November 14, 2015

You must decide. Your family, or this woman. The choice is yours.

The priest's words kept coming back to him, echoing through his mind loud as church bells at the strangest times.

Like now, tonight. It was the Saturday before Eli's birthday and the older children had all flown to Omaha for the weekend to celebrate. All seven of the Stablers, rowdy and smiling, gathered around one table, surrounded by the empty paper bags and plastic containers that had held their fried chicken dinner. It would be months before Kathy could stand on her own two feet long enough to cook a meal and Elliot had been too busy at work to do it himself, but no one seemed to mind their store-bought dinner. Even Kathy seemed to be in a good mood, for perhaps the first time since she'd come home from the hospital, seemed to delight in the company of all her children.

The choice is yours.

It was no choice at all really, was it? The kids gathered around this table, he loved them more than his own life. The separation had been hard enough eight years ago, when Mo and Katie were grown and the twins were nearly through with high school; how much worse would it be this time, when Eli was still so little? And even if he was willing to do that to them, to break his family in half, what would he be choosing? He couldn't be in an open relationship with Olivia and still work for the Marshals, and if he was no longer a Marshal would they even let him near her? If word got out that he was seeing her, wouldn't the Marshals just pack her up and take her away in the dead of night?

Even if, even if there existed some fairytale world where he would be allowed to continue seeing her it didn't matter, really, because she'd never let him choose her. Wouldn't want him to, wouldn't want him to throw away his job and marriage and hurt his children for her sake. There was a selflessness to her that wasn't entirely altruistic; she wouldn't think she was worth it, he knew. She never thought she deserved nice things.

But Christ, she did. If anyone deserved a nice life, a warm, safe love, a heart to choose hers, it was Olivia.

He'd be that for her, if she let him. If he were truly free to make this choice, if both of Kathy's legs worked and she wouldn't be devastated by the loss of him, if he thought his children could survive it, if he could see any way to make it work, he'd choose Olivia. That was the part that grated, that kept his mind turning back to her. He wanted to choose her, but he didn't feel as if he could. But wasn't settling for the status quo, throwing up his hands and going along with this long standing state of affairs making a choice in and of itself?

What he wanted, more than almost anything else, was to talk to Liv. To really talk to her, to tell her the truth and hear the truth from her. For so long they'd moved together without need of words, understanding one another intrinsically, and he was sure, now - or mostly sure - what she was thinking, what she wanted from him, but maybe actually hearing her say it would bring him the peace, the closure that he needed. There wasn't really anyone in his life he could talk to about this mess - the priest had already made his thoughts plain, and been no help at all - and he needed a friend. His best friend. Wasn't that ironic, he thought, that the one person he most wanted to talk about this choice was the very same person he wasn't sure he was allowed to choose.

"I just think it's weird, that's all," Katie was saying. Elliot gave his head a little shake, tried to focus on the conversation of his family all around him and cast aside all thoughts of Olivia and the choice he couldn't make, the choice he'd maybe made already.

"What's weird?" he asked.

"Mom got in an accident the day Eli was born, and then it happens again right before his birthday."

"There was an accident?" Eli asked, shooting his mother a terrified look. The wreck had left him shaken and nervous about cars, and this latest revelation appeared to have unnerved him.

"Yes, sweetheart," Kathy said, smoothing her hand gently over his hair. "But everything turned out just fine."

Have we never told him that story? Elliot wondered. The other kids didn't have particularly remarkable birth stories, but he was pretty sure they knew at least some of the details of how they'd entered the world. Mo was born while Elliot was deployed, he thought she knew that. Katie had asked what time of day she was born so she could make her star chart once. The twins' delivery had been difficult, but not unusually so, for twins. Eli, though, Eli's birth had been harrowing, and special, and Elliot couldn't believe they'd never talked to him about it before.

But Kathy didn't want to talk to him about it now, either; she shot Elliot a dark look, and changed the subject, and he let her.

Maybe we never talked about it, he thought. Maybe they'd never told Eli anything about that day at all. Come to think of it, he couldn't recall ever really discussing it with Kathy. Ever talking about what Olivia had done for her, how scared Kathy'd been, how she'd felt about the whole thing. In the immediate aftermath she was healing and they had a new baby and they were too busy trying to get through each day, and as Eli grew up they were too busy trying to hold their marriage and together, and no, he thought, no they'd never talked about what Elliot's partner had done for his wife.

The night slipped quietly by, the time passed telling sweeter stories. Maureen and the twins left for their hotel, and Eli and Kathy went to bed, and Elliot lingered in the kitchen, washing the dishes and trying to delay the inevitable. He'd wait until Katie went to bed in the spare room before he stretched out to sleep on the couch, where he'd been every night for the last two weeks. Kathy said she slept better without him beside her, with room enough to spread out and without worrying about whether he'd knock into her leg in his sleep, and he figured she needed the rest. For some reason he didn't want Katie to know about that, though. Didn't want her to know her parents weren't sleeping in the same bed.

It was well after 10:00 p.m. when she came to hug him good night, but as they parted she lingered, her expression soft, and sad.

"I didn't want to mention this at dinner," she said. "But I saw it on the news."

"Saw what?" Elliot didn't even think Katie watched the news.

"That Olivia died."

Shit.

The story the Marshals concocted to cover Olivia's disappearance was a necessary evil, but not one he'd ever thought would touch his family. He'd wondered for a time if someone might call, Fin or Cragen, but he had a new number and he wasn't sure they knew how to reach him, anyway. Before now he'd been grateful for his family's relative isolation from his old life, hadn't wanted to lie to them more than he had to, hadn't wanted to pretend to grieve a woman who was not dead. So much for that; Katie'd found out anyway.

"Yeah," he said heavily.

"Are you…are you ok?"

"Yeah," he said, though the look in her eyes told him plainly that she did not believe him. "I'm…of course I'm sad, sweetheart. I miss her. But I haven't talked to her in a long time, and I'm…I'm ok."

"Oh." She seemed thrown by his answer and he couldn't blame her for that; he was doing a bad job of lying, and he knew it.

How would he have reacted, if Liv really was dead? Even after years of not speaking to her, what would it have done to him to hear that news? He'd probably have drunk himself into a stupor. He'd probably have gone catatonic. He'd probably have moved back to the city and lobbied hard to get his job back and done everything in his power to die in the line of duty just like Liv had done. He'd have been beside himself with grief, wrecked, ruined.

And if he let Olivia go now, that was the future that waited for him. He'd live out his days sacrificing all of himself for his family, and then one day he'd learn that she was gone, and the grief would surely drive him mad.

The choice is yours.

How could he choose? Between a life that was familiar to him but a life without Olivia in it, or a series of question marks, with answers that terrified him? He might lose his family and Olivia both, if he chose her.

He might not, though.

"I'm ok," he said again. He wasn't, not by a long shot.

"Ok." Katie let him lie. "Good night, dad."

"Good night, baby."

She went upstairs, and he heard the sound of the bedroom door closing behind her.

The choice is yours.

He finished washing the dishes.

Olivia died.

He sat down on the couch.

We can't do this.

He buried his head in his hands.

Olivia died.

He stood up, and started looking around for his keys.

It was beyond stupid, really, turning up at her door at nearly midnight. What the fuck was he even going to say? I love you, but I think I'll ruin everything if I try to choose you, but if I don't try I think it's all ruined, anyway. That was hardly a coherent thought, let alone some grand romantic overture.

But they didn't need a grand romantic overture right now, he thought. They didn't need the pretty words, the right words; they just needed the truth. He just needed to see her. He just needed her to know that it wasn't easy for him, walking away from her. Needed her to know he didn't want to. He needed her to tell him to pull his head out of his ass. He needed her the way he always had, the way a sailor needed the stars to guide him home. She was, always had been, the needle on the compass of his heart, pointing him home, and he needed her now more than ever.

The street was quiet, deserted this time of night, and he marched determinedly up to her door. He drew in a deep breath, mustered all of his courage, and raised his fist to knock on the door, but he never quite made contact; the door swung open before he got the chance.

Oh, shit, he thought.

It wasn't Olivia standing on the threshold. She hadn't been watching from the windows, hadn't come to greet him, to curse him, to kick him out before he did something stupid. It was so, so much worse.

It was Paul, standing right in front of him, Olivia staring over his shoulder, half-dressed and horror stricken.

"Ope," Paul muttered, swaying back in surprise, his eyes wide, confused. "Didn't expect to see you there. It's Marshall, isn't it?"

Paul wasn't stupid. He sounded fucking stupid, but he wasn't; he remembered Mary and Marshall and he knew exactly how suspicious it was, Marshall turning up at Lindsey's door in the dead of night, and his eyes were swinging wildly from Elliot's face to Olivia's and back again.

"Sorry," Elliot said, more to Liv than to Paul. "I just need to talk to Li - to Lindsey. It's…uh…it's an emergency."

"Is everything all right?" Paul asked, his eyes clouding over in concern.

"It's fine, it's a…uh…personal matter."

Shit, he couldn't have picked a worse thing to say.

"Come inside, Marshall," Liv said, sighing. "I'm sorry, Paul. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

For a second Elliot thought Paul might locate some balls, and stand up to her. Might insist on staying to help with this "emergency", might have offered some other assistance, come up with some excuse to linger, but he didn't. He tucked his hands in his pockets and considered them both for a long moment, and then he nodded.

"All right," he said. "Hope everything's ok. Have a good night, Lindsey."

And then he left; Paul stepped out of the open doorway and Elliot stepped in it, and Olivia closed the door with a sharp snap behind him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she hissed.

Well, Elliot thought. Here goes nothing.