Work Text:
♥
no flags of truce, no cries of pity
♥
Elliot finds himself in a crouch, slowly moving his head around a wall of white as he tries to figure out the best way to spot his targets. Lines have been drawn, and placement is everything.
All clear .
Pulling his head back behind his sparse shelter, he checks the stack of ammunition next to him before taking another small, tentative glance.
SPLAT!
The snowball comes from above him, its dramatic arc having gone over the snowbank where he kneeled before striking him from directly above. He hears the unmistakable giggling of two 8-year-old boys and an excited, "Yeah!" from his own son.
Traitor .
"Liv!" he shouted. "Liv, where are you? I'm made!"
He just may be too old for this kind of thing now, but he wasn’t about to resist the offer to spend quality time with Noah and Liv. Not when he still had a long way to get to where he wanted to be with her. With them both. So, if sledding and a snowball fight in the park is how it manifests, he’s taking it.
Grabbing snowballs in both hands, he starts leveling them toward the sounds of giggling as a deluge of broken slush whizzes past him from all sides.
"Henry! Eli!" he hears Noah shout, betraying the location of the boys to Elliot. "I think I got him!" Amateurs. Elliot lets loose towards Noah's voice, hearing a satisfying "Oof" from one of the younger boys.
Bingo . He laughs this time, taking in the joy of hard, clean play in a sunny, snow-filled park, something he never once did in Italy, even in Eli’s younger years. But here he was, not only in an epic snowball battle with his son but with Olivia's as well. He could have never dreamed of living in this universe even just a year ago.
"Some cop,” he hears behind him. “You letting these rookies get the better of you?" She appears above him as stealthily as she had vanished a few minutes earlier, a wry look of amusement on her face as she brushes the snow off his cap-covered head.
"Where have you been?" he says. "It's getting brutal here. And get down before they target you."
Unfussed, Olivia sips what smells suspiciously like hot chocolate in a paper cup with a plastic lid. "Sorry," she snorts. "I didn't realize three kids under the age of 15 were such a hardship for a seasoned detective like yourself." She reflexively raises her left hand to knock away another incoming attack from the boys, who are not being quiet about their forward advance towards their position.
"Well, Captain ," he says, emphasizing her title with a bit more flourish than what's probably healthy for his libido to process in public, "I never like going into a hostile environment without someone watching my six." He kneels over in the snow, gathering it to him to replenish his stockpile.
She glances down and over. "No danger of that in those jeans," she mutters.
He grins, a smile that lights up his entire face, and pulls her down with him and under the shelter of the snowbank. "Are you done commenting on my ass?" he says. His tone is sarcastic, but his eyes are telling her he’s amused.
Olivia takes another measured sip before twisting the paper cup into the ground a bit. She likes this, that they are at a place now where they can flirt a little. Out of all of the things she’s missed most in their relationship, it’s been the moments where they can be light and fun instead of them being mired down purely in so much darkness.
Olivia grabs a handful of snow and begins shaping and stacking their ammunition as Elliot begins lofting snowballs half-heartedly over the wall of white. "Do you want me to be?" she finally replies. He stops tossing ammo and looks directly at her then, eyes half-lidded, and opens his mouth to say something.
But before he can answer, the boys approach all bluster and holler and make their final stand. “Take them!” he hears Eli shout. “Full ahead!”
Elliot pulls Olivia down into the wall of the snowbank, covering her body with his own as the three boys unleash a torrent of snowballs until Elliot cries “Uncle.” Noah and Henry laugh so hard they can't breathe, and eventually, the boys exhaust their ammo. Eli high fives the younger boys as they celebrate their victory.
"Hey," he says to Noah, "your mom has hot chocolate." He points at the cup on the ground that somehow managed not to topple during the last battle. "That looks great! Let's go over to the stand and get some. My treat." The three boys wander over to the truck, cheeks red and in high spirits as Eli digs in his parka for his wallet.
"El?" Olivia says. Her voice is muffled, her body still underneath his. "Kinda cold here."
Elliot assesses their situation. His left arm is trapped around the back of her body, their legs entwined and his torso flush against hers. He begins untangling his limbs from hers slowly and sits on the snow. Reaching over, he tugs her folded arms to help pull her up until they're both seated again.
"You okay?" he says. He hangs on to her hands, briskly rubbing them between his own to help warm them. "I didn't jar your ankle, did I?"
"Nothing like that. I'm all right," she says. "Just a little cold from being against the bank." She looks down at their clasped hands, and he stills them under her inspection. He lets go so he can help brush the rapidly melting snow off her back. She folds her hands together nervously, then separates them and places them in the pockets of her parka. “Thanks for taking the brunt of the… uh… boss battle, so to speak.”
She levels a small smile in his direction, and it generates a ball of heat in his stomach. Suddenly shy, he looks down, unwilling to push limits in the middle of a park in the snow with the kids looking on.
He points in their direction and decides to change the track. "The kids seem to be having a good time," he says. "Henry’s nice. Are he and Noah close?"
"They're pretty tight. Noah doesn't have a ton of friends who are really good ones, you know, what with my job and his dance schedule. So the ones he does have, he tends to keep close."
He looks back up at her and gives her a smile this time. "I can relate with that," says Elliot. He stands up. “Close friends are everything.” He reaches down and takes Olivia’s hand to help her stand up. She pulls a bit too hard and stumbles once she’s there. Elliot immediately places his arm around her waist to steady her.
“I gotcha,” he says. His breath stirs against her neck, and Olivia shivers. He rubs her arms again with his strong hands, and she leans into their security just a little. “Hey, do you have a change of clothes in the car? Do you want to get into something a little drier?”
“Probably, but it can wait for a few minutes. Henry’s mom should be here for the boys any time.”
Eli, Noah, and Henry, as if on cue, bounce back toward Elliot and Olivia with Henry’s mother in tow. The two of them step back from one another as they approach.
“Look who we found,” Eli says. Noah has a small whip cream mustache on his face, and Olivia reaches over out of habit and wipes it with her sleeve as Noah tries to duck. She looks up at her approaching friend.
“Melissa!” says Liv. “Thanks for letting Henry come out. We all had a blast this afternoon. And thanks so much for taking Noah this evening. Are you sure it’s okay for him to stay on a Sunday? Everything he needs for tomorrow is in his bag.”
“El, would you mind helping Noah?” She hands him her keys, and he makes his way with the boys over to her SUV as the two women talk. He tries not to eavesdrop, but the cars are not that far away, and Melissa is what you’d call exuberant.
“It’s no problem at all,” says Melissa. “It seems silly for both of us to have to be up so early to meet the bus for the field trip. I have to help Adam with an early conference call anyway, so I might as well take one for the team.”
Melissa leans in toward Olivia. “Plus, I mean, if I had a date with someone that handsome on Valentine’s Eve…”
Olivia blushes. “It’s not… we’re just…”
Melissa grins. “Okay, Liv. Sure thing.” She takes a look back at Elliot, who’s lifting Noah’s bags out of the back, his muscles flexed as he handles them effortlessly. “I mean…” Olivia gives her friend a wry smile and shakes her head, laughing.
Elliot has Noah’s bags down now and Melissa moves to open the hatch to her Volvo so he can transfer them over. Eli claps the boys on their shoulders and promises to school them on the Switch the next time they all get together. The younger boys clamber into the car and get belted in.
“We’ll call you before bedtime, Liv,” says Melissa. “See you later!” They wave their goodbyes, and they’re not even out of the parking lot before Eli is making excuses about meeting his “study partner” for something that is “Definitely not a date, Dad.”
“Be home by 10, Son.” Elliot feels a slight knot in his gut, knowing what Eli has been through recently, but he also knows that they are in a much better place than they were before Christmas. He’s present, he’s open, and they’ve talked a lot about Eli’s emotional needs since that first discussion. He’s earned this act of trust, Elliot thinks.
“Ready to go?” says Elliot. Olivia nods, still slightly cold from the wet snowbank. “Come on. I grabbed your change bag. I know a restaurant around the corner with decent pasta and better wine. Want to catch some dinner with me? I’ll bet you can change out of these damp clothes in their restroom.”
“A snowball battle and dinner, Stabler?” Olivia says. “Lucky me.”
♥
then let me build a bridge / for i cannot fill the chasm
♥
As they reach the restaurant, Olivia ducks into the restroom in the back and trades out her top and jeans for the spare change of clothes all detectives worth their salt keep in their vehicles. While she’s changing, Elliot chooses an out-of-the-way booth in the back of the place, which in itself is quiet, small, and mostly intimate. They place their drink order and catch up on their various workweeks, trading stories and mostly avoiding horrors – the day they've spent seems too light to dredge up anything that heavy.
"Liv," he says after the conversation has come to a natural lull. "Can I ask?"
"Ask what, El?"
"'Bout more things I want to know."
She sips her cappuccino and looks up. Nods. She's not afraid to redirect him anywhere she isn't ready to go, and he knows she wants these talks to progress, too.
"Noah. He's such a great kid. Is his dad still in the picture?"
"Elliot..."
"No, I don't mean it like that." She looks at him skeptically. Yeah, I earned that look , he thinks.
"Of course. As evidenced by our discussion the last time you wanted to know." He grins, knowing she had let him slide that stuff past with more grace than he deserved.
"I just mean... you never talk about him spending time with his father. And, well, I do want to know." He steeples his hands, opens them back up. "I want to know about the person who would half-ass a relationship with the amazing kid who pummeled me with snowballs with such glee today."
"Noah is adopted, Elliot."
"Oh?" He's genuinely surprised. "He looks so much like you. Except for his eyes," he teases. “They’re more like me.” She gives him that look , catching the inference and knowing he's teasing the edges of that parallel universe that both pissed her off so badly and thrilled her so completely.
He doesn't let her think too hard about the comment – he doesn’t want it to sink their momentum. All teasing aside, he wants her to know he’s serious about the people who are important to her, and no one on that list ranks more highly than her son. He touches her hand across the table. "Please tell me, Liv. Tell me how you found your way to being a mom."
And she does. They talk through dinner, decide to order coffee and dessert, and they continue talking through that. She tells him about her early days as a single mom, scared but in awe. How Noah brought light back into her world after a period of darkness that she skirts for this particular evening but he knows they're one step closer to discussing. She tells him about Team Benson and dance classes and navigating the tough conversations together, how he is her entire world in one astounding blue-eyed package. How she never knew she could love someone so much so unconditionally.
He's enthralled. If Elliot had any confusion or doubts about how he feels about Olivia, they're in tatters, because while he always knew the woman before him was capable of such dedication, the way she loves her son moves him in places inside his heart that haven't been touched since he held her right after the birth of his own youngest. He shakes that thought to catch up with what she’s telling him now.
"Part of why I felt so betrayed by Rafa is because of Noah," she says. "He was once a big part of Noah's life."
"You and he... Uh...?" Elliot doesn't want to fixate on Olivia's love life, but he also knows Barba's name isn't Ed, so he's struggling to find the significance.
"Nothing like that," she clarifies. "It takes a village. He was part of ours. And I'm not sure how to tell Noah that Uncle Rafa didn't trust me enough to believe me, and then devastated the best friend I've ever had on a very personal and ugly level." She looks him directly in the eye when she says it. He knows she means it, and he knows it was once true. He's not sure he's earned it back yet, but he's grateful nonetheless.
♥
it took a day to build the city / we walked through its streets in the afternoon
♥
They order coffee to go as Elliot settles up the bill.
“Well, you're still a Detective First Grade while I'm a Captain, which means I get paid *so* much more than you, so I guess you're paying.”
“Yeah, but I got that bigtime private security money saved up from all those years while getting universal healthcare, so I'll pick you up. *This* time.”
They take the coffee with them as they amble back toward the park and to their vehicles. It's close to midnight now, the hours having passed so quickly as they've deep-dived into Olivia's life with her squad, her chosen family. About her partnership with Nick Amaro, her friendship with Amanda, her relationship as first a mentor and then peer for Carisi. And about Fin, the man he knows well on his own terms but doesn't at all in the role as both her stalwart and the biggest reason she never falls into taking herself too seriously.
He has his hand on her lower back, ushering her as they stroll on the sidewalk. He feels truly connected with her for the first time since Kathy's death, even though he knows they still have so much more ground to cover. But he finally feels like he can take a full breath around her. He finally feels like his friend Olivia is going to let her back into her life, and it's not something he was sure would happen before now. It's a place to begin.
She's telling him about how Cragen encouraged her to take the sergeant's exam when they pass a newspaper cart getting prepped for the next morning's sales. "Hey, Mister. Buy your lady a Valentine's rose?" The vendor holds out a long-stemmed rose with a small water tube attached to it.
She's amused, and he thinks maybe she's blushing a little. "Absolutely," he says. He digs in his pocket and gives the guy a $10 bill. "Keep the change," he says.
He turns to Olivia, and, with a flourish, presents her with the rose. "My Captain," he says.
"Stow it," she says, but she's smiling as she holds the flower to her nose and inhales.
"My friend?" he tries again.
She takes his hand, then turns into his chest, facing him. "For now," she says, pointedly. It takes his breath away, and, to his delight, she holds the moment longer than she has to. Long enough for them both to feel the pull of that something else they always tamped down in a previous life. Eventually she steps back beside him, but she keeps their hands clasped. She swings them a little between them as she picks her story back up.
When they get to the cars, Olivia unlocks her door and offloads her clothes bag and the rose, placing it carefully on the passenger seat so it doesn’t jostle on the ride home. She closes the door and turns back toward him.
Elliot reaches for her and pulls her to face him, their bodies not quite flush but definitely close and easy enough to melt into an embrace, should they want to. He knows it’s too soon for that, but he also knows it’s a goal, something his soul desperately craves with the miraculous woman in front of him. He wants her to know he wants to hold her, even if she’s not ready right now.
“I had a really nice time today, Liv.” He has both of her hands in his, and he brings them to his chest and kisses one. “Thank you for letting your friend Elliot and his son spend some time with you and your son.”
“We’re… we’re really going to get there, aren’t we?” she muses. He’s hopeful, and he knows it shows on his face.
“I hope so,” he says.
“Thanks for my rose, El.”
It’s after midnight, so he takes the shot. “Least I could do for my Valentine,” he says.
She pulls her hands from his and reaches up to cup his face. She tips up on her toes and catches his lips with hers, just a small brush before she presses them more solidly together. He’s hyper-aware of everything right now – the taste of cappuccino on her lips, the way she gets him to open his mouth a little for a small exploration, the feel of her waist as his arms close the distance between their bodies. She pulls back, looks at him in wonder, and then goes back in for another, this one with a bit more fire and heat. They give and take for a few moments before Elliot feels a pivot point approaching. Knowing it’s too soon for that step, he settles her back into a less hectic pace before they slowly break apart.
“Wow,” he says. He pulls her hands in his again, and he’s gently making circles with his thumbs on top of her fingers.
“Wow,” she echoes. She ducks her head shyly, and Elliot wonders once again how he was so lucky to know this woman in any capacity twice within his lifetime.
“Can I take you to lunch tomorrow?” he asks. There’s a 50/50 chance she’ll actually be able to go with the hubbub of her job, but he wants her to know time with her is something he considers precious and important.
She nods. “No promises, but we can try. Just call?”
He nods, leans down, gently kisses her again before opening her car door for her.
“El,” she says, as she puts the keys into the ignition. “Text me when you make it home?”
“Isn’t that my line?” he teases.
She’s smiling as she pulls out of the empty parking lot, and his heart is full. As he makes his way back to his own car, he promises himself, given the chance, he’ll spend all his remaining Valentine’s Days trying to recreate that smile.