November 6, 2015

Elliot didn't call, and she didn't expect him to.

Didn't want him to, either, because what the fuck was she supposed to say? If he did reach out, if he did want to talk about what happened, his mouth on her breasts and his hands between her thighs and the burning livewire of desire he'd stirred up inside her, what the fuck was she supposed to say to him? She could not offer him absolution for a sin she'd wanted him to commit - had helped him to commit - and she could not bear to hear him say that he'd made his choice, and not chosen her. No, it was better this way. They both knew they'd made a mistake, and they both knew the only way to rectify it was to make sure it never happened again. She had his number now, but she didn't call him, and he didn't call her either, and the days slipped silently by.

That was the problem with a normal life, she was beginning to realize. In SVU every day was different; there was no telling who was going to walk through the door, what new mystery might lie in wait. Every day there were different people talk to, new challenges to face. When she left the house in the morning she never knew when she was coming back, and sometimes - before Noah - she wouldn't come back at all. Whatever else her life might have been, it was never boring.

This, though, this nice, normal life, was so fucking boring.

Every day the same thing. With Paul's help she'd landed the secretarial job and secured a spot at the daycare for Noah. Every morning she drove her son across town and left him in the capable hands of the teachers at the daycare. Stopped in at Starbucks for a latte, and then went to work. Walked through the doors, sat down in front of her computer. Logged in, checked her boss's messages - her boss's messages. In the city she'd been a goddamn Lieutenant, running her own squad, and now she was taking messages for some puffy asshole in a suit - and then she'd brew a pot of coffee and tear another day off the joke-a-day calendar Paul gave her when she was hired.

Then she'd sit, and wait. Take phone calls as they came in, schedule meetings as her boss requested, type letters for him. The same tasks, every day. Clock out at five, pick Noah up, cook dinner, give Noah a bath, go to bed. Do it all over again. Each new day bled into the last, and she was starting to feel as if she were losing her mind, just a little. Like she was caught in some Groundhog Day nightmare, like she could feel her brain atrophying from lack of use, like there was no point to her at all.

Friday morning was the same as Thursday had been, as Monday was gonna be. She took Noah to daycare. She bought a latte. She went to work. She checked the messages. She started the coffee. And then she pulled yesterday's page off the daily calendar, and frowned.

November 6.

Is it tomorrow? She wondered, staring at the little black-and-white New Yorker cartoon printed on today's page. Is tomorrow Eli's birthday?

She could never remember when exactly it was. November, she knew that. Was it the 7th? Maybe it was the 15th. Somewhere in there, she knew. He'd be what, eight this year? That was right, she thought, he was born in 2007. He was born the same year Olivia met Simon.

Wonder where Simon is now, she thought, sliding back into her chair, staring blankly at her computer screen with her tepid latte clutched in unsteady hands. Had someone told Simon she was dead? She'd left in such a rush, she didn't even know if any of her friends knew how to get ahold of her brother. Maybe he'd seen it in the papers.

Had Kathy seen it? Maybe not, since she and Elliot had just moved to Omaha, but the kids were back in the city, weren't they? Maybe one of them saw a news report about it. Then again maybe not; in her experience there weren't many twenty somethings watching the nightly news or reading the daily paper, and she hardly thought her death would qualify for national coverage.

Did Fin try to call Elliot? Believing that Olivia was dead, had Fin - or Munch, or Cragen - tried to reach out to her old partner? If the job hadn't thrown him into her path, would he have mourned for her? Or would he have carried right on living, oblivious to this loss?

I wonder what my funeral was like.

When Alex went away, she told them first. Insisted on letting Elliot and Olivia in on her secret, didn't force her friends to grieve for a woman who wasn't dead. Olivia wasn't afforded the same grace; everyone who cared about her thought she was dead. Had they moved on? It was nearly two months now since she'd left the city; a lot could change at SVU in two months, she knew.

Wonder who's running the place?

Maybe she didn't want to know, after all.

It would've helped if she had something to do, but her boss wouldn't come traipsing in until at least 10, and there were no emails waiting for her, no assignments. Just the quiet of an office with no one inside it, and the noise of memories rattling around in her head.

The 17th, she remembered suddenly. Eli's birthday was the 17th. A day that had seemed so ordinary in the morning and had become so extraordinary by the afternoon. The date might escape her now and then, but she'd never forget what happened on that day. The blood and the adrenaline and the screaming sound of saws tearing through metal; Kathy's tears, and the fierce grip of her hands; that little baby, slippery and warm and fragile, cradled in Olivia's arms. The way Elliot held her, after. The first time he ever did.

Sometimes she felt as if Eli were her responsibility. Not hers to raise, not hers to love, but hers to watch over. She'd been there for his beginning, protected him from the moment he took his first breath. That boy; she wanted him to be safe, and well, and whole, and how could she have done this to him, she asked herself; how could she have risked Eli's happiness, his family, his future, for a few moment's pleasure? Just because she was lonely, just because she loved Elliot? It didn't matter, what she felt for him, what she wanted from him, how good they were together; Elliot was someone else's husband, father to someone else's children, and she could not have him.

"Would you just let me?" Elliot grumbled, settling his hands on Kathy's hips and trying to guide her away from the sink and the mound of dirty dishes piled inside it.

"I'm not an invalid," she snapped back.

"That cast on your leg says otherwise."

The look she leveled at him was positively murderous.

"It'd be a lot easier to let you help if you'd actually help," she said. "There's three days worth of dishes here, Elliot."

Three days he'd spent promising her he'd get around to washing the dishes and not actually doing it, because between the job and helping Eli with his homework and his efforts to keep the house running while Kathy was resting her broken leg he hadn't managed to wash a single dish. He hadn't managed to do the laundry, either, but there were only so many hours in a day and he had to spend most of them at work. But Kathy wasn't supposed to try to stand, not yet, not even holding onto the counter for balance, and if she tried now she'd only hurt herself worse and then god only knew where they'd be.

"And I'm washing them right now," he said. "Would you just sit down? Please?"

She muttered something under her breath and spun away from him, plopped herself down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and watched him as he rolled up his shirtsleeves.

"I don't like this any more than you do," she said. "I hate feeling useless."

"You're not useless, your leg's broken. You just gotta take it easy."

He felt bad for her, really he did. The last week had been a nightmarish blur; Kathy and Eli were in the car on the way to the grocery store on Saturday morning when some asshole in a pickup blew through a red light and T-boned them. Eli was fine but Kathy's leg was mangled, and they'd patched her up at the hospital but it was gonna be months before she was back to normal. In the meantime Elliot was trying to pick up the slack around the house and he didn't resent it, not even a little - she'd done more than her fair share of picking up his slack over the years, and after the way he'd betrayed her trust he was grateful to have a tangible way to serve her - but he felt about as useless as she did. He couldn't seem to do anything right, couldn't complete all the chores and the ones he did manage to accomplish were never done to her satisfaction. She'd been waspish and unsettled and Elliot was starting to chafe from bearing the brunt of her ill humor. Starting to, but he would not let himself give in to his own unhappiness; this is what you deserve, he thought. In sickness and in health, that's what he'd promised her, and god himself had opened a door, given Elliot an opportunity to make good on the vows he'd taken. That was what it meant, to be a good husband, a good father.

And he was just so damn grateful she was alive.

It was all a little bit of history repeating, he thought. The stranger running a red light, hitting the car with Kathy and Eli inside. Kathy hurt but still breathing, Eli healthy and well, by the grace of god. It was eight years now since the last time Kathy was in a wreck, since the day Eli was born. Since Olivia crawled through a broken car window and shielded his family with her own body, put her life on the line and did everything she could to protect the ones he loved. It was a gift he'd never be able to repay; he was certain, to this day, that Olivia was the one who'd saved Kathy, who'd saved Eli, that without her help inside that car Kathy would've been dead before they ever got her out, and the baby with her.

That was just the kind of person she was. Olivia. She'd rush into the burning building, face down the crazed gunman, do anything for anybody. Selfless, and good, that's what she was.

What the fuck did that make him?