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"I told you. You didn't need to come up with me." Elliot chuckled, as he locked the door to his new apartment after changing clothes and grabbing a few other items that Olivia had picked to stay at her place.

"I wanted to see it. It helps pick out furniture when you know what you're working with." Olivia smiled softly, his hand taking hers as they headed for the elevator. "Besides, I'll be spending some time here-"

Elliot grinned. "A lot of time."

Olivia reached over to the elevator buttons with a smirk. "A lot of time." She barely held it together when he frowned seeing her hit the up arrow instead of the down arrow. "And, I wanted to see if your unit was better than mine." She laughed when the realization washed over his face. "Just an elevator ride apart."

"You live in the building." Elliot let her pull him onto the elevator before seeing her press her floor number, only three floors higher than his. "No wonder you were so insistent on coming up with me. Here I thought you just couldn't stand to be away from me." He smiled down at her when she rested her hands on his chest, staring back up at him. "Alright, Benson, I see you."

"If it makes you feel better, it was a little bit of both." Olivia leaned up and kissed him slowly. "But, it was more about seeing your face when you found out we were in the same building." When the doors opened, she tilted her head, walking out. "C'mon, Stabler."

Elliot grinned, following her out and down the hallway towards her apartment as she pulled out her keys. "Yes, dear." When she opened the door, he didn't think it was possible to be happier in this moment until Noah shot up from the couch and ran to Olivia.

"Mom!" Noah smiled as Olivia hugged him.

"Hey buddy!" Olivia chuckled, kissing his head before ruffling his hair. She looked up to see Lucy smiling at the two. "Thanks so much, Lucy. Sorry about today. There was a lot to do." She watched Noah go back to the couch, getting back to whatever he had been doing prior before gesturing to Elliot. "This is Elliot. Elliot, this is Lucy. She helps take care of Noah."

Elliot smiled politely, shaking the younger woman's hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." Lucy nodded, smirking as she saw him holding Olivia's purse. "Quite the gentleman too."

"And, here I thought it went with my outfit." He joked before turning his focus to Olivia, holding up the takeout back slightly. "Want me to dish up?"

Olivia nodded as he handed her purse to her. "Yes, I'm starving." As he walked away, she turned to Lucy. "How are we doing?"

Elliot easily found the plates in the kitchen, smiling as he heard Olivia and Lucy talk about Noah. He started dishing up and was about to search for the glasses when he heard Noah much closer to him than the couch. "Who are you?"

Noah stood just between the kitchen and hallway, staring up at Elliot with curious eyes. "I'm Elliot. I'm a friend of your mom's." He crouched down, smiling gently at him. "I heard your name is Noah. Your mom has told me so much about you."

"Are you dating my mom?" Noah asked.

"Well," Elliot tried to think of the best reply. They hadn't really defined what they were yet, but they were both on the same understanding that neither of them were backing out. This was it for them. "I haven't taken her out on a date yet, but I would like to. I've known your mom a long time, and I love her so much. She's my best friend. I tell her everything. I guess it's about time I took her out on a date though." He winked at Noah, earning a smile from him. "Got any tips for me?"

Noah tilted his head to the side, thinking a moment. "She likes chocolate."

Both of them turned when they heard a chuckle from the woman they were talking about. Olivia leaned against the wall, leaning in slightly towards the two of them. "I see you two met. What do you think, Noah? Has he passed your inspection?"

"So far, so good." Noah nodded. He looked back at Elliot. "Do you like baseball?"

"I love baseball. I actually missed it when I lived over in Italy." Elliot grinned. "Maybe we could go see a game or throw a ball around if we go to the park. Does that sound good?"

Noah grinned before looking up at Olivia. "I like him."

Olivia sat on her bed looking over her list as Elliot folded the clothes he brought down and tucked them into a drawer Olivia had cleared out for him. "Alright, so I think I've got everything we need listed for when we go to the furniture store. What about Eli? Would there be anything we could get him that would help him feel a little more like he's at home?"

"Anything soccer related would help." Elliot shrugged before closing the drawer. "Does Noah know how to speak Italian?"

Olivia frowned. "No, why?"

"Così posso parlare sporco in Italiano? (So, I can talk dirty in Italian?)" Elliot grinned, staring at her from the foot of her bed.

Olivia blushed, a smile forming on her lips. "L'ultima cosa di cui ho bisogno è che tu mi parli Italiano. (The last thing I need is for you to speak Italian to me.)"

It was Elliot's turn to frown. "Perché? (Why?)"

"Non vorrò mai lasciare questo letto con te che mi parli così. (I'll never want to leave this bed with you talking to me like that.)" Olivia smirked, meeting his eyes. She bit her lip when they darkened about three shades before he pounced. She couldn't stop from giggling as he crawled up the bed to her, taking the pad of paper from her hand and tossing it on the floor. "Cosa pensi di star facendo? (What do you think you're doing?)"

Elliot smiled, settling between her legs as he kissed her. "Cadente. (Falling.)"

"Olivia, he's going to break all our legs at Thanksgiving if he keeps ignoring the instructions." Kathleen complained, sitting by her father on the floor of his new apartment trying and failing to get him to read the instructions. She reached out to stop him as he grabbed a screw from the tool bag the dining table assembly kit had come with. "Dad, that doesn't go there!"

"I think I know what I'm doing." Elliot retorted, the red in his cheeks showing his obvious irritation.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Kathleen, why don't you go help your brothers build Eli's bunk bed? I'll help your father." She gave the younger blonde a kind smile as she walked back to the bedrooms. Stepping over the bookshelf she'd been helping Lizzie and Noah build, she stood behind Elliot and bent over him to meet his eyes. "Whatcha doin'?"

Elliot huffed out a breath. "I can build a table, Liv."

"I'm fully aware of that, but what are we going to do if Kathleen is right and we end up hospitalized because the twenty-five pound turkey on Thanksgiving broke the table?" She kissed his forehead, grabbing the instructions Kathleen had tossed aside before sitting down beside him on the floor. She examined what he was doing and frowned when she looked back at the directions. "Wait a minute. What exactly are you doing wrong?"

"Thank you!" Elliot bellowed, glaring towards the bedroom his daughter had disappeared into.

Kathleen poked her head out. "You weren't supposed to nail the table together."

"It had a gape in it." Elliot argued before pointing to the center of the table for Olivia. "How they built this thing is the weirdest I've ever heard of a table being manufactured. It's like they cut the table top down the middle just to add these metal sliders."

"It's supposed to be that way." Olivia sighed before seeing the nail Elliot and jammed into the wood. "The sliders allow you to have a big table at holidays or get togethers and a small table the rest of the time." She reached back towards the wall, grabbing one of the center table top pieces and showing the bottom to Elliot. Her fingers pointed out the grooves as the realization registered on his face. "See?"

"That's why you said you found the perfect table. I thought you were nuts when I pulled this out of the box." Elliot muttered before nodding. "I'll fix it. There might be a hole in the table top though."

Olivia handed him his hammer. "At least, there's a story to tell." She grinned when Lizzie, with a little help from Noah, stood the finished bookshelf up against the wall. "Good job, guys. You did that pretty fast."

"We followed the instructions." Lizzie smirked, laughing when Elliot stuck his tongue out at her. "Besides, I have to get back to my apartment before ten. There's been some car thefts in the area, so my parking ramp gets chained up at night to stop people from taking from the building."

"If you want to stay, you're welcome to sleep in my apartment." Olivia offered. "Kathleen is already staying up there with Noah tonight. I'll be down here with your dad anyway. Choice is yours. I'm sure Noah would love it."

Lizzie grinned looking down at the little Benson. "What do you think, Noah? Should I stay with you and Kathleen tonight?"

"We'll watch a movie and eat popcorn and ice cream." Noah nodded.

"Alright, bud, I'm all yours then." Lizzie ruffled his hair before smiling at Olivia. "Thanks, Liv."

"Bed is built!" Kathleen announced victoriously before pointing at Lizzie and Noah. "And, I heard we got another joining us for Finding Dory. I say we get the party started so we can all be asleep by midnight. Unless, Liv, did you want him asleep before then?"

Olivia chuckled when Noah ran over and hugged her tightly as his plea. "Midnight is fine. There's no school tomorrow, and it's not every weekend he gets to have a slumber party" She kissed Noah's head. "But, behave for Kathleen and Lizzie, okay? They'll take good care of you, but if you need me for anything just tell them. They'll bring you back down here to me."

Noah rolled his eyes. "I'll be okay, Mom." She kissed her lips. "Love you, Mom."

"Love you too." Olivia grinned. "You can get my keys out of my bag for them."

"Okay," Noah stepped around Olivia, giving Elliot a side hug. "Goodnight, Elliot."

Elliot smiled, hugging him gently. "Goodnight, little man. Thanks for all the help tonight. I promise. You and I can go play catch or something tomorrow if you want. There might even be a game in the park we could watch." He smiled when Kathleen and Lizzie came over, each kissing his cheek. "Please keep Olivia's place clean. Love you two."

"Love you, Dad." Lizzie smiled before leaned over and hugging Olivia. "Love you, Liv."

Kathleen took her turn, holding the brunette tight. "We're really happy you're here, Liv." Before Olivia could respond, Kathleen stood up and picked up Noah. "C'mon, little man, I've heard Sigourney Weaver is in Finding Dory, and I can't miss that."

Olivia chuckled, watching as Kathleen held Noah as he retrieved her keys. "Love you guys. See you in the morning." She waited until the door closed behind them before turning to Elliot, seeing him smiling at her. "What did you tell them?"

Elliot shrugged. "The truth. You make me happy. We've decided to be together. You're it for me. There's not going to be anyone else." He reached over and squeezed her arm gently. "It may take Eli a while to get used to it, but the others seemed to know I'd end up with you. When I told them how I left things with you, they also threatened to never speak to me again if I screwed things up with you. So, you'll have the kids forever."

Olivia giggled, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "I'll send you Christmas cards."

"Alright, Eli is already passed out in his new bed. Dickie just found out about Finding Dory, so he's up at Liv's." Maureen chuckled, standing in the doorway to her father's room where he and Olivia were unpacking boxes. "He did say he has a key to get back in though since he's crashing on your couch."

"Yeah, that's Liv's copy that I had yet to give her." Elliot breathed, glancing to see Olivia hanging up his work shirts. He kissed his daughter's cheek. "Thank you for all your help today. I owe you dinner."

Maureen grinned. "Bring Olivia. We'll make it a double date." She caught Olivia's smile as she glanced over her shoulder. "In case nobody else said it tonight, we're very happy you're here, Liv. Honestly, our dad could not have decided to be with anyone better. After hearing how he disappeared on you, we were all a little surprised you even decided to help us or give him a chance."

Olivia walked over, leaning into Elliot's side when his arm wrapped around her waist. "I care about you guys. You needed my help. I wasn't going to say no to that. Besides," she smirked up at Elliot, "your father is making up for it. It may have taken a whole day locked in an interrogation room together, but I understood why he did what he did. Honestly, I did the same to him a long time before that."

"Wait, he locked you in an interrogation room?" Maureen asked, wide-eyed.

Elliot scoffed. "It was mutual decision. We had a lot to talk through."

Olivia nodded. "Yet, he failed to mention his love of the book The Great Gatsby. I found a copy of it nearly falling apart in one of the boxes earlier."

"You still have that?" Maureen grinned, shaking her head as she met Olivia's curious eyes. "Dad has had that book since I read it in high school. He's never actually read the book, but I told him how Gatsby cared so much about Daisy that he did anything he could to be near her. The green light at the end of her dock was what he stared at to remind himself that she wasn't far even if she felt a lifetime away from him. I guess that stuck with him, because he still thinks Gatsby is a magician."

"Interesting." Olivia bit her lip.

Elliot rolled his eyes. "Thank you for that, Maureen." He kissed her forehead. "Drive safe. Text me when you get home." He smiled softly when she hugged Olivia. "Love you."

"Love you too." Maureen smiled. "Goodnight guys."

"I'll walk you out." Elliot breathed.

Olivia walked over to Elliot's nightstand where she had put the book, gently opening the top drawer just enough to see the worn copy inside beside his glasses. She felt Elliot's presence back in the room before he let it be known. "It's an American classic, you know. You should read it. You'd probably like it."

"You know I hate reading. At least this is my favorite book that I haven't read." Elliot chuckled, crawling onto the bed behind her and pulling her between his legs. He reached into the drawer and pulled out the book.

Olivia frowned gently. "How do you know that? Why have a book you'll never read?"

"Like Maureen said, Gatsby wanted Daisy. His focus on her was guided by the green light that he would stare at from his own dock." He opened the book easily, the binding crack due to it being opened to that specific page so many times. "Like I said yesterday, it was a pipe I kept shoving rags into to shop the leak, but you were my green light."

Olivia felt her heart gallop against her chest seeing probably the first picture of her and Elliot together. It was early in their partnership. They had gone out celebrating a big win at a bar and someone from the squad had taken their photo for them. The photo itself was battered along the edges, but they were still as clear as if the photo had been taken yesterday. "So, this is what you meant in the letter. When you wrote that I was always with you even though we were an ocean apart, you had this photo of us in the book of Gatsby, a book about a man staring across a bay to the woman he loved most in the world. That's what you meant?"

Elliot nodded against her shoulder. "Yeah, you were always right here." He gently waved the book. "I've picked up this book more times than I've picked up a Bible, and I still haven't read it. I just opened it up to the page of the greenlight where I had our photo."

Olivia teared up, reaching up to cup the back of his head still resting on her shoulder as this secret of his sunk in. Probably the last secret he had from her. "So, it's true. You're not leaving."

Elliot repeated the words, hearing the change in her voice. The tense muscles of her body completely lax. She finally understood. But, he wanted to say it one more time to drive it home, even if she already knew.

"I'm not leaving."

Please review! Another story comes to an end! I wanted to finish this before Season 23 started. Let me know how you liked this. I was sitting on this story idea for a while. Love you all!