"Don't pull that shit with me," he grumbled irritably from his post on the other side of the kitchen. Leaning back against the door, arms crossed over his chest, he looked ten feet tall; he looked like a statue, hard as marble and impenetrable, immovable, vast and somehow occupying every square inch of space in the room, left her feeling trapped, but glad of it, still. There was relief, in having nowhere to run, in knowing there was nowhere she could go he would not follow.

"You really think Jackie would've let me move in here without researching the neighbors first?" she pointed out acidly. Elliot wanted to be all up in arms over her safety, but there was nothing for him to complain about; Paul had already been vetted, and they both knew it. It wasn't Paul's credentials that worried Elliot; it was his proximity.

"She might have cleared him, but I don't know anything about him -"

"And that's what matters, isn't it? It's all about you, all the time."

"I don't know her!" He burst out. "I don't know if I can trust…"

Can't trust your partner, Elliot, it's time to get a new one.

They fell silent together, the words she'd spoken to him years before echoing between them, a memory neither of them wanted to examine, not here, not now.

Someone else was his partner, now, and Olivia…Olivia wasn't anything to him. A job to do, a cross to bear, but not a partner, not anymore. The ties that once bound them had been severed and she felt that cleaving, felt herself cut off and adrift from him, even as she found herself drawn to him. Searching for him, in the morning when she woke, in the evening before she went to bed, staring out the windows of her new cookie cutter home at the darkened street beyond, scanning the shadows for some sign of him. She'd been searching for him for four long years, and though he stood in front of her now a small voice seemed to cry out within her heart where are you? Where is my Elliot, where has he gone?

"I think you should leave," she said slowly.

"No," he answered, and as he rebuked her he uncrossed his arms, began to stalk slowly across the kitchen, narrowing the distance between them, and she found her feet unwilling to move, found herself glued to the patch of floor in front of the refrigerator, watching his approach through narrowed eyes, with a heart full of doubt.

"Christ, Liv," he said as he drew closer. "You've been here a month, and you're already hooking up with some guy?"

"What is your problem?" she demanded, launching away from the fridge, suddenly kinetic with fury. How dare he accuse her of anything?

"My problem is you, taking risks -"

"I'm not sleeping with him," she spat. They were close, now, less than a foot apart, close enough she could see the way his chest rose and fell with his unsteady breaths, the way his shoulders tensed when she raised her voice, close enough he could see the flush in her cheeks, as she could see the same in his, close enough she could almost smell the mint from the gum he was always chewing. Some things never changed.

"And even if I was," she continued in a terrible voice, "it's none of your business."

"It's my job to know who you're with and what you're doing," he answered grimly.

He was right about that, kind of; yeah, it was his job to keep tabs on her associates, make sure there was no risk of anyone finding out her real identity, but his fury over Paul had nothing to do with her safety, and they both knew it.

It was the closest she'd been to him in four years; well, he might have been closer that night in the backyard, but the night had been dark, his face painted in shadows, and it was different, seeing him in the brilliant light of her pristine white kitchen. There were more lines on his face than there had been before, but his eyes flashed at her, brilliant and blue, soft lips pouting beneath a layer of stubble like he was thinking about growing out a beard. She'd never seen him with a beard before and it occurred to her wonder then what he might look like with one, but she banished the thought as quickly as it came; whatever was happening between them right now, it had nothing to do with how he looked.

Except that it did, because he looked like home. Angry and tired and inches away from her, he looked handsome and weary and familiar, in a place where nothing and no one was familiar at all, and shit, it felt good to yell at him. To throw the barbs of her words at him, to watch them hit their mark; to hurt him, maybe, the way he'd hurt her. That felt familiar, too, the way they unleashed their anger on one another, knowing that no matter what they did, no matter what they said, it would not be enough to end them. There was safety in that, in that sanctuary where they could lay their grievances bare, where they did not have to pretend to be anything other than what they were.

"For a married man you seem awfully interested in who's in my bed." She said the words coolly, cleanly, launched the grenade at him and preened as it hit its mark, as he blanched from her, something like shame flashing in his eyes, if only for an instant.

"You fuck whoever you want to," he said softly. "I'm just trying to keep you safe."

"Paul's safe." Had to be, because on the interminable car ride from New York to Omaha the Marshals had explained the process to her, explained that they kept houses scattered across the country, ready and waiting for people like her to move into them. Houses the Marshals had secured themselves, in safe, quiet places. Paul - and everyone else on the street - had been cleared before she ever moved in. And Paul was nice, gentle and kind and quick with a smile, and he never, ever made her heart race the way Elliot did.

"How's Kathy?" she added.

The thing was, she did kind of want to know. Elliot wasn't the only one who'd suddenly returned to her life; he was a package deal, and his wife and son were with him in this place now, and she could not ignore them. Olivia hadn't seen them, didn't even know what Eli looked like these days; the picture of his father, probably. The girls had always favored Kathy but Dickie's hair was dark like Elliot's, and Eli's had been dark when he was small. The boy was a junior, after all; maybe he was his father in perfect miniature.

Just what the world needs, another Elliot Stabler.

She'd always wondered why Kathy did that. Why Kathy wanted to name her baby for his father, why that one, and not Dickie, who probably would've been much happier with a different name.

"Fine," he said, in a tone of voice that let Olivia know at once that however Kathy was doing it was definitely not fine. What was that about?

It doesn't matter, she tried to tell herself. Elliot's family wasn't her business. Keeping the Stablers together wasn't part of her job description anymore.

"Are we done here?" she asked acidly. She wanted him gone; asking about Kathy didn't have the intended effect. He just looked sad, and she was starting to feel that way, too, and it wasn't fun anymore, fighting with him.

"No," he said. "I came here to tell you, you gotta get a job. They're getting antsy."

"Paul thinks he has a lead for me. Someone at his company needs a secretary."

Elliot raised an eyebrow at her.

"Secretary?" he repeated incredulously.

"What the hell else am I gonna do? Law enforcement's out. I can't be a cop, I can't work for a lawyer, I can't go into social work or rape counseling."

Everything related to her old job, her old life, was off the table. None of the options available to her were interesting; she would not be permitted to do important work, not so long as she remained in witness protection, so what did it matter, really, which job she chose?

"You're not a secretary, Liv."

"Maybe Lindsey is."

"Is that what this is?" he asked, cocking his head to the side, studying her from six inches away. "You just trying on someone else's life?"

"Isn't that the point? No one knows me, Elliot. They're not supposed to. I'm not…I'm not Olivia Benson, anymore."

"You are," he said quietly, seriously. "No matter how far you run, no matter how hard you try to be someone else, you're always gonna be Olivia."

It wasn't the kind of thing a Marshal was supposed to say to a witness. It was his job to tell her to embrace her new life, forget the old one, to let the old ties go and bloom where she'd been planted. But he wasn't speaking to her as a Marshal; she wasn't looking into the eyes of an officer of the witness protection program. She was looking into the eyes of her oldest friend, a man who knew her, who knew her name and how she'd gotten it and what it meant to her. A man who was giving her back the stolen pieces of her heart.

"You'd know," she said. "No matter how far you run, you're still Elliot."

It seemed so clear to her, in that moment. That Elliot had done the same damn thing, cut his ties and run, turned his back on the ones who loved him, tried to forge a new path without a backwards glance. That he had tried on someone else's life, that he was failing, too, because when she looked at him, she saw him. Elliot, as he was, as he always had been.

"I'm not running-"

"Bullshit." The anger flared up again; how could he be so obstinate? Stubborn, she thought, he'd always been so damn stubborn, even when he didn't need to be. He could be honest with her, but he'd have to be honest with himself first.

"You ran away four years ago. You ran all the way across the country, and you ran away from me again the first chance you got."

"Is that what you think I did?"

"It's what you did! You were in my backyard and we were talking and then you fucking vanished, Elliot."

It had been weeks, now. Weeks since he left her. Weeks since she'd felt his hand on her arm, since he'd looked into her eyes and sworn that everything he'd done, he'd done for her. How could he do that, turn her world upside down and vow his allegiance to her, and then just disappear again? What was wrong with him?

And god, what was wrong with her, because when he left all she wanted was for him to come back again.

"I'm trying to help you," he said through gritted teeth, and she scoffed, turned away from him, intent on leaving him behind. If he wouldn't stop this ridiculous fight then she would, would march straight back out the door and smile at Jackie like nothing was amiss and maybe she would fuck Paul, after all. Why not? He was nice.

Only Elliot didn't let her. His hand shot out, grabbed at her arm just like he'd done that night in the yard, and pulled her into him with such force that she found herself crushed against his chest, staring up into his beseeching eyes.

"You've gotta make a life here, and you can't do that if I'm holding you back." His voice was low and deep, and she felt it vibrating up out of his chest, her whole body shaking with it. "I'm trying to…I'm trying to set you free, Liv."

"Maybe I don't wanna be free." The words flew out of her mouth before she had a chance to think better of it, but though she regretted it at once she could not deny the truth of it. If freedom meant him keeping his distance, if this isolation and loneliness and doubt was freedom, she wanted no part of it. She did not want to be free of him; she'd had four years without him already, and missed him so much she ached with it.

The way they were standing, their bodies flush together, his hand still gripping her arm so hard it almost hurt, his eyes blazing down at her; when had they ever touched like this? Front to front, breathing the same air? Twice, she thought, only twice; he'd held her twice, in all their many years together, each of those moments burned in her memory, one a moment of grief and one a moment of relief, but tinged with sorrow, too, for her at least, with the reminder of all the things he had that she could only dream of. Never like this, though, he'd never touched her like this, never looked at her like this, and the suddenness of it terrified her. He could kiss her, if he wanted to. Duck his head and crush his lips to hers, and ruin both their lives, and she'd let him, she thought. She'd let him ruin her.

"Yo, Lindsey!"

They sprung apart at the sound of Jackie's voice; neither of them had heard the door open, but her cheery shout gave them just enough warning to extricate themselves before Jackie and Paul and the boys came bounding into the kitchen.

"Little man's hungry," Jackie said. "Marshall, do you have everything you need from Lindsey?"

Elliot's eyes had not left Olivia's face, even as he stepped away from her.

"Yeah," he said heavily, staring at her with something like sorrow in his face. "Yeah, I think I have."

Liar, Olivia thought.