September 20, 2015

Perfect, she was perfect, perfect like a painting, perfect like a storm, perfect like the first warm day of spring when life blooms once again and joy returns to the earth. Perfect, prettier than anything he'd ever seen in his entire goddamn life, leaning against the doorframe and smiling that smile that said she knew exactly the effect she was having on him, that smile that said she was proud of it, and had every right to be, as far as he was concerned.

Perfect, she was perfect, all thick dark hair and big dark eyes, wearing a black lacy negligee, dipping low, so low over the swell of her breast it made his mouth water to see it, nipples hard as diamonds and pressing enticingly against the thin fabric and he just knew if he put his mouth on her there she'd scream, and his heart would sing at the sound of it. Perfect, every inch of her perfect, and nothing more perfect than the heavy roundness of her belly where their child lay nestled in the warmth of her, just beneath her beating heart.

"Are you ready for me, daddy?" she asked him, grinning, and if he wasn't so achingly hard for her he might have laughed, remembering the first time she'd said those to words to him, remembering her half naked and wrapping herself around him and the way he'd felt himself blush from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair. There was no blushing now, and no need for it anyway, because she belonged to him, and him to her, because he knew the taste of her like his favorite wine, knew the sight and the sound and the smell of her, because it was him who'd put that baby in her belly, his bed she was going to at the end of a long day.

"Come to daddy," he said, his voice thick and dark, and he didn't miss the way her eyes flashed at him when he said it. She liked that, and Christ, he did, too, and all she had to do was move, just take one step, and then another, and fall into his waiting his arms, but she didn't, didn't move, just stayed right where she was, leaning in the doorway, pretty as a picture.

Why wouldn't she move? Didn't she know how he loved her, how he longed for her, how the sight of her like this, half-bare and pregnant with his child, drove him near mad with lust? Didn't she want him? Why -

The shrill ringing of his cellphone shattered his dream like glass and he woke with a start, sweating and half-hard in his jeans, his heart thundering through his chest. His hands moved on instinct, dove into his pocket to retrieve his phone while his mind tried to shake off the dream, tried to make some sense of his surroundings. He wasn't at home, in his bed, and Liv wasn't pregnant, and even if she were there was no way in hell that baby was his because he'd never so much as kissed her and she hated him and was never gonna let him now, not that it mattered because he was still married and unwilling to be the man who did that to either of them, Liv or Kathy, no matter how his subconscious might have betrayed him.

He wasn't at home; he was sitting behind the wheel of his car a few doors down from Liv's new house. After the first night he'd gone home and stayed there, because Kathy would've killed him if he kept spending the night out of the house, because Liv would've killed him if she caught him - hell, Jackie would've, too - because he needed a shower, because he knew he couldn't spend the rest of his life standing guard in front of Liv's door. It was driving him crazy, though, passing his days keeping watch over Liv and yet unable to speak to her, spending his nights tossing and turning, wondering what she was doing, wondering if she was safe. But she'd been in Omaha for a full week and the surveillance period had ended, and he couldn't stay away tonight, knowing there would be no one else to watch her back. Surely, he'd thought, a week wasn't long enough to confirm no one was coming for her. There was nothing magical about seven days; hell, someone could've found her already, could've just been waiting for a break in her security to strike, and no way was he gonna leave her alone. He'd promised to protect her and he couldn't bear to break a promise to Liv; not another one.

Not like he'd done her much good, though, seeing as how he'd fallen asleep in the middle of his stakeout.

"Yeah?" he said into the phone; he hadn't even looked to see who was calling.

"We got a situation." It was Jackie. "Something tripped the alarm at Lindsey's place."

Elliot's eyes swept the street at once, every muscle in his body tight while the adrenaline rush of danger surged through him like lightning, while shame gripped his heart like a vice. How could he have done this, been so lax as to fall asleep? How could he have sat there, dreaming untoward things about her, while danger came knocking at her door? If something happened to her now, if he'd been right to be wary but stupid enough to fall asleep, he'd never forgive himself.

"I'm on my way," he said, already sliding out of the car.

"I'll meet you there."

Jackie hung up and Elliot did, too, shoved his phone in his pocket and pulled out his gun, and then he ran across the street, his eyes darting back and forth, looking everywhere for signs of the possible intruders, though he found none. No footsteps in the dirt, no sound of calling voices; the front door was locked when he tried it.

The first step would be to secure the house, to find a point of entry. With the front door locked and all the windows visibly closed he figured the problem had to have originated around the back of the house, and so he went there, moving as quickly and as quietly as he could, let himself in through the gate in the fence, and then froze halfway across the yard.

What he found was not men dressed all in black with guns in their hands; what he found was not a door busted in. There was no blood trail, no echoing sound of shots or screams.

There was only Liv, sitting on the steps leading from her back door down to the grass, wearing soft black shorts and a soft grey hoodie, smoking a cigarette with the light from the back door framing her head like a halo.

"Liv?" he called softly as he approached her in confusion, the gun still clutched tight in both his hands.

"What are you doing here?"

"Someone tripped the alarm."

She sighed, rolled her eyes, casually flicked the ash from the end of her cigarette, and he watched it all with something like anger licking up the base of his spine. How could she be so cavalier with her own safety, he wondered; how dare she scare him like this? And what the fuck was she doing with a cigarette? Thirteen years together, he'd never seen her smoke.

"Shit," she muttered. "Must've been me. I set it earlier tonight, I guess I forgot about it."

"You don't have your phone?" The alarm system was linked to an app on her phone, and she should've gotten a notification when she tripped the alarm, should've been able to turn it off before it alerted Jackie.

He holstered his gun and pulled out his own phone, fired off a quick text to Jackie.

False alarm, he wrote. All good here.

It was only after he sent the text that he realized he'd told Jackie he was on his way to Liv's house and texted her less than a minute later; she'd know, he realized, that he was here already when she called. A problem for another day.

"What do I need a phone for?" Liv asked bitterly. "I've got no one to talk to, and I'm not allowed on social media, and I'm damn sure not gonna sit here and read the news."

His phone buzzed, a text from Jackie.

I'm coming anyway. Protocol. We still gotta clear the house.

Things just kept getting worse and worse.

"So you're just gonna sit out here alone in the dark with nothing to do?"

"I'm thinking," she said grimly.

"And smoking," he said. "What's that about?"

Jesus, this was strange. Standing two feet away from Liv, talking to her, not about the things he'd done and the things he wished he could change and the apologies he wanted to make but about what the fuck she was doing, acting like she was someone he'd never met before.

"It's just something I do sometimes," she said with a maddening sort of shrug.

"Why?" There was no reason why the sight of Liv with a cigarette in her hand should've made him angry but it did, just the same. Made him angry because goddamn it, she should've known better, made him angry because she had a habit he didn't know anything about, and he didn't like feeling as if she were a stranger.

"Just to prove I can," she said, and that didn't make any sense at all, and he could feel the muscles in his jaw tightening, frustration and sorrow winding through his chest.

"You should go home, Elliot," she continued, and then a curious look came over her face and she tilted her head to the side, regarding him thoughtfully. "Does Kathy know I'm here?"

"No," he said, and almost choked on it. "I mean, I can't leave. Jackie says it's protocol, we gotta clear the house because of the alarm. And no, Kathy doesn't know you're here."

"You should tell her," Liv said softly, and as she spoke she dropped her gaze, and some of the bravado fell away from her, her shoulders curling in as if to protect herself from some unseen blow. The cigarette was still burning between her fingers but he'd yet to see her take a single drag from it.

"I can't," he answered. "It's - "

"Protocol."

"Yeah."

Liv sighed, and stubbed the half-burnt cigarette out on the brick of the steps beneath her. "I don't like you lying to her."

It wouldn't be the first time, he thought. Snatches of his dream kept playing like some godforsaken film behind his eyelids, taunting him with the twisted desires of his own heart.

"That's the job."

"Well, you've always done your job." Somehow she made it sound like an accusation, but as far as Elliot was concerned he had nothing to apologize for in that regard. Damn right, he'd always done his job, and she had, too.

"That's what we do," he said tersely.

"Do it, then. Go ahead, clear the house, and then you can go home. Job done."

That's what it is, he realized. She thought he was only here because of the job, thought he only cared about her and her safety because he was being paid to do it. She couldn't have been more wrong; it wasn't the job that had him sleeping in his car three houses down from her front door. It wasn't the job that brought him here tonight. It wasn't the job he'd been dreaming about. It was her, just her.

"You're more than a job to me," he told her quietly. "You always have been."

"Don't lie," she snapped, rising suddenly to stand on the steps, taller than him for once, righteous in her fury and her sorrow. "You say whatever you want to Kathy but don't you dare lie to me."

That was how it had always been, wasn't it? Kathy was his wife, but Kathy got half-truths and silence. It was Liv who got the truth, Liv who got the whole of him.

What a mess.

It would be another ten minutes at least before Jackie turned up, ten minutes for Elliot to spend alone with Liv, to speak to her, properly, for the first time since he'd crashed back into her life and now, he thought, it has to be now; there was no telling when he'd get another chance to have her to himself, another chance to try to put things to rights between them. It had to be now.

"Listen," he said. "Everything I did, I did it for you, Liv."

In that moment she looked for all the world like she wanted to hit him, and he wouldn't have blamed her if she had.

Here we go, he thought.