Healing Old Wounds – Chapter 2
Her first day back was fairly uneventful. She met the new detectives that had originally been hired to replace her, got reacquainted with those that she had met only briefly before leaving and completed all the tedious tasks that came with a new, though familiar, workplace. By the afternoon she was desperate for a new case, something emergent to keep her mind from wandering. Sitting at a desk reviewing files, she started second-guessing her decision to come back. Finally closing her computer and stacking the files around 6pm, she headed to the Captain's office. She knocked softly and hovered in the doorway when she heard him answer.
He looked up at the familiar face, the years away from New York had softened her, or maybe it was having children. Something had made it a lot easier to read what was going on in her thoughts, she wore them on her face now, whereas before her eyes had shielded everything.
"You're wondering whether you made the right decision," he said to her, before she had a chance to say anything.
She nodded and took a step inside the office, out of the shadows.
"I just don't want to get in to deep if it's not where I should be."
He nodded. "I understand. If it's not the right place for you anymore, I don't want you here either. Give it a few days. You came back on the one quiet day of the year. You were always a doer, never were good at sitting. Wait until things get moving before you make a decision."
"Yeah, okay," she nodded her agreement.
"Now, go home to your kids."
"Gladly, Cap. See you tomorrow."
Across town, Elliot and Regan were at a crime scene. A dead body found in an over crowded apartment. Likely it was going to turn out to be accidental, but there were enough odd things in the apartment to make any one suspicious; it warranted an investigation. One of the uniformed officers with brown hair out the corner of his eye made him do a double take. He shook his head. She looked nothing like Olivia. He had to do something to get his head back in the game, he'd been distracted all week, terrified that he was going to run into her at an inopportune moment. The NYPD was like a small town inside a very large city: you ran into everyone eventually. He had to call her. He couldn't let their first meeting be in the courthouse, or Rikers, or a crime scene, in front of an audience.
Running through the evidence list that the CSU handed him, he stopped and stared out the window. For such a dump, it had a great view of downtown. He recalled the conversation he'd had with his family a few nights earlier.
Kathy had brought it up during dinner. At one point he would have thought she did it just to needle him, but the copious therapy he'd gone to after the shooting made him realize she was doing it to keep the lines of communication open within their family. The kids had been hovering around the kitchen table, halfway helping to get dinner ready, halfway getting in the way. They tried to have a dinner with all of them at least once a week, or at least manage a majority of them. It was hard to do with Kathleen and Maureen out of the house and the twins teenagers with their own driver's licenses. He remembered thinking at least he knew where Eli was, he couldn't run off on his own yet.
"You'll never guess who we saw in the park today?" Kathy had said, directed at the older girls. Who? They'd asked.
"Olivia," she said simply. Maureen jumped on that information.
"OLIVIA? Olivia? " she said in disbelief. "As in Your Old Partner, Olivia?" she directed at her father.
Kathy nodded in response.
"No way! I thought she left? What's she doing in New York?"
"She did leave," Kathy said, "She moved to California, but now she's back."
"No way!" Kathleen added. "I can't believe it. Did you get to see her kids?"
"Yeah," Kathy grinned, "I saw them. Real cute kids. Big dark eyes just like hers."
"Hey, wait a minute," Elliot had jumped in. "How did you know she had kids? I didn't know, your mom didn't know until today. Kathleen, what are you not telling us?" His daughter had looked at him with guilty eyes.
"Uhh, I…., well…." She was clearly trying to stall for time.
Dickie and Lizzie had piped in "Oooh". Kathleen had shot them a Look and they immediately quieted down.
"Let your sister explain herself," he'd said.
His daughter straightened her shirt, turned to him and said "She told me. We write letters now and then. Have been since before she left."
If finding out Olivia was back in New York hadn't thrown him for a loop, finding out that she and his daughter had been having a secret correspondence sure did.
She went on "It wasn't a secret, Dad. It never was. After she helped me out that one time, I wrote her a thank you letter and she replied. We kept it up. When she left she told me she was going, but we had an unspoken agreement to not discuss you. The letters came to this address until last summer, you could've seen them in the mailbox if you'd looked."
She'd said it so plain and simply that he couldn't react badly to it, not without looking like a lunatic in front of his family. They'd chatted a little more about it, the kids wanting to know details about where she'd been, her husband and kids. He'd found out that she'd spent 4 years in the San Francisco PD's version of SVU, called the VIP squad, that she'd been married for almost three years and had a two year old son and a baby girl of about 6 months. He'd also learned that she'd sent his children birthday cards every year for the past 5 years. He hadn't even known she'd done that when they were partners. He was ashamed yet again at the selflessness of his former partner and how self-absorbed he'd truly been.
After dinner was eaten and cleaned, he'd walked Kathleen out to her car and given her a hug. She'd turned to him, knowing the topic wasn't finished and had said "I asked her once, why she left, why the two of you never talked anymore."
"What did she say?" Even then, he couldn't believe he was having this conversation with his 20 year old daughter.
"She told me you were working through some things and knew how to reach her when you were ready."
He'd simply nodded at her. Then he said "You know, Kat, sometimes when things are hard, we don't handle things the way we wanted to, the way we should have…"
She'd cut him off, his daughter who had become so wise. "Yeah, Dad, you always taught us that when we make a mistake, we should apologize and then fix it best we could."
"When did you grow to be so smart?" he'd asked, as he leaned through the open door of her car.
She'd grinned at him. "Fix it, Dad. You remember how."
He knew what he needed to do, but he'd been putting it off. He'd known it for years and had been putting it off for days. As they left the crime scene, he figured he'd do it now and get it over with. Telling Regan he had to make a phone call, he'd walked halfway up the block and dialed the number still in his contacts.
Across town, Benson and Nick Amaro were slipping in the mud quite literally. Their crime scene had been along the new Westside Highway bike paths, a naked body had been found in the marshes. They'd tried to get close enough to see for themselves, but hadn't been dressed for it, unlike the CSU crew who had been warned appropriately about the site. The soggy ground sucked at their shoes, causing first Nick and then Olivia to lose their balance. Nick had grabbed onto Olivia, who had then put her hands down right into the mud to keep both of them from falling over. Just they were finally back onto the path, out of harm's way, Olivia's phone began to ring in her back pocket. Hands still covered in mud with no immediate way to clean them, she'd said "Hey, Amaro, grab my phone for me, she turned and shown him the phone sticking halfway out of her pocket. He'd stammered for a minute, "Uh, Olivia, I dun…" nervous about grabbing somewhere so close to his partner's ass, however fine it may be. He didn't want to explain to his wife how he'd ended up covered in mud and then had to grab his partner's ass.
"Oh, grow a pair, Amaro. It's your fault my hands are covered in mud. Just answer it." She barked at him as she tried to find a patch of grass to wipe her hands on. Nick grabbed the corner of the phone and pulled it out, successfully managing not to touch her. Without meaning to, he'd noticed the Caller ID on the phone and gulped.
"Uh, Benson, maybe you want to…"
"Just answer it, Amaro, it might be about the case," she'd replied, still not looking over at him standing there like a moron with her ringing phone in his hand.
"It's not…" Then she'd turned and given him a LOOK and he understood why people called her Bad-Ass Benson. He didn't see that side of her very often, but damn she meant it when she was mad. Shaking his head, he'd hit the button and said "Benson's phone."
On the other end of the line, Elliot was startled. Of all the ways he'd imagined this going, this was not one of them. "Uh, can I talk with Detective Benson please?"
"Sure, hold on a minute." Nick replied, waiting patiently while his partner got the rest of the mud off her hands and then holding the phone out to her. He stepped aside to give the resemblance of privacy, but not so far off as to be out of earshot. This was good information he was about to get. He was pretty sure there were still betting pools going around about Stabler and Benson. Cops had long memories.
"Hi Olivia. It's Elliot." Of all the voices in the world, that was the LAST one she'd expected to hear that afternoon. Nick stood watching the emotions play out on his partners face. Shock was the predominate one, but he also thought he saw anger, annoyance, fear and relief.
"Elliot? Hi." she'd said simply. Elliot could hear a hundred different things in that one word: Anger, worry, annoyance, hurt, fear, stubbornness, coldness, relief, welcome, gratitude, curiosity. Nick couldn't believe his ears. Four years and she says "hi."
Elliot jumped right in before she had the chance to yell or hang up. "Olivia, I am so sorry. It's been so long. I should never have….I really wanted to…I…" There was a pregnant pause. This was not going well. "I'm sorry," he said simply, hoping that his partner, ahem, former partner, still knew him well enough to know that he meant he was sorry for killing Jenna, for leaving, for leaving her, for not telling her, for not calling her, for abandoning her, for missing important parts of her life.
Olivia smiled a soft smile. She was angry at him, very angry, but she'd gotten over the worst of it a long time ago. "I know, El, it's okay. Me too." She was sorry. Sorry about the shooting, about what he had gone through, sorry that everything had happened the way it did and that they had fallen apart because of it. She could be angry later, in person, for now she would settle for relieved that they were talking.
"Would you, would you… meet me for breakfast tomorrow? We could go to the old diner on 61st St."
She nodded silently, then said "Yes, breakfast. No, wait, tomorrow's no good, Friday? Okay, good, see you then." She hung up the phone and just stared at it for a minute. For a minute she wondered what she was going to say to him, then she remembered she'd been thinking about that for the last 4 years.
She looked up finally and caught her partner, her new partner, looking at her quizzically. "Everything okay?" he asked.
She looked back down at her phone in her dirty hand. "I'm not sure yet," she replied. "I'm not sure."