Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.

Olivia looked down at the cup of coffee in her hand. Her partner did the same.

It was quiet between them more often than not these days. Not the easy quiet they had found through years of friendship and trust, through countless hours passed together in department-issued sedans. It felt strained, unfamiliar.

Elliot wasn't overtly angry, but bitterness and frustration seemed to simmer in him all the time. He had gotten lost, somehow, in his own life. He wasn't exactly upset that his marriage had ended, more surprised. He'd known since he was a teenager that being married to Kathy was simply what he was supposed to do. Good, bad … it simply was.

The children were a gift of course. He still couldn't fathom that he'd had a hand in creating these incredible new souls. They were growing up now, though, and just as they should, away. That's a father's job, and a mother's. To love a child, shelter her. Inspire her. Ready her to push her way into a life of her own in the world.

With each step the children took toward those early adult years, space was opened up inside the marriage for Elliot and for Kathy. Space that should have been filled by them getting to know each other again, love each other again here on this far side of child rearing. Instead, they found nothing. Just empty space that neither one of them felt the urge to fill.

Some part of him had wanted to go out and have a crash-and-burn affair, or wished that Kathy had. Something to tear the marriage decisively apart. Though far from noble, that would at least have been easy to explain. People had affairs all the time. Even in marriages that, like theirs, had stood for decades. We all know it happens.

Instead, it was something infinitely more slow, more dreadful, and difficult to justify. They simply didn't love each other anymore. Worse, they didn't want to try to love each other anymore.

The painful, drawn-out months of the marriage's collapse and ultimate legal demise had left Elliot exhausted. He'd always been a good sleeper, despite the stress of family life and a job that was written for nightmares. Not anymore, though. He couldn't settle his body or his mind, and the nights drew out.

At first he thought if he poured himself into the job and didn't come up for air, he could pass the time until he was on the far side of this thing. In his particular line of work, though, it was too easy for that kind of focus to kindle an uncontrollable rage. And there was always some monster at hand who was oh-so-deserving of just the kind of beat-down Elliot could provide.

Turning it off. He'd learned that ability years ago, when Kathy wouldn't let him into the house – a house where their babies played and slept and grew – until he had parked the horror at the door. But now he never turned it off. He couldn't remember how. Instead he went deeper and deeper in, thinking that if he became nothing but the job, one day he would wake up and it would be over. He'd be on the other side of this. He'd be himself again.

Things never quite turn out the way we plan, though. Now he was walking a thin line with Cragen for bashing some hideous, remorseless bastard – again. He had pissed off the ADA – again. And Fin and Munch were giving him wide berth around the squad room. That was business as usual. The two of them had always been a tiny bit in love with Olivia in their own peculiar ways, he thought. And maybe for that reason neither had ever fully warmed to him. Understandble.

Olivia.

Here was the surprise. Or maybe, if he was being totally honest, it was no surprise at all.

Looking at her now he thought, not for the first time, that he probably knew her better than any other person in the world. Sometimes he knew her better than she knew herself. Isn't that the way of it, though? That sometimes it takes an outsider looking in to really understand what's going on inside of us?

His coffee had gone cold and stale, but he took another sip anyway. Just for something to do. Olivia didn't look up.

Elliot had allowed himself a fantasy when things first really started crumbling with Kathy that maybe, just maybe Olivia would be there the moment he was free. Waiting, wanting. He'd even gotten as far as her front stoop late one night during those last weeks living at home, feeling desperate for her and knowing that sleeping with Olivia was the nuclear option when it came to ending things with Kathy. No going back from there. Game over.

Frustrated and hurting as he was, he'd known better than to ring Olivia's bell that night. One-night stands were easy. Olivia was a whole other thing.

Even once the papers were signed and Elliot was single for really the first time in his adult life, things with Olivia had gotten worse instead of better. There was no easy trip into one another's arms. No, "you're the one I've been waiting for!" After nearly a decade of holding one another at arm's length, straining against their feelings and confined inside their separate realities, things were a lot more complicated than that.

He stole another look. Olivia seemed lost in the swirl of her coffee in its cup. It was easy for him to be distracted by the physical her. He loved the way her hair fell forward across her eye, hiding it from him almost completely, but not quite. He knew how her cheekbone would feel if he lifted his hand to it. At least he imagined he did.

As pleasant as it was to run his eyes over her features, doing so reminded of something that he'd been forced to admit months ago. She was unhappy.

A complete stranger would be able to see it. Knowing her as he did, he could practically hear her howling at the rain. Her eyes, usually filled with life and a crystal-clear window inside her, looked strained. Unlike him, Elliot knew Olivia never slept well, but that look in her eyes was etched by much more than tiredness.

She was uncomfortable, like she didn't want to be sitting there but didn't know where else to go to find relief. Elliot knew the feeling. For months, when he wasn't pounding on suspects he had been pounding it out in the gym, working out harder than he ever had in his life. No matter how hard he pushed himself, whatever that thing was that was eating at him didn't ease. The tension never left his body and, exhausted as he made himself, he still couldn't sleep.

Elliot wanted to reach across the table and still her swirling cup. He wanted to rest his hand on hers, look her in the eye and have everything be ok. He knew if he did that, though, if he challenged the brittle fortress she seemed to be so urgently building, he might end up shattering them both.

"Liv …"

She didn't look up right away. When she did, it was as one cop to another. Game face.

They talked about the case, then. Plotted the moves that would take them through the afternoon and to the end of their shifts. When they stood up from the table ready to head back out into the city, they were careful not touch. Had there been nothing between them, it would have made sense for them to bump or brush against one another in those tight quarters. They were far too aware of each other's body, though, for any touch to be casual.

Olivia didn't say goodnight at the end of the shift. She had gotten up from her desk to retrieve a file, talk with another detective, and she simply never returned. This was her new habit. It was as if somehow she couldn't face the end of her day with him. Instead she let it drift to close without ever marking the moment of turning away.

Elliot knew where she was. Same as him, she found solace – or distraction at least – in the gym. While he had always been an early riser who needed time in the gym to start his day, Olivia worked out at night. It helped fill the evening hours, and allowed her to sleep in a bit in the morning. Her insomnia, he knew, often kept her awake much of the night and, only letting her fall asleep at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. She needed those extra minutes before their shift began to rest. Her best dreams, she'd admitted once, were often just starting during that hour when he was waking up and heading out the door to the gym.

As her partner, he'd always felt incredibly protective of that early morning time for her, never wanting a call to wake her during those hours when she could finally rest. He was also intensely curious about the content of those dreams. She had once described herself as a very vivid dreamer. He'd thought what torture that must be for her given the horror that populated their working world. He'd also allowed himself wonder in the intervening years, if, every now and then, those powerful dreams brought her something infinitely more pleasurable.

As the shift ended, he gathered his things from his locker and went to stand quietly outside the gym door watching her tear into her workout. She had her headphones on and a focus like he had seen many times before. Almost brutal.

He'd watched her like this every evening for weeks. She was beautiful to look at, but his overwhelming response to seeing her like this was always sadness. She looked lost. Unlike him, though, he knew she'd been lost her entire life. While he had grown up in the security of a family and marriage where at least he knew where he stood, she had always, always been alone. The brief interludes of normalcy when her mother was sober or when she found camaraderie in her coworkers only made her fundamental isolation more profound.

You could see it in the men around her. Cragen, Fin, Munch, even Huang. They all wanted to protect her. Not in the traditional way – Olivia was tough as nails and could more than take care of herself in any physical confrontation. Plenty of creeps had found that out the hard way.

But each of them was driven to try to shelter her as she moved through her hard, often painful life alone. Their affection for her compelled them to keep reaching out, as if their touch – physical or emotional – could make it all a little bit more bearable for her. Every now and then you could see her giving in for a moment, allowing them to ease her burden just for a second and accepting comfort in its place.

Those moments happened rarely, though, and never lasted long enough. Soon she would shoulder that burden again, rebuff the temporary comfort and move off again alone. All they could do, these men, each who loved her in his own way, was to stand and watch her go, waiting for the next time when she'd allow them in.

Elliot turned away. Watching her punishing her body so relentlessly was suddenly too much. He pushed his way out of the station house into the cold night air, his mind flooded with her pain. He moved faster and faster down the sidewalk, an ache growing deep in his core like he had never experienced in his life. It was stealing his air, driving him desperately on.

Somewhere out there in the dark, on those cold streets, something broke inside him. Finally. Catastrophically.

Olivia. Olivia. No. Olivia. No! He was gasping. She was hurting so badly. He couldn't take it. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he knew that he couldn't keep seeing her like this. He wasn't going to watch her hurt like this anymore.

The worst part was that he knew that he, more than anyone right now, was to blame. It was his fault that she was back at the precinct gym right now beating herself to a pulp. It was his fault that when he looked into her eyes, especially when she thought they were hidden behind that wave of hair, all he found in them was pain.

Elliot understood himself well enough to know that he had been in the deep, dark weeds for months. Years? He had done what he had to do to get through the end of his marriage intact. With his kids intact. Always the protector. But then what?

He had been so focused on losing himself at work and at the gym that somehow he didn't notice when his coping mechanism started working too well for his own good. Somewhere along the way he had ended up truly … lost. His anger was boiling over in the interrogation room, he was venting his bitterness on his coworkers, and instead of just punishing himself, he was punishing everyone around him. Liv included.

Liv, he realized now, worst of all.

They knew each other so well at this point that they each had a master stroke when it came to hurting the other. They knew all the vulnerable points – considered themselves the protector of the other's vulnerable points. It was an extraordinary trust built over years filled with both dramatic, life-or-death moments and slow, unremarkable companionship.

Every now and then they brought this brutal finesse to bear, piteously extorting the other's weakness. They did it to create distance when it was either that or come crashing together, or when it was the only way to spare the other some other, worse hurt.

What set those times apart from this one was that, in each instance, they had known what they were doing, or at least thought they did. Their decisions were controlled. The awfulness was controlled.

Nothing about these last weeks and months had been controlled. Not Elliot's fist, not his fury, not his tangle of thoughts late in the night.

When he and Olivia had suddenly found themselves without the protection and excuse afforded by his marriage, they had fallen back on old habits, turning their hard-won knowledge of each other's vulnerabilities into a wedge.

Only this time, no one and nothing told them to stop. Things never cooled down enough for them to stop clinging to that wedge, driving it desperately further between them. Even now, when they were both deep in a place of misery the likes of which he had not experienced before, he hadn't allowed himself to relent.

If he did, if he stopped forcing them apart for even one second, what?

Elliot had been half-walking, half-running ever since he'd left the precinct, his pace a manifestation of the urgency in his thoughts. Now, he stopped. It was as if the locomotive at his back had suddenly disappeared, and he didn't have the strength inside himself to push on any further.

An hour later he was sitting on her stoop when she rounded the corner, her hair wet from her shower at the gym and her shoulders hunched protectively against the cold. Or against something else maybe. He couldn't tell.

He hadn't moved a muscle, but she looked up at him anyway. She was still too far away to have noticed him sitting there in the shadows, but somehow she always seemed to know where he was.

Her stride caught, and then she continued toward him with a new wariness. She lowered herself onto the step next to him, her knees close together where his were wide.

"Hey."

Elliot smiled to himself, and returned her greeting. "You look cold," he said, wondering if her wet strands of hair would be stiff and frozen to the touch.

Her mouth lifted in acknowledgement of his comment, but not in a smile. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen her looking so tired.

"Liv …"

She looked at him then, and he knew she understood that this wasn't a casual visit. Not that they had casual visits. Not that he'd seem her outside of work in months.

"Elliot, I'm tired. I need to go inside."

"Wait," he said. She had already turned away from him and started to rise. His hand on her forearm brought her back down onto the step, but she didn't turn to face him.

"El, I can't." It crushed him to hear the defeat in her voice. None of her habitual strength was there. Maybe it was fatigue, or the months of pain between them, but she was sitting there in the cold without a scrap of her formidable armor. "Whatever this is, I can't do it. Not tonight."

If there had been any tears in her, he knew she would have been crying by then. She was begging, for all intents and purposes, for him to spare her for just this one night. She'd be ready to face him again tomorrow, mask on, but tonight she had been laid bare.

"Liv," he reached for her again.

She twisted away, but there was no strength in the maneuver. "Please, Elliot." Begging.

"Olivia, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He stood and pulled her to him, surprised that she felt small in his arms. He'd always thought of her as a tall, strong woman, nothing the least bit slight about her. He loved that about her, thinking that her body was a appropriate reflection of the person inside it.

Tonight, though, the strength was gone. Temporarily exhausted as she fought her way through this life, through her job, and through the years of holding him away.

Her arms were clutched in front of her, between them. Her last line of defense. He felt them there as he held her.

"Liv, baby, I'm sorry." He breathed the words into her hair, feeling the tears cloud his own eyes as he said them. He pulled her closer again, her back arching as she sank into his middle, her face pressed into his shoulder.

There was still a chance, he knew, that she would gather herself. Push him away. Disappear up the stairs into her apartment, only to return to the squad room in the morning with all the walls back in place.

He couldn't let it happen. He couldn't bear the heartbreak. Watching her go after finally allowing himself to feel these things after so many years would tear the air from his lungs. He wouldn't survive it.

He pulled her face away from his shoulder and, although she didn't really cry, he saw that tears leaked steadily from the corners of her eyes. All the pain was written right there in her face. Her eyes were open to him once again, and he could feel everything inside them.

She looked up at him, unable to stop herself. Her defenses abandoning her as she stood there in his arms.

There were so many things he knew he should say to her. So many things he was afraid to say to her. He knew that this was the moment, likely the only one he would ever get. If she succeeded in pushing him away, that might be it forever. She'd find a way to disappear again, and this time wouldn't come back.

Her eyes dropped and he could sense her gathering herself. He held her still and dropped himself down, recapturing her eyes with his own.

"Olivia … Liv … I need you to hear this. For me. I need you to hear this for me."

Her eyes darted to the side and then back to his, unable to deny him. He needed something from her, and she always found a way to get him what he needed. Even when what he needed was for her to disappear from his life for a while. Even when he didn't know what he needed.

Casting aside all the things he knew he should say to her, that he owed her, instead he said the one thing that mattered.

"Olivia, please listen to me. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. And the rest is crap."

She shied away from the words, but his hands held her face steady. He made no move to kiss her, instead watching for his words to penetrate. She needed to understand before he could take things any further.

"El, we can't …." She tried to pull away from him.

"Yes," he urged, "we can. Somehow we've lost track of that fact in all of this."

"Elliot …"

"No, listen to me. I can't stand this anymore. It's killing us. No matter how brutal and stubborn we are, we can't beat ourselves or each other up enough to make this thing between us go away."

"Yes, we can. I can," she began, new fire in her eyes, pushing off from his chest as she spoke. "I'm fine, Elliot. I've been taking perfectly good care of myself for a long time now. You just need time to get yourself together after everything with Kathy. Maybe I should just …"

She was turning away again. A plan was forming. He could see it.

"Stop! Listen to me!" He spun her back toward him, harder than he had intended. She caught herself against his chest, her fury palpable.

"Don't!" she cried, "Just stop it! Let me go!"

Any other man might not have been able to hold her. She was strong and angry, and toughened by the streets.

Elliot was too. She'd found her match in him. Years and years ago.

"Why, why! Why are you doing this?" Olivia twisted in Elliot's grasp.

"I told you," he grunted against struggles, "because I love you, and because we need to do this now."

Her wrists stilled in his hands and her hips stopped pushing away. She looked at him now, her face starting to crumple.

"I can't, I don't know how," she began.

"Yes," he interrupted. "You do. Being with me is maybe the thing you know how to do best in the whole world."

She laughed at that, a quick burst that helped her regain her composure. He had relaxed his grip, trusting her not to bolt.

She looked at him and laughed again. "Well, that doesn't say much for me, does it?" She laid her palms against his chest, still not quite giving in.

He smiled, feeling his eyes light up as he did so. "I don't know," he said, "I'm a handful. I think it might say a lot for you."

They grinned at each other, and then suddenly were uncomfortable in the proximity. As close as they had been over the years, they weren't used to this. He swore he knew every inch of her body, could anticipate how it would move and react. He'd never been allowed to touch it, though, to feel anything like the thrill of her hands on his chest.

He kissed her then. He had to do it to quell their growing nervousness. He had to do it for a lot of reasons.

His mouth found hers fast, not giving her time to pull away. But then he let his lips rest on hers, still for moment, as he inhaled the smell of her skin and freshly washed hair. He felt her relax into the kiss, closing her eyes, her body on the brink of sinking into his. He kissed her harder, and her hand gripped his shirt at the opening of his jacket.

He swept his hand behind her underneath her coat, spreading his fingers wide at the small of her back and pulling her into him. As urgent as he felt for her, it was different than the feeling he remembered from being a teenager, that "must have right this second or spontaneously combust" feeling. This was not one of those temporary insanities of youth.

This felt tidal, like a universal force building inside of him. With each new kiss he opened himself to her further, and knew that she was doing the same. Her hands had come behind him, feeling for the bare skin of his back under his shirt, above his belt. She found it and groaned a little as she leaned into the kiss.

Finally he stepped back from her, holding open his hand between them. She looked it at, and then into his eyes as she reached into her pocket for her keys. He took them from her, holding her hand as he moved past her up the stairs. She caught hold of his belt in the back, letting go of his hand and dipping her forehead against his back between his shoulders as he unlocked the door. He lingered there for a moment, looking over his shoulder at her, and then pushed open the door to her building.

She led him up the stairs, one of his hands locked in hers and the other at the back of her waist. He'd looked at just this spot so many times, knowing what it would feel like in his hand. He had been right, it felt just like he knew it would, yet so much better at the same time. Warm, soft and yet alive with muscles.

He stood behind her as she tried to open her apartment door, pushing closer to her than he'd ever been allowed. He could feel how fast she was breathing and hear it in the quiet hallway over the sound of the scraping key. She tipped her head back into him as his arms wrapped around her, the key momentarily stilled in her hand.

Then her head snapped forward again and she jammed the key home, pushing into the apartment before him.

She turned to face him, now a yard apart. "Liv," he said, extending a hand toward her. "Once I start, I'm not going to be able to stop. Not tonight, not ever."

She stared at him for a moment, like him still the tiniest bit unsure. He could see it in her face. He half expected her to laugh, that big unrestrained laugh of hers, and to say something teasing. Anything to ratchet down the seriousness of the moment.

Instead she just looked at him. Her chest shifting visibly with each breath. "Not ever," she said quietly, evenly. Convincing herself. Committing herself.

This was in many ways the biggest risk of her life. He knew that. As miserable as things had been between them, they had at least been predictable. Safe. He might have been a bastard, but at least he was constant. One of the few things in her life that was.

He was risking too. Enormously. Better to have her in his life as just sa friend and partner than not at all. But he had never been damaged in quite the same way Liv had. He had never experienced the same kinds of loss and betrayal. Even the failure of his marriage had been predictable on so many levels.

Olivia, though, lived life on an edge he could never understand. Betrayed in the cruelest of ways from the moment of her birth, and again and again throughout her life. Taking this step with him meant putting it all on the line for her. Not just their relationship, but her belief that anything good and reliable could possibly exist for her in the world.

If this didn't work, it would break them both, but for her there would be an added cruelty in their fate.

If he had been a stronger man, he might not have been willing to risk it for her. He might have tried to content himself with something less than what he was asking in this moment. He'd learned a long time ago, though, that he was never quite going to be the man he might aspire to be. He was flawed and selfish just like everyone else.

He kept his gaze steady in hers as he pulled out of his jacket. He stood for second, and then stepped to her, catching her with his whole arms behind her back bending her into him.

He felt the tension in her jaw as she strained into his kiss. He reached down with both hands, grabbing her behind her thighs and lifting her into his arms. She wrapped herself around him, squeezing until it hurt them both. He took the few steps to her bedroom with her in his arms, and laid her back in the bed before standing to look at her.

They were both breathing hard. He watched her looking at him, arms once again protectively in front of her. Half reaching toward him, but still not quite convinced that she had the right.

She looked at him for a long moment. Finally, quietly she said, "I love you, Elliot." Her words were an admission of a secret that she'd been keeping from herself for years. He ached with pleasure at hearing them, knowing how true they were.

He stood looking at her, watching the breath and tension ripple through her body. He couldn't wait anymore. He'd been waiting far, far too long already.

He pulled his t-shirt over his head. Gray. Simple as it was, he'd always suspected it was one of her favorites. Then he reached forward and without hesitation grasped the waistband of her pants and pulled. They were thin elastic things that she'd put on after her shower at the gym, and came away easily. She didn't have anything on underneath. She'd already kicked her shoes off at the door and he caught a glimpse of old toenail polish leftover from some summer indulgence.

She scrambled back on the bed, yanking at the zipper of her jacket as she went. Lying there in her thin t-shirt, he realized she didn't have anything on under that either.

"God you're beautiful," he breathed. She stared, desperately wanting what was next.

He stripped out of his pants and briefs, stepping on the toes of his socks and dancing a little to yank them free. She smiled the tiniest bit at the sight.

As he moved onto her, into her, he felt like he would never get enough. The more of her he claimed, the more he wanted, his desperation for her increasing instead of easing.

This was it, he realized. This was what it was always going to feel like. The danger in her, the way she sank herself so completely into things, was the exact same daemon he knew he carried in himself. He'd always been good with it, because he knew it was part of what made him feel things so deeply. Good or bad, there wasn't a moment of his life that he experienced passively.

He knew it was the same for her. He'd seen instances of indescribable joy in her, but much more often had watched her be eaten away by the brutality and loneliness of their world.

Until this. If they were willing to risk themselves, to risk one another, it wasn't ever going to feel anything less than this right now. Neither one of them knew how to be anything but 110% invested. It's one of the reasons all her prior relationships had exploded so spectacularly, and why his marriage had simmered with resentment since its earliest days. Olivia kept trying – and failing – to find someone who could match her. Elliot had married a woman he knew would never try.

Olivia wasn't going to be easy. Frankly that's the last thing he wanted. He loved the challenge in her. He was sure their fights would be just as spectacular in their own way as this moment. She would never be able to shake him, though, now that she had finally let him in.

Passion and fury and all the times in between, he knew without hesitation that no matter how long a life they got to enjoy together, every bit of it would be felt as deeply as this moment.

He gripped her harder to him. And harder still.