"Where are you?" His voice sounded like an echo.

"Sitting in my damn car. Going on FOUR hours now."

"Oh," he was working and she felt a little disappointed. She thought she would still be hurting over last week's conversation, but actually it ended up being somewhat cathartic. The weight of the hurt she had held onto for more than a decade felt lighter somehow. Sure it still stung, but something about releasing the feelings into the universe felt validating. She was actually looking forward to this week's conversation, not because she had anything particularly happy to share, but because something about sharing her life with him felt…right.

"I'm alone though if you want to still talk," he sounded hopeful.

"No no. You're working." She felt weird about chatting him up while he was working. Even if he was only working surveillance. "We can just skip this week," she spit out. She internally scolded herself. She could just call him tomorrow, but she didn't want to come off clingy or anything.

She swore his voice held a note of disappointment in his response. "Yeah okay. Talk to you soon then."

"Bye El."

-000-

She entered the precinct the next morning pissed off and still scolding herself. The second she stepped into her squad room, deceives flocked her with question after question and she wanted everyone to just leave her the hell alone.

She felt like she swam upstream by the time she made it to her office and closed the door. She sighed and leaned her forehead against the door. She took a minute to give herself for a mental pep talk before turning towards her desk.

To surprise a white box sat conspicuously on her desk. She approached, noting the box originated in a French bakery not far from the precinct. She lifted the lid and found a French apple tart, and a row of neatly arranged macaroons. Tucked next to the apple tart was a folded note. She lifted it from the box and unfolded it. She recognized the scrawl of his handwriting.

I'm off today. Call me anytime. I'm sorry we couldn't talk last night. Do you still like apple tarts? Hope so.

Her heart swelled and she thought she might cry. It was a simple gesture, but even this small thing helped her understand how much he was trying, and how badly he wanted to be there for her.

She snatched the apple tart with its accompanying decorative paper and left her office with purpose. She ignored the other detectives and approached Fin. "I'll be back in a couple hours. Don't call me unless someone is dying or the precinct is on fire."

"Yes mom." She gave him a well deserved glare. He smiled and waved her off. "Go make your call." His eyes twinkled.

She shot him a smirking smile. "You knew!"

He held his hands up. I didn't see him or really talk to him. I just got a random text from him telling me to pick up the box this morning."

She couldn't keep the smile off her face. "Thanks Fin."

-000-

"Just so you know, I still love apple tarts."

"I thought you might." Actually he hoped she might. He wouldn't have been surprised if her favorite dessert changed.

He found a park bench and sat. She called right in the middle of his run, but no way he would put off her call. "I didn't think I'd hear from you until later tonight." He assumed she would complete the work day, and get Noah to bed before calling.

"I needed an out. Fin can handle things for a little while."

"Thank him for me, by the way. Oh and tell him he probably shouldn't be picking up packages for people contacting him from strange numbers. Come on, stranger danger and all that."

She let out a light laugh, "I'm assuming he thought picking up something from a French bakery was innocuous enough."

"Probably."

Their conversation fell into a light lull. "Your week go okay?" She finally asked.

"Good enough. Slow." The whole project seemed to crawl along. He just wanted to get the information and get out of there, the problem was, working too fast could get you killed…and that wouldn't get him to Olivia any faster.

"Ours was pretty busy. I mean it's expected for this time of year.

She meant the flood of assaults that filled the precinct at the end of every summer. Universities would start classes soon and frat parties dominated any college students' social calendar. "Are you sure you're okay taking a break?" He didn't want her to feel pressured into talking to him when she had more pressing things to attend to.

"What? Trying to get out of talking to me Stabler?"

He chuckled. "I'm the one who sent you the bribe of baked goods to talk to me."

"Best bribe I've ever been offered," she took a bite of her tart, "but treats or no treats…I wanted to call you."

"Yeah?" The hope that filled his voice was touching.

"Yeah," she explained, "it's hard going through all this shit with you. Really hard, but it's a little bit like dumping the peroxide into the open wound, you know?"

"So you're okay? Last week was…well you know what it was." Last week had been emotionally draining, and honestly he was still recovering from everything.

"I'm okay," she affirmed. "I'm more worried about if you're okay? I wasn't exactly…I didn't hold back I guess."

"It's fine Liv. I wanted to hear it, I needed to hear it. I want," he hesitated, he always worried she'd spook if he revealed too much. He dove in, "I want us to work, and it won't of either one of us holds onto what happened years ago." He didn't feel like he was articulating his thoughts well. "I guess I'm saying, if something bugs you, or if I did something stupid…don't hold back on telling me I'm an idiot."

He could hear the smile in her voice, "Oh I won't."

He smiled too, and slumped with relief. Their previous conversation hurt, and he felt guilty as hell, but he knew all of it was necessary if they were ever going to move past the mess he had made.

"Do you want to talk about stuff this week or just keep it light?" He was honestly fine either way.

She considered her options before answering, "let's knock out some of the heavy stuff." That smile echoed from her voice, "You sure you can handle more Stabler? The truth hurts."

"Bring it on, Benson."

-000-

"Why don't you tell me what you were doing in Paris? I'm curious." She decided to hang out in the back seat of her SUV. She laid across the bench seating and stared at the air conditioning vents that blew cold air into her face.

"Yeah that's not a happy story…" he warned.

Nothing with them resonated with joy, generally speaking. "I can handle it. It's not like I don't work with the scum of the earth most days…"

"Don't I know it," he muttered in return. "After I left SVU I thought I'd be done working with victims…especially," she heard him swallow deeply. "Especially children."

Her stomach sank. It definitely wouldn't be a happy story. "Tell me," she encouraged him.

He let out a long sigh. "I was working with my company, based out of Milan." She could almost imagine him rubbing his hand over the back of his head nervously. "I had an Italian colleague who found out I worked with special victims when I lived in New York." He let out another sigh. "He approached me and asked if I would help him find his missing niece. She went missing while the family vacationed on the coast of France." A French beach vacation sounded like a dream. Dream turned nightmare. He continued, "He said it had been two months and the French authorities wanted to sweep the case under the rug. They worried about how the case would impact local tourism during their peak season."

"Because a child's life is worth less than a dip in the local economy…" Olivia muttered. People never ceased to amaze her.

"Yeah," Elliot replied, his voice low. "I was pretty busy with work, and family and stuff, but I couldn't say no, you know?"

She knew. She knew because she would do the same thing. "I arranged some leave for work and started to work the case. It felt a lot like the Madeleine McCann case. One minute she was there and the next she was just gone. Everything resulted in a dead end. No one saw anything. The parents were literally sitting outside on the patio of the vacation home. They went inside and she was gone."

"How did you end up in Paris?" She asked.

"Traffickers," he said simply. "Interpol had been tracking a ring operating down the European coast. It's a long story, but I tracked them to Paris, but I wasn't entirely sure they had the girl at all. It was mostly a hunch. Working solo was difficult, and I didn't have a lot of connections, but I uh, had a friend who helped out, you know, when she could." Olivia couldn't help but bristle at the mention of a lady friend. "Anyway, after a lot of work and a bunch of luck we uh, we found her."

She knew by the time of his voice the child was found deceased. "She was dead wasn't she?"

His voice caught with emotion and he worked through the rest of the story. "Um, yeah. We found her body in a common dump site. It was apparently the go to place for the ring to dispose of their inventory."

"That's…I'm sorry El, there aren't really words." She wished she had something comforting to say, but there was nothing comforting about searching for months to find a child who was discarded like garbage.

"Uh yeah. Things weren't great after that. I returned to my job easily enough but the whole thing followed me around like a black cloud. I felt a lot of guilt. I worried she had been killed because of my poking around."

"You can't think that El. There's no evidence of that, and you were trying to help her." She understood the guilt well. The guilt of doing everything and it still not being enough. The sleepless nights worrying about how one could have done more. She understood more than most.

"I know, and I'm okay now. I know I did what I could, and nothing I did made things worse, but at the time things were rough. It kind of dredged up a lot of my guilt with," he hesitated, "Jenna."

"Oh El," she could only imagine all the complicated emotions he dealt with at the time.

"Kathy and I spent a lot of time apart. It was better for us. I wasn't exactly a joy to be around. I worked a lot and saw Eli when I could."

So, he basically lived his life like he did when they were partners. Working too much and avoiding home. Sounded like his MO.

"But eventually things got better?" Obviously they improved at some point in time. She was under the impression that things were good with Kathy before her death.

"Yeah. After all my work coordinating with interpol they informed me of a position open in Rome. I was an ideal candidate."

"NYPD liaison." She guessed.

"That's how I got that job. We moved to Rome, and getting out of Milan seemed to shake away the cobwebs. Things slowly got better." There was a moment of silence before he asked, "Do you have time to tell me something or do you need to get back?"

She held her wrist up over her face so she could see her watch. They'd been talking for an hour and a half already. She probably needed to get back. Fin would give h the time, along with some well meaning jabs, but she really should get back. "I need to get back, but…" she bit her lip nervously, "Can I call you tonight?"

She

"I think I'll be free…" he teased.

"Well I think I'll call you," she smiled.

He chuckled lightly before saying, "Bye Liv."