Chapter Four – Odi et amo (I Hate and I Love)

odi et amo quare id faciam fortasse requiris
nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior

I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you perhaps ask.
I do not know, but I feel it happening to me and I am burning up.

Catullus 85

To say that she was pissed off, after that session, well, it would have been the complete understatement of the century. She knew she shouldn't be, she had even told herself not to be. But sitting there, in the same room as him, had made her blood boil in ways she couldn't recall feeling towards him ever.

She'd just had enough of the thoughts rolling around in her mind and had just snapped, her anger getting the best of her. If there was one fundamental truth they had to face together, it was that both of them were possessive and jealous individuals who knew, for the most part, what they wanted, and would stop at nothing to defend it.

How could he just assume that she wouldn't have reciprocated his feelings? Because that would be why she's assuming was the reason he found himself kissing Angela Wheatley.

They'd had their fair share of disagreements and arguments over the years – but to be honest, she wasn't sure if she felt the most anger towards the situation for herself, the fact that she was opening herself up to him again and willing to work on their relationship on a whole new level - or if she felt it for his kids who had just lost their mother while their father was out gallivanting and seeking comfort in places where people didn't know him. She would've felt less anger if she knew he was going to sit with Father Hogan at midnight in a church rather than seeking solace in the arms of his target's ex-wife.

But here she was.

He has PTSD. She kept repeating to herself. He doesn't comprehend the grief or how to deal with his anguish, so he's lost.

He was lost, and she knew that he needed a compass.

She smacked the steering wheel and screamed out loud a long string of profanities. It was in the middle of this complete and total anger-fueled meltdown that she looked up and saw him standing in front of her SUV with his hands in his neatly tailored pants, the letter sticking out of his jacket pocket, his stupid eyebrow hitched and a stupid smirk on his face, as though he found her cursing out loud to be something entertaining. She wanted to wipe that smirk off of his stupid face. She wanted to punch it off his face, she wanted to slap if off his face. She wanted to kiss it off his face. Immediately, her face fell. No. Where did that come from? She shook her head as she bit her bottom lip in resignation, she turned her face to look at the passenger seat next to her as though she was telling him to climb into her vehicle, she was asking him into her space. She couldn't believe she had asked him without speaking.

Nodding, because he apparently understood what she was asking, he walked over to the door and opened it, sliding into the passenger seat.

She was now staring straight ahead again, refusing to meet his eyes. Her breath was hitched from her slight freak-out and his was even. Biting the inside of her bottom lip, she couldn't help but feel the electricity between them radiating.

"What the hell was that, Liv?" Elliot asked. "Just now, I'm talking about, not what happened inside." He clarified, as though he wanted to make sure she understood that he was talking about her profanity-induced freak out. "Not that you have to explain anything to me, because, I get it."

She allowed a small chuckle to escape before focusing on her breathing, inhaling – hold – exhale slowly. When she felt like she was back on an even breathing pattern, she leaned her head back and turned to face this infuriating man next to her. She'd been avoiding his gaze for most of the evening, but here she was – subjecting herself to drowning in his eyes. She always drowned in his eyes.

"Just had to scream a little." She answered. Her hands clenching the steering wheel, squeezing the leather cover and hearing the creaky noise it made as she released her fingers, allowing the tension to ease. If Noah had done something like the noise she was currently repeating, she probably would've been losing her patience, but at the moment, it was oddly – dare she say, relaxing?

"I'm sorry." He quietly whispered, lacing his fingers together in his lap. "I know I've been stupid."

"You're sorry? And you've been stupid?" Her voice was laced with complete and total disbelief, "You're sorry. Oh, that's rich. You. Are. Sorry. Did you know, you've been more than stupid, Elliot. I don't think there's a level to describe the sheer disregard or audacity you've exhibited that could even begin to explain how reckless you've been. For a moment there, it looked like you were doing well, but then – damn, Elliot." She rolled her eyes.

He nodded, quiet, like he was being scolded. "Yes. I'm sorry." He tapped his index finger on his knee, a nervous tick, Olivia had decided, one that was getting on her nerves in the ten seconds he had been doing it. Her creaking of the steering wheel cover was less obnoxious than his finger tapping, so she reached over and took his hand in her own to stop him from making that obnoxious noise.

This seemed to ease some of his tension, because he began to speak again, "Look, I know there's a lot that we should ACTUALLY be addressing in that room every week, but there's just some things I don't want to talk about in front of another person. Do you understand that? I mean, he was asking us to examine the cases that were the most traumatic to us, and why?" He asked, they hadn't broken eye contact and she felt like all the air in the vehicle had left, so she turned on the car and adjusted the vent so that she felt like she was getting air. The console was in between them, and she was grateful for it, but at the same time, it was hurting her arm to keep hold of his finger so he wasn't tapping it obnoxiously. "What is in this letter that you handed me, Olivia?"

"I think, because he wants us to realize that the relationship we had was just building the foundation for whatever it is we will build off of after we come to terms with the gap in our relationship. As for my letter, I told you inside, if you wanted to read it, you could read it, not read it, toss it out, do whatever with it. It's the things I have a hard time voicing but found easy to write down." She quietly answered, now absent-mindedly tracing the back of his hand with her thumb. Even the slightest touch of their skin was oddly reassuring to her. "Can you just explain something to me, Elliot?" Olivia felt her breath catch in her throat as she tried to press her foot down hard on the mat, trying to feel the solid ground beneath her feet. Elliot paid attention to her making this slight movement as he trailed his eyes from her knee back to her face.

"What?"

"Why did you wait ten years?"

Elliot shrugged, "I don't know why it was ten years, Liv. But, I did tell you in the letter - "

"'Your presence in my life had become so complex that I couldn't unravel the threads that had wrapped themselves around my own – and this terrifies me because I was married. I had children. It wasn't in my nature to be selfish, so I had to decide for my own sanity to walk away before I allowed myself to become so entangled that I ripped myself to shreds. I also realized that somewhere along the way, you must've fallen for me because you refused to make any decision would force you to choose between a member of the public and myself. The fact that you were in love with me and I with you, terrified me. Even after Jenna had started shooting, I thought only of you.'" Olivia recited, without even pulling out the creased letter. "Was that what it had said? And then, my next favorite part was the part that said: I was holding you back from your happiness. Knowing that you were in love with me, you had refused to date anyone, to seek out comfort or security in anyone but myself – all the while, you understood the importance of my family to me and thus, you were sacrificing too much of yourself and I couldn't give you any of me. I was also holding you back professionally. I couldn't do that to you, I needed to set you free. I wanted to have all of you, but could only have most of you, but honestly, I deserved none of you.'"

She smiled a sad smile, which was so far removed from the smile she had given him the other day at his office, before he had messed everything up. "Liv – "

"It's alright, Elliot, really. Maybe you should just…read my letter before you want to explain anything about yours."

"I'm sorry that I ran - "

"Elliot, it was Ed Tucker." Olivia blurted out, watching Elliot's face, he gave nothing away. "That was the relationship that was solid. You asked last week." Elliot let out a breath that he wasn't even aware that he had been holding.

"Well, I suppose that means we can call it even." He paused for a moment, "Really? After all the hell he put us through?"

"Elliot, it was his job. He wasn't anything like his IAB persona in private. He was actually really sweet with Noah, and patient and kind with me."

Elliot had turned his hand over, rather than her hand cupping his, he now had interlaced their fingers and was tracing lazy circles on her hand just as she was tracing them on his. "You know the funny thing is a couple of years ago Kathy and I went to Paris for an anniversary – and I could've sworn I saw Tucker there in front of Notre Dame with someone that looked like you, and I shook it off, because what were the odds we'd be in the same place at the same time?"

"Pretty fucking good, actually." She answered, her eyes slightly misty, "We went to Paris just before we ended things. Shortly before he got married, and ate a bullet from his .38 because he didn't want to leave his new wife to take care of a man dying from brain cancer." She had a sad smile on her face, and Elliot suddenly felt like the world's worst asshole. Here he was, seeking out someone that could understand losing their partner and his former work partner, the woman he had fallen in love with, was mourning the loss of her own partner. As much as he had always disliked Ed Tucker, if he was able to make Olivia happy, then he couldn't honestly hate the man. "I guess we both have our own ghosts, Elliot. But do you see now why it pissed me off to hear you were seeking comfort in a complete stranger rather than talking to me to find out what I had lost?"

"Olivia, I had no idea." He shook his head, eyes full of regret.

"I know. That's why I wrote you the letter." She whispered, smiling. He untangled their hands and opened the door of her vehicle, coming around to her side. When he stood at the driver's door, he opened it and held his hand out as she placed her hand in his. "What are you doing?"

"I want to give you a proper hug and it's hard to do in a vehicle." He answered, wrapping his arms around her, his fingers clenching her closer to him. "I'll read your letter." He whispered next to her head into her hair.

"Sorry for snapping at you, Elliot, it just…hurts." she held onto him as tightly as she could, relishing in the closeness.

"I'll talk to you later, okay?" He took a step back, their hands clasped together, as he looked down into her eyes. "I'll call you?"

"Please, don't make any more stupid decisions." She pleaded. "Please don't hate me, when you're done with the letter. I don't think I could survive that."

"Liv, I could never hate you."

"You also said you'd never hurt me, and you left."

"I'll call you later, I promise." he squeezed her hands before dropping them and turning towards where his vehicle was parked. She sighed heavily, praying that he would actually show up at her door rather than call her when he was done with the letter.

She slid back into her vehicle and closed the door, locking her emotions away until she could close her front door when she got home. She didn't have to rush back because she'd arranged for Lucy to take Noah. The letter contained some information that she felt Elliot needed to know if he was going to ever cross that line of professional versus personal. And she hoped that he would be able to stomach the truth.

She felt like she was on fire, burning alive – from love or hate, she wasn't sure, but she wanted to relish the heat and dance in the flames until she could drown in his depths.