She felt like she couldn't breathe. As if her life wasn't fucked up enough... She finds out her Captain is going behind her back and talking to the man who did nothing short of break her heart.

She was pissed.

Beyond it actually. She felt irate.

She knew there were plenty of reasons though, why Cap probably didn't tell her. To save her from more hurt, to keep her from actually losing her mind again, it was the first time he'd talk to him... Blah, blah, blah. She was still fucking pissed that he even answered the damn phone. A nice loud, and hard slam of the receiver to its cradle would have been much more appropriate, and a hell of a lot more pleasing to her.

At this point, she felt as though one of the only people she had left that she felt like she could trust had betrayed her in the ultimate way. Yeah, she knows she's over reacting. But quite frankly, she couldn't care less.

Then suddenly a thought hit her. What if this wasn't the first time he had talked to him? What if the bastard was working up the courage to come back around? No. Hell no. That was not happening. He was not just going to waltz right back in and screw her life up even more. He'd done enough damage to last her a life time. Some irreparable.

As her feet stepped off the elevator and hit the solid surface of her hallway, she gave a small, but auditable sigh. Almost home.

Making it to her door, mail in hand, she turned the key and stepped inside. Tossing the mail aside, probably just bill, and she was in no mood to deal with his persistent ass, she slumped down onto her couch. Feet up on the coffee table, even though she hated when other people did that, Elliot always did that, she flipped the TV on. Yeah, that lasted a real long time. Nothing was on, nothing was ever on. Not even on the rare occasion she had the actual time to turn her TV on. Curiosity got the best of her and rose from the couch, making her way to the counter. Seating herself on a stool, she began flipping through her mail. Bill, bill, bill, Elliot Stabler, bill... Wait, hold the fuck up. Elliot Stabler? Sure enough, addressed to her, sent from him.

The asshole actually had the nerve to send her a letter?

This bitch was going to pay. He had no right. He left, he up and walked out, not her. He cut off all communication and never revived it. Not her. Meaning, she gets to be pissed and his sorry ass can just wallow in his own self-pity. She had no desire to talk to him. Or, for that matter, hear from him.

A year later, was just too late.

Sure, she missed him. She missed him like hell. Every single day. But looking at the bigger picture, that didn't matter. He left, he hurt her, he gets to live with that. Just like Cap told him.

No matter how curious she was as to what he said, how much she wanted to see that familiar, horrible scrawl of his, no matter how much she yearned to hear that familiar dialogue of his, even if on paper, she wasn't reading this letter. She just wasn't.

Obviously he wasn't dead, so why the hell should she care.

Yes. She knows she's bitter. But quite frankly, doesn't she have every right to be? She knows it's' selfish, God only knows what he went through after he shot Jenna, what he could still be going through, but she went through shit too. Heavy, heavy shit. And she was sick and tired of staying quiet, and hurting on her own just for his benefit. Just so she could be there for him. She did that for 12 years, and that was long enough. She wasn't going to go through those steps again, convincing herself she wasn't really hurt, wasn't really pissed, that she'd be Ok, that the scars would heal, emotional or not, just for him. It was his turn to hurt alone. And this time she wasn't giving in, and dropping her own benefit out of all of it, for his sake. She was finally learning how to heal the right way. And she wasn't sacrificing that now.