Title: High Stakes

Author: mindy35

Rating: K+, adult themes

Disclaimer: Not mine, no moolah made.

Spoilers: thru to "Scorched Earth".

Pairing: Elliot/Olivia.

Summary: Post-eps for "Bang" and "Scorched Earth". A case causes Olivia to reconsider Elliot's offer.

A/N: This is also a continuation of two previous post-eps of mine – "Heroic Measures" (post-ep for "Savior") and "Hearts Divided" (post-ep for "Rescue"). They are right before this story if you'd like to check 'em out before reading. Thanks to all who have been reading and reviewing so far.

There's a brick propping open the door to the roof. Elliot jogs up the last few steps, pushes through the door and peers out into the open air. His partner is standing at the building's ledge, staring out over the grubby city they've patrolled for twelve years.

"There you are," he mutters, puffed from taking the stairs too fast for his age.

She turns at the sound of his voice. "We catch a case?"

"No. But lunch is served." He pats the door, nods at the stairs. "Come on."

"Hey. El—" Olivia faces him, her tentative tone stopping him from heading back down to the squadroom where food, caffeine and fives await. "Can I ask you something?"

Elliot steps through the door and across the deserted rooftop. "Sure. What's up?"

Olivia looks down at her hands, interlaced in front of her stomach. "Do you…remember what we talked about after Calvin was taken away? And after Molly died?"

His step falters. "Ye-ah…"

"Well…I know I was hesitant…but, ah," she takes a lengthy pause before lifting her eyes and asking him, "is that offer still open?"

"You serious?" he murmurs, brows contracting.

"Were you?"

"I was..."

"…But?" she prompts, hearing his hesitation.

Elliot shakes his head at the gray city stretched out below then returns his gaze to her face. "What made you change your mind?"

"I just…started thinking about this last dirtbag—"

"Ken Turner? The reproductive abuser?"

"—and couldn't help thinking that, if I went to a sperm bank, I could end up impregnated by someone like him. I guess," she stalls, voice dropping low, "I guess, considering my history, I'd rather know what I was getting."

"I can understand that," he muses, head bobbing.

"Why?" She takes a step in his direction, eyes narrowed at his face. "Have you changed your mind?"

Elliot opens his mouth then shuts it again. Then gives a noncommittal shrug.

"Because of your family?" she asks, taking another step.

"No." He closes his eyes and rubs his temples with two fingers. "No…no. More because of something Turner said to me."

"About having kids?"

"About you." He clears his throat then opens his eyes and looks at her. "About you and having kids."

Her head tilts. "What'd he say?"

"It's not worth repeating. But," he takes a few, slow paces away from her, "he wasn't exactly wrong."

His partner watches his every move, eyes scanning for clues. "El, the guy was scum."

"No doubt," he mutters, jaw clenching at the memory of the other man's words. "But he saw something that lots of people have seen. Something – in me – that I didn't see. Or…didn't want to."

"And this changes things for you?"

"I'm not sure…" He paces further away then stops, standing side-on and directing his halting answer at the concrete underfoot. "I'm not sure if I offered what I offered for you…or for me."

There's a moment of confused silence. The wind picks up, creating a mini whirlwind of dirt and dust that skates across the roof's bland surface. A long-abandoned piece of newspaper dances in a far-off corner while the faint sound of car horns is swept up from the streets below. Their jackets both flap about their bodies, Olivia's hair flies in her face.

She tucks it behind her ear then breaks the silence. "Meaning?"

Elliot releases a low, reluctant growl, turning toward the roof's steel door. "Can we talk about this some other time?"

Again, her soft tone stops him. "Time's ticking, El."

Eyes meeting hers, he gives a small nod of acquiescence then walks to the edge of the building and stands where she stood, gazing out over the city.

Olivia doesn't budge. She stands her ground, waiting for another gust of wind to peak then die before asking again, "Meaning what?"

Her partner remains silent and still for several moments. When he turns, his shoes shuffle in the dust. And when he speaks, his voice crackles with difficulty and uncertainty and emotion. "The guy in your fairytale – the one who loves you and makes love to you and wakes up with you and fathers your children." He tips up his chin, squares his shoulders. "Remember him?"

She nods, steady gaze slipping.

His chest swells with breath and eyes fix on hers. Then Elliot walks towards her, stopping in front of her to confess with a gentle force behind his words, "I wanna be…that guy. That's why I offered…what I offered. It was a way for me to….keep you."

She blinks confusedly. "Keep me?"

"To…tie you to me. Forever."

"So…" she frowns, eyes cutting to one side, "what are you saying now?"

"Liv." His voice softens on her name, his expression softening as one hand reaches out and gives her fingers a squeeze. "We're good together. We fit."

"In this context," she replies, eyes wide with panic. "We have no idea if that would translate to a…another context."

"I'm willing to bet it would."

"But are you willing to stake your family on that bet?"

"That's for me to decide."

She turns away, leaving him grasping at air. "Look – there is no denying we work well together," she says, wandering aimlessly across the rooftop. "We know each other, we care about each other—"

"Care about each other?"

Olivia stops and stares at him. Elliot puts his hands on his hips.

"I care about Munch—"

"You do?"

"Enough to put up with his weird-ass conspiracy theories."

She smiles, despite the mounting tension.

"I care," he continues, indicating the building below them, "about everyone in that squadroom. They're my brothers and sisters in blue."

"And mine."

He steps closer, voice low as he asks, "But don't you think we go a little beyond that?"

Olivia swallows, gaze downcast. "You tell me."

"Olivia…" Her full name sounds strange on his tongue, imbued as it is with equal parts frustration and affection. With it, he releases a wordless vibration that is a mixture of a defeated laugh and a droll groan. His shoulders slouch and his head wags as he finally gives up the battle he's been waging for too many years by telling her, "I've been falling in love with you for over a decade, every day since day one when you spilt coffee on my favorite shirt."

Her eyes blink then lift, fixing unwaveringly on his. "I liked that shirt," is her soft reply.

"And you still owe me for it," he mutters, mouth tugging upwards.

"After years of stealing my snacks outta my drawer," she says, returning his uncertain smile, "I think we can call it even."

"Liv." Elliot sighs, voice and eyes both begging her for an answer.

"I…" she breathes in, lips pressed together and head shaking, "thought it was just me."

"It's not," he says quietly.

When he starts to move closer though, she holds up a hand. "I need you to do me a favor. Okay?"

Elliot stops, stuffing his itching palms into his pockets. "I think you know by now that I'd do pretty much anything for you."

"Well, don't do anything, don't decide anything. Not yet." She looks up at him, face creased with concern. "I want you to give it some time, think about this."

"What d'you think I've been doing for the past twelve years?"

"So we've waited this long. A little longer won't hurt."

"How long?" he asks with a resigned sigh.

"A few weeks?" she says, lifting a shoulder. "Two, maybe three?"

"You stalling me, Liv?"

"You have way more at stake here, El. I just need you to be sure."

Elliot nods a few times then steps closer, despite her raised hand. "And if I feel exactly the same way in a few weeks' time?"

Her eyes scan his face then slowly descend his body. "Then…"

Olivia slides a hand down his forearm, over his sleeve, over his skin and the jumping tendons in his arm and the pulsing blood in his veins. She slips her hand into his, so their palms are kissing, then slots her fingers between his. Elliot responds, closing his fingers about hers. He watches her do the same on the other side, sliding a hand down his arm and linking fingers with him. Breathing deep and moving close, she lifts their joined hands from their sides and wraps them around her back. Then she lifts her face to his, her cheeks pink from the wind or the proximity or both. And she kisses him.

It's nothing like that first, awkward, accidental kiss. Her lips meet his with purpose, they part with full knowledge of what they want and are promising. And when he kisses her back, Olivia doesn't pull back from his passion. She matches it. Her hands disentangle from his and slide up his arms. Her body presses to his as his hands clutch at her clothes, as one ventures up her back and into her hair. It tilts her head to one side, allowing him to delve deeper into their kiss, and she doesn't even try to stifle the moan that rises up through her frame. She is drawing air in through her nose as furiously as he is, each of them seeking to prolong the moment partly due to its interminable build-up and partly for fear of what lies on the other side of it.

For one sustained and glorious moment though, there is nothing else but wide open space and bleak high sky and wind whipping about them. There's only the two of them on an empty rooftop with colliding mouths and hungry hands and bodies pressed tightly together in feverish hope of becoming one. There is just a single kiss, invested with all the furtive love and denied desire and liberated potential and suppressed longing and profound devotion of twelve years of pretending to be less than they always knew they were. But that one kiss is more – much, much more – than either of them had ever dared hope for. The only way they can bear for it to end is with the fragile faith that it's merely the beginning and their hearts will not be forced back into hiding.

Pulling back, they gaze at each other and at this new phenomenon they've created. Olivia is grasping his biceps through his jacket, mouth open and moist and panting. Elliot has his hands pressed to the small of her back where she initially guided them, splayed out to cover as much of her as his fingers can reach. She only breaks eye contact when a raindrop lands on her cheek. She blinks and glances up at the rapidly darkening sky before lowering her gaze back to his.

"We clear?" she asks, voice rasping in her throat.

Elliot nods, eyes dazed and unblinking. "We're clear."

They hold each other for another moment, unready to return to their previous existence. An ominous rumble from above makes them drop their arms and retreat. Their gaze remains connected. The wind whistles about the walls of the building and blows a few strands of hair in Olivia's face. Elliot smooths them back, just as he did in that blustery hospital courtyard a year before. She runs a hand down his chest in reply then tilts her head at the door. Silently, they walk towards it, elbows brushing with each stride and jackets flapping in the brisk breeze. Exchanging one last look of unspoken understanding, they duck inside the steel door and kick the brick away from the opening.

-x-x-x-

"This is my fault."

Three weeks later, she's perched on a high stool, clasping a beer and facing a future without her partner. The only person in the squad who's been brave enough to mention Elliot's abrupt departure to her is Fin. Everybody else probably figures it's too sensitive a subject. And they're right. She can't guarantee that the mere mention of his name wouldn't cause her to cut off kind utterances or snap a spiteful response or slap a presumptuous new face. Without him – without her partner's stability steadying her – she's simply not herself. There's something about Fin's mellow, big-brotherly tone though that instantly lowers her heightened guard.

He wags his head at her statement and takes a slow sip of beer. "Liv, Elliot is a stubborn sonovabitch and always has been. He makes his own dumb decisions."

"This is different," she insists, staring into the ring of condensation her bottle has left on the table. "This isn't about IAB. Well. It's not just about IAB."

"Then what's it about?"

Olivia takes a sip, swallows then answers, "Us."

Fin leans back in his seat, brows half raised. "Usually when there's something going on with you two I can sense it a mile off."

"But you know how it is with long-term partnerships," she replies with a feeble shrug, "how easy it is to just slip into those comfortable old roles and forget anything else that's going on."

"So what were you and Stabler trying to forget?"

She's grateful that he lowers his voice to ask the question. The last thing she wants is the carousing population of their local cop bar to know of her dashed hopes. And while she knows it's the exact same tone Fin has used on dozens of traumatized victims, somehow Olivia doesn't care. She meets his gaze, but only for a moment.

"We were going to try something," she admits quietly. "Together."

His brows shoot towards his scalp. "The two of you?"

Her eyes cut quickly to his. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

"Guess I am," he murmurs, taking another swig of beer. "And I'm not. After all these years, huh?"

She nods, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. "Elliot…told me he loved me."

Fin leans in, slow enough not to spook her, carefully planting his elbows on the tabletop. "When was this?"

"Few weeks ago. But I…" she closes her eyes and shakes her head, "I got scared and I got stupid. I ran." Opening her eyes, Olivia lifts her beer to her lips and holds it there without drinking. "I just always figured he'd be there for me to run back to."

Fin is silent a moment. He doesn't look at her when he asks, "You love him, Liv?"

"Of course," she says simply. "I just wanted him to be sure. I guess…" she pushes her bottle away and drops back in her seat, "I guess he wasn't."

His eyes narrow at her. "You don't know that."

"No? Then where is he?"

Fin has no response and she's not really looking for one. Not from him, at least. The person she really wants answers from is the one person she never thought would bail on her. Olivia swivels on her stool and grabs her jacket off the spine. A scant few minutes on the subject of Elliot Stabler is about all she can bear. Fin seems to understand this without explanation. He doesn't offer to drive her home as Elliot would. He doesn't insert himself into her life and make her rely on his strength and support and stability only to extract it when she least expects it. He just tells her to get home safe as if it is any other workday and her heart hasn't just suffered the worst of its many breaks and shocks. She responds with a nod and a quiet G'night.

Olivia doesn't go directly home. She can't stand the idea of her empty apartment with the unread travel brochures she's always collecting sitting on her kitchen counter and her food-poor fridge with Calvin's painting still stuck to the door and the bureau bearing photographs of the few people in the world who have loved her and whom she has loved. Among them is a photo of her and Elliot from the first year of their partnership. She still remembers the night it was taken. After locking up a serial baby-killer, they got completely plastered and played pool into the wee small hours. She whipped his ass more than once and Elliot pretended to be miffed about it for the rest of the week. Her winning streak also meant he had to shout her lunch for the rest of the week. Which is why in the photo he's sulking against his pool cue while she has her head thrown back in inebriated laughter. It seems like several lifetimes ago now. As she steps off the precinct's shiny elevator, she wonders whether she should discard the photo. Or at least, shove it in a drawer where she never has to see it. Probably, she decides as she heads down the corridor towards the spacious new squadroom.

She still isn't used to their new digs. Truth be told, she liked the old stationhouse. It had been gradually falling apart since the day she first entered it. But she liked its chaos and confusion, its peeling paint and dank coffee smell, its squashy intimacy and familiar lived-in-ness. It was home. Maybe the only home she'd ever known. And change always made her uneasy. The new squadroom is all but empty as she enters and Olivia pauses in the middle of the floor. Her feet were heading for her own desk out of absentminded instinct but changing direction, she heads for her partner's instead. She sits in his chair, scoots in close and surveys the place from his point-of-view.

Everything is as he left it. His desk calendar is turned to the last day he worked there, the day of the shooting. There is a small pile of paperwork in his outbox and a larger pile in his inbox. The notepad he always carried in his breast pocket lies abandoned, a pen jammed through the spindles. His favorite coffee mug sits next to it, empty. And the picture of him grinning and holding a baby still stands next to his computer screen. She's unsure now which of his children it was. But for years, that picture provoked a mixed response in her. While it silently reminded her of what attracted her to her partner, it simultaneously reminded of the intractable barrier that divided them. And Olivia had never actually needed reminding of her partner's untouchability. After all, the reason he was unavailable to her was the same reason she fell in love with him during that first year of partnership. It didn't take a shrink to connect the dots. Elliot Stabler was a model husband and father. He was the devoted spouse her mother never knew and the protective parent her younger self always craved. She wanted him to be that, remain that, live up to that. She needed him to. It gave her faith that otherwise she'd lost long ago. Her love was based on that life, those roles, their necessity – and she couldn't be sure it wouldn't diminish if he deserted them for a woman who, for all she knew, was meant to be alone.

Occasionally when she caught a glimpse of that picture from the corner of her eye, she was reminded of the scales of justice. On one side was a child's life – a precious thing both she and Elliot had spent much of their adult lives defending. On the other side was her – and not even in her own estimation, did the scales tip in her favor. In all of her private considerations though, rarely had Olivia pondered the man grasping that young life, the man trapped between the two scales. For twelve years, she'd thought of Kathy and Maureen and Kathleen and Lizzie and Dickie and Eli and all she knew they meant to her partner. But she never really considered Elliot as an individual or his needs and desires in and of themselves. Reaching out a hand, she lowers the photo of father and child so that she can see her own desktop, her chair and her scarf and her mug and her mess. It doesn't help her see herself from his perspective though. So she rights the photo and opens his drawer instead.

The stationery tray is organized with military-like precision, everything in its proper place. She smiles when she sees one of her protein bars tucked into a corner, no doubt pilfered when she was away from her desk. She picks it up and pockets it – Elliot has no need of it now. When she does, the corner of a photo slid beneath the tray becomes visible. She pulls it out and looks at it. It's a crime scene photo though not a very useful one since it captures little of the crime or of the scene. It shows a vacant lot at dusk or dawn, she can't tell which. In the foreground are a couple of body bags and in the background, red and blue police lights. Off to one side, she stands in her police vest with her phone to her ear. Her hair is shorter and blonder, or perhaps it's just the eerie half-light that is washing over the captured scene. There is nothing else but dry grass and a collapsed wooden fence. Olivia doesn't remember the case or the photo being taken. Nor does she know why Elliot lifted it, kept it, hid it or what he saw when he looked at it, if he looked at it. She could almost believe he didn't know of its presence in his desk except for the meticulousness with which the drawer has been kept.

A pair of uniformed officers pass through the squadroom, joking loudly, voices echoing off the vaulted ceiling. Olivia slides the photo back under Elliot's stationery tray, rolls his drawer shut and rises from his desk. The officers are helping themselves to SVU's stale coffee and leftover donuts so she grabs her scarf and heads for the roof.

She doesn't need the scarf. She toes the brick into place and heads for the parapet. New York is enjoying a blessedly balmy night. The sky is clear and speckled with stars. The lights of the city glitter cheerfully, belying the seedy underbelly she's so familiar with. She'd prefer the weather to reflect her desolate mood but she'll settle for the peace, the quiet, the perspective and the fresh air. She hasn't been up here since that day. The day that changed everything. Maybe if she'd known there would be another day not too far in the future when everything would change again she'd have done things differently. Maybe. Who knew now. She's run the events of that day over in her head so many times. His words and how he'd said them. How he looked at her, touched her, kissed her. She closes her eyes and promises herself that this will be the last time. She'll relive it just once more in as much detail as she can possibly stand then she will ruthlessly lock it away along with twelve years' worth of wasted love and loyalty.

She's absorbed in trying to recall his exact turn of phrase so she doesn't hear the steel door scrape against the concrete. Part of her will always be listening for him, always expecting him despite his desertion. It's habit – but nothing more. She refuses to acknowledge the sound of footsteps and labored breathing because she knows it's only her imagination. Or wishful thinking. Or a trick of the wind, except that there is no wind. Olivia keeps her eyes closed and ignores the tears that slip out from beneath her eyelashes.

"There you are."

It's his voice but she doesn't turn. It's not him. He's gone. And he isn't coming back.

"Liv."

She turns with a frown. She doesn't want to be interrupted.

He doesn't approach. He stands several paces from the rooftop entrance, in black pants and her favorite shirt – her new favorite. It's crisp and white and open at the neck. Lifting his hands from his pockets, he runs his left palm down his shirt-front as if in preparation, though of what she's not sure. Or perhaps he's just showing her his bare ring finger.

Olivia stares at him, motionless and speechless. She doesn't understand his presence in front of her. She wipes a tear from her cheek and feels her heart rate spike.

Elliot steps closer, lips twitching into a small smile. "Time's up, Liv."

Olivia takes a deep breath, licks her dry lips and opens her mouth to answer.

END.

A/N: I know this is not the ending some might have been hoping for but I am leaving this little series here. As I was working off the episodes, I felt some obligation to stick to canon as much as possible but I simply couldn't leave Olivia alone on that rooftop. I am not as cruel as Dick Wolf and co who create amazing characters only to deny them their true inclinations.