A/N: Takes place in the present, before Olivia's attack. I love reviews, even bad ones.

She's drowning.

She's dying without him and it's a constant struggle to fill her lungs with oxygen.

Breathe, she has to remind herself constantly. She's going through the motions, and it hurts.

She cries. Whenever she thinks about him. Whenever she thinks about the ease and comfort that was their partnership. Whenever she thinks about those blue eyes that no longer gaze at her from across her desk.

They had attained a certain awkwardness over the years. She cared more than a partner should. That much was true. Despite all the outbursts and snarky remarks, she misses him. She misses everything about him.

It's been months. She doesn't get any sleep, she doesn't eat. It's as though when he left, he took her will to live with him.

She doesn't want to cry anymore because crying just adds to the pain. She aches everywhere. Her eyes ache, her heart aches, her body aches, and she is willing him to return. Hoping against all hope, that maybe he'll remember what they had.

What they had.

Fuck, what does that mean? What did they have? This illusion that they were something more than partners? She feels stupid for ever trusting him, ever letting her guard down.

She's changed. She isn't the same person she was two and a half years ago. She's angrier. He's not there, so she had no choice but to take it out on the rookies. Amaro and Rollins are alright.

But they'll never be you.

No one could ever take that place. It will remain empty, a piece of her, gone forever.

He's called. Once. Twelve years amd she had memorized the rise and fall of his breathing. It was months ago. She had been sitting at her desk, filling out some paperwork.

He hadn't said anything. Neither had she. They were both too scared. She had found comfort in the familiarity of his breath on the other line.

Before anyone had noticed, she'd placed the phone carefully back onto the receiver.

God, how she misses him.

He has missed so much in her life, and she wonders if she would know him now. If he's changed as much as she believes she has. If they would still walk in sync.

She ended it with Brian. He was always an escape from reality for her, she never took him seriously. She was still grateful to him for being there when she needed him.

He's not what you need.

He's in her head again. Does this make her crazy, this thing she does where she pretends he's talking to her. She wants this, though. She clings to it. This tiny part of him. Because a tiny part is better than what she really has. No part at all.

This is not normal. This is not what people do. Partners aren't forever. They never were. A small part of her couldn't help but hope.

Partners for better or worse.

Bullshit. It's all bullshit. Their entire partnership was bullshit. At the end of the day, she has nothing to show for it but the pain. The ache in her chest that has dulled, but will never dissipate.

She doesn't cry anymore. She has learned to push back her tears. She could cry a river of them, but that wouldn't bring him back.

Nothing can, she tells herself, because it's the truth. Nothing but his own will to return.

Numbness has taken the place of the tears and she's not sure she prefers. With the numbness, she feels less like a human being. Twelve fucking years, and you should feel something. You should always feel something.

She hasn't cried in months, but one night she stops kidding herself. She sobs into her pillow, because she misses him so much that it hurts. She can't help it, can't help wanting this person who she offered her soul to. She cries herself to sleep, and she wakes up with a headache.

This, she decides, this is what I want.

Because the pain is better than nothing at all.