Veritas
Chapter One
If you shut up the truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in it's way.
-Emile Zola
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"It meant something to me."
Olivia looks at Elliot, that after taking a sip of her beer.
"What?" She asks, curious as to why, after about fifteen minutes, he decided to break the comfortable silence between them.
They had decided to O'Connor's for drinks shortly after work to get their minds off of losing Merritt Rook. They had completely underestimated what the man was capable of, even with the elaborate and crowd pleasing stunts that he pulled. But beyond the sinister playfulness, there was a man who had lived a life of tragedy. He'd been a victim of circumstances beyond his control, and it became clear that his fight was against things far more powerful than just the police, or the status quo.
The fight had been about him defending those weaker than himself. The fight had been about his unwillingness to forgive himself for his wife and baby's death. The fight had been against his manhood and letting other people decide his destiny.
"El?" Olivia inquires.
Elliot sighs and shakes his head. "Normally I don't pay attention to half the things perps say, unless they're confessing…but Rook…"
Olivia blinks slowly. "He got to you," she says matter-of-factly.
"Yeah," he chuckles.
She puts a hand on his shoulder and rubs gently, an offering of comfort.
Olivia is willing to admit that Merritt Rook's story had been heartbreaking, but he is dangerous. Was. The search team is still looking, but there is absolutely no sign of Rook anywhere. No body in the water, nothing. He will be back. Rook isn't dangerous because of his views. He is dangerous because he is the perfect criminal. Of all the suspects she has dealt with in her career, Rook was by far the most intelligent, cunning, and strangely charming suspect that's she come across in a while. His crimes aren't nearly as bloody nor violent as the ones she is used to dealing with, but it is not so much his actions, but his mind that is dangerous. He has spent so long in his grief and guilt that it has molded him into a man desperate for control, desperate for someone to hear his voice and feel his pain.
He will be back.
"You gonna tell me or what?"
"What?" He asks.
"About what you said," she explains, slightly irritated.
He thrums the pads of his fingers on the mahogany bar and then he runs a hand over his face.
"Much as it pains me to admit it," he begins. "Rook had a point. About the whole authority and sheep thing."
"Don't tell me you buy into that crap," she says in disbelief. "Casey was right. Being with the baby has made you soft."
"Maybe it's time I do become soft," he grins. "I'm just saying that maybe the guy wasn't completely cuckoo, you know? We all just do what's expected of us, and what he said, before he told me the truth, it made sense. It meant something to me."
She doesn't know where he's going with the conversation, but she can feel it quickly moving into uncomfortable territory. When Elliot gets philosophical on her and it leads them down that familiar path that she'd thought they'd walked through and come to an understanding about. She can't relive, rethink, rehash the last two years of the hardest emotional journey concerning their partnership. She simply can't do this again because the boundaries had been set, the line had been clearly drawn in the sand. They. Cannot. Go back.
"What happened when I was in that sound booth?" She asks.
Elliot looks straight ahead into the display of the hundreds of brands of alcohol on display on the other side of the bar. Everything and nothing happened while she'd been in that booth. Realizations and fears had come to light. The sounds of the screams (albeit simulated) will always haunt his dreams and he'll see her face and her confused and wide doe eyes expressing the fear she had been feeling.
"I walked in, and Rook was there, he threatened that he'd rigged the door to get to you with a bomb," he explains. "He turned on the light in the booth so that I could see you, and then he cut it off. I had my gun pointed squarely at his head. He had this remote in his hand and he pressed a button and I heard what I thought was your scream. I put my gun down and he told me to have a seat."
"He started telling me to push the button that triggered the electroshock, and I kept telling him no. I didn't know what else to do. I thought it was real. Then he started telling me how he'd let his family die and he asked me one more time to push the button. I said no and he started crying. He said 'You're not a sheep, Elliot. You're a man.'"
Olivia sighs. "El…"
"It just got me thinking, you know?" He says. "About the last couple of years, about Kathy and the kids…"
"Elliot, don't even…" she begins, but trails off.
"What?"
"Don't even give what Rook said a second thought," Olivia says. "He got to you, I get that. But I mean, it wasn't like he quoted Plato. It's not something that will make you question your life."
"But it does, Liv," he says. "It really does and I don't know…"
Suddenly, Olivia feels nauseous. She knows that it is most likely more than just the conversation they're having; it is the smell of the grease trap beside the bar, it is the pungent smell of some washed up, middle-aged bald guy's breath as he slumbers sloppily with his mouth wide open, it is the faint smell of smoke in the air. But this…this conversation, this moment has triggered it.
"El-"
"Why didn't you tell me about Kurt Moss?" He asks.
She closes her mouth and purses her lips, shaking her head. "I just…I don't know. I thought it was a good idea at the time to wait, but obviously…"
"Why wouldn't you want to tell me?" He asks softly. "You know I would have been happy for you."
"I know," she sighs. "I never doubted that you would be. I didn't tell you or anyone else because…"
"It's okay Liv," he says. "It's what you do."
"What the hell does that mean?" She asks.
"I'm just saying that I know you," he explains. "You have to get out of your own way, Liv. You did exactly what you always do when you're in a relationship with someone."
Her stomach churns and swirls and she can feel the saliva increasing in her mouth, a sure sign that she will throw up. She picks up her glass and downs the rest of her beer, hoping that the dry lager would cleanse her pallet.
"Thanks for that vote of confidence, El," She says, swallowing thickly. "And you're not exactly an expert on relationships."
Elliot shakes his head with a slight grin. "I didn't say any of that to upset you, and I never claimed to be an expert in relationships."
"What is all this, Elliot?" She asks. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"You're going to let the words of some nut job screw with your head?"
"Liv, this is more than just about what Rook said," he says. "I mean, it's part of it, but…I was afraid when you were in that booth. Even though none of it was real, I thought it was and I couldn't stand the thought of you in pain and being unable to stop it."
She is getting a headache now, and Elliot's heart is beating heavily, and slowly.
You're not a sheep, Elliot. You're a man.
It keeps swirling around in his head in an endless loop, and the more he remembers it, the more he finds his resolve to face this head on. If he wants any kind of peace once and for all, he will have to allow himself to have the feelings he'd been ignoring for almost three years. He needs to have this conversation with her and attempt to get to the truth. Even if they have nothing else between them, holding their partnership together, at least truth can be their foundation to rebuild again.
"Elliot, there was nothing that you could do," Olivia says, rather irritated. "Don't beat yourself up over something that wasn't even happening. I was fine El. A little shaken, but fine. I'm glad we both came out of this okay. Now can we please just…drop this?"
He shakes his head. "I can't Olivia. I was afraid, hell I was afraid even if it was just a ploy. The fear of losing you again entered my mind and all I could think was what if this is the time? The time that I actually do lose you and I never get to say what I've wanted to say to you?"
Olivia rubs her forehead.
She cannot take this. Take him like this. She regrets her wanting to know what he meant. If it means revisiting the last two difficult years of their partnership, she does not want to stick around for it. She wants to go home and curl up in her down comforter. She wants a dreamless sleep to overtake her and she wants to wake anew and forget how Elliot is hell-bent on fucking up their partnership again with this bullshit.
"What do you want to say to me Elliot?" She asks angrily. "C'mon, just say it since you're making it sound like I'm gonna die any minute."
"Well if it sounds like that to you then you're not listening," he says, fishing for his wallet. "You're so damn stubborn you don't even want to hear what I have to say."
"Fuck you El," she hisses, getting up. "I'm stubborn? What about you? You're the one who turned your back on me and pretended that you did it out of some…goddamn noble obligation to me. I never asked for you to shut me out, and God knows I didn't deserve it El. So fuck you and goodnight."
She slaps a five dollar bill onto the bar and she makes her way to the bar.
Elliot shoves his ones back into his wallet and then he gets up, following her out of the bar and into the spring air. It is breezy and cool, and the sky is clear. He sees Olivia bundle herself in her fitted jacket as she walks a little ahead of him, shaking her head to get her hair out of her face.
"It wasn't true Liv," he calls and she stops, nearly to the corner.
Olivia turns to him, her face just barely illuminated by the dim streetlight above her. They both stand in their places for a moment, just staring at each other for what seems like minutes, but it really only takes seconds before Elliot walks up to Olivia, more humble than she's ever seen him in all the years of their partnership.
She swallows the huge, slightly painful lump in her throat. Tears sting in her eyes and she tilts her head.
"What wasn't true, Elliot?"
He shakes his head. "I'm not a man, Liv. At least, I'm not the man that I want…need to be to Kathy, to my kids…to you."
Olivia blinks slowly and looks at him. Her stomach is twisting and swirling within her.
"What makes you think that I need you to be more of the man that you've been to me already?" She asks softly. "Ten years of this partnership Elliot, and you've always been there in every way a partner can be there. So this…what am I supposed to do with this?"
"You don't have to do anything with it," he says, putting a hand on her bicep. "I…it has less to do with you than it does with me."
She snorts bitterly, pulling away from his touch.
"That's what it always boils down to huh?" she hisses as she begins to walk away from him.
From his truth.
Her truth.
TBC