May 4, 2007
When the warning shot came, it was so quiet Elliot never even heard it.
The case they caught that morning was remarkably cut and dried - victim identified her attacker by name, he left DNA behind, security cams behind the bar caught him following her to her car, and he crumbled the second he saw Liv's shield - and they'd turned him over for processing, passed the buck and promised Cragen he'd get their typed reports on Monday. He'd left Liv sitting in front of her computer, with a quiet see you Monday and a soft smile from her that made his stomach do a funny little flip, and he'd driven back to his apartment humming along to the radio.
Only once he got there he had to clean, and fast, and he'd no sooner stored the last of his dirty laundry out of sight than Kathy was knocking on his door, Dickie and Lizzie in tow. In the beginning it had been strange, the kids coming to his apartment, sitting on the sofa he was paying one of those rent-to-own places through the nose for, eating pizza, trying not to notice the despair in their eyes when they took in the threadbare furnishings, the almost alien masculinity of his under-decorated apartment. In the beginning he'd felt like a heel, hated the way he'd become just another one of those part-time dads who only saw his kids every other weekend and bought them presents to try to prove that he still loved them. Things had settled now, though; what once had been awful and gruelling in its newness had become ordinary, and he knew how to do this now.
He knew how to smile at Kathy, and lie when she asked him how his day had gone, knew how to shuffle the kids into the apartment and not feel his heart clench thinking about how much he'd rather be at home. When Kathy left, and Dickie kicked his heels up on the coffee table, and Lizzie went to the fridge for a soda, he looked at them and it occurred to him that the only thing that would make this night better, make him feel more ease, make his heart light, would be to have Liv with him.
So he asked the kids - you know, Olivia doesn't have anything to do tonight. Would you guys mind if she came over for dinner? And Dickie grunted and Lizzie looked a little surprised but didn't say no, so he pulled his phone out of his pocket and called her.
"Hey," she said, warm and familiar on the other end of the phone, and he couldn't help but grin when he heard her voice.
"Hey," he answered.
"Everything ok?"
She wasn't expecting his call, and he knew it. They hadn't been at this very long, this thing where they slept together and worked together and tried not to think about it too much, and he knew Liv preferred to avoid him when he had the kids, but things were just going so well, and he wanted her with him, always, and they were going to have to do this eventually, ease Olivia into his family's life, and hell, he figured, why not now? Now, when he was happy, when Liv wasn't running from him, when everything seemed to be working out just the way it should?
"Yeah, yeah, we're fine," he assured her quickly. "We're about to order some pizzas. Wanted to see if you'd like to join us."
In the resulting silence he could have heard a pin drop. Dickie was flipping through the channels on the tv and Lizzie had draped herself over the arm of the sofa, staring intently at her phone, and neither of them were paying him the least bit of attention. If they could sense the tension that descended on him while he waited for Liv's answer, they gave no sign of it.
"Elliot," she sighed, and in that one word he heard it, heard that not only was she about to tell him no, but that she was going to be upset about it.
"It's just pizza," he said, already on the defensive.
"It's pizza with your kids. This is supposed to be your time with them. How are you going to explain to them why I'm coming over? God, do you have any idea what that would be like for me?"
"It's not like it's the first time you've ever eaten with us," he said. He couldn't risk the kids overhearing; he drifted towards the kitchen, and kept his voice as low as he could. "It doesn't have to be weird-"
"In what universe would it not be weird? It was one thing when I was just your partner, but now that we're…" she fumbled for the words and he wondered if she'd say it, if she'd say now that we're sleeping together, or now that we're fucking, if she'd be honest, for once, about what was happening between them. In the end she chose to hedge. "Now that we're doing whatever it is that we're doing, it's too much. If I come over now they're gonna take one look at us and they're going to know that something's up and I can't do that to them. It's too soon for that."
Elliot ground his teeth in frustration. Admittedly it had only been a few weeks since he'd fallen into her bed, not even two whole months, but he'd known for her years - hell, the kids had known her for years. She wasn't some new girlfriend, trying to make a good impression on them. They'd been through of all of that years before, and the kids liked her, and Elliot was starting to think maybe he loved her, and wasn't this where they'd been heading from the jump?
"When exactly do you think would be the right time?" he asked her, and his tone was more heated than he meant for it to be but he couldn't seem to help himself. "When are you gonna let yourself admit that this is really happening? You got a date in mind? I'll put it in my calendar."
"Eat dinner with your kids, Elliot. We'll talk about this later."
And then, before he could offer any protest, she hung up the phone. She'd known he was gonna fight her and she hadn't given him the chance, and if the kids hadn't been right there in the living room he might have thrown his phone in a fit of pique. Sometimes he felt like that woman had been put on this earth just to torment him.
May 7, 2007
He texted her twice, over the weekend, once on Saturday and once after the kids left on Sunday, and she hadn't answered him either time, and when Monday morning rolled around he was pissed off and spoiling for a fight. He could feel it, defiance and disappointment sparking across his skin, agitation swirling in his belly. Every time Liv got too close to someone she always backed away, and he'd thought that after everything they'd been through it would be different this time, with him, but he felt her drawing in on herself and he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she understood.
They were good together. Every time she touched him it was electric, and he knew she felt it, too, knew from the way she arched into him, clung to him, rocked beneath him in her bed that she wanted him there with her, that she liked it when he was. They were soft and easy in the mornings and they laughed in the squad car and shit, he thought, how could she be looking for a way out of the best thing that had happened to either of them in years? Why wasn't she happy? Or was the problem not that she wasn't happy - she'd seemed plenty happy to him on Friday morning - but that she wouldn't let herself be? What kind of crazy self-fulfilling prophecy was that?
When he got to the station she was already there, parked at her desk where he'd left her on Friday evening, looking determinedly at her computer and refusing to acknowledge his arrival. No one else was around so he didn't hesitate; he went straight to her and slid his hand beneath her ponytail, let his palm rest against the nape of her neck the way he had so many times before, and she flinched when he touched her, sliding away from him in apparent irritation.
"Don't do that," she said, her voice very low.
He felt a sudden, wild urge to break something.
"You didn't seem to mind the last time I did it," he said, thinking about lying in her bed on Friday morning, looking at the slope of her bare back, thinking about the way she sighed and leaned back against his hand when he reached for her.
"We're at work."
In his heart he knew that she was right, that he had no business touching her at work - regardless of whether or not he thought they were alone - but he felt her slipping through his fingers, insubstantial as a wisp of smoke, and he was clutching at her anyway, trying desperately to hold on.
"You got a minute?" he asked, tightly.
She looked up over her shoulder at him, her eyes searching his face, and he could see in those eyes that she wanted to say no, but he stood firm, and she caved, in the end.
"Yeah."
He stepped back and she stood up, and they marched off for the cribs together. He hadn't told her that was where he wanted to go, and she hadn't asked, they just went, instinctively, both of them knowing they needed privacy and a stout door and a few minutes alone with one another.
Mercifully no one was in the bunks, and Elliot leaned back heavily against the door while Liv paced to the far side of the room. He wasn't trying to block her exit, was just trying to position himself so they'd have advance warning if someone decided to come barging in, but Liv looked restless, looked like she didn't like having his bulk between her and the only door.
"What's going on, Liv?" he asked her, very quietly.
Her eyes flashed at him, angry, like she thought he ought to know the answer to that question already. Not even two months into this new relationship and he was already getting shit for not reading her mind; this woman was going to kill him.
"You tell me, El, because I thought we were going to take things slow and the next thing I know you're asking me to have dinner with your kids."
"Would that have been so bad? They're not going anywhere. They were always gonna be part of the deal, Liv, you know that. I just thought it would be nice to spend time together. And you're not ready for that, and I get it - " he didn't get it, not really, but he wasn't gonna call her paranoid to her face - "but that doesn't explain why you've been ignoring me all weekend."
"I wasn't ignoring you. I was busy, and so were you."
"Busy doing what?"
He knew the second he said it that he'd fucked up. How many times had he heard he say how much she hated it when some guy started checking up on her, acting like she owed him an explanation for how she spent her time? How many times had he watched her dump some asshole because she said he was too clingy, when what she meant was he was too possessive, and she wouldn't let herself be owned by anybody? He knew, damn it, that she valued her independence more than anything else. It wasn't that he cared where she'd been or who she'd been with, wasn't that he felt she had to answer to him for every minute of her day, it was only that he thought she was lying and he wouldn't stand for that shit. Only it had come out wrong, angrier than he'd intended, and now she had her back up.
"I can't do this, Elliot."
How many times had she said those words to him over the last six weeks? Too many times, he thought, for a relationship that was just starting out, and every time he'd tried to coax her back to him, but now he was starting to wonder if he'd ever actually be able to change her mind. If any woman was worth this kind of fight it was Liv, but Jesus, if she didn't want to be with him he couldn't force her.
"This was a bad idea, and I knew it."
"Yeah? Then why'd you fuck me, Liv? If you knew it was such a bad idea why'd you do it?"
He just needed to remind her that there had been a reason, a reason she'd let him touch her, a reason she'd been willing to try, however hesitant she might have been, but she just looked wounded, and scared. She just looked like she was ready to hit him, if that was what it would take to get her out of that room and out of this conversation.
"I made a mistake," she said. "This was never gonna work long term, you and me. We both know that. Maybe we wanted it to but it won't."
"I don't know that, Liv. Christ, would you just stop? Just stop catastrophizing? So you're not ready to see the kids. Fine, don't see them. You don't have to. It's not a big deal-"
"It's not about the kids, Elliot!" she hissed, fire sparking in those dark eyes hot enough to burn him from across the room. "I told you I wasn't ready, and you pushed for it anyway. I told you I don't want you to touch me at work and you did anyway. You...you're all I've got, El, and I'm starting to think that's not a good thing."
You and this job are about the only things I've got anymore. I don't want to wreck that.
It hadn't been so long since he'd said those words to her, and now she'd thrown them back at him, and they left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was more true for her than for him, and he knew it. He still had the kids, still had an ex-wife he had to see on occasion, still had his difficult, unpredictable mother and his brothers and his sisters and their kids, still had a few old friends to call when he wanted to get a drink. What did Liv have? Surely she had some friends, he thought, but he didn't know their names. There was Simon, but god only knew where he'd gone. It was just Liv, facing the world on her own. Liv and him.
"I'm not...I'm not trying to crowd you," he said, slowly, trying to figure out how to answer her, how to explain that maybe if she just held on to him then one day she could have the rest of it, too, the family and the friends and a life outside the job. To explain that if she had him at home and she had him at work there could still be room left over, that he wasn't trying to own every piece of her, not unless she gave it to him.
"Yeah, well, you're doing a shit job," she muttered, and any tenderness he had begun to feel on account of her isolation vanished at the accusation in her tone.
"You want me to back off? Fine, I'll back off. Whatever this is, you want it to be done? It's done."
What he meant to say was it's only done if you want it to be, but the words came out too fast, too hard, and she crossed her arms over her chest and he knew then that he'd just put the nail in the coffin of whatever the fuck their personal relationship was.
"Liv, I didn't mean-"
"No," she cut him off. "You're right. It's done."
He looked down at his feet, scuffed the toe of his shoe against the floor. God damn it, he thought. He couldn't look at her; he wondered if he did if she'd be crying, or if her eyes would be hard and angry, and he figured either way it would break his heart, and he'd be better off not knowing.
"We've got a job to do," she said, and her voice was trembling when she spoke. Shit, he thought; he hated it when she cried. She was always so fucking tough, so fucking stubborn, so fucking sure that she could handle anything, that in those rare moments when she allowed herself a bit of vulnerability he always felt as if the world had been turned upside down and sent him falling into shadows.
"We can still do that, can't we?"
"Yeah, Liv," he said, sighing. "Yeah, we can do the job."
It was the only thing they'd ever really been good at, either of them. It would have to be enough.