Author's note; Thanks to everyone who's read/commented/emailed, all that, there will be one more chapter after this one, it probably won't be finished until later next week, just to let ya'll know. Hope you've enjoyed this so far and will see it out to the end, I appreciate everything! Enjoy, Breigh.
For All of This;
Six.
"Gidget," the car slows to a stop beside her, and she pauses for a minute, collecting her breath as the sea of other anonymous victims come from the deep glow of the church.
Elliot leans over the passenger seat and opens the door, pushing it a little so that Olivia can grab it, and then he leans back into his seat.
"How was it?" He tries, but knows that it is no use, knows that the only thing she says about the meetings are laced in such ambiguity that he would never understand.
Tonite, though, there is silence as he heads out of the parking lot towards his blank slate of an apartment where they continue to hide.
"You hungry? Want to get coffee?" In her silence he feels her thoughts, concrete, heavy, hungry for something that she cannot find, eager for something she does not know.
Seven days, 14 hours, 27 minutes. It had been that short of a time since her last drink, and she can still taste the Absolut Vanilla, still feel the sting of the whiskey, hear the beer empty from the bottle.
She slept a few hours, discovered early morning TV, nick at nite, all those cable shows, and when her eyes would flutter closed she would be seven years old again, looking at her mother, wondering why she was really doing this.
Tonite she didn't know what she had to prove.
She listened to the other 13 people in the group and she wondered if anyone really believed that they were getting better, of if they just liked hearing themselves talk.
Everyone wanted to be their own hero, but in doing that she realized that everyone else had lost everyone else that they cared about. That cared about them.
She looked at Elliot.
She said, her eyes wells, filled to the top with salty water, "can we just drive? Just keep driving?"
"Hey, Liv, everything okay?" She wanted to tell him that she didn't remember the last time everything was okay. Stopped at a stoplight he looked over to her, inspecting her face, feeling himself drowning in the tears in her eyes.
He wished she would smile.
Jack and Jill fell down the hill, and from the dark depth of another valley he laced his fingers within hers and brought her hand to his lips.
"You want to talk to me?" He doesn't understand how you can miss someone when they're sitting next to you, when you can feel the life in their skin, pressed tight against yours.
She leans over and places her head on his shoulder. Tonite she is sure that everyone is just one step away from everyone else. That the stockbroker who's left wife him, the woman who's daughters were taken away from her, the teenager who dropped out of college, they are one step away from her, they are one step away from her mother, she is one step away from Elliot, from them both disintegrating into oblivion.
She closes the eyes that she got from her father as she realizes that today is one of those days when you shouldn't have ever gotten out of bed.
"Where should I head to?" He asks her slowly, and Olivia wants to tell him that she has no clue where she's going, where she's been, where she's at.
Tonite his shoulder is tense, tight, and she can feel that he is scared, that he's nervous that this might be the time he can't get her out of it, the one time she stays behind.
Her headache, she doesn't remember the last time it wasn't there, doesn't remember the last time she didn't see the world through it's haze. She pushes herself up off of Elliot, takes her hand from his, and his hand falls to her thigh instead.
Her fingers press the little button to open the window, and the air comes in, cold, harsh, unrelenting. It burns her skin, pulls out the red, dries the tears she allowed to fall.
"Fuck!" She screams the four letters out the window, into the night sky, allowing them to dismember and scatter throughout the other particles.
"Olivia," his heart is pounding in his ears as he pulls the car over into the parking lot of a pet food store that is closed, it's doors locked, a little sign glowing above.
She throws the door open and jumps out, slams the door shut, walks away from the car, her fingers running back through her hair as she lets the emotion fall in salty drops, rivers running down her cheeks, her skin stinging from the cold air.
"Hey, Olivia, Liv," he gets out quickly and runs after her, grabbing her arm, stopping her from going any further.
"Let me go!" She struggles under his grip, pushing him away, her breathing gets heavy, quick, frantic.
"Olivia, calm down! Jesus Christ, Olivia!" He doesn't want to think that a few hours ago her tears were hidden beneath her smile.
"I can't go back there, I can't," she stopped trying to pull away, her body, the fight going out of her, it fell limp beneath his touch, and he brought her to him, slid his arms under hers and pulled her in for a hug, her head falling onto his shoulder for a brief moment before he pulled back and looked to her softly.
"Sweetheart, talk to me." This time he begged, and Olivia pulled her way out of his arms, walked back to the car, pushed herself up onto the hood, and Elliot, like always, followed behind, crawling up behind her, sitting next to her.
"They said sobriety didn't mean recovery. They said to find something else to define yourself by. It's not about your last drink, it's about being a mother, a daughter, a sister. I'm supposed to not let myself count the hours, I'm supposed to be something else—"
"That sounds right," he agreed, reaching his hand over, placing it on the back of her head.
"I'm none of those things," her voice is small, scared, and this, laying with Elliot on the top of his car, this feels like confession.
Forgive me father, for I have sinned. She bows her head, catches her tears on her tongue.
"I could never take another drink, never, but for what? Will it even matter? I have my father's eyes, my mother, hers were small, hazel, but mine, they're from a person I've never met," she pauses for a moment, "you ever look in the mirror and just see the pieces that you're made of? The parts of you?"
"Your eyes are yours," his words do not falter as he lies back against the windshield, and Olivia curls up next to him, looking up at the blanket of stars that covers them.
"When I was 13 my mother told me that if she knew about me sooner, I would never have been there. She threw a bottle at my feet, and while I picked up the pieces she told me that she found out too late." Her voice cracks, breaks, falls unsteady upon Elliot like a weight of a thousand pounds. "I always knew that I wasn't welcome."
He does not have words for her, because he can feel her hurt, and words seem pathetic, hopeless, a sorry excuse for everything in her at this moment.
"But sometimes, sometimes she would read to me before I fell asleep. Sometimes she would make me chocolate peanut butter cookies and pick me up from school."
He notices, Olivia curled up against him, that they fit together like the tiny pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, large and intricate, and even when whole you can see where they slide into each other, where they are infused together.
It has been 30 years since my last confession.
"I think, sometimes, that she did love me, but in the end, I didn't make her feel like the alcohol did. I couldn't love her like that. I couldn't push her into the feeling it gave her," she admits into his shirt, and Elliot pulls her closer to him, the car cool beneath them, the air crisp as it surrounds them.
"And now? Do you know what that feels like?" He was scared, feeling like maybe she was appoligizing because he couldn't do this for her, because he wasn't stronger than the whiskey.
"I feel like I always saw my father's eyes, my mother's mouth, her nose, every time that I looked in the mirror. I saw pieces of failure in my face, pieces of everything that I could become – fear. Maybe I can't define myself by anything else. Maybe this is who I am, maybe I drink until I'm dead because…" she trails off, not wanting to say that she technically already is, that her heart beat and brain function are a mere technicality.
But Elliot, without saying anything, he pulls her closer, he runs his thumb along her check, and she wants to tell him that she loves him because she does not know any other word that can convey what he means to her.
"You ever wonder who painted the sky?" His words fall upon her life a fairytale, and she moves closer to him still, her warm breath falling upon his neck.
"El,"
"The big dipper, the little dipper, Orion's belt, that thing over there that looks like a cat," he rambles.
"Elliot, I think that's an airplane." Elliot gets up from his position, walks around the car to Olivia, takes her legs, moves them so they're hanging off the car.
"You looking for a reason, Olivia, something to define yourself by?" He challenges, leaning over and kissing her forehead, and she says nothing, her emotion blocking the words. "You're a good cop, you have saved more people than you will ever know, you have helped more people than anyone could ever hope to," his voice breaks for a minute, his head falls. His hands go to either side of her on the car, he leans in, smiles slowly. "And at 3am, when Murphy Brown wakes me up, when I come home and find all these naked, unpeeled oranges in my fridge next to your little bottle of munchkin pickles, it's like I know why I'm still able to keep going, why I'm able to get through Kathy and the kids and all of that. Olivia Benson, you and me, we are so screwed up, that we're approaching normal, but I don't know where I'd be without you, so…" he's thought about the words for a while, but tonite, Olivia fading into the universe, he feels that she needs to know them.
"You don't need to make me better," she is scared that they are in foreign territory, that they have gone from needing each other to being completely dependent.
"No, you're right," he moves back, running his hand over his face, and to the stars in her eyes he says, "I have to."
&&&&&
"What's going on in this one?" He stretches the sleep out of his eyes as he falls into the spot beside her on the couch, and she gives him some of her blanket before crawling up against him.
"Murphy's trying to get Avery into Lucky Ducky," Olivia explains.
"Lucky Ducky?"
"A nursery school, she didn't realize how crazy it was," she smiles as she inhales his the smell of his body wash.
The pair sit in silence for a while until Murphy Brown breaks for commercial, and Elliot whispers to Olivia, his words lingering in the dark, he says, "they were probably afraid to love you." Olivia grabs at Elliot's shirt, knowing that she cannot let him go. He continues, "your mom, everyone else, you say you have your father's eyes, Liv, but I don't think so. I don't think another person in the world has those eyes. You promise everything with them."
Her eyes were a promise.
"Elliot," she starts, but he stops her.
"I can't think of all that stuff that happened to you, Olivia. I can't think that I wanted to have been there to stop it. That I couldn't have been there," he refers to her childhood, and Olivia realizes that in this moment, this is the first time that anyone has ever hurt for her. "I just," he starts, talking into the top of her head where his lips linger, "I want to take care of you, make this better. And I know that I can't, but still, I don't want you to think that you're not worth this."
"I didn't mean – it's not – just sometimes I get into pity modes for everything I was too scared to do, ya know?"
And with her in his arms, he does.
I love you, he tells her in his head, through his heart, but he doesn't dare let her know. This isn't about that.
"Like what?"
"Like live on the water, sail around the world, see what my son or daughter would look like," she says the last part fast and each phrase at a lower volume than the one preceeding it.
"You think about that a lot?" His hands are rubbing her arms.
"Nah," her voice is stronger, louder, "just a few times a day, but nothing much." She laughs, and Elliot wonders if the little girl he sees in her eyes would have his eyes or hers.
"You could still do it, you know."
"Oh yeah, because I'm exactly what a kid needs. Instead of putting away money for college I might as well just put it away for therapy."
"Hey, that's not fair. You're great with kids," he encourages her, wondering if the little girl would have her mother's smile or his coloring.
"I am. Everyone else's, and seriously, Elliot, no. It's not happening. It's just one of those things," she shrugs, and he knows that the conversation is over as he catches her eyes with his, seeing in them a dream interrupted by this nightmare.
"Hey, you know what?" He clears his throat and stretches his back as Olivia moves out from under his arms.
"Hm?"
"I think that we would make for a really great country song. We should sell our story to one of those guys with the cowboy hats in Nashville," he says seriously, and Olivia lets out a deep laugh, reminding Elliot that beneath each cloud lies a silver lining.
"Elliot!" She hits him playfully.
"No, really. I mean, sure, we don't have a pick up truck, and no, our dog didn't run away, but man, this story has to sell a few CD's."
She doesn't know where she would be without him, she notes, as she laughs along with him.
Sobriety does not mean recovery, she remembers, but she looks to Elliot and wonders if the people at AA would think the same thing if they counted their days without a drink as the same number of days she's been with Elliot.
This is what sobriety has given her. This is what each drink has taken away.
"Elliot," she wants to spend every minute with him, because in his eyes, she knows that there is something worth more than any drink, and that is something she was never given – someone who understands her, feels her, feels with her.
"Yeah kid?" On the counter there is a box that she knows will buy her at least another hour with him before he goes back to bed.
"You want to play clue?" He laughs, and she smiles hopefully.
"Fine, but only if I get to be Mrs. Plum."
"Okay. I like Colonel Mustard, anyway." She shrugs her shoulders as Elliot goes and gets the game.
And with his eyes locked on hers, his smile stretching to them, he says, "oh, and we play the stripping version."
"Excuse me?" She laughs as Elliot takes the game out of the box and sets it up on the table.
"Yeah, every time you guess wrong you lose a piece of clothing," he explains.
"Elliot!"
"What? You have no problem leaving my oranges naked."
"You're comparing me to your oranges? And is it really that big of a problem? You want me to tape the peels back on when I'm done?"
"Well, I don't want to make a wrong comparison of you to the oranges, so, maybe you could show me and I could make a more accurate one," she realizes the joke too late, and blushes. "And if you tape the mangled peels back on the oranges, so help me god."
"Elliot," she pulls the little plastic rope and wrench from the box and places them on the board, rolling her eyes.
For the first time in a while she forgets that she wants a drink. She forgets what it tastes like, forgets what it feels like.
And as they fight over who gets to pick the cards for the killer and weapon and room, Olivia takes a minute to remember what she had before this.
Nothing.
&&&&&&
When they finish the game in 43 minutes, when Elliot is still complaining that Olivia should be down to her bra and underwear, they head back to their respective bedrooms, fall into bed, and in 13 minutes they each are out in the hallway, each heading to the other's room.
"I was coming to see if you were okay," he smiles sheepishly, and Olivia nods slowly.
"I miss you," she admits, and Elliot let's out his breath, his lips parting in a deep smile.
13 minutes without him and she was already in withdraw.
"My bed or yours?" He winks at her, and Olivia wraps her arms around him and they walk together into his room, crawling into bed. Before Elliot falls back onto the pillow he tucks the sheets up around Olivia and leans over her, running his hand down her cheek.
"Everyday I see you one step closer to who you are, and one more step away from them," he places a kiss on her forehead, and Olivia nods slowly. "You know I've got you, though, no matter who you are." His voice is serious, concerned, and he needs Olivia to know this, needs her to believe this.
"Elliot, you don't need to do this," she starts, but he falls back onto his back, and she moves closer to him.
"Just tell me you know, okay? Tell me you believe me," he took her as his foundation for the new life he had been forced to build.
And in his arms, in his bed, in his life, in his eyes and under a blanket of stars she says, she doesn't know the boundaries of who she is anymore, but she knows that if he leaves now, if she leaves now, she will never find out. She says, her voice shaking, her eyes closed, she says that she needs him, for the first time in her life she falls into him, and she says, her arms around him, "Elliot, I think you're the last person left in the world who I believe."
&&&&&&
to be continued.