Olivia didn't want to let this happen. She couldn't. If she did, she wouldn't be able to face Elliot anymore. She didn't want to let herself fall to that point. Her life would be over. Elliot and her job was her life. If she couldn't go to Elliot anymore, she couldn't do her job the way she wanted to.
When a car horn sounded, pulling out of her deep thoughts, John waved to her from the car window. She stood up from the bench and walked to the car with as much composure as she could.
Preparing herself for a usual barrage of nosy questions, she put up a mental barrier. But as she sat down and buckled herself in, he was strangely quiet.
"Rebecca's okay?" John mused, keeping his vision on the road as they began to move.
Olivia nodded. "She's a little shaken up by this, especially watching what happened to her brother. But it seems like she's going to make a full recovery. Her father was coming to pick her up soon," Olivia replied.
John nodded in response, ending the conversation and adding an extra amount of awkwardness into the car.
She felt a little uneasy. John knew something had happened, and yet he wasn't saying anything. Usually, John always needed to know every single thing that was going on, whether it concerned him or not.
After driving in silence for sometime, she finally asked, "Elliot came back?" If no one was going to talk to her about this, then she was just going to have to start the conversation herself.
Once John had stopped at the red light, he turned and peered at her from over his dark glasses. "Liv, I have no idea what is going on between you and El, but I'm positive you two will be able to sort in out and get on with your friendship still intact."
Olivia smiled slightly, nodding in agreement. But she couldn't help notice that John had said 'friendship' instead of 'partnership', and that bothered her. She wanted to stay partners with Elliot. She needed to. They had one of the longest partnerships: eight years!
"Do you want to go back to the station, or do you want me to drop you off at your apartment?" John asked her.
Olivia thought for a moment as she ran a hand through her hair. "Take me back to the station. I have a couple things I need to take care of before I go home…I'll just take a taxi back to my house later," she answered.
John nodded and took a left instead of the right that would have taken them to her apartment.
The two of them sat in utter silence, leaving Olivia to do nothing but think. She couldn't help but feel that all of this was her fault. She should have done something differently. She wasn't sure what, but there must have been something that she could have done to prevent this all from occurring.
She began to wring her hands, a habit that she had whenever she became anxious. It wasn't one that she enjoyed, either.
It was her fault. She should have apologized for everything. For worrying him, for getting hurt, for loving him.
When they finally reached the house, Olivia's fingers were sore. John parked the car, and Olivia got out, trying to hold herself together.
John came around to the other side. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Whispering in her ear, "It's all going to be okay, you'll see," he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
"But what if it's not?" she mumbled to herself, just loud enough that John could hear it. "What if things can never be the same, all because a man came between us?
John stood silently, unsure of what to say. "You can't think like that Olivia."
She pulled away from John, her voice growing in volume. "But it's true!! This perp, Gitano, just came in and turned everything upside down. Elliot is acting like Gitano created something that wasn't there, but all Gitano did was expose what we didn't want to show. And now, while I want to face Elliot and talk about it, he's to stubborn to actually care!!" Olivia shouted, her voice ringing through the parking lot.
John stood there, letting the woman get rid of feelings that would weigh her down. As he watched her go off on a rant, he was trying to be as empathetic as possible, but he had a limit. He knew the love that Olivia and Elliot shared but could never confess. He had never felt something like that.
When Olivia had finally calmed down, she walked back over to him. "I'm – I'm sorry. I just had to get it out," she stated, a weak smile coming across her face.
John was taken aback by the apology. "Don't be sorry. I understand," he replied as he began to lead her inside.
When they walked through the double doors of the station, Olivia immediately shut her eyes and prepared herself for the people. Would they judge her? Would they scorn her for everything that happened today? A child had died at her hands, and her partner had almost died as well. Her usual self could have handled it, but after all that had happened today, she vulnerable and exposed. Not like her usual self. She was actually scared to go inside. But when she walked in, people only glanced at her. Nobody paid too much attention.
She got to her desk and sat down. Jhon and Fin both looked at her sympathetically as they ignored the case that they had been working on beforehand. She had come back to finish up a report, gather a few things, and talk to the Captain, but she soon found herself staring aimlessly at Elliot's desk.
She shook her head at this, getting angry at herself. She jumped up from her seat and walked to Cragen's door. Instead of knocking as she normally would have, she walked right in. Cragen's head snapped up from his desk. Once he saw it was Olivia, his facial expression changed immediately.
"Hey Liv. How are you?" he asked as sympathetically as possible.
"Truthfully? Terrible…" she answered as she down in the leather chair that was facing his desk.
Cragen looked at the distraught young woman sitting in front of him. "Is there anything I can do to help you out?" he offered.
"Can you get my partner to trust me again, or at least to want to work with me again?" Olivia laughed bitterly, not looking up from the floor.
Donald was silent as her expression slowly broke away. She placed her hands over her eyes and began to sob. "What did I do? How did all this happen? How did we go from yesterday, which was fine, to today?" Olivia cried.
"You didn't do anything, Olivia. No one, in any way, could have predicted what way going to happen today, especially not you. Olivia, what happened between you and Elliot is something that is almost unnatural. Situations like that rarely happen," Cragen responded.
"What am I going to do?" she sniffled as she began to wipe away the tears that tracked down her face.
"You regather yourself. You try and start over from where you were before this happened," Cragen hinted, meaning her and Elliot.
"Take the next week off. I gave Elliot it off as well as mental health time. But I would also like you to go see George before you go home. It'll do you some good," he replied as she nodded.
She slowly stood up and left the room. As she grabbed her things before going to her locker, Fin walked over to her. "How you holdin' up?" he asked.
She shrugged with a fake smile plastered on her face. "Just barely, but I'll survive."
He smiled at that. "Well, you get your head together. But if you need any help at any time, you call me up and I'll take you out and we can drag Munch and his scrawny butt along too," he joked.
"I heard that," a voice came from the left of them.
"Yeah, I know," Fin said.
She laughed quietly. "I keep that in mind," she mumbled as she wrapped her arms around him.
He gave her a hug. She then closed her locker, said good-bye to John, and headed off to Huang's to get her head 'shrunk'.
how was that? too short? too quick? let me know in some feedback please…