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The funeral is solemn, restricted to close family, a careful police presence watching from afar. There won’t be an Irish wake.
The coffin is lowered, followed by handfuls of dirt. Elliot hugs his grandchildren. Stabler genes being as strong and strange as they are, the blonde girl is the spitting image of her mother and grandmother, the brunette boy looking just like his uncles. Maureen’s husband had barely gotten a look-in.
Elliot turns to his five kids, only one of whom was still technically a child and even that could be debated on semantics. You can still remember cradling Eli in the ambulance, his tiny body pressed against your chest, his mother coding beside you, two weeks before you’d become resigned to never cradling a child of your own.
You pass command to Fin with a twist of your head, a mutter of, “I need to see Noah.”
Fin nods, runs his thumb over his phone, and you know he’s thinking of Phoebe and Ken.
*
Three hours go missing between your leaving the funeral and seeing your son.
If questioned, you will say that you needed a time out after a week of heightened emotions, of old co-workers and friends crawling out of the woodwork, of too many sudden losses piled on top of old ones. You took a spin up to White Plains; Long Island having long ago lost its sheen for scenic drives.
Garland will attest to this, thanks to a ten-minute phone call placed midway through your trip, while he was alone in his office, sitting by his direct landline. Your GPS will validate it too.
*
You press the front doorbell then step through the left gate, and a door halfway along the timber siding opens. And then you walk down the stairs into a non-descript basement in a non-descript house in the non-descript backend of Bloomfield, New Jersey.
A non-descript house fortified with concrete walls and steel doors.
The FBI agent locks the door behind you and cocks his head towards another door across the room. He’s brimming with anxiety as his left fingers tap against his thigh, his senior partner burying hers under a calm steady visage betrayed by her pacing along the back wall as she talks on her phone. You try not to think of the last time you dealt with federal agents and exploding vehicles.
“She’s in the bathroom,” he says. “We need to leave soon.”
You can’t blame him for his worry. You have your own. Bloomfield is still too close to Brooklyn.
You nod at the other agent, she nods back, then you stride past her to the door. You knock twice, then open it.
“I said I’ll be done soon!” Kathy says sharply, in a tone you’ve never heard her direct at anyone, not her husband, nor her children, not even you while she was trapped in labour in a wrecked car. She’s dressed in blue jeans and a white lace bra, seated in a chair in front of the sink, looking at a pile of bandage dressings in her lap. Then she glances up and catches your eyes in the mirror.
Her hair has already been cropped to her earlobes and dyed a deep chocolate brown, the shade not dissimilar to your own. But her eyes are still that vibrant blue. They widen in surprise.
“Olivia!” she gasps and, next thing you know, you’re in a tight hug. You raise your arms and lightly fold them around the back of her shoulders, careful to avoid the burn between her shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry for yelling. The dressing came off in the shower, but I don’t want their help, and they just won’t leave me–”
You steer her back to the chair and put on your glasses, taking a moment to examine her back. The burn is large, but looks mostly superficial. There’s one small spot that might be partial thickness, but you’ll be surprised if much of it scars.
You quickly wash your hands in the sink, and she looks back to her hands – her bandaged left holds the dressing and gauze, her right has the tube of gel – and says, “They said I have to use this fir–”
You take the tube from her right hand, quickly unscrewing the lid and running several thick strips of the hydrogel along your fingers with practiced ease. Kathy falls silent as you give the tube back and return to stand behind her.
Her head drops as you start to apply the gel, gently smearing it across her back, and you wonder if she can feel the apology in your fingertips. Thirteen years ago, another car, another time, you helped save her life. And now you are helping to end it.
When you are finished laying the last bit of tape, you take off your glasses, Kathy exhales, and then you look at each other in the mirror.
“How are they?” she asks. No need to specify who.
“Upset,” is the kindest word you can find.
It’s not enough, and you had known it wouldn’t be, but then nothing ever could. Kathy collapses into tears, burying her face in her hands. You quietly reach out and place your hand on her shoulder, resting your thumb on the back of her neck and stroking lightly.
When her tears start to settle, you silently slip your hand from her shoulder, pull out your notepad and pen, and start to scrawl. You write down Alex’s burner number, the one you’d received around the Rob Miller trial, sent to your home in an unsigned letter, the handwriting the only identification needed after years of reading each other’s notes. Liv’s phone, she’d written, in case of emergencies.
You think this counts.
“Memorise this. Then burn it. Only use it as a last resort.”
You tear the paper from the pad and push it into Kathy’s hand. She fiddles with it for a second, reading it, before sliding it into her front jean pocket. She swallows hard, then looks you in the eyes, her own starting to water again, the rims already swollen and raw. “I have no right to ask you this…” Kathy begins.
“The kids have my number, Kathy. They know where they can reach me.”
You think for a moment Kathy might look surprised, but then she nods, smiling ruefully to herself. “I know some people would say that, after so long, I should be surprised, but I know you’ve always loved them.”
You’ve never said it aloud, not to her, not to anyone, never even suggested that you thought of them as family, but then you never had to – it had always shown through your actions. Kathleen, Dickie – correction, Rick – and Eli all have proof of this. You never had to go to the same extremes for Maureen and Elizabeth, nothing beyond the occasional collection of a birthday gift, the defence of their father, but it was true for them too.
Even Kathy had learned she was included, after the crash.
“You deserved better, Liv,” Kathy says.
“We both did.”
She shakes her head. “From us,” she corrects. “The kids and me.”
You pass her a shirt, long-sleeved and black, that you pull from the towel railing, then help her slide into it, adjusting it over her wrist. She grasps your hand as you finish, waits for you to look at her, then squeezes your fingers tightly as she gazes straight into your eyes. “I’m sorry, Olivia.”
You smile tightly, then grab her bag with your left hand. “So am I.” You hold out your right arm. “Let’s get you to the car.”
You emerge third after being signalled, both agents having gone first to check the surroundings. Kathy remains tucked behind your back until you reach the fence line. You stride ahead, dump the bag into the open trunk and gesture her over as you open the back door. She jogs over to the opening, then hesitates at the door.
You’re about to force her inside when she pulls you around and hugs you again, wrapping both arms around your waist. “Thank you, Liv,” she says, muffled against your shirt, “and please stay safe.”
“You too,” you whisper in reply and she disappears inside the car, slamming the door after her. The FBI agents are quick to follow.
The sedan vanishes down the road, and ten minutes later, in the opposite direction, you do too.
*
Elliot wants to meet. Noah wants to sled. You just want to get this over and done with, away from the prying eyes of your squad.
You had to search through your closet for the blue bag now resting in your hands. It had been submerged deep in there, next to your mother’s journals and her copy of Twelfth Night, Brian’s old sweats, the last almost-empty bottle of bourbon Ed had left in your apartment alongside a box with the pictures from Paris.
The 2015 renovation at the precinct had almost led to Elliot’s file box of things being thrown out, but you’d saved it at the last second, not quite willing to do that to the photo of baby Eli, nor to the medallion you’d long ago returned after originally pulling it from Elliot’s desk.
You hope he doesn’t ask you about the mini badge. It had ended up in evidence after being used with your gun to give you a cut and a concussion, a physical echo to the original emotional one. You’d had no desire to see it again after that, the badge’s presence a reminder of just whose presence had been missing through the darkest period of your life.
A period you had worked hard to move on from, had persevered through the nightmares and flashbacks and the changes at work, the changes in life, always striving to improve. A time where all you could do was steadily put one footstep after the other through the haunted forest until you found the sun. Your son.
You have made things better, and the proof is laughing down the snowy hill in front of you.
“Liv,” Elliot calls, from behind you. You turn to find him standing near a tree, hands tucked into his jacket.
You take a deep breath and stride towards him.
“That’s everything,” you say as a greeting, holding the bag outstretched, and then you give him some details about the case, something he needs to know, and later you’ll struggle to recall exactly what you said.
He places the bag on the ground between you, as though trying to build a bridge over this decade-old chasm.
“Liv. Do you think we could talk?” He watches you as you glance to Noah, distracted by the happy screams through the air. “Maybe clear the air between us?”
You watch Noah and gear yourself up to lob a grenade into that ravine.
“I don’t know if I can, Elliot. I don’t know how I feel about this, right now. Any of it. All of it.” Somehow he lets you say it, doesn’t interrupt, lets you continue. “You need to concentrate on your kids and your grandkids. And we both know you won’t be resting until you find her killer–” and you say it so smoothly, not a stutter, not a trip, and you’ll call it the win for today, “–and who ordered it.”
You can tell it’s not what he expects. That after the last week – this last week where you slipped into working together, just as fluid and natural as old times; this week that you’ve spent ignoring all the pain, put aside every hurt, disregarded every verified fear of abandonment to concentrate on what’s in front of your face… Somewhere in there, he’d managed to develop a sliver of hope that after everything and given everything that he has suffered in the recent days – maybe especially given everything – you’d be willing to sit down and talk and hash it all out to somehow find your way back to friendship.
Maybe you would have. Maybe you could have. Maybe you couldn’t and maybe you wouldn’t. You’ll never know. Because after ten years of nothing, and to keep Kathy safe, this will have to be another nothing between you.
“And…” You take a moment and look back to your son, your very happy excited son sliding down the snowbank. Your son who will soon be flushed and cold, wanting hot chocolate with his curls a mess, who will then beg to snuggle under a blanket tonight as you rewatch Lilo and Stitch. Your son who is your heart in flesh formed, though not of your own, for whom you will forever be grateful. “You have no idea what we’ve been through to get here, Elliot. I need to protect my son.”
It’s true. It will always be true.
It will also hit all of Elliot’s weakest targets, every single one of his biggest fears.
Fatherhood. Parenthood. That instinctual need to protect, inscribed in both your DNA. That fresh stinging failure to do so. The way he damaged your relationship, how he missed out on everything, including knowing your little boy.
The way he will no longer know the mother of his.
Or so he has to believe.
He inhales sharply, and his breath gets stuck in his throat but you can’t help but think that maybe it’s just from the cold.
“I’m so sorry, Liv. For all of it.”
And maybe it’s not.
“I know you are,” you say gently, and try to smile, but you know it’s weak, so weak, “and thank you for saying it.”
You don’t accept the apology, you can’t tell him it’s okay, because it’s not right now and it won’t be anytime soon, but there’s a pit forming in your stomach because you suddenly don’t know whether you’re doing this just to protect Kathy, or if it’s also to protect yourself.
“There’ll be times when we may need to work together,” you continue, “and we will, and it’ll be fine. But as for the rest of it… It all takes time.”
“Thirteen years…”
“And ten where you weren’t here.”
“I’m still a good cop, Liv,” Elliot says, as though he can’t bring himself to say man, not after what’s happened to his wife.
You’d said something like that phrase to him once, decades ago.
I know, he’d responded back then.
These days, sometimes, you’re not so sure. About either of you then, and either of you now.
“I hope so,” you say with meaning as you start to walk back to Noah.
Elliot has no idea just how much rides on it.