A/N: I had no intention to start another WIP, believe me... But this developed from what was originally going to be a ficlet for Sketches of Pain: a "Fault redux" in the new/current canon. Thanks awildmind for the betaing and the encouragement! I'm expecting this to be short, just a few chapters. Let me know if you think I should continue!

PART 1

The blue was sharp like the edge of a knife in his eyes as he evaded her stare in the back of the van.

The message was clear between the lines on his forehead, a message he had delivered to her in person and which had been imprinted in the way he had dodged her calls, made up excuses not to see her before circumstance had forced them into this moment, breathing the same air inside the same moving vehicle.

Back off.

Ever since he had slashed his way back in through the scar tissue of absence that had gathered around her existence year after year while he'd been gone, it had been this constant push and pull game.

Liv, you mean the world to me — back off.

She hadn't exactly backed off. Olivia had eventually stopped calling and texting, given up on closing the ten-year gap between them, but Captain Benson had used her connections to keep a close eye on the investigations of the Organized Crime task force. That's how she'd known that Elliot and his unit were closing in on Richard Wheatley's operations one step at a time. That's also how she'd been able to recognize the name of the company that had popped up during her latest investigation.

The previous week, the Manhattan Special Victims Unit had caught a murder case: a woman brutally murdered, who also exhibited signs of the constant abuse she had suffered. The evidence had led the team to a prostitution scheme whose money was laundered by that company, the name that had jumped at Olivia's informed eyes: Fairbanks Publishing. It was one of the companies associated with Wheatley — the man who was in one way or another involved in the murder of Kathy Stabler.

Elliot hadn't said a single word or met her gaze a single time while Olivia spoke in the task force's headquarters; it had been his way to pointedly tell her and only her he was not at all happy about her involvement as she briefed his team about her case, explained its connection to theirs, and announced they would all be working together from then onwards.

Even as she had imponently stood, barricaded behind her undeniable captaincy, with Deputy Chief Garland standing next to her as a monument to how powerless Elliot was going to be in making her back off now, still her heart had ached when he had broodingly stepped out of the room as soon as the meeting was over, hiding somewhere her eyes had no access to for the rest of her brief stay.

Looking at him now, his body subjected to the van's every move, she could still taste the distinct impression that he had enjoyed punishing her with a reminder of his disappearing talents.

The address listed as the Fairbanks Publishing's headquarters was the place they were about to raid now; Ayanna Bell had put the warrant Olivia had handed her in her jacket pocket, and Olivia could see the blue paper peeking out as she sat across from Elliot's sergeant. Time moved both slowly and incredibly fast as the anxiety filled the air, made it thick like fog.

The van halted, and a second later, the back doors opened. Guns in hand, the members of both units jumped out into the street in a charged silence of shallow breaths and creased brows. Detective Elliot Stabler threw Olivia a last displeased look before following his colleagues, and she made a physical effort not to commit to memory the sight or the underlying rejection weaved into the sharp blue: he didn't want her there.

It was all he did these days: unceremoniously cut through her even when he tried to mend the gashes he'd already inflicted.

I was afraid that if I heard your voice, I wouldn't have been able to leave.

He was still very well-versed in walking away from her and making her feel like she was to blame somehow.

Olivia and Ayanna stayed behind, coordinating from outside as the detectives swarmed around the two-story, redbrick building. The place looked empty, with padlocks and chains and boarded-up windows, but Olivia had a strange gut feeling. Her eyes zeroed in on Elliot, and if she silenced the world around her, she could hear him breathing, feel his heart beating as though it lived in her own chest.

It seemed wrong to be standing outside while he was going in. It felt wrong to not be right beside him, even knowing he didn't want her.

After a few unanswered rings of the doorbell and knocks on the door, Elliot watched it with unblinking eyes as Detective Morales rehearsed the movement with the ram a few times before finally breaking down the door. He watched the other cops making their way into the property before him one by one, then inhaled deeply before joining them.

The shouting started. NYPD, search warrant. Steps everywhere, fanning out in every direction. Clear. The thin beams of the flashlights defied the darkness they were all now swimming in. Clear. Steps going up the stairs. Clear. Steps hesitating behind doors for a split second before kicking them open.

Elliot waited for the next Clear. It never came.

The unmistakable sound of a gunshot ripped through the stale air instead, other explosions following and replacing the dust that covered everything: Elliot didn't understand, the place had seemed abandoned. Shots fired! was shouted into and through the radios.

"Ten thirteen, officer down!" a female voice yelled from the end of the hall: it was one of Olivia's detectives; he didn't know which.

"Get down!" urged Detective Washburn, pulling Elliot down as a shooting figure rushed past them in a beeline for the front door, the loud pops ringing in his ears.

Hiding behind a desk, Morales risked a few shots of his own in the direction of the runner, but he made it out. When the shooting ceased, Elliot got back on his feet and took out his radio.

"Shooter heading out!" he screamed into it, rushing to chase after him.

Elliot crashed through the door, daylight piercing through his eyes as it replaced the pitch-black darkness. He quickly grew accustomed to it, but his motion was paused when he realized he was the starting point of a straight line that ended in Olivia, her startled, paralyzed gaze meeting his momentarily, the shooter speeding toward her as if he were a bullet fired from Elliot's own gun even as his trembling hand refused to raise it in her overall direction at all.

His eyes scanned his surroundings, grappling for someone other than the three of them who could change their geometry, but his fellow detectives were all still a step behind him, and Sergeant Bell was nowhere to be seen, possibly running in a different direction in an attempt to catch the runner unexpectedly at a later point in his escape route.

"Stop right there!" Olivia commanded, pointing her gun at the man and moving to take cover behind the van's passenger door, but not fast enough: the shooter never wavered, and Elliot watched it as though it were in slow motion.

The running man's arm rising, the gun pointed at her, the blast, her body falling backwards.

"Olivia!" Elliot yelled, his eyes searching for Bell again or anyone else who could be running after the perp, but coming up empty. "He's getting away!" he screamed at no one in particular, his radio no longer on him, possibly lost in his haste.

Time seemed to stand still, with two choices presented to him. The first, to race after the shooter, possibly catch him, question him. Get closer to Wheatley. Closer to avenging his wife's murder, giving his children some closure. The obvious choice.

The second, to check on Olivia's body on the ground, her very mortal body, unprotected as she'd pulled some ridiculous cowboy crap and refrained from wearing a vest. He regretted his silence in the van, his pride that had kept him from calling her out. Why the hell hadn't she put on her fucking vest?

Time was ruthless though; it wouldn't stop, wouldn't wait for him to weigh his choices. But just as he realized that, he also learned from the cold stone under him that he had knelt down, one last look thrown in the direction of the man who didn't seem to be intercepted by Bell or anyone else.

People finally appeared and ran past him as he tugged at Olivia's clothes, but he no longer saw or heard them.

"Liv, talk to me!" he cried out, looking for the wound while her head bobbed from side to side as he cradled her, her eyes closed. "Liv!" he shook her, despair creeping up through his every vein. "My God, no, no…" he breathed.

He hadn't yet found the injury when he noticed the growing pool of red underneath her body through the blur of guilt that had started to bleed from his eyes.