Disclaimer: See previous.
So I have a confession to make... I did not write a word for five days. Shocking, I know. But to show that I did in fact do something with those five days, I am now a member of America's oldest and best marching band. So if you happen to see a game (and they don't show commercials over the halftime show), know that I am somewhere on that field.
The reviews have been great -- thanks for the good wishes everyone! Luv4svu, I definitely didn't notice that it hadn't uploaded to svufiction until your review, so you saved the day. I don't know what happened... apparently this is what I get for trying to use a Mac.
Time is going by so much faster than I
And I'm starting to regret not telling all of this to you
So if I haven't yet I've gotta let you know...
Never gonna be alone!
Nickelback
"Why? Why did you feel the need to hide from me?"
"Because you need to know that I can do my job and not wait for you to come to the rescue."
It takes him much longer than it probably should to place the reference.
A great deal of their communication is made up of inside jokes from years past. They have never seen each other's favorite movies, but they know the funny lines by heart. Every flub they've ever made, every idiot they've ever dealt with, every long involved funny-only-because-we're-drunk joke Munch has ever told at a bar has become part of their collective unconscious. An awful lot of everyday things are made amusing this way, with a glance across the room to see if the other gets it. Cragen gives them stern looks sometimes, but he knows that he would lose them both if they could not laugh.
So he is used to placing references. He knows one when he hears it from her. But for far too long this one refuses to compute.
When it gives way it does so all at once. All over again he sees her fall, hands flying to her throat – she is on the ground, bleeding and gasping for air – and then Ryan is lying there, dead.
That's what comes to mind when he thinks about that time, but apparently she remembers it quite differently. She remembers the fight they had later, in front of everyone, all the things he said and later regretted.
She remembers it word for word.
He feels sick and to hide it knocks lightly on the top of her head. She jerks around to glare at him. "What the hell?"
"Just checking to see if you have a screw loose," he says.
Her lips quirk up for a fraction of a second. He holds on to that: there may be a lot of things he doesn't know about her but he still knows how to make her smile.
"What the hell?" she repeats, but this time without the glare. He comes around to sit again facing her; he feels like he should take her hands but she's set her cup down and folded her arms tight, to protect herself.
From him.
Usually she knows his whys, better than he does. Usually she knows what his problem is. He's having trouble comprehending that in the three years since Gitano, she has not realized that the person he was really angry with that day was himself.
"You thought you couldn't tell me what happened," he says as it all comes clear. "You thought I wouldn't listen, wouldn't understand. You thought I'd blame you. You thought…" His voice dies. He's been waiting for her to deny it, but her eyes confirm everything he's said and he can't bear to see confirmation of her fear of a repeat. She thought he'd dump her. He knows this; there's no need to say it.
"Sure there's no screw loose?" he asks, before his voice is ready so that it scrapes roughly over the words.
"I don't think so."
"It's been three years since…"
"I can count, thanks."
He picks up her abandoned cocoa and offers it back to her, waits until she unwinds her arms to take it. "I thought you knew," he says quietly.
"Knew what?"
"That I didn't mean anything I said that day. Liv. You know how I get when I'm scared."
The looks she gives him says both You were scared for me? and You get scared too? and it hurts. He picks up his own mug for something to do with his hands.
"Do I have to spell this out for you?" he asks.
"Apparently." She looks down and adds, "I do spell stuff out for you all the time."
"This is true. All right." He takes a great swig of hot chocolate and pretends that it is liquid courage. "Okay. Do you remember, after that other crappy case, I came over here and we watched that truly awful baseball movie?"
"Mm-hmm."
"I forgot to tell you something that night." And later he figured that she didn't really need to hear it, but clearly he was wrong. "Olivia. I meant to tell you that I think you're amazing."
She goes completely still, so that he knows she realizes that he's breaking whatever rules they have left.
Before she can object he continues, "You're smart. You're dedicated. You've got killer instincts and you can take down guys twice your size. You pull off the best bluff in the NYPD. You keep me in line, which I'm told requires infinite patience; and I think you may be the single strongest person I have ever known."
As she lifts her head he offers her the best smile he can muster.
"I mean, major points have got to go to that one guy who adopted his son's killer's sister, but you, Liv, my God." He chews pensively on the inside of his cheek. "I meant to tell you that… nothing you can do or say could ever change that, nothing."
A single tear dribbles down her check and she roughly swipes it away. "El."
"It's okay. Liv, I know what happened to you wasn't your fault. It's just something shitty that happened to you." He watches her closely. "You know that, right?"
She hunches over her mug, as though trying to shrink into nothing. "El," she whispers again.
Years ago it took only a certain tone to get her to tell him the truth. But things have changed, so he sets down the silly prop that is his own cocoa and he pries her mug away and slips her hands into his own.
"I knew better," she says.
"Better than what?"
"Better than…" She's at a loss. "Than to… I'm a cop."
"So what? So you're exempt from stuff spinning out of control? If that's true my life definitely should have gone differently."
He wonders if she realizes how tightly she's hanging onto his hands.
"You couldn't have done anything differently," he tells her. "You did so much better than anyone had a right to expect of you. There's your better than."
A small sob escapes her and she bends forward, trying to contain herself. Elliot just sits there holding both her hands until she manages to look up at him once more. Her eyes, he's quite sure, are trying to tell him how very much she's needed to hear this from him. What he's not sure of is how many more times his heart can stand to break tonight.
"I'm so sorry I'm such an ass," he says sincerely, and then she starts to laugh.
Not much later they both realize how late it is. Olivia hunts down blankets and a pillow and asks him three times if he's all set before she disappears into her bedroom. Whereupon Elliot puts his face in his hands and just sits there, trying not to think too hard. He feels unreal, like the past three hours must have happened to someone else.
When he looks up she is hovering in the doorway, uncertain. "You okay?" he asks.
"Whatever happened with Jason?"
"Who?"
"Dickie's – sorry – Dick's friend. The one who turned left instead of right. Was he crushed when he didn't pass?"
Then he remembers. It is the story he never finished telling, a lifetime ago in that stupid diner. She is trying to feel her way towards normal, and he's all too willing to figure it out with her.
"Actually," he says, "he did pass."
"You're kidding."
"I wish. New York State now licenses drivers who can't tell right from left."
"Kids these days."
"And it's no wonder when half the adults are so screwed up."
She smirks. "Well. Good night, El."
Technically it's very early in the morning, but he does not point this out. "Night, Liv," he says, and he hopes they'll both sleep.
At eight the alarm on his cell phone goes off. Elliot silences it automatically and then gives himself a moment without moving. He is so very tired, tired in his bones.
This, he supposes, is the weight of secrets, both kept and revealed.
With a groan he levers himself off Olivia's couch. He cracks the door to her bedroom – messy, he notes – and, moving as quietly as he knows how, unplugs her alarm clock. Her cell is also on the nightstand; he puts it on silent. He checks to make sure the blinds are closed and he prowls around the rest of her apartment, disconnecting anything that might make noise.
It occurs to him that he's still wearing the old jeans and t-shirt that he threw on in the middle of the night. Oh well. It's a better look than the time he wore the Hawaiian shirt to work, at least, and it can't be helped now.
At the last minute he remembers to leave a note to let her know what the hell is going on. It takes some ingenuity, but eventually he unearths a pad of Post-its among the mess on her kitchen table. You're calling in sick, he writes. It's highly contagious so don't even try. He agonizes for a few minutes then, but decides, on balance, that preventing a repeat is more important than any of their old worn-out rules or even their pride. So he adds, Don't forget you can tell me anything.
It can't hurt for her to have a tangible reminder of that.
He sticks the note to the coffeepot, because she won't miss it there, and he peeks in at her one more time. She sleeps like a rock, a sure sign that she sorely needs the rest. But then again he knew that already.
He just hopes she's not dreaming of Harris.
She is torn between amused and afraid. After a large mug of coffee, though – possibly too large, considering that it's already mid-afternoon – she is a little more rational and calls him to figure it out.
"I'm not sick," she points out without bothering to say hello.
Elliot doesn't miss a beat. "You know, you're at the point where you could say, 'Yeah, I'm sick, sick of my partner,' and Cragen would give you a week off."
She laughs.
"But," he goes on, "if you're not interested in a week, you could call it the twenty-four hour flu. Or the two-day flu. Does that exist?"
"No idea."
"Well, whatever. Munch and Fin said to get well soon."
"They know I'm not really sick, don't they?"
"How'd you guess? Yeah, I think they figured it out, but they didn't say anything. Don't stay away too long, though, or Munch will start thinking it's a coverup and you stumbled upon some hidden secret of the Kennedy administration and had to be whisked away by the government to a top-secret facility in New Mexico."
"Oh, no, is he on about the Kennedys again?"
"Well, we caught a new one today and one of the guys we interviewed, get this, actually wrote a whole book defending the Warren Commission."
"Oh, God."
"It wasn't pretty."
"I can imagine." She can't help smiling into the phone anyway, because of his familiar voice and the tone, which communicated easily to her that despite all the tears and recriminations and weaknesses, he is treating her as nothing less than his partner.
"I gotta go," he says. "But don't make any plans because I'm bringing you dinner tonight."
"Why?"
"Why not? Unless you're going to actually eat those canned peas, because I didn't notice any other food."
"Point."
"Ha. I'm coming!" he yells to someone else. "Geez. Later?"
"Later."
Later, of course, she discovers the why. It's because the truly awful baseball movie has a sequel.
"This is even worse than the first one," Elliot remarks about ten minutes in, with some horror.
"Hey," she says, "I liked the first one."
"Really?"
"No, of course not, but it was nice to make fun of."
"Agreed." He takes a very large bite of burger and she winces and shoves a napkin at him.
"Eat like a grownup."
"But that's no fun."
"Tough luck."
When the movie ends she sends him home. He asks several times if she's sure, eyeing her doubtfully, but she means it this time and it doesn't take long for him to see that.
"You'll be okay?" he says then, half statement, half question.
She summons a smile, which is a much easier process than it's been. "Yeah, I think so."
He claps her on the shoulder, presses it briefly. In this moment there are no words, only understanding. Anytime is there, and always, and a strange hesitation and suddenly she realizes. Right now he's more afraid than she is. He's afraid of screwing this up.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she says, when what she means is I need you to do exactly what you're doing.
Understanding this, he says, "Thank God. I can't take one more minute in a car with Munch."
"One day," she reminds him. "You're a wimp."
"That hurts. Deeply."
And so it continues.
TBC...
One chapter to go! And by then it'll probably be time for season 11. Pleeeease review!