(Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm gonna try and see if Dick Wolf will give the characters to me as an early birthday present, but until then, sadly, it all belongs to him.)
(Summary: Just a random one-shot thing that's kinda sad, but it's kinda fluffy. I was having a really crappy day, when I wrote this.)
(A/n: I know how much everybody likes fluff, in ths fandom, so I decided to try my hand at writing some. I'm not going to beg for feedback, because it's really childish, but I can ask, right? Just leave a review and let me know what you think. Please?)
I let myself into her apartment. The tiny little hellhole isn't worth half of what she pays for it. I try to tell her that, but she loves the place, threadbare carpet, crappy central heating and everything. She says the building has character. I say she's crazy.
The apartment that's stirred up so much debate between us is dark. I know she's here. I just called her. "Liv?"
I see a shadow dart across the floor. I follow it, with the eyes of a cop. I see her slender figure, outlined by the pale glow of a streetlight. She's perched on the arm of a chair, staring out the window. "Hey." I try to get her attention. "Liv."
She's not answering me. I step over, to see what she's staring at. Nothing. Unless you count the fat raindrops dripping down along the edges of the window and bouncing off the pane as something worth staring at. I know she likes watching the rain, but this is something completely different.
Anything that comes from the sky - rain, snow and even lightning - fascinates her. She likes to watch it. But something tells me that it's not just the rain that's got her staring mindlessly out the window. The distant look in her eyes and the black streaks that run down her face tell me that it's something else.
"What's the matter, Liv? Huh?" Something inside me wants to pick her up and rock her, like a kid with a skinned knee. She gets like this, sometimes. And every time I see her this way, it hurts.
She stays silent, never once looking in my direction. I find a box of tissues sitting on her coffee table and pull one or two out. Then, I gently clean her face up, getting rid of what remains of her makeup.
We've had a rough couple of months at work. I still don't know what goes through her head, but I know she spends a lot of time kicking herself. She has this thing with guilt. Everything that ever goes wrong is her fault, in her mind, even if it isn't.
She's not a happy person. I've known that for years. There's a lot of pain buried inside her. I've spent the last seven years working by her side and I've just scratched the surface of the kind of pain she's carrying around.
It was her parents, the people who were supposed to love her and protect her, who caused her the most pain. Her father, by leaving her with a hole that she couldn't fill, no matter how hard she tried. And her mother, who blamed her for everything. Forced her to grow up. Become an adult when she was still a child. You'd think I'd know by now. Just because a person can give life to a child, it doesn't make them parents.
I sometimes find myself wondering how she fell through the cracks. Didn't a teacher, a neighbor or someone notice the signs? Pay attention to the little girl with the sad eyes? I've seen so many kids slip through the system, unnoticed, suffering silently that it doesn't surprise me that she did.
She's quiet. Getting her to talk about herself is next to impossible. She dodges personal questions, by getting angry and scaring the hell out of the average person or just refusing to talk. She's stubborn enough to do that.
A single tear runs down her face, leaving a glistening trail in the dim light. "Liv. What's the matter?" I rub my thumb across her cheek, gently.
I think I know what is is. The last few months have been hell for us. The cases have all hit home, in one way or another, for each of us. She's just worn out. Tired. Drained.
She gets up off the arm of the chair and lets me pull her close. She shifts herself until she's comfortable. I love the feeling of holding her. I don't know why, but I do. I fell in love with her, years ago. But I couldn't tell her.
One night, when we were here, watching a movie on cable, after my wife decided she'd had enough, it just came out. And it started from there. Our professional and personal lives blended. She's mine, now. And I'll be damned if I'll let her go.
She lifts her head from my shoulder and gently presses her lips to my neck. I let my fingers tangle in her hair and she sighs. I know she likes to be held, once in a while. Just held. So many guys have come into her life and used her emotions to get at her body. She just wants someone to hold her.
She begins to relax, after a few minutes. The apartment is dark and quiet. The only sounds are her breathing, the rain drumming against the window and the muffled sounds of a stereo from next door.
"You okay?" I pull back and hold her at arms' length. "Hm?"
Olivia nods and manages to smile at me. I kiss her on the nose. She tries to keep it all locked away. Tries to hide it. And most of the time, she does hide it. You wouldn't know the depth of the pain that she's carrying around, most of the time. But other times, it shows.
Every couple of months, she gives into the pain and gets into one of these dark moods. That's when it shows. She's impossible to work with, and if you talk to her, you're walking on thin ice. That's when I usually suggest a sit-down with a shrink. And that's usually when she hits me. She hates shrinks just as much as I do.
Even when she does talk to a shrink, I know it doesn't all come out. It would take years for everything to come out. With the average person, no. But she knows how to dodge their questions, if she doesn't want to answer. She spends every single day manipulating people to get answers. Our Department shrinks are pretty good, but I know she still manages to dodge them.
When I see her in pain, something inside of me hurts. Like I'm feeling what she's feeling. That's never happened before. She was the one who could be empathetic. She was the one who could feel someone else's pain, like it was her own. Especially with a kid. Not me. I just cut myself off. Things went a hell of a lot easier, that way.
Now, when she's hurting, I hurt. I don't know what it is.
She buries her face in my chest, her long fingers gripping my shirt. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully understand her. She's too complicated. But I love her.
The first time I saw her, she didn't look like what she does now. So it wasn't really her looks that sucked me in. It was her that had me fascinated. Her bold personality. She wasn't afraid to butt heads with me.
Most rookies would have been intimidated by a senior detective and wouldn't have said two words. She was arguing with me, the very first case we worked. She wasn't what I expected, when Cragen told me that the new kid was a woman. So I knew it wasn't just sheer physical attraction. I knew it wasn't just lust. I was falling in love with her, as a person.
When she started to change her looks, I started to notice other things about her. Like that she actually had a figure. When she started to wear makeup, I started to pay attention to her eyes. Her eyes have always fascinated me. They give away some of what she's feeling, but not everything. A man can drown himself in those chocolate pools.
I put one finger under her chin and tilt her face up. She offers me another smile. This one's stronger. It seems more real. Not just faked to reassure me. She pushes her hair back and kisses my cheek, softly. "Thanks."
"What for?" I sense it's time to let her go. "Liv, I'm gonna be here for you, whether you like it or not. Don't you know that by now?"
She grins at me. "Yeah. I guess I should, huh?"
"So we got a date Friday night?" I question.
"Un-uh. I wanna stay in." She replies, dropping onto the couch and pulling her knees up close.
"That's no fun. Why would you want to stay here alone?" I join her on the couch. We tentatively made dinner plans for Friday.
"Not alone, you jackass." Olivia looks at me, impatiently and slides over closer to me, on the couch. "I wanna stay in. Do nothing. Maybe rent a movie. I just want a quiet night. With you."
I tuck her under my arm and pull her against my side. "I'll live with that." As long as it involves spending some time with her, I'm happy. I kiss her ear, softly. "But, Liv, doing nothing's not fun." I grin at her and she smacks me.
"I don't wanna know what you're thinking. My mother and her friends were right - guys do have one-track minds."
"Hey!" I protest, looking at her. She's grinning, wickedly, revealing all of those perfect teeth. She laughs and I hug her a little closer.
I've never heard her laugh so much before. Sometimes, when we were out after work with the rest of the guys, she'd laugh at something Munch said, but it was rare. I like the sound. I like seeing her happy. She curls up and nestles her head against my shoulder, obviously completely happy with attempting to put my arm to sleep.
"Don't fall asleep." I tell her, earning another tiny grin. "If you put my arm to sleep, I'm waking you."
"You know you won't." She smiles. Damn. She's onto me. She knows I won't wake her, because she looks so peaceful, when she's asleep.
She reaches across to the coffee table and hands me the remote. "Isn't there a baseball game or something on tonight?"
Unlike most women, she has a mild interest in sports. I joke that it's Cragen the sports fanatic rubbing off on her. She's not crazy about it, but she'll put up with me watching a game or two, without complaining about it. She keeps telling me: 'I'm a New Yorker. How can I not have some interest in baseball?'
"El?"
"Hmm?" I let one hand rest on her hair, lightly.
"You mind if we move? I'm tired of sitting."
"You're not sitting. You're using me as a pillow." I argue.
"Whatever. Same thing."
How can I deny her? I tuck one of those decorative pillows that I don't see the purpose of under my head, lying on my back. "C'mere."
Olivia smiles at me, again and settles herself on top of me, her head resting against my chest, her back against my stomach..
Halfway through the game, during a commercial, I ask a question and don't get an answer. I turn my head at an awkward angle and realize that she's fallen asleep. Her dark lashes flutter against her pale cheek, her hair messed up and falling over her face. She really does look peaceful, when she's asleep.
I should put her in bed. But I don't want to wake her. She needs some rest. She's exhausted. I'll let her sleep for a while and then decide what to do. I push her hair back from her face and she murmurs, in her unconscious state. Her hand comes up and finds mine, holding onto it, instinctively.
She smiles in her sleep and I find myself smiling, too. "'Night, angel."
(A/n: Well? Good? Bad? Horrible? See that little purple button down there? Click it and let me know what you're thinking.)