Disclaimer: Lyrics from 'Forgiven' by Within Temptation. Recognizable dialogue and characters are Dick Wolf's and NBC's.
Chapter 4: We Are The Broken
We are the broken ones.
The ones who walk and dwell in the empty places.
The ones who hide in shadow.
Away from all the open spaces.
You gave up the fight
You left me behind
All that's done's forgiven
You'll always be mine
I know deep inside
All that's done's forgiven
The slap echoes in the room with a sharp crack, almost like a gunshot. And you stare at your hand like it's completely foreign to you. El stands in your doorway, rubbing his face and his cheek is already turning red.
"You always did know how to pack a punch, Liv." He smiles at you ruefully, rubbing his cheek. And you're mortified by your loss of control. Of all the ways you pictured seeing him again, this was definitely not it.
First, you'd gone into his arms and cried.
Like you hadn't cried in years.
And then you'd slapped his face.
Really, you weren't on your game.
He doesn't look angry at you, though. There's a slight smile on his face. But he stays in your door way, not wanting to test your space without your invitation.
"You didn't come back." Was all that came out of your mouth in a whisper of hurt. "I waited for you and you didn't come back. You left me behind."
And all the anger, pain, and sorrow of the past two years…of the past few months... washes over you like a mighty tsunami. It's a deluge and you have to sink or swim. You find yourself buckling under the force of the impact because you've held it together for so long and all these unwanted memories are just poking at the chinks in your armor.
"I'm sorry." He says again quietly. And the lines around his eyes, around his mouth are deeper now, you notice. "I read about what happened in the papers. I should have come back a long time before now."
You have your arms folded across your chest as if to protect yourself. You still don't trust that this isn't some kind of hallucination or mirage - some trick of your battered mind to protect yourself from dealing with the torture inflicted on you by William Lewis.
And you don't want to talk about what he read in the papers.
"Why didn't you?" You mean for the question to come out angrily but instead it just comes out tired. So very tired. Like you. "Is this some kind of pity visit? Coming to see 'badass Benson' all broken and defeated? Sure you have. Everybody else has."
He doesn't respond and that enrages you. Not just irritates you but enrages you. But that's not unusual, you've been going from zero to sixty with everyone and it's no wonder they treat you with kid gloves. They see the banked anger.
"El, you do not get to do this." You snap. "You show up at my door after more than two fucking years of almost no communication. You do not get to hold out on me right now." Part of you feels a little guilty for snapping at him like that but that's quickly squashed when you remember those two very long years.
Two years of wondering where he was. Who he was. Questioning whether your partnership had been real at all since he had so easily walked away from it. He had had you questioning everything and, fuck if you were going to let him just pull that "I'm not gonna talk about it" shit that used to drive you crazy.
You and everybody else.
"Can I come in?" He asks slowly, tiredly. "It's a long story."
Still eyeing him warily, you open the door and he walks by you. And you smell that scent that's been lingering in your dreams so many nights. The clean, fresh scent of bar soap and a simple cologne. No complex fragrance for El. He always kept it simple.
You take a big gulp of your wine. Because you're pretty sure you're going to need it…and then some.
El doesn't miss the empty wine bottle on your coffee table. Or the one half drained beside it.
You see his eyes narrow slightly. And you bristle. Is he fucking judging you?
"Don't." You snap. "Just don't. You don't get to lecture me."
He raises his hands. "Wasn't going there, Liv. Of all people I'm the last to judge."
And just like that he takes all the wind out of your sails.
How the fuck does he do it? Elliot Stabler can make you so fucking angry in one moment but in the very next breath can completely disarm you.
That goddamned Stabler charm.
He sits down on your couch and you're just standing there, looking down at him. Not ready to let him near you. Not nearly ready. That hug at the door? Momentary lapse of sanity.
You blame that on Lewis too.
"That day when Jenna and Sister Peg died…" he starts slowly, softly, "it was rough on me, Liv."
"It was fucking rough on me too, Elliot!" You said angrily. "I was trying to keep Peg from bleeding out! And I couldn't."
No, you are not going to goddamn cry. Not now. Not again.
"I know." He looks at you miserably. "God, didn't you know I wanted to come over there and help? But I couldn't leave Jenna. I had to try to save her. It was my bullet that took her down. I had to try to save her. And I failed."
He stares at his hands. And as hard as you're trying to stay impassive and unmoved, the look in his eyes kills you.
The thing about El is that he's always been easy for you to read. You knew him better than anyone, better even than Kathy. He usually could hide the pain from strangers, even from members of the squad. But not from you. Never from you.
You always knew when a case had hit him hard. Always knew when he had gotten too close.
You knew because you and he….well… blood and DNA have nothing on the closeness you two had.
"It wasn't your fault, Elliot." You finally sit down. "You didn't kill those men in the jail, you didn't kill Peg. That was all Jenna. You did what you had to do."
"She was just a kid, Liv. Just a kid." His voice breaks. "She shouldn't have had to die that way. And I couldn't save her."
"I know." You whisper, all your anger fading away like the morning fog. "But, El, you can't save them all. No one can."
"Just like I couldn't save you." He looks at you, really looks at you. And you wish you had put on a sweater because your arms are exposed and, well, Lewis had fun with them too.
"This isn't on you, El. You can't blame yourself for William Lewis."
"I wasn't there for you, Liv."
"No," you reply honestly, "you weren't. But even if you had been, it might not have made a difference. No use dwelling on the what if's - you know that. You need to stop with the fucking Catholic guilt, El."
He doesn't respond but continues to talk as if you've not said a word.
"You want to know why I didn't come back, Liv?" He looks at you, deep pain in his clear blue eyes. Pain that hurts you more than you can stand because it's the same kind of pain you see in the mirror. "After Jenna and Peg died, I started drinking. Not just two or three beers at night, y'know, the way I'd do with dinner every once in a while. I started drinking bourbon, whiskey, the hard stuff. I'd put it in my coffee in the morning. I'd carry a flask with me. I'd get drunk, real drunk, a lot. And Kathy and I just started fighting all the time because of the drinking. It was a constant thing. The kids would stay away because they just couldn't take it who I was turning into.
So Kathy…she made me go to counseling. But I just resented her for making me talk about the shit I didn't want to talk about. But I did it to keep up appearances and to try to fix things." He takes a deep breath and lets it out shakily.
"All it did was put a temporary bandage over the wound. I did okay for a while, really good… talked with Huang, with another counselor. But I still kept drinking. And then one night…" his voice breaks and trails off. And you see tears in his eyes and you ache for him.
Because you've also known the ghosts and shadows, the sleepless nights, the pain you try to tamp down with your wine. You're no stranger to the empty places that can't be filled. You live them, you walk them every day.
And you reach over and squeeze his hand.
He smiles faintly at you and, for a moment, the two of you are the way you used to be. In sync with one another. Not having to say a single word. Because it's all understood.
Maybe there's hope for the both of you after all.
"One night," he begins again, "the fight got really bad. Kathy told me that I needed rehab and that if I wasn't willing to go to rehab, she was gonna leave me and take Eli. Needless to say, I didn't take that well." And his eyes look into the distance, haunted with the memory of words harshly thrown into the air. "I told her to fuck off. That I didn't need her. Didn't need any of them."
"Oh, El…" you say softly.
"Eli was standing at the door, listening, the whole time." And a tear rolls down his face. "He was just looking at me so bewildered and he didn't understand. 'You don't love me, daddy?' he asked me. And I couldn't answer. I couldn't fucking answer my own son."
He chokes for a moment, putting his hand over his eyes.
"Kathy left that night. Packed up her stuff. Filed for divorce a few months later."
Elliot stares at the cup of water you've given him. "Couldn't blame her really. I hadn't been a good husband for years. Having Eli didn't solve the underlying problems. I'd shut her out so much that the refusal to go to treatment was just the final straw. We'd been crumbling for years and both of us refused to see it."
"How long has it been?" You ask.
"We've been divorced a year now." He shrugs.
As if seeing a question in your eyes, he smiles sadly. "And, yeah, I got help. Been in AA for almost a year now. Waking up in my own vomit was a big wake up call. I'm still trying to repair the damage to the kids."
"They'll forgive you." You say softly. "They love you."
"Do they?" The smile he gives you is twisted and bitter.
"Yes." You say firmly. "No matter what you have done, your family loves you. Kathy loves you."
"Yeah, because nothing says love like divorce." He says cynically.
"Sometimes there comes a time when even the ones that love us can't deal with the broken. It's a heavy burden for anyone to carry."
And you think of Cassidy.
I love you, Liv. Always will.