And I have regretted it every single fucking day of the last ten years.

The roof is silent, in the wake of Elliot's fierce, brokenhearted declaration. Tia's pulse is racing, the roar of her own blood loud as thunder in her ears. How could she have been so wrong? She'd thought Elliot was interesting, and brave, and like her, a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, a little bit reckless, a little bit selfish. She'd thought they made a good pair, thought they cared about the same things, thought that even if he had been slipping in recent days Elliot loved this work, as she did. She'd thought he was happy here - Christ, he'd seemed happy, him and Kathy both, with their beautiful flat and their beautiful son and their beautiful Italian life - but he'd just blown a hole right through all of her assumptions. Rome is beautiful, and warm, a golden, cultured escape for a man who'd lived his life in the gutters of New York, but it is New York he longs for. New York has always seemed a grim place to her, cold and unfriendly; she's been there many times, and what she remembers most is dirty snow at the roadside and overfilled trash bins and downcast eyes on trains. How could he long for such a place, when he has the glory of Rome in summer around him? Perhaps because it is not the place he longs for at all; perhaps because he longs for her.

Her, that woman in her leather jacket, that woman so different in appearance to Kathy. Dark where Kathy is light, hard where Kathy is soft, at ease with a gun in her hands while Kathy prefers holding babies. There is something about her that reminds Tia of the mafia movies she watched when she was a kid, something deadly, and dark. How could Elliot be so swayed by such a woman, when he has spent his life in the arms of someone so different from her? Kathy has been joyous in Rome, and apparently Elliot has been just the opposite; Kathy has bloomed in the sunlight, but Elliot has dried up, baked until he cracked in the heat of an Italian summer, dreaming of frost and the bite of a cold wind on his cheeks. Dreaming of her.

"I can't do this, Elliot," Olivia says then, very quietly.

"Can't do what?" he demands. "Can't do what? Can't talk to me?"

"Elliot-"

"You held my son before I ever did and I don't even know your son's name. Jesus."

"You knew where to find me," Olivia reminds him, and there is no mercy in her. Leaving her, abandoning her, without a word; Elliot has dealt her a grievous blow, and she is vindictive in her sorrow, clinging to her grief like a child would cling to a favorite stuffed animal. "You could've called. Any time, you could've called. But you didn't. And we wouldn't be talking now if it weren't for this fucking case. Don't stand there and pretend-"

"Olivia-"

"Don't stand there and tell me you want to know about my life when you never would have asked if I hadn't turned up here."

She has him there, Tia thinks. It all comes back to that; whatever apologies Elliot might be making now, it's only happenstance that brought them together, not any particular contrition on Elliot's part.

"I'm so glad you did," Elliot says, and Tia can hear it in his voice, the sideways little smile, can almost see the way his eyes have gone soft, warm, crinkled up just for Olivia, even if he still sounds sad.

"I been…I been keeping away because…ah, hell, Liv. I hurt you, and I knew it, and I thought…I don't deserve your forgiveness. So I wasn't even gonna ask. I just thought you'd be better off if I left you be."

"You're so fucking stupid," Olivia tells him, but though her voice is sad it is also, strangely, fond.

"I know. I know. I'm so fucking stupid. But I gotta ask, Liv…"

His voice trails off like he's afraid of the question on the tip of his tongue. Like he knows he's gotta ask it but he knows it's gonna hurt, like he just can't see any other option but he'd take the out if he could find it. If only Tia could see his face, could see the way he's looking at Olivia now, maybe she might find some answer in his eyes, but she can't take the risk of peeking her head around the vent again. They've been moving while they're talking, restless, unmoored, and she doesn't know really where they are now, which direction they're facing. If she glanced at them now and found them both staring at her it would be mortifying; hilarious, but untenable. She stays where she is.

"Tia says your kid is ten."

It is a significant number, Tia knows. It is significant to him, to them. It is the number of years he has been gone. It is the number of years Olivia has been without him.

"He's adopted," Olivia tells him, and she sounds almost sad about it, and even from a distance she can hear Elliot release the breath he was holding. So Elliot did fuck Olivia, at least once, did worry that she has been raising his child all these years without him - and that, Tia knows, would have broken him to pieces, the realization that he had left behind a child, that he has failed in his responsibilities as a parent, as a man, that he has missed so much of his son's life - but this child is not his. This child is someone else's, and whatever they did together Elliot and Olivia did not make a baby. She wonders if either of them regrets it now. She can only hazard a guess at Olivia's age, but she thinks the other woman's baby making days are behind her. It's too late for them, now.

"I'm gonna go find Tia, have her take me to the hotel," Olivia says then, and Tia starts, suddenly anxious. She'll have to run to get back to the bullpen before Olivia does.

"You're just gonna leave? Just gonna walk away?"

Olivia doesn't answer right away; Tia imagines she's glaring at him for the impertinence of asking such a question, given everything.

"You made your choice," Olivia reminds him after a moment. "You made the right one. Be with your family, Elliot. Go home to Kathy. That's the way this works, isn't it? That's the way it's always worked. That's the deal. You chose her."

"Did I ever really have a choice?" Elliot's voice sounds wrecked with the kind of guilt that makes Tia uncomfortable to hear it. "You, or my wife? You, or my family? You, or the job? Would you have even let me make that choice?"

"I guess we'll never know," Olivia says, and then Tia hears the sound of feet on the move.

She has to make a choice herself, now. Olivia has said she wants to leave; maybe Elliot will let her, or maybe he won't. If Tia waits too long to depart from the roof she risks being caught out at eavesdropping, but if she leaves now she won't hear the end of Elliot and Olivia's conversation. She wants to, desperately, wants to know where it's all going to go from here, but she also knows that whatever they are about to say to one another it won't help her cause, not in the long run. Whatever Elliot wants he has chosen his family, and Olivia seems unwilling to forgive him. When the trafficking case is over Olivia will return to the grim crowded streets of New York, and Elliot will linger in Rome, and he will be heartbroken, and maybe he will let Tia mend him. She could comfort him, if he'd let her.

So she leaves, makes her way back to the bullpen as quickly as she can. Olivia arrives perhaps thirty seconds after her, and Tia feels an unflattering sort of relief at that; Olivia did not linger on the roof with Elliot, lost in a dream of what might have been. She left him, and that is for the good. The sooner Olivia leaves Rome behind, the sooner Tia will have Elliot all to herself again.

"Ready to go?" she asks, offering Olivia a bright smile.

Olivia just nods, and lets Tia shuffle her out the door without a word. There is no sign of Elliot as they make their way down to Tia's car, and Olivia does not speak as they drive the short distance to her hotel. It makes Tia feel like an underappreciated taxi driver, but she makes no attempt to draw Olivia into conversation; she doesn't have the first idea what to say to this woman. This woman Elliot cares for, this woman Elliot was willing to be unfaithful to his wife for, this woman who has shattered him, and left him to pick up the pieces alone.

At the hotel Olivia insists she can make her way inside alone, so Tia stays in the car, watches her disappear from view, and then she pulls out her mobile, and calls Elliot.

It's petty, really. It's manipulative and immature and unattractive, but she sees an opening here, and she wants to take it. Olivia has hurt him; Tia will help him. He's probably in need of a friend right now, and she can be that for him. Because she cares for him she will listen to his problems, and offer him a shoulder to cry on, and he will like her better, when that conversation is done. He will like her better if she is kind to him where Olivia has been cold. He will stay if he finds Rome more welcoming than New York ever was.

But he doesn't answer his phone. It goes to voicemail after a few rings, so Tia puts the car in drive, pulls away from the hotel, points her car in the direction of home. He may still be on his way home himself; she resolves to try him again later.

At home she eats a quick dinner and then calls him, but he doesn't answer. Worry is starting to simmer low in her belly; what if she was calling about the case? It's not like him to be unreachable. No doubt he's pouting, licking his wounds, but he has no need to avoid her; she is not the one who has hurled accusations at his feet, and he has no idea the secrets she has overheard. To give herself something to do she goes and takes a shower, scrubs and exfoliates and lotions and pampers herself, and when it's done she calls him again.

Still no answer.

Fuck that, she thinks. Maybe Olivia accepted his silence, allowed him to ignore her and left him in peace, but Tia will not be so easily cast aside. She dresses quickly, grabs her keys, leaves again.

They are friends, Tia and Elliot, and Tia is friendly with Kathy, and she has shown up at their door late in the evening many times. Kathy won't think anything of it, she's sure; Kathy may be glad to see her. Kathy doesn't know many people in Rome, and every time Tia comes by Kathy offers her wine, asks her to sit and chat a while. Wouldn't that be something, she thinks, to sit and sip wine with Elliot's wife, knowing what she knows now; she feels almost bad about it.

Almost.

On the drive she calls him twice more, but still he doesn't answer, and she is feeling more worried than treacherous when she arrives at his door. He wouldn't do something stupid, would he? Wouldn't take Olivia's recrimination to heart, wouldn't be so hopeless as to hurt himself? No, she thinks, he's too Catholic for that. But maybe he'd go to a bar, drown his sorrows, and if that's what he's done she needs to know. He'll need someone to fetch him, clean him up, bring him home before he does too much damage to the life he's built here. Tia can do that. Friends take care of one another.

The path to his front door is familiar to her, and she makes her way inside his building, up the stairs to his flat easily and without hesitation. At the door she knocks once, sharply, and then stands back, waiting to see what she might find. Part of her hopes he's here, at home, hopes that Olivia hasn't gotten as far under his skin as Tia worries she has, but part of her hopes that he isn't here at all. Part of her hopes he is lost, because she wants to be the one to help him find his way home.

Kathy opens the door, glass of wine in her hand, but she is not smiling, the way she usually would be when she sees Tia. There is something hard in her eyes Tia has never seen there before; Kathy is quick with a joke and a fine hostess, always eager to set everyone at ease, bustling around her home with the sort of authority only a housewife can have, but there is no trace of good humor in her now.

"He's not here," she tells Tia. She knows without asking why Tia has come; of course she does. Tia and Kathy may be friends, but Tia only ever comes to this flat in search of Elliot.

"He's not answering his phone," Tia says. "I'm worried about him."

"Don't be," Kathy tells her, and there is an edge like a blade to her voice.

"Kathy, what happened?"

Tia fears she knows the answer already. What happened earlier tonight, Tia knows all about that, and she is beginning to wonder if Kathy knows, too. If Elliot came straight here, and told his wife the truth. Jesus, how stupid could he be?

"She happened," Kathy says. "Come on, come inside. I've got something I need to ask you."

Shit.