I've been twirling the idea of maybe adding one more chapter to this... it was going to be a one shot, but I might possibly change what happened after the drinking... El finally saying what he's been saying to basically everyone but the person he should be saying it too. Let me know if any of you are interested in this. Thanks for reading and enjoy!

The One You Love

He heard the muffled clinking of glass through the closed door of his bathroom as he finished washing his hands.

Tia was sitting in his kitchen and must be pouring herself another drink… and surely refilling his too.

It had been quite awhile since the last time he imbibed like this. Not under cover… not being swallowed by grief, just drinking with… a friend after settling a case.

Elliot took a deep breath and looked at himself in the mirror. Yea, he was drunk. Not so drunk he was stumbling or incoherent but enough. He could feel the light buzzing under his skin, the tingle in his lips and fingertips. The slow way he blinked his slightly watery eyes.

Grappa had always seemed to work faster in is his system then other alcohol. Maybe it was the combination of Grappa and the Italian woman it always seemed to come with.

Her face flashed in his mind, and then… hers did. That had been happening a lot lately.

He huffed at the lie he just told himself and placed his hands on his sink. Her face had been in his mind for twenty-three years.

This wasn't good.

He shouldn't have let Tia in.

He could tell the second he saw her face she was here to test his resolve.

Test him.

She sure did test him in Italy. She was pretty. Formidable… intelligent… a great cop. There had been moments in Italy where he thought… he might slip, especially with alcohol involved, but it never happened.

It never happened because… because he was married. It would have been easy, comfortable even, but…

He had been married… and she wasn't…

He sighed and looked back up at himself in the mirror. His eyes were shining now thinking about why he didn't do more than entertain the idea of sleeping with Tia. This was all new for him, and yet… it wasn't.

Not even a little bit.

Truly, the only reason he didn't sleep with Tia was… because she wasn't Olivia.

She wasn't Olivia.

If he was going to ruin his marriage, break that vow… it wasn't going to be for a fling… it wasn't going to be because he had a moment of weakness… no, he struggled for twelve years to not be that man… not be weak, not surrender to actions he really… really wanted to surrender to. He put an ocean and a decade of time between them to not be that guy.

But his mind… his mind had already been hers. It was hers the day she walked into his precinct.

And her face… since the day he met her, her face was there. It had floated in his mind on his way home after their first day. And it had been in his mind every single day since. And it only took his heart a few weeks to realize… it was hers too. Only… it took him too many years to realize it.

Olivia.

He sighed as her face flooded his mind. Now that he was back, he saw her everywhere… he saw her when he drove down a street they once sat in the squad on together for hours doing surveillance… he saw her when he passed the bodega that had the chips he liked and she sometimes would grab him a bag… he saw her when he was laying on the couch trying to sleep and her face would take him into a sweet dreamland where she was his and he was hers and all the things he'd ever wanted to say, all the things he wished he could say, he did.

All the things he wanted to do… with her… to her… to touch her the way he had always wanted to, kiss her lips, feel her beneath him… his hands on her body… her hands…

He took a deep breath in, willing his body to fight the alcohol in his system, knowing it would be in vain, but hoping maybe he could shake it. Because he can't keep thinking of her like this… of Olivia… kissing him and loving him, and how they are back in the same city and she's out there somewhere and…

"Elliot?" Tia called, her voice seeming less muffled as she made her way to the bathroom door.

"You going to hide from me in there all night?" She said in her Italian accent.

El cracked a little smile as he turned to the door. He was hiding from her. Not because he was afraid of what he might do. He was single now, an empty nester… a lonely bird according to her, and if he wanted too, he could sleep with her.

She certainly wanted to sleep with him. All the signs were there. She showed up late, wanting to come in for a drink and now half the bottle was gone. She had brushed his hand twice; her eyes had roamed his body. He didn't have to be a detective to know she wanted him.

But he didn't want her.

Maybe… maybe he had in Italy because she… she reminded him of someone else. A hint of… her. The way she walked, the dark hair, the commitment to the job, but it was only a hint. Like ordering a fine wine and getting regular table wine. Not what you want, but you could drink it because it's there.

Table wine is ok, it can do the trick temporarily, but it's simple, short and sometimes austere. Unlike a fine wine, which is balanced, well-constructed in its flavor profile, complex, long and lingering when you taste it. And once you've had fine wine, table wine just won't do. Not that Tia was exactly table wine, but she wasn't a fine wine, not his anyway.

Olivia… Olivia was a fine wine… the rarest kind… the once in a lifetime kind.

And after his weird and inappropriate thing with Angela and then Flutura, he realized he wasn't a… table wine kind of guy. He wasn't the kind of guy to sew his wild oats.

He was a gentleman.

And there was only one woman who filled his thoughts, one woman who he called when Eli went missing and was in trouble, one woman he wanted with his family on Christmas.

Only one woman he wished was here drinking with him… looking at him, brushing his hand… the one woman he wanted to have in his bed, in his arms, for the rest of his life…

And it was Olivia.

Olivia was the one he loved. The one he was in love with.

He was hiding not because he couldn't control himself, but because he didn't want to hurt Tia's feelings. He knew how she felt about him back in Italy, but she had helped him so much. She had gotten his head on straight and reminded him who he was.

After he quit and just… walked away… he stumbled through life. He left the job and left Olivia and just… wandered. He tried to be retired, he tried to be the husband Kathy deserved, he tried to just be what everyone wanted him to be because he came up short for them. He felt like he just kept coming up short for… everyone.

But the only thing he wanted then… was to be her partner again. He ached for her. It was killing him to be away from her, to cut her out of his life like that… but he had to try. For his marriage, for his kids… there was no other way.

He felt… burned out… felt like… if he couldn't be her partner… if he couldn't have her by his side every day, then maybe he couldn't be a cop anymore.

And if he had heard her voice… or seen her face… he never could have left. And Tia… Tia helped him stan on his own.

He knew leaving Olivia would cut her deep… but then seeing her for the first time in a decade he knew the damage he had done was so much worse than he ever imagined.

He could see the devastation and pain in her eyes on the street that night. Like she never thought in a million years she would ever be standing face to face with him ever again. Her whole life people had left her. Which was why she kept most at arm's length. But she had shed her wall for him and trusted him, and he had done no better than everyone else in her life.

He had been worse even. He knew her better than anyone, and still he left her. No word… no reason why… just… nothing. And she deserved everything. He'd never forgive himself for that.

He was now being honest with himself, and maybe it was the alcohol, but he knew then he had wanted to choose her. He had wanted to be more than partners, but… it wasn't the right thing to do. He was married. He was her partner… their history complex in a way not a single other person on earth could understand… so instead of dealing with his feelings… he left.

And the only way he knew how to keep himself from going to see her, from breaking his promise to Kathy was a change in scenery, because New York… New York was theirs. New York was her, and him and everything in it reminded him of her. He saw her face everywhere, and it broke his heart every day over and over again. Knowing she was still so close to him. Knowing he could just… go see her… call her. So… a change was needed. Not what he wanted, but what needed to be done in order to do the right thing.

So… Italy it was.

And for awhile… for awhile he was happy. For awhile he and Kathy were happy. Then Tia came along, and Kathy loved her. Maybe Kathy loved her so much because she wasn't Olivia. Because maybe, if he could get along with another woman on the job, it meant… it meant what he had with Olivia wasn't what Kathy thought it was. Which lead to that letter. But he couldn't write her that letter because what he and Olivia had was real.

He couldn't write the words Kathy wanted him to because they would be lies. The lies Kathy lived in because otherwise… otherwise it wouldn't have worked. It all would have crumbled and then everything he did to be the man Kathy wanted would have been for nothing. All the time he missed with Olivia… ten years… all the coffee and cases, stake outs, inside jokes and fights, all the late nights and no sleep and take out and close calls… silent conversations and lingering looks… every birthday and holiday… watching her becoming a mother… missing all of that… would have been for nothing.

So, he wrote the letter. Her words except that last line.

And now here he was. Back in New York, single, working organized crime, a beautiful Italian woman on the other side of this door… waiting for him, all he wanted was Olivia.

All he had ever wanted was Olivia.

Gently he thought… he'd let her down gently.

He opened the door and Tia was standing there, holding her now full glass, that look in her eye. There was a pause between them as they both were calculating what was going to happen next. El broke their eye contact first and swallowed. He heard her make a little low sound in her throat and was bringing the glass to her lips as he looked back up at her.

"I refilled your glass too…" she said after she brough her drink back down from her lips. "Come on Elliot… you've never been a light weight before…" she said turning to walk back into his kitchen.

He followed her out of the hallway and into the kitchen. She grabbed his glass off the island and made her way to his couch, turning to smirk at him as she sat and waited for him to join her. He knitted his eyebrows and followed.

They sat and talked about easy things. How his mom was doing, his children. Her family back in Italy and then he found them talking about their cases. The time they spent together, and she had moved closer to him, they had all but finished off the bottle of Grappa and her voice saying his name in her low tone hit him in the stomach.

"Elliot… I thought you were a better detective than this?" she said.

He looked at her and laughed a little. "What do you mean?" he feigned ignorance. He knew what she meant.

"How many times do I have to touch your arm for you to understand what I'm doing?" she said, eyeing him coyly.

Tia laid her hand on his forearm. It felt good. He could feel the warmth of her skin and was reminded what it felt like to have a woman touch him. A woman who wanted him. Someone he knew, someone he liked, someone real…

But it wasn't the someone he needed… or wanted… it wasn't the one he loves.

And even in his drunken state, he knew enough to stop it.

"Tia…" he said, clearing his throat. He really didn't mean to let her think maybe she'd be getting somewhere with him for this long, it had just been so comfortable with her, but he needed to tell her.

He lifted his head and made eye contact with her.

"Elliot…" she responded, maybe even mocking a little, waiting for him to say whatever it was that was keeping him from her advances all night.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the Grappa was now swirling all over his body, and he wasn't sure what exactly he wanted to say. How to let her down.

He closed his mouth and smiled and they both chuckled. Tia sighed and took another sip of her drink.

"Don't tell me there's someone else…" she said almost in jest, but then her eyes darted over to his face to gauge his reaction.

Elliot smiled as Olivia came back into his mind… her brilliant smile… her compassionate eyes….

God… he was in love with her… he was so in love with her.

"I'm in love with her…" he almost blurted out. And he took a deep breath, and he could almost feel the warmth of her surrounding him as he let the echo of his words ring in his ears.

Tia sat there watching him. Watching him go somewhere… she'd never seen him like this. He had never looked at her like he was looking at… the face of the woman he was in love with in his mind. And she was pretty sure he'd never really looked at his wife like that either.

"Oh boy Elliot…" she said and sat back into his couch. She rolled her glass in her hands knowing… knowing Elliot wouldn't be hers. But it was ok. If someone ever looked at her the way Elliot looked right in this moment thinking about this woman, she wouldn't want someone to stand in the way of that.

So, she held out her glass to him.

"To the one you love…" she said and softly smiled at him. Elliot felt the weight of trying to let her down easy subside and he lifted his glass in the air towards hers.

"To the one you love…" he said and clinked her glass.