Olivia's phone dinged with a text. In the haze of the dark office and the glowing computer screen, the text broke her reverie of case files and never ending paperwork and court prep.

Elliot: Just leaving the precinct. Want to grab a late dinner? I can have Chinese delivered to yours if that's ok?

She smiled at her phone and typed out a quick affirmation. She missed their late night dinners at their desks, despite how exhausting working on a case like that could be.

Casting a glance at the clock, just turning 10pm, Olivia realized she wasn't getting any more work done tonight and gathered her things to be ready to greet him at her apartment.

She took note that he'd offered to send it to her place as she'd mentioned earlier Noah was away at a dance intensive this week.

Arriving at home, she saw the delivery boy talking to Fred, her lovable doorman and signed for the food.

Olivia had barely shut the door and set down her stuff before there was Elliot's knock at the door.

She opened it to him and while she hadn't changed out of her work clothes, he was obviously wearing the change they'd always kept in lockers. A light blue Henley and dark wash jeans.

The blue tones brought out the crystal blue of his eyes and when he leveled that tired gravelly "Hey, Liv," like he was now, it made her stomach somersault with butterflies.

At least now she didn't have to feel guilty about it. Well, as guilty.

"Hey, El, come in." She tried to keep her voice steady and hide how just his presence was affecting her. She continued on, though, "I just got in. Lemme change and I'll be right out. Help yourself."

As she walked towards the bedroom, she could hear him getting plates out of the cupboard and silverware from the drawer.

Quickly running a brush through her hair and throwing it into a ponytail, she decided on her–his–favorite royal blue NYPD hoodie and a pair of black leggings. They were form fitting but comfortable. And this was Elliot, it wasn't like she was trying to dress up for him. It wasn't her best look but if she had wanted to put a little more effort, she'd know just what buttons to push.

Walking out, barefooted, Elliot was filling up two glasses with their favorite bottle of red. He handed her a glass with a smile and moved to lean against the back counter.

After their first sips, Olivia wanted to break their silence. Since her relationship with Elliot has rekindled, she couldn't let their empty silences lie like they could before. Because the silences meant she was alone with her thoughts about him. And that's been dangerous territory lately.

But could they even consider it rekindled when she'd never wanted to extinguish the flame? When she'd never stopped putting logs into the fire. When he was the one who sucked all the oxygen out, the one who knocked the air from her lungs to leave her gasping for any molecule she could reach. Only to leave her in the vacuum seal of space. All alone. "Everyone leaves" was her mother's favorite phrase, among others she wished not to relive.

Elliot beat her to the punch. "Whatcha thinking about, Liv? You have that far off look in your eye you get when you're thinking something through."

He took another sip to allow her to answer and she hated how perceptive he always was. Maybe not on the things that could've really mattered but on her little intricacies. And it's not like she didn't have all of his memorized too, all she'd have to do….take him out of the box. The box she'd put him in, almost immediately, finding she couldn't properly function until she did.

"About us. About the things we haven't talked about. What we need to. Secrets."

"Secrets, huh?"

"I guess you could call them that."

"So, tell me a secret, Liv." The glinting look that shone from those blue eyes never failed to entice her but now, plied by a bit of wine and just pure exhaustion—physical and emotional—she was a little more loose-lipped and a lot less guarded than maybe she ought to be.

"Tell you a secret. Well, there's ten years worth: take your pick."

"You're dodging the question. You're the one who said you were thinking of secrets."

She took a long pause, cursing herself that this was the one that sprang to mind first.

On a sigh, she started, "There was a time, not long after I was found in Lewis' abandoned beach house, I thought I might have been pregnant."

"He—"

"No." She said adamantly, "There's still a lot I'm unpacking from that but that's not tonight's conversation."

"Ok," Elliot said softly, arms crossed and that indescribable look etched into his features.

"Cassidy and I were still together. It's been the only time I've really ever second guessed or thought that was even still on the table for me. With this job, I've pretty much always wanted a baby. Or a child, really, in any form that it took. Now, I can say that the way Noah came into my life was so perfect and ordained, I wouldn't have had it any other way."

"Were you pregnant?" Elliot asked,

"I wasn't." The room breathed, "And I felt like the worst person in the world because it was something that I'd wanted for so desperately and for so long but there was also this tiny part of me, that even two years after you'd left, was relieved that it wasn't with Cassidy. Because if I was gonna have a baby with anyone, I wanted it…to be with you."

She swallowed the last of her wine, letting the admission hang in the air.

Olivia wanted to be a part of a family so badly, she was even ready to create her own for that broken part of her soul to heal but when the option presented as a possibility…she realized that not any person would do. It had to be someone she would love as much as she wanted to be loved. Someone to love her like Elliot had in all the ways that weren't physical. It had to be Elliot.

Again, with the silences she couldn't let lie still, even if this one might need to.

"There. I told you. Now it's your turn."

Without missing a beat, "I would be lying, and we're telling the truth right now, if part of me didn't wish Eli was our son." was flying from Elliot's perfect mouth.

How—

Wha—

"Or that we had a child together. That we had been able to have that choice. Hate to break it to you, but, while I think we'd have fun if we tried, there doesn't seem to be any babymaking in our future."

"Picasso had children way into his 70s and 80s."

"Olivia, are you seriously hitting me with the Picasso fact?"

"It was the first thing I thought of; I'm trying to process what you just said to me, ok." Olivia retorted without malice.

He let out a breath with something light behind it, like she hadn't just thrown out her own verbal grenade.

In her processing, her eyes fell to everything in the kitchen except for him. Including the food on plates they'd completely neglected.

She reached forward for her portion of beef and broccoli and half of his house fried rice and a stolen rice paper-wrapped spring roll. There had been a past inside joke that lay in a dormant corner of her heart. Panda Palace had always had the perfect portion sizes for two. Except for the spring rolls. And fighting over who got the third was always one of her favorite parts of eating in with Elliot.

A few bites of each consumed, her brain had settled enough to form more coherent thoughts.

"In a parallel universe," She starts, and sees his eyes light up in recognition, "it will always be you and I. And our baby."