wow. the reviews are coming in like trekkies to scotty's corpse. you are all being lovely, you scoundrels. thanks for sending me into a wild abandon of bliss.
well, it's finally time for some good clean drama. I know drama better than TNT (at least I hope so) and this chapter calls for some angst and clinginess. I was feeling very literary tonight after my Tolstoy paper research citations (bloody bitches, they are) so I started writing this instead of doing my work. damn you dick wolf, this is all your fault.
I watched X-Files season 8 last night with lex and began to regret that dick wolf is not for taking Liv and El down the Mulder/Scully route. just one kiss, dicky. that's all I ask. just one. Olivia doesn't have to have alien babies, but she could at least kiss elliot over one. give the fanfic writers something to have fanfic orgies about for a few years.
for those of you wondering, I actually live in upstate new york, in a suburb south of lake george, so most of my life is spent in the Adirondacks, where liv and el currently are. it is absolutely gorgeous, and if you have never been, you really should.
happy reading!
She watched the headlights on the road, infrequent as they were, flames that burst and blinded her until they flew past, descending onto her memories. After all, their route was taking them past places she had already seen, into a land she'd already walked. She looked over at Elliot, his eyes on the road, his face passive, unreadable. Was he dwelling on the past, on the life he'd given up for a week, laced with troubles and affairs that even she could not understand? Or did he stare at the headlights like she did, contemplating a future that was racing out of their control?
Stalked. Raped. Dead. Women had been down this road before, their husbands beside them, their eyes on the headlights flashing onto the black skeletons of trees. They'd taken this road until it had led to a room, a bed…a tomb.
She could die tonight.
She looked over at him again, turning up the heat, adjusting the dial on the radio. A French voice broke the dark silence, and he pressed the button again, searching for a signal. But only static met their ears, a cold and grating sound beating against her brain.
There was no civilization out here after all. No one to send out a song, or report the news, or warm the cold night with a friendly joke. No one to hear your car break down beside the road.
No one to hear your screams.
She sighed, staring at his hand on the steering wheel. His hands were guiding her home now. His hands would be the only thing that might save her from the cruel fate so many others had faced.
They hadn't spoken since they'd gotten in the car. Before, the trip had felt like a vacation. She'd almost forgotten the man they were hunting, the justice to be served. But then the call. Then the way she'd had to stare at every male face that crossed her path, never knowing, never able to understand. Suddenly the danger was here, and it was swallowing her every thought with a pang of cold hopelessness.
I know what to do. The room is secure. I don't have to worry.
But their rooms were secure. Their husbands were right there. They'd been prepared for anything.
Elliot's with me.
She saw him turn to her, and met his eyes with inert reception. "You okay?" His voice was like a mitten, warming a wet and frozen hand.
"Just thinking…" She turned back to the road. If she stared long enough, would she cry? Would she show her fears and become the horribly insecure woman she'd always thought she'd be someday?
But no. His eyes made her stronger. Just being next to her made her…calmer, somehow.
"You don't have to be worried." He must have seen her face. She wanted to bury her head in her hands. She had to hide this feeling somehow. He shouldn't feel obligated like this. She was still his equal, even when it was…different.
"I know." She bit her lip, wanting to bleed. She needed to know she was still here, that she was still human and had not turned to stone as she'd anticipated. "But it's hard not to think about it…about what happened to them. I hope we can just catch the guy and get out of here, you know?"
"We'll get him soon. We just have to wait, I guess." He stretched, rubbing his shoulder with his free hand. She could tell he didn't like the idea of waiting at all. He hated it.
"I don't like waiting, either." She said softly, giving him a small smile. He blinked into the headlights, chewing his lip.
"I don't mind waiting." His voice was quiet, solemn…honest. "It's this whole sense of helplessness that gets to me."
"I know."
The headlights were not as few now, and they were entering the village, streetlights adding to the blinding spots in her vision. And just as they entered civilization once more with a friendly 'Welcome to the Mountains' beside the road, their conversation died, and she was left with the silence of fluorescent 'opens', smiling people, and the sounds of the world around her.
There was nothing lonelier than being here, amid the smiling faces and friendly families, knowing he was somewhere among them. At least out there, they hadn't been so different from the isolated wilderness, the wild abandon that stood solitary beyond the grocery stores and the prowling cars. But here in the village, they were nothing like the happy people living in a tame and noisy environment. They stood out in their souls like swans among pigeons, sad and mournful beside flurries of joy and activity.
…
It had been a half hour since they'd come back to the hotel, but here he still remained: jacket on, boots still on his feet (though untied), gloves on his hands, sprawled across the couch before a glowing screen. He stared at Anderson Cooper's face and remembered the news blaring in the background when he'd gotten a call at the house.
I can't do this anymore, Elliot. I'm staying at my sister's; send my grandmother's china there.
They'd gotten that for their wedding. When she'd opened the box she'd started to cry, and he'd leaned over her shoulder, inhaling her flower-scented hair as he stared at the delicately painted plates in her lap. Why had she cried? It was just a set of dishes.
Maybe that's why they'd gone their separate ways. He'd never understood.
Anything.
Olivia was in the bedroom. She's turned on the television in there too; he could hear people talking, weeping, apologizing. He stared at the screen, squinting into the light. He tried to listen to the dialogue, but all he could hear was a distant one in his own head.
Kathy, are you sure?
Aren't you?
I don't know.
He hadn't asked her to marry him. She was pregnant after three months of dating. His parents were devout Catholics, her father was not the forgiving type. They'd gone to Boston, and married each other that weekend. Why Boston? He couldn't remember. He remembered she'd worn a green dress. It looked like a parched lawn. He'd had white slacks on. They'd been very uncomfortable.
They'd had no honeymoon. That night in the hotel, she'd complained of being overtired and fallen asleep. When he'd kissed her shoulder, his tongue lingering beside her neck, she'd frowned at him.
I'm pregnant, Elliot. We can't do that.
They could have. They could have done anything: gone to dinner, held each other, watched a movie. But she'd gone to sleep and he'd lay down beside her, though slumber would not come to him. When he'd touched her arm in the night, she'd brushed it away.
Maybe he should have known then. Maybe he should have seen it coming.
They'd grown on each other. In those years he could not deny he loved her. He was obsessed with her hair, her feet, her face. He cherished her smiles and her laughter. If only she had shared them with him more often.
Goodbye, Elliot.
He'd hung up the phone.
Turned back to the news.
Stared at a face on a screen and blinked back the one tear that fell down his cheek.
Elliot sighed now, trying to shake the memory from his mind. He'd cried, damn it. Why had he cried for her? He'd lost her the day he'd taken the job.
Elliot's first year on the squad had been a bit of a shock, but he had grown used to it. Kathy did not ask, he did not tell, and he had not feared for his smiling children when he came home at night. Sometimes he regretted it, sometimes he was proud of the justice he served.
But something had been missing.
Even now he did not know.
Johnston's not coming back, Elliot. Your new partner is sitting outside.
Elliot remembered the first time he had seen Olivia, seated at the bench beside the doors, biting her lip, crossing her legs. Her arms were folded around a coat, and she stared around her with eyes alert and knowing.
She's just a kid, Cragen.
She's three years younger than you are, El.
When did she graduate?
She'd fresh out of training, but she's good. They wouldn't have sent her here first if she wasn't.
So she has no experience. Great.
She'll grow on you, Elliot. Trust me.
She had.
Elliot took off his gloves, laying them on the table beside him. He threw his boots near the door, folded his jacket onto the couch. His hand reached for the remote, but instead he stood up, compulsive legs leading him to the bedroom door.
He could hear the television more clearly now. Audrey Hepburn. Cary Grant, maybe? What was the movie? He couldn't remember.
He pushed the door open a crack, peering between the treated wood to see the black and white arms clinging to one another, black and white drops of water falling from their faces.
He pushed the door open more, turning to where the bed was. She was on it, her head on the pillows, one arm draped over the backboard while the other lay lazily on her middle. She did not turn to him, so absorbed in the movie was she, so he stepped in.
"Can I join you?"
She looked up at him. Had she been crying? Her eyes were so wide, so deep. But they were rimmed with red. Perhaps she had been sleeping…certainly not crying, not Olivia…
She nodded, moving over to give him space on the bed. He would have sat in a chair, but here she was, telling him to lie down beside her. He gingerly sat down on the side, finally pulling his legs onto the bedspread and propping his back against the backboard.
"Is it a good movie?" He asked, biting his lip.
"I don't remember much of it. I haven't' seen it since I was in college."
"College?"
"Some girlfriends got a whole bunch of old movies one weekend, and we all stayed up in their dorm and watched them. This was one of them."
"What's it about?"
"Love, I guess."
She yawned, and stretched. When she finally settled, her body was pressed against his. He stared at the screen, suddenly unaware of the characters' movements across it. She was so warm… and he was so cold…
He lost track of time lying there, staring at the story played out in two toned colors. He hadn't noticed, but an hour had passed, and when he looked to Olivia, he found her asleep. Her eyes closed, she let out a peaceful sigh and her muscles loosened. Her head fell onto his shoulder, gently, but not consciously.
It fit there.
There was something right about it.
And then he did not something he had never dared do before. He leaned over and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply as though he could breathe in her soul.
Cinnamon. Almonds. Tea.
She smelled like a warm day spent under the sheets, an autumn sunset with only two witnesses, a night warmed by crackling fires and someone's arms.
He pulled his face from her hair, staring back at the screen.
"I should kiss you…" That porcelain face whispered to her lover, her hand on his shoulders.
"I'm not going to stop you."
"I know." And she kissed him, just like that, black and white bodies colliding in brilliant motion.
"You know," He said when she'd pulled away, his hands still around her waist. "You've really grown on me."
And she laughed, throwing back a head that had once laughed in life sixty years ago, and held him closer.