Influenza
Chapter Twenty Nine
Disclaimer: Nah, the show and the characters don't belong to me. That's Dick Wolf and all those cooperate types claim to fame, not mine. I only have these stories.
A/N: I know very little about dancing, in general, so if I get something wrong, I'm sorry!
XXXX
Olivia sighed deeply and looked up at the building, nervousness fluttering in her stomach. She was really doing this, she realized, as Elliot shut off his car, looking over at her with a sly grin. He was looking forward to these lessons, why else would he have bought them for her? He was a better dancer, she knew, he had been married for years, so a basic knowledge of dancing had been required. But when it came to her, she hadn't been dancing more than five times in the last five years. And even then, it had been nothing extravagant, not like the lessons were going to include.
"You ready?" he asked, pulling his keys from the ignition.
"I don't really have much of an option, do I?" she questioned, looking up at the building again. "I mean, they're already bought and paid for."
"If you don't want to," Elliot told her, "we can go back home."
She shook her head, "No... let's do this."
He nodded, opening the car door and walking around the side to let her out. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, she pulled her coat tightly around her frame and leaned into his side for added warmth. He shut the door behind her, brought his arm around her waist, and led her up the sidewalk and into the building. It was two floors up, and there was a wait at the elevator, so they opted to take the stairs instead.
Stopping outside the door to the studio, he paused and looked over at her, "Are you sure you want to do this?"
She nodded, reaching for the handle, and twisting it open. When they walked into the room there were already a few more couples gathered around, chatting with each other. They looked up at the sound of the door being opened, but went right back to their earlier activities when they saw it was just another couple. Looking around the room, Olivia felt the butterflies in her stomach quicken their pace. She was not a dancer.
They found a secluded area of the room, and Olivia continued her evaluation of the others around her. Thankfully, none of them had worn dresses or skirts, something she summed up to as weather related, since it was the dead of winter, two days away from the start of 2005. Like her, most of the women were wearing jogging pants, some even had on cotton pajama bottoms, and the men were simply wearing jeans, like Elliot.
He helped her out of her coat, hanging it up on the rack along with his own. It was a bit warm in the room, so she pushed up her sleeves and leaned up against the wall, which was cool to the touch. He leaned against the wall beside her, looking at her with slight amusement. "Just think, after tonight, we only have five more sessions."
She snorted, and opened her mouth to reply, when the door opened and a medium height woman, dark auburn hair to her shoulders, and a warm smile entered. After glancing around the room for a moment, she too shed her coat and left it on the hanger. "Bonjour!" her noticeably French accent spread throughout the room, causing nervous smiles to appear on most of the women's faces. "Bienvenue, Je suis Caroline."
For a moment, most in the room looked panicked, surely this woman would not be speaking French for the entire lessons. With a knowing look, and a well placed chuckle, Caroline entered into the room, "I am your dance instructor."
Thankful that the woman spoke perfectly fluent English, the couples chattered lightly for a moment, before once again turning their attention to Caroline.
"We will meet six times in the next six weeks," she continued, "two hours a night. In our time together, we will be learning five dances, the Foxtrot, Waltz, Tango, Cha Cha, and Rumba. On our last meeting, we will review all that we have learned. Today, we begin with the Foxtrot."
XXXX
"Okay, everybody facing each other?" Caroline looked around the room, at the seven couples standing face-to-face. "Bon! Now, the male will step forward with his right foot, while the female steps back with her left." The couples did as told and Caroline once again began to instruct, "Alright... now the male will take a step forward with his left foot, left side leading, and prepare to step outside your partner."
The meeting progressed as such, and in the end, Olivia and Elliot left with a few sore toes and bruised egos, but then again, so did most of the couples. They had gotten the basic knowledge of the Foxtrot down, and Caroline had informed them that on their last meeting, which would more than likely last for longer than two hours, they would be reviewing all the dances they had learned. Until then, she suggested, they should keep practicing what they had learned.
That hadn't done any extra dancing that night, basically because they were both too exhausted to do much of anything, but they made plans to the next night, and perhaps even a bit New Years Eve. There was going to be a party, for the members of the 1-6, but they hadn't confirmed nor denied their intent on whether or not to attend. Olivia claimed she would rather have a quite evening at one of their apartments, watching the ball drop in silence, together, like Christmas. Elliot was willing to do anything to make her happy.
They parted ways for the night, Elliot dropping Olivia off at her place, then returning home, since his children were staying over. Since they knew about the lessons, Maureen having been the one to suggest them in the first place, it wasn't hard to sneak away for a couple of hours, and Kathleen had promised to make dinner and put on a movie for the twins, before ushering them off to bed at ten.
When he got home, his middle child was passed out on the couch, and woke slightly at the noise of his entrance. When he sat down on the couch next to her, she peaked out through on eye to look at him, then closed it, satisfied that it wasn't one of the twins breaking curfew. He suppressed a chuckle, then pulled the cover she was using up over her shoulders, and kissed her on the forehead. "Goodnight, sweetheart." he told her quietly, getting up from the couch.
"G'night daddy." she replied, before slipping off, once again, to the land of dreams.
XXXX
There were only five more minutes left in the year of 2005, and Olivia and Elliot were curled up on her couch, coffee cups discarded on the table in front of them, blankets pulled up tightly around their bodies. It was snowing outside, nothing too heavy, but enough that there would be at least two inches covering the ground by the morning. Not that it mattered, both had the day off, in light of the holiday, and the strange occurrence that both had somebody to spend it with.
"Olivia?" Elliot asked, earning a low 'hmm' from the woman lying in his arms. "When would be a good time for me to re-ask the moving in question?"
She turned slightly to look at him, a small smile dancing across her face, "Oh... I dunno, a couple of weeks, one month, tops."
"But not yet, huh?"
Shaking her head, she replied, "Nah. Not yet."
"Because we're taking things slow?" he said, more of a question than a statement.
"As slow as the situation can call for, I guess..." she answered.
"Situation?"
"We've known each other for the better part of a decade," she declared. "We were partners before an item. Friends– best friends, who knew almost everything there was to know about each other. The 'getting to know each other' stage was already passed up when we got together, but those were simply superficial things. I knew about you as a father, your years in the Marines, almost everything about how hard it was for you being the second oldest– when your brother went off to college, and you had to watch after your sisters. Those things. You knew about my mother, lack of a father, my E! True Hollywood story about growing up in an alcoholic household, having to clean up after my mother and ignore the things she said in her drunken rages. But neither of us could even begin to comprehend what the other was like, romantically, completely open, like we do now. That's what we've been taking time with, getting to know the other side of each other."
He took her speech in, and was preparing to reply when the ten second countdown began. Both immediately turned their attention to the television screen, watching as the ball began to drop. It occurred to Olivia how strange it was that they were watching it on TV, when, just a few miles away, it was happening in Time Square, and more likely than not, if they turned off the program, they could hear it live, and she reached over and pressed 'mute', just in time to hear the roar of 'five, four, three, two, one! HAPPY NEW YEAR" filter in, even through the closed windows.
She turned to look at Elliot, still wrapped up in his arms, and smiled, "Happy New Year."
He grinned, his hands running up her back, and ending up tangled in her hair, "Happy New Year, Liv," he whispered, before he pulled her closer to him, crushing her lips with his own. She couldn't help but smiling into the embrace, as she wondered when the last time she reigned in the New Year this way was, but those thoughts instantly vanished as he deepened the kiss, stealing her breath away.
Her hands disappeared under his shirt, as she fought against pulling away from the embrace. In the end, lack of oxygen won out, and she was forced to break the kiss, albeit it grudgingly. She took a second to regain her breath, kissing him softly before pulling back once more, staring into his eyes, and shivering, not because of the mid-winter weather, rather the intense look in his eyes, and the knowledge that her own held the same smoldering intensity.
Olivia reached up-- somewhat surprised that she was lying with her back against the seat cushions of the couch, Elliot hovering above her– and ran her fingers along his jaw line, before pulling him back towards her, and into another kiss. "You know," she said, in-between kisses, her nails raking up and down the length of his back, which she was again, surprised, to find was bare. "I think... it may be time... to speed things... up a bit."
His grin was confirmation enough for her, and as he tugged at the hem of her shirt she realized, that she had never had a New Years Eve quite like this.
XXXX
Olivia rolled over in her bed, peeking through one eye to glance at the alarm clock on her night stand. It was a brighter red than she realized, and she had to squint from the change in color, before reading that it was just after three o'clock in the morning. That was great– she had only been sleeping a little over an half an hour.
The cell phone next to her alarm vibrated once more, sending off a buzzing sound that reminded her of why she had woken in the first place. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Elliot was still asleep, and had to fight the urge to figure out a few new methods of waking him. She reached for her phone, glancing at the caller ID before she answered it. Frustrated when she saw that it wasn't a number she knew, she flipped open the phone, figuring it could be any one of the victims she handed out her card to, or various cops who had her information. "Benson," she said quietly, hoping not to wake her sleeping partner.
"Olivia?" the voice asked, breaking through what was clearly tears. "Is my father there?"
"Maureen?" the woman asked. "Honey, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," the college student promised, "I just need– can I please talk to my father?"
"Of course," Olivia assured her, not even caring whether or not this confirmed certain aspects of her relationship for the girl. "Hold on just a second." She turned around, pulling the covers up over her bare body, and gently shook him. "Elliot," she whispered, "Elliot wake up."
He groaned, trying to turn away from her, but she grabbed his jaw gently, "It's Maureen... I think something's wrong."
That seemed to get his attention, because the next thing she knew he was sitting up straight in the bed, searching for the phone. She handed it to him, and he had a choppy conversation with his daughter. "Where are you right now?" he finally asked, his face grief stricken. There was a pause, and then, "Of course not, baby. I'm on my way." He hung up the phone, and handed it to Olivia, before sliding out of bed and searching for his clothes.
"Elliot," she asked, "what's wrong?"
He looked over at her, as he pulled on his jeans, "It's Maureen," he stated. "She and Kathleen were just in a car wreck."
XXXX
A/N: This chapter was kind of a pain in the butt to write. I'm glad it's finally done and over with! Speaking of done, I think that this next chapter, Chapter 30, will be the last one. Either it'll be really long, or I'll cut it short and have an epilogue. I don't know. Anyway. Please let me know what you think, as always. I still live for feedback!