"Jesus, Elliot."
They pull up to the stoplight and his head darts to the left, his eyes meeting Ayanna's glare from the driver's seat.
"Just send it, already."
He flips his phone over on his thigh, hiding the screen from view while his sergeant watches him blush.
"Oh, so now we're keeping secrets?" she teases.
"I—" He bites his lip, wondering if this is what his older kids used to feel like when he'd waltz by the family computer and ask too many questions about their overwrought song lyrics on AIM.
Slow seconds pass. The light turns green.
"What's going on with you two, anyway?"
"Who?" He dons his best poker face.
"A certain Captain you've been trying to text for the last five minutes?"
"We, uh…" He looks toward the window but it's useless; the grin in his reflection gives him away.
It occurs to Elliot that he and Olivia haven't talked about this yet, the ins and outs of their eventual disclosure. He searches for a careful answer but Ayanna spares him.
"I'm assuming…things are…good?"
"Yeah," he nods, turning back to his sergeant, grateful, a hint of emotion in his voice. "Things are good."
And he realizes, for the time in ages, it's true.
He'd left Olivia's apartment the night before in relative quiet, one hand holding hers, the other, a tightly-wrapped plate of red velvet cake. They'd tiptoed through the living room past Noah, already asleep on the couch only ten minutes into his show.
In the alcove, she'd opened the door and paused to look at him, her eyes studying his face, flickering with a thought.
"What is it…" he'd whispered, but he'd known before she had said it.
"Never kissed you goodbye before."
They'd shared a smile, soft but heavy, carrying all the partings they'd ever known. She'd leaned in close and he'd seen her, every version of Olivia, every portrait of their parting.
The junior detective closing his passenger-side door, heading into her building. A minute later, three flashes of light from her apartment window, her silhouette emerging behind the glass.
His partner across from him, sitting at her desk, days and nights of routine departures. Last-minute pours in paper cups, coffee for the road. Simple promises of "See you tomorrow."
A woman he'd run to all the way from Quantico, weary as she'd drifted from comfort to comfort, from his embrace to the job.
He remembers it well, the silence as she'd slipped from his arms and switched gears. He'd watched her leave, her solitary path under the trail of fluorescents, emptiness in her wake.
He remembers all the times they'd said nothing.
When he'd said nothing but "Couldn't take it," nothing but "Thanks for dropping by." Nothing but the opposite of everything he'd meant and felt and should have said.
Something like, "I need you."
Something like, "I want you."
When he'd stood, frozen, in the locker room, eyes closed, tears rising. When he'd felt her fingers working at the knot of his tie, stained with Jenna's blood. When he'd felt it loosen and fall, draped around his neck. When her hands had stayed there, warm against his collarbone, and he'd finally looked at her. When he'd felt her holding his brokenness like someone accustomed to carrying her own.
When he'd known he loved her in a way he couldn't.
When he'd wanted to close the distance and he'd done the opposite.
But in front of him in the alcove had been this Olivia, a most familiar mystery, a home full of hidden doors opening for the first time, one by one.
This Olivia, teaching him her kiss goodbye.
He'd felt the way she'd breathed him in the moment before their lips had touched, the way she'd pressed against him, sure and solid, lingering in the warmth. He'd felt her drift into a smile against his mouth, falling away to the stubble on his cheek, then his jaw, tracing a path to his neck where she'd settled, a contented sigh against his pulse point.
His skin still tingles at the spot. His chest, too, when he remembers her body flush against his.
His hands had fumbled, just slightly, as he'd tried to find a place for the leftover cake, setting it on a small table near the doorway before wrapping his arms around her. He'd tried to relax, letting them glide from her waist to the curve of her hips, but his mind had kept escaping to his birthday on Thursday, Olivia's words repeating on loop.
All night.
God, he reminds himself, things are good.
Better than he deserves, he thinks, but he does his best to lull his usual pangs of guilt into their slumber.
Still, the nerves are there.
He can't even begin to process tomorrow. Today's the concern. Lunch specifically.
Ayanna's been eyeing his tapping fingers, his bouncing knee. She waits, giving him the space to chatter, and he takes it.
"It's Wednesday and, uh…" he starts. "Liv and I, we've been doing a lunch thing lately, you know?"
"Oh, I know," she replies, well aware of their weekly routine. She remembers it's always a Wednesday when Elliot's just a little more starched and a little more fidgety. It's always a Wednesday when she catches him pulling a travel case from his drawer on his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth before he goes to lunch.
"So," he continues, "We had dinner last night, you know, with Noah. And we didn't make plans or anything for today."
"Okay."
"We have plans for Thursday, so…"
"So…"
"So I haven't heard from her since…I mean, we texted each other this morning. But she didn't mention lunch. And I didn't either. So I'll just see her tomorrow." He pauses, unconvinced. "Right?"
"Elliot, please tell me you're not this painfully—"
But there's no time to finish. They both see it coming.
Ayanna swerves and brakes, narrowly avoiding a pickup truck running a red light.
"Asshole!" she yells. Elliot's phone falls.
It's light and sirens after that, a sharp turn and a quick pursuit.
It's not until they pull over, the truck finally stopped ahead of them, that Elliot realizes he hasn't breathed. He gasps and shudders; he's unsettled and he knows it. His hands shake as he reaches down, clamoring for his phone that's drifted underneath his seat. He leans forward and bends his arm to grab it but it's moved too far.
His pulse surges. The blood in his neck drums a relentless beat, digging for its escape. His hand finds the spot Olivia's lips had soothed twelve hours before. There's a buzz in his ear and everything fades except for the numbers on the license plate in front of him. He tries to trace them, memorize them, but his mind keeps interrupting, flashing with pictures of twisted metal, shattered glass, early graves, someone calling Olivia into a quiet room to tell her he's gone, again and forever.
Ayanna opens her door and the sound is enough to center him, if only for a moment.
He goes into autopilot, following his sergeant's lead, but when the driver rolls down his window and she approaches, Elliot has to steady himself against the pickup's tailgate, a sweaty palm against the cool metal.
"License and registration?"
"Holy shit, I'm so sorry, I…"
Elliot paces around the truck, making his way to the front.
His focus first lands on the driver—a kid, probably only a few years older than Eli—then the inside of the windshield, dripping with hot chocolate, it seems, along with spatters of whipped cream and mocha drizzle.
Ayanna handles it.
There's a string of apologies, some back and forth about a spill, and she lets him off with a warning and a few napkins from her glove compartment.
The boy glances at Elliot, clearly embarrassed as he starts tackling the mess on the other side. The napkins aren't quite enough. They saturate quickly and he resorts to using his sleeve.
Elliot breaks into a smile.
For some reason, this is what calms him, this innocuous turn of events.
With a nod toward Ayanna, he finds himself jogging into a nearby bodega and down a narrow aisle where he picks up a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex, a box of Swiss Miss with Lucky Charms. By the time he returns, the windshield is just one big, sugary smudge.
"Thought you could use these," Elliot remarks, handing him the bag.
The boy looks at him quizzically before peeking inside.
"Maybe save the cocoa for home next time, okay?" he adds with a tap to the pickup's door before he turns back to face Ayanna in her car, shaking her head from the driver's seat.
Elliot opens the door and takes his place next to his sergeant.
"Got something for us, too." He tears open a package of cinnamon gum, passing her a stick.
"That kid could've killed us, you know," she replies as they work on the silver wrapping. Ayanna rolls hers into a ball and drops it into his waiting hand.
"I know," Elliot nods, buckling his seatbelt.
She shifts gears and pulls onto the road, and Elliot turns to her, lighter than he's felt all day.
"But he didn't."
The day goes on.
They make their way across the bridge, Brooklyn growing smaller in the rearview mirror.
Elliot doesn't look back, but he can feel the world behind him fading into the distance—the stone arches and steel beams, the morning's close call, a string of half-written messages, a lifetime of waiting for something to crash.
Instead, he trains his eyes on Manhattan, buildings in every direction, sun reflecting on rows of windows.
Glittering, he decides.
The city, the possibilities, the woman he loves.
Things are good.
At the off-ramp, something slides under his seat and taps against his heel.
He picks up the phone and sends two messages.
The second, to his therapist, asking for an appointment.
The first, to Olivia, asking her to lunch.
• • •
She's in the middle of briefing her squad on a reopened cold case when there's a ping in her blazer pocket.
"So, first step is to reinterview witnesses from—"
Then another.
"From the 2006 investigation…"
She reaches for the phone (probably fucking McGrath, she thinks) and slips on her readers.
"Muncy, you and Velasco can start with—"
But she glances down and purses her lips, barely hiding her smirk when she sees the texts—
Hey my love…
Lunch today?
Olivia fights the immediate urge to laugh, not quite prepared to see my love in a text from Stabler (she reminds herself to change that to El at some point), but a second later she feels her stomach flip and her whole body hums, warm at the thought of it. She realizes they both have changed. He's a man who says,"my love," and she's a woman who likes it.
"Captain?"
"Hm?"
She looks up at Muncy and the rest of her team staring at her. She tries three times, cheeks flushing, to slide the phone back into her pocket but never quite finds it.
"You want me and Velasco to start with…"
"Yes, uh, that's right, start with the Gardners, the victim's old neighbors…" Olivia begins, attempting to recover as she sifts through the file in front of her. "Sorry…guess I'm a little sleep-deprived." She pulls their statements and a few handwritten notes. "Still need to catch up after the Met case."
"That big birdie of yours keeping you up with all his squawking?" Fin interjects.
Muncy tilts her head and asks, earnestly—
"You have a bird, Captain?"
Fin nearly spits out his coffee.
"Muncy, I—"
Rollins jumps in for the save.
"So they'll start with the Gardners and Fin and I should…"
"Pay a visit to the law firm where the original suspect worked. The founding partners are still there." She slides a document across the desk. "I've got a meeting with McGrath in a few since the media's already all over this."
She catches Amanda's eye as the group disperses and mouths a quick, "Thank you," before heading back to her office to wait for the Chief.
Amanda follows, her head peeking around the corner. She's just in time to catch Olivia replying to the text and wearing a smile she's sure she hasn't seen in years, perhaps ever.
Olivia presses send and motions for Amanda to come inside.
"So…" her detective inquires, closing the door and taking a seat, an unspoken shift from coworker to friend.
"So…" she mirrors rather sheepishly as she sets her phone down and starts fiddling with a rubber band on her desk.
"Someone's looking pretty happy these days…"
Olivia pauses and her fingers still.
It hits her.
"Someone is."