Thank you SO much for the reception to those who took the time to follow this story or to review, I'm really glad to see that you're as excited about this as me. I have BIG plans for this story, the next chapter may not be too exciting but I promise you, this is going somewhere!

Please forgive any errors, I did this at work with no spellcheck and may have missed some things - let's be honest, I've definitely missed some things lol!

Olivia shot up in the small bed, sweat covering her body, her chest heaving. Almost instantly he was at her side, not touching her, just waiting for her to say something. She hadn't had a nightmare about Gitano for so long. She had been in the warehouse again, only this time she had pulled the trigger...

"Liv..." Elliot whispered, wanting desperately to reach out and touch her. He had been woken by her moans, he knew straight away that she was having a nightmare. He'd thought about going over to her, waking her up but knew that she would be embarrassed and he really didn't need any other barriers. He had closed his eyes and hoped that her nightmare would end soon. Only a few minutes later she had woken with a sock.

"I'm fine..." she lied. She wanted to reach out to him, to prove to herself that he really was there. The dream had felt so real. She focused on calming her breathing for a moment or so, trying to ignore just how close he was to her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds before turning to face him. "I'm sorry that I woke you, you can go back to sleep. I'm okay."

"You didn't," he gave her a fist smile. He wanted to ask what she had been dreaming about but he knew her, she would only lie. He had been out of her life for too long, she would have already closed herself off from him. "I think I'm gonna look over my cover, do you mind if I turn a light on?" he asked, knowing that he wouldn't go back to sleep.

"No, I should probably do the same." She couldn't go back to sleep after that. Not only was she embarrassed but she was still shaken. It had felt so real...

An hour later, after a shower and cup of coffee she was feeling more human and less on edge.

"What have you got?" Elliot asked, looking up from his own file.

"Olivia Reed. Grew up with an abusive father, mother was awol. You're the direct link to the ring. She's an equal to you, wants to be as involved as little as she can, but she knows being a woman will help her to get access to children that you can't. There's no sign of hesitancy, no sign of actually having a heart..." She sighed. "She's in it for the money, doesn't want to know the exact details just do whats he has to do to get her money." She shook her head, knowing just how many women were involved with the child sex trade.

"Nice. I'm Elliot Ronson. Friends with the guy who's already infiltrated the group. They met during a training course, they both work in banking. My alter ego is not a pedophile, but he is interested in making money and doesn't seem to have any morals at all so has no problem with using kids to get richer quicker. He's married without any kids but his wife is away a lot. Seems like these people are just looking to make a quick buck, up market snobs. They need you, but not me, but we come together cause I got you into it." he looked up at her. "There seem to be hints in here that we're having an affair."

"Well, we can just deny that if anyone asks, I'm pretty sure that's what people having affairs do." She refused to look at him. Professional. They had to remain professional, there was no point blurring the lines.

"Okay, this is where I leave you." The FBI agent informed them. "In an hour our agent will come and meet you, he'll be alone. You have your mobiles, your fake ID. He'll take you to another motel, the one that you'll be staying at. We'll contact one of the three of you every day, probably you Elliot, you can claim it's your wife."

An hour later Elliot and Olivia were alone. He had explained about Maureen and Kathleen and the apartment they were hoping to rent, about the twins and their final year of high school and Eli's latest milestone. She had listened intently. She loved Elliot's children. She loved hearing about how well they were doing, she had missed news of them over the past six months.

"Liv," Elliot started. "You never called?" He had promised that he wouldn't go there, but watching her face light up as he spoke of his children reminded him just how much she had cared for him and his entire family. How could she just walk away?

She turned away from him for a moment. She wasn't ready for this, she was hoping they could simply avoid it. they were so close to being undercover and not being able to have these moments. "Elliot..."

"You must be Elliot and Olivia?"

They both turned to see a slightly overweight, grey haired man walking towards them. "Phil," he held his hand out to Elliot first. "Sorry I'm late, took me a while to get away. Nice to meet you," he smiled. The man looked exhausted.

"Yeah, you too. I'm Elliot Stabler, this is my...partner Olivia Benson." he watched as she held her hand out to Phil.

"Am I happy to see you guys?" he started.

"I've been under for nearly six months, I was starting to wonder if I would ever get out..." Phil shook his head. "You guys are the final piece of the puzzle. I know that with you two here we can finally bring these bastards down. Olivia watched as Phil spoke about the horrors he had seen. They had moved to a small motel that was just a few minutes drive from where they had been dropped off.

"So we stay here tonight, then tomorrow I'll take you to where we'll be staying. It's not pretty but we have to lay low, I'll introduce you to other members, we'll spend the night there."

"But these rooms will be here no matter what right?" Elliot asked, knowing that there would be times when he and Olivia would need to regroup.

"This room is only here for tonight, you two have to try to fit in with everyone else and that means sleeping in the same place. If you two spend too much time together then they're going to become suspicious. You need alone time? You're gonna have to pretend that you're going somewhere to have sex-"

"What?" Olivia asked, "You're serious?" So much for keeping things professional.

"It will probably be safer for you that way," Phil told Olivia. "Some of these guys...are animals." He shook his head sadly.

"How have you done it for so long?" Elliot asked. He had done small stints undercover, but nothing like this. he had once had to pretend he was a rapist, it was only an hour out of his life and it was the worst hour of his career. He had felt physically sick for weeks after wards, remembering what he had had to do.

"Well, so far a single kid hasn't been harmed. They've been working on a big shipment for months, there's no way I could have stood by if it was happening while I was there." He shook his head. "You two ever been undercover?"

"Uh, like this? No..." Elliot turned to Olivia. he wasn't s sure if she would talk about Sealview for fear of questions about it.

"Twice, once with an animal rights group and one in a prison." She couldn't help but note Elliot looking at her, waiting for her to crack.

"You got to play guard huh?" Phil asked.

"Uh, no. I was a prisoner."

"Oh, wow, that must have been tough..."

"It was okay, nothing I couldn't handle." She watched as Elliot visibly stiffened next to her. Phil wouldn't have noticed but she sure as hell did.

"Do you have a family?" Elliot asked, not wanting the Sealviw conversation to continue.

"Had a wife... She left me just before this case actually... Probably better that way." He looked up at ELliot and Olivia who were staring sympathetically. "I can't lie, it's been a hell of a few months."

"We're gonna get them," Olivia promised, remembering her time undercover, Oregon hadn't been as intense or as long as this but she still came back feeling completely out of place, God only knew how Phil would cope. Phil seemed just like any other cop, honest, dedicated and although she had only just met him she could see herself being friends with him. She reminded her a little of Elliot.

"What about you two? You got family at home?"

"Wife and five kids," Elliot offered, smiling as Phil's eyes widened. "Oldest is twenty one, youngest is just about to turn two." He spoke, wondering how his family would cope if he was away for as long as phil had been.

"Wow! And you left them for this?"

Olivia couldn't help but wince. He'd left them for this? This wasn't seen as important enough to leave his family. She wasn't.

"What about you Olivia?" Phil asked, having livened up slightly.

"Uh, no..." she shook her head. Awkward. She hated these moment, the moments where Elliot could gush about his family, and his gushing made her life just that little bit more pathetic.

"It's better in this job, no offense Elliot." Phil stood up. stretching his legs. "You two all up to speed on who you're supposed to be?" he asked, watching s they both nodded. "Good, I can see we're gonna work well together. I'll be back tomorrow, early."

"Uh, is my room next door?" Olivia asked looking from the double bed that she and Elliot were sat on, back to Phil. He smiled.

"This is your room, both of you will be sleeping in this room."

Again, Olivia looked at the double bed. There was no sofa, barely and floor space.

"Don't look so frightened, I'm sure your partner is a gentleman." Phil winked at Elliot. "Think you can keep your hands to yourself buddy?"

"I'll try," Elliot forced a smile. He swallowed the lump in his throat. They had to share a bed?

"You okay?"

Olivia opened her eyes. She had been trying to sleep for nearly two hours. She had never anticipated being in a bed with Elliot Stabler, not under these circumstances anyway. She had waited until she could no longer hear Elliot moving before she left the bathroom and climbed into the bed across from him, clinging to the side of the bed so that she didn't touch him.

"I know you're not asleep." Well he was a detective after all. He had closed his eyes when he'd heard the bathroom door opening knowing that's he was waiting for him to be asleep. He was pretty sure they had both simply lay awake on opposite sides of the bed for two hours. They were past this. They had dealt with the hassle of his divorce, with her leaving, they could handle sleeping in a damn bed together.

"Why didn't you call?" he asked, turning until he was facing her. She was lying with her back to him.

"Elliot-" she closed her eyes. They didn't need to talk about this. They both knew where they stood.

"You can avoid the question as much as you like Liv, but I'm going to keep asking it." They hadn't always been close, he wasn't going to pretend that everything had been perfect but he deserved more than this.

"Elliot," she turned to face him. "What did you think would happen?"

"I didn't think you'd just give up on us...our friendship," he corrected himself almost right away.

"I'm not the one who left."

"That's not fair," he pushed himself up off of the bed so that he was sitting up. "Come on Liv, you know what the job was doing to my marriage-"

"And are things better now?" she asked, also sitting up. She closed her eyes for moment. Was she really having this conversation while she was lying in the same bed with him? This was exactly why she hadn't wanted to talk about this, why she'd considered leaving as soon as she'd found out about his part in the op.

"Yes," he answered, almost sadly.

"So what's the problem?" she asked. They simply stared at each other for a few moments. Didn't he get it? "Leaving did exactly what you wanted fit to, you can't have the best of both worlds Elliot-" Shit. Where the hell had that come from?

"What? I can't have you in my life when my marriage is going well? is that what you're saying? I have to choose between you and my wife?" he couldn't help but raise his voice. She was so damn impossible sometimes.

"You left! We were partners and you left!" Jesus, he was infuriating. Why couldn't he see that it wasn't as simple as meeting once in a while?

"We were friends as well-"

"Elliot," she sighed. "Who are you kidding?" she asked, her voice quiet and small. "We were...we needed to have a certain kind of relationship," she didn't know how to explain it.

"We were only friends because of the job?" he asked.

"It makes sense..." she trailed off. She had feelings for him, that was why they could never be anything other than partners. She couldn't stand to have him as a friend and have him slowly pull away. It was bound to happen, eventually the pull of his perfect life would remind him just why he left SVU, why he left her and she was still there. She would eventually start to remind him of all the things he hated about SVU and without the job she simply wasn't enough to be able to keep him.

"That's bullshit-"

"Is it?" she asked, getting out of the bed, unable to be so close to him. "Elliot, how long did it take for you to stop calling?" she asked. His face drained of colour.

"That's not fair. At least I tried," he shook his head, desperately thinking of something else that he could say.

"You know as long as we weren't partners, there just isn't enough between us." There, she'd said it. Of course there was enough on her part but not on his. She wouldn't wait around just to be left alone again, she relied on him too much when they were partners, she wouldn't cope if he left her by choice as a friend. Why couldn't he understand that? Him leaving was the end.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. At least now he knew. She didn't feel anything for him, not like he had once thought, not like he felt for her. He wanted to grab her and shake her. There had been a time when he'd been so sure that there was something more than friends, but now according to her they weren't even that. how the hell had he gotten it so wrong? "Okay."

"Okay?" she asked, wishing he'd corrected her. there really wasn't enough between them.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, unable to hide the hint of anger in his voice. "I tried, you're not interested, I got it."

"It's not-" she wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him that she couldn't stand to let him back into her life only for him to leave it.

"Then what is it like?" he asked. He watched as she folded her arms across her chest and simply looked at him. "Come on Olivia? What the hell do you want me to do?"

"I...want you to work on this case with me...And then go home to your family."

He hadn't said a word after that. He'd simply turned away from her, lay his head on the pillow and closed his eyes. She'd walked into the bathroom and in the privacy of the bathroom tried to calm her shaking hands. She was a coward. She'd seen the hurt in his eyes. She had never wanted to hurt him, but he didn't understand. She needed him, he didn't need her. It would never work.

She'd waited until she was sure he was asleep before she climbed back into the bed and closed her eyes.

"You two have a falling out?" Phil asked as he carried one of Olivia's bags to the car. He had turned up just a few moments ago and found Elliot and Olivia silently eating breakfast.

"Uh, no," she lied. She didn't want Phil to think that they couldn't do the job, she wanted to nail these bastards. "He's just not a morning person."

"Good, you two seem like you're a good team, how long have you been partners again?"

"Ten years," she offered a forced smile. "What about your partner? Were you close?"

"Uh, not really. I was married, she was single it was hard to find a good cut off point, you know?" he climbed into the front seat of the car, leaving Olivia stood alone.

"Yeah, I know."

End Notes:

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