It's not a long drive to Liv's place. Or it is, it is a long drive, from the bar Elliot chose for his mother's wake to Liv's apartment - but it's not as long as it used to be. The drive from the old house in Queens to Liv's one bedroom in Manhattan used to be an eternity, measured not only in miles but in everything else, really. In time, in traffic, the distance between those two points metaphysical more than anything. On one end of the journey a house, a wife, a devotion to the ideals of religion and duty, and on the other a tiny one bedroom, a woman, alone, independent, operating outside the bounds of expectations. It's not that long a journey tonight, from where he was to where he wants to be; a bar, surrounded by family, her apartment, surrounded by her; it's the same thing. Her, family. It's the same, now. Maybe it always was. Maybe he's always been caught between two different kinds of family. Maybe he wants to build a bridge between them. Make them whole.

It's not a long drive, and that's a problem, because he spends the whole time trying to decide what he wants to say to her and he thought he'd have it figured out by the time he pulls his car to a stop by the curb in front of her apartment but he doesn't. He's just sitting there, looking up at her building, fragmented thoughts ricocheting around his head like bullets.

She fucked Randy. She won't let him touch her but she fucked Randy. His fucking brother got to see her confident, uninhibited, free, and with him she is guarded, closed off, hesitant, not ready. What is it about him, he wonders, what has her convinced she's not ready for Elliot, when she was ready to let Randy tangle his fingers in her hair?

He knows what it is. What it is that lurks inside him, the thing about him that scares her. The reason she's fucked Randy, and not him, is that he's hurt her. Chosen someone else over her, chosen the life he already had over the one he could have made, chosen to walk away without a word, and it's that thing they say, about elephants. Elephants and Liv, they never forget. She's forgiven him, he thinks - maybe - but she hasn't forgotten, and she's never gonna, and maybe this was a bad idea, him showing up at her front door uninvited. At least he's sober, this time.

Maybe it's a bad idea; maybe it's the wrong thing, but he's so tired of trying to do the right thing. The right thing has gotten him exactly nowhere; his compass on a chain around her neck and her not pulling away when Randy reaches for her hand is not progress, not really. She's still scared. And she responds to confidence, that's what Randy's told him, and as he kills the engine and looks up at her apartment he wonders if he's shown that to her, confidence. It's not something he feels, not with her. It used to be; used to be he never felt braver, prouder, more confident that when she was by his side, prettiest girl in the whole goddamn world walking in lockstep with him, guns in their hands and blood on their teeth, they could do anything, so long as they did it together. Anything but this, anything but talk about their fucking feelings, or whatever, anything but be vulnerable. He's tried, since he's been back, to be a little more open, a little more honest, and he thinks she likes that but him looking to her for approval, for guidance, isn't getting them anywhere. He gave her the compass - lead you to happiness, Liv - but it's not a real compass. There's no magnet in it, pulling her northward. It doesn't lead anywhere. Maybe she needs something real. Maybe they both do.

So he gets out of the car, thinking about confidence and the best way to show it to her. Thinking about the best way to show her that he knows what he wants and that he knows what she wants and that they can have it without breaking in half. Thinking about how to show her that he knows the way, that she can follow where he leads, that she can trust him. He wants to apologize for acting like a dickhead; she left before the fight with Randy got physical but he said some shit to her that he wishes he hadn't and she needs to hear him say sorry. But he can't just be sorry, can't just be contrite; he'll apologize, sure, but he intends to tell her that he's ready for them to stop dicking around, that he thinks she's ready, too. Or at least, he thinks she will be. If she'll trust him, and let him hold her, he thinks she'll find that she's ready.

I'm sorry, and I want you, that's what he wants to say when she opens the door. He wants to be smooth, and tell her how beautiful she looks tonight, because she does, Jesus, she does look beautiful. He wants to reach out and brush his fingertips against the compass nestled between her perfect tits and feel her heartbeat against his skin and he wants to look like it doesn't scare him shitless when it happens. He wants to sweep her off her goddamn feet.

I can do it, he thinks as he bangs on her door. I can be charming. It's like going undercover; that's what confidence is, he thinks. It's fake it 'til you make it; he wants to slide confidence over his shoulders like one of Eddie Ashes's shirts, wants to pretend to be that man until he is that man. The man who'll take care of her, the one she'll want.

I'm sorry, that's what he tells himself he's gonna say, but then she's opening the door and his tongue is suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Liv had about a twenty minute headstart on him, and in that time she's managed to change out of her pretty black dress and wash away her makeup. Her hair is wild and loose around her soft pretty face, her skin clean and her eyes bright. The dress she's traded for a loose white sweater and tight black leggings, and the neckline of her sweater is a deep, sexy V that shows off enough of her cleavage to make him feel like praying. The makeup is gone but the compass is still there, dangling around her neck, drawing his eye to the place where he longs to sink his mouth over her skin.

I'm sorry, that's what he's supposed to say, but she sighs, and his eyes snap up to her face, and when he opens his mouth what he actually says is -

"When exactly did you fuck him?"

The words come out hard, harder than he meant them to. It isn't his confidence speaking now; it's his fear. The part of him that is afraid he'll never be what she wants, the part of him that thinks Randy treated her better, was more exciting, was better than he can be, that part of him that is terrified she won't ever want him, necklace or no, wins out, and speaks.

"Jesus, Elliot," she says, leaning against the door and blocking the entrance to her home, trapping him in the corridor. "Did you drive all this way just to give me shit-"

"I drove all this way to talk to you," he explains quickly. "I wanna know what you were thinking."

I wanna know if you were thinking about me the night you fucked him. I want to know if you picked him because he reminded you of me.

"And you think I'm gonna tell you?" she asks. Her affect is bullish, belligerent; her back is up. Defensive, now, defending herself from him, and that's better than shying away, he thinks. As long as they're fighting, they're talking. There hasn't been much talk, the last few years. Not as much as there should have been.

"That's what friends do, isn't it? Friends tell each other the truth."

"That what we are? Friends?"

"That's all you've let us be."

How about we call it a friendship? That's what she said to him, Christmas in Jersey, called what they have a friendship and he thinks it's a hell of a lot more than that but maybe it isn't. Maybe she's just wearing the necklace because she thinks it's pretty. She's always had an eye for beautiful things.

"You're blaming me-" her eyes are flashing, full of fire, but full of something else, too, something that looks like hurt.

"I'm asking you," he says. "You wanna be my friend, I'm asking you to be my friend and I'm asking, as a friend, why you fucked my brother."

A door opens further down the hall and Liv reacts on instinct, swings her door open with one hand and reaches for him with the other, catches him by the forearm and pulls him into her apartment.

"Keep your voice down," she hisses. "We're not doing this in the hallway."

At least he's inside now; that's progress, he thinks. The door closes behind him and she whirls on him, and there is so much anger in her he can feel it, and he'd take a step back from her if it was any other night, put some space between him and the towering inferno of her rage, but he's trying to be confident, so he stands tall and proud and pretends like he's not afraid of her. Truth is, there's nothing in the world that scares him more than her.

"I fucked him," she hisses, "because you told me you loved me and then walked away from me again. You -"

"Hang on -"

"I fucked him," she continues, completely ignoring his attempt at interrupting her, his indignation at this latest damning revelation, "because you were a fucking mess and I needed something to take my mind off it."

"Did it work?"

It sounds snide when he says it but he doesn't feel guilty for his petulance, not even a little. He told her he loved her, and that's when she went looking for another warm body to hold? After he confessed the truth to her? How could she have -

"Yeah," she says bluntly. "Yeah, it worked. Couple of orgasms usually do the trick."

The world starts spinning under his feet and his vision is going a little hazy at the edges the way it sometimes does when the anger gets the better of him. How could she do this, he wonders; how could she hear him say I love you, and then go looking for someone else?

Because you left, a little voice whispers bitterly in the back of his mind. He wants to think that his confession sealed the deal for them, that once he said I love you that was the end of it, for both of them, that she should have belonged to him after that, and he's pissed off, feels like she betrayed him somehow, but he knows he's the one who betrayed her first. Told her he loved her and then left her alone, left her to deal with his kids by himself, went to see Angela instead of staying with Liv. He did it because Angela was easier, because he felt like Angela wouldn't judge him and sometimes he feels like that's all Liv is judge him, but if Liv judges him it's only because she knows the man he's capable of being and she'll hold him to account when he stumbles.

But still. He told her he loved her, and that didn't mean anything to her, apparently, because she walked right out of the hotel and found a stranger to hold her. And couple of orgasms, she said, couple, and that means more than one. That means Randy made her come, more than once. Randy knows what she looks like when she's lost in pleasure and Elliot has no idea and it's tearing him in half, the not knowing. The visuals alone, Randy naked and sweaty and rutting on top of her, her pretty hands clawing at her back, are enough to make him nauseous.

"That how you deal with it?" he snaps at her. "Shit gets hard and you, what? Go find a stranger in a bar? Jesus, Liv we aren't twenty any more -"

"It's none of your business," she fires back, "what I do or who I do it with. I'm not your…" her voice trails off and he can see the hesitation in her, like she was on the cusp of saying something she can't take back, like she's trying to stop herself before she goes too far. It's restraint, that's holding her back now, and he's so sick and fucking tired of them holding their tongues.

"Not my what?" he demands. "Go on, Liv. Not my what?"

"I'm not your fucking wife," she hisses.

"You should be."

The words are out before he can stop them and her mouth falls open in shock and for a second they both stand frozen, so still they're not even breathing, staring at each other in something akin to horror. Too much, the words float through his mind; it is too much, too fast, an insane thing to say to a woman he's never even kissed, but it's the truth. Confidence, that's what he's come here to show her; he's come here to be confident, to take what he wants, to claim what's his, and that's her, goddamn it. She's his, and always should've been, and he doesn't ever want to share her with anybody else. Especially not fucking Randy.

"You should leave," she tells him in an unsteady voice.

"No," he answers.

"Excuse me -"

"This is how it always goes, Liv," he grumbles. "We get too close to a real conversation and you slam the door in my face and I'm not walking away this time. We're doing this."

She likes confidence, he'll fucking show her confidence. He'll show her he's brave enough to stand right here and face the words he's said and the things he wants. He'll show her he's not scared. Or he is, he is scared, but he's more scared of her slowly slipping through his fingers than he is scared of this conversation.

"You've got no right," she says slowly, grimly, but he doesn't let her finish.

"And that's the problem," he tells her. "Right now I've got no claim. You're not my wife. You're not even my girlfriend. You can go wherever you want and fuck whoever you want. And I gotta tell you, that ain't working for me."

As far as declarations of love and devotion go it's probably the must fucked up, possessive way he could've approached this conversation, but it's too late to take it back. And he doesn't really want to, anyway. The way he wants her is a little fucked up, a little possessive, a little bit crazy, and he's tired of pretending like it isn't. He's tired of pretending like the way she makes him feel isn't the most all-consuming need he's ever experienced in his life. And he doesn't think softer words would've worked, not with her. Not with Liv, who's spent her whole life wanting to be wanted, yearning for a place to belong. She wants someone to want her, and nobody, no-fucking-body could ever want her more than he does.

"Are you…" she starts to speak, loses her voice, clears her throat and tries again. Her eyes are wild, scared. "What are you saying?"

Marry me, he thinks.

"I'm saying, I want to be the only person you fuck for the rest of your life. I want you to be that for me. I know what I want, Liv, and that's you. Not anybody else. Just you."

It happens before he even registers it; he's standing there, looking at her, having just come as close as he possibly could to a marriage proposal without getting down on one knee, and his heart is in his throat and he's wondering what she's gonna say when crack! Her hand slaps across his cheek so hard and so fast he actually stumbles back from her.

So much for confidence, he thinks.

"You fucking asshole," she enunciates each word as sharply as a knife. "You - you - you asshole! You haven't even tried -"

"Haven't tried to what?" he demands. Probably if he'd kept his mouth shut and let her finish her sentence she'd have told him but his head is still spinning from her slap.

"I asked you out to lunch, I asked you for Christmas, that- that - that moment we had in the kitchen, what do you think that was? That fucking necklace you're wearing, what do you think that is, if not me trying?"

"That…that was you trying?"

Standing in her kitchen, she'd almost kissed him, had swayed towards him with her eyes closed and her mouth open and he'd wanted it, Christ, he'd wanted to kiss her, but she was in a bad place and he'd worried she'd regret it, so he'd stopped them. Had she misunderstood him, he wonders now; did she think he didn't want to kiss her? And the necklace…did she think he was just being friendly? Did she think when he said happiness he meant anything other than him? He thinks about the word happiness and he sees her smiling in the passenger's seat of a squad car, and he thought she felt the same, but what if she didn't?

"I been trying to get you to look at me for two years, Liv," he tells her, something like defeat creeping in for the very first time. "I was just waiting for you to be ready. I thought…I thought you knew that."

"This is you waiting?" she asks faintly. "You show up at my house and say…whatever the fuck it is you're trying to say because you're waiting?"

"No," he agrees, this doesn't look like waiting. "It's 'cause I'm tired of waiting, Liv. I'm here right now because I want you and I don't want to spend any more time waiting to say that."

Biding time, he thinks. That's what he's been doing. Cooling his heels, his whole life on pause while he waits for her to catch up. Waiting, for her, for some perfect moment when everything falls into place, the Hallmark movie ending when the time is finally right and the boy kisses the girl while snow falls softly all around them and a piano plucks a romantic chord in the background.

That moment is never gonna come. He knows that now. There is never going to be a moment when he finds the perfect combination of words to unlock her timid heart and she goes tumbling into his arms. There will never be a perfect moment when he's finally done everything right and she's absolved him of his sins and they're both emotionally healthy and clear headed. He's been waiting, all this time, for something that's never going to happen. There is no perfect; there is only him, and her, two profoundly imperfect souls who maybe don't deserve a fairytale ending - well, she deserves it, he's not sure about himself - there is only them, and the choice they have to make. That choice, the choice to reach for each other, the choice to stop waiting for perfect and just start living, they can make it at any moment, but he thinks they may not have too many moments left. They aren't young, anymore, and life is fleeting. If not now, when? He doesn't think it'd go any easier on any other night; it's now or never.

"What do you expect me to say?" she asks him angrily, miserably. "Am I supposed to be impressed? You're jealous about Randy -"

"I'm not jealous," he says petulantly, but he is, he is so jealous.

"You-"

"Why'd you pick him, huh?" Elliot steps closer to her as he asks his question, drawn to her as a moth to a flame, the heat of her anger licking up his spine, making him reckless. Up close he can see how much this conversation is affecting her, can see how shallowly she's breathing, the flush that's creeping across her pretty tits and up her pretty neck, can see the way her eyes burn at him, challenging him. She's always been a challenge and every other man she's ever been with has failed to meet that challenge and overcome it and maybe it's hubris, that makes him think he stands a chance. Maybe it's arrogant, but he thinks he's the only one who ever could.

"All the guys you could've taken home, and you picked him. Why?"

"He knew what he wanted," she tells him.

"So do I," Elliot reminds her. He's told her already; he wants her. "But that's not the only reason, is it?"

"I wanted you to hurt." The confession catches him off guard; he didn't think, before now, that she'd done it on purpose. That she'd gone to Randy to cause him pain. He didn't think she'd be that callous. But he's hurt her plenty, so maybe he deserves it.

"I wanted you to know you can't…you can't keep walking out on me. If you won't stay, somebody else will."

If that was her goal, she fucking succeeded. His eyes are open now.

"I'm standing right here. I'm not going anywhere."

"I picked him because he looked like you. Wedding ring and all."

She's still trying to hurt him, he thinks. Lashing out, the way she does when she feels trapped. The words are meant to wound him, but they just make him smile instead, a slow, satisfied smile because whether she intended to or not, she has just given herself away. That night, when she went out looking for someone to distract her, she chose someone who looked like him. She wants him. Just as much as he wants her.

"I'm not wearing a ring," he tells her slowly, holding up his hand so she can see. "And you don't have to keep wasting your time settling for second best."

"You're a real prick, you know that?" she says, but she's swaying towards him, just a little. There is a part of her that wants to give in, he thinks, but she's so used to fighting it she doesn't know how to stop.

"You like that about me," he says, and then he musters every bit of courage he has, and reaches out to brush her hair behind her shoulder, giving him a better view of his compass around her neck.

"This is a bad idea," she breathes unsteadily, shaken by the boldness of his touch.

"Maybe," he allows. "But maybe it isn't. I wanna find out." He takes a risk, settles his hands at her hips, and she doesn't back away. Slowly he leans forward, until his nose is almost touching hers, cheeks brushing as they breathe, their lips centimeters apart, the warmth of her breath ghosting across his skin. He can feel how unsteady she is, how close she seems to falling, and he lingers, for just a second, lets the promise of a kiss hover in the air between them.

"The rest of my life," he promises her. "You have me, Liv. Forever."

"You can't promise me that," she whispers.

"Oh, yes I can," he says, and then he does it. Throws caution to the wind, and presses his mouth to hers. In his arms she freezes, the word forever raining down around them like confetti, his heart hammering in his chest, and then he remembers Randy's nasty words in the bar. Quick as lightning he raises his hand from her hip and tangles his fingers in the wealth of her dark hair and pulls her in closer, and that does it. At the touch of his hand she melts against him and opens her lips on a sigh, and his tongue delves deep into the sweetness of her mouth while a feeling like joy sparks and bubbles in his veins. Randy was right, and Elliot hates his brother for that, just a little, but mostly what he feels in this moment, kissing Olivia, is relief.