A/N: It's been a while since I've posted anything, and this is a story I've been trying to write for 3 yrs, with my mojo playing on and off tricks on me. I've finally made significant progress and am actually working on the last chapters of this fic, so I've decided to start posting it now, on a whim, before I lose my courage again.

So about this fic…you're gonna hate me first but you'll love me later on ;)

kukrae, I hope you'll be willing to consider this as your much delayed Christmas card :)

Nikki - thanks once more for the banner. My very limited technical abilities couldn't make it fit to this site's banner guidelines, but I couldn't give it up, it's too beautiful.

Chapter 1:

Is it normal to think about gaps? About the distance between two shirt buttons? About what's behind them? About what it'd feel like to slide your fingers into the space between a couple of buttons and feel what's underneath? Olivia shakes her head once to banish the thought and walks over to the nightstand that CSU has already dusted for fingerprints. Not far from her, Elliot stoops to look at something that the technician is pointing at on the carpet, and from the corner of her eyes she still sees the necktie he's tucked in between his azure dress-shirt's buttons, she sees the rolled up sleeves, the arms that he leans on his knees and how his muscles flex and strain. She averts her gaze.

"Liv? Liv!" His rough voice shakes her back into the space of the car twenty minutes later, back to his hands on the steering wheel, to the smell of his aftershave, to his shirt and its buttons and the gaps between them.

"What?" she asks.

"So what d'you think?" Elliot's impatient tone reminds her that she's drifted for a while after they left the scene and that she has no idea what his question was. But she can guess, the case, what else.

"It's simple," she shrugs, "well, as simple as it can be when you have a rape victim involved. A known assailant, left his DNA and fingerprints all over the bedroom and apartment. Piece of cake," she mutters without looking at him.

"Yeah," Elliot mumbles back. "Fin and Munch already picked him up, should be easy wrapping this up, paperwork included."

Her eyebrows raise at this and she carefully peeks at him without turning her head in his direction. He hates paperwork, always postpones it, but recently he's been making sure to finish it on time, as if he's afraid to be stalled by their Captain unexpectedly, when it's less convenient to him and to his blooming social life.

It's hard for her to admit it, but it pisses her off. Elliot has a social life. He's been divorced, what, half an hour? How come he's already dating? She's been single all her life, she's well trained in that arena, she's aware of how she looks, and even she doesn't meet so many people so fast. Besides, dating is her realm, but nowadays she has to listen to things like Fin asking Elliot if he's met up with a woman that gave him her phone number when apparently they went to a bar together after work, and to Elliot responding that 'no, I'm kinda seeing someone else'.

She still needs a mind-bleach when she thinks of that night a few weeks ago, when they all went to a bar after work. They were sitting at their favorite table and she felt rooted despite the alcohol buzz in her blood. But then another round of drinks was needed and Elliot volunteered to get it. She felt a happy excitement in the pit of her stomach, of solving a case, of feeling at home, surrounded by her friends, with him, and something about him getting her another drink at the bar gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling of belonging. But then it took him a bit longer than it should, and when she looked towards the bar, she saw him. He was leaning his right elbow on the bar, their drinks in front of him, the glasses sweating already, while he was busy talking to the woman who stood next to him, his body pivoted towards her, their shoulders brushing as they talked. The grin on his face sealed it – Elliot was flirting. The only times before that, that she'd seen him flirt, were when he'd been undercover, or needed to get some woman to cooperate with them, or his stupid banters with her which hadn't really count as real flirtation. In one moment the happy excitement in her stomach turned into a rising bile that threatened to make its way to her throat.

Yes, things are different now, she thinks as she hangs her jacket at the hanger behind her chair in the precinct. She's different too, older, tired. Sometimes she feels like all she wants is to crawl back into the convenient spot she's been in up until a few months ago, when everything, well, almost everything, was in place. Yes, she was alone and work was her life back then just like it is now, but she was mostly fine with her place in life, with the routine. She was comfortable with her partner, they had their ups and downs but they were mostly ok. But then he got divorced and everything changed. He got divorced but it was she who lost her footing.

Even the way she found out was different. It wasn't weeks of concealing, of falling apart. No. He walked over to her one evening when she was making coffee, and leaned against the counter at the kitchenette, crossing his arms on his chest. "I'm moving out," he said quietly, looking at her.

Her hand froze mid-stirring and she just stared at him, trying to grasp at what he was telling her.

"The Unit?" was all she managed to rasp as she felt her face flush with the blood that gushed from her fast beating heart all over her body.

"No. Home," he said and she felt like the blood had left her face and body all at once.

"What? Why?" her voice trembled, her hands probably did too, because she remembers placing the mug really carefully on the counter.

Elliot pressed his lips together and slightly shook his head, searching for words. His eyes roamed the room before they returned back to hers. He sighed quietly before he spoke. "We tried, we were successful for a while, but…," he sighed again, "it's just…," his lips pressed further together, "there wasn't much left once everyone moved out." His shoulders rose slightly and then he continued. "But we're fine. We are. We know that it's best that way, to end it like that and not ruin whatever there's left. For us, for Eli."

He was quiet then and she realized that she was just staring at him and that it was her turn to say something. "I'm sorry, El," she half-whispered. "Are you sure you're ok? Is there anything I can do?"

"No," his smile was soft, lop-sided, a bit sad. "I'm fine, I will be. I just wanted to let you know." A beat passed and he added "thanks, Liv," with the same soft smile and she mirrored it back at him.

"Sure," she said, her hand rose and brushed over his arm in a comforting gesture.

Elliot breathed out and walked back to his desk, and as she picked up her coffee mug, still looking at his retreating back. He started talking about the case they were handling and everything went back to normal, or so she thought.

At first she'd thought that, just as before, he wouldn't be able to make it and he'd be back with Kathy sooner or later, but then she realized that things this time were different, very different.

Olivia sighs inaudibly as she slumps into her seat and turns her computer on. Elliot does the same, opposite from her. She looks at his face; he seems focused, intent, almost serene. She hasn't seen him like that in…in never. A part of her is happy for him but she can't admit and she can't deny that she misses their balance. It took them years to get to a place where things between them were clear to her, where she could suppress thoughts about her partner's love life, when being irritated and cynical wasn't her constant mood. Perhaps getting older makes her less agreeable to change, perhaps he's going through a mid-life crisis, or maybe she is.

It's not like she sits and mopes, she knows herself well enough and it's been years since she's realized that what she feels for him isn't innocent, but it has become a part of her, part of her life and she knows how to cope with that. This is Elliot and she should be used to this, to him, to herself. But Elliot, being out of the usual context she's used to see him in, confuses her. Even when he was separated several years ago, he mostly still maintained the same context, because everything in that separation was about his family, and in the only times he acted out of context - with Rebecca Hendricks, with Dani Beck - it threw her off balance. It took her almost two years to gain it back. Now something inside her rebels and refuses to get used to the idea that family-man Elliot is divorced, enjoying his freedom, fucking around.

Elliot. Fucking.

Her eyes dart over the top of her computer screen to gaze at the way he concentrates at his, as he slowly types his report. He shifts in his seat and her eyes hurry back to her own screen and she forces herself to continue typing too. Who are these women? The thought keeps biting at her, but she stops it before it gets to the more galling questions like why, when, how and what the hell.

The usual cacophony around them slowly subsides as people leave to go home. Their suspect admitted after a very short investigation, and now they're finalizing their reports. Elliot gets up once and brings them both coffees and she thanks him and takes the cup from his outstretched arm and they smile at each other. It's so usual, regular, everydaylike, it makes her gut churn. Soon she finishes typing her DD5 and some other tasks that have been patiently waiting for her, and she raises her head and watches him again. Elliot feels her eyes on him and tears his off the screen and returns her gaze. "All done?" he asks.

"Yeah. I think I'm gonna head home," she says as she turns her computer off and stands up, stretching. "You coming?"

"No, it's still early, I thought you could fill me in on that other case you wanted me to look into," he says.

"Early?" She squeezes her lips together. What happened to lively social life? she quietly thinks. "I thought we could go over it tomorrow. I have this thing…," she says and watches as his eyes move between hers quizzically. She isn't going to say more though. She's been dating a guy and he's not something to write home about. He probably never will, but she's scheduled to meet with him tonight.

"Ok," Elliot nods and she can see that he's holding back the questions. "See you tomorrow then."

"This is the casefile, why don't you go over it and we'll talk about it tomorrow?" she hands him a folder and he takes it. She then smiles at him and grabs her jacket. "Have a good evening," she mutters on her way out. She too has to hold back so many questions.

eoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeo

The white fluorescent lights, the windows that are covered with a layer of dust that doesn't allow the daylight to fully permeate the large and bustling bullpen, the chirps of phones and faxes, the headache bud that threatens to throb in her head. It all gets on her nerves the next morning.

Olivia stretches back in her chair and a quiet sigh escapes her lips. Elliot raises his head for a moment from the documents that are scattered on his desk and throws an inquiring gaze in her direction.

"Nothing…the computer," she mumbles dismissively in response and tilts her head towards her rebooting computer screen, and Elliot loses interest. He looks just like he did when she left him in the precinct the evening before, except for the clean shave and the fresh shirt.

She needs to call the fucking IT department, she thinks, while her computer takes its time to restart for the second time this morning. She sneaks a peek at Elliot, who seems to be enamored with his files, drinking his coffee, looking all busy and concentrated.

It annoys her. She's not sure why. Usually he's not a morning person, hell, she isn't even sure if he's an evening person either, but with her mood today, next to her he actually looks almost cheery. It's going to be a long day.

"Morning, hope this cheers you up," he nearly slammed the cup on her desk half an hour before, when she cursed her computer the first time it got stuck and wouldn't budge from the page she tried to navigate from. He stood there, towering above her with that confident stance of his, looking at her with his clean shaven face, the ironed shirt, his fresh smell, and for some reason it all made her want to slap the little smile off his face.

Now finally her computer starts again and the first thing she notices is an email that reminds her that soon she has to attend a 2-day conference that Cragen has asked her to go to. Damn, she's actually been looking forward to it, but right now, even this seems like a burden. She's just ticked off for no real reason.

Well, come to think of it, she has enough reasons. There's Elliot being a self-absorbed asshole at times and kind and considerate and confusing at other times, and there's the guy she's dated for a few weeks, till last night, and it has lasted that long only because she forced herself to like him since he seemed like a stable type of guy, but then she couldn't get over the lukewarm fuck he's turned out to be, and that was when he really tried his best in bed. So she dumped him at 1am last night because she's tired of all those man-wannabe's. God, aren't there normal guys out there for her? Where are all the strong, clever, sexy, brawny men that could keep her interested?

Twenty minutes later, her computer is back on and she gets up to pour them both another round of coffee. "So?" she asks from her place at the coffee corner.

"She was a pro", he says, fumbling through the folder she gave him last night. "It's not obvious, there are hardly the usual signs, but if this had been our case from the very beginning, we would've established that sooner."

"It was Homicide's. They had a vague suspicion that something was off, but it seemed like a clear cut case at the time. She was a 'nice girl' that got mugged and murdered by the perp, so they didn't dig deeper. Only when our vic told me her roommate had been murdered a few months ago, I asked for their closed case."

"It's not a coincidence. Sarah is found raped and bruised and her roommate was murdered five months ago? That's gotta be connected, which might mean that Sarah's a pro too." Elliot says and his face is stern. She's known him for years and years and this job never affects any of them any less.

Olivia places the two cups on her desk and sits down. "I'm guessing she is, though she fooled me. She did try telling me something, she was afraid of someone. She probably knew that her roommate wasn't just mugged. Now Sarah's gone. I just hope we find her before she ends up like her roommate, Maria."

"What else d'you have?" Elliot gets up from his seat and takes the few steps that bring him to her side of the joint desks. He places the folder on her desk, brings his eyes to her and reaches his hand for the coffee cup. He then half sits on her desk, as if preparing for a long conversation.

"Nothing yet, I alerted other units and Computer Crimes. Maria and Sarah are not streetwalkers, maybe they published their services online."

"Ok. We can work on this one together now," Elliot sighs, and she knows that he's thinking about all the other cases that are piling up and waiting for their undivided attention.

She nods quietly and takes the time to sip her coffee. She watches Elliot as he's about to get up and away from her desk, when she notices the woman that has entered the bullpen from the side door and stopped right beside their joint desks, her eyes boring into Elliot's back.

"Can I help you?" Olivia asks, and Elliot, still seated at the edge of her desk, pivots his torso to see who she's talking to. His body stiffens at once.

The woman doesn't even bother to look at Olivia, as Elliot jerks up to his feet. "Sandra!" he calls out in a hushed, surprised tone.

"Hey there," the woman answers in a sweet voice. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by to say hi." Her smile is like sunlight in the fluorescent lit squadroom.

Olivia's mouth almost drops open. Elliot is standing close to her now, but his back is half turned at her as he's facing Sandra, who's a rather tall, well-shaped blonde in a green dress.

"Um, hi," she can hear the smile in Elliot's voice, "we're kinda busy here, we have a case…" She can also hear the discomfort.

She doesn't have time to close her still agape mouth because Elliot turns towards her all of a sudden. "Liv, this is Sandra Bevan, she used to work for Social Services," he says, as if this explains anything, and then turns again to the blonde, "Sandra, this is my partner, Olivia Benson."

Olivia watches him and she knows him well enough to see that he's uncomfortable and displeased with the surprise, despite the courteous introduction.

"I prefer Sandy," the woman says as she's taking two steps towards Olivia who gets out of her chair to shake the outstretched hand. "Nice to finally meet you, Elliot's partner," the blonde says in that sweet tone and Olivia feels the bile rising. Finally?

"Nice to meet you too, Sandy," she answers with a smile, stressing the adolescent nickname the woman prefers, and she can feel Elliot's eyes on her, just as her desk phone starts ringing. She wears on an apologetic expression and turns her back to the two and grabs the receiver as if it were her lifeline. "Detective Benson," she answers it with a hoarse voice.

As the colleague on the other side explains to her what he's found out, Olivia slowly dares to turn around and sit back in her chair, because she senses that Elliot and the green dress are not behind her anymore. She sees them standing close together, talking at the side-exit of the room, where Elliot has probably escorted her to see her off. He's facing the bullpen and his eyes meet hers. Olivia quickly points at the phone, mouthing "Computer Crimes", doing her best to seem engulfed with the phone conversation. Elliot nods with a half-smile, his eyes return to the green dress, and she watches him rubbing his palm over the blonde's arm before she leaves. No goodbye kiss, she thinks as he's making his way back to her. No kiss, but this woman surely went home with him more than once. Where's the fucking mind bleach, for God's sake?

She averts her eyes to the other side of the bullpen and her eyes meet with those of John Munch. In the brief second they gaze at each other she sees the surprise, the question and the slight sarcasm in her colleague's eyes. She averts her eyes from him too and just stares at her desk till she hangs up the phone.

"They have something for us?" Elliot asks matter-of-factly, returning to his desk, ignoring the visit he's just had.

"Yeah," she ignores it too although her mind's a whirlwind, "they found a picture of Maria, Sarah's dead roommate, on a 'Dark Net' website they're scanning."

"'Dark Net'?" Elliot asks, rubbing a hand over his forehead, and she's not sure if it's because the term bugs him or because he's still trying, like her, to clear the sight of his visitor from his mind.

"Yes, c'mon, I'll explain on the way," Olivia says as she grabs her jacket and heads towards the main exit of the squadroom, enjoying the few seconds she has to breathe before he catches up and strides by her side.

As they walk outside she speaks and talks and explains, anything to cover for what they're both obviously trying to avoid talking or thinking about. Elliot wears on his black leather jacket and when they reach the car she offers to drive them, just so she will have something to focus on besides his smell and his leather and his shirt and his Sandy.

"So basically, it's a name for untraceable websites that use encoded communication systems, special protocols that enable full anonymity. Each entry to this Net is done through a different and unknown IP address." She explains as she stirs the squad car into traffic, her eyes gazing through the windshield.

"How's that different than the usual psycho net?" Elliot asks and she feels his eyes on her, but she doesn't return his gaze.

"First, the websites there are marked with the word 'onion', after 'The Onion Routing'. It was actually developed by the Navy about a decade ago to protect secret agents' communication, but then others started using it too. Let's say you log in from New York, ok? Your IP address will show that you're logging in from a Zimbabwean owned ship somewhere in the Indian Ocean, for example. Your computer will keep roaming between different IP addresses that don't link to each other."

"So if it's untraceable how did Computer Crimes find it?"

"Facial recognition found a match to the picture, but they can't say what computer it came from. They track the Dark Net all the time because it's used by hackers to hack into government sites, to get top secret data they can sell. This net uses digital coins, 'coins', to buy the goods. And you can imagine what the goods are. No one can trace you. It's heaven for pedophiles, drug dealers, arm dealers, terrorists, you name it."

"So they found her picture in there?"

"Yeah, apparently people that use this Net feel so safe there that they're publishing everything about their 'goods', including pictures."

"Maria was there as goods?" Elliot's tone makes her tear her eyes from the road and look at him.

Olivia purses her lips. "Yes. Among others for sale too."

"Sarah too?"

"No, not Sarah. At least not yet."

"How come I hear of this Net just now?" Elliot asks after a short pause.

"A lot of it is done by the FBI, it's way above us." Olivia brings her eyes back to the road and starts looking for a parking spot.

They're quiet for a few moments and she wonders if he's still thinking about his visitor.

"How come you know so much about it?" he asks, looking at her again.

"Still have friends at Computer Crimes, and I still find their stuff interesting," she shrugs and for a moment she's reminded of what made her leave for that unit and what made her come back.

They're quiet again when they walk over to the building and just as they enter the lobby, the elevator doors open and she feels Elliot's hand on the small of her back, ushering her in. It's part of their regular, synched cadence, but the touch of his hand singes the skin under her shirt.

Elliot presses the button with his ringless left palm and they stand next to each other, their shoulders touching, and she realizes that in the last few months, for the first time in at least five years, the no-space between them has become unnerving to her again.

eoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeo

He's grabbing her, his hands on her biceps, his lips hard on hers, his tongue in her mouth, treating it as its own. His taste and smell fill her, his hard body against her. She's smoothing her palms over his biceps, his tattoos, his chest, grazing her nails across his back. It all pools between her legs.

Elliot is backing her up to the desk till she's leaned against it, her back arches as he leans in his weight, his mouth latching on hers as they drink each other's taste. His hands are locked on her body, one still on her arm and the other on her back. Her arms roam his body, touching him through his clothes, holding on to the hard plains of muscles that his shirt hides.