The grip Olivia's had on her life lately has been tenuous at best and just seems to slip further and further away, on a runaway train ever since Elliot found his way back into her life. So much so that she finds herself desperate for even just a little sliver of control to make her feel like herself again.
She can still taste that weightless feeling she had when she tossed away that tape of The Girl from Ipanema, and she craves the peace it brought her, however temporary it was.
Which is why she calls in a personal day on a rainy Thursday just so she can chase that sensation again through cleaning out her closet.
She knows whatever semblance of control she feels afterward will also be unbearably fleeting — likely lasting just long enough for Elliot to come out from UC to turn everything on its head again — but it's...something.
Wrapped up in her comfiest sweats, she nudges a window open to let the fall breeze climb in and linger on her skin, a gentle and soothing balm. She pours herself a cup of decaf coffee and settles her tape player onto the counter.
Today she seeks comfort and familiarity in the click of a cassette tape, so she combs through the small collection that she hasn't touched in years (with the exception of anything that reminded her of Burton Lowe, which she threw away days ago). She sets aside Van Morrison, The Eagles, Aerosmith, The Stones, and Joan Jett for later, ultimately choosing Fleetwood Mac.
As the soft and worn notes of her recording of "Dreams" fill the air, she sucks in a slow, deep breath, willing Stevie Nicks to heal her from the inside out like she used to all those years ago, when Olivia would lock her bedroom door so she could lay on the floor with her walkman, drowning out the sound of her mother stumbling to the liquor cabinet for her next drink.
Content with her choice, Olivia grabs her coffee and pulls down several things from her closet before parking herself on the floor to begin sorting.
A small box of Christmas decorations, including a few clumsy ornaments Noah made in school that are front and center on her tree every year. One of the gingerbread men has already lost a foot, but they keep him anyway, hanging him up with pride each year.
There are the ribbons that Serena kept from the few times they put up a tree together (always a plastic one, never a real one that they'd have to take care of). They're faded with age now and Olivia never uses them, but she doesn't feel right getting rid of them — not when a few of the only pleasant memories she has with her mother fell on the holidays.
She sets aside a small tub of cheap fall decorations that she vaguely remembers buying years ago. Maybe she'll take them to the precinct and brighten the place up a bit. God knows it needs it.
And then there's — oh.
Right.
Her hands tremble as they smoothe over a slim layer of dust that covers a large hatbox she'd stolen from her mother years ago when she moved to Siena. It's fairly nondescript on the outside, solid black and unlabeled. She can't recall every exact item in it, but—
She remembers enough.
Elliot's things. Memories and gifts of their 13 years together that she tossed into the trash about a year after he left. It took her a full 365 days before she gave up her last shred of hope that he would ever find his way back to her. On the 366th day, she found herself moving frantically through her old apartment, finding everything that reminded her of him before discarding it all into a large black trash bag. She couldn't bear to part with his mini badge and the medallion he'd mailed to her so she shoved those in the bottom of the last drawer in her dresser.
Olivia dreamt of him that night, of his kind blue eyes and the crinkles of the smiles he reserved for her late at night in the precinct when it was just the two of them. She woke up in a fit, choking back her sobs as she stumbled out of her apartment in her bare feet at 2 o'clock in the morning to retrieve the trash bag she'd left by the door downstairs for the super to retrieve like he did every morning.
Later in the morning, she removed almost everything from the bag and boxed it up and shoved it in a corner of her closet. She's only seen it once since then, when she moved out of the old place and into her new one.
But even then, it remained untouched. Raw from her assault and the trauma that ensued, there was no way she was revisiting that landmine anytime soon. So, it sat.
She lifts her coffee to her lips, wishing she'd chosen wine instead — not that there could possibly be enough liquid courage in the world to soften the edges of the pain stuffed inside this box.
Steeling herself, she removes the lid and casts it off to the side.
A surprised laugh spills out of her, her eyes immediately drawn to the most obnoxious item in here — a pair of fuzzy dice Elliot presented to her the first time he ever took a ride in her Mustang.
One night about a year before he left, he called her a few hours after they left the station. He was itching and desperate to get out of the house and away from his screaming toddler and the wife he'd pissed off yet again.
Olivia was exhausted from the day, from the people, but never him, so she suggested going for a drive even as she was already pocketing the keys of her mustang and slipping on her leather jacket over her sweatshirt.
She picked him up, a couple of coffees in hand, and they drove around in comfortable silence, no particular destination in mind as the rain tapped gently against her windshield. A cocoon she felt safe and warm in with him, one she found with him night after night in their squad cars on stakeouts. But none as special as the one that night, a choice he'd made because he wanted to, not because of any obligation to the job.
After about an hour, the rain grew heavy and she was still getting used to navigating her car through it, so she pulled over onto a quiet street in Yonkers and killed the engine. Sticking her lukewarm coffee between her thighs, she looked over at him expectantly, waiting for him to mention the small box he'd removed from inside his jacket a few minutes ago.
With a sheepish little smile — her favorite — he deposited it in her lap and fuck if her belly didn't curl at the way his fingers innocently brushed her thigh. It was warm and damp that night and she could smell him and the leather of his coat and she just —
Never wanted to forget it.
When she opened his gift, she let out a gut-busting laugh, quieting only when she noticed the flush that worked its way up its cheeks.
Oh. This was...important to him, maybe?
She swallowed down any lingering amusement as he softly told her the history of the dice that people hung in their rearview mirrors, that it was believed to be a tradition traced back to American fighter pilots during the second World War, who would hang them for good luck.
This particular pair wasn't new, he told her. It was the same pair he'd hung above his bunk for the years he was in the Marines.
Her mouth went dry as she tore her gaze away from him and back to the silly little thing in her lap that she noticed — now that she was looking at it a little more closely — was a little worn, balding in a few small spots.
I can't always keep you safe, Liv, he murmured, unaware that it would be deeply and painfully truer than ever in just a few short years' time.
She swallowed a lump in her throat, croaking out a thank you before she lifted it from the box with shaky hands and hung it from her rearview.
After he left, she couldn't bear the painful reminder every time she took her car out of the parking garage, so she brought them inside, where they've mostly lived out their years in her closet.
Olivia's surprised to find that it only feels a little biting — always will be to some extent, she imagines, as he offered her something that clearly meant a lot to him before he shut her out of his life completely a year later. But still, despite it all, it makes her feel comforted.
It's something she's discussed with Lindstrom not long ago — this feeling that on some level, Elliot will always feel...safe to her. Not completely, God knows she doesn't trust him with those deeply complicated feelings she's buried inside of her under layers of concrete he seems to be chiseling at these days.
But his physical presence, the one that walked beside her for more than a decade, always had her back no matter what. It was why, no matter how much he'd completely dismantled her when he left, she still thought about him, yearned for him when that bastard Lewis had taken her.
Physically, professionally, she would always feel secure and protected with Elliot Stabler. They'd have a hell of a lot to work through for that to bleed into this thing between them that they're trying to figure out, but the first part has always remained steadfast and true.
Expelling a deep sigh, she reaches around the floor for her phone and snaps a photo of his old present to her, attaching it to a text message.
You want these back? Maybe to pass on to Eli or something?
She doesn't expect a quick response, unsure of the timing of when or how often he ditches his Eddie Ashes cover, but it's only seconds before his words pop up on the screen.
No. They were for you. Unless you don't want them anymore?
Hmm. She does want to keep them and knows exactly the message it would send if she told him she didn't.
No. I kept them for a reason. But if you wanted to give them to your son, I would understand.
Her phone chimes. I don't. They're yours.
Okay.
The typing bubble flits across her screen for more than a minute and she wonders what he could possibly have to say that would take him this long to reply to one word.
Have you thought about hanging them back up?
She inhales sharply. He's trying to play it cool, shooting for nonchalance, but she knows him.
I sold the Mustang a few years ago, she types out, and I'm not sure how it would look for an NYPD captain to have them hanging from her police-issued vehicle.
Fair enough is all he says back.
She bites her lip in thought. Seems a waste to keep them in the box though so I'm sure I can come up with something.
Maybe when I come home we can figure it out together?
Oh. She doesn't think he's talking about the dice anymore.
I'd like that, she replies.
I have to go, but I'll be home soon. Then: I promise.
She sighs. Okay. Stay safe.
Always.
Later, she removes the rest of its contents — a few framed photos of them, several small knick knacks he'd gotten away with giving her during various holidays, and the last note he'd ever left for her on her desk, the night before he shot Jenna Fox — and find homes for them again.
And when she puts the box back into the closet, it's empty, free of its weight, not unlike the one that's been foisted on her shoulders.
And now there's an old note taped to the side of her fridge that reads:
Liv -
Don't hate me, but I took the last egg roll. Needed something to get me through the nightmare traffic on the way to Queens. Promise I'll make it up to you.
Don't stay too late, ok? Call me if you can't sleep.
-El
Dialogue is my favorite thing to write—and the easiest for me—so I set out writing this as a challenge to myself to create something without any dialogue. I took some creative liberties there with the end and the text messages, but still accomplished what I set out to do, I think.
I don't really like this final product, if I'm being perfectly honest (this is not me being self-deprecating or fishing for comments) — it feels very cheesy to me. But maybe not everyone feels that way, so I wanted to share it, regardless.
Thanks!