"I just miss you."
She whispered, casting teary eyes around the empty cemetery and covering her mouth with a trembling hand. There were so many beautiful bouquets and poetic tributes around his plot but it shamed her that she didn't recognise most of the names. It brought a strange emptiness and regret that there had been so much about the man she hadn't known. Their relationship had been painfully one dimensional at times and she felt robbed of the chance to change that. Her wedding had been the turning point, where he had stopped being just the Captain to her and been simply Cragen. She bitterly wished that she could've grown to know him as Don.
"I'm really trying to picture myself there. I keep reading about preschools for the kids and trying to find houses for us but I don't think my heart is in it. In fact I know it isn't. I want to raise my babies in your house. I want to put a swing in that yard just like you wanted."
Picking the dead heads off a bouquet of roses Olivia's misty gaze settled on the card and she plucked it from the sea of flowers. Bringing it closer she blinked away tears and read the inscription. It was from a David, Jennifer and James Haden. He'd had a son, she smiled. She was truly happy for him.
"I know it's time to move on. I know that. I'm hanging onto the past and I have to let it go. I'm clinging onto the past because I'm struggling to let it go. I'm struggling. It's like the floor went out from under me and I just haven't managed to get back up yet. I try to talk about it, not bottle it up like I know I'm guilty of doing. It just feels like I lost so much more than you and the precinct that night. I think I lost myself."
It was a revelation to her to say it aloud, to truly acknowledge the depth of devastation she had felt since the explosion. It was cathartic, but for as many questions as it answered it asked a million more.
"I know Elliot needs me to go to Chicago but what about what I need? I don't know where the line is. I'm still new at this I guess. Is that what marriage is really about underneath all the lace and silver? Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Is that the kind of example I want to set for Evie? For Sam too come to that."
Laughing at how she was now very definitely talking to herself Olivia stuffed David's card back into his flowers and continued her pruning and rearranging.
"But Eli is his son. I mean that's….." shrugging her shoulders and rolling right back around to where she had started Olivia sighed, "…. that's everything, right? We have to go. We have to do this. I mean maybe it won't be forever. Maybe we can just do a few years and then after that talk about coming back to New York."
In all the times she had visited Serena's grave she had never found this comfort, this strange sensation that in some small way she was having a two sided conversation. Perhaps it was that she was finally at home in her own skin, she finally had a tangible family around her. Perhaps it was that her mother had never known her the way Cragen had.
"They made me captain." She choked, sitting back on her heels and finger the frost covered crass with a distracted sadness. "And it's real this time. They're giving me free reign to create the SVU we'd always talked about, dreamed of building. It's everything I never thought possible….." lowering her eyes and allowing her confused disappointment to permeate Olivia sighed, "…..and everything I'm scared to want."
"What do I do Captain?" she asked into the cold, empty silence around her. "What would you tell me to do? I don't want to disappoint you. I can't even begin to imagine stepping into your shoes, it's too much. Or maybe it's just enough? If you were here would you tell me I'm an idiot? Have I lost my mind if I think that in some twisted, messed up way this is the universe letting me right the wrong I was conceived out of? Is it crazy to think that maybe this was where it all was leading from the start? Was this why we fought so damn hard all these years? To get to this place?"
"I'm talking to myself. I know you're not going to answer. I'd just really appreciate some kind of input here, Cap. Throw me a sign or something, would ya?" rolling her eyes and gathering herself up from the ground Olivia gave up. Brushing down her pants she tossed her purse over her shoulder and, with a sighing smile, bid her farewell.
"I want this one."
"Magic word?"
"Sausages!" sizzled Eve, wriggling in her chair and rubbing her hands together with glee.
"Lello….." leaning out of Elliot's lap Sam wandered chubby fingers through the box of crayons before retrieving his favourite colour and smiling, "… peas."
"Atta boy! You hear that Mouse?" deliberately pitting her brother against her in a long favoured technique Elliot smiled at his daughter, "Your brother knows the real magic word."
"Please may I the blue one?" lips perfectly pursed Eve batted big blue eyes and didn't move a muscle, reading every line on her father's face and so desperately seeking his approval. "Please Daddy?"
"Good girl….." reaching out a hand Elliot pinched the apple of her cheek and asked, "….and that is an awesome, awesome drawing you're doing there. Your Mom is gonna love it."
"Can I feel my ears burning?"
"Momma!" though Eve was deeply engrossed in the task at hand and barely noted her mother's arrival Sam's face lit up and his arms flew up so dramatically that Elliot's chin received a firm thwack.
"Oh wow, son….." he laughed loudly, as Olivia wandered over and obliged Sam with cuddles, "… that's a serious right hook you've got there."
"Evie that is a fantastic picture….." planting Sam on her hip Olivia wandered around the other side of the table and gushed, "….wow, that is so, so good baby girl. Well done!"
"Hey, hey come here….." beckoning Olivia back Elliot stroked lightly at her forearm as it tucked under Sam's diaper and asked, "… how you doing?"
"I'm fine."
"I know when you're fine and when you're not fine Liv and…." with a sad sigh he acknowledged, "… and you're not fine."
"I guess I've been thinking about that offer a little."
"A little or a lot?" asked Elliot, "Where's your head at with it?"
"We need to do this more…." she deflected, draping her free arm around him and giving his shoulders a squeeze, "… hang out just the four of us."
"We can do that."
"You know I think I'm gonna call Fin and tell him we'll just see him Christmas Eve. He'll be tired anyway from his trip and I think I just wanna stay home tonight…" hesitating a moment she added, "… that okay with you?"
"Sure, sure of course….." he nodded, realising that no matter what their decision on the future as going to be they needed to reach it soon for Olivia's sake, "… you go hang out with him and put your feet up. Mouse and I will fix dinner."
"El I won't keep telling you that you're not supposed to stand for longer than…."
"Please don't mother me, babe?"
"Okay, okay I'm sorry….." reluctantly taking her hands from the wheel Olivia kissed his head, but unable to resist added, "….just keep taking breaks at least? For my sanity?"
"What sanity?" he teased, before quickly clarify "Regular breaks, got it."
"I love my son Kath."
"I spoke to Katie….." confessed Kathy, rubbing her tired face and feeling to have aged at least a decade in the past two years, "…. and I know just how badly this is tearing you apart El. I am so sorry for that."
"It's an impossible choice."
"I know."
"You're making me choose between my children."
"I…."
"You know when you told me you were pregnant again I wasn't sure we could handle it. Whether we could admit it yet or not, our marriage wasn't in a good place and all the other kids were grown. That chapter of our life was over."
"Believe me it was every bit as much as a shock to me! I had forgotten how truly brutal it is when they're tiny. All those sleepless nights, always feeling exhausted and cranky and like I was about to spiral into some kind of mental breakdown at any minute was no fun at all. I'm so glad Eli is in school now and we're done raising babies."
"But I'm not over all that, Kath. I'm not done raising babies. Mouse, she's growing fast but she's still so little really and Sam hasn't even had a birthday yet. Liv is a trooper, she really is but she's a new mom. She's not a war vet like you and me, and she's amazing with the kids but she needs her support system. Fin has been there since Evie was born and he and Alex are so important to her."
"I guess sometimes I forget this is her first rodeo."
"This city is home to her in a way that not even I will ever be able to understand. She might not say it, she might not even know it but these streets and buildings are the familiarity and the stability that ground her. They're the only thing that's she's ever been able to rely on."
"Until you."
"Liv needs New York, and after everything she's lost…" shrugging with the deep heart of the matter Elliot sighed, "….and I can't take it away from her."
"I don't know what to say."
"Don't do that to me Kath. Don't give me that look. This is an impossible situation for me and you know I'd move mountains for my kids. Every one of them. It breaks my heart to think that I won't be there for Eli the way I'd like but it is what it is. You are doing what you have to do and I'm just doing the same."
"You know what Elliot Stabler this might be the first time in over twenty years that you've managed to surprise me."
"Look I know you're probably mad but…."
"I'm not mad."
"Olivia has had no part in this believe me. She's packing her bags and Googling pre-schools in Chicago right now."
"I don't doubt it."
"So?" he often accepted confusion when conversing with the woman in his life but this was truly perplexing. He had come expecting and fight and yet strangely despite their back and forth it seemed like he and Kathy were on the same page for the first time in what must have been over a decade.
"Olivia's dedication to you doesn't shock me in the slightest. She's every bit as much in love with you as I was. What I can't get over is you El. You're making a decision entirely based on her happiness. You've fully thought through every implication of allowing Olivia to follow you to Chicago and decided it's too much to ask. You found the line."
"I never managed to do that with you, huh?" realised Elliot, remembering all the times sacrifice and compromise in their marriage had been decidedly off balance.
"What you're doing to yourself for her is brutal but it's also pretty incredible. I promise I'll do whatever I can to make this easier on all of us."
"We're gonna need a military style plan Kath. I still want my weekends when I can, vacation time, spring break. I want as much contact with that boy as we can possibly manage."
"I want that too."
"Well okay then."
"You were always a good man Elliot….." tearing up Kathy's voice broke as she nobly acknowledged, "… but with her you might just turn out to be a great one."
"Hello? El?" rapping lightly on the door of the house Cragen had gifted her Olivia pushed her way inside and called again, "Babe your message was kind of cryptic, what's going on?"
"In the living room."
"I don't know which one that is….." she laughed, a little nervous suddenly as she wandered down the wood floored corridor removing her jacket, "…. hello?"
"Hi….." grinned Elliot, leaning on his crutches over a plastic table filled with takeout boxes and a bottle of wine.
"Okay what is happening here?" she asked slowly, disbelieving as he lit a cluster of tea light candles and continued to smile enigmatically at her. "Where are the kids?"
"With Alex."
"So…."
"Olivia I apologise."
"What did you do?" she asked, first sarcastic and then a little alarmed.
"I apologise to you that at no point in during all of this did I say the one thing I should've lead with…" splashing wine into two glasses he handed one to her, then raising his toasted, "…. congratulations Captain Stabler."
"Babe…." she melted, clinking his glass and taking a sip before dropping her voice to a husky murmur, "… thank you but?"
"I've been doing a lot of thinking and I've talked to Kathy. We can do this. I can do this, for you, for our family. I can figure out a way to be in Eli's life without having to leave New York."
"El you don't have to do that."
"I know I don't."
"But…."
"Liv do you want to go to Chicago?"
"I….." seeing in his eyes that he already knew her answer she shook her head from one side to the other and choked, "…. no."
"Do you want to stay here?"
"Yes.
"Do you want to be captain of Manhattan SVU and raise your kids in this awesome house that Cragen gave you?"
"Are you serious?" she tested, reaching a hand to her chest and holding it over her heart that was threatening to beat its escape, "Can we really do this?"
"I think we should try….." and then holding her eyes he asked, "… do you?"
"Oh Elliot!" she cried tearfully, and in an uncharacteristically impassioned display thumped her glass down on the table and threw her arms around his neck.
"Hey, hey come here I've got something to show you…." struggling but determined he walked under his own steam, without her support, to the window and gestured for her to follow, "…. come see?"
"I'm still in shock I think." She confessed, joining him at the window unable to take her eyes off him. "I can't believe we might actually get to live in this house."
"Not might, babe….." he corrected, nodding out of the window and encouraging her to look out into the yard, "… check it out."
"A rope swing." she choked, watching the tyre swinging back and forth in the breeze from the low hanging tree branch in the corner of what was now her garden. "El…." she whispered, shaking her head back and forth and just staring for a moment before startling herself back to reality with a crashing fear, "….tell me you didn't put that thing up there by yourself?"
"What you think I can't take my own weight but I can scale a tree?" he teased with a smirk, "Nah, nah Dickie came over."
"I don't think I'm thinking at all right now….." she confessed, staring at him a moment before asking softly, "….are you sure though El? Eli's your son."
"I know."
"I just….."
"Believe me Liv this decision didn't come easy. I went around in circles for days but Kath and I are both agreed that just as much as she needs to go I need to stay here. We're gonna give it a year and after that if we don't feel like I'm managing to be there as much as I need to for Eli then we'll….." realising that though he and Kathy had devised a to the letter plan for Eli's care there were still giant details unresolved, "… well then we'll just have to persuade her to come home won't we?"
"This is really gonna be our house?" and when he simply grinned and nodded in reply she flashed him the kind of beaming smile he wished he could keep permanently alight on her face. "This is gonna be our house."
"Liv it's all been hell for too long. I'm not saying we're done hurting or this is everything perfect but its zero hour. Right here, right now, this is when things start to get better again I promise."
"What about SVU?" she asked suddenly, realising that there was more to the decision to stay than just the house. "That offer is still on the table. Should I accept?"
"Do you want to accept?"
"It's a lot of work. Long hours, late nights, dropping everything to go into the precinct. Can we commit to that? I mean you're doing amazingly but you're still rehabbing and what about your job?"
"Never mind about my job this isn't about me."
"Elliot…"
"We don't know how long, if ever, they'll sign me off for active duty again and even if they did I'm not so sure it's a good idea having both of us on the job anymore anyway."
"You're thinking about leaving the force?"
"Take the job babe."
"Yeah?" she tested, her head and heart so full she could barely form thoughts let alone words.
"Yeah….." he nodded, leaning down and kissing her tenderly to seal the deal.
"There sweet and sour prawns in one of those boxes?" she asked, pulling away and stealing one more kiss as he laughingly answered.
"I value my life so yeah, yeah there are."
"El I don't even know how to begin to thank you for all this. I don't underestimate how….."
"I know you don't….." he cut in, neither needing nor wanting her to feel indebted to him for a choice he had made freely, "…. now shut up and eat your prawns."