By the time 6 pm rolled around, Olivia and Elliot still had not spoke to one another. Oliva was wrapping up her analysis of the "Duct Tape Rapist" and Elliot was working on paperwork, though truth be told, most of his attention was focused on Olivia.
Olivia stood suddenly, raised her arms above her head, unconsciously giving Elliot a peek at a sliver of her toned stomach as her sweater rode up above her waistline. She grabbed her coat and some files without saying anything and started to walk to the elevator.
"Liv! Wait up!" Elliot called, almost frantically trying to stuff his arm in the sleeve of his pea coat while jogging to catch up.
"El, I'll meet you at the bar. I'm going to head home to get ready."
"At least let me give you a ride." Elliot's voice was a little shaky and she could tell he was desperate to fix whatever was going on with her.
"I drove, remember?" Olivia smirked, her mood lightening at his obvious concern for her.
"Oh. Well, at least let me pick you up tonight?"
"Sure." She relented with a sigh. Olivia was anxious to remove herself from Elliot's presence at least for right now. She needed time to focus on the case without becoming distracted by his cologne, his eyes, his eyes on her skin, his mouth, the way he put his hands behind his head, exposing his large, hard chest when he took a break from working, the way their lips had almost brushed in the elevator... Yes. She needed a break and time to focus on the undercover operation. She shook her head and tried to suppress the heat that was rising up her neck to her cheeks.
"How about 8? Cragen said to get there by 9."
"Sounds great. I'll be ready." Olivia spoke quietly, her mind half clouded by his nearness.
The elevator tone sounded and the doors opened, allowing the detectives to enter. Olivia immediately moved to the back corner, a safe distance from Elliot. The ride down to the parking garage was uncomfortably quiet, each lost in thought about the other. The air was humid and thick with electric emotion now that Olivia and Elliot were truly alone. Elliot, feeling that familiar pull to be closer to her and moved to lean against the back railing, a little closer to Olivia than socially comfortable. Her lower belly coiled with heat and desire and she pulled her arms around herself in an effort to reign her feelings in.
Olivia prayed the elevator would hurry. Elliot prayed that by some miracle it would get stuck.
He let his hand slide along the railing, slowly inching toward Olivia's waist. When his fingers brushed her side, she gasped at the bolt of warmth that flooded her senses. He took that as a good sign, flattened his hand and moved it along the small of her back achingly slowly.
"El." Olivia's voice was hoarse. "What are you doing?"
"You know what I'm doing, Liv. Look at me."
"El..." Olivia slowly turned her head to face him, both relishing and resenting his proximity and most certainly determined not to kiss him.
Elliot brought his left hand to her face and brushed he hair to the side. When their eyes connected, Olivia wanted to cry. There was so much concern and love in Elliot's eyes and her emotions made her weak in the knees. She leaned further into the wall of the elevator for support.
"Liv, we need to talk." Elliot whispered, so close now that their foreheads were almost touching. His thumb slowly ran along her cheek bone as his large hand cupped the side of her face.
"We need to talk about this. About what I'm feeling, about what you're trying really hard to not feel. We need to talk about it." With that the elevator stopped. Elliot placed a gentle, lingering kiss on the corner of her mouth and stepped off the elevator into the dim parking garage.
Olivia was left stunned and weak in the elevator. Her breath was shallow and as she pressed the back of her head against the cool metal of the elevator wall, she could feel the heat from their brief encounter on her skin. She closed her eyes briefly then pushed herself off the wall and headed out into the parking garage. Elliot was gone and she was left to drive home in silent contemplation.
By the time Olivia arrived home, her mind emotions were bouncing from giddy to angry to confused and back again. She could not understand her partner right now and for her, that was a foreign feeling. Throw in her own emotions towards him and her mind was in a tizzy. She decided just to pour all of her energy into the undercover operation for now. When this was over and their suspect was in custody, then they could sit down and talk about this. Then she could tell him that it was clearly just the stress of the situation that was making him act like this and he could tell her that he didn't know what he was thinking and they could just go back to being best friends and sweeping all other emotions under the rug as usual.
"Yeah, right." She said with a sigh as she stepped under the hot shower spray. The steam of the shower eased the muscles in her neck and shoulders that she had clenched in anxiousness all day and the soft sound of the water began to calm her. She made sure to run a razor over her legs as she would probably need to wear a dress to fit in with the crowd at the bar and washed herself with her favorite vanilla lilac body wash. She was at ease by the time she stepped out of the shower and on to her white bath mat.
Checking the clock she noticed that it was close to 7:15 so she hurriedly dried off and picked out her favorite bra and panty combination. Wrapping a towel around her hair she walked to the closet to pick out her dress. Fortunately, she was not lacking in selection. She picked a classic black dress with a strapless sweetheart neckline that displayed her gorgeous curves perfectly. The fabric was thicker and had a slight sheen to it. It made Olivia's eyes sparkle. She decided to pair her dress with a diamond bracelet and black pumps with a small ankle strap. Olivia stood in front of her bathroom mirror and carefully applied dark, smoky eye shadow and deep red lipstick that perfected her look.
Pleased with how her makeup had turned out, she turned her attention to her hair. She rough dried it which gave her auburn locks a textured and sexy look. She was just working pinning her hair back in a half up half down look when Elliot knocked on the door.
"It's open!" She called from the bathroom and listened for him to walk in and shut the door.
"Make yourself comfortable, El. I'll be out in a sec."
"Got it." Elliot called back. "You want a drink?"
"No. I'm good."
Elliot took a glass down from one of Olivia's cabinets and found the bottle of scotch she kept for special occasions. He needed to calm his nerves down after his stunt in the elevator. As he opened the freezer to grab some ice, a folder fell off the top of the refrigerator and opened at his feet. Elliot bent down to scoop up the papers, truly attempting to not invade her privacy by snooping, and began to put everything back in the folder when a word caught his eye. He stood slowly and placed the folder on the counter and began leafing through its contents. There were cards from her doctor's office, pamphlets on pregnancy, babies, sperm donation and…
"Artificial Insemination? Oh my god, Liv's pregnant." His hand shot to his mouth and he hurriedly tried to stuff everything back in the folder before she discovered his intrusion but just at that moment, Olivia, gorgeous, lethal, Olivia appeared from her bedroom. Noticing Elliot's panic, she calmly walked over to him, took the folder from his hand and placed it back on top of the fridge. His eyes darted from hers to her stomach and back again more times that she could keep track of.
"Liv." Elliot's voice cracked. "Liv, what was that?"
"None of your business, Elliot. We're leaving now." Olivia's stilettoes clicked on the wood floor angrily as she grabbed her coat and moved to open the door. She didn't even wait for him at the elevator, choosing instead to bypass it in favor of the stairs. She reached his car a good three minutes before he did and stood with her arms folded across her chest by the passenger door.
Elliot reached the car and unlocked it. They both climbed in and remained absolutely silent. Unfortunately for Olivia, Elliot was more determined than ever to get her to talk.
"Olivia. I am NOT taking you on an undercover assignment if you're pregnant. You might as well go back upstairs now because there is NO way I'm putting you or a baby in that kind of danger."
"Drive, Elliot."
"Absolutely not and if I have to, I'll call Cragen. I'm assuming he has no idea since he assigned this to you."
"Elliot, just drive." Olivia was exasperated. "I'm not pregnant and I'm not having this conversation."
"You're not pregnant?" If Olivia didn't know better, she would have thought there was relief in Elliot's voice. "You're not pregnant? Then what was all that stuff on top of the fridge? Artificial Insemination? C'mon, Liv? Really? Why would you not tell me about that?!"
"Elliot, if you would stop and think for a second, you would realize that I tried to tell you. The night we went out to dinner? When we saw Kathy? If you would pull your head out of your ass you would remember that had been trying to tell you something that night."
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah, oh shit." She cast a glare at Elliot from behind her mascaraed lashes. "My appointment is this week. That's what I was going to tell you before your wife decided to turn into the world's biggest bitch."
Elliot smiled at this. "I'm happy for you Liv. If this is what you want, then I support you 100%. I have to ask though, why now?"
"Why not? I'm tired of waiting for life to hand me the family that I want. It's clearly not in the cards for me to do this the normal way. Start the car, Elliot. We're going to be late."
Elliot looked over at her and noticed tears were threatening to ruin her makeup. He turned the key in the ignition and headed for the bar. Hopefully, this won't take long, Elliot thought to himself. He sped away into the city, leaving her apartment building and their issues behind for now hoping to return to both soon.