Okay, let me start by saying that this is a MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH story. You WILL need Kleenex. That being said, I've been trying to write this for a few months, and I finally got it written today. So yay. The song I used for it is the beautiful song, Love Lives On, by newcomer Mallory Hope. The song is absolutely gorgeous and heartwrenching, and I totally recommend listening to it while reading this story. Enjoy, and please remember to review!
Thanks go out to Sarah. She knows why! LOL.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
SVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVU
Light poured into Olivia Benson's room through her window, and she sighed heavily and rolled over in the bed. Her arm reached out, expecting to come into contact with warm, inviting skin.
Instead, all it found was cool sheets that hadn't been slept in.
She finally forced her eyes open and looked up at the ceiling, quietly sighing. She knew that he wasn't there, but it still felt as though any morning she would wake up, and he would be there waiting for her touch.
Reluctantly she climbed out of the safety and comfort of the bed, then grabbed a robe and wrapped it around herself. Then she padded out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Feeling the beginnings of a headache, she started a pot of coffee and went about making breakfast for herself.
"I dreamt about you again last night," she whispered as she made French toast. The wedding ring on her left hand glittered up at her. She still didn't have the heart to take it off and put it away in a box, out of her sight and out of her mind.
"You were still here, and we were in the living room, just talking." About their future, about their marriage, about all of the things they were supposed to do together, but didn't get to.
The coffee finished brewing, and she went to the pot and pulled down two mugs. Then, without thinking about it, she poured two cups of coffee. It wasn't until the second mug remained in front of her that she remembered she was the only person in the house.
A few tears slid down her cheeks as she poured the second mug of coffee back into the pot. Then she washed the mug and put it away.
This wasn't fair. Why wasn't he still with her? She had waited all of her life to find him, to be with him and to love him. And she hadn't had nearly enough time with him. She gripped the counter until her knuckles turned white and her cheeks were stained with her tears.
They had so many plans, so many dreams that would never be realized because he was gone. Sometimes she still couldn't believe that he wouldn't come walking through that door at any time, or that she would go to work and he wouldn't be waiting for her there. Everywhere she went, it seemed, there was something there to remind her of him. And it was slowly killing her.
I reached for you this morning
Woke up with empty arms
Once again it's sinking in
How far away you are
I still pour two cups of coffee
And tell you all about my dreams
This kitchen's way too quiet
You should still be here with me
She trudged into work an hour later, and every set of eyes in the squadroom focused on her. Ignoring them, she made her way to her desk and sat down with a heavy sigh.
Every day, it seemed like, everyone wanted to stare at her and ask her how she was feeling. At first, it was sweet. Now it was just frustrating, and she was getting sick of it. Her answer was not going to change. Her husband was still dead, and she was still very much alone. What the hell did they expect? That if they asked enough, one day she would come in doing cartwheels and proclaiming that the world was sunshine and kittens? That just wasn't going to happen, no matter what anyone said.
Cragen approached her, and she mustered up a little smile for him to show that she was at least okay enough to be at work. If she had to spend another day alone in a house that held nothing but heartache for her, she didn't think that she'd be able to handle it.
He reached down and gently squeezed her shoulder, then walked away from her.
Her shoulders slumped in relief. One down, a thousand more to go.
She leaned down and opened a drawer, then reached down into it. Her dark eyes welled with tears as her fingers brushed against a candy bar he had left for her. It was stupid, but he always made sure there was at least one in her drawer, for the not so good days. Swiping at her eyes, she slammed the drawer shut. Then she stood up with enough force to send her chair flying to the ground, and every person in the precinct watched her as she fled to the relative safety of the ladies room.
Shaking, Olivia found an empty stall and ducked inside, slamming the door shut and locking it. Then she rested her head against the wall and started to cry softly.
He had been gone for a month, but it felt as though it had just happened. She looked at her hands and saw the phantom blood that still stained them. His blood.
She was learning how to live without him, but she wasn't doing that good of a job. All she wanted was to hold him one more time, to hear his contagious laugh or to hear him whisper how much he loved her as he held her tight. She just wanted to see him again, and she would have given anything just to have another minute with him, or to be the one who was gunned down brutally on the sidewalk.
She slammed her hand against the wall and cried harder. In a way, she was thankful that they had had time together, no matter how brief it was. She had gotten the chance to hold him and love him, when at one time she thought that she would never be able to touch him at all.
Broken, she slid to the floor and drew her legs up to her chest. Then she buried her face in her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.
And for the millionth time since he had died in her arms, she wished that it had been her, instead.
And even though I cry like crazy
Even though it hurts so bad
I'm thankful for the time God gave me
Even though we couldn't make it last
I'm learning how to live without you
Even though I don't want to
And even with you gone
Love lives on
That Sunday, Olivia was curled up in her husband's favorite chair with the phone to her ear. It had become a ritual of sorts for her to call her mother-in-law on Sunday afternoons. The older woman was a connection to her late husband, and Olivia was her connection to her son. They swapped the same stories over and over again, because in a way, it made the both of them feel better.
They spent three hours on the phone before Olivia finally hung up and lifted herself out of his recliner. Everywhere she looked, she could feel him, even though she had boxed up many of his things and put them away.
She wandered around the house for a while before finally stumbling into the bedroom that she had shared with him. She collapsed onto the bed, then grabbed a pillow and hugged it tight.
From the moment they had started their relationship, they had kept it under very careful wraps. They didn't want the whole world knowing, if only to protect their careers and the careers of the people around them. And they had done an excellent job... for about a month.
She couldn't help but smile at the memory of the priceless expression on Cragen's face when he found out. But later that same day, he had come to them and told them that he had been suspicious for a while.
Who hadn't?
She finally sat up and crawled out of the bed, then shuffled over to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer. In it was his ratty old Rolling Stones shirt, the one that she always hated. But it was his favorite shirt, and she just couldn't bring herself to do anything with it. Reaching down, she picked up the soft material and caressed it tenderly. Then she brought it up to her face and inhaled deeply.
There were faint traces of him on it, and before she knew it, she buried her face in the shirt and sobbed miserably.
She couldn't count how many times she had begged, threatened, and bartered with him to get rid of it. She had even offered to buy him a new one, but he had stubbornly refused to get rid of it.
And now, neither would she.
I still call your mom on Sunday
It's good to hear her voice
She always tells me that same story
About her stubborn little boy
And I kept your favorite T shirt
You know the one I used to hate
Ain't it funny how it's the one thing now
I just can't throw away
Olivia was numb as she sat in the bathroom stall, her rapidly beating heart threatening to explode inside of her chest.
How could this have happened? How could she do this, with her husband gone? Would she even be any good at it?
The white pregnancy stick remained in her hand, as though it was mocking her. Pregnant. She was pregnant.
There was a baby growing inside of her. His baby, and he would never even see it.
She rested a protective hand over her belly. It was going to hurt like hell, but she wasn't going to give this baby up. This was the child that she had always wanted, with the man she felt that she had loved her entire life. He might not be there, but she knew that he would want her to take care of this child, to love her and raise her. Maybe she would even become a cop, like her parents.
Olivia closed her eyes, and the image of a little girl with blue eyes, dark brown hair and a toothy grin sprang to her mind. And she loved it.
Opening her eyes again, she glanced down at the pregnancy test still clutched in her hand. She was pregnant, but she would find a way to make it work. After a moment, she tossed the test into the garbage, then flushed the toilet and walked out of the stall. Approaching the mirror, she quietly ran cold water and splashed it over her face, hoping it would make her appear as though she hadn't been crying. Then she dried her face.
When she looked in the mirror, she realized that there was something noticeably different about her appearance. She didn't know what it was; she just knew that there was something very different.
She pulled her hair back away from her face and into a ponytail. Then she headed out of the bathroom and back into the squadroom.
Cragen was in his office, and Olivia took a steadying breath before knocking on the door and pushing it open. "Captain..."
Cragen looked up from his files, his concern evident on his face. "Liv? What is it?"
She sighed quietly and let the door close. "I need to talk to you..."
And even though I cry like crazy
Even though it hurts so bad
I'm thankful for the time God gave me
Even though we couldn't make it last
I'm learning how to live without you
Even though I don't want to
And even with you gone
Love lives on
Hope stared at the granite tombstone in front of her, several daises clutched tightly in her little hands. "Happy birthday, Daddy..." she whispered, sniffling.
Olivia stood by a few feet away, watching her little girl standing at her daddy's grave. She was at a tender age, but already she picked up on things that Olivia hoped she wouldn't for a few more years. Her little daughter knew that something was missing in their lives, and Olivia had tried to explain it to her. But it was harder than she had ever thought. She saw a lot of herself in her baby, and she didn't want Hope to know that bitter rejection and unexplained hurt because her daddy wasn't in her life.
Hope brushed her thick hair out of her eyes, then glanced over at her mommy. "Can Daddy hear me, Mommy?"
"Of course he can, baby..." Olivia knelt down beside her daughter and wrapped an arm around her. "Remember what I told you about guardian angels?"
"My daddy is my guardian angel, and he's always with me."
Olivia kissed Hope's nose. "Exactly. He'll always be with you, no matter where you go or what you do."
Hope nodded, setting the flowers on her daddy's gave. Then she flung her arms around her mommy's neck. "I love you, Mommy..."
"I love you, too, baby girl." Tears welled in Olivia's arms as she lifted her precious baby into her arms and carried her back to the car.
She comes with me on your birthday
Little flowers in her hand
She's always known there's something missing
But too young to understand
That night, Olivia tucked Hope into her bed, kissing her forehead before she quietly slipped out of the room. The house was quiet, so she padded into her bedroom and paced for a few minutes before she sat down on her bed.
"She looks just like you," she finally whispered, her voice breaking the silence of the house.
"She's going to start school in the fall. I'm scared to death." She looked out the window. "God, I wish you were here to promise me that she's going to be fine. Because I almost don't want to let her go."
A star in the sky twinkled at her. "She asks about you almost every day, El." She shook her head. "It's hard now, but one day she's going to ask the really hard questions."
Leaning over, she pulled a box from under the bed. Then she dumped out hundreds of pictures of them onto the mattress. His beaming smile shined up at her, but for the first time, Olivia didn't cry.
"I've known it was coming since the day I gave birth to her." She touched one of the pictures tenderly. "I'm going to tell her what an amazing man you were, and how much I loved you, how much I still love you."
She flipped through several of the pictures. "And I'll tell her how much of you I see in her. Because I do, Elliot. I see it whenever she looks at me and smiles." She sighed shakily. "I love her more than my own life, El."
And someday she's going to ask me
What kind of man you were
I'll tell her all the ways I loved you
And all of you I see in her
She kept the pictures out for a little while longer, then finally put them back into the box and closed it. But she kept one of Elliot and herself out. Then she slid the plain box back under the bed.
Hope was sleeping peacefully when Olivia slipped back into the room, and she smiled. A heavy sleeper, just like her father. Without making a sound, she placed the picture on her nightstand beside her bed. Then she watched her baby sleep for a few minutes.
She was an angel, and even though Elliot was gone, God had found a way to give him back to her in their daughter. She was beautiful and sweet, but fiercely determined and stubborn, like her daddy. Cragen, Munch and Fin had all stepped in as a surrogate family, and as soon as they saw the six pound, sleepy bundle of sweet baby, they had all fallen in love, along with Olivia.
But they weren't Elliot, and she wasn't looking forward to the day when her little girl wanted to know exactly why her daddy wasn't there with them. She knew that she would ask, because Olivia had asked her own mother. But instead of getting slapped, her little girl would get an honest answer.
She just didn't know what that answer was yet. What she did know was that she would be able to figure it out, and she would make sure that her baby had a better childhood than she ever did.
"I promise, sweetheart," she whispered to her sleeping child before she closed the door.
"I promise."
And even though I cry like crazy
Even though it hurts so bad
I'm thankful for what God gave me
And she's the perfect way to make it last
I'm learning how to live without you
Baby, I don't want you to
But even with you gone
Love lives on
The next morning, Olivia awoke to her sleeping daughter cuddled in her arms.
And it dawned on her that even though Elliot was gone, she was never truly alone.
I reached for you this morning
Woke up with empty arms
The End.
A/N: *sniffles* I know, it broke my heart to write it. But the song fit them the best, and once the muse decided that it wanted it, that's what I had to write. Thanks for reading, and please remember to review!