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I.
“Rise and shine,” Olivia said, the door to the cribs swinging shut behind her.
There was no response from Elliot.
She could see his shoes. The creases in the leather. Scuffed toes, with the burnished brown color worn down to a pale hue. She inched further into the room, noting his one rumpled pant leg rucked up above his ankle. He was asleep on his back, one hand resting on his belly, his other arm bent behind his head.
“El,” she said, and then louder, “Elliot!”
His fingers twitched.
At that moment she could imagine him as a little boy. With a full head of mussed hair. He probably woke up with a roar, ready to take on the day, energy buzzing in his veins. But the man stretched out on the narrow bottom bunk was thirty-five, with four children and a mortgage, and Olivia felt bad having to disturb him during a rare chance at stealing an extra hour of sleep.
She bent at the waist to give his arm a gentle shake. “El, we have to go.”
He made a sound, almost a whine of protest.
“I’m sorry.”
“S’okay. Go back to sleep,” he murmured.
Olivia snorted a quiet laugh.
His hand darted out, clutching her wrist. “Love you,” he whispered, the pad of his thumb pressing against her pulse.
She knew he wasn’t fully awake. Probably dreaming. Thought he was at home, with Kathy. But the two words, rasps of breath on his lips, made her stomach swoop. Her heart fluttered.
She reached down, fixing his pant leg. She gave his shin a light tap and said, “Get up, Stabler.”
II.
The only commonality between the five victims was a retreat for married couples. It was held once a month, in the Catskills, and each woman had attended at least one week before suffering a brutal assault.
Olivia put a ring on and registered with Elliot. Mr. and Mrs. Sanders was typed across the front of their welcome packet.
The purpose of the weekend wasn’t to put broken marriages back together. The counselors talked about looking for cracks in the foundation. Making repairs before the relationship could fall apart. A slippery slope, Oliva thought.
Ahead of time, they worked out that she was self-employed and found it difficult to understand why his job so often took him away from home. But he wasn’t very good about making up for lost time.
They sat beside one another, on folding chairs pushed close together. Part of a circle. He took hold of her hand and pulled it over onto his lap. He went off script. Said something funny. It made almost everyone laugh, but she wasn’t listening. All she could think about was his broad, muscled thigh under her arm. His hand holding hers close to his crotch. It was intimate but casual, too. No big deal. Like something they did all the time.
Suddenly, she felt him tug at her. Thumb brushing the heel of her hand. Olivia looked at him.
“She knows how much I love her,” Elliot said, his voice so tender that she felt a pleasant warmth surrounding her. “Right, Liv?”
She stared at him.
He tightened his hold on her hand; she was pulling away.
The silence hung heavy between them until Elliot huffed a laugh, scratching his temple. “Guess I have to do a better job of making that known,” he remarked to the room at large, earning another round of soft laughter from everyone but her.
III.
There had been so much blood. Sonya’s blood. Enough blood that Olivia could detect a metallic odor in the small space. She could taste copper. Bile burned the back of her throat.
She could smell it in the hallway, too. Sonya’s blood.
Elliot appeared, breathing heavily, like he’d run there all the way from Quantico.
“I’m really glad you’re back.” She exhaled the words and collided with him into an embrace. She breathed in the familiar scent of him - spearmint and cologne - and let the bold notes of leather and musk chase away the fresh memory of all the blood.
He couldn’t catch his breath. Every sharp inhale pulled her hair close to his nose and the scent of her herbal shampoo into his lungs. “I should have come back sooner.”
She clung to him. He was solid and safe. Alive. Blood roared through his veins. She could feel it pumping his heart wildly against her chest.
He said, quietly, “I love you.”
Olivia felt the words more than she heard them. Three puffs of warmth on her scalp. “I’m fine,” she rasped, peeling away.
IV.
Cleaning out the drawers of Elliot’s desk was harder than boxing up the photos and mementos scattered across the surface. She saw those things every single day. But digging into the depths of the drawers felt like an invasion of privacy.
Olivia tossed out pens that didn’t work. Archaic office relics like a typewriter ribbon and carbon paper. A broken calculator. She took ownership of unopened packs of sticky notes and pads of paper. Found a receipt for an anniversary present he’d forgotten to buy Kathy until that day; the two of them stopped in Macy’s so Olivia could pick out a piece of jewelry she would never wear.
There were loose sticks of gum. An action figure missing an arm. The dop kit he kept for those days that bled into one another - razor, deodorant, eye drops.
Later, she grabs a spiral steno pad to write down a phone number. She flipped past the first few pages of old notes. Smiled at doodles in the margins.
Olivia opened to a random page in the middle. Her name was written at the top. The words below it were scratched through, but not so much that she couldn’t read them. I’m sorry. I’m taking the coward’s way-
She flipped the page to see where he’d tried again. Olivia, I’m sorry. I’m a coward. I don’t know how to- Lines were drawn across the sentence.
On the next page, he struck out whatever he wrote so thoroughly - deep, circular scratches - that she couldn’t make out a single word. Not even her name.
She turned to the next sheet of lined paper.
Olivia, I love you.
There were no marks across the words. Nothing was cancelled out with scribbles.
She slapped her hand over the paper. Wondered when he wrote it. Years ago? The last time she saw him? Did he show up at an odd hour, on a Sunday?
Even if she wanted to say it back, he wasn’t there. Even if she wrote the words on the page he would never see it. She didn’t know where to send it.
Olivia closed the notepad and buried it at the bottom of the trash can under her desk.
V.
When he said love you, she was reminded of the night in his apartment. Surrounded by his grief-stricken, scared children. He’d said it then, too, looking right at her. But he’d meant it for his family, she told herself, and that was one of a million reasons she hadn’t said it back.
But on the street, by her car, it was just her with him. Her and the moonlight and the puddles on the street. The taste of red wine on her tongue. The tears she’d cried for Cragen were subtle streaks through her makeup. Traffic hummed nearby.
Panic seized her throat. She loved him. Of course, she loved him. Always had. Always would. Through trauma and thousands of miles and spilled blood and debris. But the words had been buried, rooted in her chest, for decades. She could feel them clawing their way up, through the chambers of her heart, the maze of veins and nerves.
But he closed the door. Like he knew not to wait.
VI.
It was a Sunday. They were approaching the same bodega from opposite ends of the street.
She was dressed for a run. He was dressed for church.
But she didn’t want to jog in the rain and he wanted an excuse to skip mass.
“Should we grab lunch?” Elliot asked, jutting his thumb over his shoulder; there had to be a diner somewhere behind him.
It was mundane.
Bad coffee. Rude waitress. Olivia ordered a salad but ate fries from his plate. Like the old days.
He loosened the knot in his tie. Removed his coat and rolled the sleeves of his crisp, white shirt up to his elbows. The veins in his forearms strained under his skin every time he picked up his mug or shook too much salt onto his food.
She was content. But she kept thinking about the day ahead - Noah was away for the weekend and she would go home to an empty apartment.
“What’s so funny?” Elliot asked.
Olivia touched her fingers to her lips. She didn’t know she was smiling.
“I don’t know,” she told him.
They used her umbrella to walk two blocks to her building. Under the awning, she had a vision of Elliot’s coat folded over the back of the armchair where Noah kept his backpack.
Mundane. But beautiful.
He closed the umbrella and offered it back to her.
“Take it,” she said.
He shook his head, pushing it closer to her. “I don’t mind the rain.”
Their fingers brushed as she took it from him. A shock of warmth passed from him to her. Her to him.
“See ya,” he told her, backing up. He walked out from under the awning and the rain pelted his head and shoulders. Saturated his clothes as he waited to cross the street.
“Elliot!”
He twisted at the waist to look at her through wet lashes.
Olivia smiled. She always thought the words would finally form on her tongue when one or both of them was covered in blood. In the wake of violence. Out of desperation. But she stood there in leggings and a loose T-shirt with her hair in a messy ponytail and shouted over the sound of the downpour, “I love you.”
He rotated fully to face her. “I don’t, uh…” He jogged back up onto the sidewalk. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
“You did.” She surged forward, up onto the tips of her toes, looping her arms around his shoulders. Flush against him.
His wet clothes soaked through to her skin. His arms abruptly closed around her, like she would slip away if he didn’t hurry.
Her hands framed his face. Water seeped between her fingers. Something cracked open inside her. She could feel a pull at the roots of her self-imposed loneliness and fear. All of the rot and old vines came loose.
She tipped closer, and the first brush of her lips was electric.
Elliot opened his mouth against hers. He clutched fistsfuls of her shirt, drawing the cotton tight around her torso, as the kiss deepened. He hummed, “I love you,” against her lips.
Olivia tilted back enough to look him in the eyes. She exhaled a slow, soft breath. In the past, his words had been said in jest or because he was half asleep or scared or they were written down on a piece of paper she might never see. But she heard him, and she felt the warmth of his breath on her face. Saw his lips move around the small but impactful syllables.
She believed him, and she knew he’d meant it. Every single time.