Disclaimer: I don't own SVU
Daddies Hands
I remember daddies' hands
Folded silently in prayer
And reaching out to hold me
When I had a nightmare
It's been years since I've seen them but I can remember them like yesterday. They always held me tight and that's one thing I'll always remember. When I first realized the importance of him he was too far gone for me to tell him. I guess you remember little things about people, the way they smelled, or for me the way it felt when they held you. He's been gone for four years now mom and the girls aren't close with them anymore. For a while it was the same with me seeing them laughing together ripped my heart out every time because there was an empty space where he should stand.
One day I got into a fight at school, mom tried as hard as she could to talk to me but it didn't work she couldn't tell me like he could. I left home that night to go to the one person who reminded me the most of my father. She held me close while I cried about him, looking around her walls I could see all the people she had lost all over her apartment. Her mother, and my father where decorating the walls of her small place along with pictures of all of us and the squad. She told me that she missed him too that she missed him every day so much that even being in the squad room was too much for her. She told me it was ok to cry because he had before; she told me he had cried on her shoulder just like I had just moments before. She called mom and got permission for me to stay the night and we curled up on the couch together both crying and watching a movie that one of them had made her of all the moments between them that she wanted to remember.
You could read quite a story
In the calluses and lines
Years of work and worry
Had left there mark behind
There all still around and where close but it's her that I called to help me tell him, her that I called to tell my father the most important news of my life. She was there when I told him of my enlistment into the Marines, my acceptance into the police academy, and my position as one of her detectives in the SVU, and my marriage to my partner Holly. Hearing her call me Stabler in the room killed her for the first few weeks and she and I went for drinks every night until we fell into a routine. Around the squad room to her I was 'mini Stabler' that kept her more easygoing about things. I held the certificate in my hand, not the official one of course but the one that I would be giving to him.
"Hey" she says coming up beside me, age has only made her beauty grow streaks of fine white hair add a certain bit of maturity to the hair she had dyed back years before, he had always told her he liked it better that way. She is dressed all in black and she holds something she's fought for, something that kept her going in the early days of his death and has kept her strong through everything else.
"What's up?" I say with a nod, she hands it out to me and the leather case brings me back yet again. I can remember feeling its worn texture when he would give it to me to help me through a rough time, I can feel his hands filled with calluses and lines. If I close my eyes I can see him handing me the case and telling me it will keep the monsters away. I always remember him better around her, it could be because they where so close, or maybe because like me she still remembers. Mom remarried and she's happy and all but I can't forget like she can, I still like her see his face every day before I fall asleep and every morning when I wake up.
"Hi daddy" I say with my eyes still closed, I see him turn to face me and nod at me to continue. "I guess that there's only one way to say this… Holly had our babies, my little boy and girl. His name is Elliot Richard Stabler, and hers is Olivia Holly Stabler I left to come tell you and give you something." His smile is proud and he nods to me telling me in his own way he's proud of me.
I remember daddy's hands
How they held my momma tight
And patted my back for something done right
There are things that I've forgotten
That I've loved about the man
But I'll always remember the love in daddy's hands
I can still remember him reaching out to her in the movie, he was shot in the line of duty and she was there also shot. She was in a coma for six weeks and he died on the operating table as he lay in a pool of blood his hands reached out to her to touch her. I can feel them on my shoulder as I walk back into the hospital room with her to meet my children. I saw the tears pouring down her face when she heard that her name would be carried on in our daughter. I hold the case in my hand having already buried the birth certificate of my son and daughter's birth with my father so he can remember them for all time. Holly has never met Olivia I don't know why but I felt a need to keep her mine all mine my only link to my father but it's time they met. I want my children to hear of there grandfather and what a man he was.
"Olivia" my mother says surprised, it could be that Olivia still looks beautiful where my mother deteriorated in her age. Finding out her new husband was cheating on her had pushed her heavily to the bottle. Lately she had been trying to make a recovery and had done very well for herself.
"Kathy It's been a while" she says extending her hand to the woman, her husband looks Olivia up and down but I can't help but laugh. Olivia has also married a lawyer named Trevor Langan. They have two children that are currently on vacation with him in Boston visiting his parents who never liked Olivia much.
"It has" my mother says retracting her hand.
"Olivia, hi" Maureen says coming over with my other sisters to envelop Olivia in warm hug's. She pulls back smiling still the same Olivia if not a bit wiser.
"I think it's time to meet my wife" I say taking her elbow and guiding her to my wife's room, nobody else has been in to see her yet that is an honor for my father and Olivia.
"You must be Holly" Olivia says moving to the side of the bed immediately.
"What clued you in, the fact that I'm the only whale in the room" my wife says her sense of humor much like Munches. Olivia laugh's musically and I can see my father's hands on her shoulders as he laughs too looking down at my wife.
Daddy's hands where soft and kind when I was cryin
Daddy's hands where hard a steel when I'd done wrong
Daddy's hands weren't always gentle
But I've come to understand
There was always love in daddy's hands
Dad never hit me; he did put his fist through a wall when he found out that I got suspended for threatening a kid. His hands where so strong and all I ever wished was that I could have the hands he had because in my childish mind the strength in his hands made him the super hero that I loved. I only hope that I can be half the father to my children that my own father was to me.
He would teach us things even when we didn't want to listen, he taught me how to be a man without ever knowing it. When I saw the video I saw how even with two bullets in his chest he tried to survive, he tried to hold it together and survive for us. Olivia told my mother when we where around that she had passed out when he had pulled her head to him and spoken in her ear but she pulled us aside privately and told us what he had said. Standing above my son and daughter she does what I asked her to do the day I found out my daughter was pregnant she recites the speech my father had told her in the last five minutes of his life and my wife listens as her musical voice floats through the room.
"Seven men are born at the same time, to rich parents that treat them like kings. All seven loose there parents on the same day and all seven inherit millions of dollars. The first man spends it on fast cars and expensive jewelry for his wife. The second puts it in the bank and it grows and grows making him the richest man in the world. The third blows all his money in Las Vegas on women and gambling. The fourth puts half his money in a vault and the other half he uses to buy a big expensive house. The fifth uses it to buy up his entire town and become mayor. The sixth uses it to bribe the police to never bother him. The seventh looks around and sees the others using there money the way they have, he takes five dollars and he follows his six comrades around giving money and help to the people that the men hurt in there rampage. That man was the first policeman that man is what you think of when you think of your grandfather, your grandfather didn't want to leave the way he did but if he had to die at all he feels honored that he did it as the seventh man did. Stopping destruction and pain caused by others" Olivia caresses the children's cheeks and turns.
I hold my crying wife in my arms and nod to Olivia, she smiles at me quietly and leaves the room for the sanctity of the squad room the one place she can go to remember my father and be with him.
I remember daddy's hands
Workin till they bled
Sacrificed unselfishly
Just to keep us all fed
If I could do things over
I'd live my life again
And never take for granted
The love in daddy's hands
I remember the way he looked at me when he handed me the case I now hold, Its been ten years since Olivia and Elliot where born and my wife and the older waits downstairs. My son and daughter sit before me in the room I have dedicated to my father and Olivia, the leather case Olivia gave me is the final touch, she died two days ago a man went crazy a the precinct and she took a bullet for me, she and Trevor had drifted in the years of there marriage and her children had drifted into other careers she gave me the leather case that rests in my other hand.. I hold the two cases in my hands and turn to my expectant children. My son looks so much like my father I find it hard to believe he is not my brother. My daughter has the soft blonde hair and light green eyes that make her the spitting image of my wife while thanks to countless sleepovers my little girl also shares Olivia's stubbornness and determination.
"There are two people who care about you very much and unfortunately they aren't with us anymore" I say, my daughters eyes cloud with tears and my son sits a little straighter in his chair.
"There where things they had that meant more to them then anything, things that they cherished as much as a child and they would want you to have them. My daughter looks at the case I handed her and sees Olivia's face staring back at her from the formal NYPD ID, she fingers the cold badge that seems to have lost it's shine since her death. My son stares at the face of his grandfather and instead of studying the badge like his sister does he puts it securely in his pocket and I know he will have his tears later.
"They loved you, don't you ever forget how much they loved you" I say hugging my children tightly. Looking up I see Olivia with her hand in my fathers, they look as they did when they first met happy and full of life as they nod to me. My father looks at her and she nods with a smile releasing her hand. He moves toward me standing tall as my father alwiase did, I stand to meet him and he shakes my hand. As we pull back he takes my wrist and places my hand against his and I see that they are the same size and the same strength resides in them that resided in my fathers.
"Daddy what's this" my son asks pulling a folded piece of paper from the case. As I look down at it my eyes fill with tears and my father nods to me before backing up and taking Olivia's hand before they disappear.
Richard,
I knew Olivia would give this to you, it's the only request I made of her if I died or perhaps I gave it to you who knows. Son you and your sisters are the reason I get up in the morning, no matter how much terror I see every day you kids are my refuge. If you have this than I didn't come home to you and I can't tell you how sorry I am. Just know that I love you with all my heart and that you can get through it you are my strength.
All my love,
Dad
Daddy's hands where soft and cold when I was cryin
Daddy's hands where hard as steel when I'd done wrong
Daddy's hands weren't always gentle
But I've come to understand
There was alwiase love in daddy's hands
Daddy's hands where soft and kind when I was cryin
Daddy's hands where hard as steel when I'd done wrong
But I've come to understand
There was always love in daddy's hands
R&R Finnished