A/N: Sorry this took a while. I didn't like how I left off this chapter the first time I wrote it, so I changed the ending a bit, but I didn't do that until yesterday. But here it is, nonetheless.

"What's up with him?" he asked his partner quietly, nodding towards their colleague.

Glancing to his left, he looked back at his partner and said, "Think it's done."

"You mean," Munch made a slicing motion with his finger across his throat, "it's all wrapped up and sent on it's way?"

Fin nodded. "You didn't hear it from me, though."

Taking his turn to look at Elliot, he muttered, "I don't quite think he's on the war path anymore. Looks more like he's ready to hand it all in."

"Yeah, well," Fin said and they let it drop. Sure that his partner was fully returned to his file, Munch looked sidelong to where Olivia was sitting. He couldn't quite tell if she felt as bad as her partner, or was happy that the whole thing was done and over with. Shaking his head, he returned to his own paperwork, and decided to wait for her to come to him.

"Hey, Munch, here's the Bellavue file."

He looked up at her, wondering what in the hell she was talking about. She waved the file in front of him before dropping it on his desk.

"You said you wanted another look at the crime scene photos."

He seemed to remember something about it, so instead of questioning further, he simply said, "Thanks," and watched as she sat down at her own desk. Opening the file, he began to rifle through the photographs when he came upon a piece of paper. More like the corner of a paper someone, he assumed Olivia, had torn off and scribbled on. Turning it sideways, he read, 'Are you still waiting? If so, dinner tonight? I'll meet you at my car around 8.' Smiling a little to himself, he grabbed a pen and wrote, 'I told you I was a patient man when it came to this, didn't I?' and placed it another file, one he had been working on earlier. "Since we're exchanging files," he said, spinning in his chair to face her, "here's the one you asked me about before." He held out the file, trying to keep his face straight as she took it from him.

Drawing attention to himself, he said to his partner, "We still gotta talk to that pizza guy again. I finished that DD5 I was working on. Wanna go now?"

Looking up, Fin shrugged. "Sure. You drivin'?"

"Why not? Got the keys?"

Fin tossed them to Munch as he stood up. He grabbed his coat from the hook and pulled it on as Munch put his hat on. "Hey, Liv, Cragen asks..."

"Yeah, I gotcha."

"Thanks," Munch said and they left, skirting a uniformed officer as they went through the squad doors.

She pushed her plate from her. "I can't eat another bite."

He smiled. "Not even dessert?"

"No way. I think I'll burst."

"Good, because I don't think I can afford it."

"I invited you, I'll pay."

"Okay."

"You're supposed to argue with me, not agree in a heartbeat."

"I knew I was forgetting something." He smiled again. "So, now that we've had a perfectly lovely dinner, engaged in amicable conversation, I must ask, what exactly is the occasion?"

She looked down at the table, and he instantly regretted souring her mood, though he had no intent of it. "It's finished. Elliot's divorced," she said quietly, and he wondered if she was talking to him or herself.

"I heard. Look, Liv, he'll get better soon. It's like the opposite of afterglow, but just like afterglow, it fades away with time. It'll hurt later, probably for the rest of his life, but he's just gotta get moving. Go on with his life, maybe meet someone new, and let that make the pain more of a memory."

"You think so?"

"I know so. I've been through it four times, and while four may not seem like a very large number, it is when it comes to counting marriages."

She continued to stare at the table, then looked up at him. "Did you count straws?"

He sighed and looked to the side before looking back at her. "Yeah, I counted straws, memories, chances... everything. Looked back to count the ways I went wrong. Count the different paths we could've taken, or rather, I could've taken. I can bet that Elliot went down every one of those roads, counting up everything. It's a reflex. Deep down, you still love 'em, but the truth is, you can't live with 'em anymore. In Elliot's case, more so than any of mine, Kathy couldn't live with him, while he was still perfectly content to live the way he was. For me, it was a bit more mutual." He wondered if she would question him further concerning his exact meaning by the word 'mutual', but no questions were forthcoming.

"You know, today, when we went to re-canvass for the Simmons case, he said he was sorry."

"Did he now? Well, that's certainly news. Soemthing to put in the scrapbook, I'd say. Wish I'd've been there to see him apologize."

"When we were in the car, he said he was sorry for being such an ass since Kathy left him."

The way she sat there, the way she left her sentence hanging a bit, he knew the other thing Elliot had told her. Trying, with as much grace as possible, he said softly, "He told you he loved you."

Her head snapped up, her brow furrowed, but before she could ask, he held up his hand. "I've been a detective for thirty years now, Liv. Watched enough soap operas, enough prime time dramas to know what he said. That and your body language... you might as well've had a sign on your forehead. A billboard out on the highway."

"Do you have a radar or something?" she couldn't help but ask.

"If I tell you that, I might have to kill you," he replied with mock seriousness, then softened. "What'd you say?"

She was quiet, but his time, instead of guessing what had happened, he let her tell him herself. It was, after all, her story. Her partner. Her life. "You know, we've been partners for eight years, and we've been there for each other no matter what. Didn't matter if we got pushed away, we stuck to it. Stuck to each other. Lately, it was harder to do that. It was harder to talk to him, watch his back, all the stuff I'd been doing for eight years was suddenly hard. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. I didn't know if it was me, or him, or what. He was going through the whole thing with Kathy, and I couldn't help him. He was pushing me away, I was trying as hard as I could to push back, like I always had. But I couldn't. God, I just couldn't. And I tried to give up on him, but I couldn't do that either. I was stuck there, watching him fall apart with his marriage." She let a small laugh escape her. "I guess I know why now, huh?"

He watched her, knowing exactly what she had said. Knowing what she had told her partner.

"I told him I loved him, too. Jesus, John, what the hell did I do?"

Broke my heart, he thought, but said quietly, "You took another path."