A/N: The idea for this fic came to me while watching SVU. Most of the time, you wonder, why don’t those two main characters just jump each other and get it over with? But when I saw a moment between Elliot and Olivia tonight in Svengali, the reason for the wall between them suddenly became crystal clear. In my opinion, at least. They were standing over the body of a woman who had been, well, victimized. He said something so bluntly that Olivia looked up at him for a brief moment, like she couldn’t process what she heard. Like she forgot for a moment that it was their job to solve sex crimes, and just thought they were having a normal conversation, and that he had said something offensive. Maybe I’m overanalyzing, but in any case, it caused an epiphany moment.

Connecting The Disconnected

She thought it would be cold.

Their major flaw as two co-existing members of the opposite sex in their profession is simple. They tried to break it down into other things, things that seemed more manageable and could eventually be dealt with and overcome. But it lurked there, right under the surface, waiting to be exposed in their words, gestures, silent signals that maybe, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to be slowly making the way to the back of her apartment with only one intention.

The barriers from the point of view of any outsider, seemed to be these: he was married, she was unsure, his situation was complicated, hers was too simple. He couldn’t, and she wouldn’t.

Until the day came when he could, and she would.

And that was when the true barrier revealed itself in all its hideous and stomach-turning glory.

They always knew, if only subconsciously, why it could never be. Pretending that everything else caused the definite line in the sand was just easier.

There were moments when she drifted off, pretended things were different. She visited worlds where he was a columnist for the Times. Sports, of course. And she was always something new- a baker, a designer, a florist. It didn’t matter. Because a job was a job, and sex was sex, and those two things were always separate and always different, because that’s how it’s supposed to be. Unless you happened to be a prostitute, work in the adult film industry, or, as she came to realize, work sex crimes.

She never let her imagination drift farther than that. Never to the back of her apartment, where they were at this precise moment, surprisingly sober. Not because either of them drank a whole lot, or because she thought they’d need the alcohol. Somehow, she just imagined that anything involving less clothes, less inhibitions, and more contact with Elliot required an hour or two at the bar. Simply for nerves’ sake.

When she was green, silently gagging every time she peered onto the autopsy table, the ease with which they spoke about each detail of the crime shocked her. The way each piece of evidence was catalogued, categorized and numerically labeled and filed made her want to do irrational things. She didn’t want to call them by their case numbers. She would insist that they be called by their first names. Simple things that seemed, to her, the only way to handle each and every case, every time.

But it got easier. The cataloguing didn’t irritate her anymore. She fell into the pattern of categorizing things by their numbers, letting the word ‘vic’ roll off her tongue as if it had always been that way. As if the person had never been someone, had always been vic. The language took her over before she could even realize it, really. Perp. Collar. It was easy. It was faster. It was more detached. A feeling she had grown to rely on for the sake of her own sanity. Because calling every victim by their actual name had begun to wear her down, until every person on the street was a possible vic, a possible perp.

It was the same with other matters. She could no longer look at a father and his daughter without having nagging cautionary words floating in the back of her mind, telling her to pay attention. Signs of abuse were simple enough to see if you looked close enough.

Every fight between a man and his wife worried her. Were they going home to make up, or would he beat her? Was this their first fight, or was this only another crack in an already broken marriage? Would this be the last straw, and would one of them snap?

So it really didn’t surprise her when she came to realize that sex was no different.

It made it impossible for her to connect with anyone on a physical level. The words were cold, clinical, and rigid. She had heard them thousands of times. Written them in case reports. They no longer shocked her, but when she lay in her bed with a one-night stand or a fourth-date hookup, it was different. It was difficult. It was as if her whole body felt itchy, hot, and uncomfortable. The words buzzed around her like gnats, making her want nothing more than a cold shower and her personal space. She couldn’t connect with anyone when she was mentally scanning each case file, going over each detail so vividly that it made her stomach churn.

She knew it was their downfall. Their roadblock. Their bright red stop sign in the middle of the road they’ve been traveling. Okay, Olivia. Road stops here. Dead end. Cliff ahead. Be careful not to catapult right off the edge.

But how could she know that those words would mean nothing in the arms of someone that actually cared? And was she even willing to risk it?

She should have known all along. Known better. Known them better.

Why is it that he always enters the scene first, poised to shoot, blocking her from harm? Why is it that, even toward the end of a hellish shift, he can make a joke or a comment that pulls her back from the brink of burning out?

If he wasn’t detached from her in the normal aspects of their day, why would he be detached in her bed, the one place she feared sharing with him?

She allowed herself to be captured by the moment, and let down the barrier she had held onto- that they had both held onto- for so long.

It wasn’t clinical. It wasn’t mechanical or robotic or a vic on a slab or a word in a file. She didn’t categorize each moment, mentally recording it for later review. There wasn’t any question in her mind that it was, in fact, the most attached she had ever been. The line in the sand had been washed away by the rising tides, and the feeling of disconnect had been washed away with it.

Because there is a difference between their job and their sex lives. Because it wasn’t sex. Not with Elliot.

Making love was a whole different experience entirely, as she finally figured out.

She thought it would be cold.

But it wasn’t.