This will be a two-part story. It is my hope to have part two posted before the season opener on 9/23/21, but I make no promises as smut and work do not tend to go together, at least for me and writing purposes. I wanted to at least get part of this posted before the opener. All errors are mine. If you want, find me on twitter CathQuintin. I lurk more than anything. Mature rating for mostly language, though...

Dick Wolf's toys, my playground.

A special thanks to all my Lovelies on Twitter for keeping me motivated, and to all those who take the time to comment, encourage and read.

Shatter Me

She looked both hopeful and lost as she rested against the balcony. Her work clothes surrounded her like armor, holding the captain inside, but the length of her hair, teased by the breeze offered a glimpse of the woman underneath, soft and fragile. Brow crinkling at the thought, Elliot frowned. When had he started seeing her as fragile, delicate even? When they were younger, she had seemed such of force of nature, strength and empathy mixed with temper and grace. God, her anger… It would fire him up, consume him, make him wish he could be consumed by her. Now though, he had not seen her temper, the flare and burn of it. He wondered if it was still there. Leaning against the sliding door to the patio, he just watched her. She stared out over the city as if she could still see the good of it. Perhaps she could. His eyes traced her as he wished he had the courage to allow his hands to do, the curve of her shoulder, the line of her back, the swell of her hip. Maybe it wasn't so much fragility, as tempered steel, softened with the grace that was all mother and woman, Olivia. She still had the power to move him. Time and time away had only made her more beautiful to him.

"I can hear you."

"Really? How's that even possible when I'm just standing here?"

A soft smile creased her lips, but she didn't turn. "El, sometimes your thoughts are so loud, I know what you want to say."

"Hmm, bet you don't."

She turned to face him, resting her arms back against the rail. Taking a moment, she just took him in. God he was beautiful, sculpted, and strong in way that thrilled her to her very atoms. The smile slipped away as she met his eyes. They were slowly relearning this skill, a thousand words in a glance, a lifetime of understanding. It was rusty yet, but it was returning. She saw the regret there, felt it herself. "You want to tell me how sorry you are to be going away. That you don't want to go, but the job needs you."

He shifted, folding his arms casually across his chest. "Well, that is fact, but that wasn't what I was thinking at this moment."

One graceful brow arched up. "Oh?"

His head tipped a little as if he were embarrassed. "Yeah. I was thinking how beautiful you are. That you are lovelier now than when we were younger. That there is something about you that draws me still, more so than before." He stood straight, dropping his arms, and tucking his hands into his pockets. "I am sorry though. I never wanted to leave you again. I sure as hell don't want to go under without you. I wish I could promise you that I'll be back and soon." He shrugged. "All I can tell you for sure is that I need to see this through."

She studied him for a long moment, before turning back to stare out at the city. Her hands resumed their place on the banister but this time, instead of lounging against it, it seemed to be holding her up. "I don't like it, but I understand." Her head dropped down a bit, and she took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. "This job we do… It drives both of us. It is not something we can walk…" The words stuttered to a stop, because she remembered, he had walked away from the job, and her. She shook her head to dislodge those negative thoughts. "It's part of who we are."

He moved closer to her, then stopped, closing his eyes as if he could search out the right words directly from his brain. "Olivia… I don't know what to say. I wish I had the right to hold you, that I could comfort you right now. I just…"

A soft whisper of words echoed on the breeze, so faint, he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined them. "I'm not stopping you…"

He came up behind her, his hands coming up to rest on her shoulders. She closed her eyes. Had it been anyone else but him, she doubted she would have allowed the touch at all. But it was Elliot and he had always had a way about him. She would know him in the dark, by his scent, the sound of his breathing, the very sound of his heartbeat. In moments like this, she could feel the very heat of him, seeping in, warming her. God how she had missed him. She shifted back into him, just a subtle movement, a gift of permission, and drew in a slow, deep breath as he accepted and stepped into her. The warmth of him coated her as he molded himself to her back. His hands slid down her arms, aligning them, fingers tangling. His nose nestled in her hair, nuzzled her neck. Something inside her crumbled, breaking apart, leaking out in tears that began to trickle down her face. But instead of collapsing, the fact of him, the reality, shored her up, trestling those damaged pieces, patching over and reinventing the chaos into something solid and new, bits of both of them. She wanted, needed to act, because the reality of what she was feeling was just too intense.

"El, I can feel your interest against me. Is that… something you want to act on or is that something that's just a reaction to the closeness of this situation?"

He stiffened against her. "What the hell, Olivia? What kind of question is that?"

She started to turn, to move away, embarrassed by both her question and his reaction. He held her there, caged between him and the banister. "I'm sorry… I just..." She shook her head. "It's stupid."

"Talk to me, please. How you feel, how we feel, it's not stupid. The only thing even remotely stupid is the fact that we have lived in silence too long, too afraid to open the doors. It's easier to hide behind our eyes, accept that it's not reciprocated if we don't hear the words. I need your words."

Biting her lip, she took in a slow breath and relaxed against him once more. "I just… damnit El, I'm afraid you'll leave, and I won't see you again for another ten fucking years. I just… I just want to know what it feels like to have you inside me, to know that it's okay to want you and have sex with you before something else comes between us again. Maybe, just maybe, if we have sex, then the power you hold over me can even out and we get go back to just being friends. Maybe if the sexual tension between us is used up, then we can both move on to wherever we are meant to be. So, I want to know, do you want to have sex with me?"

If possible, he crowded closer, his arms still aligned with hers, their hands still intertwined. He crossed their arms across her middle, pulling her tighter to him, so close he wasn't certain she could move without him moving with her. He shifted slightly, his legs bracketing hers, his erection pressing insistently against her bottom. "Yes, I want to have sex with you,"

"Thank God!" she interrupted.

"But I'm not going to." He continued.

She stiffened in his arms. "What? Why? What the hell do you want from me?"

He nuzzled her neck, his nose tracing the cord of it from ear to shoulder and back. "More." He said simply.

She blinked, trying to understand what he was saying mixed with the signals he was sharing. His hold was possessive, strong, secure, and intimate. It said a lot that he still held her so securely, and yet she knew with just a word, he would let her go. She didn't want him to let her go. Why wouldn't he just act on the things his body was telling her? She wiggled against him, pressing more insistently against him. "Fuck me, El."

The catch of his breath spoke volumes, but his words stopped her. "No."

Her mind reeled. Frustration leaked out, tears threatening again. What the hell was wrong with him? With her? Only this man could send her on such an emotional rollercoaster of joy and despair. "Why not?"

His breath washed across her ear, sending tingles down her spine. He nipped the tender lobe before laving it with his tongue. "Because I want more. I don't want just sex. I want all of you."

A slight flutter of panic twisted in her heart at his words. She could not invest herself in him again, but she wanted him, if only for one night. "No. Sex only. Sex I can do. I don't want more. I don't do more. Fuck me or let me go, I don't want… intimacy."

He kissed the cord of her neck, bit lightly. "I hate to tell you this Liv, but we've always had intimacy. We could read each other in a glance, knew more about each other than anyone else, experienced so much together as partners and friends, missed each other so much that even with others we were not complete. We have intimacy, it has just never been physical." He began to rock slowly, soothingly. "Why don't you tell me why you feel this way? Why don't you explain to me why you want to do this now?"

Anger was quickly overriding embarrassment and need. "Really? Really El? For years I've played second string to you and your needs. I watched you walk away, and I watched you waltz back in, with no real say. I cared about you so much… it hurt so damn much to want someone who wasn't mine to love. And now, you are going undercover for God only knows how long, and I get to watch you walk out of my life again, left wanting and wondering what it would feel like to be the most important thing in your life, even if it's only for a moment. You owe me that God Damnit! After twenty-three years, you owe me something. But no, you have to play games, demand more than I'm willing to give. Well, fuck you, Elliot Stabler! Fuck You!" Breath heaved out of her, tears starting to flow freely once more. She jerked in his embrace. "Let me go!" Surprisingly, he did, and she whirled to face him. Her very rage captivated him. Her eyes flashed and her fists clenched. "Go on your little adventure undercover! Leave me again! I don't care anymore, but don't expect me to just be here waiting for you when you come back!"

There she is, he thought, entranced by the flush of her temper. He smiled in anticipation and saw her intent clearly. His hand caught her fist as it came at him, and with a quick movement of his body, he twisted, catching her other arm, and turning her back into him, catching her legs with his. He pinned her back to the banister, in a parody of the more loving embrace they had just relinquished. His mouth caressed her ear once more as he spoke. "I denied more for too many years, Olivia, spent too many years pining and wanting myself to just accept a booty call. I made choices for my family, for you. I never claimed they were the right ones. God knows I tried to do the right thing, but too many nights I laid awake wondering how you were, what you were doing. I fucking dreamed about you every blessed night. It was ten times worse because I couldn't see you every day, talk to you every day. I wanted YOU! I love YOU! And I will NOT feel guilty because I won't be your booty call. I gave you up before. I walked away from us; from everything we could be. I will NOT walk away like that again. I. Want. It. All."

He released her and stepped back, but she whirled on him again, fists coming up once more. As she moved toward him, he caught her wrists and jerked her to him. "When I am inside you, it will be because we both want it." His gaze dropped to her lips. "When I am inside of you, Olivia Benson, there will be no more hiding. I will know everything, every bloody thing about you. The way you taste, the way you smell, every little sound you make and everything that turns you on, every quirk and quiver, and I hope you will want to know all of those things about me. But know this, it will never, ever be just SEX between us."

The words tumbled and twisted in her brain, swirling, and ferreting out the little pockets of doubt and despair, filling them with light and hope. Eyes filled with that hope gazed up at him. "I'm afraid."

He released her wrists to wrap his arms around her. Her chin found its place on his shoulder and his face burrowed into its favorite spot by her ear. "I know, I am too. I need to do this job every bit as much as you need to do yours, but I am not willingly walking away from you again. I told you I loved you. I meant it."

She pulled back, her eyes locking with his, a thousand things traveling between them, but she spoke because he had been honest about needing the words, and strangely so did she. "I know you did. And… I want to be all those things to you, and I want all those things from you. I just don't know how to just give you the… pieces of myself that we didn't share. I don't know how to accept those same pieces from you. I'm not the person I was before you left, and I know you aren't either." Her fingers feathered over his neck, down along his cheeks and over his beard. Her thumb traced over his lips, as if by that simple touch she could memorized the feel of them against her skin. "I am afraid of sending you off without knowing the taste of you, your smells and textures…" A gentle smile graced her lips. "I want to know the feel of you inside me and learn your sounds…every quirk and quiver… but we only have one night, this night, and I don't want anymore regret between us." The thumb against his lips moved again, and this time he caught it, drawing it into his move. Her breath caught, and she swallowed. "Make love to me, Elliot. Take all of me… it has always been yours anyway. Give me one moment, one night, to hold us for a lifetime."

Releasing her thumb, he smiled. "A lifetime…" His mouth dropped to hers, a ghost of a touch before the reality of it stomped through his brain. His lips closed over hers, his tongue sweeping in and through tangling with her own, teasing her palate. Need rushed harsh and fierce, the desire for more and now ripping at his self-control. Ruthlessly he snapped a lid down on it. His first time with this lady would not be some rough fumbling on the balcony, but a true lovemaking, the very thing he had requested. Startling her, he freed her lips, dipped down, and lifted her into his arms.

Her arms tightened around his neck and she let out a husky laugh. This man, he had always made her feel safe and protected and yet soft and feminine. A woman of strength and stature, she had never been carried as if she were something precious, worthy. She curled tighter into him, placing tender kisses along his jawline.

Elliot carried her through the sliding door and into his apartment. Ignoring the open door, he continued down the hall and to his bedroom, eager to finally make her his.