Oasis
Fleeterberry
Spoilers: set after season 23x08/OC 02x08
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
AN: This is a follow up to Mirage, so definitely read that first! Also, if you like Kathy, this is not the fic for you.
He wants to follow her. He wants to chase her. He wants to grab her and hold her and beg for her forgiveness. He knows she's not likely to give it, certainly not now, probably not ever. He should have told her, he knows that, but he was too fucking scared. It would have been bad enough if it was only his career on the line; he wouldn't dare risk hers. He'd taken the gamble that her career meant more to her than he did.
And now, all these years later, he realizes he was wrong.
He listens to her footsteps fade away, the quiet sound of her engine starting, and then she is gone, his life in shambles without her, his heart breaking for the millionth time. He knows Eli is devastated by the news and that he needs to be here, with his son, the boy who is his son no matter what the fucking DNA test said, because Eli is a child, an innocent kid, who has been under so fucking much stress that he just can't take it anymore and Elliot shouldn't leave the boy, not now, not a few hours after having learned the truth and a few minutes after the harrowing confrontation.
He suspects, however, that Eli will be fine eventually, because he was raised by parents who loved him and has a grandmother who loves him and siblings who love him and as shocking as the news was, Olivia had made a valid point about adoption and he thinks Eli understood that when he finally went to sleep.
Olivia, on the other hand, well, shit, Elliot doesn't know if she's going to be ok. In fact, he's pretty damn sure she won't be because the way it looks to her right now, there's a pretty big fucking knife sticking into her back. He's moving in slow motion and he's sure it takes him an hour before he finally makes his way to the door and pushes it closed and he stares through the glass for a long time at the path she'd taken and wishes again that he'd followed her and refused to let her go because it's sinking in more and more as the fucking adrenaline rush wanes and he feels the utter devastation of what's left of their relationship and he knows how much it hurts him and he was the one making all the fucking decisions and he knows she hurts more and he's truly fucking terrified that he'll never see her again.
And then his mother is there beside him and he's desperate for her to hug him and tell him it's going to be ok and he looks at her with tears rolling down his face and though he's never said it, he knows she is well aware of how he feels about Olivia and he's searching her face for the mercy and love and reassurance and forgiveness that he really fucking needs right now.
Instead, Bernie shakes her head and walks away while she mutters about what a fucking idiot he is and he's pretty sure he hears something about him being a selfish bastard just like Joe and the accusation rips him apart because he's fought his whole life not to be a damn thing like his father and though he's never raised a hand to anyone he loves, he sees the parallel of having emotionally eviscerated everyone he's supposed to have protected and rather than disputing the claim and trying to defend himself with the truth, Elliot just absorbs the blow and the pain because he fucking deserves to hurt like Olivia hurts.
He sits on the couch, too exhausted to make it as far as his bedroom, too upset to even think about sleeping. He turns his phone over and over in his hands, thinking about calling her or texting her or emailing her or something. But he knows she's too hurt and the wound is too fresh to even listen to an apology from him. In the end, he texts Fin. He doesn't bother with an explanation, he figures it doesn't matter, and just asks the man to check on her and make sure she's all right. All he gets back is "WTF you do this time" and he doesn't bother to answer.
He brought this on himself and he knows it and he fucking deserves it and he should have seen it coming, but he can't fucking understand how the fuck he might have predicted Eli and Olivia finding out at the same fucking time when he has no choice but to protect his chilid again while the woman he loves takes the hit for his choices again.
He realizes as he's sitting there, staring at the wall, that he might be in shock. He feels sick and not in the familiar way that a career detective knows following an emotional situation. His son threatened him and most of the rest of the family with his fucking gun and in all honesty, it's the least of his problems.
She's done with him this time. Really fucking done. And he gets it, he does, if he were in her position, having only heard half of the truth, he'd feel the same. But if she's going to walk away from him and never look back, he's going to make damn sure she gets the rest of the story and the determination to tell her gives him a boost of energy.
He checks on Eli and finds the boy asleep in his bed. He isn't going to disturb him, and instead tapes a note to his door so there are no misunderstandings. Kathleen is watching something on her phone and he's not sure if she's sobbing over that or what just happened, but when he inquires if she's ok, she nods. Bernie only glares at him over the rim of her glasses and goes back to her book before he finishes his sentence. He wonders, as he walks to his car, if he should bother. Everyone hates him and blames him and everything he does to protect anyone winds up hurting everyone.
He thinks maybe he should just get in the car and drive away, leave everyone behind and never look back, leave them all alone where at least he won't hurt them anymore. But his heart clenches so tightly in his chest that he thinks he's having a heart attack because he's done that, driven away and didn't look back and left Olivia behind and it didn't help and it didn't make anything better and it wasn't even his choice, not really, but he still fucking wishes he hadn't done it.
There's so much of her life that he missed and he wishes he'd seen her become a mom and he'd originally tried to imagine watching her go through pregnancy and offering her advice and now that he knows she adopted her son, he desperately wishes he'd been with her on that journey, meeting her son for the first time and helping her navigate becoming a mother with likely little warning. He'd missed seeing her get promoted, eclipsing his career tenfold, and he suspects she never would have made captain if he'd stayed because she wouldn't have wanted to leave their partnership, but he would have encouraged her anyway. He missed something else too, something he doesn't know, because there's a darkness in her eyes that reflects in her wardrobe and she doesn't smile as easily as she used to and he knows there's a story there, but he's afraid to ask because he doesn't want to bring up something that clearly hurt her so badly.
He's missed so fucking much and he's terrified that he's going to miss everything else too because with the way she walked out his door he knows she has no plans over ever coming back. He fights back his tears as he drives because as much as he's hurting, he knows she's hurting more and he can't stop long enough to get himself together because he can't bear the idea of her hurting one moment longer than she already has.
It's only when he's parked on the street outside of her building that he considers the situation. He doesn't know where Noah is and if that little boy is at home with his mother right now, Elliot cannot possibly have the discussion he needs to have with her. Olivia is fucking furious and she's probably not going to let him in the door and he doesn't want to have a screaming match with her in the hallway while he begs for permission to come inside and he's never going to force his way into her home and so he's frozen. He can see the doorman working in her lobby, and unlike the time he showed up high in the middle of the night, the individual at the security desk is both awake and likely capable of beating the shit out of him with one hand. He wonders if the upgraded security has anything to do with him blowing past the octogenarian who was one duty that night and offered no security whatsoever and he honestly can't blame Olivia, if it was indeed her, for demanding protection.
He knows she's not likely to answer her phone or respond to a text and he's just sitting there, trying to figure out what to do. He's wondering if he should wait there until morning and try to catch her on her way to work, but then he thinks she'll probably have her son with her and so he's back to not being willing to upset her in front of her child.
He decides to try the easy way, the way that doesn't reveal that he's sitting outside her apartment building and trying to find some way to trick her into talking to him. He could call, but it's easy enough to send a call to voicemail or decline it altogether and there'd be no way for him to know if she ever listened to the message so he opts for texting, because while she can ignore it, the fucking thing is still going to pop up on her phone screen and increase the odds she'll actually see it, even if she's only looking at it long enough to delete it. Can we talk is simple enough to let her know he didn't just forget about her when she walked away.
Her answer comes so quickly that he's actually surprised because he fully expected, at best, a long wait while she contemplated answering. But at least he's not surprised by her words because he's expecting a drawn out back and forth about how she's too angry to listen to what he has to say. I've got nothing to say isn't exactly promising, but it's not the string of curses he would have expected on a phone call and she didn't ignore him.
Will you hear me out? And that's what it comes down to, getting her to trust him enough, one more time, to say something that might help her understand. She's not likely to forgive him, he knows, but if she can at least understand the choices he made, then maybe she won't hurt as much. Even if she hates him still, it's worth it if she's in less pain.
He wants to believe it's a good sign that she's taking so long to respond, that she must be considering it because it would only take a second to tell him to fuck off, that maybe she's making her way out of her apartment to come talk to him, except he remembers she doesn't know he's there, but it's still a disappointment when she finally replies. There's nothing you could possibly say that I want to hear.
It hurts. It really fucking hurts. Because he already knew it, he saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice when she quoted that poison line at him, but he'd still convinced himself that there was some way to fix this and now he's realizing that the texting is far too impersonal and she's not interested and at some point she's going to silence her phone or block his number and then the conversation will be over and he knows it's fair that she gets to dictate the rules since she's been hurt too many times by him, but he doesn't want her to think he's just needling her when he's desperate for her to know the truth.
And that's all he has to go with. How about the truth?
He's answered with more silence and he fears she's done with the conversation and the relationship and him. She might have turned off her phone and gone to bed. He stares at the screen and feels the pain setting in and the tears are pricking his eyes again and he wonders if it would make a difference if he sent her a picture of his tears because she won't talk to him.
I've had enough truth from you.
And then the silence is from him because she really doesn't want to hear it and she's not even the least bit curious and he can't breathe because she's really fucking done with him and them and they never even got a fucking chance and Kathy might already be dead but she's still fucking destroying them from beyond the grave like some cheesy horror movie.
He can't do this over text, he just can't, he'd really somehow thought she'd be willing to read his texts and now he realizes how fucking stupid that was because of course flat words on a phone screen aren't going to be enough to get the woman who's been hurt so badly by him so many times to trust him just one more time.
He calls her, suddenly desperate to hear her voice, and his throat is choked with the fear that he's really fucking lost her this time, but he wants, needs, to talk to her, to see her, to explain, to beg, to plead, to throw himself at her feet.
He's actually dumbfounded when she answers.
"Leave me alone."
He tries to swallow back the lump in his throat, but he can't, and so his voice comes out raspy and hoarse and reveals the tears he'd thought about showing her. "Please, Liv-"
"You should take care of your son tonight." She doesn't have to say it, he hears it anyway, that things are fucked up enough already with Eli, but not irrevocably and her implication that his focus should be there adds to the growing mountain of evidence that it's too late for this relationsip.
"You haven't turned off your phone yet." He knows as soon as he says it that he said the wrong thing and he wishes he could turn back time and stop himself from saying something stupid and make sure he'd locked up his gun so Eli couldn't have grabbed it and fuck, just fucking told Olivia the truth all those years ago.
"Elliot, I'm a fucking Captain, I can't turn off my phone. Just-" she pauses and he thinks she's cracking and she's going to listen to him and that calling her was the right thing because the sound of his voice must be as overwhelming to her as hers is to him, but then she continues and takes the wind out of his sails. "Don't call me. Don't text me."
He clenches his jaw shut to keep in the sob that threatens to escape at the sound of the door closing on them. But he can't let her hang up and sever their connection for what he's sure now will be the last time. "Liv, please-" he can't even finish the plea because his voice cracks and he's suddenly mute from the strength of the fist around his heart.
She hasn't hung up yet and though it takes him a minute to notice, he understands that's a very big deal. She might want out of this, but she's having as hard a time walking away from him as he's having letting her go. She says nothing, but she doesn't need to. She's listening and that's enough.
He knows he doesn't have much time and so forces himself to talk with his tearful, broken voice. "I know I hurt you and you don't have any reason to trust me, but please let me tell you the truth. Let me explain." He chokes and bites back the sobs again because he knows she can already hear the emotion in his voice and he doesn't want her to think he's anywhere near as hysterical as he is because she'll be too afraid of him to hear him out. "What you know right now, what you heard tonight, it's not the whole story, Olivia, please-"
And then he can't speak and he can't breathe and he's managed to force out that many words but there aren't going to be anymore because he's already crying and sobbing and hyperventilating.
"I really don't think-" she stops and he doesn't even have time to wonder what her hesitation means. "If I hear you out, will you leave me the fuck alone?"
He can't believe his ears and he forces out a weak "yes" before she can change her mind.
"Then talk."
And now he can't find words while he's still choking on regret. So he does the only thing he knows how to do with her anymore - he begs. "Please, Liv." He doesn't know how to ask her to do this face to face. He doesn't know how to tell her he's downstairs without sounding like a crazy stalker.
She waits, expecting that he's got something to say after all his pleading with her for the opportunity to say it, and he, as usual, disappoints her. "Ok, thanks for clearing that up. Anything else?"
It's his last chance and he's done nothing but fuck up so there's no reason to stop now and he forces out the words he probably shouldn't say. "I'm outside. Please come down."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" She sighs heavily and he knows she's thinking of hanging up and he won't blame her if she does, but he still desperately hopes she doesn't. "If I come down there and listen to you, Elliot, you have to leave. I swear, I will have you arrested if you don't."
He agrees because he can't argue and he needs to talk to her and he's glad that even if his words don't help, at least he gets to see her one more time.
As he's waiting, he eyes the steroid-abusing giant at her front desk and he absolutely knows it was her doing. He wouldn't be a bit surprised if she insisted on conducting the interviews, specifically looking for someone who could stop him. It's a sharp contrast to the old days when they were partners and she'd give him a heads up anytime the entry code for her building changed, no matter how many times she swore she wouldn't. It feels like forever has come and gone and he still doesn't see her and he wonders if she changed her mind and he thinks about calling to ask, but in the end he just sits there and waits. He certainly made her do more than her share of waiting over the years, not the least of which was a decade when she had no idea if he was ever coming back.
He finally sees her, watches her as she crosses the lobby and says something to the security guy and eventually pushes through the front doors. She looks around for a moment up and down the block, spotting him before he can even think about waving. Normally, her stride is purposeful, commanding, she doesn't dawdle, but she's dawdling now and he can tell from her speed that she's rethinking her agreement to listen. It hurts desperately to know she only agreed to do so with his promise that he would leave her the fuck alone afterwards.
He hates the discomfort on her face when she approaches the passenger side of his truck. She doesn't open the door and he realizes she's actually considering standing outside. He rolls down the window and wonders when she became so threatened by him that she's nervous about sitting next to him.
"Liv-" It's meant to be a request, an invitation, a reassurance that she is in no physical danger, but the words won't come. He's gutted that she might feel like he's a danger, but he can't blame her. He's hurt her terribly, repeatedly, for years so of course she's trying to protect herself.
With a tired sigh, she opens the door and the overhead light allows him to see her face clearly for the first time since she left his place and he can see the redness of her eyes and the smeared makeup and the still wet traces of tears on her cheek and so he has to turn away and ball his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching for her because although his desire is to comfort her, his touch will absolutely not provide that for her right now.
By the time he has control of himself, she has climbed into the seat beside him and he wants to find solace in it, the same way he has always found comfort in so many hours of sitting beside her over the years, but he can't because this time is different and she already has one foot out the door and is only humoring him because she probably doesn't want the trouble and attention that having to report him will bring.
He hates that she's hurting and he hates that he can't do anything to soothe her and that he is the source of her pain. The only thing he can do is exactly what he came here to do - to tell her why he hurt her so badly. He's not sure where to start, whether to blurt out the punch line or the ultimatum first, to hook her into listening, but in the end he decides to start at the beginning, where all the lying began.
"Kathy never liked me working with a woman." It hurts to say it, to reveal that what Olivia had thought was a friendship with his wife was all lies he made up to prevent Olivia from finding out the truth and possibly from ending their partnership before it really even started. "At first she said it was because she didn't trust a woman to have my back." He sighs and realizes that even saying that much is a weight off his shoulders. He's been lying to her for years, fucking decades, but it was never meant to hurt her. He was trying to protect her, to protect them, to keep Olivia by his side because he couldn't fathom not being with her every day. He can't look at her, but he draws up his memory of the much younger Olivia who'd first been assigned as his partner and he stares at her instead. "She kept pestering me about you, about what you looked like and if you were married and then she made up an excuse to come see me at work the second week we were together."
"We were never together." Her voice is barely a whisper, but he registers the objection nonetheless.
"Then she saw you and shit-" he stops because he remembers the way Kathy screamed and yelled and threatened and threw things and how he'd had to pack all of his clothes in the trunk of his car because she'd tossed them all on the lawn and the way he'd lived in his car for a week because she wouldn't let him in the house. He's mortified just thinking about it, about the fact that any man who deeply loved his wife the way Elliot had truly thought he did, would have done what it took to reassure her. And even though an affair, falling in love, was so far outside the realm of possibility for him that it never even fucking occured to him, he'd known two weeks in that he wanted their partnership more than he wanted his marriage. He wasn't about to admit it to anyone, not even himself, but with the benefit of hindsight and distance, he knows exactly why he waited her out and concocted a bullshit story about how he was required to train a new detective once every few years or his next promotion would be at risk and they needed the next promotion to pay for things they'd already charged on their credit cards.
"She saw me and what, Elliot?" She sounds irritated and he doesn't blame her because he dragged her outside to talk to him and sitting there in silence while he takes a trip down memory lane is not what she expected, but then again, it's so fucking obvious and now he's irritated too because she's going to make him say it.
Well fuck, it's not like either of them don't know. He turns to look at her, as always drawn in by her beauty and he can't even find the words and he figures he doesn't really need to tell her because, as Richard Wheatley was so eager to point out, she's a fucking knockout and she must know that. He waves his hand in her direction, his eyes trailing over her body, but lingering on her face.
And then she's staring back at him, her brow furrowed and her face scrunched up in confusion and he finally realizes that she really doesn't fucking know. He doesn't even know where to start with that.
"Jesus, Olivia, you're beautiful." He watches the shock roll across her face and he wonders if it's more because she doesn't think she's beautiful or because he actually said it. It's unconscious when his hand reaches out toward her, his body suddenly desperate to touch hers, his fingers aiming for her cheek, but he catches himself and drops his hand down between them. His eyes never leave hers though.
He doesn't know if the comment is unexpected or unwelcome, but either way, she turns away and swallows hard. "So Kathy didn't like me, I got that from her letter. Was there something else?" Her hand is on the door and she's reaching for the handle and he fights his instincts to grab her arm because he can't stand the thought of her leaving and he knows there's no way to get her to stay for him to explain away twenty plus years of an angry, jealous wife and all the fights that arose because he wouldn't fucking leave his partner.
He wants to stop, wants to keep the rest of it to himself, to let it end on the note of him telling her something nice, but right now she just thinks he's trying to tell her that Kathy hated her and he knows Olivia doesn't have a lot of friends because she doesn't have time for them and he knows it probably hurts to hear more about how Kathy wasn't her friend because Elliot never had the balls to tell her that she intimidated the fuck out of his insecure wife.
He turns back to stare straight ahead because he doesn't want to see her reaction. "She never believed we weren't having an affair."
It's hard for him to say it, to admit it, to tell her that he'd been unable to convince his wife that he was telling the truth for all those fucking years. It was his penance, he'd thought, his guilt for having truly been in love with Olivia making him accept the punishment of having to defend against something he wanted so badly but never actually had.
He's quiet, letting the truth sink in, waiting for her to attack now that he's starting to reveal how fucking vulnerable he is and was and always has been and always will be. But she's quiet and he wants her to give him something and he knows she's giving him more than he deserves by sitting there and listening and he's honestly not sure how much longer she's going to even give him that.
"When we were separated, she thought I ran straight to you." And fuck if he hadn't wanted to, but by then their partnership was full of fucking landmines and he was afraid he'd blow their whole relationship to hell if he pushed too hard and it seemed at the time that Olivia much preferred him when he was married to someone else and he'd assumed it was because he no longer had to hide his feelings for her and it made her uncomfortable. Now, he doesn't fucking know what the fuck had been going on and he really wishes they'd bene able to have an honest conversation then.
But he does know that she'd felt something for him then, and some of those feelings had continued until this very evening or she wouldn't have reacted the way she had to finding out the truth about Eli.
And though he isn't expecting it, Olivia finally has something to say. "I guess that answers one question."
He tries to think about what he said versus what he thought and he's trying to understand what she's talking about and her words just don't sound like the appropriate response to anything. "What question?" He glances over and sees her studying her hands and he wants to say she's nervous, but he doesn't know why that would be.
"She asked to meet with me once back then. She thought I'd be able to get you to sign the divorce papers."
He stares at her profile and wonders what the actual fuck had been said during that conversation. "You never told me that."
Shrugging one shoulder, she winces and he knows she's not as disconnected from them as she'd like to convince him. "Never convinced you to sign the papers either."
He's distracted from the whole explanation now, trying to understand and he can't wrap his brain around it. If Kathy had enlisted her help, given her blessing to a relationship she'd never supported, why hadn't Olivia mentioned it? Unless he was completely wrong and Olivia really didn't feel anything beyond friendship for him. And if she was really on Kathy's side all along, this whole conversation was going to hurt even more, for both of them.
His voice is raspy and choked with emotion at the idea that she really never loved him. "Why not?" He's gripping the steering wheel in one hand and digging the fingers of his other hand into his jeans because he's absolutely terrified of her crushing him with the truth.
As scared as he is, he can't help but look over at her, taking in the way she's chewing on her bottom lip and blinking so rapidly she must be fighting back tears. It's a dumb idea, he knows, but he can't not, he can't sit there while she's struggling and pretend he doesn't want to comfort her. He reaches over, his hand resting on hers, his fingers gripping tightly.
But the moment is short-lived and she yanks her hand away as though he's burned her and he supposes he has. "You didn't want to get divorced. You made that clear or you would have signed the papers yourself." She tries to clear her throat, but he knows her feelings are lodged into a lump the same as his. "I thought I'd be able to convince you to sign them even though you didn't want to and I didn't want to be selfish." She tries again to clear her throat and is no more successful because her voice is choked as she continues. "Wouldn't have made a difference though because you never really listened to me, did you?"
He can feel her pain radiating across the truck and reads her as easily as he always did when they were partners. She's remembering this noble, selfless act that clearly devastated her and realizing how much worse it could have been, imagining that if she had made the attempt, then he would have refused her.
He swallows hard and balls his hand into a fist to keep himself from reaching for her again. "I would have signed those damn papers before you finished asking."
And fuck he wonders if it wasn't all a part of Kathy's big fucking plan all along, if she wouldn't have used Olivia's influence over him as part of her ammunition.
She scoffs. "Yeah, because you were so over your marriage when you were still sleeping with her." She reaches for the door handle again, getting as far as pushing the door open. "Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Lose my number."
He wants to grab her arm, to pull her back, but he knows he can't touch her right now because he is entirely unwelcome in her life. "You promised to hear me out."
The door is still open and he can see her wrestling with herself, but at least she isn't moving away. "I heard you. Kathy didn't like me. I just told you I figured that out when you told me she wrote that fucking letter."
"Liv, wait-"
And then she's climbing out of the truck, slamming the door behind her, and she's halfway to the front door of her building before he's able to get his seatbelt off and he's chasing after her and he knows, he fucking knows, if they get much closer to the door, the security guard is going to look up and this conversation will be over.
He's faster than she is and he manages to get in front of her and though he knows he shouldn't, he can't help it when he reaches out and cups her face in both of his hands even while he shouts. "She was blackmailing me, Olivia!"
She jerks back from his touch before she even processes his words, but she isn't clear of his hands when she actually hears him and so his hands are still on her cheeks when her chin starts to tremble. Her eyes are searching his and her tears are welling up and he can feel her shaking with the way she instinctively tries to fight back her pain.
"Everything ok out here, Captain Benson?" The booming voice of the guard makes both of them jump and Elliot drops his hands out of a combination of shock and fear and guilt.
She's trying to speak, but she can't get the words out and he can't stand watching her fight so hard when all he wants to do is pull her into a hug and beg for forgiveness and offer her the comfort he's never been able to give her. He turns to the guard, noticing the man has one hand on his radio and the other curled in a fist as though he's just bored enough to be looking for a fight.
Elliot turns toward the guy with a tight smile and wishes he'd brought his badge to flash. "Yeah, we're good."
The guard's eyes narrow and his hand moves from his radio, reaching further back along his belt. "I asked the lady."
Elliot turns back to Olivia with a sigh. "Tell me he doesn't have a taser."
She wipes at her tears and manages to push back her emotions. "If you're lying to me, I swear to god a taser is going to be the least of your problems." Then she reaches down and grabs his hand and Elliot can't even believe his luck when she pulls him toward the door. "It's fine, John, we're going to finish this conversation upstairs."
John doesn't seem entirely convinced as he pulls the door open. "I'm here if you change your mind, ma'am."
Elliot waits until they're in the elevator before he glances at her. "Was hiring him really necessary?"
He sees it, the slight twitch of her lips into a smirk before she remembers the situation and that she doesn't quite trust him and certainly hasn't forgiven him. "It wasn't just me." She shrugs, the movement translating through their joined hands, which apparently draws her attention to the fact that she's still touching him and then she lets go and steps away. "Several of my neighbors were a little bit upset with the crazy intoxicated man screaming my name in the hallway in the middle of the night."
His hand feels cold now that it's not connected to hers and he feels more awkward and uncertain than he did in the truck because it appears that she's really willing to listen to him and he's given away the punch line now but he's still going to have to explain himself and he really doesn't want to because he's so close to the fucking edge of losing her and five minutes ago he had already lost and it didn't matter so much what he said or did because she was already gone but now he's got this tiny little margin, a tightrope on which to balance, that is the difference between her being in his life and him being on the wrong end of John's taser and he's absofuckinglutely terrified he's going to get it wrong.
As she's turning her key in the lock, he dares to break the silence. "Is Noah here?" He remembers how she'd told him he'd scared her when he came here before with her son in the next room and she's just confirmed his suspicion that she was behind the building getting tighter security and he just had to scream in her face to get her to actually hear him, so he's absolutely terrified of the idea that he's supposed to have this discussion calmly in a hushed whisper and she really should know better because they've never been able to discuss their relationship in civil tones and if it wasn't snide remarks, it was angry shouts and it's just not something he really believes they can control and so even as she's holding the door open for him, he's thinking he should just walk away.
"Noah's asleep a few doors down where I sent him after your mother called me for help." Her voice is sharp and protective and he hates that he's not involved in her personal life anymore and it hurts when he realizes that he never was, but that she used to do a better job of hiding that personal life from him rather than pointedly not inviting him into it.
She takes a deep breath and leans against the back of the door, telling him pretty much exactly what she intends before she says it. "I'm too tired to deal with the paperwork involved in justifying John's use of force against you, so you have five minutes to finish explaining yourself and then you're leaving." She presses a button on her watch and he can't quite believe she's serious.
Then her eyes stray to the alarm controls next to the door and it hurts to know she's not bluffing, not even a little bit, and if he isn't able to convince her in five minutes, her new friend John is going to be carting him out of the building after tasing him into submission.
He takes a deep breath, presses his back against the wall, and slides down to the floor. He has no more energy, no more ideas, no more time. Blurting out the truth, the horrible, honest-to-god truth, bought him five minutes and a reprieve from being tased; he would have expected his utter debasement was worth more. The wave of guilt and pain and despair starts to overtake him again, the way it had while he was sitting on his couch and asking Fin to check on her, the way it had when he was sitting in his truck and contemplating disappearing again.
But a moment later, Olivia is sitting against the opposite wall, her legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankle, her hands clasped together on her lap, and she's staring at him, her face tired and hurt and still wet with her tears, but she's here. She's fucking here and she's willing to listen, to give him another chance after the series of blows she received tonight that would have dropped anyone else to their knees.
He can't help it, he can't stop it, and he supposes it's up to her to call John if she thinks it's necessary, and even if she does, he's still going to try, because he really can't control himself, so he mirrors her pose and reaches his right hand out to rest against her calf. Her muscles tense, but she doesn't move and she doesn't ask him to stop and so he sits there, wasting his precious five minutes, with his fingers sliding over her pants.
He knows he has to say something, he has to explain himself, and he knows she absolutely wasn't kidding about throwing him out and even though he's just sitting there and holding her stare and touching her and reveling in this time she's in his fucking space, he can hear the time clock ticking away so loudly in his ears he can't think straight.
Finally, and only because he thinks she deserves some kind of fucking explanation for all the fucking pain he's brought on her tonight, he finds his voice. "She told me she wanted the divorce because she wanted to marry the guy she was seeing." He pauses before he says it because he's tried so very hard to pretend it wasn't true, especially over the last year. "Eli's father, she was with him for a long time," he pauses again because somehow this part is harder to admit, "before she even left me, but I never knew because I was never home and when I found out, she justified it because I was with you."
She doesn't tense, but she never un-tensed from his touch, but he does hear the gasp she tries to hide and he sees the way her mouth drops open and she's so startled and he feels bad because she really never knew and he probably should have told her but he never knew how and now he doesn't know what to do but he can't keep talking while he's looking at her shocked face and so his eyes drop to his fingers and instead trace the invisible lines he's drawing on her leg.
"He dumped her when he found out she was pregnant and she decided I was better than nothing."
He's lost for a moment in his own memories, how he'd accepted her invitation to what had once been their bed out of loneliness and pain and desperation and how if only he hadn't been so fucking stupid that night, if he had turned to Olivia for comfort, then he would have known the truth and he never would have been suckered in, but then again, it hadn't been his decision at all. It had all been Kathy and she'd had him by the balls and he's mortified by how easily she manipulated him into hurting the woman he loves over and over again.
He's not doing it on purpose, he doesn't think he is at least, but somehow his hand that had been on her calf is now on her knee and when he realizes it, he knows he should stop, but his whole life is and always has been a trainwreck and he's just so used to doing what other people tell him that he's not sure he's capable of making a decision on his own anymore and so until she tells him to stop, he's not going to.
"She came to the station to tell me she was pregnant and that she wanted me to come home. I told her I needed to think about it because I was going to tell her no, but I didn't want her to make a scene at work. I was afraid of what she'd say about us." He dares to glance up at Olivia and she's not staring at him anymore, she's staring at his hand as it moves over her leg and he's wondering what that means, if it means she's so focused on his words that she's not really seeing or feeling anything else or if, maybe, she's so distracted by his touch that she's not really hearing his words. He's not sure which would be better.
But now he's getting to the point of the story, the part where he hopes to find some kind of absolution, the words that will, maybe, give her some kind of comfort, and he needs to know she's hearing him and he needs to be closer to her because the four feet between them feels like a hundred miles and he's about to slide closer to her, but a shrill beep sounds and they both jump again, like when John interrupted them earlier.
Her hands unclasp as she moves to turn off the timer and his hand is resting on her knee and he didn't get through the damn story and he's had so many fucking minutes and hours and months and years and now his fucking time is up and he's so damn tired of keeping this fucking secret and he really wanted to fucking share it and now he can't because he didn't talk fast enough and it was so much work to get her to listen to him in the first place and then to get a second fucking chance after she got out of the truck and now he just doesn't have the strength to beg for more. And so he sits there, his eyes closed, his voice silent, his hand still, and waits for her demand that he leave.
Instead he feels her hand cover his and he's waiting for her to move him away, maybe just for the satisfaction of rejecting him, maybe just so she can stand up and invite him to leave.
But then her voice, soft as a whisper, choked with emotion. "Tell me the rest."
He opens his eyes to catch hers and he waits a beat, thinking he's misheard her, sure that she can't truly be interested in what he has to say. But she's still there, still touching him, still staring at him and he feels tears welling up because she's so fucking perfect, so strong and brave and patient and forever willing to let him dump on her because she knows he needs to and he vows that some day he will be there for her in all the ways she's been there for him.
He bends his knees and scoots halfway across the distance between them, his hand still resting between her knee and her hand, his right thigh pressed against hers, and he waits again for her to reject the contact, but she doesn't.
"I went to see her after work and I was expecting she'd be upset and I was ready to deal with her crying and yelling and I felt like I deserved it because I'd been the one who wouldn't sign the papers for so long while she was moving on, but," he swallows hard and remembers the icy look in her blue eyes when she opened the door to him that night. "She didn't even let me say a word. She just told me she expected me home by the end of the month." His hand tightens, his fingers digging into her pants, and it means so fucking much to him when he feels her fingers tighten around his palm. "When I tried to say no, she handed me Tucker's business card."
He feels the shudder run through her and he wonders if he should stop, but he's afraid if he does, he'll never start again.
"She said she was willing to tell him she'd caught us together and she said she knew it wouldn't get us fired, but we wouldn't be allowed to work together anymore." This time, he's the one shuddering, remembering the moment he knew he had no choice, when he understood that Kathy's threat was real, that one, probably both, of them would be reassigned, some official reprimand in their jackets preventing both of them from ever being promoted, and, the worst part for him, knowing that no one in the NYPD would ever take Olivia seriously again.
"So I went back." He's shaking, he's put his cards on the table, most of them at least, and he's waiting for her to think for two seconds and then come up with some simple solution that would have fixed everything if he hadn't been an idiot. He's trying to stop shaking because with all the points of contact between them, he knows she can feel it, but he can't get control of himself because he's waiting for her to reject what he's told her, to refuse to forgive him, to tell him that his reasons for hurting her weren't good enough even though he was trying to protect her.
But she says nothing and he's still afraid to look at her and he figures she hasn't thrown him out yet and he might as well play the rest of his hand because this might be his last chance. "I gave in and I thought that would be enough." And he wants to scream at the Elliot from all those years ago for being stupid because like all blackmailers, Kathy just raised the price of her silence and he wonders if he wouldn't have been better to sacrifice both of their careers and face the lies together.
"She wanted me to love her and when she realized she couldn't make me, she insisted that I leave the department." He lets the tears run down his cheeks as he remembers returning home the night he'd shot Jenna, when he'd been so desperately upset and shattered and despondent and instead of sympathy or even the mercy of a cold shoulder, Kathy had been sitting on the couch with Tucker's motherfucking business card in her hand again and telling him it was about time for him to leave the NYPD. His tears turn into sobs when he recalls the way he realized she wasn't ever going to be satisfied and how he'd crawled into a bottle for months and mourned the loss of his partner.
Olivia is chewing on her lip again and she is silently crying, but her hand is still wrapped around his and it's still not enough and so he slides closer again, close enough that he can move his hand from her knee to her back and pull her against him and he holds her tight and he's sure she's shaking too, but when her arms move around him he feels like he's really got a chance now because maybe she understands his motives and why he didn't tell her and maybe she would have preferred to know the truth and fight back against Kathy's claims, but she's a fucking Captain now and that never would have happened if he'd let Kathy smear her reputation.
"Even after I gave her everything, Liv, all those fucking years, she insisted we go to your award ceremony, and I know she was going to do it-" And he know he doesn't have to explain anymore, that she's well aware of his fear that Kathy was going to carry through on her threat in public despite Elliot having acquiesced to her demands, she was determined to destroy Olivia's career the way she'd already destroyed their partnership.
And Kathy might have destroyed their partnership and carved away Olivia's trust in him and cost them ten goddamn years, but she didn't get what she wanted because Olivia is sobbing in his arms and her arms are wrapped around his shoulders and he's honestly not sure which one of them is squeezing harder.
He holds her for a long time, reminding himself that it's a fucking miracle she even agreed to talk to him and that she listened to him all this time and that she let him come into her home and that she allowed him to touch her and now that's touching him is just too fucking much to believe. He thinks maybe he's dreaming, perhaps he passed out on the couch in exhaustion after the emotional scenes with Eli and Olivia and he's dreamt up this magical world where there's a goddamn chance Olivia will forgive him like he imagined that fantasy world where he and Liv had always been together.
And he's stroking her back and tucking his face into her hair and deciding he's going to milk this perfect fucking dream for everything it's worth. She's in his arms and he's so damn relieved for having gotten the truth off his chest and he's turning his face into her and letting his lips move close to her ear and saying words that are damn near meaningless, except they're so fucking true.
"I love you, Olivia, and I'm so fucking sorry." He waits a beat, expecting she'll reject the sentiment, and he's surprised and encouraged when she doesn't. So he keeps going, deciding he should keep talking until she stops him. "I never wanted to hurt you. I just didn't know what to do and I tried to make the best choice and I figured your career meant everything to you and I didn't think I had any right to let someone threaten-"
And then she's pulling away and shaking her head and holding up her hand to stop him and he wishes he'd chosen something else, something better, something more right, to tell her while she was willing to listen.
"It's over, Elliot, whatever she said or did, it's over now." She slumps back against the wall and her shoulders sag like she's fucking exhausted and he knows she is because he is too and they've both suffered a few decades worth of pain tonight.
He wishes he had a wall to lean against himself, but he's in the middle of the floor now and he could push back to where he had been, but he doesn't want to move an inch further away from her and while he's trying to decide if she pulled away because she doesn't want to touch him anymore or if she's just tired and he doesn't know if he can put his hand back on her leg or if he should keep his hands to himself, he realizes that there's multiple interpretations of her words and he doesn't have any idea what she thinks is over. He hopes she means the torture Kathy inflicted on both of them, but he's afraid she means their relationship, that she heard him out like she'd promised and even given him multiple reprieves and even let him hold her, but now she's done and she expects him to be on his way.
The tiny bit of joy he found when she was letting him hold her is strangled again by the very real possibility that she can't forgive him, no matter his reasons, and even so, he wants to keep explaining himself.
"I was never sure, Liv." He waits for her to look up at him, but her head remains back against the wall and he can't really blame her for being too tired to listen anymore. "I wanted to assume it went both ways with us, but there was no way to be sure without asking and I was terrified to ask because -" He stops because he knows now how she felt then, but only with hindsight, and he's in the same place now, not knowing how she feels and being too terrified to ask.
His hand moves to her cheek, turning her face towards his, and being rewarded with her pulling her eyes open to meet his stare. It doesn't matter how scared he is or how much of himself he's revealing by asking or how much she can hurt him with a single word. He has to know.
"Do you love me?" He pauses, knowing better than to expect any immediate answer, but wanting the gravity of his meaning to sink in. "I'm not asking if you trust me now," and he's not because he knows the answer, even if he hates it, "or if you loved me then," and again, of course he's not because he knows she did and he wishes he'd known then, "I'm asking if you still love me now."
He holds her eyes and he wants to run away and hide because he's putting himself out there for her to eviscerate and he fucking deserves it and he knows that and he's trying to remember how to breathe and blinking so he isn't completely blinded by the tears welling in his eyes and he watches the way he bites her lip and blinks a hundred times herself that gives away the tears that haven't fallen yet and he feels the way her head leans into his hand and it's everything to him and he knows the answer even before she nods and lets the tears spill over and she's letting him wipe them away with his thumbs and it doesn't matter if he remembers how to breathe now because he can't breathe because his heart is seizing too hard in his chest.
And then she speaks in a choked, broken whisper and he's not sure he'll ever recover from the way it breaks him. "I will always love you."
He nods back at her, fighting sobs that are rising in his throat, and he tells himself finally acknowledging their feelings and finding that they are reciprocated shouldn't hurt so fucking much, but it does and he supposes this pain and fear and vulnerability are what he was so goddamn afraid of all those years ago and are why he hurt her so badly and it's only fucking fair that he feels it now all at once, compounded with the time he's wasted for both of them.
His other hand lifts to thread into her hair and he marvels at the idea that she's letting him touch her again, even after everything he's done to her. "Then we can fix this, Liv, we can, I promise."
One of her hands moves to his wrist and he's certain she's about to push him away and she doesn't, she's just resting her hand on his skin and her eyes are darting back and forth between his and he can see the hurt but he can see the hope too and he knows she doesn't trust him yet, how could she, but she fucking wants to and he clings to that.
"Give me another chance, Liv, please." He hesitates, wondering if he has the right to ask her for anything at all, but he's sure it'll be different now because there won't be three of them in this relationship anymore and maybe that's what she needs to hear. "This time it's just me and you." Just like in that parallel universe he always imagined. His thumb slides down over her cheek where it had been resting and glances across her lips and his touch is so soft and fleeting he's not sure it's even real and he wants to lean forward and kiss her and he knows he doesn't have that right yet and he won't dare unless she invites him, but fuck he wants to.
He watches her eyes, her face, her expression, and he reads the emotional overload and the confusion and he knows there's definitely no invitation coming tonight, maybe not ever, and certainly not any time soon. He nods, mostly at himself, to remind himself that he'd come here with the sole purpose of explaining himself to her and assuring himself that he's gotten so much more than that and telling himself not to be greedy. But he's also nodding at her, promising her that he's going to defer to her now that he's said what he had to say.
It's hard and it hurts, but he knows he made her wait a lot longer with a lot less hope and so he finally pulls his hands away from her and climbs to his feet and tells himself that begging her isn't going to help his cause. He offers his hand to her, but she doesn't reach for him, opting to push herself to her feet with a heavy sigh. They never moved from the door and so the knob is within reach and he finds his arm is extraordinarily heavy as he reaches toward it.
"Thank you for listening." There are no words to cover how grateful he is that she even gave him as much of a chance as she did. He wants to apologize again, but the words won't come and it's probably better that way because they would sound flat and hollow at this point.
Her eyes are moving slowly around the room, lighting on everything and nothing, and he knows she has something to say and he knows there's nothing he can do to encourage her, he just has to wait and hope she says something besides get the fuck out when she finds her words.
"I need time, Elliot." She pushes her hair back behind one ear, but her head is hanging and so the waves don't stay where she puts them and it's hard not to reach out and try himself because he wants to touch her again, but he wraps his fist around the door knob and shoves his other hand deep in his pocket to remind himself not to dare. She clears her throat and looks back at him and he's not sure what he sees on her face anymore and he thinks maybe that's because she isn't sure what to feel anymore. "I need to think about what you said and I don't know-"
"Take all the time you need, Liv. I won't crowd you." He's pulling the door open and stepping through it before he can rethink it, but he stops as soon as he gets across the threshold and turns back because he did exactly what he came here to do and he knows it's fair that she doesn't have an answer for him just yet and he's hoping he can get one thing settled before he walks away, just so he knows. "I get it if you can't, but is there a chance you'll ever forgive me?"
Because he's really not sure if she's just trying to get rid of him or if what he told her was enough to make her rethink the way she'd washed her hands of him when she'd walked out his door earlier and if this is the last time he's ever going to see her, he'd just like to know.
Her head leans to the side as she meets his eyes and if it were any other night, any other time, he'd assume she's telling him yes, but it's not any other night, it's right fucking now and he doesn't know anything anymore, not without words.
"Liv, please-" And once again, his voice comes out in a weak plea and he can't even be embarrassed about it because he thinks it's important that she sees the power she has over him. "If this is it, please tell me." He knows it's a lot to ask because she had already told him that a few hours ago when she quoted Kathy's words at him, but he feels like maybe it's different now and maybe she will eventually understand that he really never meant to hurt her.
"I'm tired and I need to think." Her hand moves out across the distance between them, her fingers touching his cheek for only a second before her hand withdraws. "But I think I already forgave you."
He feels his chin trembling with the overwhelming relief that it's not over for them, not like he'd feared, and he knows he needs to go before he overstays his welcome and so he nods and starts walking toward the elevator.
"Hey, El," one side of her mouth is turned up in a smirk when he glances back from halfway down the hall. "Like I said before, if you fuck up again, John and his taser are going to be the least of your problems."
And then, even though there are still tears on his cheeks, he feels himself start to smile.
