A/N: Pulse2: synonymous with heartbeat, which stops when one is shocked or stunned, restarts when one relaxes again, and speeds up when one is nervous, anxious, scared or excited. Observe.
DISCLAIMER: Dick Wolf owns SVU and its characters. Storyline, dialogue, narrative and originality belong to TStabler©
He ran down three flights of stairs before he saw her, crumpled, sitting at the bottom, her head in her hands. He slowed his pace, catching his breath, and sat beside her. He instinctively looped his hands back around her, caressing her temples, applying just enough pressure to soothe. She moaned, against her will and her better judgment. Still trying to breathe normally, he panted as he said, "You ran, Liv. You ran before I could tell you that..." he paused, took a deep breath, and turned her head toward him. "I know exactly what it's like to argue with myself in the middle of the night about my feelings. I am an expert on feeling things that shouldn't be felt. I was married and in love with another woman for four and a half, no I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say five, five years. That's pretty high up on the list of 'bad feelings'," he said with a chuckle, staring into Olivia's eyes, still rubbing her temples. "Every time you look at me, every time we touch, accidentally or not, every time you speak, you drive me wild, Liv. You turn me on just by waking up in the morning. Knowing that you're walking around, breathing the same air as me is enough to make me want you. Do you know why I didn't stop Kathy when she walked out?
"You chose the job," Olivia mumbled. "You said so."
"Yeah, I lied. She gave me a choice, she told me to pick. Her exact words were 'You either request a new partner or I'm leaving.' Liv, I chose you." He saw her eyes widen, and something flash in them. "Liv, you said it was hard for you not love me, but it's damn near impossible for me not love you."
She looked into the beautiful, endless, blue eyes before her, and her vision cleared. She felt the weight float off of her shoulders and the Tico Torres drum solo that had been blasting in her head for three days had finally stopped. But, so had her heart. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She couldn't speak. There was only one thing she wanted to do right now, and her body wasn't cooperating with her.
Elliot noticed how bright her eyes had suddenly gotten and he smiled. "Your headache's gone."
She nodded, slowly, and a smile crept across her face. She moved, only slightly, mere centimeters, toward him. Her head wasn't pounding anymore, but her heart sure as hell was. She could hear her pulse beating in her ears, feel every vain pumping in her body. "Are we gonna..."
"Yeah, we are." He, too, moved closer to her, about an inch, certain that his own heart would burst out of his chest, sure that if he looked down, he'd see it thumping through his shirt. Then, when he looked into her eyes, his heart stopped for a moment and he had to take a second to take a mental picture. He wanted to remember the last dying moment of the relationship they were leaving behind, before the new one began. He owed it to their friendship to at least wait out the flatline before breathing a new life, a new pulse, into it, bringing it back as something else. Something better. Something magical.
"You stopped," she said, taking his hands off of her head and holding them in hers as she leaned her head in a tiny bit more.
Elliot laughed lightly. "Promise you won't hit me," he demanded.
"No way," she laughed. "I reserve the right to kick your ass."
"Great," he said with a snort. "I have been waiting for this moment for so long, and if I get my ass kicked as a result, then..."
He wasn't able to finish his sentence. Olivia got tired of waiting. The second their lips touched, the rest of the world could have crumbled, broken off and floated off into space and they wouldn't have noticed. Nothing existed except the two of them, the step they were sitting on, and this kiss. Hands roamed, lovingly, delicately, tentatively, over heads and faces, but didn't dare move beyond for fear of taking things too far, too soon. Tongues touched, danced, a beautifully choreographed duet, a pas de deux that gracefully blended love, passion, trust, loyalty, friendship, and a quite bit of lust. Breathing, they decided, after being suffocated for far too long in their respective personal hells, had become important, and they pulled apart. Their lips tingled, numb from the exertion and energy they had just been forced to withstand. Olivia sucked in the corner of her bottom lip, gently, and bit lightly as she slowly fluttered her eyes open.
Waiting, watching, right where she had left him, was Elliot. Happier than she had ever seen him, his blue eyes had darkened a few shades, a sign of his growing need for her, but they were also brighter and there was a light in them that she's never seen before. It hadn't been there this morning, she was sure. He said the only thing he could say to her. The only thing that mattered at the moment. "I love you, Liv."
"I love you, too, El." She pressed another quick kiss to his lips, then sighed. "We have to go back upstairs. We have to find Wakeman, and we have to act like this didn't just happen until we're done."
Elliot sighed, standing up, pulling her to her feet. "I know." They started up the stairs and he looked at her. "What do you wanna do about this, I mean, as far as work goes?"
"Keep your mouth shut and your eyes off my ass, and when we invite Tucker from IAB to the wedding, then Cragen can stick me with Fin." Olivia said, very seriously.
"Why do you get Fin?" Elliot said, seemingly unconcerned about the fact that Olivia had not only assumed they'd be getting married, but that they'd be inviting Tucker.
Olivia pushed the door to the fourth floor open as she replied, "You trust Munch to outrun or overpower someone who can take me down? I can kick Munch's ass with one hand behind my back. Fin might be able to protect me if I need it."
"Good point. You get Fin, I'll deal with Mr. Conspiracy," he said with a chuckle.
"Hey," Olivia said as they stepped into the bullpen, "Witty banter, smirks and smiles, walking at exactly the same speed? El, we're back."
Elliot smirked. "Liv, you know I would have kissed you, told you how I felt, the second she left. I just wasn't sure how you..." he stopped when a door opened and Fin came running down the stairs. "How you have no idea how many useless phone calls we've had." He jerked his head toward Fin to alert Olivia to his presence. She nodded, and thought maybe having Fin in the room would be enough of a distraction from Elliot, enabling her to calm down, slow her breathing, and maybe, just maybe, get her heart rate back to normal.
"Hey, guys," Fin said, pouring a cup of coffee. "Once Munch gets his slow, scrawny ass down here, you two get three hours up there. Did anything life-altering happen while we were sleeping?"
Elliot simpered. "Not anything that had to do with this case, no."
Fin plodded over to his desk, yawning. "Cragen didn't call?"
"Nope," Olivia said. It was the truth. Cragen would have called their cell phones. Munch trotted down the stairs at that moment, patting Olivia on the shoulder when he reached the bullpen. "All yours," he said.
Olivia smirked. A thousand ideas ran through her head at the thought of being alone in the cribs with Elliot for three hours. But, as much fun as having her way with the sexy, gorgeous hunk of detective would be, they had a psycho to catch. One that, because she'd been too busy living out a fantasy for the last ten minutes, she'd forgotten about. She picked up a sighting-sheet and shook her head. "Oh, no. I'm too awake to sleep."
"I could use a nap," Elliot said, sending a powerful look at Olivia. "And you should probably take an hour and at least lie down. That headache was brutal, and your migraines usually come back."
"Wait," Munch said, "You spent three hours down here, alone with Benson and a migraine, and you're still alive?"
The four of them shared a laugh. Then Olivia's neck throbbed. She could feel the blood pumping beneath her skin, running through her veins, keeping a steady, intense, rhythm and she knew Elliot was staring at her. She nonchalantly, with a small smile, said, "Okay, we're going. But, if a single one of these leads sounds plausible, you come get us."
Munch and Fin nodded and dug into the pile of messages as Olivia and Elliot walked, trying to control their nervous excitement, up the stairs. Once they got inside, Olivia closed the door, and she swore she could hear Elliot's heartbeat pulsing in time with hers. He heard hers, too, and he swallowed, hard, as he hooked his pinky through hers, getting her attention, garnering eye-contact and a bright smile.
"Liv," he said, barely a whisper as he pulled her toward the bunk, linking the rest of their fingers together. She gazed into his eyes and her voice was throaty and dry as she said, "El." His knees hit the edge of the bed and he dropped onto it pulling her onto his lap. He kissed her, softly, sweetly, and with so much feeling it actually scared both of them. Without breaking the kiss, he tugged on her hands as he flattened out on the bed, pulling her up so they were both lying down. So much passed between them in these few moments, in this one, prolonged, growing, deepening kiss, and Elliot knew if he didn't stop it now, it would go too far, and he could ruin this before it even began. He pulled away, slowly, and looked into her eyes. "I really do love you, so much." He spoke softly, and it was clear that he was anxious. "What I want with you, what I need to do with you, I'm not about to do at work with Munch and Fin downstairs," he said with a laugh. "And, it's going to take a lot longer than three hours. So, all I want to do, right now, is hold you."
"Sounds perfect," Olivia said, placing a light, gentle kiss to his lips. She snuggled close and he held her head to his chest and ran his fingers through her hair. She listened, and knew, then, for certain, that his pulse was racing as fast as hers was, beat-for-beat, in perfect sync. "I love you, too, El." she said, wrapping her arm around him. And in moments, in each others arms, they fell into a deep, peaceful sleep to the syncopated rhythm of their hearts.
Downstairs, Munch hung up the phone and sighed. "Man, this sucks. They probably just fell asleep." He looked across at his partner. "Do you wanna go get 'em or should I?"
"I'll go," Fin said. "They'll have a harder time killing me."
Fin climbed the stairs, completely unaware and unprepared for the surprise he was going to get when he opened the door to the cribs.
A/N: Ohhh, who wants part three? Fin's reaction's pretty cool, his pulse does some crazy 'ish, because this story has a turn that I don't usually take. ;)
