"All right," Stabler said as they stepped into the night together, as Olivia locked the front door behind them. "I'll see you tomorrow."

His feet were pointed down the street; Jackie hadn't seen his car when she arrived but that just meant he'd been wise enough to park away from the house. It didn't matter; she had no intention of letting him go just yet.

"No," she said. "If you want to have a job to go to tomorrow, you're gonna park your ass right here with me."

Defiance flashed in his eyes as he spun back around to face her, his nostrils flared and his shoulders tensed like he was readying himself for a fight. Lucky him, Jackie thought. She was in a pugnacious mood herself.

"Get in the car," she said, pointing imperiously to her own vehicle. "We're not doing this on the street."

She didn't want to risk being overheard, or drawing too much attention, and also she just really wanted to sit down; this little adventure was costing her precious hours of sleep, and it wasn't over yet.

Stabler did as ordered - pouting the whole time - and Jackie waited to begin her interrogation until they were both safely tucked away inside her car with the heated seats on high. Shit, that felt nice.

"You wanna tell me what the hell you were doing out here tonight?" she demanded.

"Alarm went off," Stabler answered gruffly.

"Yeah, and you just happened to be sitting outside her house when it did? That's a hell of a coincidence, my friend."

"Look, just say what you want to say to me and let's get this over with."

That was exactly what she intended to do; she didn't need his permission. Still, though, she took a moment to gather herself. What did she want to say to him? So many things, as it happened, but many of the questions running through her mind were more personal than professional, and it wasn't exactly any of her business. The intimate detials of Stabler's personal relationships didn't concern her. What did concern her was his professional conduct and the risk he presented to her own career.

"I wanna know what this is," she said finally. "I'm risking a lot to cover for you and I need to know if it's worth if. If you're just looking for the chance to run around on your wife you can count me the fuck out."

Her own indiscretion would pale in comparison to that; if Stabler was not only lying about knowing their witness but cheating on his wife with her, David wouldn't give a shit about one little unsanctioned internet search. She could turn Stabler in and take a slap on the wrist for the search, but David would be so grateful to her for pulling the plug on these shenanigans he might forget all about her own faults. Maybe he'd even retire out of gratitude.

Truth be told she could take her chances right now, give up trying to protect Stabler and try to save her own skin instead, but she kinda liked Stabler and she wanted to give them a chance to see if they worked well together. And if one day she was sitting in David's chair, it would help her to have an agent under her command who owed her his loyalty.

"I have never been unfaithful to my wife," Stabler told her hotly. "Not back then, and not now."

"Then what -"

What on earth could have brought him here, if not the chance for a good lay? Why even bother driving out here in the middle of the night, talking to this woman, probably without his wife's knowledge, if they weren't fucking? What was the draw?

"She's my partner," he said in a tone of voice like the words hurt him on the way out. "It's my job to protect her."

"It's your job to protect all our witnesses," Jackie reminded him. It wasn't like he was sitting out in front of Bill McKinney's house all night long.

"No, I mean…I mean it was my job to protect her, back then, and I…I let her down."

It was like pulling teeth, getting him to admit to anything; he wasn't squirming in his seat but his entire body was clenched so tight it was a wonder his head hadn't popped right off like the cork in a champagne bottle.

"You realize being vague doesn't help your case?" Jackie grumbled. "Whatever happened, you dancing around it makes the whole thing sound more suspicious than if you'd just be honest with me."

Whatever had happened back in New York couldn't be that salacious - not if they'd never slept together, and Stabler kept insisting they hadn't - but without any details Jackie was left to fill in the blanks herself, and her imagination was drawing some pretty fantastical conclusions. How had he let her down? Had she been hurt, before the business with the cartel brought her into Witsec? Shot, or something? According to the news articles the pair of them investigated sex crimes; god forbid something like that had happened to the poor woman and Elliot had failed to stop it. Maybe that was why he felt he owed Olivia something, though, maybe -

"I left," he said heavily, meaningfully, like that explained everything.

It didn't.

"No shit, you left, you're sitting right here -"

"No, I mean I - I left her. It was my job to protect her, and I walked away."

"Cops quit their jobs all the time, Stabler, it's not like -"

"You don't get it!" the words burst out of him sharply, suddenly, and Jackie jumped, a little, startled by the vehemence in his voice.

"It was…we were…she was…"

The man can't even finish a damn sentence.

"We depended on each other," he finally managed to string a coherent thought together. "Too much, according to the shrink."

"According to the what - "

"And nobody ever stuck around when Liv needed them, and I was supposed to, and instead I just left. I…I hurt her, Jackie, and I can't…I can't just live with that."

In Jackie's experience there were two kinds of people in the world. There were fixers, and there were floaters. Fixers were people who saw a problem and tried to fix it, who looked around and saw what needed doing, and did it. Good or bad, fixers took action, didn't just accept it when life wasn't going the way they thought it should. And floaters just floated, just let themselves be carried along on the current of life, not ever doing anything unless some external pressure pushed them to it.

Apparently, Elliot Stabler was a fixer. He'd broken something, and now he was consumed with the need to fix it, and Jackie understood that in a way, really she did, because she was a fixer, too. Never met a problem she didn't want to attack, a riddle she didn't want to solve, a loose screw she didn't want to twist back into place. Right now Stabler was her problem, and she wanted to fix it, but how the hell was she gonna do that?

He's thinking about what he owes to Benson, she mused. Maybe he needs to think about what he owes to other people.

"What does your wife think about it?"

"My wife?" He leaned his head back against the headrest and turned to stare at her incredulously.

"Yeah, your wife. You remember, pretty blonde woman, mother of your child."

"Children."

"What?"

"Children," he said, a little more forcefully. "We got five of 'em."

Five?

"Five?" she repeated, stunned by the very idea. Sometimes her cat felt like too much to take care of. Stabler had five kids?

"The other four are older, they're out on their own, still in the city. Eli's the only one still at home."

And the only one he had a picture of on his desk.

"Ok, children," Jackie said, still feeling a little dazed. "What does she think about you talking to your old partner?"

"She's got no idea Liv is here," he confessed. "And if she knew…honest to God, Jackie, I think she'd leave me."

"But you never slept with Olivia."

"No, I didn't, and I don't even think Kathy is worried about that."

What other reason would Kathy have to leave him, then? If he'd never fucked his partner and his wife wasn't worried about him cheating with her, why would Kathy have a problem with him seeing her?

"I just…she knows."

"Knows what?"

The man was starting to give her a headache; why did he have to be so cryptic, so reluctant to tell her the truth? It seemed like the word partner meant something to him, and he and Jackie were supposed to be partners now, but he couldn't, or wouldn't, trust her. Maybe they were just too new; maybe he needed a little more time before he'd really be comfortable opening up. Or maybe he never would; maybe he was just one of those men who bottled all their emotions up inside and died of a heart attack before they turned sixty.

"She knew that Liv and I…understand each other. There's things about me, about what I saw while I was on the job, about…about me that Kathy is never gonna understand, and Liv does. And that's what I think hurts her the most. There's things I can say to Liv that I can't say to my wife, and that's…that's not how it's supposed to be, is it? Marriage. Love."

"I wouldn't know." The only serious relationship Jackie had ever had was with her ex-wife, and Jackie hadn't talked to Rena in three years.

"But I do know this much," she said. "You've dragged your wife and son halfway across the country for this job. You're in a new house, a new town, and nothing is familiar. And now you got something old and familiar sitting right there, that's gotta be…appealing." And sexy as hell, in those little shorts she was wearing tonight. "But you also got a choice to make. Are you gonna give your family - and Olivia's family - a chance to build a new life here, or are you gonna go chasing after the way things used to be?"

It was always easier to give advice than to take it; Jackie felt for him, really she did, because if Rena turned up out of the blue Jackie was pretty sure she'd sacrifice everything for one more chance to let that woman break her heart again.

"You think Kathy would leave you if she found out you were talking to Olivia again, and isn't that enough to make you keep your distance from her? You don't wanna lose your family, do you?"

"No," he said in a voice that dripped with grief. "But where does that leave Liv? Shit, sometimes I feel like I've been making this choice every day since I met her and I never seem to get it right."

An uneasy silence fell over them, and Jackie let it sit, let them both marinate in the quiet for a minute or two. It would've been so much simpler, she thought, if Stabler was just fucking Benson. If that was all it was, just libido and reckless stupidity, the choice before her - whether to keep Stabler's secret or let him hang - would've been an easy one. This, though, this was so much more complicated. Stabler had crossed enough lines that Jackie could take the risk and turn him in, but without the added layer of infidelity her own position wasn't half so secure. And it would hurt everybody; even if she kept her job, Stabler losing his would probably blow up his marriage, and send Olivia off to some other dark corner of the world, somewhere he could never find her again, somewhere she'd be even more alone than she was now. Everybody - Jackie, Stabler, Kathy, Olivia, the kids - they'd all lose. If she let the matter lie, maybe one day they'd all be ok. Maybe they'd find some kind of balance.

There was also a chance that if she let things carry on it would all blow up anyway, but at least then it wouldn't be her fault.

I'll give him one more chance, she told herself. I won't throw him to the wolves. Not yet.

"Maybe you hanging around isn't best for Olivia, either," Jackie said finally. "She knows how to get in touch with you, she knows you'll be there if she needs you. Maybe that's enough. Maybe just knowing she's not alone will help her settle in here. And maybe if you go home to your wife and stop hanging around here like a lovesick puppy you'll save your marriage."

"That's…optimistic," Stabler said drily.

"That's the choice. You want this job? Stay away from Olivia, except on business. I'm serious, Stabler. If you fuck up one more time…"

"I hear you," he said.

Do you? She wondered. Would he listen? Would her admonition be enough to keep him away from his old partner? Somehow she doubted it, but if he screwed up again, at least she could say that she'd tried to make it work.

"Good," she said. "Now get outta my car. I wanna go home."

Stabler grunted at her and slipped away on silent feet; she watched him in the rearview until he faded into shadows, and then she turned on the lights, and disappeared into the night in search of her bed.