After a late lunch, Captain Donald Cragen dried his hands and checked his watch before exiting the men's room. It was 2:35. Benson and Stabler should be in soon. He'd given his two most seasoned detectives a few hours off after an overnight crime scene investigation. But he needed them back in this afternoon to run the case for him. He turned the corner and stopped short.

He saw them, down the hall about 20 feet. Olivia Benson was back to the wall with Elliott Stabler looming over her, one hand braced in the wall behind her. He was leaning in close and speaking in her ear. Even though their bodies weren't touching, Cragen didn't need a badge to know he wasn't looking at a professional interaction. He cleared his throat loudly enough so they'd realize he was standing there. Elliot quickly removed his hand from the wall, stepped back from Olivia and shoved both hands into his pockets.

"You two wanna run it for me?" he asked them.

Olivia was first to move, walking toward her captain. "We were actually on our way in to do that now."

"That's what I figured. Shall we?" Cragen said, waving his hand to let Olivia walk in front of him. Elliot finally moved then, keeping his eyes to the ground and following his captain and partner into the office.

Cragen kept the conversation professional and focused on the case. He could sense nervousness in his detectives as they stood before him like school kids in the principal's office. Elliot had never been one to avoid eye contact, but today he was struggling with it. Olivia was overly diligent with the case information. They'd gotten the message, so he didn't need to say a word. Yet.

Later in the squad room, Elliot and Olivia eyed each other across their desks. The silent interaction spoke volumes. Navigating their own personal path toward each other was challenging enough in the wake of Elliot's pending divorce. They hadn't even begun to wrap their heads around the workplace ramifications. But maybe now was the time before things had gone too far between them.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly across the desks. "I knew this was gonna be hard."

"It's fine, El. We were just talking."

"He knows better, Liv. He knows us better."

"So you think he knows?"

"Not sure. He didn't say anything. But lord knows he's taken a lot of crap because of us over the years."

"Maybe we should talk to him," she suggested. "Tell him the truth."

"Maybe."

As day slipped into evening, Cragen poked his head out of his office. "Stabler, got a minute for me?"

Elliot looked up from a file and met Olivia's eyes. Across the room, their smartass colleague John Munch hummed an ominous tune, soundtracking Elliot's pensive walk toward the captain's office. Olivia shot Munch a death stare, effectively quieting him.

"Close the door, would you," Cragen began.

"What's up?"

"We've known each other a long time, right?"

"Sure have," Elliot replied without hesitation.

"Through it all, if nothing else, we respect each other?"

"Absolutely."

"So I know you won't insult my intelligence with anything less than a truthful answer to the question I'm about to ask you?"

Elliot shifted in his seat, stared at his captain, then nodded.

Cragen sat back in his chair. "Are you in a position to be doing what you're doing?"

Elliot gave him a blank stare. "I'm sorry. I don't follow."

"Don't bullshit me, Stabler. Let me rephrase. Does your current life situation allow you to start a relationship with Olivia?"

Elliot was momentarily speechless but not surprised. He knew this line of questioning was coming. It was just a matter of when. He stood then, put his hands in his pockets and paced the room a little, turning to glance at Olivia through the slatted blinds. "Captain, my divorce is nothing more than a formality right now," he explained. "I've been on my own a year, Kathy knows where I stand, where we stand."

"Does Olivia know where you stand?"

"Yeah. I think she does."

"Which is where?"

"Cautiously ready to do what I should have done years ago."

"I know you love her."

"She's been my partner, my best friend for 14 years," Elliot testified. "How could I not?"

"No, I know you love her."

Elliot dragged his eyes up from the floor and looked at his captain. "Yeah I do."

"I also know she's been waiting a long time for you, maybe given up chances she shouldn't have. This job hasn't helped."

"So what are you saying?"

"Have you slept with her yet?"

Elliot's eyes grew wide. "Captain ..."

"Answer me." Cragen was firm.

"No," Elliot hesitated. "Not exactly."

"So technically you haven't done anything we need to worry about administratively?"

"No." Elliott paused. "Not yet. But maybe we need to get in front of this."

Cragen kept pressing. "I don't have to tell you not to hurt her?"

"God no. It's not like that."

"And this is something you intend to pursue?"

"It is."

"If it would cut the tension some, I can move some things around here, send you out with Fin for a while," the elder statesman offered.

"Unless you need to do that to cover our asses I don't think it's necessary," Elliot said. "Funny thing is we aren't interfering with the job. The job tends more to interfere with us."

"That's not gonna change. You've been doing this long enough to know that."

Elliot scoffed in acknowledgement.

Cragen stood again. "Look, as your superior officer, I have to tell you to be careful, that the department frowns on such things. But as a man and your friend, the only thing I'll tell you is to be careful with her. We both care an awful lot about her. In different ways, of course."

"You gotta know I'm not playing here," Elliot told him. "And going forward, we'll be more careful about keeping our distance."

Cragen laughed, a cocky grin spreading on his face. "You never have before."

Elliot glared at him. Cragen had finally shocked him.

"C'mon Stabler, this thing's gotta hold some kind of record for the world's longest mating ritual," Cragen bombarded him. "I'd say since before she left for Computer Crimes at least."

Elliot was quiet, his wheels turning. It may have been the first time that Cragen saw him look truly clueless.

"You mean to tell me it's never occurred to you that this thing with you is why she left?" Cragen paused. "And maybe why she came back?"

Elliot Stabler had one of the highest closure rates in the NYPD, but he'd been completely blind to the obvious. In all the soul searching he'd done to pinpoint what made her request a new partner, he'd never entertained the thought that she'd done it to save him from herself. Maybe she was right ... it had been too complicated to explain. Obviously it had been too complicated for him to comprehend.

Elliot shook his head and snapped out of his excavation of ancient history. At least hindsight was 20/20. "So we're good?"

"For now," Cragen said simply. "Personal reasons aside, I do want you to be careful with this. I think you both should be thinking about moving up the ranks a bit."

"It's come up, taking the test and all of that."

"Maybe get her out of your system a little first," Cragen smirked at him. "In the interest of better test scores anyway."

"I'm hoping that will be sooner than later."

"You two have been pulling the night shift long enough. Maybe I'll call Munch and Fin in the middle of the night for a while. Let you two get some 'sleep.'"

They sealed their gentlemen's agreement with a handshake. No more words needed to be said.

Elliot strolled back toward their conjoined desks. Before he was even seated, Olivia was hurling question marks at him with her eyes.

"It's all good," he told her. "In fact, I think we're off tonight."

He had a lot more explaining to do. But she knew it couldn't happen here. "So you buying me dinner or what?"

"I do have some Tuna Helper left," he teased.

"Absolutely not!"

"It has been a couple of days since we had a decent meal," Elliot said. "Let's get out of here."

They sat in the low light in the basement of the Yellow Deli, an earthy cafe that had plenty varieties of the tea she liked.

"I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me about your little meeting with Cragen," Olivia grilled him. "I get that we need to be careful, but you were in there longer than it took him to say that."

"He thinks we both should take the sergeant's exam," Elliot explained, keeping under wraps some parts of his conversation with Cragen. "I think he's right. It's time."

Olivia sighed. "I just don't want to get stuck behind a desk. It's the victims that make this job for me."

Elliot swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. "Being promoted doesn't necessarily mean a desk job, Liv. There can be a happy medium."

He watched her devour her Greek salad. She was gorgeous. Certainly she wasn't as young or thin as she was when they were first paired up. But she was more confident now than she had been in those early days and somehow so much sexier. Then or now, her curves never eluded him. Her throaty voice and smokey eyes were framed by her long brown hair, which fell softly on the shoulders of her low-cut blouse. He couldn't help but think that maybe she'd left an extra button undone for his benefit. When she raised an eyebrow at him, he didn't mind being on her naughty list.

"You're staring you know?" She'd caught him looking.

"Was I?"

"Uh-huh," she egged him on. "And you're still staring."

He took another swig from the bottle in his hand and shook his head, his eyes still on her. "I don't know about organic beer, Liv. The things I do for you."

"Is this where you give me some line about how I have to make it up to you?"

"That'd be a little cliché, dontcha think?" he replied. "Besides I think I owe you one."

"Damn. And here I was gonna tell you how I had some real beer in my fridge at home."

"Are you trying to get me to go home with you?"

"I am."

He leaned in close then to taunt her. "Well Detective Benson, all you have to do is ask."

She set down her fork and dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. If he wanted to play, she'd play. Had he forgotten who he was dealing with?

"Elliot Stabler, you pain in the ass, will you please take me home and make love to me?"