A/N: I don't know where this came from, but it poured out. I listened to Dancing On My Own by Callum Scott for two days straight, I'd be grateful of you did when you read this. And so much love to my Bensler Bubble, I'm sorry I made you cry. xoxo
Uccello
"She decided to free herself, dance into the wind, create a new language. And birds fluttered around her, writing "yes" in the sky."
― Monique Duval
The last time she'd been here, the ground had been frozen.
They'd been so cold that day, their bones rattling beneath their skin as the haunting words of loss echoed within.
Now, four months later, the summer has enveloped the sloping hills with its fist. The grass is vibrant and thick, the trees murmur with each slight breeze, the flowers dot the terrain with bright bursts of color. It is a painting done in Seurat's pointillism: the wild weeds, the carefully planted seeds, the broken and the blooming.
She thinks maybe she too, is somewhere in between.
Olivia navigates the monuments, the plaques, the remembrances with careful steps. She holds a bouquet of yellow tulips, because she'd seen some once on a countertop in their house in Queens. They are the kind of flowers a woman picks up for herself at the grocery store, something that speaks to her on a whim.
She doesn't know why she's here, except that it's been too long and maybe in the middle of all of his loss, she hadn't done any grieving or processing of her own. The last months have not been kind to any of them. Elliot had descended into a one-track depth that scared her, but he'd brought those responsible down just a few days ago. It hadn't been without cost – he'd been beaten, the kids threatened, the bullets had flown at both of them along the way.
But it was over. Well and truly over. The case against Wheatley was airtight, and for the first time today, she'd woken with a sense that the worst might be over.
So here she stands, in front of a too-new headstone, flowers dangling from her fingertips and unsure of what to do next. It's the ground that beckons to her first, inviting her to sit. She gets the odd sense she's been asked to have a seat, and it isn't an order but a gracious question.
She tucks her legs to the side as she accepts, lets the grass tickle through her sandals and between her toes. It's the deep heat of a New York summer, but in this spot the wind is unusually comfortable as it slides up between the hills, it too encouraging her to settle in.
Her eyes are wet when she sees a flash of movement and realizes she isn't alone. The insistent sound of a bird call comes from a few feet in front of her, and she drags her gaze upwards to the tiny creature that sits atop the heartbreaking headstone a few feet in front of her. It is small, with a brown tail and wings and beak, but a white feathered chest interrupted by a spray of yellow that looks similar to the color of the flowers she still holds. It's not a bird she's used to seeing, this one is different. Serious and yet delicate, beautiful and ordinary all at once.
Sayornis Phoebe.
The voice is so clear she jerks with disbelief and recognition. There is no one here, but the voice is clear as the day is bright. The bird doesn't startle, despite her sudden movement. It simply cocks its head and regards her.
Because of the sound it makes. Or maybe because Phoebe is another name of the Roman moon goddess Diana. Goddess of the hunt. I don't know. But I saw one once on this fountain that sat in the courtyard beneath our veranda. Fee-bee. That funny little sound, all day. When I looked it up, I realized it was so rare to be found in Europe, yet native to New York.
Then again, weren't we all?
Olivia stills now, her breaths shallow. The voice is too clear, too distinct. It doesn't leave room for interpretation. She wants to close her eyes, but she's dizzy all of a sudden and doesn't want to sway. Her breath hitches, her body tenses. Maybe it's just the exhaustion, the worry, the endless way her chest has constricted ever since…
I should have asked. Is this okay? I understand if it's too much. I just needed to tell you a few things.
She lets her eyes close. She's shaking, her hands tremble so badly that the flowers fall from her fingertips. She doesn't believe in these things, but she also pays attention to the evidence. And unless she's really losing her mind, the voice is clear as day in her head, telling her things she wouldn't know otherwise.
I know this is…unusual. Then again, I've asked you to a park before, haven't I? The last time I asked you to give him some stability.
That makes her eyes fly open. Thirteen –
Years ago. Remember? I was pushing him out, and you wouldn't do the same to him. You gave him time. Space to figure himself out. You knew he wasn't ready. It gave us so many more years as a family, Olivia. I know it cost you. I do. But you gave us years to heal. I can only say thank you. It took you both dignity and strength, and I'm infinitely grateful for both.
For just a moment, Olivia straightens where she sits. It's a punch in the gut, a refusal that this is happening. Maybe it's just her mind, swirling and meandering in order to come to terms with everything that has happened. But the voice is real, crystal and light and articulate against the faint sounds of people in the distance. A quick glance around tells her she is the only one within fifty feet of where she sits, and yet…
There are just some things you should know. Is now a good time? If you have to go, I understand.
There is a warmth growing within her skin, and it isn't unpleasant. It's her blood flowing to her extremities for the first time in longer than she can remember. It's a weight in her bones that keeps her rooted to this spot. She's never been one to avoid the hardest conversations. She's always been the one to tell the families, to talk to the victims, to assure the parents, to coax the children. Of course this would be the last frontier of discussions she'd need to have. Unless it wasn't real, of course.
It's real.
A beat, and then –
I can't do this to the kids or Elliot, Olivia. If I reached out like this, they'd hang onto it too much, it would become a crutch and I can't stay here in between forever. I know it's just one more thing I'm asking, but then…then, with your permission, I'll just make sure you're okay every now and then. We all need some peace, you know?
She squints up at the sun, waiting for it to blind her, to give her some guidance. She wonders if heaven is real, after all.
The amused laughter is light, as if tinged with air and bells and shimmering things.
It is.
Olivia nods, because she isn't one to discount the proof, the voice, the sheer sense of catharsis that is slowly creeping into her skin. If there's one thing she's learned, it's that she has to give herself over to the experience of healing. And that's what this feels like. It's not an intrusion, it's a slow-spreading awareness within her that maybe some things have always been beyond her control.
It's a relief to realize she isn't always responsible for everything, after all. There is something bigger, something more powerful out there. And maybe, just maybe, the things that have gone wrong weren't always her fault. Maybe there is a hand of fate out there, maybe there is an answer to why, maybe the weight isn't hers to own.
We get to make choices, Olivia. But I've learned now there is a plan, too. A journey we are sent on. There is a tapestry meant for each of us, woven of the good and the bad, the pain and the joy. The loss. The things we find.
The tiny bird ruffles it's feathers, settles back in. Content to sit in its spot. It isn't searching for anything. It isn't on alert. It just rests.
The beauty of what we live is wholly evident from here.
She exhales, and in the summer wind she waits for more.
-o0o-
It's long minutes before the voice returns.
A car pulls up, a family exits and pays respects. They leave a single birthday balloon, anchored to a headstone. Maybe their loss was years ago, because there are no tears. It's a salute to what once was, and Olivia wonders if it is okay to celebrate life in the face of loss.
Her eyes burn as she watches the teenagers pile back into the car, parents closing doors, sliding into seats and pulling away. How many years, she thinks, does it take to get to that level of acceptance?
Is it ever okay to move on, or is that a betrayal?
You should know he was a shell of a person those first few years after he left.
It's back. Softer now, as if treading lightly. As if answering her question.
He went through the motions with all of us. Sometimes, I used to think he was so hollow I could see straight through him. I told him – in those early days – to call you. But he's right, he would never have walked away from that job. And he needed to, Olivia. He was so angry all the time, he was all sharp edges at home. He couldn't have been a father to Eli, he was losing the older ones. I knew walking away wasn't that he was choosing me, it was choosing his kids.
I just got the benefit of that. And that was okay. It was my idea to finally go. New landscape, new memories, new adventures. He didn't say yes, he just didn't say no.
But don't confuse moving away with moving on. Because I don't think that he ever did that.
It cracks her. Unexpectedly, she feels the fissures slide across her lungs, fault lines that shake everything above it. Olivia bows her head, because if there is one thing she knows now, it is that she's being watched. And she can't cry over another woman's husband. Not in front of her.
It's okay, Olivia.
It's me who should apologize. In my weakest moments in Rome, the moments when the self-doubt caught me, I asked him if he'd started talking to you again. Because he finally started smiling again. He finally laughed sometimes. I figured that could only be attributed to you.
He assured me he hadn't called you.
I should have never been relieved by that.
She can't do this. She thought she could, but she isn't strong enough for this. She'd given him up, she hadn't gone after him. She hadn't looked him up or confronted him. She'd left him to his happiness.
He'd told her, he told her. They'd been happy.
Eventually, yes.
It was when he officially joined the NYPD again, Olivia. They gave him that badge back, and he came back. First as a father, and eventually he was a husband again. But it wasn't the job. I knew better. He was tethered again, connected to something bigger than any of us.
In some way, after that, he was tethered to you.
It burns too much to close her eyes, so she lets her head fall back, keeps her eyes wide open as she follows the outline of the striated clouds above. Wisps that weave through the endless blue, a blue that reminds her of –
Don't tell him that. He thinks we are crazy and frivolous to think of things like the sky or the ocean when we look at him. But it's that, isn't it?
"I can't do this," finally comes from her. She doesn't know why she's talking to air, but the strangled, quiet words fall from her throat anyway. It's a plea, because she's crumbling inside. This is insane, she tells herself. She has to get up and move.
That's when she notices that the phoebe is still there, perched. Blinking. Just watching, almost hoping she will stay. None of them are going anywhere.
And then, in the gentlest voice of all.
It's okay to love him, Olivia.
The way she breaks, it should have shattered her.
The singular cry should have made her disintegrate. It's a crack of her chest, a wail up to the heavens. It's years of absence, of nightmares and desperation and supergluing the pieces of her life together, just hoping they'd hold. She lets the sound out, and maybe on the other side of it, everyone and everything will leave her alone. Maybe they will all be afraid of her, of what is inside of her. She cries, a loud, wracking cry that allows the heavy summer air to rush into her. The sun descends on her face, the wind slides over her shoulders. The ends of her hair lift, her face is wet and she is gasping for a breath. The darkness of years lives behind her eyelids, a decade long tunnel of survival, and scars and rationalizing with herself.
But she realizes she isn't descending into it. She's looking down on the well of trauma and loss.
She's rising.
Out of it.
She's being…lifted.
He loved me, Olivia. I know that. Just as I loved him. But he's connected to you by something that started up here. You were given each other. There was good that needed to be done, and you both were entrusted with that.
She parts her lips, forcing herself to breathe evenly. The crying has left her exhausted, so she closes her eyes. Lifts her chin and lets the sun dry the salted streaks on her face. One breath, then another.
Something inside of her is unfurling. The coil is loosening. Her shoulders are dropping as she gives herself over to the things beyond her.
He's felt guilt for what he didn't feel for me. I am asking you to help him understand I am grateful for what he did feel. When he looks back, help him recognize it was good, it was beautiful, it was more than I could have asked for.
She wants that for him. She wants him to know he is a good man, a great one. She wants him to know he's human, and more superhero than most. Only she's scared of what is to come. She knows Elliot hasn't really absorbed the loss. He threw himself into the case, into the mission and the justice and the burn of making things right. He hasn't truly faced his life without his wife.
She's terrified of the way he will crash. She's worried she isn't enough to catch him.
No. He's not gonna crawl into my death, Olivia. Don't be afraid of that. That wasn't us. He's going to survive. He's going to start again. With you.
Olivia feels the way every one of her limbs is trembling. It's summer in a cemetery and yet it doesn't feel incongruous. There are new journey's that start at the end of old ones. She stares at the last name on the headstone.
Stabler.
Grief overwhelms her. His loss. The loss for their children. The loss of a friend. Of a woman who was stronger in many ways than any of them. They'd fought noisy battles on the streets of Manhattan, Kathy had fought all the quiet ones in the tiny moments.
The phoebe watches her. Settling down onto the marble, as if it isn't going anywhere for a good while. It's patient, unhurried, soothing.
There is no limit to what I'll ask, apparently. But you took care of him for years. And now I'm asking one more thing.
The name on the stone blurs, her lips are swelling from how hard she is pressing them closed.
Take care of the babies. Maureen shoulders too much, and she's not going to have it easy soon. She's going to make an announcement, and she's going to fear she'll never carry to term. Tell her it will be alright; everything will be okay. Tell her I'll make sure of it. Kathleen is going to go searching for things, tell Elliot she will always come home. Don't let Dickie isolate himself, and Lizzie? Remind her you're there, and her Dad isn't always her responsibility.
She is weeping at a grave site for the wife of the man she loves. She is sobbing at the resting place of a woman who had shared her family, her husband, her home.
"And Eli?" Olivia manages to whisper, trying to breathe as she focuses on every blade of grass beneath her. "How can I help him?"
The gentle, easy laughter is back.
Make sure you go back to Italy with him one day. Promise him that. He craves warm breakfasts and hot cocoa with peppermint, even on summer days. Make him play soccer in Central Park, and if you can - if it's okay - introduce him to your son soon. He's always been good with younger kids; it makes him feel grown up. He's always been annoyed he was the youngest, and he isn't anymore. It will be good for him to have someone to watch out for.
She nods, her hands splaying in the grass, as if she can find a way to steady herself. She braces herself that way, her chest heaving even though the crying has changed. This is letting the pain out, not absorbing it in.
She looks at the name on the headstone now. Not just the last name, all of it.
Katherine J. Stabler.
"I'll watch out for your family," she promises. It's an oath, a vow. Sacred and absolute.
There is a pause. An audible breath from beyond.
No.
Her chin jerks upwards, as if someone might appear to explain the refusal, the denial.
You're not living the remnants of my life, Olivia. You're living the life you have been weaving with Elliot all these years. With the kids. I had my turn with them. Now it's yours. The days with them from here on out? They are not mine; they are yours.
Live your life with the people you love. I had that and it is…beautiful.
It is worth it.
And it is ahead of you.
She drops her head into her hands. The sense of injustice crawls over her. This loss should never have come to be, it should have never happened. It wasn't her case, but the guilt still eats at her, and she knows it could bring Elliot to his knees.
Don't think that way.
It was my time. If it wasn't the case, it would have been something else. Maybe we lived that life in Italy as the final joy, the final hurrah. There's a reason he gave me the last few years. But now I am asking you – find a way out of the guilt. For all of you.
As for me, Olivia?
I am at peace with this. I can go if I know you have them in your hands.
Her forearms hit the grass. So this is grieving, she thinks. This is the absolute goodbye. The acceptance. The necessary revival. Head hung, she cries in a way she's never done before.
Because this isn't dying, this is the start of living.
Make sure they breathe. Make sure you do. Find the joy. Recognize one moment of happiness every day, no matter how small. Appreciate something every day, it's a ladder out of the pain.
It's the only way out.
Olivia blows out a breath. Tries to lift herself. She's got to sit up straight, to just give her chest a break. She has to get herself together.
There you go.
It's as if someone is rubbing her back, urging her back into living. Not just to survive, but to thrive. The sun weaves across her skin, and she thinks maybe years of fear have just been left here, on these rolling hills.
Yet.
He doesn't talk to her much as of now. He's still locked up, and she's been giving him space. But she knows he will need to find the truth of his grief soon or it will never find its way out of him.
He's going to come to you. Let him in. Not just in the door, but into your life.
"And if he doesn't?" Her words are watery. Small. There is still a fear in her that she could lose him all over again.
I walked museums with him in Italy, Olivia. Beautiful places filled with statues and monuments and tributes. But he's his own museum, and he's got one thing immortalized inside of him.
You.
Olivia blinks. She takes a shuddering breath. The brightness traps on her wet eyelashes and creates starbursts as she looks at the headstone in front of her. The tiny bird is so evenly breathing, he almost looks like he's sleeping.
A tasked observer to this catharsis.
I'd catch Elliot staring at that fountain, you know? He'd watch the birds, and I used to think he was imagining flying away. I know now he was just trying to nest. But I don't think he ever did there, Olivia. It was never his home, not like it was mine. I think I knew that his home – his nest – it was always in New York.
We both know why. And it's okay.
Let him come home.
She inhales now as she sits up fully. Her spine feels like it's coming back. Another deep breath, and she can smell the magnolia, the spirea, the lilac trees. Blossoming after a long, hard and deep winter. She squints, and the expanse before her is filled with reminders of lives that had been lived, some short and others long. Some good, some difficult. Some complete, and others interrupted.
I wouldn't trade the life I lived for anything. And to know those I love are in the best hands? It's more than any woman could ask for.
Olivia nods. She knows this. Mother to mother, she knows this in every depth within her. She could accept death if she knew that those she loved were taken care of, protected. It's all a mother asks. It's all a mother needs, to simply know her shelter lives on.
"I got this," she finally says quietly.
The laughter is back. The lightness floats around her. Wraps around her, reassures her and whispers into her hair. The peace is being shared with her, and she can't even imagine the magnitude of this. The ultimate gift.
I know you do. If you need me, you know where to find me.
And Olivia?
She can't help it. She chokes out a cry. And after a second, it inexplicably changes to a small laugh. Something free and open and unweighted. "Yes?"
It's beautiful here. None of you will be here anytime soon, but when it happens? It's literally heaven.
And out into wide open air, Olivia finally laughs. It's loud, and it's uninhibited and it's the sound of living, right in the middle of Greenwood Cemetery.
When she stands, she can swear she hears her friend laugh, too.
She looks back one last time as she starts to walk away, and fittingly, the phoebe is taking off, it's wings lifting it up into the brilliant afternoon sky.
-o0o-
She doesn't have to wait long.
The text comes that night at 3:09 a.m. It's a plea to be let in, and then she's got her forehead pressed against her front door, waiting for his footsteps. She's taking her last full breaths because she knows the wind will be knocked out of her by his pain. She doesn't know how bad it will be, or what she will face on the other side of the wall, but she knows it won't be good.
When she opens the door, she knows it's worse than she expected.
He is a shadow of the man he's been over the last few months. With his drive and his quest for retribution over, he's visibly lost. His eyes are red, bloodshot and apologetic. She knows he waited before he headed here, he tried to do this on his own and couldn't.
He stands there dejected, in shorts and a t-shirt and that gray hoodie. He's chewing his lower lip so hard he's going to draw blood, and his head is cocked, just looking at her. He reminds her of the phoebe, perched on a precipice and waiting for the slightest clue that he should take flight.
"Elliot-" she whispers. "Where's Eli?"
His eyebrows furrow in confusion, as if he can't focus. "Sleeping," he rasps. "I just couldn't…"
He's going to come to you. Let him in. Not just in the door, but into your life.
She doesn't wait for him to finish. She gets ahold of the sweatshirt and urges him in. Only he doesn't stay standing. He is on her, collapsing into her as if he is a wall that's been brought down by a sledgehammer.
She takes his weight and tries to forgive herself because his grief is a relief. The grip he has on her, the staccato expelling of his breaths, the small sounds of agony that are being extricated from the depths of him. It's all a relief, and she can handle the bleed of him better than she can handle the silence or the absence.
"This is my fault." He says it into her hair, doing his best to contain himself. "It should have been me."
There will never be a moment of his anguish that won't shake her. The sheer brutal way he can exist in her arms and wish for his death will never leave her. "There is only one person at fault, Elliot. And you put him away." She says it softly, as evenly as she can. "You put him away." She will remind him forever if need be. He's a brilliant cop, fearless and smart and focused. He is brave, and she will tell him that, too.
He's starting to break again. She can tell just by the increasingly short exhales. "She was my wife. How could I do that to her? To my kids?"
She pushes herself back, uses her palms to cup his face. She isn't gentle. She doesn't let him look away. "You didn't do this, Elliot. You didn't. And misplaced guilt isn't going to take you in the direction you need to go right now. Not for you, and not for your kids."
Not for me.
His head bows. He closes his eyes, nodding. His shoulders have fallen, he's concentrating on his shaking. "I shouldn't be waking you, Liv. I just…something pushed me here. I don't wanna…lock you out. I don't want to lock anyone out. I just…don't know how to do this. So I'm askin'…I'm just askin' for some help here, even if I don't deserve it."
And when he looks up at her then, she doesn't see him living in the past. She sees the tormented eyes of a man who desperately wants to put one foot in front in front of the other. He doesn't want to stand still; he doesn't want to be stuck in the suffering.
Neither does she. Not anymore.
Her eyes fill. His mirror hers.
She still holds his face. He's so close to her, he overtakes the hallway with the size of him, the heat of him. "Chapters, El," she tells him. "We live in chapters. And no matter how good or bad the last one was, we have to keep turning the page. Appreciate the story for what it's been so far, and hope the next words tell the story we want."
He doesn't hide from her. He's crying, and he's showing her. He starts to say something once, twice, and then his lashes are so wet she can't see his irises clearly anymore. "Tell me," he pleas softly. "That you're in my story."
Her lips lift just a little through the tears. "I think," she says, taking her time on each word. "That we're gonna be writing each other's stories from here on out. This is our story."
She sees the way his eyes widen, the slightest flash of hope. And then he's back on her, and it must be a safe space for him to fall, because he finally cries over what's come before.
It's a release.
For the first time, they are making room within them for more.
-o0o-
They stir at the same time. Both the boys.
She hears the tiny, light footsteps of Noah just as she sees Elliot shifting on the couch. Her son will be a few minutes before he emerges, so she takes the moment to watch Elliot come around. She didn't sleep, so she's up already and has some breakfast in the oven. From her vantage point in the kitchen, she can observe him without him catching her.
She sees the disorientation on Elliot's face, the quick moment of pain as he stretches. She thinks about how he'd cried, how they'd made their way to the couch, how she'd held his head as he expelled all of it. She thinks about his misery over believing he cost his children their mother, his fears about being a single father, his grief that Kathy will miss her children's milestones, that she should have been the one there for the births, the weddings, the graduations. Then his self-recriminations had switched, and he'd spent nearly an hour beating himself up for how he'd left. Chapters and shifts, Elliot, she'd told him. We live our life taking turns. Kathy had taken first shift with their kids; he would be taking second shift. And with me? he'd finally asked, his lips finally lifting in the most fragile and sheepish of smiles. Are you taking second shift?
She doesn't tell him she's been on watch all along. Through time and space and distance, the inextricability of them had left them tangled in a way that can never be undone.
She'd just smiled. Taken the liberty to brush her hand over his ear, press her mouth to the side of his head. Then she'd said it.
Yes.
He is hunched over now, his forearms on his thighs. He must sense where she is, as he always does, because he turns his head to look at her. He is soft eyes and open hands. The bunched fists of last night have left him. His shoulders rise and fall evenly.
A man extricated from the hell, he takes a deep breath. Blinks. Lets her see him. He isn't shying away from her perusal. He's letting her in, and she will do the same.
She thinks he knows.
They are interrupted by the arrival of her son, with his hair tousled and a complete lack of surprise to see Elliot in the living room. "I smell banana muffins," he says matter-of-factly, oblivious to the weight in the room. "I'll take two please." And with that, he pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and pulls his gaming device towards him.
She hears the slight huff of bemused laughter coming from the living room. She decides to ignore it in favor of packaging up four of the muffins in a brown paper bag. By the time she's done, Elliot has the blanket folded and he's lingering in the front hallway.
When she gets there, she sees the evidence of last night in the swollen rims of his eyes. She presses the warm bag into his hands. "If you hurry," she says. "They might still be warm for Eli when he wakes up."
The way Elliot looks at her makes her toes curl. It's a whole new assessment that he's started, and he's even in a way she would have never imagined last night. "Olivia-" he starts gruffly.
But she smiles at him. "Go have breakfast with your son, too."
He nods, looking down at the bag he now holds. "This weekend, would you-"
"Soccer in the park with the boys?" she finishes.
It's the way his chin lifts quickly, a slight flicker of surprise in his expression. "How'd you know?"
Her heart is thrumming out of her chest as she gives him a small smile. "Can still tell what you're thinking."
He nods again, smiling a little. "Okay, then."
"Okay, then."
Sometimes with him, it is that simple after all.
That's when she sees it. The little white threads on his shoulder, stuck to his sweatshirt. A feather. She thinks for a moment he must have picked it up from her couch, or the pillows, but Noah's allergic to down so there's nothing in the house that would leave that on him.
She can't help it. She reaches out and traces the soft surface of the feather. She doesn't peel it off of him, instead she presses it onto him. It's a part of who he is, and she will never peel that from him. The feathers are woven into him. His tapestry. The one she thinks is beautiful. "I had a talk with her," she whispers then, praying he won't think she's crazy. "She told me you used to look at the birds on the fountain all the time."
She hears the sharp way he gasps. But her fingers are touching him, tracing the vanes of the feather. Each one connected to the rachis. The singular thing that holds it all together.
He stands impossibly still. His breath is a fan on the strands of her hair. He won't move or jar her in any way.
"What did you think about, Elliot? When you watched them?"
He covers her fingers with his, halting them where they touch him, just above his heart. "Coming home."
Let him come home.
She closes her eyes.
And when she opens them he is gone.
In the silence she can nearly hear the whisper of the pages around them turning into something brand new.
finis