October 19, 2021
As she watched he closed the door and then leaned back against it, crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at her from across the room, and she felt it, the anxiety, the anger, rising inside of her; what the fuck did he think he was doing, showing up at her office in the middle of the afternoon, looking at her like she'd done something wrong? She did feel like she'd done something wrong, but she was obstinate, defiant in the face of him calling her out for it.
"So," he said darkly, "you're alive, after all."
She hadn't called, and she hadn't told him she was back at work, and she hadn't done it because she was too fucking scared of what might happen next, because it was too much to carry, him and her and everything they meant to one another, and if she'd been in his shoes she would have been incandescent with rage, pickled inside by all the bitterness of a jilted lover, but how dare he, she thought, how dare he chastise her for going a few days without answering his messages when he'd abandoned her for ten years?
"Do you actually need something, Elliot, or are you just here to frown at me? Because I got shit to do-"
"Cut the crap, Liv," he answered tightly. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
That was the thing about Elliot; sometimes he was gentle with her, understood what she needed and why she needed it and offered her comfort when she was low and lost and searching, and sometimes he got in her face, made her so mad she saw red, talked to her the way no one else ever dared to, and the worst part about it was that no matter what he did, no matter whether he rested his hand tenderly on the nape of her neck or got into a knockdown dragout fight with her in the middle of the station house, she always felt better, after. Maybe it was fucked up - maybe she was fucked up - but sometimes she just needed to fight, and he was never afraid to bare his teeth. They could claw and scrape and scream at one another, and it didn't matter, didn't matter how angry they got, didn't matter how sad they got, because at the end of the day they were always holding on to each other, still. They never let go, no matter how far sideways shit went between them. Damn near twenty-five years, and he was still holding on, and that had to count for something.
Or it would count for something, later. When she wasn't so fucking mad at him.
"I'm perfectly fucking fine," she fired back. "What the hell's the matter with you? Showing up here in the middle of the day, yelling at me-"
"I'm not yelling-"
"What would you call it, then?"
"I'm trying to talk to you," he ground out from behind clenched teeth, "because I thought we were doing good and I thought everything was ok and then you went radio silent on me and I got no idea what the fuck is going on."
"You're one to talk about silence," she reminded him fiercely. "You're the one who-"
"Bullshit," he said. "Yeah, I left. Yeah, I didn't answer your calls. But we both know why and we both know I hated it as much as you did and we both know that's not the reason you stopped talking to me. You're running, Liv. Just like you always do."
That was the other thing about Elliot; he understood her always, better than anyone else. He knew what she was like, what she was afraid of, knew secrets she'd never divulged to anyone else, knew so much about her that it made him fucking dangerous. He looked at her, and he saw. All the things she'd tried to hide, all the saddest, softest parts of her. He knew, in a way she'd never been known, and she didn't know what to do with it, didn't know how to stand here, and just be Olivia, not a Captain, not a mother, not the version of herself she'd created to survive in this fucked up world without him, but just Olivia, a woman who was a little sad and a little lonesome and wanted him with everything she had. She didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could think of.
She kept fighting.
"You're gonna accuse me of running," she started to say, rising to her feet, driven upright by her anger, thinking about Elliot, and all the running he'd done in his life. He'd run from the mother who'd hurt him and the father he didn't want to face, had run from his freedom and the chance to make his own future and straight back into Kathy's arms, had run from Kathy every time shit got hard, had run from the job, run from Olivia, at the end, had run out of his apartment the night of the intervention, had been running so long it was a wonder he hadn't worn out the soles of his shoes.
"Yeah, I am," he said. "Because that's what you do, Liv. Your whole life, you have run from every man who ever cared about you. And don't stand there and tell me it's not true because you and I both know it is."
For a moment all she could do was just stare at him, her mouth hanging open, too furious, too wounded, too embarrassed to fucking speak. Part of her wanted to fight him, to push back, to tell him he was full of shit, but he wasn't, and she knew it. There had been so many times, over the years, when she'd brushed up against something that felt like happiness, and she'd turned her back on it, every time. Kurt wanted to move in with her and she pulled away, David wanted to disclose and she wouldn't let him and it cost them both their future, Ed…Ed. Ed wanted everything with her and she'd bolted, and now he was dead and Elliot was standing there, staring her down, not quietly letting her go the way Ed had done, but holding on, still.
"You told me you loved me," Elliot bore in relentlessly, still glowering at her from across the room. "Did you mean it?"
"Did you?" she countered at once.
"Yes."
He said it fiercely, vehemently, without hesitation, unblinking and unbowed, unafraid to face the truth that had paralyzed her. All this potential, all this possibility, everything they could be, it overwhelmed her, left her frozen in place, but it propelled him forward, made him rise up off the door and walk straight across the room, right behind her desk, and she turned as he drew near, turned to face him but backed away in the same moment, and anyone looking through the blinds could see them now, could see her backed up behind the credenza behind her desk and him in front of her, staring her down. Anyone could see, but no one could possibly understand what was happening in that room, no one but them.
"I meant it when I was half crazy in front of my kids and I meant it when I thought we were gonna die and I mean it right now," he told her.
At this close range she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze, and it was hard, Jesus, it was hard to look at him, to see the fire in his blue eyes, to see the yearning there, to feel the pull of her own heart, crying out for him and recoiling from him both at the same time.
But but but a small, frightened part of her seemed to whisper. She wanted him, but. But he'd left her, hurt her, scared her, didn't know about Lewis, didn't know the truth about Ed. She wanted him but she was terrified of how devastated she'd be if things didn't work out. She wanted him but she was so, so scared she'd lose herself in loving him, and never be the same again.
But. Maybe that would be a good thing, changing. Maybe she'd change for the better.
"I'm not gonna stand here and apologize for shit that happened ten years ago," he said. "I'm not gonna go over the same ground again and again and I don't think you want to, either. I'm just gonna ask you this: what do you want from me, Olivia?"
The way he said it, he wasn't being cruel. There was no self-pity in it, no petulance. It wasn't a demand for her to forgive him, or stop holding him accountable for the sins of the past. He genuinely wanted to know, she thought. He wanted to know what she wanted from him.
And the answer was simply this: she wanted everything.
She wanted him like this, angry and in her space, not letting her run away from him. She wanted him like he'd been that night in the hospital, when he'd told her he was going under the knife for Mia and he'd looked at her like she held his whole world in the palm of his hand. She wanted his laughter, the way he used to grin at her when he bought her a hot dog off the cart, when he remembered she took hers with extra relish and ordered it that way without asking. She wanted him wrapped around her in the dark and holding her hand in the daylight and she wanted all of it.
But she was never, ever gonna ask for it; how could she? For all the time she'd known him, most of their adult lives, at this point, the parts that mattered, anyway, for all those years he had not been hers to want. Whatever she wanted she could not ask for it, not from him. He wasn't hers, and he was never supposed to be, but here he stood, offering her everything, and how was she supposed to take it? How was she supposed to break a habit a quarter century in the making? The walls she'd built around herself were so high she didn't even know where to begin knocking them down.
Elliot, though, Elliot was a goddamn wrecking ball.
Though she could not find the words he seemed to see the answer in her eyes, and he stepped closer, stepped so close their chests were touching, stepped so close she felt her ass press back into the credenza and her legs moved on reflex, widening slightly, her stance shifting, just enough for Elliot to slide one thick thigh between both of hers, just enough for her to feel the weight and the warmth of him settle against her, and she stopped breathing, the moment he touched her, her lungs frozen, her heart careening wildly in her chest. He leaned in close, and her eyes were trained on his face, on the only place where it was safe to look, not on the thickness of his neck where she longed to sink her teeth or the glimpse of his bare chest above his unfastened shirt buttons or the breadth of his shoulders or the taut muscles of the thigh pressing into her; she looked where it was safe, but he seemed beyond the point of such restraint, because as she looked at him, she saw him looking at her. Saw how his eyes went hooded and dark when he glanced down to the place where their bodies had fallen together, saw the want in him when his gaze lingered on the swell of her breast at the open collar of her blouse, saw him looking at her like she was beautiful, like she was something he wanted to touch.
And then he reached out, very slowly, and brushed her hair back from her face, let his hand settle beneath it on the nape of her neck, his touch electrifying and comforting both at the same time.
"What do you want, Olivia?" he asked her again, in a voice gone low and gravelly with need.
If someone on the squad glanced through her office windows right now they'd see Elliot's back, would catch a glimpse of Olivia hidden behind his bulk, but what they would not see was the way she gasped, just a little, as he pressed that much closer to her and she felt the shocking evidence of his growing hard-on against her thigh. They would not be able to see the way her eyes widened, or the way her hips rocked, ever so slightly, closer to him. If someone looking through her office windows right now they would see too old friends standing a little too close; they would not see a woman who had lived her life believing happiness was beyond her reach decide, for the very first time, to take hold of what she wanted.
"I want you," she said, breathlessly.
"Good," he said, and one of those smug, beautiful grins she loved so much flashed across his face, but before she had the chance to call him an asshole his mouth crashed into hers, and her eyes slammed shut, and the whole world came to an end right there in her office in the gentle sunlight of an autumn afternoon.
