"I'll take him," Elliot said, already smoothly insinuating himself between Olivia and the open car door, deft hands unbuckling her sleeping toddler from his booster seat with an ease born of practice. He knows, Olivia thought, looking at him; he knows how to do this. How to carefully slide the boy out of his seat, how to carry him up and into the house without waking him. Elliot knew, because he'd done it countless times before.

Olivia wanted to tell him no. Wanted to reach out, and take her son from him, wanted to insist that Elliot just leave, just give her space to be alone with her child. If he'd been anyone else, she would've. If it had been Paul or Jackie trying to put their hands on Noah after the ordeal she'd suffered tonight she'd have torn the boy from their arms before she let them take him from her. But it wasn't Paul or Jackie; it was Elliot holding Noah, and there was no one she trusted more. Even now, after everything, there was no one she trusted more than Elliot.

It was all she'd ever wanted, really. Elliot holding her son. How strange it seemed, to learn that dreams could hurt when they came true.

They made their way into the house together, Elliot carrying Noah, Olivia holding the door open for him. The sun was just beginning to crest over the horizon, its first orange rays haloing the houses at the end of the street. It had been a long and harrowing night, but the dawn had come, and the danger was receding.

Jackie had done it, somehow, worked her magic, pulled some strings and convinced the local PD to let Gabe go home with Lindsey. A US Marshal's badge opened a lot of doors, and Jackie was well-accustomed to lying. Olivia wasn't entirely sure Jackie believed her story, but Jackie had access to all of Olivia and Noah's records; she could verify the truth for herself. The truth about where Noah came from, the way he'd bounced from place to place. Would that be enough? Jackie had warned her, said that everyone would be keeping a closer eye on Olivia's little family, and the thought that Jackie didn't trust her rankled.

Elliot did, though. Elliot trusted her. Elliot believed her without question. The way he always had.

Noah had not slept in the hospital, had only begun to doze off in the car, so Olivia led Elliot upstairs, led him to Noah's bedroom, watched with her heart in her throat as Elliot laid her boy down on his little toddler bed, as Elliot covered him with a blanket. Tender, he was so tender with Noah, so gentle, so soft, the way he was with his own kids, when they were small. Careful, and sure, and sweet as a dream.

"Come on, Liv," Elliot said to her quietly, stepping away from the bed and reaching for her hand. She watched him do it, watched his own hand extend, watched him catch hold of hers, watched him lace their fingers together, looked down at the joining of them, palm to palm, and felt a scream work its way up the back of her throat.

What gave him the right to touch her? Did he think she belonged to him now? Did he think that now, after he'd fucked her, shaken her apart from the inside out, he had the right to do it whenever he wanted? Maybe he did, and that made him an asshole, but she wanted him to touch her. She wanted it to be this easy. Wanted him to offer her comfort when she needed it, wanted to be able to accept it. She wanted to hold his hand.

She didn't pull away.

"You should go," she told him quietly, not moving, not yet.

"We should talk," he answered darkly, giving her hand a little squeeze.

He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, asking to talk, but when had it ever done them any good? What was she even supposed to say?

"I'm tired," she said.

"You really think you're going to be able to sleep right now?"

No. No, she knew she wouldn't. No sleep would come for her, not for hours yet, if it came at all before nightfall. She was too keyed up, and too worried about her son; the hospital had cleared him but she wanted to spend the next few hours standing over his bed, counting his breaths.

"Where's that go?" Elliot asked, pointing to the baby monitor beside Noah's bed. It featured a little camera that relayed a livestream of her sleeping son to a tablet she could carry with her anywhere in the house. And right now, the tablet was in -

"My bedroom."

"Come on," he said again, giving her a little tug. "You can watch him in there, and we can talk."

Christ, she was so tired of talking. Talking and talking, and never getting anywhere, talking and talking, and nothing ever changing. It was never going to change, she thought; they were two planets locked in orbit, circling and circling one another but held always at a distance, caught in one another's thrall but destined never to touch. That was the way of things, had been from the moment they met, and though they had tried to defy their fate, thrown caution to the wind and crashed into one another, the fact remained that their joining was never meant to be.

But talking meant he'd stay with her, if only for a little while. Talking meant she didn't have to be alone. Talking meant she could keep holding his hand.

She let him lead her away.

In her bedroom she pulled her hand from his, finally, picked up the tablet and sat down cross legged on her bed with the thing balanced across her knees, her eyes locked on the black and white feed of Noah. If she concentrated she could see it, the rise and fall of his little chest, and slowly her breathing evened out until it matched his, steady and deep, bringing her some sense of calm.

"I don't want it to hurt, Liv," Elliot told her earnestly, wretchedly. Even though they had put enough distance between themselves and Noah that they didn't have to worry about waking him Elliot kept his voice low and soft, as if he feared what might happen if he spoke too loudly. "I don't want to hurt you."

Then don't, she thought. Thought, but did not say; she knew better. It was easier said than done.

"But if I leave I'll never be able to talk to you again, and that…that can't happen, Olivia. I can't live with that. Can you?"

"I did," she said. "I lived without you for four years." And so did you, you self-righteous bastard. Had he forgotten, she wondered; had he already forgotten how he left her, and the long years of his silence? Had a few weeks undone the work of years?

"You think I don't know that?" he fired back. "I was alone, too, you know."

Not alone, though. Never alone, he'd never been alone, not in his entire life, unless he counted the few months he and Kathy were separated, but even then he had his kids to worry about. He didn't have the first idea what it meant to be alone. Not like her.

"Elliot-"

"And I can't go back there, Liv. Knowing that you're here, that you need me -"

"I don't need anybody-"

"Oh, bullshit, everybody needs somebody." He said it so easily, so ready with his answer, said it like he thought it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And you and me, we need each other, Liv. It's not…I'm not me when I'm not with you. You gonna tell me you were all right with that? All those years, not seeing each other, not talking, you gonna tell me that was good for you?"

I grew more in my last four years with you than I did in the twelve years I was with him. She'd said that to Nick, that day he told her he was leaving. Looked him in the eye and told him that her relationship with Elliot, whatever it was, didn't allow room for anything else. Because it didn't, it hadn't, it never had and it didn't now; Elliot soaked up every ounce of her until there was nothing left for her to give to anyone else. The last four years she'd turned the squad into a family with the sheer strength of her will, climbed the ranks and brought her son home, grown into another person entirely, and lost it all, everything but Noah. She wasn't that person anymore, that girl who couldn't survive without Elliot.

But she was, oh, she was. If he left her now, the way she'd told him to, she was certain that she'd be ok. Just like she'd been ok the first time. She'd keep working at the bank, keep working on her relationship with Paul, make some new friends, become Lindsey Duncan and raise Gabe to be a polite midwestern boy just like their neighbors. She'd be fine, if Elliot left. She'd be fine, and she would shatter. If she lost him now, the light and the hope that he brought to her, she was pretty sure her heart would just stop beating. There was no way, she thought, no way she'd ever feel like this again, this electric, this alive, this right. Olivia would disappear entirely, fade away into nothing, until all that was left was Lindsey. Lindsey, who was a lie, a fabrication, a ghost; Lindsey who was no more than a pale shade of what once had been a woman.

But what choice did they have?

"It's no better if you stay," she told him sadly. "If you stay, if you stay with Kathy…you'll always be torn in half and it's always gonna hurt like hell. And even if you…even if you leave her," it felt wrong to even acknowledge the possibility, felt like lightning was gonna descend from heaven and strike her down for being so fucking selfish - "we still can't…we can't be together. The Marshals won't let it happen. They'd send me away."

"Fuck the Marshals," he said with some heat. "We'd figure it out-"

"Are you being serious right now?" she demanded sharply. "Are you seriously telling me that you're considering leaving Kathy? Elliot, what…what's wrong with you? What about your kids? What about…you love her."

It was an immutable truth of the universe that Elliot Stabler loved his wife. The very fabric of reality might unravel if he didn't.

"Shit," he grumbled, running his hand over the back of his head, pacing there at the end of her bed. She stole brief glances at him, her eyes always returning back to the tablet, to the image of Noah, still sleeping peacefully down the hall, ignorant of the turmoil unfolding in his mother's bedroom.

"You know," he said slowly, heavily, winding his way to the side of the bed and plopping down next to her with a sigh. "If I'm being honest, I don't think Kathy wants to be married to me."

"Bullshit," Olivia said at once. Sure, Kathy was the one who'd asked for a divorce, but Kathy was the one who'd brought him back into her bed, too, the one who'd borne him another son, the one who'd chosen him damn near forty years ago and just kept choosing him every time she got the chance. If Kathy wanted to go there had been so many opportunities to leave; Kathy was right where she wanted to be.

Wasn't she?

"It hasn't…nothing's been the same since Eli. I don't think she ever would've taken me back if she hadn't gotten pregnant. But she was scared. And I…I had to go back. It was my fault and I couldn't leave her like that. But I think…I think she's always known, we've both always known…"

His voice failed him, but she knew him well enough to know what he was trying to say even when he couldn't speak the words. It must have been hard for him to admit it, so hard he couldn't even do it, not properly, couldn't actually find the strength to confess that he and his wife had only gotten back together for the sake of a baby neither of them had really wanted. And that was how they'd ended up married in the first place, and Olivia had always believed it was kinda like a miracle. Elliot and Kathy getting pregnant so young, but staying together; she'd always thought it was because they were lucky, because despite the odds the one they'd found when they were seventeen was the right one.

If that wasn't true, it would change…everything. But how could she believe him? Wasn't this the way it always went, the married man insisting to his lover that his marriage was dead, and then going home to fuck his wife and tell her how much he loved her?

"You made your choice," she said softly. The thing was done, had been written in stone so long ago it was impossible to imagine a world where it could be undone.

"Maybe we could make new ones," he said. "I don't want this for her. Staying married to a man she doesn't even like anymore, stuck in the same life she's been living since she was a kid. And I don't…I don't want this for us."

"Is there an us?"

"There's always been an us," he told her seriously. "And there always will be."