A/N: Sometimes, the only way to slow ourselves down is to just keep moving.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the characters, but, oh, how I wish I did.
March 20th, 9:39 PM
"They asleep?" Olivia watched Elliot walk into the apartment, close the door behind him, and lean up against the wall. She felt the urge to run to him, hold him, but decided against it. Maybe that was the last thing he needed right now. "El?"
Elliot yawned and shook his head. "Katie and the twins are," he coughed once. "Maureen is up, writing some paper for her adolescent development class." He shot her a look and stifled a yawn. "I tell ya, I can talk to the vics at work for hours about this kinda shit, but my own kids…" he rubbed both of his with one hand and took a sharp breath. "I was just as emotional as they were." He dropped his arms to his sides and padded across the floor to the couch, then dropped into the seat beside Olivia. He wound his arms around her, pulled her into his chest, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
She inhaled, then closed her eyes and let herself feel him there; focused on the way she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, his hands pressing into her back, his slow and deep breaths. It was grounding, calming, the jumble of fears and anxieties that had taken over her for the last three weeks began to dissipate. For the first time, his arms didn't feel like a prison, she wasn't trying to talk herself out of escaping. For the first time, she thought of them as home. "Wanna talk about it?" she whispered, one trembling hand moved upward, cradled one of his shoulders, and her head turned up slightly.
He shook his head as he looked down at her. "No," he whispered back, "But I do want to ask you…" he scooped her ching into his hand. "Are you okay?"
The way he looked at her silenced the voice in the depths of her mind that told her she was weak, said she wasn't worthy of being loved, convinced her she was damaged goods. In his eyes, in this moment, she saw everything he'd been fighting for years, every emotion he'd tried so hard to hide and suppress. "I will be," she told him, sounding almost certain. She watched him try to smile, thought she knew there was worry and pain in the way he moved. As her eyes closed again, she fell into him, shaking her head against his chest. "I keep playing it over and over," she confessed. "Why didn't I fight harder, why didn't I…"
"Because you're human," he intoned softly, his lips dropped to her crown and he kept speaking, thought muffled slightly. "And in that moment, you weren't thinking or reacting like a cop. You didn't have your gun, you couldn't blow your cover, and when you realized what was happening, he'd already…" he lowered his voice, took a breath, and then said, "Baby, I couldn't even really defend myself in that situation. No one could." After another sharp breath in, he pulled her tighter to him. "You did what we tell people to do all the time. You didn't do anything wrong, what happened wasn't your fault, and I swear to God, nothing like that is ever gonna happen to you again because I'm not letting you out of my sight long enough." He dragged his lips down lightly and kissed her forehead. "I will kill anyone who tries to make me."
She chuckled, though there were tears streaming down the sides of her face. She nuzzled into Elliot's chest again, knowing she was wetting his tee shirt, and she let out a full breath. In through her nose, out through her mouth, slowly, calming herself, reminding herself that she was okay, and by the grace of God, nothing worse had happened in that basement. She exhaled one more time, and moved to sit up, but Elliot's body braced hers too unyieldingly. "El, what…" her words were stopped by an odd noise. A sound she knew, for a reason she hated.
He pressed his lips together firmly, closed eyes, shaking his head and stopping the rest of his tears before they could form. "I got you," he quivered. He pulled upward, his strong arms lifted her unexpecting body into his lap, and he bent his head, finding her lips instinctively. The kiss was slow, soft, tentative. He was in no solid state of mind to leap into something neither could handle, but he needed so intensely to remind her that she was needed, wanted, desired, and so desperately loved.
Her legs curled around his hips, unintentionally and unknowingly settling herself against the unmistakable proof of his aching need for her. She let out a barely audible moan, focused on him for a moment, and felt his body vibrate beneath hers. As the kiss deepened, she realized he was trying to control his reaction, stifle it for her sake, unwilling to trigger panic or brine a still-fresh wound. She whimpered, then, feeling his hands grip her hips, but instead of grinding upward, he lifted her off of him and set her beside him, then pulled her legs into his lap as his head fell back against the sofa. Her chest rose and fell rapidly while she watched his drag a hand down his smooth face, his eyes trained up toward the ceiling.
He still had his left arm around her, his left hand caressing her side as his muscles twitch and his chest heaved. He blinked just once. "You...have no idea…"
"Like Hell I don't," she gave him, and when he tilted his head to the side to look at her, she quirked a brow. "You know I do." Her head lolled forward and she relaxed into his much calmer embrace. In an effort to slow her rapid pulse, she changed the subject. "What did your realtor say about the house?"
"Even if we eat out of cans and boxes for the next three years," he chuckled, "I'll never be able to afford it. It was just the first available place, ya know? Just me trying to get out of the mess I made of my life as fast as possible." He exhaled and ran his fingers through her hair slowly. "Maybe I can work with the bank, get the numbers to work somewhere else, but right now, ya know, they like it over there." He pointed a thumb back over his head and laughed again. "We're good for a week or two. Gives me time to...figure out how things got so fully fucked up." He shook his head again, contemplatively, and lowered his voice. "The only thing in my life that makes any sense right now, baby, is you."
"Right back at ya," she gave him a light laugh and then brushed the back of her hand across his cheek. "I was getting kinda used to you being scruffy."
"No, thanks," he chuckled back to her. "When I was over there...with the kids, uh, Kathy called." He waited for her to react but when she didn't he continued. "I didn't yell at her, you can breathe." He watched as her face relaxed and he smirked at her. "You're something else, Benson." He brushed her hair out of her eyes and then told her what Kathy had said. "She started paying for the apartment last year, she told me took the job a year ago, when the hospital was still in development, can you believe that? Never fucking mentioned it!" He threw up a hand and started rambling faster, louder, the way Dickie had a few hours earlier. "She assumed she'd spend five days a week in Seattle, come home on the weekends, wasn't fucking planning on getting divorced so didn't think she'd need more than a studio. Man, you should have heard her ream into me about how I could have had the balls to tell her I was in love with you sooner, could've saved her a few grand in rent and the delusions of a happy future. But me? I didn't raise my voice, didn't say shit about how she used my fucking salary to pay the rent on that hole a country away that I didn't even know about. I called her out on it, ya know what she said?"
"That you could give the Micro Machine guy a run for his money?" she joked. Her fingers were stroking his scalp, running through his short hair. "She probably told you that she was waiting for the right time, for you to be able to really talk about what this job would mean for her, for you, the kids. She wanted to talk about moving the whole family out there, but she knew you'd never leave the job." Her hand curled around the back of his neck. "Or me."
He nodded, then leaned over to her, his palms fell to her thighs as he kissed her again. "Exactly," he admitted. "Anyway, she got word yesterday, the building is scheduled to open to full operation next week. She flies out Monday, so all of the hearings and legalities have to be done over the phone or on Boom….or Loom…"
"Zoom," she tried to keep from laughing. "You guys aren't battling to the death, so it makes sense, El." She shifted as he pulled her legs up higher, his hands finding her bare feet. She dropped her head back when he started to rub his fingers into her arches, and she said, "Okay, I'll shut up."
"I win," he quipped, and he trained his eyes on her face. The harder he rubbed the more relaxed her features became, and he smiled knowing that she was finally letting go of the tension she'd been bound by for weeks. "I love you," he said, just as his thumbs worked harder into the sole of her right foot.
She looked over at him, opened her mouth, but her phone rang before she could speak at all. She whined, making a disappointed face, and groaned, "Not happening."
"If it's Cragen, you need to control yourself, because I have no intention of stopping this," he told her, rolling his fingers up to her toes.
She craned herself over to the table to grab her phone. "Thank God for small favors," she mumbled, and she fell back into place as she answered the call with a swift, "Benson." Her eyes rolled, but it wasn't because of Elliot's magical fingers. "What the hell do you want?"
That got Elliot's attention; his eyes narrowed. He caught her eyes and mouthed, "Who is it?" He saw her mouth back Tucker and reached one hand over to try to grab her phone out of her hand. She shirked his attempts and he pouted.
She blew him a kiss as she straightened up a bit, listening to Tucker drone in her ear. "Well, what the hell did he say?" she snapped, then she listened. "Sorry, I know, but I...wait, what?" She dropped a hand over Elliot's, stopping him from easing his way up to massage her shins, even though, God, she needed it. "You were serious? Um, no. No, thank you. If that's all you wanted to…" she waved off Elliot's concerned expression and listened to what Tucker was saying.
Elliot watched her face shift from irritated to concerned, then relieved, then annoyed, and finally he saw her pissed off face, couldn't decide if it turned him or scared him, and then he chuckled when she called Tucker a "mouth-breathing ciucciacazzo" and hung up the phone. He likced his lips with a pensive look in her direction. "Tell me," he started, "That he didn't…"
"He doesn't speak Italian," she spat with a huff. "God, he has a set of brass ones." She folded her arms, her teeth nipped at her top lip as her eyes roamed around the room. Her walls, bare except for a few scattered frames, seemed to be a different shade of grey than she'd painted them, brighter and less dead-looking. She heard his voice and she shook off the attempt at distracting herself. "Sorry, I didn't hear you."
"I asked you why you called Tucker a mouth-breathing cocksucker," he repeated, trying and failing at keeping a straight face. He moved his hands back to her legs and started rubbing the knots out of her left calf. Grinning at her moan, he quirked a brow at her. "Well?"
"Called to tell me that fucking asshole Malcolm Young tried to have my testimony tossed out and then petitioned the court to dicount Fin as a witness because he didn't see Harris attack me," she slumped a bit lower, causing her body to move onto Elliot's lap a bit more. "Tucker, um...went to the judge himself, told her that you and Cragen were in the room when I wrote everything down and that Fin may not have seen the attack start but he certainly saw it end. He's due in court tomorrow and then...then this is all...over."
"Great," Elliot rolled out a sore spot, muttering an apology when she seethed at his touch. "But that doesn't explain why…"
"Then he said he was serious about taking me to dinner," she interjected, and she smirked at the fire that suddenly blazed in Elliot's eyes. "Told me he'd make it a night I'd never forget, and then he said something about my legs, I wasn't really listening. I called him a cocksucker because when I turned him down, he asked if it was because I wasn't ready to date or because I was already fucking you." She counted how many times his nostrils flared in the span of a few seconds. "No, you can't kill him."
He took a deep breath, then gently pushed Olivia's legs off of his lap. "Come on," he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. He stepped over their strewn shoes as he led her toward her bedroom. "I want to forget about Tucker and Kathy, and all the bullshit raining down on us right now, and I want to get into this bed, under the covers, wrap myself around you, and maybe get some decent sleep tonight."
She folded her hands under her arms, watching him turn down the sheets. In a tee shirt and sweatpants, he looked the most incredible she'd ever seen, and she knew it was because she was finally letting herself feel the things she'd denied for so long. "Thank you," she said when he looked at her again.
"Really I should be thanking you, for everything," he gestured to the door, indicating his kids across the hall. He slipped one hand back into hers, the other tugged on the waistband of her purple sweatpants. "For what?"
She followed his lead, getting into bed. She waited until he crawled under the sheets beside her and turned off the bedside lamp before saying, "Being here, getting me through this." She bit her lip again and rolled into his open arms. She closed her eyes when he wrapped her up in him. "It's not that I'm thankful that bastard tried to kill us, but if he hadn't…" she peered up at him. "I don't know if I'd be okay if…"
"No," he shook his head. "Liv, I didn't stay with you just because Harris's friends were after us, I mean," he huffed. "It forced us to confront things, brought out a lot of things we were holding back, but think about it. Did I leave you alone, for a single moment, before? I went home for a couple hours, to see my kids, to appease Kathy, but I knew something happened in the basement, and I was with you, just waiting for you to talk to me, wasn't I?"
She nodded and bent her head, brushing her lips faintly over his. "Yeah, you were."
"I knew I couldn't leave you alone, you needed me just as much…" he swallowed hard. "As much as I needed you. Still need you." He blinked once. "You don't…," he paused. "I know for a while there, every time you'd close your eyes, you'd see him. I'm gonna be right here, holding you, until it stops. Until the only person you see when you close your eyes is..."
She claimed his lips, silencing him. She moaned softly, feeling his hands work up her back, press into her skin. Her hands pawed gently at his chest and she whispers his name into his mouth before finally returning his earlier profession. "I love you, too," she whispered. It didn't speed up, it didn't overpower them, they simply kissed their way to sleep.
This time, there were no flashbacks, no screaming doubts, no nightmare recollections or permeating shame, just pure relief that she was in the arms of the only man she trusted enough to completely let her guard down with, and her final conscious thought before sleep took her in completely, was that was exactly what she needed to do.
A/N: Next? A new case at work brings out a different side of Olivia. And Elliot. Is it cause for concern?
