A/N: "With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
DISCLAIMER: Dick Wolf owns the characters. That's pretty much it. Everything else written before you is pure TStabler©
"Why did Cragen send you down here with me?" Elliot asked, annoyed that the person to his left in the morgue wasn't Olivia, but Michael.
Mike shrugged. "After you two got back, he said Olivia had to go interview another live victim, and she could handle it on her own. Look, I'm not taking her place, she's still your..."
"Damn right, she's mine," Elliot said, snapping and turning suddenly. "You try to change that, in any way, and I will..."
"Hold on, Stabler," Mike said, narrowing his own eyes and hissing. "I'm not here for Benson. I'm here because you were down a guy and I wanted in. This unit does more with less resources, and I wanna be a part of it." He folded his arms. "It has nothing to do with what happened between me and Olivia, years ago."
Elliot took a breath and nodded. "Sorry," he grumbled.
"I get it," Mike said. "You're still on edge, you miss your friend, and you hated me since the moment we met." He smirked and said, "I'm not gonna make a move on her, Stabler. We work together now. I know her policy on dating people she works with."
It was Elliot's turn to smirk. "Do you?" he asked, chuckling softly. "Good. Stay the hell away from her." He turned to head into Warner's office.
"Of course," Mike said, stopping Elliot in his tracks, "If she makes a move on me, I'm certainly not gonna turn her down."
Elliot turned to him again and shook his head slowly. "She won't," he said declaratively, and turned, this time walking in on the medical examiner.
"What'd you find out?" Fin asked, rising to his feet as Olivia walked back into the squad room.
"Aside from her not remembering anything since Elliot and I interviewed her yesterday?" she asked snippily. She threw her jacket off as she walked toward the coffee pot. "Oh, look at that," she said, lifting the pot. "Empty. Now that people can drink it no one knows how to fucking make it."
"Are you okay?" Elliot asked from his desk, taking her jacket off of his head, where it landed.
"No," she spat, pouring grinds into a filter and turning on the pot.
Elliot narrowed his eyes and stood up, walked over to her, and stilled her hands as she tried to get the lid on the coffee grinds. "What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing," she snapped. "Can't a person just be in a bad mood?" she asked bitterly, storing away.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him, and lowered his voice. "If you think Cragen's making us switch partners, you're wrong. The vic in the morgue was a suspect in one of Sandoval's old drug trafficking cases. Fin stayed here, you took the live one at Mercy. It's the job, Liv."
She blinked and looked up, into his eyes. "That's not what...I know Cragen would never...I mean, not unless..."
"Then what's eating you?" he asked. He looked up, then looked around. "Come with me," he said, pulling her by the hand out into the hall. He led her, as he was one to do, up the stairs to the roof. He pulled her close once they reached the edge, and he kissed her forehead. "What happened?" he asked softly.
She shook her head, trying not to cry. "I had another panic attack. I thought they were gone, I thought...God, what the hell is wrong with me?"
"Nothing," he said, rubbing circles on her back. "What happened when you started..."
"I was waiting for the nurse to get back to me with the tox screen and the psych eval, and I was just sitting on the chair...I closed my eyes for a second, just a moment, and I heard the beeping...someone coded in a room down the hall and they couldn't...El, I don't know why but I thought it was you. I ran in there like a crazy person, screaming about being the guy's partner, and when the doctor ushered me out of the room, I..."
"Liv," he whispered softly, dragging her lips over her forehead, "Baby, you're still trying to deal with Munch. We all are. You were half asleep, you hate hospitals, and you were there by yourself. You were probably caught somewhere between the beginnings of a nightmare and what was really happening."
She nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking," she said with a light laugh. She looked up at him, then, and asked, "What's really happening here?"
"We...are...," he said, slowly, trying to find the words, "Living. We're living, baby." He kissed her and rocked her in his arms, hoping to comfort the small twinge of fear she still had, and was masking by anger. "Oh, uh, Sandoval thinks you're gonna hit on him."
"Sandoval has taken too many shots to the head," she mumbled into his chest, holding him closer. "That's not happening," she said a bit quieter.
"I know it's not, baby," he told her. He pushed her back for a moment, cupped her face, and smiled. "I love you," he told her, pulling her face gently toward his and giving her a tender kiss.
"I love you, too," she said, finally relaxing and giving him a smile. "Why did Dickie call me, asking where your red tie was?"
Elliot laughed, finding it funny that she changed the subject so quickly to something so silly. "He needs it," he shrugged. "I told him you put all my ties away, and since you lay out my clothes in the morning, I don't know where they are."
"No, El, I mean why did he call me from the apart...you got 'em," she said, with a smile of realization.
He kissed her and smirked against her lips. "Only for the week," he said, pulling away, "But yeah. Every other week and most holidays, until the judge can look over more details of the case."
She smiled and kissed him, wrapping her arms around him. The sheer joy she felt for him, after knowing how worried he was, was infinite.
He felt something snap, some shred of self control he'd been holding onto all day fell from his grasp, and he growled lightly, deepening the kiss.
She gasped slightly when Elliot pushed her against the short wall of the ledge, and she moaned, sounding slightly panicked, when his knee roughly nudged its way between her legs, pushing them open.
He moved one hand around to the front of her body, still kissing her as he slid his hand down and stroked her through her brown pants. He moved his other hand quickly and worked it up her purple shirt, cupping her left breast and thumbing over her nipple, drawing it out and making it bead. "Liv," he whispered, the name that had been on his lips and in his mind for every sexual encounter for the last few years, one of the reasons he was now divorced.
She sucked in a harsh breath, trying to protest. This couldn't happen at work, not again, but as he worked his hand into the waistband of her pant, she gave into him and unbuckled his belt, slid down his blue suit pants, and waited for his next move.
He made it, shoving her pants around her hips, slipping her panties aside, and pushing into her with a soft grunt. "Don't have much time," he whispered, thrusting fast and hard.
She wrapped her legs around him, moaned his name, and leaned back into his strong arms. They didn't need a lot of time, they only needed a moment.
"Where the hell were the two of you?" Cragen barked, narrowing his eyes as Elliot and Olivia walked back into the bullpen.
"Had to talk to her," Elliot barked back, feeling no need to be civil if the captain wasn't going to be.
Cragen scoffed. "Take Fin down to holding, Frederiks from the Two-Nine brought in a guy that matches the description your vic gave at..."
"I'm taking Liv," Elliot interrupted.
Cragen raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, who died and made you Captain, Stabler?"
"The same guy that died and made you an asshole," he hissed back. "John. We miss him, we all miss him, but you have been walking around here acting almost as dead as he is!"
"Elliot!" Olivia yelled, horrified.
"Sorry, Liv, but it's true!" Elliot yelled to her. "At a time where he should know we need each other the most, he's doing his damnedest to keep us apart! He even hired your ex-boyfriend, hoping you'd go to him for the comfort he's afraid you're getting from me!" He looked at Cragen, who looked shocked. "Isn't that right, Cap?"
Cragen blinked, his mouth opened and closed, and he looked at Fin, glaring.
"Hey, I didn't say anythin' to him," Fin defended, "He's a fuckin' detective. And you ain't exactly tryin' to hide the fact you don't want them alone together."
Cragen reddened. He turned sharply to Elliot and said, "You and Fin, go get the prick from the cage. Benson, Sandoval, Warner's got something."
Mike looked at him and said, "Cap, Elliot and I just got back from..."
"Go!" the captain yelled. He stormed back into his office and slammed the door.
Olivia looked at Elliot, her euphoria floating away, back up to the roof from which it had come, and she shook her head. "He's not splitting us up, right, El?" she asked with a hiss, booming out of the room.
Sandoval ran, catching up to her, and said, "Hey! Hey, Benson!"
She punched the call button for the elevator and spat without looking, "We can do this without talking."
"It'll be kind of hard, won't it?" Sandoval asked, stepping into the lift after her.
She looked at him with narrow eyes, said nothing, and looked back at the closing, metal doors.
"Okay, I know you aren't thrilled that I'm here," Mike said. "But I swear, I'm not gonna pull anything. Cragen just...he's going through a lot, and he wanted me to give you a shoulder if you needed one."
"I have one," she said, her jaw clenched. "I have two actually. Strong ones."
"So it's true?" Mike asked, tilting his head. "You and Stabler?" he questioned.
She shrugged. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," she said as they walked off the elevator and into the lobby, "It's not any of your business either way. And it shouldn't be any of Cragen's if we can do our damned jobs without..."
"He doesn't think you can," Sandoval interrupted.
Olivia turned, finally looking at him. "Really?" she asked. Her eyes gleamed with something between pain and anger, feeling somehow betrayed by the man who had, until now, been like a father to her. "Guess I gotta prove him wrong," she said, pulling out her cell phone. She sent a text to Elliot, and he answered her in person when he stepped off of the other elevator.
"I'm good with that," Elliot said to her. He turned to Fin and said, "Me and Liv are going down to holding. Take Sandoval, you two go see Warner."
Mike shook his head and blinked. "But Cragen said..."
"Cragen needs a wake up call," Elliot interrupted.
Fin chuckled. "Man, do you know what he's gonna do to you?"
Elliot smirked. "If we worried about consequences, we wouldn't do much of anything would we?" he asked in return
Mike watched Elliot leave with Olivia and head down the hall, and he looked at Fin and shrugged. As they walked, though, he sent a text of his own to someone who was not going to be happy, but who was not going to be surprised either.
A/N: Who does Sandoval text? What does Cragen do when he sees the wrong two detectives in the interrogation room? And another magic moment between Olivia, Elliot, and one of the kids. Review here or on Twitter: TMG212