TITLE: Alone
AUTHOR: Liv
RATING: PG
FEEDBACK: Please?
CLASSIFICATION: Olivia/Elliot friendship UST
SPOILERS: "Wrong is Right", "Wrath" and "Doubt"
DISTRUBUTION STATEMENT: If anyone is so inclined to post this anywhere, let me know about it first...I promise you'll get the green light...and I'll be flattered
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters on SVU, I'm only playing with them for the time being and will return them in one piece...I promise.
Thanks to Broem for beta-ing (and the title)!!
Things are different than they ever were before. Hell, that's probably the understatement of the year. Kathy's gone; the kids, gone; and Olivia, going. I don't know what's gotten into her lately and quite honestly, I don't have the energy to figure it out right now. I'm sure though, somehow, I'm to blame. My guilt seems to be the only constant in my life these days; of what I'm guilty, I'm still not sure. Being a crappy husband? I can buy that. A distant father? That's probably true too. Of not being there for my partner? Hell yes. And the thing that scares me the most is that I'm most upset about the last one.
I'm still not sure when everything changed between Olivia and I, but what I do know is that it was so gradual and natural that neither one of us noticed it right away. It hit me like a ton of bricks all those years ago when her mother died. I was so frustrated that my partner was hurting and there was nothing I could do to stop her pain. There was no one to arrest or beat up; no score to settle. Just pain and suffering that no one could take away. I managed to chalk that up to my overwhelming need to save everyone I care about and let it go.
Those same feelings were dredged back up nearly a year later when Eric Plummer set his sights on her. The things we said to each other during that case are things that under any other circumstances, with any other person, would have erupted into a fist fight and reassignments. Because it was her, things were different. I let stuff slide that even my wife wouldn't get away with. This time, I couldn't push my feelings aside as easily as before, but after a while, I managed not to think about it anymore.
Around that same time, Kathy became suspicious about my relationship with Olivia—even went so far as to accuse me of sleeping with her one night. The look I gave her would have frozen water in July. That was the first and only time she mentioned that idea. I was more upset that she thought so little of my partner than the fact that she had lost her trust in me. That realization scared the crap out of me. Just what the hell was I thinking here?
Years later, Kathy is gone and I'd expected Olivia to be there to help me through my own personal hell, but I managed to screw that up too. I pushed her away before I'd even told her about the divorce. Hell, I didn't even tell her! That damn lawyer saw to that. Now, I'm more alone then I've been in the past twenty years and I don't know what do about it. I'll always love Kathy; she's the mother of my kids, but right now, my heart's pulling me in a direction I'm not sure I'm ready to go—into my partner's arms. Out of this whole mess, there is one thing that I'm sure of: Kathy's my past and Olivia's my future; that is, if she'll have me.