To say I am nervous and hesitant would be an understatement! I just always feel like never having concluded this story will forever play on my mind if I don't write it an ending. So that is what I'm going to try to attempt to do. I realise that it has been quite literally years since this started, and even since I last updated and so I anticipate that most people may have lost interest. I'm also aware that sadly the direction I had written in wasn't to everyone's taste. All that being said, I am going to attempt an ending anyway. For myself and for anyone who read along and might want to read more having felt the absence of an ending.

EDIT - I plan to write a number of chapters as an ending rather than just this one. Apologies if that wasn't clear. I'm unsure how many but I was just planning to see what felt right and what response came from those (if any!) reading. :)

~*~ Ten Years Later ~*~

"He was a giant. In every possible way a person can be. He never did anything by halves. When he was in, he was all in, for better or for worse. Usually, for better, sometimes, granted, for worse. He walked tall, he fought hard, he had a strength that was a force of nature and he loved loyally and fiercely. He was the best friend, husband and father any one of us could've asked for. He was an incredible person. He was my person. I breathed in the moment Elliot Stabler walked into my life and I don't know how I will ever find the strength to breathe out now that he's gone. I don't know how I will ever let him go…."

"Is she okay?" said Eve grimly, turning her head ever so slightly to her brother, holding thick diamond tears wilfully at the corners of her eyes. "Should someone….."

"I would but…." said Sam, cursing himself, angry and despairing that he could not go to her himself. The cathedral stage, up several complex stairs, was out of reach like so many things in life.

"I can't…." squeezing the words from her mouth it was as if someone had two hands in Eve's chest, gripping at her heart and lungs. She couldn't persuade her leaden legs to move, she could barely force herself to keep breathing. "I can't…." she managed again, this time shaking her head quickly from side to side and shaking the tears from her eyes.

"Darling, do you want me to?" asked the voice at the other side of her. She turned, smiled weakly, but shook her head.

"Cal…." said Sam, craning his neck to look over his shoulder for the brother he knew would be there.

"Already on it…." came a voice from behind them. Deep, husky, but unwavering.

"Hey, hey…." said Calvin with a gruff insistence as he reached the lectern and laid his giant palm over Olivia's trembling fingers.

"I…." she floundered, her mouth making noiseless shapes. Suddenly she came back to herself and soulful brown eyes rested upon the sea of faces in front of her. She swallowed, slowly, and her tan face paled.

"I got you….." waiting for her to turn to him, Calvin waited until her gaze was locked on his eyes and then repeated hoarsely, "… I got you, Mama. I promise. I'm here. We're all here."

She couldn't speak. There were no words. Calvin moved a little closer and peeled one delicate, wrinkled hand at a time from the lectern they'd been gripping. As he watched her, tentatively moving her feet, securing her footing, his heart dropped. Even after all these months, even after the heat and noise of battle and the agony of the final fight she had been invincible. It was only then, in that moment, where he scooped a hand around her waist and pinned her under his arm, did she look her age for a moment. She was the one leaning on him, heavily, for the first time in all the decades they had known one another. He was ready to stand strong for her now.

"Thank you…." mouthed Evie, as Calvin walked Olivia carefully back into the seat beside her. He nodded quietly in acknowledgement before returning to his own pew.

"He died, Sammy."

"I know."

"Our Dad…." she swallowed, her voice cracking and the tears returning with a vengeance, "… he's gone."

"I know."

"I didn't believe it. I never could. He was…."

"A giant." said Sam, echoing their mother's words an hour earlier.

Heaving a sigh that felt to expel the very last of his breath Sam dropped his head in his hands. Bracing his elbows against his knees he buried his face and curled up as small as he felt into his wheelchair. Like a child, hoping that so long as he couldn't see the rest of the world they would be unable to see him either.

"It's okay, it's okay…." soothed Eve, falling to her knees beside him despite the icy tarmac of a cold January day in New York City. She dragged at her stubborn brother until he yielded, and came into her waiting arms.

"It isn't okay! Nothing is okay Vee!"

"I know, I know that but…."

"It's like you said about Mom. How does she even….."

"I know Sammy, I know, oh I know."

Having escaped the claustrophobic warmth of the wake room the two siblings just held each other for a while. The cold, crisp winter air brought relief, but equally gave a painful clarity that the low hum of sympathy from mourners they barely knew had masked inside.

"What happens now?" he choked, suddenly angry again. "It isn't fair Eve. They're not supposed to be apart. They were never supposed to have to be. I have literally never known two people so meant to be together. And now they're not. They were Elliot and Olivia for a lifetime and now…. "

"This is all going to hurt, it is going to be impossibly hard for all of us for a long time but…."

"What if it never gets better again Eve? What if Mom never gets over this? What happens now? What do we all do next? What if we can't ever put our family back together again without Dad and…."

"Sammy? Sam look at me…." said Eve fiercely, pulling away but still holding him she gave his shoulders a firm shake. "Stop it! Stop!"

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry Sam. You don't have to be sorry for being angry or lost or absolutely devastated to your bones. You just can't talk like that. You have to promise me that you won't talk like that…." breathless but resolved Eve nodded slowly, "…. not in front of her."

"What if this breaks her?"

"It won't."

"But what if….."

"We won't let it. We will not let it break her, do you hear me?" she was angry, she meant it, and it shook Sam to his core.

"I…."

"Did you ever once hear our mother talk like that? Ever? Think about every single hard, bad, horrible thing that ever happened to the two of us and do you ever remember her talking about quitting? After your accident, after California, when Calvin and I got divorced, when Beth had all those miscarriages, when Dad got sick? Who was the oneperson who never even came close to giving in? The one person who told us over and over and over again that we could get through it. The one person who really truly believed that we could survive even the worst possible scenario."

"Mom."

"Mom…." nodded Eve slowly, moving her hands down to Sam's and holding them fast.

"We've gotta be there for her now. The way she has always been there for us. Strong and fierce and relentless with her love. That's what happens now. That's what we do now. Because it's our turn….." forcing herself to smile, dragging at the dead weight of her face until she could manage to upturn her lips Eve repeated, "… it is our turn Sammy."

"Okay."

"And she was never wrong, right?" the tears threatened again, but this time Eve fought them back. She held them in. She gritted her teeth and squared her father's jaw and locked the emotion in for her brother's sake. "We did survive. We got through all those things and we will get through this too. We'll all get through it, together. For Mom, and because it's what Dad would've wanted."

"You hiding?"

"Not very well apparently."

"Gotcha…." said Calvin, holding upturned palms in front of him in apology as he began backing out the door through which he had just come.

"Where'd you think you're going?" came the croaky voice from inside the dark coat closet and raised the first smile he had managed all day.

Making his way through coats and outdoor wear Calvin padded slowly to the little corner in which Olivia had found herself a moment's solitude. The world had become unbearably loud to her and she felt herself increasingly retreating into her own thoughts and the solace of her own company.

"It smells like old people and feet in here."

"How you holding up?" asked Olivia, from her perch on what Calvin determined to be an old packing trunk. He sat beside her and sighed.

"Hey, that's my line…." he replied after a pause. She smiled at him, he smiled back. Then they sat in silence for a while.

"Can I ask you something?" she said suddenly, clearing her throat as it suffered from the period of not speaking. He didn't reply but he didn't need to, such as it had always been between the two of them. "How'd you do it?"

"Do what?" asked Calvin, turning to her.

He seemed to her to just keep growing taller with time. It wasn't the case, of course, but a trick of her mind. A way to quantify the ever increasing space he took up in her heart. A constant, a rock, a pillar of strength to which she found herself tethering tighter with each passing day. He had become the safe place to her that she had always been for him.

"You were so very little when you first learned about loss. So small the first time you knew what it was to love someone had then have to let them go. The ones you grew up with, the ones you served with. Johnny…." speaking quietly, deliberately, she bit lightly on her lip, "… your mother."

"You've lost people too. You've lost more people than I can name and you always found your way back."

"Did I?" she laughed sadly. "Maybe, but I'm not so sure this time. Not from this. Not from him. Elliot was always the one thing I knew I couldn't stand to lose."

"I'm not really one for the big speeches, Mama, you know that. Sammy, he's the real comeback kid. Evie can put into words more than I can even figure out I'm feeling. All I know is that you're here. We're here, sitting in this cupboard. Still breathing, still talking: still here."

"My kids…." she whispered, her whole body aching as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Your kids are stronger than they know. They'll find their way out of this too. You'll walk it, slowly, together. Two steps forward, five back, two forward, four back, but that's just how it goes. You don't notice how you got there but one day you just suddenly think, well shit, here I am. And it hurts a little less than it used to."

"I'm old, Cal…." she exhaled, while reaching for his wrist and wrapping her soft hand around it, "… and I'm tired."

"What would he tell you?" said Calvin slowly, testing a toe in the water. "What would Mr S tell you if he were here?"

"Sweetheart I…."

"I didn't know him the way you did. No one knew him the way you did. What I do know, is that you were his whole life. You and this family were everything to him and I reckon that has to count for something now. We gotta use that, we gotta hold onto that. He's gone and that is really fucking awful but we're still here. All of us, together: his family. I just can't help but think that that's how we find our way back. Because that's the one thing he couldn't stand to lose. And thanks to him there's a fucking army of us so…"

"Cal…"

"Fudging army of us…" he corrected, with a wry toss of his eyes.

"It wasn't so much the….." then she paused, wrinkled her nose to cry before gasping a loud laugh. It gripped her and she gasped breathlessly, laughing and crying both. "You know what forget it! I needed that."

"I don't…."

"Keep doing that. Keep doing just exactly what you always do. Keep being just exactly who you are."

"Okay but….."

"I need you Calvin, you know that right?" she said, reaching up and cupping his face in her hands. "Evie's got spirit and Sammy's got strength but you're all heart, sweetheart….." leaning forward, rising to her tiptoes she pressed a teary kiss against his cheek, "… you always have been."

"I get it from my ma…." he smiled, folding his arms around her and holding her tight against his chest.

Kissing the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her familiar shampoo, he looked heavenward and thought of Elliot. As Olivia cried softly into his shirt Calvin thought of the man who had been the closest he had ever known to a father. He recalled the way that Elliot had fought hard against the tears pooling in his still piercing blue eyes as they'd had their final conversation. He remembered the intensity of the way he had looked at him when he'd made him promised to take care of Olivia. He remembered the weight of it settling on his shoulders; realising just exactly what it meant, that after everything they had been through Elliot would trust him with the one thing that meant the most to him. He felt the profound sincerity with which he had vowed to take care of her and to protect her with his life.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I…."

"Don't you dare apologise. We can stay in here all day if you want."

"It does smell pretty bad…." confessed Olivia, gathering herself to her feet again and lifting a hand to her hair and attempting to tame it. It would be longs since grey were it not for her dying it back to brown. She wore it in a timeless chignon that defied her advancing years. Calvin reached out and pushed wisps of it from her eyes and gave a soft smile.

"You think I'd get in trouble for smuggling you out of here? I mean there's a shit load of people out there who'd probably….."

"What'd you have in mind?" she asked, suddenly just a fraction brighter.

"Shooting Sam and Evie a quick text to round up the people we actually wanna hang out with right now and getting them to meet us at home?"

"Hell I didn't want all of this anyway so Kathy can take it from here. They got their Sacred Heart and their endless guest list…." there was a flicker, a spark of flame, and Olivia stood a little taller as she nodded decisively to Calvin, "… let's do it. Tell the others and take me home."