AN: I promise you, I didn't abandon y'all on purpose. A whole lot of crap happened. A family, crisis, if you will, a gone to hell laptop, and just, well, crap. I'll try to catch you guys up as much as possible next chapter, which is already pretty much finished, by the way. If any of y'all are still hanging in there, bless you. You're incredible.
R&R babes, it's always appriciated.
Disclaimer: Yeah. Freaking. Right.
She called him. 6 weeks after she was born. He answered, she hung up. She figured he probably knew it was her. Porbably sensed it. He's always had that freakish sixth sense like that when it came to her. Bastard.
She wanted to tell him. Hell, she just wanted to talk to him. But her brain, or her heart, or her gut, she doesn't know, wouldn't let her. He picked up and she heard his voice for the first time since the morning she left, after she talked to the Captain, and went home to take a personal day, and she felt her heart slam against her chest wall. God, she missed him. She opened her mouth, he probably heard her take in a breath, then she lost every bit of courage she had and hit the call end button. Then she proceeded to throw the phone down on the couch, back away to all the way across the room, and put her shaking over her mouth. She felt stupid.
She felt like the biggest moron on the planet. The biggest coward. This was Elliot, no matter how much he made her heart race sometimes, she's felt irrevocably since day one, that she could tell the man anything. There have been times, Sealview, all about Oregon, why she really left for Computer Crimes, where she wanted nothing more in the world but not to tell him. But she's never felt like she couldn't. And when he picked up that phone, and she froze, she truly felt like she coudn't. And she knows it's all her fault. She knows that this is all because of her. She knows that she caused all of this, that she's the bad guy and she always will be, and that she is the worst person in the world because she didn't tell him. She's never denied otherwise. And she never will. That doesn't make it any easier, though. And it doesn't make her heart hurt any less.
He called her back. And yes, he knew it was her. He left a message and it took her a good 10 minuets to get up the courage to listen to it. He wasn't mean, didn't sound agiated, or confused for that matter, he just souned resounded. And a little surprised. Maybe sad, too?Or maybe he was mad and maybe he was agiated, and she just couldn't read him anymore.
He asked of her somthing she didin't know if she could do, and she felt herself panick and her heart rate pick up because she did want this. She wanted this opportunity, she wanted this chance. She wanted to reach back out.
She hears his voice play over, and over in her head for weeks. She just can't seem to shake him...
"Liv, look, I know this is probably hard. And, you probably panicked. But please, Olivia, just... Call me back. Cause I'm still here, I'll always be here. I've always been here. Okay? Just... Please."
Her heart still shutters when she thinks about the deep breath he took between "just",and "call me back".It sinks a little further, too. Because she never did call him back.
She knows this is assinine. She knows it's assinine that she can't call the man back but their daughter, his daughter, is just upstairs. Sleeping soundly while her mother watches her peaceful face and content form on the monitor. The daughter that he has no idea about.
She does though, text him. Seven little words.
"Not now El, but soon. I promise."
Soon, turned into four years.
Six days before Nora's fourth birthday, she's getting her ready to head out the door to preschool, and her to work. It's raining, conveintly, or was at least, and will again, so she puts Nora's rain boots on her, and stuffs her tennis shoes in her backpack, and ushers her out the door, because they've already been late 3 times this month and she doesn't want to be that person that can't even get her one four year old and herself out the door on time. Apparently, they're in a funk. Great.
She doesn't though, anticipate what she sees when she steps out her door. In all her hurried panick, and well, resnetment because let's be honest, they're gonna be late again, to get out the door, lock it, and make it to the damn car before it rains again, and make at least an attempt at getting there on time, she doesn't see it. Nora notices it first, this lovely new distraction of thiers, before she does, and she only notices it when Nora stops dead in front of her, before she even reaches the poorch steps. Elliot.
Her heart, stops.
He's here. Standing on the sidewalk leading from the sidwalk by the street, to the poorch. She swears she's seeing things because this literally isn't her life. And in those six seconds between Nora's discovery, and her mind snapping back again, she's suddenly back in New York coming out of Cragen's office and making eye contact with him. She'll sware until the day she dies that he knew. He knew something was wrong. She wasn't fooling him and it wasn't just the fact that she'd been under neith him 3 days before. She feels that same feeling she felt then, panick, axeinity, guilt, the urge to run to him, the urge to run the oppisite direction, hurt, fear. His eyes flash back to her from where they had been on Nora and shesees it, he knows. He just, he... knows. And the panick raises to a level she's never felt in a situation without a gun or a vitctim in danger.
She doesn't know what to do. Nora is needs to be at day care in ten minuets, and she has to be to work in 20. Yet, the only man she's ever loved, the unassuming, or so she thought, father of her child, and the man she abandonded 3 days after doing the thing her heart had been acheing to do for 12 years, the man that was her bestfriend, for 12 years, the one person besides her daughter that meant more to her than her damn brain could even comprehend, was standing on her sidewalk. Wet.
She gets the idea that he's been standing here for a while. She sees hurt, and about 12 million other things flash through his blue eyes, those blue eyes, that she prayed, prayed, and prayed to a damn God she wasn't even sure she believed in, her daughter wouldn't inherit. And even though science dictates that the likelyhood of that was small, very small, apparently her daughter decided to defy science. Because damned if every time she looked down at the beuatiful little face, Elliot and his crulean blues weren't looking back at her. Then she sees that vain in his neck, and then the one in his forehead, twitch. And she knows he's exersizing the little bit of self control he did have.
She bends down an whispers to Nora "Hey, how about a lazy day?"
She's had only a few of these, when they were having a particuarlly had time, but Nora knows them well. They're her favourite.
"Yeah." She whispers back, timid. She knows she doesn't understand exatcly what's going on here, but she doesn't either. But she figures if she can distract her enough, and she can figure out what the hell to do, she'll figure out something to tell her to make her understand. She hopes.
"Kay, how about you go back inside, and go pick out some pajamas, and Mommy will come in and make you some mac n' cheese in a second. Okay?"
"Kay." Again, so timid. It scares her, but she figures she just needs some time.
She hurries off into the house, dropping the back pack by the hooks inside the door, and starting up the stairs. Knowing her daughter, she knows better. "Boots." She yells back, never once taking her eyes off of Elliot. She hears little feet run back down the few stairs she made it, thunk her boots off, and run back up.
"How?" The first words out of her mouth to this man since the day she left New York.
"Fin." He says.
God, she should have known.
She nods her head, takes a deep breath, and he starts toward her.
He stops maybe two feet in front of her and that panicked feeling from before is back.
"Why?" Apparently their more monosyllble than normal now.
"I..." She doesn't know what to say, but that's okay because he's got more.
Apparently being able to form full senteces now, he says "12 years, Olivia. And nothing inside of you told you this was wrong?"
She scoffs at him, and she thinks fleetingly that she missed scoffing at him.
"Nothing inside of me, Elliot? Everything inside of me. Don't assume goddamnit, because you haven't been here the last four years and you don't know."
"And whose fault is that?"
Her eyes slip shut and she feels her heart trying to jump up her throat.
"I've got to get back inside. She'll be coming back down any second." Half ass excussing her way out of it, she figures it's the best plan of attack.
He nods his head and looks away, swallows hard, seems to compose himself, then looks back at her.
She turns to head back inside, feeling his eyes on her every second. She leaves the door open behind her when she steps over the threshold, figuring he'd follow her.
He did.
Next up: Quality family time.