Title: Memories

Rating: Everyone

Pairing: Elliot/Olivia romance

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue, thanks!

Notes: I wasn't going to write another part to 'Story Of My Life', but my Bon Jovi muse won't leave me alone. The songs quoted in the story are 'I Want To be Loved' and 'Welcome To Wherever You Are' from the 'Have A Nice Day' album. The music just speaks to me in so many ways that I can't ignore. Normally I wouldn't post this much angsty stuff; in the past when I wrote stories like this I've deleted them instantly; it was catharsis for me, nothing more, and I didn't think anyone would be interested in little stories like this.

Boy was I wrong. There are more people out there like me than I ever knew, people who feel the same way, and who might think there's no one out there like them. So now I'm starting to post these little musings because I think it's important that you all know you're not alone, that there are others who feel like you do. Like me. Please, if you need to talk, feel free to email me; I'm at Enjoy the story!---Jaenelle Angelline

The sun's warm on my face as I sit on the ground under the tree, listening to this song I 'd heard only a few days ago and then searched the internet to find because I needed that song in my iPod. Bon Jovi's not my usual, but this song yanks at my heartstrings. I wonder if, when they wrote the song, did they have someone like me in mind, or is it just coincidence that this song says everything I need to hear. I found it last night, downloaded it to my iPod, and came here to my mother's grave today because I needed to hear it while sitting here.

I had a roof overhead

And shoes on my feet

Yeah sure I was fed

But no one was there

When I was in need

So who am I now?

Who do you want me to be?

I can forgive you but I won't relive you

I ain't the same scared kid I used to be

My whole life has been structured around my mother. Since the age of six, when I was old enough to understand that the relationship the other girls at school had with their mothers was different from the relationship I had with mine, I'd structured my life around hers. I tiptoed around the house when she was drunk; I tiptoed around her the morning after when her headaches—hangovers, I only learned the term a little later—were so bad she wouldn't, couldn't, even try to get out of bed to make breakfast or pack my lunch before I went to school; when she spent weeks in an alcoholic daze and I had to do the laundry or go to school wearing the same clothes day after day…the ultimate in humiliation, for a girl…yes, I lived for and around her.

And when I got older, my life just continued to revolve around her. If I thought she was going to be drinking that night, I cut out of my extracurricular activities. Ashamed of her and protective of her, I never brought friends home, and eventually stopped trying to make them all together. It made hiding my mother easier, but no less lonely. I stopped taking extracurricular activities altogether as soon as it was no longer mandatory; though I wanted to be away from her as much as possible, it just wasn't possible anymore. She was okay when I was very young, and I attribute it to the fact that women love babies, and whatever else my mother was, she wasn't an exception to that rule. I think that as I got older and my face filled out, and I stopped looking so much like her and started looking more like the face she remembered but I never knew the name of, she started drawing away from me emotionally because she couldn't handle it. We'd go for days never saying a word to each other; I cried myself to sleep a lot of nights in my room listening to her drunken singing behind the wall.

I found a picture

Our so-called family tree

I broke all the branches looking for answers

Don't you know that ain't how it's supposed to be?

She hit a really low point somewhere around the time when I was fourteen; I remember that because the first time she hit me was when I got my first period. It was like at that moment she realized that I wasn't her innocent little girl anymore. When I was growing up I'd catch her watching me, and she had this funny way of looking at me that made me think she was mentally 'readjusting' my features into something that resembled hers. I didn't know why until that day when I, fourteen and thinking I was old enough to know the truth, went to her and demanded to know everything she never told me about my father because I'd just spent days looking through photo albums of pictures of her family for a school project on personal history. Most of the other kids at school proudly talked about their parents saying that 'I get my nose from my uncle' or 'I got my smile from my father' or 'I have my aunt's eyes'…but I never had that. I couldn't see much of myself in my mother's face, and virtually nothing in the pictures of the faces of her family. And so I went to her with the photo album and asked her point-blank where Daddy was and why I didn't have one. I accused her of not loving me enough, that she was keeping me from him, and all little girls should have Daddies, because that was what my friend Rachel had said in school.

I remember a stinging slap to my cheek, and seeing my mother's angry face. And that was it; after that the rest of the night becomes a blur. I do know I woke up the next day aching and sore and bruised and scared, terrified, of my mother, because I had seen someone I didn't know looking out of her eyes that night. I saw hatred, and my only clear memory of that night was my mother screaming at me 'Your fucking bastard of a father raped me and I got stuck with a brat I never wanted and can't love!' I knew what 'rape' was.

As if that night was her breaking point, she stopped being just a drunk mother and started being an abusive one. I stopped wearing skirts and dresses; I became the school tomboy overnight because I couldn't wear anything but jeans and long-sleeved shirts anymore. I stayed out of the house as long as possible, coming in only after my mother had passed out and leaving before she woke in the morning. Even when it got cold, I stayed out; I got sick quite a few times.

But it was better than being around. There was one really bad winter when we went a whole week without school; the other kids loved it, I hated it. There was nothing to do but sit around watching TV and listening to my mother drink and throw up, drink and throw up. I think it was that week when I seriously started to hate her; sometime about the third day, when I'd cleaned her up and gotten her into bed for the fourth time and was in the bathroom cleaning up from where she'd missed the toilet; that's when I started to hate her. I think it showed, and at the end of that week when she was sober enough to notice the disgust and hatred in my eyes but still drunk enough to want to hurt me, she threw a glass bottle of vodka at me. It struck my forearm, and I remember gritting my teeth to try not to scream; it hurt worse than anything she'd ever done to me. I had to hide it; I forged notes to my gym teacher for the week to cover the huge discoloration on my arm. It may have been fractured, as much as it hurt, but I was ashamed. Ashamed of her, ashamed of me, that I'd let her do this to me, ashamed that I was such a screw-up, such a failure, that my own mother couldn't even love me. I hated my nameless, unknown father then; still do to this day. It will never go away; it will be a part of me for as long as I live.

My mother lied to me when I was younger, when she said she loved me. I can see that now, it's just taken her dying for me to accept it. I envy Elliot's kids; Maureen, Kat, Lizzie, Dickie. I have to fight sometimes not to show it when they're around; I look at them when they come to visit Elliot in the squad room. I envy what they have, so much I can feel my eyes turning green. El and Kathy tell their kids they love them, they care about them, they're proud to be their parents, even while they're no longer together anymore. El, in particular, just glows with pride when he tells me about something they've done; like when Dickie's Little League team won, Lizzie's ballet recital, Kat's SAT scores, little things like that. Maureen's doing well in college, and he's so proud of her, of all of them, and I lay awake last night thinking about how I always wanted just a little of that from my mother, just some sign that she cared, that she loved me, that she was proud of me. But all the times she said she cared, she loved me, those were all lies, because my entire life is a lie.

Has been. I sit here looking at my mother's grave now, and suddenly I'm not feeling any hatred or anger. Just sadness, that I didn't get to really know her before she died, that I couldn't save her from herself. I think I started to let go of my hatred when I joined the SVU; before then, 'rape' was the word that symbolized my conception, my life; it was as much a part of me as my brown eyes and hair, legacy of the unknown man who is my biological father. But when I started seeing rape victims…especially the female victims of that war criminal 'Victor Spicer'…it hit me, then, everything that my mother went through, what she must have gone through, what she must have felt every time she looked at me. I was a silent accusation of her own carelessness, a reminder of something she wanted to forget, something she could have forgotten if it wasn't for my presence. I have no idea what Elliot thought of me when I threw up in the trashcan after we left one of Spicer's victims; I know that he couldn't possibly have known that what I saw hadn't gotten to me, it was sudden hatred for myself, that I hadn't been sympathetic, empathetic enough, to understand; hatred at myself for daring to hate my mother. She was an incredibly strong woman, to have done what she did, to have had me and raised me. Yeah, there are parts of my childhood that I'd rather forget, but I had a home, even if there wasn't much love in it. Sometimes, when I was younger, and even sometimes now when I'm so lonely that I wish I could end it all, I wish I was never born.

But I'm here, and life isn't something I can choose to leave whenever I want to. I'm not, and never have been, a quitter. It's part of my pride, I think; I may not have anything else, but I have my pride, and sometimes that's all that keeps me going; my pride and my job. I've only been working the SVU for a couple of years now, but there's a closer sense of camaraderie than I'd ever found working for any other unit, any other squad. I think it started with Don and John, bless his heart; Don told me if I needed to talk to come to him, and John can somehow sense when I'm down and he cracks one of his jokes, or pulls out one of his conspiracy theories, and even though I'm too practical to be that paranoid, he talks as if he really believes the stuff and I find myself half-believing in it too.

Then there's the work itself. When the department shrink asks us why we volunteered for the unit, Elliot says it's because he wants to do some good and get some pervs off the street. But he says it like he's memorized it off a book; with me, it's personal. I see a little of myself in each of the victims; the children, the teens, the women. They are more victims than I ever was, ever will; and I wonder how they do it, how they keep going when this stuff happens to them, how they can pick up and keep going and keep living. Seeing their courage inspires me to put aside my own hang-ups, and every time I send another perp to Central Booking I thank God that I can make a difference in someone's life somewhere. Most people aren't that lucky; they can't affect anyone's life positively except their own. I can. I'm not as die-hard a Catholic as Elliot is; but I do believe in God, and maybe this is why He put me here. Maybe this is why I'm alive, why I was conceived that night so long ago out of a terrible event that should never have happened to anyone.

I'm gonna live, I'm gonna survive,

Don't want the world to pass me by,

I'm gonna dream, I ain't gonna die

Thinking my life was just a lie

I wanna give, I'm ready to try

Willing to lay it on the line

I wanna be loved…

I want to think that that's why I live, that's why I exist; and I dare to dream that someday I will find someone out there who understands me, understands the complicated person I am, and maybe then I can stop looking for love. Maybe someday someone will take the me that I put on the line every day and love me for it. Don told me I give so much of myself to the victims that he's worried I won't have anything left for myself, but I have so much to give someone who will, can, love me. I wonder if I'll ever find anyone out there for me. John's given up; after four ex-wives I can't blame him. But no one's even tried to love me; no one's even gotten close enough to me for me to give it a try. I try hard not to despair, but lately…I just want someone to love me. Is that wrong?

"Hey."

I look up, startled, and saw Elliot standing on the other side of my mother's headstone. "Elliot, what's wrong? Did something happen?" I yank the headphones off my ears hurriedly, because I can't think of any other reason why he would be here at this moment.

"No, no, everything's okay. You just…" He hesitated, and I realized the little crease in his forehead wasn't a frown, it was worry. "You didn't answer your phone."

I grab my cell phone from its clip on my belt, and look at the display. Three missed calls. And they're all Elliot's numbers; his desk phone, his home phone, his cell phone. I can feel my face heating up, and shove my phone back into its clip. "I'm sorry. I got wrapped up and…is there something you guys need me at the station for?" I get up and face him.

His expression's unreadable for a long moment, then he carefully steps around the headstone, circles the oblong of ground under which my mother rests, and sits down at the base of the tree right beside where I'd been sitting before. "Come on, Liv. Sit."

I've never been able to refuse that 'Liv'. Ever since the first night he tagged me with it, I've liked it. No one ever shortened my name like that before; it's always been Livy, which I hate because it sounds childish. But 'Liv' is like a short form of 'live', and that's what I'm doing, that's what I want to do, I want to live. There were times when I didn't want to, but those are fast vanishing as I find work that I can do, that I'm good at doing, that helps me let others live. I like it. It reminds me of my self-imposed purpose in life…and so I didn't object when John picked it up cautiously, as if he wasn't sure I wasn't going to snap his head off, and then later, Don when he decided he liked it and it was a surefire way to let me know he wanted to talk to me about something personal. Not work-related. Fin's adopted it too, now, but I don't know if he knows the significance.

Elliot pats the ground again. "Liv. Sit."

"I thought you're supposed to be working," I say as I sit down.

"Cap let me off early when I asked. It's fairly quiet today, and John and Fin are catching. I was in the gym when Don told me you had called out. He needed to talk to you about something and you weren't answering your phone when he called you from my desk. So I came to find you."

"How did you know where I was?"

"I looked at the calendar." I hate that I'm so predictable, but he rushes on before I can apologize for this little annual trip to this spot. "Don't apologize, Liv," and it never ceases to amaze me, that he can read me this well. "You don't have to apologize. I understand."

I know he does, and I can't understand it. No one ever did. Until him. "How?"

His expression is peculiar. "Liv, do you have that entire CD?"

"Huh?" Now I'm really confused.

"You were singing." He points to my iPod. "I've heard that song. Do you have the entire CD?"

"No. Just this one. I don't usually listen to Bon Jovi."

"It's from their new album 'Have A Nice Day'. I listened to it last night because Dickie left it in the stereo after he was over the last time. I heard that song, and I realized why you act the way you do about your mother." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a CD. "I went and got it for you this morning."

"And I went and searched the internet for the song when you had it all the time." I take the CD from him.

"You asked me that question eight years ago."

I look at him. "What question?"

"You asked me who you were. You asked me who I wanted you to be, because you were good at being what everyone around you wanted you to be. Do you remember what I told you?"

"You said…" I frown as I try to remember. It's buried under eight years of pervs, perps, and memories, but finally I dig it out. "You said you wanted me to be myself. You said you didn't want me to be what you wanted, you wanted me to be who I wanted to be. And you asked me what I wanted to be." I felt my throat close as my eyes stung. I'd almost forgotten what he'd said that night, and what I'd said. "I said I wanted to be your partner."

He nodded at me. "And you've been my partner. In every sense of the word, and more. I'd like…" He stopped speaking abruptly, and said instead, "There's a line from track three that leaped out at me last night when I sat and listened to the entire CD. Do you believe in God?"

It seemed like such an abrupt switch in topic that I was confused. Again. "Are we changing subjects?"

"No. No we're not. Trust me."

"Yes."

He got up without a word and started off I stood up, calling after him. "Elliot! Elliot, what?"

He came back to me, put his hands on my shoulders gently, and looked into my eyes. "Listen to track three, Liv." And he was gone, leaving me staring at the CD and wondering whether he'd acquired spring fever.

I suddenly couldn't get home fast enough. I hated John's crypticness; now here Elliot was, doing it to me too. I got in and dropped my keys on the arm of the couch as I headed for my stereo, popped the CD in, and sat down to listen.

Maybe we're all different but we're still the same

We all got the blood of Eden running through our veins

I know sometimes it's hard for you to see

You're caught between just who you are and who you want to be…

My eyes teared up and I let them run down my cheeks. Elliot, for all his own pride in his kids and love for Kathy even now that they're separated, does understand me. I feel like he's standing there in my living room and telling me this instead of listening to it in a song.

Welcome, you got to believe

That right here, right now,

You're exactly where you're supposed to be

Welcome to wherever you are

When everybody's in and you're left out

And you feel you're drowning in the shadow of a doubt

Everyone's a miracle in their own way

Just listen to yourself, not what other people say…

No one's ever told me I was a miracle. I'd never ever thought of myself as one, but suddenly I was seeing myself differently. I was here, I was making a difference in other people's lives, and suddenly an image of little Maria Recinos flashed before me; I must have seemed like a miracle to her, to open her eyes when she thought she was gone and see me. I'll never forget her little tiny voice whisper my name from that pile of dress-up clothes and the smile she gave me, like I was her guardian angel come to life. If I hadn't been conceived that night, would Maria still be alive? If I hadn't been alive, if I hadn't made the connections, if I hadn't forced the rest of the squad to keep going because I listened to myself, I was convinced that she was for real, would they have ever found her? Would she have had the nerve to call 911 back if it hadn't been for all my prompting? If I hadn't had the childhood I'd had, would I have even been there? Would I have had the empathy for her that I did?

Be who you want to be

Be who you are

Everyone's a hero

Everyone's a star

When you want to give up and your heart's about to break

Remember that you're perfect; God makes no mistakes.

I don't know how long after I heard that that I cried. It was a while as I finally let go of all the hang-ups and issues and misconceptions that I had and made peace with my mother's ghost. For the first time I wasn't angry with God for making me who I was; if He didn't make mistakes that meant I was exactly who I needed to be at this moment in time. And I'd needed to hear that.

Elliot had tried to tell me that for several years now. The way he'd look at me, the way he'd kept telling me that I wasn't a screw-up, I wasn't a failure, the way every time I started seriously thinking about quitting he would be there, coaxing, persuading, daring me to keep going. He was my guardian angel and I loved him for it. He understood me like no one else, he took what I gave and gave me so much back… and I froze as what I'd just thought flashed through my mind. I loved Elliot for what he gave me…and I loved him.

I sank back into the couch, shocked. When had I started falling in love with my partner?