Prompt: Drive by Valerie Broussard

A Change of Scenery

Chapter 2

~oOo~

She set the ground rules, and she knows he's going to follow every last word of them. Despite having made herself quite clear about the fact they wouldn't be having sex, it didn't mean she didn't want a bit of intimacy. It didn't mean that she didn't want to explore the hard planes of his ridiculously sculpted body with her hands, that she didn't want to feel his legs tangled with hers, that she didn't want his large hands (had they always been that large?) on her skin.

As their lips separate she searches his bright blue eyes for something that gives her a hint on how to proceed. For all her courage she'd had earlier in the afternoon, she's unsure of the ground she is standing on now. All she knows is that she feels alive and she can feel her blood pumping through her veins like she's not felt in years. Her hand raises and lands against the side of his face. She watches the way he watches her.

"I don't have a go bag. I just… jumped in your truck. You probably have one." It's like he can read her mind sometimes, she swallows and shrugs, her eyes glancing over to the doors to the balcony as a smile spreads across her lips. She gently presses her other hand against his shoulder and slips past him, once her back is to his line of sight she turns her face and looks at the large King sized bed in the middle of the room, her hand brushes over the comforter as she speaks to him.

"I don't mind walking down the street to one of the souvenir shops. It's off-season but some of them are still open."

"What made you decide to drive up here?"

"I came up here a few years ago before I found Noah," she answers, wrapping her hands around the handle to the door and opening it, stepping out onto the balcony. "It was the last time I was ever alone…" she leans against the doorway, turning her head towards him, reaching out her hand, she relishes in the feel of his hand slipping through hers as she tightens the grip. "I had taken a pregnancy test for the fourth time in my life."

He feels the buzzing in his ears, watches her carefully because he knows now that her son is adopted. He'd had a two-hour drive with the blue-eyed brilliant little clone of her only to find out halfway back that he had none of her blood in his veins but was hers. The boy was protective of his mother, worried about her, and had so many of her mannerisms that Elliot had seen through the veil of the parallel universe for a moment. For a second, her son was theirs.

Elliot swallows the lump in his throat and Olivia barrels forward, continuing with her story. "So I'd taken a pregnancy test and my boyfriend at the time had been relieved that it had been negative and I knew, at that moment, that I'd never experience that for myself. The…" she swallows, "anyway, I had to get away… by myself and think."

Elliot knows, somewhere in the back of his mind what she's saying. She'd never experience the feeling of a life turning your insides into a punching bag, the elbow in the ribs, the ass of a child you created laying on your bladder. He'd listened to Kathy complain through all her pregnancies and he knew how much Olivia had wanted those things. Not at first, because she'd gradually, with prompting, came around to the idea she'd be a good mother. That a kid would win the lottery with her as a mom.

In a parallel universe, he made different decisions. She turns away from him, still clenching his fingers between hers when she rests her back against his chest and he places his cheek against hers, feeling the warmth of their faces pressed together as they'd been in her kitchen weeks ago.

"So, my therapist, when I called him, suggested a change of scenery. Of course, he was also going on vacation before this happened and I think he was just concerned I was going to be stuck in my head." He feels her drop his hand and then, she reaches for his wrist and brings his arm up and he knows what she's doing.

She's wrapping his arm across her shoulders, asking him to hold her from behind. To cocoon her in his embrace, so he does. She brings both her hands up and wraps her fingers around his forearms, and he feels the warm air escape her mouth on the next exhale she lets out, relaxing. He wishes he could see her face because she's probably got her eyes closed, she's sinking into him and he wants her to, it's all he's ever wanted, to hold her close when it was inappropriate, to be her source of comfort and not distress.

Honestly, he's missed holding someone he cares about in his arms. He's missed the intimacy in his life. He's missed inhaling whatever fruity or floral shampoo women use mixed with the familiar scent of someone that just gets you.

Grief is a funny thing. Elliot is a physical man, he shows his love and care with small caresses. He shows his anger and aggravation with his fists in the gym, having discovered boxing as an outlet. His knuckles thanking him. Italy had taught him a lot of things, how to breathe, how to focus his anger into something non-destructive, how to take time out and appreciate the finer things in life, how to slow down.

It never felt like home but he thinks now it was preparing him to be a steady foundation.

"S'nice," Olivia mumbles, pressing her lips to her knuckles, "Being held."

"It's nice holding someone." he comments, pressing his nose into her hair. She's warm, solid against him and he doesn't ever want to let her go, not now, not ever. "So you what, picked up and ran here?"

"I mean, honestly? Yeah. I ran here. I just started driving and somehow I found myself here." He feels when she takes a deep breath. "I came here and I stayed in this small hotel about two blocks over, I asked for the suite — it had three beds, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. It was the end of the season, so I wandered the streets at night, tucked my hands in my overcoat, and then someone mentioned that they had brunch cruises on the lake."

Elliot smiles, tightening his grip on her as she leans fully against him. He feels the way she's surrendering to his grip. However, he finds himself unable to tell her that he doesn't think they can stand in this space for much longer but he doesn't want to let her go, he likes this small bubble she's carved out for them in this space, the way she's talking to him, telling him how she's feeling, sharing pieces of herself with him. He can feel the way she's still being brave, and he wonders when she's going to close off. Or maybe she's not.

She'd surprised him, at the gas station when she'd stood on her toes and kissed him.

She's ready.

He doesn't have to tell her that he's getting a small twinge in his back though, because she pushes her shoulder against his chest and moves them into the room. They shuffle awkwardly inside and she reaches out to close the door. Once it's shut, she reaches up and taps his arm. "C'mon, let's lay down for a few minutes before we venture out to go find you some clothes for tomorrow," she whispers quietly.

As he lets her go, he watches her move about the room, she pulls the sweatshirt off that he'd handed her and watches as she sits on the edge of the bed, slipping her shoes off, when she looks up at him, her hair falls slightly in front of her face, out of the messy bun she'd pulled it back into prior to picking him up, prior to their long drive up to the lake. He swallows as he sits down next to her, unzipping his sweatshirt and toe-ing off his own shoes.

She climbs onto the middle of the bed and braces herself up on her elbows. She does look tired.

"Olivia."

"Hold me, Elliot. I'll keep talking if you just… hold me."

He does. He climbs on the other side of the bed, crossing his legs in front of him and when she sidles up next to him, she wraps her arm around him, weaseling her hand underneath his shirt she rests her palm over his heart, her cheek pressing against her hand.

As the day slips further away, he listens to her talk about how she found a different sort of peace, standing on the top deck of the steamboat on the lake; how she'd tucked her hands in her pockets that afternoon as the sun got higher in the sky and she leaned against the railing, breathing for the first time in months. How after she'd drank her champagne with the strawberry in it, she'd felt somehow freer than she'd felt in months. As the secrets spilled into the room, he listened and tightened his grip on her, she'd nudged her legs between his own and just when he thought they might leave the safety of the room and walk out to the streets below, she drifted off to sleep.

His fingers played with the silky strands of her hair, weaving in and out of the tresses. It was the longest he thinks he's ever seen it, and he thanks some higher power that he gets her in this version of their lives. That it doesn't take some parallel universe after all. Somehow, he's lucked out to get her in this one. To see her in all her raw beauty, to hold her close, to touch her.

He can't wait to touch her more and more every single day. If she'll allow it.

Does he want to eventually sink himself into her how they were always supposed to? Yes, but there's something infinitely more special about this, this quiet intimacy, this physical contact that he never wants to give up. He's grateful that she kidnapped him out of the city.

He's grateful that she's sharing these pieces.

He places a kiss on the top of her head and listens as she sighs contentedly, nuzzling closer.

Yes, he feels the most alive he's felt in two years tonight, and he's never going to forget this. It will forever be one of his favorite moments.

The author of this SVU Love in the Air story will be revealed in March