It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all
The opposite of love is indifference
So pay attention now
I'm standing on your porch screaming out
And I won't leave until you come downstairs
So keep your head up, keep your love
Keep your head up, my love
-Stubborn Love/The Lumineers
He asked her to let him stay the night, and she said yes. It was late, and he was tired, and it would have been such a long trip for Maureen, from Queens to Olivia's apartment in Manhattan and back again, and the whole way home Marueen would be giving him crap for running off without telling anyone where he'd gone and prying details about their father out of him and he wasn't ready to face it just yet. He wasn't ready to leave Olivia's apartment, with its comfortable couch and brightly painted walls, its assortment of knickknacks and books and children's toys, its homey warmth. He felt as if something had begun there, something that had not yet ended, and he wanted to see what might happen next.
And, if he were being perfectly honest, he didn't like the thought of leaving while his father was still asleep in Olivia's bed.
At least, he assumed the old man was asleep. Since Olivia had half-carried him into her bedroom he hadn't made a peep, and she hadn't said a word about him. She just took care of them, Eli and Noah, kept watch over them, quiet, and dark, the way she'd been when Eli first saw her. Olivia made spaghetti and salad and cut some pieces off a baguette for them, and they shared it at her table, Olivia and Noah and Eli. She asked him about how he was handling school, and she listened sincerely while he complained bitterly about the transition from Rome to the online school in New York. Must be hard to make friends when you can't see them face to face, she'd told him sympathetically, and it wasn't until then he realized how right she was. How lonesome he was. The time difference meant there was only a small window each day he could speak to his friends back in Rome - the place he thought of as home - by the time he woke up they'd been up for hours, and by the time they went to bed he had hours left to face, alone. But they made it work; his friends would tell him what was happening in their lives, and sometimes they'd play video games together, and sometimes they'd ask how he was doing since his mom had died, but what he really wanted was someone to talk to about his dad, and he couldn't bring himself to mention it to his friends. To tell them how he was really doing, to tell them how scared he was, how small and helpless he felt without his mother, with his father falling to pieces. And of course he had no friends in New York, not yet, anyway, not really. There were some people he knew, now, but he couldn't tell them either.
But he could tell Olivia. He could talk to her; there was something easy about her, something warm in her dark eyes that made him want to confess all his secrets. It probably made her a good cop, he thought. She'd probably practiced it, that caring, compassionate demeanor, probably honed her skills at getting people to trust her over decades of interrogations at the police station. He wanted to think that, that it was all just an act, that she couldn't possibly be as good, as decent as she seemed to be, but for the moment she had overpowered whatever remained of his cynicism. He liked her, already.
And he liked her kid, too. Noah was sweet. He seemed eager, over the moon to have another boy to talk to. Probably didn't get much of that, Eli figured, with no one around but his mom. Eli had always had his father, and Dickie, sometimes, but who did Noah have? Did Olivia take him to the park to play catch? Or did she call one of the men from her squad, maybe that guy Fin she'd talked to on the phone earlier?
After dinner they watched some movie and Eli sat on the floor and colored with Noah in between texting his friends back home, the ones who were still awake even when their parents said they shouldn't be. Coloring was sort of stupid, he thought, sort of babyish, but it gave him something to do with his hands, and Olivia just sat cross-legged on the couch, watching them. Eli wanted to talk to her some more; it's a long story, she'd told him, your dad, and your mom, and me, and he wanted to hear that story but he knew somehow, instinctively, that she wouldn't want to discuss it where Noah could hear. He also figured she didn't want him to mention that his dad was still there, sleeping in her bedroom, that she wouldn't want to alarm Noah with the thought of a strange, angry man lurking in their home, so he didn't mention that, either.
But he knew how his father got at night, when it was late, when he was trying to sleep and the nightmares came for him instead. So far dad had been quiet, apparently sleeping deeply, but how long could that peace last? And what would happen when it was broken? How scared would Noah be when he heard a stranger yelling just across the apartment? That was another reason Eli had asked to stay. He didn't want them to have to deal with it on their own, Olivia and Noah. Dad was his family, not theirs; he felt like dad was his responsibility. Dad had only shown up here because he was looking for Eli. It was his fault; he was the one who'd gotten Olivia into this mess, and he didn't want to leave her to clean it up on her own.
He mentioned it to her when she sent Noah to get ready for bed.
"He has nightmares all the time," he told her quietly, standing with her by the sink while she washed the last of the dishes.
"I'm not surprised," Olivia answered. She said it casually, like they were just talking about the weather, and that didn't sit well with Eli; he needed to make her understand. It wasn't just bad dreams; it was something evil that got ahold of his father in the darkness. She needed to be ready for it.
"He screams, and he moves around, and sometimes-" sometimes I think he wants to hurt someone.
"It's ok," Olivia told him with a look on her face like she wanted to reach out and touch him, but her hands were wet from the dishes and she held herself back. "I've seen it before. I know it's scary, and it's hard to watch, but...you'll get through it."
It sounded, he thought, like she meant to say we'll get through but caught herself at the last second. Like she realized how presumptuous it sounded, including herself among their number, when she wasn't part of the family, when she hadn't spoken to dad in a decade, when this day was the first time she and Eli had ever been able to talk one-on-one. And maybe it was presumptuous, maybe it was too much familiarity, but Eli felt like she was one of them already. Dickie and the girls must have, too, or they'd never have asked her to come to that stupid intervention. He thought about the picture she'd shown him, thought about the way she'd looked standing at the edge of the funeral, thought about how she'd always been there, whether he knew it or not, standing just outside their family circle for more than twenty years. Like a guardian angel, keeping watch over them. But who kept watch over her?
Maybe dad did, he thought. Maybe that's how it had been, before. But dad had been gone a long time, and something terrible had happened to Olivia, and maybe, maybe there wasn't anyone looking out for her any more. That thought made him sad.
Noah called out from behind them, and Olivia smiled reflexively, gently. Like just the sound of his voice made her happy. Like she loved him.
"Ok, your turn," she told him. "Go and get ready for bed. I'm gonna put Noah to bed and then we can talk."
So he did; he slipped into the bathroom while Olivia went to her son. It wasn't terribly late but he just felt so tired, so worn out, that he was pretty sure he'd be out like a light the second he stretched out on her couch. But would dad sleep all the way through the night? He'd already been asleep for three or so hours. How much longer could he rest before he was up and making trouble again? There was a small, childish part of Eli's heart that wished, just for a moment, that his dad would stay asleep, and harmless, forever. But then the guilt came rushing in. He loved his father, he really did, and he didn't wish him dead and gone. He just wished dad would go back to the way he was. To the way he had been, before. This new dad - the old dad, the one Dickie and the girls remembered from their own childhoods - was a stranger to him, and Eli didn't trust him.
He was sitting on the couch when Olivia came back, carrying a heavy white blanket. She must have read Noah a story, he thought, tucked him in and told him how much she loved him. The way Eli's own mother used to do for him. The thought brought a lump to his throat.
"I know it's not as good as a bed," Olivia said, passing the blanket to him, "but I've slept on that couch plenty of times, and it should be ok for one night."
"It'll be fine," Eli said, laying the blanket across his lap. "Thanks for letting me stay."
She watched him thoughtfully, and her voice was gentle when she spoke.
"You're always welcome here, Eli," she told him. "I mean it. Any time. Maybe call first next time, because I'm not always at home, but whatever you need…"
"Why are you so nice?"
The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them, and his voice sounded petulant and childish to his own ears. He was just so confused, and so tired, and he missed his mom, and he liked Olivia but he still felt like maybe he shouldn't, like maybe liking her was somehow betraying his mother's memory, and the whole world had gone sideways and strange on him.
"I mean we're not your kids. Dad left the NYPD and never talked to you again. Why do you care so much?"
Olivia went very still, and he wondered if he'd done it then, if he'd finally managed to make her angry. But he wanted to know what made a person act the way she did, what made her so eager to give so much to someone who'd walked out on her. And he wanted to know, more than anything else, if it was love. Dad had told Olivia that he loved her, but she hadn't answered, and Eli wanted to know the truth. He needed to know if Olivia loved his father, too.
She didn't snap at him, or call him ungrateful. She just sighed, and plopped down onto the couch next to him.
"I never knew my dad," she told him, and he just stared at her, wondering what that had to do with anything. It didn't sound like an answer to his question, but maybe it was the start of one, and so he just stayed quiet, and let her talk.
"I was almost forty before I ever even found out his name. Growing up, all I had was my mom, and she was...unreliable." There was a world of hurt in that word unreliable, and Eli felt suddenly, horribly guilty, because he'd never been alone like that. He'd always had both his parents, and they'd always loved him, and he'd never known what it was to be entirely on his own. Like Olivia had been with her mom. Like she was with Noah now.
"I didn't… I don't have any brothers or sisters, and I didn't have a lot of friends. When I was young I didn't get too close to people because I didn't want them to find out about my mom, and then it just became a habit. I thought I didn't need anybody. And then I met your dad."
"When I say he was my best friend, I mean it. I mean, he was the best friend I ever had. No one took care of me like he did. He even bailed me out of jail, once."
Eli wanted to ask her about that and he could tell by the look on her face that she knew it, that she knew he was curious about how a woman like her had ended up in jail, but she shook her head, ever so slightly, as if to say not now, and so he let the matter drop. It fascinated him, though. Olivia was a pretty lady with a soft face, and some of the walls in her apartment were painted purple, and she was wearing a cozy white cardigan, and she had a little boy she loved, and all around she seemed nice, and gentle, but she'd also been hurt so bad that she had PTSD the same as his father, and she'd been put in jail, and it didn't make sense to him, somehow, that both those women could exist in the same body.
"And your family was part of that. I got to know all of you. I got to be a part of your world. Your family was my family, when I didn't have any. And yeah, I was...upset when your dad left. But I understood it. Eventually. And no matter how much time has passed, I still care and I still want to help, because I know he'd do the same thing for me."
Would he? Eli wondered. Maybe the old dad would have. Maybe the man Elliot Stabler had been ten years before would have dropped everything to help her. But would he now? If their roles were reversed, would dad be the one sitting on the couch, talking to Noah? Somehow Eli couldn't picture it. And he knew that Noah's dad was dead, just like Eli's mother was dead, but dad hadn't come rushing back to New York to be with Olivia then. Maybe he hadn't known. Or maybe he hadn't cared.
But dad had told her he loved her. There was still so much Eli didn't know.
"He said-"
"I know what he said," Olivia told him softly. There are a lot of different kinds of love, she'd told him. She hadn't told him which one this was, though. Whatever it was, Eli thought it was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Dad spiraling out, reaching for her and pushing her away at the same time, Olivia so sad but so determined. It was love like a curse, love that wouldn't let either of them go, love that just kept hurting them, over and over. A love that was as stubborn as they were.
"I've never been where your dad is right now, but I've been somewhere like it. There's so much noise in his head he can't think straight. He's blaming himself for everything, even things that aren't his fault. He's hating himself for being alive when your mom isn't. And he's hating himself for being grateful that he's still breathing. He doesn't want to hurt anyone else but he doesn't know how to stop."
Eli just stared at her, a little scared, a little in awe. Did she know all that because dad had told her, or did she just know because she'd felt it herself, once, and recognized it in him?
"How do we make it stop?" How did you make it stop? That's what Eli really wanted to know. If she'd been down in that same hole herself it looked to him like she'd clawed her way out of it, and he wanted to know how. How she'd gone from almost shooting her boyfriend to smiling at her son. How dad could go from punching walls to smiling at Eli. Maybe there was a roadmap in her head, a memory of recovery, that she could show to him, and maybe they could find their way out together.
"I don't know," she confessed. That wasn't what Eli wanted to hear. "I went to therapy. I took time off work. Your dad won't do either of those things. But we'll give him time, and we won't give up on him, and it won't be like this forever."
He wanted, more than anything else, to believe her. To believe that with time the nightmares would fade, and dad would get himself back under control, and they'd find some kind of normalcy. He didn't believe it, not yet, but he wanted to.
"Try to get some sleep," Olivia said then. Maybe someone else would have waited for him to speak, but Olivia seemed to realize that he couldn't find the words just yet. "In the morning we can all go and get pancakes, and I'll take you back to Maureen's."
"Ok." There wasn't really anything else to say.
She rested her hand on his shoulder for a second, the way she'd done at the funeral, and then she rose to her feet, and left him. Eli watched her go, watched her check that the front door was locked, watched her turn out the lights, watched her slip into Noah's bedroom. It hadn't occurred until then to wonder where she'd sleep, given that dad was in her bed, and he suddenly felt guilty all over again, because if he hadn't been there she could have slept on the couch instead of trying to squeeze in with her son. But she'd told him he could stay, and made a place for him, and promised him pancakes and she'd never once made him feel bad about it.
He stretched out on the couch and covered himself with the blankets, and tried not to think about it. He just breathed in the faint scent of spaghetti and home that filled that place, and told himself it won't be like this forever, over and over, until at last he drifted off to sleep.
The screaming woke him, just as he'd feared it would. The second the first shout rang out he was on his feet, moving on reflex, his eyes barely even open. Conscious thought caught up with him when he banged his shin on the coffee table; it was dad yelling, calling out Kathy, and then no, and it hit him that they were in Olivia's apartment, not dad's.
He had to make the yelling stop. It was so late and Noah was so little and he couldn't bear the thought of dad waking that little boy up, of Olivia having to explain to him what was going on. Someone had to wake his father up quick, before he ruined everything. Before Olivia saw how bad off he really was, and changed her mind about helping him. Before she had a chance to regret letting him into her home.
Eli had very nearly made it to Olivia's bedroom when the door to Noah's room opened, and he almost collided with her. She was running one hand through her heavy, dark hair, and with the other she was holding that cardigan closed across her chest. Her eyes were half-closed, too, and she reached for him sleepily when she saw him, her hand coming to rest on his shoulder.
"Go back to bed, baby," she said in a thick voice, talking to him like he was as small as Noah, like he'd just do whatever she said. "I'll take care of this."
He wanted to tell her no, but dad was yelling again, and Olivia just brushed past him, and opened the door. She slipped into the bedroom but didn't quite get the door closed behind her, and Eli lingered there, watching. Watching while she crossed the room, while she reached out to his father.
"Elliot," she sighed, her hand brushing against his shoulder.
Dad shot bolt upright like he'd just been electrocuted, his fist swinging for her face before his eyes even opened, but she caught him by the wrist, and stopped his powerful arm before he could hurt her. Even from a distance Eli could see it, the way her body trembled from the impact, and he braced himself to run in, to save her, if his father tried to hit her again, but dad's eyes fluttered open and his whole body went slack.
"Liv?" he croaked, confused.
"You gonna hit me, or can I let you go?" she asked him warily.
"I'm good," he said, running his free hand wearily over his face, and Olivia let him go, wrapped her arms tight around herself instead.
"You wanna talk about it?" Her voice was very gentle, like she was speaking to a spooked animal, not a person.
"I really, really don't." Dad's voice was hard, almost cruel, in the face of Olivia's compassion, and Eli wanted to hate him for it. She deserved better, he thought, than a man who said he loved her and then walked out on her, and then tried to hit her in his sleep.
"You just gonna chew on this until you hit one of your kids? Is that your plan?" Her voice was hard now, too, and Eli wanted to warn her, wanted to tell her not to push him, wanted to tell her about how dad had put his fist through the wall at his apartment, how Eli couldn't stop thinking about how much it would hurt if that fist collided with a person instead. Dad was staring up at her, angry, and she was standing over him, arms crossed, not backing down, not for a second, and the hair on the back of Eli's neck stood up, electricity crackling from the place where his father sat to where Eli stood, like the instant before a lightning strike.
"I'm dealing with it, Olivia, Christ-"
"Like hell you are." The tender, motherly woman she had been with Eli vanished, and in her place there stood someone else, someone fierce, someone fearless.
"What do you want from me?" Dad demanded, looking up at her balefully. "What the fuck is gonna make you happy, Liv? My wife is dead."
"And some son of a bitch killed her, and we're gonna find out who, and we're gonna find out why. But you're still alive, Elliot, and you gotta face what's right in front of you. You're still here. You still have a family, and people who care about you. What are you gonna have left if you throw all that away?"
"We're gonna find out, Liv? We're gonna do it? Because from where I'm sitting I'm the only one looking into this and you're the one ignoring my calls."
At this point Eli was pretty sure they weren't going to fight - not with their fists, anyway - and he was still so tired, but he wanted to hear what they had to say to one another. He wanted to know why dad had been calling her, and why Olivia hadn't answered. Slowly he sank to the floor, sat down just outside the door and leaned his head back against the wall. It was dark in the apartment, and they weren't looking at anything but each other; he was certain they didn't know he was there.
"You're one to talk about not answering calls," she grumbled. Eli had no idea what she was talking about.
"I already explained that, Liv, I told you-"
"You told me you were afraid."
They went quiet, then, and the only sound Eli could hear was the slow beat of his own heart. In the bedroom Olivia was still standing, and his father was still looking at her, but something had changed. They didn't seem angry, anymore, didn't seem like they were on the verge of exploding. Whatever bomb had been ticking away inside his father's chest, it had been disarmed for now. Instead they just seemed sad. Eli wanted to scream; he wanted to know. He wanted to know when dad had ignored her calls, and why he'd been afraid, and what it all meant. But they didn't have to explain it to each other, dad and Olivia - Liv, he kept calling her, and maybe that was the difference, Eli thought, maybe she was two different people and Liv was the hard woman who was always ready to fight and Olivia was the sweet single mom who'd fed him - they already knew.
"Is that why you weren't answering?" Dad asked her, very quietly.
"You scare the shit out of me right now, Elliot."
"I know." Dad sighed, ran his hand over his face again. "I'm no good for you. I should leave."
He started to stand up but she reached for him, let her hand rest against his shoulder, urging him to sit back down.
"It's late. You're in bad shape. Just stay."
"Why are you doing this, Liv? It's been ten years. Why are you even talking to me right now?"
"Why'd you tell me you love me?" she fired back.
It didn't sound so much like a question, the way she said it. It sounded like she already knew the answer, and she was just reminding him.
"Because I do. Because I always did."
I always did. Those words took Eli like a punch to the gut but he held his breath; he didn't want them to know he was there. Neither of them were going to tell him the truth to his face and so he figured this was the only way he was ever going to learn. If they didn't know he was listening, if they let their guard down, for once, the way they only seemed to do with each other.
"Yeah."
Yeah, she said. Yeah, like she knew he loved her. Yeah, like she loved him, too. Like love was the reason for all of it. The reason she let him stay, the reason she hadn't given up on him. Like their stubborn, stupid love was the one thing that was gonna get them all through this nightmare.
"I'm no good for you, Liv," dad said then, anguish in his voice like he wished it wasn't true, like he hated himself for it. "You've built a good life and I'm gonna fuck it all up."
"You don't get to tell me what's good for me. You don't have any idea." Her voice was almost a whisper, broken but angry, the hiss of a broken heart.
"Will you sit down? You're making me nervous."
She did sit, then, heavily, perched on the bed beside him. For an instant their shoulders brushed together, the briefest of touches, but then she'd pulled in on herself, preserved the bare inch of space between them.
"You remember Valerie Sennet?" Dad asked her then. The name meant nothing to Eli.
"That's one I'm never gonna forget." It meant something to Olivia, apparently. An old case, Eli figured, the way she said it. Another something bad, that happened a long time ago.
"This reminds me of that. That morning."
Olivia hummed in agreement. "No coffee, though," she said.
"I can make some, if you want."
She shook her head. "Eli's asleep on the couch. Don't wanna wake him up."
"Right." Dad hung his head, guilty. "I think about that morning sometimes. All those mornings."
What mornings? Eli wondered. Mornings after a long case, when they'd been working through the night? Or mornings when they'd woken up beside each other? The very idea of it made him nauseous, somehow, but he could see it. Olivia was pretty now; she must have been prettier then. And if they'd been like this, back then, understanding each other, leaning on each other, then maybe...
"We're too old to be sitting on the stoop in the dark."
Maybe not. Maybe Olivia had told him the truth, when she said her relationship with dad had never been inappropriate. Eli just wished he didn't have to wonder.
"Is this like that? We got all the shit out of our systems and we're good now?"
Olivia wasn't looking at him; her hands were clasped together, her forearms resting loosely on her knees, and her face was pointed right at her hands, like she couldn't raise her eyes to his just yet. Like she couldn't bear to look at him.
"I don't know. There's a lot left to say. But I don't know if there's any point."
"We know it all already."
"We do."
There was a moment of silence, then, as they sat together on the edge of her bed, staring at their feet, not looking at each other, not talking, just breathing the same air and, Eli was almost certain, thinking the same thoughts. Thinking about what they knew. What he didn't.
"I'm not gonna make it through this without you, Liv. I can't lose you now."
At the intervention he'd told her that he felt like he was drowning, like the weight of everything was pulling him under, like he couldn't hold himself up under the press of all the people who loved him, the people who were reaching for him, and now he was telling her he couldn't let her go. Did she feel as confused as Eli did? Could she make sense of it, the way dad was reaching out and pushing her away and then reaching again? What kind of woman, what kind of person, had enough patience, enough strength to put up with that kind of back and forth? Olivia had a job, and a son, and - surely, he thought - friends; was she really gonna spend her time on a man like his father? In his heart, Eli prayed she would; he was starting to think dad wasn't the only one who wouldn't make it through this without her.
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm on leave for a few days."
Dad turned to her sharply, and she did look up at him then, but it was too dark for Eli to see their expressions.
"Got caught up in a hostage situation," she said, like dad's eyes had asked a question and she'd heard it even though he never spoke. And she said it like it was nothing, like a hostage situation was just another long day at the office, and Eli just listened raptly, fascinated and terrified.
"Garland thought I could use the time. He told me...he told me to let someone take care of me."
"Did you?" There was an almost desperate quality to the question, like dad needed to know who else was in her life, who might be there for her when she needed someone. Like he needed to know, needed to believe that someone would be there to pick up the pieces.
"Who am I gonna call, El?" she asked, her voice weary, and sad. Like there wasn't anybody at all. Maybe there wasn't. Eli didn't know.
"Noah's dad?" The question was asked gently, but it was a question with two meanings, and Eli heard them both clearly. His father was asking her both to tell him who Noah's dad was, and to tell him whether she still had a relationship with him. And that meant, Eli realized, that he finally knew something his dad didn't. Olivia had told him Noah's father was dead, and dad had no idea at all. Was she going to tell him? How would he react when she did?
"Noah's dad is rotting in hell where he belongs." Her voice did not shake; it was cold. She was cold, just stating plain facts, but it shocked Eli. From the moment she'd first told him he'd assumed she'd lost someone, just like he had, someone she loved, but her voice was full of hate instead.
"Don't look at me like that, Elliot." Eli couldn't see his father's face in the dark, but Olivia was close to him, and apparently she'd seen something there, some concern, some fear, some question like the ones in Eli's head, and sought to put it to rest. "Noah's adopted. It's a long story."
Silence, again. Eli knew his father, and he knew dad would want to ask about that long story, just like Eli wanted to. But maybe dad knew better, because when he finally spoke, he didn't ask at all.
"Cassidy?"
That was the name of the man Olivia said she'd pulled a gun on. Only she'd said his whole name, Brian Cassidy, and dad had said just the last name, like he knew the guy. Maybe he was a cop, too, Eli thought. Who else would she spend her time with?
"Don't fucking start on Cassidy with me, not now." She sounded tired and angry both. "You don't have any idea what he did for me. What we went through together."
"So tell me."
Eli wanted that, too. He wanted to know what Olivia's nightmares were about. But she just shook her head.
"Not now," she said. "Not when it's dark."
Like she knew the shadows came walking in the dark. Like the same evil thing that got ahold of his father in the still of the night came for her sometimes, too. But she'd learned how to fight it off. Maybe dad could, too.
"There's really not anybody?"
It sounded like the thought was breaking dad's heart, the same way it was breaking Eli's. They had people to call, when things got bad. When he couldn't live with dad anymore he'd gone to Maureen's, but he could have gone to Kathleen, or Dickie, or Lizzie, could have gone to his aunts or his uncles. He had come here to Olivia tonight, when he needed someone. There was no shortage of people for him to lean on; he'd been feeling lonely, and isolated, but the world seemed to light up around him, a web of gossamer strings running from his heart out to all the people he loved, his family, his friends in Rome who stayed up late into the night just to talk to him. A net that caught him, when he went tumbling. Olivia, though, what did she have? Who would catch her, if she stumbled? Did she ever stumble, or had she been carrying herself for so long she'd learned to shoulder the burden alone?
"You're still the longest relationship I've ever had with a man, Elliot."
She said the words wryly, like she'd said them before. Like they meant something more than just what they said. But on their own they were enough; after all this time, even with dad having been gone, and silent, for so long, she was telling him he still mattered to her. Same as she mattered to him. There was a string there, too, Eli knew, connecting them to each other, and so far nothing had been sufficient to break it. Maybe nothing ever would.
"Liv, I'm sorry. I'm so goddamned sorry." Dad sounded like he was going to cry.
"Don't be sorry. Just stop pushing me away," she told him, desperate now, begging him to let her in, just like she'd done that night at the intervention. "Let me help you. I've got the time. We can work the case together."
The like the old days remained unspoken but it hung in the air between them just the same.
"I don't want you getting caught up in my mess."
"Then what the fuck do you want? You don't wanna lose me, but you won't let me help. You love me but you run away from me. You'll call but you won't talk to me."
"I want you safe. I don't want your blood on my hands."
"It's too late for that. You and me, Elliot, we've both had blood on our hands for years. And this is what we do for each other. When Dickie was in trouble, when Kathleen was in trouble, I didn't walk away from you, did I? When I got framed, when I was dealing with Simon, you were right there with me. This is what we do, Elliot. The job doesn't come first, not now. Maybe it never did."
Secrets just kept tumbling out of her mouth, too fast for Eli to keep up with them. Secrets he didn't know, but he understood the heat behind her words, the desperation, the weight of the memories.
"Liv-"
"Yeah, I wanna keep my job. Yeah, I wanna do it well. But there are other things I want more."
How many times, he wondered, had they talked about the job? It had never really mattered, before, what dad did for work, but since they'd come back to New York he'd been consumed by it. He talked about the job like it was something holy. Maybe it was, to him. Maybe it always had been, and Eli just didn't know, because he'd been too young when they left and his dad had kept it hidden for all those years. Dad couldn't hide it any more, now. Not when he was sitting next to his partner, and she was talking about it like a church she'd decided to walk away from.
"Like what?" Dad asked her. What could be more important to her than the job she'd done for decades? The job that left scars on her, the job she still got up and went to every day?
"I wanna see my son grow up. I wanna see you whole. I want your kids to be ok. I don't wanna be alone any more."
Her voice cracked on that word alone, and dad moved, suddenly. He'd been mirroring her posture, sitting with his forearms resting on his thighs, but he held out his hand to her in the darkness. An offering, a rope for her to grab on to. Or maybe not; maybe it was supplication, maybe it was him begging for something to keep him grounded.
"You don't have to be," he told her while she stared at his open hand. "Stay with me."
"Elliot -"
"I'm tired, Liv. And I wanna sleep and I don't wanna wake up screaming. Stay right here with me. And we'll figure out the rest of it in the morning. Ok?"
For a moment she was silent, and Eli thought this would be the moment when she'd leave. She'd talked him down, they'd hashed some things out, found some sense of stability with each other, but surely, he thought, surely she wouldn't want that. Wouldn't want to lay down beside a man who screamed and thrashed in his sleep, grieving for the wife he'd lost, the wife who wasn't her. Surely, he thought, that would be asking too much.
He was wrong.
Olivia drew in a deep breath, reached out, and took dad's hand in hers.
"Ok," she said.
They didn't move, not right away. They just sat, for a few endless seconds, their fingers intertwined, their palms flushed together. The sealing of a pact, the making a promise. I'm not going anywhere, she'd told him. You don't have to be alone, he'd told her. And there they were, together.
Eventually they moved; dad shuffled back across the bed, pulling the covers back as he went, until he was settled on the far side of the bed, and Olivia slid in next to him. They weren't touching, just lying there on their backs, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. The room was silent, and Eli knew he needed to move, to go back to the couch, to try to get some sleep, to try to forget, however briefly, everything he'd just heard. But he couldn't move yet; he didn't want to risk one of them seeing him. He'd have to be careful.
A single, hitching breath echoed out from the bed; one of them was crying, and he couldn't tell which. Only they knew, and they moved together, rolled onto their sides and wrapped their arms around each other, and held on tight.
Eli did move, then. They weren't looking at the door, anymore, and he'd seen enough, for now. He slid silently to his feet, tiptoed back to the couch, stretched out and pulled the blanket all the way up over his head. He turned his face to the back of the couch, covered his mouth with his hand, and he cried. He cried for his mother, who he missed so much he ached with it. He cried for his father, who was so angry, and so lost, and so distant from him. He cried for Olivia, who had been hurt so badly, and was still so good. He cried for all the answers he'd gotten, and all the questions he still hadn't asked. He cried until his tears were spent, and his breathing slowed, and the slow lassitude of sleep began to sweep over him. In the morning the sun would rise, and the ghosts would settle, and they would all go for pancakes. In the morning, maybe, everything would be all right.