The past few months had been a steady torture. She'd forgiven him on paper. They'd worked together a few times, she'd expressed concern, but he knew better. As he looked at his reflection in the mirror, his mind, a rusted knife to his side, took him back to the day he'd first realized he loved her. She'd been so young then, so new, wounded but still so full of light, illuminating his darkest hours. He remembered the way she'd fought for that victim that had been defenestrated. The way she got into her mind and gave a voice to a woman that had been torn by her own father. The woman's story had disturbed him. Olivia? It had pushed her to be there the next day even when her own origins hung from her heart strings. He'd felt that first fresh pang of love, desire, need that day. He'd gone home to his wife, seen her date that boy from the squad room, told her he had her back for better or for worse. He knew she'd seen him as a mentor during those times, or at least it was the place she'd given him in her life. When that psychiatrist mistook them for a couple, he let himself live in that second before she'd corrected the assertion. In that second, at least in that mans mind, she'd been his. That's when the guilt began, or maybe it was there from the second he'd laid eyes on her. The lines where she ended and he began had been blurred from the start.
As time flew, he'd known something had shifted in them. Or maybe it was always there, dormant, just waiting to consume them with a vengeance. He wondered if she'd felt it at the same times he did…times when holding her hands while Melinda demonstrated kill angles sent currents to his very core. Times when her presence every morning gave him the will he'd needed to live, the restraint he'd needed to work, the peace he'd needed to breath, the hell that had raged inside of him. Times when the curve of her smile was the talisman that had gotten him by.
How could he tell her now? How could he say it without destroying what little ground he had managed to gain? When she'd expressed concern, he had no doubt it was genuine, but the way she said it had stung. The cold, detached concern of a superior officer smoothing him over. He'd done that. He'd twisted that knife in her, inch by damn inch. He'd done that all by himself.
How could he tell her that he left because the only way to atone for killing Jenna, for emotionally walking out on Kathy, on his kids, was physically walking out on her? The sound of her voice would have stopped him in his tracks. He'd told her the last part, but doubted she'd found his words genuine. In a way they weren't, they still omitted the most important part, "I love you". God knows how long he would've lasted. God only knows how he would have ended up. Would he have given in? Would she? There was no use in what ifs, they couldn't turn back time.
As he moved into his bedroom, silence's predatory claws feasted on the surrounding emptiness. The smell of nothingness. Kathy was gone. For all of his sins, he was able to make up for the hurt he'd caused her. He was able to make her happy. She had loved Italy; the traveling, the culture, the way tradition hung over their heads. They were born and raised Catholics. Years before, after Gitano, when he'd finally admitted to himself that his heart belonged to his partner, to another woman, he'd gone to see the family priest. What haunted him the most was that he knew Kathy could see in his eyes the words that had never made it past his lips in the confessional. He'd done right by Kathy; he'd given her the life she'd deserved. He'd been the man she'd deserved; the man he'd vowed he'd be when she took him in marriage before god. He hadn't been like his old man, the kids had grown to resent him in other ways, but not in the way he'd always resented his own father. Still, in her last moments she'd sought out confirmation that during those 10 years, he'd solely given himself to her. It was the unspoken condition to her blessing.
Thinking of the day ahead, like a child, he wondered which tie would catch her eye more. Olivia had told him she could see him this afternoon to discuss a lead. He'd called her last night hoping to talk, the conversation had been so managerial. Her walls were up, he'd done that. He knew the blame was squarely on his shoulders. How could he tell her? If he'd stayed, he'd have perished in her fire, they'd have grown to resent each other. Or at least he told himself that to sleep at night. During the call, he'd heard her boy in the background. Kid lucked out with an amazing mom. He wondered who he was, the man that had made her dream of having a kid come true. Who was he, where was he?…did he make her happy? From what he'd managed to gather, she wasn't married, and she wasn't with anyone. What had happened? Did he hurt her? If he did, he wanted to see it personally that the son of a bitch got what was coming to him.
He bitterly laughed to himself then. He was the son of a bitch that had hurt her the most. She'd told him as much. And what had he done? He'd rubbed her face in the apartment overlooking the palazzo. That goddamn palazzo. The palace of his ruins. She was the one that he wanted each night. It was her taste he craved. The taste he imagined was always the same. Always soft, always welcoming, always a morning in his childhood when he'd felt loved and protected by both his parents. That's what she was, the purity in his life. It'd always been her he'd craved. Those beautiful summer afternoons, when the sun was just right, he'd close his eyes and allow himself only one small pleasure, a token for his troubles. He'd picture her brown eyes, kaleidoscopes of light; her soul, the deep well he'd fallen into years ago. In this borrowed moment, he'd picture her sitting back on his chest, her smell, her softness, her. Surrounding him. Ever his. In the depths of his mind, his heart sinned. Kathy would call to him, he'd answer repentant, humbled in her compassion, because they both knew, he'd do it again as the sun fell the following afternoon, time and time again. His permanent truth.
A knock on the door snapped him out of his silent soliloquies.
"Detective Stabler", the unknown voice didn't seem very forceful, it was more like an audible whisper. He was quick on his feet but they'd been quicker.
He opened the door to no one. As he stepped out of the door frame, he tumbled over a small box. Picking it up, he thought of Kathy. She'd been happy, but he'd failed her. He'd gone off and gotten involved with the people that had ordered his death, but that phone call, it had changed everything. Kathy walked into the trap and she'd died. He hadn't protected her. His actions had left his children without their mother, and that was something he'd have to live with for the rest of his life. Even now, it was something that would haunt him until he'd put those people away for good. He owed that much to the mother of his children.
Opening the box, he found a small handheld device with a note "I'm the thing you love. Play me".
"What the …" what he saw ran a cold sweat down his back, his will to live in peril, he tried to breathe.
In flashing neon lights, sitting on a chair with restraints, a gun pointed at her, was his saving grace.
"Olivia" …