A/N. First fic in literal years. First one-shot ever. Basically a novelization of that single too-short scene and my attempt to process all the angst that happened last week by adding more angst on top of it. If you haven't seen the episode, minor spoiler warning. You can find the scene on youtube if you don't have Hulu or peacock. I may publish my version of the letter (WHAT WAS IN THE LETTER DICK WOLF?) if this takes off. Let me know if you want it.
Obviously don't own Law and Order SVU. Cross Posted on Ao3.
Follow me on Twitter and Tumblr 2ctheocean. I post progressive rants, bad jokes, and occasionally good stuff on my original characters from my upcoming novels.
Reviews are love.
Work Text:
She's already been thrown through one too many loops when he comes out of Kathy's room. Every step he takes towards her threatens to send her spiraling again, and she has to stop herself from letting out a sharp breath.
When Elliot calls out to her with a sigh, there's something heartbreakingly familiar about it. Like it's old times. Like it's not his wife in the next room over, lying in a near-death state. It's like any other victim, and she's shocked out how hard it is not to slide back into old routines. "She's asleep."
But he's not her partner anymore. "Okay."
"You want some water?" It's an innocent question, one he wouldn't have asked back then. He would have just poured two and held one out to her, like it was nothing at all.
Her walls are up, because any minute she's going to wake up, and none of this will have ever been real. "No, I'm good. Thanks." Her response is robotic as she sinks into the waiting room chair, her lips pressing together. She's not used to feeling this unsure. She's angry, definitely; there's no doubt about it. But this isn't the time or place for that anger, not when he's just watched the women he loved - the woman he had chosen- take a blast that may have been meant for him.
"Back at the station, I put you in a bad position." He says, bent over the water cooler. When he turns around to face her and moves to sit beside her, she unintentionally tenses up, the walls around her locking into place. She wants to get defensive, to fold her arms across her chest and glare at him. She has the opportunity to scold him now- with his behavior at the station. He's opened that door, and he deserves it… but she can't bring herself to do it.
He leans forward. "I know it's not the way it was back in the day when I had free run of the place." He shakes his head, and something like pride and shame manages to cross his face before she blinks, and it's gone. "Now it's your house now."
"Thank you." She says, her voice robotic again. It's certainly not the apology she wants from him, but it's something. "I appreciate that." She's suffocating inside this stupid room- it's all too much right now. She needs to get outside, out to fresh air, where she can clear her head and think, maybe call Lucy and hear Noah's voice…
She's taken a deep breath and made it halfway to the door when he calls out in a barely audible voice. "Liv, I'm sorry."
She practically whirled back around, the response ready on her lips. She knew he'd call out after her- after all this time, that hasn't changed. But he doesn't need her anger right now, doesn't need more guilt than he feels for Kathy. She swallows her anger, her pain, for him.
Just like the good old days.
"Elliot, we don't have to do this." She says. She hates the tremor in her voice as she turns back to him.
He's looking at her with those piercing blue eyes, trying to communicate with her in that singular way that they had so long ago. She doesn't allow it at first, until he adds a tiny nod.
Fine. "Okay." She sits back down, swaying slightly as she does so. "I guess….. you wanna do this now." She can't help the way she looks around the room. Anywhere but at him, anywhere but at his face."
When she finds the courage the look back at him, she let a little bit of anger spill out. "You're sorry for leaving?" She blinks, and realizes that she's having to will back tears.
How many times had she imagined this conversation? How many times had she wanted to confront him about the way that he'd left- to scream and yell and rage about how he'd left her utterly and completely alone. To face Lewis, Yates, Rudnick, Sheila Porter, and Rob Miller. Alone.
"Or are you sorry for walking…" She says, looking away, and then forces herself to look back at him, "For not giving me the courtesy of telling me?"
"Both." It comes with a slow blink and a nod, and a sincerity that she's equally desperate to reject and accept at the same time.
A beat. Then, "I think if I talked to you about how—"
"You walked away." It is blunt and almost cold the way she says it.
His jaw closes like he's grasping just how deeply her hurt goes. "Because that's what you did, Elliot." She says.
She has to look away again, thinking back to the first few moments of her life without him, no longer able to stop the tears from visibly welling up. "I had to find out from Cragen."
He sees her tears, looks down at the slight tremble her jaw gives, and then they both look away, him towards the door and her down at the floor. He almost- almost- reaches for her, moves closer. "Olivia."
"Elliot." Her voice stops him. Final. Halting. She shakes her head, glaring at him through tears. "You were the most...single most important person in my life…"
"Olivia..."
"And you just." She shakes her head, and her hand involuntarily comes out, indicating the distance between them that was never there before but will always be here now. "… disappeared."
There are tears in his eyes too, and, for a fraction of a second, she has to wonder if their separation caused him as much pain as it has her. "I know."
When he speaks again, his voice starts clear. "I was afraid..." He admits. The rest comes in a raspy whisper. "…that if I heard your voice, I wouldn't have been able to leave."
For a second, the way he's looking at her, it's easy to pretend that he's sorry. It's easy for her to let her walls crumble down, to forgive him. Her heart pangs- she's still not over the fact that he's really here and sitting here talking to her.
But of course, it's not that simple.
Her phone rings and Olivia isn't sure whether or not to be relieved or not at the abrupt end of their conversation. "I gotta go." She says, more to herself than to Elliot. "That's my chief. He needs me back at the station."
She stands up, both figuratively and literally spinning. "Where's the exit..?"
He doesn't follow her into the stairwell, doesn't see how frantic her footsteps become as she practically races down the stairs. She stops short once she's outside, resting a hand on the handicap rail as she catches her breath.