Chapter One: A Sea & An Ocean Between
Title: Age of Regret
Rating: M
Category: Angst/SVU&OC-Crossover/Hurt/Comfort/Romance/UST/RST/The Infamous Letter
Summary: Elliot Stabler has never been good with words but ten years and a double on the rocks in a lonely room will make a man pour his heart out…in any way that he can.
"If we've got something to say now is the time, just give me a sign." – VHS Collection
Note: I know that so many people have done a letter fic and I am only adding to the wide array of talent we have out there. Aside from a couple that I have beta read, I have not gotten to dive in to read any. I've been a terrible reader lately but, sometimes, the muse strikes and we must feed her. Please note that this letter is written with the idea in mind that it was composed before Kathy's death. It was written while he was still in Rome. This is also part one of three (you guessed it…part two will be Olivia and part three will be Elliot). Enjoy.
If it's still
In your mind.
It is worth
Taking the risk.
-Paulo Coelho
Semper Fidelis
Olivia,
They say that some words are better left unspoken but, in life, we only regret the chances we didn't take. That includes the things left unsaid, doesn't it? I keep looking back on the time, at the passing of every moment, at the seconds as they tick away, and I've begun to build a life of nothing more than regrets. Intentional ones, unintentional ones…ones I'd love to say were without a choice but were. Too many to count.
Ten years. Ten long years, Olivia. This was meant to be a speech but, we all know what happens when I'm behind a microphone. I'm already contemplating the look of shock, disgust, and irritation that you were never particularly good at hiding as I sit here with a pen in my hand while everyone else sleeps. Somewhere, in that statement alone, I'll build another regret but I will own every second of it. It's already inspired the need for a drink, Liv, and I'm certain you know what I reached for.
Bourbon. Double. On the rocks.
I could've had something less offensive or strong but, here we are, betraying sense and reason for impetus.
There will never be enough justifications or defenses for why I left, but I'm not opposed to begging for absolution if it comes from you. I know that I don't deserve the forgiveness, though. You were so much more than my partner and I let you down. I let myself down. They aren't equivalent but I recognize the mutual infliction of pain that leaving left without having to see the disappointment in your eyes. Imagining it is already ripping a piece of my soul apart but I'd rather see it for myself than have to sit here, with the curtains drawn, alone to recreate you like a ghost. You were once close enough to touch and now? A sea and an ocean sit between us.
It's too much distance, Liv.
When I sat down to think of everything I wanted to say to you, I kept going back to how I left…why I left. I beat myself up every day thinking about the impact it made but I knew I couldn't stay. I know it doesn't make sense but I could no longer separate the job from keeping you safe, keeping you beside me, laying claim to you as though you belonged to me. You owed me nothing, Liv, but I held that candle as though you had lit it, personally. I need you to know that I didn't walk away without second-guessing every moment or regretting the way I did it but I knew if I tried to explain it, it would just sound hollow and I'd come back to the mess I'd made. To the destruction I've always managed to cause.
The ultimatum might not have been uttered but it was there and every day spent away from New York meant that you were further away.
Just not far enough for you to leave my thoughts, I suppose.
Just far enough to know exactly why I've consumed half of this drink while wondering why I'm rambling on already. Here's to the afterburn and the headache I feel coming. Let's hope I've made a lick of sense even though I tend to assume it will look like my sloppy paperwork and you'll just consider burning after reading. It is at least unbridling my thoughts and that is something to be reasonably thankful for.
The past ten years have shaken my faith and I have gotten to the point that the unanswered prayers are a message that repetition is not substitution. It doesn't mean anything if it comes from the emptiest parts of me. Even as I look up at the pulpit at the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, the inspiration of credence has faltered. Trust in my beliefs has begun to wane and not because of any lack of faith. I'm just counting the days for a priest to call me out during confession. Even though I have lost my faith in a lot of things, Olivia Benson, never once have I lost it in you.
I've held the belief that fidelity in my marriage meant everything and then you walked into my life to torch my resolve. It was nothing you said or did. It was the collective of your heart, your soul, your unrelenting strength and I spent every moment across from you questioning the beliefs that had been in my life for so long. You shook the foundations that I walk on; took a piece as a souvenir. I don't think you even realized that you'd done it but you did. It's intoxicating and disarming—intimidating, even.
You were so intimidating that Kathy needed the Atlantic and the Tyrrhenian Sea as a wedge because she's always known that, somewhere along the way, you took up residence where she used to.
It's a good thing this won't be in front of a room full of people or I'll be ending a marriage and the only friendship I've ever given a damn about. I certainly am a real piece of work, huh? Just call me the Elliot Stabler that didn't want to admit to himself that he had fallen in love with his partner, his best friend, the one woman he has never deserved. Liv, God, I'm so sorry. I could march to the roof and shout it but it wouldn't change the fact that you deserve to know that I love you.
Olivia Benson, with all of your faults, stubbornness, unrelenting courage, bits of insecurity, and your quirks, unraveled the last parts of my steadfastness and willpower. You can be angry at me. I'd be angry at me, too, but I'm done with the life of regret. I'm done going another day without elucidating a fact that has haunted me for so much longer than ten years of absence. We only get this one life, Liv, and I'm only asking for an opportunity to be forgiven. I'm not asking for a chance because I think the likelihood of that ship sailing is high.
One day.
One day I'll be able to see your face again and know that you read this and I've been heard, even if every opportunity is gone. I'd give anything just to know you're safe, happy, and that you've gotten what you've always wanted. There's no one that I know that is more deserving of happiness than you and I'd take every ache away so you'd have none. I know I don't have the right. I'm not asking. It's a fact that I wouldn't change for the world. You mean that much to me and you always will.
I promise you one thing, though, Olivia…I'll never be so far away that you can't find me again.
Ti amo, sempre,
El
Quote by:
VHS Collection
Paulo Coelho
Semper Fidelis means Always Faithful in Latin
Ti amo, sempre means with love, always in Italian
This is something I'm profusely nervous about so I really hope it pans out. I'm not the type to write something so different so go easy on me.