A/N: Many apologies for keeping your waiting for this. It seems it's a writer's curse than when she say she's gonna post a new chapter at a specific time, she gets ill and can't do much of anything. Which is what happened. Here it is however! Thank you to all who added the story to their alerts, at least I know I have some readers even if you're shy.

I sincerely hope I can have Chapter 3 completely written by the end of this week and thus polished and ready for publishing sometime around the end of next week.

Chapter 2

With ease Elliot guided Olivia through the door to the restaurant and as soon as they entered Olivia caught herself feeling unusually self conscious. In a dress without a weapon on her hip she would have been right at home; she had after all once been a frequent dater and liked to treat herself to nice dinners once in awhile.

Now however she was in her work outfit; clothes she had been in for at least 24 hours with only perfume covering up the sweat odour, or so she at least fervently hoped.

They didn't draw any attention though so she decided to trust Elliot in that he wouldn't take her to a place where they'd be kicked out for not matching up with the dress code. Her trust was well placed this time as it turned out Elliot was well acquainted with this particular establishment.

"Mia! Hi!" Elliot greeted the hostess with a warm smile.

"Detective! It's been awhile!"the woman named Mia greeted in return.

"Been busy," Elliot said, shrugging like only he could. "I have a table for two booked," he continued.

Mia looked down at her computer, mumbling to herself. "Stabler...Stabler..."

"Yeah, here it is," she said and then walked out from behind her computer, "Follow me, please."

Olivia walked behind Elliot as they followed Mia, glaring at his back. He had booked them a table before he'd even asked her "out". Self confident ass, she thought, shaking her head in disbelief over her partner's presumptions.

As they sat down at their table, Elliot shot her a strange look, pretending innocence or actually not knowing. Generally with men you couldn't be too sure but this was Elliot so Olivia knew the latter wasn't really possible.

"Oh you know," Olivia told him with a stern look. "When?" she then simply asked.

Elliot only smiled sweetly at first without replying, obviously enjoying his "victory".

"After lunch, when it got cancelled,"he finally answered, nonchalantly and liking his success a little too much.

Olivia kept shaking her head. He was just unbelievable sometimes in his smugness.

"How come you're so familiar with the staff here then, El? Old girlfriend?" Olivia teased.

"I've had one girlfriend in my life and you know it."Elliot answered, referring to his wife of some 20 odd years. "Anyway, this place wasn't always this fancy, I used to come here with some old colleagues over at Homicide." he then explained.

Olivia nodded but then fell silent. Unintentionally giving way for a greater and much more uncomfortable quietness. Neither of them knowing what to say. Chit-chatting had never been either of their strong suites and today was no exception.

To both of their surprise, it was Olivia that finally dared the oppressive silence. Finding herself in a strange need to keep talking about something, anything or she'd blurt out what was really on her mind.

"So uhm...does Kathy know you're here?"she asked, reverting back to something familiar. A topic that they could do in their sleep because they had done it so many times. She knew he wouldn't like the question which was precisely the point.

Hopefully he'd forget all about making her talk and besides keeping Elliot's family and marriage together had proven to be a sometimes welcomed distraction to her own disarrayed life. A noble goal and something to strive for when she felt she had nothing else to fight for except justice that would never come for countless victims.

She was right. For awhile her only answer from her partner was an audible sigh and a very frustrated look.

"I called and said I had to work late 'cause of the investigation," Elliot answered finally.

"Elliot.."Olivia started in complaint.

"Don't!" Elliot cut off before she could say anything else. "I didn't lie because this is work,"Elliot explained quickly but saw Olivia regarding him sceptically still.

"This is for work, because we need to talk," he paused momentarily, "You do," he emphasized. He wasn't sure if it would provoke the desired response from her or only serve to make her shut down but he figured he needed to make his intentions perfectly clear to her.

Olivia's eyes shot up to him and he saw the split second battle taking place in her eyes, a battle of two very strong wills. What would she do...fight or flee?

Finally Olivia sighed and looked back down at the menu. "Think I can order from the kids' menu?"she asked playfully, changing the subject instead of giving him an answer and for a moment he thought he'd lost her. "I'm really not that hungry,"she continued, lifting her eyes to meet her partner's gaze again.

He didn't answer immediately, not until she silently told him with an almost imperceivable nod that she had heard him before, she just didn't want to talk right now this second. She still needed time to gather her thoughts.

"I think you might regret it, when you see and smell my food,"Elliot replied, "And I'm warning you, I ain't sharing,"

"Yeah, like I'll give you a choice, "Olivia replied with a smug grin.

"You should eat,"Elliot stated, slightly interrupting the light banter they had going with a tone that implied seriousness again. "The stuff they served us with in federal lock up was crap,"he added with a small grin.

His smile disappeared even faster than their suspects had done in their recent case when he saw Olivia's face fall flat at his comment. It had to have been his words but what in them he didn't know.

Elliot wasn't sure why he never thought before speaking but it seemed to always be out of his control. It was like there was a giant hole in his mouth where things just fell out. Even more mysterious was the fact that none of it was ever good and especially when he was with Olivia everything seemed to come out more wrong and hurtful than he ever intended or wanted...

Only this time he had absolutely no idea what was wrong with complaining about federally funded jail junk food.

"You wanna talk about it?" he suggested, his voice gentler and serious at the same time.

She had still yet to comment on his words. "There's nothing to talk about, Elliot,"Olivia brushed him off but her pondering face was left in place.

"I read your report...it didn't look like they treated us any different once they separated us,"Elliot continued, treading on carefully and letting his gut guide him.

"They didn't, did they?"he asked, looking up at her but unable to meet her gaze, it was looking somewhere else; something particularly interesting seemed to be happening in the empty corner behind him.

A horrible thought suddenly popped into his mind. "Olivia, did they?"he repeated, suddenly afraid. As a police officer he knew first hand of the bad things that could "accidentally" happen to detainees.

There were bad apples everywhere. In the police force and for sure in the Marshal service as well. Olivia could defend herself almost as well as anyone else in the squad, the best if she had a gun in hand but none of that meant squat if you were faced with large unforgiving federal agents with your hands handcuffed behind your back.

Even Elliot could admit to having felt powerless at the moment when they had been forced down on the ground, arms pulled around their backs and hand restraints slapped onto their wrists.

Olivia looked up in confusion and her voice implied worry, about him. "Elliot, what are you talking about?" she asked, "Did what?"

Elliot breathed out a sigh of relief and then smiled slightly at her. Even Olivia couldn't fake innocence like that.

"I thought.."he began in explanation but suddenly his fears seemed silly and sounding ridiculous was something he generally tried avoided.

Liv's glare however told him he better talk about his feelings or she certainly wouldn't.

"I thought..they, someone at the Marshal's or FBI might have..."Elliot struggled to string the phonemes together, "Well you know what can happen behind closed doors. Maybe they had assaulted or uhh... done... something."he finished lamely.

"Oh Elliot, I'm fine,"Olivia said, waving of his concerns like he had hoped she would,"As you said, you saw the report."she added and now it was Elliot's eyes shooting up to look at her, horrified.

At the same second Olivia had finished her sentence a waiter approached them and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her lost appetite as she happily ordered away, totally ignorant of his reaction to her last words.

Elliot had completely lost any lust for food as his stomach had begun doing impressive acrobatic tricks and he could only stare at his partner as she continued chatting with the waiter.

She had answered him but it wasn't the kind of denial that he'd needed he realized now. It was still a reply meant to deflect. Another avoidance.

Elliot's worry returned in tenfold.

End notes: As said in the summary, this is a post ep and it's not gonna go AU. In case you were worried a bit by the latest paragraphs.