A/N: Eighty-seven thousand million years later and here it is. Le second and final chapter. Laura, I hope you shit your pants or something.

He's looking at her, and that's what they do. They do a lot of looking at each other these days. She's old, almost as old as him, but he's stopped counting years, stopped counting them in terms of months or hours or days or seconds. Instead, he does a lot of looking.

"Stop staring at me," she'll say across the table at breakfast. She puts blueberries in her milk because Ella did it as a small child, and thinks that's weird.

"You're weird," he'll tell her.

"Yeah, well you're ugly."

He is. He's skinnier than he's ever been even though he's still big by most people's standards, and he needs a walker to get around. He wears glasses because he can't see for shit and he's not really deft enough to put in contacts, as shameful as that is. But Olivia—Olivia is another story. She's gray and shorter than he remembers, and her skin's got this soft wrinkly quality to it, but only in all the right places. Crows feet pinch her eyes and he imagines its from smiling too hard, so that's okay. She's got lines on her cheeks too because when she laughs big enough it looks like she's frowning. She usually has her hair pulled back so the scar above her right eyebrow always shows, the one from when she was little, and it's a miracle every second that he knows her again. That he gets to know her again.

So yeah—of course he looks at her. Of course its all he can do not to kiss her every minute. He wants to tell her all of that, and he's getting better at actually doing it.

"I'm in love with you," he'll say, when she peels a page from the newspaper and slides it across the table to him (he skims, she reads), or when they've decided to walk somewhere or try to cook something. He says it often, I'm in love with you, just so there isn't a single minute that she's unsure.

"Yeah, I know," she'll say. Confident as ever. Cocky as shit. Completely right.

He finds it funny that after twelve years together, thirty-seven apart, and another one and a half someplace in between, she is still always right. She is still picky and stubborn, she still gets sleepy around four o'clock in the afternoon, she still drinks her coffee black but with a ludicrous amount of sugar. She has changed in a million ways but her details, all eighty gazillion of them, are still the same.

That comforts him.

He may talk now, but he was scared of her at first. Terrified, shitless, whatever you want to call it. It's what he was. He remembers looking at her face for the second first time and thinking about how out of all the faces in the world he still only wants this one. That had jarred him, shaken him. And he'd been so sorry, because she was standing there, letting her eyes fill with water but trying as hard as possible not to let them take the next step and spill over. She still didn't let herself cry, and that had been terrifying too.

"Elliot."

Olivia looks like she is going to topple over, and her daughter grabs her forearm to stop the motion. Olivia's opposite hand falls on top of Ella's where it grips her and squeezes.

He's intrusive. He's imploding, or drowning, or suffocating but in the middle of a crowd where everybody can see. He looks at Ella and thinks something ridiculous and inappropriate like I want that to be my baby, and then he remembers himself—his age, his looks, the fact that he'd been a coward and had waited upwards of this woman's age before even thinking about coming back to Manhattan. To Olivia.

Olivia blinks, and then: "El, you've gotta... you've gotta get to Joey's soccer practice, right?" She speaks with frightening stoicism and the nickname jukes him again. El. Ella. Right.

"Mom."

"Ella—"

"I'll stay, Mom. I can call Paul."

"No, that's—I'm fine."

They look at each other and there is a moment of suspension where everything stops between their eyes, this silent communication that he recognizes only because he's experienced it with Olivia so many times before. Their conversation is a dance they've done a thousand other times, a million other times, from when Ella had been a little girl to right now. Of course Ella is as stubborn as her mother. Of course she can square off with her like he could. He had always thought in those quiet, unmoving speaking-without-talking moments that they had been special, but now he knows that it'd just been Olivia all along. The woman is magnetic. Transcendent of language. Her eyes can speak to you with the particles in the air or something and nothing more, and God he's an asshole because that's horrible and cheesy, but so, so true.

Ella sighs, continues her role reversal of mother and daughter when she kisses Olivia's cheek and puts a hand on her shoulder, "Call me, please," before looking pointedly at Elliot and walking out the door.

"She's tall, Liv," he croaks, and he hates himself because he really needs to think before he speaks, he really needs to be coming up with something better than she's tall.

She stares at him and still says nothing, but her eyes are wide and searching and confused, and he wants to bowl her over. He wants to overwhelm her completely but only in all the ways that he loves her, and only because he's seeing her breaths get thick and uncomfortable and fast in her chest. She is already overwhelmed. She already has no idea.

He steps closer and her name falls out of his mouth again, "Liv," he says, and he can't tell if the laugh that came afterward was a sob or not, especially not when he's reaching for her face and tripping over his walker at the same time—his foot hits it, sends it into the wall with a crashing noise—and he laughs again, awkwardly, he's awkward, and he cannot stop saying her name."Liv. Liv."

He's reaching for her but she steps back, shakes her head. "I... Elliot?" It's a question when it doesn't mean to be.

"I'm here," he tells her, because he's not going to be able to say anything beautiful or profound right now. It's all he can do to re-state his surroundings. He isn't sure of anything else, but he wants to give her something concrete. "M'not... I don't wanna go back, Liv."

There is a long silence. He watches her and he thinks he's seeing her deflate, and no, no, that is not supposed to happen. That's not right. He wants to pick her up, fill her up instead. In any way she'll have him. "I haven't heard from you in forty years, Elliot."

"Thirty-seven."

"Thirty-seven," she repeats, almost without life. "I thought you were dead."

"I wasn't."

That gets her mad, and at least she's herself when she hits the side of her fist against the wall. "I—God, Elliot, yes you were!" Her face crumples.

"I'm sorry, Liv," he breathes. "I'm so, so sorry."

"I can't—" she shakes her head, her eyes casting wildly around the room. "Look at me!" she yells, admonishing herself, her age, these clunky loafer things she's wearing on her feet. "I don't even know how to look at you!"

It stings, stabs.

I don't even know how to look at you.

I don't even know how to look at you.

Look at me, I don't even know how to look at you.

I don't want to look at you.

The room around him is spinning, suddenly, and he thinks that he needs a drink of water, he thinks something about his lungs isn't working right, and then he's losing sight of her; she's blurry in his eyes, his head hurts all the way down into his knees, and the last thing he hears before everything goes black is, "God—fuck, Elliot!"

When he opens his eyes, he has no idea where he is.

"Forty years and you're still the biggest fucking idiot I know." It's her voice that led him out, and it's her voice that leads him back in.

He thinks he's laying down. "Hey Liv."

"See?" says a third voice he doesn't recognize. "He's fine. Here, Mr. Stabler. Sit up and take a drink." He does as the voice tells him and realizes midway through his second sip of orange juice that there is a nurse in the room, that he must have passed out, and that he is on Olivia's sofa. He casts a glance at Olivia, who is sitting in the chair adjacent to the sofa and white as a sheet.

"Sorry if I scared ya," he manages, and thanks the bearer of juice. She reminds him of Maggie from Florida, and he thinks it's ridiculous that he's old enough to be comparing and contrasting the merits of different daytime nurses.

"You didn't scare me." She doesn't look at him, which is exactly what she does when she's too terrified to move.

The nurse takes his plastic cup and sets it on the coffee table. "You were only out for a second," she tells him. "Barely even fell down. Miss Olivia here helped you to the couch. Have you eaten anything today, Mr. Stabler?"

He shakes his head, embarrassed.

"Alright. I'm gonna take your blood pressure, and you need to eat a granola bar. Something with protein in it, okay? It's Atria policy to call an ambulance if any of our residents have an episode, however small it is, but since you're just a visitor, I can't force you to go. Miss Olivia tells me—"

"I'm fine here," he croaks. "Not goin' to the hospital."

The nurse heaves a sigh. "Do you have a place to stay tonight?" she asks him. He hasn't thought about it. He shrugs.

"Hotel, I guess."

"Don't be an asshole," Olivia interjects. "He's fine here. I'll—can you call Joanne at the front desk and tell her to put me down for an overnight guest?"

The nurse nods. A litany of apologies follow her out the door. "I... shit, Liv. I'm sorry. I'm just—this whole plan—"

"Are you really going to dignify this with the word 'plan'?"

"This whole fucking mess," he corrects, "I—it was stupid. I'm sorry." He has to leave, he has to get out of here because she's okay, and she doesn't want him, and he's ruining it. There is no longer space for him allotted in her life, there isn't any room, and he was stupid to think that there would be. That he'd be forgiven, that he could start over, that this could be something or anything or whatever she wanted. He can't give her anything—he's got nothing left. He's too old, and he's tired, and so is she. He knows he'll fight but he doesn't know if she will, he doesn't even think he wants to, he can't promise that he's worth it. He's not a prize. He's not what she deserves. He's just himself. "I'll get a cab tomorrow," he says, and at least he's giving her something to hang on to. At least she knows that after this, after all of it is done, he won't fuck her over ever again. "I'll be on the first flight out, just... I'm sorry." He gives up. "You've gotta know I'm sorry."

Her eyes have that look again, the one where he can't decide if they're empty or full and they can't seem to make a decision either. Her voice is small. "For coming? Or for passing out in my front hallway?"

He blinks. With his eyes slipped shut, he imagines the entire day over again, only instead of fainting, instead of letting her chew him out, instead of letting her back away, he just comes right out and says it. I love you. I'm in love with you. I'm sorry. I'm never leaving you again, you just have to let me in first.

"Dunno," he answers. "Both." Then, more honestly, "Neither."

He expects you're an idiot, Elliot, but instead she says nothing at all. A minute passes, and when she finally gets her nerves together, she manages, "Why'd you come here today, Elliot?" her lip quivers. "Why'd you... why'd it take you forty years—"

"Thirty-seven."

She lets out a watery laugh. "—thirty-seven years to come back? And... and God, El, why the hell'd you go?"

He thinks he's crying now. His ridiculous pansy ass is crying, crying after showing up unannounced, crying after literally falling to his knees at the sight of her. He can't be sure because somebody stuck his glasses on the end table, but maybe there's a tear track marking its way down her cheek too. Maybe she's as lost as he is, as confused as he is about all of this, maybe even more so. He swallows. He doesn't know how to answer her. "I wanted to see you," he offers, finally. "Always just wanted to see you."

It's enough. They speak around their words but she's definitely crying now because she's doing that thing where she ducks her head down, way down into her chest, and he's off the couch before he realizes that his body can't actually move that fast. He can't kneel to meet her halfway on that damn chair either so he tugs her to stand, tugs her against him. He's rickety and they move slow, limbs weaving their way around bodies, tentative and unsure and wishing there was something steady to hold onto. "M'sorry," he whispers into her hair, "M'sorry it took me so long, Liv."

He feels her crying. She doesn't really speak, not for minutes and minutes, except for the occasional "too fucking long" and "you're a real bastard, you know that, right?"

He doesn't pull away. She doesn't either. "M'sorry." He swallows. He's gonna say it. I love you. "I love you."

She sniffs."Yeah, well," she sneaks an arm between them to swipe at her eyes and her wrists—they look the same. The exact same. "You'd better after all that shit you just pulled."

"Stop tryin' t'be witty," he mumbles, locking her closer, and when she inhales into him the exhale that follows comes out as a laugh. "I love you." He'll say it again and again and again. "I love you."

She breathes her answer. "Okay..." It's a quiet acknowledgment, firmer the second time. "Okay."

It has been over a year since he found her again, since he showed up her in apartment and (as she tells it) fainted on sight. On impact. He doesn't correct her. He's learned since then that correcting her about the little things is pointless, and that somebody can live an entire lifetime within a few months. He wants a life with her, he really does, but it doesn't feel like settling when he agrees to just take the rest of whatever they have left and take it together.

Together. They're better at it, and better to each other than either of them thought they'd be.

He's learned that Olivia has been married, but that her husband died in his late sixties. His name had been David, and he'd been a bigshot lawyer with the DA's office. She describes him as endlessly classy, endlessly smooth, less rough around the edges than Elliot. He had been good to her, and that's all Elliot really cares about. He just wanted somebody good for her, and if her husband had been that, he'll never be bitter. Jealous—hell yes. He'll never get to love Olivia Benson in all the ways he plans to. He'll never have the time David had with her. But he's also realistic, and it makes his bones hurt less to know that she'd found and loved someone deeply and truly.

"You're my great love, though," she'll whisper, and his eyes will flutter closed against her forehead, against the assurance. It's never patronizing when she says it, just miraculous that she can still sense the guilt on the days it really eats at him.

David had given her a daughter, who now has two of her own. Joey, short for Josephine not Joseph, and Annie, are eight and eleven. Polar opposites and wickedly smart. And Ella is Ella.

"Her name," he'd said once, half a question.

She'd shrugged. "I was going through this period of insecurity, right before see was born, that she wasn't biologically mine. Or, or David's. And that she wasn't going to be connected to me or something. And I just thought—I don't know. It's stupid."

"Tell me."

"I wanted her to be my partner," Olivia had offered quietly, cheeks red. "Wanted her be my little partner, or something."

He'd smiled. Grinned. She'd smacked him. "Don't be smug."

"You missed me."

She had. She had missed him for forty years—thirty-seven, he still corrects her every time—but she had learned to live a life independent of her life with him. Somewhere down the line, she had stopped being a cop and started being Olivia, who happened to work in law enforcement. Somewhere down the line she had stopped being half of their partnership and started being a whole woman, a whole person that just happened to miss him like hell. She had been happy. Her life had been full without him, and he's glad. But he also knows—believes—that some things are inevitable.

He believes in God. He believes in stories that don't end in the middle, in things that do not go unfinished. He believes in her, and in them like a religion; he believes in the way they wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, he believes in the way she smells like her laundry detergent and in the way she thinks anything remotely edible will taste better after putting it in the blender. He believes in her obnoxious laugh, in the way she can shake the building with a sneeze, in the way she falls asleep two seconds after turning the television on and in the way she could win Jeopardy if she wanted to.

He believes that this is supposed to be every time Ella and Paul bring the girls over and they try on his glasses and every time she yells at him, screams, gets angry. Most of the time he has no idea what he's doing, but he's never for a second unsure. This is his place. He could have fallen in a million different ways, but he was always going to end up here. He always was.

She's always pulled him like gravity.