***olivia***

"Hey, Liv…Liv… Olivia!"

Olivia blinked, dragging her eyes from the window and turning to her left. Carisi was standing in the aisle of the train, motioning toward the door in front of them.

"You coming?"

The train dinged a warning that the doors were about to close. Whispering an apology she tucked her phone in her pocket and stood, following her ADA as he hurried onto the platform, sticking his foot out to stop the doors from closing on her.

"You ok, captain?" He asked as they made their way through the crowded train station. Olivia glanced around, her eyes flicking between the groups of tourists, searching them for a familiar face. It was a habit she'd picked up over the past few months - an increasingly futile effort. He wouldn't be here, there was no way.

"I'm good," she said quickly, sidestepping a family posing under the large clock in the middle of the room. She avoided places like this except when absolutely necessary but it turned out a rapist who targeted young, single, female train commuters deemed a trip on the Hudson line absolutely necessary. "Long day."

Carisi nodded, but his narrowed eyes told her he didn't believe her. Lately, no one did. She shouldn't have been surprised, after all, she trained good cops. They should be expected to know when someone was distracted, to pick up on the subtleties that insinuated turmoil beneath the surface.

But here she was, annoyed that Carisi had caught her mind drifting.

"So what did the DA have to say about Rollins' profile?" She asked, redirecting back toward work. If Carisi thought anything was wrong he didn't mention it, instead diving back into their case. As the two of them walked down the street toward the station she resumed her habitual scan of the faces that passed, hoping his would jump out at her. Though, she thought bitterly, after 3 months she wondered if she'd even recognize him.

*** fin ***

Fin strolled into the squad room as Olivia and Carisi got off the elevators. As always. Carisi was talking faster than anyone could keep up. Olivia looked how she usually did these days; distracted, almost paranoid.

Her face seemed thinner, and her cheeks had the kind of gaunt hollowness they got when her stress levels were taking a toll on her and she wasn't talking about it.

Just the day before the two of them had breakfast at a cafe up the street. He'd ordered a sandwich, ham, and egg on a roll and she'd ordered an iced coffee. He knew enough not to say anything but he'd also spent the night before with her in the squad room and knew she hadn't eaten any of the pizza he'd ordered either.

He'd asked about Elliot, asked if she'd talked to him recently. Slipped in a bullshit comment about Phoebe wanting to set him up with her sister. That had gotten her attention. And all but confirmed the source of her recent behavior.

Fin checked his watch, a vintage piece Phoebe had bought him as a pre-wedding present. 5:15. He should be heading home. Phoebe was making some vegan middle eastern dish for dinner and as much as he complained and swore up and down that he'd never give up steak, he'd never been happier in his life.

He stood, making his way into the captain's office to say goodnight and offer Olivia a ride home. They lived on opposite sides of the city, but at least if he drove her he knew she'd get there at a reasonable hour.

"Liv," he said, knocking on the door. Noticing it was open slightly, he pushed it inward.

Olivia looked up as he walked in, pushing something aside and moving to stand from the couch.

"Oh," she said when she saw who it was. Fin saw the bottle of bourbon she'd slid to the side of the sofa, and the half-full glass she'd tried to hide. He ignored both, but stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"You ready to go?" He asked. "I'll drive."

She shook her head.

"I have a few more things to work on here," she said softly. "I just, I needed a minute."

Fin sat on the arm of the leather sofa, looking around the room. It was softer than when Cragen had occupied it, but there were unmistakable nods to him around the room. Olivia was nothing if not appropriately nostalgic.

"Liv, what's going on," he asked. "Is this about Elliot?"

Olivia looked up at him. He could see she was ready to protest, knew she would when he asked the question. Then, she turned, staring back down into her glass.

"We slept together," she whispered.

Surprise wasn't the right word. He wasn't surprised, he figured this would happen, hell, he and Munch had had a bet going since his first week on the job, he had a hundred bucks riding on it.

Like everyone else, they'd all known it was a matter of time.

"When?"

"A few months ago, that night after we went to dinner."

"And you haven't heard from him?"

She shook her head, and to his surprise looked as if she was fighting back tears.

"Fin I… I think," her breath caught in her throat. "I made a mistake."

***olivia***

She tried not to think about it. That morning. The way she'd woken up alone in his apartment, a scribbled note and a typo-ridden text explaining that work had come up and he'd call her if he could.

It hadn't occurred to her to be angry. In fact, she felt relieved. The inevitable conversation about what they were - what they'd done - was tabled, by factors beyond either of their control.

She read his note again, checked her texts to make sure he hadn't called. Before long the room that the just night before had felt so full of possibility felt hollow and haunted by their lust.

She slipped her shoes on, staring at the bed. Did she make it? Did she leave it? It was a level of domesticity she didn't know if she was ready for. Somehow the making of the bed seemed far more intimate than their unmaking of it.

She probably would have, had things gone well. Things had gone well, she supposed. Very well, in fact. Better than she'd hoped. Better than she'd wanted them to go.

If things had gone badly, if it hadn't been everything she'd wanted she would know, finally, that it was all in her head. Like some dark litmus test for her feelings, everything hinged on this night going wrong.

But it hadn't. It was better than she expected. The connection that they'd spent years building in their minds had translated to their bodies with incredible ease. The first time with someone new was always awkward, rushed, never quite enough.

This, though, this was… this was fireworks. This was passion incarnate, this was enough to make her believe in all the gods she never had before. Enough to make her drop to her knees at the altar of their love, to worship it, to beg for forgiveness not for what they'd done but for all the years they hadn't. Because how could she ever have been complete before, how could she ever have believed in anything at all until now?

The harsh realities set in when she awoke, bringing with them all of the inhibitions she had shed the night before. How could she have done this? How could she have let herself become so all consumed, she had a child and a squad to think about.

Noah.

She had to pick him up in… she looked at her watch. Under an hour. Fuck the bed. With a last look around the apartment, she grabbed her coat and walked out.

*** fin ***

"I made a mistake," she whispered. Fin rolled his eyes.

"Look, you guys are adults, it wasn't a mistake it was a long time coming," he said, ready, as ever, to dispel her guilt over the feelings he could see were moments from overwhelming her.

"No, not… not… that."

Her face was in her hands, her breathing was so shallow it took him a minute to realize she wasn't holding her breath.

"I made a mistake ten years ago… after the shooting. We had… there was so much going on and I couldn't see him but it was like I could… it was like I could feel him, like I could tell what he was thinking and I was so scared he was going to do something… I called him that night, after all the interviews were over. He said he just wanted to go to bed but I called him, I needed to see him, to make sure he was okay…"

In all the years he'd known her, Fin had never seen her so vulnerable. Even after Lewis, there was a subtle strength beneath the trauma. But this. This was the most raw emotion she'd ever given him.

"We met at the beach, he went to Bernie's… he said he couldn't go home yet. I thought he seemed fine… I thought he was going to be ok. I had been so worried at the station. And so we went inside and had a drink and… and I think that everything that had been, that had been building up for so long it just…"

She dropped her head back into her hands, a silent sob shaking her shoulders. Fin slid from the arm of the couch down onto the cushion next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

"What happened?" He asked, already knowing the answer. She sniffed, looking up at him through glassy eyes.

"He kissed me when I got up to leave. And it was like nothing and everything I'd ever imagined. And I knew it was wrong but I don't think I could have stopped it if I wanted to."

Fin looked around the room.

"Did Kathy find out?" He asked quietly. Olivia shrugged.

"She must have," she said. "I got this, in the mail, about three months ago. I thought all along he was the one who wrote it, but now I'm not so sure."

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folded letter, handing it to Fin. He looked down at it, knowing better than to read it. He didn't have to, he could guess what was in it.

"What we did… I thought we could both just move past it. I can't believe I was so naive. I just went home the next morning and I thought I would just see him on Monday and that… I thought we…"

"And he never even called," Fin said. At last all of the pieces were falling into place - and the first thing through his mind was how much he wanted to punch Stabler all over again.

***olivia***

It took her a second to realize what she'd said. That Fin now knew what she'd done, the worst thing she'd done. The thing that tore her apart all those years ago, the thing she couldn't even speak about until now, until the moment it threatened to weigh her down until it killed her.

The letter Elliot had sent her had pushed her over the edge.

It had arrived two weeks after their tryst - and two weeks after Elliot had gone off the grid - but the international postmark bore a date six weeks before that. He'd mailed it from abroad. He'd mentioned visiting family in Rome after Kathy died.

When she first read it she could hardly believe it, yet there it was, typed out on the page. "…and what we were to each other was never real… and we held each other back from being who and where we needed to be…"

He even had the audacity to mention a man, should there be one, and that he hoped he was kind and devoted.

In the days after she'd gotten the letter, Olivia developed a new habit. Every night after putting Noah to bed she'd curl up on her couch and torture herself, nursing a glass of wine and reading and rereading the letter.

She hated herself for it but she couldn't stop. The more she read it the deeper it cut, but it was like the more she bled the better she felt. It was like that piece of her that had doubted everything after their night together was justified.

How could he have told her what he told her, how could he have said he loved her if he knew this letter was on its way, if he knew that there was something out there about to undermine every word he whispered into her ear that night.

If she closed her eyes she could still hear him, still feel him, in her, over her, all around her. She didn't think she'd ever be able to shake him no matter how hard she tried, and yet here she was holding the worst words he ever said to her in her hands.

As the realization of his words hit her so did the memory of that night 10 years ago. Of that dusk-lit living room as she turned to leave. Of the way his hand caught her face, of the way his thumb brushed her hair from her lips.

Of the way the sorrow in his eyes had more depth than she'd ever known, of how deeply and fully their partnership had rooted within her to the point that his sorrow was hers, that the weight of everything they did couldn't be borne by anyone but each other.

Of how much she loved him, and how completely undone she had become.

She saw something else in his eyes and knew what was about to happen before it did. The worst part was she'd wanted him to. More than that she wanted him to want to, and for the first time she knew that he did.

She'd go to her grave swearing it was just a kiss but she knew that for them there was no such thing. They couldn't have bared themselves to each other more if they'd burned all their clothing and actually done what they wanted to.

Instead, she poured everything she could into that kiss, understanding it was to be the first and last one, and held him in her arms until the sunlight poured through the windows. And then she'd told him goodbye, told him she'd see him on Monday. Told him to get some sleep.

And she'd never heard from him again.

*** fin ***

With a sigh he leaned back on the couch, letting the dust settle from the bomb she just dropped on him.

Olivia turned to him, her eyes pleading with him to understand.

"Haven't you ever done something just because you wanted to? Not because it was the right thing to do, or the thing you should do, but just because it felt good? I've devoted my entire life to doing what was right, we both have. Just once I wanted to do something because it felt good, even if it was wrong."

Fin knew better than to judge.

The story of Elliot and Olivia was being written long before he'd joined the cast of characters. From the moment he walked in he knew.

How could you not? It wasn't just the way he looked at her like there was no one else in the room, or the way she defended him to the death even when she knew he was wrong.

It was the sheer magnitude of their partnership, the way they pulled everyone into their orbit, the way that everyone who met them began to revolve around them whether they wanted to or not. They were the sun and everyone around them just hung suspended in their atmosphere, dependent on them for life.

When he left her it was like the earth had stopped spinning, and not just for her. There had been a cosmic shift in the way they all operated and every one of them was forced to learn how to navigate the new world that had been created.

Eventually, they'd found their way. Olivia had lost her light but somehow had managed to remain aglow, a new, softer warmth radiating from her. Without Stabler she wasn't burning as she had but she had somehow found her way back to the sun.

They were all these new forms of themselves. Rollins had come in, then Amaro and Dodds and Carisi, and the squad's dynamics had shifted. They worked in a way the squad hadn't before, not in fractions, setting off two by two to investigate independent of each other, but as a unit, an actual team working toward the same goal.

And then came Cassidy and Barba and Tucker and Olivia's dynamic had shifted as well. It was like she'd finally accepted that she could be loved, and cared for, by someone other than herself.

Somehow, though, there would always be that tiny hole where Stabler had been. The two of them were it, that was all. There were analogies and metaphors and thinly veiled innuendos but however you said it, however you put it, it was simple - they were it for each other.

And it was about time they realized it.

***olivia***

Fin wasn't a man of many words, but Olivia had expected at least a few more. Then again, what was there to say.

Instead, he'd pulled another glass from the bottom drawer of her desk and joined her in a drink. The two sat silently on the couch, the weight of Olivia's confession hanging in the air.

"Phoebes better at this stuff than I am," Fin said finally. Olivia smirked, a tiny laugh escaping her.

"I was never very good at myself," she responded. She took a deep breath and set her glass down on the coffee table. Deciding it was time, she turned to Fin, about to take him up on the offer when her phone rang.

She looked at her watch as she reached for her cell. It was almost 6:30, late for a work call when she wasn't expecting anything.

"Benson," she said, watching Fin pick up their glasses.

"Captain Benson?"

"Yes."

"This is Sergeant Iyanna Bell, at Organized Crime. Do you have a minute to talk?"

Olivia looked at Fin as Iyanna Bell continued, asking if Olivia could meet her in the morning, telling her she had some things do discuss regarding a recent case. Olivia agreed to meet the sergeant at her squad room the next morning, then bade her goodnight.

"That was the Sergeant at Organized Crime," she said, answering Fin's silent question. His eyebrow raised.

"Elliot?"

"No, it was a woman, Sergeant Bell," Olivia said, gathering her things. "She wants to meet tomorrow, said she has something for us regarding a case."

"She say which one?" Fin asked. Olivia shook her head. She was also curious, considering that there weren't that many things they were working on right now, and none of them, to her knowledge, involved anything the Organized Crime Control Unit could help them with.

"I guess we'll find out tomorrow," Olivia said. Fin frowned.

"We?"

"Why did you take the Sergeant's exam, again?" Olivia asked with a smirk. Fin shrugged, glad to see Olivia making a joke again, even if it was at his expense.

"Better pay grade," he retorted, opening the door for Olivia. She laughed as she passed him, leading the way toward the elevator.

"And I need it now that I owe Munch a hundred bucks," he muttered to himself as he shut the door behind him.