Title: Her Negotiation
Author: ZombieJazz
Fandom: Law & Order: SVU
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Will (and his family) and Noah have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.
Summary: What would happen if the Season 14/Season 15 finale and premiere were set in the AU of Liv/Will/Noah? Cragen sends Olivia home for a couple days after working the William Lewis case. She hasn't heard from her husband or son for several hours when she walks into their unusually quiet house.
Will stood quietly at the crack in the half-opened door. He didn't want to startle her or upset her by being there, but he also couldn't pull his eyes away. Yet, somehow watching was making his heartbreak a little bit more.
His wife's back was to him but he could part of her face unobstructed in the mirror and he'd watched how her lips trembled with held back tears and how her face creased more and more into a frown that he'd not quite like anything he'd ever seen on her face before in all the years of knowing her. She was examining herself with a kind of disgust that made Will want to start crying again too. But it was then the scissors came up and he watched as she cut off a chunk of her long, soft, beautiful hair. Followed by another and another. Her face both angrier as she snipped each strand until the anger turned to disgust again and then to sadness. It was then, as she pushed her hands through what was left, and looked like she was about to shed her own tears that she must've caught a glimpse of him in the reflection.
She turned a looked at him. Even with the glassiness to her eyes, they still looked so empty and dead that it scared him more. He was having trouble seeing his wife. He was having trouble finding her. He knew she was hiding from him on some level and he wondered if she'd ever let him find her or if they'd just entered a lifelong game of hide-and-seek. His Olivia might be hidden in some closet or behind some curtain forever now. He wasn't sure she'd ever be ready to come out – no matter how many times he called for her. He wasn't even sure if she could really exist anymore – or if she'd slipped out the door while his eyes were closed. Gone. But he wasn't sure how to deal with the new reality – the new rules in the game. He just wanted to make it better. Easier.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asked flatly.
He pushed the door the rest of the way open and shrugged. He didn't know what to say. He knew she was likely upset he was there. Angry even. But he also didn't think she was yet in a spot she was in a position to feel much of anything. There was an emptiness to how she posed the question and even larger blankness to how she was looking at him.
"A while," he admitted and continued to examine her.
He could tell from looking at her hair while with her in the ambulance that part of it had been already cut off. Other areas were singed and burnt. It was a small preview of what she'd been through. He'd caught other glimpses and words while the paramedics attended to her in the ambulance and the doctors and nurses attended to her at the hospital. He'd heard muttering and whispering among the law enforcement officers milling around, some collecting evidence that had been collected from his wife's clothes and body. But few people had really said anything to him about what she'd been through yet. He was being forced to draw his own conclusions. A doctor had talked at him. He couldn't remember a word that had been said. A nurse had spoken quietly to them and all he could hear now was the sound of her voice. He knew Liv's captain had given him some glimpse of information but all he'd heard was that his wife was alive and she was coming home. Liv hadn't said anything to him yet. He wasn't sure when she would and he wasn't sure how to ask – or when he should.
"We could've taken you somewhere to get that done," he provided her instead.
He thought they'd likely still be going somewhere … eventually. The locks that were left were hanging longer on one side than the other and with looking at her from behind, he'd seen the back of her hair was a ragged and pointed mess. It wasn't even. It wasn't layered. It wasn't styled. At all.
It was slightly jarring to look at her like that. Her appearance with the cuts and bruises on her face and arms (even though they were now covered) had been jarring enough. But this was her hair. He'd seen Olivia with short hair before. Far shorter than what she was sporting at the moment. But this was different. This wasn't her deciding to try a new style. It wasn't her taking an afternoon at a hairdresser's. This was a purposeful change. One that she'd clearly felt in her stupor that was urgent and necessary.
It was strange to see it gone. He'd liked her with short her. Really the Olivia he'd fallen in love with had had that short bob when she'd moved in next door to him. That was still the Olivia that he saw in his mind's eye – even now, he hoped always. No matter what changes either of them had been through. But he'd also known she'd made just as purposeful and conscious decision to grow her hair out. That she'd decided as Noah passed the age of grabbing and pulling at her hair – that she'd moved from Chelsea, that she was a mother, that she was a middle-aged woman. She'd wanted to have long hair. Longer than what she'd had it for much of her law enforcement career. And, he'd known she liked it. That she liked styling it and curling it and giving it highlights. That with everything else going on in their lives – it had helped her feel beautiful and attractive and more like a woman in some ways. And, he'd grown to like it – love it even – too. He had just as many images of Olivia seared into his mind that included his wife with her long, bouncy locks as he did of that first image of her in the hallway with the short crop and the crossed-arm attitude. But now her appearance had changed just as suddenly as everything else in their life had taken a turn in that one moment – that one evening.
"I needed to do it now," she told him quietly and looked down, seeming to realize for the first time the chucks of hair that had collected on the ground.
Will just nodded. He again wasn't sure what to say. He knew she needed to do it now. Or at least that she felt that way. He didn't necessarily blame her. But he wasn't sure that it made it any easier. He knew that when she went back downstairs now, too, that all eyes would land on her even more. He hoped that no one would make a big deal out of it. He hoped that no one would even comment on it. Noah likely would.
"Noah's looking for you," he said. "You've been up here a while."
She'd been so retreated since they'd come into the house. It had been awkward in a way. No one really knew what to say. Or even what they were allowed to say. It felt like they were all walking on eggshells. He could feel that Olivia felt the same way. He wondered how long that would last too. How long it would take before they could all interact as normally as they ever did when they were at his parents'. And, if they couldn't interact with that strained normalcy they had at his parents' how would they be able to interact when they were on their own? When would they be on their own? That was another question.
So instead of talk, they'd all mostly just sat in his parents' living room. On the couch. The same couch that he and Noah had sat on gazing out the window on that endless night waiting for word. It almost didn't feel right to be sitting there. Noah sat with his mother. Will sat down from her. His father sat across from them. And, his mother went and puttered with hot drinks and snacks in the kitchen. Setting them out in the living room until they grew cold after going untouched. Olivia had finally just said she was going upstairs for a few minutes to use the bathroom. He'd offered to help her up the stairs but she'd declined. So instead they all just still sat in the bathroom, now looking at the stairs – and occasionally the ceiling as she moved around on the upper level – waiting for her to return. When she hadn't, Will had finally taken it upon himself to check on her.
He'd been trying to give her space. Letting her take a break from them. Half-ways hoping that maybe she'd decided to lay down and had drifted to sleep. But that hadn't been the case. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he'd interrupted her. How much space was he supposed to give her? How alone did she want to be? He wasn't sure.
"I'll be down soon," she told him.
He gave her a thin, sad smile that wasn't much of a smile. "OK," he allowed and then looked at her. "Your captain called," he told her. "We need to get you in for some sort of debrief tomorrow."
She looked like that registered and she returned a small nod. "OK," she agreed but there was no conviction behind it. "Just … arrange it. Let me know."
Will didn't think it would matter if he let her know. He wasn't sure it would register – and he thought he was about as enthusiastic as her about the prospect of having to take her into the precinct to be grilled about what had happened. It had been bad enough while Amanda had been in there taking a rather fractured statement from her. He didn't want his wife to have to think about it or deal with it. He wasn't sure he was ready to hear it. Though, he knew he'd never be ready – really. And, the whole legal process that this all had just set in motion intimidated him to the point that even letting his mind drift in that direction stirred enough in him for him to shutdown and send his mind swirling some other way. He wasn't ready to deal with any of that yet either. Dealing with the immediate present felt overwhelming enough.
He allowed a small nod and eyed her for a moment and then sighed.
"I can clean up," he said. "You should go and spend time with Noah … if you're up to it."
She gave him a weak smile. "Yeah. Thank you," she said. With a shaky hand, she set the scissors on the counter and lightly passed him.
He watched as she moved slowly towards the stairs. He could near feel her take her own deep breath and long exhale as she gripped the railing with her good hand and began to make her way back down. Something about it made him said. The amount of effort that it was taking both of them. The amount of effort it was going to take for a long time. But at least she was there to make the effort.
He turned back to the hair on the ground and letting out a muffled grunt, he willed his body to lower itself to his knees and began to pick up the pieces of his former wife – tossing them in the trash.