A/N: My most sincere apologies for disappearing without notice. Truthfully... over the hiatus I lost inspiration - that is, I didn't want to deal with the deteriorating quality and continuity of new eps. Organic chemistry might also have had something to do with it... in any case I felt that this episode, at least, really deserved a postep.

She calls Cragen early in the morning, because she's still awake and he's always been a morning person. He doesn't seem surprised. She wishes he would have the grace to pretend.

With her day off she hits the gym, trying to make herself tired enough to sleep. It doesn't work; her brain won't shut up. She ends up collapsed on her couch, exhausted and wide awake, which is probably worse off than she was to start with.

Lovely.

When her phone rings it's just out of reach, which is somehow worse than if it were across the room; and so she lets it go for a while before summoning the will to lunge for it.

"Did you hear that Gladys took off?"

Elliot frowns. "No. When?"

"Last night," Munch says.

"Last night… I was not on duty and did not hear. What about the baby?"

"No idea. Do you remember the good old days when we all used to talk to each other?"

"Yeah, only we called them 'oh crap, Munch is running his mouth off again.'"

"I was giving you useful information," Munch says, sliding into the driver's seat of the sedan with great dignity.

"I still have the keys," Elliot points out, but Munch gives him such an uncharacteristic wide grin that he hands the keys over just to make it stop and goes around to the passenger side.

"Deep, deep down," Munch says, "you know you love me."

"Deep, deep down, you know you're a crazy old man."

"Well, you'll be rid of me soon enough." He doesn't bother to act hurt. "Liv'll be in by the time we get back."

But she isn't, and what's more her desk shows no sign of her having been near it today, and now he's starting to worry so he sticks his head into Cragen's office. "Cap, you heard from Liv?"

The captain looks up and eyes him in exasperation; Elliot is reminded irresistibly of his mother. "Don't you two ever talk to each other?"

"Well, clearly you and Munch do," Elliot mutters.

"She'll be in tomorrow. Get out of my office."

Fin glances up as he stalks away, then returns to his work. Feeling paranoid, Elliot veers off to the hallway where there are fewer pairs of eyes to watch him. He agonizes. He calls.

By the time she picks up he's stopped expecting her and is caught off guard. "Elliot?" she says, irritable. He clears his throat.

"Cragen thinks we never talk to each other," he says.

"We don't."

"Really?"

"Really."

"What is this, then?"

"An anomaly."

"You all right?"

"Fine," she sighs, annoyed. "I just had some errands to run."

Errands. He casts around for something relevant to say, something that isn't a query about how long it's been since either of them really was "fine." "You heard about Gladys?"

She sucks in a breath and he frowns. That wasn't supposed to elicit an actual reaction. That was just supposed to be making conversation.

"I heard," she says flatly. "Anything else to tell me?"

"Uh," he says.

"Thought not. Are you okay? You're acting strange."

He's had a lot of weird conversations, but this is starting to run for weirdest ever. "I'm fine."

"Okay then."

For a beat they both hesitate, but then she hangs up.

His house is full of female voices, full in a way he doesn't remember it being in years. Elliot wanders toward the living room and pauses quietly at the door. A gaggle of girls, Lizzie among them, is clustered around Eli on the floor. His daughter, possessed of an almost unnatural awareness that he likes to think she got from him, glances up and smiles at him while her friends coo over Eli.

"Is it weird that I want one?" one of the girls sighs.

"Yes," another deadpans even as she attempts to lure Eli into her lap.

"I think you might want to wait a while to have one," says a third, absently restacking a pile of blocks.

"You're so lucky, Liz," says the first.

Lizzie laughs. "You wouldn't think so if he was crying all night the night before your tests." She pokes Eli gently, so that he looks up, spots Elliot, and clambers to his feet, crowing, "Da'ee!"

Lizzie's friends make disappointed noises as Elliot scoops up his son. "Are you having fun?" he asks. "Or do you need rescuing from the scary pack of women?"

"We're playing nice, Mr. Stabler, honest," says the girl with the blocks, shaking back a mane of wavy hair. He tries to remember her name. Gretchen? Gloria? No – it's Caitlin, he wasn't even close. Not Gladys – funny, he hasn't so much as thought of her since Olivia hung up on him this morning.

Eli tugs on his ear and Elliot returns his attention to the living room. "Well," he says, addressing Lizzie, "I bet Mom's glad to have him in here with you."

"She said if we keep an eye on this little boy, she can deal with her other little boy," Lizzie says. "Only she sounded more angry about it."

He's not sure he wants to know what Dick has done now. Elliot shares an exasperated look with his daughter and surrenders Eli to one of her eager friends. "As long as you're all having fun."

"Oh, he's precious," says the girl holding Eli – Hillary, maybe – bouncing him awkwardly.

"All right." Elliot supposes he should go back Kathy up now – he can just make out raised voices from above – but his phone rings just as he reaches the foot of the stairs.

"Liv," he says, bemused. If she's not working, why would she be calling him?

"Hi," she says, as though this means something.

"Hi?"

"Listen," she says, "I know more about Gladys and the baby than you do. If you're still wondering."

In truth, work on another case has driven them both from his mind. He sits down anyway, on the steps; the situation seems to call for it. "Go."

Olivia sighs, slowly, clears her throat. "The baby's dead, El."

"Oh," he says stupidly. Is that why Gladys ran away?

She hurries on, "When Gladys left, she – she left a note – she left me power of attorney for the baby. Cragen came to tell me. And… and the next thing I know I'm at the hospital and they're telling me she needs surgery and I have to make a decision now…"

"Oh," he says, again, as the reason for her call – and her mysterious errands – comes clear. "You told them not to do it." She must be afraid he'll judge her, for that. A bead of panic rises in his chest. What does he say to her?

But her next words come as a surprise.

"No," she says, "no, I didn't, I – I didn't know what to say. I just – stood there like an idiot."

Upstairs a door slams and his wife's voice increases in volume. Elliot feels distinctly trapped. "Liv," he says.

"Well," she says. "They were serious when they said there wasn't much time."

"The surgery probably would have killed her," he says, grasping at straws.

"Probably," Olivia agrees, and blows out a breath in frustration. "I froze."

"It happens."

"Not to me."

"Yeah, but this was different."

"You think?"

Dick's shouting back at his mother now. Elliot drops his head into one hand, touched at how she values his opinion even as he wishes, irritated, that she would get over this already, this constant devaluing of herself. He fights for logic, for evidence. "Liv. That's the kind of decision that's just not supposed to be made quickly. It was an impossible situation."

They're both quiet, for a moment. He can hear her breathing.

"Do you think she's better off?" he asks.

After a pause she admits, "I don't know anymore. Must be nice to have all the answers."

He laughs. "It's nice to pretend to have all the answers. I'm not even sure there are any."

Probably she is pondering too, now, how easy it is to take sides, to forget how alike they really are.

"Well, it's over now," she says, even though it sort of isn't. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Good. I don't like being loaned out to the others."

He thinks he hears her giggle. "G'night, El."

"Night," he says, and he holds the phone for a minute before heading upstairs to another unsolvable case.

Please review! I haven't decided yet whether to do one final chapter for the season. Will this be back for season twelve? I haven't decided that yet either. There are a lot of factors, not least of which is the episodes themselves. Somehow, though, I will be back!