It was weird, being back in the 1-6. It was like walking back into his childhood bedroom after his father died, seeing all his old trophies and schoolbooks and the mattress that was too small for him now, feeling the presence of his father's ghost upon his shoulders. Feeling himself a ghost, in many ways. To return to a place where he once belonged and did no longer was itself an impossibility; the physical place remained but it would not ever be what it had once had been, for it was no longer his, and he had no claim to it.

The 1-6, the building, the squadroom, technically it was the same, but he hadn't spent so very long in this place. Most of his tenure with Manhattan SVU had been spent in the old precinct, the crumbling death trap the city had finally condemned. When he thought of the house that's what he thought of; the stairs in the bullpen, and Liv walking down them in the morning wearing yesterday's clothes after a night spent in the cribs, the ancient coffee pot and the eclectic array of mugs gathered over decades of loyal service, stained and lost in the move, the grates on the windows and Lake staring out them, looking at the city his father built. When he thought of the house he thought of the jar of Red Vines on Cragen's desk and the bottle of whiskey the Cap kept in his bottom drawer, not for himself but for his team, for the hard days. He thought about the desks, his and Liv's pressed tight together, sandwiches in plastic containers passed back and forth over the monitors.

This place was different, modern, sterile. Sterile, because it was a damn sight cleaner than the old precinct had ever been, even on its best day, and sterile, antiseptic in its lack of character. The mugs all matched and no one was drinking out of them because of covid; the officers he saw looked like they'd given up on the masks already, but the communal coffee pot hadn't made a comeback yet. Some of the desks had a personal memento on them, a little something to identify who they belonged to, but even those knicknacks were small, unremarkable, easily moved. It didn't feel homey, that's what he thought as he made his way across the bullpen. It didn't feel like a place where a man could belong.

The Captain's office was different. He hadn't had much time to take note of it before, when he'd come charging in the night of the explosion, his eyes fixed on Liv and not much else. He hadn't really seen, but as he slipped through the door now he saw. Fin had caught his eye in the bullpen, had been on the phone but knew why Elliot had come and waved him into Liv's empty office, and now Elliot was standing in that place, now Elliot had a chance to take it in, and wonder what it all meant.

Olivia was the Captain now. It was her house, her rules. He'd told her as much; she was in charge, and he'd respect that, even as he wondered how the responsibility had changed her. It must have changed her, because she was quieter, calmer, more distant than he ever remembered her being, and something had done that to her. Probably it was a lot of things, but this, command, had to have been one of them.

He stood in the center of the office for a moment, just looking. At her desk, covered in paperwork but neat still, somehow. A mountain of files, all carefully organized. There were books and pictures and mementos everywhere; she must have been here for a while, Elliot thought. She must have spent a lot of time in this place, to leave the trace of her fingerprints on every inch of it like this. It took time to settle in, and she'd never had more than a single picture on her old desk. A picture of her with her mother, and he wondered if that picture was still here, somewhere.

There was no telling where Liv had gone or when she'd be back, and he was determined to wait for her but he didn't want to just stand there holding two cups of coffee for the next ten, fifteen, thirty minutes, so he put the coffees down on her desk, and took a closer look at the pictures gathered around the corner of it. There was the photo of Liv and Serena; it seemed inevitable that his eyes would gravitate there first, since it was the only thing in this office that felt familiar to him. He'd never met Serena Benson, but her presence had always loomed large in the squadroom, had always seemed to hover over her daughter's shoulders, and he felt, sometimes, as if he'd known her. Serena was the reason Liv had ever come here at all, the reason Liv's name was on the door he'd just walked through. Who would Olivia have been, if she'd had a different mother? Who would he have been, if not for Bernie? They were troubling questions.

The picture beside Serena's drew his attention next, and enraptured him so completely that he found himself compelled to pick it up, to hold it in his hands, and the image contained inside that silver frame was so profound that he collapsed into the nearest chair, his knees unwilling to hold him while he continued to stare in wonder, and in grief.

It was a photo of two children, two children who looked very much alike, who seemed to be of an age with one another. Twins, maybe. Fraternal twins, like Dickie and Lizzie, a boy and a girl. The boy's eyes were blue and his dark hair was curly; the girl's eyes were brown, and her hair was straighter, though it hung thick and wild around her face. They favored one another, around the nose, the mouth, and that girl…Jesus. She looked just like her mother.

Look, Fin had said. Let me bring you up to speed. Liv moved on. It took her a minute, but she moved on. She's got kids now. She's had a couple of relationships. One was pretty solid.

Kids, Elliot had said, trying not to swallow his own tongue. Good for her. Who's the guy?

You have to ask her that.

Only he hadn't asked, because Liv looked at him like just seeing his face hurt her, and Kathy died, and there were so many things for him to do, and now it had been a week and the dust was settling, sort of, but he'd gotten himself in trouble with the brass and his job with the taskforce wasn't up and running yet and he was living in an extended stay hotel suite with a son who couldn't even look at him and now he was here, with two cups of coffee and a mouthful of questions. It was either this, come here and try to talk to her, or continue going slowly insane on his own, and he thought this was better, somehow.

But Jesus, seeing that picture, those kids' faces, made it all real somehow. Olivia, who so badly wanted children but never seemed to find a man worth settling down with, who'd been turned down by the adoption agencies, whose attempts at making a family for herself - with Calvin, with Simon - had ended in heartbreak, had kids. Two of 'em. Biological, Elliot figured, because they looked so much like her, so much like each other. She'd had relationships - and he tried not to think about why the thought of that bothered him so much - and one was pretty solid, and it must have been, Elliot figured, because she'd had kids with the guy. But was, Fin had said, was, and that must have meant the guy wasn't in the picture any more, and Elliot didn't even know the man's name but he wanted to strangle him for having the fucking gall to walk out on Olivia, and their kids. What kind of an idiot, what kind of jackass would do something like that? Give her the family she'd always dreamed of, and then leave? Didn't he know what that would do to her? Elliot knew.

He couldn't seem to take his eyes off that photo. Those kids, they were her children, and he didn't even know their names. She knew his kids, had known them all since they were little, had witnessed Eli's birth and held him in the back of the ambulance when he was only seconds old. His kids knew her, knew they could call her for anything, trusted her, seemed relieved to see her at the hospital, seemed grateful not to have to deal with their father on their own. His kids knew her, and if her kids looked at him they would see a stranger.

That's what he was now, he realized. A stranger, in his own home. No one here knew him except Fin and Olivia, and Fin was a friend to him and Olivia was afraid of him and the other detectives, that ADA with the gel in his hair, they didn't trust him. They didn't look at him and see their brother; they saw a stranger, and they closed ranks to protect their Captain. To protect her from him, when it was his job to look out for her, his job to take care of her, when he should have been the one watching her back. He wasn't a fucking threat to her, and it chafed, knowing that her people saw him as one.

There was no desk for him in the bullpen outside the office, and there was no guarantee that Olivia would be happy when she found him here. She might be angry with him for turning up out of the blue. God, what would he do if she told him to leave? If she looked at him and told him there was no place for him here, in her office or in her shiny new life? What would he do if he finally heard her say that she was better off without him? A part of him already suspected it was true; she'd gone from detective to Captain in ten years, had moved up the ranks quickly and with grace, when before his departure she'd never even considered sitting the Sergeant's exam. She'd found a man and she'd had babies and they were growing up, and they didn't need Uncle Elliot standing beside them, helping them out the way that Liv had helped Kathleen, and Dickie. There were awards and framed articles hanging on the wall, snapshots of her success, and all she'd ever earned while they were partners was write-ups for excessive force. Maybe she was happier without him.

Maybe he shouldn't have come at all. He wanted to talk, wanted to ask her what the last ten years had looked like for her, wanted to ask about her kids and their dad, wanted to know her babies' names and whose ass he needed to kick for hurting her. He wanted to be a friend to her, the way she'd always been to him. He wanted to apologize, again, and he wanted to tell her how much he'd missed her, what a colossal fucking mistake he'd made, walking out on her. He wanted to hear her voice, and see her smile, wanted to feel, just for a moment, like he belonged somewhere. No home, no friends, family in pieces, a new job that didn't feel like it fit yet; he wanted to belong, and he had always felt at home when he stood beside her. But maybe it wasn't fair, to ask her for that now, to ask her to make room for him when she'd already done so much to help him since he'd come home. Maybe it was more than he deserved, her kindness.

He picked up one of the coffees, left the one with two sugars and a splash of milk sitting on her desk, and walked back out of the office. Fin was still on the phone and tried to get his attention, tried to motion for him to come and sit and wait with him, but Elliot just smiled sadly, and shook his head, and continued on his way.

It was stupid, coming here. It was stupid, to think she'd ever forgive him. It was stupid, to think she'd ever welcome him back after the way he'd deserted her. He didn't deserve her, and she'd probably figured that out by now. So he walked away before he could embarrass himself, before she was forced to kick him out, but he left that cup of coffee behind, and it was still hot when Olivia returned to the office. She took one look at that blue bodega coffee cup, and knew at once where it had come from, and she drank it down in sorrow, wondering why the man who'd brought it to her hadn't stayed.