Saudade is a word fora sad state of intense longing for someone or something that is absent.

She was furious, pissed off, and gradually had been running out of patience.

Gabe had been on the receiving end of her final straw; she was sick of the bullshit, sick of the games, and sick of the tenuous dancing around. Why must men make everything so difficult?

When she pulled that gun, she had watched Fin and Amanda's nervous sideways gaze to each other, but she hadn't been fazed. She knew what she was doing, and it got the job done.

Add to that how irritated she still was with Fin after his and Phoebe's attempts at playing cupid; shooting their confused arrows off in all the wrong places.

This game they seemed to be playing was like a bag of rocks strapped to your back during a race. You know where the finish line is, you know how to get there, the end is in sight but yet, these darn rocks just keep lugging you back, taking all your energy and absorbing all of that positivity making it impossible to reach the milestones.

Four weeks had passed since he thumped his fist against her apartment door, shouted her full name for all to hear, stumbled into her apartment, dropped a bomb about that letter, dropped the atomic bomb about that last line, fell into her arms and then passed out on her couch.

It had been four weeks since she called Ayanna to come retrieve her detective, and the two women had hoisted Elliot up between them and carried him down to the lobby, past that useless security doorman, and placed him into a waiting car to stay the night with his Sergeant.

He had slurred some incoherent rambling before she pushed his dragging foot inside, told him he could call her tomorrow, and then shut the cab door.

Tomorrow came, then the next day and the weeks after...radio silence again...

Until now.

Olivia had to double bounce the glasses over her eyes. There he was, strutting through her squad room, heading straight for her office, smiling at the people he passed, and dressed in his Eddie the whoever outfit.

She watches him walk right up her door, forget to knock, and wander straight in like he owns the place. She's become familiar to how he seems to have to have replaced the word 'Hi' these days and always begins his sentences with:

"Liv."

"Elliot," she replies, shaking her head. If she was a cartoon character, her mouth would hang agape because the brazen confidence from this man is unwavering, but she's not, and she's certainly not in the mood to deal with him right now, so passive aggression will have to do instead.

"You look well." She watches his reaction as the words fell from her mouth. Olivia knows he would see straight through her even after all this time.

"How have you been?" Elliot asks, ignoring her new attitude.

He's stood there with his hands stretched in his jean pockets, his head half bowed down, half looking directly at her, resembling a child whose been sent to the neighbour to apologise for accidently smashing their window.

"How have I been?" she questions him, her exasperation pouring out with her sarcastic words. "I've been great Elliot. Why wouldn't I be?" She places her glasses down on the desk and stands up behind it.

"Liv, I..." he begins before seemingly running out of words. He strokes the front of that newfound beard she initially thought was sexy but now just the sight of it irritates her.

"What is it Elliot? What are you dropping in for today?" The sarcasm immediately falls from her voice to pick up a more hostile tone, and she's not only reached the end of her tether but she's way past it. "Am I to back off Elliot? Leave you alone? Is that what you want?"

"What is this Liv?" He furrows his brow in a form of self-shame, because even though he deserves her rage, he didn't expect her to go all in like this.

And she's still going.

"What is this?" Olivia throws her arms in the air and paced the small patch of flooring behind her desk chair. "Do you have any more career criminals that want to tell me cryptic messages of your love? Or do you just want to blurt out your own puzzling proclamation in front of your five confused children?"

He's silent and still, watching her and doing that screwing up of his face and squinting of the eyes thing he does when he doesn't want to deal with something, and it just enraged her even more.

"I can't do this anymore Elliot. I can't keep being here for you, and one minute thinking we are making progress and the next you just disappear into thin air." Her focus on him is intense, and she's waiting for him to turn around and walk back out that door.

"What do you want from me Liv?" He raises his voice slightly higher than he intended. Olivia is a captain. She knows the rules of being undercover, so she surely understands the risk he took to text her while undercover was more than he should have even considered doing. As much as he attempts to hide his irritation, he can hear it seeping out into his words. "You do realize how stubborn you are, right?"

Olivia raises her eyebrows towards him because the audacity of his words is rendering her speechless.

"Wow Elliot," she finally whispers. Fuck the eye contact, she can't even look at him right now, so she hangs her head down towards her desk in the hopes that now he will turn around and walk back out that door.

Elliot is aware he's got his fair share of apologizes to make, but he hasn't been dancing this tango for all these years single handily. He begins to move further into her office instead of cowering in the doorway because when he thinks about it, she doesn't get to be the only one furious. "I'm fine; I don't want to talk about it, not now. Familiar statements Liv? How about all the times I've wanted to talk," he continues, "and all the times you've shut me out, until you just show up that night out of the blue. I had my phone, you could have called, texted, but instead you were there hiding in the darkness of the hotel."

"I wasn't hiding in the darkness Elliot," she laughs back to him in bemusement. "I was waiting for you, I wanted to discuss that letter. You were the one not wanting to talk then."

His pitch is fast paced now as he rubs the back of his neck. "Because that's what you do Olivia, you shut me out completely, and then when you do want to talk it has to be on your terms."

"I shut you out? I shut you out? Are you being serious? You disappeared for ten years Elliot, ten years!" She doesn't even try to remain calm as she shouts over to him, and the likelihood is that the people outside of her office will hear, but she doesn't care. This has been building for a long time, and if he's happy to stand there and watch her attempt to make sense of all this mess, then he can finally hear her feelings. "So where were you when you decided to do it? Where were you Elliot, when you had the thought?"

Olivia watches him. She waits for a verbal reaction, but as he holds his hands out towards her, she slaps them away. "Where were you Elliot, when you decided that was the day you were going to cut me off?"

He huffs out whatever breath of air he didn't realize he was holding because this isn't the atmosphere to have this conversation in. "Olivia, you know it wasn't like that."

"Did Kathy hand you the phone one day and say " Oh look El, Olivia's calling," and you just went " switch it off, I'm done with her"?" As Olivia turns her back to him, she loses whatever coolness her voice previously held and she can't remember the last time, if ever, she really let go like this.

"Stop it Olivia, just stop. We need to talk." He tries to offer her a calming note but closes his eyes in resignation when she spins on her heel and directs her anger towards him again.

"We always need to talk, but you don't talk remember?" she spits back towards him, thinking she's taking the last word.

"Just stop with this morally superior bullshit Liv. You spent years shutting me out and running away, so don't start giving me all this enlightened crap because all of a sudden you've decided you can chat about your feelings." He does want to leave now because the tone of his voice isn't how he wants his words to sound.

"Oh, you have no idea. No idea at all why I think it's important to talk." Her voice has a slight huskiness to it, and even though she's thinking back to her original sessions with Dr Lindstrom, her anger is overshadowing any other emotions.

"You certainly found it important to talk to the kids about what we discussed in private?" It was more of a statement than a question, and the more they are arguing about something that doesn't need to be an argument the more passionate this whole scenario is becoming.

"You know your children came to me Elliot. Kathleen, she called me," Olivia gently reminds him. "She asked for my help and I wanted to do all I could, I wanted to help you, to protect you."

Elliot turns his back to her and moves for the door handle before taking a moment to silently look back over his shoulder.

He breaks the intense silence of the room with his cough, and after he's cleared his throat, he reveals his low voice. "How come you can protect me, but when I do something to protect you, you need a new partner because you can't trust me?" He remains still in postponement for her response.

Olivia's voice is also calmer and softer than it has been previously. "We really are going back through the years aren't we?" After she speaks, she watches him pull his hand down on that door handle, and he's about to walk away again, but she'll be damned if she's going to allow yet another conversation that's leading to somewhere to abruptly end like this, As he pulls the door open, she rushes to his side and slams it shut again.

He looks at her; he's surprised she's acting like this, and he's confused even. Elliot knows how he feels about her, how he's always felt about her, but his trauma-filled mind keeps filling him with doubts as to whether she feels the same. When he turns to face her, he can't help but look directly into her dark eyes. He's momentarily taken aback, and he can't help but wonder what untold stories are hidden behind them. Will he ever hear them? Will she ever trust him enough to tell him? Will they ever fall back into each other's sync like they once did?

Eyes to eyes, in temporary stillness, older face to older face, both minds flooding with memories and emotions from years gone by, but neither one shifts their stance.

"Do you trust me now?" he asks.

She takes a minute. "I think so." Her reply is breathy and quiet, but she doesn't relent her gaze. She draws in a deep breath as he inches himself slightly closer towards her.

Elliot looks over her face; his eyes are tracing over the bronzed glow of her cheekbones and down to the slight natural blush from her lips.

She watches him; she knows where he's looking, and she's trying to stop her mind from wandering, because what she wants the most is to understand how he's feeling. Deep inside, she knows the answer to the question she's going to ask next, but she wants to ask it anyway.

"Can I trust you El? After all, we didn't get to the bottom of the Gabe shooting did we?"

He drops his gaze and gently places his hand over hers. The slow stroke of his thumb caressing against her hand causes her to release a small smile, except it's not the type of smile she wanted it to be, it's the type of smile that your body automatically releases when you realize the effect one person can have on you, when you realize how deep this one person can make your heart drop.

"You're not going to tell me anything about it, are you?" She asks him the assumed rhetorical question.

Elliot crosses his arms in front of his chest and takes in a deep breath. He told her how that situation played out, and in the past she wouldn't have questioned his word. His disappointment leads his thoughts to re-evaluate everything that's happened since they reconnected.

He's been reaching out to her ever since he got back. He told her about the letter, he told her he loved her, he even showed up at her door and wanted to talk, but she couldn't wait to get rid of him, and as remorseful he feels about leaving her years ago, he's really trying now and he can't work out if she's pushing him away.

Noticing she's about to speak again, he finally thinks of the right thing to say.

"If you can't trust your partner Olivia, it's time to get a new one."

Olivia takes a harsh step backwards.

Wow.

That one hurt.

She knew exactly what he was doing by using her own words against her, using that statement to amplify his point.

She wants to talk to him, she wants to be able to let down her barrier, but she's terrified. She can't feel the pain of him leaving again. After everything she's been through, if he walks away, she doesn't know if she has the strength to pick herself back up again.

So she continues to look at him, the stinging sensation from her most likely bloodshot eyes are going to be giving away everything she's feeling right now, but again, she stays strong and watches him. She doesn't want to answer his question. She wants him to come to his senses himself and retract it.

Elliot can see it in her eyes; she had remembered saying that to him all those years ago, and he knows his words cut deep. As much as he can't stand to see the pain in her face, he just wants her to speak, he wants a response, he wants to know if this whole thing has only been in his head for all these years.

He blurted out his feelings before he was ready to fully comprehend them, but now he has had time. He wants to tell her about how he loves her, why he loves her, and he wants to hear how she feels.

She shifts uncomfortably, and when he watches her gaze suddenly divert to the opposing end of the room and prepare to speak, he swallows thickly because this could be the moment to end the game of all games.

"Elliot." She pauses, composing herself, taking another minute.

She prepares herself to verbalise her feelings, but attuned to the pattern of their lifestyle, a sudden knock to the door interrupts them, causing her to instantly back away from the frame.

Work mode. Captain mode.

The door opens slightly, and Fin peers his head through the gap, awkwardly directing his attentions between his captain and Detective Stabler. "Hey Captain, I'm sorry to interrupt, but is this a bad time?"

Elliot turns his back to the door and wordlessly pleads with Olivia; of course it's a bad time. They were finally about to get somewhere. Whatever Fin wants to discuss with Olivia isn't urgent. He worked with the guy for years so he knew when he was just 'checking in'.

'Tell him you need a few minutes Liv. Go on, tell him,' Elliot thinks to himself.

"No Fin, not at all." Olivia pulls her chair out from her desk and takes a seat, ushering for Fin to join her. "We were just finishing up here." She doesn't mean to sound harsh; she knows abruptly ending the conversation there is going to sting, but she wants to talk to him properly, not here; at her office.

"I was just leaving," Elliot grumbles before heading for the door to take his leave.

"Hey Stabler!" Fin shouts after him. "Phoebe wanted me to ask you if you'd be up for that dinner tomorrow night. You know with her sister?"

Elliot looks to Olivia, who isn't trying to hide her obvious irritation, and something inside of him likes that she seemed annoyed, maybe even a little jealous.

"You know what Fin? Yeah, I'll be there," he announces before smiling between the captain and sergeant before walking out of the door.

Son-of-a-bitch.

Olivia purses her lips towards Fin who immediately shoots his hands into the air.

"It was Phoebe's idea. Don't shoot the messenger," he quickly defends himself before swaying his head towards the floor and coyly looking back up to her. "You know... she's sill hounding me to get you set up with her friend Mike."

She intends to laugh and shake it off, but after watching Elliot eagerly accepting his blind date, her heart must have moved quicker than her brain because the words just spill out

"Mike huh?" she asks, and she could swear she just watched Fin swallow a gulp. "How about you invite him tomorrow? Let's make it a group thing."

"You sure Liv?" Fin hesitates, surprised by her dramatic change in approach, and if he's honest, he knows this isn't going to end well. "This wouldn't be..."

Olivia places the glasses over her eyes again and interrupts Fin's sentence. "I'm certain. I'll let Phoebe arrange. So, you wanted to talk to me?"

...TBC...