Disclaimer
I'd like to thank the Academy. I'd like to thank Dick Wolf for not suing me, and Olivia and Elliot for letting me play with them on occasion. I'd like to thank Kathy for leaving and Fin for his Ghetto speak. Oh, and I'd like to thank Christopher Meloni for being so tasty :o)
A/N: Just a note to say thank you for all of the wonderful reviews, they have been very much appreciated, y'all are awesome :o) This next part is meant to run kinda parallel with the first chapter. I have agonized over every single word and I have my reservations, but I hope that it works in the way it is intended. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the issue. Hope you like it :o)
Lower Manhattan
Elliot arrives at the scene in a blustering whirlwind of confusion, chaos and desperation. He has, like the others, heard the call. Ten-thirteen. Shots fired. Elliot knows what it means and he knows somewhere in this nightmare a cop is in trouble. His cobalt gaze sweeps the scene before him, searching for a semblance of his partner. He thinks he sees her in the distance, a dark head bent conversing with an associate and he imagines her eyes sparkling with concern as she speaks to the person. Like a wave crashing against the shore, he feels relief flow through his veins as his consciousness sends a joyous message to his soul that she is unharmed.
The trouble with waves is that they abate almost as quickly as they rise.
He takes only a few steps towards her before he realizes it is not Olivia, and he wonders how he could have made such an error. Her hair does not catch the light in quite the same way, and her eyes do not shine with the same compassion. Had he been thinking with his head and not his heart he would have recognized these discrepancies immediately. He had wanted it to be her, and for an instant at least, his sentient mind had obeyed the command of its subconscious master.
With a sigh of irritation he turns his gaze from this woman and continues his search. He moves toward a pocket of vehicles and a scattering of uniformed officers, determined to understand what is happening here at this chaotic scene and praying to all the deities of heaven and earth that he will find the answers he seeks so that his world can be righted onto its axis once more.
"What the hell happened?"
He speaks the words with the rabid desperation reserved for a dying man, and he resists the urge to coil his fingers in the starched collar of an officer indolently positioned beside a patrol car. It is unfathomable to him how calm can co-exist with anarchy, and he wants nothing more than to shake him into movement as though the action alone will cause his partner to appear somewhere in these disordered surroundings.
Frustration bubbles inside Elliot's chest like lava in an erupting volcano. The uniform does not get a chance to answer as he feels strong fingers curl around his shoulder. He needs it to be her, and he thinks he would sell his soul for it. He wants the dread clawing at his stomach to be borne of pointless concern, but he does not need to turn around to know the hand belongs to someone else. He turns and his gaze is met by his colleague's solemnly impassioned expression.
"Where is she?"
He does not need to qualify the statement; Fin knows he speaks of their Olivia.
"She's inside. With your perp. Uni's said she went in after the first shot. No contact since."
If his feet were not so firmly planted in the dust, he could be forgiven for thinking he is falling from the heavens above. He feels as though he is plummeting to earth and he urgently wants to pull the cord on his parachute of calm and halt this tumble into terror.
He knows that he is living, and that air is making its journey from throat to lung, but he feels as though he is gasping for breath in a world gone mad.
He can feel the desperation tearing at his chest, creating haphazardly gaping wounds in his conscious soul. Like the proverbial knight in shining armor he is ready to ride into battle and bring his damsel home and he almost laughs at the ridiculousness of his contemplation. If there is but one truth in his erroneous universe, it is that Olivia is no damsel in distress. He wants to save her all the same - protect her from pain and deliver her from evil. Elliot knows without any real thought that he would give his life for her salvation, but he will never tell her so. She would roll her eyes and think him foolish. And then she would kick his ass.
His charge into battle is halted with a firm hand on his chest and a caution from his colleague. He does not wish to hear the words, but he is grateful for the reality check all the same.
"Hold up, Elliot. You're not gonna do her any favors running in there like that Day-Lewis dude."
He knows his friend speaks the truth, but the knowledge does little to assuage the fear creeping stealthily through his heart.
Elliot thinks of the one who holds his Olivia inside the pathetic refuge, a desperate individual avenging the death of his love. He remembers the almost touchable rivers of rage permeating from Michael Thomas after the verdict. He could see the unconquerable mountain of devastation faced by a man who had lost his heart and soul.
Loss. It is a strange word, yet it is as familiar to him as the lines on his face. He has watched victims and their families deal with it in varying degrees and incarnations, but he had been unprepared for the epic chasm of hurt that appeared when loss tore his own life apart.
His wife had not died as Sarah Thomas had, but he had lost her all the same. When he thinks of Kathy it is a deep abiding ache, a poignant emptiness in his heart that cannot be replaced, but will heal in time. He understands why she left, but it does not make her decision any easier to accept. He had chosen his job over his family, and she couldn't forgive that. Truth be told, he couldn't blame her.
He is angry with himself over the demise of his family, the jagged incision left in its wake has permitted temporary passage to a swell of unimpeded fury into his heart. He thinks once more of Michael, and although he does not like it, Elliot can see himself mirrored in the hazel windows to their suspect's shattered soul.
He wonders now where such emotional intensity comes from and when his own rage began to take over his existence. He has spent months looking to place blame, existing amid a black cloud of despair that has pushed his heart to the limit and his control to breaking point. There have been days since his life fell to pieces when he thought death preferable to his living hell. Those were the moments that he sought solace in her strength, when he looked to her for guidance as though she were his lone connection to reality.
He knows Olivia has been reaching for him, but he has not yet been able to find purchase on her metaphorical lifeline. She cannot not bring his marriage back to him for the illusion of domesticity has long since danced away on the breeze but he knows if he reaches into the darkness she will grab his hand and pull him back into the light.
When he thinks of her, he sees truth and beauty that transcends the physical. She knows him well and gives his soul the clarity he needs to move forward despite the sadness and confusion in his world. He shares a part of himself with her that his wife had never been privy to and although he knows silence is to blame for the loss in his life, he will never apologize for it. He would walk through hell and fire to protect the ones he loved. It is who he is and always will be.
In that instant he does not know if there will ever be a world without war or who will win the next Superbowl, but he does know one thing is certain. He has lost so much already. He'll be damned if he loses her too.
Although he knows the gesture is futile, he reaches for the radio in Fin's hand. He depresses the button and speaks to his heart with urgency, demanding a response and praying for a sign. He knows she can hear his voice and he listens in hope, but the answering static gives him no solace.
Deep in his personal quagmire of reflection, he does not notice Fin watching the gamut of expressions running across his face. Elliot thinks of him as both colleague and friend yet he does not share his life with the man before him. He knows that beneath the weathered face there exists the astuteness of someone who has spent too many years on the job and has long since seen it all. Even so, his next words are as unexpected as a cold day in July.
"You love her, don't you?"
Yes. The knowledge hits him like an eastbound express train, although it is not unexpected collision. He thinks somewhere in his consciousness he has always known but never acknowledged. He is not a vocal advocate of Darwinian theory, but in that moment he believes in evolution. He thinks of their shifting to be such a gradual process that it has almost passed by unnoticed and he imagines this moment to be a catalyst of sorts. Like a caterpillar to a butterfly, he climbs out of the cocoon and realizes he has wings.
He cannot pinpoint the exact moment he fell out of love with his wife and in love with her. It has been a gradual engagement, like the transition from dawn to dusk, natural and inevitable. He curves his lips in a derisive smile of paradoxical sadness, and he thinks it typical of himself that it takes a modicum of doom to bring calm to the pandemonium of his soul. She is his truth, the nucleus of his volatile universe. In that, there is no mistake.
He does not respond to the question, for he knows it is rhetorical in tone. The answer is painted in the clouds and stars and his eyes for all to see, and with the solution he feels that he has progressed along his dark tunnel of despair and towards a playground of light.
It is exhilarating, this new found understanding, but it is useless to him whilst she is not by his side. His gaze is returned to the broken structure that forms the centerpiece of this chaotic scene, and he hopes it is not too late to nail the remains of the building and his life into place once more.
He has waged many a war in recent months but as hope begins a desperate battle with disaster in his heart, he realizes that for the first time he is uncertain which emotion will triumph. He will fight for her, yet he wonders how his soul can survive the combat when his spirit is inside an abandoned warehouse with an unreasonable man and a gun.
He freezes as the sound of a gunshot permeates the air.
It is as if everything is in slow motion, a muddled cacophony of light, sound and movement. He sees the other cops at the scene aim their weapons and he hears the flustered tones as they shout instructions to each other while moving for cover.
Elliot stands like an anchor in this chaotic sea, motionless and unsure of whether he should breathe or beg. He is a proud man, yet he would crawl on his knees through desert and snow if it meant he could have her safe by his side once more. And he knows without qualification that if the angels take her from him now, then his life is over too.
He doesn't realize he is holding his breath until he hears her voice over the radio. To the untrained ear, her tone is command laced with caramel, but he knows that beneath the composed exterior there is a surfeit of emotions creating divergences in her heart.
He wants to be there with her, inside the decaying building. He needs to see her more than tomorrow's sunrise and so he moves through the turmoil and towards his salvation. When he sees her silhouette framed in the doorway it is like a bonfire of hope for the embers of his battered soul.
Her eyes meet his above the chaos and below the sorrow, and he thinks he sees her chin tremble just a little as she seeks solace in his imagined strength. He watches, as she stands there, unmoving in the heart of confusion, the white print on her navy vest blemished with the telltale crimson stain of death.
In that moment he wants nothing more than to wrap her in his arms and absorb her hurt, because he knows she is about to break. He allows himself an epigrammatic examination and he fights the urge to count her fingers and toes, just to check. She catches him in his clandestine operation and she smiles through her fatigue. She knows that he loves to play protector, and he loves that she knows him so completely.
"Liv. You okay?"
"Yeah. Just tired."
She does not need to elaborate; yet he can't help but wonder if her exhaustion is borne of the events or of him. He prays she is not ready to give up on them just yet.
They look up as Fin exits the building, pausing briefly at their place in the dust to extol Olivia's fortitude in the face of adversity.
"Looks like homegirl here took his punk ass down. Bullet through the shoulder."
He moves off and away, like a dark shepherd in search of his flock, the lights creating comfortingly sinister patterns on the leather of his jacket. And then they are alone once more.
Elliot takes a chance, placing a finger beneath her chin, and tipping her head up to meet his gaze once more. Sapphire and toffee convene and merge in the space of an instant, and although he knows her thoughts and her heart as well as she knows his, he asks the question all the same. The detective in him needs the verbal verification.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Shut up Stabler, you're gonna make me cry."
He sees the truth of her statement as her eyes fill with the moisture of unshed tears and he watches as she tries desperately to keep the tidal wave of emotions at bay. He cannot define the source of her distress, for although she has been through much tonight he knows that circumstances alone are not enough to push her to breaking point.
He wants to ask her what it is that has caused her pain, yet he does not think he is ready to hear her response. Instead, he runs his hands underneath the dark circles of her eyes and along her jaw, as though the action could magically erase her invisible wounds.
In the next instant the sound of a siren punctures the moment and bursts it like a balloon at a children's party. He allows his arms to drop temporarily back to his side, before placing a hand on her back in his routinely insentient gesture of protection.
"Come on homegirl, I'll take your punk ass home."
He hears her answering laughter and the intensity of the minute before is forgotten for now. The sound is like a symphony to his tired heart, and he knows that for the first time in months her amusement is genuine. He thinks it happily peculiar that during such chaos, clarity can seep through the hurt and find a place to plant the seed of hope. Her mirth is like a lifeline, and with that simple sound she gives him the strength to believe in the future. Elliot Stabler knows that there is no greater gift than that.
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tbc?