Elliot fell silent, and Liv waited, to be either admonished or pardoned.

"You went – "

"To Long Beach, yeah," Liv supplied. "I went to talk to her, to see . . . to see if I could get her to change her mind."

"And did she?"

"Not exactly," she said slowly, "but . . . she helped Kathleen."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"El, you didn't mention your mother in ten years. I figured if I asked you, or told you, that we would get into it. You would have told me not to go," Liv sighed, "and it was too important."

He scrubbed a hand over his face with the hand not holding the broom, then bent back to the dust pan and finished cleaning up the broken glass. Olivia remained braced for a grenade that seemed not to be tossed, after all. With the broom put away, El reached for his forgotten beer, finishing it in two long pulls, then he turned and retrieved the other from the fridge.

"So, what did she have to say about me?" he asked her. "Did she regale you with stories of how much I've fucked up over the years?"

"What? No, of course not! El, your mother loves you – more than you realize."

He snorted. "Oh yeah? You might not have thought so, had you been there when I went to see her."

"Look, I know that your mother has made some choices that were hard . . . and she knows exactly what she's lost because of them. But she does love you," Liv stressed, "and your family."

With his new beer in hand, he returned to the living room, dropping heavily back onto the couch. His eyes were dark, a look coloring them that Liv couldn't quite name. She stopped across from him, arms crossed over her chest.

"What is it, El?"

His eyes stayed unfocused, looking through her, vacantly. "My whole life, Liv – my whole life I spent afraid that I would become my mother. That one day I'd just . . . snap, and it would be her illness, comin' for me. That it was in me, just waiting for an opportunity.

"But Kathleen . . . O. D'd like that," Elliot's voice cracked as it squeezed out of his tightening throat, "Jesus, I'm not sure I've ever been that terrified, Olivia. My mother, she told me that I - I'm living my old man's life. That I lost my passion." He blinked, looking at her. "And I'm not so sure she's wrong."

"C'mon, Elliot." Liv came around the coffee table, sitting next to him again. "You're passionate about lots of things. Your job, your family, your faith," she listed.

He laughed softly, touched by her efforts. "I'm talking about creative passion, Liv. The stuff that lit me up, before I poured everything into young marriage and redeeming my father's sorry legacy."

Olivia shifted uncomfortably, unnerved by his rawness. Where had this side of her partner come from? She was used to him being walled up, impenetrable in his fortress of righteousness – unless, of course, he was taking his demons out on a perp.

He sat forward, sliding his beer bottle onto the coffee table. "I'm sorry that you didn't get to know me then. Before. I'm starting to wonder if I was the better man, then."

Momentarily dumbfounded, she stared at him as he continued to look at the carpet. Words were heaped one on the other in her throat, blocking their passage out. It seemed that no matter how much they said to each other, it would never be everything. It wouldn't be what they should have said to each other, when they had the chance.

"Elliot."

"Yeah?"

"Look at me." She waited for his crystalline blue eyes to match her gaze. "You're a good man. A great cop, an amazing father. The best partner I've ever had, and my best friend." She smiled. "I don't want any other version of you. I just want you."

Perhaps it was her inflection on want you . . . or, it could have been the culmination of the drinking. It could have been ten years of the butterfly effect, finally shifting from the other side of the planet, for all anybody knew. But slowly Elliot was leaning in. Liv watched it happen, until their lips met. There was no attempt to stop him, or to talk herself out of it; her mind had fallen conspicuously quiet.

Olivia had a healthy fantasy life – but as most adults knew, the reality could go one way or the other.

The heat of their touching this way was enough to vaporize her fantasies. Everything, all of it, was much more than she had imagined: the taste of him, the scratch of his stubble , the familiarity of his warmth, his scent. Elliot brought a hand up to the side of her neck, trying to pull her closer where there was no closer left. Why hadn't he done this sooner? Years ago? Why in Christ's name had he not done it a year ago, when he should've? he wondered.

Because you're a coward, he answered himself.

She was moaning into his mouth, and they had hardly even touched each other yet. He pushed away every alarm going off, not caring if he was somehow failing at an altogether new story – if this was the hill he had to die on, so be it. At least he'd die knowing what it felt like to be inside her, more than just physically, what it felt like to love her.

They parted with El panting, struggling to center himself and find some control. Neither of them spoke. He rose to his feet, shedding his jacket, unbuttoning the blue work shirt he hadn't bothered to change since court that afternoon. Then he turned back to her and offered her his hand.

Liv took it, and let him draw her to her feet, where he touched a hand to her cheek. He stroked his thumb over her lips, then followed the motion with his mouth. Olivia opened her mouth, letting him devour her, and he grunted with wolfish appreciatiom. His arms slid around her, then lowered, grazing her ass cheeks, stopping at the tops of her thighs. Elliot pushed her weight up into his arms, urging her legs around his waist. Blindly, he started for the bedroom.

Couched in shadows, the bed beckoned with its own groan of agreement, welcoming their inevitable exploit. He bent over her, unhappy that he only had two hands, watching her arch against his touch. There was no hint of Detective Benson here – nothing buttoned-down, protected from the boys' club that was the police force. She was hungry, stripped to the barest version of herself that she would ever give him, and he had no intention of missing a single opportunity to worship at her offering.

Christ, how he loved her. How he always had.

Her fingernails dug a home into his shoulders after pushing off his open shirt, and she was whimpering at the feel of his warm, taut belly brushing hers. Then her bra was off, and his heart battered his ribs as he tasted her skin, covering each nipple, grazing them with his teeth. Liv's skin flushed, sheened with anticipatory sweat, her hips bucking under his weight. She'd never been so desperate. She wondered if she'd survive it.

El pulled back, chuckling to find Olivia trying to get her own jeans open, and a hand down her pants. Playfully, he smacked her hands away. He leaned in to the shell of her ear. "Uh-unh," he whispered, "that's my job." She grunted, a fresh flood of wetness pooling between her legs at the feel of his breath, hot on her ear. His hands landed heavily on the button and zipper.

"Tell me," he breathed, popping the button, "how many times you did this and wished it was me." The zipper creaked down. She squirmed. "Hmm? How many others? How many nights you slid your hand between your legs and whispered my name."

"So many!" she gasped, "Fuck, El . . . so - "

His hand slid into her pants, held tight to her mons by the pressure of the jeans. He looked at her face, sliding a finger over her clit. She nearly screamed with the relief of it. Then his own eyes closed, exhaling sharply through his nose, his mouth back to her ear. "Olivia . . . you're so. Fucking. Wet."

She lost her precarious hold on the edge, thrusting into his palm, coming in her pants like a virgin. Chasing her tongue as it snaked out to wet her lips, he kissed her again. He was grinning, pleased with himself, and she felt momentarily bad for the priest who would take his confession that week. "Braggart," she teased, wriggling from under him.

She got up, lit by the soft light from the window, and slowly took off the rest of her clothes, captured by Elliot's face as he watched. Captured, too, by the obvious strain of his cock inside his jeans. She stepped between his spread legs at the edge of the bed, watching the rapid rise and drop of his chest, sliding a finger lightly down his belly.

Liv opened his jeans, letting the zipper down. She ran her fingers over the outline that was visible in the space she'd made, then lowered his boxer-briefs a mere inch or two, revealing the head of him. El sighed, raising his arms above his head, hiding his nerves. Time seemed to stutter, tripping over itself as he watched her lower over him. Her tongue ran up the short length that she had freed, then took it into her mouth.

"Jesus," he strangled out, "Jesus . . . "

Her mouth, the pressure of the jeans against him, her hand dragging light touches against his balls – no woman had ever undone him by doing so little. Then she was pulling his jeans and underwear down, yanking him free of all that was left between them. Laying down beside him, she placed a kiss to the hollow of his throat, wrapping a warm hand around his cock, straining toward his belly.

"What about you?" she whispered, tugging on him firmly, experimentally. Elliot thrust into her hand, catching his breath. "What have you wished for, El?"

In answer, he moved her hands again, rolling over her, then moving lower. Elliot settled between her legs like a man sitting down to take the time to pray. Using both hands he spread her open, admiring the pouty swell of her clit, the shine of how wet she was. He touched a fingertip to her clit, circling gently, then slid to where she was pooled with desire. Adding a second finger, El slid them carefully into the silky heat of her.

Overwhelmed, he felt tears prick at his eyes. He moved in her, humbled by the feel of her, the sound of her breathing as it changed. Married since he was eighteen, Elliot Stabler had never found himself ready to weep at the altar of a woman's heat. Olivia was dripping, writhing, pushing and he met her, move for move. Just like on the job, they were partners here, too: synced, instinctively driven to fulfill the other's needs. Throbbing, she came, gripped around his fingers and fisting the sheets to anchor her in the world. He gathered her into his arms, both of them panting.

This could never be a one-night stand. He knew it as plainly as he knew the sun was going to come up in the morning. Neither of them could walk away from what was between them, without having to break something in themselves.

Liv nudged him backwards, slipping gracefully over his hips, and straddled his waist. She took him into her hand, hard, hot, throbbing, and leaking precum, nestling the tip of him between her legs. "Tell me," she whispered, echoing his words, "how many times did you do this and wish it was me?"

Olivia slid onto him, straight to the hilt, and he thought he would shoot before she had a chance to move. God help me, he thought. The desire, the shame, the weight of his emotions spurred him to move again. He took her by the hips and drove up into her, groaning low in his throat.

"Tell me," she demanded, leaning in and landing biting nips along his jaw.

"God, Liv, so many times. So many nights," he panted.

She smiled like a cat in the cream and ground her hips harder onto him. He was huge and hot, filling her, in all the ways she felt empty. Her mouth found his ear. "Elliot. I wanna feel you come. Please."

He was a man of so few denials. His hand held her head to his shoulder as he came, growling into the side of her neck. Liv whimpered, her hips slamming to a halt, driving him into her. "Yes," she cried softly, "yes, yes, yes." He felt her tighten around him, coming again.

Spent, exhausted, they didn't move from their position. Elliot was fighting the heavy slide of his eyelids when Liv whispered again.

"I love you."

"I love you, too." Then, "Thank you for saving my daughter."

Tomorrow, there would be other things to say. Tomorrow was a place of consequences, and of talking. It would bring with it things like guilt, and all sorts of other complications.

But the night would be long, in the dusk of the room. He had so much to tell her, and so many ways that he wanted to show it.

END