just come over there?” 

She looks amused at that, but not startled or scared. She looks around the small space between the island and the counter. 

“Over here?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “In that, you know. General area.” 

“Are you asking to approach my sink?” 

She smirks, and it dawns on him that she’s flirting with him. That she knows what she’s doing, and she’s indulging both of them by leaning into it, and fuck, does he love her. 

“You know what — ” He is in love with her, and it is hell being this far away from her, so he shakes his head and he moves. Around the corner, and close, and she doesn’t seem at all shocked when he keeps going. When he doesn’t stop two inches away, or toe to toe. When he simply moves into her space and reaches out, a hand settling low on her waist as he shakes his head. “Yeah, Benson, by your sink.” 

Olivia laughs, and it’s low and breathy and warm, and he pulls her in to him. She sways into it, easily. Her arms wrap around him, and she moves even closer, her head dropping onto his shoulder with a sigh. He feels the tickle of her hair, and the flutter of her eyelashes and then she’s just breathing. He’s holding her, and she's breathing, and it lasts. 

Her voice is muffled against him. 

“You were really worried, weren’t you?” 

His chance to laugh, and she’s lifting her head just enough for him to find her eyes with his. Her hand settles on his chest. She feels strong and soft and perfect like this; here in his arms. It occurs to him that he hasn’t felt that awful, piercing pain since he woke up this morning. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I was pretty fucking worried.” 

It doesn’t feel like enough, so he keeps going. He keeps holding her, and he keeps telling her. His voice wavers again, but he tries. 

“You know that, right? I just…Liv.” 

“I know,” she says. “I do, I know, Elliot.” 

He pulls her close again, this time cheek to cheek. Every other time they’ve hugged it's been quick, but this time it’s different. This time they stay there, neither one willing to move. Next to them, the coffee pot sits untouched; the coffee filter haphazardly tossed down, two empty mugs waiting. He presses his lips to her cheek tentatively. His hand trails up and down her spine slowly. 

He listens to her breathe.

“I couldn’t think about anything else for the last two days,” he admits. “Just - thank you, for letting me come today.” 

He feels the slow curve of her smile against his cheek. 

“Did I have much of a choice?” she asks softly. 

She says it in jest, but he shakes his head once, slowly, against her cheek. He doesn’t want her to feel like that - trapped, stuck, held hostage by him and his love. 

“Liv, I — ” 

She wraps her arms tighter around him, and he feels her breath close to his ear. Sensing his reaction, knowing exactly where he was going; what he was thinking and fearing. 

“Relax, Elliot,” she murmurs. “I needed you there.”

 —

The coffee is made and drunk, eventually.

She sighs when it dwindles down in her mug, and Elliot’s smile on the barstool next to her is knowing, right away. 

“You need to get going?” 

Olivia nods. “I do, yeah.” 

A full squad, but an even fuller set of demands from a new chief, and she is stuck proving the worth of her squad all over again. And she does want to be there. She means it, when she says there’s more work to do. She doesn’t feel done, or ready to slow down. 

She also wants to be right here, right now. 

Elliot stands up, pushing back. He holds out his hand for her coffee mug and she passes it to him. He walks around her kitchen like he knows it, headed to the sink, already testing the water to rinse them out. 

“Go change,” he tells her. “You, uh - you want a to- go mug too?” 

She feels - insanely - heat under her cheeks as she nods. Coming out of the doctor’s office to see him was something, a good something, but having Elliot Stabler stand in her kitchen while she changes, while he makes her a travel mug of coffee - it feels like another thing altogether. Olivia likes it, and if she can hear the warning in her ear - her own voice; low and quiet and fifteen years younger telling her that it won’t hold - it’s muted. It’s quieter than it ever has been. 

“Sure,” she says breathily. “Please.” 

She changes out of her clothes, and she swipes at the mascara that flaked under her eye. She wipes at the sticky patches on her chest with a makeup remover she keeps for nights where washing her face feels too overwhelming. She gets dressed in her work clothes, and she fluffs her hair, and then she’s in the kitchen again, taking a warm travel mug of coffee from him. 

It feels, quite frankly, very fucking surreal. 

Elliot being here, and the way she can admit to herself that she likes it so much. 

“Thanks,” she says, sighing as she takes the mug from him. “I need it.” 

She stands by her counter, taking one last moment. She needs to get going - truly, she does - but it’s hard to just leave. It’s hard to want to just leave all of the sudden. She rotates the lid open, and tilts it back, and Elliot mirrors her, leaning down on one elbow as he watches her take a sip. 

His voice is quiet, gruff. 

“Hopefully you’ll sleep better tonight,” he murmurs.

She huffs out a laugh, head shaking. 

“I doubt it,” she mutters. “I’ll be up worrying about some guy I know.” 

He raises a bushy eyebrow. It’s mussed, all unkempt and she knows it’s from when he was holding her. When they were cheek to cheek, breathing against her, and it’s insane, how they ended up here. Flirting about cardiac issues, and her fighting a blush about the state of his eyebrow. 

He thumbs at his nose, a crooked grin forming below it. 

“Some guy, huh?” he starts. “Good friend of yours?” 

Her lips twist to the side, head tilting slightly. 

“Great friend,” she corrects him.

He’s got that cocky smile on his face and she thinks about how long it’s been since she’s seen that. At a diner in Ohio was the last time, maybe. 

Right before all that chaos. 

“That’s still your story huh?” 

“It is,” she shrugs and her stomach flutters when she sees him moving around the counter, coming to her side and crowding her just enough to make them both go still for a moment. Inches away, and his blue eyes flash as he stares back at her.

Her breath catches, waiting. 

Elliot reaches around her, slowly. His hand brushes against the side of her that’s up against the counter. Her waist, her stomach, and her heart is pounding; that ache completely forgotten after one muscle relaxant and this. 

Then he keeps going. 

Eyes on her the whole time, Elliot keeps going. 

His hand wraps around that travel mug, and his smile is subtle and smug and knowing, knowing full fucking well what he’s doing as he pulls it back. She hates how well it works. 

“I’ll walk you out,” he says. 

—

Elliot is a man of faith, first and foremost, and even if he doesn’t believe in a foretold, divine plan, he believes in offering gratitude. He believes in saying thank you, when he can. After the birth of his grandson, when his mother’s prognosis turned from guarded to fair - he doesn’t shy away from this part of it. 

The Catholic church closest to his loft is small, meant for a purpose that no longer exists. Built to offer a sanctuary to a working class that can no longer afford the area, it shares its singular priest with five other churches scattered through the borough. 

Elliot is surprised to find him here tonight. 

The wooden doors open with a creak, and the priest turns, a momentary face of alarm fading when he sees Elliot. Leaving the sanctuary doors unlocked is a non-negotiable for them, but he understands the inherent fear in the action. It leaves them open and vulnerable; defenseless except for their faith. 

“Detective Stabler, right?” 

The priest - Fr. Jeff, he remembers now - nods at him in greeting as Elliot slides into the second to last pew. Elliot nods, murmurs a quiet affirmation. He sits, hands clasped for a moment on the back of the one in front of him, staring ahead.

“Can I — ” Fr. Jeff is young, and still slightly unsure. The man hesitates for a moment, then takes a few steps toward Elliot. “Is there anything I can help with tonight?” 

Elliot breathes in deep, eyes cast down as he considers the answer. He’d really intended just to come in here alone; say a few words of gratitude to himself and his God, and then leave. He hadn’t counted on explaining himself. 

“I — ”

His lips twist to the side as he tries to find the words. 

“I don’t think I need help,” he says quietly. 

Fr. Jeff nods, raising a hand in understanding. 

“Fair enough,” he answers. “I can let you — ”

“Signs,” Elliot blurts out. Something in his chest shifts; not painful but present, and he presses the heel of his palm there. “I know - I know the Church’s stance on signs from God, but what about - from someone we loved. Someone we love,” he corrects. “Who left us.” 

“Well — ” 

The other man breathes in, audible in the quiet space. Outside the walls of the church, Elliot can hear the brakes of a bus as they slam. Fr. Jeff sits heavily, half in the pew in front of him, feet on the long carpet down the middle, body turned halfway to Elliot.

“You’re right,” he starts again. “The church says only God himself can communicate with us. It would be impossible, at least according to doctrine.” 

Elliot’s mouth falls open to thank him, but Fr. Jeff presses on. 

“But — ” He drops his voice low, as though God himself is listening. “We also believe that saints heal, and angels protect, so — ”

Elliot laughs, cutting him off. The idea of Donald Cragen as a saint among men - the man would laugh himself, if he were alive.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “It’s just - I don’t think they’ll ever consider the person I’m thinking of for sainthood.”

Fr. Jeff turns, smiling. 

“I’m just saying, Detective. There’s loopholes in everything, even after death,” he adds. “So maybe just stay open to the idea.” 

Elliot turns it over in his mind, eyes raising back to the front of the church. A statue of Mary on one side, Saint Eligius on the other. A half dozen or so red candles glow at their feet. Underneath his palm, he can feel the steady, persistent beat of his own heart. 

“I think I already was,” he says quietly.

—

She means to be early. 

She’d tossed and turned all night, restless and worried about today, and then she’d gone to work early. Noah’s old enough to not want her anywhere near drop off if she can help it, and she’d taken advantage of that. She’d hoped to be able to clear some stuff, and be on her way. 

She really means to be early. 

Olivia means to leave work by nine-fifteen and be at his place by ten, to the doctor’s by eleven. She means to stop for something silly for him - a mini carton of orange juice; a little mini can of Sprite - but she gets caught up, like she always does, and she’s flying out the door of her office at ten, and she’s not in front of his place until 10:31 because of a string of fucking red lights that don’t work in her favor. 

Elliot gives her a low wave as he jogs over. 

“Hi,” she says when he pulls open the door. She grabs at her work bag, strewn on the passenger seat. Her work keys fall to the floorboard. “I’m sorry, I really — ”

He scoops them up as he slides in. 

“For what?” 

“I’m about — ” As soon as his door shuts, she’s signaling back into traffic, eyes on the mirror as she taps the gas. “I’m about forty-five minutes later than I wanted to be.” 

He makes a noise, a low dismissive eh.

“It doesn’t matter,” Elliot says. “We’ll be fine. It’s, uh - it’s been gone. The pain I mean.” 

She turns, incredulous. “It matters. I said I’d take you and if we’re late, you’ll have to reschedule. You still need to get it checked out.” 

He shrugs again as the light turns. 

“So I’ll reschedule. It doesn’t — ”

“Don’t say it doesn’t matter,” she snaps. “It matters, Elliot. I — ”

She feels it then, ridiculous and lodged right in her chest as she looks over at him. Elliot, who described the pain in his chest like a knife. Elliot, who needs to get to this appointment so she can know he’s fine and good and whole. Elliot, who she has wasted so much time with; who she has tried to deny herself of for so long. Elliot who is trying; imperfectly and sometimes illogically. Elliot who is looking at her confused and concerned and who makes it known - why it matters. 

Elliot, who can say it so easily. 

“I love you,” she breathes. 

She laughs as soon as she says it, her hand lifting from the wheel, pressing to her mouth. They are at a fucking red light, and it’s turning green and she’s said it, now and — 

“I love you,” she repeats. “Oh my god, Elliot — ”

Behind them someone lays on the horn, loud and angry. She taps the gas and they lurch forward and they’re moving again, and she glances over quickly and she can’t breathe, at the look on his face.

Elliot Stabler, who she loves. 

“Pull over,” he says gruffly. “Please, just - Liv.” 

She shakes her head, resolute. 

“We’re not going to be late,” she says. 

She loves him, and he needs to get this fucking stress test done so she can be sure he’s okay. Then she needs to tell him she knows about the goddamn thing with his hands, and he needs to stop being so scared about that, too. 

Then, she wants to show him. 

“Olivia.” 

“Elliot.” 

She dares another glance over, and then she drops her hand from the wheel. Before she can move it an inch, Elliot’s reaching over and grasping it with his own. Holding on tight, like a lifeline as she drives him across the city. 

She should probably let go of his hand and just drive, but there’s no way in hell she’s going to let go of his hand. 

”You’re so fucking stubborn,” he says from the seat next to her. “Jesus fucking Christ, Olivia I love you too.” 

She laughs, she can’t help it. It’s giddiness and hysteria and fear, but it’s also freeing. Not a weight lifted, but a dam finally opened up. It’s always been there, just waiting to spill out where it belongs.

“I know,” she breathes. “I know.”

— 

He confesses it all this time, on the exam table. 

Not just the pain in his chest - that’s gone now, lifted away like some kind of saintly goddamn miracle - but the rest of it too. The hands that shake, and the last year he’s had and Dr. Milani makes careful, slow notes on the laptop before they walk him back for the stress test. 

Sixty-two minutes later, he comes out of the hallway to find her. 

She’s on her feet the second she sees him. Her phone clutched in her hand, the concern all over her face as she wordlessly questions him. Beautiful, even in her worry. Gorgeous, actually, in her worry. Dark hair and dark eyes, her skin golden from the light streaming in from the windows. Her bottom lip, swollen from where she’s worked it through her teeth again and again. He could get caught up in it if he wasn’t in such a goddamn hurry to get to her and get out of here. 

His face breaks open in a grin, and he watches her whole face change. 

“It’s — ”

Elliot can barely say it, he’s smiling so hard. Can barely finish the fucking sentence around this huge, idiotic grin on his face. He laughs, head shaking slightly. He’s never been so relieved for someone to tell him to go back to therapy. 

“Anxiety,” he says. “She thinks it’s anxiety.” 

Her relief is just as tangible. He sees it in her eyes, and the way she closes them for a moment, head tilting back and smile breaking as loose as his own. He feels it, because his hand has found the small of her back and her whole body sways back into his touch. 

He dips his head down, nose at her ear. 

“We should go,” he murmurs. “Come on. We need to — ”

Her stride is huge, but his hand stays there, tethered to her back as they walk out of the office. Into the hallway, moving by a now familiar duo of elevators. His free hand punching the down button, his heart slamming happily in his chest. Olivia’s whole body is lined up against his, so soft in her relief. 

He feels her breathe in as the elevator doors open with that silent swoosh. They both blink, startled to see other riders - startled, maybe, that anyone else can possibly exist in a moment like this - but they step in together, and they turn together, and when his hand leaves her back, the distance doesn’t take. He finds her again, tangling their hands together as they start to drop. 

“It was - um, she thinks it’s all of it,” he says softly. 

He’s breaking the cardinal rule of elevator etiquette by saying it; but no one seems to mind. No one turns, or bothers. Olivia’s hand squeezes his hard, and she glances over at him as she does it. This too he says silently. The shake in his hands, the pain in his chest - he’ll follow up with her again, and he’ll begrudgingly go to neurology one more time, but it’s his nervous system, she’d told him. 

Stuck on overdrive over a horrible, horrible time. 

Not now, though. 

Not right now, with the elevator doors opening back up, and the two of them moving toward the parking garage. Hand in hand, matching strides. Olivia just slightly ahead as she leads him. Like it should be - her in the front, her in charge. 

He sees her SUV, and his racing heart starts to pound but he keeps walking. Right up to her driver’s side door, where she turns and looks at him. Those pretty brown eyes - filled with grief two weeks ago, and always, always filled with so much fight - turn to his. A little glassy, a little wet as she blinks. 

That smile, though.

“It’s good we didn’t have to reschedule,” she murmurs. 

Elliot reaches up. He’s mesmerized by how soft she looks and feels and is, as he nudges her back slightly with his body. His palm curves at her cheek, and his thumb finds the space right below her bottom lip. 

“You were right,” he whispers. 

Her chest rises and falls against his forearm. “I usually am,” she says softly. 

He traces the bottom jut of her lip. Each breath she takes is shaky, unnerved in the best possible way. He is trying so hard to let her go first, but he’s not sure he can wait much longer. He nods his head slightly.

“That’s why I love you,” he murmurs. 

Underneath his palm, there’s the slightest curve of her cheek as she smiles. He looks at her lips, her eyes, and back again. 

“Because I’m always right?” 

Her chin trembles just slightly, but she’s not giving in, not yet. He moves his body in, so one knee is almost sliding between her two, and Elliot ducks his head, lips low on her cheek. Their foreheads press together. 

“Because you’re stubborn,” he whispers as they brush the warm, soft skin. “Because you don’t give up. That’s why I love you.”

He’s at the corner of her mouth, and her breath is warm and he’s got them almost all the way there. The wheels are down, the runway is ahead. He can do all that, but she has to be the one. She has to land them there together, he tells himself. It has to be her. 

“I love you too,” she whispers shakily. “I –”

He was supposed to wait. 

He was supposed to let her move them, let her lead them here, but she says it again, and he realizes it. Just like that night outside of Cragen’s memorial, he needs to show her. He needs to lay her down and tell her that she is his choice - that she was always what he wanted, and not his duty, and that when he fled it was because he was too terrified to make it. He was weak, and a coward, and he needs to tell her all that, but right now - right now he just needs to show her. 

He kisses her softly, the first time. 

He ghosts his lips across hers, seeking, and it’s gentle for exactly one second. It’s soft and easy and tentative for barely a moment before he feels her grip on his shirt; before he feels the fire in her response. His hand is framing her face, but she’s the one guiding them now. She pulls him in, moves against him; deepens the kiss with a moan against his mouth that makes every nerve fiber in his body twitch. Olivia’s mouth is heat, and her back is up against her SUV and they kiss frantically, deeply, needy right there in the parking garage. 

Her tongue slides against his lips, demanding and now it’s his turn to groan; his turn to gasp. Her hands roam everywhere, wrapping at his sides, sliding up his chest, settling at his waist so she can keep him as close as possible as their mouths move together. There are learning curves. Their teeth clack, and he tilts his head down too much; her head hitting the frame of her car with a jolt, but they adjust. He cushions the back of her head; hand sliding through silky strands of hair as they keep going and going and going. 

It’s done. 

Holding back is done. They have held back for so long, and it’s gone now. It’s not a lack of willpower, not anymore. They have spent almost three decades proving that they both have enough willpower to light up a fucking city. This is about knowing that time won’t stop for them no matter how much resolve they carried for so long. 

“Elliot,” she breathes when they finally pull themselves apart. 

Her voice is honey-thick, strained. His name is an exhale against his own lips. He lets his forehead rest on hers, nodding. “I know,” he manages. “We need to – ” Her mouth is on his again before he can finish, her two hands cupping his face roughly as she kisses him one more time. 

“We do,” she says, open-mouthed against him. “I have to get to work, I can’t - I want to, but –”

Her head drops down to his shoulder as he nods. Both of them are still breathing hard, and he wraps his arms around her, exhaling when she does it right back. Olivia’s arms wind around his neck, and they hold each other now. His heart is beating wildly still, and he pictures it. 

Olivia’s heart sheltered and protected underneath the cage of her ribs, beating in time with his. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “We have time.”

—

She would roll her eyes, if it had happened in a different way. 

It already feels like a little much, like something out of a bad, paperback romance novel. Two star crossed not-ever-lovers, bumping into each other because they think their hearts are broken after another horrible loss - it reads like something she’d smirk at, shake her head and put back down on the shelf. 

Lucky for her, it happens the way it’s supposed to. 

It’s after a long, slow month of them both being there. 

Dates, and long nights on their couches. Stolen kisses and touches in their cars and in their hallways and once in her office. It is drawn out perfectly, and the first time she takes Elliot Stabler to bed is after take out eaten on her couch, with her son stealing egg rolls off both of their plates while he runs out the door to his friend Jason’s place. Noah doesn’t blink at his presence, because he has been present. Bumping into each other at Dr. Milani’s was fate, but the rest of it isn’t. The rest of it is Elliot, laying the groundwork. 

Elliot, doing the work to prove it to her. 

And her, letting him the whole time. 

They trade kisses down the length of her hallway, his hands sliding under the hem of her sweater as he backs her into the wall. His palms are rough and warm as they dance up her waist; her side, thumbs grazing tentatively at the lace of her bra. Her nipples harden under his touch and she arches into it, whining softly when he slows down. She whispers please against his lips, and he smiles, and she can feel how smug he is. 

“We have time,” he reminds her. “Let me –” 

She reaches down between them, palming him roughly. Yes, they have time, but she’s also determined. Too many false alarms, too many times dancing too close to the fire; she doesn’t want to go slow this first time. Just like she was that morning on the way to the doctors, she is stubborn, in how she loves him. Stubborn, in how she wants him so badly right now. 

That’s how he loves her, too. 

“Too slow,” she breathes. “Need you like this.” 

“Fuck, Olivia,” he groans. “Jesus - fuck — ”

He jerks into her touch, and Elliot pants against her mouth as they both work his fly. She tilts her head back and his mouth moves to her jaw, peppering heated kisses there, mouthing and nipping as she slides her hand past his waistband to find him. Thick and hard, already leaking when her thumb swipes at the tip before she starts to stroke. All she wants - all she can think about now - is feeling. 

Feeling him, hearing him, sinking into the tangible that they do have; that they can make together. 

Her heartbeat is relentless, pounding in her chest, and it doesn’t hurt at all. 

He sucks at the skin of her neck hard enough to leave a mark; she curls her fingers tight. Elliot drags his teeth low, right to the collar of her shirt and the hollow of her throat and she moves her wrist faster as she listens to his loud, strangled groan. It’s a give and take, a back and forth and Olivia is sure she’s winning until Elliot pins her wrist down against him, stilling her. She tries one more time - her fingers still curled around him, another attempt to flick her wrist - but he grunts; shakes his head, and doesn’t let her move her hand at all. 

Olivia drops her chin, eyeing him.

“Not this fast,” he says thickly. 

She feels like she’s on fire with need, and he must sense it, must read her cues, because Elliot slides his knee between her thighs, lifting just enough to give her friction. She doesn’t even have to drop her hips at all; he’s angled himself just right. 

She bites back her groan. 

“How?” she asks, breathless. 

Elliot leans down so his mouth is at her ear. Her wrist bends enough that she releases him finally, and his cock presses her into belly; hard against the warm skin he’s exposed. 

“Let me show you,” he says.

There’s a plea in the way he says it, threaded through the rasp of his voice. Like he needs to show her, needs to prove something to her tonight, like he’s been trying to for so long. 

Olivia wants to let him, so she does. She lets him take her hand, and lead her into the quiet, dim light of her room. She lets him guide her across it, to the corner of her room, where her floor length mirror stands.

Let me show you, he whispers again. 

Their eyes meet in the mirror, standing side by side. In full disarray already - his fly wide open, her hair a mess from where his fingers had carded through it desperately in the hallway. 

“I didn’t know you meant literally,” she says, blinking back at him in their reflections. 

Elliot laughs at that, a rumble deep from his chest as he nods, and reaches for her. For a moment, she thinks he’s moving behind her - so whatever’s about to happen, it’ll be both of them watching - but then he shifts in front of her, his big hand sliding under her shirt at her waist, his back to the mirror. 

His eyes, only on her. 

“I did, yeah,” he gruffs. “That okay?” 

His palm feels like it’s burning a path up her rib cage, the backs of his knuckles leading the way. Olivia struggles to take a deep breath in immediately, her chest rising and falling shallowly as he inches the hem up.

“Yes,” she whispers. 

Her sweater is already gone, but it’s her bra, next, his big fingers nimbly unclasping it and letting it fall to the floor. When she tries to help him with the fly of her jeans, he peels back her hand gently, head shaking. 

The whole time, he moves so, so carefully, but not slowly at all. 

He listened to her, too. 

“Let me show you,” he reminds her. “Just watch.” 

It shouldn’t surprise her, how natural this feels. With the confident way Elliot’s always held himself around her physically; the ease at which he moves himself in her presence shouldn’t be a shock, but it is. Or, it’s a shock to watch play out. In the mirror she can see it, even from behind. The long, broad muscles of his back and shoulders moving underneath his shirt as he slowly rolls her dark jeans down to the ground, kneeling eventually, then staying right there. 

He lifts his chin slowly, the bristle of his five o’clock shadow catching. His hands slide up her thighs, landing at the waistband of her underwear. He sweeps his eyes up her body languidly, taking in the sight before they meet hers. 

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. 

She breathes in shakily, desperate for air. 

“Elliot.” 

He nods as he starts to drag her underwear down. She steps out - one, two - unsteady and reaching for the safety of his shoulder as her heart races at his words, his actions; the sheer proximity of his mouth and the look on her own face in the mirror when she dares to look up. She gasps at what she sees, at what she feels at the exact same time. 

His hands come back to her waist, and tighten on her hips. He kisses the inside of a thigh, turns so his voice is muffled but his mouth isn’t quite where she wants it. She aches for him normally, but this is different, more. His breath is hot, close to the lips of her pussy as he pleads again. 

“I can feel your heart beat here,” he whispers. 

She laughs, shaking her head. 

“You can’t,” she manages breathlessly. 

She feels Elliot’s grin, the actual curve of his cheek as he nods. 

“Femoral artery, Liv,” he says, voice deep and gravelly and impossibly fucking close. How the fuck this is romance is beyond her, but it is. Her knees are shaking, and her throat is dry, and Elliot Stabler is on his knees, waxing poetic about the way her heart beats next to her cunt, about her veins. She got a C in biology her freshman year, and promptly retook it the next semester. “I can feel you.”

She can’t help it, can’t stop; the noise she makes at his word. A gasp, a groan - a keening, needy sound that cuts him right off. Her hand on his shoulder digs in, nails sharp through the fabric of the shirt he still wears. She needs him so desperately, so wholly and completely. 

“Please,” she manages. “Please, Elliot, just — ”

He gives, closing that last small bit of distance, mouth landing at her cunt as she holds on tight. Almost like he’d unleashed himself finally, too, his tongue eager and licking; a greedy groan vibrating against her at the first curl deep inside. 

Olivia feels dizzy, unsteady, hands scrambling for purchase as her knees shake. She can feel the shift and pull of his muscles right through his shirt as he grips her hard, holding her as close as he can. His nose pressed against her swirling, tasting - devouring until she whimpers, needing more. 

A messy lick from her entrance to her clit, and then Elliot’s tongue is there, licking long, deep passes against her. When his lips close around her - a hard, deep suck before his tongue starts to move again - she gasps, and her knees shake and she lurches forward, eyes flying open on instinct.

That’s when she sees them. 

“Fuck.” 

She gasps it out at the sight of them, at the way he moves and the way she looks. The sway of her tits, her flushed face; her pink nails digging into the collar of Elliot’s black shirt. The top of his head pressed to her belly, his hands grasping her body; all of it right there on display. She can feel him and she can see them both and it’s real, it’s not a dream or a wish or a longing played in her mind’s eyes. 

The way her heart beats so strongly is a reminder.

This is real. 

This is real, and so is his tongue and his touch and the groan he makes when she grinds down against him. She can hear own ragged breath as he licks her harder, as he gives her all the right pressure and pleasure, and she can’t tear her eyes away at all.

She watches it happen.

Olivia watches in the mirror as Elliot pushes her there, as one hand leaves her thigh and two fingers slide deep inside her, crooking up as her breath catches and her whole body goes hot. She watches as he fucks her with his tongue and his fingers, and she watches her own mouth fall open. She hears her almost silent cry of his name as she shatters all around him, swaying heavily against him as everything goes bright. 

She watches. 

She sees it happen, and when it’s done and she’s falling forward, her eyes finally close again as Elliot catches her, guiding her back and to the edge of her bed. 

Olivia lays down, and just tries to breathe as he looks down at her. The look in his eyes is so genuine. She feels more exposed than she’s ever been in her life, and she doesn’t mind at all. His eyes take her in, and there’s hunger and love and she feels so, so alive. 

The bed dips as he sits, his own breathing loud.

She reaches for him, hand curling lightly around his wrist. 

“You good?” she asks. 

He laughs, lifting the hem of his shirt to swipe at his face, and blinks down at her. She’s breathing just as hard, she knows, but she still needed to ask. 

“Am I good?” he asks. “I think - yeah, Liv. I’m really good.”

Elliot leans down then, moving over her, easing his body down to cover hers. He keeps his weight off of her, elbows dug into the mattress as he drops his head to give her a searing, deep kiss. She can taste herself on his tongue; vital and sharp and vivid. When he draws back, he keeps his mouth close as he tells her. 

“I’m the best I’ve ever been.” 

—

They move slower, after that. 

Olivia takes her chance to strip Elliot down, working his jeans over the thick width of his thighs, peeling his shirt off of him slowly. Every so often she stops to let her palm linger on his chest, where his heart beats for her. He doesn’t protest at all. He knows she’s not worried, not concerned; not double checking.

She just wants to feel it. 

She nudges him back to her headboard between fervent, deep kisses, their hands roaming and touching everywhere they can. She traces his scar with the tip of her finger, the pink polish almost a match for the healing skin. When she moves between his thighs, he gasps, helpless as he shakes his head. 

“You don’t — ”

She smirks, lips curving up. 

Pink flushed cheeks, and her breasts swaying in front of him, and he has never been so sure of a miracle in his life. 

“Let me,” she tells him. “You watch, now.” 

She’s still smiling as she takes him in her mouth, humming at the taste of him; licking where he leaks into her mouth already. Everything feels so visceral tonight, like sliding on a pair of glasses for the first time, but every sense affected. Her mouth, warm and wet and velvet. How the muscles of his stomach twitch when she rests her free arm there, pinning him lightly. Her low, raspy groan when he pushes her hair back to watch. The look in her eyes, the way she doesn’t hesitate. His heart, thumping in his chest.

It’s heightened, all of it. 

He lets it go on until he can’t anymore; until he reaches down with a hand on her shoulder. 

“Come up here,” he says gruffly.

Before she actually can Elliot is half lifting her, half pulling her into his lap. He’s still sitting up, his back against her headboard, and it puts them chest to chest. His cock is between them, pressing into where she’s softest. The coarse hair of his chest drags against her nipples as she rises up, and he feels her shiver. He brushes the hair off her shoulder, and ghosts his mouth there slowly until she starts to move again. 

They’re wordless now as she lifts herself up. 

His hand grips at her waist, holding her steady. 

Wordless, but not silent as she sinks down on him. Her gasp is loud, and his own answering groan is strangled. He holds himself still as she lowers herself, as he fills her. Her lip is between her teeth, and her eyes flutter shut and he waits. 

He holds still. 

They’re chest to chest, scar to scar; battle wound to battle wound when they open back up. 

“Me too,” she says softly. 

He doesn’t have to ask what she’s answering, what she’s saying back to him. If it’s from all the times he couldn’t say it out loud, but wanted to, or if it’s from the times he actually did. He has wielded his love like a cloak of protection; like a weapon to fight for her, because it was the only way he could for so long, but now, here - it’s a gentle love. 

Her hand settles on his chest, and he knows she feels the wild beat of his heart under her palm. Right there, that’s where he loves her. Every beat of his heart is hers, and it always has been. 

She ducks her head down, lips brushing against his. The pads of his fingers trail down her spine, slow and easy. 

“Yes,” he breathes into the kiss. “Me too.” 

Olivia pulls back then, rolling her hips slowly, and he watches her face dissolve into bliss. She does it again, and he lets her lead; wrapping an arm at his neck as she starts to move faster and faster. It takes them a moment to find their rhythm, but they do. Like always, they do. Once they find it, his hands move to her ass; the small of her back, his hips thrusting up on reflex. He growls, low and needy when her fingernails dig into the back of his neck. 

She smirks, rocks down again. 

“You’re still good — ” 

Olivia reaches between them, spreading herself open more before she starts to swipe at her clit. Slowly at first, making sure the backs of her knuckles move against his cock in the tight space between them. His heart thunders in his chest as he tries to hold back. 

“— right now too?” 

“Jesus Christ, Olivia,” he groans. “Now too, yeah.” 

She laughs, rocking faster, tilting her body back to gain leverage. It feels good to laugh, to actually be able to do it. Everything about them has been so, so heavy for so long. 

Her laugh fades when he grips her hips harder, meeting her movement down with his own deep thrusts up. The pace is punishing, sweat gathering between them; slick on his thighs and the back of his knees. It doesn’t take long at all for them both to get there; overwhelmed with everything all night. 

Now it’s just feeling, the raw, tangible reminder that what they are to each other is so, so real. 

They let that feeling take control. 

He holds off, pressure building and building. Her body is a work of art in his lap, come to life. He drinks it in, drinks her in; sinks his fingers into the places she gives and holds tight. Her eyes slam shut as she gets close to the edge. 

“Elliot,” she gasps. “Fuck, oh — ”

He grits his teeth, slamming his hips up. 

“Right here,” he pants. “I’m right here.” 

Olivia’s eyes flutter back open and she gasps, head lolling back and there it is. There she is, falling apart, shattering and shaking in his arms; her cunt gripping him tight as she cries out his name. He stops holding back the second he feels her, a growl on his lips as he thrusts up, burying himself inside of her. 

He pulls her flush to his body, comes deep and hot and filling her as he groans out her name. She presses her lips to his shoulder and she’s breathing hard and ragged in his ear and it’s everything, the two of them together. It’s everything his heart has ever craved 

It always, always was. 

In the moments after, Olivia lets herself collapse against him. He stays inside of her, hand trailing up and down her back gently as they both catch their breath. Her head rests on his shoulder, turned in so he can feel her breathing slow down. 

Elliot finds the line of her hair and presses a kiss there. She sighs, and it's content and easy and settled. 

He feels her kiss, soft and slow at his neck, and he smiles. 

“How’s your heart rate?” she murmurs.

Her voice is low, raspy; the lazy drawl of Olivia Benson satiated and boneless and happy in his arms. He grins, even though he knows she can’t see it. 

“Never better.” 

—

The leaves on the tree near Cragen’s grave are all red now. 

They’ll fall to the ground soon enough. 

She lays down the wreath she bought a month and a half ago, but couldn’t bear to leave. Heart shaped, blue silk flowers; a trite commonplace thing. She’d been so upset with herself when she bought it; angry that she couldn’t think of something better at all. 

It looks nice up against the gray marker. 

Elliot’s palm is warm against hers as she comes back to him; his hand sliding through hers as they stand in silence for a moment. 

Elliot breaks it first, of course. 

“You think he’d admit it?” he asks.

Olivia turns, one eyebrow quirking up. He’s told her what he thinks. Fate, and signs and something about the saints we don’t recognize. She mostly thinks he’s too much of a believer, but she’d thought about it, that day in the park. The coincidence is certainly too much to ignore. 

Still. 

Would Cragen admit it?

“Do I think… ” 

They start to walk back towards the path to his Jeep. 

“Do I think he’d admit that he gave us chest pains to push us together?” she asks, laughing quietly. There’s a small hill to walk down from where his grave overlooks the river. “No, I think he’d tell you that we both are — ”

It flutters to the ground between them. She stops, watching it trail down slowly. It lands in front of her toes; red and vibrant against the green grass. It’s small, and the stem of it is still green. It’s perfectly shaped. It hasn’t turned brown, and the edges are crisp, not fraying.

It fell right on time. 

A little heart shaped leaf, right next to her toe. 

Elliot’s fingers squeeze once, thumb smoothing at her knuckle slowly. 

“Maybe,” she whispers.