Chapter 10
She said, "I also used to wonder... I wondered for 13 years, what would happen, what it would be like, if you ever tried to do that." She smiled softly to herself, as if she had a little joke inside her that no one else knew. "Well, now I know...And now it doesn't matter; it's too late," she said with a sad smile. She gave his forearm a little squeeze as she stood. "I can't do this anymore. Don't contact me again, Elliot, please." She grabbed her bag and walked out of the diner, leaving Elliot with a plate of cold eggs and a bewildered expression on his face.
Olivia was walking briskly towards work, biting back tears. The back of her throat was tight and she scanned the familiar streets frantically, praying she wouldn't see anyone she knew coming or going from the station. When she reached the block she needed to turn down, she eyed the building from down the block and quickly turned the other way, towards the park. She didn't want to go in to work now, not after the scene that had just unfolded. She grabbed her phone and dialed Cragen's number. She had the personal time, she asked and it was given, no questions asked, except for her reassurance that she was okay.
She wandered through the park almost the entire day, grabbing a hot dog from vendor when she heard her stomach grumble. On her way home, she left a message for David, asking if he could come over to her apartment that night. She needed to feel a connection to someone; she felt as if she was floating untethered to the earth. By the time she arrived home, her feet were tired and she was thirsty. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and downed half of it standing in the kitchen. The water tasted good, but it wasn't helping her state of mind. Her emotions were jumbled. She was having a hard time separating the agony of Elliot leaving her and the agony of her telling him to leave her alone. She thought that it was the right thing to do, but seeing him today, seeing the devastation on his face, she realized as hard as these 11 months had been on her, they had also been hard on him. She wished he hadn't isolated himself. They could have helped each other. In fact, they were the only ones that could have helped each other. She looked at the half empty water bottle in her hand. She set it on the counter and reached instead for the bottle of whiskey she'd bought to replace the one broken on the sidewalk. She poured herself a healthy two fingers and downed it in one gulp. Then she poured herself another and dug an ice cube out of the freezer and dropped in the cup. She wandered around to the couch and plopped herself down, lost in thought. She sipped at her drink, appreciating the burn as the alcohol traveled down her throat. 'God Damn you, Elliot,' she thought. 'I will never be free of you.'
She would remember the feel of his lips forever, as if it wasn't going to be hard enough to forget him to begin with. She shivered a little at the memory and was distracted when her phone buzzed, letting her know she had a message. She finished her drink and checked the message. It was from David, letting her know he was still at work, last minute injunctions or something, but would be over as soon as he could. She replied and said he didn't need to come, she was fine. She realized at this rate she'd probably be a little drunk by the time he arrived and she didn't really want him to see her that way. He replied immediately that he was coming over anyway. She sighed and set her phone down, then got up and poured herself another drink. She'd warned him that she had baggage. Well, here it was, in full force.
The afternoon turned to dusk and then evening. Olivia ordered Chinese food, but found she didn't want to eat any of it despite not having eaten anything all day but a cup of coffee and a Central Park Hot Dog. She picked at the chicken and broccoli with another whiskey on ice beside her on the couch. Around 8pm, David buzzed from downstairs. Olivia stood to get the buzzer and felt her head spin. The drinks had finally affected her. She felt a little unsteady on her feet, but got her bearings quickly and buzzed David up. She stood waiting for his knock, feeling her head spinning. She welcomed the feeling; it gave her something to think about other than Elliot.
Finally he knocked. She opened the door for him, and greeted him briefly before turning back to sit on the couch. David looked at her peculiarly. Something was wrong.
"I ordered Chinese, there's some in the kitchen," she said. He looked over her shoulder and saw the untouched containers.
"You didn't want any?" he asked "Or were you just waiting for me?"
She smiled, "Not this time, just wasn't hungry when it got here," she replied.
"You? Not hungry? Are you sure you're all right?" He reached for her and pulled her towards him, kissing her on the lips, a chaste kiss. She smelled like whiskey.
"Why, Detective Benson," he chided in a joking manner. "Have you been drinking?"
"Is that a problem, Counselor?" she joked.
"Not particularly. What's the problem? You don't strike me as the type to get blitzed on..." he leaned forward and kissed her again to smell her breath "whiskey for no reason."
She narrowed her eyes at him. He looked back with a feigned innocent expression on his face and reached for the bottle of whiskey. He poured himself one, saying "Well, it's better to drink with a friend huh?" He reached for her glass and gestured, asking if she wanted another. She nodded affirmatively. If she was going to have to talk about this, she wanted to be uninhibited and, hopefully, intoxicated enough that she wouldn't remember the details. It definitely wasn't the healthiest way of coping, she thought. She laughed at loud at the thought, considering her past, the irony of her discomfort with drinking to escape her problems not lost on her.
David reached to rub her shoulders and she sighed with how good it felt. She leaned into him and he pulled her into a true embrace. She'd peeled off the brace when she'd gotten home from her walk and was enjoying the feel of him, unencumbered by the plastic. He finally let her go, then pulled her towards the couch, sat her down and went back to the kitchen for their drinks. He grabbed a container of the Chinese food for himself. Sitting next to her on the couch, he said "Okay, Benson, spill the beans. What has you acting like a fall down drunk, drinking to escape your problems?"
He'd meant it as a joke. Hearing him say it though, made Olivia realize what'd she'd been doing. She didn't want David to think of her like that. He saw her reaction. She'd paled and sat very, very still, then reached forward and placed her drink on the table.
"I'm not, David" she said quietly.
"Not what?" he asked, confused.
"Not a fall down drunk. Not drinking to escape my problems. I'm just...It was just...I needed a break from my thoughts." She realized her excuse was flimsy.
"Hey, I know that. This is the first time I've seen you have more than 1 or 2 glasses of wine. What's this about?" He asked, concern etched on his face.
"My mother was," she replied, looking down.
"Was what?" he asked, confused.
"A fall down drunk who drank to escape her problems, until she killed herself falling down some subway stairs."
"Oh my god. Olivia!" He rubbed his chin and mouth with one hand. "I'm so sorry. You have to know I didn't mean it like that." He reached forward and put his hand on her knee. "Really. I had no idea."
"I know, I'm sorry, David. I know you didn't mean it like that and well, here I am, three whiskeys deep..." She tried to shrug it off with a laugh, but it came out choked.
"So what made you need a break?" he asked.
"What?"
"You said you needed a break from your thoughts. How come?" He took a sip of his whiskey, then reached forward and picked up hers, handing it to her.
"I went to see Elliot."
David's eyebrows shot up, surprise evident on his expressive face. "I thought you decided you weren't going to."
"I did, but then I wanted to clear the air. I couldn't leave it like it was." She sipped at her drink slowly.
"And how did it go?" he asked, though he could already see the answer for himself.
She took a bigger drink of the whiskey. "It was horrible."
He waited and she finally went on. "He looked absolutely devastated, his wife left him, he had to move out, he's depressed. The past year has been hard on him too. He looked like a shell of the person he used to be and...and...And I am so angry with him, but now I can't help but feel sorry for him. I was much better off when I was only just pissed at him." She paused and then went on. "I was so worried about him at first, after, and then when he never answered my calls, when he quit without telling me, I just got angry at him, angry because he had hurt me. I stopped worrying about how he was. Now..." she leaned forward and rubbed her temples with both hands. "Shit...now I don't know what to think anymore." She picked up her drink and took a large swallow, almost finishing it. She shook her head as the cold liquid burned going into her stomach. She hadn't mentioned the kiss. It was very far down on the list of things that were bothering her today.
"Ah, Liv. Your empathy is going to be the death of you."
"What do you mean by that?" she asked, slightly defensive, trying very hard not to slur her words.
"This guy deserted you after a tragic event, refused to answer your calls and then just shows back up out of nowhere. You sit down with him one time and all of a sudden you're seeing his point of view. You can feel bad for him, but I'm sticking to your side of the story. After quitting you cold turkey, he can wait as far as I'm concerned. You don't owe him anything."
"I do though, David. He…He was a good man. He saved my life. He taught me…he showed me that there were decent men in this world." She started getting teary and fought valiantly against the tears, but eventually lost the battle. She wiped them away angrily. "If it hadn't been for him…" She let her words trail off, leaving her thoughts unsaid.
"Oh, I bet you would have been just fine. You're amazing, Olivia, and don't sell yourself short by thinking that it's only because of what others have done for you." He leaned in to kiss her. She accepted him gladly, reaching her arms around him as he cradled her, keeping his weight mostly off of her as they laid down on the couch. She kissed him back hungrily, their tongues fighting for control. She tasted like salty tears and whiskey and her own unique scent; he found it intoxicating. Pushing him up off of her, Olivia sat and then stood, pulling David with her. He pulled her back closer to him, cradling her face and kissing her again. Her arms reached around his back, desperate for contact with his warm skin. His hands moved around her and found her waist, his hands sitting where her waist flared into her hips. He loved the feel of her curves; his hands grasped her waist, his thumbs digging into her hip bones, caressing them. She pushed her hips into him and gripped his back. There was desperation to her kiss that he hadn't felt before. She pulled back suddenly and grabbed him, pulling him towards the bedroom.
He resisted her briefly. "Olivia, are you sure? I mean..." He knew she was more than intoxicated, on both the whiskey and the heavy emotions of the day.
"Yeah, I'm sure, D. This isn't the first time we've done this..." She pulled him again towards the bedroom.
"Yeah, I know, but those times you were...you weren't..." he trailed off, not wanting to upset her again.
"What? Wasn't drunk? Yeah, I know. Doesn't change things. I'm not so plastered I don't know what I'm doing, or what I want. And right now I want you." She leaned forward and kissed him hungrily again. He responded in kind, walking with her towards the bedroom, his lips not leaving hers, him pulling her shirt halfway off as they walked. They bumped into the corner of the doorframe and they broke suddenly.
"I just don't want you to think I was taking advantage," he continued.
"Advantage? If anyone is taking advantage here it's me," she quipped. "Do you have a problem with me taking advantage of you, Counselor?" she asked, pulling him towards the bedroom.
"I think it's putting me under duress to ask me that question when you are looking at me with your shirt half off and with that look in your eye..." He narrowed his eyes at her, lust palpable in his look as he eyed her taut abdomen, the slight jut of her hip bones over her low slung pants and the curve of her breasts under a sheer black bra, exposed by her shirt that was now mostly around her neck, hampered only by the difficulty of raising her arm easily to get it off.
He bent to kiss her again, and steered her away from the doorframe and into the bedroom, where they tripped over themselves and ended up lying on the bed. They readjusted themselves and she chuckled. "Hey, I have an excuse to stumble around, what's yours?" she asked, her words still slightly slurred.
He didn't answer, just bent to finish what they had started in the other room. He slid the shirt from her arm gently, careful not to pull too hard. He ran his hand slowly down her side, thumb brushing the edge of her breast. She gasped and fumbled for his pants. He looked at her olive skin, smooth over her stomach, stretching up into her breasts. The bra was black and lacy, sheer enough that he could see through them. God she was beautiful. Her underwear matched the bra, black and just sheer enough to make it more sexy than pure nudity. He matched the lust he saw in her eyes and fell upon her.
Later on, naked and sated, they lay sprawled on her bed. She was draped part way across his chest, his hand was in her hair. She sighed contently.
"You want to tell me about your mom?" he asked, this thumbs brushing her temple gently.
"Not particularly," she replied. "What do you want to know?"
"I want to know what you want to tell me, nothing more," he replied.
She gave a little shrug. "She was very successful, she was a tenured professor, but she was a high-functioning alcoholic pretty much my entire life. Couldn't lay off the vodka if her, or my, life dependent on it."
"How old were you when she died?"
"It was 10 or 11 years ago. She was leaving a bar one night and fell down the stairs of the 96th Street station of the 1 Train. It was winter, maybe she slipped on the ice." She gave another shrug. "The officers came the station, Cragen told me."
"I'm sorry, Olivia." There was another long pause as he continued to caress her temple. "Were you close?"
"Mmmm, we had a….a complicated relationship." Olivia could tell she still had some booze in her system, she normally wasn't this frank when it came to her mother. Or maybe it wasn't the booze, maybe it was that she just didn't mind sharing things with David. "She loved me, but we both knew I was why she drank and it was always the elephant in the room."
"Mmm-hmmm," he said understandingly, not really understanding at all. He was thinking 'Why in the world would someone as wonderful as Olivia Benson drive her mother to drink?' Wisely, he sensed she would tell him eventually, but not to push her now.
She got up and sauntered into the bathroom, letting him have a full view of her backside. She grabbed a glass of water and two Advil. She grinned at him as she tossed the pills in her mouth. "I'm going to try and avoid having a hangover tomorrow," she said as way of explanation.
"Ah, premedication. Wise choice," he rebutted as she climbed back into the bed.
"So how did you leave it with your partner?" he asked when she was settled against him once again.
"My former partner," she clarified. "We were always at our best when we were a little irritated with each other, when we had different perspectives on life. Now, it's as if he stopped having an opinion on things. That I can't deal with." She paused. "I told him not to contact me," she said, almost with a questioning tone. It was almost as if she wanted to ask David what he thought of that.
He was careful not to shift his weight, not to move to give her any indication of what he thought. "Are you sure that's what you want?" he asked. "I mean, you seem like you have a lot of unresolved issues with him."
"Yeah, I mean, no, I mean. Yes, there are a lot of unresolved issues. And, no, I'm not sure that's what I want, but what I do know is that when, or if, I see him again, it needs to be on my terms, not him dropping by my apartment or the precinct."
"So you will see him again?" he asked.
"Probably," she admitted. She looked up at him and couldn't read the expression on his face; it was one that she hadn't seen on him before.
She sat up suddenly, grabbing the sheet to keep herself covered. "David Haden! Are you jealous?"
"Jealous? Of Elliot Stabler? Jeez, no. I'm not jealous. The last time I saw you look at him I thought you were going to kill him with your eyes. Plus, 13 years Olivia, if something was going to happen between the two of you it would've happened already. I'm not jealous, just worried about you," he replied. She couldn't help but have a brief memory of the two of them sitting on the steps in the dark where something could have happened but nothing did. She put that out of her mind.
"Well, you don't need to worry about me. I'm fine. Trust me, if I know how to handle anything on this planet, I know how to handle Elliot Stabler. It's when he's not there that I have a hard time with."
She put her head back down on his shoulder, placed her hand over his chest. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. She felt David's hand go slack on her shoulder, his breathing change, deeper and slower. He was asleep; she was still waiting.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Olivia woke the next morning to David shaking her shoulder. He was dressed in a suit, about to leave for work. He kissed her before she was even fully awake. She stretched out like a cat and groaned. He deepened his kiss and she responded, then pulled back and said "Unless you're planning on ditching that fancy suit already, you should probably get to work. "
"One of these days we're both going to get the same day off and we're going to spend the entire day in bed," he replied.
She snorted. "We'll both be old and gray before that ever happens." She padded her way into the bathroom as David left for work. The water and Advil had worked; she was no worse for wear. Nothing a large coffee and a bagel with cream cheese couldn't fix.
Twenty-five minutes later she strolled into the precinct with a large coffee and a bagel. She set the bagel down and immediately started sorting through her messages. Amaro and Munch had both beaten her in to work that morning, something that was happening more and more often since she had started seeing David. It felt good not to care.
Grabbing the important messages and sorting through the files on her desk looking for the important ones, she looked up when she saw Munch approach her desk.
"Feeling alright this morning Benson?" he asked vaguely.
"Yeah, Munch. Why?" She narrowed her eyes at him. Amaro looked up from his desk, amused by the interaction between the two senior detectives.
"The only time you come in here with food first thing in the morning is when you've had one, or more, too many the night before," she said conspiratorially.
She gave him a disparaging look. "How do you know that?" she asked.
"I'm a detective. I pay attention." Munch said. Now Nick was full on grinning.
"Well, sometimes your detective skills are annoying. Quit being so nosy." She waved a manila file at him.
"Ah, see!" Munch said, gesturing to Amaro. "Now she doesn't want to talk about it. Basically confirmation of our suspicions."
"Get outta here, Munch. We have work to do." She chuckled and picked up the phone to return one of the messages. She looked across her desk at Nick, who simply raised an eyebrow at her, as if he was completely innocent. They were both interrupted when Cragen hollered from his office that they had another case, one that would require all of their attention.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
They were working this case almost 24-7. She'd gone home and caught a few hours sleep and as she was dragging herself back to the precinct at 6am she wished she had just slept in the cribs. At least she'd gotten a shower and a tooth brushing. She quickly got up to speed and Fin gladly headed upstairs to sleep, having stayed during the overnight shift.
In the middle of the afternoon, they were debriefing in the middle of the squadroom. She was going toe-to-toe with Fin and Amaro about how to approach their suspect. Frustrated, she stormed off to one of the file rooms to get some background information that she thought could help. Fin sighed and went to grab a coffee, grumbling under his breath at the poor quality of coffee that his partner made.
Nick was studying the display board when a woman holding a small boy by the hand approached him. She walked right into the bullpen, but looked almost hesitant.
"Can I help you?" he asked gently. You never know who was terrified to be there, was there to make a report.
"Hi, yes, please, I need to talk to Olivia Benson?" the woman asked.
"Um," Nick looked around, not seeing his partner. "She just stepped out a minute. Can I help you with something?" he asked.
"No, I really just need to talk with Olivia," the woman insisted. Just then Fin came around the corner from the kitchenette.
"Kathy! Hey!" he said, surprised and friendly.
Nick felt stupid. Clearly he had missed something. Again.
"Hey Fin. Good to see you."
"You too Kathy, you look good. And Eli! My man, how you doin'?" The detective lifted his hand to give the small boy a high five, which he gave shyly.
"I need to talk with Olivia, Fin," she said.
Fin nodded, lips pressed together. "Yeah, okay," he said simply, not asking any questions. He had no idea what was going on and he wasn't going to butt in. "Go on up to the cribs, I'll tell her to meet you up there."
She gave him a small smile, "Thanks, Fin."
"Hey, Eli. Your pops always let you kids get a snack from the vending machine. Wanna come with me for a treat while your mom has a talk?" The boy grinned and nodded and looked to his mom for permission. She smiled and said "Go ahead," and Eli ran to Fin. He plopped the boy in his desk chair and said "You wait here and I'll be right back and we'll get a snack."
Walking towards the file room, he said to Amaro "Keep an eye on the kid until I get back."
Nick nodded his understanding and watched as the woman walked toward the cribs; she knew exactly where they were. The boy sat on Fin's chair, his short legs swinging back and forth. Fin and Olivia reentered the squadroom and Nick saw her look at Eli and her eyes soften as she took him in. Then she jogged up the stairs towards the cribs.
Fin approached the boy and he jumped up, grabbed Fin's hand and they walked towards the vending machines. A few minutes later they were back, Eli with a soda, a bag of chips and a candy bar.
Nick looked at Fin. "A snack, huh? If someone gave all that sugar to my kid I'd be a little unhappy."
Fin shrugged, "Hey, I get to be the irresponsible uncle figure; I make the kid happy, I win." He looked down at Eli who was alternatively eating the chips and the chocolate bar.
Upstairs, Olivia took a deep breath and opened the door to the cribs. She saw Kathy Stabler standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, arms crossed in front of her. "Kathy?" she asked.
"Hi Olivia," the woman said.
"It's uh, good to see you. I saw Eli. He's grown so much!" Olivia said.
"I know, I can hardly believe it myself sometimes," Kathy said.
"Kathy, what are you doing here?" Olivia asked.
"Uh, I uh, I wanted to talk to you. Talk to you about Elliot." She looked at the detective, a woman she had both trusted implicitly with her husband's life and been terrified of, afraid she would steal her husband's heart. "He uh, he told me he saw you. That he met him at the diner. He, uh, told you we were separated."
Olivia nodded. "Yeah, he told me. I'm sorry, Kathy. I uh.."
Kathy went on, "He told me you don't want to see him ever again. Please, Olivia, give him a chance. He's…he's different. Broken…He's not the same man…"
"I know, Kathy, I do. I could see it, but I need to be able to live my life too. I can't do that if I think he's just going to…."
"Please, just think about it. Just don't shut him out completely," she pleaded.
"That's what he did to me, Kathy. He ran from me, to you, to his family, because he thought that was what he needed. I had blood on my hands too, literally and figuratively and maybe I needed him. Maybe I needed him and I didn't have a family to fall back on. He left me and then you left him." She had her arms crossed in from of her, as if she was cold.
Kathy looked at her in surprise. Every other time she had seen Olivia, she had been friendly, professional, controlled. Kathy had never seen this woman emotional. She thought she had known her, mostly from Elliot's stories, but Kathy realized she really had no idea what Olivia was really like.
"I did. I did leave him, Olivia, but don't pretend it was completely one-sided. You know that. He did leave you. He came to us thinking he could get away from it, but he couldn't. He ran from the one thing, the one person who he needed. I'm not so blind that I couldn't see that. You always understood his work…you understood Work Elliot in a way I never could. I was always hopeless to counsel Work Elliot. He needed you and he wouldn't call you no matter what I said. Please, Olivia, he finally did, don't run on him now."
"Ah, Kathy, I don't know…."
"I didn't sign the papers, Olivia," she said, almost as if she was confessing.
"What papers?" Olivia asked, confused.
"The divorce papers. Elliot signed them. All I had to do was sign the last one and mail them in but I couldn't…I just couldn't, not when I knew his mindset. I'm not saying it's not headed that way, but I couldn't do that to him when he was still dealing with the shooting."
"Kathy! You have to tell him. What good is not divorcing him if he doesn't know it?"
"I know, I know. I will. But please, Olivia, tell me you will see him again. Please," she pleaded.
Olivia wondered if she should tell Kathy about the kiss. She decided not too. The feelings that had fueled that kiss had not suddenly appeared in the last few months, they'd been simmering for years. No reason to hurt another person; enough people had already been damaged by this debacle.
"Okay," Olivia said. "Okay, I'll go see him, but please don't tell him. I need to do this my own way, not his way, not this time."
Kathy nodded, understanding. Elliot always wanted to do things his way. Kathy let out a breath, all the tension leaving her body with the air. "Thank you," she said. She walked towards the door and Olivia followed her out. At the bottom of the stairs, Kathy waved to Eli, who jumped off the chair and grabbing his candy, his chips and the bottle of soda, he made his way to his mother, who took the bottle of soda from him before he dropped it. "Really, Fin?" she asked the detective, exasperated.
"Hey, you've seen those machines. What did you expect?" he replied nonchalantly.
"Fine, but if he pukes in the car, I'm blaming you."
"Good to see you Kathy!" he waved. She waved good-bye as did Eli as she dragged him towards the elevator. Olivia stood at the bottom of the stairs watching them go and shook her head. 'What the hell was she doing?' she was thinking. She gave her head one more shake and went immediately back to the file room to finish her research.
Just as Kathy was disappearing into the hallway, Cragen came out of his office to yell at everyone about something. When he was done berating them into working faster, he eyeballed Olivia standing on the stairs. He turned to Fin and Nick and said "Was that Kathy Stabler I just saw leaving this room?"
Nick turned in surprise to Fin, he'd had no idea who that woman was. "Yeah, Cap, sure was," Fin replied.
"What'd she want?" the bald Captain asked.
"To talk to Olivia. I sent 'em up to the cribs."
"Well, I'll be damned," Cragen said. "Something is going on…"