Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or anything else you recognize.

Takes place after Spooked, because Dean Porter had more of an impact than that. Continuous with my post-ep for the same, but you don't need to have read that. I'm not very happy with how it turned out, but it's been hanging around my life for too long not to post.

Olivia nurses her anger. She boils it down to its components and carries it around, nestled beneath her breastbone where it is safe. She picks it apart when she has the time, turns it over and over, memorizes its contours and sharp edges. She purifies it, funnels it, focuses it on the only target she has left.

With him, anger is practically a natural state of being.

It's certainly a hell of a lot easier than grief.

Usually, when Benson and Stabler are having one of their periodic smackdowns, the entire precinct knows exactly why. It's their celebrity gossip and office grapevine rolled into one, their escape; because in their line of work they have few stories to relate that are not somehow related to work.

Benson and Stabler are thought by some to be legendary – hence the perverse satisfaction those who work with them gain in watching them crack and reveal their humanity, pink and tender underneath.

So usually they know.

And so it's even more interesting that no-one knows what brought this particular conflict up. Not even Stabler.

Elliot isn't stupid.

Just a little slow on the uptake, sometimes – this morning being one of those times.

In his defense, he thinks – although he is currently defending himself only to his own head, it tends to be a good idea to get these arguments in order – in his defense, Olivia has chosen today to be difficult to read. It's not like he didn't notice, first thing, that she was a little off with him, a little cold. But that could just as easily have meant that she hadn't had her coffee yet.

So it's not until afternoon, when she's still snapping at him but not at the others, that he realizes – she's actually mad at him. He has no idea why; but it's the only rational explanation for her patience with Munch at his most annoying, coupled with the glare she gives Elliot when he goes to refill both their coffee cups.

Why? Why?

He's still not stupid, though. Just ignorant. He thinks.

Days pass, cases pile up, and speculation in the one-six grows increasingly circular.

Elliot is biding his time for once, although every once in a while she catches him giving her searching looks. Munch, on the other hand, has become very persistent. She suspects that he just likes the idea of knowing something about her that Elliot doesn't, which is a stupid goal because John already understands a million things in ways their partners never will. But whatever his motivation, his constant query ("So what did Elliot do this time?") has driven her so far up the wall that she can't look at him without thinking of Dean.

Which is messed up because she doesn't want to think about Dean, but she would like not to avoid John. There's a way about him that usually makes her feel better.

She invites Alex out for a drink because Alex is the only safe one left – ignorance is bliss, she supposes, particularly for the object of said ignorance. Alex agrees enthusiastically and mentions several times during the evening how long it's been since they had a girls' night out. She doesn't notice that anything's wrong.

This is of course exactly what Olivia wanted. Of course it is.

But she can't go on this way forever. Sooner or later a case always comes up to poke her where she's bruised, and this one comes within the week.

The investigation, like so many, begins with a dead prostitute in Warner's lab. Melinda doesn't yet have much in the way of leads to give them, but they're both too drained to complain.

As they start to leave Warner holds Olivia back, and Elliot does the tactful thing and leaves the room. He then does the untactful thing and attempts to listen at the door.

"…all right?" Melinda is saying.

"Fine," Olivia says, predictably.

"Right. What did he do this time?"

"Melinda…" She sighs. "You know how men can be."

"You mean, men in general or men in what they call a man's world… ah. Stupid and patronizing."

"Told you you knew."

Elliot tries to remember being stupid or patronizing in the recent past. He can't. But maybe that's because he's stupid.

He's concentrating so hard on this that he almost misses her footsteps as they approach the door and has to jump back and quickly assume his best thinking-about-the-case expression. Olivia looks at him suspiciously anyway, but she says nothing.

As murder cases go, this one is on the easy side. It isn't long before they've built up some solid evidence against their victim's last client and have the man and his fiancé stewing in separate interrogation rooms. All they're waiting for is the lab results, which by the grace of some higher power come back positive.

Olivia goes to break the news to the fiancé, Jenna, because she's been dealing with her all along and this needs to be done carefully: they're still not sure if Jenna is involved. She starts simply: "Dan's DNA is a match, Jenna."

"I don't believe you." The response is automatic, assured.

It breaks her heart. She slides the folder across the table so Jenna can see the report for herself.

"It's a mistake," Jenna says after staring at the page for a moment.

"No," Olivia says, "it's not."

"Yes it is – it has to be."

Well, they could play the "is-not-is-so" game for an hour and it wouldn't do any good. "I know it's hard," she starts, but Jenna cuts her off.

"No, you don't understand. I love him."

It's far from the first time that she's heard that one, but all the same it takes her breath away.

"I know," she says, her voice sounding strange even to herself. "The thing is, even the people we care about can do terrible things. And we just… there's nothing we can do about it."

"He wouldn't," Jenna says, angry. "We have a future. That's what matters. That we love each other."

Olivia gets up and leaves. She's so far from actually thinking about this, driven by an instinct strange even to herself, that she leaves her folders behind; and when Cragen calls after her she barely hears him.

She ends up in the deserted locker room, where she falls onto a bench and stares into her locker.

She did not love Dean Porter – they didn't have enough time for that. Olivia does not believe in fairy tales. But she could have loved him, would have loved him, if she'd had the chance; and the really crazy part is that he might have loved her too.

As relationships go, this is the best she's gotten in decades. And now it's gone.

She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, refuses to cry over something she never really had; but she keeps thinking of Dean there, on her couch, close enough to touch. Close enough that she should have held on to him.

It occurs to her that that wasn't why she'd invited him over, but as always she pushes the thought away, shoves it back into its box in the corner with all the other things she never thinks about. It's so much easier if it's all his fault. He should have stayed there forever.

No. This will get her nothing except melodrama. She won't, she can't think like this.

"Liv."

So Elliot has found her. She doesn't have the energy to be surprised.

"Liv," he says again, insistently, so that she looks up in time to see him straddle the bench. Considering the way she's been treating him, he's looking at her far too kindly. It's a face that's rarely trained on her.

"Elliot," she sighs, but she has nothing else to say without knowing what he's up to.

"I saw what happened in there," he says.

Was he standing next to Cragen? Probably. She didn't notice at the time. "Nothing happened in there," she says. "I just… needed some air."

It's the single lamest excuse she's ever come up with. What's wrong with her?

"She didn't know," she says.

"I think so too. If nothing had happened, you'd still be acting like you were mad at me."

"I am mad at you," she says, half-heartedly.

Elliot smirks, yeah sure, but his eyes are gentle. She spends a moment wondering how he can pull that one off.

"Look," he starts, and falters.

Their relationship is so far past awkward that even awkward moments are comfortable – she ponders this for another long moment, until he lets out an exasperated puff of air and says, "Are you okay?"

Suddenly she remembers the parking lot. Dean may have saved her life, but it was Elliot who was at her side before she fully understood what had happened. It was Elliot who picked her up when she was too shaken to move on her own.

"Liv?" he says.

She gets up and walks right past him out of the room.

Fin is the first to leave tonight, then Cragen, and finally John. Elliot, who most often cuts out towards the beginning of the procession, remains in his chair, half an eye on his partner. It's not like there isn't always work to do. In fact there's so much that he's practically fooled himself into thinking that's his reason for hanging around.

"El," she says after a while.

Remembering now why he's still here, he looks at her even though she hasn't glanced up. The way she said his name is enough of a signal anyway. "What's up?"

She taps her pen on her desk. "You really still believe in God?"

Right then he decides not to think too hard about this, because she's confusing him already. "Yeah, of course."

"How?"

"Well, isn't that the million dollar question." He looks down at his work. Don't think too hard. "It's not something with a reason, Liv. There is no how or why. There just is."

"That makes no sense."

"Yeah, well, sense – "

"Is overrated. I know."

He smiles. "See, you're halfway there yourself."

"Your religion," she says, "it has to say something about why…"

"I dunno, actually. One of the saints did…"

"Not why there is a God. Why…"

Elliot considers her, her shoulders hunched over her work. "Why bad things happen to good people?"

She exhales sharply. "Yeah, let's go with that."

It's close enough: she wants to know why she doesn't get someone. "You know," he says frankly, "I can't believe we never talked about this before."

"There's no place for God in the NYPD."

He disagrees, actually, but these conversations, between them, are best kept to a minimum and if he gets into that they won't touch on what she's really asking.

On cue she mutters, "You know what, never mind. It was stupid."

"Liv – "

"Forget it."

He would like to tell her that there's someone out there for everyone, that she'll find him eventually; but he doesn't believe that himself and she's not his daughter, she can sniff out his lies before they get started. And anyway, what if Dean Porter was that man? No-one else has ever made her light up like that just by walking into a room.

What he would really like to do, actually, is get his hands on Porter, preferably tight around his throat; but she might never forgive him for that.

He has to tell her something, but none of the things she needs to hear are in their accepted vocabulary.

A few minutes later, while he's still pondering this, she starts to pack up. It's been a while since he's been the last one working. He's kind of proud of himself.

"So can we stop fighting now?" he asks before she can stand.

"Hmm," she says, non-committal.

"Although," he corrects himself, "we weren't. It was sort of one-sided."

"I didn't say we could put it in the past tense." She props her chin in her hands and looks at him frankly. Each other's full attention is not something either of them is used to having: it sucks the air out of the room.

"For what it's worth," he says, before he can change his mind. "He'd've been lucky to have you."

Olivia blinks, tries to act as though she doesn't know what he's talking about.

"It'll work out," he says. "Maybe not the way you expected or hoped, but it will work out somehow."

Her eyes skitter around, avoiding his. "That's what your religion would say?"

"Well. There's a few more mentions of God in there, but yeah."

She looks at her desk, smiles slightly, and stands up. "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah," he says, and she's gone before he remembers to ask if she's still mad at him.

She hadn't wanted to let him be nice to her. She's thinking about this now because it's occurred to her how stupid it is. Just because he was a jerk before, he lost the right to be sympathetic once Dean was gone?

Yes, some corner in her whispers. She won't put up with just anybody feeling sorry for her. Elliot can lose the privilege just like anyone else.

Except he can't, and he knows it, and she knows it.

It all seems stupid now that the anger has melted. Anger takes energy and she barely has any left for herself, so she might as well give in. He can try to be nice. It makes him feel better, at any rate.

This is what she tells herself.

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