"What do I pack?"

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Friday morning had begun to dawn familiarly gray and rainy when Olivia stepped into the fall weather, a week and a half after Munch's offer. Tiredness pressed down on her eyelids, the overall lassitude after solving a difficult case still swimming through her veins, and she let out a deep sigh as she dropped her suitcase down on the sidewalk. Elliot was supposed to pick her up, but she didn't see the familiar car yet, so she closed her eyes for a moment.

When Munch had presented his offer of a weekend getaway on that rainy, stagnant Tuesday, Olivia had agreed to the offer almost without hesitation. At the time, the thought had seemed far-fetched, unreal, just an imaginary train of thought, but the week had passed, the Victoria Wilson case had taken her all her time and energy, and before she knew it, it had been Thursday night, and she had dug the suitcase out of her closet, dusted off it, and opened it, as the first tangible proof that they were really going.

In the past week, they had caught Victoria's rapist and murderer, a 40-year-old successful and wealthy businessman whose inner darkness had been unleashed by constant external pressure. By the time they had closed the case and stepped out of the courthouse, the harsh, steady downpour after a couple of weeks had begun to ease, a light drizzle had drenched Olivia's face, and she had felt some kind of weight ease in her chest. And now, waiting for her partner to arrive, that same rain drenched her face again, glittered in her hair, and drenched her coat.

While for other people a weekend cabin trip might not be a big deal, for them it was something they had never done before. They had spent several days together, but they had been at work, immersed in the complicated cases. But this was new, this time they would spend two days in each other's company, really each other, not just as professional detectives.

And then there was Elliot. Even though Olivia didn't want to admit it, not giving a thought to the feeling that her partner's announcement of dating other women had caused in her, not to the heat that ignited inside her almost every time he turned his blue eyes on her and really looked at her, an uninvited excitement began to bubble up inside her, when she thought about a whole weekend with him. Far from home, far from the hustle and bustle of New York, far from ordinary everyday life and years-old routines. And as she waited, her drowsy brain unusually let her thoughts slip further away, into the moonlight, into the soothing waves, to Elliot's strong body against her, to his lips against hers…

But then she shook her head, forced herself back to reality and opened her eyes. No, she couldn't go there. Dreaming was something she had denied herself years ago, back when Elliot had still been Kathy's husband, a family man. The human mind was weak though, she admitted, because when Elliot and Kathy had divorced for the first time, some suppressed emotion had flared up, her thoughts had begun to wander, real hope had come to life for the first time, and it had scared the hell out of her. Everything had happened so fast, Gitano had been too much, and she had done what she was good at – she had run. Fear, however, had failed to quell the hope that had remained smoldering in her limbs, and when the fear had loosened its sharpest grip, she had returned. But then that hope had met reality. The cold, merciless face of reality, framed by the long blond hair, who her partner had called Dani, and that face had told her wordlessly that her and her partner's feelings for each other were clearly not on the same wavelength at all as she had assumed.

She had hated herself, oh how much she had hated. She had hated herself for allowing herself to be so naive, so gullible, so hopeful. She had hated herself for hearing her mother's words in her head, words that had reminded her that everyone would leave her eventually. She had hated herself for allowing herself to be lulled into the false feeling that since she loved her partner more than she had ever loved anyone before, he must feel at least partially the same.

She had hated that she loved her partner so much.

Dani Beck had left, Elliot had gone back to Kathy, and Olivia had closed herself. She had piled up her feelings, shoved them into the suitcase and closed it forcefully. After that, she had buried the bag so deep in the recesses of her heart that she was sure she would never find it again. It was easier this way – no one got hurt, no one had to run. She had sought hope from other men, tried desperately to find the same feeling that Elliot and Kathy's breakup had once ignited in her, but with meager results. During these years, several men had walked through the open doors to her heart, but also left without stopping. And it hadn't even bothered her.

Afterwards, she had thought that maybe these men hadn't found the door to her heart at all. And sometimes, in the darkest, loneliest hours of the night, she had thought that perhaps she had accidentally dropped the key to that door in the suitcase she had buried and banished from her mind.

The sound of an approaching car engine made her turn her head in the direction of the sound. A familiar car pulled up in front of her, and she picked up her suitcase from the pavement, watched as her partner opened the door, jumped out, opened the trunk and turned his gaze to her. In the morning twilight, his eyes looked darker than usual, deeper, and a familiar feeling swirled in Olivia's stomach.

Maybe she had missed a few pieces when she had hurriedly stuffed the rest of her feelings into the suitcase.

"Good morning, sunshine," he grinned, and Olivia gave him a tired look.

"You don't look any fresher," she growled, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Elliot looking at her with amusement.

"I decide to take that as a compliment."

Olivia rolled her eyes, threw her suitcase into the trunk of the car, opened the passenger door and sat down. It was warm in the car, the radio was quietly playing happy music, and the smell of fresh coffee made her take a deep breath. Elliot sat down in the driver's seat took a cup in his hand.

"For the vacation," he handed the cup to her with theatrical solemnity, and Olivia couldn't stop the smile which spread across her lips.

"Well, thank you very much," she grabbed the warm cup gratefully and watched as her partner set the destination on the navigator.

A suddenly familiar, yet new, warm feeling began to tickle her stomach, and she swallowed as Elliot hit the gas and joined the traffic. They were going to the cabin as a group, but why did it feel like they were going on vacation alone?

She really hoped that she had just accidentally left these shreds of feelings unburied, because the other option was that the buried suitcase had started to slowly leak again.

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Since neither of them had eaten a proper breakfast, they stopped after about an hour of driving. The small cafe was located almost next to the highway, it needed renovation both outside and inside, but the views from the large windows were very beautiful, and they ate their stuffed toasts contentedly.

The weather was still grey, the clouds looked heavy, but for the first time in ages they weren't throwing any water drops on them. It was refreshing, even relieving in a way, and they decided to take a short walk along the Hudson River.

When she was in New York, Olivia didn't usually notice the stuffy, heavy, smelly air, but she noticed a difference when she went outside the city. New York and Manhattan were her home, the place where she had lived all her life, but she couldn't say that the fresher air didn't feel good in her lungs. She closed her eyes, let the wind dance in her hair, and for a moment she just breathed, deeply and calmly.

When she opened her eyes, she expected to see her partner next to her, but she was wrong. She turned around, searching for him with her eyes, and finally she found him a little further away, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, a hard-to-read, serious expression on his face. She slowly walked closer, waited a moment, but when Elliot didn't seem to notice her, she asked quietly:

"El?"

She could have sworn Elliot flinched slightly when he turned to look at her, but then turned his gaze back to the river view in front of them.

"The river looks different here. It's not so… Messy."

Olivia hummed briefly in agreement but said nothing. She could sense something was weighing on her partner, but she couldn't catch his thoughts, so she let it be. The new gust of wind felt colder, however, and made her shiver.

"Shall we go? We still have a drive to go, and we need to go to the grocery store. Fin, Munch and Brian left before us, so they must be there soon."

"I haven't seen Cassidy in ages."

"Me neither."

"I wonder if he's still the same stubborn kid as in the SVU days."

Olivia snorted and turned towards the car, Elliot following close behind.

"Want to bet?" He asked, and she gave him a questioning glance.

"About what?"

"He'll try to hit on you in the first two hours."

There was a smirk in Elliot's voice, a playfulness, but there was also something else. A flash of something he was clearly trying to cover up, but which Olivia recognized, because she had heard it several times before.

Irritation.

"Very funny," she glared at him her and made him shrug.

"What? My prediction is based on history only."

Olivia sighed. She was familiar with Elliot's jealousy and wasn't at all surprised by their topic of conversation. He had made it very clear during their years together that he didn't like other men around her. Sometimes, before Dani Beck and her infuriatingly thick blonde hair had made hope slip out of Olivia's hands and shatter into a million pieces, she'd sometimes secretly allowed herself to think that maybe, just maybe, he didn't like her dating because those men weren't him. But then she had realized that it wasn't like that; he was just territorial.

"I'm not going to start this with you."

"Maybe it's better that way, you would have lost anyway."

"Elliot," Olivia groaned, but Elliot continued his determined walk forward, his hands still deep in his pants pockets. She shook her head, felt irritation bubbling up inside her and gave up.

But behind the irritation, she felt something else too.

Something that was calming her, warming her, something that got her blood flowing and grounded her at the same time.

Maybe she was getting sick.