Author's note: I listen to U2's song "Bad" whenever I have to write Elliot, especially in this fic. Give it a go in the backgroud as you read this chapter. Since for some reason this site won't allow to paste links here, just type U2 Bad lyrics on you tube. It will pay off, I promise :)
Chapter 4:
He's running.
His quickened pulse explains the race of his heart. The cool night air washes away the warm vanilla scent that encircled him in her car. When Elliot reached the front of his house, his stride hastened by itself and he soon realized that he was jogging again. As the fuse of lamp-posts and family-homes lights jitter around him and the sound of his own footsteps echo in the quiet streets, he thinks about distance and pain and need. He thinks about her strength and wonders how big his part is in bringing it down. And about her eyes and the need and plea in their deep brown.
He takes a longer route, longer than the one he's taken earlier tonight, which brought him home in time to see the Mustang he would recognize anywhere parked not far from his house. Again.
He needs to continue running. Despite the nagging pain in his knee. Because of her eyes.
Her eyes, and the way she always looks at him, the way she sees him, all of him, as he is, with just a glance, accepting him, never trying to change who he is. Even now, even when he shut her out, when he sent her away without giving her anything. Because he can't, he can't give her anything. And he's seen it in her eyes, that she could still comprehend it all by just looking at him. Just as all it took him was one glance, one look into her eyes, to realize that she was lost, just as much as he was when she had left him. He's running but the new pain at his side becomes unbearable and he has to stop. Elliot's legs slow down and his halt sends him leaning against a wall. He's panting, stooping with his hands on his knees. He's trying to catch his breath and he knows that she's embedded within him, that she is part of him, that they contain each other. And that's why they can hurt each other so much.
He takes off the grey hoodie, uses it to wipe the sweat off his face and ties it around his waist. He starts running again and he can hear his own breathing reverberate in the street. Elliot gazes from a distance at the approximate spot Olivia's car was parked in, almost expecting to see it there again, but it's gone. The void it left behind compels him to keep on running.
When he passes by his house again he sees that the Jeep is back. Kathy is home, his wife, who left him years ago because he was too distant, while Olivia left him because he was too close. They both came back although nothing changed, he was still too distant and still too close. When Kathy left he could see it coming, but Olivia took him by surprise, almost as if he was expecting her to accept him unconditionally, while he should have known that she could walk away from him despite everything, because of everything. Now that he's left, he knows that she was right to walk away. That he should have done so too, long ago. But he didn't, he couldn't. Even now, that he's tried, she found him, just like he has always found her.
The light in the porch is on and as he finally walks up the few steps to his front door, Elliot knows that he won't get much sleep tonight. Again. Because of her eyes.
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Olivia pushes the blanket away, she can't stand its softness, not now anyway. Her body is too wound up and she knows sleep is a benefit she won't enjoy tonight. She scorns herself and the few stubborn tears that slide down to her temples.
When their eyes locked over the still warm bodies of Jenna and Sister Peg, she knew it was over. Thirteen years with Elliot have taught her enough to know that it was really over. The horror, self blame and defeat in his eyes, which she could plainly discern even from a distance, told her everything Olivia needed to know. But she didn't heed to her own inference. In the midst of the hustle and bustle that ensued, when Elliot stood up and watched Jenna's dead body and she remained crouched next to Sister Peg's, she wanted to believe that she could somehow fix it. She had no idea how, but when he walked up to her and locked his then foggy blue eyes on hers, as he reached out his hands to help her up by holding both her wrists, she thought that he was asking her to.
She wiped her bloody hands on her pants and held his arm just above his elbow with both her hands, and she didn't know who she was trying to stabilize, herself or him. It was good she did though - because when Fin came near them and said something she couldn't hear and only from his hand gesture she understood that he was asking them to move back, away from the bodies - at that moment she was glad that she held Elliot, because she could retreat with him, induce him to slowly walk back towards the crib with her.
"She's dead," Olivia heard him mumble, "they're all dead," he whispered.
Both her hands still held his right arm as they walked towards the crib, and she knows Elliot was in shock, because he didn't try to brush her away, he didn't try to prove her that he was ok and could perfectly well handle himself. That made her stomach drop even further. "Here, let's sit over here," she told him as she walked him towards one of the bunk beds. He sat down and she took a seat next to him, finally releasing his arm and noticing she had left blood traces on his bright colored shirt. After a long moment he turned his head to look at her, his eyes needed hers like she was his lifeline. "It will be ok," she started mumbling, but he interjected.
"Do you think they're gonna let me out of this? She's dead." It wasn't a question, his voice was steady despite the sheer pain in his eyes, it was a reality check. She knew it was.
All Olivia could do was let him hold her gaze, while fighting her tears from being shed. But it wasn't enough, because soon after he stood up and started walking toward the door that lead back to the squadroom. "I have to leave Cragen my shield," his voice rasped. She followed him and this time he led the way, he didn't wait for her and she could already see the resolution in his straight back, his firm neck and shoulders, his stable stride. He walked straight into the Captain's office and placed his badge on the desk.
Cragen was not there, and she just stood at the doorway and watched him do it. When he walked towards her she said "El, please, let's wait for him," but he only slightly shook his head and there was a twitch in his lips as he towered above her and made her clear his way. He stopped right next to her in the narrow doorway and they stood so close that she was almost pressed against him. He watched the bullpen that was now clear of bodies but still humming with officers and uniforms that eyed them.
"I'll talk to you later, Liv," he said in a soft voice, looking into her eyes. She could only nod her head and before she could muster any words, he walked out, straight across the bullpen, passing by the people that looked at him, and out through the double doors next to the empty holding cell.
She didn't follow him, she knew there was no point in doing so at that moment. So she only stepped into Cragen's office, closed the door behind her and sat there waiting for him. In the empty room she finally let herself cry.
She tried calling Elliot later that day but he didn't answer. She tried the next day and the one after, and she thought then that he just needed some time. He had said he would call her and she knew he would. Only he didn't. She knows he talked to their Captain, because he had to, but he didn't contact her nor anyone else.
Olivia stares at the ceiling of her dark bedroom. If Fin asks tomorrow, she'll tell him that she spoke to Elliot and that they're fine now, she'll thank him for the advice and reassure him that now she can pull herself together. In a way, it's not a total lie, because tonight she got the slap in the face she needed after all these months. Cragen telling her that Elliot handed in his papers wasn't enough because in a way she knew he was forced to. She thought that he would still reach out for her although she was running out of excuses for why he hadn't. Well, denial didn't get her anywhere, facing reality will; it has to, like last time. Last time, when helping delivering his baby and saving his wife was the slap in the face she desperately needed in order to get a grip. Had he held her in his arms before that, she'd probably never let him go, but since it happened after, she was able to, with some effort. She can do the same now.
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Her bright hair curtains her face as she sleeps soundly. He doesn't want to wake her, he's been tossing and turning for half an hour, after going to bed a long time after she did. He hears from her changing breathing pattern that his movements disturb her sleep despite the distance between them.
Elliot slowly gets out of bed, he doesn't want Kathy to wake up and question him about another sleepless night. She kept hoping these would be over once he retired and was irritated by his continued sleeplessness.
She shifts in bed and he stops in his tracks to the sound of her voice. "Elliot?"
"Yes, shhh, go back to sleep," he whispers.
Kathy sits up in bed and looks at him in the dull light that comes through the curtains. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just need some water, go back to sleep." He tries to subdue the irritation in his voice.
She looks at him for another second and then rolls over on her side.
He couldn't tell her that he can't sleep like a baby just because he retired. His body and mind are still ready, ready for a call, ready for a case, ready to be out of the door in three minutes with his gun holstered, ready to have his partner's back. He couldn't tell her because she wouldn't understand. She ceased trying to understand years ago and maybe she focused her hopes on the day he would leave the squad, the force, his partner. Well, there he is, away from it all, but still not here with her.
The refrigerator's light illuminates the kitchen and Elliot grabs a soda water bottle and takes it with him to the front porch. He sits on the white wooden bench they bought years ago and listens to the silence. He promised Kathy he would paint the porch when he had time, but he's never kept this promise, not even now when he has all the time he's ever thought he wanted. Staring across the street, he takes a few swigs from his bottle.
When Olivia looked at him and he could see the hurt and betrayal in her eyes, he tried to form the right words to explain. He didn't know where to start, he didn't know what the point was anyway since he couldn't give her more than a few blank words that wouldn't come close to what he really wanted to tell her.
He wanted to tell her that he misses her too, that he knows what it's like, that he feels that his days and nights are all blended together and that there's not much in him she would recognize. He hardly recognizes himself these days, now that he's useless, that he's lost the battle, that he's killed a girl, that he is no longer needed to save others like Jenna, not even to make up for her death.
He wanted to tell her that he misses her too.
For almost a week after the shooting he didn't even tell Kathy about why he was suspended. He thought he needed some time to figure things out before he talked to anyone, but IAB made it clear from the start that he was right to assume that they had his ass this time. They went over every shot he's ever fired, every time he's held his gun or his fist at a suspect, every psych evaluation he's ever failed. Tucker promised him that he would personally open every case he's ever handled. He was done, it was over.
Even if they somehow cleared him, they wouldn't allow him to go back to SVU, and without it there was no point in staying a cop.
IAB were all over her too, Cragen told him that she was called in several times. He knew that Olivia would fight for him and risk herself and he couldn't let them drag her through the mud along with him, he couldn't stand that she'd lose her credibility or her job over him. He told Tucker that they weren't in touch anymore, that there was no point in dragging his partner into this because she didn't have his back on this. He only prayed that Tucker wouldn't use his words as an interrogation tactic on her. He shut down his phone to avoid the temptation to answer Olivia's calls whenever her name illuminated the screen, but her messages kept coming in and he heard them all. He couldn't tell her that he was leaving, she wouldn't let him, not without a fight and he had to stop fighting. He could hardly deal with his own pain and didn't want to be causing hers. He couldn't take it.
He didn't figure that once this was over, he wouldn't be able to talk to her, wouldn't know what to tell her or how. She and the job were all he had at one point, and now he lost his job and he lost her and while he has his family, it's tearing at him worse than it did then. He lost her because he couldn't be with her in the only way he could have her, as his partner. He can't lie again and term her his 'friend' like he did six years ago in confession, unable to admit what she was. He can't lie now and he hoped that maybe this time the distance would help him, or her.
His days started to resemble one another and the memory of her eyes entreating him to stay in that last day, haunted him. He wanted to call her. God, he grabbed his car keys intending to drive to her apartment in Manhattan several times. But it was something he forced himself to put off, because he didn't know what to say to her, and after a while he didn't know if she would want to hear from him again.
"Elliot?"
Kathy's voice precedes her and in a second she steps into the porch through the front door. Eli is in her arms, sleeping on her shoulder. "He called for you, didn't you hear him?" Her voice is hoarse and her slim back is arched under the weight of their four-year-old.
"No. Here, let me." Elliot stands up and reaches to take Eli in his arms. "Here, big boy," he murmurs as the child exchanges his mother's arms for his father's, laying his sleepy head on his father's broad shoulder. "Sorry, Kath, night," his apology for yet again being absent is muffled by his son's soft hair.
"Night," she replies and walks away. He knows she's angry. It's like he's still failing, always failing, as a husband, a father, a cop, a partner, a friend.
He's rocking his son in his arms, making sure that the blanket is well wrapped around the little body, while he allows himself one last moment of cool night air before he pads back into the house. Lying next to his son in his narrow bed helps him unwind a bit. At dawn, before he finally falls asleep, Elliot thinks about the way his heart slammed in his chest when a loud bark made him look through the kitchen window two nights ago and notice the Mustang starting and driving away. The same Mustang that parked there late the next night, when his goddamn sleep pattern sent him gazing through his son's bedroom window. He tries not to think about what she so plainly admitted to him in that car, or about how he stumbled with his words in a pathetic effort to keep her and her brown eyes from piercing him further.