*I struggled to get this chapter to sound the way I wanted it to. I rewrote it three times. I finally just decided to post it so you don't have to wait anymore! It might get reworked down the line. Enjoy?

Breathing suddenly seemed unimportant. The simple function of taking air into her lungs and letting it go became less important than the words that echoed through her brain.

I love you Liv.

She wasn't sure if she should yell at him for his godawful timing, cry, or hang up the damn phone because…what the hell!?

She must have sat in stunned silence for too long because he started talking nervously. "Sorry, I didn't mean to drop it that way I just…"

Her brain decided to start working again and she cut him off. "You have the worst timing of anyone I've ever known."

"Yeah…" he admitted hesitantly. "Maybe I do. I just," he paused, waiting to see if she would allow him to finish his thought this time. "I just need you to know. It needs to be out there, because every stupid ass decision I made…" he blew out a long nervous breath, "every idiotic thing I did to hurt you," she heard him swallow deeply, "was done because I was running from that…from you…and I'm so damn tired of running."

She let out a frustrated sigh. She felt like they were on two different wavelengths. Sometimes they could be so in sync and so attuned to one another it was unreal, but sometimes that decade of hurt threatened to eat them alive, making him feel so so far away.

"Liv," his voice held a strained, but gentle quality that pulled her out of her thoughts. "If the only thing you take away from these conversations is that I'm an idiot then that's fine, but I also want you to know that I'm an idiot who has been in love with you for a very long time."

She loved him too, and she wanted to say it, but there was too much between them, and him loving her wouldn't change the horrific events that took place in his absence. Loving him didn't change anything. Loving him didn't erase all the hurt. It didn't erase ten years.

-000-

He was fairly certain he had ruined not only this conversation, but any future conversations were in danger of being revoked. He was such an idiot. He had rambled himself into a corner and now he could do nothing but wait for her response.

When she finally spoke her words were spoken carefully. "If that's true, El, why…God, I can't even think of a way to phrase this question. That's how incomprehensible it all is for me." She sounded pissed, but more than anything, she sounded hurt.

"I'm sorry," he tried. It was a reflex apology and they both knew it. He was sorry, but sorry wasn't enough.

"Do you even know what you're sorry for Elliot? Do you have any f-ing idea?" Some of her ire ebbed, but the sound of frustration and defeat was almost worse.

"For leaving. For leaving you…" and everything. He was sorry for everything.

"You know what the worst thing was?" He almost didn't recognize the softness in her voice.

He was a little nervous to answer, but he did anyway. "What?

"I lived my life not needing anyone. I was fine on my own. Then you came along. God El, I never trusted anyone like I trusted you."

If she wanted to demolish him, then she was doing a great job. He deserved it. He deserved all of it.

"And you just left. You had to know what that would do to me," the hurt in her voice made him want to die. "And you did it anyway."

He wanted to apologize over and over until she believed him, but saying sorry wouldn't change what he did and how he hurt her. The only thing he could do was attempt to explain things, but really there wasn't any explanation other than him cowardly running away from the woman he cared about deeply.

"Liv, I…" he expected her to cut him off, giving more time to find something to say but she didn't. It made the attempt fall into awkward silence. "I never wanted to hurt you. I think a part of me always knew I wasn't good for you. Sometimes I still wonder if I'm good enough for you." He didn't want to make this about him. He was the one in the wrong and the last thing he wanted was for her to feel sorry for him or try to make him feel better.

He sighed and continued. "I was screwed up after…. You know. The last shooting." He was struggling to explain himself. It didn't make sense. At the time it seemed like the right thing, but looking back his reasoning for his actions wasn't logical. "I'm sorry Liv. It's just hard to explain in a way that makes sense. It made sense to me then, but now…"

"Just try," she said quietly.

Her encouragement pushed him forward. "After the shooting I didn't go home right away. I went to your place." That in itself wasn't abnormal. Sometimes he couldn't go home. Not when he was so wound up from work. It wouldn't have been the first time he showed up on her doorstep.

"But you didn't come up…"

"No, but I wanted to," he admitted.

"Why didn't you," she asked hesitantly.

"That night…" honesty. "That night I planned to tell you," he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. Even now, even though he made what was considered the morally correct choice, he felt guilty about what he was going to say. "I was going to tell you how I felt about you…us. I uh, I didn't want to go home. I wanted to stay with you." He wasn't doing a very good job at saying the words. He wasn't being clear. "I was tired. I was tired of the job. I was tired of my god awful marriage, and I was tired fighting how…how I felt about you." He dropped his chin to his chest. "I wanted you in every way. I wanted to talk with you, I wanted to cry with you…and I wanted to kiss you. Damn it, I wanted to kiss you so bad because I knew you understood me. You understood how I felt and why, at that moment, everything hurt so bad."

He wasn't exactly encouraged by the sound of crickets on the other end of the call, but he already said the words. The only thing left was to power through. "I left that night, and I knew I couldn't come back. You didn't do anything. I just knew I couldn't keep things the way they were. If I would have stayed, I would have destroyed my family, my marriage, and probably my relationship with you. So I left. I left and I didn't look back. I knew you would be better off, I knew if I talked to you…I knew if I talked to you I would tell you how I felt, and I would never be able to leave."

Her voice was barely a whisper. "I would have let you in, you know." His heart pounded as she continued. "I would have let you kiss me."

"Liv," he said gently, "if I started kissing you I wouldn't have been able to stop."

She stayed quiet, but then admitted. "El, I seriously doubt I would have even tried to stop you."

He sighed. He knew what she said was true. They toed a careful line as partners, never letting the other crossover, but if one of them had, the other would have plunged over too. "That was some of the problem. I was married and I knew that if the opportunity presented itself…God Liv…I would have cheated and I never wanted to be that guy, even if I probably already was."

"You were never that guy. Thinking something doesn't make you a crappy person," Liv reasoned.

"I know, but at the time…"

"You were all screwed up…" she finished for him.

"I was scared of what I might do so I took myself out of the equation. I left. You wanted to know why I stayed with Kathy, and kept going back? There were lots of reasons, but the biggest reason was that she was safe." he pinched his eyes shut. "Kathy could hurt me, she could let me down, I could lose her and I would move on, but," his voice caught, "If you hurt me, if you left me, if I lost you…it would have destroyed me." He took a deep breath, "and that's what was so terrifying. The power you had over me. The absolute grip you had in my soul. I left to save my marriage, but the reality was that I left you because I loved you more than I should...and I still do."

-000-

She needed a minute to process everything he said, and thankfully, he seemed willing to allow her to think. She could understand the logic…kinda. She knew him. She knew his loyalty and sense of duty was a double edge sword. The best and worst part of him. It made him a good cop and a good person, but it often made him make choices out of obligation rather than what he really wanted.

She understood the conflicting sides of him. When it came down to a decision of her or his family, he didn't really have a choice. He felt like he could only choose one thing, and that choice left her broken. It hurt, but she could understand it. At least a little bit.

"I guess it's my turn now isn't it," she said nervously.

"We don't have to do that tonight Liv, not if you don't want to. Tonight has already been… a lot." He was giving her an out, but she didn't want an out. She wanted to tell him about the things he missed. She wanted to share, because only god knew how things could have been different that night if he had come up to her apartment. If he had stayed.

-000-