Hello! I can't believe this is chapter 55...mostly because I can't believe I've actually stuck with a project this long. And that is honestly 100% because of you lovely people who take the time to read, to leave feedback, to politely nudge me to update... :D You don't know how much it means to me! Every time I get a nice comment in my inbox, it's like I'm channeling sally field. "You like me! You really like me!"
For those who may have missed it, I wrote an EO one-shot called As The Sun Does Set that you can also find on this site if you are so inclined. Please be warned, however, that it is definitely NSFW.
A/N: this chapter is pretty mild minus one short half-flashback, half-dream sequence. Besides that, it's nick being nick, elliot and olivia being "good", and one failed rainbow cake. Title and quotes from sweet surrender by sarah mclachlan; other quotes from front row by alanis morissette.
{I miss the little things
I miss everything about you}
"Goddamnit!"
The clock on your office wall confirms what you already knew- you're late. The rest of your squad is long gone; Nick to his anger management class and Fin and Rollins to...whatever the hell they do on Friday evenings.
Normally you wouldn't get this annoyed over an impromptu meeting that ran overtime, but tonight you had plans. And not the kind of plans you normally have, where you and Brian decide that maybe you'll go out if you're both home before ten o'clock and it's not snowing and you don't get in a fight before you even make it out the door, but actual capital-P Plans with a set place and time and everything. With Elliot.
You start to open up a new text message before you remember that Kathy's away for the night and thus it's safe to call. "Liv?"
"Please tell me you're not already there, are you?" you ask when you hear voices in the background. He had made reservations for the two of you at a place you hadn't been to in years, which you had been so excited about, but now there was no way you were going to make it there in time unless teleportation had become a thing while you were sitting in that meeting (and it went on for so long, that might not be outside the realm of possibility).
"No, I'm still at Maureen's. When I saw your text saying you got held up, I decided I'd just wait here until I heard from you again. Everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's fine, I'll tell you later. It's just- damn it! I was daydreaming about their food all day."
"I can't wait to see you either," he jokes. "It's no big deal, we'll find somewhere else."
"On a Friday night? Listen, why don't you just come over to my place. I have a ton of leftovers from what Nick made for the party yesterday, and they're actually really good."
"Your place?" he repeats, trying to sound nonchalant, and you suddenly realize that this could be misinterpreted.
"I mean. If that's okay with you, or we'll find somewhere else to go, we could-"
"No, no, that's...that's fine," he assures you, but you're still wondering if adding 'I promise I won't try to have sex with you' would make things better or worse. "How 'bout you give me a call when you get home and I'll hang out here with Maureen a little longer while I wait?"
You agree with this new plan, and as you say goodbye you find yourself tracing the outline of the photo frame he had given you yesterday, thinking about how he- no. There's no time for daydreaming, you tell yourself, grabbing your things and rushing out the door while texting furiously with one hand. You've got some strategizing to do.
{we're supposed to have professional boundaries}
"Nick? You here?"
He obviously is, because his shoes and coat are by the door and the washing machine is running (seriously, how much laundry can one person do?), but he's nowhere to be seen.
"Nick..." You notice that your bedroom door is closed and head towards it, woefully unprepared for what greets you on the other side. "Nick! What the fuck?"
Your partner has taken up residence in the middle of your bed, wearing nothing but his underwear as he lounges on your favorite pillow. He looks up from the book he's reading with a frown. "Yes?"
"What are you- why did- that's my- aren't you supposed to be at anger management?"
He shrugs, still looking perturbed at the interruption. "They sent us home early because two of the guys got in a fight. I guess putting a bunch of pissed off people in a room together isn't such a smart idea."
"So why weren't you answering your phone? Did you not see the 911 texts I sent you?"
"I turned it off because I needed some me time." Before you could ask, he continues. "Time for reflection. Self-care is important, Liv, it's-"
"So you had to do that here? Make yourself a little nest with my pillows? I swear to God, if Brian were home-"
"Oh c'mon, it's not like this is the first time you've had another man in your be- uh. I'm not going to finish that," he decides when he sees your unamused glare. "Because some jokes just aren't funny. So what's the emergency, anyway? I'm not catching...did something happen with Amanda?"
"No...were you expecting something to?" you ask when you see the relief in his eyes.
"I thought you wanted to stay out of it."
"I do. But if there's-" you stop, realizing that Nick isn't going to incriminate her anyway, and you've got more pressing concerns. "I need you to get dressed, because Elliot's coming over."
"Oh yeah, what happened to your date?"
"It's not a date. Dates are for people in relationships and- he's gonna be here for dinner and I just need you to be a buffer, okay?"
"Are you asking me to be a cockblocker?"
"Yes. No. Y- I'm not going to have sex with him, no matter what," you explain, giving him a stern look in case he's tempted to make more jokes. "But I was planning on being out in public with him, and now he's coming here, and...I just want to have a good time tonight. I don't want to fight, I don't want things to get uncomfortable, but it's been so long since we've been together that-"
"That you want a chaperone. Liv, I would be honored to be that person."
That's what you're afraid of. "Chaperones are supposed to be seen and not heard. Please. I want us all to be on our best behavior, and that includes you."
"C'mon, stop acting like I'm going to do something embarrassing. Now go get ready, and I'll get dressed and set the food out." As you head for the bathroom door, he stops you. "Hey."
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you're not solving your problems with your vagina anymore."
He barely had time to duck before the shoe came flying at him.
{I'd like you to be schooled and in awe
as though you were kissed by God full on the lips}
"Liv, what are you doing in there?"
"What do you think? Getting dressed." You stand in front of your closet, hair and makeup finished but still wearing only your bathrobe as you ponder your wardrobe choices.
"You're taking an awful long time. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were going on a date."
You ignore him, not wanting to waste valuable time explaining how it's not a date, and start pulling open your dresser drawers. When you get to your underwear drawer you pause, hand hovering over your neat little piles. One is for the everyday stuff you wear to work, where your main concern is 'how comfortable is this going to be while I'm chasing after perps?', while the other side is for occasions where you want something a little sexier, like if you were going on a-
"It's not a date," you say to yourself out loud.
"Yeah, you've mentioned that."
"Nick, are you standing-" You open the door to find that yes, he's waiting right on the other side. "What are you doing? Listening to me get dressed? Go!"
You stalk back over to your dresser and pull out a matching set in a lacy deep blue. Who cares if no one's going to see it? Just because it's not a date, doesn't mean you can't dress up for yourself.
When you're finally done getting ready and go out to the kitchen to join Nick, he smirks as he takes in your sweater/jeans combination but says nothing. "So am I going to be eating with you guys or should I go hide in the closet?"
"I haven't decided- what? Why are you giving me that look?"
"Nothing, just...it's nice to see you happy. Ever since you came back to work after, uh, after your accident, you seem- I dunno. Lighter."
It's a good description for how you've felt lately, even with the black clouds you can see forming in the distance that you know you won't be able to hold off forever. One of these days, the sky is going to split apart and the rains will come again, but you've managed to outrun the storm for now.
You give him a smile of appreciation and are about to thank him when you hear a knock at the door, and your thanks becomes a warning. "Don't you screw this up for me."
Elliot's standing in the hallway, looking just a tiny bit nervous, and it's a relief to know that you're not the only one. You usher him in, quickly shutting the door behind you in case there are any nosy neighbors watching.
"Congratulations," he says, holding out a bouquet of about two dozen yellow roses. "I know I already said it yesterday, but-"
"Thank you. Wow...it's like you asked someone what I got from Brian and then brought me something exactly the same, only twice as big," you say, looking over your shoulder at the smaller flower arrangement on your table. Nick makes a 'who, me?' face and shrugs.
"Oh...hey, Nick," Elliot says, his expression one of relief, then disappointment, then relief again when he sees the other man standing there. Nick seems to have taken your warning about being seen and not heard to heart, because he just lifts his hand up in a silent greeting.
Meanwhile, you've decided to go for it, so you lean in and give Elliot a quick one-armed hug. "I'm really glad you're here."
"We're both glad you're here," Nick says, and you knew that vow of silence was too good to last. "Now sit down if you're ready, and I'll play waiter. Elliot, you want something to drink?"
"Uh, water's good." And that was a good answer, because your options were limited. You had made sure there was no alcohol in the house- neither of you needed the temptation, and Nick wouldn't miss it- even though you managed to have a tiny glass of the champagne Melinda brought last night without any ill effects. Sobriety seemed to be working out well, for both you and Elliot, and God knows the two of you could get into enough trouble even without it.
Nick had taken the liberty of putting a candle (fake- he knows the real ones make you nervous) in the middle of the table, and as you look over at Elliot and see the way the flickering light shadows his face, you once again silently grumble about the injustice of it all. Why the hell couldn't Kathy have gone out of town for a night while you were still sleeping with him? Because as nice as it is having him here now, and it is nice, this is the opportunity you would've killed for back then...and it would've been a lot more than 'nice'.
"You're staring," Elliot points out, looking awfully smug about this. You duck your head and nudge his foot with yours as Nick comes over with the food.
You weren't lying when you said that he had actually done a good job cooking. Especially when you consider that it was, as he put it, 'all vegan, except for a little bit of pork.'
He had gone on to explain that this wasn't just any pork; it was specially purchased from an 'ethical' butcher shop somewhere in Brooklyn. "Their meats only come from animals who've died in their sleep of old age."
"You ever been to a pig farm, Nick?" Amanda had asked, sneering at him. "Because my uncle in Alabama had one, and-"
"I once dated a girl from Alabama," Munch interrupted, and for once everyone was both relieved and greatly interested to hear one of his stories of lost love.
Other than some palpable tension between Nick and Amanda for reasons you aren't entirely sure of (you asked him, he said 'you don't want to know,' and you decided he was probably right), the party had gone well. Barba was conspicuously absent, but you hadn't expected him to show up anyway, not when your only communications since that fucked up meeting in his office had been a few terse emails. (Nick asked if you knew what was going on with him. You told him he didn't want to know).
And now you're having an unexpectedly pleasant time with Nick and Elliot, who are managing to coexist peacefully as the three of you trade funny stories and gossip about other people in the department. "Hey, did you notice last night that Fin and Melinda showed up together and then left together too?"
"That's been going on for years," Elliot says. "They could be living with each other, and who would know?"
Nick shakes his head. "I've always imagined that Fin has this insane love life that he hides from us. Probably a different girl every night. He's the ultimate ladies' man."
"Don't let Munch hear you- isn't that his nickname?" you ask, laughing as you reach for your glass.
"Yeah, he wishes- hey, Elliot! I forgot, did I ever tell you about the time Liv and I went to Miami?"
You nearly choke on your water. "Nick. No."
"Uh-uh, I need to hear this," Elliot says. "Let me guess- spring break?"
"Hardly. We went down there to bring back a suspect. The end," you say.
"She's leaving out the best part."
"What, how annoying you are to fly with?" You turn toward Elliot. "He had about five cups of coffee before we took off. Didn't shut up the whole way there."
"I can't help it, I love flying. Is that so wrong? Anyway, Elliot, we got there and couldn't do anything until the next day. So I took her on a tour of the city, and then we hung out at the hotel pool and I kept the gentlemen away from her." Not surprisingly, Elliot looks like he approves of this.
"He was telling people we were married!"
"Well, it wasn't a complete lie. I was married, just not to you. And you had a boyfriend anyway...not like that stops you, but-"
"Nick! Enough!"
He slaps his palm on the table as he snickers, ignoring you and grinning at Elliot. "Bet you didn't know I slept with your girl before you did."
"That's it, you're fired! There was a mix-up at the hotel," you explain quickly, "and we got the last room available. But it only had one king, so we had to make do."
"So how was that?" Elliot asks, amused.
"Terrible. Nick sleeps like an eggbeater."
"I don't! I just couldn't get comfortable because I'm not used to sleeping with clothes on. But I did, for her sake," he promises Elliot. "'sides, it's not like she was actually there all night. She got up and left for some kinda booty call when she thought I was sleeping."
"I did not. I was wide awake, so I thought I'd go for a walk."
"You put on makeup to go for a walk?" He nudges Elliot. "Trust me. I know a booty call when I see one."
"I believe you. She's a terrible liar when it comes to that shit."
"She really is."
"I'm so terrible, but it still took you nine months to figure out Brian and I were a couple," you point out to Nick.
"And you gave that away when you came to the door half-naked!"
Elliot is suddenly intrigued. "Oh really? Tell me more, Junior."
"Weeeeell..." he drawls, rubbing his palms together in excitement, "Me and Munch needed to talk to Cassidy one night, when we were the only ones at the house, because someone had ran outta there the minute the clock hit five-"
"-so you know that means she's got a date," Elliot says, nodding.
"Exactly. So dumbass isn't answering his phone, and Munch says 'I know where he lives, why don't we swing by there real quick?' We get to his place and it's obvious he's...entertaining a lady. Then we hear a woman's voice coming from the back room, but he tells her it's the delivery guy or some shit like that. And he's being really shady, like even more than normal, and then just as he's about to shut the door in our faces, this one-" he cackles, pointing to you, "comes wandering out with no pants on. Seriously, she's got on dumbass's shirt and nothing else, and her hair's all messed up like-" He reaches out and ruffles your hair with one hand. "And her face, oh my God, her face. She knew she was busted."
"Are you done?"
"No. What the hell were you doing, anyway? Is that how you always greet the delivery guy? 'Sorry, I don't have money for a tip, but I'll let you get an eyeful of- shit, were you even wearing underwear?"
"Yes!" no.
"I don't think you had a delivery guy coming at all. I think you were expecting someone for a threeway."
"Nick, I told you- enough."
"Wait. Why did you have to talk to dumbass to begin with?" Elliot asks.
Nick glances over at you and you give him the tiniest of head shakes to indicate that you'd never told Elliot that part of the story. You assume he'd heard about it on TV or read it in the paper, but it's not something the two of you had ever discussed together. "Uh, don't even remember. We were working a case and the suspect was someone he'd busted when he worked Narcotics- somethin' like that. Nothing as memorable as seeing my partner without pants, that's for damn sure! Now c'mon, man, I bet you've got some good stories about Liv, so let's hear 'em."
You silently thank Nick with your eyes as Elliot starts talking. Under the table Elliot's foot deliberately brushes your ankle, just like yours had done to his earlier.
You smile at him and it has nothing to do with the conversation.
{writing a letter to you didn't make me
feel any more peaceful than how I felt when we weren't speaking
because I didn't cop to what I did}
"For Christ's sake, how does no one else notice that this girl is always crying?"
"That's what I told you, El, that's why I can't stand her. Annoys the shit out of me."
After finishing dinner, you and Elliot (and Nick) had moved into the living room for dessert and your nightly telenovela. While you had been patiently explaining the characters and their backstories to Elliot, Nick had been strangely quiet, hunched over in his chair and staring down at his phone.
A commercial for a pen with a hidden camera comes on and you peer over at him again. This time he's fidgeting in his seat, looking like a kid trying desperately to get the teacher to call on him. "Nick? Do you need something?"
"I, uh," he stammers, looking torn. "Can I go?"
"Go where?"
"...out?"
"You don't need my permission."
"Yeah, but. Is it okay?" he asks, looking over at Elliot, and for all his subtlety he might as well have just said 'are you going to be able to restrain yourself from jumping him if I'm not here?'
"It's fine," you promise him, because things have been uneventful so far and it's getting late, so Elliot probably won't be sticking around much longer anyway. "Go."
You turn back to the show as he gets ready to leave, and a few minutes later you hear his voice coming from the kitchen. "Hey Liv? There's a couple pieces of cake left, can I take them to- ah, can I take them with me?"
"Knock yourself out." While Nick was a decent cook, his baking skills left something to be desired. He had attempted one of those multilayered cakes where every layer is a different color, undoubtedly something he had seen on the internet, and had ended up with a creation that resembled a padded-up tye dye shirt. Fortunately it tasted much better than it looked.
Nick takes his cake and goes...wherever he's going, and Elliot raises his eyebrows. "What's his deal? The wife?"
"She's down in DC. It's probably..." You shrug, remembering that Elliot doesn't know about the whole Nick/Amanda story and you don't feel like sharing a tale of illicit office love tonight. "I have no idea."
You both keep watching the TV in companionable silence until the show ends. Elliot picks up the remote, flips through the channels until he finds a hockey game, and then sets the remote down. "So. How's dumbass?"
"You really want to know?"
"Hey, I asked, didn't I?"
You side-eye him warily, smiling out of one corner of your mouth. "He's...good. We're good. He took a few days off after, ah, my accident, so we got to spend more time together than usual and it was...good."
"That's good," he agrees.
"Yeah, good." You've decided not to tell him about your impending breakup plans until after the fact. You don't need him egging you on- or worse, thinking that it means you're expecting something from him. Because that's not what it's about, and his opinion isn't going to change your mind either way. Being single again will be...well, to use tonight's buzzword, it'll be good for you. And now to change the subject. "I really am glad you came tonight. And yesterday...thank you. It was a nice surprise."
"I promised I'd be, remember?"
"You did but...it was a long time ago. I would've understood if you weren't there."
He shakes his head. "The only way I'd miss it is if I thought you...well. That's why I asked Nick; it's your big day and I didn't wanna upset you. But I. Just because we...I still wanted to keep my word."
"And what about you?"
"About me?"
"You know. Things at home...are they okay?" you ask, voice getting softer and more cautious with every word.
"Yeah. We're...I'm workin' on it. Back to my shrink, stopped drinking, trying to spend more time with Eli again..."
"That's...I'm so glad to hear that, El. I'm sure it makes Kathy happy."
He doesn't say or do anything to let you know whether he agrees with that. You wonder if she told him about running into you in the hospital, or if she ever even told him she knew about the affair, because you still don't believe that he'd ever be the one to come clean about it himself. Even if he wanted to, you're sure he'd lie for the sake of protecting you. "She wants us to go to this couple's counseling thing."
"Oh. And you?"
"I told her no. We can work things out on our own just fine."
You can't imagine she agreed with him on that, but you're not going to argue, so you pick at a loose string on your sweater and try to come up with something else to say. "El- you did the right thing. We made the right choice. I mean. Didn't we?"
"I love my family."
"I know you do."
"And I'm...you have someone to come home to every day, someone who loves you. And you deserve that. Even if it's dumbass."
You laugh softly, the kind of laugh that's meant to fight back the tightness in your throat. Things could've been so different. Maybe. You remember sitting on a hotel bed, foreheads and noses touching and tears commingling, remember him telling you there is always going to be a piece of us that belongs to each other. Okay? Always. Nothing's going to change that.
"Liv? What're you thinking about?"
You turn your head toward him both literally and figuratively, away from the circus of parading elephants in the room with names like knowing what I did to you and for all you knew I fucking loved it and you cry when dumbass fucks you too? "We're still friends. Right? I mean, we can make this work. Being friends."
"Yeah?" His whole face looks brighter, younger. "That...it'd be good."
"Good. Then we're friends."
You exchange smiles, tentative but encouraging, and then go back to watching the TV in silence. "Hey Liv?"
"Yeah?"
"How come I worked with you for 13 years and still never got to see you in a swimsuit?"
You laugh and it's genuine this time, stretching your legs out across the couch so your feet are resting in his lap. "You, my friend, were not ready for that."
{I've crossed the last line from where I can't return
where every step I took in faith betrayed me}
There's so much yelling.
You're screaming. get away, don't touch me, leave me alone. Something warm is trickling down your calf- blood? Maybe. You're not sure. Brian's shouting back. you lying little whore. You're fumbling with the lock on the front door, fighting it for your freedom with both hands on the knob. Finally it gives way and you run. You're running down the hall, a trail of blood and tears in your wake, but you can't feel your bare feet hitting the floor. It's like you're flying- if flying felt like plunging forward into a whirlwind. Brian's still yelling for you to come back but you can't stop, not even if you wanted to. You're at the mercy of your own legs now and they're crumpling under you, your knee colliding with the cement, then your arm, your whole body being tossed back and forth as you fall, and then you hear the snap of cracking bone and everything goes black-
"Liv?"
The unexpected voice calling your name is jarring, and your heart's still racing as you turn toward the source. "What?!"
"Sorry, I'm sorry," Elliot says, palms held outward in surrender. "You just made this noise and I wanted to be sure-"
"I was fine until you had to go and startle me. Jesus." You shake your head, staring straight forward at the TV and hoping he'd get the message. At least Brian, for all the dumb things he does, knows that you have to be allowed to 'snap out of it' on your own.
Of course, Brian also thinks that you tried to kill yourself. Neither of you have mentioned it directly, not since the morning you came back from the ER, but you know he still has his doubts even after you promised him it was a complete accident. You can tell by the way he talks and acts around you, slower and more cautiously than usual. It's as if you were a wounded animal and he's trying not to spook you- which, maybe, isn't far off from the truth.
"It's bad enough to keep seeing things that happened before," you say without preamble, "but to see things that never happened at all..."
He punches the button on the remote a few times to lower the volume and shifts so he's partially facing you. "Is that what's going on?"
"I'm doing okay. I really am. I'm getting better. Even Brian says so."
"Will you look at that, dumbass and I actually agree on something," he says, giving you a little smirk. "But things can get better and still not be perfect. Doesn't have to be all or nothing."
"I keep thinking about...the details change every time, but they're not important. The important part is when I get to the stairway, and I start to fall, but this time I. I don't make it."
"You die?"
You nod, looking away from him. "I know it's not real. I know I'm alright but...it still feels real. I can see it so clearly, it's like a flashback or a, a really vivid dream. But only when I'm awake. Ironically, sleep is how I get away from it."
"What's your shrink say?"
"Oh, you know. Same old stop and redirect bullshit." He shakes his head slightly and you explain. "You tell yourself that this isn't actually happening, that you're safe and it's not something you have to worry about because it's in the past."
"And that works?"
"Uh. Sometimes."
"What about the other times?"
You shrug one shoulder. "She wants me to go back to where I fell. To stand there so I can prove to myself that I'm okay and being there won't hurt me."
"But you haven't done that yet."
"No one will talk to me about it," you say, purposely not answering his question. "Brian won't, Nick won't...if I get too close to mentioning it, saying my wrist's still sore or whatever, Brian'll change the subject like 'oh, you must be using the computer too much at work' or something like that. And I guess I shouldn't be the one complaining about-"
"Let's go."
"What?"
He takes his feet off where they were propped up on the coffee table and rubs his hands together. "I mean, if you want to. If you're ready. I'll go with you."
{take me in no questions asked
you strip away the ugliness that surrounds me}