I'm conscious that I've neglected this substory for a painfully long time, so I'm just jumping in here to remind you that Lollie was born on 18 February 2014.
If you pay really close attention to this chapter, there are some major clues as to what's happened to Lollie in the 2030 storyline.
Reviews/comments help me write faster :) Thank you so, so much to everyone who is still reading and commenting after two years, you are all wonderful and make writing this the escapism it is for me.
-IseultLaBelle x
Chapter Text
Chapter 23
Thursday, February 6, 2014
She's late.
She's late, and it's unnerving him.
It's unnerving him far more than it should.
Because it's not a dangerous undercover stint, he tells himself, repeats it like a mantra over and over as the clock on the diner wall approaches ten minutes past and still she doesn't show, repeats it in the hope that if he keeps reminding himself, keeps drilling, keeps on pushing, he might just force himself to believe it.
He doesn't agree with her, and Cragen, and IAB and the rest of the goddamned force that it's not a dangerous undercover stint, of course.
It might just be him and Amaro against the world on that one.
Of course it's dangerous.
Her life doesn't have to be at risk for it to be dangerous- not as he sees it, at least.
They've sent her into a community they know to be the current target of a brutal, calculated serial rapist, for god's sake, sent her in there amongst people she doesn't know and pretending to be somebody she isn't.
They've sent her in there knowing full well that she's still struggling to process the hell she was put through a mere nine months ago, that in having her take on an identity that isn't her own, they've cut her off from anything even remotely resembling a support system, from people who know what she's been through, that she's still healing, that she's got pretending she's okay down to a fine art but that doesn't mean she is, doesn't mean she's not fighting desperately to hold herself together, that she's not…
And that's assuming no one recognises her.
Because Olivia and Cragen and Tucker and the rest of them can insist that the Russian community they're sending her into in Brighton Beach is secluded, cut off, mostly inhabited by recent immigrants who hardly speak a word of English, exist in their own isolated bubble and they won't have seen the news last spring, won't have a clue, but still Elliot can't stop panicking that someone will recognise her.
Because if they do, they'll know she's a cop.
They'll know her name isn't Anya.
They'll know she isn't even goddamned Russian, and that's assuming they won't have already found tiny imperfections in the accent she insists is flawless that give that game away and how much danger she'll be in if that happens depends on whether it's the perp or a legit member of the community around St Ksenia's, but either way, it won't be good.
She's in danger.
Of course she is.
She's in danger all the while she's undercover at St Ksenia's and anyone with half a brain should be able to see it.
And now she's late.
She's late for her first check-in with him since she's been under, barely three days in, and Elliot couldn't give a damn that she has sister Yekaterina on the inside, that nothing she's reported back to Cragen so far has suggested there's reason to be worried.
He needs to see for himself.
That she's alright.
He needs to see for himself that she's alright because he knows full well that she isn't, that just about clinging on is the best they can possibly hope for given everything she's been through in the last year and he knows her well enough to see through any act she might put on, any attempt to pretend that this UC operation isn't already bringing up memories she'd rather forget (thank you Fin for tipping him off on that one).
He doesn't trust anyone else to look out for her.
That's what it boils down to.
Not Cragen, not her shrink, certainly not IAB or Sister Yekaterina who might have been fully briefed on everything that happened to her last year, everything else that son-of-a-bitch put her through during the trial but doesn't know her, doesn't know how she deflects, how she pretends, how she hides behind others' pain and need for comfort to ensure that her own doesn't become apparent, doesn't know her history…
The door of the diner swings open, and Elliot lets out a sigh of relief.
"You had me worried there," he tells her honestly as she crosses the diner to meet him at the booth he's reserved for them, moves exactly like Amaro pointed out she was when they dropped her at the refuge on Monday, exactly like Kathy did in the last weeks of each of her pregnancies and he just doesn't know what to do with that information, not when she's so adamant she's not pregnant, when he watched her take the morning after pill in the hospital, when she's already told him she hasn't let Brian touch her since last spring and that's already far more of a mental image than he needed, when he's still convinced she looks as though she's somewhere around the mid-second trimester mark but she absolutely lacks the full-term bump to match the way she lowers herself gingerly into the seat opposite him, winded and fighting not to show it and he needs to talk to Kathy again about the possibility of internal damage, undetected, slowly worsening, God only knows what but something isn't right with her, and he and Amaro seem to be the only ones who see it. "I was about to call Cragen…"
She rolls her eyes. "Sorry. Couldn't get away. Couldn't risk anyone seeing me, this community doesn't venture much further than Belt Parkway…"
"Could have texted…"
"I'm here now, aren't I? Not that I've got anything to tell you." She sighs heavily. "It's going to take me a while to build up enough trust around here for anyone to open up to me, I think…"
"So you think there's…"
"Oh, Kamila Petrova definitely knows a whole lot more about the man who raped her than she told Rollins," Olivia tells him darkly. "She knows who he is. I'm sure of it. I haven't managed to get close enough to the others to be sure either way yet. But Kamila knows him. She let on more than she realised in my session with her yesterday…"
"Oh?"
She shakes her head. "Nothing concrete. But… whether she knew him before he raped her, I don't know. I really don't know. But she sure as hell knows who he is now. She's terrified of him. I just…" she shifts uncomfortably, closes her eyes, just for a moment, and Elliot can't decide if she's frustrated with the lack of progress she's made thus far, weary of the whole thing, or if she's trying to disguise the fact that she's in pain. "I can't work out if she's not talking just because she's terrified of him, or if it's partly because she's protecting him…"
"You think he's an insider?" Carefully, pointedly, he pushes the coffee he ordered her across the table towards her, worries all-too-late that she might taste the decaf, that he shouldn't have ordered her decaf in the first place, that it's none of his goddamned business. "That's for you. You look exhausted…"
"Stop with the sweet talk." She stares him down, but the red rims to her eyes, dark circles beneath them, glazed, glassy look she gives him now only further proves his point. "I'm fine…"
"You been sleeping since you've been under?"
"I haven't been sleeping since May, Elliot," Olivia sighs, apparently on the verge of snapping already. "What do you think…"
"You want me to pull you…"
"No, I do not want you to pull me." She glares at him pointedly over the rim of her coffee cup. "You're not pulling me because I'm not sleeping, for god's sake…"
"You been eating?"
"Fuck off."
He'd thought they'd moved on from his monumentally misjudged fuck-up at Christmas, but the speed at which she shuts him down, the aggressive manner in which she does so, suggests otherwise.
It didn't used to be like this.
Not before he walked out on her.
He never had to tiptoe around her femininity, adhere to stereotypes he didn't think applied to her before he disappeared from her life, and then last year happened, William fucking Lewis happened and just as she seemed to start getting better she seemed to unravel again, and now…
He needs to talk to Kathy again, Elliot realises reluctantly.
Because Kathy was right.
Kathy told him to leave it alone and he thought he knew Olivia better than that, but she was absolutely right.
He's out of his depth.
He's out of his depth and he knows it, and he doesn't like it, but it's not about him.
He needs to talk to Kathy.
"How long you got?"
"That's a really pathetic attempt to change the subject, Elliot," Olivia snaps, wraps her arms around herself and he can't do anything right, he realises grimly now, can't do a damned thing right and she's going to make sure of that, still not forgiven him- still not forgiven him for a hell of a lot more than just the stupid comments he made at Christmas and he knows full well he deserves it, just doesn't know what to do to make it right again.
"I'm not trying to change the subject," he insists, forces himself to maintain his cool. "Just want to make sure you've got time to get back over to Brighton Beach before anyone realises you're gone, that's all… you okay?"
She's… tensed.
Elliot doesn't know quite how else to describe it.
She stiffens, expression twists in discomfort but he wouldn't exactly say she's in pain, freezes, hand shifts and then comes to rest firmly on the table, digs in as though she's grounding herself, unexpected, out of nowhere.
"I'm fine," she insists. "I'm fine…"
"You sure as hell don't look it."
He's pushing.
He's pushing, and it could all backfire horribly at any moment, but he's acutely aware that he's supposed to be letting her walk back into St Ksenia's all alone within the next thirty minutes or so and he just doesn't feel comfortable with that idea all the while she's like this.
"Just…" Olivia wraps her hands around her coffee cup as though she's clinging onto it for dear life, fixes her gaze firmly on the diner table top. "Just… I don't know. Time of the month, probably…"
"Probably?"
"Oh my god, I am not having this conversation with you again…"
"Again?" Elliot questions, ignores the nagging feeling inside him that he needs to drop this, now, before she storms out without giving him chance to complete her check-in paperwork. "I don't remember having this conversation be-"
"Things get less… predictable with age, that's what I mean…"
It's still a sensitive subject for her, Elliot realises all-too-late.
And he knew that, for god's sake.
They've been here before, getting on for a decade ago, and she tearfully shut him down then and still he apparently hasn't learned.
It's just another reminder, he supposes.
Another unwelcome reminder that she's out of time, that the family he knows she's desperately wanted for such a long time now will never be, that she'll never be given the chance to be the incredible mother he knows she would have given the chance- because the thirteen years he spent with her and the nine months he's been back have left no doubt in his mind that she was put on this earth to be a parent, that she's a natural with kids all the way through from newborns to young adults, that life is so goddamned unfair.
Unless…
But she can't be.
She insists she can't be, and he has to trust her judgement on that.
Kathy is right.
It's none of his business.
Olivia's body, Olivia's life, nothing to do with him.
But what if…
"Okay," Elliot shrugs her off casually, gently, fights with all his might to strike a careful balance between letting it go and ensuring she knows that he's here, that he's not leaving, even when their time is up and he'll watch her disappear into the subway station across the street, wait a few minutes to ensure no one who might be watching her sees him walk three blocks north to his unmarked police car, drive back across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan with fuck all to report back to Cragen but a string of new worries he can't fully articulate, therefore can't justify, won't be allowed to do a goddamned thing about, useless, fucking useless, failed her for two years straight and he's still failing her now, failing her spectacularly and he doesn't know how to change it for the better, can't shake the awful, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that she's slipping through his fingers, freefalling, and not one of them is doing a damned thing about it. "Okay. You got everything you need over there? Because I can do you a Wallgreens, run, bring you…"
"Oh my god, Elliot," Olivia sighs, shoots him the most exasperated look he's earned from her yet. "It's a women's refuge run by a Russian convent in Brighton Beach, for god's sake. Not Arkhangelsk Oblast."