Disclaimer: I looked in the mirror this morning and was insanely shocked to find out I'm not Dick Wolfe. Go figure.

Rating is for angst, smutty smut, more angst, and the occasional (or not so occasional) naughty word that cops actually use and that I am so fond of writing.

Reviews: Please. I love each and every one!

A/N: This is a little deviation away from my big fic, Bullets & Fairytales, which, time willing, I will eventually finish. I just woke up this morning, feeling a bit depressed, and tossing E/O into some icky angst bettered my mood. That probably makes me some sort of deviant, but there you have it. So no fluff in this one – at all (consider this a warning). This will be short (four chapters).

Chapter One

"I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived."
-Margaret Mitchell

Olivia knew he would be alone in the squad at this time of night. Hours ago, even her former captain would have called it a day, probably even politely nudged the younger man to leave as well, maybe even tempting him with a couple of beers at a local cop bar. But Cragen wasn't really the most enjoyable drinking buddy; as it was with most recovered alcoholics, there was something particularly unnerving to drink in front of someone you knew had a serious problem with it.

That aside, it would have been his drive that kept him at his desk past midnight. Wrapped up in a case like this, even Cragen couldn't push the detective away from the job. There was no such thing as end of shift; he would work until exhausted, or until justice was served for the latest victim.

As Munch had mentioned in their weekly phone call last night, Elliot's current case was more disturbing that normal, if normalcy could even be applied within the perimeters of the SVU squad's case load. He hadn't divulged too much of the details; both were seasoned detectives, veterans in the most heinous of the criminal mind so a specific description wasn't necessary. That, and the tone of Munch's voice gave it away. He was worried about Elliot. And when Munch showed overt emotion on a topic outside the realm of politics, science, and 19th century Russian literature, Olivia took it seriously.

It had been two months since she had left a message on his cell phone, five months since she had actually seen her old partner. It had been her decision to leave; at the time, it had seemed like the only option. His actions pushed her forward; he had sacrificed time in saving the life of an innocent for her. He didn't just care for her; he had put her above the victim. And that was unacceptable in this job. It was unacceptable as partners.

But she had never meant to push him away. Olivia had realized too late what she had done. In her haste to save Elliot and the job, she had somehow lost the closest thing to love she had ever known. Her best friend, the one person she trusted with her life, now couldn't even stand to talk to her on the phone.

Olivia paused at the open doorway of the dark squad room, suddenly aware of her heart beating painfully against her ribs. Elliot was sitting at his desk, forehead resting on his left fist as he scrawled something on a legal pad illuminated by the only lamp lit in the entire, vast room.

"Elliot?" Her voice came out soft and hesitant, lacking the usual assertiveness she had shown around her former partner.

He looked up slowly, his hand coming down on the desk as his gaze took her in. His ice blue eyes were glittering in the light, his mouth drawn out in an expression he usually reserved for their perps. Olivia nearly flinched. Elliot had never stared at her that way, as if he hated her.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked roughly. She started to walk into the dark squad room, and then hesitated.

"El, I was worried…"

He snorted, forcing out a dark, humorless laugh. "Worried? You don't get to be worried anymore, Olivia. Not about me, not about the squad."

Suddenly angry, she strode over to desk that used to be hers, the one so intimately joined with Elliot's for the past decade. He jerked to his feet, nearly causing his chair to topple backwards with the harsh movement.

"Just because I left…"

"That's why! You left. You fucking left!" He was practically yelling now, staring down at her in the half-light, the strength of emotion alive on his face.

"That doesn't mean I don't care, El. I never stopped caring," Olivia countered, her voice softening, her fingers curling on the back of her old chair. She stood still in front of the harsh force of her former partner. He could scare the strongest, vilest of men into submission in the interrogation room, but she wouldn't let him push her down.

"You showed me exactly how much you care, Liv," Elliot replied, his tone lower, but still seething. "What? Did you come here to show me again how much you fucking care? To tell me you're now moving out of the state? Is that how much you really care, Benson?"

She swallowed, moistening her lower lip. "Just because we are no longer partners doesn't mean we can't be friends."

He grunted, a short, disbelieving sound as he shook his head. "Goddamn you."

"Elliot…"

"Just…go away," he sighed, his face relaxing in an odd show of defeat as he sat back down and picked up his pen. She watched as he started writing again, all of his attention on the legal pad in front of him as he pointedly ignored her.

Olivia stood there silently for over a minute, waiting for him to speak, unsure of what to say or even what to think. She wished for anything for their old banter, the easy flow of just being that came so naturally to them. It seemed forever lost, forever broken.

"Elliot."

He looked up. This time the expression he held was one of weariness, the face of a man who had been through hell his entire life and just craved peace. Elliot, in that moment, looked all of his 45 years.

"Please, Liv. I can't do this with you. I can't argue anymore."

"Why do we have to argue?" Olivia walked cautiously around the desks, coming to Elliot's side. In an instinctive move to be on the same level, he stood again, facing her.

"Because that's all we have left. That is all that remains," Elliot answered, his voice devoid of feeling. Despair pierced her heart at the comment, and the raw emotion caused unshed tears to glisten in her dark eyes.

"It doesn't have to be like this, El." She whispered, reaching out to touch him. He flinched, but didn't pull away as her hand rested against his chest.

"You chose this. The day you threw away our partnership," he replied, his blue gaze flittering across her face. "You gave up on it. You gave up on me."

A tear slid down her cheek even after her vain attempt not to cry. His eyes caught the movement, and then his thumb. Elliot leaned into her, his mouth gentle as he kissed the remnants of the warm saltiness on her cheek.

"I would never give up on you, El. My God, how can you say that?" She asked, her voice trembling slightly.

"Because," he spoke quietly, his mouth caressing her check in small kisses, "I would give you everything, Liv, everything, and it still wasn't enough."

She was nearly dizzy with emotion. Elliot was fueling the long suppressed desire with his small movements at the same time utter despair and loss was twisting her stomach into painful knots.

"You are all I ever needed, El," she pleaded, her fingers bunching up the cotton of his dress shirt over his chest. "All I ever needed was you…"

His mouth was hot when it met hers. Too many years had passed between them for the innocence of a first kiss; open mouths, they explored each other with sensuous abandon. Her fingers pulled at his silk tie as he grazed at the waistband of her pants.

"I want you," Elliot growled low against her ear, causing a stab of lust in her belly. "Right here, Liv, right now."

She moaned her response, rotating her hips against his, pressing against his erection. He groaned, his hands dropping to her hips to repeat the movement. One hand slid against her right thigh and he pulled her leg high around his waist, shifting so he was suddenly, rather intimately pressing against her center.

The rush of desire nearly caused her to black out, painful in its intensity.

"Please, oh, God," Olivia gasped, arching against him, "need you. Need you inside of me, El."

That was all it took. His mouth was crushing against hers again as they fumbled out of clothes and gun holsters. In the midst of their frantic disrobing, Olivia heard the crash of folders and pens as Elliot swiped clean part of his desktop, pausing only to cover the bare wood surface with his trench coat.

Their coupling was frenzied, both burning with nearly a decade of emotion culminated in this single act. He was between her trembling thighs on the desktop, and then inside her, both sweating with the rhythm.

His tongue was in her mouth, matching the movement below. She was so close, so close when she felt him touch her there and her climax broke. Olivia was sobbing with the release when she felt him arch against her and cry out her name.

Elliot leaned forward, catching most of his weight on his elbows, still inside of her. He was gasping, shaking with reaction. Olivia's fingertips grazed down his damp back, comforting him.

His blue eyes caught her gaze, the color darker than she had ever seen them. There was the relaxed expression of release combined with something deeper, something infinitely more important and dangerous.

Elliot's thumb brushed gently against her parted lips while he stared down at her. "Do you understand now, Liv?"

She blinked. "Understand?" Her heart constricted painfully at the look of sadness that battled with tenderness on his face.

"Understand why we can't do this. Why what we had is gone." His voice lowered. "Why I can't see you again."

Her eyebrows drew together slightly as she looked up at him, the pain clear in her eyes.

"Olivia, you broke my heart. Tore me to pieces. I loved you," he spoke quietly, his fingertips caressing her cheek as she stared at him, wide eyed with faint shock. The blue of his eyes was suddenly wet, and Olivia felt a surreal ness at the raw hurt that would bring him to tears.

"God help me, Liv, I still do," he whispered, his voice breaking.

Without another word, he pushed up from the desk, standing. She sat up, watching silently, still shocked and too affected to think of anything to say. Elliot was pulling on his pants, pointedly ignoring her as he dressed.

She was still sitting half-nude on his desk when he turned to look at her. Olivia was shaking, biting her lip and staring. He hesitated for only a moment before he stood in front of her again. Elliot reached out a hand, cupping the back of her head as he leaned down, resting his forehead to hers.

Eyes open but unseeing, she felt his tears. Olivia was lost, more lost than she had ever felt. Elliot loved her, but never wanted to see her again. Somehow, in all of this, she had broken his heart.

He pulled back, staring down at her with red-rimmed eyes, lips pinched as he fought the urge to break down completely in front of her.

She looked up at him, trying to grasp onto reality even as it drifted further away from her. "Elliot?" Her voice was barely audible and she moistened her lips, trying his name again.

He shook his head, running an angry hand through his hair as he continued to fight the battle with his emotions. They stared at each other in silence for several minutes before he moved towards her again, this time to kiss her gently on the mouth. When he pulled back, there was a sad longing in his blue eyes she knew she would never forget.

"You'll haunt me the rest of my life, Liv," he whispered. "The pain of seeing you again…I can't deal with it. There's nothing left of me to break."

With a sense of finality, he turned away from her, walking around the desks and out of her field of view. Olivia listened as his foot falls faded into the dark, waiting for cold silence before she broke down. She sobbed openly, the pain too much to bear, too much for her to comprehend.

Elliot Stabler had just walked out of her life.