AN: Thank you SO much for all your reviews on this story, they continue to blow me away and I get excited to read each and every one of them. The offers to Venmo, "the half finished love affair", the fact that this seems to be a lot of people's favs. You're all too kind. Someone asked if the previous chapter was the end and I can assure you it's not - the final chapter is still a little ways off although I don't blame you for asking seeing as I leave my fics unintentionally abandoned for months on end.
I guess this story is on it's own timeline but I will always come back to it eventually.
I hope this makes up for the long wait and if you're still here and sticking through the constant fic droughts, thank you so much! X
7:21am
She sits at a corner table, purposefully out of sight and each time the door opens, her eyes lift up from her water as if any moment he will find her.
The Taco Bell opposite their motel had opened at 7am. She'd heard the cars pulling into the drive-through, the sound of breakfast goers getting their meals and the smell of grease permeating through their door.
She had rolled over in bed to find him on his chest, his face was stuffed into his pillow and he was turned away from her. He looked dead to the world, like he hadn't slept in years.
She stared at his back for a few long minutes, wondering if the position was doing harm to his stomach, debating whether or not she should try and roll him over, but they had a long drive ahead of them today and she figured any additional sleep would do him well.
So she'd slipped quietly out of bed instead, dragged her pyjama pants down her hips, her eyes flitting back to the bed to check he was still sleeping before she discarded them and tugged on her jeans. They hadn't eaten dinner last night, in fact she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten a proper meal and her stomach was rumbling in protest.
Her plan had been to quickly grab a couple of breakfast burritos and bring them back to the room, but as she moved her hand into his jean pocket in search of the room key and some cash she was met with something else.
A crumpled, folded up newspaper article.
7:43am
He was panicking.
Where on earth was she?
Her jeans were gone, the pajama pants she wore to bed were heaped on the floor. There was no struggle, no jimmied lock, no broken window.
He scans the motel room for a note or some sort of hint as to where she went but finds nothing, as far as he could tell she had dressed and left on her own accord.
He keeps telling himself that she will be back soon, that she couldn't have possibly gone far - that there must be a rational, reasonable explanation for her to leave like this.
Only he can't think of a damn one.
Has she lost her goddamn mind?
Her face is plastered all over the media right now and she decides to walk out of here in broad daylight.
He contemplates looking for her. He could do a sweep of the motel perimeter, check the main areas. He could bypass reception and ask if they'd seen her - only he doesn't want to draw anymore attention to them than he already has. Besides, if he leaves now, chances are she will come back and he will be gone.
So he sits on the edge of the bed, sighing into his open palms, taking a few deep and steady breaths, trying not to let his mind escape to the darkest places.
He had woken a few times throughout the night and each time she was right there next to him, turned away, curled into her pillow and he'd listened to her light, gentle reassuring breaths before slipping back into his own slumber.
Now she was nowhere to be found.
What if she gets taken?
What if she is picked up by the police?
What if she had decided to leave him for good?
8:08am
She knows she should go back to the room.
If he wakes up and finds her missing with no explanation he will assume the worst.
But she is rendered still.
She had read the article twice now, all the haunting details of her past printed in black and white for the world - and for him, to see. He knows everything - every little sordid detail that had already been exposed to the general public and yet the bastard pretended he didn't know a damn thing last night.
'I would have you know…beaten the living shit out of him.'
She takes a sip of her water, the only thing she has managed to order so far. Her eyes lift up from the article watching as the patrons take their full breakfast trays to their tables. The lines are growing longer, the restaurant is getting more and more packed as the morning extends but she's no longer hungry.
She doesn't know what to feel, or how to even respond.
A whole host of emotions are currently taking up residency in her body but the dominant one that keeps pounding through her chest is betrayal. He knew about Lewis this entire time, he didn't say a damn word and then proceeded to try and siphon it out of her last night.
'Can you even imagine what that was like Liv?'
She shakes her head in disbelief. Classic detective move.
He'd played that card many times in the box, opening up to the suspect, gaining their trust, divulging personal details - real or otherwise, in an effort to emit empathy and reciprocation.
Only she didn't take the bait.
She's wondering now if that story about the cop was even real.
She glances up to the clock above the counter to see it's bordering on 8:15am.
She knows she needs to go back, she cannot avoid this forever and every moment that passes he is going to get more and more concerned. She is seconds from leaving when she catches a woman in line staring at her.
At first she thinks she's after her table but when she nudges the guy she is with and points worriedly in her direction, her stomach drops ten floors.
Fuck.
She needs to leave, now.
8:17am
She barely has the key in the door before he is pulling it open and tugging her inside by her forearm. He slams the door shut behind her and moves her roughly up against it.
Her heart rate accelerates at his sudden snap in demeanour, the motel door rattling under her weight.
"Have you lost your goddamned mind?" He hisses in her face.
She starts to move but he slams his hand face height against the door, the vibrations against the wood shocking her into submission.
Her nervous system spirals as he towers over her, fight or flight kicking into gear as the man from the trailer returns in full force. Her heart beat thuds in panic as the rage in his eyes erupts across his face.
"Have you lost yours?" she whispers up at him, her voice cracking, her limbs screaming at her to flee but she is paralysed against the wood. "We're not in the trailer anymore Elliot," she rasps because all she has left is her words.
Something flickers in his eyes then and he slowly lifts his hand off the door.
She doesn't wait around, she pushes past him and heads towards their luggage. She's on auto pilot then, bending down to scoop up her sleepwear, grabbing stray items off the table and throwing them hurriedly into the opened pack.
She doesn't know what the hell just happened but she doesn't have the luxury of a breakdown right now - they just need to leave.
He watches as she moves hurriedly through the threshold of the bathroom grasping her toiletries, knocking half of them into the sink on her pursuit, the razor and deodorant cluttering loudly in the basin.
Then it dawns on her, she doesn't even need these anymore.
She'll be home by tonight.
She sees movement in the mirror and she lifts her head to find him hovering in the bathroom doorway, blocking her only exit. Her heart beat irrationally thrums in response as she stares back at his reflection.
"I just wanna know what the hell you were thinking walking out of here like that?"
He really doesn't get it.
He has no idea what he's done.
What he's still doing.
She clutches the edge of the basin, her fingers biting into porcelain as she desperately tries to stop her clammy hands from shaking.
She can feel the thick line of bile building at the back of her throat as flashes of Lewis pushing her up against the sink fill her chest. She expects to hear Lewis's voice in that moment but it's only the deafening sound of Elliot's hand slamming inches away from her head that fill her ears.
She knows it was his reflexes - his pent up rage, his PTSD, the sheer terror he would have felt at finding her gone that made him erupt but he should know fuckingbetter than to scare her like that.
After last night.
After everything.
She presses her eyes closed, willing herself to pull it together because any minute now police will be swarming this place and she's already lost too much time.
"Did you hear what I said Olivia?"
'Did you hear what I said detective?'
She can't for the life of her look up at him now and she has no idea what to do with this version of her partner. She doesn't think she can reason with him anymore.
He is desperate, he is dangerous and he's escalating.
She turns around, slowly at first before she is moving towards him, her glistening eyes lifting up to his because she knows her only chance is to fight this head on.
"I get that you have a shitload of unresolved PTSD and you've seen and done some fucked up things undercover Elliot but you know what - so have I," her voice cracks. "So don't you dare come at me like that just because you're terrified about how this is all going to end."
He is staring at her blankly, like he just slipped into a far away place that she can't access.
Maybe he's in shock.
Maybe he's morphed into a robot.
'Blink your lights when you get inside.'
God she misses who he used to be.
"You need help," she whispers, her hands still trembling and for the first time in decades she decides she isn't going to be the one to provide it.
He is still staring at her, partly in shock, partly at the realisation that he's pushed her well beyond her limits.
"I'm sorry that I lost it," he treads carefully. "But what do you expect me to do Olivia? Your face is plastered across the damn news."
She blinks back at him, the anger in his words and his pitiful excuse overshadowing any part of his apology.
She digs into her pocket and steps forward, ramming the newspaper article firmly against his chest.
"No shit Elliot," she whispers.
Their eyes lock in one heated, palpable moment, then she is moving past him, through the small gap he's left her because she doesn't want to wait around for another pathetic excuse.
She tosses the motel key on the bed and grabs the pack off the floor.
He is deathly silent behind her.
He doesn't say a word.
"We need to go," she tells him, using the fact that she isn't facing him to wipe away the tear slipping down her cheek.
But he doesn't move behind her.
He doesn't take a step.
"Now Elliot.." she rasps. "I've been recognised."
TBC
