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I do bad things for the sake of good times
I don't, I don't regret
It'd been nearly a month since Elliot had been back from his undercover stint as Eddie Wagner. While it had seemed like a good idea at the time to escape himself, his real life and his real world and responsibilities, having to crash land right back into reality had been harder than he expected.
He kept replaying a line in his head that he said to his mother over 10 years ago:
"I don't have the luxury of staying in bed for a month when things don't go my way."
Maybe he's more like her than he ever thought. No, he didn't stay in bed and mope, but he ran away from the people he loved, though it wasn't necessarily the first time. He'd run away from a person he'd tried to convince himself he didn't love for 10 years. But at least he'd been himself the entire time he was doing it.
He couldn't stop replaying his conversation with Flutura on the balcony of her hotel room either. She'd called him on drugging her, one of the things he'd been most ashamed of during the bust. Actually, anything having to do with her felt shameful. While he didn't regret bringing down the KO, he regretted the means he had to use to do it.
"Did a lot of things I'm not proud of," he'd told her after she said he'd hurt her.
After learning her story, about being sold into trafficking by her own father, seeing how she and Albi still sought one another out in their worst moments, it was hard to see her as a two-dimensional perp. Things in SVU were never completely black and white, but he'd always had the luxury of being moderately removed from most of the situations, being able to tell who was a perp and who was a victim. But being so deeply enmeshed in it made things harder.
"All part of the job, right," she'd said. "To protect and to serve."
"Did what I had to do," he'd responded.
She'd asked him if he was married, had a family, and he'd lied again and told her it was just him. He didn't need her or the rest of the mob coming back on them. Not like the Wheatley's had. He'd already lost enough.
Call me what you will
Yeah, I'm in it for the thrill
I'm just, I'm just selfish
"You know what I think," she'd said, stepping closer. "I think you're going to miss the Albanian life. All the excitement, the passion, the fun. I could see you loved it"
That infuriating woman was haunting him from her jail cell. She'd told him not to forget her, but how could he? She's the only other woman he'd ever been with, aside from his wife. And he would be lying a bit if he said he didn't do it for the thrill, didn't do it to be someone else entirely, to feel like someone else. Sure he'd felt sick afterwards, but even that feeling was just something he needed to be alive.
Kathy was gone and she wasn't coming back. And after all this time, he sure as hell didn't deserve even the few things that Olivia had been doing for him. He got his children's mother killed just for doing his job. And in it all, he'd just gone numb. So playing around with Flutura, it wasn't for the cover. It was completely selfish to make himself feel like badass Eddie Wagner, and not broken and lost Elliot Stabler.
But now, removed from it, he could see what a cowardly move it really was. Always going for the easy, low hanging fruit, and never stepping up to be the man he wanted to be; the man the women and children in his life deserved.
The flashbacks came most heavily at night when he was in his bed, too big for one person. The sounds of other people pittering around in the house, his mother making eggs, Kathleen and Eli's conversations. It felt foreign, wrong to have those images in his head when he was here. And yet he couldn't get them to go away.
Did he miss that life? Or did he miss this life? Maybe he missed his life in Rome. Or maybe he missed his life from 12 or 15 years ago, riding around in a squad car like judge, jury, and executioner with his partner by his side. Because that was really the last time he felt like anything made sense.
I need redemption
For sins I can't mention
He knew Wheatley's trial would come someday, but that didn't mean he was prepared for it. And he certainly wasn't prepared, though not particularly surprised, that the scumbag secured not just a former ADA as his defense attorney, but one of Olivia's closest friends to represent him, to go up against the prosecutor he nearly mentored in open court.
She'd felt the need to be the one to come and tell him. She'd come through the back gate, onto the terrace, and he had to blink a few times to be sure he was really seeing her there, knocking on the glass, puffing breath out into the cold night.
"El, there's something you need to know about Wheatley's trial," she said as he passed her a mug of coffee.
"What's he done now?" Elliot asked, sipping his own cup.
"The attorney he hired," she said. "He used to be one of us. Raphael Barba. He was our ADA for six years and he's a friend of mine. He asked me to meet him for lunch today so he could tell me ahead of time. He knew you used to be my partner."
"Well, that's not a coincidence," Elliot said. "That Wheatley tapped him for counsel, I mean."
"He's good, El," she said.
"You worried?" he asked.
"I'm not not worried," she said.
"You planning on coming to the trial?" Elliot asked.
"If you wanted me there," she said. "But Kathleen has already asked me to come. For moral support, even if I stay in the hallway. I told her you had to make the decision if you wanted me there or not. It's your family."
"You've always been family, Liv," Elliot said.
"In light of the letter you gave me," Olivia said. "I just want to make sure I won't be interfering with Kathy's memory."
He should have seen that one coming. It wasn't a dig exactly. She hadn't said it with any malice. But the chances were good that he was never going to live down that letter, nor tainting Olivia's memory that Kathy had once been somewhat of her friend.
"I want you there," he said, as honestly as he could so she'd have no reason to doubt him. He saw her scan his face for any signs of uncertainty, but when she finally looked away and took another sip from her mug he assumed she hadn't found any.
He on the other hand felt jittery. Maybe he hadn't reached for the decaf.
"You wanna get out of here?" he asked. "I think I just need to take a drive."
She looked up at him puzzled, but nodded.
"Sure," she said. "Lucy's with Noah for another few hours. Let's go."
He grabbed his green jacket off the peg by the door and then helped her slide into her long black coat, leading her by the small of her back out to the terrace and down to his SUV.
There were some things he felt like he needed to confess, and replicating the old days of cases and stakeouts might be the only way he can do it without feeling like he's drowning.
Too many nights and there's no end
I'm hellbent, the reckless one
He didn't have a plan for where to drive. He just made unconscious turns until they were somehow barreling toward the airport. Maybe he secretly wanted to hop a flight back to Rome. Maybe he wanted to kidnap her and take her to some remote Hallmark movie town and start a new life.
Olivia, to her credit, hadn't said anything since they'd gotten in the car. She hadn't commented on where he was going, or made any kind of remarks as he weaved in and out of traffic. She simply flipped the radio stations until she found a song she liked and stared out the window.
In the deeper parts of his brain he knew why he wanted to take this drive. He had things to tell her that he couldn't say in his home, or in her squad room, or anywhere else but in a car, just the two of them.
The sedan had always been a safe place for them. It was where she usually felt most comfortable revealing her secrets to him, and now he understood why. There was something intimate about it, but also impersonal. If they were moving, they couldn't look at one another. They were close enough to touch, but not close enough to cross any real lines.
He'd been many things to her over the years: a partner, a friend, a confidant, a betrayal. She'd called him the poster boy for rage and she'd also called him daddy once, under duress. Their history was complex and complicated, but all of that was the past. They didn't really know one another anymore, and he didn't know if he ever wanted her to know this side of him. He wanted to be the man in her memory again, the one who trusted him unconditionally to be there when everything felt like it was falling apart. If only he could go back there.
"Has anyone ever told you that you think very loudly," Olivia said.
"What do you mean?" Elliot said.
"I can actually feel you thinking over here," Olivia said. "It's in the air."
"I'm… sorry?" he said, not sure how to respond to that.
"We haven't really talked, El," she said. "Not really, not sober. Not just the two of us without an intervention, without an audience, without running back to an undercover operation. I can feel that you want to talk."
"I don't, Liv," he said. "I mean, I think we have to. But I don't want to do it. I just want things to be normal between us."
"They won't be until you tell me what's on your mind," Olivia said. "Too much has happened now to go around things. We have to go through them to get to the other side."
Elliot took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel harder.
"If you come to the trial, there may be some things that come out," he said. "Things that happened with Wheatley. Things I did. Things he said."
"Okay," Olivia said. "In case you forget, this isn't my first rodeo, El. I know how the defense can twist the truth. And I know how Barba is at creating reasonable doubt."
"That's just it, Liv," he said. "Not all of it may be twisting the truth."
If his thinking spoke volumes to him before, her silence spoke volumes to him now.
"I'm listening," she said.
Too many nights I justify
All my casualties of love
"I just don't want you to hear things in court," he said. "I at least want you to be able to ask questions. For me to explain. Hell you might not care but you should at least hear them from me."
"You're stalling," she said.
"I kissed Angela Wheatley," he blurted, wishing for a moment he wasn't driving so he could close his eyes.
"Oh?" Olivia said, it came out more like a question.
He wanted to turn his head to look at her, but he couldn't. He didn't know what would be worse to see in her face: anger, jealousy, or complete indifference.
"After the intervention," he started, but she cut him off.
"After the intervention where you blurted out that you loved me in front of your kids," Olivia said. "And then never talked about it again?"
"After the intervention," he said. "I told you I felt like I was drowning. I needed to go somewhere where someone understood what I was going through. She'd lost her son. She knew what it felt like."
"And I've never lost anyone?" Olivia said, the thickness in her voice more evident than before. "My mother. Simon. Ed. Calvin. Countless other friends. Victims. You for 10 years. And your children? They wouldn't understand?"
"I couldn't be who you all wanted me to be," he said, knowing how gruff he sounded. "I needed to be with someone who didn't have any expectations for me. Who didn't know me."
"Why, Elliot?" Olivia asked. "Who had expectations for you? Who did we want you to be?"
"The man I used to be," he said. "I'm not that man anymore, Liv. I'm not your partner from 10 years ago. I'm not the father they grew up with. I'm not even the same cop anymore. I don't know who I am."
"And I'm not the same partner or woman you left 10 years ago either," Olivia said. "Your children are not the exact same little people you raised. Kathleen is such a strong, independent woman. Dickie has grown into a responsible man. They're not the same little ones you used to have to protect from the monsters, even though they'll always be your babies."
"I just needed…" Elliot faltered. He didn't actually know what he needed. He'd just felt like he had to get out of there and somehow his legs took him to Angela's house. Maybe he'd subconsciously known she'd had something to do with it all, but he was so jacked up from the intervention he misinterpreted the draw.
"I needed a break," he finally said.
"Okay," she said. "We would have given you one if you had asked. But I told you years ago that bottling it up inside doesn't work for you. Someday you have to let the dam break. You have to let somebody else help you."
"I did," he yelled. "And look where it got me. Kissing my wife's killer."
For all the times I can't reverse
For all the places where it hurts
I need a little church
I need a little church
Elliot could feel himself close to hyperventilation, so he pulled over. They were near the airport now, in some parking lot. He didn't even bother to fully pull into a spot before shoving the car into park and hopping out. He needed air. He needed space. He needed clarity.
In the old days, she might not have followed. She may have let him go punch a wall or kick the crap out of a garbage can. And he wanted to do one of those things. Boy what he wouldn't give for a swift kick to some metal right now.
He didn't hear her approach. Didn't even realize she got out of the car until he felt her hand on his back, just below his shoulder.
"El," she said. "You have to let it out."
"I can't take it back," he said. "Kissing Angela. Letting Kathy get into that car. Leaving you for 10 years. Not speaking to my mother for all that time. I can't take any of it back."
"No, you can't," Olivia said. "But you can start forgiving yourself and start to heal."
"Is this the part where you tell me to say three Hail Mary's and a Glory Be?" he said, trying to make a joke.
"No," she said, rubbing his back. "That doesn't come until the end of your confession."
I do bad things
Can't you see it on my face?
I get caught in every lie
"That was the confession," Elliot said, but he knew it wasn't the full truth. She didn't know everything. He hadn't told her much about what happened undercover, though he assumed she could surmise some of it based on her involvement with the trafficking ring.
"You've been dark since you've been back, El," she said. "But I almost lost you again to Eddie Wagner and the Albanians, for good. I know there's more."
His whole body felt limp. He wanted to sit, maybe lie down. But Olivia moved her arm to his waist and kept him upright.
"Elliot, when you were gone I stared down the devil, twice, and I won," she said. "Nothing you say to me about what you did undercover can be worse than that."
"What do you mean…" he started, trying to understand her words.
"This isn't about me right now," she said, still holding onto him. "If you bring the darkness to light, it can't control you anymore."
"You sound like a shrink," he chuckled. "Been taking lessons with Huang?"
"Something like that," she said.
"I don't want you to think of me differently," he said. "I want to be the man you thought you knew."
"The man I thought I knew wouldn't have left me for 10 years without a word," she said. "And he wouldn't have given me a letter he didn't write and then show up drugged on my doorstep to tell me he didn't write it, but his wife did. So that ship has sailed."
Elliot sighed.
"But it's okay," Olivia said. "Because I don't know how Captain Benson would react to 2010 Detective Stabler. She'd probably want to kick him in the balls."
"Oh, and like Detective Benson didn't want to do that too," he said with a laugh.
"For different reasons," she said, smiling. "But maybe Captain Benson and 2021 Detective Stabler might get along just fine if they really knew each other."
"It's brutal, Liv," Elliot said.
"I'm a big girl," she said. "Try me."
He took another deep breath. Maybe it couldn't hurt to start telling the truth; if he even remembered what that was.
"I had to torch buildings with unidentified bodies still in them," he said. "I had to sneak out severed fingers to get them back to the lab. I watched Kosta cut a guy's tongue out of his mouth and pin it to the wall with a knife. I had to go into that brothel and act like nothing was wrong. Like what they were doing to those girls was perfectly fine."
"But if I recall," she said. "You saved Rita."
"I slept with Flutura," he said.
The confession hung in the air. He felt her arm tense around him but she didn't say anything.
"Please say something," he said.
"I don't know how to take that," she said. "Before or after you knew she was involved in the trafficking ring?"
"Before," he said. "I drugged her too."
"Elliot I don't know if you should be telling me this," she said, pulling back.
"No, no," he said, turning to her. "Not at the same time. I drugged her so I could snoop around her house and that's where I found the passports. The next day she came to the trailer to apologize for falling asleep on our date. Blamed it on drinking on an empty stomach and then she kissed me and things happened."
He tried to see her face in the dark. He wanted to know if she was hurt, or at least get a read on how she feels.
"We've all slept with people we regret," she said. "Believe me. This is a pretty big one though."
"I can't get these images out of my head," he said. "I can't stop thinking about all the bad things I saw. All the ones I did."
He felt the PTSD coming, but he was powerless to stop the panic before it overtook him.
I can't even stop to take care of my own self
Let alone somebody else
He was vaguely aware of her whispering to him soothingly, taking his palm and putting it firmly against her chest.
"Feel my heartbeat, El," she said. "You're safe. Nothing and nobody can get to you while I'm here."
He almost wanted to laugh if he felt like he could catch his breath right now. How many times had he wanted to be that person for her? For his children? The infallible force that could somehow put them in a bubble and protect them from every fear or evil in the outside world.
"Tell me five things you can see, El," she said.
"Uh, the airport lights," he said. "The car, the moon, that fence, you."
"Good," she said. "Four things you can touch."
"My sleeve, my jeans," he said. "My chin without a beard, and you."
"Three things you can hear," she said.
"The airplanes, my voice," he said. "Your voice."
"Two things you can smell," she said.
"Gasoline," he said. "And your perfume."
"Last one," she said. "One thing you can taste."
He looked right at her lips and she caught him, gently removing his hand from her chest.
"Good to have you back," she said, not forcing him to answer the last question.
"I can't even think about this shit without having a panic attack," he said. "How am I supposed to raise Eli? How am I supposed to look after my mother when I can't even handle my damn self?"
"Healing isn't linear," she said. "You have to recognize that you don't have to be Superman or Super Dad every second of every day."
"Says Wonder Woman," he joked.
"Elliot, trust me when I tell you that you don't fully understand what I deal with every day," she said. "Or how long it's taken me to even get to a place where I can manage it."
"Since we're on an honesty kick," he said. "You saying things like that terrifies me. But I think the fact that I don't even know what the hell you're referring to terrifies me more."
"We'll talk about it someday," Olivia said. "Tonight is about you. This upcoming trial is about you."
"It's about Kathy," he said.
"And she was a big part of you for a long time," Olivia said.
"She didn't deserve this," he said.
"And you don't deserve to blame yourself for it for eternity," she said.
I need redemption
For sins I can't mention
"I didn't want to be Elliot Stabler anymore," he said. "That's why I went undercover."
"I know," she said.
"I still don't want to be Elliot Stabler," he said. "I don't like him very much right now."
"That's a shame," she said. "Because I happen to like him a lot. I'm glad he's finally home. Hopefully for good."
"That's still my biggest sin to you?" Elliot asked. "After everything I just told you?"
"It's the one that hurt me the most, yes," she said. "And I wanted an explanation for why you did it. But I don't think I need one anymore."
He felt his body going back into damage control mode.
"Liv, what I said at the hospital…" he started, but she cut him off.
"I don't need the explanation anymore, El," she said. "I forgive you for leaving. I'm not going to forget it, but I forgive you."
"I don't deserve that," he said, stepping forward to lean his forehead against hers.
"Yes, I think you do," she said. "You deserve to give yourself a break, but since you can't seem to do it, I'll give you one instead."
Too many nights and there's no end
I'm hellbent, the reckless one
"I don't know if I can take a lengthy trial," he said and he held her door open as they got back in the car to drive home. "Everything still feels raw."
"Carisi and Barba are both good," she said. "So I hate to disappoint you, but it could be a long one."
He crossed to the driver's seat, got in and started the car.
"What if I can't take it?" he said. "What if it becomes too much?"
"Then you go back to therapy," she said. "You talk to Bell. You come to me. You don't run off to join another mafia or globetrot to another country for a decade."
"Guess I deserved that," he said, shifting into drive.
"Forgiven not forgotten," she said. "I have ten years of merciless teasing, taunting, and rank pulling that I missed out on."
"The rank pulling is kind of hot," he said with a grin, and he saw her roll her eyes out of the corner of his.
They drove in silence until they were nearly back in Manhattan. She played with the radio stations a few more times, but the return trip was much more relaxed than the original.
"Any last things to tell me before the trial or before we get back to your place?" she asked.
He thought about Wheatley and everything that had transpired between them.
"Actually," he said. "There is one more."
Too many nights I justify
All my casualties of love
The silence was heavy again.
"Well?" she said, pushing him to speak.
"After we arrested the Wheatleys we put Richard and Angela in the box together to see if they'd turn on one another," he said.
"And did they?" she asked.
"Not really," Elliot said. "Richard seemed to know about our kiss and what I thought was the start of a friendship, and he taunted her about it. Said she wasn't the love of my life."
"Well, obviously," Olivia said with a scoff. "The woman had your wife killed. Of course she wasn't the love of your life."
"He said Kathy wasn't the love of my life either," Elliot said.
The words hung in the air again. At a red light he could turn to look at her, lip crunched under her teeth, trying to make sense of it all.
"Who then?" Olivia said. "Just a tactic to make Angela think she killed the wrong person?"
"Well he made a pretty big deal of calling out brown eyes," Elliot said.
"You know a lot of women with brown eyes," she said. "What's he going to have Barba do? Bring up every single one?"
"Liv," he said. "I know exactly who he was talking about. And if they bring it up during the trial, my kids, Carisi, Barba, and anybody else there is going to know who he's talking about too. Please don't play dumb with me right now."
"So the text at the hospital, the little show outside 1PP, driving me off the road," Olivia said. "All because Wheatley thinks I'm the love of your life? A little story or a little game to make his ex-wife think you're the one who played her?"
"It's not a game, Liv," he said. "And he doesn't just think it. He knows it."
"El," she started.
"He knows, Liv. Hell, I think three quarters of Manhattan knows it," Elliot said. "Everybody but you. My kids, especially Dickie and Kathleen, have seen it for years. My mother. Hell, even Kathy knew. Why else would she dictate that letter to me?"
"Elliot you can't say these things," she said.
"Why not?" he said. "They're true. They've always been true. Even when I couldn't say them out loud. But tomorrow they might get aired in open court and if you're not ready for it then you'll be blindsided."
"You can't mean them," she said.
"Why?" he said.
"Because you're married, you have a family," she said.
"My wife is dead," he said. "We're going to her murder trial tomorrow. Four of my five kids are grown adults and you helped deliver the fifth. I said it earlier, Liv, you've always been family. You've always mattered more to me than I could even put into words."
"You can't mean those words," she said again.
"Why, Liv?" he said. "Why couldn't you be the love of my life?"
"Because I don't get the things I want," she yelled, almost surprising herself as she drew a hand to her mouth.
"Olivia, are you saying you'd want to be the love of my life?" he asked.
"Maybe, once upon a time," she said. "But like you said, El, in a parallel universe."
"I don't know about you," he said. "But haven't the last two years kind of felt like a parallel universe?"
"True," she muttered.
"We don't have to get too deep into all this now," he said. "But just… know it could come up, okay?"
"It better not, or I'll wring Barba's neck myself," she said.
For all the times I can't reverse
For all the places where it hurts
I need a little church
"Are we okay?" Elliot asked when they were just a few blocks from his apartment.
"We're okay," she said. "But I need you to talk to someone when these feelings start to bottle up inside. You're probably going to be having more of them as the trial goes on. I need you to take care of yourself."
"I can't change what I've done," he said.
"But you can change what you do going forward," she said. "And whatever happens, we're gonna take it one step at a time."
He felt her fingers tracing his on the center console, before slowly sliding their hands together. She was here and she was real, and she wasn't going anywhere. And neither was he, not anymore.
Elliot Stabler hadn't been to church since he'd been back from undercover, but sitting here with her, in their personal cathedral, holding hands in a silent prayer, he was pretty sure no matter what Wheatley, Barba, or anyone else threw at them, they could handle it as long at they took it one step at a time. Together.
I need a little church