Chapter 5: Therapy.
Jet could see Elliot in the hallway standing next to Olivia through a slip of window near her desk. She leaned back on the office chair to try and hear or see what was happening. Her hand squeezed a squishy toy in the shape of an ice cream cone filled with orbeez. The rhythm of her squeeze slowed and quickened with the pace of their discussion. Soft and then heated.
"I thought I was going to have to drive to your house to make sure you were still alive," she heard Liv start in with a passive aggressive scolding.
He grabbed for her hand in the softest way he could with both love and hesitation. "It's been a hard week. I should have called. Didn't want to wake you."
From inside the office Jet strained to hear their soft voices. She tossed the Ice Cream orbeez and crawled on the floor under her desk to get closer to the window. Whelan walked by her desk.
" What… are you doing?"
"Shhh," she hushed him.
Jet put her hand to her lips to keep him quiet and waved for him to join her.
Olivia could read Elliot like a book. She could tell he wasn't right. She didn't push, though. "Just…text me next time. I don't like to find out your ETA while watching a car chase on the 5 o'clock news."
He pulled her to the corner of the hallway where he knew the cameras couldn't see them and held her eyes with his baby blues. "I'm sorry."
They paused in each other's gaze. It was the first time they'd seen each other since softly kiss on the dark dance floor at Amanda and Carisis wedding. Now that the seal for romance had been broken, standing in a place of work in the daylight was both a comfort and a rebirth. The two of them relished in the extreme sexual tension for a moment.
Elliot held back a blush and a smile. "I think you missed me."
Her lips warmed into a hint of a smile. Subtle and bold. She wasn't going to let him off the hook that easy. "Hmph, I think if vanishing for 7 days is your twisted way of foreplay… you better step it up or you're gonna miss me more."
"Who is she," Whelan whispered.
Jet whispered back. "That's Olivia- or should I say, Captain Benson from SVU, Elliot's ex partner and possible fuck buddy, no one is really sure what's going on there, but when she's here Elliot turns into a teddy bear and buys everybody Starbucks."
"Oh…," A light bulb hit Whelan. "oooooohhh…ha," he chuckled to himself.
"What," Jet furrowed her brow at him.
"I don't think they've…" he hinted. "You know…"
She looked at him cross, not understanding.
"She's giving him blue balls," he whispered loudly.
Jet smacked him on the arm. "Thanks for that image. Do I want to know how you know that? No."
Elliot half heartedly laughed at Olivia's flirtatious comeback. He wished he had a better excuse for not calling her immediately after that wedding, but the one he had he was ashamed of. He pulled his bandaged hand behind his hip, but she caught it.
"What happened to your hand?," she asked at the site of his bruised knuckles.
He cleared his throat and blinked trying to find the words. "It's...just cut it."
She pulled away. "Why are you lying to me?"
"Eh," his heart sank and he bit his lower lip like a child. "I…punched a mirror."
"You punch a mirror!"
Elliot watched as the disappointment washed its way through her entire body..
Olivia started in again. "Please tell me this was self defense."
"It..wasn't on the job…" he could barely mutter the words from his mouth, but he was all out of hall passes.
She stopped him and took a step back. "You punched a mirror…off the clock."
Olivia blinked and waited.
"Bell and I were having a drink after that case wrapped, and they were talking about the deceased officer on the news, and it just…it got me."
"Okay…," her voice was professionally soft, but her stiff hands were wild with anger. "Is this stemming from Vincent? Or the bombing? Have you done a psych evaluation?'
Olivia watched him start to pace and mentally fall down a rabbit hole of self doubt. "No. No. I wish it were that easy. He had five kids. I let it all get to me.""
She touched his arm and took in a deep breath hoping he would do the same, and he did.
"Okay…and when is your next therapy session?"
"I'm good now. I don't need one. It's fine. It was a moment of guilt. I took a few days, had lunch with the girls. Took Eli to a basketball game. I'm fine now."
Olivia panicked selfishly feeling she had made a mistake missing that Elliot was still fighting too many demons. "Elliot, when's the last time you went to therapy?"
Elliot looked at her with broken eyes. "2 or 3…"
"Weeks?!"
"Months…"
"Months!," she gasped. "Months! What about your routine psych evals? What about your promise to Eli and the rest of your kids? And me…"
Elliot tried to pull her close to him. "Liv, calm down. I go to therapy when I need it. I will admit I've had a few moments and I should have gone, but life isn't always easy. I can't always get there, and the one therapist I like is always booked. I'm trying."
"You can't just stop going Elliot. If you stopped going, then you aren't trying."
He tried not to get angry, but her nagging about therapy was not what he wanted to hear right now. "You're right. I should have gone. And I will call them today and get it set up. But please, let's not turn this into a big thing," he pleaded and tried to pull her into his body again.
She pulled away. "Don't…do that when I'm trying to have a serious conversation with you. What if you would have been at my house and you punched my wall or my mirror. I can't have Noah around that. And was your week really that busy or were you avoiding me because of your hand? Because you knew I would call it out! Why did you stop going to therapy?"
"I hear you, Liv." He fidgeted with frustration. "And I shouldn't have stopped going. I don't always like hearing some of those predictable questions, and answering them like I hadn't already thought of the question and answered it for myself. It felt like a chore. I just…I just want to talk to a friend over a bottle of beer sometimes," he said frustrated by himself.
"And then punch a mirror."
"Please, don't do this. I just need you to be understanding. I would never do this in front of Noah. You know that," in a low hushed desperate voice the faint words fell from his lips. "Liv, I-
"I can't hear what he said," Jet whispered to Whelan.
"He loves her so much and he's going to do better," Whelan hissed, fully invested.
Olivia looked into his eyes and knew he wasn't ready for her. He wasn't ready to be in her life.
"I think we need to give each other some more time," Olivia backed up. "I want so badly for this to be our time, Elliot. I was finally ready to trust you again, but you're not healed… I can't even finish what I want to say, because I'm so upset and I don't want to hurt you or regret my words."
"Liv, you're right, and I'll go back to therapy for you. I do better at these things when I have you to keep me grounded."
She shook her head, shaking from the core. "No. See. Don't go for me. Don't make this about me," she muttered, holding back rage. "I don't need you. I want you. I want to be your partner. I want it to be you. I always have. But you need me. You need me to hide from your pain. And that's not fair to me."
"I think you're overreacting a little. I had a bad week," he replied.
Jet and Whelan both sucked in their teeth.
"Wrong answer," Jet muttered.
Infuriated by the egotistic reaction he just gave her she hissed back at him ",You don't get it, Elliot! Your anger is a red flag that you're in pain. I cannot fix that for you!"
"I'm not in pain!"
"Really?! Then why'd you punch the mirror, Elliot. Huh? Why'd you do it? Didn't like what you saw? Didn't like what you heard? Why," she pushed him with a hot tone.
"I can't fix it, Liv," he barked. "I just get overwhelmed….I don't know…emotionally."
Olivia knew he was capable of overcoming this, but he was so damn stubborn, and it was hard for her to stay convincingly empathetic. She put on her fake soft voice to keep herself from fueling any of the anger int eh room "Why? Why did that story make you so... emotional?"
"I don't need you to put on your cop voice for me, Liv."
She blinked back the rage. "Fine. WHY then, Elliot, were you so EMOTIONAL," she spit out in a monotone way, taking out all of the warmth she was trained to add to her voice. She crossed her arms and waited for him to finished.
He'd never seen her so livid. He rubbed the back of his neck trying to dig his way back to honesty. "I….eh…I…I realized that I'm all my kids have and I'm not a parent to them really. I'm not present with them. Kathy was the parent and she's gone, and I'm not good at it. I'm not good at being there for them unless it's Christmas or an emergency. Especially, Eli. And I don't know how to not be addicted to this job, and it scares me, because I'm not young anymore. I tweaked my knee and my back. It's just…How much longer can I really be doing this, and yet I can't see myself doing anything else. Is that what you want to hear, Liv!" His voice got louder, and he kept going.
"Yes, and?," she pushed.
"And...instead of going to therapy last week I sat in my depression and did 200 deadlifts in the cold backyard, because it makes me feel numb inside!"
"That's great. And what else, El," she pushed genuine and softer this time.
"And you...you are the what else. I was talking to Bell about her divorce, and all I could think about is how horrible I was at being married, and how I don't want to be that man with you. And I'm embarrassed that I can't seem to break this pattern. And...yeah...I get it... I need the therapy."
Olivia grabbed his hands now and shook him. "Yes! You need the therapy, because then you can face it. You are so much more than those thoughts. I see you! I see the kind, passionate, loyal man you are, and I want you to see that too. That's why you have to talk about these things. That's why you have to find a therapist that you like and go every week whether you think you need it or not. That's why you have to stop running from yourself and the people who love you," she softened.
And they paused. Their bodies vibrated with tension. He wanted to ravage her right there in that hallway. She'd just released a weight from his chest. Olivia dropped his hands and slowly backed away sensing that any longer at that distance could potentially end in bad choices. Elliot could have lost himself in her strength. He wanted nothing more than to be physically near her in every way.
"Don't leave me," he whispered.
"I'm not leaving you. I am torn though, as this relationship is not ready to be 'this' yet, and yet…here we are...," she said soft and sad.
He touched her cheek. The palm of his hand melted some of her apprehensions. "I'm no therapist, but I think a good one would tell you, there's never good timing in these matters."
"Ha," she smiled. "Maybe so, but lets…take it slow again," she softly replied. Her brown eyes looked at him and ripped his heart out.
"Okay," he replied with the same tenderness.
"You call your therapist. I'll call you later?"
He nodded and she turned for the door. A ray of bright sun hit Elliot in the face.
The door slammed behind her and rumbled the window in front of Jet and Whelan who jumped out of their skins.
"Damn, that…," Whelan whispered.
"…sucks," Jet replied.
"I was going to say was intense, but yeah...sucks works," Whelan helped her off the ground as Elliot came back into the office.
The two eavesdroppers practically fell all over themselves and the desk. Whelan flipped through random papers he grabbed out of fear, and Jet clicked away at nothing on her computer.
"Yep, so the license plate…number," Whelan flipped. "Is here somewhere. "
Elliot walked past them to the window and watched Olivia get into her car.
Jet motioned to Whelan to shut up and grab his coat. "Hey, Elliot, we're getting Starbucks. You want something," she asked.
"No," he said practically to himself.
