AN: I am absolutely floored and overwhelmed by the response to this story - a thousand thank you's for those thousand reviews. I honestly don't even know what to say, except thank you so much for coming on this ride with me!
A special shout out to detectiveEO and drunksvudotcom on Twitter for their review spiral spam lol (I so enjoyed watching you both take this chaotic journey with me).
And a big thank you to everyone else who is still with me on this - you all deserve this chapter after your long wait and I truly hope it satisfies.
Also apologies for any typos, this story isn't beta'ed and I'm going to leave it that way so the chaos is consistent.
Not long now until we see this story finally come to a close. X
They've been on the road for nearly an hour and yet his hands are still white knuckled and gripping the steering wheel as if they'd only just left the motel.
He is driving faster than he should - overtaking slower vehicles, making up miles where he can and he knows at some point he's going to need to slow down.
He doesn't think they're being followed but he has been checking the rearview mirror as if they were, his attention still on full alert because he knows if she was recognized at that Taco Bell that they'd be canvassing all the rest stops between Ohio and the city by now.
The only thin veil of hope that he was clinging to is that he hadn't seen a cop car yet - aside from highway patrol. There have been no flashing lights, no blaring sirens careening up behind him, no one on a loudspeaker telling him to 'pull over'.
He has dreamt about that scenario many times, he hears sirens constantly in his mind as if it's foreshadowing the inevitable but one thing was for certain - she cannot be with him when it happens.
And he knows it will happen.
He glances over at her now, her head is turned to the side and she's either sleeping or staring vacantly out at the bypassing traffic. He had considered taking the back roads as a precaution, but it will add hours to the trip and he doesn't want to risk anymore delays.
This has to end tonight.
She had been mute since they left the motel and he doesn't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Her silence had been deafening at first, he could practically feel the unspoken fury reverberating through the car's interior only now it had dissipated into a stale, deflated, indifference - almost as if there was an understanding that there was nothing left to say.
But he had a lot to say to her.
A thousand different half sentences had been forming in his mind since they left the motel, his mind ping-ponging back and forth as to where to even start but as endless asphalt continues to disappear beneath his dash he realized he was no closer to the words he sought, particularly no closer to the ones he knows she deserves.
She's made up her mind about who he is.
He needs help.
And she's not wrong.
He glances up at the clock on the dash, his fingers lifting off the wheel so he can read it.
9:42am.
If he keeps up his current speed and they make minimal stops along the way he will have her home by dinner time and that's all he is focused on - watching her take those final steps up her apartment stoop before she disappears from his sight for good.
That will be the moment he can finally exhale.
He wonders if she will have words for him - final, choice words, ones he knows she's been holding onto for years, words that he deserves, the kind that will be burnt into his brain for eternity if she chooses to speak them. Or maybe there won't be any words at all - perhaps she will simply slip out of his SUV without so much as a second glance when they come to their inevitable stop.
He looks over at her now hoping to ascertain which way the pendulum will swing and he prays to see acknowledgement, understanding – anything, but she just looks vacant.
An abyss.
She's checked out once more and this time he isn't sure he can bring her back.
His eyes drop down to the article housed in the console and it immediately sparks memories from the trailer. Images of him seizing her ankles, flipping her body and pinning her down tear through his mind. He hears her gasp in shock as he rips her dress and can feel her fingernails biting into him as she pleads with him to stop. He had groped her breasts, her ass - her whole body in front of Tony, he had done everything you're not supposed to do to a person who has just been abducted by a serial rapist.
Christ.
She must despise him at this point and in truth he's surprised she hadn't tried to leave sooner, particularly given the look she had just given him in that motel room.
Disgust.
Terror.
Her trembling fingers, the sheen of moisture that lined her eyes, the subtle way she'd backed away from him and the shaky way in which she gripped the sink - all telltale signs that he'd seen many times before. This wasn't new, he'd seen hints of her trauma in that trailer but it wasn't until she had slammed the article against his chest and seen the haunted look in her eyes that he knew it was all heartbreakingly real.
There was no running from the truth now, no hiding behind denial.
This was reality.
Tangible.
And now she knew that he knew.
He hadn't ripped into her about getting recognized at Taco Bell despite his disbelief at her carelessness because even he knew she had reached her limits with him. He'd done enough damage in that motel for a lifetime and that's the part she will remember now. The look of fury in his eyes, his loss of control as he rammed her up against the motel door without reprieve.
It won't be the intimate moments they shared last night, or the raw and debilitating details of his cover that she will remember. It won't be the crack in his voice as he opened up to her about the horrors that he'd witnessed, or the way his warm body sidled up against hers and it certainly won't be the way his mouth fitted perfectly against hers as they both yearned for lost possibilities.
It will be the moment he stalked towards her, his palm slamming millimeters from her face as his angry body caged hers.
He watches as tiny droplets of rain start to tap against his windshield, streaking downward as the slideshow of torment continues to tear through his mind. He's hearing her voice now – echoing through the trailer, sharp gasps of terror escaping as she wrestles beneath his body and it's not long before the rain is starting to pelt down far more ferociously.
The unexpected rainstorm mirrors the emotion he's been trying to stifle for days and he feels the wheels slip just slightly beneath his grasp. The car jerks to the left and it's fitting he thinks - the rain, his loss of control, all fruitlessly mirroring his emotions within, attempting to baptize his inner demons as if that were even possible.
'Get off me you son of a bitch.'
She had pleaded with him multiple times and no amount of cleansing rain is going to erase the years of suffering that he would have added to her life.
God, what has he done..
Sudden sheets of water are now hammering violently downward and he grips the steering wheel tighter in response as if his futile attempt to maintain control was at all possible.
He wants to take it all back, he wants to go back to the start - a do over.
'Blink your lights when you get inside.'
He should have read that article immediately.
He should have talked to her that very day, instead of unknowingly dragging it out of her in the most traumatic of ways.
"We're not in the trailer anymore Elliot."
He chances another glance at her now and she is still looking away but something irrefutable stirs in his gut and it's instant. He stabs the indicator and then suddenly he is crossing two lanes beside him, weaving through wet traffic, jarring her from her slumber.
He can hear car horns blaring from behind but his focus is on nothing but steering them to a complete stop. Gravel crunches beneath the tyres, ricocheting off the highway divider and his breathing is heavy when he switches the hazard lights on. He expects silence from her, the same stoic stillness she gave him from the minute they left the motel but she surprises him by looking over, a sheen of moisture already lining her irises as if she had expected this of him, like it was just a matter of time.
The soft click of the blinkers beat in unison with the wiper blades as wet tires soar past them, reminding him that they're still on borrowed time.
But he cannot think a moment past this one.
She is waiting for him to explain but it must be written clear across his face at this point.
His lips part to speak and he knows this is the moment where it will all fall apart.
"I didn't read it."
It's barely audible, a scratchy whisper and he can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears as he says it.
The windshield is practically white from the downpour, cocooning them into this private moment as sounds of his penance pelt down on the roof above.
He watches something move through her stare - awareness perhaps, acknowledgement of what he is referring to and he knows he doesn't need to explain further.
Her eyes narrow just slightly as if she's angry that he is bringing this up or perhaps she is trying to warn off the onset of tears - he doesn't know.
He attempts to reign in his breathing, suddenly struggling to get air into his lungs and this must be what anxiety feels like.
"I was hoping-" his voice cracks.
"You were hoping what?" she spits back.
He stills in place, a tightening in his chest as her eyes dare him to finish the sentence, or perhaps she's begging him to stop.
More half sentences fill his mind;
I was hoping you would tell me Liv..
Confide in me..
So I wouldn't have to read a warped version from the media..
So I could maybe.. somehow.. take a piece of this burden away from you.
"I was hoping you would talk to me." He settles on.
She just blinks back at him vacantly, a humorless smile starting to form at the edges of her lips and he knows then, she's not going to do this - not on a four lane highway in the middle of nowhere.
The colour has well and truly drained from her cheeks and he expects her to look away now but instead she doesn't take her eyes off him.
"Just drive Elliot."
An eerie stillness settles around them and he can see in his peripherals that the windows are fogging up around them already as if her anger was a visceral, tangible energy that had just filled the cracks and crevices of the vehicle.
This is her history, her grief, her story and it was never his place to ask.
Not then, not now.
What happened in the basement?
"Please Liv-" he tries again.
"No," she rasps back and he's witnessed this version of his partner before, only then it was directed towards perps, rapists - the scum of the earth, the kind of vile humans he suddenly didn't feel so far removed from.
He tries once more, softer this time because maybe if it's just a whisper when he says her name, she'll allow the past to seep into their present.
One syllable, one sentiment.
"Liv."
The rain pelts downward in equal ferocity to her stare and she is shaking her head at him now.
"I'm not going to ask you again Elliot."
She is still trying to fuel their moment with anger, but beneath her bravado he can see the emotion starting to silently swell. Her voice carries weight - venom, but it's her eyes that are giving her away, she's losing hold of the reigns and just like a tidal wave gathering momentum he knows it will have no choice but to crash forcibly against the shore.
She blinks back at his silence, her eyes beginning to prick with residue and he watches her start to crack in real time, tiny piercing shards splitting beneath his eyes, teetering downward, like jagged lines cracking across a vase.
He knows she is about to shatter right in front of him and now he's terrified he won't catch all the pieces.
"Dri-ve," she chokes out, and he can see the heaviness crawling up her throat without consent, viscerally choking the words out of her. "No-w Elliot."
He watches liquid streak down her cheeks without warning and he can feel the tangible weight of her trauma pulling down on him now, tugging on his chest as if it were his own to bear. He is choking from the sight of her tears and wants nothing more than to console her with his touch but he knows he has no right. He feels his own tears starting to trail down his cheeks, warm liquid silently mirroring hers but he swipes them quickly away because he doesn't deserve to cry with her.
He doesn't deserve to crumble.
Not when he knows the space he needs to hold is hers.
Not when the pain she is suffering from has a direct link to his absence.
Her teeth are boring into her lower lip and she is trembling now, and he doesn't think he will ever forget the haunted look in her eyes.
She sucks in a quiet breath as she turns towards the white wash of rain, quietly swiping at the residue beneath her nose and it kills him when he realises he doesn't even have a tissue to offer her.
He doesn't have anything.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers to her profile but he knows it's not enough.
It never will be.
The damage is done.
He wasn't there for her - and he still can't be.
"I should have been there." He voices the biggest regret of his lifetime, as if somehow it will matter.
"No." Her refusal jars him and he watches her suck back the emotion. "You should have been at home… with your family," her words crack with emotional anger as she drags her sticky hands against her jeans. "Not fucking up your life and everyone in it."
He nods back at her slowly, because there was no rebutting it.
She was right.
She's always right.
He reluctantly moves his gaze away from the unbearable heat of her judgment and directs it towards the windshield.
He knows he's an asshole for forcing her to dredge this up on the side of a highway and she would be furious at him for it - like he couldn't have waited a few hours to get her home unscathed. And he's a coward because he cannot even face her, he can't even grant her the simple honor of staring into the depths of her soul and taking the rightful accountability she is casting his way. His chest spirals with the need for fresh air and if it weren't for the rain pelting down outside he would have wound down the window or better yet, got completely out of the car.
He wants to sob, break down, or hit something - hard - but he feels so goddamned empty.
Those thousand different half sentences are starting to filter through his mind once more, only he still can't seem to grasp a single one of them.
Especially not the ones he really wants to say.
I love you Olivia.
"Please just drive," he hears the broken plea, only now it sounds like she is speaking from a great distance.
I always have, always will.
"Plea-se." She is trembling now.
She sounds broken, pained, frightened - like a small child who has lost sight of her mother in a crowded arena. "I just want to go home," she whispers.
He turns back to her then, a wealth of dormant guilt breaking through the surface and he was wrong about her final words haunting him – because these ones right here and the tortured look in her eyes, they will be the ones burnt into his brain for eternity.
I just want to go home.
TBC