I hate shooting people. Hate it. Always have. Always will. It used to just make me sad, make me angry. Make me question if I could have done something different to keep that person alive, even if they didn't deserve to be.

But now it makes me panic. An emotion that I never really fully understood until Lewis. I thought I knew what it meant then, thought I had experienced it but God, I had no fucking idea what I was thinking.

That word hits me dead in the chest now. I feel it in every fiber of my being. Even when I'm not panicked, the thought of the word panic makes me feel it.

I hate the word. I hate it so fucking much. And I hate when it starts to creep up on me. Like a turtle crawling to the top of a mountain. I'll try to push it down and down and usually I succeed but I still feel it regardless.

Fin is pretty quick to notice it, quick to give me that sideways glance. The glance that is asking me if I have it together. But Fin respects boundaries. Knows when I need a minute, knows when to not press on it. But although I don't want to be alone, I never want to be alone when I have this feeling, I didn't tell Fin to follow me to our local bar.

Because as bad as it sounds, I don't need Fin anymore. Not that Fin doesn't have his own life anyways. Yeah, he'd follow me anywhere but he has a woman waiting at home for him now. And I know, after the horrors of our job, he much rather be with her. Just like I'd much rather be with Noah.

But somethings, Noah is not yet old enough to understand. He doesn't need to know the horrors of his mother's life and to be honest, I'm not sure if I ever want to tell him. I'm his mother. I'm supposed to protect him from, this.

But I don't need Fin anymore because I have Elliot again. Elliot had always been my rock when we were partners. He was my family. Yeah, the rest of the crew was too but him?

That's why I'm currently watching the door of this bar looking for that bald ass head of his. And when I catch it, I blow out the breath I didn't even know I was holding. He sees me instantly, begins to make his way towards me and that head of his. I can't figure out if I completely like it or not. Truthfully I think I actually like it and truthfully I actually kind of liked that beard too.

It wasn't the beard itself that bothered me, it was the fact that the man wearing it would never have a beard. After a 72 hour stakeout the first thing he would do was shave. Like the prickliness was something he hated with a passion. So although I secretly kind of liked it, I'm glad it's gone. Because I have my Elliot back just the way he likes to be.

He sits across from me, gives me that look that he fucking gives me like second nature now and smiles, "Hey."

"Hey."

"How you doing?"

I'm sure he's heard about the shooting already. Every time a NYPD officer, let alone a Captain, shoots someone, everyone knows. Even if it was a good shot. I've already been cleared by IAB to keep my gun, so at least I don't have that big of an investigation pending. I shrug because I don't need to hide from him. I never have. "As good as anyone feels after they shoot someone." And this someone wasn't even a bad guy. He was a man with major mental issues, who was off his meds, who had gotten hold of a gun and pointed it at my crew, at me. I have a son now. Someone who depends on me. Someone who will depend on me for the rest of his life and I'll be goddamned if I'm killed because I was giving someone the benefit of the doubt.

"It was a good shot, Liv."

"I know, it doesn't make it any easier though. You know that." Of course he knows that. The reason he left SVU, why he left me, was because he killed Jenna. A 16 year old girl who pointed her gun in my direction. It wasn't the first time he chose me over the job but he had made sure it was his last. I vaguely hear him say, "I do," because my mind is spiraling in my own fucking self pity all over again. Fuck. I had call him here to help calm me and instead of feeling less panicked, I feel panicked and sad. His departure doesn't anger me right now, it makes me sad. Because he had left me and if Kathy hadn't died he would have left me again. Just like Angela Wheatley said.

He must notice the moment I start to drift away from him because his hand is on mine, my name on his lips, "Liv..."

I look up at him then, let him see the sadness in my eyes and see his shoulders slump, see the way his body tenses. And it's not like it's a conversation that doesn't need to be discussed. "What was your plan, Elliot?"

"Liv..."

"Like you were just going to turn up unannounced to my ceremony. Give a sorry ass speech congratulating me, hand me that stupid ass fucking letter. Turn my whole world upside down and then leave again!?" I don't even realize that my voice has been slowly rising until I see the bartender glance in our direction. Shit. We can definitely not have this conversation in public.

I stand almost abruptly because fuck, I want to have this conversation. Right now. He doesn't even hesitate standing with me, watches me as I throw a 10 on the table. I've only had one beer and it's definitely not worth ten dollars but who gives a fuck. I don't even glance back at him as I walk out because I know he's following me and when I unlock my car doors to sit in my driver's seat, he sits in my passenger one. It's still cold outside, so I turn my car on, blasting the heater so we're not freezing. And then I wait. Wait for him to say something but when he doesn't I huff at him, "What? You got nothing to say?"

"I just, I didn't have a plan, Liv."

His voice is quiet and I know he can fucking talk louder than that. "That's bullshit. You had some sort of plan. If this was a perfect Elliot Stabler's world, where Kathy hadn't have been killed, what was your plan? You were going to go back to Rome, right?"

"I don't, I mean, yes that was my plan. But..."

"You're such an dick." He is. Always has been but fuck. What kind of dick does that shit. What kind of dick gives me that fucking letter when he knew damn well every single line in it was bullshit. And he was going to leave me with that.

"She was my wife, Olivia."

"I don't give a fuck what she was, Elliot. It's no excuse for you to treat me like I'm garbage. Like I'm someone who doesn't feel shit the same way you do." God, I'm so fucking tired of the only thing people seeing me as now is a mother or a Captain. I'm a woman. A woman who has feelings, wants and needs. "I never asked you for anything." I never asked him for more. Never came close to crossing that line. Would send him home and do piles of paperwork myself so that his wife didn't leave him. I saved his marriage more times than we could probably count.

"Exactly, Liv. You never made a move either. Even when Kathy and I were seperated."

What the fuck! I swear to God, if I wasn't a respected Captain I would be punching him in in face right now. "Oh, fuck you. That wasn't my move to make! You were the married one, not me. Jesus Christ Elliot, I didn't fuck anyone the whole two years you were separated because I was waiting for you to make a goddamn move. And instead of making a move on me, you were sleeping with Dani Beck." The fucking blonde milk maid. God, when did I start calling other women names? Guess that's what angry, jealous, Olivia Benson does.

"I did not sleep with Dani." His voice is stern, angry even that I would excuse him of doing such a thing. "I kissed her but did not sleep with her."

Oh, well that makes everything better! He doesn't sleep with anyone else, he just goes around kissing everybody else. He has never come close to kissing me. Never. And he's kissed women he's barely met. Fucking pathetic. "Get out." Maybe I'm being a little bit irrational. Okay, a lot irrational. But I seriously just feel like I want to cry at this point because fuck, all those fucking years we could have had will never exist. We will never get them back. And we will always dread that we can't. And no one, absolutely no one can be more than what we are right now with that thought constantly running through their head. We will never be more than friends. And fuck, I just want to sob into my pillow. He hasn't made a move to get out and this time I whisper, "Please, El. Get out."

I feel the tears in my eyes, feel my chest starting to constrict. Feel the same way I felt when Cragen told me he wasn't coming back. When I escaped to that interrogation room to breakdown in peace. And peace is exactly what I need right now.

I know he hears the tremble in my voice, I know he knows what's about to happen as soon as he leaves this car and I know he's hesitating because of it. "Olivia, please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every ounce of hurt I've caused you."

God, he's has no fucking idea what he did me. Has no idea how much he broke me. "You have no idea what you did to me." No idea. He ran away with his family and he left me alone.

"No, I don't. But I know what I did to myself leaving you." To himself. "And yes, my plan was to go back to Rome with Kathy. But would I have been able to after seeing you again? I don't know. I didn't know then, which is why I didn't think it was a good idea to come in the first place. But Kathy said I owed it to you and I did. I really did but seeing you? I don't know. I'm not living in that universe, I'm living in this one. And I'm here with you. I want to be here with you like I wanted to be with you everyday for the last 10 years."

Wanted to be here with me doesn't make a difference. Because he wasn't. He wasn't here to protect me against a monster that he has no fucking idea about, wasn't here when I adopted Noah, wasn't here when I moved up the ranks. He wasn't. He must still see the look of hatred, the look of sadness on my face. "Please, Liv. I'm trying to make it up to you. I know it will never be enough, I know you'll never forgive me completely but I'm here now. And I'm never leaving again."

I hear him. I really do. But I still can't get over the fact that this, this pain, this hatred, I have towards him, will never go away. I will always remember what he did to me. Can I forgive him? Maybe. But enough for this to prosper into what it was always meant to prosper into? I don't know. And right now, I really don't think so. "This will never be anything more, Elliot."

"What?"

I'm not sure if he doesn't understand what I mean or if he didn't hear me because I pretty much whispered those words painfully. Even though I'm the one making this decision, it doesn't mean it doesn't fucking hurt for me because I want him. Fuck, I want Elliot in every goddamn way I can have him. I want him in between my thighs at the end of the night, want him to make me fall apart for him, because of him, want to wake up to those blue eyes in the morning. Just the thought makes me warm but I know it would never work between us. There's just no way. "We can be friends but there will never be anything more."

His silence makes me glance at him and I can see the way those words affect him. These last few months it has been sort of like a unspoken goal between us. The words for now hanging above each of our heads. That with the right steps I may allow him to take me out on a date. May allow him to crawl between my open thighs. But I am now eliminating the may completely and shit, I can see his words before he even says them. "But you haven't even given me a chance."

"A chance? Why do you deserve a chance? Because you finally decided you needed me around again? Because you're attracted to me and want to finally have sex with me now that you morally can?"

His eyes snap to mine. That he did not like, at all. "If you think I only want to fuck you, Olivia. You don't know me. You have never known me."

I go to open my mouth to respond, to tell him that he doesn't fucking know me either but he's really angry now, "Just because you view sex as some casual thing to do with anybody, doesn't mean I do too."

Oh, hell no. He did not just imply that I'm a whore. Sorry I didn't marry my fucking high school boyfriend. Thank God I didn't marry my high school boyfriend, fiance technically, that fucking pervert. Sorry I didn't have the privilege of finding my Mr right after one fuck. God, I haven't found Mr right after... I am not counting my number right now. "Fuck you, Elliot. I'm not some sort of bimbo and I never have been one. I've been single most of my entire adult life and you don't get to judge me for not wanting to be alone all the time. And don't act like you're some sort of fucking Saint because I know you fucked that Flutura woman."

"Eddie Wagner fucked Flutura."

Okay, that, that I have to laugh at. Because whether he wants to admit it or not, he was Eddie Wagner. He made that conscience decision. And undercovers aren't even supposed to be sleeping around on their mission anyways. "You're an idiot. YOUR dick was inside of her, Elliot. No one else's."

He huffs at that. Yeah, nothing to say to that, Stabler. "I wasn't implying your a bimbo. I've never thought that about you."

"Right. So you just think sex means nothing to me."

"No. I just mean sex is supposed to be something special between two people who are emotionally connected. So, yes I would like to, eventually, have sex with you, Olivia. But that's not what I'm here for. I know we have a lot of shit to work through and I want to work through it with you. Let me work through it with you."

"We'll work through it as friends, nothing more." I'm still probably being a little over dramatic. And I'm probably making a mistake. I know this but in the state of mind I'm in, this is just the way it needs to be. I need to not only let him know, I need to let myself know. Elliot has never been mine and he will never be. Even if he's available for me, even if he wants to be with me, there's just to much history behind us for it to really work.

"You're not being fair. You gave Tucker a chance for it to be more."

This fucking guy. "Tucker never hurt me like you did."

"Tucker made our lives hell for 12 years and he arrested you."

"He was doing his job! We weren't fucking Saint detectives, Elliot."

"Right. Go ahead and defend why you let him into your pants."

This motherfucker. He knows that was a mistake and I know he's about to apologize. About to apologize for being a jealous fucking asshole because Ed Tucker got to fuck, although I would never call sex with Ed fucking, me and he most likely never will. "Get the fuck out of my car."

"Liv, I'm..."

"Get out!" Right fucking now or I swear to God.

He glances out the window, glances back at me like he can't decide which one will be a better option right now. Staying and trying to keep pushing and risk pissing me off more or leaving now before he makes it worse. Luckily the man is smart enough to reach for handle to get the fuck out.

But he's just as pissed at me as I am him, so when he gets out I'm not surprised by the slam of my door. Nor am I surprised when I hit my gas peddle a little to hard. Nor am I surprised by the tears I feel trickling down my cheeks.

Shit.