My very first Law and Order:SVU fanfic. Set during the third season, because I haven't seen any further.
He can remember with absolute clarity the first moment he realised he loved her.
It wasn't in a moment of great danger. Not one of those seconds where a gun was pointing at her and there was nothing between her fragile body and the ripping force of the bullet but empty air and her own persuasive soft voice. Then he was worried, hell, terrified, even. His hand had shaken as he reached out to her after the perp had released his gun. His heart had thumped so loud it drowned out the traffic, and the relief that she was safe overwhelmed him, making his knees weak, but he didn't know he loved her then. It was just one detective's concern for his partner. Perfectly natural.
It wasn't in one of her rare moments of distress. Not after she'd dealt with child rape and murder, nor after a case of a drunken mother abusing her daughter. He'd ached for the pain he'd seen in her eyes. His heart had broken as he watched her steel herself for the very worst of human nature, for the crimes that he knew struck right to her soul. When he'd come across her crying in the corridor, believing herself alone and unseen, he'd reached out to her without a second thought. He'd wrapped his arms around her, and soothed her sobs with gentle words, and after a moment's reluctance, she had finally lost herself in his embrace.
But it was just one friend's concern for another. Just a close friendship. Nothing more.
He watched her in the courtroom, magnificent in her anger, but restrained, and swelled with pride, and still did not love her.
He slipped easily into their double act in the interrogation room, reading her mind, throwing her cues he knew she would pick up, fitting so comfortably into their partnership, a closer fit than he had with his wife, and only admired her, did not love her.
He worked beside her, side by side, had her back, knew she had his, knew her every emotion, her strengths, her weaknesses, her anger, and aware that she knew everything good and bad about him, more than his wife knew. But still did not love her.
It happened just now, in the squad room. She handed him his coffee, and he thanked her. She sat down opposite him, and opened the file in front of her. She glanced over to Munch, and called an enquiry, and grimaced at the answer. And he sipped his coffee, and looked over at her, and thought,
'I love you, Olivia Benson'.
Love came to him quietly, not in a moment of great drama, or desperation, not in a lighting strike, or in an earth-shattering revelation. It came to him softly, but persuasively, realising and knowing he was completely, wholly in love with the woman sat opposite him.
And for now it didn't matter that he didn't know if she loved him or not, or that there was nothing he could do, he was a married man. He was content just to spend his days with her, talking to her, always beside her, protecting her, knowing that he loved her.