"She stayed longer than she should have, that much I can say."
"It was that bad?"
"I've always been an angry guy…."
"Wow!" she was laughing, a little too loud, a slight snort in her throat. "No? I mean, are you kidding me?"
"Shut up."
"I just wanted to turn the lights out. Hit something, hit anything…." seeing Olivia's smile drain to a grey wash Elliot sat up in his seat and hurriedly rushed, "… oh God, my God no! No, not them. I never raised a finger to any one of them."
"I didn't really think…."
"I wouldn't have blamed you for questioning it."
"El…."
"I drank. I drank a lot. I disappeared, for days sometimes, once over three weeks. Cath had no idea if I was dead or alive. I think the truth of it was I was somewhere in between the two. I just couldn't find a way back from it all. It's like something just flipped a switch, I guess, after the shooting. Everything I was, everything I'd done, it all just sort of came into question and I couldn't make peace with any of it. I just got angrier and angrier and I didn't know what to do with that. Nothing got through to me. Not Cathy, not the kids, not winding up in St Mary's with no recollection of how I got there more times than once. I did a stint in rehab. I shook off a couple of minor charges."
"Oh Elliot…."
"I don't know what I'm more ashamed of. That I let it get that bad and I didn't have the strength to stop it, or that I still couldn't really tell you why. Why any of it. Not even now. I lost myself, I got so far out, so far gone. I genuinely didn't think I would ever get back to place where I could look myself in the mirror."
"What happened?" she asked; heart in throat. "What did bring you back?"
"I…." he began, tapping his paper cup on the table and then flashing a hopeful smile, "… you know what, would it be okay if we took a walk? Just a couple of blocks? It's kinda warm in here…."
"Okay, okay sure, sure we can do that."
"What you looking at?"
"Honestly I don't know…." sighed Fin, shaking his head from side to side as he stood looking out the window beside the elevator shafts in the precinct, "… you ever hear a song on the radio? Just a couple of bars and you're right back in time. It's kind of freaky how real it feels."
"Yeah, yeah I've had that."
"You wanna listen to an old song?"
"What are you….." frowned Amanda Rollins, boots clicking on hard floor as she stalked over to the window and peered out, "… no! No way! Is that Elliot Stabler?"
"Yep, yes is it."
"The infamous…." pulling a face in jest Rollins soon realised that Fin was in no mood to joke around. "What? I mean I know they've got a sketchy kind of past but she's been mooning over him disappearing for as long as I've worked here. Maybe this has been a long time coming."
"Too long…." muttered Fin, before wondering, "… not long enough."
"Why you so grouchy?" shrugged Amanda, not willing to indulge Fin's seemingly unjustified mood. "I know you two are close but my advice? Take a wide perimeter on this one."
"You don't really get to have an opinion on something you don't know anything about Rollins."
"You're the one who got me over here…." offering a light shoulder squeeze Amanda softened slightly, gesturing down to the sidewalk below and shrugging, "… besides, does she look miserable to you?"
"No, no she doesn't….." said Fin under his breath. That was exactly what bothered him.
"Your choice?"
"Oh I dunno that's a tough call…." laughed Olivia softly, before reaching for the donut in Elliot's right hand and leaving him the one in his left, "… plain glaze today I think."
"You used to be a sucker for the chocolate sprinkles."
"Yeah well, things change." She shrugged, sinking her teeth into the sugary treat and pressing on with their walk. The polite gloss, the glaze on the donut, faltered slightly and the crushing reality started to set in. To bring them back from that Olivia proffered an olive branch of sorts; "I'm a mom now, I have to set an example."
"You realise that the sprinkles aren't really the deal breaker when we're comparing circular Krispy Kreme heart attacks but…." hesitating a moment, taking a beat and a deep breath of crisp New York November air Elliot jumped straight in, "…. but you're a mom. That's a big deal."
"Yeah, yeah it is."
"You don't have to….."
"I will though. I'll tell you his name is Noah and he's the sweetest, funniest, gentlest little boy. He's had a rough time but he's doing much better, he's doing great in fact. I'll tell you that adopting him is the single best thing I have ever done. It's been a long road, it was hard, really hard, and so many times I thought I….." licking sugar from her top lip Olivia felt the hurt creep back in, and shrugging sadly she met his eyes, "… and you missed it all, El."
"And I can't change that, only regret it every day."
"What do we do Elliot? What do I do?" turning on her heel beside a bench she sat down hard, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, "What am I supposed to do with all the anger and the resentment and the hurt? You left me."
"I know."
"You left me."
"I know….." he sighed, his heart breaking to see the confusion in her eyes.
"You left me without any explanation, anything I could use to make it okay that after all those years you were just gone. You were my best friend, you were the one person….."
"Liv…." slumping down beside her, a little too close, he reached a hand to her wrist and clutched it tight.
"The one person." She repeated, the last syllable catching in her throat. He wanted to hold her so badly in that moment, to take her in his arms and offer some comfort, any small semblance of comfort to ease that bitter disappointment written all over her face. "I have lost so many people in my life…." she choked, tears sliding down both cheeks and pooling on the cupids bow of her lips, "… and I could handle it. I could handle losing all of them: but not you, not you."
"I shouldn't have come back…." he realised suddenly. A panic gripping his chest, clenching at it and stifling his breathing.
"What?" it was as if he had hit her so hard in the face her entire head was swivelling, turning around and around and making her dizzy to the point of nausea.
"It was selfish and wrong of me and I thought it was….." his behaviour was so off, so unlike anything she had ever seen before, he was shaking. He was visibly shaking. "I thought it was for you but it wasn't. It was for me. It was to help me, to make it easier for me. I made the wrong choice, a bad call. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Elliot? Elliot what the hell is wrong with you? What's going on?"
"I thought that I was fixing something."
"I…." she managed, grabbing for his coat sleeve when words entirely failed her.
"Now I realise I've just made it all so much worse….." he mumbled, rubbing a hand over the thin layer of hair on his head, "… and I shouldn't have come back."
"You're leaving?" she was angry now, fury that blurred her vision as she flew up from the bench and yelled after him "You're leaving? You sick son of a bitch!"
"I'm sorry…."
"What kind of fucked up game is this? You STOP! You come back here!" gasping, gulping for breath she stood alone once more. Hating him with every breath she was fighting to take. How dare he, how dare he do this to her again. How dare she have let him?
"Let me guess?"
"Don't Fin, just don't….." hissed Olivia, narrowing her eyes across her desk and shaking her head, "… today has been bad enough without you saying I told you so."
"What'd he do this time?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You need to."
"I do not."
"You breaking up with Tucker and crying in the bathroom says otherwise. You have a liquid lunch?"
"Fin!" she gasped, launching herself up from her desk and rushing to close the door. "What the hell are you playing at?"
"I don't like watching things I care about unravel, Liv, and you are coming undone at an alarming rate."
"I was not crying in the bathroom I was having an issue with my contacts that Rollins misinterpreted, and then evidently decided to share unnecessarily with you. I had a perfectly good crayfish salad for lunch and I take great offence at your flippant suggestions otherwise. More than that, I find it rude and disrespectful that you'd suggest…."
"Did I hit a nerve?" he asked, knowing just exactly how far he had to push before she dropped the defensive guard. "I've known you a long time Olivia Benson and there is only one asshole on the planet who gets you in this state. So I'll ask again. What'd he do this time?"
"Nothing, he did nothing. We had a couple of coffees, we talked, and now he's…." saying it aloud for the first time stung, she realised, "… well, he's gone again."
"What?"
"He left, he….." inhaling grimly she confessed, "… he evacuated. Is the only way to describe it I think, he fled, we were talking and he quite literally ran away."
"Huh?"
"We were talking, it was fine, and then he just….." and there was no other way to describe it she realised, with a baffled shrug, "… ran off."
"That makes no sense."
"I mean I think it speaks volumes as to all the reasons I should never have entertained his coming back in the first place. He's clearly not grown an inch since he left five years ago and is still every bit the coward that I had come to believe him to be so…."
"You're upset."
"I'm furious."
"Liv…." he softened now, realised that he had forcible ripped the band aid of a wound that was not only raw but still haemorrhaging.
"I'm fine, Fin. I'm fine."
"The hell you are."
"I will be fine…." she smiled, a little more convincingly, "… it's just been a strange week is all."
"What'd he say? When you talked? He have much to say for himself after all this time?" it pained Fin that, despite everything, he cared. His first loyalty was and would always be to Olivia, but he had just never quite been able to bring himself to truly dislike Elliot Stabler. He could not have explained why.
"Some, I guess. He's had a tough time, he's been through a lot." Cryptic and evasive though her answer may have seemed, it wasn't her place to share Elliot's business. She felt strangely protective of his vulnerability.
"He say why he came back?"
"To make amends I guess."
"Yeah, yeah but I mean why now. He's been in the dark and twistys for five years and then one day he just wakes up like, okay, today's the day, let's go pay Liv a visit."
"We didn't really get that far….." she sighed, realising that however angry she was the overarching emotion was concern. She couldn't answer Fin's question. Why had Elliot come back, and what had spooked him into leaving again so soon? It made no sense. At least it made even less sense than him having disappeared for so long in the first place.
"Humph."
"Look I'm going to fetch Rollins in here and talk through this afternoon before lunch. I want a clear plan before we hit the streets."
"Hey Liv?" he called, as she headed for the door. "You doin' okay? Honestly?"
"Honestly…." removing her hands from her pant pockets she rolled her shoulders.
"I'm here."
"I'm grateful…." she smiled, with a nodding acknowledgement of his unwavering friendship, "… I'll be right back."
"Fine, no worries, I'll sit tight."
Checking she had stepped out the room Fin leant forward and pushed at her cell phone's home screen, predictably finding a stream of unread messages. The number hadn't been saved to her phone, and so the digits were there for the taking. Various platitudes, apologies, fumbling attempts to explain himself were coming from Elliot but his response to them all did not come from Olivia.
"We need to talk. Meet me in the old bar tonight. Don't make this worse by not showing up – Tutuola."
"I wish I could say it was good to see you."
"Then why'd you contact me?" asked Elliot, not about to be dangled along by Odafin Tutuola despite the circumstances surrounding their meeting at the back of a crowded bar. Barely audible amid the hum of rowdy Friday evening drinkers he shrugged, "Why'd you have me come here?"
"Because I'm not about to stand by and watch you break her heart…." pausing for a beat, swallowing hard on his drink Fin met Elliot's gaze, "….twice."
"None of your business Tutuola."
"Nah, nah I'm sorry Romeo but that line ain't gonna work anymore. Maybe once, maybe back then, but not anymore, not now. You being back here? You screwing up what's taken her years to build? That's my business. That, my friend, is very much my business."
"I made a mistake in coming back here and once I had it wasn't….."
"Why did you come back? Just for the thrill of it? Turn her life upside down? Shake it by the pant legs and then walk away again?" scoffing with poorly masked distain Fin added, "You get some sort of kick out of it? Power trippin' are you?"
"I honestly…."
"You're different."
"Huh?"
"You're acting like an ass, sure, you are, but you're not the same…." furrowing thick brows Fin searched Elliot's face, long and hard, "… what's your deal Stabler? What's going on?"
"I didn't, I mean, it took me by surprise…." chewing on the inside of his cheek Elliot realised that Fin was the best chance he had of damage limitation and so he tried to be as candid as possible, "… that it was still there."
"What was?"
"All of it."
"Jesus…"
"All of it."
Closing his eyes Fin held them shut. All of it, he sighed to himself, all of the fights and the late nights and the stolen glances and the agonizing sexual tension. He had witnessed it all and suddenly it was all coming flooding back. Benson and Stabler. Of course it was still there, it had never gone away; it probably never would.
"Wow…." he had been right, painfully so, to fear Elliot's return with the full force of his being. His reaction was every bit as devastating as Olivia's. "You two really are just each other's kryptonite aren't you? It'd be romantic if it wasn't so damn tragic."
"I was naïve, stupid, a total idiot I realise now. I've been exorcising some old ghosts, demons maybe. It's been a process, of coming to terms I guess, of letting things go…."
"This all part of some kind of therapy? Or?"
"I guess she was the one thing I was still holding onto. The one thing I couldn't quite let go."
"She was successfully letting go of you….." lied Fin, knowing in his gut it wasn't true but wanting to hurt Elliot so badly in that moment he didn't much care, "… till you jumped back in with your old size nines and fucked that right up."
"That was not my intention."
"Really?" asked Fin pointedly. "Besides, don't you have a wife? Kids? You found them pretty easy to let go of did you?"
"It's a complicated situation."
"Un-complicate it for me…." forced Fin, slamming his glass hard onto the table between them, "… won't you please?"
"It was selfish of me, it was, and I get that now. I knew that she'd moved on, I knew it and I thought it was real. I did, you gotta believe me. I thought I could come back without causing…."
"Carry on…."
"I knew she had a son. I knew she was dating Tucker and as much as I can't stand the guy I heard good things. I heard she was happy. After everything…." a fleeting moment told Fin that Elliot knew about William Lewis, "… she was happy. She'd moved on."
"She had….." and then, because no matter how mistrustful he was no denying the one consistently decent vein in Elliot's body had always been his love for Olivia, "… ish."
"I couldn't leave things the way they were. I couldn't have our last conversation be what it had been. I couldn't have her living out the rest of her life without knowing…." there was something in Elliot's demeanour, a chill in his voice, that set Fin on edge, "… how sorry I was. How sorry I am. I needed her forgiveness. I needed to atone for…."
"Atone?" plucking that one word Fin's heart stopped. A strange word, not Elliot's but his God's. Why now, why now, why now, the same phrase repeated over and over in Fin's mind.
"I guess I'd put it in a box. Me and her. I thought I could keep it locked up. I thought I could come here and make right without…."
"Falling in love with her all over again?" sighed Fin heavily, dropping his head into his hands and pinching a broad hand over his eyes. "Jesus, Stabler, you're dumber than even I realised."
"Screw you Tutuola, screw you."
"Hey, hey you don't get to…."
"You just bring me here to insult me? Did you? I'm trying to be honest!" flared Elliot, throwing the table back and thrusting himself up from it. "Yeah well go to hell. I don't have time for this crap!"
"Hey!"
"I don't have time for this crap!" clenched fists, his veins standing above his skin Elliot stood glued to the floor. Breathing heavy, chest rising and falling, he stared at Fin dead in the eye and half choked half cried, "I'm running out of time…."
"Bro…."
"I'm sick."
"What?" stunned for a moment Fin reached out, clasped his hand on Elliot's shoulder and shoved him back down into his seat. "Elliot?"
"I'm sick…." repeated Elliot, the gravity of it falling tonne after tonne on his shoulders as he crumpled onto the table and buried his head in his hands, "… and I couldn't die with her hating me."