One Shot

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2:14AM

Elliot stared at the glaring, glowing blue screen that violated his bleary eyes. At first he was unable to decipher the tiny bold, black blocks representing letters. But suddenly three small letters appeared. A trio that, when strung together, meant the world to him. L. I. V.

Elliot rolled over in his bed and managed to focus on the whole message.

"Coffee downstairs. Meet me. Liv." Elliot smiled at the redundancy of Olivia typing her name. She of all people would know that his phone would be automatically programmed to give him the name of the person who had sent the message.

Elliot rolled from his bed as quietly as he could but Kathy still rolled over. His body stiffened at the idea of her waking. He sighed and remembered the day Kathy had seen Olivia's number come up as "Liv". She had felt threatened. She didn't care that Munch and Fin sometimes called her Liv as well. It was the fact that she was "his" Liv. It was the most physical, tangible evidence that she was more than his partner. That Olivia had a very large room in his heart.

Elliot had decided it was a bad idea to mention that Olivia called him "El." Not even something Kathy did. He would always be "Elliot" to Kathy.

He also didn't bring up the fact that when he heard "El" whispered he felt more connected to his partner than he ever felt to anyone in his life. Like there was nothing she didn't know about him and she could read his soul like it was a Holy Gospel for some enormous religion. He decided to leave that fact out of his argument with Kathy and instead, stuck with the usual "You're being paranoid" "We work together" "You have nothing to worry about". He felt it best to leave the details of his nickname for Olivia and visa-versa, out of the conversation.

Elliot stood from the bed and found a speckled gray t-shirt and a faded black zip-up hoodie to throw on with a pair of jeans. Kathy rolled over in the bed again and her eyes opened on Elliot.

"Where are you going?" she murmured.

"Emergency with a case."

Her eyes squinted in suspicion, "You're going in sweats?"

"I'm off-duty. I go how I please." For good measure Elliot grabbed his gun and badge from his nightstand. He looked out the window and saw that it was pouring. "Where's the umbrella?" he whispered.

"On the hook downstairs." Kathy then faded back into sleep and Elliot pulled out his phone and hit the "REPLY" button.

He typed, "I'm coming." and hit "SEND". Elliot then wondered what Olivia's phone would show as sender.

He hoped it would be "El".