Title: An Uneasy Truce

Author: mindy35

Rating: K, all welcome

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me and are used without permission of NBC, Dick Wolf et al.

Spoilers: "Fault", "Fat".

Pairing: Elliot/Olivia

Summary: Missing scenes for "Fat". Elliot visits Olivia at work and at home during their separation.

"So. That's your girl, huh?"

Elliot punched the button for the elevator that would take him away from Computer Crimes and away from Olivia Benson. "That is not my girl," he muttered, gritting his teeth and summoning his already tested patience, "that is my partner."

Lucius Blaine shrugged in his trench coat and directed his gaze at the ascending numbers over the threshold. "Not anymore, partner. And I can see why."

Elliot's mouth twitched. His eyes glanced back down the narrow green corridor that led to his erstwhile partner's new desk. Her new office. Her new coffee pot and new inbox and new colleagues. "Oh yeah…? Why's that?"

Blaine chuckled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Oh, that woman is way too fine to be spending her life backin' up your ugly ass."

Elliot turned to him, eyes narrowing and lips parting. But the elevator checked his indignant response with a polite ding of arrival. He dropped his gaze and shuffled on abroad. "Yeah, well, she's also way too good a cop to be stuck behind a desk from nine to five."

Lucius followed him on, selecting the button for the ground floor before backing into place at his side. When he spoke again, his voice was kinder and hushed, avoiding the hearing of the other passengers. "Maybe she just needed a break from pounding the streets. I mean, who doesn't, right?"

Elliot humphed at the floor underfoot. "Right…"

There was a short pause before Blaine sidled closer, voice lower still as he murmured haltingly, "Hey, sorry about before. You know – what I implied about…you and her…"

Elliot looked up, eyes fixing his. "I think you did a little more than imply."

Blaine's tentative tone vanished, giving way to his barely below the surface frustration. "Heat of the moment, man, come on."

"Look, save it, alright?" Elliot held up a hand and turned away. "It's not like it's the first time that accusation has been hurled at me."

"You should be so lucky, am I right?" Blaine's equanimity seemed to magically restore itself, tone turning jovial again as he gave Elliot a pally pat on the back.

Elliot said nothing, waiting for the landed elevator to open and release him. The second the doors parted, he slipped through the opening, hoping to escape the man he couldn't bring himself to think of as his partner, his friendly gesture, his attempt at camaraderie and, above all, his choice of topic.

Blaine did not take the hint, wagging his head and easily keeping pace with him as he wove through the bustling vestibule. "Woman like that…she's gotta be married to some lucky schmo."

Elliot kept his eyes on the door. "Actually, no. Never been."

"For real? With those eyes, that mouth…? Sexy voice too. How's a honey like her stay single in this city?"

Elliot gave a beats me shrug and upped the pace.

"Not the marrying kind?" Blaine asked, halting at the revolving door that spilled out onto the street.

Elliot stopped, sighed and faced him. "More like married to the job." He paused, wondering whether Blaine was just clueless or whether the other man was trying to get some sort of read on him by poking at an obvious weakness in his amour. Nevertheless, he told him with a finality that endeavored to end the conversation: "Olivia is one of the most dedicated officers I've worked with. Everything else comes second."

And with that, he pushed through the door, losing his big black shadow for a miraculous moment that didn't last nearly as long as Elliot wanted. He took a cleansing breath of exhaust fumes, relishing the stability of the pavement beneath his feet as he turned in the direction of the car. But then that voice was back in his ear, laced now with laughter:

"Sounds like your girl could use a night on the town."

"She's not—" Elliot stopped himself, partially out of resigned frustration and partially because Blaine's irritating attempt to establish a rapport seemed to be working.

The other man grinned widely. "Any chance she's a jazz fan with a weakness for chunky black guys?"

"I really couldn't tell you."

"I mean, so long as you ain't interested…"

Elliot glanced across at him, attempting to gauge just how serious he was. "Go for your life, man. But I warn you – I've watched Liv shoot down more guys than she's had cups of coffee."

Stopping at their hastily parked sedan, Blaine watched him step off the curb and head for the driver's side. "Sounds like your Liv's just waiting for the right guy to come to his senses and make a move."

"And you think that you're that guy?" Elliot asked, refusing to acknowledge the serious turn to his tone.

Blaine stepped up to the car, resting both arms atop the hood. "No risk, no reward. And some women are worth being shot down in flames for."

Elliot cleared his throat and resisted a glance up at the floor they'd just come from. "…Can't argue with that..."

"Relax, Stabler," Blaine grinned again, this time more genuinely, and withdrew his hands from the car, "I'm just yanking your chain. I'd never make a move on your girl."

"She's not—" Elliot's jaw clenched, one hand motioning impatiently in the air, "never mind. Just gimme the keys."

Blaine dug them from his pocket and tossed them across the hood. Elliot caught them and opened the car, relieved when his new partner sank into his seat and finally let the topic of his old partner drop.

-x-

Returning home that night, Olivia found her old partner stationed stubbornly at the foot of her stairwell, gradually making his way through a pack of gum. As she shouldered open the door, juggling a paper bag of groceries and a plastic bag of takeout, she couldn't help a slight smirk.

"Miss me that much, huh?"

Elliot didn't rise to help her. He just looked at his watch and commented, "I thought at Computer Crimes you'd be keeping more regular hours."

She shuffled over to the stairs and dumped her armload on the lowest. "Been waiting long?"

He shrugged and glanced about at the grimness of his surroundings, the peeling walls and worn banister and unswept steps. "Long enough to figure out what I came here to ask."

Olivia hooked an arm over the banister, glancing about as well. "You mean you're not here to soak up the stunning ambience of my stairwell?"

"I wasn't gonna say anything," he muttered, pointing to a dim corner where the shadows shifted and skittered, "but I think you've got a roach problem."

"What else is new?" she huffed, taking a seat on the step below his. Then, shifting to face him, she asked, "So d'you and Blaine kiss and make up?"

Elliot bobbed his head, folding and refolding his gum wrapper. "We called an uneasy truce."

"Good."

"He's not my biggest fan. But he certainly took a shine to you." He looked over at her, an amused glint in his eyes. "Asked me to put in a word for him, he thinks you're a, ah…'honey'."

She smiled, gesturing at her face. "Well, it's amazing what six straight hours of sleep can do for a girl."

Elliot bobbed his head some more. "Yep…"

In the ensuing silence, Olivia lent down, snaking a hand into the bag of Chinese takeout and snagging a small folded cookie. She snapped the golden treat in half, rescuing the thin strip of paper within before popping one half in her mouth. "Fortune?" she asked as she chewed.

"Sure."

Elliot spat out his gum first, balling it up in its wrapper and tossing it towards the trashcan in the corner. The little ball landed on the rim, disrupting the circuit of the roach territorially circling the pile. The roach paused, wove around the wad of gum then continued on its path. Like all of the unsavory sights they'd witnessed as a duo, Elliot and his partner just mentally skated over this one and continued on with their lives.

"Anything good?" he asked as Olivia ate the second half of her cookie and read her fortune.

"Augh," she replied, scrunching the paper and hurling it over her shoulder.

This, he supposed, was answer enough. Leaning down, she retrieved two more cookies and handed him one, fingertips grazing his palm. Elliot was about to crack his open when she asked:

"So you wanted to ask me something?"

He hummed and set his cookie on his knee. "Two somethings."

She cracked her cookie, briefly meeting his gaze. "Shoot."

Elliot opened his mouth but faltered. He lent forward then back again. Then forward. Then back again, shifting his butt on the creaking wooden step. Eventually, he asked, "Am I really that difficult to work with?"

Olivia averted her eyes. "Truth?"

He nodded once. "Truth."

She was silent a moment, not considering his query so much as taking the opportunity to torture him. Just a little. Which doubtless he deserved. Her lips curved up at one edge as she played with the two halves of her cookie. "Not to me," she answered eventually. She looked up, adding with a sardonic little lilt, "At least, not ten months outta the year." She popped a portion of cookie in her mouth. "Second question?"

"This…separation…" Elliot paused again. He looked down at the sugar-encased fortune on his knee, fingers adjusting its position. Over on the beat up trashcan, even the fearless roach seemed to be waiting for him to finish his sentence. Elliot looked at his partner, eyes squinting in the low light, hoping to monitor her reaction. "Is it permanent?"

Her prior amusement had vanished from her face without a trace. All that was left was bleak confusion and palpable exhaustion. And something else he was familiar with but still couldn't identify, even after seven plus years. "I don't know," she said with a small, helpless shrug. After another moment, she added a soft but inconclusive, "I hope not."

Elliot stood, unsatisfied, and wandered towards the door. Turning back though, his voice rose with the question that had been plaguing him since their stoic captain's non-explanation of her disappearance, since her gold-tinged reappearance in that locker room – just when he needed her, just when he was thinking of her, craving her voice and eyes and smile and solace. "What was so damn complicated that you couldn't talk to me about it?"

Olivia was already heaving her bags into her arms and heading upstairs. "You said two somethings."

His voice rose further, arms spreading at his sides. "Just give me a reason, Liv, something I can understand."

His partner stopped on the stairs, slowly turning to face him. The exhaustion on her face was peaking, revealing its true extent, and suddenly he knew that that exhaustion wasn't about the job. It wasn't about its relentlessness, its tragedy, its sleepless nights and brutal days. It was about him. It was a special brand of exhaustion that he produced in her and she could apparently no longer endure.

Face pale and drawn, she said in a simple, sad tone, "I wouldn't even know where to begin. I mean, would you?"

Even in her exhaustion, she placed a slight emphasis on the final two syllables, begging him to understand, to give up, to let go. And she was right. He had no clue where they'd begin unravelling the mess that had become them, how to make sense of the underlying tangle of professional obligations and personal fidelities. To do so, they'd have to start right back at the beginning. And they'd have to finish with some deeply explosive truths that neither felt brave enough to admit to themselves, let alone to the one person who mattered.

"I'll…leave you to your dinner," he mumbled, bowing his head and stepping back.

"You don't want to come up?" she asked as she watched him head for the door. "I'll never eat all this Szechuan Chicken alone."

"No. No, you want space. So you…" he turned at the door but couldn't look at her, "you got it."

"El..." She stood on the stairs, radiating uncertainty and concern and strain.

She didn't want him to stay and pose more unanswerable questions – but nor did she want him to go, not like this. They needed to be okay. In order for her to sleep at night, to digest her greasy meal and then in the morning, concentrate on her inbox of credit card fraud cases, the two of them now needed to call an uneasy truce.

Elliot fell back against the glass door, eyes meeting hers across the gloomy vestibule. "I hope…it's not permanent," he murmured before the door gave under his weight and he receded into the night.

-x-

Before he'd reached his car, before he could begin chastising himself for all the things he'd said and all he'd left unsaid, his phone trilled in his pocket. Elliot dug it out, ready to bark his name into the receiver. But, as though continuing a conversation already in progress, his partner's tinnily transmitted voice asked before he could utter a syllable:

"Do you know what my mother used to call me when I screwed up? Whenever she got mad at me? Or drunk? Which was pretty much every night."

Elliot's footsteps faltered then trod on. "What?"

"Miss Mistake."

He slowed as he approached the car, his mind trying to draw a line between her confession, their recent conversation and current estrangement. "I'm sorry," he said, brows furrowed, "I don't see the connection."

On the other end of the line, Olivia fell silent. He could hear rustling beneath the slow cadence of her breath. Perhaps she was taking off her coat. Perhaps she was sinking into the couch and digging into her rapidly congealing dinner. "In that warehouse," she said finally, hesitating before uttering that dangerous name, "with…Gitano…you said I was a mistake."

"I said I made a mistake—"

"Because I lived. If I had died you might have felt justified. And I came close. But I didn't die. I survived when I shouldn't have."

"Liv…" Leaning on the trunk of the car, Elliot released a long, heavy breath, "that's not what I meant, you gotta know that."

"I know," she said quickly, quietly.

He could hear the uncertainty in her tone though, the 'but' beneath her assurance. He glanced up at the starless sky, waiting for her to voice it.

"My whole life," she went on in an intimacy-laden voice he rarely heard but was always enthralled by, "I've felt like my existence was an aberration. I didn't belong here, I was just…a giant mistake."

Frozen, rapt, Elliot listened to her take a breath and continue.

"When I joined the force, I felt like I had finally found my place in the world. You know? I thought…I thought I belonged at SVU. I thought I belonged—"

With you.

At your side.

The words weren't spoken. She stopped short of allowing them to exist in full-blown reality. But that didn't mean he didn't hear them. And understand that saying them silently was what made them more profound.

"You do," he murmured, voice muted but insistent. "You do."

"I never want you to feel…" she added, choosing her words carefully, "like I'm a mistake you didn't want to make."

"Liv." Elliot looked up at the sky, breath coming out in puffs of forlorn mist. "I've made many mistakes in my life, some real doozies….Trust me—" he knew she couldn't see him shake his head or smile fondly but he hoped she could hear the warmth in his tone, and the eight-year regret it couldn't hide, "—you're not one of them."

It wasn't everything – they weren't solved, they weren't fixed. He knew that. It was only one piece of the puzzle, only one knot in their overwhelming web had been untangled. Still, it was something. It was enough to bring them relief. It was enough that she'd be able to sleep that night and he wouldn't walk round feeling like he'd been completely cut adrift. But, even so, he wanted more.

He wanted her to invite him up again. He wanted to share her Szechuan Chicken and steal her baby corn. He wanted to watch her chopsticks lift to her mouth, he wanted to watch the heat and spice infuse her cheeks. He wanted to see her kick off her shoes and slip on her thickest cardigan. He wanted to be sitting up there on her couch in her warm, comfy apartment, not downstairs on the hard edge of a car on the cold street. Maybe it was a mistake – coming to her place, forcing a confidence when they were both so raw. If it was, then Elliot wanted to make more mistakes like it.

He wanted to make the mistake of making her laugh – a rare treat he only granted himself on occasion. He wanted to make the even bigger mistake of finding an excuse to touch her back or her shoulder or – God, if he was really brave – her hand. He wanted to see if she would let him sleep on her couch like she did that one time after his marriage broke apart. He wanted to doze shirtless amongst her cushions and blankets. He wanted to listen to her body shift on her mattress and her soft snore. He wanted to see her in her pyjamas with unpainted eyes and sleep-ruffled hair. He wanted to walk around all day smelling of her soap and her coffee. He wanted to wake in her home and feel like he belonged there.

He longed to make that mistake and so many others. Just to see where they might lead. Just to see if they might lead to more dangerous mistakes. The sort of mistakes that mouths made and naked bodies and hands that refused to quell their desire with tandem paperwork binges. But failing that, all he wanted was to sit there in the cold with her voice in his ear and his eyes on her window. It beat by far going back to his empty bed and empty fridge and sad collection of family photographs.

His throat was destroying that possibility though by croaking uncertainly, "I'll see you tomorrow then." He only said it because the silence had stretched on too long. And to prompt her into a second invitation upstairs. "Or…whenever."

"Right," Olivia replied, clueless to this hint. "See you…when I see you."

Elliot held on a little longer. Then ducked his head in defeat and said: "G'night."

"Night," she whispered before ending the call.

Tucking his phone into his breast pocket, he reached into his pants pocket for the car keys and when he pulled them out, the fortune cookie he'd pocketed came also. Opening the door, Elliot dropped into his seat and, by the light of the streetlamp, snapped open the cookie and fished out his fortune.

When a mute person eats dumplings, it said, he knows how many he has eaten, even though he cannot speak.

Elliot grimaced at the waxy slip of paper. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He was hoping for a few wise words regarding mistakes or choices, something simple on life or love or being one half of a broken apart whole. And instead he got dumplings? Still – if he was looking for clarity in a cookie then clearly he'd lost perspective. Lowering the window, he threw the fortune out, along with both halves of the cookie it came in. Then he started the car, adjusted the heat and pulled away from Olivia Benson's building.

-x-

Inside, on the dusty floor at the base of the stairwell, a curious cockroach was inspecting a similar scrap of paper that had likewise been discarded in disgust. Though it scored a few crumbs from one edge, the bug couldn't discern the message meant solely for its recipient:

When a mute person eats dumplings, she knows how many she has eaten, even though she cannot speak.

END.

A/N: For the record and according to China Highlights website, the fortune Elliot and Olivia both receive refers to someone knowing a situation well but saying nothing. (It also serves as a chastisement to readers that don't review… )