Work Text:
T rying to live and love
With a heart that can't be broken
Is like trying to see the light
With eyes that can't be opened
"I want you to come home," she'd said to him the night she'd visited his apartment for the first time.
How many times had he heard that from Kathy? Or Kathleen, when Elliot and Kathy were separated? Or his mother, lately, since she moved in? Everybody, it seemed, had been calling him home. But where or what was home anymore after so much tumultuous change?
"I intend to," he said.
"Before it's too late," she'd said with an eye roll, something she'd been doing far too often in his presence lately.
"Liv, I'm being careful," he'd told her, leaning on the garden gate.
But it was what she said next that finally broke through.
"I mean," she said, putting her hand to his neck and cupping the plane of his cheek and jaw, "before Eddie Wagner takes over and Elliot Stabler is nowhere to be found."
He saw something in her eyes he hadn't seen since he'd been back, and maybe something he hadn't seen in them ever. Fear.
Caring has always been her nature. She cares for the victims and her squad.. He knew she cared for him to some degree, at least she had 10 years ago. But it wasn't until he saw the fear in her eyes that this cover may consume him and that his real personality, his real soul, may disappear forever, that it really hit him.
She didn't just care for him. She cared about him. And there was a difference. She's always been empathetic, understanding others' pain in a very real way and fighting to make it better for them. But caring about someone was deeper. When you care about someone, their being, their existence is tied to you. Their wellbeing and health and safety directly affect your own.
The look she'd given him, it meant more to him than any "I love you" she could have said. He knew his words had lost meaning with her, especially after the broken promises and the truth about the letter. Actions meant more to her, just as her glances, her stares, could share volumes with him.
He'd wanted to get lost in Eddie Ashes. He didn't want to be Elliot Stabler anymore. What is the good in being righteous, following the Catholic faith, fighting for justice, if your wife still wound up dead in a planned hit and your kids can't help but look at you like it's your fault? Why catch the scumbags when there will just be another one tomorrow? Why stay away from party girls and red-headed madames when the woman you really want won't let you into her life again?
But in 10 minutes, she'd saved it all. She still found Elliot Stabler worthy of existing. In all his faults, in all his mistakes, the thought of losing him-again, and maybe for good-was enough to put fear into the eyes of the most fearless woman he'd ever met.
It was the wakeup call he needed.
It took a few more weeks to wrap up the case. They were so close now. Flutura had blown the whistle on a mole in the organization, and eventually fingers pointed at Reggie, which caused just enough cracks within the crew to watch them crumble.
The night it was over, when he personally got to cuff Albi, Kosta, and Flutura himself, he went home and shaved the beard off his face. It was the most obvious physical change that he was no longer someone else. He'd hugged his kids, and gave Eli another stern talking to, and then he texted Liv.
"It's done," he typed. "When you're free I'd like to see you."
He hadn't expected her to respond so quickly.
"Can you be here in an hour?" she'd asked, and he knew he could have been there in five seconds if she requested.
Because it was time to finally lay it all out on the line. He was ready for confession, but he didn't need a priest. His judge, jury, and executioner was Olivia Benson, and he had far too many mortal sins to bring to her altar. But she deserved the truth. Deserved to know what caring about him these days really meant. Whether she would provide penance, absolution, or eternal damnation he didn't know, but he was willing to go and find out.
Yeah, we both carry baggage
We picked up on our way
So if you love me, do it gently
And I will do the same
She heard a knock at her door an hour later, on the dot. She truly didn't know what would be waiting for her on the other side. Every meeting between them since he got back, Fin's non-wedding notwithstanding, had ended with more drama, more hurt feelings, and more pain.
She didn't know how much more she could take, but she also couldn't stay away.
Olivia was pleasantly surprised to find that he shaved before coming over and he was smiling at her in a way he used to do, before dead wives, and Rome, and Albanian mobs got in their way. She wasn't prepared for him to cross the threshold so quickly slam the door shut behind him, and envelop her in his arms like it was something they did every day.
He was crushing and cradling her at the same time, his face buried in her hair. It was more like the reunion she'd pictured in her head time and time again about what would happen if he did ever come back into her life. More of the gentle reconnecting of two souls rather than the explosions of car bombs and the wail of sirens.
She pulled back just enough to look up at him.
"I see we've gotten rid of the beard," she teased, reaching up to stroke his bare chin.
"That was more Eddie's style, not Elliot's," he said.
"I agree," she said.
Olivia was able to untangle from his arms, but she wasn't quite ready to part from him completely. Instead she took his hand and led him to the couch, where she curled up in the corner seat, tucking her feet under her, inviting him to sit in the middle and angle his body to look at her.
She was nervous. Because tonight, she was going to tell him everything he'd missed over the last 10 years. Everything. All of it. From Cassidy to Tucker. William Lewis. Noah's adoption. She needed to get it out in the open. He clearly thinks she's the same woman he left 10 years ago: fearless and unbroken. But she's not. She's become harder in some areas, softer in others. Amanda may have been right. She didn't know him anymore. But he didn't know her either, and she knew tonight was the night that would change.
They both attempted to speak, laughing at their ability to still be so in sync. She gestured for him to go first.
"I really think we need to talk," he said. "Or, I need to talk. There are things I've done in the last year… hell, the last 10 years, that I need you to know. And most of them are… shameful. But you need to know. If you're going to keep showing up and rescuing me from everything, including myself, you have to know."
Olivia is stunned. Not only because he plans on confessing to her tonight, as she had planned to do, but because she isn't sure if she wants to know his truths. If more of them are like his secrets about the letter, is she really prepared? But she also knows this is their only way forward.
"I'll listen," she says, still holding his hand, now gently running her thumb across his knuckles. "As long as I can do the same when you're done."
He smiles a genuine Elliot Stabler smile and she feels like maybe, no matter what they say tonight, things will be okay.
We may shine, we may shatter
We may be picking up the pieces here on after
We are fragile, we are human
We are shaped by the light we let through us
We break fast, 'cause we are glass
"Is Noah here?" he asks before starting his confession. It will be bad enough for her to hear everything he's done, let alone an innocent little boy he hasn't officially met.
"Spending the night with Lucy, his nanny," Olivia said.
"Good," Elliot said. "This is not a conversation for his ears."
Elliot sees her tense, but he knows there's no going back now.
"I'm not quite sure where to start," he said.
"How about at the beginning," she says. "With your unanswered phone calls and putting in your papers."
And, as usual, she's right. That's where it all begins anyway.
"I meant what I said," he said. "If I heard your voice, I wouldn't have been able to leave. But I had to, Liv. I shot a child. She killed Sister Peg. She could have killed you. I knew after that I'd been there too long. But I couldn't just leave you."
"But you did," she said. "You did leave me for 10 years without a word. Well, that's not true. You left me for a month and a half without a word, then sent me a mini badge and your medallion and a two word note, and then you left me for 9 years and 11 months without a word."
"So you got them?" Elliot asked.
"Of course I got them," Olivia said. "Uni brought them right to my desk. I wore the medallion for a while. It's still in my jewelry box. I had the mini badge clipped to my gun for about two years. But we'll get to that in a bit."
He wants to ask why she doesn't have it there anymore, but he's calmed by the fact that they have time. He doesn't have to rush back undercover, she doesn't have to pull away and be the Captain. Tonight, it's just Elliot and Olivia, dressed down, on a couch, baring their souls.
"I couldn't call you back," he said. "I couldn't let you hear me at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. And I couldn't hear you without running back and tearing up my retirement forms. But I wanted you to know that a part of you would always be with me, and I wanted to make sure a part of me was always with you."
"So how'd that lead to Rome?" she asked, prompting the next conversation.
"I was so lost after I left the force," Elliot said. "I was depressed. Kathy suggested a vacation, something we'd never had much time to do. So we took the whole family overseas for three weeks that summer. We saw Greece, and Ireland, and ended in Italy. Kathy loved it there and we just decided not to leave. It was a good distraction for me. I found a job working in private security. It was enough for a while, until I started to realize all the shady business that these people were into. When the task force approached me I knew it was the right move."
"Kathy was the one who wanted to come to your award ceremony," he said. "Fin called and told me about it, but I didn't think it was right to show up after all this time. But Kathy said it'd been long enough."
"That doesn't make any sense," Olivia said. "Given the letter and all."
"I think she was testing me," Elliot said. "I don't think it really had anything to do with you. The letter, I mean."
Olivia arched an eyebrow but let him continue.
"I think she never expected me to give it to you," he said. "She took my inability to write anything as some sort of admission of guilt. That maybe we had talked in the last 10 years, or I had cheated on her back in the day, even though we both know the truth. I think she was trying to get me to admit to her that I didn't believe what she was dictating. But I was a coward."
"How so?" Olivia asked.
"Because I knew the entire thing was a lie but I wrote it down anyway," he said. "I didn't correct her. And then I gave it to you, even after she was gone."
"Why did you do that?" Olivia asked. "That hurt, Elliot. It hurt to think that you felt those things. It hurt to think that Kathy, a woman I considered a friend, would say things like that. I always fought for your marriage. I didn't do anything wrong."
"No, you didn't," Elliot said. "I did. I let her dictate that letter. I let her get blown up by a car bomb. I gave you the letter. I told you the truth about it when I was high as a kite. It was all my fault. I've never deserved either one of you."
"That didn't answer my question," she said. "Why did you give it to me after she was already gone?"
"Because Fin said you moved on," he said. "And when I saw you with Noah, God. You were glowing. I always knew you were meant to be a mother. And I missed it. You found someone, you had his child. You made Captain. You are nothing short of phenomenal and here I was, back from the depths of hell to screw up your life again. You deserved closure. Or I thought you did."
"You always got yourself into trouble when you did what you thought I needed rather than asking me," she said. "But this is actually a great time for me to cut in and tell you about some of the things you missed while you were off playing cops and robbers in Rome."
He took a deep breath, hoping she'd tell him all about that man Fin brought up when they had drinks, but he didn't know if he was ready for it.
I'll let you look inside me
Through the stains and through the cracks
And in the darkness of this moment
You see the good and bad
"The day Cragen told me you put your papers in, I locked myself in an interrogation room and cried," she said, seeing the pain twist on his face, but knowing it served him right.
"I was mad for a long time," she said. "I punished Amanda, and my new partner Nick for years because neither of them was you. I had always been alone and you were the one person I thought would never leave me. And you did. So I wasn't planning on getting close enough to anyone else again."
"I'm…" he started but she cut him off.
"Don't say you're sorry," she said. "You've been saying that too much lately and it's losing its meaning. I get it."
He bit his lip, and when she was sure he wasn't going to say anything else, she continued.
"I dated a little, but nobody was quite right," she said. "There was an attorney and then I reconnected with Brian Cassidy on a case."
Olivia got a twisted sense of glee out of seeing his nostrils flare and a flush reach his whole bald head. He'd always hated Cassidy, especially after their one night stand.
"Oh?" he managed to eek out, trying to keep his voice even but sounding more like a growl.
"Cassidy isn't Noah's father, Elliot," she said, seeing some of the tension ease out of his jaw. "I adopted Noah after a case. His father led a sex trafficking ring, his mother was one of the trafficked girls. He raped her and she was allowed to keep Noah if she kept working. But she overdosed and her pimp sold him to a child porn ring. When we found him there was just something about him. I couldn't let him go, even as he bounced from foster home to foster home."
She saw Elliot's eyes soften as he leaned over to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.
"Sounds just like the Olivia Benson I remember," Elliot said. "Always saving the day."
"Noah's actually the one who saved me," Olivia said, her voice cracking.
"How?" Elliot asked, knitting his eyebrows together.
"About a year before, we caught a case," she started. "Actually, Rollins did. A flasher in the park."
Olivia tried to tell the story as clinically as possible but she could feel her anxiety growing, her voice becoming thick as she got closer to the moment of truth, the moment where she almost lost both her dignity and her life.
"The bed was old and the frames were rusted," Olivia said. "I started taunting him so he'd focus on me instead of the little girl, and when he unzipped his pants, I broke the bar off and cracked him across the face."
It was the first time Elliot had smiled since she started talking and she slid closer to her on the couch.
"That's my girl," he whispered.
"I hit him so hard with the bar I broke his arm," she said. "Then I pistol whipped him and cuffed him to the bed. And I should have called 911. I should have called Nick or Cragen but I didn't. Instead, I taunted him some more, even though he was out cold. And I told him about you. I told him my old partner would have known what to do with him. That you would have killed him. And when he woke up and I hadn't killed him, he told me he knew I never had the balls to do it."
"I would have done more than kill him," Elliot said, sitting so close now she could feel his breath on her cheek. "I would have obliterated that bastard so hard that there wouldn't have even been anything to send to hell."
"He's dead, El," she said. "Shot himself after escaping jail and making me play Russian Roulette with him so he wouldn't rape and torture a teenager. There was so much darkness in the world then. I had Cassidy, but I felt all alone. Until Noah."
"You saved each other," he said, in a whisper, almost reverent.
"There's one more thing," she said, trying to pull as far away from him on the couch as she could, but it was near impossible as she was backed up against the arm and he was practically in her lap.
Olivia took a deep breath, not sure if she really wanted to do it, but she needed to rip the band aid off. She slowly reached for the hem of her grey sweater and pulled it up over her head so she was left in her tank top and bra.
"You may have noticed I only wear long sleeves and high necklines now," she said. "This is why."
She'd closed her eyes, not wanting to see Elliot's reactions to her scars. She knew what they looked like. Even healed, they were evident all across her arms and chest. He couldn't see the worst of them, but it was enough.
"Olivia, please look at me," he said, and she cracked an eye open.
"This isn't the worst of them," she mumbled. "But they're the only ones I can show you. The others are in far worse places."
"Please look at me," Elliot said, able to tell she was looking beyond him and not at him.
When she looked into his eyes, she didn't see the pity she expected or even the fear. She saw compassion.
"You have always been one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen," Elliot said, taking her hands. "Fin could always tell when I was watching your backside while watching your back. And a few scars, or a lot of scars, doesn't change that."
"But," she started but he put a finger up to her lips to stop her.
"No buts, no qualifiers," he said. "I'm so thankful I get to see these scars, because it means you're alive. You survived. You were stronger than unfiltered evil."
She felt the tears glistening in her eyes. She didn't want to cry, but how long had she wanted to share this with him? How long had she wanted to hear from the one person that really mattered that it was okay. That she was still Olivia Benson, not Olivia Benson, a detective who was sexually assaulted and scarred for life. Cassidy wouldn't look at them. Ed looked at them too much. But Elliot was letting his eyes roam across them, then back to her face, as if he saw all of her, not just one part or the other. She was delighted, but also unnerved, so she quickly moved to another point that might make him angry.
"I also dated Ed Tucker," she said quickly. "You know from IAB?"
"What?" Elliot yelled, more like yelped and pulled back from her quickly. "Ed Tucker who tried to take my shield and put you in JAIL for murder?"
"The one and only," she said.
"Was he the man Fin said you found?" Elliot asked, eying her suspiciously. "The serious relationship he told me about."
"I thought we were going to get married," she said.
"I can't believe you slept with Tucker," he said.
"You can take a step off the moral high ground," she said. "Especially after being undercover."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.
"C'mon, Elliot," she said. "You're not going to try to tell me Eddie didn't have a little fun with the Albanian women? Or one particular Albanian woman?"
And that's when the color drained out of his face.
But try not to judge me
'Cause we've walked down different paths
But it brought us here together
So I won't take that back
How could she know? How could she possibly know?
It wasn't like he was going to leave that part out. But how could she know already? Who would have told her? Who else even knew? Did she interrogate Flutura and he didn't know about it.
"How did you…" he started.
"You're a shit liar Stabler," Olivia said. "You squint."
"But when did I…" he said, still not finishing his thought.
"The night we staked out the Albanians to get the lay of the land for the trafficking ring," Olivia said. "The minute I even brought her up you clammed up harder than when you refused to tell me Kathy left you. When I pushed further you got defensive and said she wasn't involved, when you clearly knew she was. And when I called her by name you practically had a coronary."
She could always read him like a book.
"And I don't want to hear some bullshit excuse about you being undercover," she said. "One thought of Munch in a nightgown or a faked groin injury could have done the trick."
"You have no right to judge me," he said.
"I have every right to judge you," she said. "Because that's not you. I know that's not you. One night stands, quick screws on easy women. Sex matters to you Elliot. You preached it for years along with your other Catholic values. But the first chance you get, you're hopping into bed with someone you barely even know? A mobster's wife and a sex trafficker no less?"
"Well since you already think so highly of me, I kissed Angela Wheatley, too," he said. "After the intervention. Before we knew her connection to Kathy's murder."
"Why?" Olivia said, her mouth falling open in shock. "Why would you do either of those things?"
"Because I wanted to feel something," he yelled. "With Angela, I wanted to feel something without it actually mattering. With Flutura, I wanted to be somebody else. But a lot of good that did because the entire time I was with her I was picturing you, and the minute she left I hurled because I was disgusted with myself for what I'd done, and I had to pretend to still be interested in her afterwards to keep working the case. I wanted to cut my own dick off. Is that what you want to hear?"
"Not exactly in those words," she said with a small smirk.
"What do you want from me?" he asked. "Why do I feel like I should apologize?"
"You don't need to apologize," she said. "But I really want to know, since you're giving me whiplash here, if you pictured me, if you're thinking of a parallel universe, and I mean the world to you, and all this stuff, why is it never me? Why am I never good enough to come to when you're hurting and only good enough when you need someone to clean up your mess?"
He shook his head and blinked a few times because surely that's not what she thought.
"You think I only come to you to clean up my messes?" he asked.
"It's what it feels like," she said. "You want to have a good time or you want to feel better, you always go to other women. But when you need something fixed or finished or handled, you come to me."
"Because you're not some good time girl, Liv," he said. "You said yourself that sex matters to me. So I'm not going to screw you up against a random wall because I'm sad. If or when we do that, it's not going to be because I'm hurting and hating myself and using you as some patch on a wound. You're so much more important than that."
He heard her gasp a little but continued.
"Maybe I do come to you when things are broken, or I've made a mess of it all," he said. "But that's only because I trust you more than anyone I've ever met. It may have been 10 years, and I might have to reassure you that you can trust me, but my confidence in the fact that you'll back my play, call me on my shit, and help set me straight has never changed. I feel safe with you, Olivia. That's why I come to you when something's broken."
"I used to feel safe with you too. That I could trust you," Olivia said. "Until the day you proved to me that I couldn't."
We may shine, we may shatter
We may be picking up the pieces here on after
We are fragile, we are human
We are shaped by the light we let through us
We break fast, 'cause we are glass
"I keep giving you second chances," Olivia said. "And everyone I know except Fin, who, quite frankly, knows better, has told me I don't know you anymore. But there's a part of me that can't help but hope the real Elliot Stabler is still inside there somewhere."
"I don't know who the real Elliot Stabler is anymore," he said. "But I know that you telling me that night that you didn't want Eddie Wagner to take him over was the wakeup call I needed."
"How do you mean," Olivia asked.
"The look you gave me that night," Elliot said. "I'd never seen that look on your face before. Like it mattered to you if I was around."
"Oh come off it, Elliot," she said. "You know I've always wanted you around.
"No," he said. "I mean, like you were really, truly afraid that Elliot was gone and Eddie was here to stay. Like you wanted my soul to come home, not just my body. I didn't know I mattered that much to you."
"How could you not, El?" she asked. "We were partners for 13 years. You knew everything about me."
"Except how you felt about me," he said. "But you had to have known how I felt about you."
"I didn't," she said. "I still don't. You say one thing and do another. You tell me words then you tell me lies. I don't know what to believe."
"Well, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," he said wagging his eyebrows which made her laugh.
"Fine," she said. "But you have to go first."
We might be oil and water
This could be a big mistake
We might burn like gasoline and fire
It's a chance we'll have to take
"I thought I already did," he said in a teasing tone. "At the intervention."
"So you meant that?" Olivia said, arching an eyebrow. "Because you never talked about it again."
"I didn't want to scare you off," he said.
"I'm not the one who ran away for 10 years," she said.
"I've got three words for you," he said. "Computer crimes. Oregon."
She crossed her arms in front of her chest but didn't say anything else.
"I love you, Olivia," he said. "I have for a long time. I realized it with the Gitano case, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I knew if I couldn't have you forever, I could have you as my partner. And I never wanted to do anything to wreck that."
"We're not partners anymore," Olivia said.
"On the job," Elliot said. "But when I told you partners for life, I meant that. You will always be my partner. No matter who else comes along, no matter how long I work with Bell. You, Olivia Benson, are my partner, for better or worse. You have my back, and you have my heart. If you want it."
"I always wanted it, El," Olivia said. "Kathy had a right to be jealous because how was she to know, really, that I'd never act on that? I wouldn't, of course. I'm not the other woman. I'm not a homewrecker. And one of the things I've always loved about you is that you're a family man. Or you used to be."
"I still am," Elliot said. "I just never expected to be doing it alone. I'm so afraid Eli is going to turn out like me, or worse."
"This is a lot for him," Olivia said. "And it might help if he knew he wasn't in this alone. He left his school, his friends, he lost his mother, his dad went undercover, he's living with his grandmother who he barely knows and siblings who are more like aunts and uncles. He feels alone, El. He needs you."
"What if I'm not enough for him?" Elliot said. "Kathy knew what to do in these situations. Not me."
"That's why you have to let people help you, before things become broken," Olivia said.
"You saying you'll help?" he asked.
"If you'll let me," she said.
"What if we get together and it doesn't work?" Elliot said. "I don't think I could stay away from you for another 10 years. I need you."
"That's the thing, El," she said. "I don't need you anymore. I stopped needing you a long time ago."
She didn't miss the wounded expression on his face.
"But, wanting you is a completely different story," Olivia said. "I don't need you. The last 10 years have proven that. But I want you, Elliot. I want you in my life. I want to see you outside of work. I want to help you when you need it. I want you to meet Noah. I want to spend lazy Sunday mornings drinking coffee with you and listening to our boys bicker over ridiculous things like which superhero could kick whose ass in a fight. I don't need a life with you, but I want it."
"We're going to fight," Elliot said. "We're going to scream at each other and say hurtful things. It's who we are."
"It's who we were," Olivia said and he threw a sarcastic face at her.
"Okay, it's who we are," Olivia said with a smile. "But I think it's worth the risk."
"So do I," Elliot said, leaning into her on the couch.
He pulled her close so her head was resting on his chest, and he ran his hands up and down her bare arms to keep them warm.
"Screw a parallel universe," Elliot said. "I want you here and now."
"Me too, El," she said. "Me too."
We may shine, we may shatter
We may be picking up the pieces here on after
We are fragile, we are human
We are shaped by the light we let through us
We break fast, 'cause we are glass
"Are we good?" Elliot asked after a few moments of silence, just holding her.
"I hope so," she said. "Promise you're done with going undercover?"
"Promise," he said. "If that still means anything to you."
"It can only mean something if you actually stick to it," she said. "You have to start rebuilding trust somewhere."
"Well, I promise," he said. "And I promise to keep my promise."
"We're going to make mistakes," Olivia said. "But we have to work through them. We can't be shutting down and throwing verbal daggers like we used to do in the bullpen. We have to talk. We have to work on things together."
"You know I'm bad at that," he said.
"And I'm good at it?" Olivia said with a laugh. "This is going to take effort from both of us. But I'm in if you are."
"I've been in since the day I met you," Elliot said. "I'd follow you anywhere."
Olivia stood up from the couch and stretched, cracking her neck before leaving the living room and walking further into her apartment.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I thought you said you'd follow me anywhere?" Olivia said.
"Well, where are we going?" Elliot asked.
"Someplace that'll remind you what Elliot Stabler could have been having while Eddie Wagner was out getting some cheap thrills."
Elliot was stunned, but not stupid. He leapt up off the couch and followed Olivia to her bedroom. Slamming the door shut behind him, he pushed her up against it and crashed his lips to hers. When they finally came up for air, he smiled.
"Eddie Wagner, who?" he said, with a cheeky grin.
"Never heard of him," Olivia said, cupping his chin in her hands. "Only person I see right now is Elliot Stabler, and I want him in my bed, and waking up next to me tomorrow morning."
"You see," he said. "I know him personally, and I have to say, I think he's on board with that."
"Perfect," she said. "Now, where were we?"
"Right about here, Captain," he said, sinking his mouth to hers once more.