Five

When Olivia returned to her office at the precinct, she immediately locked Elliot's letter into a desk drawer. For the rest of the day, she threw herself into her work as if nothing were out of the ordinary. No one except Fin seemed to notice that anything was going on. During a quiet moment, he had come to her office door and simply asked, "Everything good?"

Under almost any other circumstances, Olivia would have said something like "Yep, all good" or "I'm fine, Fin," and he would have either decided to leave well enough alone or come in, shut the door, and push her for answers. This time, though, Olivia said softly, "No, Fin. But I can't talk about it today. Tomorrow, ok?"

Fin looked at her, and Olivia held his gaze, letting him know that she wasn't brushing him off. He nodded. "I'll pick you up in the morning. That ok?"

She nodded. Then, the moment was done, and she asked him about the current case they were working on.

Olivia had to admit to herself that she took her time putting Noah to bed that evening. Even after he'd fallen asleep, she'd kept reading The Wizard of Oz until she was nearly done with the book. Guiltily, she marked the book in the place where she thought he'd fallen asleep and kissed him goodnight.

After shutting his bedroom door, Olivia slowly walked into her bedroom. She'd dropped her purse at the foot of the bed. Bending down, she pulled the letter out of it. She then threw it on the bed and, defiantly, took her sweet time getting through her nightly routine and refused to look at it.

But nothing lasts forever, and eventually, Olivia couldn't push it off any longer. Now, she sat in the middle of her bed, in her pajamas with her legs crossed, about to open the letter. She knew that she couldn't put it off until tomorrow or any other day. Fin was expecting answers tomorrow and, while she was certain she wouldn't have an easy night of sleep, she knew that she wouldn't get any sleep at all if the letter remained unread.

So, telling herself to get this over with, Olivia opened the envelope and pulled out the folded pages inside. Unfolding them, she had to take a breath. Seeing her nickname in his handwriting had been jarring enough – seeing full pages of it after four years of nothing was enough to make her feel like passing out.

But she took some deep, therapeutic breaths before finally beginning to read.

Dear Olivia,

I wish I was better at writing letters. Seriously. I haven't written a letter since I was in the Marines and those were horrible. Most of them just said things like 'I'm fine' and 'don't worry.' I cared more about the news from home than I was about telling my family what Marine life was like.

But that's not the case here. You need answers. Hell, you deserve the world, the universe, everything. And I let you down. I made a promise that I was your partner, for better or for worse, and I walked away. And you deserve to know why, even if you won't like the answers I have.

Even though it's been four years, I don't need to remind you of my last day. We had sworn to get justice for Jenna and her mother, and she bled out in my arms from a bullet that I'd put in her. She was no older than Lizzie at the time.

I don't remember much about that day that wasn't holding Jenna's body while she died. But I do remember meeting your eyes across the room, Jenna in my arms and Sister Peg in yours. We were both shocked, devastated, and…I'll never forget your face in that moment, Liv.

The rest of that day is all a blur. I know you tried to talk to me before I left, but it was as if I was in a tunnel. I got home, somehow, and I brushed Kathy off before locking myself in the basement with a case of beer. The days that followed were full of IAB and interrogation and Kathy trying to get me to talk and drowning myself in a bottle. When the ruling came back that I had been justified in shooting her, things got even worse. The thought of coming back into the precinct after what happened, to carry on as if nothing had happened, case after case, each one nightmare after another…I just couldn't do it anymore, Liv.

Anyways, things didn't get better after I put my papers in. The final straw for Kathy was one morning when Eli woke up first, came downstairs, and found me passed out drunk on the sofa, surrounded by a mess I'd made. I'd shut her out completely by then, so I wasn't shocked. She wouldn't let me see Eli again until I'd gotten help, which was the motivation I needed.

Once I felt sober and strong enough, both of us knew that it was over. We'd gotten back together for the same reason we got married: it was the right thing to do. Now, even though Eli was still little, we knew that we would be better parents to him and the rest of the kids if we stopped pretending. The divorce was surprisingly quick and not nearly as painful as the first had been.

Right after it was settled, I got a job offer to work overseas. They wanted an experienced cop from America to be a liaison with certain task forces working on international terrorism. It was Kathy who talked me into it. I'd been sober since she kicked me out, so she wasn't trying to get rid of me or anything. But she knew I missed the work, and she saw this as a chance for me to have a fresh start. If modern technology weren't as good as it is now, I couldn't have left Eli. Thank God for Skype, that's all I can say.

I was based in Rome, but I frequently made trips into Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, France a few times. It was the first time I truly lived for myself. The work was good and it kept me busy, but I was still able to look around and realize how damn lucky I was. I came home as often as I could for holidays or birthdays, and I spoke to each of my kids every day, even if it was just a text. That was my biggest rule along with staying sober.

When Maureen had Rosie, a lot of the appeal of Europe faded away, and I found myself wanting to be closer to my family again. So I moved back here a few months ago, just in time for Rosie's first birthday, after I'd tied up every loose end I could. Now, I'm working private security. Not the same as being on the job, but the pay is great, and I still have Eli to put through school, so that helps. To make up for work, I spend quite a bit of free time at this youth shelter geared towards young boys that came from the school of hard knocks, be it their home life or bad choices they made or both.

So, in a nutshell, that's what my life has been and is now. But all of that doesn't matter in the face of the question I have to answer: through all of this, why did I never reach out to you?

I wanted to answer each time you called or texted me, but I didn't. I knew that, if I heard your voice, I wouldn't have been able to leave. And I needed to leave. I know that you would never force me to stay. You know me so well; you'd have seen the pain I was in and understood why I couldn't come back, however much you didn't like it. But that wouldn't have mattered, Liv. Seeing you or hearing you would have meant facing the reality that I was abandoning you to face the work – and all of the ugliness that makes it up – alone, without me watching your six. And I couldn't face it. I tried to make excuses for myself: you'd be better off without me, I would drag you down, I was holding you back, I'd be no good to you now…you deserved better than me. The irony is that I proved all of those things true by not answering when you called.

By the time I'd pulled myself together, divorced Kathy and started my new life abroad, your calls and texts had stopped. It broke my heart but I couldn't blame you. I still wanted to reach out to you, but with each day that passed where I lost my courage, it got harder and harder. I didn't realize it, but I was making new excuses for myself now: you've moved on with your life, you're better off, I can't be there for you so why bother, etc. But one excuse was still there: you deserved better.

And you do, Liv. That means the whole truth, too. There's one more reason why I couldn't face you anymore. It took me a long time to come to terms with this reason, and I don't know how you'll take this. But you deserve the whole truth.

I fell in love with you, Olivia. I don't know when – maybe from the start – but at some point you became so much more than my partner to the point where you were the first thing on my mind when I woke up and the last thing on my mind when I fell asleep. I suspected this while I was separated from Kathy the first time, but I was too scared to really examine that. So much about my life had changed, and the thought of risking our partnership for any reason was unthinkable to me. Ironic that I still lost you twice during that time, but you came back and, especially after the second time, I vowed to myself that I wouldn't do anything to risk our partnership again.

So, I turned to Kathy for comfort when I needed it. Because she was familiar and safe, not because she's who I truly wanted to turn to. I will never regret my little boy for any reason, but it is what it is. If I'd been a braver man, a man who was worthy of you…but I'm not.

I'm a coward, Liv, and you don't deserve that. You've had so much heartbreak and people letting you down, and it kills me that I've become one of them when I once swore that I wouldn't. Please understand that my life was all settled by the time I'd met you. I never imagined I could fall so hard for someone, let alone someone I wasn't married to and who I worked with. It went against so much that I believed in. And when I couldn't face the work anymore, I convinced myself that a clean break with you was the best thing for everybody.

I thought that I was doing the right thing for everybody. It's a reason, not an excuse. I'm so sorry, Liv. For everything. I always will be. I wish I could change the past, but I can't. I must accept what I cannot change.

When I moved back to the city, I made it a goal for myself to finally reach out when I'd settled in, but I had no idea where to start. My best idea was to reach out through Fin until Lizzie told me she had run into you. When she told me, it felt like the sky clearing up after a storm; I found a starting point. So, I'm writing you this letter.

Believe it or not, this isn't the first letter I've written to you. I've written many letters to you since I've been sober. When I've felt lonely or lost, I wrote to you as a therapeutic technique. My sponsor told me he did something similar as a coping mechanism on his own road to recovery, except he would write it to his past self. I tried that once, but it always came back to you. I would give these letters to you now if I could, but I destroyed each after I wrote them; after all, I did it for myself rather than you. Yet another thing I regret.

But in those letters, I had no idea how you were doing or what was going on. There's still so much that I don't know beyond what Lizzie told me she learned, but what she did tell me…Liv, I am so proud of you. Becoming a lieutenant and heading the unit – can you honestly tell me you would have done that if I'd still been there?

And you're a mother now. Oh, Liv, I'm so happy for you, and doing it all on your own. Screw every person who said you weren't fit or that you couldn't do it; you're the best that any child could hope for. Noah is the luckiest little boy in the world to have you, and I'm sure you would say the same thing for him.

I think I've written everything there is to write for now. You have no reason to believe me, forgive me, or ever see me again; my past four years of silence speaks for me. But I'm back in the city now; I have no intention of going anywhere else, and I'm here to stay. I know that my kids want to reconnect with you, and I will never stand in the way of that. I'll also never use them as a way to try and see you or do anything you don't want me to do.

My feelings for you haven't changed. If four years without you hasn't changed that, nothing will. If you can find it in your heart, I will take whatever you can give me, Liv, even if it's a request to stay out of your life. I'll accept whatever terms you set. The ball's in your court. My new address and phone number are on the back of this page.

Semper fi,

Elliot

Olivia was sobbing long before she finished reading the letter. She cried herself to sleep surrounded by the pages of the letter. Her self-control only stretched so far as to not make enough noise to wake her sleeping son.