A/N: Timeline- sometime in the near future. Elliot is finished with his undercover work. He's on the mend. And he and Olivia are trying to repair all the damages. This comes after some of those initial serious conversations.

Personally, I am truly on the fence with regards to a romantic relationship between Olivia and Elliot. They were emotionally intimate, that is without question. At the end of the day, I just want them to be ok. And I hope Bensler fans and fans of their platonic love can both walk away from this satisfied.

He'd been to her place a time or two, wincing internally at the time he showed up after he'd been drugged. He didn't remember all of it, but he remembered enough. And still, he thought to himself, he was amazed that she wanted to continue to talk through everything. To come to some sort of an understanding.

He knew Olivia Benson was a remarkable person, but she continued to surprise him. They'd talked a little before, about serious things, like Jenna and his departure from the force. Tonight was different though, and he knew it in his heart. She'd invited him to her place, and that significance was not lost on him.

He was admiring the photographs she had on her wall of herself and Noah when she came over and placed an open beer in his hands, a bottle of wine, corkscrew and glass balanced precariously in her other hand.

He smiled fully, grateful for the distraction. "I assume he's Brian's," he said, a slight smile toying at his lips, a quick glance back up to the photographs.

She set her wine glass on the table and proceeded to turn the corkscrew in the bottle, pulling the cork out with a 'thwop.'

"Why would you assume he's Brian's?" she asked, a twinkle in her eyes.

While the reason he hadn't met Noah yet was serious—and they both knew it—she was enjoying the playfulness of the conversation. It was his way of asking about her in all the time he missed. Who she loved.

Elliot smiled, though not fully, and he looked away. Quietly he found himself a spot on the sofa and set his beer on the table. "Uh," he said after a moment and ran his hands along his thighs. With his feet firmly planted on the floor, he rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him. He squinted a little and glanced back up at her as he watched her fill her glass and set the bottle on the table.

"Because I don't," he said, taking a slight pause. "I couldn't bear to think it's the alternative," he admitted after a minute, a quiet timbre to his voice.

"What do you mean?" she asked, a little uncertainly, placing her newly filled glass on the table.

He raised his eyebrows at her meaningfully and watched as she ran the last few minutes of the conversation back through her mind, calculating the meaning behind his question.

Olivia finally looked at him, a hint of disbelief. She brought her hands up to her face, released a sudden sob of an "Oh," and sat with a thud in the nearby chair. "You know," she said glancing at him, a hint of a question in her voice.

Slowly he nodded. There was no mistake that they were talking about the same thing. The same soul-shattering time frame that could only be described as the darkest days of Olivia Benson's life.

"No," Liv said after a minute, picking up the glass of wine and raising it to her lips, her eyes looking somewhere off, unfocused, somewhere in the distance. "He's adopted," she added, the playfulness of the conversation long forgotten. She didn't dare look at him.

Elliot released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"How?" she asked, meeting his eyes.

He swallowed, and sat back a little bit in the sofa. "My kids," he said after a minute. "They all called me."

Olivia raised her eyes to him anew. "You knew?" she demanded, rising out of the chair, a flash of anger coming through.

Slowly Elliot nodded.

"Why didn't you call?" she asked, her face of quiet disbelief.

"I did," he said calmly. When she didn't respond, he continued. "I called and Brian answered your phone. He said…" Elliot trailed off and swallowed, looking away from her for a brief moment. "He said that hearing from me would only upset you more."

Olivia let out a huff, and brought her hand to her forehead. She had told herself for years that Elliot simply didn't care or he didn't know, that there was absolutely no way he would have let her deal with the aftermath of William Lewis alone.

"And you believed him." It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

Elliot shrugged. He did believe Brian. "I'd been away for a couple of years," he said after a minute. "When I heard Brian answer, I was just glad… I was relieved someone was there. I told him to let you know I called and that I'd be there if.. if you needed me. Hell, if he needed someone to talk to." Elliot squinted again and glanced back at her. "When I didn't hear anything, I assumed he knew what he was best."

Olivia scoffed and sat back in her chair. Slowly she picked up her glass of wine and took a small sip, rolling these new revelations around in her mind.

"He never told you?"

A small shrug graced Olivia's shoulders. "He may have, I don't know," she said with a sigh, placing the wine back on the table.

Elliot nodded, knowing without words that she had probably been rightfully so wrapped up in her own trauma to remember, let alone think coherently.

"That was why," she said after a minute, staring at the crimson liquid in her glass. "We broke up."

Elliot raised his eyebrows at her statement.

"He didn't want kids," she said, chancing another glance at him. "There were other things too, I think… I think he didn't know what to do with the weight of it all." She didn't know at the time that Brian was carrying his own demons.

He swallowed then, picked up his long forgotten beer bottle from the table and finished the rest of it. "I called again," he said after a moment, fiddling with the label on the beer. He glanced back up at her. "When Lewis escaped."

At a loss for words, Olivia let out a long drawn out sigh.

"Tried Cragen, but the voicemail I got said he retired." He stood then, heavily, and went into the kitchen to get another beer. Popping the cap, he threw it on the table and sat back down. He took a long sip. "I should have tried your number, but I just thought since the first time…" He gestured with his arms as if to complete the sentence.

"I struggled," she said after a minute.

"That's understandable," Elliot said softly, but furrowed his brows when Olivia began shaking her head.

"With how to tell you," she said. "Or if I should."

"Liv," said, leaning forward, his elbows once again on his knees. "You don't owe me anything."

Olivia raised her eyes to him, slowly coming to accept that the stories she told herself about why he stayed away in her most difficult moments were all misunderstandings, borne of assumptions that long ago were proven incorrect.

"The letter," she said after a moment.

He diverted his eyes, a slight nod playing at his features.

Suddenly, it all made sense to Olivia. He would have been there for her if the dominos fell in the right direction. And when they didn't, she'd assumed the worst, even through his revelation that Kathy dictated the letter.

"I was so angry for so long," she breathed out after a minute, picking her glass of wine up from the table. "At you. At me." She glanced back up at him. "At Lewis. It all became…muddled together," she said after a minute.

She paused, then, crossing her legs and leaning back in the chair. She couldn't look at Elliot, just glanced away and brought her hand to her forehead. "Noah," she said, "my sweet boy." Tears sprang to her eyes. "He saved me," she said thickly looking back at Elliot.

"Hey," he said, rising from his seat on the couch. She rose too, and they embraced. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly, gently moving his hands over her back in a soothing embrace. "And I'm so glad you have Noah," he said after a minute.

They separated after a minute and held each other's hands, just gazing into each other's eyes. A moment of peace for a decade of hurt, a salve on their wounded spirits.

The chirping of Olivia's phone broke them apart. "Oh," she said, glancing at the clock. "That's probably him."

She pulled up FaceTime on her iPhone and smiled at the screen. "There he is. Are you having fun, Noah?"

Elliot settled himself back on the couch. He'd caught a side glance of Noah nodding enthusiastically before Olivia plugged in her headphones. He picked up his beer and smiled to himself. He tried not to listen to the one-sided conversation, but he couldn't help himself.

"It's good tears, sweet boy," Olivia said soothingly. "Are you being good for Amanda?" Elliot watched as she smiled fully. "Ok, ok, goodnight. Love you. I'll see you in the morning. Put Amanda on, will you?"

At this, Elliot watched as Olivia walked deep into her hallway out of earshot. He picked up his beer and smiled again before taking another sip. He glanced up expectantly as Olivia walked back into the room, pulling the earbuds from her ears.

"Everything ok?" he asked.

Olivia nodded and smiled fully at him. "Yeah," she said with a breath. "It is."