For All of This;
Epilogue.
He is sitting curled up in the late nite shadows of her apartment building, the first thing she sees as she turns the corner.
Without words, she goes to him, sits down in front of him, and reaches for his back, rubbing her hand up and down quickly.
"El," her voice was a soft whisper to bring him back to her, "El."
His head raised at the sound of her voice, and in the haze between the conscious and the unconscious his mind played in the possibilities of where they could be; a quiet bed & breakfast in the mountains, a soft hammock on the beach, a lazy Sunday morning on the couch.
Clearing his throat he asks, "where've you been", and he pretends that he is not jealous. His eyes, they blink open a few times, transitioning him back into this world slowly, back from the color of his dreams, and for the first time, when he sees her eyes, he has to push himself back up against the wall for all they hold.
When he looks into Olivia's eyes and realizes that in them he sees their unborn child of a future and potential and an answer to all those questions they've both held, and when he is afraid of exactly what he sees, he needs a second. A minute. An hour. A year. Forever.
He wants to tell her how much he misses finding her on his couch at 2am unable to sleep. He wants to tell her that sometimes he would linger in the doorway and listen to her breathing. He wants to tell her that when she left, he couldn't sleep.
"We were trying to rap some things up on a case," Olivia explains her whereabouts, and they both pretend, with a smile, their eyes locked, revealing their secrets, their souls, their hearts, they pretend, locked inside of each other, that this does not hurt as much as it does.
Her hands, they are itching, her headache, it has moved in permanently, and she realizes for every reason that she has to take a drink, she has one singular reason why she should not, and he is sitting, cobalt blue eyes, hunched over in front of her door at 3am.
"What are you doing here, Elliot?" She asks slowly.
"Isn't it obvious, Olivia?" He lets his head fall back before pulling it back up, and with a smile he says, "I just find your apartment door and the floor outside of it so damn comfortable, irresistible, really. That and my cable went out and I want to see what happened on tonite's episode of Murphy Brown."
"Elliot," she gives him a soft laugh and then gets up off of the floor before offering him her hand, something that does not often happen.
He says nothing as she unlocks her door and follows her inside, where Olivia slips off her shoes before heading to the couch, and he, like always, follows her.
"I had Chinese tonite," he starts, "and my oranges, they all have the peels still on them, and there is a jar of half eaten baby dills in the fridge." He runs his hands over his face, not looking at Olivia, because he can't. He doesn't understand when this happened, when he walked into the bathroom and instantly realized that it didn't smell like flowers, when he missed her underwear in the laundry basket, he doesn't know when that all went from nothing to something and he doesn't understand how he never saw it until everything was gone.
He remembers Kathy, how he could have gone back, but he didn't feel like he could, like he could mend it. But, when he noticed that in his Chinese there was no white rice, no sweet & sour chicken and no extra fortune cookie, he knew he had to get her back.
"And your shampoo, that pink stuff that smells like flowers and citrus –"
She seems stronger now than she really is, and he doesn't know how he should take that, doesn't know if he should be thankful that she has survived without him or upset by her independence. He does know, however, that nothing really goes away, and even if it has been a few months since her last drink, she still wants another one.
Part of him wants to believe that he is part of the reason that she does not take it.
"You want my shampoo, Elliot? I have an extra bottle if you'd like to have it," she jokes, but he doesn't laugh, he is too busy concentrating on breathing. "Oh, okay, not that kind of thing," she lets out a sigh. "What did your fortune say?"
"Today is the yesterday of tomorrow," he breathes out.
"In bed? That doesn't make much sense."
"Maybe I should just, um, maybe I should just go, huh?" He is suddenly uncomfortable in his skin, itching, he gets up from the couch, he is shaking, sweating, his head, it starts pounding, and his shirt feels like it's strangling him.
He is in withdraw.
"Um, yeah, okay," Olivia nods, and she feels him and for him, she knows everything he is feeling, because she feels it from him, but at the same time, she doesn't remember who she is anymore, she is trying to find that among all the pieces that she has collected, putting herself back together again was going to be something she had to at least try on her own. She needed to know, the skeptic in her, she needed to know that if everything came crashing down again, that she would be able to hold herself up.
He calls to her, when he is leaving, without looking back, "call me tomorrow, maybe we can grab dinner or something," and as he's leaving he hears her say okay.
And alone, she goes back to her room, slips off her sweater, takes out her earrings. Alone she walks into her bathroom, throws some cold water on her face, and when she catches her reflection in the mirror, behind her, in the corner, there is what is left of one of the orange candles from Elliot.
"Elliot," she squeezes her eyes shut, falls back in a sigh, her body, it aches, her head, she is accustomed to it now, her hands – they feel foreign, and when she realizes why, when she realizes it is because in the past several weeks she has become so accustomed to having her hand within his, she turns and runs out of the apartment, down the stairs, out into the night sky, out under the stars and the planets and all those little pieces of life and yesterday and tomorrow.
"Elliot!" She screams to him as he turns around the corner, but he does not hear, and she is sprinting now, running after him and this and she is trying to remember what it was like before the instant that they had fallen into each other. "Elliot!"
He stops, his body goes rigid, and he turns around to see her standing there, caught in the moonlight, reflected in the stars and light of the universe.
Looking at her he is filled with the feeling an astronaut must get when he is in space, looking down at the earth.
He wonders when she became the world.
"Liv," he walks to her, and she is jumping up and down, trying to keep warm, "where the hell are your shoes?" He laughs, and she shakes her head.
"I ran out of the apartment, I locked myself out again, I didn't have time to get my shoes, I didn't want to miss you, you're going to have to let me back in," she is rambling, and Elliot shakes his head.
"I don't have your key."
"What? Yes you do." She wants to think that she isn't put off by this.
"I took it off my key ring to avoid randomly breaking and entering."
"If you have a key, it's not breaking and entering, it's just entering," she informs him, "what we have to do now, now that you don't have a key – that is breaking and entering."
"I can't believe you left with no shoes on, are you insane? Do you know what you could get from these streets?" He is laughing.
"I told you I was in a hurry and I thought you would have a key! I didn't think it would become a situation."
"Oh, so now the foot fungus you are about to catch is my fault?"
"Give me your shoes." She looks at him with a smile, and he wants to remember her like this, trapped in the lights of the solar system, forever.
"So I can get foot fungus? No thank you, you're the one who-"
"Okay, okay, I get it." She rolls her eyes as Elliot takes a step towards her and puts his hand on her back.
"Get on my feet," he looks away, like he is bothered, but Olivia can see his smile.
"Are you crazy?"
"No, are you? Ms. I lock myself out of my apartment barefoot in February. I think that you are in no place to challenge my sanity." And then, like a little girl dancing on her father's feet, Olivia steps up onto Elliot's feet, her eyes falling just below his nose.
"Elliot," she starts, the tone of her voice changing, "did you honestly come all the way over here at 3am and sleep outside my door to tell me you missed having dinner with me?" She wonders if anyone can see them, her pressed up against him, her arms wrapped around him to keep her balance.
"What if I did? Is that so bad?" He challenges.
"Well, no, but it just seems like, seems like…" she trails off before erupting into laughter.
"What?" He starts laughing along with her, readjusting his hands on her back so that she doesn't slip.
"Are we seriously going to have a conversation like this?" She laughs into his neck, putting her head on his shoulder.
"You're the one who locked yourself out, sweetheart," his voice is sarcastic, joking, light.
"There's a bench over there," she moves her head in the direction of a bench a few feet off, "you can carry me there."
"Um, excuse me?" Olivia steps back off of his feet and looks to him expectantly.
"You're the one over here yelling about foot fungus. Now turn around."
"Really? I'm much more effective this way," and she is thankful for every line in his face drawn out by his smile.
"Elliot Stabler, shut up – and turn around," they are both laughing as he spins around and Olivia jumps up onto his back.
"Ugh," he groans as she wraps her legs around his waist.
"Over there," she points.
"Yes ma'am." Elliot laughs in an English accent.
"I could get used to this," she teases, and as Elliot sets her down on the bench he tells her that it's better if she doesn't.
For a moment they are silent, and then Olivia spins sideways, putting her legs over Elliot's lap and then burying them inside his coat. He throws his hands in the air with a smile, resignation, and then they take a few moments to collect themselves.
For all of this, he could not imagine spending 15 minutes without her.
"What'd you really have to say, Elliot?"
"I wanted to tell you that I'm really proud of you, for all of this." He clears his throat.
"Don't make me sound like a victim, okay?" Her tone is flat, and Elliot nods, understanding.
"Maybe I did just miss having dinner with you. Maybe I did just miss finding you on the couch watching TV at 2am. Maybe I missed you asking me if I would stay with you, for a little longer."
"Elliot, we both know –"
"What? That we're a bunch of middle aged statistics? That this could be nothing more than us running away from what we are? You want a drink, Olivia, right this second, you want to take a drink?" He prays for the right answer.
"Right this second?" His hand begins rubbing her leg, and she puts her hand on top of his to stop him, "no, I don't." Her voice is strong, and he is thankful. "You can smile, it's a compliment," she says slowly, and he laughs, looking to her with smiling eyes.
Each line on his face, another thing, another memory of what makes him happy.
"I want to come out at 2am and find you on the couch crying at some show about aliens. I want your sorry excuses for pickles in my fridge next to the mangled, stripped oranges. Your candles, I want them half burnt all around the bath tub so that I trip over them, and your pink shampoo, I like it half empty in my shower because that means that someone's there, using it."
"Elliot, you're just not used to not having someone there, you need time –"
"I don't miss someone being there. I got used to waking up alone, Olivia, I dealt with it and handled it, but it's all those other things, your things, that I can't handle not being there."
"Well," she starts, letting out a breath she has been holding for forever, "since I'm locked out, I guess going back to your place would be okay."
His laugh, it is laced with relief as he gets up from the bench, standing with his back turned to her.
"Get on," he instructs her and Olivia stands up on the bench and climbs onto Elliot's back, locking her legs around his waist, her arms draped over her shoulders, his hands locked under her butt.
"Elliot Stabler?" She whispers his name into his neck as they head down the street towards where his car is parked.
"Yes, Ms. Benson?"
"You really just came over to tell me to tell me you missed me?" She was humbled by it, moved by it, thrown off of her center by it, and she laid her head on his shoulder as they continued on.
She wished the world could see them.
"And to bring you home," he answers, but he feels like she is still disappointed, and, for reasons beyond her, she too can feel the disappointment.
"No one's ever done that before." She moves so that her chin is resting on his shoulder, and as they get closer to the car, he stops, standing in front of it, Olivia still on his back, and he wonders if this is what people mean when they say that your life falls into place.
"Hey Olivia?" He clears his throat, looking off across the street, and before Olivia gets the chance to respond he says, with a smile, adding another wrinkle to the memories, "has anyone ever told you they were in love with you while they were giving you a piggy back ride?"
&&&&&
finished.