How to Save a Life
Summary: We all know that Elliot is going to eventually sleep with Danni Beck, his temp partner : ( this is just my idea of how that little annoyance can be resolved after Olivia comes back! Set to the Fray's song, "How to Save a Life" because I love that song sooo much!
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Dick Wolfe, and song belongs to The Fray! But thanks for letting me borrow them boys!
A/N: Everyone who is reading Colse Calls, I haven't stopped writing I swear, but this idea has been floating around in my head for a while, and I go crazy every time I hear the song, because it reminds me that this story hasn't been posted yet! Hope you all enjoy!
Olivia knew that she and Elliot needed to talk. She had gotten back from her assignment with the FBI about 2 weeks prior, and something was not right between them.
She had found out that while she was away Elliot and his temporary partner had slept together. That news had hurt her in a way she had never thought she could hurt before. She loved him, and the thought of him in bed with another woman ripped her heart out.
Since her return there was trouble in their partnership. The friendship they had so long ago seemed to be just a distant memory now. Sure, she would admit that she was partly to blame for their distance, but she couldn't help it. As she sat at her desk, contemplating whether or not to talk to him finally, she remembered the day she had found out.
She had been back from Oregon for 2 days, sitting at her desk, when Elliot picked up his cell phone.
Something had been off with him from the moment she came back.
"Stabler." He said into the phone. "Oh, hi." He added, lowering his voice, and pivoting his chair away from Olivia.
She just strained to hear.
"Look, we talked about this. No, I know, but I just… I can't." She heard him say regretfully. "I'm not saying that I regret it. I just… look, we both needed it. I'm sorry."
After a pause he shook his head, and shut his cell phone, and stalked out of the room.
"What was that all about?" Olivia asked Munch and Fin. They had been around while she wasn't there. Surely they could shed some light on her partner's strange behavior
"Probably about him shacking up with Beck." Fin answered, not knowing the damage his words would do to his friend.
"Excuse me." Olivia asked, genuinely shocked. Had she just heard Fin right. Had her partner, and man she had loved secretly for years slept with her replacement!
"They tried to keep it hidden, but you can't keep anything from us." Munch answered for him.
Olivia didn't know what to do. Her mind was spinning. She threw her pen onto her desk in anger, flung her chair back, and stormed off in the direction Elliot had gone.
She found him in the locker room of the precinct, sitting with his head resting on the lockers.
He looked up when he heard her fling open the door.
"What are you doing in here?" He asked.
"When were you gonna tell me?" She asked simply, leaning against the open door with her arms folded against her chest.
"Tell you what?" He asked, annoyance in his voice.
"That you slept with her?" Olivia asked, not even having to name anyone. She knew that he would know who she was talking about.
"It's none of your business Liv." He answered, angry. He knew Munch and Fin must have told her.
"You two in a relationship that I should know about?" She continued.
"It was only a few times." He seethed. She had no right to interrogate him like this. It was bad enough that he had felt guilty for what he had done. The truth of the matter was that Olivia had chased him into Danni's arms. She left him when he needed her most. She had become so distant and cold after he had basically told her that he couldn't live if anything happened to her. He needed some one to care about him, and Danni had been offering.
The whole time he wished that she could have been Olivia. But that wasn't the case. The reason he had been such an ass to Olivia since her returned, was because his guilt wouldn't let him act in any other way.
"A few times?" Olivia repeated. She had thought it was only once, but a few times! "God, I cannot believe you. You were divorced for how long before you jumped into her bed?" She couldn't control the words coming out of her mouth, she was irate, shocked, and hurt.
"Don't give me that Olivia. It's not like you never did it. Or don't you remember Cassidy?" He raged, standing now.
"That was entirely different." She said, her voice beginning to get higher. "We were drunk, and it was one time! Plus, he wasn't my partner!"
"Oh, so now you care about how partners are supposed to act towards each other. Cause I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to leave when the other one needs them!" He shouted.
"I was on assignment!" She defended.
"You were gone before that Liv! Hell, you haven't been back since you left for computer crimes!" He fought, stalking towards her.
Olivia let the door shut behind her, and stepped closer to Elliot.
"Do you even hear yourself? You're not making any sense! But you wanna talk about computer crimes? I would never have gone if you hadn't pushed me away! But I guess I just wasn't good enough. I mean Hell Beck was only your partner for 2 months and you already did her!" Olivia shot.
"You don't have to be here if you don't want to be. I don't need you." Elliot said slightly quieter.
"Yeah, I kinda figured when you slept with your other partner." Olivia chided back before sighing in both disgust and hurt, and leaving the room.
Since that day, everything had been different between Elliot and Olivia. Both were hurt, and angry with each other, and Olivia was fed up. She was fed up with not talking to him, fed up with not being able to look at him without getting a glare in return. She missed him, and things had to change.
She was going to end this tonight. Either they would stop this insipid fighting, or they would be ending their partnership. Although it hurt her, if he wanted Danni, she would be dammed if she was going to stand in his way.
Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came
Olivia spotted him as she came out of the elevator just as she was leaving the precinct. It was raining, so he had taken a moment to stop before exiting the building to put his coat on.
"Elliot, wait." She called, rushing to him. She hadn't even realized that she had made the decision to have the conversation now. "We need to talk." She told him as she slowed to a stop in front of him.
"I don't have time for this now Olivia." He scoffed turning, and pushing the door open.
Olivia was stubborn; she grabbed his arm, and made him stop. "Elliot, please. Just sit down. It's just a talk." She almost begged, indicating the bench next to the door.
He sighed, shook his head, but gave in. He decided to be polite; after all, she was still his partner. He sat, and she took a seat next to him. He smiled out of the awkwardness. There had never been awkwardness between them before… before he had made the biggest mistake of his life.
They stared at each other in silence for an uncharacteristically uncomfortable moment. Olivia stared to the right, over Elliot's shoulder so that she wouldn't have to look directly at him. Elliot, in turn, turned his gaze to a set of windows to the left.
In the silence Olivia began to wonder why she had decided to do this. She wasn't sure what to say. She was afraid of what this conversation would do to their already fragile partnership. She was ashamed that they had come to this. She blamed him for this, but she also blamed herself.
She just knew that she had to say something. Bur couldn't shake the feeling that this was a bad idea.
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
They had grown so far apart all of a sudden; neither thought that at this point they could still be thinking the same things, but they were.
As they sat in silence, both gazing at anything besides the other, their minds raced, trying to pin point when and how they had gotten to this; this shell of what they once were.
Somewhere over the past year they had done something wrong. They had lost each other.
Somewhere, in all the anger, fear, pain, and bitterness that each had been through this past year had cost them the closest person in their lives.
They could remember a time when they would sit with each other all night, comforting the other in ways only a partner could, ways only a lover could.
They were great cops, but at this moment they weren't sure how to save themselves, how to salvage their broken bond, because without it, they were nothing.
Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you
Olivia knew that she had to Elliot something. They couldn't just sit there like this in silence all night, although that was an alternative.
She had to tell him what he was doing to her, that something had to change.
"Well?" Elliot finally asked, growing tired of this game.
She knew that this was going to be hard, but she had to work past his rough exterior to the soft inside that she knew Elliot possessed.
"I… I can't do this anymore Elliot." She said in a whisper. She had to tell him everything. She had told him before, but this time, she had to make sure he heard her.
She prayed he would hear her this time.
"Can't do what?" Elliot asked. "Be my partner? Because as I remember we went through this already. No one made you come back Olivia."
"Will you just shut your God damn stubborn mouth for a second, and listen?" She asked sternly. "What happened to us? We were never like this before."
"People change." Elliot offered as a response. She was right, his defensives were up, but she wasn't granting him any leniency on this one.
"Why did we change?" She asked.
"You left." He simply said. "Great Elliot put all the blame on her!" He scolded himself. He hadn't wanted to sound harsh with her, but if she left again, he didn't know what he would do, and he couldn't let her see that. He didn't want to force her to stay.
"I left because you told me we either had to stop caring about each other, or stop being partners." She defended. "Looks like you didn't have such a problem with ethics with this partner." She scoffed. She hadn't meant to, but she couldn't help it. She was hurt.
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How could she be saying all this to him? How could she be accusing him of caring more about Danni then he did for her! After all, it was her fault he had run into her arms.
How could he have lost someone he loved so much?
He had been so bitter and angry and hurt after his divorce, and then after she split. That was where he went wrong.
If he knew how to salvage what they had, he would stay up every night for the rest of his life to get it back.
As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came
Although Elliot knew that Olivia didn't want to fight, he couldn't help but raise his voice in defense of himself.
"I would never have slept with her if you hadn't left me when I needed you most!" He yelled.
"El, I don't wanna fight." Olivia said calmly. "How many times to I have to explain why I left?" She asked. "I couldn't promise you that I would be able to put the job before you, ever." She explained anyway. "But I came back."
"Because SVU is in your blood." Elliot scoffed.
"I came back because of you, you son of a bitch." She revealed. Olivia realized that her walls needed to come down if she wanted to save them. She needed to be in this one hundred percent, or just leave now. She knew that he needed to do the same. He either needed to go with her, and fix this, or leave all together.
"Then why the hell did you leave again, without as much as a see ya later?" He was still angry.
"I was on an assignment Elliot, what did you expect me to do?" She countered. "Because I certainly didn't expect you to sleep with my replacement!"
"Why can't you let that go Liv? It was a few times, and she's gone now!" He said, again raising his voice.
She was done denying it any longer. She knew that she had to try something new; the truth. If she did this, she knew that he could do one of two things. He would either admit that he too needed her, and couldn't live without her, the way she felt about him. Or he'd say they were too changed, and that this partnership, friendship, and dysfunction relationship would no longer work. It terrified her.
If he did that, she would regret doing this in the first place. But she had to try.
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
"If you needed someone to show you what it feels like to be cared about so badly, why couldn't you have just come to me?" She breathed. "Why did you have to go to her?"
Elliot was silent for a moment. His next words could ruin everything. And no matter what, they would change everything.
"There was too much of a risk." He simply stated, staring at the floor.
"Too much of a risk of what?" Olivia pushed gently. They both sounded defeated.
"Of pushing you even farther away." He answered.
"I came back Elliot." She restated. "I can't do this without you." She said lightly. "I'm sorry."
It was the first time she had apologized for leaving him. Something inside Elliot crumbled.
"Danni meant nothing to me." He said, not sure why he felt the need to clarify it.
Olivia just smiled up at him. "I should never have gotten so mad at you over her. It really wasn't any of my business." She apologized.
"Why did you get so mad?" He asked.
"Probably for the same reasons you got so mad when I left. Because it hurt." She answered honestly.
"Why though?" Elliot pushed. They were headed somewhere and he wasn't about to back pedal. "Partner's break up all the time."
Olivia took his hand, she looked to the floor. It was now or never. "You were always more than a partner to me." She said quietly.
Elliot tipped her chin up so he could look into her eyes. "I wished it were you." He said gently. There was no need to clarify what he meant. He knew that Olivia would understand.
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Olivia's breath caught in her throat. Had she heard him right?
When she didn't answer, Elliot continued. "Liv, I've been so caught up in my own shit, and so bitter lately, that I lost the one person I've ever really wanted." He explained.
Olivia shook her head. "You never lost me El. I've always been right here. I was just too damn stubborn to let you see me." She smiled.
The two sat in silence for a moment as Elliot gently stroked Olivia's knuckles with the hand he was holding them in.
"So where do we go from here?" Olivia finally braved.
"Well, we could go back to where we were before. Push all our feeling aside, and just be mean to each other so we don't have to deal with the fear of losing the other." He offered, not really wanting to go back to where they had been. "Or, I could kiss you, and we could just see where it goes from there."
"That's a big chance." Olivia noted, seeing the disappointment in Elliot's eyes. "But, it's one I'm willing to take if you're there with me." She added quickly with a sly smile.
Elliot returned the smile, and slowly brought his lips to hers.
As the rain pelted the city outside the 1-6, a calm finally came over the inside. It may have taken them some time, but they had done it, they had saved themselves, and were ready to start over with a fresh beginning; together.
How to save a life
How to save a life
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
The End!
Tell me what u think! I just love this song!