AN: Goodness me, is it really 47? I've certainly dragged this out into nauseating oblivion.. haha whoops.
Regardless, praise Jesus, the end is finally near! I cannot wait to tie this little baby up and provide closure for anyone reading.
This chapter was rough but important and took forever to write .. but I hope I did it justice.
As always thank you so much for all your kind words regarding this story, this fic has truly been my most rewarding writing experience to date, and what a pleasure it has been to share it with you.
All mistakes are my own.
X
It had been seven minutes.
Seven long, painstaking minutes since he had pulled over, four blocks from her apartment in a quiet leafy backstreet.
She wasn't facing him, she hadn't been for some time now and she can feel the tension seeping out of his pores. She can tell he is anxious just from being here, unsettled by the fact that he was risking everything just by being in her neighbourhood.
She sees him glance at her profile in her peripherals but she remains still, looking stoically ahead because it's the only way she can manage getting through this, one breath at a time.
She wasn't ready.
Despite having days to come to terms with this moment, and endless hours on the road she is paralysed at the thought of getting out of this car.
And he hasn't unbuckled his seatbelt - that's what she's fixated on, the fact that he has barely taken his hands off the wheel since he parked. There would be no walking her up her stoop, no graces - no frills.
Blink your lights when you get inside.
A few beats pass before she hears him shift in his seat, leather crackling under his weight. She knows she needs to go, as if every passing second was now placing a target against his head but her limbs felt frozen in place.
"Liv-" he whispers and she catches the waver in his voice, the way it takes effort just to say her name now while her mind is still processing the fact it will be one of the last times he says it.
She still doesn't look over at him.
"You know there are so many things that I could say.." he continues in a controlled fashion to her profile. "..but I think it's best that we just.. that you.."
She turns to face him then, their eyes locking under the dim street lamp because she wants to hear him say this part to her face.
The moment when he tells her to justgo.
She wants to catalogue that part in her mind so she can ruminate on it, dissect it in the darkest parts of the night, use it as irrefutable justification to hate him a second time around.
But his words stop the moment her eyes land on his.
"Say it," she whispers, with a strength in her voice she hadn't anticipated.
"Liv," he counters, in that slow, disarming way he used to deescalate perps and placate victims.
"Say. It." She leans forward in her seat. "Tell me you think that after everything, it's best that I just go."
Her words are a thin red line between them now, a definitive marker and she stares long and hard - almost through him as her mind races with all the things she still has left to say.
"Olivia," he pleads quietly, as if he knows anything above a whisper is going to set her off now. "Please don't make this any harder."
She smiles without emotion.
How rich.
"On who?" She allows a purposeful layer of anger to override any residue forming in her eyes.
She wants to hate him for all of this.
All of it.
He has no response to her question, because it doesn't warrant one. She had eclipsed his lacklustre speech with her fury and every passing second makes her throat constrict with the need to unleash even more untapped anger onto him.
He gives her a fruitless, hollow look before turning away and she is winded by his silence, from his surrender - from the way he is seemingly rolling over now. She is broken by his assumption that she would simply just get out and leave.
Just like that.
No last words, no bittersweet sentiments - just empty endless space that he is packing between them until she exits the car.
It's as brutal as the day he left her.
"Please Olivia..."
He still isn't looking at her and she tries to blink back the tears now that are well and truly forming but it's a redundant feat. She feels the first one slip down her cheek and she doesn't wait for the second before she is moving forward and clicking the glove box open, grasping the pack of tissues and tugging a heap out.
She bunches them in her hand, just about to slam the glovebox closed when her eyes land on the white envelope. She stills in place, a thought suddenly occurring to her. She knows after multiple stops for gas there couldn't be more than $300 left in there.
She needs to know just how he intends to survive.
"Where are you going after this?" she says numbly, blotting the moisture from beneath her nose, praying that she can somehow keep it together until she exits this car.
"You know I can't say," he responds stoically, trying to give her space with her emotion by staring down the street, his eyes scanning the crevices as if they were on a stake out.
"How will you get more money?"
He doesn't answer that question so her eyes swing over to his profile.
"Elliot?"
"I'll make do," he relents.
"You'll make do. What does that mean?"
"It means don't worry about it," he snaps back.
He scratches three days worth of stubble then and it hits her, he isn't looking away from her to give her privacy.
He is nervous.
He doesn't want to look her in the eyes when he lies to her face.
Her mind ticks over and a soft wave of understanding passes through her.
Jackie.
She lets out a humourless laugh when it registers.
He's heading back to Ohio.
It's not a question.
The reality of his next steps are abundantly clear.
She runs her teeth across her lower lip, feeling incredibly foolish for not realising it sooner.
"Not that it even matters at this point Elliot but at least do me the courtesy of admitting you're sleeping with her."
She hates how childish it sounds.
How she is acting.
She doesn't want to come off as jealous, insecure, bitter, or angry. In fact she has no right to.
His silence continues to nauseatingly waver as he absently chews on the inside of his cheek.
"I'm not."
Her lips widen into a grimace before her eyes boldly swing back to his.
"All those nights alone with her Elliot, you really expect me to believe nothinghappened?"
His eyes narrow at her then as an unfamiliar heat in his expression overcomes him.
She can tell she just pinched a nerve.
"All of those nights alone with you Olivia.." his eyes flicker. "Did something happen?"
The penny drops.
She had just acted like Kathy.
That was the catalyst for the anger she was witnessing in her eyes.
Kathy probably said her words verbatim.
'All of those nights with Olivia..'
She feels her heart thrum beneath his steady gaze, feeling as if he were glaring directly at Kathy. She can practically hear the echos of the conversations they had about her.
He isn't blinking now, instead he appears to be calculating something in his mind.
"I didn't sleep with my partner," he finally says with effort. "And I didn't sleep with my best friend's widow. You want to ask me about Dani now?"
She moves her stare away, struck by his intensity - his shift, suddenly unsure how to navigate the conversation she had found herself in. Her eyes land on the grit covered windshield in front of her and she lets out a breath.
He was speaking to Kathy - not her,his misplaced animosity was as clear as day, but regardless she knows she has no right to question or demand to know who he is sleeping with.
She is not his wife.
She is not his anything at this point.
She feels a thread of remorse move through her chest as her fingers fold over the tissue in her hand. He was a man of faith after all, and yet all the women in his life lacked faith in him.
If you can't trust your partner, it's time to get a new one.
"Elliot .." she whispers, her lips parting, her mind on the cusp of an apology but her words don't surmount, they dissipate instead, her heart refusing to relent.
She can't give any more than this.
"Something could have happened," he whispers, taking a breath that he'd foregone, leaving the open ended statement to hang between them and niggle in her mind's recesses.
She is still staring ahead before she slowly glances over at him, her eyes moving cautiously across his profile, trying to gage if he is talking about her or Jackie now.
Her heart thrums in her chest at the prospect of what he might divulge.
"She…" he begins. "She came onto me one night," he whispers, a tapestry of guilt and confusion moving through his expression. "It wasn't long after she lost Nathan, she was hurting, she kissed me…I kissed her back.. and we nearly.."
Olivia blinks back at him, a slice of ill placed hurt moving through her.
"But I shut it down."
"What a saint," she whispers.
His eyes narrow in on her.
"Why are you so angry?"
"I'm angry," her voice is raw now. "Because you left your kids - your wife, everyone in this godforsaken world that cares about you and I can't for the life of me understand why. You were retired Elliot, you were free- and all I can think is this was never about quitting the job, I think you were trying to quit your life," she spits.
"Fuck Olivia - " he rasps. "I was trying to quit you!"
She stills in place, her heart thudding in her chest, silence streaming through the space between them now. She is speechless, his tone had eerily morphed back the man in the trailer.
He didn't quit the job.
He quit her.
She blinks back at him almost in shock and she watches him wrestle with what he just said. She waits for him to correct it, to take it back, to reverse it in someway but the cold hard reality of his statement is slamming into her.
She was too much for him.
She was a chance he wouldn't take.
"I.." he whispers slowly, his eyes darting erratically now as if trying to deescalate or eradicate the words that just obliterated her entire being. "Look.. I don't know why we are even talking about this - fighting about this, you said it yourself none of this even matters anymore. So would you just please…"
She waits for the word.
Go.
She dares him to say it.
But instead.
"Cassidy is waiting."
Her eyebrows rise at that, confusion brimming at how he even knew about Brian. Then her eyes move to the article housed in the console between them and it registers.
'Brian Cassidy, partner of Olivia Benson.'
"I'm glad you have someone," he says genuinely. "Because you're going to need someone."
She scoffs at that, dumfounded that he thinks this is supposed to soften the blow, as if it were some sort of constellation prize.
"You know what screw you Elliot, you have no idea what I need," she growls back, her voice so low now it's reaching octaves she hasn't used since Lewis.
She really wants to lay into him now - fists, elbows, full body. She wants to propel herself at him like he was a dangling boxing bag at her gym, but she simultaneously feels like she's drowning, choking, getting pulled under, tugged in all different directions, oscillating by the second between emotion, anger, fear and grief - anger only just winning out.
I was trying to quit you.
"Do you really think I needed Cassidy that night…" she rasps in the small space between them. "Or Cragen? Do you think I needed my squad or Amaro to find me at that beach house?" Her eyes move slowly in between his. "No Elliot, I needed you," she rasps bitterly. "My goddamn partner."
She lays the admission that she'd barely been able to face herself between them.
She needed him.
Still does.
He blinks back at her, his features slowly softening as hers only harden and it's clear as day in his expression. She doesn't need to clarify what she is referring to by beach house, he has read enough details to piece together what she was implying.
She watches his lips part and he expels the heavy breath he had been holding. His fingers curl over the edge of the upholstery like he wants to reach out and touch her now but he doesn't quite know how.
"And now I'm just supposed to walk back inside that apartment .." She gives him a lifeless stare. "And live my life without you in it." She watches the pain in her eyes numb him into stillness. "Again."
She shouldn't be admitting this, voicing her stream of consciousness as if it will matter but it's far too late to safe face now.
His eyes move silently between hers in a long, drawn out, uncomfortable moment. She knows he is waiting for her to continue, to unravel herself entirely but he has already taken enough.
He doesn't get anymore than this.
"I should have been there," he breaks the silence, noticeably trying to keep the tremble out of his voice.
She stares back at him - his words, the look on his face, the hollowed out terror she is witnessing unfold before her as he imagines her worst fate possible.
"That night ... and every night since."
Welcome home Detective Benson.
"Don't," she rasps, pressing her eyes closed now because it's far too late to hear the words she waited a lifetime to hear.
In fact - she's done altogether.
She goes for the door but he locks it from the interior just in time, the sound causing her to jolt into place.
"For the rest of my life…" he whispers to the back of her head. "I'm going to be sorry I wasn't there Liv."
"Unlock the door Elliot," she spits, slamming her palm against the ridge of the glass, still stubbornly trying to open it.
She hears his seat belt go, then she feels his palm on her upper arm as he gently tries to coax her back to him.
"Listen to me," he pleads with a broken softness as he turns her to face him. "I hate that I wasn't there, you gotta know it will tear me up for the rest of my days."
She tries to resist his touch but his warmth is already beginning to strip the anger from her veins. "I've let so many people I love down Liv, but you.." he pauses, blinking back at her. "I will never forgive myself.." he whispers. "Ever."
"Elliot," she protests, but there is a seriousness imbedded in his eyes as his warm hands keep her steady.
"I should've been there, I should have been there, I should have been there," he repeats it like a mantra as if he is pleading with her to believe him and there is little resistance left in her chest now.
"And if I had been," he whispers as his palm slips up to cup her cheek. "I would have strangled the goddamned life out of him, you hear me?" He almost shakes her. "Tell me you know that."
She presses her eyes closed as moisture trickles downward.
"Every last breath," he rasps, his thumb swiping away the dampness that is falling.
She lets out a sob and he draws her forward into a jagged hug, his breath whipping at her hair and it's emotion mixed with his proximity that's prodding at the depths of her throat now, causing her to fight for oxygen.
"We can't go back Liv," he whispers against her crown as if it were still a possibility, a prayer that he makes to his God each night. "So we've gotta move on." The words exhale into her hair, his voice cracking when he says it.
She cries into him then, his words breaking her final resolve.
"Hate me, please just hate me Olivia because it will be a damn sight easier than-"
"Than what?" she cuts him off, moving back up to face him, streaks of moisture trailing down her face.
"Loving you?" The words tumble out between them before she can stop them. "Little late for that," she spits.
This is where it lands, this is where she lays it all bare, red faced and broken.
She has nothing to lose now.
His eyes move slowly between hers, a deep hollowed out sadness imbedded within his stare.
His hand is still cupping her cheek, looking like he is about to fall apart at any minute and it's all just broken fragmented pieces of their past splayed around them now. "Liv.. whatever version of me.. of us.. that you're still holding onto, you have to let it go okay."
She blinks back at him, watching their years together spread clear across his face.
"We don't exist anymore."
She shakes her head, refusing to believe it, her fingers fisting into the material of his shirt, fighting the urge to shake him, plead with him. She is broken, shattered and when she does breathe again it's bordering on a wail.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers once more, dropping forward until his forehead rests against hers and it hits her blindly in that moment, that Lewis may have broken her spirit but this was breaking her soul.
"I'm so sorry," he repeats over and over again. "So so sorry." Until it becomes a blur.
She gasps for a breath, his final apologies hitting home and somehow she latches onto a fleeting moment of sanity, allowing herself to finally pull back.
Their bodies separate and she stares at him long and hard, still trying to hate him for this - for everything. But even now she wants to lean over and draw his mouth onto hers. She aches to sob into the recesses of his neck and shatter wholly in his arms, giving him all of the pieces she's been trying fruitlessly to reconstruct.
She wants to tell him to turn the car around, to take her anywhere but here - Ohio, Colorado - California, it doesn't matter. She wants them to drive miles in the wrong direction until they lose themselves in their surroundings.
She wants to exist with him in their darkness.
Perfect world.
But she doesn't do any of that.
Instead she moves forward to click the interior lock, the deafening sound echoing in the small space between them.
"You're right Elliot," she says numbly, a hollow sadness bleeding through her fractured expression. "We aren't those people anymore."
He looks just as broken as she feels.
"Take care of yourself William Chasling," she tells him, before slipping out of the car door and slamming it firmly shut behind her.
TBC
AN: Many apologies. X
