The cold wood of the playset seeped into Eli's jeans as he stared off into the distance. His older siblings and father looked so comfortable in the family- now Maureen's- home. One he barely remembered. They all gravitated towards each other, towards Olivia. They all had a shared history that he would never understand. Nothing felt right, he missed Rome, he missed his friends, and most of all he missed his mother. He felt like an outsider in his own family. His dad said they'd be okay but he doubted it would ever be the same. Tired of telling people he was okay when he wasn't but not wanting to say otherwise.
He groaned when he saw Kathleen come outside, he wasn't in the mood for a psychoanalysis. A definite con to having a therapist for an older sister was when anything remotely exciting happened she wanted to know how he felt about it. This was so much worse and all he wanted to do was be left alone with his misery.
He pushed himself up with the cold metal railing. "I don't wanna talk about it." He jumped the small wooden stairs hoping to avoid her and make it into the house before she started talking.
"So you're not gonna deal with anything?"
He nodded his head, "Nope."
Kathleen sighed, grabbing at his arm as he passed by, "Eli... you need to talk to somebody."
He turned to glare at his sister, "Well we don't all have old buddies who show up out of the blue to reminiscence about old times. Who also swoop in for dad to cry on her shoulder like mom wasn't buried a month ago!"
Kathleen sighed, letting her brother go, this was becoming a Stabler child rite of passage. "Eli you don't understand, besides mom, Olivia was the most profound relationship dad has ever had."
His eyes softened, "So she's like an ex girlfriend or something?"
Kathleen grimaced, "Not exactly."
All the anger he was feeling bubbled back up, "Oh so dad had an affair?!"
He stalked off back towards the playset, settling on one of the low hanging swings.
Kathleen rolled her eyes as she swung around to follow behind him, "No!" She gestured as if the words she wanted could be manifested from the air. "It was a complicated situation, it still is. I guarantee that when mom died he called Liv before he called any of us."
Eli gave her a strangled look, why would this stranger get priority over his own children?
"The dad you had in Italy was not the same dad we had in New York. Dad worked," Her eyes got wide as if she was recounting her childhood, "a lot."
She came to sit down on the swing next to his, "He was barely home, and when he was home it was like he wasn't really there. There were times when the only person who could get him to open up was Olivia and that was only because she saw the same horrible things he did. Hell, most of the time he only came home because Liv was the one who sent him back to us."
They had left New York when Eli was so young. The man Kathleen was describing sounded so foreign to him. His parents were so happy in Rome. His father had the occasional work trip but he was at every important event in Eli's life. Never missed a football match, or award ceremony.
Kathleen could read the disbelief on her little brother's face, "You got semi-retired, making amends dad. He felt like working at SVU was his mission to keep us all safe. Then when Olivia came into the picture he stayed as much for her as for himself. When he finally had to leave he needed to put it all behind him, and that included Olivia. And that didn't only hurt them, it hurt the rest of us too. Having her around was like having a distant third parent. Or like, if you put her and Dad together they made a second fully functioning parent. If his quitting helped anything it was mom and dad's marriage."
Eli looked like he wanted to argue, so she cut him off, "Which is why I said it was complicated. Dad would never have been unfaithful to mom. Never. But Olivia owns a part of dad's heart that no one else ever has."
Eli kicked at the dirt under his feet. Now that the anger he felt was dissipating he felt so helpless, so empty. He couldn't quite believe his sister's version of events. Couldn't picture his parent's marriage as anything but perfect. Couldn't believe that his mother would be okay with the awful picture Kathleen painted.
He wondered if his mother had felt like an outsider back then like he felt now. When his siblings went to Olivia for advice or when his father would talk to Liv instead of his wife. Liv... it slipped so easily from the others' lips while it turned to bile in his throat. It must've been like a knife slipped between his mother's ribs every time the nickname was uttered.
Kathleen broke the silence, "Look, I'm not saying it was a good situation. I'm not even saying that dad made good choices. It's just that there's always a lot of layers to life. Like it or not Olivia Benson is one of those layers for the Stabler family. Being antagonistic towards her isn't going to change that."
Eli stared at the ground, processing everything. "I'm still not done grieving mom."
Kathleen shoved herself closer to wrap an arm around his shoulder, the swing chain digging into her side. "No one is expecting that of you. Just don't make it harder on yourself by fighting the inevitability of Olivia Benson in dad's life. No matter what type of relationship they have."
Eli shook his head partly in agreement and partly in defeat. "Yeah okay. I don't get it but okay."
Kathleen laughed, "None of us did kid and you probably won't until you've been in love more than once in your life."
Eli ducked to hide a blush. "Yeah, alright. You can go back inside and tell everyone that the moody teenager is just fine. I'll be back inside in a minute."
Kathleen stood up, her eyebrows still raised in question.
He smiled at her, "Go. I'm good. I'll be okay."
And the crazy thing was he thought he meant it this time.