A/N: So, I got tired of waiting for someone to tell me what's in the letter. I'm losing my mind over next Thursday, so I thought I'd drop some prediction content on you while we wait.

This is a two-shot because I'm still not totally clear on when Elliot wrote the infamous letter. Was it before the explosion or after Kathy died? So, the first chapter is my version of the letter if written before he returned to New York and the second is written as if he wrote it after Kathy.

Let me know what you think!

Dear Liv,

I'm sitting here the night before we're going to board the plane to come back to New York for your ceremony. It feels a little like the night before you have to testify in court. What will happen? Will it go like we planned and rehearsed, or will the defense ask some off-the-wall question you step right into?

When I RSVP'd to your awards ceremony, they asked me, as your first partner at SVU, to give a speech about what it was like to work with you and the accomplishments you've made in your career. You know me and public speaking. So, I thought it might be better to write you a letter instead, to let you know what I would have said if I didn't turn into a total mess in front of the public.

But more than that, while yes, I was your first partner at SVU, I don't think I'm qualified to speak about your accomplishments now and how you got to where you are today, because I've missed the last 10 years, and maybe the most impressive 10 years of your career. I only have myself to blame.

I can't go any further with this letter without telling you I'm sorry. There are no words to explain why I left and never called you back. I got your voicemails. I read your texts, but I just couldn't answer you. I was in a bad way. I've tried to tell myself for years that the reason I never called you back is that I knew you'd try to get me to return to SVU and I just didn't want to. But that's not true.

The truth is that I was scared and being a coward. I couldn't walk back into the squad room after what I'd done. I didn't want you to see me that way. I didn't want to have to look into your eyes and see pity, or hear you stand up to IAB for me when what I had done was wrong. If you'd done that, we may not be going to the Women in Policing awards ceremony because they would have taken you right down with me. Plus, I knew if I heard your voice, I never would have been able to leave.

But that's exactly what it's like to work with Olivia Benson. You care harder than anyone I've ever met. You give so much of yourself every day. You're compassionate with the victims and tougher than nails with the perps. You know what's right and you never give up. Even in the cases where we were at each other's throats, they were so hard to work because you were so dedicated, and you were usually right where I was wrong, which made it even more insufferable for a macho hothead like me.

I can't get back the last 10 years of leaving you and trying to pretend you were better off without our partnership and friendship, but I wish every day that I could. I'm so sorry that I've missed your rise to Sergeant, Lieutenant, and now Captain. My God, I know Cragan has to just be over the moon happy for you in all this. You were always his favorite out of all of us, even if he couldn't admit it out loud.

But I think we all knew that you were destined for great things. I'm so regretful that I missed it all. I've been working with an NYPD task force in Rome for the last few years and I'm meeting with some colleagues while we're in the city, then we're heading back overseas. I wish I could spend more time with you while we're here, but with the way work's been going, I think I'll have to start traveling back and forth more frequently.

If that's the case, or even if it's not, I hope that one day, either in person, on the phone, or through letters, we can talk. I'd like to get to know you again, Liv. I want to know the whole story behind your rise through the ranks and how you turned into even more of a real-life Wonder Woman than we all thought you were. I'd like to share with you the things I've seen and done with this task force. It'd blow your mind.

Moreso though, I'd like to make you part of our family again. You have always been so important to my kids. Helping them when they needed it. Helping me get through to them in the right way when they were involved in a legal mess. They ask about you sometimes, especially Kathleen. We have a picture from the day Eli was born, in the hospital. One of the nurses took it. Kathy's holding him, I'm standing at her bedside, and you're in the background, looking on and smiling. When Eli was a kid, he asked about you a lot, who the woman in the photo is. Kathy used to tell him you were his guardian angel. And it always hurt, Liv, that he had to ask who you were and he didn't just "know." So I'd like you to meet him too. He's 14 now, and thankfully not quite as spiteful of his parents as Dickie was at that age.

I'm stalling now because I don't know how to end this letter. I don't want to end it. Because if I hand this to you at the awards ceremony and you don't contact me, or worse, you blow me off while we're there, then I'll have to accept that there's no way to repair what I've damaged. And I don't know if I can take that.

If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, or at the very least, be civil with me, I would love to talk to you more.

Please know that I am so proud of the woman you are, Olivia Benson. You mean so much to so many, whether you see it or not. SVU, the NYPD, the city of New York, and the world are so lucky to have you in it. And the Stablers, too, all of us, are better for having known you.

Partners for life and Semper Fi,

El