Two months later…

When the alarm went off he grumbled something unintelligible, flung his arm out over the curve of her waist and pulled her hard against him while she swiped her finger across the face of her phone, hit snooze and sank back into the warmth of him. He was solid as a block of marble but warm, everywhere, made her feel warm, not just her body but her heart, too, all the soft, tender pieces of her glowing like embers, warmed by his touch. His palm against her belly, his lips against the rise of her shoulder; there was warmth here, and comfort, and she let it take her, let it hold her. For five whole minutes she drifted somewhere on the edge of sleep, cocooned in the warmth of him.

But then the alarm went off again, and he laughed, the sound low and hoarse and sleepy.

"C'mon," he said, slipping his hand away from her belly, up over the curve of her hip and down to her ass, where he gave her a little squeeze. "Time to get moving, baby."

This is your life, she told herself as she rolled out of bed, naked, looked at him over her shoulder, watched him stretching languidly in her bed, as confident and easy as a lion at rest. It was hard to believe, sometimes, that this was real. She walked away from him, left him in her bed while she went to shower and his gaze lingered on her back, and as she did she kept reminding herself. This is your life. Two toothbrushes on the counter beside the sink, his sandalwood soap next to her body wash in the shower, a big, hard man lying in the bed where she used to lie alone.

She washed her hair, her arms, between her legs, washed her face and her ass and luxuriated in the steam. Before he'd wandered into her life she would've rushed this part, anxious to leave her empty apartment behind and stride into the austere and foreboding light of the office, but now she took her time. Home wasn't somewhere she wanted to leave, now.

She showered, she dried her hair, she applied her makeup. By the time she walked back into the bedroom to dress he'd left the bed, but his things were still there. A copy of The Count of Monte Cristo on his side of the bed - he'd checked it out at the library, had to renew it three times already and hadn't finished reading yet but he seemed determined to keep at it, for reasons he had not shared with her - his clothes in the closet next to hers. That closet; she used to share it with Ed, and after he died she'd given all his clothes to the Goodwill but left the space empty, and Elliot had slipped into that space so easily it scared her, sometimes. Losing Ed nearly broke her, and he was her husband, and no one was ever supposed to take his place, but it was Elliot's shirts hanging in the closet next to hers, his shoes on the floor beside her boots, and maybe it was too late to worry about what was supposed to happen.

There was a little bluetooth speaker on the counter in the kitchen, and when she stepped out of the bedroom she heard it softly playing an old Springsteen song. Elliot was there, too, humming and bustling around as he made the coffee, naked save for a pair of boxers, the definition of his muscles on full display. There were so many things she'd learned about him, over the last few months, and this was one of them; the man was fussy about his coffee. They'd both long since given up any pretense of him saving up money to move out on his own, and he'd spent a little, invested in this hobby of his. Bought a grinder and a little stovetop espresso maker and a milk frother, and on the days when she didn't get called out of bed for a case at 2:00 a.m. he spent her shower time fiddling with the coffee. She'd tried to tell him not to bother once, but the words caught in her throat; when he handed her the black thermos she liked best with coffee he'd made for her sloshing around inside it felt like care. Felt like she mattered, to someone, and it had been so long since she'd mattered to anyone at all. That coffee; it was him trying, she knew. It was him trying to build a life. It was the kind of life she wanted.

And it was fragile as a dream, delicate as a wisp of smoke. Too often she had known happiness as a fickle, fleeting thing, and she had come to fear it, convinced that each moment of joy must surely be followed by calamity. This, this morning, this man, this thermos of coffee he pressed into her hands while he wound his arm around her waist, this felt like happiness, and she wanted to savor it, but instead found herself wondering when it must surely come to an end.

"There she is," he murmured, leaning in to kiss her. She kissed him back, and lingered a little longer than she normally would, opened her mouth and drew him into her, and he went, willingly, wrapped both his arms around her and pressed her back against the counter and kissed her until they were both breathless.

"Good morning," she said when they broke apart, smiling like a fool.

"Morning," he answered, grinning. "What was that for?"

"Just…" she waved the thermos around vaguely. I wanted to remember, she thought. I wanted to remember that this is my life.

"Yeah," he said, and it sounded like he understood, though she couldn't imagine how. "You got a busy day ahead?"

Christ, it was just all so fucking normal. Man and a woman, waking up together, sipping coffee in the kitchen before the day began, talking about schedules while the sun rose slowly over the horizon. Is this how other people feel? She wondered. All her life it had seemed to her there existed two kinds of people; people like her - lonely and isolated, beset by grief - and other people. Other people didn't dodge bullets at work, had never felt their hands sticky with the blood of their friends. Other people were safe, and happy, got married and raised babies in little houses behind white picket fences. This quiet domesticity, this easy companionship, was the sort of thing that belonged to other people. Even when she was married Olivia wasn't sure it had ever felt like this; Ed cared for her, and took care of her, but Ed was too much like her. Got up and fought demons every day, carried a grim determination in his heart that had etched itself into every line of his face. When Ed made coffee he put a pod in the Keurig - which had taken up residence in a cabinet, now, never to see the light of day again - and never thought twice about it. Elliot was learning to draw shapes in the foam from the frother; today it was a leaf, a little lopsided but recognizable, nonetheless, before she closed the lid over the thermos.

"No idea," she said. "You know how it is."

There was no way to know how the day might go before it began; she didn't think any disasters were in the offing, but disasters so rarely announced themselves before they began.

"You think you'll come by tonight?"

He was talking just to talk, she thought, wasn't saying anything important, didn't even really expect an answer, because he knew what the answer was already. If the day was calm, if she could get away in time, she'd go to the bar, the way she did most nights. She'd pick up a salad or something on the way - a girl couldn't live on chicken tenders and pub chips indefinitely - and Elliot would pour her a ginger ale and she'd go sit in the corner booth with Munch and whichever of the old timers decided to make an appearance, and she'd eat dinner in the company of her friends and when his shift was done they'd go home together. Go home, back to this apartment, and they'd probably talk a little and fuck a little and fall asleep wrapped up in each other, because that was just what they did now.

This is your life.

"Yeah," she said. "If I can. It's Friday, I might even bring the new kids."

Muncy was gone but Velasco was hanging around and so was Bruno, and she liked them well enough and she'd been thinking, recently, about how the squad used to feel like a family, and how she might get it to feel that way again. Brian and Munch were off the job and countless other faces had cycled in and out and somewhere along the way she'd stopped thinking of them as hers, walled herself off from them like she was afraid that if she gave them too much of herself they'd take it with them when they left. But maybe that was wrong; maybe if she gave just a little bit more they'd stick around. She wanted them to stick around. She was tired of saying goodbye.

"That'd be nice," he said.

Yeah, it would. It might also require some explaining; Elliot wasn't exactly demonstrative in public but he got off work at 8:00, and usually they didn't stick around long after that. If the boys came with her they might see her leave with Elliot, and they might have questions, and she'd have to decide what to tell them before they got around to asking.

Who is that guy, that's what they'd want to know. She stole a glance at him over the rim of her coffee mug; he'd evidently decided to make himself a real breakfast, had flung a dish towel over his bare shoulder while he rummaged around in the fridge, searching for the eggs.

"You got time to eat?"

"Not today."

It wasn't like he was her boyfriend. The word felt too juvenile, and she wasn't sure what they were doing could be classified as dating. Sure, they went places together, but mostly where they went was the park, the grocery store, the Whitney, once or twice. There wasn't a lot of time or space in their lives for white tablecloths and gentle wooing. Or maybe that was wrong; maybe the leaf in the coffee cup, his arm around her when she woke, maybe that was wooing. It was working, she thought, because she wanted him to stay, and he was, staying.

Partner, she thought. That's what she'd call him, if the boys asked. He was her partner.

"I got something on my face?" he asked, brushing his hand across his beard. "You're looking at me funny."

"It's a nice face," she said, offering him a smile. "But I gotta go."

"Ok."

He leaned over, his hands busy with the eggs but presenting his cheek to her, and she kissed him there once, gently.

"Be safe today," he told her seriously.

"I always am. See you tonight."

"See you tonight."

This is your life, she reminded herself as she holstered her gun at her hip, snatched up her keys, juggled purse and coffee and made her way out the door. Six months ago she'd been lonely and miserable and filling the silence with wine and brooding thoughts, and now there was sunlight streaming in through her apartment, and a man she wanted to come home to, and coffee in a thermos he'd made just for her. It was perfect. It was perfect in a way that scared her.

It was like…it was like a shoe that didn't quite fit. Going to the store and finding the perfect pair of heels, everything she wanted but pinching her toes, and her deciding to get them anyway, even though they hurt, just a little, because they looked so goddamn pretty. He was like that; everything she'd ever wanted, but just a little wrong, because sometimes when he looked at her he saw someone else, and remembered. Because sometimes when he slept beside her, his deep, rumbling snores echoing in her ears, she thought about where he came from, where he'd been, thought about a dead man in the morgue with a face just like his and Ed's head on the pillow beside hers and felt something like dread stirring in her belly.

This is your life, she told herself, but she couldn't help feeling as if it wasn't, somehow. As if she were living someone else's life, as if she'd only borrowed it for a little while, and the time was coming when she'd have to give it back. Christ, she didn't want to give it back.