Author's note; Thank you so much to everyone for everything they've said about this fic, really, ya'll are awesome. This will be the last chapter, I realized too late that the last chapter could have been a good ending, but oh well, here this is. Short and sweet. Enjoy, and thank you. -Kulligan.
VI.
As he climbed the steps he felt as if he were going to church.
Going to the place where everything that he believed in, his foundation, his soul, his morality, was grounded.
Father, Son, Olivia Benson, Amen.
She was his religion.
Today he was scared and nervous and on the way to being restored.
Today he had faith in something, the belief in something and the will to actually believe in it.
Last night nothing more had happened than a kiss and a wordless promise that they would get somewhere beyond where they sat at that moment, even though, as Elliot watched her through his tears he didn't care if they ever moved, as long as they remained stagnant together.
He had called his children that morning, called his kids and told them where he was and why he was there and that he was going to be staying. Part of him was hurt when they didn't beg him to come back, when they understood and were okay with seeing him two weekends a month, and didn't cry and tell him that they needed him all the time, but the other part knew that they felt him fading away, that they were growing up into who they were and that he was falling away from who he was and they wanted him to be okay, so they didn't make him choose.
The sun was out today, the city highlighted in it's light. He felt like he could finally stand in it, let it prickle against his skin, let it bring him out in all of the right places – today he would not play in the shadows, because today he wanted nothing to hide.
"Morning," she smiled when she answered the door, and he wished that they didn't have to make up for lost time.
He didn't say anything right away, and she scolded herself for being nervous. The man before her was three parts past and three parts present, and she wanted to not believe in any unknowns.
"Hi again," Noah smiled, coming out from behind Olivia, balancing a paper plate of silver dollar pancakes.
"Woah, buddy, let me help you." Elliot bent down to him and took the plate from him.
"Are you eating with us?" Noah walked past Elliot and sat down on the steps and turned back to Elliot expectantly.
"He is." Olivia answered before Elliot could. "I'll go get us some pancakes, you guys sit down." She nodded towards Noah, and Elliot gave her a lazy smile before going to sit next to him.
"How's your arm feeling?" Elliot handed Noah the plate of pancakes, and Noah shoved one into his mouth before answering.
"Okay. You gonna sign it, right?" Noah smiled to Elliot, and this was the moment that everything felt right, for the first time in years, for the first time in forever, for the last time in forever.
This would be all he needed.
Sunday morning pancakes on the front steps with Noah, Saturday night secrets with Olivia. This was the point in his life where every sharp edge was being converted, rolling itself into a circle.
Today, tomorrow, yesterday.
Olivia, Noah, Elliot.
"You ever broked anything, 'tective Stabler?" Noah asked as he looked up into the sky to watch the planes, and Elliot ignored the formality.
"Yeah, Noah, I have," Elliot cleared his throat, hoping that Noah would not ask what he had broken, why or how he had broken it, because the story of his shattered pieces was not something Noah needed to hear of.
"What if it itches?" Noah held his arm out in front of his face, looked at his cast with his head turned to the side, and Elliot wanted to think that he got that from him, that even in his absence, even without his genes, there was still an element to Noah that belong to him, transferred to him through the element of Olivia that always had.
"You get a little stick and shove it down there," Elliot smiled, and Noah nodded, content with his answer.
Elliot stopped reminding himself that he was alive, because he felt in now.
Felt it in Noah's eyes, his smile, his life. Felt it in Olivia, in the chance that she was giving him, in her letting him come back to this broken down dream and make something out of it.
Dreams can be lost, but not broken, Elliot noted as he looked to the little boy next to him.
"Hey 'tective Stabler," Noah started to ask when Olivia came back out with two plates of pancakes and sat behind Noah and Elliot.
"It's Elliot, Noah." She wished that she could give him more, but the loss of the distant formality would be the first step to many.
Baby steps.
Elliot froze when she said his name, that she believed him, in him, for him, that she believed in him enough to introduce her to her son.
Olivia saw the look in his eyes, and she saw Noah look with a smile to Elliot.
There was no going back, Noah would love Elliot, Elliot would love Noah.
This is what Sunday morning should be, Olivia noted with a smile as she heard Noah ramble on about something indecipherable, heard him linking random words with corny jokes and a loud giggle.
Elliot reached back and placed his hand on Olivia's knee.
Everything he believed in; Sunday morning worship.
"Elliot!" Noah yelled, laughing, when he didn't think that Elliot was paying attention to him. He got up from sitting next to Elliot and walked in front of him, leaning in close and commanding his attention.
Elliot swallowed hard when he noticed the little blue specks scattered through the brown of Noah's eyes, when he saw the little tile worked mosaic of the flicker of light.
Olivia leaned down and shook as she kissed Elliot's neck, and then tickled it slowly with her finger.
This was a family; shattered, broken, and glued back together.
A masterpiece was never perfect and was always comprised of broken halves.
"Do you know?" Noah asked Elliot a question about everything that he had been rambling on about, and Elliot smiled slowly when he let himself make the connections between this little boys persistence and his own.
Olivia bent over and spoke slowly, letting her voice linger in his ears before traveling to his newly reinstated heart;
"He get's that from you."
-
end.