Thanks to lowriseflare.

Buddies, that's what it's felt like lately.

They even took a break from background checks on a cold case last Monday to catch the last two quarters of the Jets/Ravens game even though neither one of them can understand how
Sanchez is quarterback. They ate bar food, they laughed.

They only talked about the case roughly half of the time.

Olivia feels maybe that some of the damage they've managed to inflict on one another over the past few years is beginning to yellow, beginning to fade. When the fought over the last hot wing Olivia had thought, 'Yeah, I can live with this.'

When he hands her a gelled ice pack courtesy of one of the EMTs, she accepts without looking up at him because she know what will happen: she'll try to keep the look of sheer vindication off of her face and he'll try not to smirk.

It'll hurt a little less, too, if she makes eye contact with Elliot and she's not entirely okay with that and never has been.

There won't be time to interview Weber tonight, and what would be the point? They've got enough to bury him under for years. Best to let him spend the night in lockup, wondering, wondering. It's customary that they stay on the scene before crime tech shows up, but that's the last of their obligations and the puts his hand on her lower back as they walk out of the apartment.

She doesn't need it, but she likes it. It's nice.

They're buddies, sure. He gives her a lift home because her knuckles swell painfully and she's no longer too proud to pretend it doesn't hurt. It fucking smarts.

"This is why," Olivia reminds him, "I don't date. Things like this." The fact that she offers this up freely shocks her as sure as she is that it shocks him. Something they don't talk about : personal lives. Not any more. Somewhere between the time that he admitted that she was more to him than a partner and her return from the northwest, it became an unspoken rule.

Elliot takes a big swing at her pitch though, "Trust issues?"

"You could say that," it's spoken to the window and her breath fogs up the glass, early evening chill having settled over the city. She's glad for it, she can settle further into herself and blame it on the cold.

His hand reaches across the console and lays on her knee for the briefest of seconds. Elliot doesn't know what to say and so he leaves it, and that's fine.

They're still finding their footing with this buddy thing, anyway.

Baby steps.

There's no desire to drown any of the countless sorrows she has in a tall, cold one. Instead, she gives into the desire to slip down, nose-level into a steaming bath. There aren't any candles, and the light remains on and she forgets to close the toilet lid and gets a glimpse of the grime she's been too busy to clean from the bowl.

There's always something, she reasons, and dumps some fantastically pungent oil into the water. Spicy, reminds her of, well, her partner but that's probably because most things do nowadays.

Olivia eases the back of her hand down into the water and bites her lip hard when the exposed nerves scream. It's penance, or something like it for something she's sure she'll feel guilty about later. But she's gotten better about this over the years, putting things out of her head, following up with therapy appointments.

Olivia feels nearly like a normal human being, just one with a lot more sadness; it's as close to the balance as she's going to strike.

The bubbles pop coolly against her skin and she sinks lower into the tub. This is as close to relaxed as she'll ever be, she's sure. And so she makes a pact with her inner voice to enjoy this, and if not enjoy it, at least not think about her day.

She'll think about today tomorrow. And tomorrow, she'll think about that on the next day. But she can't help thinking about it now, just for a second.

That singular moment is enough to undo all of her hard work repressing.

She doesn't know how many times he knocks before he uses the key, but she's startled for only a moment when she hears it working in the door. It's his footfalls as he enters that declare his identity, she'd know them anywhere, and for some reason, she makes no move to sit up, get out of the bath, clothe herself.

It's just not in the cards.

"Liv?" his voice is tight, and she imagines that perhaps his hand is at his holster, eyes darting around for any sign of her presence. It doesn't much matter why he came back, just that he did and he's here and she's in a bathtub with a busted hand and the rising emotion in her throat.

Who knew she'd feel so thoroughly like a failure in so many ways she can't put her finger on.

"In here!" she manages and still, does nothing to right the situation she's in. Her yell stirs the haphazard bubbles that she managed to negotiate from the bath gels. This is indecent, this is improper, this is no way to meet your partner of twelve years who you may or may not have feelings for and whom you're nearly positive may or may not have feelings for you.

Olivia hears the metal-on-leather slide and smiles. Reholstering his weapon; it's comforting that there's something in her life that's predictable.

"Got all the way to Queens before I saw your wallet on the-" he pauses at the door, realizing that it's her bathroom. Whether he's unsure or uncomfortable or both, she can't say. "Are you..."

"You can come in," her voice is tight but lazy, and it sounds too thick to be her own. She adds, to assuage the surprise of her current situation. "Be forewarned, I'm up to my neck in bubbles."

For some reason, that's okay, and he thinks it's okay, because he pushes the door slowly open and meets her eyes with his gaze. Amused.

"Winding down?" Elliot asks, keeping his eyes on her face, which she appreciates more than he'll know.

Olivia blinks. It's suddenly the only scenario she could imagine taking place in this moment, but it's too surreal. If she could summon the strength, she would cackle from the absurdity of it. Instead, she responds, "Had to do something."

That's fair, and he accepts it at face value. Seems only appropriate. They stare for a moment until he moves to get more comfortable. And why shouldn't he? Olivia is completely nude in front of him, shielded only by the wonder that is bubble bath.

This is something out of a terrible pornographic film, or something that might happen on sex and the city; it's something that she would never have bothered to fathom could ever happen in the shaky reality they share.

But hey, it is happening, so she goes along with it. Fate's sometimes funny like that.

Elliot slides a finger between his tie and his shirt and loosens the accessory. He's on the floor with his back to the tub before she can properly process what he's doing. "This is a better way to deal with today than I would have come up with."

Oh, how she knows him, her buddy. "You would have gone round for round with a punching bag."

Elliot looks haphazardly over her shoulder, his face a mask of amused aloof. "With a busted hand?"

"Like that doesn't sound like you."

Touche.

It's silent for a long, long time. The water sloshes ever so slightly and the paper-wispy sound of the bubbles lapping and disappearing is the only sound that registers. It's strange, that she doesn't feel more exposed, more vulnerable. It's strange that she feels just fine, laying behind him, naked, a woman that's not his wife.

It seems that after twelve years, if this is the worst that's happened...

It is... unbearably intimate. When she slips her injured hand along the edge of the tub, fingers pruney, a touch of moisture grips his collar and spreads. She watches it until it exhausts and then she finds herself staring at the back of his neck, the way his throat moves when he swallows, breathes.

If this is where it's all lead them, if this is where they're supposed to be, well, this is the best possible outcome, really. Him on the floor of her bathroom, just sitting and waiting in case he needs her. And she doesn't have to speak unless she wants to.

Olivia wishes it had been like this forever but she wouldn't have changed a thing. Can't have it both ways, such a cliche.

"I was thinking of a pizza, thinking of ordering one the whole way home and then your damn wallet," Elliot breaks in quietly. It startles her; water laps at the edge of the porcelain and soaks his shirt further. He makes no move to avoid it further.

'You didn't have to bring it back tonight,' she wants to say. 'What would I possibly have needed it for?' Well, he could have done a lot of things instead of coming all the way back to Brooklyn, but she's glad that's what happened.

Instead of any of that, Olivia concedes, "I mean, I could go for pizza."

"I'll make the call," and he's tossing her a towel and stopping for a moment to look at her before he steps out of the room.

Olivia glances down.

The bubbles are all but gone.

And even tonight, like this, it feels like the smallest of small steps towards absolution.