III.
---
Three days and nights to put some life back in this man,
I ain't holding nothing back,
You got all I am,
Hearts and souls and dreams in the palm of your hand.
- Three Days, Pat Green
---
Elliot wanted to concentrate.
He sat at Fin's desk, his papers, evidence, statements all spread before him, but he couldn't focus on them. His mind was laced with thoughts about his McDonald's dinner with Olivia and Noah, with the soft, quick, glance that he had gotten into their lives. Noah had asked Elliot to stay after dinner, to play cars with him on his rug and the Shrek game on playstation.
And he did.
He stayed and pretended, if only four a few hours, that he hadn't stumbled upon their piece of family, but instead was part of it. He stayed and searched Noah for some sign of himself, for some piece that would link the two together, that would let him be a part of this.
"You got anything?" Olivia called to him from her desk, and he smiled slowly, shaking his head.
"I want to go back to talk to Julia." He cleared his throat and scratched at the back of his neck. Olivia met his eyes briefly, but had to look away when she saw the hope they held, the questions and thoughts and regrets. "When she talked about her parents, she said 'Mom and Greg', sounds like he's not their real father, but when I interviewed them in Asheville, neither say anything about Greg not being Ellen's biological father."
"So you think he had something to do with it?" Olivia looked him over slowly, and he felt it. Elliot looked away momentarily, looked around the station at the past that he had abandoned.
Whoever said that you could never go home again was wrong, he decided today.
"It could be something." He shrugged and got up, grabbing his coat from the back of Fin's chair, and ignoring the fact that Olivia got up automatically when he did, that she followed perfectly in suit, that despite both of their efforts they were getting back to this after only 24 hours.
And when Elliot turned to Olivia she gave him a half smile, not sure if this were right or wrong.
---
"Elliot." He was sitting in the crash room, his back to her, curled over, hands on his knees, and staring out to space.
Julia Aston had cracked, her biological father was schizophrenic, he lived in Tulsa, but was visiting North Carolina three weeks ago. They had found him, found Jessica and Ellen and they were processing him now.
This was all over, this short trip back to the life of Elliot and Olivia, this short escapade that they had tricked themselves into following – done.
"Noah called, he wanted to know if Detective Stabler was coming back for dinner." She called to his back, but couldn't look at him; she was scared at how much her need for him broke down every other emotion that she felt towards him.
Elliot dropped his head, he would have to go back tomorrow to tie up the case in Raleigh, he would have to get on a plane in the morning and try to forget everything that he had stumbled upon in Manhattan.
"It's over." Elliot cleared his throat and stayed facing away from her. He didn't know how he was supposed to do this again.
"What?" She was scared now, her heart racing and the room spinning in circles around her.
"Why does he call him Eric?" He didn't want to leave, he wanted something in Olivia's life to reach out to him, to forgive him for everything that he'd done and let him be with her now, he wanted to erase walking out four years ago by staying now.
"Elliot." She wasn't going to do this to him.
"Do you want me to have to read this?" He turned to her, and her breath stopped when she saw the red in his eyes. In his hand was a small brown envelope, and he held it up to her, getting off of the cot quickly and running at her. "What is this, Olivia? What the fuck is this?" He locked eyes with her, he would not let her lose him again, let her push him aside and make him another check on a list of things she needed to forget.
"What is that?" Each word drew slowly from her lips, and she took short, quick breaths, the possibilities drowning her.
"It's a DNA test," he growled, and Olivia swallowed hard.
"You had no right to do that, Elliot," she was mad now, or so she thought. She was mad that he went behind her back, that she invited him into her home and the only thing that was on his mind was finding something from Noah, some piece of hair or soda can or straw that he could use to figure this out.
She hated the detective in him at that moment.
She hated that he could not look at Noah and know whether or not he loved him, whether or not this was his life, a piece of him, and she reached for the envelope, but Elliot pushed his hand away.
She loved him, but she hated him for everything that he had and had not done.
"You'll be gone tomorrow, back to everything that you love more than us." She the words said sharply, and Elliot clenched his jaw, he would never hit her, but he wanted to. He wanted to grab hold of her and shake her and ask her what the hell he had really left here, but he couldn't.
He couldn't open the envelope, and he couldn't know the truth, because he couldn't go back.
He nodded slowly, and then threw the envelope to the ground, pushing past her and walking quickly out of the station.
He was embarrassed that he was listening for her, listening for her to call to him and tell him to stay.
But she didn't.
---
She didn't want to answer the door, because she knew that it was him. He had wrung the doorbell twice, he saw the lights on inside, and he knew that she was there.
She didn't want to let herself think that she was testing him, making him beg for everything that he had walked away from.
"Jesus Christ, Olivia! Open the door!" She heard his muffled screams as he banged wildly with both fists.
Sometimes she didn't know why she stayed in Manhattan, sometimes she didn't know why she didn't pack up her and Noah's things and move him to a house with a yard, and pool, and a dog. Sometimes she wondered why she made herself keep living with his ghost, why she made herself stay and live their lives without him, with only his cold memory.
And sometimes, when she let herself really acknowledge the answer she was scared, because she could or could not have been holding onto hope that he had already abandoned.
"Please! Olivia, let me in! Olivia!" He was still banging, his hands slapping against the door, his hips pushing against it to try to break it down – to break down the barrier between them.
The reason that she had never left was because she was scared that if she did, if she took Noah and ran away, then if and when Elliot Stabler ever came back, he would never be able to find her. He wouldn't know where to look, and she really would lose him. One of them, she decided, always had to be on base, one of them could never stray – that is how they kept this going.
"I just want to talk! Please, Please, Please-" she threw the door open, Elliot standing before her, shaken and bruised. He was breathing rapidly, and his figure was silhouetted in the city lights.
"You're going to wake up my son." She breathed heavily, and Elliot winced at the possessiveness she had claimed over Noah.
"Just talk to me, please, Olivia, just talk to me." She couldn't allow herself to make the connection to four years ago; she couldn't let herself go back, even though she had never really moved forward.
"So that you can leave again in the morning? Get on a plane with all the answers you think you want and not look back? You want me to give you some sort of piece of mind, Elliot? Because if you do – you're not going to get any, not here." She shook her head, wrapping her arms across her chest and around herself.
He had to shove his hands into his pockets to stop himself from grabbing her, from taking her into his arms and trying to convey everything that he had become to her – everything that he had lost to her.
"I never left you, Olivia." He whispered slowly. How could he need this so badly after less than 48 hours? How could he be where he was now with the minimal, short conversations they'd had, save the previous night with Noah?
"But you did." She felt herself breaking, even though she didn't want to. She felt herself crashing into pieces, even though she refused to let it happen.
This was not how this was supposed to happen.
"I just want to know." He pleaded, and Olivia was now scared with him, empathetic for the uncertainty that he was consumed by.
"I started dating Eric when Noah was nine months old. We were on and off again for a year, he and Noah – they were close, he never had kids, Noah never had a father. He's helped a lot with him." She answered his question from earlier, but avoided the hope in his eyes.
She didn't think that she could do this.
"When's his birthday?" Elliot was counting the days in his head, measuring everything and comparing it and trying not to feel entitled to anything. Trying not to feel like this was his, like he had just walked in on every dream that he had ever had.
"Ask me, Elliot." She moved aside so that he could enter the house, moved aside and silently invited him into her home, the one that he had abandoned.
He wanted to come home again.
"Is that ours, Olivia?" He whispered softly, and she shut the door behind him and leaned against it, pressing her forehead to the wood and trying to figure out why this was so hard, why she felt like he deserved this.
She needed to hate him, to make this all easier she needed to make herself hate him. She needed to go to the place where he left her, the place where he told her that she was not reason enough for him to stay, that she was not good enough for him to love.
Olivia turned around slowly, nauseous because she knew that she was about to lose him again.
She was angry, hurt, scared, that this is what they had come to. Ten years later, and this is where they stood.
"If you're asking me, Elliot Stabler, if that child is yours," she paused for a minute, walking towards him, her finger pointed at him in accusation, tears streaming down her cheeks, "if you physically made him, then no. You didn't. He's no more a part of you than I am." She pushed her hand to his chest and pushed him away from her.
He fell apart. Completely. Utterly. Irreconcilably. He was gone.
He had wanted Noah to save them – to build an arc that would carry them over and through the varied sea of regret, pain, love, fear, loss, that ran so deep between them.
He couldn't breath, because he had placed everything in this.
"But if you're asking if you made that child, if you made Noah, then yes, Elliot, you did."
"Olivia." His voice shook because he loved them, both of them, all of them.
"I wanted him to be yours, there are days when I have to remind myself that he isn't, there are days when I have to pretend that he is." She paused for a moment, but Elliot had no words to fill the silence, he was falling apart. "Noah – Noah is everything that we could have been. He's the result of me loving you, of the hole that you left behind when you said you didn't need me enough." She was sobbing now, and Elliot turned away momentarily, hoping that she would not see the tears on his own cheeks. "I needed something, I needed someone – and it couldn't be you. I wanted for the life inside of me, for my son, to be yours, to be something I shared with you and not donor 7643B2Z from the clinic. Not some brown haired, blue-eyed 20-something year old actor who gave my son half of his life because he needed the money. I wanted his life to be made out of love, out of everything that I felt for you. So when I was there, when they were doing such a sterile procedure and making this all so clinical, I thought of you. Of what this could have really been."
He didn't know what to say to her, he didn't know how he was supposed to react to this. His body felt too heavy for him to support anymore, his head was spinning and he was hot and burning, cold and freezing.
Noah was everything that they could have been. He hung on those words, hung on the possibilities that he had left behind, hung on every opportunity he had ever had, on every feeling he had ever felt, on every ounce of him that still loved her.
"I- I didn't know what to do, Olivia, don't think that it was easy…" He tried to defend himself, but then he stopped, even he didn't want to hear his hollow excuses. She was right, everything that she said was right.
"I will not be what you default to, Elliot. You owe me nothing, you owe Noah nothing." She swatted her tears away with the back of her hand, and felt the floor beneath her shake as Elliot fell to his knees.
It was all crashing down around him.
Every decision he had ever made, every regret he had ever tried to reconcile - it was all falling down around him in the home of Olivia and her son. How could he tell her that he wanted to stay, that he wanted this and he wanted her and he wanted Noah and he needed to be with them, not more than anything else in his life, but just as much? How could he look at her now and tell her everything that he really felt?
He didn't even think that that kind of emotion could be translated into words.
He hurt for Noah, for the part of him that was not his, but some anonymous donor, a decision that he felt responsible for pushing Olivia towards.
He lifted his head slowly to catch Olivia's eyes, the chocolate sea of everything that he had been trying to live without, but in reality was existing without, was stuck in a monotonous circle of routine without.
He never forgot what it felt like to love her.
"You should go." She sobbed, her chest heaving, her whole body aching because this is what they had come to.
She was half a family, and he was a piece of one - a shattered piece and missing whole and a desire that they could not allow themselves to default back to. She cried because her lies, to herself, to Elliot, they were all crashing down around her, cutting her to pieces as they went.
She wanted to not need him, love him, want him half as much as she did.
"Are you sure, Olivia?" He wasn't ready to give up all of his hope. He wasn't ready to completely abandon it. "Are you sure that this isn't mine?" He looked up at her, and she saw everything inside of him that she loved, now paraded externally through his emotions, through the tears rolling frantically down his cheeks, coming to rest in puddles on his shirt.
"God, Elliot." She turned away from him, she couldn't look at a broken dream any longer. "You have no clue how much I want to say yes."
"Yes, I do." He choked out the words.
He couldn't leave until this was handled, until she admitted that this was all some mix up and that Noah really was his, and that she needed to be with him and they would raise him together and they would finally fall into love, fall into the place they had for so long been avoiding.
"You should go, Elliot, I think that you need to go." Olivia took deep breaths, trying to reclaim some sort of sanity, and Elliot leaned forward, pressing his hands to the ground, kneeling on all fours.
"I can't go, Olivia. I can't do this." He said earnestly, and another piece of Olivia, one that she didn't even know she had, broke for him.
"Everyday, Elliot. Everyday I look at my son, I look at his eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth, his hands, feet. Everyday I look at him and I try so hard to find you there. I will myself to, sometimes. I will myself to find you hidden in one of his gestures, one of his features. I try so hard to find you in him, to make myself think that there is a possibility that he could be yours, that he could be the result of what we had. But he's not. There are parts of him that I make remind me of you, ways he laughs, some of the ways he'll tell a joke. I make myself think that that's you coming through him, that that's you still with me."
"Maybe it is. We were together, Olivia. Maybe he really is ours, maybe-" He couldn't breath, he was stealing the air now, inhaling it in large gulps.
"He's not, Elliot. I look at him, and I see you, not because you're there, but because you aren't." Her words were gentile, and she was somewhat shocked at how much Elliot seemed to need this.
She was scared, almost, that this is what would have made him stay – that a DNA match to Noah would have kept him around, and she was scared because that should have been the last reason why he would have considered staying.
Love could not be proven or disproven by science.
"What do I do now?" Elliot's back arched up and down slowly as he filled with air.
She didn't want to have to answer that question, she didn't want for it to even be asked.
"You go home." She looked away when he looked up to her, cut and bleeding, engulfed in this broken down home.
He shook his head, but she didn't see it. She needed to blind herself to him now.
"Why are you here, Elliot?"
"Because of you, and him, and-"
"No." She stopped him, he was wrong. "You're here because of a case, because that's what brought you back. You didn't come back for me, I was just that thing you found when you returned, that toy that was still right where you left it."
He wanted to yell, but he didn't have the strength.
This wasn't life, this was death. This was dying in three-fourths time, dying as he looked at the only life he had ever had, twisted and turned and rotted away like some old tree, its roots brought up, it's leaves falling away.
"I. Love. You." He made each word hard, and he breathed them out roughly. "I never came back because, Olivia, I never really left." He pushed himself up when he finished, shaking and bruised, he pushed himself back onto his feet, and he challenged the fear in Olivia's eyes with his own.
"You have to go." She walked past him, throwing the front door open and looking to him expectantly. "Forget about us, you don't need us." She cried, and he walked to her quickly and grabbed her upper arms.
He ignored the quick breath that she took in fear as he pressed her to the wall.
"You left me, too." He was hurting her, his hands were bruising her arms, pressing into the bone and ripping at the skin. He pressed his lips to hers in the next moment and forced her to taste him, and she cried as they kissed, sobbed for every moment that he had left her with, for making them an imagination's idyllic notion at best. "Love me." His soft breaths carried the words to her, but she pushed him away.
"I do." His hands dropped from her arms and she shook her head no. "Leave." She said it firmly, but Elliot didn't want to believe her. "Now." She looked away from him, and he couldn't speak, he couldn't find anything to say.
"I can't." He shook his head, but she didn't turn to him, she didn't give him the satisfaction, and his body heaved with defeat.
He couldn't, but he did.
She locked the door behind him after he left.