A/N: A lot of this chapter was unexpected even for me. The words just kind of... appeared. Argument scenes are awesome to write. Now I know why we get so many of them on the show.

While we're chatting, two things: The more I think about where OC is going lately, the madder I get. Does anybody else feel like Elliot isn't even the same character anymore? Like even for an upset, PTSD, UC Elliot that a lot of this just doesn't fit with the core of the character we got to know in seasons 1-12. I know people change but like, that much, really?

Also, some people had suggested I continue the one-shot based on the song Drunk Last Night by Eli Young Band. I really like that as a one-shot, but depending on what additional info we get this week/through the rest of the Mob arc, I may write a companion piece. I dig the whole Olivia dealing with Flutura vibe (and apparently others do too because there have been a few fics along similar lines) but I want to see if canon will give me more before I delve deeper.


Things had been even more tense with Mark since he came back from the hotel, and it was starting to wear on Olivia's patience. He'd been short with her, barely acknowledging her presence unless he had to, and she'd had enough. After Chelsea's shower and bedtime ritual, Olivia confronted him. He'd been watching some kind of documentary on TV. She picked up the remote and turned it off.

"What did you do that for?" he asked.

"We need to talk," she said, standing on the other side of the coffee table, staring at him on the couch.

"Can't it wait until that's over. There's about a half an hour left," Mark said, reaching for the remote again but she pulled it away.

"No," Olivia said. "We need to talk now."

"About what?" Mark asked.

"About this," Olivia said, gesturing between them. "The attitude, the avoidance. Whatever is going on between us."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mark said, too defensively.

"You absolutely do," Olivia said. "You've been different since my mother's funeral and you've practically been avoiding me for a week since you came home. And I want to know why."

"Just wanted to give you some space to process your feelings," Mark said. "Then you got sick. I just wanted to make sure you were completely over it before I got too close again."

"That's such bullshit," Olivia said. "You're mad about something and I want to know what. We never talk anymore, we haven't had sex in months. I want to know what I did, or what you think I did, so we can fix it."

"If you remember correctly, I gave you plenty of days we could have sex over the last few months, and you missed them all working overtime," Mark said.

"So that's what this is?" Olivia asked. "My work is messing up your plans so you're going to be miserable to me about it? I told you before we started dating that I wanted an unpredictable job. I told you before I joined the academy that police work called for a lot of overtime shifts because you can't ask murderers and thieves and rapists to strike during business hours. This isn't new."

"We didn't have these problems until you joined Special Victims," Mark said.

"Mark, I worked plenty of on-call shifts when I was on the beat," she said. "So that isn't it."

"But it is," Mark said. "Everything has been different since you moved to Special Victims. You never talk about work anymore. You never tell me anything."

"Chelsea is old enough to understand what I do at work now," Olivia said. "Sorry I'm not talking about rape over dinner. And you don't like to talk at night in bed, you like to read, so when exactly am I supposed to tell you about the dismembered children and women scarred for life by random attacks? When would be a good time to do that when our eight year old isn't in the room?"

"But you talk to your partner about it," Mark said with a sneer.

"Elliot?" Olivia said. "What on earth does he have to do with this?"

"You've been a completely different person since you started working with him," Mark said.

"How?" Olivia asked, raising her voice then realizing Chelsea could wake up and hear them. "What's so different?"

"I don't ever remember your last partner Stan coming to our apartment," Mark said. "Or you getting close enough to him to catch the stomach flu."

"Elliot came to our apartment to drive me to work because a stalker fixated on me," Olivia said. "Which I had told you about the night before. I didn't ask him to come, he did it because he's a good partner. The night before that Munch offered to drive me home. You have a problem with him being my friend too or just Elliot?"

"I don't want him around Chelsea," Mark said and Olivia felt her stomach clench.

"Why?" Olivia asked, trying to sound oblivious. "Did Chelsea say something to you about him?"

Her stomach started to swirl. She knew Elliot wasn't a pedophile, but now she was worried.

"I saw them together at the funeral home," Mark said. "When I explicitly told her to stay in the room with us."

"Okay," Olivia said. "He was probably telling her he was sorry for her loss. That's what people do at funeral homes."

"She was sitting on his lap and she had her head on his shoulder," Mark said. "You want to tell me how our daughter is that close to your partner?"

"The day my mother died he drove me to pick up Chelsea and drove us home," Olivia said. "She got pretty upset when I told her. He was probably just checking on her."

"He was in the apartment again?" Mark said. "He was here when you told Chelsea about your mother? Before you even told me?"

"She could tell I was upset," Olivia said. "What did you want me to do, lie to her?"

"Yes, actually," Mark said. "Until I got home at least. Is he the one that gave you the idea of telling her about heaven instead of telling her the truth?"

"How do we know heaven isn't the truth?" Olivia said. "We don't know anything. And I'll tell you what, she was traumatized enough as it was. I didn't think we needed to give a lesson on human decomposition in the middle of it all."

"Who's we?" Mark said. "Because as far as I can tell I wasn't involved in any of this. But you sure as hell had no problem bringing your partner in for such an important conversation."

"We work with child victims all day long. He knows how to talk to emotional children," Olivia said. "Plus, he has four of his own whom he'd already explained death. So yeah, I let him help. Is that a crime?

"You think I don't know how to talk to my own daughter?" Mark said.

"Bingo," Olivia said. "You don't talk to her. You give her orders and chores and lists. You don't ask her about her day, or the things she likes. You love her, but sometimes it feels like you don't like her very much."

"We don't have anything in common," Mark said. "I've tried to get her interested in documentaries and she won't watch them with me. She talks over the classical music in the car on the way to school. She did nothing but scare the fish away when I tried to take her fishing that one time, and math is her least favorite subject. And she seems to make it her personal mission never to stick to a schedule. What do you want me to do?"

"She's eight Mark," Olivia said. "It's not about making her like what you like, it's about you taking an interest in what she likes. Do you think I really enjoy NSYNC that much? Or the Disney princesses? Or the Easy Bake Oven? No. But those are the things she likes so I'm learning about them, and sharing them with her. You could stand to do the same."

"So you're saying I'm a bad father?" Mark said, standing up from the couch and walking toward Olivia. Mark had never been a confrontational man, but for a moment, she wondered if he'd take a swing at her.

"You're not a bad father," Olivia said. "But maybe you could use some tips on being a girl dad. You have all brothers and mostly male cousins. You've never really had to be around a little girl before. They're into different things. They may have more emotions that are harder to explain or put into words. They need a little more love from their dads rather than being put on a military schedule."

"I interact with her the same way my father interacted with me and I turned out just fine," Mark said. "I know that type of relationship is difficult for you to understand given your paternity and all, but the father can't be the playmate. He has to teach the child order, structure, culture, and courtesy. Our daughter is a good, polite, well-mannered kid. I'm doing my job right."

Olivia lost her breath for a moment, unable to believe he used her paternity against her in an argument. Then she thought about how Elliot interacted with his kids when they were sick. He didn't care that he was bound to get sick himself by kneeling at their bedsides and being there for them through it all. She thought about how he treated Chelsea when they told her about Serena's passing. How he didn't hesitate to let her have her emotions, ask questions, and process the situation. It then occurred to Olivia that Mark was right. He was a father, but Elliot was a dad. And there was a difference. Olivia had a father out there, though they'd never met. But she never had a dad, and though she thought she'd made all the right choices, getting a husband, raising her child with two parents, Chelsea didn't have a dad either.

Well she did, she just couldn't know about him.

"I don't know what else to say to you," Olivia said. "Is this really about Chelsea, or is it about me? Who are you upset with. And we both know Elliot isn't the answer."

"Fine, I'm upset with you," Mark said. "You spend more time with that partner of yours than you do with us. I mean, are you two having an affair?"

"We are not having an affair," Olivia said, the knot twisting harder in her gut, knowing while they had cheated it hadn't been an affair. Just a one night stand where fate was cruel enough to throw them into the same profession and squad room years later.

"Prove it," Mark said.

"How do you want me to prove it?" Olivia said. "You want to check my phone for text messages that don't exist? Read my emails to see how boring it is sending stakeout addresses back and forth. Want to check my dresser drawers for lingerie you've never seen?"

"Why check for lingerie when you have a U.S. Marines t-shirt and men's sweatpants in your drawer that aren't mine?" Mark said.

Olivia had forgotten about the clothes from the night she spent at the Stabler house. She'd washed them and intended to take them back to Elliot, but she put them in her drawer instead. Mark must have found them.

"I got puked on by a victim at work," Olivia said, not even caring that she was lying. "Elliot lent me clothes from his gym bag so I didn't have to walk around with dried vomit all over myself all day. I forgot to take them back."

"Right," Mark said. "An explanation for everything."

Olivia suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe again. She wanted out of the room, out of this conversation.

"I need air," Olivia said, grabbing her keys from the dish by the door, and running out of the apartment. She went to the roof and gasped for air as the tears started to fall. The argument with Mark had hurt. He used her insecurities against her and showed his true colors, and for the first time in their eight-year marriage Olivia wondered if marrying him was actually the biggest mistake of her life.

What's worse, everything in her was saying to call Elliot. She wanted to tell him what happened. He'd know what to say. He'd tell her not to listen to Mark the way he tells her not to listen when perps say really disgusting things to her even though he knows full well she could deliver one precise kick to the crotch and send whoever it is down for the count for weeks. He saw more in her than she saw in herself, and apparently more than Mark saw in her too.

She pulled out her phone and found his number and let her finger hover over the call button. But it was late. He was home with his wife and kids. They were off the clock and he wasn't obligated to keep her happy or sane for a case right now. She wasn't his responsibility until 8 a.m. tomorrow.

Begrudgingly, Olivia put away her phone. She knew she had to go make up with Mark. It was the right thing to do to keep her family together. She'd just have to try harder to make things work.

When she got back into the apartment, Mark was already in bed. She changed and padded to the bathroom in the dark to brush her teeth, then climbed into her side of the bed. Mark was facing away from her. She faced the wall and after a few minutes she felt him turn over and put his arm around her hip.

"I'm sorry things got so tense," Mark said. "Maybe we should try family therapy. Like you said after the funeral."

"I'll look into it tomorrow," she said.

But Olivia didn't know if she wanted family therapy anymore. She didn't even know if she wanted this relationship anymore. But what could she do? The relationship she really wanted, the one she'd been trying to ignore, she couldn't have. Beggars can't be choosers, so Olivia made a vow to call George Huang in the morning to get a recommendation for a family therapist. If she couldn't have what she wanted, Olivia could at least have something better than where things stood right now.


A/N: You know how much I love reviews :)