I don't own them. I wish I did.
He watched her stalk off after they were finished. She had left the perp verbally battered and practically weeping. The tears were of the crocodile variety and the remorse lasted until she had slammed the door. Leaving him alone with the man they had been chasing for two months and ten rapes. Joshua Preston was looking after his partner with lust in his eye and he did not intend to let that slide.
"She's a fine woman," Preston commented. "Bet she has all the guys after her. Bet she has you after her." Preston looked at him almost daring him to comment.
Elliot leaned over the table, "Preston you are going away for a long time, but if you ever get yourself off thinking about my partner I'll personally make sure it feels like twice as long." He moved toward the door and signaled a uniform into the room to take the prick down to booking.
"You're not taking me yourself Detective?" mocked Preston.
Elliot just looked at him until he wilted a bit. "Trust me, you do not want to be anywhere near me right now," he assured him the implied threat causing Preston to look away and shrug and he was led off.
"Fin did you see where Liv went?" Elliot asked when he didn't see her at her desk.
Fin just pointed upstairs and Elliot went up.
She was just sitting there straddling the bench. All of the fight had leached out of her. She was ready to give up, on her job, her partner, herself. He watched her and wondered, not for the first time, if he should just let her be. He usually did but it was killing him, hell it was killing both of them. That interrogation had been one of the best in months and even now he knew she had been going at the guy with only half of what she was capable of. The room was quiet and dark, the sounds from the squad room below muted to a murmur. Enough to know there was another world out there, although he doubted she heard it.
She looked at her hands as though they didn't belong to her and then she looked up and saw him standing there. A dark form in the doorway but she knew who it was. She would always know even while they were so distant from each other she knew. She looked back down at her hands, wanting to close the dark cocoon of the room back around herself.
H e waited a few more minutes and then moved toward her. She didn't move although he knew she was aware of him as he sat on the bench near her. He looked down at his hands for a moment gathering courage, hoping that this time she would let him in, afraid that this time she would shut him out for good.
"Olivia," he said in a voice that seemed rusty and unused. She did not move, waiting like a statue hoping that he could reach her this time. She was frozen, set in stone, all of her actions and words seeming to have locked her away from him. She has said some hurtful things to him, challenging him to abandon her. Praying he doesn't, but she can't seem to stop herself.
"I need to ask you something," he told her, "and you don't have to answer me now or even next week. But I want you to think about this." She tenses, its coming, what she has always feared. He will leave her and she will walk alone and empty. Her nightmares after the Gitano case had always ended the same way. He was dead and she, she would be standing waiting for Gitano to take her too. He never did, instead he would leave her standing there to collapse over the body of her partner and then she would wake.
"It will never be my decision to leave you," he tells her. But he did for awhile after his wife left. Or did he? Yes he had been a bastard to deal with but he had worked it through in the end. He had come out the other side and she was stuck. She had shut him out, the way she felt he had shut her out. The difference between them is that he let her back in and she can't seem to let him come back.
"I can hold on for as long as it takes Olivia," he assures her. Yeah her partner is stubborn, bullheaded, persistent, often annoyingly so. He is also patient, she has seen him with the vic's, waiting for them to open up to him. It flashes through her head that he is doing that now. But he doesn't know about what happened at Sealview does he? He doesn't know she has been a victim.
"I just need you to tell me if you want me to let go of you, if you don't want me in your life." His voice breaks as he says this, one woman in his life has already told him this. They had tried again when they found out about Eli but it didn't work. Their problems were too many and the hurt too deep to fix. The second split was a mutual decision and in some ways a relief. If Olivia asks him for her freedom he will give it to her and then wait forever for her to return.
She looks up at this man who has been her other half for so long she can't remember what it feels like to be without him. Even in Oregon he had been with her. She had known then that she could never really leave him for long. Even now as disconnected as she is, as tenuous as their connection is she feels him.
He can see her tears, spilling down her cheeks. He can see the fear in her eyes and he reaches for her hand. She lets him take it and then holds on as she breaks. He does something he has never done, never dared to do, he gathers her into his arms and rests her head on his shoulder. Her tears soak his shirt as his hand rubs her back, trying to ease the sobs that pour from her. His partner has finally broken and now all he has to do is help her put it all back together.
He sees his Captain over her shoulder. He is looking at the two of them, tears in his own eyes as he watches one of his 'children' hurting. He just nods at Elliot and goes back to his office knowing that he is not needed there. They will put each other back together again. He remembers something Alex Cabot had said about them, "They have put each other back together so many times that they seem to have mixed up the parts. What are you going to do when the inevitable happens?" He sits in his darkened office and remembers that he hadn't had an answer for her. He wishes he could tell her what he has realized. That he will do nothing. That he will wait for them to come to him and he will smile then. For now all he can do is wait and try not to think of the bottle in his drawer.
Olivia's sobs have eased but she doesn't move. She is afraid that if she does he will leave her. She takes a harsh breath and then another as she tries to find the words she needs so desperately to say. Her fingers clutch at him and he brings her closer. She can hear his heartbeat, slow and steady and she begins to calm. When he releases her a bit she panics, but all he is doing is shifting her so that she is no longer straddling the bench. She still can't find her voice but for the moment that's all right. Her breathing slows as do her tears. "Don't let me go," she whispers. So quietly that she is not sure it came out.
He sighs in relief and still he cradles her to him. It will be a while before they get up to leave, before he takes her home. It will take them time but a small amount of peace has settled in their shared soul. They will start spending more time together. They will find their hearts in each other. And one day they will find their way to their Captains office. But for now they sit in the darkened room.