Influenza

Chapter Ten

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, the flu isn't mine, but the idea and the story belong to me.

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Elliot nodded sleepily, yeah he had been asleep until he had been woken by two voices coming from the kitchen- one which sounded a lot like his middle child. "It's alright, though," he assured her. "I needed to wake up anyway."

Olivia frowned, obviously not agreeing with that statement, and pointed towards the counter, "The medicine is there, if you think you need anything else. There's more water in the fridge, or orange juice, if you want some. You can't have any soda's or beer, though, not until you're better. There's soup, too, in the cabinet, you know where... Kathleen and I ordered Chinese."

He nodded and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, then sat down next to his daughter, across from Olivia. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments before she turned away, looking at Kathleen. "You said that there was something that you needed to talk to your dad about, right?"

She nodded, that she did.

"I'm going to leave you two to talk about whatever it is, then..." she got up from the table, ignoring the way Elliot was watching her, and smiled at the young girl lightly. "I'll be right in the living room if either of you need anything." and with that statement she left the kitchen, once again acting as if she didn't know his eyes followed her out.

Elliot fought to keep himself in his seat, he wanted to run after her, tell her that he did need something. Her. Instead he gripped the edge of his seat tightly and sent his daughter a questioning look, "What do you need to talk about, Kathleen?"

"It's about the separation," she clarified nervously. "Mom won't tell us anything... and even though Maureen and I both understand that this isn't just a temporary thing, Dickey and Elizabeth still think that you two are going to get back together, that we're going to be a big, happy family again one day. I tried to explain that sometimes, no matter how much two people love each other, things just don't work, but they're not getting it. They're too young to realize that pretty soon they'll have to be choosing between living with mom or living with you..." she looked down at her hands. "I was just wondering how soon that day is going to be?"

All he could do was shake his head, "I don't know Kathleen, one of the reasons your mother hasn't told you anything is because we don't know anything, yet. We're still trying to figure out what's going on here, what happened, and what our next move is. Yes, we've discussed divorce, right now we're just not sure if that's what we really want." Then again, with what he had just done a few hours prior, he was pretty sure that now he did know what he wanted, and it wasn't Kathy. "If we do end up getting a divorce, it could take a long time, as they normally do."

"Not if you two care enough about each other to make it a clean break," Kathleen told him. "If you just agree to it and work out something that will work for both of you, why should it take a long time? If it's what you both want, shouldn't it go by quickly?"

"Kathleen, your mother is pretty upset with me- if you haven't already noticed."

"She's not upset," Kathleen chided. "She's disappointed, Dad. Her marriage has failed, after more than twenty years... doesn't it upset you? The one thing that she always counted on is no longer there for her to fall back on, she's lost one of the most important things in her life. She doesn't hate you and she's not mad at you, she's furious with herself because she thinks that she let you go, that she could have changed things and made you stay."

"I didn't leave your mother, Kathleen," Elliot reminded her. "She left me."

The teenager shook her head, "No, dad... you were gone long before she moved us into grandma's house. Maybe not physically, but you're heart just wasn't in it anymore. If I could see that, don't you think she could too?"

"Are you trying to make me feel like this is my fault, Kathleen?" he questioned.

She shook her head, "Of course I'm not, daddy. Not entirely, at least. But, it's not like you can really say you had nothing to do with it, and neither can mom. It was a combination of both of you and your work and her work and a lot of other things, but mainly it's the fact that somewhere along the line, you both gave up on it. You threw yourself into your work and mom sat by and let you do it, without giving much effort to stop you..."

Elliot coughed for a few seconds and then replied, "When did you become such an expert at relationships?"

"Not relationships," Kathleen told him. "Just yours... I've had a lot of time to think about it, dad. Maureen and I have talked it over at least a hundred times, basically throwing out our ideas and feelings to each other and then discussing them and trying to make sense out of them. It's not like we could have gone to mom, and forget talking to grandma... and you, you've been busy with work."

For the first time since they had begun to talk Elliot noticed how tired his daughter looked. "How are you, sweetheart?"

Kathleen gave him a genuine smile and reached out to touch his arm, "I'm ok, daddy. It's hard, but I'm dealing with it. School is going good and I'm starting to look at some colleges... I think I might go to Hudson. Maureen says she really likes it there."

He frowned, remembering that Kathleen was in her Junior year, and that after this year she only had one to go before she left home. "That's good, honey..."

"I just wish this was all over with, you know? It's hard, not being able to see except for every other weekend, trying to pretend like it doesn't bother me when grandma starts talking about the situation, having to let the twins dwell in their little fantasy land where we're still the perfect family... I just want it to be over."

Elliot reached out to his daughter and pulled her into a comforting hug. She held on to him tightly, missing the days where she could have just crawled into his lap when she was feeling badly. This was good enough, she guessed, and she would take anything that she could get. "It will be," he promised, "...soon..."

She nodded into his chest, but didn't let go, not that he intended on doing so either, at least not for a few minutes. It had been forever since his daughter had even come to him with something that was troubling her, and even less things nowadays. With them always with their mother it left his contact with his children minimal. He had never really realized just how much better they made him feel by their presence, until the day that they were gone. Now when he got home from a case in a bad mood he continued to sulk and brood, before when he would come home sour he put on a happy face and sat down with his family for dinner, or breakfast, or whatever meal it was, and by the end of the day the smile on his face was a genuine one, not some facade he forced to fool his wife and children into thinking he wasn't having a shitty day.

In the end, it was Kathleen who finally pulled away from the rare embrace, wearing a weak smile. "Should I be the one asking how you're feeling?"

He snorted, "Probably... I'm getting better, though. It's not too bad, nothing like Olivia's was. I've never seen the flu that bad before. And I had to take care of you when you got sick..." he shuddered jokingly and she laughed at him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she denied. "I've never been sick a day in my life."

"Sure... but that didn't stop you from taking days off from school," he winked at her. "Come on, let's go out into the living room and wait for your food."

"You're not hungry?" she questioned.

"Not really," he told her, shaking his head. "I might eat something later."

Kathleen nodded, getting up from her seat and making her way out of the kitchen. Elliot sighed deeply when she was gone, then followed her out the door.

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Olivia was watching TV when Kathleen came out of the kitchen, wearing a large grin on her face. The girl had appeared happy when she arrived, but Olivia had been concerned at the dimness of her eyes. Now it seemed to her that she was genuinely happy, whatever she and her father had talked about must have cleared up a few things for her, because Olivia definitely could see a difference.

Elliot followed her out a few seconds later, looking a bit better than he had before, but he looked like he was waging an internal battle and Olivia briefly wondered what it was about. Kathleen flopped down onto the couch bed and scooted over to the farthest end of it, making room for her father to sit down next to her, which Elliot did. He looked over at Olivia and his eyes clouded over with an emotion she couldn't decipher.

"How's work, Olivia?" Kathleen asked, looking over at the woman as well.

"The ususal," she replied. "It's been a tough couple of cases, but... when are they not hard?" She gave her a small smile, "What about you? Have you decided what you're going to study in college yet?"

"Actually," Kathleen replied, "I've been considering law..."

"Really?" Olivia inquired, interested. "What type of law?"

"I was thinking about being a prosecutor, or maybe just have my own firm... I haven't really decided yet."

"You've got plenty of time," Olivia assured her. "Just don't stress over it too much."

The teen nodded, "Is there anything good on?"

Olivia glanced at the TV that was till turned on, frowning. "Probably not, but you can see if you want to," she threw her the channel changer and Kathleen started to flip through the stations. After a few minutes of finding nothing particularly interesting to watch she turned the station to a random channel, then began to TV surf again.

Not long after that her buzzer went off and Olivia got up from the couch she was sitting on to answer it. The person at the other end introduced himself as Michel Chu, and told her that he had her delivery ready. She buzzed him in and headed for the kitchen to get her purse. By the time he knocked on the door she had the money to pay him, so just as soon as he had arrived he left.

"Do you think you're up for some Chinese food?" she asked Elliot as she headed into the living room.

He shook his head, "Oh not even close... I told Kathleen I'd have some soup later."

She gave him an incredulous look, but nodded all the same. "I can see to that," she threatened, pulling out her take out boxes. She split the food up, putting half of each dish into on box, and then the other halves into another, then handed Kathleen one. "Do you want something to drink? Soda or water?"

"Water is fine," Kathleen told her, taking a bite of the chicken fried rice. Olivia nodded and headed into the kitchen, grabbing two bottles of water from the fridge. When she returned she handed one to Kathleen and sat back down on the couch, turned towards the TV. "Did you find something to watch?" she questioned, frowning as another commercial came on.

Kathleen nodded, "Some Clint Eastwood movie that dad said was really good..."

Olivia nearly chocked on her water, then sent a dirty look at her partner, who only shrugged and did his best to look innocent. Kathleen didn't understand, so she paid no attention to them, and focused on the movie as it came back on. Elliot and Olivia were still looking at each other, and the expression on his face was now far from innocent. He smiled guiltily, sending chills down her spine. Good Lord in Heaven, how could he possibly have such a profound effect on her by smiling!

He noticed her dilemma, which only caused the smile on his face to turn into a full out grin. She did her best not to melt into a pile of goo all over her couch but for the life of her could not get enough sense to look away from him.

In her mind's eye she went back to hours earlier, when they had been kissing, and she could feel her cheeks flush with the memory. Elliot was looking at her as if he could jump her right then and there and not regret it or feel the consequences, leaving Olivia to thank God that his daughter was there so that neither one of them could do something that she would regret. Finally able to pull her eyes away from his she turned towards the movie and sighed, something he had said to her earlier echoing in her mind.

"Why shouldn't we try, you never know, we could be wonderful together."

She could already feel herself giving in...

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A/N: Well there it is... more angst, but this time it's on Elliot, too. I felt bad for Olivia, I was dumping her with all the confusion... it didn't seem fair. :) Anyway, let me know.