A/N: Okay, so I actually have a plan for this chapter and the next two. Still sticking to my no promises thing, but it's all coming together, a little, piece by piece. Let me know if you're still interested in this and want more. I've decided it's more fun to play in the parallel universe right now.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, never will.

PSA: Did anybody read Isabel Gillies' piece she wrote for her own blog about people sending hate messages to her over the whole Kathy/letter debacle? Just felt the need to add the extra little PSA to be kind to one another online. People you know, people you don't, and famous people. The actress who plays Kathy is just that, an actress. If we're going to take up complaints with anyone, it should be the writing department, and even then, this is a FICTIONAL story and a FICTIONAL world. There's no need for visceral hate or death threats. Just be nice out there. Bad karma isn't cute. Ok, I'm done rambling. On with the show!


Olivia felt sick to her stomach. Felt like she couldn't breathe. She needed… she didn't exactly know what she needed.

Air. That's what she needed.

Olivia made her way to the roof. It was December and she didn't have a coat but she didn't care. When she got up there she promptly threw up in the ashtray they kept up there for the smokers.

She didn't know how long she'd been up there. Could have been hours or years for all she knew when she finally heard the rickey door squeak open. She didn't turn around, but she had a feeling she knew who it was.

Within seconds she was covered with something warm, and a bottle of water was held out in front of her face.

"It's freezing up here, Liv," Elliot said. "Why don't we go into the cribs"?

She turned around to face him, immediately realizing that the thing keeping her warm was his suit jacket. He wasn't shivering yet, but it made her realize that she was.

"I needed air," she croaked out. It hurt to talk, like she couldn't fill up her lungs enough and her entire chest cavity was on fire. And truthfully, she was afraid if she tried to walk she might wobble so much she'd fall over.

"Munch said he saw you run up here," Elliot said. "Did something happen with Cragan? Is Chelsea okay?" he asked and then after a beat he added. "Or is it Mark?"

All she could do was shake her head. She didn't know if she could actually say the words out loud. If she did, they'd be real. She ran a hand through her cropped hair, once again regretting the decision to go so short. She thought it'd look cute and trendy, but now she just really wanted a long piece of hair to curl around her finger, a self-soothing tic from childhood.

"Olivia, whatever it is, I'm here, in whatever way you need," Elliot said.

She'd been avoiding looking into his face, into his eyes. She'd been avoiding it most of their partnership, because it was the one thing about him that always reminded her of their infidelity. But when she finally forced herself to look there today and saw nothing but genuine concern, those eyes and that expression she'd seen on her daughter countless times, puzzling, wondering what was going on and how she could make it better, it sent her into near hysterics.

"It's okay, It's okay," Elliot said, rushing towards her and wrapping her in a hug, pulling her tight against his chest. "Everything is going to be okay."

He let her sob into his tie for a few minutes, rubbing her back gently through the suit jacket. Eventually she was able to even her breathing and pull back a little bit so she could see his face again.

"It was my mom," she said, in barely a whisper, but she knew he heard her by the way his muscles stiffened. "She died."

There. She'd said it out loud. Now it was real. She felt tears still sliding out of the sides of her eyes but she couldn't stop them.

"Oh Liv," Elliot said, still holding her. "Was she sick?"

"No, she wasn't," Olivia said, trying to reach up and wipe away some of the tears. "It's kind of a long story."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Elliot asked.

She bit her lip for a minute. Did she want to talk about it? Tell her partner about how her mother was a drunk and how this shouldn't be a surprise and shouldn't hurt like hell but it does? Did she want him to know that much about her life before SVU?

"I do but not here," she said. "Not on this roof where it's freezing, not in the cribs where the guys could hear."

"We'll go get coffee," he said. "We'll take the sedan, go to that place with the overpriced lattes that you pretend not to like but I've seen you walk in with on more than one occasion."

She tried to giggle, but the best that came out was a hiccup.

"I'd like that," she said.

Elliot pulled the car keys out of his pocket.

"Go ahead straight down to the car," he said. "I'll grab your jacket and your bag and meet you there so you don't have to see the guys."

"Thank you," she said as they pulled away and went back into the building.

She gave Elliot his jacket back in the elevator and took it down to the car. True to his word a few minutes later he returned with her coat and bag, and slid into the car she'd been warming up.

He didn't say anything to her and just backed out and headed for downtown. She knew the coffee place was so far out of their way and they had cases to solve, but she frankly didn't care at the moment.

She knew she was going to have to start the conversation. He wasn't going to push. They'd kind of come to a mutual understanding after about a year and a half of partnership that if the other person wanted to talk about something personal, it had to be their decision. No prying. So she knew, if she really did want to talk about this, she had to initiate.

"You know what happened to my mom," Olivia said. "How I got here."

"Yep," Elliot said. "You told me."

"Well, that incident affected her for the rest of her life," Olivia said. "She became an alcoholic when I was just in elementary school."

She heard Elliot puff out a long breath but he didn't add commentary, didn't interject.

"We thought she had it under control after Chelsea was born," she said. "My mother loved her. One of the things my mother always resented about me was the fact that I had brown eyes and she had blue ones. Said it reminded her of my father. It was like Chelsea was her second chance at having that daughter she really wanted."

She glanced at Elliot out of the side of her eye. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.

"When she was a baby, they were practically attached at the hip, reading books and making up stories," Olivia said. "I never let her be alone with Chelsea, just because I knew how she could get if she relapsed. And I didn't think she had, up until I joined SVU."

She really wished Elliot would at least nod, or acknowledge that he could hear her, but when he didn't make any kind of reaction, she continued.

"She was against the whole thing. Never was too thrilled about me being a cop with a husband and child at home, but something about my being in SVU made it all the worse to her," Olivia said. "She showed up drunk to our house one time in the middle of the afternoon. Chelsea saw and it scared her. I told my mother it was either us or the alcohol and if she chose the alcohol not to come back. I haven't seen her since."

Elliot was still quiet but Olivia didn't know how much more she wanted to say.

"Did Cragan say how she died?" Elliot asked.

"He said she had an accident," Olivia said. "Fell down the subway steps."

"Well, you know how icy they can get in the winter," Elliot said.

"At 110th and Broadway. Outside the Velvet Room," she said. "My mother never takes the subway, but she does take her vodka at 11 a.m."

"Liv, I'm…" he started but she cut him off.

"Don't say you're sorry," she said, tears welling in her eyes again. "Please don't say you're sorry."

"I won't say it, but just know that I am," Elliot said. "I know what it's like, Liv. To have it end that way. To wonder if you could have stopped it."

She wonders what it means by that, but follows their unwritten rule: no prying. She looked down at her hands and can feel Elliot's gaze on her before he starts to speak again.

"My father wasn't a good man," he said. "He was an old school cop, ex-military, and he also enjoyed his liquor just a little too much. Sure, he'd make time for one of my ball games here and there, but he was never really interested in being a dad. Always said it was the mother's job to make sure the kids don't turn into screwups."

Olivia looked up at him. His eyes were still on the road but his jaw was set. She wanted him to continue, and thankfully, he did.

"When he thought she wasn't doing a good enough job, that's when he took matters into his own hands, literally," Elliot said. "Sometimes took matters to his belt, too."

Her heart ached for him. Childhood Elliot who probably wanted nothing more than to have a father to play catch with or teach him how to fish and all he got in return was beatings. She wondered what little Elliot and little Olivia would have done if they knew each other back then? If they were experiencing the same kind of fear, could they have helped each other?

"When we had Maureen he was livid. Called me every name in the book, called Kathy a whore. Said we were going to hell and were a disgrace to the Catholic faith," he said. "I knew he cheated on my mom when I was growing up but somehow in his mind that never qualified as going against his religion."

Olivia tried not to think about the fact that the both of them in that car were cheaters too. She knew she spent so much time trying not to be her mother, and she wondered if Elliot felt the same about his father, and yet here they were, in a way, repeating history.

"I never wanted him around the kids," he said. "We'd go visit my parents and I'd be anxious the entire time we were there. If one of the girls tracked in mud, or chipped a mug or something would he go postal? Would he toss one of them up against a wall and threaten to put their head through it?"

Olivia was frightened just hearing the story. She knew what that was like, what Serena was like in her drunken moods. It was exactly the reason she'd told her never to come back drunk again.

"He almost hit Kathleen once," Elliot said. "We'd stopped by to pick up my old bike to teach Maureen how to ride. He and I had been loading it into the trunk and when we came back into the garage, Kathleen had been trying to see something up on the workbench. She'd pulled on a rag hanging over the edge and a mason jar of motor oil fell and shattered on the floor. She was scared because of the glass. He got to her first and almost backhanded her before I could pull her away."

"What did you do?" Olivia asked.

"I checked to make sure Kathleen wasn't cut, and she wasn't, just scared," he said. "Then I got her into the car and went back to the garage. I told him it was one thing to beat up your own son, but entirely different to slap a little girl for making a mistake. He called me some names I won't repeat and told me to grow a pair, and if I couldn't he never wanted to see any of us again. So we never went back."

"Was that the last time you saw him?" Olivia asked.

"Yeah," Elliot said. "About a year later, the old bastard went out for cigarettes and got slammed into a tree by a drunk driver."

Olivia let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in.

"So I understand, Liv," he said. "I understand completely what it means to hate someone so much. To fear them even, and still feel like the entire world is crumbling around you once they're gone."

And that was the third time today she started bawling in front of him.

When they pulled up to the curb at the coffee shop and he put the car in park, he reached over for her hand.

"It's going to be okay," Elliot said, giving her a squeeze. "It doesn't feel like it now, but it will be. You just hang here, I'll go get the coffees."

He went to pull away, but she tugged his hand back.

"Thank you," she said. "For telling me. For being so kind to me. I know I don't deserve it."

"We're partners, for better or worse," he said. "Right now is worse, and I'm here for you."

Then he got out of the car and disappeared inside. Olivia felt her heart flutter and she tried to tell herself it was just because of the emotional day, and not because of the man she'd been trying so hard not to become attached to. The man she was trying so hard not to care about, even though it was getting harder and harder to deny that she did.