A/N:

Thank you so much for ALL of the feedback, it really does motivate me to write even when I don't think I have it in me. You have no idea the encouragement you've give me. Most importantly thank you for trusting me with them. Mousie, I'm grateful for every convo, text and time you accurately tell me I'm a repetitive goober. Jessica & Eotopia, thank you for the late night reminders that Elliot is sooo sexy (as if I could ever forget)...Not mine, might start a petition.

Chapter 3

She wants her sweater.

She remembers following Fin towards her office, but it's crowded in there now so she stands at the edge of the doorway. She wants her son back in her arms, and even though she knows she has to be here tonight – this is her fault, her problem, hers to solve – she also just wants her oversized black cashmere wrap because she is so, so cold. She wants that warmth around her and then she wants to run somewhere far away with her little boy.

She doesn't want to be here.

She wants. She doesn't want.

It's all wrong, she doesn't know what she wants anymore.

She can feel him, even if she won't look at him. It's been nine years and all she can process is that she's freezing right now. Someone must have turned the heat off.

"Olivia, it's been a long time."

She knows that voice and its one that had never rattled her so she lifts her head up, trying to make eye contact with her former case agent. She will not appear weak or tired or devastated in front of any of them, least of all Dean Porter. "Circumstances like these, it's not long enough," she says quietly, not moving from her spot in the doorway.

She's hyper-aware that he is in the far corner, next to her couch. She can't look at him. Not yet. Today has been a barreling freight train and she can't seem to get off the tracks.

She grips the doorframe, thinking she should tell all of them to get out of her office. There are too many of them in such a small space. Rollins is here too, now. Kat is next to Fin. If they'd all leave she could get her sweater around her and just close the door.

Captain Benson.

Olivia exhales and closes her eyes, trying to remember the focus techniques she'd learned with Dr. Lindstrom over the last few years. Yes, Elliot is a few feet away, on the peripheral of her vision but she can't let that throw her off her axis. Fin had warned her he was here. He'd told her why and then he'd given her a little time alone in the bathroom while he had protectively waited outside the door.

He's FBI now, Liv.

She'd locked herself in a stall for a few minutes, and she had squeezed her eyes shut, letting her forehead touch the cool metal of the door. She had stayed in the stall until the nausea had passed, until she was fairly sure she wouldn't throw up from all of it, and then she'd made her way to the sink. Cold, wet paper towels against her skin had hadn't helped.

He's a few feet away and she's shaking. Maybe she's just shivering.

"Can I have my sweater?" she finds herself asking all of them. And then, before she can stop herself, "It's freezing in here."

It's the look on Fin's face that tells her she's wrong. It's not cold at all. The new heater works overtime in the winter and she's an idiot because how could she forget that?

She has to say something. They're all looking at her like they used to. Back then. Seven years ago. She can't ever let that happen again. She's not the victim here.

She knows his eyes are on her too, but she can't look over there to discern what expression he's giving her. No eye contact, not yet. She's not ready for that.

"Just tell me that between all of you, we've reached everyone on my list." Her voice doesn't sound strong, but she doesn't care. At least she's talking, she just has to focus on her son, on the job.

"I talked to Carisi," Amanda interjects. "He's going to my place to be the with the girls, and he's armed. Just leaves Cragen and David Haden."

"Put a detail on your apartment too," she pushes out of her throat.

"Already done."

Olivia nods, but she can't let her guard down. Not until everyone is accounted for and in a safe place. Just making everyone aware that by knowing her they are in danger - it isn't enough. She has to make sure.

He's safe.

In the room.

Here.

There are a thousand ways she could have seen him again that would have been better than this, but at least he's safe. Thank God he's safe.

The alternative is not something she can even touch in her mind. It had been the one consolation over all these years that she's lived without him. At least he wasn't in danger anymore. Wherever he was, he was okay.

He's only a few feet away from her. She swears she can hear him breathing, and she wants to focus on the pace of it. She'll know so much just from the pace. The beat of his breaths. Maybe it's the only sound in the room.

But that's not right, because Dean talking to her, telling her that the Bureau is taking lead on the case and she has to get a grip. The truth is, she wants the help. Ego and ownership have no place here, not when the lives of those she loves are at stake. She can't trust the DA's office or One PP, but she can trust her squad and she wants them involved.

"My team," she hears herself saying. "This unit is involved every step of the way. They know him better than anyone you can bring in. You shut us out, I'll go after him myself."

It's not an empty threat, she thinks. She can hear how on edge she sounds, laying down ultimatums in a voice that doesn't steady. She'd gone after Lewis alone, though. Most of them in the room know what she did and how she did it.

Most of them.

Freezing. The shudders will start if she doesn't -

Elliot.

Without thinking, and out of sheer basic instinct, her eyes search him out. He's watching her intently from the far corner of her office, and she notices nothing else, no one else. He's changed too little, she thinks. His eyes. The size of him. The way he stands.

How he looks at her.

She presses her lips together while her fingernails dig into the doorframe again. He's so still, so honed in on her. His eyelashes barely flicker, but his jaw twitches. The awareness slips up her spine, crawls over the back of her neck. Tornadoes, she thinks. They too suck the air out of the room before the destruction comes.

Someone – she thinks its Rollins – says they are going to get her a coffee.

Elliot finally shifts his stance, but he doesn't take his eyes off her.

There are a million things that want to pour out of her, confessions and anger and pain and the shuddering ache that suddenly reverberates though her. It's numbing and terrifying that just by looking at him she can feel that metal bar in her hands again, even though it's been almost seven years. In the years since it had become his bar; he'd been the one to wield it. She'd needed him there, so she'd become him.

It petrifies her that just by seeing Elliot the landmines of Lewis are active inside of her again.

She can't go there. Not tonight. Not when she's lost her brother and Ed, when she'd cost them everything. No one else can die; she can't take it anymore. She's lost too many people in too many ways. It has to stop. Once and for all, it has to stop.

The here and now. Focus.

She thinks that she heard Dean agree to the joint effort between the Bureau and her squad, and she's grateful she doesn't have to fight for it. She has to save what little energy she has left for all of the other battles to come. Her phone is on her desk and it starts ringing now, right as Fin's starts beeping. The sound jars her, and she starts to make her way to her desk, leaning over it to reach for her device. She's shaky, and she almost fumbles the phone out of her grasp. The magnitude of what is happening on every front crowds in on her and she wills her phone not to slip out of her hand as she tries to answer it.

Only Fin reaches her first, his hand circling around her wrist and pushing her hand down. Her phone keeps ringing and the horror of what is happening now starts to crawl over her.

He'd seen his phone first. He's stopping her for a reason.

She looks up at Fin's face and she knows. She can't move, not when the shaking is this bad. "No," she whispers. "No."

Two more phones go off in the room, and then she hears Porter. Because he is who he is, he doesn't spare anyone the name. "Former ADA. Haden. DOA. Burglary in Hell's Kitchen."

David.

No, no, no.

No!

The walls close in and her chest constricts so badly she can't breathe. She can't lose it in front of an audience, but she's only got seconds. The cold has given way to a full-body sweat because they'd all assumed they had more time. Days, at the very least. Simon and Ed's deaths were months apart, no one was expecting two in the same week. No one.

This job has taken enough. Too much. It just takes and takes and takes.

Now David.

Olivia's fingers flatten against her lips because she can't make a sound. She needs space and no one is moving. They're all the just waiting, they'll see too much.

She can't crumble. She feels like she's going to suffocate and the light in the room is dotted with pinpricks of darkness. Her chest is being crushed, and she can't get air. She cannot goddamn breathe.

Then she hears it.

"Everyone out. Now."

She closes her eyes. It's Elliot's low, commanding voice after all of these years and of course this is what it's used for. She tries to anchor herself to the bone deep familiarity of it. The grief is coming, it's bubbling up in her lungs and she's not going to be able to stop it.

I'm so sorry, David.

For some reason they must all listen to him, because in seconds they're all out of her office, her door is closed, and her chair is being pulled behind her before she's sinking into it. Collapsing over herself, elbows on her knees, hands in her face and it's here. The agony of losing so much. The nearly violent wave of guilt that overwhelms her because she costs the people she cares about too much.

Her circle had been small. And now…

"Olivia, look at me."

His voice pulls at her as if it has a will of its own.

He's crouching in front of her, his hands gripping the armrests on either side of her body. If she just concentrates on his eyes she can slip back in time. The flecks are the same, because it all is. The intensity of the blue and how it darkens, how his eyelashes close just a little bit when he's reading her.

Nine years. Years.

She'd never blamed him, the anger had always been everyone else's. He'd never really been hers; she'd had no right to keep him here. She knows why he had to leave her once and for all.

Still.

He's FBI now, Liv.

"This is not your fault." His voice is rough but gentle, coaxing her to hear him. "We're going to get this sonofabitch and you're going to make him pay, okay? We're not going to stop until he's done. We'll finish him."

She listens to his tone, feels his open hand come to rest against the side of her head, the way he's got her hair bunched up and her face is wet because one night should only be so much.

This night has been a thousand hells.

She should be focused on his unimaginable absence, but in this moment she's gripped by his presence. He's alive. He's okay and here and he's –

"Elliot."

It falls out of her then, the impossibility of all of it. Time is either endless or non-existent and in this moment her grief is too powerful for anything else between them to be reckoned with. Her shoulders are shaking with the effort of trying to contain it but she's losing the battle.

David, I'm so sorry. The apologies within her are endless.

"I'm here."

Olivia closes her eyes then because his words are garish in their irony and they have no business being reassuring and it's all too much to deal with. She hears herself start to cry before she even realizes what she's doing. She leans forward and he's around her, and she vaguely knows in any other moment she would have never, ever let him do this again.

Her fingers slide up beneath his arms, clutching at the leather of his jacket. She inhales the scent of it, absorbs the heat of him. She can feel the rigid expanse of his shoulder beneath her eyelids and the cracks start to fissure in her chest. Tonight has been far too much give and too little take.

He holds her head against his shoulder and lets her let go.

She cries fully then, maybe in the only place she ever really would.

-o0o-

The squad room is filled with people he doesn't know.

NYPD, FBI, the DA's office. Agents and and officers, detectives and the brass. He's learned their names fast – those who are on the case and those who have descended simply in support of Olivia.

Former ADA Barba, Deputy Chief Garland, Bureau Chief Hadid. Former Chief Dodds - his son had been killed while part of the unit – and since Rollins' daughters had been brought in out of an abundance of caution, ADA Carisi is now here, too.

Cassidy is UC right now, so he won't be showing up. For that, Elliot is grateful. He doesn't think he can handle seeing that fucker tonight. How he'd ever believed Cassidy that night in the hospital, he doesn't know. But he blames that asshole for ever letting him think that Olivia was better off -

"We still don't have a location on Cragen," Porter says under his breath.

They are listening to ASAC Holmes and Chief Garland divide the room into a manhunt. Or at least he's supposed to be listening. He can't focus on anything but Olivia.

Until now. His gut turns hard. "Where the fuck is he? Last known?"

"2 miles southeast off the coast of Port St. Lucie. His wife said he left yesterday on a fishing trip. She said he goes off grid sometimes, always comes back in 72 hours. He had a buddy with him and no one has heard from them since."

His wife? Jesus he's missed too much. His head is pounding, and he can't shake the feeling of holding her. "When will they send up choppers?"

"Winds are rough tonight, not until the morning."

"Don't tell Olivia that. Tell her no one is worried yet. Tell her he's regularly unreachable." His own stomach is churning at the possibilities, but he'll be damned if she needs one more thing on her plate right now.

She'd fucking cried on him. He should never have been allowed to touch her again, but she'd let him clear the room and then she'd just given herself over and trusted him to hang on.

He doesn't have time for a migraine right now.

She's keeps unconsciously rubbing her own arms as she stands up near his ASAC and Garland, doing her best to interject insight or add background information when she can. But it doesn't take their history to see her devastation right now. Everyone in the room can see the red swell of her eyes, hear the rasp when she talks. He notices the little things too – the slight sway every few minutes, the way she chews her lips when her eyes start to water.

The way she looks at him sometimes.

Across the room, across everyone else she still looks for him every few minutes. Her glance darts away quickly each time, but he knows she's making sure he's still here. Like hell he will be anywhere else ever again. He knows her anger is coming, maybe she will even tell him to get lost.

But for the moment she's stunningly simply accepting him.

Elliot exhales and shifts his stance, growing more uncomfortable by the minute. The plan being laid out won't work. They have no time for a manhunt, even as a joint task force. There's no time for forensics to go over his financials. There's no time to deal with the TSA, Border Patrol or FAA. If Moore feels like they are closing in on him, he will only up the game. He will change tactics and burrow his own ass deeper to save himself while he sets chaotic and terrifying wheels in motion.

A guy like Moore will grow more unpredictable the more he is cornered. Right now he's going after the men Olivia cares about. If the noose tightens, there's nothing to stop him from going after the women, the kids.

There's nothing to stop him from going directly for Olivia and he's got the reach and resources to do it.

There's no hunting a Jackal. Every instinct in Elliot's body knows it. Not even the reach of the FBI will be able to catch him before someone else goes down.

He's confident about what needs to happen, and this is all a waste of time.

"This is all wrong." He says it loudly without thinking of consequence or procedure. He doesn't care about the higher ups or protocol. He'd come back to the job on his terms; he'll leave again if the terms are no longer his. "He can't be hunted. He has to be baited."

Every head in the room turns to him. Next to him, Porter swears irritably under his breath.

He looks only at Olivia, willing her to inhale because she had immediately paled. He knows why. Her instincts are the same as his, so she knows he's right. She just doesn't want him to voice what they both know.

"Stabler-" ASAC Holmes stops then and rubs his hand down his face. He's dealt with Elliot's temper too often and the wariness is all over his expression. He's praying his pain-in-the-ass agent will shut up.

Fat chance.

"I'll bait him," Elliot offers, widening his stance and folding his arms over his chest. "Use me."

The room goes dead silent. He doesn't care. Instead he's only watching the way she blinks and how the color comes back into her cheeks. She's finally getting really angry now, and that's good. That's where she needs to be.

"No," Olivia says firmly, finding her voice. "No goddamned way. We can find him. He's at a disadvantage because he's too recognizable."

"Let him come for me." Elliot's conviction is growing. He knows this is the right thing, the only way. It's the one fucking thing he can do.

"You been gone nine years, Stabler. What the hell makes you think he's gonna see you as important to Olivia at all?" Fin says, his words sharp and challenging from across the room.

As much as he appreciates Fin being a constant for Olivia, this is where he's going to make everyone else back down. "We make him believe I matter to her. Liv goes about her life starting tonight, only I'm in it now. Publicly. We make a show of it. I'll stay with her."

"No."

Every head turns to Olivia, drawn by the absolute, solid conviction in her voice for the first time. Only he's never been afraid of challenging her in this room. He's going to make her see it his way no matter what he has to do. He knows he's right. So does she. "You want to keep your head on a swivel until he takes everyone else out and comes for Noah? You're going to risk your son?"

"You sonofabitch," she hisses.

He knows they have an audience, but that's never mattered to either of them. He knows what he's doing because he knows her. "We go public, Olivia. Starting tonight. I showed up to comfort you over Simon and Haden." He clears his throat. "Tucker." Fuck it to high hell, he'd known about that but it doesn't make acknowledging it out loud it any easier. He's still got two scars on his right ribcage he earned on the night he'd found out she was letting Tucker even damned breathe on her. "If he's done his homework – which we know he has – he'll get the history and come for me next."

"Stabler, that's enough." It's Holmes who finally cuts him off. "I'm not against baiting him, but I don't like the idea of you and Captain Benson being open targets. He's farmed out the hits, so even if we catch the hit in progress, there's nothing to say we can trace it back."

Elliot finally grins. He knows he's got his ASAC on board despite the pushback. "That's the thing about hit men. They can all be bought. It's the nature of the business. So long as we keep whoever it is that comes after me alive, we'll get access to Moore."

"And what if it's not a person who comes after you, Elliot?" Olivia is seething now, and he's grateful for it. She's going to ride a rollercoaster of emotion, but out of all of them this is the one that will propel her in the fight. "Who's to say it's not a car bomb? A traffic accident?"

The room is silent, but by the look on his ASAC's face, Elliot knows he's about to win simply due to jurisdiction at this point. He focuses on Olivia and uses what he's been briefed on, but he keeps his voice low because what he's about to say is going to sting. "Someone was in the room with Simon, Olivia. He'd been clean for years, right? They couldn't count on him picking up a needle simply due to habit, someone forced him do it. Same for Tucker. Haden they walked right up to him. They'll come for me too if they think it will get to you."

She's flinches, and she then blinks as if he's hurt her. Fuck, that's never been his intention. Ever.

"We're not risking that," she finally says softly. "No."

ASAC Holmes clears his throat. "With all due respect, Captain. That's not your call. With the likelihood that Moore is out of state, this case is ours now, and what Agent Stabler suggests has merit. It doesn't preclude us from tracking Moore's movements at the same time, but quickly drawing his attention to Stabler means we might minimize the threat to anyone else, including your son."

Olivia rubs her hands over her face then, and Elliot focuses solely on her as his ASAC and Porter take the room. He hears them arranging for a protective detail for Olivia's apartment and he doesn't care who they assign, because she's not going to be out of his sight for a minute until this is over.

She suddenly looks tired now. The fire is gone from her eyes and her gaze has moved to the door of the playroom where Noah and Lucy remain with Amanda Rollins' two daughters and their nanny. Her breathing has slowed and she's fading out as she watches the door.

He knows she is tuning the room out now too, which is fine because it's all logistics at this point and the personnel in the room are starting to break up into smaller groups.

He's making his way over to her before anyone can interrupt him. She won't look at him, even when he's standing directly in front of her.

"Why are you doing this?" Olivia finally whispers, still avoiding his face.

He has years of explanations. Years of faults and nightmares and regrets that have lived like acid beneath his skin. Being this close to her after all this time is too much and not enough. He can't shake the painful familiarity of just being here in this squad room, as if nine years never existed.

"Liv-"

She raises her eyes to him, and they are darker and blanker than he remembers them. The nine years exist completely within them, and he can see too much of those years in the defeat she wears. "What about Noah?"

He chews on his lower lip, praying she accepts what he's going to say. He drops his voice, willing her to just hear him out. "Kathy and Eli, they're at the Meritage Hotel on 46th. The Bureau took connecting suites there and no one at NYPD is privy to that. Noah and Lucy should go there. Same with your Detective and her daughters. We've got guys and eyes on the door, the floor, the lobby and a direct line of sight from across the street. They're safest there."

Olivia's eyes fill. "He's safest with me." It's empty though, as if she's already calculated the risks and realized that she's wrong.

He softens his approach, knowing that giving up proximity to her child is shaking her. "No, Liv. Not right now he isn't." Her exhaustion is palpable and he knows she hasn't had time to process anything of the last few hours. "Let my guys take him there. Send your detective. Between her and Lucy and Kathy, he'll be okay."

But she's shaking her head, as if willing the reality of being separated from Noah away.

"Olivia. I'm trusting my son and my children's mother to these agents. I'm not asking you to risk anything I'm not risking. You just…gotta trust me on this."

It was the wrong thing to say. "Trust you?" Olivia's chin lifts and her frustration is directed at him, even as she keeps her voice down. "I don't even know you anymore."

It cuts deep and fast, but he deserves it. He can't let her shake his resolve. They are a lot of things, but they are not strangers. No amount of time apart will change that. He still knows her instincts better than he knows his own. He suspects it's the same for her.

"You really believe that?" he asks gently.

He's met with silence.

He knows the idea of letting her son out of her sight is the worst of what she is facing right now. "I want to be the one to take him there," she says quietly.

"You know that's not a good idea."

She covers her mouth with her hand, containing her reaction yet again. He knows she's going to break again soon so he steps even closer to her, dropping his mouth is near her ear. "Get Moore with me. The sooner we catch the bastard, the sooner Noah is home with you. You and I? We can get him. Make him pay."

Olivia closes her eyes then as if she's absorbing what he's saying. She's breathing too hard and he can see the trembling she is trying to control.

After a few long moments, she gives him the answer he's looking for.

Almost imperceptibly, she nods.

-o0o-