Spoilers and references: This is a post-ep for OC 1x4, "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," so if you haven't seen that and don't want to be spoiled, you should not read on. There are also references to SVU 22x12, "In the Year We All Fell Down," but nothing that qualifies as a spoiler.
A/N: Seeking fandom input here… I classed this as a crossover because the central character (and, indeed, the narrative perspective of the 3rd person limited POV) is Olivia, who is impacted here by events on SVU, but the fic directly addresses events that transpired on OC. Does that, from the fandom's perspective, qualify as a crossover? If not, how should we class future E/O fics when E headlines one show and O another? Responses in reviews or by PM would be greatly appreciated. And even if you don't have an opinion on that, thanks for reading, and I welcome all feedback!
And here, the obligatory disclaimer: These characters are so not mine.
"Every Little Thing Unsaid"
She cries into her hairdryer. Cries for the loss of an old friend, for the loss of what was, for the loss of that one blessed barrier that had kept him decidedly off-limits for years. The tears dry fast under the steady heat, and the loud drone of the motor deafens her ears to the sound of her own sobs, so that by the time she's done, she can pretend she never cried. Can pretend none of it affected her. It's not healthy, but that's what he does to her. And now that he's back in her life, that's what she has to do: pretend again that she doesn't feel certain things.
His unprompted statement during last night's intervention wasn't making anything easier.
She composes herself and finishes getting ready before Noah's even awake. The weather is nice; they'll walk to school this morning. The fresh air will do her good, she has decided, and she's still out on Garland's orders so there's no rush to get anywhere after drop-off.
Noah's energy is boundless, and she tries to feed off of it as they walk hand-in-hand down the sidewalk together, but it's hard. She barely slept last night, and after the emotional outburst she's pretending she didn't have this morning, she almost scoffs as she thinks about Garland's instruction to "let someone take care of her." Whom does she have in her life who could do that? Whom would she even want to do that? The one person who comes immediately to mind is the one person responsible for last night's sleeplessness and isn't even really capable of taking care of himself right now, much less another person. She racks her brain trying to think of anyone else in her life, and she keeps coming up empty. That's another thing he does to her. She had forgotten how all-consuming his presence is for her. Presently Noah tugs at her hand, and it pulls her out of her darkening thoughts.
In true high-energy form, he peels off long before they get to the school doors, and she calls him back for a proper goodbye. He hugs her quickly, but she holds on a little longer than normal. He doesn't protest, but if he notices that anything's amiss, he doesn't act like it. Then with a grin and a wave and a quick "I love you!" he's off again, scampering towards his day with the other children.
She holds there for a moment, watching to make sure he makes it inside, waiting to see if he might pop back out for any reason. She scans the stream of kids and parents and realizes that she doesn't know any of them. Why doesn't she know any of them? Even her own mother, with all of her faults, knew the parents of her childhood friends and classmates…
That disturbing thought now in her head, she turns away from the school to leave, and out of nowhere, she catches sight of the one person she's been trying not to think about all morning. She just stares for a minute because she can't believe it. Can't believe him. She really can't.
He lifts a hand in greeting, as if he's not sure she sees him, and she stalks over to where he's standing near the edge of the schoolyard, tucked away from standard foot traffic.
"What are you doing here," she asks so slowly and deliberately that it sounds like a threat. And if it isn't, maybe it should be.
He blinks back at her, as if he's genuinely confused. "You're not takin' my calls."
"You didn't take mine for months; I can't have one day?" she retorts.
"I know, I'm sorry, but it's important."
She softens almost instantly; her worry for him will always outweigh her anger. Had something come up in the case he's working on? Or in Kathy's? He left her several messages last night, but she hadn't listened to any of them. It was the one selfish thing she'd done since he reappeared, but in the absence of someone to take care of her, as Garland had advised, she'd been trying to take care of herself, and last night that meant ignoring him. Her brow furrows in concern. "Okay, what's going on?"
He ducks his head a little and squints up at her. "About what I said…"
It's exactly what she'd been afraid he was trying to discuss in all the phone calls she sent to voicemail last night, and she's furious that he has basically ambushed her with it now. But she needs him to take it back, for both their sakes, so she proceeds carefully, trying to give him as easy an out as possible. "Elliot," she begins in that calm, neutral way in which they've both been trained to negotiate, "you're under a lot of stress—"
His objection is immediate. "No, hmm, mnh-mm, no—"
"You're grieving—"
"Unnh, don't do that, Liv—"
"We all say things we don't mean—"
"—come on!—"
"—when we're pushed to our limits."
He glares at her, and she can read the question in his eyes: Is she for real?
But she pushes on in that conciliatory way. "So I want you to know it's okay. Okay? Totally forgotten. It's fine."
She holds his gaze, trying to impress upon him just how "fine" it is—how forgotten it needs to be—silently imploring him to concede and take it back, hoping at least that if she refuses to acknowledge it, he'll let it go. Her experience with Vanessa has her feeling confident in her deescalation skills, so she thinks it just might work. She studies him for a moment, watching for any signs of surrender. He's silent. That's something. If not a victory, maybe it's an armistice, and that's almost as good for now, so she gives him the best reassuring smile she can muster and finally breaks eye contact. But that's exactly when it tumbles quietly out of him, like rocks hurtling down a slope:
"You know I meant it."
"No, I know you're hurting," she pivots without missing a beat. She looks back up at him and continues deliberately: "I know you're trapped in that moment, that you keep replaying it in your mind, looking for ways it could have gone differently. Okay? That is what I know. I know that you miss Kathy. You probably see her everywhere you turn." Her upper lip quivers just slightly and she prays he didn't notice. "You probably saw her in the room with us last night."
"Even if I did, it wouldn't change anything," he declares.
She takes a half breath and adjusts her approach, returning to her original argument. "Right, because we all say things we don't mean when—"
"I love you."
She swallows her frustration and tries intervention tactics again, stepping gradually closer as she tries to reason with him. "Elliot. It's me. Olivia. And I am worried about you." Even though she expected him to take it back immediately, she's not actually surprised that he refused—quarreling was their second language, after all, and never mind how he had reacted to her efforts last night—but never, even in her heart of hearts, did she expect him to double-down on it. Her worry is real, not a strategy, and the stakes now feel immeasurably high.
It's he who studies her this time as she approaches. "I don't get it," he murmurs. "Do you really not see it, or do you not want to see it?"
Another pivot: "What I see is that you need help." Again, she's avoiding the subject, but it's also true.
"If you want to help me, just acknowledge me!" he shouts. The outburst catches her off guard, and she stops short. "For once, just one time! Goddamnit, Olivia, I love you—tell me you know that!" Something flickers through his wild eyes, and he expels a defeated breath. "Or at least tell me you hear it," he begs.
"What I hear—" she begins tenuously.
"No!" he growls, cutting her off. With a single step he closes the distance between them and grabs her shoulders. "Listen to me—"
She tenses but doesn't back down. "Elliot, you're out of control," she says quietly.
He immediately lifts his hands and apologizes. "I'm not—I'm not out of control," he says as calmly as he can manage. "Okay?" he says, stepping back and showing his empty hands. "I'm—I'm fine. See? Fine." He watches her carefully, but she's not moving or speaking. "Can we—can we sit?" he suggests, gesturing to a bench not far away.
He has pushed her into unfamiliar territory, and she's past mollifying him. Sitting would be the right thing to do, would help him channel any nervous energy he has, help him collect himself, help him focus. She doesn't budge.
"Fine," he says, and she can actually see him working to rein himself in as he continues. "Look, you told me to tell you what I need. Right? And I—I didn't handle last night very well—and I see that, I know that—but… Liv… what I need—and you have to listen, because you asked for it—" (damn him for using her own words against her) "—what I need… is for you to know that I wasn't… hallucinating Kathy in the room." That detail hardly seems important to her, but she takes it in because he's right: She did ask him what he needed, and she'll listen to him because this may be the only way to get him the real help he also needs. "I saw you," he continues. "Only you. And maybe I didn't mean to say it right then, but that doesn't mean it's not true. Doesn't mean it hasn't been true for… twenty-some years. Can you please…? What I need is… for you to tell me you heard it. Please."
Shit. She feels as blindsided as she had been last night, like she can't move or even breathe. But this is vital to his mental health, and she recognizes that, so she mechanically forces herself to respond, echoing back, "I heard it."
He gasps and shifts his weight on his feet, like a nervous archaeologist who has just solved the first part of an ancient riddle. "And you know that I was saying it to you."
Double shit. She had spent the last eighteen hours or so trying to persuade herself of the exact opposite, and now, for her own sanity, she desperately tries to hold onto every rationalization and excuse and dismissal she had made in that time. She tries, but she can't. She knows the truth. Her jaw trembles as she gives in and finally admits, "I know you were saying it to me."
"And that I meant it."
Her eyes go wide, and ten years of silence and every shitty little thing he ever did for thirteen years suddenly fill her mind. She wants to tell him that she's sure he believes he meant it—but that's not how you help someone in crisis. And if she's really honest with herself, she knows that's what made those ten years of silence so damn hard in the first place.
"I meant it, Liv, I meant it!" he swears fervently. "I've loved you for years. Fighting it meant fighting you, so maybe you didn't realize it, but for years I—"
"I always wondered," she quietly interrupts. He stops cold and stares at her. She debates whether to say anything else, but if she owes him anything right now, it's this. She glances out to the sidewalk to make sure no one's in earshot. "Early on," she says softly, almost embarrassed to confess it, "I told myself that was just how partners worked. After you left, I was sure I had read too much into everything."
He shakes his head vaguely. "I'm sorry," he says, "for all that doubt. Because I did, and I do, love you. I do."
She has experienced charged air in his company before, but it's never been like this. It's nothing short of momentous. Still, she remembers her original goal in this conversation, and she decides to offer him one last out, a way to save them both, even if he won't rescind the declaration entirely. She raises her eyebrows and hesitantly suggests, "Like a brother."
He tilts his head and glares and huffs out a breath and she almost laughs.
"No, I know," she concedes, closing her eyes, silently cursing herself for trying what she should have known wouldn't work. "I know," she repeats.
"Do you?" he presses.
She nods, finally lifting her gaze to his. The look in his eyes is so pure and so achingly familiar that she wonders how she ever doubted anything. Holding his gaze, she soberly responds, "I do."
"Good," he sighs, lumbering forward to wrap his arms around her, which she willingly accepts, "because I can't do this without you."
"The case?" she asks over his shoulder. "Getting help?"
"Life, Olivia," he answers, pulling her tighter. She tenses in his embrace, but he doesn't let go. Can't. Won't. Not this time.
She relaxes just a fraction.
-fin-
A/N2: In case anyone is interested in narrative style, I would like to note that I originally wrote the confrontation exchange (from "About what I said" to the very end) in 3rd person limited from Elliot's perspective and then had to revise it once I established Olivia as the narrative perspective. The dialogue, of course, remained mostly the same, but the narration all had to change. What a fun exercise that turned out to be! (And I actually think I like it better than my original draft!)