A/N: Hey, LSM...I have the power to make you read:rolleyes:. Just kidding. But two chapters in one day is pretty good, no? Anyways...yeah. This one is for you, and bored, as usual, because you two are the only other JO shippers I know about.


By the time the clock strikes two in the morning, they've got the man they're looking for, but the fairy tale is already far from over. They leave the reception hall with their suspect in tow, handcuffed and scowling. Olivia pushes him into the back seat of one of the cars, not bothering to tell him to watch his head and slams the door closed before turning to look at the others. Elliot still won't look her in the eye. He hasn't for the past hour.

"You come with me," she says to him, grabbing the keys from his hands and moving to open the door to the car the suspect isn't in. She glances over at Munch and Fin, but both of them look away without saying anything. Elliot glances over at them, scowling as he gets into the car with Olivia. Within seconds, the two of them are gone, and only then does he talk.

"You want to tell me what the hell that was back there?" he demands.

"Something that doesn't concern you," Olivia tells him bluntly. He glares at her.

"How do you figure?" he asks. "For God's sake, Liv, you were kissing him."

She's half tempted at this point to tell him that it was nothing, that it was a role she was playing because she was undercover. But she'd be lying through her teeth if she did, and she knows it.

"Are you ever going to get over yourself?" she asks in reply, not bothering to hide that she's annoyed. "I don't have to tell you everything that goes on with me."

"You could have at least had the decency to let me know you wanted out instead of letting me find out this way!" Elliot retorts. "Hell, Olivia, I must have asked you at least four months ago, and you told me there wasn't anything going on!"
"There wasn't anything," Olivia says, her voice starting to rise. "And maybe there wouldn't have been if you'd just…" She trails off then, too upset to say anything else. If there was one thing she hadn't wanted, it was for things to end up like this.

Casey was right, she thinks then, almost bitterly, I should've made up my mind a long time ago.

Her silence seems to irritate her partner even more, and he glares at her.

"You're the last person I'd have expected to do something like this," he tells her. "Did you forget that people were watching you?"

"No," Olivia snaps, turning to face him as the light before him turns red. "I forgot you were there." Her words hit him almost as if she's physically reached out and smacked him.

"So if I hadn't…If I hadn't been there, things might have gone farther?" he asks finally.

"Yeah, they might have, not that it's any of your business," Olivia retorts. She turns back to the road as the light turns green, and he waits for her to continue, but she doesn't, and silence falls between them. When she turns abruptly a few blocks away from the precinct, he turns to look at her.

"Where the hell are we going?" he asks, and she turns, her eyes flashing angrily at him.

"You think I'm taking you back to the precinct after what just happened?" she asked.

"Yeah, I did," he shoots back, "That's where we're supposed to be going, isn't it?" She gives him a look.

"If you think I'm going to let you go into the squad room so you can make things worse…" she starts, but her cuts her off.

"So I can make things worse?" he asks. "Things aren't going to get any worse than they already are, Liv, so you might as well face it while you can."

"Why are you doing this?" she demands as the light turns red again. "Why do you have to be such a jerk?"

"So now I'm a jerk." Elliot says sarcastically, but when he opens his mouth to continue, she cuts him off.

"Yeah," she tells him, "You are. And you have been for the past eleven months, and damn it, Elliot, I'm sick of it."

"Then why the hell didn't you say anything before now?" he asks. She turns into a nearby empty lot as the light turns green, turns the car off and shifts in her seat so that she can see him completely.

"Because I cared about you," she says, "And I still do. Your life was already falling apart at the seams, and I didn't want to make it worse."

"And you thought that going around with Munch behind my back was going to make things better?" Elliot demands. "Tell me something, Olivia, exactly how long have you two been sleeping together?"

A loud smack echoes through the car's interior before she even realizes what she's doing, and once it dawns on her what she's done, she stares at her hand in disbelief for a long moment before looking over at her partner. Elliot looks as startled as she does, if not more, but she doesn't care, because now, she's more pissed off than anything else.

"What the hell makes you think you have right to ask me that question?" she demands, her voice shaking with barely controlled anger. "You know what, Elliot, forget that. I can't believe you'd even feel like you had to ask me that!"

Her anger is only a façade to cover her hurt by the time the last word escapes her; he knows this, but he's angry enough to not care anymore.

"Why, Liv?" he asks in reply. "Why can't you believe that I feel like I have to ask you that? How long are you going to keep leading him on, making him think you actually want a relationship with him, huh?"

"Why do you care?" Olivia yells, not caring that they're in an enclosed area. "Why do you even give a damn? You've spent the last eleven months making my life a living hell, what did you think I was going to do?"

"You could have talked to me!" Elliot yells back. "You could have made me listen and you know it, so why didn't you?"

"Because I know you too well," Olivia snaps, looking away when she feels tears stinging at her eyes. "You wouldn't have listened. You're too wrapped up in your own issues to even give me the time of day."

"That's not true," Elliot counters, "I would have listened if you'd given me the chance."

"I tried to!" Her voice breaks before the last word escapes her and she closes her eyes to keep her tears from falling, but it doesn't do any good. "I can't tell you how many times I tried to let you know that I was miserable, and every time I did, you pushed me away, because you didn't have time to deal with me."

"I didn't have time to deal with you?" Elliot asks acidly. "I see you every day, Liv, how the hell am I not going to have time to deal with you?"

She finds herself fighting the desire to smack him again, and clasps her hands together, hard enough to cause her knuckles to go white as she looks down at her lap.

"You don't get it, do you?" she asks softly, having lost the will to fight with him any longer. He stares at her for a moment before replying.

"No," he tells her, "I don't get it, so why don't you just explain it instead of giving me the runaround like you've been doing?"
She sniffles then, wiping at her eyes as she turns to look at him, and he leans back against the car door, startled upon seeing the tearstains on her face. He's never seen her like this before, and he doesn't like it…he wants things to go back to the way they were before, but he knows they won't. Whatever relationship they had is too far gone for them to go back now.

"He listened to me," she says, almost inaudibly. "And it…it felt good to know that I could just let out whatever I was thinking and not just be ignored."

"Oh." At a loss for words, Elliot remains where he is, not daring to lean forward to wipe away her tears or to comfort her in any other way. "Liv, I…."

"I know," she tells him, "I know." And she really does know, even though he hasn't said anything, because even if they've been off kilter on a personal level, as partners, they can still read each other perfectly. He looks at her for a long moment before shaking his head.

"You think I overreacted, don't you?" he asks, suddenly desperate to make this rather depressed mood they're in go away. She looks at him, and bites her lip to keep from laughing.

"Yeah," she says, "I do. Asking me if I've slept with Munch is kind of crossing the line."

"I shouldn't have said that," Elliot says ruefully, glad that his anger has all but disappeared now that they've actually managed to talk, "But has anyone ever told you that you hit like a guy?"

"You're going to have a bruise in the morning," Olivia tells him. "What are you going to tell the squad?"
Elliot shrugs. "I'll tell 'em I got into a bar fight or something," he says nonchalantly, but he can't manage to keep a straight face, and she swats at him, laughing.

"Knowing you, they'll probably believe it," she says, now feeling more relieved than anything else. "Any other confessions you want to make while you're at it?"

"Actually, yes," Elliot says, suddenly serious again, and Olivia turns to face him, an almost concerned look crossing her face.

"Ok, spill," she says, "What is it?" He shifts uncomfortably in the seat and turns to look at the window; she pokes at him.

"Don't clam up on me now," she warns, "Otherwise, I really will have to beat it out of you this time."

"I think you already have," says Elliot. He falls silent for a few more minutes before sighing and turning to face her again.

"Kathy and I have been talking," he admits. "She…ah….she asked me a few days ago whether or not I was still up for trying to reconcile."

"What'd you tell her?" Olivia demands, startled by this rather blunt pronouncement.

"I haven't answered her yet," Elliot replies. "I wanted….I wanted to let you know about it first before I made any life-altering decisions…" Olivia cuts him off with a derisive snort.

"Life-altering, my ass," she tells him. "You knew things were going south between us, you should've just told her yes. How hard would that have been?"

"Forgive me for saying this, Liv, but you and I were still considered to be 'going out' when she asked, so I didn't think telling her yes without telling you about it was going to fly." he answers.

"Does she know?" Olivia asks then, fiddling with the bracelet she'd put on at the beginning of the night. "About us, I mean."

"Yeah," says Elliot, "She does. She asked and I wasn't about to lie to her and tell her you and I had never been together."

"How'd she take it?" asks Olivia.

"I don't know yet," says Elliot, "We haven't talked since she asked if I still wanted to reconcile." Olivia swats at him, but misses.

"God, Liv," he says, pretending to pull away from her, "You think you've beat on me enough tonight?"

"Hey, I missed that time," she replies, "But that's beside the point. You need to go talk to her, preferably as soon as possible."

"If I go now, she'll just change her mind," says Elliot, motioning to the clock on the dashboard. "It's three-thirty in the morning." Olivia gives him a look of mock exasperation.

"That's not what I meant, you idiot," she says, "I meant later, at a decent hour when you two have actually had a few cups of coffee and can hold a coherent conversation."

"I think Munch is starting to rub off on you," Elliot says dryly, "And I'm not sure that's a good thing, either."
"Deal with it," says Olivia. She turns the car back on and they leave the lot, presumably towards the precinct, but when she turns again, he gives her a look of mock annoyance.

"Where are we going now?" he demands. "I'm tired of being your prisoner; I want to go home."

"You can go home later," she replies, "I need to eat something and I don't want to do it alone."

"So you're going to drag me with you to some twenty-four hour diner just because you didn't eat something earlier?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do, and you're going to deal with it, because you don't have a choice."

When they reach their new destination, they get out of the car and exchange glances over the car roof before heading inside, and once they're in the warmth. Elliot turns to look at her, smiling faintly.

"Liv?"

"What?"

"I missed talking to you like this…as partners. You know?"

"Yeah, I know. I probably missed it more than you."