For Olivia, clarity came with a high price.

Olivia had always cared for everyone. All of her friends were precious. All her victims deserved her compassion. Sometimes, even the killers got her sympathy. Her heart was full of love, and she poured it out unstintingly. She had even tried to love her mother.

She cared for Munch, and Fin, and Cragen. Each, in their own way, had a place in Olivia Benson's compassionate heart. And of course she cared for Elliot. He was her partner. Possibly her closest friend. He welcomed her into his family, into his place of safety, and she responded by loving them all.

Yet still, Olivia Benson, the woman who cared for everyone, who gave her heart completely and unquestioning, went home alone at night.

She told herself that it was because she was too wrapped up in her work. Perhaps seeing all those destroyed and dangerous relationships day after day had left her too wary. Maybe it was because her fraught and almost fatal relationship with her mother had damaged her too much, left her unable to form close relationships. Maybe she just hadn't met the right man yet.

Maybe she had, and he was married and unreachable.

But that was a thought she firmly denied she ever had. Just like she denied the way his presence made her feel, denied the way his rare smile warmed her, denied the way his strength supported her, and his affection for her warmed her, and his touch soothed her pain.

Olivia denied all those feelings. And if she ever suspected she cared for Elliot a lot more than she was supposed to, she pushed the feeling firmly down, ignored it, pretended she had never seen it.

Until today.

Olivia should have seen this coming. She was a cop, after all. And the criminals the SVU chased cared nothing for human life, even more than the usual scumbags the NYPD hunted down. Chances were more than good that one of them would get shot one day.

Problem was, she always assumed it would be her.

She always played bait. Always deliberately placed herself in danger to save the innocent. She almost invited death to come running to her. Forgetting that every time she went into danger, Elliot was right behind her, beside her, protecting her.

The bullet she had been expecting hit him instead.

And now his blood ran out of him, into the gutter, down the street, soaking the stones. She was trying to stop the bleeding, trying to hold it in, but her hands were so small, and the hole so big. Help was coming, if he could just hang on, just a little longer.

She could him whispering hoarsely, a name, over and over again. She bent down to listen, expecting to hear Kathy's name, or Maureen's.

"Liv." He said, coarsely. "Liv." He was looking up at her, his eyes so soft and clear, so loving. He was holding on to her arm, tightly, as if by clinging to her he could cling to life. She clung back, desperate to keep him here, with her, where he belonged, by her side, always by her side.

And then she knew. As her heart was being ripped out of her, as she desperately tried to save him, as he slipped away from her, she knew.

She loved him. More than anyone else. More than she had ever loved anyone.

For Olivia, the moment of clarity came stained in Elliot's blood.