Chapter Text
It’s an evening that is long overdue. With Elliot’s return and subsequent (slow) navigation towards steadiness and availability coinciding with one of Munch’s infrequent but much appreciated jaunts back to New York. With Cragen upstate, in between his now-constant juggling of an abundance of free time and periodic vacations during which weeks morph into months. With Fin an unexpected constant, and the actual instigator of this get-together, and Olivia – impossibly busy but never quite buckling under the pressure and always willing to see at least most of the others when circumstances allow.
And that’s how the five of them find themselves, after decades of working together and decades apart, after hastily thrown accusations amidst the shielding of each other from bullets and allegations, after leaving and retiring and hurting and returning – all together. At a restaurant. For what amounts to… a former team dinner.
Olivia can’t reconcile that nonsense in her mind but she also can’t deny the joy brought to her by Munch’s tinted glasses and wry comments, by Cragen’s softly proud smile and good-natured eyerolls. And in some ways, it feels like they’ve cheated the odds to be here – someone might have perished in the line of duty, someone could have opted to retire before they even started. Someone should have fallen off the wagon and abandoned the motley crew, someone should have given up on her self-sabotaging antics years ago… and someone should never have come back at all. So the fact that they’re all here together, after all this time – well, it feels worthy of raising a glass towards and it feels like a new beginning without the paralyzing nature that accompanies that sentiment when she and Elliot try to take a step forward by themselves. So she smiles, and orders a glass of Barbaresco, and determinedly suppresses a smile when Elliot jumps on the bandwagon because yes, it’s Italian, but when did he become a wine snob?
And maybe what was initially strangest about the whole evening is that the conversation simply flows. They talk in ways they didn’t talk back when they worked together, when tomorrow wasn’t promised for physical safety but it certainly was for the squad and its comradery, and Jesus, did they take the unnoticed simplicity of those days for granted. Elliot and Olivia coming to blows with each other and then wildly turning to defend each other if anyone else dared interject, Fin’s subtle gossiping, Munch’s general antithesis and suspicion, and Cragen’s pull-out cot in his office because if they stayed, he would, too. The evening started to feel like a remembrance of the best of them – Munch’s hand on Olivia’s shoulder with a gentle, “Okay, Liv?”, Elliot’s most solid years when his defense was of his partner and not against his dubious feelings for her, Fin’s random knowledge of the goings-on of the 1-6 that were only startling in their detail but obviously rooted in care. Olivia’s checking in on all of them, something they’d refused to categorize as maternal because she would have pulled her gun on each of them, but the light mothering appreciated nonetheless. Cragen’s Red Vines and the carousel of DA’s, some of whom were just as intrinsic to the team as the detectives themselves.
It was a reclaiming, and a return home of sorts, before it all went to hell.
***
“I don’t even need to say who I have missed the most, because I’ve told her already. You look good, Liv. Motherhood treating you well?” Munch snags the last piece of bruschetta from under Fin’s hand, earning him a disgruntled look and a light snarl.
“Suck-up. That was mine and what kind of a partner were you to not miss me the most?”
“Odafin, I said it in my retirement speech, she’s the heart of SVU. This shouldn’t come as a surprise my friend.”
“Bullshit. I brought you coffee after you got shot in the ass. I deserve more respect than that,” Fin grumbles, sliding some remaining cauliflower onto Liv’s plate.
“I counter that – look at you sharing food. That’s some old school Benson-Stabler dynamic right there, old partner.”
“I just don’t want the veggies –”
“He just doesn’t want the vegetables –”
Olivia and Fin simultaneously interject with rueful grins, Elliot rubbing his jaw but taking the ribbing. The repositioning of them all rankles him, but he knows he deserves it – the dynamics have changed at his own hand. Hearing the men that he’d once schooled for their treatment of her – for asking about her father or not paying close enough attention – now treating her almost like their own poked at him. The feeling of loss and of watching bonds formed in his absence settles under his skin, and he shoves it done with gusto. If he can’t get along in this group, he has no chance of reclaiming what was his and hers at all.
Cragen barely avoids saying children, enough to the group and sips at his water while observing them each independently. He feels at the same time older than he’d ever thought possible, and like no real time has passed at all since he was yelling at one or all of them to get their asses into the office that is now Liv’s, and he can’t help the frisson of pride that dashes through him every time that occurs to him.
“John, how long are you in for?” he asks, partly out of curiosity but more to dampen the unnecessary food-stealing fight building across people who are old enough to be grandparents.
“Another week, then back home. New York is as safe in its anonymity as it is dangerous in its neighborhoods, but can’t tell you that I haven’t missed it at least a little. What about you, Captain 2.0? Noah remember the anti-establishment talk I gave him?
Olivia snorts out a laugh. “Honestly, he probably does. He certainly doesn’t take anything I tell him at face value. You want to come by, see him, maybe? Can’t promise he’ll remember your talk, but he knows your face from pictures. I’d like to introduce you now.”
“Count me in. Opportunity to reschool,” the words lack sentiment, but the softness in his gaze warms her heart, and reminds her of all the Christmases they manned the lines together. Elliot had been her partner, but in many ways John had been her staunchest supporter. She shakes her head at the realization that she didn’t see it until after Sealview, but it was Fin who truly propped her up all these years. Maybe she was lucky to have had some – all – of them at one point or another.
“So you two retired close to each other, yeah? You only knew Noah when he was little?” Elliot interjects, the desire to get a lay of the land climbing in his throat. Were they all there for her when she was pregnant? Did she take care of herself? Why would Munch have left before Cragen? Now that he’s back, the weight of not knowing chokes him at times. It was so much easier when he was gone, when he didn’t have to see the evidence of how their rag-tag squad had mustered on without him, how the support and structure change around Olivia. She’d always been the center.
He doesn’t know what to make of it when the table goes silent, and not in the same way as the reminiscent pauses that have characterized the night, when someone has brought up a funny memory – or, more often than not, recounted one of the more ridiculous ways Elliot had himself been hurt over the years. This feels bad. A specter of something that they choose to ignore, and Elliot starts to suspect that his presence now (because of the lack of it years ago) might in fact make that easier. They seem to recognize it’s easier to be around each other focusing on the years long gone, when he can tell something has bonded them – and fractured them – in the years that he is missing.
Fin smooths past it, but Elliot notes the appraising look he levels at Olivia before resolutely turning to the rest of the group, driving a shift in conversation while praising her. “They knew there was no chance of them staying much longer with the Captain here priming to take the reins. Old Munch knew he didn’t stand a chance.”
“Well,” Munch picks it up seamlessly, and Elliot narrows his eyes at the subterfuge. “She barely listened to me anyways, and who am I to stand in the way of glory? Captain 1.0 and I simply stood out of the way, but we know who did all of the work.” He tilts a glass in her direction, and Elliot can’t deny the praise, nor does he want to dim the unlikely blush that rises on Olivia’s cheeks because of it.
“You all barely listened to me. That was nothing new,” Cragen interjects with soft eyes. “You deserve it though, Liv.”
“Thank you, Don,” the words are more soft-spoken than Elliot has heard her in years, but she has a self-assuredness that was absent when he left, and a trickle of attraction runs through him when he considers it. He’s been doing his best to deny this – because does to acknowledge it now mean that he’s acknowledging that it was there all along? And what does that make him? But she’s more beautiful than he thinks he’s ever seen her, and she’s cool and confident in a way that drives him a little mad because he’d give his right hand to see her slightly undone, and he thinks it’s a testament to how much his presence must have been damaging and detrimental to her all those years. But he can’t help it, he’s back now and he just wants to watch how she is. Even knowing he’s playing with missing puzzle pieces.
They settled then – conversation on easier topics that sometimes ranged into the hurt, but not enough to stop them. Liv’s power struggle with McGrath and the annoyance she experienced at being referred to as the brass’s “golden girl” – they would never have done the same with Cragen, though his squeeze of her bicep and commiserating nod does wonders for her ego. Fin and Phoebe and the return of partners after all these years which carries more weight at the table but lightens again when they move back to mocking Fin for not actually get married at his own wedding. Munch’s almost inexplicable wealth and who knew when they were working together but the general consensus that of course that would be Munch’s path. Light touches on Elliot’s years in Italy from an aesthetic perspective but more of a focus on his kids, and he doesn’t hesitate to highlight how much they all leaned on Liv after their return, after the loss of Kathy. Cragen brings it back around with tales of his last cruise and Eileen’s questions about Noah, and Liv refuses to address the latest trauma and Noah’s own witnessing, but does softly smile at having her boy safely home and happy.
Elliot knows she’s avoiding him. At the same damn table which is warranted but infuriating. They’re trying to find ways to be in each other’s lives, but amongst people who know them best, he can tell she’s intentionally creating a divide and he can’t figure out why. Not after the “I’m not ready for this” but his insistence that they can be whatever she can accept, and their joint determination to be better and more present for each other. He’d been sure that would be a theme tonight, the reunification of the two of them even as all of them are reuniting, and she seems to refuse any discussion that would bring to light the strides that they had made since her injury, since Noah’s danger, since they had danced briefly into each other’s space in her kitchen.
And he knows there’s something more. There’s a reason she’s holding herself back, and there’s a reason for the reticence on behalf of Cragen and Munch, and the full-out protective distrust from Fin. He wants to put it out there and beg just tell me what happened so that I can try to atone, because the feeling of being kept away from her secrets feels just as stark as the feeling of being kept away from her.
But what he didn’t know was that he wouldn’t have to wait as long as he thought, assuming that both Olivia and her Cerberus guard would have to come to grips with giving him more access, but then – dessert.
***
She hadn’t thought a goddamn thing of it when Munch ordered the crème brulee, because why would she have? All she thought was that she’s a chocolate aficionado herself, and it goes better with the red wine, and if she’s going to spare the calories it’s going to be on some decadent death by chocolate mousse versus a glorified flan with a crispy top. And the engineering of said crispy top didn’t enter her mind because it’s been so many years and trigger tracking is one of the most exhausting exercises of her life.
So, when the desserts start to arrive, with one more round of drinks for some, and a general sense of joviality, her guard is so down that she’s leaning into Elliot to share a mocking comment about Munch’s French uppity nature given his order. She doesn’t even register the waiter leaning over her shoulder.
The blue is so vivid and so specific – her breath locks in her chest when she spots it out of the corner of her eye, passing inches from her head to approach the stupid dessert dish that apparently warrants table side prep. Not that the cognizance of that registers, all that registers is the fucking blow torch right next to her, and it feels like her scars collectively expand to cover all of her skin – it’s all she can do to push away from the flame, knocking down her wine glass as she scrambles away. The Barbaresco spills like thinned blood, like the way her blood ran down her face and her arms and her legs and that’s it – she’s back in that room and all that exists is him, and her, and the pain.
“What the hell, man? You sneak up on someone with that?! Put it out. Now. Put it out NOW.” Fin’s fury is not of tonight, it’s at monsters long gone and it's recalling how angry he was then, and she can feel Elliot beside her trying to figure out what to do with misplaced rage because he’s clearly livid while not understanding the reason why. He knows what's started this though - that's evident as he rips the culinary torch from the waiter and throws it into a pitcher of water the next table over. Dimly, separately from her trauma, there is a part of her that wonders what the patrons at that table think, and hopes she hasn’t ruined their dinner.
She falls away, crawling away from the threat, her awareness of her body minimal because she’s just trying to get fucking away from the fire, and she doesn’t hear the shouts or see Elliot’s panicked face, she just retreats, falling out of her chair and ignoring the sting of broken glass cutting into her palms, into her forearms as she braces herself on the ground. It’s not a trial to ignore the embarrassment – she is prone on the ground with her former boss, and colleagues, and a waiter who is now all but falling over himself in apologies, but it doesn’t matter.
The flame is gone – and so is she. She pushes herself up, blood streaming down her arms, and casts a wild look towards the exit, then focuses solely on Fin. Fin, she can handle.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I need to go – please,” she stutters out, but Elliot is grasping her upper arms and lowering his eyes, trying to level against hers in an attempt to get her to look at him. She tries to pull at the forceful, authoritative pieces of herself. "Let me go. Now."
“Liv, Liv, look at me, take a breath,” he is giving orders to calm her but they aren’t working, and the restaurant doors are just past his shoulder. She is aware that the danger isn’t actually here, that Lewis is gone, but it doesn’t seem to matter because the flame was right there beside her. All she knows is that she desperately wants to run, but also can’t seem to school the breath back into her lungs to allow that to happen.
“Deep breath, take a breath,” and then a separate, infuriated, “what the hell is happening?” is tossed over his shoulder to somebody else. She hears Cragen's voice somewhat removed from her. She feels Fin sidle in to take her away, and Elliot firms up his arms because apparently that’s not acceptable to him and he keeps trying to remind her to breathe. His voice is all frustration and anger, with the fear starting to percolate underneath it. She faintly wonders where Munch went, and thinks she’ll have to apologize for his non-flambe crème brulee before the skipping, inconsistent intake of her lungs and the graying of her vision win out, and the restaurant fades away.