"Funny, I could've sworn you told me once that you were working on moving back home."
"Don't tell me that you've been turning the city upside down looking for me."
"'Course not. What makes you think you're worth it?"
There is a teasing note in Olivia's voice that Elliot doesn't miss, and so he rolls his eyes at her as she sits across from him. He's not really in the mood to talk, and honestly, neither is she, but they don't particularly want to keep it to themselves, either.
"You know, I spent my whole life since my kids were born hoping that they'd never et into something I couldn't help them out of," he remarks.
She knows what he means. "How's she doing?" she asks. He sighs.
"I don't know. They've booked her and everything, holding her down there."
"Central Booking?"
"Yeah. Went down there earlier. She wouldn't talk to me. I think she blames me for this."
There is silence. This last case started a year ago, and has only just come back to bite them…all of them. So now they sit, across from each other, as partners, and nothing more, in a coffee shop at midnight, trying to figure everything out. But they doubt any answers will come.
"I doubt it," Olivia says, finally. "You did what you could to spare her from all this."
Elliot shakes his head, an almost amused look crossing his face. "Hardly seems like enough, now," he says, and then, "How'd it go with Internal Affairs?"
Olivia shrugs. "Don't know," she replies. "Guess I'll find out soon enough. Gotta count for something that I went in on my own."
"It should. 'Least you had the chance." Elliot trails off and gives her a sideways look. "You want coffee or something?"
"That sounds great right about now," she says, because somewhere along the line, she abandoned the tea thing, and went back to coffee. Before long, someone comes along to fill the mugs sitting on the table.
"You think the captain's going to leave?" Elliot asks, and Olivia shakes her head.
"Doubt it," she says, "They can't possibly send him off."
But it goes without saying that they can, and that it's possible that they will. But neither detective wants to think about it, and so they change the subject.
"You know, I wasn't jerking you around when I said I was moving back home," says Elliot. "It's just taking longer than I thought."
Olivia smirks at him. "Apparently not." she tells him. He pushes her foot under the table.
"You're not funny," he tells her, and then, "I didn't think it was possible to feel any older than I do right now."
"Things are gonna get interesting for you," says Olivia.
"Nothing I haven't done before," says Elliot, and then, "Suppose you could call it good news, compared to everything else we've heard lately."
"That's not what you said earlier."
"Bite me. I changed my mind. I'm still allowed to do that, aren't I?"
Silence, and then they both look away from each other, laughing.
"This is pathetic," says Olivia. "Look at us. We're sitting here at an all night coffee shop, talking about our lives. Don't we have anything better to do?"
"Obviously not," Elliot replies, and then, "But on the other hand, do we really even have lives?"
"Sure we do," says Olivia, leaning back in her chair. "Might not always be that obvious, but we have 'em."
She has a point, and he knows it. It isn't always obvious. But this last case shoved everything into focus, hard. And now there's no turning back. Things over the past two years have brought them to where they are now, and as always, the future is uncertain.
"You know, I used to think that we were invincible, you and I," Elliot remarks, finally. "That as long as we were partners, nothing would be able to break us."
Olivia offers up a faint smile and pushes at his foot. "Well, guess what, Stabler?"
"What?"
There's a pause, more for effect than anything else, and then, she answers.
"We're not broken."