AN: Hi, I really like this chapter, that is all. Read and review, please!

Chapter 17 – The House, Pt. II (Reflections)

Olivia's phone call appears to go rather smoothly. She hangs up the phone after a couple of okays, and when she does, Elliot presses a kiss to her jaw, then her neck, making her shiver.

"Sounds like that went okay," he says, tilting his head a little to see Olivia's face. She turns in his lap to face him, a slightly surprised look on her face. Elliot becomes immediately distracted. Olivia is beautiful. This is not a new revelation, but he's never had the opportunity to look at her from this point of view before. He adjusts his grip on her waist with one hand and uses the other to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear, his eyes dragging over her face as he drinks in all of her features. Olivia tilts her head gently and looks at him in a way that makes his chest feel like it could cave in.

"It did," she says. "My boss gave me until the 26th off. She that said I've been working hard lately, and I deserve a break."

"That's good news then," Elliot murmurs, his eyes now on Olivia's collarbone. Her skin flushes red as she appears to notice his staring.

"Elliot," she murmurs, leading him to look up into her brown eyes. He knew he was being a bad friend right now. Olivia had walked into this room nearly crying only 15 minutes ago and although she had appeared to pull herself together, Elliot knew that she was not okay. She may have been able to miraculously push through both the stress of the holidays and the sudden appearance Jonathan's parents in some other situation, but Elliot knew that the second anniversary of both Jonathan and her mother's deaths were also coming up. These events combined were sure to have an effect on Olivia and he planned to be there to support her when her strength ran out. But right now, at this moment, Elliot couldn't help but bask in the knowledge that he and Olivia's relationship had taken a very favorable and important turn last night. He was not just her friend anymore, but something more and it felt like that was all he had ever wanted. It was impossible not to stare at Olivia in all her beauty, impossible to keep his hands off of her, impossible not to at least think about kissing her constantly, especially when considering how well last night had gone.

"El," Olivia whispers into his ear now, causing a chill to run down his spine. She wraps her arms around his neck loosely and presses a lingering kiss to his cheek. "You've got to stop looking at me like that."

The tone of her voice causes Elliot's entire body to stir. He licks his lips and leans back in an effort to control himself. He doubts that Olivia is aware of the effect she has on him and he doesn't intend on making her uncomfortable by showing her right now, so he clears his throat and speaks up.

"We have to get ready to go, don't we?" he asks, trying and failing to tell his hands to move from her waist. Olivia pulls back a little and looks at him. He could swear that her eyes are a shade darker than they had been a moment before. She runs her eyes over his face, bites her bottom lip gently, and then nods.

"Yes," Olivia answers. But her voice is still low, seductive, musical. "I'm about to get in the shower now."

Elliot waits for her to stand up and go back into the bathroom. But she flicks her eyes back up to meet his as she slides her hand over one of his and guides it to the ribbon holding her robe closed. And Elliot suddenly, realizes that he had not been alone in his basking.

"Would you like to join me?"

•

Due to their shower escapade, it takes a little over another hour for Elliot and Olivia to prepare to leave the house. After calling the babysitter to ask her to pick up Grace from Kathy's and Luke from school later that afternoon, Olivia and Elliot step out of the front door. Olivia stumbles over the entryway, and when Elliot reaches out to steady her, he swears he hears her mumble "I can't feel my legs." His heart leaps in his chest.

Olivia drives. She seems to know exactly where she is going, and there is not much conversation on the trip. Elliot doesn't mind this, though. He needs the time to go over his thoughts, and he makes sure to turn towards the window so that he doesn't get distracted by Olivia as he had earlier.

He had only been on one date with Olivia. He knew that. He had only kissed her for the first time a month ago. But things were different with her. He wanted her, all of her. Briefly, he tries to imagine seeing her with someone else and his body fills with anger. Automatically, his mind replaces the image with the memory of Olivia rushing to pull her coat off the night before, laughter in her eyes, smiling at him shyly with red lips.

"What about when we break up?" she had asked after Thanksgiving before he had even really gotten to propose the idea of them being together. Elliot had been surprised. And then offended. But he supposed some of his anger was with himself. He hadn't been prepared for that question because he hadn't even thought about the possibility of breaking up. That was insane since he already had one divorce under his belt. But whenever he imagined being with Olivia, he imagined dates, a wedding, a home with all of the kids, a baby with blue eyes and dark brown hair, a lot of laughter, a lot of affection. Never once a breakup. Why was that?

You know why his conscience whispers. But that couldn't be the reason. It was too early. Much too early. But even as he thinks this, he feels an urge to say the phrase out loud.

You are falling in love with her the voice pushes softly, still in his head. And it's like just thinking the words makes him realize this statement to be true. He glances over at Olivia quickly, but as she shifts her head a bit, he looks away again, inexplicably fearing that she'll be able to tell what's he's thinking about with just one glance. He had been on this track for awhile now, and it seemed like last night had only caused him to trip and fall head over heels into something that was different from anything he had ever experienced before. The thought was frightening, exhilarating, elating.

And yet, some part of him feels guilty. Why should he feel guilty? Because he knew there was no way she could feel the same way after such a short period of time? Because he knew that she was still dealing with the death of her late husband, however much Elliot hated him? Just because it was much, much too early, by anyone's standards, really, to even have the word love floating around in his head? Maybe for all of those reasons.

And yet, the longer Elliot sits, looking at the bare skeletons of trees whipping by as Olivia drives, humming the tune to a song he doesn't know, the truer these words become. With every second, he can feel himself sinking a little deeper into a hole he had no intention of digging himself out of.

He is falling in love with Olivia.

•

"Wow," Elliot says in a hushed voice. He stands in the driveway of the Rhodes driveway, looking up at the enormous stone house in front of him. Olivia, who has just locked the car, walks by him.

"I know," she says, her voice flat. "Amazing, isn't it?" Her initially sunny mood from earlier had depleted, and when Elliot glances at her, he can't read her expression. Elliot follows her down the walkway to the front door and then enters the house with her. It's beautiful. It's mostly empty – he suspected that the Rhodes had moved most of their things out – but it's impossible to miss the signs that this was a million-dollar house. He doesn't understand how Olivia can afford it.

"Olivia," he begins, but when he looks around, he sees that she's left the entryway. He follows her into the living room, his eyes traveling around the room. "Olivia, how can you-"

"Jonathan left me money," Olivia says, anticipating his question. She stands in the center of the room, looking at the fireplace at the head of the room. Her voice is quiet, but it echoes around the room anyway. "A lot of money. Even if I bought the house, it wouldn't be all of it. The Rhodes don't understand why I still work."

Elliot frowns. He cannot imagine how he hadn't known this before. Olivia had never mentioned money when she was with him, he supposed.

"But it doesn't matter," Olivia says, pulling her eyes away from the fireplace and looking at Elliot. "I don't want it."

"Olivia," Elliot interrupts. He catches Olivia's hand as she starts to walk past him, moving back toward the front door. "Come on. Be realistic. This is a nice house."

"I don't want it," Olivia repeats. Elliot tries again to judge her expression, but she won't meet his eyes. "Let's go."

"We drove all the way up here," Elliot insists. "We can at least look around. That's why you wanted to come, isn't it?" Olivia is quiet.

"Come on," Elliot continues. "We'll split up, you don't even have to walk through the whole house. I'll take…the west wing." He says this last part with slight awe in his voice, and Olivia throws an annoyed glance in his direction.

"Fine," she whispers. Elliot lets go of her hand. "I'll meet you back here in 10 minutes." Elliot nods his agreement and watches her disappear down a hallway to his right.

"Christ," he whispers. He looks around the living room once more before going through an entryway. It leads to the kitchen, which is empty as well, but equally spacious. He runs his hand over a marble counter, his eyebrows coming down to knit together. Olivia had mentioned when they pulled up that this was an eight-bedroom house. If they did end up married, they'd need around 8 bedrooms for their combined families. Elliot knew that he would never be able to afford a house like this. Not on his salary. And suddenly, the house begins to look a whole lot less beautiful.

•

Olivia's tour of the house does not go well.

She pokes her head into an empty bedroom first. Then the adjoining bathroom. Then the study across the hall. And then she heads upstairs and goes into the first room on the left and this is her mistake.

The rest of the house had been emptied of furniture and cleaned. This room had not. When Olivia crosses the threshold, it feels like she's stepped back in time. The walls are painted a light pea-green and decorated with a few baseball posters. The closet is full of faded clothing. There are notebooks sitting on the desk pushed against the far wall, and shelves held trophies and old baseball mitts and faded pictures.

This was Jonathan's room.

It seemed like Vivian and Joshua hadn't touched it in all this time. They'd probably just put it off at the beginning, and it wasn't like they really needed this bedroom. But after he had died, the decision to leave it must have been a decision. Olivia suddenly realizes that she needs to breathe and takes a sudden, gulping breath, trying to ignore the stinging in her eyes.

She takes another step in, drawn closer by some invisible force. She's close enough now to stroke the comforter on the bed.

"Jonathan," Olivia was whining, trying to swat the blonde-haired boy lying next to her on the bed away from her neck. He'd brought her home for Christmas break. And his parents had loved her, and she'd well…liked his dad, at least. But she did not want to ruin her reputation by getting caught with her hand in Jonathan's cookie jar. "We're in your parents' house!"

"So, what?" he whispered, grinning and swooping in to place a kiss on Olivia's lips. She'd whimpered softly against his lips. "They're on the other side of the house. They won't hear." Then he'd kissed her again, and when he'd pulled back, that blinding smile on his face, the only protests coming from Olivia's lips had been for him to come back and kiss her again.

Olivia takes another deep breath. Her vision blurs, and the plaid blanket on the bed becomes nothing more than a blob of color. She blinks and walks toward the closet, reaching out and fingering a bright red rain jacket.

"So, this is your apartment?" Jonathan had asked. He peeled his soaking wet rain jacket off and let it fall to the floor. Olivia had looked back at him warily, her hair dripping, her clothes stuck to her. She'd been able to prevent Jonathan from seeing her tiny apartment up until this point. But they'd gotten caught in the rain at the park down the block and this was the closest place for them to go. Her cheeks flush as he looks around. He was rich, and she was not. This was probably the smallest room he'd ever been in.

"I love it," Jonathan says, finding her eyes. She looks at him, eyes wide. He grins. And it feels like the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. "I love it, Olivia. And I love you."

That was the first time he'd said it. And Olivia had stood in shock for a minute, dripping onto the carpet, stuck in place. But eventually, she'd returned his smile.

"I love you, too."

And she had. She'd loved Jonathan and everything he represented with every bone in her body. She would have given an arm to be him at that point.

But why hadn't he given her his jacket?

Olivia hadn't wondered this until many years later, when she and Luke had been on a playdate in the park with Elliot and Dickie and it had started drizzling and Elliot had draped his jacket over the two boys without a second thought, then shared his umbrella with Olivia on the walk home. If Jonathan had truly cared about her, how could he have made it the whole way home without noticing that she was both freezing and soaking wet?

Olivia's eyes burn a little less now. She pulls her hand away from the jacket. Her eyes fall on the bookshelf near the desk. She walks over now, crouching and sitting in the corner before pulling out a book at random, running her hand over the cover.

When she was sixteen years old, Olivia spent a lot of time in the library of Hudson University. She had always liked reading. It had provided some form of an escape. Her mother knew that. And so she'd talked to the head librarian at Hudson and convinced her to let Oliva in at any time.

This was proof that Olivia's mother was not always awful. In fact, there were times when Olivia caught Serena Benson looking at her with a mixture of tenderness and sadness that almost made Olivia believe her mother felt sorry for her. And usually, after these moments, Serena would do something small, but nice, for her daughter. Take her out for ice cream, buy her a new pair of gloves, stitch up a hole in one of her favorite sweaters. So, one summer afternoon, the day after a particularly heated argument with Serena, Olivia had walked into her bedroom to find a note letting her know that her mother was out for the night and a Hudson University library card.

On this particular Saturday morning, Olivia was sitting in a back corner on the fourth-floor reading Flowers in the Attic. She'd been far, far, away, when someone had plopped down on the floor next to her much too close and pulled her books out of her hands.

"Excuse me," she said, feeling quite annoyed. She'd snatched the book back from the boy sitting next to her. He had golden blonde curls, hazel eyes, and skin so tan that it seemed like he must have spent all his time outside. In fact, he looked like he could be the sun itself. When he smiles, it's blinding.

"What's that about?" he'd asked, peering over Olivia's shoulder. She'd huffed and scooted back, not before noticing that he was rather attractive.

"Why don't you run along and find a copy so that you can find out for yourself?" Olivia had suggested with a false cheeriness, raising her book so that it covered her face. She heard the boy chuckle. She groans as he reaches out and lowers the book so that he can look into her face.

"You know, you look kind of young to be in college," he remarks, his tone casual. "How old are you?"

"Old enough," Olivia says, looking back at him with what she hoped was an irritated, not embarrassed, expression. The boy had only smiled wider.

"What's your name?"

Olivia scoffed and finally set down her book, frowning now.

"What's your name?" she asks. The boy tilts his head. Olivia couldn't help but notice that his teeth were a brilliant white.

"I'm Jonathan," he says, staring into Olivia's eyes. "Now you."

"I'm Olivia," she'd heard herself saying, despite her will. She could feel her cheeks growing warm.

"Olivia," Jonathan repeats. It sounds exquisite coming off of his tongue. "It's nearly lunchtime, Olivia. Would you like to go and grab a bite to eat?"

"Are you asking me out?" Olivia had asked boldly. Jonathan had only nodded and then leaned forward to pick a piece of lint from her shoulder.

"Yes, I suppose I am," he says. Olivia's cheeks only grow warmer.

"For some reason, I have a feeling that you won't take no for an answer." Jonathan smiles slyly, shrugging noncommittally.

"I think I'd manage to convince you," he says. "I can be very persuasive." Jonathan then holds his hand out to Olivia. His smile is so cute. She can't help but smile back.

"Okay," she'd whispered, taking his hand. "Okay."

He'd taken Olivia to a very nice restaurant after that. And she'd been wined and dined and wooed. It seemed like she'd begun to fall in love right then and there. She had been blinded by Jonathan's light on that day. It took her years to get her sight back.

Olivia feels a tear run down her cheek. She swipes at it in an annoyed manner. She had played that scene over and over and over in her head right after Jonathan's death and cried every time. She'd missed the boy from the library, the boy who was the sun, the boy who could talk her into anything. She'd been so consumed with love and longing every time that scene started to play that she'd eventually just tried to block it out altogether.

But she doesn't feel those things now. Instead, she feels little more than a bothersome, guilty feeling, and for the life of her she can't figure out why. At least until the memory of Jonathan's face smiling at her in the Hudson library is replaced with the image of Elliot sitting on her bed this morning, his eyes traveling over her face ravenously. And then suddenly, Olivia goes from feeling almost nothing to feeling everything at once.

Sadness for what she had lost in Jonathan.

Longing for Elliot's touch.

Desire, like she had felt this morning, like that all too familiar pull in her belly that had driven her to invite Elliot into the shower.

Completeness, like she felt in the middle of the night when she rolled over and felt Elliot's body against hers.

Guilt over the feelings that used to be reserved for her husband that were now directed all towards Elliot Stabler.

Blossoming, persistent love, not for Jonathan, but Elliot. Elliot, who she supposed she had fallen in love with somewhere along the way without even noticing; who had draped his jacket over her son like he was his own, who held her when she needed to be held, who understood how to sit in the quiet with her, who had asked if she was sure two, three, four, times.

Sitting on the floor in the corner of her late husband's childhood bedroom, Olivia feels sad and free and guilty and light all at the same time. She doesn't wipe away the new tears when they come.