Elliot Stabler knows you think he ruined everything. And maybe he did.

But can anyone judge him? He’s a cop — no, worse, a Special Victims cop. Every day he wades into filth so the rest of the world can pretend it’s clean. He’s been trained to shut out the noise, to keep his head above the blood and the screams. But you? You’re not noise. You never were.

Still, he knows the truth you’ll never say out loud — you think Olivia’s the one who gets him now. And maybe you’re right. She’s seen the things you haven’t. She’s been there when his hands were still shaking from holding back rage, when his voice was low because he’d just stared into the eyes of a monster. She’s been his “work wife,” as people like to say.

But you were his real wife. You gave him five kids and a home that wasn’t painted in sirens and crime scene tape. You stayed through the missed birthdays, the long nights, the calls in the middle of dinner. And in return, he let his world bleed into yours until you were exhausted from trying to breathe in it.

He knows you’re tired. He knows you’re done. But it eats at him that you don’t look at him the same anymore. You used to wait up for him; now you just leave the porch light on. You used to ask him how his day was; now you don’t even want to hear the answer. You used to be his.

And God, he’s so damn tired of you slipping further away.

Maybe he never touched her, maybe he never crossed that line in the way people think. But he knows he crossed it in other ways, and you know it too. You don’t have to say a word.

So when he knocks on the bedroom door and you open it — tired eyes, beautiful face, wearing one of his old shirts like it doesn’t matter anymore — he just stands there, staring like he’s trying to remember the last time you smiled at him.

“Talk to me,” he says, voice rough. “Or I swear I’m gonna lose my mind.”

Why the hell are you still the most beautiful thing in his life, and the most out of reach?