1Olivia Benson's apartment.
3512 West 87th Street
4:03 A.M..
I wake up, with Elliot's warm lips brushing the back of my neck. It takes me a minute or two to remember why he's here and what the hell happened. Then I push his head away and roll over. "You snore." I accuse, reaching for a sheet to wrap around me
He laughs, softly and tousles my hair with a hand. "I do not."
"Yeah, you do." I feel him kiss my cheek and sigh. "El, if you wanna work things out with Kathy, this isn't"-
He cuts me off. "We had the meeting last week. It's done. I'm gonna crash at my sister's till I find a place. It's done. It's over."
I raise an eyebrow. "Why not give your sister a break and stay with me?"
"Liv, the boss would notice that. Me staying with my sister wouldn't draw so much attention."
"Tell him Kathy kicked you outta the house and I'm just letting you use my spare room. And that's gonna happen anyway." I tuck one arm behind my head. "But if you think you can still work it out with her, I don't want to get in the way." I'm at risk of breaking my own heart here, but I can't take a damn good father away from his kids.
"We married too young and too fast. We didn't have a choice. And then when things got rocky, we sucked it up and stuck it out, for the kids. But we just can't go on like that."
"Yeah. You can't stay together for the kids." I reach up to lay my palm against his cheek. "But it's gotta hurt."
"It does, in a way, but things had been bad for a while. It - it's done."
I decide to drop it and kiss his neck, instead, huddling against him. He's warm and solid and there. Better enjoy it while I can.
"Liv?"
"Hm?" I look up.
"What was all that talk about you being old and alone, last night? I thought you were used to being alone."
"I am." I burrow back into the mess of covers - it is January and I think the heat's cut out again - damn central heating - and look at him. "But it doesn't mean I have to like it."
He cups my cheek in his hand. "What? I thought you liked the independence."
"I do. But, El, in this line of work, any one of us could be gone tomorrow. Or stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of our lives. I don't wanna die alone. My old partner, from back when I worked the streets - one day, we're doing nothing, lying low, ducking calls, and the next he's lying in a hospital bed, with two bullets in his body - one in his hip, one in his thigh. Took a year and a half of physio to get him walking again. And even now, he's still limping. My grandfather died alone, from lung cancer, about six years after a stroke killed my grandmother. My mother died alone, in her own little hellhole world of the bottle and her bartenders/shrinks. I swear, the guy behind the bar at the Velvet Room and Tony, down at the Starlight Lounge - they got more out of her than I ever did. I don't want to continue the pattern. I'm scared of it." I finally voice my biggest fear. Dying alone, on some cold street, somewhere.
"But in this line of work"-
"I'm not afraid of dying, itself. If I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go - it's outta my hands. But I don't wanna die alone. I don't want to be alone like this. When I was younger, I could deal with it - picking up a guy for a casual one-night-stand - no big deal. But now - I can't do that. I can't live like I'm a twenty-something and watch my friends raising kids."
"You want to settle down?"
"Yeah. I do. Hell, I'm getting old and I can't stop it. My uncle had an old friend, an ex-cop, who runs a gun shop down on Second - he's stuck in a wheelchair - he's paralyzed from the waist down, from being shot in the back, twenty years ago. He told me once that he wished, once in a while that the bullet had killed him, rather than leave him like that. He was single, when he was shot, and he's just given up on finding someone. I don't wanna be alone."
Elliot makes me look at him, his hand under my chin. "You're not. Not now."
"El, I"-
He shakes his head. "You're not alone. Not anymore. I promise."
Men. Is he telling me he loves me? Or is he just trying to calm me down? Damn them for being so confusing. I'll have to work it out, later. Right now, I want to go back to sleep before the alarm goes off.
