Chapter Three: Cross to Bear
Title: Age of Regret
Rating: M
Category: Angst/SVU&OC-Crossover/Hurt/Comfort/Romance/UST/RST/The Infamous Letter
Summary: He'd written it once and declared it in front of his kids but he ran from her, from letting it sink in, from feeling anything but a wave of guilt and the never-ending nightmare that had unfolded since New York City wrapped her arms around him and wouldn't let go.
"Don't miss out on something that could be great just because it could also be difficult." - Unknown
Note: I know that so many people have done a letter fic and I am only adding to the never-ending pile. Aside from a couple that I have beta read, I have not gotten to dive in to read any. I've been a terrible reader lately but, sometimes, the muse strikes and we must feed her. Please note that this letter is written with the idea in mind that it was composed before Kathy's death. It was written while he was still in Rome. This is the third in the installment and it takes place after the intervention (it will be 24 to 48 hours after). Enjoy.
She is full of wounds
Riddled with scars
But she is still standing
And she is still beautiful
-R.H. Sin
2:00 AM
Sleep had evaded Elliot for days. The vicious cycle constantly pushing and pulling at his sanity was more than enough to edge him closer to the crumbling cliff. He had made a mess of things. Moreso than he had in ages and the emptiness in his stomach was a solid indicator of the self-inflicted hell he'd imposed upon himself. A cavernous apartment and a death wall shrine had begun to overtake more of the blank spaces than he imagined it could. To top off the nightmare, Olivia had been ignoring every text, every call, every attempt to communicate since he walked out on the attempt to mend the fraying edges.
He deserved every second of it.
She owed him nothing.
Elliot contemplated just hanging up after hearing her voice on the recording but the overwhelming sense of obligation was surging through him as he wiped the sleep from his eyes and stared out the window, at falling snow. "Liv, I know I should get the point by now but I…I just want to talk and the guilt is outweighing my pride. I need you. I really do."
The blue light of his cell phone lingered after setting it on the table and cast a dull glow throughout the room before returning it to near darkness. Elliot leaned back, winced at the dull throbbing along his temple, and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. His bruising had begun to yellow and all that remained of his closures were two, small butterflies that held the flesh taut enough for blood to clot. Elliot's face conveyed more than a beating. The ravages of exhaustion and the terror that his memories were inflicting would have taken anyone else down.
Perhaps, though, they should have.
I love you.
"I'm such an asshole," Elliot breathed toward the ceiling while every muscle cried out for a respite, one that his soul was unwilling to give. "I'd ignore me, too."
It would have been easier if he hadn't meant it. There might have been letting him off the hook if it had been a simple slip of the tongue but Elliot's face betrayed him and he already knew that Olivia had read the letter. There was nothing else to blame and no escape for the unintentional slip of the tongue that had been too long in waiting. It just wasn't how Elliot wanted to say it. Not with a layer of cold sweat and paranoia permeating from his pores.
Olivia deserved to hear it while Elliot's mental capacity wasn't muddled by the stacked odds of everything he didn't want to admit. He was losing a battle and already felt desperately alone despite how wrong he was. The stubbornness wasn't exactly easy to kick and there was always the chance he'd reject everything despite reaching for it, mercilessly. He had a room full of people that loved him. He had her.
All he did was push her away.
I love you.
"I can't sit here anymore," Elliot recognized the symptoms of a panic attack before they could bloom as he stood and paced the floor, silently cursing the cellular device as it sat on the chestnut and glass with a blackened screen. "I have to do…anything but sit here feeling sorry for myself. I won't do it. Not right now."
Elliot continued his fevered pace in an aimless back and forth pattern until he caught a glimpse of that smile in his periphery. He stood still and angled his torso as he squinted, focusing on the image with intent. The photograph, nestled amongst images of the kids when they were young and still smiled as though they meant it, was one of the photos he'd gotten to keep of her. Olivia Benson, the force to be reckoned with. Mahogany eyes that could pierce through your soul and a hint of a smile that left you wondering what she was thinking about. Elliot blinked and palmed the frame as the tears sank against the lines on his face with the agonized contortion of pain.
Elliot never wanted to say it out loud just how much he needed Olivia.
He still had the frame in his grasp as he pivoted, reached for the phone, and dialed her number. There was hope residing in the first ring but the consecutive chimes only blistered his confidence as he waited for her voice. Elliot could at least take some kind of solace in listening to Olivia's voicemail greeting. Pathetic or not, the voice could soften the beating of his heart. He wondered if she knew what kind of power she had over him.
At this juncture, there was probably good cause for her to not realize it just yet.
Elliot swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and listened for the telltale signal to start talking, leaving Olivia another message as he moved his thumb across her photograph, losing himself in the image. "Liv, I pushed you away before and I know that the last person you want to talk to is me but I need to see your face…even if you open the door and tell me to fuck off. I hope you don't. I'm on my way."
There was no reason to second-guess it or allow the voice in his head to tell him not to go through with the choice to go. He let the chill in the air pull him further, beckoning into the ice and snow. The cold was sobering and bit at the exposed skin long after he'd gotten behind the wheel. He didn't remember the drive as autopilot took over, navigating his limbs as every mile, every block, seemed to blur together a little more with each red light waiting. Elliot Stabler's determination carried him to Olivia's apartment complex; the consequences of showing up without permission hadn't set in just yet.
Some things just mattered more than the potential for being turned away.
The knocks were separated by a tentative rub of his knuckles against the door and an awkward fidget as he heard the muffled grumbling from the other side. The click of the chain and the slide out of the restrictor along with the smooth turning of the deadbolt. It inspired another layer of consternation as Elliot's heart thumped in his chest. For a long moment, Elliot felt nothing but worry as the brass began to turn and light flooded the cracks dividing Olivia's apartment from the hallway. The suspense was killing him and awakening an eagerness that he hadn't allowed to come to the surface.
Elliot owed every second of it to the growing absence in his consciousness that Olivia had begun to occupy all over again.
Elliot hadn't been formally introduced to Lucy but her sleepy, unprepared expression caught him just as off guard as she did with him, her voice soft as she held the door against the side of her face. "Excuse me? Can I help you?"
"I'm so sorry, did I knock on the wrong door?" Elliot was apologetic and understandably jumpy as his eyes darted between her and the number on the door, further sending his mental state into a tailspin as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm looking for Olivia Benson? This is her apartment, right? I hope this is her apartment."
"You're not at the wrong door but she's not here," Lucy was vague, with purpose, and ran a couple of fingers through her hair as she glanced back at the hallway, hoping that the commotion hadn't woke Noah. "I'm her son's nanny and she asked me to watch him for a while…she said it was an emergency. I didn't ask questions. I could tell her you stopped by?"
Elliot mulled over the idea of lying, giving her a fictitious name, but it wouldn't have made a difference as he nodded, resigning to the inevitable. "Just tell her Elliot Stabler came by."
Pity resided in her expression, as though there was a flashing neon on his forehead that told all of his secrets. Elliot was speechless as Lucy closed the door quietly, leaving him alone in an empty hall, cavernous and poorly lit, to truly fixate on Olivia all over again. Even as he made his way back into the inconsolably frigid night air, the depths of a despairing deliberation was meandering in Elliot's weary mind. Something that he didn't want to spend time reflecting on, but couldn't help himself.
Olivia was deliberately avoiding him; the fact was without a doubt in his powers of comprehension.
In his many abstractions, though, Elliot wondered if he deserved it.
And I never minded being on my own
Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home
To be where you are
-Florence Leontine Mary Welch/Emile Haynie
3:30 AM
Elliot nearly ran a red light twice on the journey to his apartment building. His beliefs had been slowly choking and suffocating him since he left Olivia's, stuck on a hunch that had burgeoned into something monstrous. Something he could no longer control. Letting go and giving up on something wasn't built into the fiber of Elliot's being. Losing Kathy had been traumatic enough but the truth of the relationship with the mother of his children was that it hadn't seen daylight in years. It was what had inflicted a great deal of shame and compunction after scattering earth across her coffin as she'd been laid to rest.
The remembrance was enough to make Elliot bit down on the inside of his cheek with enough ferocity that the taste of tin flooded his mouth as he waited for the elevator doors to close.
"I should have known better," Elliot glanced at his phone, at the lack of messages and alerts, before shoving it back into his pocket as the elevator came to a halt on his floor. "Really fucked it all up this time."
The affliction felt permanent as the doors ushered him into the hall. Elliot was inclined to give in, give up, and let the gnawing continue working its way through his chest while he wandered. There was more sorrow, affliction, anguish, and misery waiting with every step as he neared the bend in the hallway; the last of the journey before the loneliness. It had almost begun to hurt, the feeling resembled a dull throb like the kind that resided on the wounds on his face. Elliot wanted to let it all fall to pieces, for good, as his eyes traced the lines in the carpet and his steps slowed.
He wouldn't have even noticed her standing in front of his door, tears still in her eyes.
"Elliot?" Olivia's voice hit him like a ton of bricks and set him on fire with only the sound of his name.
"You're here," Elliot swallowed more than his pride and bridged the gap between them, leaving only a breath's distance between them, hesitating to touch what he didn't know was real, with certainty. "I went to your apartment."
"I was already on my way here before you left that last message and I've been standing here wondering if I should've called," Olivia took a step back, out of his bubble, and inhaled a sharp breath as the heat off of him was enough to shake her at the knees.
Elliot countered the motion, stepping forward, into hers, and bit the swell of his lip as he caught a whiff of her perfume mingling with her hair products. "I'm glad you came."
"Did you mean it?" Olivia continued to evade him and was already dangerously close to the door as she put an arm's length between them, collecting her wits. "Don't feed me a line, Elliot Stabler. I've had enough."
"Which part?" Elliot wasn't interested in letting her lead or play a game of cat and mouse with the intentional movement to follow, taking note of the single pace between her back and the door as his chin tilted. "The letter? The voicemail? The declarative in front of my kids? Specificity might help the situation on not jerking you around, Liv."
"All of it," Olivia's eyes widened and her elbows thumped against the hardwood before her backside, reverberating the sound down the corridor as she stared into his icy blues while the shreds of self-restraint went leaping from a window. "You knew I wouldn't wait to read that letter and you knew I'd be besotted with it. All I've wanted to do is talk to you about it but you couldn't get far enough away from me. How do you expect me to believe any of it when the sight of me makes you run the other direction?"
I love you.
They were replaying it like it had happened only moments before. The look in Elliot's eyes and the shock written on Olivia's face. Elliot shattered what had only been written on paper with the proclamation that preceded the fall as he left Olivia standing there to cope with wondering. If he meant it, if it was ever meant for her, or if the statement was a device to change the subject entirely. The confusion he had bestowed upon her was renewed as he pressed his fingers into the painted finish and held her gaze until he could feel her trembling at the hips.
Elliot watched her divert her eyes toward his chest as he lowered his voice and dragged his digits until they squeaked against the finish. "Liv, I don't expect you to believe me because I haven't given you much reason to, but I meant every word."
"What if I don't believe you?" Olivia held her breath, trapped her lip between her teeth, and inadvertently coiled around the tip of his tie to keep her stare locked on anything but his face. "What if I have no good reason to take you seriously?"
"Tell me you would still be here if you didn't think I meant it, Liv?" Elliot tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear and caressed her jaw with the tips of her fingers, luring those mahogany eyes back to his. "Tell me that you'd still be standing here, with my tie around your index, with that look on your face…if you didn't believe it?"
"I don't want to discuss this in your hallway for anyone to walk out and listen to," Olivia had nearly broken the skin as she chewed on her lip, frustrated over the girlish impulse that was flowing freely through her. "The last thing I'm interested in is an audience."
"Since when do you not want an audience for putting me in my place?" Elliot smirked, pushed the key into the lock, and gave her enough room to slide away from the door before he opened it, gesturing inside. "I guess that things have changed."
Olivia's mouth opened, wordlessly gaping at him as she moved beyond the threshold, spinning around before he could shut the door all the way. "Elliot, what do you want from me? I came here because you told me you love me and that you need me. Now you're making jokes and it seem—"
"Jesus Christ, Liv!" Elliot dropped his keys and met her halfway, tracing the curve of her jaw before his mouth collided with hers and he held onto her, for dear life.
Elliot met no resistance as Olivia dropped her purse and pulled him in, savoring the taste, relishing in the one thing she'd never let herself do. Love him completely. Elliot could forget, even for a moment, that he had lived a lifetime of pain since he'd returned to New York, as the vibration of Olivia's beating heart pressed against his. Passion melted with care and hurt found a pardon with a ragged breath and the parting of lips. Elliot slid his hands through her hair, urged her onto her toes, and felt her tears against his cheek as she let him in.
"Wait, wait, wait," Olivia revoked her lips from his but stayed wrapped in his embrace in the darkness, the moonlight streaming through open curtains. "El."
"Say it again," Elliot nipped at her jaw, dragging his lips across her neck as she tilted her head back.
"El," Olivia dug her fingers into his shoulder blades, half moaning it toward the ceiling as her eyes closed all over again. "God."
"I know," Elliot pressed his forehead against hers, his chest heaving right along with hers as kissed her once more, smearing her lipstick even worse than he already had. "Can you stay?"
Olivia nodded, letting her body betray her before her mouth could, and held onto him a little tighter, letting a wisp of a smile appear. "Yes, I can stay."
"I am wondering, though," Elliot reluctantly released his grip on her and moved back toward the door, locking it while Olivia pulled her coat off and draped it over a chair at the bar. "Why didn't you say it back?"
"Elliot Stabler, you ran from me after you said it out loud," Olivia slid out of her shoes and backed toward the bedrooms, a hint of a smile on her face as he followed her with a similar expression plastered on his. "You can hold out to hear me say it back."
Elliot contemplated the thought and realized it wasn't the words that he was waiting for as he followed her into a room that he hadn't slept in for days. He just wanted to hold her. He wanted to hear her breathing. Elliot needed to know that Olivia was safe, next to him, and knew that she was loved by him. He already knew she loved him or she would have walked out already; left him to wallow in more of his self-pity.
Olivia already said she loved him without picking those same words and Elliot just had to let it sink in to comprehend the gravity of the revelation.
Elliot grinned and stroked her cheek before she could find the mattress with her knee, wrapping his arms around her once more. "I can handle that just knowing you're here."
Quotes by:
Unknown
R.H. Sin
Florence Leontine Mary Welch/Emile Haynie
I truly hope that this fic pulls you in. It isn't my normal fic type and I was nervous even writing it. Thank you to Aubrey and Maddy, who gave me their insight on a few passages and made me feel so confident in the storyline. It's been quite the adventure.