Chapter Text
He notices it the first year of their partnership: the way her fingers linger against her neck, stroking absently up and down as she reviews the DD-5 she’s just typed up. How she sits in the passenger seat of the sedan, fingers linked together in her lap, one thumb rubbing back and forth across the other as they drive through traffic. How sometimes when she pores over old police reports with one elbow on her desk, her head resting in her hand, her fingers scratch lightly against her own scalp.
The way she flinches, just a little, the first time he rests his hand against the small of her back as he follows her through a doorway, and how when he pulls it back and apologizes, she turns to him with wide eyes and says, “No, it’s okay, I don’t—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence, pivots instead and tells him, “I just wasn’t expecting it. I’m not used to… that.”
“What?” he asks, “Casual human contact?”
He’d been joking with her, but her gaze drops down to the floor, her mouth pinching a little, and he realizes what an asshole comment it was even before her quiet, “Yeah.”
She turns on her heel before he can apologize again—this one necessary—and by the time he’s caught up with her, she’s already knocking on the apartment door of the witness they’re supposed to be following up with.
“Olivia,” he says, his tone dripping with remorse, but she shakes her head, insisting, Drop it.
And then the door opens and the moment is gone.
The ride back to the station house is unusually quiet; she rubs one thumb hard against the back of the other the whole way.
He wants to say something about it, but he doesn’t know how.
He doesn’t know all that much about her yet—knows that she has a mom, but they aren’t close, that she’d never known her father and doesn’t want to talk about why, that she doesn’t have any siblings. That she’s kind, and brave, and smart, and funny—and lonely. Or if not lonely, he knows she is alone, and it had bothered him even before he’d realized that all those little touches against her own skin weren’t because she was tactile. They’re because she isn’t used to anyone else touching her.
But he’d known where that sentence had been going – It’s okay, I don’t mind – that’s what she’d been about to say, before she’d probably thought better of telling her married partner it was fine for him to touch her. And he knows that people need to be touched, in ways that are kind and welcome. That babies need it to thrive, that children need it to feel safe, that adults need it to feel connection.
So he makes a habit of it with Olivia.
It isn’t a hardship; he barely even has to try. It’s instinct for him to put his hands on the people he loves and protects, and she may be a coworker, but she’s also his partner, and she’s tender-hearted in a way that makes him want to stand between her and the rest of the world. She doesn’t need him to, but he wants to all the same, wants to make sure she’s safe and cared for, and maybe a little less alone than she’s been.
So he finds little moments to make contact—a brush of his fingers against hers as they trade halves of deli sandwiches, his thumb rubbing over her spine when he plants a hand on the back of her chair and leans over her shoulder to study something on her computer screen. A hand cupping her elbow as she spans a puddle to step up onto the curb. Grabbing her bicep to pull her back before she gets mowed down by a speeding cyclist, and leaving it there as she rolls her eyes and lies, “I saw them coming.”
“You did not,” he teases, grinning, his thumb pressing into skin and muscle through layers of cotton and wool.
.::.
When she tells him about her father—about the circumstances of her conception—Elliot takes her hand for the first time. They’re in the sedan, her voice quiet and hesitant, her fingers linked tightly in her lap, and he can’t stand it—the sight of her holding her own hand, comforting herself as she confides a painful secret. He reaches over, past the empty coffee cups now stuffed with crumpled napkins and Honey Bun wrappers, settling his right hand over both of hers, his ring and pinky fingers sliding into the space between her palms. He squeezes her hand in his and lingers, his thumb bumping one of hers as it runs along the other.
“You know that you’re more than that, right?” They’re stopped at a red light, so he glances toward her; she has her chin tipped down, her gaze steady on their joined hands. “That may be how you were made but—”
She swings her gaze up to meet his, one corner of her mouth tipping up into something he wouldn’t quite call a smile and tells him, “Yeah, El, I know that. And I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me, or so you’d try to make me feel better about it. I just thought…” She breathes in, out, and then admits, “Sometimes things hit a little close to home for me in this job, that’s all, and I figured you should know why. As my partner.”
He nods and tells her, “Well, as your partner, thank you for trusting me with this. And I’m sorry you had to hear that shit today.”
“Yeah,” she scoffs lightly. “Not the best day.”
He squeezes her hand again and then the car behind them is laying on the horn, the traffic light above them already turned green. Elliot turns his attention back to the road, but he doesn’t pull his hand from hers and she doesn’t let go. Their hold loosens, his fingers weaving in between hers, their joined hands sinking into that space between them littered with the remnants of their latest bodega run.
He holds her hand all the way back to the precinct parking lot and only lets go when he reaches to kill the ignition.
.::.
They don’t push it. He never touches her in any way that could be considered inappropriate or unprofessional or more than friendly. Over time, he notices she stops holding her own hands in the car. Stops stroking her own scalp while she reads.
If it makes him feel a little flush of satisfaction, what’s wrong with that?
She’s not so alone these days; she has him. A partner who has her back, a shoulder she can lean on, a hand to settle warm at the back of her neck when she’s upset. Two arms to wrap around her and hold her tight in the very worst moments—the death of her mother, the birth of his son, when Sonya Paxton dies in her arms.
She doesn’t flinch anymore when his hand lands on her unexpectedly; she softens, instead.
.::.
And then he runs.
He leaves SVU behind and her with it. Lets her calls go to voicemail because he doesn’t know how to explain himself to her, and moves an ocean away because it’s easier to pretend the guilt of abandoning her isn’t eating at him when he isn’t constantly running into things that remind him of her.
He wonders who touches her now that he’s gone.
.::.
Twelve years later, he’s found his way back to her.
They’re sitting on her sofa, his feet on the coffee table, hers curled up onto the leather cushions, cradling a bowl of popcorn in her lap. They’re watching some TV show he doesn’t really care about, but she’d said she’d been meaning to watch it, and all he wants these days is to sit beside her and know that she’s no longer an ocean away.
That she doesn’t hate him the way she really ought to.
She’s told him she’s not ready for more than this, and he accepts it the same way he had, How about we call it a friendship. How’s that, for now?
Which is to say, he accepts that this is a stage they need to move through in order to get from estranged to entwined, and he’s determined this time not to let things go stagnant. Determined to prove she can trust him again. That he can be the steady pillar at her back once more.
So he texts (often), and he calls (now and then), and they do this (occasionally). Sit together and watch TV and talk about their days. It’s not everything he wants, but it’s enough for now.
He’s feeling pretty peaceful about the whole thing tonight. Feeling like they’re making slow, but steady progress now—emphasis on the slow.
When he catches movement out of the corner of his eye, he glances over, and what he sees makes his breath hitch and his heart plummet.
Olivia has one hand on her thigh, just above her bent knee, her palm rubbing in slow circles. She’s focused on the TV, her touch inattentive but steady, and Elliot is launched back to memories of those fingers stroking back and forth over her neck while she read, to her hands planted on her hips as she studied the evidence board, her thumbs rubbing back and forth against her own waist as she squinted.
She’s alone again, touch-starved after all these years, and it’s his fault.
Elliot reaches over slowly, until he can drag his fingertip over one bare ankle.
She flinches, her gaze whipping over toward him as she sucks in a breath.
Elliot pulls his hand back an inch, severing the contact as his cheeks go hot with guilt and embarrassment.
“Sorry, I, uh—” he starts to excuse, but then her mouth draws into a frown and she shifts her foot a little closer to his hand.
“It’s okay, I don’t mind; I just wasn’t expecting it.”
She turns her eyes back to the TV, but he can tell just from looking at her that her attention is still on him, both of them waiting to see what he’ll do.
Elliot lets his hand slide over again, wraps warm fingers around her ankle and gives it a squeeze. This time, she doesn’t flinch. This time, she presses into his touch and sighs quietly when his thumb starts to stroke back and forth over the delicate bone of her ankle. He can feel the thin line of her surgical scar as he passes over it again and again.
They stay like that for half an hour until the episode ends. The next one begins, and he makes a crack at her about hoarding the popcorn. She looks at him then, narrows her eyes just a little, calculating, thoughtful. And then she pulls her ankle from his grasp, uncurls her legs and scoots toward him, eliminating the space between them on the sofa. She stretches her legs out and props them on her coffee table, so close now that it puts them in contact from ankle to hip.
She adjusts the bowl in her lap, turns her head toward him, lifts her brows and asks, “Better?”
Elliot smiles, delves his fingers into the bowl and comes back with a handful of lukewarm popcorn, pressing his shoulder against hers, as he tells her, “Yeah. Much.”
Things are looking up.