A/N: Thank you wildmind and allintheeyes for reading this aloud with me and giving me real-time feedback during our writing retreat — I'm still blown away that we got to meet, and so thankful for all the memories we've created, not to mention your continued support.
Thanks wildmind for receiving me in your beautiful house. My guest room in the attic is now forever depicted in this small Christmas piece. 3
She misses the exit right around the time Noah starts to get impatient with her vague answers about when they'll be there.
It's raining harder now, and the anxiety of driving a vehicle through foul weather surpasses the jitteriness of spending Christmas with the Stablers.
She'd been politely invited to their Christmases before. She now realizes the amount of effort that had always gone into Kathy's act, from slightly condescending invitations to completely fabricated letters, secret messages of rejection quietly tucked away into every space and silence in between the palpable words.
She shouldn't resent Kathy, she chides herself. The GPS recalculates the route, impatiently delivers new directions, and she almost wants to tell it to give her a second while she tries to just see through her windshield.
She'd never been invited by him.
He'd stood there, nodding through his wife's act of unkindness with no objection but no encouragement, looking away through Olivia's gracious refusal.
But he hadn't looked her in the eye and told her he wanted her there.
Also, wanted. Not needed.
She steps on the gas to switch lanes and is received with a disapproving honk that joins the well-rehearsed symphony in the commute to Jersey. Her heart thumps in her chest because she hadn't seen the car at all.
A pang of guilt assaults her for taking her child out of the safety of her apartment in the rain to go see Elliot on Christmas. She had survived through so many holidays without him, and now she had just put her son's life in danger just because he'd required her presence.
She catches her breath instead: nothing happened. Her son is still safe in the backseat, humming the same few notes over and over again while she tries to concentrate.
Her muscles unclench a little. She seems to be back on track toward Maureen's house, and she turns up the volume of the radio a little over Noah's voice and her conflicting thoughts. What she hears isn't really distracting in a good way like she had hoped: they're saying that the storm will get even worse throughout the night. She tries to push the thought out of her mind as she manages to take the exit this time.
She parks the car and releases a breath. "We're here," she announces, glancing with anticipation at the lit-up three-story house while Noah undoes his seatbelt.
They're not done walking up the steps to the door when it opens, revealing Elliot. He smiles, and it's like the warmth of sunshine in the middle of the stormy night.
For some reason, it's a rainy Christmas. That's not the only reason why it's atypical; it's also the first one without his wife. He's not entirely sure if he misses her or just that fundamental element of his reality.
He's not used to a volatile existence; Kathy was the weight that kept his world from flying away.
He checks his phone again. She's late, and part of him wonders if she's about to stand him up — some sort of work emergency that might as well be real or false.
She did say she had to think about it, her voice did break, her cheeks did blush. He'd caught her off guard — and himself also, if he was being honest.
It was just the direction he'd flown, gravitated to. Olivia seems to be the home pin, the recentering function when the map to existence is too broad.
No text from her. Not to say she's coming, not to say she's not. Or that she's late. He worries about the rain.
"She'll be here," Kathleen says softly, a hand on his arm.
"Did you find the place okay?" he asks, a little too early, a little too fast.
"Yeah," she lies.
Before Olivia can introduce Noah and Elliot to each other, her son has already taken a step forward and extended his hand to her former partner.
"I'm Noah Benson," he says with confidence.
Elliot's smile widens, and he shares a proud look with Olivia as he shakes the boy's hand.
"Well, nice to meet you, Noah Benson. I'm Elliot Stabler."
It hits her even harder than she would have expected — the way this scene has played out in her mind during lonely Christmas nights more times than she'd like to admit.
Maureen appears at the door then with a big, grown-up smile, and Olivia swears she can see a glimpse of her braces from when they first met all those years ago. They hug briefly before she turns her attention to Noah, inviting him to play with her twins, and Olivia's heart swells when the boy smiles, accepts her nod of permission, and rushes into the Stabler house with no hesitation.
Meanwhile, Olivia is trying to manage hers as she takes slow steps into the Christmas-smelling household and reciprocates the hellos — Bernie's is excited; Kathleen's a bit emotional. Dickie and Lizzie are polite but somewhat distant, and Eli's sheepish smile is all he has to offer before looking away. She's also introduced to Maureen's husband, who in turn waves in the direction of their children, saying their names while Olivia catches her breath at the sight of her son pretty much taking charge of the lego construction the younger boys had been working on.
And then they all fade away when she feels his hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?" Elliot asks softly, inferring the storms in her mind despite her effort to feign clear skies.
"I am," she lies again, but his hand insists on sitting there, squeezes her shoulder lightly.
Such an overwhelmingly familiar touch.
"Here, let me take your coat," he says, unconvinced, coaxing her toward the other room.
Heat emanates from his fingers, only withdrawn along with her coat, which he carefully hangs on the rack with the others.
"What's wrong?" he asks again, confident that the momentary privacy will grant him the truth this time.
Because why wouldn't it?
Olivia shrugs, shakes her head, startles with the flash that suddenly lights up the sky and invades the space.
"This is all just… a little overwhelming," she smiles then feels the need to explain the break in her voice. "In a good way."
Elliot smiles. "I'm really glad you're here. You're both here," he makes a point to rectify.
Thunder rolls outside with a few seconds of delay, and Olivia shivers inside.
"Dinner!" Maureen announces, interrupting his hand mid-air on its way to touch her again.
Another flash bursts unexpectedly; this time, a memory. Sitting in a car with Elliot years ago, her loneliness an open wound bleeding so blatantly in front of him. That same intersection between her shoulder and his grip, him always so aware of her pain.
Family is everything.
Dinner is so familiar.
It's a strange feeling of belonging, so opposed to her old idea of a Christmas tradition — picking up empty bottles from the corner where a decorated tree might have sat if she'd been born to a different mother.
There's warmth, laughter, banter, and even some friction — the definition of family she had always craved. As much as she tries to fight it, Olivia can't help but feel included. As much in the way that the Stablers make a point to give her some context in some moments as in the way they know they don't have to in others.
The fact that Elliot didn't take the seat next to hers confused her at first, but maybe the reason was so that he could stare at her all night, most times with a calm expression on his face.
Other times looking as urgent as thunder.
Bernie wants to leave early, concerned about the weather. Kathleen offers to drive her and Eli so that her father can stay longer, a suggestive wink left behind in a wordless communication Olivia isn't completely convinced she wasn't supposed to see. Dickie is the next one to go, eager to meet a girl who may or may not be his girlfriend.
Olivia considers leaving several times, but Noah seems to be having such a great time, and Elliot keeps staring at her.
So she stays.
He continues to stare at her from across the cleared table over coffee, from either side of the dishwasher as they silently team up to load it, from the corner of the sectional.
When the storm gets even worse, Olivia regrets not having left, remembers the traffic, the honking, the water covering the windshield. The fear for Noah's safety.
Her child is now asleep with the twins in their bedroom, and Maureen insists he should spend the night — everyone should spend the night. After calling Kathleen and Dickie to make sure they were both somewhere safe for the night, Elliot says he'll stay. There are reports of icy roads, Elizabeth announces, accepting her sister's invitation to the guest room.
"It's not safe out there," Elliot whispers commandingly to Olivia when she's about to run out of excuses as to why she should leave instead.
He makes it clear he'd much rather know that not only all the Stablers are accounted for, but also all the Bensons.
The power going out only seals the deal, and half an hour later Olivia finds herself walking up the stairs to a small bedroom in the attic with a candle in one hand and a glass of wine in the other after everyone decides to call it a night. Elliot reaches from behind her to twist the doorknob, and the sudden closeness gives her chills.
"It's getting really cold," she offers as a cover-up, blaming the currently-incapacitated heater.
She sets the candle on the sill, looking out the window. The rain has settled on a violent, but steady rhythm, a reliable pattern over the forced silence. Lightning momentarily reveals the houses that still sit there underneath the blanket of darkness, Christmas lights all gone.
The flame of the candle glimmers in the blue of Elliot's eyes as he walks toward her with a blanket.
"I can ask Maureen for more blankets to make sure you're warm," he says, halting by her side with his own glass of wine in hand.
They both know that one last drink is just an excuse for him to stay a little longer after showing her the room instead of going back downstairs to take his place on the couch. It's supposed to imply companionship, the red liquid the sand in the hourglass that determines when it's time for him to leave.
Before things start to get compromising.
Olivia glances at the single, made-up bed, covered with a comforter and a blanket. "No, it should be fine."
He nods, follows her stare out the window, makes his way back to look at her.
"I'm glad you came," he says.
"You said that," Olivia smirks.
His voice drops an octave. "I meant it."
She bites down her urge to smile, looking for a way to deflect — what exactly, she's not sure. But he seems determined to maintain the level of intimacy. Deepen it.
"So… Ed," he raises his voice a little bit to give the syllable some leverage over the loud pouring. "Is he Noah's father?"
Olivia is thankful she hasn't sipped her wine, because she probably would've choked now.
"Wow," she chuckles. "Getting more subtle every day."
"Liv," he reprimands.
It's way past midnight, the power is out, the cold is whispering around their feet, slowly rising to fill the air, and he wants the truth.
I wanna know what happened to you.
And she knows she's the one who asked for this. You haven't asked me a single question.
He's now determined to obliterate all the single questions.
He drinks from his wine; he's either not worried about their excuse for some time together running out or not afraid to compromise.
Olivia presses her lips. "He's not, and I'm not his mother either."
Clouds take over his brow until he grasps the true meaning of what she's saying. Then, he softens, with a tinge of intensity that she knows is such an intrinsic part of him, an aftertaste like the grape in the back of her throat.
"Of course you are," he rumbles. "He's a great kid."
"I know," she emphasizes.
A beat goes by, and the rain switches to a more gentle drizzle: a momentary truce.
They reach for their wine at the same time.
"Tell me more about him," Elliot says almost timidly, but with determination.
"Noah?" Both laugh. Of course not. She tilts her head to the side. "El, you know him."
She watches him process the information, search the catalog in his mind for any familiar Eds.
The moment the flame engorges in his irises is undeniable.
"Not Tucker?" he pleads with disbelief.
She knows he won't voice the betrayal; he has no right.
He still feels it very clearly as she confirms with a simple glance. He takes it as a punch to the gut, hates himself for indirectly allowing that to happen. For leaving her side, allowing people like Ed Tucker to think they were allowed to approach her, seize her heart.
Elliot inhales deeply, empties the wine glass of half of the amount it still contains. Maybe now he's in a rush to leave.
"I always wondered if that's what it was," he utters to himself with a bitter grin.
"What's that?" she demands to know.
"There was something personal there… how he always had it out for you. And me."
Olivia swallows. She'd be lying if she said the same thought hadn't occurred to her. Many times she'd told herself that Ed had a vendetta against Elliot because of her — then, she would remind herself that there wasn't really anything between her and Elliot for anybody to retaliate against.
Except for his wife, her epistolary vendetta.
What we were to each other was never real.
Olivia doesn't have to think too hard to remember similar statements authored by Ed concerning the meaning of her relationship with Elliot.
Everyone always seems to know better than they do.
But this is a night for blunt questions and honest answers. Maybe they can finally tell each other things with no mediation.
Wine or no wine, they've already crossed the line of compromise.
"Elliot," she hears herself begin. "What were we? To each other?"
Lightning now seems confined to the edges of the sky, just the random flash here and there, the sound swallowed by the clouds or pushed out in different directions.
Elliot's eyes are tortured when he stares at her for a long time before answering.
"Everything."
Her lungs demand a deep breath, which she then releases slowly, a fine coat of tears covering each of her irises just for a second, already gone when she blinks again.
Relief.
It wasn't all in her head, all those years. It wasn't one-sided.
The loneliest part of those ten years apart was the certainty that she had never meant to him as much as he had meant to her.
The way he so easily takes away that pain now hurts so deep.
She chuckles to herself about how Kathy had known that, well enough to put it in the letter. That confirmation, as if ten years weren't proof enough.
Apparently, they weren't.
Elliot watches her the whole time. He knows exactly when to take a step closer, he sees the green light. She looks up at him again.
"You were everything to me, and I felt so guilty, 'cause you shouldn't have been," he confesses. "I blamed you. I'm sorry."
"You punished me?" she wonders. "By leaving?"
"I punished us both. I also thought it could go away." His eyes stray for a second, dance around her face, linger on her lips. "It didn't."
Thunder echoes, barely reminding them of the world outside.
"No, it didn't," she confirms.