"There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad Earthly scene
Only then I am human
Only then I am clean"
-Take Me to Church, Hozier

Friday, February 19th, 2021

Evening

He's getting too old for this, he thinks, crouched down next to a dumpster, exchanging fire with perps and he's too old for when they turn and run because the sidewalk is wet and he's afraid he's going to trip over the uneven bricks and he can't see in the dark very well and he's lost sight of the perp and so crouches again between two parked cars and it's the wrong move because he hears the crunch and the click and he looks up into the shadow above him to see the bastard he'd been chasing is standing over him with a gun pointed between his eyes.

He expects the adrenaline rush. He expects to hear a shot, whether from the perp or Tia who should be a few seconds behind him.

But there's a long moment when time stops and he hears nothing, but he sees everything. The smile on Kathy's face as she walked down the aisle. The squirming, screaming body of Maureen as she made her way into the world. The call that Kathy had gone into labor several weeks early and then the quiet arrival of Kathleen who looked at the world with enormous, terrified eyes like she already knew she was in over her head. The amazement of holding two newborn babies. The terror of not being there when Eli was born. The day he'd met Olivia, holding her eyes and her hand long after an appropriate amount of time for a handshake. The look on Jenna Fox's face as she took her last breath. The shocked look on Olivia's face a moment later as though she knew his betrayal was coming before he did.

His only thought is that if this is his last moment, he wishes he'd done everything differently. But there's one thing in particular he wishes he could undo.

There's the crack then, a single shot and it takes much longer than it should for him to realize it was Tia's weapon that fired, that he's still alive, that it's the perp lying dead on the wet bricks, that he still thinks he made a mistake. Fuck, he made a million of them, but there's that one that'll never go away, a wound that's never going to close.

As soon as he's done with the paperwork and the statements - twice as many as when he worked in New York because now he has to contend with Interpol and the NYPD - he grabs his phone and he hesitates for a minute because he wants to call her but he's too chickenshit and so he calls Fin. It's only ten in New York, Fin should still be awake, provided Fin is still alive and has the same phone number, and he doesn't know as his finger hovers over the button because he's accepted his penance for all these years, by the letter if not the spirit, which he recognizes completely defeats the purpose, and he has no idea what's going to happen, but he feels like this was too close a call to ignore the epiphany that he has to do something to repair the scorched Earth he left behind.

But Fin is Fin and he's surprised to hear from Elliot and he's remarkably cordial after everything and Elliot knows it's dumb to make small talk, but he feels like a fucking weight is lifted off his shoulders when he hears about Captain Benson and the award she's receiving and he can hear the way Fin suddenly stops talking after inviting him to the ceremony as though he realized after the fact that he shouldn't have issued that invitation and Elliot feels an urgency he can't explain to accept the opportunity before Fin can rescind it and when he hangs up, he feels Tia's eyes on him and he's not in the mood to explain.

She settles on the edge of his desk as she swallows back a yawn because it's four in the morning. "Who is getting what kind of award?"

While he doesn't appreciate the way Tia has no shame in eavesdropping, he is glad she doesn't pretend she's not prying. He sighs and waits for the guilt to strike him because he knows he's not obeying Father Hogan's decree, but there's no more guilt than he feels when he thinks about what he did to her. "My old partner from New York. She's getting an award for her achievements." He pauses as a smile curves his lips. "She's a captain now." He hears the pride in his voice and he watches the way Tia searches his face.

She doesn't find what she's looking for and so she nods thoughtfully. "A captain is a good rank?"

Elliot snorts. "I was her first partner when she made detective and now she's three ranks above me. She could fire me, my boss, and my boss' boss."

Tia smiles widely, a look of pride taking over her face as well. "Good. Women should be rewarded for putting up with you!"

She doesn't ask any more questions and he doesn't offer more information. Tia has never heard the name Olivia from him and he doubts that Kathy would have said anything because Kathy is too busy pretending their lives have been nothing but perfect. Although it's the middle of the night, Tia is lingering and he decides that understandable because she killed a man tonight and she's indicated that things with her husband Carlo aren't working out right now and he wants to be a supportive partner, but it's late and he had a life-altering brush with death and he wants to go home. He offers her a ride home, which she declines, and he's almost sure she's going to sleep on the couch in the break room, but he doesn't feel like it's his place to force her to talk about it and frankly he doesn't want to think about the crystal clear truth that struck him in that moment he thought he was dying because he's already acted on it and he feels like he's set something in motion now and he just has no idea what.

He checks his email as he drives and he hasn't had a chance to check his personal email since this morning, but there's a read message in his inbox from Fin that came after they had talked and it's really fucking late. He's thoroughly irritated because he'd thought she'd stopped doing that, he'd thought after almost a decade that his wife fucking trusted him. The message from Fin is nothing personal, just details about the reception for the award Olivia is receiving, and Elliot knows that Kathy left the message read so he'd be well aware that she knows. He hasn't had much time to think about it, and while he'd greedily accepted the invitation, he'd expected he'd be attending alone.

As he pulls into a parking space outside the apartment, he realizes he's going to have to invite Kathy just so it doesn't look as bad as he knows it is. He tells himself they can make a trip out of it, see the older kids, check in on his mom, meet up with some of Kathy's friends whose children's faces decorate the refrigerator door as though he knows them. He wants to sit in the car, stare at the email, see her name in the details, and think about how far she went without him and be proud of her for everything she's done and wonder what has changed in her life, if she's married, if she has kids, if she's still living in that same apartment he always felt was more comfortable than his own home. But he thinks of Hogan's face suddenly, guilt raring back up, driving him to get up and pretend that there's no draw to return to New York except to congratulate an old coworker and visit his kids.

He lets himself into the apartment, hoping that since it's nearly five am now that Kathy is asleep and he can put off talking about it for a few hours, but she's leaning on the back of the sofa, her arms crossed over her chest, her lips set in a thin line, her eyes narrowed. She must have been waiting, staring out the window and he is so glad he didn't take the time to sit in the car and think about her. He says nothing, just waits.

She doesn't make him wait long. "I didn't know you were in touch with anyone back in New York."

He could defend himself, but he doesn't see the point. His wife doesn't trust him. Not even after he'd given up everything to prove he was faithful. "Reading my email again?"

"How long have you been talking to her? The whole time?"

He's furious and he thinks about stomping around angrily until he wakes the downstairs neighbors because the embarrassment of facing them might distract Kathy for a few minutes, but that really won't help. "I haven't spoken to her since the day I left, Kathy."

"So your friend just randomly decided to invite you to a celebrate Olivia Benson party for no reason?" She's glaring at him with an eyebrow raised like she's caught him in a lie, and maybe she has because he never stopped thinking about Olivia, no matter how hard he tried, and most of the time he says he needs to think or wants to be alone it's because he wants to regress into a little fantasy world he's created where she's here and not Kathy and he's made up this whole little imaginary life for them and sometimes they have a kid or two and sometimes it's just the two of them but they're always happy and he doesn't think that really counts as a sin because he hasn't acted on it and he thinks it must be harmless to have a little something that makes him want to get out of bed in the morning.

He heads into the kitchen and pulls a beer from the fridge, downing half of it before he makes it back to the couch. "You know, I had someone holding a gun to my head tonight and I came within a few seconds of dying and I thought maybe I should apologize to some of the people I was friends with, those friends I just fucking abandoned, and so I called Fin and he told me about this award and I didn't think it would be a problem."

Instead of any mercy at his brush with death, Kathy snorts. "No, of course it's not a problem to go visit your ex-mistress behind your wife's back." She shakes her head and crosses toward the bedroom, stopping at the door. "You're sleeping on the couch, you know that right?"

He's tired. He's upset. He's hurting because he just told his wife he nearly died and she doesn't give a fuck. So instead of defending himself, he knocks back the rest of the beer. "Fine with me."

By the time Kathy slams the bedroom door, he's curled onto his side, a throw pillow hugged tightly against his chest, and he tells himself there's nothing wrong with imagining it's her that he's holding.