Chapter Text
[DAY ONE]
The dreams always start the same way.
The cool bite of metal on her wrists; her tongue is a salty blend of copper and acid.
Her head is pounding.
Her throat burns. Her eyes burn. And her chest burns and her thigh burns and –
He's coming. As the footsteps grow closer, her heartbeat picks up.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump thump thump
thumpthumpthumpthumpthump
The cuffs clang against the metal bed frame as she yanks desperately, arching forwards, fighting the restraints. She throws her body weight into it, groaning and panting with the effort.
But there's no use, there's never any use because the cuffs are too tight, the bed is too heavy, and the metal digs further into her wrists as she writhes around.
She can't get away. She never gets away.
But she always tries– every single time.
The footsteps echo as he approaches; he could be three feet away or thirty – but she wouldn't know it because the darkness is absolute. She begins to panic, chest heaving, sharp breaths making her light-headed, her eyes straining for a sign of him.
But there's never any warning, never any sign. He's just -
There.
Standing beside her.
She can't see him in the all consuming blackness, but she can smell him. Stale sweat and cigarette smoke waft towards her, the smoke a thick blanket making her eyes water.
She tries to cough but she can't cough because she's gagged.
She's going to choke -
When he lights the cigarette, the embers on the tip glow just brightly enough to illuminate a circular scar around a lone brown eye. The eye is dark, tinged a faint red, and glows.
He watches her. Like a tiger preparing to pounce, a snarl slowly spreads across his mouth before he flicks the cigarette away, the darkness enveloping her again.
The dreams change after that, but they're always the same recycled scenarios playing over and over again. Like a little red Viewmaster clicking through her little reel of horrors.
Click.
Sometimes he's on top of her. The full weight of his body presses into her chest and there is nothing but darkness; she is helpless, powerless. She wants to shout for help, but his body grows heavier, his hand is on her throat, she can't breathe and–
She wakes in her bed, her feet kicking inside the comforter. Her legs and arms are slick with sweat and tangled up in the sheets. Only when she manages to free her arms do her fingers claw desperately at her throat as she gasps for air.
Click.
Sometimes, no one ever comes for her.
He returns and returns and returns.
He burns and he burns and he burns.
But no one ever comes for her.
She withers away, chained down, as her hair turns white and the age spots on her hands grow larger against the faint glow of the cigarette. He returns and returns and returns until she wakes.
A relief; a death in old age.
When she heaves herself out of bed to splash cold water on her face, her hair is still dark, the skin on her hands is still smooth, and she wonders how many lifetimes you can fit inside your head.
Click.
Sometimes, the gun is pressed against her temple, and there is just enough light for her to see his face. He licks his lips, grins his Cheshire grin, and they begin - pulling the trigger over and over and over.
Until there's a single bullet left.
Sometimes the bullet is for her, sometimes it's for him. Those are the best ones.
And sometimes it's for Noah, who is standing there watching, his bright blue eyes wide with horror.
Those are the worst ones.
Click.
Still other times she isn't gagged at all. She can breathe, she can scream, and she does. She screams and she screams and she screams until her throat is raw and the metallic taste of blood fills her mouth again.
Sometimes she screams for help. Sometimes she screams at him. Sometimes she screams for Nick or Fin.
For her Mom.
Sometimes she screams for Brian.
Brian in the Bronx. He used to hold her to him when she woke, murmur platitudes into her ear, rub her back, and tell her he was here, he was here, he was here.
Brian the Benevolent- who handled her like a cracked glass vase, a blend of love and pity in his eyes when he told her she was safe. And then she wanted to scream at him - that of course she wasn't safe, why couldn't he understand that she would never be safe again; this is what happens when you don't blink your lights!
Brian and baseball. In the end that's all they had anyway, wasn't it?
And there's no crying in baseball.
Click.
Sometimes she screams for Elliot.
They always do, he whispers, his breath hot in her ear. These are the only dreams he speaks in, and it's all he ever says.
They always do. They always do.
They always do.
She knows Elliot isn't coming for her, he never does.
He never will.
Still she calls for him anyway because there is that small part of her that hopes. After all, isn't that all that love is?
Hope is the thing with feathers.
She used to wake from those, his name on her lips, and scramble for her phone. October 1, 2013. October 2, 2013. October 3, 2013. October 6, 2013.
December 18, 2013.
- 2015. 2016. 2017. 2018. 2019. 2020.
March 29, 2021.
Then, inevitably, it followed. The hollow ache she buried in her chest would claw back to the surface, the ache of Elliot put his papers in and I’m your partner for better or worse and he would've and if we are partners for better or worse is this not what worse is?!
Brian tried. He would do what he always did: murmur platitudes into her ear, rub her back, and tell her he was here, he was here, he was here.
But it bothered him.
You were calling for Stabler again. There would be pain in his eyes as he said it. As if she were punishing him.
A part of her hated him for that.
Ed never said Elliot's name.
He would let her rest against him, and bring her an ice cold glass of water once she calmed down. Then he would sit beside her, watching her with those clear blue eyes. Waiting. Waiting for her to tell him what she wanted, what she needed.
They're the wrong shade of blue she would think, every single time.
A part of her hated herself for that.
And when Ed told her he wanted to get married, it's the first thing that popped into her head.
But they're the wrong shade of blue.
Click.
This one is different.
Red and blue cruise lights swirl outside the building and she can see.
See the rain beating against the stained window pane, see the cruise lights casting long shadows across the ceiling towards the door, see the bruising around her wrists as she yanks desperately at the cuffs, see her bare feet as she squints around for a key, for a weapon.
He's coming.
His footsteps echo against the wooden floor, but she can see and that makes her brave, that makes her strong, and she can finally -
A soft voice calls out her name. She exhales and lowers herself back down, shifting her torso to identify her fellow prisoner. There's never been anyone else there.
The voice is weak, it's close, and it's achingly familiar.
Then she knows. She knows before the cruise lights hit her face. She knows before her blue eyes meet Olivia's; the same shade of blue as her hospital gown, like some sick twisted joke. Her wrists are bound and blonde hair falls like a veil across her face.
“Kathy,” Olivia whispers. And again, louder. “Kathy?!” Louder because the footsteps are getting closer, and her heart is pounding in her ears because she has to get Kathy out of here.
The emergency vehicle lights shut off, bathing them in total darkness. Only now she knows what it was to see, to feel brave, and–
“Olivia…!” Kathy pleads.
The tip of the cigarette appears, hovering above Kathy, and there is the lone brown eye, tinged with red. He flicks the cigarette away.
Olivia reaches for her and–
She wakes, her body flying up in bed, her arms grasping at the air in her empty bedroom. The pale light from her desk lamp –which always stays on– casts a faint yellow glow, and she can see and -
It was just a dream.
She scrambles for her phone, her thumb shaking so hard she has to press the sensor three or four times.
May 29, 2026. 3:01am. Her last text is from Elliot.
Elliot
Night :)
10:42pm
She doesn't realize she’d been holding her breath until it releases all at once, a shaky exhale that ends in a small relieved chuckle.
She frowned at him over the top of her glasses the other week, told him he was nearly sixty years old, and to text normally, not like a teenage girl. But he noticed the smile tugging at her lips as she spoke, and that cocky grin bloomed across his face as he watched her.
Elliot
See you later :)
1:03pm
He sent, after he left her office that afternoon.
Now, she closes her eyes and takes deep breaths, focusing on the steady in and out of her diaphragm. She listens for Noah, hoping she didn't wake him. Hearing nothing, she climbs out of bed, her bladder crying out for relief.
She wishes it had woken her twenty minutes earlier.
Afterwards, she leans over the sink, splashing cold water over her face –three times in quick succession like Lindstrom taught her. He told her it would trigger the ‘Diver’s Reflex.’ It sounded fake, so she googled it. Turns out, splashing cold water on your face really can reset your nervous system.
“Maybe I should be hiring someone to dump the water on me while I'm sleeping,” she muttered sarcastically at Lindstrom.
“And maybe I need a ‘deflection’ button I can push every time you steer us away from our topic of conversation,” he leaned forward in response, raising an eyebrow. A challenge.
Touché.
She stares at herself in the mirror, dark circles already forming beneath the delicate skin of her eyes. If she does her meditations and deep breathing, really does them, she can usually fall back asleep after a night like this.
She already knows this won't be one of those nights.
Olivia isn't a superstitious person, never has been. She still remembers poking at Munch for stepping carefully around ladders as they strolled down the street, or rapping his knuckles against his wooden desk when they were close to breaking a case.
“You know that's all just made up mumbo jumbo, John,” she teased, her pen tapping against the opened folder on her desk.
“Yeah, and you won't catch me being the test dummy for that theory,” he declared, glancing pointedly at her over his glasses.
Elliot watched the two of them, a smirk on his face, as he balanced on his chair, hands behind his head.
“You got something you want to add to the conversation, altar boy?” Munch shifted his focus to Elliot, before swiveling back around to his desk.
Monique snorted from the other end of the room.
“You know, John,” Elliot started, shifting his weight forward so all four corners of the chair were back on the floor. “I do find it interesting that for all your talk of salt and black cats, that organized religion is the thing that's just a step too far for you.”
“Come find me when throwing salt over my shoulder requires running interference with a priest,” Munch shot back with a tilt of his head.
Elliot threw his hands up in mock defeat before turning to wink conspiratorially at Olivia. She cast her eyes down quickly, to hide the blush that threatened to creep up the back of her neck to her cheeks.
She questions whether it really is mumbo jumbo now though, she questions it as the image of Kathy's frightened face flashes vividly in her mind, the red and blue cruise lights still imprinted behind her eyes as she closes them. She questions it as a ball of unease sets in her stomach, and she wonders if it would be worth it to say a prayer…just in case.
She doesn't know how to pray.
And she doesn't get a chance to try, because her phone starts vibrating loudly against the porcelain of the sink. She jumps, hand flying to her heart, and reaches over to snatch it without checking the caller ID.
“Benson.”
“Hey, it’s me.” There is a long pause. “Sounds like you were already awake, anyway,” Curry chuckles awkwardly on the other end of the phone line.
Olivia doesn't chuckle back.
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we may have just picked up a Jane Doe.”
“You call Fin?” Olivia asks, swiping a tired hand down her face.
“I tried, but it goes straight to voicemail.”
“Of course it does,” Olivia mutters, opening the medicine cabinet and rifling around for her moisturizers and toothpaste. “I’ll be there soon.”
“I'll drop you a pin on the location,” Curry adds before hanging up.
Olivia sighs and closes the medicine cabinet, dropping her arm slowly, the tubes now sitting abandoned in her sink.
She wants him.
She wants the reassuring rumble of his rough gravelly voice telling her that dreams are just dreams. She wants him to yawn, call her ridiculous, tell her to go back to sleep, and maybe then she could.
She wants the warm, comforting weight of his palms resting at the small of her back. She wants to shut her eyes and press her nose against that spot on his neck where he smells vaguely of mint and his sandalwood cologne.
She aches for his touch all the time now, feels starved for it. She daydreams about his hands roaming the bare skin of her waist and gliding up to her breasts while stuck in long meetings with the brass. She cooks dinner wondering how his fingers would feel gripping her waist and her thighs, or threaded through her hair. She remembers the soft press of his cheek against hers in her kitchen and desire spreads hot through her chest and down to her belly.
She wants to climb into his lap and wrap her arms around him like a sloth clinging to a tree branch and never let go.
If it was any other man-
But it isn't just any other man.
It’s Elliot.
She doesn't want him to know she was dreaming about Kathy. She doesn't want to think about Kathy, she doesn't want him to think about Kathy, she's so fucking sick of constantly feeling so much want.
She wants, and she wants, and she wants, and–
She wants to.
He would come to her if she asked him to. In an instant. Go barrelling down Fifth Avenue lights and sirens blaring ‘with due regard for safety’ be damned.
Maybe that scares her just as badly as how much she wants.
What if I'm the test dummy, John? she wishes she could ask him, now.
—
Curry’s pin sends her to a small neighborhood in the East Village bordering Noho. She hits almost every green light on FDR Drive and rides with the windows down, the wind blowing her hair gently around her face. She leaves the radio off and leans her head out, letting the cool air hit her cheeks.
She loves New York early in the morning like this - the cacophony fades to a dull roar for just a few hours, and it's peaceful in its own way. They had about an hour before the sun would start to peek over the horizon, the joggers in their striped pants and crop tops suddenly on every street corner, and the bodega and cafe owners shouting at one another, their security grilles squeaking and banging as they're thrown into the air. She hasn’t heard a single horn the entire drive, and thinks Munch would laugh at her now if she took it as some sort of positive sign.
As she pulls up to the crime scene, she spots a few people rubbernecking already on the other side of the police tape. The reporters hadn’t arrived yet, to circle like vultures and tap away on their phones, taking pictures. She misses the days of pen and paper, sometimes. It gave the police more control- it gave her more control.
Or maybe she just felt more in control, then. Of her life, her feelings.
She cuts the engine, grabbing her cell and muttering, “Here we go,” as she grunts and lowers herself out of the seat, shutting the door behind her. She flashes her badge at a uni while ducking under the tape, and spots the familiar figure of Curry up ahead, her arms crossed and her badge clipped to the side of her black pants. She's talking to a red-headed detective but is tapping her foot, glancing around restlessly and checking her watch.
“Captain Benson,” Olivia says, flashing her badge again as she gets closer. Curry looks relieved to see her, her posture relaxing as Olivia approaches.
“Detective Connors,” he responds, shaking her hand briefly. He glances between the two of them, his eyebrows raised. “Two Captains at a homicide?”
Olivia rubs her thumb impatiently across her forehead, ignoring the comment. “What do we have, Detective?”
He shrugs, turning to walk them over to the body. “Caucasian female, looks to be in her late teens, maybe early twenties, ligature marks around her neck.” Connors pauses as the two of them approach from behind, flanking him.
Olivia sighs as she examines their victim. Her dark hair is splayed out beneath her head, her brown eyes wide and glassy. Her legs are bent at an odd angle, as if she were dropped or dumped, and the mottled purple of her neck is a stark contrast to her pale skin. Olivia glances over at Curry, who looks like she is trying to hold back tears, and this truly never gets any easier.
“Why are we here?” Olivia asks, without taking her eyes off of the girl. This seems like a standard homicide case.
“M.E. found traces of spermicide,” the Detective responded, putting his gloves on and walking around their vic’s head to the other side of her body.
“Doesn't mean she was raped,” Curry crosses her arms, hugging them to her chest.
“No, but there's this,” Connors kneels down, placing his left knee on the pavement. He gently takes the girl's face and swivels it towards Olivia and Reneé.
There is a small circular shape that's been carved into her cheek near the eye, likely from a knife. It’s razor thin, red, and inflamed.
Olivia's heart rate picks up at the sight of it and she takes a deep breath in and out, slowly, the unease she felt earlier making its way back to the pit of her stomach.
The circle is small, and another line is drawn through it, reminiscent of a prohibition street sign.
“What is that?” Curry murmurs.
Connors shrugs. “Beats me. I've never seen it before. I called a buddy of mine over in narcotics and he's never seen it, either. So I don't think it belongs to any street gang.”
He stands back up and walks towards Olivia, holding out what looks like a small folded up piece of paper. “And there's also this, which was in the back pocket of her pants.”
Olivia takes it gingerly and Curry shuffles closer, looking over Olivia's shoulder. Olivia opens it.
A photograph. The woman is similar in age to their vic. She is looking over her shoulder, her eyes fearful. Her body blocks the license plate of the nondescript white van she is standing behind, and her blonde ponytail is blurred from the spin of her head. Her light wash jeans are dirty, and the white t-shirt is too big. Probably not hers. There is no one else in the photo, the pavement behind her bare, and nothing else that tells them where she is.
Olivia flips it over and back, over and back before looking up at Curry and Connors. “There's no dates, no names, nothing.”
“No ID on her, either,” Connors flips his thumb backwards at the body, before putting his hands in his pockets. “If these aren't special victims, I don't know what is.” He pauses for a moment, watching Olivia.
She nods. He nods back and turns away, heading over towards a huddle of officers ten feet away.
They don't have the capacity for a body and a missing person right now. They're understaffed, over budget, and spread way too thin. Amanda and Bruno are both scheduled to be in trial for nearly the entire month of June, and when the Chief isn't in her office micromanaging file closure rates or their next high profile trial, Carisi is in her office ripping his hair out.
“You sure we can take this on right now?” Curry eyes her skeptically.
“What am I supposed to do? Tell him no?” Olivia pivots to Curry, her mouth set in a firm, stern line.
There won't ever be any reinforcements, any reprieve. There will always be perps. There will always be another missing girl, another survivor, another dead body.
They need her.
Sometimes she feels like the lone soldier on the battlefield, sword in hand, hacking away uselessly while the carnage piles up around her.
She can't save everyone. She knows this, but the closer she gets to retirement, the more the thought of it fills her with unchecked panic.
Curry shakes her head. “You wouldn't know how to say no,” she gives Olivia a knowing look before heading back to her car.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—
“You didn't just ‘not pick up,’ your phone was off!” Olivia hisses at Fin, her hands wrapped around her coffee mug.
She’d had all morning for her mild annoyance at him to fester into irritation. She squeezes the mug tightly, the hot liquid turning her palms red. All the caffeine seemed to be doing was spike her already high anxiety levels.
“Shutting my phone off at night just became a habit. Not used to people needing me anymore, I guess,” Fin shrugged sheepishly.
They were standing in the doorway of her office while the others were in the squad room, Amanda casting an occasional nervous glance their way.
He'd only been back, officially, for two weeks. She really should cut him more slack. But it's nearly noon, they’ve got two new vics, and she can't stop seeing those goddamn blue and red swirling lights behind her eyes.
“Liv, I really am sorry,” Fin begs, and she feels a twinge of guilt for getting so upset with him.
“This isn't about the case, it's about us, Fin. I need you,” she can hear her voice rising in pitch and stops. The little ball of anxiety sits heavy in her stomach and she takes a deep, shaky breath. “What if something happened to me?”
Fin frowns, confused. “I thought you made Stabler your emergency contact?”
When Olivia joined the NYPD, she made it her mother, and never thought about ‘emergency contacts’ again. Until Richard White. She changed it to Elliot after White held the knife to her throat in Central Park.
Three or four months after Elliot left, Cragen called her into his office, holding the papers up. You've gotta get this changed, Liv, his voice was stern but his eyes oozed that compassion he'd always reserved just for her and Elliot.
But what if something happens to me?! she nearly shouted. She glowered at him instead, slamming the door shut behind her as she left his office.
So, she asked Fin, who immediately said yes, and offered to grab a drink with her afterwards. She declined, and sobbed the entire drive back to her apartment.
Kathy had always been Elliot's emergency contact.
Of course.
After his accident, she was at his bedside when Ayanna told her he changed it.
What? she whispered, dazed from exhaustion and stress.
Ayanna pulled up a chair, sitting down beside her. It has to be me while he’s under but, she nodded in his direction, otherwise, it's you.
Olivia turned back to his unconscious body, her heart in her throat. She assumed it was Randall or Kathleen. Maybe Dickie or Maureen.
Not her.
She must have looked overwhelmed, because Ayanna rested her hand on Olivia's shoulder, squeezing gently. Olivia nearly burst into tears, but she couldn't let Bell see her sobbing, for the second time in her life, over something as innocuous as ‘emergency contacts.’
Fin caught her filling out the paperwork two weeks later, but the thought that she might have to remove him again took root and spread like a weed, wrapping itself around her chest and squeezing and-
She couldn't do it.
She couldn't.
Elliot did, though - and he hadn’t told her. He just quietly went, at some indeterminate time, and completed the paperwork. Like it was no big deal. No fanfare, no hesitation or doubt; he just pulled up Kathy's name on the computer screen and pressed the delete button five times.
y -h - t - a - K.
She has the sudden irrational thought that Kathy must be haunting her over this.
She hopes he is the kind, faithful, devoted man…
Godammit, that stupid fucking letter.
Olivia shuts her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I…” she stops, swallowing the sting that had moved from her nose to the back of her throat. “I never filed it,” she admits.
“S’ok, Liv. I’ll be more careful, alright?” She meets Fin’s eyes. They're warm, and she knows he can see her fear. He gives her a small smile and runs a quick, comforting hand down her arm.
“Take me through it again,” he says, strolling back over to his desk and leaning against it, arms crossed.
“Maybe if you had been in at the ass crack of dawn with the rest of us, we wouldn’t have to go over it for a third time,” Bruno mutters, twirling his pen between his fingers. “And the Captain…"
“You know, I don’t recall asking you for your opinion about that,” Fin uncrosses his arms and stands up straighter to glare at him.
“Okay, okay,” Amanda cuts in, pushing herself up from her chair, palms flat on her desk. She shoots Bruno a pointed look. “Give him a break, would you?”
Bruno puts his hands up and then tosses the pen. It clatters across his desk as he laces his fingers behind his head and leans back in his chair.
Fin glowers at Bruno for another few seconds before re-focusing on the board. “So we've only got one other homicide on file where the vic has that same symbol carved into her cheek. Still unsolved.”
“Yes, but the other woman was ID’d,” Curry stirs her coffee as she walks towards Fin from the coffee station. “Camilla de Luca, age twenty-five. Husband, Giovanni de Luca. Homicide couldn’t pin it on him because his prints weren’t at the scene.”
“Maybe he didn't kill her,” Amanda looks between Curry and Fin.
“And that wasn’t an SVU case,” Bruno unlaces his fingers and rubs at his temple with the palm of his hand. “Not really sure this one is either, if I’m being honest.”
“Can I see that photo again?” Fin asks. Curry plucks it off the top of her desk, and places it in his hand. He squints down, then back up at the photo of Camilla on the board next to their new vic. “The chick in the photograph is blonde. Camilla is Italian and our Jane Doe looks Italian, too.”
“Camilla’s body was also found in the East Village. That can’t be a coincidence,” Curry takes a sip of coffee. She grimaces. “God, this stuff is so terrible. Have we ever tried to…”
“Tastes a lot better when we’ve got muffins or donuts to go with it,” Bruno grumbles.
Curry purses her lips and shoots him a dirty look. “You’re on a roll today, you know that? You want to go three for three?”
“What do you think, Liv?” Amanda asks, turning to Olivia.
“I think….” Olivia strolls slowly towards the board where they’ve taped up the only available bits of evidence they have so far, “that we need to pay Mr. de Luca a visit.” She points her finger at Rollins. “You and Curry see if he knows our Jane Doe, or the woman in the photograph.”
They both nod in unison.
“And you two,” Olivia swings two fingers between Bruno and Fin, “are going to canvas the neighborhood where the body was found. M.E. says time of death was before midnight, someone had to have seen or heard something.”
“You’re punishing me,” Fin groans.
Olivia takes a few steps towards Fin’s desk, planting her feet firmly with her back to Bruno. “Nope,” she says seriously. She gives him a wicked grin.
“I promise I will never turn my phone off again, ever, if you…”
“I’m standing right here!” Bruno throws his hands in the air from the other side of the room.
Olivia pats Fin on the back smugly, heading towards the coffee station for another shitty cup of coffee. She hears her phone buzz and instinctively reaches for it in her pocket, but it's not there.
Frowning, she swivels around, looking.
“Stabler’s on his way up,” Amanda saunters towards her, holding the cell phone out in her hand.
She winks.
Olivia feels her cheeks getting warm. “Give me…that,” she swipes the phone out of her hand. Amanda chuckles as she meanders her way back to her desk.
Olivia spins around, stomping into her office.
She'd been so preoccupied with the case and her own angst, she completely forgot it was Friday.
Elliot brings lunch to her office almost every Friday now. He showed up with takeout bags the week after he was discharged from the hospital and they’d kept it going when they could. It's one of the best parts of her week.
It's become a tradition, but it’s not a date.
It's not not a date either, technically speaking. It’s -
“Spending time together,” she called it, when Amanda wandered into her office fishing for information a few months ago.
“Uh-huh. ‘Spending time together’” -she made air quotes with her fingers- “every week, at a set date and time, eating food, not dating other people, se….”
“Amanda,” Olivia interrupted. She paused, shooting a glance out her office window to make sure no one else was close enough to overhear. “We aren't…” she spread the palms of her hands out in front of her body for dramatic effect. “Okay? So. Not dating.”
“Oh my God, still?? Why the hell not??” she pushed, far too eagerly. “He wants to, you want to…”
“Alright,” Olivia interrupted again, sternly. “I think the Landry file is calling your name, don't you?”
Somewhere out there Lindstrom was pushing his deflection button.
Amanda shook her head and started casually strolling out of the office with her hands in her pockets. She stopped in the doorway, spinning around.
“Spending time together.” She rolled her eyes at Olivia, before shutting the office door behind her.
Olivia isn’t dating Elliot. She couldn't be dating him, because, like she told Amanda, she isn't fucking him. He could be fucking someone else, for all she knows. She doesn't think he is, but he would have every right to, even if the thought of it is like a twist of a knife in her gut.
Of course, she wants to fuck him. The problem is that he wouldn't want to fuck her, he would want to make love to her and she can't do that because then she would lose herself to him completely.
Elliot would know how to fuck her, though, in that way that leaves you limp, breathless.
Satiated.
She knows because she knows him, and he knows her, like the back of his own hand.
And he's all muscle now.
In those Henleys she can see the bulge of his biceps against the flimsy cotton, the sinewy muscle stretching across his chest, the veins in his forearms and God– the sheer size of him. He could lift her up, press her against the wall, his hands under her ass, while her arms roamed his chest and slid up around his neck. Her legs would be wrapped around his waist and his teeth sunk into that spot on her neck where...
“Liv.”
She startles and whips around. Her cell phone tumbles with a clunk to the rug and she only just manages to avoid falling into Elliot's arms.
Why the fuck is he standing so close?
She rights herself, but now she’s nearly flushed up against him.
The very tip of his nose is dancing against her hairline and without heels, her eyes are level with his mouth. His lips are parted ever so slightly, and they're so invitingly near her own.
Her body reacts. It always has.
A warmth floods her chest and flushes her cheeks; her heartbeat quickly grows erratic. Every nerve ending starts tingling in anticipation of his touch.
She needs to move but her feet are cemented to the floor, and he smells so good, Jesus Christ, why does he smell so good all the time now? It was easier when he reeked of day-old sweat when they were crammed into that tin can of a sedan...
“Liv….” He breathes her name out. She can't pull her eyes away from his mouth and she needs to get a grip.
She takes a deep breath, tilting her head back slowly.
“Hi,” she manages.
He must see how flustered she is, because that cocky smile starts slowly spreading across his face. His eyes rove over her for a moment before settling on her lips. “You good?” he asks. He meets her eyes again and now he's just enjoying himself. Bastard.
“I'm good,” she rasps.
She clears her throat.
“I'm good,” she says again, her feet finally coming unglued from the rug.
She bends down to pick up her cell phone and her mind registers he's in one of his three piece suits today and not a Henley; a tidal wave of relief washes over her at that.
He moves on– thank God – and starts unloading their food onto her desk. “The machine was out of diet, so if you don't want the zero, I'll just drink it,” he says apologetically, handing her the paper cup.
“I don't care, today,” she takes it from him gratefully as she rounds the desk towards her chair, “I need the caffeine.”
“Tough morning?” He's fishing the forks and soy sauce out of the bag while she opens the to-go containers, and there is a domesticity to this that is familiar, that feels safe.
Maybe that's why she lets herself enjoy it.
“You could say that,” she sits heavily in her chair. “Was in the East Village at 4am for a Jane Doe.”
He grimaces.
“And we may have another body on our hands, I don't know yet. All we've got is a photograph.” They both reach for their egg rolls at the same time, their knuckles brushing. “We think our vic might be Italian, too, so we…”
Elliot shakes his head. “If you've got bodies down near Noho, it's probably Mafia. Don't you send this to us,” he wags his egg roll at her, teasing.
Olivia’s stomach roils and she winces, setting her chopsticks down in her container.
Elliot frowns. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” she whispers. “Just…” she trails off, avoiding his eyes.
If it's the Mafia, they'll have to bring in OCCB. If they bring in OCCB, he may have to go undercover. Every time she even thinks about him going undercover again, she starts sweating, her hands get clammy, and she has the urge to hurl the contents of her last meal.
She knows it's his job, she knows it comes with the territory, and she could not, would not, ever ask him to retire or leave the force.
But last time he almost died. She overheard Ayanna whispering to Randall that he flatlined- twice. All she could do was sit there helplessly at his bedside, gripping his hand like a fucking life preserver. If the man is a cat, he's used up about eight of his nine lives by now. He's maybe got one more in the barrel before…
Ok now she really IS starting to sound like Munch.
“Liv.” She picks her head up to look at him. He’s watching her intently, his eyes full of that tender concern that makes her want to crawl inside his chest. “I was just joking around.”
He's trying to reassure her, but her gut is sending off flares, red and blue swirling flares and he reaches across the desk, firmly taking her hand. “It was a bad joke, ok? Let's talk about something else.”
She nods as he pulls his hand away. She starts to reach for his hand again, but the vulnerability of that feels too overwhelming, so she picks up her chopsticks instead.
She starts twirling her noodles when she catches his right hand shaking out of the corner of her eye. He pauses and shoots her the briefest of glances trying to gauge if she noticed it.
He's been trying to hide this from her for a while now. Whatever it is, it's getting worse. She's not stupid, he knows she's not stupid, yet he's keeping it from her anyway.
The rational part of her knows he's just trying not to worry her, and that if it was really serious, he would tell her. The stubborn part thinks he's got a lot of nerve begging her to open up to him, while he's keeping things like this from her.
But it's always that loud part of her, the part terrified of losing him again, that's at the helm steering, bullying her for full control of her conscience. Every time he mentions going undercover, every tremor of his hand, and it's back, grabbing the wheel and aiming them straight for the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
She's trying to decide whether she should just confront him about it for the sake of her own sanity, when a few noodles on the edge of her chopsticks fall onto her chest, the sauce splattering across her shirt.
“Fuck,” she mutters.
Elliot lifts his head up as she picks bits of lo mein off her boobs. “Just what I needed today,” she scowls. “Now it's going to stain.”
She grabs a stack of napkins and starts aggressively wiping them on her chest.
“I don't know how anything could stain on all that black,” he remarks casually, putting another bite of food in his mouth.
She pauses her swiping and looks up at him, squinting. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means…” he swallows as he puts his chopsticks down, leaning forwards on his forearms. “Your blazer is black, your shoes are black, your pants are black, and your shirt…black. There's no pigmentation to stain,” he gives a little nod of his head before sitting back in his chair. He picks up his chopsticks and resumes eating.
Her squint turns into a glare. “So you’ve got a problem with me wearing black.”
“I never said that.”
He's chomping away now at the end of his eggroll. Not chewing, chomping. He siddles over and rubs his hands together over the trash can to catch stray crumbs, and then picks up his soda.
Now he's slurping. She contemplates reaching across the table to throttle him.
“You've seen me wear other colors!” she hisses.
“Sometimes.”
“I’m a Captain! It's professional!”
“Uh-huh.”
“And…” she hesitates, wracking her brain for another reason, “it’s a universal color.”
“If we are even calling it a color.”
She clenches her jaw. “Oh, so now you're an expert on what is and isn't a color? Did you go to art school in Italy, too?” She narrows her eyes at him, she's got a death grip on her chopsticks -
And this is one hundred percent the reaction he's going for.
He doesn't respond. He takes another long slurp, waiting.
Waiting because she always breaks first, now.
When they were partners, it was the unstoppable force and the immovable object playing one long game of chicken.
It was him when he first came hurtling back into her life. He followed her around like a puppy, begging for attention, for forgiveness, for atonement. A dark, secret part of her relished in it. Relished in his suffering and relished in the groveling. He deserved it, she'd tell herself- for the way he abandoned her, and for the way he came back.
But after BX9, she didn't want a groveling puppy anymore, she wanted a pittie. An attack dog she could unleash to protect her, to protect Noah.
So, that's what he became. A snap of the fingers, a clap of her hands, and he is at her heel, at her command to sic at will on anyone who would dare threaten her.
He's ceded total control of their relationship to her, yet he's never been more confident; he’s sure of himself, sure of what he wants, sure of her.
Now she can’t handle the long silences and awkward pauses. Any sign of tension between them and her stomach starts twisting itself into knots. A few weeks ago, they got into the smallest of tiffs while discussing a case, and she nearly burst into tears.
Her heart and her mind are sick of being at war.
They're both exhausted.
He’s watching her, his eyebrows raised expectantly.
She busies herself with her shirt again, giving in. “Black is ... slimming,” she mumbles the last word into her chest, heat rising to her cheeks.
For once in his life, he's speechless. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, gaping like a fish.
“You wear black all the time because it's….slimming…?”
“Yes, Elliot, you know not all of us…”
“Liv, you can't be serious,” he pauses, his face darkening. “Did someone tell you…”
“No,” she resumes her swiping. Her office is silent, the rustling of the napkins the only sound, until Elliot cuts in again.
“What's this really about?”
“It's about you giving me shit for…”
“I'm not giving you shit.”
The Olivia of old would have more fight in her, would tell him that of course he was giving her shit, and to fuck off and mind his goddamn business.
The Olivia of now wants, so desperately, that she doesn't have the power to fight him.
“I’m not in my thirties anymore, Elliot,” she hears her voice waver and she pushes her lips together, trying to shove down the emotion rising in her chest.
When she says it aloud, it sounds ridiculous. Of course she isn't thirty years old anymore.
Of course wearing a black blazer won't conceal the decades that added the soft curves to her hips and the fullness to her thighs. Black pants won't prevent her knees from creaking as she gets out of bed in the morning, or the arthritis in her hands from flaring after a painstaking day behind the computer. Her feet will still ache when she's been at a crime scene for hours, and they'll still carry her towards mandatory retirement.
A black shirt doesn't hide wrinkles, and it doesn’t hide age.
It just hides stains.
He nods, solemnly, his brow furrowed. His eyes are soft when he reaches across the desk to take her hand in his again.
“Neither am I.”
She's not sure what she expected him to say, but it wasn't that.
His words are both a burn and a salve, a tear and a mend. Her mind returns to his hand tremors, and she thinks there isn't a single thing on this Earth that could make her stop loving him.
“And you have to know…” his voice cracks. He takes a beat before trying again, quieter this time. “You have to know I think you always look…”
“Don't,” she whispers. She gives him a slight shake of her head, a warning and a plea.
“Ok,” he mouths quietly, releasing her hand and sitting back in his chair.
She pushes herself up slowly from her desk. “Gonna see if I've got a spare shirt to change into,” she announces, desperately trying to hide the tremble in her voice.
But he stops her, gently grabbing her wrist as she tries to move past him.
“Hey.” She reluctantly turns, suppressing the urge to run. He's studying her, his eyes roaming her face. “Are you okay, today?”
“I'm just tired.” Her response comes too quickly. It's not a lie, but it's not the full truth, and he knows it; she sees it flash across his face.
He rubs his thumb over her pulse point and her shoulders sag, some of the tension melting away. She takes a few shuffling steps towards him, leaning against his chair. The thin metal arm digs into her ass as she settles against it, but his hand is warm, and his thumb tracing the same circle over and over on her wrist is hypnotic.
“Better?” he murmurs. She nods, her eyes glued to their hands.
“Are you sure there's nothing else? Did something happen?” It's a light push, testing the waters, but not treading too deeply.
She shakes her head.
Her office grows quiet again, the muted chatter from her team drifting through her office door.
He continues to trace circles on her wrist with his thumb.
He loves her.
She knows.
And it's not because he's told her - twice, now. Sometimes it pours out of him, sometimes it trickles, but it's steady and strong. It's in every touch, every glance, every gentle ministration. His face lights up when his eyes land on hers in a room, and there is a reverence in the way he says her name.
He tries to tamp it down for her sake, but Elliot is tender-hearted, passionate. His love is vast, and you cannot dam the ocean.
It’s not his love that scares her. It's that it could end.
Everyday she wonders how much longer he'll wait for her; how much longer she can ask him to wait. Another three years? Three months? Three weeks? It won't be forever. One day soon he could tell her that he's met someone else and moved on - someone else to put on his emergency contact card.
Only there won't be someone else for her.
How could there be?
Of course, she could choose to take the leap. Finally say it back - accept his love, rather than resist it. Go home every night after work, moan his name as she falls apart in his arms, tuck herself into the safety of his body while she sleeps, and wake up to a good morning whispered into her hair instead of through a phone.
And if it doesn't work out? What if their jobs interfere? What if she pushes him away one too many times? Then what?
This time, she'd know what it is to have him.
This time, he would be hers to lose.
She can't bear even the thought of it.
The fear is paralyzing, and it's consuming her. She shuts her eyes and makes a wish - for something, anything, to free her of it.
“How frail the human heart must be…” she murmurs, re-opening her eyes.
He cocks his head, frowning. “Huh?”
“My mother was an English professor, remember?” she gives his hand a gentle squeeze.