Hello to everybody! Sorry for the delay, but my dissertation is a pain in the butt...-.- One week to go though and I am done!
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and followed, for their support! I want to hear more from you guys, I am open to any constructive criticism!
"Maybe I knew" she said her voice almost a whisper now. "But maybe I don't anymore."
"What's that even supposed to mean?" Elliot said in a low, angry tone.
"It means that I need time… to think." She said and move towards the bedroom. "I'm going to bed now. You can stay, you can go, I don't mind. Just… leave me alone for tonight ok?" And like that she left the living room without expecting an answer.
She sank down on her pillows and after only mere seconds, she fell into an uneasy sleep, filled with restless dreams and nightmares.
Gitano was slashing her neck and she was falling to the ground. Elliot was above her, cradling her head in his lap.
"Go Elliot I'm fine!" Elliot stood up and left while she was trying to catch her breath, but she wasn't in the bus station anymore, she was at the warehouse and she had the perp's filthy hands on her neck again and she tried to scream but no sound came out, but then the hands weren't the perp's anymore, it was Harris and it was the basement all over again, she was handcuffed on the wall and Harris was approaching. She screamed and screamed as he came closer. "Fin would be here any second now" She thought as Harris manhandled her face in front of his erected member and she screamed again but Fin wasn't coming and she screamed and cried and screamed….
"Liv! Olivia! Wake up!"
Her eyes shot open and it took her a minute to realize that she was in her bed, not the basement and it were Elliot's not Harris's hands that were holding her, trying to calm her. She burst into sobs and buried her head into Elliot's warm chest.
"It's okay now, it was just a nightmare, you're okay now…" He whispered reassuringly into her ear while he cradled her into his strong embrace.
They stayed like that for a while and slowly Olivia's sobs subsided. They were now laying embraced in the dark without speaking, just laying into each other's arms.
"You know that we can't continue doing this right?" She said quietly at some point, after a little more than an hour had passed.
"Yeah, I know" he replied in the same quiet tone.
They spoke no more words, until she was finally lulled to sleep. She woke up several hours later to an empty bed.
Olivia leaned on the sink to support her weight. She gazed at her reflection on the mirror in front of her and took a deep breath.
Two weeks. It had been two weeks, since the warehouse and the fight with Elliot. It had been two weeks since they decided to break up. And everything was going great, considering. They were only interacting for work-related stuff, and because their caseload had been lighter, they were mainly pushing paperwork, so no harm done. Until today. Everything was great, until Kathy Stabler entered the precinct this noon.
Elliot was at Cragen's office and Olivia was finishing a report, her thoughts already to what to grab for lunch, when…
"Hello Olivia"
She raised her head slowly only to come face to face with Kathy, who was smiling politely at her.
"Oh hi Kathy, uh, Elliot is at Cragen's office, he uh, won't be long.." She said trying to keep an even tone
"Oh okay, I'll just wait for him, we're supposed to go out for lunch so…"
"Oh that's great, that's…"
Olivia couldn't have been happier when Elliot chose this moment to come walking towards them.
"Oh hey Kath" He said casually, placing a small peck on her lips, while he reached for his coat. "Liv, we're going out for lunch, do you want me to bring you something?"
"Nah I'm good thanks, I'll just finish those reports here…" She said trying to make herself seem busy, shuffling around papers in her desk.
"Okay, see you later then" Elliot said and lead Kathy out of the precinct.
The moment they were out of eyesight, Olivia dropped the shuffling and raced to the bathroom.
One hour later, she was sitting on her sofa, nursing a glass of wine. Once she had manage to calm down a bit, she had gone to Cragen and asked for the rest of the day off, claiming that she was running a fever. Fortunately Cragen accepted and five minutes later Olivia was rushing out of the precinct.
She gulped down the remands of the wine and reached for the bottle sitting on the coffee table so as to refill her glass, but found it empty. Sighing she sat up and went to her kitchen where she started rummaging around her selves. When her hand reached a bottle of vodka, she grabbed another glass from the sink and went back to the living room.
She poured herself a glass and immediately downed half of it. Dammit. Everything was really good, she had easily fooled herself into thinking that she could live without Elliot, at least without Elliot as her lover, without Elliot being something else in her life except her work partner. But then Kathy showed up and it was like Olivia had been slapped in the face with everything she would never be able to have. It had been like she was even then, hanging to some ridiculous idea that Elliot one day would hers. And just like that she had realized how wrong she had been.
It was like she had built a wall with false hopes and expectations, with dreams that didn't belong to her and now that poor-built construction was falling apart and each and every piece was hitting her hard. So as to get some relief from the pain she decided to get drunk, so drunk that she would not be able to remember her own name
"Men Livy, are useless. You'll find that out soon enough" slurred Serena as she downed another glass of whiskey and stumbled across the living room. Eleven year-old Olivia watched her silently from her spot on the couch, knowing that sooner or later, her mother will pass out somewhere in the house and then she would have to go, pick her up and get her to bed, clean up the mess that she had made, and finally go to her own room and curl up in her bed.
Adult Olivia stumbled across her own living room with the empty bottle of vodka clutched on her hand. The door was knocked again and she almost tripped on the carpet at the hall.
"Coming… Jeez…" She muttered.
She fumbled with the doorknob a bit before she finally opened only to find Elliot standing there with a worried look on his face. In her drunken stupor, she stood still staring at him.
"Liv, are you ok? You were gone when I came back from lunch and Cragen said that you were running a fever so you left, but you were fine in the morning, what happened… Liv?"
She had finally managed to move away from the door and had found her way towards the kitchen, where she had retrieved another bottle of vodka and was proceeding on pouring another glass to herself.
"Liv are you drunk?" Elliot had followed her into the kitchen "I don't think it's good for you to drink if you're running a fever…"
"I am not sick" she mumbled
"Then what's going on?" Liv please you worry me" He said taking some steps towards where she was leaning against the counter.
"Like you care… Fuck off Elliot" She said slurring her words.
"I am not leaving you like this Olivia! And of course I care, what's that supposed to mean? You're my…"
"I'm your what Elliot? I'm your fucking what?" She suddenly shouted stomping her glass down on the counter. Half of its contains spilled out. "I am nothing to you, you hear me? Nothing! I am nothing to nobody, so back the hell off and stop pretending like you actually give a shit!" Tears were now sliding down her flushed cheeks. Her hands were trembling as she picked up the glass to drink again when Elliot moved forward and tried to extract it from her hand, but she was having a death grip on it.
"Liv you had enough for tonight, just give me the glass!" Elliot growled
"Dammit Elliot leave me the fuck alone!" She spat holding onto the glass with all her might.
But she was drunk and Elliot was stronger than her anyway so he finally managed to take it away from her. Olivia let out and angry yell.
"What do you want from me Elliot? What? You want me to say that everything is fine? Only it's not! I am a fucking mess, happy now? You made me that way, you should feel proud of yourself, you should feel so fucking proud…" She couldn't go on. She fell on her knees, right there, in the middle of her small kitchen, and started sobbing. Elliot was watching her, his eyes suspiciously moist, with the glass hanging numbly from his hand.
"I am a mess…." Olivia said between sobs.
Quietly, Elliot placed the glass on the table beside him and dropped on his knees beside Olivia, who kept sobbing silently without even acknowledging his presence. He slowly and carefully brought his arms around her curled form and when she didn't resist, he tightened his grip and rocked her. She turned and buried her face on the crook of his neck and kept crying, At some point, he felt her breathing evening out and her sobs subsided. He looked down and saw that she had fallen asleep so he carefully brought his one hand around her knees and scooped her up. He carried her like this on her bed, where he deposited her softly and covered her with a blanket. He stood above her for some minutes, watching her sleeping form, illuminated by the moonlight. Then he walked outside the room and into the living room where he sank down on the sofa. He couldn't leave her alone tonight, he couldn't bring him to himself to do so….
After almost three hours, he heard footsteps and Olivia appeared at the door of the living room with bloodshot eyes, rubbing her forehead. Elliot immediately stood up and approached her.
"Are you okay?" He asked quietly. Olivia let out a small groan.
"I'll manage" she said in a dismissive tone.
"Do you want some Tylenol?"
"Yeah, yeah some Tylenol would be nice" she said with a small smile.
He disappeared into her kitchen and appeared a minute later with a glass of water and two pills. She hadn't move from where she was leaning at the door of the living room, he noticed. She accepted the pills, and downed them quickly with a generous amount of water. She placed the glass down on a table nearby and stood there, staring at her feet.
"You stayed" she exclaimed quietly.
"I couldn't leave you like that" he replied in the same quiet voice.
"I am a big girl Elliot, I've been drunk before…"
"I didn't want to leave you". He took some steps forward, now being only inches away from touching her body. Olivia shook her head.
"Why?" she whispered looking up at his blue eyes. He took one more step. Now their bodies were touching and she held her breath tight, trying to control the tremble that was taking over her body and the fog that was starting to blur her mind. He leaned and she felt his hot breath on her ear. She closed her eyes and bit her lip hard.
" It's like when you are addicted to drugs" he whispered " You know it's bad and that it's destroying you but at the same time it's the best thing that ever happened to you, you want to have it again and again because it makes you feel pretty damn great. You…" his hands snaked around her body and inside her top. He closed his eyes and let out a soft moan, when he felt her hot, soft skin. "You are my drug Olivia, you…." He gulped slowly trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to escape his eyelids "…are my everything".
She couldn't speak, she couldn't move, she couldn't think, hell she couldn't even breathe. The words that had just escaped his mouth had immobilized her completely. She didn't want to think because then she would come crushing down to a very unwelcoming reality and she wanted, craved for one more night, just one night, when she could fool herself into believing that he was hers and hers only.
So when he pushed her back into her bedroom, she just followed him wordlessly.
That night, it wasn't quick and hurried, it wasn't frenzied. They took their time to explore each other's bodies, to kiss and caress every hidden spot. That night, they weren't having sex, they made love, sweetly and slowly to each other. They made love like they never had before.
And when the dawn came and the sun crept through the curtains of Olivia's bedroom, she pretended to be asleep when he stood up, wore his clothes and leaned to give her one last kiss on the forehead. She kept her eyes shut as he made his way through her apartment and she only allowed her tears to fall freely when the door closed behind him.
"You are my everything" he had moaned into her ear again as he was finishing inside her and Olivia believed him.
But she knew, that even that, wasn't enough.
I know that I am torturing those two, but you have to hang on! there is plenty to come, and if you havent noticed, there's another person who's waiting on the shadows to make his appearance...
Until next time review! xoxoxo Kate