He's gorgeous.

She hates herself for admitting it and hates herself for looking, but she no longer feels guilty for her feelings, self-preservation be damned. Kathy is dead, and buried with her are any questionable morals Liv once held captive in her mind and heart. She doesn't owe Kathy anything else in this life, especially after the letter. She wants to be angry, she wants to go to her grave and scream at the top of her lungs, remind Kathy of all the things she did to save Elliot, to save their marriage all those years ago, when a lesser partner would have bedded him and not looked back. But she respected Kathy. She thought that because they shared Elliot in different ways, it bonded them for life. Could she have been that wrong?

Instead of anger towards Kathy, she's hurt and confused, wishing she could have had a conversation with her to air their grievances, put a voice to whatever rumors or insecurities she had let settle into her soul. Convincing her of her innocence would have been futile, although Kathy's brief words from her hospital bed spoke volumes.

You two really haven't talked in ten years?

Maybe when Kathy looked into Liv's eyes, she finally found the truth and peace she needed since she couldn't seem to find it in Elliot's eyes once in their ten-year hiatus from her life. The irony isn't lost on her that Kathy died soon after this conversation as if she was given some sort of twisted permission to replace Kathy in Elliot's life. Kathy won for the past decade, and now she gets to be the consolation prize.

However, he's not hers to have. A piece of him died with his wife, and she's afraid it's the piece of him that contained unflinching loyalty, honor, morality: all of the altar boy qualities he dedicated to Kathy the minute Maureen was conceived. She trusts decade-ago Elliot wholly and without hesitation, the man that was the devoted husband and father, her best friend, her anchor. Through the brokenness, she sees him still in there. He's a mosaic shattered into pieces, but her glue isn't enough to put him back together. Elliot 2.0 is a loose cannon: he isn't dealing with his PTSD, he slept with Flutura, his mother is a mess because he ignored her to escape to Italy and the Albanian underworld, his son is popping or selling pills because he just lost his mom and now his dad is unavailable, he's putting too much pressure on his adult children to clean up the spills of his life, and it's all just so unfair. Regardless of her feelings and confusion, Kathy's death is unfair. Elliot coming back in the first place is unfair. Her having to step in and fix everything is unfair.

PTSD. The elephant in the room. Months ago, he laughed in her face, a laugh of avoidance and pure naivety. His incredulity confirmed what she always knew in her heart: he has no clue what she's been through in his absence. That laugh was condescending and self-righteous, but she didn't care because it meant he was ignorant, dumb, and stupid, and she loved him even more for it. It means that if he'd known, he would have rescued her and killed him. That laugh brought her a measure of peace, even though when he finds out her secrets he's never going to forgive himself for that moment in the car.

He's gorgeous in a way that is endearing and committed to her and her alone. It's beyond muscles and poise and temper and Italian suits and that damn fucking goatee that she loves to despise. His beauty steeps in memory: thirteen years of being joined at the hip, blinking her lights, seeing the worst of humanity, teasing over takeout, finding justice for victims. It's silent strength and protection. It's devotion to the cause, the cases, each other. It's those damn blue eyes and the way he's always been able to see through her bravado and bullshit. She realizes that this hasn't changed, and it's both endearing and infuriating. He shouldn't be allowed to remember her as much as she's remembered him. They fell back in sync as if nothing happened, but a lifetime happened. She wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all before she bursts into tears.

God, she's missed him. And he's missed so damn much.

Her mind travels to the times where his absence crushed her. Two specific moments, one tragic, one joyful. Both life-changing and immeasurable. She hates that she longed for him both times. How many scenarios she's envisioned where he kills Lewis in front of her, rescuing her from her fate. How often she imagined his smile at the sight of infant Noah, witnessing her being the mom she always dreamed of becoming. So many dreams, so many nightmares, and he missed them all. He should have been there, but then she wonders that maybe Kathy had it right all along, and what they had was never real. Ever since the letter, it's the only solid reason she can justify as to why he walked out of her life.

In her heart, though, she knows. When Elliot whispered his apologetic confession to her in the hospital, when he said that if he heard her voice, he wouldn't have been able to leave- she knows. She knows that what they had was everything and more, knows that if she asked him to stay, he would have stayed in every way. They were on the precipice of something else for years, silently refusing to cross the line, but Jenna changed everything, and she knows it. Fuck, Gitano changed everything; Jenna was the breaking point. She knows what would have happened. She knows that they were too emotionally raw to stop it, knows the guilt and pain and heartbreak that would have followed. She knows that true happiness would have never manifested because she was a dichotomy between his confessional and his sin. He was in love with her, and she knows, because she was in love with him too. He would have risked it all, threw away the good Catholic family life he built, and it would have been devastating for the both of them because it was her family too, the only family she's ever known. She lost them anyway,

She's not sure where memory ends and forgiveness begins. She wants to be so angry, so angry, and it comes in waves. Waves when she sees him undercover, waves when she feels she has nothing left to give and yet still finds the energy to worry about him, check in on his kids and Bernie, fuck, even visit Kathy's grave (sans screaming). But on nights like tonight, facing him like this, begging him to come home in one piece, the nostalgia settles into her bones like marrow, and the anger melts away. Her need to comfort and protect him courses through her veins, her longing for old times clawing its way to the surface. Sure, she has Fin, Amanda, Sonny, Cragen, many people she's close with, people she considers family. One look at him, though, and she just wants her best friend back, her family back. One look at him, and she wants to erase the past ten years of silence, pretend it never happened, and they are living in that parallel universe. Expectation versus reality: that's always been their problem, hasn't it?

She listens. Every small conversation they've had since he's been back, she listens to his tone, his depth, his avoidance and insecurities, his truth.

Liv, you mean the world to me.

Back off.

In a parallel universe, it will always be you and I.

I'm standing right here, Captain.

Are we good?

It's kind of nice to not be me for a while.

I love you.

She listens and lets every word guide her soul. He's struggling. He's missed her. He loves her. He's trying to protect her. It's overwhelming and reminiscent, saddens her yet creates a warmth in her stomach that she cannot ignore or replace. He's Elliot… El. Her El. Her partner. Irreplaceable in her life and her heart. Her mind wanders to a Bible verse she's studied in his absence: I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Yes, Captain Olivia Benson, a non-believer of God, started reading the Bible to feel closer to him. Baptized her son because of him. And she realized that it wasn't God that was her strength; it was him. When she fought the devil himself, it was Elliot's face that flashed through her mind. Elliot's voice talking her through the night Noah had Croup and she was scared shitless of his first illness in her care. When Sheila kidnapped Noah and her world fell apart, she prayed to Elliot for Noah's safe return. He's been her silent strength, her savior, her guiding light through the darkness. However, he cannot be her strength now when he barely has an ounce of it left for himself. And she's not sure how much energy she has nowadays to carry both of them.

For now, she'll study him through glances. Memorize the new wrinkles that crease his eyelids, a hint that the last ten years may have been hard on him too, stories that remain untold. She'll study his hands that she aches to hold onto and caress, passionately tracing calloused fingertips and soft palms. And when his back is to her, she'll unabashedly admire his ass, wondering how in the hell he still looks so damn fine for someone just shy of sixty. She'll cautiously watch him and wait. Wait for what she's unsure of, but through the chaos and frustration, she feels a glimmer of hope. An unspoken wish. A sense of wonder over what they are and what they might be. For now, this is enough.