Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

The paperwork could wait, she thought, grabbing her jacket and ignoring the irritated yells that followed her out of the room. She pushed past the cops and lawyers that littered the hallway, balling her fists tightly. She nearly broke the plastic casing on the elevator button, she punched it so hard. She mumbled something vulgar under her breath and bounced her knees in impatient agitation. The air burst from her lungs with a growl as she watched the numbers change too slowly, and she punched the wall again before heading toward the stairwell. She took them two-at-a-time, bounding down and out of the building without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

Her options, now, were brave the subway at this ungodly hour or hail a cab and hope the driver was in a good mood. She rolled her eyes as she shot a hand into the air and leaned out over the brim of the curb. Her other hand got lost in her pocket, her fingers running over the edge of her phone, wondering if she should bite the bullet and call him.

Because he told her to call him.

She bit her lip and wrapped her fingers tighter around the device, which seemed to somehow offend her. She waited, though, until several more yellow cabs ignored her beseeching arm and frantic waves. She lowered her arm and used it to squeeze the bridge of her nose in defeat while she pulled the phone out of her pocket. She didn't even have to look at the screen as she swiped in a password and tapped the first name on her recent calls list. Still grimacing, still squeezing her eyes shut, she spoke as soon as she heard his voice. "Yeah, I'm out," she said, taking a deep breath. "You know me, a little too well, don't you?" she chuckled, after listening to him tease her about trying to get a cab at this time of night. She looked up toward the sky and nodded as she said, "Yeah, I know, I know. I should have just...you're where?"

She turned her head quickly and her eyes widened, and then they narrowed, and then, finally, they scrunched up as she smiled. She hung up the phone, shoved it back in her pocket, and walked toward him, shaking her head as she laughed. "You're a piece of work."

"Takes one to know one," he told her, pulling her into a tight hold and kissing her firmly on the mouth. He pulled away with a pop. "You weren't gonna call me, so I had a backup plan."

She sighed as she walked, holding his hand, toward the visitor's parking lot down at the end of the block. "I didn't think...I didn't want to make you come all the way out here, when you didn't have to, just because I..."

"I made it damn clear, twelve years ago," he interrupted, "That I would drive across the world for you if I had to." He looked at her. "And then I'd swim across oceans, figure out how to fly."

She laughed and stopped him with a soft tug on his hand. "Yeah, yeah, I get it." She took another deep breath. "It feels so weird there without you."

He cleared his throat, not comfortable with the sudden shift in mood. "Yeah, well," he said gruffly, "It would be weirder if I was there, fielding questions and dodging nasty looks and pitiful smiles, yeah?"

"It wouldn't be like that," she said, an almost pleading tone in her voice. "Come with me tomorrow, I know we can..."

"It's done," he said, snapping. He didn't mean to, and he knew she knew it. He turned his eyes toward her and then shifted his body slightly, pulling her close again. He leaned back, up against the hood of his car. "I can't bring myself to go through those doors." He shook his head and licked his lips. "Besides, if I went back to work with you tomorrow, certain other aspects of our relationship would, uh, cause a clear conflict of interest." He smirked at her with his lip caught between his teeth and his eyes dark and narrow.

She smirked right back at him and trailed her fingertips up the middle of his tee-shirt, teasing his chest. "It never got in the way before," she leaned into him, pulling at his collar and making him moan.

"That was different," he said, raising an eyebrow. "There's more at stake here, for both of us."

Her head titled. "Is that why?" she asked. "You think we couldn't be together if..."

"Fuck," he hissed, cutting her off again. "No, I know we'd give less than a half-of-a-fuck about what the rat squad would do to us if they found out. I can't...I just...I know if I went in there, the only thing I would see is that girl falling to the ground, you holding Sister Peg as she died in your arms, and then I'd have to explain that I shot Jenna because..."

"She aimed at me," she said softly. "I know." Her head fell against his, and her lips moved a quarter-of-an-inch more to brush against his. "I know," she whispered again, and then took the final step, kissing him deeply.

Her hands wound around his neck, her fingers trickling up and down the thin skin at his nape.

He moaned her name into her mouth as his tongue searched for hers. All of the pain and misery of the day disintegrated, turning to dust and blowing away.

The soft cry of a nickname he earned over a decade ago fell from her lips to his and she forgot about the fight she had with Cragen, the fact that she wasn't speaking to Fin, and the completely-fucking-confusing mound of files on her desk. With him, she was inside the tornado. That's what loving him was like. Fury and fire and a rushed panic swirling all around her, but never once being hit by the debris. He protected her from feeling the full weight of the devastation in her life, kept her grounded, made her feel whole and so alive.

He pulled away first. His eyes flickered with something between lust and devotion, and he smiled as he guided her toward the passenger seat of the car. "You'll, uh, be seeing plenty of me, though, if that's what's got you so worried."

"I'm seeing more of you now than I ever have," she said suggestively. She winked at him and then watched him close her door and walk around to the driver's side. She sighed and got lost in the brief silence, until his door opened and he plopped into the seat. He jammed the key in the ignition and turned, stepping on the break as he put the car in reverse. "Okay," he said, exhaling as he drove, "What's got you so upset? I can see it in your eyes."

"I'm not upset," she said, though it verged on defensive. "I'm tired." She sighed and let her eyes close, her head lolled against the window. "I'm just so...tired."

He bit his lip, worried that he may have added unneeded stress to her life. It had been less than a year, and he had turned their world upside down. In the middle of the night, just under eleven months ago, he'd showed up at her doorstep. He remembered, it was raining, and he had been soaked through to the bone in the short stretch of time between getting out of his car and walking into her building. He'd dripped and leaked all the way up the stairs, and he'd wrung himself out at the end of her hallway. He'd knocked on her door, knowing he'd wake her up, but it had been important. So fucking important. When she'd opened the door, he'd said nothing, but he'd moved too fast for her to dodge or protest, and he'd kissed her, the most powerful and emotion-riddled kiss he'd ever given or received in his entire life.

Everything changed that night. Since then, they hadn't spent a single night apart. She'd been there for him through a rough divorce and months of therapy as he'd dealt with the repercussions of causing a young girl's death. He'd been there for her, in more ways than ever, as she'd adjusted to the new routine at work, without him. When it seemed like everything around them had broken and shattered and blown away, they'd found pure and intense stability and support with each other, and it wasn't something either was ever going to give up.

At least, that was what he'd been so sure of until now. "Tired of what? Of...of me?"

"God, no," she said with a small, short chuckle. "Never. You...you give me energy, and strength, El." She looked at him for a moment, watching his strong, powerful hands curl around the steering wheel as he turned onto the bridge. "Of this job. Of the people in that building. I didn't realize how draining it all was when you were there with me, but without you...I feel it." Her eyes fluttered shut again and her head bounced and trembled against the glass as the car shuddered along over the rough surface of the bridge. "I feel everything."

He was quiet for a moment, but as he pulled off the ramp and slowed the car to match the residential speed-limit, he reached for her hand. "Baby," he said, his voice soft and pleading, beseeching her to look at him with only those two, short syllables. When he was sure her eyes were on him, he turned his head. "What's this really about?" He swallowed hard. "You're the best cop I have ever had as a partner...and I had a lot of them...and I know you make everyone in that unit look like a rookie. You could do the job in your sleep, or with one hand tied to your left foot." He heard her soft laugh and he smiled.

"Doing the job isn't the issue," she said, and then she squeezed his hand a bit harder. "When you were there, you never let me get too involved, too invested. You calmed me down when I overreacted, you were...I was a lot stronger, for you, because of you. Because you were my counterweight, my balance. Now...no one's on the same level, coming at me from an opposite direction with equal force. Fin doesn't care enough, Munch is too close to retirement to take the risks...you and I used to risk everything. We did risk everything. We...we still are."

Again, there was silence. He looked at her for a long moment, after he pulled into his driveway. He had been nibbling on the inside of his cheek for as long as she'd been talking, thinking, struggling with a few choices swirling in his head, his heart begging for decisions. "Do you want me to come back?" he asked, though it felt as though someone else had spoken. He heard the echo of his words and he nearly gasped, knowing he would never willingly throw himself back into the volcano like that. He took a breath as watched her face twist in emotion, and a light that had faded a while ago flicker, just a bit brighter, in her eyes. "You do, don't do?"

She felt the words form on her tongue before she said them. "If I had my way, you would have never left." She looked at him. "Or...if you would have told me you were leaving...I would have gone with you." She held his gaze, her soul seeming to lose bits of itself in his deep blue eyes, her body going numb with the need to be closer to his. "If you're honestly happier where you are, if you think you need to stay away from the precinct, the people in it, then I need you to do that more than I want you to be there with me."

He unhooked his seat belt and leaned over the console, his hands curving slightly around her face. "I would give anything to take back what happened last year, I would...ironically, I would kill if it meant this would all go away, and we could..."

"You didn't come back...because you wanted this," she said, interrupting him, suddenly coming to a stark realization, one that had, surprisingly, never crossed her mind.

"What?" he asked, frozen, staring at her and holding her face in her hands, like a deer caught in headlights.

She reached up and placed her hands over his, sliding them down and away from her face, linking their fingers. "The night you...that was right after..." she swallowed and shook her head a bit, trying to find words. "You wanted to take the risk, and you knew if we went back to work, as partners..."

"Liv, don't...don't start blaming yourself, here," he said, cutting her off. "Yeah, I wanted you, I have wanted you for years, I'm going to want you for the rest of my life. That night made me realize that I needed to take the chance on this, with you, before one of us...Jenna could have shot..." He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence, her lips stopped his speaking and her tongue invaded his mouth, paralyzing his senses as she pervaded them all. He inhaled, breathed her in, kissed her back deeply. He moaned, savoring her taste, her touch, the feel of her body working its way closer to his. "I love you," he mumbled.

She moaned the sentiment back to him, but it was caught by his kiss and swallowed. "So much," she said breathlessly, pulling away from his kiss.

He grinned at her and laughed when she threw herself over to his side of the car and kissed him again, her hands pulling at his clothes. He moaned her name, his own fingers making quick work of her shirt and sliding over her hot skin. He fumbled with her bra, grunting and tugging, and he whooped in victory when he felt it give under his palm. He heard her low, menacing, seductive chuckle, and he wondered briefly if he'd have the balls to try to keep their relationship from Cragen, if he'd needed to. He moaned, feeling her hands slip into his pants, and he knew that this was the eye of the storm.

This was how they grounded each other, tethered to each other, and made sure no harm would ever befall the other, how they laid claim to each other. It didn't matter what happened at work, what happened in the world around them, because they were each other's home.

She rocked against him, her legs straddled around him, her heat rubbing against his cock, throbbing and straining against the denim of his jeans in an effort to feel more of her. She kissed him, hard, and scraped her nails up and down his chest. She would spend a lifetime with him, just like this, and it would make up for every minute spent without him at work. She didn't tell him about the fight she got in with Cragen, she didn't tell him about her hour long meeting with Tucker, she didn't tell him that she punched Trevor Langan in the face for calling her a 'soulless bitch' after a rough interrogation. She didn't tell him about the absolute shit-storm that was brewing and surrounding her, because with him, she didn't even feel a single breeze or raindrop of any of it all.

All she felt, all that mattered, was him. And it's the way it always would be.

Peace and Love

Jo