Summary: Elliot gets a call in April 2014, Olivia needs help and the events of the weeks that follow will change both of their lives. When he returns again in April 2021 and his wife is killed by a car bomb, how do Elliot and Olivia navigate their new normal after years apart.

AN: This is my first foray into SVU, leaving behind my home fandom of Gilmore Girls. This will be Elliot and Olivia and there will be some time bouncing which will be clearly labelled. Please read, review, enjoy...if you don't review we don't know if you like it. If we don't know if you like it, we don't write as much...these are the simple facts. This is canon until season 12, and then there are a few liberties but then back to canon. Please see the AN at the end of the chapter for more details.

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf owns all characters

Chapter One

April 2021

Olivia hadn't even stopped to think before responding to the call on her radio. An award could wait, with everything going on in the city, not to mention her proximity to the call, she knew she had to stop. The first glimpse she caught was of chaos. She was certainly overdressed for the scene she was stepping into. There was rain and smoke and sirens. Absolute chaos and first responders and then it was Kathy. She did a double take, unsure at first if her mind was playing tricks on her as it had hundreds of times over the past decade.

"Kathy?" She wasn't sure if she had said it out loud or only to herself but then she watched as the medics pushed past her and loaded Kathy Stabler onto an ambulance.

"Liv," his voice filled her ears next and Olivia was sure she was hallucinating.

"Elliot?" She saw him and she couldn't be sure what to say, what to think, what to do. They walked towards each other, and despite the fact that they were surrounded by people, somehow Olivia almost managed to forget all that.

"They tried to kill her," he spoke next as they stood about a foot apart. "They tried to kill Kathy…"

The scene was chaotic. Olivia couldn't be sure what to think. What to do, what to say…it was all a blur. As if it wasn't traumatic enough, a bombing, a victim with severe burns…to know that the victim was Kathy Stabler, to know that Kathy and Elliot were back in town. To know that for a moment in time they were all existing in the same little universe after so many years apart…to know that Kathy had been injured…it was all too much. It felt like the ground was crumbling beneath her.

The next few hours were a blur. Elliot was at the hospital and then the precinct, she knew he needed to be at the hospital, he knew he needed to be at the hospital, but for some reason he felt the need to be in this. It was nearly impossible for the lines between them not to get blurred. For a moment she felt like the rookie cop that he had protected for all of those years, but this was her house now, not his and even if he wasn't about to thank her for it in that moment, she wasn't going to let his hot head ruin whatever case they were making.

"Elliot," Olivia exhaled as they stood in her office, he looked beyond her and saw the pictures lining the shelves, "you need to go to the hospital. You need to be with your family. Let..let me do my job, let us," she gestured to the space around her, vaguely referring to the family she had created over the decade he was gone, "let us do our jobs. We will get the guy who did this to Kathy. But you…you need to be there for her when she wakes up. You need to be there for your family. They need you right now. Where are the kids?"

"Maureen is…she's on her way, Dickie and Lizzie are at the hospital…Kathleen is on her way, but she's trying to get Eli on a flight…"

"Where is Eli?" Olivia asked, she assumed that he had been with them, maybe he was just at a hotel nearby, wherever it was they were staying for whatever it was they were back for. "God what were you even doing here? What was she doing in that car?"

"Eli is in Rome," Elliot started with her first question, "Kathy and I…we just decided to come back…Finn called," he was rambling now, answering parts, giving bits of information, "he told me about the ceremony…I was testifying…we just thought we could do it all. Kathy thought it would be fun to come back. She hasn't been back here in years…"

"Go to the hospital," Olivia told him firmly. "I've got this."

xxx

Olivia could see as she walked down the hall towards him, she could see that he was anything but alright. Her stomach dropped when she reached him and saw the empty hospital room. It took her a second before she had wrapped him up in her arms, "Elliot," Olivia exhaled as he held her tightly. He was completely still, she could feel him breathing, she just didn't know what to do, what to say…nothing she could say would be enough. "I'm so sorry."

"I just…she was…" he couldn't even put words together. He had never thought it would be Kathy, not before him. He would believe anyone who said that Elliot and his stupid antics on the job would get him killed, but it never crossed his mind that Kathy could go before him, and certainly not like this. "I need to…"

"Where are your kids?" Olivia asked, she let go of his body and held him at arms length, trying to catch his eye and get him to focus on her. "Where is Kathleen?" She had seen the kids at the hospital. They weren't kids anymore. They were adults with partners and lives. They had embraced her immediately, thanked her for being with them in those hours where they thought that maybe their mother would make it.

"They're with Maureen. All of them…they're going to get Eli at the airport when he lands. He doesn't know," Elliot ran a hand over his buzzed hair, "God, he got on the plane and his mother was alive and how … how do I tell him his mother is dead? God, she was everything to him…he was everything to her." It had been the three of them in Rome, but in so many ways it had been the two of them. For the first time in their marriage, Kathy had felt like she was only parenting one child, and it had been so different than when she was just a kid herself with Maureen, and then Kathleen, then the chaos of the twins…Eli was in many ways an only child and Kathy was the kind of mother who she had always dreamed of being when her other four were younger.

That was a feeling Olivia could understand. The idea that her child was everything to her. She felt that every day. Especially nights like this where she was stuck at a hospital or in the precinct instead of at home where she was needed. Nights when Lucy read a bedtime story and prepared dinner instead of her. "You will get through this," she told him firmly. It wasn't lost on her, or him that she was treating him like a victim, in the hours since she had stumbled upon the Stabler family, she had bounced between talking to him like he was a friend, a victim, her partner, an acquaintance and everything in-between, "we all have your back. I have your back."

Elliot nodded, without even realizing he brought his lip into his mouth and bit down, "where is she?" He asked.

"Elliot now is not the time," Olivia told him firmly. "Your wife just died."

"You said I needed to be with my family," Elliot countered dryly.

Olivia blinked slowly, she couldn't believe they were doing this here of all places. Of all of the moments they had shared over the years, she couldn't believe this was the one he was throwing in her face.

April 2014

He wasn't sure what to do. Elliot had been undercover for almost a full year, a few months since his last contact with his squad in Rome, working for the NYPD and their international office, he was surprised to get the message asking for the meet. Even more surprised when instead of talking on the phone with his handler, it was Fin Tutuola on the phone.

"Look man, it is bad…"

"What's bad?" Elliot couldn't say her name. In the off chance someone around him was listening, he wouldn't risk breathing her name into the universe. He couldn't. He had hurt her enough.

"Jesus, do you not watch the news?" Fin countered. "God where the hell are you?" Fin asked knowing he would never get an answer. He had pulled more strings than he cared to admit to even have a conversation with Elliot Stabler. He didn't really want to talk to the man, but he needed to, he needed him to know what the hell was happening even if he could only speak in riddles and provide vague pieces of information. "She's gone, and she…it's going to be harder for her to come back from this. She needs you. If you can…"

The line went dead before Elliot could ask any other questions and then a moment later the payphone rang again. This time it was his handler. Somehow by some divine intervention, Elliot was being given a couple of weeks off from being a mobster. It wouldn't be immediate. It wouldn't be instant…pulling him out would be a process, it would take time. But he would get more details later. In the meantime all Elliot could think about is what the hell was going on with Olivia and how he could find out.

He did find out. Bits at a time. He had purposely avoided whatever he could about what was happening in New York City since he left…then when he went under he tried to avoid anything that could be tracked back to his normal life. He didn't want anyone to have a hint of anything to do with his kids or his family, his wife, the people he had left behind. But now…now he could see it. He imagined that his girls had tried to get ahold of him, he couldn't imagine Kathleen not telling him about Olivia…but somehow, somehow after being so connected for twelve years, he hadn't known. Shouldn't he have known? Shouldn't he have had some feeling. Some sense of the earth shifting when she needed him? They had always been so in sync.

It took another two weeks to safely get him out. He was attacked, or it was supposed to seem like he was attacked. It was made to look severe enough that he would need surgery and recovery time, and that is how he managed a vacation from the Italian mafia. He boarded a private plane in the cover of darkness, not bothering to question who the hell was paying for the jet, all he could think about was getting to her. Kathy didn't know he had left the country, Kathy didn't know anything about this. Elliot would connect with her when he was back in New York, but first he needed to know what was happening, if she was ok, if he could help her. He didn't care about eating or sleeping or anything else. On the flight he got caught up with Fin, he knew that she was in rough shape and he would do anything he could to help her.

The idea of her living somewhere other than the place he had always known, that was completely foreign to him. Knocking on another door instead of the one that he used to have a key to…it was an out of body experience. The idea that some piece of shit had taken her home and made it unsafe for her…well, if William Lewis wasn't already dead, Elliot would've killed him himself. "Liv it's me," he knocked on the door lightly. He could hear movement inside and he stood so that he was clearly visible from the peephole. God, how many times had he told her to make sure to check who it was? Like she needed him to remind her, and now…now she had experienced his worst nightmare, "Livia, please," Elliot would beg if he had to. It took another moment but he heard the sound of locks being undone and the door slowly opened, "Liv," he exhaled when he saw her. He was relieved. Relieved that because it had taken him a few weeks to get out, she looked like herself. She didn't look like all of his worst fears imagined. She didn't look like the awful images he had seen from the file Fin had sent him to review on the plane. "God, you're…Olivia," Elliot pulled her into his arms and she froze. He recognized it immediately. The was her body tensed. It took a minute before she relaxed into him and he slowly walked them back into he apartment, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have…I should have been here. I would have been here. Before…I didn't know."

"You've been gone," was all Olivia could muster. He released her from his embrace and she moved to close and secure the front door. No matter who was inside with her, she never left the door without all of its locks secured. "What are you…"

"I've been under," Elliot swallowed, she watched as his neck turned red, she could see his muscles tightening. "For a bit now…I didn't know. I didn't know what was happening or I would have been here…" He glanced at her. She looked the same, but different. Shorter hair, bags under her eyes, her eyes had lost the spark they always had. Those brown orbs that he always saw hope in…they were dark and empty. She was wearing an old white t-shirt, nothing fancy, nothing noteworthy, paired with a pair of black leggings. She looked like she hadn't slept in days and all he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and hold her until she fell asleep.

"Do you want a drink?" Olivia asked him, she was trying to get her bearings. She hadn't heard from him since he left her abruptly. Since Cragen had given her the news. Elliot had put in his papers…and now he was standing at her door telling her that he hadn't known. That he would've been here? He should've been here. He should've been there because he never should have left.

"Uh…" he was a bit surprised by her hospitality but he also had to assume that part of it was her attempt at getting her wits about her. "Coffee…if you've got some. I haven't slept in a while…"

"Well no one was asking you to come here," Olivia looked at him bitterly. She grabbed a coffee mug, he noticed immediately that it was a new mug…everything he saw in the apartment was new. Nothing was the same. Nothing was what he had left. She wasn't what he had left. "Same as ever?" She asked as she poured the black liquid.

Elliot nodded and she slid the cup across the counter to him. "I'm sorry."

"I needed you," Olivia told him solemnly. Her eyes were watering, her lip was quivering. The dam would burst and she wouldn't be able to stop it. "I have needed you and you were just…what? You were just gone? You were…where were you?" She asked him, desperately pleading for an answer that would make her feel better about his absence. Maker her feel better about having misjudged what they had meant to each other, "where were you that you didn't know I had been kidnapped and held hostage? That you didn't know? That you didn't care?"

Elliot choked back the guttural sob that he knew would escape his mouth if he opened it in that moment. "I've been under," he admitted once he had his wits about him, once he knew that he wouldn't completely break down. He watched as tears began to fall from her eyes and he fought the urge to pull her into his arms, "Olivia you have to know that if I knew…I would have been here. Fin, he managed to get ahold of me a few weeks ago and we started date process of getting me out, but I got here as soon as I could."

"You still left." Olivia wasn't holding back anymore, the tears were coming, the rage was evident in her voice, she was hurt, she was mad, she was betrayed. "You were supposed to have my back," she sobbed, "and then…then you were gone and I had two fucking rookies to deal with and it took," she could barely keep on top of her breathing as she let it all out, everything she had been hanging on to since he left, since Lewis happened. "It took them days to realize it. Days to realize I was missing, and for days he just…" she swallowed, "fuck you. Fuck you for leaving. Get out. I want you to leave. I need you to leave."

"Olivia," Elliot spoke firmly to her, "I know you're mad. I know you hate me right now…you need to be with your family right now. I…I'm still your family. I'm still here for you. Just let me be, m'kay? Please let me?"

April 2021

"She's at home with Lucy and Noah," Olivia told him. Of course it was the most obvious thing in the world. Where else would her daughter be? Would their daughter be? He had come back for two weeks and it had taken ten days for them to move beyond anger and rage and hurt…then they spent four days in bed before he went back to Rome, before he went back under. He promised her of course that he would find a way to stay in touch this time, and on some level she believed him. She knew that being under, it wasn't easy to keep in touch with people on the outside, she knew that his priority needed to be his wife and his children, especially Eli. But six weeks later when the plus sign appeared on the pregnancy test she had to find a way to get ahold of him.

They hadn't used protection…she had thought she was in early menopause, that is what the doctor had said…and so it had taken another four weeks to get a secure means to talk to him and between sobs on the phone she had told him that she was pregnant. She told him she didn't expect anything of him, that this tiny demon inside her body was making her sicker than she ever imagined, but that she was having this child. Olivia Benson was pregnant.

Sophie Bernadette Benson had been born in early February. Elliot had missed the birth. He was mere weeks away from getting out, but he had missed it and had been notified by way of an encrypted text message and a couple of photos. Of course through her pregnancy, another thing had changed for Olivia, she was fostering another child and by the time Sophie had been born, she was hopefully just months away from officially adopting Noah with the help of Trevor Langan. It was hard on them, Olivia and Elliot struggled to find balance but once he was out, they did. Kathy had taken the news of his infidelity better than either of them had anticipated. It was almost as though she had assumed it would happen at some point, and somehow she had just agreed to carry on. She was more of a loveable but somewhat distant aunt when she and Elliot spent time FaceTiming or when they had all gotten together in Paris for one family visit when she had been with Ed. Elliot had been the best father he could be from a distance, but it didn't change that Olivia remained wary of him for the sake of her child.

"Can I?" He asked. He needed to see her. He needed to see something innocent and pure and in his mind there wasn't much more innocent than his six year old daughter and her seven year old brother.

Olivia swallowed hard. Elliot being so far away had always bade it easy to keep boundaries in place. To keep him at arms length when she needed to. "El," she spoke softly, "you need to go see the kids, you need to be with Eli when he arrives. Why don't you come by tomorrow for dinner? I'll have had a chance to tell Sophie you're here, and Noah…and we can spend some time together." She looked at her watch, "it's late right now," she told him before he could protest. "Other than upsetting her, nothing good can come from you waking her up right now…it might make you feel better for a minute but it will hurt Sophie and I know that isn't what you want."

AN2: So we will see some flashbacks to Elliot as a dad to baby Sophie, and how he dealt with Ed etc being in her life, but this story will be mostly taking place in the "present" of 2021.