A leaf crunched beneath his boot and she jumped like a startled rabbit, baseball bat in one hand and a cigarette in the other, eyes wild and full of fear, though she relaxed a little when she saw his face, when she realized the man approaching meant her no harm. What cause did she have, he wondered, to be so afraid, sitting on her own back steps in this quiet place where nothing bad ever seemed to happen?
"It's just me, Liv," he said softly, holding out his hands in a gesture meant to convey his peaceful intentions. She didn't stand up, just remained where she was sitting on the steps by her back door, so he went to her, sat himself down on the step beside her, their bodies touching from shoulder to ankle. There was something familiar about this, about the night, about the gentle dark and the steps and her quiet presence beside him; we've been here before, he thought. Only the last time they'd done this, she hadn't been smoking.
"Just something you do sometimes, huh?" he asked, staring meaningfully at the cigarette in her hand.
"Sometimes," she said. "I've only bought the one pack since I've been here. Damn thing's stale."
That was something, at least; at least she wasn't smoking much. He didn't like the idea of her smoking at all, though. It didn't suit her.
But she was doing it, and he still didn't really understand why.
"You wanna tell me about that?" he asked.
It wasn't like he didn't have his suspicions. It was obvious that something was bothering her tonight, that something had happened, left her jumpy and ill at ease, had her asking him to come over late at night on fucking Thanksgiving, when she never really asked for anything at all. Whatever it was, it had to be bad.
"You know about…about Lewis," she said slowly. "about what he did."
"A little." Not enough, but maybe too much. His heart ran cold at the sound of the man's name; she was supposed to be safe, here, far from the men who wished her dead, far from the ghosts of the past. A fresh start; they were both meant to find a fresh start beneath the vast midwestern sky, and they'd both failed, pretty spectacularly. Maybe there was nowhere they could run, nowhere far enough to escape the truth of who they were and what they'd done.
"He…he burned me," she said. She wasn't looking at Elliot; she was staring out into the night, smoke curling round her head like a halo.
"With cigarettes," she continued, and affirmed his suspicions with those two words alone.
"Not just cigarettes but…for a long time after, every time I smelled smoke I started to panic."
"So this is like…exposure therapy?" It made sense; he hated that it made sense.
"Something like that. It's…it's just something I do when I'm scared. To remind myself I've already survived the scariest thing imaginable."
"Did something scare you tonight, Liv?" He asked the question very, very carefully. There was something fragile, something delicate about this moment, about Liv speaking the name of the man who'd hurt her, Liv calling out to Elliot, calling him back to her. When Lewis struck Elliot had not been there; he'd not been able to save her, to answer her when she needed him most. He could be here, now, and there was nowhere else he'd rather be. Nowhere but here, with her, facing down her demons side-by-side.
"I think Paul killed his wife."
There was no panic in her; her voice did not tremble, and her hands held steady. She just…she just said it, simple and to the point, in a tone he recognized from the old days. Lieutenant Benson had caught herself a case. But she'd had time to come to terms with this revelation, and Elliot had not, and her accusation chilled him to the core.
"Jesus. Are you sure?"
That man had been in her home. That man had been inside her. That man had held her, spent time around her son. And now she thought he was a murderer? Under different circumstances Elliot might've felt a little smug, a little vindicated, knowing that he'd been right not to trust the bastard, but right now all he felt was fear. Paul lived next door to Olivia; he knew where she lived, where she worked, where she took her boy to daycare. If she was right, if he was a killer, she had given him the keys to unlock every door to her life. So much for keeping her safe; so much for fighting to keep her in Omaha. If this thing with Paul went sideways, Liv and Noah would have to move again, and then what were they gonna do?
"I can't prove it. Officially it's a suicide. But Elliot, I think there's something here. I feel it."
"I'd trust your gut over the local cops any day." There was no one on earth whose instincts he trusted more than hers. If she said it was true, then he believed her, without question. His mind was already racing, the beginnings of a plan taking shape. They would have to be so, so careful; she couldn't let Paul know she was on to him - shit, what if she already had? - and she would need to begin to extricate herself from him. There could be no missteps here; they would need to gather the evidence, and could not dare accuse him outright until they knew for a certainty that he would be locked away. If they played their hand too soon, his wife might not be the only one who died.
Beside him Olivia cocked her head, smiled at him sadly, tiredly in the wan glow of the kitchen lights filtering out through the frosted glass of the door behind her.
"Thanks for that," she said, and then added, "partner."
It felt good, to hear her call him partner. To know that they were still, now and always, partners. Whatever happened next, whatever they had to do, they would do it together.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked her then. This was her case, and her life in the balance, and he'd follow her lead, give her anything she asked of him.
"Can you pull the file? Quietly? Jackie ran a background check on him, the Marshals may have it already."
"Yeah, no problem. I'll bring it here, we can look at it together."
It would be just like the old days, he thought. Him and Liv, going over the file together, comparing notes, bouncing ideas off one another, doing the one thing they did best. No matter how bad shit got, no matter how uncomfortable or strained their relationship had become, in the past they'd always been able to do this; to investigate, to solve the puzzle, to save the goddamn day. They could do it again. He wanted to do it again. Do some real police work, do something that mattered, something that wasn't babysitting criminals or fretting over the impending end of his marriage.
"Thank you," she said again. She dropped the cigarette onto the step beneath her and snuffed it out beneath her shoe, and then she reached out, and touched him, wrapped her hand gently, fondly, around his forearm.
"For believing me," she said. "For coming here. I know you'd rather be with your family."
"Don't worry about that," he told her. He wanted to cover her hand with his own, wanted to lace their fingers together, wanted to hold her, but he wasn't sure where they stood, really, and he didn't want to spook her. He didn't want to lose the warmth of her touch.
"Eli's already asleep and Kathy…Kathy's decided to take him back to the city."
So much for not spooking her; Olivia drew her hand back quickly, sorrow falling like a veil over her face.
"Oh," she said. "Are you…I guess you're going to go with them."
She still doesn't get it, he thought. After everything they'd done, every promise he'd made to her, she still didn't understand that it was Olivia herself he wanted, Olivia he meant to fight for, Olivia who would be his future. She was stuck in the past, and promises alone would not be enough to move her; she would not believe that he meant to stay with her until he did. Words didn't count for shit; actions did. He'd have to prove it to her.
"No," he said, and she gasped, sharply, looked up at him in confusion.
"I may go help them get settled," he said. "Help with the move, and everything. And I'll be back and forth for a while, I don't want to go too long without seeing Eli. But Liv…my marriage is over. My place isn't with Kathy, not anymore. My place is with you."
The last time they were together, he'd tried to tell her that. Tried to make her believe him, as he believed her, unequivocally and without hesitation. They'd agreed to wait until Kathy's leg was healed before they made any big decisions, but Kathy had made this decision herself. And wasn't that a good thing, he thought; shouldn't Liv be happy to know that she wasn't taking anything Kathy hadn't already let go of?
"You can't do that, Elliot," she began in a trembling little voice, and he fought the urge to groan; why did she always have to fight him? Why was she so determined to keep throwing up new roadblocks every time Elliot knocked one down?
"Jesus, Liv, when are you gonna -"
"You can't stay here in a job you hate, a thousand miles away from your kids, just so you can come over here in the middle of the night for a fuck."
That woman; she always knew just what to say to cut him to the quick. But she didn't mean it, he thought; she was just scared. Scared that all he wanted was to get laid, scared he'd regret his choices, scared they didn't deserve the happiness they were so close to grasping. That was ok, he thought. It was ok that she was scared. He'd just have to be brave enough for both of them.
"You are not just a fuck," he said seriously. "And I don't hate the job." Ok maybe he did hate the job, a little. "But even if I did, I don't have to keep doing it. We don't…we don't have to keep playing by the same rules, Liv. We can do whatever we want. And what I want is to be with you. Whatever that looks like, whatever I have to do. I just want to be with you."
"I don't know what this looks like, El," she answered. "I don't know what game we're playing here. You keep talking like you see a future for us -"
"I do," he said vehemently. "I do."
"But there isn't a future here. You can't…we can't go out for dinner. We can't take Noah to the park. You can't risk being seen with me. We'll never be able to live together, or…"
Did she think about that, he wondered; did she think about them, and imagine them living together? He hadn't really thought that far ahead but now that she'd put the idea in his head he found that he liked it, very much. Falling asleep beside her every night, waking up next to her every morning, their time together so much more than brief stolen moments in the middle of the night. It sounded like a dream.
"Witsec may not be forever," he reminded her. "Alex got out -"
"You can't count on that, what happened with Alex was different -"
"We could get married."
If they got married, Witsec would have to take him in. Have to hide him, same as they hid her. A gold band and a piece of paper would bind them together, save them from this endless waffling. It seemed like the perfect solution.
"I can't believe you just said that," she snapped, jerking herself away from him, rising to her feet and stepping out onto the patio, a gulf rising up between them, dividing them from one another.
"You already have a wife, and it's not me," she reminded him mercilessly. "And I…I will never be her, Elliot. I'm not gonna do your laundry and cook your dinner -"
"I wouldn't ask you to-" as far he knew she couldn't cook at all, of course he wasn't gonna ask her to be Suzie Homemaker. Christ, where did she come up with this stuff?
"And I won't let you abandon your kids," she continued, the anger surging through her palpable even from a distance. "You already have two sons, you don't get to trade them in for mine."
"Are you done?" he asked her coolly, rising slowly to his feet.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, are you done? Are you done arguing with me? Because what I'd like to do is make a plan here, Liv, but first I need you to stop getting mad at me for shit that hasn't even happened yet."
"You asshole -"
"I love you," he said. As he spoke he walked slowly forward, kept right on walking until their chests were almost touching, until he could see the shine of unshed tears in her eyes. He'd said those words to her once before, and all she'd said in reply was it's not enough. That was wrong, though, he thought. He loved her, and goddamn it, she loved him, and that was everything.
"So just let me, Liv. Let me love you. Let us figure this out. Give me a fucking chance."
"I don't see a way-"
"We'll make a way. It's you and me, Liv. It's always gonna be."
He wanted to touch her. Wanted to catch her in his arms, pull her in close. Wanted to kiss her, silence her protests with lips and tongue, wanted to wash away the stain of her fear, drown out her doubts in the endless ocean of his love, but she'd been talking about Lewis and Paul the maybe-killer and he wasn't gonna add his name to the list of men who'd hurt her. He wasn't gonna touch her until she wanted him to.
"I want to believe you," she whispered brokenly.
"Then believe me, Liv. Just…believe me."
