For All of This;
Three.
It was neutral territory, his two-bedroom apartment that he had hidden in since his life had gone to hell. He didn't know how to handle what was going on, and he knew that he couldn't leave it up to Olivia, so he brought her here, to a shelter and an empty space that he filled with pictures, moments of memories of all that used to be his life.
"Elliot?" She came from the spare bedroom that he had convinced himself was for his kids, when the visited, but Olivia was the first person to ever occupy the room.
"Hey there," he cleared his throat as he spun around from the computer, minimizing the window he was looking at, blinking his eyes a few times to adjust to the dark of the room without the bright light of the screen.
"It's bad for your eyes to be on the computer in the dark," this was filler conversation, but it was all she could manage.
Her head hurt. Her hands were shaking a little bit, her eyes burning.
"Still can't sleep?" He knew that the words were sounds that meant nothing at this point, that at this point it was not about what he said, but what he saw. He was on watch, keeping an eye on what she did and didn't do for the last 36 hours.
His eyes were bleeding, and in his mind, the words, the reality, everything that she had become – he had read about her on the Internet, one of those information sites that lists symptoms and signs and she was all of them.
With his newfound knowledge he now felt more helpless than ever.
"Do you have any oranges?" She calls to him as she heads towards the kitchen, opening the fridge to find a single orange, a bowl of green grapes, a carton of milk, and a few other scattered items.
At first, she clung to him, she needed him there and with her and he had to keep her away from herself, but now she saw what he was doing, realized what she had asked.
He himself had his footing deep in sinking sand, that was all he could offer her, a hand to help her up to nothing but the sinking ground on which he stood.
It had been 36 hours, 19 minutes, and 39 seconds, give or take, since she'd had her last drink. Elliot had unplugged the clocks, but he forgot about the microwave, the time displaying itself in little dashes of illumination, and she glanced into the living room where Elliot sat staring out into space.
He couldn't help her; at this point he couldn't even help himself. She was mad, angry, annoyed, sad, because he was all she had, and yet, he didn't even have himself, and he surely didn't have her the way that she needed.
He was playing father because that's what he was used to, that was his role, and without his kids around him all the time, and with Olivia succumbing to needing someone – him, the only person around, he stepped right in and started playing house.
Playing house in a flimsy house of cards, cemented on sinking sand, held together by nothing but gravity, and she knew that a tiny breath would destroy it all.
She had to get out of there.
"You find the orange?" He pushed himself up out of the chair with a deep breath and then headed into the kitchen as the sun started to sneak through the windows.
"I love the smell of orange peels," she said as she peeled the rind off of the orange and then handed the fruit to Elliot, heading into the living room, smelling the sweet, citrus smell.
"You don't want to eat it?" He looked at her confused.
The peel smelled like Absolut Mandarin, it played on her taste buds, the scent letting her pretend, for a minute, that she wasn't stuck here, regardless of if she had blindly asked to be.
"You want to watch a movie?" Elliot asked as he joined her in the living room, pulling the orange apart into its pieces, popping on into his mouth before offering one to Olivia.
"I can't eat," she paused for a minute, "you want to tell me what you were looking at on the computer?"
"Porn." He shrugs nonchalantly, but she doesn't smile. She doesn't laugh. This isn't funny. She knows what he was doing, and at this point she would rather that it was looking at a 23&year&old brown haired blue&eyed goddess bound in leather.
"Try again." She swallows hard, pulling at the neck of her t&shirt, suddenly feeling nauseous.
"Checking my email, the kids email me before they go to school," another lie, and she knew it.
"I don't need you to lie to me, Elliot," she finished and pushed herself up quickly, the bile rising in her throat, running back to the bathroom, clawing at the neck of her shirt, falling to her knees before the toilet, heaving the contents of her stomach up, and between purges she grasped for air, heaving and inhaling and taking it, searching for it, her veins thick, her neck red, her eyes watering.
When he walked into the bathroom, he stopped cold for a minute before speaking, "Shit, Olivia," he forced his voice to sound clam, but he knew that it didn't, that around the edges it was shaky and unsteady. "Okay, okay," he bent down beside her and pulled the hair back from her face with one hand, and with the other he reached to the sink, a washrag sitting on the top, and he flicked the cold water on, soaking the rag in it.
With one of her hands clutched to the porcelain toilet, the other grabbed aimlessly, searching for something else to hold onto, and when Elliot's hand came back from preparing the cold washcloth, her hand found his instantly. Dropping the washrag he let her fingers intertwine with his, squeezing tightly.
"Okay, alright, Liv, just calm down, it's okay," his voice was soft and comforting.
He was a good father.
With each breath she couldn't catch, she was embarrassed, embarrassed that this was who she was, embarrassed that her stomach burned and that all she wanted was another drink. One more glass. One more bottle. That's all, and then she would be finished.
Elliot had comforting words and nice gestures, but he didn't understand.
When she fell back from the toilet, back onto her butt, her legs going out in front of her, she saw Elliot's eyes, how they looked at her like they looked at the victims. How they saw her as another number, another percent, another statistic. How they saw her as something he could put himself in so that he wouldn't have to deal with his own statistics.
Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce.
"You okay?" Elliot reached for the cold rag and ran it over Olivia's face, over her lines and dark circles under her eyes, over her graying skin, and he had to remind himself to be strong.
"Don't pity me, Elliot." Her head fell back against the wall, and Elliot pressed the washrag to her forehead, tiny beads of cool water slipping away, sliding down her cheeks.
In the other room the microwave revealed that it had almost been 37 hours since she had her last bit of alcohol.
"Who said I pitied you?"
"You were reading about it, reading all those stupid numbers that people who have no clue about this – old men in lab coats, they got those numbers, they don't mean anything," she wished that she could believe herself.
"Hey, Olivia, I was just doing some reading," his brows furrowed, wondering if he had the strength to do this, to dive in without know how deep he would be going. Wondering if he had enough air. If he could hold his breath this long, "I, I don't know how to do this," he admitted, "I'm just, I'm trying and I&"
"Wanted to see what you were getting yourself into? Look, Elliot, I needed help, and I called you. You think it was easy? You think going to you after all of this – just, all of the nothing we had was easy?"
Agitation. He'd read about that.
"Okay. Okay, I know, you're right. I get it." The phone rang, Dickie and Liz were calling him on their way to school. He didn't answer. He stayed with Olivia, shoved into his tiny bathroom, looking for something in each other that neither possessed.
"Don't fucking humor me." On shaky legs she got up slowly, walked into the spare bedroom, an addition to Elliot's life. A guest. Her body was still shaking, and she fell onto the bed slowly.
"We should go eat." Elliot was standing in the doorway. "I'd make something, but I don't have any food,"
"And you're not leaving me here alone, right?" She finished for him. "I'm not hungry," she continued, looking away from him, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her.
"You need to eat. C'mon, we'll just go into McDonalds or something, get one of those pancakes filled with syrup sandwiches or whatever, and bring it back." He smiled, hoping that she would catch it, and her eyes met with his for a long moment, sizing him up, he knew.
"I need to go into the station today. I need to talk to Captain Lucas about tomorrow." She got up from the bed and started out of the room, down the hall to the door, and Elliot grabbed his keys, following her out.
"About tomorrow? Olivia, you can't be serious," he didn't mean to scoff, and she turned to him quickly as they reached the bottom step, pushing the door open to the cool, early morning air.
"What, you want me to stay here so you can babysit me? Want us to take off for a week or two so you can watch me and make me your little project?"
He didn't answer, because his words would have pushed themselves out with angry connotations, loud and accusing, so instead he fell a step behind her, walking up two blocks to the nearest McDonalds.
&&&&&
His eyes were dark, reflected in the deep circles that hung under them, baggage of everything he had seen.
"Can we walk to that little grocer up the street?" Olivia approached him as the sun was setting, he was seated on the couch, nodding and smiling, with a phone to his ear, listening to the conversation.
"Yeah, Dickie, that's amazing. Okay…okay, yeah, yeah, go do your homework. Okay, I'll see you in a few days. Love you too, bud." He moved the phone from his ear, clicking it off and throwing it onto the couch next to him.
"The kids?" She asks, shoving her hands into her pockets, wondering how much he really wants her there, or how much he's using her to avoid everything else.
"Yeah," he nods, giving her a sad smile. "What'd you ask?"
"I want pickles," she smiled, and Elliot gave a short laugh.
"Pickles?"
"Yeah, I'm craving salt," she scratched at her head, "so, pickles. Can we go buy some?"
"Halves, or spears?" He wants to remember her smiling because he knows that it won't last long. He knows that they're peaking, steady atop the hill, and soon something will come to push them down.
For miles and miles, all he can see are peaks and valleys.
"Baby dills," she throws him his coat and heads to the door.
"Baby dills, really?" He gives her a soft look, and she shakes her head, laughing gently as they step outside and head out in the direction of the little grocery store.
"Yes, baby dills. What's wrong with them? They're the whole pickle – but, smaller."
For a minute she forgets that she has not taken a drink in 50 hours and 7 minutes.
"Yeah, but you don't get the essence of the pickle, Olivia, I mean, come on."
"Are we really discussing this?" She asks for a minute, her nose scrunching up with her smile. "And how do you not get the essence, El? It's the whole pickle!"
"With the baby dills, it's all skin, the outer layer. There isn't enough of the pickle. Spears are the way to go, really, there is no other option." He pulls the door of the grocer open for her, and she pauses for a minute, catching her eyes in his.
"Thank you," her voice cracks, it is small and soft and thankful – scared.
"Yeah, yeah, go get your little miniature excuses for pickles." They laugh, and he follows her into the store.
&&&&&
"Aw, shit, Olivia," He blinks the scattered sleep from his eyes with urgency, running his hand over his face quickly, grabbing the washrag on the sink, and then bending down next to her, pulling her hair back in one hand, taking her hand in the other as she dry heaved, her back curling, her chest burning, coughing as she grabbed for air.
"I can't do it, I can't do this." Her arm wraps around the top of the toilet, she drops her head against it, her face looking down into the bowl.
Her mother is going through her mind, her bottles, her temper, her words, and she now realizes why she never did this. Before, years ago, Olivia wasn't where she was now. She was young, it wasn't as hard to go from 5 drinks a nite to two. It was acceptable. But now, now Elliot was watching her, making her stop cold turkey, and she knew that this wasn't right. It wasn't okay. She wasn't okay.
"Here, babe," the term of endearment slips out, there is no extra connotation, no extra meaning, and Olivia falls back from the toilet, looking to Elliot, shaking her head.
He says nothing, tightens and locks his jaw as he moves the washrag over her face. It is the third time tonite, the fourth time in the last so many hours.
62 hours, 12 minutes – the clock on the microwave was still working.
"Domestic Violence," the words come out of the blue, and Elliot pulls his hand from her face, looking at her with confused eyes.
"What?"
"I need to go back to work. That's where they had room, that's where I'm going," she explains, and Elliot's head falls back, not wanting to admit that he thought her crazy charade of leaving SVU would be short lived.
"You really think that's the best idea?"
"Sitting here, in your apartment, isn't a better one. If I'm at work I have distractions. Something else to do, you understand." Her words are biting, and Elliot nods. He understands, throw yourself into your work to avoid everything else.
He understands completely.
"But transferring out?" He gets up, dropping the rag down to Olivia.
"You can get a tracking device. Put it on my belt," she shoots him an icy look.
"That's not what I'm talking about," four deep breaths, count to ten – this isn't her, this is the spell she's under.
"You don't get it, and I'm not asking you to." She throws the washrag at him and heads out of the bathroom, back into the spare room.
When she sits on the bed, she is shaking. She is alone, in Elliot's make believe world and the aftermath of her failure. And he doesn't come right away. Minutes go by, maybe 5, 10s of them, and still, he never comes. She doesn't hear him the house, her headache, it is pounding over her eyes, blinding almost, drowning out sound.
Another minute. Another two. She was five years old when her mother left her for two days with a bag of chips and peanut butter. She had aged 10 years by the time she came back.
Three more minutes and he still wasn't there. She wonders if she'd done it, if her words had beaten him, pushed him away, if he was back to where he was a few days ago before she conceded to needing him.
Her back arches, and she leans backwards, laying herself down on the bed, pulling her knees to her chest, tucking her head and squeezing her eyes shut.
68 more seconds. Still nothing. She pulls herself in more, in the dark she sees her mother, sees her own failure, feels herself falling.
She wants a drink. She doesn't care. It doesn't matter. She's almost 40 years old, who is she doing this for?
When she wakes up, when her eyes blink open, there is a cold rag pressed to her forehead, fingers are running through her hair, his body his sitting against hers, the mattress sunken from where he's sitting, her body rolling towards him.
It was 8am. He wasn't taking Dickie to his soccer game, he told him he couldn't today, that he had to work on a case, and when he looked to Olivia, curled up on the bed next to him, he knew that he didn't know how to fight for this victim.
"Elliot?" Her voice is that of a child's, soft and scared.
"Here, take two Tylenol. You're burning up." He clears his throat as he hands them to her, and Olivia swallows them promptly.
"You've been out for a few hours," he leans back against the headboard of the bed, and Olivia rolls over, taking the cold washrag from him and closing her eyes for a moment.
"Did you sleep?" She can see in his eyes that he hasn't, and his silence is her confirmation of such. "Why are you doing this?" Guilt fills her now, a strong sense that she is not worthy of his actions, of him sitting up while she passed out, watching her shake, keeping an eye on her temperature.
"You want me to do this?" He looks to her slowly, and she bites down on her bottom lip, surveying him slowly, cautiously, as if she is seeing him for the first time.
"Uh, yeah," she pauses, "yeah."
"Then that's why." He gives her his answer, simple and soft, and she accepts.
&&&&&&
"You think he really paid her to sign a five year contract?"
"Huh?" Elliot sets the bowls on the coffee table and then heads back into the kitchen to get them a drink.
"Tom Cruise, you think he got Katie Holmes to sign a five year contract to pretend to marry him, but they wouldn't have sex?"
"Um, Olivia? Are you speaking English?"
"There's no way it's real, I mean, he's running around and jumping on couches and, for what? I don't care if he's in love. Doesn't change my life any, I mean, good for him, he's getting some&"
"Not if she signed a contract." Elliot calls back through a smile, and Olivia laughs softly.
She'd been with him now for seven days, at the end of the day they would come back together, and in the moments that she didn't feel smothered by him, she was thankful for him.
"What's this?" Elliot sits down next to her and hands her a glass of sparkling apple cider, offering her a smile, and toasts her.
"One week." He answers proudly, and Olivia tugs at the neck of her sweater, feeling as if she is overheating.
To get him back all she had to do was become addicted. It's unsettling to her, and when Elliot isn't looking, when she's at her new desk, across from her new partner, there is a tiny bottle in the bottom drawer. A tiny bottle to add to her coffee in the morning, and she doesn't care because she isn't doing this to Elliot, this is for herself.
"I was going to cook a nice dinner, but I can't cook, so, I made pasta." He nods towards the bowls, and Olivia doesn't let herself feel guilty. She is doing better. One or two secrets aren't the end of the world. Elliot needs someone to take care of, she can see this, see that he needs it, and she lets him do that for her.
It isn't about lying to him, it's about them both lying to each other.
"Thanks, El." She takes a bit of the pasta and then a sip of the cider, trying to forget that she is instantly disappointed that it is not champagne. "I, um, tomorrow nite, Casey asked me to go to dinner with her and Fin and John. I haven't really seen much of them all week, so," she had to remind herself that she didn't need his permission.
"Yeah, they asked me too." There was hesitation on both parts for a moment, and then Olivia spoke.
"I'm gonna go, Elliot. Just dinner, I mean, what harm can that do?"
"Yeah, yeah. It'll be good for you," he wanted to believe the words, but he wasn't quite sure that he could, not yet. "But hey, maybe I'll catch up with you guys later on, I think I'll go see the kids for a little while while you're with them."
Guilt.
"Elliot, I don't mean to be keeping you from them, you can go –"
"Hey, let's just eat, okay?" He turned away, the conversation was over.
&&&&&&
"So, Olivia, how are those jerks over at domestic treating you?" They are seated a booth in the back, John Munch nursing a beer, waiting for Olivia's answer to his question.
Her fingers play along the rim of the glass of her water, and she looks around at the three before answering.
"It's different," she shrugs.
"You with Daniels, right? I knew him from back at the academy, he's a good guy." Fin chimes in, and Olivia nods, agreeing.
He's a nice guy. 6 feet even, dirty blonde hair, round black eyes. They go in and they talk to husbands about their wives, talk to kids about pulling knives on their parents, investigate cases where a husband murdered his wife and daughter and son.
It's work.
"Mark Daniels?" It's Casey's turn now, "god, he's gorgeous." She takes a sip of her beer, and Olivia can hear the liquid move in the bottle.
"You miss us though, don't you?" John sits back and gives her a smirk.
"She misses me, of course, I don't know who would miss you." Fin rolls his eyes, and the four share a soft laugh.
Olivia looks over to the bar quickly, and while it is a casual dinner, she can feel the tension, over what, she does not know, but she isn't comfortable, she is fidgeting.
Elliot called earlier to check on her, and when he found out that they were at McGinley's, a pub, he was anything but okay with it.
Guilt, again, looking at all their faces she could only ear the disappointment in Elliot's words.
She looked to the bar again. Big brother wasn't watching her tonite.
"Hey, I'm gonna go get a beer, I'll be back." She didn't wait to hear them, her hands started sweating, shaking, and she moved in one quick motion to the bar, squeezing in at the end, her hands running through her hair nervously as she ordered a Budweiser and then stood waiting while the bartender headed to the opposite side of the bar to get it for her.
"I'd ask for an explanation, but I don't even think I want one." The voice growled the words, thick and hard, and she spun around to face him immediately.
"I'm just getting a coke."
"In a Budweiser bottle?" His eyes are flames as the grey haired bartender sets the beer down in front of Olivia.
"Elliot, come on, it's one drink," she tries, but she knows he will not let her get away with it.
"You fucking kidding me? All those nights, they're worth it for one drink?" He steps back and looks her over once, "you can't have one fucking drink, Olivia." And in the next moment, in her silence, he sees it.
For all of this, there is nothing.
This is not the first time, her eyes, their betrayal, their embarrassment, they show that this is simply the only time that he caught her.
Before she can form an argument, her head is pounding, and Elliot is pushing through the people in the pub, pushing his way out into the air.
For all of this, he hadn't been with his children. He had tricked himself into thinking that he could hide in this masquerade, but in this instant, this second, he sees all the stars fall from the sky, there is darkness, blinding darkness, and in a mad sprint he is running towards the station, his hands shaking, caught in his own withdraw.
Throwing the door open he ran for the stairs, sprinting up to the third floor, Olivia screaming his name behind him, she may have been crying, but he wasn't paying attention, he was furious, he was in a place he didn't even know was possible.
"What are you doing! Elliot!" Her voice was a shriek, she seemed scared for her life, and that only fueled his suspicions. He threw the door open to her new unit, ran over to her desk, threw open the top drawer and started searching through everything. "Elliot! What the hell are you doing, you have no right!"
"Do not speak to me, Olivia." He stopped, his back to her, and froze for a moment, his hands burning, his arms tingling, his head pounding. After pulling open three drawers, rummaging through their contents, he found it, a small clear bottle, Absolut Vanilla written on the front, and his hands shook, his fingers overly sensitive to the touch as he pulled it from the drawer.
"Elliot, I can explain,"
"I don't want to hear it," and he threw the bottle at the ground, shattering into tiny pieces, and Olivia's eyes, brimmed with tears, did not faze him.
"You know what I gave up because I thought you were serious about this?" He looked her over, wondering how deep in this lie he was invested. "Your stuff will be out front of my door. Don't knock. Don't call."
It was the wrong way of dealing with this, and he knew it, but all that he had given up, all that he had let slip away in the last week that he had given to her, it made him feel as if she had played him for something he was not, and he couldn't do this.
"See ya around, Detective," he growled and pushed past her, and with tears tracing trails down her cheeks, Olivia bent down to pick up her pieces.
&&&&&
tbc