I suppose I should start this author's note by saying that this is the final chapter of Breaking Point. I hesitate to hit "complete", as there is a slight possibility of my adding a brief epilogue, but for all intents and purposes, Elliot and Olivia's story in this small fictitious world has come to an end. With that said, I find myself lacking the words to effectively express what the journey of writing this has meant for me...

BP provided an escape during moments of my life that were painful and tumultuous, stretched the bounds of what I had ever thought I might do (I had never intended to write...just to read...), and ultimately became a means for me to work through some things in fiction that I needed to pick apart from my past. It also yielded unexpected friendships and connections with incredible people, near and far, many of whom I cannot imagine my life without.

I am so very sorry that it took me ten years to bring this to completion, and I know I lost so many readers along the way because of that lapse. For those of you who are reading this now, I can't tell you how much I've appreciated your support.

All my best,

Jessica xoxo

P.S. Also, if anyone would like a copy of this in PDF or ePub (iBooks) format with the cover art, please send a message to: admin at svufic dot com

(Have to spell it out or FFnet will delete it...)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Olivia found Elliot in the living room, sweatpants slung low on his hips and his chest bare. He was lost in thought, standing by the windows as he watched the rain continue to fall, the steady trickle of droplets that coated the glass obscuring the bustle of the city below. He turned at her footfalls, a gentle smile emerging as their eyes connected and broadening subtly as he noted that she'd put on leggings this time but continued to wear his USMC shirt.

She saw his eyes take in her attire and her expression took on a somewhat bashful quality as she came to stand before him,

"I can give it back," she offered softly.

His eyes sparkled as he lifted his hand, his index finger curling lightly beneath her chin. He leaned forward to kiss her forehead, his lips brushing against her as he spoke.

"Never, Benson."

She closed her eyes at the contact, the tenderness of the gesture and the timbre of his voice evoking a feeling of safety and warmth. Perhaps Elliot felt it too, because the quiet moment stretched on, his lips lingering against her and his breathing slowing before he ultimately drew back again.

His thumb brushed along her lip before he let his hand fall away. "I ordered our usuals. Shouldn't be too long."

"Okay. Thanks."

As his touch fell away, Olivia's hands came to rest lightly on his waist, an unconscious means for her to maintain the connection.

"I'm sorry I took so long."

He shook his head. "Wouldn't hurt for me to have a cold shower anyway." He punctuated his statement with a wink, and the smile that lit up her features brought a brighter shine to her weary eyes and filled him with warmth.

She narrowed her eyes playfully, but her smile remained. "The water's still plenty warm, Stabler."

"Hmm. I'll be the judge of that."

He bowed his head to kiss her softly and she met him halfway, nuzzling her nose against his as their lips parted, once again reluctant to pull away.

The shower had felt heavenly, but the calm had invariably led itself to a contemplative mindset, her thoughts immediately having drifted to center upon her fears of what all of the changes in the past twenty-four hours meant for them and for their future - personally and professionally. The sight of her reflection in the mirror was a stark reminder of all that they had weathered, the outward signs of her injuries having faded somewhat but leaving a ghostly impression on her skin. In some ways, it felt like a representation of her internal state - battered and bruised yet trying resolutely to heal.

She was trying to figure out how to cope with the anxiety and loss without feeling the perpetual need to seek out Elliot's proximity. In the aftermath of so much trauma, she'd come to recognize that it was only when she was physically close to him that her racing thoughts were temporarily silenced. It was irrational, she thought - a response to her assaults, her abduction, those agonizing moments when she'd been unable to reach him from beyond the glass; yet understanding the origins of her anxiety wasn't the same thing as having the ability to control it.

"I'll be right back," Elliot whispered, drawing her back from her thoughts.

She nodded as he straightened, her gaze dropping to the bandage on his arm.

He cocked his head to the side, quietly noting her focus. "It's fine, Liv."

"I know," she said, the corners of her mouth lifting into an attempt at reassurance. "I'll put a fresh dressing on when you're done."

"Thanks."

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before stepping around her to head back in the direction of the hall.

Olivia took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, one of her hands absently crimping the sodden ends of her hair. She heard the pull of the curtain and the hiss of the shower, the sound sparking another wave of recognition to flow through her of what it meant that Elliot was here, sharing her space.

The return to her apartment had engendered so much conflict within her the day prior. The very idea of it had resurrected a barrage of conflicting memories and emotions from the past. It had been almost as terrifying a prospect to her as their return to the precinct had been following the shift in their relationship. That morning, she had felt as though the return to the precinct would cause the dream to vanish - that the declarations made and affections exchanged had been an ephemeral glimpse of a future that would be unable to withstand the weight of their past. In a similar vein, she had been frightened of returning to a physical space that held the memories of her solitude and the immediate aftermath of their shared trauma.

She realized now that her fears had been misguided. Now, despite the loss that they had weathered, memories of love and connectedness had begun to replenish the void. She cast her eyes around the room, bits and pieces of the past week filtering through her mind. They were positive and negative, tumultuous and calm, yet all of them included Elliot's reassuring presence at her side. Her gaze settled upon the back of the armchair that he had helped her to rest against upon their return from the undercover, her eyes unfocusing somewhat as she relived the memory of him shrugging out of his jacket and putting the chain on the door.

I'm not leaving.

I wasn't going to make you.

The exchange had been small, statements uttered quietly against a backdrop of uncertainty and regret. Neither had realized the significance of the moment, yet in retrospect, the recollection encapsulated the start of it all. It was the moment in which Elliot had solidified his intent to be present in her life in a different way, and the moment in which Olivia had first acknowledged that she needed him to stay.

She swallowed against the emotion, slowly walking toward the armchair and trailing her fingers over the upholstery. She turned her head over her shoulder to look down the hall, her gaze lingering on the bathroom door. That night remained a blur. She remembered stepping into the shower, she remembered falling apart, but she couldn't remember anything between the crest of her grief and the moment she'd returned to the present to find Elliot crouched beside her.

It's okay... It's just you and me.

She had felt so ashamed...so broken...but Elliot's response had been compassionate and calm. There hadn't been a trace of judgment in his expression, only empathy and remorse, and it was with his acceptance and softly spoken words of reassurance that she'd felt safe to seek the comfort he was offering. His embrace had transcended the bounds of friendship, certainly their partnership, but she was too overcome by emotion to process the way in which he was holding her. The only thing that had registered for her in that moment was her overwhelming need to be close to him - a means to cling to the fact that he was her Elliot again, his protectiveness taking the place of the aggression he'd been forced to direct her way.

She heard the shower shut off again and wondered how long she'd been lost in thought. Then she wondered if she'd used up most of the hot water after all. A smile tugged at her lips. She had half a mind to go ask him, but as the impulse struck, the buzzer sounded, alerting her to the presence of their food delivery.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd purchased anything - it had certainly been before they'd caught the case - and suddenly realized that she had absolutely no idea where her wallet was.

Somewhat flustered, she scurried to the intercom to buzz him in. "Come on up," she said quickly, not waiting for a response.

She rifled through a couple of purses and the pockets of coats hanging by the door before she ultimately found it, pulling out what cash she had and sifting through the bills.

The soft knock came a short time after and she distractedly moved to open the door.

"How much do I owe-"

She froze in mid-speech and mid-motion.

It hadn't been the deliveryman. She'd swung open the door to find herself face to face with Huang.

"...you," she finished with a tinge of panicked incredulity, her voice dropping to an almost inaudible level.

"Olivia," he greeted her with an incline of his head and a light smile.

The buzzer sounded again and she jumped slightly, her eyes staring unblinkingly at the man before her.

"I think that's the delivery you were waiting for," Huang said gently after a pause when she made no move to press the button.

Olivia's hand blindly reached for the buzzer, leaning closer to the intercom but continuing to hold Huang's gaze.

"Come on up," she repeated with some difficulty, her throat tight.

Huang was regarding her kindly, making no move to enter nor to push her to speak. He was trying to read her - trying to discern the root of her trepidation, when suddenly everything became crystal clear.

"Liv?" Elliot called, emerging from the bathroom while focusing on righting the inside-out undershirt in his hands. "Do you need-"

It was his turn to freeze mid-step, his eyes locking on Huang.

Huang shifted his focus to Elliot, acknowledging him with a brief greeting before returning his gaze to study Olivia once more. Her face had paled, a tension in her jaw and no movement to speak of to indicate that she was breathing.

Olivia's heart was thudding in her ears. She was struggling to think of something - anything - to say that would explain this away.

"The um...the roads were bad with the storm and..." she trailed off, her shaky voice as unconvincing as her words. "It's over... Everything is over," she thought in dismay, images from their years of partnership racing through her head.

This is my partner, Detective Stabler.

Her face flushed then, her chest aching and her eyes burning, her body language rigid as she remained frozen in the doorway.

Huang watched the emotions play out subtly across her features, his expression sympathetic even as he conveyed his awareness of the truth.

"May I come in?" he asked even more gently, his eyes knowing and kind.

"Yeah," she rasped, her hand falling away from the door as she stepped aside.

"Thank you," he said, moving beyond her into the apartment as the footsteps on the stairs signified the arrival of their meal.

She nodded, pressing her lips together as she tried to sift through bills that she could no longer read.

Elliot exhaled heavily, pulling his undershirt overhead as he acknowledged Huang with a curt nod, his expression stony as he moved to stand just behind Olivia's shoulder, reaching around her to ease the cash from her hand as he took over.

He took the bag from the deliveryman with an utterance of thanks, handing him what was owed plus a decently sized tip on account of the rain. The man promptly trotted back down the stairs, oblivious to the mess that he had stumbled upon and was now quickly leaving behind.

"Go on and sit down, Liv," Elliot said under his breath, not making a move to touch her, but standing closely enough to feel the warmth of her before him.

She nodded, numbly putting one foot in front of the other and ultimately taking a seat on the far side of the couch.

Elliot and Huang stood facing one another, exchanging a long look before Olivia broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Please," she murmured, gesturing to the armchair before Huang. "Sit."

Huang nodded, lowering himself into the proffered chair and glancing up to acknowledge the plastic bag in Elliot's hand. "Please eat. I won't be staying long."

Elliot exchanged a look with Olivia, but she shook her head.

"Not hungry," she breathed.

Elliot sighed, turning to deposit the bag on the kitchen counter before coming to stand between them, his arms folding over his chest in a defensive posture and his feet planted a shoulder width apart.

"Since when are you in the habit of making house calls, Doc?" he asked, his tone even, but not quite friendly.

Huang looked up at him, holding his gaze unflinchingly with his typical patience but with a hint of warning.

"Cragen?" Olivia asked softly, ending the standoff as both men turned their attentions to her.

She was sitting on the edge of her seat with her arms wrapped around her middle, her body language equal parts protective and vulnerable. Elliot longed to be able to comfort her, his awareness of the physical distance so overwhelming that it was almost painful.

"He was worried," Huang replied with an apologetic expression. "I did try to call," he added, tapping the cell phone in his pocket.

Olivia's gaze faltered and she looked somewhere in the vicinity of his knees, trying to remind herself to breathe.

"It's uh... It's been a rough twenty-four hours," Elliot responded gruffly, unable to fully hide the emotion in his tone.

Huang nodded slowly.

Olivia remained silent, barely maintaining her composure and trying desperately to prevent the dam from breaking. She hadn't been ready for this, hadn't had any time to emotionally prepare herself for the encounter, and certainly hadn't been prepared for the status of their relationship to have been discovered in this manner. As it was, she'd been struggling to contain her grief over Lara, and now she was unexpectedly forced to confront what she imagined to be the imminent loss of their partnership.

Huang gave her a moment, quietly observing the way every ounce of Elliot's focus was directed at the woman before him, concern etched in his features. Eventually, Huang reached into a pocket in the inside of his coat to pull out an envelope, extending it in Olivia's direction.

She caught sight of the flash of white from her peripheral vision, her eyes meeting his again before reaching over to take it from him. It was unsealed and she slid a finger beneath the flap to open it fully, extricating the piece of paper contained within. She unfolded it and immediately lost the battle at locking her emotions away. It was Lara's drawing of the two of them; the one that she and Elliot had left behind.

Olivia's hand lifted to cover her mouth, partially concealing her face from view as silent tears spilled from her eyes and her nostrils flared.

Elliot's heart clenched, finding himself equally on the verge of losing his control.

Huang recognized this too, noting the tendon standing out along Elliot's jaw, the pain in his eyes as he watched Olivia's quiet struggle.

Olivia swallowed against the lump in her throat, trying to find the strength to speak. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, putting every shred of effort she could muster into the task of picking up the pieces of her broken heart.

She sniffed as she reopened her eyes, clearing her throat softly before addressing Huang once more. "How did you get this?" she asked, her voice gravelly and her eyes trained on the page.

"A nurse stopped by the precinct this morning. Said you would want to have it to keep with the others."

Olivia nodded, swiping at the moisture on her cheeks.

"May I see her other drawings?" Huang asked.

She almost flinched at the suggestion, her eyes seeking out Elliot's. She knew that Lara's second drawing of their embrace would be the final nail in the coffin, not that Huang hadn't already seen more than enough to discern all that he needed to know.

Elliot followed her train of thought and offered her a sad smile, his eyes communicating understanding and solidarity. "I'll get them," he rasped.

"They're in my sweatshirt...in the bedroom."

He nodded almost imperceptibly, heading off down the hall.

Olivia returned her gaze to the drawing so as not to have to look up at Huang. Lara's smiling figures looked back at her, the two of them standing prominently in the foreground with Elliot's smaller representation watching happily in the background. Her finger traced the raised crayon of the whimsical outlines, a tactile connection to the past.

To Huang's credit, he remained a neutral presence in the room, allowing Olivia her avoidance.

She could feel him though, quietly assessing the situation and herself. She tried to brace herself upon Elliot's return, watching as he extended the pages in Huang's direction, but as soon as they were in his possession she felt a wave of nausea course through her, anxiety and dread causing her heart to race and her palms to become clammy. She set her drawing on the coffee table to disguise the tremor in her hands, nervously swiping her palms along her thighs.

Elliot hesitated, still standing over Huang and not sure of where to position himself in the room. He knew that Huang had come to see Olivia, not him, but the thought of leaving her alone right now was intolerable. He felt an overwhelming need to be closer to her, and felt paralyzed by the inability to support her the way in which he wanted to with Huang in the room.

"Do you want me to... I can..."

He ran a palm back and forth along his jaw with a mixture of frustration and ambivalence, unable to formulate a question and not knowing what the hell to do.

"Sit down, El," she said softly, gesturing to the spot to her left.

He glanced somewhat uncertainly at Huang, but he made no attempt to dissuade him from remaining in the room, so he ultimately took a seat at the opposite end of the couch leaving an entire couch cushion between them.

Their body language remained tense, Elliot's fists clenched at his sides, while Olivia's hands had stilled just above her knees, her fingers unconsciously digging into herself as she awaited Huang's response.

He began to uncurl the papers in his hands and, perhaps intentionally, Olivia noted that Elliot had positioned Lara's drawing of Nikolai and the other perpetrators on top. It didn't delay the inevitable for long, Huang lifting it to scan the drawing of their figures embracing beneath, but he said nothing to acknowledge it, opting to return to the one depicting Lara's trauma.

He spent some time taking it all in and Olivia flashed back to the day prior, recalling the moment the crayon had snapped in half...Lara's disconsolate wail...the feel of her tiny body shaking against hers as she had grieved in her arms - memories of a lifetime of abuse erupting in a torrent of inconsolable sobs.

Hurt.

Olivia tightened her grip on her thighs, her eyes burning once more.

"When did she draw these?" Huang asked, the question a safe starting point.

"Yesterday," her voice cracked. "Everything happened yesterday."

Elliot turned his head over his shoulder to study her profile, remaining silent but his expression speaking volumes, anguish in his eyes. God, he wanted to touch her - somehow, anyhow - to cover her hand with his own...to curl his palm around her nape...any gesture; no matter how small, that would convey his support.

Once again Huang noticed the dynamic but didn't comment upon it, his focus predominantly remaining upon Olivia and his expression transforming into one imbued with empathy and sorrow.

"I'm so sorry," he said simply. "It's an unfathomable loss."

Olivia tried to appear stoic, but two tears escaped once more. She let them slip down her cheeks, the rest of her body immobile.

"This is a powerful image," he continued. "What brought it on?"

Olivia's eyes held his, her expression drawn. "I told her to draw what she felt. She started with the one you brought me... That one was the last." She swallowed, caught somewhere between the present and the memory of that moment, Lara's cries still echoing in her ears. "At first she didn't make a sound...but then the crayon broke...and she broke with it."

Huang nodded back at her, layers of recognition in his eyes. "That must have been an agonizing moment."

Olivia's brows lifted slightly in surprise. His response was that of a colleague who understood what it had been like to be in her shoes - what it was like to have to hold onto someone else's pain while suppressing the feelings it evoked in one's self. Perhaps because of his candor, she found herself responding in kind, her voice thick with emotion. "I've never heard anything like it."

Huang let the statement hang in the air, nodding back at her, his eyes returning to scan the drawing once more. He pointed to the largest figure looming over the others. "Nikolai?"

"Yes," she murmured.

Huang looked up at her again, his eyes still holding recognition and empathy. "Her drawing contains an immense amount of trauma disclosure. She must have felt incredibly safe with you."

Olivia shook her head subtly to dismiss the validation. "She was very brave."

"You did a remarkable job of earning her trust in a very short period of time."

He looked between Elliot and Olivia to direct the statement at both of them, but Elliot shook his head.

"That was all Olivia. Lara opened up to her. She helped her to trust. I was a reminder of her demons."

Olivia's head flew over her shoulder to look at him, her brows furrowed in protest. "She trusted you too, El."

"You didn't see the look in her eyes when she saw me for the first time. You know as well as I do that my presence was triggering for her."

"In the beginning? Fine. But yesterday she asked for you. She put you in the drawings. She wanted me to share them with you, and then after...everything," she said with a slight waver in her tone, "when she was calm, she wanted to show you them herself."

Huang watched as Elliot didn't move to argue with her, but looked down at his hands, distress etched in his features.

"Elliot?" he asked. "It sounds as though she came to feel safe with you, too."

"Yeah," he rasped dismissively.

"But you feel otherwise?"

"It's not...I just..." Elliot scrubbed his palms over his face, sighing with frustration. "I will always remember that night. I pray to God she didn't. But I look at that damned drawing and she may as well have put me in there too."

"Elliot-" Olivia attempted.

He shook his head, his hand darting out to silence her by covering her left with his right, the motion ending up startling each of them into silence. It had been reflexive. The touch in and of itself was ostensibly platonic, yet tactile gestures were something they'd been careful to avoid professionally and they knew that Huang was well aware of that.

Huang suppressed a smile as Elliot's hand lifted, hovered, and then returned to his side, Olivia all the while having frozen in place.

When Elliot spoke again his voice was quiet and thick with fatigue. "All I'm saying is that I've never been more conscious of my size and gender in my life. What those bastards put her through...the words I had to say that night... If you hadn't been there, Liv, she never would have tolerated my being in the room." He turned his head in her direction but didn't meet her gaze. "You know that."

Olivia matched his soft tone, still disagreeing but not vehemently so. "She chose what to draw, El, and how to draw it. She viewed you as friendly and safe. No scary anatomy, no scary face. The only thing-" Olivia stopped herself, shutting her eyes as she exhaled slowly, wishing she hadn't started that phrase.

Elliot lifted his head to study her profile, his eyes narrowing in discernment. "'The only thing' what?"

Olivia raked her hands through her hair before leaning forward, her elbows balanced on her knees and her chin resting in the angle of her thumb and steepled fingers. "The only thing she needed to know...was whether or not you had hurt me."

The silence in the room was deafening.

Huang let it sit for a moment before gently nudging them past it. "What was your response?"

"I didn't know if she remembered that night or not. I wasn't sure of the right thing to say, so I hesitated...but that only made her more anxious. She kept pointing to Elliot in the drawing, waiting for my response." Olivia could feel Elliot's eyes on her, hanging on her every word.

Huang nodded, gesturing to the drawing Olivia had rested on the coffee table. "That one?"

Olivia's eyes drifted closed again, steeling herself for the inevitable. "No," she breathed. "The second one."

She heard as Huang shuffled the pages in his hands, bringing the drawing of her and Elliot embracing above the dark one with Nikolai. Olivia spoke again to avoid the obvious focus, trying to keep the conversation centered upon Lara.

"She'd zeroed in on my injuries from day one."

"A commonality," Huang reflected. "A thread of connectedness between her experience and yours."

Olivia nodded. "I wanted to reassure her. I told her that Elliot pretended to be bad to trick Nikolai. That he protects people to keep them safe..." She finally looked up at Elliot to meet his gaze. "That you don't hurt me or anyone else."

"Did that calm her?" Huang asked.

"Yes," she replied unequivocally. "It was her identification of Nikolai as someone who had hurt her that made her fall apart." She was addressing Huang, but she couldn't bring herself to look away from Elliot, wanting to reassure him once and for all. Her expression softened into something imploring, willing him to believe her. "Elliot, look at the drawings. They speak louder than words." Her eyes welled with tears as the memories of their last moments together swept over her once more. She offered him a hint of a watery smile. "You made her laugh, El. For that one moment, she was able to be a child."

Elliot was visibly struggling to contain his emotions and Olivia reached for him this time, her palm covering the back of his hand and her fingers slipping along the grooves created by his knuckles. She hadn't forgotten that Huang was in the room, but her need to comfort Elliot superseded all else. Elliot registered this as well, and it only served to make him feel more moved. His fingers splayed to allow hers to curl around his palm, and then he tightened his grasp to hold her in place, the intensity mirroring that which he wished he could translate into an embrace.

Huang smiled to himself, allowing the moment to stretch on before addressing Elliot once more. "How did you make her laugh?" he asked gently, watching as their lips lifted in shared recollection.

Elliot ultimately severed his gaze with Olivia, turning to look at Huang as he rubbed his free hand along the back of his head, a wry smile still visible. "I pretended not to know who the people were in her drawings - the lighter ones," he clarified. "Kept mislabeling them until she quietly corrected me."

Olivia's smile broadened before she turned to face forward again.

"Elliot Stabler as a green-eyed blonde?" Huang suggested, his eyes sparkling back at him.

"Yeah, well..." he shrugged. "Just stupid humor."

"Instincts of a father," Huang reframed.

"Maybe," Elliot trailed off, growing contemplative once more.

Olivia looked at him once more, hearing the ambivalence in his tone. A darkness had clouded his features, one that she recognized all too well, and she squeezed his fingers in attempts to keep him in the present.

Huang also noted the shift in his expression, and this time he opted to press forward.

"Where did your thoughts go just now?"

Elliot was staring at a random spot on the coffee table, his hand still lingering along the back of his neck as he attempted to work out some of the tension. He remained silent for a while, but Huang sat with it, not unlike the way he had at the precinct several days prior.

"It's nothing," Elliot eventually responded. "I just...there was a moment that night in the basement before all hell broke loose. I was looking down at her...this tiny little girl with her tangled blond hair and I..." his voice had dropped and his tone had roughened, anger at what had befallen her mixed with pain and regret. "I suddenly saw Lizzie lying there."

Olivia's breath hitched, recognition dawning of what moment that had been - when she'd intuited he was breaking, unable to maintain his cover. "That's what that was," she murmured, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Yeah," he said gruffly, his hand falling away to pick at some nonexistent lint on his sweatpants.

"That's understandable," Huang attempted to normalize, but Elliot's eyes snapped up to meet his, an intensity there that was frustrated and raw.

"No. You don't get it, Doc. I mean she became Lizzie. I was staring right at Lara and I could only see my daughter."

"You were presented with an unthinkable reality and an abhorrent role. Your mind responded to the image by associating your visceral reaction to Lara with someone you love. Again, that's understandable."

Elliot exhaled bitterly. "I saw her, and all I wanted to do was protect her. But whether Lara felt safe with me or not doesn't change the fact that she was lying in that hospital bed because I faltered."

The emotions surged within him until he was internally climbing the walls. He tried to pull his hand from Olivia's, but she held on tighter. He wanted to pace - to find a way to vent out some of the anger he felt toward Nikolai and himself, and he knew that she knew this. "Liv," he tried, a hint of desperation mixed with the warning in his tone.

"No," she said softly, a refusal but a tremulous one. "This isn't-"

Huang held up his hand. "Faltered how?"

Elliot sighed. "During the scuffle with Nikolai. I had him...and then I didn't. He got in one good hit and I lost control. If I'd been faster, he wouldn't have gotten to that gun."

His voice had risen as he was flooded by self-blame, but Huang remained calm, holding his gaze and addressing him so quietly that Elliot's tone immediately deflated.

"Elliot?"

"Yeah," he rasped.

"You didn't lose control. You never had the control to begin with."

Elliot blinked back at him, his expression hollow. Huang's words had stolen the fight from him, his anger quickly becoming eclipsed by remorse. It was the harder of the two emotions for him to deal with. He hated showing signs of vulnerability, especially in front of Huang. Olivia's thumb was subtly running back and forth along the outside of his hand, her touch soothing but also not helping him lock away his emotions. His face and neck were flushed, his jaw clenched and his eyes continuing to blink resolutely against the moisture that was threatening to form.

"You never had the control," Huang repeated quietly to emphasize the statement. "Neither one of you did."

"I wasn't fast enough either, El," Olivia tried, but her words caused a grimace to pass over his features.

Once again he tilted his head toward her without meeting her gaze. "You'd been beaten and nearly gang raped and were so badly concussed that you couldn't even stand. For the life of me, Liv, I still don't know how you managed to back my play, let alone crawl to Lara's side."

They tightened their grasp on one another's hand.

"You were severely outnumbered and outgunned," Huang interjected. "The fact that you are both sitting opposite me is significant. Are you able to recognize that?"

"Yeah," they whispered in near unison, their expressions pained.

"Lara's death is a tragic loss. Nothing will make it right...but we all know what the remainder of her existence would have been in that basement. Because of your efforts, she was able to begin to heal. She was able to trust. To experience safety...love," Huang added, sliding the drawing of their embrace across the table before them.

Olivia's eyes immediately welled with tears, the warmth of Elliot's palm the only thing keeping her from completely falling apart. Even still, a few tears escaped to collect at her chin, periodically splashing onto her lap. She wasn't ready to have this conversation.

"Olivia," Huang said gently. "Do you remember what you told me when I confronted you about the false statements?"

Her breathing increased, her tears falling faster, but she didn't make a sound.

Elliot looked up at her, his gaze darting back and forth between Olivia and Huang, his brow furrowed in a silent question.

She continued to swipe at her tears with her right hand, eventually becoming self-conscious and extricating her left from Elliot's grasp, leaning forward to huddle over herself, her elbows on her knees and her forehead resting on her palms.

"Yes," she ultimately whispered, her voice barely able to sound.

Concern was etched in Elliot's features, and he wished she would look up again to connect with him once more.

"I said that I was afraid you'd split us up," she managed, every word catching in her throat.

"And when I asked you why that frightened you so much?" Huang led softly, knowing the answer but wanting her to put it back into the room for Elliot's sake as much as her own.

The motion of Olivia's back was uneven, her breaths coming shakily, if at all. When she spoke again, her voice was small and fragile, almost inaudible even in the stillness of the room.

"I told you it was all that I had," her voice broke and she continued to shield her face from view, the tears falling so steadily that she no longer made attempts to brush them away.

Elliot's heart broke. This had been the day that she'd tried to return to her apartment alone - the day she'd pushed her feelings aside and attempted to re-establish their boundaries. It had been a desperate attempt to preserve their partnership for fear that it would be ripped away from her too. Olivia had thought that she would be left with nothing at all.

He closed the distance between them, crossing the invisible barrier and not stopping until the outside of his thigh met hers, his right hand resting between her shoulder blades and his left hand smoothing along her forearm to loosely encircle her wrist.

She looked up at him in dismay, her tear-streaked face beautiful in its fragility.

He released her wrist to cup her opposite cheek in his palm, shaking his head at her, his expression holding empathy and regret and love.

"No more hiding," he said softly, his thumb delicately skimming over the moisture coating her skin.

He watched the anguish intensify in her eyes, her chin quivering as they silently acknowledged the end of what was once the most important partnership of their lives.

Olivia lost the remaining vestiges of her control and he pulled her into an embrace, his arms enveloping her securely and his lips resting against her temple.

"You have me, Liv," he whispered into her ear, keeping his words to her private. "I'm not going anywhere."

Her arms wrapped around him, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as he cradled her head in his palm. She hadn't made a sound, but her chest continued to jerk against his, a tension coiling into her body as she tried and failed to regain her composure. She was acutely aware of Huang's presence and was afraid of what he might think of her for having broken down to this degree.

Elliot felt as she tried to pull away from him, but he didn't let her go. "Huang's in your home, Liv. You're not at the precinct. You have nothing to prove."

Her head was nestled in the crook of his neck and shoulder, his body providing a barricade between her and Huang, but she still fought to rein herself in. "Please," she whispered through jerking breaths. "I won't be able to stop if you keep holding me."

His chest ached but he understood, his arms loosening their hold and his hands coming to tangle in her hair as he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. "Okay," he murmured against her, not protesting when she made another attempt to extricate herself from his hold.

She straightened, her head tipped forward to hide behind the curtain of her hair. She was trying to decide whether to stay or to go, but ultimately the pressure she felt at being watched by both men was overwhelming and she wanted the privacy of her bedroom. "I'm sorry...I need..." she shook her head, standing and crossing the room without waiting for a response.

Huang watched as Elliot followed her movements with his eyes, clearly struggling to respect her wish for privacy when every impulse within him was screaming to go after her.

"Go," Huang offered with an incline of his head, indicating the direction of the hall, but Elliot shook his head.

"She's trying to get her control back," he rasped, a sheen in his eyes. "I keep her open."

Huang regarded him sympathetically. "That's not a bad thing."

"I know. But she won't let herself do that while you're here."

His words were blunt but his tone held no trace of accusation. In truth, he felt too depleted to find the strength for anger. Still, he tried to backtrack somewhat, not wanting to further complicate an already difficult encounter.

"I'm not..." he sighed. "I just mean that she'll let her guard down later. In private."

Huang nodded his understanding.

Silence descended upon them again, the rain still tapping insistently against the glass in a way that felt bleaker somehow given the weight of the conversation.

Huang was surprised when Elliot opted to speak of his own accord, in stark contrast to how the bulk of their previous encounters had unfolded over the years.

"That night...changed everything," he began slowly. He was treading cautiously. Huang already knew the truth about what had transpired in the club, but putting voice to it, even indirectly, made him uncomfortable. "But not...it's not what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

Elliot exhaled slowly, feeling guilty somehow and suddenly wishing he were having this conversation with a priest, not a shrink. A slight grimace passed across his features, his eyes trained at a random spot on the floor. "I'd known for a while..." He shook his head in self-correction. "I think I'd always known..."

"That you were in love with her," Huang stated simply.

Elliot's head snapped up to meet his gaze, a mixture of surprise and wariness in his expression. Huang was regarding him kindly, a hint of a smile touching his lips, and although he didn't appear to be passing judgment, Elliot felt the need to clarify to ensure Huang didn't have the wrong impression.

"Doc, you gotta know I never...there was never anything unprof-"

Huang held up his palm with a slight shake of his head to dismiss his concern. "I know."

Elliot eventually nodded his acceptance of his words, but was struck by another pang of sadness at the knowledge that what had apparently been obvious to Huang had not been to Olivia. He cleared his throat against the tightness. "Olivia didn't know," he said with regret. "I should have told her how I felt that night. I shouldn't have waited. But I..." He swallowed. "I felt like an abuser. I had treated her so badly. I didn't think I had the right to feel the way I did." He shook his head. "That I do," he amended.

"The last time we spoke, you shared that the boundaries between fiction and reality had been blurred - that it had felt real for you both...transcended role play."

Elliot's eyes burned and he scrubbed a palm over his face as if the action could somehow scrub the emotion away too. "Yeah."

"Your holding back about your feelings was an attempt at protection. You were trying to put her needs above your own."

"Yeah...but I only ended up causing more damage," he replied with remorse. "If I'd known..." Her words to Huang echoed in his ears, and the pain sliced through him once more.

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty."

"Yeah." He stared off into the distance, his teeth scraping over his lower lip.

"Out of curiosity, when did you?"

Elliot looked up at him. "Tell her?"

"Yes," Huang smiled.

"Monday evening." A slight smile crossed Elliot's lips at the recollection, but faded again as the other memories came back with it. "The night before she had to hole up at the precinct. Thirty-six hours before her abduction."

Huang saw the darkness cloud his features, his voice having roughened again.

"A waking nightmare."

Elliot brushed his thumb along his brow. "I thought I'd lost everything... Almost did." His voice cracked almost imperceptibly, but he fell silent then, worrying that he might lose control and not wanting to demonstrate that much vulnerability in Huang's presence.

Huang recognized his attempts at reining himself in and opted to change the focus. "I've read your statements from that day. I would imagine that they're accurate this time?" he added - a slight dig at their prior attempts at concealing the events that transpired during the undercover.

Elliot's eyes darted up to his, relaxing somewhat when it became clear that there was no admonishment in his quiet challenge.

"Yeah. It's all in there."

Huang believed this to be the case, but pressed a bit more to quell his own concern for Olivia. "I would hope that you wouldn't conceal something to try to protect Olivia's privacy...if it might have ramifications for her emotional well-being?"

Elliot's brow furrowed, trying to read between the lines. "If you're asking me if she was assaulted, I promise you on my life I wouldn't hide something like that. What you read is the truth. Petrov wanted a re-enactment. I refused. Kane would have," his voice became gravelly, "when Liv was trapped with him behind the glass, but by the grace of God, Kat brought the cavalry in time."

Huang nodded, observing the way Elliot's fists had unconsciously clenched at his sides, color flushing his face and neck as his blood pressure rose.

Elliot cleared his throat again, his expression pained. "She wasn't going to fight him." His nostrils flared. "The bastard told her my kids' lives were on the line, and Liv was going to sacrifice herself to protect them. And I couldn't do a goddamned thing to stop it from happening." He let out a bitter exhale. "Son of a bitch was probably lying. I knew that. She knew that. But she wasn't going to fight him."

Huang tilted his head to the side. "You expected her to call his bluff?"

Elliot's anger transformed into sadness before he could steel himself for the change, the memories of that moment - her palm against the glass, her expression as she mouthed, 'I love you' - crashing over him with unexpected intensity. His eyes glistened and his breathing became uneven. "No," he rasped. "She always puts others before herself. I had a gun to my head and my kids' photos were on the floor, and I knew she was prepared to put herself through hell and back again for their sake...for mine."

"And I'd do it all over again," her quiet voice interjected from across the room.

They turned to find her lingering by the hall, her arms crossed over her chest and her body dwarfed by his T-shirt that engulfed her frame. She hesitated for another moment before approaching them, once again taking her spot on the couch to Elliot's right.

"I'm um...sorry for..." she trailed off, glancing at Huang. "I just needed a minute."

He nodded.

She was sitting with her arms wrapped around herself, but Elliot was relieved that she had opted to recreate their proximity, her side and thigh resting against his. He took in a deeper breath, trying to rid himself of the image of her with Kane.

"I'm okay, El," she murmured, taking in the tension in his body language. "He didn't get the chance to touch me."

He turned his head over his shoulder to sweep his gaze over her face, his brows knit in concern.

"Not really," she amended quietly.

Pain flitted across Elliot's features. "I shouldn't have left your side. Not at the precinct...and not in that room."

Olivia glanced down at his fists again where his knuckles were white from the intensity of his grasp. She slid her arms apart, her left hand starting to reach for him, but in the presence of Huang, the impulse still felt wrong. Instead, she curled her fingers around her leg just above the knee, praying that Huang would leave them in private again soon.

"It wasn't your fault, El... None of it."

Elliot's jaw clenched. He remembered the moment following her abduction when he'd realized that she hadn't just been held in the club, but locked in the room with the memories of their shared trauma. When he'd reached her, held her, he hadn't believed that Kat would have been able to find them. He hadn't believed that rescue was on the horizon. He'd thought it was the end...of everything. Petrov had wanted to watch them - torment them - and he'd refused. Instead, he had provoked him. He had thought it would take the focus off of her. Olivia had begged him to stop - to comply with anything and everything Petrov had in store for them, but he couldn't bear the thought of hurting her again. Yet now, in retrospect, he wondered if he'd made the wrong call.

Just do it, Elliot. Whatever they want you to do, just do it.

Had he complied, had he bought them some time, maybe he would have prevented Kane from touching her at all.

He saw her eyes searching his, trying to discern the memory. He held her gaze, his expression holding a complicated mixture of emotions. "I shouldn't have left you alone," he repeated.

Her brow furrowed in question.

He swallowed. "Maybe...maybe you were right. Maybe I should have done what he'd asked. I just...God, Liv," his voice roughened. "I couldn't hurt you again."

Olivia's eyes softened. "Elliot, you made the right call. I wasn't thinking clearly...if at all." She shook her head lightly, no doubt in her mind that the alternative would have been catastrophic. "Petrov had nothing left to lose. The end game would have remained the same, and I would have been..." she paused, a number of imagined horrors assailing her. "I would have been much more vulnerable," she finished tremulously.

Elliot grimaced slightly at her words, not wanting to think about what else might have befallen her in that scenario.

"Neither one of us would have made it out of that room."

Elliot nodded slowly, accepting the validity of her words despite the fact that he continued to carry so much regret for all that she had endured.

Olivia inclined her head, her voice becoming softer as she almost forgot that Huang was in the room. "Stop tormenting yourself, El. I know I was in bad shape that day, but I promise you I'm okay."

Huang knew the comment hadn't been intended for his ears, but he interjected gently to seek clarification. "In what way, Olivia?"

She looked over at him with a slight startle response, unprepared for his voice to have addressed her. "Sorry?" she asked with some confusion.

He offered her an apologetic smile. "You said you were in 'bad shape'," he clarified. "In what way?"

Olivia let out an exhale that held a tinge of self-deprecation. "In every way." She shook her head almost imperceptibly, more to herself than to him. "Waking up in the back of Kane's squad car... That was frightening. But waking up in total darkness…realizing that I was back in that room... I didn't...didn't cope well." She ran her palms back and forth along her thighs, trying to stay in the present. "At first I tried to rationalize away the fear - told myself that Elliot had gotten my text message...that Cragen had tracked my location with that damn watch." Her lips quirked wryly as she held Huang's gaze, remembering her outburst that had precipitated their last encounter.

Huang's eyes sparkled in shared recollection, nodding at her to continue and watching as the brief glimmer of amusement faded from her features and a haunted expression took its place.

"But then, I..." her voice failed her, and she took a moment to try to distance herself from the memory.

"You realized they had taken it from you," Huang followed.

Olivia nodded, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. "That was the point I lost hope," she managed, her eyes closing as she felt the warmth of Elliot's palm come to rest between her shoulder blades.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the rain. Elliot was lightly skimming his thumb back and forth along her back, her shallow breaths gradually deepening the more time that passed.

Huang waited for Olivia's eyes to reopen, holding her gaze and ensuring she was tethered to him before addressing her once more, his tone quiet and gentle. "In the absence of hope, trapped in darkness, what did you cling to?"

The emotions that played out across her features told a story of their own, her eyes glistening with unshed tears as she forced herself to maintain the connection with Huang and give him the truthful answers that only served to underscore all that was now in the open.

"Elliot," she replied in a hushed tone, her expression stricken. "I thought of him...his apartment...the last moments before we left to head to the precinct."

Can you hold onto this?

"Recollections of safety and comfort."

She nodded. "As vividly as I could muster."

Huang regarded her sympathetically. "Did it work?"

Pain sliced through her again, her brows knitting against the onslaught. "Not for long."

Elliot felt a tremor course through her and he slid his hand upward to curl around her nape, his fingers subtly sifting through the strands of her hair in the way in which he knew had the ability to soothe her.

Olivia rubbed a palm along her forehead, conflict in her eyes. "I um... I think I dissociated," she admitted somewhat hesitantly as her hand fell away. "I lost time."

Huang nodded. "It was protective."

"I know. I just..." She blew out a puff of air. "I have no awareness of how long I was held there. It's disconcerting."

"At least five hours," Elliot replied gruffly, running his free hand along his jaw. "Kat and I headed north as soon as I read your message...but I didn't see it for a while." His voice wavered. "And then I guessed wrong."

Olivia stopped fighting against her impulse to touch him and extended her hand to rest above his knee, his palm immediately covering the back of her hand to solidify the connection.

They held one another's gaze, their eyes a safe anchor amid a tumultuous sea. Olivia shook her head subtly at his silent apology, her own expression holding nothing but compassion. "You found me," she murmured after a pause. "We're here now."

Elliot cast his eyes over her, nodding back at her with gratitude even as the traces of remorse lingered. It was with difficulty that Olivia eventually shifted her focus back to Huang, trepidation creeping back in as she waited for him to speak.

His eyes dipped to their joined hands and back again, his body language calm. "You both were confronted with the prospect of an imminent end, not only in confronting your own mortality, but in confronting the prospect that the new beginning you were embarking upon would be stolen from you." He took a moment to look between the two of them, noting that while both detectives' expressions were stricken, Olivia's was also marked by apprehension. He attempted to convey reassurance, his tone gentle as he addressed them again. "And now you're here," he echoed Olivia's words. "A second chance."

Olivia nodded back at him, feeling as Elliot's fingers curled beneath her palm to hold onto her more securely. Her face was pale, warily holding Huang's gaze, her mind still reeling from the awareness of what it meant that Huang was actively acknowledging their personal relationship...that any thought of keeping things under wraps had evaporated before they could even figure out how to explain things, or what they intended their next move to be.

Huang's eyes softened, opting to address the elephant in the room. "Olivia, my aim in coming here today was to offer support...as a colleague...and a friend." He inclined his head to try to emphasize his sincerity, regarding her with empathy. "I know your impulse was to try to hide this from me, but there's no need." His features shifted into an approximation of a shrug, his expression kind. "I saw this coming before you did."

She swallowed, no doubt in her mind that Huang's ability to read people was akin to the talent of a chess master - having the ability to see three moves ahead even when the pawns at play were trapped in the myopia of the present. Yet while the sentiment behind his words was unexpected and welcome, it didn't change the fact that the truth was painfully evident to them all: in the aftermath of all that she and Elliot had weathered, there were no illusions of objectivity anymore. If either of their lives were in jeopardy - in the event of another Gitano - they would always choose each other. They wouldn't be able to take any course of action that might cause them to lose one another. They would never be able to withstand it.

Huang saw the sheen return to Olivia's eyes as she was swept up in another wave of emotion, and somehow his expression became even more empathetic. "This is a good change, Olivia," he said softly, his professional impartiality taking a backseat to his personal regard for her, glancing up at Elliot in silent approbation before returning his focus to the woman before him. "You have more now than you'd ever given yourself permission to seek. You have more than your partnership. Much more."

Two tears escaped and she swiped them away, wishing she could rid herself of the vestiges of the self-doubt and the fear.

Elliot felt the shift in her breathing as she started to break apart, and he wove his hand more deeply into her hair, bowing his head to murmur quiet words of reassurance against her as his fingers stroked her scalp.

She took in a jerky breath and tried to control her exhale, her diaphragm betraying her attempts at regaining her control.

"Tell me what's behind the sadness, Olivia," Huang coaxed. This was more than the fear of the loss of a professional partnership.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find her voice, when Elliot's began for her.

"A lot of it is my fault," he said as Huang's eyes met his again.

Olivia started to shake her head in protest, but Elliot didn't wait for the battle of wills.

"Yeah, it is, Liv," he said firmly before looking back at Huang. "Like I said, Doc. I should have been honest with her from the start. Instead, she convinced herself that my feelings were connected to the undercover...to some goddamned sense of guilt or atonement or something."

"Elliot-"

"I pushed you, Liv. You told me about the nightmares and your fears and your feelings, and I didn't have the guts to tell you that you weren't alone. You were never alone, Liv. Not that night and not for much longer than I had any right to feel this way." He dropped his voice with a mixture of shame and the desire to evoke a bit more privacy. "We've talked about this."

"Elliot, dammit, that's not what this is," she pressed, her words sharp but her tone more tearful than accusatory. She pulled her hand from his grasp, rubbing her palms over her face.

He visibly deflated. "I just... I feel like you'd feel more secure, with this...with us if I hadn't held back."

She breathed a sad laugh at the irony. "God, El. This thing between us is actually the only thing that I feel remotely secure about right now." She looked over at him as she finished the statement, trying to gauge his acceptance, but he remained pensive, uncertainty in his eyes. She sighed with fatigue, her hands falling heavily into her lap and her focus shifting to stare down at them as she struggled to find the words. "You're not wrong that a part of me will always be afraid that you'll change your mind," she admitted quietly, "but that's not a fear you're responsible for." She continued to look down, but tilted her head slightly in his direction, her tone becoming even softer. "You know it runs deeper than that."

Elliot sat with her words for a moment, trying to grapple with his regret and her truth. He did know. He knew everything about her and all that she'd carried within her since childhood. He wished she could see herself through his eyes - wished that he could silence those fears once and for all; yet he ultimately recognized that no amount of assurances on his part would be able to heal those wounds in the absence of time.

"Okay," he conceded, his voice rough with emotion.

Olivia scraped her teeth over her lower lip, feeling the urge to hold back, but pushing herself to remain open. She looked up at Huang, forcing herself to address his initial question.

"I told you before, that I'd been questioning my ability to do this job."

Huang nodded.

"I'm still questioning it...but now it's for different reasons."

He waited for her, as did Elliot, and Huang recognized that Elliot's calm acceptance of her words was an indication that Olivia had already shared her feelings of ambivalence with him.

"I know that the threat has passed. Logically, I know this."

"But it doesn't feel that way."

Olivia shook her head. "No," she replied wistfully, dropping her gaze. When she spoke again, the words came slowly, ashamed of the sentiments to come and of her inability to better control her own mind. "You asked me once if I'd been feeling anxious...and I told you it had gotten better."

"Yes."

"It had been better... That wasn't a lie. But now..." She blew out a puff of air, her expression pained. "I feel anxious all the time," she admitted softly.

She caught Huang's slight nod out of her peripheral vision, Elliot's thumb once again skimming slowly over her nape, though both men remained silent.

"It gets worse when I'm alone," she breathed. "Significantly so... and lately, the only time I feel any semblance of calm is when Elliot is with me." She looked up at Huang again, avoiding Elliot's gaze as the admission somehow made her feel inadequate and small. "I don't mean in the apartment," she began even more hesitantly, "I mean physically beside me...like we are now." Tears pricked in her eyes and her throat suddenly ached from tightness. "I've never felt so dependent upon anyone in my life." She sniffed and tried to disguise the wobble in her chin. "If I can't even function when he's in the next room...how can I possibly do my job without him as my partner?"

Her chest jerked and Elliot wrapped his arm around her more fully, still saying nothing to disrupt her train of thought but trying to convey support.

Huang shook his head at her, empathy in his eyes. "You aren't ready to," he said simply, no trace of judgment in his tone.

The wobble of her chin became more pronounced, struggling with feelings of grief and fear and vulnerability. "What if I never am?" Her voice broke and the tears spilled out over her cheeks once more.

She didn't resist as Elliot ran his hand up and down her arm in a more obvious gesture of support.

Huang offered her a gentle smile. "Olivia, it's been one week today since the undercover. Three days since your abduction..."

Olivia sighed with frustration and fatigue. "I know that."

"You need time, Olivia. Time to heal in the absence of threats and instability. There's no quick fix here."

Elliot turned into her more fully to study her profile, his hand stilling its motions as he curled his palm around her upper arm. "I haven't been feeling solid either, Liv," he admitted. "I keep feeling the need to check to make sure you're still here with me...that you're safe."

Huang appreciated what it meant that they were no longer censoring themselves in his presence or their own. It was a sign that they had become more open with one another - that in the evolution of their personal relationship, they had processed many of the things that they had previously attempted to conceal. He looked between the two detectives, waiting until he had both of their attentions to address them. "You've both endured an unfathomable amount of trauma and loss in an incredibly short period of time. Give yourselves permission to feel...to seek external reassurance right now."

They nodded subtly, their expressions drawn.

"With your permission, I'd like to circle back with you in a week or two. See how you're feeling with more distance from these events."

"Okay," Olivia murmured, feeling overwhelmingly depleted.

Huang shifted his gaze to Elliot. "The last time we shared a space, you left the room out of fear that Olivia couldn't speak freely in your presence." He looked between them again. "My impression in speaking with you today, is that that's no longer a concern...for either of you."

"No," Elliot shook his head, offering Olivia a small smile of devotion and solidarity as her eyes finally met his once more. "Not anymore."

Olivia took his left hand in her own, re-establishing the connection.

"We've, uh..." Elliot continued, addressing Huang but still looking at Olivia. "We've had a lot of time to talk...work through things."

She nodded back at him, her mind cycling through the painful moments and the blissful ones, seeing a similar cluster of emotions reflected in Elliot's eyes.

"Some topics have been harder than others," Elliot acknowledged, "but holding back hasn't been an option..." he added a bit wryly. "We read each other too well."

Elliot's gaze returned to Huang who smiled in response. "A blessing and a curse."

"Yeah, maybe...but I'm grateful for it...for Liv."

Huang nodded, thinking back to their complicated history and the complex jumble of emotions that had churned beneath the rigid boundaries they had erected to keep the feelings at bay - to keep one another safely at arm's length. He thought of the Gitano case, and his encounter with Elliot in the tumultuous aftermath.

I wish I didn't...

Didn't what? Didn't care so much?

Elliot had come so close to voicing it then - to putting a different name to his feelings, but instead he had clung to his anger, unwilling to confront the true source of his fear.

It had been such a long road for them, a painful one, and yet despite all that they were grappling with in the present, there was a different quality to their dynamic now - something peaceful; centered.

He looked between them, his expression warm. "For what it's worth, I'm happy for you both." He paused, looking down at the coffee table as he tried to choose his words. His eyes fell to the drawing of their embrace, and he recognized that Lara had encapsulated the crux of the sentiments he wished to convey. His eyes lifted again. "I have no doubt that the support you're providing to one another right now is the most healing, and the most meaningful... Yet in whatever way I can be helpful, you have my full support." His focus settled on Olivia, who for once was meeting his gaze with more fatigue than trepidation. "I hope you know that."

"I do," she replied softly.

"I'm not recommending a transfer, Olivia...just some reshuffling."

Olivia nodded, his action anticipated and not unwarranted. She could see the sincerity in his eyes...his compassion and regret. He wasn't trying to take anything away from them. In many ways, his actions were protective, motivated as much by his understanding of how deeply their love for one another extended as he was by his desire to ensure that they'd never again have to make an impossible choice...nor live with the consequences of it.

Huang pushed himself to stand, re-zipping his jacket as Elliot and Olivia also came to their feet.

"I hope I haven't completely ruined your meal...or your morning," he offered apologetically, inclining his head toward the kitchen.

Olivia shook her head, her voice slightly hoarse from emotion, but her expression resigned. "The timing was unexpected today...but not the outcome," she acknowledged, sadness in her eyes.

"We're...okay, Doc," Elliot added, his hand loosely connected to the small of Olivia's back, his words holding meaning not only for the two of them, but also for their status with Huang.

Huang's eyes conveyed his understanding of the olive branch. He wasn't the enemy here.

He nodded and began to make his way toward the door, yet just as his fingers brushed the handle, Olivia's voice stopped him.

"Wait," she called softly, her inflection somewhere between a question and an afterthought, as if she hadn't fully made up her mind to continue down whatever path she was considering.

Huang turned to face her, his eyebrows lifted lightly in question, watching as she rose up slightly, on the balls of her feet, moving her mouth to speak into Elliot's ear. Elliot's expression shifted from confusion to surprise to acceptance, and he straightened slowly as he continued to process her intent, slowly nodding down at her.

"You sure?" he asked gently.

"I think so," she breathed, conflict in her eyes.

Elliot made a gesture of approval, effectively leaving the ball in her court, but the silence stretched on as she struggled to move forward.

Eventually she spoke, her voice equal parts regret and trepidation.

"Beyond Lara, I've been feeling guilty about the people who were hurt - Munch, Kat...Anya," she murmured, her brow furrowing as she revisited the memory. "I know, as you said, the control wasn't in our hands...but I wish I could go back...change things somehow."

Huang nodded.

Olivia exhaled heavily. "I know the undercover led to some good - dismantling the club...helping those other women and girls. But I can't help but wonder how many others there were that we didn't know about...didn't reach in time..."

She looked up at Elliot then, exchanging a long and meaningful look that Huang was unable to interpret, but that Elliot understood. Ultimately he began for them, speaking slowly as he continued to study her expression carefully for any signs that she had second thoughts.

"When Liv was missing...when Kat and I went to the house in the Catskills, we found more than the surveillance photographs Petrov had taken."

He hesitated then, waiting for Olivia to have the final say in whether or not to disclose the remaining piece of evidence they'd been concealing.

She made brief eye contact with Huang before dropping her gaze, unconsciously shifting her weight more closely into Elliot's side. "They found a laptop," she said so quietly that Huang was almost unable to make out her words.

Huang's brows furrowed, trying to figure out why they would have withheld this information and knowing that it must have had to do with the contents. "What was on the laptop, Olivia?"

She swallowed, her heart hammering in her chest. "Everything that happened in that room...the night of the undercover."

Huang remained silent, gradually processing the information.

Olivia cleared her throat. "After Elliot found me, when we were being held together, Petrov referenced an 'entertainment center', but I didn't realize what he meant."

Huang looked at Elliot. "But you did," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Elliot rasped.

"Where is it now?"

"At my apartment," Elliot returned uncomfortably. "Kat had taken it out of the house. She was trying to protect our privacy."

Huang's brow furrowed, looking between the two detectives. "You've watched the footage?"

Olivia felt the flickers of shame return, her cheeks flushing slightly as she shook her head, struggling to look him in the eye. "Only as much time as it took for me to convince Elliot to stop torturing himself."

Huang looked to Elliot, who was also averting his gaze, noting the tension in his jaw and the pained expression that had taken the place of what might have been anger once upon a time. "Elliot?" he pressed, though his tone was gentle.

"Yeah, I watched it," he said roughly.

"Why?"

There was no accusation behind the word, Huang's question stemming from concern at the impact this would have had, given the degree of self-blame he'd witnessed from the detective prior.

"To see myself through Liv's eyes. To see what I'd become...the version of myself that tormented her in her nightmares."

"The role you played - not a version of yourself."

"Might as well have been a monster," he said with some bitterness.

Olivia leaned into his touch, soothing him somehow with her trust and her calm.

"Why tell me now?" Huang asked.

"Peace of mind," Olivia replied. "Elliot only saw files containing footage of our hours in the club. But if we're wrong... If there are others..."

"You want justice for those victims," Huang followed.

"We were going to dig deeper," Elliot added, "but Liv..." he trailed off.

Elliot looked to her, his hand lightly descending upon her shoulder.

Olivia chewed on the inside of her lower lip, once again meeting Huang's gaze. "Fin said something to me the other night after the standoff. It took me a while to process it...in all the ways that mattered." She folded her arms across her chest. "I wasn't fully present in that moment," she admitted.

Huang nodded, waiting for her to continue.

"We had to walk down that hall...past that room...and I got lost in there for a while. Just staring at that space." She paused for a moment, remembering how flooded she'd been...the level of desperation she'd felt in her attempts to pry the deadbolt from the door. She cleared her throat. "Anyway... Fin helped to draw me out of that mental space and before we moved away, he told me that I'd spent enough time in that room."

Elliot increased the gentle pressure of his palm, helping to ground her just as effectively as Fin's words had in that moment.

She lifted her chin a bit higher, her voice becoming more even. "We've both spent enough time in that room."

"Yes, you have," Huang replied, understanding in his gaze.

She swallowed. "We've been working through a lot of what we each struggled to come to terms with that night and all the ones that have followed. I don't want to go back," she finished quietly, shaking her head almost more to herself than to him.

"I understand."

Elliot dragged a palm down his face, his concern for Olivia's privacy once again taking precedence. "I uh...I just need to know that this will be handled with discretion." His brows knit into an expression that was almost imploring as he held Huang's gaze. "I don't care about me...but Olivia's had enough of her privacy violated over the past few days. I need you to promise me-"

Huang held up his palm. "You have my word."

Elliot nodded, pain in his eyes. "I'll get it to you soon," he assured him.

Huang looked at Olivia. "Okay?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "Thank you...for um..."

He shook his head. "No need."

She nodded somewhat numbly, trying and failing to offer him a semblance of a smile.

Huang bid them farewell and let himself out of the apartment, Elliot and Olivia too caught up in their own thoughts to fully process his departure. They stared off into the distance in the direction of the closed door, their eyes unfocused as they cycled through the events of the morning.

As the silence stretched on, another pang of loss struck Olivia with full force, the finality of Huang's assessment slicing through her with a painful intensity, and suddenly she found it hard to breathe. She inhaled jerkily and let out a more pressured exhale, the motion of her back drawing Elliot into the present. He gently pivoted her to face him and wrapped her up in his arms, his embrace intensifying at the feel of the uneven rise and fall of her chest against his. He could feel the tension in her body. She was fighting to keep herself together, fighting to cling to her control, and he knew it was only a matter of time before she would pull herself out of his hold. His chest ached and his eyes burned, his arms holding her tightly against him in a desperate attempt at preventing her from pulling away. "Stay with me… Please stay," he thought over and over to himself. "I need this… I need you." He felt the loss of their partnership just as acutely as she did, his blinks increasing as he fought to contain the moisture within. He was desperate to maintain the physical connection, the feel of her beside him the only thing strong enough to combat the hollow feeling in his chest at the recognition that her life would soon be placed in someone else's hands…that he would no longer be able to protect her. And with that thought, he suddenly felt completely lost. He didn't know how to relinquish that role…didn't know how to endure the daily separation and the perpetual fear of not being there.

He felt her begin to pull away, and it added to his feelings of failure. He felt powerless to comfort her here…just as he was now powerless to protect her on the outside. He pressed his lips together in attempts to prevent himself from breaking, the tendon in his jaw standing out starkly against his skin as he slid his arms apart, his hands slipping down the frame of her body to hang limply at his sides. He couldn't speak past the lump in his throat, his breaths coming unevenly as she took a step backward.

Olivia couldn't see through the blur of the tears that threatened to break free at any moment; couldn't think beyond the overwhelming need for air. She was caught between conflicting impulses - feeling frozen as much as she felt the urge to hide - turning away from Elliot and clutching her head in her hands as she tried and failed to control the jerking motion of her diaphragm that was preventing her from taking a deeper breath. The more she fought to control the deluge, the more she felt the dam start to break, the intensity of what threatened to pour forth rivaling that which she had succumbed to following that fateful call. "I don't know how to do this… I can't do this…" she thought as the first tears began to fall, her shoulders shaking as she began to crumble.

And then she heard Elliot's voice in her head, as clearly as it had been when he'd spoken the words this morning:

You're not in this alone.

She took in a shuddering breath and turned to face him, futilely swiping at her tears and regarding him with a mixture of anguish and need. Her eyes searched his, taken aback at the vulnerability in his expression, the pain. "Elliot," she choked out brokenly, unable to find the words that followed.

A long moment passed between them, a myriad emotions communicated in their gaze, and then Olivia strode forward, hurling herself back into his arms and clutching onto him with as much strength as she could muster. He let out a ragged exhale, relief mixing with need, one hand cupping the back of her head as his other arm wrapped around her waist. "I've got you," he rasped, trying to pull her even more closely against him. She buried her face into the crook of his neck, absorbing his warmth and his scent as she allowed herself to fall.

They clung to one another, riding out waves of emotion that ebbed and flowed depending upon the memories that resurfaced. Their partnership had spanned a decade marked by triumphs and losses, fractures and unity; yet no matter what trials and tribulations had come to pass, the threads of their history were interwoven into a tapestry overwhelmingly comprised of mutual respect and support - the complexities of what might once have been considered a close friendship, now clearly defined as love.

Whether it was desperation borne from the need to offset the profundity of the loss by re-establishing what had been gained, or from the desire to convey all that they were thinking and feeling when no words would suffice, they turned into one another, seeking a greater degree of intimacy and connectedness. Olivia's cheek slid against his, her lips blindly trailing up the column of his throat and along his jawline until they brushed against his own. She captured them again with more urgency, and Elliot responded in kind, his mouth crashing over hers as he deepened the contact, his hands tangling in her hair as hers wrapped around the back of his neck, holding him to her just as desperately. There was no thought, no hesitation, just an overwhelming need to be closer to one another.

Elliot's hands fell to her waist, taking hold of the fabric of her shirt and bunching it in his hands. Olivia followed his intent and met him halfway, breaking their kiss just long enough to raise her arms to allow him to divest her of the cotton. His lips captured hers again before the garment hit the floor, Olivia's hands sliding down his torso and slipping beneath his undershirt before reversing course again, starting to collect it on her arms before Elliot quickly took hold of the back of the fabric to yank it overhead.

As before, as soon as the offending garment was removed they were back in one another's embrace, the feel of their bare torsos pressed against one another evoking a heightened feeling of reassurance and warmth. Their breathing was still uneven as they struggled to break free from the clutches of their memories, Olivia's tears still escaping as Elliot deepened their kiss once more, his mouth swallowing an utterance from her that hovered somewhere between a sob and a moan.

Olivia's hands shook slightly as she fumbled with the drawstring to his sweatpants, urgency and adrenaline coursing through her as Elliot continued to steal her breath. The intensity was different this time, as if something had been unleashed within him. He wasn't holding back anymore. Their trust in one another, physically and emotionally, had never been more secure. He had let go of his fear. The only fear he felt in that moment was that by losing the partnership he risked losing her completely - that she could still run from this...run from him. Right or wrong, Elliot had always felt possessive where Olivia was concerned. He had attempted to frame it as a byproduct of his protectiveness, but he knew that the truth was that it had always stemmed from longing. Now, even knowing that Olivia shared the same feelings and the same fears, he was driven by a desperate need for tangible reassurance that she was still his.

His hand met her trembling fingers, their combined efforts succeeding in loosening the knotted drawstring at his waist as his sweats fell to the floor. He stepped out of them and kicked them aside, groaning into her mouth as her hand wrapped around his length. It wasn't enough. He needed more of her - all of her, his left hand fisting into her hair as he held her closely against him. He let out a growl of frustration as his right hand fought to rid her of her leggings, ultimately backing her up against the wall as he dropped to his knees, yanking the material down her body as her hands steadied herself on his shoulders. When all was stripped away, his mouth immediately met her center, his hands firmly grasping her hips as he held her in place, her lower body pinned between him and the wall.

Olivia let out a startled cry that transformed into a moan, her head tipping back as she struggled to regain her bearings. She was trapped between the heat of his mouth and the coolness of the plaster at her back, the sensations he was causing quickly overwhelming her until all she could do was succumb. Her hands clutched onto him more tightly, her thighs shaking and her breaths coming so quickly that her lips were tingling as the pleasure built more and more. He was relentless, demanding responses from her body that she was wholly unable to control. She felt consumed by him in a way that transcended anything she had felt before, and when his hand joined the workings of his mouth, she lost herself completely.

Her knees buckled but Elliot prevented her from falling, the unrestrained sounds of her climax reverberating through the space. It was only when her utterances transformed into whimpers that he let her come down, his fingers lingering within her and his mouth drifting over her pelvis as she continued to quake around him. Even then, he barely afforded her enough time to catch her breath before he was back on his feet and kissing her hungrily and deeply, her shaking hands coming to rest on either side of his neck in an attempt to hold onto him as much as she was able.

Elliot pulled her more closely against him and lifted her into his arms, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he started to blindly navigate them in the direction of her bedroom.

Olivia felt the heat of him pressed intimately against the crux of her thighs, the friction as he moved causing him to rub against the slickness of her still sensitized core and causing another moan to escape her. Her legs tightened around him in search of relief and Elliot faltered, pivoting sharply as he pressed her against the wall, his hips rocking forward of their own accord. She cried out again, but the sound was largely muffled by his mouth, another rush of liquid heat combining with her earlier release and making her throb with need.

Elliot groaned as her nails raked against the back of his neck, the feel of the softness of her curves pressing against the hard planes of his body causing his mind to spin as he imagined pushing inside of her velvety depths once more. He thrust forward again, more urgently, and her mouth ripped away from his in a desperate gasp for air, her lower body writhing against his but the strength of his hold preventing her from gaining the leverage needed to align herself with him.

"Please," she panted, her dark eyes almost completely black as she held his gaze, her breathing coming rapidly through parted lips. "El, please...I need-"

His mouth crashed over hers, preempting the words to follow, succumbing to her pleas and his need as his hips shifted back before thrusting forward and burying himself deeply within her. She cried out into his mouth, her walls immediately clenching around his length, the slight discomfort barely registering for her in the haze of her desire. He thrust forward again, and again, his body stretching and filling her more and more deeply as she clung to him with every last ounce of strength that she had. In the dim recesses of each of their minds, they recognized the dynamics at play - Elliot's dominance taking over every movement and every breath as if staking his claim. Yet the only thought in Olivia's head was that she wanted it - wanted the unrestrained passion that she had always known existed beneath the surface, but that he'd been struggling to keep at bay, and the most prevalent thought in Elliot's mind was that Olivia wasn't fighting to regain the control. She was pulling him closer, not pushing him away, giving herself to him more completely than she had to anyone ever before. It made his heart swell and his need intensify, overwhelmed by her presence, her trust and the significance of the moment for each of them against the backdrop of their past.

Olivia felt herself hurtling toward the edge, her strength faltering somewhat as her legs slipped lower over his hips, struggling to maintain her hold. Elliot registered this even as he found himself increasingly lost to the sensations building between them, somehow managing to control their descent as he lowered them to the floor, his hand protectively cradling her head and not once severing their intimate connection.

Olivia arched into his thrusts, her arms wrapping around him as she coaxed him to lower himself more fully against her, seeking all of him - his warmth and his weight. Neither were able to process where one ended and the other began, their moans becoming more urgent as their shared rhythm transformed into something that transcended themselves. All conscious thought evaporated, their mouths finally separating only because of their need to become closer to one another. Elliot's head tipped forward over her shoulder to press against hers as they held one another in an even more intimate embrace, and when they finally fell over the precipice, the pleasure was mixed with a feeling of belonging and unity that neither had ever experienced so completely.

They clung to one another, allowing the feeling of connectedness to stretch on in a seemingly endless moment in time. As they began to drift back into the present, Elliot nuzzled her gently, breathing her in and intermittently placing kisses against her temple, the shell of her ear, the column of her throat. When she turned into his caresses, he raised his head just far enough to look into her eyes, his lips brushing over hers as his fingertips lightly skimmed over her forehead and his thumbs traced the contours of her cheeks.

He paused then, his eyes gazing down at her with reverence and love, yet the more time that passed in that lingering moment, the more he felt the stirrings of emotion that threatened to emerge through the calm.

Olivia saw a sheen in his eyes that hadn't been there before, and her brows knit slightly in concern, wanting to soothe away whatever was behind the resurgence of emotion.

"I love you, Benson," he said softly, trying to mask his concern.

Her eyes searched his, trying to read him even as he was trying to lock the emotions away. "I love you too," she offered by way of reassurance, though her expression clearly sought understanding.

Elliot deflected her unspoken question, trying to use humor to further distance himself from his thoughts. One side of his mouth quirked into a wry smile, indicating the entrance to her bedroom that remained several feet away with a slight gesture of his head. "Almost made it," he said.

Olivia smiled lightly in response, her palm slowly smoothing over his shoulder blade. "Close enough," she replied softly, her smile broadening at the recognition of all that had transpired. "Actually, to be honest, I uh..." she trailed off, a hint of bashfulness coloring her features.

"What?" he asked with an incline of his head.

Olivia dropped her gaze though the hint of a smile remained. "I kind of always imagined that this is how it might be between us, if we ever..." she shrugged, her eyes returning to his.

"You thought I wouldn't have any willpower?" he teased.

She chuckled, shaking her head. "No...I thought neither one of us would."

All of those arguments over the years. All of the pent up frustration. She'd always imagined that if they ever crossed the line, what would be unleashed would be bigger than both of them.

Elliot swept his eyes over her with a mixture of recognition and heat. "You might have been right about that," he murmured, his thumb absently tracing the fullness of her lower lip.

She was looking up at him with affection and calm, but he felt her shift almost imperceptibly beneath him and knew that she couldn't be comfortable trapped beneath his weight and the hardwood floor.

"C'mon Benson," he said quietly. "This is not where you belong."

He eased them up from the floor, keeping his arms around her as she self-consciously raked a hand through her tousled hair. He stood with her and almost immediately scooped her up into his arms, smirking at her slight yelp of surprise.

"Just finishing what I started," he said innocently, carrying her into the bedroom and gently depositing her onto the mattress. He winked at her as his arms slipped away, starting to head back in the direction of the hall.

She arched a brow. "Where are you going?" she asked with curiosity.

He said nothing, casually waving her off as he disappeared through the door. A minute or two passed and she became aware of the chill in the air, slipping beneath the covers as she waited for Elliot to reappear. He returned a short time after carrying a tray that held two glasses of water and their deli sandwiches that Olivia had forgotten had even been delivered given her tumultuous emotional state ever since Huang had appeared at her door.

She smiled and scooted herself up to sit more upright, one hand loosely tucking the sheet around herself as Elliot set the tray in front of her and slid in beside her.

He noticed her lips purse somewhat as if suppressing amusement and called her on it as he extended a glass of water in her direction. "Yes?" he expectantly held out the word.

Olivia's eyes sparkled back at him as she took the glass, taking a small sip before responding. "So uh...How long does this wooing phase last?" she quipped.

He gasped, his hands melodramatically clutching onto his heart. "You wound me. A 'phase'?" his volume increased with mock outrage. "Does Olivia Benson think so very little of me?" His hands fell away at her light laughter, reaching for his glass.

"Okay, okay. I intended no disrespect," she placated, adding a tinge of Italian mob boss to her accent.

Elliot smirked, clinking glasses with her before taking a couple of large swallows. He cleared his throat as he set his glass back down on the tray. "This isn't 'wooing', Benson. This is preventing you from starving to death so I can have my way with you later."

She chuckled at the statement and the slight waggle of his brows. "Now that sounds more like the Stabler I know and love."

He nodded, unwrapping one of the sandwiches to check the contents, noting it was hers and extending it her way.

"Thanks," she said quietly, amusement giving way to sincerity. "For all of this."

"You're welcome," he replied, his response equally genuine.

They ate in comfortable silence, each of them hungrier than they had realized, though Olivia was unable to prevent her mind from continually returning to her concern for whatever Elliot had attempted to conceal from her in the hall. She had finished half of her sandwich when her apprehension won out, finally opting to press him on what had triggered the somewhat tearful look in his eye.

She spoke hesitantly, initially directing her words to a fold in the sheet before turning her head over her shoulder to study his profile. "El... Are you gonna tell me what that was?"

Elliot finished chewing as a means to buy himself some time, focusing on the sandwich in his hands to avoid looking her in the eye. "What what was?" he tried, feigning ignorance.

It was the wrong move, the extra beat of silence on her part causing guilt to slice through him with a gutting intensity.

"Don't do that," came her soft reply, her voice barely more than a whisper.

His shoulders visibly slumped and he set his sandwich back down on the tray, trying to find the words. He had tried to shove his concerns aside, to keep moving forward to try to outrun his thoughts, but suddenly the emotions were back at full force, Olivia's quiet search for the truth causing the house of cards to crumble. He knew what he needed to ask her - what would hopefully quell the anxious stirrings of his mind, but by asking the question he also invited the possibility of the alternative...and he would be left in shambles.

Olivia became more concerned than ever at his prolonged silence, and when he briefly darted his eyes to meet hers, she was taken aback to see that the glimmer of tears had reappeared.

"El, what is it?" she pressed gently. "What's wrong?"

"I uh..." He swallowed, struggling to speak through the tightness in his throat. "I just need to ask you...to know..." He faltered again, looking down at his hands.

Olivia reached for him, covering the back of his hand with her palm.

He splayed his fingers so that hers slipped into the gaps, tightening his grasp around her to hold her in place. "Are you... Are you having second thoughts?"

"What?" she asked in an incredulous whisper.

His voice roughened. "If you could go back... Would you have wanted to change things? Just be my partner?"

He looked up at her then, and the tumult in his eyes was almost more than she could bear. She slid closer to him, lifting her free hand to cup her cheek in his palm. "No, of course not." She looked between his eyes, a pang of worry hitting her and her voice suddenly holding a more tentative quality. "Would you?"

"Never," he immediately responded, trying to put her at ease.

She nodded somewhat warily, still trying to understand the sudden fear. "Elliot where is this coming from? Did I say or do something to make you doubt that?"

He smiled sadly. "No, Liv. I just...I know you would have wanted to keep things quiet...protect the partnership and keep things under wraps." He shrugged. "We both would have," he added wistfully. "But then today, with Huang...when that was taken away, I saw the look on your face and I thought..."

"You thought what? That the partnership was more important to me than being with you?"

He hesitated. "Maybe...I dunno."

Olivia shook her head with regret, compassion in her gaze. "Elliot, if I lost you, I would have already lost the partnership. None of it would matter."

It was too late to go back to the way things were, not that she would have wanted them to. But had they, by some miracle, been able to conceal their personal relationship from their colleagues, their partnership would have been inextricably connected to it.

She tilted her forehead to rest against his, her thumb skimming over his cheek. "You are what matters, El."

Elliot nodded against her, shifting to face her more fully as he wrapped his arms around her, coaxing her toward him until she cast her thigh over his, straddling his lap as he pulled her into an embrace. There was no intent to progress things further, just to be closer to her once more. One of his hands wove into her hair, the other smoothing in slow circles over the expanse of her back.

Minutes stretched on before he spoke again, his voice quiet and holding a degree of trepidation. "I don't know how to let someone else protect you. I'm so damn terrified of not being there... Now more than ever."

Olivia sank further into his warmth, her cheek rubbing against his neck as she processed his words. "Maybe Huang was right," she said after a pause. "Maybe we're just not ready yet."

"Maybe."

"Seems like we have some time."

Elliot nodded. While Cragen had yet to specify the duration of their paid leave, he imagined that they had some weeks before they had to return. His arm needed to heal, and Olivia needed to recover both physically and emotionally from all that she had endured. He wasn't sure what Olivia would ultimately decide to do - whether time and distance from the trauma and the loss of Lara would create a lens through which her ambivalence might wane, or whether she would opt to find a different way to help the victims that needed her advocacy and support. Either way, he had a feeling that his fierce feelings of protectiveness would not be so easily contained.

"I might be a bit over-protective for a while," he acknowledged through a slight smile.

She chuckled, responding with faux shock. "You?"

"And I might be feeling a bit...possessive right now, Benson."

He felt the curve of her lips as she smiled against the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

"I noticed," she said softly, her thoughts centered upon their most recent intimate encounter.

His fingers sifted gently through her hair, his hushed tone taking on a more serious quality though his body language remained calm. "Is that okay?"

Olivia recognized the many layers of meaning in the deceptively simple question. Was it okay for him to take control sometimes? Should he have held back? Had she felt safe?

"Yeah, El," she assured him, her arms tightening around him to emphasize her words.

He nodded but said nothing and she could almost hear the thoughts cycling through his mind. She needed him to know that while she understood the origins of his feelings of possessiveness, that there was no need for him to harbor any fear.

"I'm not going anywhere, Elliot." She stroked the back of his neck. "You have me. Losing the partnership hasn't changed that."

"Okay," he managed, inhaling deeply as if her scent was the balm that would reassure the workings of his anxious mind.

He pulled back far enough to meet her gaze, and it was when their eyes reconnected that he felt calm wash over him once more. Olivia remained his anchor in good times and bad, and in that prolonged moment, her eyes were holding him steady by virtue of her openness and the layers of history passing between them. He framed her face in his hands, wordlessly communicating depths of emotion that no amount of words could ever effectively express. She was his other half, her presence in his life a gift of which he felt undeserving but for which he was forever grateful.

Her eyes glistened as she absorbed all that he was conveying, never feeling more whole or more seen.

"We're partners, El," she said softly, emotion pervading her tone. "Always have been...always will be."

"Yeah," he breathed, slowly closing the distance to kiss her with reverence and devotion. It was tender and gentle, their lips brushing against one another's in soft caresses that felt more intimate and loving than ever before. Her hands lifted to lightly touch his cheeks, just as his were hers, and as the moment stretched on, he whispered promises against her lips that caused the tears to flow once more.

He felt the slightly tremulous quality to her breathing and knew that she'd understood every word, his thumbs brushing her tears away, and when he pulled back to lovingly regard her, he murmured, "Semper Fi, Liv... All the days of my life."

Finis...

Just a quick note to add that I'm so appreciative to those who are reading this as it means that you've hung in there with me throughout the difficult chapters until the very end. I hope that the ending lived up to your expectations and that you feel that I left Elliot and Olivia in a good place and on the path toward continued healing. As always, I would welcome your feedback. (It's the last opportunity I'll ever have to know your thoughts). :)