"When you reach the part where the heartaches come, the hero would be me
But heroes often fail and you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take"
-If You Could Read My Mind, Gordon Lightfoot

Sunday, July 2, 2023
Morning

He puts it off for over a week, replaying the argument with Olivia over and over again in his head, trying to guess if she really wants him to know what happened or if she just said it to distract him, and he's still packing boxes and his right arm can move a little now, but it hurts so damn badly that he's not bothering to do much, except trying to work scissors while he's packing boxes because scissors don't work in his left hand.

He's not getting many visitors anymore. There was one visit from Ayanna who explained that she's transferring to another region and she doesn't have to say it wasn't voluntary and he tries to apologize, but she won't let him and he wishes her well anyway. There was one from Jet too, and she was already in tears before he opened the door and she blurted out that she decided to go work for some startup out in LA and he would have given her a hug except she was talking a mile a minute and then walking away before he could even invite her inside.

The kids have been by a few times, planning how and when to scatter the ashes and Kathleen packed up some of the items Bernie had left the last time she stayed with him and he told Kathleen to take anything she wanted because everything else was going into storage with all the rest of the shit and he realizes he's going to need a bigger storage unit because each phase of his life has been packed up like this and shoved into a tiny room the size of a garage and it's not going to hold all the stuff from the house in Queens and Italy and Long Island City and maybe he should get rid of it all, but it's too much work to think about it and so he just decides he'll leave behind anything that doesn't fit in the unit.

He's been hoping that Olivia would call, maybe try to smooth over the situation, maybe check to see how he's doing, but he hasn't heard a single word from her and he doesn't know if she's waiting for him to call or if she really does want him to talk to Fin or if she's waiting for him to call after he talks to Fin.

There's really only one way to figure that out, and so he decides he'll make the call, ask his old friend if they can meet somewhere to talk. If Fin knows what it's about and agrees, Elliot will take it to mean Liv really did intend for him to find out. He's nervous when Fin hesitates and somehow it's a hundred times worse when Fin says he'll come over. It means they shouldn't discuss it in public, either because it's not something that can be explained anywhere it might be overheard or because Fin is expecting Elliot's temper to flare out of control. He feels like he's been chastised already when he offers his address, but Fin cuts him off and points out who do you think picked up Liv's truck from out front.

He'd forgotten about that, about the way Liv was too drunk to drive home, about the way he'd seen her truck the following morning when he was late for work and stopped for a moment because he thought she'd come back only to remember she'd left it there when she'd run out the night before.

An hour later he's still thinking about how he'd managed to get Olivia to call him a friend after he left her for a decade and then run her off again when Fin finally knocks on the door. The last time he saw Fin, Elliot was flat on his back and still in a haze of pain and pain killers and so he allows the other man a moment to size him up. Unlike when Olivia had been there, he's dressed this time, but he did a much worse job of splitting the sleeve of his shirt than Olivia had and wound up just cutting the whole thing off and Fin obviously notices the wreck that is his clothing and arm, but says nothing.

"Liv told me to tell you, so I'll tell you, but I'm not answering a bunch of questions. You can pull the case file if you want more details." Fin accepts Elliot's nod and silent invitation and steps into the apartment and it only takes him half a second to let out a loud, disappointed groan. "You're moving?"

"Don't worry, I won't ask you to help." Elliot shrugs and walks toward the kitchen. "Want a drink?" He hasn't been drinking as much recently, mostly in case Olivia ever shows up at his door unexpectedly, but he thinks this discussion calls for a little something.

"Nah, this isn't going to take that long, I hope." He follows Elliot anyway, accepting the shot Elliot pours despite his words. "This is a nice place, you find something better?"

"Got a cousin in Seattle I'm staying with."

He's not prepared for the shock on Fin's face because they're not that close, and he sees the way Fin's whole body sags back against the counter looking like he's just lost his will to live. "Fuck, you tell Liv?"

"She knows." And he knows Liv is what Fin's reaction is about and he knows Fin probably has a lot to say to him about how badly he handled his last departure and he knows Fin witnessed firsthand how much it hurt Liv and he assumes she'll handle it better this time because she already knows and she's not going to miss him this time.

Still, the guilt sits heavily in his belly and he tries to drown it with a drink, but the alcohol only adds to the anxious nausea he's feeling. He just needs to get this over with. He needs to find out what happened to her. He needs to know what happened because he wasn't here to protect her. And then he can apologize and leave her alone like she wants and spend the rest of his life regretting his mistakes.

"She wants me to know what happened, but she doesn't want to tell me, so just-" he stops because he doesn't know what he's trying to say and he's starting to think maybe he should just ask for the name so he can pull the file himself like Fin suggested, but he knows there are things that aren't in there, things that Olivia probably hadn't wanted on the record and so the only way he's going to get the whole story is from someone who saw it. But there is one thing he needs to know before they go any further. "Is he in prison?"

"Better. He's dead."

Elliot nods in response and he knows it's very un-Christian-like, but he hopes like fuck that Olivia was the one to kill him and that it was painful and he hopes if there is some sort of afterlife, the bastard is burning in hell for all eternity. "What happened?"

"Amanda picked up a flasher in the park one day, called all of us in on a Sunday because she had a bad feeling about him."

He feels his stomach drop, recognizing the level of fear the woman must have felt to drag her entire squad in, and he suddenly feels like he can't breathe because he's remembering how Olivia said worse and it's actually sinking in that she really fucking meant worse and he's not sure he can hear it after all.

Fin's hand are splayed on the countertop, his voice quiet and flat like he's dissociating from the words and the memory. "He was a sociopath, smart and slimy and we all knew there was more to him but could never prove a damn thing. He had a bunch of previous victims, but nothing ever stuck. He liked to drag it out for days before he finally killed them. Tortured and raped the old lady who was a witness to the flashing. Lady survived the attack, died of a heart attack later."

He wants to be stoic like Fin, but he doesn't have the strength to hide the quiver in his voice, not when his brain is getting stuck on certain words. "Tortured how?"

"Burns, cigarettes, hangers, keys."

Elliot presses his fist over his mouth, trying not to gag at the thought. Worse is right. And even moreso for him because he's hearing the story, getting the information for the first time knowing it ends badly and that Olivia was involved and then there are tears running down his face and he can't even be embarrassed for his reaction because he's too horrified and no wonder she's pissed at him for leaving because he left her to that.

"You alright?"

He can't speak, can't think anything besides the hideous images forming from Fin's words, and he'd love to tell the other man to leave and take this hellacious story with him, but he has to hear it because, he realizes, this is his punishment for leaving her. He meets Fin's eyes, knowing his look says it all.

"Liv went a round with him in interrogation and he just- he, uh," and then it's Fin swallowing hard and biting his lip to pretend it doesn't hurt as much as it does, "he fixated on her. We should have seen it, but we really thought we had him. We let her down, all of us." He takes a shaky breath before he continues. "Lewis was a lucky bastard. If there was a one in a million mistake, it would break in his favor. He skated on a technicality and Liv was pretty pissed so Cragen sent her home for two days off. Lewis was waiting for her in her apartment when she walked in. We never did figure out how he got in."

Elliot is shaking and he doesn't want to hear the details and he knows he has to, he needs to, he has to bear witness now because he wasn't there then. "How long?"

There's no answer that won't hurt, but he's hoping for some kind of limit, some mercy for Olivia here, and he's thinking that a few hours would be horrible but he reminds himself that she survived and maybe it was worse but not worst.

"Four days."

He doesn't even think about it, it just happens, his hands slamming down onto the counter and holy fuck it hurts so much that he cries out except he's not even sure it was the pain in his arm that made him cry out. He has no idea how long it takes before the pain fades enough that he's not seeing stars anymore, but he finally nods at Fin, silently asking the man to hurry up and finish.

"I tried to get in touch with you. Your number was disconnected and you'd moved out of your house, so I sent a bunch of emails, thought maybe you'd come back and help look for her." Fin glances over to see if Elliot is about to have another outburst. "Never heard back."

And Elliot is choking on the bile in his throat when he thinks about his wife's prying when she knew he was at work. He's mortified, but it's guilt that makes his words come out in a whisper. "Kathy used to read my email when I was at work, delete anything she didn't think I needed to see."

Fin just shakes his head and Elliot knows the other man wants to deck him for his stupidity, but there's plenty of blame to go around here. There's heavy serving of guilt in his next words and Elliot can understand why. "We were trying to find her, but in the end, she saved herself, broke free and beat the shit out of him and then called it in."

And that part hurts even more because he knows her and he knows she spent four days of torture waiting for someone to come for her and no one did so she had to do it herself. That's where he should have been, breaking down the door to save her, but he wasn't because he was trying to save his damned soul. That's why she's angry. No wonder a fucking relationship is off the table. She'll never feel comfortable relying on him after he let her down like that.

Fin hurries through the rest of it, the inconclusive rape kit, the alcohol and drugs, the bastard defending himself in court so he could eviscerate her again on the stand, and just when Elliot doesn't think he can take one more minute, Fin tells how the son of a bitch escaped from prison and came after Liv again.

It's only after he hears about Olivia being exonerated by IAB and the grand jury that he knows it's over. The telling is over, at least. The horror isn't. Olivia still lives it everyday, he knows, because that sort of thing doesn't just fade away. He understands why she couldn't tell him and why thinking about it upset her so much and why she wanted him to know and why she still blames him.

Fin quietly lets himself out after he checks one last time if Elliot is ok and Elliot isn't sure he'll ever be ok. He pours himself a shot and then another and then another and he drags the bottle to the floor with him as he folds under the weight of his sobs. And once he's on the ground, he just keeps drinking.

He was off in Europe with Kathy trying to earn his way into heaven while his partner was trapped alone here in hell.