Shadows Of The Past
(Chapter One: Into Thin Air)
Olivia stood on the sidewalk staring at the real estate sign in the yard. Leaves rustled around her and the sign creaked a bit as it moved with the wind. Her body trembled as the breeze blew through her long dark hair, as if the iron hand of a stranger had reached out and touched her face.
Fall seemed to have come early this year and the sting of the icy air in her lungs made it clear that winter wasn't far behind. She scanned her eyes over the house once more. This place that once was home to a family, a husband and wife and their five children, now stood almost ghostly and eerily empty.
It had been an especially long weekend. And in this case long meant no sleep what so ever for over thirty six hours and counting. That's when it happened. Push came to shove and a decision had to be made. A choice that fell on the shoulders of her partner. The choice to draw his weapon and shoot. A decision that would cause him an Internal Affairs investigation and, though it was a clean shooting, convince Elliot to resign from the NYPD and the Special Victims Unit.
Olivia was completely shocked when Cragen called her into his office to break the news of Elliot's resignation to her. It felt as if someone had punched her hard in the stomach, leaving her unable to even breathe for just a moment. Her partner and best friend of nearly thirteen years, had given up and chose to walk away rather than fight. But the most shocking part was that he had done so without even talking it over with Olivia. Until this point they had shared everything, always. She would have never imagined him making a career ending decision like this one without at least asking her opinion first, until now.
Apparently the man she thought she had known so well all of this time, turned out to be someone she barely knew at all. The Elliot she knew would never give up without a fight. The Elliot she knew was the one who had kept her going so many times when she, herself was ready to give up and throw in the towel. But the Elliot she knew was gone now.