Title: The Ties That Bind

Author: Sara and Lizzie

Rating: T for mild language, violence and sex

Disclaimer: We own nothing related to L&O. We can merely write fictious stories and curse Dick Wolf for teasing us.

Author's Note: This is our second SVU fic. It's set before Elliot and Kathy's separation, but they are having problems. The italics are a flashback, and the song is by Saves The Day. If you like it, REVIEW. Please, we're slaves to your opinions.

The only thing I know,
is awkward silence,
you eyelids close,
when you're around me,
to shut me out,
don't shut me out.

June 3, 11:38 pm
Manhattan

Sex. It was, in this case, inevitable, but so much more than sex. Olivia knew, on some level, why Elliot had come to her that night, but in some other respects, she had no idea. The sex had been better than she had ever experienced before, but maybe because she knew it was Elliot. It was more than the sex, and it gave her one damning answer.

Olivia sat on her bed, knees pulled to her chest, long after Elliot left. She could barely stand to be in her own apartment, but she tortured herself by not moving, just sitting on her bed.

She heard the silence. She was breathing and the rain was still making its presence known on the building's roof, but all she heard was the silence that he left behind. She would always feel it when he wasn't there. She would feel it every time she stood in her living room, and every time she went to bed.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shut out the memories. Had she actually laid down on her bed and pulled him to her?

"You're gorgeous, Liv." He had whispered.

It was a perfect thing for him to say at the time. But now it made her cringe. She had heard words like that directed at her throughout her entire life. Gorgeous. Beautiful. But she never believed it until Elliot said it. And she hated herself for that.

June 3, 11:34 pm
Queens

Kathy Stabler laid in her bed, the TV casting a faint glow around the room as she dutifully watched the news, waiting for Elliot to come home. The phone rang, and she retrieved it from its stand with a heavy sigh.

"Hey Kath."

"Elliot, where are you?"

"Leaving the city. We had a rough day. Hostage situation gone wrong."

"When will you be home?"

"Soon. There's traffic in the tunnel, but soon."

She said goodbye and clicked off the phone. She felt so disconnected from her husband. The last few weeks, months maybe, she had felt him slipping away. He didn't talk to her, he didn't connect with her. He definetly showed no interest in sleeping with her. He was distracted when she talked and when she picked fights.

She told herself it was the job. Always had been the job, always would be the job. She told herself that so often she believed it. She banished to the back of her mind the notion that it could be something, or someone else.

June 3, 11:56 pm
Queens- Midtown Tunnel

Elliot was surprised to find there actually was traffic in the tunnel. One less lie, then. He stared straight above the dash, out the front window, refusing to look in his rear view mirror. Behind him was Olivia and the city, in front of him, was the road back home.

Back to Queens. Back to Kathy. The kids. Back to the life he was supposed to be living. The one that didn't have a place for Olivia Benson.

He was in Queens when two thoughts occurred to him. She had always had a place in his life. More so, if the life he had to live didn't have room for her, he wasn't sure he wanted to be living it. The thoughts that were running through his mind terrified him.

Elliot was a family man. He loved his kids more than anything. And he loved his wife. But things were different now. His relationship with Kathy wasn't the same. Maybe it hadn't been the same for five years, since he met Olivia. Maybe it was longer.

Elliot was a family man. But when lightning strikes, it's hard to ignore. You can bury it. Pretend it's anything other than love. But tonight had proven him wrong. She was the only place he could think to go to feel a little less hollow, a little more okay. He loved her. But he would continue to deny it.

Because he was married. And that's what he had to do. Deny it. So he shook his headat the wheel. Trying to clear it. Trying to erase the memory of kissing Olivia. Trying to forget her skin on his.

But when lighting strikes, it's hard to ignore.

June 5, 8:04 am
The 1-6

Cragen checked his watch anxiously. "Benson's late." He announced.

Munch raised his eyebrows. "By 4 minutes, Cap." He frowned. "What's with the jumpiness anyway?"

"Government poisoned him with something. Probably the whole precinct." Fin supplied.

Munch turned his incredulous expression on his partner. Fin shrugged. "Figured I'd say it for you."

Elliot sighed at his desk, looking like he hadn't slept at all the previous night. He stared across at Olivia's still empty desk, wondering if she would look at him today. It was a question he couldn't answer. And he hated himself for making it that way. Elliot liked answers and options. But he hadn't given Olivia any of either.

For the last days, she had met his eyes exactly three times, and touched him once. By accident. Two nights ago, they had shared all they had to share, and now, when she bumped his hand reaching for the same file, it made her leave the room.

Since he left her house, she only spoke to him when she had to. Elliot was angry with himself. Angry for going to her, angry for asking for what he asked for, angry for taking, and angry for wanting more.

It was at this point that she interrupted the rambling in his head by flying into the precinct in a whirl of activity.

"Good." Cragen said, a grim expression on his face. "We're all here."

Olivia looked around and noticed not only were Elliot, Munch and Fin in the room, but also Casey and Huang. She frowned at Cap. "What's the occasion?"

His face fell. "We're all catching. That guy that blew up the warehouse? He was acting on orders."

"What are we talking?" Fin asked.

"Drugs, torture and teen prostitution. The prostitution severs as advertising for the drug business. He only uses kidnapped teenagers. He sends them to parties to plant drug samples with his business cards on other teenagers. They use, they want more. He profits or he kidnaps them and uses them as runner and whores."

Huang nodded. "I'd say it's about power. The girls, the control, the drugs, the money. It's a definitie power issue. My guess on a basic profile is a sociopath who had extremely controling parents."

He took a breath, but faltered instead of saying more, as Alex Cabot flew in the door. She dumped her briefcase on the floor. "I'm so sorry. I forgot how long it takes to get anywhere in New York. Not that working the register at the Chanel in San Fransisco required any real urgency, but God, did witness protection make me lazy."

She stopped, and realized that she had inturrupted, so she scooted into her spot next to Casey, and listened.

"This guy is either a criminal master mind or he has a network of very willing lackeys." Munch commented.

"Or both." Huang interjected.

"So how do we find him?" Elliot piped up.

"That's the tricky part. The only thing we know is that recently, as in the last month or so he's cornered coke, speed, crack and meth, from Central Park to the Village."

"That's a big area." Olivia said. "No way it's just him and some teenage girls."

"So here's what we do." Cragen said. "Elliot, and Olivia. Go over every file on that case from yesterday. We've got nice fat folders on both of the girls, and the perp. Fin, go back to narcotics, find out everything you can about this guy. John, you get to go through any kidnapped girls still missing in the last two months. Go."

June 5, 1:23 pm
The 1-6

Alex sighed. She had only been back in New York for a month, and had only been back at work for a week, but she could see that something was going on between Elliot and Olivia. She knew this Olivia. It was sleep deprived, over caffienated Olivia. She had been acting like this for the last two days, like she couldn't bear to look at Elliot. She wasn't functioning like Olivia Benson. Her face was frowing at a file on her desk.

Alex's eyes found Elliot in the corner filecabinet searching for something. They had been doing this little dance for two days. Tense and overbearing Elliot cornering jumpy and introverted Olivia. She would go through hoops and bounds to avoid him, and he practically shouted at her in hopes of elliciting some sort of reaction.

Elliot returned to their joined desk and sat down. Olivia immediately stood up and started rushing around the room, pretending to look for files. Elliot sighed. He needed her to at least look at him. He looked down and opened the file that appeared identical to every other one he'd looked at in the last two hours. He dropped his head in his hands, and when he looked up, Olivia was gone.

Alex looked at Elliot, sitting at his desk, staring at the spot where his partner had been standing. She looked at the door that Liv have gone through up to the roof. Instead of acting on either impulse, she shook her head, and retreated to find Casey.

Elliot sat at his desk, in the empty room. Alex had departed soon after Olivia, and Munch had grumbled something about lunch an hour ago. Elliot thought about calling Kathy, but images Olivia's bedroom kept playing in his memory. Olivia's hand on the back of his neck when she pulled him to her on the bed.

He couldn't shaked the image of the streetlights shining through the window, or Olivia's eyes as she looked up at him. He was filled with confusion, and feeling, but not an ounce of regret. And that's what scared him.

June 5, 2:05 pm
The 1-6

Gray, tumultuous clouds over shadowed the sun, and a warm breeze picked up, giving the air a chraged feel. It was the kind of weather that gives you a gut feeling something you can't control is going to happen. But there's a fine line between can't control and don't want to control.

Olivia sighed and looked at how the clouds blended into the skyline. She surveyed the city, grateful for the chaos it provided her with. The traffic and the people and the wind made a symphony for her, a relief from the tense atmosphere that had taken over the precinct for the last two days.

She couldn't talk to Elliot. Because she knew the first thing he was going to say to her was that it was all a mistake, and he was sorry. And they were words she knew were true, but refused to hear. So she avoided him. Or at least she tried. She sighed again as she felt the familiar sensation of a little shiver down her spine, and a little pull in her stomach, and she knew Elliot haad found her.

"Hey stranger." He said, trying to keep things light.

"Hey."

He walked next to her, and stood at the ledge of the roof next to her. "What is it about this rooftop, that makes us come here when things get hard?"

She stared straight ahead, and didn't answer. It was silent for a long time, and Elliot was afraid she was just going to pretend he wasn't there, until she finally spoke again. "I love this city." She said. Elliot listened. "It's an intoxicating mix. So much life and potential, but so much death and destructuion. There's a certain magic to it."

Elliot surveyed the skyline, nodding his head. "So I haven't heard much out of you lately."

"So you know how it feels." She said, nodding as well. "Cause I havent heard much out of you lately either."

He nodded again, knowing she was right. Olivia bit her lip, knowing what was coming. The apology. They would soon erase that night from memory, and it would never be spoken of again.

"Liv, I can't explain myself." He burst out. "And I'm sorry for that. And I know that the other night was…surreal. But I feel like I fixed something."

She blinked at him, once than twice, her face inquisitive. She waited for him to deliver the final, earth shattering blow.

"Liv, I went home, two nights ago, and for the first night in a long time, I could sleep."

She let his words hit her and she absorbed them. She wasn't sure how it happened, up there, on that roof, under those clouds. It shouldn't have been this way. It was the one thing between them they weren't supposed to share. She was independent. He was married.

But as her lips fused to his on the roof, and they kiss grew deeper, it was sealed. When Olivia pulled back and locked his eyes into hers, brown into blue, his unspoken question, found her unspoken answer. And it was the same damning conclusion she had reached two nights ago, huddled in her bed. She knew it. She knew it in their kiss, in the meeting of their eyes. She would never be the same.