She wasn't at her apartment. She wasn't at the bar. It had started to rain and it was getting dark .Fin felt like he had lost a child in the park, and the world seemed so big, so bad, with a lost Olivia wandering through the haze. Elliot was a bastard, and while Harris was by far worse, Fin wondered what kind of damage a loose cannon like Elliot would do, given enough time. Because he had seen Elliot stomp Olivia into the ground when she needed a helping hand the most. But he had also seen Elliot bring her back around with a turn of his hand. Destruction in the name of maintenance: that was Olivia and Elliot. He wishes Elliot were here now. Something tells him she would have picked up her phone for Elliot.
He found her after fifteen calls, seven text messages and a conversation with a bartender at Maloney's. Yes, she had been there. No, she left a while ago. Yes, he would call if she came back. She sent him a text message at midnight with the address of a dive on Fourteenth Street, and Fin was tempted to turn on the siren and lights.
When he entered the room, she sat the way every cop does, back to no one, a slouch that turns away anyone looking for a good time.
She looked at him from over a glass of scotch. " I can't be a vic."
"You don't have to be"
This wasn't the Olivia he knew. This Olivia was quieter, she radiated an ache that got under his skin, pushed at his temples, made him tap his fingers and flip the cap of a ketchup bottle.
"What are you doing here Fin?
He smiled a little, she was always so ironic. "I could ask you the same thing"
Her eyes met his, and it was always her eyes that did him in, because they were the color of crashing cars and drunken mothers and a man in a prison trying to break her. Sometimes they were the color of coffee in central park, and sometimes they were the color of children.
She took them away, and he watched her gather the pieces of herself that she had let lie on the bar and put them back into her person. When he thought she would stand, she said,
"Thanks"
"Liv you aint gotta thank me for nothing. I should have been there."
"You were."
"I'm sorry I wasn't there earlier"
Her spine changed, grew and twisted, "If you're here because you feel guilty, if you want some sort of assurance that you did get there in time, or that I'm just fine, because hell, I'm always fine, aren't I?" She stopped, looked at him, softened. "
"Fin, I don't blame you, you did nothing wrong, but if you are going to sit here and apologize, you can leave. I don't want a pity party, I don't want a scapegoat." She turned back to the bar, peeled apart layers of napkin. Downed the rest of her drink. Began chewing on ice cube."
"What do you want?"
And that was it. Because Olivia had never broken before, and he thought, if she ever were to break, it would be huge. It would be some sort of giant, screaming storm and everything would go to hell. But sitting here with her, she just caved into herself, her body lost posture and he was sure she would soak into the barstool as she whispered,
"I just want to sleep."