Author's Note: Inspiration Then I Did, a song by Rascal Flatts. Chance of Anything in This Story Actually Happening Zero. The point Take it all with a grain of salt, and enjoy.

Noah's Ark.

Prologue.

"What are you doing here?" Olivia crossed her arms across her chest after opening the door to see Elliot standing before her.

"I'm going crazy, Liv." He didn't wait for her to invite him in, but instead pushed past her and into her apartment.

"Elliot? What happened? Are the kids okay?" She closed the door behind him, every possible scenario running through her head. Olivia turned to see his back, and he stood tense for a moment before turning around quickly to face her, his blue eyes shielded behind a wall of emotion.

"She's moving. She's taking them away." He could barely choke the words out. After meeting earlier with Kathy she had told him of her plans; of her boyfriend and new life and house in North Carolina, of all the things she wanted from him but he could never give her, of how she was leaving him behind because she felt like he already had done so to her.

"Wait, what?" Elliot had told her about the separation, but she had assumed, like all the times before, that they would be able to move past it once again, but upon seeing the broken man before her it was clear that that was not going to happen this time.

"She met some guy, she wants to live on the water, so she's taking my kids – my fucking KIDS, and moving four states away!" He yelled, his face red with anger, and he looked Olivia over slowly, and she couldn't help but feel as if he were taking an inventory, trying to measure her up, see her worth.

"Elliot, calm down. El." She reached for him, but he swatted her hand away.

"How the fuck can I calm down, Olivia!?" He threw his head back and let out a growl before turning back to her.

"She can't do that, can she? I mean, she can't just take the kids, you love them." Olivia didn't know how to answer him, how to make this better, especially because she knew that this was out of her hands.

"Love means nothing, apparently. I'm not home enough. I'm not around enough. I don't care enough." He clenched his hands into fists and looked Olivia over once more. "Why am I here?" His eyes locked on hers, and Olivia felt her body go cold. Every feeling that she had ever had was so on edge that they were nearly fleeting, and she stood completely still, not even breathing for a few moments.

"Elliot, you need to talk to her, you can't let her do this, you need those kids." Need. He hung on that word, so caught up in everything that he did or did not need, so confused as to when or why or how he had stumbled across having to rank everything in his life that he needed – his wife, his children, his partner. You couldn't love everything, you couldn't love everyone. Kathy had looked at him, caught his eyes with her own and spoke slowly about how he could not love her and their children and Olivia.

She told him it was wrong.

Everything that he felt, everything that he knew was the only true thing in his life – she told him that it was wrong, she made him loose every sure thing that he had ever found.

And here was Olivia, her arms crossed nervously across her chest, her eyes scared for what he would or could or wanted to say, and he broke, again, another piece of him fell of somewhere along the road to wherever the fuck he was about to end up.

"I-I'm sorry." His voice shook now, his anger replaced by uncertainty and he turned quickly and ran past her, throwing the door open as he ran out, with her fast approaching.

"Elliot! Elliot, what the hell are you doing? Where are you going?" She called to his retreating form, but he didn't turn around, he needed to pretend that he hadn't heard her, needed to avoid her questions, her concern.

He needed to not need her so that he could have them.

The cruelest part of this was that someone made him think that he had ever had a choice.

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"I don't want to talk to you." Tonite her eyes were red, her betrayal streaming down her face, her eyes avoiding the confusion in his.

"I need to talk to you." He pushed past her once again, into her apartment, but she did not close the door, instead she waited for him to turn to her, holding the door open.

"Get out, Elliot, I don't think that there's anything left to say." Olivia sniffled, swatting at her tears.

"Olivia, please, listen to me. Just let me explain."

"I know why you did it, you chose them. Your family is leaving, so you have to follow, I get that. It's fine. I'm fine." Olivia shrugged, but her tears gave away her lie.

"Shut the door, Olivia. I'm not leaving. Fuck, yell at me, or something. Just talk to me." He begged, and she threw the door shut, walking past him quickly and sitting herself down on the couch.

He had resigned.

He would be gone tomorrow.

He had to follow his kids, he had to be near them, and he hoped that everything else would fall in to place.

"Liv." Elliot walked around the couch and sat down on the coffee table in front of her. "I am so sorry."

"I understand, Elliot. You need to be with your kids, I understand." And she did. She understood that this was what was best for him, for his family, but she hurt for the part of her that was foolish enough to think that he would never go because of her. Hurt for the part of her that lived for him, that thought that there was a chance for something, that she could ever be that important to him.

She didn't understand, however, how she had been called into Cragen's office, ambushed by him and Elliot and a resignation that she had never been told about until just then. She didn't understand how after six years of being together that is what they had come to - a cold goodbye in his office.

She couldn't watch him clean out his desk. She couldn't watch him take every piece of his life that had her in it and remove it. She couldn't acknowledge that this was happening.

She couldn't breath.

She didn't know how to be a cop without Elliot.

She didn't know how to live without being a cop.

She didn't know how to exist without loving them both, without having them both.

She ceased to exist when she came back to her desk 15 minutes after Elliot had left, his desk clear, mirroring everything that she was about to evolve into.

"I had to choose, Olivia, Jesus it wasn't easy, and I didn't know how to tell you, because I didn't want you to think that I chose anything over you."

"Of course you would chose your kids over me-"

"No!" He jumped up and began pacing back and forth in front of her. "I need both of you, my kids, you, I need you both the same." When he jumped up Olivia could smell the alcohol permeate through the air, the smell of cigarettes that fell from his clothing. "But how can I look at my nine year olds and tell them that I'm only going to see them one weekend a month? How can a father do that to his kids, Olivia?"

She never knew that the one thing she loved most about him would take him away from her. His commitment would tear them apart. She looked away from him, not wanting to answer his question because right now, she needed him. She has so fucked up that she needed him to help the pain the he was causing.

She wanted another answer than the logical one.

She wanted another choice than the responsible one.

"And to me?" Olivia felt selfish for asking, but if this is what it was going to come down to – if this single moment was going to be their last, if this was about to be goodbye, she needed to know, she needed to feel him and know him in one last moment of finality.

"Fuck, Olivia, I love you." He dropped to his knees in front of her and he reached for her, but she moved back, away from him. "Don't move away from me, Olivia, just, tonite, just don't-"

"How can you do this?" Her voice broke, and he reached for her face, wiping away her tears.

"I need you too, Christ I need all of you, but my kids, I just, God, Olivia," He hung his head, and she watched him cry, she watched his internal battle pour externally from him, and with all the strength she had left she reached for him, raised his head so that their eyes met, and she leaned down slowly, pressing herself into him.

"Walk out of here tonite, and know that I love you. Take that with you to wherever the hell you'll be tomorrow, Elliot Stabler." She broke their kiss, and he fell back off of his knees, collapsing to the ground.

"This isn't easy, Liv. Six years with you, and you were all I ever breathed." He clenched his jaw to try to keep his words inside, but he couldn't do it, "Fucking hell." He slammed his hand onto the wood floors, and she felt herself shake.

"Love me." This was all they had left.

He would leave in the morning and she would have to get over him, she would have to get past him and try to see something beyond Elliot Stabler and all of her idyllic notions. She would have to learn how to do this whole thing on her own.

She would regret everything.

She would have to. There would be no other way to reconcile this. Add him up as another regret and keep right on moving, at least she knew how to deal with regret.

Loss.

She could not - she would not be able to handle him as a loss.

"What?" He watched her crawl from the couch, and she pressed her lips to his once more, opening her mouth to let him inside and taste him – taste every dream she had had in the past six years.

"Love me." He didn't know what she was asking, if he was asking her to take her with him, in thought, in feeling, in everything. And he wanted to scream that he would, he wanted to take her off of her floor and put her with the rest of his things in a box labeled fragile and move her with him.

"Jesus, Olivia," He moaned, and she cried as she undid his belt, slid it off of his waist, and then stopped, looking to him expectantly.

"Love me." She said one last time, and he pressed his face to hers, their tears mixing to become undifferentiable.

And he did.

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