Chapter Seven: The Morning After

Elliot arrived in the squad room the next day with such a spring in his step that it almost seemed as if he were dancing. The humming, something suspiciously close to "That's Amore" if Olivia wasn't mistaken, added to the illusion, and the grin on his face and the sparkle in his eyes told her she had done the right thing. He was carrying a box from their favorite bakery in his hands, and the wonderful odors emanating from it told her the donuts were still warm and the coffee was scalding hot.

"Good morning, gorgeous!" he said taking a small bag out of his box and plonking it on her desk as he handed her a cup of coffee. "One crueller, one chocolate glazed with coconut, and the coffee has cream and two sugars."

"Thank you!" Liv grinned, suspecting that she had some idea of what had made him so cheerful.

He continued humming as he breezed past her desk, box in hand, and delivered similar treats to Fin and Munch. Then he went over to the coffee machine where he sat a dozen glazed donuts for the rest of their colleagues before delivering a goodie bag to their captain's office.

As he returned to the squad room and headed toward his desk, Munch swiveled in his chair to ask, "Who are you and what have you done with Detective Stabler?"

Elliot stopped and frowned for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Clearly someone has abducted our colleague and replaced him with an operative who is compulsively, disgustingly, offensively . . . "

"Cheerful," Fin supplied when John paused to search for the right word.

"Chipper!" Liv kicked in.

"Ebullient," John decided, having to outdo them both as if it were vocabulary competition.

Elliot sighed contentedly and tried for a moment to stop grinning like a jackass, but he couldn't help himself. So, he just said enigmatically, "Never underestimate the healing powers of a quiet night in."

Olivia turned away from the guys and shoved half her crueller in her mouth to prevent adding, 'or getting laid' to his statement. As Elliot came to sit across from her, she pretended to be absorbed in the file she was working on to keep from laughing at him. Naturally, she was pleased that Kathy's plan had worked so well, but he was acting like a big, goofy kid in love, and it was so not like the Elliot she knew that she couldn't help being amused.

By the time she was actually focused on her report again, he was humming once more, something she recognized from the seventies, and even worse, or better, depending on how you looked at it, very softly singing a few lines of the lyrics now and then.

We spent the whole night talkin'.
You said you'd like to see the sunrise,
But in the gold of mornin'
Was nothin' I had not seen in your eyes.
Hm-mmm-mm-mmmm
I was so afraid to touch you,
Thought you were too young too know,
So, I just watched you sleepin'.
Then, you woke and said to me
The night is cold
It frightens me,
And I could sleep so easy next to you.

Daah-dahdahdahdahDa-ah, dah-dah

Hm-Hmm-Hmm-Hmm-Hm-Hm-Hmm-mm-hmm

Olivia really tried to concentrate on her work, but her partner was making it impossible. Finally, she put the folder down, gave up all pretense of reading, and watched him. It took perhaps a minute for him to notice the attention he was receiving, and when he looked up, all he could say was, "What?"

She had intended to just tell him to be quiet, but there he was, smiling happily at her, oblivious of the joy that was just rolling off him in waves, and she couldn't bear to burst that bubble, so she complimented him instead.

"I never knew you had such a great singing voice," she said.

"Oh, sorry," he blushed.

She smiled. "It's all right."

"Oh, hey, how was your dinner with Richard?" he inquired. "Sorry I didn't ask sooner."

"It was nice," she told him, "thanks for asking." It wasn't really a lie. She and her current boyfriend had enjoyed a pleasant evening of Chinese takeout and a movie at his place when she had called him at the last minute and found he was free. Then, though she wasn't being completely honest with her partner, she couldn't resist letting him know she had caught him in a fib. "How was the steak?"

"Great!" he said. "And she made baked potatoes and tiramisu. It was . . . really . . . nice." He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and leaned toward her as if to scrutinize her more carefully. She winked, and he sat back in surprise. Then he looked surreptitiously around, and seeing that no one was paying them any attention, jerked his head in the direction of the main entrance to the squad room.

Out in the hall he and Olivia sat side-by-side on the wide windowsill watching the people come and go. It was the perfect place for a private conversation because no one walking past could eavesdrop without stopping, and as long as they kept their voices low, people waiting for the elevator wouldn't overhear them.

"You know, four or five years ago we sat right here and you told me I would lose everything if I didn't stop shutting people out, do you remember that?" he asked.

Olivia gave it some thought and then nodded. "Yeah. I was worried that you or Kathy was having an affair."

"Well, you were wrong about the affair, but I did lose everything," he said.

"I know," Liv replied sympathetically. It had hurt her to see how much he had suffered over the past year, and she knew, no matter what happened between him and Kathy, Elliot would never forget that pain. It could be a good thing for them or a bad thing, depending on how he handled it. If they succeeded in getting back together, she hoped he would do the smart thing and use it to remind him of how lucky he was to have his wife and family.

"I think you know who was at the house when I got home last night," he told her.

"Yeah."

He cast her a sideways glance and asked, "How long have you two been in cahoots?"

"She called me the first time about a month after you'd been shot to ask how you were doing, and I told her the truth, that you were healing physically but that emotionally, it was anybody's guess."

"And?"

Liv shrugged. "And she called two or three more times after that, just to check on you. I finally told her to talk to you because I wasn't comfortable with going behind your back. I didn't hear from her again until she called last night to tell me she was waiting for you at home. All I did was make sure you got there. So, how did it go?"

Suddenly he was beaming like a teenager in love again. "It went really well," he said. "We're gonna try one more time, but we're keeping it a secret for now. We don't want to get the kids' hopes up too soon, just in case we screw it up again."

Liv nodded. "I won't say a word," she promised, "but you're gonna have to do something about the grinning and the singing real fast or other people are gonna start asking questions."

He laughed a little and said, "Yeah, I know, but as soon as we get another case, I think that will change."

"I suppose so," she replied. Their job was always stressful and often very sad. Soon enough, he wouldn't have anything to sing about.

"You know, I'll have my twenty in later this year," he told her.

Olivia just nodded. He had pulled rank on her a couple of times in the past, most notably when he had gone behind her back and requested a protective detail because Eric Plummer, a wrongly convicted suspect from one of her old cases, was stalking her, but usually they worked as equal partners and his seniority had no bearing on their relationship. Suddenly alert, she narrowed her eyes and looked at him.

"Is there a reason you're telling me that?" she asked.

He sighed and turned to look out the window. It was raining lightly and he traced the path of a water droplet all the way down to the sill before he answered.

"I haven't mentioned it to Kathy yet. It all depends on how things go from here, but if I have to choose between my job and my family . . . "

He swallowed audibly and took a deep breath before continuing.

"I made the wrong choice once before, Liv," he said quietly. "I'm not gonna screw it up again."

Olivia turned to watch the rain with him, cleared the frog from her throat, and said, "If it comes to that, I'll miss you, but my voice will be the loudest one telling you to take your pension and get out. Just don't look at it as all or nothing, ok?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, SVU is a really tough assignment, especially if you want a personal life. That's why it's an all-volunteer squad. You could transfer to homicide or some other unit, work cold cases, or try for a promotion to captain."

He laughed. "With my discipline record?"

"I didn't say it wouldn't be a long shot," she teased him. "But seriously, El, I'll stand behind you, no matter what you decide to do."

He nodded and smiled his appreciation. Then, they stood there quietly for a long moment. Olivia sensed there was something more her partner wanted to say, but he seemed strangely reluctant to speak. She watched him expectantly, but when he looked up and caught her gaze, he looked away again.

"Elliot, what is it?"

For a split second, a wild jumble of surreal scenes tumbled through is mind. Heimagined himself and Olivia making out in the sedan, of all places, and that was shattered by a vision of himselfroaring down the highway on a Harley leaving his whole world behind. Then his wife and kids were in the living room, waiting for him to come through the door. He closed his eyes to enjoy thatpicture privately for a bit, and he smiled.

"Elliot?"

He spent a few more seconds at home with his family, and then he sighed wistfully and looked at her. He held Olivia's gaze for a long while, hoping she could read the gratitude and affection in his eyes. Then he gave her a small smile and simply said, "Thank you."

She looked at him in confusion for a moment, and then seeing the hope and happiness in his eyes, she grinned and said, "You're welcome."

He jerked his head in the direction of the squad room and said, "Come on, let's get back to work."