He really wanted to laugh at the hilarity of it all.

Here, sitting in the chair across from him with her face riddled with contemplation and even a touch of humiliation, sat Detective Benson. A woman who claimed to be the epitome of keeping it all together was falling apart. Right before his eyes was a sight to behold; she was crumbling at the edges because of what he had told his patient to do. And now the repercussion was staring him in the face. They were such a complicated, perplexing duo, those two.

The word retirement screamed at him like a neon sign at night.

"What exactly seems to be ailing you this fine morning, Detective?"

"Well, you see..." Olivia began, but hesitated as if she regretted opening up a can of worms. "Something happened yesterday."

"Might this something involve a certain someone by the name of Elliot?" Taylor had the audacity to wink in her direction.

"Does anything ever get past you?"

"Generally, as a rule, it does not," Taylor replied with confident smile. "But I just assumed this was not a friendly visit and since your partner is my patient, he had to be the reason for you stopping by."

"That is not true," Olivia countered. "You never know when I might - "

"Do not attempt to fool yourself, Detective," Taylor warned in a chiding tome. "You would have avoided me like the plague at all costs necessary. The fact that you are here merely states that something is bothering you and that you seem to think I can be of assistance."

"Can you?"

Taylor shrugged in a nonchalant manner. "It depends entirely on what it is."

Olivia sighed and rubbed her temple. "After your session yesterday, I was pretty frazzled and so I went out to get some fresh air. Elliot caught me and told me that we needed to talk."

"And did you?"

"Not quite," Olivia gave a sarcastic laugh. "I told him that I had enough of talking and he just... he kept looking at me. Really looking at me. He told me that we didn't have to talk and he kissed me."

"Did he now?" Taylor's eyebrow shot up quicker than she could say mazel tov. "And what was your reaction to this?"

"I pulled away and I told him I had somewhere to be," Olivia said softly. "He seemed... well, needless to say, I hurt his feelings. He had this look in his eyes that I had never seen before."

"Why did you choose to leave him stranded?"

"He caught me off guard!"

"Is that all it was?" Taylor said incredulously. "Because you seem to be the type of woman who would recover quickly from that sort of attack and yet you walked away without any indication as to why. What could possibly be your reason?"

"Tell me, good doctor," Olivia challenged with a glare. "Why did I?"

"I think you should be telling me, not the other way around," Taylor smirked at the detective. "I already know the answer and so do you."

"I honestly don't know," Olivia lied through her teeth. She knew exactly why she had bolted, but to admit it would make the kiss real. And she wasn't sure she was really ready for the magnitude of the situation. "I have no clue."

"Could it be because you did, in fact, want the kiss just as much as your partner did?" Was this guy psychic? "Yet you were terrified of what might happen if you reciprocated this act. So you did what you know how to do best; you ran before anything of that capacity could happen."

"I don't run when - " Olivia began to protest, but he held up a hand, his eyes closed in frustration.

"Again, do not attempt to kid yourself. You will only end up looking foolish," Taylor amended, a hint of irritation in his voice. She was a stubborn as he was. "I see it in the both of you; the constant need to run when it finally appears that something is right within the world, something neither of you are used to since all you see is what's wrong. So you run before this right thing has chance to really capture you and then inevitably let the other shoe drop. And the one time Elliot takes the initiative to get something right instead of waiting for it to come along all on its lonesome, you leave him thinking what he did was wrong. And you wonder why you have such problems. You cannot play games when it comes to matters of the heart."

"In all my experience, the other shoe has inevitably dropped," Olivia admitted with a look of utter sadness in the pools of brown. "Who's to say it won't happen the exact same way this time?"

"The person you need to ask that question to is Elliot," Taylor smiled gently at Olivia, trying to encourage her with just his eyes. "I cannot speak for him."

Olivia sat perfectly still for moments on end, her eyes glazed over and focused on something other than the man across from her. Suddenly, she nodded her head as if realization was finally dawning on her and he knew that look; it was the same one Elliot wore the day he had admitted his love for Olivia in their session. He could not resist the urge to smile.

Now it was time for a well deserved cup of tea, he thought. Olivia ran out the door without so much as another word to him, only stopping briefly to grab her jacket, presumably to find the man she loved.

He had succeeded.

AN: It's insanely short, I know. But I PROMISE next chapter will be longer and contain the juicy bits you guys so desperately want to see. ;)