She's a firecracker in red satin that clings to her curves, all heat, smoke, and anger, and fuck his medallion rests between her breasts and it does something to him, curls a fire in his belly —

Not unlike the one flashing through her eyes right now.

He knew she'd react like this — rightfully so — and he readied himself for it even, but whatever he'd conjured in his head could never prepare him for the feral cat in front of him. He's an idiot; it's Olivia. He should've known better.

Surprising her at an ass-kissing fête after six months of radio silence? Complete idiocy. But the odds of her murdering him in cold blood are much smaller in a room full of their peers, including his old boss and the brass.

The odds aren't zero, but they're certainly much smaller than if he'd shown up at her apartment on his hands on his knees to beg for forgiveness. Which he will still certainly do, if that's what it takes.

"What the hell, Elliot?" Olivia hisses through clenched teeth, eyes anxiously flitting around the room to see how much attention he's drawn. Cragen, for his part, is steadily ignoring him. In large part probably because Elliot warned him ahead of time that he'd be there.

As he's officially retired from the force after they all but showed him the door, he has no idea why he was even invited to this thing, but it seemed like the answer he'd been searching for when the invitation showed up in the mail. He can't be sure, but he thinks Cragen might've had something to do with that, too.

Ignoring Liv's panic for a moment, Elliot turns to the ADA. "Nice to see you Alex," he says softly, smiling.

"You too, Stabler." A small smirk flirts across her lips before she takes a sip of her drink, her eyes gleaming a little, he thinks. Good luck weaseling your way out of this one, they seem to say.

"Liv, can we talk?"

She blanches. "Now?"

He makes a show of looking around. "Well it doesn't look like they've brought the food out yet. "

"Oh this is funny to you?" she fumes, getting up from her chair.

"No - "

Olivia closes the distance between them, gets in his face. "You ignore my calls, drop off the face of the earth, and show up like some fucking ghost of Christmas past and now you wanna talk?" she grates out, eyes flashing. "Screw you, Elliot."

Shaking her head in disbelief, she picks up her wine glass, the liquid sloshing furiously up the sides at her sharp movements. "This is me walking away from you. I assume you recognize the gesture?" Glass in hand, she spins on her heels, angrily clomping away.

God, she's so hot when she's mad and he's pretty sure he's going to hell for that thought alone when he knows he's caused her so much pain.

"That went well," Alex observes once Olivia is out of earshot.

Elliot scrubs a hand down his face, sighing. "Yeah."

She cocks her head. "You can't have expected anything else."

"I didn't."

"Well." She sets her glass down. "On the bright side, she can't get very far."

Elliot frowns. "Why's that?"

"She left her bag." Alex picks up a clutch on the table, holds it out for him.

He takes it from her gratefully, doesn't miss the way her gaze falls to his bare left ring finger. She looks back up at him. "You know you only get one more shot, right?"

Elliot blinks in surprise. "You think I still have a chance?"

Alex lifts an eyebrow. "You saw that medallion around her neck, right?"

"Yeah," he croaks.

"I think you just answered your own question."

It takes him ten minutes of wandering helplessly — including a moment he's not proud of where he surprised an unsuspecting woman in the ladies' bathroom — but he finally finds her sitting on the floor in a stairwell, slumped against the wall with her legs out in front of her, empty wine glass at her side.

"Can't get very far without this," he says, handing over her purse. She rolls her eyes as she takes it from him, drops it down next to her.

"Not like I was going anywhere, anyway," she scoffs. "Cragen and 1 PP will be out for my blood if I duck out early."

He sits down a few feet away, mirroring her pose. The concrete at his back is freezing, seeps in through his clothes and he wonders if she's cold. He thinks about asking her, offering up his suit jacket, but she would've refused even under the best of circumstances.

Which...these are definitely not.

She ignores him for several moments before he feels her dark eyes on him, heavy, intense. When he meets her gaze, he's struck by how bone-exhausted she looks with her head back against the wall like that, as if it's the only thing in the world propping her up, keeping her afloat.

"Don't look at me like that," she rasps, sighing as she closes her eyes.

He swallows hard. "Like what?"

"Like I fell apart without you."

His heart clenches in his chest because he knows if anything, he fell apart without her. It's painfully unfunny how much he'd wrapped her up into every part of his life that was important to him, essential to living — his job, his family.

Jenna died and he didn't know how to put himself back together without taking a clean break from all of it to get his head screwed on straight — and that included Olivia. He's the most selfish son of a bitch that ever graced the earth because of it, but he knew if he talked to her, told her anything about what he was feeling, that he would stay and everything would remain jumbled together in this ball that he'd been trying to unravel for years.

With so much more time at home and a complete amputation from his life at the precinct, everything became so clear: he was maddeningly in love with Olivia and couldn't waste any more time denying it otherwise.

Even if she turned him away forever, ending his marriage is what he needed, what his wife deserved. Because at the end of the day, it didn't matter whether or not he was spending his life at home or at the precinct — his feelings for his partner weren't going anywhere.

And he never planned to stay away from her forever, just long enough to dig deep inside himself and figure out what he wanted and how to hurt as few people as possible in the process. He hoped, perhaps naively, that by the time he got his head out of his ass that she would still be there, angry but eventually willing to hear what he had to say.

It's why he sent her his medallion and his mini badge, just a small message to let her know that he would always be faithful and loyal to her.

Elliot clears his throat. "I'd never think that." He pauses. "You never needed someone else to keep you together, Olivia."

Her eyes blink open, jaw clenching. " 's that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No." Then - "I'm sorry."

She chuckles humorlessly. "For which part?"

He hesitates. "All of it. Things got so screwed up, and I didn't — "

"Fine."

He frowns. "Fine?"

"Yeah, Elliot," Olivia sneers. "You want me to absolve you of your guilt? Fine. You're sorry. Things got too hard." She waves her hand, letting it come back to slap against her thigh. "You were too incapacitated to give me a heads up or answer the goddamn phone. Trust me, I got it."

"If you'll let me explain — "

"Why bother?" she asks, indifferent. "You're sorry. I forgive you. Now I can go back to my life and you can go back to yours."

"That's not what I want - "

"Well, you know what, Elliot? We don't always get what we want. I think if there's one thing that's been true out of our entire partnership, it's that," she replies sarcastically, getting to her feet.

"Olivia - " But he's cut off, again, Jesus, this time by the sharp ring of the cell phone in his pocket.

"See, your wife's calling. Go home."

"She's not my wife anymore." He fishes the phone out of his pocket, thumbs 'ignore.' It's Kathleen; he'll call her back.

The color drains from Olivia's face. "What?"

He stands up, wincing as his knees pop. He's getting too old for this shit. "Kathy and I divorced a few months ago."

Taken aback, Olivia opens her mouth soundlessly, closes it. She shakes her head, turning away from him. "I can't do this with you right now."

He reaches for her. "Liv, please."

Eyes shiny, she pushes her lips together, holds up a hand. "You know, I've already been arrested for murder once and would really love not to go through that again, so don't follow me."

And then, in a flash of red and long brown hair, she leaves him standing alone in the stairwell wondering how the fuck he's going to get through to her.