Author's note: This story was published on SVUfiction and now I'm posting it on here, as that site sadly died. The fic takes place after S12, I hope you enjoy it.

EO's unforgettable fire and U2's 1984 album bearing the same name, that was mostly what I listened to as I wrote this story, gave it its name. My thanks go to Michelle and Jenna who were my betas and to PushTheButton for the avi.

Chapter 1:

She sees them in there. She can't tell who's who because all she can see are moving figures, but she sees them. Self-loathing, Olivia intends to start the car. She is sick of watching other people's lives and families through windows. She knows perfectly well what made her drive all the way to Queens tonight after fighting the urge for weeks and weeks. But she planned to knock on his door and not sit in the car like some kind of stalker and look over at the house or through the window.

Only she couldn't make it to the door.

Her stomach clenched as she entered his neighborhood and the knot kept tightening when she approached his street. When she pulled over at the sidewalk across from Elliot's house and noticed his Jeep parked in the street, her heart stopped beating for a minute. All the courage she had when she stormed out of her apartment, deciding that she was going to make him talk to her, abandoned her and she was left numb, unable to move. She was barely able to kill the engine.

She's been sitting there for nearly ten minutes. When her numbness disappeared she missed it, because it was hell of a lot better than having tears blurring her sight as she gazed over to the house. The light is on in what she knows is the living room and the kitchen and through the curtains she can see three people moving, walking back and forth in the kitchen and in the living room. Dinner, family, Elliot. Her scattered thoughts didn't allow her to form a decision, so she just kept sitting there.

She can still feel the pang. Sometimes the grief and that hollow feeling of loss take over her. Sometimes it's the anger. She managed to keep her focus on the job and she even almost got over talking to Elliot in her head when she's trying to crack a suspect or when she feels she's missing something in a case. She has learned to work with Rollins and Amaro, kind of, though she relies on Fin much more. Then again, there are moments when she is out of it. When she misses him so much. When she stares across her desk and doesn't meet his blue eyes, when she wants someone to perfectly understand what she means without her having to waste too many, or any, words to utter it. When she has to adjust herself to someone's stride because it's not automatically in sync. When she physically aches to smell that mix of cologne and masculinity, this specific scent that is only his.

This. This void is what made her leave her apartment tonight and drive all the way over here. Oh, yes, she scorns herself, there is also the fact that despite her many calls and messages, despite her desperation to talk to him, he has never bothered to say a word to her. He has never bothered to call her back, has never explained, never said goodbye, perhaps he has never cared. And she doesn't know how to undo it now. Maybe she just needs to accept that she can't.

A loud bark startles her and her hands clutch the steering wheel. Her head snaps to the other side and she sees a man walking his dog, passing right next to her parked car. Olivia rubs her face with both her hands, wiping the tears that uninterruptedly slid down her cheeks, paving salt and mascara paths down her chin and neck, staining the collar of her beige shirt. She then starts the engine and thanks the numbness that takes over again as she starts driving away.

He didn't need her.

She needed him more than he has ever needed her. That's what she's been admitting to herself these past months. There was a time when she and the job were all he had. And while she kept reminding him that he always had his kids and even though she hated to see him cracking as his marriage dissolved, she realized it was the first time that he was like her. He needed her more then, she was his constant like he has always been hers, she rooted him like he has always rooted her, she could do things for him and he sought her out more. He was there for her. When she came back from Oregon, it took him a while, but he learned again to rely on her and it was up to her to keep them at a distance, afraid to become too dependent on him. And she was right to be on her guard. Because when he moved back home she withered inside for a while. His head was up his ass, focusing on rebuilding his marriage, he was unreachable, and it suddenly left her hanging, bare, alone.

She had a terrible year, the year his son was born. Harris and Sealview happened that year, she was rejected for adoption and the relationships she had weren't worth shit. She kept to herself, not telling him about Harris, about Kurt, she didn't even want to tell him about the adoption failure. She kept him away, while she shamelessly made his business her own. In a way she preferred that, it was better than admitting that she needed him.

But she does.

When he hugged her in that corridor, outside the room his wife and newborn son rested in, she knew he had found her again, that he had never been gone, that they needed to find another way to be. But then and in the few times he's held her since, she had to force herself away from his arms, because she had to break away from his grip over her life. She was afraid that she wouldn't be able to take it anymore. She loves him and she can't have him and she knows that.

Like on autopilot she parks the car and climbs up the stairs to her apartment. She fumbles to find her keys. When Olivia closes the door behind her, she stands facing it for a moment in the dark. She doesn't bother to switch the lights on, the darkness suits her now. Slowly turning around and leaning against the door for support, she feels the tears start to overflow again. Her body slides down along the door, her knees buckle beneath her and she finally sits down on the floor with her head and back leaning against her apartment's closed door. She bends her knees and holds her stomach as the uncontrollable sobs leave her chest and rock her entire body.