She squints her eyes behind her sunglasses against the morning light.
The September sun is warm for eight o'clock. She has just dropped her entirely too enthusiastic for a Monday morning child off at school. She smiled at him in the rearview mirror while he bounced around the backseat, telling her how he couldn't wait to surprise all of his friends with the news of his weekend at Hogwarts.
It's nearly as warm here as it was in Orlando and she slips her light jacket from around her shoulders and drapes it over her arm as she walks. She has parked her SUV and added her NYPD placard to her dashboard for good measure to make sure no one messes with it, while she makes her way across an intersection and up the sidewalk.
She has nowhere to be this morning because she is taking a day. She called Fin earlier and told him so. She figures she is entitled to it, she is the Captain, after all. He asked her about their trip, if Noah had fun, and whether they'd run into any famous people at the airport. She almost laughed because if he only knew how famous the man they met at the airport was, is to her he would be as astonished as she is.
She crosses over the intersection to 70th and quickens her step as she walks. She is trying to take in as much of the morning air as she can because her heart is already clamoring against her ribs and her goosebumps from last night are returning despite the warmth of the day.
201, 203, she counts silently in her head, 211, 213, 215...217: The United States Post Office.
She slips her jacket back on and pulls hard on the door with her shaking hand before she steps inside. She has never been here, never knew she had reason to be, but now she clutches her standing invitation in the palm of her hand.
P.O. Box 118
She pushes her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and brushes her hair behind her ear before she steps forward into the lobby. There are only two other people in line and so she waits for her turn, counting her own breaths, her inhales and exhales until...
"Can I help you, ma'am?"
She looks up into the face of an older gentleman.
"Hello!" She says. He gives her a kind smile as he beckons her forward with his hand.
"How can I help you today, young lady?" He asks and his words make her smile. She hasn't been young in a long time and she fleetingly wonders how long it has been since he has had his eyes examined and if he needs a new prescription for his glasses.
She takes a deep breath because she feels like she should explain, but doesn't know where to start.
"I have a story," she begins, prefaces so that he understands this may not be the kind of circumstance he is used to dealing with first thing on Monday morning. He folds his hands to rest on the countertop between them as though he is settling in to listen.
She turns the key over in her fingers, holds it tightly in her hand.
"I'm here to check a post office box."
"All right." The gentleman nods gamely. "Do you have a box number?"
"I do," she says, setting the key down onto the countertop between them.
"It's 118."
The man does a double-take, glancing from the key on the counter up into her face, once, twice, before he blinks.
"118?" He repeats slowly as if to make sure that his hearing aids haven't failed him and she nods, willing away the tightness in her chest.
She doesn't know what his hesitancy means. It could mean that they have long rid the box of those letters. It might not even belong to her anymore, to Elliot, to them...
But the man is smiling once again. "I have to say, no one has come for Box 118 as long as I've been working here and that's a long time."
She feels her eyes well and the familiar prickle of emotion tickles her nose, her cheeks. She swallows before she speaks.
"I know," she says softly, nodding her head. "There was a mix-up, a misunderstanding, and I didn't know I was supposed to come until now."
The man waves away her justification with his hand. "Don't worry. All that matters is that you're here," he says confidently, kindly, and she nods again.
He takes the key from the counter and moves into a small alcove on the side of the office. He disappears, but continues to talk to her.
"We've kept them back here because there wasn't enough room in the box over the years!"
She closes her eyes as she listens. She can't imagine how many there are, what they contain, what she has missed…
"I'll get these for you and then we can go check the box for any new ones."
The man appears once more, a reusable tote bag in one hand and a bundle in the other, a bundle of letters.
"There's thirty-seven here," he says, setting the bundle up onto the counter between them.
"Thirty-seven?" She breathes, taking them in with wide eyes. The man starts to fill the tote bag as she stares. He slides the key back across the countertop toward her.
She is speechless.
Over the last few hours she has considered the possibility of five or six, maybe ten. Not dozens, not thirty-seven…
"We'll go out to check the box now. I know there's a few more in there..."
The man is talking to her and she is sure that she should be listening, but she can't hear anything except the rushing in her ears. He moves around the side of the desk and motions for her to follow him out into the lobby, but she can't seem to remember how to move. Her heart is pounding uncomfortably fast beneath her ribs and she can't catch her breath. She feels like she is going to throw up, lose her light breakfast right here. She must manage to shake her head because the man takes her arm and brings her with him, out into the lobby, out into the warm morning air, and onto a bench just outside the door.
"You stay here, young lady," he tells her, pressing his hands to her shoulders as she sits. "Take some deep breaths and I'll be right back."
She leans forward and presses her elbows hard into her thighs as she tries to get her bearings. She tries to imagine the soothing weight of Elliot's hand on her back, his voice low in her ear...
You're okay.
It's okay.
We're okay.
"Here we are..." She looks up at the sound of the elderly gentleman's voice. He settles beside her on the bench and places the tote bag full of letters in the space between them.
Her stomach rolls violently again and as if he can read her mind, the man reaches into the bag and pulls out an unopened water bottle and a stick of gum which he presses into her palm. She takes it gratefully and unwraps it, letting the spearmint soothe her nausea.
She can feel his concerned gaze on her face and she knows that she should look at him, talk to him, provide him with an explanation so that he doesn't think she is completely insane, but before she can start, he is talking to her, for her.
"Olivia," he says her name quietly and she fleetingly wonders how he knows, before she realizes every one of these letters is addressed to her.
"My name is Walter. It's very nice to meet you." He reaches for her hand and gives it a fatherly squeeze while dropping the tiny golden post office key into her palm.
"There were three more letters in the box," he tells her quietly. Three.
Thirty-eight, thirty-nine- forty. Forty letters over twelve years.
If her dwindling math skills are correct, it evens out to approximately three letters each year for their dozen apart.
It's unfathomable.
She shakes her head and reaches for the bundle of letters between them. She sets the tote bag into her lap and stares. She is momentarily paralyzed by the weight of what she holds in her hands. Forty letters from across the country, across a lifetime.
Walter must realize that she is struggling because he stays beside her. He doesn't run away or look at her like she is crazy, but surveys her with a curious benevolent expression on his face.
"A few minutes ago, you told me you had a story," he says, tapping the bundle of letters in her lap. "Can I tell you mine?"
She nods and leans back against the bench, pulling the letters closer to her chest as if they are a security blanket.
Walter smiles and mimics her, settling back against the bench. He folds his hands on his lap and squints out toward the sidewalk.
"My father worked for the postal service. He loved his job and all I ever wanted when I was a young boy was to be just like him."
She smiles at the thought. She wonders if Noah will want to be like her when he grows up, or if he will take after someone else.
"My father delivered letters for fifty years. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, or sun - my father was out and about making sure people got their mail. I used to ask him what kept him going, why he felt his job was so important, and I'll never forget what he told me. He said letters aren't just scraps of paper, they are pieces of people's lives. They might be paper and pen, but they have power. They can help or hurt or become the best kind of memory."
She nods and Walter continues. "I never truly understood what he meant until I had to deliver some letters myself."
She listens with rapt attention. The sun shifts, warming her cheek, but she doesn't bother to reach for her sunglasses on the top of her head. She doesn't want to hide from whatever Walter has to tell her. She wants to hear it. She wants to understand.
"I served our country in World War II under General Eisenhower. I was in Normandy on June sixth in 1944."
Olivia shivers involuntarily and feels her eyes fill at the sound of his words. She has seen documentaries, but can't begin to imagine what this man witnessed first hand.
Walter's own light eyes fill behind his glasses and it's Olivia's turn to reach out and squeeze his weathered hand.
"Before we were given our orders, a lot of the guys came to me with envelopes. Everybody knew what my father did and they all said if anybody can get these back home, deliver 'em safely, it was him. They gave me their letters to give to my dad in case they didn't make it back, but I did."
Walter pauses and shakes his head. He lets her hand go before reaching into the pocket of his light jacket for his handkerchief to dab at his eyes beneath his glasses.
"We all had an equal chance of living or dying, but somehow I survived. I lost a lot of good buddies that day, a lot of good men. I didn't know why I made it out alive and they didn't, Olivia. I could've shut down and given up after that, but I had a job to do. I had nine letters in my pocket. I was only able to give one back to its sender. Only one of my friends who handed me an envelope that day came home, too."
Walter reaches into his pocket and pulls out a soft pack of tissues before he passes one to Olivia for her wet cheeks.
"I came home with eight letters in my hands and I was able to deliver every single one of them. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but those families," he shakes his head, "Those families were so grateful that I was able to give them that message, that memory."
"I went to work with my dad from that day forward and I've been here ever since. It's been a long time, Olivia. I'm married. I have four beautiful children, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandbabies so far. I'm long retired, but I can't stay away. They can't keep me out of this place."
He motions over his shoulder toward the post office and Olivia laughs at his zeal for life.
"Point is, I have a soft spot for lost letters. I keep an eye out for them and take care of them when I can in the hopes that someday someone will come looking for them. I've been looking after Box 118 for twelve years. I'm nearly ninety-five years old, Olivia. I hoped I'd live to see the day they'd be found."
She tries to take a deep breath, but she shudders on the inhale and settles for a shallow one. She should tell Walter her story. This man has been so patient, so kind, so tender with her. He has cared for one of her most prized possessions she didn't know she had to her name until yesterday.
"My letters," she starts, motioning toward her lap where the bundle sits inside the tote bag. Walter shakes his head. "They're safe with you now, so my story is finished; but yours is just beginning."
Olivia opens her mouth to reply because she wants to give him something, but he doesn't seem to need it. He seems to know.
"Forty love letters, Miss Benson. It seems like you have some catching up to do," he says with a grin and she feels ridiculous when her cheeks flush.
"I don't think they're love letters," she laughs lightly, but Walter shakes his head.
"If they're written with love, they're love letters. Take my word for it," he tells her and she does. She moves to stand and Walter follows, getting to his feet surprisingly quickly for someone ninety-four years of age. She shifts the strap of the tote bag onto her shoulder and fiddles with making sure the tiny key is tucked safely into a zippered pocket of her purse.
Irrationally, she doesn't want to leave. She met this man twenty minutes ago, but she feels like she has known him her entire life.
"Whatever these mysterious letters say, don't let yourself get too caught up in the past," he tells her wisely. She nods because she realizes how easy it would be for her to sink into the shadows of the past, to dwell on everything she has missed...
"It's the now that counts," Walter adds, "And from what I can tell, you and this letter writer have a past, a present, and a future to get on with."
"Thank you for everything," she says quietly, reaching to hug him close. She can feel his laughter against her shoulder.
"Thank you," he replies with a grin. "You made my day and heck, my decade, too!"
She wonders if he realizes he has also made hers.
The park is busy this morning, bustling with young families, joggers, and fieldtrips. She settles down onto the cool grass beneath a large oak tree and breathes. The sounds of the city are quieted here, muted ever so slightly by nature and nurture. She watches a young mother helping a toddling baby girl to her feet after a soft plop down onto the grass.
She clutches the bundle of letters to her chest, hugging it close to her body as if it were a living thing. She supposes, in a way, they are. They tell a story with a life of their own, but she can't let their contents, whatever they are, have hers.
On her walk from the post office, she decided that she needs to do this here. Her first instinct is to close herself away, shut herself off from the world while she takes all of this in, but she can't.
She is a different person now than she was a dozen years ago. She is a mother and Captain and a woman who hasn't let a day go by without thinking of him, of Elliot. She knows how she could drown in the darkness of the unknown and if she reads them alone in her room, the water will rise.
Out here, at least she can breathe.
She tucks her sunglasses onto the top of her head and the loose strands of her hair tickle her cheek, but she doesn't bother to brush them away. She simply sits in the silence and waits. She isn't sure what exactly she is waiting for, but she feel like she will know when she is ready.
She opens the tote bag and pulls the bundle of letters out so that they can rest against the dark denim of her jeans. They are tied together with a large rubber band, Walter's attempt to make sure none of them were lost. Her hands are shaking as she reaches for them, gingerly undoing the rubber band and letting the pieces of mail free fall across her lap. She keeps them in order of their postmark, one right after the other.
Every single one of them bears the same address information...
Olivia Benson
P.O. Box 118
217 E. 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
And a return to Clay Quinn of Rochester, Washington written in Elliot Stabler's hand.
She shivers despite the warmth of the morning. For twelve years, she thought he left without a word, when in reality, he has left her with thousands.
Thousands of words, dozens of letters.
She smooths her fingers over the worn white envelope she knows rested on the top of the pile. The first letter he wrote to her a lifetime ago, before her son was born. She feels as though her heart is going to beat itself to death and she almost wants to laugh at her own ridiculousness. These letters weigh ounces, but they hold entire years. She slips her shaking fingers beneath the flap of the envelope and pulls the letter from its casing before she reads.
Dear Liv
He can't breathe.
The heat of the day has dissipated, but he still can't catch his breath. His feet pound hard against the pavement as he makes the turn onto his street. His gray t-shirt is soaked with sweat and by all rights he should be exhausted, but he isn't. He has done everything in his power today to keep his feet on the ground, while all he has wanted to do is get on a plane and fly back across the country. He wants to land in New York, to go her place, to knock on her door, to sit outside on her stoop until she answers. The idea is so ridiculously tempting that there is only one thing in the world that holds him back. She is small and blonde and nearly thirty.
And she is sitting on his porch.
His daughter is perched on the top step of his front porch. Her legs are drawn up to her chest and she is settled in as though she has been here for a while, as if she knows just how long he has been out for a run.
Lizzie doesn't speak as he approaches or when he touches the top of her head lightly with his palm. His children are the only things that ground him, keep him here.
She wordlessly follows him inside and gets him a cold water bottle from the fridge while he strips off his sweaty t-shirt in exchange for a clean one hanging in the laundry room.
The house is too quiet; Eli isn't here which means his children have switched places, taking turns to stay with him. Eli must be out for dinner with his mother and his daughter is taking him on for the evening. Though they will never admit it, his two youngest children possess a decade-long fear of leaving him alone.
He has tried to make peace with it, but has never succeeded. Tonight is no different, except that tonight he wants to be alone.
Tonight, he wants to break and to rage and to stew in ways that he hasn't in so long.
But his daughter is here. She has pulled herself up to sit on the countertop. Her blonde locks are piled in a messy ponytail and the heels of her bare feet are bumping against the dishwasher with the gentlest thump. He can feel her steady blue gaze on him as he moves around the kitchen, searching for something to do.
Anything to avoid watching her and watching the clock.
New York is three hours ahead of him. He may be jetlagged and old as hell, but he can still tell time. He knows exactly how many hours it has been since he stood beside her.
Thirty-two hours, seven minutes, and three, four, five...seconds
"Dad."
His daughter speaks and he wants to tell her to go home, to leave him alone. Lizzie is sensitive and smart and usually she is his best conversational companion, but tonight he is afraid of what he will say if he opens his mouth. He is afraid of what he will tell her about how the unfairness is eating him alive. He is afraid of worrying her the way he has been for the last thirty years of her life. He want to tell her he is fine, he'll be fine. Not now, but he will be.
He will be when Olivia...
"She hasn't called." The truth slips from his mouth unbidden and he wants to kick himself. He looks up into his daughter's eyes and she shakes her head. Her response is immediate.
"Yet."
She gives him her hope when he has lost his own.
"It's barely been a day, Dad," she reminds him quietly. He nods against the tightness in his throat. His child is all sureness and rationalization when all he wants to do is shatter.
He moves around her toward the sliding glass door where he can watch the sky change from pink, to peach, to orange, to red.
"This isn't your fault." He hears her whisper behind him and he plants his palms on either side of the door frame and grips the wood hard with his fingers.
"It isn't, Daddy."
She is trying to absolve him of something she doesn't have the power to forgive. His daughter is magnificent. She is an angel. She is beautiful, witty, and responsible, but even she can't turn back time.
"It's a fucking fluke," she says, knowing full well that her use of that particular word will get his attention. He shakes his head.
"You weren't there, Lizzie," he rasps. "You didn't see her."
"But you did," she asserts. He bites down hard on his bottom lip. He doesn't have to glance over his shoulder to know that she is watching him closely. "You always have."
He shakes his head again. "She doesn't know, Liz," he mutters.
It's unfathomable.
"She doesn't know anything." He hears his daughter's soft intake of breath, but her exhale never comes and he knows she is trying not to cry.
"She thinks I just left her."
His child breaks and so does he because she knows exactly how long it's been since they have felt this helpless. An infamous week in May nine years ago.
He closes his eyes and suddenly he is there...
The night had been late and the morning had been early and he'd been under for three years by then.
His stomach is rolling violently and his head is aching, but he passes it off as exhaustion, and adrenaline, and too many hours without anything to eat.
He doesn't have time.
The little boy is still missing and the clock is running out as he takes the plane up, up, up to 13,000 feet.
He doesn't see the fog until it's too dense to see anything. The white mist is thick. His radio is cutting in and out and his hands are shaking harder than they should be against the controls.
Something isn't right.
He tries to steer the nose of the plane up and out of the fog. He is flying blind, blinking rapidly as if his own eyes are deceiving him. He tries to breathe, to take a deep breath, to take in more oxygen to his lungs but the mist feels like it's closing in all around him.
The steering panel starts to shake beneath his trembling hands and suddenly it's too late. The plane shifts and jostles and his backpack falls from the seat beside him sending his notebook he uses for her letters to the floor of the cockpit by his feet. His last thought is a prayer to the heavens that he won't die before he finishes this letter.
When he wakes in the hospital, his headache is worse.
They give him something for pain, but it doesn't help. His left leg is broken in two places and he is "lucky" to be alive. He listens to the chatter of his team members outside of his exam room. They don't have an explanation for the fog. The morning was supposed to be clear and bright. No one can figure out why the fog just appeared or why it stayed so thick and impenetrable. He doesn't have any answers except that he knows something it's right.
Three days later, he gives up on the crutches.
They make his chest ache worse than it already does. He hasn't turned the tv on in 72 hours because his head is still pounding and the noise makes it worse. The girls, Rick, and Kathy have all taken turns staying with him, but today is the first time he has had the kind of quiet he has been desperate for. His five-year old has been the best distraction from the ache, but the pain in his chest is flaring up again his morning making it hard to breathe.
He sits on the couch beside Eli and listens to his son's little voice as he tries to read him his favorite Thomas the Tank Engine storybook. He watches Eli's little finger moving along with the words he has memorized from so many retellings and tries to ignore the stiffness in his neck, the burn in his left arm.
He chalks it all up to exhaustion.
He hasn't slept through the night since the crash. Strange nightmares he can't make sense of haunt him and something keeps nagging at him to finish her latest letter before he takes some more pain meds and a melatonin before he goes to bed tonight.
His cell phone rings from the side table and he reaches over Eli's head to grasp it in his palm.
"You okay, Daddy?" He doesn't realize he has groaned aloud. He presses a kiss to the top of Eli's head.
"I'm fine, bud," he rasps before he answers.
"Daddy?" His daughter's voice is high in his ear, concerned and breathless as though she is running.
"Lizzie, what's going on?"
"Daddy, where are you?" She asks. He can tell she is trying to get a handle on herself because she knows she is scaring him.
"Liz-"
"Dad, answer me."
Eli is looking up at him curiously and he knows he can hear his sister's voice through the phone. He shakes his head and gives his son half a reassuring grin.
"I'm sittin' here on the couch with your brother. He's reading me a story."
He hears Lizzie's sharp exhale. "Good," she says distractedly. "Good. I'm coming over, okay?"
He pushes himself up from the couch to stand and limps a few steps toward the windows so that he can look out onto the street. The pain in his chest flares with every step.
"Okay," he answers slowly. "Liz, what's-?" He tries again, but she is already talking over him. He can hear the snap of her car door, her keys jangling in her hand and then silence.
"Dad, I need you to promise me something," she says. Her voice is deathly serious, as though she is waging an internal war with herself as to whether she should keep speaking or not.
"Lizzie."
"Daddy, promise me!" She cries and his shoulder throbs with pain.
"Promise," he rasps, gritting his teeth. He wonders if his confusion is exacerbating his discomfort. Whatever she has to tell him, he has to calm down. He has to hold it together. It can't be that bad...
"Promise me you won't turn the tv on until I get there."
He is reaching for the remote before she can take another breath.
Something isn't right.
"Daddy?"
The phone slips from his grasp at the sight of the headline.
Suddenly, his chest is on fire.
Agony.
He doubles over, falling hard to his knees. The last thing he remembers is Eli's frantic little voice calling for help.
The last thing he prayed was for forgiveness.
The doctors said he was "lucky" to still be alive. He didn't feel that way until he learned that she was, too. They ruled the heart attack a result of nearly losing his life in the crash four days prior.
He ruled it the result of nearly losing her.
He booked a flight to New York before they medically cleared him, but his handlers caught up with him before he could go. It was too dangerous, they told him. He was still under. His new identity was important, these people he helped to save were important, the cases yet to come were important, too.
He tells them that making him stay is more dangerous than anything anyone else could do to him, but they insisted.
His safety, his family's safety, and hers depended upon him staying. They would contact New York, get word to the NYPD, and make sure she was looked after.
He didn't have a choice except to keep writing.
He wrote and he wrote and he wrote and he burned seven of the letters and sent one.
He sent them to the P.O. Box. The one that belonged to them. He never heard back, but he never stopped writing. He wrote for her birthday, for Christmases, for big moments and small ones. He has never considered himself to be a prolific writer, but for her he wrote pages. It felt like the only way to keep her close, to keep an open dialogue with her the same way he would if she were there.
He has told her everything.
About how he and Kathy divorced shortly after the move across the country and she remarried three years later. He has told her about the kids for a dozen years; about Eli's loose teeth, Lizzie's trips to Scotland, and Kathleen's curation of the Van Gogh exhibit in L.A. He has told her about Rick's girlfriend and his time in the service, about walking Maureen down the aisle. He has told her about parking tickets and concerts about cases and chaos. He has told her about the crash and about how his heart stopped beating when he believed hers did, too.
He has told her.
He has told her about homework and dog-sitting Lizzie's one-hundred pound baby, and his children's broken hearts. He has told her about the mundane about the day-to-day and about the best days, those to come. He has told her that he loves her, wholeheartedly and forever. He tells her that he misses her and can't imagine living his life without her in it. He has told her about how she is still his best friend in the world and the woman he loves more than any other. He has joked with her, encouraged her, prayed for her, and loved her every moment they have been apart.
He has left all of this in letters. Dozens of letters. He doesn't know how many he has written, but he knows he has never received an answer.
Until now.
He jumps at the sound of his cell phone ringing from the countertop. He hears his daughter's sharp intake of breath and feels her soft hand against his back when she slips it into his palm.
The sight of the caller ID blurs before him and her name is a grateful rasp of his voice when he answers.
"Liv."
She doesn't speak for a moment and neither does he, but he is content to simply listen to her breathe.
"You're a grandfather," she says softly. Her voice is watery and lilting and he closes his eyes against the burn of tears because she has read them.
She has read them all.
He nods before he realizes that she can't see him.
"Ruby," he says quietly. He marvels at the magic of the moment. It's the same kind of magic his three year old granddaughter believes in. Unicorns and princesses and pixie dust.
"She keeps me on my toes."
Olivia's laugh is bright and pealing like church bells. "I'd pay big money to see you run around with a baby girl."
He grins, really grins, for the first time in too long. "You gotta meet her, Liv. She's the best." He silently vows to make sure they do.
Olivia is quiet again and he wonders if she is taking it all in just as he is.
"El," she says his name softly and he closes his eyes at the sound. He wants to ask her to say it again. "I got your letters," she whispers and he wants to laugh, and cry, and kiss her all at once.
"Better late than never, right?" She asks tentatively and all at once the last dozen years apart don't seem to matter much anymore.
All that matters is the here, the now. Her voice in his ear, her laugh, and her reaching for him across the miles, across the years, just as he has done for her all along.
He wants to ask her if she has read them all, if she knows that he loves her. He figures she should get used to hearing it because he is going to tell her every chance he gets.
Before he can ask, she answers.
"Can you come home?" She requests and he wonders if she knows he is already there.
Author's note: Thank you. There is the possibility of an epilogue after this, but this is the final chapter. Thank you. I love you. I love all of you.
