A/N: This is a birthday present for eoswiftie26, who first came up with the idea of Elliot giving Olivia a snowglobe and graciously allowed me to run with it. I won't have this whole thing finished in time for your birthday, but I wanted to go ahead and get started. Enjoy!
Olivia didn't even like snowglobes, not really. That was the funny part, the little inside joke only she was privy to. The whole thing had begun innocuously, quite unintentionally, and really she would have happily forgotten all about it, but no one ever seemed to want to let her.
She was twelve when she received her very first snowglobe. At that time Serena had been embroiled in a tawdry affair with a married Classics professor named Gregory. It wasn't like Serena had a lot of boyfriends while Olivia was growing up, and Olivia had never really forgotten him. The tweed jackets, the smell of pipe smoke, the bushy eyebrows, the expression of guilt he wore near constantly; Gregory lived on in her memory, perfectly preserved as he once had been, so desperately stereotypical it was hard to believe he'd ever really existed at all. But he had, and Olivia had the proof.
The day after Christmas 1981 Gregory turned up at the Benson residence with four bottles of Italian red for Serena, and a hastily wrapped box for Olivia. Though Serena wasn't hurting for money she could be somewhat lackadaisical when it came to marking occasions, and the presents Olivia had received that year had all been underwhelming. It was with great excitement, then, that she'd torn that box open, her little mind racing with all sorts of possibilities while the adults retreated to the kitchen in search of a corkscrew, having forgotten Olivia entirely.
When she finally retrieved the contents of the box she'd been all but breathless, though her excitement was turned to disappointment in a moment. Gregory had brought her a snowglobe, a tiny stone Colosseum inside it, the word Roma etched across the base, a trinket he'd no doubt picked up on his last trip to Italy. Olivia dutifully turned it over and then righted it again, watched the snow swirling around the crumbling arches, aware in some distant corner of her young mind that she ought to have felt some sort of awe, or wonder, or whimsy when she looked at it, and somewhat concerned to find she felt nothing at all. There must be something wrong with me, she'd thought, watching the swirling snow, but then she'd known that already. Serena had made that quite clear; Olivia was wrong, and probably always would be.
The adults were paying her no mind, and so Olivia slipped away into her bedroom, burrowed beneath the covers with the snowglobe in hand, turning and turning and turning it for hours, searching her heart for the Christmas cheer that everyone else seemed to feel, that she herself had never known. When Serena came to wake her for breakfast the next morning she found Olivia asleep with the snowglobe tucked against her, and mistook the proximity of the thing for fondness. Serena had been delighted that Olivia so enjoyed her present, and Olivia didn't have the heart to tell her the truth, and so the snowglobe took up residence on her bedside table as if it were a treasure.
Six months later Gregory was out of the picture; Olivia hadn't understood at the time, hadn't known why Serena flew into a rage when she heard Gregory refer to Olivia as your little Lolita, hadn't understood why Serena had sulked around for days afterwards when she was the one who'd sent Gregory away, hadn't understood why Serena looked at her daughter with something like loathing, something like jealousy, in her eyes. There were a lot of things Olivia hadn't understood then that she understood now.
By then the snowglobe was a fixture in Olivia's bedroom, though, as unremarkable and unchanging as wallpaper, and it remained by her bed until she left for college. The night before she was set to leave for her freshman year she'd been pacing through her bedroom, running through the list of things she'd need in her head, asking herself if there was anything she'd forgotten. Clothes and toiletries and school supplies, she had all the practical things taken care of, but there was hardly anything of sentimental value in her bags. She had no photographs to take with her, no posters to hang on the walls, no collage of ticket stubs or teenage artwork. Olivia had precious few friends, and she and Burton had never taken any photos together at all, and she didn't much want to hang a picture of her mother on the wall, would feel too much like a penitent hanging a crucifix above their bed.
Her eyes landed on the snowglobe, and she picked it up at once, bundled it up in a sweater and tucked it into the top of her bag. There was nothing special about it, really, nothing that filled her heart with joy, but it was hers. There was so little in life that was hers, and she felt compelled to bring it with her.
And so she did, and the snowglobe traveled with her, back and forth, until her junior year of college. By then she was living in the sorority house on campus, sharing a room with her friend Sarah, happier than she had ever been in all her life. Sarah spent the summer between sophomore and junior year in Spain, and when the pair reunited in the fall Sarah had a gift for Olivia. A snowglobe, this one containing a miniature version of the Cathedral of Barcelona. For your collection, Sarah had told her, grinning. Before that moment Olivia hadn't even realized that Sarah had noticed the first snowglobe, and she found herself quite suddenly touched by her friend's care, while at the same time a little embarrassed. She didn't want to collect snowglobes, but the gesture had been so kind she could hardly set the record straight.
After that every time one of her sisters left the country they came back with a snowglobe for her, and by the time Olivia graduated she had seven of the damn things. A Grand Tour's worth of snowglobes, from a laundry list of places Olivia had never been, places she'd never be able to go so long as she was reliant on her mother's approval - and funding. The snowglobes came with her back to the city, though, and formed a merry gathering on her dresser, for as little as she cared for the objects themselves she loved the girls who had given them to her, and the collection served as a reminder that she was loved in turn.
Over the years two of her boyfriends had taken note of the collection, and presented her with offerings of their own, and she kept them, even after those relationships ended, little reminders of the path her own life had charted, the journey she had undertaken. Gregory was lost to time and she fell out of touch with her sorority sisters as her work with the police soaked up nearly every minute of her waking hours and she never talked to either of those boyfriends after the breakups, but the memory of their loved remained, a comfort to her sometimes, an accusation at others. You were loved, once; the thought could be both balm and admonishment.
The day she started at SVU was the very first time in her professional life that Olivia had her own desk. She'd arrived with nothing more than a coffee mug and her gun, resolved not to clutter her desk with personal things until she saw how her new squadmates treated their own workspaces. The other desks in the bullpen were hardly decorated, but each of her colleagues had brought some personal items, a picture or two, a handful of small knick-knacks. Six months into her new assignment Olivia carried a single photograph of herself with Serena and the Colosseum snowglobe into the office, and set them down on her desk when no one was looking, hoping not to draw attention to the new additions.
Elliot noticed right away, of course.
" 's cute," he'd said, pointing to the snowglobe with one of those sideways little smiles that made her heart go warm and soft. "You never said you'd been to Italy."
"I haven't," she told him, and he raised one of his eyebrows at her, silently prompting her to explain.
"It's a gift from a friend," she said. It was a blatant lie, but it was easier than the truth. The truth was messy, and complicated, and sad, and it would take too long to explain, and she'd only known Elliot for half a year; she wasn't ready, then, to peel back the layers of bandages she had wrapped around that wound, wasn't ready to reveal to him the tender underbelly of her soul. Wasn't ready then; she would be, eventually. Just not yet.
That year, Olivia volunteered to take the Christmas shifts with Munch. Elliot had a family, and so she thought he ought to be at home, and she didn't feel like she was doing him a favor and she didn't want to make him ask for one. It wasn't like she and Munch had anyone to celebrate with; it was no great sacrifice for them to spend that time together and allow the others a chance to be with the ones they loved. Olivia would go to her mother's the day after Christmas - if Serena wasn't too hungover for visitors - and it would be strange and mournful the way their Christmases always were, and none of that was Elliot's fault, and forcing him to grovel for the time off, or making him work, wouldn't change Olivia's circumstances in the slightest. Best just to let it be, she thought.
On the 23rd, a cold and blustery day, Elliot arrived at the station bearing a small box wrapped haphazardly in plain brown paper, and placed it on Olivia's desk with a flourish.
"What's this?" she asked, alarmed; she'd not thought to bring a gift for him. No one else on the squad had handed out presents, and she'd thought she was in the clear, and now she just felt foolish, and a little guilty. A gift brought with it an expectation of reciprocity, in most cases, and she wouldn't be able to him anything today, while they were side by side every minute, and she'd not see him again until after Christmas, at which point it would be obvious that she'd forgotten about him and scrambled around for something last minute, and truth be told she was a little miffed about the whole thing.
"Don't look at me like that," he said, grinning. "You don't have to get me anything. It's just…I wanted to say thanks, for taking the Christmas shift. You already gave me a present. That one's yours."
Olivia frowned at him; that was not the way Christmas presents worked, and they both knew it. She hadn't given him anything; really, she'd taken those shifts for herself, had arranged to be busy over the holiday so she wouldn't have to sit in her apartment alone while the rest of the world seemed cozy and warm and full of love. She was glad to be working on Christmas; it hardly counted as a present for Elliot.
But he'd bought her something, and she could hardly chide him for it. Serena had been lax in many of her responsibilities as a mother, but she had always valued appearances and courtesy, and she had drilled the concept of manners into her daughter. Olivia would not spurn this gift.
"Thanks," she said, reaching for the box.
"Go on, open it," he urged her, looking eager, excited, happy, like a child. Like a child at Christmas, and as heavy as Olivia's heart was his enthusiasm was infectious. She grinned as she tore open the paper, as she lifted the flaps of the thin cardboard box inside, and that smile only grew as she pulled out a snowglobe.
Inside was a miniature Empire State Building, bearing a cheesy "I heart New York" banner, the kind of thing found in all the touristy shops in Times Square this time of year.
"Figured you should have a souvenir from some place you've been," Elliot explained. He looked so fucking pleased with himself and his tacky gift; if they hadn't been surrounded by witnesses she might have hugged him then. Might have hugged him, and told him earnestly that she loved it, this gift he had given to her. Elliot had begged her for help buying presents for his wife and bitched about the endless list of items Kathy had procured for the kids, but he had picked this one out himself, had gone out and purchased something just for her, something he hoped - something he knew - she would like, because he knew her.
"It's perfect," she told him. "Thanks."
That snowglobe took up residence next to the one from Rome, and stayed there on her desk for the next thirteen years. The day Cragen told her Elliot was leaving she buried both snowglobes in the bottom drawer of her desk, hid them away until the end of the day, until she could put them in her purse and take them home. Elliot was gone, and he took his easy smiles and his compassion and her trust and her hope with him. At some point she was gonna get a new partner, was gonna have to start all over again just like she'd done with Elliot, but she wasn't gonna make the same mistake. The new guy, whoever he was, she wasn't going to give him as much of herself as she'd given to Elliot. Everybody always leaves, Serena had told her, and now Olivia knew that was true, and all she could do was try to limit the pieces of herself they took with her when they went. Damage control.
Those two snowglobes, she took them home and lined them up with the others on her dresser. All together there were now ten of them. One from Gregory, a memento of a tumultuous and not particularly happy childhood, six from her sorority sisters, memories of love and companionship, two from boyfriends, reminders of the choices she had made and the future she longed for, and one from Elliot, a talisman of grief, like a shirt from a departed lover kept in the back of a closet. Those snowglobes told the story of her life, of the people who had come to her and gone, and sometimes she hated the fucking things, really she did, but most of the time she loved them, not for what they were, but for what they once had been. Like a schoolgirl hoarding notes from her crush in a shoebox under the bed Olivia kept the snowglobes to remind her what it was to feel connected to someone else. Every now and then, on lonesome nights, she took the one Elliot had given her and curled up in bed with it, watched the snow swirling around the Empire State Building, and wondered what might have been if only life were just a little kinder.
Lewis found the snowglobes, while he was loitering in her apartment. He broke one of them over her head, the one Lily had brought her from London. Olivia never really liked that one, anyway.
The years passed, and it wasn't until Noah that her collection began to expand once more. That first Christmas with him, she'd gone all out. Bought a tree for the first time in her entire adult life - an artificial one, sure, but a nice one - covered it in lights and kitschy ornaments. She promised herself that over the years she'd replace the nondescript baubles and somewhat lopsided angels with ornaments that meant something, that she'd grow a real collection for Noah to cherish, but she didn't want the tree to be bare at first. She hung garland and put a wreath on the door and read Noah picture books about Santa, and one day while she bustled around a toy store in search of gifts to give him, she spotted a wall of snowglobes. There was one with a big brown teddy bear inside it, a sweet little thing that called to her, even though Noah was so little he probably wouldn't care about it all. She brought it home, but didn't bother wrapping it; that night she sat on the sofa with Noah on her lap, and turned the snowglobe for him, watched his eyes light up in wonder as the snow swirled all around.
"Isn't it pretty?" she said to him. Noah looked up at her, smiling, his eyes wide and filled with wonder, his sweet little face reflecting the glow of the lights on the Christmas tree, and for the first time in her entire life she found something worth celebrating in Christmas.
It wasn't long after that Tucker took her to Paris; her heart was broken, and he knew she'd always wanted to go, and he had, quietly, gently, been searching for some way to make her happy. That he'd remembered her bashful confession, that he'd worked so hard to make her dreams come true, that meant everything to her, and she wanted to remember those days - walking along the Seine, Noah between them, each of them holding one of his little hands, feeling like a family - for the rest of her life. It was like something from a dream, that trip to Paris; it was a glimpse of what could have been, what might be, a taste of a future she'd thought was beyond her reach. She'd always thought happy endings were for other people, but Paris felt like the start of something worth having, and while they were there Tucker picked out a snowglobe, just for her. The Eiffel Tower, a reminder of their trip to the very top and the way Noah had squealed in delight when they looked out at the city. For your collection, Tucker had told her, and she'd kissed him, and she'd been happy.
But she'd been right; she wasn't meant for happy endings. Tucker left, and then he died, and Noah grew up and forgot all about him. The day after Tucker's funeral she brought the Paris snowglobe into her office, placed it on her desk next to a picture of Noah, and she kept it there, something for her to look at on hard days, a reminder of a time when life had been good, and she had been happy. She was not happy now, but she had been, once. Maybe she could be again.
The days passed, and life grew dark and grim, and the snowglobe on her desk sat untouched, and she packed away the collection in her apartment, tried to focus on the future. Noah was too old to care much about the teddy bear snowglobe any more, and the one Elliot had given her just made her sad, and she'd read in the paper that Gregory had died. The snowglobes were like tombstones, now, monuments to everyone who had loved her and left, and there was so much grief in her life already. There was no point, she thought, in adding to it.
And then, on a cold and rainy night at the very beginning of spring, Elliot came home.