Believer

Fleeterberry

Adding one more SVU 2303/OC 0203 promo fic into the raging inferno of twitter psychosis

Disclaimer: Not mine. Captain Mariska is at the helm.

The knock on her door is loud and unexpected, startling her for a moment as she presses her eyes closed and tries to calm her racing heart. There's something so familiar about it, about the insistence, the harshness, the impatience when a second set of four knocks damn near immediately follows the first set. She tells herself it's ridiculous to assume, to decide, to recognize that sound as her partner, ex-partner. He's never been to this apartment. She's never given him her address. She's never opened this door and had Elliot push past her with the assumption she'll grant him entrance. It's much more likely a grocery delivery guy banging on the wrong door again as though the doors aren't all labeled.

She shoves her laptop onto the coffee table and makes her way to the door, her instincts assuring her that it is him, it has to be him, because no one else would pound on her door a third time in as many seconds and actually expect her to answer it, her sixth sense insisting that it's him because she can feel him close and her whole body is tingling the way it always does when he's nearby, her brain reminding her that it's just wishful thinking because she hasn't heard a damn word from him in three months, her heart warning her it's nine years too early for him to return after disappearing without a fucking word again.

And still, she doesn't check the peephole because it's him and she knows it's him and she's afraid if she takes one more second to open the door he's going to knock it off the hinges and scare the shit out of her son who's sleeping in the next room and cost her several multiples of the security deposit which she's really bitter about at the moment because the management place is worried about protecting themselves, but clearly the doorman who is supposed to be protecting her just let a visitor up without clearing it with her like he's supposed to.

She's startled again when she pulls open the door and he has to grab onto the frame on both sides to keep himself upright. One look at him and it's already too much. She can still read him better than she can read herself. It's Elliot, but it's not. The clothes, the beard, the shaved head. He's been undercover and it's not so much Elliot as his temporary persona who is at her door, but it's him at the same time it's not. She knows he's not ok. She knows he's flailing. She knows it's a very big deal that he's reaching out to her. She knows there is nothing safe about a scared, desperate, emotional Elliot Stabler half passed out at her door at midnight. She wishes his fingers weren't curled around the edge of the door so she could close it and go back to her refuge in the living room where she is trying to pretend she cares about whether slipcovers are a good idea for her sofa.

He finally rights himself, his eyes meeting hers, breathing out her name like a prayer and a curse and the answer to the secrets of the universe. And hell, maybe it is because the way he's looking at her right now, she's pretty damn sure her world just caught fire and her brain melted and how the fuck can one look from his man who has broken her heart so many times she can only blame herself at this point still fucking fix everything.

She purses her lips for a moment and tries to look angry or disappointed or irritated or anything besides tickled pink that he's alive and at her door and sexy all hell, reminding herself that while she has absolutely no willpower when it comes to him he doesn't quite seem to know that yet.

He's staring at her like he wants to eat her alive and it scares her because it would take very little convincing for her to admit she wants that too.

She narrows her eyes, takes a breath, and tells herself that he's not ready, she's not ready, and Noah is certainly not going to be in the same building when they are. "How much have you had to drink?"

He looks down like he's disappointed his heated stare didn't have the desired effect and finally shrugs a little bit too late to convince her she's wrong about his state of intoxication and thus his readiness even though she's not so sure she's not ready and she can be quiet and Noah could be none the wiser.

"A lot." He swallows hard. "They were celebrating."

She doesn't ask who because it doesn't matter and she knows he won't tell her anyway. "Celebrating what?"

He meets her eyes again to confirm that she doesn't want to know and then she forgets the question because her world is in flames once again.

She sighs and wonders if he will ever come to her door when he is not grossly impaired and in a state of mental collapse and she can enjoy the way looking at him raises her body temperature by ten degrees. But now is, like always, not the time. She tries to push back her own feelings and needs and emotional state and focus on his. The more she does, the worse the picture gets. He's barely standing, and while he's drunk she knows that's not it, his eyes are red, his hands are clenched tight around one side of the door and one side of the frame and his legs are shaking so hard she understands the death grip he has on the door. She knows the answer and she knows he'll lie, but she asks anyway because that's what they do. "Are you ok?"

He surprises her.

His face crumbles in slow motion, the way she remembers Noah's did when he was a baby, when he was learning to walk and stumbled and fell onto all fours and then started to wail in upset and frustration and desperation. Elliot's chin starts to tremble, his throat working convulsively to swallow, his face contorting as he lets the tears come.

"I just- I- just-" He stops, his jaw clenching as he tries to stop the flow of tears or words or emotions or something, and shakes his head. "I can't." And then his eyes are on hers again and she recognizes with a skipped beat of her heart how very, very big this moment is for them.

Of course he's probably too drunk to remember in the morning. But she still knows.

He's struggling, he's desperate, he's hurting, he's vulnerable. And he's reaching for her. She hadn't realized the man was capable of listening to her, not after so fucking many years of pointedly not taking her advice, and yet here he is. Apparently one can teach an old dog new tricks, at least when they're having a breakdown.

"Olivia, please-"

It's not clear what he's asking, what he wants, until he trips forward, and she remembers he's barely standing and he's about to collapse and if he hits the floor there is zero chance she will be able to drag a two-hundred pound man out of her doorway and thus will have to sit there all night with her door standing open and him passed out on the floor until he can get himself off the ground. She grabs him under one shoulder, feeling her weak ankle protest the sudden weight gain as he leans into her, pulls him back toward the couch, praying to that god of his that they will get there without either of them breaking something or each other.

Fate smiles on them and she's able to get him in front of the couch before his legs give out completely, his arms reaching for her as he falls unaware he's going to hit something soft, his fingers digging into her hip and pulling her with him until she catches herself on one knee. His reaction is dulled with alcohol and it takes him a moment once he's there to realize he's not falling anymore and to release the grip on her body and he looks around like he's really confused as to where he is and then he looks back at her and sees the way she's leaning over him and her hands are still holding him because while the couch caught him he still doesn't seem particularly stable and when their eyes meet again she's not sure they're not still falling either.

"Olivia." Her name, again a reverent prayer and she has a flash of him kneeling in a confessional and saying her name in just that way and knowing the breathy tone and the longing and the need behind it is sin itself and if any priest ever heard it he'd have been excommunicated and she wonders if Kathy ever did, if there was ever a night when he reached for his wife in bed while he thought of another and said the wrong name in the right way. She tries to push the thought from her mind because the woman is dead and might have won all the battles but still lost the fucking war and that has never been more apparent than at this moment with Elliot's fingers gouging into her side like she's his fucking anchor and he's just figured that out now and he's suddenly so aware of all the things he'd made her think she was crazy for thinking since the moment they'd fucking met.

"Elliot, let go, you're hurting me." And he is, because he's holding her so tight and his fingers are going to leave bruises and she's trying to remain standing even with one leg perched on the sofa and her back is resisting the brunt of his strength while he's pulling her into him and she knows it's a really bad idea to even consider giving into his pull and straddling him but as soon as the thought crosses her mind she can't remember why she ever thought it was a bad idea.

But he hears her words or perhaps realizes that he's not falling anymore and his fingers relax, his touch light though the fabric of her pants and she feels the pull somehow a thousand times stronger now that there's no pain involved and her mind is reeling once again from the fact that he touches her now and she lets him and she touches him and there's nothing weird about it except why didn't they do this years ago. She doesn't even mind the bruises she'll find in the morning because she can feel the heat of his palm against her hip and it feels like that touch has fixed everything that has ever been wrong in her life.

He is staring up at her and she's still leaning over him and she thinks about how she could die happy if he would just keep his hand on her forever.

"I'm sorry."

And somehow she's mad now because she knows he can hear her and does hear her and still never, almost never, listens and they could have been spared so fucking much misery if he'd only tried it sooner.

She tries to pull her thoughts together and finds something suitably snippy that he might not realize how fucking powerless she is when he looks at her. "If you'd told me you were going undercover, I would have told you it was a bad idea."

"I know." His hand lowers the slightest bit from her hip and somehow he's unaware his fingers are on her ass while she has to remind herself he's just too tired to hold his arm up.

"Is that why you didn't tell me?" She wants to ask more questions, different questions, to probe his psyche, to get answers out of him while he's pliant even though she knows it's wrong to use his fragile state and the fog of alcohol to pry something from him that he doesn't want to give, but it seems so very much that he wants to give it to her and she can't help but be greedy.

"No." He shakes his head to further convince her, but he's still drunk and she can see him lose his balance even sitting and both of his hands grab her waist for support. It takes a minute, but his balance rights and his eyes climb to hers and his hands stay on her. "I'm trying to stay away. I know you were better off without me." His voice breaks, giving her the slightest warning that he's going to say something that hurts them both even more. "I'm going under, Liv, and I don't want to drag you down with me, but I can't let you go either."

It might be the most honest thing the man's ever said to her and the point is so sharp she feels the words piercing her heart and she can't breathe from how much it hurts. "El, no," she grabs his shoulders, her nails digging through his shirt, returning the favor of the bruises that might help him remember this conversation in the morning in case he's too drunk. "Please don't." Her face starts to fall, twisting like his did at the front door, her teeth biting hard into her lip to keep from crying out in pain at the idea of him trying to take away this closeness that is everything to her no matter how much it hurts and has always hurt and will probably always hurt because she's scared to be vulnerable but she has no other choice when he stares into her eyes.

He's doing it again and she knows he has no idea what his stare does to her but maybe he does because he's been controlling her with it for damn near half her life. "Don't what?"

The tears spill over, down her cheeks, a few errant drops falling onto his shirt and then the truth falls out of her mouth and she hopes to god he fucking remembers it because she can't fathom ever baring her soul like this to him, to anyone, not ever. "Please don't leave me again."

His eyes fix onto hers and she's melting again and his hands are burning through her shirt and she wonders if he feels it too or if he's just drunk and has no idea what's going on but is trying to keep up the conversation because he doesn't want to be alone. But maybe he's sobering up because he answers her and every question she's ever asked him and returns every heartbroken glance she's thrown at his back over twenty years in three desperately honest words.

"I need you."

She can't breathe with the way her body, her mind, her soul have clenched in response and her lungs are crying out for air and she ignores it because she's afraid if she opens her mouth she's going to let out a howl of pain. But as a moment passes and he's still staring up at her like she's his fucking savior and she starts to think that maybe she is and maybe this is why he believes in a religion that makes no sense to her because she is his salvation and he's been staring at it all along and now he finally, finally sees the light.

She nods, finally drawing in a breath, and feeling the pain receding as something so unfamiliar that she thinks might be hope moves in. "I'm right here."

He reaches up then, his fingers brushing her hair, his thumb almost touching her lips, his grip tightening as his hand slides to her neck, pulling her forward, pulling her down and she's falling until her forehead touches his and then they're just there, together and open and everything is ok and she completely understands for the first time in her life all's well that ends well.

His hands finally drop from her, his body sagging the rest of the way into the couch, the sum total of his energy spent on getting to her and getting to tell her what she needed to hear and getting the answer he needed back. His eyes are closed as she covers him with a throw blanket, her hand brushing his cheeks still damp with his tears.

"Get some rest." She knows he will and she suspects it might be the first taste of rest the man has ever known and she is proud of herself for giving him that and even more proud of herself for holding on so long, for knowing what was inevitable, for waiting until the time was actually right, for surviving on nothing more than a gossamer thread for so fucking long when it always seemed so damn impossible.

And that, she realizes, is the essence of faith. She's never understood it when others talked about it, but now she recognizes that she's had it all along and it is so powerful that she'll stake her life on it again and again and it doesn't matter what that faith is in, not so long as she remains true to it. This is what Semper Fi is all about and she finally understands it isn't the fucking military he has tattoed on his arm, it's the motto behind the emblem, it's the cornerstone of his life and hers as well as and though they've taken very different paths, they've wound up on the same page finally. And when she crawls into her bed a few minutes later, she knows she will find that same rest he has.

He awakes to familiar, yet unfamiliar noises. He can't place them right away, not when the bright fucking sunlight is reflecting off every fucking white surface in the room and fuck if there aren't a lot of them and his head is about the explode and he can't even scream out in misery because his mouth is full of sawdust and glue. He waits, too sick to move, his eyes squeezed closed against the glaring whiteness of the hellscape, and tries to figure out where he is.

He remembers being with Reggie and the boys. It was dark so he wants to say it was late, but it's Fall and the darkness comes early and he really has no idea. He remembers drinking whiskey like it was going out of style and it takes him a long time to get anything further than that, the constant jerking of his mind back to the warmth of the glaring whiteness around him whispering to him that he doesn't want to remember why he had been drinking so hard. He thinks he might be dead for a while, his mind conjuring up those childish fantasies of heaven where everything was white because everything was made out of clouds, but he knows he isn't going to heaven no matter how many Our Fathers he offers, not even if there is such a place and knowing that doubting it makes him one of the faithless ones who won't wind up there, as per his Sunday school teacher. And he knows that he is full of shit anyway, that he goes to church because he's always gone to church and makes all the right gestures and offers all the right responses because maybe if he just keeps trying it will all suddenly fall into place.

But he is nothing if not a sinner and he knows as he throws his forearm over his eyes to block out the infernal brightness that the only thing he has any faith in whatsoever is Olivia fucking Benson. She is the end all be all of his world and he knows nothing, if not that she is his only hope in the whole fucking world.

The thought of her draws more to the forefront, images, feelings, moments he can't be sure actually happened. But the fog starts to lift as he thinks of her, the sounds finally clicking into focus, Olivia's voice, a child's voice, the conversation about breakfast and a science project and who is that man on the couch and oh look it's time to meet Lucy and get to school.

The noise quiets after the door opens and closes, allowing his hearing to take a back burner, his nose picking up the acrid stench of smoke on his sleeve, causing his stomach to turn. He knew he hadn't wanted to remember and yet here it is, the memory so vivid it's happening all over again, the darkness of the night and the coldness under his fingers as he double checks to make sure they are really already dead because he can't, won't, if there is any hope at all for them, the smell of the gasoline as he splashes it everywhere, the sharp clicking as he opens the lighter, the knowledge that hell really is fire and burning and heat and realizing he's sold his soul to the devil and gotten absolutely nothing in return. And then the drinking. So much drinking and wallowing and listening to the boys partying around him over their victory while he is an empty, burnt out shell and Reggie saying he's going to celebrate with a girl and does Ash have a girl or should Reggie's girl bring a friend. Ash doesn't have shit. But Elliot has Olivia and if he doesn't see her right fucking now he's going to pull the god damned gun out of his waistband and blow his fucking brains out. And he assumes as he shakes himself out of the memory that is exactly how he got onto her couch, because even though he's tempted more often than most men, he doesn't actually want to die and he'd known, even in his nightmare of an emotional state, that she would save him from himself.

He guesses the whiteness is the fucking collection of halos Saint Olivia keeps around to remind bastards like him that she's fucking perfection and he's a damned sinner. But he's at her place, he assumes, and she let him stay while her son was there so as damned as he might be, at least she doesn't consider him a threat, which he has wondered on more than one occasion. Try as he might, he can't remember anything else from the night before, which he assumes is merciful because she was probably extremely unhappy with him showing up drunk at her place and she also likely let him have it for using police resources to find the address she hadn't yet seen fit to give him and he's glad he doesn't have the memory of her scathing rebuff of his desperate clinging to the only good thing he'd ever had and his pathetic need for her.

He wonders if he can just stay here on her couch forever. He knows Bell won't call Olivia, his boss will be too afraid of the wrath of an angry Captain for misplacing a UC and Olivia won't report him to his boss for breaking cover and so it's a possibility that he can just hide here in heaven for a few days at least before she throws him out. He imagines living here on her couch, wrapped in a tattered blanket he recognizes from her old place, burying his face in a stiff, decorative pillow with a stitched design that will leave an imprint on his skin for hours, inhaling the scent of her that grounds him and sends his head spinning off into the clouds at the same time.

She'll be pissed, he knows, she'll resent him being here, she'll reach the end of her rope and start making passive aggressive attempts to get him to leave on his own before her patience runs out and she tells him to get the fuck out before she calls his superior and he'll go, even though they both know she'll never rat him out.

He's startled when he hears the door open and close again, he'd assumed she was leaving for work when Noah was leaving for school, but apparently not, or maybe it's the fucking maid coming in to polish the halo collection and making everything shine a little brighter. He's surprised she doesn't come check on him, instead goes to the same area she'd been in prior, what he assumes is the kitchen, but doesn't know because he's never been here before and he doesn't remember anything and only knows the obnoxious whiteness of her living room.

"The bathroom is down the hall, second door on the left." Her voice isn't soft, she knows he's awake. He hears a cabinet open and close, the rattle of silverware, the faucet turning on and off.

It's happening sooner than he expected, the invitation to leave, and he imagines it's because he didn't get his ass off her fucking couch and at least hide somewhere her son wouldn't see him and so it's his own fault for invading their gleaming paradise with his darkness. A few hours' reprieve is all he can reasonably expect and it's over and he has to go crawl back into the darkness, further into hell than he thinks he's ever been, and he just wants to stay here forever and he can't because she's already invited him to go and the next time will be more direct and break what's left of his heart.

He rolls to his side, testing to see how much he has to open his eyes against the blinding sun to navigate to the bathroom. It's only a few feet and once he's past the coffee table he can close his eyes again and feel his way to the second door on the left. The shade in the bathroom is drawn against the window and he's thankful for the small night light on the counter she leaves for Noah because it's enough light to relieve himself and splash water on his face and swish her mouthwash around to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He ponders the shower stall for a minute, thinking he'll feel slightly less sick if he gets the stench of smoke and gasoline off him and realizing he probably has to pay for her to get it steamed out of her sofa as well. He decides against the shower because he's going to go back and he's going to stink anyway and there's no amount of soap that can fix this mess and Olivia will probably not appreciate him invading her space any more than he already has.

With dread hanging heavily from him, he returns to the living room, aiming for the front door, wanting to sneak out with his tail between his legs before she eviscerates him with an angry glare, noticing only as he looks around that she's closed the shades and it's not so damn bright anymore and instead seems warm and cozy and the blanket that still smells like Ash and smoke and misery and maybe just a little of him isn't tossed in the garbage, but is lying folded over the back of the couch where it always was at her old place. Instead of the door, he moves to the kitchen, testing his luck, because he feels a little less unwelcome.

Her back is to him as she washes Noah's cereal bowl, decorated with cartoon characters he might have recognized if Eli were a few years younger. He's trying to think of something to say, some way to thank her for being there, for being her, for saving him once again, for saving him so many times.

"There's coffee," she offers as she lays the bowl on the drying rack without turning around.

The thought turns his stomach so suddenly that he's gripping the counter and praying not to vomit on her floor. His eyes focus on the back of her head, trying to breathe his way through the panic that rises up at the idea of making a fool out of himself again. Her head turns to the side and he sees her profile and starts to feel a little better. There's nothing about her that feels unwelcoming and he doesn't know if that's because she is the whole fucking universe or if she's not actually mad and he has no way of knowing if she won't look at him and he suspects the fact that she's not looking at him is an answer, but he also feels something pulling at the back of his mind that tells him she's not angry, she's hiding and he doesn't know why he would think that or what she could possibly be hiding from him since he's clearly in no position to pass judgement on anyone ever, least of all her.

"Tylenol?" She lifts one dripping hand from the sink and motions at the bottle sitting beside her on the counter, the one next to the glass of water, and he wants to drop to his knees and worship the ground she walks on for being so fucking considerate.

He doesn't even look as he pours more than one dose into his hand and chases the chalky pills with most of the water. He's behind her, reaching out to put the glass back where it was, when she grabs it, her fingers brushing against his, her attention on wiping the glass with her sponge while his mind is exploding with memories, the simple touch of her skin drawing forth images he hadn't expected, every second of the night before replaying in fast forward through his brain, the feelings and sensations and thoughts and everything assailing his brain all at once and leaving him dizzy.

He reaches for her, doesn't mean to, but maybe he does, his hands finding her hips, using her body to steady his own, feeling her initial jerk at the contact, surprised when the tension immediately fades.

Please don't leave me again.

I need you.

I'm right here.

This is what crazy feels like. He knows it. He can't possibly be remembering it right. She couldn't, wouldn't, have looked at him with nothing but love shining in her eyes. She couldn't, wouldn't, have accepted him being broken and vulnerable and desperate for her.

She can't be leaning back into his hands, into his grip, into his body and he can't be leaning into her either and his nose isn't nuzzling into her hair and his lips aren't next to her ear but she is and he is and his voice is no more than a whisper to avoid breaking whatever miraculous fucking hallucination she's letting him have. "Thank you."

Forget lying on her couch forever, he wants to stay right fucking here with this amazing woman in his unworthy arms and breathe in the smell of her and know she is willing to give him this and wonder how much more she's willing to give him because the look on her face the night before said everything and anything because maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see but he'll swear she loves him too.

Her phone vibrates on the counter and he feels her jump, feels it because her entire body is pressed into his and he is well aware of every motherfucking inch of it as it slides against him. Afraid that his body is about to reveal what she probably already knows, he takes a step back, his hands dropping to his sides. "I should get back."

She turns then, facing him, looking at him for the first time since whatever the fuck catharsis had occurred the night before, her eyes locked on his, searching his soul, reading every single thought he's ever had, finding something that makes her wince. "I'm worried about you."

He nods, knowing she's as terrified as he is of him getting lost in Ash and never coming back to her, but it's different now and she doesn't know it yet because it's only just happened and he doesn't even quite understand it but he knows it's ok because he knows she loves him and he has to comfort her the same way she has always comforted him. "I know you are. It's ok. I'm ok."

He wants to say more, but he's afraid, and maybe he's high on a memory that wasn't really a memory, maybe it was a dream and only his dream Olivia loves him but the look in her eyes reminds him of devastation and concern and love and maybe he's still dreaming and if he is he doesn't ever want to wake up because the look in her eyes is fucking paradise and he's finally wormed his way in.

"El," her head leans to the side, the nickname that only she has ever used carrying more weight than two letters were ever meant to. "Please be careful," she pauses again, her lips pressing together as she fights against the tears he sees gathering in her eyes. "Take care of yourself." And she stops there, but he hears the rest, because I'm not there to do it, because I'll be scared if you get hurt, because I need you too, and he wants to let her take care of him but he can't take anymore from her but she's there in front of him and she's so fucking close and he's staring in her eyes and he's drowning all over again, but this time it's ok, this time it's not a drowning but a baptism and he's a fucking believer.

"I'll be ok this time." He reaches out, the movement so familiar he knows it was real and not a dream, his fingers pushing back her hair and stroking her cheek and she's holding his palm against her face and he's got everything he's ever wanted. "I have something to come back to."

She stares at him, her expression soft and open and welcoming and maybe even happy but he's not sure because he's never seen her happy and he can see that she's drowning in the feelings between them too, only she's not scared. She's been waiting for this and he starts to wonder how long and he stops himself before he can comprehend that he knows the answer and it will cut him deep if he allows himself to realize she's been waiting for him to wake the fuck up for twenty years. As if she hears his thoughts, she nods, her eyes never leaving his.

There's nothing he can do to fix the pain he's already caused, but he can make it better now, he can make her a promise they both know he'll keep. He takes her nod as permission and leans in again, his lips touching hers for the first time, their mouths closed, but together, each offering just the slightest pressure and his lingering longer than necessary but not really because it's absolutely necessary that he gets his point across that he loves her and he wants her and he needs her and won't ever let her go and he'll never leave her again unless she tells him to go and probably not even then.

He breaks the kiss slowly, touching his forehead to hers as he had the night before, making eye contact as soon as hers open, and she's there, right there and perfect and everything and he knows now that he has a job to do and he can do it without getting lost because she's going to be waiting there for him to come back and he won't ever let her down again.

He lifts his head and presses a kiss against her forehead before he walks away. There's nothing left to say because their eyes have said it all and they always have and he knows now why she had terrified him the moment they'd met because she was already everything to him and he didn't understand and he hadn't even known her name but that didn't matter because he eventually figured it out and now he knows and she knows and that is everything. Nothing else matters.