Clearly I am terrible at keeping update promises. If you are still with me, thank you for all the support after the first chapter. Hope you enjoy this one as well.
Note: Many things have happened on the show during my - ahem - absence. However, what I have planned for this story will mostly be cannon (you know, except for the whole Elliot involvement aspect.)
Chapter Two
Instinct has carried him to this point - an unfamiliar building across town that Cragen directed him to - but on the four flight climb up the stairwell, Elliot starts to second guess his scrambled return to New York. Maybe it's wise that he question his motivations that led him back here, to a place he swore off for the good of his conscience, before he goes any further. The last time he followed his gut, he shot and killed a teenaged girl, then ran away, afraid to face what he'd done.
Now he's afraid of what he hasn't done, of who he left behind in the aftermath. He hasn't thought about what comes next. What happens when he sees her? How does he approach this reentry?
He knocks lightly below the black alphanumerics designating the apartment as 4C, then waits. Sweat dots at his temples. He wipes it away with a roll of his shoulder and tilt of his head. Keeping his hands clasped in front of him, he attempts to mask the trembling. He can't let her see how weak this situation has made him, can't let her know how weak she makes him. Olivia wouldn't like that.
Get it together, he recites in his head.
After a moment, the door cracks open. An inch-wide gap reveals just enough of a facial profile for Elliot to recognize the man on the other side of the door jamb. His face is fuller, with wrinkles that don't disappear when his expression changes, but Brian Cassidy is much the same man that Elliot worked alongside over a decade ago.
"Don gave me a heads up to expect you."
He's not surprised. "So, Olivia knows I'm here?"
Cassidy shakes his head and lowers his voice to a gruff whisper that's meant to conceal Elliot's arrival: "Look, Stabler, now's not the best time. Everything's so fresh. She can't handle more stress."
With difficulty, he swallows Cassidy's belief that his presence will be a stress trigger for Olivia, though he has to give credit where it is due. Were he in the same position, Elliot knows he wouldn't want any disturbances or distractions during Olivia's recovery.
He manages to keep his tone level when he responds, "I think that's something she should decide herself."
A half beat later Olivia calls out, her voice muffled by distance. "Brian?"
The gatekeeper flinches.
"Who is it?"
Briefly, Elliot closes his eyes and lets the sound of her voice wash over him. It's been so long. But even after all this time, he can still tell that something's wrong, can hear the undertone of worry that threads through her questions.
"If she tells me to leave, I will," Elliot offers, but it is the only concession he'll make.
Cassidy appears ready to protest on Olivia's behalf again, but when she calls out for the third time, an expression of reluctant defeat crosses over his face. "Damn right you will," he remarks as he steps back, opening the door just wide enough to allow Elliot to pass.
Elliot comes to a dead stop when he sees her. Across the apartment, Olivia stands near the opening to the galley kitchen, a glass of water in her left hand because her right is useless, strung up in a sling. Like him, she's frozen: back too straight, breathing suddenly labored, eyes staring directly into his.
The crash of glass against the ceramic tile startles him from his trance. When his eyes dart to her hand, it's empty. The floor at her feet is wet. Shards of scattered glass glitter beneath the overhead lights.
Cassidy is the first to react, to move. "I got it."
With surprising ease, Cassidy takes responsibility for the accident. He disappears into the kitchen and reemerges with a hand-broom and dustpan. Were Elliot a betting man, he'd put his money on this not being the first glass Olivia has broken. How else is he to explain the former rookie's ability to locate cleaning supplies so quickly?
As Cassidy sweeps up the fragments, the bristles stroke the tops of Olivia's feet, causing her to snap to attention. "Leave it, Bry. I'll get it."
"Don't worry about it."
She squats down to her boyfriend's level and lays her left hand on his upper arm. With a pointed look at Elliot, she asks, "Could you give us some time?"
"Alone?" he asks, clean-up immediately forgotten. At her nod, Cassidy lays down the hand-broom and dustpan. He wipes his hands on the tops of his knees. His expression is uneasy, as though he's assessing how serious her request is. Analyzing the solemn strength behind Olivia's stare, he finally mutters, "How about I go pick us up some dinner? Couple steak salads from Margie's?"
She smiles at the offer. "That sounds wonderful."
Cassidy nods and they stand up together, supporting each other.
Brushing Olivia's hair to the side, he kisses her temple. In a murmur, he adds, "I'll have them throw in a slice of lemon meringue too."
She mouths the words thank you and watches until he skirts around Elliot and out of the door, closing it behind him with a soft click.
Then it is just the two of them with the length of the apartment and the silent, heavy air separating them. Elliot stands near the door, trapped in observation. Her withered appearance and the way she carries herself, like she's been to hell and survived, transfixes him. Behind her eyes is a haunting knowledge of demons. Over her career she has seen glimpses of evil, has peeked in on the grotesque inclinations of human nature, but now her eyes have been forced open to true horror, torment she can no longer shut out.
This woman is and is not Olivia Benson, as he knew her.
"Who told you?" she asks. It's quiet, but there's heat beneath it.
Another drop of sweat trickles down his jawline - How is she running around in that hoodie? - but this time he does not wick it away or rub it against his shirt sleeve.
No one, he accuses silently. Not anyone from the squad. Not you.
Olivia survived a four day assault, and the only thing he'd had was radio silence. Had they all assumed he wouldn't care? Had he set fire to all of those bridges without realizing it? He was certain that, after twelve years of service, those connections were made of something less flammable than wood.
He grapples with the overwhelming urge to shout. Instead, his response is quiet and collected: "C'mon, Liv. It was all over the papers. Even the Pennsylvania ones."
"'Pennsylvania,'" she repeats carefully, as though it is a foreign word.
He's just answered a question she's had since the day Eli's card - she's never missed his son's birthday - was returned to her with a message that read something along the lines of unable to forward.
One cautious step at a time, he begins to slowly close the gap between them. As he approaches, he can see more and more damage: the slight discoloration around her left eye; the gash near her hairline that has been expertly stitched; the puckered, circular scabs peeking just over the center zipper of her hoodie. He's reminded of the ashtray and the missing cigarettes he found at the crime scene.
"New York's expensive on a police pension," he explains because he needs to focus on producing words, or he'll just keep analyzing every mark on her body that should not exist. "And there's only Eli now."
"He's started first grade, right?"
He nods. "I work security at his school."
Elliot still hasn't managed to say that to anyone without it sounding like the atonement it is. He's certain Olivia picks up on his motivation for career change.
A slight tweak pulls at the corner of her mouth. "Good for you, El."
She pads over to the couch - a dark leather number that is easily the most expensive piece of furniture in the entire bachelor pad - and Elliot follows her. Only the middle cushion divides them.
"Olivia," he begins. He wants to be as upfront and honest as possible. "I didn't come here to talk about where my life's gone."
"You can't blame me for being a little curious."
"If I could say something to make it up to you -"
She cuts in: "Apologies aren't necessary."
He gives her a questioning, disbelieving glance, but she shakes her head softly as if to drive home her words. Really, don't, her eyes plead. Elliot runs the underside of his tongue over the cracks on his lower lip, then nods to signal his understanding. Another time.
"So," Olivia starts casually, "what did the Pennsylvania papers have to say? Must have been something sordid to get you to drive all this way."
He follows her lead but ignores her attempt to dismiss the seriousness of the situation: "That you'd been taken and held by a serial rapist for four days before you were rescued."
"'Rescued'?" She spits the word out, disgusted. "A woman always needs rescuing, right?"
Elliot doesn't understand. Did the papers get it wrong? "What about your partner? Where was he?"
"Stop it, Elliot," she warns. "Nick's beating himself up enough."
But this isn't a subject he's willing to let go. "He should have found you."
"Because you would have?"
It's an impossible question. Of course he wants to answer in the affirmative. The yes is pressed between his tongue and the back of his teeth, about to push through in quick retort. But he hesitates just long enough to think about the situation realistically. While he'd love to fool himself into thinking he'd have found her before anything happened - before she suffered one burn from that psychopath - the reality is that there's no way he could definitively say he would have been able to do any more than what her current partner did.
The yes becomes nothing more than a stream of air he releases in an extended exhalation.
Olivia shakes her head, lowering her voice even more than before. "You know," she says with the smallest hint of a smile, "I used to think Nick was a lot like you."
But he's not, he hears in his head. He's not like you.
And just what the hell is that supposed to mean? He wants to pry her for more on that subject, but chooses to refocus his attention to the current topic. This conversation isn't about Olivia's new partner. It's about what happened over those four days. She is doing everything in her power to distract him, which spikes his concern even more. Elliot wants clarification - answers.
"So, you escaped?"
Her smile drops, and her eyes flash at the insinuation that she's lying. Perhaps it is the evident disbelief in his voice. Of course, the last thing he wants to do is doubt her story. But, to escape in her condition, after being drugged and tortured physically and psychologically for four days, would be quite a feat. It would practically take a miracle.
"I did what was necessary," she says. "There was a little girl, and. . .."
The way she chokes up on that admission is telling. She's angry at herself for sharing that intimate detail, as though she'd promised herself not to tell anyone, but she trusts him too much and she's let it slip now: her real motivation.
From the article in the newspaper, Elliot recalls details of another victim, an older woman that was raped after her husband had been brutally murdered. Connecting the dots of information, it isn't hard to deduce that Olivia was present for both crimes. The bastard was clearly twisted; Elliot strongly suspects that Lewis made her watch. That would have been mental torture enough for the seasoned sex crimes detective. To put a young girl in the old woman's position - there's no way Olivia could handle that.
He can see it now, her desperate, almost super-human, struggle to free herself in order to save a child. Not only did she do what was necessary to survive, she did what was necessary to ensure the safety of an innocent.
Yes, that is a story Elliot can accept as fact. That is the Olivia Benson he knows.
She wrings her hands in front of her, elbows rested on her knees. Then, on the tail of a breath, she reveals, "I thought I'd killed him."
If that statement is meant to startle him or shock him with surprise, it fails. He certainly wouldn't blame her for trying to kill Lewis. "I would've."
"I know," she whispers in agreement. A smile as weak as a hairline fracture parts her upper and lower lips. It is evident how much she is struggling to keep her composure now, and Elliot wonders if it is a good idea to keep pushing her.
She rises from the couch and shuffles over to the bookshelf. Only the top two shelves contain actual books: old criminology textbooks, a section of spy novels, a selection of writings by Stephen King and Dan Brown. The other shelves hold Cassidy's personal knickknacks, various sports paraphernalia, and a black and white photograph of an elderly woman with a rosary draped over the frame. Olivia runs her fingers over the spines, back and forth. She's hiding her emotions from him, not letting him see her face. Even after all this time, they can still read each other like a favorite novel - one that they know intimately; which pages are dog-eared or marked with water or coffee or snot, every wrinkle in the spine.
"Liv. . ." he starts.
But she cuts him off with a question. "What are you doing here, Elliot?"
Isn't that obvious? He stands and gravitates toward her. "I came to see - "
"If I was okay," she finishes for him, but she sounds disappointed.
"What if I had said I came to see if you wanted to catch a Knicks game?"
Blindsided by his sudden joke, she flounders in response. Perhaps both of them have changed over the last two years, and Olivia realizes that now.
Elliot backtracks for her benefit, returning them to familiar territory. "I came to see what I could do for you."
She recovers quickly. "Nothing."
Her honesty surprises him and frightens him all at once. He reaches out, tries to lay a hand on her shoulder, but she shrinks away from him and maneuvers out of proximity.
"Can't we talk?"
Bristling over his seemingly simple request, she spats off: "What I'm not going to do, Elliot, is sit here and relive that nightmare for you. If you think I'm going to cry on your shoulder as I divulge all the horrific details, you've got the wrong woman."
Her denial only spurs him to press harder. "I went to your apartment. I saw. . ."
"You can't begin to imagine it." She sounds angry, like he's violated her with his admission.
She crosses the living area and goes into the kitchen, taking down a new glass from the cupboard, then fills it halfway with water. Raising it to her lips, she takes small sips until she is finished. This seems to restore her composure. She turns and leans against the counter, readying herself to recommence their conversation. Her left hand moves up to her forehead, fingers slipping into her hair at the roots and moving back until they are buried in the thick, dark strands. She takes a few deep breaths and finally speaks, though she still won't meet his eyes.
"You know, I used to think of what I would say to you, ways to approach you, when you came back." She exhales and it sounds like the dying breath of their partnership. She's been holding it in so long, waiting for him, so she could say her final goodbye. "But now that's all gone. I don't know what to say."
He must resuscitate her, revive her. His own survival depends on it, because over the last twelve years, they have become joined like twins who share a heart or a brain. If one gives up, they will both wither.
"I'm here now, Liv." His chest has seized, and the words are gruff, his claim pitiful to his own ears.
His offer does not hold up under her examination. "For what? A couple hours? Just long enough to sympathize with me and be on your way. Back to Pennsylvania. Back to Kathy and your son - where you belong."
"Right now, I belong here. As long as you need me, I'm here."
A shadow crosses her face as her head angles down to the right. "Then I think you'd better go."
"What? Olivia - "
"Do you need me to say it?" she asks. "Because I will."
His initial shock of her rejection turns to confusion. Where is she going with this? "Say what?"
Her chest expands as she inhales deeply. All he can see are puckered markings and his good intentions going up in smoke. He's lost the momentum needed to win this conversation, and he has a feeling he won't be able to make it up now. The way she continues to avoid looking at him tells him that much.
"I don't blame you, Elliot." She chokes up, but regains her composure once again and continues. "For leaving. For not calling. It was hard, and I was angry, but I understand why you didn't tell me. I get it."
Earlier she'd told him not to mention his departure, but it seems to be foremost in her thoughts; that, or she is doing a stellar job of avoiding the real issue at hand.
"This isn't about me," he insists.
"It was always about you, Elliot," she corrects gently. "But not anymore. It's about me now, and about what I need, what I want."
He longs to make a quick retort, to tell her that she's wrong, to tell her that it's impossible for her to understand his motivations for leaving without talking to her beforehand, or afterward. But her hands are shaking and her breathing is uneven and he can see that she is absolutely exhausted. He doesn't have the heart to push her anymore. Not today. Regardless that she thinks it has always been about him - and maybe, just maybe, their partnership has been a little more one-sided than he'd like to admit - he will show her that he cares. At this moment, Olivia and her well-being come first.
"You want me to go?" At her nod, he begins to shuffle toward the door. He can't stop himself from asking, "Are we just going to leave it at this?"
"There are issues I have to deal with," she defers, following behind him, "ones that have been brought to light by recent events. . ..I need time."
Elliot opens the apartment door, but hesitates with his hand still on the knob. Then, before he can over-think it or Olivia can anticipate it, he pivots sharply and catches her in his arms so quickly that she can't respond. She lets out a muted gasp and he feels her flinch and tighten in his embrace, going stiff.
Oh, God, he says to himself as he realizes what he's done. And yet, he can't bring himself to drop his arms and release her. It's been two years, and Olivia has just survived a hellish ordeal that, for intents and purposes, should have left her dead. He needs her in his arms right now, to make sure that she really did survive.
"El, please. . ." She begs to be let go.
Immediately, he pulls away. Her shaken tone brings him back to her previous point. It was always about you, Elliot.
He has to go.
"You were always the strong one," he states in a quiet but firm voice, holding her gaze. "You're the strongest woman I know, Olivia. Never forget that."
And then he steps into the hallway of Brian Cassidy's apartment building and shuts the door as he watches the water fill her eyes and her hands twitch at her sides. He lingers outside of the door because every ounce of him wants to open it again and offer her comfort and support, but she doesn't want that from him. She'd be mortified if he did it, and he'd only be forcing himself on her again.
She's had enough of that to last a lifetime.
Elliot thinks she'll hold it together until he can muster the courage to walk away. He's wrong. Her sob penetrates through the door, through him, striking him with a grief he can't categorize. Dragging a hand down his face, he let's go of the doorknob and moves away.
Always happy to hear your thoughts on my efforts. Also, you should consider throwing Jabyar's "Inflection Point" some love, because it is amazing!