A/N: Have written fanfiction in previous lives but after leaping into SVU fandom after bingeing the show these past few weeks, felt the urge to dip my toes into these murky waters. Feedback, positive or negative, is more than welcome and appreciated. Not good at writing chapters or, really, anything of any length, so keep those expectations low when it comes to the word count. XD

And what if time doesn't do what it's supposed to do?
What if I never get over you?

She's imagined it more than a hundred times over the years, the thought of what she would say creeping into her mind even when she's been fiercely dedicated to banishing him in the permanent way he so clearly banished her. Sometimes Olivia lets the righteous anger fill her up, fill in her cracks and gaps, and uses it to close cases, and in those moment she resents that even after all this time, there's a part of him still here with her helping her, even if it's only the memory of what he'd proved not to be.

You didn't always know best, she'd say, all cold and ice and self-control. A finger jabbing into his hard chest. You didn't even say goodbye. You didn't bother returning my calls. Stone-faced, no vulnerability, accusatory. What, you thought I wouldn't move on? I have a family now. I don't miss you. I don't even think of you. Sometimes, in her dreams, she slips. I loved you.

When the day comes, the inevitable day, she doesn't say any of it. She swallows the words, the recriminations, and even the urge to shake answers out of him. If she'd been on top of things, she would've known, of course, but Noah had woken up with a sniffly nose and refused to go to school and her mind had been more concentrated on her next cup of coffee than the fourth file atop her slightly cluttered desk.

In films, there's always an instant recognition of presence, but it takes five knocks and a clearing of his throat before Olivia looks up and sees him, one foot in the squad room and one in her office.

"Captain Benson," he says, and the words sound foreign and wrong coming from his mouth. It's a reminder of the ways she's changed, grown, but also of what she's lost. And it's painful in a way she hadn't expected. He's not the same, of course, but she'd known that already. They haven't crossed paths for nine years, but she's seen him in bulletins, online, and even on the news once or twice in the past year. They hadn't prepared her for his eyes.

"Stabler."

Olivia's proud of herself for the way her voice doesn't quiver, doesn't betray the way she's spending precious seconds cataloguing all the changes in him: the captain's badge he wears, the way his chest is broader, how he can't quite meet her gaze. Elliot doesn't correct her, doesn't call attention to the way she omitted his title, and she wonders if he can still read her mood at all, knows how close she is to the edge.

"A case?" she asks. As if it would be anything else. Hey, El, drop by for a casual chat? To invite me out for a beer? She clears her throat, looks down at her desk and purposely and quickly scans the files Fin has left on her desk. Ah. Fuck.

She hears the door close.

"I don't think I told you to do that," Olivia says sharply. I'm in control. My squad, my room. "Open it."

Instead, Elliot moves to the chair on the other side of her desk, stands behind it, looking down at her and she feels small. She hates it when he makes - made - her feel that way. "Liv…"

"No."

He offers her an apologetic smile, and the way the corner of his mouth tilts up is so familiar that she can feel her stomach clenching as if it remembers. She doesn't. She refuses to.

"I assume we're going to be working together on this," she says, gesturing to the open file, the list of names crying out to her. "I assume I don't have a choice."

He winces at that, and she's glad. He deserves worse, so much worse. A hesitant nod, another apology on his lips.

When he'd first left the squad, left her, she'd wanted his apologies, had wanted him on his knees begging for mercy, giving her an explanation that made sense, that she could accept. Instead, there'd been an unearthly, unholy silence from the man she'd thought she knew better than anyone else in the world, the man who knew her just as well.

"Fin wouldn't even say hello." Elliot grimaces. "Guess I deserve that."

She won't offer him absolution.

"Can I sit down?" He doesn't wait for an answer, and she's absurdly glad that at least part of him is still the same with her. "Do we need to clear the air before we…" He tilts his head back to the squadroom.

Yes, she wants to say, of course we do. How do you expect us to work together? How!? Instead, she shakes her head. "No. It's in the past. It doesn't matter."

She tries not to lie. Sometimes it's necessary.

Elliot seems to accept her answer and she's not sure if it's because he actually believes it or he doesn't want to make this harder than it has to be. It doesn't matter.

Another lie.

"Just brief me."