The Proposal

(Chapter Thirteen: A Safe Place)

THREE WEEKS LATER…

Elliot folded up a little blue receiving blanket and placed it in to a box next to a stack of unworn baby clothes. He exhaled and pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket as he began to disassemble the crib Greyson would never sleep in.

An hour later, he turned off the vacuum cleaner as he heard the front door of the apartment close. He straightened the bedspread on the bed in Olivia's room, then headed down the hall to greet her.

"Hey you," he said as she hung her jacket in the closet and set her purse on the arm of the sofa.

"Hi," she replied forcing a smile.

"How did it go?"

"Fine."

"Fine? Just fine?"

"Elliot it was my first day with a new therapist….it isn't like it was a job interview or something."

"Didn't go well, huh?"

She pressed her lips together to form a frown.

"She's nosey."

"Nosey?" Elliot laughed. "Liv, it is her job to ask you about the details of your life and try to help you figure things out. That's what you pay her for."

"I guess. I just thought it would be different."

"How?" he asked opening the refrigerator door and pulling out stuff to make her a sandwich as she sat down at the counter.

"Well, I went there to talk about losing Greyson and she asked me a billion and five questions that had nothing to do with the baby."

"Like what?"

"Like….she asked me about you."

"Me?"

"How we met. And how long I have known you and…." Olivia exhaled in annoyance.

"And?"

"And Alex. I didn't want to talk about you and Alex."

"Well, what did she say about me and Alex?" he asked out of curiosity.

"El, it is therapy, it is supposed to be confidential," she replied as he handed her a turkey club sandwich. "I love, by the way that you cut the crust off for me."

"You hate the crust."

Olivia smiled as she chewed a bite of food.

"You make the best sandwiches," she mumbled with her mouth full.

Elliot sat down across from her and stared into her eyes.

"Okay, okay," she exhaled. "But for the record, I do not agree with a word she said. And I am thinking of finding a different therapist."

"She isn't always supposed to agree with you," he said with a smile. "What did she say?"

Olivia stared at him for a moment then shifted her eyes to stare at the floor.

"She said that she thinks I broke things off with Alex because I am still harboring feelings for you."

Elliot blinked as she slowly rolled her eyes up to meet his once more.

"And how did that make you feel?"

"A little pissed off. She doesn't know me or Alex or you. And the last thing I need is a complete stranger meddling in my love life. I don't even want a love life."

"I think she is just trying to help, Liv."

"I know. I just don't want to hear her opinions about me and you."

"Opinions?"

"I don't need some stranger telling me how I make bad choices. Or what a loser I am. I went to her because I was depressed over the death of my child and she didn't even want to talk about that. She said we will get to it next time. But I don't know if there is going to be a next time. I don't think I want to go back."

"Maybe she thinks that some of this stuff with Alex and I could be part of the problem."

"You are my best friend and my baby's father. How could you possibly be part of the problem?"

"Not just me, Olivia. The situation. It is no secret that I am still very much in love with you. I don't want you to be worried, I know you are not looking for anything like that right now and I am not going to try anything. But I do love you. I am in love with you. I probably always will be. And I know that Alex feels the same way about you. And even before we lost Greyson, all we did was argue and fight over you and over him…we didn't exactly make things easy on you. I know that you care very deeply for us both. And I know that you would never willingly do anything to hurt either of us. But trying to mediate between the two of us is stressful."

"You're not fighting anymore."

"No, but it didn't help when we were. And we haven't exactly been friends for quite some time now. But we could both be a little more understanding."

"You have been understanding. You are what has pulled me through this whole thing."

"And Alex?"

"Alex would be understanding if she was speaking to me."

"I guess I didn't think about that. Are things really that bad between the two of you?"

"She was hurt," Olivia said softly. "she knew things were shaky between us, but when I broke it off….it solidified the fact that we were not going to be together anymore. At least right now. She was crushed. I could see it. Sometimes I just wish that things had never changed and we had all just stayed friends. Maybe this therapist is right. I do make horrible choices."

"Stop beating yourself up," Elliot replied kissing her on the forehead as he cleared away the dirty dishes. "That baby was not a bad decision. We are adults. We talked about it and we planned that pregnancy," he said forcing a smile. "We planned a life with that beautiful little boy, then we lost him. And none of that was because of you."

Olivia exhaled.

"Still, I don't think I'm going back."

"Sweetheart, I really wish you wouldn't give up on this therapist so quickly. Give it a few more sessions, give it a couple of weeks."

"Maybe I will," she said forcing a smile. "So what did you do today?"

"Well, this morning I finished up some paperwork. Then I went shopping, since you clearly have not bought groceries in over a month. I cleaned your apartment from top to bottom."

"You cleaned my apartment?" she asked with a smile.

"Yup. And now that we have had some lunch, I think I am gonna grab a quick shower if you don't mind."

"No, go ahead. Oh and El…."

"Yea?" he asked stopping outside the bathroom to look back at her.

"Thank you. You know, for staying here and taking such good care of me. I know my couch cannot be that comfortable."

"It's not that bad. And I want to be here if you need me."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

The apartment was strangely quiet when Elliot came out of the bathroom.

"I was thinking we could rent a movie tonight," he said returning to the living room, but she wasn't there. "Olivia?" he called stepping into the empty bedroom. "What the…?"

Turning to head back down the hallway, he noticed the door to the nursery was opened.

"Liv?" he said stepping into the empty room to see her sitting in the corner crying.

"What did you do?" she sobbed looking up at him with sad eyes.

Elliot felt a knot rise in his throat.

"I…I thought you wanted me to."

"What did you do?" she shouted this time standing up and demanding an explanation. "Get out."

"What?"

"Get out!" she yelled at him, now crying so hard she could hardly breathe as she pointed down the hallway toward the door.

"Okay," he agreed as he walked out the door.

Olivia collapsed in the floor of the nursery and cried.

The next afternoon Elliot sat at his desk trying to work, but finding it really hard to concentrate. He punched around on his keyboard for a while, then resorted to checking his email and surfing the internet from his computer. A few hours later he stood up to get another cup of coffee, just as Alex walked in with a file on a case they had been working on.

"Hi," she said nervously as he smiled at her.

"Hi."

"I told Fin I would bring by these notes so he could look over them before court tomorrow."

"He and Munch are out right now, but I can make sure he gets them."

"Thanks. So, how are you? How are things?"

"How's Olivia?" he replied as she smiled a guilty smile.

"She had been good. Until yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?"

"I was an idiot," he said as he exhaled and dropped back into his chair. "I thought I was doing something nice for her and it backfired. I ended up hurting her in the process."

"Did you apologize?"

"I don't think this is something that 'I'm sorry' can fix, Alex."

"Well, have you tried?"

"I have tried to call her a dozen times and texted her twice that much. She is not speaking to me. It was bad."

"Do you want to talk about it? Over lunch, maybe?"

"Are you asking me on a date? I didn't think I was really your type."

Alex smiled.

"Oh, you're not. I just figured we had a little more in common now that Olivia isn't speaking to either one of us. She broke up with me. She doesn't want to date me anymore. I'm not even sure she wants to date women anymore. There is nothing I can do to fix that. But the two of you are best friends, dating or not, she needs you in her life. And you need her. Even if you are too stubborn to admit it. That…that, I would like to help you fix. I will even buy."

"I don't know."

"Come on, Elliot. It isn't only you and Olivia's friendship I am trying to fix here. I guess I was still hoping for the change to try to salvage one of our own."

"Alright," Elliot agreed.

"So, what exactly did you do that was so bad?" Alex asked taking a bite of her salad.

"It wasn't so bad, Alex. It was awful."

"I cant help you if I don't know what you did."

"I cleaned out the nursery."

"You did what?"

"Olivia and I talked about it a couple of weeks ago. She actually asked me to do it."

"Wait, if she asked you then what was the problem?"

"She wasn't ready. She said she was, I thought she was," he said shaking his head. "I thought it would be easier for her if I did it while she was out. And I have been so busy with work, yesterday was really the first time I had the time alone in the apartment to get it done."

"You thought you were doing something good. And I am sure that she isn't really angry with you. She is just….emotional. This is a tough thing for you both and she probably doesn't even realize that you did it to try to help her."

"Yea, well, I think I may have destroyed her."

"Don't give up on her. She'll come around. Just give her a little time."

"That is harder than it sounds. It killed me to see her crying. And it was even worse knowing that it was my fault."

"But you have sent her like a hundred texts, she knows that you didn't mean it."

"That's not all I did."

Alex stopped chewing and rolled her eyes up from her plate to look at him.

"What else did you do?"

"He sent me the biggest bunch of roses I have ever seen in my life," Olivia said from across the room.

Alex and Elliot both turned to look at her.

"Cragen told me you were here," she said softly biting her lower lip.

"Olivia, I am so sorry," Elliot replied.

"I know. Alex, do you think I could talk to Elliot alone for a few minutes?"

Alex looked at Elliot and smiled.

"Sure. I have to get back to work anyway. I've got this," she replied picking up the bill from the table.

"Thanks again, Alex."

"You guys had lunch together?"

"We did. We are working on this friendship thing."

"El, I shouldn't have yelled at you. And I am so sorry," she said starting to tear up.

"No, I should have talked to you before I did….what I did. Liv, I never would have if I thought for a second that if would hurt you like that."

Olivia exhaled.

"We did talk about it. And we agreed. I asked you to take care of the nursery and we agreed to donate everything. I asked you to do it and then I freaked out. I guess I just wasn't expecting to see that room so empty."

"I was planning on telling you. I should have told you right away instead of letting you just walk in and find it like that. We started talking about your appointment and it just slipped my mind. I can put it all back. If that is what you want, I'll do it tonight."

"You can get it all back?"

"Well, I didn't exactly donate it. I know that was what we agreed to do, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Everything from the nursery is in the back of a moving van I rented, parked on the street in front of your apartment. I got a storage unit across town and I thought I would just put the stuff there for a while. I thought maybe that way, when you decide you are ready, someday we would have it if we decide to try to have another baby. Well, not necessarily us, but you."

"Elliot, I honestly don't know if I will ever be ready to try again. I don't think I want another baby. Ever. I just can't risk it. I couldn't handle going through this again. I won't survive it. I am barely surviving it this time."

Elliot reached out his hand and placed it against hers. He raised it up and spread her fingertips apart with his as he stared into her eyes.

"They finally put up his headstone," Elliot whispered. "I went by there yesterday and it looks nice."

Olivia wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"People keep saying this gets easier. When does it get easier?"

"I don't know. I wish I could tell you, but I don't know."

"I saw my therapist again this morning. And I can't help but wonder if she is right."

"About what?"

"Elliot, I don't know if I can't give up on us, because of us or because of him. I'm not saying that I want a romantic relationship right now, just that I think maybe I am still hung up on what we once had. But things have changed. For the worse, even. She seems to think that somehow….in my mind….with everything that has gone on, I am trying to retreat to a safe place."

Elliot nodded trying to understand what she was explaining to him.

"You are my safe place, Elliot."

"And I am happy to be."

She smiled a soft smile.

"I have not been able to bring myself to visit Greyson's grave since the funeral," she said exhaling softly.

"I can go with you, if you'd like. It might be easier if you had someone with you….if you weren't alone."

Olivia took a deep breath to consider it.

"Let's take a walk. You and I, we can just take a little time out and go for a walk in the park….get some fresh air. Then if you decide you'd like to go, I will take you."

"El, it's freezing outside. And it is snowing again."

"It isn't that cold," he chuckled. "It is warmer today. The sun is out and the wind isn't as rough as it has been. And you have your furry coat."

"Furry coat?" she asked and couldn't help but smile.

Elliot smiled as he stood and held up her black knee length fur lined trench coat.

"Yea, it is all soft and fuzzy. Come on, it will I think we could both use some fresh air. And I will buy you a cup of hot cocoa."

Olivia slipped her arms into her coat and pressed her lips together considering his proposal. Elliot gazed into her eyes and watched as a smile slowly spread across her face.

"Throw in a handful of those mini marshmallows and you've got yourself a deal," she said and he couldn't help but smile as well.

"Anything you'd like."

They walked around for a while talking about anything and everything to keep from talking about losing their son. Then they sat on a bench together near the water and drinking their cocoa and shared a bag of roasted chestnuts from a venders cart.

She seemed in a good mood, she smiled a lot and even laughed a few times. But there in the shadows of her glassy eyes, just behind the glimmer of hope she put forward, he could see the sadness and despair she was trying so desperately to hide from the world. She wasn't even close to moving forward and healing from the pain of losing Greyson, but it wasn't because she wasn't trying. She was giving it one hell of a shot.

It wasn't until that moment that Elliot, himself, realized that maybe he wasn't quite as healed as he thought he was either. And that somewhere deep inside, he was just as damaged and torn apart as she was.

He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath of the cold wintry air feeling its piercing sting in his lungs like a million tiny needles. Then he opened his eyes and turned his head to look over at her, just as beautiful as the day they met so many years earlier. The day she stole his heart.

Elliot watched her stare out at the water with her white gloves and Styrofoam cup between her hands. He remembered back to the days when they were a couple, how they used to sit on this very bench and feed the ducks in the spring. How she would curl up in his arms and they would just sit here watching the sunset and the world go by. This was their place. Their little escape from the rest of the world, the place they went to be alone. And that was why he brought her here today.

They had shared a hundred lunches, two dozen picnics, eight birthday wishes over candle lit cupcakes, six bottles of wine, a couple of broken hearts and a first kiss on this bench. This was the exact spot Elliot was sitting when he first realized that he was truly in love with her. There was no doubt in his mind that he still loved her. No doubt that he always would.

"Elliot," Olivia said softly turning her eyes to meet his as a crisp breeze blew through her hair.

"Yea?"

"Will you take me there? To the grave, I mean. I know it will be hard, but I feel like as his mother I need to go. I can't do it alone. And I don't want to go there with anyone but you."

Elliot brushed away her tears and gently kissed her cheek.

"Of course I'll take you there. I will take you there any time you'd like."

He raised his arm as Olivia leaned into him and he just held her for a moment.

Half an hour later they climbed from the back of a taxi and made their way to the middle of a small cemetery. In a small section on the left side, next to the grave of her mother, Serena Benson, set a small headstone that marked the place where they had laid their infant son to rest weeks earlier.

Olivia smiled at the sight of the freshly arranged flowers that had been placed on the grave….both graves. They were still alive and full of color and she knew they couldn't have been there more than a day or two because they were not frozen or packed in snow.

"You brought flowers?" she asked tipping her head to look over her shoulder at Elliot as he smiled.

"I try to get out here about once a week."

"You put them on my mother's grave as well. That was sweet of you."

Elliot smiled.

"Well, I kind of owe her. Without her, there would have been no you. And without you….I would be lost. And we never would have had our beautiful son."

She watched with tears in her eyes as Elliot choked on his words and began to cry.

"He's an angel now, Liv. Like his grandma. And I know that she will make sure to take good care of him."

Olivia closed her eyes and hugged him tight as she cried into his chest. Elliot wrapped his arms around her and just held her. They knelt there in the snow beside the headstone holding each other and just cried until there were no tears left to cry.

Elliot kissed the top of her head, then Olivia pulled back to stare into his eyes.

"Thank you," she said softly. "For him," she whispered as she placed a soft kiss against Elliot's lips.

He watched as she turned her attention once more to the little headstone. Reaching out, she traced her fingertip over the letters spelling out their little boy's name. Then he watched as she pulled a single red rose from inside her coat and laid it in the bit of snow on the top of the headstone.

"He would have been two months old, today," she said looking at him with heartache in her eyes. "Sleep well, little man," she whispered softly as Elliot squeezed her hand in his. "You will always be mommy and daddy's little angel."

That night Elliot laid beside Olivia in her bed. He stared at her across the bed in the darkness.

"Tell me what you are thinking," he said softly raising his arm for her to slide in against him so he could hold her once more.

"I think I would have liked being a mother."

Elliot smiled.

"You would have been good at it."

"Do you really think so?"

"I know so."

Olivia smiled a weary smile as he combed his fingers lovingly through her hair.

"Thank you for saving his bear for me," she whispered resting her eyes on the teddy bear sitting on her dresser across the room and Elliot smiled.

"I thought you would rather keep that here then boxed up with the other things in storage."

"It is so hard to think about and I know that nothing could ever replace him in our hearts….I know I said that I never wanted another baby. But I can't somehow, somewhere inside, there is this part of me that still really wants to be a mother."

Elliot smiled again.

"I know I am not in any way ready for that. I am not even emotionally stable right now. But it is something I cannot help but think about."

"You just need some time to heal. Time for you, to process things and start to feel like yourself again. Things are never going to be exactly the same as they were before. And we will always have an empty place inside our hearts where our son should have been. But I think if you feel like you would like to eventually try to have another baby, then that is exactly what you should do. Not right now. But when you know you are ready. I would love to try to have another child with you. I mean, if you would like to have another one with me."

Olivia smiled.

"We make really beautiful babies," she whispered.

"Yes, we do," he agreed.

"Someday," she said softly. "Someday, you and I will have another baby. Not now. But maybe next year or….something."

"When ever you are ready," Elliot promised as he kissed her forehead once more.

He took a deep breath and pulled the blankets up around them as Olivia settled into his arms and closed her eyes. He watched her for a while, holding her tight as she laid there sleeping peacefully in her safe place.