Author's Note: One more chapter to go, after this. This chapter is dedicated to Maddy (purpleomaddy), and she knows why.

TW: Lewis, though not in explicit detail.


You don't know how much of a lucky duck you really are, Stabler.

Elliot's lost in thought, gazing distantly at Olivia, taking in the gentle slope of her face in profile as she expertly guides the chopsticks to her mouth for a heaping bite of rice. Seeing her like this, after they've kissed, after he's felt her warm breath against his skin and tasted the tinted lip balm she'd put on her lips that morning, is like seeing her again for the very first time.

He's lived with a lot of regrets over the years, and a lot of them involve the woman sitting in front of him and how he never acted on what he clearly knows now was always something reciprocated. But all of those regrets have led them to be here, today, curled up on his couch together eating Chinese takeout after sharing what was, at least for him, a very anticipated first kiss.

"You're staring." The sparkling notes of the peals of her laughter pull him, startled, from his reverie.

There's always a semblance of a smile on his face when she's around, because he can't help but look at Olivia and want to smile. But his smile widens to a grin, one that threatens to split his entire face in two, and he continues to look at her, entranced. "I am," he says, simply. "And if I'm not mistaken, Ms. Benson, you're staring too."

There's a tinge of a blush that begins to blossom along her cheeks, delicate and pink, and she ducks her head slightly, but her eyes never falter from their own gaze. "Guilty as charged," she says, as she reaches behind her into the delivery bag to grab the expected container of eggrolls from the bottom. "Did you make sure to get extra?"

"Always do." Since she'd been the one to change his bandages earlier, he'd offered to call in their order to a place he's never tried, a couple blocks down from his new place. He prefers their usual, but the delivery fees from Manhattan down to here would have been exorbitant, and there's always surprising her for lunch at work someday. Soon, maybe. The rice is too mushy, and his chicken tastes a little too close to rubber for his tastes, but she seems to be enjoying her sweet and sour pork well enough.

Olivia smiles, and evenly divides the order between them, leaving her with one lonely egg roll all alone remaining. "Split it?" she asks, and there's a reflection of hope in those dark eyes of hers, the ones he finds incredibly hard to resist. Especially now.

"I want you to have it," he says. "The extra egg roll, the spare breadstick. Any of it." She makes a noise of protest, and he shakes his head. "I know I fucked up, and we've been over it, but if there's anything I can do to make you happy," he continues, a slight smirk crossing his face at what the definition of anything could possibly include, "then, I want to do it. So, I want you to have the egg roll."

"Anything, you say," she repeats, humming happily to herself as she slides the egg roll in question over to her. "I can think of a few things you might be able to do." Her smile is light, flirtatious, and God, not for the first time today, he's in complete awe that he gets the privilege of seeing her like this. He's seen traces of it, before, but it was always intended for other people, or it was in the brief instances of undercover work that required them to be something more than they always were. Now, though, it's for him, and him alone. "But I don't like the idea of you being in debt to me forever, either."

"We'll call it even at some point, I'm sure," he says, although if he has his way, he'll be indulging quite a few of her whims and fantasies for the rest of his life. "I want to do this for you, though." She smiles, and he reaches across to her plate and grabs a particularly plump looking piece of sweet and sour pork with his chopsticks. "But, if you insist on things being fair…"

Note to self: if you order from Jade Pagoda again, get the pork, not the chicken.

He can't help but notice the smile that slips across her face, unbidden, when he nabs her piece of pork and savors it. Olivia's beautiful all the time, but there's something purely radiant and magical that happens when she smiles, especially when it's directed at him. It's as if everything bad in the world can be held at bay as long as she's happy.

She playfully tosses him a fortune cookie, and takes the other for herself. "What does yours say?" she asks. It was always one of their favorite rituals when they'd get Chinese food as partners – share their fortunes, laugh over what they might mean, and then save the tiny slips of paper. He'd kept a small pile of them in his desk drawer, the ones that meant something - like the love of your life is in front of your eyes, from early in their partnership, back when he knew Olivia meant more to him than a partner, but had no idea how intricately they'd become woven together. Somehow, he suspects all those fortunes long ago ended up in a trash can.

He cracks his cookie open, and fishes out the little piece of paper. "Friendship is the first step toward love," he says, and he breaks out into a broad grin. "I'd say so." Whether they're partners, friends, best friends, or moving toward something more – there's one thing that's never changed with regards to how he feels about her: she's always been his friend, and he's always cared. Too much, maybe, and not always sure how to show it, but he cares about Olivia.

She smiles, too, and tenderly tucks a lock behind her ear as she reads her fortune. "The end of something old, is also the beginning of something new," she says, her voice a soft whisper echoing in the quiet of the room. "I've had a lot of endings, especially lately, but not a whole lot of beginnings."

He reaches out his hand, strokes along her forearm. He knows about Simon, how his death rattled her – and how it wasn't an accident, after all. And there's the mystery guy she dated, the one who wanted her to retire, and then he died. The one she thought she could commit to, the one she thought would make her happy.

But he feels like there's more.

There's Kathy, of course, and the complexity of the two women's relationship. And he still grieves for her, grieves for the mother of his children, the woman he slept beside for so many years, because she'd been a part of his life longer than she hadn't. He isn't sure how much grief for Kathy consumes Olivia, but the truth about that letter – the letter he wished he'd burned, rewritten from scratch, even if it tore his soul open in the process.

Keeping that one precious line: in a parallel universe, it will always be you and I. Except he'd strike the first part, make it what he meant to say: It will always be you and I. Because there's nothing else, nobody else. Not now.

There's something else in the intangible, though, a sheer specter that floats above all of it, menacing and haunting them. It manifests in the words she cannot find, in the crack that's too large and jagged to properly conceal.

"We're beginning," he says, tracing a loose, swirling infinity sign along her wrist. "You and me, Olivia? Whatever we are, we're only beginning to find out."

She ducks her head down, lifting to reveal a shy smile, without pulling her arm away from him. "We are," she says, her eyes bright and laden with unspoken hopes and dreams. "If I ask you a question –"

"Ask me anything." He's an open book, when it comes to her – she's earned that right, if not a thousand others. All he wants is for her to realize the truth, as he has it written – he is here, and though he's made innumerable mistakes in the past, he wants to make things right. And he loves her. Always has. That might be the most important thing for her to know.

"The ten years you were gone," she says, licking her lips absentmindedly, and he has to remind himself not to get distracted by her tongue, or her lips – no, he has to focus on her words, because her words and what she's saying are important. "Were you in Italy for all of them?"

"No."

He sees her breath hitch in her throat, and she forces out a word, and then another. "Then – where?"

"One of my old buddies from the Marines hooked me up with a private security contract gig for a while. Paid well, but didn't have a lot of contact with the family back in the States," he says. "Spent a lot of time over in Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, the former Communist countries. Protected a few businessmen making questionable deals, but –" It wasn't the same, not without you by my side. I'd have loved to have you beside me as I spent a month in the Danube Delta, making sure no one targeted my client. It was gorgeous, but not as gorgeous as you. "When the opportunity came up for me to be the liaison in Rome, Kathy was excited, because it meant we finally could be a real family again."

"You weren't – oh." Her face breaks, and he rushes forward to clasp her against his chest, as the first tears of what appear to be a flood come pouring down her cheeks. "You didn't know, oh."

He rubs countless circles, loops, and swirls into her back as he presses her against him. "What didn't I know?" His voice is soft, yet firm – he needs to know, especially when she's aching to tell him something; he can see it in her eyes. "You can tell me, Olivia, promise, you can tell me anything. What didn't I know about?"


Olivia looks at Elliot, looks at the man who's held her heart for longer than she dares to remember, and she's torn between wanting him to continue remembering her as she was, or fill in the blanks on who she's become. But she wants them to have a proper understanding, one that doesn't require guesswork – one based on honesty, in its purest form.

And honesty, in this case, means conquering a demon she's held at bay for as long as she could. But, with Elliot promising with his soft whispers and warm touch that he'd be beside her all the way, that he wants to know what's happened to her, without judgement – she thinks she can manage it now.

He's the last person she ever wants to tell this story to, and she wants to do it her way.

"Two years after you left," she starts, and she takes his palm and places it on her hip, where her shirt meets her jeans, and the fabric of the shirt has bunched up a bit, so there's a small hollow of skin visible there. His thumb reverently caresses across it, and she feels the swoop of nerves nestling in her gut. "I thought I knew evil. I didn't, not really. Not until then."

As she tells the story of what happened, what the personification of pure evil did to her – her initial uneasiness that morphed into outright fear and dread, the terror he inflicted on her and forced her to watch him inflict on other, even more innocent people – she feels an invisible weight being lifted from her shoulders.

She's entrusted very few people with her story over the years, especially the emotions behind it. It's easy for her to state the facts, like she had to do countless times in front of IAB and on the stand, but the emotions, the baring of her soul – she couldn't even do that with Brian, and he was there during it. But she's had time to think, to ponder, to realize that he's the only one she trusts to know what she endured. Survived.

"When I thought – when I thought I was going to – when I had his gun – all I could see in front of me was your face, El." And I knew that at least, if I died in this fucking granary, that your face was the last one I chose to see. Not his. Yours. I decided. And if yours was the last face I saw, then that was alright by me.

And maybe, too, when he'd been in the fire, the one Kosta and his men had set – when those flames had darted up toward the ceiling, and he thought he was about to die – maybe a vision of her face had appeared, to comfort him in his darkest hour.

His hands fly to her chin, caress it, holding her face between the palms of his hands, and his thumbs wipe away her tears as they splatter down her cheeks; his forehead rests against hers. "You are a fierce warrior and a survivor, Olivia," he says, and it doesn't take long for her to realize that he has tears too, and their tears are mingling together as they fall faster and freer. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me. So incredibly sorry."

She hiccups, softly, and rocks into his embrace. "I know you are," she whispers, and she lays her palms on his shoulders. "No one ever – you never –"

"I never heard anything about it, or I would have been on the first plane back to the States, no matter where I was."

And she believes him, because she really does know him; he would have torn the entire Tri-State area apart, top to bottom, looking for her, without stopping once to rest, and then, once he'd found her – he would have done exactly what she'd told Lewis he'd do to him. She probably wouldn't have even thought to try to stop him. "I know," she says. "Kathy – the kids – they had to know. It was big news."

He stills for a moment, but never releases his grip on her. "She never told me." She sees the moment the realization crests across his face, and it's as if he's cracking open from the inside. "She never – I asked her, sometimes, if she ever heard updates about you, from the news, or wherever – she never said a word."

"And you believed her?" If Kathy wasn't already dead, she would go have a very long, very intense conversation with her right about now. Because from the sheer shock and horror in his eyes, she knows Elliot's being honest – there's no way that he's ever heard any of this, not before today, but she's lost on the how of it all. "It's a little buried now, but I'm pretty sure the headlines still come up if you Google my name."

They fall into silence, only a tear or a strangled hiccup punctuating through. "She – she must not have told me," Elliot says, finally, stroking his fingers through her hair, with an infinite tenderness that makes her heart ache. It's as if holding onto her in this moment, letting their shared anguish pour over them, is allowing him to process things differently. Knowing she's alive, that he can hold her – her lungs still breathe in and out, her heart still beats – might be reassurance enough for him, in this moment. "Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't one of the kids?"

"I don't have the answers to that," she says, and she rests her head against him. He's solid, and firm, and he's real, and she takes comfort in all those facts. For all the times she'd wished he was there when all of this was going on, he's here now, and there's not always another chance to make things right. "Your kids – they might not know that you didn't know."

"Shit, I didn't even think of that," he mutters under his breath. "I – God, Olivia, if I'd even had the slightest idea, you know."

"I do know," she murmurs, her breath warm and still against his neck, as she buries herself into him, buries all her worries and grief from the past in him, like he's done to her. "It's not your fault, El. None of it is your fault."

"I should have been there. Like you were for me. Like you've always been." And his sob catches in his throat, and he pulls her more tightly to him, as if they're molded together by some intrinsic, infinite force that nothing could hope to separate. "Nothing anyone could ever do to you, or anything you could ever do, could make me love you any less."

And there it is. No one's at the threat of dying, no one's half-out of their minds in grief and confusion – and his love for her is still there, still as unwavering as he is against her, clasping her to him. He isn't saying it because he feels some sort of obligation to, but because it's his truth and he's speaking it out loud.

She darts her tongue out to wet the corner of her lips; words that have remained unspoken for as long as she's known him linger on her tongue, daring her to speak them into existence. She's never said them to anyone else, not like this. Not when they mean the promise of something more that's within both of their grasps.

He senses her hesitation, eases his grip on her slightly, allowing her to look into his face. "Liv, you don't –"

"I swear to God, Stabler, I'll never forgive you if you talk me out of saying what I'm about to say, and I don't think you'll be too happy with yourself either." She takes her index finger, crooks it under her chin, and tilts her face up to look at him. Those eyes – those crystal blue eyes, the ones that she loves, the ones that have always seen every part of her and somehow find all of it worthy and deserving of love – are looking at her, gazing at her with boundless adoration and devotion. And while she's not sure what she's done to deserve any of it, least of all from him, she's not going to spurn it now that it's there for her taking. "I love you too."

It's simple, it's pure. It's four words, and eleven letters, and it's everything she's wanted to say to him and never thought she'd get a chance to. And he's stunned into silence; his mouth falls agape, as if he wants to say something, but can't find the words. "Cat got your tongue?" she teases, tracing her finger down the center of his chest, eliciting a ragged moan from him. Oh, she's going to have fun figuring out his most sensitive spots, where she can get those kinds of reactions. Not today, not when he's still healing and they're raw emotionally in so many ways, and Eli should be getting home from school soon – but someday. Soon.

"I can think of other things I'd like to do with my tongue," he says, his voice nearly a feral growl, as he leans into their clutching embrace. "One of these days, I promise you."

"I'm holding you to that," she says, with a light chuckle, as she pulls him in for another kiss, and they tumble, laughing, against the couch.

Somehow, she doubts he'll fail to follow through.

-to be continued-