5
"It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced
And are you thinking of me when you fuck her" - Alanis Morissette, You Oughta Know
One night when Olivia was a child, about six years old she thinks, her mom was drunk and she was hungry and when she asked for dinner Serena told her to make something or shut the fuck up so she could sleep. She really had no idea what she was doing, but she'd seen her mother make Campbell's Soup enough times that she was sure it wouldn't be that hard. She put the can in the can opener, carefully used a fork to fish the jagged lid out, and dumped the contents in a pan. She even remembered to add the water like her mom always did. She turned the stove on and sat down at the table, trying to figure out how she'd know when it was done. Serena always checked her watch while she was cooking, but Olivia didn't have a watch and she didn't know how to read the analog clock on the wall and she didn't know what she was supposed to be waiting for, but she knew that soup was supposed to be hot and so she decided she'd wait until the soup was steaming like it always was when her mother made it. But she was six and had never tried to cook anything and she'd turned the burner all the way to high and didn't remember to use a pot holder and when she reached for the handle that had been over the turned up burner for ten minutes, it was burning hot.
Instinct made her let go, but another instinct - the one that told her Serena would be pissed the fuck off at her for making a mess - told her she could not let the pan fall. She grabbed for it, two tiny frightened hands reaching for a falling pan full of hot soup, and to this day she remembers it happening in slow motion, the pan turning end over end, hot soup spraying out in an arc, her clothes and skin getting doused with the liquid while her clumsy hands tried desperately to stop the disaster that was already under way and her attempt to stop it only making everything worse. She doesn't remember screaming, in her memory the only sound was the metal pan clattering noisily across the room and the way her mother came running into the kitchen furious and then the absolute fear on her face when she realized what had happened. Olivia remembers the way Serena had explained to the doctor that she was asleep and Olivia was misbehaving and it had been her daughter's scream that woke her. Olivia doesn't remember the pain. She doesn't remember the bandages. She doesn't even remember the way Serena smacked her in the face when they got home from the hospital and told her to clean up the mess she'd made.
She mostly remembers the eternity while the pan was falling, when she knew everything was going wrong, and her doomed attempts to fix the mistake she'd made which only served to make it that much worse.
She remembers it so well it feels like deja vu, fucking up one disastrous thing after another, like an out of body experience, like she's watching herself in a horror movie and she wants to shout at herself that it wasn't a cat making a noise in the basement but the murderer and she feels like an idiot for not being able to stop this from going so completely wrong.
She loves him. She fucking loves him with everything she's worth. But she's dealing with a bunch of Neanderthals at work who still think it's ok to look down her blouse when she's talking to them and she already lived through the rumors that she was fucking her partner when they worked together and that she was suffering a broken heart when they didn't and she can't deal with it again. She's convinced everyone she's a hardass bitch and she wears high cut shirts and too many layers and fights for victims but doesn't let anyone see her cry for them. She's too old to survive rebuilding her reputation again. She's ok with Fin finding out and maybe Amanda, if sworn to secrecy, but even with just those two knowing, it'll get out, it'll get around that she's screwing a detective and then everyone will assume it was going on all along and that it wasn't just Elliot and she's a fucking Captain, so all of the blowback will fall on her while Elliot gets high-fives from everyone.
She's already pissed off about the fucking surprise party and she's irritated that she's having another birthday with people from her job and somehow without someone special to take her out and enjoy it because even if Elliot offered, he'd just had her spread-eagle on her desk calling his name without even locking the damn door and that's probably all the eating that's going to happen to celebrate her birthday so she's not sure she can trust his judgement when it comes to her because he's obviously not able to think straight and neither is she and one of them has to be sensible.
And fuck she wants to have the conversation with him, but they haven't had it yet and she's not ready to just make an announcement at this damn party when she doesn't know what he's going to say and Fin could have invited five people and she would have been ok with outing them in front of just a few friends maybe but instead of being reasonable, Fin invited a hundred people and she doesn't like to make these sorts of decisions under pressure and that's what it feels like he wants when Elliot is glaring at her all night. She's not prepared for fucking Langan to show up and start hitting on her and she's pissed off at Fin for inviting him, except he appears to have invited the whole fucking town, and Langan just can't seem to take a hint and Elliot is staring at her like some lovesick puppy and he's being so obvious two people have already asked her about them hooking up and it's not how she wants this to happen and while Fin's been good natured about his teasing over her hickey, he's still fucking teasing her and she's embarrassed. She wants to sit down and talk to Elliot and talk about them and she knows this is it for her, this is the defining relationship of her life and the only one that really matters and he's already fucking had that so she thinks it's fair that they decide together if they're dating or seeing each other or together or figuring out where things go or in love before they start telling everyone.
And then Fin is talking and she wants to tell him because they've been friends forever and the man knows she loves Elliot and implies frequently that Elliot really does love her and he doesn't seem to think their relationship has ever gotten in the way of their jobs and she trusts him and she wants to tell him, but he's teasing her again about the fucking hickey that Elliot hadn't even warned her about and she doesn't want Fin to make a flippant remark about her office the next time he's in there and then he's admitting he already came to the conclusion she was afraid he'd come to and she's back to hating the idea that everyone is talking about her sex life again when she wants them to concentrate on work and not her personal life.
And then it's like the fucking pan all over again, tumbling and spinning and peppering her with burns as she tries to fix the mess and just has to watch it spiraling out of control. And fuck if half a gallon of red wine isn't making everything so much more complicated.
She's staring at Elliot and she knows she hurt him but she's thinking about his invitation to take her and Noah out to celebrate and she fucking loves him and Noah adores him and she hears Langan saying something and she feels his hand on her leg and she just wants him to get the fuck out and she's looking at Elliot's heartbroken face and she doesn't care what anyone thinks anymore because she wants Elliot to sit back down next to her and she wants to hold his hand under the table and she wants his hand on her thigh not Langan's and she agrees to dinner because she hates seeing him hurting and she thinks that agreeing to a date in front of everyone will make him happy.
It doesn't even occur to her until a moment later when Amanda is making a snarky remark about "friends my ass" and Langan is grinning like the cat that ate the canary and she can't fucking locate Elliot in the damn bar that she appeared to be agreeing to a date with Langan when she meant to accept Elliot's offer. She curses all the wine she's had for making her confused while she chugs the glass that has magically refilled itself yet again.
She has no idea how much later it is when Langan is trying to steer her out of the bar and Fin pours the lawyer in a cab with a promise to see Olivia home himself and she's so fucking thankful because she's sick drunk and she already wants to cry because she hates the out of control way she feels and Fin is hailing a cab and as he's opening the door, she remembers this is all wrong. She doesn't need Fin to take her home and make sure she's safe because there's only one person on earth that makes her feel safe.
"Elliot. Where's Elliot? I want him to take me home."
Fin's eyes drop to her throat and he looks sad or disappointed or worried or something she can't identify other than it's not something she wants to see. "He left a while ago, Liv. I'll get you home."
She grips his arm, thinking about all the time she and Elliot have been together and thinking that no one else knows why she'd be expecting him to still be there and take her home and thinking is so fucking hard when she's drunk off her ass. "Please check, Fin. He was here." She's wiping at the tears that she doesn't understand and remembering the way Langan was all over her and she's assuming that Elliot is mad about that.
Fin just shakes his head. "He drank himself stupid for a while, but then he left, Liv, he's gone."
She's giving into Fin's push to climb in the seat when she answers. "Yeah, he does that."
He's sighing then and shaking his head. "You agreed to go on a date with another man in front of the guy you're sleeping with, did you really expect him to stick around?"
He's so calm and matter of fact and unperturbed by the idea. She wonders how long he's known. She wonders who else knows. She wonders if all of this bullshit could have been avoided by someone simply telling her that everyone already knew.
She hangs her head in shame. "I didn't mean to." Even drunk, she knows how stupid the truth sounds, but it's the fucking truth because once a situation is completely out of hand, any attempt to fix it will only make things worse just like the fucking pan and she looks at her hands and wishes they were trying to catch burning hot soup because that wouldn't hurt as much. "I just didn't want everyone to know."
"They don't, no one has a clue besides me." And then he shrugs. "But they all know about you and Langan."
The statement makes her defensive because that means they're still talking about her and her sex life and it doesn't matter which guy they're pairing her with because it's the discussion of her private life that's getting to her. "There's nothing to know about me and Langan." And there isn't. The man hasn't been subtle about his interest, but he's not her type. He's not Elliot.
"Then it won't be a problem." It's the way he says it that tells her it's already a big fucking problem and not with her coworkers.
Fin slides into the seat beside her, suggesting she get some sleep on the ride. She's trying to unlock her phone because she needs to call Elliot and tell him she's sorry and ask if he wants to come over and she's sure he will if she could just get her damn fingers to work long enough to type in her passcode, but she just keeps messing it up and now she can't even remember her passcode because she's thinking about it too hard and she drops the phone back in her purse and takes Fin's advice.
It's well past reasonable when Fin helps fit her key in the lock and turns off her alarm because her fingers aren't any less clumsy than before her nap. His cab is sitting downstairs with the meter running and he's looking like she's already let him know what she thinks of this fucking party he threw and she wants to feel bad for the guilt he's feeling because even he couldn't have predicted how badly tonight was going to go, but she doesn't. She can't. She feels bad about too many things to even add one more to the list.
"You good from here, Liv?"
It takes her a minute to realize Fin is still there even though he's right in front of her and she knows she's well and truly drunk like she hasn't been in years and she doesn't like the way she feels one fucking bit. It doesn't register that he's waiting for an answer.
"Liv?"
Her tears rise up again and she's suddenly thinking how Elliot would be carefully guiding her to her room and tucking her in and she sniffles at the thought that he's not there and it's all her fault and the damn pan just keeps tumbling and burning her on its way.
She swallows back the lump in her throat. "I fucked up."
There's a flash of panicked discomfort on Fin's face as he backs up a step. "You'll figure it out in the morning. Good night." He keeps backing up into the hallway and shuts the door between them. She's irritated for a moment, a flash of anger rising up that he'll save himself from her drunken confessions, but he let her shoot herself in the foot. The anger disappears though, like most coherent thoughts when she's this drunk.
She tosses her bag on the table by the door and throws her coat on the floor and is flopping on the couch and muttering to herself about how at least Noah is staying with the sitter tonight because she doesn't ever want him to see her like this because it reminds her of her mother in the worst way.
She looks at her hands again, unable to even remember which one of them had been burned worse so many years later, and yet she feels her skin burning now like it's all fresh and she knows that unlike her mother's fury and her subsequent four decade long fear of cooking, tonight's burn isn't going to fade. She wants to grab her phone, try to call him, try to do something to fix this mess, but her phone isn't in her hand or on the table and she can't even think of where it might be and so she decides she'll call Elliot in the morning and tell him she had a horrible night and ask why he's not there to hold her because it's her fucking birthday and the man she loves ought to be there with her.
Consciousness hits her like a freight train. Her head is throbbing and she wants to vomit and her mouth is like sandpaper. She has no idea what time she got in, only that she has not gotten nearly enough sleep, and she's got no idea why she's fully dressed and passed out on the couch with one leg on the coffee table. She just knows that she hasn't felt this hungover in fucking decades and for good reason - she knows better. It's not safe and she doesn't like being out of control and she really hates not remembering.
She has to use her hands to pull herself up to a sitting position and then moves slowly to the kitchen for water. The bright light hurts her eyes and she knows, if the light from the fridge is blinding, then the sun and fluorescent lighting and her damn laptop are going to be agony. She realizes as she's standing in the dark and sipping the bottle of water that it's still very early. It's still fully dark everywhere except her refrigerator and when she glances at the clock on the stove, she realizes it's only two. She's got hours to rest and, once she hydrates herself and takes a handful of Advil, she's going to make full use of that time. She tries to reconstruct the night as she finds her bag by the front door and digs out her phone. She's dressed in a nicer blouse than she'd normally wear to work, stylish heels instead of sensible boots.
As she plugs in her phone to charge, it lights up, displaying the date, reminding her of what alcohol and dehydration had stolen. Her birthday. Elliot showing up at her office. She feels her face flush as the details of their encounter on her desk wash over her, her body reacting strongly to the memory, even as she dreads having to go in there and double check that everything got cleaned up.
Oh fuck. The party. The stupid fucking surprise party.
For fucks sake, she's going to fire Fin for doing that to her.
She suddenly remembers Fin at the door while she's sliding the chain and turning the deadbolt. He'd looked sorry, sad, guilty. That reaction wouldn't have been over the party, even if the fete had been a famously bad judgement call.
She's dragging herself back to her bedroom as she gulps down the last of the water, trying to decide if she has the energy to find pajamas or if she can just strip and climb into her bed. That's when she starts to wonder why Elliot wasn't the one to bring her home. She'd been drunk as hell and it would go against every single thing he stands for to leave her to fend for herself in that condition, especially under the circumstances. She's tossing her clothes on the floor and crawling into her bed and she's got a vivid replay of the events on her desk running through her mind and she cannot for the life of her figure out why Elliot isn't here with her.
She rolls over to bury her face in her pillow and block out the light coming from her alarm clock. He must have gotten called into work, she thinks. She can easily picture how bad he'd feel having to leave her party and arrange for Fin to see her home safely and she decides she'll call him first thing in the morning to accept that offer for dinner.
She's late and tired and simultaneously starving and sick to her stomach so she stops to get a bagel since she's already late and she sends Elliot a text while she's waiting in line to say she can't wait to get that dinner he offered and does he want to take Noah or does he want it to be just the two of them and after the series of four texts in ten seconds she decides it's time to take the bull by the horns and finally put it out there and sends one more text telling him she wants to talk about them because after last night everyone knows about them anyway.
Her phone chirps with an incoming text while she's still waiting for her breakfast and she's smiling and excited that he got back to her so fast and she's wondering which of the nice restaurants he's going to suggest because she wants to go to all of them with him.
Except the text isn't from Elliot and she reminds herself that if he got called away to work the night before he's probably still dealing with that and she's irritated at Fin's name on the screen because she's still mad about the party, but he's her sergeant and she has to check even if she's pissed and he's asking quite pointedly if she has already talked to Elliot. She's confused, wondering why he's asking and pieces of the night before come back to her and she remembers that Fin was well aware of their relationship and she wants to turn around and go back home because she doesn't feel well enough to face this shit today. When she replies that no, she has not talked to Elliot, his response comes quickly informing her that this is going to be awkward and she has no idea what that means but she knows it's bad. She eats half her bagel while she's driving because she has to eat something and Fin's warning tells her that eating after she gets to work is not going to be an option.
She regrets the bagel as soon as she walks into the precinct, her stomach knotting unhappily at the people who have invited themselves into her office without waiting for her, especially when she desperately needs to clean her desk and she sees McGrath and Bell and Fin and three people she doesn't recognize except as Feds because of their badges and it's only as she's stepping through the damn door that she spots Elliot leaning against the wall behind the door, about as far away from her desk as he can get and still be in the office. She tries to catch his eye because it has been long enough that he should have gotten her text and with McGrath and Bell just putting away their phones he wouldn't have had to worry about a reprimand for not paying attention. Elliot's eyes are glued to the floor and she doesn't have time to draw him out as she is being brought up to speed on a new joint case.
It's nearly noon by the time she can take a breath. She's been trying to listen and give input, but flashes of the night before keep coming back to her in random order and eventually she thinks she has the whole night sorted out in her mind and by the time the visitors are leaving she knows both why Fin expected things to be awkward and that she desperately needs to talk to Elliot before this can get any worse. She wants to grab him and pull him aside, but she can't because too many of the people there were at the damn party and she cannot make a scene with Elliot at work because that will defeat the purpose of all the damn trouble.
She sends him another series of texts while he's heading out with the group and she watches as he checks his messages and she sees the way he puts his phone back in his pocket to continue the conversation he's having with Bell and the Feds. She knows she fucked up and she owes him an apology and when Fin asks her a question related to the case, she responds with a hostile comment about not planning anymore surprises for her if he wants to keep his job and he walks away with his head down and she knows it wasn't all his fault except the damn party was just too fucking much for them and it actually would have been just fucking fine for them if there was a them but she was too scared to admit it and so the party was just too much for her.
Luckily, the joint case winds up not being as complicated as first anticipated and with the exception of the interviews of a few victims, Olivia's squad has nothing to do with it. She gives it a few days, lets Elliot stew in his Irish temper for a while and finally on Friday afternoon, three days after the party, she decides to call him. Texting him isn't the right way to offer an apology. He doesn't answer the first call and she can't blame him. She gets the same response from a second attempt a few hours later, so she sends another text, telling him she's calling to apologize so can he please answer and listen to her grovel. She's hurt when he neither responds to the text nor answers the third call.
She's pretending to ignore her phone while she has some mother-son time with Noah and joins him in some stretching in the living room and she's a few minutes into explaining that she is as far into a split at she can get and Noah is shocked at this concept and tries to help by pushing on her shoulders and when she hears the ping of a text she curses herself both for leaving the phone on the other room and for trying to stretch so damn hard to please her son because it's really hard to get up from her failed attempt at a split and she doesn't feel like she can quite walk right, but she sees Elliot's name attached to the incoming text and she's beside herself with excitement because it's the first time he's responded since the party and she reads the note three times and still doesn't quite understand.
No need to apologize.
What the fuck. She's staring at it and trying to decide if he's about to add something else and then Noah is next to her and asking if Elliot is coming over for dinner and she shakes her head and feels bad that Noah is disappointed. She waits far too long, even after it's obvious that he's not going to say anything else, and she's trying to decide if she should text again because at least he responded to that, but she still wants to talk to him and she finally decides she'll call him after Noah goes to sleep, when he's likely to be home and maybe willing to listen.
When her phone rings later while she's lying in bed with an ice back on her inner thigh, she grabs it, thinking maybe he was at work and planned to say something else and just hadn't had the time and it's stupid to not check but she doesn't and she pays the price when it's Langan on the line calling to follow up about that dinner and she's miserably uncomfortable until she realizes he's calling to postpone it due to some work obligation and she actually laughs because apparently it's not just her job that prevents her from dating and she's happy to agree to wait to hear from him because she's got this little reprieve and she hopes that when he eventually calls to reschedule, she'll be able to cancel because she's officially dating Elliot.
The morning finds her unable to walk without yelping in pain and she manages to drag Noah with her to urgent care using her left leg on the pedals to drive because moving her right is so painful it brings tears to her eyes. Noah sits quietly while she's examined, looking appropriately bashful when she explains what she was doing and how Noah had leaned on her and the doctor is smirking as he diagnoses her with a groin strain and tells her to take something for the pain and keep using her ice pack and to see her regular doctor if she's not feeling better in two weeks.
The pain is bad enough to make her weekend hell and she thinks about calling Elliot to tell him about the mishap and ask if he wants to come over for dinner and she even thinks maybe it'll be good for them because there is no chance they can get up to their normal activities with how much her damn leg hurts. There's no answer when she calls and she wants to reply to his text with a snarky remark about how obviously he's waiting for an apology since he's dodging her calls. She winds up sleeping on the couch because it hurts too much to get up and though she tells herself she isn't waiting for him, she's hoping Elliot will come knocking when he gets done work and she'll be able to get to the door faster from the living room. Her sleep isn't disturbed by a knock on her door, however, only by the pain involved in moving her leg.
By the time Monday arrives, she's no longer shocked by how much it hurts to move as long as she does it slowly and she's able to get herself settled in a sitting position comfortably, but there's no way to hide her limp nor the wide steps she's taking and she's absolutely mortified when she walks into the bullpen and finds everyone is staring at her and Velsaco looks shocked and Muncy is snickering and Fin is thoroughly intrigued by his phone while Amanda calls out from across the room that it appears her date with Langan went well. It's so much worse than she'd anticipated and she wants the floor to fucking swallow her and she knows that Amanda is going to apologize later but the damage is done and it wasn't like everyone wasn't thinking it anyway.
She spends the morning sitting at her desk and thinking about how Elliot isn't speaking to her and she's lost the one good thing that has happened in the last year and her fucking sex life is the talk of the office anyway. She tries to do damage control and correct everyone's interpretation, but as she's pathetically trying to explain her effort to bond with her son, Trevor fucking Langan shows up and says he was in the area and wants to take her to lunch and Amanda and Muncy are both snickering now and Velasco is turning six shades of red and Fin looks like he's about to crawl under his desk and she can't blame him because she wants to do the same thing herself.
She quite publicly refuses lunch and says she's going to have to pass on that offer of dinner as well and locks herself in her office for the rest of the day. She's desperate to call Elliot, to tell him that she's been paid back double for trying to keep her personal life out of the office and that she misses him and she has learned her lesson and she just wants to hear his voice or sit next to him or see him and remember what that connection to him felt like because it hasn't even been a week yet, but it's already starting to feel like when he disappeared and she knows this will hit harder because she trusted him again and she's furious with herself for telling him she loved him because now she can't even pretend it was nothing.
In the end, he doesn't break up with her. He just stops calling. She's tried reaching out a few more times, but he never answers and that hits a hot button with her and so she stops. And because it's so damn familiar, because he's done it before, cut her out of his life completely, she already knows how it's going to go. At least this time, she takes the hint and stops calling before he disconnects his phone.
By the time two weeks pass, she knows. She gets it, the no need to apologize text, understands that he's done with her. She doesn't quite understand why because drunken confusion doesn't seem like a reason to end their entire relationship, but she doesn't need to understand why something is true to understand that something is true. She's tried snooping on OCCB, telling herself that he's gone radio silent on her before when he's working and it seems exactly up his alley to launch into some extended undercover gig when he's mad just so she can't reach him but that's not the case. Against her better judgement, she goes to his apartment one night after she's worked late and she thinks he must be home because of the sheer number of lights on inside, but she doesn't actually see him and she can't seem to muster up the courage to get out of her truck because there's a very large part of her that knows he won't answer even if, especially if, he knows it's her and she doesn't think she can take that.
By the middle of March, she's vacillating over who exactly is to blame. Yes, she fucked up and she knows that, but Elliot knows her and he knows she panics over personal things and she has tried to get in touch with him and the only thing he's said to her was some nonsense about not needing an apology, which evidently is a lie because he's certainly behaving like he's waiting for one. And so she talks herself into giving it another try, mostly because she's a glutton for punishment, but partly because she's convinced that their connection has always relied on eye contact and unspoken communication and physical presence. She's talked herself into believing that if she sees him in person again, in a better setting than her office with both of their bosses present, she'll be able to get through to him and figure out what happened and get back on track. In order to do that, though, she has to corner him, to find him in a place where he'll have no choice but to be calm and accept her offer to talk or at least listen to it, where there's enough peer pressure that he won't be able to ignore her or pretend he didn't get the message.
She doesn't want to do this at work, but she really sees no other choice. She knows he won't talk to her any other way and she recognizes that it's an abuse of her power to use her rank to force a conversation on the man, but she has no intention of having a screaming match or bursting into tears or doing anything besides looking him in the eye for the first time in over a month. She just needs a good excuse and one luckily falls into her lap, a sheepish Muncy creeping into her office with her head hanging, sliding a file folder onto the edge of Olivia's desk and asking if there's any way that "last call" for paperwork that was due for the case they'd recently worked with OCCB had been a bluff because she "found" a file that should have been included.
Olivia looks at the folder, at the piece of paper sticking out the bottom she recognizes from having been on the printer a half hour earlier, and sighs. She has to pretend to be disappointed because her detective cannot lag on paperwork for joint cases. If there's a backup of internal case paperwork, she can work with that, but she doesn't want to let other departments down, certainly not one they work with frequently. But there's a limit to how upset she can be since Muncy's mistake has given her the perfect excuse to drop by OCCB.
She waits what she thinks is a reasonable time after Muncy leaves her office to grab the file and her bag and inform Fin that she has a meeting and will be gone for a few hours. She's not expecting a miracle, but if one occurs and Elliot is both willing to talk and available, she's going to take advantage of it. Her heart is in her throat as she drives across town, her palms sweaty, her mostly-recovered leg suddenly hurting again as she climbs the stairs into OCCB headquarters. Elliot isn't at his desk and there are several new faces she doesn't know and she remembers Elliot had mentioned new detectives and one of them is just standing up to offer to help her and she isn't sure she can talk for how nervous she is so she pulls her jacket back to reveal her badge and finally spies Elliot through the glass in the conference room and she waves at the young detective who's just sitting back in his seat and heads toward Elliot.
Her shoes are made out of lead and she's limping again and she tries to swallow back the lump in her throat because she isn't here to start crying. Elliot's back is to her and he's gathering a bunch of files from the table and while to anyone else it would appear he's tossing them haphazardly in a box, she knows he's carefully sorting them where he'll be able to find them and direct someone else to find them in ten words or less. She makes it to the door unnoticed and she's gripping Muncy's folder so tightly she's crumpled the edge and she steps into the room with a fake confidence she's absolutely sure he'll immediately see right through. She isn't sure if she should address him or knock or run back to her car before he turns around and her indecision costs her.
He looks up before she makes a decision, his wide smile for whoever he was expecting fading as soon as he sees her. And then he's gripping his own file folder and glancing out the windows at the heart of the office and Olivia knows this was a bad idea but it's too late to do anything about it.
She waves the mangled folder in his direction. "One of my detectives misplaced a witness statement. I wanted to bring it by and apologize for the oversight." She's proud of herself for how normal her voice sounds, except she's not talking to McGrath, she's talking to Elliot and the professional tone makes zero sense and she's no longer proud because she's given herself away in two sentences.
Elliot swallows hard and clears his throat. "Jet has all the recent cases, scanning or cataloging or something." He points out the window as though Olivia doesn't know where to find the woman, as though she's never been in this office before. "She'll take care of it."
Olivia nods, watching and waiting for their connection to spark back to life, and she feels ridiculous because nothing is happening and Elliot is looking everywhere but at her and she reminds herself she knew this, that his reaction and his disconnection isn't news because he's the one who fucking severed it and he hasn't talked to her in six weeks and if it were any other relationship Olivia would recognize a brush off, but it's Elliot and he's cut her off for a fucking decade before returning and trying to pick up where they left off so even if she knew it was likely, she can't blame herself for not being convinced she should stop fucking trying.
She nods, eventually realizing that she has to say something or just stand there until he invites her to leave and she's never shied away from hard things, painful things, so she might as well go for broke. "If you're not too busy," and she knows he's not because absolutely nothing of any import is going on in that office at the moment, "I'd love to take you to lunch."
He winces then, tries to hide it by looking down, but she knows him and she sees it and she doesn't have a chance to wonder what that means because there's a woman breezing through the doorway, knocking lightly on the glass with a huge smile at Elliot and a nod at Olivia.
"Hey, El, sorry I'm late, are you ready to go?"
Olivia swallows hard, looking down at the file in her hands and cursing Muncy's fucking existance. Her hands are shaking and she wishes she'd taken his damn hints because this is so much worse and it hurts so fucking much.
He's smiling back at the blonde woman and then nodding at Olivia. "Jordan, you remember Captain Benson from SVU?"
As the woman turns to her and offers a handshake instead of a smile, Olivia remembers Jordan, one of the Feds who'd been waiting in her fucking office the day after her birthday while there were still disorganized papers and handprints and body fluids on her desk from the night before.
She can't move, can't even respond to the polite, professional gesture. She knows. The damn Fed is Jordan while she's Captain Benson. This is why Elliot never called her back. She's being petty, she realizes it, but she can't help it, anything to soothe the damn burn. Jordan is blonde, of course she is, but it's out of a bottle and not particularly well done and she's just plain looking and she's a bit stocky and her suit pants are wrinkled and her heels are scuffed and the buttons of her blouse are pulling over her belly and Olivia finds herself bitterly thinking at least Kathy was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way.
Olivia turns away from her replacement, her emotions too raw in this moment to even think about saving face, her expression certainly revealing her pain as she meets Elliot's eyes. He only holds her stare for a second, his eyes darting down, his shoulders slumping, and Olivia sees the regret all over him.
He shrugs then, his face turned to Jordan. "This might not be a good time."
Olivia thinks about it, about letting him cancel his plans to have it out with her, about them screaming and yelling at each other until they're spent, about them making up afterwards up against the glass where his coworkers can watch if they want, about fighting to reclaim what she'd never intended to let go. But she can't be the only one holding on and if Elliot has already moved on from them inside of six weeks, it's obvious he didn't mean a single thing he said. He'd said "I love you" so damn many times it should have occurred to her that the words didn't mean a fucking thing to him, they were perfunctory, said because his wife of forty years had taught him that was what he was supposed to say after he fucked her.
But apparently Kathy hadn't taught him what to say after he'd fucked someone over because he's just standing there offering to cancel his date with his girlfriend like a fucking dipshit.
Olivia slaps a fake smile on her face and shakes her head. "No, no, I was just leaving."
Elliot steps forward, his hand reaching out, and he seems to realize whatever he was going to do isn't about to work and his hand falls back to his side. "I can take that file."
Olivia drops it on the chair as she hurries from the room, ignoring the stabbing pain in her leg and her heart and her back as she trips over her own feet in her haste. She has to get to her truck before she lets the tears fall, before she lets out the howl of agony, before she dies from the fatal blow.
Somehow, by the time she's in the parking lot, by the time she's climbing into her truck and pulling out into traffic, the pain is gone. She's numb, she thinks, maybe she's in shock, but she feels nothing and she's glad for that because she knows it's going to come back and she dreads it and she wants to pretend everything is fine for as long as she can. She's two blocks from his office when she makes the decision to move on, tells herself it's right because he's over her and he never loved her anyway and she's not going to let him think he hurt her if he felt nothing the whole fucking time. She's never let anything break her and she's certainly not going to let Elliot Stabler be the thing that finally does.
She's staring at the bumper sticker on the car in front of her and and gritting her teeth and trying to distract herself with a list of things she has to do when she gets back to work, but she can't seem to concentrate and her thoughts are scattered and she knows it's adrenaline and it's going to wear off before she even makes it back to work.
She takes a breath and glances at her phone, thinks about deleting his contact information, blocking his number, just to spite him. And then she thinks of one better.
"Hey, Siri, call Trevor Langan."