Day Eleven, cont'd
They stayed there, cradled together, clinging to one another, for a long time. Elliot couldn't even swear that he'd been awake the whole time, let alone if she had been. He didn't want to disturb her. He didn't want to make her think he was at all uncomfortable with her in his arms. But it was her first night home, her first night in a week that she wasn't forced to sleep chained to a wall. She was home and she deserved to sleep comfortably in her own bed.
While one arm stayed tight around her, the other moved carefully, his hand curling around her shoulder to shake her gently. "Liv? Are you up?"
It could have been that she hadn't been or that she was simply unwilling to move, but her head shifted slowly to lift her face out of his shirt. "Yeah."
"Why don't we move you someplace slightly more comfortable?" He desperately hoped that she'd insist on having him lay beside her, but he didn't have the nerve to suggest it first.
Her head shifted back to where it had been. "That's ridiculous. There's nowhere more comfortable than here."
He couldn't help but smile. Although there were a multitude of physical complaints he could list from their collapsed position on the floor, he knew the mental strength he drew from holding Olivia in his arms far outweighed them. Still, he felt he owed her more and sifted his hands through her short hair, turning her face up to meet his.
"Come on, Liv. Whether you care or not, I bet your back has some pretty strong feelings about a bed at the moment."
She shifted around, starting to get her feet under her, but she froze in the midst of the process. "You're not going to leave, are you?"
He shook his head, the soft plea in her voice speaking to his innate desire to protect her. "Haven't we covered this already?"
She turned away, her eyes downcast as though she'd been chastised. She opened her mouth to speak, but Elliot's fingers brushed over her lips, silencing her.
"Don't worry, Liv." He used his voice, his eyes, his touch, to reassure her. He hadn't meant for her to think he was upset or annoyed. His hand slid along her cheek, cupping around the back of her neck, pulling her forehead forward to meet his. Every contact was so new, so exciting, that he took a moment to revel in the simple feel of her skin against his. Rather than subsiding, the intensity increased with each passing second, driving home the very idea that he was holding Olivia, that she was returning his affection, that she was allowing him such unlimited access to both her body and her psyche.
His voice was choked into a whisper by the feelings he couldn't deny. "I'm never going to leave you, ok?"
She only nodded in response and he feared that perhaps his feelings were as one-sided as he'd declared to Cragen, that perhaps she didn't want to encourage his emotional attachment, that perhaps she suspected he was taking advantage of her impaired mental state. But with the proximity of their faces, her nod brought her cheek in contact with his, letting him feel the moisture from the tears that weren't his.
And so it was with a novel awareness of the altogether overwhelming nexus between them that he led Olivia to her bedroom for the first time. He paid no attention to the lack of sheets, since he'd never gotten around to drying them, nor did he bother to explain how her pillows and blankets had wound up scattered around the floor amid the piles of clothes she'd left there herself. He honestly wasn't sure in what state he'd left his own apartment, so he was hoping Olivia might not notice anything out of the ordinary. Especially when he was so ill-prepared to like to her. Especially when she probably didn't want the whole truth from him for once.
But his attention was quickly drawn away from those hours he'd spent in her bed alone. It wasn't one of those horrible, lonely nights from the previous week. It wasn't one of those horrible, lonely nights from the rest of his life. It was after. It was a new time, a new beginning, a new start that he fully expected to last the rest of his life.
Her hand was snug in his as he squatted down to retrieve one of the pillows. He smiled nervously. He wanted to laugh at himself, at the situation. He and Olivia had been to hell and back together, professionally and personally. More recently, they'd been to hell separately. In light of all the things they'd seen together, in light of what they'd actually done together, it seemed preposterous that he might be nervous about anything at all in front of her. And yet he was uncertain as he faced her.
"Are you ready for bed or do you want to change?" He gestured at her attire, knowing that she'd changed after her failed attempt at a shower. But he honestly had no idea if she wore her sweats as pajamas or had something else to wear. It seemed absurd to him that he didn't know what she slept in. He thought it was something he should have known, that he ought to know that much about her when he knew what it felt like to be inside of her.
She sat down on the bed, scooting toward the center and giving his hand a gentle tug. "I don't feel like changing. Let's just go to bed."
With the threat of tears at how moving the experience was, Elliot gave into her pull. He kicked off his shoes while he pulled a blanket back onto the bed, but he didn't make any other attempts to change. If Olivia was going to sleep in her clothes, then he would do the same. Besides, he acknowledged, the more layers of clothes between them the better for him, considering why her bed had no sheets in the first place.
He certainly didn't want to spend his first night in bed with Olivia only to wake up in the same condition he had the last time he'd been there. He'd been mortified and had hated himself for what he'd done; he couldn't begin to imagine how bad the reaction would be if Olivia witnessed it for herself. So he settled himself down beside her, concentrating on the fact that he'd never before stretched out in her bed with her. But as she curled into his chest and his arms encircled her, he felt as though he'd been sleeping like that all his life. Her body felt comfortable resting next to his. The weight of her leg when she moved it over one of his felt so familiar he found himself actually searching his memory for a chance that maybe he had been there before.
But as her arm stretched around his waist, she lifted her head to snuggle against his chest, revealing a contented smile on her face that he knew he would have remembered had he ever seen it. She was still after a moment, having found a comfortable spot.
He suspected his own smile would mirror hers if he could see it. He pressed a kiss against her hair. "Good night, Liv."
"Night, El." Her voice was slightly muffled by his shirt. "Tomorrow you can explain what happened to my sheets."
He snickered at her, knowing that she was at least giving him a warning, a chance to come up with something good. But what he was really excited about was the fact that, as opposed to those previous nights in her bed, the morning would bring him the wonderful experience of waking up beside her for the first time.
Of course, he wasn't counting on the fact that before he could enjoy that happy morning, he would have to endure the harrowing night. A night which started with the all too familiar sound of his partner screaming.
