Work Text:
Noah would be better off without her.
The thought had manifested itself in Olivia’s mind before–during long nights spent at the precinct, when he spent more time with Martha than he did his own mother, but never as sharply, as boldly as this.
He was happy. He was off with Connor, his step-brother, his real family. And why not call them that–Connor and his perfect, happy parents? The truth of the matter was, they could protect Noah better than Olivia. They lived in the suburbs where there were Christmas lights and ice cream trucks, and they didn’t have a target on their backs.
Olivia, it seemed, lived with a red circle permanently glued to the back of her clothing. It was her own fault: for working such a dangerous job, for not retiring when the NYPD suggested it. It was something that came with the profession but for almost ten years now, she had fooled herself into thinking that she could shield Noah from the fallout.
Who was she kidding? Olivia knew better. Olivia had watched Kathy Stabler go up in flames. As a direct result of her husband on the force.
That could be Noah tomorrow. It could have been Noah on numerous occasions, and as Olivia rolled over in bed for the fiftieth time, it was becoming increasingly difficult to staunch the thoughts, the idea that she should remove herself from the narrative.
No one would miss her. Fin, possibly—he might shed a tear but Fin had Phoebe and he would move on. Everyone moved on. Everyone left. Kat had left. Amanda had abandoned her. She was mentioned frequently by Carisi, and the latter had proposed hosting Olivia for dinner–Olivia and Noah–but that plan was quickly forgotten when BX9 entered into the equation. When Olivia walked the halls of One Police Plaza with a blackened eye and she recognized the familiar stares from her colleagues.
The stares she had not missed since 2013.
Yes, it’s me again, you motherfuckers, Olivia mused. The detective who went and got herself abducted. It’s me again, and this time I’m a captain who managed to get herself jumped.
She sat up in bed. Sleep was clearly not happening tonight, so pretending otherwise was fruitless. Olivia stood up and wandered down her hallway. Where she was traveling, she wasn’t precisely sure.
The next thing she knew, she was standing in her living room, clutching the rifle she’d bought after Lewis. The night after her assault–her most recent assault–Olivia had sat guard the entire night, terrified to close her eyes for a second, terrified that her body would opt for freezing over fighting. She wanted to believe the rifle wasn’t necessary because Oscar Papa was in custody and Noah was safe. In all honesty, Olivia didn’t know whom she was protecting.
But she did know that Oscar Papa in custody meant nothing. William Lewis had been in custody, too.
She paced back and forth across her ivory carpet, in the apartment that she’d moved to only months prior. Once upon a time, Olivia had thought a fresh start might be beneficial. She had lived in her old place since post-Lewis. It was in that apartment that she’d fought off the night terrors, that she’d woken up next to Cassidy screaming someone else’s name.
It turned out that the ghost wasn’t haunting her residence, though. The ghost was haunting Olivia herself, and it had followed her here to 80th Street. The anxiety and insomnia hadn’t gone away, not even with increased doses of Ativan.
Lindstrom had his own opinions. Dumbass opinions, according to Olivia. She had been deserted by everyone she’d ever loved, attacked and assaulted more times than she could count. What did any of that have to do with Elliot?
Again, once upon a time, she’d dreamed of a different ending. She had thought that Elliot was her home and that maybe, just maybe, Kathy’s death had opened a door.
Elliot’s presence in her life, though, proved her dreams unrealistic. The one question he’d asked about Olivia’s life was her dating history and she had heard nothing from him since BX9. She knew better than to think that he hadn’t read the headlines. The NYPD was ablaze with gossip, especially when the same cop that had been abducted was jumped and nearly killed for a second time.
Or a third time. A fourth time…Olivia had given up tracking her near-death experiences. If she were to come within an inch of death again, she decided that she wanted it to be on her own terms.
As the minutes ticked on and the emotions multiplied, Olivia chuckled humorlessly to herself. Was that why she was gripping her rifle with white knuckles, like it was some perverted life preserver? Technically, the gun would be the opposite. It would be Olivia’s ticket out of the world.
Her ticket to the afterlife, if she was so lucky, where the chains of grief and trauma could no longer bind her.
Just as Olivia was considering her sanity, the wail of Mom! that Noah had unleashed, a hammering from her door shot electricity through the captain’s veins. Her pulse accelerated a hundred beats higher and beads of sweat erupted on Olivia’s flesh.
Fight. Flight. Or freeze.
Olivia raised her rifle into position. She crept silently, like a hunter, towards the sound which was continuing, a steady, beating drum. She turned the knob, eased the door ajar, and barely flexed her finger in time to stop herself from shooting Elliot Stabler in the chest.
“Olivia.”
He was standing, frozen in the hallway, clad in jeans and a charcoal, zip-up hoodie. It was impossible to decipher the source of his shock–was it the gun pointed in his face? Or the swollen mess that greeted him?
Regardless, Olivia did not lower her weapon. She wasn’t ready to do so–not for Elliot. Not for anyone.
“Olivia,” he repeated and reached forward with one hand, gently resting it on the gun’s barrel. “Liv, it’s just me. I–what are you doing?”
That was a good question, Olivia realized. Why was she aiming a rifle at her former partner? Yes, he’d disappointed her in many ways but none of those methods warranted a gunshot wound.
She retreated hastily, lowering the rifle but not releasing it. Putting distance between herself and Elliot.
“This is my house,” Olivia spat, her limbs and lips still quivering with adrenaline. Or was it fear? Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the two. “This is my house–what are you doing?” she accused.
Elliot opened his mouth but gave no answer. He was still digesting the scene, the sight of his ex-partner, bloody and armed.
“What are you doing here?!” Olivia yelled, and finally, Elliot rushed forward, slamming Olivia’s front door behind himself.
“I was in the area! It’s been a while, I–I thought I’d stop by–”
“At one o’clock in the morning?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Elliot glanced subtly at his watch; it was like he was just now noticing the hour. If he cared, though, he did not show it outwardly.
“I–I don’t know,” he stuttered. “I mean, that’s a list that would take all night to get into but what’s wrong with me?! What the fuck is wrong with you, Olivia?! Lose the damn rifle!”
“I’m not putting it down. D-Don’t ask me to put it down cause that’s not happening.”
At Olivia’s words, Elliot appeared to soften. The lines in his face disappeared and his gaze shifted from the gun to his partner’s face. The healing bruise was only the beginning. Olivia could imagine the fear in her irises, the wild demeanor she probably displayed.
“Okay,” Elliot sighed and he lifted his palms to show his innocence. “Okay, Liv, look…I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what I’ve missed but…but apparently, I’ve missed something big.”
Something big. That was the understatement of the century.
Olivia scoffed as she further backed away from Elliot. “How do you even know where I live?”
“I–well, I might have dropped by the precinct to see you first. I thought you might be working late and–and you weren’t there, but Fin told me you might like some company. He–he gave me your address.”
“Well, Fin was wrong,” Olivia said. “He was wrong about me wanting company and he was–completely wrong, out of line to give you anything on me.”
“Why?”
Elliot’s single syllable hung in the air. Why? It would be easier, faster to list the reasons why not.
“Why?” Olivia echoed.
“Yeah, why?” Elliot migrated a few steps closer and before Olivia could move, before she could dodge the coffee table in her living room, her ex-partner was touching her face, running his fingers over the skin under her eye. The skin that was black and red and puffy, trying its best to recover from the latest blow. “Why didn’t you call me?”
A beat elapsed—a pause, where Olivia did nothing but glare at Elliot, who remained naive to the complexity of his query.
Why didn’t you call me?
He was serious.
“Why didn’t I call you?” At last, Olivia released her grip on the rifle, propping it carefully against her plastered wall. “My God, Elliot…why would I call you?”
-DUN DUN-
If Elliot had been in shock previously, Olivia’s latest inquiry had sent him tumbling over a cliff. He idled in front of her, visibly shaken, evidently oblivious as to why he wasn’t trusted. Why he wasn’t trusted, after ten years of silence.
Eleven, now that Olivia considered it. Almost twelve. Virtually two years had passed since he’d returned, since Elliot Stabler had burst back into Olivia’s life with a vengeance on what was supposed to be a joyous evening. Two years, and yet they’d had scarcely more conversation than those years when he was in Italy.
It was borderline comical. A sick, twisted comedy.
“W-What’s that supposed to mean?” Elliot pressed, observing as Olivia circled her coffee table and walked around to his other side.
“You really have to ask?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I really have to ask. What’d I do, Liv?”
And it was the use of that nickname, the use of Liv, that sent Olivia into a rage. She shoved Elliot–not hard enough to do damage, but hard enough to send him teetering backwards onto the sofa.
“What’d you do? What’d you do?! It’s what you didn’t do, you bastard.” Olivia pointedly looked away from Elliot’s stunned expression. She had to get the words out–they’d been consuming her alive–but she’d never be able to if she could see his ocean eyes.
She resumed her pacing game from earlier as she monologued to the man that had become a statue.
“You never gave me an answer on where the fuck you went twelve years ago. I mean, sure, you said you couldn’t have left if you’d heard my voice, but BULLSHIT–you could’ve written me a letter, I know you’re capable of that!”
“Liv, we–we talked about the letter–”
“I’m not finished!” Olivia interjected. She waited for Elliot to wave his white flag of surrender before persisting in a frigid tone. “You didn’t show up when I was abducted and tortured–when my face was on every television in the country. Why would I call you now for a bruise when you couldn’t be bothered–”
“Hold on…when what?!”
It was Elliot’s turn to interrupt and this time, Olivia did not bother arguing. He was going to act surprised and remorseful; he was going to offer excuses but Olivia had thicker armor now. She wasn’t going to fall for his apologies because there was no way he hadn’t heard. Maybe in Italy, maybe at the time, but he had five children that lived in New York City. Elliot had been back in Manhattan for two years and Olivia still had strangers approach her, begging to know details about how she’d survived.
The lesson had been tough, but Olivia had learned it: She would never outgrow her reputation as the NYPD detective that was kidnapped. Her other accolades were trivial. William Lewis was the reason why her career would be remembered.
So Olivia did not respond to Elliot’s gasp. She crossed her arms across her chest, as if to ward off the demons that were attempting to weave paths inside her. In the process, she squeezed her still-healing ribs, the ones that had been fractured for a second time during the BX9 attack.
Olivia winced. It went unnoticed.
Of course, it did.
“Olivia,” Elliot said, for what felt like the dozenth occasion. “Olivia, what did you just say to me?”
“I’m not repeating myself. Don’t act like you didn’t know,” she seethed.
“I didn’t. I–I swear to God, I…” But Elliot trailed off. It was like he understood that any stammering excuses would get him nowhere in the book of Olivia Benson.
“I was national news in May of 2013. I had a high-profile trial in January of 2014, and then he escaped from prison in March…”
“Well, I wasn’t in the country,” Elliot said but his pitch was no longer defensive. It was solemn. Strangled. His pupils were coated with a sheer, glassy coat. “I was–I was in Spain six months after leaving SVU, doing–doing private security. I was–I was on my own then. Kathy couldn’t deal with–with the way I was after Jenna and–and she kicked me out.”
“Temporarily,” Olivia assumed.
Elliot shrugged in acknowledgement. “We reconciled–if you wanna call it that–when Maureen announced her engagement. We were just gonna get through the wedding, be civil–but then the liaison job opened up and Kathy said she thought Italy could be a fresh start–for us, for Eli.”
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, Olivia concluded. Elliot Stabler was a family man. A good Catholic. If the opportunity presented itself to preserve his family, to be there consistently as a father, he would always take it. That was one of the things Olivia loved about him.
“But Liv, I swear to God, I didn’t know. If I did, I–I would have been on the first plane back. I would have ripped the bastard limb from limb.” The possibilities seemed to arise for Elliot as he spoke. He looked at Olivia, fear seeping from his pores. “T-Tell me he’s dead.”
“He’s dead,” Olivia said instantly.
“You promise me? You swear to me he’s dead, Olivia?”
“He’s dead, I promise. Though I still have to convince myself at times.”
Her confession emerged in a hoarse whisper and as it did, the tears came with it for Olivia. They slid down her face, hot and quiet, and she wasn’t sure what was prompting them. On most days, she could talk about Lewis without crying. Not the specifics–but she could state the facts of what had occurred.
The facts that she allowed the public to know, anyway. There would always be secrets that only she and Lewis knew, and half of that pairing was already dead. Olivia would take those secrets to the grave.
This was the audience she had craved for ten years, though. Olivia had spoken to Lindstrom and Amanda; she’d avoided Cassidy and blamed herself for Munch and Cragen’s retirements. When she’d been guided out of that beach house, though, there was only one face she’d longed to see. And the fucked-up part was that a portion of Olivia had halfway anticipated it. Somewhere among those four days of hell, she’d wondered if, at least, that hell would bring him back to her.
But in the words of Kathy Stabler, what they were to each other was never real. The letter wasn’t necessary. Olivia had already convinced herself of that when Elliot was not with the beach house crowd.
“Y-You’re all I wanted,” she found herself admitting. “The whole time I was with him, that’s all I kept thinking–that my old partner would know what to do.”
Saltwater was also streaming down Elliot’s cheeks.
The sight forced a sob from Olivia which sent a painful pulse through her ribcage. She sunk to her knees—not out of weakness–but due to relief in a sense. Relief that he hadn’t known before, but that he knew now and that the truth was out. That the reality of what she’d wished for in her darkest moments was no longer consuming her from the inside out.
That secret she wouldn’t take to the grave.
Suddenly, Elliot’s arms were encircling her; his muscles were scooping Olivia up off her apartment floor.
“Shh,” he murmured when she sought to flinch away; he passed her an ice pack that he must have retrieved from her freezer.
He doubtlessly meant for Olivia to soothe her ribs, but what Elliot didn’t know was that by doing so, Olivia would also compress her scars which still often burned when she recounted the fire.
The fire still burned, ten years later. It likely wouldn’t ever be completely extinguished. Tonight, though, Elliot Stabler had helped tame it to embers.
That was progress.
“I–I’m fine, Elliot,” Olivia insisted as her partner led her to the waiting sofa, where he wrapped her in a gray, knit blanket.
But she should have remembered. With Elliot, there was no pressure to be fine. No obligation to be a superhero.
“Yeah?” he smiled softly. “Like hell you are.”