"Everything okay Serg?"

"Fine..." said Olivia in a reply that was far from convincing to anyone, least of all Odafin Tutuola to whom she had been unable to lie for a long time. "Actually, I, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"I've just got to wondering lately if..."

"Liv?" he was worried now, he'd seen that look before, but in that moment couldn't quite place it. Something was wrong, and it went far beyond the case.

"Is anything ever actually over Fin?" she asked, giving him her eyes in a rare but beautiful moment of confiding.

Moving slowly from his seat he moved to her office door and shut it gently, careful not to let it slam and alert the rest of the squad. He had only gone in their briefly to ask her a question as to their changed direction on the case, and he knew Rollins if no one else would know something was wrong if the door audibly shut.

"What's going on?" he asked simply.

"It's nothing I'm just overtired. Noah had a bad night, and it's getting to me that we can't catch a break on this…." gesturing toward the papers and laptop in front of her she attempted to deflect. Fin was a good friend, the best, but she was not ready to share with him the events of the previous night.

"Just because you stopped looking, stopped listening, moved on…." his tone was gruff, hushed, empathetic, "… it's not over. You're just living with it."

"Yeah."

"A case can be over but we still wake up sweating."

"Yeah…"

"Lewis?"

"Maybe…" she lied, hating herself for doing so.

Maybe it wasn't entirely a lie; maybe it was all just cumulative. Maybe this sadness, this darkness, this dragging at her soul wasn't merely one event but the sum total of battle after battle with no sign of wars end.

"Talk to me, Liv?"

"One moment, one voice, one look and you're right back there. You think you're a million miles forward, a whole lifetime has passed and then in a heartbeat…." biting on her lip she smiled, to ease his discomfort rather than her own, "… it's happening all over again and everything is different and everything is exactly the same and nothing has changed and everything has changed and…."

"Not a single person in this squad, on the planet, would judge you for taking some time. Lewis would've been a career ender for most cops and…."

"Fin can I tell you something you won't want to hear?"

"Always."

"I saw a ghost last night."

"Jesus, Olivia, and you're only just telling us! We gotta get you a detail, you should stay home and …."

"No! Oh God, no, no….." horrified at where she'd sent his mind Olivia got up from her seat swiftly, moving around her desk and perching on its other side in front of him, "…. it was Elliot."

"Humph."

"What?"

"Jesus, Olivia, we gotta get you a detail…." he said coldly, flatly, his dark eyes narrowing, "… and you should stay home."

"I know what you're thinking and trust me it is nothing I haven't already thought myself."

"What'd he say?"

"Not a lot."

"What did you say?"

"Even less."

"How you feelin' now?" he said, because, despite everything and all the oceans that had passed under the bridge Elliot Stabler had burned he knew she still cared deeply. "You doin' okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine it's…." folding her arms across her chest, unthinkingly protective, she flashed a quick smile, "… it was just a surprise to see him that's all."

"A surprise?" Liv it's been five years we're a little far past surprise."

"I know, I know and I don't want him here. What's done is done, it's in the past and I get that. We've all moved on and you can't just resurrect friendships you walked out on a half-decade ago."

"No, you can't. He made a choice and he's gotta live with that. Everyone needs to take some time after a head fuck like that of course they do, but you so much as pick up a phone or drop a text in five years…." sitting back in his chair Finn blew air dismissively through his lips, "… that's it we're done. Friendship null and void."

"I agree…." she inhaled, standing up straight and smoothing the lines of her suit jacket, "… yeah, yeah that's what I thought too."

"Just do one thing for me?" he asked, because he knew that so long as Elliot Stabler was alive and breathing it would never be game over as far as Olivia was concerned, no matter how angry she was.

"Sure?"

"Talk to me? Keep talking to me?"

"Not going to be necessary…." she breezed, replacing her dark rimmed glasses onto the bridge of her nose and asserting, "… because I'm not going to be talking to him."

"Oh yeah?"

"But thanks Fin, really, for listening, for being here…." this time her smile was genuine, wide and unhesitating, "… you know the door swings both ways right?"

"Copy that."

"Seriously?"

"I just need you to hear me out."

"And I just need you to leave, now, and stop loitering outside my building."

"Ten minutes, ten minutes to listen to what I have to say and then I'll go…." as he shrugged his shoulders the soft leather of his black jacket creaked and the hairs at the back of her neck lifted.

"Fine."

So they walked, side by side, along a street in Manhattan the way they had a thousand and one times before. This was different they realised; this was not a comfortable silence. The words unspoken that stood between them were almost unbearable they had been locked away so long.

"I guess the first thing I want to say, that I need to say…." they slowed a moment, finding a bench in the park a few blocks from Olivia's apartment. She set her purse on the floor and folded her arms.

"What?" she prompted, when it became too much to have him just stare at her.

"I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"For everything."

"Right."

"Liv…" he murmured, his teeth clenching as he looked over at her. It was agony, remembering her. Five years of forgetting and now standing there he couldn't understand, even for a minute, how he'd ever walked away in the first place.

"What do you want me to say?" she whispered as a tear escaping down one cheek which she swiftly brushed away. Snatched away, because he didn't deserve to see that, she couldn't stand for him to know how impossible she found fighting against letting him back in.

"I needed you to hear it that's all. I needed to apologise to you, unreservedly…." she had never known him like this, so open and honest. It unnerved her. Had he really changed? Grown even? Or was it something else.

"Well, I hear you…." she said carefully, choosing her words with caution, "…and I thank you. For saying it."

"I mean it."

"Okay then."

Reaching down to fetch her purse, oversized and overweight from all the work she hauled to and from the office alongside her laptop Olivia was just about to leave when Elliot blurted what which he could never take back.

"I love you."

"What?"

"I'm in….." the words were barely sounds, but his lips made the shapes, "… love with you."

"You bastard."

"Liv…."

"You insufferable bastard Elliot Stabler."

Rolling her eyes to stem hot tears she refused to cry yet Olivia turned away and headed at pace down the sidewalk. He was not allowed to this, she would not allow it.

"Liv wait, wait just slow down…."

"I hate you!" she cried, flinging her arm around to release his light grip on it as he attempted to slow her retreat.

"Please just don't…."

"I hate you."

"Okay." He said simply, holding up his hands and backing away. That was fair. He deserved it, he deserved worse.

"How dare you?" she shrugged, dropping her bag again with little regard for its expensive contents. Staggering backwards she held her hands either side of her face, running her fingers back through her hair and exclaiming in a shriek of fury. "How dare you!"

"I'll go, I'll go I…." having got so far in, he wasn't sure how to get out, or even if he should. He wanted to stay, he wanted to stay forever, but he knew that was impossible. He hadn't meant for any of this.

"You have no idea how…." waiting for his eyes, waiting, deciding whether or not she trusted him with her words Olivia fell quiet a moment. What did it matter now? What did she have to lose? It was all lost already anyway when she'd woken up yesterday morning. "You have no idea how long I waited for you to say those words. You have no idea how long I wanted you to say those words Elliot."

"I didn't know."

"Didn't you?" whether he was a liar or an idiot it mattered little now. "I'd have done anything. I'd have given anything. You have no idea what I would've given to have you say those three words to me…." lifting her eyes slowly, painfully, stoically up to meet his Olivia swallowed, "… and to look at me the way you are looking at me right now."

"I've always looked at you that way."

"Okay now you should go." She laughed, a little desperately, as her breathing became too shallow to catch.

"If I could change…."

"You can't."

"If we could go back and… "

"We can't."

"I want you leave me alone."

"I will, okay, I will I just…."

"Why now? Why now after all…."

"I was a fool Olivia. I was blind and stupid and carried around with me this messed up sense of duty and obligation. Damn catholic guilt. I thought that was everything and…." shaking his head quickly at first, and then slowing, his blue eyes brimmed with the sudden hopelessness of it all and the words pinched, "… it wasn't everything. You were everything. You are everything. You always will be."

"You hurt me Elliot. You hurt me in a way that I didn't even think it was possible to be hurt. I can't imagine what it's like to lose a limb, but I lost a part of myself when you walked away. I lost equilibrium. I lost myself. I was lost. You can't even imagine how…."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't care."

"Liv…."

"No, no…." raising her hand, shaking a little at first and then uncurling her clenched fist to a firm palm in front of him she steadied, "… no, no you don't do that. You do not get to do that."

"Please?"

"Are you really that naïve?" she shrugged with marvelling disbelief, "That stupid?"

"I was lost too, Liv. I lost my way for the longest time. After the shooting I didn't know how to…." taking a moment, holding his breath, Elliot lifted a fist to his mouth and bit lightly on his knuckles, "… it all got really damn dark for a while."

"A while?" arching an eyebrow Olivia refused to give an inch.

"I didn't know what to do! I didn't know how to fix what was going on around me, inside me, because of me. I did the best I could. I did all I could. I…"

"You bailed on me, you bailed on us. You bailed on everything that we had built in 12 years of friendship without so much as picking up the damn phone!"

"I know that it…"

"You broke my heart."

The words clung to the air, drew it in along with Elliot's breath. Those four words said everything. They held the greatest tragedy, and the most beautiful truth. She had loved him. Whatever happened from here on out his feelings had not been one sided, and even if it was gone forever now, there had been a time when she had felt the same way he always had.

"I broke my own."

"You made that choice."

"I know you're angry and you have every right to…."

"Angry?" she balked, staring at him stupefied. "Angry? No, no Elliot this…." inhaling slowly she chewed lightly on the side of her lip and then smiled, "… this has gone so far past being angry with you."

"But…."

"I hate you."

"Okay."

"What?" and suddenly she was afraid, panicked, her eyes wide at the horror of his quick defeat.

"I'm gonna go now. I shouldn't have come. I've done more damage but that wasn't what I…." he was genuinely sorry, she knew suddenly, and fresh tears came, "…look if you ever…."

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket he pulled out a pen and scribbled on the back of an old ATM slip.

"El…." she choked, taking the slip and crushing it in her palm.

"Yeah?" he dared, one last time, to hope.

Curtain fall.

"Nothing, nothing just go."