A/N: I changed a few events in the timeline but I think they still fit here. Hope you like it!
Chapter 9
The apartment was empty as she opened the front door and quickly closed it again. She was really starting to hate that, which was ironic on some level. She'd spent so many years coming home to an empty apartment and now that it was empty again, even temporarily, she hated it. Before she craved the silence – the world's noise could be drowned out by the walls of the apartment. Now that lack of noise was deafening more so than the other day – it seemed to grow with each day.
Albert had been glad to see his mother and the two had been moved from the hospital to a safe hotel. They had round the clock protection from the local precinct. Still the young man was skittish and Olivia wondered if he'd really help them catch Oscar Papa.
Better news on the Taglietti side of things though. Mario had been forced to realize all that had been going on – whether he'd wanted to admit it or not. She'd seen the look on his face, like the man he'd spent his whole life looking up to, had somehow betrayed him. She wasn't sure how naïve he really was, but he certainly played the part well.
There was a knock on the front door and she let out a breath that she didn't even realize she was holding. She bade the officer on the other side of the door to go ahead and open it. She realized that she hadn't bothered to lock it. Kind of silly she supposed with two officers standing outside it, still she wondered why she'd be so cavalier. Thoughts of her own safety weren't paramount. Noah wasn't home to protect.
"I know that look," Olivia whirled around to find her former partner standing there, closing the front door behind him.
"Oh yeah? You in the habit of still knowing what my face looks like?" She asked.
"There are certain looks that never change. I hope you don't mind me stopping by, but you weren't answering your phone again," Elliot told her. Olivia huffed and pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. It was dead. Shaking her head, she found the cord that she left plugged into the power strip near the couch. The phone buzzed to life and messages continued to pop up.
"You really need to keep a better eye on that. I know you've probably got bigger things on your mind but you being out of contact is going to send a lot of people into a tizzy," he said.
"Tizzy?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Something my mom said the other day," he chuckled.
"How is she?" Olivia wanted to know as she took a seat on the couch. Elliot heaved a sigh and sat down next to her.
"She has her good days and her bad days. Though the bad days are starting to outweigh the good ones. Just before you got attacked, she set the table like Kathy was coming to dinner," he admitted. Olivia frowned slightly.
"That's got to be hard," she said.
"I knew that I couldn't stay in Italy for much longer. Maureen and Kathleen had been keeping an eye on her, but they knew she needed more help. Things all kind of fell into place… makes me think about destiny," he admitted.
"El…" Olivia started. She knew he was going down a rabbit hole that he should not. He was coming back to New York to take care of his mom, to be closer to his older children, and the bonus was seeing his old friends and colleagues. No one could have seen what happened to Kathy coming. After all, what if he'd opened the car door? Would she be consoling his children and Kathy? Would she be eyeball deep in a bottle of wine? She could picture it and it wasn't one that she wanted to entertain. She hated that she had had to console Elliot after Kathy passed. Kathy was a good person and she did not deserve what happened to her. Her children did not deserve to lose their mother that way. While working for the NYPD, most officers could picture something happening to themselves but never their families or spouses.
"You can't do that to yourself," she said.
"I know but… I saw her the other day," Elliot told her.
"Who?" Olivia was confused.
"Kathy. She was sitting in the interrogation room, in a hospital gown," he explained.
"What do you think that means?" She was surprised that he would have admitted to something like that. The old Elliot would not have.
"Honestly… I don't know… the look on her face…" he shook his head. Olivia patted his thigh. He'd chosen his family over everything – including his career and her – all those years ago. It was a flawed decision, overburdened by the depth of emotions swirling from a death of a girl who had acted rashly. That same decision, to leave the NYPD, eventually became a deadly one for Kathy. The other side of that decision had left Olivia holding the bag and picking up the pieces in the wake of the deaths of Jenna and Sister Peg. Here they sat though, in the aftermath of another tragedy, this one hitting closer to home, but not any less filled with guilt, trauma, and a warped sense of everything surrounding it. Sometimes it just manifested in a way that a person would least expect.
She leaned over, her head finding his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and held her close. While they had never done that before, it did not feel wrong. It felt safe. He kissed the top of her head. They sat there, in comfortable silence, until Olivia's phone rang a few minutes later.
To Be Continued…