Olivia had always loved his hands. Even years ago, when they were partners, when she had trained her mind and body to quiet the feelings that were so desperate to make themselves known, she couldn't help but admire them. Of course, they were sturdy and dependable, the kind of hands she could count on to catch her before she dropped, to pull her out of harm's way, and in her nightmares, to cover her open wound. But they were also unexpectedly…delicate. Warm. Expressive. She'd notice how they could change so dramatically depending on the circumstances. The way they'd swell and coil, rife with tension, after hours of grilling a perp who was withholding the location of a missing child. The way they'd drum on the steering wheel, dancing to the rhythm of their banter as they teased each other during long stakeouts. The way they would soften and melt into her during the rare touches they shared, his fingers glancing across her shoulder or finding the back of her neck with a tender, reassuring squeeze, giving as much to her as he could within the confines of what they could allow themselves to be. And even during the times when he clammed up, shut down, shut her out, his hands always found a way to make their own meaning.
She remembers what it had been like, at night—her own hand drifting from her breast to her stomach to the waistband of her pajamas, slipping underneath—trying and failing to forget his hands, to stop wondering how they would feel on her, in her. To stop imagining what they would say to her body if only they were free to speak.
But now, after all this time, she doesn't have to wonder. He's been back for a year, and they've worked through their questions and troubles and all the ways they've made each other ache. Now, she gets to know his hands completely, the full scope of their desires, their aptitude, their genius. She knows the sweat of his palms against her hips and the grip of his fingers on her curves as they tumble in and around each other's ecstasy. She knows his pinch and his scratch and his stroke, how he brushes and honors, how he clutches and soothes. She knows how his sweet hands worship her from head to toe, how they reach into her depths, how they caress and pull and kiss and thrust, carrying her to a euphoria she's never known before.
She had thought, after a few months of being together, that she had learned everything there was to know about his hands. But to her surprise, as she watches him unbutton her shirt on a lazy Saturday morning, she finds that they are keeping a secret.
"El…baby," she murmurs against his neck with a kiss. "Why are your hands pink?"
"Don't worry about that," he whispers as his lips begin to trace her collarbone.
She sits up, pausing him with a smirk. "Well, if they're gonna be all over me, I'd like to know why they're pink."
He's noticeably uncomfortable in a way she doesn't understand. For a moment, she can see the little boy in him, looking down, unsure if he should spill the beans. But he sits back on his knees, takes a breath, and lets it out with an uncertain huff.
"I was…experimenting."
Her mind immediately jumps to something sexual—
"Elliot, I swear to God if your penis is magenta, I—"
"Oh my God, no!" he exclaims, falling over her with a laugh. She is relieved but still looks at him quizzically, her curiosity building as he gathers himself, rolling to her side.
"Not…that kind of experimenting," he continues. "My…uh…my therapist…she suggested that I find a least one activity that could help with…centering me. Something different from what I usually do."
"So not the gym or sex, right?"
"Right," he chuckles.
It's starting to make sense now, the random little hobbies she's been noticing over the past month, like the week he stopped by the precinct every day with his own freshly-baked muffins. Or that one day he tried to construct a wooden birdhouse for the patio, only to end up with three misshapen walls and an uneven roof sitting in the trash can.
He can see her mind spinning with questions, so he continues, "I…couldn't sleep last night so I was…messing around with some of my mom's paints."
Olivia had been exhausted after working a difficult case and then driving Noah to his weekend dance intensive in Connecticut, but she now vaguely remembers Elliot stirring and getting up in the middle of the night, then returning about an hour later, kissing her neck before settling closely behind her.
"As you can see," he says, holding up his bright pink hands for Olivia to examine, "it's not exactly my medium."
Olivia wishes she could go back in time and tell a thirty-something-year-old Elliot that he'd one day be uttering "my therapist" and "my medium" in the same conversation.
"So…what is your…medium?"
"Uh…drawing," he admits. "I think I like…to draw."
She wants to give him the space to let this new hobby be his, recognizing that it's more than a pastime, that it is yet another step in his journey toward healing. But he offers…
"Do you want to see some of…what I've done?"
All it takes is a single nod from Olivia for him to hop off the bed and start fumbling through his desk drawer, pulling out an assortment of papers in all different sizes.
"I mean…sometimes I just doodle," pointing out a few Post-It notes filled with spirals and patterns and stars. "But for other things…I've been trying to take more time," he adds, bringing a small pile of large, thick papers to the bed, spreading out his sketches.
"Jesus, El," she reacts, somewhat awestruck. "These are so…good…"
She picks up the first drawing, a sketch of the coffee cups they had abandoned on the kitchen counter last Sunday after a few morning kisses had led them straight back to bed.
She moves to another…a detailed drawing of the branches of the forsythia in the garden, just beginning to bud.
And a third…a familiar image…her side of the bed. An empty pillow, a swirl of wrinkled sheets, a messy comforter waiting to be smoothed. The side, she sometimes recalls, that used to be Kathy's.
He can see her thinking as she holds the paper by its edges, careful not to smudge. She doesn't need to say anything. He knows, as always, he knows..
"I…when I see the pillow…I think about…both of you."
She doesn't want to push with any more questions, but she is ready to listen.
"It was…jarring…when Kathy died. After all of those years, being so accustomed to having her on the other side…and then to wake up, day after day, to this. To nothing."
"I know," Olivia responds, pressing her lips to his shoulder as he moves to sit next to her. She's made peace with the fact that her mental relationship with Kathy is a complicated one, shaped and twisted by the events and revelations over the past year. Still, she has stood alongside Elliot and his children, fighting each step of the way for justice, her heart breaking for them at every turn as she's watched them wade through the shock, the grief, the unfairness of it all.
For so long, Olivia had understood her place at the periphery of Elliot and Kathy's marriage and has respected every boundary, and yet she could never seem to escape being pulled inward. She remembers a conversation with Elliot, somewhat early on in their partnership…
Well, one of us has to be able to sleep at night. She thinks I'm shutting her out.
You are. That's exactly what you do. You keep this up? You're gonna ruin the best thing you've ever had.
Olivia had fought for them because she had wanted so desperately to believe in something she had never known. Parents who loved each other, a house full of children, and someone there, day after day, on the other side of the bed. But she knew, as the years went on, that nothing ever really changed between Elliot and Kathy. As a husband, he kept his silence as strongly as he kept his vow; he let Kathy sleep at night.
She had grieved Kathy not only as Elliot's wife, but as someone she believed had become her friend. Someone who had trusted her to keep her husband safe and stable. Someone Olivia had held and prayed over in a totaled car, in an ambulance, in a mess of dust and blood. Someone who had accepted her as the person who would always see Elliot more, in every way that a person could be seen, but who would face everything, even death, to make sure he could go home at the end of the day.
That damned letter, she thinks, still holding the drawing. She and Elliot had worked through her pain and his regret over the fact that he had chosen to give it to her in the first place. But the fact that Kathy had dictated it…she still couldn't understand what to make of that. It had been disheartening, to put it mildly, but Olivia had decided soon after Elliot's revelation that it was no use asking questions of someone who would never be able to respond. And it had occurred to her, the most recent (and final) time she had read the letter, that perhaps it had all been a textbook example of projection. That Kathy had watched Elliot, still floundering after ten years without Olivia in his life, and had wondered about their marriage…if it had ever been real, if they had gotten in each other's way, if they both had deserved someone better, someone different.
Still, Olivia would never truly know, but she had committed, for Elliot and his children's sakes, to tending to the good memories. And she had recalled the last time she saw Kathy in her hospital bed, holding the hand of the kind, faithful, devoted man she deserved while also acknowledging another reality…the two of you together…always so in sync.
From Olivia's vantagepoint, Kathy had seemed to believe, in that moment, that both truths could co-exist, just as they always had. That Elliot had chosen her and Olivia in different ways, and maybe they had both known the joy and the pain of being loved, but incompletely. But, in the end, Olivia had known she had not been the wedge in their marriage, but perhaps the only reason it had lasted as long as it did. In the end, she thinks, Kathy had been grateful for the man at her side and the woman who had helped keep him there.
"Livie," Elliot whispers, interrupting Olivia's thoughts. It's a recent development, this new little nickname that she sometimes rolls her eyes at but secretly adores. "I do think about her…"
"Elliot, I wouldn't expect anything different. She was your wife. You spent most of your lives together."
"I know…but my point is…I think about her and I also think about you," he says, brushing her lips with his thumb. "And I…I seem to be able to…hold both of those thoughts in my heart."
"Well, that makes sense," she replies, leaning down to kiss his bare chest as she places the drawing next to her on the bed. "You've got a big heart in there."
"Liv, I just hope you know… I miss you when you're not here next to me. So much. And not as…I don't know…"
"A replacement?"
"God, Liv," he says urgently, "you know I don't think of you like that…"
"I know, baby…I know. I don't," she assures.
"I think about you because you belong here. You always have." He pauses, caught up in a new thought. "Remember when you went to Oregon?"
"How could I forget," she replies, his arm reaching around her so she can tuck herself into his side.
He rests his chin against her hair, giving her tiny, absentminded kisses as he talks.
"I remember…how I used to wake up sometimes back then…in the middle of the night. And I'd notice the empty pillow next to me…"
"When you and Kathy were separated."
"Right… But that's the thing. It would occur to me that I should be thinking of her, wishing she was next to me, that we were back together. But," he continues, bringing his fingers up to stroke Olivia's cheek, "you know what I thought about every time? The second I woke up?"
She smiles gently, knowing where this is going, but lets him continue.
"You," he finishes, kissing her deeply. "I thought about you, wishing that you weren't in some house in Oregon doing God knows what with the eco-terrorists…"
"They weren't eco-terrorists, El…"
"That's beside the point," he says with a little grin as he reaches under her legs to pull her into his lap . "I wished that you were with me. In my bed. Waking up, smiling at me from that pillow."
As much as she wants to bask in the romantic moment, she can't help herself.
"Are you sure you weren't thinking about Dani Beck?" she digs, poking him in the ribs.
"Olivia Margaret Benson, that was…what…fifteen years ago? Are you ever going to let me live that down?"
"Nope," she replies with a wink before she decides to tickle him; as she does it he giggles, Elliot Stabler actually giggles, and she's in love, oh God, she's in love with this silly, brawny man.
She lets him catch his breath before she climbs over him to straddle him, careful to not wrinkle his drawings. He pulls her body close and continues the job he had started earlier, slowly undoing another button.
"God, I was such an idiot back then."
"El…what did we say? No regrets about that," she reminds him as she reaches down to pull his t-shirt over his head. "We were both idiots back then."
"I know…I just can't stop thinking that if I had been a little braver, we could have had fifteen more years of…this," he says as another button releases.
"Elliot," she replies, propping herself up with her hands on his shoulders. "Would it have been incredible to have been together back then? And for the last fifteen years? Yes, I'd like to think so. But…"
"But what?"
"Baby…I do believe if we had been together…we would have been strong enough and connected enough to get through anything. But do you remember how messy we were? And stubborn? And complicated?"
"Livie, we are still all of those things," he laughs, twirling a strand of her hair in his fingers.
"Okay, fine," she concedes. "But a little less so, don't you think?"
"I suppose."
She brings her hands to the sides of his face and leans her forehead against his. "We've evolved, sweetheart. And I know we've had to work our asses off to get to this place. But I think…I think we've grown into the best versions of ourselves. So far, at least," she adds with a peck to his lips. "And now we just get to…enjoy each other."
"So…is that a hint that we should just get back to…enjoying each other?" he asks, undoing another button on her shirt, then another.
"I'm okay with that," she says coyly as her shirt finally opens and he quickly brings his mouth to her breast. She starts rocking slowly against him as he moves his hands beneath the fabric of her pajama top and slides them up to her shoulder blades, pulling her against him tightly as his lips surround her nipple. He traces it, flicking it with his tongue before swiftly rolling them over and turning his attention to the other side of her chest.
"Wait—" she says suddenly, motioning for him to get off of her.
"Are you okay? Did I—" he responds, concerned, as a moves to the side of the bed.
"No, no, El," she laughs, sitting up carefully. "We don't want to ruin your drawings," she adds as she gingerly pulls his piles of sketches out from underneath her.
"Oh…" he replies with a chuckle. "Good catch."
"Who knows," she continues as she neatly arranges his artwork and places it on the nightstand. "Maybe someday you can draw me like one of your French girls."
"What French girls?"
"Remember? Titanic?"
"Oh yeah…haven't seen that in…what…twenty years? Didn't you make me watch all four hours of it when were stuck in some shitty hotel room on an undercover op?"
"Make you? I think I do remember a certain young Detective Stabler crying his eyes out at the end."
"She said she'd never let go! And then she let go! What was that about?" They shift to their sides and face each other, their laughs and bodies intertwining until they grow quiet and he gently pulls at the sides of her shirt to bring her even closer. "And plus…" he continues, wrapping his arms around her waist, "I still think there was enough room for both of them on the door or whatever the hell they were floating on."
"Would you make room for me?" she asks, reaching up to cradle his head in her hands.
"Always," he says gently as he turns to move over her again, looking into her eyes in a way he often does…as if he is in disbelief, needing moment to process that, after all this time, she really is here in his arms.
"You know what?" he says with a few small kisses to her neck. "I kind of like that idea you had."
"What idea?"
"Drawing you…" he continues, with a long, warm kiss right below her ear. "Like one of my French girls," he whispers.
"You better not have any French girls," she says, turning her head with a glint in her eye. "Or Albanian girls for that matter."
"I mean it though," he replies with a newfound seriousness, weaving his fingers through her hair. "Let me draw you."
She realizes that he isn't joking anymore and sits up. "You mean…now?"
"Why not?" he asks with a subtle tinge of excitement building.
"Aren't we…kind of…in the middle of something?" she inquires, he eyes darting from her open shirt to his bare chest to the obvious bulge in his sweatpants.
"I promise…it'll be worth it," he answers as he kneels between her legs, taking her hands in his own. "Patience, my love."
She sees the way he is looking at her and feels all of her questions and hesitations plummet, lost in the delightful anticipation of a man who simply wants to draw his love. My love, he had said…my love, the first time the phrase had graced his lips. How could she disappoint…
"Okay…my love," she responds, squeezing his adorable face as she slides off the bed. "Let me clean up a little bit. Brush my hair at least and—"
She starts to make her way to the bathroom when he suddenly stands and moves toward her. "Liv…" he interjects, touching her hand. "You can do whatever you want but…I think you're perfect. Just like this. I want to draw you like I see you when we wake up together. The way you look on your pillow."
She doesn't say a word, just takes a moment to breathe it all in before she gives him a delicate smile and retreats slowly to the bed, never breaking eye contact.
"Okay," she finally whispers, giving him permission.
And with a nod, she offers herself to him as his subject, laying down gracefully on the wrinkled sheets.
She watches as he pulls a chair from his desk, angling it to face her.
She watches him sit down with intention, with a sense of solemnity, as he slides his sketchbook onto his lap and slips a pencil into his grip.
She watches him watch her as she slips her shirt off her shoulders and slowly pulls her pajama shorts to her ankles, dropping them to the floor.
And she watches his deep breath, in time with her own, as he touches graphite to paper and begins.
