Disclaimer: See previous.

Because the finale ended way too fast... picking up immediately.

"What a way to end."

"Yeah," Olivia agrees numbly. "Call Cragen, why don't you. And Warner."

He cuffs Stuckey first, behind his back, in case he comes around quickly, and maneuvers him near a drawer. "Liv –"

Wordlessly she tosses him her handcuffs. He cuffs Stuckey to the drawer handle and tries to remember what happened to his cell phone.

"You're sure you're okay?"

"Fine. Look." He turns toward her, indicates the red slashes on his shirt. "Barely bleeding."

"How about your head?"

"Notoriously hard." He spots his phone at the far end of the lab table and goes around so that he won't have to step over a body. Step by step, he's thinking; the hard part is over, thanks to Liv, and now they just have to follow the steps.

After placing the calls to the ME's office and his own captain, terse calls, we'll make our statements when you get here, he hears a small sound, not unlike a sob. He turns around and Olivia is kneeling beside O'Halloran, one hand over her mouth, as though she's ashamed of making such a noise. He has to walk all the way around the table again to kneel next to her, place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Liv," he says, but words aren't big enough for this loss. In this calm before the storm, the only words big enough for tonight are, "Thank you."

In short order chaos descends on the lab in the form of numerous crime scene techs, CSU's captain, the director of the labs, a few uniforms, and Don Cragen. Evidence is bagged: knife, gun, duct tape. Their captain is heard to mutter, before he even asks them what happened, "The paperwork on this is going to be incredible."

Olivia meets Warner at the door. "If you don't want to do this, just say the word," she says; she isn't sure how often Warner and O'Halloran crossed paths.

Melinda is calm, pale. "Out of my way," she says. "This one's mine."

By the time they've told the story once, they're exhausted. But the questions keep coming, from all sides, detectives, officers, techs, everyone wants a personal piece of the story.

The moment Olivia spots her partner trip over nothing, she's next to him, pressing him down onto a stool. "Melinda," she calls, "can you tell me if we should be worried about him?"

"I'm fine," Elliot says irritably; everyone who sees his shirt has been asking him if he's all right and he just wants to go home.

"We'll let the woman who went to medical school be the judge of that," Olivia says, irrelevantly because Warner is already peering into Elliot's eyes.

"Mild concussion, I think," she says when she straightens. "It's probably not too serious, but I'd feel better if you got it looked at." She glances down at his chest. "Might want to get some antibiotics too."

"That's it." Olivia folds her arms sternly. "We're going to the hospital. Now."

"Liv – "

"C'mon. It's close. I'll drive." Just close enough for him to hear she mutters, "It's not here."

Suddenly the prospect of not here is the most wonderful thing he can imagine. Dutifully Elliot follows his partner's lead.

"You're okay," she says to him, much later. The words curl at the corners, questioning.

"I'm okay," he echoes. "Thanks to you."

"Well."

"Liv."

"Yeah?"

"You were brilliant."

The morning dawns like any other. Then she gets to work and Munch presents her with an extra-large jug of mouthwash, wearing an extra-wide smile to match.

"Well, I'm glad someone's having fun," she says, then smiles back just because he's trying so hard.

"You know you want it."

"The nurses gave me a lifetime supply in those little travel bottles once I told them why I needed it." What she really needs now is a truckload of hand sanitizer. Last night she showered until she couldn't tell whether her palms were burning from the hot water, or from Stuckey's skin, or from the force of her own blows.

Elliot comes in then, spots the mouthwash, and grins. "I thought of that. Good thing I didn't get it, huh?"

"Shut up."

"Be nice. I'm under strict orders to bring you home for dinner tonight. It'll be more fun if we're nice."

"Bring her home?" Munch queries. "You make it sound like she's a stray."

"You're a great help, John."

"You're welcome."

Elliot shakes his head and looks straight at her, the way he did last night, trying to say a dozen things at once. "What do you say, Liv? We're grilling. Big fat burgers and whatever salad Dick comes up with. That part may or may not be edible."

"Whatever Dick comes up with?" she repeats.

"He's going through a cooking phase. Teenage boy. Food. What can I say?" He settles into his desk and suddenly smiles. "You know who will be really excited to see you?"

"Who?"

"Eli."

She grins in spite of herself. Who is she trying to fool, anyway? She knows she'll go for dinner, if only because she doesn't want to let her partner out of her sight any more than she has to.

Fin arrives then. "Turn on the news," he says, and Munch obeys. Predictably, the media have somehow got hold of the story: NYPD Scientist Murdered, reads the headline across the bottom of the screen. The newscaster knows far too much of the story. The name Stuckey rolls off his tongue as though it is already a catchphrase, already Spitzer, Blagojevich, Varney. The name O'Halloran is barely mentioned. So it goes.

Cragen brings the morning paper and she promptly clips the front page, O'Halloran's picture with the terrible headline. She tapes it to her desk blotter. This is what she's going to remember: that sides can change. To watch everyone. To never, ever assume.

Elliot and Olivia spend the morning buried in paperwork while the daily work of the unit goes on around them. Finally Cragen steps out of his office and looks at them. "Take a break, you two. Get some lunch."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Elliot sighs. Olivia taps her pen against her lower lip, shifts a stack of papers to look down at O'Halloran's face. She needs a break. She can't stop working.

"Liv," the captain says, but she doesn't look up.

"She's okay," she hears Elliot say, confident. "She kicked ass last night. It takes time to fully recover from that kind of brilliance."

"Ah. So that's why you have a smart mouth today? You're recovering?"

"Exactly. Hey Liv, think fast."

She catches it reflexively before recognizing it: a desk dispenser of Purell.

Elliot nods to the jug of Listerine still sitting on her desk. "Mouthwash was too obvious. Someone else was bound to come up with that."

"Not funny," she says, when really she's trying not to cry because somehow he knew exactly what she needed.

"C'mon," he says, "let's get out of here."

"So," he says on the way to his house, at a reasonable hour due to their alleged need to recover. "To warn you."

Olivia raises an eyebrow. "I have to be warned?"

"Yes. Kathy will hug you."

Finally the obvious occurs to her. "El…you talked to your wife. Didn't you?"

He glances her way, worried. "Should I not have?"

"You're an idiot," she manages, but by the end she's laughing so hard she can't breathe.

Elliot watches her cautiously. "So…"

At length she recovers enough to answer his unspoken question. "Good job."

"Really?"

"Keep that up, and you'll have an actual relationship again."

"I have a relationship," he says, trying to sound insulted.

"Yeah, and six months ago she was ready to walk out."

"Low blow."

"Sorry," she says unrepentantly. "You were warning me?"

"Yes. My wife, with whom I have a much better relationship, thank you, will hug you. The kids don't know what happened, but if Liz sees her mother hug you she'll get curious and ask all sorts of inappropriate questions. And then Dick, who is otherwise unobservant, will get curious. So get ready."

"I think I can handle your kids," she says comfortably, settling back into her seat. She can't remember the last time she was so excited about an evening.

"I think so too," he says. "You handled Stuckey, after all."

She groans. "You've really got to stop that, you know."

"Why?"

Because he spent all afternoon telling anyone who would listen that she'd pulled off the best bluff he'd ever seen. "It's embarrassing," she tries.

"So? I'm the one bragging here. See, I'm one of those crazy people who thinks everyone should know when something that amazing goes down."

"You're doing it again."

Elliot laughs and turns onto a quiet street. She's surprised to realize that they're almost there.

"El," she says when they pull into his driveway. Caught by her tone, he shuts off the ignition and just looks at her piercingly. As though he could divine all her thoughts but chooses not to, chooses only to look at what she needs him to know.

This is what saved his life last night.

"Thanks," she whispers. He searches her face, reading the list of things she's talking about: having her for dinner. Bragging for her. Giving her hand sanitizer. Not dying. In the face of all that, nothing she's ever hated him for is that important.

He knows this too, has known it all along: that while there are times she'd really love to smack him, she didn't mean any of it last night. He can read that, always. The unconscious does not lie.

Her partner offers her a quirk of a smile. "Hey," he says quietly. "Let's go."

-finis-

...And there you have it. The end of season ten.

However, season eleven is just around the corner. You can tell by the convenient habit these seasons have of coinciding with the school year, and thus by the truckload of mail I'm getting from college (eek!). I hope to do this again next year. I'll need a new song title...and of course proper encouragement. ::wink::

I simply had to leave Only Witness for a while to work on this. The next chapter will be coming soon though. This time I mean it.

Have a great summer, everyone, and pleeeeease review!