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November, 2010
He can’t get the sound of her voice out of his head.
The barely-controlled, ragged whisper of “don’t touch me” as he’d reached for her. Calvin’s screaming had only just quieted, and – perhaps selfishly – all he could think of in that moment was comforting her.
But she’d rebuffed him and disappeared somewhere, so he figured he’d give her some time and then go find her. When he’d gone to look for her, she hadn’t been anywhere to be found, which was understandable, he supposed.
Still, he couldn’t get her off his mind until he saw that she was okay for himself. It’s been nearly three days and she hasn’t answered his calls of texts, and he feels like he might go a little crazy if he doesn’t hear from her soon.
He knows it’s probably not his place. He’s pushing boundaries by showing up at her house on a Sunday evening with two turkey BLTs (because he thinks it’s a safe bet that she’s barely eaten anything of substance since he saw her last) and a small chocolate torte from her favourite bakery, but the thought of her nursing a broken heart alone is agonizing to him. So he rationalizes it by telling himself that she’s his partner and it would be a dereliction of duty for him not to make sure she’s alright.
He knocks three times. Waits. Knocks three more times. Waits. His fist is poised to knock again when the door swings open.
“Elliot…” she says, like she’s gearing up to fight him already.
“Hi Liv,” he says. He takes her in. She’s wearing a baggy grey hoodie (which he thinks she might’ve nabbed from his locker at some point) and black leggings. Her hair’s thrown up haphazardly, and it’s frizzier than usual. She looks exhausted, with bloodshot eyes and a drooping posture.
“What’re you doing here?”
“You weren’t answering your phone. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
She scrutinizes his face for a long moment. He can see her considering telling him to get lost, then she looks at the bags he’s holding and asks, “What’s that?”
“I brought food because I know you, and you probably haven’t eaten in a while, right? And there’s dessert, too.”
He’s rambling, and he feels a blush creep up his face as he realizes that she may, in fact, feel patronized right now, and that’s the last thing he wants, so he continues rambling. “I know you can take care of yourself, Liv, but I know you’re hurting, and I wanted to do something. Listen, you can tell me to fuck off and I’ll leave you alone, but you don’t have to handle everything alone.”
Her eyes shine, and there’s a pain in her eyes that he wishes he could take for himself. She doesn’t believe him, and if there was any one thing he’s able to give her, he wants it to be the knowledge that he’s here for her.
Maybe she’s not thinking straight in her vulnerability, or maybe she’s actually glad to see him, but whatever the reason, she clears her throat and steps back, letting him in. “You can help,” she murmurs as he passes her.
He doesn’t need to ask with what when he sees a large duffle bag open on her couch. The price tag is still attached to the zipper. Calvins clothes are on the next cushion, some folded, some in a messy pile.
“I’m gonna bring his stuff to CPS in the morning. They’ll make sure it gets to him in Vermont.” Her voice wobbles, and he sees her swipe her hand across her cheek out of the corner of his eye. “Can you put the clothes there in the bag? There’s still some of his stuff in the room that I need to get together.”
“I got it,” he assures her. “You do what you gotta do.”
With that, Olivia goes back into her room and Elliot takes the bags he’s still holding and brings them to her fridge. It’s got more stuff in it than he thought it would, and it occurs to him that that’s most likely because of Calvin.
It’s when he closes the fridge that he sees the painting, the portrait of Liv holding a gun, her badge front and centre. He sees the signature and it steals his breath.
Calvin Benson.
He’d been there the other day, when Calvin had been quite literally ripped from Olivia’s embraced, red-faced and struggling. He’d heard Calvin screaming his partners name until he’d been carried far enough away that his pleas could no longer be heard through the halls of the precinct. But it wasn’t until this moment that he realized just how much they’d grown to love each other. He knew Liv wanted to be a mother more than anything else, and she’d wanted Calvin to be hers, even when she knew doing the right thing by arresting Vivian would put that dream at risk. But what he hadn’t accounted for was how much Calvin wanted to be hers, too.
Sighing, heart heavy, he turns to the clothes on the couch. It’s not a lot, but it’s almost certainly more than he’d had before coming here. Carefully, he places what’s already been folded into the bag. Then he looks at the pile of clothes that’ve been thrown haphazardly on the couch. These items, he notes, all look brand new. A raincoat, long-sleeved t-shirts, a pair of jeans, a beanie. Everything but a couple of pairs of pyjama pants and NYPD T-shirts, which he presumes were for sleeping, have the price tags still attached.
He knows Calvin should be with his grandparents. He knows that Liv knows it, too, deep down. Still, it feels monstrously unfair to give Liv a taste of everything she’d ever wanted, and then tear it away without warning.
As he’s placing the last of the clothes into the bag, he hears a loud sniffle. He waits, listening. Another sniffle, then a sigh. Mentally, he begins weighing the consequences of respecting Liv’s privacy against seeing if she’s okay, but she saves him from having to make a decision by coming down the hall with an armload of items, and a bookbag on her shoulder. She puts the bookbag down by the door, then comes to stand next to him.
She’s definitely been crying, but he doesn’t say anything. He suspects the ‘brave soldier’ act is all that’s letting her get this done. Carefully, she puts some comic books, school supplies, and a sketchbook on top of the clothes. She puts a sealed envelope addressed to Calvin on top of the book. Lastly, she puts a neon- blue-and-black spotted stuffed frog on top of the envelope.
He smirks. “What’s with the frog?”
“We went to the Zoo,” she whispers. “Spent most of our time in the World of Reptiles. He loved the poison dart frog the most. Have you seen them?” She looks at him with wet eyes.
Elliot mutely shakes his head.
“They’re really cool-looking,” she admits. “He made a show about being too cool for a stuffed toy, but I bought it for him anyway, and he kept it on the bed beside his pillow.”
She huffs, wipes her eyes, then zips the bag and carries it over to the door, placing it next to Calvin’s schoolbag. “Thanks for your help,” she says, heading into the kitchen.
What’s he supposed to say to her? There’s no magic phrase he can say that’ll take away the pain she’s feeling, but he desperately wishes that were the case. Lamely, he settles for “any time, partner,” and then winces at how hollow it rings.
“You said you brought food?” She heads into the kitchen, opening the fridge.
“In the fridge.”
She grabs the sandwiches and a couple of napkins before bringing it over to the coffee table and seating herself on the couch. “C’mon,” she says, then, “Oh, shit. Elliot there’s beer in the fridge door, can you grab them?”
He does, bringing them over to her. She’s already turned on the TV, flicking through the channels. She settles on a rerun of Cheers.
They eat quietly, side-by-side on her couch, looking at the TV. He doubts that either of them are paying much attention. Olivia is too focused on her grief, and he is too focused on her.
They finish their sandwiches. He keeps his eyes glued to the TV, but sees her occasionally swipe at her cheeks in his periphery.
When the credits start rolling, he nudges her knee slightly with his.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“I’m fine, El,” she says.
He hands her a napkin. “Like hell you are.”
She huffs, wipes her eyes, her nose.
Turning slightly, so that he can see her face a little better, he doesn’t say anything and waits for her.
“You were right,” she says eventually, taking a sip of her beer.
“’bout what?”
“I was just playing mom.”
Her words horrify him, regret piercing through him like an arrow.
“Liv, I never should’ve said that. It’s not true.”
“But it is,” she counters. “You saw the fallout coming from a mile away. You were right. ‘It was always temporary.’ Isn’t that what you said?”
It would be preferable to him if she was angry with him, but there’s nothing but acceptance and self-loathing in her voice, and he hates that she’s using his words to beat herself up.
“You gave him stability for the time he was with you. That’s so crucial. I never should’ve implied otherwise. I’m so sorry.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “This is where this was always gonna end, and I let myself imagine otherwise. And that’s my own fault.”
Olivia wraps her arms around herself. She whispers to him like she’s telling him her most shameful secret, “I wanted him to be mine. I know he wasn’t, but I wanted him to be. For a second it felt like he was mine. Is that terrible, El?” Tears run down her cheeks unchecked.
“No. You’re human, Liv,” he offers. “You can’t blame yourself for being human.”
Though, if anyone could find a way, it would be her, he thinks.
“For what it’s worth – and I think it’s worth a lot – ” he finds her eyes, tries to be an anchor for her, “he wanted to be yours, too, Liv. He signed his name Calvin Benson. I know he felt like he was yours, too, even if it was temporary.”
With that, her face crumples and she begins to cry into her hands.
A lump forms in his throat as he brings his hand to rest on the back of her neck.
He works hard on reining in his own emotions as he says, “You both belong to each other a little bit, forever. Even if you never see each other again.”
Olivia slumps sideways, burying her face into his shoulder. He moves his arm to encircle her shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Liv,” he whispers as her tears wet the fabric of his shirt. “So sorry.”
They don’t do this. This is not how they seek comfort from each other (with the exception of one impulsive embrace that he’d been too weak to resist), and there’s good reasons for that. Because right now he feels electrified, and he’s very aware of every place where their bodies are touching.
He’s an asshole for thinking about how she’s making him feel right now, and he knows they’ll be in dangerous territory very quickly if he’s not careful.
So he doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t move to wrap both arms around her. Doesn’t pull her closer against him. He does nothing more than move his hand back and forth gently on her upper arm.
Soon, she quiets and her breathing evens out, but she doesn’t move. They sit facing forward on her couch, Liv’s temple resting on his shoulder.
Eventually, she lifts her head, and he makes the mistake of looking over at her.
Her eyes are glossy pools of want and heartbreak – which might or might not be entirely about Calvin - and she looks so beautiful it makes his breath catch. He’s never denied that he’s a wretched sonofabitch when it comes to his feelings for Olvia, but it’s never been harder to keep his distance from her than it is right this second.
He holds his breath as she stares at his mouth for an interminable moment. It’s blatant, not subtle at all, and if she leaned forward right now to close the distance between them, he wouldn’t stop her. He’s not sure he could stop her.
Please, God, he prays, though he’s not sure what he’s asking for.
Blinking hard, she meets his eyes, and just like that the spell is broken. Snapping out of it, she sits up straight.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, clearing her throat.
“No apology needed, Liv,” he says, uncoiling just a little.
She gets up and pads to the kitchen, where she begins to putter around, opening and closing drawers and cupboards.
The television is playing an episode of Friends now, wherein Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry are talking about stealing cheesecake.
He’s about to call out to her to check that she’s okay, that he hadn’t upset her, when she turns the corner and carefully sits beside him again with the torte he’d brought with him, cut in half.
“I think it’d make me feel worse if I ate the whole thing by myself,” she jokes, holding out a fork for him. There’s a small upturn to the corner of her mouth that reassures him that she’ll be alright eventually.
She takes a bite of the chocolate dessert, closing her eyes to savor it. Elliot drinks her in, wishing he could preserve this stolen, unguarded image of her in his memory forever.
“What?” she says self-consciously when she catches him staring.
“Nothing,” he says, bringing a bite of the torte to his mouth. He savors the bittersweet taste of the chocolate as it melts in his mouth. “It’s delicious. Thanks for sharing.”
There’s so much he wants to say to her, but they’ve never been much for communicating and he figures they’ve exceeded their quota for the day.
There’ll be time in the future, he thinks, for Liv to know the truth.
August, 2024
“Do you ever hear from Calvin?” He asks one evening, as she crawls into her side of the bed in a pair of sleep shorts and one of his old T-Shirts.
“Calvin Arliss?”
“Yeah.”
It’s become a bit of a routine for them in the nascent romantic relationship between them to ask each other questions about the time they’d missed when they’re in bed (sometimes post-coital, sometimes as they relax into sleep, too tired for sex).
What did you love most about Italy?
(“I miss the cathedrals, the architecture. I loved going to mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. We even went to a few papal masses, which Kathy loved.”)
What was your new partner like?
(“He was a lot like you, actually. Catholic,” she’d quipped. “We came to be very good friends.”)
What was working private security like?
(“It depended on the job. For a short while, I was paid to be a bodyguard some obscenely rich woman’s little yappy papillon, which was a nightmare. It was mostly fine, though. A little boring, but worth it for the paycheque”)
What was Noah like as a child?
(Bright and inquisitive. He was always asking questions and couldn’t get enough of the world around him. And musical, too. Always humming or singing, making up his own songs.”)
They learned the hard way not to ask questions that the other couldn’t answer without potential emotional fallout, opting to save the harder questions for when they had the bandwidth to give them the space they deserved.
Will you tell me about Ed?
(“Ed Tucker? Really, Olivia?”
Of course, she’d brought him to heel almost immediately with that one, reminding him that he couldn’t be mad about choices she’d made during his absence when he was the one who chose to leave in the first place. He’d acknowledged that she was right, and that he was sorry – it felt stupid to be jealous of a dead man anyway, especially when he was in her bed - but it took them forever to fall asleep that night.)
So when he asked Did you ever get the mini badge I sent you?
She said, bringing their clasped hands to her lips as he spooned her, kissing his knuckles, “That’s a story for another time,” and he’d had no trouble letting it go to ask instead,
Do you ever talk to Alex Cabot? And then she’d floored him with the news that Alex was extrajudiciously arranging for the disappearance of battered women who need to escape their husbands.
She turns off her bedside lamp and gets under the covers. Snuggling up beside him, she rests her head on his chest and hooks her leg over his.
“We kept in touch for a little while after he moved. He sent me flowers after Lewis. I still have the card.” She sighs. “But I haven’t heard from him since. I think of him every so often, wonder if he’s doing alright.”
Elliot hums in acknowledgement. Surely he couldn’t be that hard to find. She wouldn’t even need to use police resources when Google would probably do the trick. ‘
He thinks back to that night just after Calvin had been taken, how heartbroken she’d been and how badly he’d wanted to console her, but agonizing over which boundaries to push, which lines to cross, and which rationalizations to use to assuage his guilt.
He bends his head to kiss her forehead and pulls her even closer to him.
None of those boundaries exist now, and they’re both still learning to live outside of the constraints that had forced them to walk such a fine line during the years of their partnership.
“Have you ever thought of looking for him?”
“I’ve thought about it. I’m not sure why I haven’t.” She yawns widely, and he knows she’s on the cusp of falling asleep. “I guess I’m afraid of what I might find,” she mumbles sleepily into his chest.
Understandable, he thinks. It could’ve gone either way with Calvin, depending on the support and resources he’d had after moving to Vermont. Looking for him and coming across an obituary was not outside of the realm of possibility, and he can’t blame her for wanting to save herself that pain.
Soon, her breathing evens out and she’s sleeping soundly on his chest. As he follows her into slumber, there’s an idea taking root in his mind.
XXXXX
The next morning, after he settles at his desk and is working on his second cup of coffee, he googles ‘Calvin Arliss’ and holds his breath as he skims the results.
He clicks on a couple of LinkedIn pages with no luck, then clicks on the staff page of a nonprofit organization that helps homeless LGBTQ youth in Pennsylvania. In a photo featuring the staff stands a tall, lanky young man looking slightly self-conscious. It’s unmistakably Calvin; his face has barely changed at all and Elliot can’t help but smile.
He’s listed as one of a few people who work in outreach for those dealing with addiction and substance abuse. The urge to pick up the phone and call Liv immediately is overwhelming because he knows she’d be so proud. It’s everything she could have wanted for him.
He resists and clicks on the email link below Calvin’s name.
There’s a few ways that this could backfire, he knows - Liv doesn’t like surprises much – but he’ll take his chances on this one. He imagines the look on her face when she sees that Calvin is successful and safe. She’s struggled this year with wondering whether the work she’s done has been worth it, that there’s always another predator, another traumatized child. The idea of reuniting Olivia with Calvin feels like the perfect way to remind her that she’s made a material difference in the world. He hopes Calvin will be amenable, and if not…he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
Perhaps this is his way of comforting the heartbroken woman he’d known thirteen years ago in a way that she can hold on to, in a way that he’d wanted to, all that time ago.
He’s nervous and hopeful as he begins to write.
Hi Calvin,
I’m not sure if you’ll remember me, but I know you’ll remember my partner, Olivia Benson…