August 1, 2014
"Will you tell me about Noah?"
"Please don't ask me that, Elliot," she said softly, sadly, turning away, her face so beautiful in profile it made his heart ache.
"Why not?"
Why wouldn't she want to talk about her son? He wondered. He'd never yet met a mother who wasn't eager to talk about her children. Bragging or bitching, they all had something to say. It was plain to him that Olivia loved her son, cherished him; she treated him gently and kissed him sweetly and sought to protect him, as much as she could while she was raising him in a brothel surrounded by untrustworthy characters. Elliot's thoughts had drifted to the child more than once, in the weeks since he'd first seen him. The boy had a cherubic little face and dark hair like his mother's, and he'd seemed happy enough, despite the strange circumstances of his upbringing, seemed well cared for and healthy, and Elliot kept wondering how. How had Olivia ended up with a child, how was she managing to bring him up, how the fuck did she think things were gonna go once that kid was old enough to start asking questions about their unorthodox living situation? He kept wondering who, too, wondering who mattered enough to Olivia that she would have his child, wondering who had been lucky enough to bind himself to her in such a way, wondering who could have left her - left them both - behind. Maybe it was Cassidy, and maybe that was why he lingered in the house, because it was the only way to be close to the woman he loved and their child, even if Olivia wasn't fucking him anymore.
"He's my son," she said. "That's all you need to know. He's my son."
"I have a son," Elliot told her. He should have had two sons, but the second had not drawn breath in this world. "He's a little older than yours, though." Dickie was twenty-one, about to start his senior year of college, and it looked like Olivia's boy was still getting the hang of walking.
"You said you got started early," Olivia mused.
Honestly, Elliot was a little surprised she remembered that.
"Yeah, our oldest, she's about to turn thirty."
He wouldn't say his children's names. Despite all the reasons why he shouldn't, Elliot trusted Olivia - or, he wanted to - but he couldn't bring the kids into this. He could use the kids to form a rapport with people while he was undercover, he could be honest about their existence, but he had to protect them, in some small measure. It didn't sit easy with him, though. He wanted to tell her their names. He wanted to show her their pictures. He wanted to be her friend, and he wanted to believe that nothing bad could come of talking about his children with her, but the world was a dark and unpredictable place. There were hidden threats lurking in every shadow, even in the sanctuary of the courtyard.
"Our oldest," Olivia said, and it took him a second to catch up, to understand why she'd felt that was worth repeating. He'd told her Kathy was gone, had been gone for years, but when he spoke of the kids he still said ours. Not mine. Dead or not, Kathy was their mother, had been his wife, was still, would always be, a part of him, and of his story.
"Yeah."
"Noah's just mine," she confessed. "I'm never gonna be able to say ours."
Maybe that was true, and his father had never been in the picture and never would be, but the kid hadn't just sprung fully formed out of the ground. He had to have come from somewhere, and Elliot couldn't figure out why she wouldn't just tell him the truth, why she seemed so determined to avoid it. Unless, of course, the story of Noah's origins hurt her. He didn't want that, for her. He didn't want her to hurt.
"I bet you're a good mom."
Elliot had seen Olivia with her boy exactly once, and then not for long, but he believed it, still. Believed that she was a good mom, that she took care of her son, that she loved him. He was certain about that, dead fucking certain; he had no reason not to doubt her, but reason didn't seem to factor into the bargain when it came to her. He just knew.
"Trying to be," she said.
"It's the best any of us can do. Try."
Elliot tried. He tried so fucking hard, for those kids. Tried to be there for them, tried to listen to them, tried to help them. There had been moments when he felt like he succeeded and moments when he felt like he failed and all he could do was hope that the good outweighed the bad. The kids had all made it out of their teens, had grown into good people, people he liked spending time with - even though sometimes it just made him sad - and that had to count for something.
A gentle, melancholic sort of silence fell over them, as they both considered their children, and their own paths as parents, as they sank into the peculiar kind of grief that came from watching a child grow, knowing that with each breath time was passing, and their child was changing, never again to be what they once had been, every moment relegated to memory almost before they had a chance to savor it. It had been a long, long time since Dickie was as small as Noah was now; those days were gone, and there would be no going back. Olivia would know that sorrow, was probably already discovering it for herself as Noah began to walk, to talk, to change.
"You're bumming me out, Stabler," she said suddenly, shooting him a grin. It was hard to tell if that smile was sincere or not, if she really had forgiven him for his transgressions and was trying to soothe him, or if she was just acting, putting on a show, deflecting from the hard conversations the way she'd been taught to do.
"Sorry," he said. She was looking at him, now, and a lock of her hair had fallen over her eyes, and without thinking he reached out and brushed it back, felt her breath hitch when his fingertips danced lightly over her skin. Found himself wondering, yet again, when was the last time she'd been touched, who she'd let her touch her, if she wanted him to touch her again.
"I don't think you are sorry," she told him. "Not for any of it."
The thing was, she was right. He wasn't sorry for coming here tonight, and he wasn't sorry for kissing her, and he wasn't sorry for asking his questions, and he wasn't sorry for telling her the truth. There was not one single piece of regret in him, not really. He felt sorrow, on account of some of the things she'd told him, some of the things he'd confessed to her, but he wasn't sorry. Their stories weren't the happiest, but there was no changing that. They were who they were, Elliot and Olivia, and their griefs and their hurts had shaped them just as much as their victories and their joys. One could not be separated from the other.
"I'm not," he said.
"What do you want, Elliot?" she asked him then, dark eyes watching him warily.
That was the million dollar question. What did he want, really? Why had he come here? Why were his thoughts so consumed by her, and what did he want from her? What did he want to give to her? If it were up to him to decide the outcome of this acquaintance, what did he want?
"I want to kiss you again."
She was so close, and so beautiful, and his hands itched to reach for her, and his heart ached to hold her, and they had traveled so much ground together tonight but he wanted more. He wanted to taste her, one more time. He wanted to feel, just for a moment, like there was a chance for them. A chance for them to jump the tracks, to reroute the collision course their professions and their stations in society had set them on, and forge a different path. He wanted to hope.
"So do it, then," she said breathlessly, eyes flashing in the darkness, soft lips parting. The words were a challenge, there was no doubt about that; everything about her was a challenge. It was one he would take on without hesitation.
He reached for her, caught her face in his hands, and she wrapped her hands around his wrists, held him to her while he bowed his head, and captured her lips once more. This kiss was as sweet as the first had been, but he had been hesitant, at first, and he wasn't now. She'd told him to kiss her, and when he did her mouth had opened beneath his, and her fingers burned like fire against his skin, and she surged into him, holding nothing back. The life she'd lived had made a liar of her, but there was truth in that kiss, and he drank it down like wine.
The lights were on in the RV when he got home.
Olivia had sent him away, just like he'd always known she would, but she had been smiling when he left, and his heart had been lighter for having seen her, having talked to her, having broken down some of the walls between them. He'd been feeling almost happy, but when he came walking down the path to the RV and saw the lights his heart sank. Nothing good could come of that, and he knew it. Someone was there, or had been there, going through his things, maybe, waiting for him, maybe, and danger floated on the air, sharp and bitter.
He'd gone to Olivia's with a gun tucked in the back of his pants, and he pulled it as he approached the place he called home. There was no car sitting outside it, but that didn't mean much; it was a pain in the ass to drive down here. He'd taken the train back from Olivia's and finished the journey on foot; whoever had paid him a visit, they could have done the same, or taken a taxi, or parked their car a safe distance away.
As Elliot approached the door didn't swing open, no enemies spilling out, so he darted up the metal steps and swung the door open fast, entered the RV gun first, and found himself quite suddenly face to face with Reggie Bogdani.
"Jesus, Eddie!" Reggie yelped, holding his hands up and stumbling back from the door in alarm.
"What the fuck, Reggie?" Elliot grumbled, dropping his gun at once. "I coulda shot you."
" 's not my fault you weren't here," Reggie said. "I didn't wanna wait outside so I made myself at home."
There was a dent in the lumpy mattress like Reggie had been sitting there, and a can of beer was sweating on the countertop.
"I can see that. What's going on?"
"You weren't answering your phone. Where you been, man?"
"Out," Elliot said shortly. Sometimes the fact that Eddie Ashes was a bit of an asshole worked in his favor. "What's going on?" he asked again.
"Kosta called a meet. We gotta get down to the gym."
"What, now?"
A shiver of fear raced down his spine. It was late, and Kosta was supposed to be busy tonight. What would make him call in the boys on a Friday night when everybody was supposed to be enjoying themselves? Shit, what if he'd made Elliot for a cop?
"Some shit's about to go down," Reggie said darkly. "Manfredi Sinatra is dead."
In an instant all thoughts of Olivia and her kiss were forgotten. With Sinatra gone Richard Wheatley was the most likely to take over the Italian families, and there was every possibility that Wheatley had no intention of honoring his father's deal - whatever it was - with the Albanians. Kosta and Sinatra had been conspiring for months, and if Wheatley spurned them, it would be war.
And Elliot would be caught in the middle of it.
