AN: I hope everyone out there is safe and healthy. It's been a wild and scary couple of weeks so hopefully this brings a bit of solace to what's happening in the world. Thank you to those who have left reviews - your kindness is very appreciated. To my beta E – you know you make my world go round.

It's been over a week since he's heard from her. It's Saturday afternoon and he had been in the middle of arguing with Eli about picking up his room when he had gotten the text.

Rudy's tonight at 9?

He stared at the words for a few moments, smiling. He was happy she had gotten back to him. He had let himself wonder whether or not she would agree and when he saw her request to meet him at an old bar they used to frequent, he had felt a sense of hope. His stomach kicked with excitement as he had typed back his response.

You buying?

His reply had gone unanswered but he was okay with that. He was actually meeting up with her later.

He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get his kid to go with him to the park to throw a football around instead of just playing the sport on a video game. He ultimately had given up; Eli had not been the least bit interested in leaving the house to bond with his old man. C'mon, dad. Luca and I made plans for this Madden marathon and we've been waiting all week. He had stared at his son who was sitting on the couch, with a headset around his head as he spoke with his friend through the microphone, not entirely sure what Eli was even talking about but he decided to cut his losses and let him continue his game.

He eventually settled in the kitchen, reading the newspaper before making dinner. Afterwards, he had paced back and forth in his apartment, much to his son's suspicious looks, trying to work out some of the nervous energy he felt about seeing her again.

It's now a quarter after nine and he's sitting in a booth in the back, waiting for her to arrive. He hears the door open and his eyes instantly find hers, his chest instinctually takes a deep breath at her appearance. He hasn't seen her in casual clothes in so long and she walks in wearing dark jeans and a pink sweater, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. He sees her give him a small smile and then she's making her way to him.

"Hi. Sorry I'm late. I had to read Noah a second bedtime story before he would let me leave."

He smiles. "It's okay. How're you doing?"

She sits down across from him and he signals for service. "Eh, hanging in there. We finally closed out the case we were working on so I'm happy to be able to enjoy the weekend with Noah."

The server makes his way to the table and introduces himself.

"Can I get whatever beer you've got that's nonalcoholic and," he motions towards Olivia. "Whatever the lady's having."

He watches her as she glances at the drink menu. She looks so soft and calm. Her hair is pulled up and her neck is visible and he feels the need to put his hand there. She orders a glass of red wine and then she's looking at him.

"Do you have plans for the weekend?"

A grin grows across his face as she attempts small talk. As if, at one time, he hadn't wondered if they shared the same soul. "I tried to get Eli out of the apartment earlier to throw a ball around but he's sucked into a video game."

She smiles and nods. "We haven't reached that stage yet, thankfully. I know it's coming, he plays on the iPad as much as I let him."

"Games have changed a lot since Pac Man, you know that right?"

Her eyes narrow with playful annoyance. "Watch it - you're older than me."

There is a reassuring comfort that always comes easily with her. Her voice is light and he hears a hint of laughter underneath and hates that he ever tried to live without it. For so long, she had been his anchor. She kept him from going over the edge and he knows that she's all too aware of the fucked up things that are in his head but she doesn't judge him for it.

"Have you kept in touch with anyone else from the station?"

He can see the hurt in her eyes. He knows that telling her that he had kept in contact with their old Captain had hurt her but he doesn't know how to tell her she's the only one who ever mattered without her running for the door.

The waiter delivers their drinks and they sit, taking their first sips in silence.

"No," he responds. When he speaks this time, his voice has dropped volume and he wants her to understand. Needs her to understand. "Just so you know, I didn't keep in contact with anyone. I phoned Cragen a coupla times and he helped set me up with AA."

She focuses on the table in front of her and she gives a small nod.

"And just because I didn't keep in contact with … anyone, doesn't mean I didn't want to." Her eyes rise up to land on his face and his gaze never wavers from her.

She swallows before averting her attention to one of the television screens above the bar. She sips her wine before looking at him once again. "I've gotta be honest, Elliot. I want to be angry. I've spent years pissed as hell at you for just leaving, for running away from our partnership and not even giving me a 'it was nice working with you'."

"Olivia," he interrupts.

"Twelve years. Twelve years, Elliot. And you couldn't even return one goddamn phone call."

His chest is heavy at the hurt that's written across her face. He sucks his bottom lip in his mouth, choosing his words carefully. "I didn't know how to face you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You saved my ass our entire partnership. You gave it everything you had. You saved my marriage and family multiple times. I let the job eat at me until I was a broken man, Liv. I took and I took and I never gave anything in return."

He can tell she's trying to decipher his words, her eyes are focused on him so he continues. "I half-assed everything – my marriage, the kids, our partnership. I was a selfish asshole, Olivia and it wasn't fair to anyone."

She's once again sipping from her glass. He watches as the last of the red liquid disappears between her lips and he thinks about sitting across from her in the squad room. He thinks of multiple cups of coffee, DD5s that went unfinished, her sharing her pickles with him. He thinks of sitting in the car, waiting for their perp to make an appearance, and how he would breathe in her lilac shampoo and his mind would wander to things that he had no damn right to be thinking about.

"I never blamed you, Elliot. The job was tough and you struggled with your family, but I always knew that you were doing the best that you could."

The guilt bottoms out in his stomach. She's still trying to take care of him after all this time.

"No, Olivia. I didn't. I was an absentee father. I told myself that as long as I was helping people that I was doing the right thing, but my kids needed me and I wasn't there. My wife raised four kids with very little help from me. She accepted less than anyone should ever have to. I quit the force, and yeah, of course I miss it. But I got my kids back," he sighs, taking a long drink of the fake beer he has become accustomed to. "Well, almost."

His therapist had assured him that this heavy feeling that comes with the thought of his daughter would become less suffocating as time passed. But so far, this heartache has only persisted. It's just not quite as raw anymore.

He realizes his eyes are closed and when he opens them, Olivia's staring right at him. He doesn't want her to feel sorry for him. He fucked up and lost, but she's the one who deserved more. "I regret how everything happened but I don't regret the outcome it gave me. I just wish it hadn't cost me so much."

She exhales and motions for the server. "I'm sorry things didn't work out with Kathy, El."

She still doesn't get it, he thinks. He chooses his next words carefully; he has to tread lightly or she might bolt. "I wasn't talking about Kathy, Liv." The words linger between them while he keeps his eyes focused on hers. "Kathy and I should've called it quits years ago. I let it go on for far too long and we both got hurt. What I lost... was you."

The server appears with a bottle of wine and begins refilling her glass. Elliot keeps his gaze on her and she's still looking at him even after the wine has been replenished and the guy has walked away. He notices her shallow breathing. The connection between them is beginning to border on intense when she finally breaks it; her eyes move to the television again and she's sipping her drink once more.

She's just finished her second glass of wine and he's telling her about how he's been doing private investigator work. She's grateful for the topic change because she needs a few moments to regroup. She wants to be angry at him. She told him she had been for a long time and it's true. If he came back a couple of years ago, she knows she would've told him to go to hell and wouldn't have bothered to stick around for an apology. She ponders on whether Simon and Ed have anything to do with the fact that she's feeling melancholy lately. She feels hyper aware of how fleeting life can be and how you just have to grab it and hold on so fucking tight so that it doesn't disappear.

She's scared at how comfortable she feels with him. She's already settled back in, as if no time has passed. She wants to be cautious. She feels like she's on uneven ground and she's not sure whether the next step is going to cause the world to crumble underneath her or not.

"It's mostly stalking unfaithful spouses and employees suspected of dipping in the till. But I get to make my own hours, I'm with Eli every weekend, and I don't have to worry anymore."

Worry. She knows exactly what he's talking about. Working Special Victims takes a piece of you that you don't ever get back. "Yeah, but you don't get to hear Fin complain about the lack of jelly donuts anymore."

He chuckles and she feels a jolt of electricity run down her spine. She's missed his laugh and after everything that's happened to him, she's just glad that he's laughing at all.

"That's true but I do get to pick the radio station in the car. Which means I've just about forgotten all the words to Glory Days."

She's the one laughing this time and she feels it deep in her gut. She hasn't laughed this hard in a while and it feels so good. "That's a damn shame."

He's laughing too and it feels old and new at the same time. She thinks about how he said he had lost her. She wonders if he had ever picked up the phone to call her or catalogued something in his head, while walking down the street because it had reminded him of her only to remember that she wasn't around to hear it.

She understands him losing control after the shooting. She's been there before, not as deep as he had been, but she knows what it's like to have guilt eat you alive. She went through new detectives, one after the other, saw Munch and Cragen retire, and that entire time she had been absolutely livid with him. He had abandoned her to pick up the pieces left in his wake and she had started to believe that maybe she didn't really know him after all.

But after hearing everything he's gone through, that anger began to dissipate. She's still hurt that he didn't reach out, but his life had turned to hell. He had been scared and he hadn't known what to do. She can't fault him for running away-because God knows she has the record for fleeing when anxious. She just wishes that he would've called, stopped by, anything.

She watches him request a glass of water from the wait staff and she hears a voice in her head. He's reaching out now. His water's being placed down in front of him and she finds herself reaching across the table and playing with the paper covering of the straw he's just unwrapped.

"So you spend your days now following around cheating husbands and playing Xbox? Got it."

He's laughing again and she feels a sense of pride that she's still able to elicit such a reaction out of him. She playfully tosses the paper that had been wrapped around her fingers at him. He picks it up and begins to twist it between his hands. "That's exactly what I do. Every once in a while, I hit the jackpot – I get to chase down a parolee who's jumped bail. On special days, I get my ass handed to me by Eli with a basketball. The retired life of a NYPD detective is more glamorous than it looks."

"Right," She's smirking and nodding. "So where does the extra gym time come in?"

He looks confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," she gestures with her hand toward him, her eyes roam across his torso. "You're huge."

She knows it's coming a second before it does. He has that look in his eyes and she's seen it dozens of times. His lips form a shit-eating grin.

"Oh yeah?"

He looks so smug and she wants to be annoyed, but she feels that familiar heat flow across her skin. She can feel her face warming and she wants to blame the wine for making her so loose lipped, but she knows it's his presence that has knocked her off her game.

She reaches up and tugs at her earlobe before she gives a small eye roll. "You're such an ass." The words slip out quietly and with a teasing tone.

His grin turns into a small smile. "I have a lot of extra time on my hands and uh, my therapist taught me to channel all of that anger and frustration into a healthier outlet. So I work out once, sometimes twice a day and I'm definitely keeping the gym around the corner from my place in business."

"You're different." The words are out before she can stop them.

"So are you."

Touché, she wants to say. It's strange to know so much about a person, but at the same time feel like you don't know anything. She knows she's changed in the last decade. She'd been damn near destroyed and she's worked hard to come back from that. Noah had been her saving grace and had helped save her from torment that had been inflicted on her. Her stomach sinks at the thought of having that conversation with Elliot, but she immediately pushes the thought away. She's nowhere near ready to broach that topic with him and she's not sure she ever will. Besides, it's been nice sitting with him tonight and letting herself feel like the woman she used to be.

"Tell me something that I don't know."

He's once again saved her from her own thoughts. "Like what?"

"Anything."

She tilts her head a bit as she thinks. She could say something about Noah or work but she feels like sharing a piece of herself with him. "I took cooking classes when Noah was a baby."

His face lights up. "Yeah? How'd it go?"

"Pretty good. I'm no Julia Child but I can make a mean eggplant parmigiana." He's smiling again. He seems to do that so easily now. "Your turn."

He's sporting a sly grin. "Last fall, when Dickie was home on leave, he convinced me to go out with him one night. He wanted to go to a club, but there was no way in hell that was happening, so I settled on a karaoke bar."

She feels her face lift in amusement. She already knows the answer to the question she is about to ask, his grin telling her that yes, his son was successful in getting him to perform. So she goes with her next question. "What song did you sing?"

He chews on his tongue for a moment before speaking. "Glory Days."

She's laughing again. And he joins her. Their laughter fills all the empty space of the bar and she can't remember the last time she's heard something so melodic.

She doesn't know what's going to happen in the future; if they'll ever be friends again, but she lets herself live in this moment. Over twenty years later and he's still giving her that look-the one that acknowledges he's her equal, and he'll go through hell and high water to have her back.

He's paid the tab and they're making their way out the door and onto the sidewalk when he turns to face her. "Thank you. For coming out."

"Yeah." She replies quietly. It's beginning to drizzle and the lights from the cars passing by them mix with the water droplets; a hazy, soft glow surrounding them. She takes a sharp breath and straightens her bag strap on her shoulder. "I should get going."

"Hey Liv?"

She had already begun turning to walk away, but she stops short at the sound of his voice and locks eyes with him. "Yeah?"

"I missed you so much."

She has to keep moving. She can feel the noise making its way up her throat. She has to go before it escapes. Her eyes roam his face and with a quick nod, she whispers, "Good night, El." She turns and goes and she doesn't look back. She can't.

TBC...