Author's Note: This chapter is longer than any of the others so far - but we begin to get some real answers, so maybe it's worth it?

The early autumn sun shined clear and bright as Olivia drove aimlessly through the streets of Queens after leaving the precinct. She'd never put much thought to Queens – except as another of the boroughs – until she met Elliot, and then it was Elliot's turf, his domain, as if one person could own an entire borough.

In the time since the shooting, she'd never managed to bring herself over the bridge, unless it was strictly for work reasons, which wasn't often.

Except, now she was here, and Eli was thankfully safe – as was Elliot, although their brief time together in the interrogation room did indicate something haunted the fringes of his mind.

He'd wanted her to stay that day; her instinct was always to run. Odd, how before, it'd been her who stayed, and him who ran. But she could only run so far, at least where he was involved; she didn't know how long his tether would have reached, had it not been for this – across the country, perhaps even across an ocean or two, all to stay away from her?

She parked the car near the park where Eli had been found, and walked to where she could see the light waves of the bay lapping in the distance. A bird called out from somewhere overhead. Being the middle of the work and school day, it wasn't as crowded as it could have been, but she remained on guard; she always did, it was one of the perils of the job.

For people like Elliot, who were able to cling to their faith even through times of peril, they found solace in the church. That had never been her, but she found what was maybe a comparable form of solace through breathing in nature and realizing there was still a fragile beauty out there, no matter how many evil people tried to corrupt it.

She could have stood there all day basking in her found serenity, except she heard her cell phone trill, breaking the spell and sending her back to reality.

"Benson."

"How's the case going?" It was Cragen, getting straight down to business, as he usually did.

She exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingertips. "Eli's okay. They found him a few hours ago."

"That's great news." She could hear a note of joy in his voice, before he continued. "Olivia –"

"He was there, at the precinct."

"And?"

"Something's wrong with Elliot. I don't know what it is, but something's wrong with him. Kathy says he's barely sleeping, he doesn't leave the house much since they had a B & E back in June, he sleeps in the guest bedroom –"

His disapproving sigh reverberated through the phone, so much so that it was as if he was standing right next to her. "I can't tell you what to do."

"No offense, but I wasn't asking for your advice, Captain."

"I'm going to give it to you anyway, as your boss and as someone who knows both you and Elliot better than you realize. You can't fight his battles for him, but also, you two have always had an oddly codependent partnership, and if that's the case, he needs you. Even if he won't admit it out loud."

"He wants me to come by the house later. I don't know why."

"I'd take him up on it. You might get some of the answers you're looking for," he said, "so, take the rest of the day, okay? Report back here at eight in the morning tomorrow, but you're good for today."

"Got it, thanks, Captain."

"He's still one of us, technically. I'll see you tomorrow, Benson."

She ended the call and found herself staring back out at the bay.

Let me in, El, please. Tell me what's going on. We always made such a great team. You don't have to go through this – whatever this is – alone. You have me.

You've always had me.

She swung by the store and picked up a stuffed elephant for Eli – to go with the one Lu and Dawes were going to give him – and a bottle of her favorite pinot noir. If she didn't end up giving it to the Stablers, she'd take it home and polish it off tonight. Quite the day I've had, and it's not over yet.

As she pulled up in front of the Stabler family residence, she reflected on the few times she'd been over here during their partnership. It hadn't been often, but she'd been there enough to know how homey it felt, unlike the home she'd shared with her own mother growing up. She'd always felt like a guest in her own home, but the Stablers' home felt lived-in and the love that they shared with each other clearly emanated from every floorboard and inch of wallpaper.

The garage was on the side of the house, and she walked over to it, drawn by a fresh need to understand what she could. Newly-installed windows and a relatively fresh coat of paint hid the worst of the damage, but she still felt herself walking over a few shards of glass. She ran her hand over the paint and imagined what their reactions must have been like.

"Olivia?" Someone was calling her name, and she turned to see Lizzie standing at the doorway. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Yeah, your dad asked me to come over." How much Lizzie knew – about the day's events, about the events of the last few months, really - she wasn't sure, but she figured that much was a safe bet.

"Mom called me during lunch and told me about you and Eli. I'm glad you were there. Are here. Whatever. It's good to see you." She smiled at Olivia, and it was hard to believe the young girl she'd met when she was small was now a high school senior with her whole future in front of her. "They had Rich repaint that this summer."

"I heard about what happened."

Lizzie's smile turned downward. "Dad doesn't like us talking about that. He thinks that if he'd been here, he could have chased them off."

"Did they take anything besides his tricycle?"

"They looked through a couple boxes of Rich's and my old things and whatever that Mom kept forgetting to take to Goodwill, but I don't think anything was missing out of there. It was a real mess." She paused, thinking for a moment, before furiously shaking her head. "I really don't think so. All of Dad's tools were untouched, and nothing else worth anything would have been out there."

Except, how much was a toddler's tricycle worth to anyone besides said toddler?

"I was going to invite you in and have some lemonade while we wait for Mom and Dad and Eli to get home," she said. "That is, if you want to come in?"

"I'll be there in a minute." Olivia turned away from the garage. It could be a red herring, or something completely unrelated, but her trained detective's instinct kept telling her there was more to it than what it appeared to be. "You think your parents would hate me if I ordered pizza for all of us for dinner? I doubt they're going to be up for cooking after today."

"You kidding? They might actually canonize you for that."

She'd placed the order for two large pizzas – one combo, like she knew Elliot would want, and by Lizzie's request, one with plenty of pepperoni. Lizzie had gone upstairs to fetch her pre-calculus homework and Rich had made an appearance long enough to say that if the food came or his parents asked where he was, he was breaking in his brand-new copy of Dark Souls on his Xbox.

So many family pictures lined the walls – snapshots illustrating a series of lives she was only fleetingly aware of. She smiled at a picture of a young Elliot with a baby Kathleen on his knee, as they peered out over the coastline. He looked impossibly relaxed, in a way she'd never seen him before.

"I always loved that picture," she heard him say, and she turned around to see Elliot standing behind her with a tentative smile flickering on his face. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you, Olivia."

"Did they teach you evasion techniques in the Marines?"

"Actually, yeah, some, but it probably helps Kathy's trying to get Eli out of the car seat right now, so you didn't hear him." He went silent, and she searched his expression for any clue as to what he might say next. "When you weren't there when we left interrogation –"

"I couldn't stay," she said. He'd see through any lie she could concoct, and if they had any prayer of mending their fractured friendship, honesty had to be the only card she could play. "Being in there with you and Kathy today, it was – it was too much, especially after –"

"I'm too much for you, now?"

"Not usually, but after four months of silence, yes, a little. Especially because all of our emotions were running high." She put her palm up and centered herself behind it, forming a tiny, yet movable, barrier between them. "I can leave if you want me to."

"Stay. Please. Just – stay, don't run. For me, for Eli, hell, I don't care if you do it to help proofread Lizzie's English essay."

I'm not the one who ran, Elliot Stabler. I stayed right where I've been, and where have you been? Right here, in this house, playing the role of an agoraphobic security guard with an itchy trigger finger?

"I'm not a dog. You don't have to tell me to stay that many times to get me to do it."

"You don't know how much that means to me."

She laughed despite herself as she walked away. A glass of wine from the bottle in her car sounded amazing, and it'd probably the only way she was getting through this night. "You can start by trying."

The way she felt his gaze lingering on her didn't go unnoticed.

"You saved the day, again," Kathy said, as she finished off the last slice of combo pizza. "First, with Eli, and now, you ordered pizza and brought us wine?"

"What can I say? I know what works when I've had a long shift at work." The pizza had been good; the conversation, about the same, though she'd caught Elliot looking over at her more often than was likely appropriate considering his wife and three of his children were at the same table. "I have a little present for Eli too."

She reached under the table and took her elephant out of its bag, before walking over to Eli, who was clutching his between his hands like it was a life preserver. Hers was a little larger than the one the detectives had given him, but looked otherwise similar. "See, Eli, the elephant you have is like you, and this one is like me, okay? Elephant mommies take care of their babies, like your mom does with you, but all the elephants take care of each other. And I'm always going to take care of you and make sure you're safe, okay?"

"Okay, 'Livia," he said, with a wide, toothy grin, before he threw his arms around her neck and gave her a sweet hug. "Thank you!"

"And you know what else about elephants?"

"What?" His precious, inquisitive little face looked at her, and she was so glad this day hadn't turned out any other way.

"Elephants never forget a single thing. So, I promise I'm never, ever going to forget about you, and you're never, ever going to forget about me, you got that?"

"Never, ever! I'm going to be like an elephant, like 'Livia said and I'm going to 'member this forever and ever and ever!" He gave her another hug and ran over to Kathy with a bounce in his step, holding onto both elephants by their respective trunks. "Mama, can I sleep with my elephants tonight?"

"Of course, you can," Kathy said, ruffling his hair beneath her fingertips. "Let's go wash up and get ready for bed, and your dad and Olivia can talk." She raised her eyebrows at them, some sort of silent signal: this would be a good time for the two of you to talk it out.

"I'll pour us more wine and meet you in the den?" Olivia asked, turning to Elliot.

"Make it whiskey for me. There's a bottle in the cabinet behind the granola bars. Rich and Lizzie would never find it there. Not when Kathy refuses to buy the ones with chocolate chips."

She met him in the den a few minutes later, glasses and bottles in hand – in case of a necessary refill, which seemed like a likely scenario. Almost as soon as she walked in, he closed the door behind her and gratefully took the glass of whiskey from her hands, downing half of it in one gulp.

"You deserve answers," he said. "Fuck, where should I begin?"

She sat on the couch and tucked her feet under her, cradling her wine glass in her hand. "I'd start at the beginning, but maybe that's just me."

"Very funny." He sat on the other end of the couch and propped his feet on the ottoman. "It started – fuck, when was it, Christmastime last year?"

"That far back?" She'd fully expected his story to start right around the time of Jenna's shooting, not all the way back in December – when she'd thought everything was normal, both between them and in his personal life.

"Yeah, it had to have been right before Christmas. You know the song 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town?'"

"Isn't that the 'he sees you when he's sleeping' song?" She wasn't exactly what she'd call a Christmas carol connoisseur, but she thought she remembered that one, at least.

"Exactly. Kathy was checking the mail one day, and there was an envelope without a stamp, addressed to Eli and the Stabler family." He shuddered. "When she opened it up, it was a Christmas card with Santa's face on it."

"I take it there's more to it than someone wanting to send your kids a sweet Christmas card."

"Uh, yeah." He folded his hands over each other and bit down on the corner of his lower lip. "Inside, uh, someone had copied some of the lyrics to that song in thick, black Sharpie. You know, 'He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good, for goodness sake.' And it was signed S.C."

"Someone had way too much time on their hands."

"It gets worse." He inhaled sharply. "More notes started appearing in our mailbox, making it clear someone was watching us. I called in a favor with an old buddy of mine who works patrol down at the 1-1-7 and had him swing by our neighborhood a few times to check on any possible funny business. Few days later, a note showed up: 'this is between us, call off the cop or we'll do it for you.'"

"And so –"

"So, I did, and I knew I couldn't get you involved – Duke's just an old friend I used to go out drinking with sometimes, but you – you're my partner, Liv, I had to protect you." His eyes darted around and with shaky, unsteady hands, he poured himself another glass of whiskey. "You remember when I had to go to Quantico back in February?"

"Yeah, and then Sonya was murdered, and you came back." She remembered the anguish and grief of the time all too well; how had that only been February? She'd thought that was going to be the worst of her year, but in reality, it was only just a taste of what was to come.

"Well – Sonya's death wasn't the only thing that happened when I was down there." He took a large sip of his whiskey and steeled his gaze on her. "I – apparently, someone slashed Kathy's tires to ribbons and spray painted her car window with the word bitch. It really rattled her, and I let her drive my car for a few days until we could get it cleaned up and get new tires."

"That's why you asked me to drive you home." Some of his strange actions from that spring were beginning to click together in her head: evasiveness, but wanting to be as close to her as he could be, even more so than their lack of personal space usually dictated.

"Exactly, and Kathy could usually drop me off early enough in the morning that it allowed me to catch up on my paperwork before you or Cragen got there."

"Okay, so you got a bunch of threatening notes, including one that threatened your beat cop friend, and someone vandalized Kathy's car when you were out of town. Am I understanding so far?" It sounded weird, threatening, maybe a little scary – okay, that Christmas card was definitely a lot scary - but not where this all connected together in her head to explain what had happened the last few months.

"Yes. You are."

"I still don't see why you couldn't have told me." Of all of what he'd said, that was the part that bothered her the most. Him not trusting her with what was going on.

"Because I didn't want you to get involved, Liv, I didn't want whoever these people were to know who you were and be able to get to you, like they threatened to do with Duke."

"I didn't need to help –"

"You and I both know that's bullshit. You're a helper, it's what makes you a great partner and cop and all-around person. And I didn't think I could risk it, because I'd never be able to forgive myself."

He was right, because of course, if she'd known that any Stabler – pick a Stabler, any Stabler would do – was in any sort of perceived danger, she'd be charging at the situation like a bull in a China shop, intent on nothing less than complete annihilation of anyone who stood in her way. It was what she'd done barely even twelve hours before, for Eli.

"Let me in, Elliot. Tell me what's wrong. What changed?"

"There was - I – when Jenna – when she was in my arms, dying because of me, all I could see was Lizzie's face, and I felt like I'd failed to protect her. They were practically the same age." He swallowed the last bit of whiskey in his glass and leaned forward on the couch, so that his clasped hands practically rested on top of her knees. "For a brief moment, I thought I'd lost Lizzie, that whoever had been tormenting us got to her."

"But it wasn't Lizzie."

"It might as well have been. I realized I couldn't do my job and protect my family from the creeps, so I filed for personal leave once IAB cleared me and I've been avoiding their phone calls ever since. And if I wasn't there, then you were protected too, since they wouldn't have any reason to go after you without me."

Time for some brutal honesty, lubricated by the slight buzz of liquid courage she felt from all the wine she'd drank that evening. "I've never felt so alone and isolated in my entire life. The one person I knew would always have my back unconditionally wasn't there anymore, and I didn't know where he'd gone."

He choked away what seemed like a sob and looked directly at her; those blue eyes, usually so determined and focused, held so much sadness. "I'm so sorry, Liv, I really did fail you."

She unfolded her limbs and met his gaze with her own, before looping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a tight hug. "You're alive. I might want to kick your ass all the way to Connecticut for not telling me, but you're alive."

They held onto each other tightly, rocking back and forth on the couch in their embrace; it was the closest she'd ever been to Elliot, sitting here on his couch, only hugging, but with their history, hugging was something that was so rare of a commodity that it was remarkable in its own right. "I'm so sorry," she heard him whisper between shaky tears, "I'm so, so sorry, Liv."

And gradually, she thought she could actually begin to believe him.

-to be continued-