A/N: This was my first attempt at fanfic-seriously, like, ever-back in January 2008. Please be kind, and I would love helpful reviews.

Timeframe and spoilers: Pre-"Signature," specific references through "Paternity"

Also, here is the obligatory disclaimer: these characters are so not mine.

"Apology"

He had seen her in a state of undress before. Physically, this was nothing new. But emotionally, so much had changed in the last two years—since his separation, since Oregon, since Gitano—that every old experience seemed to happen again as if for the first time. In the past when he had seen her, he had never actually seen her; he'd always been careful to keep his eyes on hers, keep talking as they changed, if he couldn't turn his back. This time it was different. This time had caught them both off-guard.

He had walked in expecting an empty room. And she had expected a modicum of privacy in the deserted stationhouse.

The first thing he noticed was the color. The same shade of red as drying blood—deep, almost black. Any other woman's impulses would have made her leap for her sweater or a towel, something to cover herself with. But not Olivia. She would not show embarrassment. She refused to, for it was a weakness.

When he had crashed in, her arms had jerked reflexively as if to cover herself, but she instantly relaxed them, squaring her shoulders and looking away, as if she were more annoyed than anything else. She had sighed and raised an eyebrow, but had also made a fatal error; to further show her annoyance, she had put one hand on her hip, and the curve of her spine in that position, the way her shoulder now dictated the line of her torso, only accentuated her feminine shape.

He could not get the red out of his sight.

He wanted to look away, to lock onto the chaste safety of her eyes—or turn away, damnit!—but he was unable. He focused on the satin and lacework of the bra, silently wondering how many times she had worn something like that to work. He furrowed his brow in concentration, set his jaw in frustration, as his gaze made its way slowly down her body.

The contrast between the darkness of the fabric and the warm shades of her skin was captivating. He continued to frown as he surveyed parts of her that were usually hidden from view: her stomach, her hips, her thighs—all of them toned and glowing. From the bra his gaze dipped to her belly and the matching panties, then down and up each leg until he was back where he started and was starting to consider her shoulders and her collarbone.

Though she couldn't see him, she could feel his eyes on her, and his stare unnerved her. She knew he was looking because her body felt hot all over, seared by the intensity of his gaze despite the chill in the air. The heat grew as she sensed him drawing nearer. He seemed angry—but then, when did he not? Angry, maybe scared. Maybe angry at being scared. He stopped mere inches in front of her.

"Liv," he croaked.

"Don't say anything you could regret," she advised him knowingly, dropping her gaze to look at him for the first time since he'd come into the room.

But she had made a big mistake in opening her mouth: she had drawn his attention to it. He stared down at it, the defiant little thing issuing him orders. Of course, he wouldn't dare disobey it; he resolved to have no regrets. He would say nothing at all.

A frown still on his face, eyes wide open, he lurched forward and pressed his thin lips against her full ones. It was hardly a kiss, and the unexpectedness of it left her no time to close her own eyes. He pushed against her so hard that her head reared back as far as it could go before he pulled back and broke contact. His mouth hung open slightly, and he stared at hers as if confused by what had just happened.

Olivia knew exactly what had happened, though: her married partner, newly the father of a fifth child, had seen her half-naked in the locker room and had kissed her. Her mind reeled. She knew what was right in that moment, and she knew what was wrong, but she just couldn't stop herself. Elliot Stabler had just opened a door that wasn't a door; it was a floodgate.

All of the unsaid things in the last two years came rushing to Olivia's mind: his separation, his silence about it, the showdown with Gitano, the conversation at the hospital, the space she needed when she accepted the FBI work, his thing with Dani Beck, her transfer to Computer Crimes, everything surrounding Simon, Kathy's pregnancy, the night with the comic book freak when Olivia needed Elliot, her panic in the park when Elliot's head went through the car window, saving Kathy's life, saving the baby... that desperate hug, the only true physical contact she'd ever had with this man... And she knew what was right, and she knew what was wrong, and she refused to stop herself because too many unspoken things were finally being addressed. She leaned forward, tilted her head, and caught his bewildered bottom lip between hers. Closing her eyes, she kissed him slowly, tenderly.

She brought her hands to either side of his face, holding him still while she continued to settle all of their arguments from the past months. She felt him warming to her and wondered if it was her body heat that thawed him—the heat, of course, that his own gaze had produced. And suddenly his hands were on her. The backs of his fingers trailed lightly down her smooth upper arm as his mouth slackened under hers. The fingers of his other hand were splayed across her bare back, holding her firmly but gently close.

There was a low, narrow bench between them, just below their knees. Stabler tried to pull his partner closer, but the bench prevented it. He tried shuffling forward, but the bench again prevented it. That damn bench was everything, wasn't it? It was the job, IAB, their personal demons, a different department, Kathy, Oregon, Beck, even Cassidy—everything that had kept them apart for nine years. Here they were together at last, but not entirely.

Without losing his grip on Olivia, Elliot carefully raised one foot and stepped over that little bench. He rotated her about ninety degrees so he could swing his second foot over, and now they were on the same side, for once not disconnected by anything.

Taking a step forward, he pulled her completely against him. The tip of his tie tickled her exposed belly, and she started smiling between kisses. He smiled, too, taking his cues from her.

She grimaced when he pushed her against the row of lockers, partly because she had a lock digging into her kidney—which she meant to keep in good condition in case Stabler ever needed one—and mostly because of the coldness of the metal, not because of his force. No, he had been insistent but not rough in guiding her against the lockers, and she rather liked that he had done it. She liked it better that he'd taken her hands in his and, lacing their fingers together, had pinned her hands against the lockers as well.

When his lips moved from hers, her reason returned, and she suffered alternate and instantaneous bouts of pleasure and anxiety. By the time his mouth had blazed a trail to her shoulder, however, she had grown decidedly uneasy. It took everything she had to try to stop him, but she knew she must.

"Wait, we shouldn't—we can't. What if someone finds us?" she breathed. He paused but wouldn't look at her.

"There's no one here," he growled, and returned his attention to her shoulder.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, and here you are," she retorted, the edge of a laugh in her voice. And then she frowned. "Why are you here?"

He pulled away again, his bottom lip catching slightly on her damp skin, but he stayed close, breathing against her. He was still close enough that she could feel him smile when he did. "I forgot something in my locker." He dropped her hands then and moved aside so she could slip out from under him. It was over; they were done. He pressed his forehead against the cool metal in front of him.

"Yeah? What'd you forget?"

He huffed a chuckle. "The ugliest tie you ever saw, that's what," he laughed.

Benson laughed at her partner's candor, and her eyes danced with amusement as she watched him. It was back to business as usual, it seemed, only with Olivia in her underwear.

"Lizzie thinks she's God's gift to fashion these days, but she's got the worst friggin' taste in the world." He paused, drew a breath. "I get all the way home," he continued, "and Kathy sees me in a different tie. So of course I gotta come all the way back in, just to get Lizzie's in case she comes in the door, sees me, and asks where her tie is. If you can believe it." He turned around and moved down the row to his own locker.

If he'd been talking to another man, he knew he'd have added, 'Women, right?' so he smirked as if he had as he fiddled with the lock on his cabinet.

"The thing is," he observed wryly as he flicked open the metal door, "by the time I get back, Lizzie will have been home for an hour or more and should be in bed!"

Olivia laughed again, and thought about snorting, 'Women!' but realized it wouldn't sound right coming from her. Instead, she focused on hanging up her work clothes.

Down the row, Elliot yanked free the tie he'd put on that morning at the stationhouse and shot Liv a glance as he picked up Lizzie's from its peg in his locker. "What are you doing here?" he asked skeptically.

"Uh... I have a date," she said quickly and quietly, hoping not to dwell on it.

"Oh," he said, knowing he shouldn't sound as stunned as he was.

When he said nothing else, she murmured, "Yep," to herself and kept working. She wondered if she smelled of Elliot, wondered if she still would in an hour. Wondered if her date would notice. If he would say anything.

Elliot turned and watched her as he looped Lizzie's tie into its knot. He wished he could interrogate Olivia's date before she went out for the night, but he knew it was none of his business, really. And then he kicked himself mentally because it could have been his business, if he hadn't been so weak during the Royce case. Finally, his perpetual frown on his face, he asked, "So why are you here?"

She shrugged, twisting to hang something in her locker. "I'm changing."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You couldn't do that at home?"

She rolled her eyes: Elliot Stabler and his questions. "I'm meeting him three blocks from here. It didn't make sense to go home first. Besides, I had paperwork to catch up on."

He nodded, sniffed, looked towards the door, considered how ironic it was that his wife had sent him back to the precinct—and Liv's date was the reason she was there—and there they had been, together. Behind him, Olivia pulled her little black dress out of her locker and wriggled into it. Elliot was surprised when he turned back around and found her nearly dressed. For some reason, there was something suddenly strange about seeing her with clothes on. "Well," he said, "be careful. Don't stay out too late." Acting like a big brother—typical, but unnecessary.

"I hope Lizzie's awake to see you in your tie," she replied, smiling as she reached awkwardly to zip herself up. She wouldn't ask for help because she knew she didn't need it.

He forced a smile, still disturbed by the thought of his partner dating anyone, and wondered if this was how she felt when she had seen him with Beck. Regret now burned his insides.

He turned and started out of the room and Olivia stared after him. Was that it? Were they really just going to leave it at that? But he stopped before he reached the door.

"Liv, about tonight—"

Olivia had seen the kiss as an apology of sorts, as an acknowledgement that things had been really screwed up for a while, that he hadn't paid her enough attention, that part of him still belonged to her. She didn't want him to ruin that, so she hoped he wasn't about to.

He tried to think of what he wanted to say, but the words just wouldn't come. He'd never been eloquent, and when he did speak, he usually said what he thought and not what he felt. He exhaled loudly, and she realized he wasn't going to say it had been a mistake; in fact, he was trying very hard not to say it had been a mistake.

"El," she said softly, "I know." With an assuring nod, she added, "Go home."

She had given him her approval, and he knew there wasn't anything else he really wanted, so he turned and pulled the door open.

She had stooped to slide into her shoes when he turned back around.

"I'm going home," he said loudly. She looked up at the unexpected sound of his voice. "To my family," he clarified, and she stood up. "But... it's still you and this job, hear me?"

She nodded dumbly. He also nodded once, mostly to convince himself he could leave now, and then he disappeared through the doorway.

Still her and the job—about the only things he had anymore. The last time she'd heard that declaration, she'd requested a new partner, but she had learned her lesson since then; the first time might have scared her, triggering a landslide of life-altering events, but this time the words were comforting. Olivia Benson couldn't have imagined a more appropriate apology from her partner.