A/N: Next chap, we get dinner, and Olivia and Elliot get friendly at Dickie's baseball game!

DISCLAIMER: Dick Wolf owns SVU and SVU's characters and locations. TStabler© owns this story: dialogue, narrative, etc. Enjoy, no touchy! You break it, you bought it!

As she dressed for dinner, not too dressy, since it was Elliot, a thought occurred to Olivia. What if she was going to dinner with him...and the girl he was in love with? She had received a phone call when Elliot dropped her off, from Fin, and Elliot told him about this knockout at work. Some gorgeous girl he couldn't stop thinking about. Was it someone she knew? Was it someone they both worked with? God, was it Alex or Casey? Melinda? Is that why when she asked him about it, he avoided the question? This was going to be a disaster. She sighed as she spritzed some body spray on and made sure her hair looked nice enough for dinner, but not too nice for a baseball game. She checked herself in the mirror one last time, making sure the slightly sexy top and killer heels were offset just enough by the "baseball-watching" jeans, that conveniently hugged every curve of her lower body perfectly. She smirked as she saw that her outfit had the desired effect. If he was with another woman, he'd regret it. If this was, in fact, a date, he'd be one lucky son of a bitch.

There was a knock on the door, and Olivia took a deep breath as she grabbed her clutch. She sighed as she walked out into the living room, tensed up as she grabbed the doorknob, and relaxed as she opened the door. "Hi, El," she said, casually.

Elliot's face amused Olivia. His eyes traveled up and down her body, and the right corners of his lips twitched. He was breathless, speechless, thoughtless, and motionless.

"You ready?" Olivia asked, leaning against her doorframe, waiting for him to say something. Do something.

Elliot nodded dumbly. "You look so...incredible." He blinked, cleared his throat, and moved aside so she could step into the hallway. His eyes followed her ass as she moved.

"Thanks," Olivia said, smirking slightly. She made a mental note to buy four more pairs of the jeans she was wearing. "I wasn't sure if we were meeting anyone else, if it was just us," she said, "Or if we going to get that girl you're in love with. Fin told me, ya know."

"What?" Elliot barked, stopping. "He did what?"

"Some woman at work? Really?" Olivia said, letting her unfounded jealousy get the best of her. "I mean, I get that you're on the rebound and everything, but if you could keep it out of work that would be great." As she turned away from him, her eyes closed. She didn't mean to say any of that, and it was too late to take it all back.

Elliot scoffed. "Rebound?" he questioned. "No way, Liv. This is not...this isn't that. I'm really falling...I have fallen for this girl. And asking me to keep it out of work is impossible, unless you want me to transfer or get a new partner." He grabbed her hand and tugged. "What do you think all of this has been about? I never came right out and said it, but I thought you'd pick up on the fact that I was talking about you."

Olivia looked into his eyes. "I did," she said softly. "But then I thought that there was just...no way you could...that you would ever..."

"There is no way I could ever not be in love with you," Elliot said, cutting her off. "Just come to dinner with me, we'll go to Dickie's game with the kids like we always do, and we'll see where this goes."

Olivia gasped. "The kids? Elliot, we shouldn't be doing..."

"Kathy is talking to them, she's doing it right now. They already expect me to run into your arms. At least Maureen does. Lizzie expects Disneyland."

Olivia laughed. "That's probably not a bad idea," she said, allowing Elliot to take her hand, flinching slightly at the newness and the oddness of his touch in this way. They walked down her hallway and took the stairs.

"Have you ever been to Disneyland, Liv?" Elliot asked, making an effort to remind himself to breath. He was really walking with her hand in his. It was so easy.

Olivia and Elliot pushed through the door and headed for the front entrance. "No," she said. "My mother was not the 'family vacation' type. She took me to a wine tasting once."

"That must have been nice," Elliot said, leading her down the street to his parked car. He noticed how the breeze blew her naturally wavy hair just slightly, and he smiled. She was the most beautiful person in the world.

"I was seven," Olivia said, looking away from him and toward the sky. "So no, it wasn't nice."

Elliot caressed the side of her hand with his thumb as they walked. "I'm so sorry," he whispered to her. "For everything she did to you. Everything she put you through, the pain you had to endure. Honey, you didn't deserve any of it," he told her. "It's made you the amazing, strong, woman you are now, though. Look at the positive."

As they stopped in front of his car, Olivia looked up at him, a small smile on her face. "I was her outlet, El. She lived in constant pain, and fear, and had to live with a traumatic memory. She felt that someone else needed to, I guess that someone was me because I looked...look...just like him. Things are better now."

Elliot brushed her hair behind her ear, and if he had the guts at that moment, he would have kissed her. "I know they are," he said, winking. He opened the door for her, watched her get in, and walked around to the other side, taking a deep breath. This was going to be perfect.

"So then he says, 'Do you wash your pants with Windex? Because I can see myself in them.' I was floored. He had no game. At all. I had to tell him I had a headache and leave," Olivia laughed, sipping her wine and gazing into Elliot's eyes. "In a way, you're lucky you got married young. It saved you from the pain of college dating."

"Oh, man," Elliot said, chuckling. "Was that the worst?"

"No," Olivia laughed, the laugh Elliot loved, where her head was thrown back and her eyes sparkled. "Not by a longshot!"

"I asked for the worst date, Benson," Elliot said, smirking at her. He reached for her hand and stroked his thumb over her knuckled. "Don't hold back on me, baby."

Olivia chuckled and nodded. "So, uh, this one guy, shit, I forgot his name, that's how bad this was, he picks me up at my apartment...this was my junior year, right? He's got this lime-green Ford, but one door is missing. Not broken. Missing, El. Gone. So he tells me to make sure I buckle up so I don't fall out. Then he takes me to Burger City and says, 'I only have eight dollars, we have to split something."

"Classy guy," Elliot said.

"Economics major," Olivia pointed out, laughing. "Then, after I refuse to stay and eat with him, he looks me right in the eyes and says, 'Ya know, baby, the back seat's got both doors."

"He was serious?" Elliot asked. "You were blowing him off for dinner, but he thought you would stay and get back in the car..."

"Yeah," Olivia said, rolling her eyes. She took another sip of her wine and shook her head.

Elliot cleared his throat. "Okay, so, not that I really wanna hear this, but I wanna know everything. What was the, uh, best pickup line? I mean, gimme the one, single, line that a man has used that's really made you fall in love with him."

Olivia, still looking at him, without missing a beat, said, "Well, it's only really happened once. You wanna know exactly what he said?"

"Word for word," Elliot said, nodding.

Olivia took a deep breath, leaned in closer to him, and said, "Who the hell are you?"

Elliot squinted. "That made you fall in love with someone?"

Olivia chuckled. "I was sitting in a chair, behind a desk, and this incredibly gorgeous guy walked in. He wasn't expecting me to be sitting there. He looked at me and his eyes...I got so lost in his eyes...his eyes narrowed and he said, 'Who the hell are you' and glared at me."

Elliot realized. His eyes widened. "And that's when Cragen came out of his office and..."

"Introduced us," Olivia interrupted. She bit her bottom lip and nodded. "I can not believe I just told you that." She chuckled a bit and rolled her eyes. "I guess it's like that stupid Tom Cruise movie, ya know? You had me at hello, El."

Elliot smiled at her. "Liv, whether you believe me or not, I knew the minute I met you that you would give me trouble. I knew it would be all over for me. You broke down every wall I had, and you know things about me..."

"Your wife doesn't know," Olivia said. "I know that. We've had this conversation before."

Elliot laughed. "We have," he said. "I was gonna say...that I didn't know about myself, though. By the way, you weren't wearing those heels the last time we talked about this. I wouldn't have let you leave if you were." He winked at her and sipped his wine. "I don't really remember my dates with Kathy, but I know that this beats them all."

"Agreed," Olivia said, nodding. "Best date I have ever been on, and you drove me here in a car with all four doors."

"And I plan on at least attempting to wait until we get to an actual building before making any moves on you," Elliot teased with a wink.

"Oh, yeah," Olivia said, with an amazing smile. "Best date ever."

Elliot paid, helped Olivia out of her chair, then walked her the few blocks toward Dickie and Lizzie's school. He had purposely chosen a restaurant close enough to walk, so he could spend some time alone with her, in the cool night. He was holding her hand as they walked, admiring her figure in the outfit she wore. The perfect blend of casual and sexy and the perfect mix of woman and cop, as he knew somewhere beneath the low-cut top that hit her mid-thigh, her badge and gun were attached to her hip. He knew, because he had his on him, too. They were both never truly off-duty. "I'm having an amazing time with you," he told her, giving her hand a light squeeze. "See? I told you. This is so easy, so natural, you and I."

Olivia looked at Elliot and smiled, but her question wasn't a happy one. "How long have you and Kathy been having problems?"

"And the date is officially over," Elliot said, sighing. "Why did you have to go there?"

"I just wanna know why you didn't tell me," Olivia said. "Why you didn't talk to me."

Elliot cleared his throat. "This is gonna sound so stupid," he said. "When I'm with you, Liv, you make me forget I even have problems with Kathy. You fucking make me forget all about her, okay? I...when I am with you, I'm happy. I don't wanna ruin that by talking about things that aren't happy. We talk about work for an hour or two, and then it's just us, and it's so goddamn easy to just be...us." He closed his eyes and swallowed. "Fourteen years," he said.

Olivia furrowed her brow. "But Maureen is only four..."

"I know," Elliot said. "What does that tell you, Liv? We were fucked right from the start. We shouldn't have kept trying," he told her, admitting it more to himself than to her. "Everyone kept telling us we were. Our friends, our families, especially our parents, but...I didn't want to fail. I have never failed with you, though. And...I never will, Liv."

They turned into the gate, heading into the field, and found an impatient-looking Kathy standing next to the bleachers. Sitting were fourteen-year-old Maureen, twelve-year-old Kathleen, and nine-year-old Lizzie. Olivia, unsure if Kathy had already seen it, dropped Elliot's hand.

"Thank God," Kathy spat, vacating her spot near the kids and the bleachers. "I thought you would never get here. Tell him I love him. Wish him luck for me, Elliot. I wish I could say it's nice to see you, Olivia."

Olivia tilted her head. "I wish I could say the same," she said. "I'm very mad at you at the moment."

"I know you are," Kathy said. She kissed her three, sitting children on their heads, grabbed her bag and ran out.

Maureen looked up at her father. She blinked once, looking from him to Olivia. "Is it Friday yet?"

"No, honey," Elliot said, laughing. He sat next to Lizzie on the end, and Olivia scooted next to him. Taking a chance, he wrapped his arm around her waist. He smiled as he felt Olivia scootch closer to him, leaning into him instead of away from him. He was even more surprised when he felt her head drop to his shoulder.

Olivia sighed. "You were right, El," she said.

"About what?" Elliot asked, trying to get the attention of the guy walking through the stands, selling snacks.

"This is so much easier than I though it would be," Olivia said. "I thought I would be worried, afraid, nervous...I thought I'd try to run...but this just feels so..."

Elliot nudged his shoulder to get her head up and cupped her chin, and he forced her to look at him. "Perfect," he said, smiling.

"Yeah," Olivia said, her voice in a whisper as her eyes, as they did the very first time she saw him, melted into his.

Elliot pulled her face toward his and met little resistance. Their lips touched and a whole new world began with one, small, simple, kiss.

Dickie, watching it happen, grinned as he hit the ball with his bat, with more determination than ever, and sent it flying out of the park. He ran around the bases and hopped back onto home plate, taking another look at his dad and Olivia. Their foreheads were touching, they were smiling, but their eyes were on him. They were proud and clapping. He waved. They waved back. Dickie wasn't sure, but something new was coming. His life had just changed and he knew it was gonna be so much better. Or, at least, he hoped it would be.

A/N: More? Continue? What happens after the game? What happens when Kathy leaves, IF she leaves? Review here, or leave a tweet on Twitter. Follow TMG212