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The May air still had a little nip to it as Olivia Benson walked side by side with her son through the fair at the edge of Central Park. Yellow-hued Edison lights lined the thoroughfare as the sun had started to set, giving it the desired magical atmosphere. Booths and games lined up along the walkary with small amusement park rides on the edges. Noah had been talking about going to the fair all week, counting down the days until Saturday, and Olivia had prayed that they wouldn’t catch a case that would make her work through the weekend.
Noah pulled at Olivia’s hand toward one of the stands. “Can we get cotton candy?” he asked excitedly. He was thirteen, but sugar was still his favorite food group, along with pizza. She was grateful that he still saw the magic in the little things. She dealt with kids his age all the time that had had that spark dimmed by the world around them.
“Sure,” she smiled, running her hand over his curly hair. “Why not?.”
Olivia produced three tickets from the pack she’d purchased when they’d entered the fair. Noah picked out a large, blue glob of spun sugar and wasted no time in diving in. Olivia snatched a piece and Noah smiled, happy to share with his mom. They walked on, past a face-painting booth, a balloon dart game,an artist doing caricatures and a Tilt-a-Whirl. Noah stopped in front of a dunking booth where a local city councilman was getting creamed by a small girl with a hell of an arm. He laughed gleefully as the man went down into the water for the third time in two minutes. She’d never heard a better sound than that of her son’s laughter. It was nights like this she cherished when she was knee deep in a case and couldn’t make it home to have dinner or help him with his homework.
“Do you want to try one of the rides?” Olivia asked, looking towards the Ferris Wheel and roller coaster type ride that just went around in circles. “In a minute, I want to go there.” Noah pointed to the left at a tent with a sign with a crystal ball on the sign that said Palm Readings.
“Are you sure?” she asked skeptically, scrunching her face. “I’m not sure that’s for kids.”
“I’m not a kid anymore. Come on, it’ll be fun,” he pleaded, pulling her in the direction of the tent. Olivia obliged and ducked into the tent. It was dark with a small lamp in the corner providing the only light. Almost everything in the room was a shade of purple, with small gold touches here and there, like something out of a cliche movie from the 80’s. An older, red-headed woman sat at a table with a purple and red shawl around her shoulders and purple feather in the headpiece in her hair.
“Come, come, let Madam Twyla tell you what your future holds,” she said with a slight, undeterminable accent, beckoning them with a twist of her gnarled hands. Olivia looked skeptically again at her son, who just looked up at her smiling. He was always a sucker for the theatrical.
Noah and Olivia sat in the gold chairs in front of Madam Twyla.
“Can you really predict the future?,” Noah asked, his wide eyes wanting to believe.
“I predict nothing. You hold from where you came and where you will go in the palm of your hand.”
She held her hand out and Noah looked to his mom who nodded. She knew it was a load of crap, and luckily it was dark and Noah nor Madam Twyla could see her roll her eyes. The things I do for this kid, she thought.
Noah held out his hand and Twyla ran her finger over the long line at the center of his palm and then another smaller one that ran to his thumb.
“Ah, yes, I see a long life for this one, with a strong heartline. Lots of love and happiness will come your way if you stay true to yourself. ”
As expected, Noah was grinning from ear to ear. He liked the sound of that and even though she didn’t believe, so did Olivia. She wanted nothing more in this life than a long, happy life for her son.
“Now, do Mom,” he said as Twyla released his small hand.
Twyla looked to Olivia, who reluctantly offered her hand, palm up. Twyla spent a longer time studying the lines in Olivia’s hand, furrowing her brows as she ran her hand over and over the lines.
After a moment, Twyla looked into Olivia’s eyes. “You have strong intersecting lines that stop abruptly. Lots of starts and stops in your life. This line here,” she said pointing to a long line that ran off the side of her hand, “this is your love line, it stopped here at this intersection and then starts again, this means the great love of your life will come back to you.”
Olivia just stared at her hand and then back up at the old woman still holding on to her fingers.
“You will love this person the rest of your days,” she finished before releasing her hand. Olivia pulled her hand back to her lap, her head swimming, a chill running through her body. Love of her life, stopping and starting…this was all just crazy talk, Olivia’s inner monologue rationalized. It was probably the same thing she said to all women of a certain age without a ring on her finger.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a little chilly,” she replied, standing and pulling her jacket around her. She put her hand on Noah’s shoulder and turned him toward the opening of the tent.
Madam Twyla cleared her throat. “That’ll be 10 tickets.” She announced with more of a Brooklyn accent than the accent she’d used when they’d first come in.
Olivia tried to push the reading out of her mind as watched as Noah climbed the steps of a gigantic, wavy slide and stood waiting his turn. But her thoughts continued to turn to another man in her life, or sometimes man in her life. They’d spent most of the year exchanging text messages and voicemails. Both engrossed in the work, with him undercover for half the year and she focused on the Flynn case, that they’d not seen each other since the day in her office that he’d given her the compass. Their longest conversation was just a few days ago when she’d told him she’d lent the compass to Eileen Flynn. They’d talked for almost half an hour, not really catching up much, but just talking about what a crazy year it had been. She’d ended the call with a smile on her face and a hope for them that had replaced the fear and uncertainty she’d felt a year ago. They’d promised to get together for coffee soon but had made no concrete plans.
Olivia watched as it was Noah’s turn on the slide, placing the burlap bag on the green plastic and pushing off. He screamed as he hit the first hill and came up off the slide just a couple of inches, seconds later he was running toward her smiling. She knew these days were numbered. He was a teenager now and soon he wouldn’t want to attend a community fair with her, but with his friends. But for now, she relished in the time she got to spend with him. Noah was having a great time and she was glad Fin had put the flyer for the fair on her desk a couple weeks ago, knowing it was something Noah might enjoy.
“Olivia?”
Olivia turned at the sound of her name, looking through the crowd until she spotted a person she recognized. The blonde waved and walked toward her, pulling her into a hug. She was still taken aback every time she saw her. She looked so much like her mother.
“Maureen, it’s great to see you,” Olivia said, hugging the woman she’d known since she was a girl.
“You too! I haven’t seen you since…” The trial.
“Yeah, yeah,I know. How’re you doing?” she said, trying not to complicate the moment.
“We’re doing okay, just brought the boys down to the fair to fill them with junk and let them burn it off,” she replied, then looked down at Noah. “Is this your son?”
“Yes, this is Noah. Noah, this is Maureen, she’s Elliot’s daughter.”
Noah held out his hand and Maureen shook it, giving Olivia a one-mother-to-another look on how she was impressed with his manners. “Nice to meet you, Noah.”
“Nice to meet you too. You have kids?” he asked hopefully, looking around for them.
“Yes, I have two boys, Kieran and Seamus” Maureen said and pointed to one of the game booths, where you could see two boys about six years old trying to toss rings onto bottles. “Come on over. I’m sure the boys would love to meet you.”
“We don’t want to interrupt your family time,” Olivia said, looking from Noah to Maureen.
“Carl’s away on business. And I would love to introduce them to you. And I know Dad would love to see you. He’s trying to win some stuffed Pikachu thing for them.”
Olivia looked over to the area where the boys stood and there he was, hunched over showing the boys how to toss the rings. He looked good. Dark jeans and dark blue button down, his scruff grown out just a bit. Her mouth went dry as she took Noah’s hand and followed Maureen over to the game. It was good to see him, it had been way too long.
“Look who I ran into,” Maureen said, laying a hand on Olivia’s arm. Her father looked up and smiled broadly, looking at the last person he expected to be standing beside his daughter. He stood up straight and if Olivia wasn’t mistaken, he’d puffed his chest out just a little.
“Hey, Liv….good to see you.”
“Hey, good to see you too,” she answered. Both of them stood staring for a split second before Elliot looked at Noah. “How are you bud?”
“Good,” he said as his fist bumped Elliot.
“Kieran, Seamus, this is our friend Olivia Benson and her son Noah. Can you say hi?” Maureen asked, her hand on each of the boys’ backs. Both boys shyly said hi and Kieran, being the bolder of the two, said, “I’m six.”
“Me too!” Seamus offered, not wanting to be left out. “I lost another tooth today.” He opened his mouth wide to show off the spot where his tooth was indeed missing.
“Wow, that’s great!,” Olivia said, stooping down to their eye level. “I hope you saved it for the tooth fairy.”
“I did!” he answered. “Last time she left Seamus $5.”
“I like your Pikachu. I love Pokemon,” Noah said, looking at the Pikachu under Kieran’s arm.
“I love Pokemon too,” both boys said in sync. Kieran held out the toy for Noah to see. “That’s cool,” Noah responded. Noah never seemed to mind being around kids younger than him. He played with Billie and Jessie from time to time.
Seamus pulled on Elliot’s sleeve. “Grandpa, we still have two rings left.” Seamus pointed to the game, looking worried that he wouldn’t get his prize like Kieran.
Elliot laughed. “Okay, Seamus. Excuse me, we have a game to finish.” Elliot turned his attention back to Seamus and put the ring in his small hand and guided him on how to throw it. The first one missed. Seamus looked up at Elliot, still worried. “Don’t worry, Shay, we just need one more.”
If Olivia knew one thing, there was no way Elliot was going to walk away from this game without a prize for his grandson. They all stood in rapt attention as Elliot helped Seamus guide the last red, plastic ring onto the glass bottle. It teetered around the edge and when it landed on the neck of the bottle, they all cheered and Seamus jumped up and down in excitement. Elliot gave him a high-five and then there were high-fives all around, including Olivia and Noah.
“We have a winner,” the game attendant announced unenthusiastically. “Do you want the Pikachu too?”
“Yes!” Seamus exclaimed. The attendant used a hook to get the last Pikachu down and handed it to Seamus, who hugged it. “Thanks, Grandpa!”
“That was all you, Shay,” Elliot said, tousling his brown hair.
Maureen winked at her dad. “You guys want to join us?” Maureen asked, looking at Noah and Olivia.
Olivia looked to Noah who nodded his head. “That would be great,” she said, looking at Elliot. The thought of spending some time with him and his family was a step she wouldn’t have made a year ago.
“Great, where should we go next?” Maureen posed, looking at all three boys.
“Corn dogs, Tilt-a-Whirl, Tilt-a-Whirl!” the three boys said at the same time. Kieran and Noah won out with two votes for the Tilt-a-Whirl with a promise to Seamus to get corn dogs after. The last thing any of the adults wanted to do was give them corn dogs before putting them on a ride that twisted around in circles for three minutes.
They headed toward the Tilt-a-Whirl at the edge of the fair. Maureen was busy keeping the boys from running ahead as they talked to Noah about their favorite Pokemon characters. It was like they’d been friends for longer than five minutes as they excitedly talked about the merits of various characters. Olivia and Elliot were a few steps behind.
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns, she walks into mine,” Elliot said with a laugh.
“Yeah, didn’t have Elliot Stabler at a community fair on my bingo card,” she responded, bumping his shoulder. “Good to see you out having fun.”
“Maureen wouldn’t take no for an answer.” He kept an eye on the boys as they walked, watching his daughter run ahead a little to grab Kieran’s hand.
“Good for her.” Olivia took a beat before continuing. “When we talked the other day, you never really said how things are going.”
They were walking so close together, their arms brushed in stride.
“Things are things,” he responded just as he had on the phone the other day. “I don’t want to think about it right now, honestly.” She understood. It was like they were in a little bubble right now. No case, no work, no tragedy, just family and them and the lights of the causeway lighting their singular path. “But soon? We can maybe go out, have some dinner, really catch up?”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
The boys were approaching the Tilt-a-Whirl with Maureen directly behind them. Maureen gave five tickets to each of the boys for the ride. Noah had some in his pocket that Olivia had given him after getting the cotton candy. There was a sign outside of the ride for height and Seamus and Kieran stood in front of it, smiling gleefully when Maureen said they were both tall enough.
“So there’s four to a car,” Maureen directed. “Liv, do you want to go with Noah?”
“We want him to ride with us,” Seamus whined. Maureen looked to Olivia. “That’s fine with me.” Olivia turned to Elliot. “How about you, Elliot? Want to whirl with the boys?”
“Only if you want me to hurl with the boys,” he quipped, shaking his head.
“I can go with them,” Maureen offered. “I should probably take them to the bathroom after too. Meet us by the corn dogs in twenty?” She looked to Olivia and Elliot. “That okay with you, Noah?” Olivia said, checking in with her son.
All Olivia got was an enthusiastic nod as they all moved forward in line. Their ride had stopped and everyone was getting off. They would be on the next turn.
“Okay, see you guys in twenty,” Olivia said. She watched as they all gave their tickets and made their way to one of the cars that resembled half of a red, white and blue Easter egg.
Elliot turned to Olivia. “So what now, Partner?”
Olivia looked around to see what was close. There was a popcorn stand, face painting and the Ferris Wheel with no line. “Think you could stomach a Ferris Wheel, Grandpa?” she teased, laying a hand on his bicep.
“Oh, that’s how it's gonna be? I’ll have you know I’m the king of the Ferris Wheels.” He acted offended, but the grin on his face betrayed him. “Okay, then, King Stabler, let’s go look over your kingdom before we have to meet up with the kids,” she said, looping her arm through his.
It only took them a couple of minutes to get to the ride, give their tickets to the attendant and be locked into the car of the Ferris Wheel.T hey began their ascent, stopping occasionally to let other people on.
The sun was just beginning to set and the sky was streaked with pink and orange,beautiful even though the haze of New York City. They were silent as they rose bit by bit into the evening sky, neither one of them knowing what to say or where to begin. Olivia was just about to ask him about his mother when Elliot spoke first.
“Do you ever think about how we got here?,” Elliot said as they rose to the top of the Ferris Wheel.” He was looking at her the way that conveyed everything else he wanted to say. They’d always been good at that, even in the beginning of their partnership. Their eyes communicating in ways that their words never could.
Olivia attempted to break the tension. “Well, Noah and I took an Uber here and then we ran into..”
“Not that,” he interrupted and turned toward her. “You and I, when did it all change?”
Olivia’s first thought was, when you left me, but she didn’t want to keep going back to that well. It was dried up. At this point she had either forgiven him, or she hadn’t. And maybe Barba was right, there were no conditionals on their relationship. The fates had decided long ago that he was her person. “You expect me to answer that in the few minutes we’re on this ride?” They couldn’t unpack everything left unsaid and undone in the ten minutes they had before they had to meet Maureen and the boys. There was a time and a place, but making those distinctions was never Elliot’s strong suit. “But yes, I can tell you when it all changed,” she answered confidently. The Ferris Wheel started to loop around without stopping anymore. Olivia felt as if space and time were moving at a different pace for them.
He raised an eyebrow questioningly. Olivia reached out and took his hand, steadied herself, and looked into his eyes again. “It all changed when our partnership, our relationship, became bigger than the job and neither of us was in a position to deal with it.” She was done with the denials and sidestepping. She’d spent the last year thinking about what she wanted and she realized through all the hurt, disappointment and anguish that on the other side, was everything she ever wanted and everything they shared; trust, respect, loyalty…love.
Elliot nodded, almost imperceptibly, and smiled in agreement. “So…are you free for dinner next Saturday night? We can not talk about the job, get some nice wine, maybe take a walk after?” The ride had slowed down and the attendant was starting to let people off.
Olivia exhaled and smiled coyly. “I might be free.”
“How about if I add some mint chocolate chip ice cream into the mix and door to door chauffeur service?” There were now only three cars ahead of them before it was their turn to get off the ride.
Olivia looked down at their hands, still entwined. “Oh, then how can a girl say no to such an enticing offer?” Noah was at the McCanns next weekend and Fin was on call. The fates had intervened again.
They were now next in line to get off the ride. “So, it’s a date?” His voice full of hope as the wheel moved around and the attendant unlocked their safety bar so they could get out. Olivia let the words hang in the air as she slid off the orange vinyl seat and stepped onto the metal platform. She looked back at Elliot, who was sliding out behind her. “It’s a date,” she said, a smirk of a smile playing at her lips. Elliot couldn’t help but smile as he slid out and followed her down the stairs.
He grabbed her hand this time as they made their way to the corn dog stand close to the Tilt-A-Whirl, looking around for the others. Olivia saw them coming from the back where a bank of portable bathrooms had been set up. Olivia pointed in their direction and squeezed Elliot’s hand before letting go, neither of them quite ready for the questions that would come if they were holding hands when they reached them. Both of them stared straight ahead, watching Maureen holding Kieran’s hand and Noah holding Seamus’. Apparently, he had become fast friends with the boys. The Stablers did have some kind of magic charm with the Bensons.
“8 o’clock, Saturday?” he asked, focusing straight ahead and waving at the kids.
“I’ll be ready,” Olivia responded. She watched as the boys started running toward them, dragging Maureen in tow. Yes, she would definitely be ready.
“Who’s ready for corn dogs?” Elliot asked and they all came back together. There was a cacophony of me’s! and one not me! from Maureen, who looked like throwing up was not out of the realm of possibility. “And what about you, Liv?”
“Sure, why not?” she answered. She thought about what the “fortune teller” had told her about starts and stops. She was good at the stops. Her life had been full of stops that had stood in the way of her happiness, but there had been starts too, like the day she’d found a tiny baby in a drawer, the day she’d been assigned to SVU and the day she’d been partnered with Elliot. Although there had been more pauses between her and Elliot than she could count, there had never been a full stop, even after a decade. It was like the Ferris Wheel, pausing occasionally to get on and off, but the ride kept going, just like her and Elliot always would.