He said he'd take a shower while they were gone, so he did. His go bag was still in the car, with two changes of clothes and toiletries - and an extra clip for his service weapon and a small first aid kit and $200 cash, though he didn't think he'd be needing any of that just now - inside, so he gathered the bag from the car, took his things into the bathroom across the hall from Noah's bedroom, and showered. The hot water helped; the tension in his shoulders eased infinitesimally, and his thoughts settled into some semblance of order beneath the spray.
No, he did not trust Malcolm. No, he did not understand how Olivia could've married - could've fucked - Ed Tucker. No, he didn't know what was going to happen next.
That was ok, though. Everything was ok, because he'd seen her for himself. His Olivia, alive and well, still breathing, something of the woman he had known shining back at him from those big brown eyes. When he first came to this place her vulnerability was all he could see, but she'd shown the flash of her teeth in the kitchen with Malcolm, and Elliot gave thanks to God for that. She was still in there somewhere, his Olivia. She wasn't gone, not completely, not yet.
There was so much she had forgotten, but she could learn, of that he had no doubt. Olivia had always been a quick study, and he had seen the wheels turning in her mind this morning.
She's gonna be ok, he told himself. She's gonna get through this.
He showered as quickly as he could, applied his deodorant, brushed his teeth, put on some clean clothes, and emerged from the bathroom feeling much more like himself. There was no telling how long Olivia and Malcolm would be gone; they were walking Noah to daycare, and seeing as they'd opted to walk instead of drive he supposed it wouldn't take too long, and he wanted to be ready when they came back.
But what if it did take a long time? What if Rosie, whoever she was, hadn't texted Malcolm; what if Malcolm had texted her, just to arrange for some time alone with Olivia? What if, even now, he was trying to convince her that Elliot was a danger to her, that he meant to hurt her?
Not much you can do about that, he thought glumly. Malcolm had been taking care of Olivia for days, and Elliot had only just arrived. If she chose to trust Malcolm over him, an angry outburst or outright brawl with Malcolm wouldn't do him any favors. He needed to keep a clear head, keep his voice down, and wait for Fin. Fin would know what to do.
For the moment Elliot was at loose ends; he drifted through Olivia's home, careful to stick to the common areas. The last thing he needed was for Malcolm to catch him snooping through Olivia's bedroom - even if he was desperately curious about what he'd find in there. What would her bedroom look like now, six months after her husband died, seven years after the last time Elliot had seen her face? Would it look anything like the bedroom he remembered, with the pictures stuck inside the frame of the mirror, the candles, the satiny blanket in its kaleidoscope of colors? Would he find her there, too, the Olivia of his memories calling out to him from the shadows in the corner of the room, or would he open that door to find only a stranger waiting for him?
His clandestine exploration of her modest home inevitably led him back to the living room, to the bookshelves that lined the walls, stocked with well-thumbed paperbacks and assorted keepsakes. Some of the books he recognized; he'd helped Olivia clean out her mother's apartment after Serena died. Serena had lived in that cramped two bedroom for nearly thirty years, and he remembered the place being full to bursting with things. Souvenirs colleagues at Hudson had brought back to Serena from their travels, travels she had never undertaken for herself. Newspaper clippings and rare copies of old, out of print texts he'd never heard of, a bust of Shakespeare and several faded Rothko prints, stacks upon stacks of personal papers heaped haphazardly in every corner. And the bottles. Bottles everywhere he looked, in cabinets, under furniture, squirreled away at the bottom of the laundry hamper, beneath the bed, in all the unlikely places he never would've looked himself. Olivia looked, though. Olivia knew where to find them.
It wasn't like that, here. Olivia's shelves weren't cluttered; they were neat, orderly, an intentional display of things that mattered to her. A copy of Metamorphoses next to a photo of Noah, a snow globe with a miniature Eiffel Tower inside it next to a copy of Les Miserables - in the original French. Another damn picture of Olivia with Tucker.
He stared at that picture for several moments. Stared at the face of the woman he loved and the man he hated, their bodies touching from hip to shoulder, their heads tilted together, matching inscrutable expressions on their faces. They weren't quite smiling, either of them - and that was a shame, Elliot thought, because he remembered her smile so well - but there was something in Olivia's eyes, something that looked like peace. Something solid and steady he didn't recognize that the bastard next to her had put there.
So much had changed, in the time he'd been away. He'd sat in this room earlier in the morning and talked to Olivia about different kinds of love, Kathy's voice echoing in his mind, and felt so sure, sure of what he knew, sure of what he felt. That surety was slipping through his fingers now; what was he thinking, talking to Olivia about love, when she had a love already, a love of her own, a love who was not him? The longing he felt for her, the yearning he'd carried with him every day of the last seven years; maybe Kathy was right, and maybe it was love, and maybe it always had been, but who did he love? The Olivia he had left behind, locked forever in stasis in the vaults of his memory? The Olivia who loved Tucker, and hated him? Or this new Olivia, fragile and lost, who was as good as a stranger to him?
Maybe she was right, he thought then. Maybe we don't know each other at all.
While Malcolm behaved himself on the journey to the daycare, the moment they dropped Noah off he revealed his true intentions. Told her while they walked back home how he didn't trust Elliot, how worried he was about the secrets Elliot might've been keeping.
It was exhausting, really, listening to Malcolm list all the reasons why she shouldn't talk to Elliot, when talking to Elliot was the only thing in the world she wanted to do.
There was a logic to Malcolm's warnings, Olivia knew that. She simply did not care. Really, how much of a threat could Elliot be, with Malcolm and Fin there to protect her? If he was truly dangerous, surely Fin would've said so, wouldn't have been so cagey and permissive about her texting the man. She'd seen something like goodness in Elliot, and she wanted to see more of it, not less.
And if she also wanted, very much, to kiss him, well. That was no one's business but her own.
Really, it was Malcolm's fault. Malcolm had kissed her, and when he did he had opened a door to possibilities she was only just beginning to imagine. It felt so good, that kiss, and she wanted to feel that way again. Wanted to chase the electric high of it, the exciting thrill of it, wanted to know if Elliot's kiss would feel the same. Wanted to know if it would be better.
Now was not the time for kisses, or at least Malcolm didn't think it was. Malcolm thought she should move slowly, but all Olivia wanted to do was run. She wanted to run, and feel the chill of the crisp autumn air on her face. She wanted to explore every nook and cranny of her own life, and she wanted to feel every sensation her wildly awakened body possibly could. Every color, every smell, every sound was so vibrant, felt so desperately spectacularly alive; she had come close to death in that car, and she had been reborn, gifted a second chance to live, and that was what she meant to do. She meant to live.
Malcolm wanted her to sleep. To doze peacefully in the coffin of security he'd created for her inside the house, to heed his counsel and progress according to his preference, not hers. For the first few days she'd drifted along on the current of his certainty, but a fresh wind had filled her sails with Elliot's arrival, and she was fast outpacing Malcolm. She was pretty sure he was starting to notice that, and she was pretty sure he was unhappy about it. That was a troubling thought.
When they arrived back at the house, she found Elliot sitting on the floor in the corner of her living room.
"Sorry," he said, looking up at her sheepishly. "I - uh - I just wanted to check out your records and I guess I got distracted."
Records wasn't a word she knew, but he was sitting surrounded by a sea of bigish square objects, not entirely unlike very thin books, with pictures painted on the front of them, pictures of people and city skylines and incomprehensible artwork.
"What are they?" she asked curiously. There were rather a lot of them in that corner; besides the ones laid out on the floor around Elliot there were perhaps fifty more crammed into a crate on the floor by his elbow, and what looked like a second crate behind that.
"They play music," he said. "That -" he pointed to an old looking wooden cabinet - "is a record player. You put one of these in there, and it plays music. It's how we used to listen to music. Not many people still listen to records these days. But you always liked the old stuff."
"Can we play one?"
What sort of music did she like? And why did she keep them, when other people had moved on? There must've been something special about them, she thought. The records must've mattered.
"Maybe later," Malcolm said, not entirely pleasantly, from just behind her shoulder. "Fin will be here any minute."
"Maybe Fin likes records, too," she told him stubbornly.
"Liv," Elliot started to say, rising ponderously to his feet, but before he could offer his opinion on the matter of the records there came a knock at the door.
"I'll get it," Olivia said, and rushed out of the living room, left the gentlemen behind and opened the door herself.
It was Fin she found standing on her doorstep, his hands tucked in his pockets and an inscrutable expression on his face.
"Fin!" she called his name, delighted to see him; now that he was here, the real work could begin.
"Hey, Liv," he said, stepping inside while she held the door for him. "There's a new car in your driveway."
Fin was a cop; of course he noticed.
"Fin-"
"Hey, man," Elliot's voice rumbled from behind her, and as she watched he stepped up to shake Fin's hand. Elliot had tried to shake Malcolm's hand when they met in the kitchen, she remembered. Malcolm hadn't taken him up on the offer.
"Why am I not surprised," Fin grumbled. "You came here last night, didn't you?"
They must've talked, she realized. Fin and Elliot, they must've talked about Elliot coming here, and from the sound of it Elliot had promised to wait, and reneged on that promise immediately. Why, she wondered; why didn't he wait when Fin told him to?
Maybe he just wanted to see her, as badly as she wanted to see him. Maybe he just cared that much. Or maybe he was just impatient and stubborn. Maybe she was, too.
"I'm sorry-" Elliot started to say, but Olivia didn't really think he was, and she didn't plan to waste any more time.
"He's here now," Olivia said, "and so are you, so can we please get started?"
Fin made a short stifled sound that might've been a laugh, and held out his arm.
"Ready when you are," he said easily. "Let's go."
And so they did; Olivia led Fin and Elliot to the kitchen, to the mysterious box of secrets Fin had brought with him the day before, and as they went Malcolm fell silently into step behind them.