Work Text:
Olivia settles into her front porch swing, a light breeze rustling the silver wisps framing her face. Today is what she would call a perfect day. The radiant blue sky expands as far as the eye can see, not a single cloud in sight. Overhead, a chorus of birds mingle with the soft creaking of her swing swaying back and forth.
On the other side of her porch, a young voice triumphantly exclaims, "King me!" She smiles contently, watching the engaging game of checkers unfold. For the majority of her life, she would have never pictured herself here. Away from the commotion of New York City, sipping on sweet iced tea in the Pennsylvania countryside. She always thought she would be among the skyscrapers and bustling streets until her final breath. But that life wasn't for Noah, so she followed him here. To a sky of a million stars, to a yard with various trees and a babbling creek.
To peace.
"I win!" the little girl squeals, jumping up from her chair in celebration and skipping over to give Olivia a high-five. "Did you see me win?" she asks with a huge grin.
Olivia chuckles. "I sure did, Maggie. Your dad doesn't stand a chance against you." She looks over at Noah with a smirk. "Defeated by a seven year old again."
He feigns annoyance. "Yeah, yeah." He walks over to the two of them as Maggie plops down in the swing. "Good game, champ." He reaches out to fist-bump his daughter, and she makes a dramatic woosh sound as she pulls away with spirit fingers. Laughing at her goofiness, he gathers the checkers board and pieces to bring back inside.
"Hey, Grandma?"
"Yes, sweetheart?" She looks down at her granddaughter with bright blue eyes just like her father, and wavy brunette hair, styled with two braids.
Maggie reaches over to touch Olivia's necklace. "Why do you always wear this?" she asks curiously.
Olivia looks down at the little fingers holding the Semper Fi medal on a long chain, and she smiles at it fondly. "Well," she begins, setting her tea down on the stand next to the swing. "This is a 'Semper Fi' medal. In another language, semper fidelis means 'always faithful.' You know what it means to be faithful to someone else?"
The little girl shakes her head.
"It means you are always there for that person, a good friend. They can trust you to be supportive and kind and helpful," she explains.
Maggie cocks her head to digest this, work through what it means to her. "So like how I'm best friends with Hailey? Would I be faithful to her 'cause I'm nice and share with her?"
Olivia smiles at the way her young mind interpreted the word. "Exactly."
"So why do you wear that then? Is it because you're faithful to a friend?"
She grasps it and runs her thumb along the indentations on the front. "Do you wanna hear a story?"
"Yeah!"
"Alright, but I need you to do something for me first." Maggie straightens out, eager to hear her task. "Go inside to the closet in my bedroom. There's a wooden box on the floor in the corner," she instructs. "Your daddy can help you find it if you need. Can you get that for me?"
"Okay, Grandma!" she hops off the swing and scurries inside to complete her mission. Not even a full minute passes, and she reemerges with the box and Noah behind her. He's heard many of her stories as he grew up, but he will listen to his mother talk about her days on the job any chance he gets. He remembers finding that very box when he was thirteen, admiring every item as she shared stories of her past. His daughter is much younger though, so he knows she won't share as much at this time.
Maggie sits down on the porch, crossing her legs. She undoes the latch and opens the box to discover photos and other items. She picks up a picture of a younger Olivia with a man she doesn't recognize. Flipping the picture around to show her grandma, she asks, "Who's that?"
"That's me and my old friend, Elliot. He was my work partner when I was a detective over thirty years ago." She's still hanging onto the medal. "We were partners for twelve years... Can I see that, hun?" Maggie passes the photo over to her. They were so young. Her hair still had a pixie cut, and Elliot had a goatee - an extremely rare sight. Her arm was draped over his neck, and she looked happy. So happy.
The time with him seems hazy now, so far in the past. She'll never forget everything she felt, but once in a while, she ventures into her closet to pull out her box and re-memorize every detail of his face. She wonders what he looks like now, if he's still around. Sometimes she considers searching the internet, but she can't find the courage to type the words Elliot Stabler obituary. She couldn't possibly endure that sword to her heart had a successful search result appeared.
So, she pictures him surrounded by a huge family, wrinkled and laughing. Less hair, more grey. A wedding band still glistening on his finger with the woman he vowed to grow old with at his side. Finally proud of the life they built.
"Will you tell me about Elliot?" the curious child asks, snapping Olivia out of her daze. She gives her granddaughter a gentle smile.
"He was my best friend," she says solemnly. "We made a great team, the two of us. We took down a lot of bad guys over the years."
"Like superheroes?" Maggie interjects.
"Kind of like superheroes. We didn't have any powers, but sometimes it felt like it. He was really strong, and we were both fast. We even knew what the other person was saying without talking."
"Mindreading! You were superheroes," she insists, and Olivia laughs. "What did the bad guys do?"
Olivia locks eyes with Noah for a moment, then looks back at her granddaughter. "Well, they were really mean, and they hurt other people really bad. So we would catch them and put them in jail."
"That sounds scary," Maggie frowns.
"Sometimes it was. But Elliot and I looked out for each other, tried to protect each other from getting hurt."
"Did you ever get hurt?"
"I did, a few times. So did he," she tells her, absentmindedly tracing the scar, hardly present now, on her neck.
"Oh," the girl looks back in the box, finding another photo of the partners. "Was it ever fun though?"
Olivia smiles. "Yes, it was. It felt good to help people, and we helped a lot of people. Sometimes even animals." She thinks back to that strange case with the exotic animal ring. And then some.
"Wow!" Maggie marvels. She digs through the box some more, and Olivia takes a sip of her tea. Someday she'll tell her stories about the cases, when she's older. The moments that defined her partnership with Elliot. "What's this?" she asks, holding up a badge.
"That was Elliot's mini badge, showing that he was a detective." How many years it sat on a shelf clipped onto her old gun in evidence holding. She's thankful she was eventually allowed to have it back, but she would've liked to carry it with her all those years it was missing.
"Why do you have it?"
"He left it behind when he stopped working with me. I held onto everything he left. That's why I wear this, so a small piece of him is always with me." She feels slightly foolish for hanging onto all of this, when he never bothered to tell her goodbye. Never bothered to reach out, for anything. Ever.
"But if he left you, that means he wasn't faithful, and that's the faithful necklace..." the young girl looks up with a puzzled expression.
Olivia releases an airy laugh, laced with sadness. "Yeah, you're right. I guess it reminds me of a time when he was. He was the most important person in my life back then, and I still hold onto that."
"Do you know what he's doing now?"
"I haven't heard from him in over thirty years. But I like to imagine him with his own grandchildren. He has five kids, so I think he's a grandpa to many wonderful kids now. Maybe he even tells them about me." She feels her eyes well up, a single teardrop sliding down her cheek.
Maggie shoots up and runs over to Olivia. "Don't cry, Grandma!" She sits beside her and is pulled into a tight embrace. "I'll always be faithful to you," she promises.
That brings a huge smile to her face, and she kisses Maggie on the forehead. "I know you will, sweet girl."
"Can I keep looking at the pictures?"
"Of course you can."
Maggie kneels back down, combing through all of the photos, becoming completely engrossed with her grandma's younger days.
Noah has now sauntered over to his mother's side, and she holds out her hand to him. He leans over slightly and takes ahold of it, squeezing it gently. "You okay, Mom?"
"I'm okay. I wish you could've met him. I know he hurt me, but he was a good man. I just think the job finally broke him," she sighs.
"I don't know how you did it for so long," he marvels.
"Sometimes I don't either. I considered leaving when he did. But I thank God every day that I didn't, because everything led me to you."
Noah just smiles and pats the back of her hand with his other. He straightens out and looks out at the yard. A small gust of wind rustles the leaves in the trees, and he watches a squirrel skitter across the driveway. "You get your mail today?" he asks.
"Not yet," she answers, so he goes to retrieve it for her.
Maggie is carefully inspecting each photo, one-by-one. "Grandma, you're sooo pretty," she compliments.
"So are you, darling."
"I have another question," she states, and Olivia nods, letting her continue. "Did you love him?"
"I... uh," Olivia fumbles, realizing she had never actually been directly asked that before. She lowers her voice to nearly a whisper. "Always have."
"Mama!" Noah calls, approaching the girls and capturing their attention. He climbs up the few steps, staring down at her stack of mail. "Do you believe in fate?"
She tilts her head at the silly question. "I'm not sure, son. Why?" He places a letter in her hands, and her throat immediately tightens. "How..." she breathes, her fingers trembling slightly, tracing the return address.
"What is it, Grandma?" Maggie asks, springing up.
"It's... it's from Elliot." And on the back, just above the seal are the written words: Semper Fi.