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I had a thought, dear
However scary
About that night
The bugs and the dirt
Why were you digging?
What did you bury
Before those hands pulled me
From the earth?
The tentative rap of his knuckles on the door. It used to be something so common, so frequent, but not now, not here at this apartment. Here, it was foreign. Stemming from another lifetime ago when they were both two completely different people from who they are now. Back from when he was her home. Not this place, this apartment, this home she had made with her son. But back when her home was a singular person she’d thought she’d lost long ago.
She opens the door to him, finds him standing with his hands shoved into his back pockets, and an expression on his face she can’t quite read. She used to be able to read him so easily, back in that other lifetime. Knew what he was thinking sometimes before even he did.
But not anymore. That’s foreign now too.
“Why did you call me?” he asks, not yet stepping into her apartment. “It’s been - what happened to your face?”
He steps toward her now, one hand reaching out to soothe the bruise on her cheekbone, before he catches himself slipping back into habits from that other lifetime and lets his hand drop back down to his side. He was about to complain how he hasn’t heard from her in a long time, she knows it. But the thought of her being hurt distracted his argument. Some things never change, huh?
“I got jumped,” she tells him, shoving her own hands into her back pockets, wishing he hadn’t backed off from touching her just now. “Looks worse than it is.”
He shakes his head. “When are you going to take advantage of being Captain and sit on your ass behind your desk all day and let your detectives do the leg work?”
She bristles at his first instinct to pick a fight. Just like they’ve always been - go at each other’s throats before letting that tiny confession of their need for each other slip through.
“You know damn well that’s not who I am,” she bites back. “And this didn’t happen on the job. I was less than five feet away from my building, with Noah , when the gang members slipped out of the shadows.”
His demeanor shifts. “Is Noah -”
“He’s okay. He’s staying with his half brother’s family for now.”
His eyebrows rise in surprise. “He has a half brother?”
She shrugs. “Like mother like son, huh?”
He lets out a sharp exhale. She drug both of them through the mud with Simon in that other lifetime. He’d covered for her because he would have done anything for her. He took out a mortgage on his house to bail her out of jail for christ’s sake. Although that particular instance had nothing to do with her brother…
“Is that what this is about?” Elliot asks. “You want Organized Crime to look into the gang?”
She shakes her head, “No, no we’ve already got people in custody.”
“Then -”
“I want you .”
Shit, shit, not like that. That’s not what she meant. Well it is. She does. But -
“Liv?”
Her nickname is different when he says it. It never sounds like it does when coming from Fin or Rollins or Carisi. The inflection is different. The need.
She sighs, pushing a hand up though her hair and stepping out of her foyer. “Will you just come in?”
He finally lets the door close behind him, locking the deadbolt and sliding the chain into place. He follows her into her kitchen, gazing out at the view of the city from her large panel of windows.
“You…want me?” he asks. “For what?”
Christ, does she have to spell it out for him?
“Rollins left.”
“Are you offering me a job?”
“Do you seriously think I’m asking to be your boss? Just let me get this out.”
He holds his hands up in surrender and paces away from the windows.
“Rollins left,” she repeats. “Took a teaching job after she just couldn’t shake her own trauma from getting shot. Carisi says she’s great at it and I don’t doubt that for a second. But…despite my initial unwillingness to open up, her friendship is part of what helped me get through losing you.”
“Liv -”
She holds up a hand, cutting him off, stopping him. “I know we don’t talk about this. 24 years, I know we don’t talk about this. But I’m tired, Elliot. And neither one of us is getting any younger.”
“You want to talk about my leaving?”
Olivia shakes her head. “I want to talk about what’s never been said.” She opens and closes her mouth a few times, trying to get the words out, trying to find the woman she was 20 years ago. “You were all that I had. You knew that. I know you knew that. And when you left without a word, without anything , you left me in a really dark fucking place. And it only got darker after I was attacked. And I’ve never told you about that and I’m still not ready to talk to you about it, but I was not in a good place. I understood, maybe for the first time, why my mother was the way that she was with alcohol. Even with therapy I never thought I would -”
She takes a shaky breath, resets, looks past him out through the windows. “Noah was the first truly bright spot in my life in a long time. And I thought I was happy again. Finally. But then you came back.”
“Olivia.”
He tries to talk over her again. Using her full name this time, his voice raspier than the time before. But she’s not done yet. She keeps going.
“When I saw you again that night in the street after the accident, I thought I was hallucinating. And when I realized that I wasn’t, that you were really there, everything hit me at once. The pain, the anger, the aching need. And none of it has gone away. I know you left to save your marriage. I know that whatever the hell we were was a threat to it. Hell, I know Kathy knew even before you gave me that letter. But I had just stopped needing you and then one look from you was all it took to erase all of that progress. I’ve been in love with you since I was a rookie detective sitting shotgun in our squad car. 24 years and I still don’t know how to turn that shit off and believe me, I’ve tried.”
“You want me ,” he says quietly.
“I want my partner back. You don’t have to work SVU - I definitely don’t want to be your boss, but I want you back in my life. I can’t keep acting like I don’t. That I don’t need you. That you’re not the first person I want to call when something happens. That I don’t still worry about you when I know you’re undercover. Let’s face it, the only thing stopping us now is ourselves.”
“Stopping us from what, Olivia?”
“For fuck’s sake, you need me to say it?”
“Yeah, I need you to say it. Because I’ve tried , Olivia. I’ve tried, and I’ve tried to have this conversation with you and all you do is deflect and tell me it’s not a good time. I’ve been sitting around here thinking that I’ve lost you. Again. And I know that first time was on me, but lately? That’s all been you.”
I knew that look dear
Eyes always seeking
Was there in someone
That dug long ago
So I will not ask you
Why you were creeping
In some sad way I already know
“Fine, you want me to say it? Spell it out for you more than I already have? I want to be with you. I’ve wanted this since you were married and you weren’t even mine to have. I sat back and waited through your separation, through the initial phases of your divorce, and then I watched you go back to her. And I can’t blame you for any of it. I didn’t want to be the other woman. I didn’t want to hurt your family. But I was in love with you. Am in love with you, I suppose. And I’ve been too afraid to do anything about it since you’ve been back, since you lost her. So, I made excuses. He’s still grieving, maybe I made the whole thing up in my head and he doesn’t feel the way that I think he does, maybe we try and it’s shit and I’ve wasted the past 24 years wondering ‘what if’ for nothing. But I don’t want to make excuses anymore. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
She steps closer to him, minimizing the distance between them, watching him watch her as she moves. She feels the wetness on her cheeks before she even realizes that she’s started crying; notices the sheen of tears starting to form in his eyes. She could probably count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Elliot Stabler cry.
“You weren’t making it up,” he tells her softly. “All of it was mutual. Still is.”
She can’t do this anymore. She needs to touch him. Needs to feel him against her. Needs the strong embrace of his arms. Olivia reaches for him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder and inhaling the familiar scent of his aftershave which still hasn’t changed after all of these years. She feels his arms slip around her waist, pulling her in and hanging on for dear life.
After she delivered Eli.
After Sonya died.
After Kathy died.
Now .
She lets her full body weight sink against him, feeling as his grip on her grows even tighter.
He needs this as much as she does, she realizes. He’s been lonely too. Needed her. Wanted her.
“Liv,” her name a whisper on his lips right next to her ear. It sends a shiver down her spine and she clings to him tighter, needing and wanting more. All of him, she wants all of him.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks just as quietly.
I will not ask you where you came from
I will not ask you, neither should you
Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips
We should just kiss like real people do
She pulls back ever so slightly, cupping his face in her hands. She meets his gaze before bowing her head to touch her forehead to his, their noses bumping together in the process.
“I’ve always been sure,” she tells him, before closing the gap between them and bringing her lips to his.
She can feel him startle at the initial contact, but he melts into her kiss almost instantly. Her arms slide back around his neck as he retightens his grip on her waist. He’s the one who initiates deepening the kiss and she lets him, giving as much as she’s taking in return. She’s never been kissed like this before. Not with this much passion, this much need. 24 years. 24 years.
His mouth starts to trail down to her neck, but she huffs and guides his lips back to hers. He chuckles against her, the vibration tickling her lips.
“Not something you like?” he asks.
“Not that,” she says, going back in for another kiss. “Just not done with this part yet.”
“Lots of time to make up for,” he agrees, guiding her backwards until her back hits the counter.
His fingers skim up her back, brush at the nape of her neck, and then wrap around her ponytail. She gasps at the sensation it sends through her scalp and she pulls back to look at him.
“Got a thing for hair pulling since you don’t have any of your own?”
He narrows his eyes at her as she smirks back. “When you came back from Oregon, your hair was visibly longer, but it was always up in one of these damn things. The number of times I stopped listening to what you were saying because I was too busy envisioning ripping the hair tie out to run my hands through your hair…”
“So you’re acting on a fantasy you’ve had for 16 years?”
“Haven’t you had this one for longer?” he teases.
She shoves at his chest and he returns her earlier smirk, pulling her hair tie out and letting her hair fall down around her shoulders.
“It’s even longer now than it was back then,” she tells him, watching him twirl a strand of it around with his index finger.
He drops the strand and threads his fingers up through her hair, pulling her mouth back to his.
It’s intoxicating, kissing him. Like being 16 again where the only thing that mattered was chasing the feeling of feeling this good.
He breaks away again, bracing his hands on the countertop behind her, his arms bracketing her waist.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Just drinking it all in,” he tells her, pressing his forehead back against hers. “Is that Chinese place we like still open?”
She shakes her head. “It closed during the pandemic.”
He hums. “Do you still have 20 takeout menus in the drawer next to your dishwasher?”
She huffs. “No.” She pushes against him, shifting him backwards to open the drawer trapped behind her back. “They’re in this one, right here.”
He breaks out into laughter, the first time, she thinks, she’s heard him laugh in years.
“Where’s Eli, tonight?” she asks, handing him the menu for her new favorite Chinese restaurant.
“Maureen’s,” he says, reading through their specials without looking up.
“So uh, you’re gonna keep me company tonight, right?”
He grins, dropping the takeout menu to the counter and reaching for her again. “Yeah, we’re not done here.”