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. Have I mentioned I love them?

A/N: All warnings from the first chapter stay in this one, though I have relented a bit on my original, angst-ridden plans. There might be a bit of fluff in the next, final chapter. Oh, and wherever Munch is, humor does follow.


Chapter Three

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell."
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Her house was relatively small, a quaint, well-maintained home that couldn't be larger than two bedrooms. It surprised him, knowing as he did now her income; surely she could have afforded something larger with her current job and salary. But then maybe some things hadn't changed at all. Olivia never was the flashy sort, and in a way, the house comforted him with the thought that maybe he would find the same woman, untouched by the years.

Munch walked up the concrete stairs lined on each side with various potted plants. He had never known that she had held any past interest in gardening, but perhaps the climate here in Portland made it easier to grow things than NYC. Having exchanged an apartment for a house obviously helped. Or maybe it was one of many things that had possibly changed. He would make it a point to ask her.

Steeling his nerves, Munch knocked on the door three times then settled back on his heels, hands in his trouser pockets. He heard a muffled voice, something like laughter, and then the sound of the locks working before the door opened in front of him.

Olivia Benson had definitely changed.

He took in her appearance with familiar detective expertise as she blinked at him in speechless surprise. Her usual short hair now fell in soft waves past her shoulders. Silver strands threaded through the dark brown by her temples, and he wondered faintly if she had always had some gray and chose now not to cover it up. Her face was relatively free from make-up, and there was a softness to her that he had never seen before. She still held that world-weariness that he imagined all of them would be burdened with even beyond the SVU, but there was indescribable warmth in her eyes, almost like love.

She was wearing a sundress, and outside of the current situation, he would have enjoyed the odd visual of her still slender body in a dress. And Stabler wasn't even here to stare daggers at him, or tell him to keep his eyes off his partner.

That thought took away any amusement he felt. Munch was here for a reason.

"John?" Olivia had finally found her voice, his name coming out scratchy from her suddenly dry throat. She was staring; for his part, he appeared exactly the same as when she had first met him nearly 15 years before at the 16th precinct. If Munch had ever appeared anything other than 60 years old, she had never seen it.

"I never got that postcard."

His words didn't make sense at first, until she remembered, in abrupt clarity, their last conversation nearly five years ago. The postcard she had promised to send him. The one that was never sent.

A wry smile touched her soft mouth. "So you had to track me down?"

He smiled back. He was pleased to see that not only hadn't she slammed the door in his face, but that she was displaying a somewhat positive emotion. "It was important to me." He paused, his face losing its humor. "That's not the only reason I'm here."

They both looked at each other, a world of meaning exchanged in the glance. Elliot.

She pulled open the door, standing to the side so he could walk past her. "Please come in, John."

He made it past the threshold, the sparse, but homey living room coming into view, and beyond that, a small nook that served as dining area. Munch froze in place, the visual nearly causing his heart to stop.

At the practical, oak dinette set, a small boy sat coloring with crayons. At the sound of Munch entering the house, the child had turned to look, curious to see the visitor.

The boy had shaggy brown hair and dark, nearly luminous brown eyes that mirrored those of his mother. But the shape of his eyes and the straight slope of his nose, though strikingly familiar, were not of his mother's parentage. The child stared back at Munch, one dark eyebrow arching as his little mouth drew out in a smirk. The action would have seemed out of place on a child, but it was so recognizable as a quirk of his father, that Munch felt himself shaking with the dawning realization.

Olivia saw the abject horror on Munch's face and cringed. She knew this day would come; as the years passed, it was always in the back of her mind that some day, some part of her past would resurface.

It had been nearly five years ago that she had left NYC and basically all that she knew and had in life. Olivia stayed with Sylvia Benson long enough to get used to Portland and the idea of starting over. The generous woman had even suggested Olivia live and raise her child in the spacious house with her, but Olivia knew this was something she would have to do on her own.

With her qualifications, it would have been easy enough for her to find work again as a detective. But there would always be an increased risk of death as a cop, and she was intimately aware that aside from Sylvia, she was the only one her son had in life. That, and of course, police work would only remind her day in and day out what she had left behind. For there would never be another partner, another man like Elliot Stabler.

But even though she was able to move past working as a cop, something she thought she would do the rest of her life, she still couldn't do a job unless somehow, someway, she was helping people. It was that basic need that brought her to the Portland's Volunteers of America's Woman's Residential Center. She had started work there as an abuse counselor, moving up through the years to her current position as the Assistant Director. Though she no longer carried a gun or worked for justice, she found fulfillment in assisting women picking up the pieces of their lives and moving on. As a detective, her sensitivity and empathy towards the victims had almost been a detriment at times; now it was benefit. She was there not to find the perpetrator, but to help heal the wounded.

While it had been easy to forget during the day, nights were hell. Elliot haunted her dreams; there had even been times when she had woken up her son in the middle of the night, crying out with her loss. She had taken sleeping pills for a while, before the guilt at the thought of something happening to her child while she was blissfully unaware made her stop.

Of course, she always thought about Elliot when she looked at their son. It hadn't been obvious when he was a baby, but the older he became, the more and more he looked like his father. Olivia could easily imagine him as a teenager, and then a young man; he was a brown-eyed version of Elliot. The day to day interaction, waking him up, feeding him, reading stories…she always felt an ache in her heart that accompanied the unequivocal love she felt for her son.

Olivia looked over at him now, feeling a sense of pride. Through it all, there was never a day she regretted having him. He was a beautiful, sensitive child, and with all that she had lost, he somehow helped her through it.

"Olivia?"

She looked back at Munch. His face was pale, and behind his tinted glasses, his dark eyes were wide. He was staring at her, his lips parted in something akin to faint shock.

"Why don't you come in and have a seat on the couch? I'll get us something to drink and then we can talk, okay?" She spoke softly, her tone gentle as she closed and locked the door behind them. He nodded silently, watching as she gave him a small smile before walking towards the kitchen. Olivia paused to kiss the top of the boy's head before she disappeared into the other room.

Munch stood still for a moment, feeling more shocked then he had since he found his third wife and his former best friend in bed together. And that had been over 20 years ago. He had thought that maybe Olivia Benson might have married, maybe would have given thought to having children someday, but this…

He wondered for a second if Elliot knew, but that couldn't be the case. If Elliot had known she was pregnant with his child, he never would have let her leave. No, Olivia had runaway without telling him. But why? Why did she pick up everything with no intentions of coming back or letting Elliot know? Elliot must have hurt her in some way, or convinced her to leave. But why would he do that when it was so obvious that the man loved her more than the world?

Munch walked stiffly over to the couch, sitting down hesitantly on the comfortable, earthy green sofa. He glanced over to the child again, but he was busy furiously coloring in a large section of the book with a blue crayon, swinging his tiny legs back and forth in a lazy beat.

Olivia reappeared again with two glasses of water, ice cubes clinking against the sides. She handed him one with an apologetic smile before sitting down on the couch next to him.

"All I have in the house is juice and milk. Remembering you're lactose intolerant and not knowing your juice preference, I figured you wouldn't mind water."

He shook his head, taking a sip before setting the glass down on the sturdy oak coffee table in front of them. He was quiet, silently assessing her, his dark gaze skipping over her features before he looked at the child again.

"He looks just like his father," Munch spoke softly. Olivia tensed for a moment, before relaxing again. She pulled in her lower lip, moistening it, and then set her glass down next to Munch's.

Olivia turned to her son, holding out her hand. "Elliot? Come here, sweetheart. I want you to meet an old friend of mine."

Olivia felt Munch stiffen next to her, expecting the response to her son's name. Perhaps she did it as some sort of self-purgatory, but she couldn't think of any other name she would have wanted for her only son.

The child pushed forward in the chair before hopping down. He bounced more than walked over to them, touching Olivia's outstretched hand, pulling himself onto her lap. He was eyeing Munch again, curious.

"Are you Mr. Munch?"

Munch's eyebrows rose at the question, and he gave Olivia an incredulous look. She smiled in return.

"Yes he is, sweetheart," she laughed, brushing back his shaggy hair. "This is Mr. Munch."

"How did you…?"

"So is real? Mommy, is it aw real?" Elliot jumped down from his mother's lap, walking over to Munch. Munch was still staring at Olivia, confused.

"Only parts are real, remember?"

"Olivia…?"

She laughed again. "I tell Elliot bedtime stories. You just happen to be in some of them. I guess I described you so well that he has no doubts of your identity."

Munch glanced away from the wide-eyed child in front of him back to her. "You told him about the SVU squad?"

"My mommy was a cop," Elliot said with a grin. "And she tells stowies about magic cars, and magic cops. Dere's you and your pahter Mr. Fin and then dere's Mr. Crawfish…"

Munch nearly choked. "Does he mean Cragen?"

Olivia gave him a short look. "Elliot's not quite five, John. Cragen's name is difficult…"

"I'm four," Elliot interrupted, holding up the four fingers on his right hand for Munch. "And with Mommy dere is Mr. Stable."

Munch quirked his eyebrows up again at Olivia before turning back to the child. "Magic cops, huh?"

"Yes. And you fwight dragons and bad dings. Mommy says they're wreally, wreally bad. Some dings so bad she not even talks 'bout. But you save kids from the bad dings." Elliot looked towards the living room windows and then to Munch excitedly. "Did you take a magic car here?"

"'Fraid not, kid. Plain old taxi cab after a frightful flight in coach."

"You fwy?"

Munch laughed. "Only when I'm forced to. Or when I really need to see your mother."

Olivia's smile faded. Elliot. They needed to talk about why Munch had finally made an appearance in her life.

"Sweetheart, why don't you go play in your room for awhile? You can play with the Playdough as long as you keep it on your play table, okay?"

The little boy grinned, nodding his head. He turned to walk away, but paused, reaching up to hug Olivia. The small sign of affection tugged at her heart and she tightened the embrace, rocking him slightly. She gave him another small kiss on his forehead and then set him down. Both she and Munch watched as Elliot raced around the couch and disappeared down the hallway, singing some inane child song.

Olivia looked back at Munch, who unnervingly was staring at her again. She took another sip of water, fumbling a bit. It was awkward, and she felt a little out of sorts. After all, she had been the one who had runaway, and here she was, face to face with a significant part of her past. Not the biggest part, but still one that obviously she would have to answer to.

"So how did you find me?" Olivia asked quietly.

"I've been looking for you, on and off, pretty much since you left," Munch sighed, relaxing back into the couch. He took off his glasses, cleaning them with the edge of one of his un-tucked shirttails. "But you're a hard woman to find. I thought for sure you would still be working as a cop, probably in some urban area. So I started there, researching as much as I could. Do you know there is a patrol cop in Oklahoma City named Olivia Benson?"

She shook her head mutely, watching as he replaced his glasses and looked back over to her.

"I even tried gun permits; if not a cop, then I thought for sure you would at least still be licensed to carry. All of my leads kept on coming up dead." He smiled. "But then my penchant for giving to charity actually solidified my belief in karma."

"How so?"

Munch dug around inside his gray suit jacket, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded it, smoothing out the pages. "I donate to the Volunteers of America. Use to actually donate time, but for the past several years I can only afford to donate money. In response, they send out their quarterly request for more money and a news letter."

He handed the paper to her. "Usually I just scan them and then toss them in the recycling bin, but this one caught my eye. Second page, last picture on the right."

Olivia took the paper from him, recognizing the familiar text and letterhead of the organization in charge of the Portland's Woman's Residential Center. She flipped open the crumpled pages, coming to the photo he was referencing.

Olivia recognized herself instantly in the small black and white image. She was in profile for the camera, in the midst of one of the community luncheons the WRC held to raise money and awareness for the cause. Under the photo, her name was listed among others featured in the shot, identified as being in Portland, Oregon.

"I should have known you would end up doing something to help the victims. Not that I minded this slap in the face. It came at the right time."

Olivia looked up from the paper. "What has happened?"

Munch took a drink from his water glass, setting it down and pausing to access her again. "Olivia, why did you runaway?"

She felt the heat flood her face and looked away. "I had to."

"Stabler doesn't know. He would have stopped you, and if he couldn't stop you, he wouldn't have rested until he found you. So why? Why didn't you tell him? Why did you runaway?"

"I had to, John. Elliot doesn't want me," she spoke quietly. She might as well be honest. It was more than obvious now to Munch that her and Elliot had been more than partners. He may as well know the rest.

He snorted. "Who in the hell gave you that idea?"

She pushed up from the couch, crossing her arms and walking a few steps away from him. "He did. The one and only night we…he told me. He told me he never wanted to see me again."

Olivia turned around. The shock on Munch's face was quickly replaced with anger. "He told you what?"

"Do you want me to repeat it word for word?" She asked bitterly. "He told me I had broken him and if he had to ever see me again, it would kill him. I think he made it plain enough, don't you?"

Munch looked away, shaking his head. "For all that's holy…that blind, arrogant asshole," he trailed off. He rubbed his forehead, muttering some curse under his breath.

In a move that almost startled her, Munch had pushed off the couch and was standing in front of her quicker than she had thought possible at his age.

"Olivia, listen to me. Elliot's in love with you. Insanely, head over heels, Sound of Music singing, awe inspiring in love with you," he spoke steadily, holding her upper arms where she still had them crossed over her chest.

She would have laughed at him, but he had a serious, determined look in his dark eyes. She bit her lip, staring at him. "Munch…"

"When you left the squad, it nearly killed him. Oh, he didn't tell me, but he didn't have to; it was obvious that he thought you chose the job over him. He felt betrayed. When he said that to you, he most certainly was lashing out. The man is lovesick, Liv."

She blinked, and then looked away. His voice was softer the next time he spoke.

"Since you ran away, he's been a different man. He never smiles anymore. Other than seeing his children every weekend, the man has no social life. I doubt he's been with a woman since you. I thought that maybe he had started to drink, going home each night to the bottle. But Cragen's confirmed it's not that." Munch sighed.

"Instead, each night he goes home alone. And to what? To spend an evening with his gun? I'm sure he's entertained the thought of eating a bullet, but you know those Catholics. Suicide, hell, but I'm sure Stabler's close to the breaking point."

"The pain of seeing you again…I can't deal with it. There's nothing left of me to break." His words, always his words would come back to her. Hadn't she left for him? Because she had already broken him?

She faced him again, the sting of tears in her eyes. "Is that why you came, John? Do you really think Elliot would kill himself?" She couldn't help the fear the bled into her voice, betraying her emotions.

He sighed again, his gaze following a tear as it slid down her cheek. "Since you left, Stabler has gone through six partners. Three years ago, a detective by the name of Richard Harper was assigned to the squad, Stabler's new partner. Like the others, it was a struggle. But somehow, Harper made a breakthrough. He was aggressive, ballsy, rude and mean tempered. He was a damn good detective, and he became, against the odds, Stabler's friend.

"Last month, Harper and Stabler were involved in an uncover op involving the sex traffic trade down in Chinatown. They were working with the 2-6, and something went wrong. Details aside, Harper took a bullet that was meant for Stabler. I think Stabler would have welcome the chance to escape his own personal hell he's built so nicely for himself the past five years, but Harper saw it coming and jumped in front of him."

Olivia covered her mouth with her hand lightly, the tears streaming down her face. It was raw, the fresh pain she experienced regarding her former partner. She knew instinctively how he must have felt. To have someone give their life for his, and his current state of mind…

"Oh God, John…"

"They put Stabler on paid leave for two weeks while IA and Homicide sorted through everything. And of course, he has mandatory therapy. But everyone knows, Liv. It's only a matter of time. I don't even know if his children are enough to hold him together. But maybe if you came back…"

His voice trailed off seeing the look in her eyes. Munch turned, looking behind him. At the edge of the hallway, the boy was standing holding a teddy bear, a stricken look on his face.

"Mommy?"

"It's okay, sweetheart," she spoke softly, reassuringly as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. She moved around Munch, walking over to Elliot and kneeling down.

"Are you crwhying bahcuz of Mr. Stable?"

"Yes," she said simply, reaching down to pull him up into her arms. Obviously he had been standing there for a moment. Not too long, she hoped. He looked at her, tears welling up in his own large brown eyes.

"Don't crwhy, Mommy," he sniffled, holding her tightly with his small arms. "We can go, right? Like Mr. Munch says so?"

She smoothed his disheveled hair absently, turning back to look at Munch. His gaze shifted from her, to her son, and then back to her again.

"There's a 3:40 flight from Portland to NYC, with a short layover in Minneapolis on Northwest," he spoke softly. "As of two hours ago, there were still seats left."

She bit her lip, looking down at her son, trembling suddenly with the enormity of the situation. She was safe now, safe in her newly created life with her son. To go back would be to face that which she had run from with such finality most five years ago. To see him again, to smell him, to possibly break him further than she had already done.

"I loved you. God help me, I still do."

Maybe there was hope. Maybe he could overcome that one decision, the choice she had made that had spun them down to the breaking point.

"Let me pack a small suitcase, and you can book the tickets," Olivia replied, her voice nearly inaudible. Elliot was looking up at her again, his eyes bright.

"We're going to see Mr. Stable?"

"Yes, sweetheart," Olivia answered him, still running her fingers over his dark hair.

"Magic," he whispered, and from across the room, Munch smiled.

They were going home.