A/N: Kinetic, the energy expended when parts move in any direction at any speed, as long as the motion is continuous.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the characters, but, oh, how I wish I did.

March 18th, 9:00 PM

The way her chest rose and fell sent shivers down his spine. He wondered what she was dreaming about. If it involved him. If it was what some would consider lewd. He hoped, at least, that it wasn't another nightmare. He sighed and leaned back, dropping his head against the cold pillow, thanking God it was a familiar bed after three nights in a strange one. He took a breath and moaned, the scent of her apartment mixed with the waft of her shampoo and flooded his senses with pure, unadulterated Olivia.

He exhaled and thought about how ungodly his night had been until they got back to her place. The call to his lawyer had been easy. It was the call to Kathy that left scars in its wake. He'd been smart enough to know he'd never hear her cry over him, but her straight lethargic acceptance came as a shock. His marriage just ended. No tremble, no emotional outburst, just a solemn It was fun while it lasted and a hearty Who gets the house and it was over.

Over.

He thought the word to himself as his blurry vision cleared and brought Olivia's folded body into view. He grinned at the way she was only half-wrapped in the blankets, one foot curled under his right ankle, her hands clasped together under her pillow.

"You think," her voice mumbled into the darkness, "Very loudly." She rolled over, too deep into her unconscious to realize her arm flopped lazily across his bare chest, too comfortable to care.

He chuckled, shifting closer to her. His fingers began to skate up and down her arm, tracing the patterns of her veins beneath her skin. The paths, he knew, he'd one day love to explore to their ends. "Go back to sleep," he whispered, letting his head loll a bit too far to the right. His lips pressed softly against her forehead, his fingertips still trailing up and down her shoulder.

There was a moment of heavy silence as they both inhaled a bit too sharply. Her fingers curled, tightening more around his thick body, and she let out a shaky breath. "Not until you tell me why you're still wide awake." She felt him shrug, his body shifted under her hold. Unmoved, she closed her eyes and nestled into him. "Did I ever tell you how I told my mother I wanted to be a cop?"

He narrowed his eyes, as if she could see his flabbergast in the dark. "You tell me less than shit about your mother, other than the parts that make me violently angry." He slipped his hand further across her shoulder, over the blade, toward her back. He drew light circles on the fabric of her tank top as he silently asked her to tell him the story.

"I took her to this small burger joint in the village, place without a liquor license so she wouldn't have the chance to drink away my bad decision," she tried to keep the small moan in the back of her throat from escaping, her exhaustion and his scent making her already weak resolve fade. "I, uh, handed her my acceptance letter from the academy at the same time I handed her a bottle of ketchup." She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip as her eyes glazed over and focused on a blank spot on her wall. "She didn't try to talk me out of it, but every conversation after that moment felt like work. She was always so worried about me, lived in constant fear that she'd get a phone call in the middle of the night telling her I wasn't coming home." She scoffed. "No, I got that call," she chided. Shaking her head she continued. "Her friends would come around, she'd never tell anyone about her daughter the cop, the hero, but always made time to criticize me for being single, not having kids. 'You couldn't be a teacher, or a flight attendant, or a lawyer, no, you have to take your life in your hands.' Then she'd have another drink."

With a furrowed brow, he hiked his free hand behind his head and twisted slightly onto his side. "Why are you…"

"When I told her I was gonna make detective, and I told her what unit I threw my hat into…" her eyes found his, the unshed tears that had long ago become grains of sand burned to life again. "She tried so hard to get me to change my mind. She told me she would never survive if something happened to me...if what happened to her…" a blink. A breath. "She would beg me to quit, tell me she'd get me a job at the university, adjunct professor or some shit. I swore to her it wouldn't, that I wouldn't let it. That it was my job to get justice for what happened to her and keep it from happening to someone else. But it didn't really stop her from worrying, ya know? " She sniffled once and wiped her eyes with the sheets. "When I was writing my statement this morning, God, all I kept thinking was that I was happy she died before her worst fear came true."

"Jesus Christ," he heaved, "No, don't even…" and then he moved again, throwing his full weight over her and pulling her close. He knew the wrongness of it but it was already too late, his lips were on hers, silencing her dark thoughts before they could be voiced.

Neither one knew who made more of it than it needed to be, which tongue pried open which pair of lips, whose set of teeth started gnashing first, but the desperation passed back and forth between them like championship volleyball. He fought like hell to absorb the fear, the shame, the pain, and her body clung to every ounce of his strength, resilience, and comfort. Her nails scraped deep red trenches up his arms until they found a home, scratching at his scalp. His fingertips pressed so deeply into her back he was certain to leave his fingerprints like tattoos on her skin.

He mumbled something she couldn't decipher, but she translated based on his frantic clutching and fervent kiss. He shook his head as he pressed against her, pleading with her to stop thinking she deserved what happened to her, to fight away the grotesque thoughts that Malcolm Fucking Young planted in her head. If he could snap his fingers and make her forget everything about the last two weeks of his life, he would do so gladly. "Liv," he growled, pushing himself back before basic instinct overtook his moral decency. "What happened in Sealview was not your…"

"I know," her ragged breath let loose the words, her eyes cemented shut as she focused on the simultaneous throbbing between her lungs and between her legs. "What was...you just…"

"Yeah, I did," he admitted with a single nod, blinking himself back into a newly shifted reality with a sly smile. "Never...ever...blame yourself for any of the shit we have to deal with because of the job. Especially not...not this." His breath still came in quick puffs, his eyes searched for hers in the dark. He brushed her hair back and licked his swollen lips. "And please, don't tell me that this is making you regret...because if you didn't stick it out, if you never walked through the doors of the unit, then we wouldn't be here. I don't know what I'd do without you, I don't remember my life before you breezed into it."

His earnestness got a laugh out of her as she nodded, just as bound by the soul to him. "Are you gonna kiss me like that every time I bring up a painful memory? Because I have a lot."

With a soft chuckle, he rubbed his nose against hers. "No, but, uh, I hope that every time I kiss you like that, you forget all about 'em." Another shared laugh filled the scant space between them. Then mutual deep-seated sighs. "Sleep," he whispered softly, placing a much calmer, softer kiss to her lips.

"You, uh, you never told me why you were awake," she spoke, and she saw the way his figure shifted, knowing he slumped over like a child caught stealing cookies before dinner. "What's the matter?"

He flattened himself out and couldn't help but smile when she lay her head on his chest. "My entire life...fucking fell apart today, but here, with you, it, uh, doesn't really matter." He hooked his right arm around her waist. "My lawyer's drawing up papers, Kathy isn't contesting them, the kids are fighting over rooms in an apartment I don't even have yet, and I just experienced the best fucking kiss in my entire fucking life with a woman I can't stop thinking about. Three days ago, I felt...so fucking stuck. Just...waiting for the quicksand to swallow me whole. Today, man, everything fucking shifted at once." He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "It's not a bad thing, I mean, I had to move in one direction or the other eventually, I just...it's a lot. I was just trying to wrap my head around it all without…"

"Worrying about me, too," she inferred, propping her head up on his chest by her chin.

He smiled at her. "Oh, I'm gonna worry about you, no matter what," he told her. "The only thing I will ever agree with your mother about." He kissed the end of her nose, rested a hand on her head, and guided it down against him. "Goodnight," he barely spoke.

"Night," she whispered, her lips moving against his skin. She'd felt the world jolt forward, too, on an entirely different axis. The nights without sleep exacted their revenge, keeping them both hostage through several alarms. What eventually roused them was the twin rings of their nearly identical phones. With a low groan, Elliot dragged a hand down his face, ran his tongue over his teeth and gums, and then answered his call with a groggy, "Stabler."

"Benson," Olivia practically whined into the speaker of her phone. "Where?" She worked the heel of her free hand into each eye roughly. "Yeah, I'm on the way." She hung up fast and shot to her feet, nearly running over to her closet. She pulled a blue collared shirt off of a hanger with one hand, the other yanking at a pair of pants that seemed too large to be hers. She tossed them at Elliot, the exact moment he strode up behind her and quirked an eyebrow at her. "You left more of your clothes here than my last three boyfriends combined."

"Can we not talk about your ex-boyfriends, please?" He shook out his slacks and in one quick move, kicked off his sweatpants and pulled on the trousers. "Did I leave any shirts and ties here by any…" he was cut off by her outstretched arm, holding a button-down, a red tie, and the jacket that matched the pants. "Fuck, how the hell…"

"El," she stopped him with a short laugh, "You know damn well you've been deliberately leaving your shit here," she retorted, buttoning up her shirt. "Just made more work for yourself, now you have to pack and move out of your house and my apartment.."

He laughed a bit louder, knotting his tie. "Oh, no, Benson. The shit I brought into your apartment is staying right where it is. Comes in pretty fucking handy, huh?" He winked as he flipped up the longer tail of his tie and whipped her playfully in the nose. "Come on, Cragen thinks we hit traffic on Lex, if I hit the gas we can get coffee." He saw her eyes widen. "And a donut."

"Sprinkles?" she asked coyly, and when he nodded at her, she shoved her feet in her shoes and headed out of her bedroom.

He laughed to himself as he watched her go, but then looked down at the phone in his hands. Olivia obviously didn't know who the vic was, and he wondered why Cragen decided to tell him if no one was going to tell her. "Definitely getting the sprinkles," he said to himself, knowing it would be the only thing that could soften the blow she was about to be dealt.

A/N: Next? Who's the Vic? And what did that kiss actually mean?