Sweet Relief

It's Time

There's a light knock on Olivia's office door and she looks up confused as it swings open before she's had the chance to say anything. Elliot walks in holding two cups of coffee and lunch in the other hand, a smile on his face as he slips in, closing the door quietly so as not to disturb her phone call.

He's made a habit of this recently and today she couldn't be more grateful to see him. She knows his Sergeant has been working him hard, she can see it in his eyes, and how fast he falls asleep on the couch every night after dinner. He powers through the night with Emma, making the best of their time together until she has to go to bed, but he crashes hard the moment she falls asleep, leaving them very little time to spend together.

But in spite of all of that, he hasn't missed a single soccer game or dinner since the first one. Every promise made has been kept and Olivia's grown accustomed to having him around.

Elliot sits down in one of my office chairs quietly, letting Olivia finish her phone call. Her watches her with a smirk on his face as she rolls her eyes, listening to one of her agents on the phone. He misses working with her, he has since he left. The whole world felt foreign without her by his side and work was no different. It took him months to realize that it wasn't SVU he had missed, years of rape and murder cases had made him weary and jaded in a way that he still has yet to completely untangle. It was her, it was always her. He found his groove after a couple years, helping people still made the work worthwhile, but it's never quiet felt the same. Watching her now reminds him of the very best of their years together.

"Yes.. I understand that Agent Ryder but I gave you a direct order. I expect you to follow through with it." Olivia says, hanging up the phone with a frustrated sigh. It irritates her to no end that Elliot seems to find her frustration amusing.

"What?" She asks, an eyebrow arched at him as he slides a cup of coffee over her desk.

"Nothing, I just never got to see Captain Benson in action." He says, the amused grin never leaving his face. He's missed seeing her in her element. "I imagine it's very similar to Deputy Chief Benson."

"Deputy Chief Benson does not have the same credibility as Captain Benson and she is tired of people arguing with her." Olivia says, only half kidding. "I swear these agents are worse than Emma, I'm losing my mind, repeating myself all the time."

Elliot laughs. "Having a tough time with your agents?"

"They warned me when I took the job." She says, running a hand through her hair, an old habit that makes Elliot smile. "There were a lot of people who wanted this job, no one was pleased when they offered it to me without so much as an interview. I knew I was going to have to prove myself, I just thought that after two months I'd be making some progress."

"I'm sure you're doing great, Liv." He says reassuringly, "Might take them seeing you in action to fully trust you."

"That's what I've been thinking. I was talking to Don yesterday and he laughed at me. He asked me if I thought my agents were any worse than you and I used to be. He may've had a point." Olivia says with a half smile. She often thinks about the things they did as young detectives and wonders how they weren't fired. Or how they managed to walk away with their lives. Although, they both have their share of scars, at least half of which they're lucky weren't deadly. She rubs at the scar on her neck absentmindedly.

Elliot remembers much less of the events of those first couple years, although he would never admit it. Or that the reason for that is that he spent the majority of them staring at his partner. He was so wrapped up in her he could've cared less what was going on around them. He often thinks it's a miracle they managed to clear cases when his focus was so obviously elsewhere.