Chapter Three:

His eyes are too blue, too understanding and he doesn't-no, he can't begin to understand what she's been through when he was off galavanting around Europe with Kathy and Eli.

She's not angry at him for that - really, she's not. But she's placing an unfair burden on him (subjecting him to this meltdown, that is) when any attempt to explain herself is going to stink of trauma dumping.

He has missed ten years of her life, though.

"Olivia, I've got to be honest," he starts, and she's already reaching for the glass of wine once more. "I don't really know everything you've been through these last ten years, and I've got nobody to blame for that but myself. But there's one thing I do know."

"What's that?"

"That you have in no way asked for this, any of this, to happen to you. Whatever this all is, you seem to have convinced yourself that there was some way to prevent it."

Her hand covers his which has taken residence on her legs, holding it tightly within her own as she forces her voice to be strong.

"I don't want to overwhelm you."

Elliot shakes his head, "That doesn't matter. You deserve the space to be honest, too, Liv."

And if took a shot every time she heard that word (deserve) of late, she'd be going about her life tipsy. She's not sure that would be such a bad thing, but it's certainly made her think about what she expects from her life and her estimation of her own self-worth.

"I'm not sure where to start," she laughs, even though the situation is far from funny. "It's been a long few years - good and bad."

He takes a moment to give it some thought, "Your career. I always knew you'd be the success story in our partnership. But I'd love to hear about how you rose through the ranks. I remember you saying before that you weren't interested in being anything other than a detective, so what changed?"

And so she tells him about being the senior detective in the precinct around the time Munch put his papers in and that Cragen had warned her that he wasn't far behind either. He had been right at the time that she was essentially already doing the job of a sergeant, why not make it official?

It hadn't been long after her initial promotion that Tucker had encouraged her to take the next exam - and as expected, Elliot seems confused by the completely 180 in Ed's personality. From the biggest pain in their asses to one of her biggest champions, it's safe to say that she never really understood the relationship either.

She had ranked in the top 30 this time around, though the promotion hadn't meant much more to her than a pay rise and a new title. Honestly, she can't quite articulate why this promotion was so meaningless to her, but she feels the need to explain to him just how much it meant to make captain.

"Cragen must have been proud," he says, but he already knows the answer. It was no secret that Olivia was the older man's favourite detective back in the day and he must know that she and Cragen had stayed in contact over the years.

She nods, "He told me so just last year. It's just so incredibly surreal to have made it this far."

"You going for chief next?"

"Probably not. People like McGrath have forgotten why they joined in the first place. They see the bigger salary and the power and they say a massive 'fuck you' to the victims and survivors who should be the very reason we put our badges on every morning. Chief Garland was what SVU needed, Dodds too, but with the good old boy network alive and well? They'd never let a woman take over from McGrath (whenever he decides to go) when there was so much resistance to progressive men in the role. I'm not quite politic enough anyhow."

"But you want it?"

Olivia shrugs, "You can want things, doesn't mean you deserve them. What about you? Sergeant Stabler has a nice ring to it."

"Thought about it," he admits, "But all that paperwork? Transferring out of OCCB? With my jacket I think I'd only be welcome in the traffic unit. And I really fucking hate paperwork."

Amen to that, she thinks as her mind drifts to the stack of files on her desk. With a groan her head falls back, hitting the cupboard with a light thud. She shuts her eyes, only for a moment, until his voice brings her back into focus.

"What about Noah?"

"What about him?"

"You told me he was a dancer, is he good?"

Olivia gave a tired smile, "I'm his mom. I'm hardly going to tell you he's awful. But he's great and it brings him so much joy - I think that should be the priority. He wants to audition for LaGuardia High, but I almost don't want to let him. I want it to be something he enjoys, an outlet for him. I loved reading as a kid, and writing, but it lost a lot of the fun when it became something I used to connect with my mom over. What about you? Did you have something like that?"

"Like what dancing is to Noah?" she nods. "I loved art. Wanted to be an architect, but you've gotta go to college for that and a night school degree in history probably wasn't going to hold a torch to kids who went to the fancy art schools. But I used to love going to Manhattan with my mom and sketching the buildings and bridges and roads. So probably art, I take after Bernie that way, I guess."

She can't help but smile at the thought of Bernie and Elliot going sketching together in Manhattan, maybe not too far from the side of the City she was trying to impress Serena with her knowledge of the classics. And it was almost worth it on the rare occasion her mother had seemed proud of her - though there was a small piece of her that yearned to know who she might have become if she'd been allowed to be her own person.

"I'm glad you and Bernie had that."

"I'm sorry that you and Serena didn't."

Olivia shrugs, "It was a long time ago. She's been dead for over two decades, so I'm not going to hold anything against her."

She watches as he takes a contemplative sip from his glass of wine, face making the smallest of contortions as he tried to figure out the right things to say. Comforting as it is to know he's just as inept as she is, she can't help but want to make sure this isn't an uncomfortable thing for him.

"You up for watching some of Noah's dance videos, I mean, he was the one you wanted to know about. Right?"

She notices the grin that creeps across his expression, "I'd love to."

And so they end up on the couch, her iPad in the space between them (what little space there is). He's transfixed by one of the many pieces Noah had taught himself during the pandemic, Swan Lake she informs him, and had filmed in Central Park one Sunday morning.

Whatever comments or reaction she's expecting from him, it's not the way he turns to her with his eyes wide.

"You see that? How does the kid move like that?"

She takes a healthy sip from her glass once more, "Who do you think filmed him doing that? As for how he does it? I have no idea. I get tired just watching him."

"You're a good mom, Liv," he says with a little nudge of his elbow. Returning his attention back to the screen, he seems intrigued when he begins moving in time with a girl only a little shorter than Noah himself.

"That's Emma, they used to be dance partners before they moved to Philly," she supplies before adding, "He was devastated when she left the studio."

"Did he have a little crush, do we think?"

She shakes her head almost immediately, "God no. That was purely platonic. But I have been hearing a lot about a certain 'Georgi' at the moment, so I suspect he's the source of Noah's affections this month."

"Just you wait until he hits the teenage years, he'll be breaking all those dancers' hearts at LaGuardia and getting his heart broken right back," Elliot snorts. "Was coming out a big deal for him?"

"Nah, not really. Just told me he doesn't want anyone to feel left out and I think I just thanked him for telling me. We just take that sorta thing in our stride around here."

"He's a great kid."

And she doesn't think she can put into words how much she loves her son, how grateful she is to Judge Ruth Linden for taking a chance on her. She's tried to give Noah the childhood she never had, to compensate yet again for sins she didn't commit and to show Noah just how much he means to her without explaining his mother's dark past (and Olivia's, too).

It's past she wants to explain to the man beside her, sipping on expensive red wine and watching videos of her kid leaping and spinning around his dance studio. And one day, she'll tell him the tales of dark trunks and cigarette burns, of wandering hands and Russian roulette. Perhaps after that she'll let him in on past lovers and townhouse terrors, of the time an amber alert was launched for that happy dancing kid on the video and the pain she still hadn't addressed of finding out her first true love was actually her groomer.

Perhaps he'll have demons of his own to share, and she can't begin to imagine what keeps this man awake at night.

But as she lays her head on his shoulder, she's no longer terrified that he's going to leave her in the lurch once more. They don't have to have all of the heavy conversations tonight, not when she'd spent the better part of the evening in some degree of emotional distress. He'd shown up for her and he'd stuck around and she would keep reminding herself that this was real and that she deserved this, even when her inner monologue conspired against her on that front.

"All you can do is love your kids," she says quietly, letting her heavy eyes rest finally.

"And that kid is the luckiest little boy in the world."