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When Elliot Stabler shows up at the boarding school you teach at, you know that nothing good is going to come from it. You were called out of bed in the middle of the night, and now you’re standing outside of a dorm, robe tucked tightly around you as you talk to a detective from the Special Victims Unit. From Manhattan. You are definitely not in Manhattan - or New York, in fact.
You’re in Vermont, where you moved after high school. (After high school where Elliot Stabler broke up with you in your junior year, leaving you devastated while he moved on to bigger and better things.) You’re in Vermont, at your school, while detectives from another state tell you that your students are in danger. In fact, you don’t even register that it’s Elliot Fucking Stabler standing in front of you until he puts a heavy hand on your shoulder, calling you a nickname you haven’t heard since your junior year in high school.
On instinct, you push his hand off of your shoulder, taking a quick step back. “Don’t,” You snark before your brain can catch up to who’s in front of you. When you realize it’s Elliot, the hurt that you thought had closed up opens back up and suddenly you’re seventeen, learning that Kathy is pregnant and that they’re getting married (-he told you that he never wanted to get married, ever-), and that he’s joining the Marines and shipping out. Seeing the hurt look on his face when you pull away so angrily is almost vindication for all of the pain you felt all of those years ago.
But, really, you’re still just hurt. You’re pretty sure you were in love with Elliot Stabler at one point in your teenage life, but that seems so far away now and… Well, how much do teenagers know about love? So you take a deep breath and shake your head, “Sorry, Elliot. This is a lot.”
“I get it,” He shoves his hands in his pockets and takes a step away from you. “It’s been a while.”
“Let’s not do this,” You purse your lips and look around at the detectives and officers crawling around the school that you’ve come to call home, “But you can explain to me what’s happening here.” He smiles, ducks his head, and you want the hurt inside of your chest to go away but it won’t. There’s something to be said about a first love showing up out of the blue, especially when you haven’t thought about them in a while. Elliot is exactly that - he was, is, your first love and you’re not sure that you can get over that. Does anyone ever get over that?
Still, he leads you into the room the dorm parents stay in when they’re running their shift overnight and takes a seat next to you. It’s strange being in a room with him, but you’re an adult and he’s wearing a wedding ring. He explains something that goes sort of over your head about an online hate group targeting your school because… It’s a private school? And people have to pay to enroll their children? You’re not sure. It’s still early in the morning - before the sun has come up. It’s when they hand the case over to the local precinct that Elliot hangs around where you’re talking to another administrator, waiting for the conversation to end so he can swoop in and talk to you again.
You know that, so you quickly end what you’re saying and turn back to him. “What?”
“I just wanted… I just wanted to apologize.” He sucks his teeth, looking away from you and squinting into the distance. He does it with such ease and familiarity that you know it’s a habit even though you've never seen him do it before. But, before he can say anything else, the hurt in your chest disappears. You hold up a hand, smiling softly at him.
“You don’t have to apologize, Elliot.” He whips back around at your sudden change in tone, “Listen, I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you tonight. This is too fucking much and I had just gotten to sleep when I was woken up.”
“You, uh, seem happy.” He rocks on his feet for a moment, “I should still apologize for how I left things… With us. I should have had more tact.”
You think about that for a moment, letting Elliot stew. When he had broken up with you it had been nothing more than a casual passing comment in the hallways of your high school. He had left you there to puzzle out what he said, process the meaning, and then mask your reaction in front of most of your mutual friends who had also heard what he said. It was awful, hurtful, and most of all - humiliating. You purse your lips before speaking, “I forgive you. I’ll have to admit, it was the shittiest way you could have possibly gone about that, but we’re different people now. You’re not that kid from school, and neither am I. We’re adults. You’re married. You have at least one kid, and we both have decent careers. I think what happened in high school has to be water under the bridge at this point.”
Elliot smiles and shrugs. “I guess. Kathy, um, Kathy and I are getting breakfast tomorrow near here. Would you - I know it’ll be awkward, but we were friends before we-”
“I’ll join you,” You cut Elliot off, “But we should make it brunch. It’s five in the morning and I will not be awake for anything that we could remotely call breakfast.”