They thought that they were protecting her and she didn't want to pretend that she knew anything different. She didn't have the energy for it. She didn't want the piteous eyes, the pats on the shoulders, the unspoken there-theres from the people that were supposed to look to her for strength and leadership.

She gathered up some files from her office and ignored the lull of the hushed voices just outside that seemed to silence as soon as she entered the room. She knew they were all talking about him.

She was humiliated that her private feelings were so obvious when she had believed that they'd been so well-hidden for so many years. She wondered if Fin had run his mouth or if they had all naturally just read between the lines – god knows there'd been so many rumours when Elliot left.

Fin was the only one that knew the extent of her feelings for Elliot; he was the one who picked her up from the ground when she'd collapsed from grief in the locker room when she received the news that he wasn't returning.

Fin had been there but she still didn't discuss it with him in any great detail after that day for the shame that she felt about him knowing her unrequited feelings.

With papers in arm, she grabbed her satchel of things and threw it over one shoulder. She closed her office door behind her. She scanned the room, "Okay," she announced, "I'm off… try not to get yourselves in to trouble and I'm on my phone if you need me."

"Have a safe trip, Cap," Carisi called out.

She couldn't bare to look back, she didn't want to see the piteous looks on their faces – the knowing that they were withholding bad news from her.

She got home to begin packing for the early start.

As she packed she let her mind wander to Elliot and try as she might, but she was unable to stop the memories coming in hard and fast of all of the 12 years that they had spent together, side-by-side closer than he was to his own wife as he had so kindly pointed out to her.

She sighed.

Almost making her jump a foot off her bed was Noah standing in the doorway watching his mother.

"Hi honey, what are you doing awake?" she asked him, instantly forgetting all about Elliott and the long train ride she had to take the next day. She would have happily paid for a flight out of her own pocket if the NYPD hadn't already booked her a sleeper cabin.

"Mommy, Lucy said you were leaving tomorrow but you didn't even see me before bed."

"I know honey, but I'm not leaving super early like normal, I'll be able to have breakfast with you and take you to school…" she promised her little curly haired boy. She briefly wondered what Elliot would think of her maternal nature and her capacity to love someone more than she ever could have dreamed of loving him.

She held her arms out for her 6 year old son who was in many ways, still just a baby. He sleepily climbed in to her lap just like he still did when he was tired. She inhaled the sweet scent of the baby shampoo they still used on his sensitive scalp.

He was growing up too fast.

She placed a kiss on his smooth forehead and held him close to her. He yawned quietly. "Close your eyes," she said soothingly. "You will have a few fun days with Lucy and her Momma and then I'll be back home before you know it."

"Okay," he agreed.

She held him in silence for a little while stroking his beautiful curls that she really had to let go of, she couldn't keep his hair long forever, but she didn't have it in her heart to let him grow up too fast.

She wondered what Elliot would think of her parenting; if he would be surprised by how stern she could be and how well her son responded to her no-nonsense approach to things.

She had learned things from watching Elliot be a father; mostly what not to do. She showed her son emotion, she didn't keep things from him and was always gave 100% of herself; not some watered-down version of who she thought he would want in a mother. She believed in being transparent with her son, of showing him the highs and lows by finding just that right balance between what she needed to protect him from and what she would always be open about.

When Olivia was convinced that her son was asleep, she lifted him and slowly rose to her feet. He was getting heavy – yet another indication that he was no longer the soft, warm baby that she'd held in her arms almost in disbelief.

Once Noah was back in bed, she finished packing.

She needed to get out of her head, she thought as she went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine to slow it all down.

Fuck Elliot, she said to herself, remembering how Melinda had repeated it back to her earlier, just like a mantra she had consoled herself with way back when…

He wasn't going to get to do this to her again; and for what? To set her heart on fire over and over and to constantly get the burning, smoldering flames snuffed out each time his wife walked in to the precinct?

Elliot Stabler was not about to get the best of her again. She knew better – she was older, wiser and this time she had the greatest capacity to love deeper than her feelings ever extended to him. She had priorities – she had a family – albeit small, but it was hers and she was happy and he wasn't going to come waltzing back in to shake shit up again.