His girls are laughing in the kitchen.
Lizzie just said something that has struck Kathleen as hilarious and they are both giggling madly. It has been a long time since he has heard them laugh like this and though he has never giggled in his life, the sound makes him want to.
There is a lightness in the world tonight.
He watches them through the half-open door. They have raided all the vegetables in his refrigerator to throw together a salad they know full well that Eli won't eat, but it keeps them busy and together.
He knows now that is what truly matters.
He tilts his head, willing the tense muscles of his shoulders to relax the way they did in the hot shower ten minutes ago. If he didn't know himself so well, he would think his hands are shaking.
He has worked out more today than he has all week.
A run this morning, two hours at the gym this afternoon, and if his daughters weren't already here, he thinks he could get away with some more pull-ups. They are too observant of him though, too watchful and they will see his fidgeting for what it is.
He takes a deep breath and pushes the array of dress shirts in his closet to one side, skimming through them, one by one.
He doesn't have many, maybe a dozen, and most of them in varying shades of his unconscious favorite, blue.
Tonight, he wants something different.
He hears his daughters' voices issuing from the kitchen once more, raised in mock-annoyance with each other. Someone has forgotten the cookies in the car...
"Tell me what you two are doin' here again?" He calls, only half teasing. He has to get ready and though they are the most welcome distraction on any given day, tonight he is restless. When the girls are around, the apartment is full of noise and chatter and music. Last week they were dancin' in the dark with Springsteen. Tonight, it's Taylor Swift.
He makes his way out into the kitchen where they reign to hear their answer.
"Dinner. With Eli," Kathleen replies innocently, popping a crouton into her mouth from the salad bowl before her.
"Sure," he drawls, raising his eyebrows and looking around for his youngest. "Your brother's obviously thrilled you're here. Where is he?"
"In his room, playing video games," Lizzie supplies helpfully over the start of the next song track.
He leaves them to their kitchen concert and makes his way down the hall toward his son's bedroom. They are singing together now, something about "only bought this dress so you could take it off" and he isn't about to have that kind of conversation with his grown daughters, tonight of all nights.
He taps lightly on his son's door.
"It's open!"
"Hey, your sisters are here with the pizza."
Eli sits on the bed, his gaming device in his lap. He shifts his headphones from their spot covering his ears to rest around his neck and looks up at him.
"Thanks," he says, "I'll be out in a minute."
Elliot nods and hesitates for a moment because he can't help himself. Eli seems to understand his reluctance to leave because he elaborates.
"I'm playing that new game I got. The space one where you blow up the aliens."
His son turns the device so he can see the screen. Elliot nods gratefully and before he can move, Eli is speaking again.
"I'm playing with Noah. He's got the game too. Tell Olivia he's good. For a kid, I mean."
He grins at his son, reaching out to jostle his knee on the bed.
"Thanks kid, I'll tell her."
He turns around to head back toward the bathroom when he hears Kathleen's voice calling to him once more.
"What's Liv wearing, Dad?"
He comes to lean his shoulder up against the wall before them in the kitchen and shakes his head.
"I dunno."
He watches his daughters exchange a wide-eyed glance.
"You didn't ask her?" Lizzie prods, setting the plates down onto the table in a pile.
He shakes his head. He can feel his anxiety-level rising with every minute he doesn't understand. What fancy occasion rule has he inadvertently broken this time?
"Was I supposed to?"
Kathleen sighs heavily and throws a perturbed look at her sister as if they both think he is hopeless.
He is not. He is clinging to hope.
Lizzie brushes past him, pulling her hair up into a ponytail as she goes as if his fashion faux-pas is going to require some heavy lifting on her part.
"It's okay, Dad. We'll help you."
He turns to watch his youngest daughter hurry toward the small office with the closet where he keeps his clothes. He feels Kathleen's hands give him a light push to follow Lizzie down the hall.
"You're supposed to match your date when you go to a wedding," she explains, trailing after him as if she is afraid he will get lost on the way.
"Is that right? Been a long time since I've been..." He shakes his head. They all know it's been a long time since he has been anywhere, but Fin is his friend and Olivia is...everything else. He wouldn't miss this night with her for the entire world.
He is more nervous now though than he was when he asked her to go...
She had been perched on the edge of his desk, wearing his reading glasses to skim a document in her lap and those brown ankle boots that damn near killed him. She was swinging her long legs absently as she chatted with his sergeant. Olivia has never been one for small talk, but she and Bell get along well. He'd leaned against the railing, watched them interact with each other for more than a few minutes before a crumpled yellow sticky note collided with his right shoulder and brought him back to reality.
"Your friend's wedding is coming up, right?" Jet never looked up from the screen before her, but somehow she hadn't needed his nod of confirmation.
"Are you taking Olivia?"
What he had taken was a deep breath. The sound enough to make Jet turn to meet his gaze. He'd mentioned it, sure...in passing, just assuming. She was going. He was going. They'd go together.
Of course, they're going together.
His throat tightened at the thought of her going with someone else, watching her walk in on the arm of some lucky bastard because he hadn't made his intentions clear. He wasn't gonna miss his chance. Not this time.
Jet shook her head. "You need to ask her."
He swallowed heavily.
"Now."
This kid sounded more like his daughters everyday.
Olivia had chosen that particular moment to toss a glance at him over her shoulder and tucked his glasses onto the top of her head. Her perfect dark locks tangled in her fingers as she brushed her hair behind her ear and slipped down from his desk to retrieve something from Ayanna.
He nearly heard Jet rolling her eyes, her exasperation with him so palpable.
"You've got it bad," she whispered to her monitor and he had almost laughed.
Almost.
He followed the Captain and the Sergeant at just enough of a distance to give them privacy, but not so much that they didn't know he was there. Olivia had shifted a folder of papers in her arms and shaken Bell's hand before setting off once more. His commanding officer had supplied him with the same frustrated look Jet gave him as she passed by on her way back to the squad room.
He was beginning to wonder if all the women in his life had some kind of secret radar for when a man was desperately trying not to make a fool of himself, except for the woman he had fallen in love with more than two decades ago...
He would have time to wonder later. He almost had to run down the hallway to catch up with her fast stride.
He'd watched her walk for long enough.
"Liv!" He called her name and she had stopped, turning to look at him with the slightest smile tugging at her mouth. He wondered what had happened to put it there and if he would ever be able to get away with kissing her till she smiled like that for him.
"I wanted to talk to you," he started, "I wanted to talk to you 'bout Fin's wedding."
Olivia's eyes had widened immediately, her expression turned stern. "You have to be there, El. Don't even think about-"
He shook his head before she could finish. "No, no, it's not that. I'm coming," he promised her, reaching out and touching the back of her hand.
It felt good to promise her something.
But she needs...he needs...
"I just- I just need-"
This shouldn't be so hard. He has been beside her nearly everyday for the last month (the days he hasn't, it's obvious to everyone because he is sullen and bereft without her). They've been working together, eating together, sitting together in the quiet of the sedan.
She is his best friend in the world. More than that, she already knows he loves her, how much he loves her, so why is it so hard to ask her?
He feels sixteen again, funny, and fumbling, and really fucking ridiculous.
"Liv," he says her name again. Buying time with the beautiful sound of it, its double meaning not lost on him. She deserves this. She deserves him to ask her. She has to know she isn't a given. She is a gift. Something he doesn't take for granted.
It's time. It's time they both lived.
Olivia had watched him curiously, her dark eyes alight with the gentlest measure of patience.
"Do you wanna go with me?" He asked quickly, holding his breath.
"To the wedding?" She'd countered, surprise tinting her tone, color tinting her cheeks.
"Yeah."
She had taken a moment, dipped her head to study the inches of space between them and he wondered if she had been buying time with him, too. Her hair cascaded into her face then and he had wanted to reach for her, to tangle his fingers in her dark caramel locks and simply hold her close. He wanted to brush the errant strands away from her cheeks so he could look at her. He realized then she still had his reading glasses perched on the top of her head and he wasn't gonna be the one to remind her. He briefly amused himself with wondering how long it would take her to realize they aren't her prescription.
She can have them. The only thing he needs to see is right in front of him.
"Yes," she answered finally. Her voice lilted with something that sounded like happiness and he watched the way she bit down hard on her perfect bottom lip to keep herself from smiling too broadly while he couldn't help himself.
"Really?"
Olivia had laughed and he has heard the chime of that sound every night since in his dreams. She nodded and reached out to squeeze his forearm.
"So I'll, I'll pick ya up or..." he started enthusiastically, laying down plans. He hadn't had plans in God knows how long, but he had been making them with her, for her long before he'd ever come home. Before he had a right to, he dreamt of her beside him a world away, wandering the streets, perusing the museums, settled beside him on the terrace in Rome. He wanted her to know where they stand in the here and now.
He wanted concrete.
"We'll talk about it," she assured him.
Abstract, but he will take her any way he can.
When he had seen her safely to her car, he returned to his desk in the squad room and met Jet's dark gaze over the top of her computer screen. She mouthed two words: "You're blushing" and this time, he laughed aloud...
His daughters have pulled every shirt he has to his name out of the closet to rest on the back of the spare chair.
"You can't wear dark pants and a dark shirt," Kathleen says, more to herself, but he is trying to take notes. She gives the dark trousers he wears with his white undershirt an appraising glance before turning back to the mixed array of blues before her.
"Are you wearing a suit jacket?" Lizzie asks, brushing past his slacks hanging in the closet to wear his jackets hang.
He nods, "Was planning on it." His youngest daughter smiles at him over her shoulder and he can almost see the wheels turning in her head.
"Leen, pass me that white shirt under the blue one."
Kathleen laughs quietly at her sister's request. "Which blue one?" She asks rhetorically, but compiles nonetheless.
"I like blue," he says mildly, defending his fashion choices.
"We know," his girls answer at the same time without so much as a glance at each other and they make him smile.
"Put this on," Lizzie says, handing him the crisp white shirt she holds in her hands, "and then we'll figure out the tie situation."
He moves toward the bathroom, unbuttoning the shirt with unsteady fingers and slipping it from the hanger as he goes. For the life of him, he can't remember the last time he wore it. He isn't sure he ever has. He likes the thought that it is new. He pulls it on and surveys himself in the mirror. The bruises are gone, the deep gash to his temple has faded, leaving only the slightest scar.
He does the buttons and straightens the sleeves before rummaging in the drawer for his cufflinks. It's a specific pair he is looking for, a gold pair that she bought him for Christmas during their first year as partners. He doesn't think she remembers, but he does and he wants to wear them tonight. For her.
He doubts she will notice, but he wants to wear them all the same.
"All right. Here we go..."
His daughters appear behind him, each of them tossing a different colored tie over his shoulders. Lizzie has chosen a burgundy and Kathleen a deep purple, nearly blue. He knows which one he prefers, but he will let them decide. He watches them in the mirror, their reflections, as they compare and contrast the colors against the white of his shirt covering his chest. He doesn't know what they are looking for exactly, but if letting them play dress-up with him will satisfy their need to see him off tonight, he will let them continue.
"What do you think?" Lizzie asks, stepping back to perch on the side of the tub. Her sister stays beside him at the sink. He surveys both of their faces in their reflections. Lizzie's strawberry ponytail locks, her fair freckles, her shy smile. Kathleen's blonde hair, her ocean eyes, her knowing grin.
"I won, didn't I?" She asks, resting her cheek briefly against his shoulder. He has forgotten what exactly they are waiting on him for. He just loves them, loves having them with him, beside him.
The tie, he remembers.
"I like 'em both," he starts delicately, watching Kathleen's smile grow and Lizzie's mouth turn into an overly-dramatic frown. "But I'm gonna wear the blue one."
"It's not blue, Daddy. It's purple," Lizzie explains, jumping up and nudging her sister out of the way so that she can stand next to him to get a better view.
"And it does look good," she concedes, nodding to Kathleen who gives her a quick hug from behind.
They both take turns straightening the purple tie beneath his collar before standing back to survey him smartly. He turns away from them to meet his own gaze in the mirror. Gone is the haunt he has become so accustomed to seeing and in its place there is something akin to a contented presence.
He knows why.
He is here, now, in this moment and he is waiting for her.
If he is honest, he always has been.
He forgets his daughters are here, too. He tucks his shirt into his slacks and grabs his belt from where it hangs on the back of the door.
"How'd we do?" He asks, biting anxiously on his bottom lip as he waits for their verdict. They are quiet for a moment. Kathleen sits in the chair while her sister rests cross-legged on the floor.
"You look great, Dad," Lizzie says, looking up at him and nodding earnestly. "You look amazing."
He watches Kathleen's ocean eyes fill for such a brief moment that he thinks he must be imagining it before she speaks. "You look incredible. Really handsome."
He gives them both a grateful grin before reaching for his suit jacket tucked in the back of his closet.
He doesn't realize his son has come to lean against the door frame until Eli speaks. "Are you picking Olivia up, Dad?"
Elliot shakes his head, slipping his suit jacket on and waiting for Lizzie's insistent hands to straighten his collar from behind.
"Liv's comin' here," he answers reluctantly. "She's dropping Noah off for a sleepover and it's on the way so..."
"You're not even gonna pick her up for your date?" Eli interrupts incredulously. Elliot nearly gives him a look that clearly says drop it, but his prickle of embarrassment fades at pride of his son.
The kid was raised right.
He feels three pairs of eyes on him and he almost wants to laugh at how absurd this is. He had wanted to do this properly; with flowers, and compliments, and rolling up to her door in the giant-ass black Tahoe to make sure everyone on her block knows that she is his to love, but she has turned the tables on him once more.
"Liv's a captain," he says, rolling his eyes in affectionate amusement as he recalls her words to him. He'd fought her on it until she pulled rank on him and though he is intensely curious to see just what will happen when he pushes his luck, he had decided this wasn't the time.
"Whatever that means," Eli shrugs before he turns to head to the kitchen for pizza.
Elliot gives a deep exhale that he hasn't realized he has released and he turns back to the mirror, fidgeting with his cufflinks and straightening his tie. He can sense the silent exchange occurring between his daughters behind his back.
"Are you nervous, Dad?" Lizzie asks tentatively, tucking her legs up close to her chest so that her chin rests on her knee. He won't lie to his girls because they know the truth. He sat them all down individually two weeks after their disastrous (but well-meaning) intervention and tried to explain. Tried to help them understand. The three children he has under his roof tonight have been the most accepting. He is still working on earning Maureen and Dickie's good graces once more.
He can feel his daughters watching him closely and he realizes he hasn't answered them.
"Yeah," he admits, half-laughing as he rubs his hand roughly over his smooth jaw.
He hears Lizzie's quiet muffled "Awww" before she speaks again, trying to soothe him.
"It's okay, Daddy. It's Liv."
"That's the point," Kathleen counters her sister softly. "It is Liv."
He catches her stormy eyes in the mirror and holds onto her gaze. Lizzie must sense they need a moment because suddenly she is all movement.
"I almost forgot..." she says cryptically, pushing herself to her knees before she jumps up and follows her brother out into the kitchen, leaving him alone with Kathleen.
His daughter comes to stand beside him at the sink once more.
"You love her," she reminds him, as if his heart needs to be reminded to beat. He nods as he studies the pattern on the sleeve of her paisley t-shirt in the mirror. Kathleen smiles, tilting her head to survey his reflection.
"She loves you."
He looks down at her, where she stands beside him.
"How d'you-?"
"Women just know these things," she explains patiently, turning to face him and smoothing his lapel with her hand.
"Besides, it's not a secret," she elaborates, with a growing smile. "It never has been. You met your match a long time ago."
He wonders if his daughter has always been so insightful or if the last two months have forced the way she has seemed to grow up right before his eyes. He wonders if he has grown up, too because her words don't cause him to ache inside; the guilt he expects, the shame he has come to be so familiar with is slowly becoming a stranger.
"It's you and Liv tonight, Dad," she says, "Same as always, but brand new."
He pulls her close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She has given him everything he needs and more than he deserves.
"I love you," he whispers and Kathleen pulls back to assess him once more. "You have a hair…" she says, reaching up and plucking a strand from his left shoulder.
"Probably yours," he concludes, brushing an errant wisp of her long blonde locks away from her face. Kathleen shakes her head and he can tell she is losing a battle with grinning as she examines the strand.
"Nope. It's brunette," she quips, patting his arm.
Olivia hasn't arrived, yet he carries her with him.
He follows Kathleen out into the kitchen where his son stands beside the counter, piling two large pizza slices onto his plate. When he passes Elliot, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small.
"Here Dad," he says, depositing a shiny wrapped stick of spearmint gum into his palm. He wonders if his son has caught onto the fact that he has brushed his teeth three times over the course of the last hour.
Eli shrugs. "Just take it. Girls like fresh breath."
He is saved from having to respond to that particular insinuation by Lizzie who is trying to get his attention as she pulls something out of the refrigerator.
"Give this to Liv," she instructs, handing him a small clear plastic box with a beautiful corsage of fresh flowers inside. "It's for her wrist," she explains softly as he pulls her close and bends to kiss to her temple. He never mentioned how he wanted to have flowers ready for Olivia. His daughters make right his lapses.
He sets the box onto the countertop and opens it slowly so he can see them.
The arrangement includes two bright white daisies, a bundle of tiny blue forget-me-nots, and a deep red chrysanthemum. He wants to ask Lizzie what they stand for, if they mean something, but he doesn't have time because suddenly there is a soft knocking on the door and all at once he can't -
"Breathe Dad," Kathleen reminds him delicately, pressing her palm to his arm and pushing him lightly towards the door.
He does. He takes a breath.
He can do this. She can do this.
They can do this.
It's a date. To a wedding. With the women he has loved with his whole heart for a quarter of a century and the rest of his life.
"I feel like I should take a picture." He hears Lizzie's excited murmur behind him. He hopes someone reigns her in and he doesn't have to wait more than an instant before Eli does.
"It's not prom, Liz," he reminds her sarcastically through a bite of pizza.
When he opens the door, she is here. She is stunning. She is real.
"Liv," he rasps her precious name, taking her in. "You look-"
He wants to tell her that she is gorgeous. She is a vision, an angel, a goddess, and she takes his breath away. She is more than he could ever deserve, but she is interrupting before he can even begin...
She is taking him in with her own dark eyes, her lush lashes, appraising him and she reminds him there is a reason he is still alive. She is smiling that perfectly stunning smile he adores and tugs at the full skirt of her tea-length dress. He senses what is coming before she says it, so he isn't surprised when she does.
"We match!" She cries happily and he grins at her because, in every way, they always have.
Author's note: Thank you