The bar is nice. There's slow, bluesy music playing over the speakers, just loud enough so he can't hear the couple in the next booth, not so loud he can't hear himself think. The lighting is dim enough to make the place feel cozy but not so dark he has to strain to read the menu. The menu is drinks, mostly, a few small plates he thinks she might like, but it's early yet. She may not stay long enough for food.

It'll be a miracle if she shows up at all, he thinks.

Or maybe the miracle was her agreeing to this meeting in the first place; she's turned him down often enough, the last few years. Turned him down so often he thinks a less stubborn man might have given up and stopped asking by now.

He's the stubbornest son of a bitch alive, though. The only person he's ever met more stubborn than him is Olivia herself. That's why he's kept at it, why he hasn't stopped asking her to drinks or lunch or any contrived outing he can think of, because he knows she's being stubborn. She wants him to ask. He knows that, sees the want is her eyes every time they're together, hears the regret in her voice every time she tells him no. There's a million doubts swirling around in that brain of hers and she's always been a runner and she thinks they can't have this but she wants him to keep asking. Wants it for the same reason he keeps sacrificing his dignity on the altar of his devotion to her; hope. That's all they have, both of them, is hope. They both hope that maybe, one day, things will be different. Maybe, one day, the answer will change.

And it has.

He asked her on Monday. They've been texting, sporadically, since he came back. Made a few attempts at phone calls but they keep missing each other. The texts work better, they don't have to answer immediately, can wait until they have a second to catch their breath, the conversation progressing glacially slowly but progressing nonetheless.

On Monday he said I know it's too soon to tell, but if you're free on Friday night you should come have a drink with me.

It wasn't phrased as a question because there's some desperate part of him that thinks maybe that'll make a difference. Maybe she can't decline if it wasn't an invitation to begin with.

She doesn't answer him until Wednesday, leaves him twisting in the wind. He spends the whole time telling himself she's just busy when he knows she could've found the time for a sure or a no or a I'll have to get back to you in the nearly two days it takes her to answer. It isn't that she's too busy; she doesn't answer because she's scared.

But on Wednesday she texts him yeah that sounds good, and he's grinning for the next two days, in the best mood he's had since Ohio. He's suspended and Bell is laid up in the hospital and Mama's moved into the home and Randall is still sniffing around in a way that makes Elliot nervous, but Liv has agreed to have a drink with him, and that makes everything else a little more bearable. At least something is going right.

It's Friday now. She picked the place this morning, texted him early and told him that barring any unforeseen calamity she will meet him at 8, at this place she likes. At first he had some idea about waiting for her on the sidewalk with flowers in his hands, but she told him to get a booth if he gets there first. It's a popular spot and she doesn't want to sit crammed in at the bar with her purse dangling off her knee and he can't blame her. He wants privacy, too. Just wants to be alone with her, for once.

So he's here, waiting. It's 8:15, and he's got the booth, and he's ordered beers for both of them. Probably he should've waited until she got here; he doesn't know if her drink order has changed in the, what, thirteen, fourteen years since they last went out to a bar together. Maybe she only drinks wine now, or maybe she wants whiskey, but in the old days it was always beer. Something light in a longneck bottle, and he'd watch the way she held it at the beginning of the night, casual and confident, shift into something else, watch the way she picked at the label when the night was coming to an end and she didn't want to go home alone, and wonder.

He wants to watch her tonight. Wants to just look at her, glowing under the dim lights in a nice bar, not washed out by the fluorescents in the office. He wants Liv, the woman, not Captain Benson. He wonders who will show up.

It's Liv, twenty minutes late with apologies dripping from her lips as she crashes into the booth across the table from him. She looks tired, a little frazzled, but beautiful, too. Her dark hair is caught in a messy ponytail, little pieces of it escaping to frame her face. If she put any makeup on her eyes this morning he can't see it anymore but there's a fresh coat of red on her lips and he smiles when he thinks about her reapplying her lipstick in the car before she walked in to see him. He likes that she's bothered with it, not because he thinks she needs it but because it means she cares about what he sees when he looks at her. It feels like she wants him to like what he sees. He does; he always has.

"Take it easy," he tells her, pushing the pint glass towards her. No bottles here, nothing for her to pick at or play with. "You're free."

"For the moment," she agrees. It looks like she's about to complain about work but then she seems to register the beer, and she smiles.

"You order this for me?"

"Yeah," he answers. He leans back, makes himself comfortable. Spreads his legs wide under the table, stretches his left arm along the back of the booth while he raises his own glass in his right hand. "You always liked cerveza."

It was always Corona, in the old days, but this place has more options, and he's picked something a little more grown-up, a little less spring break on a Florida beach for her.

"I did," she says. "I do."

She raises her glass and they toast to one another softly, and he holds her gaze while she takes a long, grateful swallow. Christ, even her neck is pretty.

"Tell me about it," he says when she's done, when she starts to relax, just a little, into the comfortable brown leather of her seat.

"About what?" she asks, raising her eyebrow at him.

"About whatever's going on at work that's got you all spun out," he says. It makes him proud, to think he can still read her after all this time. It feels like relief, every time he's reminded that underneath it all she's still the same girl he used to know. "You're not gonna relax until you talk about it, so…let's talk about it."

For a second she's quiet, watching him thoughtfully, appraisingly over the rim of her glass. Do they ask about it, he wonders, the men she sees - she might not be seeing anybody right now (Christ he hopes she's not seeing anybody) but he's not a fool, he knows she's had, what, lovers? Boyfriends? Dates, at least, in the years he's been away - do they ask her about her day, or does she hide it from them? Do they get frustrated when she can't put it down, do they not want to hear about it? He wants to hear about it. He knows the job, he understands, and he wants her to know that she's safe with him, that she can show him every piece of herself and he won't run from any of it.

He's seen it all before.

"Had this case," she begins slowly. "Teenage girl, kidnapped while she was out shopping with her parents."

While they drink she tells him everything. How she saw the girl in the van, how the case consumed her. How she let everything else slide while all she could think about was Maddie, how she was so tunnel-visioned even her team thought she'd lost the plot, how she's been second guessing her gut for months but in the end her instincts proved right, and saved the girl. By the time she's done it's like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders, and he's so proud of her he could burst.

That's my girl, he thinks. Reckless and unstoppable, a goddamn crusader. She is righteous, and determined, and she saved that girl when no one else could. She was called to the work a quarter century ago and it's hard to say, anymore, where the job ends and Liv begins. They're the same, inextricable. No one else could do what she does; she can't do anything else.

But the time and the work have taken their toll, and underneath her superhero cape she's just a woman, weary and wrung out. She's given everything to the job, and what has it given her in return? What has she lost, and what does she want?

"I'm glad you found her," he says. "You saved her."

"I couldn't lose another one," she confesses. "I…I couldn't take it ."

How many, he wonders; how many kids has she lost? More than him, now, because he was away for a decade and for all that time she was still in the trenches, still fighting the good fight. He used to know the names of all the ghosts that haunt her; he doesn't, anymore.

But he wants to learn.

Before he can ask another question she smoothly changes the topic. Of course she does; she's never liked talking about herself.

"How's suspension treating you?" she asks him wryly.

"Like hell," he admits. "I'm not good at…doing nothing."

He has in fact been doing something, been on Long Island for days working a case, trying to find justice for Rita. Today is really the first day off he's had, and his hands have been itching for some occupation. It makes him think about retirement with dread; he'll hit mandatory and get kicked out on his ass before he goes willingly. She's the same, he knows.

"You trying to tell me you've just been sitting around your apartment watching daytime TV for a week?" She laughs because she doesn't believe it. Because she knows him.

"Between you and me, I caught a case."

She listens with interest while he tells her about Rita; when he talks about finding her body Liv reaches out and places her hand on his forearm, the touch gentle and reassuring, and she doesn't pull back right away, and his eyes keep darting down to look at her hand on his skin. He's having a hard time believing this is real. That he's sitting in a bar, looking at Liv across the table from him, that she's with him, touching him. Since he came back, since Kathy, Liv has touched him more than before. Not a lot, but more, and maybe, he thinks, maybe she needs the reminder, too. Maybe she needs to touch him just to prove to herself that he's real, that he's here, that she's not dreaming.

He used to dream about her, in Rome.

While he talks they finish their first round, and Liv signals the waitress, asks for another and that makes hope bloom in Elliot's chest. She isn't running, not yet.

"I'm sorry, El," she says when his tale is done. "You think he's your man?"

Elliot shakes his head. It's too neat, the suicide of his prime - only - suspect. It feels like someone else is pulling the strings but he doesn't know who and he doesn't know how and he doesn't know if he's ever gonna be able to prove it.

"I wish I had a little more time," he says, more bitterly than he means to. "But it's not even really my case, I got no pull there."

If things were different he'd do what Liv did with Maddie, put his whole life on pause to go on this mission. It's not a choice he's allowed to make right now, though. It's not a choice anyone in his life would support, either. No one but her. Liv would understand.

"What about your team?" she asks gently. "How are they holding up?"

It's another reminder, he thinks. Like her hand on his arm, it's a reminder that he's not alone. That he has to think about more than himself, that as much as Rita needs him, as much as that cop in Long Island might need him, there's people here who need him, too. People like her.

"It's hard," he says. "Bell's laid up, we got some dragon sitting in her chair. Reyes is taking some time off. Between you and me, I don't think he's coming back."

He didn't mean to say that. It's something he's been thinking for days now but it's not something he's let himself say out loud. Giving voice to his fears makes them real, somehow, and he is afraid that Bobby isn't coming back, and it's gutting, that fear. It seems like every time his squad finds their footing they get hit again. Morales and Washburn - what a disaster that all was - Cho and Moldanado, there's been a revolving door of detectives, and then Whalen came and Whalen worked and Whalen died, and Bobby, Jesus. Since the day he showed up Bobby's been the glue, holding the rest of them together, and now he's taking a break but Elliot knows in his gut it's not the kind of break a man comes back from. Elliot knows, because he's been there himself.

And he really, really didn't mean to talk to Olivia about it.

"What makes you say that?" she asks before he can change the subject, and for a second he just stares at her, aghast.

It's too close, he thinks. It's too close to all the things he and Liv have never said, the line they drew in the sand so long ago he doesn't even remember doing it, just knows it's always been there, separating what is from what could be. It's not something they've ever talked about, that line, but it's there and they both know it and they have respected it for twenty-five fucking years. And maybe that's the problem, he thinks, that they never talked about it, that they never had to; they have both always just understood, and stepped back, and now they don't know how to move forward. Hell, maybe he did mean to bring this up. Maybe he was always gonna.

"Something happened," he begins slowly. "After Whalen died. I don't know when, exactly, but Bobby and Jet started sleeping together."

Something almost like a smile tugs at the corner of Liv's mouth, and he wonders what she's thinking about, because it's damn sure not what he's thinking about. Maybe she's thinking about Cassidy, way back when, mooning over her, thinking about I'm your partner, for better or worse.

"It happens all the time," she says now, just like Elliot said back then.

"Not like this," he tells her grimly. Bobby and Jet remind him of somebody, but it's damn sure not Liv and Cassidy. "Reyes is married, got two little kids."

That smile disappears and Liv nods once, looks away, her shoulders going tight. She understands, now. She understands, and the entire mood of the conversation has shifted. They're not two friends, unburdening themselves and relaxing together on a Friday night; they're two old soldiers, now, soldiers who have been battling their own hearts for so long they can't remember how to put down their weapons, separated by a gulf of heartache and regret. Something dark and sad is hovering in the air over their booth, a feeling like an oncoming storm simmering in their uneven breaths.

"Oh," she says.

"I guess he told his wife, and she's left him, and now he's taking some time to help his kids adjust."

When Kathy left Elliot didn't take any time off at all. Maybe he should have. Maybe he should've tried a little harder, to make that new apartment a home for his kids, to be present for them, to answer their questions, but he ran like hell the other direction. He ran for Liv.

"That's something, at least," Liv says carefully. She won't look him in the eye. "How's Jet taking it?"

"That's the thing," Elliot tells her, the words coming out in a rush. "It's like she's relieved. Like she's glad it's over."

"Maybe she is. Maybe she never meant -"

"Oh, come on, Liv. No one sleeps with someone accidentally."

There's too many things that have to happen, he thinks, to bring two people from working together to fucking. Too many decisions that have to be made. That's what it is, he thinks, it's a choice, and he doesn't understand why they made it. Maybe it's good he's airing this out; when he runs into something he doesn't understand there's only one person he wants to talk to about it, and she's sitting across the table from him.

"They'd just lost a friend," Liv says. "Grief makes people do crazy things."

It bothers him, that she's making excuses for them. That she empathizes with them. Surely it should be the opposite, he thinks. Surely Liv ought to know better than anybody that there's no excuse for crossing that line, for adultery, because Liv's walked that line herself.

Hasn't she?

"I just don't get it," he says. "Why he'd throw his family away for a woman he doesn't even love."

"Who says he doesn't love her?" Liv asks sharply, and finally, finally her eyes find his, blazing at him across the booth. It's like she's angry, and he doesn't understand that at all; what's she got to be angry about? She can't be angry at him; he hasn't said a damn thing but the truth.

"That's not love," he says at once. He's insistent about that. Elliot Stabler knows what love is, and it's not that. "If he loved her he wouldn't have put her in that position. He wouldn't have made her complicit in blowing up his family and he wouldn't have made her feel like she was second best. Hell, Liv, it's not like he left his wife first. I don't even think he wanted to end his marriage. Jet was just…a distraction. And she deserves better."

Just like you did, he thinks.

She's always been a knockout, Liv. Always been gorgeous, always turned heads everywhere she goes. Men have always fallen all over themselves for the chance to get near her, always told her how beautiful she is, always wanted her. Everybody wants a goddamn piece of her, wants to use her. But Elliot…he just loves her. Has always loved her. Never touched her, and that matters. It matters that he never gave her a reason to feel guilty, that he never tried to take her. He's been her friend, her confidante, protected her and absolved her and fought with her, always saw her as she was, as a person, a person he respects, a person he admires, and not just a body he wants to lose himself inside.

He does, though. He does want to touch her. He wants all the things he never thought he could have, and their circumstances have changed and maybe this is their moment but they're still stuck where they've always been, riding that line.

"Jet made a choice, too," Liv reminds him. "Reyes didn't do it by himself."

"He was the one who was married, though. It's his responsibility."

Just like it was mine.

Reyes…Reyes was the man, goddamn it, and in Elliot's world that means the blame falls on him. A man's supposed to provide for his family, love his wife, protect his children, support his friends. A man - a good man - isn't supposed to put his desires above the needs of the people who depend on him. A man is supposed to do his duty, and honor his vows, even when it hurts. That's what a vow is, Elliot thinks. It wouldn't mean anything if it was easy to keep. It costs something, to make a vow, to honor it. Sometimes it costs everything.

"Why are you defending her?" Liv asks, and he can't tell if she's curious or irritated.

"Why aren't you?" he fires back. Jet is young, a single woman on her own, no support from her family, and Reyes was her coworker, her friend, she should have been able to trust him not to let sexual desire get in the way of his duty to look after her.

"Because she knew exactly what she was doing," Liv tells him coolly. "She works closely with him, I'm sure she knew he was married."

She did.

"And I'm betting they didn't sleep together at his place, right? So he shows up at her door, and she chose to let him in. Things start moving in a certain direction, she chose to let it keep happening. Didn't she? Or are you saying he forced her?"

It's like her goddamn ears have perked up at the scent of a potential victim; the job and Liv, one and the same, and she can't put it down, even now.

"God, no," Elliot says forcefully. "Nothing like that."

"Maybe she didn't love him either," Liv says. "If she'd loved him, she'd have cared about what happened to his family, to his kids. She would've wanted to help him keep it in the road."

Like you did, he thinks. It was always Liv, back then. Always Liv sending him home to Kathy, reminding him that the kids needed him. It was Liv who helped him when Dickie and Kathleen were in trouble, Liv who talked Kathy into staying, more than once. And he knows that. Has always known that. There's no point in bringing it up now, except that they've never talked about it, and he kinda feels like they should. Like they need to.

"I just…I wish they'd thought it through," he says. "It's not like they wanted to be…together, you know? The squad was doing good and everything was clicking and they blew it all up and I don't think they really even wanted each other."

Not, he thinks, the way he wants Liv. The way he's always wanted her. Wants her so much he aches with it, but back then, when they were partners, he never even tried to act on that want because what they had mattered more to him than what could've been. The two of them, they were unstoppable on the job, and she was his friend, the best thing in his life apart from the kids, and he wasn't gonna fuck it up by trying to get in her pants. She'd have hated him, he knows. If he left his wife and kids for her, got himself booted out of SVU for her, she'd never have forgiven him. She'd have blamed herself, too, he thinks. Whatever they felt - feel - for each other, the guilt would've eaten them alive. Liv would've always felt like the other woman; hell, he's pretty sure she feels that way now, and Kathy's been dead for years. No, he thinks, they wouldn't have made it, wouldn't have been happy. There's a part of Olivia that seems unwilling to accept the idea that she deserves the things she wants. It's like even when she's happy she's sad, waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's a darkness behind her eyes that's always been there; hell, he can see it right now, glimmering across the table from him.

"Maybe that's why they did it," she says. "Because they didn't matter to each other, not really."

"That why you slept with Cassidy?"

When he says it he expects her to roll her eyes at him, tell him that Cassidy was a lifetime ago, that she barely even remembers him, but she goes suddenly still, her shoulders curling in, eyes dropping down to her half-drunk beer.

"What?" he asks, thrown by the sudden change in her demeanor. Why does just the mention of a guy she slept with once a million years ago make her look so goddamn sad?

"Something you should know," she says slowly. "Cassidy…Cassidy came back, about a year after you left."

"Don't tell me you slept with him again." He can't believe it; what the hell would she do that for?

"We lived together, for a while. He was…he was there for me in a really dark time in my life and I care about him, Elliot."

It's a feeling like falling, the shock, the uncertainty, like those days during basic training when he got pushed out of a plane and found himself plummeting to the ground. It's the last thing he expected, her and Cassidy, living together, and a really dark time in my life, what the fuck does that mean? What the hell is he supposed to say? What he wants is to demand answers from her but she doesn't look like she wants to give them and he can't scare her away again, not when he's finally got her to agree to sit down alone with him.

"I didn't know."

She shoots him a dark look that seems to say there's a lot you don't know.

"But back then, the first time -" As he listens to her his mind is racing. He really can't believe there was a second time; Cassidy's an idiot, and he's not even that good looking, and Elliot is almost ashamed of how fucking jealous he feels, knowing that Cassidy wormed his way back into Olivia's life when Elliot wasn't around to advise her against it. Knowing that Cassidy got to live with her, got to love her, and Elliot can barely get her to agree to go out for a drink with him.

"Yeah, the first time it was just…it was just for fun. He was fun, he was a…distraction, I guess. It didn't matter to me back then. But it mattered to him. That's the problem, I think. There's always someone in the relationship who's more invested than their partner."

"You don't really believe that."

Maybe it's just that Elliot doesn't believe it, and he and Liv so often see things the same and he can't process the fact that she disagrees with him on something so fundamental. As far as he's concerned, though, what she's just said is crap. A relationship, a real relationship, in his mind that's two people who love each other. Who both want the relationship to work, who both put their all into it. That's what he had with Kathy.

Isn't it?

Maybe not, he thinks, because when the kids were young Kathy was giving it everything she had and he was the one not talking to her about the shit running through his head. Kathy got tired of working so hard and getting so little back and Kathy cut him loose, and then it was him running after her, unwilling to let her go, trying to win her over. It was Kathy who invited him back to her bed and he went gratefully but after that one night he'd all but decided to end things for good, only went back because she was pregnant and asked him to. Maybe they were never really both in it, not to the same degree, not at the same time.

It was always equal with Liv, though, he thinks. Always, they were both always on the same page. Wanting their partnership more than anything else, sharing all their secrets, confiding things to one another they'd never shared with anyone else.

At least until he left.

Across the table, Liv just shrugs.

"You really think Reyes and Jet were both all in?"

"No." No, he doesn't, because Jet spent weeks trying to stay the hell away from Bobby while he was mooning over her and pouting and letting his feelings get in the way of the work. "But I also don't think that was a real relationship. They were just…I don't know."

They were just fucking. There's more to a relationship than sex, in Elliot's world.

"I think for a relationship to work you've gotta be on the same page," Olivia says thoughtfully. "You've gotta want the same things. That's where it all falls apart."

It's not like Liv's had a lot of long term relationships - Cassidy is the only man she's lived with, as far as he knows, and if that all started a year after Elliot left then it's probably been over for ages - so from where he's sitting that doesn't exactly make her an expert in what makes a relationship work. Maybe it makes her an expert in what makes a relationship fail, though. Maybe that's the same thing.

"I don't think they knew what they wanted," he tells her.

Not like him and Liv. They always knew what they wanted. They wanted the job, didn't want to wreck his family. That's what they both wanted. Isn't it?

"Maybe they just didn't want to be alone," Olivia says, very quietly. "Reyes…if he and his wife were happy, he wouldn't have gone to Jet in the first place. Maybe this ended the marriage but the cracks were already there."

"That doesn't justify what he did," Elliot insists. "He shouldn't have put Jet in the middle of it. He shouldn't have let his shit bring her down."

"We're right back where we started, I think," Liv mutters.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're blaming Reyes for everything, and I'm trying to remind you that Jet made her choices, too. You gotta ask yourself, Elliot - why don't you wanna put any of the blame on her?"

Because it wasn't your fault, he thinks.

It's not like Liv asked for any of this. It's not her fault, not her fault that he was married when they met, that he couldn't put a boundary up like he was supposed to, that he held himself open for her and pulled her into the deepest parts of himself, that he couldn't keep his feelings for her in check. His fucking feelings; people died, because of those feelings. Those feelings hurt her; when he killed that girl and IAB was gonna tear him apart and he decided he couldn't come back to the job, he never answered her calls, walked away from her without a word and hurt her because he was afraid of what his feelings for her, his longing for her, his goddamn love of her might make him do.

"Stop looking at me like that," she grumbles then.

"Like what?"

"Like you're about to say something you can't take back."

"Maybe I don't wanna take it back."

Maybe it's about goddamn time they cleared the air.

"Whatever you're blaming yourself for, Elliot, it's not…you're not the only one at fault."

"You never did anything wrong."

Technically, neither of them did anything at all. Whatever they felt for one another, they never acted on it. Not the way Jet and Bobby have. Elliot and Olivia, they've never even kissed. On paper, he thinks that means he never cheated on his wife. In his heart he knows better, though. In his heart he knows he was unfaithful.

"I'm not so sure that's true."

From where he's sitting Liv has nothing to feel guilty for. She always, always brought him back to center, always reminded him what was important, never gave him an inch of rope to hang himself with. Hell, even now, years after Kathy died, Liv still won't let him be anything more than a friend to her.

"I am." He knows he's got something of a blindspot, when it comes to her. He knows she can be mean, can be petty, can be angry, can lash out when she's hurting, that she's too scared to let herself be happy, that she'll run before she'll let herself be vulnerable. Every flaw she has, he's seen it, he knows she's not perfect, except that she is, she is perfect, to him. Fierce and kind and gentle and brave and reckless and strong and endlessly good, beautiful and righteous, she is every virtue he admires; Olivia, the whole of her, is everything he's ever wanted, and she's not the one to blame for his faults. He's the one who fell in love with her when he was married to someone else; that's on him.

"You've always been a stubborn son of a bitch," she says, smiling sadly.

"You like that about me."

"Yeah, I do. That's the problem."

But it's not, anymore. It's not a problem, anymore, because he's not married, and they're not partners, and there's no reason for them to hold one another at arm's length. There's no reason for him to deny that he loves her, and there's no reason for her to tell him that he shouldn't. Jet and Reyes, there are so many reasons why they shouldn't have done what they did, but none of those obstacles stand in Elliot and Olivia's way, not now. The guilt is a reflex more than anything else, he thinks. They're still carrying it around not because they have to but because they don't know how to put it down.

Christ, he wants to put it down.

So he decides to tell her so.

"We don't…we don't have to be a problem anymore, Liv."

Whether she's conscious of it or not, her hand drifts slowly towards her purse. He can see it happening as if in slow motion; she's getting ready to run. This is how it happens, how it always happens, every goddamn time; they brush close to the truth, find themselves on the verge of finally saying all the things they've kept locked up inside their hearts for twenty five fucking years, and one of them blinks. One of them always runs. Her, usually, but it's been him often enough that he knows he can't pin it all on her. What are they so afraid of? What if it doesn't work out, that's as close as Liv has ever come to spelling out her fears, but that doesn't make much sense to Elliot, because this, what they're doing right now, this isn't exactly working, either. Dancing around the truth, never seeing each other, barely speaking; this isn't them. It's not the way they used to be, and it's not the future he wants. He doesn't think it's what she wants, either.

"Liv," he says her name slowly, preparing himself to take the leap, to say the words that have been lodged in the back of his throat, choking him since last fucking century, but she won't give him the chance.

"I've got to get back to Noah," she says, settling her bag on her shoulder, already sliding out of the booth. "Can you cover the check?"

"Liv-" he's digging for his wallet; he doesn't wanna stiff the waitress and he doesn't want to cause a scene but he has to stop this, has to stop Olivia leaving, before it's too late. If they can't tell the truth now, on this night when everything has been going so well, when they have been finding their way back to being friends again, when will they? What are the odds she accepts another invitation for a drink when she's running away from this one? There's an urgency racing through his veins, a certainty stirring deep in his heart; if he can't get her to face him now, he doesn't think he ever will.

"This was nice," she says. "It was good talking to you."

And then she's walking away.

The hell with that, he thinks. He throws some money on the table, probably twice what the drinks are worth but the waitress deserves a tip, and then he's moving as fast as he can, weaving his way through the throng of bodies and the tables scattered around the bar, his eyes trained on Liv. She's a few paces ahead of him and moving fast, but not that fast. Not so fast he can't catch up.

On the sidewalk outside he closes the distance, catches her by the arm and she whirls on him, quick, so quick that for a second he's a little worried she's gonna hit him.

"Elliot," she call his name in warning, something dark and dangerous flashing in her eyes.

He should stop. A good man would stop. Take his hands off her, let her decide the parameters of their relationship, abide by her boundaries. He should be patient, and wait for her to come to him, but Christ. He's never been patient, and Liv isn't going to come. She can't; she can't cross the line between them on her own, because they put that line down together, and together is the only way they're ever going to erase it. Pushing her now might wreck everything, but he's not sure there's anything here to wreck, not anymore. The days are passing, and there's a distance springing up between them, and Liv won't let down her defenses, and if he doesn't reach for her he thinks they'll just keep drifting, further and further, until they lose sight of shore, until there's no hope left. There's something he wants, something he thinks they both want, and that's what he can't stand to lose, and if she walks away from him now he's afraid she's going to slip through his fingers for good.

"Don't do this," he says, and he knows at once it was the wrong thing to say because she looks pissed, jerks her arm out of his grip, but he just catches hold of her again, pulls her a little closer, and barrels on.

"Every time we get close to being honest you run away from me and it's not doing us any good," he says.

"I'm just trying to go home," she says darkly.

"Bullshit," he answers. "Can I tell you something? Everything we talk about tonight, Jet and Reyes and all of it…I'm…I'm jealous of them, Liv."

She sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth; she's not fighting to get away but he can feel how tense she is beneath his hand and she won't look him in the eye.

"Yeah, it didn't work out for them. But at least they know. At least they had the balls to try. You know what he said to me?"

"I can't -" it's a feeble effort at deflection, but Elliot's not done.

"I told him not to drag Jet into his mess. I told him it wasn't healthy. And you know what he said? He said you would know."

It's been eating Elliot up for weeks, because Bobby was right. Elliot does know, better than anyone, what happens when a man falls for a woman who's not his wife. The mess it makes, the grief it causes. He knows exactly what it costs when a man finds himself caught between the duty he feels to two different women. When there's no choice he can make that doesn't hurt someone. He knows what it is, to care about a woman, and watch her hurt because of him, and feel like there's nothing he can do to stop it. Bobby thought that meant Elliot didn't have any right to try to tell him how to handle his business, never saw that Elliot was the only one who'd really understood the position he was in.

"We did the best we could," he says. "We tried, so hard, for so long, to do the right thing. We used to know what that was. We used to know what was right. But I think…Liv, I think the right thing has changed. I think what was right back then isn't what's right now."

The only thing that's right, the only thing that makes any goddamn sense in this crazy mixed up world, is her. It's Liv; it's always been Liv. The light in the darkness, guiding him on, the other half of his heart, his goddamn partner. She's the only one who's right for him; she's the only thing he wants. They could be right, now. They could be good for each other. He has to believe that.

"You're really gonna stand there and try to tell me you think Jet and Reyes did the right thing?" Liv snaps. "His marriage is over, he's off the job, Jet's lost two friends now instead of one -"

"They aren't us, Liv," he tells her with some heat. "We said it already. They don't love each other, and you know how I know that? Because we love each other. We do, Liv. We do."

Everything they've said tonight, the way they've speculated about Jet and Bobby's feelings about one another, about why they did what they did; they weren't talking about Jet and Bobby. They were talking about themselves, and he knows that, and he knows she does, too. He knows he loves her, and goddamn it he knows she loves him, too, because she's here, wearing his necklace, talking about love as an act of sacrifice, as a choice. They made their sacrifices, made their choices back then because they love each other, and the time has come, he thinks, to let that love lead them down a different path.

"When are you gonna stop beating yourself up for shit that happened back then, and just…just let me love you?"

There's that look on her face like the words he's saying are causing her physical pain, her soft lips parted and her eyes wide and dark and shining with unshed tears, but she's swaying into him, just a little, the foundations of her resolve wavering.

Just put it down, he thinks. Please, god, just put it down.

"I don't know how," she breathes in a wobbly voice. She's a tall woman, and her boots make her taller still, but he still has to tilt his chin down to look into her eyes.

"We can figure it out together," he says. "Just…just give us a chance to figure it out. Can you do that?"

He wants to kiss her. More than anything, he wants to kiss her. And he knows she wants to kiss him, too, because he remembers. Remembers the warmth of her in the kitchen, the way her cheek pressed softly to his, remembers I want to, Elliot. It's been so long since then and in many ways he feels like they're still there, like they've been suspended in that moment of want for months, and he is desperate, dying for the chance to take a step forward.

"I want to," she says. "I'm so…I'm so tired, Elliot."

It's not a tired that comes from missing too much sleep, he knows that. It's everything, it's the weeks she's spent chasing her missing girl, questioning herself and her instincts. It's the job and getting older and the question mark hanging over her head with McGrath out of the way. It's ten years of loneliness and three years of chaos. It's the questions, and the doubt, and the goddamn guilt that's been hanging like an albatross around her neck since they were young. It's too heavy, too much for one person to bear. But he's her partner, and that means that it's his job to help shoulder the weight. It's his job to help her figure out how to put it down.

"C'mere," he says, and pulls her against him, and thank god, she comes. Lets him wrap his arms around her, buries her face in his neck, fists her fingers in the back of his shirt and holds on tight. He can feel her trembling, but she is soft and warm in his arms, not running anymore, not this time. He rests his cheek against the softness of her hair, and for a long, long time they just stand there, holding on to one another, breathing.

"I've got you," he tells her. "Whatever happens next…I've got you, Liv."

He will learn the name of every demon who haunts her steps, and he will beat them to death with his bare hands. He will learn the shape of her fears and he will banish the darkness. He will hold her, and he will love her; he always has. The guilt and the grief and the doubts that have dogged their steps for years, they will put it all to rest, together. It was always them, he thinks. They made mistakes and the timing was for shit and people got hurt, but he loves her, and love is supposed to be a blessing, and he thinks it can be, now. They've come so far, and everything has changed, and there's a chance, now. It wouldn't have worked, back then; back then they'd have been like Jet and Bobby, would've fallen to pieces. But they did their time and they paid their penance and they put every goddamn body in the world before themselves, and it's their turn, he thinks. It's finally, finally their turn, and this time, he thinks, this time they're gonna do it right.