Chapter 12

Elliot was sitting at his desk at the precinct trying to concentrate on his DD-5s. He hated doing the paperwork, and always avoided it until the last minute, but the forms on his desk had reached proportions that were unacceptable even to him.

And he had really needed a good excuse to get out of his house and back to his real reality.

He had tried to go home. He had even left early, though that was admittedly due more to the fact that he was having major problems looking Olivia in the face than any desire to please his wife. Man he was a bastard. A cowardly one at that, he thought sardonically. He had run away from Liv, but since on coming home he had found that looking Kathy in the face was even more problematic than Olivia, he had run right back to the station, tail firmly between his legs.

What was he supposed to do, really? I mean, he thought, has there ever actually been a man in a situation like this before? Pretty wife whom he felt loyal too, beautiful partner whom he wanted thrash half the time and was content to stare at for the rest of it (something he'd only admitted to himself in the last half hour) and offspring who was encouraging him to break with religion and moral duty and divorce his wife for his tumultuous partner. There wasn't a man on earth who wouldn't have retreated at this point.

Elliot looked down, determined to get through his paperwork so that when the real workday started in the morning he would actually be able to use his desk. There were pictures scattered among the papers, old coffee rings covering parts of the plexi glass, and DD5's in absolutely no chronological or alphabetical order. And the fact that the DD5's were a bigger job than he originally supposed made it even more difficult to pull his mind from his contorted private affairs to the task of organizing them and filling them out.

Just as he was tempted to sneak across into Olivia's desk and rifle through her neatly filed papers to find the information he needed, he heard strident, rhythmic footsteps eating up the empty space between the elevator and the bullpen. Even with the level of distraction and annoyance and overall confusion he was dealing with at the moment he could still recognize those footfalls in a jiffy.

Olivia. Great.

The truly sick thing was that even though she was currently a large (albeit somewhat unwilling, thanks to Maureen) contributor to his current quandary, he was still relieved to hear her footsteps. It was a confirmation, like the one she had gifted him with earlier. He still knew her. He still knew her footfalls, her pattern and habit of movement. Some things simply couldn't be erased by stress or distance or neglect; they were always there out of sheer need.

He heard her hesitate slightly as she came through the doors and up behind him. He didn't blame her-she had thought he was safely home for the night, even if he hadn't actually informed her of his whereabouts. He turned in his chair, swiveling it around away from his desk so that he could face her.

"Hey" he greeted simply.

"Thought you were home for the night," she said, the statement both one of surprise and mild rapprochement.

He smirked slightly, forcing himself to look up at her, forcing himself to keep the cocky expression on his face even though he was terrified at what he would see if he met her eyes. But to his relief, all he saw was Olivia. As she was every day. "I was. But the paperwork that I've been avoiding for the past two months dialed my cell all by itself, so I figured that that was alarming enough to come back here and clear it off."

"Ah" she replied simply.

Elliot looked at her again. He had honestly been scared that when he saw her something from Mo's lecture (Getting lectured by his own children. Ridiculous.) would jump back into his brain and hit him like a lightening bolt. He had been worried that all the sudden she would look completely different, like some sort of siren and not the woman who had been his absolute partner for the better part of nine years. But instead, she looked much as she always did, albeit a bit flushed (she must either be mad or have walked briskly from her apartment). Not to say that she wasn't good looking. Beautiful. Attractive. Shit, he thought. Olivia was attractive. He had always known that, hadn't he?

Yeah, he had. He watched her sit down at her desk, trying to push the memories that that particular adjective was dredging up. Her touching his arm thousands of times, standing close to him while they compared notes day after day, squirming in his arms after he had pulled her off of that bomb suspect, settling in his arms after he had pulled her into a fierce hug. Yes, he thought, remembering how his skin had tingled every time she was close, he had always been aware of the fact that she was attractive. Too attractive.

His thoughts were interrupted by Olivia asking him if he had eaten already. He had, but he didn't tell her that. He wanted to sit across the desk from her eating bad Chinese. He always did, even when they were so mad at each other that talking or even looking at each other civilly was impossible. So all he did was raise his eyebrows at her at say "Wong Foos?"

She nodded and reached for the phone. He listened to her order and felt a vague sense of satisfaction creep over him. Things were still normal, no matter what Mo had thought she saw. They could still eat together, talk with their eyes, interact. They still knew each others movements and thoughts. She still knew exactly what he would want to order from Wong Foos. Normal was good. Normal was great.

Normal was the relationship he'd had with this woman for nine years.

Relationship

Damn

And sitting at his desk, Elliot realized that the normal relationship he'd had with Olivia for almost a decade was exactly what he'd always thought his marriage would be like-attraction, absolute trust, and a sense of settling, belonging that was secure, unwavering. Maureen was right.

Damn