Author's Note; Things to know before you read; Elliot and Kathy are divorced, Elliot and Olivia are together – pretty standard stuff. Enjoy.
There Will Be A Light.
He decided, as he watched her talk slowly with her hands, as he watched a smile draw itself lightly across her face, as he watched her laugh softly as the man she was with touched her arm gently, he decided, in that moment, that he didn't like secrets.
They were overrated, they were enraging, they made him feel jealousy – actually feel it, not it's affects, not it's consequences, but he felt the actual emotion, tearing through him, burning his insides, hiding behind his blue eyes with a flickering light – he felt it assaulting him as he watched the two of them together.
In their secret he had become a victim, a victim of life going by without anyone noticing what this really was – what they really were and who they really were and he felt like he was perpetuating a lie, just standing in the corner and observing her and him.
He felt as if he were in an alternate reality, as if he were watching an alternate version of his life – of everything that he had fought so hard to acquire – and he had to close his eyes because he could not watch himself loose the battle. He could not see what everyone else saw, interpret this how everyone else interpreted it, because buried beneath their secret was his truth – their truth, and for all of him he knew that for now it would be worth his silence.
"Ready to go?" He felt her standing close to him, felt her ask the question softly so that no one would hear, so that no one would think that they had anything more than they did. "El." His arms were folded across his chest, and she placed a gentle hand on his forearm.
He flinched under her touch, not used to this being something that she would let anyone else see. They were what happened in the shadows when the lights were low and the blinds were pulled and the doors were locked.
They were a secret's promise and Elliot burned from everything that that stole from him. He didn't answer her because his voice would have been laced with emotion that he was not allowed to have, his eyes would have been clouded behind acid tears that they were not allowed to see.
He understood the logic behind it being only theirs, he understood that because of their job and their positions and all of that that it had to be an untold story, but for everything else in him he couldn't rationalize it – and he didn't want to.
He promised himself, amongst everything else, that he would never try to make logic out of love.
Elliot opened his eyes slowly to see Olivia before him, and he wondered if she had had the same color in her eyes, the same freckled pieces of scattered stars in her eyes, when she talked to that man. It made the jealousy worse, it made it worse than an assault or an attack, but now a disabling removal of his senses, and he wondered if she opened her eyes to show him the universe like she did for him.
"Come on, Elliot, its Friday, let's get out of here." She offered him a smile, but he didn't want it – he didn't want her to pretend anymore, pretend that this was something less than it was because at that moment their world was a stage and everyone was watching.
Olivia was giving the best performance of her life.
"Elliot," She was whispering now, "Go ahead and go, I'll meet you downstairs in five minutes." Her words drifted off at the end, and they were practically silent so that Elliot's ears were the only recipient.
And the Oscar goes to – Olivia Benson.
He clenched his jaw to keep from snickering, to keep from complementing her on her balance of caring just enough to not arise any suspicion, on flirting just enough with the other man to quell any questions, from loving him just enough to get by.
"We could just go together," he forced the words out through clenched teeth, and he looked away from her as he spoke.
"Five minutes, I'll be right there." Her eyes held a promise, but her words tore it down and he had never been so uncertain of something so certain and he walked past her without another word and grabbed his coat before heading out.
She would meet him in five minutes. She would meet him and not join him because Olivia outside of the station was not the same as Olivia inside and he could not breath sometimes because the line between the two was starting to blur and he didn't know who was who anymore.
-
"Hey, you okay?" Elliot was sitting on the couch, aimlessly focused on a program on the history channel, and Olivia walked up behind him, wrapped her arms around his neck, touching the base of his neck with sort kisses.
"Fine," he didn't turn to her. Elliot Stabler, the liar.
"You've been quiet. Do you want dinner?" Her voice grew shallower and evolved into a whisper.
"I'm not hungry," his stomach growled to betray him, but he ignored it and her just like he had to do so frequently.
They were in the shadows now, locked away inside Pandora's box with all the evil of lies and secrets, trust and love, and Elliot could not give into this yet, he could not break for her now just because they were alone and apart from the world.
Olivia felt him under her arms, tense and tight beneath her touch, and she moved her one arm from around him and moved her hand to his head, running her fingers through his short pieces of dark brown hair.
Tonite he was at his breaking point. Tonite he knew that for the sake of their job the world couldn't know, but tonite he didn't care. Tonite he didn't want them to be a secret, for everything that they were and could be to be hidden from the world, playing house in a dark room and hoping that no one ever brought in the light. His eyes were burning from the dark, having adjusted so many times, and he wanted something to draw them out, and he was scared because Olivia seemed to be settled into their duplicitous behavior – something Elliot refused to do.
He let out a deep breath that shook his body, with it letting out his logic and rationality and letting this take him over.
"You ready to do this now, Olivia?" He got up off of the couch, flicking the television off and pushing her arms from around him.
"What?" He was getting red, his eyes were boiling and his skin was changing to a light red, and he was looking her over quickly, skimming his eyes over all of her as if he was taking inventory. "Elliot, what's wrong?" She looked at him as if she had never seen him before, and he was scared because she hadn't – only by fault of her own – she said she wanted this, but she would not let them be, she would not see him for what he was.
"Just because you're too scared of this to tell anyone doesn't mean you can just parade around with everyone else. That doesn't mean that I don't care if you talk to other men –"
"Whoa, what? I can't talk to other people now?" Olivia shook her head, baffled by his words, and Elliot's rage deepened at her misunderstanding.
"You know what I mean, Olivia. You don't want them to know, you don't want anyone to know, but you dance around with these other men, smiling and giving everybody a wrong impression-"
"No one was getting any impression, Elliot, we were just talking," she waved her finger at him, annoyed by his possessiveness.
"He touched you," he growled and then moved so that the couch was no longer between them, he moved so that the only thing between them were their secrets and lies and everything that they feared too much to move past.
"It was nothing, Elliot," she humored him, but she built the towers up around herself because she felt herself coming down and she didn't want to let Elliot see what he really did to her. Years alone and she couldn't let him come in and destroy her like that.
"Nothing? This whole thing – is that what it is to you – nothing?" He challenged her to make a commitment to him.
"Elliot, don't do this, come on," she reached for him, but he swatted her hand away. In the time they had been together she hadn't made any gestures to say that she loved him, to say that she needed this half as much as he did, and he was testing her now, brining her to the edge and hoping that she would leap, leap down into this unknown with him.
Lonely.
He was lonely, looking at her he was full, but living with her he was lonely because this was all so secret, his entire life was a lie perpetuated by her insisting that no one knew. She wouldn't let him love her in public, and he was afraid that that would soon filter into their secret life as well. He needed her to say something to him, to indicate that they weren't those people, rushed into a honeymoon state that would eventually fade like the moon on a clouded night, he needed to know that she was where he was, even if that meant they sacrificed work and that part of their lives.
"Elliot, what is going on here? Huh? What is this really about?" She tried to forget that this was scaring her; she tried to forget everything inside her, the ball of emotion screaming through her, regardless of if she tried to quiet it.
"Why is this all we have? Huh, Olivia? Why is this it?" He backed away from her instead of towards her because he needed her to come to him.
Olivia noticed this and pretended that she didn't feel it like she did. She pretended that this would never get old, this falling in and out of periods of shadows, this playing pretend and make believe and acting like this really meant something. Elliot never told her how felt, 3 months of this make believe game and he still hadn't said anything, and she didn't want to trust herself to believe anything without words, so she stayed at her distance, built up her walls, and watched them start to crumble.
She looked at him now from a broken castle that once hid her emotions, thick and tainted behind white grey limestone stone that was crumbling around her and she wanted to reach for him but she wanted to run because to be independent meant that there was less at stake – but to love him meant that there was more.
Olivia loved him before when it was in thought and mind and an imaginations fantasy, but now it was real and she felt it and thought it and she was afraid that her heart had started to beat for it and she sat behind stained glass windows, her menagerie betraying her, as his eyes begged her for something real.
"You know why, Elliot," she said slowly, and Elliot growled, running his hands over his tired eyes, his face deep with lines that revealed his life.
"Don't give me that work shit, Olivia, it's going to have to be more than that," he warned.
"Elliot, I love that part of this, working with you, that's where we started and I'm not okay with giving that up. I'm not okay with moving on and just saying goodbye to that part of you." She didn't laugh at the irony, because her whole life was a series of hellos and goodbyes, strung together to make a discontinuous story.
He held his hand out to her because he saw that her eyes were scared, he saw that they were searching and burning and uneasy and he wanted to place the universe back into them so he held his hand, palm up, out to her and held his breath until she took it.
"Come here." He brought her to him, leaning his forehead against hers for support and closing his eyes before placing a kiss atop her eyes. It scared him that she loved part of him, that she didn't love all of him and everything of him and she was only dedicated to a part. "I love that part of you, too," he continued slowly, his eyes still closed, "and I love this part of you," he whispered, kissing her hard, "and this one," he let his hand fall down over her heart.
"Elliot," his name was a prayer as it fell from her lips.
"I love you." He said it without regret or fear or logic and he let Olivia hang on the words.
"They can't know, Elliot, they can't." She stepped back from him, her body burning with the sensation of his words, with the reality and finality and the instinct that she had to never move from him ever again. He couldn't respond, so she continued; "you said your life was over when they left, when Kathy and the kids were gone you said it was over and now there's this," she signaled back and forth between them with her hands, "so what do I look like? That thing you fall into because everything else you had is gone?"
"Olivia," he wanted her to be rational, but he knew better. A smile played on his lips because she was replacing logic with love and he needed her to affirm this.
"No, Elliot. This is what we are, okay? If you're not okay with that, then I'm sorry, but I'm not okay with people thinking everything that they're going to think, I'm not okay with being second, I'm not okay with losing you at work and changing our jobs and lives and-"
"It's already changed Olivia," he stopped because he feared that she would not agree with him. "Do you not see that? Let them think what they're going to think, fuck, I'll take care of that if you want, but just don't hide. You want me to tell them, you want me to explain it, I will. If that will make you not hurt, if that will make this work-"
"I wish it were that simple, El," she was scared now because she loved him.
"It's never simple, that's how you know it's real. If this were simple, it wouldn't be this – it wouldn't be us." He smiled slowly to try to reassure her. "How do we know what this is if we don't bring it out, test it out-"
"I don't want to be a test," she shook her head, scared that that's all she was, a test for Elliot to get his legs back and then he would be gone, onto something better.
Pass or fail, he would still love her, and he knew at that moment that he had to make her believe him.
"This is not a test, this is life, this is love, this is failing and crashing and burning and these are ashes, Olivia, pile them up and make them into something, but I want the world to see." He did not want them to be embers that the world had forgotten, a dull glow smothered by the dark – he knew that they were more than that. "Liv, Olivia," he calmed himself as he walked to her and placed a long kiss on her forehead. "Love you. I love you. I want to love you out there, too, outside of this, I want people to see this because this isn't something that you hide."
Olivia wanted to call him a liar because she was crumbling and burning and losing sanity, losing ground that she so desperately needed to keep up with herself. She needed to love him within limits, but she saw him, saw every desire in the blue of his eyes, and she didn't know how to save both of them.
"I'm sorry, Elliot," she apologized.
"Do you love me?" He was afraid of the answer because he knew that it would change nothing for him.
"Elliot,"
"I want to say that this is some sort of ultimatum, but I love you too damn much to just walk away for this, but I want this, Olivia, I want for people to see what this is," he spoke into her neck, his head buried against her shoulder.
"I do," she had to pause because the words were burning through her throat, burning as they came up from her chest and through to her throat and preformed like fire dancers in her mouth, "love you. I love you." She hadn't said the words in so long, she hadn't said them or felt them and she cried because she felt each letter.
"Think about this." He pulled away and caught his eyes with hers, swallowing hard as he got a glance at the universe, the milky way clear and shining like silver through her eyes, "I'll see you tomorrow." He broke away from her and headed towards the door.
"You're leaving?" She looked at him straight now, nothing impeding the view – her walls had crumbled.
"I think we need some time, to figure this out. I'll see you Monday," he explained.
"You can't say this and then just leave – just – just walk out and leave." She was crying now because she was scared that this was it and she didn't want him to just be gone from this now.
"Hey, Liv, hey," he ran to her quickly, collecting her into his arms, "You need me, call me, I just think that we need some time, okay? Some time to take this all in and see where we are," he explained before kissing away her tears.
She looked at him, caught his eyes one more time, and he melted, remembering that there was no logic in love.
"I'll stay," his words sounded the farthest from obligation, and Olivia let herself fall into him.
-
They were back in a secret Monday morning, they were back to Olivia's lack of strength combated with Elliot's and he watched her from the corner again, this time with someone else, with another nameless man who was watching the universe in her eyes – his picture was being shown to someone else and he was raging.
"Benson, Stabler, get in here," Cragen called from the room across from them, where he, Munch, and Fin were going over files for a case that they were working on.
Olivia said goodbye to the stranger, and Elliot followed her, "If you ever lie to me again," his words were tough and she spun to look at him.
"What?" She was hushed because this was still a secret, everything that he had said and she had believed that they could do this in theory, but she did not think she was strong enough in practice.
"You said you loved me last night and today I'm a fucking afterthought," he raised his eyebrows as Olivia entered the room and proceeded to sit down next to Munch.
"Captain, is it okay if I run outside real quick, I just need some air," Elliot asked, avoiding Olivia.
"Sure," Cragen nodded, and Olivia watched Elliot's back as he walked away, turning to Cragen in the next instant.
"I- uh, I just," she stammered and then got up quickly, pushing the chair out from under her and offering no explanation to the three men in the room.
-
"Don't," Elliot growled with warning, putting his hand up to her as she approached "I don't want to hear it, okay? Spare me any excuses, because I don't want them. You fucking love me last night, and today I'm nothing. I'm the guy in the corner when you're talking to everyone else; I'm the eyes you ignore when you're looking around the room. Why don't you love me enough to do this, huh?" He pushed her away because he knew there was no other way to do this, that she would never come to this on her own and he had to assure her and feel her and make her feel him all at the same time.
"This is just-" She couldn't give him an explanation because she knew that she had none, she knew that this is what Elliot wanted and what Elliot needed and even though it would tear them apart as far as the unit went she knew that Elliot needed her to assure him in this way. "Elliot," she reached for him, but he pushed her away before heading back into the station and running inside.
He apologized when he got back to the room, Olivia following moments behind, and he fell into a seat next to Fin, Olivia seating herself in the empty seat between he and Munch.
Elliot's hands were on the table, and Olivia's heart was racing, her mind blurred by consequences and she knew that she couldn't lose Elliot, that after everything she needed to let everything fall away before him, and for whatever reason he needed this – he needed her to love him enough to not keep him a secret, to not keep him hidden and he needed her to trust him enough to bring him to light.
"Captain, it's 8, I think this is done." Fin ran his hands over his face, the dark of the city creeping into the room, draping around the five figures and dancing in the corners.
In the next moment Olivia reached for Elliot's hand, she slid her hand, palm up, under his and laced her fingers through his, squeezing his hand tightly, and noticing that he closed his eyes quickly as everyone watched Olivia take their coupled hands and place them in her lap.
Elliot let his head fall, and turned his eyes to Olivia, who gave him a reassuring smile, before he closed his eyes again for a short moment, and when he opened them again there was light.