After a couple hours she had cycled through all of the emotions. Maybe he forgot his phone somewhere…maybe? He had to know that now was a horrible time to drop off the face of the planet. She knew something was going on with him, but he had promised he was staying.

He was staying. She just needed to calm the hell down. He promised he wasn't going anywhere, and she trusted him. She trusted him. She reminded herself that about twenty five times before she decided to give him space and find something to do with Noah. He would call when he could. He would.

She slid her phone across the counter so she would stop compulsively looking at it. "Hey Noh?" She called.

"Yeah?" he called from his room.

"Let's run to the store and find something for dinner."

"Will Elliot be back by then?" he asked, still conversing from his room.

She sighed and pushed the stool away from the counter. She walked down the hall and pushed open Noah's half open door. "I'm not sure what time he will be back," She admitted, and hoped her son wouldn't feel the need to ask questions she didn't have answers for. She tried to change the subject. "Should we get ice cream?"

He nodded eagerly. "Can we bring some home for Elliot? I bet you he will be home before we get back."

She wished she had his confidence, but to be fair, Noah hadn't ever experienced Elliot's abandonment. Hopefully, he never would. She gave him a reassuring smile, "Yeah we can grab him some and put it in the freezer for him."

"Okay cool." He stood up from his bed and opened his closet to find his shoes.

She stepped back towards the door, "Think you can be ready to go in ten minutes?"

He grinned, "Yeah I'll be ready."

-000-

"That's a lot to deal with in such a short amount of time."

Elliot held back a snarky comment. He came for help, and in order for his therapist to help him, he needed to actually talk to her. Ideally without sarcasm.

"Yeah. Obviously a lot of it is good, and I feel like I'm working through the crappy stuff, but I can't seem to," he wasn't sure how to explain the feeling. "I can't seem to feel settled, and I know Olivia can sense it, and the last thing I want is for her to spiral over my inability to feel like a stable human being."

"It seems like you are more unsettled by happiness more than tragedy," his therapist observed.

She wasn't wrong. He knew Liv had the same problem. They both suffered from the chronic inability to trust any sort of happiness in their lives.

"Maybe. But it's not like I haven't had good things in my life. I've been happy."

"But you've never had Olivia," his therapist observed.

"No, not really. We were partners, and that was…it meant everything, but I've never had her in this way, and I feel…maybe obsolete? She created a whole life, a family, and I missed it. I can't get that time back,, and it's my fault, I know that. I just…she doesn't need me, at least not in the way I need her."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Maybe… I don't know, but she's proven time and time again that she doesn't need me to make a successful life."

"But is successful the same as happy? She's built a successful life but is it a happy one?"

"For the most part..." he thought about their conversations about finding happiness. They seemed to both instinctively know that their only chance of happiness was with each other.

"Have you asked her?"

"Hm?" He spaced out for a minute. "Not really. We've struggled to find time this…this whole thing started. I'm with Noah and she's working all hours."

His therapist nodded. She worked almost exclusively with cops and military men. It felt kind of good that there was a specialist out there for this. One that thrived in helping emotionally stunted men like himself. "How close is the case to wrapping up?"

He sighed and leaned back into the overstuffed armchair. "Hard to say. The DAs office is trying to work deals with the juvenile offenders, but there is a distinct possibility the kids' lawyers will insist on taking the case to a family court judge. If that happens…she might need to be involved for a lot longer."

"Sure, but once the case is handed off then the workload should ease, right?"

Elliot chuckled. "Not necessarily, at least not with Olivia. If a case is personal she will work it to the end."

His therapist chewed on that for a moment. "Do you think she has space in her life for you? I guess what I'm asking is does she have the capability to scale back work and focus more emotional attention on you? You have a lot of guilt over your abandonment, and I think we've worked through a lot of that, but relationships are a two way street."

He thought about it, but he felt like he was lucky to have Olivia at all. In any capacity. "I get that, but

"You can't constantly put yourself in a lower non deserving position." She sighed and set her notebook on the table next to her. "If you want your relationship to work, really work, you have to work towards equal footing. If one person is elevated over the other…it's a recipe for resentment. And I don't think you want that."

He felt his chest tighten, and anxiety washed over him. "I don't want to lose her." He admitted, his voice tight. "She's…she's…everything."

"I understand, but are you everything to her?"

He answered honestly, "I don't know. I think so, but…" he shook his head. "The job is too important to her. There is no way I would ask her to scale back for any reason. That's her choice."

"That's not what I'm saying," his therapist clarified. "I think you are feeling insecure because you think that you are a disposable part of her life. She doesn't need you. I'm saying you need to find a way to make time, real time, for each other. The job is demanding, and you both married the job a long time ago. You don't need to ask her to give that up, you need to ask her to find a way to make time for you. Time for each other. I don't think either of you wants this relationship to fail, but it will if you both neglect each other."

What she was saying made sense, but he still felt hung up on his guilt and shame. "I can't…" he shook his head, "I can't get over the feeling that I don't deserve her."

"That won't resolve in one day, but maybe it's time to ask her what she thinks she deserves. If you know what her expectations are, maybe you can be what she needs you to be." Her words hit a nerve. Olivia had always made him better. She challenged him. She made him question himself and grow. He could be everything she needed, and deep down he hoped he already was.

-000-

Olivia kept her phone in her purse while she ran errands with Noah. She resisted the urge to check it constantly, hoping for a message that would soothe her fried psyche. She jumped when her phone began to ring, but felt a flood of relief, hoping it was Elliot finally calling. She tried to his her disappointment when Fin's name flashed across her screen.

"Benson," she answered.

"Hey Liv," he returned. "Got a sec?"

"Yeah, I'm just running errands with Noah. What's going on?"

She knew he was biting back a comment about Elliot, and she was eternally grateful that he kept it to himself. "I just finished up her with psycho Abby and her mom."

She wanted to scold Fin for referring to a child that way, but at the same time, it was an accurate description of the girl. "What did they decide?" She didn't want to get her hopes up. Abby seemed like the type that would drag out a painful process for the fun of it.

"They are taking the deal." His voice held all the relief she felt.

"Wait, really?" She didn't try to mask her surprise. She really didn't think Abby's mother would budge on the idea of getting her off the hook for the crime.

"Yeah. It's not what Abby wanted, but the mom freaked out and decided she'd rather have her precious kid out of the system sooner rather than later." She could hear his eyes rolling.

She let out a sigh of relief. They could keep Colton from testifying. That was something. It didn't matter that the sentence seemed light. There were maximum sentences for juveniles, and the deal came close to that, even if it didn't feel like enough. "Well. It's something I guess."

"Yeah. Better than risking a sympathetic judge and dragging a Colton through a trial." He noted.

"So true," she said and then glanced over to Noah who was watching her nervously. "I should go. Thanks for the update."

"Sure sure." He shrugged the thank you off. "Go spend some time with your kid…and your man."

There was the teasing she hoped to avoid. She knew he didn't mean anything by it, but the good natured jab made her stomach hurt. She faked a smile, hoping to fake the emotion of happiness. "I will." She remembered Ethan. "When's the DA rep meeting with Ethan?"

"Tomorrow morning," he replied. "The docs are moving him to general recovery with a less stringent psych hold. The psychologist asked us to wait until the move is complete and he is settled to speak with him."

"Got it. Do you have any clue what deal she will try to get him to agree to?" Ethan's parents were a couple of wild cards. She wasn't sure what sort of compromise they would accept on behalf of their son.

"Not really. She wanted to go over things in a couple hours. I'll let you know."

"Thanks Fin."

"Anytime."

With that, they ended the call.

-000-

When she entered her apartment she felt a wave of relief wash over her. She heard the pop of something cooking on the stove, and she knew he was already working on whatever dinner he must have had planned for the day. The relief was all consuming, but there was also an edge of anger. What the hell was he thinking? Disappearing for an entire afternoon?!

She shut the door behind her, and quickly turned to Noah. "Why don't you go hang out in your room for a few minutes?" He looked at her skeptically. She was exhausted and had no energy to think of a good excuse for him to duck out of the kitchen for a while. She gave him a look that she hoped he understood, and told him, "I need to talk to Elliot alone for a few minutes. Can you do some reading or something?"

His eyes portrayed uncertainty, but he nodded and bounced off to his room without making eye contact with Elliot in the kitchen.

She dropped her bag and her keys before making her way towards the kitchen. He tried greeting her with a smile but it dropped when he sensed her mood. She reached for his hip, hoping the physical contact would soften her voice because she knew there was no way she was going to come off as anything other than pissed off.

"Where the hell have you been all day?"