Chapter Text
1. November 1999
Olivia felt the apprehension twist in her gut as she sat and waited on the bench at the Ramble. White had called her in the middle of the night, asking to meet her at 7 a.m.
All the bravado she’d spilled to Elliot last night when he dropped her at her apartment had faded. She could protect herself, sure. But White had told her to come alone and he was a… large man. Even with all her training, it wasn’t going to be a fair fight, and she knew his M.O.
She felt her eyes dart back and forth, looking for any potential signs of him.
Olivia spotted a man in a ball cap and a woman running along the path. As they approached her, the woman screamed and the man turned to Olivia, knife in hand. It was White and he wasn’t wasting any time with his mission. He brought the knife to her throat and she put her hands up.
Luckily, she hadn’t listened to him and called Elliot as soon as she hung up the phone when he called. White didn’t stand a chance as her whole team jumped from the bushes. Elliot was the first out, his gun trained right on White’s skull.
Cragen was the first to get physical, dead-legging White and knocking him to the ground. Olivia got the pleasure of slapping the cuffs on him and shoving him in the back of the squad car though.
But once she’d slammed the door shut and Munch and Jefferies pulled away with him in the backseat, her legs felt like Jell-O. Olivia bent in half at the waist and put her hands on her knees, trying to take in a deep breath. That’s when she felt a hand on the back of her neck and stood bolt upright with a gasp.
“Hey, hey, just me,” Elliot said, giving her neck a little squeeze. “You okay there, partner?”
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to suck more air into her lungs. Olivia went to take a step and stumbled. Elliot grabbed her by the bicep to keep from tripping.
“Sure you are,” he said. “Superhero. You don’t need me to carry you out of here, do ya?”
She wanted to slap the cocky grin off of his face.
Instead, she settled for pushing his hand off of her arm and shoving him in the shoulder.
“Shut up,” she said, returning his grin with one of her own.
“Well then get moving,” Elliot said, falling into step with her. “We have a confession to get.”
Elliot gave her a ride back to the station house, and she couldn’t help but sit and wonder about what it would have felt like for him to lift her up off the ground and carry her to safety.
She nearly snorted under her breath at the thought.
Olivia wasn’t some damsel in distress and she didn’t need Elliot to come save her. She was a cop and a damn good one at that.
She had a stalker to sink.
2. March 2006
From the ground, Olivia was trying to figure out where exactly everything had gone wrong.
It started with the window attendant who was scared out of his shorts. The guy couldn’t even pretend to play it cool for half a second before Gitano made Elliot and started to run across the bus terminal.
They both took chase but Elliot got caught up in a crowd of unsuspecting people just trying to get from Point A to Point B. They split and Olivia was the one to find Gitano first. She pulled her weapon but Gitano got close and he was holding Rebecca in front of him like a shield.
And Olivia was not going to risk that little girl’s life just to take him out.
Before she knew it, Gitano pulled a knife from his pocket and slashed her in the throat and she went down, hard .
Olivia had heard people talk about their lives flashing before their eyes in moments like these. But that didn’t happen to her. Instead, the images floating in front of her along with the fuzzy spots were all the things she didn’t get to do. There was an apartment that was built for two, maybe three, instead of a single thirty-something woman. A bouncing baby with bright blue eyes. The justice of finally finding her mother’s rapist and confronting the man who fathered her.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard a scream. It sounded like Elliot.
“No, Olivia!” the voice yelled. “Oh my God. No. No!”
Then Elliot was there. He was hovering over her, his blue eyes nearly gray and wide, panic evident on his face.
It wasn’t until he was in front of her that Olivia realized she wasn’t dying. Her head was clearing, and she could breathe, could feel all her extremities.
She was okay.
But Gitano had taken Rebecca and Ryan again and they weren’t .
“Go, Elliot, Go,” she yelled at him, knowing her voice still sounded panicked. “I’m fine.”
He wouldn’t back away at first. She had to tell him to go twice more before he left her side.
As she sat up, slightly dizzy, she watched him retreat up the escalator. She pinched her eyes closed for a second, imagining what it would have felt like to have him scoop her off the sticky floor and carry her to safety. She’d been hurt on the job before, but never quite like this.
But they didn’t have the luxury of time to sit around and play games. They still had a serial killer to catch. On shaky legs, Olivia stood from the floor and approached the escalator where Elliot had just disappeared.
She stumbled upon the scene of Ryan’s dead body, still clutching her neck, asking where Rebecca was. Fin was the first to notice her injury, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and shoving it against her skin. She could barely feel it anyway. She was a little woozy from walking and she wanted to sit down. But there wasn’t any time.
All she could focus on was Elliot crouching in front of Ryan’s body, looking like someone had just ripped out a piece of his soul.
The medics came and told her that she had been lucky . If the slice had been just a few centimeters the wrong way… well she didn’t want to think about it.
Worse, Elliot couldn’t even look at her. He kept staring off into the distance, looking across the bridge, keeping his back to her. Somehow that hurt worse than the cut itself.
She knew him so well. She knew he was already blaming himself for Ryan’s death. Maybe blaming her a bit, too. Olivia wanted to make him feel better. She tried to approach him, tried to calm his mind.
“Elliot it was chaos,” she said. “There was nothing…”
All he did was cut her off with a harsh tone and a wave of his hand.
And it didn’t get any better from there.
He busted the window on a car (that turned out to be a solid lead), got rough with Eddie from Jersey (and kept cutting her off during the interrogation), and by that point, she’d had enough.
“Hey, you got something to say to me, ‘cause if you do, let’s hear it,” she said, following him out of the interrogation room and into the hall.
“Why didn’t you shoot Gitano?” he asked, turning around to come back to her, the first time he’d looked at her since he was hovering over her in the bus station.
It sounded like an accusation.
“He was using the child as a shield,” she said because it was true.
“How could you let him get so close to you?” he asked. Another accusation.
“There were innocent civilians around,” she said. “I couldn’t get a shot.”
“Well he got close and Ryan’s dead,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her.
“So this is my fault?” she asked. She almost knew it was coming she knew he blamed himself. But apparently, he blamed her more.
“You know, I can’t do this anymore,” he said, turning around, shaking his head. “I can’t be looking over my shoulder making sure you’re okay.”
That one struck a nerve.
“You son of a bitch,” she yelled, following him down the hallway. “You know that’s not true.”
“I need to know you can do your job and not wait for me to come to the rescue,” he yelled.
His words hit like a punch to the gut. Cragen was yelling at them now, but all she could feel was churning in her stomach. Olivia nearly felt guilty for the thoughts she had earlier, about wanting him to pick her up and carry her to safety.
She was capable and she was strong . And she sure as hell didn’t need Elliot to be her knight in shining armor.
It was almost funny how the tables turned when they arrived at the metal plating facility and Gitano got the drop on Elliot, holding a gun to his head.
They were both yelling at her. Elliot was trying to tell her not to “make the same mistake” he did. That mistake meant caring about her and coming to her rescue.
But she wasn’t going to sacrifice Rebecca and she sure as hell wasn’t going to sacrifice Elliot either.
She could feel her entire body shaking and she just couldn’t get a clean shot. But the sniper beat her to it.
When they found Rebecca, Elliot reached into the shipping container and lifted her out like she was weightless. He carried her to the squad car and into the hospital to get checked out.
She’d likely never get the smile that crossed his face when they found Rebecca in that crate out of her mind.
Maybe Elliot wasn’t Olivia’s knight in shining armor, but he was Rebecca’s.
And she thought that maybe he needed that win today.
3. October 2006
One minute she’d been yelling that T-Bone wasn’t resisting arrest and then next the nightstick cracked the side of her head.
That’s when things went dark.
She felt cold and wondered how long she’d been lying on the ground. Olivia knew she needed to get up. She needed to get moving and get away from here so she wouldn’t blow her cover. Getting arrested or something would wash this entire five-week operation down the drain.
That’s when she heard him.
“Hey, Liv,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “C’mon, baby. Gotta get up.”
“Elliot?” she murmured. What was he doing in Oregon? Why was he calling her baby?
“We gotta get you out of here,” he said. “Come with me. It’s gonna be all right.”
“Elliot?” she asked again, not quite sure of what was happening.
Before she had time to process it, Elliot had scooped her up the same way he lifted Rebecca Clifford out of that crate seven months ago. She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders while resting her head against the side of his neck.
“It’s all going to be okay,” Elliot said. “I’m here baby. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Olivia had so many questions. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that he told her they couldn’t choose each other over the job? He’d made it very clear that he couldn’t “come to the rescue” for her anymore. Yet here he was in Oregon saving her from police brutality?
And again, what the hell was with the pet names?
When he’d gotten her to the safety of the squad car, he slid into the backseat with her, keeping her in his lap.
“Watching you go down like that,” he said. “It scared me.”
“When they hit me over the head?” she asked.
“Well, yeah,” Elliot said. “But I was talking about Gitano.”
Why was he bringing this up now?
“I can’t lose you, baby,” he said, tightening his hold on her hips. “I can’t do it. Need you safe. Need you to come home with me to New York.”
Olivia’s breath caught in her throat as she looked into his eyes. Before she could even process what was happening, Elliot had tilted his head and his lips were on hers.
His mouth was warm and sweet like she’d always expected. She felt herself moaning his name into the kiss as she shifted on his lap for more friction. Olivia had never imagined their first kiss, or their first anything else, would come in the back of a squad car in Oregon after she was nearly clubbed senseless, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Elliot was about to slide his hand up the back of her shirt when Olivia thought she heard a noise outside.
“What was that?” he asked.
And when she turned to peer out the now foggy squad car window, she woke up from her dream.
“Who’s Elliot?” Hope asked from the next bed.
“What?” Olivia asked.
“You’ve been mumbling the name ‘Elliot’ all night,” Hope said, an annoyed smirk crossing her face.
That’s when Olivia realized she’d been chained to the bed.
She had a concussion, blacked out, and he’d never really been there at all.
So much for a UC op to get her mind off of things.
4. January 2007
She started to feel woozy when she was talking to Diego, but she tried to fight it off. They’d been working this case, quite a few cases actually, nonstop. Olivia hadn’t gotten much sleep and she was overdue for another cup of coffee. So she persisted through the questioning.
Diego was tired, too. Maybe it was catching. This case was exhausting, after all.
Her body was hot like someone turned the heat up too high in the room. When Jennifer left the room to get her some water, Olivia realized that Diego had passed out on the couch.
That’s when she knew something was wrong and she had to act fast.
On unsteady legs, Olivia stood from the couch. When she looked down at Diego she had tunnel vision. Then she heard a crash in the kitchen. It was Jennifer who passed out while getting the glass of water.
Fighting the haze, Olivia dragged Jennifer into the other room and tried to open the window, but it was painted shut. She smashed a lamp through it to let fresh air into the apartment, and then grabbed Diego, pulling him to safety in the hallway before going back for his mother.
She had just enough strength left to call for help and tell other residents to get out of the building before she passed out.
When she finally came to in the back of the ambulance, she felt arms around her and for a minute she thought they were Elliot’s.
She tried to mumble his name. Wanted to ask him if he got the rest of the people out of the building. But it was hard to get her lips to move.
Then she remembered he was supposed to be on house arrest after getting tossed through a plate glass window.
“Welcome back, Detective,” the EMT said. “Don’t try to talk. Just take some slow, deep breaths. We’re going to get you some Oxygen.”
She tried to refuse treatment, but Cragen wouldn’t hear of it. He told the EMTs to restrain her if they had to and that pissed her off a little. Like she was a petulant child and not a grown woman.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, going into the hospital was probably in her best interest since she had to stay overnight. But she was out of there the second they released her. Hazmat had confiscated her clothes, so she was in blue scrubs when she got back to the precinct.
She pulled her gray hoodie from Elliot’s locker (fat chance if he thought it was still his by now) and put it on over her scrub top. The fabric still smelled like his cologne and body wash.
She gave herself a minute to breathe the scent in, instantly comforted by the familiar instead of the stale sting of antiseptic.
They had a poisoner to catch.
5. November 2007
Olivia had been wishing for him all day.
One minute she and Kathy were talking about decorating the baby’s nursery and then the next they were calling Elliot because she had a question about the case.
Then darkness.
This was starting to become a habit that she didn’t enjoy. Passing out, getting knocked out. It was happening way too often in the last few years.
But this time she was met with a much more horrific scene.
Kathy, bloody in the passenger seat of the car. Passed out and pinned. And the baby. Who knows if anything happened to the baby? Olivia knew the kid wasn’t planned, but Elliot and Kathy already loved it. In a way, she did too. Dickie and Elizabeth had been five when she met them, but this baby… she was going to watch it grow up. She was going to be a part of its life and maybe this baby would be the closest thing she ever had to a child of her own.
So yes, she already loved it too.
But the entire time she was working with the fire department and the EMTs to save Kathy, the only person she really wanted to see was Elliot. When she was sliding the IV into Kathy’s arm. When she was holding her hands through contractions. When she was stabilizing her while she pushed the beautiful baby boy into the world before she crashed in the back of the ambulance.
Elliot should have been here for all of it. He should have been the one holding his son for the first time, not her.
She felt dazed but like she could finally breathe when Elliot came rushing into the hospital and into Kathy’s room. She was finally off duty and she could take a deep breath. She’d done what she needed to do today and saved two of the most precious things in Elliot’s life.
And now she got to go home alone to an empty apartment.
When he finally came out of Kathy’s room he looked a bit dazed himself.
“How’s the baby? “ she asked.
“Great,” he responded.
He turned to walk past her down the hall, but turned around suddenly and pulled her into a hug.
She almost didn’t believe it was happening. They’d known each other for almost 10 years and they’d never once hugged. Not like this anyway.
He held her longer than maybe partners should. Squeezing her to him.
And for a second, after this day from hell, she let herself close her eyes and enjoy being in someone else’s arms for a change.
His soft whispered “You’re okay” made her entire body feel warm.
Then, the moment was over and she tried to move them back to more neutral territory.
“You pick a name?” she asked as they walked back down the hall.
“Kathy wants to name him after me,” Elliot said with a cocky grin on his face.
“Just what the world needs,” she replied with a smirk. “Another Elliot Stabler.”
It was supposed to be a joke, but she thought that another Elliot Stabler in the world might not be so bad at all.
6. December 2007
It wasn’t until later that Olivia realized the terrifying shriek she heard when Lauren Cooper put a bullet through her brain came out of her own mouth.
They had everything on her, and apparently, she knew that. She’d dismantled the gun and put it in pieces all over the city.
Her own gun had been sitting face up on the table. Olivia knew she grabbed it and gave it to Lake. So where had the other one come from?
She had just gotten through telling Cooper that the D.A. was going to go easy on her.
“Those who fight monsters should make damn sure they don’t become one,” Cooper said before yanking the gun out and taking her own life.
Those words were haunting, but not more haunting than the scene of someone she’d worked with for days on this case blowing their own brains out.
Olivia felt herself beginning to sob. She felt raw. Confused.
She covered her eyes after the fact as if it would pull the images out of her head, put them back across the room where they belonged.
Olivia walked across the room, as far away from the scene as she could get. She could feel herself start to hyperventilate as she clutched at her head, willing her brain to tell her that what she just saw hadn’t really happened.
She stood in the same spot for hours. Unis came to tape up the place. Melinda and her team came to collect the body. CSU came to collect the gun. And yet she didn’t move from her place on the wall.
As she sat there, thinking about how Lauren Cooper didn’t have to die, all she wanted was for Elliot to not be on paternity leave right now. She wished he’d worked the case with her instead of Lake. He wouldn’t have let her sit there for hours. He wouldn’t have left her to sit there for hours by herself after what they just witnessed.
Maybe he would have crouched next to her against the wall. Maybe he would have put his hand on her neck. Or maybe he would have led her out of the room and pulled her tight against him, whispering comforting words in her ear as he had at the hospital.
It didn’t matter what he would have done though.
He was home enjoying the brand new life that she helped his wife bring into the world. And Olivia was here alone, watching a woman who wasn’t all that much different from her get wheeled out in a body bag.
7. February 2008
Olivia was going to be grateful to Fin for the rest of her life.
What she had gone through Sealview was terrible, but if Fin had been a couple of seconds later busting into the basement, it would have been a whole lot worse.
She’d managed to haul herself up against the door to read Harris his Miranda rites. She might have sounded broken and shaken up, but it felt good to be the one to tell this monster he was going down for good.
Fin helped uncuff her and then he led Harris out of the basement and she had no choice but to follow.
She didn’t need an escort and she was proud of herself for being able to walk out of there under her own power.
And while Fin was great and quite possibly her guardian angel, she somehow felt herself wishing that Elliot had been there too. She wanted him to lift her up, take some of the load off. Maybe carry her out of the basement because she wasn’t so sure she could trust her legs to take her back up all those flights of steps with the way they were shaking.
And yet when he was still lurking around the precinct that night avoiding diaper duty, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him what happened in the basement. What happened to her .
Lowell Harris was going to go away for a long time. But unfortunately, he was going to live in her head for much much longer.
8. May 2008
This case had been weird from the get-go. A grieving genius with an axe to grind with authority who liked to make funny voices and got off on directing people to do things they didn’t want to do over the phone.
But it took a turn for the weirder when they tracked him to Grand Central Station.
He said that he had a bomb and that if Olivia didn’t go with him he was going to detonate it in the middle of the station. But it was all fake.
Of course, she didn’t know that until after the fact. After he’d taken her to some rundown recording studio in Brooklyn, made her record some terrifying screams, and then pose in the booth, tied to a chair with wires attached to her neck.
It wasn’t until Elliot busted into the room a while later and got her out of the getup. He was the one who told her that everything had been fake.
She was a little annoyed that she’d sat stiff and uncomfortable in that chair for hours and hours when she could have just yanked at her own restraints and taken Rook down herself instead of waiting for Elliot to come to save the day.
As she tried to stand, her knees were stiff from not moving for so long.
“You good?” Elliot asked.
“Just stiff,” she said.
“Need a piggyback ride old woman?” he asked, tossing her a smirk.
“Shut up,” Olivia said. “You’re older than I am.”
“Just checking,” he said, holding his hands out, then reaching out to lead her to the stairs. “Let’s get this nutcase back to the house and make him Casey’s problem.
He ended up at the bottom of the East River, where he couldn’t be anybody’s problem anymore.
9. October 2009
Olivia was getting a little sick of letting perps get so close that they could grab her (or slash her in Gitano’s case). At least it was Elliot’s fault this time that he got made.
Manuel Rojas approached her immediately and told her his cell phone was also a gun, then he led her away and devested her of her gun.
This was a pattern she didn’t need to keep repeating.
Elliot had followed her, thankfully, and told Rojas the jig was up. But like every good perp, he doubled down and put the gun to her head while Elliot yelled about this being the end of the line for him.
Rojas wanted to take her with him. Thankfully she knew Elliot was never going to let that happen.
And with that knowledge in mind, she figured she might as well try to extort some information out of him while she could. Especially if he really was going to end up shooting her in the head before this was all over.
She was shocked to hear the gunshot. She didn’t think Elliot had a clear path to Rojas. They both went down in a heap and she heard Elliot calling for her and then calling for a bus. In the time it took for him to flip her over she was able to register that she was fine.
“The blood is his,” she said, feeling Elliot turn her into his body. He reached up and cupped her cheek, cradling her head against his shoulder.
Always in sync, they both turned at the same time to see Porter hanging out the side of his vehicle with his gun still trained on where Rojas stood seconds ago.
She wanted to thank him for saving her life, but then she felt Elliot drop his head to hers again. He rested his cheek against her forehead and she wondered what it would feel like if he would just scoop her off the ground right now and carry her back to the car.
Of course, he couldn’t . Not with so many other officers around, especially not if she wasn’t really injured. So she’d just sit here on the cold ground for a while. Her ass could go numb for all she cared. It was nice to know that her partner was there by her side and they were both safe, for now.
10. October 2010
She hadn’t remembered yanking the lid off the pot of mushrooms at Prochik’s lab, but she must have.
Olivia vaguely remembered questioning Prochik. She thought she was making sense but as Elliot less than eloquently reminded her later, she hadn’t been making sense at all. First, it was a few slips of words, but then it was full sentences that didn’t make any sense.
“You said you weren’t the one to stab the Captain with a pickle,” Elliot said with a laugh when he brought her some tea to her apartment that night to check in on her. “I’m never letting you live that down.
The last thing she remembered hearing was Prochik saying, “You better catch her, she’s gonna fall.”
She swayed on her feet and then went down.
But at least she knew as she was heading for the ground that Elliot was going to catch her. Maybe he’d carried her out to the ambulance, but she didn’t have any recollection of it. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital feeling like she had rocks in her head. Huang was standing at her bedside.
Her head hurt, but the rest of her body didn’t. At least she knew he hadn’t let her fall.
Not that she thought he would.
She would have rather seen him when she opened her eyes, but he had to stay and babysit the nutty professor.
He made up for it that night by checking in, bringing the tea and Chinese food because he knew she hadn’t eaten.
It wasn’t right, but she wondered for a moment what it would feel like if they could do these things all the time, rather than just after a tragedy.
It’d make her happy. She was pretty sure about that.
11. November 2010
Why did this keep happening to her?
Was it because the universe knew that she came from an abusive mother, a monstrous father, and she wasn’t genetically set up to be a parent?
When she’d gotten pregnant in college she lost the baby (maybe. She wasn’t really sure if she’d been pregnant at all or just late). She’d never gotten pregnant naturally, despite going off birth control when she was with her last few partners over the years. The adoption agencies practically laughed her out of their offices. And now, the one shot she had at raising a kind, well-adjusted kid who needed a home… someone else ripped that away from her too.
Just days ago, Calvin had been drawing her pictures and substituting his last name for hers.
Just minutes ago he’d been playing rock, paper, scissors with Elliot and telling her that he could find ways to have fun at the precinct.
And now that was all gone.
She’d tried to argue with the CPS worker. When he wouldn’t listen to reason, she addressed Vivian because that woman was the one who put Calvin in her care in the first place. After all, it was the right thing to do.
“Vivian, you did this,” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “You talked to David. You’re the one who’s shipping him off to Vermont.”
She was vaguely aware of Elliot’s arm around her waist, stopping her from getting too close.
“I’m doing it because it’s the best thing for him,” Vivian said, her tone snotty. “‘Cause I’m his mom.”
Olivia felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over her. The words hit her full force as Elliot whispered in her ear, “It was always temporary.”
Her brain knew that. It did.
But for once, Olivia let her heart believe that this could be permanent. That she could have a son who loved her, who looked up to her, who wanted to be with her. Maybe she could finally have the family she’d always dreamed about.
She should have known better.
Hearing Calvin call for her broke her heart. He didn’t want to go. He shouldn’t have to move to Vermont with people he didn’t know just because they were blood relatives.
Calvin ran to her, holding on for dear life. Vivian tried to pull him away and so did the CPS worker, but she decided if he wasn’t going to let go of her then she wasn’t going to let go of him either. He should be hers .
Somehow they got him out of her arms and Calvin screamed her name all the way down the hall. Her heart shattered. It wasn’t fair. Nothing in this whole stupid world was fair.
When she turned around and saw Elliot standing there with his hands on his hips, a forlorn expression on his own face, she felt her walls crumble.
He caught her before she hit her knees and pulled her tight to his body, helping her over to the corner, behind the pillar near the steps where most of the bullpen couldn’t see them.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair, holding her close. “I’m so sorry.”
Sorry for what, she wanted to ask. Sorry that he’d sent in the DNA swab? Sorry he caused this whole mess?
But it wasn’t Elliot’s fault. Not really. She had been delaying the inevitable for some time. The day of reckoning was going to come one way or another. At least Elliot was here to hold her when it did.
She wished he would carry her up the stairs to the cribs where she could have a good long cry without prying eyes around, but they didn’t have time. Cragen had come out of his office looking for them, asking what all the screaming was about.
“I’m taking you home tonight,” Elliot whispered in her ear before they parted to answer the Captain. “I’ll help you with his things.”
She hadn’t considered that. Going home to the apartment without him there, but with all his stuff still scattered around her place. It was going to wreck her even more.
Olivia quickly dried her eyes on the back of her hand before squeezing Elliot’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He was the first to step out from behind the pillar, giving her a few minutes of solitude to more in peace.
12. February 2011
What she found in the ladies’ room had been unexpected at best and horrific at worst.
Sonya Paxton was by no means anyone’s favorite person. But she did not deserve to die on the basement bathroom floor of a church after an AA meeting.
She tried to staunch the bleeding from Sonia’s throat with her scarf but it didn’t do any good.
Her raspy final words were hopeful but haunting: “I got him.”
She had to hang around and tell Melinda what she knew, but all she really wanted to do was run to the nearest toilet and upchuck the entire contents of her stomach. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t contaminate the crime scene, and she’d been running on cold coffee and mints for most of the day so there wouldn’t be anything to expel anyway.
Right now she was absolutely regretting not telling Elliot to cut his visit at Quantico short. She just wanted her partner here with her. She needed him to hold her up because she didn’t feel like she could stand. He and Sonya hadn’t gotten along but he wouldn’t have wished seeing what Olivia just saw on anyone.
When she was satisfied that Melinda was going to get the guy, she felt like she could finally leave the bathroom. What she didn’t expect was the person she saw rounding the corner.
Elliot was standing at the end of the hall and the second he saw her he jogged down the hall to meet her.
“I’m really glad you’re back,” she said, her voice sounding foreign to herself.
Elliot opened his arms, inviting her into them immediately, pulling her close, making her feel safe .
“I should have come back sooner,” he said.
She snapped her head up at that, taking a moment to rest her cheek against his.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to pull back.
She was, somewhat. Now. He was here and that was enough to give her the strength to push through. Who knew a five-second hug could do that?
He didn’t let her go through when she pulled back.
“Like hell you are,” he said.
He knew her. Better than anyone. And sometimes that made all the difference when you felt like you didn’t have to go through things alone.
13. May 2011
No matter what she did, Olivia could not stop her hands from shaking.
She’d run them under scalding hot water trying to scrub out Sister Peg’s blood, but that didn’t help. She’d crossed them under her armpits. Even sat on them on one of the hard beds in the cribs while she waited for Elliot to shower and change in the locker room.
The way he’d looked at her from across the squad room… the light left his eyes.
He shot a teenager, a girl close in age to Lizzie and Dickie. He shot a victim .
He had to do it. Elliot hadn’t had another choice. He was the only one close enough to his weapon, the only one who had cover behind the desk. She’d taken out two prisoners and Sister Peg and she was going to shoot again.
He did the right thing.
But she doubted he was going to see it that way.
When he came out of the locker room, Elliot looked like he’d aged at least five years. His eyes were red-rimmed and she knew he’d been crying in there. The skin on his hands and on his cheeks was raw as if he’d scrubbed too hard in the shower. He wore a spare pair of workout clothes that he had in his locker. Oddly enough, she was pretty sure she was wearing a pair of his workout clothes too even though they’d been stuffed in her own locker.
“El,” she said delicately, and his head snapped up. He hadn’t even noticed she was there.
“Liv,” he said. His voice was thick and scratchy. He didn’t sound like himself at all.
Elliot was a strong man. He was a proud man and a protector. And right now, he was broken.
He spent so much time picking her up, catching her when she fell.
And now it was time to return the favor.
Not that she’d never protected him or saved him before. She’d been there when Saul Picard blinded him and Casey tried to overwork him. She’d pretended to be a prostitute to cover his ass with the animal smugglers. She’d gone all the way out to Long Beach Island to talk to his mother when Kathleen was in trouble.
But what he needed today was a different kind of support.
As if she was running on instinct, Olivia crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Elliot. He crumpled right into them.
His body heaved and shook as he sobbed. She leaned back against the lockers, taking them both down to the linoleum floor. She couldn’t have told anyone how long she held him in her lap and let him sob. It could have been minutes or hours. She stroked his head, the back of his neck, and his shoulders, leaning her head down close to his ear and whispering things she thought he needed to hear.
“It was the right call.”
“You did your job.”
“Thank you for keeping us safe.”
Holding him wasn’t completely altruistic. She needed it too. Olivia needed to be close to him after what happened. If someone asked her to be completely honest, she’d craved his touch since the time he pulled her into his arms at the hospital after Eli was born. It wasn’t like they had never touched before that, but something about that hug made her wish and wait for the next time they could be close. They’d gotten more outwardly physical with one another after that and it wasn’t something she’d ever been sorry about.
When his tears and the gut-wrenching sobs finally subsided, Elliot rested his head against her chest and looked up at her the best he could.
“You need a ride home?” she asked.
“Cragen insisted on taking me,” Elliot said. “But thanks.”
Olivia sighed. She wanted to be the one to see him home. She wanted to be the one to pass him off to Kathy and warn her about what happened, and what might come in the aftermath. Kathy might have known her husband, but she didn’t know the job. And she was going to need to know both sides of that story to give Elliot the support he needed. He was going to be temporarily suspended while IAB did the investigation and it was going to give him too much time to think.
Too much time to replay the situation in his mind and try to dissect what he could have done differently.
Elliot sat up gently. Their faces were level and she couldn’t help but reach out and cup his cheek in her palm. He closed his eyes and nuzzled into her touch.
Then he started to lean forward.
A few more millimeters and their lips would touch.
She’d spent a lot of time fighting what she knew in her heart was true. Elliot was her safe place. He was the one person who understood her better than anyone. She was in love with him, even if she never admitted it out loud.
They’d walked a fragile line all these years, and she never thought she’d live to see it break.
But if he was going to break that line they crafted all these years, she was finally too tired to stop him.
She wanted this. Wanted him .
Olivia was tempted to close her eyes, but she wanted to watch the first time this happened.
And then… it didn’t.
Elliot’s eyes snapped open and then they went wide. Before she could blink he was crawling out of her lap and hauling himself to his feet, reaching out a hand to pull her up behind him. Then he was heading for the door.
“I’ll call you, okay?” Olivia said as he was retreating. “It’s going to be okay, El.”
“Nothing’s okay, Liv,” he said, before pushing his way through the door and heading downstairs so Cragen could drive him home.
She knew he felt that way now. But in a few days, his head would be clear and he’d realize that he’d done the right thing.
Olivia couldn’t help lifting her fingers to her lips, wondering what might have been if he had delayed his reaction to her touch just a little bit longer.
Maybe she’d find out someday.