Dearest EO loves, thanks for taking the time to read my bullshit amidst this emotionally traumatic and thrilling time in our lives. Please note that this was written BEFORE the "I love you" intervention and does not take that into consideration. Chapter 4 takes place 48 hours after the lobby leaving. XOXO

"Liv?" she heard him call from the opening door, and she pursed her lips, wishing he'd stop calling her that, as she gripped the brick beneath her hands. She stood up straight and crossed her arms in front of her chest as she felt him approach and mirror her position by her side above the city.

"I've been calling," he told her, his eyes waiting for hers to meet them. She bit the inside of her cheek and glanced down in momentary shame but didn't reply. "The other night..." he continued while she looked over the edge of the building "I didn't mean to rush out. It was—"

"It's fine, El. Elliot." She swallowed as she tried to hide her mistake behind his full name, but she could almost feel the small hint of a smirk that pulled at his lips.

"Don't do that." His voice was both a reprimand and an admittance of pain as he took her elbow in his hand and urged her body to face his, "Don't act like we're different people." Her brow furrowed as she finally looked back at him.

"Elliot, It's been ten. years. I don't—"

"I know," he interrupted, taking a small and sincere step forward, "And I'm sorry."

"No," she said after a moment, shaking her head incredulously, her voice barely above a whisper. "You don't know anything about me anymore." He bit down on his lip as she turned back toward the brick barrier of the station house roof, the wind whipping the loose strands of her hair over her face. She let them be, thankful for any protection from the way he watched her as they stood in guilty silence.

She waited for him to leave, but he just lingered there, stubbornly expectant — stubbornly knowing her. Watching her fight the urge to say the things he knew she needed to say as the skies began to stir above them.

Finally, she exhaled, and he steadied himself as the thunder groaned.

"All that time, you never..." She stopped her words to stop the break in her voice, and she just breathed, letting the silence resettle between them before she spoke again. She lifted one hand from where they rested on the brick and reached into her pocket, pulling out the creased envelope before pressing her hand back where it was with the paper beneath it. "You tell me all of this now… after letting me believe something else for ten years– no for twenty years?" She let out a self-deprecating chuckle at her own foolishness, trying to mask any portion of how pathetic she felt for even having read his letter. She reined her emotions in again as drops of water began to fall between her splayed fingers and wet the handwritten note. "This doesn't fix it," she told the stormy air in front of her as she straightened her body and turned away from the edge of the roof, leaving the envelope precariously resting where her hand had been as she walked away from it, from him.

"You knew," she heard his voice call after her, and she paused as the cold rain made dark spots on their shoulders. When she turned around, she saw the resolve fall from his face. "Liv, you knew… I thought you knew."

She stared at him in disbelief, her narrowed eyes widening. "How?!" Her voice was angry, heartbroken, demanding.

"I- I don't know." he fumbled, loudly enough for her to hear him clearly over the increasing rain. "It was just there. Everyone else saw it, and... I knew how you—"

"That's great, Elliot," she cut him off, making her way back toward him with purpose, wiping the wet hair from her face as she spoke. "I'm glad you got to know I loved you while you were in Italy with your wife!" Her voice grew louder, and her eyes stayed boldly on his, her body only inches from him. "While I was here having to tell everyone you never even answered my calls. I thought I was such a fool! I was a fool to miss you like I did, to trust you like I did. And now?! You come back now after I forgot you even existed and tell me you actually did give a fuck about me?!" She pressed the tips of her fingers to her chest, "After it already changed me!" When she stopped her pained rant to take in a breath, she took him in too, and she saw a man as broken as she was, with tears to match her own brimming in his eyes, threatening to fall past the straight line of his lips. Fuck. As one last roar of thunder sounded, she suddenly realized she should've put it all aside and been comforting him instead of crushing him. She lowered her head and let one hand fall back onto the brick barrier. He saw the shift of realization in her demeanor, and he shook his head no. His hands extended the short distance to the opening of her coat, and he tightened his fists around the wool fabric that brushed against her belt buckle. He didn't pull her toward him, just kept her from pulling away.

"I said I can take it." he implored her. "I want to hear this." His unwelcomed willingness to add her pain to his own was enough to bring her guilty tears down her cheeks, and then her face was against his neck, and he was pulling the sides of his heavy coat open and around her before his arms hauled her torso flush against him. Her hand brushed along the edge of a damp envelope that stuck out of the inside pocket of his coat. The rain eased away like a wave as they breathed, slow and shallow against the other's chest for a long minute before she felt him swallow hard— no longer able to resist the nervous pull of his throat—and she lifted her face away immediately, beginning the inevitable process of untangling themselves from each other. When the last hand lost contact, he shifted his shoulders while she tucked her soaked hair behind her ear, neither looking at the shattered form of the other. Neither knowing what else to say or how to walk away.

The end. (GUYS, I ENDED SOMETHING!)