A/N: Fun fact - this fic is the one I most frequently get comments on of readers going, "Please finish this!" It also happens to have the highest number of subscriptions of my fics on AO3. Lol A lot of you probably figured an update wasn't coming ... but look! Ooooo! Enjoy!

Rating: MA

Spoilers: Fault, Undercover, Swing, and vaguely the 500th and the new season of OC

Trigger warnings: reference to physical injury and vomiting, graphic description of past sexual assault, angst, anxiety,

- IV -

It had been nearly a year since Olivia had held him – yet the hug felt surprisingly similar. The taut pull of his posture in her arms, the heaviness of his sigh as he resettled the weight of whatever it was he couldn't, or wouldn't, express. His sniffles were quiet, more restrained than his first outburst. She took a trembling breath and made the decision to put him out of his misery.

"El . . . Elliot. Lowell Harris didn't rape me," she told him firmly.

There was a pause to accommodate the change in Elliot's demeanor. Embarrassed, he pulled back, scrubbing his good hand over his eyes again. He blurted, "That's not what - "

His jaw snapped shut abruptly.

Liv's brow furrowed. " 'Not what'? . . ." she repeated, but it was too late. Elliot saw the exact moment that she put the pieces all together – him drinking, the busted knuckles.

That's not what Harris said.

The look that she fixed on him was unnerving. Olivia plucked her hands from him as if he burned to the touch and quickly got to her feet. "No, Elliot . . . tell me you didn't."

"I didn't put him out of his misery, if that's what you mean," her partner grumbled, not directly meeting her gaze.

"So what did you do?" she pushed, hands going nervously to her hips.

"What was I supposed to do?!" Elliot bit back, louder than he had intended, "I knew you were lying to me about nothing happening – and the only reason to lie about nothing is if nothing is something!" He got to his feet then as well, and faced her in his defiance. "Tell me what he did to you, Liv!"

She was light-headed with her rage, at Harris for lying, at Elliot for overstepping boundaries - but especially at both men's insistence on having everything their fucking way.

"We've been here before, Elliot – right here. I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you then: if you can't trust your partner, you need a new one."

"That's not what this is about, and you know it."

"Oh no? Because I'm pretty sure you just called me a liar, Stabler."

Elliot took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Dammit, Liv, don't act like you haven't downplayed every traumatic thing in your life with me in the last ten years - because you and I both know that's a crock! You don't have to play Mother Theresa with me – or Wonder Woman, or whatever your preferred cover is." He searched her face to find that her anger had finally faltered a little. He knew the Harris story – whatever it was – was eating her up inside.

C'mon, Liv, he thought, let it out. Give it to me to carry. Let me help. "Y'know, I thought we were getting somewhere with these questions," he said more softly. "I thought you could talk to me."

She didn't want him to be right, and the worst part was, he was right about all of it. Okay, not about whatever he had done to Harris . . . but even in that, part of her knew that's what she had wanted all along. If Elliot had been in that dark, foul prison basement, Olivia knew it would have taken more than just herself and Fin to get Elliot off Harris before he'd killed him.

Even not telling him hadn't been about protecting Harris or keeping Elliot from another rip in his police jacket. No. It had been about maintaining her reputation; about not wanting to have to prove herself all over again like a rookie. It had been nearly three years since Gitano, and she could still hear what El had shouted at her

(I can't be looking over my shoulder making sure you're okay!)

and despite knowing the fear that had driven that anger then, Olivia would never allow herself to become that version of herself to him.

"Well, if you'd stuck to just the questions and not accusing, we would've been better off. You'd have less injuries, and I wouldn't be down a goddam steak! I think it's time for you to leave, El."

She turned toward the door and it took everything in him not to roar with frustration. Not this again. He wouldn't have it. How many times was she going to try and kick him out of her apartment before realizing that they just crashed back into each other in some infinite fucking loop?

"You want to answer the questions?" he replied, "We'll go back to the questions! Here!" He lunged for his cell even as she was walking to the apartment door, forgetting himself and grabbing it with his swollen hand.

"Here it is: Tell your partner what you like about them. Be honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met." Elliot looked up. She had stopped walking and crossed her arms over her chest.

He straightened up to his full height and met her gaze unflinchingly. "Olivia Benson, you are the strongest, bravest woman I know. You're the best partner I ever had." With every statement, Elliot took a step closer to Liv, until he had closed the distance enough to drop his voice. "Anything that did or didn't happen in that basement wasn't your fault. It could never change how I see you."

Liv's eyes brimmed with tears, both moved by his words and vaguely ashamed at what Harris might have said to Elliot. "What did he tell you he did to me?" she asked, anxiety enveloping her at the thought of the images Elliot must have in his head.

"Forget what he said. Tell me whatever it is you want to tell me," her partner said firmly, reaching for one of her hands with his good one.

She inhaled a shaky breath as he pulled her closer, keeping her gaze on where their hands linked. "He took me to the basement . . . "

Elliot clenched, fighting to stay calm for her sake.

"I knew what he wanted," she whispered, and her tone was hollow as she was thrown back into the memory. "So I started fighting from the get. When it started to become obvious that I wasn't going to be able to – to fight him off, I – " she broke abruptly, the tears in her eyes streaming hotly, "I hid, Elliot!" she whispered in a hiss, "L-like I was a child!"

He reeled her the rest of the way into his chest as the first sob carved its way out of the hiding place she had built in her chest for the pain. "I'm sorry, Olivia. I'm so sorry – I should have been there."

Her tears soaked his shirt as she got it all out, sharing the horror at last. "When he found me, he pinned me against the door – it was the only way out – and he-h-h," her breath hitched as she heaved and remembered, and Elliot was right there this time, to hold her. "I was screaming when he was taking off his pants, and . . . "

"Shh-shh-shh," he calmed her, "you don't have to say it."

Liv shook her head vehemently. "He wanted me to," she swallowed against the urge to vomit, "he wanted to put it in my mouth!"

Her last words came out so timid that Elliot felt his heart crack. Jesus Christ, he would kill him. Against closed eyelids he relived the satisfaction of his knuckles connecting with Harris' jaw, nose, mouth.

"It was so close, Elliot," she mumbled. "Jesus, so close. If Fin hadn't come through that door . . . " she shuddered noticeably in his arms.

His mouth was dry, even his good hand aching from clenching it. Harris' voice from that afternoon

(her throat was like velvet)

churning the sour alcohol in his gut. It was out there between them, now, like he had wanted and he was hit all at once with the consequences. The full force of the guilt of not being there, of her having kept it inside so long. The burn of rage that came with his want to obliterate Lowell Harris from the planet, the ache in his chest at wanting to give Olivia just some small piece of the love and care that she deserved.

.

.

He wakes up hours later, unsure of his surroundings with a mouth and throat drier than the Mojave. When he tries to roll over, his kneecap cracks off a coffee table and he curses into the dusky shadows.

Olivia's.

His knuckles throb as if in answer, and everything comes crashing back at once, like a mini documentary of all his fuckups over the last twelve hours. Eyes straining, he looked for a clock but settled on grabbing his cell instead. It was just after three, and all he wanted to do was check on her.

Elliot prayed that her bedroom door wouldn't be shut, knowing that it would feel like too much of a symbolic boundary right now for him to breach. Instead, he found it mostly open, as if she had anticipated his waking and coming to her. He stepped inside the quiet sanctuary that he had never once been in, gaze going immediately to the bed.

Olivia hadn't even bothered to pull down the blankets, just curled atop them like a visitor in her own home.

"Sometimes I'm not even sure why I own a bed."

El grabbed the blanket from the foot of the bed and pulled it over her quickly, his efficiency honed on years of fitful children kicking blankets to the floor. When he finally turned to leave, however, her voice rose faintly up and out to him.

"Don't go."

Stepping out of his shoes, he sat on the other side of the bed, back resting against the headboard, legs crossed at the ankles.

Rolling over, Olivia looked up at the ceiling and asked, "Did you want to finish the questions?"

The glow of his cell screen brightened the bedroom as he thumb-scrolled to where they left off. "How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?"

"You go," Liv told him, "we've talked about mine more than yours."

Now there was an understatement. He still didn't know that his mother and Olivia had even met; she had made a promise to Bernie that she intended to keep. But she was desperately curious about the woman, and how Elliot related to her.

Elliot was quiet in the light of the phone screen until it dimmed and then shut off again. "My relationship with my mother is, um . . . strained." He winced slightly and frowned. "I grew up with this fear that I would turn into her. That someday, I was just gonna snap and I'd be one more crazy Stabler."

As if the dark had given him the courage, he kept going: "I begged her, as a kid, you know. Begged her to be more rational. To be 'normal.' God knows we kids could'a used more of it. Some kinda happy medium between my old man and . . . well, whatever Mama was, when she was off on one of her wild ideas."

"You didn't know that she couldn't help it, El."

"But we love each other," he stressed, "I wanna hope that's what matters. It would still be nice for her and I to understand one another. You know, someday."

Do you forgive her? Olivia wanted to ask, but swallowed her words. "I think you know how I feel about my relationship with my mother," she told him.

He moved on. "Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be and why?"

It didn't take as long as he had expected for her to answer. "There's a box," she said, "that I keep shoved in a closet, usually. Other than what's at the office, the box has everything in it that would be worth saving. My high school year book . . . some old letters, a journal from college. Oh, and cassette tapes."

El chuckled at that one. "Olivia's Greatest Hits?" he teased. "Must be some great tunes on 'em to grab outta a fire."

Olivia's look was a bit far away, noticeable to him even in the dim glow. "Not so much that," she said softly. "I have my mother's voice on one - couple of recorded lectures. Maybe a mixed tape or two." She huffed a laugh at her own sentimentality.

"You don't think that's cheating the question, keeping all that stuff in the one box?"

"Way too late into these questions to be making up new rules, Stabler. It's not cheating, it's practical," she emphasized. She propped herself up a bit on an elbow, facing where he was stretched out. "What would you save?"

His mind wanders over all the dusty collections of his life and marriage squirrelled away in Queens: cards made by each of his kids growing up, wedding photos, sonograms, report cards, baby teeth taken by the Tooth Fairy. The question takes him much longer, remembering something else each time he settles on something that seems like the right thing.

At last, his eyes brighten as he finally lights on a fitting item. "Tubby!" he blurts, as if he should have known all along.

Liv simply stares, waiting for him to clarify whether this word references a lucky football trophy or a taxidermy raccoon of some sort.

"It's - it's a stuffed animal," he laughed. "A stuffed Hippopotamus to be exact. We got it for Maureen when she was a baby, and somehow it's lasted through all of the kids mostly intact. Even Kathleen! They all loved it."

"Well, let's hope you move faster than poly fibres catch," Liv grinned. "What's the next question?"

Elliot's gaze changed in the dark. "There's only one question left," he admitted.

Olivia's disappointment was immediate and obvious.

"But, I think we should skip it." He swallowed, crossed and uncrossed his legs, avoided her eyes.

She sat up even more, indignant at his wanting to leave things unfinished. "Why?!" she demanded.

Because I'm terrified, he thought. It was the answer to both the question on the phone, and the one she was asking.

"It's late, you need some sleep," Elliot said weakly.

"Don't give me that," she dismissed, narrowing her gaze at him. "Let me see the question and decide for myself."

When she reached for his phone, El dodged her like they were teens and he was playing Keep Away. Liv was too impatient and competitive to play easy, simply throwing herself at him, all elbows and knees until she wrestled the phone into her grasp.

"Lucky for Simon you guys didn't meet as kids," Elliot wheezed, heart pounding as he waited for her to scroll to the final question.

"If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone," she read aloud, "what would you most regret . . . " Her voice trailed off as she read the end of the question. Olivia cleared her throat. "What would you most regret not having told someone . . . and why haven't you told them yet?"

The silence that filled up the room then was diffident and powerful. Both knew they could choose a lie to tell. They both could tell the truth and shatter the illusion they had kept up for 10 long years.

One could lie, and one tell the truth, and in the morning they would walk away from their partnership, unable to stand on any more untruths.

Or they could not answer the question, like Elliot had suggested, and maybe go on another ten years. Knowing the answer but not speaking it . . . sharing their lives but not really living them.

Olivia wouldn't go to the Canyonlands, wouldn't share her bed, or have that perfect day.

Elliot would go to confession and tell himself he never wondered about what songs were on those mixtapes in her closet, or what their child together would look like.

Thirty-six questions later, and love seemed much less simple. It was more Truth or Consequences and less Twenty Questions.

"That's, um," Liv tried quietly, licking her lips, "that's a lot."

"Yeah."

"We -"

"We don't have to - " he started again, watching her glance back to the phone.

"Wait. There's something else here," she told him, scrolling further down the screen. "The final task is to stare silently into your partner's eyes for four minutes. It's important to finish with this step. Some people have described this step as thrilling and terrifying. Good luck."

She stopped reading and looked at him curiously. "Want to try that instead?" she shrugged, as if they hadn't just flirted at the edge of destroying his marriage and their partnership with one question.

"Why not?" he replied, ready to take any option that would absolve him of speaking the truth they were hovering too close to together.

"Do you want me to come up, or are you coming down?" she asked, passing him back the phone.

"Huh?"

"So that we're eye to eye," she explained, gesturing to their positions on the bed.

"Oh."

Olivia told him to set a timer for four minutes, then reached to the bedside table and flicked on a lamp so their eyes could adjust to the light.

Elliot cleared his throat and set the phone on the bed between them, scooting down and onto his side so they faced each other.

"Whenever you're ready."

They had been partners a decade. Ten years of meals, stakeouts, meetings, interrogation, stealing sleep in the crib, riding shotgun, chasing perps - he had looked at her easily a million times. Brushed her hand, rubbed her neck, caught her in a trip, caught her eye when he needed to convey a signal.

But stared?

Straight into her eyes?

For minutes at a time?

The closest they had been to that was, well . . . the standoff with Gitano. His mind rewound suddenly to that awful moment, remembering how much had translated to their gaze when their words were restricted.

A blink, and it was gone again, leaving just his growing fear that maybe he should have chosen what was behind door number one, instead of this wild card.

Liv was already looking at him with her wide, beautiful dark brown eyes. Elliot hit start on the timer and met her gaze.

To Be Continued . . .

A/EN: Things have been rough for me since August, when I ended up in the hospital with an infected dog bite. Follow the my Instagram to see the few items I am asking for help with right now. You can find the link to my KF and there, if you would like to help by tipping your writer. Thank you all so much for reading!

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