Ever since Elliot was a young boy, he'd spent most of his Sundays in church, learning about the holiest of the holy miracles: a man walking on water, turning water into wine, resurrection. And the implication was always that if he was good and righteous and holy, if he honored the commandments and the sacraments, that he too could bear witness to a miracle.
With the lessons learned from the hardship of life's experiences, he realizes now, though, that he never had to be a righteous, holy man in order to witness a miracle. Because his miracle is the wonder of the woman that is curled into his side, her arm splayed across his chest as they simply exist together, in this perfect, fragile moment.
She's the answer to every one of his prayers, even the ones he never let himself give voice to. She's like the olive branch that ended Noah's time on the ark, and let the beautiful rainbow of a hopeful future cascade across the sky. He's been lost to the flood of his own grief, the grief threatened to swallow him whole, but with her – the waters recede, hope is reborn.
And all he's ever had to be is wholly, unequivocally, himself.
"What about your kids?" she asks, her hands tracing faint patterns along his forearms, toying with the fabric of his shirt. "Noah isn't used to me dating anyone. He was so young when Ed and I were together, he barely remembers him anymore, and there really hasn't been anyone since."
Ed. So, he knows the name now of the man who'd captured Olivia's heart, the one who wanted to slow down the crazy rotations of the world long enough to enjoy as many moments with her as possible, and wanted to take her along for the ride. The one who'd died. And while there are likely thousands of Eds and Edwards and Eddies in the city – including him, not too long ago, at least to a select group of people – there's only one Ed that they both know.
Except, he's never thought of the man by his first name, only by his last name, or derivatives thereof – nicknames, not the real thing. "You're telling me you dated Tucker," he says, barely leveling the emotion he feels curling inside. Jealousy, namely – some confusion, because as far as he'd always been aware, Olivia despised Tucker as much as he did.
"He didn't ask questions when he saw me," she says, scooting herself upward from their embrace to look at him. "He knew all the answers, because he'd taken my report. I could simply be, with no explanations." She sighs, the slight crease in her forehead evening out, and she shakes her head slightly. "El, you, though – you see me too. And it's always scared me, because I've never had someone look at me the way you do."
"How do I look at you?" He can't help but focus his gaze on her, taking in everything – the sparkle in her eyes, the curve of her cheek, the slip of her smile. The goodness in her heart. Everything.
She pauses for a moment, runs her hand over his jaw, and her thumb gently nudges against the swell of his lower lip. "Like I'm your best friend. Like you can't imagine this world without me. Like you'd do anything you thought would keep me safe, even if it pissed me off in the process."
He presses a small kiss to the pad of her thumb, and then takes her wrist in his own and entwines their hands together. "I'd rather have you alive and hating me for what I've done, than any alternative." Except for alive and loving me, but before a few hours ago, I never thought that would be a possibility.
"Never hate. Sadness, confusion, anger, yes. Never hate." As she talks, he listens; the sound of her voice, even when she's expressing some of the pent-up negative emotions she feels, is something he's not ever going to take for granted, ever again. "I thought I was hallucinating, reading more into your looks than you meant by them – that you could imagine the world without me, quite easily, because you could disappear like that. Like I meant nothing at all." Her shoulders sag, and she slumps forward, still remaining upright, but only by the smallest of fractions. "All I ever wanted to be was enough. For my mom. For you. For anyone."
"You are. You gotta believe me, Liv," he says. If he keeps saying it long enough about her, then maybe, eventually, he'll be able to believe it about himself too. "I can't speak for the rest of the world, but you mean everything to me. Even when you shouldn't have." And the fact that he'd even tried to live without her sends a gnawing ache of regret straight to his gut, one that won't easily dissipate any time soon. "You're not the only one who's been scared, because what I feel for you is beyond rational. But it's also the only thing that truly makes sense in my life."
She offers him a tentative smile, her eyes filled with the distinct glassy texture of unshed tears, and she nuzzles herself into their embrace, as if she's afraid to leave the security of his arms, only to find out she's been hallucinating this too. "At the end of all of this, it comes down to the two of us, together," she says, in a whisper. "Like it was always supposed to be."
"Always you and I, Olivia. I promise you." He kisses the top of her head, feeling the soft brown hairs tickle underneath his lips. "It's not going to be easy. I don't know what my kids are going to think. I'll talk to them. But they aren't going to be surprised, I know that."
"Yeah, I guess you telling me 'I love you' with all of them in the room takes away from the shock value when you eventually tell them again later," she says, laughing, as her lips find a patch of skin above his collar and rest there, her breath coming out in short puffs against his skin. While the spot has never done anything in particular for him in the past, now that she's laid claim to it, it's his favorite.
As far as he's concerned, she can claim every inch of his skin for herself – she's already claimed his mind, heart, and soul, why not the rest of him too?
"That night, all I saw was you. I knew they were all there, but when you asked me that, all I could hear was your voice. And things made sense." Until they didn't, until I fucked everything up – again. "I thought you'd never want to speak to me after that."
"The opposite, actually." Olivia is soft in his arms, and placid, and this is the most open and honest they've ever been with each other. "I wanted answers, and I wasn't above trapping you in the interrogation room over at SVU to get them out of you. But, then –" She doesn't have to finish her sentence, because he can fill in the rest on his own. The case, the shootout, the conversation with IAB. All the fallout, and his confession got left behind in the debris. "Yeah, you know."
"I do, yeah." Even when both of their lives were on the line, he'd put her safety in front of his own, protecting her from the hail of bullets and shards of glass that had rained down upon them. Because he'd promised her long ago, in a musty squad room with ancient desktop computers and a coffeemaker that burned the coffee more often than it didn't, that they were partners, for better or worse.
The fact that he'd cribbed that line from the standard wedding vows didn't escape him them, nor does it now.
Even then, all those years ago, he'd innately known that whatever this was between them was more than a mere partnership of two detectives thrown together by the whims of their supervising officer. That whatever was to transpire between them would be something profound and life-altering, something that would rattle them both to the very essence of who they are as human beings.
He clears his throat, wants to say something, but he hears the key turning in the lock, and he looks down at his watch. "Eli's home," he says, with more than a trace of regret, and as soon as he says it, he hears his youngest son's footsteps clatter across the hardwood floor of the entry.
Olivia sits up with a start, smooths her hair down. "I think that's my cue to leave," she says, her own voice filled with longing. "If Eli's home, then Noah should be getting home with Lucy about now, and I haven't gotten to see my boy enough recently," she continues. "I'll, uh, text you when I get home."
Eli walks into the living area and throws himself down on the other end of the couch, facing Elliot. "Hey Dad, uh, hey, Liv," he says. "I thought Liz was supposed to be here today."
"Change of plans." Elliot says, fighting back the first blush of a grin. "Olivia decided to swing by and keep me company today, instead. Took care of my beard for me."
"Oh, good, you ditched the ferret." He laughs, and turns to Olivia, as she gathers her bag together. "That beard looked just like my friend McKayla's ferret," he says, as if to explain the joke to Olivia. "It was almost spooky."
"Was not." Elliot strokes his hand over his jaw. "If you don't watch it, I'll grow it back."
"Remember, Eli," she says, leaning over to give Elliot a quick hug before she begins to walk out the door, "you might have inherited the genes for your dad's hair. So, I wouldn't say too much about it now, if I were you." Her eyes glimmer with laughter, as she presses a small kiss behind Elliot's ear, out of Eli's line of sight. "You are your father's son, after all."
By instinct, Eli's hands fly to his long, shoulder-length locks, as he stares at his father's nearly-bald head in degrees of horror. "You mean, I – no!"
"Ask Grandma Bernie to show you some of my high school pictures sometime," Elliot says, as he tries to maintain the brief bits of physical connection between him and Olivia for even one more moment. "Your old man had a lot of hair back in the day."
"Walk me out?" Olivia asks, and Elliot scrambles to his feet. "It was great seeing you again, Eli, and not in a hospital room this time."
"Yeah, take it easy, Liv," Eli says, not looking up from his phone, which has been vibrating with notifications the last several minutes. "I know Dad's always so stressed, and with you being a captain, and all."
"I'll try." Her smile is nearly magnetic, drawing him closer, as he and Olivia make their way onto the terrace.
Once they're out of the line of sight from the doorway, Elliot clasps her hand in his and squeezes, their fingers woven together. "I'm going to miss you," he says. "I feel more like me today, than I have in a very long time."
"You know how to find me," she says, squeezing his hand back; a jolt of warmth shoots through his arm, a warm caress from the inside out. "I probably need to make my presence known around SVU the next few days, before McGrath has my head on a silver platter, but don't be a stranger, Stabler." They're at the gate by now, and she has her hand resting against his cheek. "I'm going to miss you too."
He leans into the gentleness of her touch; their lips meet, opening to each other, soft and slow. Each kiss lingers, as it blends seamlessly into the next; his hands cup her face, holding her like the precious treasure she is. "I don't want to let you go," she admits, stealing a quick breath before their lips meet again. "I just got my Elliot back."
"I'm still here," he says, and he swipes his tongue along her teeth, eliciting a moan from her. "You're not getting rid of me that easily." Not now, not ever again. "I love you, and if that means you want to call me tonight and listen to me fall asleep on the phone so you know I'm still here and all of this is real, then I'll drain my phone battery for you."
"It's not quite giving me a kidney, but it works." Her smile is playful, as she scrunches her nose and rubs it against his. "I love you too, you know."
He grins; he's never going to get used to hearing her say she loves him. "I think your boy's waiting for you. Mine probably isn't, but I should go check on him anyway," he says, pulling away from her with great reluctance. "I agree with Eli, though. Take it easy."
"You do the same." Her gaze drops to the bandage she'd carefully applied earlier, the one that she'd sealed with a kiss. "I have plans for you, when you're better." One eyebrow arches upward, and the smirk on her face is unmistakable. "I think you'll like them."
"Funny, I have some plans for you too, once these bandages are off for good," he says, and he has a distinct feeling their plans are very similar in theory, if not in actual fact.
As they part ways, saying their goodbyes two, three times, because neither is ready to part, though they know they really should, he's struck once again by how lucky they both are.
Not everyone gets a second chance, to right the wrongs that the past has inflicted. And they've both been granted that precious second chance, and as she walks away, occasionally glancing behind her to toss him a winning smile, he comes to a realization: neither of them are taking this for granted.
A City Council member's pre-teen son vanishes the next day, in front of his school, and SVU's on the case – Elliot follows the progress from the comfort of his couch, as much as he wants to be out there on the front lines, helping to track the boy down and bring him back safely to his parents. It's one of those cases where everyone from the mayor on down has to be giving Olivia insane amounts of pressure, and he sees it painted across her face every time he sees one of her press conferences on the news.
You doing okay? He sends her a text message late on the third night. Doing this, doing these little check-ins, makes him feel like he's at least somewhat productive. He's pretty sure Bell would have a shitfit if he tried to come back from his medical leave early to help with a SVU case, even though he's seen her distinctive weave in the background of a few of the press conferences.
Instantly, he receives a reply. Yeah. I guess. Wish you were here helping me. Like the old days. Attached is a picture of her sitting at her desk; she's trying to smile for the camera, but she looks stressed, and exhausted, and he knows that instead of being curled up at home under soft blankets, getting sleep, she's still at work. Still trying to find Jayden, if it's not too late.
He snaps a quick selfie to send in reply, lounging back against his pillows; his grin takes up almost half the screen, but it's fitting for how he feels about her. I know you got this. I'll be here when the case is done.
He doesn't receive a response for hours, but when he does, it's a little heart emoji and the words counting on it.
They find Jayden; alive, but scared, and his father's former best friend has been arraigned on a litany of charges. Anything Carisi and his friends at the courthouse think they can make stick. It'd taken them almost a week, though, and by the time Olivia has fielded every last media request and crossed the last T on the mountain of paperwork on the case, it's become almost two.
Two weeks since she's spent any more than fleeting moments with her own pre-teen son, realizing the terror and horror she'd feel if someone were to run off with Noah – again. Two weeks since she'd spent the day curled up on Elliot's couch, allowing them both to take part in some much-needed emotional healing. He's called or texted every day, ensuring she's okay, that she's taking care of herself and her team, besides the case itself.
"Tell Stabler thanks for all the coffee," Amanda says, as Olivia crosses the squad room to get out of there and feel the sunshine on her shoulders, not only see it through the windows. "He may just have spoiled the breakroom coffee for me."
Olivia grins. The first time a mysterious bounty of coffee and pastries had shown up at the precinct, she initially hadn't known who to thank. Though, it became somewhat obvious a few hours later, when Elliot had texted, asking what they'd thought. "I'll pass along the message," she says, resting her hand on Amanda's desk. "You get out of here too, when you can. I'm sure you're dying to see your girls."
"Yeah, Carisi's been texting me pictures of him trying to teach Jesse and Billie how to make focaccia bread. They think it's like baking Play-Doh, except they can actually eat it." The light in her eyes as she talks about the three of them is unmistakable, and Olivia wonders, for a moment, if she gets a similar light in hers when she talks about Elliot or Noah. "I can't wait to try it when I get home."
"Don't keep them waiting too long," she says, "I'll see you Monday. Good work on the case." She pats her hand on the desk and flips her hair over her shoulder. "Oh, and, you two might want to think about filing your disclosure paperwork with IAB."
The tinge of pink that flushes over Amanda's face at Olivia's request is all the verification she needs that her assumptions are correct.
Going home, she texts Elliot. Want to meet?
Tomorrow. Spend time with Noah today. The reply comes fast, almost as soon as she sends the original message, as if he's been waiting by his phone.
She presses the video call button, needing to see his face, if he's going to insist on her spending time with Noah instead of him. "Hey there," she says, and she can hear the fatigue in her voice, but the rasp of it almost sounds sexy instead of tired. "Missed you."
"Missed you too, but I'm so incredibly proud of you. You never gave up on Jayden, and because of that, he's home with his family. Plus, you looked damn good in that captain's uniform of yours during the press conferences." A lazy smirk flips across his face, and he suppresses a laugh. "Turns out a woman in uniform really does it for me, especially when that woman's you."
"You'll have to fill me in on all those details later," she says. "Because the precinct parking garage is not where I want to be having this conversation." She loves seeing this side of herself again, the flirty, fun side. The one that can tease a man – Elliot, in particular – and take a little teasing in return, because the payoff will be more than worth it. "I've always had a thing for guys in hospital beds, myself."
He holds up his arm, showing that the last bandage from his burn recovery is no longer there. She can see the skin is still slightly discolored, though it probably always will be, but the white gauze and bandages are gone. "Not looking to repeat my last hospital visit again any time soon," he says, waving his arm in front of the screen. "Especially not now that the doctor gave me my release to go back to work whenever I'm ready."
"Are you ready, though?" she asks.
"I talked to Bell after my appointment. Going to take a few more weeks, get my head back on straight, make sure I'm really ready before I go. Spend some time with the kids, and hopefully with you, too. She understands." He looks at her, a tender, focused gaze, and he smiles. "I'd love to see you tomorrow, if you want to."
Her heart sings at his statement; he'd love to see her, but only if she wants to.
She grins, blows a kiss at the phone. "I'd really love that, yeah."
"Good, 'cause I do too."
The next afternoon, they meet at a park that's roughly equidistant between their two apartments, and Olivia's nerves are thrumming at a high frequency, as she parallel-parks her car after a long search for a nearby open spot. For all the years and history between them, this is the first time that they're meeting strictly outside the bounds of any pre-existing relationship.
He's not her partner, Detective Stabler, not today, nor is he my friend, Elliot. She's not sure what to classify him as, except that the word boyfriend seems too simplistic for the profundity of what's between the two of them, and lover seems too much like she's living in a romance novel fugue.
She senses his presence somewhere nearby, and when she turns, she sees him striding across the path toward her. He has an actual, honest-to-God picnic basket in his hands, and a giant grin plastered across his face. "Hey there," he says, as he sets the basket down on the ground and immediately envelopes her in a bracing hug. His arms are securely wrapped around her, holding her to him, as if she'd float away like a leaf on the wind if he didn't. "I'm so glad you joined me."
"It's a public place," she replies, laughing, a sharp snort through the nose. "Couldn't stop me if you tried." God, she doesn't want him to ever break from holding her; as far as she's concerned, he can hold her as long as he wants. Forever, if he really wants. I'd be good with that. Because it's been so long since someone's held her like this, like she's precious and worthy of everything she'd always convinced herself she wasn't.
"And why would I ever want to do a thing like that," he murmurs, smoothing his hand along her hair, pressing her closer and closer. His lips find hers, and she sighs happily as they meld together, lips seeking lips; the slight gasp of air she feels from him shows she's not the only one having a reaction to their kisses. "We've spent too much time apart."
"We have." She braces her hands against the back of his head, relishing in the close contact they can now have with each other. Two weeks, ten years, twelve years, twenty-three years – they've spent too much time apart, but now, she's kissing the one man she's ever truly loved in the middle of the park on an unseasonably nice and warm Saturday afternoon in November.
And it feels right.
"I brought some of your oats," he says, motioning to the picnic basket, as they break away from their kisses with a decided lack of hurry. "Thought we could kick back, feed the ducks. Since we have crazy ducks here, and they apparently don't want to migrate south like all the other sane ones."
"And here, I thought you were going to feed me," she says, smiling, as she takes hold of the handle. "Didn't take you for that cheap of a date, Stabler."
He spreads out a blanket on the grass, near the pond, and smooths out a spot for her, as he eases both of them down onto the ground. "Not a cheap date. There's cheese and wine in there, for both of us to share." He takes out the bottle of wine, and nimbly pours them each a plastic champagne flute of something she recognizes as her favorite pinot noir. "To partners," he says, as they tap their flutes together.
"To partners," she echoes, sipping the wine and casting glances over to him, as he busied himself with slicing gruyere cheese and a demi-baguette. "Never would have taken you for a wine and cheese guy, El." Warm, cheap beer and rubbery nachos, that was more the speed she knew him to be at.
"Don't underestimate what living in Italy for five years will accomplish," he says, "you're not going to survive there if you don't know what goes into a good caprese salad. And I didn't even know what one was until I got there."
Gradually, it's getting easier to hear him talk about his time in Italy, about the time they spent apart. There will likely always be a pang in her heart when she thinks about him enjoying Rome without her, even if she was never far from his thoughts. Because she would have loved to have been there with him, exploring the palazzos and art museums, bathing in the history that permeates every inch of the city.
Maybe they'll never have Rome; that city belongs to Elliot and Kathy and the ghosts of what they once had. And Paris, that's for her and Ed, and that brief interlude of possibilities lost to time. But New York is theirs; it's the city they met, where they fell in love; it's the city they've given their entire careers to defending. It's theirs, intrinsically and fully.
She gazes out over the pond, hearing a bird caw from somewhere above her, a small dark shape flying across the sky. "The kids know about us?"
"Yeah. We, uh, talked about a lot of things that night. They thought I knew. About." His hand catches on the upper part of her arm, drawing her into him. "You know."
"You can say his name, it's not like he's Voldemort," she scoffs. "Though I try not to think about him anymore than I have to."
He kneads his fingers into her arm, gently applying pressure and then releasing it, and the sensation relaxes her tension ever-so-slightly. "Kathy told them I was taking it poorly, and never to mention you to me again. And after how I was after Jenna, they believed her. It wasn't until they saw you in the hospital when Kathy – you know, and you being at her funeral, and you continuing to be there after –"
"That they realized you did want to hear from me." She thinks back on all those nights after she made it back home from the hospital, when she called out his name in her fitfully-gained sleep, and Brian, blessed Brian, never said two words about the things she'd say in the throes of sleepless agony. "That's why Kathleen wanted me at the intervention."
"I was always coming home to you," he says, and a duck comes waddling up next to him. Reaching into the brand-new container of oats, Elliot scoops out a heaping handful and offers it to the duck, who quacks happily. "I didn't know how, or when, but it was never supposed to be for forever."
"I know you were." And she does know, if not in her mind; the knowledge has resided in her soul, that their story was never over, even when she thought it was. She digs her hand inside the oats, tosses them in a spiraling overhead arc, and watches as a few other ducks descend on their newly-gotten feast. All she can think about is his soothing presence next to her, feeling the vibrations of his laugh in every fiber of her being, as the ducks congregate around them. "I believe you."
"I believe in you, Olivia Benson," he says, and she feels the words in her soul. Elliot has always been a man forged in faith, and for him to believe in something – or someone, like her – is the highest praise from him. "Always have. Always will."
"Same." She rests her head on his shoulder, watches the water ripple with a brisk breeze; winter is coming, Thanksgiving is around the corner, but she sees gratitude, hope, joy, love: all the things that bring with them warmth and salvation, no matter how crisp and sharp the chill becomes. And she can be content to just be, and that'll be enough.
With him, somehow, it always has been.
The wine and cheese are all but gone, the ducks have gotten plump from their feeding, and the sun is beginning to dip below the buildings that surround the park, painting the sky in rich hues of purple and pink. He takes her hand in his, his fingers finding their rightful places in the spaces between hers, and he brushes scattered kisses along her temple and hairline.
She looks up at him, and a sweet, serene smile slips across her face. "Let's go home, El."
"I already am, Liv. I already am."
-fini-
Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, and/or enjoyed this fic! It has meant so, so much - what was supposed to originally be a short little 3 chapter or so story grew into something much larger, and a lot of that is thanks to the feedback from all of you, on FFN, AO3 and Twitter. I'll be starting a new story shortly that covers some of the same themes as this, except building off the Christmas episode, so be on the lookout for Swan's Song in the next week or so. It's not a sequel to this story, but will feature more of the conversations that these two desperately need to have.
Find me on Twitter at kaleidowhirl. :)
