AN: Well, it's officially the first day of summer, so I thought it would be appropriate to drop the first chapter of my summer story. I know a lot of people look forward to this, and I feel so lucky that people do. It's a fun way to let off some steam and make my favorite characters let loose a little.

As you can tell from the story, this is set in the 1.0 universe. Probably season 6ish or 7ish, but Elliot is divorced. I try to stay close to canon, but I do take a little license in these summer romps, so hopefully that's ok. A special shoutout to kukrae because when I told her my story was going to be a road trip, she had all kinds of awesome suggestions and sent me tons of videos.

Drop me a line on Twitter or a review on FF if you enjoy this first chapter or are looking forward to the story. And, as always, thank you for reading my FF.

EOEOEO

Elliot took a sip of coffee, making a face when he realized it was already cold. "Stake-outs suck." He lowered his window, pouring out the hour old brew. As he powered the window up, he unceremoniously dropped the empty paper cup on the floor of the back seat behind Olivia.

"You're just figuring that out now?" Olivia glanced at him briefly, before bringing her eyes back to the doorway of the apartment a block down from where they'd be sitting for the past four hours.

"No. But every time, I keep hoping it'll be better than I remember."

"Always the optimist." Olivia said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

Elliot chuckled. "Hey, it's way better than being stuck in the car with Fin." Elliot glanced over at her. "He really hates stake-outs." He looked back out the windshield. "He doesn't laugh at my jokes, he never goes to get the coffee, and if I'm going to be cooped up in this small space, I'd rather do it with someone that always smells so damn good."

Olivia was surprised by the personal comment, especially about something so clearly out of the boundaries of the professional relationship. If he told her she was a badass, or that her empathy with a victim made a difference, that was one thing, but this was oddly intimate. She didn't know what to do with it. "You're saying you don't like Fin's cologne?" She teased.

"I'm saying I always prefer spending more time with you."

Olivia pressed her lips together because there it was again. Another comment that was clearly personal but could be work related. "Well, in a couple of weeks, you'll be stuck with me 24/7."

"24/7 huh?" He glanced over at Olivia. "They making partners share a room at the conference?" Elliot teased. He stared at her for a moment, surprised to see that his comment had flustered her a bit.

Olivia wished the suspect they were watching would show up because she needed a distraction from this conversation. She glanced back at Elliot, raising a brow as her eyes met his. "You wish." She shot back, hoping a little bit of her own innuendo would shut him down. She saw the slow grin on her partners face and realized she should have known better.

"We could save the NYPD some money…" Elliot chuckled slightly as Olivia looked away, and although she'd deny it, he swore he saw a slight flush in her cheeks. He knew he was pushing things a little, but in a way, he was testing the waters. They both knew there was something between them, but it had stayed there, undefined, and unacknowledged because he'd had a wife back home. A family to protect.

But now…he'd been living as a single man for just over six months, and he was starting to think that perhaps he'd like to put a name to this thing. He just didn't know where she stood on the idea.

"There he is!" Olivia practically yelled as she pointed at their suspect, exiting the apartment building they'd been watching. She'd never been so thankful for a scumbag to make an appearance. "Let's go."

Elliot pulled out slowly, keeping the suspects car in sight, leaving his musings to later.

EOEOEOEO

"So, I have an idea." Elliot said as he dropped a small bakery bag on Olivia's desk and rounded them both to his side. He stood there, watching as she examined the contents, almost laughing because she already knew what it would contain. He always got her favorite.

"This ought to be good." Olivia leaned back in her chair, wondering what he was up to now. Their most recent case was closed. They'd caught their suspect red-handed just a few days ago, and things had been relatively quiet. She'd been waiting for the shoe to drop, because it always did, but the few calls that had come in had been pretty quick to resolve. A batterer behind bars, a couple of kids removed from their drug-addicted mother's home and placed with the concerned father, a strung-out teen safely delivered to a rehab facility.

Elliot sat down in his chair, seeing the skepticism on his partners face. "We both have quite a few days coming to us, right?"

"You could say that." Olivia said cautiously. She knew she had at least three weeks of vacation stacked up and she couldn't even begin to count the number of personal days or comp time. She'd already been thinking about taking a few extra days after the conference and getting in some beach time, but she had planned on doing that alone. She'd been thinking about Elliot too much lately, in ways that she shouldn't be thinking about him, and a few days away seemed like a good way to clear her head.

"So…" He dove in, without giving himself a chance to back out. "I was thinking we should take a few extra days and drive out to San Diego." He watched her face to gauge her reaction, and he saw surprise there, but he wasn't sure what else was mixed in with it.

Olivia sat up in her chair, her mind swirling with all that a cross country trip with Elliot could entail. "You do realize that San Diego is in California, right?" She started with a tease, a distraction. "Clear across the United States?"

"Okay. More than a few days." Elliot conceded.

"Why would I want to do that?" Olivia asked, asking sincerely. A five-hour plane ride already sounded torturous enough.

"Because you've never been out of Manhattan?"

"I have been outside of Manhattan." Olivia said, somewhat indignantly. "Thank you very much."

"Long Island and New Jersey don't count." Elliot teased. I saw by the look on her face that he was spot on.

"Well, why would I ever want to leave?" She'd been born here, and she'd happily die here. She didn't suffer from wanderlust. "And…" She pointed out. "I am going to San Diego."

"That's not exactly an adventure." Elliot said, disappointed that she wasn't excited about the idea of a trip. "It's a big, beautiful country between here and there. There's so much to see. Aren't you just a little bit interested?" He'd been thinking about this for a few days now, trying to weigh all the pros and potential cons of a trip like this, but he'd finally decided to go ahead and float the idea. Now that he had, he really wanted it to happen.

Olivia could see the excitement in his face, in his body language, and she saw another side of Elliot that maybe she hadn't seen before. Or maybe it was that inside of every man there was still some essence of a little boy, searching for adventure and excitement and that's what she saw a glimpse of now. "How many days?" She asked, hoping Elliot didn't take her question as a commitment to going.

"I don't know. I'd have to map it out. See where we'd want to go and where we'd want to stop." He was on a roll now, the anticipation growing. "It's about 42 hours if we drove straight through but of course, we'll want to stop along the way. There's so much to see." He did some rough calculations in his head. "Maybe 8 days? 10?"

Olivia shook her head. "Cragen'll never let us have that much time off." The conference itself was only a long weekend, but that would mean they'd be out for two weeks.

"I might have already talked to him. You know, theoretically, and he said we could use a break. He can bring in reinforcements."

Olivia raised one eyebrow, seeing that Elliot really had put a lot of thought and preparation into this before he brought it up with her. It meant he really wanted it to happen, but she still had her trepidations. "What if we break down, or something happens, and we don't make it to the conference? Cragen will have our asses."

"I don't know Liv. Maybe we drive back instead of driving out there. Either way, we'll have some kind of deadline to worry about. I just need to know if you'll go with me. Then I'll figure out all the places we can go, and we can decide what'll work best." He already had an end destination in mind. A night camping in the desert at Anza Borrego in the California Desert. It was breathtakingly beautiful in the spring. He had camped there in the Marines, and he thought she'd love it. But first, he thought he'd ease her into camping along the way. A fact that he'd purposefully failed to mention when convincing her to go. But either way, it worked. It would be an end cap to a wonderful road trip, or a kind of test night for camping on the way back. He'd take either if he could share that beautiful spot with her.

"And you're sure Cragen is okay if we're gone for a couple of weeks." She hoped to God she wasn't going to regret this, but a part of her was excited about the thought of the two of them being away from everyone and everything.

The other part of her was scared as hell.

"Talk to him yourself." Elliot couldn't keep the grin off his face. She hadn't said yes but she may as well have. He could always tell when she was going to relent.

"What car would we take?"

"I looked into renting a Jeep. We can rent it here and drop it in San Diego when we're done. Or…" He twirled his finger in the air. "Or the other way around will work too." He didn't tell her that he'd been searching on Jeeps with camping packages built in and wasn't sure when he should drop the idea of camping for a few of the nights. By the look on her face, he was going to leave it for their next conversation.

Olivia blew air out between her lips, her mind whirling with all that could go wrong. And all that could go right. Elliot was right. She'd never really been out of the city, at least not for anything fun. She'd never really thought about going anywhere else in the U.S., but now that he'd opened that window, she thought it might be fun to see some more of the country. "Would we be going to the mountains?"

"We'll pass through the Appalachians, but I thought we'd hit the Rockies too." Denver and Telluride had been on his list.

"The desert?"

"Half of California is desert." He exaggerated. "So, yes."

"And I can drive sometimes?"

Elliot chuckled. "Yes, you can drive sometimes."

"Wait, are you one of those drivers that won't stop for coffee or bathroom breaks?"

"Liv, I'll stop as often as you'd like if it means you'll go." Elliot said. "You can even control the music selection for the entire trip, and I won't complain about the crap you choose." He laughed out loud because they never could agree and 4 out of 5 times, they kept the radio turned off because of it.

"Why do I think I'm going to regret this?" She said, but there was a smile on her face. "Okay." She held up a hand. "But…" She dragged out the word, making sure he heard what she said. "I want you to map out what you're thinking so we can decide if we do it on the way there or the way back. Deal?"

"Deal."