The designated day for their phone call loomed, and Olivia wondered what the hell she got herself into. She suddenly remembered all the reasons why she hadn't shared anything about the time he was gone. There was some good, but a lot of it was bad…and some of it was horrific.

It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him. She did. She just wanted to go back to pretending nothing crappy happened during that decade. But as much as she dreaded the conversations needing to take place, she knew they were necessary if they were going to move forward and be whatever the hell they wanted to be.

A significant part of her was deeply worried that it would all be too much. That the things they missed would ultimately be too much for them. That they could never get past it. The thought terrified her.

But what they were now wasn't enough. Not for either of them. They both wanted something more. But it was the wanting that scared her. Life had a way of disappointing her. And Elliot? She lost him once, and she knew she wouldn't survive losing him again.

She thought all week about what she wanted to start with. She couldn't go straight for the worst. She wasn't sure she wanted to relive her walk through hell, and she definitely wasn't ready to do it tonight.

Once Noah was settled, and her glass of wine poured, she situated herself on her bed, legs crossed, and back leaning against her headboard. She glanced at the clock. They hadn't discussed a set time so she hoped it was a good time to call. She took a deep breath. Ready or not.

-000-

He leaned his head against the headboard and stared at the ceiling. He wasn't sure why he felt apprehensive. He wished they agreed on a set time because the entire evening had crawled along.

He glanced at his watch. She should have Noah in bed by now. Hopefully she would call soon. He turned his attention back to the ceiling, his mind making mental pictures out of the random swirls of texture. His phone startled him when it finally rang.

"Hey," he greeted casually.

"Hey," she returned.

"I was a little worried you wimped out on me…." He teased.

She scoffed in faux anger, "that's more your style," she threw back at him.

"What!?" His voice billed with false indignation. "Not true." He defended himself. "Name one time that I backed out of something I said I do." She could hear his self/assured smile. "One time," he reiterated.

To be honest he could think of thousands of times he flaked out on Kathy. But not Liv. Other than the one cataclysmic disaster, the one that left them with ten years of deafening silence, he had remained unfailingly faithful. But the one mistake? It destroyed the one relationship that ever meant anything to him.

Thankfully, she didn't go for his throat right out of the gate. "Summer '03. You promised to buy me a sandwich while I was stuck in interrogation with Munch. We were in there for a stupid amount of time. Probably ten hours. I hadn't eaten the entire time, hell, I don't think I got a minute to pee…"

"Oh God…I forgot the sandwich didn't I," he groaned.

"Yep," she popped the 'p'.

"Damn Benson! You keep grievances in a filing cabinet or something? Do you keep them in alphabetical order or chronological order? I gotta know?"

She laughed, "Reverse chronological order if you must know," he loved when she leaned into a bit. She always committed one hundred percent. It was one of the many reasons she was perfect.

"Alright alright," he laughed, "I'm the crappier human. I'll admit it. Pretty sure if it was a popularity contest, the winner would be Olivia Benson. I wouldn't come close."

"Oh come on," she laughed, but they both knew it was true.

Their laughter died down, and he remembered the purpose of the call. They had to talk about those ten years. The ones he wished he could forget.

"Who's going first?" Her voice had completely changed, and he knew she was just as nervous as he was.

"It was your idea…" he let the thought taper off as a suggestion.

"Sure…but you're the one who took off for ten years sooo…" he knew she tried to keep the jab light, unfortunately the weight of the statement hovered over them.

"God. Sorry I didn't really want to go into that right now. Really. Forget I said that. God. I'll go first." She was spiraling, but he didn't want that. She was right. It was his fault that they found themselves here.

"You're right though," he spoke gently, starting to soothe her nerves. "I was going to start at the beginning anyway. I'll go first okay."

He heard her anxious breathing on the other end of the line, and she spit out a soft, "yes."

He let out a long nervous breath and dove in.

"It's kind of hard to know where to start…I want to talk about why, but…"

"It's okay. Just talk about what you want to talk about and let the chips fall where they may. Let's just…talk. Where did you go after you, uh," her voice strained, "left."

He hated he was the one responsible for the pain behind the question, but he tried to move forward. This wasn't about judgment. This was her trying. And he would give this everything he had if it meant she would give him a chance.

"Right after I left I was a mess. I didn't really know what I wanted to do next, or at all. I just needed to go. Somewhere. Anywhere." The pain from that time period hit him straight in the chest. The memories of helplessness, loss, and uncertainty were almost as fresh as the days they happened. "Kathy had enough of my sulking ass, and told me we were going to Boston to see her cousin. Naturally, I bitched and complained about the whole thing."

"Naturally." She confirmed.

"Yeah. We took Eli with us, and it was fine. Good even. Just to get out of the city." He hoped she realized he didn't mean it was good to leave her, because that choice haunted him nearly everyday for ten years. "While we were there an old military buddy reached out. He said he was working for a security company now, and they were specifically looking for ex cops or ex military to fill positions in DC."

"You went to DC?" Her voice relayed her surprise.

"Yeah, I did." He sighed. How could he explain that every place he went, every job he looked at, even the ones he took, didn't feel right. Nothing felt right without her.

"How long were you there?" She sounded genuine, like she really wanted to know.

"A year. The company was okay, I just didn't care for the DC. Kathy loved it, but it just wasn't…"

"Home," she completed.

"Yeah. I couldn't get comfortable. Not really. For the next two years I just felt…adrift. I stayed with the security company. We tried a few different major US cities. We really only stayed in one place for nine months at a time. Kathy hated it. Eli hated it. Honestly, I hated it too." He hated it because there was one place he wanted to be, and he pined for home. "I knew I needed to find somewhere to settle. The older kids were doing great in the city, but I felt bad for Eli. He changed schools so many times during Elementary school. The kid didn't even try to make friends." He shook his head. "I struggled with leaving the force…" he hesitated, "and you."

"I called like a thousand times," the hurt that laced her voice was almost too much for him to handle.

"I'm so sorry Liv." His voice cracked. "Everything was so upside down then, and when I finally came up for air…it was too late to fix the damage I'd done."

He tried not to feel disconcerted by her silence on the other end of the line. Finally, in a soft voice she asked, "What happened next?"

"That's when the company offered me a position in Europe… and that was when my marriage went to shit again." He breathed out a slow breath. "Your turn I think."

He could tell she wanted to ask more questions, or encourage him to continue, but she held back. He wasn't sure if he preferred her backing off or if he wished she'd push for details. He could give her details…maybe next week.

-000-

She wanted to ask for more details…more clarification, but she didn't want to stop the momentum of the conversation. She wanted to give them the opportunity to just…share. Speak without judgment. She wanted to know him again.

"Okay…" she was a little startled at his sudden turnover of the conversation. She had decided to start with something happy. Something that had been both heavy and light. Noah.

"I thought I'd tell you about…about adopting Noah."

The emotion in his voice was clear. "I would love to hear about that." She knew he regretted missing out on that part of her life, watching her become a mother. This was something she wanted to share with him. It was something she knew he'd cherish.

"It's a really long story," she admitted. The winding road to get her boy was full of ups and downs and so much uncertainty.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised, and she knew he meant more than the call.

"Well," the beginning was simple, but it only got more complicated as the story went on. "I found him when we were working a case."

"I wondered. What kind of case?"

"Child pornographer and child sex trafficking ring." Funny how every time she told this story she remembered every single moment.

"Jesus," he muttered.

"Yeah. When we entered the room we were expecting to find a couple adults, some underage girls, and the boy we were searching for. Instead we found the underage girls…and a baby boy sleeping in a drawer." He sat silently, seemingly taken aback by the circumstances. It wasn't like the hadn't run into similar circumstances while working together, but there was something awe inspiring thinking about her twelve year old boy, blue eyes and bouncing curls, starting his life sleeping in a drawer.

She continued, "We were expecting a raid and potential arrests and instead I stood in that dirty room holding a baby dressed in nothing but a diaper."

"Oh Liv," he said almost reverently. He obviously had no idea what to say, and she understood. It was the most life altering thing that ever happened to her.

"He went into state custody and we eventually found his mother. "Ellie was a sex worker. She overdosed and her pimp sold Noah to the people we eventually found him with. We were working towards reunification, but uh," all these years later she still hated the images that assaulted her after Ellie Porter's death. "She relapsed, was assaulted, and killed not long after she returned to the streets."

"Oh my God, Liv. That's just…"

He had no idea. She'd spare him the images of her charred body. That was too much, even for her. "He went back into state custody. He bounced around between foster homes. I tried to make it to every one of his hearings." She struggled to explain the pull Noah had on her from the moment she lifted him into her arms. "I didn't know it then, but he was my baby. I don't know how to explain it, but one day the judge overseeing his case asked me if I would like to foster him." She always struggled to get through this part without being emotional. "You know, you remember…" she swallowed back her tears. Memories of standing outside the precinct elevator admitting to her closest friend that her adoption application had been denied, and that crushed any ideas of motherhood she once cherished. "I had been told no so many times…but this woman finally gave me a chance."

She could hear his emotions getting the better of him, and she wasn't fairing much better. Every person close to her was there to witness her journey towards Noah's adoption. She hadn't ever had to tell someone the full story. Her emotional response surprised her, and maybe it wasn't the story itself that had her in tears, it was that she finally was telling her partner about the most important thing to ever happen to her.

Once she felt like she could speak without melting a puddle of tears she finished her story. "The year I fostered Noah was so up and down. I didn't know what the hell to do with an infant." He lightly chuckled at that. "But we figured it out. Balancing work and Noah was intense. I was fighting for promotions at the same time so that year was just," she let out a long breath, "hard."

"But you did it," he must have got his emotions in check because he could finally speak. "You did everything that I knew you could." He cleared his throat. "You know you're pretty incredible right?"

She felt her cheeks rush with warmth. For some reason the compliment meant everything coming from him.

"I don't know about that," she demurred.

"You've never been good at seeing yourself clearly." He kept his voice light, and she heard a hint of playfulness behind his truthful statement.

She laughed lightly, "Maybe not, but who really does?"

"Well, you deserve happiness Liv."

If he only knew that he was the last thing she needed to feel complete. She knew he was the missing piece, the piece that would make her whole.

*This will be a 3 part story for this collection- I'm trying to work a satisfying ending for those who only want to read the three parts- but leave it open ended enough to move on to a full story...which I'm seriously considering. Thank you for all your comments! It definitely helps me stay motivated, and your comments help me know what stories you love enough for me to continue! You are all amazing and wonderful! *