Author's Notes: Every so often, I'll be listening to a song, and I will come across a particularly wonderful lyric that makes me want to write. This is a result of that. The title comes from a quite attributed to an unknown author, "music is what feeling sounds like."
Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing the characters, settings, and songs.
Home's face, how it ages when you're away – Death Cab for Cutie, "Your Heart Is An Empty Room"
She had been away for four months, and naturally she had expected some changes to occur during that time. He would have a new partner, she knew. Life at SVU would not come to a standstill, she was well aware. Still, seeing these changes after she returned home was a somewhat surreal experience.
She saw Elliot with Dani Beck. She saw him with her, his new partner, and somehow she could hardly breathe. The two of them were so familiar, so at ease with one another. They looked so in sync with one another as she watched them from Cragen's office. He smiled at her, and they both looked as if they hadn't a care in the world, despite where they were working.
She felt odd and out of place. It was as if she didn't belong – she had been replaced, and her replacement was sitting at what had once been her desk, smiling at the man who had once been her partner. Dani Beck had what had once been hers. She had entered while Olivia had been gone, and now she left Olivia with nothing.
She knew things change had been inevitable when she went to Oregon. But seeing it like this, feeling as if she had lost her partner – Olivia suddenly wished she had never left. She had left her secure home at SVU to venture into unknown territory, and she had lost it. She had returned from Oregon only to find that the Special Victims Unit had changed. It had evolved into something that didn't quite include her. She reflected on that, and it felt as if she was falling.
"Captain," she said, "I don't think I'm ready to come back yet."