She wasn't sleeping, and he knew it. In the car, in the cribs, he could always tell, and now was no different; now was worse, maybe, because they were lying in the same bed, and he could feel the tension in her, like a telegraph wired to him through the mattress. It was late, and dark, Christ, it was dark, darker than it ever got in the city, and they were both lying very still, trying not to breathe too hard while McKenna dozed comfortably between them, oblivious to the turmoil that wracked the grownups who had taken charge of her.
Olivia's arm was thrown over the pillow behind McKenna's head, her wrist dangling near Elliot's face, close enough for him to just barely make out the time on the dimly lit face of her watch. That watch; it was big, and silver, a men's watch, probably, cinched as tight as it would go to keep it in place around her delicate wrist, the kind of watch she'd always favored, and perfect for her, he thought, because wasn't that just like her, big and bold and brash, and fragile, underneath it all. The watch told him it was just after three in the morning, and he didn't think either of them had managed to sleep for more than a few minutes since they'd laid down, and it made him feel a little foolish, lying there trying to keep his breathing slow and even when neither of them were anywhere close to dreams. What was the point of keeping up their charade? Then again, he thought, what else could they do?
In the darkness it was hard to make out details, but he could see the shape of Liv's face, the strong, proud line of her jaw, the soft curve of her mouth, the slope of her breast beneath the blankets. He swallowed hard, and dragged his gaze back up to her face; now was not the time to be looking at her tits, or thinking about how beautiful she was, not when they were both awake, and tired, with a toddler sleeping between them. Not that there ever was a good time for him to look at her tits or think about how beautiful she was; she had been his partner, off limits for so long, and maybe they weren't partners anymore but he knew what she was now, and knew she'd never want him, not like that. How could she? How could she care for a man, when she knew one day he'd die, and leave her, when she knew he'd never really understand the reality of her endless life? What could he possibly give to her that was worth the sacrifices she'd have to make?
Her eyes flickered open and he sucked in a sharp breath; he hadn't meant for her to catch him looking, and now it was too late to pretend he hadn't been.
"Hey," he said hoarsely, his voice so faint he wasn't really sure he'd spoken at all. Maybe he'd just thought it. She heard him, anyway.
"Hey," she said, and her voice was as low and soft as his had been. "You should be sleeping."
"You first," he said, and shot her a half-hearted grin.
She hummed and looked away; his attempt at levity had fallen flat. Of course it did; there was something about the darkness that didn't seem to leave room for humor. There was something suffocating about it, something about being awake when the rest of the world was deep in slumber that made him want to be honest, not funny. There were things he needed to tell her, and the words were crawling up the back of his throat, eager to bare themselves in the feeble light of her watch face, too weak to survive in the radiance of the morning sun.
"Been thinking," he said, and her eyes snapped back to his face, and his heart started to pound. He wanted to tell her the truth, but once the words were spoken there would be no taking them back. Once he breathed life into the thoughts that weighed heavy on his mind he would be free of them, but she would be haunted by them, hurt by them. But if he didn't tell her now, when would he? The very shape of the world seemed to be changing all around them, and he might never get another chance.
"When this is over…I don't think I'm coming back, Liv."
"To the city?" she asked, alarmed, and he grit his teeth; she wasn't gonna make this easy on him.
"To the job," he said.
"Elliot-"
No, he thought, no, he could not let her interrupt him, could not let her stall his momentum, because if he let her stop him now he might not ever get the words out and then what would become of him?
"Look, if I fight for my job, chances are good I'm gonna lose it. Tucker wants me gone, Liv. He'd just cleared me on sexual assault charges and then I went and killed a kid."
"Those charges were made up-"
"Truth doesn't matter, come on, you know that. It's optics. I've got too many marks against me and IAB wants me gone. If I fight 'em, they're gonna take my pension. And I can't let that happen. That pension's half Kathy's - " her payment, he figured, for all the decades of bullshit she'd put up with, and all the years she hadn't been able to work because she'd been stuck at home raising his babies while he was on the other side of the city - "and we've still got three kids to put through college."
On the other side of the bed Olivia's eyes were wide with shock, with hurt; she had always been an open book to him, and he'd always known, had always known just what she was thinking, had always known better than to believe her when she said she was fine. That look on her face right now; she wasn't fine at all.
"You can't…you can't just leave me, El." The words were sad, and scared, and small, and cut him like a knife, but through the sorrow they made him angry, too, just a little.
"See, this is why I didn't wanna tell you," he said, scrubbing his hands over his face. "I knew…"
Too late he'd realized what he'd been on the verge of saying, and swallowed his tongue, but the damage was done; Liv wasn't gonna let it go.
"Knew what?" she pressed him. "What?"
"I knew that if I told you I was leaving you were gonna say some shit like that to me and I was gonna want to change my mind," he grumbled.
In his head, he knew what the right decision was. The job was killing him by inches, and it had already destroyed his family, and the thought of strapping on his gun and going back out into the city was a terrifying one; it felt like a death sentence, somehow. If he stayed on the force he was gonna die on the force. It was a truth he felt more than understood, a fear rooted deep in his bones, the scent of disaster hanging on the air. He had to break out, had to turn away from the path he'd gone racing down and find some way to redeem himself, to claw his way back to Elliot, and leave the Detective behind before it swallowed him whole. In his head, he knew all that. In his heart, he could not bear the thought of leaving Olivia behind. His heart was crying out for her, recoiling at the idea of someone else walking beside her, furious to think she might go out into the city alone and unprotected without him there to watch her back. What the fuck was going to happen to her if he left? How could he do that to her?
That's what he'd been afraid of; he knew what he needed to do, and he knew he would turn away from the righteous path and sacrifice his very life just to be near her.
"Leaving the job doesn't have to mean leaving you," he said. "We can-"
"We can what?" she snapped, bitter now, the way she got when she was hurting. "Get dinner sometime, if I'm not working? See each other once a month? How long you think that's gonna last?"
"You saying you'd stop coming to see me?"
"I'm saying you need to be realistic! You know what this job does to people."
That was a low blow, he thought; she was talking about him and Kathy. She was talking about how he'd gotten too caught up in the job and stopped being present with his wife and lost her in the process, and saying the same damn thing was gonna happen all over again with him and Liv if they didn't have the job to hold them together, and it wounded him, not least because he was pretty sure she was right.
"And besides," she ground in relentlessly. "What are you going to do? I mean…you're a cop, Elliot."
"And that's all I'll ever get to be?" he fired back. "You've always been like this, Liv, you've always-"
"Are you saying it's my fault you-"
"I'm saying, you remember that night sitting in front of my house? You remember us talking? I told you you could walk away and you said you couldn't. But you could, Liv. You act like you don't have a choice, but all you've got is choices, and you keep making the same ones."
That did it; he'd no sooner finished speaking than she rolled out of bed and onto her feet, making a beeline for the door, pissed as hell. Trust Liv, he thought, to run when things got hard, when he got too close to something she didn't wanna talk about; she always ran.
Not this time.
He bounded out of bed, careful not to disturb McKenna but moving as fast as he could, and he caught Liv by the door, grabbed hold of her arm and swung her back around to face him. It was darker there by the door, further away from the window, but though he could not see her clearly he could feel the anger and the hurt pouring out of her, crashing into him.
"When I was a kid, I wanted to be an architect," he told her. "I loved to draw. We'd drive into the city and I'd have my nose up against the window, just staring at the buildings. I loved it, Liv. It was the only thing I wanted. But my old man said drawing was for girls. He used to hit me if he caught me doing it. And Kathy got pregnant and I needed a job and I ended up here, because that's the only life my old man ever would've let me imagine for myself. Yeah, I'm a cop. Yeah, I love it. But it doesn't have to be me. It doesn't have to be the only thing I ever get to be. Jesus, Liv, is this really wanted for yourself when you were a kid?"
What had her dreams looked like, when she was small and her mother kept her hidden away? What had she wanted for herself, and was it anything like what she got? There was so much he didn't know about her, so many things he desperately wanted to learn, and maybe they were falling apart in that tiny bedroom but maybe they'd find their way back to themselves there, too.
"It doesn't matter what I wanted then," she said. "Things change, Elliot. We find our own way. This…you're good at this. It makes you feel good. It gives you purpose."
She was right about that; he'd felt rudderless, useless, without the job these last few months, but while he'd been stuck in limbo he hadn't been able to reach for anything else. If he finally let go of the job, maybe he could be somebody. If she let him.
"And it keeps me with you," he said. "That's what this is about, isn't it?"
What about me, she'd asked him in the hospital after Gitano, and you can't just leave me, she'd told him tonight, and he wanted her to come out and fucking say it, for once, wanted to know exactly what she wanted from him because if she'd only tell him what she wanted then maybe he could give it to her.
"That's what you think of me?" she said in a quivering voice, though he could not tell whether it was tears or rage that made her words come out so unsteady. "You think I'm that selfish?"
"I think you're lonely," he said. "But you don't have to be."
His hand was still wrapped around her upper arm, fingers digging in to soft flesh, holding her close. In their bare feet he was a few inches taller and she had to tilt her chin back to look up at him, and he could see her eyes shining at him, could see her whole body shaking as she tried to keep her breathing even, tried to keep from exploding, tried to keep from making too much noise and waking McKenna up. Their whole conversation had been conducted in breathy whispers, voices quiet but burning with the heat of their emotions, and it was taking its toll on both of them, having to be so restrained.
"Yes, I do," she told him sadly. "That's all I'm ever gonna be."
It broke something inside him, hearing those words from her. The quiet acceptance of her lot in life, the resignation to the idea that she would, always, be alone, the total lack of fight from a woman he knew possessed the heart and the strength and the fire to take on hell itself, it shattered him. In that moment, he broke, and he did the only thing he could think of, the only thing he could do.
He used his hold on her arm to pull her closer, and sank his mouth over hers.