You're Somebody Else || A Bensler/EO Reunion Fanfiction

Rooftop

She had, by now, approached him and stood to his left, looking out over the city that never sleeps. It had been several minutes since she emerged onto the roof and expressed that they needed to talk, but they had remained silent...the city seemed to hold its breath, the only witness to a conversation one decade in the making.

"I should've never let you in that room," she said, breaking the silence and beginning to pace. Her voice was laced with annoyance, but it wasn't just from his behavior in that room... Ten Years. Elliot Stabler had been gone for a whole decade and he came waltzing back into her life, into her squad room as though nothing had changed. He replied, almost before she had finished her statement, "I knew what I was doing," his voice indifferent, almost as though he was blissfully unaware of how much pain she was in. "Yeah? So did he," she retorted, turning to him with increased annoyance, "he was baiting you, Elliot!" They were both pacing, practically circling one another the way sharks circle their prey. She reeled in her emotions, balling one hand into a fist as she tried to rationalize his actions. "Look," she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her tone for a moment, "you're raw, I get it...your wife is in a hospital bed, but you  have been long gone," their shoulders bumped into one another as their circles grew smaller. She moved away, continuing her statement as she fought to avoid the implicit magnetism of being around him, "and we don't do thing--" 

He started to yell over her, "DON'T TELL ME WE DON'T DO IT THAT WAY ANYMORE. PLEASE." She fell silent, frustration evident on her face as he shouted over her, cutting her off from completing her sentence. A decade had passed and with each moment he was proving that a decade hadn't changed him...he was still the same hot headed detective he had been. "I've been living in Europe, not under a rock," he continued, his tone also laced with frustration...though the source was different. "Okay, hey--" she began, taking her opportunity to speak, "Even if he is good for it," she continued, making a face as if to say she was unconvinced, "a victim's spouse in interrogation?" He had his hand on his neck and made a knowing face, "Yep," he said, knowing where she was going with her line of commentary. "Whatever confession we elicit-" she continued with the tone of a school teacher disciplining a child, but once again he cut her off, "Get's thrown out, I know," he retorted, showing her that he had indeed not lived under a rock and still knew how to be a cop. "Yeah, do you also know that the cameras are always on in interrogation?" she retorted, her annoyance building once again.

"Brave new world," he replied, sarcasm saturating his tone, "I got it." He held his hand up, trying to dismiss any other words she might have to say on the matter. "So, what do we do now? You write me up a rip there, Captain?" he replied, not bothering to conceal his disdain for the lecture she was giving him. She bit her lower lip in frustration, holding back the full force of the emotion she wanted to unload on him. "You know what, Elliot?" she hissed, her voice hoarse and her temper spent...she wasn't angry, she was disappointed. They had stopped pacing, they stood three feet apart. She shook her head, tearing her gaze from him as she felt her emotion threaten to breach the surface. "You don't get to come back here after ten years and act like you own the place," she said finally, her voice hollow as she desperately fought to conceal her true emotions. He was quiet for a few beats of her heart, which seemed so loud she was almost certain he could hear it even from that distance. 

"Liv..." he said, his tone entirely different from what it had been mere minutes before. She shook her head, looking to him, "No, Elliot," she said, stopping him...begging him not to say whatever was on the tip of his tongue. She couldn't have this conversation now, she wasn't sure she ever could, but certainly not now. His wife was in critical condition, laying unconscious in a hospital bed... it was still unclear if she was out of the woods and she couldn't put the weight of her last ten years on him...not now. She shook her head, chewing at her lip. "We can't have this conversation right now," she said, gesturing between them, "my point is that this?" She gestured to the building, as if drawing an invisible circle on the ground, "this is my precinct now. I am not just your partner, your junior, anymore, Elliot. You left ten years ago and I never did. I have been here, working my ass off to keep this unit organized. You walked in here today like you were Captain, Elliot, you didn't even knock on my office door."