Hello! After a supremely long delay, TG is back. And I can't even apologize, because the last six weeks have been some of the best in my life- and a big part of that is because I've met so many of YOU lovely people in that time. But now I'm back home for good (because I'm broke), so updates should be coming more regularly from this point on. But if you're bored, you could always check out my other ongoing fic, After All, if you haven't already. It's set post-TG and it's, gasp, actually happy. Most of the time. *end shameless self-promotion*

A/N: This chapter is really very mild. Nothing much to warn about. Title and quotes from Fallen by Sarah McLachlan, other quotes from hold back the river by james bay and white flag by dido. This chapter is also dedicated, with all the love in my heart, to Sarah as she leaves for Africa today. I will miss her an INSANE amount but she's going to have an incredible adventure and do so much good...and now I'm going to go cry quietly in the corner.

Want to be my replacement friend? Send a review or hit me up on twitter at lucythespencer. :D

Next time: more bensidy. nick returns. and things get rocky between liv and barba. But for now...

{once upon a different life
we rode our bikes into the sky
but now we're caught against the tide
those distant days all flashing by}

I will not deliberately do anything to harm myself- physically *or* mentally.

This is the promise you made to the shrink (and to Brian, in so many words), along with a few other addendums such as laying off the alcohol and letting Brian hang onto your gun for the time being while you're 'resting'. That's what he told Tucker when he called to ask for a few days off- that you'd fallen on an icy sidewalk and needed to rest. If Tucker had asked why you needed supervision for this activity, you didn't hear Brian's answer.

So you made a good faith attempt at resting, and you were actually pretty successful thanks to whatever pills Dr. Christiansen had prescribed, the nameless little tablets that popped up next to your water bottle at regular intervals. Brian was clearly hiding them somewhere, and you were too tired to look for them or point out that she probably wouldn't have given you anything that you could potentially use to off yourself- even if she believed you like she promised.

Maybe it was all because of said medication, lulling you into some sort of trance where you were too lazy to pick fights, but by God, you and Brian were actually getting along. Of course, it helped that a large part of your day was spent sleeping. You had a lot of restless nights to make up for, drifting in and out of consciousness as you curled up at his side with the sound of his heartbeat softly thudding in your ear. Every now and then you'd jerk awake from another dream where you were in freefall, tumbling down stairs or out of windows or into a sinkhole that had suddenly opened up beneath your feet, and you'd hear him quietly reassuring you that it's just a dream, I've got you, it's just a dream until you fell back asleep, gripping onto his hand as if he was pulling you up and out of whatever great precipice lay below.

Then eventually you'd wake up and he'd be watching baseball or CNN or most likely Sex and the City ("I don't know why. I hate them all, but I can't stop. Because the puns, Liv, the puns!"), and you'd watch along with him for a while and pick out all the late 90s anachronisms until you couldn't take one more double entendre coming out of Samantha's mouth, and then after that he'd read aloud to you from the sports section or you'd rummage through the kitchen together until you decided on something to make for dinner.

"So it sounds like things are going pretty well for the two of you," Dr. Christiansen says after you finish telling her all this, looking visibly relieved.

"It sounds like it, yeah."

You hate to do this to her when she must've finally felt so encouraged, thinking she had started to crack your case, but you should probably have at least one shrink you don't lie to. "But...it's actually not?"

"That's the thing, I don't know. On the surface everything is great. But underneath that..." You struggle to find the words to describe the defeated look in Brian's eyes that doesn't totally go away even when he's smiling, the look of someone who's taken the grand tour of hell and come back just to go through the motions because the cloud of fear and anger hiding in your head won't let up now after all you've seen. "I worry."

"About him?"

You lean forward so that your elbows are resting on your knees, massaging the still-tender bruises hiding underneath your hair at the crown of your head. "About us both."

{though I tried, I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I've messed up, better I should know
so don't come round here and tell me
'I told you so'}

Fin calls you one evening (on your home phone- you figure Brian must've told him that your cell's still turned off). "Okay if I come up for a few?"

"Uh...yeah, sure," you say, a little surprised because Fin isn't the kind of guy who usually makes unannounced home visits.

"Good, cause I got all this Chinese food with me and you know I don't like that chow mein shit."

It was fortunate timing, him showing up with your favorite 'chow mein shit' not long after you'd over-blackened the blackened salmon you were trying to make for dinner (this was after you had already started in on the preparation, then realized you were missing a crucial ingredient- namely, the salmon). A little too fortunate, you realized when you saw Fin and Brian thumping each other on the back like old pals when Fin was at the door. Not that there had ever been animosity between them ala Nick and Brian; they just didn't know each other that well, or so you thought.

You shrug it off as Brian pulls on his jacket. "Gonna go check the mail."

"Okay." Fin comes out from the kitchen after putting the food away, and it hits you that you don't know what all Brian (or anyone else) might've told him about your recent adventures. "Fin..."

He crosses his arms and shakes his head, but there's a gentle smirk on his face. "So you fell down the stairs, huh? What'd I always say about those damn heels of yours? Gonna break your neck wearing 'em in this weather."

"I..." You know he knows there's more to the story than a bad choice in footwear, but he's not going to call you out on it- at least not straightaway. That's not who he is, and that's why you've been able to trust him the way you have for the last fifteen years. You want to joke back, to let him know you appreciate his discretion, but when you open your mouth tears unexpectedly spring up in the corners of your eyes.

"Hey, c'mon," he says, sitting down next to you and resting his hand on your shoulder. "None of that, okay?"

"I'm just- I'm sorry. You have to take over for me while I'm gone and Nick's not there either and..."

"Nah, you don't need to worry about any of it. I've got everything under control, alright? It's been okay these last couple days- the weather's too shitty for criminals to be out doin' anything anyway, and Nick got back in town last night."

"He did? Oh. I didn't know." He could've tried calling your cell, you suppose, but you're pretty sure that he'd call Brian or the home phone after that if you didn't pick up, especially after- wait. "Does he...you told him?"

Fin shrugs. "Said you fell and you'd be out for the week. Figured the rest is up to you to tell."

"What about Amanda?" you ask, suddenly in a panic because you don't know what scares you more- what she's been getting up to when she's not under your watch or what she must've assumed (probably correctly) when she heard about your sudden unplanned vacation from work. Somehow it would feel worse if she found out than it would if the boys knew. They might be disappointed, but they'd still have your back. Rollins, though...

"Amanda? What about her?"

"Did she say anything abo-" You shake your head. You don't really want to know what she might've been saying about you, and you don't know that Fin would tell you anyway. "I mean. She been showing up on time?"

He gives your shoulder a careful squeeze. "I told ya, you've got nothin' to stress over. You take it easy and I'll make sure the place is just how you left it when it's time for you to come back."

"I really am sorry, making you have to deal with all this while I'm..." You swipe under your eyes with your fingertips, his reassurances only making you feel guiltier. "I'm supposed to be in charge, I'm about to be sergeant, but instead I'm putting it all on you because I...cause I'm." I'm not okay. I fucked up- again- and even more spectacularly this time.

"What'd I tell you? No more of this 'I'm sorry' shit," he chides you lightly. "Last time I checked, even sergeants have bad days. You're allowed."

You roll your eyes a little at him. "Yeah. But."

"But?"

"I've had some really bad days lately. A lot of them," you admit, flexing your fingers back and forth to distract yourself from the urge to start scratching at your stinging upper arms. "But I've...I'm going to get better. I am getting better. Sober, at least."

Again, you don't know what he might've heard from Nick or Amanda or his apparently great buddy Brian, but he takes this confession (and its implications) in stride. "You'll get there. I know you will. It's tough, but you've got people in your corner to back you up. Okay? Don't worry about the job. You focus on you first, and then keeping our asses in line comes second."

You nod silently, biting your lower lip.

"Speaking of which, Cassidy still treatin' you right?" You nod again because it's easier than explaining all your relationship issues, and you wonder if he'll call bullshit on that but he's already moved on. "And Elliot?"

"What about him?"

"Nah, don't give me that. I know you two have been..." You can tell he doesn't want to expand on this statement by the way his eyes widen slightly.

"Nick told you that?"

"Jeez, Liv, where were you? He talked about how he was gonna go to Stabler's house for a week solid! Kinda obvious that Elliot's back in the picture."

"But he said we...?"

"He didn't have to- I'm a real live detective here, remember?" he says with a chuckle. When he sees you start to fidget again, he tilts his head so he's looking right at you. "Liv. I'm not gonna ask questions because it ain't any of my business. Just wanna make sure you know I'm on your side. I don't like seeing you get hurt, alright?"

You tell him the same thing you told Kathy. "Don't worry, it's over and I...I'll be fine. Really. It's better this way."

"Good. You don't deserve him treatin' you like that...what? I said I'm not gonna ask questions, but I didn't say I don't have an opinion. Think I should have a little chat with him?"

"Fin. Just leave it alone...please. He's got enough going on right now, he and Kathy are having problems and-"

He snorts. "Now there's a surprise."

"Yeah. She knows...I don't know what, or how, but she knows."

"Jesus, Stabler..." he mutters to himself. "Like I said, Liv. You're too good for him. So stop feeling guilty- let him fix his own problems and you move on, you take care of you. If he-" Fin's interrupted mid-sentence by Brian coming through the front door unannounced, but he deftly switches topics without missing a beat. "And so Barba's gonna give me a call back about it tomorrow. I'll keep you posted. But I should probably get going- wanna get all that paperwork wrapped up."

You nod and lean over to hug him, turning your head so Brian can't see your mouth moving. "Thanks. For everything."

"I meant what I said. You need something, you lemme know."

He and Brian say their goodbyes and right as he's about to leave, an idea occurs to you. "Hey Fin? If you could, ah. Nick left some of his stuff here, so maybe you could tell him that anytime he wants to, if he wants to stop by and get it...that would be okay." You hope Nick will recognize the offer for the olive branch that it is- you have no idea where you stand with him and everything still feels a little too raw for you to risk an unpleasant confrontation, so you'll let him come to you on his own terms.

"I'll let him know," Fin promises. "I'm sure he'll want to."

{I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder
or return to where we were
but I will go down with this ship}

The call comes not long after you turned your phone back on, buzzing from its perch on one of the sofa arms. You see the number and grab it before Brian gets a look, mouthing 'Fin' as you take it into the bedroom. "H-hello?"

"Liv?" he says, and your eyes well up with a mix of relief and something else you can't describe. For a few anxious seconds you had wondered if it was Kathy calling to tell you exactly how you could go fuck yourself, or that Elliot got arrested, or something unspeakably worse. I'm sorry, Liv, I don't know how to tell you but... "Liv? You okay?"

"I, yeah, sorry. I'm okay." You struggle with wanting to reach through the phone, to pull him close to you so he can't run away again, but you know that the fragile peace you've made here at Casa Bensidy will shatter if Brian figures out who you're talking to. "It's just...this isn't a good time and-"

"Oh," he says so quietly that you can barely hear him, but the dejection in his voice is unmistakable.

"No, El...wait. I didn't mean it like that."

"You...didn't?"

You're still not sure why he's calling, but the way he seemed ready to hang up without argument when you said it was a bad time is enough to convince you that you're not making a mistake in giving him a chance. "What I meant was...Brian. I can't really talk now while he's...can I call you back in a few hours once he's asleep?"

"Oh. I. Yeah, I guess that's..."

"El. I'm serious, if I didn't want to talk to you I'd just hang up," you reassure him. "I'm gonna call you. I promise. Okay?"

And you made good on that promise several hours later once Brian succumbed to sleep (only after you pretended you had already drifted off, just like you've done for the last few nights ever since you left the hospital, because otherwise he'll force himself to stay awake). You pulled one of Brian's sweatshirts on over your pajama top and padded quietly into the living room and then out the front door, the whole thing painfully reminiscent of that night last fall when you snuck out in the middle of the night and ended up naked in a hotel bed next to Elliot by morning. It was wrong, it was the point where it became inevitable that people were going to be irreparably harmed, but in and of itself the memory is still less bitter than sweet.

You stand on the landing of the stairway at the far end of your corridor, leaning against the wall as you dial his number. You haven't gone near the other stairwell since the day of your accident, and you doubt you ever will, at least not anytime soon. They've almost certainly cleaned it up by now, but you'd still see the half-remembered streaks of blood on the concrete just as clearly as you can envision them on the barrel of a gun or a stained mattress.

Stop. Breathe, you mentally coach yourself as the ringing on the other end of the line stops. "Liv?"

"It's me," you confirm, and you hate how he can't even hide the surprise in his voice, like he didn't think you'd actually follow through. "Is this...an okay time to talk?"

"Yeah. It's good. Kathy's...they're all asleep."

"You're at home?" you ask, realizing that you had no idea what he's been up to or where he's been since the night you saw him in that ER in Jersey.

"After they let me outta the hospital...I went back. It was the right thing to do for...as soon as I saw Eli's face, I knew it was the right choice."

"He missed you. So...he's doing alright?" It's a safer question than any about where he currently stands with Kathy, even though the curiosity is killing you.

"Sure is. He got to be part of the group that welcomed the Pope when he visited their school, so that was a huge deal. Thinks he wants to be some sort of foreign ambassador now," he says with a chuckle. "He went to the Mass in the city with Kathy and Maureen and they got a pope selfie. Mo says it's going on the front page of Benjamin's baby book."

You force yourself to smile when you hear the baby's name, forgetting that he can't see you. "You're getting so close to being a grandpa. How's she been?"

"Oh...third trimester, you know how that goes," and you don't bother to remind him that you're not his ever so fertile wife, you're childless Olivia who does not, in fact, know. "Getting anxious to meet him- to get him out of there!- but then she calls every few days telling her mom she's not ready. I told her yeah, Maureen, hate to break it to you but you're never gonna be ready. I've spent the last 30 years just winging it."

You chat for a few more minutes about the kids, how Lizzie still has that boyfriend he hates and how Dickie seems to have finally settled on a major. "Social work? Wow. Good for him."

"Yeah, he spent some time shadowing Kathy at the school over break and decided- well, he doesn't know that he wants to work with kids, but he wants to do something where he can help recovering addicts. Hope it'll keep him focused on school now that he knows he needs good grades to get into an MSW program."

"That's great...you should be proud. Of all of them."

"We are," he says, and then he's silent for a moment. "Liv? I just want you to know that I didn't call to talk about, uh...what happened, because I know you don't wanna. Talk about it, I mean. Although I will say I acted really shitty that night in the ER. And then later on when I called. Which I shouldn't have."

"How much of that do you actually remember?" you ask, skeptical.

"Enough. Enough to know I hurt you."

You close your eyes and nod to yourself, trying to find a way around acknowledging both his apology and his admission that he 'hurt you'. "So why did you call?"

"I heard about your accident. Nick told me yesterday and..."

"Nick? Wow. I mean, I haven't even talked to him since, well. Before."

"Yeah, he...uh, I guess he thought I knew already. Said he'd been gone and didn't know what all had happened and...shit. I didn't think you'd answer but I had to try calling anyway cause I. I needed to know you were alright."

You know what kind of restraint it must have taken for him to wait an entire day to call you (as opposed to, say, barging directly into your apartment), and you have to admit that you're impressed that he stopped to consider your potential feelings rather than acting on his first impulse (which was probably to barge directly into your apartment). "I'll...yeah. I'll be okay."

"Was it, ah. Can I ask what happened?"

Again- he's asking, not demanding, and you figure that deserves honesty. "Well...I was drunk, I decided I wanted to go outside, and the elevator was too slow. So I missed the first stair and fell all the way down to the bottom."

He sighs, then hesitates. He knows how this story ended for your mother all those years ago. "Jesus, Liv. And you...you're sure you're alright?"

"Yeah. I'm all bruised up and can't put much weight on one foot, and my bad arm's fucked up again, but I'll be fine." The next part comes out so suddenly and so softly that you're not sure if you just imagined the words tumbling from your mouth. "I could've died."

His voice is equally soft but it's steady, certain. "But you didn't. You're still here."

"It was an accident. I swear, El, no one believes me that I...they think I did it on purpose."

"I believe you."

"Yeah?"

"Anyone who knows you should know...if that's what you wanted, you'd be dead by now. But you wouldn't do it like that. So I believe you," he repeats. When you don't reply, he tries again. "Liv?"

"Yeah. I'm okay. Just...thank you. For calling and everything. I was worried about you too..."

"I'm doin' alright, I promise. Back to seeing my shrink...no more drinking for me for a while."

"None for me either," you say, wondering how two people can be so fucked up in all the same ways, jigsaw pieces cut out of the same frame, and yet you can't ever seem to get those broken bits to interlock neatly like they should. There's parts missing, or else there's too much, like those puzzles with extra pieces thrown in just to make it harder to find the ones that truly fit together. "I, uh, guess it was time for a break."

There's another long silence on his end. "Do you think I could, ah, maybe we could get together for drinks sometime? Non-alcoholic, I mean. Nothing else."

"Oh. Um. I..." Your first reaction is an overwhelming instinct to say yes. But then you think about that promise, the one where you vowed to stop doing things to deliberately hurt yourself, and it gives you pause. You still love him like crazy- because that's what it is, it's absolutely fucking crazy and you can acknowledge that much- but to act on it would be even crazier because you can't. You just can't. You can't be with him the way you want because you both need to get your shit together, because he needs to fix things with his wife the way he promised you he would, and because while he's behaved admirably tonight, you're not convinced that he could sit across a table from you and look you in the eyes and not start in on 'what I did to you'.

You can't because you're already trying to separate yourself from one person, to figure out how you're going to be able to stand on your own again, and you know that replacing one temporary fix with another isn't going to get you anywhere closer to where you need to be.

So you have to say no, although it hurts. You have to say no because it hurts. "I don't know if that's a good idea right now."

"...oh. Yeah. I should probably let you go, it's late."

"El...I said 'right now', not..." You stop yourself, careful not to promise things you don't know if you'll be able to deliver. "I'll be in touch, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay."

"I'm serious. I'll give you a call sometime soon, but for now...thank you. For letting me know you're alright."

Silence again. Then a long exhale. "Yeah. I am."

{and I won't put my hands up and surrender
there will be no white flag upon my door
I'm in love and always will be}