We now go back to Olivia's POV, picking it up where we left off at the end of chapter 16 and taking things from there.

...

18. Running

Olivia has made her way upstairs alone. Frank would have accompanied her but she doesn't want him to. It's all a little too overwhelming, first to find Gene cheating on her but knowing she can't call it cheating because they're not a couple; then humiliating herself by throwing herself at another man; and finally confessing that she is in love with a man who doesn't love her back.

How did it get to this point, she wonders. She was just supposed to have a fun weekend, a distraction from the grime of the city and the scumbags she chases down for a living. But it's been more than that with Gene for a while now. She's just tried to keep busy so she could keep denying it. She wasn't supposed to fall in love and now her heart is breaking. All the defenses she's put in place over the years so people wouldn't be able to hurt her, have failed miserably with Gene. Men who had wanted to date her and were serious about exploring a possible future with her, have all been shut down and the one man who told her upfront he only wanted her body, is the one she had to fall for. If she wasn't so sad, she might laugh at the irony of the whole thing.

Back in Gene's bedroom, she stays far away from the balcony. She strips out of her evening gown and places it neatly on the bed. She takes off her necklace and bracelets and places them on top of the black fabric, for Gene to find if he ever comes back up here.

After getting dressed again in the clothes she'd worn that morning and packing her bag, she slips out through the front door of the house. Frank had tried to stop her from leaving, but once he'd accepted that she couldn't stay, he had insisted on getting her a limousine to take her home. He would get her a driver while she packed. She is alone now out front with her suitcase while the party continues behind the house. After making sure there is no activity around the fountain anymore, she leans against it until the limousine pulls up, and then leaves the Butler mansion behind, probably for good.

One lonely tear trickles down her cheek on the drive back to Manhattan. She remembers the last time she and Gene had been together this afternoon. It had actually been their last time, just like she had feared. She suppresses a sob and swallows hard. This wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to fall in love …

Back home in her tiny apartment, Olivia takes a long shower before rolling into bed. She tries not to think about anything but still ends up crying herself to sleep. It's a good thing she has another two days off before she has to go back to work because she's going to look like hell in the morning.

…

Meanwhile at the Butler estate

"Where the hell have you been!"

Gene frowns. He has just come strolling out of the gardens and had planned to go up to his room to get some sleep after the exhausting evening of soul-searching he's just had. He had not counted on Frank getting in his face the second he shows himself near the house again.

"Excuse me?"

"Do you know Olivia's been looking all over for you?"

Gene raises an eyebrow.

"That's not what I saw," he tells his brother slowly, and he watches him for a reaction.

"Well, you don't wanna know what she saw!" Frank fires back without missing a beat, and that makes Gene pause and look down at the ground

"What did she see?" he asks Frank dejectedly but he can already guess the answer.

"You banging someone else right under her nose."

"I didn't …" Gene starts, but he stops in his tracks. Olivia doesn't know that. Frank doesn't know that. They both just assume that he's slept with Jasmyn and he can't blame them.

"You didn't what, Gene? She knows what she heard!"

"And then she turned around and partied the night away with you!" Gene retorts.

Seeing Frank is making his jealousy and pain flare up again.

It's Frank's turn to pause and Gene can see the exact moment something clicks with Frank.

"How do you know that? Did you come looking for her?"

"Yeah. I did," Gene nods, stuffing his hands in his pant pockets. "You were looking mighty cozy up there."

He nods in the direction of the party, or what's left of it, and Frank sighs.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe she was looking for some comfort after finding out that her date is an absolute jerk?"

"She kissed you," Gene fires back, but he can already feel some of the fight leave his body.

"Well, you did a hell of a lot more! Do you know how badly you fucked up? She's one in a million, Gene! And you just let her walk out of here like she means nothing to you. And maybe she doesn't but the Gene I remember doesn't treat women like shit. What's gotten into you, man?"

Gene scrubs a hand down his face and turns away from his angry brother. He know he deserves this but it's not easy to hear it from Frank after seeing Olivia in his arms. Who knows what else they did together after he took off? But she's not with him now and …

He turns back around to face his brother and asks him,

"What did you just say? She walked out of here?"

"Yes Gene. She left," Frank huffs. "So now you can go back to your latest conquest and fuck her some more."

"I didn't fuck her."

"What?"

"I didn't … I couldn't."

Frank stares at him for a few seconds and then starts pacing in front of him, one hand in his pocket while rubbing his forehead with the other. They're still just outside the gardens and the last party guests are either making their way to their cars or to their guest quarters.

"Why not?" his brother finally asks him. "You're free to do whatever you want, right? I think even Olivia tried to convince herself that you did nothing wrong because you're not really 'together'. But we both know you screwed up, Gene."

"Yeah. I know."

Gene walks past his brother and heads for to the party area, which is now deserted aside from the help that's busy cleaning up, and plops down in a chair. Frank follows him and sits down opposite him at the family table. After a minute, Frank asks him,

"So why couldn't you do it with … who were you with, anyway?"

"Jasmyn."

Frank seems very surprised.

"Jasmyn Brown? I saw her at the party earlier."

"Yeah. Like I said, we didn't do it. She said she might jump you instead, but I guess you were busy."

The image of Olivia in Frank's arms and kissing him is still on his mind and no matter how badly he screwed things up himself, he can't help resenting his brother a little.

"I'm not gonna deny that I like Olivia a lot, Gene," Frank admits. "I mean, who wouldn't? She needed a distraction after seeing you get busy with Jasmyn. I don't know exactly what she saw but it must have been a lot worse than a few kisses."

Gene closes his eyes, remembering his tryst with Jasmyn up against the fountain. He'd been riding against her hip while pleasuring her with his hand and sucking on her neck, trying desperately to rid himself of the pain that was resurfacing so suddenly. After his long walk in the gardens, he realizes that it wasn't seeing Barbara that made him freak out. He doesn't love Barbara anymore and while the older woman is still beautiful, he definitely doesn't lust after her anymore. Seeing her now, in her sixties, only emphasizes how enormous the age difference has always been. He had been a fool to think she would want to build a life with him. He'd been just a boy.

But now, what made him freak out amid all these painful memories bubbling back to the surface, is what he's feeling for Olivia. It was such a shock to find that she is breaking through his carefully constructed armour, that he couldn't deal with it for fear of his heart shattering a second time - maybe beyond repair this time.

And now she's gone.

Gene wipes a hand over his mouth and shakes his head.

"I tried to run away from it," he says, his voice breaking. "But that wasn't me. I was just going to use Jasmyn and that's … just not me."

"Run from what?" Frank asks. "Barbara?"

Gene scoffs. Barbara? Hell no.

"No," he tells his brother at last. "Not from Barbara. From love."

…

Olivia groans, squeezing her eyes shut against the daylight streaming into her room. She'd arrived home in the dark and hadn't bothered to close the drapes before crashing on her bed. She's paying the price for it now.

She slings an arm across her eyes and heaves a sigh. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day again, just like yesterday. She was supposed to be waking up at the mansion and have some mind-blowing morning sex before breakfast. Instead, she's back in her small apartment, alone. She only got a few hours of sleep and she still feels exhausted. Her bladder forces her to get up though, and after a quick trip to the bathroom she checks her phone out of habit.

Seven missed calls. Three voicemail messages. A dozen texts. Her hands are suddenly shaking and she has to sit down on the bed before she can attempt to read the texts and listen to the voicemail messages. But does she want to? She doesn't have to look to see who they're from.

One number stands out though, because it's not in her contacts, so she opens the single text message from that number first.

'Olivia, please talk to Gene. Be well, I hope to see you again soon. Frank'

And just like that, she's on the verge of tears again. Frank is an amazing man and part of her wishes she could just fall in love with him instead. But she isn't and she cries softly because it's all still too fresh. Just acknowledging that she's in love has taken so much out of her already. She isn't ready to face Gene. She decides not to open his messages just yet and forces herself to eat a few crackers before going out for a run. Maybe if she wears her body out, she will be able to sleep some more later on.

A little over an hour later Olivia is back home, physically exhausted once again but after taking a hot shower and making herself a cup of coffee, her thoughts of Gene start up all over again.

She can never see him again. Not now, not now that she's acknowledged that she wants more from him than he can give her. It would be self-torture to hook up with him again. It would only make her heart break more deeply and as much as she still longs for him, she knows she needs to be strong and cut him out of her life forever.

Still, she's curious about the messages on her phone, and after finishing her first cup of coffee, Olivia sighs and grabs her phone. The cop in her checks the times of the missed calls against the messages first, and she deduces that Gene had started leaving voice messages after his fourth call. He called once more after his last voice message and had switched to texts then. She bites her lip when she hears the first one.

"Olivia … it's Gene. Please pick up. I'm so sorry."

He waits a few moments, then she hears him sigh and hang up. Her heart is beating faster now but sorry isn't enough in this case. She just can't do it anymore. But Gene doesn't know that. He has no idea about her feelings for him. She opens the second message.

"Olivia, I know you saw me with someone else. Please let me explain. I know I screwed up but maybe not as badly as you think. I know I'm a prick and and idiot an there's no excuse for what I did, but please come back."

Olivia swallows hard. He's been talking to Frank. He knows she saw him with another woman. What else has Frank told him? She is trembling when she listens to the third voicemail.

"Baby … I know you're upset but I … I can't leave things like this between us. I …"

Gene pauses and Olivia has this odd feeling again that she's had once before, that Gene might be on the verge of saying something actually meaningful to her. But again, he doesn't. He continues,

"Please come back. And if you can't … or won't … just let me know you're okay and … I hope you'll let me explain soon. I know I screwed up baby. I just … please just pick up ... or call me back."

She swears she hears tears in his voice and her chin is trembling as well. But she can't do it. She just can't. While she agrees that Gene owes her an apology for bringing her to his parents' home as a guest and then taking off with another woman, she knows she can't face him again. She needs to start rebuilding that wall around her heart because Gene can never be to he what she wants him to be. He's too damaged for that, and maybe she is too. Maybe it's for the best in the end, as painful as it is. She shouldn't have held on to him for as long as she had. It should have been a one-night stand, nothing more.

Olivia sighs and puts her phone away. She will read the texts later. All hope of getting some more rest is out the window now anyway and she distracts herself by going on a cleaning binge of her apartment. She even goes out grocery shopping, filling up her fridge as well as her fruit bowl, and buying a ridiculously large supply of chocolate and potato chips. It maybe comfort food, but at least she'll be eating. By dinner time she has concluded that she won't be able to take another day alone in her apartment, and she calls Cragen. She tries to sound as neutral as possible when she tells him they had to cut their weekend short due to a family emergency, a lie that comes easily to her, and that she'd like to come to work on Monday.

If Cragen suspects anything, he doesn't let on and he tells her she's welcome to come in because there's always too much to do anyway. She doesn't know yet what she'll tell her coworkers, but at least she'll have a distraction at work. Staying at home any longer won't do her any good. She is pulled out of her sombre thoughts by the downstairs buzzer and she frowns. She isn't expecting anyone. She walks up to the intercom and presses the button.

"Hello?"

"Olivia Benson? I have a delivery here for you," she hears a man's voice say.

She is instantly on guard, always suspicious of unexpected callers.

"I'm not expecting a delivery," she tells the man.

"Alright, well … it is your name on the box, ma'am. It's from a …"

She can hear the man fumbling with the package to see who sent it.

"Uhm. Gene Butler, Long Island. To be hand-delivered."

…

More soon. Reviews are life!