It must've been the coffee. Must have been the coffee that was keeping her up, that left her restless and jittery and unable to settle. She'd drunk enough coffee to float a navy earlier in the day, and Fin said that could happen, that too much coffee could keep her awake even when she didn't want to be.
That seemed to be a recurring theme, she thought. How delicate the human body seemed to her; too much of anything was dangerous. Too much coffee, and Fin said she couldn't sleep. Too much alcohol had killed her mother. Too much information, and every man in her life thought she'd shatter under the strain of it.
Maybe they were the real problem. All these men, telling her what to do, telling her who she was. Who they thought she was, who they wanted her to be.
Wasn't that up to her, really? Wasn't it her decision, who she was going to be? Who she had been, that was a mystery to her, but as she prowled around the perimeter of her room, ran her fingertips over the piles of jewelry and cosmetics on her dresser, over the rows of neat blouses and carefully pressed pants in her closet, over the faces of the photographs in her room, she began to wonder if it mattered, really, who she had been.
There was a very real possibility her memories might never return, not in full. She might not ever be the woman those men remembered. The woman those men loved, each for their own reasons, in their own ways. The question was, then, should she devote herself to rediscovering that woman, whoever she might have been, or should she start over? Could she decide to worry less about who she was supposed to be, and choose instead to pursue the person she wanted to be?
Who would I be, if I could be anyone? she asked herself. What if she stopped asking herself whether she used to like all those black clothes in her closet, and started looking for clothes she liked now? What if she stopped wondering if she had been happy, and started trying to be happy now? The accident, the amnesia, had given her a rare gift: she had been given a clean slate, a second chance, an opportunity to start again.
Maybe that was why she was so restless tonight. She was itching for a rebirth.
Why not start now, tonight? The dance with Malcolm had been wonderful, warm and soft and full of promise, had reminded her of the kiss they'd shared and the fire it lit in her blood. She could feel that way again, if she wanted to. They'd been sleeping together before, her and Malcolm, and her husband was dead; she could go to him, her lover, now in the darkness, and let him hold her. He'd frustrated her earlier in the day but he had been kind to her for nearly two weeks, for all of her conscious memories, was only trying, she knew, to take care of her. And she did feel cared for, with him. She could discover, with him, just how good he could make her feel. She would be safe with him; she'd chosen him before, and there was no evidence, in her phone, in her home, that she'd wanted anything other than what she already had.
That stupid song kept playing in her head, though, and when she closed her eyes it wasn't Malcolm she saw. In the darkness behind her eyelids she heard that song, and felt a terrible, overwhelming sadness, and what she saw was Elliot, sitting on the couch, the blue eyes she'd dreamed about watching her unblinking, focused, determined, angry, his heavy body powerful and appealing.
The old Olivia, the woman she used to be, had gone to bed with Malcolm, and had never gone to bed with Elliot. When she made her choice before, it was Malcolm she chose.
But that woman was gone, and might not ever return. Who would she choose now? Both of them, neither of them?
What do you want? she asked herself. Who do you want to be?
I'm too old for this, Elliot thought grimly as he shifted around on the couch, trying to get comfortable. He was about three inches too tall to stretch out comfortably; every time he moved the blanket shifted and left a different part of his body exposed and cold, and he knew his back was gonna give him hell come morning. He'd barely slept the night before and he'd be lucky to get any rest at all tonight; tomorrow is going to be a miserable day, he thought.
It'd be worth it, though. Just to be near Olivia, just to provide some sort of buffer between her and the opportunistic bastard sleeping in her spare room.
Who did that guy think he was, anyway? Trying to seduce a woman who couldn't remember anything except the last two weeks? A woman who didn't remember dating, didn't remember her long and traumatic career investigating sex crimes, didn't remember all the ways men could take advantage of women or how to defend herself from them? What kind of man would even consider romancing a woman in such a fragile mental state?
You did, his conscience reminded him. You considered it.
That morning, in the kitchen, she'd turned those dark, beautiful eyes on him and he considered, just for a moment, what it might be like to kiss her. To finally, finally kiss her, to know, after so many years of doubt, of denial, of wondering, how it would feel to kiss the woman he was never meant to love but did anyway.
Only considered it, though. He hadn't acted on it, like Malcolm with his kisses, with that ridiculous dance. Elliot had made a decision to treat Olivia with the care and compassion she deserved, not to let the confused welter of his own emotions throw off her delicate equilibrium, not to take from her now what she had been unwilling to give him before. Surely that counted for something. Surely that meant he was a better man than fucking Malcolm.
Then again, maybe not; maybe she'd danced with Malcolm before. She'd fucked him, who knew what else they'd done. Maybe Malcolm was only taking back what she'd already given to him. Maybe she liked it that way.
It's going to be an unbearable night.
He had only just resigned himself to another night without sleep when he heard the soft creaking of the floorboards beneath careful feet. He raised his head to peer over the back of the couch and saw Olivia leaning in the arched entry that led from the living room to the hallway, her feet bare and her hair loose and softly curling around her face. That hair was still damp from the shower; he'd heard the water rushing through the pipes an hour before, and figured she'd be fast sleep by now. Evidently not.
She was dressed for sleep, though, in a pair of silky, too-short black shorts and a matching silky tank, thin straps holding it in place at her shoulders, but only just.
Christ.
Surely she hadn't done that on purpose, he thought, hadn't come out here warm and soft from the shower, half-dressed in the middle of the night intending to light a fire in his blood, but she'd done it just the same. She was beautiful, so beautiful, without artifice or shame, so perfectly Olivia that it made his heart ache to see it.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asked her hoarsely. It was late, and Noah and Malcolm were both sleeping, and the last thing he wanted was to wake either of them. To wake them, and shatter the wonder of this dream he'd somehow wandered into. He wanted to dream a little while longer. With her.
"Why did you say I hate that song?" she asked, and as she spoke she pushed herself off the wall, started walking towards him, and he sat up straight, threw the blanket aside and made room for her to sit on the couch. With him.
"Because you told me you did," he said. "Long time ago."
Hadn't told him why, though, and at the time he hadn't pressed. Hadn't thought anything of it, really. How many secrets had she shared with him that he'd never fully understood? How was he supposed to help her now when he only knew half the story?
"Guess I never told Malcolm." She plopped down on the couch beside him with a sigh, leaned back, deep into the cushions, and turned her head to watch him curiously.
"Guess not," he said. "But people don't really play it much these days. Might not have ever come up."
"It came up with you."
There were, Elliot thought, probably a million things she'd told him that she'd never dreamed of mentioning to Malcolm. The thought made him feel proud, proud that she trusted him, that he'd earned her trust. Made him want to be worthy of it.
"Malcolm kissed me," she said suddenly, and Elliot's stomach swooped, an old familiar rage beginning to boil in his belly.
Of course Malcolm had told Elliot about one kiss already, sworn up and down that he'd stopped her before things went too far, but that didn't make it any easier to hear coming from Olivia herself. What if her interpretation of events was different from Malcolm's? What if he'd lied, when he said he cut her off; what if things had progressed farther than Elliot knew?
What if it had happened again? Earlier in the night, Malcolm had waited for Olivia before leaving the living room and Elliot didn't know, really, what the pair of them had gotten up to once they were out of earshot. What if, fresh off their dance and feeling cocky and possessive, Malcolm had decided to stake his claim? Olivia wasn't herself, might not ever be herself again, was scared and confused, had no idea what she wanted, what she needed, and she was reliant on the people around her to protect her. One of those people had taken advantage of her instead, and Elliot had been too long an SVU detective not to hate Malcolm for it.
"When?" he demanded sharply, much more sharply than he meant to. There was no hiding the anger the thought of Malcolm kissing her made him feel, but as he looked at Olivia he saw no fear in her eyes, only a curiosity he didn't understand.
"Last night. Before I called you, before I had that bad dream."
And he had absolutely no idea what to make of that. Olivia kissed Malcolm, she had nightmare, and then she called Elliot. Why wouldn't she go to her man, the one who was in her house already, the one who was already taking care of everything for her? Why did she even bother calling Elliot?
Because she thought you'd know what happened to her, he told himself. She thought you could help but you can't.
The things she wanted from him he could not give her; maybe she didn't need him there at all.
"And how do you….feel about that?" he forced himself to ask, ever the cop. He needed to know how deep this betrayal ran, needed to know whether she felt safe.
"It was nice." A smile tugged at the corner of her full mouth, as if she were remembering the moment fondly. For his part Elliot was trying not to scream. He'd promised himself he would be better for her, steady for her, and he knew that meant he couldn't go marching down the hall to pull Malcolm from his bed, couldn't beat the shit out of the guy for what he'd done.
Not yet, anyway.
"I don't remember kissing," she said then. "I don't remember sex. I know what it is, but I don't remember what it feels like. Malcolm said that means that what happened yesterday, with him, that was my first kiss."
"I promise you, it wasn't," Elliot growled before he could stop himself.
"But it's the only one I remember," she pointed out, a little wistfully. "And I might not ever remember the others. So really I think he's right. That was my first kiss."
"Do you want it to be?*
"Is that like a cop thing?
Elliot didn't really follow the question, but Olivia must've seen the confusion in his eyes, and promptly explained herself.
"You keep asking me questions," she said. "Malcolm tells me things but you ask me things. You want me to decide for myself. I like that."
And what was he supposed to say to that? He was only trying to help her, but maybe she was right, maybe it was a cop thing. Maybe he'd been treating her like a victim. Trying to help her remember things on her own, asking questions to find the holes in her story. But she was a victim, wasn't she? A victim of the accident that stole her memories, if nothing else.
She was also Olivia, though. His Olivia, bold and brash and fiercely independent, had never liked being told what to do. Olivia always decided for herself, and he knew better than to try to stop her.
"I just wanna help," he said finally. There was more he could've said. Could've explained that his years of training wouldn't allow him to tell a vic what happened. Could've explained that there were plenty of secrets for him to share with her, stories about the old days he remembered all too well, but he'd never be able to tell her how she felt about them, what she thought about them. Damn sure couldn't tell her what she thought about him, not really.
"You've got your own mind. You don't need me for that."
"Thank you," she said, and then she reached out and grasped his hand, laced her fingers through his and held on tight. The touch startled him, and his eyes darted wildly from the sight of their joined hands up to her face, to those pretty brown eyes watching him with an unfathomable intent.
"I've been thinking about how it felt when Malcolm kissed me," she told him then. Christ, that was the last thing he wanted to talk to her about.
"It felt good. Dancing with him felt good, too. Until it didn't."
"You didn't like it?"
The murderous urge was back with a vengeance.
"I did but…it's hard to explain. Kissing felt good, dancing felt good, but I didn't feel like I should be doing those things with him."
Thank God.
A good man might've pointed out that Olivia had been fucking Malcolm before the accident, that there was no reason, really, for her to feel that she'd done something wrong. Elliot wasn't in a particularly good mood, however, and his feelings towards Malcolm were less than charitable at present. He decided to keep his mouth shut, and hear what Olivia had to say.
"I like him," she said in a tone of voice that made Elliot wonder if she even believed that herself. "He's nice, he makes me feel safe. He's been so kind when he didn't have to be. This whole nightmare would've been so much worse without him."
"But?" Elliot prompted her. There was more she had to say, and he knew it. Sharing had never come easily to Liv, and this version of her, while more open and less cautious than she once had been, was still Olivia. It was never gonna be easy for her, talking about her feelings. They'd never been any good at it.
"But he makes me feel so…suffocated, sometimes. When I kissed him, it felt like…there should be more, you know? I felt like we were building up to something."
That something was probably sex, but Elliot had spent nearly two decades staunchly refusing to allow himself to think about Olivia and sex in the same sentence, and old habits were hard to break. His mind shied away from the very idea of it; he wasn't about to say the word sex to her now.
"But he made me stop. I wanted more and he decided that I didn't get to have that."
Really, the guy had done the right thing. Even Elliot could see that. It was too soon; Olivia had only just begun the journey back to herself and it would be cruel to push her into that kind of intimacy, that kind of vulnerability, before she really understood what it meant.
"I wonder…I wonder what it would feel like to kiss someone else. If I'd like it even more, with someone else."
Sitting there, holding her hand, her body soft and warm and so, so close to him, listening to her talk about kissing, was hell. It was his own personal hell, one designed to torment him. It felt as if God himself were punishing Elliot for something. For the crime of loving her, maybe, the crime of allowing himself to care so deeply for a woman who was not his wife. Til death do us part was supposed to mean something, but there Elliot sat holding Olivia's hand while Kathy was dating some accountant back in the city.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. The things he felt for Liv, the dark, secret longings that dwelt in the depths of his heart, they were never meant to see the light of day. It was never supposed to be possible, him and her. A dream, that's all they were, a dream he had turned into a nightmare the day he left, and Olivia might not remember his abandonment now but she'd cursed him for it two weeks ago and he wasn't supposed to be doing this, sitting with her in the dark, holding her hand.
But he was there, just the same, and he couldn't stop thinking about what it might be like if she finally, finally let him love her the way he wanted to. If he let himself love her. Could he ever cross that line, knowing how angry she'd been with him, never knowing, really, if she could've forgiven him on her own, without the amnesia wiping out her memory of his transgressions?
"Olivia," he said her name slowly, half a warning, half a plea for mercy.
"Would you kiss me if I asked you to?"