a/n: Okay guys, bear with me. Here's the thing-I love, love, love ice dance, and a couple of years ago when Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the Olympics in PyeongChang with their gorgeous Moulin Rouge skate, I was mesmerized. (I still don't know how they skated together for twenty-two years and looked at each other like that and still managed to not race to the altar as soon as they retired) Anyway, I was watching an old video of them skating tonight, and it got me wondering what an AU with EO in a different type of 20+ year partnership would look like, one where they've skated together since childhood, and now as adults are facing the end of that partnership. So, I'm writing this. It will be a mix of EO's history blended with Scott and Tessa's history and my own imagination. I've never written AU, so if it sucks, I deeply apologize. If you like it though, and it seems interesting to you, please review and let me know, so I can gauge whether to keep going with it or not. Thanks in advance, and...fingers crossed it goes well.

Stabler Skate Center & Athletic Club

Manhattan, New York City, NY

Spring

22 Years and Counting

Olivia Benson steps off the ice and reaches for her skate guards, sliding them into place one at a time as she moves toward the locker room without breaking stride, her movements practiced and fluid. Her calves ache, and she grits her teeth and tries not to let the stiffness of her muscles show in her gait. She's grateful when she reaches the safety of the locker room and can lower herself gingerly onto the low metal bench there. She breathes deeply for several seconds, but sits up a little straighter when her skating partner, Elliot Stabler, comes in the door a few paces behind her.

It'd been a good practice. Elliot's in top form right now in preparation for their last Olympic run. So is she, for that matter, but they aren't exactly spring chickens anymore, and she'd pushed herself too hard today, and she's feeling it. She's on edge. The winter olympics are coming up fast, and even though they are both in the best physical shape of their careers, they need all the ice time they can get. Thank God Elliot's family owns the rink and they have first dibs on open ice time every day. Without fail, they skate every morning from five am to seven am, before gym and studio time, and then they add in extra ice time in the afternoon as needed. It's grueling, but necessary.

"Is Dani coming to Los Angeles?" Olivia asks Elliot as he opens his locker and pulls out a clean change of clothes. She's loosening the laces on her skates and focusing hard on appearing unbothered. If Elliot wants to drag his latest girlfriend around the country with them, why should she care? His half-hearted attempts at relationships never last long. No woman likes to come second, and they always do. Dani Beck is no exception, Olivia tells herself. Everyone comes second to the sport, for both her and Elliot. They'd agreed. They're committed.

Together. Until the end of this Olympic season at least, and then…

She drops one skate to the floor and goes to work on the other one.

For some reason this latest girlfriend of his just gets on her last nerve. The woman hasn't done anything to deserve her ire, she just irks Olivia in a special way. Maybe because the clock is suddenly ticking on her and Elliot's twenty-two year partnership, and she's not sure how she feels about that.

"She's not feeling very well," Elliot hedges. "I think she's gonna sit this stop out." In truth, things aren't going very well between them. Dani doesn't like the time Elliot spends with Olivia, and despite his explanations about the time and closeness that it takes to do what they do, he thinks another relationship is about to bite the dust. He can't worry about that until after LA though. He needs to focus on his partner, on the skate.

Olivia drops her socked foot to the floor and stares at him. "If you managed to knock this girl up right before our last Olympics, Elliot, I swear to God, I will castrate you myself."

"She's not pregnant, Liv." He knows she's joking but he sees the slight tinge of fear just in the outer edges of her black eyes. "She's got the flu," he explains, which he actually doubts, but it's what she'd told him when he'd offered up a lackluster invitation to his and Olivia's skate in California this weekend. He won't be surprised if she waits until he's gone and then breaks up with him over the phone. It wouldn't be the first time he'd received a Dear Elliot voicemail. It's possible she'll do it via text, just to prove a point. He's not the easiest guy to be in a relationship with, he knows. His sport, his partnership-it doesn't leave room for anything else. He's thirty-two though, and he wants a relationship and a family. Maybe this year, after the Olympics, after they retire from competitive skating…

He watches his partner reach for her discarded skates. Her dark waves are caught up in a ponytail, and her loose t-shirt slips off of one shoulder, exposing the strap of her white sports bra and a strip of perfectly golden skin.

Olivia gives him a look, but remains silent. He's looking at her strangely again, like he can't quite figure her out after two decades together. He's known her since she was seven years old, for God's sake. What on Earth is left to figure out? He knows her better than anyone. And she knows him. Three years her senior, he's been her skating partner since he was ten years old. And it's because she's known him so long and knows him so well, that she remembers vividly how an accidental pregnancy back in high school nearly derailed their entire career.

"Okay," she says, quietly, willing to let it go. She knows he's not stupid. She won't be a bitch about it. Olivia doesn't like to admit how much Dani bothers her. The thought of her partner accidentally impregnating the woman, hell, the thought of him sleeping with her at all causes her to feel nauseous. She swallows, trying not to think about it anymore.

He notices her pallor and steps forward to press the back of his hand against her cheek in concern. "Are you feeling okay?" he asks.

"I'm fine," she mutters, tilting her head away, shrugging off his concern.

"Your legs bothering you again?" he asks, and she grits her teeth bc yes, they fucking are, but she's trying not to think about that, too.

His hand hangs awkwardly in midair where her cheek had been seconds before. "Liv, you know what happened with Kathy...it's not going to happen again, right? I was a stupid kid," he stresses, unable to keep the defensive tone out of his voice.

"I know," she says, quietly, but sincerely. She does know, and it was shitty of her to bring up something from so long ago, something that was so painful to him. It was painful to her, too, which is why the thought of Dani being pregnant had probably leapt into her head and then promptly fallen out of her mouth without any filter in between. Kathy's pregnancy had been a terrible time in their partnership, but they are so much stronger than that now. They are solid. She trusts him, completely.

"Do you know?" he asks, squinting his eyes at her in the dim light of the locker room, momentarily unsure.

"Yes," she says, resolutely. She really does know he won't make the same mistake twice. He never does.

"Okay," he says, finally seeming satisfied with her certainty in him.

"Can you imagine how different our lives would be though?" she asks, without malice, but also without really thinking it through. She gets herself into trouble like that sometimes because she has very little filter when it comes to him. He knows almost everything about her, so she tends to talk without thinking when they are alone. It's the only time she does that.

He knows what she means. He's thought about it a thousand times. All they would have missed if Kathy had stayed pregnant. He'd been eighteen and arrogant and certain he and Olivia were going places, and he'd almost cost them their entire future. One time without a condom, and it had nearly cost him two olympics. It had nearly cost him Olivia, because without skating she'd have been out of his life for good back then. Maybe not now, but then, she'd been fifteen and living in a foreign country. They'd been skating in Toronto for two years by then. Her mom would have yanked her back here to New York so fast if their parents had found out how irresponsible he'd been. Not to mention, their career would have been over, so there'd have been no reason to stay in Canada anymore anyway. Even if he'd chosen not to be responsible for his child, which never would have happened, ice dance is not a sport that allows for imperfection. Image is everything in the world of competitive skating, and knocking up your high school girlfriend did not scream wholesome and pure.

He still senses slight unease in the way she seems to be holding herself in a perfect, rigid posture, and he attempts to relax her with a little humor. "Yeah, I'd be living in Queens with four or five little Stablers running around," he says, laughingly.

She can tell he's trying to infuse an air of dramatized horror into his voice, but she hears the thin strains of longing coming through as well. He is kidding, but she knows that's what he really wants, deep down. Not then, with Kathy, the teenage girlfriend who'd tragically miscarried his baby only weeks after conceiving it, but now...with someone. He wants a family. He's always wanted what his parents have. A home and a big family with lots of love and noise. She can't blame him, it sounds nice. She can picture him like that.

"That's what you want though..." It's meant to be a question, but it doesn't really come out as one.

"Someday," he concedes, carefully, feeling instinctively as though he should tread lightly here.

"Sooner rather than later though, right?" she asks, her dark eyes flicking up to his light ones briefly before flitting away again.

"Liv," he says her name, and then stops, unsure where he was going after that. He'd simply felt compelled to say her name. His heart beats a little faster, and he almost doesn't ask but then something pushes him forward, compelling him to just do it. Retirement is just around the corner, and they've been orbiting each other for twenty-two years. It's all about to come to an end, and there are things he needs to ask her, things he needs to know. He ignores her last question and instead asks, "You want those things, too, don't you?"

She shrugs, and her black eyes avoid his as she looks down her hands and begins slowly knotting the laces of her skates together. "I don't know. I think...maybe I'm just not built for that, you know?"

"What? Happiness?" he asks, trying to tease her out of that look he'd just seen in her eyes. The one that's now slowly eating away at him.

Again she shrugs. "Maybe," she says, as if it's quite feasible, and okay.

The fuck it is, he thinks.

"Hey," he says, sitting next to her on the long metal bench. He straddles the seat so he can face her. He palms her chin without question, because they are physical with each other, always. It's just part of who they are, how they are with each other. She stares up at him, waiting for him to say whatever it is he's got to say. She hopes it's something comforting because there's a pit forming in the lowest part of her stomach, and she'd give anything for him to make it go away. "What's going on with you?" he asks, concern evident in his voice, his eyes. "Is it your legs?" he asks, lifting her right one onto the bench between them and tracing his fingers over the thin white scar that runs the full length of her shin.

She nods, because her legs do hurt, and that's the easier pain to address.

He reaches under her leg and digs his thumb deep into her calf muscle, working the flesh in the exact way she needs him to in order to release the tension coiled there. She bites her bottom lip and drops her head forward, sighing.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" he asks, and she can hear the frustration in his voice. "We could've stopped an hour ago, Liv. You have to tell me when you're hurting." He uses his fingers to feel for the knots under her skin and then changes angles to work at them until they start to release. "Have you been back to the doctor?" he asks, easing her right leg back down to the floor and reaching for her left.

She raises it up onto the bench for him instead of making him lift it up there himself. "There's no point, El," she says, and he can hear the apology in her voice. "I've had surgery twice. I've learned to skate in a way that puts less stress on my calves. If that doesn't work..if my legs give out." She doesn't say again, but he hears the unspoken word just the same. "That's it."

"You're gonna be fine," he says, confidently, because having confidence in her, in them, is what he does. "You're skating so strong right now. You were amazing out there today. You just need to take it easy on yourself. We've got this, Liv" he says, his voice full of promise. He knows he can't guarantee her gold at the Olympics, they've had it once before, but they've also missed it by a hair. This is their last shot though, their final chance to go out as champions after a spectacular twenty-two year career. They're both ready to be finished with competing, and after everything, he wants to give her this. He wants them to go out on top. She deserves that. He does, too, he hopes, but he's damn sure she does.

She'd given up ballet to skate with him. She'd given up school and relationships. She'd let them cut her damn legs open. Twice. Two brutal surgeries and two hard-earned recoveries in order to keep skating with him.

He owed her this. The sport owed her this. She'd given it enough, and he planned to make sure this last Olympics was everything she needed it to be. He wanted this season to be everything she'd ever wanted.

He gives her leg one last squeeze, and says, "Want to grab some dinner?" He can see in her face she's beat, but she needs food, too. They both have to eat.

"Can we just order take out when we get home?" she asks. "Do you mind?" She really just wants to get back home and put her feet up, and they still have to walk two blocks to the subway, climb the stairs down and back up, and walk another three blocks to their apartment, every step of which is going to be excruciating tonight.

"Of course not," he says, looking almost offended that she'd even ask. "We can pick something up on the way, if you're starving, or just order once we get home." They usually get along pretty well about food. They enjoy the same things, typically, so sharing meals hasn't been an issue since they've been living together. He'd sublet his apartment three weeks prior in anticipation of being gone for an extended period of time for competition, and her apartment is paid for, so it makes sense for him to just stay with her until they leave for this last seasonal tour. She has plenty of room, and it's just her, usually.

The apartment is the one thing she'd received from the father she'd never known, and even then it'd come to her through a circuitous route, by first passing to her mother. Her mother had then left it to her when she'd died eight years ago of liver failure. Cirrhosis brought on by alcoholism, the doctor's had said.

It'd seemed strange to be an orphan at twenty-one, if you can call yourself an orphan when you're technically an adult. She'd felt like one though. If not for Elliot and his parents, Don and Bernadette, she'd have been completely alone in the world. It's one of the reasons why the thought of that ill-fated pregnancy back in high school still sends chills down her spine now, all these years later. That one misstep, and she was almost left with no one. She'd already lost her mom to the bottle by then if not quite yet to the grave, and there'd been no one else. From the age of seven, she'd built her entire life around skating, around Elliot, to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, and she had no idea who she'd be without him.

She looks at him now as he slings both their bags over his shoulder and reaches for her hand, and thinks that she still doesn't know.