A/N: Last chapter. Hope you enjoyed!

- - -

They've spent a long, tiring day chasing a suspect all over Manhattan, only to end up passing off the case to Narcotics when they'd already done most of the work. As soon as they got back to the precinct, Olivia had headed up to the locker room to get changed for her date with Ethan, leaving Elliot to finish up some last minute paperwork that could probably wait until Monday.

Elliot knows that tonight's the night. After everything he's already dealt with today, it's the last thing he wants to worry about, but he can't seem to stop thinking about it.

Cragen nods in his direction when he comes back inside the squad room, then looks at his watch. "It's almost six. Go home."

Elliot nods once, not responding verbally as he gets up, grabs his coat, waves to his captain, and heads for his car. He's halfway there when he realizes that his keys and his cell phone are still in his locker, so he turns around and jogs back inside, taking the elevator up to the squad room.

"You forget something?" Munch asks when he walks in, putting his coat on as he prepares to leave for the evening.

"Yeah. Keys."

"Fin and I are going to O'Malley's for a drink. I think Casey's coming. Want to join us?"

"No thanks," Elliot responds. "I'll see you Monday." He knows that if he starts drinking tonight, he's not going to be able to stop after a reasonable amount and he'll either end up either spilling his guts to his co-workers about Olivia, or calling her at 3am when he can barely string two words together and saying something he'll regret in the morning.

He walks into the locker room just as Olivia finishes pulling a black tank top over her head and he has to stop for a moment to remember how to breathe. She's never been shy about changing in the locker room the detectives share and, on more than one occasion, he's walked in on her sans T-shirt. But there's a difference between the sports bras she works out in and the black satin and lace he just caught a glimpse of. There's a huge difference between how he felt about her before their middle of the night conversation last week and how he feels about her right now.

"Sorry," he mumbles, heading over to his locker and quickly opening it. She doesn't respond, obviously indifferent, and finishes taking the extra set of clothes she keeps in her locker out and putting them into her bag. When her locker door slams shut, he half expects her to leave, but instead she stands there for a moment in complete silence. He knows what's coming even before he hears her voice.

"Elliot?" she says softly, but he can tell by the tone in her voice that she's about to start a conversation he doesn't want any part of. Not when he's this close to losing control of his emotions.

"Yeah?" he says, closing his locker door and pressing his hand against it as he tries to fight the urge to face her.

"Are we… I just… Fuck, Elliot. I don't even know how to-"

"We're fine, Liv," he says, turning around, but avoiding her gaze. "Don't worry about it."

She rolls her eyes. He's always been bad at lying, but tonight she doesn't have the energy to address that particular character flaw. She walks closer to him, standing right in front of him and forcing him to look her in the eye. "Elliot-"

"You love him, Olivia. I get that. He's going to make you happy. You're going to end up married to him and you'll have kids and a family and you'll be happy. So don't-"

But before he can even finish his sentence, her lips are on his, soft and gentle, yet demanding at the same time. He wants to push her away; wants to say that this is a bad idea, not because any of the cops in the precinct could walk in at any moment, not because of Ethan, but because now that he knows what it feels like to have her tongue touch his, he's not going to be able to go back to just being friends.

"Olivia," he finally says, gently pushing her back. She looks shocked, as if she can't believe she's kissed him, either. "We can't do this. I can't kiss you like that and then go home and pretend that nothing happened while you go on a date with Ethan. You can't have both of us and you already made that choice. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Elliot-"

"Liv, I need to leave. Now." He grabs his keys and cell phone off the bench and hurries out the door. He passes Ethan on his way out and he can't help but clench his fists a little when Ethan smiles and waves.

Just because he wants Olivia to be happy doesn't mean that he's thrilled that Ethan's the one who will do it.

- - -

Every half-hour or so, Elliot looks at the clock and wonders, has he asked yet? Did she say yes? Is she going to come into work on Monday with a ring on her left hand and a huge smile on her face?

He doesn't want to think about it anymore. Doesn't even want to consider the fact that Ethan can make her happier than he ever could. Instead, he nurses the same beer he's been drinking for the past two hours and turns up the volume on his TV, listening to the announcer talk about Jeter and A-Rod.

When he hears a knock at the door at 8:45, he assumes it's his little brother Patrick, stopping by with a six-pack and a pizza, ready to feed him some line about "keeping him company." In reality, his wife had probably just unplugged the TV because he refused to help with the dishes or putting the kids to bed. But when he looks through the peep hole, it's not his brother he sees, but Olivia, standing there looking completely lost and freezing in jeans and a tank top and no coat.

He opens the door, unprepared for the look of unfettered anger on her face. "Olivia, what-"

"Do you even actually have feelings for me or were you just fucking with my head the other night?" she asks, so pissed off she can barely even look at him. "I can't even… Were you just trying to keep me from being happy with him?"

"No. No. I meant what I said," he assures her, trying to catch sight of her left hand, but it's hidden deep in her jeans pocket. He stays silent, holding the door open and hoping she'll come inside. When she continues to stand there, still seething with anger, he sighs. "Olivia. Come inside. Where's your coat?"

"It's May," she says simply, glaring at him. He wants to smile, but he fights the urge, knowing it will piss her off more.

"It's still freezing. And my neighbors probably don't want to hear us fighting," he tells her, waiting for her to come inside before he closes the door behind them.

"Could you please explain to me why you kissed me in the locker room?" Olivia asks, looking everywhere but at him. "What-"

"I'm pretty sure it was the other way around, Olivia," he says, and she turns slightly red, looking down at the carpet. "Don't try to blame this on me," he continues, now a little bit angry himself. "I wasn't trying to mess with your head. I want you to be happy and if you're happy with Ethan then I guess I'll just have to deal with it. But don't try to make whatever this is my fault. I told you that I had feelings for you because I thought you had to the right to know, not because I wanted to screw things up between you and Ethan." He waits, hoping she will say something. When she doesn't respond and he squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing his hand over his face in frustration. "What happened?"

She sits down on his couch, looking down at her lap. He still can't catch sight of her left hand, but this time she catches him looking. She holds it up, showing off her bare ring finger. "I said no, Elliot."

"Olivia-"

"I can't believe you knew and didn't tell me! And I certainly cannot believe that you decided to go around my back and give him permission! It is not any of your business-"

"He's the one who asked me, Olivia. And I didn't 'give him permission' to ask you! You're not my property and I have a feeling that if I ever suggested that you were, you'd make sure I lost the ability to say anything again. He told me that he was going to propose and that he was worried I'd try to talk you out of it. That's all I told him: that I wouldn't try to talk you out of it."

"Is that why you came to my apartment that night? Because he told you he was going to propose?"

"I was going to tell you how I felt anyway," Elliot says, unsure if that's really true or not. "I just didn't know when. And when Ethan told me that he was going to propose, I knew I didn't have a lot of time. Everything I said was true, though, Olivia. Everything."

Neither of them says anything for a moment, and finally Elliot sits down on the couch next to her, both of them looking at the same stain on the couch cushion between them: grape juice, he thinks, spilled from Dickie's sippie-cup when he was a toddler.

"Why did you say no?"

"Because I don't love him," she says, looking up at him finally, looking him right in the eye. "What you said was true. We would have gotten married and he probably would have gotten me pregnant. We could have bought a house in Queens and I could have transferred to another unit, or to another borough, so that I'd have more time, and maybe I would have been happy with that life. But there would always be something missing. The truth is that I don't even know if I want all of that. I don't…" she shrugs, running her hand through her hair, pushing a few locks out of her face. "When I was a kid, I never really had a chance to worry about whether or not I'd have the husband and the 2.5 kids and the house with a big yard for them to play in. I grew up too fast for that, and so I've never known if that's what I wanted. What I do know is that I don't love him, not the way I love you."

He looks like he's about to interrupt, but she shoots him a look and he remains silent. She has to get this out without interruptions before she loses her nerve. "Every time I try to think about doing those things with Ethan, I start thinking about how even though it might be considered less fulfilling to other people, I'd rather be sitting in your living room, watching the Yankee game. Or I think about how whenever you and I go out after work, you don't even have to ask to know what I want to drink or that I want extra relish on my hotdog. There are a lot of things about our relationship that are so fucked up and complicated that it would send normal people running in the opposite direction. But there's something so simple and so easy about being with you, about having you in my life, that it almost makes up for the fact that I'm scared out of my fucking mind right now."

He smiles softly, looking up at her. "I thought you said we'd just end up hurting each other."

"I was stupid, Elliot," she says, leaning in to press her forehead against his. They do not touch, save for this one point of contact, and they both close their eyes and sit there in silence for a moment.

"I don't know if I can promise you all of those things that Ethan-"

"Don't. Elliot. I wouldn't be here if that's what I wanted from you," she says, her thumb drawing circles against the stubble on his cheek. "I would rather spend the rest of my hlife sitting next to you in this living room than have everything Ethan could have given me. We'll deal with that later." She swallows hard, her lips pressing against his again, just like at the station. This time, his lips part slightly and her tongue slips inside as he slowly lowers her onto her back, her head resting against the arm of the couch.

The kiss breaks for only a moment and their eyes meet, the message clear for both of them. This is all I'll ever need.

- - -

The End.