Don't own anything, but bigs up to Dick Wolf for creating them!
Hope you like it. I think I'm far too invested in this, it's really not good.
And so it begins :)
"Detective Stabler?" the voice called his name from the chair across the room, a world away from him, "Detective Stabler? Are you with me?"
"You know, El," she had said, "You know why…"
"Detective Stabler, do I have to remind you again of why you're here?" the voice interrupted the memory again. His mind snapped back to the dark room, the cold, the incessant headache that pounded any reason out of touch.
"Huh- Yeah, I'm here," he coughed slightly, straightening up as the leather squeaked, "I'm listening."
"No, you're not," the woman unclicked her pen angrily and crossed her legs, "The twelve weeks assigned counselling is only valid if it's actually counselling. Daydreaming doesn't count. You must -"
"I'm not-"
"What was that?" Her voice was bitter. It stung to listen to.
"I said, I'm not...daydreaming, that is," he raised his voice so she would hear, "It wasn't a dream."
"What was it?" The counsellor relaxed, clicking her pen to the ready.
"I was just thinking," his defense sprung up again. He sighed - he must try, "It was a bad memory."
"Of what?" the counsellor was losing patience again, "The shooting-"
He laughed. They genuinely thought he had lost it. He shook his head.
"Detective Stabler, you saved that woman. She would have been killed if you didn't shoot. Everyone knows that. This counselling is just mandatory, you'll have your gun back soon enough-"
"It wasn't the shooting," he laughed slightly at how little she knew, "I was a Marine. I've killed people before. It wasn't the shooting. That's not the problem."
"Your wife, she had left you recently before the Ibsen case - the victim's name was Ka-"
"My marriage," his aggression tweaked at the mention of Kathy, "My marriage had been over for a long time before that. My wife leaving wasn't traumatising. It wasn't why I did what I did."
"The victim's name was Katharina, it's hardly a coincidence-"
"It wasn't her name," his fingers were digging into his leg as his voice nearly rose out of control, "It wasn't her name that got me. The girl, I don't know, she looked-"
"Oh," the counsellor interrupted, and for once he was glad for it. He couldn't think about it, not anymore, "How long has it been since-"
"Six months, give or take…" One-hundred and eighty-three days, sixteen hours and twenty-five minutes. Give or take.
As if he would forget.
He had been waiting for her to tell him. He was sitting on their - no, not anymore - bed, his presence barely interfering with the starched sheets. He had noticed before she had meant him too; his coats were all gone from the closet. So were his suitcases. A plus B equals… They had been in her bedroom, the wardrobes emptied, hangers jangling loosely with a phantom breeze. She had turned all the photo frames down. He saw. It made him feel nothing. He wasn't surprised. He hadn't expected to, he knew this was coming. He knew she would walk in any minute now. Waiting was common courtesy.
The doorknob creaked, he looked up. She stood in the doorway, her cheeks glistening in the evening light.
"I pressed everything before I packed it," she gestured one hand to the cases. He muttered thanks.
"I sent the kids to my mom's for a while. I told them. You should call," she was accusing him now, he had to bit his cheek to stifle the tendril of anger that rose. He rubbed a hand over his face and stood up. He threw the military-issue duffel over his back and went to take a case in each hand.
"Here, before you take them," she reached towards him, an envelope in her left hand. There was only a tan line on her finger now, a small reminder of nearly two decades. He knew he should feel something sad. He didn't, "I've signed my part. I'll get the door for you."
It took three minutes to get everything into his truck. Thirty seconds into the drive away from his old home, he realised he was going nowhere. He had no-one now. He kept driving.
He didn't realise he was on autopilot until he saw the door to the building. He knew the code, he had a key. It would be fine. He walked slowly up the stairs, focusing only on the slight burn as his leg muscles flexed and pulled him up eight floors. He knew the pacing - thirty steps down the hall, turn to the right. He could do it without thinking. The door was the same as usual, pull, turn the key a little left, a little right, pull again, push. Open. He could do it without thinking. He had to not think. He stepped into the cool, dark, stale air of her apartment. Empty. Empty. Empty.
Sixty-two days, one hour and fourty-nine minutes. Give or take.
Why couldn't he stop counting?
His shins burned. His knees burned. His whole body burned. Breath came out in foggy bursts. His mouth was dry, his nose was raw. He had gone far today, away, away, away from all of that. It was getting worse than broken. It had been broken years ago; this was different. Kathy was more suspicious than ever, borderline paranoid. The kids avoided him, when he was there. He was avoiding them; more than that, he was avoiding people. Something had changed within him. Something was off.
This, though... this was nice. He only liked it when it hurt, only noticed how much he needed it when he couldn't. He understood that, yes, he was literally running away from all his problems, but it helped. It gave him space, time to focus, time away from the real world. All he had to do here was keep his legs moving, keep his lungs breathing and, most importantly, keep himself from falling. He had other ways to hurt himself, ones which she couldn't see, ones which his wife wouldn't want to kiss and make better. Running had one more benefit: it made him tired. He had reason to be tired now, to not be at his best in the morning or at night, whenever it was that he would go. Being tired meant being irritable, hostile and unapproachable. She stayed away. It was good. What they didn't know was that it wasn't the running and all the pain it entailed that caused it. It was the other, ceaseless, mocking ache that made him like this. He hated it. He hated her for making it. He hated that she had sparked it.
Twenty-one days, nineteen hours and six minutes.
How much longer?
"I can't…" she had begun. He turned from scanning the room for the face they had to recognise to her. She was perched against the wallpaper brocade, leaning slightly forward as if unsure of the ground she stood on. She looked defeated, and for the life of him, he couldn't tell why.
"Liv? What is it?" He held her up, pacing his hands on her shoulders. She was avoiding his eyes, twisting out of his light grip. He could feel the worry starting to tense his shoulders as she pulled away from him, face toward the flower arrangement in the corner of the room. Suddenly, she stood up straight, sniffed and turned back toward him.
"Oh, hm, sorry about that, felt a little sick," She was smiling weakly, only looking at the space directly over his head as he gazed at her evermore troubled eyes. He took her wrists.
"Liv, what's going on-"
"Nothing," she pulled back again before regaining her facade, "Nothing. Really. I'll be back in a minute. I promise."
She walked away from him, gathering her dress at her thigh with one hand, clutch in the other as she strode away through the masses of people. He watched her leave, lost for more than a second in the way her body moved, all covered in silk and fine things. He snapped out of it as she disappeared from his view, ducking around a corner. He felt like dousing himself in cold water - it was only the dress, right? It would be a crime not to admire her. He chose to ignore that he used this excuse every time. The list of badly reasoned excuses replayed itself in his head: those jeans make her ass look phenomenal, I have to look; the blouse just asks to be stared at; her gym gear is just too flattering, no-one's supposed to look that good in lycra. God forbid she wear a skirt. He'd be ruined then.
An Upper East Side laugh cut into his reverie, setting off a near inevitable headache. All of those thoughts quickly disappated...as had she. He checked his watch; it had been fifteen minutes. A shot of panic woke him up. He could have gotten to her… Damn, he hated Liv going undercover. He swore profusely under his breath as he near-ran out of the ballroom, opting for the stairs over the elevator to get back to street level. Damn suit… His breath made white fog as he ran out onto the street. It was freezing, she wouldn't have stayed out here for long, that dress was barely a second skin. He fumbled in his pocket and dialled her cell. He waited as it rang, a little of his sanity disappearing the longer she left it. It rang out. He swore blindly, attracting the shocked stares of some bejewelled scarecrows making their way inside. He ran a hand over his face. He felt ill.
"I'm right here," a voice came from the shadows beside the steps. Relief overcame him.
"Liv," he ran over to her, "What the hell were you thinking? That perv could have been anyway, you weren't-"
"El," she was barely whispering. Her eyes stopped him again, "I can't-"
"You can't what, Liv? I don't know what's going on-"
"El," her cold hands held his face, burning the skin they brushed. Her eyes searched his face for some understanding. He was lost, "You know."
"No, Liv," his own cool hands shook as he held her waist. The fabric was smooth. She shuddered, "I don't know. I have no idea what's wrong."
"Elliot," she dropped her hands as she moved towards the ranks of towncars, "I...you...I can't-"
"You can't what, Liv? Where are you going?" She opened the door of one of the towncars, pausing as his voice rose in anger and frustration, "I don't know what's going on-"
Her fingers traced his face as if she was learning it, etching it into her memory. She paused on his lips. He could feel her trembling as he kissed the inside of her palm.
"You know, El," she had said, "You know why…"
He couldn't speak. He was on fire. All he could do was watch her close the door and drive away. The black sedan disappeared into the sea of lights on the avenue. He had lost her. He closed his eyes.
Thirty seconds.