Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I've decided, for the sake of sanity, that these posteps cannot possibly be continuous. So this is totally unrelated to the last chapter. This stands unless otherwise stated. And yeah, this took a while because I had trouble understanding Elliot here at all...but my little brother came in handy for once I kind of understand, but I don't really bring it up in the fic so I'll shut up now. Takes place the morning after.
He's sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a very large mug of coffee, when his son stumbles down the stairs and makes for the garage, emerging after much rummaging with a can of soda. Probably caffeinated. Like Lizzie. After a moment of groggy silence it occurs to Elliot that now might be a good time to have the conversation he's been rehearsing in his head.
"Dick," he says, and frowns. "Shouldn't your sister be up?"
"She gets ready a million times faster than I do."
Momentarily distracted, Elliot tries to figure this out. "But she's a girl."
Dick shrugs. "She doesn't get it either."
"Well, never mind. I need to tell you something."
The kid looks at him warily. "I've already had the talk, Dad."
"Well. I hope so." Elliot draws in a deep breath. "About Dick. Richard. Your namesake."
Pouring himself a bowl of cereal, the younger Dick looks up to grin. "Yeah, he's cool."
"Actually. He's not." Conscious of his son's curious gaze, he tries to smile. "I guess I wasn't such a good judge of character twenty years ago."
"What'd he do?"
"I told you he was helping us with a case, right?"
"Right."
"Yeah. Well, it turns out that he was just trying to throw us off. He killed our girl."
Dick shakes his head, trying to dislodge the idea. "But – "
"Dickie."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. And believe me, I don't like it any more than you do – "
Dick stands up abruptly and turns away. Elliot pauses to let it sink in, but as the silence grows he mutters, "I wish I'd never dragged anybody into this."
"You only dragged me," his son says sharply, to the opposite wall.
"You and Liv."
"Olivia? But she's your partner. Didn't you kind of have to drag her?"
"Yeah, I guess." He didn't have to fuck it up so badly, though. Last night's scene plays in his head like a bad movie: Olivia all dressed up, taking in the marks of battle on his face, concerned, Is everything all right?
No.
Who's in the car?
Dick Finley. The dress, the heels, her presence, it all clicked when her jaw dropped.
You have evidence? she snapped.
Do I – what kind of cop do you think I am?
The kind who doesn't call his partner when he has a breakthrough on a major case?
And that he'd had no answer to.
Dick snaps him back. "I guess," he says reluctantly, "I guess you didn't know."
"Of course I didn't."
"And I guess I'm still named after an astronaut, right? I'll just leave out the astronaut-murderer part."
"Might want to leave all of it out," Elliot advises; this after all is why he wanted to tell Dick as soon as possible. "It'll be in the news."
"Crap."
"Watch your mouth."
His son turns to face him, and on his face is half a smile. "No. Lizzie does that for me."
On the way to work she pulls out her cell phone, thinking vaguely of calling someone, any random acquaintance, or maybe Casey, just to vent; but instead she is confronted with an unsent text message. She remembers writing it – in the small dark hours of the night, the silence and the solitude pressing in from all sides, she had an attack of sentiment, or maybe just claustrophobia, and wrote what she most wanted to ask him: Is it me?
That's it. She wants and doesn't want to know. Did she do something to deserve this sudden – coldness from him?
But it's light now, and it's easier to remember that she's mad and he's just being himself, which quite often translates to bastard, and so Olivia deletes the message, gives up on calling anyone, and simply continues on alone.
Please R&R.