Hell and a Hangover

Disclaimer: Does not own, does not own, does not own… It's yours, Dick Wolf. All yours.

I basically am just taking a break from my two slightly humorous stories, because I can only go so long without some dramaz….

Also, side note, this probably will not make sense unless you've read my other fic, When a Tornado Meets a Volcano, as this is the sequel, haha. But, if you are still interested in this and have not read WaTMaV, it isn't really that long, as I am not really keen on writing very long fics (though this is disproven by my seemingly never ending House MD fics :[ ).

Chapter One: Hanging By A Moment

Some people just have no sense of time, and he was one of them. How could he be? He hadn't even noticed as the past few years flew by. Well, sure he had noticed… There were unavoidable things that one had to be aware of, such as the finalization of his divorce, Maureen getting married, Munch finally retiring (unwillingly, of course), Lizzie graduating from college, Fin transferring back to narcotics (as he was averse to deal with his new, rookie partner), Dick returning from his first tour of duty, and his second, he and Olivia both taking (and passing) the sergeants test, Kathleen getting married, Eli heading into middle school, Maureen having a baby…

It seemed that a lot of things had happened, things that he recognized as landmarks, big events in his life, in his kid's lives, in his still strange relationship with his now ex and once wife. That thought amused him, in a sick way. His ex-wife. She hadn't wanted to be a part of his life anymore, but, he wondered, how in the hell could you not be a part of someone's life when there are people out there who are made up of equal parts of each of you? It was beyond him.

But, back to the issue of time and how fleeting it was, or appeared to be. It wasn't as if the incidents themselves that had just sped by, it was just that by now they all sort of blurred into one long, never ending year. As if each new event was just another day, because by then all of the days had become just a day, one day, one after another until it turned out that he had seven years worth of days and only a handful of memories to show for them.

He thought it was almost depressing. Actually, it was depressing. Like he was watching his life from outside one of those huge department store windows at Christmas time, and it was just sitting there as he stood in the frigid, biting cold with the grey, mushy snow (sludge) around his boots, on a bright, happy looking display, with big, jolly red letters surrounded by paper snow flakes hanging above it, exclaiming what a wonderful present it would make for you or a loved one, a nice full life that he no longer could afford.

His musings depressed him, and being depressed made him angry. After all, he had no reason to feel this way. After all, he was still involved in his kids lives, after all, he still had a great job that he loved, and after all…

There was still a great void in his chest that he hadn't seemed to be able to fill. Seven years. Seven, lonely years of going home to an empty apartment. He scoffed at the idea; an apartment. He had an empty apartment when what he really wanted was a home, one that was warm inside even when the heat went out because the warmth that a family brings to a place is far more sustaining than some fucking pipes and hot air. And… Well, he didn't have it anymore.

The weekends when Eli came to stay with him weren't so bad. They had the semblance of that warmth, a taste of what he could've, should've, had. Yes, the weekends when his kids dropped by were the ones where the days seemed longer and happier, and that teasing warmth flittered around his ankles and he basked in it, because those were the days that he had always dreamed of. Every moment he had with his daughters, his sons, and now his beautiful grandchild were the best moments of his life, but they were just that. Moments.

And he was tired of living for mere moments, of hanging on to his sanity because maybe one more moment was around the corner. He wanted a constant, like the constant he'd had with Kathy only more… Well, constant.

God, this was depressing, and because it was depressing it was irritating. He hated dwelling on all of this, but he couldn't help it. The older his kids got, the older he got, the lonelier he felt.

The worst thing was that it was getting bad. The anger, the depression, it just kept building, and people were noticing. Well, a person was noticing. Said person had noticed from the beginning, had asked what was wrong and he had, as per usual, closed himself off. Not that that stopped her, no, said person kept on him, harping about his health, about how he wasn't sleeping enough, how he was sleeping too much, he wasn't eating enough, he was eating shit, he was getting too heavy, too thin, too nice, too mean, too lazy, too absorbed in his work and she just kept going on and on for seven long (short) years.

He was shocked that he didn't mind. He would have before then, but before then he had a wife who would rag on him all the time, so he sure as hell hadn't needed it from his partner, but after the divorce was settled and the air had cleared between them after their incident, she started in on him like never before, and truth be told he was kind of glad that she had. It showed that she cared, that she was there, a constant, the constant, at that point. He knew that even when his job was on the line, when it wasn't a constant, that she would be, and it kept him from diving over the deep end.

And, if he was being honest with himself, she was always right. Especially now. He had become too thin, he did sleep too little, he was too absorbed in his work, he was too tired and he was pretty sure that it scared her, because he knew that as much as she was his rock that he was hers. He chuckled softly as he thought about her, about how without her he wouldn't be the detective he was today, he wouldn't be who he was today, and he thought about how, over these long, nearly twenty years together that she had grown to love his sorry ass, and how hardened he would have had to have been not to love hers. A smile spread across his face as he pondered, almost out-loud, what would we do without each other?

It was that, that exact thought that brought him to where he was tonight, sitting in a dimly lit restaurant in a blazer that had long ago become too big for him, especially in the shoulders and the arms (because, let's face it, you can't stay ripped if you never even attempt to hit the gym) wondering how in the hell he was going to explain all of this to her, how he was going to explain this to his beloved partner, his one last constant. He rubbed his chin slowly, his coarse, two day old stubble scratching at his fingers, and he tapped his feet restlessly. To the outside world he probably looked like some tired old man trying his best not to look nervous on his first date with some girl he'd met online, but in reality he was just tired. Really tired. And, well, maybe a little nervous.

"Hey… It's cold out tonight." Olivia smiled, slightly out of breath as she sat down across from him at the small table where he had parked himself. She slipped out of her snow covered coat and looked at the bottle of wine on the table before running a hand through her now short hair (it was the way he liked it, how it was when they had first met and he had tried to write her off as a tomboy who wouldn't last five minutes let alone five, ten, fifteen plus years in the SVU). "We celebrating or something? You gonna be a granddad again, old man?"

Elliot smirked a little and shook his head, looking at her with a certain type of adoration he wasn't sure he understood or had ever felt before. He almost laughed again, too, looking at her. As much as he had changed over the past few years, she hadn't changed at all. Well, aside from the hair and a few new crinkles around her eyes that only popped up when she smiled, she was exactly the same. And she was beautiful. He coughed slightly, trying to focus on what he was supposed to be telling her. "Actually… Uh… We need to talk."

Olivia's smile quickly disappeared as her partner reached over and poured her a glass of the Merlot. "We do? Uh… what about? Did we do something wrong?"

"No, no… Nothing like that." He cleared his throat slightly and looked perplexed as he thought about what he was going to say next. "I uh… I've decided I'm… I'm not going to be a detective anymore."

-/-/-/-

A/N: BUH BUM. What now. Haha, just for the record, I will try to make this fic far less full of angst and violent sex than its predecessor.