It was the most delicious sort of torture, the ecstasy of the damned, a glorious relief and a soul-crushing defeat; to finally feel his kiss, so dearly longed for, so mercilessly frightening, was breaking her in two. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted this, the burn of his stubble against her cheeks, the taste of him on her lips, the fervent certainty of his tongue surging in her mouth and the buckling of her knees as her resolve wavered. She wanted it, but she could not have it, and damn him, damn him, damn him, for offering her the one thing she could never accept.

She lost herself in that kiss, but only for a moment. She allowed herself to feel, only for a moment, the solid weight of him against her, the comforting warmth of him, the radiating desire of him. This moment, this one, cataclysmic devastation, was all she would ever have of him, and she drank him down like whiskey, whimpered, once, at the burn of him in the back of her throat, and then pressed her palms to his chest and pushed him away, hard.

Elliot stumbled back from her, confusion written all over his dear face, his eyes darting to the place where McKenna lay, confirming for himself that she was still sleeping before his gaze snapped back to Olivia.

"Fuck you," she snarled at him quietly.

"Liv-" her name tripped haltingly from his lips, his affect perplexed, his hands held out towards her, fingers curling around nothing, reaching for her and yet knowing he would not be allowed to touch her, not after this monumental miscalculation.

"Fuck you, Elliot," she said again, her voice still low but heated. "You can't do this to me."

Something rather like hysteria was bubbling up the back of her throat, and it was funny, really, that the one person she trusted most, cared for most in all the world was also the only person she truly, deeply feared.

"Olivia, please," he was pleading with her, shame-faced, his shoulders curling in; it would wreck him, she thought, to realize that he had pressed his advances where they were not wanted. Olivia and Elliot were the goddamn sex police and matters of consent were their forte and he had just fucked up in that department - pretty spectacularly, actually - and he must be feeling guilty, must be feeling desperate, but she was feeling pretty desperate, too, and could not leave room for his feelings when her own were swallowing her whole.

"You just told me you're leaving," she forced herself to say. She was shaking from head to foot, all but vibrating with fear, and hurt, and something that felt like grief, something that felt like mourning for a man who she could still see standing in front of her. "And if we aren't partners on the job, we can't…we can't be anything, Elliot. Don't you get it?"

"No," he said, some of the uncertainty leaving him as he seemed to grasp the true meaning of her fury, as an answering fury began to build inside of him. "No, I don't get it. I'm trying…Jesus, Liv, I'm trying to show you we can be-"

"We can't," she insisted, frustrated with him, God, she was so fucking frustrated with him. He could be so arrogant, so fucking sure he knew best, but he wasn't listening to her, wasn't looking at their situation with clear eyes, had instead ignored every obstacle in their path and bulled forward like none of it, not heaven or hell or death or any of it, mattered. Maybe it didn't, to him; maybe he'd never really understand the forces that ruled her life. She wanted to make him understand, though. Needed to, needed him to know she was not turning him away because she did not want him, needed him to understand that the choice had been taken out of her hands long before she ever met him.

"I told you what I am," she said. "I can't stay in one place too long. I've only got another ten, fifteen years left in New York and then I'll need to move on. And even if I did stay, even if I risked blowing my cover, I can't…I can't…you're gonna die, Elliot."

Just the thought of it made her feel like throwing up; she could not bear it, to watch his body lowered into the ground, to know she would never hear his voice again, to feel the hollow space inside her heart where he was supposed to be, and yet it was inevitable, the loss of him. All she could do was try to mitigate the damage but he seemed determined not to let her.

"Not today," he said grimly, but even that was not guaranteed, because Michael was still out there, Michael still wanted to get his hands on McKenna, and he'd destroy anyone who stood in his way. "I'm alive right now-"

"And one day you won't be, and I'll be all alone again, only instead of wondering how it would feel to be with you I'll know, and I'll miss that feeling for the rest of time. I'll miss you forever, and I can't live with that."

Forever was after all such a very long time, and she could not add to the weight of her grief; she wouldn't survive it. That was something she had learned, over the long years of her life; sometimes it was easier to wonder than to know. There were some things too beautiful for her to touch. There were already so many souls she grieved for, so many friends lost along the way. There had been one man, once, a man she loved, a man she wanted, a man she meant to start a family with, and losing that love had cost her so dearly she could not bear to endure it again. It would be better for everyone if she let Elliot go, after this; if they survived whatever Michael had planned, it would be better if she and Elliot went their separate ways and never spoke again. Better a clean break than a slowly festering wound. One could heal; one would only hurt.

"Olivia," Elliot sighed, his voice low and sad. He reached for her, ran the pad of his thumb gently across the rise of her cheek, and it was only then that she realized she had been crying. His face was so, so soft, his eyes so warm and kind, and she wanted to collapse into him, wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel his hands running over her hair, over her back, wanted to hear his voice telling her that everything would be ok, wanted to believe him, but.

There were some things that wanting would not change, and it was unfair of him to ask this of her, to ask this of her now, with that little angel girl sleeping in the bed behind them, with the three of them caught in something that felt so much like family, something that was doomed to end. It couldn't last; none of this will last, she thought, looking at him. Why couldn't he see how much it was hurting her to push him away? Why was he making her push him away; why couldn't he just back down?

Because, she supposed, because he was Elliot, and Elliot never backed down from a fight, and Elliot had always been a stubborn son of a bitch, and she loved him for it. She loved him for it desperately.

"You're scared," he said. "And the timing's for shit."

A startled, choking little laugh escaped her; he was right about that. His timing was absolute shit; they were alone in a cabin in the woods waiting for an angel to come and try to tear them limb from limb, lying to their bosses, to their friends, with IAB already out for Elliot's head. There could have been no worse time for him to kiss her, to try to ask her for the one thing she wanted most. There could have been no better time either, though.

"But I can't stand here and watch you walk away from us just 'cause you're scared."

He stepped in closer, close enough so he could press his lips to her temple, close enough to make her feel weak, and she could not stop herself from leaning into his touch. She wanted it too badly, and it felt too right, standing there with him, and she could never have him the way she wanted but he was just there, and she gently nuzzled her cheek against his, aching with a need just to feel him, each breath she took a memory sealed away deep in her heart, a memory she would grieve for in the dark years of the future when she was alone, without him.

"You've got forever," he told her. "And I've only got a little while. But the future isn't certain, not even for you, Liv. You don't know what's gonna happen next. We might both die today." They really, actually, literally might. "All we've got is right now, and right now, I want you."

"You'll change your mind-"

"Bullshit-"

"I can't, I - I - we're not supposed to, Elliot. Humans, nephilim, we're just not meant to be."

While they argued, wrestling with her stubborn doubts and his stubborn determination, still their faces were softly touching, leaning into one another, so close that her lips brushed his chin when she told him no, but this time he pulled back a little, just far enough for her to be able to see the earnest sincerity in his bright blue eyes.

"Says who?" he demanded.

"Elliot-"

"I don't know about fate and I don't know about forever but I know this, Liv." He reached out, lightning quick, caught hold of her hand and brought it up to rest against his chest, so she could feel the kick-drum beat of his heart beneath her palm.

"You and me, we were meant to find each other. You came walking out of the rain that night and you changed everything for me. There's no going back. Don't stand there and tell me we're not meant to be. We're everything. And you know it. You can feel it."

It was a shockingly impassioned speech from the man who'd told her he didn't believe in soulmates, the man who'd told her he didn't believe in love at first sight, the man whose perception of love had always been pragmatic. It was not something she'd ever expected him to say, and yet she knew that he believed it. She could feel his belief in the trembling of his body beneath her hand, and she could feel his certainty in the beat of his heart, marching in rhythm to her own. The nephilim were cursed - she was cursed - cursed never to enter heaven, never to bear children, to walk the world always in darkness, with none but their brothers to stand beside them, and them scattered to the winds, too far away to touch, and it should not have been true, that she was meant for this man, this one human man with his too-short life.

But she could feel it. Every word he'd said was true; they had, both of them, been changed in the instant of their meeting, been profoundly, irreversibly altered, and she was not the same now as she had been then. She was something new; knowing him had made her new, and she did not know how to be without him, now. It was too late, she realized, too late to close her heart to him, because she had let him inside it thirteen years before, and he lived there, now, lived within the chambers of her ever-beating heart, and always would, no matter what happened next.

"I can't give you what you need," she breathed, one last, feeble attempt at setting him free. She could not give him children - not that he needed more, really, since he had five already - and she could not grow old with him and she could not join him in heaven when his time on earth was through. She could not be the one to journey with him through all the phases of his life, and he might grow to hate her, when the last of his hair had finally fallen out and his face was lined and wrinkled and his strength at last deserted him and she remained unchanged. And even if he loved her, for all the rest of his days, even if they were happy for all the remaining years of his life, she would, at the end, be without him, be left with nothing but memories of his love, and that was a fate worse than hell.

"Only thing I need is you," he answered, his words ghosting gently over her soft parted lips. He meant it, she knew. His was the shorter life; he would not have to know a world without her in it. He would not have to put her in the ground. How different things looked, standing in his shoes.

She drew in one sharp, short breath, and as her lungs expanded she found, at last, the strength to move.

"I'm sorry," she told him, and then she opened the door, and slipped away.