Author's Note: Good things come to those who wait...or at least that's what we tell ourselves, right? Better two years late than never. This love letter has never been far from my mind.
How Eli manages to move so quickly, Elliot will never understand.
One instant his son stands across the terminal and the next he is right beside him. It's in direct contrast to the way that Olivia moves. He watches her as if in slow-motion as the strap of her carry-on falls from her shoulder. She fumbles for Noah's bag before she seems to realize that he already has it on his back, and blindly reaches for the handle of her small rolling suitcase all without taking her eyes off of him.
Elliot
She is looking at him as though she is afraid that if she blinks he will disappear.
The mirage, the dream, the hallucination born of tiredness, disorienting crowds, an achy imagination, and too many God-forsaken years apart.
He can feel Eli's grip on his upper arm and he thinks his son might be the only thing holding him up.
And then she is there.
Here.
Right in front of him. She is close enough that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted. If he wanted...
God, he wants to.
Eli is pushing him backward until he feels the back of his knees bump the row of chairs. "Sit down, Dad," he commands, his voice low and serious.
"I'm fine," Elliot protests, but his son is strong; stronger than he is in this moment and so he relents, dropping heavily into the chair behind him.
He thinks it is fitting that she can still knock him on his ass with one look after all this time.
She is so stunningly beautiful that he can barely breathe. She watches him watch her. Her dark eyes are full and even more expressive than he remembers, which is saying something because he hasn't forgotten her.
Not for a single moment.
"Elliot," she says quietly, almost reverently and he wants to hear her say it again. He wants to close his eyes and just listen to the sound of her voice. He forces his eyes open because he needs to see her.
"Liv," he rasps her precious name. His voice scratches like sandpaper against his aching throat.
"Liv."
She stands before him while he sits and gazes up at her in awe. He can't believe she is here, right here, in front of him. He has missed her for thousands and thousands of days and now...
"Hi, I'm Noah!" Her son steps in between them and extends his hand for Elliot to shake, but he can't take his eyes off of Noah's mother.
Her son's appearance must jar her, because Olivia looks away and inhales sharply as if she hasn't been breathing this entire time.
"Noah, this is Elliot," she says quietly, slipping an arm around her son's shoulders as she introduces him to her child.
Elliot watches her son grin as he reaches out to shake his hand. The kid has a great smile. He has his mothers dark hair, but his large light eyes are not Olivia's.
They must've come from his father.
"I'm an old friend of your Mom's," Elliot explains slowly, simultaneously saying everything and nothing at all, but Noah nods as though he isn't entirely unfamiliar to him...
"You're the guy in the picture," he says. His eyes are wide and eager and Elliot doesn't have the heart to tell the kid he has no idea what he is talking about.
"I have a picture in my dresser that he found recently and I was telling him stories..." Olivia interjects, her cheeks flushing with her words.
Elliot nods.
Stories.
That's all they are to each other now. Memories. Folklore.
They are legends, and myths, and bedtime tales told to children before they drift off to sleep.
He knows all about telling stories: about imagining, and pretending. About wishing, and hoping, and praying, and waiting.
"Eli, you know who this is," he murmurs, glancing up into his son's blue eyes.
It isn't a question.
He isn't asking because he knows the answer. His son knows exactly who Olivia is. Elliot has made sure of it. He has kept her alive in stories for his son's entire life, despite his child having no living memories of her of his own.
"Hi Olivia." Eli speaks the same way he does, carefully and cautiously, as though Olivia is an apparition and any sudden movement will make her disappear.
His son shifts his stance enough so that Elliot can stand.
He watches Olivia as she watches his son.
Her dark eyes are filled with a mix of amazement and emotion. He knows the last time she saw his youngest child, Eli was in diapers. She presses her hand briefly to Eli's arm before glancing up at Elliot.
She shakes her head in disbelief.
"It's so good to see you. Both of you."
Elliot swallows heavily. He feels his pulse pick up at the sound of her words as if she is closing their meeting, as if she wants to leave. He only breathes again when she turns to catch her son's eye.
"Noah, why don't you and Eli go get a snack?" Olivia suggests, fumbling in her purse for her pocketbook, but his son shakes his head.
"I got it, Olivia," he says, pulling out his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. Noah steps closer to Eli and grins widely as though the prospect of hanging out with a cool older dude is right up his alley.
Elliot feels his son's gaze on his face before they step away. "You okay?" Eli asks, his voice is low as if he thinks Olivia and Noah can't hear.
"I'm fine," Elliot assures him and he wonders how long it has been since he has truly meant it the way he does at this moment. Eli nods and takes him at his word and he is proud of his son. He knows what it takes from his child to leave him alone, but he won't be.
Alone, that is.
They watch their boys walk away, his son and hers. Elliot can hear Noah chattering excitedly to Eli and he shakes his head at the improbability of it all. He can feel Olivia's gaze on his face and when he looks at her, she flushes.
"You have a son," he says, his voice full of quiet awe.
"I do," Olivia answers fondly. He is sure he is staring at her too much, watching her too closely, but he can't help it. She is stunning and he is a selfish bastard.
He has both wanted her and wanted for her for more than two decades of his life and now in this moment, he is seeing what he has missed.
He has imagined it, but seeing it for himself is something else entirely.
She has a son.
A child who was once a baby and he missed it.
He missed all of it.
He missed her becoming a wife, finding the right man and finally settling down. He missed her finding out she was pregnant.
He wonders if he would have known before she did.
"You're married," he determines quietly, clenching his jaw.
All at once, he has an answer to more than a decade worth of questions, a decade worth of why, but he must be wrong because Olivia is shaking her head.
"No, no, I'm not. I never..." She trails off with a shrug and he wonders about what she is leaving unsaid. "Noah's adopted."
"You're kiddin'!"
He feels like he can breathe again.
Olivia smiles when she looks up at him. "Not kidding."
He remembers standing beside her in another life, waiting for an elevator, when she revealed the heartbreak of the adoption she'd been denied.
He had been right back then and he is right now...
"Told you you'd be a great Mom someday."
She shivers at his words as if she is remembering, too. She pulls her burgundy cardigan tighter around her body. He wants to unzip his sweatshirt and wrap it around her frame, to keep her warm, to keep her close.
"That's your Eli," she says, tilting her head in the direction the boys just walked. "He looks so much like you," she marvels with a small smile. "He's so handsome."
He almost wants to laugh because if the moment weren't so important he thinks he would playfully tease her, ask her if she still thinks he is handsome when she is more beautiful in real life than she has been in any of his dreams.
"Is he driving yet?"
Olivia brings him back.
He gives half of a chuckle. "Don't rush it, Liv. He'll be sixteen in..."
"November," she finishes.
"Yeah." He nods.
She remembers. Of course she does. She was there when he couldn't be. She held his son first.
"How are the kids?" She asks and he swallows.
She already knows. She knows because he has told her all about them. She is simply being polite.
She knows that Maureen made him a grandfather first. She knows that Kathleen and her fiancé are thriving in the Bay Area and Elizabeth is steadily working on her masters degree. She knows Rick is in the Air Force and Eli is here...
"Good," he tells her automatically. "Rick should be home for Christmas and the girls are good."
Olivia nods and gives a shaky inhale before she speaks again. "How are you?" She asks quietly.
He breathes out and the sound of his exhale is harsher than he intends. There is no way he can allow himself to answer in any coherent fashion, in any way that she would understand. He has spent the last twelve years without her, the last twelve years living half of a life and a lie in every possible way except for one.
She ducks her head and the wave of her hair falls, obscuring his view of her face. He wants to reach for her, to brush the errant strands away from her cheek so he can see her, so he doesn't miss a moment of her.
He falls silent while his mind is simultaneously blaring and blank. He has everything left to say to her and no way to begin. The tender tenuousness of this moment is killing him. He feels as though he is treading on the thinnest coating of ice. One wrong move and he could send them both plunging into the unknown.
"You wanna go for a walk with me?" He asks.
"Sure." Olivia nods.
He hastily closes the notebook he left discarded on the chair and tucks it safely into the pocket of his carry-on bag before she can change her mind. He glances over his shoulder to see Eli and Noah making the way back toward them and decides their bags will be safe on their own for a moment or two. He steps around the bank of chairs and she falls into step beside him for the first time in more than decade.
He moves toward the huge windows overlooking the runway and by some miracle, she follows.
She stands at his side; silent, steady, and still. He looks out onto the tarmac, toward the ceaseless coming and going and he thinks it's so fucking ironic that after a dozen years of searching, he found her in the space between, in the interim.
"See that plane there? The red one?" He asks, pointing toward a small twin-engine sitting on the runway waiting for take-off.
"That's a Cessna. That's what I fly."
"You what?" Olivia exclaims, turning quickly to look up at him. Her dark bob cascades against her cheek and his fingertips itch again to tuck the silky strands behind her ear.
He nearly laughs at the incredulous look on her face. He has told her about it before, but she must not remember.
"Fly, yeah," he says. "Took a bunch of lessons for work and got my license. Arnold Palmer flew one of those and so did Harrison Ford."
Olivia laughs then and the sound makes him forget how to breathe.
"So you're in good company," Olivia replies, a smile lilting across her lips.
If she only knew, he is in the best company right now.
"El, I-" She starts and then stops suddenly at what he can only imagine is the most astonished grateful expression on his face.
"What's wrong?" She asks and he shakes his head.
"You calling me El. Been a long time since anybody called me that."
Twelve years.
"What does Kathy call you?" She asks almost reflexively, automatically. Her brow is furrowed, but it is he who doesn't understand. He flexes his left hand against his denim-clad thigh. His ring finger is bare. It has been bare for a dozen years and he has told her. He knows he has told her...
He shakes his head and she backtracks immediately.
"Elliot, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
"Liv."
"Boarding call for flight 2237 to Newark, New Jersey. Flight 2237 to Newark is now boarding. If you are traveling aboard Flight 2237 to Newark, please make your way to the boarding area at Gate 11 and have your boarding pass ready…"
Olivia closes her eyes at the sound of the announcement and he has the urge to reach for her, to hold onto her, to keep her here beside him.
"That's my flight," she whispers regretfully. He knows. He nods, but he can't seem to take a breath.
Twelve years.
"I can walk with you," he offers, trying to keep the desperate edge out of his voice. He fleetingly wonders what he will do if she tells him no.
She doesn't.
"Please," she says quietly, turning toward the space where their sons wait. Eli is showing Noah his gaming device and Olivia stops walking for a moment to take them in.
She watches them while he watches her.
"Who would've thought?" She muses, shaking her head. He wants to tell her that he did, he has for twelve years.
"That's our flight, hon," Olivia explains as she approaches their children. Noah's eyes grow wide with disappointment and when he speaks, he takes the words right out of Elliot's mouth.
"I don't want to go, Mom. I'm having fun with Eli."
Elliot catches his son's eye, but Eli is already slipping his gaming device back into his backpack.
"We can play when you get home, Noah," he reasons. "I'll add you on my team and we can play together."
Elliot almost wants to smile because he knows that his child didn't inherit that particular brand of deescalating diplomacy from either of he nor Kathy. He wonders if Olivia hears it and recognizes it as her own. He thinks she passed it down to him on the day he was born.
Noah nods in acceptance of Eli's words and slings his own backpack over his shoulder. He stands awkwardly next to Eli for a moment before he reaches over and gives him a quick hug. Eli laughs lightly and pats him on the back.
Eli is used to being the baby of the family and looking up to all of his sisters and brother, so this younger sibling dynamic is different and good for him.
Elliot can feel Olivia's dark gaze on his face, but he can't look at her just yet. "I'm gonna walk Liv and Noah to the gate," he tells his son and Eli is already nodding.
"I'll stay here with the bags."
Olivia presses her hand to Eli's arm. "You take care of yourself," she says before she tilts her head toward Elliot. "Take care of your Dad, too."
If only she knew what his child has done for him.
Eli flushes with embarrassment at her attention and reaches out to pat Olivia's hand. "Have a safe flight," he replies and she nods in acknowledgement.
She shepherds her son toward Gate 11 while he glances over his shoulder at his own. Eli shoulders the responsibility of watching their luggage and watching him. He knows his son won't sit down until he back at his side.
Olivia's carry-on bag slips from her shoulder as she fumbles for her driver's license and their boarding passes. He wordlessly takes the strap and slips it over her forearm so that he can hold it for her. She keeps Noah in front of her so that she can watch him. Her son is wiggly and active, watching the people around them while Elliot can only watch her.
Olivia and Noah step forward in the line and the roped divider comes between them. He stays on one side while she stands on the other.
The irony doesn't escape him.
There is always something keeping him from her. A wedding ring, a job, a country, a decade. She is inches away on the other side of the rope, but she might as well be thousands of miles.
She is going home to New York.
He is leaving for a house in Washington. She is his home and she is leaving him. He had to leave her once and now he has to stay behind. He thinks somehow it's fitting that they each get a turn.
People are moving to squeeze past him and he steps closer, closer to her. His chin almost bumps the top of her head. If she stepped back ever so slightly, he thinks she could lean on him.
He closes his eyes against the ache in his chest. He wants tug on her arm, to spin her around so that she will look at him and he can ask her, to find out why, but he can't. She doesn't owe him a thing and it's his choice to keep writing, to keep sending them. He is afraid to ask her because if she tells him to stop, the story he has told himself for a dozen years will come to an end.
He isn't ready.
As if she can read his mind, she turns suddenly and looks up at him. She inhales sharply as though she hadn't expected him to be so near, but before he can move, she steps even closer.
"Am I really gonna walk away and never see you again?" She asks, keeping her voice low so her son can't hear. Her voice has a frantic edge and he wants to reach for her, to soothe her. He searches her face for answers because he doesn't understand. He shakes his head. It's incomprehensible that twelve years is coming down to minutes, precious seconds by her side.
"You could always write me back," he says quietly.
Olivia's dark eyes widen. "Write you?"
He nods. "Yeah, my letters," he replies. He feels his cheeks flush ever so slightly, but he can't mind his embarrassment. It's been a dozen years and she hasn't answered a single one. He doesn't think she is going to start now, but something doesn't make sense...
"What letters?" Olivia asks.
What letters?
"Mom, we're moving..."
He reaches for her then almost almost touching her skin...but instead reverently grasping the delicate silver chain around her neck. The one that holds the Semper Fi medallion that he sent to her twelve years ago.
It glints in the light in the palm of his hand.
"You got my medallion," he rasps. She wears it around her neck, close to her heart.
His always faithful.
"There was a key in the envelope."
Surely, she knows.
"Mom, we're next..." Noah doubles back and tugs on Olivia's arm. Elliot lets the pendant fall back against the rise of her breasts as he steps forward and she follows. She doesn't seem to remember how to move on her own.
"A key to what?" Olivia breathes. He swallows hard.
No, no, no.
"To the post office box," he explains desperately.
"El, I don't under-"
"You never got any of 'em?" He interrupts frantically. His heart is pounding now and his chest is tight and aching in a way it hasn't in nine years.
"Mom, it's my turn!"
Elliot glances up to see Noah moving through security, through the metal detector. He has done this all wrong. She can't do this now. She needs to go with her son. He shakes his head.
This is not the time, but there may never be a time.
"Liv..."
"Any what?" Olivia urges, bewildered. She presses her hand to his chest holding him in place and he thinks he has forgotten how persuasive she can be when she wants something from him.
He has never been able to deny her.
"Any of my letters."
The passengers behind her are starting to grumble and he wants to tell them they can all to go to hell, but her son is within ear-shot and he can't.
He pulls the notebook from the front pocket of his carry-on bag, turning the pages until he finds the half-finished letter he started this morning. Her dark gaze skims over his Dear Liv, his Trip Itinerary, his Never thought I'd be taking my fifteen year old on a college visit...
Olivia shakes her head. "I don't understand..."
"I've been writing you letters for twelve years."
"What?" She breaks. "What?" She grabs his arm for stability and he isn't sure which of them is shaking.
"Mom!"
"Ma'am, if you could just step..."
"Liv."
He reaches into the pocket of his carry-on for the spare business card he keeps there and presses it into her hand.
Olivia takes in the small print on the card, the identity of a man he had to learn by heart thousands and thousands of days ago.
The man he has had to become without her.
Clay Quinn
630-194-1284
RCPD Search and Rescue: Unit 11
Rochester, Washington. 98579
"Who is this?" She asks.
"It's me," he replies.
She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything.
"You?" She whispers on a broken hush.
All at once, he understands.
The last dozen years are a mystery to them both. She knows nothing of his life. He knows nothing but nightmares of hers. He has spent the last twelve years believing she was ignoring him while she has spent them believing much worse.
"Mom, c'mon!"
"Ma'am, we need you to step through…"
"Mom!" Noah's voice is worried now and he can feel Eli's hand pressing against his back. "Dad."
"Liv."
She gives a shuddering breath, biting mercilessly on her bottom lip and shaking her head as her dark eyes fill. He can't let her cry. He can't let her lose control. She needs to go. She is not his in this moment, no matter how much he wants to keep her, to claim her as his own.
"Come on, lady!"
She is a mother and a woman and a damned airplane passenger who is making a scene and holding up the flight. He has to calm her down.
"Liv."
"I can't do this. I can't just leave you."
She nearly breaks him. He caves inward toward her, almost pressing his mouth to her forehead. He breathes against her while she seems to be unable to catch her breath and he realizes she isn't being rational or reasonable or realistic. She is clinging to him and he needs her to stand.
"What's the hold up?"
"Liv, look at me," he grasps her shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. Her dark lashes are wet and her full eyes are nearly spilling over.
He has to get her on the plane. He has to be strong enough for both of them so that she doesn't fall apart. He is being asked to let her go one more time and in exchange he might just get her back.
"Hurry up!"
"Go Liv."
She shakes her head.
"I can't leave you," she whispers again. He reaches for her face, pressing his palm against her warm cheek and halting her negating movement.
He lifts the medallion from her neck once more, holding it in his open left palm while he holds onto her with his right. "You're not leavin' me. I'm always with you."
His Semper Fi. He has always been faithful. She just hasn't known.
"Olivia," he rasps her full name. He turns her around in his arms so that she can't see him anymore, but she can see her son. She leans against his chest and he kisses the back of her head.
"Call me when you get home," he whispers. He feels her deep breath and her nod before he pushes her forward and she goes.
To be continued...
