Part Four
His phone buzzes in his pocket and he knows she feels it because his leg is still pressed against hers. He doesn't want to break the contact with her to check, but she loosens her grip.
"You need to get that?" She's speaking as a captain, probably thinking it might be important, related to his assignment, and he wants to tell her that nothing is more important to him than her, but he can't because she is probably as desperate to leave his shitty trailer behind as he is to keep her there where he can hold her and remind himself that she's safe.
"Hopefully Fin got a cab to come pick you up." If it's not Fin, or even Bell, if it's Reggie or Albi or Kosta, fuck, he'll lose his fucking mind. He still hasn't slept in two days and while the adrenaline is still pumping through his veins and propping him up for now, the minute Olivia is safely on her way home, he's going to pass the fuck out.
She nods and he's so close he can see the way her face falls for a moment before she covers it with a smile. "Guess that's the easiest way for me to get home."
He knows from her expression that as much as she trusts Fin, she'd rather be going home with Elliot and he hates that he still has to pretend to be Eddie. His hand tightens around hers again. "It's the safest way." And then a compromise occurs to him and he knows it's the only way to avoid letting her down and he can't possibly let her down again. "I'll be right behind you, as soon as it's safe."
She nods again, her face cautious, but hopeful, and he knows he said the right thing. If she feels better with him there, if she feels comfortable and safe and relaxed in his presence despite the shitty circumstances, he's going to give her that. Kosta can fucking wait.
He doesn't feel as bad then, checking his phone, feeling thoroughly relieved that it is Fin reporting he has a car and he's ready whenever they are. He checks his watch for the time out of instinct, but he has no idea how long it's been since he crawled home at the end of a crappy day and found the nightmare was still going on and though it's dark now, he doesn't know what that means. He remembers freeing Liv from the ropes and calming her down and her nap while he talked to Fin so he thinks it must have been enough time for whatever inappropriate things Ashes was supposed to do and so he thinks about the neighborhood and how far might be the right amount to "drag" his victim away from where he lives before putting her in a cab. He looks at Liv's shoes and her torn dress and her bruises and the dried blood on her wrists and he wonders if he'll be able to get a block before someone calls the police but then he realizes that people might be concerned by something they see, but few of them are actually likely to intervene and while it bothers him, he knows this time it will work in his favor. In this neighborhood, no one is going to say or do anything at all.
He glances at Liv sitting beside him, their sides still pressed together, his forearm still resting on her thigh while he holds his phone, and he tells himself not to get lost in the concept of how close they are now, physically and mentally. "Think you can walk a couple blocks? There's a spot he could meet us with enough traffic to not get any attention."
She nods quickly, but her eyes drop to her body, probably noticing her torn dress and her injuries for the first time. "Can we get that far without a run-in with beat cops?"
"Around here?" He doesn't say it because he has no proof and he's really not interested in more to investigate and an extension to this fucking assignment, but he's fairly certain that any cops working in Kosta's territory are on the take.
She looks disappointed, but not shocked. "Set it up. I'm good." Her hand falls on his arm, lightly squeezing. "You said you'd-"
He's not going to make her ask. "Go home, see your son, take a shower. I'll be there in an hour."
It's hard, not only to leave the safe space they've found, but also to have to be in character, Ashes' hand wrapped around her bicep, Olivia making a show of being dragged along unhappily, when all he wants to do is slip his hand back into hers or wrap his arm around her shoulders or pull her into a hug, but he knows he can't, he knows he has to keep her safe and there's no way to be Elliot around her in public until this damn assignment is over. He's paranoid right now and his palm is sweating against her skin again and he can't remember ever seeing any damn cabs around here and somehow there are three tonight and it's too dark to see clearly but Fin spots him and texts his position so Elliot thinks it looks good when he happens to flag down a cab just as Fin drives up.
He avoids Fin's eyes as he pretends to shove Olivia in the backseat and tosses some cash in for show and instructs Fin a little too loudly to go "wherever the hell she wants to go" and his eyes are on her while he watches for any hints that she might be slipping or scared or upset, but she looks ok enough when she meets his eyes and nods and then he slams the door to stop himself from crawling into the cab with her and Fin is pulling away and Elliot wants to cry as Ashes turns away and pretends he doesn't miss the woman he just sent away more than he'd miss a fucking limb.
His heart clenches in his chest as he thinks about having left her for ten years and he wonders how he ever did it and he knows part of it was that he'd convinced himself she didn't love him and partly that she never would have let him see how much she needed him back then. Even believing it was wrong, he would have left Kathy in a heartbeat if Olivia had dared breathe life into the words that she wanted him. They both knew it, he was sure, but as long as it was never spoken aloud, they could keep pretending. Olivia was never going to put him in a position to choose, no matter how much it hurt her. He wonders if maybe it wasn't so obvious to her that he absolutely would have chosen her if she'd asked. And then he wonders if the real problem was that he didn't choose her without her having to ask.
Maybe that's what's different now, he doesn't have to choose and she doesn't have to pretend and he can finally be fucking honest.
He can't possibly get to her place soon enough, but he keeps up the illusion, fakes that he's fine and that he just had a good time with a woman who didn't and so he goes back to his trailer, stopping at the bodega to grab a couple of beers that he pours down the drain and hides inside for a few minutes, all the while trying to calculate how long is long enough to wait while he's too tired to think and still be at Olivia's apartment inside of an hour like he promised.
He forces himself to sit there for a half an hour and decides that's plenty of time. He leaves in the other direction, not wanting to give any indication that he's following her while resenting the four extra blocks that take him further away from her before he can flag down his own cab that he can only take as far as the right neighborhood and not straight to her place because he can't run the risk of leading anyone there and he knows it's probably excessive but then again maybe not because he is actively working to bring these people down and destroy their empire and send them all to prison so it's not really out of the question that they would go out of their way to follow him and make sure he doesn't have another secret life with people he actually gives a shit about that they could use against him.
Even though he's closing in on the hour he promised her, he tells himself safety is more important and circles three different blocks around her building before he finally ducks inside. He blows past the security desk as always, his instinct to flash his badge still fresh despite having rarely worn his badge for months, and realizing belatedly that she might catch hell from the management company of such a fancy building for having guests who don't follow the rules, he calls out that he's on police business and her name so they can verify it or alert her or whatever, but he's already in the elevator and he's not waiting another minute because by his watch he's got about thirty seconds before he has officially lied to her again and he knows the elevator isn't that fast but fuck, he's trying so fucking hard.
As his hand knocks softly on her door, he has a flash of pounding heavily on it and he can't place when that might have happened and he suspects it's the night he was drugged and somehow when she opens the door he's a little surprised to see her in a baggy sweatshirt instead of a blue sweater.
She looks so fucking beautiful with her hair still damp from the shower and her face bare of makeup and her eyes bright as though she wasn't quite sure he was going to show and is happily surprised that he's there. She says nothing as she steps back to allow him entrance and she doesn't need to because the moment she closes the door behind him, she's reaching out, leaning in, arms sliding over his shoulders and collapsing into him for a hug and he's never been so fucking happy in his life as he is right now because she's in his arms and she's safe and she reached for him and her whole body is touching him and he knows she does fucking trust him now, possibly just because he fucking showed up for once exactly when he said he would.
He holds her, his arms closing around her waist, his face nuzzling into her hair, and he breathes her in, taking his first deep breath in maybe forever because she's safe and close and he's allowed to touch her and she's encouraging it and they sort of agreed on meeting here tonight but really she just looked sad and he invited himself and she's not a bit angry and he suddenly realizes that he's come here tonight with every intention of staying the night, even if it's not quite like that yet but he really doesn't expect she's going to be handing him a throw pillow and telling him to make himself at home on her couch although he happily will if that's what she wants.
It's way too soon when her arms relax, her tight hug turning into a slow caress as her hands slip from his back to his shoulders to his chest. He's slower to release her, doesn't actually, just loosens his arms until they're standing there looking at each other with his hands on her hips and her hands on his chest and he's pretty confident he could stay exactly like this for the rest of time and never find a damn thing to complain about.
Her gaze seems to be locked on his chest and he wonders if she's absorbing the enormity of the change between them or if she's just fascinated by the fact that they're standing in an embrace and neither one of them is actively bleeding nor has had a gun to their head in the last five minutes.
Eventually her eyes move up to his and he can see the fatigue he feels mirrored back at him and she confirms his assumption as soon as she opens her mouth. "I'm really tired. Is it ok if we talk in the morning?" Her face falls almost as soon as the words are out. "But you probably have to get back, don't you?"
He shakes his head, wanting to reassure her before he can formulate the words to reply. "No, it's fine. They're not going to expect me back tonight." And, he wants to tell her, if they did want him back tonight, he wouldn't be leaving her anyway. He's not sure how he'll find the strength to leave her in the morning, but he's certainly not going to try right now. "I'll stay as long as you want."
One corner of her mouth quirks up in response. "Do you want something to drink?" She shifts back and slowly increases the space between them, so slowly that Elliot is convinced she wants the space about as much as he does but he drops his hands from her anyway because he's not about to pressure her in case he's wrong about how she feels, especially after the night she's had.
"No, I'm good." He's not really thinking about the fact that he hasn't eaten all day and hasn't had more than a few sips to drink either and so should probably take her up on her offer, but before he can even think to correct his answer, his eyes fall on the wall behind her, on the coats hanging from the hooks, especially a tiny blue one and he thinks about how very young her son is compared to his kids and how the poor child had gone all night without seeing his mother and was probably scared and missed her and Elliot feels like an ass for barging in on her when she probably wants to spend time with her son. "If you want me to go-" He motions at the door and fights to keep the panic off his face so he doesn't make her feel bad because even if leaving her will kill him, he'll do it if she asks.
He can see it, maybe because he's still standing so close to her, maybe because he's actually paying attention, maybe because she's too tired to hide it, but her expression reveals a moment of surprise and then her face tightens, her brows knitting together, her lips pinching closed, her jaw clenching, her breath hitching, and then the wall is back up. She's in cop mode when she answers. "Like I said, if you need to get back, it's fine. I'm ok." She hesitates for a moment, as though she's trying to figure out what to do, the pause as revealing as any confession he's ever heard from her. "You don't have to watch me."
He hates that he's done this once again, that her trust in him is so fucking tenuous that his own self-doubt threatens to destroy it. He reaches for her, his hand gripping her elbow to stop her from turning away, his other hand moving to her cheek. "There's nowhere else I want to be." He waits, letting his words sink in, watching for a tell that she believes him and he sees none and so he continues his explanation, figuring if she hears his logic, she might believe the truth. "I just thought you might want to be with Noah tonight. I can wait if you do," he almost chokes over the words because he's not sure he can wait without losing his mind, but he won't try to supplant the boy as the most important person in her life. That was his role once and he walked away and now he has to be content with second place.
"Noah isn't here." She doesn't elaborate. There's no explanation that he's with a friend or his father or a neighbor and Elliot knows that's because she's still learning to trust him again and he nods without asking anything else.
Instead, his thumb brushes across her cheek and he can see her relaxing again and he realizes it wasn't just when she was being held prisoner and having a flashback, but his touch and his voice have the same calming effect on her now and his heart soars at the idea because it means something even if he's too tired to figure out what that might be. He steps closer and holds her eyes as he lets his thumb stroke her skin. "I'm here if you want me to be. I'll stay or I'll go, whatever you want. I know the last twenty-four hours have been hell on you and I'll do anything you need to help." He moves closer still, his other hand moving to complete the cradle for her face. "Just tell me what to do."
And it's about more than just tonight, he realizes, as he waits for her response, it's about the fact that he desperately needs her in his life and he'll grovel and beg and plead and jump through all the fucking hoops she can find if she'll just fucking let him stay involved in her world even though he had that opportunity once and threw it away. He'll do absolutely anything to earn her back, as a coworker, as a friend, as a lover, as anyfuckingthing at all. He just needs to be around her and he's going to keep fucking up if she doesn't point him in the right direction.
He can see the way she's weighing her options and as much as he doesn't want her to say what he wants to hear just because she knows how much he wants to hear it, he can't hide the desperation on his face. He really doesn't want to leave her, especially now that he knows she'll be alone, but he will if that's what she wants because too much of their relationship has been about him and his family and his wants and his limits and it's about fucking time that she makes the fucking rules and establishes the boundaries and he'll just have to respect them.
Finally her head leans into his left hand, her expression open and vulnerable once again. "I want you to stay." She never asks him for anything and she never did and he can't believe she is finally making a request that he can grant her.
He holds her eyes and wishes they were a little further along in their journey together because he desperately wants to kiss her right now and feel that connection and make her the promise that he will always stay as long as as she wants him but they're not there yet and so he does the best he can, leaning in to press his lips to her forehead and he feels so close to her and he's certain now that Eddie doesn't have the hold on him that he was worried about because he's still Elliot here and he's soft and fuzzy and he just wants to hold this woman in his arms forever even if he never gets her permission to give into the desire that fucking chokes him every time he looks at her.
When he relaxes his arms and lets his hands fall back to his sides, he feels her hand close around his, physically telling him she wants the contact as much as he does. He nods at her, remembering that she has just put herself out there and he hasn't answered her in words.
"I'm here as long as you want," he reassures and he is, assignment and job and life be damned.
She turns away, but her hand stays attached to his. "Do you want to take a shower?"
He's not sure if it's a question or a demand and Eddie has been around so many horrible things and living in such a disgusting environment that Elliot really can't tell anymore. "I'd rather just go to bed, unless it's an emergency."
Because he has every intention of wrapping his arms around her and snuggling so close to her he won't be sure where one ends and the other begins but he won't be able to do that if she's gagging. And then he remembers that while he's desperate to hold her, that level of contact after a trauma might be too much for her and might bring back memories of things she hasn't revealed to him yet and so he has to give her the option and make it ok for her to limit his overreaching if that's what she perceives. "Do you want me to sleep on the couch?"
She shakes her head and tugs on his hand. "You're fine." And he believes her because she's leading him to her bedroom and the shades are still drawn and it's long since dark out anyway and the light isn't on and he can barely see anything in the unfamiliar room. She shoves back the cover and climbs in her bed without letting go of his hand.
Her bed is as soft as a cloud and her sheets smell like her and the fact that he's crawling into her bed with both of them perfectly sober of the hormonal drive that would accompany sex somehow makes this more intimate, more important, more binding of their two souls. He's barely on the bed when she's rolling to face him and his arms are looped around her and she's draping her leg over until it settles into the space between his and this is absolutely everything to him and every miserable moment of his life has led him here and so it was all worth it just for this feeling, for this moment, for this peace of holding her in his arms and drifting off to sleep.
They still have a lot to work out and there are a million things they need to talk about, but he's certain now, with her breath falling against his skin and her body relaxed in his arms and her scent filling his nose and her hair tickling his chin, that they will always come back here to this utter truth, that they are simply meant to be, that this is love, real love, true love, and they're in this together and he can't wait to experience every single minute of it with her.
The last two weeks have been absolute hell. As Elliot's assignment starts to unravel following the murder of Garcia's wife, he feels the stress taking its toll. He's not sleeping and he's barely eating unless he counts gallons of coffee he can't even stand anymore and he's perpetually in a bad mood and he's well aware of the fact that he can't quite think on his feet like he normally can, an issue he blames almost entirely on the not sleeping and not eating and way too much caffeine, but he knows that a lot of it has to do with how desperate he is to get back to Olivia, to see her, to pick up where they left off and fix things once and for all. But even as he starts spending more time as Detective Stabler and wearing a suit and keeping a badge on his belt and sitting at his desk often enough that there's no more dust on his keyboard, he finds himself longing for the pace of his six months with the KO. Not that he misses the crimes and depravity and sociopathy, but there was a certain calm to most of the days where he'd ride shotgun with Reggie and visit Agnes and talk about something that was in the works that more often than not either didn't happen or didn't involve him and so he spent most of those months bored out of his head and doing pretty much nothing.
Since Kosta abducted Liv, things have been going from bad to worse. Everyone has been getting more paranoid and Elliot constantly feels like there's a target on his back and he knows it's more important than ever that he keeps ahead of the curve and stays careful and plans his every more and it's exactly when the fatigue and stress have caught up with him and he's off his game right when he needs to be on top of it.
The only thing that's keeping him sane now is the contact he has with Olivia. He's added another burner to the pile of phones he keeps, a prepaid one that only Liv uses and she has one for him, and they don't talk, but they text, not much, but at least one message a day, sometimes more, but there's always that one at night when he knows he's waking her but he's just getting in for the night and he needs to know she's ok and now that he's been there, now that he's slept there, he can close his eyes and imagine that he's there with her and he hears her text in her sleepy voice and just getting that "good night" message from her is enough to keep him going for another day and they'd sort of worked out a plan to keep their messages benign enough that nothing would seem suspicious or out of character for Eddie should anyone see his phone, so they always keep it short and he recognizes that it's just a way for them to check in at the end of a rough day and tug on the lifeline to make sure there's someone on the other end.
After he gets her message and knows she's tucked safely in her bed, he closes his eyes and recalls the night he spent with her, holding her close and sleeping so soundly he almost missed a boisterous seven-year-old's excited squeals upon arriving home, almost, except that it hadn't been possible to also sleep through Olivia's panicked exit from the bed when she had to untangle their limbs and the way she yanked the door closed behind her so the boy and whoever had brought him home wouldn't discover Elliot's presence. He'd waited in the quiet darkness, unsure of what he was supposed to do, sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the muffled voices from the other room.
She'd returned a few minutes later and sat down next to him on the bed and told him that the story she had to tell him wasn't one she could possibly have with her son in the next room. She'd also suggested, as Elliot had expected, that she didn't want to have to worry about him going back to his cover while he was distracted and thinking about her. He'd tried pointing out that he was going to be distracted and worried about her and imagining all sorts of awful things even if she didn't tell him, but when he'd looked at her face, he realized that whatever she had to tell him was worse than anything he'd think up.
And so, she'd promised him that she was ok and that she knew how to take care of herself and that she was going to call her therapist about what had happened. He'd sat in silence, worry and fear and dread building up in his gut until her hand had slipped into his and then he remembered that she'd survived and she was planning on confiding in him and they were sitting together on her bed with their hands entwined. He couldn't wait to come back to her, even if the conversation would be hard for both of them, because he knew there would be more of this on the other side. It was then that she'd suggested he get a burner cell so he could check in on her if he was worried and he nodded without even needing to think about it because he was always worried about her and he suggested they check in daily and she agreed and affirmed it would just be a word or two, but he'd known it would be enough.
It had been far too soon when she mentioned that Noah was watching cartoons but he'd be looking for breakfast in a few minutes and she didn't need to tell him to leave because the invitation was enough. He'd gripped her hand tightly when they stood and reached out with his other to tuck her hair behind her ear and when she closed her eyes at the contact, he'd been unable to help himself and he'd leaned in, pressing his lips against her forehead and issuing the promise to her again that he'd be home soon.
It isn't enough, but it has to be and there's no one else in the world who wouldn't mind being awoken most nights to his texts and he reminds himself they've come so far from those days early in their partnership where he'd spend hours coming up with reasonable excuses to touch her and now he doesn't need an excuse because she'll let him touch her whenever he wants.
And somehow, the day finally arrives when Eddie is no longer and the arrests have been made and the blood has been spilled and Elliot is dressed in his suit and he has been wearing half-unbuttoned shirts for so long that it takes him a while to stop pulling at the collar, but by the time he's done with the final debrief, he's comfortable in his own clothes again and he's glad the trailer has been towed away and all the temporary phones are gone, even the burner one, because he's got his real phone back in his pocket with her number stored as Liv and not just a series of digits to protect her.
He doesn't call her as he leaves the office. He doesn't call anyone. He doesn't even realize where he's going as he drives his own car for the first time in six months and he ignores all the weird, unhappy car sounds it makes in complaint and he's just happy it starts and makes a mental note to thank Jet because he's sure she's the one who foresaw a dead battery and occasionally started his car for him while he was gone.
But here he is, outside her building, exactly where he needs to be, and he politely nods at the security guard as he flashes his badge and once again claims it's police business as he heads to the elevator. He starts to doubt himself as he arrives on her floor and his heart is pounding as he makes his way to her door and he's so uncertain by the time he gets there that his knock is barely audible. She wants him to come home, she said so, and he'd had trouble, especially when Reggie was going down, separating Elliot from Eddie, keeping the guilt for betraying his friend at bay but Reggie isn't Elliot's friend, he is Eddie's friend and Elliot's mark and the only way to keep himself from feeling bad about it is to tell himself that Reggie has brought his fate upon himself because he is a career criminal who'd upgraded to cold-blooded murder and Elliot refuses to acknowledge the parallel between them in that Reggie loves his family a whole lot more than they love him.
He's shaking as he waits, wondering if she really meant what he'd inferred, if she actually intended for him to come home to her, but he's here and he's waiting for her to answer and it's early enough that she might not be home and he's thinking about going back to his car and texting her to see where she is and if she'll mind if he comes for a visit and maybe telling her that the op is over but then the door pulls open and she's there again, surprised to see him, but her lips turn up in a smile as she looks at his clothing and the familiar badge clipped to his pants.
"I wasn't expecting to see you." Her voice is even, flat almost, and she's turned away to make room for him to enter and he needs to see her face to figure out if she's disappointed he showed up without telling her or if she's just tired from working all day. She's heading toward the kitchen and he sees a glass of wine on the counter. "Would you like a drink?"
He takes a minute to let his eyes drift over her form-fitting jeans and the pink t-shirt she's wearing and he can't think of anything for a minute besides how fucking beautiful she is and he forgets she's waiting for an answer until his eyes slowly travel up from her body and find hers and she's smirking at him with one eyebrow raised.
He swallows hard and shakes his head and he desperately wants a drink because his mouth is suddenly so very dry but he can't even speak for how much he wants to hold her. It takes him a long moment to pull his thoughts together and finally he lets out a sigh. Time to pull off the bandage and find out how bad it's going to hurt.
"I'm home, Liv."
Her eyes hold his for a long time and he can see her brain scrambling with possibilities and weighing each one and maybe reading into his words and understanding he means home home as in standing in her fucking kitchen an arm's length away from her with every intention of closing that distance the moment he sees a hint of an invitation because home has absolutely nothing to do with a place and absolutely everything to do with her.
When she takes a deep breath, he knows she's arrived there, exactly where he intended. She picks up her glass and takes a sip while she looks between his suit and his face several times. "Are you sure?"
He knows she's asking a hundred different things and he wants to reassure her about all of them one at a time, promise her that he's never going to leave her, that he'll never go undercover again, that he wants to move into her apartment and adopt her son and marry her but he'll settle for being her friend if that's what she wants because he just wants to be around her, needs to be around her, and he's not so proud that he won't take whatever he can fucking get.
Instead of saying all of the thoughts that come to mind, he simply nods. "Yes."
"No more Eddie?" After he shakes his head, she sets her glass back on the counter and folds her arms over her chest. "I still see Eddie."
"No, you don't." He steps forward, halving the distance between them, ratcheting up the temperature in the room by several hundred degrees as he stares at her. "It's just me."
He inches forward again and his hands are at her waist and he wants to pull her close and he wants to finally kiss her and he's terrified of how she'll respond but he's also terrified that he'll die if he doesn't and his eyes are glued to hers and she's breathing faster and she obviously knows where this is going and he's trying to give her enough time to stop him because that's her call and her arms unfold and her hands are resting on his forearms and he curses his suit because if he was still wearing Eddie's short-sleeved shirts her hands would be on his skin and he remembers he just assured her there is no more Eddie and there isn't because everything of Eddie's is either in the trash or in evidence and he decides he doesn't mind the suit being in the way because Olivia knows him in suits and is comfortable with him in suits and she's letting him lean closer while he cages her against her kitchen counter.
His eyes drop to her lips and he's trying to slow this down but he can't help himself as he leans in closer because two fucking decades is slow enough. Her hands move to his chest and he thinks she's pulling him but he recognizes the pressure she's applying and he realizes he needs to stop moving and it's taking everything out of him to drag his eyes back to hers but he stops moving in because it's what she's asking.
She's rejecting him and he's trying not to die from the pain and he knows he should get his hands off her and step back but he can't seem to move and instead of disappointment or upset or anger, there's just a smile on her face. "Oh, no you don't."
He's trying to remember how to breathe and he's not sure anymore if he's supposed to pull away because her hands are resting on his chest but she's not pushing and she's smiling and he'd swear that she's flirting with him but it really makes no sense and he's so confused he's not sure of his own name anymore.
She knows him, she always has, and so she must recognize his confusion. One of her hands moves up to his beard, grabbing some of the hair between two fingers. "I'm not kissing Eddie."
She's definitely flirting with him and he's pretty sure she's not averse to the idea of kissing, even as she teases him about his beard, but he has to be sure because he doesn't want either of them to regret their first kiss and he's trying sort through the flirting to the honesty and he's still fucking confused but he keeps trying because he's so fucking desperate he'll do anything she suggests because he wants her to know he can listen and learn and is willing to do what she asks.
He grins, partly to flirt back, mostly because he can't help but smile at the idea that they're actually talking about kissing now and talking about kissing each other and he's so damn close to actually kissing her even if it's not going to be right now. "Got a razor?"
"In the bathroom." Her head nods toward the hall that leads to her bedroom. "Make sure you put it back out of Noah's reach."
She's serious.
Well, fuck, so is he. He grabs her hand and tugs, pulling her with him in search of the damn razor to remove the last remaining obstacle between them. Because, hell, if a clean shave is all she's asking for, he has no problems with that.
He realizes as he's standing there facing her in the cramped bathroom while she rummages around in a drawer for a pair of scissors that this might have been a mistake. But he honestly hadn't been expecting her response to his inquiry and he's not really attached to the beard, certainly not if that's the only thing standing between him and his entire bucket list of kissing Olivia Benson, but still, he worries silently that as much thought as he's put into it for all these years, whether strictly fantasy and eventually the real consideration and more recently what feels like definitive planning, he's still not actually ready for the reality of it.
He's sixty years old and he was married and had five kids and he joined the fucking Marines and served in war and he's seen the sickest shit imaginable in the decades he's spent with the NYPD and he's scared out of his fucking mind at the prospect of kissing the woman he loves.
He's nervous.
Because this is Olivia and this is real and final and he doesn't want to disappoint her. If that doesn't take the fucking cake.
His heart is pounding and his palms are sweating and his mouth is dry and he's trying to control his breathing so she doesn't realize how fucking unnerved he is because if she notices that he's upset then she's going to get nervous because they're fucking symbiotic and when she turns to face him with the scissors in her hand she smiles softly and holds his eyes.
"It's just me, El." She knows. She can read him like a book and maybe she's not even reading him, maybe she's just trying to reassure herself because her hands are shaking too.
"I know." And he does, which is exactly the problem, but he doesn't say it because he doesn't need to because it is Liv and she knows already. So he stops thinking about it. He trusts her. He trusts them. He just watches her, his hands on her hips, as she takes the scissors to the beard and trims it as short as she can and it seems to be taking forever and he wishes he'd had the foresight to take care of this before he arrived at her door except he was so fucking eager to get to her and to get home that he nothing else crossed his mind and when she drops the scissors and picks up her pink can of shaving cream and starts patting the foam against his chin, he finally lets out the fucking breath he's been holding for ten fucking years because it suddenly occurs to him that it's happened already.
He's home. With Olivia. And she's extraordinarily careful as she takes her razor to his jaw because she doesn't want to hurt him and she's nervous, but now it's not because he's nervous, she's nervous because she's every bit as aware of the enormity of this situation and he's not even worried anymore and he knows his calm will spread to her and she'll relax too.
By the time she turns his face to one side to start working on his cheek, his hands have moved to the small of her back and by the time she turns him to the other side, he's pulling her body flush against his and by the time the razor is gliding across his throat his hands are sliding up her back and his fingers are twisting in her hair.
Her lip is pulled between her teeth and her eyes drift closed as her hands still. "You know I'm holding a blade to your throat, right?"
He barely recognizes the deep tone of his voice when he answers. "I'm aware."
"So maybe you should stop distracting me." Her eyes move to his and he realizes that through all the pain and waiting and confusion and misunderstanding and longing, this has survived, no matter how fucking hard they tried to deny it and kill it and make it go the fuck away, it's still fucking here and growing and stronger than ever and finally giving into inevitability is fixing everything that has ever been broken in him.
He doesn't answer, he doesn't need to. He's breathing fast and his heart is pounding and his hands are sweating and it's not nerves but fucking desire and he's done with waiting. And she looks down and he hears the razor dropping into the sink and he feels the towel as she wipes off what's left of the shaving cream and then her hands are sliding across his shoulders and tucking behind his head and it's finally fucking time.
His eyes hold hers as he tries again and he doesn't register any resistance but he's still looking out for any hesitation from her and his lips finally touch hers and he wants to keep it soft and gentle and tell her he loves her with his kiss, but he can't control it because he's never been able to control it with her and all of the passion that's always escaped him in anger and fists is finally redirected to where it was meant to go all along and he worries that he's going to scare her with this intensity and fire and desperation to touch her except she's matching him move for move and he doesn't even know how they got there because the last he realized they were in the bathroom but now they're in the hallway and he's pressing her body against the wall and she's fumbling with the buttons on his vest and he's starting to regret wearing so many layers because he thinks she's absofuckinglutely brilliant for just wearing the one shirt that he already threw on the floor behind them and he's kind of disappointed that he doesn't even remember pulling it from her body, except his hands are finally on her bare skin and his mouth is on her neck and she's given up with the buttons and is just gripping his vest as he tastes her skin.
He swears he's fucking blacked out because he doesn't know what happened or where the time went but then as he's lying there in her bed with her body cradled in his arms and the sweat drying between them and her thick comforter draped over them, he realizes that he remembers every single moment in such stunning clarity that it's like he's living it all over again and he prays and hopes and begs the universe that none of it will ever fade from his memory, most of all not that very first kiss and that very first time he saw her naked and that very first time they were one and no, no, he can't ever lose one fucking second of it because it's everything to him and she's everything to him and he could die happy at this moment.
It's still early and neither of them had dinner and he hasn't asked if her son is going to come charging in the door at any moment and he wonders if she wants to sleep or order food or spend the evening trying to burn off more of the desire that has been smoldering for twenty fucking years and he really doesn't care what she wants to do because whatever it is, he knows she wants to do it with him and being with her is all he fucking cares about anyway.
It's a surprise though when she rolls over to face him, snuggling into him and pressing her face against his chest, and starts talking. She's never been much of a talker, she's always been a listener, she's always kept things bottled up, and so he listens, absorbs every word, and knows, as much as it hurts, kills, him to hear it, this conversation is as intimate as anything else and she's choosing to do it here, like this, where they're both vulnerable, but somehow stronger, and it's because they're more united than they've ever been and so he understands her decision to trust him here like this and he's so fucking glad he can hold her while she tells him.
Her voice is soft, but strong, and he knows from the very first words that this story is a pivotal moment in their lives and all he can do is hug her close and take what she's giving him.
"His name was William Lewis."