She leaned on the cold concrete column surrounding the roof. It was around midnight and all the other detectives had left. The air was cool against her leather jacket. Her jeans hugged all her curves perfectly even though she'd gained a small amount of weight over the past year.
She took another deep breath, letting the smoke fill her throat and lungs before she blew it out. It was a habit she'd picked up a few months ago, but lately, she did it more and more. So far, she hadn't gotten caught and Cragen hadn't ordered drug tests for them in years. She wasn't even sure she'd care if she got caught.
Her eyes continued to dilate and she started to feel better, fuzzy but better. She looked down and watched the traffic below her. So many bright lights. This seemed to be a better way to dull the pain rather than the bourbon or vodka. She silently wondered what it would have been like if her mother had chosen marijuana instead, if she'd been easier to live with, more fun?
She heard the roof top door behind her creak open but she didn't flinch. She didn't try to hide her joint. If she was caught, then she was caught.
It wasn't until the figure come closer to her that her body froze. She didn't pick up on it at first, but her body had. Within seconds she smelled his cologne. Her nostrils flared with the sent. She maintained her stance and continued to look forwards.
He walked up beside her and leaned over on the concrete column as well, mirroring her position.
Her hazel hair cascaded around her shoulders as she continued to smoke.
"I'd heard you were bad off…" he started, "but I was told it was alcohol not… this…" he said to her, gesturing the drug in her hand.
"It takes the edge off," she told him. He let out a disappointed sigh.
"Fin must be real desperate…" she concluded out loud.
"He's worried and frankly so am I… drinking almost every day, passing out, coming to work hungover… that's not you, Liv." He told her.
"You've been gone a year… things change…" she told him lightly as she took another drag, this time turning her head to her right, finally looking at him. She gently blew the line of smoke directly in his face. He held her gaze, not moving but also held his breath until the smoke passed. She looked back down at the traffic.
"If Cragen gets wind of this…" he warned her slowly but she already knew the threat, the risk she was taking.
"Who's gonna tell him?" She questioned. "You, Elliot?" giving him a side glance but she knew better than that. He wouldn't rat her out, if anything, he'd try to get her help. Help that she didn't want or need.
"I'm told your drink of choice is vodka? Is that right?" he asked, sadness in his voice. Sadness for her and for him, for them all because if that was the path Olivia was choosing, then she knew it only ended one of two ways, and he could guess at which one she was leaning towards.
Olivia finished off her blunt, put it out, and chunked it over the side of the building. She turned around and leaned back against the concrete, crossing her arms over her chest. She was biting her lip, this wasn't a conversation she cared to have, she had just wanted to get high and go home.
She looked at him, giving Elliot a sad smile acknowledging that his last statement was correct.
He huffed and stood up straight, wiping his hand down his face before he tucked both hands in his jeans pockets.
"You can't do this, Olivia." He told her.
She just smiled again. Maybe it was the high, or maybe it was the fact that she really didn't care anymore.
"Tell me this isn't because of me…" he begged her, with pain etched into his face. "Please…" he whispered.
Olivia gave him another small smile, but this time it was sad. She didn't want to admit she'd felt things for him and she surly didn't want to admit that he'd been her downfall.
She swallowed hard.
"It wasn't all you…" she told him honestly. "It just started with you and… now it's turned into something else…"
"Christ, Olivia…" he whispered. "I didn't know it would do this to you, that it'd hurt you this bad… that my leaving would… break you." Elliot told her.
"Stop." She demanded, holding up her hands.
Elliot took a long, ragged, deep breath. He was frustrated and didn't know what to do. This woman who had been his constant friend for twelve years looked unrecognizable. She'd changed, her body, her demeanor, her face. She looked like a walking ball of stress and anxiety but then again, she didn't look like she gave two fucks about anyone including herself.
She walked a few steps away from Elliot and sat on top of the concrete column. It wasn't the safest but is wasn't the most dangerous either, she wouldn't fall. Olivia pulled out a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes from her jacket pocket and put one in her mouth. She grabbed the blue lighter from her other pocket and began to light it.
Elliot's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"Wow… you've just picked up a ton of great habits since I left huh, Liv?" he said sarcastically and she almost laughed at him.
He walked over to her cautiously standing in front of her. He grabbed the pack of cigarettes that she'd laid beside her on the concrete. Olivia half expected him to chunk them over the side. What she didn't expect, was for him to pop a cigarette in his mouth, take the lighter out of her hand, and light up.
Now it was her turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise.
"Be careful," she told him. "Looks like my bad behavior is rubbing off on you…" She gave him a knowing look.
"I'll live," he told her. "But you won't if you keep this vodka thing up." He said, taking a puff from his cigarette and blowing out the smoke.
"Kathy's gonna be pissed if you come home smelling like cigarettes," she told him, changing the subject.
"Kathy will get over it." He replied easily.
He remained standing in front of her sitting form. A bout of silence engulfed them as they both smoked their cigarettes. She knew if she wasn't high then she'd probably be emotional from seeing him for the first time in over a year. There was a good chance that she'd think it was all a dream when she woke up tomorrow.
"Liv," he called to her, breaking her out of her daze. "I can handle the cigarettes and the pot." He told her. "The drinking though…" he trailed off.
"I know…" she whispered to him, refusing to make eye contact. "I have to get it under control…"
"Can you?" he asked her honestly, moving his neck to catch her eyes. When he finally did, he continued. "Can you get it under control or are you too far gone with it? Be honest with me." Elliot stated.
Olivia huffed. She hated this and she almost hated Fin for getting Elliot involved.
"Yeah…" she told him in a small voice.
"Yeah?" he questioned her further.
"It's not daily, just here and there…" she told him.
"You drinking on the job?" he asked even though Fin had already told him the answer.
Olivia made a face and gave him a look. She knew that he already knew the answer to his question.
"You can't let that happened. We gotta get ahead of this…" he told her shaking his head.
"We?" she questioned, raising one eyebrow.
"Yes, we." He replied.
She put out her cigarette butt and jumped down off the concrete and pushed him away from her, walking to the other side of the roof instead of heading for the door.
"You refuse to talk to me, to even act like I exist, and now all the sudden you want back in my life?" she asked, half yelling.
Elliot walked closer to her, throwing the rest of his cigarette on the ground and smashing it with his foot. She was pissed, she had every right to be and he knew it.
"You know damn well why I left, Olivia." He told her in a low voice.
"I want to hear you say it." She challenged him, eyeing his anger that was beginning to arise and make an appearance.
"We were too close, you know that. I needed to try and save my marriage." He told her firmly. God, it was the truth, they both knew it.
"You could have said goodbye, Elliot." She threw her words at him.
"You know good and well I couldn't…" he told her. His eyes were alive and bright blue, just as she remembered them.
Olivia remained quiet because she actually agreed with him, she knew that saying goodbye wouldn't have been an option for either one of them. She had just wanted to know what his reasoning behind it was, what he would say.
"You know how it would have gone down…" he told her in a whisper, coming to stand in front of her.
"Say it," she whispered, daring him to go there. He gave her a questioning look but she wasn't letting up. For all she knew, this would be the last conversation she'd ever have with him again and she wasn't going to let it go to waste.
Elliot swallowed hard and walked up directly to her, standing face-to-face with her.
"I would have come to your apartment to tell you goodbye…" he started.
"And?" she encouraged him.
"And…" he continued. "Our feelings would have come up, we would have faltered, I… we… I would have fucked you, Olivia…" He whispered. "And it would have been our undoing."
Elliot backed up and looked away from her with his hands on his hips. He didn't think he could finish this conversation. Maybe it was a mistake coming here, maybe she'd be better off if he would have stayed away?
She admired him for trying to detach their feelings from this conversation. He had said "fucked" instead of "made love" or "had sex" on purpose. He was trying to spare her and himself.
"I loved you," Olivia whispered as tears stung her eyes. She might as well get it all on the table while she could. She wasn't near as high anymore and she was beginning to crave a drink anyways.
Elliot closed his eyes tight as if he was in pain, as if it had physically hurt him to hear her say those words.
"I know…" he told her. He wasn't going to say it back, at least not while he still wore his ring, they both knew that. "I'm sorry I left like that… I could have done it better or did something different… I'm sorry." He told her honestly, finally glancing up to look at her.
"Don't every apologize to me for trying to fix your marriage, Elliot." She told him strongly.
"I broke you…" he told her.
"You didn't break me." Olivia stated calmly, disagreeing.
"Like hell I didn't… look at yourself, Olivia." Elliot exclaimed. "You're an alcoholic pot head who smokesmarijuana and Marlboro Red's on the rooftop of a fucking police station…"
Elliot looked around again, rubbing the back of his head with his right hand. "I didn't know I had this much pull on you, Liv… I didn't know the feelings were that strong… I'm sorry."
Olivia began to laugh.
"Great, you're still high." He stated making a face at her.
"No… well, yes a little, but that's not why I'm laughing." She told him.
"Okay, I'll bite." Elliot stated. "What are you laughing at?" he asked.
"Tucker told me we had been to close and you were bad for me… but you've been gone for a year and I'm almost at rock bottom, but it happened without you." She told him. "Tucker had been wrong because without you, I crashed and burned." She admitted honestly.
However, out of everything that she'd just said, the only thing Elliot had heard was "Tucker".
"He gave you problems for my resignation?" Elliot questioned. Olivia could visibly see his temperature rising with his anger.
"Oh no… umm…" Olivia started, realizing he hadn't actually heard the news that she and Tucker had dated for a few short months after Elliot had left. She wondered what all Fin had told him.
"What'd he do, Liv?" Elliot asked.
"Elliot, you… don't get mad okay?" she asked him, almost begging. Elliot could see the pleading in her eyes. Her facial expression had changed and so had her demeaner.
"You dated him?" he questioned lowly, crossing his arms over his chest in a protective stance.
"You left me, El…" she told him softly.
"Oh God. I drove you into the arms of Tucker? Are you fucking kidding me? That prick?" Elliot was mad but at himself. Processing all of this new information was hard. She definitely wasn't the same Olivia Benson that he had known before.
She let out a breath and tucked her hands into her back pockets.
"What do you want me to say?" She asked him lightly.
"That you didn't fuck him." Elliot shot back quickly.
Olivia was silent while she eyed him. He didn't need to ask again, her eyes said it all with her apologetic expression.
"Great… just great…" he stated.
Olivia huffed. "Why are you here again?" she asked.
Elliot looked at her hard. "To make sure you don't fall down a flight of stairs like Serena…" he told her soberly.
"I don't plan on it…" she promised him.
"Yeah, well neither did your mom…" he told her.
"Kathy know you're here?" Olivia questioned as the wind lightly blew through her shoulder length hair.
"Yep." He told her.
This surprised Olivia. She didn't think Kathy would have approved. Now she wondered if Elliot and his wife had gotten into some big argument over her.
"I'm here…" he stated, "and I'm not going to let you spiral downwards… I just won't do it." Elliot told her.
"How you gonna stop me?" she asked out of curiosity.
"I'm going to be here. We're going to be friends again. Lunch dates, coffee, all of it just like before, except I'm not your work partner anymore." He told her forcefully.
Olivia stared at him. She wasn't sure what to say or feel. She didn't know if she could have him as just a friend now that she'd told him she loved him. It wasn't like he hadn't known before but she'd never admitted it verbally and they had definitely never acknowledged it.
"What if I don't want that?" she questioned hesitantly.
"Either you get some help with what's going on or I'm ratting you out to Cragen…" He told her. Maybe she had been wrong, it seemed he was willing to rat her out. She thought about this for a moment.
"Can you do that? Do this with me? As just friends?" she asked him.
"I don't know…" he replied honestly. "But I'm going to try my hardest." He promised her and walked over to her, pulling her in for a hug. "We'll figure something out," he said, walking up to her, pulling her into a hug.
Thoughts?
