November 7, 2014
They were waiting just outside the gate, a motley, mismatched gathering waving frantically as Olivia herded her four older children across the parking lot. She was running behind; the game was due to start in just five minutes, but it had taken ages to get the babies settled with the sitter, get the boys out the door. These days everything seemed to take ten times longer than it used to, and she was tired down to her bones, but she was happy, too. Happier than she'd ever been, maybe.
"I'm sorry, Bill," she said breathlessly as she skidded to a halt at the ticket booth. "Five, please."
Bill Thompson was head of the band boosters and the unofficial dictator of the parent volunteers, a portly man who was surprisingly quick on his feet and never let a soul pass through the gates without having collected the $5 fee for the tickets. She owed him $25, but even as she fumbled for her wallet he was shaking his head, smiling.
"On the house," he said, tearing off a row of paper tickets. "It's good to see your face, Mrs. Stabler."
The breath caught in her throat; she'd missed all of last season, laid up on bed rest while she was pregnant with Brenna, and with two babies at home and her new role as Sergeant she'd almost missed this entire season, too. Tonight's was the last game of the year, the Wildcats playing for the championship trophy, and she'd been so determined to make it that she'd taken the whole damn day off work, just to ensure she didn't get caught up on a case.
"Thanks, Bill," she said earnestly. It hadn't occurred to her wonder before now whether anyone had missed her here; she was sort of tangential to the whole operation, whatever Elliot might say about his good luck charm. The team had made it this far without her, after all, but it was nice to know that Bill at least acknowledged that it meant something, her making it to this game.
"All right guys, let's go!" she called to her sons, tearing off their tickets. As each one was handed out the boys peeled off; their friends were waiting, after all, had been watching the Stabler family's approach eagerly. Even Eli had a friend here, and though the crowd was large they would be sitting on the home team side, surrounded by people who knew who he was, who knew who he belonged to, who would care for him, and Olivia didn't worry about him. He was under orders to check in every quarter and she knew he would, and let him go, though Ryan clung to her hand, still too small to be allowed such freedom.
"Did he not charge you?" Rafa asked incredulously as Olivia led Ryan to the place where her own friends were waiting. All of them, Cragen and Munch, Fin and Barba, Nick and Amanda, and even Jimmy, they were all there, popcorn and sodas in their hands, smiles on their faces. They knew what this day meant to her, showing her face in the stadium for the first time since Lewis took her, and they had all come to support her - and to watch some real football, Cragen had told her with a wink.
"Barba's still mad about having to pay full price just to sit through the last quarter," Fin said.
"How did you hear about that?" Liv asked, amused.
"You kidding? He told me about it," Nick answered with a grin. It had been years since that night, when Barba first caught sight of Olivia's husband, her kids, but she remembered it well, and the affectionate joviality of her friends made her forget that she'd ever been nervous about this game at all.
"You ready, mama?" Jimmy asked her gently.
She nodded, squared her shoulders.
"Lead the way, Mrs. Stabler."
So she did, marched right through the gate and across the cement walkway, kept her eyes straight ahead even as she felt the gazes of the milling crowd settle on her. It's just your imagination, she told herself. They're not looking at you.
But they were looking, and whispering, a current of excitement surging and swirling around her. At the top of the bleachers she paused, just for a second; she was going to have to walk all the way down to the very first row, was going to have to pass right through the middle of the crowd, and with the game about to start most of them would be seated, and moving at the head of such a large group she'd stand out like a sore thumb. There was nothing for it, though; she was determined to do this thing, and support her husband, and make him proud.
So she stepped forward. Put one foot in front of the other, her gaze fixed on the stairs. She was so busy concentrating on not falling that she missed it, the frisson of energy that rippled through the seated crowd as she strode into view, so focused that she didn't even see her fellow spectators begin to stand, so determined to keep breathing and not meet anyone's eye that the first burst of applause caught her quite off guard.
It was just one person. Just one person, somewhere in the sea of bodies, someone whose name she'd never know, who'd seen her, and begun to clap. Just one lone soul, but that applause was infectious; Olivia faltered on the stairs as the sound of clapping rippled through the crowd, as it began to swell, and rise, and grow, louder and louder. She looked around, bewildered, but the clapping didn't stop; everyone was looking at her, rising to their feet, smiling, welcoming her home.
"Go on, mama," Jimmy encouraged her gently. "They wanna see you."
It wasn't like it was a secret, what happened with Lewis; her face had been splashed all over the papers, and she'd been interviewed on the nightly news. People knew, and she'd spent the last year and a half wishing they didn't, wishing she could keep that sorrow to herself, miserable at the very thought that other people knew how weak she had been, how she had been bested. But with Jimmy's hand on her shoulder she walked straight-backed and steady, descended the bleachers to the spot on the front row where she always sat, the whole bench vacant and empty, waiting for her, like they'd done it on purpose. Like the crowd had just been waiting, for over a year now, for Mrs. Stabler to come home.
The people around her began to shout, to cheer, and the crashing wave of noise carried her safely downwards. As soon as she reached the final level she turned around, faced the crowd in her blue Wildcats sweatshirt with the chill autumn wind blowing her hair all around, and raised her hand, and waved.
"Sergeant Coach!" They screamed their hearts out, every last one of them, calling out to her, clapping, stomping their feet, and behind her the marching band burst into exuberant song, and the faces of her friends were all turned towards her, their eyes warm and misty and full of fondness for her.
As a little girl Olivia had dreamed of having a family; she'd been lonesome, and small, and hurting. Now she stood surrounded by a family so vast it boggled the mind, found herself safe, and loved, and healed.
He just wanted to walk the field. One last time, in the cold and the dark.
He wouldn't set foot here again for months, not until summer training started, and he wanted to take a moment to soak it all in. The last of his boys had gone home and only one light was left burning on the field, a light he'd promised to turn off when he left, and his ears were still ringing. He could still hear the strains of Sweet Caroline, the marching band playing their hearts out, could still feel the dampness of his shirt after having the water cooler upended over his head, could still taste Olivia's kiss, sweeter than the victory they'd won tonight - but only just. His boys were champions, and his wife had cheered him on the whole night, and there was a joy in his heart he wanted to savor in the quiet the crowd had left behind.
Apparently he wasn't the only one, though, because as he stepped out onto the grass, torn up from the boys' cleats, he saw someone waiting, out on the fifty yard line, a shadow in the darkness, but one he'd recognize anywhere.
"Game's over, Miss," he called as he approached her.
"I know," Olivia called back. "I just wanted to congratulate the coach."
She was smiling when he reached her, smiling when he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her once, gently.
"Good game, Coach," she murmured against his lips.
"It's all thanks to my good luck charm," he answered, letting his hand slide low over her back, giving her ass a little squeeze. Olivia laughed and swatted at his arm, and then slipped away from him, tangled her fingers in his and looked up at him with cheeks red and chapped from the wind.
"The squad took the boys home," she told him in a conspiratorial whisper, her eyes sparkling at him in the dark, and he smiled, glad to know he'd have her all to himself for a few minutes at least.
"Walk with me?" he asked. There was a track running the edge of the field, and he just wanted to make one loop around before they went home to their babies, to their bed. Olivia nodded, not in any more of a rush than he was, and they set off together, meandering slowly, their shoes silent on the ground.
"What are you thinking?" she asked him gently after a few paces.
"Was thinking about the first game I ever coached here. You know it's been fifteen years?"
Olivia hummed, a surprised little sound. Jesus, fifteen years seemed like such a long time. Ryan and Eli hadn't even been born yet, and Connor was just a little baby, and Elliot was just finding his feet. Back then they'd been so young, still, with so much life ahead of them, so many struggles, so many joys. All that time he'd been working at the same school, in the same job, living with the same wife, but it had been a journey, still. One that wasn't over yet, even though this season had come to an end. They had a long way still to go.
"We got creamed that whole first season," he said, a little ruefully. "It was ugly."
"Bad News Bears," Olivia said, teasing just a little.
"Exactly," he laughed. "There were so many times I wondered if I was making any difference at all."
"El-"
"I know," he cut her off before she could remind him just how much of a difference he'd made. Not just with the team's record - though he had turned the Wildcats around in his tenure, taken the worst program in the city and made them into champions - but with the kids. So many kids, over the years, had come through their door. He and Olivia had fed them and tutored them, let them sleep on the couch when they needed a place to stay, filled out their FAFSAs. So many kids, more kids than he could count. Kids who had grown up the way Elliot and Olivia did, hurting and lonely without anyone to protect them, those kids had found shelter with the Stablers. And tonight, when he was thinking about endings, and legacies, he wasn't thinking about trophies. He was thinking about the first kid he'd ever brought home, a scrawny little kicker named Benji. The first one to call Liv Detective Coach, the first boy she'd ever sent Elliot to school with an extra lunch for. The first one who'd gone to college on account of them, the first one to turn his life around. Benji had sent Elliot a letter, a year or two before, to tell him thanks, to tell him how Benji had gotten married and settled down. We've got a son, he'd told Elliot in the letter. And when he's old enough, he's gonna be a Wildcat, too. That's thanks to you, Coach.
"I'm so proud of you, baby," Olivia told him, earnestly, like she meant it, and he knew that she did.
"I'm proud of you, too, princess," he said, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her skin gently as they walked.
She was Sergeant Coach now. She'd come through horror with her soul intact, had continued not to just work at her job, but to excel, had taken command of her squad over from Cragen. She was the one they all looked to now for leadership, the mother hen holding her team together the same way she held their family together at home. The mother of his babies, and the bravest woman he'd ever known, she shone brighter than the sun.
"You ever think…" he trailed off, a little embarrassed by how sentimental his thoughts had become, but Olivia nudged his shoulder, encouraged him to speak.
"You ever think how different everything would be if you weren't in the bar that night?"
On a cool September night twenty-five years before Elliot had come to the aid of a pretty girl in a too-tight dress, and everything, everything had changed. If he hadn't met her, god only knew where he'd be; married to Kathy, probably, and too much like his old man. Still laying awake at night, wondering what else was out there. It was Liv who'd helped him choose this path, Liv who'd made him brave, made him strong, made him want to reach for the right road, and not just the one that was easiest. Liv he'd chosen, over and over again, Liv he'd choose again, in any parallel universe. He thought about their children's faces, all six of them, and thought about her voice, cheering for him while his boys won the championship tonight, and thought about the light in her eyes as she lay tangled in his arms in a shitty hotel in South Carolina, and gave thanks, in that moment, for a seedy dive bar and a creep with wandering hands and a girl with a fire in her heart, a fire that had caught his own heart like kindling, and left them both blazing.
"You know I don't believe in God," she said slowly, "but if I did, I'd thank him for that. For sending my Marine to me."
"I thank him for the both of us," Elliot told her.
They finished their walk in silence, trudging along, hand in hand, one lone light burning bright over their heads. They'd come a long, long way from Brewballs, and they had a long way to go yet. Come what may they'd face it, and Elliot knew they'd survive it, so long as they had each other's hands to hold.
When they circled back to their starting point Elliot slipped his arm around her waist, and pulled her in close. It was late, and cold, and he was tired, and their children were waiting for them, and he was eager to be surrounded by his family.
"Let's go home, Olivia," he said.
And so they did.
A/N: we made it fam! Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. I have loved every minute of it, and I am grateful to all of y'all for your encouragement throughout this process. Look for a new one from me soon!