Chapter Text
Her brain feels like it’s on fire as she stands in front of him for the first time in 10 years. He’s here; he’s back.
And his wife has just been the victim of a car bombing.
The silence is loud as they stare at each other. She wants to hug him, to hit him, to yell and cry and scream because it wasn't fair then, and it certainly isn't fair now, but she can't do anything but stand there and look at him.
“They tried to kill her.” He’s the first to break the silence, shifting his gaze to the ambulance behind her. “They tried to kill Kathy.
“Go,” Her voice finally obeys her. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
She can't keep her head on straight as she drives behind the ambulance. She hears Fin talking to her through her car speaker, but she's too out of it to register anything he's saying. He hangs up eventually, and she's alone in the too-loud silence again.
10 years. 10 fucking years. Where has he been all this time? New York? Somewhere else? Why is he only showing up now? The questions race through her mind faster than any of the traffic lights that flash by outside. What will happen now that he’s here? Is he staying? Is he leaving again? Can she handle him leaving again, now that she knows he's been here?
She eventually stops her car in the hospital parking lot and watches as they unload Kathy from the ambulance. They wheel her into the building, and Elliot stays with his wife, holding her hand and massaging her shoulder. It's the comfort Olivia wanted from him in 2013, and now she's watching him give it to someone else.
She doesn't enter the building. It feels like an invasion of Elliot and Kathy's privacy somehow, if she goes in. She's not close to them like that, not anymore.
She sees Kathy in her head. The Kathy from 15 years ago, flatlining in the back of an ambulance with a brace around her neck and a baby on her chest. She can still smell the blood.
"-iv. Liv?" The voice from behind her pulls her out of her thoughts, and she turns around to face her sergeant.
"You okay?" He says, too tentative and too careful. A stark contrast from how he'd been when he called her earlier that evening.
She doesn't answer his question.
"I followed Elliot here. I barely talked to him. Kathy just went into surgery. How did this happen? Why?" She gestures vaguely toward the ambulance, tries not to let her voice reveal too much of how she's feeling about the situation.
Fin is quick to reassure her, and she's grateful for it. "Rollins is at the scene. A uni told her it was a rental car parked on the street. Kathy went to get in, and the bomb went off. Arson thinks it misfired and threw her clear." He speaks slowly, watches her for her reactions.
Sometimes she thinks he knows her too well, and its times like this when she's proven to be correct.
"A rental car, what... where are they in from?"
"They've been living in Italy, Elliot had to come in for some type of a task force meeting, and he and Kathy decided to make it a trip,"
Italy. 4000 miles across the Ocean. 10 years.
"He just called me out of nowhere and told me he was coming," Fin continues. "I may have spoken about your award. I thought enough time had gone down between you two."
She ignores the guilt starting to claw at the inside at of her stomach, diverts the conversation. "Okay, a task force? Who's he working for?"
"NYPD. He's the international liaison in Rome.
"Since when?" If he was still here in 2013, if he was here during Lewis then–
Fin knows what she's referring to. He doesn't answer solely because they're thinking the same thing. "Look, this is all I know. You're gonna have to ask him."
She turns around at the footsteps behind her, takes in the disheveled man walking towards them. He looks older than the last time she saw him, the bags under his eyes darker, his shoulders slouching, his hair shorter than she remembers. But his face is the same; the nose and the eyes, the way he walks.
He hugs Fin first, who tells him that he's there for him, and then turns to her.
"How's Kathy?" Is the only thing she can think to say.
"They're still working on her... burns, concussion, fractured pelvis," he sighs, puts his detectives mask on, and turns back to Fin. "What do we know?"
Fin gives him the rundown, and for a fraction of second Olivia feels like she back with the old squad talking about a case before reality comes back to her and there's a mountain of distance between her and her old partner.
"She shouldn't have even been driving... I got a call. I slipped away. I gave her the keys.... She was worried we were gonna be late for your award. I meant to give you a call–"
"–It's okay, Elliot, please." she stops him, and her voice sounds shaky.
"Tell me she's gonna be okay." His eyes are filled with tears, and she has to be careful about her next words because if his tears fall then so will hers.
"Kathy's a fighter, you know that."
She stays outside when his kids arrive, tells them that she's there for them if they need anything, and stays outside as the family she's no longer a part of walks upstairs.