Work Text:
She almost misses it when he grabs a mug from the cabinet, his back to her as he fills up the Keurig with a French Vanilla pod, muttering about some weekend plans in February.
“Which one? Noah has a competition. One of them is in New Jersey. Might get called in, Tynan has me on a tighter leash, so,” she drifts off, trying to open her Google calendar. “Why?”
“Want to get dinner?” He looks over his shoulder to see if she’s listening.
“We’ve had dinner.”
“Yeah, but we can make it a thing.”
“It isn’t already a thing?”
“We could do more.”
“El,” Olivia accepts the steaming cup of coffee, watching as Elliot reaches for the oat milk in the fridge. He’s had it on hand for when the kids are over, which is slowly becoming his favorite. “What are you saying?”
“I just,” he shrugs. “It’s been almost a year since I was upstate in a hospital bed, and — I wanted to do something - special? You know, since we’ve been dating.”
“Sure. Like we’re dating.” Olivia sarcastically responds as she stifles a laugh. Her eyebrow raises as she brings the steamy cup to her lips. “That’s real funny, El.”
“We aren’t?”
“We are?”
—
They weren’t in lockstep, but they weren't not in lockstep recently.
It was just slow, she thought.
Apparently not.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What did you mean we weren’t?”
His brows furrowed, more with confusion than anything else.
“I just thought… it was obvious.” He leaned back on the kitchen counter, his hands resting on the lip of the concrete slab. “Ya know?”
“Clearly not.”
He tilted his head, now trying to crack the brown eyes he thought he already had.
“I thought that you being my emergency contact was a big enough clue.”
“You were mine for how long, and how long ago?” Olivia slides the oat milk back towards him. “I mean putting Bernie as your emergency contact doesn’t make sense anymore. I at least do. I’m sure your kids don’t want to answer the phone from the hospital every 6 months.”
“And before we left the hospital I said I would get naked.”
“Yeah, because giving the charge nurse a strip tease is exactly what the doctor ordered.” She took another sip, her eyes just as confused looking into his blue. “Why did you think that meant we were dating?”
“Because there isn’t anyone else.”
“Oh sure. I’ll just take your word for it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m just saying I heard about Flutura and Angela, and that’s fine. But, there’s no one else?”
“My old partner from Italy, Tia, tried. She figured out I wasn’t for her pretty quickly.”
“Sure. OK.”
His fingers fiddle with the countertop, tapping to fill the silence in what went wrong.
“I’m just lost at what point we went from partners to partners.” Olivia and Elliot look at each other puzzled. “We really don’t see each other enough.”
“Which is why I wanted to have dinner together.”
“We do dinner. Pizza and some wine, Chinese if we’re short on time during a case or -“
“You know I want more than that.”
“Well, tell me when we both have free time.”
“That’s why I’m trying to figure out the second weekend in February.”
She slides open her phone again, actually taking a look at the dates.
“And you thought Valentine's Day weekend would be a good time to actually have dinner? Probably one of the biggest work weekends of the year?”
“Well, I didn’t think.”
“Yeah. No kidding,” she whispers. Her hand hits her forehead, and her eyes are locked on the calendar. “What’s wrong with you? How long have you thought?”
He stares up at the ceiling, racking his brain between cases and the few times they’ve seen each other, really seen each other.
“After Ohio I - thought that maybe - it was time to be more forward. It scared the shit out of me, I thought I…”
“I know. You said it there, and then you left.”
“Right, but I saw you after that. Your ass was still sore, and I gave you the gift.”
“Which was beautiful and I gave it away.” She pauses, replaying the teary moment in her office.
“Oh. Oh.” It hits her harder than it should. “No, oh my fucking god, El, no?” The phone slipped out of her hand as both made their way to cover her mouth. “You didn’t think that?”
“I thought you understood, and then you told me you gave it away. I get why, but I thought you needed a bigger hint, so then I changed my contact information in the HR portal. I thought maybe it would flag you since we’re both NYPD, and we sometimes overlap on cases, and —“
“And it didn’t. Oh my god, El. I - shit. I need to get that back.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it back, but how did you not realize that these were obvious signs?”
“Well, you did tell me you loved me in front of your kids less than a week after your wife died and you reappeared cold turkey in my life after a decade, so… I’m not sure where you want me to think the benchmark is.” Olivia quips. “Plus, after you picked up Noah we tried, and that didn’t work, and I thought we were just not there.”
“Yet.”
“What?”
“Not there yet.”
“I guess.” Olivia sputters out to continue her train of thought. She walks around the kitchen island to face him. “I thought for a while there we were just friends, but our friendship for now has become more of a friendship than what it was when we said that. I haven’t been able to come around to things with your family like normal people do when they date.”
“Well, I mean, they all know you. It’s not like you’re brand new.”
“But I am, El. Really. Eli was a toddler when you left, and now he’s a father with an almost 1 year old. You’re older kids have kids. You’re a grandpa. I’ve helped Bernie and Kathleen, and I’m always willing to, but … I’m not their mom.”
“I know that, and they know that.”
“I know that, but it’s the principle of it. Wouldn’t you want them to know we’re dating? I’ve been around them their whole lives, but not as a parent or significant other. Kathy even talked to me during your separation.”
“She what?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No?”
“She told me to tell you to sign the papers. I told her it was none of my business to tell you what to do with your marriage,” remembering that chilly afternoon in Central Park. “Then, you got back together. It worked out on its own.”
“Because we had Eli.”
“But, that’s not the point. I want to move slowly. There are things we’ve talked about now in the past 15 years, some of which you know, and some of which you might not know, that I thought we need the time to develop our relationship to that level before we dive right in.”
“Oh please. Since when have you dove into a relationship that’s not work related? Like really opened up?”
That gets Olivia silent.
“You mentioned Ed once, but nothing else since. I know you and Brian had at least a ‘fling’ back in the day, and the other reporter guy, Kurt? But Olivia, I can’t read your fucking mind if you don’t give me the space to.”
“I’m trying El.”
“Are you? We talked about how things are things, and how things around us change, and go from good to not great, but that’s not being open.”
“Ok, Dr.Therapist Stabler.”
“I have been going.”
“That’s helpful,” Olivia snaps back. It comes out harsher than she meant it.
“It is. Told me to have a new beginning. Which I’m trying to do, with you, to be clear, and I think I’m failing a little bit at it.”
“That’s good news. To be clear, I haven’t seen anyone romantically in a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“Since at least Ohio.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
Olivia glances down at her phone and looks at the missed call that was on silent from Noah.
“Gimme five minutes.”
—
He brings her mug to the living room and waits as she comes in off the back patio.
“Thanks.” She holds the lukewarm coffee mug and plops onto the couch. “For a while there, you weren’t subtle about your approach. You really asked me how many relationships I had, to ballpark. And to go from that to thinking we’re dating, and have been for about a year?”
“Why else did you think I said ‘love you’ after Cragen’s memorial?”
“I just thought you… it was a tough day. It’s been a tough year. I just thought you….”
“I meant it, Liv. Still do.”
“I know,” Olivia puts down the mug on the table in front of her, pulling her hair out of her face. “It’s terrifying to lose control.”
“Is it really losing control if we know it’s going to work out?”
“But, how do you know? We’ve never–” Olivia said. “Saying ‘I love you’ twice in 5 years doesn’t qualify as dating.”
“I know it will work. You just have to trust me.”
“I do, but — it’s not what it was.”
“ That's the point. We couldn’t be what we were and this. If we tried then, it would have been bad.”
“I know. You changed after I came back from Oregon. I know why,and I don’t want us to become what you and your temporary partner were.” Olivia brings her voice down almost to a murmur. “I saw you. I could just tell.” Her voice cracks. “And I don’t want us to get to a point where I can’t hear your voice, again.”
“You changed after I came back after 10 years. Not in a bad way, but a new way. I’m still trying to get to know this version.”
“Well, how do you suggest we do this, detective?” Her brow lifts, and she smirks at him, smug as he leans into her.
“Dinner might be a good start.” He moves closer on the leather couch. “Something nice, not what we normally do.”
“Trying to get rid of my normal allergy now?”
“Something like that.”
His hands make its way to her arms, sliding up to meet her hairline and he gently tugs for her to come to him. There’s no resistance like there was. She lets him in, slowly, then all at once. It’s seamless as they move, the ebbs and flows suspend time. His lips trail her neck towards her clavicle as she releases her head back, her hair falling out of the way.
“El - this is…” She’s trying to catch her breath and bring herself back into reality as she slips in and out of the euphoria that he’s giving. “Wow. Yes.”
It's an admission she hasn’t given herself the space to vocalize. She’s known for longer than she’s willing to admit, but to have it confirmed on the same page means a path forward.
A real one.
It’s a path forward that won’t be dictated by vague gestures of directions to unknown clues. It’s the clearest picture of her relationship with her partner she’s ever had.
“Liv, it’s you. For me. From here on out. You’re my partner.” His voice is thick as the raspy texture lands softly in her ear.
She blinks at him with no hesitation.
“You’re my partner,” she repeats back; it’s a promise and a mantra, one made with full conviction. “Not my boyfriend.”
“I wouldn't want to be your boyfriend anyway. Wouldn’t feel right.”
She presses her lips together as it twists into a soft smile as her eyes retreat back to the mug on the coffee table.
“So, where are we going to dinner in February?”
“Anywhere you want.”