Words. He has them but can't quite articulate them. It took him long enough to find the courage to do this but he's stuck. Stuck at the moment he left without saying a word to her. Stuck on the last facial expression he saw on her face. Tears brimming in her eyes her mouth agape in shock, fear, and sadness, as lifeless bodies blanketed the precinct ground. The moment he shot that girl, the moments he ignored her messages like she was nothing to him. It's a lot and it's almost becoming too much. Too much to even think about, which caused him to back out of doing this before.

That moment in time is frozen, yet on constant replay in his mind maybe even in some universe repeating itself on a loop. Sixty seconds of what was once a memory continues to build itself like a repetitive night terror. Sixty seconds and it only took one second to pull the trigger of that gun. One second to realize he shot and killed that girl. A thousand seconds after that he had to give his partner an apology, some kind of explanation on why he was leaving, maybe some insight but he didn't.

He had fought the mental battle of doing this but never said it out loud, somehow it would make it too real. The thought that if he did said it aloud something would have to happen all go wrong. God forbid if Kathy found out. it can't get worse. He hopes.

-I think about her, all the time.

He hasn't mentioned his partner, ex-partner's name since he left, and maybe when he says it out loud it'll sound foreign to him. Foreign, but not new. Maybe comforting like a old song brought back to memory. Kathy told him that he'd be doing the right thing. Leaving. That it will help them move on from one another.

She'll get over it. Is what she said.

She didn't. She hasn't.

The memory of him has imprinted itself in her everyday life. In the badge she carries around. On the streets of New York she walks every day. The streets they walked side by side on. The bodegas she stops by for a snack. He showed her the best ones. In the passenger seat of the car, he would sit when he begged her to drive when he was exhausted. The car she now drives alone. She sits across from an empty desk. His mini badge beneath her gun. He still haunts her, and he doesn't even know it.

He left. But he still lingers with her.

But it's not what he wanted and sure as hell not what Olivia would want. They've spent twelve years together and he just… leaves. Not a single word to the woman who spent so much time with him.

-You were the most, single most important person in my life, and you just disappeared.

The woman who he lov- he's not sure he can do this. It's not fair to her. Olivia. And morally it's not fair to the women asleep in their bedroom. He doesn't know how he's going to do this. So much, too much time has passed.

Does she even want to hear from me?

He can only imagine the hurt she went through. He knows he meant so much to her and yet he up and left without as much as a goodbye or a reason why. God, the things he's probably missed in her life.

-You have not asked me one question, about what has happened to me since you left.

"She probably hates me." He whispers to himself.

How is she doing?

It's the questions that talks to him in the quietness of the night. It makes itself known in his mind until the sun greets him while he's still staring at the ceiling. The words that haunted him the day he stepped foot on that plane. It's why he needs to do this. He needs to reach out to her. Even if he has to three in the morning while everyone is in the dead of sleep. Slipping out of bed away from his wife who he somehow has a different love for. It's love, but it's not the same love he has for her. It's respectable love that grows over time whether you want it to or not. Love that carries the definition of, because I have to. He has to.

The mother of my kids.

It's only right.

Because of that, he loves her. She's caring and a loveable person, yet it isn't enough. There are missing pieces.

-And I'm missing something, and I can't figure out what it is.

Olivia Benson

There isn't the bursting in his chest when they're close. The thumping in his heart. The chilled waves over his body when he sees her. The smile automatically plasters itself on his face when she's around. Only Olivia can do that to him.

She has had his children and they've spent most of their life together now. But the love he has for her that travels from Europe to a city on another continent won't burn out, it won't even from hundreds of miles away. It wasn't instant love the first time he saw her but he felt something different. The passion she carries for her job, the selflessness she portrayed in every aspect of her life. The dedication and willingness she's had and surely still does have. The smile he didn't get to see as often as he would've liked to, but when he did he couldn't stop his from forming.

Sometimes he would intentionally do things just to see her smile.

It's the love he has for her that sends flutters through his body and the urge to do everything he can to make her happy. Love that literally freezes you in their presences. Love that draws you to one person in a room filled with people. And that's what she did. She stood out to him.

A painting in a gallery that is worth so much but nobody is worthy enough to take it home. So it's stays. Left alone for others to look at, speak of its greatness. Just to admire from a distance. But one individual that sees its truest form, really studies it, not just by what is portrayed, not what it's explained to be, not just the external, but never takes it home, never truly shows how much it is appreciated so it's left unsaid and untouched.

There are the moments when they needed each other, really needed each other and they somehow pulled through them without one or the other, or both of them breaking and just letting their emotions pour out.

They didn't.

Those moments were scary but they became scarier when he realized that he had fallen in love with her. Fearful for the wrong reasons. It left him questioning their partnership and maybe they loved each other too much to work together. The fear that maybe one day the blindness will interfere in a situation and the inevitable will happen.

He doesn't know what he would've done if she lost her.

Maybe he has already lost her and just doesn't know.

-And I see her and then, she's and then, she's gone.

He shakes his head as if he's shaking away the thought. A thought he can't entertain.

Yet, here he is in his living room with the opaque blue light shining from his laptop screen. Microsoft is open but there isn't a single word on the page. Letters on the keyboard lay still, but somehow his mind scatters them incoherently, like the way his brain went after trying to process why he left her. Knowing they were in a good place yet like the opened page.

Nothing.

He left and gave her nothing. A blank page but a full mind. For some reason, he can't for the life of him get it in writing, but he is determined. If it takes him all night he is going to write this letter. Regardless of the slight guilt, he feels for the woman asleep in her- their bedroom.

He sighs then leans into the laptop with his fingers on the keys.

"Dear Olivia,"

Should I start like this? He thinks to himself. Formal for someone who just up and left.

Maybe I should just get into it. He says removing the opening.

I know you didn't expect hearing from me especially now, well if you happen to be reading this. It's been a long time and I know I should have reached out a lot sooner. There is no reason I can give that can justify why I didn't. What I did Olivia, you didn't deserve. It was selfish on my part.

I'm sorry.

For the pain I may have caused leaving you, and for losing out on everything with you whether it be good or bad. If I could do it all over again I would also wouldn't have left you. I'm sorry hardly seems adequate and leaving probably makes me like everyone else.

Way to rub it in. Scratch that

After what happened still doesn't profit as a good excuse for neglecting you. I'm sorry for not responding to your messages.

Knowing he got her messages and didn't reply, God he doesn't want to know what it'll do to her.

Every message he read. Every voicemail he heard. He ignored them as if they came from a random stranger. Like she didn't matter.

I'm sorry that I'm not there with you where I should be.

He writes when he knows he should be in bed with his wife. But it's true.

He's not sure of what else to say. He can only hope that she sees his letter and that she still has the heart for him to reply. But it's not about her having the heart to reply.

She doesn't have to have what he'd done.

It's if her heart can handle hearing from him, would she risk being hurt by him again?

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about you. You're the only person I don't mind losing sleep for.

I don't deserve an answer from you, but I hope that I can still hear from you. To know if you're okay. If you do read this and if you make it this far I would love it if you do reply.

I'd love to hear for you.

He jots down his new phone number before ending his letter because he just can't force out anything else to write.

-Elliot

Maybe she'll call.

Does she still have the same number?

He stares at his screen for a while. He's not sure how long. It's not half of what he wanted to say but it's a start. It's barely good at all but he's not good with writing, she knows that.

It's a start, kinda. if she replies to him. Maybe he'd be able to give her the answers she wants to hear but doesn't deserve. They're half-assed. They would probably make her more angry than sad.

She doesn't need that.

Maybe Kathy was right. She doesn't need him.

He puts her email he still remembers and hopefully, she still uses it and sends off his letter.

He retreats to his place on the sofa and prays, he prays that he gets to hear from her again.

His throat constricts as she stares out of the window into the twilight darkness.

"God I miss her."

He lays back on the sofa and shuts his eyes in hopes, that he can remember clear enough. Enough to see her face. The few faint freckles along her face.

-I can't hold on to her face. The images, the moments, the memories, and... Regrets.

To hear her laugh. Her laugh brought him so much joy.

The feel of her. He should have hugged her more. We least once before he left. If he'd told her how he felt he wonders if he'll be here. Again another night watching the stars and his ceiling fan work until its hypnotizing spin caused him to drift off.

-The things I said or didn't say or do or didn't do. Things I should've done.

Maybe she'll reply.