She truly can't count the number of times she's read over those words. About five times too many. There isn't a problem with comprehending or understanding but, it borders the line of it becoming too hard to believe almost impossible. That the words that still display on her screen are from him and not some kind of sick joke or accident, she can't know that for sure. But there's this feeling of assurance that's been creeping over her the second she saw his name. Realistically and in all likely hood, it couldn't be anyone else. No one really knows the details of the catastrophic events that went down between them nor the way they affected her. There is Fin, Amanda who came and met her in the midst of being distraught, but she doesn't know much, and Fin wouldn't pull something like this on her. He knows the way she feels, the way she felt about Elliot. They've both witnessed what it was like working with her at the time of 'inconvenience' and they wouldn't put her through that. She doesn't know why her mind would wander there. They're good friends who have always been there for her when she needed them and when she needed Elliot he wasn't there.

After a decade of radio silence, not one call, no replies to her voicemail, not even a lousy text saying, 'Liv I got your calls' or 'Liv I'm alive '. She was left in the dark not knowing where her partner of twelve years disappeared to. He left her like their relationship was some made-up acquaintance she pulled from some fictional novel off her shelf and carried out every day acting out every single word and chapter written by the author. Only for it to come to a crashing end, an ending which would cause people to feel as though their time had been wasted. That's how he made her feel. She felt lost for a long time and a lot confused.

"I'm the longest relationship you've ever had with a man."

It's what he told her, and he knew it was true, he knew he was her best and only friend yet, he still left. His words carried no meaning anymore. The things he told her she allowed herself to form into promises he probably didn't realize he was making to her turned hallow in the end.

"I'm your partner for better or for worst."

"What happened to that, Elliot?" She whispers to herself in the silence of her office. The fatuous rhetorical question lingers momentarily, he may not be here to answer but hearing her own words aloud gets her to thinking.

His words that once made her smile she's not sure will ever draw a positive reaction from her again. She sees the words "I'm sorry" and read them multiple times, but she still finds it hard to believe that he is. That Elliot Stabler wherever he could be in this world is somewhere thinking of her and how sorry he is he left her. Impossible.

Olivia's eyes wander out to her squad room on the other side of the glass. It's a lot more different now. Paint's not peeling off the walls, there are real working lights in the ceilings and there's space between desks so everyone can actually breathe. It's what Cragen wanted her to do, to fix up the place and she did it. Yet, in all its changes and differences she can still see him in it. She can still see the placement of the desk where they sat across from each other. Where they worked together, shared their food, and joked around when they had the time.

When she wants to and is always alone, she recollects from her memory the sound of his voice echoing through the building, wanting to hear it when the precinct is empty. Her eyes will see him walk through the halls or asleep in the cribs on his bed, right next to her own. Nights they worked until they stunk of coffee and Cragen would have to force them both to leave and go home. They would part their ways, him to his home a loving wife and four well five kid, Eli who would have no clue who she is if he saw her. Then she'd march up to her empty apartment wishing for the family he had to come home to. But she doesn't do that anymore. She's taught herself other ways to cope, much healthier ways.

She sees her squad and she reminisce of the days when they were both detectives. He was always with her. They did everything together no matter how much trouble it got them in. Stakeouts they sat together in the car, her eyes would say peeled open when they took turns on watch when the other grew too tired. She would sit on the other side of him, watching him sleep when she should watch for a perp, and wish that he'd look over at her and realize that she's the woman he wants, that she's the one he needs, but he didn't. He just left instead.

It's not the same, it will never be the same. The way she feels, the way she felt about him she isn't sure is there anymore. That's what she wants to tell him. She wants to tell him that his 'sorry' isn't good enough, it means nothing. She'll tell him what he has to say now he should keep to himself because she doesn't want to hear it. Call him out on his bullshit. She can at any second. She'll tell her squad to not come in her office because she's busy and then types away expressing how shitty he made her feel for such a long time. Sitting there, rethinking and analyzing she doesn't think it's worth it. He isn't worth it like she wasn't worth texting or calling. She'll carry on just fine like he did when he left. She'll do just that.

Abruptly, she's startled by the knocks on her office door. She moves quickly turn off her phone and placed it face down as if she was doing something wrong. "Come in."

Amanda walks in with his phone inches from his mouth, it is obviously on speaker she can tell by the police sirens in the background. She freezes three steps in and looks at her like she's got a gun to her head.

"Everything okay Detective?"

"We've got a vic Ty Brooks, he's already at Mercy getting a kit done, unis are waiting for us to check out the scene says it was pretty brutal."

She nods her head and removes her glasses placing them on her desk. "Okay, you and Fin go to the scene and gather as much evidence as possible I will go to mercy and get his statement."

She tells the Uni they'll be there and hangs up the phone but she's still standing there. "Uh everything okay, Cap?"

She looks at her confused. "Yes, why'd you ask?"

"Your eyes are a kind of red and you like you've been-'' She doesn't finish, just motions her hand over her face.

Crying? She wasn't crying, not over Elliot. She hadn't noticed she was about to, she felt nothing, but her detective is here telling her she looked like she did. She's clearing her throat. "I'm fine, you head out I'll be on my way to Mercy."

The door shuts then Olivia is reaching for her phone opening her camera. She furrows because of the darkening pink in her eyes. She takes a minute to gather herself and whatever emotions are threatening to push their way through.

Her mind is already made up that she won't carry this, him along with her today or any other day she decided.

She's pulling out napkins she keeps in one of her desk drawers and carefully wipes along the line of her eyes.

The letter she'd been staring at from night to morning she exits from her screen. She puts her phone on do not disturb which she knows is a bad idea in her line of work but the sense of knowing what's there waiting for her, who is, plays a greater distraction somehow.

So, it's silenced at the bottom of her handbag she chooses not to carry with her she places in her desk drawer and locked it away. Out of sight, out of mind. Partially.