A/N:
First – I have a thousand ways that they could play out that first moment of seeing each other, so this link will host one-shot, single chapter variances on that first moment. Some from her POV, some from his. Some lovely, some painful. I'm exorcising all the ways that float about my head.
So, this first one is for the Random Acts of E/O initiative that firetipmyballs and eotopia amazingly asked me to join. So grateful for all the kind things y'all did to participate. I received my prompts from svuxsquad who won me as her fic writer (haha), and my prompts were: following a traumatic or dangerous situation, EO reunite, and he lets her know how he feels.
I had an idea that because they say so very much with so very little, maybe everything they needed to know was said in the simplest of touches and in the quietest of fics. I wanted to deeply break down the utter relief and every nuance of being held, touching someone you love after so, so long - and so here we are. The power of a hug. In the middle of this pandemic, I hope this one feels comforting.
The song I used was This Is The One by Anna Ternheim.
Emmie, I hope you enjoy this and that it lives up to what you were hoping for. xoxox
Synthesis
Afterwards, it's always the same.
It's the distinct smell of fireworks that permeates everything.
In the post-shadows of a gunfight, the air becomes thick with fog, the smell of sulfur. She used to read crime fiction as a teenager, and the authors always described the smell wrong. Cordite went the way of World War II, and this is drastically different – modern ammunition leaves the suddenly silent air filled with the heavy scent of nitroglycerin, graphite, sawdust.
The world around her feels like it's moving slowly. She blinks before turning her head, surveying the apocalypse at her feet. She wants to close her eyes, bow her head. The job never gets easier. Every day takes another jab at her.
Today's jab might be fatal.
Every heartbeat pounds heavy in her chest. Every movement requires indescribable effort.
She can see the post-fight purpose in the strides of those around her, the dead bodies, the destruction. Faint smoke trails rise from the corners. There is the screeching sound of metal grating as the warehouse is opened up fully. Her eyes feel gritty, her body aches.
None of it really registers. It's a haze.
Or maybe that lack of clarity is because of him. His presence.
They'd told her he would be here. It had been the end of his UC her squad had backed up, after all. She had been given minutes to process the news of his return before they had been forced to become the calvary riding in. Then again, charging in to help him - rescue him - wasn't something that would ever take asking twice.
After all these years, she'd still have his back anywhere, anytime.
Any place. And for any reason.
Some things are just like that. Absolute, no matter time or circumstance.
Her eyes burn hotter, stinging now. She knows exactly where he is standing, but she can't look at him just yet. She needs a minute to regain her balance, shake the stunned disbelief.
She presses her lips together, as if that alone will seal up the dam that is threatening to break within.
They'd both fired their guns tonight. They'd both hit the demons he had been fighting for years, and she doesn't know how long those bastards will ultimately take to die inside of him, if they ever do. She knows better than anyone that death to the deserving doesn't kill the nightmares.
In the coming minutes their guns will be taken, CSU will need their recall, their statements. There will be IAB interviews and mandatory sidelining.
She doesn't care. All of it is a blur.
In this moment, she doesn't see the influx of uniforms into the warehouse, the lights from the squad cars that are parked on the other side of the open garage doors. She doesn't see the crates, she doesn't notice the blood, the scrapes on her hands and knees from where she had hit the ground at one point. She doesn't notice the way the overhead lights are too dim, not yet replaced with the soon to arrive glare of the NYPD working floodlights.
He is here.
Her throat is locked. Her fingers are limp. She feels like she's teetering – emotionally, physically, mentally. It's almost painful to feel him in this air like this. Her skin is awakening after the deepest of sleeps, and maybe she hasn't moved her limbs at all in over nine years.
The chilly, fall night seeps into her as she takes a step forward. Her bones are heavy, the years apart are an anchor that hold her down. She takes another step forward – drawn to him by the weight of their history and the promise of absolution. Another step, then another. Moving towards him is inevitable. Her lips will not work, her extremities feel numb. Even her irises will not raise, burdened by the weight of her eyelids.
She feels him surround her, even though they are still two feet apart. The cocoon of him is instant, so infinitely recognizable that she nearly makes an involuntary sound. She lifts her chin, letting him look at her, startled wet eyes and all.
Oh God, those eyes of his.
Her breathing becomes shallow. She can't cry. She vaguely remembers where they are, that there is an audience to this unfurling. There are new scars on him, in him. In an instant, he lets her see all of it, too. He isn't hiding, shuttering. He's standing in front of her, bruised and raw, open for the taking. Just as she is.
He's bigger than before, she realizes, and he's in rough shape.
She doesn't know much more than that because she can't merely hold his gaze any longer. She had noticed the scruff and the lack of fire in his eyes at first glimpse, across the crates. With their weapons drawn, their enemies had been common ones. The wordless communication had instantly found its place, maybe even sharper than it had ever been. They'd been in sync, and now that synchronicity is a fiery crawl across her skin. It's sending her straight into him.
She is burning up beneath her leather jacket, as if her body is ridding itself of a chill that has lived beneath her skin.
Him.
She takes another step forward, propelled by a time continuum that had refused to sever this particularly defiant bond. She knows by the way he steps forward too that he isn't going to hold her at bay. If anything, he's moving in towards her faster than she expected and because of that, his entire body bumps hard into hers.
Their Kevlar vests crash into each other. It's a fusing. Magnets, rushing in for the final lock.
A silent keening begins inside of her as she reaches for him. The walls of her chest fill with a wail that doesn't escape her lips. It's a protest against the time lost, a cry of abandonment, of recognition, of relief. Her lungs crack, heave. She pulls at air, determined not to splinter.
Her chin hits his shoulder. Her hands don't know where to go, so she tries to grasp at the sides of his vest. She feels the scratch of his neck instantly against her right cheek, feels the way her own shoulders sink as her body tips towards his. The smell of him is so uniquely familiar, she could pick it out of a lineup, and that's when she drops her mouth, so that it rests on the crest of his clavicle. Vaguely, she realizes he is gripping her, too.
The need within her is an explosion. She isn't a desperate woman, but she has been locked down for so long, for so many days. Months. Years. It's been…
May 18.
2011.
The date is locked into her psyche at this point, and it is a clanging clock behind her closed eyelids. The last day she'd seen him. Before. Before.
She won't openly cry. Not yet. She needs the stillness first. She needs to be enveloped, wrapped up. All of the stories want to tumble out of her, she wants to tell him everything, all at once.
She stays quiet.
She's shaking though. Or maybe he is.
Around her, his arms tighten. She feels him drive his mouth into the top of her hair, and it's not a kiss, it's not.
It's just him finally resting, too.
She presses her face into his skin, and she knows he can feel her exhale sharply, again and again. She hates him for leaving, she wants to scream at him. She wants to grab at him, too – and that's the thing that wins out. Pulling him into her. Pushing herself onto him.
The endless, infinite clutching.
Her mouth opens and closes, then again. She can't form words. It is excruciating to be held like this, to be held by him, to deeply and fully expel everything she's ruthlessly contained in every, single day since.
Since.
Her fingers can't get a grip on his vest, so she reaches lower, under the Kevlar. A few of her fingertips meet the cotton of his t-shirt and she hangs on for dear life. It's enough.
For now.
His mouth moves to her temple.
O-liv-i-a.
The rumble of it careens through her veins and she shivers. Goose bumps break out across her arms, they slide up her spine. It makes him draw her tighter. His hands are on her back and he's warm, even in the nearly freezing air. She feels her eyes close, and she isn't tired but yeah, yeah she could sleep. On him, she could sleep so deeply. She's finally got an ally against nightmares that still plague her. He'll fight them, she thinks. He will.
He will.
Tell me about Detective Stabler.
The voice comes out of nowhere. It's a dozen years ago in an instant and some naïve fool thinks she could find the words to describe this man.
He's the best. She'd chosen that simple word, because answering that he is her everything would have blown up her world. She couldn't simply say he's half of me. They would have taken him from her. I am half of him. No, honesty hadn't been an option back then.
But time has passed. Too much time.
Her fingers rub the cotton of his shirt now, her lips register every millimeter of his beard. She tries to inhale his breaths - because she will take what she can of him - and her chest cracks soundlessly. Just once. A warning that there is more to come if he doesn't do something and do it fast.
He's smart, brave.
Dedicated.
Those are the words she had chosen. Small words for such a giant of a man. He rocks a little on his feet, bringing her with him. Back and forth, gently. Nearly imperceptibly.
It's an instinctive movement borne of years of protecting his children, of soothing. He's the only one who has ever really comforted her. The slightest of his touches has always been more powerful than any demon that has reared its ugly head in a lifetime full of battles and wars.
She feels every shift of the air as they move now. It's the shadow wind of his return.
He's straight with me and I'm straight with him.
He fits. He always has. Or maybe it's she who fits into all of his nooks. The curves of her, aligning with the planes of him. Together, they are the edge of the lake, where the water curls in and out of the rocks. They are air, as it slides down between the mountains until it's one streaked horizon. The plunge and the enveloping. The sounds around them fade, and in the nest of him, it is quiet. Safe. I can tell him anything.
They are inexplicable. Inextricable. Incomprehensible.
Indivisible.
Are you and Stabler good partners?
Her boots knock against his, and she turns her face even further into his hollows, settling into his hold so that now her eyelids flick against his neck as she blinks into the darkness of him. The pulse point on his neck throbs against her cheekbone. He's so damned strong, his power evident in his grip, the unerring steadiness of his stance despite her weight against him. He is so deeply familiar that her bones rattle with recognition.
We've worked together a long time.
He must sense that the breaking is coming, because he moves one hand up to cup the back of her head. He pulls her closer, shifting to give her feet room to slide between his. He isn't quieting her; he's bracing for her. With him, she doesn't have to contain herself.
He's as wild and dark inside as she is.
It's the intrinsic knowledge that she could splinter here, she could throw the tatters of herself all over this warehouse and he - he would stand back and let her. He'd wait to pick up the pieces until she was ready. He'd defend her right to break, he'd make all of the external judgment wrong. He'd rope off the area and let her rage and think that her destruction had beauty.
That calms her.
She's warm now, and her mouth is dry. She hears footsteps encroaching – Amanda, she thinks. And then the footsteps abruptly stop a few feet away. There is a low murmur of words from Fin. The footsteps recede.
And then they are alone again.
She shifts again against his skin, before her eyes drift shut. His hands slide down her hair. He uses her vest to haul her closer.
I can anticipate what he's thinking and what he's gonna do.
He says nothing.
Neither does she.
Over the years she's tried to replace him, erase him, displace him.
The only thing left is this: embrace him.
-o0o-
It's the way he doesn't loosen his hold.
He doesn't pull back. He doesn't try to explain. He doesn't worry about where they are. On the contrary, she believes that he's probably got an expression on his face that tells everyone to back the hell off.
She isn't embarrassed, and maybe she should be. It doesn't matter. They are legends and stories and anecdotes that have twisted over the years. They are the same spectacle now that they had once been, despite his absence. They have picked up where they had left off. Too close.
I'm your partner.
For better.
Or worse.
His heartbeat has slowed. It's even again. The sweat on his skin is drying, and she likes that it is in her hair, on her eyelashes, that the salt of him is on her lips where they had pressed against his flesh. She doesn't feel like a Captain right now, she's nothing more or less than a woman who is being held.
She feels her heartbeat start to match his. One beat, then two. Then another. Then the alignment. There.
Liv.
He pleads it into her scalp. As if he can get inside of her head with just a word. He doesn't know that he's already within her, everywhere. He's been there even during nine years of silence.
His hand slides down her back, then up again. She's being crushed into him, and despite the lack of room, she can finally breathe again.
-o0o-
As he holds her, she careens through the empty void.
It becomes the first years without him then.
It's the searing pain and the ache and the dislodging. It's seeing him in Nick. In the fire and anger and inability to juggle it all. It's the days of waiting for him to come back for her. He could have taken her with, wherever he wanted to go. She would have followed him anywhere. It's the days of too much makeup and too little sleep and seeing him everywhere and nowhere at all.
It's the way she had looked for the companionship and humor with Haden. The way she had tried to stride on, until the job had gotten in the way. Then came Cassidy, and he was the history she craved. He was the long-ago memories, the remembrance that she'd once been okay.
She sucks in a hard breath.
In this moment, he must sense where she's at, because his arms slide around hers, until she's locked tightly in his grasp. He makes a guttural sound, and then his fingers are back in her hair, curled into the strands. He's rubbing her, as if making sure she is okay.
His air becomes hers once again. He's giving it to her.
Every cell of her skin is wrapped by him now. Safety isn't ambiguous. It's tangible. It's present. He's right on time, because here it comes. It's rolling in like a freight train and she's immoveable on the tracks. It's going to smack into her. Held by him like this, of course it would only take minutes for the dark places within her to scream to life, desperate for a reprieve.
Lewis, she thinks, as the pain closes in. It's a vice around her, one that wants his attention badly. It's been waiting years for him.
The blackness that crashes into her now nearly threatens to make her howl. It's a phantom pain that has never fully healed. It's a wound she has needed to show him. He has to know how she has bled.
The terror. The after. The haunts. The wants. The way she had screamed. The way she had dreamed. The breath she exhales is nearly a gasp, a gurgle of explanation.
His fingers push into her hair. Alright, she thinks he says. Alright.
Against her temple then - I'm here.
Her eyes are wet against him, the moisture sliding down beneath his collar. He must feel it. The way she's seeping out. How much she had needed, and how it might not be too late to get it after all.
The rumble is back. He's saying it for her, or maybe for him. It's okay.
Then comes the rest. The moment she had held her son, knowing he was hers. The wandering that she'd done in the years with Ed. The knowledge that there really could never be anyone else, and so she'd make do without.
Mike. Ed. Simon. The deaths and the searing, inexplicable constant loss. It's been a decade of endurance, and yet when he holds her like this, they are still young and there are still possibilities. She feels the faintest stirrings of strength again. Of hope. Of belonging somewhere. They have all died along the way, only not all of them are going to come back like she is. Like he is.
This is the start of their coming back.
How he's touching her right now, he's reaching her no matter the years and all the layers. Things are going to go somewhere, and they aren't going to stay still. She doesn't know why she knows this, but she does.
He will stay.
This time.
She can feel it in the possessive way he's holding her. Endlessly. With all of the past and the future in the nuances of him. He's holding her without apologies, and maybe he's come back as a man who only plays by his own rules now.
I'm home.
It's just a faint rasp from him.
She nods. Again and again, because she understands. He's been waiting to come back, just as much as she's been waiting for his return.
This is their grand encore.
Her eyes feel like they are scalding. Her chest expands. Then there is something new. It's a shimmering, growing frenetic need to absorb him into her. She's suddenly too aware of his body aligned along the length of hers, and the way he isn't keeping space between them. The vests throw up a barrier, but even the Kevlar doesn't stand a chance against his heat. Against hers.
Synthesis, she thinks.
It's the open way he's letting her feel every inch of him. The weaving of them, it molds her to him just like that. Even here, even now. He's letting her know she can touch, she can run her hands along the hard dips and curves of his muscles, he's holding her as if she's…
His.
As if he is hers.
She rests her forehead on his shoulder. She takes a deep breath, even as her fingers protest what is coming. She will have time with him, this she already knows. It's what gives her the courage to finally pull back. He reluctantly lets her, unfurling his arms, his grip, his hold.
The peeling is slow. Painful. Necessary for now.
This man - the sheer size of him – he is overwhelming both in muscles and in her memories. He is coming back from a war, only to find that she's been winning her own battles in his absence. He's proud of her.
As she is of him.
Wherever he's been, he's done something extraordinary. She's sure of it.
She looks up at him, and his eyes are already focused on her. It's the ever-familiar tangle of lashes around his flecked blue irises. He's intent and intending and unending. He brushes his hand across her face, sweeping her bangs back. He holds his hand on her face.
Lingering.
He looks into her. And then she sees it, the dawning of light that emerges from those eyes. His mouth tips up just a little bit. She almost gasps at all of the words that are contained merely in his vocal expression. It's a thousand please forgive me's and I'm sorry's and let me explain.
When he knows she's read all he's trying to say, his gaze purposefully darkens with emotion. It's something bigger. Something clearer. I love you.
She steadies on her feet. She's got this. Of course she does, she's had nine years to prepare.
She licks her lips. What she does next is important. It will set the tone for their ever after. For the here on out.
"Hi El," she says simply, voice cracking slightly.
And even in the middle of a crime scene, the way he grins makes her think that she is the one who is finally home.
-o0o-
finis