Prompt #79: Prompt #79: Olivia is confronted with some supernatural happenings


Long Into The Night

~oOo~

She lost him during the hunt for Gitano, though they'd never found his body. It took months for the department to stop searching. They'd held a service for him with bagpipes and Amazing Grace—and all the bullshit Elliot would've hated, but no one listened to her.

Olivia, on the other hand, never gave up.

Every second outside of the precinct, Olivia searched for him. Fin and Munch had joined her for a while but then stopped as everyone else had. She never did.

She couldn't.

His belongings from the precinct wound up in the bottom of her closet. Of course, Kathy hadn't wanted any of her estranged husband's belongings. They'd been working on a divorce when he'd gone missing.

But Olivia couldn't let him go.

Refused.

She was sure she'd feel it if he were gone. He wasn't. He couldn't be.

So she never gave up on him.

Her hunt for Elliot led her into some of the shadowy places in the city. Into secret underground societies that New York pretended not to see. The place where monsters were real.

No one knew what had happened when Gitano and Elliot were alone together. All Olivia knew was her partner was gone—and the feds had quickly come to remove Gitano after she'd shot him. Melinda had never gotten the body.

When Olivia had tried to track down what happened to him, she'd gone stonewalled by the feds. They'd told her to let it go. Let him go. Gitano was dead; her partner was dead.

What more did she need?

Cragen had pulled her aside two years after Gitano. He was worried about her health. She thought it was more that her career had been threatened if she didn't stop poking the feds with a stick.

So she'd gone a different route.

Never giving up.

Ever.

She'd been tempted. Part of her thought that maybe grieving and letting go might be healthier for her. But then Lowell Harris had been found dead in his cell.

Neck snapped.

He'd been alone. The cameras didn't catch anything. No one saw anything.

And Olivia had known.

The whispers about what Gitano had been. How the feds had a special way of ensuring his death was permanent. She'd known Elliot was still alive.

Still out there trying to look after her.

It was during her arrest for murder that Olivia knew for absolute certainty. An anonymous friend had hired Langan—and paid her bail. A friend. An anonymous friend had forked out the cash for her.

Someone had randomly left a basket of supplies to help her recover from the flu on her desk. It wasn't the first time since Elliot had vanished that food had been delivered to her apartment. She hadn't ordered anything—and the delivery person had said it was an anonymous gift.

And Elliot had been the first person to pop into her mind.

She'd been home, trying to recover from the flu and figure out who was behind it, when Brady Harrison broke into her apartment. He'd knocked her to the ground. She'd had a brief second to struggle before he was lifted off her body.

"Elliot."

A blur of a figure tossed Harrison across the room, knocking him out cold. He was gone before Olivia could get off the bed. He'd moved so fast.

Too fast.

"Damn it. Elliot." Olivia struggled to her feet. She was left in her apartment with an unconscious perp, a door ripped off the hinges, and a deepened mystery. "Fuck."

It was after midnight. Olivia had finished her report on the strangest case of her career thus far. She'd trudged home, not knowing what to make of her savior. She'd left him out of her report.

No one else had seen him. Harrison insisted she'd clocked him in the head. Olivia decided not to argue.

How else was she going to explain what had been nothing more than a shadow of a figure?

Olivia pulled back the covers on her bed. She was about to get in when she heard a sound on the fire escape outside of her window. Fuck. She grabbed her gun and then went to peer outside. "I'm armed."

And talking to myself.

"Elliot?" She was going to feel like an idiot if it ended up being a stray cat or something.

There was only silence. But it felt like he was there. He seemed closer than he had in months.

"Elliot. I…I know you're out there. Please come inside. You're welcome to come inside. Just to talk." Olivia gripped the window frame tightly. She shoved her window up and peered out into the fire escape. The shadows seemed darker than usual. "I know what you are. I don't care. You're still my partner. Still my…El. And I know you've been looking out for me."

Silence.

Olivia was beginning to feel like she was talking to herself. She knew someone else had been in the room with her earlier. It hadn't been her imagination. "El? Please."

The shadow moved. Olivia was hard-pressed not to bring up her pistol. She poked her head further out the open window, trying to make sense of it.

"If you get me kicked out of my apartment because my neighbors think I've finally—"

"Liv."

His voice went through her like a strike of lightning. Her gun slipped out of her hand onto the top of the bookcase that was under her window. She grabbed at the frame to keep from tumbling out onto the fire escape.

"Can I see you?" Olivia pulled back into her apartment and waited. Hoping. He wouldn't just leave after saying her name. "I swear to God, Elliot. If you just vanish after saying my name, I will shoot you."

"Not sure what good that would do." Elliot climbed through her window. "And no, you can't get rid of me with garlic or a church or a stake. I tried. The stake was unpleasant, and I was fine within hours."

"You tried to…."

"I'm a monster. I lost my faith."

Olivia grabbed his hands. She was surprised at how icy cold they were. "Fuck. You're freezing."

"I'm dead."

"You seemed pretty alive and kicking when you got Harrison off me." Olivia slid her hands up his arms. "Jesus, El. You're made of granite."

"One of the few bonuses of this new…lifestyle." Elliot looped an arm around her back once her hands rested on his shoulders. "I get to live forever…but it's a lonely and wasted sort of life."

Dragging him over to the bed, Olivia pulled him down to sit on it. He told her about his fight with Gitano. He'd been bleeding out on the ground when the feds swooped in.

They'd saved him.

Saved.

Elliot said with more bitterness than she'd thought him capable of. "There's an entire underground federal organization of vampires. Sounds like a shit Hollywood movie, but it's not. They keep track of me. Supply me with blood. Gitano had been on their wanted list for three years. Not sure I wanted this kind of reward."

"Better than you being dead."

"I am…"

"You're here. You're…fucking here. I can't imagine what it's been like to be forcibly separated from everyone you love. But…I know what it's like to think you're dead." Olivia gripped his hands painfully tightly. "Don't ever think you're better off not being here, El. I wasn't functioning well without my partner."

"Liv."

She moved her hand up to rest on his chest. "You got Lowell Harris for me."

"There's no heart in there anymore, Liv." Elliot closed his eyes when her fingers traced his lips. "You're the only person who wouldn't move on. You kept poking in all the dark corners to shine a light and try to find me."

"Maybe yours doesn't. But my heart beats enough for both of us. And I have faith in you." Olivia slid an arm around his neck. "At least I don't have to worry about giving you my flu."

"Liv."

"You came in from the cold, El." She shifted up until her lips were almost touching his. "All I need is for you to be here. To know I haven't lost you."

Elliot pressed their lips together in a first kiss. "If someone's heart is going to beat for me, it was only ever going to be yours."


Note: The author of this SVU: Fall in Love story will be revealed in November