For All of This;
Five.
"I think I've seen this in a lifetime movie," she runs her hands over her face, back through her hair.
His eyes, they're watching her through the window of the building, dark painted plastic, he is lit by the florescent lights behind him, and his stare, it is ominous.
The plastic Jesus is levitating, looking at her, judging her, and she feels like she's strangling.
"Two people sitting in a car outside of a church?" He gives her a questioning look, and takes the keys out of the ignition, the lights fading to black, and he turns slowly, his eyes meeting hers.
"You gonna go get coffee and then come back?" She wants to think that he's doing this because he wants to, not because he's watching her, making sure she actually follows through with it.
"Actually, there's a meeting I want to go to down the hall," he pushes his door open and gets out, but Olivia doesn't move. Outside, in the dark of the night, the sky is opening, letting out a soft rain, the clouds covering the moon, the stars, any remnants of light, and Elliot walks over to Olivia's door, throws it open, and then extends to her his hand.
Hold on.
"I don't know if I can do this, I mean, these people-"
"It's Anonymous, Liv. They're not going to put your picture on one of those billboards around the city," he paused for a moment as she took his hand and got out of the car, closing the door behind her, "I think they at least have to ask you before they do that."
"Ha ha," she rolls her eyes, not letting her hand slip from inside of his. "You're not coming in, are you?" He can't tell if he wants her to or not, if she's asking him to stay or telling him to go, and instinctively, he squeezes her hand tighter.
"There's a meeting I want to go to," he gives her a smile, and she immediately thinks that it's something to do with divorce, single parents, and it is her turn to squeeze his hand now, telling him to stay. She wanted him to be better, but, she didn't want him to be back to normal without her.
"Yeah?" Her voice is shaky, and they stop outside of the church entrance, Jesus, his eyes are still on them, his hands are out, he is glowing, and Olivia feels as if she should repent.
"Yeah, Sexaholics Anonymous," for a moment her anxieties break, and she let's out a loud, deep laugh.
"Elliot," she is laughing through his name, and he smiles for her.
"What? It's been a while, okay? I figure someone in that group has to slip, someone has to fall off the wagon."
"El," her laughter has turned nervous, and he hears the slight change.
"I'm just lending a public service, I'll be there to help if someone needs it." She knows that his words have more than one meaning, and with her eyes, she thanks him for it.
"I never got why they hold those meetings in a church." She is avoiding going inside now, and Elliot knows it, but still, he humors her to give her the time that she needs.
"Catholic guilt," he starts as a few people walk in the door a few feet behind them. "When I was 12 my teacher, Sister Anne, she told us that whenever we thought of having intercourse, we should imagine Jesus. Picture his face on the face of the girl, and, if we thought that that was appealing, then we should think of her." Without thinking, he reaches and moves her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. Her skin is damp from the light drizzle, and his fingers play against heaven's tears for a moment, resting on her cheeks. "She was 70. Her skin was rinkled. Her eyes, they were brown, and her hair – I think she was balding."
"Oh God, Elliot," she laughs, but she is curious, "did it work?"
"You better believe it. Didn't have sex 'til I was 14." A few more people sneak in the door behind them, and Olivia smiles, laughs gently, and then looks to him for a long minute.
"Um, I guess," she gestures over her back to the door, and Elliot nods.
"I'll try to be finished with the sex feigns by the time you're done."
"That's nice of you." She lets her hand fall from his, and turns on her heels, heading towards the door, and he watches her leaving, she looks defeated from the back, basking in the church's unearthly lighting, she looks already gone.
"Hey, Gidget," she hears his voice behind her, a few people are approaching, two older men, and she stops for a minute before walking through the door.
"What?" He is running over to her quickly, a smile drawn deeply across his face.
"The whole alcoholics anonymous thing, I'm trying to be anonymous. You better start calling me Spartacus, just incase." She wants to tell him that she doesn't know how to thank him, but she knows that he already understands. "I'll be here when you're done, he gives her a nod and a smile, and then watches as she walks inside, disappearing as the door closes behind her, and after a minute's hesitation he heads off to the main door of the church and heads into the little chapel, down the hall from the meeting rooms.
It's been a long time since he's prayed, and he feels as if tonite he needs it.
&&&&&&
"It's just these people, and, they've lost so much. They're there because they have to be, because there's nowhere else to go," Olivia is explaining as Elliot is taking the little white containers of Chinese food from the bag. He is making her stay with him, and she knows that it is not just for her, but he needs this too.
She sees Elliot as being what makes her one step away from everyone else. The one thing that has kept her above rock bottom.
"Yeah?" He hands her her sweet & sour chicken and white rice before taking his general tsao chicken and following behind her to the kitchen table.
"And the worst part, Elliot, is that I'm one of them. I'm not there undercover, I'm not following anyone – this is for me."
"Everyone's different, Liv," he hands her a fortune cookie.
He feels like he needs to reinforce that she is not just another one of millions.
He needs to remember that she is not another percent or statistic, another slash of failure.
"You will have a prosperous life," she reads her fortune cookie out loud.
"In bed," Elliot says, raising his eyebrows, and Olivia's eyes widen. "It's this thing Dickie does, after the fortune, whatever it is, you add 'in bed'. So, Benson, you will have a very prosperous life, in bed."
"You tell Dickie about the Jesus thing?" Olivia raises an eyebrow, and in the middle of this conversation, a few lines in a few lines away from being out, she can fall in and pretend that there is nothing else. That everything is how it used to be.
"You kidding me?" Elliot laughs, cracking his fortune cookie open, "moss grows on both sides of a rock."
"In bed," Olivia adds.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"You'll be sleeping with fungus?" She offers and explanation, and Elliot pops a piece of his chicken into his mouth.
"Jealous?" He teases, and she shakes her head as she laughs, eating a few pieces of chicken and a little bit of rice before she admits that it's enough.
"I'm going to go get a shower." She takes her food to the refrigerator and sets it inside, looking back to Elliot for a minute, her throat burning as she feels the words rising, playing on her tongue, and she wants to tell him that she loves him, that she is thankful that he is here for her when he doesn't even know where he himself is.
She wants to tell him that she doesn't care if he is lost, too, because at least they are together.
"A friend asks for only your time and not your money," Elliot reads the fortune of the third cookie, calling down the hall to Olivia.
"In bed," she screams back as a headache takes residence over her brow. "Keep your friends and prostitutes separate, El, I think that that's valuable advice," she grabs her robe from the bed as she hears him yell from the kitchen and then she heads into the bathroom.
Pulling back the curtain she sees that on the bath there are orange candles scattered around the edge, and curiously, her head pounding, her hands beginning to shake, she picks one up.
It smells like oranges.
He is standing in the kitchen, putting the food away, cleaning up, when she walks out, holding the candle in her hand, and she gives him a soft look.
"I figured it would keep you from ruining all my oranges just so you could smell the rind," his explanation is simple, and her voice breaks as she thanks him.
&&&&&
She opens the drawer by the refrigerator, trying to find the Tylenol, but instead, a folded mass of papers are there instead, and how they are folded, she can see the heading, a nice letter head from a law office.
It says, in more words than necessary, that Elliot's marriage, his life for over 20 years, it says that it's over.
"You find the Tylenol?" He has just gotten out of the shower, and he slips his t&shirt on over his damp hair.
"El," she holds the papers up to him, and he has to tell himself not to yell at her. He ignores her instead, moving past her to the cabinet and taking out a bottle of Tylenol.
"Take this before your headache gets worse," he opens the bottle, shakes two pills into his hand, and then hands them to her before walking out of the kitchen and into the living room, falling back onto the couch.
"Elliot, why didn't you tell me?" She stands in front of him, the back of her knees up against the coffee table, "talk to me, El," she sits on the coffee table across from him, and reaches for his knee.
And he says, "when would I have told you, Olivia? At which point, exactly, would it have been best to let you know?"
He doesn't want her to see him as a failure. He doesn't want her to think any less of him for this.
"I'm sorry, I know this isn't what you need&"
"Don't do this, Olivia, come on,"
"What happened, Elliot?" She doesn't let it rest, her eyes, they're getting blurry, her headache is moving down the back of her neck, up through her temples, and she has to move from the coffee table to the couch, leaning back against the cushions.
"You doing okay?"
"No, I need a fucking drink." She presses her fingers to her temples, and Elliot wonders how pathetic the two of them look.
"She left, to give us space, to test me, to see what I would do," he clears his throat, and Olivia feels helpful for the first time in weeks, months, for all the times she wished he would talk to her, here she has it. "And I didn't go back," he knows that if she could see him, she would see his failure.
Instead, though, she closes her eyes to feel his words through the piercing pains in her head, and all she can realize is that he is stronger than she ever thought.
"Things fall apart, people grow apart, and I love her, so much," he lets out a deep breath, his pride, and continues. Elliot, shaking, he says, "and the kids, I miss them so much, but Olivia, I couldn't go back there so that we could lie to each other for another 20 years. Lie next to each other and keep this going because we thought we had to. I knew what she wanted, and I knew she was waiting for me to make the final choice."
"You miss her, though," Olivia whispers.
"Everyday," Elliot admits.
"Good," her voice is shallow.
"Sadistic much?" Elliot laughs gently, and he knows that Olivia is the only one who, at this moment, could make him do so.
It is his turn now, his body burning, his heart pounding, racing, it is his turn to want to let her know how much he loves her for doing nothing more than breathing with him.
"No, just, you loved her, and…" she trails off, not able to put her thoughts into words around the pounding of her head.
"Yeah, yeah. C'mon, Liv, you should try to get some sleep," Elliot tells her, getting up and then leaning down, taking both of her hands in his and helping her up off of the couch and down the hall to the spare bedroom.
He helps her into bed and then pulls the quilt and sheets up around her.
"Try to sleep it off."
"You gonna stand watch outside the door?" She rolls onto her back and gives him a knowing smile.
"I'm gonna try not to," his voice is horse, there is something in it that she has never heard, the mixture, maybe regret, sadness, hope, it's one she's never heard in Elliot.
And he is gone 15 minutes before she rolls over to see him standing in the doorway, his arms cross across his chest, and he is looking away from her, looking at the far wall, decorated with a picture of his children.
"Elliot?" His eyes look red from where she is, but she understands that it might be the pounding in her head throwing everything off.
"I miss you, or, I mean& I missed you, too." He references her comment about Kathy, and Olivia pushes herself up in bed, but immediately slides back down. "You okay, Liv?" His voice is genuine, scared, and for the first time in a long time she knows that he needs her.
"Can you sleep in here tonite?" She needs to be close to him.
"Yeah, uh, yeah, sure," he clears his throat and then walks over to the bed, hesitantly, before getting in next to her, and she moves up against him, burrows into him.
"Hey, El?" He drapes an arm around her. Her hair, it smells like flowers, and her skin, it feels like silk.
"Yeah Liv?"
"Does this mean I'm the fungus?"
"Huh?" It takes him a minute for it to register.
"Your fortune, according to it and Dickie, you'd be sharing a bed with some fungus." She teases him, and they fall asleep to a gentle laugh.
&&&&&&
"Olivia?" He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand, swallowing a yawn as he walks into the living room to find Olivia sitting on the couch, crying to something she's watching on TV.
"Elliot, sorry," she reaches for the remote and mutes the TV, "did I wake you up?"
He doesn't tell her that when he went to put his arms around her she wasn't there, and so, in a way, she did.
"Nah," he falls down on the couch beside her. "You okay?" He places his hand on the top of her head, palm down, and brushes her forehead with his thumb.
"I need something to drink," she is shaking, her legs, they are crossed underneath of her, and they are moving quickly up and down.
"Not now, come on," he lets his arm fall around her, now around her shoulders, and then he moves her so that she is sitting sideways, and he pulls her legs over his lap, running his over hand over her knees to try to calm her down.
"No, Elliot, what am I doing this for? It's not like I have anything to do this for – I don't have a family, I don't have kids, a husband, I don't even have a casual date."
Elliot remembers all of Olivia's questions, in passing, her comments, about children – about what her own children could be, and as he wipes the tears from her cheeks, her teeth chattering, he knows that this is every reason why she never did it.
He can also see that it makes it worse. That it makes this worse, makes it hurt more, makes it drive home everything she doesn't have.
"You're my family," he keeps rubbing her legs, trying to calm her body.
"You're just saying that because you want me to not quit this,"
"Hey now, Gidget, that's not true." He tries to cheer her up, but Elliot can see that she is not about to accept it.
"Elliot." His name fades, falling through her lips.
"You're doing this because you know you're better than her. You're doing this because you know you're better than him. Because for the first time in your life you have the opportunity to not be your mother's daughter or your father's child – because you can get yourself back, Olivia, back from the both of them."
Olivia is heaving, her chest rising and falling, her body needing the oxygen.
"She gives him up," she is watching the TV, and Elliot looks as a baby is lying in a crib.
"What? What is this?" Olivia swats the tears away from her face and then reaches for Elliot's hand, and without another thought, he links his fingers through hers.
"She gives him up because the aliens are threatening him. He'll never be safe."
"Aliens?"
"When did I become my mother?" Olivia jumps back to the previous conversation, and Elliot stops trying to understand.
"You know how many people you saved? How many kids –"
"But what does that matter if I can't even help myself?" She shoots back at him, and he is rubbing his thumb over her hand.
"Maybe it's time you let someone help you," he clears his throat, and Olivia nods knowingly.
"I'm a mess, Stabler, you'd be better just getting me out of here." She moves down so that she can lie on the couch, and she lets her head fall to the cushions before Elliot hands her a pillow.
"Olivia," he is still holding her hand, "this is what you do when you love someone." The words are casual, but Olivia felt like in that one sentence, the world as realigned itself, back in the range of the sun, and as Elliot slides down on the couch next to her, she can feel the warmth.
"X&Files," she says, his arm is pulling her into him, "that's what it is."
"Ah, okay." He runs his hands back through her hair. "Hey, we should be a TV show, that'd be pretty cool," he teases, and Olivia laughs gently, her tears bouncing from her cheeks as they jump. "What, you were the one who said we were a lifetime movie. I mean, I guess being at least a lifetime movie would be okay, I could be the strong, gorgeous cop," he pauses for a minute, Olivia smiling, "and maybe I could ride a horse. That'd be pretty cool."
"Hey El?" This is right, this moment, two broken pieces, they are forced back together again.
Jack and Jill fell down the hill – and then climbed all the way back up.
"What? No horse? Okay, fine, then at least I get to have a motorcycle. Or, I could be a bike cop, show off my legs in those little shorts," he winks at her, and she tells him, without ever saying the words, thank you, for saving her, for pulling her back up when no one else could.
And as they laugh, falling back into each other, Olivia whispers into his neck, "no, El, I was just going to say that I think we'd be better suited for Dr. Phil."
&&&&&&
tbc.