Her bandages are gone and her stitches are out. The doctor was happy with the way she'd healed. Neatly, with no infection or anything like that. But I know she's conscious of the scars left behind. The Department let her back in the field. So she's by my side again. Where she wants to be, apparently.

We were out tonight, having a few drinks with the guys. Cragen even joined us, down at the pub. When Olivia laid her head on my shoulder and stopped talking entirely, I knew she was exhausted. She wanted to go. She wouldn't say it, but I could tell.

She's getting changed, in the bedroom, and I'm being bored by some dull newscaster, who's droning on and on.

I blink and look at my watch. She's been changing for close to twenty minutes now. And she's not showering. With the pipes in this ancient building, I'd know. I flick off the TV and head down the hall.

"Liv?" I question, softly, poking my head around the doorframe of the bedroom.

She's standing in front of the mirror, dressed only in her dark pants and light bra. She doesn't look at me. I know she doesn't think she's as beautiful as the rest of us do, but she doesn't stand in front of the mirror and pick out every little flaw with her looks. Not that there's much for her to pick out, in my mind.

I step into the room and stand behind her, kissing her ear. "Hey. What're you doing, huh?"

She pulls away from me and twists her body a little. So I can see her right side, reflected in the mirror. There's a sunken, round scar at the bottom of her rib cage. It's thick and white against her skin. Then, she turns a little more and lets me see her back. Another scar, similar to the one on her front.

I know she's not a vain person. In no way is she obsessed with her looks. So I don't understand why she's focusing so much on the scars. They don't bother me. If she wasn't pointing them out to me, I wouldn't see them. She's beautiful. Inside and out. And that's all I see.

I reach for her hand and take it in mine. "You should be proud, Liv. You've got something to show off in the locker room now."

She tries to smile and fails, miserably.

"What? So you've got a couple of scars. So what? The only one that's going to be seeing those is me. And you know what? I don't care. I don't see 'em. You're so damned beautiful that I don't see 'em." I let go of her hand and rub the nape of her neck with my thumb.

She shivers. "You don't?"

"No. Look at you." I kiss the top of her head, softly. "Trust me."

She smiles and shakes her head, as if she doesn't believe me. She's gorgeous. But she doesn't see that. She can't understand why I like to just sit and look at her. Why I wake up before the alarm goes off in the morning so I can watch her sleeping.

I put a hand on her shoulder and turn her, gently. I make her look at me.

When I tell her how beautiful she is, she rolls her eyes at me and lists all the things that aren't beautiful about her, in her mind. The slight lines forming around the corners of her eyes and her mouth. The fact that she's put on ten pounds in her hips from our eating habits. That the dye in her hair is no longer just to change it's color - it's covering things. Her pale skin and the dark bags that are under her eyes.

She doesn't see what I see. She doesn't see the way her smile lights up the room. I could have died, when Cragen introduced us for the first time, and she hit me with that smile.

Her courage and her strength. She's done things that I know I wouldn't have been able to do. Lived through things that would have made the average person throw up their hands and walk away. Give up.

She's strong and stubborn enough to work in a man's world. According to her, a female cop is held to much higher standards. Expected to be better than the men who work around her. She's met that standard, obviously, if she's gotten as far as she has.

My partner and my fiancee is one of the most empathetic people I've ever met. She takes someone else's pain like it's her own. Especially if it's a kid. I wonder how she hasn't just burned out and fallen apart, by now.

So many cases have hit home for her over the years. Each case and every victim takes a little part of her. And she still shows up on Monday, ready to work. Ready to take whatever they throw at us next.

I just wish she could see what everyone else sees. The victims she coaxes to tell their story and get help are grateful, afterwards. She's willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to help. I've seen her give her number to a frightened victim.

Not her cell phone or the line at her desk - her home number. So they can get her any time, day or night. Even if it's her time. When she's off duty. How many cops in this city would be willing to deal with a case on their time?

She's devoted to the job. She gives it everything she's got. And she still doesn't think it's enough. She doesn't think she's doing enough to help. I don't know why she thinks that. She does more than enough. More than any boss would ever ask of her.

When she first came to the unit, I didn't expect her to last this long. I expected her to do a couple of years, get burned out and leave, feeling like she'd done something good. I expected her to burn out within the first six months, because she got so involved.

Olivia's proven me wrong, though. She's shown no sign of burning out yet. She's been in the squad close to eight years. She feels for every victim who crosses her path. She doesn't get over-involved, the way she used to, but she still feels their pain. She's learned where to draw the line.

I take her hand and kiss her palm, softly. "You finish getting changed, huh? Let's go to bed."

She nods and yawns, combing fingers through her hair. Olivia undresses, swiftly, putting her clothes in the hamper tucked away in the closet. She pulls that old t-shirt of mine over her head and kisses me on the cheek, softly. She yawns again, hugely, and crawls under the covers.

She curls up next to mine, when I join her, her back against my chest. She can't sleep facing me. It bothers her.

"'Night," Olivia yawns, snaking her arms around her pillow.

I kiss the back of her neck, lightly. She shivers. She hates it when I do that. Says it gives her a chill. I rub a hand along her arm, feeling goose bumps. Olivia sighs, annoyed with me for bothering her and pulls the covers around her body.

"I'll stop," I promise, quietly, pushing her hair off her forehead. "C'mere. Lemme hold you."

She shifts herself back into my arms, sighing. "Can we go to sleep now?" She asks, irritation in her voice. "We've gotta work tomorrow."

"'Night. Love you, sweetheart." After murmuring those words to someone else, when I was just going through the motions, saying them and meaning them still feels strange.

"Love you too." Her voice is drowsy. She rubs her cheek against the pillow and sighs. I feel her relax, sinking into sleep. She's right. Tomorrow's just another day at work.

I shake my head at the mess on the coffee table in front of me. I still feel the urge to pinch myself. Especially now. Looking at the collection of bridal magazines that Dana tossed on the table in front of me, when she came in this morning.

"Is this real? Or am I just hallucinating?" I question, softly. It's a Saturday. Elliot's taken the kids out for the afternoon. I love being involved with them, but they need some one-on-one time with their father. Sometimes, I have to step back.

"If you were hallucinating, you'd think I was purple," my friend informs me, a serious look on her face that's ruined by the laughter in her eyes. "And I look normal to you, right?"

"Yeah." I shake my head again. "But what the hell am I supposed to do with all this?" I wave my hands at the table. "It's all out of my budget."

Dana pushes herself out of the chair and sits cross-legged on the carpet, looking completely at home, in jeans and a t-shirt. "Look," she tells me, impatiently, thrusting one of the glossy magazines at me. "Find something you like and then we'll go find stores you can afford and find something close to it. That's what I did, when Chris and I got married, remember? And we were twenty-two and broke."

As I thumb through the magazine she shoved into my hands, the closest person I'll ever have to a sister glances up at me. "Have you thought about it? Being a mom?" She questions, her eyes serious and bare of their usual hint of laughter. "'Cause that's what normally happens, after you tie the knot, you know."

I shake my head, looking at the fifth or sixth picture of some impossibly skinny model who just looks too perfect to be real in a wedding gown. "He's got four kids already," I point out, quietly. "I don't really think he wants another one."

"What about you?"

"It's not like it's a one-sided decision. I can't just decide I want to have a baby and trap into being a father by getting rid of the birth control. I don't want that."

She tucks her knees up under her and sighs. "You've got a good man there, you know? His desk reminds me of Dad's, when we were kids. Pictures all over the place. You know he's a great father."

"Yeah. Believe me, I know. But five kids? People do have limits, Dana. And we're not exactly young, either."

"Mom was older than you are, when Paul was born," she points out, naming the last and the youngest of her brothers. "And then, by some miracle of God, they discovered there are reliable methods of birth control."

"Me? Raise a kid? I doubt it."

"When are you gonna get it? There's not something in you that's gonna make you hurt a kid. It ain't there. I don't know what I'm gonna have to do to make that sink into that thick head of yours."

"No. I know that," I answer, nodding. "I know that I wouldn't hurt any kid I might have. I know that."

"Then what the hell's your problem?" She fixes me with those intense black eyes. "You know, there are women out there who would do pretty much anything for even a chance at getting pregnant."

"I know. It's how I grew up that bothers me. What do I know about raising kids? I don't want to screw it up and have another kid turn out like me."

"Parents trust you with their kids," Dana points out. "And you were great with mine, when they were small. You know what your childhood was like. You wouldn't put another kid through that. I don't see what you're worrying about."

I rub one eye. "Well, you know, a skinned knee usually didn't get me a hug, when I was growing up," I comment, softly.

My mother always seemed to be distant, when I was a child. She provided for me. Fed me and put clothes on my back. But other than that, she didn't seem to be interested in me. She didn't feel any kind of love for me. I was just a burden that came into the world and made her life harder than it had to be.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I didn't have a parent who was there. Who at least pretended to give a damn. It's what I went through, being pretty much ignored. How the hell am I supposed to know what to do, coming from that?"

"Hey. Stop it. You're talking to a parent here. Loving your kid isn't something you learn. It's something you do. Your mother treated you pretty bad - don't ask me how she did it, either. But that doesn't mean you'll treat your kids like that. It might even make you a better parent."

"Yeah? How?"

"Because you know what it's like to be ignored. To be able to do anything, because there isn't anyone around to give a damn. You know what you went through." My old friend, who's never afraid to speak her mind looks at me, seriously. "Think about it."

We go quiet, for a minute or two. She's letting me think about our conversation. "You know where you're going to get married?" Dana questions, from her seat on the floor. "You call the churches?"

"I brought up just going downtown and having the Justice of The Peace marry us, but he wants a real wedding," I sigh, leaning back against the couch. "We don't really know yet. He's divorced, but his church won't recognize that or us, unless"-

"He went through the archdiocese and got his first marriage annulled. And if he did that, if they annulled it, the marriage would have never existed and the kids would technically be illegitimate, to the church."

I blink. "What the"-

"Bobby's wife tried to have their marriage annulled, after they got divorced," she replies, coolly. "Dragged him through a year's worth of shit, for no good reason. She got the house, the kid and the car and it wasn't enough for her. She wanted to erase the fact that they'd ever been married in the church, so she could get remarried. I know how it works."

I sigh. The first of her younger brothers is a beat cop. His divorce was nasty, eventually becoming a drawn-out fight between lawyers, as cop divorces are known to do. "You know, stuff like that makes me realize why I didn't get married."

"Why?"

"Cop divorces. Every time I met a guy I liked, who seemed decent enough, someone in the house would get the papers. And then I'd hear it in the locker room, a few months down the line, how nasty it was getting. How much of a nightmare it was."

Dana shakes her head. "It ain't that. I know it's not. You hadn't met anyone you could see yourself marrying. I get that. But you're happy now. It doesn't take an idiot to see that."

I blink. "Is it obvious?"

"Hey. Soon-to-be-newlywed - you're glowing out your ass, honey. You've actually got some color in your face, for once. And you're happy." She shakes her head and leans back against the solid arm of the chair she was sitting in. "'Happy' - never thought I'd be able to use that word in a sentence that actually involved you."

I roll my eyes. "Dana," I complain.

She cuts me off. "I'm serious. You weren't exactly a happy person, until now. Ask anyone. Now look." She thrusts one of the magazines at me again. "I don't want to spend the whole day sitting here."