It was strange, having him back. Having him home. Strange, because the circumstances of his return had not allowed her to rail at him, to scream, to strike his face, to tell him outright how much damage he'd caused; the grief he felt at having lost Kathy was already too much for him to bear, and any further blows might have shattered him, and her with him. Strange, because sometimes when she looked at him she did not recognize his face, did not recognize the man he had become, his voice lower, his smiles less frequent, his suits better tailored. Strange, because sometimes when she looked at him she did see him, as he once had been, her Elliot. Strange, how loud the silences had grown, how the old wounds had begun to hurt, how the ghosts seemed to come walking. Strange, how still the nights had become. She had grown so used to missing him she hardly noticed the ache of it, but now that he was back the ache had grown, if possible, even more acute.

But she was not now what she once had been; she was a mother, a Captain, a woman who moved with a more measured step. She tried, for the sake of her own uncertain heart, to keep him at a safe distance, to care for him as she would for any friend, without allowing him to consume her as he once had done. She tried to make something new out of something old; kintsugi, the art of restoring broken pottery with gold, joining that which had been shattered, art from chaos, that's what she was trying to do.

It wasn't fucking working.

He came back, he lost his mind, he found it again, he went under, he came up; the days turned into months and she could feel it, like a fishhook caught behind her bellybutton, an invisible line reeling her closer and closer to him no matter how hard she fought it. Fate was a fisherman, a damn good one, and she couldn't avoid the question of Elliot; he festered, and pestered her, her attention constantly returning to him like a tongue worrying against a sore cheek. Christmas came, his first Christmas without Kathy, and she and Noah had their own traditions, a perfectly lovely Christmas planned for just the two of them to share, and then Elliot looked at her with those pleading puppy dog eyes and asked her to come to his home instead. After their flight to Jersey and the desperate race to save Eli, after Rafa's bullish insistence that he knew best, after Rafa's stubborn refusal to hear her, after Rafa's brilliant fucking lawyering got Wheatley off, after all of that, when her head was spinning and her feet were slipping and sliding beneath her as if she were racing up a hill of sand, Elliot invited her to his home. She'd thought his family would spend the holiday quietly grieving, remembering what they had lost, but he asked her to come, he wanted her to come, and it scared the shit out of her and she couldn't say yes out loud but she'd already decided in her heart to do it. Elliot had asked; she could not say no to Elliot.

But life had other plans, the job had other plans, and she did not introduce her son to Elliot on Christmas day. She put a bullet through a man's head on Christmas day instead.

As far as Christmases went it ranked fairly high among the worst ever. Perhaps not the worst; she'd had no choice, but to kill that man. If she hadn't, countless others would have been injured, the scope of his violence would have been immeasurable. If she hadn't, someone else on her squad might have had to, and she wouldn't want to burden any of them with this. Amanda needed to see her girls and Fin needed to see Ken and Carisi needed to hug his mother, and she had already disappointed Elliot by not turning up and not calling to tell him why. Noah was the only one waiting on her while she sat alone at the station filling out the endless reams of paperwork and tangling with IAB, and her heart broke for her son, it did, but he'd spent the day with Amanda's girls, the closest thing he had to cousins, and he was safe, and she would make it up to him later. It was better this way, she thought. Noah was safe, and her squad were with their families, and maybe the Stablers had a better Christmas without her than they would have had with her. She wasn't the most Christmassy person, and Kathy had only just died, and the kids might have had questions about why she was there, why their father had invited her, and Olivia didn't know the answer herself - wasn't sure Elliot did either, if she was being honest - and it was better this way. Cleaner.

Eventually she wrapped up the paperwork, went to Amanda's, and Carisi carried Noah, still fast asleep, out to the car for her. It was late, and cold, and the world was still, snow flurries blowing through the winter air, and Olivia drove through familiar streets with Christmas carols playing softly on the radio, the lights of the city twinkling beyond her windows like bright and shimmering stars. Perhaps there in the quiet, listening to the music, looking at the lights, knowing her child was safe and happy and sleeping peacefully, the Christmas spirit should have come for her. Perhaps she should have felt, not joy exactly - impossible to feel joy, on the same day she'd killed someone - but contentment. A certainty that she had done right, a hopeful happiness at the thought of the next few days spent in the company of her son. They'd gone to church on Christmas Eve, the candlelight service; heard the nativity story, sung hymns with the glow of the candles flickering on Noah's sweet face, and she'd almost felt it then. Contentment. It was an emotion that felt very far away at present.

At home she had to wake Noah; she was too tired and she didn't trust her bad ankle to hold her if she tried to carry him. He was getting bigger every day, too big for her to perch him on her hip and take him with her everywhere as she had done when he was small, and the thought just made her sad. She tousled his messy curls and took his hand, led him into their building, up into his bed. He tumbled into it without hesitation, managed to murmur merry Christmas, mom, before his eyes closed once more, before he drifted off into dreams. For a time she just stood in the doorway, looking at him, watching him sleep; it had been years since she'd done that with any regularity, but for a while there it had been the only thing that kept her sane. It was borderline obsessive, the need she'd felt to watch over him, to reassure herself that he was well, that he wasn't going to disappear like a wisp of smoke, and take all her dreams with him. It might not have been the healthiest choice, but it had helped, then, and it helped now, helped soothe her until she was ready at last to close the door, to tip toe back down the hall to the kitchen.

The snowglobes were lined up on the bar. Just three of them; the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, and the teddy bear. She only took them down at Christmas now, and she'd debated, a month ago when she was decorating for the holiday, putting the Empire State Building there, too. Lining Elliot's gift up with all the others, acknowledging his return in that quiet, profound way. Debated, but had not done. Something had stayed her hand; fear, perhaps. The fear of being wrong, the fear that he was not actually home to stay, or that if he was he would not be hers to have. That might be worse, she thought, than him never coming home; having Elliot back but not having Elliot, not having the man she trusted, not having her best friend, knowing exactly where he was but knowing that he would not be there for her the way he used to be; that might be worse than never having him at all.

She was too unsteady for wine and it was too late for coffee, so she decided to make herself a cup of tea instead, puttered around the kitchen, looking at the snowglobes on the bar and the tree behind them. The tree had been full of such promise when she first put it up, a herald of Christmas joys to come. Joys that were never realized, in the end. Maybe she'd take Noah ice skating tomorrow; maybe he'd enjoy that enough to forget that his mother had not been with him on Christmas morning.

The kettle began to whistle, and at the precise moment she reached for it there came a sharp knock on the door. Olivia jumped, alarmed by the unexpected interruption, set the kettle to the side and made her way slowly towards the door, wishing she had her gun. IAB had taken it, as was their right, and she had another locked in the safe in her bedroom but it was too far away to go and fetch it now, and she didn't want the knocker to get testy, didn't want them to make so much noise they woke Noah. He needed his rest.

At the door she paused, lifted herself up onto her toes to peer through the peephole, and felt her stomach lurch at the sight that waited for her. Elliot's face, grim in the lights of the corridor, close to the door, rocking on his heels like he was agitated.

Was he angry that she hadn't turned up? Olivia wondered. She hadn't called him, when the job interfered with her plans, hadn't told him she wasn't going to attend the party like she'd promised, and she'd expected him to call her, expected him to be disappointed with her silence, but he hadn't called and she'd put him out of her head, so long as she was working. If he was angry with her, if he was hurt that she'd rebuffed him, why had he turned up here, well after midnight? Why hadn't he called, like a normal fucking person?

There had never been anything normal about them, though, and she knew it.

She opened the door slowly, leaned against it as he came into view. He was wearing blue jeans and a grey hoodie like the kind he used to favor in the old days, and he was carrying a cardboard box on his hip, and he looked anxious, but not at all angry, not even a little.

"Liv," he said hoarsely when he saw her face. "I heard about what happened. Are you all right?"

Oh.

He wasn't anxious because of her; he was anxious for her. Somehow he'd heard about the shooting and he'd come here to check on her the way he would have done when they were young and she was all alone and he fretted about her. Just like the old days, him leaving his family to come to her side. Not at all like the old days, because her son was sleeping in the apartment behind her and the sight of Elliot's face filled her belly with butterflies.

"I'm fine," she said.

He shot her a look that told her plainly he did not believe her.

"Can I come in?"

Her heart screamed yes and her head screamed no and her mouth said, "Elliot, it's late."

The part of her that was small, and scared, and tired, and missing him, that part wanted him with her. The part of her that had come screaming to life the night he said I love you, the part of her that preened when he praised her, the part of her that had trembled when the pad of his thumb brushed against her lip, that part of her wanted him with her. Wanted the comfort of him, the nearness of him, wanted his strength and his familiar smile, wanted, desperately, not to be alone, but to be alone with him. The part of her that knew everyone always leaves, the part of her that remembered keenly the pain of being left, that part of her that sought to protect her from further grief, did not want him anywhere near her. The closer he got, the worse it would hurt when he left; a moment's comfort was not worth further upheaval.

Was it?

" 's not like I have other plans, Liv," he said. "I just…I wanna talk. Can we talk?"

The heart won, in the end. She didn't want him to leave her.

"Yeah," she said, and stepped back, allowed him entrance.

He looked huge, ducking through the doorway. It had been a long time since she'd last had a man in her apartment, and Elliot just took up so much fucking space; part of that was the physicality of him, his height, his breadth, his heavy muscles, but part of it was just him. It was just Elliot, and what Elliot was, what he meant to her, was so big it filled up every room he entered.

"I was just making a cup of tea," she said. "You want some?"

Is that a flower in your cup?

It's tea.

She expected him to say no. The old Elliot would've said no.

"That'd be good," he said.

In silence he followed her to the kitchen, deposited the box he carried on the table as he went. Olivia drew down a second cup, pulled out a second tea bag, filled both cups with Elliot lurking in her peripheral vision, stealing her breath, filling her heart with questions.

"What's in the box?" she asked.

"Tell you in a bit," he answered. "What happened out there today, Olivia?"

"It's nothing, Elliot."

"Bullshit."

The tea needed to steep for a little while, and there was nothing left for her to do. Nothing left but turn around, and face him head on.