TITLE: The Year that Everything Changed
AUTHOR: DramaLexy
PAIRING: EO, of course :-)
SUMMARY: In one year, Elliot and Olivia's lives will be turned upside down and inside out, but they'll get through it together.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not exactly sure where this fits into the L&O timeline. I started writing it before Elliot and Kathy split up on the show, so it could just be one of the hundreds of pieces of "wishful thinking" fiction that have been written over the years, or it could actually be set about now, starting in early 2005. I'll leave that up to the reader.
Olivia Benson looked up from the paperwork on her desk as she saw her partner return to the squad house after an afternoon in court. "How'd it go?" she asked him. He shrugged as he tossed his coat over the back of his chair and sat down at his desk.
"All right. Like Novak said, it was an open and shut case."
Their backlog of forms kept them both busy for a few hours. Elliot noticed when Olivia sat back with a sigh, rolling her head to work the kinks out of her neck.
"Why don't you head home?" he told her. "You've been pulling double duty for a while." Olivia looked up at that. She'd thought that Elliot had been so distracted with his home life crisis of late that he hadn't noticed she'd been covering for him.
"Thanks," she told him. "But I'm okay. I'll be done soon."
"You want to go get drinks afterwards?" Elliot asked. "I'll buy."
"And the surprises keep coming." Elliot smiled.
"Seriously, Liv. I've been meaning to thank you for everything you've done. It hasn't been easy lately, with the divorce, and I know that you've been picking up the slack." Olivia nodded.
"You're welcome. How are the kids doing?"
"All right. I talk to Maureen almost every day, now, actually. Apparently Kathy's been seeing someone." Olivia studied his face.
"Are you okay with that?"
"Do I have any right not to be? We're not together anymore." She accepted that.
"How about the kids?"
"I guess they like him. Kathleen said he's around the house a lot, which they all like. He took them all on a picnic or something last weekend. Tossed a ball around with Dickie."
"When are you going to see them?" Olivia asked, changing tacks.
"I'm not sure. I keep trying to set something up with Kathy, but she says there's a scheduling conflict. Elizabeth's got a recital or Dickie's got a game or Kathleen's got some big project."
"They're your kids, too, El."
"I know, I just…They've been hurt enough this year. I just want things to be easy for them." Olivia considered the short stack of papers in front of her, and then got up, grabbing her coat.
"Come on," she told her partner.
"What?"
"You sound like you could use that drink right about now."
After a few hours at O'Malleys and a few drinks, they hailed a cab. "Come back to my place?" Elliot asked Olivia. He'd gotten a pretty nice apartment not too far from the precinct after the divorce. "It's still early. We can watch movies or something." Olivia smiled. She enjoyed their late night movie sessions. They were even better friends now, and as much as she knew Elliot was hurting, he'd become an even better person to be around since he and Kathy had split.
"Sure," she told him.
Elliot was laughing at a joke she'd made about the suspect in their latest case as they approached his apartment. They both stopped short, however, when they saw three figures waiting outside his door.
"Kathleen, Lizzie, Dickie, what's going on?" Elliot asked, kneeling down in front of them. Only Lizzie and Dickie had coats on – despite the fact that it was probably twenty degrees outside – and it was a long way from Queens to Manhattan.
"Can we stay here tonight, Daddy?" Lizzie asked him.
"Where's your mother?" Dickie shrugged.
"She went out." Elliot's brow furrowed.
"Went out? Out where?"
"To the store," Kathleen told him. "We wanted to see you, Dad, please, can we stay?" Elliot nodded, pulling out his keys and unlocking the door.
"Come on," he told them, ushering them all inside. "I'm gonna call your mom, let her know where you are. You think she'd be home yet?"
"No, don't call the house!" Elizabeth told him. Elliot turned back from the phone, his concern starting to turn to panic.
"Why?" he asked them. "What's going on?" He then noticed a shadow on the side of Kathleen's face. "Kathleen, is that a bruise?" he asked her. She quickly tipped her head, letting her hair cover it.
"No," she told him, but couldn't look him in the eye.
"Pull your hair back," Elliot ordered. She hesitated a moment, but flipped her long blonde hair over her other shoulder. Elliot felt his blood boil when he saw the huge bruise on her face. Olivia instantly went to get ice.
"What happened?" Elliot asked the kids, his voice dangerously quiet. All three kids looked at each other, their resolves cracking. One tear ran down Elizabeth's face as she turned back to her father.
"She left us with him."