Seven nights.
It had been seven nights since his family staged the intervention. Seven nights since he'd come home to find them all in his living room - Kathleen, Maureen, Lizzie, Richard, Eli, and...her. All soft white sweater and shiny brown hair and big, beautiful, soulful eyes. There was a look in them now, something deep and mournful, and he knew it wasn't about the pandemic and it wasn't about Kathy...it was about him. It wasn't there a decade ago but it was always there now, that glimmer in her eye, every time she looked his way.
He'd hurt her. She wasn't venomous about it. That wasn't the kind of person she was. She was quiet, polite, courteous about it. She was still there for him at the hospital with Kathy and she was still there for his children when they called her. She didn't yell or scream or throw things at him but she was still...hurting, nevertheless. He'd hurt her.
And it was one of the biggest regrets of his life, causing pain to this woman who he...loved...so much.
Anyway, it had been seven nights since the intervention, and for seven nights she'd been ignoring his calls.
That meant seven nights since he'd gotten any kind of quantifiable sleep.
He was crossing a line with the phone calls and the messages, and he knew it. She wasn't the same person anymore, not the woman who would drop everything to help him when he needed it. She couldn't be. She was a captain, now, she was a mother, now. She worried about everyone and everything. It was no longer her responsibility to worry about him.
And he was damn proud of that.
It just didn't change the way he needed her to worry about him. It didn't stop the...ache he felt to see her. To hear her voice. He'd blown her off at the intervention. It was wrong, and he knew that, but he couldn't let his children see just how much he needed, loved this woman, not so soon after losing their mother. He was having trouble accepting it himself, and it had been literally decades since he'd realized that she was it for him. She was his everyone and his everything, the one who made him feel like he was part of something cosmically bigger, something undefinable, even while he was married to someone else.
It was the reason why he'd left. No amount of denial could make it go away. The only other solution was space.
It was too late to knock on anyone's door, but he wasn't thinking straight. It had been weeks, maybe months, even, since he'd gotten any rest, and it was hitting him now, all at once. Angela Wheatley was right. No sleep really would make him crazy. He felt out of it, like a zombie, and all he could feel was the suffocating hurt of Kathy's loss, anger about all that his children and grandchildren would miss from her, and this deep-seated need to see Olivia. Even after ten years and thousands of miles apart, even with that sad glimmer in her eye, he was instinctively drawn to her, like his soul knew that only she could provide solace for him.
Even if it was no longer really her responsibility to do so.
Oddly enough, what he didn't feel was guilt. Kathy had never been stupid. She hadn't been blind to what he felt for Olivia, to what she meant to him even after all this time, and he thought that if she could speak from the dead she would give him her blessing. She wouldn't want him to walk around like this...hollow, shell of a person. Kathy had always been about finding happiness and joy.
Which was good, because he had enough emotion and panic and sheer exhaustion pressing in on his chest, suffocating him, strangling him into a restless, jumpy, agitated zombie person. Without guilt involved.
He was knocking on her door.
He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten there. One minute he was at home, startling awake after a nightmare - hot, sweaty, out of breath. His voice felt hoarse so he was pretty sure he'd been screaming. Then the next minute he was in her lobby, flashing his badge at her doorman and waiting for him to buzz up for her permission. He could hear her hesitation when the doorman told her who it was, listened as moments of silence ticked by, before she finally let out a breath and said "Let him in," in a tone that suggested it went against every ounce of better judgement she had.
And now he was knocking quietly on the door to her apartment.
It swung open, and for a long moment she just stood there, arms blocking the entryway, wordlessly regarding him.
He met her gaze. They weren't staring at each other, not really. It was more like...connecting. He was done hiding from her. He didn't have the energy left to keep hiding, even if he still wanted to. He let her see everything, every raw emotion inside of him, reflected in his eyes as he looked at her.
And for a moment, her eyes suggested she would slam the door in his face. Sure, she'd been his dutiful supporter in public - at the precinct, at the hospital, at the funeral - but this...what he was asking of her by coming to her private space this late at night...it was different and she wasn't letting him past that easily. She didn't want to let him back into her life and she especially didn't want to let him into her apartment, into the small, peaceful haven she'd carved for herself. But what she saw in his eyes must have been just pathetic enough, because she didn't let the door slam.
"Elliot," she said finally, letting her arms drop from the doorframe to rest by her sides.
He didn't say anything, didn't avert his gaze, just waited for her to absolve or curse him.
Seconds ticked by.
"I have a son," she said, and it was protective. A warning. It was bad enough that he had hurt her, if he hurt her child...no, it was more than a warning. It was a threat.
"I'm - I'll go," and he started to turn away, because he knew she didn't trust him around her son. As she had every right not to. And somehow, through the thick fog that had settled in his brain, he knew that it was one thing to disrupt Olivia's life but it was another thing entirely to disrupt her child.
"He's asleep," she said, and he stopped in his tracks. She took a hesitant, cautious step toward him, her arms crossing over each other protectively. She broke eye contact for the first time so that she could skim her eyes downward, and he knew that she was taking him in, fully assessing the situation, before her eyes returned to him, "You're not sleeping."
"No."
"Jesus, El," she started to reach for him, but suddenly stopped and checked her watch, "It's 10:32. Noah gets up at 6. I need you gone by 5:30."
"Understood."
"I'm also going to give you the number of a center that specializes in PTSD. If I let you in, you have to promise you'll call them. Tomorrow."
A moment of hesitation. Then:
"Understood."
"I'm serious, El," she said, "I'll let you in tonight, but if you don't call them tomorrow I will never let you in again."
"Tell me the number and I'll call them right now, Olivia."
She regarded him for another long, heated moment, before she sighed and ran a hand over her face.
"I asked you this before, but maybe you weren't in the right space to hear it. Elliot...what do you need?"
"You," he was too exhausted to be anything other than brutally honest, but the look on her face when he said that told him that maybe he should try. It was the same expression she'd worn at the intervention, right after he'd told her I love you - something like surprise mixed with pain mixed with longing.
Elliot exhaled.
"I just...I, ah, I need to hear your voice, Liv. I need to see you. I just...I needed it...so I can rest."
"When was the last time you slept?"
He shrugged.
She sighed and finally, finally, she moved out of the doorway.
"Come in."
"Not there," she told him sharply when he instinctively moved toward the couch. He was in such a haze, it didn't even occur to him that this was the first time in ten years that he'd been inside her apartment. Under better circumstances, he would have looked around, searched for clues that would teach him more about the woman she'd become, but as it was he could barely lift his feet, much less take in the decor around him.
He watched, confused, as she disappeared past the living room and into a short hallway.
"Come on," she said when she realized he wasn't behind her, and he followed the sound of her voice to what was unmistakably her bedroom.
"Olivia - " he began hesitantly.
"If Noah gets water in the middle of the night, he'll see you on the couch. I'll sleep out there. You sleep here," she explained, gesturing toward a queen bed with a collection of soft comforters and fluffy pillows. He could fall asleep on those instantly.
"Olivia, I can't - "
"If you want to sleep in this apartment, Elliot, this is where you sleep."
"Noah won't look for you in here?" he asked hesitantly, aware even through the fog in his brain that Olivia Benson was telling him to sleep in her bed, and that should set off alarm bells somewhere.
She shrugged.
"Just keep the door locked."
Elliot frowned at the bed, too exhausted to know if this was really a good idea.
"Just get in bed, Elliot," Olivia huffed in an exasperated tone that suggested that maybe there weren't too many people who refused orders from her these days.
"Yes, captain."
He was arguing, but really, he barely had the energy to kick off his shoes before he collapsed unceremoniously on the bed, not even bothering to get under the covers.
He had the vague sense of her moving around the room, but he was sound asleep before he could even wonder what she was doing.
He woke with a start, sitting fully upright in bed, every muscle in his body taut, tense, ready to fight.
He didn't know where he was.
It had been a long time since he'd slept so deeply that he didn't know where he was when he woke up.
He took deep breaths, in through his nose, out through his mouth, in through his nose, out through his mouth, while his eyes struggled to acclimate to the darkness.
"Elliot?" a lamp flicked on, and everything came into focus. A bedroom he'd never seen before, decorated with gentle, feminine touches, with calming decor. Soothing, earthy brown walls, a dresser with unlit candles next to a jewelry stand, a full length mirror in the corner. Dark purple curtains drifted lazily in the breeze from the open window. A soft down comforter clutched tightly in his fists. And to his left, Olivia Benson, sitting upright with her back resting against the headboard, looking at him with concern.
She hadn't been sleeping. She had been sitting there, watching over him, worried.
His head felt like bricks. He was in her bedroom, and he had only a vague recollection of how he'd gotten there.
"Are you okay?" she asked gently, not sure if he knew where he was or who he was with.
He took another deep breath, and this time he recognized her scent hitting his nostrils. Vanilla, amber, something...it was deeper now, richer than it had been ten years ago. He felt his muscles relax.
"Yeah, I...I'm sorry. I was screaming," he mumbled, even though he had no memory of what he'd been dreaming about.
"You weren't screaming."
"I wasn't?"
"No...were you having a nightmare?"
"No, I guess...no. I don't know. I don't think I was dreaming," Elliot blinked at her, then glanced around the room, "What am I doing here?"
"You showed up here...you don't remember?"
"No, I -" he did remember. Sort of. "I mean, what am I doing in your...bed?"
"You wanted to sleep on the couch. I didn't let you. I don't want Noah to wake up and find you."
"Oh."
Noah. Right. He remembered that now. He also remembered that she said she would sleep on the couch. He eyed her curiously.
"Did you sleep?" He asked.
She shook her head and looked away from him.
He felt like an ass. She had a job. She had a child. She had a million reasons why she should be sleeping right now, and instead she was staying awake because of him.
"Olivia…"
"I dozed off for a little bit, I think," she said suddenly, "But I...did you sleep well? I thought maybe you were sleeping okay, until you woke up."
"I, uhhhh…" Elliot a hand down his face and realized that, yeah, it felt like he'd been actually sleeping for the first time in a long time. A deep, dreamless, sleep, "I think I did."
"Good."
"What time is it?"
"2:45. You've only been here about 4 hours. You should sleep a little more."
"Are you going to sleep?"
She smiled faintly.
"Don't worry about my sleep, Elliot."
"Olivia - "
"I will," she interrupted reassuringly, aware that he was about to insist, "I'll sleep soon, I promise. Just...you sleep first."
She was worried about him. He could tell. She needed to know that he would sleep. He laid back down against her pillows, brought her comforter up to his chin, and inhaled.
"Okay," he said, looking up at her. She gazed softly down at him, and he thought maybe she wanted to reach for him, to run her hand along his face, but she turned away and reached for a book on the nightstand instead.
So he let the image of her pretending to read lull him back to sleep.
The next time he woke up, it was broad daylight. And she was dressed differently, not in pajamas anymore but not dressed for work, either. And she was curled up in the bed next to him, facing him, asleep.
There was probably two feet of space between their bodies, but he was clutching something with a significantly different feel than her down comforter against his chest.
Her hand.
He wasn't sure whether he should be horrified that he'd reached out for her in his sleep or delighted that she'd apparently let him.
He settled for a mix of both. He watched her sleep, feeling a tingling of warmth in his chest as he counted her steady, even breaths. He traced circles around her palm with his thumb. She looked so peaceful.
It was only a few moments before her breath hitched. He should've known she wasn't sleeping very deeply. He kept his eyes focused intently on her face and watched her wake up. Long lashes fluttered open and brown eyes met his.
Deep. Brown. Beautiful. And just a little bit bleary.
"You're awake," she murmured, stretching a bit but not pulling her hand away just yet, "Do you feel better?"
"Yeah." He did. Loads better. His head was clear and his body was loose. He felt like a different person. He glanced around the room, "What time is it?"
There was significantly more daylight than there should have been for...whatever time she'd told him that he needed to leave.
"I think it's like...10," she said. He frowned.
"What happened to Noah?"
"You were sleeping...I know I said you had to leave but I couldn't bear to wake you. So I just got him up and took him to school and came back. I thought he might wake you with all his noise, but...I don't think you moved," she said.
"I didn't hear a thing," Elliot said.
"Good. Your body needed to rest."
"What about SVU?"
"I told them I would be in later," she shrugged, "Fin runs the place just as well as I do. And they'll call if something urgent comes up."
"I…" Elliot hesitated. She'd just rearranged her whole day for him, and it wasn't lost on him that she hadn't even fully forgiven him yet. He didn't deserve her kindness. He squeezed her hand gently, "...Thank you."
"You needed to slee - "
"I mean it, Liv. Thank you. Really."
She smiled faintly.
"You're welcome, Elliot."
He didn't have any clothes to change into, hadn't come to her apartment with anything except for the clothes on his back, so she gave him an extra toothbrush and an NYPD hoodie. She needed to go to work and he needed to go home, shower, and call his Sargent. She stood quietly in her living room and watched him put on his jacket.
"You look a lot better," she observed after a moment. "Less dark circle under your eyes."
"Thank you, Liv," he said again, "I know you're...I know I don't deserve your kindness. You would've had every right to kick me out last night."
She didn't say anything for so long that he thought she wasn't going to. But then she wrapped her arms around her waist and took a deep breath.
"I lost Simon," she said quietly, and Elliot stopped what he was doing, let his hands fall to his sides, and looked at her.
"You lost him, like…"
Yes, her expression told him, lost him. Like that.
And he'd had no idea. He was so wrapped up in his own world that he had no clue what was going on in hers.
"Shit, Liv. I'm so sorry."
He thought back to when she'd first met Simon, how she'd wanted so much to feel like part of a family that she'd helped him jump bail even when she thought he was guilty of a crime.
"I lost him and I…" she shook her head, "The last thing that I said to him...was something that I regret. I was hurt. I was angry. And now I...every day I wonder if my angry words were the last words he ever heard - "
"Olivia, I was there when you and Simon first met. Even if you were mad at him, he knew that you loved him."
"...And...what I learned from that experience..." she continued slowly, meeting his eyes but ignoring his words, "...is that I do not want the last words that I say to someone to be words of anger. I do not want someone to die thinking that I wouldn't help them or that I...hated them...because I was hurt or because I was angry. I don't want that for anyone that I know, and I especially don't want that for someone that I love."
Love.
She was talking about him. He was someone that she loved. That warm tingling that had begun in his chest back as he watched her sleep blossomed, spread to the tips of his fingers and toes. Even after ten years of absence and ten years of hurt, he was still someone that she loved.
His mind was reeling.
She was still talking.
"...so, I'm sorry I ignored your calls, Elliot," she said, "I shouldn't have. I don't...I'm not...If something happens to you, I don't want you to think that I don't…"
She was struggling for words now, her head bowed and her arms wrapped protectively around herself.
"Hey, hey," he said gently when her words stopped coming altogether and a single tear escaped from her eye. His fingers twitched at his sides, itching to pull her in for a hug, but he didn't think she would appreciate that right now, "I get it, Liv. And I'm not going anywhere."
She took a deep breath.
"It doesn't mean that I'm not hurt and it doesn't mean that I'm not...angry with you, but it does mean that I will always be here when you need me, Elliot. I'm here."
She turned away from him and reached for something on the end table, and then suddenly she was in front of him, pressing a small object into the palm of his hand.
"You promised me last night that you would call today," she said, and he looked down to see a business card. Manhattan Behavioral Health. The PTSD Clinic. He closed his hand tightly over hers.
"I will," he said, and he meant it. He owed it to her, he owed it to his children, to call.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"I'll let you know when I have an appointment," he added, letting her know that he was going to let her hold him accountable. He wanted her forgiveness, and he would earn it.
She didn't say anything. He turned to leave.
"Kick some ass at work today, Captain."
"Elliot."
He turned back around, and was completely taken off guard when she suddenly closed the distance between them and burrowed herself into his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist. Surprised as he was, he didn't waste a second before he drew his hands up to her back, tucking her head under his chin and pressing his nose into her hair. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, letting the familiar scent of her shampoo soothe him, as they stood there for long moments, rocking gently back and forth, each one clinging to the other.
"I'm sorry," he whispered finally, and it was the first time that he'd said it.
"I know," she whispered back.
"You don't have to forgive me today...You don't have to ever forgive me, but you are...I meant what I said at the intervention. I love you. I have always loved you. And I promise you, I'm going the rest of my life making it up to you, earning your forgiveness - "
"Stop," she interrupted, her voice muffled against his chest, and he knew that he was saying words she wasn't yet ready to hear.
So he did. And they spent another minute wrapped around each other, in silence, until she finally stirred and he kissed the top of her head.
"I'll see you soon, Liv," he whispered, and she nodded, wiping her eyes. It was only then that he noticed the wet spot on his hoodie.
"Maybe we could, um…Maybe we could start with lunch, sometime."
Elliot gazed at her. It took a moment, but her eyes finally flicked up to meet his. They were wet, and that glimmer was still there, but maybe it was...gentler now. Accompanied by something else. Love. Hope. Their relationship was by no means repaired, but she was willing to try.
"I'd like that," he said.
She smiled faintly.
"I always kick ass at work, Elliot," she said matter-of-factly.
He laughed. And with that, he turned and left.