AN: I fully enjoy torturing characters way too much.
Y'all are so wonderful. Seriously. I love you sweet people so very much. And, forgot to mention last chapter, LadyStabler, stop it, you're making me blush.
Quite frankly, you're all making me blush.
Bright red people, bright red. This story is a mess, you're supposed to hate it. Stop being so freaking fantastic, ya killing me here.
*Mumbles under breath* Fabulous people, I can't even.
But anyway, as always;
R&R Babes. It's always appreciated.
Disclaimer: Yeah. Frickity. Frackity. Right.
Listening to: Breathe Again, Sara Bareilles. I swear I don't only listen to Sara Bareilles.
About an hour later, when she was nearly completely convinced he wasn't coming back, she heard foot steps on the porch, then the door handle. She could hear him hesitate, figured he was deciding to knock or not, but eventually the handle moved and the door opened. He looked less... defeated. Less... worn down. Like maybe, he was ready to do some more. Or, better put, go another round. Or that maybe he was figuring out how best to cope with this great un-justice she had done him. Whatever it may be, he looked more optimistic. More, accepting. She felt a little less sick.
She was sitting on the couch, and Nora was sitting next to her, sort of slumped over with her head on her shoulder, sleeping. Nap time was scheduled to start about 10 minuets ago. That was, on the days Nora decided she wanted to nap. She figured she was lucky that her four year old napped at all, though. She guesses that he little brain trying to figure what was going on, why she got to have a lazy day, why this strange man was in her house, why Mommy seemed so interested in this strange man, why everything probably seemed so weird today, probably wore her out. She looked exhausted. When she looked up at him, she saw his eyes flit down to Nora, and so she got up, picked the sleeping girl up, and walked over to where he was standing by the stairs.
"I'm just gonna go put her down." He just nodded and looked back down at the floor, so she went on up the stairs and put Nora down to finish her nap.
When she came back down, he was standing in the exact same spot, head still down. When he heard her reach the bottom of the stairs though, he looked up at her. She doesn't know if she's ever seen his eyes look so hollow, especially without being haunted. He just looked numb.
When she walked past him, her hand brushed his leg, and she thought her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. She could see a slight change in his eyes, too. She sat down on the couch, tucked her legs up under her to the side, and pulled a throw pillow into her lap, and he followed. Taking off the jacket he hadn't taken off since he got there, an hour and a half earlier, and sat down next to her.
"El..." He didn't seem to respond much, just stared at the wall in front of them, but she went on anyway.
"I know that there is nothing I can do to make this, right, again. I know that I screwed up so bad that this will never be right again. But El, you have to know, I didn't do this to hurt you. I didn't do it on purpose. I never intended to do this to you. It wasn't some evil, derived plan that I had. I promise you. Though I know my word probably means just a hell of a lot right now."
"El, I'm... I'm so, so sorry. I'm just..."
"Stop, Liv. Just stop."
"Stop?"
"Stop apologizing. At least for now. And just tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"Everything. Everything that's happened since you left. What you do now, I heard you left the force. When Olivia Benson retires, word gets around. About Nora. About every little thing that's happened since you left. About what the hell your life's been for the last four years. Because I haven't not known what your life was since I've known you, until now. And I hate that I don't know now. Call me a selfish bastard, but I want to know everything about you that I don't anymore."
So she told him. She started with Nora, and when they bought this house, and the car she drives, and about her job. And about her pregnancy. He seemed more defeated again, more sad, upset, regretful, though she had no idea why he would be regretful, it wasn't his fault he wasn't there, when she talked about her pregnancy.
So she asked him about it.
"I didn't get to see it, Liv. I missed getting to see you pregnant. I didn't get to see you have one of the things we all thought for so long, so much, that you would never get. One of the things I prayed the hardest my partner would get. I didn't get to see you carry our child. Do you know how many times I thought about us having kids, Liv? God, I lost count so many years ago. I didn't get to see the woman I've been in love with for too many years for my Catholic mind to accept, get to carry a child. I missed your little bump, Liv. I missed all of those things. Do you know how many years I waited to see them?"
She was ready to burst out in full on tears, to just fucking loose it. But instead, she got up walked to the stairs, and then got about half way up before she decided she'd just have him join her, instead of coming back down. So she turned around, and all she had to do was give him a look, and he knew exactly what she meant. God, she missed her partner.
He followed her up, and into her room, and she told him to sit down. She went into her closet, and came back with a box, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed. She sat down next to him, balanced the box on her lap, opened it, shuffled through, and then pulled out the one she wanted and handed it to him.
"I took one about every week, sometimes every couple. I didn't do it at first, but then I realized that I didn't know if I would ever get to do this again, that I probably wouldn't get to do this again, so I started setting up the camera and the tripod, started documenting."
He looked like he'd fall right on the floor.
"That was about 28 weeks."
She shifted a little, and moved the box, then said "There all here."
He looked up at her, so she handed him the box.
He picked up the first one, and ran his thumb across it.
"That was about 10 weeks. I didn't start really showing until about 15."
So then he started picking them up, one by one, shuffling through them. Same white shirt, same spot in front of the wall, a growing belly.
He got to 16 weeks, and stopped.
"That was the week before I found out what she was. Doctor said 17 weeks was on the earlier end of the spectrum, but still right about in the ball park. God, I was so nervous that day, El."
He flipped to the next one, and she could see his eyes nearly light up. She did something special for her self that day, just in case she forgot just when it was she found out, or maybe she wanted to commemorate the moment, and since she didn't have anyone to share it with in person, she wore a pink shirt that week. Similar kind, just pink. She's glad she did. She likes to look back on the weeks, and that one's always special. It seemed to be getting him extra emotional, too.
He set the box to his side, and grabbed her hand from where it had been laying on her thigh, and intertwined their figures. And he squeezed, all the while staring at the picture. She couldn't tell what he was doing next, but she also couldn't tell you how incredible it felt to feel her partner's life reverberating through her's again. All he was doing was holding her hand, but she could have flown up and away.
He placed the picture back in the box, and picked up the rest of them. Eventually he got to the end, and she saw him really smile for the first time since he'd been there. He put them back down in the box, and then he turned to her.
"Thank you."
She was seriously going to cry.
"For what?"
"For documenting it, for showing me."
"You shouldn't have to be thankful for that, you shouldn't have to have only gotten to see it that way. You should have gotten to be here."
"I'm just glad I got to see it now."
"I've got some more documented. Tons more pictures. Videos. All of Nora's school stuff. All of her hospital stuff is in the baby book. If it happened I wrote it down or documented it some how. I didn't want to forget a thing."
"I'm glad you did, Liv."
With that, he got up and placed the box up on her dresser, and turned around to face her.
"I'm still sorry I didn't get to see it in person." He said, nodding towards the box.
"Me, too. God El, I'm so sorry."
"What did I tell you earlier? You've gotta scale back, Liv. Or you're gonna break my heart here."
"But I'm the one who did wrong. You should hate me."
"You did do wrong, and Liv I'm so mad I can't even see straight sometimes, but that doesn't change how I feel about you. How I've felt about you for the last 16 years. I hate what you did, Olivia. And for the plane ride over here, there for a minuet, I thought I did hate you. But I could never hate you. This is fucking wrong, so wrong. This situation should have never happened. I should have been there from the start. God, I'm so mad that when I look at you sometimes, I don't even see you. I don't see any of it. I just see the pain and the anger I feel about this shit. But jesus fucking christ, Olivia, I still love you."
"El..." It came out in almost a whisper.
He was moving closer to her now. "There's that one person, Olivia. That no matter what they fucking do, you'll always love them."
He was nearly in front of her so she stood up.
"Elliot." Again, a whisper.
"Don't, Liv. Don't pull that 'you're supposed to hate me so there's no fucking way you can love me' shit. I've been fighting to love you for sixteen years. Fighting against myself, against my guilt, against you, against your guilt. You don't get a say now. I'm not giving in. No matter how the fuck I feel about this situation. I'm not done."
She met his eyes and she felt woozy again, figured she'd just pass out, and when she woke up, none of this would have ever happened.
Instead, he kissed her.
He grabbed her by the waist, and wound one of his hand up into her hair, and he kissed her like his life depended on it. And she decided that her partner had the same pull over her that he always had. She knew she still loved him, but sometimes she wondered if his powers over her had weakened. She was foolish to think so. So she kissed him back, let him take the breath right out of her, let him support her weight, and let herself loose it.
AN: Because, I mean, we all know El has pictured Liv pregnant. Come on.