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Every winter something has gone wrong with them.
The first, the letter; heavy, weighted, full of lies dictated by his dying wife and one sentence of truth.
In a parallel universe, it will always be you and I.
Him, raw and guilty and angry and impossible and lost; barking after everyone who looked at him wrong, fighting on the steps of his apartment, scaring his children, scared of closing his eyes and seeing the ghost of his dead wife blame him again and again, loathing himself at whispering words he long thought he’d successfully locked away in a moment of tunnel vision that left him reeling; his name was written in blood somewhere below, a date is expertly written next to it with the same thick liquid, and he was running straight toward it regardless of who was still alive to care.
I’ve loved you and love you still, I left because of that, Liv; Please, please, you know me; For better or worse, Liv, he thinks.
Her, furious and betrayed and terrified and guarded and a damn beacon; processing that the one person whom she had trusted her life with a decade ago was back in the flesh and didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon, held hostage by someone she knew was a good person, shot at and thanked and saved by the man who’s standing right here, Cap ; the damn universe was making sure she didn’t forget who she was, where she came from, what she came from, because every day for the past ten years has been an uphill battle and no one had been around to offer their shield.
Who are you, Elliot Stabler? How can you stand there and say Liv like you didn’t leave me? Like you didn’t betray your vow? Like you didn’t betray me?, she thinks.
The second, on the steps of the courthouse; where accusations, both silent and spoken, were harshly spewed between two ex-partners who once knew almost everything about one another.
You have not asked me one question about what has happened to me since you left.
Him, with more rawness and guilt and anger and impossibleness and hopelessness; shedding the skin of Eddie “Ashes” Wagner and figuring out who Elliot Joseph Stabler now was, feeling undeserving of air and sun, the death of a family he infiltrated and tore apart haunting him, his youngest terrified and facing murder charges; feeling hopeless yet hopeful as Olivia curls her fingers around his palm on the shift, enraged and terrified as he learns of what he son is being accused of, but relief and happiness while smiling with Olivia over shit waiting room coffee in a room plastered with holiday decorations.
I shoulda asked something different but I needed to know you had someone, Liv, someone to come home to on the nights where we would instead share a beer and talk, that you had someone who took my place and the place I couldn’t because, fuck, you deserve it, he thinks.
Her, with continued confusion and exhaustion and sadness and fury and darkness; anxiety nesting in her skin for months when he had disappeared from her life again then angry when she learned what he was doing, learning the origins of his stupid fucking letter, sticking firm to her role as Captain Olivia Benson and not reverting into Detective Olivia Benson whenever he chipped a small enough hole into her walls to allow some of him back in, settling into a different and new yet same existence where her and Elliot existed in the same city again; uncertain and annoyed as she picks up his call in the middle of the night, confused yet understanding as he says her name and grips her bicep to halt her footsteps, cautious and curious as he sticks his tongue out between his lips and asks her and Noah over for Christmas dinner, but hopeful and smitten while smiling shyly at the idea and letting him know she’ll think about it in an unfamiliar turquoise precinct that smelled like the old 1-6 bullpen.
He’s trying, and I can see him in there, he’s coming home; but Noah would get attached to them all and he could still disappear, she thinks.
Now it’s his third winter since he’s been back home, back in New York, not to the apartment he, Kath, and Eli lived in while he worked security upstate or the house in Queens that haunts him more than he will ever admit, back to Olivia; and they were avoiding each other, or more specifically she was avoiding him. They had been making progress, he thought, since the Brotherhood case closed; since he’d come home as she asked him to. They’d spoken, sat down, and had lunch multiple times over the summer, he’d met her son, they shared coffee in the early morning and beer at night sometimes, and then the joint case in September seemed to set them back. They’d only been able to grab a quick beer since the case and other than phone tag and text messages they’ve barely spoken a word to one another.
Call me back, Liv… Please.
Him, healing and worried and stable and learning and doing; alone for the first time in his entire life, an empty nest and a repaired relationship with his mother that has her feeling freer than ever, a job that’s starting to wear at him but a second family he’ll protect just like his own, running into old friends and realizing he’s okay , ready, finally, rumblings of gang violence in the city causing his anxieties to rise, a phone that lights up with everyone else’s name and number but the person he’s been waiting weeks to call him back; understanding and annoyed because he understood how hectic SVU got and how the outside world so easily disappeared without someone watching out for you, stricken and guilty as his mind slips; you used to be that someone.
I did, he agrees sadly, gazing down at the blank screen of his phone, but I know someone who cares just as much , he thinks as he swipes up and enters his passcode.
It’s her third winter since he’s returned to New York, not to his old home in Queens where the memory of a life she never intruded on, or the old bachelor pad of an apartment where they’d share beers on the couch and fall asleep watching movies to, but to her, them, possibilities; and she’s ignoring him. Lindstrom's words echo in her head once an hour and she feels guilty, staring down at her phone that hasn’t lit up with his name in 113 days and with a voicemail she hasn’t had the guts to listen to after the sight of Elliot hunched over his dead CI with the same haunted expression on his face as on that warm evening on May 18th, 2011; not what every time she thinks about that scene mirroring the last incident that ripped him from her life unexpectedly and without preamble.
Elliot put his papers in. He isn’t coming back, Olivia.
Her, haunted and fighting and struggling and exhausted and scared; happy and weightless that her home a haven from work, wrapped in warmth and her sweet boy, drowning and hollow as the ghost of Mike Dodds stands over her shoulder as Amanda’s blood drys on the pavement, angry and violated as she thinks about how her new black eye mirrors the one Lewis had given her, protective and determined that she’s going to keep them safe, her team, her family, she startles as her mind slips; he used to be one of those people.
Yeah, he is, she agrees quietly, reaching for the handle of the door and pulling it to reveal the very person she wanted to see more than anything, and he’s here now and this could have been it, she thinks as Elliot reaches for her and she reaches back.
I love you, Olivia.