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“Liv!”
That voice. She’d know that voice anywhere, had dreamt of it, dreaded it, longed for it.
Olivia pulls her eyes from Kathy, unconscious and being loaded in the back of the ambulance and turns, slowly, because she’d imagined that voice before, on crowded streets and at late night crime scenes and in places she doesn’t like to revisit and she hasn’t heard it in so long that she can’t be certain it’s him, not really.
But she turns and he’s there. All the times she thought he was there, had hoped he was there and wasn’t, and now Elliot Stabler is standing not even ten feet from her. She has to blink twice to be sure, and it’s hard because her vision dips, going black on the edges. It has to be her heart, which has picked up considerably, pounding a mile a minute, harder and harder against her chest the longer Elliot continues to stand in front of her. Or maybe it’s her lungs, which refuse to draw air, tightening more and more until she has no choice but to gasp out,
“Elliot.”
Ten years crammed into the space of ten feet.
“Oh my god,” She breathes, because it’s the only thing her brain has the ability to speak. Olivia starts moving, feels her feet working underneath her on their own, closing the space between them. The closer she gets, the more that ten years spills over, pushed onto the busy street, swirling around her. She can’t ignore it, all that time, but all she can do is look at him, at Elliot, because he’s here and for just a moment the gaping ache he’s left behind takes a back seat.
He meets her, taking three large strides and then they’re practically chest to chest. She sways just a little on her feet because her body wants to keep going, wants to land in his arms, to feel him against her, his breath in tandem in with her own and know that he is truly there. But her brain halts her where she stands, because she’s had that dream before.
She stares at him, this man she has known for most of her life, the person who was once her home, the one person in the world she never thought would abandon her. But he had. For ten years he’s been gone, she’s heard nothing save for two scrawled words on a creased note he couldn’t even deliver himself. How many nights had she wondered where he was, if he still even lived in New York? If he was dead?
But he’s not dead. He’s standing in front of her and she’s staring at him, this face she knows maybe better than she knows her own, and god, he’s ten years older.
There are lines on his face she doesn’t recognize, and grey in the stubble on his cheeks. He has less hair. And he’s broader, Olivia notes, than last she saw. Harder, than she’s ever seen him, and, she thinks, in more ways than one.
Somehow, in her head, the time had never passed. She could still picture him so clearly, as clearly as the day he shrugged her off in the locker room, both of them covered in blood that wasn’t theirs, and told her he was fine when they both knew he wasn’t. She could still see that tired half smile he gave her before he walked out of the locker room and she never saw him again.
But standing on a random New York street, next to a blown up car and an ambulance that is pulling away, Olivia can’t deny the years that have passed. The vision of him she’s held is gone in an instant; no longer can she think of him as he was, laughing next to her in the sedan, watching her carefully from across their desks, or at her side in an interrogation.
Olivia feels her heart ache at the loss, as if it were the last piece of him to disappear after years of careful guarding. He’d taken himself out of her world and now he takes that final piece, because she truly is allowed nothing, and if she wasn’t reeling at the mere sight of him, Olivia thinks she might find anger lurking in her heart.
And because she knows him, because he was her partner, she knows that he is looking at her in the same way. There are lines on her face he doesn’t recognize. Her hair is longer, tinted with highlights she didn’t have ten years ago. She has scars he can’t see, because he doesn’t know, because he wasn’t there. She is a mother and he doesn’t know her son.
Where he is hard, she knows she is soft. The curve of her hip, her breasts, skin that is not so tight anymore, all soft. It’s the evidence of a life lived, lived as well as could be. It reflects her being a mom, and secretly Olivia loves it. But she wonders how Elliot sees it, wonders if he’s looking at her and all he can see is that she’s older.
Most days she still feels like she’s still in her forties. She still finds the energy to do the job, still wants to do the job. Some days she steps off the elevator and has to remind herself that her desk is no longer in the bullpen, that she is responsible for the whole unit.
And even now, there are days she wakes up, the hazy early morning light creeping into her room and before she fully wakes up, she forgets. That split second before the world forces itself on her, Olivia still, even now, forgets that he is gone. There are moments in a busy day where she still half expects him to waltz into the bullpen, complaining about traffic or Munch’s radio choices.
But up until this very moment, she’s been left alone in the space without him. It used to be so big, that space, touching every corner in her life to the point it overwhelmed and threatened to drown her. Over the years that great big yawning space had shrunk, closing in on her. It tightened on her skin, cracking in between her fingers and behind her ears and flaking away until she had all the tenderness of a healed over scar.
But she never truly healed over, not really. And that becomes painfully clear, as the wound splits open anew, seizing Olivia’s lungs and sending her world spinning. She instinctively tries to focus on Elliot but those piercing blue eyes are full of hurt and fear and apprehension and his gaze sears right through her.
“They tried to kill her,” He says, and it’s the first real thing Elliot has said to her in ten years, “They tried to kill Kathy.”
Those words slam into her so hard it steals the little breath Olivia has been able to suck in. Of course, Kathy, his wife. Kathy, who was blown up and carted away in an ambulance. Kathy, who is clinging to life while Olivia stands dumbfounded in the street, staring at her husband. Kathy, who he always returned to. Fighting, distanced, separated, divorced, he always found his way back to her, even then. Elliot returned to her so closely that it took him far and away from Olivia.
And it should, she told herself then, as she tells herself now. Elliot’s loyalty, his time, his energy, his love, should go to his family. It belongs with his wife, not with her.
Suddenly those ten years feel so much smaller, and she’s back to pushing Elliot out of the bullpen to anniversary dinners and recitals and science fairs and soccer games. She’s buying his wife’s birthday presents and reminding him that Kathleen is a vegetarian and telling herself to be satisfied being on the edges of a family.
Somehow, despite the years, despite her rise in rank, and Noah, and all of the relationships between then and now, Olivia finds herself exactly how Elliot left her. The cool night air is not the stuffy heat of the bullpen too full of people but the sharp smell of blood still gets caught in her nose and her hands still shake as they stare at each other and she is still as he left her.
Does he look at her and feel the same? Or has he grown and shaken off the years of their partnership?
“Excuse me?” A voice cuts in. A young voice, trying to be polite. Olivia turns, breaking the spell of Elliot’s gaze and spots a uniformed officer standing just to the side of them. He doesn’t look like he’s been out of the Academy long and looks anxious about interrupting them. It almost makes Olivia laugh; she’s sure they make a confusing picture, two adults staring at one another, not a word between them, in the middle of a crime scene.
She reaches for her hip on instinct, forgetting she opted to carry her badge rather than wear it on her person for tonight’s ceremony. It takes a second of her fingers grasping at nothing, scratching against the fabric of her dress before she’s fumbling in her pocket for her badge. Her hand closes around the cool metal and Olivia lets the dull edges dig into her skin, a poor attempt to shock her system back into any steady rhythm that lets her breathe easier, that doesn’t have her heart pounding so fast.
“Captain Benson,” Olivia says, flashing her badge to the officer. Her voice is thick, stuck in her throat. She feels Elliot behind her, just at her shoulder. She fights the urge to roll her shoulder or to step away. For years they had been at each other’s side, always an echo of the other, never more than a step away. It was like they were anchored to each other and Olivia used to know the weight of him. But then he was gone and she felt untethered and lopsided. Olivia learned to stand without that familiar weight against her shoulders, and was even surprised at how well she moved without it. Now that it’s back it feels out of place, pulling her in and holding her where she stands.
“Captain,” The young officer stands straighter at her title. “I was told to inform Mr. Stabler-”
“Detective,” Elliot interrupts, because he’s Elliot and even though ten years have passed, he still needs to make himself known.
Is it a reflex, Olivia wonders. Even after ten years is it second nature for him to step into the role of Detective? Or had he returned to the work force? All this time had he been hidden in another borough, slotted into homicide or vice? Just another of a million things that Olivia doesn’t know.
“Detective.” The officer amends. “I was told to inform Detective Stabler that any further questioning can be done tomorrow and I’m to offer him a ride to the hospital.” The officer pauses, and looks between them, “Unless, of course if you want to-”
No, she most certainly does not.
That weight is there, the heat of his body now actually touching the edge of her shoulder and it burns. He’s watching her, she just knows it. Waiting for her to make the call. Because he can want for all the world to ride with her but it’s been ten years and he left and whether or not he rides next to her is her fucking call.
“I’d like to stay and get some more information,” She says and her shoulder stops burning, “You go ahead and take Detective Stabler to the hospital.”
The uniformed officer nods and points Elliot towards his cruiser. Elliot gruffly acknowledges him and Olivia’s shoulder singes as Elliot brushes past her. She thinks she’s free, thinks he’ll follow the officer and drive away, away from her and to his wife and she might have the chance to breath again, but then he turns. He turns and his hand lands on her elbow and he squeezes firmly. Olivia can feel his own hand shaking, can feel the tension and barely reigned in desperation in his grasp.
She stares at where his hand holds her. Like the rest of him, the skin of his hands is older, slightly wrinkled from over five decades of use. But they’re still his hands. Large and warm, these hands are the hands that have held her more tenderly than this, that have protected her, comforted her. They’ve held her back, more often than not for her own good. They’re the hands that in her most selfish moments she wished could trace every curve of her body. His hand is right there, on the curve of her elbow and it’s almost as if it’s automatic, like there is still some raw instinct left to them.
“Olivia…” Elliot says. It’s low, his tone and she knows there’s more he wants to say. He wants to ask if she’ll actually follow him. He’s afraid; afraid for Kathy and for whatever this car bomb means because they both know those aren’t the sort of thing to just go off randomly. He’s afraid that Olivia won’t come, won’t stay at his side. Elliot’s never really been built to take on the hard stuff, not on his own. His instinct is to run or beat whatever the problem is into submission. And maybe he’s changed, maybe the years have mellowed him, maybe Elliot Stabler has finally found his peace.
The thought that Elliot had become a better person without her, that all of those years together, being her partner, had actually been holding him back, cracks her heart in two. Olivia tries to tell herself that turnabout is fair play, that she’s grown in the time he’s been gone; she knows she has. But there is an awful little thought that lingers at the base of her brain, growing louder and louder with each horrid moment she stands on this street:
We were supposed to do it together.
“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” Olivia says and it sounds an awful lot like a promise. Elliot sags just a little, relief running through the lines of his shoulders.
“I-” Elliot starts, but it’s not the time or the place, whatever he wants to say. Olivia wonders if there ever will be.
“Thank you,” He says instead. Another squeeze of her arm, familiar and foreign all in one and then his hand is gone and despite feeling like she was on fire a moment ago, Olivia suddenly feels cold, all of the heat leaking out of her from every place Elliot had made contact.
He walks away and doesn’t look back, not even as he angles himself into the front of the cruiser. She’s not even sure she wants him to, only a moment ago having been desperate for him to go.
Still, there’s no denying the dread that slides through her, an icy grip that threatens to pull her into it’s inky depths. Because where once there had been steadiness and trust, now there is only uncertainty. She can no longer count on him to be where he says he’ll be, and for all Olivia knows by the time she gets to the hospital, Elliot will be gone. They may decide to move Kathy to a better hospital and he will go, too worried to spend a second to spare Olivia an explanation. It’s been ten years, what’s another ten? What’s the rest of her life?
Except now that she’s seen him, Olivia doesn’t think she can survive it again. To know that he’s out in the world, to know what he looks like, those laugh lines etched into the corner of his eyes and the grey on his face, this new image of Elliot Stabler and it can’t be all she has.
What if he never explains to her why he did it, why he just disappeared so completely? She needs to ask, she has to know. She should call out to him, get him to turn his face to her once more and cement that image of him in her head so she’s got something more than mini badge locked away in an evidence locker and a small worn note tucked into her bedside table.
Semper fi. Always faithful.
Was this what he meant, all those years ago? When he’d put his medal in the mail and told her to keep the faith? Or, as she wondered late at night when she allowed herself, was he making a promise to her, that there would always be a piece of him that was hers? That he would someday bring himself back to her?
A fucking hell of a way to do it.
In the end, Olivia doesn’t call out, and she couldn’t really tell you why. Elliot doesn’t turn, they don’t stare at each other like they’re hungry for the sight of the other. She lets him leave, watches the police car until it turns a corner a half a block away before letting herself fall into the chaos of the crime scene.