Rain starts to fall the second she pushes the roof access door open, but she doesn't care. It's only a light drizzle now, and though she knows it'll get worse as time goes by, she steps outside, letting the door close behind her. It isn't until she's leaning against the guardrails and staring down at the city that she realizes it's cold and that she left her coat inside. But at the moment, she's so irritated that she doesn't really care…and it's all her partner's fault…again.

She hates this…hates feeling like they're getting somewhere one day only to feel as if everything's gone backwards the next. But both of them are stubborn and she knows that it'll take a miracle for either one of them to back down, especially since both of them think they're right. She wishes that she could talk to him the way she used to be able to, but things have become so difficult between them that she wonders whether or not it'll ever happen.

A bottle shatters below her. She looks over the guardrail but all she sees is a never-ending mass of people going in different directions. Whoever dropped the bottle is long gone, leaving nothing more than broken glass behind. She closes her eyes for a moment, wanting nothing more than to just leave everything behind, and for a few minutes, she does. But when she opens her eyes again, she's back in the city, back in the rain and back to facing the reality that this time, things might not work out.

When the door creaks open, she ignores it, determined to ignore whoever's come after her, but whoever it is doesn't speak until he's standing right behind her.

"Thought I might find you up here."

"Go away, Munch." The blatant dismissal was expected; he can tell by looking at her that this is one of those times where she'll act like she wants to be alone, but he knows that she really doesn't, and so he stays.

"I brought your coat up," he says. "Thought you might need it." She turns to face him then, and he slides it onto her shoulders. She draws it closer around her and closes her eyes again, a low sigh escaping her.

"I don't get it," she tells him finally. "I thought things were getting better."

He knows better than to tell her that the rest of the squad thought the same thing, and so he says nothing. She looks up at him.

"What?" she asks softly. "You don't have anything to say this time?" He sighs and reaches out almost impulsively to brush a stray lock of hair out of her eyes.

"I don't know what to tell you, Liv," he says. "This isn't any of my business in the first place…I might only end up making things worse."

She gives a derisive snort. "Things can't get any worse than they already are," she scoffs, motioning downwards, to where they both know the squad room is. "I can't even talk to him anymore. I can't even look at him anymore without wanting to scream."

"I don't think this is any easier for him," he tells her. "I think you both have a few issues you need to work out before things can go anywhere."

"That really helps," she says sarcastically. "I already know we have issues. What I don't know is how to help him get over his." Her voice breaks on the last word. "How am I supposed to figure it out if he won't talk to me?"

He says nothing. In all honesty, there isn't really anything that he can say. At least, nothing that won't make her feel worse than she already does. He figures that he should know enough about what drives a relationship to this point to tell her what she needs to know, but for unknown reasons, he finds himself drawing a blank.

"So what are you going to do?" he asks quietly. She turns and leans back against the guardrails, sighing.

"I don't know," she admits. "And it scares me. I don't…I don't want to lose him, but I can't keep doing this."

"No one expects you to," he says, finally starting to regain his bearings. "Maybe you two just need a break from each other."

She gives a bitter laugh. "And what good is that going to do?" she asks. "You know how he is, the minute he sees me with someone else, he's going to have a fit."

"Tell him to get over it," he says bluntly. "It's none of his business who you're seeing unless it's him."

"You really think telling him that is going to do any good?" she asks dryly. "If anything, it'll make it worse."

"Why do I have the feeling you're not telling me something?" he asks in reply, in an effort to change the subject. She sighs, running a hand through her hair and successfully ruffling it.

"You want to know why I've been giving you the runaround when you want to talk." she says, more of a statement than the question that it was intended to be.

"Well…yeah." he admits. He's learned, over the past few days, what it was like for her when things were the other way around, but he can't remember saying anything to hurt or otherwise annoy her. And he doesn't like not talking to her any more than she likes not talking to him.

"He asked me if there was something going on," she says quietly. "Between you and me, I mean."

"He what?" He stares at her, unwilling to believe what he's just heard, even if it's only because he can't believe that her partner would even think to ask her something like that. She doesn't repeat the question, knowing that he's not asking her to, and he shakes his head in disgust, starting to pace back and forth.

"I can't believe he'd say that to you," he says finally. "How he can even think something like that is just…" He trails off, annoyed, but not at her. "What'd you tell him?"

"What do you think I told him?" she demands, suddenly irritated with him as well. "Do you really think I'd do that to him?"

"No," he says, "No, I don't. And that's not what I meant. I just…Where does he get off thinking that about you?"

"That's what I'd like to know," she says mildly, turning to look down at the city. "I asked him about it and he wouldn't say anything."

"I wonder why," he mutters acidly. "Probably didn't want to run the risk that someone was listening."

"Munch, really," she says, "When isn't someone listening around here?" She has a point there, and he knows she does, so he falls silent and shakes his head again.

"So, that's it?" he asks her finally. "You're just going to sit here and let him walk all over you like this?"

"He's not walking over anything," she retorts. She opens her mouth to continue, but he cuts her off, scowling.

"Yeah, Liv, he is," he says bluntly. "He's been walking all over you since this started. And your letting him is only making him think that he's got a right to treat you this way, and he doesn't!"
"What makes you so sure of that?" she demands. "Maybe I don't have a problem with the way this is going!"

"If you didn't have a problem, you wouldn't be up here, and you wouldn't be upset," he points out. She glowers at him.

"I don't need this," she tells him finally. "I'm already getting enough of it from him, and I don't want it from you, too."

"Then open your eyes," he retorts. "You can't tell me you haven't noticed how miserable you've been lately."

"Maybe I haven't," she snaps. "Maybe I'm just used to feeling this way, and maybe I just don't care anymore."

"You care," he says. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be getting so defensive, and you wouldn't be taking your frustrations out on me, again."

"If you don't want to listen to me, then don't." She pulls her coat closer around her as the rain starts to pick up and looks down at the city, trying almost desperately to drown out everything else around her, wanting more than anything to forget it all, this conversation, the situation with her partner…everything.

"I didn't say I don't want to listen to you," he tells her quietly. "I do want to. If you want to talk, I'm here, Liv, I just….I can't watch this anymore."
"Why?" she asks. And there's the question that he's been waiting for, and the one he's been dreading at the same time. It's become almost like their defense mechanism: whenever things become uncomfortable or awkward, one of them blurts out a random question. But this time is different. This time, the situation is both uncomfortable and awkward, and the question isn't random. He moves so that he's standing beside her and looks to where she's looking before answering.

"Because I know you deserve better than this," he says. "Even if you don't, I do, and I can't stand seeing you like this because I know that."

She looks at him then, startled by what she's heard, and rather unsure as to whether or not she's heard him right. When she doesn't say anything, he takes her hand in his own, and they stand there, ignoring the weather even as thunder cracks loudly in the distance.

"We should…we should probably head inside." he remarks after a while, "I have the feeling this is only going to keep getting worse."

"Did you mean it?" she asks him, suddenly finding her voice again and startled by hearing it. He looks at her as he leads her to the door that will take them back into the precinct where it's dry and smiles faintly.

"Yes," he tells her, "I meant it." And there is that silence again. Thunder cracks again; she jumps and he draws her against him, as if to shield her, as lightning comes and illuminates their faces.

And in that instant, without thinking, she closes her eyes and reaches up to kiss him.


A/N: Ok, before I start having to dodge flying objects, let me just say that this fic is being written in response to a challenge that I thought I'd forgotten about, but it turns out I hadn't, so I just started writing on this fic again, and I'm not exactly sure how it's going to go from here, so bear with me. And damn, that was a long sentence...:random: