Olivia can't stop sobbing.

She knows. She knows he isn't really dead. However, the two-word text from Elliot mere seconds before the 10-13 blared over the radio in Ayanna's frantic voice was still not enough to calm her fraying nerves.

I'm alive.

Those two words told her all she needed to know. That everything with The Brotherhood was crashing down; Elliot, once again, caught in the crossfire. That a plan was in place. That his secrets were always safe with her. That he knew this would crush her the same way it would have crushed him.

If he only knew.

When the code changed to a 10-42, she thankfully knew it was fake. She was grateful for the warning, relieved that he thought of her in time before she reacted to an unthinkable loss. And yet, she still feels the loss profoundly.

It's all too much.

She cries over missing time. A decade of unknowns. A decade of worry. A decade where she thought of him every goddamned day, even when her brain tried to shut him out and her heart tried to will him away. A decade where she almost didn't make it. A decade where with every passing minute of silence, she fell more in love with the memories left behind.

She cries over the profound gravity of everything he's missed. All she's been desperate to share with him. The triumphs, the joy, the devastation, the pain.

She cries over Kathy, because fuck, who wouldn't cry over his perfect, patient wife who gave him his dream family, only to be killed by a car bomb after almost forty years of marriage. As confused and hurt Liv is by her actions with that motherfucking letter, the fact that her death left Elliot so intensely lost and left their children without their mother is cruel and unfair.

She cries over the haunted silhouettes of almosts and close calls and dodging bullets that somehow always miss just enough to not be fatal. To grant them more time.

Time she's wasted in limbo.

Hearing Ayanna's act of desperation made her feel things she wasn't expecting to admit to herself.

She's missed him. Ached for him. In love with him.

First as her partner, then as her best friend. Now as something even more sacred, although it's always been there, buried underneath the time and miles and doors bolted shut.

Time spent doing the right thing and respecting his marriage and making sure he came home to his family in one piece. Olivia kept her promises, was his partner for better or worse, and honored his wishes by letting him go.

A load of good that's done her.

Every feeling she had buried deep within her soul has broken through her barriers, crumbled her façade, crushed her act of unaffectedness over Elliot's return to her life. She's missed him so much, and she's spent the last year fighting the urge to tell him out of self-preservation and stubbornness.

A regret she would have taken to her grave if tonight's radio call had proven true.

Now she's alone, metaphorically and physically, gripping Elliot's Marine medallion in her hand, memories flooding her mind. She's in such a catatonic state of trauma that she barely registers the soft knock on her door. She's not expecting to see the person standing in her hallway, and she rips the door open to find his cerulean eyes, watery and exhausted, piercing her own. Her fierce protectiveness takes over and she drags him inside, kicking the door shut with her good ankle.

"El, what are you doing here? You could have been followed." Her voice is barely a whisper, lost behind the I love you lodged firmly in her throat.

"It's okay, Liv. Everyone's rounded up except for Frank. I had to see y—"

She throws her arms around him, and he emits a throaty groan that sounds more like pain than pleasure.

"Jesus, are you hurt?"

"I'm okay." He grimaces a half smile, a sorry attempt at placating a police captain.

"No, you're not." Her hand travels down his chest, and when he winces, she frantically lifts his shirt revealing his angry, bruised chest. She knows exactly what she's looking at. "Fuck, El, three through the vest." It's a statement, not a question, and she eyes him with a mix of concern and fury.

"I'm okay. Liv, I'm sorry."

"Those bastards. A disgrace to the badge." She hovers, letting her fingers dance delicately over the raised welts settled dangerously close to his heart. She places her forehead to his chest and breathes him in. He's real and here and alive, and she's so relieved and grateful. She feels his arms encompass her waist and for the first time since he's been home, she feels solid and steadfast. She's ready to face truths, regardless of consequence, and finds her voice to whisper her greatest confession.

"I'm still in love with you."

Liv feels him drop his head towards her shoulder, lips grazing her ear. "Still?"

That one word sounds playful, surprised, reverent, filled with adoration and love, and she's afraid to look in his eyes. Instead, she peppers his chest with featherlight kisses, wishing her lips could heal his wounds, make him whole. "Always, El."

He gently thumbs her chin upward to meet his gaze. "Olivia," he rumbles in an octave she's never heard before, deep and so goddamned sexy, edging her to graze her lips against his. It's shy and sweet until the moment she feels his brain catch up to her actions, and then he responds wildly, grasping her cheeks and thrusting his tongue, and it's everything them: fire and instinct and chemistry. Their unspoken bond.

Liv reaches up, placing her hands on top of his, and they break apart to catch their breaths. Elliot quirks a brow, feeling an object against his hand, and he turns Liv's over to reveal the medallion. He recognizes it instantly and his tears flow freely now. "I don't deserve this moment, Liv. I don't deserve your love."

She silences him with a languid kiss. "A wise person in my life reminded me that I deserve happiness. And, other than Noah, the only person in my life that makes me happy is you. It's always been you, El. Any way I could have you, you were always the man that I deserved."

He kisses her temple, her eyelids, her cheek. "I'm yours, Liv. I've always been yours, even when I couldn't-"

"Shhhh… I know we have a lot to discuss, but not tonight. You're hurt, you need to rest."

"I need you."

She grabs onto his hand and pulls him toward her bedroom. "C'mon, Stabler, let's rest for a while."