Hey guys! Sorry it took me this long to update. I'm really glad you've liked it, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. I'll submit the next chapter as soon as I'm done writing it! Btw, I'm gonna post a playlist of the songs I've written to. Please let me know what you think. The next chapter will be from Elliots perspective again.
Olivia noticed the morning sun shining bright, making vain efforts to thaw snow that would only thicken by the end of the day.
That was her house, she thought as she reminisced about how she'd gotten there. She remembered the day her request to join SVU had been approved, she'd felt purpose, a way to atone for what she'd then wrongly felt was her own sin. She was beginning to find who she was supposed to be in life. There'd been a time when that had been Cragen's office, a time when she and Elliot had run wild through the streets of New York. Moments that she'd thought would last forever and now were only distant memories. She thought back to her first day occupying that office, how sitting in that chair had startled her, she knew who she was then, but that didn't keep it from being unnerving. Keeping everything in line in others and within herself had been challenging, and somehow, she reflected, the threads of integrity and justice that Cragen's leadership had woven within her, had proved themselves unwavering. With time, she'd come to feel the full force of her power, embraced it, and eventually wielded it fearlessly. Even knowing that she, her team, the force, still had so much to learn, she'd known and believed firmly in what they did in that office every day. Every victim, silenced and vulnerable, had been cloaked with her entire teams resolute allegiance. What was the old adage? With great power comes great responsibility…she wasn't perfect by any means, she's only human after all, but for all her sins, she could get up in the morning and look herself in the mirror, secure in the day that lay ahead. She'd learned to be happy with that. So what if her longest relationship had turned out to be her career?
Elliot…Elliot, she thought, had always been her worst flaw. Their…partnership…had crossed boundaries she'd never dreamt she'd one day cross. Even when they didn't cross that one boundary, they crossed deeper ones in many in other ways. When did he start to permeate her walls? Maybe the day they met, maybe along the way. She remembered the day she knew he had her dead to rights. Gitano. She wondered if Elliot had accepted it then himself. She knew something had been set off in him to never fully be reigned in again. "What about me?", the words had slipped from her lips before she could think them through, she'd sat on them thousands of times before, never thinking she'd find a breath brave enough to utter them in. The barrel of Gitanos gun against Elliots head. It's alright Liv, take the shot. She didn't, she wouldn't have been able to. He'd later told her that he knew she would have done it. That accusation had always creeped on her insecurities. Didn't he know? Of course he knew. How could he not? Then she'd catch herself, she didn't want him to know. He couldn't know. It wasn't right for them to know, to be, such delicate parts of each other. The things they knew, those things made promises they couldn't keep. Protocol would have prohibited her from pulling the trigger. But she knew. She knew he knew. Despite desperately wanting him to not know. Protocol hadn't stopped her. She loved him, she could never throw him to the wolves just to see who'd win. She couldn't do that to herself, she couldn't take him from herself, she needed him. How could he have been so nonchalant about her need for him? It'd been then that she'd realized that he too had chosen her. He too had sacrificed for her. He too couldn't take her out of his life. That's what that fight had been about. He couldn't do his job right if he had to keep his love for her hanging off of his sleeve. He'd desperately wanted to invalidate both their choices, he'd sought to annihilate with words a flame so eternal that neither time nor distance would ever be able to put out. So she'd made the decision for them. Falling on her sword was the best way to love him. He was married. She didn't love a cheater and she wasn't the other woman. After Gitano, she'd needed air. They'd needed air. Looking back now, she could see how foolish she'd been. How foolish they both had been.
Air.
Air. Three letters. An essential element they'd both needed to survive. Air would only fill the rooms they were in together.
He'd burned through partners, she'd snapped at anyone that wasn't him. When he walked into her new office one afternoon, she'd felt herself a teenager again. The two strong, fearless detectives that leapt off of tall buildings, carried the weight of the world on their shoulders…jittery from a hello. She went back to her air with the same ardor that he'd accepted any excuse as enough to seek her out, to seek out his air. The work was her lifeline…and he, he'd been her entire heart.
Time passed. Too far had never been far enough for them. No brush of their skin, no longing look, no visible hint of jealousy went far enough to trigger an outrage, a rejection of an action not congruous with their duties. Simon…Simon was a difficult time in her life. She hadn't expected Simon. She hadn't expected Elliot. She hadn't expected him to understand or to…hold her. She hadn't expected him to coax her into an oasis of his acceptance. Those days, those days were some of her darkest. She faced her truth, a truth she'd tried desperately to dispel only to have it fall into place right in front of her. Her's to keep, hers to lose herself in. Sink or swim. He'd pulled her to his shores without judgement or hesitation.
In the courthouse, when he'd told her that Kathy was pregnant, her defenses had betrayed her, she'd failed to catch the words before they snuck out "what are you gonna do?". What else would he have done? His fierce loyalty was one of the things that had speared him into her heart. The disappointment and disillusion she'd felt then, mixed with resentment…and envy? They'd stabbed her in a way she'd never thought a man could. That anything could. She blocked it out and got past it. She told herself she was over it. She helped deliver Eli, she learned to live with him everyday by her side. And then, she bitterly learned to live without him. Everything she thought she knew, every meaning she'd given to every stolen look, loaded silence, magnetic brush of their hands, she'd convinced herself they weren't real because well, they weren't. After all, what did she expect? Did she expect him to leave his wife? To realize she was the woman he couldn't live without?
He'd eventually cracked under his own pressure and her arms weren't the ones he'd sought solace in. So she moved on, she built a life she could be proud of. Noah, friends, work. In the silent calm of her office she told herself she was old enough, woman enough to take the truth, no man had ever been able to seep himself into her in the way he had. Tucker, he reached places she thought had been closed off forever. She'd wanted to build a life with him, a home. Noah liked him, he'd have been a good dad. She had wanted to want him the way he deserved to be wanted, the way he wanted her, the way she'd only wanted once before…the way she only wanted the ghost that had sat in the corner of every room she'd ever been in with a man. The ghost with a devils grin that never allowed another man to go as far as he had.
After Lewis, therapy had been her safe haven, and even there, she hadn't been able talk about him fully. She couldn't allow herself to hurt like that. In her soul, loves twin flame was betrayal, Elliots love and betrayal had left scars that time softened but never mended. After certain sessions that went deeper into her soul, she'd told herself that he was the final door she had to open to be free, that if she finally put the thoughts that had long haunted her into words, all traces of him would be gone. With every bit of courage she had, a cold January morning bore witness to what she'd then felt was baptism into a life where his shadow didn't walk down every street with her. For a time, she'd been right, the pain had become tolerable. She'd been able to build the life she'd wanted, she got her beautiful boy, her rank, her home, Tuckers love, her squads respect, and yet, there was something missing. Every time thoughts of him crept in from the crevices of her mind, she'd list her accomplishments to herself until she felt the memories ease their way out. Her world had spun in so many directions, and she'd felt proud of her ability to coexist with the longing until it became a dull ache that movement would relieve.
The awards ceremony. The phone call. The 10-13. It all happened so fast. The night before she'd been restless, her day had gone by in an unsteady heartbeat. Stage fright. She'd told herself that every time she wiped her clammy hands dry. But there was something else. Auguries that now seemed so clear.
Looking into his eyes had brought everything to a screeching halt. She'd thought up hundreds of speeches through the years. Some in anger, others in nostalgia, others in love. In that moment "Elliot…" had been the only thing to make it out. He'd rendered her speechless. What could she say? His wife was in an ambulance fighting for her life, his world was crumbling before his eyes. She had so many questions, yet was unsure she wanted the answers. Now and then flashed through her mind, knocking her breath out. The rest was blur and somehow, she remembered every second of it. The interrogation room, the roof, the waiting room, Kathy's death, the funeral, the park, the lobby of his building, the car.
I was afraid if I heard your voice I wouldn't have been able to leave
You mean the world to me
Weeks had turned into months…and what? He was now in her life again saying words that haunted her in the middle of the night. The mercilessness of what she thought was a long gone delicate murmur in their hearts, back, never gone, never woken by another man, never lost in translation, always their masterpiece. They'd spoken routinely. She'd respected his wishes to back off. Well, she'd respected them on paper. She'd made an effort to express her empathy while cloaking it in administrative winds to avoid startling him. Coaxing him out into her shores. There was something so casually cruel about their mutual ability to consistently break promises of not facing the others demons head on. Your enemy is my enemy and your friend is my friend. Come hell or high water, they faced it together, even when there had been an ocean between them, theirs had been the love that kept the light in one another lives. So yeah, she'd kept tabs. Even when she'd told herself that they were no longer what they'd once been, she kept tabs. She kept tabs because that was the man that tied himself to her with the whisper of a sigh. She kept tabs because he had ways to keep himself in her mind.
And now, what was she feeling? Anger, relief, hate, love, resentment? That night, the night Kathy died, the way she and Elliot had moved in — what word did Kathy use? — in sync, had shook her to her very core. Walking into that room together, it'd been on fire, filled with invisible smoke that shortened her breath to the point that she'd needed to steady herself against the railing. Every minute that passed had felt so surreal, she was outside looking in at herself with him. Even then, she knew every move he'd make. She'd felt like the prey who's very life depended on knowing her hunters next move. Fighting with him on the roof, the ease with which she was about to drop an f bomb before Dickie burst in, like a day hadn't gone by when 10 years worth of "days without you" had flashed before her eyes. Whenever their skin touched, even through winter layers, their unmistakable golden current of heat flowed with the vengeance of a New York summer.
I was afraid if I heard your voice I wouldn't have been able to leave
You mean the world to me
His words, the words she'd wanted to hear so many times before. Words that after he was gone she'd allow herself to dream of, a token for her troubles. With time she came to believe that if she ever heard them they would no longer be of any use to her, too little, too late. Another thing she'd been wrong about. They elated her. Her heart skipped a beat. Better than any of her wildest dreams. Their love risen from the ashes, aged like a fine wine, no longer unsure of itself. His wife had been in a hospital bed and her hesitation wasn't from anger, she'd wanted it to be anger, but it just wasn't. His words, she'd told herself to the point of conviction, she wanted his words to be mea culpas followed by an Irish goodbye, settling for nothing short of closure and peace to a chapter that she'd long ago decided needed to be closed. She'd been no ones fool but her own. His words had turned out to be a one way ticket back to sleepless nights and tearful showers, bracing herself for goodbye, while desperately wanting to bask in his presence.
She wanted desperately to tell herself she was happy for her colleagues success abroad, and that she wished him well on his journey. She'd drilled that sanitized line into her mind so many times in the last few weeks it became her lifeline.
Happy for him? No, she wasn't happy for her colleagues success abroad. She felt small for that. She was glad he wasn't dead, or dehumanized as some mercenaries muscle. Glad he hadn't thrown himself into a bottle determined to die. Glad he hadn't chosen to fall on his sword. Glad he was okay. Glad his family had been okay all that time. But happy? No, happiness was not what she felt. How could she feel happiness at an absence that had permanently taken a part of her? She thought that if she ever saw him again she'd know exactly what she felt…and then she saw him and then she didn't know. Or she did know she told herself. Yeah, she did know what she felt. She just didn't want to go there right now. Or maybe, mostly likely, she'd never left that feeling. She was already there. She just…everything was happening so quickly, and inversely with a glacial pace that was excruciating. How long was long enough to ask questions that were driving her insane? Did she even want the answer? What did she even want to hear him say? You mean the world to me. Th-that had taken her aback. It shouldn't have she told herself, she'd read the words, she knew eventually he'd voice them.
He'd slipped her that goddamn letter. When she put it in her pocket she thought she'd knew what it would say. A few I'm sorry's, I didn't mean for this to happen, time flew by and the moment never felt right…all the company lines you give well meaning friends you just weren't able to keep in contact with because you just didn't have anything tangible linking you anymore. She'd been ready for that slap. The letter he'd given her, it had cleaned every scar from her body and soul. The stains she could see, the way his handwriting shifted because it had taken him multiple attempts to write. The way he'd misspelt the word "assuage" as "asway". But mostly how he'd told her that she meant the world to him, and in that moment the choice between his world and the world of responsibilities he'd created at 17 were no longer two things he could juggle. He'd tiptoed on any line that would malign his relationship with Kathy. They'd grown to be content and she knew that. She was happy about that. Even after all this time he was that man, that honorable man that she had fallen so deeply in love with. The way his words had conveyed the resentment he felt towards himself, and somehow the way that his course of action turned out to be the only one that had allowed him to look at himself in the mirror. The anger she'd once felt had melted away.
Her silent soliloquies found themselves interrupted by Amanda.
"Captain, Detective Stabler has been arrested" a wide eyed Amanda pronounced.
At Olivias silent surprise, she continued "…he was found in a storage facility, without a warrant or backup. There was a dead woman inside, she's been raped and had her throat slit. See they found him over her trying to untie her. She was wearing a wig, kinda styled like your hair. He claims he was given a message that you were being held there. The facility is now property of a one Richard Wheatley, son of Sinatra, the man who — "
"Yeah I know who Sinatra is" Olivia interrupted. Olivia could hear the buzz of an incoming long day. "There's a rape victim, so it's ours. Do you have the address?"
"Captain — I have the address — Olivia, are you sure this is the best idea?"
In Amanda's eyes Olivia could see concern borne from the admiration and respect the two had forged through the years. In her voice she heard echoes of Cragen. Echoes of Philadelphia.
In her heart, Olivia knew there was no turning back. "I'm sure, alert the team, this one is ours".