Timeline: Season 19, after 19x6, "Unintended Consequences"

Spoilers and references: No real spoilers, but everything through 19x6 is fair game. General references to 13x1, "Scorched Earth," and events throughout Seasons 15 & 16. Direct references to 11x13, "P.C."

Disclaimer: these characters are so not mine.

"Push Reset"

It was actually the taller woman who caught his eye first. She strode the path like some majestic Amazon, towering over the rest of her party: a little boy, no more than five, and another woman, equally as composed and self-assured as the first, but somehow different. He couldn't put his finger on it. They were a good distance away, strolling parallel to Eleventh, having probably come in the 54th Street entrance. He kept trying to steal glances at them over his shoulder, but a roar of celebration that ripped through the crowd of spectators drew his attention back to the soccer field, and he lost sight of the women and the boy as he applauded his son's team's most recent goal.

He spotted them again while the teams were shaking hands after the game. The taller one's crisp tan overcoat flamed bright in the midday sun, and his gaze landed on them again quite by chance. He was inexplicably drawn to them, to his questions about their narrative, for they were an odd trio, and he wondered who they were—not to the world, but to each other.

Two friends and one's son? But the way the boy had walked between them, content to hold both of their hands at once, made that seem unlikely. Two sisters? Cousins? A couple, perhaps. The party neared the playground, and the boy broke free from them, leaping with joyful abandon towards the colorful equipment.

He shouldn't have been staring. But he was. It took his own son several tries just to get his attention, but the moment he looked away from the women, his ear caught something it hadn't heard in years. It was a certain peal of laughter, a sound far too infrequent back then, but familiar and unmistakable even now. He knew it like a mother knows her baby's cry. He cursed the blood pounding in his ears because he needed to hear it again, needed to find the source. His head snapped up and whipped around in vain search. Below him, his son tugged on his arm.

She had haunted him for years, though, and there was a part of him that wondered whether this was only his imagination again. In a city of eight million, after all, what were the chances that he would actually run into her on the street some day? Her building had been a landmark of his daily jogging circuit for six years, and he had yet to see her once. But he knew the timbre of her laugh as intimately as he knew that very route, and he knew—he could sense it, almost—that she was there.

Wild eyes scanned the park until they rediscovered the two women at the playground. His jaw fell open in wonder as he stared again. There was something about the second woman—there had been from the moment he first noticed them. And though they were just as far away now as before, he felt he could see her clearly. Her hair was longer, her figure fuller—time will do that to a person—but he was sure it was she.

"Come on," he said vaguely to his son, hooking an arm around his shoulders to get him moving. He never took his eyes off the women as he stalked towards them across the field, fearing that she would vanish if he looked away. That he would get there only to find it all a mirage.

"Where are we going?" his son protested beside him, but he never answered, and their steps never faltered.

On his trek, he wondered again who the other woman was. A victim? A witness? But the little boy had held both of their hands. Was he the involved party? But she had laughed. A survivor, maybe. Someone she had helped recover. Or a friend. Yes, the other woman could easily be a friend. But as he drew closer, he saw them both more distinctly and determined that they were about the same age, making the other woman too old to be the boy's mother. Social worker? Ad Litem? His eyes narrowed in thought as his mind flipped through a catalog of any other possibilities. Out of nowhere, it seemed, he remembered Babs Duffy and an unfinished conversation and would it matter if he did? Suddenly he staggered. His son caught his forearm, and they stopped short. Maybe it would matter after all. Maybe it made all the difference in the world now. Maybe they should turn around and—

"Elliot?"

Her voice was soft and breathy. There was a time when he had loved hearing her say his name like that. But things were different now. Weren't they? They weren't those people anymore. He should never have come over—or he should have turned around before he got this close—but it was too late. He was still about twenty paces away, but there was no graceful exit from this.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

He had to say something. He should have said something before now, but the other woman was staring at him with a look of hopeful anticipation, and it unsettled him. "Soccer," was all he could say. He flattened his hand against his son's shoulder blade and urged him forward. "Go. Go play."

"But Dad, I don't—"

"Just go."

Eli heaved a sigh and trotted off to the playground, dropping his bag at a bench on the way.

Elliot opened his mouth to say something to the women, but he stopped dead when a little voice from a play structure cried out, "Mommy, watch this!" and Olivia turned.

The little boy from earlier appeared down a slide. "Oh, that was incredible, honey!" she called back to him, but her voice was just a tad watery.

"Way to go, Noah!" the other woman called.

Watching them, Elliot felt like he couldn't breathe. He lurched forward a few steps. "You have a…" he started to ask, but he couldn't finish the thought. She was a mother?

"Sheila, this is Elliot Stabler," she interjected haltingly. "He was… my first partner at SVU."

"Oh, hi. Sheila Porter. Nice to meet you," she said very cordially, but she didn't close the distance between them to offer a handshake or anything.

"Yeah, likewise," he wheezed. He was completely out of his element. He didn't know what he'd been expecting—excitement? tears? wrath?—but he had never been more uncomfortable in his life. He had been drawn to her like a magnet across the park and acted on impulse rather than rationality. Always had with her. As he struggled to find appropriate words, he wondered what the hell he would have said if he had ever seen her on his nightly run. Truth be told, he had never thought that through, either.

"Eli's gotten so big," she volunteered. Somehow she could still save him from himself.

"Yeah," he barked.

"He's… coming up on… ten, right?"

He nodded and took a few steps closer.

"That's Elliot's youngest," she explained to Sheila. "Unless—" She suddenly looked back up at him.

"No, no," he chuckled, ambling a little closer. "I… learned my lesson that time." He offered her a sheepish smile, but from her reaction, he was sure she didn't understand. He wanted to tell her about the divorce, but with Sheila in the picture, would it really matter? Would it have mattered anyway? He had always thought it might. It's why he went running by her place each night, wasn't it?

"I haven't seen him since he was about Noah's age," Olivia continued to Sheila.

Elliot strolled closer. "Has she ever told you that she was there when he was born?" he asked Sheila, gazing at Olivia and only glancing at the other woman. "There was a car accident, and... well, I don't think I'd have him, if not for her."

"Um, no, I—" Sheila began.

"Mommy!" called Noah from the playset again.

"I see you, sweet boy!" Olivia called in return. Elliot loved the way her face transformed with her smile, and it drew him the rest of the way to the two women.

"It's good to see you, Liv," he breathed.

She offered nothing in response but a flat smile.

"I get that I've missed a lot," he said.

She nodded.

It killed him that she wasn't speaking anymore. He had royally screwed up years earlier, in more ways than one, and he would have given almost anything to take back his mistakes and redo those missing years. He wanted to ask her how to make things right again, but he had always relied on her to fix things for him, hadn't he? Again: to save him from himself. And that wasn't really her job. "I'm sorry I wasn't there," he said. It wasn't nearly enough, but it was all he had.

"So was I," she replied, and oh, what a twist of the knife.

"I'm going to…" Sheila began, pointing a finger at the jungle gym. "May I?" she asked Olivia.

"No, please," Olivia responded, and Sheila slipped away from between the two of them.

"So you have a kid," Elliot observed as soon as Sheila was gone.

It brought the faintest smile to Olivia's face, briefly bathing Elliot in relief. "I do," she confirmed. She turned to face the play area and pointed at the boy who was weaving in between some metal posts, gleefully evading Sheila's tickling fingers. "That's Noah," she told him.

She was looking at the boy, but Elliot was only watching her. He watched the way her eyes danced in amusement at Noah's every move, how her smile rose so naturally and effortlessly, how her throat bobbed when she laughed at something the boy had done. "I'm so happy for you, Liv," he said, transfixed by the way her necklace caught the light when she laughed.

She sighed and tried to give him another smile, but it wasn't even close to the genuine one he had just seen.

Still, she took his breath away. "Uh, so, how is it going with Sheila?" he asked. He didn't really want the answer, but he craved her conversation and it seemed like a natural question. And, in a way, he was a little curious.

Olivia folded her arms and watched the two on the playground. "I don't know yet. I'm still trying to figure her out."

Her candidness surprised him a little. And her uncertainty sparked a question that might never have come to his mind otherwise: "How long have you two been…?"

"What?" she asked, turning suddenly to look at him through narrowed eyes.

He shrugged uncomfortably under her gaze. He really didn't want to finish the question, and again, he wasn't entirely sure he even wanted the answer, but he had always wanted what was best for her, and if that meant—

"Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait," she said, turning fully to him and closing her eyes. She held them closed for a moment then looked up at him abruptly. "You think I'm a lesbian?"

His surprise must have been evident on his face, and he stammered unintelligibly as he gestured weakly out to Sheila and Noah.

Suddenly Olivia burst out with unrestrained laughter, and Elliot felt his cheeks and ears get hot with embarrassment. "You really think I'm a lesbian!" she laughed, her pity for his stupidity evident in her tone. She turned away and put her hands on her head. "Oh wow," she chuckled. "That explains so much."

He couldn't follow, but he was afraid of the exchange ending if he couldn't keep it going. "What does it explain?" he asked guardedly.

She barked a single laugh. "Why you never…"

The blood pounded in his ears again, and his chest swelled as he took a deep breath and another step closer. "Never what?"

She sighed a final dwindling chuckle and waved him off. "Forget it."

He let it go, despite the thundering of his heart. Instead he fell into place beside her, arms crossed over his chest, watching the scene on the playground. He checked on Eli, who was playing King of the Mountain on a slide with some other kids, and then his gaze fell to Noah. "So who is she, then?" he asked. "Sheila," he specified.

Olivia took a deep breath. "Noah's grandmother."

This drew his attention immediately back to Olivia. His eyes flicked over her body, and he wondered how it was possible. Earlier he had dismissed the possibility that Sheila could be Noah's mother because she looked too old—but she didn't look any older than Olivia. Had Olivia actually given birth at her age? Noah's having a known grandmother seemed to preclude the possibility that he was adopted or the result of a visit to the sperm bank, so Elliot reasoned that Olivia must have been involved with Sheila's son. And how old could he possibly be?! Elliot raised his eyebrows a little. "Huh. Never pegged you for a cradle-robber," he told her.

She scoffed. "Hardly."

"Come on, Liv, she's gotta be our age—how old's her son?"

"Her son?" Olivia repeated. Then she rolled her eyes and laughed again. "Jesus, El, do you want to make any more totally off-base assumptions about my sexual preferences?"

He was lost again, but she took mercy on him and explained.

"Noah's adopted," she said. "It's been official for two and a half years. He turned up as a newborn during an investigation, and… well, you can probably imagine. His mother was a runaway, and his father was a trafficker. Neither one's still living. Sheila's his maternal grandmother, but we didn't know about her until a few weeks ago. Now she wants a relationship, so…"

He nodded faintly. "Be careful."

"I know."

A moment of silence fell around them, but it wasn't tense or awkward as before. "I'm a grandfather," he finally noted.

She turned to him, wide-eyed and smiling. "You're kidding."

He snickered. "Caitlin Eileen Kelly. She'll be three in February. And Maureen's pregnant again."

The genuine smile was back. "Wow."

"And Elizabeth's getting married in the spring."

"Lizzie? But no, she's only eight," Olivia teased.

He sighed and shook his head. "Believe me, I feel the same way."

Olivia smiled again. "And Kathleen?" she asked carefully.

He nodded as he thought about his troubled middle daughter. She still had rough patches, but she was gainfully employed and living on her own, and he didn't worry about her like he used to. "She's doin' okay," he said.

Olivia nodded. "And of course I heard about Dickie joining the force."

Elliot breathed in deeply through his nose. "Yeah. Neither of us wanted him to do it, but that just made him want it more. Kathy worries about him. But, you know, they've got him in Staten with the 124, so—" he chuckled "—he'll probably retire before he even finishes his academy citation book."

She smiled at his joke, and then she quietly asked, "How is Kathy?"

He shrugged. "Fine, I guess." He considered leaving it at that, but then he realized that he wanted her to know everything. "Without you to talk me out of it, the divorce actually stuck this time."

"Oh, El, I'm sorry," she said, and she actually sounded it.

"Nah. It's a good thing."

"How long's it been?"

"Four years almost." He looked over at her, but her wide eyes were trained on her son.

"Wow." Her gaze never left the playground. "You seeing anyone?"

The question threw him for a loop. They had never really been the type of people to ask each other that kind of thing, and he knew full well that the two assumptions he had made earlier about her personal life were voiced only out of curiosity and a tinge of jealousy. Her body language made her seem utterly indifferent, though, and since the question wasn't typical of their former interactions, he wasn't sure why she was asking. He watched her closely as he answered. "No." She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "You?"

She laughed. "Oh, you mean if not Sheila or her twenty-five-year-old son?"

He grinned. "You gonna hold my faulty logic against me forever?"

"No, I'm proud of you; it takes a big man to admit when he's wrong," she teased.

"Not when he's glad to be wrong," he countered with a laugh, "so hold your praise." It was only when she fell silent that he realized he might have said too much.

"I've missed this," she admitted at last. "I never knew how much until right now. It used to drive me crazy sometimes, this constant back and forth with you, but…" She trailed off and looked over at him. "Things have been very different."

He stared back at her and, before he got too scared of her possible reactions, softly asked, "Look, can we… start over?" He'd never been a sentimental guy—he teemed with practicality, and rage was basically the only emotion he felt comfortable expressing—so his breathing was unsteady and his pulse fluttered and he finally understood the expression "butterflies in your stomach" when he opened his mouth to say the rest. "I know I messed up. And I don't expect anything, but… can we maybe just pretend that today is the day I put my papers in?" He faltered when she took a sharp breath and turned away. "And we can talk about it right now before I do it, and I'll call you tomorrow and the next day and every day after that, because that's what I should have done—" He cut himself off with a gasp of his own because saying all of that had felt just like drowning. Then he looked to find Eli, just to make sure his own child hadn't seen him like this, so torn apart, so raw and exposed. He'd put it all out there, a veritable self-evisceration, and now he felt rather light-headed. Must be the emotional blood loss.

"It's not that easy, Elliot," she said, her jaw tight as she watched her son.

"You thought that was easy?" he joked irreverently, and she closed her eyes and huffed a single laugh in response.

"Too much has happened," she said then, vaguely shaking her head.

He knew some of it, of course: Noah and things with his own kids, her promotions, his divorce, the upsetting things he had seen on the news. They were all developments that should be shared with one another rather than being left unspoken and assumed, and he knew there had to be more. But none of it felt like more than they could handle. Not nearly "too much." Not by a long shot. "So we'll wait," he said to her. "We'll take however long we need to catch up on six and a half years, and when we're ready… that can be the day."

She looked at him over her shoulder, a frown and a smile competing for control of her face. "Who are you, and what have you done with my old partner?" she asked.

He grinned at her. "Maybe I'm already starting over."

She nodded a little and turned away again. It was unnerving that she didn't continue the banter, and even more unnerving to think that she either didn't believe him or didn't care.

"Do you hate me?" he asked soberly, steeling himself in case she confessed the worst.

Her body shifted before she answered, and she scuffed the ground with her boot. "I tried to," she said at last. "It was the only way I could make sense of anything. You know: 'Gee, I wish Elliot were here—no I don't, because I hate him. I'm glad he's gone.'"

Elliot clung to the hope she offered with her use of the past tense. "And were you successful?" he ventured.

She chuckled wryly. "What do you think?"

He swallowed hard because he just wasn't sure. He had certainly given her enough reason to hate him through the years, and she had such a strong will that he truly believed there wasn't anything she couldn't do if she only tried. So, if she had wanted to hate him, she certainly would have. "I really don't know, Olivia," he croaked.

She looked at him again over her shoulder, her wide almond eyes scanning him from head to toe and back. "Then that's a shame," she said.

It lit him on fire, and he found himself staring back at her as if no time had passed whatsoever, as if they were right back at their desks in the middle of a case, days or just hours away from the next accusation that they were too damn close. He breathed laboriously through his nose like a bull, trying to keep himself together, keep himself from reaching for her.

Maybe she felt it, too, because she turned towards him again and carefully reached for his shoulder. She was only picking something off his shirt, apparently, but she left her hand there afterwards. Then she cocked her head, looked up at him, and finally said, "So. I hear you're thinking of retiring."

-fin-

A/N: I'm not really a fan of femmeslash most of the time, and I think anybody who's read my stuff before can tell that I'm a pretty big E/O shipper... but, honestly, I really like how good Mariska Hargitay and Brooke Shields look together, and I wanted to toy with the idea that their characters could be together without them actually being together. (Of course I don't trust Sheila, but that's a separate issue. I mean, I also don't trust Lucy, and obviously she's never been a problem.) Anyway, I thought it would be fun to dredge up the old "Do you ever get a gay vibe from me?" question for this one and let it be Elliot (who never did give her an answer) who mistakenly thinks they're together.