A/N: HEY. Thank you so much for the kudos and comments! It's been fun writing again and a little surprising that I've reached chapter 5 on something that was just supposed to be a silly little one shot. I spent a lot of time planning this, and zero time proofreading it, so, heh, it is what it is :)

(Liv's POV)

…

Strange.

The last six or so weeks have been, in lack of a better word, strange.

At this point, in my mind at least, it's like there's a pre and post Quantico.

Pre? Life was pretty comfortable. We were good, the kids were thriving, and it seemed like we had found some sort of balance that worked for all of us.

And then there's post. Which is a little hard to explain or describe because it's a feeling more than anything else. Just a hunch, that something is off. And yes, I've tried again and again to tell myself that I'm being paranoid. That I'm reading too much into it, and that once again, I'm the problem. I've tried, so hard, to not go full detective on my own marriage. And again and again, I have failed.

My first theory was honestly a little lame, but plausible enough for me to consider it for two-three days; Just a hefty round of PMS. Making my wife all agitated and chronically annoyed with everyone and everything. Making her snap at me because I forgot to buy her favorite yogurt, or giving me the infamous "fine" when I asked about her day. But, eventually she got her period and her behavior didn't change, so, obviously the PMS theory didn't quite check out.

My second theory was terrifying; She's gambling again.

Now, between her job and our family, I honestly don't know how she would find the time. But she has been running more lately, and that could easily be some kind of coverup, right? Besides, there's been so many changes in her life; Getting shot, leaving SVU, getting married? Maybe it's been too much. Maybe she's been feeling overwhelmed, not sure how to tell me, stumbling towards a relapse that we should've seen coming, but didn't.

Which leads me to my third, and final theory.

And it's sickening. Maddening. It's absolutely devastating.

She's cheating on me.

She wouldn't, I tell myself. She's not a cheater. She wouldn't do that to me, or the kids. I know she loves me. She loves our family. She wouldn't risk everything we have now, for just… sex? A fling?

Unless, of course, it's love.

No.

She wouldn't.

Right?

And it's not like things have been particularly bad per se. It's not like we're not sleeping together anymore, or don't make time for each other. We're not fighting, or being mean just for the sake of being mean.

It's just… something. It's her eyes, and the tone of her voice, and most of all the silence.

It's like she's here, but I miss her.

…

Turns out, tonight I'm the cheater. Not in the actual sense of the word, don't get me wrong. But when Amanda announced earlier this week that we had been invited out on a girls night with Kat, Celine, Phoebe and Ayanna, I suddenly found myself improvising, half lying about needing the weekend to prepare for a department meeting with the higher ups.

"But you have all weekend to do that-" She protested. "With the kids being out of the house and all."

She did have a good point, I'll give her that. It's not like we find ourselves kid free all that often. But I didn't lie because I didn't want to join her.

Honestly, it sounded like something we both could've benefited from right about now; Just a casual night out, no kids, no paperwork or meetings or other people needing anything from us for just a few blissful hours.

Yeah, I wanted to.

But I figured, if Amanda isn't talking to me, maybe she'll feel more comfortable opening up to someone else. And maybe that will get the ball rolling. Maybe I should try trust for a change. Because honestly, I know I probably have no actual reason to worry.

Amanda is a grown up. A fully capable adult who has been in multiple situations much more dangerous than drinks with friends.

But it's the sum of it all.

So I worry. I clean the kitchen. I pace. I work. I change the bed. I do laundry. I fidget. And when 2 am comes around and my wife still hasn't returned, I finally give up and allow my brain to paint some very hurtful and very vivid images;

Amanda blackout drunk somewhere, alone and vulnerable.

Amanda sitting in an underground casino.

Amanda in bed with someone else.

And listen, I promised myself that I wouldn't bother her with texts. To not be that wife. But the idea of her fucking someone who isn't me makes me lose that battle, and I'm just about to reach for my phone when I hear it.

The familiar sound of keys rattling, and then the sound of keys dropping to the floor, which makes me move to unlock the door, only to find my wife on the other side, looking… well, wasted.

"Knock, knock." She says, bending down to pick up the discarded keys before leaning heavily against the doorframe, giving me a drunken grin in the process.

And I can't help it. I grin too. Mostly because I'm just grateful for having her home, and safe. But also because she just looks so ridiculously cute and disheveled.

"Wow-" Chuckling, I hold the door open. "You have a good time?" I ask, leading her inside of our home, pausing to watch as she starts a poor attempt at removing her leather jacket.

"I danced-" She says, frowning when the sleeve gets caught on her bracelet, leaving the jacket dangling from her arm like some kind of roadkill. "A lot."

"You did, huh?" I say, moving closer to assist her, removing the jacket first before I kneel to help with her boots.

Hands planted firmly on my shoulders, she lowers her voice. "I can dance for you right now."

I laugh again, because how can I not. "You know what, as much as I would love that-" Boots now removed, I glance up, finding a pair of drunken but loving eyes glancing back. "I think we should get you into bed." I say that in the same moment as I lift myself up to face her and the smell of booze and (goddamnit, Amanda) cigarettes reach my nostrils. "Or maybe the shower."

I've been guiding her down the hallway for no more than twenty seconds when she, with some kind of mischievous look on her face, smiles in my direction. "Are you gonna take advantage of me, Captain Benson?"

"Wasn't planning on it." I say, catching the hint of annoyance in my own voice, trying to remind myself that Amanda isn't doing anything wrong. She's just drunk, and seemingly happy, and I have no good reason to be upset. And yet, I suddenly realize that I am.

Oblivious to the change in my mood, my wife lets me lead her into the bathroom, spinning around to lift herself up on the counter, reaching for and grabbing my hands to make me step in between her parted legs. "You can-" She says, urging me closer, her eyes darkening. "If you want to."

Sighing, I lean my forehead against hers, stuck somewhere between how my body reacts when I'm close to her like this, and the need to remove myself from this situation entirely.

Maybe I was right, I think, maybe I am the problem, and whatever has been going on lately has been all in my head. Maybe we both just need a good night's sleep.

"Thank you so much-" I say, the sarcasm in my voice palpable, kissing her nose before reaching for her toothbrush. "But let's save that for tomorrow when you have more than three functioning brain cells." Here, I gently tap her temple, hating how condescending I sound.

"You're cute." She says, eventually accepting the brush, holding it out as she waits for me to add the paste. "So cute and gorgeous and I love you."

As if she wants to emphasize her drunken declaration of love, she wraps her legs around mine, pulling me towards her, making the toothpaste miss and hit the floor between us.

Mumbling a quiet "damnit", I grab a tissue, bending down to clean up the white splatter.

"I love you too-" I say when we're once again facing each other, forcing a smile. "I'd love you even more if you could just work with me here."

Now, if I wasn't so wrapped up in my own shit, tired after worrying about her all night, I would've noticed this; Her playful smirk faltering, her eyes losing their sparkle, her face lifeless. But I don't notice, and instead I busy myself with getting the shower ready, my back turned to her when she speaks again.

"I miss working with you."

"Very funny." I mumble, checking the water a second time.

"Liv-" She says, and with my back still turned, I close my eyes, suddenly overcome by this sharp, very specific sorrow I might've been repressing since the moment Amanda walked out of my office. "I wasn't joking."

Look. I've really tried to fix this, in therapy; My tendency to jump to conclusions, to think that people will just say things to hurt me, or play with my feelings, or coax some kind of response from me. I know my mother did it, but I also know, after many painful years in Dr. Lindstrom's office, that everyone else is not my mother. Yes, I've been hurt, but that doesn't mean most people want to hurt me. Especially not Amanda.

And it's past 2 am, my wife is drunk, and I'm too tired for this. Sorry, Dr. Lindstrom. I'm sorry for throwing years of progress out the window.

"You can't-" I shake my head, turning around but still avoiding her eyes. "You can't just say stuff like that."

"I can't be honest with you?" She asks, and I can hear how frustrated and offended she is, rightfully so.

"You don't even know what you're saying right now." I say, moving past her, trying a laugh, trying to make light of all of this, so we can forget about it and go to bed.

"Hey, I might have like eighteen drinks in me-"

"Stop!" I interrupt, harshly, and finally our eyes meet. Hers, angry. Mine, filled with tears.

Fuck, I know I'm being awful.

"You don't want me back, is that it?"

"No!" I scoff. "What I don't want is for you to say something that you don't really mean, and wake up tomorrow barely remembering this conversation even happened. What I don't want is for you to run away from something because you're scared and still think that you don't deserve good things."

If I wasn't so upset, I might laugh at this whole situation and the mess we've made in just a few minutes; She's off the counter now, attempting to brush her teeth while I do the same, as we look at each other through the mirror. All the while, she's trying to get undressed, and I'm just eternally grateful for the fact that our kids aren't home.

"Please-" She says, scoffing too. "Can you stop with the shrink stuff? This is not five years ago. I've worked really hard to not think like that. So it would be really fucking nice if you could treat me like your wife and not some kind of charity project."

I feel nothing but defeat then, seeing no other way out of this except giving up. And pray that there's some way for us to fix this in the morning.

"Let's just go to bed." I mumble. "It's late."

"Fine." She mumbles back, just as I turn around to leave.

When she eventually joins me in the bedroom, the smell of booze and cigarettes have been replaced by the smell of her shampoo. It makes me want to reach for her, and hold her, and tell her that I'm sorry. Tell her that I'm worried about her and us and what's going on. Instead, I lay still, crying silently, waiting for sleep to take me away. Hoping that things will make sense when we wake up.

And, thank god, it does.

Because even after a night like last night, we apparently seek each other out in our sleep. And when I do wake, I'm spooning her. Her warm body against mine. Clinging to each other as if we're both terrified of losing something that neither of us can ever imagine losing.

We don't talk, at first. Instead, the much needed apologies come out as a kiss on her shoulder, a quiet sigh, followed by Amanda kissing my hand. I apologize by squeezing her hip, and she tells me she's sorry by turning to face me, pressing her lips to mine. Slow and soft at first, and then fiercely.

And the thing is, it's nice. To wake up like this, to be close to her like this, no matter what happened last night. It's nice being touched by her, feeling her hands and lips on me. So nice, that for a long time I nearly forget about last night all together. But, of course, underneath all this niceness, our fight still lingers. Causing me to search my brain for the right words, the right thing to say. Except, I keep getting distracted again and again, every time she breathes or shifts next to me, finding a new sensitive spot to touch.

Only when her hand starts to move down my stomach am I awake and alert enough to remind myself that as much as I want this, and her, I need to know, for sure, that we're good.

Turns out, I'm not alone in that.

"I meant what I said-" She says, her words coming out muffled against my neck, her hand momentarily pausing its journey. "I want to come back."

"Amanda-" I start, worried that maybe she's just saying this because she thinks it's what I want to hear.

"No, I'm serious." She says, lifting herself up to look at me. And I hold my breath, both because this feels strangely monumental, and because she just moved her hand again, fingers now toying with the waistband of my sleep shorts. "I mean it."

Eventually, with tears in my eyes, I find my voice. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I couldn't-" She starts, shaking her head. "I just wanted this to work. I wanted my decision to be the right one."

And then, finally, after six strange weeks, she tells me. She tells me how leaving SVU, as right as it felt in the moment, is the hardest thing she has ever done. That not a day has gone by without her wondering if it was the right thing to do. She tells me that no matter how much she loves her students, it just isn't where she's supposed to be. And how her guest lecture at Quantico served as a harsh eye opener when she briefly found herself surrounded by actual crime stoppers. A reminder of what she used to love, and what she lost that day when that bullet pierced her body.

"I wanted to tell you-" She says, "but I just… I didn't know what I was feeling."

"Is this why you've been acting a little-"

"Off?" She says, finishing my hesitant question, smiling sadly when I nod in response.

Picking at some invisible lint on her shoulder, I let my fingertips ghost her skin, eyes moving down between us. "I had some theories, you know."

"Yeah?"

"Gambling." I mumble, ashamed that I could even let my mind go there. "Cheating." Here, I look at her again, terrified of what I might find in her expression. But there's only love there, and maybe a hint of hurt.

"God, I'm so sorry, Liv." She says, closing her eyes, moving closer to wrap herself around me. "I didn't mean to scare you like that. I've just been in my head so much I didn't realize how it was affecting you."

"I'm just glad I was wrong." I sigh, relaxing into the hug, smiling when her lips find mine again and I feel how we both melt into the kiss, how it feels when her hands start to roam, and I arch into her touch.

"Are you sure?" I ask, nearly whisper. Needing to hear it again. Needing to know that this isn't just some wonderful dream. "You really want to come back?"

"Except marrying you-" She grins. "I've never been more sure about anything."

I could say so many things in this moment. Like how much I've missed her. How hard it's been, stepping into the squad room every morning and finding her desk either empty or occupied by someone I don't know and certainly don't trust. I could tell her how I'm admittingly a little mad at her, for not telling me before. Or that I can't wait to work with her again. I could go into the specifics of it all, like how we'll probably have a field day with McGrath because of this.

But I don't say anything at all. I smile, cry a little, and before I can speak a single word, she's inside me.

She breathes out a quiet "I love you", against my cheek, close to my ear, and I throw my head back and spread my legs in response, using my body to communicate exactly how I feel.

And holy shit, I feel good. She feels good. We feel so, so good.

We haven't had many fights since that night in the motel. I guess that's a bonus when you end up with someone you've known for years. Someone you're done fighting, but so far from done loving. But when it does happen, there's something so sacred about moments like this; When we find each other again, when a whisper or a gentle touch reminds us both that we're ok. We're good. We're better.

This wasn't just a fight, though. This was weeks of me worrying. Weeks (and maybe longer) of her feeling like she couldn't tell me what was going on inside her head.

So when she moves her hand, adding some delicious pressure, I inhale for what feels like the first time in nearly two months. As if the thought of something bothering her, and not being allowed in to find out what, has kept me from taking even a single proper breath.

"You feel amazing-" She mumbles.

"You're amazing." I mumble back, moaning when I feel her fingers curl, moaning even higher when she starts moving her palm in a slow, steady circle.

Now don't get me wrong, I do love our crowded home. I love Sunday mornings when we can sleep in, only waking up when Billie comes rushing through the door, or when Jesse and Noah surprises us in bed with their very special, extremely sugary weekend cereal. I love it.

But this… Naked and all tangled up in sheets and her? Free to make whatever sound she manages to draw from my mouth, without having to worry about anyone hearing us, or worse, interrupting? God, I love this too.

As if she can read my mind, she smiles against my parted lips. "Let me hear you-" She says, making me whimper when she slides out only to push into me with more force. And I beg for more and harder, my hands fumbling for something to grab and hold onto as she drives me closer and closer, higher and higher.

"Wait-" She breathes, moving, quick to undress and position herself, doing the same with me before she's suddenly seated between my bent knees. "I wanna see you."

It took me a while to get used to this; The fact that she not only wants to watch me, to have a full view of what she's doing to me and how her touch affects my body, but that she gets off on it too. It took me a while to get used to it because for so many years, without even knowing it, I would hide as much as possible, even from the people I trusted enough to invite into my bed.

But not with her. I can't hide from her.

Maybe because there's so much safety in her gaze. In the way her blue eyes soften as she shifts her focus from my face to my heaving chest to my trembling stomach, and down to where her hand has once again found the perfect rhythm.

"There-" I gasp, reaching for her wrist, stretching out my legs on either side of hers. "Right there."

"You gonna come for me?" She asks, her voice all sugary and sweet like the kids' cereal.

No offense, kids, but this is so much better.

"Yes-" I nod, eyes squeezed shut, teeth clamping down on my lip as my body starts that final race in search for the release that feels so dangerously imminent.

There's a lot of "yes" after that. A lot of writhing, moaning, and my hands gripping the rattling headboard above me.

I'm just on the brink of it when I catch a glimpse of her; Hooded eyes laser focused on me, that one hand doing some kind of magic between my legs, and the other one, moving in sync between her own. Her mouth is open, and I wish that I could move to kiss those perfect lips, but in this moment I have no control over my limbs and no choice but to give myself over.

So I do exactly that. I give.

Holding my breath at first, I let go by arching off the mattress as I cry out, my hips grinding shamelessly against her hand. Mid orgasm, with everything spinning around us, I hear myself begging her to fuck me, begging again when there's a split second where the climax seems to subside, only to rise and build again a moment later. I come a second time, and for this one, she joins me.

Normally, I'd be more than sated by now. Sated and satisfied and probably ready to go back to sleep. But instead, I feel myself riding this very particular high that makes me reach for her, wordlessly encouraging her to straddle me.

"Is this really happening?" I ask, soundling all out of breath as I bask in the aftermath of that much needed release, sighing as my hands roam her naked thighs, soft like velvet.

"If you'll have me." She says, leaning down to kiss me.

"Get up here." I say then, planting my hands on her ass, urging her forward.

When she's finally hovering over me, I press my lips against her thighs before pushing her down towards me, nearly coming again when I hear the cry she lets out when my tongue moves to taste her.

As weird as it might sound, this grounds me more than anything else. This taste, this very distinct feeling of her core against my mouth; Wet, beautiful and warm. Just for me.

And every time I do this, I'm reminded of our first time, and how grateful and privileged I am, that she trusts me enough, loves me enough, to let me. I hope she knows. Oh, god, I hope she knows how much I love her. How much comfort her body brings me. And, how much I've missed her.

Speaking of-

"Say it again-" I mumble, and I hear a mix of a moan and a giggle above me, making it obvious that she's clearly aware of what I'm asking.

"I'm coming back to SVU." She says, glancing down to find my eyes, barely visible in the darkness between us.

I watch as her lips move from a smile to a silent "o" when I tilt my head, teasing her entrance before moving to suck her clit into my mouth. She shakes in my hold and I give her a moment to ease into it and catch her breath, before I continue. Minute after minute of building her up, pausing, keeping her right on the edge, and repeat.

"Again." I say, sliding my hands up her back only to drag my nails down the same path a second later.

I can hear how she's trying to respond, but fails. Her words interrupted by whimpers and gasps that eventually turn into deep groans as her thighs start to tremble. So I grab her ass, kneading it, as a reminder that I'm waiting for her to answer me.

"I'm coming back-" She breathes, interrupted when I move one hand from her backside, only to wiggle it in between her legs and my wet chin, pushing into her. My tongue is feeling a little numb at this point, but based on the sounds she's making, I must be doing something right.

"Again." I say, inhaling sharply through my nose.

"I'm coming-" She starts, challenging me to keep up when she rolls her hips, faster, erratic. I do like a good challenge, though, so I hold her tight against me, ignoring the ache in my neck as my tongue and my hands and everything I have, finally push her over.

Damn right you are.