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Elliot walked behind Olivia into his apartment, their takeout in one hand and keys in the other. He gazed up at her as he kicked the door closed, twisting the lock all while she was removing her jacket. "What do you want to drink? I've got water and. . .water."

Olivia chuckled, nodding her head as she took the takeout bag from him. "Water is fine." She walked into the small kitchen, setting the bag on the counter and reaching in to unpack it. "I should've asked before suggesting takeout. Did you have anything here that you wanted to get rid of so it doesn't spoil during the move?"

"Well," Elliot shed his own jacket, tossing his keys onto the counter before grabbing the only thing edible in his apartment. He set the box onto the counter, leaning back against his fridge as she smirked at him over her shoulder. "Shelf life says I'm good for another year."

"And, you indulged." Olivia picked up the box herself, opening the top and reaching in. "Fire-roasted tomato and olive oil. I like roasted garlic myself."

Elliot shook his head, taking the box from her as she bit into one of the crackers. "I'll get a couple boxes next time I'm at the store. We'll have a party." He gestured towards the hallway after pulling a cracker out for himself. "My stuff is in the closet. Sweats and t-shirts on the top shelf."

As she walked away, Elliot started pulling out glasses and dishes for them. Even if it had been ten years, his hands worked as if he'd done the task of dividing up their food yesterday. He divided the egg rolls, picked out the peas from her plate, gave her mushrooms from his. He had just dug out the soy sauce packets when Olivia walked out in one of his old navy NYPD t-shirts and gray pajama pants instead of one of his pairs of sweats. "Even off the clock, you're still sporting the NYPD."

"Just stop reading my chest and go change. I'll finish up here." Olivia hushed him, slipping in between him and the counter. He stepped back, staring at her with mock offense. "Go. If I'm going to bum on your couch and pack your stuff, you can at least bum out with me in sweats or something. As nice as that vest looks on you, it's not staying on."

"Are you really going Momma Benson and Captain Benson on me at the same time?" Elliot asked, already heading for the hallway.

Olivia grinned, opening up the different sauce packets and pulling out the plastic silverware. "Just grazing the surface here, Stabler." She glanced between the too plates. "Did you take all the peas?"

"Don't tell me that's changed too. You becoming a mother. So happy for you. You becoming Captain. Amazing and proud beyond belief. You liking peas," Elliot listed before coming out in sweats and pulling a tank over his head. "That's just crossing a line."

Olivia laughed as he approached from the other side of the counter. "No, I don't. I still avoid them like the plague. I've forced myself to eat them if Noah is watching just so he'll eat his veggies, but I've tried to hide the fact that I don't like them for years now." She slid his plate over to him before following him to the couch. "I figured with you being in Italy you would've found a way to enjoy mushrooms."

"They're alright, but I prefer them smothered in cheese on a philly sub. You are free to them." Elliot shrugged. He kicked his feet up on the coffee table, smiling to himself when he noticed she pulled her legs up on the couch and snuggled into the cushions. "When I get settled in my new place, I'll have to make you an authentic Italian meal though. I didn't pick up much over there, but I did learn some things."

Olivia grinned. "Alright, I'll have to do the same. My pots and pans are washed on a nearly daily basis now. Noah and I can stop by. He loves showing off his dessert creations as he calls them." She frowned when there was a knock at the door. "I thought it was just us tonight."

"It is." Elliot nodded before setting his plate down on the coffee table. He walked over to the door and peered out the peep hole before opening the door. "Sergeant? I wasn't expecting you. Something wrong?"

Bell stepped inside, relaxing when she saw Olivia stand from the couch and walk over concerned as well. "I was going to ask the same thing. You ran out of the office today like there was a fire, without a word. I was worried something had happened to one of the kids or Captain Benson. I tried calling you," she pulled Elliot's phone out of her pocket, "but you left this at your desk."

"Sorry, I was told one thing, and it ended up being something else." Elliot tried to explain, taking the phone from her. "A colleague of ours has some technical difficulties, and he will now be triple checking what he texts to people."

Olivia smiled slightly, meeting Ayanna's eyes. "I had a little mishap at the hospital. Everything's fine. Elliot is taking good care of me."

"I can see that. Wouldn't even let you go home to change though." Bella smirked, turning accusing eyes to Elliot. "What? Don't tell me you orchestrated something just to get her in your clothes. Why do guys like that so much? They like their clothes on girls, even though its baggy, and they also like tight dresses where one wrong move could lead to indecent exposure."

Elliot frowned, shaking his head. "I offered to take her to her place. She wouldn't tell me where she lived. There were negotiations just to get her to take the rest of the day off." He glanced at Olivia before shrugging his shoulders. "It's not a bad look."

Olivia blushed slightly, rolling her eyes. "Thank you for returning his phone, Ayanna."

"No, thank you for keeping our boy in line." Bell nodded, stepping out into the hallway. "I'm glad you're okay."

Olivia bit her lip as Elliot closed the door, relocking it, and turning to her slowly with his back against it. She smirked at him before glancing down at her outfit. "Why do guys like girls in their clothing? Is it a ownership thing?"

Elliot shrugged. "Probably for some guys. For some men, it's a sense of familiarity. If the woman they care about thinks to wear their clothes without a second thought, it can be mutual - the feeling of belonging to someone or being part of something bigger than themselves. It's two people completely comfortable with each other." He saw her curious eyes and cleared his throat. "For some."

"I had a boyfriend who once told me it was because it's like the baggy clothes are hiding your body, and he's the only one who knows what lies underneath." Olivia crossed her arms over her chest.

Elliot nodded. "The thoughts are not entirely exclusive." He followed her back towards the couch, frowning when he thought back on the conversation with Bell. "I never did ask, because Fin texted me the wrong thing. Why did you have a panic attack?"

Olivia sat down, clasping her hands together as he took a seat beside her. "Something happened about seven years ago. A lot of things happened seven years ago. Today, Fin and I went down to the morgue to find out about our vic. I guess she'd been burned pretty badly. Before Fin and I even saw the body, I could smell the burnt flesh, and it triggered my mind to snap back to seven years ago for a split second." She could feel Elliot's worry without looking at him, knew his hands were close to clenching into fists. "I'm okay. Because of therapy, I learned how to cope with my PTSD and how to get through my triggers. I just don't deal with burn victims often enough to get over that smell."

Elliot swallowed thickly, staring down at her hands nearly wringing themselves out at this point. "Did someone hurt you?"

It was Olivia's turn to force down the cotton ball in her throat. "Yeah."

"How bad was it?" Elliot asked, almost afraid to.

Olivia reached over and took his hand into hers, bringing it back over to hold between her own. "It was really bad." His hand squeezed hers reassuringly, and she smiled gently down at their intertwined hands. "But, I'm okay. I'm better."

"I'm here if you ever want to talk about it." Elliot murmured, using his other hand to brush back her hair that was hiding her face from him. She turned then, her brown eyes meeting his blue ones. "I'm sorry that happened. I wish I had been there."

"Me too." Olivia whispered. She took a moment to calm herself, her emotions on the verge of overtaking her physically. She could tell Elliot was fighting his own battle over the piece of information. He would wonder what happened, blame himself for not being there to stop it, and promise to make it up to her. As much as she needed to tell him eventually, tonight was not that night, and she didn't want to spend the rest of the night with that burden on his chest. "What have you packed so far?"

Elliot glanced around the place, scratching the back of his head. "Not much. I took down my evidence wall last night. There isn't much to pack. Just clothes, the essentials that we happened to pick up when we first arrived."

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "Is your new place furnished? We should've gone to a store to pick out some stuff and schedule deliveries on Monday." She chuckled when he shook his head. "We could do that this weekend." She stood up, grabbing her plate and walking to the hallway where she knew his clothes were. "Where is your new place anyway?"

"I'll text you the address. It's a nice building. Good neighborhood. Actually, it's not far from the 1-6 either." Elliot explained, texting her as he stood up with his own plate. He slipped his phone into his pocket, sliding by her in the hallway to walk into the bedroom where more of his clothes were. "It's two bedrooms, two baths. Renovated within the last five years." He saw Olivia reading her phone. "Know the place?"

"I do." Olivia smirked. "We'll be neighbors."

"Did you seriously wash the sheets?" Olivia asked, stopping in the hallway when she saw Elliot making up the bed.

"Of course. Eli is a clean kid, and still very innocent, but I wasn't going to have you help pack my apartment only to sleep on sheets that smelled like teenage boy." Elliot stated. He smiled softly when she leaned against the doorway, crossing her arms over her chest as she cocked an eyebrow at him. "You have a son. Just wait until he's a teenager. They're disgusting."

Olivia laughed, walking over and grabbing the other side of the bedspread to help Elliot finish up the bed. "I don't doubt that. I've dated some men who I've broken up with just because of their cleanliness issues." She grabbed the pillow from the dresser, tossing it to the head of the bed. "I do not look forward to the day I have to talk about that stuff with Noah."

Elliot shrugged. "If you want help, I'm here. Granted, I've only done it once. I should probably start preparing for Eli." He ran a hand down his face, sighing tiredly. "I'll let you know where I screwed up. Hopefully, you can get through the conversation without Noah cringing. I'm glad I never had to talk to the girls through that. Sure, I told them how to be safe and threatened to kill their boyfriends, but I think they all would've stormed out of the room once they discovered what I was trying to talk to them about."

"My talk was from sex ed in school. I doubt my mom even wanted me to learn about it." Olivia said, smoothing out the edges of the bedspread. "If it were up to her, she probably would've told me having sex would kill me if I did it wrong or didn't wait until marriage or something." She shrugged after a moment, happy with the bed when it was finished. "She had her own battles though."

"Yeah," Elliot agreed, knowing Olivia's relationship with her mother had been rocky. He never got to know Serena Benson, but he was there to witness what it did to Olivia. "At least, you didn't get someone pregnant the first time you had sex. Put that in a sex ed class. That should scare plenty of kids." He sat down at the foot of the bed, smiling when she sat down next to him. "Thanks again for helping out tonight. I know I screwed up, and I definitely don't deserve you. But, thank you. You've been amazing despite how much I tried to push you all away."

Olivia shrugged, sitting on her leg and staring down at her lap. "I care about you and your kids. Despite how painful everything was and has been, I'm not going to turn my back on you. When push comes to shove, I know you still have my back. I meant what I said at Fin's non-wedding. Partners. That just doesn't go away." She bit her lip. "I still think that sometimes you'll up and leave again, and I know we still have a lot to work through. But, I have more answers than I did before. I know you're okay and alive. I may want to smack you around a little bit, but I'm never going to let you suffer when I could help."

Elliot held out his hand, happier with himself than he'd been in a long time when her hand slid into his. "How could I walk away?" He asked the question mostly to himself, but looked up at her when he uttered the words. "I don't know how I did it." He saw her tear up, shrugging her shoulders. "I know that we've been through a lot recently, and I know I said I love you that night in the intervention-"

Olivia shook her head. "It's okay. You-"

"I meant it." Elliot breathed, silencing her. He saw the same shock wash over her face, but this time it was just the two of them. They didn't have to worry about his kids hearing or what they would think. The emotions she held in that night now showed on her face as a few tears fell. "I love you."

"No, you don't." Olivia breathed. She let go of his hand, standing from the bed to create space between them. "I'm someone familiar. You just lost your wife of over thirty years. I'm just stability."

Elliot stood as well. "You know that's not true. I would never do that to you." His eyes widened when she bolted from the room. He quickly followed her as she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. "Loving you has nothing to do with any of this. I left SVU and disappeared because I loved you."

Olivia froze at the door, her hand hovering over the lock. Her face scrunched up as she dropped her forehead to the door. "If you loved me, why would that cause you to leave?"

Elliot swallowed hard, his own emotions spilling over now, and his voice cracked with his next words. "It was just too complicated."

"Shit," Olivia whispered to herself, flashing back to a time where she had said those words to him and knowing exactly what he meant by them. She slowly turned, leaning her back against the door with her purse slung over her shoulder. "If you didn't want complicated, why did you say it in front of your kids?"

"It just came out." Elliot admitted. "I've known my feelings for a long time. I wasn't prepared to see you. You were offering everything I needed, trying to reach out to me. I'd been drowning in my grief for Kathy's death, my guilt at not being the husband she needed, the torture of seeing you and knowing how much I hurt you. It was all crumbling in, and you were there. You were the Olivia I'd always known, offering help, being there for my kids and me. You were my partner, and I said what I'd been denying for a really long time. It came out because, one look at you, and it was all I could think about."

Olivia sucked in a breath, willing herself not to break down at his admission. She needed more right now. She needed more from him. Ten years ago, that admission would've made her cave, but her guard had been cemented with the ten years of absence. "So, what does that mean? What do you want from me?"

"You." Elliot shrugged, the single word coming out as if it explained life itself. "I want more of you, more than what we had before. The whole nine yards. I want all of you. I'd like to take you out to fancy dinners and be the reason you smile when you see flowers in your office. I want to be the person you go to with your problems or just to let go with. I want to make you breakfast on a Saturday morning while the kids watch cartoons and I burn the bacon, but it works out because you like it crispy. I want my life with you, Liv."

He held out his hands at his sides, a white flag that showed he had laid out all his cards. "But, none of that matters if it's not what you want. So, what do you want, Liv?"

Olivia held his gaze as she pushed off the door. She let her purse slip off her shoulder, landing on the floor with a thud, before she cupped his face in her hands and brought his mouth down over hers. Despite his surprise, he quickly followed her lips with his, hands coming to rest on her hips and pull her closer to him. It was gentle, their noses grazing each other's before their eyes met again. "I want all of that."

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