The Second Year

Author's Note: Law & Order SVU and its characters are not mine.

"Why are you holding back Liv?"

That's what he asked me when he came up to the cribs. It had been a month since my mother died. And for the first time since we became partners, Elliot saw me really closed off to everyone including him. I don't think he liked that.

But still at first he just let me be. Maybe for a week, he left me alone. I'm sure he figured I just needed some space. After all my relationship with my mother had been a complicated one. Having me as a product of her rape was something she never fully reconciled with. I came from her so she loved me. But I also came from her rapist so she hated me.

All throughout my life, we had a love hate relationship. When I was good in her eyes, she would love me. When I was bad in her eyes, she would hate me. And it seemed throughout my life, it was the latter that reigned.

She became an alcoholic after she had me. Probably because every time she looked at me, she saw him. But every time she saw me, she also saw herself. I was an angel to her and yet I was also the spawn of the devil.

I had resigned myself that it was just going to be like that with my mother. But of course, she was my mother. I never gave up trying to get her to love me. To get her to somehow forget what my father – whoever the hell he was – I didn't know then – I did eventually – but that's later on, we'll get to that later – was to her.

I don't think I ever succeeded. And because of all of that – well that was why joined Special Victims. She hated it when she found that I took a post in SVU. She thought it was just me solidifying my obsession to bring her rapist, my father to justice. She didn't buy the excuse that the reason I volunteered for the unit was so that if I could help it, no one would ever have to go through what she went through again…that no other child would have ever to go through a childhood and growing up years as I did again.

Of course, that's a pipe dream. I'm not Wonder Woman and my team as wonderful as they were then and still are now - well we're not the Superfriends. But at least I could help. At least I could be their voice in court when they came forward and testified. I would be their support and their rock. I would be to them what my mom never allowed me to be to her.

So when she died I was devastated. She had slipped on the subway stairs because she was drunk and died. I now had no one in the world. I never really did, but having Serena Benson alive even if she was drunk somehow allowed me to have some sort of family, some sort of stability.

Suddenly, in one moment that was gone.

We were in the middle of a very fucked up case when Captain Cragen told me about my mom. I didn't even cry when he told me. Very gently he had told me to go home. And he had told me to take a few days off. I did and then right after the cremation, he was very surprised to see me back at the station. He insisted I take the day. I said no. I told him I needed to work. He saw that I couldn't be dissuaded so he let me be.

That day and for a week after, Elliot just let me be. But then he saw that while I was en point during work, I was also quieter. I was less effusive with him. One time, he saw me talking to a victim's mother and he could see I was on the verge of tears.

At the end of the second week of my withdrawal, he started trying to draw me out. He would invite me to dinner, bring me snacks, and just talk to me about nothing and everything. He tried to bring back the Olivia that he knew I was.

But I was still in shock. No one knew that I didn't cry during the cremation or the service. All throughout the entire ordeal of dealing with the details of such a death I was just numb. It was like all my emotions were just stopped. I was incapable of feeling. And when I did feel a tiny sliver of an emotion, I would quickly try to put a stop to it.

I don't know. I think looking back, I thought if I didn't cry about it, it wouldn't be real. I was able to hold on like that and I was able to resist the attempts of Elliot to draw me out for a month. Until he came up that day to the cribs.

It was near the end of a very shitty day for us. What day isn't shitty for SVU after all? But as far I knew, there was nothing on his side that really rattled him for the last couple of months. Maybe it's the consequence of the job. Getting numb and being able to finally stomach what we actually saw.

The end of the day for us was actually at 8 am. We had worked through the night and I had told him that I was just going to take a nap in the cribs and to come get me if I was needed. When 8 am rolled by, he came up to tell me that we could go home.

I remember feeling his hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me. My eyes flew open and I sat up groggily. "Hey, something break?"

"Nah.., " he said, rubbing his jaw. "It's 8 am, Liv. We're done for the day. Cragen said to come back in two days."

"What?" I knew I sounded upset and Elliot gave me a puzzled look.

"You're not happy to be off?"

"It's just that…" My voice trailed off and I could feel the tears about to come. I took a deep breath and steadied myself.

Elliot saw what I did and asked that question. "Why are you holding back, Liv?"

I didn't reply. Instead, I simply stood up and walked out of the cribs. I quickly grabbed my things from my desk and walked out into the morning sun. I didn't look back.

When I got to my apartment, I quickly went in and I showered. I showered because the warm water always managed to calm me down. And it usually made me drowsy especially a hard day or night at work. And right then I just wanted the oblivion of sleep.

I was just getting out of the shower when suddenly I heard a knock on my door. I have to admit I was annoyed at whoever it was. But I was never the type to ignore knocks. Most of my neighbors knew I was a cop and there was something me that always thought what if it was someone in trouble?

So I suppressed a sigh, put on a robe and went to the door.

Before I even looked through the peephole, somehow I knew it was Elliot. Just over three months ago, I had given him a key to my apartment – the building entrance and to my apartment door. I could surmise that he used that building key but not the apartment key. I was grateful for that. As close as we were he always somehow knew where I drew the line.

I opened the door and let him in. As he walked in the first words out of my mouth were, "What are you doing here, El?"

"Jesus, Liv you left the precinct like a bat out of hell and you didn't think I'd be worried?"

I remember sitting on the couch and shrugging and telling him, "You didn't have to worry. You told me that we were done and so I left."

I saw him sighing as well and weighing what he was going to say next. I didn't want any emotional speeches from him so I tried to pre-empt him. "Look, El. I'm fine, I'm tired…I just wanna sleep."

"Liv, you're depressed. Or at the very least, sad. Why won't you talk to me?"

"There's nothing to talk about, El."

"Your mother died."

"Yeah." I tried to maintain my composure.

But then he did something that broke it. Elliot stood up, sat next to me and the next thing I knew he had me in his arms. He held me tight, embraced me and told me, "Liv, just let go. Cry, sob, shout whatever. Just let go. I'm here. I'm here for as long as you need. I won't leave you."

The next thing I knew I was crying…HARD. Finally I cried for mother. I cried for everything we shared. And for everything we didn't get to do or talk about or share. Elliot held me and not for one second did I feel him move or loosen his arms around me. I cried long and hard. I had soaked his shirt by the time I was done. But after I was done, I felt better. Amazingly, I felt better.

When I finished crying, I slowly untangled myself from him. He looked at me and suddenly he kind of gave a moan which he suppressed the moment he saw that I heard it.

I was puzzled at first as to why he made that sound and then I realized that my robe had fallen open and he could see my naked body through the open portion.

Then it was like someone had lit a fire under me and I was on top of him, straddling him, kissing him hard.

"Liv…I…" Elliot hedged as I tore my mouth away from him.

"What's wrong? Wasn't it our agreement? Once a year? If we needed each other? Well I need you now, El." I told him. I knew my eyes were blazing with lust and need.

"It's just that I don't want you to think I came here for this. I was just really worried about you."

"El, I don't think that. So get it out of your brain."

"Okay." He breathed, reassured.

I removed my robe and I exposed myself to him. I let him see all of me. He saw my hardened nipples. He saw my flat stomach. He saw my flushed skin. Then I grabbed his hand and moved put it in between my legs and let him feel how wet I was.

He whimpered the moment he touched my pussy. I was suddenly so horny and aching from wanting him. And I could feel that he too, felt the same aching need because I felt his dick twitch and harden from under me.

"El…" I whispered as I went up and down on his hand in between my legs. "Fuck, I'm so wet. Let's take this to the bedroom."

I used all of my strength to stand up from where we were and to drag him to the bedroom. Once we were there I told him to strip, which he did very quickly.

I was soaking and aching for him so much so that I know that I pulled him quite roughly to the bed. But he didn't bat an eyelash.

There was no foreplay this time around. There would be time for that later on. And just like that he was inside me. I cried out as he plunged in and out of me. He felt so good inside of me. His cock, my God, it was probably the biggest I've had. And every stroke, every thrust he made was heaven. The friction was amazing. For the first time in my life, I didn't ask a man to put on a condom.

I know it was reckless behavior but I didn't care. I needed him so badly. I needed to feel every inch of him. I didn't want to miss out on a single sensation.

He had almost brought me to my edge but I hadn't had enough. So I flipped us over. And I pulled up, and suddenly he was no longer inside me. He looked at me with question in his eyes.

"Liv?"

"Sssh…wait. I don't want to cum yet." I told him.

He groaned. He needed to be inside me I knew. And I wanted him inside me but not yet. Instead I just sat on his dick – but I didn't put him in. I bent down and started to kiss him. Gently this time. As the tenderness replaced the frenzy, I could feel my emotions getting the best of me again. And this time, I didn't fight it.

As I kissed him passionately, his arms went around me and the moment they did, my tears began to fall again. When he felt my tears stain his cheeks, he sat up, taking me with him.

We stopped kissing and I lifted myself up a bit, reached for his hard length, lined it up with pussy and then impaled myself on it. The sweet pleasurable sensation filled me up and my tears came pouring forth. I put extended my legs in front of me and then locked my ankles on his back. The position made him go deeper in me than I ever thought possible. But we didn't move. Instead we just continued with our tender kissing.

It was probably one of the most emotional and most intimate moments I've ever experienced in my life. To this day when I remember that day, that moment, I still get goosebumps. It was an amazing, heady, sweet and seductive experience.

We couldn't stop kissing and we didn't. Even as we started thrusting against each other again, we continued kissing until we couldn't anymore, until we finally had to give it each other the release we needed that I needed.

Our foreheads touched as I grinded and thrust on his cock. His hands were on my ass - digging on them causing a bit of pain that only enhanced my pleasure. The sounds that were coming out of my mouth that night were nothing that I had ever heard from me.

I think I loved him then. But I couldn't say it. And I don't think it ever occurred to me at that time. As they say hindsight is 20/20 and it was only years later…oh maybe after he went back to his wife that I realized that we loved each other even then.

So there we were, having sex…or was it making love? At that time, I would have said we were just fucking each other out of need. And that time it was mostly me who had the need. I fucked him out of need.

But was it really just that? Because even though I never thought about it back then, looking back, even then, he had the ability to stir so much feeling and emotion and passion from me. Was it really just fucking or sex? It's 13 years later and maybe I'm just tired now but I really would like to think it was more than that even back then.

But anyway, I've run away from the story again. So there we were, our limbs entangled, our foreheads touching, his hands on my ass and mine where around his neck. I continued to ride him and he continued to thrust upward to meet my every motion. And my God, I'm sorry, I knew he was committing a sin with me because I wasn't his wife, but it felt fucking good. In the midst of all that pleasure my tears subsided finally when we pulled apart to look into each other's eyes, I don't know what we saw, or maybe we didn't want to know but that's when we both shattered and came apart. I swear to you I could feel every spurt of his cock spilling his semen into me. My pussy clamped and squeezed his cock so hard. I know because he said so. He kept shouting it. Just like he kept shouting my name. I kept shouting his too. Over and over. Until our orgasms subsided. Until we could no longer shout and cry.

Once we were done, I got up and when he felt his cock slide out of me, he moaned. "Shit, Liv. I hate not being inside you." That's what he told me.

And I remember just smiling and telling him that I felt the same.

It was nearly 10 in the morning and I was exhausted physically and emotionally but I had one more thing on my mind.

"El?"

"Hmmm?" He looked at me and reached for me. I willing crawled into his waiting arms.

"We said once year, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"I know it's not a weekend and out of the blue but we were told not to come back to the precinct for two days…can you…can you make an excuse to stay here with me?"

I looked at him hopefully and he smiled. It was a smile weak from the physical exertion of our fucking but a smile nevertheless. "Of course." He told me. "I'll think of something."

"Okay, good. Thank you El."

"Liv, I'll always be here for you."

I nodded and kissed him briefly. "I know."

"You better."

"El? It hasn't been a year yet since our last…well you know?" I asked in a tentative tone of voice.

"Don't worry about it, it's a different year and well you needed it."

"What if you need me, what then?"

Elliot chuckled. "You worry too much, you know? We'll figure it out, okay?"

"Okay."

We were quiet for a few minutes and then Elliot spoke up again. "Liv, I have something to tell you."

I smiled at him a bit sleepily and asked, "What is it?"

"Please don't be mad, okay. Just hear me out."

I remember my brows furrowing at his words and then I nodded. "Okay. What?"

"Well the NYPD's records section called while you were out the other day and they were going to ask you who to put as your next of kin now that your mother is gone…but you weren't there. So I told them to put my name. I hope that's okay. If it isn't then just call them up when we get back to the precinct in two days and change it. But there, I told you."

I look at him in wonderment then. I couldn't believe that he would do that. And a feeling of tenderness surged in me again for my partner. I know it sounds bad, but I didn't even think about his wife then. I think I got teary eyed too when I told him, "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Liv." He said.

We drifted to sleep after that. And when we woke up in the afternoon, he called Kathy. I don't know what he said to her. I didn't really ask or want to know. All I knew was after that call, Elliot and I spent the next two days together. And just like we promised each other, during those two days, we laughed, we told jokes, we got to know each other more, we watched tv, we played video games, we cooked and ate, we took showers together and we…had…made love.

At the end of the 2nd day, after we made love one last time, I felt a pang of regret as Elliot got dressed to finally go home.

When he was dressed I walked him to the door and kissed him. "Till next year." I told him, a smile on my face but a bit of sadness in my heart. He had made me feel better and happier in the last two days. And now it was ending.

I think he felt the same but of course neither of us let on. So he simply echoed, "Till next year."

Then as he stepped into the hallway, I watched him as he walked towards the elevators. Halfway there he turned back, a grin on his face and told me, "See you tomorrow, Benson."

"See you tomorrow, Stabler."

And that was it. The moment he stepped out of my apartment, we were back to just being the dynamic duo of Benson and Stabler.

That was year two. Just the second year. We have ten more years to cover.

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TBC….

Perhaps next chapter, we'll find out who Olivia is talking to. Perhaps not? But whatever may be the case, we delve into Olivia and Elliot's story on their third year of partnership next.

In the meantime, please do review. Here or on Twitter: Jo_Bautista