PROLOGUE
ELLIOT
The lights in the locker room are off. It's nearing midnight, but he still sits on the edge of one of the hard wooden benches, fists gripping the material of his suit pants so tightly that his knuckles are white.
It's been hours, but he still can't get the voice of the judge out of his head.
"With Mr. Stabler's career choice, the number of hours worked, and the lack of outside support system in mind, it is this court's decision to award physical custody of Kathleen, Richard and Elizabeth Stabler to Katherine Malone."
Elliot pushes himself off of the bench. His chest burns with sobs that he won't let go. His wife is gone. His partner is gone. And now his own kids have been taken away from him.
"This court also grants Ms. Malone's request to move the minor children out of New York State."
Kathy's moving them to Vermont. Fucking Vermont.
His breath comes out in short huffs as the world tilts around him. His open palms rest on the row of lockers in front of him as he tries to prevent himself from falling backward. The memory of their arms around him in the courthouse minutes before Kathy swept them away will be all he has to sustain him for weeks.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Fucking court. Fucking judge. Fucking Kathy. His fist slams against the unforgiving metal once more as his vision blurs. What has he got now? His partner, his wife, his kids… they're all gone.
So what has he got now?
His hands shake as he enters the combination to his lock and grabs the sweatpants and t-shirt on the top shelf. There's a heavy bag in the corner of the room, and hopefully, the slamming of fists on canvas will drown out those words in his head.
/
By the time morning arrives, Elliot's barely slept between pounding the heavy bag until his fists pulsed and quietly blinking away his tears in the darkness of the crib. He's due in at work downstairs in a half an hour, but both his body and soul are too heavy to move. So he lays where he is, dreading each second that brings him closer to facing the day alone.
Completely alone.
With ten minutes to spare, Elliot sluggishly slips into one of the spare shirts he keeps in his locker and trudges down the steps.
Like the past four weeks, his former partner's desk is barren. Munch and Fin haven't arrived yet, but the light in Cragen's office is on and the door is closed. A twinge of relief hits Elliot as he realizes that his superior hadn't seen him coming from the top floor of the squad rather than the elevator. Those are questions that he's not willing to answer yet.
His hands are slow as he rummages through case files and finds one to start working on. It's one of the last that remains open since Olivia vanished from the squad and his life. A young woman, raped and found bloodied up two blocks from her brother's Manhattan apartment.
"Elliot." Cragen stands in the doorway of his office, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers. "A word?"
He pushes himself off of his desk and makes his way into the office.
"Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine, cap'n," he answers half-heartedly. "Just trying to finish up the Lawrence case."
"Right," Cragen says, though Elliot can tell he's not buying it. "The brother called last night asking about progress. Go ahead."
The first picture in Elliot's file is a man with cropped hair, a thin mustache, and a tattoo crawling up the side of his neck. He's got a mean mug and an established membership in a biker gang in downtown Manhattan. Munch and Fin are both working at their desks, and he knows he should take one of them with him, but without a word, he grabs his jacket, his sunglasses, and makes his way down the hall towards the elevator. Like almost every day for the past month, alone.
OLIVIA
Walking into the 1-6 again feels like coming home after a long vacation. Things are the same- the coffee pot. The staircase. The captain's office with the door closed, but the blinds open, closed but inviting at the same time. She's the one that somehow feels different.
The place has almost cleared out for the night. Most of the lights have been turned off and it's quiet. Olivia's planned it this way. She isn't quite ready for the questions, welcomes, and explanations inevitably to come from the people she's left behind. Most of all, she's not ready for the set of steely blue eyes that will fall on her, the betrayal of abandonment that she's already seen once before.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"It was just too complicated."
Not in the middle of the squad, at least. Not with co-workers and friends standing by.
Her eyes subconsciously search for his desk in the middle of the large room. It's uncharacteristically clear- the organized clutter of stacked case files she's come to expect are absent. Even the picture frames that proudly display him and his kids are gone. Spring cleaning? She thinks. Without dwelling on it, she knocks on the captain's door and a soft 'come in' prompts her entrance.
Inside, the balding man she's grown to think as family sits at his desk, tired eyes gleaming from the soft glow of the desk lamp next to him. Immediately, he drops his pen and stands from his chair, a warm smile coming across his face. "Olivia. When did you get back?"
"Couple of days ago."
"Welcome back. The squad'll be happy to see you." As kind as the statement is meant to be, she can still hear the question that lays within it. Why didn't you come when everyone was here?
Olivia sighs. Her body crumples in the chair as a picture of her partner's face forms in her mind's eye- day worth of stubble on his cheeks, tight-lipped frown, shirt hanging open as he stared at her with tired, red-rimmed eyes, questioning her for leaving him without a word. He'd been run down then- the weight of his wife's separation settled squarely on his shoulders. And, though she didn't want to admit it at first, the weight of her separation from him, as well.
"How is he?"
The haggard captain's eyes fall. He rounds his desk and leans against the edge in front of her, his arms crossing over his chest. Finally, his voice comes out, low and somber. "After you left… he fell apart, Olivia. I tried, but he wouldn't take to me."
"His divorce," Olivia whispers. "It must have gone through."
She remembers his silent pain. His sleepless nights under the guise of working overtime. And perhaps most of all, his sneaking into the cribs at the end of the night instead of going home to sleep. Her eyes squeeze shut. She should have known things were going to get worse instead of better. She left him to deal with it all on his own.
"I need to see him."
She turns from the captain, mind already set on getting into her car and driving over to Brooklyn. Everything will be fine, so long as she can see him.
But the captain's voice stops her. "Olivia, wait."
"Wait?" she repeats. "He's not in the field, is he? I can wait here until he gets back-" But it's after midnight and she knows that, even if there was a case this late, there would be more than just him working on it. That, added to the slow shake of Cragen's head, and his empty desk, and she knows something is very, very wrong.
"Where's Elliot, Captain?" she whispers.
"He's gone, Olivia."
Gone from home. Gone from the precinct. Gone from the force. Gone from life. That last one draws bile up her throat, but the captain hasn't said anything else so she's left with that hanging phrase. Gone from what? She desperately needs to ask, but there's cotton in her mouth and she can't form words.
It takes several tries, but finally, she manages to push words past her lips. "What do you mean gone?"
"I called his cell phone, his home phone, I knocked on his door… nothing. He quit, Olivia. I haven't heard a word from him since."
She'd suspected it seeing his empty desk on the way in. She'd suspected something was wrong when Cragen hesitated as she asked about him. And she suspected it when he told her to wait. But now, hearing the words, having this become reality, she feels like she's been slapped. Just like that, her partner is gone. And she has no idea where to look for him.
/
Olivia slips through the doorway. The living room and kitchen lights are off, the walls are bare and the kitchen counters are empty. She flips the lights on and steps slowly into the middle of the apartment. If she hadn't been here so many times before, she wouldn't even know that he's lived here. The photos he's proudly displayed of his children are nowhere to be found. There's no mail on the counter, no leather jackets or New York Jets baseball caps hanging on the hooks next to the front door. Just like on his desk in the squad room, the neat clutter she's grown accustomed to from her partner is nonexistent.
When she pushes into the bedroom, she feels like she's invading a sacred place. It's not the first time she's entered his private space, but it's the first time she's done so without an invitation.
The bed is made. A single photo frame sits horizontally on the top of the bureau, displaying a scene that she knows well. Her partner stands in the middle, wearing a rumpled blue dress shirt. His eyes are bright and there's a genuine smile spread across his face as he holds his two older daughters under his arms. The twins stand in front of him. She remembers the occasion well- his birthday two years ago. The kids stopped by the squad with a cake covered in candles. It had been the first time she'd seen him genuinely happy in weeks.
With a heavy sigh, she sits down on the edge of his bed. Her palm slips over the top of the blanket- it's cold. The last time she was in his bedroom, the heat had been stifling.
Her body quivers as she remembers. Her skin had been on fire as it rubbed against his. The heavy breaths that he pushed into her ear made her toes tingle.
Olivia shakes the memory away, jumping off of the mattress. It's the first time she's allowed herself the memory since she's been back. She'd placed all her focus on his welfare- on whether or not he's been okay since her departure, on whether or not he'd be angry, or hurt by what she'd done- left without a goodbye, again. Now she knows. Now, it's too late.
A/N: Thanks for reading! This is a new one, and it's gonna be kind of different from all the others that I've written. Please leave a review and let me know what you think of it!