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She can feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the rough pad of his thumb on her temple, the solid bulk of his chest, bracketing her in. She can smell the spice of his cologne, mixed with something distinctly Elliot, distinctly familiar, can sense the heat thrumming in his veins, the same liquid, molten feeling that’s pooling low in her own belly, making her stomach swoop in anticipation. Olivia leans back against the brick wall outside the restaurant and lets her eyes slip shut, lets her lips part, lets Elliot finally, finally tilt his face downward to close those last few inches between them and slot his mouth against hers —
And then her phone rings.
She freezes, and Elliot does too, and just like that, the moment’s gone. Olivia lets out a groan and Elliot sighs as he takes a step backwards so she can grab her phone from her purse and bite out a quiet “fuck” that makes him chuckle. “It’s Fin,” she grumbles, shooting him an apologetic look as she picks up the call and presses the heel of her hand to her temple.
Elliot knows that if Fin’s calling her, it’s a genuine emergency, something that really, truly cannot be dealt with without her input. She’d given her sergeant clear instructions not to contact her tonight unless the precinct was on fire — metaphorically speaking, of course. She hadn’t batted an eye when Fin had shot her a look, an “I know you and Stabler are going out to dinner, and not just as ‘friends’” shit-eating grin, had even pretended not to hear the “Finally” he’d muttered under his breath as he’d left her office.
Yeah, she’d thought wryly. Finally.
They’d finally found a night where they were both free, had finally gotten over themselves and admitted that the thing between them was real and enduring and worth taking a chance on, had sat through appetizers and pasta and two bottles of cab, itching in the dress and suit they’d chosen special for tonight. Both knowing that this dinner, this first date that felt a little bit stilted and a lot not them, was just the last remaining hurdle before they could finally call themselves on their bullshit and start this thing — together.
And then her phone had gone off; of course it had.
“Yeah?” she snaps into the receiver, and the words come out harsher than they probably should, but goddamn. Fin has impeccable timing. Elliot tilts his head and looks at her quizzically, and she listens to Fin explain what they caught: a rape-murder on the Upper East Side with a fact pattern VICAP identified as identical to a string of unsolved cases the unit was dealing with back in 2000. They’re not sure if it’s a copycat or the original perp coming back for more.
“I have to—” she tells Elliot when she hangs up, apologetic, running a hand through her curled hair. (She curled her hair for this, put on lipstick and her nice underwear. Not because she’s got any expectations, but because she feels confident in them, feels feminine. And now, she’ll end up throwing her hair in a bun and grumbling about the underwire pinching her skin after a few hours in the precinct.) “Fin, he—” she starts, but Elliot cuts her off.
“Hey, I get it, you know I do. Not a big deal Liv, I swear.” And she knows he does — get it. Better than anyone. But it doesn’t help the bolt of frustration that shoots through her at the thought of this night being cut short, just when they were really getting started.
“Yeah. I just—”
Elliot lets out a little chuckle and squeezes her arm. “Would it help if I said I wish Fin had called five minutes later?” He’s looking at her with the same intensity she saw minutes earlier, as he was leaning in, letting his eyes slip shut and—
“Just five minutes?” She can’t help but tease, and grins when Elliot lets out a groan.
“God,” he mutters, and Olivia laughs.
“Rain check?”
Elliot nods. “You better believe it, Benson. Can I drive you to the station?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know how long I’ll be there, I’d rather have my car in case I need to relieve the sitter. But thank you,” she tacks on, “and thank you for dinner.” She almost leans forward to press a kiss to his cheek — a watered-down version of the moment they’d been building toward — but decides against it, reaching for Elliot’s hand instead and giving it a squeeze.
/
The precinct is already a flurry of activity when she gets off the elevator, and Olivia barely has time to stash her coat and bag in her office before Fin appears at her door, case file in tow. He takes one look at her, at the dress and the heels she’s currently slipping out of (she keeps an emergency set of shoes at the office, because nights like this are far too common) and has the good sense to look a little bit guilty. “Liv, I swear—”
She shakes her head as she gathers her hair up into a ponytail. “Don’t. It’s done, I’m here, what’cha got for me?”
“Copy, cap.” Fin fills her in on the details of the case — from the scratch marks on the girl’s thighs to the single red rose lying next to their victim, identical to the cases that VICAP spit out. “They found ‘em back in February, the original vics, around Valentine’s.” Fin shudders. “Helluva sense of timing.”
Olivia nods, flipping through the file. She remembers them, vaguely, because even after two decades, there are cases that still stick. Whether it’s the vics, or the MO, or something that’s odd about the fact pattern — some things, you never shake. No matter how many years go by.
“Fin, why did you call me in?” she asks when she finishes the file, and her sergeant looks up from the text Velasco just sent, giving updates from the ME’s office.
“Liv, we both know you joined the unit before I did—” he starts, but Olivia shakes her head.
“I remember these vics, but I wasn’t the responding officer. Elliot was, he caught the case with Munch.”
Fin lets out a chuckle. “‘Course he was. And I’m guessing since you’re here, there’s a pretty good chance Stabler’s free for the night? Wanna call him in?”
/
If Elliot is surprised to hear from her this quickly, she can’t tell by the tone of his voice when he picks up the phone. “Hey,” he says, voice soft and low in a way that makes her insides flip. But now’s not the time to dwell on that, not when there’s an open case. “Fin let you out already?”
She shakes her head, before remembering he can’t actually see her. “No, I wish. We caught a case, and it looks like a copycat for that string of Valentine’s rapes back in 2000? The ones you and Munch took point on?”
There’s a beat of silence on the other end, and—
“Jesus, that feels like it was a million years ago.”
Olivia chuckles. “Mm, nothing to remind us we’re getting older like a case that’s in the double-digits. We’re, ah— canvass gave us pretty much nothing, Muncy’s on vacation with some girlfriends and Velasco’s swamped down at the lab, and we could really—”
“I’ll be there in thirty, and I’ll bring coffee.”
Elliot says it before she can even ask the question, and something like relief floods Olivia’s system, something like anticipation. They’ve worked a few cases here and there since Santos, small crossovers between their units, most often when OCCB cases turned out to involve trafficking of some kind. But it’s been months since he’s been squarely on her turf, and Olivia is looking forward to the kind of familiarity and wordless understanding that only she and Elliot have ever shared.
As much as she knows they needed tonight — still need the parts of tonight that haven’t yet happened — this is important, too. Knowing that their foundation, the core of what brought them together, and made them them, still stands. And besides, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. Now, she won’t have to.
She busies herself with the file as she waits, flipping back and forth between the old notes and the information Fin has collected so far, and Velasco’s notes from the ME’s office and the unis’ canvass. The vics all fit the same profile — blonde, early twenties, fair skin — and each of them has scratch marks on her thighs and is holding one red rose. They’d had a string of suspects back in 2000, but from Elliot and Munch’s notes, nothing quite stuck, and the three files were transferred to the cold case unit at the end of the year.
Sadly an all too common occurrence, even with the advent of new technology to help them along the way. She hopes Elliot remembers something that the file won’t tell them, because the canvass turned up practically empty, and they’re still at square one.
Olivia pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. She’s still in the dress she wore to dinner, and she can’t believe it was just an hour ago that she and Elliot were sitting across from one another, splitting a serving of tiramisu and drinking overpriced cabernet. It feels like it was a completely different year. There’s a half-second, a fleeting moment where something in her gut clenches and she wonders if this is a sign, some blinking warning light from the universe that she and Elliot were getting ahead of themselves, tempting fate. That anything more than a friendship, a partnership, was a step too far for them. That trying to move forward would wreck all the progress they’d made in returning to the ease and familiarity they felt before he left.
But it’s only a second, because if these past few years (and plenty of therapy) have taught Olivia anything, it’s that opportunities to be happy don’t grow on trees, and she has to grab them when she can.
This chance with Elliot is twenty-four years in the making, and she’s not about to let it slip through her fingers.
/
Elliot has changed out of his suit by the time he arrives at the one-six, into the henley-hoodie-leather jacket combination she’s begun to associate with him now. It took her a while, after Elliot came back from Italy, to adjust to seeing him in tailored three-piece suits, in dark wash denim and half-buttoned henleys. It reminded her of coming back from Oregon and feeling off-kilter when he had started wearing jeans with polos all of a sudden.
This time, though, she finds she likes the change in wardrobe, the way the suits accentuate his newly bulked-up frame (it’s entirely unfair how ripped he got when he was away) and the sliver of chest that’s now almost permanently on display.
She thinks he catches her staring at said chest for just a beat too long when he shows up at her office door, because he’s smirking as he leans against the doorframe, two coffees in hand. “Heard you could use some reinforcements?” he says by way of greeting, and Olivia lets out a grateful sigh.
“And caffeine.”
He hands her one of the coffees and she takes a sip, motioning to the chair across from her desk and the stack of files in front of it. Elliot gets settled in, catching himself up with the case as they wait for Fin and Velasco to get back with updates. They’re quiet, sipping their coffees and scanning through the notes, and Olivia basks in the comfort of it, letting herself steal little glances at Elliot — brows furrowed in concentration, chin jutting out as he focuses — until he catches her and grins.
“You good over there, Benson?”
She’s about to reply when Fin pokes his head in the door, taking a second to nod at Elliot before he ushers them both out into the bullpen, where Velasco is setting up the board.
Elliot, it turns out, remembers a few things about the suspects they’d been tracking back in the day that never made it into the files, and over the course of the next half hour, they manage to eliminate all but two. It feels like going back in time, working with him like this, dissecting the facts of a case and building out fact patterns. Finishing each other’s half-baked theories and sentences, thinking almost as one.
It’s seamless, but this time, there’s a new undercurrent of tension permeating the space. Elliot lets his eyes linger, in ways he didn’t used to. On her lips, her eyes… her cleavage, which she notices, arching a brow. All she gets in response is a shrug and a smile.
She’s no better, staring at his forearms when he sheds the jacket and hoodie and rolls up his sleeves, letting her eyes linger just a beat too long on his ass. (She finds herself wondering how the hell she didn’t stare at it constantly, back when they were partners, when— Well. She’s not going to dwell on that, not tonight.) Now, she has full permission to let her gaze wander, and the sheer thrill of it has heat creeping all the way up her chest.
“Take ten?” Fin suggests eventually, because Velasco has been inputting the suspect information into the databases, but the system’s going to need some time to sort through all the open cases. Olivia and Elliot nod.
“I’m gonna go check in with the sitter,” she tells them, heading back toward her office. She knows Noah loves Martha, that they’re probably having a great night and don’t need her poking in, but she can’t help it, some days. Especially when the cases are tough and she needs to reassure herself that her sweet boy is safe at home.
Martha sends over a picture when Olivia texts — Noah, conked out on the couch after an afternoon of dance, golden curls in disarray — and it makes her smile. She knows Martha will get him to bed in a little while, but she relishes little moments like this, especially as Noah gets older and more independent.
She texts back a heart emoji and a thank you, and then makes a beeline for the break room and the vending machine. The packet of trail mix at the bottom of her work bag isn’t cutting it anymore. Olivia’s so absorbed in her phone that she startles when she feels a hand grab her elbow mid-stride, but when she looks up, it’s Elliot, gently ushering her into a quiet corner.
“El—” she starts, but he shakes his head, leaning close so he can whisper in her ear.
“I can’t stop thinking about kissing you,” he murmurs, voice low, and the timbre of it sends a shiver up her spine. “‘S driving me crazy.”
Olivia can feel her pulse picking up, quick, like a hummingbird, as she thinks back to the street corner outside the restaurant, and the feeling of Elliot, lips a hair’s breadth from her own, leaning, lingering.
“Liv…” He sounds half-desperate, and she feels it, too, feels the undercurrent of what’s been building between them all night (or for twenty four years, however you’re counting).
“Me too,” she manages, voice raw in a way she wasn’t expecting. “But we’re…” She sighs, taking a half-step back to regain some semblance of propriety. They’re in the precinct hallway, for fuck’s sake.
Elliot squeezes his eyes shut, nodding. “Yeah.”
She’s never been so glad to hear Fin shouting from the bullpen, giving them the last push they need to break apart.
/
The next two hours are torture.
It’s almost like admitting what they both want makes the lack of it that much more acute. That the six feet of space between them feel cavernous, that they’re both itching to be close. Olivia forces herself to focus, to listen to Velasco and to Fin and to Elliot, too, but she’s avoiding eye contact — and so is he. It feels like if they breach it, something around them might just spontaneously combust.
Elliot Stabler told her, in not so many words, that he wants to kiss her. She’s known that for a while now, almost experienced it a few hours ago, but somehow, hearing the words out of his mouth makes it feel achingly, dizzyingly real.
She’s gotta pull herself together, and fast.
Luckily, they get a call from the last set of unis finishing up the canvass who found a possible witness in a neighbouring section of the park. The elderly man walks his dog along that route every night, and he’d noticed the girl standing by a bench, looking like she was waiting for someone. Dressed up, he’d mentioned, like she was going to dinner, wearing a nice dress and carrying a purse. She’d still been in the dress when they’d found her, but the purse was gone, so they’ve got yet another thing to search for. Olivia had immediately called for a grid search of the park, to make sure it didn’t end up in a hedge somewhere.
It gives her something to do, something to take her mind off the ache she feels every time she so much as catches a glimpse of Elliot out of the corner of her eye. She feels like a teenager all over again, antsy and on-edge with a crush, and Jesus, she’s gotta get a grip. She’s a woman in her 50s, a professional, for crying out loud. But Elliot Stabler wants to kiss her, and it’s all she can think about.
Fuck.
“Stabler, my office for a second?”
Elliot looks up from the file he’s been writing notes in, and raises a brow. Across from him, Fin barely manages to hide his shit-eating grin, but Olivia can’t bring herself to care.
This is getting unbearable, and there’s only one way to make it stop.
“Liv, what—” he says when he steps into her office and Olivia pulls the door shut, flipping the lock with a click. This time she’s the one to shake her head and grab his hand, guiding him over past the dividing wall in her office to the corner with her couch and mini fridge. “What’s going—”
He doesn’t get to finish the rest of his sentence, because she’s already backing him up against the far wall, and then her mouth is on his. And Jesus, it’s instinct, how he responds.
His arms wrap around her middle, and he widens his stance so she can step in between his thighs, while she fists her own hands in the collar of his henley, holding on tight. Elliot kisses with his whole body, teeth and tongue and all he’s got, swaying forward to chase more of her, licking into her mouth as she lets out a keening sound, high and needy in the back of her throat. They’re half-desperate, drinking each other in, finally giving in to twenty four years of pent up emotion. She scrabbles for purchase in the soft cotton of her shirt as Elliot’s right hand slides up her back and into her hair, and she groans when he starts laving a trail of kisses down her throat and nipping gently at the delicate skin of her collarbone.
Pretty soon, she’s cupping his cheek to guide his mouth back to her own, and they settle into a rhythm, up against the wall in her office, trading kisses, slow and deep. She thinks she could stay like this for hours, making out like teenagers, feeling his body pressed up against her own. “Jesus Christ, Liv,” Elliot groans out in between kisses, and Olivia feels an involuntary chuckle bubble up in her throat. She leans back, just a little, so she can look at Elliot properly — see the flush of his cheeks and the way his pupils have blown, eyes dark and hungry. She can feel the hammer of his pulse under her fingertips, and she relishes it, knowing that her touch affected him like this. That his affected her like this, too.
“That take the edge off?” she asks, a satisfied grin stretched across her face that belies just how hard her heart is hammering in her chest.
Elliot lets out a laugh, shaking his head. “Not nearly enough.”
She smirks. “Good.”
It’s never going to be enough, she realizes, now that she’s had the first taste. But they’re in her office, and there’s a case, and they’re on borrowed time as it is. For tonight, this has to be enough.
“Think I might need to call in another rain check,” Elliot says, like he’s reading her mind. “Finish what we started.”
“I think,” Olivia replies, leaning forward to punctuate her words with another kiss, “we can make that happen.”
“Good.”