Chapter 1

Three years of have passed.

Saturday morning sunlight flooded Olivia's apartment. She lounged on the couch sifting through a stack of mail she'd been neglecting, while Brian shuffled around in her rob making breakfast.

A pile of empty envelopes and junk mail formed on the floor next to her. She almost mistook the post card as an advertisement, but his handwriting caught her eye. Elliot's handwriting. Elliot hadn't reached out or called her in over a year. Granted it was mostly because she had stopped answering his calls.

The last time she called him there was a woman's voice in the background.

"Who are you talking to? It's so late," she could hear the woman say.

"One sec," he responded. "Hey, can I call you back another time?"

She noted that it was 12am his time, which was usually when he called her as it was right when she got off work. It was sloppy of him to even answer the phone if indeed he had overnight company. She promised her broken heart that she would never hear him with a woman off hours again, nor did she want to hear about this other woman, period. If he was dating, he needed to keep it to himself. What happens in Italy stays in Italy, is how she saw things. So she stopped answering his calls. Even when he called for coffee a month later. She was too afraid to know how his life was going. That turned into her being too busy, and then he got too bust, and communication turned into some brief texts, which dwindled into Fin updating her that he was still alive, and before she realized it 15 months had gone by without a trace of Elliot Stabler.

Yet it was only a matter of time. There in her mail was a surprise postcard with a portrait of Italian blue belle flowers from the 1600's. She loved flowers. So delicate and yet so bold. Some flowers could grow in the worst conditions and make the murkiest swamp beautiful. If she were the kind of woman who sat at home long enough to decorate, it would be filled with flowers and every eclectic flowery piece of art and furniture she could find. Three years and 15 monhts...he still knew her so well.

On the back in his barely legible handwriting, he wrote ", Finally got to an art museum. Thinking about you. It's been a minute. Hope you're well. Would love to catch up when I'm in town this month. See you soon. Elliot."

Her heart skipped a beat. As angry as she wanted to be at him, he was her soft spot after all. An immediate rush of every emotion hit her chest. She held back a blush and then quickly pushed the feelings to the back of her mind under a blanket of denial and pain.

Brian flipped pancakes in the other room and the sweet smell of syrup, butter, and blueberries brought her back to reality.

"Bri that smells incredible."

"I only cook one thing good, and this is it, baby."

"Ha, so that's the skill you achieve from years of sleeping around," she jested.

"Ow...You got me there," he jested back.

"You want to go to the Moma Museum today? There's a new exhibit?"

He handed her a plate and kissed her on the head. "A museum? You want me to do that?"

"Okay, I take that as a no."

"I gotta head out, actually. I hope that's cool with you. My buddy has tickets to the yankees game."

"Oh," she lifted a brow and sighed with disappointment. "Okay."

He disappeared into her bathroom and started the shower, and she ate the pancakes with a glow on her face as she reread Elliot's jagged handwriting again.

It took her a long time to get comfortable in her new life. Three years without Elliot might as well have been a lifetime of walking around with a hole in her heart. But she was finally finding way to fill it. She started geling with her new partner at work, she and the new girl Amanda Rollins were becoming close friends, which was really new for Olivia….to have a woman as a friend, was not easy for her. She'd also been in a casual but committed relationship with Brian, her ex partner from SVU, and she was finding moments to take a day off and do normal things.

She smiled thinking about telling Elliot about her normal life of girl's night with Rollins, date night with Brian, and Art Museums on Saturday afternoons. He always teased her about trying something normal for a change.

Brian quickly got dressed and gave her a peck on the cheek. "See you in a few days?"

"Sure. Have fun with the boys."

The door closed and she was relieved to be alone. She walked to her bedroom pulled her small envelope of letters out from her nightstand and reread them all.

"Liv, I'm going to try this letter-writing thing. Warning this is not my specialita. Working on my rusty old Italian. My precinct is great. My window view looks like a painting. It's pretty crazy. Beautiful. Their coffee is out of this world. I wish I could send you some. Even better than our favorite bodega coffee in midtown. I'm going undercover soon. Not sure when I'll be in town next, but I'll have to put in time with Eli. So maybe we can catch up on my second visit. Hope you are well, my friend. Stay safe. Elliot."

She folded the letters back into their yellow envelope and placed it back in the drawer next to her gun, lavender oil, and massage toys. Her hand grazed the soft silicone and the memory of his aftershave and the touch of his five o'clock shadow on her face made her insides tingle. She hesitated, but there were no excuses preventing her from pulling the old thing out and letting her imagination take over. So, there in the middle of daylight on a lazy Saturday morning, she fell down the rabbit hole with thoughts of Elliot Stabler. How he would touch her. Kiss her. Slowly make his way between her legs. His eyes. How his gentle eyes would take her in and hold her, the way he used to every day for 12 years.

"I love you," she recalled his voice.

She was beginning to think that she had made it all up in her head, that he actually said that he loved her, but he said the words. It was a fact. It did happen. Brian and her had had sex plenty of times and had never once said 'I love you.'

Her body took over as the sensation of the vibrations grew intense and she released a moan into the pillow, which simultaneously caused her to sob. Her body curled up and heaved tears from the depths of her heart. She missed him more than she ever had in that moment.

Italy

Elliot sat in a candlelit Italian bar sipping whiskey with mob boss Manfredi Sinatra's Italian crew. He was undercover and currently just gained their trust by helping them smuggle millions of illegal goods and drugs onto a shipping barge headed toward the US. What the mobsters didn't know is that his partner Tia Leonetti was infiltrating the transaction as they celebrated and the whole place was about to be raided.

"Tony," one of the guys called Elliot. "You were Mito! How you say? Bad Ass!"

The group of men laughed and drank. Beautiful young Italian women, dressed in tiny dresses and stilettos were pouring them drinks, and joining in on the fun to level up the party. The music got louder. Elliot downed his drink and the room started to spin. He knew immediately he'd been drugged.

"Scuse me," he slurred.

"Tony, where you going? Fun just starting," the one guy teased and pushed a girl to his side.

He was feeling the drink hard, and nodded at the guy trying to hold himself together. "I'll be right back," he blinked and made it to a back room where there was an old couch next to an exit to the back alley. He dug for his phone and tried to dial for backup, but the room was wildly spinning now and he had to close his eyes before his body hit the floor.

When he came too the room was dark and he was on the old couch. Head spinning. Vision Blurred.

A woman's voice whispered ",Shhhh, It's okay...I've got you," into his ear.

Which to him meant she was going to get him out of here. And then instead of helping him off the couch she began undressing before him. Lacey black underwear. Curvey. Brown hair. Olive skin. Nipples perked. He sat paralyzed. Unsure if he was awake or dreaming. She straddled him, and the movement made him feel as if he were swaying back and forth on a boat. His head was pounding.

She undid his zipper.

"No..," he mumbled. "We're not ready," Olivia's voice rang in his mind.

Her lips touched his. They were soft.

"Mmm, Liv," he responded through the hallucination.

He touched her cheek. "You're so beautiful."

Her hips began pulsing around him, though he wasn't sure what his body was doing, but a wash of he could even feel his body. His vision was blurry but the sound of her light breathing and soft sighs sent him all a buzz.

"I want to. I really do." Olivia's voice said to him again and her skin against him now as he wavered between his dreams and reality.

"I want to," he moaned out loud, and she moaned and thrashed until she finished and he blacked out.

When he woke up he was in his partner Tai Leonetti's apartment.

"Elliot," she slapped his face a little to wake him up

"Leonetti?," he groaned and forced his eyes open. Two slits on his puffy face.

"You alive," she said, standing over top of him.

"Eh...barely."

"You were roofied. I brought you back to my apartment. Here, drink this."

She handed him some crazy concoction of tomato juice, raw egg, and vodka.

One sip and he practically threw up.

"Gah! You might as well finish the job with that shit," he spat.

"Don't be a baby," she snipped and walked into her kitchen to pour coffee. "We found you in the back room after we raided the place. Looks like you were having a good time," she pursed her lips and lifted an eyebrow.

"More like somebody was having fun with me."

"You're damn lucky I was with the team who raided that place, or you'd be waking up in a holding cell with your dick in your hand."

He looked under the blanket he was under on her couch. "Where are my pants?"

She pointed to a nearby chair.

"Don't worry I covered your fine ass on the way to the car."

He didn't laugh.

"Sorry," she softened. "I'd tell you to get a rape kit done, but…she was pretty smoke'n hot. I can't imagine any Italian judge would believe you."

"Okay, enough," he said, feeling fully violated. "Can you just give me a minute."

"Sure," she said, handing him coffee and then proceeding to sit near him at the Kitchen counter.

He gave her an angry eyebrow from the couch.

"What? You want me to leave the room?," She rolled her eyes and half laughed. "You Americans always so prudish. You act like I haven't seen it before."

Elliot rubbed his eyes and mumbled loud enough for her to hear as she walked to the back of the apartment. "One time was too many. You keep reminding me, and I keep intentionally forgetting."

"You didn't protest at the time. You're just angry because you can't get over your Catholic monogamy," she yelled with a hint of jest from the back room.

"You're going straight to hell, Leonetti," he mumbled to himself. She laughed wildly in the other room, and then poked her head in to catch him pull up his zipper

He quickly attempted to change the subject ",How did everything go after we left the pier last night?"

"Who's OLiiivia," she poked, her voice going up an octave.

Olivia orgaziming or maybe that Italian woman who roofied him, flashed in his mind at the sound of her name. "What?"

"Or how did you say it…Liv? You were calling me, Liv…Olivia, last night in the squad car. Talked to her in your sleep. 'I knew you would come for me, Liv. Olivia, you are so beautiful. Liv help me. Liv, I need you. Why don't you answer your phone? Is it another man? Liv Liv Liv.'"

"Stop!," he said pushing past her.

"Oww, so she is real."

"Enough. Where is my phone?"

She pulled it out of her pocket. "Here," she softened. "Look at you all flush. You love her."

She stopped his mind from racing by placing a hand on his arm and forcing him to stay still. "It's okay if you do. Just say it. You feel better. You love her."

"I do."

She smiled brightly. "She is a New York lady I suspect."

"She is."

"Well, wow…she is a lucky lady. Why have you not professed this love to her?"

He paused, groggy, weary, in a bit of shock. "Emm…it's complicated."

"I see," she grinned and then backed off. "Yolo, Elliot. Life is short. Grab my keys over there," she pointed. "Let's head out. I'll fill you in on the raid."