A/N: His story continues Some notes: The only Eli is the one in this story, there is no Eli with Kathy. Aldo, obviously, I've made the characters MUCH younger, having Elliot fight in Desert Storm means he was 19 in 1991...which is not unusual for me. I always make them younger. I assumed it would be clear from the reading, but I hope it's clear now. It's a story, and slightly AU, so I apologize for the confusion.
DISCLAIMER: SVU and characters belong to Dick Wolf. This story belongs to Tstabler©
They're quiet, cuddled close, holding their sleeping son. The look in Elliot's eyes as he looks down at the boy is one Olivia has never seen before. It isn't regret, that much she knows. She tilts her head, trying to figure it out.
"I'm just thinking," he whispers to her, shaking his head a bit. "Don't look at me like that."
She smiles. He really does know her, inside and out. "You thinking about what you have to tell me?"
"No," he says, looking at her. "I'm thinking about him. About us. You know it was never supposed to be once, right? That first night with you…I mean, you knew from then I wasn't going back to Kathy, didn't you?"
She looks away from him, unable to lie to him and afraid to tell him the truth.
He narrows his eyes. "How could you think that I would…"
"Because you'd done it before," she shrugs. "You left her twice, you went back to her twice. I finally thought, what the hell, take you while I could." She chuckles and says, "Two months of worrying about it, El. Two months of wondering when our last night together would be, when you would tell me we were over. God. When you came to my place with that suitcase…"
He laughs and says, "I saw the look on your face. You were thrilled."
"I was relieved," she says with a smile. "I didn't want to be the other woman anymore, and I didn't want to lose you. I got what I wanted when you…"
He kisses her, a habit he's grown fond of, and he smiles against her lips. "I know people treated you like shit because of me." He nuzzles her nose and says, "I'm sorry about that."
"People have always looked at me that way. It didn't bother me," she says with a shrug. She sees his eyes change again, she watches his face drop as he looks down at their son.
He makes a sad sort of humming noise and asks, "How can I tell him what I have to tell him? How am I supposed to tell him that you and I…"
"You don't have to," she interrupts. "He doesn't need to know that. Not for a really long time."
He swallows hard and says, "He should. He should know that no matter how it looked, or how fucked up it was, he is a product of love. I can't have him growing up asking…"
"What could he possibly ask?" she questions, interrupting.
"He could ask a lot of things," he whispers. "Why we aren't married, why his brother and sisters don't look like him, why they all live so far away. I'm doing everything I can to make sure he doesn't have any questions, though." He looks at her, hoping she understands.
She narrows her eyes. "What is going on with you, El? What is this all…"
"I'm gonna go put him in his bed," he says, cutting her off and standing, cradling Eli.
She watches him leave the room, confused. Something is very wrong, and she doesn't have the slightest idea what. She bites her lip and keeps her eyes on the hallway, and when he returns she holds up a hand. "Before you say anything, Elliot, I need to know what this is all…"
He takes her hand and pulls, shocking her into silence by yanking her up, into him, and kissing her roughly. He winds his other hand into her hair, moaning a bit, and he pants slightly as he pulls his lips away from hers. "I promise," he whispers, "This is going somewhere."
She feels her lips tingle, her body warms and starts to ache. His kiss always affects her greatly. She bites her lip again, she nods, then sits back down on the couch. "Go on," she says, reaching for her almost-empty teacup.
He runs a hand down his face and he sits beside her with a huff. He clicks his tongue for a moment, trying to find the right words, trying to figure out how to explain. He turns his arm over, facing his forearm and palm up. "I didn't know what I was getting myself into," he says. He slaps his USMC emblem tattoo with his other hand, twice, reddening it. "I didn't know this was gonna rip away what little innocence I had left."
She scoots closer to him. "The Marines?"
He nods. "It was just…it was all I could do. My parents couldn't afford to send both me and Noah to school, and of course, since he's the perfect son…" he shook his head. "I had it all set, Liv. I was supposed to play ball for UCLA, I was supposed to make something of myself, but Kathy…Kathy changed everything when she told me about Maureen. We changed everything."
He reaches for his beer, finds the can empty, and he grunts. He looks at Olivia and he leans back, he takes her hand, and he says, "We graduated and got married in the same weekend, and we moved into this really small apartment down the street from my house. We had nothing, Liv. Nothing. My father refused to help. He said I got myself into trouble and I had to deal with it. Then he told me that the service would provide a solution. They would pay me, they'd have a pretty decent health plan…which I wanted for Kathy and the baby. I figured twelve weeks away from home was a small price to pay, ya know?"
He sighs again and lets out a bitter chuckle. "My father drove me down to a recruiter's office, and before I could even ask them anything, he had me signed up and convinced this was the only thing I could do." He licks his lips and looks at her. "He told me…I'll never forget this…he told me that if I was smart I'd get myself shot so I wouldn't have to deal with the mess I made of my life."
"Jesus, El," she cringes, squeezing his hand.
"It's all right," he says, giving a quick shrug. "I thought he was right," he laughs. "I packed, and I kissed Kathy goodbye, and I told her that everything would be okay. Next thing I knew, I was on a base with a gun in my hand, being yelled at by some drill sergeant on a power trip." He shifts in his seat and pulls her closer. He leans back against the arm of the couch and lays her on top of him.
He rests a hand under his head as the other runs along her spine, and he lowers his voice, making this more intimate than she deems necessary. "The first few weeks were the hardest. I was nineteen, a recently married man about to have a kid, I just wanted to be home. I wanted my mother."
She chuckles against him and settles into listening to both his story and his heartbeat.
He breathes again. "Adjusting to schedules sucked, the physical training was brutal, no one was nice, everyone had something to prove. Especially me." He bites the inside of his cheek and says, "I just remember wanting to go home, praying that something would happen and they would realize they couldn't use me, and they'd send me home. Then I'd pray for the complete opposite, because going home meant failure, and I didn't want to disappoint my father. I didn't want to be the pile of shit he thought I was, so I stayed, and I worked harder, and I fought for it."
She looks up at him, one arm hooked under him and the other resting on his chest. "You're not a pile of…"
He kisses her forehead. "I know I'm not," he says with a small smile. "Basic training was done, out of the way, and on the day of the Corps graduation, the day I think I'm heading home, one of the Gunnery Sergeants tells me I'm being sent to Iraq."
"Desert Storm," Olivia says, her heart stopping. "El, you never told me…"
"I'm telling you now," he says, silencing her. He takes another breath and closes his eyes as he kisses her forehead. "We all thought it was gonna be a piece of cake, we were training for this, right? We spent two days in the middle of the desert trying to come up with some kind of strategy, thinking we knew exactly what we were doing."
He scoffs and says, "Nothing prepares you for war. Nothing. All of that confidence went flying away when we headed for the boundaries. Shit, we had to crawl through minefields…I saw people blow up a few feet in front of my face." He gulps again before continuing. "There were these huge barbed-wire fences set up, and we had to climb over them. We had to get through fire trenches and the whole time we're trying to get to where we're going, these guys are throwing grenades at us, shooting at us, we even got hit with Molotov cocktails, the bottles blew up in midair and the glass would fly and get lodged in our skin…"
"Oh, God," she says, shutting her eyes. "El, I…"
He doesn't let her speak. He just keeps talking. "I just kept thinking about Kathy and the child she was about to have. My child. I pushed harder, moved faster, needing to stay alive. At least, long enough to meet my daughter." He took another shaky breath and he swallowed back the urge to cry at the memory. "I made it over the last barrier, I was almost at the checkpoint, when I heard someone calling my name. I looked around and…Paul Vargas, one of the guys I trained with…he was lying in the sand…he was looking at me with these terrified, wide eyes…he was bleeding…everywhere…"
She runs a hand over his cheek, wiping the tears that she is pretty sure he doesn't know are falling.
He sniffles and blinks, and he doesn't look at her. "He called my name again, and I went over to him…I was trying to help him, trying to find where he was hit to stop the bleeding or something, and he…he grabbed my tags and he pulled me down to him, he couldn't breathe, he was choking on his own blood…he coughed a lot. He looked into my eyes and he asked me to do something for him…something I didn't want to do. I told him I couldn't, that he would be okay, and he…he let go of my chain and yanked his own off, and he shoved his dog tags into one of my pockets."
He blinks again and he feels the tears rolling down his face, he feels her soft fingers brushing the tears away. "He asked me to…he was in so much pain. I couldn't leave him there like that, I couldn't let him die like that." He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to calm down, but behind his lids he sees Paul's face, and he feels the gun in his hands, and he hears the gunshot ringing in his ears. "I shot him. Liv, I shot him."
She's surprised when he breaks down, holding her tighter and openly crying into her neck. "El, baby, it's not your fault. He asked you to…"
"I killed him," he says, shaking his head. "I was there to defend…protect…and I…"
"You did him a favor," she whispered. "You said it yourself, you couldn't let him die like that. You gave him dignity, you gave him the satisfaction of knowing that it wasn't them who killed him. You gave him a little bit of pride and you ended the suffering he was obviously in."
He slows his sobs, and he finally forces himself to look at her. His red, pained eyes meet her panicked brown ones, and he takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to…I never told anyone that before," he admits. "I guess I just…I've been holding onto it for so long that…"
"You told our son that it was okay to cry," she says, swiping a thumb under his eyes. "Take your own advice."
"I need you to forgive me," he says, still staring into her eyes.
"El, you didn't…"
"Just say it!" he cries. "Please, just tell me…" he chokes on his words.
She watches his eyes close, and she watches another slow tear fall down his cheek. She realizes that it's not her that is important, he just needs someone to forgive him, because this has been eating away at him for so long, and he needs the absolution. She leans forward and places a very soft kiss to his lips. "You're forgiven, El," she whispers. "I forgive you, Paul forgives you, and God forgives you. You didn't kill him, Elliot, he was already dead. You…you saved him."
He opens his eyes, slowly pulling her into focus, her face in front of him, calming him. He breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, and he says, "I love you. So much. I…I needed…I just needed to hear it. I needed to hear you say it."
She nods and kisses him again, and she becomes aware that he has told her he loves her in seven different ways, and she hasn't said it once. "El," she says, shifting her way up his body just a little further. "You know I love you. I love you."
He smiles and his sob becomes a laugh. "I know you do," he says. "I needed to hear that, too, ya know."
She kisses him again and she says, "I'm really…well, honored, that you told me that."
"You're the only one I trust with that," he says. "The only one I trust with everything I'm telling you tonight." He kisses her lightly and moves, sitting up a bit. He pulls her into his lap and he kisses her neck.
She moans softly, her neck is the most sensitive spot above her chest and she melts whenever he touches it. She drops her head against his body and she says, "Thank you for trusting me."
He kisses the very top of her head and he smiles. He trusts her with his life, with the life of his son, all of his children, really. He relaxes into the couch and he glances at the clock. He realizes that he's running out of time. He needs to talk faster. He needs her.
A/N: Something Elliot says next prompts Olivia to reveal a secret of her own, a secret that wasn't well kept at all. Review?
