Olivia hadn't expected Elliot to reply so quickly.

She reads the letter through several times just like she did the first one, one hand holding the pages and the other holding the compass that rests near her heart. Tears come with this letter, too, but she feels so much lighter. She hadn't opened this letter with fear and trepidation but with hope. It takes her several hours, well into the early morning, to absorb everything Elliot has written to her.

The first time she reads, she only makes it a few lines before she sets the pages down in her lap and lets his words wash over her.

We are real.

We are real.

We are real.

She had asked him for that assurance, and he delivered. After having her heart broken by the words of his deceased wife, telling her that everything she had held onto for 12 years—every moment that she replayed in her head, every conversation she could recite, and every look she could picture when she closed her eyes—wasn't real; seeing these words on the page now is rejuvenating. It is exactly what she needs from him.

Each time she scours through his handwritten words, she focuses on something different.

I will never leave you behind again.

She knows, realistically, with their jobs and the way the world works, Elliot cannot actually make this promise. Not literally. But she knows what he is actually promising is not to intentionally leave her, and that's what she needs. She needs to be one of his priorities, to be considered when he's making decisions in his life. Decisions, that if they actually do what they are talking about, will affect her life and her son's life.

You're stuck with me now—for good.

Olivia smiles at that, sniffing back her tears as she recalls how he'd said those same words to her in her office. "I guess you're stuck with me." She didn't mind that night, and she doesn't mind now.

I love you.

I want in now. I want all the way in.

I can see us, one year, two years, ten years, in the future. We can have everything.

These declarations make her heart flutter and ache and squeeze all at once. She knows that Elliot loves her in the same way that she has always loved him—the love for a constant, dependable, and safe presence in her life. But these statements read like vows, as if he was promising to love her forever because he had always loved her, because he had never experienced a life in which he did not love her.

She's not sure when Elliot had become so expressive. She guesses that's what a decade in Italy, a romantic country, will do that to you. Or maybe Elliot has always been like this, and she just wasn't the one who was the subject of his affection.

In these pages though, Elliot is open and free. He is dangerously forthright, acknowledging he could be coming off too strong or too fast—as if 24 years could ever be too fast. She can feel his desperation through the ink. He pours himself out onto these pages without reservation.

Elliot loves her without reservation.

Although her fears are still present in the recesses of her mind, his vulnerability gives her the courage she needs to take charge of her happiness.

Making time to sit down and write her response to Elliot takes longer than Olivia wants.

Noah has a two-week, overnight dance camp starting on Monday, so she spends Saturday and Sunday doing laundry, shopping for travel supplies, packing and spending time with Noah. At twelve years old, this is the first time that Noah is going to spend more than a couple days away from his mom (though she is much more distraught than he is).

When Noah first brought home the camp flyer, she had outright refused. Given her career, she knows the risks associated with slumber parties and overnight camps. But she had used NYPD resources to run background checks on every employee and volunteer at the camp, and she also confirms Noah can keep his cellphone on him at all times. And then she had sat down with Noah and rehashed several conversations they had had in the past.

Monday morning, Olivia drives Noah the two hours to the camp upstate and makes the return drive on her own, arriving home in the middle of the afternoon. She has a to-do list that could stretch down the block, and she has a Notes app full of self-care routines. Instead, she orders delivery, puts on music, and begins writing.

The words come easier this time, but it still takes her a few hours and abandoned drafts before she completes her response. She doesn't stuff it in the envelope just yet; she wants to do a final read in the morning with fresh eyes and a rested mind, hopeful to avoid days of unease and worrying about what she sends to him.

Later that week, Olivia's phone dings while she's responding to one of several annoying emails from McGrath. Even though crime increases every summer, her Chief and 1PP demand some sort of answer for the spike in overtime requests and hiring needs. This year, they've requested a detailed plan for their "Punching Back on Crime" campaign. (A horrible name, Olivia thinks.)

She finishes her email before she looks over at her phone. Her heart drops when she sees she has a text notification from Elliot. She'd sent her response letter to him only a few days ago. There's no way he's received it yet.

Olivia looks at the time, and with quick mental math, she realizes it's about 5:30 p.m. in Rome. Elliot is probably just getting off work for the weekend. That is, if he has weekends off. She doesn't actually know what his work schedule is. Their letters have been so heavy, they've not really shared the mundane.

Either way, she's nervous about why he's suddenly texting. He hasn't texted her in several weeks. Their only communication for almost two months has been their letters.

Sucking in a deep, calming breath, she unlocks her screen and opens her messages.

Can I call you?

That's it.

That's all his message says.

No Hello or reason for the call.

Her stomach falls through the floor, and her heart beats out of her chest. All her fears and anxieties rush back in. This is it, she thinks. He's calling to tell her he's moving back to Italy for good, or he's hooked up with a suspect again, or he's hurt. She can't believe there's possibly a good or even innocuous reason for him to want to talk on the phone.

Setting her phone face down on the desk, she takes a few more deep breaths, trying to rationalize the situation, to stop catastrophizing—immediately fearing the worst case scenario–when something much less frightening is probably occurring. She remembers all those years ago on a case in Central Park when Elliot had said, "Someone's hearing zebras." For some reason, it's much easier said than done to think of horses and not zebras when hoof beats come charging through. And even though zebras rarely trot through New York City, she feels them galloping through her chest.

Four more dings, back to back, pull her from her silent rumination.

One more deep breath drawn through her nose, and a quick glance to confirm the blinds are drawn shut (she can't risk anyone potentially seeing an Elliot-induced breakdown), Olivia checks her phone, letting the FaceID unlock the screen straight to the messages from Elliot.

I'm coming back to the city soon

Just a short visit

I forgot to tell you in my letter

That's what I want to talk about

She chuckles softly as relief chases the zebras away. It's like he knows, all the way across the ocean, that she's panicking, that his out-of-the-blue and vague message has sent her spiraling.

She takes a moment to get her mind back on track and once again needs to do the mental math for their time zones before she can type out her reply. By the time she gets home from work tonight and can actually talk, it will be the middle of the night there.

I'm on lunch in 30

Or we can talk tomorrow

His response is immediate.

Call you in 30

Olivia is unable to get anything done in the next half hour. She reads the same email from McGrath five times without taking in a single word. She closes her laptop and leaves her office, deciding a short walk to the corner coffee cart will be a good way to rid herself of these jitters. Knowing what Elliot is calling about may have shut down hundreds of horrible thoughts, but it opens the door to so many more concerns.

How is she supposed to talk to him after their letters? Is he going to want to talk about the letters or about them, and their vague, but agreed-to more? She can't have a coherent or meaningful conversation about those things. It had taken her days to formulate her written responses and hours to actually write them out.

Thirty minutes is simply not enough.

Returning to her office five minutes before his call with an iced coffee and chocolate chip muffin in hand, she resolves to just talk about his upcoming visit and nothing more. She will shut down any other subject.

Olivia's jolted from her thoughts as her phone rings and Elliot's name lights up across the top.

"Hey El," she answers, somewhat stilted and forced, her nerves getting the better of her.

"Hey," Elliot answers cheerily. If he notices her tone, he ignores it and dives right into the reason for his call. "I know this might kinda be against what we agreed to do with our letters."

Olivia inhales sharply and holds her breath at the casual mention of their recent exchanges, ready to interrupt him if he brings up their content like she had planned. He doesn't though.

"I just got notice today that my request for two weeks of home time was approved. I figured that was the sort of thing you should know about right away."

The tightness in her chest loosens. "That's great. When is your visit?"

"Soon, the 13th through the 26th. I can email you my flight information when I book." His tone implies that he is asking for permission to include her in his planning.

Olivia jots a quick note with the dates on a post-it so she can mark her calendar later. "Yeah, yeah, email would be perfect. Do you want me to pick you up from the airport?" The offer escapes her mouth before she realizes she makes it.

Elliot's smile is so wide it hurts his cheeks. "Let's just see what time I land. You can offer again if it's not in the middle of the night."

Chuckling, she agrees, "That sounds good."

"Just so you know, I'm going to go to Colorado with Eli for some of the time I'm back. He is getting an apartment with a buddy. I want to check things out, and I think I have to cosign for him."

"That will be good, El. I'm sure that he's missed you this summer."

"Eh," Elliot sighs. "He's done alright without me. I try to call him at least once a week and text. But he's so busy with his friends and soccer, or calcio as he calls it, and girls, that I'm afraid talking to Dad isn't that cool anymore."

"Ouch." Olivia sympathizes, on a superficial level, at least.

"Yeah, sorta. I went through a similar thing with Dickie when he was at this age. Though, he actively avoided me most of the time."

"I'm not looking forward to that with Noah. He's already starting to cop an attitude most days. If I hear another, Ugh Moooooommm, I'm liable to ship him to the McCanns."

Elliot snorts at this declaration. "No, you aren't."

"No, I suppose not," she agrees, laughing with him.

Silence takes over the line for a moment and both of them let it, just happy to be sharing time together again. It's almost as if the ocean and hours don't separate them and he will walk into her office with coffee, snooping around her decorations.

"So, I—" Olivia begins timidly, only to be cut off by a sharp knocking on her door. It swings open immediately and Fin walks through.

"Liv, sorry to interrupt your lunch, but we've got a vic at Mercy, and Churlish and Valesco are en route to the scene. Bruno's upstate with a witness in that Smith case."

She pulls the phone from her face for a moment before answering, "Be right there. Give me five."

He nods and steps out, closing the door behind him.

"El–"

"I heard," he interrupts. "Duty calls, huh?"

"Yeah. But uh, it was good to talk, while we could."

"It was. I'll email you the flight information."

"I look forward to it."

Daring, he finally says, "I look forward to your next letter."

This time her breath doesn't catch, and she realizes that it doesn't feel as scary. "It should be there soon. I'll talk to you later."

"Bye," is all he gets out before he hears the cut off tone.

The next morning, she sips her coffee and pulls up her email on her laptop. She has a message from Elliot with his flight information.

From: stablerej

To: bensonom

Date: 5 Aug. 2023

Subject: flight info

Liv,

I land at 3:15 on Aug 13. Eli and I fly to Denver on Aug 20 and I fly back from Denver on Aug 26. Katie says she can pick me up if you can't.

See you soon,

El

Reading his email is odd. She can't recall that last time she emailed Elliot. They emailed on cases back in the day, on occasion, like forwarding a report from the ME or notes from a scene tech. But typically they shared everything in person.

She reads it again and pulls up her calendar—-not having had time yesterday after they hung up the phone, the post-it is still sitting on her desk. She sighs as she realizes she's picking up Noah from his camp on the 13th. Quickly, she types a short reply, not wanting to break their spell of limited communications outside their letters. Not yet anyway. Their call was nice, but in hindsight, she was glad Fin had interrupted, stopping her from saying too much.

From: bensonom

To: stablerej

Date: August, 5, 2023

Subject: RE: flight info

El,

Kathleen will have to pick you up. Noah comes home from his camp on the 13th.

Liv

It doesn't hit her until she's making herself lunch, a quick sandwich and salad, that Elliot's going to be back in New York soon. She is going to be face-to-face with him, the man who has confessed his love to her in writing, and the man who she has promised to fit into her life romantically.

What the hell is she going to do?

Elliot reads Olivia's reply and closes his laptop. He's mildly disappointed she can't pick him up from the airport, but he's more excited that he's going to be seeing her very soon. It's a much better feeling than he'd had yesterday evening when he had called her.

He got notice of the approval of his home-time right before he left work yesterday, and he had whipped out his phone and asked if he could call her as he walked out of his squad room. It only took him about ten steps outside to realize how out of the blue that request had been, so he had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to shoot off four more texts to give her context.

It wasn't until he got back to his apartment that he realized they hadn't talked on the phone in almost two months. And it was before. Before she agreed to start over with him. Before he spilled his heart out on notebook paper. And he hadn't heard back from her yet.

He had paced the small living room in his apartment, waiting for the thirty minutes to pass, deciding how best to approach their call. He had wanted to ask her a million questions—Did you get my second letter? Have you written back? How do you feel? What did you say? Do you love me, too?

He knew that he couldn't interrogate her over the phone. No. He had to play it cool, just tell her about his visit so he could get a read on her and they could talk about more. But he'd had to wait until he heard her voice. Then he'd known what all he could say, whether he could push or if he had to be patient.

In the end, their call had been short; much shorter than he wanted. He hadn't realized how badly he'd missed her voice. She'd sounded a bit nervous at first when she greeted him, "Hey, El." But after a few minutes, he'd thought she was going to say something about their letters or about them. In the end, she just promised her response was in the mail.

Elliot gets up from his small table to search his kitchen for something to eat. Not seeing much, he decides to hit the small salumeria around the corner. When he returns to his apartment, her letter has arrived.

July 31, 2023

Elliot,

I hope you aren't annoying your squad anymore by stomping around like a wounded bear. I know first-hand how terrible you can be in those moments, and I'm certain that a few of your team members thought about spiking your doppio with a laxative just to keep you out of their way for a while. Not that I ever resorted to those kinds of thoughts when I was your partner. (Fin might have though, at least once.)

You asked me how you fit into my life. The answer is just as frustrating for me as it probably is for you—I don't know.

We are so different than we were years ago. Sometimes I want the old us back, when we were partners, just to be "Benson & Stabler" again. Everytime we work a case together, I get flashbacks to moments years ago. But as you know, we cannot go back. And I'm intrigued by who you are now. You wear vests and three-piece suits. You talk about coffee as if it is a religious experience, sipping on expensive beans rather than chugging the swill from the corner cart. You've worked in private security and on complex international cases. You lived in Europe for ten years, which I still cannot fathom. And apparently you write letters.

I want to know more about the man you are now. The Elliot I knew all those years ago is still there, just like the Olivia I was all those years ago is still a part of me. But we've grown so much and experienced so much separately that we must learn the new people we are now.

You also asked what I see for us when I look in the future. I don't have an answer for that question, either.

Before, you being in my future was a given. You were my best friend, my partner, my confidant and protector, even when I didn't want one. I relied on you for so much. I just took it for granted that you would always be there, that you would be ingrained in every memory I made. Every vision I had for my future had you in it. Maybe that wasn't fair since you weren't really mine to make memories with, not like that, anyway. In the end, it didn't matter if it was right because I had to scrub you from every single one. You left, and I had to dream new dreams, alone.

I struggle to look into the future and trust that you will be there. But I want to try. I want to make us fit. I want us to have a future.

I've thought about you constantly since you returned. It's not always been good. And lately, it's been plain terrifying. You are not the only one who knows the feeling of being on the outside and looking in. I am so deeply familiar with that feeling. For our entire partnership, I was outside looking in. You were the one with the life. You were married, owned a home, and had children. You had everything I wanted and feared I would never get. But more importantly, you had all of that with someone else. I don't want to rehash our past, but it is important that we acknowledge it.

You next asked how do we make it happen; how do we get to more? I'm not sure. They don't make maps for this kind of thing.

I'm sorry I don't have all the answers to your questions. I am thinking about them, about you, and about us. And about how we do this.

As for the remainder of your letter–

Noah's grades were great; I dropped him off today at an overnight dance camp (I'm only half tempted to go pick him up tonight). He's almost finished his video game and he wanted me to tell you that he's a Hufflepuff. He asks about you. He's also becoming a typical pre-teen boy, full of stink and attitude. I hope you will tell me that this will only last a few months and not the rest of his teen years.

Amanda and Carisi had their baby—a boy. Carisi is over the moon to have a son. His name is Dominick Carisi, III. They call him Nico. He was a little early, but he's thriving now. I saw him the other day, and he is just precious and oh, so tiny. It makes me wish, just for a moment, that I had held Noah as a newborn.

Work is the same. With the heat and longer days comes more and more victims and perps. I feel like as soon as we close one case, we have two more opening up; it's a never ending merry-go-round. I miss having Muncy on my squad. She was a spitfire (though I think she is better suited for the DEA). Valesco was lost for a while when she left, but Bruno has taken him under his wing a bit. I'm hopeful to get another detective soon. Despite his bluster, McGrath wants me to have a full squad—it's better for his numbers.

As for you, I'm sad to hear that you've lost another colleague. I know Jamie's loss hit you hard. I took Ayanna out for a drink last month and we talked about it. I shared with her about losing a sergeant several years ago during a hostage situation. I know how hard it is to lose someone under your leadership. And just like I told her, I'm telling you—talk to someone about it. I know how you used to feel about therapists, though you hinted at therapy in your first letter. I hope you were serious and can call one now.

I also hope that this new development in your case doesn't cause too significant of a setback. While I agree that this distance between us is a good thing for now, I do miss you and I'm ready for you to be back in the city.

I don't want to end this letter on such a sad note, so I will say this—next week I'm going to buy pistachio gelato. Maybe we'll enjoy it together one evening.

Thinking of you,

Olivia