Eight

Leave it to Elliot to call her for the first time after four years at the most inconvenient time. Olivia was seated in the rocking chair in Noah's room, rocking slowly back and forth. Noah was falling asleep on her chest, his face pressed against the crook of her neck. She was rubbing his back and humming "You Are My Sunshine," one of her go-to lullabies.

She had just finished humming the refrain again when she felt her phone vibrating in her sweater pocket. This wasn't the first time this had happened, so Olivia managed to not startle at all and pull out her phone to see who was calling her, hoping that she didn't have to go back to the station.

But when she saw the name 'Stabler' on her phone, her heart stopped for a moment. Even though Olivia had been waiting for this call, this was still the phone call she'd been waiting four years for. She took deep breaths in order to keep her heart from pounding out of her chest and disturbing her sleeping child.

Finally, she answered the phone just before it could go to voicemail.

Pressing it to her ear, Olivia could hear the sound of ragged breathing that was almost sobbing. She knew that she needed to say something – Benson, Hello, Hi Elliot – but she couldn't find her voice. She had been dreaming of this moment for longer than she would admit to anybody, and she needed to hear his voice to believe it.

Finally, she heard it.

"…Liv? Is that you, Liv?"

Olivia shut her eyes, and a tear fell. There was no mistaking that voice. "Elliot," she breathed, as if she were praying.

"Oh, my God, Liv…" He sounded on the verge of tears.

Feeling her son's hand flex against her chest, Olivia was reminded that they were not alone. "Um, Elliot, just…I'm sorry, but I'm literally holding my sleeping son right now. I need to put him down. Don't hang up, just give me a minute, please."

"Of course, Liv, I'll be right here," said Elliot, his voice forcefully steadier than it had been.

"Thanks," she said, and set her phone down on the little table beside the rocking chair. She then carefully stood up, cradling her son to her, and walked him to his crib. She laid him down gently and tucked him in, cooing softly to him when he stirred but didn't wake. "Goodnight, my sweet boy," she whispered, kissing his forehead. "Mommy loves you so much."

Seeing that Noah was sound asleep, Olivia grabbed her phone and quietly exited the room. Once she was inside her own bedroom, she laid down on her bed and pressed her phone to her ear. "Elliot? Are you still there?"

"I'm here, Liv, I'm right here."

Olivia wanted to sob, but she stopped herself and let out a wet sigh instead. Elliot, on the other hand, sobbed through his next words.

"I'm so sorry, Liv."

How could four words encompass so much emotion and regret? Olivia didn't know how, but they did. If she'd heard these words from him without having first read his letter, she knew that she would had responded in anger. Hell, she had every right to still be angry with him, and a part of her still was. But now, having read his letter at least a dozen times since receiving it, she just felt sad.

"I know," she finally replied.

Elliot sniffed. "Liv, if I'd known…you have to know that I would have been there if I'd known…I could never let you go through that alone. Even if you kicked my ass or locked the door, I would have been there."

Olivia let two more tears fall from her eyes. "I think I always knew that deep down," she said. "But I didn't always believe it. Once upon a time, I never thought you could cut me out of your life without so much as a simple goodbye."

"I've let you down so much, Liv…the fact that you're even speaking to me at all proves how much better you've always been than me."

Olivia sighed. "Elliot…I get it. I've always understood why you left SVU, because I was there and I know you. It wasn't that you left, Elliot – it was the way you left."

"I know. It was selfish…so selfish. I see that now. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing for everybody…but I was lying to myself and being a coward. And because of that, you had to go through hell all alone…maybe it would have been better if you never met me…"

"Don't you dare say that!" The words burst out of Olivia as she sat up on her bed, and it was hard to say who was more shocked. But Olivia kept going: "Look, Elliot…I wanted to hate you. So many times, I wished that I could forget you so that I didn't have to feel the pain of missing you. But I never could…and I never will. You've done so much for me. You were the first person who ever really looked out for me; not just on the job, but through a tough time. You believed I could be a good mother long before I ever could. If it weren't for you, I don't know if I could have gone through with adopting Noah. And even when I was being held by…him…when I managed to break free, I beat him with that rod because it's the least of what you would have done."

"The very least," said Elliot, his voice hoarse and trembling with rage. "I'd have made sure to break every bone in his body before killing him myself."

"Yeah. Then maybe it's a good thing you weren't there to do that. You'd have been no good to me locked up while I dealt with the aftermath alone. That would have been worse than what actually happened."

She heard Elliot let out a deep, shuddering breath. Even though she couldn't see him, Olivia would bet anything that he was nodding and trying to believe her. He was silent for a minute before speaking again. "You mean it, Liv? The stuff you said I did for you?"

"Yes, Elliot," said Olivia. "Just like I meant every word in that letter. All the good, all the bad, and all the complicated. Just like you meant every word of your letter."

"It still wasn't enough, though, Liv. You deserved everything, you deserved the world. You still do."

"Stop, Elliot. We can't change what's past, much as we may want to sometimes. The 'what ifs' will just go round and round in our brains until we go crazy and only live in the past. I won't do that, and neither should you."

"Then what do we do, Liv? Where do we go from here?"

Olivia laid back down on her bed, the weight and enormity of that question settling on her. The question that had been repeating in her mind ever since she had run into Lizzie and found out that Elliot had moved back to the city – and that he was no longer married. Deep down, she had known from the moment she'd seen Lizzie again that the deepest desire of her heart was to have Elliot back in her life again. Just how…well…

Her silence lasted for so long that Elliot spoke again. "Look, Liv…I get it if…you're not ready to –"

"What I'm not ready for is to see you again," interrupted Olivia. "Not in person, not yet. I'm just not. Part of me still feels like I'm in an episode of the Twilight Zone. It's like you're back from the dead and…I don't trust myself to be near you yet."

Elliot let out a long breath on the other end of the phone. "I get that, Liv."

"But…" said Olivia, biting her lip momentarily. "I assume you're going to Lizzie's opening night show?"

"Yeah, the whole family's going."

"Well…if it's alright with you…Lizzie invited me, too. That can be the night that we…meet again."

A moment of silence, and then Elliot spoke in a breathless voice. "Yeah, Liv. Of course. Whatever you're comfortable with."

"Good. Then that's one thing settled. In the meantime…we can talk on the phone, text, that sort of thing. Would that be ok with you?"

"Yeah! That would be great, Liv!" She heard him moving and then some bumping sounds, as if he'd stumbled. "Woah, sorry, nearly lost my footing there. Just getting up off the floor and now I seriously need some water."

As she listened to him open his cupboard and then turn on the faucet, Olivia's worry started to rise. He'd been sitting on the floor this whole time? Slumped against the wall or lying down? "Elliot, are you…I mean, I know the letter was a big bomb to drop on you –"

"Olivia, stop right there. I swear to you, I haven't had a drink. Right after reading your letter, I found out when and where the nearest meeting was, and I worked out at my gym until then. I had just come home from the meeting when I called you. My body was so tired and I was so…overwhelmed that I just slumped to the floor. But I haven't backslid, I promise you."

Olivia let out a sigh of relief. "Good. That's why I asked Fin to give you the letter, so you would understand how triggering the stuff in that letter might be for you."

"Not gonna lie, Liv: If a bottle of hard liquor was within my reach when I read that letter, I doubt I would have had the strength to stop myself. But I understood how important this was when Fin gave me the letter. So I called in sick for my shift tonight and looked up nearby meetings before reading your letter in my apartment."

Olivia couldn't help but smile. "I'm proud of you, Elliot."

She heard him laugh ruefully. "You're proud of me, Olivia? Or should I say Lieutenant Benson? In charge of the unit now. Not to mention the fact that you're a mother? All of this after everything you went through, including what I put you through? No, Liv, it's me who's proud of you. So damn proud."

Olivia shut her eyes against the tears forming in them, and sniffed before she simply replied, "Thank you, El."

She could hear him smile as she called him by his nickname for the first time since he'd called, and she couldn't help but smile too.

A few moments of silence followed, but it was a comfortable silence. Eventually, she heard him yawn before he said, "I am so tired I feel like I could collapse on the floor and sleep like a baby…but I don't want to hang up."

"I'm pretty beat, too," said Olivia, rolling onto her side. "But we should. We're not as young as we used to be, and at least one of us will be woken by a one-and-a-half year old at 5:30 in the morning demanding his breakfast and a cuddle."

Elliot's laughter on the other end of the line warmed her heart. It was tired but genuine. "Oh, those are the best mornings. When I have Rosie over, the best sound in the world is the babbling songs she makes up while she waits for me to come in. The notes reach operatic shrieks if I take too long."

Olivia joined in his laughter and pulled all of her strength up to end the conversation. "Goodnight, El. I'm…I'm glad you called."

"Thank you for giving me your number. You knew I'd need to hear your voice after reading your letter."

"Yeah…and I needed to hear your voice, too, after reading yours. It's going to take me a while to really trust you again, El. To believe that you're really back and that you…you…"

She couldn't finish that sentence because she wasn't ready to. Thankfully, as Elliot always did, he understood what she said without words.

"I know, Liv. But I'm going to do everything in my power to prove myself again, and to make up for all the hurt I caused you. Thank you for letting me try."

"Ok. Now, seriously: goodnight, El."

"Sweet dreams, Liv."

With that, Olivia hung up. She fell asleep very soon after, and it was the best night of sleep that she'd had in a very long time.

Elliot, too, slept like a rock that night. At least, for most of the night. In the early morning hours, his dreamless sleep was broken by a nightmare of Olivia being bound and tortured and him not being able to help her. He should have expected this since her letter was so fresh in his mind. It was a testimony to her strength that she'd been able to write down as much as she had.

After managing to calm himself before a panic attack could set in, Elliot got dressed and headed out of his apartment. He walked until he came to the Catholic Church closest to his building. He would have to wait a while before the 7 AM mass service began, but that was fine. He wanted time to light a candle and pray – not only for forgiveness for his selfishness, but for the strength to be the man Olivia deserved from this moment on.