Who doesn’t love a good will they/won’t they romance? It’s so popular on TV, but especially in crime drama. And one of the couples that took the longest to get together — it wasn’t until the second of the two left that we found out they had a child together (as did he) — is coming back, with Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo starring in an NCIS spinoff as Tony and Ziva for Paramount+.

With that upcoming series, fans will finally get a chance to see the two together, raising their daughter, something they missed out on during their time on NCIS. (At one point, she was even presumed dead, so it seemed like that would never happen.) But they're far from the first or last to fall into that slow-burn category. Just look at Blue Bloods, Bones, The Rookie, and The X-Files. And the longer a show runs and the more popular it starts out, the more likely it seems that something will finally happen, since worries about the Moonlighting curse no longer seem to be a concern.

But has anything been going on longer than Law & Order: SVU's Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni, now starring in his own spinoff, Organized Crime)? We're still waiting to see what happens there.

Below, we look at Tiva, Densi, Chenford and other crime-solving partners who found themselves in romantic relationships (and Bensler, who could be next).