A/N: A moment of weakness, followed by another.
DISCLAIMER: Dick Wolf owns SVU and the characters; TStabler© owns the story you're about to read.
"You didn't have to follow me," Olivia snorted, sitting on a round stool at a small bar. "You didn't have to stand there and watch like some rat from IAB either."
"Couldn't take part in the investigation," Elliot shrugged. He got the bartender's attention and ordered two drinks, hoping he was right, hoping that would be enough. "Couldn't leave you alone, so standing there and watching seemed like the best option."
"Staying home and trusting me wasn't an option?" she chided, gratefully taking the small glass of amber liquid from the young man behind the bar. "What's this?"
"That's your one shot," Elliot said to her. "You earned it." He brushed her hair behind her ear. "You wanna talk about it?"
"He...that boy he..." she shook her head and lifted the glass to her lips, slamming back the shot in one gulp. She grimaced, feeling the burn for the first time in so long. She shook her head and tried to get the taste out of her mouth, realizing how nasty it truly was. "God, he just looked so much like..."
"Eli?" Elliot offered, his lip caught between his teeth, a beer bottle in his hands. He slowly reached for the empty shot glass, the one hard drink he allowed her to have, and slipped a beer bottle between her trembling fingers. "It's light," he told her.
She nodded, her fingers instantly picking at the label. "It took everything I had not to just...hold him. Let him cry." She blinked. "His eyes were so...he was so scared, El," she told him, her voice shaking with wispy breaths. "Every question I had to force him to answer, I...my heart broke."
Elliot rested a hand on her knee. "Liv, you...you've seen all of this before, I don't get..."
"For six months, El, I've been numb to it," she interrupted. She looked up at him and took a breath. "I just did my job, said what people wanted to hear, helped them as best I could but...the sympathy and empathy were gone." She took a small sip of the beer. "I haven't had a drink in weeks...now, I feel...everything," she almost whispered. "And it all leads back to you."
"Me?" he questioned, furrowing his brow.
She nodded, taking another sip from the bottle, now missing half of it's sticky label. "Every case, every vic, every perp...something reminds me of you, or one of the kids, and it..." She takes a breath, she takes a gulp of beer. "It's the same as it was before, and it's why I was gonna leave."
"Before?" he asked, tilting his head. He moved closer to her. "You just said..."
"Why do you think I drank so much?" she questioned before he could finish. She shook her head, smirking in disbelief. "I wasn't drinking to forget you, I was drinking to forget why I couldn't forget you. No matter how much whiskey I shot, I remembered."
He squeezed her thigh. "So now that it's all right, you wanna leave?" he asked, fear behind his words.
She scoffed. "Right now, El, I would like you to shut up and have a beer and make me forget that kid, and this case, like you used to do."
He laughed briefly, then signaled the bartender. "I think I can do more for you now than I could then," he said to her, bending his head and kissing her. "I can make you forget all about it, Liv," he whispered. "Even without the beer."
She fell into him, her head against his as her eyes closed, and she took deliberate breaths. "I know you can," she said to him. "I just want to feel normal, I wanna...I have to prove I can do this, El."
He nodded, his head rubbing against hers, and he kissed her lips gently. "I wish," he said, inhaling sharply, "I wish I never left you. The unit. You."
She smiled softly at him. "I know, but...you had to," she said with a shrug. "You did what you had to do, and you...you did what I should have done." She closed her eyes. "What it took me too long to do, and maybe...maybe it's too late." She pulled away from him, resumed peeling away at the beer bottle, and said, "You saved yourself, but you just can't..."
"You don't need saving," he interrupted. "You're fine. You're not the same, but...being different isn't bad. You've changed, but I think it's for the better, right? What we have now, it's...it's what we had then and then some, and I really don't want to lose this, Liv."
She looked up at him. "No, that's not..." she blinked once, her own self-loathing sinking in and something clicking in the back of her mind. "I'm being stupid. So stupid." She slid the beer away from her and turned her body toward him. "I'm happy. With you, with the kids, with that new...and very comfortable bed," she laughed softly. "This whole time...I've been using excuse after excuse to..."
"You're afraid of being happy," Elliot said with a nod. "I was, too. That's part of the reason..." he cleared his throat. "The night I ran after you, that was the night I realized I needed to stop being afraid of letting myself feel something." He kissed her forehead. "I was so afraid of getting hurt and fucking up again, that I almost lost you. Really lost you."
She kissed his lips, then placed small kisses along his chin and down his neck. She heard him moan and she smirked. "It's over," she whispered, her lips moving against his pulse. "Can't change it, can we? We just have to move forward, together, knowing that..." she lifted her eyes to meet his, "Knowing that I'm never gonna lose you again. Am I?"
He shook his head slowly, his eyes wet with unshed tears. "No," he breathed. And as he cupped her face, pulled her head toward his, and kissed her slowly, deeply, and soundly, a pair of eyes looked on, narrow and not amused.
"So," Nick said, grinning smugly at Olivia as he sat in his chair. "Nice night?"
Olivia raised an eyebrow. "You were with me," she said, "Our night sucked."
"Oh, sorry," Nick answered, folding his arms. "Did you have a nice morning, then? Whiskey and beer, breakfast of champions," he spat. "Thought you didn't drink. Anymore."
She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. "You saw me? Us," she corrected. "I had a shot and one beer, because I needed to prove that I could. That I didn't actually have a..."
"Problem?" Nick asked, then, suddenly feeling awful. "You thought you..."
"Look," she whispered, leaning toward him. "I used to drink, a lot. My mother was an alcoholic, I thought I might...so last night, I had to reassure myself that I knew what I was doing, and it didn't control me."
Nick bit his lip. "So did you? Control yourself, I mean."
Olivia smiled. "Yeah," she said. "It was a pretty rocky start, but then...it was just me and El, having a beer after work, like nothing had changed." She rolled her eyes. "He was so...good... about it. Refused to have another drink, even though he could, just to keep me in check. He had my back," She ran her teeth along her lower lip.
"You and El," Nick said with a smile. "Well, next time you wanna have a drink or two with your old partner, mind inviting the new one along?" He tossed her a rubber band ball from Munch's desk. "You're not the only one who needs to relax once in a while. Why do you think I was there last night?" His smile faded. "Didn't stop at one drink, though."
Olivia eyes him carefully. "You wanna talk about it?" She tossed the ball back to him.
He shook his head. "Nah," he said, making a face. "That would mean we'd get a little closer." He sat up straight in his chair and turned away from her, focusing on his paperwork.
"I told you," she said, sighing, "That I'm okay now. It...we can work on..."
"No, Olivia," he said, not looking at her as he cut her off. "You're fears and anxieties aren't the issue, anymore. I don't wanna get any closer to you. Not anymore. I can't."
She was taken aback, even hurt. She sat back in her chair, her head turning to the file on her own desk. "Okay," she said, barely a whisper.
And Nick looked up at her, thankful she wasn't returning his gaze. He finally pulled an honest emotion from her, he just hated that it was pain. He went back to his papers, the gears turning in his head, working to find a way to make her really come around.
A/N: What does Nick say? Do? And closure. Next.