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One moment, his hands are on her forearms, grasping for dear life, and the next, she’s closed the distance between them with a tender kiss, as if she’s trying to heal all their wounds with one simple motion.
It’s everything, and yet, it’s not enough, as their lips meet and mesh against each other, again and again, whispering promises that were for their ears only.
They pull apart from the kiss slowly, gradually, letting their touches and glances linger for moments longer than they ever would have dreamt before. “That was-” Elliot catches his breath and looks at the woman before him, and realizes that there’s no words that would ever be accurate to describe how he feels about her.
She smiles, running her hands along his jawline, as if she’s in awe that she gets to touch him as much as he can touch her. “Yeah. El, It’s late. Why don’t you stay for the night?”
“Baby, I want to.” She doesn’t comment on the nickname slipping from his lips. Her mind is still spinning from the kiss. “I want to, but I can’t risk your safety if one of them finds out where I am. I gotta go.”
“So, are we not gonna talk about what this means?” She loves that the conversations they’ve opened tonight, and she wants them to continue. If the sound of her voice means so much to him, then his does to her, and she didn’t even realize how badly until all this started.
He looks at her, a look of regret mixed in with his normal look that he’s always given her, the one that makes her feel like she’s on top of the world and adored beyond measure, if even only for a moment. “We will. I promise. When I come home to you, and I will - “
She stops him right there. “You better. In one piece, Stabler.” She eyes him up and down and gives him a slightly amused smirk. If he’s going to break, it’s going to be by her hand, in one of their beds – if they make it that far, which she has a sneaking suspicion it might not, which sends a fire rolling low in her belly.
“I will, and we will talk then. I promise. I love you.” The words come easier now, the more he says them. She still startles when she hears them, but there’s a sweet softness and serenity in her eyes that show she’s processing those implications – yes, I, Elliot Stabler, love you, Olivia Benson. No one else. Only you.
It’s always only been them.
She swallows a lump in her throat, and forces herself to look up at him, her eyes glistening with small tears. ”Be careful.” It’s her way of saying I love you too, El, because she can’t find the words to say it otherwise. Not yet. One day, maybe; she’s getting there, the longer Kathy’s gone, the easier she thinks the words will come. Especially when she doesn’t see a ring on his finger – of course his undercover persona wouldn’t be married – but not seeing the ring reminds her they can finally move past it all.
Who they were isn’t who they are.
And maybe, for once, that’s a good thing.
The conviction in his voice is strong, as he says, looking her firmly in her eyes, “I’ll be fine.” He’ll be fine, as long as she’s there. Olivia Benson is his magnetic north, always pulling him in her direction, even when he’s hopelessly lost. She’s always been there, even when she hasn’t, because he’ll always be drawn to her. It’s part of who he’s always been, ever since that first day so many years ago.
“I’m gonna miss you.” She’s used to this part, at least. The part of her that doesn’t need him in her daily life is still strongly resolute, but the part that wants him there – oh, that’s still there. More than. And for all her bravado and strong facades, she’s still a woman in love with her best friend, who’s told her that he loves her too. That’s powerful, and any distance right now is too great when she wants there to be nothing between them but air and love right now.
But she gets it. She does.
It’s their jobs. It’s who he is. And if he says he’ll be fine – it’s not that she isn’t going to worry, because she will – but he’ll be doing everything he can to get out of there as soon as he can. Now that he has something – someone, her – waiting anxiously on the outside.
He gives her another sweet kiss, and she feels as though she could melt into a puddle. For all the fantasies she’s had over the years about kissing him, and what his lips would feel like under hers, they all fail to compare to the bliss of genuine reality.
“You better call me this time,” she says, with a knowing laugh.
This is the end of their silence. This is the end of them not answering each other’s phone calls, screening them so they go to voicemail; this is the beginning of them talking and figuring out who they are, both to each other and as – dare she hope to say the word, a couple.
“I will when I can. I promise.” He taps the bulge of his burner cell in his jeans pocket and smiles, but she can’t mistake the other bulge for being anything other than what it is.
He kisses her one last time before he leaves; his frown as he walks out her door, much the same way he’d come in a couple hours before, makes her want to chase after him, pin him against the walls in her corridor and convince him not to go, to stay and she’d never let any trouble come their way, not when they’re together.
She watches as he makes his way to the elevator and she smiles, pressing her fingers to her lips and letting out a small sigh.
His taste lingers there on her lips, and she doesn’t think it’s going to go away any time soon – or hope it does, anyway: it’s a subtle, but powerful promise of what’s to come.
When he can finally come home for good.