A/N: Everyone seems to know how Olivia feels when Elliot leaves, maybe it's time we all go to see the other side of the story… and don't worry, for you E/O shippers, it'll be a happy ending because I don't believe in sad ones. =)
He shot her. He shot her. He couldn't even say her name. But he saw her face, every time he closed his eyes, every time he opened them. The image wouldn't go away, her body falling to the floor. The young life suddenly over. How was he supposed to move passed that? Sure, he'd kill before but not like this.
What Elliot Stabler couldn't condone was what he had done to that young girl. Jenna. He had killed her to save someone who didn't even deserve saving. The girl was lost. She was grieving for her mother. She had killed a man, yes, but it didn't warrant more killing. He made a mistake. He had shot her and missed her shoulder. He had hit her too close to the heart. She died cradled in his arms mumbling how easy it was to buy a gun off the street.
It didn't take him long to realize that his own life as a police officer was over. He couldn't go back to work as if nothing had happened. He couldn't pretend that the girl's life wasn't cut short because of what he had done.
He shot her.
Cragen had tried to reason with him, he'd tried to tell him that he did what he was trained for. She had killed a man and was about to kill another. But Elliot was unwavering in his decision to put in his resignation. It was time to close that chapter of his life. He didn't feel like he deserved to work in the police force anymore. He didn't trust himself with a gun.
"You should tell Liv," Cragen encouraged.
Elliot looked lost. "I can't," he said, shaking his head. The idea of leaving Olivia was just too much to take. He was happily married but they'd always been a part of him that had wanted her. A big part. "I just… it'll be too hard. I don't think I can. Could you tell her…"
Cragen nodded. "Call her."
Elliot nodded.
He walked out of the precinct for the last time.
*E&O*E&O*E&O*
Months passed and Elliot became in possible to live with. He drank more and more, visiting the pubs daily, sometimes before noon and downing endless glasses of hard liquor. Scotch mostly. The cheapest they had. All he wanted was to become numb.
Kathy tried to get him into rehab. She tried to get him to talk to someone. And when he refused both, she left him. He wasn't the same man she married. He wasn't the man who had gone to work every day to keep the world safe.
Elliot became more and more dependent on alcohol and when that wasn't enough he turned to prescription drugs and got hooked pretty quickly. He was making decisions that Elliot Stabler never would have. He occasionally went home with some stranger from the bar, and left before she woke up in the morning. He got his own apartment and lived like a pig. He didn't care about himself anymore or his hygiene. His friends eventually stopped coming by until he woke up one day completely alone.
He seemed to sink further into the pit of depression.
Finally he hit rock bottom when he woke one day in a strange town in a place he'd never been with blood on his clothes and his face mangled. He didn't remember a single thing.
It was then that he decided to finally get some help. He checked himself in a detox program and got sober. It was then that he finally remembered Olivia. He hadn't spoken a word to her in two years. He hadn't ever been sober long enough to call her.
The first phone call he made she didn't answer.
Neither did she return his second call after he'd left a message on her cell phone.
Finally, he called Munch.
"Stop calling Olivia," he growled. "She's been through enough. She doesn't need this."
"I just want to talk to her."
"Well, you can't. She's not the same person anymore, Elliot. She's closed that chapter of her life. It's been two years, did you think she was just going to wait around for you to pick up the damn phone. What you did was a lousy thing to do to your partner. We had to pick up the pieces after you left. I'm not going to watch her go through all that again."
"What did I do?"
"You nearly killed her, Elliot."
His chest ached like nothing else. "I didn't know, Munch."
"I know that. But you just can't do this to her, okay?"
"Okay. I'm sorry."
He hung up the phone then, missing his old life, missing everything he ever had. He had always taken it for granted. His friends. His family. His job. And now he had nothing at all.
*E&O*E&O*E&O*
He almost took another drink. He had wandered outside his apartment and ended up in a bar. He had somehow ordered a drink he didn't remember asking for and he sat staring into his glass. He kept thinking about how he had nothing left and how nothing mattered to him. He had nothing to lose, so what did he care if the alcohol numbed the immense pain that washed through every vein in his body.
As he raised the glass to his lips she walked into the bar.
A/N: I had every intention of making this a one shot but then I thought about all those lovely reviews and all those people who keep asking for multi chapters… well, you have your wish. Will you say thank you by reviewing? =) *wink*