A/N: If you've never succumbed to something your very existence wanted for a long time and were willing to pay the price, don't continue reading.

To L, for being so insightful.

Chapter 12:

Only it doesn't end. She wishes it were the end and that she'd never have to see him again. But it doesn't work like that, not in her fucked up life. In her life, shit storms happen often and she has to face them and continue working.

So the next morning she takes a silent ride with Elliot and Lori to the FBI's offices to get ready for the meeting between Elliot and Vicky. She has no idea where Elliot has spent the night and she's too numb to care. She only wants to find Sarah and get the hell away from these two.

The entire morning she ensures to evade Elliot's eyes, she speaks to him as little as possible and the funny thing about it is that it makes her speak to Lori more often.

At noon the two women sit at yet another hotel bar, watching Elliot stand up to greet a long-legged woman with a pretty Slavic face. "I'm Mark Lawler," he introduces himself, helping her take a seat.

Very soon Vicky starts taking their conversation into a blatant flirty route and Olivia and Lori can hear her through the mic that is hidden under Elliot's tie.

He plays the game well, though they can see him moving uncomfortably in his chair when Vicky slides her palm over his thigh.

After a while, Vicky moves her head close to his and Lori and Olivia can clearly hear her words, spoken in a low rasp. "I bet you're naked under these clothes. I am," she teases, smiling, her hand sliding up and down Elliot's thigh.

And though the woman is a pro that only wants to close the deal asap so that she could soon get ready for her evening date, Olivia can't stop the image that crosses her mind. She felt what's under Elliot's clothes, she found what's hidden between the buttons of his shirt. There were so many layers that separated them and all she wanted, despite herself, was to get to the man inside, to touch him. And she did.

And so has Lori. Lori, who sits next to her, her eyes suddenly glued to her glass of soda water.

A shit-eating grin spreads across Elliot's face at the woman's blunt words, and his hand shoots down, grabbing her palm that is sliding across his thigh. He locks a grip on it and stops its motion. The woman's head tilts back in surprise, the teasing smile on her face gone.

"Let's leave that aside," Olivia hears him rasp. "Tell me where Sarah is, Vicky."

The woman tries to release her hand from his firm grasp.

"Who?" she asks.

"Vicky, we're NYPD. We know you know where she is. The place is full with cops," he half-whispers. His eyes start roaming the room when he adds "just take a look around you."

The frightened Vicky looks around, moving her head slowly. When her eyes fall on Olivia and Lori, they both slightly nod at her. Her head shoots back to Elliot. "I don't know any Sarah," she says urgently.

"Yes, you do, and you're gonna tell me where she is," Elliot replies, still holding her hand firmly. "We're not after you, Vicky, we're worried about Sarah. There are people that want her dead and we want to help her. We're going to walk out of here, hand in hand, and you're going to tell us where Sarah is and then we'll let you go. Nothing bad will happen to her, or to you. I promise." His tone softens.

The woman nods nervously. They get up and start walking towards the exit, Elliot gripping, though not too strongly, Vicky's arm. Olivia and Lori follow, and it doesn't harm that at that exact moment, two men in suits also get up to leave, further convincing Vicky that the place is swarming with undercover cops.

Next to the car, Olivia flashes her badge in front of Vicky, to reassure her that they're not kidnapping her. Inside the car they assure Vicky that they won't expose her, that they're trying to protect Sarah from the organization that brought her to the US and catch the perpetrators. She reluctantly agrees to cooperate and provides some useful info on the way they work, in addition to telling them where they might find Sarah.

eoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeo

Like they already suspected, she's not in Vicky's apartment anymore. A Ukrainian man Vicky knows has agreed to hide and bodyguard Sarah till she feels safe enough from Nikita and his bosses, which might never happen. Vicky admitted to them that he might actually belong to a rivaling organization, but that was the best she could do for Sarah when she arrived at her apartment a few days earlier, frightened, slightly wounded, after she had somehow escaped her captors and had been directed to her by Penny. They hold Vicky with the help of the local SVU to ensure she doesn't warn the man if they let her go. She doesn't know where he stays, but she knows his phone number and now they need to locate him.

Which is not easy. He uses a disposable phone, and an old one too, such that doesn't even have internet connection through which they had better chances to trace him. They spend a whole day in this pursuit, each having a different task, convening every now and then to compare notes. At night Lori offers that they'll renew the work in the morning, since they're all too drained to continue. A local night shift researcher at the FBI is left with the few traces they managed to collect and is tasked with continuing with it until the morning.

"Wanna grab dinner?" Lori asks before they leave for the hotel, her eyes moving between them, but lingering on Elliot's face.

There's a pause in which Olivia internally thinks over my dead body, but then both she and Elliot speak at the same time. "I'm gonna turn in," she says, while he says at the exact moment "I'll pass, too beat."

"We don't have to, that's fine, we can grab something from the machine," Lori then says, her voice a faked mirth and Olivia just wants to get the hell away from the two of them, she's had her own share of fucked up, she doesn't need theirs too.

Their conversation during the drive to the hotel at night revolves around the case. There's a tensed silence when they get sandwiches and sodas from the vending machines and take the elevator to the second floor together, muttering goodnight as each opens the door to their own respective rooms, which are a few doors apart along the corridor.

Half an hour later, Olivia is leaning against the pillows on the bed in the simple small room that holds a bed, two nightstands, a vanity that is also a desk, with the hotel's brochure and a cheap plastic pen on it, a narrow mirror hanging above it and a broader TV screen next to it, now turned on NBC and muted, and a plainly designed bathroom near the entrance. She's idly drinking her soda, her gaze fixed on her phone screen as she's reading emails and searching the US Census website for facts and figures about the legal immigration from the Ukraine and former USSR and the estimated illegal one.

A rap at the door startles her. "Goddammit," she hisses, leaving her phone on the bed.

"That's become a habit, Elliot, don't you think?" she asks when she opens the door to find him standing outside her room.

"Funny." His face is stern.

"What do you want now? Don't we just need to finish this case and put it behind us?" she asks mockingly, one eyebrow raised, but not a hint of a smile on her face. Now that they're off work she can let go of the professional façade she's clung to all day. The things they've admitted to each other have hung over her the entire day and she worked hard not to let their aching meaning penetrate her.

"If you listened…," he starts.

"I did," she cuts him mid-sentence.

"No, you didn't, you're not. You keep cutting me off, diverting the conversation, thinking you know what I'm gonna say next, but you don't, Olivia, not always," he says, trying to hold her gaze.

Shrugging, she then turns and walks back into the room, picking the remote control from the bedside and turns the TV off, speaking while she does. "Maybe because when we do talk, things tend to get worse. Or maybe it's just my inferiority complex that clouds my judgment, I don't know," she shrugs again, her face contorting in contempt.

He's standing in the middle of the room. She's doing it again, changing the subject, she doesn't want to hear what he has to say. They burn everything.

"I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry," he replies.

"Yes, we've already established that. And my inferiority complex aside, my judgment wasn't clouded, right, Elliot?" she moves from the bedside towards him, letting him hold her gaze. She stops, a few feet between them. He's wearing a pair of jeans and a long sleeved grey cotton v-neck tee. He must have changed from his suit after they got back to the hotel.

"No, you saw things right when they were about me, but you didn't see yourself, Liv."

He's wrong, because she's seen herself quite clearly throughout, and she knew all along that part of her behavior wasn't about the case. But she wasn't going to admit it. "Right," she ends up muttering.

"Yes, right. Your judgment was biased, even before I'd had a chance to screw up, but you just won't admit it."

Right again, but he's gotten enough truths out of her lately, she's not going to give him any more. "Well, turns out I was right," she then says. "You trusted the Feds to do our job, and look where this has gotten us. We're stuck in another city, dependent on them. Maybe we could have found Sarah sooner, in New York."

"Maybe. Don't you think I blame myself too?"

She knows he is. She knows how he takes the blame even when he shouldn't, and usually she's the one who helps him carry the weight, but not this time. She's rubbing his nose in it way too deep, way too long. She knows it, but she can't help herself, because, yes, he's right, it's not only about work.

"So what do you want, Elliot?" she asks, ignoring his confession. Her eyes dart towards the door and his follow her glance.

"To make a few things clear," he says sternly, taking a few steps in her direction, which in the small space mean that he's standing right in front of her, blue eyes and grey cotton t-shirt and all. "If you'd listened yesterday, I wouldn't have to be here now," he adds as if clarifying that he knows she wants him gone.

"You can leave, I didn't invite you," she says, sidestepping him, trying to create some distance between them. But then his words stop her and she's still very close.

"If you listened, I would've told you that I'd change a lot in what happened. But I didn't drive upstate to…it wasn't about fu…it wasn't like that," he says, his voice dropping low and not uttering the word she used loudly yesterday. "I'm sorry about the way I acted throughout, I thought I was handling the case right, I'd never risk a case knowingly. And I know nothing I say now can change the fact that I've hurt you, the damage I caused, but I wish I could change it, fix it, make you trust me again. I wanted you to know that." She wishes she could avert her gaze, because his eyes are caverns of blue, of truth, and her mouth runs dry. It'd be easier if he didn't tell her all of this.

"Ok, I get it," she says flatly, belligerently, finally forcing herself to avert her eyes from the rue in his.

"Do you?" he asks, clearly realizing what she's doing.

They're facing each other and she realizes that they're in a hotel room with the door closed, a bed right next to them and a recent history of broken boundaries behind them.

The thought causes her stomach to plummet, an unwelcome familiar ache to shoot down to her lower belly.

"What do you want from me, Elliot?" she asks, tired, taking a step back, putting a bit more distance between them.

He sighs, his gaze darts away and then returns to her. "The truth." He's obviously tired of this too.

"Again? Why? What for?" she raises her voice. "You kept saying that you already know the truth but that you only want me to say it. So here goes – I get that you're sorry now, but you were sorry only after your case was screwed. You didn't see me before that…"

"It wasn't because Nikita died, I just came to a point where…I realized too late…," he starts and they speak at the same time now, cutting into each other's words. "You just kept…," she continues while he does too with "I wish I hadn't…" and she with "…going without thinking…" and he continues with "Tell me how to make this right!" The last part of his sentence is expelled in a raised voice and on a short breath.

"…and you're probably in the wrong room now," she goes on, but she's the only one speaking now, "because your girlfriend is in one of the next rooms and I don't know what you're doing here."

"She's not my girlfriend," he utters brashly.

"So your fuck buddy, whatever," she says in a tone that is the vocal equivalent to eye rolling.

"Why do you care so much, Liv?" he then asks, taking a step closer to her again, and she can smell his shirt, his skin. She should have known that he could bounce back and meet her challenge with a challenge. "If this is only about the case, and I've already admitted my fault in it, if this is the whole truth, then why does it matter?" When she's quiet he takes another step and their breaths are intermixing. "Because it's not, is it?"

Hasn't he extricated that truth out of her already, by touching her and making her respond the way she did? She already armed him with the answer to this question, and in a way he's answered it too. This is why I never...

"It is about the case," she insists.

"Not entirely and we both know it," he says, his eyes piercing hers, his voice several decibels lower.

"So if you know it already, what do you need me to tell you?" She swallows though she feels her mouth is dry.

He's chewing on his bottom lip, his tongue wets it. "That it wasn't a mistake."

Her heart misses a beat. "You said it yourself, it was never a good idea."

"But I never said I regretted it," he replies and his voice is low enough for her to feel its vibration against her as much as she hears it, because his chest is now touching hers. His eyes and words have distracted her and she didn't realize they were completely closing the distance between them.

And there's no one and nothing she can blame when she succumbs a second time to that perpetual need, that try as hard as she might, she can't forego. There's no one and nothing to blame now, but herself, because the glare they had fixed on each other has slipped, in synch, to the other's lips and from there it was mere inches for their lips to collide forcefully, and despite herself she wants it and she can't stop it, and worse – she's willing to pay the price that this will surely cost her.

He's holding her, his lips hard on hers, his tongue in her mouth, treating it as its own. Hers does the same in his mouth, hungrily, angrily. His taste and smell fill her, his hard body against her. And this is how it feels - all the times she wondered how it'd be, all the times she wanted to fuck the anger and frustration out with him – smoothing her palms over his biceps, his tattoos, his chest, grazing her nails across his back. It all pools between her legs.

Elliot is backing her up to the desk, her back arches as he leans his weight in, his mouth latched on hers and they drink each other's taste. His hands are locked on her body, pressing her to him, but hers roam his body, touching him through his clothes, holding on to the hard plains that his shirt hides.

Her back aches from the unnatural posture and she pushes forward and Elliot straightens up with her, and she half sits on the desk, his pelvis pushing her legs apart to accommodate the width of his body. Her lower half is compressed against Elliot's, and Olivia can feel him hard against her through their clothes. They're instinctively grinding against each other while devouring one another.

Elliot's right hand rakes over her shoulder, up to her neck, his fingers splay on her cheek, melding her mouth further to his, and then down over her neck and clavicle, stopping at her right breast. He's cupping it and pressing it through her shirt, and she moans into his mouth. Her nipples are erect, and so is every other part of her that has nerves in it, her body is fully awaken to Elliot's touch and taste.

They're breathing loud and hard and Elliot releases her mouth only to smooth his over her jaw. "Christ, Olivia," he whispers into her ear before his mouth slides down her neck and throat, causing her to lean back towards the Vanity mirror behind her. She uses the opportunity to slide her hands into the back of his shirt and touch his warm skin and the firm muscles that flex and tense with his movements, while he's devouring her with his hands and caressing her with his lips.

She knows what she's doing when her hands then sneak around his torso, reaching for his belt and zipper, undoing them along with the button of his jeans. She knows, but mistake or no mistake, she doesn't care. Not anymore. Not right now. Elliot pulls himself back for a short moment and takes his shirt off in one pull, and she has him shirtless right there in her arms.

The feeling of his warm hard chest under her palms should be reminding her of the truths they've revealed, the ones they're cementing right now, but it does so only vaguely, because the rest of her is savoring the body she's craved. Elliot storms back to hold her, his mouth on hers, sliding his hands into her shirt, pushing it up to her armpits and neck and all she has to do is bring her arms up and the shirt is off of her too. Elliot trails his mouth and both his hands to her chest, and she has to grab the desk so she wouldn't fall off it. He kisses her exposed skin. He doesn't bother to remove her bra, but brings both straps down her shoulders and pushes the cups down and his hands are now on her naked breasts, his mouth follows suit and he rubs and licks and sucks the mounds of soft flesh and the pebbled nipples.

"Ungh, Elliot," she moans quietly, and the strangeness of his name on her lips pokes a little hole in the haze she's in, but she's too far in, too far to stop grinding against his hard cock which is still inside his pants though they're unbuckled and unbuttoned and unzipped and she yearns to feel it. Elliot answers her need and slides his hands down her back and into her pants, cupping the upper part of her ass, pressing her further to him. He's holding her and now she can stop clutching the desk, so she uses the opportunity to unzip her own pants. Elliot then pushes it down for her, along with her panties, while she grabs his jeans, pulling it down too. She kicks one of her pant sleeves completely off to enable herself the flexibility she'll soon need. All the while their mouths are on each other, kissing and tasting some part of exposed skin, whether it's a neck or a throat or a jaw or a shoulder.

There's a bed right there behind them, but they're blind to everything around them. They're too focused on each other, on urgently helping one another out of their clothes, on reaching, revealing, exposing, on touching and tasting and being, on forgetting and submerging and existing.

Elliot's naked pelvis is pushed against hers and the touch is so intense, too intense almost. Her palms slide up his chest, then cup his face as she brings his mouth to hers again. Elliot slips his hands under her naked thighs and slightly raises her body up against him. With her eyes closed and her mouth on his, she knows what's next and just the thought makes her moan into his mouth. When he brings her down again, it's along his cock as he's penetrating her.

Her arms hold on to his neck and Elliot pushes deeper into her, his palms cupping her backside, giving him the lever to sink deep inside her. Their muffled gasps at the sensation of it warm up their prolonged kiss.

Her breasts are pressed to his chest, one of her arms encircles his neck for support, while the other slides in the no-space between them, her palm smoothing over his pectorals, then across his back and shoulders and then down along the side of his chest, feeling his ridged muscles under her palm, while feeling him moving inside her, and their mouths are infused to each other's taste.

They're both panting when Elliot releases her mouth so they could breathe. His face buries in her hair and he whispers her name in her ear and she moans into his neck. His thrusts become slightly faster and harder and she links both her arms over his neck again.

In this posture he's rubbing against her just the right way, complementing the friction of his hardness inside her. The pleasure inside her is mounting to an almost unbearable height with every thrust, with every brush of his lips and tongue on her skin.

Her fingernails sink into his skin when Elliot picks up the cadence some more and he releases one of his hands from underneath her, his palm weaving into her hair as he cups the back of her head and melds her mouth to his again, and she starts breathing faster, moaning quietly into his mouth, when he brings her up and up and up and up, until she clenches around him everywhere, rippling against him over and over, their warm breaths intermixing, their lips a mere centimeter apart, and she's feeling him flexing inside and above her, huffing hard breaths against her skin and groaning, as he's coming inside her.

It's been so intense, that even when they're done, he still pushes into her, softer thrusts, like the last steps at the end of a run. Gasping, they're holding on to each other, both slightly slick with sweat, allowing the aftershocks consume their bodies. Her head is light from the lack of oxygen, and from the mix of adrenaline, dopamine and Oxytocin that flood her.

And somewhere a grey cloud hovers there too and she can start feeling it damping her consciousness. Olivia squeezes her eyes shut, in an attempt to keep it at bay.

Their bodies are finally still, except for their heaving chests, Elliot's face is buried in her neck and hair, her cheek against his ear and crew cut hair. She doesn't open her eyes, but the cloud starts showering her with questions like 'now what' and accusations like 'how come'.

Just then, Elliot moves the slightest bit and naturally pulls out of her. He removes his hand from under her thigh though his other remains weaved in her hair, his forearm limply resting on her shoulder. He places his now free hand on her lower back, his palm warm on her skin. Olivia lets her arms slowly drop from his neck, her movements causing him to withdraw and release her hair. She uses the opportunity to arrange her bra. With his face still hidden from her, Elliot draws his pants up and then takes a step back, enabling her to get off the desk and quickly wear on hers as well, both buttoning and zipping, aftermathing.

They're standing there close together, shirtless, finally bringing their eyes to each other's face. Her hair is disheveled and they're both still slightly panting.

The silence is stifling.

She's finally done it. What she promised herself she never would, not like that anyway. She fucked Elliot Stabler, anger and frustration were her accomplices, while want and need and yearn hid behind. And a stubborn, unkillable love that has survived the years of his marriage and the months since his divorce.

She's not sure what she sees in his hazy eyes, maybe they mirror her same feelings. Maybe they mirror her same thoughts, that this is them, burning everything. Just like he said they would. Just like she knew deep down they could.

"Liv," Elliot then starts, his eyes finding hers, his palm brought forward, splaying across her cheek and ear, the tips of his fingers drowning in her hair.

"Get out of here," she says, before he has a chance to continue, her voice gravelly, tilting her head so that his hand falls to his side.

He's got her truth now. She got his. Let it burn then.

He doesn't say a word, his eyes pierce hers, his jaw muscle flexes, and he only slightly nods his head.

"Have it your way, Liv," he then says in a low timbre.

He grabs his shirt from the floor and wears it on, while turning and walking to the door, and their eyes meet once again for a brief second when he closes it behind him.

Moments later, her legs lead her to the shower, to wash away Elliot's smell and touch, his kisses and his semen, hoping that her love for him, that clutches her still, will drown and vanish with it.