Elliot still could hardly believe it, three years of undercover work down the drain – he'd lost his wife over it though he knew truthfully that the relationship was going as cold as the case; he just handed Kathy the shovel to finish burying it.

Maybe he had used it as an escape route, if he was being honest with himself, but he couldn't see a way out – he was trapped in a shitstorm of a marriage where he longed to get away from the volatile relationship that had twisted from the happiness and relief they had both felt when he left SVU.

The honeymoon period didn't take long to end though.

He stared down at the mug-shot of Viktor Sanchez and sighed. He couldn't go back under, but he would find another way and if Olivia would stop being so fucking stubborn, he knew that she was the perfect person that could help him.

He looked over at his new partner; he wasn't Olivia, and he didn't really remember how to work with someone else, but Richard Jessup would do for now. "Stop beating yourself up over it," the other detective caught yes with him. "They fumbled through and fucked it," he added, "there's nothing we can do."

"It's not SVU's fault," he said, always protective of Olivia, the woman for years he had so longed to see – who wouldn't even give him the time of day now… but he didn't really blame her after how neglectful he'd been as a friend during her hardest times. "It's that scum bag piece of shit, Langan…"

Richard rolled his eyes at his stubborn new partner, "Lawyers do what they are paid to do."

"Nope," Elliot shook his head, thinking of how close he and Liv had looked a few nights earlier. They had been holding hands, chatting and grinning at each other in the same way she used to look at him.

He knew that look, he knew she was in love with him and more than it made him sad, it made him angry and mostly with himself for leaving her to fall prey to so many pieces of shit.

She deserved someone better than Trevor Langan… Or that other scum of the earth, Tucker… She deserved someone who knew how to love her.

"Trust me, I have a long history with this dick, he's a slime… We can't let Sanchez get away with this…" he added, "He's dangerous and I can't sleep at night knowing he's back on the streets."

"We can't get them all, Stabler," Richard replied, leaning back in his leather desk chair, tucking his hands behind his head, "Besides, my bed's kinda comfy, I sleep okay."

Elliot rolled his eyes. "I didn't lose my marriage… contact with my damn kids… to go undercover for nothing… I am going to take this guy down and you can either help me or you can rest like a lazy asshole waiting for retirement, the choice is yours."

Olivia received a text message as she was leaving her last night shift for the week. She opened it up, thankful that the texts from Trevor had stopped. It had been more than 24 hours since he'd tried in a last ditch effort to talk to her.

"Hi Olivia, I know you said not to contact you, I'm trying to respect that but I really need to pick your brain about the Sanchez case. Something has come up on my side of things and I need your help. Can you please just find it in your heart to answer my text and come and meet me somewhere – on your terms. Feel free to bring someone with you."

She wondered why the Sanchez case had piqued his interest. She wondered if he would truly be able to keep to the case, not to discuss anything personal. She was done with Trevor and she was also very done with Elliot.

All men, in fact.

She replied back. "You'll have to give me more information than that before I agree to anything, detective. Maybe Fin can tell you about it, I don't really need to be there for that. Or, I can just send you over our reports, statements and case files."

She walked began to head down the hall toward the lift.

Olivia didn't really feel like reliving the trauma of Sanchez' case. It was a little too close to home for her.

She knew better these days to walk home from the precinct. She had always been confident that she could handle herself, but after him, she wasn't fully confident in her own strength anymore. She waited for her cab in the cool morning air. It was still dark out and it wouldn't be for very long, but she still wasn't going to take any chances.

She was relieved that she could stay in bed all day and just enjoy a good, long sleep. She sure needed it.

A new text came through as soon as she got in the cab. "Olivia, I have been undercover for 3 years looking to infiltrate Sanchez's syndicate and then SVU came along got him for the murders and the rapes that I only knew a little about, but we were certain he was going away so my captain pulled me out…. And you know the rest of the story. Can't retry on the grounds of rape and murder but if I can work the syndicate case, we might still have a chance of getting him. Please, I know Fin is good, but this case needs your eyes."

"Fuck." Olivia cursed.

"Everything okay, Ma'am?" the cab driver asked from the front, glancing at her in his review mirror.

She looked up and gave him a smile. "Yes, I'm sorry." She craned her neck back in to her phone and thought for a moment. "Okay, are you at work now? I'm coming."

She didn't want to see him, she wasn't interested in engaging with him but she definitely wanted to see Sanchez in jail – the knowledge that he was out on the street after making his threats against her similiarly to him made her uneasy at night.

Also, she knew it would alleviate some sense of guilt from Trevor's shoulders.

Oh right, she thought, fuck him. She hated it that she still couldn't get him out of her head.

Another text. "Yes, I'm here, I'm supposed to clock off in an hour, but come on over. Thank you."

Elliot knew it was Olivia before he had set eyes on her. After all the years passed he still felt her presence – it was all-consuming and so inherently natural to him. Perhaps that was why they made such good partners.

There weren't many people left in the station at this late at night and everything was so dim. Olivia made out Elliot's shadow in his chair, sitting by a lamp, hunched over files with Sanchez' criminal profile open on his screen. He still looked the same yet entirely different. He was thicker, he had put on weight, he had a little facial hair, his neck was thicker and redder than she remembered.

His muscles had grown but he was still striking to look at. As she came around the desk to face him, his eyes as blue as the ocean struck hers. "Hi…" he said quietly. He was tired, she could tell. He had bags beneath his eyes and before he had to admit it, she knew the case was really getting to him.

"Hey El…" she couldn't fight anymore. She was too exhausted, too emotional and just wanted to deal with her feelings about him another day.

"Thanks for coming, did you just get off shift?" he spoke casually but there was still so much behind his words; apology, regret, trepidation. It was as if he worried that she would lose it and leave at any moment.

She nodded, "I can't stay long, I need to get my son off to school," she lied. She needed an excuse to leave if it became too much.

"Congratulations on your son, I didn't know…" he murmured as if he couldn't help himself.

She shrugged. "I didn't send out a notice… not like I would have known where to send it anyway."

He took his forehead in his hand and let out a sigh. It wasn't frustration or anger, just regret. She stared at him, still after all this time she found it hard to be angry with him; if anything she felt pity. He was so afraid of his feelings that he didn't know what to do except to run.

A jarring reminder smacked in to her brain; reminding herself that that was exactly what had happened with Trevor. She still wasn't interested in hearing his side of the story – if it turned out he was telling the truth; that he didn't share intimate details about their relationship, then she was wrong and she would have to face up to her strong feelings for him.

"Liv, I am really sorry," Elliot said finally.

"Let's not…" Olivia replied, fatigued by the idea of such a big conversation. "Just… tell me what's going on with the case."

Elliot didn't offer another apology or attempt to talk about anything else, he decided to just respect her wishes and tell her about Sanchez, about how close he got to becoming his right hand man. He told her about Viktor's drug and animal and human trafficking. Olivia wanted to be surprised by it all, but she wasn't.

"How the hell did Langan get him off?" Elliot asked, finally. "I don't want to be disrespectful Olivia but…"

"Viktor is just a lucky son-of-a-bitch. Evidence technicalities, twisting the evidence to make it suit himself… he knows all the tricks in the book. Trevor Langan was doing his job and-"

"I'm sorry, he's always been a piece of work-"

"Stop it," Olivia said, despite what had happened between them, she knew Trevor had suffered at the hands of Viktor too, "don't talk shit about Trevor… why do you think he left his job? Sanchez ruined the job for him, despite whatever happened between him and I, he had a job to do and he's a good person."

Elliot rolled his eyes, frustrated at Liv's short memory. "I know you're with the guy Liv, but you can't deny-"

"Stop," she told him firmly. "Fuck, I really thought we could do this…" she said, pushing her chair back, standing up. "Work on a case together without it becoming about you wanting to tell me what to do with my life all over again."

"Liv, no," Elliot began standing up too. The few people left in the office stared. "I'm not telling you what to do—I just, I still care about you despite what you may feel and think and I don't want you to get hurt."

She stared at the back of the room and let a faint, ironic smile cross her lips. "You don't want me to get hurt unless you're the one doing he hurting and then suddenly its okay, right?"

He looked down, knowing she had him. "I didn't mean to-"

"No…" she shook her head, her voice quiet, thick with emotion, "no, you didn't mean to…" she drew in a deep breath, "I never ever thought my life would be without my best friend, Elliot. I never thought for a second that I'd have a child without you there cheering me on, giving me advice, helping me if he needed a good, respectable man in his life… I never thought I'd go through losing someone so suddenly like they fucking died, either… I had to grieve you, Elliot. I had to grieve you for the past ten fucking years!" her voice was raising and the tears spilled down her face before she even knew what was happening.

His immediate reaction was to try to take her by the arm, to hold her, to wrap his arms around her but she shoved him away angrily. "Don't-" she warned him.

"Do you know I got kidnapped?" she asked him, her voice louder as she wiped away her angry tears, not giving a damn who was witnessing it.

He nodded regretfully.

She laughed scornfully. "Oh, so you do know, and still you never came for me. You knew that a man who had a history of doing similarly to what Sanchez does to his victims, came for me, kidnapped me for days, tortured me – and still you couldn't bother yourself to come back for me…."

"Liv – I didn't-"

"Just shut the fuck up with your excuses, Elliot," she shook her head, trying to gather her composure. "That monster did some fucking awful things to me and all I had in the back of my head the whole time was, don't worry Olivia, Elliot is going to find out, he's going to be there like always." Olivia was really crying now and when the tears mapped their way down her face she saw that Elliot's own eyes were filmed over.

Good she thought.

She cleared her throat and brushed away her tears.

"And still, you didn't show up…not even a phone call, a visit to the hospital, nothing."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, knowing that if he spoke another word, he'd lose his composure too.

"Yeah," Olivia barely squeezed out, nodding her head. "I'm sorry too."

She gathered her things and plucked a Kleenex from the box and wiped her cheeks. "If you need help with the case, call Fin. I can't help you with it. It brings up PTSD for me, it's too much and I can't be around you either."

"Olivia—" he tried.

"Oh," she said, her anger overtaking her emotions finally, "I don't know if it was you, but if you told everyone about Trevor and I- you're a pig and you need to keep my name out of your mouth."

"What?" he asked, puzzled. "Liv, I would never do something like that to you."

"Really?" she paused right by him, looking him dead in the eyes, she was angry, he could see it. Her stare could be disarming at the best of times, but when she was angry, her eyes were like fire, burning in to him. "Because it actually seems like the exact thing you'd do."

She looked him up and down with disgust filling her up as she walked out of the station.