A/N: For the record, LSM, you've gone and turned me into a temporary J/O shipper. I'm not sure whether I want to stay one yet, but even so, this chapter is for you.
They don't speak for days after the exchange on the precinct rooftop. And it doesn't help that in the squad room, his desk is right across from hers. Every time he looks up, he can see her. So he doesn't, instead choosing to stare down at his paperwork, even though he can't concentrate. Their silences is starting to grate on his nerves, but he isn't exactly sure he wants to be the one to break it. The phone rings, but he ignores it, and someone else answers. He doesn't see who it is, and honestly doesn't care. And it isn't until he sees her standing beside him that he looks up, forcing himself to look her in the eye.
"Take a ride with me," she says, and suddenly, he is quite aware of the fact that they are the only two left in the squad room. He lets his pen fall to the desk and continues to look at her.
"Why?" he asks, more to have something to say than anything else. She gives him an exasperated look and motions to the two empty desks before them.
"Because no one else is here, that's why," she says.
"I have paperwork," he replies vaguely. In all honesty, the last thing he wants to be doing is paperwork but he doesn't really want to be alone with her, either. At least here in the precinct there are other people around, but once they leave…he picks up the pen and looks down at the paperwork as if he really intends to get it done. She sighs and sits on the edge of his desk.
"Why are you doing this?" The question startles him and he looks up again; the pen slips from his fingers and falls to the floor, but neither of them make a move to retrieve it.
"Doing what?" he asks in reply. She glares at him.
"Avoiding me," she says. "Why are you avoiding me?"
"It's kind of hard to avoid you when you're sitting on my desk," he tells her.
"That's not what I meant." She runs a tired hand through her hair, sighing again as she continues. "You haven't even looked at me since…"
She trails off then, knowing that he knows where she's going with this. She never did apologize for what she'd said to him, for what had started this mess in the first place, and she wants to now, but not here, not in the middle of the precinct where her partner and his could return at any minute. Seconds tick by on the clock behind them and she waits for him to say something…anything. He eyes her for a moment before deciding to abandon the paperwork and reaches out behind him for his coat.
"Fine," he says, "Let's go." Relieved, she reaches for the keys in her pocket and together, they leave the squad room, an awkward silence settling between them.
It isn't until they're a ways from the precinct that she turns to face him momentarily. His eyes are focused in front of them, and though she has the feeling that he's not going to listen to her, she talks.
"You never did answer my question."
"What was it again?" He knows what it was. He's just asking because he can't think of anything else to say, and she knows it…but she repeats the question anyway.
"I asked why you've been avoiding me." Startled by the subtle note of sadness in her voice, he looks at her, but this time, she is the one looking forward.
"I think you already know why," he says. She looks at him then, briefly, before turning back to the road, her fingers tapping nervously on the steering wheel.
"Oh," she says, finally, quietly. "That."
And again, there is that damnable silence. He hates it, hates what it's doing to her, and what it's been doing to him ever since it happened. And before he even realizes what he's doing, he's reaching for her hand, tentatively, finding himself surprised when he feels her fingers lacing through his.
"I didn't mean it," she says, sounding for all the world as if her voice is that close to breaking. "It's just…I just…"
"Don't," he says, effectively cutting her off. "You don't have to apologize to me."
A look of relief crosses her face for the second time in an hour and they turn into a rather empty parking lot, where she turns off the car and looks at him.
"I really shouldn't have said that to you," she says.
"Don't worry about it," he tells her, "It's fine." She shakes her head.
"No," she says, "It's not. Not if it's going to keep things like this."
He wonders vaguely for a moment then whether or not she noticed that things have been this way between them for longer than she thinks. After a while, he figures that she probably hasn't and says nothing, content to just look at her. It doesn't take long for him to realize that there is something wrong.
"There something you want to tell me while we're here?" he asks. She looks over at him, smiling faintly, but there is something amiss in the expression.
"No," she says, "There's nothing." She's lying and he knows it. It's been more than obvious that her so called 'relationship' with her partner is starting to become strained at best. Everyone in the unit has noticed, especially him. He's always hated watching her looking so helpless, but he'd figured it was better to leave well enough alone. Now, however…now is different. And now that they're actually on speaking terms again, he figures that he might as well ask.
"He's doing it again, isn't he?" he says. She looks at him, torn between wanting to say that it's none of his damn business and wanting to tell him everything. She's always thought before that relationships are only supposed to be between the two involved, but with the way things are going, she's almost relieved that he's asked.
"Doing what?" she asks finally, even though she already knows what he's getting at.
"Ignoring you. Blowing you off. Being a jerk," he replies, eyeing her intently. She looks away, suddenly not wanting to face him, not wanting to talk anymore, but she's the one who initiated this conversation, and so there isn't any backing out.
"Yeah," she admits after a while. "He is." She closes her eyes and leans against the door, watching the raindrops streaking down the windshield. "It's…I don't know what it is anymore."
"You're probably never going to find out," he points out, and she glances at him momentarily before going back to watching the rain, an almost bitter laugh escaping her.
"I know." she says. "I know. I just…I wish he'd talk to me, you know? I wish he'd tell me what's going on."
A feeling of guilt settles over her as soon as the last word leaves her mouth. She shouldn't really be saying any of this to him, but it's gotten to the point where she has no one else to talk to, and it's getting old. And if no one else, she can at least count on him to listen to her, no matter how trivial the issue might seem.
"You know you're going to have to beat it out of him before he says anything, right?" he asks finally.
"That's the problem," she replies. "I don't…I don't want to have to resort to that for him to talk to me. I just…." She sighs, leans forward and hides her face in her hands without going on. He watches, suddenly uncomfortable with the way things are going. He doesn't want to talk about this, doesn't want to see her while she's miserable, but they're stuck here because she's driving, so he doesn't have a choice. And the fact that he can't be the one to do something about it makes it even worse.
"Liv...how long are you going to let him do this to you?" The question escapes him before he even realizes he'd been thinking it, and she looks at him, the expression on her face unreadable, even to him.
"You wouldn't get it, would you?" she asks, and he gives her a look, not wanting to get into that same roundabout argument again, the one that started all this in the first place.
"If you're going to start that again, you can take me back to the precinct and go wallow by yourself," he tells her, the words coming out more harshly than he'd meant them to. A look of hurt flashes across her face, momentarily, disappearing as quickly as it comes, but even so, he sees it, and leans back, closing his eyes and silently berating himself. Silence lingers and what seems like an eternity passes before she finally breaks it.
"I didn't mean it like that," she says tentatively, as if she's afraid of setting him off again. He looks at her over his glasses.
"So what exactly did you mean?" he asks. She doesn't answer, instead choosing to look away again, wanting to avoid the question but knowing that she can't and at the same time knowing that any answer she gives him might just send them back into silence.
"You…ah….I don't…I don't know how to put it," she starts, and he laughs, more to himself than at what she's said.
"I get it," he says. "It's because I haven't been with anyone in God only knows how long."
"No," she replies quickly, almost too quickly, "That's not what I was…" He cuts her off, not meaning to be rude, even if it seems that he is.
"Yeah, it is," he tells her, "And I'm not going to stop talking to you this time, so just talk."
"Fine," she says, but nothing comes after that. She finds herself distracted by the rain again, and he waits, impatiently for her to speak.
"Do you think it's me?" she asks finally. He looks at her over his glasses, startled by the fact that she would think that and by the question itself. Suddenly at a loss for words, he falters, but an answer soon comes.
"No," he says. "Hell no. It's not you. It couldn't be you." He wonders vaguely for a moment after he says this whether or not this rather vehement opinion has anything to do with how he's slowly starting to realize what he feels about her. After a few seconds of deliberation he decides that, no, it doesn't. She hasn't done anything wrong, as far as he knows, it's all that idiot partner of hers, and at the moment, he's got half a mind to say something about it, even if it doesn't exactly seem like a good idea.
"Then why are things the way they are now?" she asks. "Why does it feel like he's trying to push me away? I don't…I don't get it anymore."
He wants to ask her why she's telling him all of this, why she's asking him questions that he can't possibly know the answer to, but he doesn't. There is a reason for everything, and even if her reasons for talking to him are because her partner never listens and he's the only one she can lean on, he doesn't care.
"No one ever said love was easy," he says after a while, "Every relationship is going to have its ups and downs."
She eyes him intently after this remark before deciding that for once, he isn't just being sarcastic. "Y'know, I'm starting to think that I should just break the whole thing off."
"Don't." If she's startled by this, he is probably even more so, but despite this, he continues. "Liv…even if it doesn't seem like Elliot needs you, he does. He's just being an idiot. He'll get over it sooner or later."
"You think?" She looks slightly cheered by this statement, though it's probably because she's assuming that he's right and that her partner will get over it. When he looks at her eyes, he can see that the light has returned to them, and he hopes he's right…for her sake and for his own.
"Yeah, I do," he says finally, looking away from her and out the window at the streetlights turning the raindrops a strange shade of orange. "You two will work it out…it'll just take a while."
Silence lingers between them after this, but for the first time in a long while, it isn't the tense silence that it used to be. She turns the car on again at this point, and they leave the parking lot to head back towards the precinct, neither of them speaking. And when they get there, as they get out of the car, her cell phone rings, and she frowns, fishing it out of her pocket and flipping it open as he walks ahead, slowly, so that he can still her her voice drifting towards him.
"Benson." There's a pause as he pulls open the doors leading inside, and then he hears it: that subtle note of happiness that's been missing for far too long, all because her partner is on the other side of the line.
