Chapter Text
She’d stayed late in her office to catch up on paperwork, and take a moment to unwind her tangled emotions.
And brace herself for whatever came next.
So many life altering events had happened in such a short span of time, she hadn’t had a second to catch her breath, hadn’t had a minute to process. Noah’s brother, his family, the old familiar feelings of wanting somewhere to belong, and realizing you never would. Amanda’s wedding and her subsequent leaving, one more friend that was moving on with their life.
And what she’d finally admitted out loud about Elliot, about herself, about them.
He had been her home, that was true, and she was scared out of her mind to lose that shelter again, even if now it was just a bedraggled cardboard box that hardly kept her dry. It was better than nothing, better than silence, better than fear, better than the not knowing.
She’d learned a long time ago, if you were starving, you’d eat anything.
A knock at her open door interrupted her thoughts, and when she lifted her head, a resounding thump kicked in her chest. Not a flutter, or a triple-time beat, but a size eleven boot to the sternum.
Because there he was.
Leaning into her doorway so casually, like he didn’t know that it shattered her into pieces to see it. Especially today.
“What do you need?” She asked, looking back to her desk when his smile dimmed at her clipped tone. She flipped open a file as he cleared his throat and answered, “Fin told me Rollins left.”
“Uh, yeah.” She nodded, the words before her turning hazy with her narrowed eyes, a tactic to keep the tears at bay. “She had a really good opportunity elsewhere, and she was ready to move on. So…”
“You wanna get a drink? I know it’s gotta be hard. She was with you for a long time.” He sounded so hopeful, and she couldn’t stand how that light that had always belonged to him tried to flicker on in her chest. He didn’t know a goddamn thing about how hard it was. He’d left her behind. He’d-
“No.” She stated firmly, she didn’t have the emotional stability to deal with this tonight, maybe not ever.
“Look-“
“I said no. Please leave.”
“Olivia-“
“Please, please leave. Now. No-“ Her words abruptly cut off when she stood, and every emotion she’d carefully dammed in for years, flooded her on the rise.
She had to get out of here.
Her throat was tightening, a familiar raw, aching strangle, the pain of losing him stealing her breath like it had just happened. Her vision blurred, two worlds colliding as she opened the door to the interrogation room. She heard the squeak of the hinges, smelled the tinge of metal furniture, but saw herself a decade ago, taking an infinitesimal moment to let the tears flow, even if she hid them, even if they were quiet. A silent mourning for him, and for her- the woman who’d loved him almost from the get, and the woman he’d left destroyed in the going.
“Olivia? Olivia?” His voice followed her into the room, his hand catching the door she was trying to close.
She was three steps in when she felt him at her shoulder, and she turned, the scene still playing out so vividly in front of her eyes, and the pain of that moment rekindled tenfold as she looked at him. Because he wasn’t her Elliot. He was bigger, older, more lines across his face, his eyes filled with the knowledge of a whole life lived away from her.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He tried to soothe, coming closer, but stilling when she backed away. If she let him touch her right now-
Years of pain would eat her alive, swallow her whole, dissolve her into nothing but a fragile thing she had never let herself be.
“It’s not okay.” She whispered, because that’s all she could manage, a breath of words no louder than the beat of her pounding heart.
His face softened, and his gaze was tender as he mirrored her tone and assured, “You’ll still see her. You’ll still be friends.”
And she was back in an old bar, sipping on a beer and leaving him her fortieth or so voicemail since he’d disappeared. Because she’d wanted to help him, she’d wanted him to let her be his friend, and she’d never seen him again.
She could feel the sob vibrating in her chest, rattling the cage of her ribs, strangling the pulsing beat of her heart to a quiver, fighting to be free, fighting to be laid at this man’s feet so he could finally see the damage that he’d done, the devastation he’d left behind.
She wouldn’t give it the satisfaction. She couldn’t.
“Please go.” She urged, her whisper dying away on a rasp that sucked all the breath from her lungs.
“I can’t.” He murmured, his brows furrowing with a pain of his own as he took a step closer.
And she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t.
Because if he didn’t leave, it would all rush out of her; a tide she couldn’t fight, years of churning, terrifying waters she’d nearly drowned in before she had learned to tread.
“Go.” One last plea, a guttural, grating, graveled prayer that shredded her throat to ribbons on the way out.
At the sound, Elliot stilled completely, the hand reaching for her frozen in midair. But his eyes, his eyes swept her- from the feet straining to keep her standing, to the deep groove between her brows, and back down to her balled fists, holding on to her last scrap of dignity by bloody fingertips. He grazed his knuckles roughly across his jaw, and observed with a low, gentle murmur, “This isn’t about Amanda.”
She’d tried, asked repeatedly, warned him, pleaded with him to protect himself, to protect her. But now it was coming, all the words she’d never wanted to say, and always wanted to say, outrunning the tears, outpacing her self preservation, sparking to life and blazing out of control, “You left. You were my partner. You were my best friend. You were my family. You were my- my-“ my home, she thought, but she wouldn’t say it, she couldn’t say it. “And you just left.”
“Liv-“ He began softly, but she didn’t let him finish, because it was consuming her now, and it wouldn’t be banked until only ashes remained.
“Did you think about me at all? Did you even care that you left me alone?” She paced with her words, and he followed her with his eyes. She couldn’t see because she refused to look, but she could feel them, like she’d always been able to, since the day they’d first met.
Rounding on a heel, she stopped, the interrogation table between them, and met his gaze. Haunting those blue eyes she loved desperately, was a devastation so complete it echoed in her, trembling the foundation of her bones, crumbling the walls of her chest, obliterating any barrier between her pain and him.
“I never needed anyone. You know that. You know. I never- and then you-“ She swallowed hard, steeling herself against emotion burning in her nose, and admission clogging her throat.
He gripped the back of a chair, bracing against her next words, and her thoughts quieted as she stared at those hands- hands that had held her, soothed her, fixed her coffee, and shared her meals, reached out for her, tugged her close, lifted a gun and pulled the trigger.
Ending their life together.
“You made me need you.” She whispered, keeping her eyes to those strong hands, and watching as they clenched until his knuckles turned white. “More than I’d ever-“ more then she’d ever needed anyone, but he knew that, he had to know. She continued with a slight shrug, the defeat of her confession weighing her shoulders down, “And then I had to go on. Like nothing happened. Because I couldn’t show anybody that it had. You weren’t mine. You’d never been mine. You were just a partner-“
“We were never just partners.” He growled, his voice reverberating off the concrete walls, and the absolute certainty of his words ricocheting in her chest.
They locked gazes and held, and she saw the echo of thousands of days spent together flickering in his eyes. Memories that only they had were broadcasted between them like the tether had never been snapped. Angry words, and calming tones, and shared laughter, and joint grief. Pain that he’d felt because she felt it, and falls that he’d cushioned when she didn’t have the sense to. Comfort she’d given him when he didn’t think to ask for it himself, and battles she’d fought on his behalf when he was too overwhelmed to see clearly. Explosive fights, and gentle silence, and unspoken forgiveness, and hugs that never lasted long enough.
It ebbed and flowed between them; every look, every word, every breath sighed too close, and every finger brushed to skin.
And then she asked a question she didn’t want the answer to, couldn’t bear to hear it, couldn’t bear not to. “Why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know.” He lied through his gritted teeth, and the rage boiling her blood was unbearable. So debilitating, so all encompassing, it was the only explanation she had for her next words, a disclosure she’d never planned to make, “I was taken.”
“What?” He whispered, straightening instantly, and the protective hum she’d always felt with Elliot electrified the air around them.
She didn’t want to, god, she didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop the words. They came rushing up her throat and spilling out like she’d never held a drop of control in her life, “He had me for days. He beat me, burned me, he made me watch-“ and this feral beast of an Olivia she was right now could apparently admit a lot of things, but not that. So, she swallowed it down until it burned in her gut, and finished simply, “You weren’t here.”
“Olivia.” He murmured softly, a sound she’d begged to hear for the days Lewis had her. A sound her ears had strained for when they’d finally found her. A sound she’d spent years after that trying to forget. And that forgotten yearning melted away with the heat of her rage roaring back to life, choking the words from her like Lewis’ fingers were wrapped around her throat, “I looked for you when they got me out of that house. I looked for you. But you weren’t there.” He swayed back at that, and rocked forward with her beat of breath, until his hands were flat to the table in front of him. Holding himself up, or preparing for her impact? She didn’t know, and the Olivia who’d never been Elliot’s didn’t give a damn. That Olivia wanted her pound of flesh, and she didn’t care if she had to cut it away ounce by ounce.
So, she began, and watched him flinch with every slice, “And we went to court. And I sat on that stand and I lied under oath that I didn’t beat the hell out of him when he was cuffed. Because I did. I did, Elliot. I thought of you and what you would do. What you would do if you knew what he’d done to me. And I beat him unconscious. I tried to kill him. I wasn’t subduing him. I was going to murder him. Because you would’ve. You would’ve.”
“I would’ve.” He agreed, a grating, grit of words that blended with the memory of her own, slipping their way through a jaw aching with the clench as Lewis had been plying the jury with his charismatic bullshit. Some of it not bullshit at all.
‘Started talking to me about your romantic fantasies about your ex partner. How he would’ve known what to do with me.’
‘He would’ve.’
“But you weren’t here.” She reminded, and his shoulders curved in like she’d landed a physical blow, only straightening when she asked again, “Why’d you do it?”
And again, he lied to her face, “I don’t know.”
She knew him, down to her soul she knew him, better than she knew anyone, better than she knew herself sometimes, and he had a reason. A reason he was guarding with everything in him because it would hurt her, or hurt a dead woman. The guilt must be tearing him to shreds, but he’d started this, and she wasn’t leaving until she’d gotten what she wanted.
Pulling out a chair, she eased down, and he did the same opposite of her. When they were settled, she held his eyes, and updated him on a decade of life he knew nothing about, “I adopted a son, and you weren’t here. His grandmother tried to take him away from me, and you weren’t here.” His hands slid across the table, reaching for her, but she tucked hers across her chest, and continued, reciting points calmly like they weren’t some of the most grief-stricken moments of her life, like they weren’t the moments she needed him the most, “A good man died under my command, and you weren’t here. I saw my brother on a slab in the morgue, and you weren’t here. A man I- a man I cared about ate his gun, and you weren’t here.”
She could see tears brimming at his lower lids, tears that were years too late, tears that shouldn’t mean a damn thing to her now, but coated her heart in unending agony just the same. And she couldn’t be detached anymore, couldn’t speak about her life like she was ticking off a laundry list of slight grievances.
So, she gave him the truth, because she’d seemingly moved up in her world, she’d told Nick she’d grown, but really, “People came into my life and they left it, and I stood still, waiting for you to come back to me.”
And his tears broke the barrier, sliding down his cheeks, and dripping from his stubbled jaw. At the sight, the crack in her chest that split the day he’d left, widened, spreading until the deluge of grief she’d shored up finally overtook the levee.
The first tear fell, and she whispered through a throat shaking with the ones waiting to fall, “It never got easier. The need never went away.” Elliot fell back against his chair, rough fingers digging into eyes that she couldn’t hold anymore, as she remembered in painstaking detail exactly how it felt to live every day like her heart hadn’t been forcibly ripped from her chest, “And at first, I’d wake up in the morning, and for just a second everything was right in the world, and then I’d remember you weren’t here. And it would crush me, Elliot. It would crush me until I couldn’t breath.” Her head jerked at the bang of his elbows hitting the table, and she looked up to see his hands fisted together. He hid half of his face behind those shaking hands, and studied her with eyes so intense she couldn’t help but hold them as she finished, another confession that stung from her lungs to the tip of her tongue, “And I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t tell them that losing my partner, my married partner, was like losing a piece of myself. A piece of me I could never get back.”
After a silent beat, his hands dropped to the table, and she watched him watch them as he cleared his throat and haltingly murmured, “Ah- after Jenna- after what happened- the job was killing me. But it was a part of you. A part of us.”
“I never would have asked you to stay if you wanted to leave.” She argued, her anger taking a foothold again because he should know that.
He glanced at her, a quick flicker of his eyes, before they fell back to his hands. “You didn’t have to. You never had to. I would have done anything for you.” And that last part was whispered, so low she had to strain to hear it, and the next was even lower, and laced with so much regret she had to lock her muscles to keep from going to him, “I know it wasn’t right the way I left. I know it wasn’t, and Jesus, I thought about you every day. Every single day. And I…”
His words fell off into the abyss between them, and Olivia tapped the table to get his attention as she pointed out, “But you never came back.”
“No.”
“Why?”
A sigh that looked like he drug it from the depths of hell lifted his chest, and he sent them straight there on the exhale, “I was saving us both.”
Her chair hit the floor with a crack, shattering their quiet, and she was around the table and in his face before he even had the chance to think about standing.
“You think abandoning me was saving me?”
He shook his head. “I thought you-“
She slapped the table so hard the sting radiated up her arm. “You didn’t think of me at all. I wasn’t a consideration in any decision you made.”
“That’s not true.” He rejected with a grating whisper and stood, gaining the physical upper hand, but that was the only goddamned ground she was ceding. She curled fists into his shirt and shook him with her next, emphasizing a shared memory from so long ago, “You were the longest relationship I’d ever had with a man. You said that. You did.” He gripped her wrists, albeit gently, and held her still while she tore into his thoughtless words with the makeup of her, the foundation of Olivia Benson that he knew as well as she did, “And leaving me without a word was the right call for me? A woman who’d never had a father? A woman who had the mother that I had? A woman who had- who had trouble letting people in? Connecting? A woman who didn’t trust anyone? You thought I would be okay? You thought that wouldn’t change me? Wouldn’t break me? You thought it would save me?”
She’d barely breathed her last, when her back was to the wall, his chest pressing into hers, his fingers at her jaw, holding her still, holding her gaze as he finally gave her the truth, a truth that brushed across her lips with its heartbreaking telling, “That night, after Jenna, I sat outside your building for hours. I wanted to come up. I didn’t want you to come down. I wanted to come up. Do you understand me?”
She nodded, but kept her silence, and the harsh fingers at her jaw eased until his thumb was soothing over her lips. He traced it with his eyes as he rambled pain that she realized he’d never been able to tell anyone either, “It would’ve ruined us. You would have never forgiven yourself, and I would have never forgiven myself for making you feel that way, or for betraying my vows, for even wanting to. But if I had made it out of IAB. If I would’ve kept working with you-“ He cut off abruptly and swallowed hard.
“Elliot-“ She whispered, trying to comfort, trying to settle his mind, but he didn’t give her the chance. Gripping her hip with one hand, he drifted the other back until his fingers were wrapped around the nape of her neck, and he pulled her impossibly closer as his eyes filled with a threat of tears that saturated his words. “Jenna was waving that gun around, and all I could think was in the next second, my whole world, the woman I loved, could be bleeding out on the floor in front of me, and she wasn’t my wife.”
The pain was immeasurable, clawing at her guts with razor sharp nails, twisting her tendons, and burrowing into her bones until she couldn’t remember what it felt like not to have this screaming agony. She closed her eyes against it, but he wouldn’t relent, clenching his fingers into her skin and continuing on a ragged whisper, “Do you get that? Do you get what I’m telling you, Liv? I spent every night praying for the day, and every day wishing the night never came. Because I wanted to live in a world where you were mine, and I was yours.”
A sob rose, and no matter how many times she swallowed, it wouldn’t be buried.
“I loved you.” He murmured tenderly, the words ghosting across lips he’d never touched. “I love you, Olivia, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I didn’t know how to reckon with the fact that I’d fallen for a woman who wasn’t my wife. It terrified me, we terrified me, so I ran.”
She tried. She tried to be strong. She tried to hold her composure. She swallowed until there wasn’t a single drop of saliva left, she clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, she held her breath until her lungs were shrieking for release.
But he’d loved her, and he loved her still, and somewhere in her pounding heart, a small piece that he took with him, slotted back into place. A homecoming that had her words rushing out on broken sobs that she didn’t care to hide anymore, “You were my home, Elliot. You were- you were the man I loved. The only man I’d ever loved and you- you- you-“
Her words sank with the rising of relentless tears, and he tightened his arms around her in a bone crushing hug, whispering his sorrow into her hair, brushing it across her forehead with his lips, breathing it over her cheeks, murmuring it gently against her temple, “I was wrong, Liv, I was wrong. I was stupid and selfish and wrong, and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry, Olivia. I’ve made so many mistakes, so many, and I’m sorry. There’s no excuse. None. But I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for leaving you alone. I’m sorry for leaving at all. Jesus, baby, I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t tell if it had been a decade or a half hour or five minutes when her tears finally subsided with only hiccuping breaths left in their devastating wake, and she tucked her face into his neck, focusing on the feel of his fingers soothing up and down her spine as she whispered, “I cant lose you again.”
“You won’t.” No hesitation, absolute, solid, unyielding, but-
“I cant trust that.”
“I know, but one day, you will.”
Hugging him closer with arms she couldn’t remember wrapping around him, she gave him a last confession, one that had plagued her constantly since the night he’d returned, “I’ve done it all on my own, El. I’ve done it all on my own for so long. I don’t know how to let you back in. I don’t know how to start over.”
“We don’t start over, we continue.” He whispered gently before his lips touched her head in a soft kiss.
“With everything between us?”
“Remember the fights we used to have? We always made it back to each other.”
They did. Always. She’d left once too, ran to the other side of the country, and she could remember how rocky they’d been when she’d come home- the awkward silences, the half-hidden accusations, the lockstep they’d usually walked in being wobbly and disjointed.
But they’d found their way back.
“We did.” She sighed to his neck, an exhausted breath laced with an edge of fledgling hope.
“We did.” He agreed, speaking into her hair before he brushed another kiss there.
Lifting her head so she could look into his eyes, she cradled his cheek with shaky fingers, and whispered her fears, “I’ll push you away and-“
He shut them down when he turned his head and kissed her palm, promising against her skin, “I’m not going anywhere, Liv. I’m not going anywhere.”
The memory of all those years when he’d stood by her side flooded back in, and for the first time since he’d returned, Elliot’s Olivia, the part of her that belonged solely to him, felt at peace.
He’d come back to her, and she could again rest weary bones in his familiar shelter.
They weren’t fixed. They weren’t perfect and wouldn’t ever be, but they would continue, day after day together.
And that was her happiness.